MountainGo wrote:How ironic that a Zerg player would say that. Zerg has to build maybe one extra Hatchery and he can make as many units at once as he wants! Anyway, don't worry, Protoss is not OP; yoyoma said it right. Many times now, when I win with only Gateway units (and sometimes even if an Immortal or two is in the mix), they will say something like "wow nice 4gate". Oh yeah, sorry for using my race's immediately available, all-purpose units. Some people just think anything that beats them is cheap.
The irony was not lost on me. More than once, I've been simply outmassed by a zerg swarm (Sheesh, you can make a lot of zerglings and mutas.)
MountainGo wrote:Against Roaches, I'd recommend lots o' forcefields. With the Roach's range being low, it should be relatively easy to force back many of them so they can't attack. Only use Guardian Shield against them if you have energy left over after the FFs, and even then... meh (they do 16 dmg per attack, so 2 armor is less significant than usual). Consider getting your Sentries as early as possible so their energy can build up.
As for Phoenixes, they are extremely efficient against Mutalisks. Obviously you don't want to fly two Phoenixes after a dozen Mutas, but you could probably do well to send five or six. Play around in a unit testing map (I use
this one) to get a feel for it. Try to keep your Phoenixes bunched up and dart in and out of range of the Mutas (you outrange them 4 to 3, and you can move and fire at the same time). That said, I'd recommend practicing dealing with them using only Stalkers (yes, Blink helps a lot) and Sentries. Mutas are just plain inefficient against pretty much anything that can hit air; what makes them good is their mobility, for which the biggest counter is map awareness and unit positioning. A common fallacy of Starcraft strategy is that you always have to get the unit that counters your opponent's units.
You know, I've never really tried forcefielding the roaches back. I really need to work on my sentry micro, since I've uh.. never been able to use forcefields very effectively (except in penning people on my ramp, and that's easy.)
I've taken to leaving 3-4 stalkers hanging out at any base in the early-mid game just as a 'if the banshee comes around I'll know it' unit. Also, I recently realized, Stalkers are protoss' answer to about 75% of the game. Roaches? Stalkers. Hydralisks? Stalkers. Mutalisks? Stalkers with blink. Battlecruisers? LOTS of stalkers. Banshees? Stalkers and an observer. Marauders? More stalkers. Stalkers? Upgraded stalkers!
I'm a big advocate of mixed forced (And I love charge zealots. They're mean) but about 50-75% of my unit production goes to as many stalkers as I can find gas for.
I just don't find that against other units that can hit air, the phoenix has enough life to really justify building it vs, say, a void ray. Maybe phoenixes need more micro than I'm giving them though. I'm about the worst micro on earth, I have a massive APM of about 30-50 average on my best games. If I'm really focusing, I can pull some good kiting/selective killing with my stalkers, but, really, I just depend on macro to win me games.
I really should work on training my micro more. Is that what the unit tester maps are for?