The Protoss Phoenix was officially revealed a few days ago. From the official Starcraft 2 website:

Sophisticated and lethal as the phoenix may be, all too often a patrol squadron will find itself heavily outnumbered by zerg or terran enemies. To overcome this weakness, phoenix pilots have developed a dangerous counter-ploy. A phoenix pilot can unleash a short-lived storm of destruction by overloading its warp field through the ship’s ion blasters.

The area-effect discharge is devastating and can destroy a large number of enemies at once, but it comes at a price: in the aftermath the phoenix is left temporarily powerless and crippled. Wary foes have learned to flee a phoenix overload and return moments later to destroy the helpless craft. In turn phoenix pilots have begun to use staggered discharges to catch their enemies in a web of destruction.

This overload ability brings up interesting tactical situations. Clearly it’s best used against massed, units as it targets and attacks every aerial unit in range. However, if you fail to overpower the enemy units, or they are smart enough to cause you to use up the overcharge too early, the subsequent cooldown period leaves you wide open for an aerial or ground counterattack. It remains to be seen whether the Corsair will make a reappearance, as we’ve already seen two new Starcraft 2 protoss Aerial units (3 if you include the Protoss Mothership), and I’m fairly certain that the scout and carrier will be available. Here are some screenshots from the website:

Here you can see a video of the Protoss Phoenix’s overcharge ability in action as it decimates a fleet of Mutalisks. From the video, it appears that the Phoenix really isn’t that powerful, aside from it’s overcharge ability. Take a look:

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