New Mothership Info!

It does kind of feel like an arbiter after this update =\

 

personally, I'd rather have the old Arbiter, at least it could cloak your Carriers. Cloaking buildings doesn't seem that useful and would onlt be effective in certain situations.

Time bomb looks interesting, it says it keeps air units from moving and they dont take ranged damage, but it says nothing about stopping them from attacking, so it would be a good defence to use on your own air units. Wonder if it would work on your own MS.

Vortex-yet again like the Arbiter's stasis, but doesnt affect air units. Logically a gravity vortex would do massive damage or kill those near it, but apparently Blizzard thought that idea was too OP. I want the Planet Cracker back(like most ppl here apparently)!

overall, I give it a 6/10-decent but still needs alot of work to make it more useful and not feel like its in the Arbiter's shadow.

 

I think we need to be given more information on the Time Bomb ability. I'd taken it as how it was when it was initially announced. The only problem there was that we never saw what happened when units got caught in it, only projectiles. As for creating it around itself, again, that's how it was originally. It was changed later to be smaller but placable, but has obviously been changed back.

Cloaking Field is obviously working for them. They haven't even given us an option about it, which seems very in the spirit of Blizzard when they've got something working the way they want it to. Personally, I reckon it should be revamped though.

Vortex is the main problem, in my opinion. It's changed the Mothership from being a superpower to a utility vessel. It needs to deal damage. Fullstop, end of discussion.

Perhaps removing the Carrier could allow the Mothership to take on a more powerful role in regards to its abilities. We've seen that they're practically only useful in large numbers in StarCraft1, we've got a thread about how they're a flawed unit and Jon's told us it's practically only there for sentimentality at the moment. Perhaps it's just time to let it go and allow the Mothership, a single unit, to obtain the power that the Carriers had, but required the numbers to achieve.

 

i totally agree, i dont give a **** for the carrier. I infact liked the tempest but too many people were emotionally attached to the carrier hey?

 

Yeah, that was the general gist. I didn't particularly like the Tempest personally. It just seems like they were trying to make a preexisting unit into a brand new unit... And failing.

 

The carrier belongs to the Protoss theme, I can't hardly picture a game involving the Protoss without the carriers, those big spaceships able to deploy packs of interceptors. The only problem I have with the carrier is that massing it is really cheesy in SC1, because the interceptors have way too much HP and you can select them, which means you can't select anything else if you are the enemy and some nubtoss is attacking your base with 354321 of them.

I disagree.
To be able to cloak your own buildings could enable you to hide some expansion or outpost in progress, or to cloak your defenses when your base is about to be attacked.
I just think the abilities to hide your buildings and to hide your units should be splitted into two different abilities, and ideally to two different units if possible. because an universal cloaker sounds really cheesy to me, kinda lolyoucanthitanythingelsethatmymothershiplolunub. No, that really doesn't sound right...

Yes and no, that is a good question.
I think we are already used to use kinds of super units in Starcraft when you think about it: tanks, queens, ghosts and some other special units are usually don't really massed in normal games, players just make few of them for specific purposes, so why not an ultra-specific unit for ultra-specific tasks? That doesn't sound that weird...
Players mass marines, zerglings, wraiths, zealots etc, but who really mass ghosts or dark archons for instance in normal games? You usually just make few of them and that's it, so why not a super unit? During normal games, you usually don't build more than 2 or 3 missile solos, or 1 or 2 hives, rarely more, so why not a unit which main feature is to be powerful and unique, and which its simple location on the map already define the strategy of the player?
I don't think every species need its super unique unit, and I don't think either that these units should really be unique, capped to one, but until now I like the idea.
My suggestion would be that the first super unit you make costs its normal cost, and that all the following super units you would like to make cost extra resources, so the players who really want to mass them would have to pay the price.

 

The Carrier is part of the Protoss theme, yes, but so was the Dragoon, and the Reaver. And the Firebat for the Terran, and the Wraith and everything else. Those units just mentioned actually worked as units, but the Carrier didn't because it required being used in large numbers to be effective. If so many functional units that fit their team's theme were cut, and if the only thing the Carrier had going for it was that it fir the theme, then it should be cut.

 

Perhaps I missed the information somewhere in this post, but is the Mothership unique ins this build or not?

 

Not sure. They haven't stated it specifically, or at least I haven't read that they have, and they compare it to both the Queen, singular, and the Thor, multiple, so it could go either way.

Overall I think we should write up a summary of our views and post it in that Battle.Net thread. Would need to be fully structured and everything, and also relate to the Mothership's absence of power and the Carrier's dormant or potential, but infeasible, power, etc, etc.

 

That's right, but the Dragoon has evolved into the immortal, the firebat into the raider (sort of), the wraith into the banshee (sort of again) etc (not sure for the Reaver though), but what about the carrier? It clearly has not equivalent or evolution in SC2. I personnally do not mind to not be able to play anymore my dragoons if I can now play the immortals and the stalkers, they sound pretty much the same to me, a robotic assault unit that looks like to be easy to micro.
The carrier is able to engage basically everything in a long range and without fear of direct retaliation, what other unit can pretend to that role right now?

