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[D] Why don't Protoss... ?

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imbecile
Profile Joined October 2009
563 Posts
September 09 2011 16:58 GMT
#1
I just have the impression Protoss players as a group are incredibly hostile to experimenting and innovation. There are almost no differences in the styles between different Protoss players with few exceptions like White-Ra and Kiwikaki. But those two are pretty isolated and don't care much about what other Protoss are doing, which is actually helping them.

I remember a SotG where one guy suggested making more than one observer and was trashed by the other protoss on the show for even suggesting that. This is the mindset you usually find with Protoss, and it is now starting to hurt them, after more than year of only needing 4gate, 6gate and death balls without scouting to do very well.

So here a list of things I'm wondering, some of them since the game came out, some of them only since recently, and most of them have been raised by others as well. So ...

Why don't Protoss constantly harass and put on pressure?
Protoss have shield. All their units (and buildings) heal quickly for free without having to do anything. If they hit and run a lot they have most cost effective and most hit points in the game to spend. But in reality Protoss is the race that sits home in the base the most with the units. They even have a unit that is specifically designed to do this in the Stalker and DT and Phoenix, and abilities like blink and force field and later even recall specifically designed to get away unharmed to recharge. They have the best scouting options in observers and hallcinations to figure out where to strike safely. They have the fastest and most flexible deployment of all the races. They have the fastest most flexible air transport (soon to be toughest, although already tougher than medivac) of all the races which is dirt cheap and the highest DPS units to put into them. They can even transport without having to risk having any units in the transport. They have force fields to ensure to be completely undisturbed do the harass and uncounterable while harassing. Yet they somehow can't figure out how to harass and put on pressure.

Why don't Protoss use Mothership?
It's the ultimate end game unit. Yet you can get it out faster and cheaper than all the other end game tech for the other races. And motherships destroy any kind of death ball army with vortex while also increasing mobility and harass with recall and bolstering your base defense tremendously by making all buildings and units invisible.

Why don't Protoss use Hallucination?
No better scouting tool. With hallucinated phoenix or probes (4 at once!) there should be no way any opponent, and especially zergs who can't put up base defenses before the hatch finishes should ever get up an expansion easily. Especially with warp in wherever you want. No tech switch should ever surprise you, no attack should ever be in an unfavorable position.

Why don't Protoss use Warp Prism?
It's dirt cheap, can escape everything against terran and everything but mutas against zerg when upgraded. Can refill themselves anywhere. Can move across map without risking any units in them. Can reinforce drops. Has more HP than medivacs already and can recharge shields, will have more HP than overlords soon. The damage output of 4 high templar or 2immortals or 2archons or even just 4zealots in mineral lines is ridiculous. Why do they rarely get more than one? Multi drops would be even more powerful fro protoss than for terran or zerg, because you can reinforce the most successful ones with the least resistance and still get away with the bad drops against poor zerg anti-air.

Why don't Protoss use Templar?
Templar trash the staple mass units of the other races, like marine, ling, hydra, marauder, roaches. They literally erase worker lines within seconds. They instakill all casters while outranging most. They become extremely powerful units once out of energy. This one is slowly changing though.

Why don't Protoss use Carriers?
They are the highest DPS unit in the game, attack air and ground, outrange everything (14, once the interceptors are released), benefit the most from upgrades, have tremendous survivability when microed and positioned well, have mothership tech available, so they can always be saved when in trouble, can be teched to faster and arguably cheaper than colossus. Also, neural parasite is not overly useful against them, at least in larger groups, even if successfully done with all that range: they lose their interceptors quickly without doing much damage.
Halcyondaze
Profile Joined January 2011
United States509 Posts
September 09 2011 17:08 GMT
#2
The Protoss Race lives and dies off of the deathball due to the way it was created, i.e. Sentries, Collosus, high priced units in general. Branching out from a "Deathball" Mindset is making your deathball less powerful, even though it is still necessary. So while these innovations are great, if you do not allocate the perfect amount of resources into your army (Or do enough damage with the harass to warrant a huge deficit to your army). Then you are walking a very thin line where you could very well be rolled over because your army is not strong enough. I think that Hallucinate, Templar, and even Warp prisms are quite popular at the moment, and with the insane 60shield warp prism buff I can only see that increasing.

