My first reaction on seeing the HotS information coming out of BlizzCon was complete and utter excitement. I watched the trailer three times in a row, each time looking out for new units and abilities. After this initial child-like glee, I put my analytical hat back on, and started to look at the proposed changes more critically.
A raft of changes have been proposed for Protoss. First though, let's bid farewell to the Mothership and Carrier. As evidenced by the cheers from the BlizzCon audience, not too many will miss the Mothership. Aside from some occasional KiWiKaKi sexiness, the Mothership, as a hero unit, had absolutely no place in the game. It's much sadder to see the Carrier put out of service after a long and decorated career, but let's face it, its removal will have zero effect on the current metagame.
So let's move on to the new units. While I like a lot of the proposed changes, many of Blizzard's comments describing their rationale left me bemused. For example:
"Protoss also suffers a bit from the lack of AOE anti-air, especially in the late game ... Phoenix are good against small groups of Mutalisks, but if the scale gets that big [40+ mutalisks] there's not much you can do."
Wait. What happened to Archons and Psi Storm? In any case, the Tempest does look like an interesting unit - almost like a Protoss Valkyrie. How it fits into the game will very much depend on its movement speed and attack range. If it's relatively slow, it will do a good job of zoning Mutas out of particular regions, but with good micro Mutas could still be used. To my mind, this would be a good scenario (much like Muta vs Thor), as yet another hard counter would just be boring. Also, the size of the area of effect will be interesting - could Mutas be magic boxed effectively? The Replicant is an interesting idea, giving the Protoss a kind of Neural Parasite. Right now it seems a little gimmicky, but apparently it's still under construction. The Oracle on the other hand is a very interesting proposition. Borrowing a sort of Disruption Web spell from the Corsair, it could potentially complement just about any army composition (contrary to Blizzard's idea of it not being an addition to the staple deathball). The ability to lock out mineral patches is also an interesting idea.
On the face of it, none of this addresses the issue of Protoss having no defender's advantage in the early game, which restricts build orders, especially in PvP. However, the new defensive ability for the Nexus could potentially help to solve this problem.
Zergs everywhere should be very happy about the HotS preview. The Burrow Charge ability for the Ultralisk is a long overdue and extremely cool buff. Meanwhile, burrowed movement for the Baneling is just plain scary. It's going to make keeping them as pets even more difficult. And I guess Ravens will have to become standard.
Probably the most exciting news is the addition of the Viper. The return of a Dark Swarm type spell makes my mouth water. The loss of the Overseer is also fine by me; the idea of melding the Viper with another unit to mutate it into a detector has a very cool Zergy feel to it, and introduces an important decision for the player, since one wouldn't want to give up a Viper lightly. The ability to pull units to another position could also be game changing, especially against Colossi and Siege Tanks. But I'm in two minds as to whether this is a good thing. Abilities that prevent the other player from being able to micro such as force field and fungal growth harm the overall game in my opinion. The use of this spell on friendly units such as the Brood Lord could be very nice, however.
One announcement that was welcomed by the BlizzCon hoards was the movement speed upgrade for Hydralisks. Watching hydras move off creep can bring tears to the eyes of Zerg players. But I actually dislike this change for three reasons. First, it removes what was a very interesting dynamic. Second, it's yet another upgrade that you will essentially have to get, in the same way that it's silly to build Hydras without getting the range upgrade. Worse still, the upgrade apparently requires Hive, by which point Hydras tend to be useless. Third, it just doesn't get to the core of the issue, which is that the Hydralisk is awful. Remember when the Hydralisk was the Zerg poster boy? Yeah, that's what we want. Not a unit that cowers in terror at the sight of a single Siege Tank or Colossus. I will go on in the hope that some fantastic synergy with another unit will render the Hydralisk useful again.
The Lurker-esque Swarm Host is a very interesting addition. Along with burrowed movement for Banelings, these could greatly improve Zerg's ability to zone a battlefield. It may need some tweaking, but a definite thumbs up for this design decision.
The Corruptor has gained a new ability called Siphon, which is a vampiric ability, in which enemy building health is converted into resources. To me, it sounds like a goofy attempt to make the Corruptor more interesting.
Blizzard are in a tricky position with Terran for HotS. Terran already feels like a very complete race, but they still need to introduce something new to keep their customers interested. For the most part, I find their proposed changes quite bizarre.
