Colossus

That's true. But I thought you would just throw in Colossus units in whenever you liked it.
But destroying an enemy supply line maybe isn't the best use for a Colossus. If you look at what it can do to main buildings, (for example: it can obliterate a Nexus in 34 seconds on its own) you might want to use one or two to destroy unit producing buildings. That might be more beneficial.

Especially in late game, where players often have a lot more resources at hand. Keeping the enemy from building more and more units is more important in that stage then destroying supply lines. (raiding) In those kind of situations you will be able to sacrifice them easier, since you probably have some resources to spare. (If you are not the kind of player who thinks: "Hey, I've got 1000 minerals, let's do a Zealot rush!" Only if you use good strategies you will be able to save some money.)

 

i meant that the stalker is a hig damage unit

 

So the stalker will be a good support for the colossus: it is as good as the colossus for raiding, and it has an air attack to keep the air units at bay while the colossus destroys resource gatherers and unit producing buildings. The most important buildings to destroy will be the hive/CC/nexus and any starports/gates/or spires to keep them from producing air units to try to harass the colossi.

 

I'm not positive but I think that, even though the Stalkers have a powerful attack, they have low health, shields or armor. This would mean that they are picked off easily. They might be able to destroy a couple of units fairly quickly, but they wouldn't last too long.
@ Fo®Saken. Good point. I don't think that the Thor will be able to be hit by Anti-Air attacks either, but I wasn't sure if it was taller or not. Thanks. owerup:

 

Your welcome. :thumbup:
But you are only partially right about what you said about that they wouldn't last very long. I think that they shouldn't be used as full frontal damage absorbers, especially when you have researched the Blink ability.

If you use the Stalker as an escort you should distract your enemies with it, rather then confronting them. Using the Blink ability to let your enemies even follow you up and down cliffs makes this even more effective.

But still, the best escort for Colossus units is the Stalker, at least for now. Using other units with more HP like the Immortal is out of the question, mainly because of its low mobility. If you use an air unit like the Warp Ray or Phoenix, you would have a better chance of surviving, but they are pretty weak without proper support from the ground. The Mothership is of course even more inefficient, because it can only target air.

The next alternative is one you might want to consider: sacrificing some Zealots for distraction and do some decent damage to. You could let your Colossus units come from over a cliff and send Zealots to the main entrance BEFORE the Colossus arrives, resulting in an enemy who will send most of its troops to attack the Zealots, leaving the base badly defended. The only downside you have to consider is the strength of the static defenses, because they won't be going anywhere. Even if this would be the case, the Colossus can easily handle a few bunkers / missile turrets / spore colonies / photon cannons on its own. (and you won't lose much time taking them down, since the Colossus is so powerful and you will cripple the base for further [full frontal] assaults later in the game)

 

Ah, a diversion. Hadn't thought of that. Zealot are a good deversion because in the protoss definition of cheap, they are easy units to replace.

What about a pincer movement, sending zealots through the main entrance, and having colossi enter at miltiple points around the base. It would take some good micro, but the enemy would have trouble fighting all of them at the same time. This would ensure that some decent damage would be done no matter how strong thier army would be.

 

I don't think that Zealots would be as effective as Stalkers. With a Colossus/Stalker raiding combination, you could attack them from two otherwise unattackable sides. Zealots would be forced to attack their frontal defense, which is also where they are expecting an attack, and wouldn't require much management while defending. Then again, you could always just Phase Prism them in, but if the Phase Prism goes down, then all the Zealots are instantly gone.

 

I wouldn't raid with so many expensive units ItzaHexGor. If I were to use Stalkers and Colossus units at the same time, I would combine them with some more types and make it a full assault on the enemy. It's like EonMaster says: the Zealots are "cheap" in use from a Protoss view.

But the tactics people tend tu use are always different in some ways. We are merely discussing some possebilities here, not trying to prove what's the best tactic. It should stay like that at least until there is more information available about the Zerg. You can't come up with a counter against something you havn't even seen yet, right?

 

I doubt that Stalkers would be tremendously expensive. They would obviously be more costly than Zealots, but I doubt that they are one of the expensive Protoss units. Colossus, Carrier, Mothership, etc, will all be expensive, but I doubt that Stalkers will be.
I'm not trying to say that my tactic is the best tactic, I'm just saying that raiding with two types of units that can both cross tiers would be effective because they could by-pass the opponents most heavily protected areas. Isn't that a possibility? I never said that this is the best tactic and all of the other tactics are stupid, I just said that, in my opinion, Stalkers would be more effective raiders than Zealots.

