History Characters / StarcraftProtoss

* ShoutOut: Their roughly insectoid-like design, siege range, and energy weaponry give them a similar look and feel to the Scrin Devastator Warships in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer3TiberiumWars''. It helps that the Protoss Carriers function similarly to the Scrin Planetary Assault Carriers [[note]]These are like shout-outs to the Protoss Carriers due to ''SC 1'' predating ''Tiberium Wars''.[[/note]], highlighting the similarities further.

* JackOfAllStats: In ''Starcraft II'' they are a very well rounded all-purpose defense. They even got a health boost for a total of 300 HitPoints, and their shields now benefit from the structure's elemental attributes like all Protoss units were buffed to do. In ''Legacy of the Void'', the Shield Batteries may increase their effective health thanks to automatically recharging and recharging shields only costs spell energy and a payment of minerals to warp in Batteries, but this isn't quite as good a feat as the Terrans can pull off with SCV repairs as physical health remains unable to be repaired. Their main drawbacks are that they're not as cost-efficient as the Terran Missile Turret [=MK2=] for anti-air duty or as innately durable and movable as the Zerg Crawler defenses and can still be overwhelmed by heavy numbers or turned to scrap by enemy SiegeEngines outside their attack range. However, their shields can now benefi from the strcuture's Armored and Structure attributes and will only take bonus damage from certain weapons.

* JackOfAllStats: A very well rounded all-purpose defense. You don't have to plan too hard for the right ratio of ground defense to air defense as this cannon does both. In the sequel, they even got a health boost for a total of 300 HitPoints, and their shields now benefit from the structure's elemental attributes like all Protoss units were buffed to do. In ''Legacy of the Void'', the Shield Batteries may increase their effective health thanks to automatically recharging and recharging shields only costs spell energy and a payment of minerals to warp in Batteries, but this isn't quite as good a feat as the Terrans can pull off with SCV repairs as physical health remains unable to be repaired. Their main drawbacks are that they're not as cost-efficient as the Terran Missile Turret [=MK2=] for anti-air duty or as innately durable and movable as the Zerg Crawler defenses and can still be overwhelmed by heavy numbers or turned to scrap by enemy SiegeEngines outside their attack range.

* DifficultButAwesome:
** On the one hand, having a ship that can fire off drones to deal with enemies is pretty cool. On the other hand, they are high up on the tech tree, very expensive, don't deal super-high damage given that their drones deal barely any damage against anything with dense armor, and many mobile anti-air unit in sufficient quantities can counter them for less cost. However, under the right circumstances, a fleet of Carriers can be a major existential threat to an opponent and in ''Brood war'', an ill-prepared Terran player will have their work cut out for them due to the need to get creative to actually destroy even one carrier. A fleet of Carriers with Corsair and Arbiter support takes great dexterity to control well but is one of the most well-balanced air forces in ''Brood War''.

* CoolButInefficient:
** On the one hand, having a ship that can fire off drones to deal with enemies is pretty cool. On the other hand, they are high up on the tech tree, very expensive, don't deal super-high damage given that their drones deal barely any damage against anything with armor, and pretty much any mobile anti-air unit in sufficient quantities can counter them for less cost. They don't even get AwesomeButImpractical because they don't do enough to qualify as "Awesome". Averted for a while in ''Legacy of the Void'' with the shorter Interceptor build time and the Release Interceptors ability. Carriers are still a late-game unit, but if a game actually ''gets'' to the late game, they become one of the best weapons the Protoss have at their disposal. Some have even gone so far as to compare them to the pre-nerf Swarm Hosts from ''Heart of the Swarm''. Release Interceptors has since been removed, instead the cost of interceptors has been reduced.
** They're this in the lore as well. The ''Carrier'' short story has one character refer to them as "weaponless, inefficient husks", and the ''[=StarCraft=] Field Manual'' also notes their complete lack of ship to ship weaponry.[[note]]They do have an extremely powerful beam weapon used for OrbitalBombardment, but they've never been seen using it against other ships and sources consistently refer to them as lacking weapons capable of engaging enemy vessels, indicating this weapon is ''only'' for bombardment.[[/note]] This is despite them being nearly a kilometer and a half long. It's implied that the protoss were only able to get away with using such an inefficient vessel as their mainstay for so long because no other species prior to the terrans and zerg were actually advanced enough to field a notable SpaceNavy to begin with. As a result, the terrans speculate that the protoss factions will mostly replace them with the smaller and more heavily-armed Void Ray.

* MightyGlacier: Painfully slow but their basic attack is very strong and their spells are very dangerous.

%%* TheMotherShip: They're based on this idea.