Best StarCraft II Units

Carriers cost 350 minerals and 250 gas for 6 supply and fight entirely through Interceptors, up to eight per ship at 15 minerals each. Since the hull never fires directly, damage keeps flowing while the Carrier holds maximum range.

Barrier soaks up to 100 damage the moment an Immortal takes a hit, which is why Siege Tanks and Roaches struggle so badly against them. Bonus damage against Armored targets means the exchange runs lopsided in both directions.

Only one Mothership can exist per player, and it cloaks the units around it while carrying a recall that pulls a scattered army home. Patch 4.0 removed the Mothership Core that had stood in for it, returning the full ship to the Nexus build list.

Zealots need no gas, land two blows per attack, and gain Charge from the Twilight Council, closing the gap before ranged units can kite them. Shields that fully regenerate out of combat let them absorb far more over a game than their cost suggests.

Stalkers hit both air and ground with bonus damage against Armored, and Blink from the Twilight Council teleports a group short distances to escape, chase or reach a cliff. Damage per cost is mediocre, and Protoss players accept that for the mobility.

Colossi walk up and down cliffs and rake ground units with a linear beam that Extended Thermal Lance pushes from range 7 to 9. Carrying both the Massive and Armored tags while remaining targetable by anti-air is the trade, and Vikings and Corruptors collect on it.

Purification Nova is the whole unit: an invulnerable orb the player drives for roughly two seconds before it detonates for heavy area damage on ground targets. One clean hit erases a bio ball, so every Disruptor fight is decided by how well units are split.

Sentries warp in with exactly the 50 energy a Force Field costs, so the first wall can go up immediately. Guardian Shield reduces incoming ranged damage for nearby units and Hallucination fakes an army for scouting, so the unit keeps earning its supply long after the opening.

Permanently cloaked and melee only, Dark Templar simply end games against opponents with no detection in position. A late 2016 patch added Shadow Stride from the Dark Shrine, a short blink that closes onto workers or slips away before a scan lands.

Adepts deal bonus damage to Light units and project a Psionic Transfer shade that teleports them after 7 seconds, moving through walls of units and Force Fields. Early Protoss aggression in Legacy of the Void was built almost entirely around that shade.

Void Rays swapped the charge-up beam of Wings of Liberty for Prismatic Alignment, a timed activation that adds bonus damage against Armored targets. That burst window is what lets a small flight threaten Ultralisks, Thors and Battlecruisers.

Two Templar of any kind merge into an Archon, which arrives with 350 shields over a body of just 10 hit points and splashes both air and ground. Bonus damage against Biological targets makes it a blunt answer to Zergling and Baneling floods.

Phoenixes attack while moving, which lets them kite Mutalisks that would otherwise trade evenly, and Anion Pulse-Crystals adds 2 range on top of that. Graviton Beam lifts a non-Massive ground unit out of reach, removing a Siege Tank from a fight for the price of energy.

Observers are permanently cloaked flying detectors from the Robotics Facility, and Surveillance Mode roots one in place in exchange for a wider sight radius. Protoss builds that skip one lose outright to Dark Templar, Banshees and burrowed Widow Mines.

Phasing Mode turns the Warp Prism into a mobile power field, letting Gateways warp reinforcements straight into an enemy base. Legacy of the Void also extended its pickup range, so a careful pilot can lift an Immortal or Sentry out of a losing fight.

Psionic Storm and Feedback do opposite jobs for the same unit, one punishing clumped ground armies and the other destroying energy-based casters outright. When a High Templar runs dry, two of them merge into an Archon instead of being wasted.

Oracles activate Pulsar Beam for 25 energy plus a drain each second, long enough to shred a mineral line before detection arrives. Revelation exposes an area of the map and Stasis Ward traps ground units, giving the unit value after the harassment window closes.

Tempests outrange nearly everything that could shoot back, and their air attack carries bonus damage against Massive targets like Brood Lords and Battlecruisers. Low damage for a heavy gas price makes them a siege and denial tool rather than a brawler.

Probes warp structures in rather than building them by hand, so the worker can return to mining while the building finishes on its own. That single difference is why Protoss economies recover from harassment differently than Terran or Zerg.