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I just started playing SC2 a while ago, and I'm relatively new to the deeper intricacies of RTS games. I started with Protoss, and thanks to coaching from a few diamond league friends I can somewhat reliably 4 gate to win most bronze games.
My question though, is about the entire playstyle of Protoss. It seems like I only win when I 4 gate exactly the way my friends taught me. I can never ever match T or Z even slightly later in the game, for example if I try any kind of 3 gate opening. Their tech and numbers seem overwhelmingly more powerful than what P has, in the long run. Hell, I need a large investment just to make my colossi even usable, whereas they are extremely fragile compared to ultras or thors. I have no hard counter to ghosts, battlecruisers, or brood lords, and I have to confine myself to the robo tech tree just to get a detector. That's usually ok though, because my air units and tech are a joke. Thors and ultras are especially difficult to stop without an unlikely numbers advantage. I could go on and on about this.
I understand part of it is because T and Z can grab fast expos and I understand the economic analogy associated with that. The timing though, is a problem because I can't respond adequately in the window that I have given Blizzard designed P units to be slow building and individually strong (questionable). With their abilities it's like the Terran ghost embodies this motif moreso than any actual Protoss unit. Every game I don't use a cheese strat is simply a battle not to fall too far behind on economy, tech, and army, and to delay the inevitable loss.
In a general sense, what are Protoss strong in, and how are they supposed to play?
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Depends on your style.
Protoss is strong depending on your execution. If you can't execute a build or things such as force fields correctly. It's going to be hard. Learn to macro into mid game and how to use good force field / build timings.
I suggest using a YABOT map aka build order tester to work on your timings. Search YABOT when making a custom game. This will help you learn new builds on your own and show you how to do different builds correctly.
One reason protoss is strong because it can reinforce units quickly using warp.
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You have tons of incredibly devastating lategame units like colossi and high templar that are fragile but can deal insane amounts of damage. Protoss excels at applying and stopping early game pressure because of the sentry, which can force field to both deny enemy unit movement and prevent them from coming into your base. You need a rather large gateway army, however, to supplement your colossi and templar in order to tank damage for them, buying them time to destroy the opponents army. The general consensus on Protoss is almost completely opposite from your perspective: they have some of the scariest late game units, and once have a maxed-out army, can basically rofl-stomp anything Terran and Zerg has.
You state that every macro game is a battle to not fall behind in economy, tech, and army, but this really applies to any race; you must produce workers and units, expand, and tech up all the same whether you are zerg, terran, or protoss. This seems like more of an issue with your macro than any intrinsic defect of the protoss race. Alleviating this is simple: face your fears. Always produce workers, expand whenever you have the opportunity to, and keep producing structures and units to keep your money low. Get money and spend it.
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I'd suggest you stop doing the 4 gate. You may win some games, but eventually you'll be placed in a league you shouldn't be in. Watch streams and replays of good Protoss like HuK, oGsMC, White-Ra, and I like watching HasuObz.
Protoss is a really solid race with lots of amazing units and mechanics, but I promise in bronze all you need to worry about is the fundamentals. Pylons, Probes, and Production.
If you can keep up with those three things, you'll be gold even if you Attack-Move.
Pylons - Make sure you don't supply cap yourself
Probes - Constantly build probes and transfer some over when you expo.
Production - Keep your minerals as low as possible by keeping up with your warp gate cycles and producing units. If you have lots of extra resources, Consider getting more production buildings (Gateways, Robos), Teching, and/or expanding.
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Just trust me. You do those things and all the other bronze people will be in here "OMG, Protoss is so imba. C'mon Blizz NerfHammer!!" They'll be wondering how in the world you have so many units when they have so few.
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On January 18 2011 14:54 lariat wrote:
You have tons of incredibly devastating lategame units[...]
Depends what you define as "devastating." The thor strike cannon deals far more damage than psi-storm, and to buildings as well, while the siege tank can splash even greater damage than an upgraded colossus from further range (I believe 9 vs 13?). The DPS may tell a different story but isn't spike damage that outright kills a clump of units desirable over the opposing player moving out of your AoE?
