I have returned: StarCraft II

[Kaylia]

By autocast, I meant autocast everytime you take an action on a building. That's what you do 90% of the time anyway. If you have too many shit going on, just turn off the autocast and and do it manually. If it's the autocast that is bothering you, I would be fine with an increased energy cost combined with higher efficiency or something.

Queen's heal spell and tumor are pretty cool when you can use them, I'm only complaining about the larva spawns. Queen itself is a cool unit on her own.

The last thing you said, 'using the same ability on your own building every 30 seconds'? That's pretty much what half of Starcraft is. Whether its building probes, upgrading, building units, or any of these macro abilities, these decisions can all be placed under a wide umbrella known as base management (or more simply, macro). Macro was one of the core elements of Starcraft 1, and honestly, most other RTS games. The balance Broodwar had (between micro and macro) was unique though and placed SIGNIFICANT emphasis on macro, far more than most other RTSs. It was part of what made the game what it was and what gave it the longevity it had (and still has). The collective result of each miniscule macro decision (to build another probe or stop now, build more units or expand, tech or build more gateways, speed up probe production or tech progress, etc) has a profound effect on each games overall pace and direction. So while its clearly important to control your army well and stave off impending death in the moment, the real art of the game comes from controlling what will happen in the future and macro mechanics like these allow you to do that.

Blizzard already said they wanted to add meaningful click to the game. Personally, I think chrono boost is on par with "sending worker to the mineral" . A click is a click, but not all of them are equals.

That's what I don't understand about larva and chrono boost. There was nothing like this in Starcraft 1, your action wouldn't be used for a short duration buff, unless you were microing in battle.


Anyway, it's not like chrono boost break the game or anything. If I had to give it a score, it wouldn't change at all, but that kind of macroing annoy me.

Anyways, your other question, the warp gate thing (I assume you meant warp gate when you said stargate). Yeah right now, there is no clear numbers/time drawback to the warp gate over a gateway, the cooldown is actually lower. However, there most certainly is a fairly large drawback that's not quite so obvious, particularly important amongst slower players. Warp gates require you to be looking at a spot where pylon power is and you have to physically select the location for each warping in unit. Gateways don't have that limitation; all of them can be hotkey'd to a single key and rallied to wherever you are attacking. This can mean the player can focus a lot more on microing his units in an attack and less time building reinforcements when they have gateways as opposed to warp gates.

Actually, you have a "gateway" icon that appears on the bottom right of your screen that can be clicked, and you use all your summoning charge instantly.

You do have to target a location, but unless you have an absurd amount of gateways, you can probably use all your summoning charge in less than 1 seconds.

It's similar to corruptor(?)'s infested human. Can spawn 30 units in a seconds spamming the key. I can see it being an issue in some extreme situation, but the 15 sec built time make up for it imo (4 waves of unit, and you can attack 1 minutes earlier..it adds up)

[geno]

By autocast, I meant autocast everytime you take an action on a building. That's what you do 90% of the time anyway. If you have too many shit going on, just turn off the autocast and and do it manually. If autocast bother you that much, replace chrono boost with a 50 or 100 energy ability that double the building/training for the next unit...or something.

Queen's heal spell and tumor are pretty cool when you can use them, I'm only complaining about the larva spawns. Queen itself is a cool unit on her own.

Actually, autocast in that implementation wouldn't bother me too much. It would clearly be better than not casting it, but would also be worse than smartly selecting what to cast it on. I think that would be fine. And yeah, I mostly agree about the queen and the spells, they just haven't gotten enough use out of them to really beat the power of spawn larvae.

Blizzard already said they wanted to add meaningful click to the game. Personally, I think chrono boost is on par with "sending worker to the mineral" . A click is a click, but not all of them are equals.

That's what I don't understand about larva and chrono boost. There was nothing like this in Starcraft 1, your action wouldn't be used for a short duration buff, unless you were microing in battle.

Anyway, it's not like chrono boost break the game or anything. If I had to give it a score, it wouldn't change at all, but that kind of macroing annoy me.

I dunno, I guess we just disagree here. I love this kind of macroing. Chrono boost & spawn larvae is not even near the "sending worker to minerals" or "click every building to build a unit" of SC1 in terms of tedium in my mind. Hell, you can even do both with a hotkey:

For protoss: Put your Nexuses and all of your buildings you'd cast chrono boost on on a single hotkey. When you want to chrono boost things, hit that hotkey, hit c, select the icon for the building you want to cast it on.

