The new units completely revealed

[Comadevil]

[jerom]

I like it so far. More abilities = more micro. Also technically seen for us aoe3 players the changes to the zerg units are good, since they allow for a more positional war which is exactly what AoE3 micro is all about. Its really tough to say how these all are going to affect gameplay though, so I dont really know what to think about it. Are these units replacement units or totally new, because some of the units seem to conflict with other units that the races have too much (like sharing to much use)

Btw has anyone seen that video that husky made a long long while ago where he talked about what he wanted to see ? He basically said he wanted zerg to have some sort of spell that makes positioning important and he wanted protoss to get more harassment options. They either listened to husky or he's a genious.

[Aaryn_GenD]

i knew it! more than 1 unit per race 
i really like them, and the design choice behind them.
about husky, i think he just used his brain, it's kinda obvious what each race lacks.
about replacement, the viper will definitely replace the corrupter

[jerom]

mothership/carrier will prolly be replaced by the tempest, cant imagine protoss getting 3 capital air ships. maybe the replicant and oracle will replace a unit out of the protoss robo (I would actually not be surprised to see the warp prism go away or something, but Im not sure). War hound = thor but more mobile if I am not mistaken.

Also notice the following thing on the picture: all the units have lines around them, except for the form of the helion (because it isnt a new unit?) and the oracle. Dunno if that has some meaning though

lastly, what does the "can reveal what kind of buildings are being build" ability of the oracle really mean ? I feel like itd be imbalanced if it could just reveal all the buildings on the map so I dont really know what they are thinking about with that.

[Aaryn_GenD]

Goliath substitute online

i knew it^^ either get the goliath back or a substitute.
i was also (nearly right with the thor), it won't be gone but you can make only one at a time now^^ and it has that barrage spell from the campaign. good idea.

btw, this link provides even more details
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... _id=277762

[Comadevil]

No mothership and carrier bs in team games anymore yay

[Aaryn_GenD]

the shredder is a radiation robot and a mine-like unit. it burrows itself and deals damage to enemy units running by. it won't do any dmg if  your own units are near. i think this is a perfect solution , because terran has mobility issues in the mid and lategame and this adresses that. i knew they had to bring back the mines (spider mines form bw) some way or another^^

i also liked the NesTea references Browder made

[HeJurmhoanni]

The game will completely change. Now that they added more than one unit per race its gonna take way longer to reach the level of play that is now happening. If they only added one unit per race and removed one or sth like that it would have been better for the start of the hots. Now the games will be really weird at start.

I dont really care about new cool units but addressing the problems each race has. Now they may be addressing the problems but im sure way more problems will arise and new imbalances will take long to sort out.


Seems to me like zerg will become quite more powerful. They only removed the overseer but buffed corruptors and added really strong looking units AND ABILITIES (ultralisk charge, baneling burrow movement). Protoss loses it's signature unit, the carrier, which is really sad to me. IMO they should have replaced the colossus (colossus is the dumbest and most boring unit in the game!!!) with something similar but a tiny bit weaker. Im quite sure that if there were no colossus, carriers would be used much more and now that terrans get a better thor replacement (i think) mech will be used more and carriers are beastly against mech. The carrier replacement the tempests unit design looks stupid, carriers are way more exciting but theres really no use making them when protoss has both colossus and voidrays (except against mech).

The other protoss units seem tricky, dunno what to expect from them. We'll see.

Hellion transformer? Meh, now terrans only needs to build hellions... Well at least zerglings cant ever kill them anymore. The shredder? Would it involve more micro if it would also hit friendly units? dunno.. Terran seems comlete.. Also adding healing skill to the reaper i heard? Confusing..

EDIT: oh and the new nexus abilities.. Oh my, now every noob will be recalling all game long cause they cant spend their chrono boost... Dunno what to expect from the defensive ability though...

Swarm host and Warhound seem to be the only units that really were needed.

[jerom]

I'll personally just wait and see whats going to happen. Something new always seems nice to me. Probably helions in firebat mode are really weak against banelings though

[Comadevil]

The game will completely change. Now that they added more than one unit per race its gonna take way longer to reach the level of play that is now happening. If they only added one unit per race and removed one or sth like that it would have been better for the start of the hots. Now the games will be really weird at start.

Well that is not the Blizzard way. If they identify useless units they cut them.
Also: Nothing is final. It can also happen that a unit will not make it into the final game

I dont really care about new cool units but addressing the problems each race has. Now they may be addressing the problems but im sure way more problems will arise and new imbalances will take long to sort out.

