StarCraft II Q&A Batch 38

We have a traditional Q&A Batch this time around, in which we were able to add in additional questions from the community! There are still several art changes which prevent new screenshots from being shown, but once we get them out, they will be worth the wait! The development team has also been experimenting with many upgrades for all sides, which we'll also be updating the community on as testing progresses.

---StarCraft II Q&A Batch 38---

1. If the Roach is hit by any spell like "plague" or "psi storm," something that reduces hit points per second, will this be negated by its HP regeneration, or result in fewer hit points gained per second for the duration of the spell? (sclegacy.com)

To clarify, a Roach regenerates at a set rate and Psi Storm does a set amount of damage at intervals in the area of effect. Put that Roach under a Psi Storm in the current build for the full duration and the Roach will have approximately 50% of its original health after the Psi Storm is over. With a new upgrade ability at the Hive which allows the Roach to have an even more increased regeneration rate, the Roach will emerge from a full duration of Psi Storm at approximately 80% of its original health.

2. Will Starcraft 2's heroes showcase new models for each hero, or will SCII follow in SC:BW's footsteps, leaving heros as normal units with improved stats? (starcraft.org)

StarCraft II Heroes will have unique models in game, which will be different than standard units.

3. Will the ranking/experience system that Terran units used to have be available in the Map Editor as on option in Starcraft 2? (starcraft.org)

We will try to have this feature in.

4. Will it be possible to change (cancel, tie up, etc.) alliance during multiplayer game? (starcraftcz.com)

Yes, players will be able to have all the original diplomacy features as the original StarCraft and possibly a few extras in regards to controlling units and spending ally resources.

5. Will StarCraft 2 feature new map tile sets and will any from StarCraft be removed? Reiko.Cry (wgtour.com)

Many of the original map tile sets such as Mar Sara, Char, Shakuras, and Space Platform will be back in StarCraft II, as well as a few additional ones including a new Shattered City tile set.

6. What creature did the Zergling gain the inspiration to evolve into a Baneling from? (starcraft2.com.au)

The idea of the Baneling didnt actually come from a certain creature. In actuality, it started from the need of something to fill the role of a ground-based, area-of-effect, suicide unit. To give added versatility to the Zergling, they had the Baneling evolve from the Zergling at tier 1 in current builds. For a suicide unit, the art team then took that idea and created a creature with huge sacs of volatile liquids, which you can see on the Banelings in StarCraft II screenshots.

7. Can you provide more details on the Reaper's mine ability? How much damage does it do? Is it effective vs. both units and buildings? Is it detectable without stealth detection? What's the cooldown on it? - Solesteeler (teamliquid.net)

The Reapers mines currently do 30 damage plus 30 additional damage to armored units (including buildings). These mines are not stealthed, have a 30 second cooldown period between uses, and are definitely small enough to make focus firing on them very difficult. In the current build, an upgrade is needed to allow the use of mines by Reapers.

8. Are the Zerg Sunken and Spore Colonies capable of moving out of the bounds of creep? Elsoron (battle.net)

Yes, they are able to move and plant themselves outside of the creeps boundary. Keep in mind that all Zerg buildings not in the boundaries of creep will slowly degenerate and eventually die. Creep which moves into an enemy base will also damage enemy buildings at a slow rate as well, allowing for new types ofcreep pushing strategies in StarCraft II.

9. Will the Map Editor support letters from non-English alphabets (ó, ű, Å‘, ú, á, é, etc.)? (starcraft2.hu)

Yes, these characters will be supported.


---End of Transmission---

 

I posted this as news a few hours ago but its not up so here it is...

Very nice batch, I'm pleased with the creep update and the fact it damages enemy buildings when creeping as many of us have suggested that in the creep thread.

 

I declare this the lamest batch evar. Too many no-brainers. Only the first and last were any interesting. The Roach will apparently be the hard counter for HTs with Psi Storms and whaddya know, creep damages structures now (as it has been suggested in Creep threads), which changes a bunch of things, one of them being the Bunker rush that counters the early Zerg expo. You will basically have to repair the Bunker(s) all the time or they will be overrun, and you'll be loosing valuable early-game resources.

