Starcraft 2 Sentry

Protoss Unit Strategy Guide

The Protoss Sentry is a small unit capable of erecting force fields that impede enemy movement. They also inherited the Hallucination ability in Starcraft 2, which once belonged to the High Templar.

Sentry Special Abilities and Upgrades

Sentries require a bit of micromanagement to be used effectively. In multiplayer, they come standard with the Guardian Shield and Force Field special abilities. The Hallucination ability can be researched at a Cybernetics Core. Sentries possess a weak attack that can help other units after their specials have been deployed.

Guardian Shield is the ability you'll likely use often here. It reduces incoming ranged damage by 2, which is very effective vs weak fire like that coming from Terran Marines. The aura is pretty large, so a lot of units can be protected. For this reason it's not a bad idea to bring at least one Sentry along to generate this shield. It's not so effective at protecting units like Zealots, who will charge out of the field's radius and lose its protection. In a ranged vs ranged fight, the shield will give you an edge.

Force Field is much more situational. While a single force field won't do a lot to stop enemies, with multiple Sentries, you can raise a few quickly. This can impede or even completely block enemy movement. This gives the Sentry another application in protecting against melee or very short-ranged enemy attacks. The field isn't very strong and will crumble against massive units. If the enemy is melee heavy you can get a lot of damage in with your ranged while they go around the field. Place it directly in the line they would use to attack. Two or Three fields can block a ramp or narrow chasm.

Hallucination must be researched. The spell creates illusions of other units that can and do draw enemy fire, although detectors will reveal the fakes. It can create 4 probes, 2 of smaller Protoss units, or 1 of any of the larger units. They can be used as scouts, diversionary attackers (suppose the enemy doesn't notice they're doing 0 damage?), and you can mix them in with the rest of your troops to provide some measure of protection for them. If the hallucinations are being hit, that is reducing the damage done to your real troops. The ability is pricy at 100 energy, but worth every second as the hallucinations last a full minute before they vanish. They appear to have as many hp as the real deal, but die much faster.