SC2 Q&A Batch 37 Released!

This
week reveals yet another great StarCraft batch, if a bit short.
Interesting information
this week including new developments regarding the Terran Nomad. 
Enjoy! As always, thank you to the Blizzard Community team for
producing these batches!

Chat with Devs: One of the latest
changes the Devs are trying for the Nomad is replacing their previous
stationary Mine Drone with Spider Mines. The Spider Mines behave the
same as Spider Mines from the original StarCraft. It now also does 50
damage plus 50 additional damage towards armored units. Instead of only
having 3 Spider Mines, the Nomad will be able to plant Spider Mines
with the cost of 15 energy. These Mines will definitely prove quite
formidable against mass Tier 1 units such as Zerglings and charging
Zealots.


As always, feel free to give the Devs and I a w00t if you are enjoying the batches.




---StarCraft II Q&A Batch 37---



1. Can the Ghost snipe casting (energy based) units in the fog of war using its passive sensing ability? (Battle.net) crazy_dave



While the Ghost will not be able to snipe casters in the fog of
war, their current range to detect casters(units with energy) is 30,
giving you plenty of time to prepare for incoming threats.



2. Could you tell us more details about the Reapers' mines
mechanics? Are they visible for the enemy? Can they be defused, or
should simply be destroyed? Do they deal damage to friendly units and
to each other? If so, does the explosion of one mine cause the
detonation of its neighbors, or they just die, without dealing damage? (Battle.net) Elsoron



Yes, the Reapers mines will be visible, though depending on the
placement, they can be covered by enemy units moving over them. The
mines have very few hit points and can be killed easily. Nonetheless,
it is important to note that they are very small, making it more
difficult to micromanage those attacks when there are several mines.

Mines damage both enemy and friendly units/buildings, so making
sure you dont blow up your own Reapers is quite important Mines will
not detonate other mines, have a 30 second cooldown, and they currently
do 30 damage plus 30 additional damage to armored units (including
buildings). Furthermore, the mine is now an upgradeable ability of the
Reaper.




3. In StarCraft II there are destructible obstacles like rocks.
Apart from simply killing them the Protoss Nullifier can lift them with
his Anti-Gravity spell. Do the other races have any similar options to
remove or pass the rocks with spells? (broodwar.de)



Actually, the ability to lift destructible doodads has been
classified as a bug and has been fixed in the latest builds. Nullifiers
have already proved to be quite strong when used in groups, being able
to lift up Siege Tanks and Ultralisks, effectively taking them out of
combat until the rest of their reinforcements are dead.



4. Do Anti-Gravitated Banelings keep their suicidal abilities and act as Scourge? (sc2blog.com)



Yes, when Banelings die while being lifted by Anti-Gravity, their
explosion will hit air units in its area of effect. This could
undoubtedly open up some unique and unexpected strategies in team
games.



5. Blizzard made 2 e-sport oriented games after StarCraft:
Warcraft 3 and WoW. What are the biggest lessons that you've learned
from those 2 games and how will you apply them to StarCraft II? - VIB (teamliquid.net)



One of the main goals for StarCraft II is to keep the game very
visually intuitive and readable. As Dustin has mentioned in our recent
chat, visually When a unit teleports, it teleports. When it shoots, it
looks like it is shooting. It should be easy to follow on a screen and
players should be able to quickly understand what is happening in the
battles. Futhermore, Blizzards games has followed the premise of easy
to learn and hard to master. StarCraft II will follow this philosophy.



6. How does the Marauders slow ability work against the Zealots
charge ability. According to present knowledge the concussion grenade
shot of a Marauder forces its target to stop moving for a short time;
afterwards the targeted unit can go straight forward. So does it stop a
charging Zealot and does the speed bonus remain?(starcraft2.4players.de)



When the Marauders concussion grenade hits an enemy target, it will
reduce that units speed immediately by a set percentage. The cooldown
of the concussion grenade shot is subject to balance. Nonetheless, a
charging Zealot slowed by a concussion grenade is still pretty fast.
Before the Protoss player upgrades their Zealots with charge, a
Marauder can kite a Zealot with relatively little micromanagement.