Carriers have the exact same problem as Ultralisks for zerg, but it is even worse because Protoss' are not committing to air mid game like Zergs are committed to melee units. So it is even harder for them to achieve the maximum potential.

Mothership: You would be very surprised how easily this unit can make you look like a complete moron for creating it.

This all sounds good in theorycraft, but when you are playing and devoting quite a lot of resources to harass as Protoss, you will find counterattacks almost unstoppable.
CecilSunkure
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States2829 Posts
September 09 2011 17:09 GMT
#3
Mothership can be a huge pain in the ass to get. Stargate + Fleet Beacon + Mothership is a lot of time and a lot of vespene. Usually more templar or w/e is better.

Hallu: I use it all the time. I dunno why other people don't.

Warp prism: I use it all the time, especially PvT/PvZ.

Templar: Uuh I see lots of people use Templar.

Carriers: They aren't good vs high armored units, e.g. BC/Ultra, due to having 2 attacks meaning armor is applied twice. They do me best when there is a disparity between your air ups and enemy's armor. I do still think they are too unused however.
Zedex
Profile Joined January 2011
United Kingdom310 Posts
September 09 2011 17:10 GMT
#4
Nobody got trashed because they suggested building two observers, geoff and Naniwa thought building two observers was better than one and tyler and huk thought it was a waste or robo build time, they had a discussion about it there was no clear winner. You can't poke around easily with protoss units, stimmed bio is exceptionally fast and so are zerg units if you try to poke they will chase and kill a lot of your units, this problem is made worse by things like fungal and concussive. Mother ship is VERY costly it does have some uses but in the late game your money is almost always better spent building mroe gateways so you can remax an army faster. There will be a few times where building a mother ship would help more than more standard units if somebody experimented with late game situations where mothership could be used then maybe you could find some times where its really good but how often does your game go into a position where you can get a mothership and it wont seriosuly hinder your army size, not very often. Hallucination gets used a lot, it could be used more thats just more a lazyness thing where people don't get it but its use it on the increas. Warp prism is another thing that is being used increasingly more and its working well so but there use should be somewhat limited because if your army composition includes robo units then you use build time which can make a big difference if your getting more than one at a time. Templar everyone uses them I don't understand why you dont think so. Carriers pretty much insert what I said about mothership.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25551 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-09 17:12:32
September 09 2011 17:11 GMT
#5
On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:
I just have the impression Protoss players as a group are incredibly hostile to experimenting and innovation. There are almost no differences in the styles between different Protoss players with few exceptions like White-Ra and Kiwikaki. But those two are pretty isolated and don't care much about what other Protoss are doing, which is actually helping them.
...


I think you make some good points here, but I'd just like to address some of your questions first. Also, <3 White-Ra and Kiwkaki.

I'm going to address mostly TvP since that's the matchup I play.


On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:Why don't Protoss constantly harass and put on pressure?


Against terran, they do so constantly until concussive shell (where it's hard to escape with stalker) or stimpack (same). Against zerg, they use "Sharking" and other strategies to force non-drones.

DTs, blink harass and other methods are also used. I've even seen PvT Phoenixes in GSL.


On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:Why don't Protoss use Mothership?

Usually this is because the tech isn't standing by. If you have a stargate, a mothership is only like 500 gas, but if you don't, it's more like 650-700 for all that tech. Most Protoss players would rather have upgrades, or Templar to supplement their Colossi (In PvT)


On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:Why don't Protoss use Hallucination?
Hallucinated Phoenixes are pretty common PvZ. In TvP they're somewhat easily shut down, due to the high damage output of the marine-- you might accidentally lose it. Plus, the observer is a really really solid scout, so that's often used. I see no reason not to do this, and I sometimes see it on the ladder, but you're right in that it IS rarer.


On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:Why don't Protoss use Warp Prism?
Protoss does use the Warp prism. A common PvT Ladder build is the 5 gate Robo 2-base attack but you make a prism instead of an immortal. You elevator into the terran base, FF him out, and start warping reinforcements into his main while his army derps in the nat. It hits before medivac timing.

