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On October 22 2009 07:37 Knee_of_Justice wrote:
I really think that the thor should be scrapped in favor of a more mobile anti-air unit (hopefully not like the goliath).
Maybe a cruise missile battery with an ability like the point defense drone: it can shoot air units, but if its not being used for that, it can convert into a point defense drone and shoot down enemy missiles. Offense vs. Defense.
WH40K comes to the rescue again!
That's certainly something I'd like to see in SC. Mobile flak cannon.
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On October 22 2009 02:03 SiZ.FaNtAsY wrote:
I just feel that you can only have 1 true powerhouse unit per race.
Zerg has big brothers
Toss has instawin carriers (reason why I don't like the mothership)
Therefore Terran should either have BCS or the thor. Not both.
Just my 2 cent
Well, that doesnt mean that Terran can just mass a ridiculous force of BC and Thor. Both require huge amounts of resources and food supply. Not only that, but you obviously (if in a high level game) are going to have enough money for both units upgrades. Both can also be countered by a foward thinking player. This is why blizzard has done such a great job with Broodwar over Westwood with C&C. There no massing one unit (or even 2) and walking over someone else.
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On October 22 2009 07:31 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Can we all keep in mind that the Thor isn't supposed to be able to counter carriers? At least not according to what we've been told.
I mean, valkyries don't work very well vs carriers right (tho god knows I have spent many games trying to make them work... success rate was quite low, I am afraid to say, lol)?
Thors currently do a BASE damage of 40 (10 x 4), which also splashes. Factoring in armor (no upgrades), they do 32 (8 x 4). That's quite a lot of damage and they can definitely be used to counter carriers. http://www.sc2pod.com/wiki/Thor
Thors get bonus damage vers. light units, but they do plenty of damage already to all air units. Also, the Thor AA attack (range 10) outranges Carriers (range ~8), along with every other Air unit (not including BC's Yamato Cannon as it's a spell). So yes, Thors in the current build do counter Carriers.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Remember that it's 4x10, and a carrier has 4 base armor, so it's actually 24 damage. But yeah, I dunno, it can all be tweaked.
EDIT: I dunno if a carrier has 4 or 2 armor, it says 2 on sc2pod and 4 in the wiki.
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On October 22 2009 07:53 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Remember that it's 4x10, and a carrier has 4 base armor, so it's actually 24 damage. But yeah, I dunno, it can all be tweaked.
carrier has 2 base armor, at least according to sc2pod and remember shields take full damage.
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Carriers have an attack range of 12, according to many sources. I wonder if thors can kill interceptors easily.
On another note, Mechanical Rebirth never required SCV help, as shown in WWI 2008 videos.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 22 2009 07:54 Kimera757 wrote:
Carriers have an attack range of 12, according to many sources. I wonder if thors can kill interceptors easily.
On another note, Mechanical Rebirth never required SCV help, as shown in WWI 2008 videos.
I know, I'm saying it should 
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On October 22 2009 07:54 Kimera757 wrote:
Carriers have an attack range of 12, according to many sources. I wonder if thors can kill interceptors easily.
On another note, Mechanical Rebirth never required SCV help, as shown in WWI 2008 videos.
If carriers have range of 12 that's jsut amazing :D
Interceptors currently have 50 shield and 50 hp with no armor. They're also considered light units. So Thors would do 56 damage against them that'd splash (base damage 10 x 4, then bonus of 4 x 4). Two or three Thors would easily wipe out a bunch of interceptors, thus rendering carriers useless. Again, Thors can counter carriers.
Also, if Thors could be built through SCVs not production buildings, then the Terran player could potentially raise an army of 12 Thors very very fast. Of course, economically it wouldn't make much sense but if the situation calls for it, it can be done.
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This was a really good read. I really, really want the Thor to work and I agree with your opinion that it shouldn't be something that necessarily comes out in every game (although I will be trying my hardest to make it so in mine). Great ideas.
