Thor+Viking effective?

I've been thinking, and it seems to me that a Thor+Viking combo would be pretty hard to beat

Review of stats (attack speed is normal unless specified otherwise)
Thor(300 Minerals, 200 Vespene): 400 HP, 10*4 Damage against Ground, 4*4+2 vs. Armored against Air with a large AOE, if destroyed, it goes into a disabled more where it has another 400 HP, and can repair itself back to functionality.
Viking(100 Minerals, 100 Vespene): 125 HP, 10+8 vs. Light against Ground(fast), 10*2+8 vs. Massive against Air. Can switch between ground and air modes quickly, can only attack GtG or AtA.

In short, the Thor is good against heavy ground and light air, while the Viking is good against light ground and heavy air. The Thor is also capable of absorbing a huge amount of damage, and its bulk allows it to block most ground enemies from attacking the Vikings, who can switch to ground mode if light air units are present in large numbers.

Including a Nighthawk or two for detection, a Thor+Viking force can handle pretty much any enemy, with plenty of HP and good DPS vs. most units.

 

Wasn't the repair ability of the Thor scrapped? Or has it been reinstated?

It would definately be hard to beat, especially for zerg as most of thier units have trouble with a heavy terran armor attack.

 

They seem to be pretty effective but a person might counter that effectively with bunch of smaller units especially the Zerg as lings and also zealot would be most effective at taking them out if you protoss and have a lot of immortals or other heavier units this would be pretty effective.

 

Thors kill Zerglings in one hit at a normal rate of fire, Vikings kill Zerglings in two hits at a fast rate of fire. Thors can absorb up to 200 hits from Zerglings before being permanently destroyed.

Lets say you have 2 Viking and 1 Thor fight their weight in Zerglings, which would be 36. Every normal attack round, about 3 Zerglings die, 2 after the Thor takes its first 100 hits. 6 die simply closing with the Thor. Assuming favorably that 10 Zerglings can attack the Thor from the front at once, and that they attack 3 times for every normal attack round, and including the fact that the Zerglings who are actually attacking are the ones who die and require new Zerglings to move in, they will land about 25 hits every normal attack round, wherein they use 3 of their number. Hence, the Thor will be disabled after the Zerglings have been reduced to 18, and the Thor will be destroyed by the time the Zerglings are reduced to 8. 2 Vikings can easily handle 8 Zerglings.

However, keep in mind that it only gets worse for the Zerglings the larger the battles get, because it becomes easier for the enemy to make a wall, even as the percentage of Zerglings able to attack goes down, and the rate at which the Zerglings in front get killed grows even higher.

For example, with 5 Thors and 10 Vikings taking on 180 Zerglings, it wouldn't even be a contest to defeat the Zerglings.

 

Yes but battles against the zerglings won't play out face to face the zerglings will swarm the thor and the vikings forcing them to have to pivot and also by time the Thor is brought out the opponent probably will be hitting with a upgraded attack speed zergling and you keep playing that numbers game and SC2 doesn't play out that perfectly.

Not only that but i was talking about smaller units and the zerglings where just a example.

Other factors
-ambushes
-if the zerg is on the creep
-micro
-baneling 2 hits from one could spell trouble and im sure there will bound to be more
-zealots will be able to close is effectivly
-stalkers blink if microed correctly they could stay out of harms way

 

[/QUOTE]
1. Thors don't take long to pivot anymore.
2. In regards to the numbers game, as I stated, zerglings get less effective in large battles, as the enemies can form a more stable frontline, while the sheer number of Zerglings means only a limited number can actually attack, which gets worse when the enemy wipes out the whole front line of Zerglings every attack round.
3. Banelings die in 1 hit to the Thor, Vikings can fly to avoid them easily while the Thors demolish them. The Baneling isn't cost effective against them even if they all got through.
4. Creep won't matter, positioning matters.
5. Blinking won't help Stalkers any more than it normally does, eventually they will get bombarded away.

 

1.It wont just be zerglings and besides the thor will still get overwhelmed due to the insane attack speed of the zergling , the survivability of the roach, and the armor piercing of the hydralisk.
2.I doubt that zerglings are best suited in large numbers and 36 is a lot to take on for just 3 units.
3.Banelings aren't that expensive for one and it takes the vikings time to convert to their fllying mod plus if they leave it leaves the thor completely alone and also at the wrath of 36 zerglings and also he doesn't hit 35 damage 4x (he currently hits 10 x4 so he would have to hit a zergling 3 out of the 4 to take one down) so killing individual zerglings becomes long due to its slow attack CD.
4.Ahh yes it does the creep increases the health rate of the zerg units plus it makes them a hell of a lot faster so they can close of the Thor and the units much quicker.
5.Ya maybe not but you could blink out of range of the thor with each stalker and if not microed properly as we saw in the beginning of battle report 1 it will draw the fire of the thor.

Im not saying that this combo is bad it just has the downfall of getting hit by smaller units unless you have some marines or hellions along for the ride.

 

we are listening to paper while we are in Alpha stage and knowing that Blizzard likes to change everything without telling us much of anything? i say we wait til Starcraft 2 is in Beta and is close to the release date of the game before we listen to the paper.