Did u see the multiplayer panel? They put really some thoughts into addressing problems of the various civs and explained the reasoning behind those units.
Also they are aware imbalances can occur but as i told above they won't be hesitant to cut units if there is no other way to address problems.
We will also have a full beta where such imbalances can get ironed out

BTW: They also dropped that that would nerf EMP in next patch, proably by reducing the radius or range of it.

Seems to me like zerg will become quite more powerful. They only removed the overseer but buffed corruptors and added really strong looking units AND ABILITIES (ultralisk charge, baneling burrow movement).

Baneling burrow movement is hive tech, so u should have detection to counter such. They made the Ultralisk charge because often ultralisk are not of great use because of their size and they get stuck everywhere. With the charge the stuck problem is solved.
The reasoning behind the zerg units and abilities are that often Zerg can only start a eco battle in Tier2 because it has no means to break the other races turtle in any way. They just want to have Zerg more options like Protoss or Terran has.

Protoss loses it's signature unit, the carrier, which is really sad to me.
IMO they should have replaced the colossus (colossus is the dumbest and most boring unit in the game!!!) with something similar but a tiny bit weaker. Im quite sure that if there were no colossus, carriers would be used much more and now that terrans get a better thor replacement (i think) mech will be used more and carriers are beastly against mech. The carrier replacement the tempests unit design looks stupid, carriers are way more exciting but theres really no use making them when protoss has both colossus and voidrays (except against mech).

Lets face it: Carrier is a signature unit which u (almost) never saw on the battle field except in 3v3 or 4v4 and they are immobile (also due to their high dps). So they had something to do about it. The tempest isn't actually a anti mech unit but it is a mass anti air unit with splash damage. Mass mutalisks will have a hard time vs some tempests.

The other protoss units seem tricky, dunno what to expect from them. We'll see.

Well they are worried a bit about the replicant. SInce u can also replicate now worker and build a orbital coomand if u build the cc, supply depot and rax.
Massive units cannot be replicated.

Hellion transformer? Meh, now terrans only needs to build hellions... Well at least zerglings cant ever kill them anymore. The shredder? Would it involve more micro if it would also hit friendly units? dunno.. Terran seems comlete.. Also adding healing skill to the reaper i heard? Confusing..

Well depends how much the hellion will cost. Also the transformation took some time.
The shredder is for getting map control and be more in a positional war. It is not designed to strengthen the rest of ur army. That is why u are not allowed to have friendly units near. Reaper is only self healing and not the rest, also don't know what to think about it

EDIT: oh and the new nexus abilities.. Oh my, now every noob will be recalling all game long cause they cant spend their chrono boost... Dunno what to expect from the defensive ability though...

Well units are paralyzed a bit after recalling also at least Zerg with its viper abduct ability can easily sJapanesee some big core units. The recall can also be balanced by how many units u can recall (radius/range), how much energy it costs (right now 75)

Swarm host and Warhound seem to be the only units that really were needed.

Hmm don't know

[Comadevil]

A summary of the MP panel (thanks to the tl poster Eternalmisfit,  Original post)

SC2 Multiplayer Panel LR - Complete and Cleaned up

Dustin Browder, David Kim and Josh Manky on the panel

Balance Stats (WoL) in all leagues
TvZ : Even
PvZ : Even
TvP : Even

Master + GM balance
TvZ - Even
PvZ - Zerg dominant (Europe)
TvP - Terran dominant (Korea)

All major tournament data considered
GSL - Code S (Terran dominance)
GSL - Code A (Even)
IEM Guan ( Even) - major tourney but scale is not big
IEM NY - Zerg dominate
IPL - Protoss weak
MLG Orlando - Even

PvT
Pre - 1.4
Adjusted rating - evenish
Community feedback - protoss weaker
Pro feedback - protoss is too weak and has no chance

Implications
1/1/1 too strong and should be dealt with
EMP may be strong but hard to gauge since late game P was disadvantge from early game
Thus, range buff for Immortal

Post 1.4
Improved feedback from community and pros
Pros - 1/1/1 not a problem anymore

Implications
MLG Tournaments better results for P but 1 tourney not enough
Rating side - still unsure abt balance as it take times to settle down

PvT - EMP radius might be reduced as too much raw dmg from EMP
1 EMP with 10 protoss ball ~1000 dmg

P - possible forge upgrade cost reduction for shield upgrades

WoL design in general and what they learned for HoTS

1. Weaknesses for Zerg in early tiers
2. Stale matchups ZvZ and PvP
3. Missed opportunities - units not doing enough

Fix units, matchups and weakness
However, nothing shown today is final

Examples of pre-WoL units that were cut to demonstrate nothing is finals

TERRAN
Weakness and Issues faced
1. Thor
Too big and can get stuck
High cost and cant bring enough of them and can die from mutas if caught out of position

