Why pick Colossus over Archons?

It seems Archons counter everything Colossi counter, but more. Their bonus damage triggers on the roaches AND the hydras, or the marauders AND marines. They can also shoot air. And not to mention, they don’t have the blatant weakness of being countered by vikings/corruptors. So help me out; when do I pick the Colossus over the reliable Archon?

You don’t pick on over the other. What you want is to have both. 3-4 colo rest should be Archons and other units.

Archon is very good as a tank and damage dealer but its have a short range.

Colo have good DPS vs light but can be easily killed by air units or zerglings/ marines in big numbers.

Very different units so not even sure where to start tbh :stuck_out_tongue:

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Archons altough tanky and with good dps have a number of disadvantages:

1-They are very short range.
2-They are very slow and fat:). having more then 4 archons sually means they cant all fire, becasue they block each other
3-Their splash dmg has very small radius.

In practice what it means archons often die to bio ball before doing any dmg, and if you have lets say 6 archons, they will die as they advance, blocked by each other.

In contrast a collosus ,specially with extended thermalance upgrade , got very long range, and can stand behind a shield of stalkers,zealots to inflict dmg. Its splash radius is also reasonably good.

In practice:
1-You cant really fight in a way to save archons, if they are to do their job. In contrast, you should alwys try to save the collosus, and usually you should be able to save at least a few.

2-Colosus is more specialized then archons: apart from some new hip builds by pros , Colossus shines against marines, widow mines, zerglings,zealots and hydralisks. However you must alwys have a meat shield around them, they wil die otherwise to fast.Personally (Diamond 3 here) I use them against Terran bio nearly alwys and thats it(but its pretty big it. Also be wary if terrans goes hvy on maruaders instead of marines, you will need many zealots of immmoertals then additionaly, colosus kills them to slow). I might add a few if a zerg is going crazy on Hydralisks, but i usually rely on storm in that matchup.Also i have seen them doing good work in PvP, but usually you only add a few in late med game, to help agaisnt zelaots.

3-Archons have the advantage of being able to operate alone, without meat shield, they are more versatile.They also can be warp in , which is huge. I use archons in every matchup, with the smallest number usually against terrans, because they seem to melt to bio fire before doing anyuthing/

Hope it helps, good luck have fun:)

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Thank you! That does help.

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Colossus also force out useless units like Vikings, corrupters ect.

Collos have longer range and AOE. Can deal more damage to if your opponent is going hydra/marines.