Starcraft II - Q&A Batch 36

To illustrate the topic of this month's discussion, we would like to give you a better view of what the Baneling is like at the moment!

ScreenCraft: This batch's screenshot is to show the significant size increase of the Baneling since the original Protoss announcement gameplay trailer. The size increase is to allow the possibility of focus firing on incoming Banelings with additional micromanagement.

Feel free to discuss the evolution of the Baneling in our Monthly Discussion Topic at:
http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=sc2-general-eu&t=463

Baneling Invasion
http://www.starcraft2.com/screenshot.xml?s=80



An army of Banelings invade a developing rival Zerg base.

1. Do Protoss Immortals get killed when a Nuke explodes next to them(seeing as the Hardened Shield blocks all high profile attacks and that a Nuke is definitely a high profile attack)? (Battle.net) Eragon320

In term of units, the only units that will be able to survive a Nuke will be the Protoss Mothership and Immortals upgraded with Hardened Shields. An upgraded Immortal will take 10 damage from a Nuke. To all other units, the Nuke will do 800 damage, thus making it much more powerful than the Nuke in the original StarCraft.

2. How powerful is the Roach's regeneration ability? How much time is needed to regenerate from 1 to full hp? (sc2pod.com)

The Roach currently regenerates 15 hit points per second, allowing it to regenerate to full health in 6 seconds. In countering Roaches, a player must either micromanage the battle to make sure they are focus firing on each Roach one at a time, or they have to bring in high damage units such as Siege Tanks or Archons.

3. Are overseers any tougher than overlords? (Battle.net) Mestroyer

When an Overlord evolves into an Overseer, it will gain a speed bonus, passive detection, the ability to generate creep below it, and the ability to corrupt' resources to make it more difficult for opponents to gain access to them. Furthermore, when Overseers sit in the same spot, over time its visual range will increase (but not its detection range).

4. Is it worth it to build a Terran Reactor Add-on since the benefit of doubling your queue list is not that useful, as it is often a bad idea to have your queue full? (gamereplays.org)

Yes! The Terran Reactor doesn't just double the size of your queue list. For a mere 50 minerals and 50 gas cost for the Reactor, that Barracks, Factory, or Starport will have the ability to create two units simultaneously (assuming that unit doesn't require a tech lab add-on). Most of the time, building the Reactor will be worth it, rather than building a second Barracks, Factory, or Starport. Not only will you be able to build from a single building the production of two normal buildings, you will be able to salvage that Reactor if needed to get 100% of the cost back. Being able to salvage allows for quick tech shifts or evacuations.

5. Will there be different building textures resembling the actual terrain? (in Warcraft 2 the buildings were snowy on the winter maps) (starcraft2.hu)

This is something the art team would like to do, though it will ultimately come down to time. There's a lot of art work still left to do, such as their current task, which is putting the finishing touches on the Terran Marauder amongst several other units. On the Marauder, players will be able to see many intricate animations for both the weapons and their power suits.

6. Did the High Templar's Hallucination ability undergo any changes due to the introduction of new tough units, such as Thor or Colossus? (battle.net) Elsoron

The Hallucination ability did not undergo changes because of those new units, but it did get significant buffs since the original StarCraft. First off, hallucinated units still have the same hit points as the original unit, but take double damage. Furthermore, the duration the unit lasts for will be around 2-3 minutes, which will be significantly longer than the original StarCraft. On top of that, to hallucinate a unit only costs 40 energy, which is much cheaper than the original StarCraft's cost of 100 energy.

Link: http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?FN=sc2-general-eu&T=494&P=1

 

Decent batch.

One thing I'd like to raise displeasure with is the fact Terran will always get 100% back from salavge. It should be 70-80% and they should script it so they get minerals relevant to hitpoints. As why would you get the 150 minerals back from a half damaged Barracks.

Oh and WOW at the Roaches regen rate. Lets hope its armor is soft or its attack isn't all that. I have to say my bad to ItzaHexGor as he predicted it to be something close to that and I said hes crazy and it'll probably be something like 2-3 per second.

Lol. 800 damage nuke FTW.

 

I think Jon went insane with this last update.

Nice update though.
1. Immortals survive nukes? LOL, nice. Nuclear Lauch Detected! BOOM, no one dies. 800 damage is stronger than the original, and would be like a real nuke.

The MS can survive a nuke, that means it probably has around 500/500 life. That will be a pain to kill.


2. 15 HP/second for roach? A zealot wont even hurt it, definately one of the strongest zerg units. But it will replace most of the ling's usefulness lategame. Only thing the lings has is it's extremely low cost and ability to upgrade.


3. nothing new to see here, move along folks


4. 2 units at once, definately will make marines more numerous at the beginning. And salvagable for 100% return.


5. I like this. makes the buildings look like they fit in the map. It would look odd if its snowy and a building doesn't have snow on it.


6. Looks like halucinate will be more useful. Its cheaper and lasts longer, downside is it takes more damage.

 

I'd have to agree with Hallucinate becoming a great asset to any Protoss force! I personally wouldn't mind if they didn't get that whole "snow on building" art into the game in time. I mean, if it's not snowing, and you build a new building, how would previously existing snow get on it?

Then again, I wouldn't complain if it DOES show up

 

Omg, the Immortal... It can walk away from a nuke with only 10 damage... The roach's regeneration rate is fast!
So basically in most one on one battles against a roach, the roach would probably win. This is what the Zerg needs though, if every Zerg unit was weak, it would be imbalanced.

 

Imagine zerg on money maps. Those roaches will be unstoppable.

