My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er! - Lets Play+Read Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void

[noob]

Eh, there's a number of ways to handwave this:

1) Raynor is a talented and compassionate leader, and so the canonical losses he suffers with his 5000APM adjutant and insane micro are far fewer than what we as pleb players can manage. The relatively few that do canonically occur haunt him, which drives him to keep his skills sharp.

2) His losses might be on par with the less caring Korhal and UED commanders we played as before, but he gets a ton of volunteers because, let's face it, Mengsk is a jackhole and the aliens are scary. And lest we forget, this is a space opera setting - there are potentially hundreds of billions, maybe even trillions of humans to draw from across all the homeworlds and colonies. Even if only a fraction of those are sympathetic to his cause, and a fraction of that fraction are willing to enlist, that's still potentially millions of recruits.

3) Both - he gets a pile of recruits, though fewer than Mengsk's conscripts and the UED's resocials, but is able to deploy his few much more skillfully because talent.

Someone did a playthrough of the terran campaign without losing a single unit(that involved also not using temporary units)
So you do not need a 5000 apm adjutant for doing the campaign without losses and it could be imaginable that Raynor did the campaign without losses (Through proper scouting good battlefield practices and other stuff like that also Raynor cares about human losses so he would probably be fine with raven autoturrets dying thus allowing more tactics).
Also it is cannon that non resocialised are better at knowing what is and what is not a desperate encounter and to just flee when it is pointless to fight back which could further reduce the amount of efforts needed to keep troops alive.

Jack Frost is basically non-canon, and while Raynor does indeed have neither the equipment nor moral absence to neurally resocialize somebody, he also has a crew of like 200 people, the only firebat of whom we know anything about (Miles "Blaze" Lewis) being, indeed, a pyromaniac. He just happens to also have a sense of justice.

I was not contesting the pyromanic crazy man part just the "they do not have a choice" part.

[Keltest]

I was not contesting the pyromanic crazy man part just the "they do not have a choice" part.

Thats the statistic given out by the game. Dominion firebats are almost universally resocialized pyromaniacs, specifically because of how dangerous the position is and how dangerous the suit is even without that.

[Traab]

I personally loved how blatant they portrayed the terrans as good old southern country boys in starcraft 1 where they did everything they possibly could to portray the front line troops as redneck hillbilly idiots. It was a sign of simpler times I guess, when they could get away with that sort of thing. "I love you sarge!" Also yeah, my vote goes with saving the protoss on shakuras.

[The Glyphstone]

It was literally called the Terran Confederacy and used a certain notorious flag as its emblem. Subtle, this was not.

[Traab]

It was literally called the Terran Confederacy and used a certain notorious flag as its emblem. Subtle, this was not.

Yep. Though back then it also wasnt considered nearly as notorious, it was just a flag the good old boys flew so there was no problem with using it to represent another confederacy. Now its a bit more complicated.

[Psyren]

The game makes it very clear that he's considered on the run in Wings of Liberty, and that through most of that campaign, his social capital is, if anything, even more limited than his physical resources. Given that any would-be recruits would then have to find their way from wherever they first decided to join up with Raynor to the ever-shifting location of the Hyperion, it's a wonder that he gets any recruits, or that the majority of them aren't Dominion infiltrators.

If Jim's rebellion/recruitment were as limited as you claim, having the Emperor himself go on TV at the start of the game to denounce the guy (and defend "squandering trillions" trying to stop him) doesn't make much sense.

In that same speech, Mengsk mentions 6 worlds are in open rebellion due to Raynor, who immediately goes on to pick up a 7th (Mar Sara.) The adjutant mentions that overthrowing the Dominion facility there will "cripple Mengsks operations across the planet." The populations of these 7 worlds are unknown, but an entire planet is a lot of potential troops, much less 7 of them. And the rebellion only grows from there throughout the campaign.