@Bthammer45: No where in the whole life of Starcraft 2 that we know has it been stated that the Zerg heal faster on creep. it is not in the game and i dont believe that Blizzard will put it into the game.

 

Im about 75% sure that they do but i can't remember where i heard it but it was from multiple references just cant remember what site or sites i saw it on .

 

it does not, Blizzard never said that they added it and i think they would since they talked about how creep is able to damage buildings, and also when they said it increase the speed of all zerg ground units(except Drones). in all of the builds that Jon got to play in was it not in.

it started as a rumor and everyone either silently thought it be true or didnt, and as that nothing in each of the game builds(or the developers themselves) said that it is indeed in the game. so it be false.

 

Herm... *scratches head*
Well scratch what i said about that but the fact still remains that a thor and 2 vikings couldn't take on 36 zerglings or any other combination smaller units.

 

Was incorporated into calculations. I assumed that for every 1 attack by the Thor, a Viking attacks twice, and a Zergling attacks 3 times. (remember, Vikings attack at Marine speed)

Banelings cost 3 times as much as Zerglings but with the same durability. So, for example, you could have 6 Banelings and 18 Zerglings, but then the Banelings would get wiped out easily.

Vikings change quite fast, they aren't like the Siege Tank. In the mean time, it would take 600 Minerals worth of Banelings to disable the Thor, and another 525 Minerals or so to kill it. Given the size of Thor, you won't splash much either. The Thor also will be happily killing 75 Minerals an attack round against Banelings.

All 4 shots are done simultaneously. This can be clearly seen in videos. The only unit in the game that ever fired a multi attack at multiple units is the Mothership.

Thus, a Thor will kill Zerglings and Banelings in one hit.

And why would the Terran units attack the Zerg there? They'd probably send a token Siege Tank or two to both the Zerg until they advance if the Zerg refused to attack until they wandered onto the creep.

Vikings are effective at taking on Light units. They do as much damage as the Hellion, but exchange the AOE for 2 more range and a faster attack speed, not to mention the ability to shift to air mode.

 

we need to take in more units and air units
think of this scenario 1 Thor 2 Vikings
The Vikings are being attacked by 2 Swarm Guardians 1 transforms to take them, out the remaining viking and thor are then attacked by 10 zerglings, 6 roaches, 2 hydralisk which compleatly destroy them, when the viking reaches the Swarm Guardians which retreat then as it is about to attack 12 hydralisk pop up and tear the viking apart.
Final conclusion: Strategy wins the war

 

Wodan Starcraft tries to make the races as unique and asymmetric as possible, so it's logical that if you don't take all the factors influencing a battle into consideration then you'll come to a false conclusion.

Zerg would obviously aim for a battle in the open field, where there would be no frontline at all, and where all the zerglings could attack at the same time, in which case 36 zerglings would be more than enough to deal with those 3 units. And if the Terran manages to bring the battle to a choke by some magic, there's always lurkers.

 

I take it as a great sign that there's this much debate about the thor, because I think the potential for it to be broken is massive. With people constantly going around about how he counters x, but y counters him, he'll be just about right. We'll need to scout and use him properly, not just use him as an all purpose tank.

 

The force you described costs 1950 resource, not counting the dozen Hydralisks at the end.

So, to be fair, you would have 2 Thors and 5 Vikings fighting that.

Summary
Zerglings: Dies in 1 Thor shot, 2 Viking shots
Roach: Dies in 2 Thor shots
Guardian: Dies 13 in shots from either (Thor does AOE with great range)
Hydralisk: Dies in 2 Thor shots, 5 Viking Shots

The Thors bombard the Guardian and the Vikings switch to air mode. Upon seeing the Hydras, the Thors blow them away, once the Guardians are down, the Vikings land and provide fire support. Things will get dicey if both Thors are disabled and the Roaches are still alive, it might be better for the Thors to kill the Roaches first, and hope that the Vikings land soon enough to stop the Zerglings.

 

Thor can't attack the guardians its over water a viking goes over could possibly be destroyed by 4-6 hydras if both vikings attack a sizeable army of zerglings hydras and roaches could destroy 1 thor maybe a few guardians behind the army which could overpower 1 Thor.

 

The Thor has a 10 range on air units the guardian has a 8 range.

 

This strategy sounds like a good one, but personally I wouldnt JUST have a few thor and viking. I would try to make sure I would also have proper air support, such as maybe some banshee's, a nighthawk for detection and maybe a battlecruiser if they bring out their queen.

In that situation I would just think * oh s*** * i their gonna get owned, since the zerg would have a lot of units, and sometimes a LOT of units can throw someone into a panic. IT has for me if im versing my friend and he uses hallucinations in Sc1, and then I get so panicked I forget to micro! So then my units get owned. Since when was the Thor disabled once it gets hit a certain amount of times, then destroyed later? Never heard that before...and what if the enemy had a bigger army? and if they had a nearby overseer they could bring in some nydus worms, bring in lots of units and OWN you.

 

then attack the vikings.

I always found it so easy to move your guys around when you had so many in your base to make them all go towards the nydus canal instead of making them all go by hand.

I wonder if you make a zergling 2 pop out one dies the other lives you have exactly 399 zerglings but don't have any supply if you could make a zergling then you would have 200 1/2 supply of units does that count?