PC - Starcraft 2

By: Furious Paul - October 31, 2013

Starcraft 2 Protoss Units Strategy Guide

Protoss General Protoss Tips:
You should generally always build your first pylon and gateway at your choke point. Build your second pylon, and maybe even a few more buildings at your choke point. You don't want to block it off completely, you need to leave a space for your units to walk out of your base. But you should get it enclosed enough so the enemy cannot just barge right on in to your base. You can have stalkers and sentries behind the buildings to prevent zergling/zealot rushes. Use the sentry's Force Field ability to close off the gap completely if the enemy is trying to get into your base, then have your stalkers placed so they can fire and hit the enemy trying to get in.

How to fast expand as Protoss safely:

A good fast expansion strategy I have with protoss involves building a pylon first at the choke point of your expansion, then a forge, then a pylon, then 2 cannon towers, followed by a nexus at your expansion site. Then you build your first gateway, followed by a few more cannon towers.

This works well if you are facing a zerg or protoss, but if the enemy is terran, you have to watch out for reapers. Best way to be prepared for that is to build your second pylon at your main base next to your nexus, and then proceed to build 2 cannon towers to protect your main base from the reapers.

Be sure to put the cannon towers behind structures so zealots or zerglings will have a harder time taking them down.

Chrono Boost - This is an ability available on each nexus, when used on a protoss building, it will operate 50% faster for 20 seconds. During the start of the game you can use it to speed up your probe production, fighting unit production, or upgrade productions later on. I usually tend to use about 2 chrono boosts every game just for probe production, and then the rest on fighting unit production, or upgrade production.

TIP: Keep using the chrono boost ability all through out the game, try to never let your nexus(es) reach full 100 energy points. Keep using the energy up and you will simply get things quicker.

TIP: What I like to do is have all my nexuses set to one control group hotkey and then when you want to use chrono boosts, you can simply press that hotkey and then chrono boost what ever you like.

Warp gates - You can transform a gateway into a warp gate (you need to research the Warp Gate ability on your Cybernetics Core first), this will allow you to warp-in ground units to any location powered by a Pylon or Warp Prism. I personally think these are a little overrated. I generally only get this researched if I have expansions far off from my gateways, or if I plan on doing a strategic attack involving pylons or a Warp Prism near the enemy's base. It is a cheap upgrade, so it won't hurt much to get it if you like using it all the time.

TIP: Build a pylon near the enemy's base where they will probably never look, that way you can just build your units right near the enemy's base if your attacking them to get them in battle much quicker. This helps to keep the pressure on more efficiently if you are trying to rush them.

NOTE: It is actually easier to macro using just Gateways, as you do less work getting the units out of your Gateway than Warpgates. Gateways allow querying of units, but Warp Gates do not. Plus you have to pinpoint on the map where to place the units with warpgates, with gateways they just go by rally points. A lot of people compensate by building a lot of warp gates so you don't miss up on unit production.

NOTE: Warping in units on an enemy's pylons will NOT work, just to let you know.

The Protoss have several opening build order options, they can do a quick zealot rush, stalker rush, dark templar rush, they can tech up quick to void rays, tech up quick to carriers. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of these build orders..

Zealot

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg	Brood Lord, Mutalisk, Ultralisk	Baneling, Roach	Hydralisk, Infestor, Queen, Zergling
protoss	Carrier, Mothership, Void Ray	Archon, Colossus, Dark Templar	Sentry, Stalker	High Templar, Immortal
terran	Battlecruiser, Banshee	Hellion, Reaper	Ghost, Marauder, Siege Tank, Viking	Marine, Thor

Zealot rushing generally involves building just two gateways at the beginning and cranking out probes, pylons, and zealots non-stop, while continuously harassing your opponent with a flow of zealots. Gas mining and a Cybernetics Core will be postponed for the time being. This strategy is very powerful against your average player and is a very quick way to rack up a LOT of wins quickly. You will start to discover however once you start climbing the ladders, this strategy becomes less and less effective. The zealot rush can be easily countered and most starcraft pros skip massing zealots and instead use stalkers more instead at the beginning. But most noobs and even the below-average player will be easily defeated by a zealot rush. So I recommend using this strategy if you know you are playing someone who is more new to this game. The zealot rush becomes more effective in 2v2 and 3v3 battles when teamed up right. I would generally not do a zealot rush in a FFA unless you are playing all protoss players, I explain why below:

Vs another Protoss - This is really the best case a zealot rush is best for. The only time I would consider using the zealot rush vs a decent protoss player is if it's protoss vs protoss. And through out my experience you can win a lot of games using the zealot rush vs another protoss player. The way you would counter a zealot rush from another protoss, is if you can simply crank out zealots faster than your opponent and keep them alive longer through better micro. However the best overall most efficient way for a protoss to stop a zealot rush would be to build your buildings tight at your choke point and have your sentries block the zealots from coming in by using the Force Field ability, while having the stalkers "pick" at them from range. This will force the zealot rusher to change strategies.

Vs Zerg - This can be somewhat effective, if you are going to zealot rush the zerg you need to attack early on, like when you only have a few zealots, keep the pressure on and you may win. If they get roaches out soon then your zealot rush will surely fail. If they keep building zerglings then your zealot rush is in your favor. But yeah zerg roaches is the best way early on to counter a zealot rush. In this case the protoss must change strategies and focus on more stalkers relative to zealots, and tech up to Immortals, while also having a few sentries for the Guardian Shield ability to help reduce the ranged damage the roaches are putting out. Watch out though if you build to many stalkers, the zerg may switch back to zerglings which will put your stalkers down QUICK. So you need to have an understanding of what the zerg has to properly counter it.

Vs Terran - This is the hardest one to pull off. Basically if your opponent is a noob, you may win, even then you still might fail. The terran is the hardest to zealot rush do to the fact they can totally block off their choke point, have marines and marauders behind the choke point firing away at the poor zealots, and they can even have reapers hitting-and-running constantly at the zealots. And to make matters worse, they have Hellions which are designed to take out units like zealots quick. So I never recommend zealot rushing the Terran, unless you know for sure the player simply sucks or if you are playing on a map that does not have choke points. In this case if you see the loading screen and you see you are playing terran players, don't even bother building zealots, instead skip right into a stalker build order.

TIP: If you are trying to zealot rush the terran, and the terran has his choke point blocked, you can try and kill a supply depot to break through and get your zealots into their base. You need to do it quick before they send in SCVs to repair it, or have too many units firing at you. Or if you are playing on a 1v1 map that has a lot of space inside your opponents base you can attempt a proxy rush...

