Melee Interceptors?

hmm, im getin abit confused about what your trying to say remy,
Blizzard has said that the tempest will have a 'hard' sheild against GTA only. The tempest has no sheild at all to any air attacks.
that would make the tempests life pool 140HP to all air attacks and around 460 to GTA
all those numbers for damage have probably been changed for sc2

 

Has the "hardend shield" vs ground been confirmed by Blizzard? I believe you are mistaken and the wording is only "shield." Which in turn could be either, because it's very vague wording.

My point is there has never been a damage reducing shield for any Protoss unit like the immortal's hardened shield. The generic Protoss shield is just a regenerable portion of HP universal to all Protoss unit and buildings that also never reduce damage.

I believe the graphical shield shown against GTA attacks made up of hexagons to be a type of hardened shield much like the immortal's as opposed to being just the generic Protoss shield like Armadeo suggests. In which case, a carrier has never had such a thing. There are also other differences.

On another note, if I've never said this in this thread, "shuriken" is the stupidest name ever. It is super lame.

 

so remy... to sum that all up, tempests must have low health and either very high shields for ground only or a hardened ground shield, while having no shield vs air and is probably cheaper than the SC1 carrier.

 

Yes, those are my thoughts, more or less.  Which takes me back to my point of why don't they emphasize its strength vs ground instead?  If it is indeed extra damage reduction vs GTA attacks, carriers never had that for GTA or ATA anyway.

Oh, and that the name SHURIKEN is super gay.

Suriken(手裏劍) litterally means "sword in hand," it's the name of what's commonly referred to as "ninja star."  But it isn't limited to that, it's generally any small concealed weapon primarily used for catching opponents off guard(think dirty underhanded fighting) mainly by means of throwing.  This could include darts, needles, just about any small bladed/sharp weapon.

On a side note, it does not have the litteral meaning of "hand hidden blade" like the wikipedia entry suggests.  Ri(裏) litterally means inside, or within, in does not mean hidden.  You can make the connection that since it's inside something, it could be considered as concealed, then make another leap to go from concealed to hidden, but it does not mean so litterally.

Anyway, Shuriken is a stupid ass name for the interceptor.

 

ah, i see what you're saying, they dont advertise its effectiveness vs ground units, like how they advertise warp rays effectiveness to large units and buildings, or something like that.

slightly off-topic, but this made me think of vikings as an effective counter to tempests, since they can switch to air form to dodge the potentially hardened (otherwise just strong) ground shield of tempests.

 

The real question is why oh why is the Tempest absolutely tiny! They're peewees! Runts! I don't care if Blizzard dubbed the Warp Rays the new capital ships; they aren't! The Tempest should still hold that role, they're the new Carriers, after all. Plus, the Warp Rays have flimsy health and shields... they should not be the giants of the sky. I will be really torn if they decide to give us miniature blue Carriers with ninja stars. I loveeee Carriers... but these are just wimpy as hell. Cool name, good model, just awful size...

 

its because the cheap-ass dark templar contractors stripped the original carrier blueprints of everything to make them cheaper. reduced size, removed air shield, decreased health, even took guns off interceptors.

 

Personally I'm going to reserve judgement on the tempest for a while, to see what role it fills for itself...

Right now it seems that having a varied protoss air force even in small numbers basicaly means you can assault any position. Phoenix guards the tempests, tempests take out the anti-air defense around a base...warp rays blow up everything big. Basically there is no real need for tempests to have anti-air defense if they are used well, so I can see why the Dark Templar thought to strip em down and make them cheeper.

 

I agree with Remy's synopsis on the tempest shields. It would be suprising if the tempest didnt have the standard health-shield. The ground attack sheild will in all likeliness be like the immortals hardend shield.
I also dont like the name suriken for interceptors its japanese, shouldnt it be related to latin like most other protoss names. The melee attack wont be that bad though it will keep the screen from getting to busy with special effects and the framerate down.

 

^ & ^^ I agree with both of you.

^^ The Protoss air fleet as a whole appears to be amazingly complete and self sufficient. Perhaps that is one of the things that Blizzard is emphasizing for the Protoss in SC2, to have the strongest and most balanced air fleet.

^ The Suriken name being Japanese doesn't fit the Tempest and Protoss as you say AdmiralAckbar. But not just that, I think it's out of place being in the SC universe in the first place.

We'll have to see about how the tempest shield turns out.

Oh btw, AdmiralAckbar if I never welcomed you in another thread yet, welcome to the forums.