[ToRDeathsFang]

So, i've been thinking a lot on ways to effectively harass, annoy and generally make my opponents lives miserable. Protoss has never been a very harassment-intensive race but over the months some style have been adopted. With HotS Protoss will gain some useful Spellcasters and i'd just like to ask for advice for possible harass because idk about you fellow Brotoss's but too many times i just defend from harass and turtle up too much while letting my opponent do whatever he wants.

Recently i've started to use Warp Prism Zealot/ Sentry drops that work FAIRLY okay the first couple of times but get redundant one units are left at mineral lines or turrets/ cannons go up. I've tried doing a Void Ray poke with a pylon next to my opponents main so i can warp about 4-5 Sentries on the high ground, ff the ramp then go to town on the main and then there's the usual Phoenix/ Void Ray harass which doesn't work too well with my low amount of multi-tasking.

So i ask you fellow Protoss, when would generally be the best time to start harassing, know when to stop harassing and even what type of harassment to use. I know it's a broad question but for me it's hard to answer because idk wtf i'm supposed to do half the time.

Cheers!

[MooZfY]

Have you tried phoenix harass? I heard it's pretty good..

[sRFullstop]

I think the new Protoss harass tools are not very good. The Oracle being able to block mineral patches is just so weird and different from other forms of harassment which is killing workers. Warp prisms are very good, for example attacking, and dropping/warpin units at the same time.

[zeffrin]

yeah the best thing about blocking minerals will be doing it while your warp prism units hold off the base defense

ps, pheonix harass is good fun, but next time you go robo grab a warp prism, boost it, doesn't take all that long and they're so sick for harass... I'm low level player but even I manage to keep the prism alive so I can go back later

Just the other night I was about to get steamrolled except a prism with red hull sailed in and dropped off a few zealots, and powered up.... so satisfying

[ToRDeathsFang]

I'd do that except my multitasking kind of sucks. And Phoenix harass is only great if your opponent completely doesn't expect it.

[SuperHero]

Warp prisms are an amazingly good harass unit but more towards the mid-late game when you have a few spare warpgates.

Dropping some zealots into a mineral line, then flying to another base and warping in a few zealots there is a great mult-harass strategy similiar to a medivac double drop from terran.

although protoss doesnt have the harass units like terran hellion/banshee and zerg mutalisk there are still ways to get economy damage done.

[Meatex]

my protoss is bad and i have had diamond terrans on ropes from constant warp prism harass at the same time as attacking the front
pheonix butt stomp zerg and fairly easy to use. Pick up hydras as they pop out - kill overlords and queens. Then when you engage just pick up half their army and win

[ToRPandarine]

warp prism harass...god...even 2 vikings cant take it down unless u manually control the kill...

1 warp prism can really mess up your day lol...HT, DT, zlots, stalkers, sentries all can be warped in not to mention the damn thing can carry a max of 4 units to boot...

i once had this guy send 1 void to one base, another to another base and a warp prism with 2 immo..add insult to injury, he used the warp prism to warp in 4 zlots, 2 spiders and a sentry to block of the ramp...worse v ive had in a loooooooooong time...

wht im trying to say? warp prisms are your new friends...add a couple of voids or multi drops/warps, you can ruin any players day...

[JordsKeen]

In a pvz situation if you ever want to keep them away from you use a warp prism in their main while simultaionously sending a bunch of lots to their 3rd/4th or just taking army to that spot and dealing with it

This keeps them running around, in my experence going dt tech is excellent as you can drop dts or just run them into 3rds and 4ths and snipe the spore that's there then snipe the hatch, with 3 dts you can hit it down really fast.

[ETL.Branno]

i dont know why protoss think they need better harassment units. warp prisms are crazy good, if you warp in at at least 1 base while engaging your opponent you will almost always do a tone of damage and it takes a lot more effort for the defender to clean it up then it does for you to warp in units so they are running around trying to do 10 things at once which can completely screw someone and its really annoying when you kill a warp prism and another one shows up a minute later when you thought you were safe.

