Thor

Giving it lift off ability would make it too strong. Why? First off it would make it very easy for Thors to get on cliffs - they would not need to wait for dropships, like siege tanks do, they can fly on their own. That would make give them to much of an advantage - melee units couldnt touch them and all ranged units will have a hard time shooting to high ground. So every time you position your forces near a cliff you fly your Thors on top of that cliff. This would force the enemy to use dropships very often and to his disadvantage and it would give the already strong Thor a lot more defense.

Second, if it could fly Thor would go around the base defenses and into the middle of enemy base. A lift off ability basically means that Thors can fly over any kind of terrain. ANY KIND of terrain - that is an insane amount of mobility. Imagine what would happen if a siege tank could just fly on its own into your base. When you get to the enemies base, instead of going for that small ramp at the entrance, you just position troops next to the cliffs and fly your Thors inside the enemy base while the rest of your army is protecting them. Thors should not be able to do that. They are tough, strong and slow moving juggernauts meant for breaking base defenses and enemy fortifications, not a unit that simply flies over the cliff and drops into the base.

So the answer still is: salvage. On island maps you can salvage Thors if you don't need them on that particular island anymore. Also, when you are playing large maps where your army has to walk a lot you can simply salvage Thors and build them elsewhere instead of waiting for them to slowly get to where the enemy is (this long wait could easely cost you a game) - lift off cant help in this situation.

 

i think your exagerating the impact of liftoff. It wont be a game braking mechanic

 

Not game breaking, no, but it strongly affects the way Thor is used. I just don't think this ability fits in what Blizzard plans this unit to be.

 

i'd rather not have them salvageable. takes too much away for the sense of the thor being a superweapon, if they can just be dismantled.

 

I agree. That's why I'm pushing for the liftoff ability. There is absolutely no way that a floating building can land unopposed in an enemy base unless that enemy is completely not paying attention. Also, I don't see why the Thor being able to utilize cliffs is such a bad thing. You can simply outrange the thing with air units, and/or land units. It's not like it's unbeatable. It would have just as much of a disadvantage of being completely stuck on that cliff as it would gain from being on it.

 

the lift off idea is not imba, buildings fly very slowly and the thor will be easy pickings for anti air units while it's in flight. remember how terran scouting buildings would get heavily damaged by even a few goliaths while trying to escape? if the thor has no where to land then the same thing would happen, and although the thor is the toughest unit, it actually doesn't have as many hp as buildings. even if it can land, landing and transforming would take a few seconds, giving the enemy enough time to heavily damage it.

 

I think people are using an obscene amount of imagination in trying to believe that a humongous helpless target happily floating its fat ass in the skies at the speed of snails all the while flashing a big sign saying shoot me NOW would somehow be imbalanced. Mind you all of this blissful glee is taking place LATE-GAME. If you don't quickly notice that helpless fatass when it tries to land on a wall over your base to jump on the chance at some good old risk-free target practice, you deserve to die.

Sure, I would really want to land one on a cliff when it's both slower to do so than simply dropping tanks as well as having a shorter range. Yeah, I would really choose to do that with my uber slow helpless fatass over keeping it in the protection of the my main army assaulting from the front. I will choose to land fatass on cliffs because I brings me unspeakable joy when the enemy spotting it, load and drop units on my landing zone before I land, and doing it dances taunting me. And yes, I sure would wait all that time to do it with fatass when tanks are both better suited for the job and available much earlier. Of course I would pass up on using tanks for that job because I like getting my expensive fatass EMPed or feedbacked in the face so it can sit helplessly with only its crappy normal attack on a wall with most important things out of reach, and with most of its HP gone from trying to get there in there first place. Yes, I really would. My ass.

If anything, all these compromises made on the liftoff ideas just to please the nay sayers should be toned down, as they make it almost useless to the point of defeating the purpose and almost impractical to use. The thor doesn't need to move as slow as SC1 buildings. Slower than SC2 buildings yes, but not as slow as SC1 buildings. You're already into late-game if you have thors, compromising the idea so it take another year just for it to get off an island is utter stupidity. I don't think it even really needs to have 0 armor(buildings generally have 1 armor btw, unless they changed it for SC2) during liftoff. You can already get way too many unanswered hits on it anyway.

