Once you’ve held Terran long enough and teched into Robo + Support Bay, you can quickly produce a Colossus if you have the money to do so. All this depends on how well you can hold the Terran player’s offensive with the few units you have available. Due to the fact that the Stalker costs 150/50, losing them is a serious blow to your economy, and could seriously delay how fast your Colossus can come out. Likewise, if you’re performing a more aggressive build (such as Dark Templar); managing your gas-based units is crucial in determining how the game plays out. Once the Colossus comes into play, and the opponent has nothing but MM, he’s dead. The Colossus can shred through MM like a hot knife through butter, and can take advantage of the terrain around him to move from low ground to high ground. This means that he can engage enemies out of their line of sight and continue to wreak havoc on them.
Although the Colossus is a beast of a unit vs. Marines and Medics, this does not mean that the Colossus can win the game for you. Once Terrans get out Siege Tanks, Protoss must proceed very carefully when approaching a Terran base or expansion. This is primarily because the new and improved Siege Tank can rip through Protoss units with very effectively. Luckily, the Protoss can counter this by deploying their Immortals after getting a Twilight Council, and researching Hardened Shields which makes the Immortals’ shield take no more than 10 damage. This renders large caliber weapons such as the Siege Tank powerless vs. the Immortal whereas the standard Marine will still have the same effect.
Once the game plays out into these stages, the Protoss player normally moves for multiple expansions, Gateways and Carriers. They can also upgrade their Zealots with Charge, and research Blink on their Stalkers to improve their effectiveness later game. This allows them to compete against Terran upgrades such as the U-238 shells and the new Marine Shield upgrade that globally gives all Marines +15 HP. Much has changed since the first StarCraft, and I must say that there’s still much to learn. I believe that given time, current strategies will continue to evolve into something more acceptable. At the current stage of the game, the Protoss vs. Terran match-up vaguely resembles what it was in the original StarCraft.
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Terran vs. Protoss: Match-up Analysis.
