Tempest/Development

The protoss tempest originally appeared early in the alpha phase of StarCraft II. In comparison to the carrier, the tempest was slightly weaker, but cost fewer resources to build. According to Dustin Browder, "the Tempest didn't feel right and that there was too much of an emotional connection with the original unit." The tempest originally had a "dark" color scheme, similar to that of the stalker. Following it's reintroduction in Heart of the Swarm it initially retained the dark color scheme, but was switched to the "standard" protoss blue and gold coloring, the dark color scheme being passed to the oracle.

Shuriken
Like the carrier from the original StarCraft and Brood War, the tempest had powerful shields and attacked by launching fighter-type drones called shuriken that surrounded and swarmed a target, doing little damage individually but significant damage when combined whilst maneuvering rapidly, making it difficult to destroy. The drones could be auto-built with a right click, a behavior which was carried over to the carrier.

The shuriken made melee attacks.

Special Shields
The tempest was strong against ground targets, but was ill-equipped to handle air-to-air encounters; it had poor air defense as its shields did not activate against air attacks, but the shields took little damage from ground attacks.