 

The Reaver, Firebat and the Wraith have very little evolution involved with their removal and the implementation of Hellions and Banshees, etc. Salvaged parts would be the most direct link. All that's just to do with the progression of war. Units don't have to evolve from something or evolve into something, and that definitely applies to the Carrier. There's just no reason to keep it outside of it fitting the Protoss theme.

As for another unit to engage from long range and without fear of direct retaliation, the Warp Ray, and if they're able to tweak it accordingly, the Mothership would be able to take care of that, especially if the Carrier's removal could allow for a more aggressive Mothership.

 

I read so many wrong things... Where to start D:

First of all, neither the queen thor or Ms are unique.. they'r all massable, at least so far.

Dood.. you hardly ever see carriers.. and if you do see them you'r probably fighting against a noob that has no idea how to micro lower tier units, such as HTs.. The carriers are way back on the tech tier and are pretty expensive.. you'r so much better off building high templars and zlots in most of the cases.
I dont understand the coment about selection... if you do the square thingy with the mouse, you'll never select enemy units unless there'r no units of yours to select..

This has already been talked. This is a late game unit, no one that claims himself a decent player will attack a base with the desire of winning without detectors.. that's just bad.. that's wrong.. it's.. it's... BADONG

I think you'r confusing super units to casters. Those units are done to support/do one specific thing. Super units can do everything, like the way you guys are trying the MS to be.. Cast awesome abilities and have this awesome attack while having super shield/hp and give you a ****job while playing the game.



I think you'r all forgetting the MS has some awesome normal attack, besides all their abilities, this bad arbitrer copy can own an arb any day

 

That was/is the common misconception because the cursor was barely visible (due to it being over the mothership) when time bomb was executed. In reality, time bomb was always targetable.

 

Everyone seems to be calling for Planet Cracker to be returned. I say: no, just no. It was pretty, incredibly pretty, but that was it. It was by no means an even halfway decent ability for actual combat. You had to sit the MS on top of your target, potentially exposing it to anti-air fire that your others units can't suppress. It was basically like a nuke: if you were using it, you were already winning, or already doomed.

I do generally agree with the mood that the Mothership is failing to make itself a distinctive and interesting unit, but I have a few nits to pick with some observations.

In SC1, the Arbiter cloaked only units. Used in a base, this meant that, an arbiter in play forced enemy units to either a) get detection, b) wail on the structures, c) if applicable, attack the Arbiter, d) run. Building cloaking changes it a bit, simplifying it to (and I rank these in the order I think a player would typically want to approach them): a) attack the units, b) get detection, c) if applicable, attack the Mothership, d) run. I really have no idea which model is better. Generally, an army of units represents a larger mineral investment than a base, but a base takes a lot of time to build from scratch.

The Mothership abilities do seem rather similar right now, and I am annoyed at all the air/ground differentiation. I would strongly prefer single abilities that affect air both and ground units.

 

The Mothership is unique and according to Blizzard will remain unique.

 

If the Black Hole/Vortex is to go forward, I hope it only acts as a paralyser effect (just as the Stasis Field on the SC1 Arbiter) and not as a wipe out as seen on the first gameplay footage. That little gadget makes the game unbalanced and come on, imagine a black hole sucking/eliminating 6 or 7 clustered Battlecruisers. Wouldn't that be stupid?

The Planet cracker is Cool. But like the Supply Depots, there should be an option for the Bunkers to bury, therefore keeping units like marines, firebats, reapers and ghosts safe for a while. What do u think about that? As always, if everything is so balanced, I guess the Mothership can still be influenced by a single EMP shot of a Ghost, if it still has that ability. At least I heard in the Terran Gameplay that "the ghost has a number of different Drop abilities", besides the Nuke and DropPods. I deduce we have to research it from the Terran Labs or choose 2 specifications for each Ghost, just like the Battlecruisers.

 

I dont really like it.. I mean, buried buildings can still be targeted, so it really doesnt matter..
Btw, double posting is bad, is wrong.. is BADONG

That's recent, right?.. cause till WWII (or whatever) that wasnt the case..

Yes, it was indeed pretty..
Against ground with no AA units, or raiding the workers.. It would be sooo awesome.. and to destroy buildings.. Or when you know your ms Is gonna die, just suicide it while planet cracking..
Anyways, I think it could be useful

 

I dont believe the Ms is going to be used all that much, its trying to be so many things at once that its no longer that awesome ship of death from the original demo. Blizzard, of late, has saddened me greatly.

 

@ Jisse
yeah tahts what i hated about carriers...its "cheesy". And about the "theme", your sticking to sc1 too much. Sc2 is different and will have differernt themes.

 

if the mothership is indeed unique then why is blizzard insist on keeping it as a support unit. it should be the protoss ultimate assault unit, it can't be mass so it won't be imba and won't overlap with anything and also doesn't guarantee you to win battles.

this current mothership is failure.

i like the old mothership with time bomb, planet cracker, and vortex/black hole.

and vortex dealing no damage is a lame magic trick. it should kill units!