Sub-Topic: Jackal Not Worthy?

TRIVIA: In case anyone doesnt know... a possible reason why its called jackal was becoz they relate it with one of Bruce Willis's movie "The Jackal" its about a terrorist using an enormous automated sniping gun able to pierce through thick barriers which he hides inside his vehicle.... Vehicle + Huge piercing weapon = Jackal

 

Zerg are weakest in balance terms.

Instead of Jackals, give Reapers the attack it is way more fitting. And theres your counter, which offers more tactics all round meaning you don't have to create Jackals to only respond to Dark Swarm and not be used elsewhere.

By the time the Marauders slow a few of those units down the rest of the army will own them, i.e. mass Zerglings.
Also by the time Marauders come out, the enemy will have Roaches and Stalkers. You think the Marauder will help their? No, they won't.
Marauders are very limited in what they do, as are Jackals since tanks, Stalkers and other unit which will easy the Jackal will come out at the same time.

 

@psioncz, Of corse there weak in balance terms. If they dont have units that fit-the-part or just dont work out how they want it to work then it could shut down the race altogether.

And giving the jackals attack to the reaper will not help terrans any more then not having the unit at all. They would not only be 5 hp short of The SC1 firebat but they already have D8 charges which should be good enough for range vs range combat.

as for the marauders you say its slow is only for a few units when its one less unit thats no hitting unit and more then likly you will have marauders slowing down a choke hold point or cramed in a bunker and even then after watching zerg gameplay videos zerglings dont look all that strong. I guess you just have to know what your going with to make a correct choice. Less marauders more marines/reapers vs zerg. and equal marauders and reapers with marines vs protoss? throw in a jackal or 2 vs zerg, and tanks vs protoss.

the battle should go a little something like this
T vs P
mostly marines then marauders with a few reapers. vs zealots and stalkers:
marauders should help keep the zealots away for a while as there shot down and if increasing stalkers become a problem et more reapers and start chucking your D8 charges like baseballs. There going to have to get immortals if they wanna stand strong on the mines and fight but even then i dont think any player would be stupid enough to waste a throw on an immortal in the firstplace.

T vs Z
Mostly marines again more reapers and fewer marauders.
I dot know if the reaper still dose incease dmg vs light but if it still dose vs zerglings thats gonna help. Roaches are going to be up by this time to lock and load your D8 charges cause they do 60 dmg (remeber the roach is an armored bug) and roaches gotta stand still to shoot. so if they wanna attack and do damage the will have to stand still and if your marauders survived the fight then running will be a limied option for the zerg player as you might lose units trying to get away.

T vs T
Now this would be a funny match cause all 3 of the units are light and i guess reapers would have a field day if they still do extra damage to light armored units.

Like i said before the starting 3 units for the terran line up are a strong bunch. You just have to play with the unit to like it. Blizzard needs to release more videos so that it would calm the community of SC players and stop all this Unit bashing. If they wanna save units and keep the people from discussing the wrong things and focus on things that matter like an ultralisk survivng a nuke they better start giving us some vids.

 

Actually I doubt PvT would consist of Marines and Marauders fighting only Zealots at first, as you can get Stalkers fairly quickly and they would easily outmanouver the Marauders; what is slowing down something which can teleport in your face.
Also using Reapers, Marauders and Marines against lots of Stalkers and Zealots would be very intense microing which I doubt the average player could handle since the slowing doesn't effect the Stalkers much and the D8 charges won't hit home since the Stalkers will blink away, not to mention the Zealots raping your anal during the process.
But yes a Jackal would help vs those few Zealots, but one Stalker can kill it in 4 shots, so imagine 8 Stalkers. Jackals would have no chance.
Oh and not to mention the Marines can't use stimpacks since their no Medics around.

Terrans best chance against Protoss would be tech rush to Jackals and Tanks until the Immortals come out, then they'd have Reapers to mix with the the army.
Or to wall with the Marines and tech all the way to Medivacs which is risky.

No need to go into the others as the points I addressed in PvT can transfer into the rest.

Plain and simply the Marauder narrows the use of Marines since they can't stimpack early game which they need vs the now super fast Zerglings and sexy Zealots. Not to mention when Roaches come out and get close to the Tanks.

 

the point is to burn down units that get in the way and melee gets in the way. when your rushing into the attack the melee is going to be shot down first. unless you rush in the stalkers first and then have zealots then blink out the stalkers to cause confusion and switch targets i dont really see how you would mess the concept of kill the melee and make the range run around. But i'm not going to argue the T vs P fight cause its a hard fight either way. as it stands zerg got a better chance then terrans do, But still. terrans can atleast hold there ground even if its only for a while. once they get to tanks there good. and if there pushing bunkers to hold spots on the map its an even fight.

 

About Jackals being needed to combat Dark Swarm, this isn't the case. If they removed the Jackal, allowing the Banshee and Marauder to have their area of effect attack returned, then, when combined with Siege Tanks, the Terran would have more than enough to counter it. Yes, Banshees come at a later tier, but they'd still easily be able to hold out until then.

Either way, as I said before, even if the Jackal is extremely effective due to its attack, it should not have been given it in the first place and it's a Zerg icon. It would be like giving the Zerg a unit with a Siege Mode or the Protoss a Stim Pack ability. It's just not on.

