Play StarCraft Well Using Protoss

Whether you're a veteran or were just introduced to Starcraft, Protoss can be a good race to play. Relatively requiring less micromanagement than the other races, Protoss contains various useful units and strategies that you can use to your advantage to defeat your opponent.

Steps

  1. Learn to handle Dragoons. Though they can be bulky and clumsy in tight spaces, Dragoons can take care of most enemy units with relative ease.
    • To increase their effectiveness, upgrade their attack range at the Cybernetics Core, and send a few zealots to soak up the damage.
    • To deal with mass Zerglings without zealots, a weakness of Dragoons due to their explosive damage type, have two groups of Dragoons. When the Zerglings attack one group, have that group run around your other group, which attacks the Zerglings. If the Zerglings switch targets, do the same thing with the other group. However, a more experienced player will have more units and will attack both groups at once.
    • Dragoons can also "dance" with Vultures well. If you've upgraded your Dragoons' range, the enemy Vultures will take heavy damage. However, beware of Spider Mines, so bring a couple of Observers with you.
  2. Use High Templars well. The High Templar may be the most powerful unit in the Protoss race, if they are used right. Research Psionic Storm and upgrade their energy capacity. Hallucination is also quite useful in assaulting islands.
    • Use Psionic Storm to cripple an attack force. Due to its large area of effect and large amount of damage, Psionic storm will kill basic units in one or two seconds. Also, High Templars with upgraded energy capacities can cast three Psionic Storms without having to rest.
    • Something else to note about Psionic Storm is that it negates all effect of armor.
    • When you have to assault an island base, you can use Hallucinate on your Shuttles or Arbiters to protect them. Each High Templar can use Hallucinate two times, so that gives you four copies per Templar. Eight hallucinated units will soak up all of the anti-air, ensuring your units' safety.
  3. Take advantage of the naturally cloaking Protoss units. Two Protoss units, the Observer and Dark Templar, are constantly cloaked, which make them ideal for spying or scouting. Just be careful around detectors.
    • Keep an Observer at possible expansion points to watch the enemy's movement. If you are able to build Observers early enough, you can actually fly them into your opponent's base before he surrounds it with detectors.
    • Dark templars can be used to attack early expansions that have no detectors or small groups of units. A single Marine can be killed instantly with a Dark Templar. You can also throw a couple of Dark Templars into an attack force for extra attack power.

Tips

  • If you decide to use Dark Archons, using Mind Control on a transport also turns all of the units inside to your side. Also, if you have a fellow ally that is not Protoss, you can mind control his worker, just 1 and you can make a whole colony with it. For example, if you mind control a SCV, you can build building with the SCV and you can mine with that SCV. After you build unit-producing buildings, you can make Terran units! So if you Mind control a terran, you can produce max of 400 units (200 for Protoss, 200 for Terran). If you're playing with 3 players or more and it happens that your allies are terran and zerg, you can Control Zerg too. This will give you a max of 600 units (200 Toss, 200 Terran, and 200 Zerg).
  • It really isn't the best idea to use Mind Control in a game, unless using it against a worker(SCV, or Drone, due to its high energy costs and the fact that it will drain your DA's shield. MUCH more useful (esp. against Zerg) is maelstrom, while feedback will devastate any unit with energy.
  • Using Mind Control on a worker unit from any other race (SCV for Terran, Drone for Zerg) will give you access to that race's tree. However, it's hard to manage 2 races at the same time.
  • Protoss requires the most Vespene Gas to function well, so if you have extra minerals, grab a couple more Geysers.
  • Use Psionic Storm on areas massed with units, such as resource nodes, or Overlords grouped together.
  • Use Corsairs against massed air units. Though they only deal five damage per attack, their attack rate is high and they deal splash damage. A group of 12 Corsairs will wipe out any group of flying units. If you attack Corsairs/Valkryis with Corsairs, spread your Corsairs out so they don't receive splash damage.
  • Reavers (Firefly) and High Templars are powerful against Zerg, since Zerg tends to mass units.

Warnings

  • Beware of Zerg Defilers! Their Plague ability goes right through your units' shields and damages their health directly. Your Zerg opponent may have burrowed a couple of Defilers outside of your base, hoping to catch a group of advancing units unaware, so scout before moving your troops.
  • Hunt down enemy Science Vessels on sight! Their EMP Shockwave ability will knock out all of our units and buildings' shields and energy. This is most devastating if you have any Archons, who have 350 shield, but only 10 health! Keep some Shield Batteries nearby.
  • When using Psionic Storm, be very careful not to have your own units under it, as it does not discern friend from foe.

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