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Even though i don't like theorycrafting and i think that most of theorycrafting on SC2 forum is nonsense (not all, but most, for example this guy with new race - that was pure gold, but i wouldn't call it theorycrafting) this topic is great.
Just prime example how should theorycrafting topic look like. Ideas that aren't stupid/weird/imba/good-only-on-paper. I support every idea here (except maybe liftoff, seems weird but argument with similarity to buildings wouldn't be that stupid, however when lifted Thor definitely shouldn't be able to attack - it would be too much Viking'ish)
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On October 22 2009 04:54 Badjas wrote:
I was mostly irked by the fact that in the BR there were so many thors produced. I think it would be okay if there is a high powered general purpose unit. But using them should be a strategic choice, and not using them should be a viable option. I think the thors should move slower, coupled with costing more supply, in the range of 10-12. I know that sounds like a crazy amount of supply but it should be balanced against its abilities. This would force less thors and in combination with the thors being less mobile it will force more focus on positional play, when using them.
Of course this also makes it more viable for terran to not go thor. They will have a more mobile army with larger number of units. This will be similar to SC1's choice of going MnM.
I agree with this post a lot and is one of my primary concerns. I can't think of a time when Terran wouldn't want Thors and apparently it's "mid-game" (which seems funny to say considering the cost, but given the economic speed SC2 appears to move at, this is of no concern as David Kim appeared to make 2 easily with no budget constraints...then again his macro wasn't perfect). But the Thor doesn't feel like a strategic option to any particular matchup, it seems like an all-purpose ranged-ultralisk killing machine.
And then at the same time, I'm trying to picture myself using this unit and I can't. Anti-light air? What? So it's a 'hard' counter to Mutalisks and Phoenix? Why wouldn't I just go cost effective and have Barracks with Reactors pumping mass marines? Do these units have attacks that are going to devastate a marine ball more than my 1 huge target?
Right now TvT comes to mind where there's lots of strategic choice late game in BW. With the map split and excess resources one player can decide to produce mass BCs and another may choose to counter this with mass Goliath or Wraiths. The Thor seems strong enough to dual role and seems like the only viable late game SC2 TvT option. The HP amount to push front lines, combined with its ability to shoot down any incoming dropships and enough range to threaten BCs, makes TvT look like it will turn into purely a Siege Tank/Thor fight. (this is just speculation)
I don't know how to express this without it being received with mass groans and accusations of just wanting SC1 in 3d, but I feel like the Goliath was a pretty iconic unit to Terran and I'm going to sorely miss it. I know the Viking is some cover-all Goliath replacement but it just incites more doubt in me as to where the Thor fits. The Thor simply looks and reminds of a slow, bulky hero from WC3 that you're going to want to micro heavily in battle to protect, provided you're not 40 minutes into the game and have 12 of them.
I've always been the kind of player (albeit a bad one) to go for the mass smaller units vs the bigger ones (e.g. I'd rather get goliaths vs BCs in TvT) and the Thor...just doesn't look like much fun.
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Sweden33719 Posts
I don't know how you can combine "slow and bulky" with "wc3 hero"... The majority of the WC3 heroes are really agile lol
The only ones that are really slow are like... the Pitlord and the Cryptlord?
Anyhow, that doesn't change anything about the rest of your post, just don't see the need to bring in a wc3 comparision.
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10387 Posts
Really great suggestions, I like the idea of being able to kill a Thor mid-construction haha.
For the module idea however, I think it should just transform into three different forms like how a Siege tank transforms, instead of it costing money, and each form (GtG being default, GtA and Bunker/Tanking form being researchable) could have different armor values, attack values, range, and movement speed to make each form unique and balanced.
Blizzard better read this thread haha
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Netherlands19135 Posts
Nice article FA, good read and agree with the clueless but cool unitconcept.
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I think the Thor is flawed in so many ways.