 

I dont think the roach needs that much regen, 10 would be nice. But the freaking immortal is really immortal. I would cry if i didnt know a nuke couldnt kill an immortal and you tryed to nuke an army of them at your door..... That would scare me enough to crap my self.

 

Eon: That's a good point. If there's anything that will make money-map play unbearable it will be a unit that is practically invincible without micro.

Of course, this could just mean that money map games will end up being ZvZ matches, or hosts will exclude players from using Zerg...

I am a little annoyed at this Q&A. They answer questions that are already known to the community, well known, in fact, like the fact that the Reactor adds a second queue.

I like what's been done with Hallucination. In the original game, nobody ever used it because it required so much energy for so little effect. I only ever bothered with it if I was already winning- massing Archons... build one Archon, Hallucinate it with all of my High Templar, then merge those.... But a lower cost and longer unit life, even with the doubled damage rate will make it so that it will be very viable to make the traditionally compact Protoss army into something resembling a Zerg swarm.

 

the upgrade to Hallucination as a keeper. it gets a 10 in my book and i hope this wont change. But i think everything that was said was already know except the regen on the roach. I think 15 is really over excessive. i and its every second. Nabey its like a world of warcraft second where the zero counts and its really 2 seconds.... I hope it is cause every second is not even funny.

 

This was an awesome Q&A Batch in my opinion. There were some great questions, like the Roach and Nuke, but unfortunately there were also a couple of dud questions, like the Reactor and Overseer. I feel that the good ones made up for the bad though, so it's an awesome batch.

The Banelings are huge now, almost as big as a Roach, but I was disappointed that they didn't show us the new Lurker, especially after they said they'd try and show us it in an upcoming ScreenCraft. The Banelings still roll which is of disappointment to me, and I hope others as well. I'd really like for them to get a reasonable movement animation.

To whoever I argued about ages ago about the Immortal and the Nuke, I guess you were right. I know it does still make sense that the Hardened Shield should be able to resist a Nuke, but I just couldn't see it happening and thought that there'd have to be a point where the Hardened Shield fails. Anyway, ten damage from a Nuke. That means it absorbs 99.9875% of its damage. That's pretty 'ouch' worthy. Also, now that we know it's practically immune to Nuke, we can easily assume it's also practically immune to Yamato Cannons, etc.

The Roach! This is awesome. Reading this just made my day. I'd calculated that to barely survive against a Zealot it needed to regenerate five damage per second, and some people even thought that was a bit too much. Then, in another thread I remembered my calculations as being ten damage per second and everyone said that was absolutely ridiculous. I remember kuvasz estimated about two to four health per second and Psionicz saying:

Haha, anyway. I'm just having a bit of a laugh over that right now. They're going to be a formidable unit, especially early on against Protoss. No wonder the Zerg kept losing in the Zerg versus Protoss videos we all saw, they never got Roaches. Anyway, I don't think this is too fast at all. There are still tonnes of units that can take them out, and quickly at that. Sieged Siege Tanks only require one shot and with Protoss, Archons and Colossi, if they were to get their single target attack back, would be great against them.

Both the Overseer and Reactor questions were duds. We already know that the Overseer gets buffed and anyone who doesn't realise how effective the Reactor is shouldn't really be playing StarCraft to begin with. I'm not too fussed over Hallucination. It wasn't used much in StarCraft and it looks as though they've fixed that. When used on things like the Mothership, it should be fairly easy to work out which is the Hallucination and which isn't. Especially with Terran who can just EMP the whole area to get rid of both the Hallucination and all the Protoss' shields.

 

this batch were good. but some questions were gay stuff that we already knew about.
i like the new roach with a crazy hP regen. and immortal ARE really....imortals...lol

i never actually useds hallucation that much in sc...but i have a feeling ill be using it alot now in sc2 xD

overall a great batch. hope we can see the new lurker animation soon x]

 

I like this batch. 15 hp per second? Roaches are going to be hell against Protoss early game. And 800 damage nukes? And Immortals can survive them?

We should make a Fallout-type map with a Protoss base getting the **** nuked out of them and the Immortals the only ones left.

 

Lol Itza I apologised ;]

On the Immortals surviving a Nuke, there should be a point where the shield fails. They should die when the direct nuke damage hits it but they can survive the splash radius of the nuke.

 

The disign of the Zerg and the Protoss seem, for me, to be too CARTOONISH


It's like Warcraft

 

Protoss are fine I tihnk, but zergs really look cartoonish.

 

Yeah, the Protoss are fine, but I don't see how the Zerg are cartoon-ish. They're just like they were in StarCraft1 only 3D. Look at the renders, their level of detail is no different from that of the Terran of Protoss, and the models themselves are far too complex to be cartoon-ish.

 

The Roach's regen rate makes me wonder how other Zerg breeds will heal. As far as I know, all the other Zerg units are keeping the Starcraft 1 regen rates, making the Roach a unique unit.

Are you sure? I thought the Roach was a light unit, not armored...but anyway, this makes me want the Old Colossus attack back. That'd be great for taking out Roaches

 

Everything I've read has said that they're Armoured targets. I haven't read anything about them being Light targets. Either way, if they're Armoured targets, they'll get one-shotted by Siege Tanks, if they aren't Armoured targets, they'll get one-shotted by Snipe. The Protoss don't really have a specific unit to take them out, a few Dark Templars would do the trick, as would the Colossus if it had its old attack.

 

Roaches arent OP, they are pretty balanced IMO! Remember, we dont know the other units attack speed, and Blizzard have said they made an even faster mode then fastest!

 

At the moment, they'd be talking in relation to normal game speed. Increasing the game speed will increase the regeneration rate so if it was overpowered before, it will still be overpowered in the fastest game setting...