 

If the banshee got its splash returned i wouldnt complain, how ever i dont see it returning. And even if they removed the jackal what would go in its place that would be just as effective? the Cobra and firebat wont return cause they both failed sadly trying to play that part so what unit would be good enough to play that part?

 

Firebat Reapers are the answer lol, they'd accomplish the current Reaper's role and fill the spot in for melee/darkswarm counter.
That way Medic can come back in the Marauders spot. Then you could add the mechanic where the Medic can heal from inside the Bunker and apply it to a Dropship, meaning when you put a Medic into a Dropship it will function as a Medivac. This is balanced by the mix of tiers, cost, time.
Then the Jackal can be turned into something the Terran needs, fast anti-air.

 

I dont think the reaper needs the flamethrower. The damn thing is doing extra dmg to light armored units. Thats good enough. If there is even more problems give them a range or a speed increase. but i just dont see the poit i canceling out thee range for a close range splash. If thats the case then zeratul11 should get his way and you gie the ghost some type of sword and let them do melee. hell they got way more life then a reaper and after they blow there energy sniping they shuld run in and bash your face in......

the Reaper dosent need a fmale thrower. it has D8 charges and if a zergplayer wants to stand in a dark swarm then let him loos sight of D8 charges in that chaos as well and be blow to the 8th layer of hell.
The reaper dosent need a to be changed to a makeshft firebat. The only change i would lik to see it have is a speed upgrade or a flare ability like someone suggested in anoher thred. Only the marauder needs a change or a removal. Besides all that i still and to see a gameplay video of terran units early in the match where marines/reapers/marauders are used so we ALL can see how thies units work as a team to combat other units.

 

you mean Archons do 5 damage under Dark Swarm... terran can use mass scientific vessel with irradiate to ruin zerg's army.

or if you are hardcore you can they this http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=kQtPMLOctBg

 

they are talking about situations in SC2 where irradiate and vessels dont exists anymore, and i thought the Archon's attack is considered a melee attack, so it would do its 30 or so points of damage + splash.

nvm, just tested it out, and it just does splash damage under dark swarm.

 

yeah donno if they gonna put irradiate in the final build

but i don't see a melee attack that and hit both air and ground

 

well, if the Queen stays then you will have a melee attack that hits both Ground and GAir, unless they changed it by the time the final build comes out.

 

I kinda realized the difference in the Lurker and Jackal. The Jackal does x amount of damage related to the range and length of time spent in the fire.
The Lurker does 20+ for every spike that hits the target, meaning the Jackal gives up the powerful attack for mobility.
Not to mention the ambush aspect of the Lurker; oh wait they're tier 3, who doesn't have detection at tier 3.
But if the Lurker was return to its correct spot there would probably be enough distinction between the two to keep them seperate.

 

suppose the jackal has the same damage as a vulture, the splash effect can be lessened by adjusting your units on the line to prevent taking the full flameshot..

==================================> Jackal Flame
0--------5---------10----------15---------20 damage cap.. (w/o upgrades)


/\____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\___/\___/\ Subterraenean Spikes
20------20------20------20------20-----20 how do they attack?? (also w/o upgrades)

Lol.. i think it doesnt overlap with the lurker but the lurker needs to be brought back at tier 2

 

Yes the Lurker does need to be brought back.

You Jackal figures seem kinda wrong, I was probably wrong in how I described it.
Because the Jackal initially shoots at range when you move-attack so that would mean it only does 0 damage initially which would of course not be the case.

 

LOL now im confused at how do jackals damage, maybe some1 should put up a video and focus on the unit thats being attacked by the jackal so we can see clearly how it does damage..

 

Now I don't know whether thats just obvious logic as if you move out the flame, you won't get damaged.
But what the guy mean't is the flame may last for two seconds, in those 2 seconds 10 damage may be dealt. So if for one second a Marine stays in the flame then moves out and evades that 1 second left, it should only recieve 5 damage as opposed to the full 10 if he stayed in the flame. Thats what the guy was asking.
Did Karune know that?

 

I think Karune was confused as the anonymous poster didnt quite detailed his question with him anyways, the guy stated his question wrong to start with as his example was quite bizzare stating that a unit who moved from the firestream took 10 damage while not knowing that the max damage is 10 anyways LOL..and on Karunes part he didnt answer exactly what happemed to the marine getting burned continously but i think its obvious coz of the damage the jackal does is limitted to max of 10 w/o upgrades..

so back on the damage.. i want the flame to be like the mechanic i posted above increasing as the units stay in its line of fire longer (w/c is kind of like what the anonymous poster wanted to also), but how long does a jackal firestream take anyway before cooldown?? are you sure that the 10 burn damage will suffice??

 

Theres no clarification of the Jackals damage stats as far as I know. He was just speaking hypothetically.
But why would you want the Jackal to do only 1 damage or something at maximum range, fire is in fact hottest at its tip. Its like saying you want to put the weak Jackal in extra danger just to deal like 6 damage, if you're still using the 10 damage thing.

I believe it works the way I explained it where it might be for 2 seconds (for arguments sake) and on those 2 seconds it deals the maximum of lets say 12 damage. This means you want the units to stay in the flame as long as possible in those 2 seconds so they recieve the full dose of flames to deal that 12 damage, and if the unit only got flamed for 1 second it recieves 6 damage.

The Jackal is shaping up to be a good unit in my opinion, I don't want it go get cut anymore. It definitly suffices for the Vultures attack method when microing.