Intro to StarCraft II: Protoss 101

This week will be our first ever Not Enough Resources Game Night! Join us on September 27th at 8PM EST to play  StarCraft II, a free to play PC title that can be downloaded here. Even better, we will be streaming this event on Twitch for everyone to witness our tomfoolery live! We setup a very basic, very simple discord server for everyone to use, which includes both voice and text chat. You can also add Ryan and Dylan on Battle.net. Ryan can be found at the handle RyanMHolt#11539 and Dylan can be found at  Scampi#1197. While it may seem daunting to try a brand new game, don’t worry, we have got your back!

Don’t care for the shiny space aliens? Don’t worry! We have 101 guides for the slimy Zerg and the scrappy Terran races too!

Not Enough Pylons

Protoss base building is a weird mixture of both Terran and Zerg mechanics. Everything must be powered by a Pylon, a basic building that costs 100 minerals and emits a small energy field for buildings and units to be warped into. This means most Protoss bases end up being tightly packed, with the occasional Pylon far from base to give you a warp in point closer to the front. Only units from the Gateway can warp into the power fields from pylons, and even then that is after an upgrade. This upgrade is absolutely vital to Protoss strategy, so you always want to invest in a Cybernetics Core as soon as you can. Another economic factor to keep in mind is that Protoss units cost a bit more than their Zerg or Terran counterparts, but tend to last a little longer thanks to their shields. Shields do recharge slowly overtime, or when you are next to a shield battery, so if your army survives with as little as 1 HP, they can still do massive amounts of damage in the next encounter.

Protoss Armies

Like the Terran armies, units are built out of the Gateway, the Stargate and the Robotics Facility. Following the Warp Gate upgrade, Gateway units can be built within power fields from Pylons or Warp Prisms, while the Stargate and Robotics Facility build units normally. The most versatile unit the Protoss have is definitely the Stalker, especially after Blink is unlocked, allowing for some intense microplay. The massive Carriers always make for an intimidating force, but be sure to back them up with some ground units as well if that’s the route you are taking. Finally, Protoss spell casting units like the High Templar provide great Area of Effect output, but cost a lot of gas, so they should be protected. The key to success with Protoss is to be picky about your engagements, as rebuilding a lost army is costly and can take a while if it is made up of a large amount of non-Gateway units.

Protoss in Co-Op

Artanis is the default Protoss commander, and uses calldowns from the Protoss fleet to support a strong ground army. Vorazun relies a lot on Dark Templars and Stalkers, especially because Stalkers are the only ground unit she can build that can attack air units. Alarak is voiced by John de Lancie, which makes him the best co-op commander in the game. Karax is focused on defensive structures like Photon Canons with support from mechanical units. Fenix focuses on bringing champions back as hero units, with some cool options later in the game like mass carriers.