For zerg: Arguably even easier & more potent. Put your Queens on a hotkey with all your hatcheries. When you want to spawn larvae, hit the hotkey for it and select each hatchery. The closest queen to that hatchery will cast it on it (and only that queen will). If you want to build units, hit tab (it will select the hatcheries) and szzzzz or whatever to victory. You can even set rallys this way with right click, but be sure to hit S afterwards to stop the queens from walking there (or alternatively, hit the hotkey for rally point, i think its Y?).

Its really not that hard and its really effective at forcing people to multitask a little in their play to be stronger players. You are right, there wasn't anything like this in SC, there were harder and more tedious things (no MBS or automine) that accomplished the same thing. And although those were ridiculously tedious and annoying for new players, they were really important and forced people to be better at multitasking and management. They wanted the same ends, and the means they came up with I think were creative and much more rewarding to use.

Actually, you have a "gateway" icon that appears on the bottom right of your screen that can be clicked, and you use all your summoning charge instantly.

You do have to target a location, but unless you have an absurd amount of gateways, you can probably use all your summoning charge in less than 1 seconds.

It's similar to corruptor(?)'s infested human. Can spawn 30 units in a seconds spamming the key. I can see it being an issue in some extreme situation, but the 15 sec built time make up for it imo (4 waves of unit, and you can attack 1 minutes earlier..it adds up)

Yes, I'm well aware of that icon. Also, considerably more important, that icon is automatically bound to W on your keyboard, so everytime you change a gateway into a warpgate, it gets added to the W bind. Yes, it is a matter of about 1-2 second difference, but its not the time difference I'm talking about, its the attention/focus difference. You can rebuild units from gateways without having to look back at your base or a pylon. Those 1-2 seconds gets stretched to 5-10-20 seconds when you are mid-battle and can't afford to switch screens and build more units because you'll lose the units you already have (battles are pretty damn fast paced in SC2). You have no fear of that with gateways, and should theoretically be able to always keep up unit production very easily so long as you can remember to do so (big hypothetical amongst slower players anyways).

But yeah, like I said, this is more than outweighed by some of the other advantages of warpgates, like the lower recast time and the concept of proxy-pylon reinforcements, at least for a lot of players. I know I always go warp gates and never revert them, the advantages just simply outweigh the cons in most situations, I was just pointing out one situation where they may not. It would probably be of the most use when you are proxying the gateways (so the warp in time saved isn't important), and are committing to an all-in attack with constant reinforcements (like 2-3 gate zealots). But of course, those situations are limited and honestly usually come before warp gate tech is available anyways.

[willriker]

I am reading about protoss and zerg quite a bit here. I was more of a Terrain kind of guy. The only referances, i saw in this thread, to terrain was one of two things. MMM + Tanks is just as brutal as ever. But terrain was much more than just MMM + Seiges. I would argue they had more tricks up thier sleaves than either protoss or zerg. And to be honest, they needed it.

In SC1, zerg was known for a fast onslaught with many units. Overwhelming the opponant with numerous, cheep, units was really thier hallmark. They really didnt have many micro moves. Burrow was the big one, when used correctly. They had very few units which had abilities. Only two units come to mind that had abilities, and they couldnt be used to attack with. They were only around for thier abilities. But, terrain had various tools to harrass and otherwise destroy the zerg. Terrains even had tools that were specialized towards them. Irradiate, Goliaths, Siege Mode come to mind.

Protoss was known for very strong, expencive units. Heck one Zealot could take out 3 marines if it found the base early in the game. (and the terrain couldnt micro) The Reaver, although slow, was known for making crowds of marines go splat. All of the Protoss units were expensive which caused the absolute need to expand more than other players or face a sure loss. The Protoss did not have very many units with abilities, High Templar was one of the very few. But even then, terrain had specialized abilities for dealing with the Protoss. EMP shockwave, Yamato gun, Vulture Mines (sneaky trick to keep them from quickly expanding), and so on.

But to make use of the appropriate terrain strategies and tactics you needed to have great recon abilities. Terrains had various units to help with that. Most notable was the comstat station, yeah it makes protoss and zerg jealous. But, the Terrain also had the science vessel, wraiths (the fastest cloaked unit in the game), and vultures (fastest land unit in the game). Heck, if you wanted to get technical, you could even lift off a building to see what was over a ridge line.

Did they preserve this aspect of SC in its sequal? I am reading about many new abilities for the zerg and protoss. But, I was wondering about how terrain fairs. Seeing as the game's story focuses on terrain, until the expansions are released, I figure there should be some experience with this race floating around. Whats new with them, whats changed to make them even more effective?

[Kaylia]

I dunno, I guess we just disagree here. I love this kind of macroing. Chrono boost & spawn larvae is not even near the "sending worker to minerals" or "click every building to build a unit" of SC1 in terms of tedium in my mind. Hell, you can even do both with a hotkey:

For protoss: Put your Nexuses and all of your buildings you'd cast chrono boost on on a single hotkey. When you want to chrono boost things, hit that hotkey, hit c, select the icon for the building you want to cast it on.