The first strange decision is to improve the Hellion's versatility by allowing it to transform into a slower but tougher mode. The Hellion is already a staple in just about every game situation. Browder's comment about Hellions being useless once there are Siege Tanks (or other sources of splash damage) is rather bizarre, given the prevalence of Mech strategies (including Hellions into the late game) in TvT. So long as Hellions are properly controlled, the cost-benefit analysis almost always comes out in the Hellion's favor, due to its zero gas cost and potential to take out a whole worker line in seconds. In fact, at the top level it clearly remains a viable choice at all stages of the game. If I had to choose the scariest unit in Wings of Liberty, it would probably be the Hellion, and it's about to get stronger. The idea of a bunch of Hellions running into my base, toasting all my workers, and then transforming to kill off my defending forces is pretty disturbing.
At the other extreme, I have grave concerns about the health of the Reaper. In his heyday, he was every Zerg's worst nightmare. But since the multiple nerfs, he has lost his way, and some games he doesn't even get out of bed anymore. Even the Hydralisk has stopped meeting him for coffee.
Beyond the 5 minute mark, the Reaper is thought to be extinct. There was one unconfirmed late-game sighting of a pack of Reapers in TSL3. But once non-light units hit the field - or even a sufficient number of light units - the Reaper becomes essentially useless.
One of the only things keeping the Reaper together is its D8-Charges. That and the monthly phone call from its mother. The ability to not only take out workers, but also key structures or add-ons is a rare redeeming feature. It can also be used to take out those pesky rocks for a quick early game expansion.
However, Blizzard have proposed replacing the D8-Charges with a regeneration ability. I fear this is just swapping the Reaper's crack habit for a therapeutic course of heroin. The Reaper may still make an impact in the early game, and it may even be a tad more annoying. But I don't see it addressing its real faults: the mid- to late-game issues. The problem with the Reaper is that there are better harassment options, and the Reaper just can't stand up in a face-to-face fight. I'm skeptical about regeneration fixing this. If you've ever tried going mass Reaper/Medivac (I was experimenting, okay?), you'll know that the rate of healing just isn't sufficient to stop your army evaporating in 5 seconds.
Probably the most inexplicable announcement about HotS regards the Thor. Currently, the Thor is a key ingredient in the extremely sexy ZvT match-up. As I see it, the Thor enjoys a wonderful dynamic relationship with the Mutalisk. If caught alone, it can be magic boxed, but when complemented with Marines and/or missile turrets, it cannot be approached. In other words, either player can win the battle, and it usually goes to the player with the best control. This is a dynamic that featured in many Broodwar unit match-ups, and is much healthier than hard counters (where unit A always beats unit B, regardless of control). The Thor has also become a key element in the exciting (and now extremely viable) Mech-style of Terran, with many players using them as a major component of the army. Contrast this to Blizzard's take on the Thor:
"The Thor is supposed to be the best counter to mass Mutalisks, but it suffers from two problems: one is the size of the unit is so big that it's easy to get the Thor stuck in between your own buildings or your units. The second problem is due to the high cost of the unit, you can't reasonably bring out more than one or two Thors, in general, against the mass Mutalisks, which means if you're ever caught off position, Mutalisks can easily spread out and magic box the Thors to kill them one by one."
If there is one criticism of the Thor in its current state, it would be that it can't really be effectively microed; control is almost all about placement with this unit. But apparently, that is what Blizzard want, emphasizing that the new Thor will be a "super-high health attack-move friendly unit". As one hero unit is removed (the Mothership), a new one is coming in. I shall call it, the MotherThorker.
To take the Thor's place, they have introduced the Warhound, which is essentially an anti-Mech unit. It's apparently also designed to fill the Thor's anti-air role. It may be that the Warhound more or less completely replaces the Thor - in which case the MotherThorker could probably just be removed.
Next up is the Shredder, which seems like an effective zoning tool against light units. It has an interesting dynamic - only doing damage when there are no friendly units present. But I'm not sure Terran really needs this at all.
Finally, the Battlecruiser will gain a movement speed upgrade, which comes on top of a recent speed buff. This sounds like a reasonable change, and may make it a little harder to kite Battlecruisers with Vikings.
In summary, I'm very excited about HotS! I think the changes to Terran require a rethink, but on the whole I'm happy with the direction the game is going.
i believe the occular implant is a single use ability the viper casts on a unit to give it a detection eye. You don't have to lose the viper though, i believe.
also, im really interested to see what happens in tvp, since a tempest or two might keep colossi safe from vikings (range dependent), and if it does, im almost wondering if we'll see more mech in tvp, since the new hellion transformer might keep tanks safe from chargelots and the like. dunno.
also i think tvt will go bio again, since the warhound gets +damage to mech, and that might really make tvt "who gets more warhounds/x faster". im really curious about how that will turn out.