[Bendy]

Originally Posted by DeathsFang

I've tried doing a Void Ray poke with a pylon next to my opponents main so i can warp about 4-5 Sentries on the high ground, ff the ramp then go to town on the main

I think it's a bit of a gamble harassing with sentries unless your multitasking and unit control are top-notch... they're just too expensive to risk losing. Zealots on the other hand are great for throwing away. You can get some worker kills or snipe attachments/tech buildings just for some spare minerals. DTs are also good if your opponent doesn't have a whole lot of detection, as long as you split them up to divert his attention/detection and do damage in multiple spots, force scans etc.

Phoenix are pretty good vs Zerg but once a couple of spores go down at the mineral line it eliminates most harassment options. If you mass a whole lot of them, you can choose to sac one or two to slow down their eco by killing some queens. Unfortunately if they have any infestors they pretty much nullify phoenixes during army engagements, so be wary of your opponent's composition and adjust accordingly. On the plus side you get great map control, vision and scouting info with them unless your opponent can get a lot of mutas or slightly fewer corruptors.

Warp prisms are a great mineral sink for harassing or setting up favourable engagement positions (that's a bit more advanced) and they'll help your multitasking skills.

[ToRsupapower]

warp prism, true it's insanely good especially after the buff, just makin some dts or sentry or zealot is good and then attacking the front can screw up zerg quite i bit, (from a zerg perspective, i assume this will screw terran too)

[TCPNishy]

I think in the HOTS expansion (assuming the oracle makes it with all its spells intact) phoenix/oracle harassment will be deadly, especially vs zerg. No longer will a spore crawler or 2 be able to shut it down due to phase shift or whatever that spell is called and the speed of both those units provide awesome reuse ability.

This will force corruptors or mass hydras, corruptors being the natural path to brood lords so it will be easy to shut down as you already have stargate tech, whereas mass hydras (plus Roaches) are destroyed by the inevitable colossus.

Add to the fact the oracle can shut down mineral patches and halt production using any particular tech structure, Zerg are going to have lots of difficulty with protoss, in mid game especially.

[sRFullstop]

What does phase shift do again? Is it the one that shuts down any ability for a few seconds (eg. spore crawlers)? In that case put 2 or 3 :P

[TCPNishy]

Yeah pretty much shuts down any structure and pretty much makes it as if you don't have it at all, so you could also use it on a roach warren when you're attacking with a gateway army, so therefore the zerg can't build roaches for a while.

But you're right, building extra spores will probably do the trick :P depends on the energy cost for the spell though, I'm guessing 75 but that's just speculation. But as a protoss it's always nice to see a zerg building lots of crawlers, just means they'll drone up a couple of extra larvae they could have used for units

[Dhal]

Originally Posted by DeathsFang

I'd do that except my multitasking kind of sucks. And Phoenix harass is only great if your opponent completely doesn't expect it.

Phoenix harass is great at all times of the game regardless of whether expected or not.

If your multitasking sucks, you're going to do poorly with harassment regardless, because by its very nature, harassment is done WHILE doing other things. If you let your macro slip while harassing your opponent's economy, you've gained nothing. If you fly a warp prism in and get four worker kills with zealots, but during this time you missed making 4-5 workers of your own, you've gained absolutely nothing.

It is important, to get the most out of harassment, to be able to do it while maintaining your actions on the other more important aspects of the game.

The only way to practise doing this, is to do it. Often. In every game. You probably won't be very successful with it at first, but you will be perfectly fine after a few weeks of doing this in every game.

[ToRSpartaz]

Originally Posted by Dhal

Phoenix harass is great at all times of the game regardless of whether expected or not.

In terms of that comment, Ive found this not to be the case. Generally it depends on the match up for instance in both PvT and PvZ the turrets and spores come at a greate cost to the Protoss economy because you are bound to lose between 2-4 Pheonixs depending if your micro is actually semi decent. Which is a lot of cost investment considering the costs of pheonixes.

Also to actually make a decent harras with your pheonixes you do really need a reasonable amount of them because usually in thee early game their energy is quite low. For an efficient and viable harras probs 5-8 pheonixes otherwise it really isn't worth the effort.

To be honest the only really effective harrasment is in the versus Zerg and not at all times of the game mainly early to mid game.