But yeah, like I said, this is more than outweighed by some of the other advantages of warpgates, like the lower recast time and the concept of proxy-pylon reinforcements, at least for a lot of players. I know I always go warp gates and never revert them, the advantages just simply outweigh the cons in most situations, I was just pointing out one situation where they may not. It would probably be of the most use when you are proxying the gateways (so the warp in time saved isn't important), and are committing to an all-in attack with constant reinforcements (like 2-3 gate zealots). But of course, those situations are limited and honestly usually come before warp gate tech is available anyways.

I will target multiple nexus next time. I always forget it's not SC1 and that you can target more than 1 building. Same thing when I use my skill, I always have the reflex to single out the unit to not burn all your cooldown at the same time.




Personally, I prefered the old school "send worker to mineral" to queen/chrono boost management. Sending worker to mineral is an action you only send once, while chrono boost...I wish I could chain chrono boost or get a minimap warning when it wears off (like when probe construction is over).

But yeah, like I said, this is more than outweighed by some of the other advantages of warpgates, like the lower recast time and the concept of proxy-pylon reinforcements, at least for a lot of players. I know I always go warp gates and never revert them, the advantages just simply outweigh the cons in most situations, I was just pointing out one situation where they may not. It would probably be of the most use when you are proxying the gateways (so the warp in time saved isn't important), and are committing to an all-in attack with constant reinforcements (like 2-3 gate zealots). But of course, those situations are limited and honestly usually come before warp gate tech is available anyways.

The shuttle (prismwhatever...freaking name change) is pretty damn hot for this. It doesnt work so well against an omniscient computer, but against human, I can definitivelely imagine spawning a large amount of units behind enemies lines in a few seconds.

[Kaylia]

I am reading about protoss and zerg quite a bit here. I was more of a Terrain kind of guy. The only referances, i saw in this thread, to terrain was one of two things. MMM + Tanks is just as brutal as ever. But terrain was much more than just MMM + Seiges. I would argue they had more tricks up thier sleaves than either protoss or zerg. And to be honest, they needed it.

In SC1, zerg was known for a fast onslaught with many units. Overwhelming the opponant with numerous, cheep, units was really thier hallmark. They really didnt have many micro moves. Burrow was the big one, when used correctly. They had very few units which had abilities. Only two units come to mind that had abilities, and they couldnt be used to attack with. They were only around for thier abilities. But, terrain had various tools to harrass and otherwise destroy the zerg. Terrains even had tools that were specialized towards them. Irradiate, Goliaths, Siege Mode come to mind.

Protoss was known for very strong, expencive units. Heck one Zealot could take out 3 marines if it found the base early in the game. (and the terrain couldnt micro) The Reaver, although slow, was known for making crowds of marines go splat. All of the Protoss units were expensive which caused the absolute need to expand more than other players or face a sure loss. The Protoss did not have very many units with abilities, High Templar was one of the very few. But even then, terrain had specialized abilities for dealing with the Protoss. EMP shockwave, Yamato gun, Vulture Mines (sneaky trick to keep them from quickly expanding), and so on.

But to make use of the appropriate terrain strategies and tactics you needed to have great recon abilities. Terrains had various units to help with that. Most notable was the comstat station, yeah it makes protoss and zerg jealous. But, the Terrain also had the science vessel, wraiths (the fastest cloaked unit in the game), and vultures (fastest land unit in the game). Heck, if you wanted to get technical, you could even lift off a building to see what was over a ridge line.

Did they preserve this aspect of SC in its sequal? I am reading about many new abilities for the zerg and protoss. But, I was wondering about how terrain fairs. Seeing as the game's story focuses on terrain, until the expansions are released, I figure there should be some experience with this race floating around. Whats new with them, whats changed to make them even more effective?

Zerg
Zergling lost a bit of their power imo (easier to counter), but zerg are scarier than ever. Nydus canal + tumor allow them to spread everywhere on the map really fast. The "guardian" unit is similar, except this time, it spawns a broodling every time it hits, making huge fucking swarm of monsters. Queen are replaced with Infestor, which is essentially the same, except that 3 infestor can spawn 24 infested human (they are marine-like now) in 1 sec on the battlefield. There is nothing quite like mass hydra now (since the new hydra are stronger and cost more), but they havent changed that much.

