If BW Units fought SC2 Units....

On April 14 2011 11:28 NicolBolas wrote:
This post will probably take this more seriously than the OP intended, but I don't care.

I'm not going to judge this on a unit-by-unit comparison. This is race vs. race. SC1 race X vs. SC2 race Y. Also, note that this is not about unit quality. This is not about which race has the best units or the most interesting units. This is about which race would win in a fight.

Also, some translation conventions are in order. SC1 attacks that are Concussive deal max damage to SC2 Light units, and deal minimal damage to non-Light units. So Vultures will do 20 damage to Marines, but 5 damage to Banelings (due to being Light nor Armored).

Similarly, SC2 attacks with bonus vs. Armored will be triggered against Large SC1 units. SC2 attacks with bonus vs. Light will be triggered against Small SC1 units. Bonsues against Massive are not triggered.

Now, let's talk about matchups:

SC2 Terran vs. SC1 Terran

SC2 Terran demolishes SC1 Terran. Why?

First, Marauders. Tier 1. Cheap. Massable. Sure, they take more damage from Siege Tanks, but they're like Dragoons. Except that Dragoons can't be healed by Medivacs; Marauders can. Also, Dragoons don't have stim. Dragoons can't slow units down.

A SC1 Terran will have to Siege-Expand just like in SC1 TvP. The difference is that they're up against MMM now, not Zealots and Dragoons. Medivacs can do tactical drops right on top of the tanks. And while SC2 Marines will take lots of damage from Vultures, they will take out the Siege Tanks quickly enough.

A SC1 Terran player will need to get Goliaths to even think about dealing this, thus delaying the expansion. By then, the SC2 player will have two Orbital Commands if not a third, with MULEs helping to pump out masses of MMM. The SC1 Terran will simply lose due to having a poorer economy.

This ends in a 10 minute game where the SC1 Terran never gets out of his base.

SC2 Terran vs. SC1 Protoss

SC2 Terran wins again, but it's closer this time.

The saving grace for the Protoss, for a time, is the Reaver. Dragoons and Zealots are as nothing against MMM, but Reavers are the stuff of the SC2 Terran's nightmares. Especially with the Reaver damage upgrade, they would easily allow the SC1 Protoss to expand and start to establish themselves on the map.

Well, except for one thing: Shuttles die quick and easily to Vikings. That 10 range is can easily prevent Shuttles from allowing Reavers to keep up with an advancing Protoss army. This will slow the Protoss down. While Reavers will allow the Protoss to establish themselves and possibly do some harassment, they won't be able to actually attack. SC1 Protoss will have to slow push, much like a SC1 Terran going Mech.

And the problem here is that, thanks to Orbital Commands, the SC2 Terran is going to have a bigger economy. He's going to have to find a solution to deal with Reavers if he wants to attack, but he could just as well play SK-Terran style with the Protoss: kill any expansions they try to take except their natural and starve them out. Or he can bring in some Vikings and Banshees. Banshees can quickly slay a few Reavers, and Vikings can kill the Shuttles. This allows the generally superior MMM combination to win the day.

20 min Macro game, with the Protoss starved out.

SC2 Terran vs. SC1 Zerg

This isn't even a fight; this is an execution. The SC2 Terran will barely even notice the Zerg is there.

SC1 Zerg have no answer to MMM. They don't even have something that resembles an answer to MMM. SC1 Zerglings don't have the DPS to deal with Marauders. SC1 Hydralisks don't have the DPS to stop Marauders either, even though Hydras won't take full damage from them. And the zerg don't have the creep-speed bonus (and yes, I'm aware that SC1 Hydras are faster than their SC2 counterparts. That's still not fast enough). Marines have an extra 5 Hp (and that's before the Combat Shield upgrade), and much faster healing from Medivacs.

If the SC1 Zerg fast-techs to Lurkers, they might be able to hold out for a bit, but any competent Terran player will save up a couple of scans and deal with them.

The SC1 Zerg will FE, the SC2 Terrans will MMM them, and they'll fold like a cheap suit.

It's over in 10 minutes.

SC2 Protoss vs. SC1 Terrans

The SC2 Protoss wins, but for only one reason.

Mech is the SC1 Terran's greatest strength. Long range, Spider Mines, etc. Lots of brutal damage, and you don't even have to micro to do it. Territory denial.

And this might have actually worked. If the SC2 Protoss didn't have one thing: Immortals.

Immortals wreck everything that comes out of the SC1 Terran's Factory. They deal 20 damage to Spider-Mines and have hit-scan attacks, so Spider-Mines only slow them down. And even if they miss one, it's nothing to worry about; it only did 10 damage. They can walk through a Siege Tank line and melt it in seconds.

This is exactly why Immortals were created: to make Terran Mech weaker. And they do their job very well.

The Terran now must respond. They could go mass Vultures. Being Medium units, they will only take 20 damage from Immortals, and if you get enough of them, they can crack the Immortals shields. But that's just not going to be enough. Vultures don't have AoE, so even if they kill the shields of one Immortal, there's 5 more.

The Protoss won't just be throwing down one or two Robos; they will have 5-6 pumping and Chrono-Boosting Immortals like it's going out of style. There won't even be Warpgate researched; so long as the SC1 Terran player insists on going Mech, the Protoss player will pump Immortals and kill them.

