Terran Unit Roster: A Review (with suggestions)

StarCraft 2 looks like it's going to be a terrific game. Overall, I'd have to say I'm very pleased with what we've seen from Blizzard so far. A few things looked like they could use some tweaking however, and since Blizzard has already demonstrated that they take fan feedback seriously, here goes...

Infantry:

Marine: No objections to the Terran default unit. I like the Shield + Bayonet upgrade. I've seen a few ppl complaining, but historically the bayonet was vital as long as armies were capable of closing on one another. While frail humans may not be able to survive a withering storm of bullets, to a lesser extent swarms of Zerg - and more pointedly the powerful Zealots, are not going to be stopped at range. Especially given the new Charge ability for zealots... The main Terran attribute is adaptability, so they would certainly make adjustments.

Firebat and/or Reaper: I've seen some suggestions saying the units should be combined, as it seems Blizzard isn't really sure what they're going to implement yet. Personally, it appears to me that the Reaper unit was not fully thought out. The jet packs, Merc Haven and dual pistols are all great ideas; but they don't fit the backstory. We're told that Reapers are the worst individuals Terran governments come across, who can't even be "resocialized". So they're sent to a special program which turns them into Reapers... ok, sounds cool. Here's the problem. At what point do they become mercenaries? The most violent criminals go thru a government program and then get sent out for hire to the highest bidder!? So some rethinking is in order...

The Merc Haven is a great idea. With Terran governments reeling all over the place, they turn to augmenting their forces from unconventional means. Principals would seem to be, quick bolstering of the players' forces balanced against somewhat higher than average cost and a bit of unreliability. With that said, the recruit 4 at a time is a good feature. My suggestion is to simply have 4 different versions of Mercenary. You click to hire mercenaries, and you're not exactly sure what you're going to get. What you will get is a bunch of troops quickly though. The four versions should be based off of scraped StarCraft 1 units to illustrate the mercs using salvaged military equipment. 2 of the versions should be of about relative equal power to a Marine, 1 should be somewhat stronger, and 1 somewhat weaker. My suggestions are...

Reaper Mercenary: Dual pistols /// Firebat Mercenary: Flamethrower /// Mine Launcher Mercenary: scaled down Spider Mines /// Torch Mercenary: upgraded Fusion Torch

The dual pistol version has a quick but weak ranged attack and can be considered the default merc.
The flamethrower version has a more powerful but limited range attack and uses salvaged Firebat equipment.
The mine launcher version has a quite powerful, slower and more expensive range attack as it carries a complement of 4 smaller modified spider mines salvaged from decommissioned Vultures. It would cost to resupply this merc.
The torch version has a fast, weak melee attack. This merc is armed with nothing better than a pirated upgraded SCV fusion torch. While pretty useless for the most part, it could find value in swarming larger units with minimum ranges and/or slow movement like Siege Tanks and Thors.

All mercs could be upgraded with the jet pack ability, which would add whole new dimensions to their use and make them competent in even the later stages of a game. Backstory could be generated for this easily, ie...

An old-school, tough as nails officer doesn't like the idea of including soldiers outside of the traditional chain of command. He makes a remark about how most of them have stolen military equipment anyway. Then he says something about if the army's going to support that sort of thing why don't they just let the mercs have the decommissioned Wraiths too. While meant to be sarcasm, another officer starts thinking about the comment. Enter a testing facility where transferring Wraith cloaking fields is briefly tried out and then discarded when military personnel discover that invisible soldiers of fortune are not really the best idea because expensive military equipment is coming up missing. A new attempt with converting powerful Gemini missiles to merc use results in a dead merc team and scientists. Finally with the program about to be scrapped, a second team of scientists gets the idea to convert Wraith fuel tanks... and the jet packs are a hit.

Ghost: Good unit. I like the more powerful rifle, the sniping, and of course the cloaking. The drop pod might be interesting, however I think the nuke targeting should be moved to another unit, (more on this later) and the Ghost could benefit from getting the current D-8 mine ability in it's place... albeit a somewhat more powerful version. It fits the special forces concept.

Medic: Great support unit. No real comments.

Mechanized Infantry:

Cobra: Looks cool. Without much info about it, I can't comment more.

Viking: Love it. The transforming element fits in perfect with Terran adaptability and function. No concerns here, great unit.

