StarCraft II HotS Protoss Defensive Tip

StarCraft II HotS Protoss Defensive Tip by EoDEO

My fellow protoss players,

in short – build a LOT of cannons.

I’m diamond/master EU protoss and as an avid sc1 player I brought some of the archaic ideas into sc2 that prevented me from adjusting to the new game. I have played sc1 for a long time and over the years I learned it was imperative not to allow your opponent to gain economic or tech advantage regardless of the race or play style.

Carrying over that knowledge I was desperate as a Protoss player in sc2. There was no way to punish Zerg for quick expanding, and there is nothing a Protoss player can do vs Terran bio ball short of blocking or splitting their army on their way to attack us! Game of sc2 appeared beyond broken. I tried many many many things and builds and they all fell flat. Roach/ling and mm a-move is vastly superior to gateway army and it became clear to me that to be competitive, Protoss has to have much much higher micro and APM. While I did know that strength of Protoss lies in the late game, I never quite made it alive past 20mins most of the time. As you probably know, one missed or late forcefield along those many minutes and a-moving anything simply walks over us.

So I stopped playing 1v1 altogether. I was waiting on HotS to fix everything or switch race, as I really do enjoy playing sc- even if only team games for now. The more I watched HotS develop and dev team speak about their ideas and wishes the more I understood that Protoss was never designed to be anything more than simcity buildup each game. Blizzard’s goal for Toss became clear- it was: dont move out. stay put and defend. dont let others get in. build up that death ball and a-move out once at 200/200. For the first time I understood why some say that protoss is an a-move race.

So here are my tips on how to survive early and mid game and hopefully win:

• 1. DO NOT ATTACK unless you’re certain you have the upper hand – noob enemy or you have 200/200.
• 2. Build cannons! Aim for at least 5 per expansion, but you can stop at 10. Why? Because 3 and 4:
• 3. Expect a-move roach or bio ball. They will attack you to try and prevent you from getting to 200/200.
• 4. By design, even 50% cheaper T/Z army will decimate you in a fair fight early on with no forcefields. So dont forget to get sentries and use forcefields to help your cannons. That leads me to:
• 5. T/Z will attack you regardless of your defenses so it pays to be well defended.
• 6. If you get a decisive victory while defending with your cannons go back to 1.

So there you have it: build cannons! They will save you vs early/mid attacks from T/Z. Get 3 bases ASAP and build rude amount of canons to defend them. Canons are far better at defending you than any low tech unit and they dont cost precious gas. You cannot attack anyway before 200/200 as low tech compositions are bad, so there is no reason not to get cannons. They will give you a fair chance to survive long enough to get the 200/200 death ball and an a-move army of your own.

Good fun and have luck!