PROXY RUSH - Advanced Zealot Rush

There are different variations of zealot rushes you can pull off, you can try warp gates to warp in units right in at your opponents' base, but that takes a lot of time since you would need a cybernetics core along with gas mining. If you want THE fastest zealot rush, you will need to do a proxy rush. To do a proxy rush, go directly to your opponents' base at the start and build a pylon and 2 gateways deep inside your opponents base (or right outside of your opponents base) and crank out zealots and send them in to attack non-stop. This is considered a Proxy Rush. Proxy rushing is also effective in 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 games, however I would not bother using a proxy rush in a FFA game.

A proxy rush is also considered an All-In strategy, in which if it fails, you will be in a situation that you will most likely lose. Most pros can easily stop a proxy rush, so once you hit the pro league, or even most players in the platinum league I would not do this strategy any more. But it can get you to the platinum league VERY quickly.

Stalker

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg	Zergling		Baneling, Brood Lord, Hydralisk, Infestor, Mutalisk, Overseer, Queen, Roach, Ultralisk	Corruptor
protoss	Immortal	Dark Templar, Zealot	Archon, Carrier, Colossus, High Templar, Mothership, Phoenix, Sentry	Void Ray
terran		Marauder, Marine, Siege Tank	Battlecruiser, Ghost, Raven, Thor	Banshee, Hellion, Reaper, Viking

Stalker rushing generally involves getting stalkers ASAP while virtually skipping zealots altogether. You need to start mining gas very soon, and build one gateway, and as soon as that one gateway is done, quickly build your Cybernetics Core, followed by another gas mine and another gateway, then when your Cybernetics Core is done start cranking out stalkers, and use the chrono boost ability (on your nexus) to get them out quicker. You should then proceed to build a Twilight Council so you can research Blink ASAP, and use the chrono boost ability to speed up its researching.

The stalker is the best harassing unit the protoss has early on. Stalkers are a great hit-and-run unit, especially combined with the Blink ability, you can easily blink up onto cliffs (bypassing the enemy's chokepoint) and kill worker units, then blink back down off the cliff. Keep hitting-and-running, harassing the enemy non-stop and the game will surely be in your favor. Stalkers are much faster than zealots, so going back to your base to defend it is much easier with stalkers. You need to be careful though stalkers are fragile, last thing you want is to be overrun by fast moving ground melee units, such as upgraded zealots with the Charge ability, or Zerglings with the enhanced Movement speed ability, or terrans with mass marauders/marines. In those cases, your army should be comprised more of zealots with a few stalkers in there to counter that.

Vs another Protoss - If you are going to rush a protoss player with stalkers be careful they may try to zealot rush you, which is a good counter for it. You can always try to hit-and-run from the zealots, but don't let them get to your worker units. Like I said before, the best way to stop a zealot rush with stalkers is to build your buildings tight at your choke point and have your sentries block the zealots from coming in by using the Force Field ability, while having your stalkers "pick" at them from range. This will force the zealot rusher to change strategies. By doing this the game will be more in your favor. If it is a stalker vs stalker rush, then it comes down to who has the better micro skills to blink around and kill worker units or pick off stray stalkers, and putting your weaker stalkers in the back to save them from dying. Best way to counter stalkers as protoss would be to build immortals and upgraded movement speed for zealots to take them out.

Vs Zerg - From my experience I generally get a few zealots first before moving to mass stalkers when going up against the zerg, reason being is because zerglings will give the stalkers a good beating. Scouting the zerg early is very important, you have to understand what they plan on doing to counter them early on. If you see a Roach Warren being built, then go stalker/immortal route. Immortals are the best ground counter against roaches, way better than stalkers. And use a few sentries for the Guardian Shield ability to help reduce the ranged damage the roaches are putting out. If you see no Roach Warren, you may just want to stick with zealots for now.

Vs Terran - You should generally always use the stalker rush against the terran at the beginning of the game. It is the most effective way to counter them early on. You can blink past their blocked off choke point and pick off worker units, or kill supply depots then blink away. You will also be prepared for any reapers or hellions they will throw at you. If they have siege tanks, blink right up to them and they wont be able to hit you then. But in mid-game and later on, you will want to get more zealots in your army (with the Charge ability), and save your gas for other units such as High Templar or Colossi. The zealots will help pick off the marines/marauders/tanks quickly. And the charge ability is best researched for the terrans the most in my opinion, just about all terran units are ranged fighters, so having the zealots quickly charging into battle is very important against the terran. I have also found having high templar using psi storm to storm terran armies is the most effective than against any other race. So keep that in mind. And use a few sentries for the Guardian Shield ability to help reduce all the ranged damage the terran is throwing at you.

Keep an eye out for what the terrans are building though, if you see they have multiple starports, then keep building stalkers as they may get an army of banchees, vikings or even worse battlecruisers.

If you see they have Banshees, stalkers with blink are good against them, but a better approach would be to build Phoenixes to take out the banshees.

Void Ray Rush

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg		Corruptor, Hydralisk	Mutalisk, Queen	Brood Lord, Baneling, Infestor, Overlord, Overseer, Roach, Ultralisk, Zergling
protoss		Stalker, Archon, Phoenix	Carrier, Sentry	Colossus, Dark Templar, High Templar, Immortal, Mothership, Zealot
terran		Marine, Viking	Battlecruiser, Ghost	Banshee, Hellion, Marauder, Reaper, Siege Tank, Thor

This strategy isn't used as often as going stalkers, but can be very effective if done right. There are several variations of this strategy. You could start out massing zealots, then build 1-2 starports to build void rays. With the acceleration upgrade voidrays make excellent hit-and-run scouting units. You can really piss off your opponent with void rays by constantly harassing them, killing off buildings or workers one by one. They will then be forced to build towers to defend it or keep anti-air units around to stop it.

Another build order involving void rays is to tech to them quick, while having a decent defense for your base (to stop your opponent from rushing you). You can accomplish this by starting off with a stalker build, then build 2 starports once your Cybernetics Core is done. Get a few photon cannons and units for base defense to stop rushes. You can then have a large void ray army out quick, and if you're lucky they will focus on more units that are not anti-air, thus making winning the game very easy for you. You can eventually start building zealots with the left over minerals you have, or stalkers if they are going air units too.

Vs another protoss - With this strategy, you will definitely need a good backup plan, because if they go stalkers your voidrays will crumble to them quickly. A good strategy you can do is to start off with a zealot rush, and then tech up to void rays. Stick with zealots and voidrays throughout the game and get them upgraded good. Use the void rays to harass constantly. This strategy is not bad at all, give it a try.

Vs Zerg - Same thing applies to what I said about protoss applies here too. You may want to start off with a short zealot rush, and then tech to void rays. This is an effective strategy as well. You can use your void rays to pick off overlords through out the map, this will surely put the zerg player in panic. Just watch out for hydras. Get your zealots upgraded for the charge ability and kill off the hydras with your zealots backed up by your voidrays. If you see them going roaches or mutas, switch to stalkers.

