New Thor Thread

Just quickly, I've seen a fair few comments like these:

I don't really agree with this. In order for the Thor to be an effective tank its opponent would have to want, if not need, to take it out as quickly as possible. If it's got tonnes of health and is not doing as much damage, why would they attack it? It's still got to retain its bunker-busting damage otherwise your opponent won't be attacking it meaning that it won't be taking the damage for your army meaning that all your other units will be dying.
BirdofPrey did say this:

But I don't feel that that's the solution. What ability would suitably and effectively achieve this? Any kind of Taunt ability would be way too cheesy and make it look as though it's from WarCraft, as would a redirection or link ability that lets it take the damage of the surrounding units. Having it shield the units behind it from enemy fire would also be WarCraft-ish but it would also stop the units behind it attacking the units in front of it. I'm not saying it's impossible for it to have a suitable and effective tanking ability, but it's not easy. I feel that the best way to turn it into the ultimate Terran tanking unit would be to increase its damage output. If it's dealing tonnes of damage, then they're going to want to get rid of it. If they're wanting to get rid of it, they're going to have to attack it with everything. If they have everything attacking it then nothing else will be being attacked.

 

I always saw the old Thor everyone likes as a big sticker on tactics. The fact your could build a very powerful unit right next to an enemies' base was good enough. I don't want the Thor to have all these weird abilities, its usefulness should come in its attributes such as that high 900hp, SCV built, strong armor, and being imposing. The Thor was basically the complete opposite of a tank minus the bombardment ability; if you really think about it if you combined a Thor and Crucio tank, youd have the perfect unit, something like a strong Hydralisk.
In my opinion, this is all the Thor needs:
800hp
SCV built
Salvagable - Minerals returned in contrast to remaining hitpoints.
Attacks ground and air with its general attack
Slow locomotive speed
Slow turn rate
Slow rate of fire
Short range
Moderate splash attack
No crazy attack bonus as we have the tank for those

Just don't forget tanks are the best for mechanical ground assult.

 

I must say that I have to agree with Hex here. I've had the exact same concerns and argued as such back when Thor was well, Thor, and people wanted to believe that it would serve the role of a tank(as is meat shield).

There is nothing that says your opponent has to take down the Thor first, huge HP pool is only your own business. In fact, if the Thor isn't dealing outstanding damage, it is most efficient to kill it last. You will be reducing Terran's total damage output much more quickly by going after the non-Thor units first. They are the true damage dealers, the glass CANNONS, what makes Terran the firepower race. They have much lower HP and lower armor, 50~200 HP. Thor's 800~900 HP +armor might look like tanking(meat shield) material on paper, but that's only more reason to kill it last, even while taking fire from it the entire time.

I also do not want to see any kind of Taunt ability on the Thor, omg no. The image of the NE Mountain Giant immediately popped in my mind, I assume the same for Hex. So the stakes are already stacked high against the Thor even before it takea its first step in the the SC2 world, giving it only resilience/durability and nothing else is NOT the answer. You can either provide a method to draw focus manually and forcibly, or you can offer some incentive to why the opponent should even consider taking out your Thor first.

With either Barrage or Advancing Assault, or something along those lines, you offer functionality as well as a reason why it should be taken into consideration as a primary target. If you offer the abilities or stats/traits for damage soaking without providing anything else, it would just be like the Ultralisk, but worse. I deemed the Ultra a "unit that sucked" because it has no funcionality beyond soaking damage, but a Thor would actually be worse.

The Ultra, while having pathetic damage output, works because it belongs in the Zerg lineup of units. Zerg units all have a very low "minimum durability required to be effective" factor, as well as poor attack range. Even Lurkers function like melee units in practice, and it has the longest attack range next to the Guardian. Since the combination of short range and a very low MDRTBE factor means that few Zerg units will be able to reach their targets and deal meaningful amounts of damage before dying. All of a sudden, the Ultra's utterly pathetic damage output begins to look really significant, because it is the only Zerg unit that could actually reach the enemy and stay around long enough to deal damage at all. Not the case with Terran.

Terran has excellent overall firepower. Meaning, great damage output and excellent attack range. Terran has no problem at dishing out damage, never did. So the real threat even before we consider anything for the Thor, is, has been, and will continue to be, the rest of the Terran race itself. My post is getting long again... so I'm just gonna assume I made most of my point across on that.

