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== ON PROTOSS SHIELDS ==
A long time ago, the Protoss Zealot in SC1 had 80 shields and 80 health. In patch 1.8, this was changed to 60 shields and 100 health; anyone who's knowledgeable about Starcraft game mechanics would consider this a buff. Why?
- Psi shields take full damage from Explosive and Concussive attacks, regardless of whether you're small, medium or large. In the Zealot's case, this means his shields take full damage from tanks, hydras, sunken colonies, goons and spider mines, while his health would only take half damage.
- Psi shields always have a base "armor" value of zero, while health has higher base armor values. In the Zealot's case, it's the difference between armor 1 and armor 0- the difference between a Zergling dealing 4 damage per hit and 5 damage per hit is huge (25% more damage vs. shields, assuming no upgrades).
- Psi shield upgrades are really expensive, so it's extremely rare to get them in 1v1.
All in all, more health and less shields seems like a great deal. It's not all there is to it- you'd love to have more shields on a Plagued unit (which is why the Archon laughs in the face of that spell), and you can restore Shields with a Shield battery. Then again, shield batteries aren't used all that often in SC1, and in SC2 I have good reason to believe they won't be used at all.
+ Show Spoiler [Shield battery rant] +Remember the SC1 shield battery? It costs 100 minerals, stores up to 200 energy, and restores 2 shields per energy spent. The SC2 equivalent costs 200 minerals, can store the same 200 energy, and the recharge rate is half of what it was in SC1, at 1 shield restored per energy point spent. If it's twice as expensive and half as useful as the SC1 version, which sees little use already, the Shield Battery equivalent of SC2 might as well not be there for all the good it does (I'm speaking as far as the shield recharge ability is concerned- its other ability, Proton Charge, is good).
Now, fast forward to SC2. As far as I know, shields don't take full bonus damage from everything (e.g. a Marauder hit on a Zealot's shields would only deal 12 damage, as opposed to the 24 damage it would deal vs. a Stalker with armor type "Armored"- please correct me if I'm wrong on this count!), so that disadvantage for shields is gone.
While shields will still always have a base "armor" value of zero, and psi shield upgrades will likely remain expensive, shield regeneration rate has changed dramatically.+ Show Spoiler [Disclaimer] +The following calculations have been done on the basis of the regeneration rate of the epic Probe scout from the first SC2 Battle Report. While he's not quite Proberto, his shields go up and down a lot so it's the best info source I could find. Be aware that this Battle Report was released before the current macro mechanics even existed, so this info might be outdated.
== NOTES ON THE BLIZZCON BUILD ==
The Blizzcon build. We all still see SC2 from a SC1 viewing glass, so in that same sense:
- Zealot. Which is the real Zealot? The second link suggests massive game balance changes: 9 damage per hit? That means 2-shotting lings at equal upgrade levels. I remember the Gamereplays article claimed killing Zealots with Zerglings was an ordeal, and Psyonic_Reaver agreed, claiming Machine and Ret had similar impressions. Then again, Chill didn't seem to agree with it. 8 or 9 damage per hit? The PvZ implications are massive.
And then there's the other big change. 60 health and 100 shields? If that's true, then the Ghost's EMP will absolutely trash them, and Zealots who live to fight another battle and manage to restore all their shields will still be quite durable the second time around, even with considerable damage to their health.
- Stalker. No matter which source you use, one thing is clear: The Stalker has no bonus damage vs. Armored currently. In SC1 terms, this means the SC2 Dragoon doesn't deal Explosive damage anymore, dealing a level 10 (or 11, depending on the source you trust) damage to any target. To compensate, it's become quite a bit more durable, at 80 health and 100 shields (previously 100 health 40 shields), and its firing rate seems faster than that of the SC1 Dragoon. With its decently fast movement speed and Blink, plus all those fast-regenerating Shields, harassing Stalkers could be a pretty big annoyance. Then again, the Protoss counters to heavily armored units seem pretty far into the Tech Tree, at the Robotics and Stargate level respectively.
- Hide the farm. Apparently, pylons require a Nexus to be built now, and I suppose the same is true of Supply Depots with Command Centers. I guess the new tactic will be called Hide the Assimilator?
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WOW more trash articles from people speculating before the game is even out... Here's a tip.... WAIT FOR IT TO COME OUT
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On October 04 2009 10:03 Engineer wrote:
WOW more trash articles from people speculating before the game is even out... Here's a tip.... WAIT FOR IT TO COME OUT
Here's a tip for you: If you don't like these "trash articles", you don't have to read them.