Protoss
It's similar to SC1. Out of the 3, it's the one I had the less issue with jumping in. Replace dragon with dragon that can blink, add 1 different building for dark templar and replace reaver with something less powerful that have a shitload of def, and you can play them similarly. There is a lot more change and new units, but essentially, they tech similarly


Terran
Nuke are weaker (but easier to build), no science vessel kinda blow, but the whole bunker/supply depot thing is better than before. Firebat hopped into a vulture, and got a huge range increase, medic hopped in a shuttle, goliath can now turn into flying ship at any time (cost a lot more though) but can only attack in the air when they fly.

I wasnt able to make a good use of the other air unit yet. I guess they play similarly in a way, but they still changed a lot.

[Meian]

Zerg
Zergling lost a bit of their power imo (easier to counter), but zerg are scarier than ever. Nydus canal + tumor allow them to spread everywhere on the map really fast. The "guardian" unit is similar, except this time, it spawns a broodling every time it hits, making huge fucking swarm of monsters. Queen are replaced with Infestor, which is essentially the same, except that 3 infestor can spawn 24 infested human (they are marine-like now) in 1 sec on the battlefield. There is nothing quite like mass hydra now (since the new hydra are stronger and cost more), but they havent changed that much.

Protoss
It's similar to SC1. Out of the 3, it's the one I had the less issue with jumping in. Replace dragon with dragon that can blink, add 1 different building for dark templar and replace reaver with something less powerful that have a shitload of def, and you can play them similarly. There is a lot more change and new units, but essentially, they tech similarly


Terran
Nuke are weaker (but easier to build), no science vessel kinda blow, but the whole bunker/supply depot thing is better than before. Firebat hopped into a vulture, and got a huge range increase, medic hopped in a shuttle, goliath can now turn into flying ship at any time (cost a lot more though) but can only attack in the air when they fly.

I wasnt able to make a good use of the other air unit yet. I guess they play similarly in a way, but they still changed a lot.

Speedlings are scary so I wouldn't say they got that much weaker. If the entrance isn't blocked they can speed by and jump on your workers like theres no tomorrow.

Immortals are a big difference from dragoons with their super shields when not playing with smaller units (MMMs usually). Not much else I can comment specifically on Protoss however as I've had just a little experience with them.

No Science Vessel but Ravens are quite amazing as a replacement.
I would've liked Medivac to stack heal on a unit but sadly that isn't the case but they are capable of carrying units even Thor so it is a very good combination unit for a decent price.

Edit: Nukes are the same damage on buildings I believe but weaker on units (300 +200 building)

[willriker]

O.o no science vessle? what do you use for a roaming detector? you mentioned a raven, what are the details on that?

btw, im liking the idea of the flying goliath. I loved those things, but zealots tore them apart. also, the goliaths had shit for pathing. being able to lift them off the ground, then get them to land offers a lot more utility and micro posibilities for them. I am liking that.

you mentioned the firebat jumped into a vulture, and a medic jumped into a shuttle? I am guessing that means that you cant put firebats into bunkers now... and the shuttle wont cure marines mid fight? If so, both make me sad.

[Meian]

The flying goliaths (Vikings) are ehh compared to other anti-air units but at least it can hit ground when it transforms too.

Ravens are pretty amazing. They act as detectors as you asked.
It can drop a turrent on the ground that hits for 9 damage fast speed if I remember right.

It also drops a decoy unit that forces units with missiles and shots (even lasers from stalkers and such) to hit it.

Can drop an aoe bomb that flies slowly and hits the area for around 100 damage (but hits friendly units too)

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Raven

Not sure if this was updated but its about right

Edit: Prolly forgot to mention that Vikings are readily available after making a Starport which is also good for early harassing of Overlords

[geno]

The shuttle (prismwhatever...freaking name change) is pretty damn hot for this. It doesnt work so well against an omniscient computer, but against human, I can definitivelely imagine spawning a large amount of units behind enemies lines in a few seconds.

Yeah this is really really strong, especially against people without instant reaction times (AKA non-progamers). One of the biggest applications I've found is getting both templar upgrades (Storm and +25 starting energy), and using warp prism to warp in templars behind mineral lines for instant storms on workers. Amazingly awesome and makes up for a lot of the inefficiencies of storm in the current build compared to your alternatives imo if it sees more use.

[geno]

I am reading about protoss and zerg quite a bit here. I was more of a Terrain kind of guy. The only referances, i saw in this thread, to terrain was one of two things. MMM + Tanks is just as brutal as ever. But terrain was much more than just MMM + Seiges. I would argue they had more tricks up thier sleaves than either protoss or zerg. And to be honest, they needed it.

