EPTBlizzard reveals new mysterious terran unit for Heart of the Swarm: the Donkey
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vC4sf.png)
In a reaction from lead developer Dustin Browder:
"The Donkey is a much needed upgrade for the terran Siege Tank. In addition, a new upgrade to the factory, Donkey Stables, is needed to research the upgrade.
A core problem involving Siege Tank strategies is that there was no way to move them to an area fast, unless Terran had a starport. We felt that terran was slightly underpowered because of this.
Although we don’t want to see siege tanks used in every terran late game, we noticed they’re hardly ever used at all. To encourage their use in more games, we decided to buff their biggest weakness, movement speed.
With this siege tank upgrade the terran army will be a lot more flexible, bringing them on par with Zerg and Protoss."
A core problem involving Siege Tank strategies is that there was no way to move them to an area fast, unless Terran had a starport. We felt that terran was slightly underpowered because of this.
Although we don’t want to see siege tanks used in every terran late game, we noticed they’re hardly ever used at all. To encourage their use in more games, we decided to buff their biggest weakness, movement speed.
With this siege tank upgrade the terran army will be a lot more flexible, bringing them on par with Zerg and Protoss."
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AKKNh.png)
David Kim also wants to point out that
"We consider this case more of a bug fix than a balance change. We've made every effort to weigh these types of changes very carefully and will continue to do so in the future. We understand the impact the Donkey might have on gameplay and want to make sure that when we make a change, it’s for the betterment of the game as a whole. The metagame is always changing, and that can make balancing the game a challenge, but we are dedicated to constantly evolving StarCraft II and committed to providing the kind of epic gameplay experience the community expects."
Finally, according to Browder he was amazed in the lack of insight of the community once Blizzard released the silhouette teaser.
"For us at blizzard it was so clear to see the unit in the silhouette, but somehow people failed to notice what it was. They even came up with all kinds of insane theories like a transformer upgrade for the hellion, which wouldn't fit terran lore at all. We already have the mule, so The Donkey was the logical next step."