[Keltest]

If Jim's rebellion/recruitment were as limited as you claim, having the Emperor himself go on TV at the start of the game to denounce the guy (and defend "squandering trillions" trying to stop him) doesn't make much sense.

In that same speech, Mengsk mentions 6 worlds are in open rebellion due to Raynor, who immediately goes on to pick up a 7th (Mar Sara.) The adjutant mentions that overthrowing the Dominion facility there will "cripple Mengsks operations across the planet." The populations of these 7 worlds are unknown, but an entire planet is a lot of potential troops, much less 7 of them. And the rebellion only grows from there throughout the campaign.

Many planets have a single city as a settlement. Beyond that, Mengsk takes personal revenge on Raynor by attributing to him atrocities and actions taken by other terrorist and rebel groups, allowing him to devote more resources to snuffing out Raynor.

[The Glyphstone]

Mengsk saved Raynor's life, and in return, Raynor betrayed and deserted him. He failed to stay loyal, and as we know, Mengsk cannot abide failure.

[noob]

Mengsk saved Raynor's life, and in return, Raynor betrayed and deserted him. He failed to stay loyal, and as we know, Mengsk cannot abide failure.

You know there is a reason:Mengsk was basically backstabbing any that was not following 100% blindly his cause so Raynor had to split from the cause before being backstabbed/sent to a suicide mission.
But Raynor could also have decided to become an upstanding citizen and follow Mengsk orders blindly so it is totally fair for Mengsk to denounce Raynor for betrayal.

[The Glyphstone]

Spoiler: Update 3: In Which In-Spear-ational Advice Is Needed

Show

I followed Artanis back to the base camp we'd set up, collecting a handful of other Protoss along the way. Most of them were Nerazim or Stalkers, but some were regular Protoss who'd gotten their braids chopped off. Everyone seemed sort of dazed, but the Heirarch moved like he was a zombie or something, and the rest were keeping their distance.



“Um...Heirarch? What are you going to do now?”



“Am I? Can I still call myself by that title? I failed to resist Amon's influence, murdered my friend and the Nerazim's greatest champion. Who would follow me after that?”

Oof. That sounded serious, and I was not the right person to be helping someone twice my height and ten times my age solve their existential crisis. Looking around at the other Protoss standing around, though, no one was stepping up to volunteer. They were watching, waiting for him to do something.



“Okay – you seem like a cool guy, Heirarch, with all respect, and you're probably a good warrior. But I've been in Zeratul's head, seen his memories. That dude was like a million years old. He was winning fights for longer than you've been alive. Even with Amon in the driver's seat, you couldn't beat him if you tried. He wanted to free you though, save you. He sacrificed himself for you. Kind of a bad friend if you just mope around now, with all these people waiting for you to tell them to do something.”

He didn't say anything, and I started to worry that maybe I'd gone a bit too far. Pep talks are not exactly my specialty. Then he shook his head and looked up.



“Thank you, Witness. You are correct – I see now Zeratul's gift, and I will not let his loss be in vain. Karax! Our only hope now lies in the Spear of Adun. Can we still activate it?”

Another Protoss came closer – he had his braids cut like the others, but he also had a beard, the only Protoss I'd ever seen with facial hair at all.



“Of course, Heirarch. The Spear is intact, but we must engage all five generators in order to power its launch sequence. One is close by and already under our control, but the other four have been overgrown with Creep. They must be cleared if we are to succeed.”

I wisely left the two of them to plan their fight, retreating to a console that was connected to the surviving observers. Clearly happy to have a goal again, Protoss everywhere were jumping back into action.





Karax had understated the problem, if anything. The disabled generators weren't just overgrown and infested, there were Zerg nested all around them as well. We'd have to fight through the defenses to activate them all.



We had defenses of our own now, but they were offline without any power supplies. The Spear of Adun wasn't launch ready, but it still had some support system online, and that apparently included being able to warp down pylons wherever we wanted.





