Thor Redesign

I had planned to put this in the next version of my 'Terran Review', but here goes...

The current problem is that the Thor overlaps in roles with both the Siege Tank and the Battlecruiser somewhat. As Blizzard envisioned it, the Thor was a direct assault mech. While Siege Tanks stand at a distance and pound the enemy, the Thor batters in the front door and creates a gap for other attackers to flood thru.

Now we all know that a number of Starcraft units come from popular sci-fi concepts, and so I suggest that the Thor be based around a sort of Transformers-esque model. What does this mean? Well, recall that while the Transformers have weapon systems, often they simply clash fist to fist.

Therefore, I suggest a complete redesign in the base concept for the Thor, in harmony with previous ideas suggested. Instead of attempting to design the ultimate fighting mech, the Thor should be based around the Terrans wishing to build a more fear-inspiring nuclear weapons platform. Take the nuke away from the Ghost (they have a ton of abilities already - when I post the revised review I'll include some suggestions on how to better use Ghosts), and give it to the Thor as a much more terrifying direct threat. The Thors high hit points and armor are balanced against it's later availability, inability to hide, and slower movement.

Now the new portion of this idea appears now: Let the Thors normal attacks be melee based. The Thor is supposed to be the Terran battering ram, make the Terrans use it as such. With it's enormous health, and powerful armor, the Thor can survive to engage in melee. It would be powerful against buildings, swarms of units and other large ground units; but small squads of ground attackers could do disproportionate damage to it, and air units would be it's weakness. The Thor would stump across the battlefield, ready to smash, stomp and rend whoever got in it's way. With a huge resource investment, it would stand back, deliver the most powerful attack known to mankind, and then surge in to finish the enemy off. Why not let the Terrans giant metal fist be a... giant metal fist?

Finally, the Thor should be able to research "Liftoff Tech", (Joneagle_X idea) to be equipped with the same technology that Terran buildings use. While airbourne, the Thor would move absurdly slow, be basically powerless (it could still attack - but with it's short range and slow speed, it would be extremely unlikely to actually hit any air unit), and take increased damage from ground forces as normally guarded vital elements would be exposed to potential fire. This technology would however prevent the Thor from becoming trapped on an island, and would perhaps give a potential for greater tactical use.

Discuss.


Bonus 400 minerals for a great post

 

i dunno man, its all too wordy.

i mean, your not only suggesting to take the nuke form the ghosts (which would be kinda weak) but you are basically craming as many words as possible into the post....

btw, many reps at Blizz have already said that they are releasing all necessary tools for fans to create THEIR OWN SC, so your concepts could very well be implemented should you choose to go through the work of creating them.

 

Thor is huge, and slow, to be melee, a unit has to be fast to be able to close the distance.

Also having a mechanical unit with tons of HP and a nuke is overpowered, imagine 3-4 Thors going into your base under defensive matrix dropping nukes while being nano repaired.

I'll have to vote no on this idea.

 

i like this idea.
If the Thor gained this ability, however, I think it should gain no armor modifications, and take damage it would take damage the same (considering its now an air unit,) and not be able to attack at all. It would be just like a building seeing as how its built like one.

Then again I'm sure Blizzard made the Thor the way they did for a reason. You probably wouldn't make a Thor until late game, at which point one would hope you know the map your on and where your ememies are, and therefor build it in an appropriate spot.
Also if you've seen the Terran Game play demo:

http://www.starcraft2.com/movies.xml

The Thor builds very quickly, probably with the thought that you would often build it in enemy territory.

Edit: spelling and:

And I'm sorry but I just can't see the Ghost loosing Nuke. The Nuke is what made the Ghost so powerful in SC, to just change that, and make him ONLY a sniper would just be...

 

I don't think the Thor should be made into a melee assault unit, since I highly doubt the Terran are capable of making an effective close combat mech. For instance the Transformers are partially alive, and so they are much more nimble than a machine that someone built and so it's realistic for them to fight hand to hand. IMO the Terran aren't able to make such a nimble machine since the technology required to do that is well beyond their capabilities (it's in Protoss territory here). The Thor should stay a shooty unit, it just needs to be rethought a bit.

However I really like the idea of the Thor being able to lift off, you would be able to surprise attack a base by flying over a canyon or lake to hit their base directly. It would obviously have to be extremely vulnerable when in flight, but it would be a nice addition.