 

against the wrath of home defence, colossi and stalkers won't last. they'll probably badly damage the hive/cc/nexus, but not destroy it. home defence would bring in siege tanks, air units, and any units they have planned for an attack. I'd use it to get a beachhead for the phaseprism to bring in zealots, archons, or immortals. and templars too.

 

Colossus would be fairly durable, and as I have said Stalkers are fairly fragile. Stalkers wouldn't be facing the brunt of the home defense, because they will rely on Blinking in, doing some damage quickly and Blinking out. Colossus are fairly durable and if you make them fight to the death, there are good chances that they will take out a major building. What you have described is more of a full attack than a raid. Obviously full frontal attacks would have a huge unit diversity, but raids require powerful units that can get in and out quickly and easily.

 

Nexus in SC had 750 hp and 750 shield. If the Colossus does 144 damage and that is across a 6 second time line it does 24 dps(already figured out, but I wanted to say again. So it was "said" that 34 seconds is all that is needed right?

24 x 34 is 816hp. The Colossus would have to deal roughly 44.1 damage per second(damn near double what the guesses on this thread were).

Now of course the health of the Nexus CAN change but it wouldn't be cut in half, not when Protoss have always had the strongest units/buildings but most costly in the game.

My educated guess is that the Nexus death is an exaggeration and in fact the guy meant to say around a minute for one Coly to take one nexus down. It isn't likely to have 44 dps units(basically makes all low tier units but the Zealot and Dragoon worthless) on such a mid to late tier unit. Heck it only costs 300 minerals and 200 vespene!

P.s. Give the ray an adjacent area of effect boost. Half damage for everything adjacent to the beam(possibly even friendlies, would have to test that).

 

I didn't mean to say that you said that your tactic was the best. I only tried to say that I wasn't going to get into a heavy discussion abou this at the moment because of the lack of information about other units and the Zerg. I'm not flaming you or anything.

But if the Stalker will be a cheap unit, and there is a good possibility that it will be, then that would make room for a whole lot of interesting tactics. Of course you will almost never be able to use them as cannon fodder, (that's also not the Protoss style, play Zerg if you like that) but sacrificing one or two Stalkers won't be such a problem then.

@hillzagold
Like ItzaHexGor already mentioned: don't bring in so many different units in during a raid. That's more a full frontal attack style. You can't use Immortals and Archons for raiding, and especially not Templar. They just aren't fast enough. However, using some Immortals as a diversion could be a good idea if you have some minerals to spare: they can absorb damage really well. Against a Terran base defended by Siege Tanks you could, for example, bring in one or two of them, and if THEY arrive before you raiding forces, the Tanks will target them and they will be able to withstand quite some damage. (hardened shields)

@Ace_Bear
About your p.s. : Blizzard already mentioned in the last Q&A batch that they are currently experimenting with an area of effect type Thermal Lances in their latest test version. If you are lucky it will be implemented.

 

I'm expecting Stalkers to cost about 150 min and 50 gas, like dragoons. They seem to be the immediate step up from zealots.

Collossi are probably very tough, but being exposed to both anti-ground and anti-air weapons makes them vulnerable anyway. ATM stalkers are the Toss's best ground based anti-air unit, and they can keep up with Collossi stepping up and down cliffs with the blink ability, so Stalkers are the natural choice for supporting your Collossi. Carriers are another viable choice, but expensive and late-game.

 

collosi is midgame and with the new units the defenses should be too heavy for the stalker to be effective

 

no unit becomes ineffective in starcraft
take for example the zergling
its pretty hard to find a unit thats better than the ling for destroying buildings
i get lings during the third tier

the stalker might be able to just sit behind the colossi and do the dmg bcuz it will let the colossus tank
but that only works if the stalker keeps the extreme range and if it has a high attack

 

Carriers for raiding? Lol, a good amount of carriers with support can take out entire bases, not raid them.

Maybe in large numbers. Since you can now let multiple units use abilities at the same time (just look at the video with the Stalker being chased by Zerglings popping out of Nydus Worms), you can Blink them all at once, so a lot less micro management is needed for them to be effective. And microing is often what makes the difference in raids, since you need to be fast and precise.

 

a zergling rush could take down these monsters, although not without alot of losses.

Zerg: Devourer/ Guardian; anti air and ground flyers.
Terran: Battle Cruisers; attacking land and air at the same time, twice the rate of fire to Collosi.

if you know your enemy is going collosi (cough, black sheep wall cough) just rush into ships, by the time they get to mass collosi you should have a large space force.

but you never know untill the game comes out. Hurry up!

 

Thats why you pump stalkers at the same time, to keep the air units busy while your colossi decimate the ground troops. And stalkers have nearly the same mobility, so you're not sacrificing you're raidung chances.

 

You can pwn both Stalkers and Colossi with Banshees.
No tactic is perfect.