The cannons were instantly back in action, and the Heirarch wasted no time in thickening out defenses on both sides of the base.





While that was going on, a scouting party ventured out to the south and found an abandoned, offline warp gate surrounded by trees. After calling in a pylon from the Spear of of Adun, it was easily brought back online.



Back at base, the Gateways were also being reconfigured as warp gates.



And just in time, too, as the Zerg were charging in to attack. It was only a handful of Zerglings, but everyone knew this was just the beginning.



There was no more time to waste building up defenses. A handful of Zealots led some Stalkers out past the guns to secure a second power generator.



They didn't encounter much opposition, luckily, and were able to burn away the Creep growths.



The evil Protoss didn't like this at all, though. They sent in transports loaded with soldiers to attack us, trying to sneak in from the opposite flank. It was a good thing we'd put turrets up on both ramps, but it still took time for the Stalkers to run all the way over and destroy the transport ships.





On the way to the third generator, they found another abandoned warp gate. Bringing it online came with a half-dozen Stalkers as well, reinforcements who had been trapped mid-transit when the gate shut down.



The extra help took down the next generator's guards no problem. The Zerg retaliated with Nydus worms, trying to flood the base's defenses until the Stalkers backtracked again to kill the worms.



A third warp gate increased our ability to summon troops even more. I did notice that the Heirarch was exclusively sending the Stalker robots out to fight. Seemed a bit cold of him, since I was pretty sure they were actually still alive somehow, but considering how few normal Protoss he had to choose from it made sense in a way.



Pretty soon there were Hybrids taking the field as well, alongside their mind-controlled Protoss minions. They were tougher to beat, but enough Stalkers could blast them down like anything else.



Protoss were being used to defend the fourth generator – it looked like the Hybrids...or Amon, I guess...had figured out our plans. We had more stalkers than they had dragoons, though.





That brought in transports and Nydus worms to retaliate. Our base defenses were strong enough to keep off the attackers, but it was a bit of a tense delay while the Hierarch's marauding Stalker pack hunted down the worms and prisms to take the heat off.



That left only one generator, with an entire base of Protoss and Zerg between us and it. Instead, the Hierarch sent our forces off around on a circuitous route, down a path near the third generator that was almost fully overgrown with vegetation and obviously abandoned.





It turned out to be a backdoor into the enemy base, bypassing the thickest of their defenses.



With all five generators online, the ship was ready to go, and everyone started warping onboard. That included me, and I don't recommend the feeling. Being inside a nice safe starship is one thing, but I'd probably have thrown up if I had gotten anything to eat that day.





A tidal wave of Zerg and evil Protoss swept in but it was too late – I could feel the vibrations as we took off, headed out away from Aiur into space and beyond. I really need to start packing some sort of emergency go-bag to carry with me, this adventures out of nowhere seem to happen a lot...

So we'll start Shakuras proper in the next update, but we do get our first War Council votes!

In our Melee Warrior slot, we can choose from either
1) Zealot: Has Charge and Whirlwind, doing AoE damage in melee.
2) Centurion: Has Charge and Darkcoil, doing AoE stuns in melee.

In our Ranged Warrior slot, we can choose from either
1) Dragoon: Has a powerful, slower-firing attack, moves slower but has boosted health.
2) Stalker: Has a weaker but faster-firing attack, can Blink and regain shields after blinking.

[Psyren]

EDIT: I went Whirlwind and Dragoon, unless you're comfortable with micro-ing the other two.

Many planets have a single city as a settlement. Beyond that, Mengsk takes personal revenge on Raynor by attributing to him atrocities and actions taken by other terrorist and rebel groups, allowing him to devote more resources to snuffing out Raynor.

1) Even if you're correct about the latter, the fact that there is that much dissension against Mengsk proves the point - Raynor being able to attract recruits makes sense.