---End of Transmission---

 Source: Battle.net 

 

Yea like I said, worst batch yet. Nothing really new.
Whatever happened to the new Lurker model?

 

so does cooldown mean how long it takes the mine to go off, or how long it takes for the reaper to get a new mine? Other than that there are some slightly interesting things in this batch, but not a whole lot useful.

 

Its a good batch. Not the worst, actually not even close to bad.

 

why is mine lock, i made the tread first and added color

 

it means how long it takes for them to get a new mine


i want a Thor update, please tell us if anything has changed

 

sweet, i like that the spider mines are back in action, watch zerg we have spiders!

 

I liked the mine tower better.

I rarely used spider mines in sc1 because after killing only a few units, you no longer have a mine feild and needed to build more vultures just to make it again.

 

ugh rusty memory ... how did the mine drone work again?
the reaper's bomb ability being an upgradeable ability makes sense, like vultures and their mines
and i liked the nullifier's ability to lift up obstacles.... the possibilities...

 

If the Baneling/Anti-Gravity combination stays, I'm going to have lots of fun with it. I think giving the Spider Mine to the Nomad was a pretty good idea as it gets another ability to defend against the enemy.

 

I Don't understand why anti-gravity would not work with rocks.. that kinda sucks... I feel that the nullifier's anti-gravity could stand to have a lower area of effect, so that a player would need more nullifiers to really affect the game. Then they could allow anti-gravity to lift destructable doodads, which of course would open the protoss to hidden or hard to get expo areas early in the game. ..

I don't know what is the area of the effect of anti-gravity.. but judging from the fact that a baneling + anti-gravity = scourge is doable.. the area of effect gotta be pretty big....
Also, so this means that units that are "floating" can move and attack? .. Well I can see how it would work against siege tanks and buildings, but not really too effective for other units because they can just move away from the area of effect.

All in all, I think the anti-gravity should be able to lift those obstacles, and accomadate changes to it so that it would be more balanced...

 

Good to see Spider Mines back, IMO it would be more useful than the Mine Drone and have a wider range of possible uses. However, even though the batch mentions Zealots as one of the units the Spider Mines would work well against, in practice that may not be the case.

In SC1, it was already possible to "herd" Spider Mines with leg-upped Zealots and use the mines offensively in an active manner. Now that Lots move faster in SC2, it should be even easier to do. If in team games in SC2, the ability to turn off alliances mid-game remains, then it would definitely still be possible to plan and execute this strat purposely, and easier than ever before. But even just in general play, it might happen quite a lot. The concern is, Terran players might find their deployment of Spider Mines backfiring on themselves, with enemy Zealots herding their own Spider Mines back at them.

Another thing is, while I don't believe units levitated by Anti-Gravity can move(not really sure, but doesn't seem likely), I wonder how it would effect Spider Mines. If Spider Mines can be lifted off with Anti-Grav and if they can still function, that would be quite a spectacle. If Spider Mines can actually retain their functions and automatically chase down enemy units, then it would open up some very interesting possibilities. If that's not the case, then I guess Banelings would be the designated fireworks units.

 

It will definitly be a bonus since Terran can deploy them from air meaning more effective micro, such as dropping a mine into a tank blockage to make them either friendly fire or to simply blow them up. Fast teching to Nomad will be very useful.

 

I do think the mines are far less useful right now. I reckon the nomad is exactly where the science vessel was, and so by the time the first nomad pops out, chances are the other player already has mobile detection. The whole point of mines being low-tier was that mobile detection was not available (except for the Zerg), and so they had the advantage of surprise early game. Not to mention they dealt a hefty 125 damage as opposed to their current 50 (+50).