So what do I think the Thor needs to be able to tank(meat shield) for the TERRAN RACE? The ability to charge in at the very front, quickly mow down stuff all over the place, make a hectic mess out of the enemy's ranks, all the while surviving heavy fire from your own awesome Terran firepower. Please do note that I underlined that last part there, because you'll likely receive equal, if not greater, damage from your own tanks. That's what I think anyway, feel free to disagree. There is never just one way to anything, especially anything SC, and how I see things is seldom the best solution. But to get something to work a certain often require you to mess with something else. To get the Thor to work for the Terran similar to what we have currently, to me personally, makes the most sense to have it work in such a way.

Oh yea, and to all you Thor-building haters, lol, I don't really care if Thor can't transform into a building. It makes sense to me, but it's not necessary. The important thing is LIFT-OFF[/B ]! Salvage works to but I still prefer lift-off, I don't even like salvage itself to begin with. It's just funny that people are considering and wanting all these building/structure exclusive traits such as SCV-built-ness, lift-off, and salvage, yet they are popping cold sweat at the thought of the Thor turning into a building. It's just a little bit funny.

OMG, something crazy just hit me. Because of all this Thor-building talk. Please take this as a joke idea. What if the Thor can load and transport SCVs, like the CC, during lift-off or just all the time? But! it "uses up" the loaded SCVs for its Barrage, Advancing Assault, or whatever equivalent ability. Like you get a short duration per SCV depleted? You can then kind of make it more powerful, since you would have to weigh and balance the ability VS minerals and more importantly, supply. Well, it just came up, had to share. OK, joke's over.

Oh, and LK, I wasn't mocking you. *snicker*snicker* Seriously.

 

Wow...do you remember when I said that, was the longest post I've ever seen Remy, while this one /\ is longer. Anyway IMO the thor should be able to lift off, so it cant be stuck, and so it will be useful on all maps. Also I like the idea of a thor flying into the back of someones base and causing havoc.
Also, I know this is against the general theme of this thread, but I think the thor should be mainly a meat shield. It could still do decent damage, but I've always seen the thor more as a damage taking while the rest of the Terran army does the damage.

 

CannonFodder, that is the planned role for the thor. The trouble is that it would need to deal a considerable amount of damage for the enemy to even consider attacking it (and thus 'absorb' damage from the rest of your army), but if it did deal that kind of damage, it would threaten to overlap with the siege tank. This is why it needs a unique ability and weakness.

 

Also, to clarify, lift-off is to offer Thors a method of getting off islands, that's it. The point is to make it near impossible, or at least completely impractical, to fly Thors into the enemy base.

People are not suggesting lift-off as a tactical option. When(and IF in the future) the Thor was SCV-built, Blizzard created an innate design flaw, in that you could easily build a Thor on an island yet you are not given a method of taking it off the island. That is a design flaw. Having a unit stuck and renedered useless simply due to innate flaws by design is a problem, a stupid one at that. Which is why some of us want lift-off for the Thor. Because, I think most people want the Thor to be SCV-built again.

 

Yeah, that Night Elf Mountain Giant came into my mind as well. When I'm getting all my defences in all my bases organised, I don't want to see some future version of a decoratively moss-stricken, butterfly attracting, tree wielding/hugging stone-hippy charge in and wipe out a base. What I would like to see is a gigantic, automated wall of cannons charge in, take everything I can throw at it while still having the time to completely level my base. Despite the absolute soul-crushing defeat on my part, no-one can deny how awesome that would be.
Anyway, back on track. Advancing Assault or Barrage would be effective ways of making your opponent attempt to take it out first, but it would depend on the cooldown. In my opinion, that would take a lot of balancing to pull off. The cooldown has to be short enough for your opponent to still need to take it down after it's done one. The damage has to be low enough so that if you have the time to pull off a second one it's not game over right there and then. I feel that it would be quickest and simplest to boost the Thors normal attack damage. Possibly give it a small area of effect attack but not to overlap with all the other Terran Anti-Ground units. There are enough of them already. Possibly just an area just small enough to let it take on a lone group of Zerglings, but not mid to large units, a bit more efficiently for if it's just used Advancing Assault or Barrage. Anyway, the main thing would be the damage, the area of effect or not would come after that.
You said that not everyone would agree that it would receive a lot of damage from your own Siege Tanks, well I guess I'm one of these people. I feel that if the Thor is made into an effective tank, the player is going to ensure that it lasts as long as possible. The survival of the Tank would be the survival of the attack. When it goes down, all the other units will start going down. The Thor hasn't got zero range and it's there to bust up the Bunkers, etc. The Siege Tanks are also there to take out the Bunkers, etc. Not only would the player ensure that their Siege Tanks aren't damaging the Thor but they'd ensure that they're hitting their designated target. This target wouldn't be base-to-base with the Thor, ergo they won't be damaging the Thor.
It's an amusing comment on people wanting it to be built by an SCV, Salvagable, etc, but not have a building mode, but I definitely feel it's justifiable. No unit, until now, has had the characteristics of a building. For a unit to have the size, health, armour, etc, well, you know it's gotta be something special. If that unit is actually a building, or at least turns into one, then that gets rid of the awe. It becomes an automated building instead of a building-ated unit. A building slowly moving around and attacking isn't anything too special, we've all seen it before, but a unit with the size, health and armour of a building, well that's special.