2) Citation needed on the one settlement per planet. For Mar Sara, the adjutant is specific that the one city we see is just the Dominion primary staging ground, and that toppling it and arming the citizens will provoke resistance all over the planet, which definitely means more than one.

[Traab]

Zealot and dragoon are my choices, aoe damage from melee is freaking sweet when its protoss melee. Being able to blast fliers out of the sky with fewer rounds is also nice. Dragoons are my long lasting units. I find I tend to have to warp in far fewer of them over the course of my march to victory. I still love my go to strategy of create 4-5 warp gates, drop a pylon when I take an objective, then summon more units right away to that spot to carry on the fight. And also, I agree that raynor has plenty of sources to draw recruits from. We see it early on that multiple planets are waiting for a way to rebel, they just lack the resources to do it and make it stick. And while the official news networks are covering up as much as possible, im sure there are plenty of pirated stations out there spreading the good word of raynor.

[Keltest]

I vote for Centurion and Stalker. Centurions are hands down the best taking zealot available unless you have sentinels with the repair beam going, and stalkers blink is going to be more useful at this stage of the game than a dragoon's range and toughness.

EDIT: I went Whirlwind and Dragoon, unless you're comfortable with micro-ing the other two.



1) Even if you're correct about the latter, the fact that there is that much dissension against Mengsk proves the point - Raynor being able to attract recruits makes sense.

2) Citation needed on the one settlement per planet. For Mar Sara, the adjutant is specific that the one city we see is just the Dominion primary staging ground, and that toppling it and arming the citizens will provoke resistance all over the planet, which definitely means more than one.

Mar Sara is one of the so called "Core" worlds, one of the original 13 major settlements controlled by the terran confederacy at the beginning of Starcraft 1. It is also, separately, one of the "Fringe" worlds, relatively sparsely populated and considered yokels even by terran standards. It was, like its sister colony Chau Sara, a penal mining colony, hence its dual status as both core and fringe. By comparison, Agria has one major settlement and one single planetary starport that served to evacuate the entire planet's colony.

[noob]

I vote for Centurion and Stalker. Centurions are hands down the best taking zealot available unless you have sentinels with the repair beam going, and stalkers blink is going to be more useful at this stage of the game than a dragoon's range and toughness.




Mar Sara is one of the so called "Core" worlds, one of the original 13 major settlements controlled by the terran confederacy at the beginning of Starcraft 1. It is also, separately, one of the "Fringe" worlds, relatively sparsely populated and considered yokels even by terran standards. It was, like its sister colony Chau Sara, a penal mining colony, hence its dual status as both core and fringe. By comparison, Agria has one major settlement and one single planetary starport that served to evacuate the entire planet's colony.

As much as centurion is good early on the most you advance in the game the more often sentinels becomes the best pick because the opponent stuff becomes more and more ridiculously lethal up to the point the aoe stun of the centurion is no longer doing the job.
In this mission I would definitively pick centurions.

[The_Snark]

I prefer the centurion simply because the autocast stun is good at disrupting enemy forces, although it does get less effective later on when the enemy has tons of stun-immune hybrids. As for the other, I like stalkers if I'm going to be focusing on them enough to actually use Blink regularly, but if they're just part of a mixed army and my attention is likely to end up micromanaging something else then I go with dragoons as the fire-and-forget option.

[hamishspence]

Mar Sara is one of the so called "Core" worlds, one of the original 13 major settlements controlled by the terran confederacy at the beginning of Starcraft 1. It is also, separately, one of the "Fringe" worlds, relatively sparsely populated and considered yokels even by terran standards. It was, like its sister colony Chau Sara, a penal mining colony, hence its dual status as both core and fringe.

Technically only Chau Sara was a penal colony proper (as well as the base of Alpha Squadron, which would have saved time - prisoners could be escorted straight to the base after neural resocialisation, for training) - Mar Sara was a regular mining colony.

