StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 34

how was that with the search once again?...
*runs away

 

I hate the new carrier ability, it limits them so much and makes them a weaker unit. I also dislike temporary units that cost minerals.

 

I dislike temporary on a whole.

 

Just about all special abilities are temporary. Not all, but just about.

 

Who says escorts have to be a special ability?

Why not just make it a quasi-unit like the interceptor?

 

Creating a sub-unit is not a spell. Casts should be temp of course since its energy. But sub-units should not be.

 

About the Carrier. I seriously don't get this. People were outraged when the Carrier had been made into the Tempest. Everyone wanted the classic Carrier and demanded for the Tempest to be changed back. But now they've started to change it again. Isn't this what the community was against? The Tempest was obviously a Carrier just with some different abilities, and everyone hated it. Now they've given the Carrier some different abilities, and people like it?
Also, are these Escorts designed purely for Air-to-Air? It said they'd be notably helpful against Corrupters and Vikings, and didn't mention a Anti-Ground attack. If this is the case, doesn't it kinda overlap with the Phoenix? If the Carrier needs some Anti-Air support, why not bring over some Phoenixes instead of giving the Carrier the ability to produce Escorts. However if this isn't the case, why not just give it the Carrier another four Interceptors and balance the damage about halfway between that of the Interceptor's normal attack and their attack plus the Escorts. As they said, you won't have Escorts all the time, so instead of doing 100% damage half the time and 200% damage the other half of the time, just make it deal 150% damage all the time?
I do like the fact that it's built with four Interceptors though.
I was hoping for at least some mention or passing comment about the Infestor's model, but unfortunately this was not the case. Nothing much can be said about the Infestation ability as they just said they were mucking around with it. I'm glad it can't infest Zerg buildings. Zerg infested Zerg wouldn't go down to well. I'm hoping that, even though they can physically infest Protoss buildings, that there won't be any Infested Protoss. I guess a similar thing could be said about the Zerg. They could be infested, kinda like a strangler vine, but not produce any Infested Zerglings.
I haven't got much to say about the Medivac Dropship, I'm just hoping to get the Medic back. The only pleasure I'd get out of the Medivac Dropship would be corrupting it with my Corrupters when I no longer play Terran (due to many recent and undesirable changes).
Good to see some clarification on the Roach. I'm really looking forwards to that unit. It's shaping up really well.
Remy made a very good point about the Corrupters. They're designed for Air-to-Air. That's it. No Anti-Ground, just a pure Anti-Air attack, so that's all the corrupted units should have as well. It's similar to a stacking attack bonus, like the Soul Hunter had. The more units it kills, the more Anti-Air attack power you get.
Lastly, about the Colossus' attack. The game shouldn't suffer just so some pro players can fit in a bit more micro. In my opinion, it would be better if the Colossus retained its auto-seeking attack so that people can focus on managing the rest of their army. Otherwise they'd be too caught up with positioning the Colossus' at the correct angles, which would take a bit of time to set up and be easily negated if the other player just moved his units around a bit, and wouldn't end up managing the rest of their army to the best of its ability.

 

I dont think the Carrier needs an escort, it has alway been IMO an overpowered unit for the Protoss...

 

I think a lot of people hated the Tempest because it couldn't deal with anti-air attacks. (This was important; if I saw a fleet of Tempests coming at my base I would slaughter the fleet with my Vikings/Corrupters/Warp Rays.) Mind you, I thought it had cool flavor...

There were lots of reasons for people to dislike the Tempest. I don't think they hated it just because it was different... well, some probably did

Escorts can target both ground and air.

I think people were comparing the stats of the Carrier to the Battlecruiser. The new Battlecruiser does 8 x8 damage a hit (allegedly) and costs 6 supply compared to the Carrier's 6 x 8 and 8 psi. And the Battlecruiser has the cool Yamato Beam, which is a powerful tactical option, compared to the Carrier's... well, it didn't get anything.

Not that BC vs Carrier fights directly prove anything. Carriers have better cooldown rates Rather, I'm trying to compare the Battlecruiser to the Carrier in a battle against any type of force.

The Colossus is an expensive unit. You won't have many, I think if you're going to build them you can afford to micro them.* The previous auto-seeking attack was weak because it could only kill one unit at a time (watch any of the older videos... the Colossus beam spent a surprisingly long time on a single Zergling or Marine). The new system might not be any better, but the old system had its own set of problems.

*Didn't Blizzard say some of their units weren't intended to be micro-intensive? I'm pretty sure an army of Colossi backed up by Immortals and/or Zealots will see most of the micro devoted to the Colossi.

 

It says that the escort is only anti-air. It is unable to attack ground targets. It mainly to protect your carriers from corrupters, vikings, warp rays, etc.

EDIT: it is air-to-all, not anti-air

 

The Escort hits both air/ground units as confirmed by Karune.