 

Hmmm, I wrote a simple suggestion on Thor poll topic and the other also about the Thor. Perhaps you'll like it. It's quite simpler than changing all this. It is about making Artillery functioning by bullet shopping, similarly to scarabs, decreasing the intervals between uses, increasing the effectiveness of it (since it no longer can be stopped by EMP shockwave) and creating a decent toll, which is the money spent for each time it fires. It also diminishes the need for many Thor units, as one alone would spend a lot of cash reloading, but could fire a lot faster than waiting for the energy to refill.

Furthermore, it sets it apart from Siege-tanks and BCs, not only for its AoE long range skill, but also for its high cost and effectiveness. Thor could be an extra money applied to break through stacked defenses, and if not used properly, would spend a lot of cash uselessly. Definitely, an anti-ground artillery.

I didn't wanted to create a topic specifically on this, since there were already so many, but I get myself rewriting it so often lately (posted in 3 different topics, counting this one) that it might be more practical just to do that. lol

 

Ah yet another Thor redesign topic. That liftoff idea isn't new but still a good one.

I think it's main attack should stay basically the same. But I think it's special attack should be some kind of electrical or shockwave attack fitting of the units name.

 

The point being to explain the concept as fully as possible with one post, instead of leaving elements out and having to repeat oneself many times, thus in the final analysis having a much higher word count.

I disagree. The huge hit point total is an alternate solution to speed. ie: Civil War Ironclad type concept. Instead of relying on being too fast to be hit, you are simply so strong that hitting you won't stop you.

Maybe I should have left the nuke and liftoff points out of this topic, they've already been extensively discussed elsewhere. The consensus being that the scenarios offered as proof of the concepts being overpowered border on paranoia.

Well, I know that the Nuke was part of the Ghost identity, but he would gain an ability to make up for it - I just didn't go into it because this thread is about the Thor.

I was under the impression that the Thor had a pilot?

That's an interesting balance level suggestion, but it doesn't really solve the role overlap issue - which is the reason Blizzard is considering cutting the unit.

 

@ Chax424 - in the Terran demonstration video, Blizzard was purposely speeding up the construction of the Thor so that the spectators would not have to sit there and watch it be built. The Thor would realistically take much longer to build. Blizzard does little 'cheating' things in all of their demo videos in order to better show off the units and sometimes direct gameplay is not reflected.

NateSMZ, I think this is a pretty neat idea. It would definitely get rid of the overlap between the Thor and the Siege Tank, and with the liftoff ability that has also been spoken of in other threads would be a serious force to be reckoned with. However, the Ghost should definitely keep the Nuclear Launch ability. A - it is classic, and B - the mechanism is perfect.

Another ability I thought of that could be added to your idea would be something that could be called Crush. After an airborne Thor has found a good location to land, it could slam down with enough force to damage the units beneath it. I think that would be sweet. To compensate though, I would remove its ability to attack air units while in transit.

 

Crush does sound interesting, and could provide the secondary attack mechanism. A floating Thor would be a sitting duck target, but if you could get it into position - it would come down with the Crush attack and pulverize whatever was beneath it, in addition to sending out shockwaves in an area.

I think I'll edit the original post...

 

What if the thor gained treads instead of having to walk everywhere? With Treads it would be able to move in a line at a decent speed, and it would also have the ability to rotate its body around so it can attack in all directions. The downside is that it takes a long time for it to change directions as the thor has to raise it self up and twist the treads in the new direction.

To piggy back off the crush idea...I think it would be neat to have a ground pound ability that hurts units really close to the thor, but farther away the shockwave just stuns units on the ground, but not hover units like the cobra.

 

Personaly I've always thought that terran buildings and the thor should be able to land on any unit and squash it. It would save some zergling rush problems
AoE would only be what it landed on not around it... that would be anoying...

(basicaly instead of showing the landing site red make it green with red dots for units in the way... yes you can squash your own too if you aren't careful)

 

Just because the Thor has a pilot it doesn't mean the Thor itself is agile. A pilot can only be as quick as the machine he's piloting, pretty much like a gosu SC player using a 15 year old computer, he can only go as fast as that thing will let him. What I'm saying is that the Terran are incapable of making a close combat machine that can actually hit it's target since it will be too massive and slow.

Terran need to stick to ranged combat, it's what they do best.

 

I'm not sure how they're supposed to be able to target anything if they're as clumsy as you imply. If they're skilled enough to aim and hit a Zergling running hundreds of yards away, why don't they have the tech to kick one when it gets close? Their mass actually helps them some... with the Thor being so absurdly large, it'd be hard for it NOT to stomp on something when it's foot came down.

