Technorati Tags: StarCraft 2 Strategy Guide, starcraft strategies, terran vs protoss

After being saddled with an almost unhealthy addiction to the much anticipated (twelve years!) Starcraft II for the better part of the last two weeks (something that will likely continue for weeks to come), I’ve made some surprising observations. It seems to me that the dark templar and siege tank hordes I always used to see in Starcraft I don’t get churned out nearly as often anymore. The old Terran vs Protoss match-up just doesn’t play out the same way it used to.

At first, I thought this was a little weird, seeing as how dark templars and siege tanks are two of the least changed units in Starcraft II. Upon further reflection, I realized that this makes perfect sense. With so many new toys to play at your disposal, why restrict yourself to the old standards? The more I thought about it, though, the more it seemed that the reasons might be a little more technical than that. It’s more of a reflection of what the Terran vs Protoss match-up is becoming in Starcraft II.

A lot of the counters for these two units have been strengthened, and sometimes they just aren’t worth their risks to produce. The zealot charge ability, for example, has turned what was once cannon fodder into a disaster for a cluster of siege tanks, allowing zealots to close that deadly gap almost instantaneously. With detectors like the sensor tower and less tech needed to add scanning capabilities to a command center, dark templars are a little trickier to use, too. Considering that both counter each other, the decline of one could lead to the decline of the other.

Granted, the siege tank still is used often enough: most Terran wall defenses at choke points have at least two or three as a rule. Offensively, though, they never seem to be leading the way in any sort of assault. The ease of void ray production for Protoss players probably contributed to that. A couple void rays coming across poorly protected siege tanks is going to get very ugly for the Terran player very quickly.

The decline in dark templars strikes me as peculiar, though. Using them forces the Terran player to guard against the cloak sooner than would normally be necessary, at the cost of army or worker production. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to not throw some into the mix, yet I’ve only had them used against me a couple times since the game launched (and let’s just say I’ve played more than a couple games in the past two weeks). Most of the time, the Protoss player will just mass up zealots and stalkers, or tech straight up to colossi or void rays. There have been a few that try to tech straight up to mass carriers, which was popular with some people in Starcraft I. Old habits die hard, but from what I’ve seen in Starcraft II, that habit might not have a very long life ahead of it.

Of course, this is just based on my personal experiences. Maybe I just haven’t found the old diehards who won’t let go of their familiar friends, or maybe I haven’t found great players who can use them in new ways that few have yet imagined. We’ll just have to keep playing to see how the strategies of Starcraft II evolve over time.

Technorati Tags: starcraft strategies, terran vs protoss