Siege Tank: Other than the still crappy model, another old favorite. No real changes needed. It kicked donkey in the initial engagements, no need to alter it.

Thor: (EDITED AFTER BLIZZARD INPUT) Awesome unit! Blizzard has recently explained how the Thor's role differs from that of a Siege Tank. While Siege Tanks, with their longer range and far fewer hit points function as long-range artillery, Thors act more as heavy assault mechs. Tanks try to stay far away and essentially snipe. Thors charge in the vanguard of armies and blast openings. I do however have a suggestion of a way to further develop the Thors image.

Instead of giving the Thor the 'Artillery Strike' ability, give them nukes. The Thor should be able to arm a neutron bomb, and 2 with an upgrade. These weapons would have a slightly smaller blast radius than formerly, do even more damage to units and a bit less to buildings. The Thor should have a large line-of-sight radius, which makes sense given it's height anyway. The nukes should have a high arcing path to their target, to give a delay, albeit less than formerly. Nukes should of course be costly, which would prevent players from mass nuclear attacks. The cost of a Thor paired with the cost of nuclear weapons would keep this to a seldom used, but devastating attack. With this change the Thor becomes even more iconic. Changing the nuke mechanic would not imbalance the game either, as while the Thor is much harder to destroy, it is also much easier to see and plan for.

On the issue of the ability to transport Thors, I've only heard one good suggestion. The fact is, the Thor is too big to be transported as a standard procedure. In the heat of battle, dropship pilots do not have the time to coordinate an assisted transport. No self-respecting Battlecruiser Admiral is going to use his flagship as a ferry. As Joneagle_X suggests however, perhaps researching 'Liftoff Tech' for the Thor could outfit it with the same technology that Terran buildings currently use. The Thor would be just as slow as Terran buildings, have no attack capabilities while flying, take a moment to transform into flying mode and back, and take moderately increased damage while flying.

Aerial Support:

Dropship: Standard, unremarkable but necessary unit. It doesn't need to be remarkable... it's a dropship. Not much to say.

Nomad: Not exactly sure about the model for this unit... but it looks interesting. Nano-Repair should be nice, if a tad redundant. Not much to say here either... besides that I like the old Science Vessel better.

Aerial Combat:

Banshee: I like it. Looks cool, and a good set of abilities. Don't change anything.

Predator: Sounds cool also. Terran air forces appear to complement each other nicely which is key. A Terran player could for instance build a well-rounded attack purely around infantry forces with Marines, Mercs, Medics and Ghosts. Likewise Cobras, Vikings, Siege Tanks and Thors have an answer for all threats. Previously the Terran air force needed ground support to compete, but the new ship lineup doesn't appear to have any glaring weaknesses as a whole.

Battlecruiser: I like the two different Battlecruiser path idea. Make each capital ship choose which ability to take. Seeing as Battlecruisers are supposed to be command ships, it's a nice touch to give them a more individualized concept. Battlecruisers, much like Siege Tanks, proved to be iconic in the first series of alien warfare... good to see them back.

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There's my thoughts... be glad to hear other ideas too. I'll update this as we get more information, I get new ideas, etc...


Bonus 1000 minerals for a well organized and well thought out post with many interesting ideas.

 

welcome to the forums, those are some very nice thoughts.
I especially like the mercenary idea. there have been a lot of arguments about promotions for terran units, mercenaries would be perfect for promotion if other units don't get them.

owerup:

 

Welcome aboard! Nice post owerup:

 

Good post.

About the Thor: It has something no other Terran unit has: The ability to take hits. With 700 HP it currently is the most durable unit in SC 2. Also remember DMatrix and Nanorepair.
Melee units are dangerous to the Terrans as they conflict with AoE attacks, something the Terrans have plenty of.
Remember how Tanks selfdestructed once zerglings managed to get close?
The Thor can act as "Tank", and if we want to keep MMO lingo: the Nomad is the "Healer", along with the SCVs. It´s firepower and plain size ensure that it isn´t simply ignored the enemy will have to get rid of it-compare the effect on the defensive line in the Thor Action shot and the Mothership (Timebomb) Action shot.

 

good post, i wonder why the Mods havent been avording minerals for good posts lately?

 

Good post, you should do one for the Toss as well.

