I just wanted to discuss the changes with nukes from good old Broodwar to SC2, and the implications of those changes. This is focused on whether using nukes is a viable strategy, and how they can be used.
THIS IS NOT A DISCUSSION ABOUT BALANCE. If you think nukes are OP, go make your own thread!
Axillary Attachment Mechanic: Remember, nuclear missiles had to be built in a nuclear silo attached to a command center. This added extra build time, and temporarily halted SCV production. Making more than one silo can get very awkward: Mass command centers with silos is very expensive and takes forever.
--Starcraft Wings of Liberty-- Nuclear Missile Cost: 100 , 100 , zero supply
Building Mechanic: One nuke per ghost academy. Since nukes no longer have to be attached to command centers, they can easily be hidden around the map and are much faster to build.
What Does This Mean? Blizzard obviously wants it to be easier to get nukes in SC2. They don't take nearly as long anymore,and don't take up supply. Since they do not take up any supply, a Terran player can get a 200/200army and then add a few nukes without weakening his army.
Making nukes is now a viable strategy. We saw TLO effectively use nukes against BratOK:
skip to 10:55
We saw that nukes can be used in TvT to break an entrenched position: BratOK was forced to unsiege and fall back
Because TLO's ghost was protected by tanks, and his ghost was out of range of BratOK's tanks, there was nothing that BratOK could do. Due to their low cost and smaller tech path, nukes are now a viable way to break siege lines (or any entrenched positions!) Discuss: What other strategies or tactics can utilize nukes?
I find this really interesting. The most important aspect of this is that you can get a 200/200 army, than just mass up nukes. That's really interesting to me. I mean, its like the old "OVerseer mass infested terran thing" but might be actually viable.
I really love nukes, and try to find ways to integrate them into my play. It always feels like an afterthought tho, never something I use in the "heat of the moment", like TLO can.
One thing I do enjoy doing is nuking a cluster of supply depots if my opponent is foolish enough to make a bunch of them too close to each other.
An idea I've had is doing a relatively early nuke in TvT by emping the enemy CC, then nuking the depots or addons.
I've used a Nuke in a TvT to prevent reinforcements. Had a ghost call down a nuke on a ramp to stop him from entering back into his own base. Not sure if the guy saw the nuke or simply didn;t try and come back but it was a cheap cost all things considered for what may have happened
The best time to use nukes is in a big macro game, small games they aren't really needed, unless breaking a siege line obv.. but the best way to make the most of nukes is to drop them in pairs, so you will need double ghost academies. A drop at 2 points at once will be very hard to deal with, and also drop on into the middle of nowhere, this will screw with your enemies head as he scrambles around to find it.
Stalife is a player who makes extensive use of nukes in semi important games and practice games etc. I do feel though that offensive nukes are very situational, and there are many times ive seen stalife's nukes not kill anything at all. I definetely saw the power of Nukes in TvT on steppes of war though due to the game between TLO and Nada, and the games posted above.
On September 03 2010 13:00 Phayze wrote: Stalife is a player who makes extensive use of nukes in semi important games and practice games etc. I do feel though that offensive nukes are very situational, and there are many times ive seen stalife's nukes not kill anything at all. I definetely saw the power of Nukes in TvT on steppes of war though due to the game between TLO and Nada, and the games posted above.
do you have links to any VODs? That would be sweet
Never thought about emping a CC. I will try that next time to prevent scans :D I normally go nuke in 4v4. It works well to prevent the opponents expanding since on aot of 4v4 maps the expansions are in all directions. I normally get 2 ghost academies in 4v4 for double nukes. They also never think that its "their" army that is being nuked since its 4 players on the team so they dont move them very often. I havnt tried much in 1v1 to nuke, I find that if I do tech ghosts/nuke then I am behind in the army, except when its against protoss then its always a good idea to go ghosts.
On September 03 2010 12:56 Supersrsbnz wrote: The best time to use nukes is in a big macro game, small games they aren't really needed, unless breaking a siege line obv.. but the best way to make the most of nukes is to drop them in pairs, so you will need double ghost academies. A drop at 2 points at once will be very hard to deal with, and also drop on into the middle of nowhere, this will screw with your enemies head as he scrambles around to find it.
The main thing is that in SC2 ghosts are viable in about every match-up. So if you build ghosts you might as well get nukes late game to harass expansions and/or break up fortified positions.
I got the "Unbreakable" Achievement with a ghost nuking 1 expansion than wandering of to another and killing all workers there. 42 kills :D
I find nuke so sexy , I love to use them in 4v4 (with proxyed academy) , and nuking all 4 bases at the same time. It's funny to see ppl spamming scans all over the place to find them.
I just landed a nuke offensively with success today. I got my first nuke on four pylons and damaged some voidray passing by. Then my second nuke earn me the achievement. My nuke was aimed slightly outside their mineral line so no damage to his workers but at several key pylons. His observer saw the ghost at the last moment and around 20 stalkers came and when they started to shoot my ghost. Nuke landed. It is lol. But nuke will be good to use in pairs or more and immediate start re arm to call in the second wave asap
Just another cool thing that Terran has and noone else has.
Not at all overpowered in itself, it just bugs me that T has all these cool toys and the swarm has jack shit. Infested terran or contaminate doesnt really compare in coolness factor.
The biggest differences between BW nukes and SC2 nukes are the speed at which you can get nukes in SC2, the lack of supply requirement, and that ghosts are actually useful units now.
100/100 is relatively cheap considering the amount of effort required and the possible damage caused. You can cloak a ghost and select your target. Thats the extent of the APM required to use a nuke. After that, you can focus completely on your main army's micro. The opponent, on the other hand, has to worry about his front door/main army (if you decide to attack) while having to look for where the nuke is. The psychological effect is well worth the 100/100 imo, even if you dont manage to do the damage you intended. If you do manage to land the nuke on 25 probes or 6 pylons or whatever you were targeting, thats even better.
Nukes can definately have their uses, in TvT they break tank lines though it's pretty rare for them to be really worth it I think. The ghost and nuke cost you a fair bit of gas (150 ghost, 50 ghost aca. 100 nuke = 300) which could also be 4 more vikings. Sometimes it's really critical to push up a tank line though and there are also several situations where it's quite difficult for the tanks to really run in time, take for example the tanks that are often positioned at the watchtowers in maps like blistering sands and metalopolis. A nuke at the top or mid of the ramp is very hard to avoid for tanks on top then because they will have to run through the nuke zone to get out of the way.
In PvT nukes can have their uses as well actually. You have ghosts anyway so getting a single tactical nuke isn't too bad. In MMM vs zealot/stalker/temp the terran usually gets to decide where the battle's are happening because he can run easily while the protoss has more difficulty doing so. Putting a nuke under a protoss army at the same time you engage can be pretty good, he can't really run into in time and if he runs he loses a lot of units to concussive shell shenanigans, worth more then the nuke basically and you can just cancel afterwards.
On September 03 2010 18:00 Ghad wrote: Just another cool thing that Terran has and noone else has.
Not at all overpowered in itself, it just bugs me that T has all these cool toys and the swarm has jack shit. Infested terran or contaminate doesnt really compare in coolness factor.
WTF, seriously.
I love trying to find ways for underused things to work and every race has some pretty nifty shit you can experiment with that are far from used enough:
Especially Hallucination has soooo much potential, it deserves an own discussion threat really. And Nydus Network is nearly the equivalent for a zerg nuke if used correctly. Even has the same costs.
EPT
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, 200 ![[image loading]](http://sc2pod.com/img/design/gas.gif)
, 8 supply![[image loading]](http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c105/xpocx/1472650-scc02_super.png)
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