Speed prism play is rarer because Robotics Facility production time becomes really really valuable once you have a colossus support bay.


On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:Why don't Protoss use Templar?
Can't explain this in PvZ. happens often in TvP though.


On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:Why don't Protoss use Carriers?.
In TvP, Terran has marines as a staple unit, as well as the high-range vikings that make producing this slow-making, slow-moving unit a large risk.



I hope this addressed some of your concerns
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
Olsson
Profile Joined April 2011
Sweden931 Posts
September 09 2011 17:11 GMT
#6
Why dont protosses get HT's along with stalker and colossi and ultimately void rays and archons. They whine alot about infestors but HT's are equally as easy to use as infestors and just feedback the crap out of those infestors.
Naniwa <3
QTIP.
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States2113 Posts
September 09 2011 17:12 GMT
#7
On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:
I just have the impression Protoss players as a group are incredibly hostile to experimenting and innovation. There are almost no differences in the styles between different Protoss players with few exceptions like White-Ra and Kiwikaki. But those two are pretty isolated and don't care much about what other Protoss are doing, which is actually helping them.

I remember a SotG where one guy suggested making more than one observer and was trashed by the other protoss on the show for even suggesting that. This is the mindset you usually find with Protoss, and it is now starting to hurt them, after more than year of only needing 4gate, 6gate and death balls without scouting to do very well.

So here a list of things I'm wondering, some of them since the game came out, some of them only since recently, and most of them have been raised by others as well. So ...

Why don't Protoss constantly harass and put on pressure?
Protoss have shield. All their units (and buildings) heal quickly for free without having to do anything. If they hit and run a lot they have most cost effective and most hit points in the game to spend. But in reality Protoss is the race that sits home in the base the most with the units. They even have a unit that is specifically designed to do this in the Stalker and DT and Phoenix, and abilities like blink and force field and later even recall specifically designed to get away unharmed to recharge. They have the best scouting options in observers and hallcinations to figure out where to strike safely. They have the fastest and most flexible deployment of all the races. They have the fastest most flexible air transport (soon to be toughest, although already tougher than medivac) of all the races which is dirt cheap and the highest DPS units to put into them. They can even transport without having to risk having any units in the transport. They have force fields to ensure to be completely undisturbed do the harass and uncounterable while harassing. Yet they somehow can't figure out how to harass and put on pressure.

Why don't Protoss use Mothership?
It's the ultimate end game unit. Yet you can get it out faster and cheaper than all the other end game tech for the other races. And motherships destroy any kind of death ball army with vortex while also increasing mobility and harass with recall and bolstering your base defense tremendously by making all buildings and units invisible.

Why don't Protoss use Hallucination?
No better scouting tool. With hallucinated phoenix or probes (4 at once!) there should be no way any opponent, and especially zergs who can't put up base defenses before the hatch finishes should ever get up an expansion easily. Especially with warp in wherever you want. No tech switch should ever surprise you, no attack should ever be in an unfavorable position.

Why don't Protoss use Warp Prism?
It's dirt cheap, can escape everything against terran and everything but mutas against zerg when upgraded. Can refill themselves anywhere. Can move across map without risking any units in them. Can reinforce drops. Has more HP than medivacs already and can recharge shields, will have more HP than overlords soon. The damage output of 4 high templar or 2immortals or 2archons or even just 4zealots in mineral lines is ridiculous. Why do they rarely get more than one? Multi drops would be even more powerful fro protoss than for terran or zerg, because you can reinforce the most successful ones with the least resistance and still get away with the bad drops against poor zerg anti-air.

Why don't Protoss use Templar?
Templar trash the staple mass units of the other races, like marine, ling, hydra, marauder, roaches. They literally erase worker lines within seconds. They instakill all casters while outranging most. They become extremely powerful units once out of energy. This one is slowly changing though.

Why don't Protoss use Carriers?
They are the highest DPS unit in the game, attack air and ground, outrange everything (14, once the interceptors are released), benefit the most from upgrades, have tremendous survivability when microed and positioned well, have mothership tech available, so they can always be saved when in trouble, can be teched to faster and arguably cheaper than colossus. Also, neural parasite is not overly useful against them, at least in larger groups, even if successfully done with all that range: they lose their interceptors quickly without doing much damage.