 

That wouldn't really work Psionicz, at least not in the example you've given. Even if Nomads can get deep enough(over enemy Tanks) in the first place, Spider Mines only had 20 HP in SC1, it would be easily taken out by Marines automatically targeting them without any extra micro from the player. Baiting friendly fire from other Tanks would still work, but I doubt you can get the Nomad that deep without losing it. Throwing away a Nomad just to bait Tank fire is not prudent, there are better choices in that situation as the Nomad is too valuable and would be much more effective when used in other ways.

EDIT: @ Kuvasz, If I'm not mistaken, the Nomad is lower on the tech tree than the SciVes. I think the Nomad only requires the Tech Lab add-on, which, would already be pre-built.

 

@Remy, I'm sure you've watched and played a lot of matches, and we all know Terran players will have a large amount of tanks with not many Marines. Yes, the mine would get destroyed but the Tanks would still fire at it.
Also I'm sure the Nomad would have some armor points meaning the Missle Turrets they set up around the tanks won't kill a player knowing what hes doing.
Also you don't even have to place it in the middle, it can be on the edge and either way its gonna blow them up or force some friendly fire.
Everyones seen how players would drop Zealots into siege tank masses. That was a valid strategy with a weaker unit being the dropships, so I'm sure sure a Nomad could easily do it.

 

Judging by the tech tree, mines would still come later than in SC1, for a higher price, and for less damage. Although if it only costs energy then it could be spammed.

Anyway. Regardless of mines' stats and prerequisites, I don't like the idea of them being planted by an air unit. And seeing as how the nomad constantly changes radically (appearance, abilities), it seems it's just an awkward unit just like the thor, which they thought looked and played cool but soon realised its overlap.

 

Kuvasz: The higher initial price and lower damage is balanced out by the fact that instead of building a crapton of units with three mines each, you can produce as many mines per Nomad as you please, energy permitting (15 energy does sound a bit spammable though, so doubling the cost would probably be a good idea). Besides, just because the enemy is able to produce mobile detection doesn't mean they'll be pumping out detectors everywhere they can. There will still be a number of little niches around the map where you could place spider mines and go unnoticed.

 

Also, if you're spamming mines, it may not even be enough that they're being detected. A force moving through a thick minefield would still be slowed as it works its way through the mines- they could be used to slow or restrict enemy movement, which is exactly what real-life minefields are used for.

 

I'm guessing that most people here are like me, whether for or against the change on Nomad, they don't feeling very strongly about it either way. At least it's not as bad as the recent crap with Terran. Protoss feels quite complete and balanced, not counting tweaks naturally needed in relation to the other races, where as Terran feels very messy right now seeming like the devs don't have any clear direction of development with T.

Anyway, getting Spider Mines instead of Mine Drones doesn't seem like it would make the Nomad any worse than it already was, but Terran players will probably miss Spider Mines as early auto-detectors though. Not to mention what a valuable tool early Spider Mines were in TvP games.

Kinda gotta agree with you one that one, awkward is right.

@ Psionicz, You can't really compare sending in the Nomad into the thick of things with something like the Shuttle. Nomad's caster status would make it naturally gas-expensive, the SC1 SciVes was 100/225. My guess is that the Nomad would probably end up costing slightly less gas, but it would still be high. Casters are usually just flat out more valuable than unit transports by design, and consequently, are usually very high priority targets to begin with. Terran being the most gas dependent race(at least in SC1), risking a heavy gas investment just to have a try at what could be done with a Dropship is not in their best interest.

And besides, I'm not sure how you got to the conclusion that air space above Siege Tank formations are not dangerous. Terran is easily the most dependent on unit mix/combo, if you've only seen Terran with an ass load of Tanks and little else, I don't know what you've been playing/watching. In SC1, M&Ms and/or Goliaths are guaranteed, this time we'll probably see M&Ms and/or Vikes.