by Judicator » Fri Jul 30, 2010 2:33 pm
@eldiablo
general strategies: always build probes. maintain 1 in queue as close to 100% as possible. pretty much don't stop until you have around 40. obviously try to split your total probe count evenly among all expos. The above is not perfect but it's simple to remember and doesn't hurt you as much as having too few probes.
protoss are all about fewer powerful units. that means you need to keep them alive (this is way more important than zerg, for example). Knowing when to run away is extremely important. For instance, if you have 4 stalkers out and 4 completing in your base, but you see a force incoming that will probably kill your 4 stalkers, run back to your base. 4 and 4 stalkers is less powerful than 8 stalkers.
The weapon upgrades for protoss are the best. Firstly, both armor and shields are secondary because a) shields cost a ton of minerals already, b) shields always start with 0 armor, making 1 additional armor not as important. c) each unit relies on 2 armor upgrades for the same type of survivability of terran or zerg. Additionally, adding 1 weapon upgrade makes zealots kill zerglings 50% faster (2 swings instead of 3)
You should focus on keeping your protoss units alive in two ways. 1) abilities. Protoss have a ton of defensive abilities. Blink, guardian shield, hardened shields come to mind. know how to use these effectively
2) shield recharge. It's the most important thing. If you see units taking damage, move them away. a unit with shields has a bright blue glow around it in the unit pane. With no shields, the unit has a black background. Shields recharge rapidly after not taking damage. Play the protoss challenge (middle left on the challenge menu). In order to get gold on that mission, you'll have to micro units with low shields away from the fight. If you haven't gotten gold there, i'd recommend it.
Here's how I micro units away. firstly, use the keygroup for the most exposed group. For instance, I ususally put 1 to be melee/tanks, 2 to be stalkers, 3, 4, 5 to be casters. Thus, I will mostly be microing group 1 since they take the most damage. press 1, you'll see all your units in the pane. if a unit turns yellow, immediately click him and right click behind your army. then immediately press 1 to select the group again. repeat as necessary.
If the battle is intense, you'll have plenty of units to move around. One additional note, microing Immortals is actually really important. They need to move away BEFORE they lose all their shields. A siege tank will kill an immortal in 1-2 shots after the shield is down. However, since shields recharge extremely fast, you can get all of that amazing damage mitigation back in a few seconds.
Finally, scout and move out. Most people will either mass in their base or keep their army close. Additionally, they don't scout. This is bad. You are voluntarily moving your boundry close to your base. If the other player is putting pressure on you, forcing you to retreat, thats fine. Just make sure you are pusing back. Don't let your enemy have that advantage for free. Finally, scouting is the key to winning. Generally, you'll want to have a robo bay for observers, especially in a single player game, regardless of colossi or not. Also, the probe that builds your first pylon should start scouting the enemy. For zerg, look for the spawning pool. Click it to see progress and see how soon zerglings could attack. For protoss, look for 2 gates, especially before Cyber core. That probably means a large zealot push. Your probe should never die vs zealots, you should be able to constantly scout him until the stalker. Terran is a lot harder to figure out, first for wall in and second for buildings, but you should look for early tech labs and gas. 2 gas before factory usually means a mech or starport build.
Here are some basic starting strategies to ensure you don't immediately die to a rush.
vs Zerg: wall off. build pylon at 8-9 supply then a gateway next to it. Ramp-type chokes can be sealed by 2 buildings and 1 "hold position" zealot. You can easily kill 6 lings with 1 zealot in that position. If they decide to attack your pylon, don't move, wait for another zealot or stalker to attack them and make them retreat. if you move,they'll just run past you. If its a 6 pool ling rush, stay calm, keep doing the above strategy. however, you will probably have to defend with your probes. select all your probes and fight back when they get to your minerals only, not sooner. Don't move your probes off your line unless they are directly attacked. Once you have a zealot, if there are still more than 4 lings alive, move him near a building when you attack. A zealot will lose to 4 lings in the open and will win if he's standing near something.
vs. Terran: Generally the only early terran strat is reaper. The build order vs terran should be 8-9 plylon, then gateway, then pylon/assimilator, then cyber core as soon as gateway is finished. You need to be mining gas about when your cyber core is done. I usually just skip zealot as they are worthless versus all three barracks units. As soon as the cyber core warps in, chrono boost the gateway and build a stalker. Generally at this point, two things will happen.
1, you were reaper rushed, in which case you should be microing your probes away from the reaper as they are attacked. I would put them all in a control group and micro them away just like you would for zealots. if he gets too close, in your minerals for example, you can turn and hit him really quickly. If you surround him, kill it. however, it's not likely, and you shouldn't chase him anywhere. Stay near the minerals. If he chases a probe around, you win. By the time the reaper arrives, you should gauge where you're at. If you built it right, the cyber core should be close to done and you should have 50 gas. if you aren't set up for the stalker, you should go ahead and chrono out a zealot. However, the zealot only helps a little. don't chase the reaper, just have your zealot hang out in the minerals. The stalker will end the rush and is extremely important to have in this situation. Generally, the opponent will transition to marauders after a failed reaper, so you should tech to robo bay for immortals and build additonal stalkers and zealots.
2, The other thing that happens in this build is no attack. In that case, you should move your single stalker out and put pressure on the terran. Without marauders with slow, stalkers are virtually unkillable for those first few minutes. You should micro him away when his shields drop then wait for them to recharge. But in general, focus on hurt marines behind his wall-in. early pressure can cause your opponent to panic and start building a large bio ball.
there is absolutely no reason for me to be in platinum, especially since I did all 5 with T and my T is pretty bad. (Tilliam can attest to this, and I expect to be demoted down to Silver where I belong very soon) 