I use all of these all the time.

Warp Prism in both PvZ PvT.

Templars in both PvZ PvT

Carriers in PvT

Mothership in PvZ

Hallucination in every PvZ

Then again, I only play at 900 Masters so I don't know how applicable my strategies are at Pro level.
"Trash Micro but Win. Its Marin." - Min Chul
stratman
Profile Joined October 2010
Canada110 Posts
September 09 2011 17:12 GMT
#8
Do people still even go deathball? This post is like a month late. You now see tons of harass (with blink stalkers, suicide zealot warp-ins, dts). Templar are used almost every game now since infestors are so popular, and hallucination is pretty common too.

Warp prisms are just starting to become more popular, partly in preparation for the buff.
GleaM
Profile Joined June 2011
United States207 Posts
September 09 2011 17:14 GMT
#9
This is an extremely herp-derp post.

Mothership: Extremely hard to get in a lot of situations. I don't wanna spend all the gas.

Hallu: A lot of players use hallucination.

Warp Prism: Underpowered unit that is still sometimes used. See patch notes if you dont think they're underpowered.

Templar: Derp. Everyone uses templar.

Carriers: Not good against staple units like marine viking in PvT, Hydras/Corruptors PvZ, Blink Stalkers PvP. Oh get it anyways you can get collossi and storm to deal with that. Yeah no. Not enough gas.

Herr Derr bro.
MattyClutch
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States711 Posts
September 09 2011 17:15 GMT
#10
These speak more to my play and games I have watched, but....


Why don't Protoss constantly harass and put on pressure?
The (possibly perceived) lack of mobility. Other than stalkers the protoss army is fairly slow, so that is the reason for me. That said I see plenty of harass from pros.


Why don't Protoss use Mothership?

Because it is (imo) bad 99% of the time.


Why don't Protoss use Hallucination?

I use it all the time. I am not sure how often you have played around with it, but you can't use it quite as often as you suggest unless you plan to have a crazy sentry count or you are cool with going into battle without forcefields and shield. It costs a good bit of energy.


Why don't Protoss use Warp Prism?
It 'costs' robo time, it can't hold that much, and unless the PTR goes live it is extremely fragile. It also isn't a 'must make' for Protoss the way medivacs and overlords are for T and Z.

Why don't Protoss use Templar?
I use HTs and DTs quite often. Archons too. Not sure why you think Protoss don't use Templar tech. I see it regularly in matches.

Why don't Protoss use Carriers?
They take a long time to build and it can be a rather awkward tech switch. Also if you have been going Colossus tech a large amount of anti air is probably already out.
Nihn'kas Neehn
mahi29
Profile Joined May 2011
United States235 Posts
September 09 2011 17:15 GMT
#11
I'll try to respond to some of them:
1. Harass: Its viable if that tech path is in your gameplan/build. For Protoss, switching between tech trees is pretty expensive and time consuming. That said, if you go for FFE into Stargate against Z, its pretty common to see Phoenix harass and what not. But even then, its pretty easily shut down. Roving groups of Blink Stalkers are really fun to play with but it is not too hard for your opponent to keep the damage caused to a minimum. A few marauders/spines take care of it pretty well. Still I hope someone figures out a way to make harrassment for Protoss viable, because I would love to do that and I envy Terran for their ability to do drops all over the place.
3. Personally, I use Hallucination all the time...
4. I try to but Warp Prisms [until the next patch] are fragile and 4-6 zealots in a mineral line is devastating if the opponent doesn't pull his workers. If they do, you're kinda screwed. Zealots are too slow. Still, there is a lot of potential for warp prism tactics (storm drops, ff the workers from running...). I'm hoping to see some of that as the game develops.
5. We use Templar.
2. and 6. Can't speak on because I rarely if ever get a fleet beacon
The mind is its own place, and in it self Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
GleaM
Profile Joined June 2011
United States207 Posts
September 09 2011 17:15 GMT
#12
On September 10 2011 02:11 Olsson wrote:
Why dont protosses get HT's along with stalker and colossi and ultimately void rays and archons. They whine alot about infestors but HT's are equally as easy to use as infestors and just feedback the crap out of those infestors.