Liftoff is the best idea I see out so far. It's both easy to implement and pretty balanced. If anyone is paranoid about fatass on cliffs, that's their problem. There is no reason why any ground unit can't take the position on cliffs anyway. If thors were to be lifted with dropships, you can bet that good Terran players will have some around every single time anyway. I wonder why no-one's crying about how it was horrible back in SC1 that reavers could be loaded and dropped.

 

I have never powered you up, but you are making good and long posts all the time, all of them logical and explaning. The posts in the "units that sucked" thread explaned a few things i´ve wondered about, so here you go owerup:

 

The line between overpowered and underpowered flying Thor is very very thin, either it is useless or it offsets the Thors key weakness of limited mobility.

 

Emm... I don't think so. I guess I'm sorry for having suggested compromises on the issue Remy. Lol.

Slower movement = balance.

I don't see how it affects anything at all.

 

allowing thors to be loaded into dropships is actually infinitely more powerful than allowing it to lift off, the drop ship is fast and maneuverable, and harder to spot. loading and dropping would happen instantly, instead of transforming and lifting. but i don't see people complaining that's imba, they certainly didn't when it was revealed that the colossus could be transported by the phase prism. somehow when people think "omg the thor can fly on its own" they ignores all other parts of the equation and concludes that the mechanic would be imba.

 

well to load up a colossus in a phase prism works because they are broken down into energy, and i don't think you will be able to use them as in reaver drop because it takes a little time for them to start firing

 

i don't give a pig's ass about the lore, it affects the same play all the same whether it's energy or good old cargo space. the point is if allowing colossus to be transported is not imba why is allowing thor to lift off imba? like i said in my previous post being able to be transported is actually more powerful than slow flying on its own.

 

Because reason and logic do not always rule over what people want or what they envision.

 

I fail to see the logic in the argument against thor liftoff. Having no way to get your thor off a island is a design flaw. There is currently no better idea than liftoff to address the problem.

If anyone didn't read my text wall carefully, you have better options than the thor on dropping on high ground any damn way. During liftoff, a thor is completely helpless, it poses no threat. Once it gets back on the ground and resume combat ready status, all of its original limitations apply just the same. It's not as if you can keep doing fast hit-and-run harassment with the liftoff.

 

The logic behind the argument against Thor liftoff is basically:
Thor = immobile
Liftoff = mobility

Myself I´m warming up to the liftoff Idea, I´m just worried it might loose it´s "frontal assault" theme. It will certainly have a shorter Range than Siege Tanks (wich was increased even more!).

 

gotta support Remy here... Liftoff adds minimal mobility at best... Liftoff would not let the Thor attack from an unexpected direction... There's not going to be any multidirectional Thor attacks from Liftoff tech, or backdoor Thor drops from Liftoff tech.... If anybody gets backdoored by a Thor or it comes from a direction they didn't see, well - they deserve whatever they get

Nobody does Factory drops - because they won't work... a Thor drop wouldn't work either - Liftoff would be useful to keep a Thor from becoming stuck - and that's it

 

what is "mobility"? lift off doesn't automatically mean mobility just like regeneration doesn't automatically mean longevity. the zergs had regeneration but were they tough to kill? there are other factors to take into consideration. everything is relative, sure when you compare terran buildings to zerg or protoss buildings you can say the have "mobility", but when comparing to air units, would you still call them mobile? you would certainly wish them to be more "mobile" when your cc tries to escape enemy fire in vain.

 

The part you qouted is extremely cut down. Remeber that the entire point of the Liftoff idea is to move the Thor between Islands without slowing down the entire fleet. If the Liftoff doesn´t make the Thor mobile there is no point adding it. Remy said that earlier.

 

I think where the problem arises is in the "without slowing down the entire fleet" part. Who is asking for that? Now, yes, that would be imbalanced.

I was under the impression that the point of Liftoff Tech would be to keep the Thor from getting stuck - not to let it fly around like a bumblebee.