In SC1, zerg was known for a fast onslaught with many units. Overwhelming the opponant with numerous, cheep, units was really thier hallmark. They really didnt have many micro moves. Burrow was the big one, when used correctly. They had very few units which had abilities. Only two units come to mind that had abilities, and they couldnt be used to attack with. They were only around for thier abilities. But, terrain had various tools to harrass and otherwise destroy the zerg. Terrains even had tools that were specialized towards them. Irradiate, Goliaths, Siege Mode come to mind.

Protoss was known for very strong, expencive units. Heck one Zealot could take out 3 marines if it found the base early in the game. (and the terrain couldnt micro) The Reaver, although slow, was known for making crowds of marines go splat. All of the Protoss units were expensive which caused the absolute need to expand more than other players or face a sure loss. The Protoss did not have very many units with abilities, High Templar was one of the very few. But even then, terrain had specialized abilities for dealing with the Protoss. EMP shockwave, Yamato gun, Vulture Mines (sneaky trick to keep them from quickly expanding), and so on.

But to make use of the appropriate terrain strategies and tactics you needed to have great recon abilities. Terrains had various units to help with that. Most notable was the comstat station, yeah it makes protoss and zerg jealous. But, the Terrain also had the science vessel, wraiths (the fastest cloaked unit in the game), and vultures (fastest land unit in the game). Heck, if you wanted to get technical, you could even lift off a building to see what was over a ridge line.

Did they preserve this aspect of SC in its sequal? I am reading about many new abilities for the zerg and protoss. But, I was wondering about how terrain fairs. Seeing as the game's story focuses on terrain, until the expansions are released, I figure there should be some experience with this race floating around. Whats new with them, whats changed to make them even more effective?

Terran right now is more or less the weakest race in testing, but not by much (and interviews show that the dev team is aware of that and working on further balance changes). They still retain a lot of mechanics and theory from SC1, including being one of the most micro intensive races. Think SC1 for instance: while Protoss could more or less attack move storming here and there for both vZ and vT, Terran had to seige/unseige, plant mines, patrol micro, stim marines & bats, keep medics near armies, and vultures/goliaths near tanks. They clearly required the most APM to handle an army efficiently and that really hasn't changed.

Tanks behave more or less the same w/ seige/unseige, as do marines&marauders with stim. The super fast firebat+vulture hybrid unit the hellion behaving very similarly to the vulture as a hit and run harass unit and tank protector. Reapers take away some of that role though and allow you an easy opportunity to disrupt bases, not just worker lines, but buildings as well with ridiculous building damage. Vikings of course also require micro (when to keep in the air and when to land on the ground), and ghosts have become pivotal spellcasters, particularly in TvP for EMP. Pretty much every unit has some microing ability, just like in SC1, and I forsee the need for a lot of agility and speed to control them effectively as Terran becomes more balanced and popular in the future.


about zerg:
I agree with Meian in that speedlings are ridiculously scary, not as a straight up attacker all the time, but as a constant and unending threat. They are the bane of many protoss players right now and help 2hatch mutalisks to be as effective a strategy as it is right now. If you aren't careful and let even a small number of zerglings controlled by a strong player get into your base, you are royally screwed. They kill buildings and probes ridiculously fast, especially because units will now continue to attack/autotarget probes even if attack units are within reach. This kind of disruption is almost no investment for the zerg but keeps protoss players stuck on 1 base and with an army in their main the entire game until they can swoop in with mutas and end it. I feel like speedlings are among the strongest units in the game right now because of their mobility, auto surround, and the new targeting system.

back to protoss:
I have no idea what Kaylia is talking about w/ reaver vs colossus, the wider consensus right now is that the colossus blows the reaver away in almost every category of effectiveness. It does more damage (particularly in numbers because of smarter targeting), more consistently (reaver scarabs bugged out so easily) and from a similar range (the range upgrade for the colossus is HUGE) and is able to retreat far quicker and to places where units can't even reach them. Otherwise, yeah I agree with him overall in that protoss probably feels the most familiar to use for SC players, but thats not a reflection of how easy they are to play.

I feel like Zerg takes that cake right now, having very strong and easy to use units early on (roaches and speedlings) allowing even weaker players a lot of opportunities to end it early. They also arguably gain the most from MBS and automine and have a lot of hotkeying power that I alluded to earlier that make it so you almost never have to return to your base to macro up an army of ridiculous proportions for the mid and endgame armies. Top it all off with very little micro requirements on individual units, outside of rare roach burrow micro and the thus far underused but quite powerful infestor (neural parasiting colossus's will really really really annoy protoss players).

[Kaylia]

Speedlings are scary so I wouldn't say they got that much weaker. If the entrance isn't blocked they can speed by and jump on your workers like theres no tomorrow.

Immortals are a big difference from dragoons with their super shields when not playing with smaller units (MMMs usually). Not much else I can comment specifically on Protoss however as I've had just a little experience with them.