2. Mass Zealots late game
MM micro can alleviate it a bit but they might need more options

3. Lot of options - harassing/defending/200 pop army
new units should not add to strength beyond current


Battle Hellion
1. Anti late game zealot
2. End game fighter
currently early to mid game utility only


Warhound
new factory unit - mechanical
Anti-air mass muta role
medium cost and fast moving -smaller faster version of thor
It is anti-mech ground attack and good againt mech TvT
Protoss ground units are also mech so good against them always

Thors moved to different role - high burst attack unit what is similar to possibly Mothership in its role - unit is still under construction
Example video of battle hellion + warhound vs traditional marine tank


SHREDDER

1. Radiation robot
2. Cheap board control
3. Does not add to ball of death

Not allowed to ball of death -
no attack on move
when rooted as spine crawler can do large aoe dmg
cant keep aoe on near other non-shredder friendlies

Terran Summary
1. Hellion
2. Warhound
3. Shredder
Gives Terran little something w/o destabilizing the game


Zerg Challenges
1. Siege challenge - hard to go against turtling terran
2. Missed opportunities -
over seer : abilities not utilized too often.. Abilities not too powerful since it has 0 pop
Corruptor: effective against what it should counter (Colossus) - useless if protoss switches tech


Ultralisk
- Size issues
- End of game splash unit - buff in HoTS on this
- Burrow charge added to bring ultras into mid-battle

Example video of same

VIPER
- full spell cater
- over seer is cut
- Choke breaker

spell which reduced attack range to 1 under targeted area
e.g. used on marines and banelings super effective

spell which pulls a unit
e.g. colossus pulled down ramp

Swarm Host
- Zerg artillery
- Map control unit
- Burrows and spews broodling type units
Example video of swarm host - sets rally point - and locusts goto to pally point (90 hp locusts)
no cost on locusts

Zerg Summary
1. Ultralisk
2. Viper
3. Swarm Host


PROTOSS
ball of death too swarm acc to community
changes to deal with some protoss issues currently beyond that

Weakness
- No raiding units
different kind of raiding unit for P which does not kill SCV
- AOE Anti/air is lacking (mass muta strat)
Phoenix good against small grps but not against too many mutas
- Lots of options
Replace some units in ball of death but not improve efficiency of the ball


TEMPEST
- New capital ship
- Carrier is cut
- AOE AA
- Air assault
- Ground dmg as well
Video shown as example

REPLICANT
- Comes of robotics facility
- Only 1 ability to copy units
- Can copy units but have high cost 200 min/200g but get all upgrades available
e.g. copy banshee without cloak - the copied banshee will have cloak

Copying doesn't remove the original units so multi replicants can copy off single unit


ORACLE
- Raiding caster
- Doesn't kill workers
- Doesn't fit into ball of death
- Mothership cut to make room for Oracle

Abilities
- Temp stun buildings
- FFs to block minerals which can be easily destroyed but w/o units to kill the FF can destroy economy temporarily


SMALLER MISC CHANGES
- can be extremely signficant

Ghost cloak cost - fixed cost fixed duration
Reaper - regen out of combat
BC - speed boost on CD
Baneling - hive upgrade - burrow move
Hydra - speed upgrade in Hive
Corruptor - Siphon - attach to enemy building and harvest for resouces
Nexus - turns building into photon cannon for short time
Nexus - Recall ability

6 new units
7+ new evolutions
And new strats

========================== Q & A ====================================

Q & A LR

1. How do you think HoTS affect to influence the tourney scene?

- WoL ain't going anywhere
- Tournaments can decide what they want and they will support
- But they want people to switch over by making a good product



2. Question about Replicant - enemy race worker copied to build their units?

- Right now they can copy and should not be able to make a huge difference
- Copying and making OC might be too powerful
- They might make it not to copy workers


3. Question- Can OC be duplicated?
- Workers can be not OC


4. Replicant is a huge change and can open a can of worms?
- samll changes only for WoL
- In new expac, big changes are possible and feasible


5. How has Warp prism buff affected the pro-circuit?
- WP never saw play pre-1.4. Post-1.4 change has made it much more viable and people are using it a lot more now


6. Where they concerned about having too many options for the players esp for players in lower leagues who might get overwhelmed?
- Yes, they keep that in mind. But they want to add more strats also. So they will keep a balance


7. Mules imbad compared to chrono boost / spawn larva?
- Using at gold might be too powerful but it comes in mid-late game.
however, not too big an issue
- Saving up mana might be an issue. But then again different races are different where can pool up larva
- Assymetric options but they will watch going forward.