Let me clarify the macro game. It feels like I am at an inherent disadvantage in economy because I don't know how to respond adequately to the timing window when presented with a fast expansion and the subsequent attrition. Meanwhile, it feels like taking a fast expo is a bigger risk for me to take than for those of the other races, given that I have less efficient units only marginally more individually powerful than those of T and Z in the early game. It seems like without 4 gate, P plays a very responsive game as opposed to an aggressive one at all stages of the game, winning only by counter-push.
Thanks for the advice guys. I can also post replays. Many of them I've gone over with my friends who have also spoken about passivity and macro when I play.
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t players fast expanding against Protoss is easily punishable by doing a 4gate, as much as I'd hate to recommend it. Z fast expanding (hatch before 18), is easily matched by doing a forge-first fast expand, where you throw your nexus down around 15-20 and your forge at 12-15, only mining minerals until you start your gateway (a bit late, around 18). to me, it seems more like problems with your fundamental mechanics than anything about the Protoss race itself.
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On January 18 2011 15:18 Qynvee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2011 14:54 lariat wrote:
You have tons of incredibly devastating lategame units[...] Depends what you define as "devastating." The thor strike cannon deals far more damage than psi-storm, and to buildings as well, while the siege tank can splash even greater damage than an upgraded colossus from further range (I believe 9 vs 13?). The DPS may tell a different story but isn't spike damage that outright kills a clump of units desirable over the opposing player moving out of your AoE? Let me clarify the macro game. It feels like I am at an inherent disadvantage in economy because I don't know how to respond adequately to the timing window when presented with a fast expansion and the subsequent attrition. Meanwhile, it feels like taking a fast expo is a bigger risk for me to take than for those of the other races, given that I have less efficient units only marginally more individually powerful than those of T and Z in the early game. It seems like without 4 gate, P plays a very responsive game as opposed to an aggressive one at all stages of the game, winning only by counter-push. Thanks for the advice guys. I can also post replays. Many of them I've gone over with my friends who have also spoken about passivity and macro when I play.
Strike cannons kills 1 units and make your thor useless for 6 seconds
The 'spike' in damage is acompanied my low fire rate yes your 1st 10 or so zealots die but who cares zealots are cheap and then move in and the tanks will die quickly or kill their own units with splash
yes the spike is there but it is there only once or twice the collosi does more damage (v non light) at a faster pace in a smaller area.
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On January 18 2011 14:30 Qynvee wrote:
I just started playing SC2 a while ago, and I'm relatively new to the deeper intricacies of RTS games. I started with Protoss, and thanks to coaching from a few diamond league friends I can somewhat reliably 4 gate to win most bronze games.
My question though, is about the entire playstyle of Protoss. It seems like I only win when I 4 gate exactly the way my friends taught me. I can never ever match T or Z even slightly later in the game, for example if I try any kind of 3 gate opening. Their tech and numbers seem overwhelmingly more powerful than what P has, in the long run. Hell, I need a large investment just to make my colossi even usable, whereas they are extremely fragile compared to ultras or thors. I have no hard counter to ghosts, battlecruisers, or brood lords, and I have to confine myself to the robo tech tree just to get a detector. That's usually ok though, because my air units and tech are a joke. Thors and ultras are especially difficult to stop without an unlikely numbers advantage. I could go on and on about this.
I understand part of it is because T and Z can grab fast expos and I understand the economic analogy associated with that. The timing though, is a problem because I can't respond adequately in the window that I have given Blizzard designed P units to be slow building and individually strong (questionable). With their abilities it's like the Terran ghost embodies this motif moreso than any actual Protoss unit. Every game I don't use a cheese strat is simply a battle not to fall too far behind on economy, tech, and army, and to delay the inevitable loss.
In a general sense, what are Protoss strong in, and how are they supposed to play?
When you look at the replay, notice how inactive your warpgates are. Select one and just watch it on quadruple gamespeed. Notice how many times it is active and able to warp in, but doesn't. Those are missing units in your army. How often is your Nexus building probes? These two things contribute to doing a 3gate opening and realizing you are severely lacking in the midgame.
Develop a mindset for the match. PvZ eventually you will need splash units, because zerg armies become larger than Protoss midway through the game. Decide if you want to get a mix of Colossus/Stalker/Sentry for the midgame or High Templar/Immortal/Stalker (both mixes have something for mass roach). Aim for this while using all your warpgates to the fullest, and constantly building probes. Learn a build order that lets you put your expo down fairly quickly, like 3gate sentry expand.
