Im kinda new to sc2, and i find it really hard to understand what units counter what, so far all i figured out is that immortals pwns stalkers, and sentries shield are really nice too against range units. but last game i played, he went sentries + zealots, and owned my stalkers and immortals. so my question is... what are stalkers really good against? in pvp, so far i think they are bad against all units. only good thing about them is that u can micro them like dragoons on sc1 and they can attack air. thats pretty much it... so are stalkers todally useless in pvp and what is the best/standard unit mixture in pvp through early-mid-long game?
I have to disagree.. Immortals pwn stalkers..?.. well sort of, but they more own zealots and stalkers. Sentries are a good support unit, in big numbers they can be powerful, but honestly in PvP i've never seen that many sentries. If he ent sentries + zealots and you had stalkers and immortals I feel bad for you.. an Immortal completely owns zealots, and as long as you pull back your army and use Hold or focus fire indv. units, you should be fine. Stalkers are not useless, I find them good i PvP if you can mass up a bunch in early game as your opponent is on tech for his immortals etc. He also might have had zealot speed, and also better macro.. make sure to have around 4 gateways for each expansion you have..
My friend once formed a contain on me with sentry/stalkers. I beat him with warp prism but it was impossible for me to escape my own ramp because of forcefield, even if my army was bigger. Honestly I wonder the same thing. I've had success with zealot/sentry/immortal, and if my opponent is focusing more on zealots instead of stalkers I tech Collosus while doing a harass (I get observer first thing with robo to discover these things, and the harrass would consist of a warp prism and 2 immortals). What lobsterlegs says makes some sense though. I'm honestly not that sure...but I'll probably continue zealot/sentry/immortal as a base until some good player soundly proves otherwise in a match. I'm pretty sure zealot/immortal > stalker/immortal, and if not then certainly so with a charge upgrade...regardless of any blink upgrade.
Zealots are terrible, you will get totally destroyed and kited by everything until you have a ranged unit. This is why people don't use them. Charge is not comparable to blink. You need to either make a ton of stalkers or use them smartly with blink, or use them as a meat shield for your tier 2s. Also if they go air you will be in fine shape, whereas if you don't your screwed.
Here is my friend's response. He is my strategic consultant. "if you notice hes talking about pure zeal which is true, pure zeal does get kited easily, but with zeal/sentry/immortal the tactic is to force him to dance so you can micro your immortals and ff to blow up his stalkers blink does make a stalker force very mobile but charge can make up for it and by that time your force would have some stalkers of your own" To which I added that a few stalkers early on might not be that bad of an idea. It depends on what you scout. Technically there is almost no way air could surprise an army not intent on going stalkers if Protoss plays right. Your scout will survive until a stalker comes out to kill it, and if they try to go void rays right after your scout dies you'll have an observer to see it coming in time to prepare. And I find observer very necessary myself which is why I always get one ASAP.
