Starcraft protoss versus halo's covenent

Who will win?

 

Protoss easy. The primary weakness of the Protoss is if their oponent can figure out the location of their homeworld and attack it directly. The covenant would have no easy way of doing that, the only reason the Zerg were able to is because the Overmind had direct access to Zeratul's mind. The list of races that can capitalize on the weakness of the Protoss is very, very small. And if you can't capitalize on that weakness you have to be able to beat the Protoss head to head in a naval battle which would be next to impossible given the Protoss' technological advantage.

 

Lol, good idea to make a new thread.

Before text walls start appearing: Covenant of which time? And Protoss of which time? Makes quite a difference.

 

Since he originally asked about elites I am going to guess the Covenant before the civil war. As for the Protoss I think it is only fair to judge them before the events of Sc1.

 

Plasma rifle's vs Photon Cannons? You've got to be kidding.

 

This is what I see.

Covenant shock trooper:



Protoss shock trooper:



Any questions?

 

^ Just explained my view of the battle better than I ever could.

 

"They're everywhere!" Lol. Grunts are funny.

But Covenant would own with pure ground battles. Seriously. Put a couple of Shades down, support with Wraith, some Hunters and nothing the Protoss have can even come close. No need for Grunts. Jackyls could resist Zealots for a short while, though. If you throw in air, Protoss win easily.

 

Immortals would own wraiths so bad. Charge to own front lines and throw in some reavers to just own Jackels

 

Grunts are the covenant cannon fodder, like zerglings with advanced weaponry.

THIS is a covenant shock trooper:




I think the covenant would win because they have a more practical army.

- They have personal active camouflage that doesn't require you to be a master of dark psionic energies

- They have a variety of infantry weapons from plasma rifles to grenades to carbines to beam rifles (snipers) and fuel rod cannons (anti-armor). As opposed to just zealot blades and dragoon disrupters.

- Hunters are awesome.

- Plasma pistols, carried by even the lowly grunts, have overcharge shots with emp-like shield destruction.

- Ghosts would be very strong against zealots and would easily out maneuver protoss ground units, which are completely lacking in fast attack vehicles or for that matter vehicles in general.

- They have real tanks with high mobility, armor, and the ability to fire arced shots, as opposed to reavers which are slow, frail, and have to have a clear path across the ground to hit anything. Hell they can even use a booster to ram infantry and light vehicles that are foolish enough to get too close.

- The covenant have specialized GtA artillery and AtG gunships, something the protoss are lacking in.

- Locusts and Scarabs for heavy siege engines.

- They arm their transports with a variety of weaponry.

- They use tactical explosives.

- Banshees would be very hard to hit with the slow moving dragoon and photon cannon projectiles, which are the ONLY GtA protoss options aside from archons which aren't exactly supposed to be common and psionic storms which they could just fly out of fast enough.

- I'd say something about the capital ships but the in-game depiction of capital ships in starcraft is a joke, when a carrier can be downed by a small group of marines and has absolutely no armament besides interceptors. So since I haven't read the novels I have no idea what a real protoss fleet battle would be like.

The biggest advantage the protoss have would be their spells, mostly psionic storm and stasis field. Psionic storm is pretty nice but it only has the range and area of a few grenades, and even a handful of grunts can grenade spam whereas psionic storm has to come from high templar which are rare elite protoss psionic masters and also giant sniper bullseyes (against air units it would just be silly because covenant air units don't stand still while in combat and would be flying too fast and high). Stasis field is pretty strong but I don't think freezing a few units for a minute will make up for the other deficiencies in the protoss army.

 

Covenant before the civil war because of their numbers and technology which has to be about on par with the protoss but they just have the numbers.

Yes its elites versus zealots on this one and we all know how strong elites are being able to lift tanks and throw them and all plus they have cloaking.

Don"t forget the brutes 2.

Also you can"t really base it of the games because of their difference more or less your imagination and knowledge of the 2 races.

 

I wonder how many grunts it would take to kill an archon with overcharge shots.

 

90,000,000

 

^ fail

Plasma Pistols on overload were the most effective shielbreakers in the game. Not really coparable, but I would say about 15-25 shots or so. Fully charged, that is.

 

THIS is a covenant shock trooper:

And those would be as rare as a heroic Zealot on the battlefield, whereas the average Zealot would be atleast as strong as that Covenant shokc trooper.

I think the covenant would win because they have a more practical army.

- They have personal active camouflage that doesn't require you to be a master of dark psionic energies

The the camouflage isn't permanent nor as effective as a Dark Templar. Also, the Protoss have Observers which would nullify the Camo and the Covenant have no equivilant.

- They have a variety of infantry weapons from plasma rifles to grenades to carbines to beam rifles (snipers) and fuel rod cannons (anti-armor). As opposed to just zealot blades and dragoon disrupters.

The Dragoon Disrupters would vaporize any infantry it came into contact with and would likely 1 shot most Vehicles.

- Hunters are awesome.

Not rellevant.

- Plasma pistols, carried by even the lowly grunts, have overcharge shots with emp-like shield destruction.