PvT macro builds look sort of like 1gate expand 2gate robo expand or (my personal favorite) 3gate expand w/ some pressure (though the last one is by no means standard in the matchup). Is he massing bio? Aim for one of your splash units (Colossus/HT). Do you poke and see only a few marines and a factory building? Be prepared for cloaked banshees by dropping a robo. Just keeping flicking between your army and macro at the base (4 e build probes, 5 zzzs build up an army, 4 c chrono gates/robos/stargates) build more pylons. At the initial silver-gold level, proper macro and decision making will be practice you can take to the bank when you jump up to platinum.
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You are thinking too much for a low level player. This sounds harsh, but just put your head down and play 200 games and try to keep your gateways off cd and make pylons and probes. Strategy is severely limited by execution. In other words, if you can't execute it well, it doesn't matter what your strategy is.
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On January 18 2011 14:30 Qynvee wrote:
I just started playing SC2 a while ago, and I'm relatively new to the deeper intricacies of RTS games. I started with Protoss, and thanks to coaching from a few diamond league friends I can somewhat reliably 4 gate to win most bronze games.
My question though, is about the entire playstyle of Protoss. It seems like I only win when I 4 gate exactly the way my friends taught me. I can never ever match T or Z even slightly later in the game, for example if I try any kind of 3 gate opening. Their tech and numbers seem overwhelmingly more powerful than what P has, in the long run. Hell, I need a large investment just to make my colossi even usable, whereas they are extremely fragile compared to ultras or thors. I have no hard counter to ghosts, battlecruisers, or brood lords, and I have to confine myself to the robo tech tree just to get a detector. That's usually ok though, because my air units and tech are a joke. Thors and ultras are especially difficult to stop without an unlikely numbers advantage. I could go on and on about this.
I understand part of it is because T and Z can grab fast expos and I understand the economic analogy associated with that. The timing though, is a problem because I can't respond adequately in the window that I have given Blizzard designed P units to be slow building and individually strong (questionable). With their abilities it's like the Terran ghost embodies this motif moreso than any actual Protoss unit. Every game I don't use a cheese strat is simply a battle not to fall too far behind on economy, tech, and army, and to delay the inevitable loss.
In a general sense, what are Protoss strong in, and how are they supposed to play?
dropping some milestones which helped me a lot:
- macromechanics have highest priority (probe production, pylons, warpgates are allways in cooldown, minerals are low, using cronoboost as often as possible)
- a good protoss army is an allways moving protoss army. (scouting information, enemy unit mix information, forcing zergs into panic mode aka producing no drones). have an agressive mindset, 4gate is teaching this well.
- push and retreat, unless you will 100% win the battle, then dont retreat. dont sacrifice units!
- your goal is not to win the game and kill the enemies army. your goal is to take as many exes as possible and to deny the enemys exes. take your exes as often and as aggressively as possible. many lowleague players out there just play (sometimes very good) all-strategies but they have no clue about macro. dont get frustrated by them, dont follow their narrowminded path, dont think this game is about allin-openers. be a macro-beast!
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You are right to some extent that early Protoss units are weak generally for their cost. The things that Protoss can use to turn the tide are their cool abilities. e.g. forecfields and guardian shields are incredibly powerful if used well. Later in the game, a few storms from high templar can obliterate your opponent's army in seconds. Also, once you get collossus and carriers out, your army is pretty damn strong.
However, others have already said this and I will repeat it. If you are new focus on organic macro play and not on strategy or pre-defined build orders like 4gate. I was pretty new to RTS games when I started. I was in Bronze but now in mid-diamond so I know how you feel at the moment. Even though early protoss units are weaker, I got from Bronze to Platinum through better macro. Zealots and stalkers are in theory weaker than Marine/marauder and roach ling but I could go head to head no problem once I got my macro down. Don't worry about expo timings. Just expand when you saturate your main (20-30 workers) or when you see your workers dancing around from patch to patch trying to find a spare one.
