Units that sucked!

That's why you mix units, don't you? You just fight with what you have.... not like you're gonna run away for an enemy to attack your base when you have a a group of zerglings...

 

roflmao. I sense somebody trying to reach 200 000 min...

 

In StarCraft, all units have their uses - there are no "useless" units. Everything has its strengths and weaknesses - Terran Marines for instance, are the first offensive Terran unit, yet they are used nearly everywhere. Protoss Reavers, these are pure evil when they are used in the "Reaver Recall" tactic. Zerg Queens - once again these are excellent - especially when used in conjunction with a Defiler and Hydralisks against ranged units: Battlecruisers, Carriers, etc...

No units outright suck...

 

except scouts.

 

yes
YES
I wasted so much money on scouts so often before i gave up on them

 

Scouts are good for making fast behind-enemy-lines ground raids that other units just can't pull off. You'll see the Terran and Zerg counterparts (Wraith and Mutalisk) being used for this, but rarely Scouts. The main problem is that most of their firepower is in anti-air, even though the Corsair and Carrier already cover that, and the fact that they cost nearly as much as an unarmed Carrier.

 

well wtf else am i gonna do I'm blockaded by siege tanks and need to get rid of them and don't want to spend the money for carriers

 

Nikzad, use Dark Templars.

Carrier: 350 Minerals, 250 Gas
Scout: 275 Minerals, 125 Gas
Difference: -75 Minerals, -125 Gas Scout

Carrier: Ground Attack 6 (times number of interceptors), Air Attack 6 (times number of Interceptors) (Attack Damage of 48 includes 8x25 Minerals required for Interceptors) (11.46 Minerals per attack point, 5.21 Gas per attack point)
Scout: Ground Attack 8, Air Attack 28 (34.38 Minerals per Ground Attack point, 15.63 Gas per Ground Attack point, 9.82 Minerals per Air Attack point, 4.46 Gas per Air Attack point)
Difference with full interceptors: Ground +40, Air +20 Carrier

Carrier HP/Shields: 300/150 (4 Armor) (1.16 Minerals per HP, 2.33 Minerals per Shield Point, 87.5 Minerals per Armor point / 0.83 Gas per HP, 1.66 Gas per Shield Point, 62.5 Gas per Armor point)
Scout HP/Shields: 150/100 (0 Armor) (1.83 Minerals per HP, 2.75 Minerals per Shield Point / 0.83 Gas per HP, 1.25 Gas per Shield Point)
Difference: +150/+50 (+4 Armor) Carrier

Carrier Range: 8 (43.75 Minerals per range point / 31.25 Gas per range point)
Scout Range: 4 (68.75 Minerals per range point / 31.25 Gas per range point)
Difference: +4 Carrier

Based on cost/benefit analysis, Carrier wins
The only edge the Scout has is in air attack.
However the carrier also attacks faster.

 

IS the Scout 275? I thought It was around the 150-75 mark...

 

Yes, I just rechecked it on the StarCraft official page before making that post

 

In that case the cosairs are also not all that useful. The disruption web's lasting time have been decreased dramatically through patches, meaning the player have to destroy the static defenses as soon as possible. And their weak 5 damage of makes them pretty useless too. Their only "real" use is to harrass lone overlords or other transport unit.

 

Corsairs are good in packs. Which they can have since they are only 150 minerals/100 gas. And their cool down is 8 (milliseconds?) in comparison to the scout's 22 cooldown. So, the corsair gets in 2.75 shots for every 1 shot the scout makes (which is 13.75 damage)
So thats:
Corsair: 10.9 Minerals per damage point and 7.27 Gas per damage point
Scout: 9.82 Minerals per Air Attack point, 4.46 Gas per Air Attack point
This gives the scout a slight advantage in terms of minerals and shows that the Corsair is pretty gas heavy. However, it does not take into account the splash damage which becomes more effective the more Corsairs there are. So, taking splash into account the Corsair is more effective vs. air in terms of mineral cost.

 

in the really old starcraft versions it was like 300 minerals....(i think?)
lol nice cost/benefit analysis.... but heck im gonna keep accounting/finance clear away from sc =/
im sure scouts attack at like 1.5x faster than interceptors though

EDIT: i just saw your post above. all you needed to say was you never see nal_ra using scouts so gg!

 

Finally got my internet back up. Time to reply the replies.

My rant was about units that sucked first of all, not units that were useless. There is moot point in arguing uselessness, because it doesn't exist for any unit in the game. Even critteres are useful for parasiting for instance.

Infested terran still suck with burrowing considered. That late in the game, that high in the tech tree, it doesn't make it very useful. Start believing that people use detectors. If random burrowing was useful at all, let alone choke burrowing, you would see random spider mining later in the game, but you don't. Burrowing after mid-game against a player intermediate or higher is pretty much for isolating irradiated units.

=======================
ATTACK/ARMOR UPGRADES
=======================

Someone asked about attack/armor upgrades, I feel like touching on that.

