EPTI might make a Protoss versus Terran guide depending on how well this is received. I won't make a PvP guide because I don't like the matchup frankly and I find a lot of it to be based on cheese and luck.
PDF (Nice quality and formatted):
http://rapidshare.com/files/393413091/ProtossSalvGuide.pdf.html
OR
http://www.mediafire.com/?mt1lgmwyywm#1
Example replays:
http://www.mediafire.com/?omjgjzmdnnm
That replay is versus GDR from team vT. It was a friendly game.
http://www.mediafire.com/?ezztnwjntnw
This replay is versus my friend SuperiorWolf, AKA The Wolf. Also a friendly game.
Introduction to Protoss – By Salv
In Starcraft Brood War, the Protoss race was mostly dependent on knowledge. Protoss mechanics were never really difficult, there were some micro skills to be developed, but being successful at Protoss didn't hinge on this as much as it did for Terran and Zerg. To be a strong Protoss player, you needed to be smart, that is why I was drawn to it. Starcraft is a strategy game, and I've always felt that Protoss is the race that best encompasses that, whereas some of the other races are based more heavily on your mechanical skill.
The Protoss in Starcraft II fortunately fit the same role. The least mechanical aptitude is required to be successful. What's important is your knowledge of counters, timings, and overall intelligence and creativity. A lot of the Protoss spells are versatile and can be used in interesting ways, with force field being the absolute best example of this.
That being said, the same potential drawbacks to the Protoss race remain. Often times you will be the defender, or will be forced to play patiently. A lot of games can revolve around your opponents' tactics and your skill at stopping their attempts, some times it can feel that you're not in control of the game and are only reacting to what your opponent does, this is something that you must get used to.
A few basic points to cover before getting in to the first match-up (MU from now on) in this guide (PvZ):
Warp gates are your friend. Warp gates are necessary in any Protoss game. The flexibility of warping in units is unparallelled, and the units also take less time on cooldown, which means four warp gates are more efficient than four gateways. While you won't rush warp gate tech in ever scenario, the upgrade is mostly peanuts (50/50) and just takes time, so it's wise to start early.
Sentries are the best Protoss unit in the game. When I first started playing, I neglected the sentry on the grounds that it was a waste of money better spent elsewhere. The irony is that the sentry is the most important unit the Protoss has. The versatility is absolutely unparallelled. Force field is the best new ability in SC II, and creative uses of it can turn the tides of battles and buy you precious seconds. Do not neglect the sentry ever.
Robotics tech reigns supreme. A lot of discussion is on the viability of the templar tech paths. The fact is that the templar tech paths are inferior, you will always need a robotics facility at some point in the game, and you will never need the templar tech, you can always do with out. The robotics tech path gives you the shuttle (essentially), and two very different units for very different circumstances in the immortal and colossus. The templar tech tree is slower to get and provides one unit, either the high templar (HT) or the dark templar (DT). Simply put, neither of these units are as effective as the robotics tree units, and while can be used to go effect, they are just not as consistent as the robotics units and thus are not used.
Lastly, and related to the above point: you must tech. This isn't SC:BW where you could get away with zealot/dragoon all game like in PvT, you have to get robotics facility in every match-up, and you have to do so quickly. There are variants in which that isn't necessary, but I find this style inferior and it isn't what I find effective.
Protoss vs Zerg
Introduction & Early Game
PvZ is an interesting match-up. Compared to BW PvZ, SC II PvZ is much easier. Mutalisk are easier to deal with, hydralisks and roaches can be hard countered, and lings are generally much less effective. The only unit that will consistently give you trouble is the brood-lord, there simply isn't a effective way to deal with this unit, it's hard to stop, but by the time they are on the field, you should have netted a generous advantage, or have already lost the game.
Other than that, the PvZ match-up revolves around three units for the Zerg: hydralisk, roach, & corruptor, and four units for the Protoss: zealot, stalker, sentry, & colossus. Other units are used, but they are situational and are used as such, they are never always going to be used, whereas the above units (with maybe the exception of the roach) are always used.