Watch a pro replay and just note the amount of stuff they have relative to you at a certain point in time. There's tonnes of resources out there especially good is Day9's Newbie Tuesday series which I highly recommend you watch. As a benchmark for you, I can max out at 200 supply plus a couple of upgrades by the 16 minute mark (in-game) using a standard build that I use vs zerg.
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On January 18 2011 14:30 Qynvee wrote:
In a general sense, what are Protoss strong in, and how are they supposed to play?
Here is how I have figured it out:
Protoss can not fail in execution.
Generally this means that protoss can not replace its units easily. If you do enough damage sure you can recover from a unit loss, but colossus are a prime example of what I mean by "can't replace easily". If you only have 8 gateways, losing 100 supply worth of gateway units means 100/2/8 = 6,25 production cycles to replace it. That is at least 3 minute window when enemy can come up and kill you.
But this also means that tech choises are the most critical factors of your gameplay. Build dark templars and fail to do anything with them -> you die, for example. Anything you do is a significant investment and if you guess wrong, you are dead.
So this leads to a couple of guidelines I see in protoss gameplay:
-Protect your units alive like they were your children.
-SCOUT, SCOUT, SCOUT.
-Everything is aimed at building that critical mass and combination of units that lets you roll over the enemy. You can win by trickery but in a straight up macro game it goes like this. Sometimes it's early (xGate and/or robo/stargate -rushes), if you see an opening abuse it (harrassment/killing something and retreating), but in the end you aim for surviving long enough to obtain the Ball Of Death.
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I personally would also like to know what the Protoss mentality should be.
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Your friends taught you a 1 base strategy that can hurt you in situations where your opponents expand and stop your timing push. The "ideology" of the Protoss army is that there aren't many of them, but they are strong. With experience, you will be able to determine whether or not it is even worth attacking your opponent with a 4-gate timing push based on your scouting information. Against terran, it is generally not the greatest idea to 4-gate. Once terran get stimpacks, they can tear through your protoss army. With a 4-gate, you're vulnerable to certain strategies that exploit your lack of detection with stealth units. You're also more likely to dump everything into a single attack which has to succeed, or you lose. Sometimes, the impression that you are going to 4-gate is enough to scare your enemy into playing defensively, allowing you to expand to another base and double your production. Just try not to get the stalker syndrome, and end up with a mined out main base and no way to rebuild your army. Watching pro games with commentaries, like in the GSL, iCCup, etc will help you gain a better understanding of what works as protoss and what doesn't. 4 gate is very strong, though. I don't see any reason why you won't be able to get out of bronze using that strategy every game. Remember to build that close pylon and chronoboost the gates back at your base.
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The way I feel about toss is it's all about getting to midgame with the strongest economy and tech possible. Toss T1 is ineffectually weak to attack an opponent's base unless you commit to an all-in-ish 4 gate with very poor midgame transition (except in PvP, where 4 gate is the dominant metagame, forcing both sides to do it). Beyond small skirmishes, Toss needs a tech tier above Terran and Zerg to compete.
If all you do is 4 gate, you will have to unlearn this mindset to adjust for a more macro-orientated game that fares better against better opponents.
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This topic is subjective but in my mind the Protoss race utilizes units that must be used to their full effectiveness. Basically, you HAVE to make the most out of every unit you make or else you will definitely be at a disadvantage.
Take for example, the sentry; the only T1 caster unit in the game (so far.) Obviously, force fields have won/broken the game for many players since it's conception. Effective force fields can easily change the outcome of a critical battle, whether it be splitting their army in half or funneling their units into a choke, they are no doubt useful for many situations.
On the contrary, cheap speedlings can utilize a gap in a wall to run straight to the mineral line. Of course, they'll probably all die but you'll definitely get some worker kills. If you apply this mentality to zealots, or even any toss unit ("there's a chance of this paying off") you'll soon find if it doesn't pay off, you're a little bit more behind.
Dark Templars have been the bane of many players. And with good reason. However, they cost a hefty 125/125 and honestly can die quite easily once detected. The only way you can make them pay off is through harass, whether it be through warping in a couple of DTs on a terran, one to destroy the mineral line in the main and one in the expo, or to keep his army in his base. Like with sentries, if you don't do enough damage with them before they die, you've just lost your hefty investment into an affluent unit, and if you've opened with DTs, all the time and resources spent into obtaining that tech.
