EPTStarted playing around with Zerg and think I found something uniquely profound about protoss in the middle-late game transition.
Protoss are by far the smoothest teching race. To a point it is almost imba. (if you believe in that sort of thing)
If i credit this in anyway, its to Day9, HuK and Plexa, but, first let me explain.
Terran are EXTREMELY smooth. You only need 5-6 buildings with add-ons to have a huge army. Consider for example MMM with thors and viking support. The armory trigger being after 1/1, rolling you into 2/2 and turning your barely used factory into your 'power unit' without having to add anything in. Its a very smooth build that allows you to do several things at once because you're spending so little of your income getting the unit up and going, the upgrades going, and can still produce units and workers at a steady rate. There are a million examples for terran i am sure because of how the tech/reactor pattern works... however once a terran is locked into a tech path it becomes extremely hard to change out of it because the terran units need tend to function in an all or nothing fashion. Either i have stim and medvac and i totally annihilate you, or i dont and you annihilate me. A few terran units just dont have the same power against an equally matched army of protoss or zerg, where as a large terran army becomes extremely dangerous. At a certain point terran balls become so powerful you MUST have higher tech paths to destroy them.
Almost every protoss needs a robotics bay first. Not only is detection a real worry against terran, the observer is one of the best units in the game. Information is key, we all know this, but observers are really not getting the respect they deserve. I really had to force myself, but for a few games against terran i just started spamming observers. The games felt so different. When i use to put together small pieces of information and guessed what he was doing, i suddenly knew. I had maphack. Maybe at higher skill levels less observers can be microed more efficiently (or as day says using outgame resource to gain in game ones) but i highly encourge players to try a game or two and just make 4 observers before anything else out of your robo. Youll have more zealots, cant tech, i know all the responses are coming, but its just the point of seeing how different the game feels with those observers.
Now as i said i was playing Zerg... anyone else feel like right after lair its hydra or muta? (lately infestor too but i havent played zerg since beta really so sue me) Well, that sunk into the idea of after robo, stargate or twilight.
** I will assume 3-6 gateways on two bases with a robo, with or without bay. Teching gently to 1/1. These things do not interest me for this discussion and will depend on your opening. What i am concerned with is the mid to late game transition, and opening up protoss to the rest of its tech tree.
With the robo clearly defined as our 1st tech of 3, where do we go from here? This is what makes protoss so powerful mid-late game. You have a choice. Terran may seem to have all the options, but i really the structure you set up as terran is building prodution (typical several rak) and upgrades (whatever they may be, 1/1, tanks, stim, shells, reactors for starport. While you may say "terran just switches building and wham, they're ready for something different" its not that simple. First your units have build time. Second you have new upgrades. Ideally you've been upgrading a totally different mix. If you shift to a new unit composition there is a fair bit of a lull where the new units aren't all they can be.
Protoss's army will largely stay the same no matter what you do. So lets quickly look at the 4 steps
1. Speedlot
2. Blink
3. Phoenix
4. Void Ray
With the following transitions..
1. Speedlot/HT (add on extra gateways)
2. Blink/dt (add on extra gateways)
3. Phoenix/MS
4. Carrier
Basic ground army with or without collusi... combined with one of the above makes an extremely different mix that requires a totally different strategy to execute at higher levels, but offers a vast amount of flexibility into how you respond to what you're opponent is doing. Not only that. Once your transition is complete, following up with a seconardy transition from the other path. For example.
PvZ, Open 3gate robo with collusi, expand, transition 2, attack/expand, transition 4.
PvT, Open 3gate robo with collusi, expand, transition 4, attack/expand, transition 1
PvP, Open 3gate robo with collusi, expand, transition 3, attack/expand, transition 2
At this point in the game you should have almost all of the tech paths open. You should have around 6 gateways and 1-2 starports. You're capable of finishing upgrades at this point and should be able to rapidly alter your gateway army composition to suit your needs. You have warp prisms and either phoenix or void rays for harassment, carriers or motherships to bolster the firepower of your army.
Flame on!
