Photon Cannon

The Photon Cannon (often shortened to just Cannon) is the sole static defense building for the Protoss. The player must control a Forge before building Photon Cannons. It’s more versatile than its Terran and Zerg counterparts as it can attack both air and ground units. Photon Cannons also serve as detectors with an extremely large vision range.

Like most Protoss structures, the Photon Cannon can only be warped in at a location powered by the Psionic Matrix. It can attack and serve as a detector only while it remains within the Matrix, otherwise it becomes unpowered and cannot function.

General

When placing a Photon Cannon, a white ring appears along with the green ghost outline of the cannon. This ring indicates firing range only. The visual and detection range of the cannon is nearly 60% larger than the firing range. If you simply need detection around your mineral line or other area and not necessarily the attack capabilities a single cannon can easily supply vision for the mineral line against ranged attackers such as Ghosts and Banshees.

Players typically will build Cannons in or around their mineral line to protect against harassment. In late stages of the game, expansion bases that the player deems difficult to readily defend will often be bolstered by a few Cannons as well.

Photon Cannons are used offensively in the relatively common Photon Cannon rush technique. Cannons deployed outside the player’s own base can also be used offensively after the early stages of the game to deny or delay expansions.

PROTOSS – THE WARRIORS OF AIUR

HONOR. WISDOM. TRADITION.

In stark contrast to the adaptable Terrans and the ferocious Zerg, stand the rigid, tradition-minded Protoss. With their psionic abilities and advanced technology, the Protoss have long considered themselves the most powerful species in the galaxy. This people’s greatest asset is the tenets of their primary religion – the Khala – whose tight framework demands dogmatic adherence.

Protoss Buildings

Another outstanding technical achievement of the Protoss is to teleport their buildings over long distances from their home planet Aiur to the most remote parts of the galaxy. This is done by converting the buildings into energy and dematerializing them within the psifields built on the outposts.