You don't play at a high level, because otherwise you would know that you can't just mass HT and autokill all infestors.
Bleb
Profile Joined August 2010
Croatia278 Posts
September 09 2011 17:15 GMT
#13
On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:
1)Why don't Protoss constantly harass and put on pressure?

2)Why don't Protoss use Mothership?

3)Why don't Protoss use Hallucination?

4)Why don't Protoss use Warp Prism?

5)Why don't Protoss use Templar?

6)Why don't Protoss use Carriers?
They are the highest DPS unit in the game, attack air and ground, outrange everything (14, once the interceptors are released)


first of all I should say I'm a random player (I did however play P in season 1 and start of season 2 mostly)

1)it's hard to harras as protoss... Z units can outrun you, T has con shell... yes ofcourse I do harras with DTs, Phoenix and blink stalkers but in most cases it's not safe to move your army across map just to harrass... so yes... if you survive your shield will regen but you mostly wont survive

2) Mothership is getting buffed soon... for reason... it was way to slow, toilets got nerfed, against T cloak doesn't mean much, Z can NP it... it's dmg is almost non existant

3)Halls are great for scouting and most pros use it... however using Pheonix is better than using probes (good zergs will deny them with 4 lings)

4)I do agree P should use it more often. but even other races call it paper planes : )

5) I think they use it.

6) list of units that has bigger dps than carrier (acording to liquipedia carriers has 26.7... just to put that into perspective DT has 26.6)
- immortals when attacking armored
- fully charged void rays in some cases
- thors on armored
- battlecruisers
- ultras

taken from http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Protoss_Unit_Statistics
I could be wrong : )
also, carriers are countered by marines, hydras, infestors... all much lower tier
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25551 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-09 17:18:15
September 09 2011 17:17 GMT
#14
On September 10 2011 02:15 mahi29 wrote:
I'll try to respond to some of them:
1. Harass: Its viable if that tech path is in your gameplan/build. For Protoss, switching between tech trees is pretty expensive and time consuming. That said, if you go for FFE into Stargate against Z, its pretty common to see Phoenix harass and what not. But even then, its pretty easily shut down. Roving groups of Blink Stalkers are really fun to play with but it is not too hard for your opponent to keep the damage caused to a minimum. A few marauders/spines take care of it pretty well. Still I hope someone figures out a way to make harrassment for Protoss viable, because I would love to do that and I envy Terran for their ability to do drops all over the place.


Emphasis mine. I agree a great deal with this statement. Let me refer you to a previous analysis I did on the nature of the Protoss, Terran and Zerg Tech trees and how they differ:

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=260575

On August 30 2011 09:52 Blazinghand wrote:
This blog post inspired by Silverhand's immortal work on the subject: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=260470



GENTLEMEN, I HAVE CREATED IT: THE LEGENDARY OMNITREE, TECH TREE COMPARISON FOR EVERY RACE:

(large image, technical diagram, have a good connection if you open the spoiler)




+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]



Hope that this in-depth technical diagram* that I spent much time** in photoshop*** working on**** helps.

As the diagram clearly shows, there are a lot of things to take into account when teching ie, lower techs being passed to higher techs, like pool-tech roaches getting speed in lair tech, or lair-tech corruptors getting broodlord after hive tech; similar things for terran with tech labs, and particularly factory tech which allows nukes and reaper speed; and lastly protoss which passes twilight tech down into the gateway/warpgate tech areas.

As you can see in my technical diagram, the terran tech tree is linear and chopsticklike (rax -> fact -> port), whereas the protoss tech tree is shaped like a trident (gate -> core -> robo or TC or Stargate). This gives the protoss a lot of late game tech flexibility, but not as much early game tech flexibility. 1/1/1 tries to hit during the window when the chopstick is greater than the trident.

In the later game, the Terran player will strive to use the more trident-like and less chopsticklike by using buildings and tech that tech "sideways" instead of upwards, like making a reactor on his starport, tech labs for his raxes, and ghost academy for ghosts, and armory for +2, etc.