You first must decide between two styles of play: one base or fast expand. The fast expand is the more popular style, but I would say it's more difficult to play. The fast expand style is essentially a 10 pylon, 10 gateway in your natural. You will chronoboost out zealots to your opponents base while continually adding pylons and probes. While applying pressure, you can take your natural and add a forge. Because SC II has any adjacent buildings being complete walls, your pylon, gateway, forge combination can easily seal off your natural or come pretty damn close. Finish it off with a cannon or two and you have essentially hurt the Zerg's economy by forcing them to produce units and not drones, and taken your expansion.
The downside to this build is that scouting is going to be tricky. You need to rely on your knowledge and intuition, because other than complete luck, you will not be able to see what they are teching to, and because you have two nexxi to pump probes from, gases to take, and tech to create, you will have a small army, which means scouting around with that is difficult. Even if you rush hallucination or a robotics facility, you can be hit by a quick muta rush or by quick hydralisks trying to break your front. The best way to play this out is by scouting out additional expansions, if you see a third base for the Zerg while you are taking your gases at your main and nat, you can assume that quick tech isn't coming and you can get away with one cannon in your main, and potentially none at your natural. If the other player hasn't expanded, it's best to put two in your main and one at your natural along with your army. It's a riskier style of playing but can pay dividends because you hurt their economy while growing your own.
The other style to play is one base. There are a lot of variants: four gate rush all-in, fast expand, void rays etc. The style I play is the one base fast expand style, it's very safe and allows for quick and easy scouting, to me it's the epitome of standard, and as such I will be assuming that this is what you will also be doing. I don't have a set timing for each building, but I do make them in a specific order:
9 pylon (10 pylon if two player map)
13 gateway (10 gateway if two player map)
Assimilator
Pylon (zealot first if two player map)
Cybernetics core
Zealot (if four player map)
Pylon
Two gateways – sentry – upgrade hallucination
It's key that you make the sentry before hallucination. If you try hallucination first, then your later sentry will not have the 100 energy required and it won't do you any good, besides the hallucination can be chronoboosted to make sure it finishes around the time your first sentry has 100 energy. All three gateways should be pumping sentries when you have 100 gas, and zealots when you do not. I chronoboost only my nexus and never my gateway, make sure you time pylons well. One protip is make sure you don't accidentally hit 'G' on the keyboard. If you accidentally use guardian shield that can delay your hallucination by twenty seconds, which is a big deal.
Explaining Hallucination: Hallucination is the ultimate scouting tool. You can hallucinate units you do not even have, meaning that if you want to hallucinate a colossus at this point, you can, or a phoenix, which is what we will use to scout.
Explaining the Build: PvZ is a little different in SC II because of the inject larvae ability. If both players play completely passive, the Zerg wins. They will be able to pump out a ridiculous number of drones if you let them, and then no amount of good play can bring you back. This build is designed to add pressure and make the opponent waste larvae on units, meanwhile you can expand behind this and set yourself up for mid game.
You're going to want to use your hallucination ASAP and you're going to look for a few things. Firstly, how many zerglings does he have? Some Zergs will try to all-in you by hoping you attack and they can simply attack-move all over you, with the phoenix you'll be able to see this and react accordingly. Also, you want to check if they are quick teching or not. Your tech choice after expanding depends on what they make, so it's critical to be consistently scouting, and with our hallucination upgrade, we can do this easily.
They will either have a lot of zerglings, spine crawlers, or neither. If it's the latter, just attack now and win the game. The other two options are a bit different. If they have massed zerglings, you should be expanding (you will have about eight units at this point, five to six sentries and two to three zealots). However you cannot move out to pressure, and you don't want to, they have done your job for you. They have committed to zerglings, so if you can avoid taking damage, they will have hurt themselves. Sitting at your ramp while adding your expansion is fine. If they move in the damage it, fight back and use force field if he tries to surround. Their zergling mass is only effective if you move out, if you sit back passively, they are ineffective.