First of all, lorewise, it is farfetched. Normally, lore isn't that big of a concern to me, but when the supposedly greatest terran scientists sat down and discussed the new alien threats, they could impossibly have concluded that the correct counter to the more mobile protoss armies and the much much more mobile zerg armies were to construct an even bigger and slower terran unit than we have ever seen before. I doubt anyone is that stupid.
Also, if we forget about the first little blunder, the Thor is supposed to be the ultimate terran weapon of war. It is big as hell and it moves slowly. For it to be this ultimate weapon it has to have a great amount of health and armor and a shitload of destructive power, turning the tide of the battle on its own. Anything else wouldn´t fit its visuals and background story. I don't see that being possible in a well balanced game such as starcraft, where the concept is strategical choice making and having a balanced unit mixture.
I also let Thor take credit for the robbing of terran´s identiy. Earlier, tanks were the height of the terran ground army, but now they are mere backup units. I'm not saying whether it is good or bad, but in BW terran held the role of the defensive team, both gameplaywise and lorewise. In BW, the movie was aliens, in SCII its starship troopers. Actually I like the emphasis moving away from the tanks, but not in favor of the Thor.
As for the topic, I like the initiative and it is a good read(even linking to my post) but fixing the Thor feels to me like spicing a burnt steak.
I don´t like much about the thor, and I also think the hellions are just "renewed" vultures. I would like to see some new ideas in the terran arsenal. Units that work well with the tanks, but not necessarily must be accompanied by them in every game. The units should be simple but dynamic, offering different solutions to different situations. For example I think some development of this idea would be interesting:
On October 22 2009 03:15 mucker wrote:
The mobile bunker idea I think would work better as a different vehicle. Maybe ditch the hellion, bring back firebat and have a bunkerbuggy buildable at the factory? Could even hold two units when driving around, transform into static bunker to hold 4 units or something...
EDIT: Haha, I just reread this post. Sorry for the lack of constructive thoughts, but I really dislike Thor. I would rather have them reintroduce the goliath.
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Osaka27148 Posts
I don't agree with people who say that scv-built thors will screw up terran macro. The argument seems to be that "you don't need more factories, you can just use scvs and still produce units". Well, if the thor costs 300/300 and 6 supply, you would already have to have terrible macro in order to build more than one or two, keep pumping factory units, and have an extra 30 supply sitting around.
Like this example:then the Terran player could potentially raise an army of 12 Thors very very fast. Really? You have 3600/3600 + 72 extra supply sitting aronud? That is nonsense.
I don't like mobile bunkers. I do like customizable thors. It makes a lot of sense. I am indifferent about armour types, but the fact that a thor moves the same as a hellion bothers me greatly. I agree with manitou. Either make it small and massable (essentially into goliaths) or huge and more unique.
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On October 22 2009 08:39 FrozenArbiter wrote:
I don't know how you can combine "slow and bulky" with "wc3 hero"... The majority of the WC3 heroes are really agile lol
The only ones that are really slow are like... the Pitlord and the Cryptlord?
Anyhow, that doesn't change anything about the rest of your post, just don't see the need to bring in a wc3 comparision.
Pitlord isn't slow- it's relatively fast, actually. Crypt Lord could qualify as slow and bulky, as could the old Tauren Chieftain before he went on a massive diet on some patch that reduced his collision size.
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Thor:
My idea is simple and in my opinion its the best one. It has a very slow attack speed but the attack is 200 damage but the shots its gives is rocket volley which the takes about 1.5 seconds to reach its target. the other player can micro against it if they are fast enough to move their units similar to a psi storm.
This way it actually adds the micro dimension for both the attacker and defender
Attacker would want to target the middle of the pack so it has he most chance of hitting the oponent
Defender would want to time the shots to know when attack then move.
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The whole mobile bunker idea seems like it would be a little OP, especially with SCV's being able to repair from the inside, and Ghosts being able to cast.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/hydra.jpg)