The Zerg has a "comb" tech tree is because there's a basic tech progression (pool -> lair -> pit -> hive), but off of each step in the tech progression there are "branches" that increase your tech but don't let you move to the next level. At pool tech, this is Roach Warren and Baneling Nest. At Lair tech, this is Hydralisk Den, Spire, and Nydus Network. These all give you access to powerful units, but don't let you actually tech up to the next level.

The Terran "comb" is actually shorter than the Zerg "comb", but it's wider, which means you can reach higher levels of tech more quickly, but branching out is more difficult. Also, the Zerg "comb" passes techs from one branch to the next more easily (burrow for roaches in lair, even though roach is pool tech, or spire corruptors learning Broodlord Aspect once you have hive tech) which means that although teching takes longer, it is more backwards-compatible, so to speak.

The protoss has the least "integrated" comb, because 2 branches of the comb (stargate and robo) share very little with the so-called "integrated" TC branch, which passes the technology gained back down the trunk to Warpgate.





Hope this shed some light on the tech differences.


+ Show Spoiler +

*: scribble
**: 5 minutes
***: MS Paint
****: dicking around with
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
Eppa!
Profile Joined November 2010
Sweden4641 Posts
September 09 2011 17:21 GMT
#15
Hallu is great but not really needed unless you go nonSG PvZ and TvP it is really costly as you never have more than 5 sentries.

"Can't wait till Monday" Cixah+Waveofshadow. "Needs to be monday. Weekend please go by quickly." Gahlo
Ovreel
Profile Joined January 2011
United States206 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-09 17:33:57
September 09 2011 17:22 GMT
#16
On September 10 2011 01:58 imbecile wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I just have the impression Protoss players as a group are incredibly hostile to experimenting and innovation. There are almost no differences in the styles between different Protoss players with few exceptions like White-Ra and Kiwikaki. But those two are pretty isolated and don't care much about what other Protoss are doing, which is actually helping them.

I remember a SotG where one guy suggested making more than one observer and was trashed by the other protoss on the show for even suggesting that. This is the mindset you usually find with Protoss, and it is now starting to hurt them, after more than year of only needing 4gate, 6gate and death balls without scouting to do very well.

So here a list of things I'm wondering, some of them since the game came out, some of them only since recently, and most of them have been raised by others as well. So ...

Why don't Protoss constantly harass and put on pressure?
Protoss have shield. All their units (and buildings) heal quickly for free without having to do anything. If they hit and run a lot they have most cost effective and most hit points in the game to spend. But in reality Protoss is the race that sits home in the base the most with the units. They even have a unit that is specifically designed to do this in the Stalker and DT and Phoenix, and abilities like blink and force field and later even recall specifically designed to get away unharmed to recharge. They have the best scouting options in observers and hallcinations to figure out where to strike safely. They have the fastest and most flexible deployment of all the races. They have the fastest most flexible air transport (soon to be toughest, although already tougher than medivac) of all the races which is dirt cheap and the highest DPS units to put into them. They can even transport without having to risk having any units in the transport. They have force fields to ensure to be completely undisturbed do the harass and uncounterable while harassing. Yet they somehow can't figure out how to harass and put on pressure.

Why don't Protoss use Mothership?
It's the ultimate end game unit. Yet you can get it out faster and cheaper than all the other end game tech for the other races. And motherships destroy any kind of death ball army with vortex while also increasing mobility and harass with recall and bolstering your base defense tremendously by making all buildings and units invisible.

Why don't Protoss use Hallucination?
No better scouting tool. With hallucinated phoenix or probes (4 at once!) there should be no way any opponent, and especially zergs who can't put up base defenses before the hatch finishes should ever get up an expansion easily. Especially with warp in wherever you want. No tech switch should ever surprise you, no attack should ever be in an unfavorable position.

Why don't Protoss use Warp Prism?
It's dirt cheap, can escape everything against terran and everything but mutas against zerg when upgraded. Can refill themselves anywhere. Can move across map without risking any units in them. Can reinforce drops. Has more HP than medivacs already and can recharge shields, will have more HP than overlords soon. The damage output of 4 high templar or 2immortals or 2archons or even just 4zealots in mineral lines is ridiculous. Why do they rarely get more than one? Multi drops would be even more powerful fro protoss than for terran or zerg, because you can reinforce the most successful ones with the least resistance and still get away with the bad drops against poor zerg anti-air.