Spine crawlers are a bit different, you can still move out across the map and potentially win. The best situation would be to attack and force field on the ramp to prevent reinforcements. With practice you'll be able to figure out when it's worth while to do this and when it isn't. Generally, two spine crawlers with no support you can attack, where as two spine crawlers with a queen or some zerglings probably isn't worth trying to break. Either way, create your expansion and keep sending phoenix's to their base and natural until you see their tech. Depending on what they make, your next steps diverge.
Middle Game
The middle game begins when you have made your expansion and are beginning to tech. Your Zerg opponent at this point in the game has two options: expand and play a macro game, or tech and try to deal damage. You shouldn't have much problem with the latter, you should still have your sentries (or most of them) and will be able to keep sending hallucinated phoenix's every so often to scout out the opponent. The most common aggression your opponent will do are mutalisk. At this point you have sentries and no other anti-air, so they can do a lot of damage if they come while you are unprepared.
Mutalisks: Mutalisks, a very annoying unit in SC I is much more manageable in SC II. Sentries and stalkers overall are cost effective versus mutalisk, if your Zerg opponent tries to fight a combination of sentry and stalker he will lose quite badly, this is because of guardian shield mostly. Guardian shield reduces incoming missile attacks by two damage, which means not only is the initial mutalisk glaive reduced, but the bounce damage is also reduced.
However a good player will never engage your units like this, they will use mobility. You cannot effectively use just ground units to defend your bases, that isn't effective, you will need anti-air or static defense.
If you scout a spire being put down with your hallucinated phoenix, first check to make sure that there isn't a hydralisk den also. It's not uncommon for a Zerg to place both tech buildings in the hopes that you will over commit to defending one unit while they make the other. If both are being put down, check to see if hydralisk are being made, if it's just drones, then it's best to cannon up your main and natural with two cannons in the main, and one in the natural. You don't need as many at your natural because your army is there as well. Two cannons are stronger in SC II than they were in SC I, so you don't need three, two will be just fine until your army can get there.
If the opponent makes mutalisk, the key will be to see how many they make. If they continually make more mutalisk or are reinforcing their group, it's best to add a stargate. Phoenix's (non-hallucinated of course) are very effective versus mutalisk and can still be useful to you later in the game. For example, phoenix's are adept at killing mutalisk, lifting up and kill hydralisk, and sniping drones or queens later in the game. It's well worth the investment to deter mutalisk harass and to have that versatility later on in the game. If you did a build like 10 gate pressure from your natural, it can be tricky to tell when they are teching to quick mutalisk, and that is why I prefer this build, it's very similar but allows much easier scouting which makes situations like this more manageable.
Other than mutalisk, an opponent can try to mass units and break your front. This is very uncommon and you won't see it a lot, mostly because it's ineffective and be seen coming. It's easy to force field your front to buy yourself time, and colossi are usually on the way. There isn't much to say about this tactic, you will see that the opponent is making a lot of units and hasn't expanded. This is fine for you because they will not have to economy to match your army. It's fine to add cannons and cut probes to feel comfortable in the off-chance that they decide to attack, just make sure they haven't expanded, or else cutting probes and adding unnecessary static defense can be a hindrance.
If your opponent goes a macro game instead then you will most see the Zerg making roach hydralisk & zergling, hydralisk & zergling, or just hydralisk. In any of these situations, the response is the same. Personally, roach/hydralisk is seemingly the best composition. Hydralisk alone will be killed too easily by your colossi, whereas roaches are more durable and are not useless on DPS (damage per second), they do quite a bit of damage to sentries and zealots. If your opponent simply masses a ground force however, you will win quite easily, a Zerg ground force versus a Protoss ground force is simply not an even battle. The Zerg will need to even the battle against your colossi & tier one unit composition.
Colossi versus Immortals: Immortals are good early game versus roach play, and are very useful for breaking Zerg static defense such as spine crawlers, but other than for these two purposes, they are not exchangeable for colossi. Colossi are very good versus hydralisk, and quite good versus roaches, they will be your key unit for defeating the Zerg forces.
Therefore a typical army composition for both players will be:
Protoss
Sentries - Useful for force fields and guardian shield, only a few are needed.
Zealots - Useful when your gas resources are running low but you still have warp-gates off cool down
Stalkers - The main unit you will be making other than colossi. Provide good DPS versus Zerg units, are suitable tanks for incoming damage
Colossi – The main DPS force of your army. More will be discussed on this unit.
