So, after much anticipation and a couple of nearly sleepless nights of waiting, I finally managed to get my hands on the StarCraft II Beta. Getting right down to the point, in the original StarCraft my primary race of choice was the Protoss, so of course it was only fitting that I’d dive right in and start playing them again.
The core mechanics of the Protoss will be familiar to anyone who has played the original game. They still use Pylons to supply their troops as well as power their buildings, and the staple zealot still remains as the their early game melee fighter. Other familiar units include the Carrier, High Templar, Dark Templar and Archon. However, I found that the mid-game tactics are quite different than the original.
A new upgrade, which allows Protoss Gateways to be turned into Warp Gates makes for some incredibly interesting changes in gameplay. Warp Gates allow the player to warp new troops in to any location which has one of their Pylon power fields. Combind with the Warp Prism’s ability to generate power fields, warping in units provides for many new tactics when it comes to Protoss gameplay.
The Nexus, the Protoss starting building, also has a new ability called Chrono Boost. This ability costs 25 energy and increases the production or research speed of whichever building it is used on by 50% for 20 seconds.
At the moment the Protoss seem quite powerful in mid to late game. However they seem to be very vulnerable until they can get to that point. Both Terran and Zerg units can run circles around Zealots without their expensive Charge upgrade as well as Stalkers without their Blink upgrade. Once they gain access to these abilities, as well as others the tide tends to turn.
The Collosus is an expensive and powerful new unit which towers over all other units on the battlefield. Its twin laser cannons can obliterate just about any ground unit, however they cannot attack air units. They are so tall that air to air only units can still hit them, making them easily destroyed without the proper back up.
The new Immortal can shrug off heavy arms fire as if it were nothing but suffers from not being able to attack air units. In general the Protoss seem to have a lack of anti-air capabilities without teching deep enough to build Carriers or High Templars with Psi Storm. Their air to air only unit, the Phoenix, is widely considered the most underpowered unit in the game which leaves a rather large hole in the Protoss anti-air arsenal.
Despite certain shortcomings, overall the Protoss are still as powerful and as fun to play (if not more-so) as they were in the original. Of all of the changes I think Warp Gates are by far the most fun and add a different dynamic to being a Protoss player, although the Collosus is really cool too…