No Science Vessel but Ravens are quite amazing as a replacement.
I would've liked Medivac to stack heal on a unit but sadly that isn't the case but they are capable of carrying units even Thor so it is a very good combination unit for a decent price.

Edit: Nukes are the same damage on buildings I believe but weaker on units (300 +200 building)

Again, I've only have and handful of game, and computer always play the same, so it doesnt help. I'm basing every comments out of the experiences I have with the games, which is still limited


Obviously, mass zerling (or anything) will have quite a punch if you send it against the appropriate units. However, I find it easier than ever to block. Sentry for protoss allow you to block any choke points instantly and more efficiently than anything before (can even use it to split enemies group when needed). Collossus will absolutely rape any zergling army unless they are in the middle of nowhere and can't use the terrain at all. It's the same with terran's hellion. You only need an handful to destroy huge army, and unless you didnt see it come, it shouldn't be an issue.

Immortal are reaver replacement more than anything, stalker is the pseudo dragon I was talking about (even if immortal are ex-dragon lorewise). Stalker arent good against building, but their blink make them great for hit and run.



I guess raven are a fair replacement, but I miss my shield and irradiate. They have the potential to mitigate more dmg with their turret thought, but I couldnt use it efficiently.

Edit: Nukes are the same damage on buildings I believe but weaker on units (300 +200 building)

Yeah, it's the same on normal unit, but with the change to protoss shield. I couldnt freaking destroy a nexus with a single ghost constantly nuking it lol.

And dropping a nuke on a large army of carrier didnt kill any, than by the time my second nuke was ready, their shield was full and they all survived again.

I'm not saying nuke are worthless, but they are less scary than before...or at least, it felt that way.

btw, im liking the idea of the flying goliath. I loved those things, but zealots tore them apart. also, the goliaths had shit for pathing. being able to lift them off the ground, then get them to land offers a lot more utility and micro posibilities for them. I am liking that.

you mentioned the firebat jumped into a vulture, and a medic jumped into a shuttle? I am guessing that means that you cant put firebats into bunkers now... and the shuttle wont cure marines mid fight? If so, both make me sad.

The viking (flying mech) are kinda lame imo. They look pretty cool, but their hp is low, and they get destroyed pretty fast. Landing/flying also take a little time, so they aren't as fast as goliath if you are fighting air+ground. That said, one starport can build two at time with the proper add-on upgrade, and you could build a small army pretty fast.


You cant put the hellion in bunker obviously, but their range is so long it could as well be behind the bunker and hit farther than an old firebat. They are as fast as vulture too, so they can escape/kite/hit and run easily. Terran has another infantry unit that take 2 place in bunker (you can upgrade them to 6 room/bunkers btw) that has splash damage, but I havent tried them yet seriously.

And the shuttle heal people on the ground, it's a flying medic (without flare/restore) + shuttle combined. You have have as many shuttle as you had medic thought, so it's kinda a drawback.

[GRT]

seems zergs are edging the other two races mostly because it's so easy to mass low tier units (roaches and hydras) and be effective against a good mix of terran or protoss units whether low tier or even top tier, and that's a bit of a poor design imo

[Kaylia]

I have no idea what Kaylia is talking about w/ reaver vs colossus, the wider consensus right now is that the colossus blows the reaver away in almost every category of effectiveness.

What? I was talking about immortal being the reaver-like unit. Colossus have no real counterpart imo, and own the shit out of ground unit. Their durability is on par with reaver, but I don't consider them equal as reaver.

I'm comparing immortal to reaver because they destroy building really fast and tech around the same time, but it's arguable if you want to be nitpick. There is nothing exactly like reaver in SC2, but you have one unit that own building, and another that own mass ground units and can use terrain to run away.

[GRT]

colossus can be hit by air-to-air units, like phoenix, vikings (without having to transform), corruptors and um.... anything else? because they are so tall... so that's a very valid counter

they can also be hit by air defense structures, such as missile turrets and spore crawlers

[Kaylia]

I wasnt saying there is no counter, but against ground unit like mass ling, they will definitively tear them apart. Zerg don't have great air counter, but they have mind control I guess (what's the range on this?)


Anyway, there isnt a strategy that can't be countered. There is counter to every units, and you can counter every counter with something else. That's what made starcraft balance so great, and why SC2 is probably going to own just as much.

[willriker]

The flying goliaths (Vikings) are ehh compared to other anti-air units but at least it can hit ground when it transforms too.

Ravens are pretty amazing. They act as detectors as you asked.
It can drop a turrent on the ground that hits for 9 damage fast speed if I remember right.

