Starcraft 2 Guide - Protoss Standard Opening Build
For the most part of my battle.net career I have played as a random player. And because of that I have gotten to understand the 3 races much better in SC2. As obvious as this might sound but one of the key understand I found about the 3 races is that each of them are truly very different from another. Their units are different, their overall tactics are different, and in a nut shell they all play very differently.
Another cool thing that came along with spending so much time with all 3 races is that I had an very interesting realization about their build orders. What I realized is that although there are literally dozens of different strategies or build orders for each race, they all pretty much begin the same way. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is always one special standard opening build that is the base of 80 to 90 percent of all other build orders, and this is especially true for Protoss.
The reason I believe that Protoss is more limited in their opening builds is because unlike Zerg or Terran, Protoss cannot skip their Tier 1.5 units altogether. For instances... let's say you're a Terran player and you want go for a Banshee rush build, then you would build your Barrack, and skip making reactors and then go straight in to making a Starport.
Protoss on the other hand will not be able to do that. They can't skip their Tier 1.5 units is because all their Tier 2 and 3 structures require the Cybernetics Core, which just so happen to be the building that allows them to train their Tier 1.5 units. This means that unless you're planning to go for a pure Zealot army, you'll need to drop down a Cybernetics Core sooner or later even though you're not planning to use Stalkers or Sentries at all.
But of course this isn't really a bad thing. All I'm trying to say is that with the exception of 2 or 3 build orders, almost every major Protoss builds uses the standard 12 Gate Core opening build as it's bases. The 12 Gateway, Core opening build is very simple but it is also very efficient, and safe against any races. The objective of this build is to set the foundations for mid to late game by getting an early Cybernetics Core. Below is the build order step by step¦
The Build Order:
- 9 Pylon
- 11 Chrono Boost -> Nexus
- 12 Gateway, use Probe to scout
- 13 Chrono Boost -> Nexus
- 14 Assimilator
- 16 Pylon
- 17 Cybernetics Core
- 18 Zealot (optional)
A small variation to this builds is to delay your Gateway till 13 supplies instead of 12. This allows you to get a slight resources advantage to the 12 Gate Core version of this build but it is also delays your first Zealot making you more vulnerable to early Zergling rushes. Personally I usually just stick with the 12 Gate Core build, but if I'm know that I'm going for a long macro game then I would go for the 13 Gate Core build instead.
Apart from that this opening is extremely simple, and standard. So get use to using this build as it is a build that you will encounter over and over again if Protoss is the race you choose.But keep in mind that this is just an opening build for early game and if you want to learn how to transition into other more complex Protoss strategies, you can read my other Starcraft 2 Protoss strategies at http://www.yourstarcraft2guide.com.
