Terran Jackal

StarCraft1 may have had a load of unused spells and abilities, but that was ten years ago. Since then they tried to make a StarCraft:Ghost which failed, so I doubt they'd want to release this unless it's absolutely right. If they keep stuffing up all things StarCraft, it would basically signify its end.
Also, StarCraft2 is being developed in a completely different way to StarCraft1. In StarCraft2, every unit has a weakness. This wasn't the case in StarCraft1. Players were able to just mass certain unit types and others were just useless. However, with the new damage system, more available mechanics, greater funding, etc, etc, they should easily be able to balance out all units. I'm not saying every unit will be used in every game, I'm saying that there won't be any useless units. Everything is an effective counter to something.
From what I remember, the Banshee's attack was changed because of the Jackal. The Banshee's original attack was an area of effect attack and the Jackal was designed to have the line of fire, area of effect attack. The two overlapped too much so they gave the Banshee this new attack. Spreading out units hinders any area of effect attackers, bar none. The idea of the Banshee was that it was able to Cloak and catch them unaware.

 

In an earlier post someone said remove the Reaper. Why remove a unit which you can micro well with?
Reapers seem very dancable which a few units seem to be lacking. To me, it seems Sc2 contains less micro strategies as everything is becoming automated, such as:
A bullet which goes through multiple units but doesn't one shot them.
An airborn Medic, say hello to unlimited Marine rape. No more Medic walling.
Carriers which are basically Battlecruisers with shields.
A Colossus which isn't really microable anymore since it has a definit unaltered horizontal line of fire.
Etc. I'll leave out the rest as this is the Jackal thred.

Itza, the Banshee is a tactical striker as I proved to you in another thread.

But yea the Jackal is basically a Terran Lurker which is easier to use (like many new units/changes). And when a new unit betters an old classic one, I think thats a concern.

 

its almost impossible to create an RTS where all abilities are as usefull as every other, even blizzard cant do that, so the game will end up with at least 2 unused abilities, one is probably gonna be the nuke...

 

You never really proved it. We basically ended up agreeing to disagree. Besides, being a tactical striker doesn't stop it from retaining its original attack. Both with its old attack and with its new attack it can be classified as a tactical striker.
@ ijffdrie. I never said that every ability will be as useful as every other, I said that every ability will be useful. Yamato Cannon was a useful ability and so was the Wraith's Cloak but they weren't as useful as each other.

 

Nah. If you want to take out a particular unit a spread attack won't work as it will take longer and more units to effectivly kill the unit since the damage is being evened out with the AoE. With the single stronger attack you can simple cloak, run in, fire the powerful rockets, then exit.

I'd rather not have the Jackal in its current form. So how about an upgrade which lets the Banshee switch between spread fire and the single shots since its the only readily available AtG fighter.
That way we can have the Jackal as a long range AA tank that fires a spread (or not) and the Thor can return something similar to its old form which everyone liked.

 

An area of effect attack might be less effective against certain units, but a single attack is less effective against certain units as well. As I said earlier, both a area of effect attacker and a single target attacker can be classified as tactical strikers. You can't just say 'nah' to that. It's true. It's just that it all depends on what tactics you're applying to it. If you're wanting to take out a powerful single target like an Ultralisk, then yes, a single target attacker would be more effective. However if you want to raid their economy and don't want to have to waste and entire round of rockets on each individual worker unit, then an area of effect attack would be more effective. A tactical striker doesn't have one defined role, which you seem to think is for taking out single, large targets. This isn't the case. It all depends on what situation you're in. Both an area of effect attacker and a single target attacker can be classified as tactical strikers.

 

Itza i thought Psionicz said that he wanted the banshee to be able to toggle between the two attacks, so that it can be useful in most situations.

 

By tier 2, it is unlikely that you can just fly into the enemy mineral line and just lay down fire without meeting any enemy resistance. Which is why traditionally, tactical air has been used in a hit-and-run fashion, firing single shots of focused fire at a time. And banshee is tier 3.

It is better to be able to go in and take out exactly what you want everytime that you do fire, than being unable to get much results because the enemy spread themselves out.

 

People have usually expanded by tier 2 or 3 and they wouldn't have the same level of resistance at their new base. Not to mention that there are ways of getting through or practically by-passing these defences.
Besides, economy raids are just one example. Combating massed infantry is another. Sure, there's the Siege Tank, but that only has a small area of effect and takes a while to set up, and the Battlecruiser, but that only has a one off area of effect ability, if that, and there's the Jackal, which would easily be taken out by the hordes of infantry. If the Jackal attacks, falls back, attacks, falls back, etc, it would loose ground extremely quickly and wouldn't be able to attack for long seeing as most swarmable ground units have ways of dealing with it. Zealots have Charge, Marines have Stim Packs and Zerglings have a speed upgrade. The Banshee was much more manoeuvrable as it's able to fly over cliffs, etc, and can hide itself from the enemy.
Anyway, long story short, both a single target attacker and an area of effect attacker can be tactical strikers. It just depends on what scenario you want to use them in.

 

wouldn't it better if the banshee could switch between both, then it could take large groups of units, or damage larger more powerful units with its single attack

 

I like that idea.

Makes me think of T4-Bs form EaW. Had lasers for dealing with vehicles and missiles for infantry. You could also switch modes and beat the cooldown on the weapons thus getting higher fire rates through micro

 

cool, hadn't thought of that

 

A variation of that could be that each rocket homes in on a target, so if it fires five rockets at five targets each will be hit but if there's just a single target it will get hit by all five. The only problem would be if there's a couple of really powerful unit right next to each other then the damage will be split, but if that's the case then it's no different to if it had the area of effect attack. So basically instead of only being good against single targets or swarmed targets it can generally be effective against both.

 

I'm telling you that it's the reason behind the change. Whether you can or can not comprehend the proper use of a tactical air unit in SC is entirely up to you. It came straight from Jon, which came straight from Blizzard.

There is nothing TACTICAL about just parking your units and letting AoE take over. Neither did Blizzard feel that it would work against any skilled player.

 

There's as much tactics in parking area of effect units and letting their attack take over than there are in parking a single target unit and letting its attack take over.
Also, if there's nothing tactical about area of effect attackers, why would they have them at all? Area of effect attacks play an important part in regard to tactics.

 

Who said anything about parking the units above the enemy

 

No one would just park a squad of banshees above a group of units, as they are lightly armoured and have little health. Its more likely they would hit and run, like a group of mutalisks from SC1

 

i agree with the banshee having 2 switchable attacks. it makes the unit interesting and more sci fi... the current single attack "missile" is LAME for a sci fi thing.

and IMO the jackal should get a strong GTA and weak GTG... then bring back the predator and make the thor the ultimate close range GTG unit for the terran.

 

the jackal shouldn't be GtA
it would ruin the jackal mechanic with the railgun
they should axe the jackal and bring back the thor to its Assault Form

 

The epitome of SC1 tactial air is the Mutalisk. Protoss didn't have one that was viable, and Terran's sucked(which is why they used the Vulture instead).

I do not know if you've ever seen them used correctly, but you certainly don't use them with attack-move commands. You take advantage of their mobility and minimize the time spent on trading hits. You only go in for one shot and you withdraw. You can see abundant examples of such maneuvering with the mutas and vultures anywhere. It's the exact reason why people pull mutas but find little success with them.

Blizzard is putting all of the Banshee's AoE damage all into a single attack, so it could be more useful for maneuvered focus firing. That's their reasoning.