 

hehehehe. well, i really admire remy's idea about the terran faction. especially his innovative concept for the thor. advancing assault, armor mechanic, built-by-scv mechanic, and he does make sense about the strategic role of the thor as a meat shield/damage soaker, which i think what terran players are longing to have. no need to ask for additional firepower since terrans already have it. i also agree with the torso concept, i just forgot who brought it up. and ive been doing a lil thinking lately, i think thors really did not overlap the siege tanks role? maybe just a lil, but it works differently. any protoss/zerg player will just ignore the thor since its normal attack does not deal that much damage compared to siege tanks? they'd just go for the siege tanks first before taking out the thors. because if you think of it. the hammer is coming from the tanks, not the thor. and without the siege tanks, the thor is actually helpless. due to its slow movement and turning speed. if marauders are a compliment to the marines. i guess we can say that thors are a compliment to the siege tanks. they really dont take over the tanks role.

also, i dont actually disagree with the lift off thing and its ability to transform into a structure (talk about metroplex huh?). remy's right about how would you be able to bring a thor down from a cliff. haha. i just have this feeling that blizzard might choose another mechanic to solve this problem. but the concept is cool.

well, i really hope that someone from the dev team sees this thread so that they know how we feel about the thor. we've been seeing a lot of new/innovative mechanics being implemented to the zerg and protoss lately, im not saying that we're not receiving any for the terrans, its just that the new terran mechanics are not as crispy and not as impressive as what the other 2 races acquired. the current terran isnt actually NEW, its more of like an improved version of the sc1 terran.

feedback please. thank you

 

how about give the Viking a aoe anti air attack, like the old banshee missiles but against air, and give the Thor attacks that are both suited against large targets, something like the original Viking attack but maybe somemore power too it. Both its ground and air attacks are great against single heavy targets like the Ultralisk and Battlecruiser, mean ing the best way to deal with the Thor is too focus your fire on it with multiple units

 

When we see a THOR with its canons as its arms. When a little unit like a marine just get ONE shot from the Thor the marine must die. This is a big bullet. Same thing for the zergling. And for the zealot ? Well it has a shield. Two shots to kill a zealot.


No, no, nooooooooo


A Thor is a huge unit that has NO time to lose with the units. This is a big unit built to destroy the structures. Normally this unit must just be able to attack the structures, not the units. And can use its "special ability" against both units and structures.


I love the idea of transforming into a structure then lift off

 

Ok. Return to the old normal Thor we like. Remove the back cannons, but emphasize on the fact Terran are adaptive and what not. Simply let the Thor load up any infantry units, a set number of course. That way theres more control over the situation and the Ghost doesn't need the drop pods anymore.
And the fact you can use abilities in bunkers, why not use their abilities in the Thor. Imagine a Thor marching in your base loaded with Ghosts sniping all your High Templars. But it wouldn't be easy cuz the Thor is easily blocked, so maybe you should load a Marauder to do that armor damage.

I think this works perfectly, it fits exactly with the Terran way of things.

 

And what would happen when a Ghost inside a Thor launches a Nuclear Missile?