It also drops a decoy unit that forces units with missiles and shots (even lasers from stalkers and such) to hit it.

Can drop an aoe bomb that flies slowly and hits the area for around 100 damage (but hits friendly units too)

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Raven

Not sure if this was updated but its about right

Edit: Prolly forgot to mention that Vikings are readily available after making a Starport which is also good for early harassing of Overlords

thank you for the link. It seems that the ravens hunter seeker missile is a bit OP to me though lol. I mean you just fly to the enemy base's back side and toss out a 100 damage aoe bomb on their gatherers. Its like the reaver drop on steroids as you only need to make one unit.. instead of a reaver > ammunition for the reaver > shuttle. And there is much less micro going on with the raven as you dont need to pick up and drop off the reaver, like SC1's protoss had to.

[GRT]

I wasnt saying there is no counter, but against ground unit like mass ling, they will definitively tear them apart. Zerg don't have great air counter, but they have mind control I guess (what's the range on this?)


Anyway, there isnt a strategy that can't be countered. There is counter to every units, and you can counter every counter with something else. That's what made starcraft balance so great, and why SC2 is probably going to own just as much.

hydra is the shit ;p

[geno]

What? I was talking about immortal being the reaver-like unit. Colossus have no real counterpart imo, and own the shit out of ground unit. Their durability is on par with reaver, but I don't consider them equal as reaver.

I'm comparing immortal to reaver because they destroy building really fast and tech around the same time, but it's arguable if you want to be nitpick. There is nothing exactly like reaver in SC2, but you have one unit that own building, and another that own mass ground units and can use terrain to run away.

Oh I see. Still don't get how you think immortal is closer to reaver than colossus though, lol. Reaver required a building after robo, like colossus, they are the same tech level. Both are aoe units that attack ground only and work best on worker lines and mass ground units like marines and hydra/ling. I didn't know anyone thought of reavers as building killing units, they were definitely not used that way competitively with the occasional exception of supply depots all next to eachother for splash damage. edit: oh I guess also for pushing up on sunken lines without losing units, but theres no reason a colossus couldn't do the same thing with range upgrade.

Survivability wise, on their own, the colossus clearly blows the reaver out of the water because of its ability to walk up and down cliffs and overall faster movement rate. Without those, it wouldn't be more durable I'd imagine because of how much more efficient auto-surround is, but thats not the case. Miniscule amounts of micro make the unit ridiculously durable until air attackers (like Vikings or Mutalisks) come along and clean them up easily. Of course you could be talking about shuttle-reaver micro, but thats hardly a fair comparison. And anways, who's to say we won't eventually see warp prism-colossus micro in the future too (probably not, the colossus is mobile enough as it is, lol).

Anyways yea, its the immortal that I would say has no counter-part in SC. It took parts from dragoon's weaknesses and strengths (including being weak to small units like marines and zerglings) but added in unique traits completely unseen in SC with its harden shield and exclusively ground to ground ranged attacks.



On the whole topic of counters, yeah starcraft had hard counter situations where this unit beats this unit and thats how it is, but that wasn't what really made it great imo. The game had plenty of ways to overcome the deficits of building a unit that shouldn't work and making any strategy viable or at least survivable against a number of others. And unit balance was extremely dependent on a number of variables including upgrades and numbers. For instance, a couple dragoons will destroy a couple of vultures. A couple of vultures with mines will destroy a couple dragoons. A couple of dragoons with range and an obs will destroy a couple of vultures with mines. A lot of vultures with mines will destroy a medium amount of dragoons with range and obs, etc, etc. Interactions like this could be found throughout the gameplay and I'm really not sure if this aspect has carried over to SC2 or not.

From my play, there have been a lot of hard counters in my experience that just force the other player to change their tech up to survive (particularly forcing air units to deal with air units). Its clearly too early to tell overall, but I'd really like to be able to go mass ground against a Zerg late game and right now thats just not possible with a small tech switch to brood lords on their part. Who knows though, maybe some new micro tricks will be found or other strategies to deal with these types of situations will come out. It probably is too early to claim these soft counters aren't in the game, but it is still important to point out that they at least should be.

[Kaylia]

hydra is the shit ;p

I meant air/air, but yeah, hydra arent bad I guess. I havent seen how well they do against collosus though, arent they getting a damage reduction against them?

Oh I see. Still don't get how you think immortal is closer to reaver than colossus though, lol. Reaver required a building after robo, like colossus, they are the same tech level. Both are aoe units that attack ground only and work best on worker lines and mass ground units like marines and hydra/ling. I didn't know anyone thought of reavers as building killing units, they were definitely not used that way competitively with the occasional exception of supply depots all next to eachother for splash damage. edit: oh I guess also for pushing up on sunken lines without losing units, but theres no reason a colossus couldn't do the same thing with range upgrade.