I can't really explain it, but apart from Zerg I feel like they added even more units that take skill and dynamics away from the game, hell some of the additions even further amplify the ball vs ball play that we all hate.
The Shredder: No more squad based harassment play, you need to send in huge armies in order to nullify a Terran base. Couple in the fact that as Terran, not only do I not need to keep units at home in order to defend, I am told not to. Its like a terrible version of the spidermine. Completely flies in the face of good tactics to me.
The Battle Hellion: No more aggressive hellion play in a battle, another a-move friendly unit. The way you use vultures, was that you would send them far up front to scout the enemy so you know when to siege your tanks, then you run away and lure them in, then you run back in front to soak the damage, then once their army starts to retreat you trap them by running behind their army so the siege tanks can get some more shots off. What do I do with the Battle Hellion? Oh I just transform them, and then a-move my whole army. I guess I do miss firebats.
Swarm Host: Blizzard does not have a clue what map control is. Having a bunch of free units spawn every now and then is not going to protect your base, at all, especially when you need so many of these swarm hosts sitting at your base to actually protect it. Having 2 lurkers up a choke, it could defend your base against infinite amounts of marines, that is map control.
Personally, I hate the Tempest. Like, yeah, it's a cool unit and all, but how does it micro?
Fastest map possible BGH = picking protoss mass tempest/collosus imo.
I mean, there are other ways of dealing with mass air than introducing a slow a-move unit. Maelstrom/psi storm, or having Archons that didn't suck. Even corsairs were fragile and required micro because of scourge.
But I mostly think the root of the problem lied with protoss' inability to perform storm/reaver drops, and thus zerg economy spirals out of control, which may have been fixed with the warp prism patch. You allow your opponent to mass a 4000/4000 worth of an army, i don't think you should expect to fight that without a 4000/4000 army of your own.
I agree Nazza. Personally, I think the worst addition to the game is the Tempest. It's a boring unit with a stupid, unnecessary function and it's boring.
I'm all-around very, very disappointed with Protoss changes. The oracle is OK but it's designed as a pure harass unit. That's not particularly exciting to me. Also, the Replicant is just absurdly situational - and at that price, it's so hard to build, let alone making it efficient.
Obviously it won't ship like that but I really hope major changes happen.
Given that Protoss is getting destroyed across the board right now (statistically), I would think that they would give us some slack. They're saying that our "ball of death" is too strong so they can't make units that'll make it stronger, which is not necessarily false --- but now that Zerg can kill all our colossi for free by pulling them while taking almost no damage because of blinding cloud, I can't imagine Protoss winning if Z manages to drag it to the late game.
High Templars are slow as shit and archons are bulky and have short range. The entire point of mutalisks is to pin the opponent back into their base and attack wherever there's a hole while taking the whole map. It's not like anyone was using the carrier. So why the hell not.
Oracle and Replicant could be really cool. It all comes down to the tuning.
I really wanted a beefy Protoss unit. I wanted a unit that terran and zerg don't go 'and this is how you make this unit total shit', but apparently late-game zealots are a problem in PvT, so I'll let that speak for itself.
Viper: It's pretty clear that Blizzard still doesn't think that having focusable lynchpin units on which the totality of your success depends is a flawed concept. Hopefully they'll make it unusable on massive units or only ground and count Colossus as air.
The new terran mech units are going to massively change TvT and change TvZ. Not sure about TvP.
'Terran whirlwind of death' is pretty lol, but it won't stop an army. Ling runbys, yeah.
The new changes are alright, some good and bad for all races I think. The oracle and replicant seem very interesting, can't really comment on their possible uses without experimenting with them. The recall on the nexus seems like a decent idea, though it might make blink stalkers a little too strong (they blink in your base and kill shit, then get recalled out). The shredder seems a little too strong, I imagine if you put 2 of them in a line on a ramp (think third base metal), it would nullify most ling runbys. The warhound and battle hellion seem alright, pretty basic 1 a units. The viper and ultralisk burrow charge are awesome. Finally zerg get some more microable units. The swarm host however, seems silly. I can't really think of a situation where it would be better to have a swarm host instead of a brood lord, siege tanks seem like they destroy locusts.
Good blog. It's nice to see that there are some people not grabbing their pitchforks and torches.
I don't like the hellion change either. Why not make a new unit that fulfills the role of "late game zealots"? Now terran has a unit that does it all AND it's super cheap. Mark my word, in LotV they are going to be able to transform into air units! But seriously, terran doesn't need another super good cheap mineral only unit.
^I agree with the sentiment of Nazza and Djzapz. The Tempest is the stupidest unit imo. Mutas are only a problem in certain timings in the mid-game. From what I've experienced and from what I've seen late game mass mutas are not a problem at all.