I might give you this one but it should be noted Zealot shields are substantially stronger than elite shields (when compared to the Human weaponry in both games).

- Ghosts would be very strong against zealots and would easily out maneuver protoss ground units, which are completely lacking in fast attack vehicles or for that matter vehicles in general.

Charge. Moving at nearly the speed of light counter acts pretty much any mobility advantage the Covenant have.

- They have real tanks with high mobility, armor, and the ability to fire arced shots, as opposed to reavers which are slow, frail, and have to have a clear path across the ground to hit anything. Hell they can even use a booster to ram infantry and light vehicles that are foolish enough to get too close.

Reavers don't need a clear path. Scarabs are insanely fast and can move over just about any Terrain. Because of the Scarabs the Reavers would hit their mark everytime and work at minimum at the max range of the Covenant tank (I forgot its name). Also, because of the sheer strength held up in a Scarab it would one shot anything the Covenant have on the ground.

- The covenant have specialized GtA artillery and AtG gunships, something the protoss are lacking in.

Void Rays. Carriers. Scouts. Phoenix.

- Locusts and Scarabs for heavy siege engines.

I don't remeber what Locusts are but I grant you the Scarab.

- They arm their transports with a variety of weaponry.

Granted.

- They use tactical explosives.

Granted.

- Banshees would be very hard to hit with the slow moving dragoon and photon cannon projectiles, which are the ONLY GtA protoss options aside from archons which aren't exactly supposed to be common and psionic storms which they could just fly out of fast enough.

Stalkers. You alos have to remeber Corsais, you don't need GtA to kill an air unit.

- I'd say something about the capital ships but the in-game depiction of capital ships in starcraft is a joke, when a carrier can be downed by a small group of marines and has absolutely no armament besides interceptors. So since I haven't read the novels I have no idea what a real protoss fleet battle would be like.

Space is were the Protoss truly shine. The Covenant would put up a good fight but they don't really have anything that could stand against a Protoss armada.

The biggest advantage the protoss have would be their spells, mostly psionic storm and stasis field. Psionic storm is pretty nice but it only has the range and area of a few grenades, and even a handful of grunts can grenade spam whereas psionic storm has to come from high templar which are rare elite protoss psionic masters and also giant sniper bullseyes (against air units it would just be silly because covenant air units don't stand still while in combat and would be flying too fast and high). Stasis field is pretty strong but I don't think freezing a few units for a minute will make up for the other deficiencies in the protoss army.

The biggest advantage of the Protoss would be that they control the skies. Psionic would be substanially larger than your imagining, one Storm in Sc can cover several Reavers and you have to remember Reavers are factories and essentially are moving buildings. High Templar are about as common as captains on a battlefield. They are not super rare, and are extremely powerful. Also, Stasis covers an area only a little bit smaller than Psionic Storm which means it would just be a few units it locks away but more like a full on platoon or brigade of Covenant. You also forgot Recall, which would mean the Protoss could have an army anywhere they want relative to a Covenant force.

The Protoss would because they would dominate the skies, which means the Covenant wouldn't be able to take advantage of its numerous Infantry to try and overwhelm the Protoss on the Ground. Finally, while the Protoss may lose a ground battle to the Covenant it would majorly depend on the situation. The Covenant would need to force the Protoss ground troops into situations where they could try and overwhelm them. If it was a battle in a open field the Protoss would simply Annihilate the Covenant with their Reavers and Psionic Storms, and on the off chance the Covenant could get close they would have to deal with a legion of insanely skilled psionic warriors that can temporarly move at close to the speed of light.

 

I would also like to bring in that Dark Templars are insanely not rare anymore, seeing as how there's essentially an entire separate Protoss race of them. One Dark Templar could technically take down near indefinite amounts of Covenant forces due to lack of a detector. Even were they to realize, hey, that air is bendy, Dark Templars are master assassins. Also, they're amazingly strong. One WAZSHOOP can kill a heavily (heavy emphasis there) armored Marine. Elites don't have near the amount of armor of a Marine. Even with their tactical shield, that's two hits. Now imagine what twelve Dark Templars could do.



EDIT: Also, Colossi. Using just these, Protoss basically committed genocide on a whole race.

 

Ah, I see, so the protoss win as long as you ignore how they fare in the actual game except when it would be favorable. Templar and archons get to be common (defies the backstory but supported by gameplay) but psionic storms get to be massive, dragoons instantly vaporize their enemies with one hit, and reavers get to be giant superweapons for some reason (not at all supported by gameplay).

The elites are an entire race, yet they're supposed to be rare? Even the basic infantry elites carry advanced armor and personal shielding and had physical abilities on par with a spartan, whereas I'm pretty sure if you went into the backstory you wouldn't find that all the protoss living on Shakuras are an entire race of super assassins like the dark templar unit.

The Arbiter is the only covenant with a temporary camo (supposedly because he wears ancient armor, but really it's just for gameplay reasons). Even the black grunts get permanent camouflage.

If you get void rays and stalkers and colossi than you don't get dragoons and other units forever lost in the wars leading up to starcraft 2. Too bad the covenant never relied on a single friggen temple to produce their only versatile ground units.

Why would the protoss dominate the skies so easily? The covenant have a diverse air force (all of which are shielded besides banshees), seraphs are space and atmosphere fighters with heavy plasma cannons and anti air/ground charges. They also have vampires which are a AtA gunships and air artillery which are AtG gunships, along with the ever numerous banshees and a wide range of capital ships ranging from stealth frigates to supercarriers.

The real issue here though is that both these armies are heavily bastardized to fit in whichever game they are represented in, the protoss in each starcraft game have giant holes in their army as far as roles that need filling, and the covenant except in Halo Wars forget to actually use their wide variety of units. How strong weapons are and how many shots it takes to kill what in both worlds change drastically depending on the medium used, like the whole reaver thing where they are frail as hell in the game but giant armored factories in the mythos, or how on normal in Halo 3 the low rank elites drop like flies, but in the novels a single elite can match a spartan blow for blow in strength and armor/shield durability (the spartans only win through sheer superhuman skill).

I think if you wanted a serious answer to this question I would simply say that if the two races ever appeared in the same game or story, they would be appropriately balanced to provide a good fight for one another. But since this is space junk I will continue to argue for the covenant because frankly I really do find the protoss a far more ridiculous army to try to apply to a realistic conflict, compared to the covenant who have developed a much more versatile army with a variety of infantry, vehicles, aircraft, and capital ships.

 

I always assume that these matchups are lorewise, not ingame, seeing as how ingame, they're completely different (ie one zealot can destroy an entire base unchecked with two blades? Naaaa)

 

Just because I was thinking about it here is what I think a Protoss v. Covenant space battle would look like. Assume that both sides meet in neutral empty space with a sizeable fleet each.

Covenant Fleet: From an in-game quote the Covenant attacked Reach with aproximately 750 cruisers along with assorted light assualt craft (Banshess and such). Considering this was likely a very large Covenant fleet we will say that's what the Covenant have.

Protoss Fleet: In the middle of a civil war Fenix (who force was extremely small) comanded atleast one Carrier with the ability to call in more. With that in mind, we will say the Protoss have 24 Carriers (each with atleast 20 Interceptors judging by one in game cinematic) and 1 Super Carrier (as a command ship the Gantrithor was a Super Carrier, lets just say they have twice as many Interceptors as an average Carrier). Along various light support craft (Atleast a dozen Arbiters, as well as Scouts and Corsairs assuming we are using just Sc craft).

The battle would likely begin with the Covenant just seeing the approaching Arbiters and before they are in range a certifiable swarm of Interceptors (520 with the above numbers). The Arbiters would quickly Stasis away atleast half of the Covenant fleet. The Interceptors (which are a little bit larger than a Banshee packing atleast twice the firepower) would quickly destroy any Covenant light spacecraft and move onto the Warships. To suport the Interceptors the Protoss would likely have on the order of 150-200 Corsairs and around 100 Scouts (both of which are manueverable to avoid most fire from the Covenant cruisers). The Covenant would be in an extremely bad situation at this point because they wouldn't have anything to deal with the Protoss light spacecraft and they couldn't target the Carriers which are still cloaked and the Arbiters are small and manuerable enough to avoid the their (this is all besides the fact the Carriers would be out of range anyways). Also, you have to remember Scouts are equiped with anti-matter missles (essentially small nukes), so it wouldn't take very many Scouts to quickly destroy a cruiser; add to that the Corsairs constantly raking them with damage as well as the swarm of Interceptors and the cruisers would be just chewed up.

The Protoss would essentially overwhelm the Covenant using a smaller number of ships, becuase of their fighting style and technological advantage.

 

@the 3 posts before my previous one.

I agree with Fenix here you can only compare them lorewise. Sc is an RTS which means all of the units in game are only representative of what would actually be going on in a cinematic or a book/movie. Fenix has a good example with the Zealot, but another one is the idea that 12 Marines can easily destroy a couple of Scouts with just machine guns. Those 12 Marines in the game are probably more like 60-120 Marines in a cinematic and they likely hit the Scouts with some rocket launchers and not their gauss rifles.

For example Zealots train for dozens of years, are physically faster, stronger, and larger than Elites. The average Zealot would be atleast as skilled and powerful as some of the best Elites. Someone like Fenix, a High Templar, or god forbid Tassadar would make your average elite look like a grunt on recruit (or whatever the easiet difficulty is) in Halo. The Covenant would have a decent numerical advantage over the Protoss, but they would take advantage of it effectively without letting the Protoss take advantage of their technology (aka Reavers, Colossi). The same would be true when dealing with Dragoons, Stalkers, and Immortals. The Covenant would have to make sure the Protoss don't have Zealot support or it would be nearly impossible to take advantage of their weaknesses.

In space like I said it would really be no contest, the Protoss just have the technology and numbers to overwhelm the Covenant. Space is where technology really shines and that's why there isn't a lot of factions lorewise (from any game) that would do very well against the Protoss.