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i second this.. we should wait.. no point in talking about a game that is gonna up like sc ghost
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What would happen if Zealots deal 18 damage per attack, and 2-shot lings at equal upgrade levels in SC2?
It seems to me like it would give Roaches a much more obvious role as the Zerg tank unit. Lings would still be able to outrun Zealots, scout better (a lone zergling scouting is much safer than a lone zealot who can get surrounded and taken out), and pick their battles- they'd have more mobility, but less power. Hydras deal a lot more damage to Zealots in SC2, so a Roach / Hydra combo might be good to counter Zealots. And there's always Banelings.
Still, Protoss might be able to contest Zerg's early map control if Zealots beat Zerglings at equal resource levels. Zerglings would still be the bane of Stalkers. All in all, if this Zealot damage buff is real and stays, it'd change PvZ substantially. Will Protoss still want to fast expand? Will 2-gate still be an all-in build?
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Interesting point about the shields, but as far as I know, SC2 has no more armor types.
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actually, the shield battery thing is a bit sad... 4x less effective ftl
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On October 04 2009 11:47 ForTheSwarm wrote:
Interesting point about the shields, but as far as I know, SC2 has no more armor types.
That's where you'd be wrong. There are 2 armor types in SC2:
Armored: The armor type shared by all buildings and destructible rocks, as far as I know. Additionally, many units count as Armored. This is the equivalent of the "Large" armor type from SC1.
Light: Units that are not Armored, are Light. This is the equivalent of the "Small" armor type from SC1.
There is no equivalent for SC1's "Medium" armor type. At any rate, there were few units with this armor type: The Vulture was removed (Hellions are Armored), the Corsair was removed (Phoenix are Light, and Void Rays are Armored), the Defiler was removed (Infestors are Armored), the Queen was radically redesigned and is now Armored. Only two formerly Medium units remain relatively unchanged: Hydras are now Light, and Lurkers are Armored.
The gameplay implications of the new armor types are that many units deal bonus damage against certain opponents. Hydras and Marauders deal bonus damage vs. Armored for instance, while Hellions deal bonus damage vs. Light.
Simultaneously, there are other categories units can fit into, such as:
Mechanical
Biological
Psionic
Vehicle
Hover
Massive
You get units like the Roach and the Archon, who deal bonus damage vs. Biological. The Terran Viking deals bonus damage vs. Massive units with its air attack.
So yeah. There's definitely an armor system in place.
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On October 04 2009 10:03 Engineer wrote:
WOW more trash articles from people speculating before the game is even out... Here's a tip.... WAIT FOR IT TO COME OUT
Hey dipshit
Why would there be a StarCraft 2 forum before the game's release if we're not supposed to discuss, speculate, and theory craft about it?
Is it just supposed to sit there and fill up with those boring Q&A updates?
Jesus Christ. The way shields work in SC2 is important, even if it does change. It's worth talking about.
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Lol, so many haters.
Ghost involvement as a support unit is going to be very interesting. If both the stalker and zealot stay at 100 shield, then ghosts could be huge in defense (or assault). I'm thinking of a scenario where T FEs while P goes for a 1 base rush. A couple of ghosts come out and throw a few EMPs and P is forced to hold off on his attack while T gains valuable time for his macro to get up.
In SC1 I consider TvZ to be the most dynamic, but TvP could become really interesting in SC2.
Does anyone know about the range of effect for EMP?
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On October 04 2009 12:18 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2009 11:47 ForTheSwarm wrote:
Interesting point about the shields, but as far as I know, SC2 has no more armor types. That's where you'd be wrong. There are 2 armor types in SC2: Armored: The armor type shared by all buildings and destructible rocks, as far as I know. Additionally, many units count as Armored. This is the equivalent of the "Large" armor type from SC1. Light: Units that are not Armored, are Light. This is the equivalent of the "Small" armor type from SC1. There is no equivalent for SC1's "Medium" armor type. At any rate, there were few units with this armor type: The Vulture was removed (Hellions are Armored), the Corsair was removed (Phoenix are Light, and Void Rays are Armored), the Defiler was removed (Infestors are Armored), the Queen was radically redesigned and is now Armored. Only two formerly Medium units remain relatively unchanged: Hydras are now Light, and Lurkers are Armored. The gameplay implications of the new armor types are that many units deal bonus damage against certain opponents. Hydras and Marauders deal bonus damage vs. Armored for instance, while Hellions deal bonus damage vs. Light. Simultaneously, there are other categories units can fit into, such as: Mechanical Biological Psionic Vehicle Hover Massive You get units like the Roach and the Archon, who deal bonus damage vs. Biological. The Terran Viking deals bonus damage vs. Massive units with its air attack. So yeah. There's definitely an armor system in place.