You're right about the tech level being the same, my bad. I was using them on bunker/turret/sunken/canon a lot, that's what I meant by building (althought, 4 reaver could make decent hit and run to destroy someone nexus). Colossus also works, but it's nowhere near as fasté I don't think you will want to hang in someone base longer than you need to with these.

Which remind me, I need to try a collosus inside a shuttle (if they fit).

Survivability wise, on their own, the colossus clearly blows the reaver out of the water because of its ability to walk up and down cliffs and overall faster movement rate. Without those, it wouldn't be more durable I'd imagine because of how much more efficient auto-surround is, but thats not the case. Miniscule amounts of micro make the unit ridiculously durable until air attackers (like Vikings or Mutalisks) come along and clean them up easily. Of course you could be talking about shuttle-reaver micro, but thats hardly a fair comparison. And anways, who's to say we won't eventually see warp prism-colossus micro in the future too (probably not, the colossus is mobile enough as it is, lol).

Of course. By durability, I was talking about a situation where any units is hitting it. They really don't last long if the fire is directed at them (or at least, not long compared to any 300$/200gaz unit).

And while they can walk up on cliff, not every map has the advantage of being "walkable" by colosus. Lost temple for one force you to enter from the side or the front. Beside, you wouldnt want your colossus to be found in the middle of the map either, because they will be sent back to you in piece.

And were reaver suposed to be used in any other way than shuttle micro lol? I can sincerely not remember a situation where I had reaver without shuttle, unless they just happened to be in my own base while the someone attacked.

the whole topic of counters, yeah starcraft had hard counter situations where this unit beats this unit and thats how it is, but that wasn't what really made it great imo. The game had plenty of ways to overcome the deficits of building a unit that shouldn't work and making any strategy viable or at least survivable against a number of others. And unit balance was extremely dependent on a number of variables including upgrades and numbers. For instance, a couple dragoons will destroy a couple of vultures. A couple of vultures with mines will destroy a couple dragoons. A couple of dragoons with range and an obs will destroy a couple of vultures with mines. A lot of vultures with mines will destroy a medium amount of dragoons with range and obs, etc, etc. Interactions like this could be found throughout the gameplay and I'm really not sure if this aspect has carried over to SC2 or not.

Well, I didn't want to write the whole argument, but the idea is that starcraft always revolved around figuring your opponent strategy and countering it. It's not just this unit against that unit, but this strategy against that strategy. Unit being varied has a lot to do with this, but thing like your dragoon+observer example are also included.

I think SC2 has the same amount of interaction and synergy between units than SC1.




About the broodlord, it's one thing I would like to fight againt. I thought guardian were overpowered in the original starcraft, but broodlord are...wtf. They cost a lot I guess, but air-air is mostly shit atm.

[geno]

I think the differences between colossus and reaver depend on where you used either. Higher end competitive play did use reavers to help break static defenses a little (like I said, in PvZ in particular), but in that aim it wasn't so much because of their damage that they were effective, it was their range (which outranged bunkers, sunkens, cannons). And for that, Colossus are just as effective as long as you keep your army nearby to repel any threats on them (just like with reavers!) And thats just for that limited use of breaking static defense, which honestly hasn't even played as big a part in SC2 as it did in SC1 imo. The main usage of the reaver in competitive SC1 of a support huge aoe damage attack/harass unit is more or less the same role the colossus now fills.

As for the reaver+shuttle, yeah there were a couple times you wouldn't use shuttles competitively, but at that point only for defense. A really awesome PvZ strategy of hardcore corsair+reaver revolved a lot around building robos at pretty much every base and massing up cannons and reavers to repel attacks, while also using a corsair fleet and shuttle+reavers to as your main attack army. Some great games using that style, but yeah overall reavers were almost always used with shuttles when used offensively.

Colossus I feel are about as durable as reavers though, even with shuttles in mind (particularly if you can put colossus in the phase prism for quick escapes). You don't need a cliff to make use of micro, colossus can't really be surrounded because they can walk over units as well, so as long as you can use pretty simple micro techniques of walking backwards between attacks, colossus survive a lot better against ground then they may seem. Against air, I wouldn't blame the colossus, more the new air units of SC2. I'm sure we'd see a ton of viking shuttle snipes constantly in SC1 if they were in that game as well, effectively the same thing as killing a colossus (even if the reaver would be dropped in time, there's little chance for it to live much longer obviously).

I think the colossus does fit in the new shuttle btw, but tbh I haven't really tested it. I think I just remember reading it a long time ago pre-beta in a Q&A, so maybe it could have changed anyways.