 

idd, hope the screenshots are done soon, art changes = ftw! unless we're talking http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2007/04/12/care-bears.jpg style...

 

I doubt the damage will be anything huge, also if you have time to build a bunker at the natural expansion, you have enough Marines to stop that Drone from mutating into a hatchery.

I do like how the Roach is shaping up, seems very anti-protoss which is something the Zerg needs since they get easied by Psi Storm.

 

Roach

Does anyone else think that the roach will fill a little bit like MM. Low hit point range units that can heal themselves. I bet roaches with quick +1 damage could be powerful early on.

 

I wonder if they'll ever change it so it needs an upgrade to double its regen rate.

 

No images this time either. These batches are starting to lose their purpose... why do they compile a batch with questions that have been answered previously? Lame.

 

Amazing. now the simple creep from the zerg is enough to kill you.... how freaking nice...

Again i'm glad to see reaper crap thrown in our face, i'm starting to wonder where blizzard picks there questions from cause they need to change there source. ANYWAYS, i just get the feeling blizzard is trying so hard to get the reaper to be more and more of an offencive unit with major raid like tactics. I just feel like thats what the new terran face is going to look like with the medic drop ships and units healing as soon as there dropped into your base. DAMN BLIZZARD! stop forcing your will on me.

 

man, i thought they would be some questions about the colossui since they're on the picture, oh well. And the few questions regarding the roach are answered.

 

Reaper

Am I the only one who feels like reapers will be very difficult to use other than for building raids? I think that you will have to decide if you want to devote the time needed to micro reavers. I hope I am wrong and they will be more verstile and have other uses, but am not sure.

 

I don't think sunken and spore colonies should be able to leave the creep. They are technically buildings and they shouldn't have the ability to survive without creep. I do like the idea of zerg buildings without creep withering and dieing. It just makes sense.

 

I support you on your second statement theoneinpower. But remeber is a sunken or spore leaves the creep it starts to die so that sounds about right. and leme guess that cant plant back down into the ground without creep so i guess they shouldnt leave creep in the first place.

 

the only questions i bothered with was between the roach, heroes and creeps so perhaps even they put a lot of q's here some really were not worth mentioning...

so about the zerg defensive colonies.. in SC1 u first build a creep colony before evolving it into either sunken or spore.. so does it mean that the SC2 queen will also follow the same pattern of building or will she be a direct builder type from none to sunken and spore?? if so, then that means that we will now be dependent on the overlords creeping ability now are we??

 

i that has been talked about in question 8. "Yes, they are able to move and plant themselves outside of the creeps boundary."

but they will slowly die because of it. so im not sure how helpful that can be, mostly because we dont know stats and will most likely will not know them till almost release date or after it.

and from question 1, it looks like all the zerg units will get a health regeneration speed upgrade, just theorizing it because that upgrade comes from the hive, the only other spot that can evolve upgrades for more than one unit besides the evolution chamber.

 

you know, base raiding with mines would be kinda useless. If it were a hit a run tactic, just rush the mines with scv/probes/drones to kill them off b4 they explode. If it late in the match, players should have sufficient defense and/or backup units to defends against the reapers mines. In conclusion, i say reapers mines are useless

 

some of the questions are soooo lame....like..wth..n we already know the reaper...
we only found out a couple of new things..disappointing batch.

 

About the Roach, awesome. Just awesome. Zerg have never been able to stand up against things like Zealot rushes, Psionic Storms, etc, without suffering major casualties, and the way in which they fix it with the Roach is just spectacular.

About the heroes, nothing spectacular, in fact probably quite predictable, but it's good to get the clarification.

About the experience/ranking system, I have no clue what they're on about. Anyone able to explain it?

About diplomacy, good to hear that you're now able to change it up. It'll make team games more 'real' in a sense, having to watch and trust your team-mates, etc. Hopefully it'll add a bit of a new dimension to the game.