Vs Terran - This can be effective as well. The only thing you will have to watch out for is if the terran is going mass vikings, in which case I would switch to immortals/stalkers to counter them, while using just a few void rays to harass/scout. Use a combination of upgraded zealots and stalkers to kill off the rest of their army. During battles, have your voidrays focus fire on their Medivacs (if the medivacs have plenty of energy).

Dark Templar Rush

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg	Overseer, Brood Lord, Mutalisk	Baneling, Hydralisk	Queen, Roach, Ultralisk	Zergling
protoss	Observer, Carrier, Mothership, Void Ray	Phoenix	Archon, Colossus, Sentry, Stalker, Zealot, Immortal	High Templar
terran	Banshee, Battlecruiser	Hellion	Ghost, Marine, Reaper, Siege Tank, Viking	Marauder, Thor

Not many people use this strategy, and to be honest I hardly ever use it. I have practiced this a lot, and came to the conclusion its not good to use on a regular basis. For one, it takes a LONG time to tech up and get to dark templar, you could've used all that time to crank out zealots/stalkers and do more damage in the long run. Sometimes you will get lucky and caught them off guard, they may have no detectors around, and they are screwed. Dark Templar do a TON of melee damage. When a zealot and a dark templar go 1 on 1, the dark templar will kill the zealot off real quick. But due to the extra cost, expenses, and time of getting dark templar, it is not as efficient as building something else.

TIP: Try to find a hidden spot on the map where your opponent would never look to build your Dark Shrine, somewhere not even in your main base, so you catch them off guard with a few dark templar, they may not even think about detectors and you will have the game at your advantage.

Vs Protoss - Really the only time I would consider doing a Dark Templar Rush is vs Protoss. You can block off your choke point and keep the protoss from rushing you at the beginning, and quickly get dark templar out to take care of the rest. To counter dark templar as protoss, you must get observers out ASAP. If you do not have a Robotics Facility and see you are stuck in a situation with dark templar attacking you, then try building a Robotics Facility somewhere off your base where your enemy cannot find it and kill it or it's game over for you. Use the chrono boost ability to speed up the observers production. In the meantime try to build photon cannons (need a forge first.), and protect the photon cannons with everything you got. Protoss have the hardest time beating the dark templar rush if they are not prepared for them.

A variation of this strategy involves starting out with a zealot rush, and then once you start mining gas, focus on nothing but dark templar/zealots. The opposing protoss player won't even know what hit em. And it's gg for you. This is actually a very good strategy against another protoss player. Just remember to be clever and hide your dark shrine so your opponent will not scout it out.

If you see they have a Robotics Facility, or if you are sure they have an observer out, then you can build a Robotics Facility for the purpose of getting a couple of observers yourself, plus get some stalkers, then use your observer to detect your opponent's observer and take it out with your stalkers(s).

Vs Terran - This one is the hardest to pull off, the terran can quickly use the scanner sweeper (at the command center) and your dark templar will be revealed. Terran can also build missile turrets or even Ravens for extra detection. I would never dark templar rush a terran.

Vs Zerg - This one is also hard to pull off as well, the zerg can quickly turn overlords into detectors (if they have a Lair), and most zerg units will make quick haste of dark templars. It might be worth trying if they just keep building zerglings or roaches (without a lair), but if they got a lair you will be in trouble. You can try to sneak in the zerg's base and kill the lair quickly, they will not be able to build overseers to detect you. You might be better off turning dark templar into archons vs zerg, since they do extra damage to biological units, and all zerg units are biological units. You might need to do this if they got a lot of mutas.

Sentry

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg	Brood Lord	Baneling, Ultralisk, Zergling	Hydralisk, Mutalisk, Queen, Roach
protoss		Archon, Colossus, Dark Templar, High Templar, Mothership, Phoenix, Void Ray, Zealot	Carrier, Immortal, Stalker
terran	Battlecruiser	Banshee, Ghost, Hellion, Reaper, Siege Tank, Thor	Marauder, Marine, Viking

The Sentry is a great support spell casting unit that can win the tide of the battle for you if done right. For as low on the tech tree as they are (they only need a Cybernetics Core) their abilities are GREAT. They are not great fighters on their own, they are built for their spell casting abilities. They have 2 very useful abilities, Force Field and Guardian Shield. They can also use Hallucination (must first be researched at the Cybernetics Core), which in my opinion is a little less useful than the former 2.

Force Field

I think the best use of a sentry is to block off choke points, or to trap units with the Force Field ability.

A Force Field is a small non-destructible wall that lasts 15 seconds, no ground units can pass through it. A sentry can cast a Force Field immediately after it is built, thanks to it's low energy cost (of 50).

Protoss players use sentries to prevent the enemy from rushing into their base early on if they are teching to stalkers. You can also strategically use Force Fields to cut the enemy's army in half, if you see a bunch of enemy units trying to get into your base, just wait until you see about half of them come in, then force field the rest of them out, and have your zealots/stalkers take care of what is trapped inside your base.

Force Fields are best used at the ramps (at the choke points) leading up to a base, but can also be used out in the field to prevent units from running away, you can block specific retreat paths so they will be stuck and die to your army.

Guardian Shield

Guardian Shield spell costs a bit more than a force field (75), and is used to reduced ranged attack damage by 2 to all units inside the bubble surrounding the sentry. This is a very useful ability and you should always plan on using this in about any battle with ranged attackers involved. Keep in mind this ability does not stack when multiple sentries use this ability, however it doesn't hurt to have more than one sentry use this ability during a battle to spread out the shield and to have backup shields incase one of the sentry dies. Try to keep your sentries behind your troops to save them from dying since they have low hit points and should be a prime target for your enemy to take out first.

Here is some tips for using sentries vs different races:

Vs Protoss: Early on Force fields are needed to block your choke point from zealot rushes, or to trap zealots and pick them off. Later on, you can use force fields in battle to prevent zealots from charging in on you, to cut their army in half, or to slow the enemy from running away from you so you can pick them off. Guardian Shield helps to reduce the ranged damage from stalkers, immortals, Colossi, and most importantly carriers if they are massing them.

Vs Terran:You can use the force fields to block the terrans from killing your support army of colossi and get stuck in your zealot army (where they should be.), also the Guardian Shield ability is awesome against the terrans, and will reduce the damage of marines dramatically. So I highly recommend getting a sentry or two in your army at least for the Guardian Shield ability to reduce all the range damage the terrans will throw at you.

Vs Zerg:Early on Force fields are needed to block your choke point from zergling or baneling rushes, or to trap them and pick them off. If you see zerglings rushing into your base, just let a few of them come in, then throw up a force field on the ramp to block the rest of them out. Half of their army will be trapped inside your base so you can easily take them out. Later on in the game, force fields will help a lot to slow the swarm of the zerg get to your army. Zerg swarms requires a lot of "openness" to be effective, you can counter that with force fields to jumble their army up.

Also Guardian Shields will help reduce the damage from roaches and hydras, and especially Mutas. Mutalisks have "bouncing" attacks, which bounce around twice to other units dealing a smaller amount of damage. When each of these bounces are reduced by 2 from the Guardian Shield, mutas are dramatically weakened to you. So Guardian Shields are very useful against Mutalisks, keep that in mind. In fact if you see the zerg going mutas, you should definitely get a bunch of sentries in your army to counter them, since they can attack air too, and throw up plenty of shields to protect you.

Carriers

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg	Corruptor	Hydralisk	Mutalisk	Brood Lord, Baneling, Overseer, Queen, Roach, Ultralisk, Zergling
protoss		Stalker	Archon, High Templar, Mothership, Phoenix, Sentry, Void Ray	Colossus, Dark Templar, Immortal, Zealot
terran		Battlecruiser, Viking	Ghost, Marine, Raven, Thor	Banshee, Hellion, Marauder, Reaper, Siege Tank

Tech up Quick to Carriers

This can be effective to do. But if you stick with this strategy all the time, your chances of winning are about no different than using your usual strategy of zealots/stalkers/immortals, and the games will take a longer time to complete. Generally with this build order, you will want to expand very quickly at the beginning, and get your economy going hard core. If you can keep your opponent away with good defenses, and be prepared to do some "camping" in your base until you get some carriers, then you have a VERY good chance of winning the game.

Here is the effectiveness of this strategy for the various types of games:

1v1: This can work good if you can defend your base for rushes for about 10 minutes. You can accomplish this by building a couple of photon cannons at the choke point at your expansion site, then build your second nexus, remember though a good defense before an expansion is important in 1v1 games.

2v2: This is probably the worst case where you would consider doing a carrier rush. You will have virtually no units early on to defend your ally if he gets rushed. I would not do this build order in 2v2 games. You can however move to this general strategy once things get going after the initial rushes from tier 1-2 units.

3v3: Just about the same thing applies to this as 2v2, but a little less though. Since you have 2 additional allies to back you up, you will be a little more okay vs rushes. However I still do not recommend teching quick to carriers in a 3v3 game. In most games I recommend starting off with rushing with zealots/stalkers, and then slowly move up the tech tree to carriers.

4v4: Same thing again, I really do not recommend teching to carriers in team games. However in a 4v4 game, you have even more allies to back you up while you are teching. I would actually consider trying this out and see how this works in 4v4 games. Just make sure your other allies are not teching quick too. But again, in most games I recommend starting off with rushing with zealots/stalkers, and then slowly move up the tech tree to carriers.

FFA: This strategy in my opinion is the best overall strategy for FFA games. In the beta my FFA record for protoss doing this strategy is about 50-7, and my losses were due to either being rushed at the very beginning of the game, or being rushed quick with air units such as mutas. Other than that mass carriers with a mothership is VERY powerful and hard to stop.

Here are some tips to use to make this strategy even more effective:

Get a 3rd expansion base for the sole purpose of collecting more GAS, yeah gas becomes a problem when massing out carriers. Try to get it close to your base where you can easily defend it with your carriers, and build a few photon cannons around it to protect it.
Upgrade your carrier's interceptors at your Cybernetics Core. Keep the upgrades going and use the Chrono Boost ability on them repeatedly to get them researched faster. You can also upgrade your shields at your forge.
Since you are going mass carriers, then upgrading the Graviton Catapult ability at the Fleet Beacon is a MUST. This is a passive ability that allows your carrier's to launch interceptors more quickly.
IMPORTANT: For some reason, carriers come out with the Train Interceptor ability NOT on autocast, and by default will only train up to 4 in each carrier, if you turn it on autocast it will keep building them until you have 8 Interceptors. Since you have 2-3 expansions of mining minerals then extra minerals for more Interceptors should be no problem. So as your carriers come out, turn the Train Interceptor ability on autocast immediately. Last thing you want is to go into battle with 10 carriers and they all only have 4 Interceptors each, when they could have 8. You could do twice the damage. So ALWAYS keep this in mind. Maybe some day Blizzard will make it so they are always on autocast when they come out.
Build a Protoss Mothership (at the nexus), since you already have a fleet beacon. A mothership is well worth the price and the vortex ability is one of the best abilities in the game. Get used to using the Vortex ability wisely and the game will be WAY more in your favor.
Carriers and the mothership are slow moving units, so you will need to be prepared for your opponent attacking your base if you are way across the other side of the map. Best ways to be aware of where your opponent is at is to have detectors (observers) follow your opponents armies, and also have units such as probes near the Xel'Naga Towers (which are usually in every map in starcraft2 that provides a wide viewing area around the tower to be revealed only if you have a ground unit near them), you can easily spot these towers on your minimap with the small blue eyeballs. You can also read up on the Mass Recall ability the mothership has as well to remedy this issue.
If you got 3 expansions going, then you should have about 4-5 Stargates, 1-2 Robotics Bays, and 3 Gateways.
If your opponent has a lot ground units throw some Colossuses in the mix. Maybe get a few of them, like 2-4. A combination of colossuses, carriers and a mothership is ridiculously powerful.
If you have a lot of unspent minerals, quickly build a bunch of zealots to fill your army up quick. And research the Charge ability so they run quicker.
Get an Observer or two in your army to detect invisible or burrowed units.
When facing another protoss player who also has mass carriers, use focus fire and kill each of their carriers one at a time. You can quickly accomplish this by pressing "a" for attack, then hold down shift and quickly click on each carrier. Your carriers will focus on killing each of their carriers one by one. If you do not do this, your carriers will end up attacking your opponents Interceptors, which is less efficient. If they got a mothership, then focus fire on that FIRST, then the carriers. Or even better vortex their mothership before they vortex you.
The one thing that scares me with this strategy is facing a Terran player who is massing Battlecruisers with the Yamato Cannon. In this case you may want to switch to void rays and stalkers.
Another thing that scares me even more is a Zerg player that is massing out Corruptors. In this case you have to be very careful, try vortexing half of their Corruptors and kill half of them off, then kill the remaining once they come out. You may need to switch to stalkers/void rays to counter this.

Mothership Guide

The mothership is a cool protoss unit, they can be used as an offensive unit with the vortex ability, or a defensive unit with the Mass Recall ability. You can only have one mothership out at a time. Here are some general tips for using the mothership, and how to counter the mothership:

Cloaking Field:This is awesome, cloaks all protoss units and buildings around the mothership. To counter this the enemy would simply need detectors in their army, which in most games would not be that big of a deal. You could also just have all your units focus fire and kill the mothership quickly and the cloaking field will go away.

Mass Recall:Teleports all of the player's units in the target area to the Mothership. The best way for using Mass Recall is to keep your mothership at your main base (or where most of your worker units are), and have the rest of your army go harass and attack the enemies. If someone comes to your base, or if you see your units are all injured and about to die, or if you think you will lose the battle, simply have your mothership use the Mass Recall ability to quickly call all your units to your mothership at your base to protect it or escape out of the field of danger. Of course the downside to that is you won't have the cloaking field nor the vortex ability available to you while out prowling around. But most pros can outsmart both the vortex ability and the cloaking field, so as you start getting higher in the ladders (especially in the FFA ladder), you will have to generally switch to letting your mothership stay in your base at all times for defense purposes simply because most good players can easily counter the cloaking field and vortex ability..

Vortex: This like starts a big black hole and any unit that goes near it will be sucked in, and will then come out in a few seconds unharmed. You can use this to cut an enemy's army in half, while you kill off the other half. This can be a very devastating ability if you don't know how to avoid it. If you see the enemy use a vortex on you, then the best option is to actually just let the rest of your army go into the vortex where they can be safe.. You will be better off just letting your whole army fly into the vortex, and wait till it runs out and then continue fighting. This is the easiest way to counter a vortex.

Immortals

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg	Brood Lord, Mutalisk, Zergling	Hydralisk	Baneling	Roach, Queen, Ultralisk
protoss	Carrier, Mothership, Phoenix, Void Ray	Dark Templar, Zealot	Archon, High Templar, Sentry	Stalker, Colossus
terran	Battlecruiser, Banshee	Ghost, Marine	Hellion, Reaper	Marauder, Siege Tank, Thor, Viking

Immortals do incredible amounts of damage to armored units. They also have Hardened Shields that reduces all damages to the shields to only 10 hitpoints per hit. So for example, if a siege tank shoots one attack at the immortal and hits his shield rather than his actual hitpoints, and instead of the siege tank doing his normal shot of 60 damage, it will instead only hit for 10 damage to the immortals shields. Another example would be if a roach hits an immortals shields, and instead of doing 16 damage, it will only do 10 damage.

Vs Terran: Immortals are great against siege tanks, since they do their bonus damage to them and also if their shields are up, will dramatically reduce the damage from the siege tanks. Immortals also counter the marauders VERY well and will take them out very quick. Immortals are great early on but later you have to watch out for Ghosts and them shooting EMP rounds at the immortals, which will take out their hardened shields. Once the terrans get ghosts and medivacs, then it's time to switch to colossi instead of immortals.

Vs Zerg: Immortals are best built to counter the roaches early on, and they do a GREAT job at that. You have to watch out for zerglings though, they will take down immortals quickly. If you combine zealots and immortals together you can easily counter the roach rush, and to help stop any zerglings they throw at you. In this case, the zerg player must change strategies or force to face a failure. Other than roaches, the only other zerg unit the immortal is good against is the ultralisk.

Vs Protoss: If the opposing protoss player has a lot of stalkers, then immortals will take them out like nothing. but most protoss matchups do not involve stalkers usually, and instead protoss players tend to go for a zealot/colossi build, in which case immortals can be useful for taking out the colossi. But if the colossi can get the Extended Thermal Lance upgrade for the colossi, it makes it much harder for the immortals to take out the colossi. Generally most protoss vs protoss match ups will be better off building colossi rather than immortals. You also have to watch out for Phoenix, since they can "beam" up the immortals and make them useless then.

Colossus

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg	Corruptor, Brood Lord, Mutalisk	Zergling	Baneling, Queen, Ultralisk	Hydralisk, Roach
protoss	Carrier, Mothership, Void Ray	Archon, Immortal, Zealot	Dark Templar, High Templar, Sentry, Stalker
terran	Battlecruiser, Banshee, Viking	Ghost, Thor	Hellion, Marauder, Siege Tank	Marine, Reaper

The Colossus is a great unit. It can walk up and down cliffs, is relatively quick and does splash damage with it's Thermal Lance weapons. They make great support units for backing up your stalkers, carriers, void rays, or really anything else the protoss have. However I would not just mass these out by themselves with no other units to back them up.

Colossi make great units for attacking defensive structures from a distance, you can easily wipe out towers, bunkers or the enemy's guarded choke points with no problem. BUT, you must first research the Extended Thermal Lances at the Robotics Bay, this will extend their weapon rage to 9 (from 6), that's a 50% increase. This will put you well out of range of being hit by any defensive structure and allow you to break through it unharmed.

NOTE: Air units can hit colossi, so units like corruptors and vikings can pose a serious threat to them. Actually anything can hit them, they are considered both a ground unit and an air unit (in a way), so they are very vulnerable to all attacks.

NOTE: Colossi are great combined with carriers and a mothership, they can follow them efficiently thanks to the ability for them to walk up and down cliffs.

Here are tips for the Colossus against different races:

Vs protoss: You will definitely want to get a few Colossi in your army to fight the opposing protoss player. In most protoss ground battles, whoever seems to manage to get the most Colossi out will win. You will have to watch out for immortals, the best way to counter immortals is to simply upgrade the Extended Thermal Lances at the Robotics Bay, this will put them out of harms way of the immortals. Alternatively you can use the Phoenix unit to beam up the immortals (more on that later). Just make sure your Colossi are backed up by plenty of zealots/stalkers.

Vs terran:Colossi are great against the terrans. If you see the terrans are going the usual Marine/Marauder/Medivac army, then you will want to crank out Colossi one right after another, and your chance of beating the terrans becomes much easier. You have to watch out if they have 2 or more starports, they will most likely try to mass vikings, in which case your Colossi are useless against. So know what the enemy has.

Vs zerg: Once again this totally depends on what the zerg is going for. Colossi are great against hydras, zerglings, banelings, and roaches. If the zerg player is doing a zergling/muta build, then I would not even bother building Colossi, instead go mass zealots/stalkers/high templar for that. If you see the zerg is going mass roaches you are actually better off just massing out immortals to take care of that. Same thing applies to ultralisks, immortals will do a better job against them than Colossi. So basically it comes down to the best case to use Colossi against the zerg, is if they are going mostly mass zerglings and hydras.

High Templar

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg		Brood Lord, Ultralisk, Zergling	Baneling, Mutalisk	Hydralisk, Roach
protoss		Archon, Carrier, Colossus, Dark Templar, Immortal, Phoenix, Zealot	Stalker, Void Ray	Sentry
terran		Banshee, Siege Tank	Battlecruiser, Ghost, Hellion, Reaper, Thor, Viking	Marauder, Marine

I personally feel the High Templar got slightly weaker compared to starcraft 1, they still are very powerful units however, and the Psionic Storm ability is one of the most powerful in the game. they can do serious damage with Psionic Storms, get a couple of High Templar and when the enemy comes all bunched together, just storm them, and you will hit all of them in that radius dealing 80 damage to everyone, so as you can see the more units you can bunch together to storm the more you can get out of the spell.

Feedback ability: High Templar can use the Feedback ability, here is the description: Drains all energy from the target unit and causes damage equal to the amount of energy drained. This can be very useful when fighting massive units that have energy or other strategic units, such as the following (listed from best used on to the least used on for each race):

Protoss: Mothership, Phoenix, High Templar, Sentry
Terran: Battlecruiser, Medivac, Thor, Banshee, Ghost, Raven
Zerg: Corruptor, Infestor, Queen, Overseer

TIP: When going into battle, I would quickly use the feedback ability on units like the mothership, battlecruiser, medivac, thor, infestor, or corruptors rather than storming them, as you would be doing more overall damage. Save your storms for more tightly packed smaller units.

High Templar work slightly better in armies with stalkers relative to zealots, since you have a better chance of not accidently storming yourself (your zealots).

Vs Terran:I personally like to use High Templar in most battles against the Terrans, they generally build mass marines/marauders combined with a few medivacs for healing. Templar can use Feedback on the medivacs to take out their energy, and then storm the tightly packed marines/marauders. However, any other strategy the terrans do and High Templar becomes less useful.

Vs Protoss:This is probably the least case where you would want to build High Templar against. Storms are weaker overall against the protoss, and the feedback ability is less useful here as well.

Vs Zerg: A little more useful here, as zerg units are in large numbers and can get tightly packed together. Storms work great against the zerg as long as they don't quickly move out of it.

TIP: During battles when your high templar run out of energy from storming and feedback, they become useless then, when that happens in order to make use of them it would be to the best of your interest to combine them into archons..

Archons

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg		Brood Lord	Hydralisk, Infestor, Ultralisk	Baneling, Corruptor, Mutalisk, Roach, Zergling
protoss	Phoenix	Carrier, Colossus	Dark Templar, High Templar, Immortal, Mothership, Sentry, Stalker, Void Ray	Zealot
terran		Battlecruiser, Ghost, Thor	Banshee, Marauder, Raven, Reaper, Siege Tank, Viking	Hellion, Marine

To make an archon you need to combine 2 templars together, either a dark templar or a high templar, or 1 of each, and it don't matter which combination you use. So depending on which of the 3 different combinations you decide to combine will be a totally different gas and mineral costs. Here is the breakdown of the costs differences needed to make an Archon:

2 Dark Templar: 250m/250g
2 High Templar: 100m/300g
1 Dark Templar, and 1 High Templar: 175m/275g

So the cheapest overall method would be to combine 2 High Templar, even though that is the highest gas cost, but lowest mineral costs. If you have less gas to spend relative to minerals, then you would be better off combining 2 Dark Templar instead.

Archons are very powerful units that deal splash damage to both ground and air units, they have a high hitpoint shield (350 hps), but only 10 actual hitpoints once the shield is gone, and they have an attack range of 2. So if you plan on getting archons, upgrading shields at the forge is a wise thing to do. They also do bonus damage to biological units, so they do extra damage to ALL zerg units.

Shields regenerate a bit faster in Starcraft 2 compared to Starcraft 1, so archons can replenish their shields faster after battle. If you see an archon shields low in battle, pull them back out of the battle to replenish, then put them back in battle later once they have replenished their shields. However I feel the archons are slightly weaker overall compared to Starcraft 1, thanks to their slower movement speed and overall less usefulness.

Archons are generally strong against all melee units in the game and are weak against long ranged attackers.

Observer

Built from the Robotics Facility, an observer is always cloaked and is also a detector. They are relatively cheap and use up only 1 farm space, but they cannot attack, they are simply spying units. They can be used to scout the map to see if your enemy expands, you can send one over to their main base to see what they are building, you can have them follow your opponents army around to always see where they are going with their army. You can have them patrol around certain parts of the map to spy over potential expansion sites. It's also generally useful to always have an observer or two in your army to detect any invisible or burrowed units.

Just about every time I first build a Robotics Facility I always crank a few of these out, as they are units that can be useful for any game.

TIP: One thing I like to do with observers is to have one of them in my main army and set my rally points for all my unit producing buildings to go to the observer, so all my newly produced units will go right to my army when they are built. This is a similar concept to the Warcraft 3 heroes, in which we always had our rally points on our heroes in Warcraft 3 so newly produced units will go right to your army. Just think of the same thing with an observer. Since observers cannot attack and are always cloaked, they are least likely to die.

Phoenix

race:	Super Weak against	Weak against	Okay against	Strong Against
zerg	Hydralisk	Corruptor	Queen	Brood Lord, Mutalisk, Overseer
protoss	Stalker	Carrier	Archon, Mothership, Void Ray	Colossus, Immortal
terran	Marine	Viking	Battlecruiser	Banshee, Siege Tank

These are one of the least used protoss units, and I hardly ever build them. They are very quick but are not great attackers on their own. Despite doing bonus damage to light units, they are still weak when fighting mutas, so I would not build these for the purpose of fighting mutas. They can fly around and kill overlords with ease though. The Graviton Beam ability is really why you would want to build Phoenixes..

Graviton Beam: Makes the target unit float into the air, disabling its abilities. Effect lasts up to 10 seconds. This is a channeled ability, the phoenix must stay still and not attack while using this ability. Other units can attack the beamed units. It cannot be used on massive units however. Here are the best units to use this against:

Vs Protoss: Immortals and Archons - Disabling the protoss's Immortals can put the opposing protoss player in big trouble. Its worth getting a few phoenixes in your army if you are going the stalker/Colossus build against another protoss player who has a Robotics Facility and/or with Immortals.

Vs Zerg: Infestors and Queens - One strategy you can use against the zerg is to send a small fleet of Phoenixes into the zerg's base and use the Graviton Beam on their queen, and use the other Phoenixes to take the queen out. But even then a small fleet of void rays can accomplish the same thing. You can also send one Phoenix and one void ray to accomplish the same thing as well, just have your Phoenix beam up the queen while the voidray does the damage. Beaming up the zerg Infesters is a good tactic so they cant use the zerg Infester's spells on you. Phoenixes are also a good counter to mutas, however void rays are generally a better overall option to get vs the zerg.

Vs Terran: Ghosts and Siege Tanks - Beaming up Ghosts and killing them before they snipe you with the EMP is a good tactic. Disabling siege tanks from attacking you is obviously a big plus as well. If you are harassing with a Phoenix, you can beam up Terran MULEs, that will surely put a damper in the economy. Phoenix are also a good counter to the banshee.

Another strategy I like to do with the Phoenix, is to go to their worker units and beam one up, then quickly cancel, then beam another one up, cancel again, then run out of there. The workers will stop mining, and the opposing player may never put it back on the resources, thus wasting a unit. Do these on gas miners, and they may wonder why they are not getting gas fast enough.

Warp Prism

The Warp Prism is the air transport unit for the protoss, it can also deploy as a pylon so you can warp in units under it. The problem with Warp Prisms is how inconvenient they are. They cost 200 minerals, fly slow (without the upgrade), take up 2 farm space, and take awhile to build. So most players will end up building something else at the Robotics Facility that is more cost effective such as the immortal or colossus.

Disclaimer: The following sections will describe the protoss in typical matchups vs different races and type of games. Please keep in mind that this information may change over time as new strategies will develop and new strategies will come into play. This section will be expanded more over time with replay commentaries etc. Also please keep in mind most of the information below is already covered in the information above, but I have it organized if you need to quickly learn what it takes to do the various matchups without reading ALL the info above.

Protoss vs Terran

Opening Strategy:

In a protoss vs Terran match-up there could be several opening options. Typically the protoss can do 2 very good opening strategies:

1. The protoss can attempt to proxy rush the terrans. This involves sending a probe over to the Terrans base right at the start of the game and build 2 gateways, and then flood them with zealots. This lacks on economy, and if the terrans manage to stop it, you will be in a hole. In order for the terrans to stop it, they would have to build a bunker with marines to protect their workers (if the protoss built the gateways inside their base). If they built their gateways outside their base, the terrans will have to build a bunker with marines right at the choke point and make sure it is blocked very well and SCVs are on hand to repair the damaged buildings at the choke point.

2. The usual strategy the protoss does vs another terran is to simply go into a Stalker build order at the beginning, and focus on pumping out a small number of stalkers, then switch over to getting some zealots in your army. By doing this, you will be fully prepared for any reaper or hellion rush they will throw at you.

Another decent opening strategy you may do against the terrans is to fast expand with doing a pylon, forge, photon cannon at the expansion site, then a pylon and a photon cannon at the main base (to stop any reaper rushes). Then get your second nexus, followed by a few more photon cannons, then build a gateway, followed by a cybernetics core.

I would avoid starting a game vs the terran with a zealot rush, where your gateways are in your own base. Playing any decent Terran player and this strategy will not succeed.

Mid Game Strategy

In the mid game, the terrans may try to rush you with an MMM army, in this case you will want to make sure your army is comprised of mostly zealots (upgraded with the charge ability). Instead of spending gas on stalkers, switch over to getting high templar. Research PSI storm at the Templars Archive and when the battle comes, first use the Feed Back ability on the Medivacs to drain their energy out, then followed up by PSI storming their army. You will also want to get some Colossi in your army, as they work VERY well against an MMM army. Also consider getting a few sentries for the guardian shield ability to deduce all the ranged damage.

If the terrans are getting siege tanks, get some Immortals to take them out along with upgraded zealots with the charge ability. The immortals will take a lot of reduced damage from the siege tanks with their hardened shields. The Terrans may counter that by going with a bunch of ghosts to use EMP to take out the Immortals hardened shields. You can recounter that by simply not producing immortals and instead just massing out zealots. Another alternative is to use high templar's feedback ability to take out the Ghost's energy. But the ghost may cloak themselves, in that situation you would need observers of course. Yet another alternative is to get a few Phoenixes and beam up the siege tanks to disable them.

How to get through a defensive Terran base

If the Terrans have a lot of bunkers, missile turrets, supply depots and other buildings blocking a certain area and you wish to go through it, your best bet is to build a lot of colossi and upgrade their attack range at the Robotics Bay. The colossi will then be well out of range to kill the bunkers and towers without getting hurt. You will have to watch out for siege tanks. In this case if your colossi are getting hit by the tanks, you can attempt to kill the tanks with your colossi and then move back, or quickly kill the bunkers and then send your troops in to take care of the rest.

Mid to Late Game Strategy

The terrans may go mass vikings, this could be a nasty situation. In this case you should be okay if you have a mixture of zealots and stalkers. Also consider getting a few sentries for the guardian shield ability. You can kick this up a notch by getting immortals in your army, they will take the vikings out quick when they land to fight. I would also keep an immortal or two at your expansion sites to protect them from vikings landing and killing your worker units. You may have to build some photon cannons or keep stalkers around to if they have some banshees in their "harassing" army.

The worst thing about dealing with mass vikings is them harassing you. They will attempt to land in your base when your not there and kill anything you got then lift up and fly away when you come. So your best bet is to pump out observers and have them sit all around the map so you know where they are at, at all times. Also send probes to the Xel'Naga Towers to reveal large portions of the map. Your army should be able to take them out with no problem, you just need to be aware of where they are at.

Against Banshees: The Terrans may come in with a bunch of cloaked banshees and try to kill your worker units. If you were caught by surprise you may be in trouble. That is why scouting is so important in this game. In this situation you need to get observers out ASAP to reveal the banshees to kill them.

Late Game Strategy

Against Thors: If they got thors, the best thing you can do is get immortals combined with zealots to take them out.

Against Battlecruisers: Use a combination of stalkers and void rays. If you mass one of those two out you should have no problem against Battlecruisers.

Against Nukes: The Terrans may try to send Ghosts in to Nuke you. Anytime a nuke is launched the game will tell everyone in it that a "Nuclear Launch is Detected.". Immediately when you hear that, you need to look all around your army or base for a shining red dot on the ground and immediately move any of your units away from that dot and then try to kill the Ghost by using detection from observers and kill it.

Protoss vs Zerg

Opening Strategy:

In a Protoss vs zerg matchup a proxy rush proves very powerful. Simply send a probe over to your opponents base at the beginning of the game and build a pylon followed by 2 gateways, try to stay out of range where you will not get scouted, and then flood them with zealots. If you see them building spine crawlers, try to take them out first, followed by their worker units. However most pros will be able to counter the proxy rush, and since the proxy rush is considered an "all-in" strategy, I normally do not recommend doing it in an expert matchup.

I would generally not build stalkers against the zerg right away. You need to see what they are going for. If you start the game with 2 gateways in your base and put a zealot rush on them, that works good and I recommend doing that most of the time against the zerg.

If you see a baneling nest, then I would focus on getting more stalkers than zealots. The banelings can take out zealots quick but not stalkers so much.

If you see a roach warren, you will need to get a Robotics Facility up and build immortals along with some stalkers. You should also get an observer or two for detected burrowed roaches and for scouting purposes.

Mid Game Strategy

Against hydras, you will want to go with mass zealots with the upgraded charge ability and try to get some colossi out as well. High Templar PSI storm also works very well against hydras.