[Keltest]

As much as centurion is good early on the most you advance in the game the more often sentinels becomes the best pick because the opponent stuff becomes more and more ridiculously lethal up to the point the aoe stun of the centurion is no longer doing the job.
In this mission I would definitively pick centurions.

Well, the other thing to remember is that Shadow Charge, unlike regular charge, allows Centurions to pass through friendly units to reach their target. This means your zealots arent hanging out uselessly in the middle of your stalker ball and are actually up front tanking things.

[Thomas Cardew]

Centurion and Stalker! Let the Nerazim defend their homeworld!

More generically, I always preferred Centurions. WW zealots are best against hordes of trash which the Toss already have tons of answers for with storms, reavers, colossi, void rays, etc. A couple of centurions stun all the trash while your heavy hitters clear them without taking any damage. Or keep the trash stunned while the AOE drops them and you focus fire the dangerous hybrids.

Stalkers is purely for flavor. My stalker blink micro is horrible, I'm much better at just macro-ing in two more everytime one falls. But being able to mass regroup and recharge shields is nice.

Nice read as always!

[Psyren]

Mar Sara is one of the so called "Core" worlds, one of the original 13 major settlements controlled by the terran confederacy at the beginning of Starcraft 1. It is also, separately, one of the "Fringe" worlds, relatively sparsely populated and considered yokels even by terran standards. It was, like its sister colony Chau Sara, a penal mining colony, hence its dual status as both core and fringe. By comparison, Agria has one major settlement and one single planetary starport that served to evacuate the entire planet's colony.

Agria wasnt one of Raynor's original six. You still haven't provided any evidence that all or even any of those worlds are minor. Clearly they're big enough for him to get the recruits he needs, because that's what happens in the story.

[noob]

More generically, I always preferred Centurions. WW zealots are best against hordes of trash which the Toss already have tons of answers for with storms, reavers, colossi, void rays, etc. A couple of centurions stun all the trash while your heavy hitters clear them without taking any damage. Or keep the trash stunned while the AOE drops them and you focus fire the dangerous hybrids.

WW zealots can stack while spinning and their dpses stacks
So you can burst a single hybrid by making 50 spinlots spin on the hybrid at the same time while other zealots does not stacks on the hybrid and so you will merely surround with 12 zealots the thing.
It is better at killing stuff in general if you have a lot of them but do you really want to try to kill hybrids with zealots?(probably not if you are not doing a zealot only challenge).
While ww zealots can stack and deal huge dps, stacking means they get hurt by storms more so using them against hybrids seems a poor choice even if they would deal the highest dps.

[Thomas Cardew]

WW zealots can stack while spinning and their dpses stacks
So you can burst a single hybrid by making 50 spinlots spin on the hybrid at the same time while other zealots does not stacks on the hybrid and so you will merely surround with 12 zealots the thing.
It is better at killing stuff in general if you have a lot of them but do you really want to try to kill hybrids with zealots?(probably not if you are not doing a zealot only challenge).
While ww zealots can stack and deal huge dps, stacking means they get hurt by storms more so using them against hybrids seems a poor choice even if they would deal the highest dps.

That's exactly my point. Centurions are a better support unit and you don't really need more than 4-6 at a time to chain stuns. Spin zealots are a quick burst of damage great for dealing with zergling trash. If you bring enough you can bring down 1-2 big things fast but you'll likely lose more especially if you eat some aoes. But I'm not generally looking for zealots to kill things. I have immortals/void rays/ storms/ carriers.

[Traab]

Centurion and Stalker! Let the Nerazim defend their homeworld!

More generically, I always preferred Centurions. WW zealots are best against hordes of trash which the Toss already have tons of answers for with storms, reavers, colossi, void rays, etc. A couple of centurions stun all the trash while your heavy hitters clear them without taking any damage. Or keep the trash stunned while the AOE drops them and you focus fire the dangerous hybrids.

Stalkers is purely for flavor. My stalker blink micro is horrible, I'm much better at just macro-ing in two more everytime one falls. But being able to mass regroup and recharge shields is nice.