I realize this holds true for all of the races, but I think it's critically important for Protoss. Their units are just so expensive but can have so much potential for damage that you really need to understand each and every unit, how to micro and control them effectively, what they're good for and what they have good synergy with, and how you could use them in their current situation to utilize their maximum potential.
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lol
Protoss can fast expand probably the safest in this game if i'm not mistaken. I still don't know how to punish a well executed 1 gate core FE in TvP. And forge FE is really safe aswell PvZ. Protoss has the strongest late game army. Everything from terran and zerg just melt to 200/200 toss. Thors, battle cruisers, ultras are all laughable bad against protoss. Yeah a gateway army is weak. But there is nothing a zerg can do about good forcefields and sentry's allow you to completely crush an atack from terran/zerg. There are also so many different all in's and one base plays toss can do.
You are bronze, learn the mechanics of this game first. Your macro is probably just extremely awfull and naturally you will fall behind. Thats what you get when you 4 gate every game.
Depends what you define as "devastating." The thor strike cannon deals far more damage than psi-storm, and to buildings as well, while the siege tank can splash even greater damage than an upgraded colossus from further range (I believe 9 vs 13?). The DPS may tell a different story but isn't spike damage that outright kills a clump of units desirable over the opposing player moving out of your AoE?
Let me clarify the macro game. It feels like I am at an inherent disadvantage in economy because I don't know how to respond adequately to the timing window when presented with a fast expansion and the subsequent attrition. Meanwhile, it feels like taking a fast expo is a bigger risk for me to take than for those of the other races, given that I have less efficient units only marginally more individually powerful than those of T and Z in the early game. It seems like without 4 gate, P plays a very responsive game as opposed to an aggressive one at all stages of the game, winning only by counter-push.
Thanks for the advice guys. I can also post replays. Many of them I've gone over with my friends who have also spoken about passivity and macro when I play.
This post made my day, thanks 
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On January 18 2011 16:10 goldenwitch wrote:
You are thinking too much for a low level player. This sounds harsh, but just put your head down and play 200 games and try to keep your gateways off cd and make pylons and probes. Strategy is severely limited by execution. In other words, if you can't execute it well, it doesn't matter what your strategy is.
I agree with this 100%.
After coaching a couple of friends up the league ranks, and reviewing many of their games... It seems like 90%+ of bronze level games aren't decided by strategy, build order, or micro. Just focus on the fundamentals and you will easily win all of your games in bronze league if you execute safe, standard builds correctly.
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It definitely sounds like you're over thinking things. First off, that the Protoss has some inherent disadvantage as a result of their overall design. You have to get that thought out of your head, along with anything else you feel negative about your race. Thinking about how your race is weak at every stage in the game won't help you 1 bit
Having a list helps, and at your level it should be very simple. Ask yourself these 3 questions every 5 seconds while playing a game:
1. Am I building a probe right now? (Do this regardless of if you're in a fight)
2. Am I building army units right now? (Do this regardless of if you're in a fight)
3. Do I have enough supply?
Do those 3 things, and it will almost completely not matter what your opponent builds. You'll have so much more stuff that it truly won't matter. And once you practice to where you can do those 3 things perfectly, add 1 more thing: Is there anything on the minimap? Am I using Chronoboost all the time? Have I scouted in the last minute? Am I safe to expand? Do I need more gateways to be able to spend all my resources? Keeping adding 1 more thing at a time until they become habit, then add another.
When it comes to seeing your opponent expand, you have two options. Either attack, or expand yourself. If you feel you can't do either of those because your army is smaller than his, than you made a mistake somewhere else on your list.
I know as a newer player it can be a little frightening trying to apply early pressure. You think to yourself, "What happens if I run all the way across the map to attack, and he attacks my base just before I get to his. What will I do then"? Don't allow yourself to think like that. Until you develop some good instincts or find a reason to think you're about to be attacked, you cross that bridge if and when you get to it. You'll miss a lot of opportunities otherwise. Hopefully that should help with your passivity.
Lastly, watch your replays. Look at each critical point in the game and ask yourself questions about what you were doing at that time, what could you have done differently, how safe/exposed were you at certain points. 90% of learning will take place between games.
If you don't do anything but those first 3 items above, you will get into gold, I promise.
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EPT