Again, as mainly a Zerg player, I'll explain it in Zerg terms. Even though upgrades are expensive and you can make additional units with that money, they will turn the tide of battle.

For example, two Zerg players both went mutas, and one carelessly upgraded attack first, while the other upgraded armor like you're suppose to. If all other conditions were pretty much equal for both players, the armor up'd mutas will beat out the attack up'd mutas.

If you understand how mutas attack, you'll know their bounce attack hits for 9-3-1 initially(1/3 for each subsequent hit). The attack up'd mutas will hit for 10-3-1 after the first upgrade, because mutas have an attack mod of 1. Only the first hit is effected because 1/3 of 10 after rounding is still 3. The armor up'd mutas will gain one armor, so 1 point of damage will be reduced from every incoming attack. Since the muta's attack bounce for three hits, it'll take 1 point off of each of the three hits. Now the attack up'd mutas will be hitting the armor up'd mutas for 9-2-0 per attack after damage mitigation from the 1 armor upgrade, while the armor up'd mutas are still hitting them for the same 9-3-1. Armor upgrade wins.

Although just generally important, there are other key upgrades such as the muta's case that are common knowledge. Protoss attack upgrade early on letting zealots kill each full HP zergling in only two hits as opposed to the initial three hits is one example. Of course, one armor upgrade on the Zerg's part will tip this back to three hits. Basically, as long as attack/armor upgrades are researched at a proper pace without over-exertion, they are important to get timely to not fall behind.

One other upgrade related thing for people who didn't know. Mind controlling will steal upgrades for you.

For example, you MC'd a drone against a Zerg and built up part of the tech tree. If say, you made some hydras without upgrades, then you MC an enemy hydra that had full upgrades, all of your hydra upgrades are now considered researched. Not too useful, but pretty nifty.

EDIT: Oh yea, corsairs and vultures are useful and didn't suck btw.

 

Thank you, heres a power up. This point cannot be stressed enough.
The only air corsairs are bad at killing is BCs and Carriers because of the amount of armor they have.

 

Corsairs were never meant to take down BCs or carriers.

If people think corsairs suck for not being able to effectively kill units that they were never meant to kill in the first place, then oh well that's too bad. No one will be sad for them for missing out on all the other wonderful uses they have.

Zerglings must suck like hell too. They get killed easily by EVERYTHING, even workers, have no special abilities, crap HP and stats in general, no ranged attack/AA, and have weak ass 5 damage. Yup, trash.

Anyone else want a hit of this good sh** that they are passing around? Smoke up.

 

I can not say that any starcraft unit sucked, they all have exceptional uses. I was going to write about how sucktastic the Terran Ghost was until I remembered it's useful applications with Lockdown and the god of all of gods, Nuke.

Damn it! This sucks!

 

how do I get them in range? they always get incinerated before they get near enough to do psi storm

 

ohh right I would use DT but I didn't play Brood War online because I was playing with my friends and they didn't have the expansion (n00bs)

I guess not playing Brood War online doesn't let you experience the full effect of how balanced it was in the end

 

Wait just a minute... Dark Templars can use Psionic Storm?! You must be mistaking them for High Templars. Dark Templars are the cloaked assassins of StarCraft (aside from the Ghost.) There are quite a number of ways to get rid of Siege Tanks, you should experiment with bum rushing them and then storming or dropping on top or whatever the situation calls for.

And I just remembered about a certain Protoss unit that sucks in my book:

A Protoss Unit That Sucked:

• Dark Archon

The Dark Archon is made at the cost of two highly effective offensive weapons with very little to give back in a real game. First, the Dark Archon lacks any real attack (disregarding the use of Feedback which only affects units with Mana) and secondly, the Dark Archons have poor HP/SP. There are times when the use of a Dark Archon is quite useful, especially in Use Map Settings Maps, but in any real melee game, the Dark Archon seems to be quite a hefty investment that does not get you much.

Sure the Dark Archon has Mind Control, but at what cost? 150 MP plus a depleted shield? Normally one would argue that Mind Control is your best friend... Well it will not be in the case of a massive swarm of low tier units such as Zerglings and Hydralisks which is quite a common tactic used in most games to achieve victory anyway.

As I mentioned earlier, the Dark Archon does have some sort of attack but it's only a threat to units with mana. I mean a fully charged Dark Archon (Default settings: 200 MP) could strike four times and then what? It's like using a Derringer against a USP, plus we rarely see units with Mana unless you are playing against a Protoss player who knows how to use High Templars.

I would rather refrain from speaking about Maelstrom... It is way too short, way to expensive, and limited to organic units. Not so great against a Terran or Protoss player who has teched up enough, but it is useful against about 8 Zerg units for about two seconds or so.

So here is my question; is the Dark Archon really worth the investment in any game? You would have to research and spend on it's other abilities for it to be fully functional (for a short period of time) and you would have to sacrifice two perfectly good Dark Templars... I think the clear answer would be "No" unless you are of course playing a money map or are resource rich.