EDIT: @ blind_outlaw. Don't touch the Viking. Fullstop. It's perfect the way it is. The Thor doesn't only have to be good against single large units. It is still able to have an area of effect Anti-Air attack if it needs to.

 

Lol don't allow Ghosts to nuke then.

 

It sounds slightly OP. That way you could have a bunch of rather fragile units such as the Ghost running around in a mobile bunker. The reason the Ghost was rather fragile was to force players to be careful with them if they wanted to do anything useful (casting spells) with it at all. Loading them up on Thors would take away that skill.

 

Don't allow them to use abilities in the Thor then.

Makes more sense than the barrage idea etc.

 

I assume this was addressed me Hex. I understand your point, but I believe it wouldn't be that cut and dry in actual games. You give a hypothetical scenario that is limited and situational, not unlikely but too specific. It assumes that there is always a distant target(bunkers in your example) for all of your Tanks to focus fire on and that there is this clean line divider where all enemy will stay in front of your Thor(which is in front of your Tanks).

In real games I don't believe that will be the case. Just because you are fighting at range, it doesn't mean so are your enemies. Also, just because your Tanks of an obscene max attack range, it doesn't mean that you will always only fire at things that exact distance away. You will be faced with Zealots(which are much more late-game worthy than before) charging your Thor, and that's if it's even worth targeting at all and the Lots don't skip right by it and head for your Tanks. Not that people FF with Tanks in siege mode much anyway, you have no choice but to take out the charging Lots, or you risk losing the battle. Against Zerg it will be worse, it's swarms of Lings, Ultras, and Banelings charging at you under darkswarm. If Zerg decided to bypass your Thor altogether and go straight for your tanks, it will also be Hydras, Roaches, and whatever else.

For the Thor to tank(soak damage) at all, it is very unlikely that actual battles will be so neat and clean that your Tanks won't damage your Thor(s). Especially with Advancing Assault or offensive applications of Barrage, the Thor would take mad indirect Tank fire. The only case that for your Thors to not take Tanks fire damage that seems realistically possible for me is to only use Barrage defensively, and that's only because you're keeping your Thors in Siege Tank dead zone.

 

I agree with your idea remy of armour for the thor only being based on % value rather thatn a hard number. That way your own tanks don't end up being the main source of damage on your thor.
Also I think that the idea of loading the thor with troops is cool and keeps in role with the terran supporting each other. Maybe make it an upgrade that lets the thor carry up to ten small ground units, that can only do direct attacks, (no spells) and can't be targeted by other units.

 

10 ia a tad much Thats a whole squad

6 at the most though I would be more comfortable with 4
If you have 10 troops then the Thor should be substantially weakened

 

@ Remy. I was more getting at the idea of both the Thor and Siege Tanks being extremely effective at taking out buildings. The Thor wouldn't need to be in base contact with all the buildings it's attacking and if it is the dimensions of the building should be enough to shield it from the splash damage. When confronted with Zealots it would be more effective to combat them with Vikings and Marines so that your Thor and Siege Tank which both have a bonus against Armoured targets, or in the case of the Thor, should have a bonus against Armoured targets, are able to continue targeting the buildings, thus dealing their damage to their full potential.

 

Not that I don't understand what you're getting at Hex, it's just that I worry that it will be that textbook in how battles play out in real game situations. Not to mention, there are a whole lot of fighting to take place in open ground where there are no bunkers to target for your Tanks. I don't think even the pro-gamers actively FF with Tanks in siege mode, I know I don't. When Lots charge your Thor, or when facing Zerg armies, I feel that it'll be near impossible for your Thors to not eat any Tank damage.

Keeping Thors in your Tanks' dead zone will of course solve that problem, but that is choosing going the Barrage route and only using it in a defensive manner. That would kind of negate the Thor's role/ability/function to tank and soak damage, and I think there are more people who like Advancing Assault.

I'm really not trying to nitpick at you Hex, I hope you understand. And it's really really not that I just have to have percentages in SC, I don't even like percentages any more than the next guy, it just seem to me to be the most easy and practical solution. However, with all that said, friendly Tank fire damage on the Thor is a realistic concern for me, I personally feel that it's one of the most important concerns in Thor taking on the meat shield role. But anyway, as I've said before, nothing is absolutely a must, and there are a great number of ways to do the samething. All I want is just for the Thor to be respectable and lovable again.