the Thor, a hypocritical goliath

On the lore page for Vikings was that it was an upgrade from the Goliath because of its lack of mobility compared to air units it was supposed to shoot down. Now the Thor is, still I think, a GtA AoE unit that cannot be loaded into a drop ship and is fairly slow, effectively making it THE LEAST maneuverable unit in the game. Am I wrong or is there a gap in the logic here?

 

The lore isn't final and could change any moment.

Anyways, that's just lore. The lore says the Goliath was getting really bad and that's the reason the Viking was introduced, but look back at SC and you'll see it's quite useful. The lore can't just come and say "Terrans don't have a GtA gap anymore!". Because they still might have. And that's what the Thor did - it filled that empty space.
Obviously Blizzard can balance its lack of mobility. The unusually long range is one way.

 

Yeah, according to Starcraft Wiki the Thor is able to shoot at a swarm guardian before the Guardian is even within attack range!

I'd be quite surprised if Blizzard made the Thor incapable of being transported by dropship. the size factor doesn't make any more sense with the Ultralisk OR the colossus, so why bother?

 

Well for transport the colossus gets turned into energy, the ultraslisk i'm guessing just has a tight squeeze in the transport sacs of overlords, as for the Thor unless the dropships develop giant claws to pick a Thor up and move it I doubt it will ever be transportable.

 

The thor never filled the goliath's role though. It's GtA, but a different type. Goliaths killed ships like Wraiths and battlecruisers; Wraiths had no protection against them (as long as the defender had detection) and their AtG sucked as well so Goliaths by themselves kept Wraith raiding to a minimum. Goliaths weren't that great against units like mutalisks though. Thors, by contrast, slaughter mutalisks, are decent against units like Vikings, and suck vs battlecruisers. Just by being more expensive, they give AtG a better chance.

The Thor is less mobile, but has even more range. (More than Charon Missiles.) But that's not really the point; Vikings can take off and deal AtA instead of using a goliath's GtA; presumably, the Dominion thinks this is better.

I hope Blizzard fixes the thor transport. IMO, a dropship should be able to carry one, perhaps with an animation where it carries the thor underneath it.

 

Where is the love for the thor.....

How come when anyone starts a thread with a thor,, it always says something like,, - uhmmm i think its like the goliath, its the same with the tank!, its too unterranish!.... or something neg. like that...

well, Im not really a fan of the thor but so far it seems that everyone agrees that it is the most un polished unit out of the whole game... anyway I just hope that the big transformer will be updated at the next blizzcon

 

Transformers robots in disguise, sorry I just thought of Thor like Optimus Prime, except not as cool as him.

 

The Thor is not, and will never be, a Goliath, nor does it serve the same role. Let me establish some vital differences between the two. One of them can kill an Archon in 1 on 1 combat. One of them has more HP per Resource than any unit in the game, including Zerglings and Zealots. One of them can outrange Guardians. One of them is capable of being a one unit meat shield barrier that heals itself when damaged beyond a certain point. The other one can't do those things.

 

uhmmm which other one are we talking about here?? hahaha, no goliaths to compare to anyway..
Base on those points I may have to say that the thor could possibly be opted only against the zerg mutas strike eh??

other than that.... uhhm what did they say its function was??

 

The function was to lead assaults, like a "proper tank" (the siege tank isn't a proper tank).

 

The Thor, in my view, is just a giant defensive weapon meant to take a beating while the weaker units to most of the damage.

 

Nope, it has considerable amount of attack and defence and is capable of unleashing destructive fire power.

 

Maybe you've seen footage I haven't but last time I watched it in a battle it was taken down pretty quick and didn't do much damage.

 

Like an utralisk.

"Maybe you've seen footage I haven't but last time I watched it in a battle it was taken down pretty quick and didn't do much damage."

View the WWI footage. It was awesome there.

I've seen thors used poorly and dying in some videos. They're slow, so if you let them walk in a line, they can get killed one by one.

 

Well, this thread received a lot more attention then I had originally anticipated. Honestly I expected about 4-5 replies.
Anyway, I would like to say thanks for clearing up a few misconceptions I had about the Thor, I'll admit I had forgotten the range on the missile launchers. However lacking the bombardment ability it once had, both the GtA and GtG ones, it seems rather... ineffectual for its size and cost, however I hadn't known about its heaths cost effectiveness, lastly I have noticed that it is more effective against things the viking is weaker than in terms of armor vulnerabilities, such as BC's and the suchlike.
I truly like the Thor it is just a small bit of disillusion since seeing it transform so much from its earthshaking entrance back when it was first announced.

 

re

I thought the Thor was now strictly an AA unit?

 

You thought wrong.

Seriously, the thor misconceptions are irritating. If people want to criticize the thor, fine, but they should know what they're talking about first.

 

I would like the Thor to be able to counter all air units from mutalisks to carriers and motherships. It didn't matter to me if the Thor has crappy ground attack. I also wouldn't mind if Blizzard made the Thor a superunit so long as the Thor is effective against all air units.

Lets look at SC1 and SC2. In SC1, I have the Wraith and Goliath to counter heavy air units. Now in SC2, I can only rely on Viking to do so... For me this is really unfair...Hence this justifies the need of the Thor being able to counter heavy air as well as light air. We need one for gta and ata...

 

I don't see how that makes sense. The Viking can destroy a battlecruiser even more effectively than a goliath or Wraith (it does 36 damage vs massive units!) and by transforming into an air unit, has more mobility than the goliath as well.

(Unlike in StarCraft I, anti-air is not so nasty that transforming from ground to air would be so nasty.)

As for the ground attack, I would expect such a huge unit with huge arm cannons to do high damage vs ground. (The thor can do as much as 80 damage vs ground units before attack upgrades.)

 

Honestly I wouldn't know if Vikings are more effective than Wraiths and Goliaths in countering capital ships. But the 36 damage is just pure numbers. Mebbe u have oredi tested by playing the demo in Blizzcon. But since I nvr try it b4, I m doubtful..This is becoz Wraiths has the capability to cloak which made it very formidable against capital ships. On the other hand Goliath range is further than the Viking on ata. So therefore from my current judgement, both are better choices in countering capital ships rather than viking. Of coz I may be wrong....I stand corrected...

Actually what I want is simple..IF SC1 has 2 units to counter heavy air, why not SC2? Therefore I want the Thor to be able to counter capital ships too. But the 4 x 4 damage seems too low..One is for ata and the other must be gta...I like to follow some things based on SC1.