Hello! Sorry for the long post but first off I want to give you guys a bit of background. I recently picked up Starcraft 2 and I’ve only been playing for 3 weeks. In that time I feel in love with Protoss, reached silver 2 with a 2500-2600 mmr, reached my goal of 100 consistent apm, and found that I love to play hyper aggressive.
Now for what I need help with, Terran. This is a bit embarrassing to say because I read online that Protoss usually dominates Terran, but Terran is my absolute worst and lowest % winrate. About 85% off all the PvT games I play, the Terran goes Marine/Marauder/Medivac/Tank and I get demolished by it. Correct me if I’m wrong about the Terran matchup.
I’ve tried multiple buids: 1-gate fast expand, Oracle opening, deathball, proxy 4 gate rush, 1-gate with adept harass, and even “golden armada” carrier late game. I’ve watched so many replays, pro matches, and have done plenty of theory crafting; I still tend to lose to them.
What builds do people go that tend to have the most success against Terran? What position is best to fight Terran at, ramp/high ground, in the open, or in choke points? What time in the game should Protoss be strongest against Terran, early, mid, or late game? Should I block off the chokepoint in front of my natural with Gateways/Pylons?
Again, I’m sorry for the long post. I’m just newer to the game and want to get as much information as possible. Thank you for everyone that reads/answers :))
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En Taro Artanis!
To to start with, the post is Wiki Post style. That means anyone can edit it and improve it’s content. Some Protoss players may want to use the feature.
There are many trolls around the forum, that may make things look misleading. Basicly within your league it is more about mechanical skills, balance (unit interactions) is not a large factor up to Diamond.
So do not feel embarassed about your PvT. If you are interested about opinion on balance, then make your own one based on available sources, but the knowledge doesn’t change anything inside the game ^^
There is a key Protoss thing you need during most of fights:
Splash damage.
You need a reliable source of it. Here is a list of available splash damage for Protoss:
- Colossus: Nice DPS and deal greatly with Marines. Do not make more than 3, though. If you feel as if you can afford to micro them during the fight, you can try to take them front to attack enemy far away, and when vikings come closer, you retreat colossus while letting your army shooting at vikings.
- Archons: Short ranged powerful units. They are strong but have problems with colision.
- Disruptors: A powerful unit capable of destroying whole armies. Do not make them until you’re Platinum/Diamond. They are an easy trap to fall into. They are not reliable source of damage (long cooldown), difficult to use (easy to miss shot, easy to anihilate your own army) and cost a lot (mainly gas, they also block robo building time).
- High Templars: Solution to your all problems. After you research storm, they are a very powerful unit. Storms may be tricky to use (you need to cast a spell on your enemy) but in the same time it is reliable DPS ability that usually is win-button. Storm does not stack and deals 80 damage over area over time. If you can cast 2-4 storms over opponent’s army, it will die very quickly. It works excellently vs MMM (Marine Marauder Medivac) Terran and vs most of Zerg compositions: Roaches, Hydralisks, Zerglings, Banelings. It is also a powerful spell that can and is worth used vs Vikings and Corruptors. It is best to cast storms before the fight, sometimes fight may be short enough that late storms will not make a difference.
Keep in mind, that with an exception to splash damage units, you need core of your army that can actually fight opponent. Common composition is zealots + archons + immortals, or stalkers + colossus. But that depends on situations and different things.
Basicly High Templars are the element you are probably lacking. However, pure improvement of macro can help and make you more powerful as well, regardless of units you use.
A good guide on unit compositions for Protoss:
The post will be improved and developed further, expect updates.
If you showed us some your replays, it would be easier to be more specific.
You can upload your replays on drop.sc website without any registration, and send us the link or something.
I am not going to update the thread today. Please reply to me tommorow so that I have a look again.
Adun Toridas
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Thank you for the detailed response! I’m sure that my mechanical skills aren’t the best cause I have only been playing for 3 weeks lol, but I think I did worry about balance/units too much. The colossus does seem really strong against groups of units, I think that I just never micro’d them enough. I’m gonna be honest, I have never used a high templar before, I’ve always made them into archons; I didn’t see a lot of high templars in pro play so I never made them, I think that I didn’t look close enough lmao. I can try using more high templars with storm though.
Here’s two of my replays that stuck out to me:
h ttps://drop.sc/replay/17289482
h ttps://drop.sc/replay/17289489
Take out the spaces after the h, the forum didn’t let me post links for some reason.
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I have watched replays. You don’t need High Templar yet, I am sorry for that, it was probably a lot of confusing. (however, as you become more advanced it will be definitely a useful and strong unit). Thing positively, I did not know what skills Oracle has, before I got to Diamond 
About game number 2:
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Colossus was pretty nice in game number 2, it worked well. Your stalker colossus composition was efficient, even if it’s a bit old (not strong after colossus redesign , is easily countered by marauders).
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You had nice fights in 18:00, 23:00. You kept your opponent on distance and it worked nicely.
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Stalker colossus outranges your opponent. You can safely deal damage from distance and outrange marines (which need to stick together to be able to fire, what helps colossus to deal damage). If you have a few archons, it would be nice if you fight in open field, so that your units can nicely engage in the fight. But do not come closer with your whole army, it helps your opponent more than you.
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No need to make mass sentry (you can’t use the unit properly yet), and they block 2 supply each. You can get more army instead - more zealots for example (you already had decent number of archons)
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Basicly the thing that happened in late game 2, was your opponent went many marauders. Currently marauders are very successful versus stalker colossus, as you could witness that. Archons and zealots are good choice versus them. Zealots are slightly easier to use than archons, they usually don’t get blocked behind your army what happened in the fight 27:00. Your stalkers got destroyed by marauders, because they had no protection. Archons were blocked behind and did nothing. So even if you had stronger army, it did not really fight fully. If you made a few steps back and then a-move again, archons would be able to fight.
About game number 1:
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You do not need zealots early (and for sure no more than 1), it is better to build stalkers. Basicly zealots are usually “weak” without charge, however they sometimes can be still useful. Stalkers usually are more reliable. Colossus would do wonders if you managed to build one.
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The forward pylon was very good thing. You may add one more next to the Nexus, to allow you for easier warp-ins to your expansion (make sure the circle/area around the pylon will be green, it will allow you for fast warp ins). Also, you may add 1-2 shield batteries for safety. They are great support buildings and are usually going to do more than 1-2 zealots.
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About the annoying reaper running around. I am not sure how good at following build orders you are, but if you can remember to make gateway on time, create cybernetic core after the gateway finishes, remember to add 2nd pylon, then you should be able to create adept or stalker, that can help you greatly with dealing with reaper.
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So I just wanna say this. I have reached gold 2 thanks to your help. Currently, I no longer have anymore trouble with Terran, the tips you gave, the ways to micro, and having a solid unit comp has worked amazingly; thank you so much for that! I think the biggest thing was learning how to properly micro the colosi and make sure I have enough front line, zealots or something else, to keep my stalker/archon/sentry safe. The only time I lost to Terran since then was when we both went our normal builds, I outtraded every fight, but he turtled up and had mass banshee that targeted literally only my pylons and workers, so that was hard to play against.
Currently my hardest matchup is PvP. I see a lot of protoss go the normal gladept harass into deathball, I just need to learn how to properly time my units/buildings and get things out faster than them and learn how to counter effectively. PvP for me is just a skill matchup and the opponent tends to out-skill me.
PvZ is 50/50 currently, I lost a lot to zerg rushes. I learned now that blocking off the choke point in front of the natural and putting a couple zealots in the small walkway with cannons defending works against zerglings.
But again, thank you so much for your tremendous help!
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