Starcraft II - Q&A Batch 36

It was Nate. Too bad he left. He joined the army I believe.

Actually, I learned something from the Overseer part. Apparently, Overlords don't generate creep, but Overseers do. This sucks. Overlords are just flying Supply Depots now.

The Reactor question was a facepalm though.

 

beats having them on the ground though eh?

 

Not really. in SC2 you dont get real AA until you get muta's or Hydra unless you spammed Spores. If the enemy reaches air before you got something to defend agenst it with your in some serious troble.

 

Yeah if the enemy reaches you before you got something to defend against it with you're in some serious trouble, but that applies to anything, not just Anti-Air and Overlords. If they manage to rush you before you've got enough Anti-Ground defence, it's the same situation. If they've built up an attack force that you can't beat, they deserve to win. They're not going to make it so that both the other teams are able to get Air units before the Zerg can get either Air or Anti-Air, so this is nothing to worry about.

 

did anyone else have a problem with the fact that they confirmed that salvage has a 100% redund. To me thats just stupid, even if its only effects add ons. They doesn't make sense lorewise, and would give the Terran a big advantage gamewise.
Also I think the roach is super sweet, but I'm kinda worried that the protoss don't have an effective counter against it. And IMO the roach is replacing the Ultralisk as a meatshield/tanker.

 

Yes, several people have had a problem with it.

But I am of the opinion that it is not unreasonable to refund the structures 100% not everything has to have a cost in minerals... in fact, when things so have a cost in minerals, it's harder to keep track of in your head. No, what's happening is Terran players are paying in time: the lost time in deconstructing the structure, and and in safety: structures lose HP as they go down.

It's not really much different from the fact that the larger structures can be lifted off and landed elsewhere.

 

It doesn't make sense lore-wise that they'd get back all the materials from something they've built? If anything that only makes sense lore-wise. None of the materials disappear so why wouldn't they be able to get them back?

The Stalker is supposed to be a fairly effective counter against the Roach early on. Later in the game they'll have things like Dark Templar and Psionic Storm, as well as Archons and Colossi. It's not going to replace the Ultralisk as the tanker. It only has ninety health. If it tries to tank it'll get absolutely owned because the enemy will be doing much more than fifteen damage per second so because it has very low health, it won't last long. It can be one-shotted by Terran and Protoss have a tonne of firepower so for a Zerg player to have a real tank, they'd need Ultralisks. For a Roach to absorb as much damage as an Ultralisk would, it would need to survive for forty seconds of focused firepower. To survive that time the enemy would only be dealing about seventeen to eighteen damage per second. That's incredibly unlikely, so the Ultralisk will always be a better tank than the Roach.

 

i just love the immortal.
I keep thinking about "rambo immortal" getting hit by a nuke then taking out 2 seige tanks "OUR CANNONS SHALL SING!"...does the hardened sheild take time to regen or not?

 

Finally some definitive good news for Zerg players. 15/sec regen rate for Roaches doesn't really sound OP at this point, it'll really come down to resource/supply cost vs general unit stats in SC2.

800 damage Nuke isn't all that shocking to me personally. I only see it as a tweak/adjustment to SC2 stats. The only thing that changed is just that the only unit that can survive one went from the BC in SC1 to the MS in SC2. The Immortal's Hardened Shield is just a brand new mechanic altogether, and that, is rather impressive.

IMO Hallucination will not really be a whole lot more effective than it was in SC1. Once everyone gets used to the game, it shouldn't be hard to counter it. Anyone's who's played WC3, especially DotA(which has more Shadow Image type of spells), would already have the experience needed in separating the real from the fake. I see it as something that would only buy you a few seconds away from FF. Once the enemy takes a few shots, focus fire would quickly turn to units that take less damage.

Rather than just a longer duration and lower mana cost, I think the more important factor in deciding whether or not Hallucination would generally be more useful is that whether or not hallucinated units(copies) would retain abilities and traits of the originals. Whether hallucinated Zealots can Charge, whether hallucinated Stalkers can blink, whether hallucinated caster units can fake spells(animation only), whether hallucinated DTs and Observers have perma-cloak, whether hallucinated Phoenixes can Overload(animation only), whether hallucinated Carriers deploy Interceptors(deal no damage), etc.

Obviously specific mechanics that have a direct impact such as the Immortal's Hardened Shield can not be replicated. However, things that are part of a unit's normal behavior must be replicated, because they serve as dead giveaways just by being absent. Taking double damage would already serve the purpose of providing a method to differentiate the originals from the fakes, I don't see why it should be made even more useless beyond that. Having some Zealots lag behind the rest because they couldn't charge, is really kinda stupid.

To comment on someone earlier making it sound as if a supply depot is worse than the SC2 Overlord simply because it's on the ground, please compare their SC1 stats. Now that the Ovie is stripped of most of its usefulness, that's all there is to compare anyway. Both the supply depot and Ovie were 100 minerals in cost, however, that bought you 500 HP and 1 armor with the supply depot, while the Ovie only came with 200 HP and no armor. As a Zerg player, I would love to trade supply buildings/units with the Terran personally.

 

Taking double damage isn't as good of a giveaway as you might think. Yes, if you have, say, eight units on the battlefield, and half of them are Hallucinations, maybe you'd be able to pick out a few of them and manage to properly ignore them. The process of identifying whether a unit has taken double damage involves 1) taking note of its health at one point, b) attacking it with a known number of units that deal a known amount of damage, c) deciding whether or not the difference is twice the difference expected.