Nice read as always!

Yeah, if you want to climb the tech tree to the top there are plenty of options for aoe damage, all with downsides like expense, need for macro, time to get, etc. Meanwhile the zealots are literally the first unit you summon and they are often facing zerg, so being able to wipe out swarms automatically is a huge boost. Just use attack move and watch them do the twist right through entire armies. Also, dont forget those options dont exist yet. Im not sure when high templars get unlocked or the rest, but its going to be a few missions.

[Keltest]

Yeah, if you want to climb the tech tree to the top there are plenty of options for aoe damage, all with downsides like expense, need for macro, time to get, etc. Meanwhile the zealots are literally the first unit you summon and they are often facing zerg, so being able to wipe out swarms automatically is a huge boost. Just use attack move and watch them do the twist right through entire armies. Also, dont forget those options dont exist yet. Im not sure when high templars get unlocked or the rest, but its going to be a few missions.

High Templars get unlocked in the end of the 5th mission chain, counting the opening Aiur missions. As for zealots, Spinlots suffer a LOT of casualties. Theyre the only zealot without a tanking ability of some kind, and as was noted, they stack a lot, which means banelings, ultralisks, fire/hellbats and other anti-infantry splash all tear them merry havoc.

[russdm]

On the recruits and how many Raynor has, I would just say to wing it. The number of forces that you can go through in casualties in missions and in total are more than what the crew of the Hyperion is supposed to be (Which is 200? though we only see barely 20 even in the scenes on board). Frankly, I would go with just seeing "there are as many troops for Raynor as he needs" and not worrying about it.

Plus, don't forget about how many Raynor loses going off to Char in the first game, and everything that happens in Brood War. Raynor loses a bunch.

I would say that this problem, of actual numbers really ends up being a problem in the game if it matters and it is all over in the Warcraft games. You don't see that many units present, but if you keep building to the unit cap of 200 or 100 or something, then you will probably be racking up kills. Same with Warcraft. How many troops did Azeroth put into the field? How many did the Alliance bunch in Warcraft 2 and Expansion put out? how many did they (humans) put out in Warcraft 3 and Expansion? How many can they fully field?

Pretty much all of the settlements and areas we see in Starcraft, really seem to follow the same rules as Star Wars, in that some planets only have the one settlement. Antiga Prime from the first game seems to just have the one base, with a few additions, and that's all. The Mar Sara place is applied to all fit in that space you move them to in the first mission. Can't be much of any really, but then in the next mission or so, you can field a bunch of troops.

Also, note in the re-settlement mission (starcraft 1's terran campaign mission 1) that you build 10 marines, and that is apparently sufficient to defend the colony group/core/whatever. Just ten marines, who could die easily to a group of zerglings in still more numbers. that's a bit surprising and strange


For picking, I would say that Stalkers are only good really if you use their blink ability more and can effectively use it. Otherwise, the extra health of Dragoons is better, because Protoss tends to be resource heavy for units. At least in the first game, making Protoss units took the most resources of the three races. It might or might not be the same.

Also, you should be excited for Shakuras, because you should be getting a Dark Protoss (Zerutal's People) version of a zealot to grab, with their always on cloaks. Which is really nice, somehow.

[Traab]

High Templars get unlocked in the end of the 5th mission chain, counting the opening Aiur missions. As for zealots, Spinlots suffer a LOT of casualties. Theyre the only zealot without a tanking ability of some kind, and as was noted, they stack a lot, which means banelings, ultralisks, fire/hellbats and other anti-infantry splash all tear them merry havoc.

True, there is always a downside, but I think the fact that they are the cheapest melee unit the protoss have and are available right at the start helps to offset the fact that anti infantry is anti infantry. I honestly dont recall any missions that involve lots of banelings or fire bats. And ultralisks get burned down just as fast as they burn down infantry with focus fire so its never been a huge hassle to me. I admit that I do replace them more often than my ranged, but its hardly an overwhelming problem. Especially with warp gates and the ability to drop pylons right at the site of your latest battle, making reinforcements near instant once you max out your resource gathering so you can just keep pushing forward.