 

A Thor as a melee unit? I don't thinck so. Have you seen it't turn rate? It has to be fast and agile.
Also, it's role is that of a heavy support unit, now you are changing it into a heavy assault unit.

I know you thinck it overlaps to much, but the BC is capable of flight, and the ST is used as a defensive unit to. The Thor won't be used as much as a defence since it's to slow to react fast enough, especially against the Zerg.

As for giving the Thor a Nuke ability, that's pretty cool, but don't remove it from the Ghost. Just let the Thor use a nuke differently. For instance: it's a huge unit, so it needs a lot of power. Therefore you would need a big nuclear like reactor. So just add some kind of meltdown to it! When the Thor is destroyed, it has a small blast radius around it, damaging everything.
This could also be triggered as an ability, where the pressure would build up for an even bigger explosion. But then you would first have to move it into a base, and when it's destroyed while building up pressure, it doesn't explode at all. Voila.

Your last idea, the liftoff, isn't that great either, let me explain:
The Thor is built by MCV's, those are capable of being transported. You will have to carefully thinck about where to built a Thor, but you don't need any facilities for it. So if you get stuck on an island, that's your fault. It's just for the sake of balance to not have the liftoff ability.

 

Blizzard says the Thor is a heavy assault unit, not me. When people first brought up the Thor and Siege Tank overlap, Blizzard said they wanted the Thor to be used more for leading assaults, while the Siege Tank was artillery. And yeah, personally I don't agree much with the Battlecruiser overlap... but once again, those are Blizzards words, not mine - I don't think we can argue with them about how they envision the unit.

Why does a melee unit have to be fast and agile? The Ultralisk sure wasn't agile. The Thor is much tougher, and thus doesn't need to be fast either.

Your Nuke twist is an interesting idea.

And the nuke and liftoff have both been extensively discussed in other threads, I was just lumping all the ideas together in one place.

 

Hmm, you could always talk to Karune or someone like that on the Battle.net forum if you want to talk to someone of the Blizzard staff.

And the Ultralisk is pretty fast if you upgrade it at the ultralisk cavern, and not even that expensive. But I agree with you on the fact that the Thor is much thougher, I just don't see it fighting in a melee style.

Maybe I will start a new topic on the reactor idea sometime.

 

The Thor should remain as a heavy bombardment type unit, and not be changed to having a melee attack. Terran have excelled, and always excelled, in their ranged attacks. If they were going to suddenly experiment with a melee type units, it would not be as big nor as expensive as the Thor. Also, I hate the idea of the Thor being given a Nuke. Even if the Ghost gets to keep his Nuke, the Thor should not have one. The Bombardment ability is basically a slightly weaker Nuke that effects a smaller area. Besides, if the Thor had a Nuke, how on Earth would you stop it? It obviously wouldn't have to wait until the plane was flying over to drop the Nuke, like the Ghost does, which means that it would be instantly fired directly out of the Thor. Also, if there was a time delay between commencing the Nuclear Launch, and the firing of the Nuke, it would not give enough time for the opponent to destroy the Thor before the Nuke is launched. That is the beauty of the Ghost having the Nuke! It is such a delicate unit, and if found out, it is easily dispatched. The Nuke is an extremely powerful weapon, that costs a lot, and takes a lot of time to prepare, and it can all fail in an instant. This would not happen with the Thor, so it the Nuke would have to be nerfed, so that it isn't overpowered, so it would basically end up as the Bombardment ability that it already has!
I do not like the idea of the Thor being a melee unit, and I don't like the idea of it having the Ghost's Nuke. The lift off idea could work, except I think that being able to lift off would increase it's maneuverability, when it is supposed to be a unit that is awkward to move.

 

Just look at my idea then. >.< NateSMZ thincks it's interesting to. It wouldn't be like a nuke that way, but is has the same effect, it's just used in an entirely different way...

 

Nice idea, Transformers like unit, Liftoff tech

This idea seems to be from Warhammer 40k....well a bit but i like the idea, of the melee type of unit instead being a strong ranged unit just like every other units, this would be the only unique source of melee for the Terrans but really this is the Terran's style, 'range combat' instead of close combat, but this melee idea gives us a new unique style of the Terrans by just one unit...interesting but every other new units for SC2 shows new unique style anyway

Your Liftoff idea is good, i was thinking to make it like Reapers were the Thor could use the new IK system (is this the name of the system where they go over differ level of platforms?) but i thought it would take over the Reaper's role,
I'm just saying this because to let the other people know if they had this idea