BUT as a toss player I am actually excited about the changes in HotS. Not so much the units, but the new nexus abilities. I think a lot of toss are underestimating just how good mass recall is going to be throughout all stages of the game, plus the defensive ability is nice against all-ins from any race.
taking the thor out is actually such a shitty design choice. I remember blizzard sometime ago said they didn't like the thor -_- is that why you took it out? Because you didn't like it?
In regard to the Thor...the only reason they arn't taking it out completely is because of the WoL collector's edition has the unique winged thor model in game.
I liked and agreed with most of your analysis. 5/5 blog!
Here's a super-quick rundown of my opinions:
Zerg -Viper = best new unit they introduced, but they're probably gonna need to nerf the pull-unit-here spell -Swarm host = skeptical at first, but I've grown to like it. I think it'll be good at chiseling away at terran chokes - New upgrades = Ultra and Baneling upgrades are AWESOME!!! Hydra upgrade is basically obsolete as you need hive tech
Protoss -Replicant = unoriginal, gimmicky, I feel dirty just talking about it -Oracle = gonna need to wait and see about this one... -Tempest = idk if protoss needs another air unit... but it does seem like a well-designed one.
Terran -Thor = worst decision I've read about HotS. We don't need ultra-units like mothership, motherthorker, etc. -Warhound = goliath clone, I guess its alright I just wish its attack didn't look so goofy. -Shredder = kinda a weird mechanic, and I feel like terran has enough static d already... gonna have to wait and see for this one.
The swarm host is .... wtf, so much for zerg getting a map control unit. Goodbye SC2 as an actual strategy game, hello more years of ball to ball action.
haha what a joke new units, one more gimmicky than the other...
the viper is the only interesting addition (its just a worse defiler) but still comes with gimmicky spell, that grab skill seems more designed to mobas than SC...
I stopped following SC2 since long ago, so I cant really argue anything at all, but this HotS seems a big let down...
I don't understand the comparison of the shredder to the spider mine.
How exactly are you supposed to get rid of the shredder if it literally rapes your units in seconds? Spider mine, run a zergling into it to blow it up. The shredder doesn't blow up.
It completely eliminates zergling harassment, atleast, based on the dps shown in that video.
On October 23 2011 12:25 a176 wrote: I don't understand the comparison of the shredder to the spider mine.
How exactly are you supposed to get rid of the shredder if it literally rapes your units in seconds? Spider mine, run a zergling into it to blow it up. The shredder doesn't blow up.
It completely eliminates zergling harassment, atleast, based on the dps shown in that video.
I think I did hear in a David Kim interview with MLG that that they purposely made the units overpowered in the Blizzcon build just so that people would be more tempted to use them.
I think the Shredder will probably be weaker if it makes it into the Beta, perhaps with a DPS that allows some sort of micro to get rid of it.
I got the sense that the replicant and oracle seemed overly gimmicky. I am all for units that bring more unit control into the game, but what they bring just doesn't seem to fit into SC2.
Gimmicky is the word that comes to mind with a lot of the proposed changes, unfortunately. Still, it's early stages, so I have faith that things will be a lot better refined by release. The whole beta approach has worked well in the past and hopefully will again.
Also, I'm not really sure I like the way Blizzard is using the phrase "map control". To me, map control (e.g., controlling watch towers and having the ability to intercept or counterattack) is something very different from zoning a particular area (e.g., covering an area with siege tanks). Zoning may facilitate map control, but to my mind the terms aren't interchangeable.
From what I can tell, Terran gets lots of new core units while Toss gets nothing but gimmicky spellcasters and an air unit to replace the carrier (Which they could have easily tweaked their numbers until they're good, i mean wtf the change would take 5 mins for them -.-). I have the feeling that PvT is going to turn into hell in a handbasket where none of their units can keep up with all the raw DPS of Terran.
On October 24 2011 09:59 Geovu wrote: From what I can tell, Terran gets lots of new core units while Toss gets nothing but gimmicky spellcasters and an air unit to replace the carrier (Which they could have easily tweaked their numbers until they're good, i mean wtf the change would take 5 mins for them -.-). I have the feeling that PvT is going to turn into hell in a handbasket where none of their units can keep up with all the raw DPS of Terran.
Agreed. Terran seems to have gotten the most core-unit lovin', Zerg got some nice supporting units for their core units, and Protoss got..... some..... uh...... Well I'm not sure really how the new Toss units are going to actor into things. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I like that blizzard is trying to limit deathballs though, especially for Terran and Protoss.
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But seriously, terran doesn't need another super good cheap mineral only unit. 