Zerg
Hydralisk – The main DPS force of the Zerg army. Fragile unit overall, melts under fire from colossi.
Roach – Not always used, but a good tank for the hydralisk. They take far more damage before dying than a hydralisk does, and can deal respectable DPS against the proper targets.
Zerglings – Used by some Zergs as they provide another line of units that the colossi will auto-target before attacking the hydralisk. Also used as a resource sink when the Zerg is out of gas.
Corruptors – The anti-colossi unit. More will be discussed on this unit.
Infestors – The exchangeable unit for the corruptor, has the role of disrupting the colossi. Much easier to play against than corruptors overall.
The stalker and colossi combo are very effective and cost efficient. They can together handle almost any composition the Zerg throws at you. Keep in mind that sentries are still useful for their guardian shield, and when you run out of gas, zealots are better than nothing at all (although adding gateways is good in certain situations).
The Zerg is aware they cannot fight you on even ground without an equalizer versus the colossi; the corruptor is this equalizer. The corruptor is an anti-air unit that does bonus damage to massive units (colossi and capital ships). They also have the ability corruption, which will target a unit with this green mist visual, and units under this effect will take 20% additional damage. This is mostly just used to increase the DPS of the corruptors against your units.
Fighting Corruptors: I have done extensive testing and found that the most effective way to deal with corruptors are to just ignore them. They will kill your colossi, but not before your colossi deals with their entire ground force, leaving a stalker/sentry/zealot combination still alive and ready to cause damage. As long as you continually make colossi, you should never be at the point where the colossi die too quickly to deal enough damage aginst the opposing ground force. That doesn't mean you cannot try to deal with corruptors, but during battles, it is best to simply let your colossi and stalkers deal DPS to the ground force. If you try to micro colossi away, you're doing the Zerg a favour. A colossus cannot out-ran a corruptor, and all you are doing is lowering your damage output by having a colossus run around aimlessly with out the slightest chance of getting away.
Void rays can be used to deal with corruptors, and they are useful for a few reasons. Reason one is that a corruptor will auto-target a void ray over a colossi. So if you Zerg foe is not manually targeting the colossi, they will attack void-rays, which is ineffective because the colossi are the highest damage dealing units, but they also do not do their bonus-damage in this case, and are thus lowering their own DPS as well. Four void-rays are all you will ever need versus the Zerg's corruptors, as once they are charged, they do massive damage to corruptors, taking out a full-hp one is about four seconds.
After expanding, dealing the Zerg's next moves and adding two robotics facilities, the timing for your main attack will come when you have four colossi. Four colossi are exponentially better than two colossi, four just seems to be that magic number where the opposing army melts, where anything under this isn't as effective as it needs to be. You will not being able to deal with the corruptors on your first attack, if the Zerg is good, they will wind up killing your colossi, but not before you have dealt with the ground army. This next part is critical however, you have to quickly do whatever damage you can and then retreat.
It is also critical that your first resource spending after the robotics support bay will be the thermal lance. Four colossi with out the thermal lance upgrade are about as useful as zero colossi. Unless you need a colossi immediately to assist with some sort of quick all-in bust, always upgrade thermal lance, which increases the colossi range of attack to nine. It takes a long time to finish, but will be done by the time you have three to four colossi, I wind up chronoboosting the upgrade once at most, and spending the rest of colossi, it makes your first attack come quicker and is thus more effective.
Protip: Make sure that you take an expansion as you move out for your first attack. The Zerg doesn't have the forces to dedicate another squad of units to stopping an expansion attempt, so make sure that as you move out you clear a nearby base of units or overlords and take that expansion.
Method of Attacking: By far the most important piece of knowledge when attacking is the never move straight at the Zerg. Be unpredictable with your movements, attacking one direction, then moving back a bit and switching directions. Never let the opponent know exactly which way you will attack from. This serves two purposes: Firstly, you will be able to pick off a lot of stray overlords this way, which adds up for the Zerg. Secondly, it's critical not to be flanked by the Zerg. Colossi will be at the back of your army dealing damage safely with their nine-range. If you allow a Zerg to flank you, they will be focused down and killed relatively quickly, and that will probably end the game for you immediately. Be unpredictable.