[Keltest]

True, there is always a downside, but I think the fact that they are the cheapest melee unit the protoss have and are available right at the start helps to offset the fact that anti infantry is anti infantry. I honestly dont recall any missions that involve lots of banelings or fire bats. And ultralisks get burned down just as fast as they burn down infantry with focus fire so its never been a huge hassle to me. I admit that I do replace them more often than my ranged, but its hardly an overwhelming problem. Especially with warp gates and the ability to drop pylons right at the site of your latest battle, making reinforcements near instant once you max out your resource gathering so you can just keep pushing forward.

Korhal has a pretty healthy collection of fire/hellbats and siege tanks, Glacius has colossi, Shakuras you REALLY dont want to be relying primarily on zealots in the next mission. Sure, you can probably get away with making nothing but zealots, but youre making your life a lot harder if you try. Protoss relies on a mixed army composition by design. Your ranged units are your killing units. Even in coop, Artanis relies more on dragoons for his big killing power than his manlots

[noob]

Korhal has a pretty healthy collection of fire/hellbats and siege tanks, Glacius has colossi, Shakuras you REALLY dont want to be relying primarily on zealots in the next mission. Sure, you can probably get away with making nothing but zealots, but youre making your life a lot harder if you try. Protoss relies on a mixed army composition by design. Your ranged units are your killing units. Even in coop, Artanis relies more on dragoons for his big killing power than his manlots

The missions that really really do not want you to use only zealots are the ones where the ai spams air.
It is unfair that the entire protoss campaign can not be won by only spamming zealots: zealots should be able to jump on flying opponents and stab them down.

[Morgaln]

Here are my votes:

1. Centurion
Zealots are meant to block and distract enemies while your ranged units kill them. Whirlwind zealots don't block enemies while whirling, so they will let enemies get through to higher-value units. As has been pointed out, they also stack and thus are very vulnerable to AoE damage.
Centurions on the other hand can stun targets and also can phase through your other units to charge at enemies, so you don't have to make sure they are walking it front all the time.


2. Dragoon
Both of these are viable, but I remember that Glyphstone doesn't like to micro much. So dragoons will probably work better with his playstyle

[noob]

Here are my votes:

1. Centurion
Zealots are meant to block and distract enemies while your ranged units kill them. Whirlwind zealots don't block enemies while whirling, so they will let enemies get through to higher-value units. As has been pointed out, they also stack and thus are very vulnerable to AoE damage.
Centurions on the other hand can stun targets and also can phase through your other units to charge at enemies, so you don't have to make sure they are walking it front all the time.


2. Dragoon
Both of these are viable, but I remember that Glyphstone doesn't like to micro much. So dragoons will probably work better with his playstyle

Stalkers can be useful independently from blink away micro.
Just blink up ramps to negate the ramp advantage.
If you are going to want to destroy the ai bases then stalkers are better than dragoons for the ramp section of the attack which is a really important part of the attack which can possibly decimate an army without an advantage like blink.
Personally I love dragoons more but that is because I played SC1 too much.

[Techwarrior]

Yea, nerazim for both choices. Iirc one blink gets you more effective EHP than the armor boost (which can't be healed). Even if you aren't blink microing, stalkers are much less clunky to use because of the difference in move rate and attack speed. Blink being available is just gravy.

Centurion having access to the blink charge again makes them much easier to use as they get to the front much better. The stunning also helps facilitate their role as a frontline unit that holds the line for your more expensive units to wreak havoc.

I don't mean to be repetitive, but I love the lp, and don't really have the time or energy to really do a deep dive response to it. I appreciate you doing it Glyphstone, and am an avid, if quiet reader.