8. MLG guy - Q about HOTS released mid-season?
- It is upto MLG on when they want to switch over. Dustin Browder leavng it upto community as community has built e-sports not Blizz


9. Shredder attack nullified near (a) workers (b)allies units (c) can be repaired?
- Yes. Shredder dmg does not stack though


10. Shredder as harassment unity. Drop Shredder on worker line and kill everything?
- Concerned but they have tools to adjust
- deploy time / sound added
- May be a deal killer as well where it might be cut


11. Nexus energy question - CB loses utility later on - pis-cannon prevent cheese - what about using it as cheese?
- E.g. Day9 did it to JP last night - tried at different tech levels - concern abt range and other such factors - not sure abt right answer atm


12. Thor weakness muta magic box? Why is it different for tempest?
- Big AOE splash for tempest - larger number of tempest likely later on
- Tempest counters every air unit in game when clumped - so they will be built in mass.


13. Total damage cap added in SC2?
- Not a big fan of that solution for SC2. Random outcome - as to what units it hit and how much it removes - not too effective - so they will use range, radius, cooldown, etc


14. HT/DT wasted to get Twilight archon? not coherent question for me to put it in words
- They will take feedback on different archons


15. Units gets clumped up a lot in SC2 so AoE too important in late game?
- Big challenge in BW vs SC2 comparison e.g. nerfing storm damage.
- Feedback a lot in early SC2
- Possibly not too big and issue atm acc to David Kim as games are of decent length and units are not dying too quickly to splash.
- At pro-level splitting is helping it.


============ END OF Q&A and LR ===================

Any feedback on LR is welcome as it was my first time doing it

[Comadevil]

INterview with David Kim and Chris Sigaty

WP at Blizzcon 2011: Q&A Panel with David Kim and Chris Sigaty

They also tell that the clan feature for Battle.Net is on top of their list and they hope to release it around HotS

[Aaryn_GenD]

thanks for summing it up,Coma!
Hejurm, i care alot about new units and technologies and such. the game is stale and boring. there is not enough content in thegame, heck they evenremoved 2-3 technologies alreadyadded to which you seea lways tehsame inteh matchups (masss stalkre vs mass roach in ZvP, MMM+Ghost or Viking vs P, Ling Baneling Muta in ZvT, Marine Tank vs T and Z, etc.)
the only way to counter mass mutalisks for P and T was to use your tier 1 AA unit which is just stupid, because Z has ways to demolish them and mutas are a steamrolling unit, once you have no AA anymore gl massing AA up again, the mutas will steam r oll everything and kill anyworker line, defensive structures don't help either. the phoenixes counter mutas hardcore in small numbers, but once it's over 15 mutas your phoenixes won't work either.
about the changes i suspected would come: the thor being made into one unit only, and having a goliath-like faster, more mobile AA Mech (for mutas) which can also fight other mech units on ground. same with the protoss raiding stuff. or the shieldupgrade cost decrease for P or the radiationrobot kind of unit (mines) + they can serve as defensive structures so terran can defend an area without having units there (especially vs the swarming zerg), this would make a defensive tower against ground units obsolete^^
i really do hope they add a dark archon^^ they can cut the replicant forthat imo, even though i think the replicant is kinda cool.

to sum it up, i just think the game needs way more content and we are getting it, i would hate to see only one new unit per race with no kind of differnt mechanicsadded to thegame, now positioning and casting speellls will be way more important, for ALL races. i said from the beginning we get 2() units pre raceand i was right.
if what you said would be
true, the game wouls just feel like WoL 1.2 imo

about your balance concern,with these changes and no design issues, the game will reward the better players to seperate themselves from weaker ones, once HotS gets a reasonable balance, i'm sure the overall balance will befar greater than WoL. which has also one-dynamic gameplay

[Comadevil]

MP Panel VOD without Q&A

Blizzcon 2011: New StarCraft II Units Revealed

[HeJurmhoanni]

EDIT: oh and the new nexus abilities.. Oh my, now every noob will be recalling all game long cause they cant spend their chrono boost... Dunno what to expect from the defensive ability though...

Well units are paralyzed a bit after recalling also at least Zerg with its viper abduct ability can easily sJapanesee some big core units. The recall can also be balanced by how many units u can recall (radius/range), how much energy it costs (right now 75)

Doesnt really matter how much energy the recall costs. Even the pros have 100 energy nexuses from time to time.



Well the competitive games will inevitably suffer from any changes and the more and the bigger changes the longer it takes for the game-play to get perfect. If the changes are this big the game wont be perfect until like 1 year after LotV.