The reason why it is critical to deal your damage with your remaining colossi-less ground force and then retreat is that a tier one Protoss ground army is incredibly weak versus roach/hydralisk. With inject larvae, a Zerg can regroup and replenish their lost army very quickly, so it isn't long before a healthy group of Zerg units will be fighting a colossi-less army, and if that happens, you will lose every thing while dealing very little damage. It is sometimes best to retreat right away, but if you are near a Zerg expansion, it can be worth it in move in and focus on the hatchery and then taking off.
Keep pumping colossi from your two robotics facilities and then adding more stalkers. If you didn't lose your remaining ground force, you will be in a good position. It is at this point that I find adding a stargate and making void-rays to be useful. If you didn't happen to thin out the opposing players corruptor numbers much, you are going to need some sort of way to deal with them. However if you were able to snipe most of them off after dealing the ground force, you can get away with doing a similar void ray-less attack.
Upgrades: Upgrades can be very useful, especially once you get to +2 attack. Colossi at this point will one-shot zerglings and that can dramatically increase your overall army damage output if your opponent is using a lot of zerglings. Other than that, there are no significant points where an upgrade will result in a vastly superior army. Colossi get +4 every upgrade and thus it's well worth it be upgrading. I like to make a forge when I am making my first robotics facility, and this ensures that by your second attack, your +2 weapons will easily be finished.
Late Game
You are now at the point of late-game. You will have three bases, and the opposing Zerg will have any where from three to five. The battle will continue to play out very similarly to mid-game, with very little difference in terms of army composition. It's possible for drops to be included, as well as the bane of Protoss; brood-lords.
Like in any match-up, when the Protoss begins to spread themselves out over a bigger area of space, drops and sneak attacks become increasingly harder to deal with. A protoss army isn't very mobile, and it can take a while to get from one area to another. Colossi's wall-walking ability can help this slightly, but when you are dealing with a big army, it isn't helpful when your colossi arrive early and the rest of your army is still lagging behind. The best way to avoid this type of attack is to continually apply pressure. It's only when you give the Zerg time to breathe that they deviate and begin to apply different modes of attacking. Applying pressure doesn't ensure that you avoid sneak attacks, but it helps a lot.
What also helps a lot are warp-gates. You can pump out units almost any where on the map, and if you use chronoboost, the cool-down time is very short. Often you can warp in some units to keep an army busy while you main force makes their way over there. The addition of cannons to your main or key expansions can also be useful in buying time, but you don't want to cut in to your main armies force too much, or else you're buffing one area of your game and weakening another. There really isn't a good way to deal with this, you just have to take in stride and do your best.
Brood-lords are the most annoying unit to deal with. Broodlings do quite a bit of damage if you let them pile up, and often your colossi will waste their damage killing these continuously spawning units rather than the hydralisks, with your stalkers doing the same. Some Protoss' find relief in blinking stalkers or high templar, but personally the void-rays do the best job. This isn't to say that void-rays will take care of a brood-lord problem quickly, but they are the most efficient counter. The good side is that brood-lords are fragile to a degree, and cost a lot, so it's rare to have to deal with more than five or six of them at a time. If you do get in to a situation where there are many of them, chances are that the game was probably over at this point and you need to fix your early and mid-game.
Ultralisks are sometimes transitioned into, but with the Patch 13 HP nerf, they die fairly quickly to any sustained damage from stalkers and colossi. Like any unit, they can do a lot of damage if you let them, but they are an ineffective choice of tech when considering the pain-in-the-ass which is called the brood-lord.
Overall, late game is very similar to mid game. There are some new annoying units to deal with, and some new Zerg tactics can cause problems, but if you are having a lot of trouble late-game, it's most likely a problem with your mid-game. Remember that a Zerg that is left alone for long periods of time are most dangerous, inject larvae allows them to mass drones very, very quickly, to the point where even flawless mid-game play can be countered easily by their superior economy.
