The Immortal's Hardened Shield: Possibility that it could be micro managed

In this thread http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/index.php?topic=1359.0 we see a Screenshot of Terran Marines and Siege Tanks attack Protoss Immortals. An interesting part of the unit statistics for the particular Immortal chosen was that in the left hand side we can see the Top Right Corner two Shield Icons. Now it may just be me, but would it seem likely that it could be one Shield Icon to activate the Hardened Shield and One to Activate the Normal Shield. Though this counteracts the fact that Blizzard has made the Immortal seem to have a Auto Defense against Heavy Assaults and Auto Weakness while in Heavy Assault Function to minor assualts, but if this can be micro managed to set the shield to absorb both a normal and heavy glance the versatility of the Immortal could be increased to be more functional than the Dragoon. Although this is all speculation considering that screenshot was from a past article showcasing how the Siege Tank looks pre the announced Redesign at Blizzcon. It could introduce a new element to the Protoss cast of Units seeing as most look to not need all that much Micro imo. Just another thought provoking notation. ;D

 

i think it is just a passive ability like charge for zealots.

 

I do agree that the Immortal would be extremely hard to micro manage especially in groups if my speculated use for those two Shield Icons was correct, but its all speculation and I hope someone comes up with a better answer . I'm just for all intent purpose posting what I've found and giving a reasonable answer.

 

Stop speculating, I gaurantee the immortals shield will be passive theyll be useless if its not, and in the demo video the shield activates automatically and there is no cooldown. the immortal doesnt have energy either so what would this shield run off of, why would you need to activate it if it would just last forever.

 

Why should he stop speculating? That's a good find and his answer seems very logical. Although they would be a huge pain in the ass, and more of a burden to the average player, this would make the Immortals so useful when used by a pro. Another possibility is that maybe the Immortal's hardened shield can only block so many blasts. That would be lame, but those shield icons could point to that Immortal only having two blocks left.

 

Well I compare the Hardened Shield Ability of the Immortal to say that of a Siege Tank switching between Siege Mode and Tank Mode. In that it has two modes without a cooldown, although, it would take time to switch between shields just as a Siege Tank takes time to switch between Siege Mode and Tank Mode. As I agree there is nothing that shows the Immortal as having a energy period the Shield would have a Surge that would make the Immortal go to a non-shielded state for a moment. I also meant that the Shield would be Switchable between the Hardened Shield lasting until either A. It runs out of Hardened Shield and the normal shield comes into play. B. The Immortal's hull Hp is lost by small fire. Or a Normal Shield that will lose damage regardless of the impact damage and kill the Immortal in the same way. Though, the Immortal could have this feature of switching between Shields while remaining in Auto Defense Mode. Take this scenario into example. Your Immortals are under fire by Siege Tanks. The Siege Tanks keep firing and you lose little to no Shield. Now waves of Marines enter the Field and your Immortal now are being decapitated by them. Sacrificing the Hardened Shield for the normal shield on half your Immortals your now protected from small arms fire with them. Although you still get bombarded by the tanks half of your Immortals can now take the damage from Marines allowing you to now focus on the tanks without worrying about the Marines that enter the field as much as before as your other Immortals can now handle them.

 

You get both automatically...The hardened shield absorbs something like 800 "heavy" weapon dmg and will absorb that dmg untill it runs out. The normal shields are just like any other protoss, they are a bit of rechargable HP that small arms fire (and if the heavy shield was broken through) and everything else will hit before getting to the actual unit.

So in other words...you get both shields all the time, its just that the hardened shield only activates with harder hits.

 

if the hardend shield absorb 800, then has 160 hp/shield outside of that, then it would have "960hp" vs a tank...thats 13tank shots if they still do 75dmg...13hits, "blinks"

 

I think the hardened shield works like this: It doesn't have quantity as the regular shield and absorbs a percentage of the damage the immortal receives above a certain amount of damage, but it's only activated if there is at least 1 point of regular shield. IIRC the immortals last quite some time under siege so I'd estimate a 60-70% damage absorption with a minimum damage of 30 for it to activate.

 

I read on wiki that it shields like 10 damage or something. Doesn't make sense though. I like the idea with the percentage thing though. And yes it does go away over time as shown in the gameplay vid. ;D ;D

 

So no one really knows if there's a cooldown period in which the unit can't fire when the hardened shield is activated?

Also, I assume that if there IS an additional shield on top of the original shield and the tank would have to hit the unit 13 times as was stated earlier, that they would increase tank damage and slow their rate of fire. Who knows what Blizzard will do with it, but this certainly adds a fun twist of things.

I can see that the Immortals will easily fill the hole the Dragoons have left behind.

 

In the demo it shows the immortals fireing on the siege tanks while the tank shots bounce (almost) harmlessly off thier hardened shields.

 

i dont think microing the 2 type shields of the immortal(assuming they have 2) is hard. the issue is it would be imba if you can switch shields of the immortals. .

 

I get the feeling, at least from watching the demo, that it's a passive ability. I think it's just a hardened shield that absorbs a much higher percentage per blast when the damage is received from a siege tank. I think the immortals, given this ability, might serve as very powerful units to approach well guarded Terran outposts like chokepoints and what not. Just have the Immortals walk in front, absorbing most of the Siege Tank firepower, while the zealots and whatever else charge full force once they get there.

 

How would you be able to micro a large group of them? And during the demo the guy said that it activates when hit by a powerful attack. Also it appeared that they stayed green even when it was close to death.

I can't think of anything right now but the shield is not something that can be turned on and off..

 

So what attack actually constitutes the activation of the harder shields?

Siege tanks.... reavers, battlecruisers, etc?

 

It might just be that the icons inform the player of the existance of the hardened shield. If you look at the single zealot (the only other unit with an icon like that) It looks like either something that informs you of the charge ability or something along those lines.

So it would be my guess that those icons show reasearched upgrades that aren't activated abilities to the unit. (Like the hardened shield upgrade might be shown beneath the default hardened shield icon, thus resulting in the double shield icon we saw)

 

microing them is easy but the effectiveness is not always perfect no matter how good you are because of many type of enemy units your dealing with. but at least you guarantee yourself a few immortal deaths etc. its kinda imba to me, switching to hardened shield to take out siege tanks and then switch back if reapers or marines comes in. or mix both if you are dealing against random type of enemy units. its imba, hardened shield(passive) is enough.

 

Everything seems to be right with my previous assumption except for the minimum damage needed to activate the hardened shield. Seeing the new screenshots and videos I'd hazard the guess that even a marine's attack is enough to activate it, which, seeing as a lot of the unit statistics (zealot and gateway hp for example) are the same as in SC1, would be around 5-7 points of damage. If this is true then the immortal could prove to be an extremely tough unit. From terrans only reapers would be able to damage it with full potential, protoss wouldn't as they have expensive units with increased hp and damage. I think the immortal would only be weak against the zerg with masses of small damage lobbed at it.
I just hope for the shield battery, the ultimate strategic building, to make it into SC2! Shield battery + Immortal = death to all 8)

 

Shield batteries aren't coming back. Are you sure that even a marine can activate the harden shield? Besides there is another way of countering that build, just build all reapers and when the thiny units come in, throw the D8s (Also known as reaper bombs.) They only blow up in 10 seconds and it is overexagurated that they blow up in 30 seconds. Oh yeah, they don't plant the bomb like I said in earlier posts (Not here). Oh wait it might work if you send in a bunch of carriers or something lol.
*Throws bomb on carrier.*
Carrier guy: Oh #$@!!
(Exaguration)