Where did you get all this info?
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On October 04 2009 13:36 lynx.oblige wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2009 12:18 Zato-1 wrote:On October 04 2009 11:47 ForTheSwarm wrote:
Interesting point about the shields, but as far as I know, SC2 has no more armor types. That's where you'd be wrong. There are 2 armor types in SC2: Armored: The armor type shared by all buildings and destructible rocks, as far as I know. Additionally, many units count as Armored. This is the equivalent of the "Large" armor type from SC1. Light: Units that are not Armored, are Light. This is the equivalent of the "Small" armor type from SC1. There is no equivalent for SC1's "Medium" armor type. At any rate, there were few units with this armor type: The Vulture was removed (Hellions are Armored), the Corsair was removed (Phoenix are Light, and Void Rays are Armored), the Defiler was removed (Infestors are Armored), the Queen was radically redesigned and is now Armored. Only two formerly Medium units remain relatively unchanged: Hydras are now Light, and Lurkers are Armored. The gameplay implications of the new armor types are that many units deal bonus damage against certain opponents. Hydras and Marauders deal bonus damage vs. Armored for instance, while Hellions deal bonus damage vs. Light. Simultaneously, there are other categories units can fit into, such as: Mechanical Biological Psionic Vehicle Hover Massive You get units like the Roach and the Archon, who deal bonus damage vs. Biological. The Terran Viking deals bonus damage vs. Massive units with its air attack. So yeah. There's definitely an armor system in place. Where did you get all this info? It's been out there for a while now. I'm not sure what the original source is (probably very old), but you can look at all of it on the starcraft2 wiki now.
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^QFT
I think the whole point of redoing the shields is so that the shield upgrades provide more incentive and the ghost becomes more practical. imho there have been certain units to each race that I believe developers really want to focus and emphasize on, especially lore-wise (it doesn't make sense to not use a queen when the zerg belong in a hive). Thus, the changes allow for better and more practical use of the Ghost, and I think that's a pretty great idea.
as far as stats, I'd still wait for the release (or at least beta) since nothing's set in stone.
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On October 04 2009 14:38 Wire wrote:especially lore-wise (it doesn't make sense to not use a queen when the zerg belong in a hive). Man... speaking of that, I love the queen changes 
Right not it's insanely powerful but also very fragile. Saving your queen in some early-game scenarios is probably going to constantly involve positioning your queen correctly and surrounding it with drones for protection. It already makes me picture a dozen cute little drones all screaming "Save the queen!" as they fanatically swarm around her
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On October 04 2009 13:36 lynx.oblige wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2009 12:18 Zato-1 wrote:On October 04 2009 11:47 ForTheSwarm wrote:
Interesting point about the shields, but as far as I know, SC2 has no more armor types. That's where you'd be wrong. There are 2 armor types in SC2: Armored: The armor type shared by all buildings and destructible rocks, as far as I know. Additionally, many units count as Armored. This is the equivalent of the "Large" armor type from SC1. Light: Units that are not Armored, are Light. This is the equivalent of the "Small" armor type from SC1. There is no equivalent for SC1's "Medium" armor type. At any rate, there were few units with this armor type: The Vulture was removed (Hellions are Armored), the Corsair was removed (Phoenix are Light, and Void Rays are Armored), the Defiler was removed (Infestors are Armored), the Queen was radically redesigned and is now Armored. Only two formerly Medium units remain relatively unchanged: Hydras are now Light, and Lurkers are Armored. The gameplay implications of the new armor types are that many units deal bonus damage against certain opponents. Hydras and Marauders deal bonus damage vs. Armored for instance, while Hellions deal bonus damage vs. Light. Simultaneously, there are other categories units can fit into, such as: Mechanical Biological Psionic Vehicle Hover Massive You get units like the Roach and the Archon, who deal bonus damage vs. Biological. The Terran Viking deals bonus damage vs. Massive units with its air attack. So yeah. There's definitely an armor system in place. Where did you get all this info?
There's plenty of pages full of info on SC2, I even linked to some of them in the OP. Here's some of the more updated ones:
SC2armory
SC2pod
Starcraft-Source
Even though their info cannot catch up to the changes in the internal Blizzard builds, and isn't comprehensive, there's still a lot to be learned about SC2 there. You want to know how much damage a Reaper does? You want to know what spell other than Psi Storm the High Templar currently has? They're the places to go to.
