While the Robotics Facility's units won't win you the game alone,
they'll make your life a whole lot easier. Providing valuable
options in scouting, attack locations, and splash damage, the Robotics
units each bring something to the field the Gateway and Stargate units
cannot do nearly as well. Some of these are more essential
and traditional in some matchups, whereas others will be seen as wild
cards and require a tech switch on your opponent's parts to deal
with. And that's exactly what you want--your opponent to
react to you, not vice versa!
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style="font-style: italic;">It's cloaked, and it can see
cloaked units.
style="font-style: italic;">Its value goes far beyond its
cost!
Observers
Cost - 50 Minerals, 100 Gas, 1 Psi
Build Time - 40 Seconds
Combat Stats - 20 shields, 40 HP, 0 armor. Light and
Mechanical armor types. Permanently stealthed.
Detector.
Uses - When in doubt, go straight to a Robotics Facility and
Chronoboost one of these out. The information you can glean
from even a quick pass can give you the intel needed to do a proper
tech switch into something that counters your opponents
plans.
More than one can be used to both monitor their main force, and watch
over your own to protect from stealth threats. Having spare
observers patrol between the opponent's most likely expansion targets
will give you the heads up and enable you to get into position to crush
it the moment it finishes.
Be careful when moving these with the rest of your forces.
They not only fly, but move faster than most units of the Protoss army
to begin with. Blind attack moves will send the observer
headlong into the enemy--and into detection or turrets. Dead
observers are like losing a Sentry--a loss you can deal with, but
painful nonetheless.
You can right click an enemy to have the Observer follow it where ever
it goes, but be warned that good players will see the invisible
distortion trailing about behind them and take it out. This
tactic is very good to use on raiding armies or units, such as Reapers
or Hellions if they're still being used at this point, and enemy Air
forces.
The speed upgrade is largely a luxury thing. Observers get
the job done without it, and you can get it if you're trying to keep
tabs on faster air units or maintain better vision on your patrol
routes.
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A tough guy that excels in killing
other tough guys. Beware though--your shields don't trigger
on spell damage!
Immortals
Cost - 250 Minerals, 100 Gas, 4 Psi
Build Time - 55 Seconds
Combat Stats - 100 Shields, 200 HP, 1 Armor. Armored and
Mechanical armor types. Can only shoot ground units.
Does 20 base damage, with 30 bonus
damage to Armored units per shot. Gains +2 base, +3 versus
armored per upgrade. Medium movement and attack
speeds. 5 range.
Hardened Shields - So long as the unit's
shields are above 0, all damage dealt is reduced to 10
damage. If the attack deals less than 10 damage, it is
applied normally.
Uses - When against Armored units, you could use Stalkers with their
bonus damage against Armored, or you could use Immortals, which
absolutely maim Armored targets. Dealing at least 50 damage a
shot and firing at a decent rate, the Immortal is designed to counter
heavy ground units.
Roach openings from Zerg, which are becoming more rare due to the Roach
now being 2 supply each, are especially vulnerable to fast
Immortals. Having 2 or more Immortals in your force basically
forces your opponent to abandon the heavy ground game and come at you
with their initial combat units--Marines, Zealots and
Zerglings. Since all of these are Light targets that deal
less than 10 damage per hit, the Immortal's effectiveness is crippled
if it is forced to engage a small (literally) force.
As such, you need to be very careful of a switch to these
units. All of them are weak to Zealots, so a combination
force of Zealots and Immortals will terrorize all ground
units. Immortals are meaty units, but unless they're eating
Siege Tank rounds, you want to try and keep them alive as long as
possible behind your line. But be aware that composition
can't shoot air at all. Stalkers or Templar are necessary to
fight air from the ground.
A fast Immortal can push hard against a teching Terran. The
insanely high damage forces a response immediately, or their wall
falls. Just don't go too heavy on these, or you will be
crippled by EMP should they switch to Ghosts. Ghosts are the
bane of this unit. Your shields will be completely destroyed,
and it is those shields that make the Immortal, well, Immortal against
heavy fire.
Focusing on the Armored units with these is critical. Their
damage is more than double against Armored targets. If you
cannot control that, go for a more traditional Gateway army.
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style="font-style: italic;">While frail, the Warp Prism
enables many tactics, both sneaky and standard. Who doesn't
like reinforcements?
Warp Prisms
Cost - 200 Minerals, 2 Psi
Build Time - 50 Seconds
Combat Stats - 40 Shields, 100 HP, 1 Armor. Armored and
Mechanical armor types. Can lift and drop units.
Can go immobile to discharge a Pylon psi radius to build structures or
warp in units from.
Uses - The main use of a Warp Prism is to get your Probes to island
expansions. Protoss lack an easy way to go about this, so a
Warp Prism is typically relegated to Non-combat pick up, drop off
nonsense. When doing this, it's important to conceal your Warp Prism
well both during and afterwards--the moment your opponent sees a Warp
Prism, they will look for your sneaky expansion.
The old Reaver + Shuttle tactic from StarCraft is alive and well in the
Colossi + Warp Prism combo. You can pick up a Colossus and
drop it off to fire single shots, then pick it back up to dodge enemy
fire and resistance. Until your opponent can come up with a
way to threaten your Warp Prism, this kind of harass can be devastating
and can make your opponent hate life.
The final use, exerting a Pylon aura, is used primarily for rush
tactics. If your opponent has a stronghold, you could just
pick up the units and drop them off; or you could have all of your Warp
Gates summon in new reinforcements on the spot--behind enemy
lines! Useful for harassment mostly, but can also aid a
defense by enabling quick and precise reinforcement of what is needed.
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style="font-style: italic;">The bane of ground armies, the
Colossus fears nothing, least of all terrain. Walk up and
down cliffs to create gaps in defenses and shake attackers off!
Colossi
Cost - 300 Minerals, 200 Gas, 6 Psi
Build Time - 75 Seconds.
Combat Stats - 150 Shields, 200 HP, 1 Armor. Armored,
Mechanical, and Massive armor types. Can only attack land
units. Can be attacked by anti-air weapons.
Attack deals a line of splash damage,
doing 15 damage per hit with two hits per laser sweep. Attack
upgrades add two damage to each hit. 6 range, 9 upgraded.
Uses - The role of Colossi is similar to that of the High
Templar--wreck clusters of ground units. While the Templar
have higher range and damage with the Psi Storm, the opponent will not
just stand there and eat it most of the time. Colossi deal
more damage over time, and have no mana bar to depend on to make it
happen.
The range upgrade is absolutely essential. You are not
getting much out of these without it. On the front lines,
Colossi are targeted and instantly slain, and this gives them the range
to sit behind and blast units into charred remains. It's
important to note that even with the devastating splash damage and
range, Colossi have no minimum range and no friendly fire associated
with their attacks at melee range.
Your primary threats are Vikings and Corruptors. Both of
these have a good range and can do massive damage per volley to a
Colossus. Keep your army tightly clustered, with anti-air
nearby to intercept any interlopers. This might render you
vulnerable to spells, but it's better than being flanked and dying
before getting off more than one shot.
Abuse their ability to walk up and down cliffs at any given
time. You can make it impossible to mine at many expansions,
or escape a horde of Zerglings to fry them from above. Most
importantly, it lets these live. That's the hardest part
about using Colossi. If you can keep the Colossi alive and
firing, they will win you most battles. They simply do so
much damage to a crowd, so the bigger the battle, the more bang for
your buck you get from these behemoths!
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