How about a makeover for the colossus?

Cavez:

Colossus is Tier 3. He has a very powerful attack that strikes in a line relative to his position. He is a vital weapon against Terran infantry and Hydralisks which have become more of a threat when being protected by Roaches. Against Terrans you can go High Templar to deal with infantry, but Ghosts can really ruin that. Colossus is a safer choice.

The original attack is not coming back. The old beam was just "more damage." Simple, but not fun. The current Colossus weapon encourages micro since it really matters who you shoot and the angle you shoot them from. Fortunately since the Colossus can step up and down cliffs and over friendly units he can move to the optimal position if you are fast enough. The biggest problem he has right now is with Neural Parasite on the Infestor. It's really giving the Colossus a hard time. We are working on that today.

Link: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=17163477514&sid=3000#4

Emphasis added.

 

apparently we havent seen the full potential of a colossus in a game yet... maybe they really need to get that range upgrade to make it useful,..

Q: is it too expensive to construct in numbers?? why havent we seen them in groups of atleast 4 or more??
---- does the penalty of being able to hit by air units fair for the colossus....

 

"Apparently we havent seen the full potential of a colossus in a game yet..."

We've only had Battle Reports with colossi from BlizzCon 2007 to Battle Report 1, when the colossus only did 16 damage a sweep.

It is expensive, and other than Yellow, no one was using it properly. It has a high psi cost (6).

I don't know what to say about the height. Seems to me sneaking into a terran base is quite difficult due to the missile turrets hitting it for high damage. (Spore crawlers might be even worse, as they have more hit points. Maybe that's why colossi have a range increase.)

 

I saw the Colossus do terrible damage at BlizzCon '07, and other members have seen it dominate the battlefield, at more recent events. If anything, the unit has a history of being overpowered.

The unit is expensive, easy to attack, hard to use, but it has versatility that makes it absolutely scary in the right hands. I think Blizzard's problem is in tweaking the unit so that it isn't completely underpowered to unskilled players (yes, this even includes pro SC1-gamers that haven't had time to learn it) while keeping it from being overpowered in the hands of skilled users.

 

I personally think if they axed the fact that it gets attacked by ata then it would be fine I meen look at the thor they should be about the same size yet the thor immune to air to air attacks not to mention its ata itself while the collossus is not and they cost the same.

 

LOL personally I think Thor shouldnt have that many HP ^^
And I agree that if Colossus is vulnerable to Air, so should Thor be ^^
and yeah speaking of Colossus, removing its air vulenrability or enable it to have hardened shield like the first time it was featured. It was meant to be strong, not fragile.

 

The Thor should not be able to be attacked with ata or gta attacks. Yes, it is big, but it's not tall like the colossus. The colossus doesn't suffer from it that much because it's probably not meant to attack alone. It always has an escort if possible.

 

The current Colussus serves it's role well. The thermal lance seems deadly judging from the comments. I think they should keep it as it is.

 

It never had Hardened Shields. It had a small max-shield upgrade, somewhat like the Marine's combat shield upgrade.

The problem with making it strong, HP-wise, is that something else has to be adjusted to bring it back into balance. A more durable Colossus would see one or more of the following nerfs: damage, attack rate, splash size, range, cost, movement speed, etc. Blizzard seems to want this unit to deal a lot of splash damage over a long range, while being highly mobile. This means most of that they can do involves keeping its HP on the low end, and making it expensive.