If the zerg player is going with zerglings and mutas, things can get nasty. You will want to get plenty of zealots to take out the zerglings along with enough stalkers to take care of the mutas. I would also get blink so you can blink your stalkers closer to the mutas quicker. I would also build a few photon cannons around your worker units to protect them. If you see they are very aggressive with the mutas, it would not hurt to get some Phoenixes to protect your base from muta attacks. Also archons tend to work well against mutas/zerglings.

You can then send a Phoenix around the map to kill any overlords watching over mineral sites, that can really put a damper in their food supply. Also kill any Overseers that may be lurking outside of your base so they can't scout you.

Late Game Strategy

In the late game the zerg may go mass corruptors and brood lords. This is a very nasty situation, the best way to combat this would be to go mass stalkers and use blink to blink up closer to the brood lords and make sure they are attacking the brood lords and not the broodlings. Remember Brood Lords can make an infinite amount of free broodlings. You can get some zealots in your army to soak up the damage from the broodlings.

Against Ultralisks: Avoid getting zealots against Ultralisks, and instead focus on getting immortals with a few stalkers for support. And of course any air unit is good against Ultralisks since they cannot attack air units.

Mass carriers. Mass Carriers work great against the zerg, the only thing you need to watch out for is corruptors. If they have corruptors, you may want to switch to stalkers to take the corruptors down.

Protoss vs Protoss

Opening Strategy:

There are several opening possibilities the protoss can do here. The opposing protoss may attempt to proxy rush you. In this case, you can attempt to stop it by blocking your choke point with a forge followed by photon cannons, then you can follow through continuing on from there since you will be protected from zealot rushes. You can also attempt to stop it by simply building 2 gateways at your base and simply out build them in zealots.

If you find yourself in a situation where both players are proxy rushing each other, then things can get funny. In this case, try to get a probe over to their base, destroy their nexus and quickly rebuild at their base, and you should be okay. Just try to save any other probes at your base and send them to your new one. If things go well then he may not be doing the same thing as you and it's gg.

If both players build gateways in their own base and do a zealot rush, it is best to build your buildings at your choke point to block it, while teching up to sentries and stalkers to fully protect your choke point. Just have sentries use the force field ability to block zealots from coming into your base while your stalkers hit them from range. You have to watch out though, he may be "containing" you in your base with zealots outside of your base while he is expanding. In that situation you can get a bunch of stalkers out and use hit-and-run against the zealots. Research blink and then go harass at his base killing any workers you can.

Mid Game Strategy

There are several strategies can be done in mid game. You can follow through with teching to void rays and harass, you can continue to build an army of zealots and stalkers with some immortals. You can attempt a dark templar rush. You can camp out and tech hard to carriers. Here are the differences and counters for these strategies.

Stalkers, zealots, and immortals is a very good combination. However mass zealots with charge can generally beat this.

Teching to void rays can be very devastating. You can build 2 starports (or more if you have an expansion) and crank out void rays. Get the acceleration upgrade and go harass non-stop. If your lucky he may only have mostly zealots. If the opposing protoss has stalkers, just use hit and run non-stop. If they get blink your void rays will be in more trouble. At this point you will want to make sure you are getting enough upgraded zealots to take out the stalkers.

Dark templar rush: I got this fully covered here.

Late Game Strategy

Colossus work great against the protoss, and I recommend switching over from immortals to colossi, since they are generally more worth the cost than immortals. I would only keep building some immortals for support if they are simply going all ground armored units, such as stalkers and colossi.

The ultimate strategy the protoss can do is mass carriers combined with a mothership, along with maybe a few colossi and zealots for support. Of course this is very pricey and in most 1v1 games is unlikely to happen. but the protoss can only really counter it with the same thing.

Protoss FFA Strategy

During a FFA, you can attempt to build 2 gateways in your base and mass zealots out and go rush everybody. If you are lucky you may kill a few players, but then you will be in a hole for the remaining players. The safest way to win most FFAs with the protoss is to do a quick expansion by starting off with building a pylon, forge, photon cannon, photon cannon at your natural expansion site, followed by a nexus and then a few more photon cannons. If there is a terran player in the battle, you can build 1 pylon and 1 photon cannon at your main base to protect yourself from reapers.

From there you will be safe from any rushes while teching to higher tier units and upgrades while your economy is jump started. Then you can get a 3rd expansion later once you get your army going strong.

In FFA games, camping in your base while teching is not a bad strategy at all. Unlike Warcraft 3, where if you camped in a FFA your heroes will be far behind in level and you would probably lose. Well in Starcraft 2 there are no heroes or upkeep, so camping is okay in starcraft 2. I know this I have played over a 100 FFA games in starcraft 2 beta and my record is about 90 wins, 10 losses.

Here are the build order options you can do in FFA with protoss, starting with the least overall recommended strategy to the most powerful overall strategy in my opinion:

6. Zealot Rush: As I said above, you may kill a few players, but you will probably then be in a hole for the rest of the game. I do not recommend doing this actually.

5. Zealot, stalker, and sentry rush: These units are good for mid game, but you will be in trouble for any player who is camping to higher tier units to take these out.

4. Stalker, colossi rush: This is not too bad of a strategy, however there are better ones out there.

3. Mass void rays: I have seen a lot of protoss players going mass void rays in FFA, but non have out matched my carriers, ever.

2. Mass carriers: Mass carriers is extremely powerful. This can stop most things in this game. However you can crank it up a notch by getting a few support units in the mix:

1. Mass carriers with a mothership, backed up by colossi and zealots: This is the ultimate army the protoss can make to protect themselves from most stuff you will come across in an FFA. The only thing you may consider is, if you see the enemies are going mass air with no ground, then do not build any colossi, save your money for more carriers. You can read more in-depth about this strategy here.

Protoss Team Games

(2v2, 3v3, 4v4)

In team games it is recommend that you focus on rushing as much as possible and keep your enemies from reaching your base. You ultimately want to try to kill off worker units to put their economy in a hole.

In team games I recommend getting a plan going right from the start, communicate with your allies and ask them what they are building. Focus on massing out only like 1-2 units only, have your ally do the same, get a good mixture and you will be good. For example, you can have your allied zerg player go mass zerglings with some mutas later, while you go mass stalkers with some colossi later. You got both ground and air covered nicely.

I usually start all my team games with 2 gateways and build enough zealots to rush or prevent rushes. From there I then branch off to other strategies. I especially do this in 2v2 games. You can take a risk and tech up in 4v4 games as long as your allies are not teching too. By teching I mean fast expanding while having the focus on skipping zealots/stalkers and go into something else such as mass void rays, which can be a very powerful strategy, but you will be weak early on, so you will have to rely on your allies to protect you for awhile.