About the map types, surely questions like these could just wait until the game is out. We've already seen most of the terrain types in screenshots and gameplay videos, not to mention that they've pretty much got to have certain map types, like the ones they've mentioned, in the game in order for the campaign to work properly. Just a stupid question.

About the Baneling, I'm not sure if either I've or they've misinterpreted the question, but one of us has. I originally thought it basically meant 'what unit was the Baneling assimilated from' not 'where did Blizzard get their inspiration for the Baneling from'. Either way, pretty lousy question. It's nothing that could have waited. Knowing what unit they're assimilated from will be revealed on the official website soon enough and Blizzard have already told us why they made the Baneling.

About the Reaper's D8 Charges, I swear that this was answered in the previous batch, and in fact, they did;

About Sunken and Spore Colonies, as much as I disagree with uprootable Colonies, it makes sense. When it's uprooted it can move anywhere, so wouldn't be stopped by the edge of the Creep, and when they're re-rooting, they just dig into the ground, so again should not be hindered by the lack of Creep. However because Creep obviously does play a major part when it comes to Zerg structures, it's good to see that they've made it so that they'll die when off the Creep, however I can't really think of any examples, apart from moving Colonies, where there will be any lone buildings anyway. If everything else has been destroyed, the building wouldn't have long to live anyway, so slowly dying wouldn't effect it. That's not to say it's useless though, as it still does apply to Colonies. This does actually clear something else up for me though, I originally thought that the entire old system of defence was removed, not just Sunken Clusters/Swarm Clutches and Shriekers.

Lastly, about the additional characters, who seriously needs to know this at this stage? A very poor question that doesn't need to be answered before the game's released.

@ KacherMB. I don't see why that's a bad thing, nor do I see that Reapers would be that hard to micro. They're basically got the flexibility of an Air unit, which allows for quick and simple raiding, and they can just throw down their Charges and run or stay and take out their workers. How hard it that to micro?

@ Heavyarms2050. Why is it so useless? Workers would not be able to take out all the Charges that quickly, especially seeing as they'd block each others pathing, meaning that only a few would be able to attack, they're not fast units, meaning that they won't be able to get up to the Charges incredibly fast so would have less time to take them out, they have a slow and weak attack, which wouldn't be suitable for taking out such things, if they fail to destroy a couple of the in time, that's your entire lot of workers gone, they're small, so it would be hard to target each one, and that's not to mention that charging all your workers to the D8 Charges would make them easy pickings for the Reaper.

In late game, they will still be effective. Throwing them at enemy Siege Tanks or Bunkers would usually result in a broken line of defence, taking out a single Pylon for Protoss could potentially have drastic consequences, knocking out the surrounding buildings, and with Zerg, being a swarming army, hardly even needs to be used against buildings because the damage dealt to all the surrounding units would be deadly. Even in the very least, it blocks units from getting to your Reapers who can then focus on taking down the workers, and it stops the workers from retreating into the Charges. If you throw a whole heap of Charges between your Reapers and their opposing forces, the opposing forces will be forced to stop and take out the Charges first, diverting fire from your Reapers when they're raiding the economy, or result in them running over the top to save their workers, resulting in massive damage being done to their army.

 

The Queen directly builds things like a Worker, lore-wise she has eggs and stuff.
She either builds it straight into a Sunkun or Spore colony, or maybe they still have the 'Colony' which is no longer a creep colony as it doesn't produce creep.
The only reason you'd be dependant on the Overlord's creep ability is to stop your Sunkun from dying while its rooted in un-creeped earth.

 

but she'll still need to build it within the creeps range ryt? and not in a creepless ground.... theres no problem with the queen instantly mutating its eggs into sunken or spores as long as they also apply it to the mutation process, i mean that if they will enable the queen to make sunkens and spores on creepless land theyll have to apply the degeneration penalty to the upcoming colony right? or else it would make it a bit weird for a zerg structure to infest a creepless ground unless its the hatchery...... someone answer this