You can also draw some interesting conclusions. For instance:
In SC1, Range-upgraded Dragoons are very effective vs. Siege Tanks in the early game, because their explosive attack deals a lot of damage to Large targets. In SC2, now that the Stalker's lost its bonus damage vs. Armored, Tanks and Marauders will likely murder them. On the other hand, they might be really good to fend off muta harassment (think Marines with slightly longer attack range and Blink, but less rate of fire).
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I look at stats at SC2pod and again I can see Archons dealing 50dmg + bonus and I keep thinking they are going to be fucking balls of death... maybe shields recharging rate is so poor to make it harder keeping them alive?
I like your article Zato and I agree with Ronald_McD 100% remember that beta was supposed to start during this year's summer.
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On October 04 2009 23:44 beetlelisk wrote:I look at stats at SC2pod and again I can see Archons dealing 50dmg + bonus and I keep thinking they are going to be fucking balls of death... maybe shields recharging rate is so poor to make it harder keeping them alive? I like your article Zato and I agree with Ronald_McD 100% remember that beta was supposed to start during this year's summer.
Thanks ^^
About Archons: They are big and slow, but after they manage to get in melee range, they start doing a ton of damage to clumped up units.
In SC1, the Archon is a good unit in PvP: They join your speedlots and are quite effective at killing the enemy speedlots. They're also more resilient than any other unit when getting hit by reaver scarabs and psi storm. Dragoons are a pretty hard counter to them.
Archons are a great unit in PvZ: They're your most effective unit against cracklings (along with Templars), they can make a muta stack disappear if they manage to get a good few hits in, they can withstand Lurker fire better than Zealots, they're practically immune to Plague, and in medium or large groups they completely own Ultras (unless they're under the cover of Dark Swarm). However, Hydras are a pretty hard counter to them.
Archons are a bad unit in PvT: Tanks own them, Vultures own them, Vessels own them (with EMP Shockwave), even Goliaths own them in large groups and with upgrades.
Now, let's analyze the changes relevant to the Archon in SC2- let's ignore the recent damage buff for now, if you don't mind, I'll get back to it later:
*Unit surround AI is much better. This is pretty huge- if you've ever seen an Archon get surrounded by cracklings, you know how fast they can die even to melee units which they're supposed to counter. This makes them less effective against Zealots and Lings.
*Their Zerg counterpart, the Ultralisk, now has a ton more health and also has splash damage. The Archon deals more damage, but the Ultra attacks faster + Show Spoiler [On attack rate] +Archon attack speed is listed as "Normal", while Ultralisk attack speed is listed as "Fast"- for an idea of how big this difference might be, the Zealot's attack speed is also listed as "Normal", while the Zergling's attack speed is "Fast"
*Plague is gone, so the advantage of being practically immune to it is irrelevant in SC2.
This all means:
- Archons will probably continue to be bad in PvT, though perhaps not quite as much. While there won't be Vultures to rape them, Marauders who can slow them down is almost as bad.
- I have no idea how effective Archons will be in PvP, because I have yet to witness a decent PvP in good video quality where I can understand what's going on. However, with the High Templar's Phase Shift and the Phoenix Graviton Beam, they might not be all they used to be.
- In PvZ, Zerglings will have an easier time surrounding them and Ultras will be a much more worthy opponent. They'll still vaporize any mutalisks they manage to get a few hits on.
In summary: Archons will still kill mutas, and not a whole lot more. All reports on the Archon I'd read before the damage buff claimed the unit sucked, which is consistent with the above analysis. I'm guessing Blizzard came to the same conclusion, and decided to give them a huge damage buff to make them competitive again. Overkill? Not enough? Hard to say at this point.
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On October 04 2009 09:47 Zato-1 wrote:
- Hide the farm. Apparently, pylons require a Nexus to be built now, and I suppose the same is true of Supply Depots with Command Centers. I guess the new tactic will be called Hide the Assimilator?
Zato, If your opponent doesn't have a C&C/Nexus/hatchery it's buildings will become visible after X amount of seconds. Only way to cancel the reveal effect is to put down a new hatch/nexus/C&C
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On October 05 2009 01:42 Integra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2009 09:47 Zato-1 wrote:
- Hide the farm. Apparently, pylons require a Nexus to be built now, and I suppose the same is true of Supply Depots with Command Centers. I guess the new tactic will be called Hide the Assimilator? Zato, If your opponent doesn't have a C&C/Nexus/hatchery it's buildings will become visible after X amount of seconds. Only way to cancel the reveal effect is to put down a new hatch/nexus/C&C
Depending on your opponent's color and the terrain color in the minimap, it can still be nontrivial to spot those hidden pylons. At any rate, I for one won't complain if they make the "hide the farm" tactic even less viable.
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EPT