Why don't Protoss use Templar?
Templar trash the staple mass units of the other races, like marine, ling, hydra, marauder, roaches. They literally erase worker lines within seconds. They instakill all casters while outranging most. They become extremely powerful units once out of energy. This one is slowly changing though.

Why don't Protoss use Carriers?
They are the highest DPS unit in the game, attack air and ground, outrange everything (14, once the interceptors are released), benefit the most from upgrades, have tremendous survivability when microed and positioned well, have mothership tech available, so they can always be saved when in trouble, can be teched to faster and arguably cheaper than colossus. Also, neural parasite is not overly useful against them, at least in larger groups, even if successfully done with all that range: they lose their interceptors quickly without doing much damage.



Why don't Protoss constantly harass and put on pressure?

Protoss doesn't really have the greatest unit options when it comes to harassment, you mention phoenix, stalker, and DT. Phoenix require energy to actually harass, and while using that energy, that particular phoenix is not doing DPS, plus they are quite expensive and somewhat difficult to transition out of. Stalkers are used for harass, sometimes, however they are expensive compared to their counterparts (marines, marauders, roaches, lings) and have mediocre DPS. Stalkers don't get particularly effective until they are in large numbers. DTs can be great, but they are a gimmicky unit that is shut down by 1 detector at each base, and it is typically not hard to scout DT tech, considering how long it takes to get to, and how expensive it is (250 gas just for the building, and 125 gas for each DT), usually if a protoss is going for DTs in the early game, there are some huge windows of vulnerability, and if the DT harass does not work, the protoss is significantly behind.

The problem with dropping 4 zealots, or 2 archons, or 2 immortals in mineral lines is that those drops are either very expensive or not too effective if the opponent has a decent reaction time. For example, zealots are melee, and not as fast as lings, even with charge, so if an opponent has a decent reaction time and pulls workers, that drop isn't going to do much damage. Dropping archons or immortals is a big gas and/or mineral investment, it's pretty devastating if you lose those drops.

Why don't Protoss use Mothership?

We can get it cheaper and faster than any other end game unit? It requires a 150/150 stargate, 300/200 fleet beacon, and then the mothership itself costs 400/400 while taking 3 in-game minutes to build. That's not cheap or fast. Perhaps with the speed and neural change, we will see more motherships in pvz, however in pvt, the viking typically will take out a mothership fast enough. The best use I've seen of a mothership is from Kiwikaki when he snipes bases with blink stalkers and recalls the army.

Why don't Protoss use Hallucination?

I hope to see some more use of Hallucination in the future, but I think what may be holding protoss back is that it takes away from forcefield energy, and if the opponent has detection, hallucinated battle units are useless.

Why don't Protoss use Warp Prism?

While it does have more HP than medivacs currently, they somehow die much faster than medivacs, so they are a big liability, currently. You see some pros (HuK, MC, Jyp) carry around HTs in WPs to shield them from EMP, but if that WP gets sniped, it can be GG because of the 400/600 in that paper airplane. I assume we'll see more warp prisms with the next patch, though.

Why don't Protoss use Templar?

Not sure what games you're watching/playing, but templar are used almost every game.

Why don't Protoss use Carriers?

Carriers are extremely difficult to get out and then produce in good numbers, they cost 350/250 + 100 more minerals for the 4 interceptors, and take 2 in-game minutes to build. The big problem with them is vikings/corruptors, who absolutely demolish them if microed properly, plus marines which melt interceptors, rendering the carrier useless. They are not faster or cheaper than teching to colossi, either.


Edit: accidentally clicked submit.
Keo.837 Twitch.tv/Ovreel
lilodot
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States32 Posts
September 09 2011 17:24 GMT
#17
Mothership itself is pretty great but the situations it can really be useful are limited. Vortex is only useful when you are fighting an opponent at their front door so he has to make a choice of fighting with whatever army is left out or lose infrastructure. Anywhere else and at best it gives you a 20 second window of retreat, at which point your mothership is dead anyways because of it's movespeed.
Recall is super badass but unless you are willing to risk the massive amount of resources to fly your mama into his base solo, it's basically just an insanely expensive town portal for when you're losing a fight.