 

Itza I think it was more along the lines, people were outraged at the fact the Carrier wasn't "The Carrier" anymore. Also, I personally really disliked the way they tried to make the Carrier (Tempest at the time) new by magnifying its weaknessed and strengths. The catch though was that the Carrier really didn't need to be better against ground units and base defenses because it was par none the best already. So really all the Tempest did was amplify the Carrier's weakness more than it was making it stronger. Also, you say you would like to have 150% all of the time why? The extra 50% is helpful when those Carriers are just sitting in your base or on the move right? By giving players control over the Carriers damage output they can choose to maximize it a certain points for much greater effect than they possibly could have gotten from not having the option. Now whether or not I truly like the escort mechanic I will reserve judgement on until I know more about it, as of right now its better than the Tempest and it helps make the Carrier new again.

On the note of the Colossus I wholeheartedly agree if the point of the new attack mechanic is just to increase nessecary micro then it needs to go, if by some chance it serves another function as well the I will also reserve judgement, but I would really hope they change the animation.

 

It's attack does have another funtion from the original, it has an AoE. The original colossus only hit one unit at a time. Now it hits a whole line at once, which is how armies tend to fight when they attack eachother. The colossus can attack the entire front.

 

People hated the Tempest because it wasn't a true Carrier. They wanted the old, classic one back. The current Carrier is not the old, classic one, as it's been changed to have a different style of play and feel. It's no longer 'The Carrier' any more. Sure, it's got the name, but it doesn't work the same as the old one.
The extra 50% is helpful for all the battles in which you choose not to specifically build the escorts. It's not as though players will buy Escorts for every single battle, in fact they told us that that would deplete the players supplies.
As for the Colossus. The old attack was not weak. It was extremely powerful. It was able to deal much more damage per second as it wasn't spreading its damage output across several units. It didn't spent much time at all on the Zerglings or Marines, in fact it practically vaporised them.
If you had an army of Colossi, Immortals and Zealots, not only would you be ripped apart by any Air force, but a lot of the micromanagement would go into the Zealots and Immortals. Zealots would have to quickly dispatch any units with a small, fast attack to protect the Immortals whilst being managed so they aren't just being picked off, and the Immortals would have to take the damage from the hard-hitting, powerful attackers in order to preserve the Zealots. Meanwhile the Colossi would just have to fire over the top. If they're being attacked they can quickly flee and don't require much more thought as they can make their own way home quite easily by just stepping over the cliff tops.
@ EonMaster. You sure that they're purely Air-to-Air? They never actually define whether it's Air-to-Air or Air-to-All. However if it is purely Air-to-Air, then it takes away from the Phoenix's role.

 

Karune confirmed the Escort issue. It's Air to All.

 

It is air-to-all. I read it wrong.

 

Well as least that's some good news. It's not as though they're overlapping different unit's roles like they did with Terran. I'm still not all for it though. Protoss are all about having expensive and powerful units. They're obviously expensive, but only lasting 45 seconds is something that you expect to see with Zerg. I know that the Escort is more of a pseudo unit and I'm aware that the 45 period time frame works fairly well for its role, but it doesn't suit as a whole.
By the way, what happens to the once their time runs out? Do they just explode or warp out or something?

 

Well, they're not permanent, so they're gone either way. Probably explode.

 

This is incorrect. Escorts cost resources NOT suppy. Those two words might be similar, but it's a HUGE difference in SC. And don't make the resource cost sound like it's somehow a drawback, you get four perma-interceptors free from the getgo, instead of having to continuously build them throughout the entire life span of your carriers. The cost is not additional, it is only the when and how that has changed, the what has always been there.

Reavers didn't even have time limited scarabs, they were single use, I never heard anyone cry about that. Certainly no one cried about having to build individual interceptors. Reaver is the only SC1 Protoss unit that I have any love for, as it was the best power-drop option in the game.

To me, anyone who can't afford 4 seconds of warm up time and a few additional key strokes, souns like either a)they're lazy or b)not gonna be much good with the carriers anyway. Carriers are absolute trash without at least decent micro, absolute trash.

I've been pro-Tempest all the way up to its very last moment. The Tempest design is not to strengthen the Carrier unit, but rather, discourage massing (which is the same as encourageing using mix of units). With the new Toss air supplementing the Tempest, it was a very balanced and well rounded air force. In my opinion, the only reason why people cried about it was because it wasn't specifically called "Carrier" and that it wasn't yellow/gold. Carriers remain as a noob fave, it's not hard to imagine the kind of reasons they would have for hating on anything that doesn't sound like or looks like their "godly" balloon at first glance.

 

I meant supplies as in resources, economy, funding, etc, not as in population limit. They've already told us it'll be expensive to use Escorts at every battle. I'd much rather my Carriers have eight more powerful Interceptors than to have four permanent ones and four expensive and temporary ones.
You're right in saying that the Reaver bought all its single use attacks each battle and that no one complained about them, but they were much less expensive. They only cost about fifteen minerals each and did a heck of a lot of damage. These Escorts have been reported to be too expensive to use in every battle.
I doubt that the colour scheme was that great a factor when it came to changing it back the the Carrier. It had several different features that meant it had to be used differently, but people didn't want to use it differently, they wanted to use it like they did in StarCraft1. I don't see why the same wouldn't apply for this Escort change.