Valkyrie's Replacement

As all of you probably know, the Valkyrie was the ultimate light to medium anti-air fighter. What will its replacement be in Starcraft 2? Some say it's the Viking, but the viking isn't very good vs. light/quick air units.

Thoughts?

 

Well, the Valkary wasn't used much. It was good, but most of the time Goliaths + Wraiths were plenty. The replacement? Upgraded Battlecruiser. Its aoe ability is at least as powerfull is a few Valkaries. What do you think?

 

Valkyries couldn't shoot AtG. But it was the hard counter for basically any flyer. It has saved me from destruction by tearing through a pack of mutalisks. It destroyed Wraiths, Scouts, Corsairs, and basically any other light flyer you can think of.

Battlecruisers are awesome now, but maybe with just all the anti-air that the terrans have now (mostly in the form of GtA) valkyries just aren't needed anymore.

I loved them though, and it's sad.

 

At least they will probably be able to use them in the campaign and editor. By the way, I hate how they tear up my nice little suicide bomb squads. Pesky harrasment against my rally points..

 

The Thor.

Seriously. It has an even longer range and a good AoE anti-air attack, which just happens to be the icing on the cake of a very strong anti-ground unit.

The thor was given GtA abilities right after the Predator vanished. (That had been the original Valkyrie replacement, but was more like a Corsair replacement.)

 

Hmm you may be right. Aside from the fact that the Thor is less agile than a semi, those particle cannons have air splash right?

 

It uses different weapons to fire at air than at ground. The anti-air weapons have splash, the anti-ground weapon probably doesn't have splash.

 

In terms of replacement as an air unit, it was probably meant to be the banshee doing scattershot aoe attack but suddenly got nerfed to single target only. Its clearly the new valkyrie from before having multi rockets and splash with the penalty of not being able to attack on the other plane which is the air for banshee and ground for valkyrie. The viking imo is more of a wraight goliath fusion so its clearly not the valkyrie replacement...

But generally the role of the valkyrie as the air-destroyer has been transferred to the thor and even more delicious with lots of bonusses.

 

Well that's awesome. I love the thor.

 

I don't we should be thinking of units as "replacements" for others that were in Starcraft 1 because Starcraft 2 is a different game with different strategies and balance in it. So there is no need for replacements if everything balances out with what IS in the game.

 

loved the Valkyrie! I'm sure gonna miss it in SC2

 

The very fact that this unit didn't exist before Brood War proves that it's not a requirement for the Terran army to have. The Thor, among several other units, is more than capable of taking on massed Air units, and even if it's not exactly mobile, it's still perfect for both defence and escorting other troops.

The role of having a fast, flying unit that is effective against large groups of small units for the purpose of taking out said groups when they're retreating is an extremely narrow role, and for more reasons than one.

EDIT: Also, with the removal of Scourges, there's even less of a need for a replacement.

 

As long as Terran have the capability for anti-air and it is fair and balanced I don't see the need for replacing or bringing back specific units from Starcraft 1.

I dunno I'm just getting tired of people making direct comparisons from Starcraft 1 to Starcraft 2. I mean you might as well just update Starcraft to current gen graphics because there is always going to be the argument this race needs this or that because thats how it was in the first Starcraft. The thing people seem to fail to realize time and time again is this is not the first Starcraft.

I mean I can understand if say the Terran were underpowered or unable to counter air units that they would need something like the valkyrie or goliath but that is just not the case. The Terran have plenty units right now in Starcraft 2 to handle air units.

Then I'm sure someone is gonna argue well Pancake they don't have any medium range anti air unit that can take down multiple units with an area of effect. I would then say so what? if they can already handle the air units in Starcraft 2 well why would you need such a unit? because it was in the first Starcraft? That just doesn't make any sense than to just have an arugement for the sake of arguing.

 

"I mean I can understand if say the Terran were underpowered or unable to counter air units that they would need something like the valkyrie or goliath but that is just not the case. The Terran have plenty units right now in Starcraft 2 to handle air units."

However, they don't seems able to handle muta-balls properly. (Since you can cluster 100 of them in a game... not that that would ever happen, but a ball of 36 mutas is plenty dangerous and unstoppable without splash or area-effect damage.)

Fortunately, the thor is (probably) up to the task. Alas, while we've finally seen the thor shoot some air targets, it wasn't targeting clustered air units.

 

well by the damage of the Valkyrie in SC1 is good and the looks of it is good too plus the hot Russian pilot

 

lol

 

While Valks where good after the patch when their attack got + 1 damage per rocket they had the famous weakness of not attacking if sprite limit where reached = a bug.

However in Sc2 Terrans got a BC upgrade (Missile barragae) that theoretically (are their any videos avaleble?) crush clusters of light air units like the Valks did. Thors should be efective as well, only drawbacks with BC and Thors are their late thier and that both are expensive.

 

Well that will just make mutaslisks I little bit more effective unless the Terran go for a fast tech to thors, and mutas seem to not be very good until you have a lot of them.

 

Ghosts may also be good vs Mutas since Mutas are light units and Ghost has bonus damage vs light. I even think they deal more damage to Mutas than Goliaths did. