During my time watching replays and the live streams, I have noticed use of the Xel’Naga Watch Towers. I have been asked the question: are they really worth it? And my answer is, it depends. Is it really worth losing lots of units for its control? Is it worth it to take a worker off the mineral line to hold it? Well, in this article I hope to discover the real value of Xel’Naga Watch Towers.

When I say it depends, I’m talking about the reasons that a player may or may not try to hold a tower. Normally, it is to scout incoming attacks; you are not going to use it to scout early game, as you should be in the enemy base checking to see what the other player is doing. The towers are going to be used in the mid and late game. They are great for seeing incoming attacks, as this time allows you to create and position units and build defences like Photon Cannons and Spine Crawlers, depending on what you need to counter the enemy’s army composition.

Scouting in Starcraft 2 is very important. Seeing an attack too late can result in you losing a game. Example: if you’re about to expand into your natural and you see an incoming attack, you can instead focus on creating a defensive line. Without using the tower to spot you might have created the expansion and lost it to overwhelming forces. Another example: you’re attacking an enemy’s expansion and you spot the enemy’s army trying to surround you. You can pull that attacking force back to fight the incoming army, and then attack the expo. If you had not spotted the incoming force you would have been trapped between the expo’s defences and the surrounding army, and fighting two battles at the same time is never good. Both of these situations really happen, as I have seen them in the live streams.

So what do the pros use towers for? If you have watched the official Starcraft 2 Battle Reports then you have seen very good use of the Xel’Naga Watch Tower. In the first report, we saw Matt Cooper using the tower to spot a counter attack on his high yield expo. In Report 2, we saw David Kim had his Reapers take control of the tower to see what Zerg forces were in the area. Seeing incoming Roaches, he moved his reapers away. In report 3 they talk about the tower in detail, and the towers were used for spotting an expo and checking for incoming forces.

You use your cheapest unit or a unit that you are not using to hold the tower such as a Zergling, a Marine or Probe. You can also use a unit that can get away quickly like a Blink Enabled Stalker or a Reaper. Some things to note about the tower: it does not see stealth units, air units cannot control the tower, and burrowed units cannot control it. So, are Xel’Naga towers worth it? Yes. They are, but are never worth losing a lot of units over. If you have forces containing an enemy in their base, you can use a unit from that army on something more important like scouting for hidden expos. Remember to retreat from the tower if an enemy’s force approaches it.