 

Nice post! Make one for protoss and I'll give yo another owerup:

 

This is true, but it seems to me that with Defensive Matrix, practically any Terran unit can become at least a temporary 'tank'. Secondly, it just lacks coolness factor to me. The point of the giant unit is simply that it's reallllllllly, really big? That's kinda unimaginative... In practice, nukes wouldn't really act THAT differently from the Artillery Strike it has now. Artillery Strike looks like it provides major ownage... The difference is simply in impression. You hear "nuke", you think "yikes!" You hear "artillery", you think "hmm." Artillery is just one more component of a balanced attack... nukes are world enders.

Thanks =] , and thanks to the other posters too... I did have some ideas about Protoss too... will prolly have them up tonight.

 

Remember that Defensive Matrix is now a AoE that halves incoming damage. Also in SC nothing forced you to attack the DM´ed unit before any other removing the Tanking ability - you can only "Tank" if you actually keep the damage away from your fragile allies.

 

Just a thought, but would Thors be able to have more armor than usual? (Like Ultralisks have 5 Armor)
They would be even more durable then...

Great post by the way...

 

Great post. Well thought out. You are the epitome of what we want from posters. Great job. owerup:

So your thoughts on the Reaper/Firebat are to create even MORE options for the unit? I don't really see how you can create so many different jump pack units. They're just going to become either overspecialized or have too much impact on the gameplay. I would stick with just one type of unit but simply fix the damn thing. I've been at the spearhead of pushing for the Reaper/Firebat combination.

Since the Reaper comes at late tier 1(just like the Firebat) it could easily replace it if it were given flamethrowers as an anti-infantry AoE attack. Then it has the added mobility of the jump packs but a reduction in HP.

I agree with you completely on the Thor. Right now it's just like the Ultralisk, it's a shock-absorber. And that's why Remy put the Ultralisk on the "most useless units" thread here. So wouldn't that technically make the Thor "useless"?

The nuke would add a huge ability bonus to it but would require an insane cooldown period. I also don't know if nukes are necessarily the way to go, but I agree that it needs a different mechanic and some separation from the Seige Tank. However, I do think it's a necessary unit in order to combat the newer units coming from the other races. And I do think it needs more mobility. I've made the suggestion that it have a liftoff ability a number of times.

 

Oh right, hmm... forgot that about the updated DMatrix. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while the Thor does have unique features, it does create some redundancy in the Terran troop lineup, which you don't see anywhere else in the game. There's nothing you can look at and say, "oh, this here is just a bigger, better Marine", or, "the Carrier is just a bigger, better Warp Ray", etc, etc... There's no other two units where the comparisons are so direct. Every unit has their own, pretty much unique ways of attacking. Except Terran, who now get artillery and big artillery units. The only other similar pair of units I can think of are Zealots and Dark Templar; and with one being invisible and markedly weaker, they still stand out as different concepts. Siege Tanks and Thors however are both the same basic concept. They have the same basic strengths and the same basic weaknesses. It's like SCV's and Probes... yeah, they're different units and have slightly different stats and can be used in different ways by experienced players... but at the bottom line, they share an identity.

I think it would be a nice touch to in some way demonstrate the unconventional, and sometimes unreliable nature of mercs. Mercenaries don't come with standard issue uniforms and kits. Basically, as I see it, the point of the mercs wouldn't really be about the jump packs, rather it would be about getting a bunch of troops quickly. That's why I think it would be good to give them the jump packs as an upgrade, just to extend their usefulness. But their main point would remain a speedy influx of warm bodies.

I like that idea too. Sounds like a good upgrade ability. Movement rate a la buildings, inability to attack and 50% increased damage taken while in the air would keep players from trying 'Thor drops', but keep the Thor from getting stuck on an island or walled in by buildings or something. lol... just thinking about that gave me the image of a player sinking four supply depots in the ground and waiting for a Thor to walk in the middle - pop them back up and laugh as it twitches in frustration

 

I'm glad someone has agreed with the liftoff idea. Most just claim it's imba and don't provide much of a reason or argument whatsoever.

In regards to the mercenaries, I definitely see your point, but I just don't see an advantage to having 3-4 different types of the same style of units (jump packs). I mean, admittedly, it would be awesome to be able to customize your own "special forces" units, but with such a small infantry unit that is relatively weak, I think it's a little much.

