The versatile, one man Wraith fighters are a new addition to the Colonial space forces. Traditionally, most space battles took place between the large capitol ships and medium gunships, but Tarsonian technicians found that small, dynamic high-speed fighters could repeatedly deal damage to large ships while still evading most defensive battery attacks. The Wraith is armed with both air-to-air missiles and a versatile burst laser for ground attacks, and is equipped with the latest in ECM and Stealth technology.

The Wraith has an 8 normal damage ground laser attack. At only 8 damage a hit, ground lasers are best used against ground targets that cannot attack back such as Siege Tanks, Firebats, Zealots, or against low hit point units that can be more quickly killed and resource gatherers mainly. Given enough time, Wraiths can kill any unit, but quite often the enemy will be able to send in anti-air units or retreat to towers before Wraiths can kill ground targets.

The Air-to-Air missile damage of the Wraith is 20 Explosive (50% damage to Small Units 75% damage to Medium Units). This makes uncloaked Wraiths more suited to attacking Large air units such as Terran(Wraiths, Battlecruisers and Science Vessels), Protoss(Arbiters, Carriers, Shuttles), Zerg(Overlords, Guardians, Queens). When cloaking is employed, Wraiths work well against a greater assortment of units.

Wraiths can be used to attack ground targets unable to return fire such as Siege Tanks (mainly), and also Firebats, Protoss Zealots, and Zerg Zerglings. This is largely a scare tactic against the enemy because unless you have a large number of Wraiths, they have difficulty killing ground targets with their 8 damage lasers. Look for openings where the enemy has no anti-air defenses, and send your Wraiths in to attack the enemy.

An old strategy found also with Submarines in Warcraft 2, is to use a few Cloaked Wraiths to scare the enemy into thinking that is going to be your main strategy. Then while the enemy spends time and resources on anti-air and cloak detection, send in an attack of largely land forces which the enemy will be lacking of due to their expenditure into anti-Cloaked Wraith technology. The goal is to trick the enemy into thinking you are heading one direction in strategy while you are heading in another.

To produce a significant number of Wraiths, build two to three Starports. Wraiths take quite a while to train, and training out of one Starport will mean it will take some time to build up a large force of Wraiths.

The Wraith's main strength lies in its ability to cloak. The use of Cloaking is instrumental to the effectiveness to the Wraith such as Siege Tank mode is to Siege Tanks.

Unless your Wraiths are Cloaked, Avoid attacking superior air enemies such as Mutalisks. Mutalisks are considered a Small sized unit. Wraiths do explosive damage so they will only do 50% damage to Mutalisks. Also since Mutalisks are only 100 Minerals/100 Gas, and Wraiths 150 Minerals/100 Gas, Zerg players can have a lot more Mutalisks than you have Wraiths because minerals are easier and faster to mine in most cases than gas.

Use Cloaking against Protoss Scouts and Carriers, as well as Battlecruisers, to win against these superior units.

Send Cloaked Wraiths to explore the map and spy on the enemy. Unless they happen to run by a cloak detection unit (and the enemy notices it), you can often cruise around the map with impunity.

Seek out and destroy Zerg Overlords scouting the map. Target mining operations that don't seem to have any cloak detection. Harass units that are not able to attack air targets.

Terran Counters

• Terrans have to be very careful not to be caught by a cloaked Wraith attack. Build Bunkers around your SCVs mining Minerals as that is the main target by cloaked Wraiths. Make sure you have a Comsat Station and Marines with Stim Pack to engage the Wraiths.

• If there are only a few Wraiths, use Ghosts to Lock them down and finish them off with Marines or Goliaths.

• Large groups of Wraiths can be defeated by large groups of Battlecruisers. Science Vessels or the Comsat Station should be used to counter the cloaking ability of the Wraith.

• Protoss players can use Dragoons in combination with Shield Batteries.

• Templars Psionic Storm can be used to attack collections of Wraiths in combination with Observers.

• Archons can work their way through groups of Wraiths very easily. The 8 ground damage lasers have quite a hard time working their way through the Archon's 350 shields. If the Terran player uses EMP against your Archons, the Wraith can destroy the Archon in two shots.

• Scouts really rip through Wraiths but because of their increased cost, you may not have as many of them as the enemy has Wraiths. Observers should be used with the Scouts to counter the cloaking abroad on the map.

• Zerg must use Overlords to spot the cloaked Wraiths. Because Overlords are slow and have no natural ability to cloak, they should be easy to spot and destroy unless the enemy packs groups of units over them, such as Mutalisks.

• Spore Colonies should provide enough protection in your town, Wraiths have quite a time trying to destroy them. Use Hydralisks around the map with Overlords.

• Mutalisks can also work fine as you can usually have quite a few more Mutalisks than Wraiths.

• Cast a Dark Swarm and hide Hydralisks under it, then engage groups of Wraiths. The Wraiths will not be able to attack the Hydralisks under the Dark Swarm.

• Scourge groups of Wraiths. Ensnare them first to make it easier.

• Parasite Wraiths, this negates their cloaking ability.

• Plague groups of Wraiths then follow it up with a Mutalisk or Hydralisks attack.