The only effective SC1 Terran response is going for Infantry. So the Protoss player will just switch to standard SC2 Protoss play: get a death ball of Colossus and Gateway units and just go fucking kill him.

The Terran could try for an Infantry/Mech mixture. But the death ball won't care.

I give the SC1 Terran 15 minutes before he GGs.

SC2 Protoss vs. SC1 Protoss

The SC2 Protoss has the edge primarily on economic grounds.

Dragoons, on paper, are better than Stalkers. But Stalkers do have one advantage: they're smaller. You can fit more Stalkers into a space than Dragoons. This means that there will be more Stalkers actually shooting in any fight than Dragoons. Zealots with Charge will also be pretty key in this fight, as they take half-damage from Dragoons. Throw in a few Immortals, assuming you can micro them reasonably, and the SC1 army must retreat.

To their Reavers. And then the SC2 army must retreat. Colossi can help, but Reavers just do so much damage. However, the SC2 Protoss can do what the SC2 Terran did: use Phoenixes to kill off the Shuttles. This will be more costly than the Terran version, since Phoenixes will have to get in range of the Dragoons to do this.

So the SC2 Protoss will effectively have the Colossus deathball. Blink Stalkers can snipe Reavers without Shuttles. Sentries can divide their army, making the number of Dragoons actually shooting even smaller. Therefore, SC1 Protoss will have no other options than to call for their biggest gun: Scouts.

And no, I'm not kidding. The only viable use for SC1 Scouts is to fight the SC2 Protoss deathball.

Scouts do lots of damage to flying units quickly. And they have a pretty solid quantity of Hp. So Scouts can be used the way SC2 Zerg use Corruptors against Colossi: take them out. Scouts can also help deal with Phoenixes and Void Rays if they appear. Scouts are expensive certainly, but there's no other option. High Templar are too high tech to get before the death ball kills you. And even if you got them, it doesn't do enough damage to stop a SC2 Protoss deathball. Plus, Stalkers with Blink can snipe them.

Essentially, this boils down to economy. Thanks to Chrono Boost and Warp-In (faster reinforcement), and the need for SC1 Scouts, the edge goes to the SC2 Protoss.

SC2 Protoss vs. SC1 Zerg

This actually looks really bad for the SC2 Protoss if the SC1 Zerg rushes. SC1 Zerglings are better than their SC2 counterparts. However, SC1 Hydralisks aren't quite as strong at taking damage as SC2 Roaches, and they don't have Banelings, so there's no equivalent of a Baneling bust. The SC2 Protoss just needs to get Sentries and they should be able to hold off a rush.

If the Zerg tries to play a macrogame, they're going to run into some problems. Observers are much more available in SC2 than SC1 (no Observatory), so they can more easily deal with Lurkers. Hydralisks won't be a particularly dangerous unit, not with Zealots+Charge and the more compact Stalkers around.

So it's going to be Mutalisks vs. the deathball again. Except that the SC1 Zerg doesn't have the larva the SC2 Zerg has. Their Mutalisks will be later than most SC2 Protoss will see them. So the deathball will be much bigger, and the Mutalisk ball will be much smaller. Mutalisk micro can help, but it's not going to be enough.

Again, the SC2 Protoss wins on economy.

[edit]

Hey, I'm stupid. I forgot about Scourge.

So yea, the SC2 Protoss won't be building Colossi. Or anything that comes out of the Stargate. That sounds like a really good thing for the Zerg. But it's not enough.

This just forces the Protoss to use a pure Gateway army. Sentries can divide the Zerg army, allowing the Protoss to cut it into pieces. Stalkers can take out key Lurkers when necessary. And there's not much the Zerg can do.

SC2 Zerg vs. SC1 Terran

The SC1 Terran will wall-in, as normal. They'll start massing up a few Marines, throw down an Academy. And then a bunch of Banelings will walk in, break the front, and the Zerg will just kill him.

SC1 Terrans simply have no effective answer to Banelings. They will just die. SC2 Zerg have too much larva, and can build very effective units at Tier 1. The Terran has no chance.

Game ends in 7 minutes.

SC2 Zerg vs. SC1 Protoss

SC2 Zerg will overwhelm them with Roaches.

This is the same problem. The SC1 Protoss simply doesn't have anything to deal with the sheer quantity of units that a two-base SC2 Zerg can build. They can drone hard for a bit, then build ridiculous numbers of stuff. Even a one-base Zerg will win with a Roach Rush. Dragoons may hurt more than Stalkers, but there will be more Roaches faster than they can deal with.

Again, the game ends in 7 minutes.

SC2 Zerg vs. SC1 Zerg

The SC1 Zerg will build a few Zerglings, maybe FE, start moving through Lair to Mutalisks, and then a bunch of Zerglings and Banelings will show up and they'll die.

It doesn't matter that the SC1 Zerglings are better than their SC2 counterparts. What matters is that the SC2 player will have Banelings that melt Zerglings from either race. It simply isn't fair.

Another 7 minute game.

Ultimately, it's not fair for SC1. Even when the SC1 units have more DPS or whatever, the SC2 player has access to faster macro. MULES, ChronoBoost, and Spawn Larva are the biggest reasons why SC2 races would win most of their matches.