Protoss is a good race to learn with. Their units are very powerful, so you could have less units then a Zerg player has, and you could still win. Protoss have shields. The sheilds regenerate over time just like the zerg carapace does. The sheilds protect the Protoss’s body, if the shield gets destroyed all the way, then the body will take the hits. The body cannot regenerate itself, only the shield.

The key to protoss’s sucess in winning battles is power, whice means upgrading is good, and what units you use. In a later class I will explain about different counters for specific units. Protoss is somewhat tactical too, it’s really an in between race, half terran, half zerg. Terran tactical & Zerg mass. To be goodat Protoss you need to be fast and have good ideas on how to attack somebody. You need to be able to know what you are up against. They have the best spying unit: the observer. Use everything to your advantage. This should cover the basics on what u need to know about Protoss.

Protoss Buildings

The Protoss are right in between. While they cannot build anywhere on the map as the terrans, it’s much easier to enable them to than the zerg. All it costs you is 100 minerals and a little time for a pylon, and you can then proceed to build gateways, cannons, or shield batteries. The protoss aren’t as good as terrans regarding pen-ins, but for some reason you see it happen more often. Watch our for the early protoss cannon rush.

Now Protoss workers, probes, can make as many buildings as you have money and space for. They open a warp gate, then the buildings warp in by themselves. Thus have the probe only to take up 2 seconds of time to make a building, so they have the ability to make many buildings in very little time. But sort of like the Zerg, they are limited where they can build. In order to warp in a building, there must be a pylon around. A pylon gives the buildings energy to work. If there is no pylon around, you can build a building (Nexus is the only exception). If you have a gateway built in the pylons energy field, and the pylon is destroyed, the gateway will be unpowered until you replace the lost pylon.The Protoss have the most building selection to choose from. There are many advanced buildings that all have their part in making differant units.

Protoss Units:

Probe The probe is unique because it can build multiple buildings at once, making it great for expansions Probes are the weakest of the 3 workers because of their shields. Shields aren’t as good as hit points Make sure you protect your probes — remember, you can never have too many.

Zealot Zealots are the strongest of the 3 primary units (Zealot, Marine, Zergling). 1 Zealot can take on 3 Zerglings, 3 Marines, or even 3 Hydralisks. Zealots are strong units throughout the game, especially at the beginning, and Protoss players should use this to their advantage

Dragoon Believe it or not, 1 Zealot can kill 1 Dragoon. But Dragoons are definitely useful because of their range attack and their ability to hit air units. Dragoons are probably the most useful general Protoss unit, because they are very versatile.

High Templar My favorite unit, the High Templar is a must have. I recommend at least 6 Templar guarding your base at all times, with a couple at expansions too. Contrary to what you may think, Templar are also useful for offense. Be careful with these, however, because a misplaced psi storm can hurt your units as well. It takes a player good at micromanagement to master the Templar.

Shuttle Perhaps the best transportation unit of the 3 races (with speed upgrade), the shuttle is essential on island maps. Shuttles are very useful for Reaver drops, expanding, and other things. Make sure you get the speed upgrade if you use them a lot (at Robotics Support Bay).

Reaver The Protoss seige unit. This unit is great for doing drops w/ shuttles. Reavers must be armed with Scarabs before they can fire, Scarabs cost 15 minerals. But this cost is neglegent compared to the damage a single Reaver can do. They are especially deadly against packs of weak Zerg units. Be careful with Reavers in team games, because they can damage ally’s units (but not yours).

Observer The ultimate detection unit, Observers pass unseen. These are great for scouting and watching for expansions — but go easy on them because they’re hard on gas. Observers are a must-have when playing against the cloaking technology of terran, but they’re always useful for spying on enemy bases.

Scout While they may be the strongest Protoss unit, Scouts just don’t cut it. They’re excellent vs air, doing more damage than even the mighty Battle Cruiser, but when it comes to ground attack, a Hydralisk beats a scout! Scouts don’t seem to me the best unit to go with, because they’re only useful if you’re opponent goes air.

Carrier Carriers seem to be very popular among newbies, but in reality they aren’t that good. If you’re playing against an inexperienced player, then Carriers will do fine, but against experts who know how to deal with them (like me), Carriers just aren’t going to work. Carriers are perhaps the “last resort” — I rarely, if ever, use them. They’re just too weak.

Arbiter An excellent defensive and offensive unit, Arbiters are great — except they are very expensive. They’re also the longest-building unit in the game (for reals!). Arbiters have some of the best spells available to any race. In addition to their spells, Arbiters are great because they cloak everything around them. However, this makes them the only target available for enemy forces to shoot at, so they tend to die quickly.

Archon Archons are the product of morphing 2 Templar. They are very strong, and have splash damage. Archons are vulnerable to EMP Shockwave because they have 300 shields and only 10 hit points. Try to use shield batteries to recharge them. Archons are good because when your Templar run out of energy, you simply morph 2 of them into an Archon and you have another offensive melee unit.

Expand

Protoss have it the easiest when it comes to expanding. . .all it requires is a single probe. Because 1 probe can constuct multiple buildings at once, all you need to do is send a single probe to an expansion where you quickly throw up a pylon and a couple of cannons/gateways for defense. The single probe can execute this faster than multiple of the other races workers.

You also have to watch out for this when playing against Protoss. If you see a probe, you better kill it because in a small amount of time 1 probe can establish it’s presence with cannons and gateways (very quickly). If you see a probe going to expand, don’t wait for it to get set up, kill it ASAP — the probe will be vulnerable to something like 1 zealot, but if you wait too long, your entire army won’t be able to take out the defense set up by the probe.

When expanding, I recommend putting 2-4 gateways at your expansion with a cannon or 2 to back them up. You can exchange cannons for Shield Batteries if you wish. You can also be building a nexus — so when you go to expand, make sure you have plenty of minerals, I think that 1200 is a good number — just so that you can throw up some quick defense.

Of course, another strategy is to not guard your expansions at all, or at least minimally. I’ve noticed that if you keep your opponent busy, they won’t have time to even think about looking for expansions, let alone find them. So when you go to expand, try to create a diversion that will keep your opponent busy while you set up defenses, and if you can keep making diversions, then you won’t have to worry about protecting your expansion at all.

The Protoss should be able to expand easily, since only one probe is needed to create a good defense. However, when to expand is another thing. I usually always expand when I attack someone, making the most of the attack. This always a good idea. Now on what expansions should a Protoss player take depends on what they want. Sometimes a plain mineral only site is good if you want masses of zealots, especially against the Zerg. This will buy enough time to get a gas expansion up, with photon cannons easily, especially if you are producing templars as well. This strategey can be done on River Styx where usually the Zerg player will want to hit the island expansion, just to find that there is none. It also helps, since you won’t feel so boxed in on that map.

Grabbing any island expansions should be done with the Protoss, since the photon cannons can attack both air and land, making a good defense for islands. This is especially true when you have shuttles, which can be built faster than mutalisks and wraiths, except an early command center which can be built faster. Now whenever you have a shuttle, go take a probe right away and expand to an island. Usually you leave the shuttle lying around because you are waiting for that reaver to pop out. Now you can perform this on any island map, Lost Temple, Winter Conquest, Showdown, Plains of Snow, etc.

The Protoss can work off fewer bases, than the other races, only because the templar can take out a huge amount of units at once. This is the key, for requiring less bases. Also a reavers do a hell of job on wiping out ground units. So the point is, that you shouldn’t need as much money, since most of there troops will die, considering your units will take a bit of controlling and positioning.

Gas is very important to a Protoss player. It’s how they can get so many templars, making it impossible for the enemy to attack, once you have photon cannons and templars.Yet a mineral-only site gives you more cannons, zealots, and dragoons as well, so try to experiment which works best. Protoss bases can defend for themselves, especially once you build a gateway or two for each of them. This should always be done, to cut down on the transportation of units. Besides photon cannons have there limits, meaing that you still need zealots, dragoons, templars, and scouts to hold off certain units.

Once you get observers, and a good amount of them, you should be able to raid any new expansion with a group of upgraded zealots and dragoons.