Carriers are way too easily countered by anything terran can make and fungal growth. Not to mention the 120 second build time makes it pretty worthless if you're trying to pull off some sort of tech switch.
Also their high DPS is hard countered by armor upgrades so you'll most likely be at disadvantage as soon as they come out unless you were getting air attack upgrades as soon as WG finished.

Hallucination is really good. Protoss need to use it more. But not as easy as it sounds because of it's high energy cost and the power of FF + GS cannot be understated.

Warp Prism does need to be used more. Again not that easy because of it's fragility. Very underused at the moment.

Protoss do use Templar, what rock have you been living under?
Intelligence is the new minority
imbecile
Profile Joined October 2009
563 Posts
September 09 2011 17:25 GMT
#18
On September 10 2011 02:08 Halcyondaze wrote:
...So while these innovations are great, if you do not allocate the perfect amount of resources into your army (Or do enough damage with the harass to warrant a huge deficit to your army). Then you are walking a very thin line where you could very well be rolled over because your army is not strong enough. ...

Don't know how harass is making the death ball weaker, since Protoss does harass with the same units they use in their army. It's not like for zerg where Mutalisks are practically useless in straight up fights (or reapers or hellions against protoss), or that throw away their banelings and lings to harass. As I said above, Protoss harass if doen properly should be the most coste efficient and effective of all the races if done properly. They just don't do it.

On September 10 2011 02:08 Halcyondaze wrote:
Carriers have the exact same problem as Ultralisks for zerg, but it is even worse because Protoss' are not committing to air mid game like Zergs are committed to melee units. So it is even harder for them to achieve the maximum potential.

The problem ultralisks have is their pathing, and that you never can get to attack with them properly if the opponent micros a little. That's defintiely not the problem carriers have.

On September 10 2011 02:08 Halcyondaze wrote:
Mothership: You would be very surprised how easily this unit can make you look like a complete moron for creating it.

Also true for mutas, banelings, ultralsiks, hydras, yet they still get used much more while costing more and arguably have less utility.

On September 10 2011 02:08 Halcyondaze wrote:
This all sounds good in theorycraft, but when you are playing and devoting quite a lot of resources to harass as Protoss, you will find counterattacks almost unstoppable.


Protoss have cannons, the best defenses of them all, and force fields and warp in and recall late game. They are the most counter proof of the races if they used all this properly

When I still played random, it was ridiculous how hard motherships on top of a few cannons and units crush the biggest counters, either with recall or vortex or even both. Fungal doesn't even make the invisible buildings visible, so they still wall and and can't be attacked. As long as you pick off the overseers, you crush.
MattyClutch
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States711 Posts
September 09 2011 17:29 GMT
#19
On September 10 2011 02:25 imbecile wrote:

The problem ultralisks have is their pathing, and that you never can get to attack with them properly if the opponent micros a little. That's defintiely not the problem carriers have.



It is correct that Carriers do not have pathing issues. But that isn't what he was comparing, see my above post.
Nihn'kas Neehn
Necro)Phagist(
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada6644 Posts
September 09 2011 17:30 GMT
#20
On September 10 2011 02:11 Olsson wrote:
Why dont protosses get HT's along with stalker and colossi and ultimately void rays and archons. They whine alot about infestors but HT's are equally as easy to use as infestors and just feedback the crap out of those infestors.

To get all those tech paths and the heavy gas units is just too much... you would need 4+ to realistically get that and how do you expect to survive long enough to get all of that out? HT stalker and collossi is some what possible but because of the completely different tech rotue of the two main units its very difficult to safely get there. Mixing in a stargate after for void rays just won't work. Now Zealot Archon Void ray might be a possibility and could be effective, worth a shot. but your orginal question basically asks why don't protoss literally get every high tech unit in their arsenal which is insanity unless in a 50 minute long 6 base vs 6 base game...
"Are you talking to me? Because your authority is not recognized in fort kick ass!"" ||Park Jung Suk|| |MC|HerO|HyuN|
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