If you're going up against an army of 30-40 units (and this is very possible with just a handful of real units and a few High Templar, the chance that you'll be able to identify the 10 units that are not not taking double damage is just painfully low. And of course, if you're focus-firing on the Hallucinations, well, mission accomplished for your foe.

You'll have to rely on splash-dealing units, special abilities (assuming they still dispel Hallucinations) and raw firepower to deal with a force that is using a Hallucination meatshield.

The new Hallucination basically creates 1 new unit, HP-wise, 2 units target-wise. It costs 20-less energy than the original Hallucination, and Hallucinated units last longer, meaning: the main cause of Hallucination-death will be from incoming fire, not time. The net effect is that the Protoss essentially get a ton of free HP, sight range, outflanking ability, and psychological intimidation factor that simply wasn't viable in the first game, when 100 energy was better spent dealing a few hundred damage with 2/3 of a Psi Storm.

I'll make it a little more explicit:
SC1 Hallucination, original unit has 100 HP, 100 energy spent:
-2 Hallucinated units, a total of 200 extra HP to the battlefield
-will probably die by the timer before the battle is over

SC2 Hallucination, original unit has 100 HP, 80 energy spent:
-4 Hallucinated units, a total of 200 extra HP to the battlefield
-will hold out through the whole battle unless they are killed
-note the 20-energy difference that can go towards a Psi Storm later, or another set of Hallucinations almost immediately after

 

Like I said, none of it means squat if your hallucinated Lots are lagging behind due to having no Charge, hallucinated DTs are plainly visible due to no cloak, etc, etc, etc.

Situations like ensuring drop or recall success by hallucinating an ass load of Shuttles or Arbiters would be just like before, useful. Situational and specific usage of hallucination would be just like before, still useful if it always has been. But until that all important question is answered, none of that lower mana cost or whatnot means jack.

It will still be possible to counter by micro regardless, even in mass applications if Blizzard provides us with a way to show all HP bars on-screen. People(and I'm talking just average people) countered Mirror Image line of spells shockingly quick in WC3/DotA. Sure, more copies around would take longer, but a lot of times it doesn't even need to come from actual micro, just keen observation. Units like Banelings would also make it very easy to counter Hallucination, quite brainlessly. Just 2 or so Banelings would kill a handful(greater number than Banelings lost) of hallucinated Zealots for example.

It might not seem like a big deal, may seem like you're still not losing anything, because they're not actual units. However, in situations where your Hallucinated copies get countered more efficiently than you had hoped(or just all the time really), that's precious spell energy that could've went into casting a few more tide changing Psi Storms. By investing energy into something that could turn out to be rather useless, you are at the same time taking away from your total damage output, and at least in SC1, Psi Storms were a very significant portion of Protoss's actual damage output. Satisfying with a few dead banelings when you could have a total blood bath on the field is how I see it.

I'll make it even MORE explicit:
SC1 Hallucination - Sucked.
SC2 Hallucination - Fixed to suck less, so far.

Whether sucking less actually mean ROCKING! is still left to be seen. However, your example itself is inaccurate. SC1 Hallucination VS SC2 Hallucination would be: 200HP(100 effective HP) VS 400HP(200 effective HP, it is not 200HP VS 200HP. If Hallucination still creates 2 copies per cast, than the only thing that has really changed is the mana cost(which IMO, is something long overdue instead of some great news). SC1 Hallucinated copies also took double damage from everything, so 200HP VS 400HP would be correct. It's SC1's 1 effective HP per 1 point of energy spent VS SC2's 2.5 effective HP per point of energy spent, if you need it any simpler. But nothing guarantees that those blank HP bought with spell energy actually require much user micro to counter.

 

Ah, I never knew that SC1 Hallucinations took double damage, too, so yeah, I now agree that the main improvement is that they cost less.

At any rate, I think you're missing the point when it comes to "countering" Hallucinations- if you're focus-firing on them to take them out of the battle, they're serving their purpose. They exist to take damage for other units, and by "countering" them, you're finding that the real threats are still around. yes, a pair of Banelings will take out a small group of Hallucinated Zealots... but that means you will have wasted real units that cost real resources to counter harmless apperations!

That there is no "guarentee" that they won't be easy to counter is a non-issue. Forget about microing to kill a Hallucination- hit those things with an area-of-effect ability, and all Hallucinations in range die. It takes effort to do it, even if it's just a little, but it's effort that turns matches.

 

Too bad that there is still no answered question from our forum.

Anyway, about the hallucination ability of the high templar, just 40 energy than 100 to create an hallucination is weird for me. It's not realistic in my eyes. Maybe the high templars became so powerful because of the last battles that they became like SUPER SAIYANS !!! We will be more able to create hallucinations

I really like the fact that they will take 2 or 3 minutes to live than a couple of seconds.

I just hope that they will survive more time under an attack than the original units. They are hallucinations, and they should be invincible

 

What? They already did that. What do you think an Archon is, anyway?

 

The fursion between two High Templars creates one Archon. That does not mean that just one HT becomes an A.

I just noticed the HT becomes more powerful than in SC1, so I supposed they will be like SAIYANS

 

is till want the question answered if HT can fly now

 

they can. Look at the top left protoss units. See their shadows. The HT fly


http://eu.starcraft2.com/screenshot.xml?s=76

 

No, they just float above the ground, like Drones and Archons do.

 

Yes, that's more floating than flying. That's what I meant. But I suppose ijjfdrie meant "float" too.

 

If drone 'floating' is included in sc2 im gonna be pretty pissed

Judging from their animation atm.. they sorta.. wriggle..