Day 3 through 5

I dove in deep over the last couple of days and played a total of 14 games.  With an even split, I have learned one thing.

I don't have firm grasp on PvP.  And I kind of hate it.  The fear of the four gate is so strong that I feel like I need to do it myself just to counter it.  I also never know when I have beaten back the four gate rush.  Also, since Protoss units are highly specialized, misreading your opponent's is even more unforgiving than before.

I've said this to ZorkDork a lot, but Protoss units seem to exist in a binary state.  They are either totally awesome or sort of useless.  The Zealot is a great example.  Most of the time, the a Zealot is just getting shot and soaking up a few hits for everyone else.  Not really that awesome.  But if he gets in melee rage, he transforms into an amazing-super-death-machine punching people with lasers in the face.  Thats right, he punches people with lasers.  LASERS!

I have been watching the GSL and looking for relays with solid phoenix play.  Harassing with Protoss is very hard to do effectivly without taking some big risks.  You can do a warp prism drop, but that can be a very high risk tactic.  From what I am seeing, the phoenix can fill this roll nicely.  The key is to make them think like mutas.  Rather than seeing them as a front line unit, use them more to pick off things in weaker parts of the army, or force the player to return to their base.  Verses Zerg, they seem delay mutas quite a bit, forcing the Zerg to get hydras to stop them.

                                                                                      Remember: Think like a Muta!

The big risk is that you need to get a stupid number of them.  When you have eight to ten of these moon shaped space gliders, it is pretty amazing.  A Terran player needs a silly number of Marines in one spot to kill them all.  Protoss ground armies suffer in the mid game and can get sort of rolled if your opponent does a big push.  The is going to be learning how to do enough damage to delay that push.

Still, I want to master it.  It seems safer than a two base timing push and could be a solid way for me to feel confident taking a third base.