siege tank less effective?

my main point was - however strong the bombardment is, it still provide another option on tackling defensive siege tank formations, previously a terran player had to use drops, there's no way he can use siege tank himself to break the opponent's siege tanks unless there was an overwhelming number advantage. drops were also risky if the opponent had goliaths and turrents, so the thor provide another way to break the defences and there isn't much the opponent could do about bombardment.

 

That depends on the range of the Artillery Strike.

If the Seige Tank is hitting the Thor before it can come in range for that strike, it would be awfully easy to stop simply by directing tank fire and threatening the Thor. This would still require Terran players to target a different area of an opponent's base so as to create a "droppable" area.

Don't think the Artillery Barrage will be the end of Seige Tanks. I believe the Seige Tank will come out on top as the Thor's superior, rather than the other way around. The new range increase for the ST is only further confirmation of this.

 

i believe the ranges in question will be similar, however due to its massive hp a thor would still take a lot to kill. even with seige tanks it would take 8-10 shots depending on 700hp or 900hp. another factor is the size of the damage area or bombardment, its radius could be added to the effective range of the ability. also good players will send in cannon fodders to negate the first barrage of tank fire then immediately follow up with the thor's bombardment

 

I agree, I'm just saying that I don't think the Thor will be the "pwnage" of tanks that some are suggesting.

It will certainly be possible to destroy tank emplacements, but you're not going to be able to walk into the enemy's base after a bombardment simply because you hit some Seige Tanks.

 

They aren't the pwnage of tanks, they are the pwnage of bunkers. The tanks will still require an air force to kill

 

yeah thor's won't pwn tanks in general, only its special ability give a way to break tank encampments in certain situations.

 

Actually I don't think the Thor will be all that usefull without bombard

 

well without bombardment it would be like a meat shield with an unspectacular attack, kinda like ultras..

 

I don't know you guys, but for me as a terran player, I always used the Scientific Vess's EMP strike to deal with the protoss, I always bring them as detector and I find the EMP effectife against mass protoss army and spellcasters.
So technically, the EMP disable protoss shield so it will likely work on the Immortal's shield

 

em you got a fair points there.. but why talk about emp all of a sudden?

 

I think you're missing the point here. Thors are not here to kill siege tanks - if you spread your tanks artillery bombardment won't be very useful, if it can be used at all before the Thor is destroyed.

Regardless, Thors purpose is to spearhead the terrans attack. This is what terran was missing in SC1, you had to attack enemy siege tanks with cannon fodder units until your own tanks could get close enough and transform into siege mode. And this would cause immense losses to the attacker. But now that the Thor is here, you can use it as a meatshield for your army. So while your tanks are moving into position, the thors are drawing all the fire to themselves giving your tanks enough time to enter siege mode and fire on the opponent.
So the Thors will protect your tanks until they enter siege mode and minimize your losses, since, because of their high hp, most Thors will be alive when your tanks start shooting, unlike SC1 where you would have to sacrifice a huge amount of units to get your tanks into position.

 

smart players would target the tanks not the thor.

 

How are you going to manually target all those tanks? Theres only several seconds from the moment the enemy tanks are in your range until they enter siege mode, in that short time you'd have to specifically order your tanks to attack each of god knows how many enemy tanks. Because, if you don't give that order manually, your tanks will simply attack Thors as the target closest to them. Not to mention how much damage would be wasted if you'd order all of your tanks to attack a single enemy tank. It just seems like too much micro.
Think about it, Thor has all those hit points and small attack dmg, what better purpose can it have than being a meatshield? And at the same time, terrans are missing a high hp unit - every ground unit in the terran arsenal (besides the siege tank) has very low hp and is not fit to hold the line once the enemy charges and tanks start damaging their own troops. Thors seems like a perfect solution to fill that front row gap in the terran army.

 

if the enemy has "god know how many tanks" then the thor would not be needed. plus if he can micro "god know how many tanks" so well that they all come in range and siege up within a few seconds then i can micro my tanks to attack his tanks. true the thor is a good meatshield, but unlike ultra that's not its only use. it has bombardment to break choke defences and it can attack air

 

To prevent misunderstandings: Thors main attack hits air, the 250mm ability doesn´t.

 

Wait i'm confused

are you saying his regualer attack is only AA?

or do you mean that normal attack hits both AA and AG and bombardment only hits ground. I think this is what you mean but just clarify so i'm 100% sure

 

normal attack = air and ground
bombardment = only ground

 

No matter how many tanks there are, its always better to put Thors in first because they can take more dmg before dieing. And your opponent doesn't have to micro his tanks. He just gives the move order and presses the "o" key when they are in range. You, on the other hand, would have to order all of your tanks to attack his single tank and so on for each tank your opponent has, which in an average battle would be about 12. Also, because of focus fire, you would waste massive damage on killing blows and still some of your tanks would fire upon Thors in between your orders.

So, even if its possible, most players don't have that kind of micro so a Thor meatshield would function pretty well against another terran. And yes, Thors have another use and thats using the artillery barrage. I don't think their AA abilities will be very useful because he moves and turns slowly while air units are very fast, but I guess that would depend on his damage to air units (which is prolly low, if his ground dmg is anything to go by).

 

good luck trying that one

 

Thanks, its worked so far. And good luck targeting a dozen siege tanks. Its quake3 all over again.