The maximum I'd be willing to see would be two different types: a Dual Pistoled version and a Flamethrower. One perfect for raiding and taking out larger units and the other for anti-infantry.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on the Mothership and it's current situation as a non-super-unit. You can post them here or in the Mothership thread, but if you would like your thoughts to be incorporated in something Blizzard might see, you might want to include them on the Discussion of the Month: Mothership thread which is:

http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/index.php?topic=2448.0

 

Yeah, I think it's good for units to have weaknesses... but I don't think any unit should be actually USELESS in any situation. Maybe practically useless, but not completely. ie: SCV's are practically useless as a combat unit... but we've all seen what Boxer did with them... if you run out of things to mine and build, it is possible to still get use out of your SCV's... they are never completely useless. But right now if your Thor leads an attack on an island... afterwards you've got a trapped, useless unit.

Yeah, I've actually got a lot more to say about the toss than I do the terrans. Mainly, I try not to say anything about unit balance, because I don't think any of us has access to the game as Blizzard is playing it right now; and secondly I haven't had the opportunity to play it at all yet... gameplay vids can only show you so much. So most of my ideas are more focused on unit concepts. Does the background info fit with the way the unit is portrayed? Is the unit an interesting idea? Does it make sense? etc... that type of thing. Because even though this is a game about bug-aliens, psychic aliens and sci-fi ppl duking it out... it still helps to be able to connect the dots at least somewhat.

I think I'm going to update some of the units I didn't talk about much with more concept babble in a bit. Background info is important for immersion I think.

 

Well if you want to describe the Thor as the Terran Ultralisk thats fine, I think they are somewhat similar in purpose. But please don´t describe it as XXL Siege Tank. That is just wrong. That would be like calling the Ultralisk a XXL Zergling. Siege tanks deal a lot more Damage than Thors, but have in turn much less HP.

The Terrans had nothing to punch a hole into a surperiour defensive position - creating the famous (?) Terran stalemate. That such a unit isn´t always needed is true. But it does have uses, just like the Ultralisk.

I agree that the Thor somehow needs to be able to be transported but I´d rather salvage it than let it fly around.

 

i like the random merc idea, because you only get to hire a band of mercs once in a while, and they come out with random equipments (or fixed variation) you can't mass a specific type of merc. therefore it doesn't create too many types of over specific units and the band of mercs on the whole will effectively act as one type of unit. yet it consist of separate units, which will look cool.

game play wise because each merc has similar strength to a marine, the band of merc will not be very different from a few marines in terms of power. the main point is that you can get a few of them very quickly in case of emergencies.

 

I'm wondering what you base the "siege tanks do more damage" part on?

And Terrans had nothing to punch a hole with? It wasn't that Terrans had so little power, it was that they had so much - Terrans actually could successfully turtle - neither of the other factions could. Adding Thors in doesn't change that dynamic. Just like attacking Siege Tanks in position with your own Siege Tanks was pointless... attacking a group of Siege Tanks in position with Thor support with your own Siege Tanks and Thors will be just as pointless. An attacking Thor will get Artillery Barraged into oblivion before it punches any holes.

And salvage it? iunno... just doesn't seem Terran to me. Terrans are the galactic teenagers. Just went through puberty and they wanna prove how big their gonads are. Hence units like the Battlecruiser, Nuke and Thor in the first place. While they are very adaptable, iunno if I can really see the bull mentality Terrans building their huge 'my gun is bigger than your gun' statement and then for even one moment avoid waving it in alien faces. When you build your giant machine of ultimate destruction, you're not supposed to use it for scrap metal.

glad you saw where I was going with that, I forgot to add that I was thinking it would also be good if when you train the 4 mercs, they are treated as a group... so regardless of what random combination of mercs you get - you move and attack with them 4 at a time... that way as you said, they would never get split up into specialized troop groups and over complicate something that should be simple

 

what would make the thor unique and different from the siege tank is if the thor could turn into a building which could produce a new type of terran unit that couldn't be produced by any other buildings.

 

As of Blizzcon Thors cost 300/300/6 and deal (12+12 v. Armored)*2 while Siege Tanks cost 200/125/3 and deal 50+50 v. Armored Splash damage. Keep in mind that Siege Tanks still have their huge Range too.

The only asset of the Thor is his huge HP and the 250mm, both work together to force the enemy to expend effort and firepower to take it out - over your other less durable units.

 

Hey lol, you are so rich you bought Terran Thor Already, wowow lol, awesome well i wish to buy Protoss Mothership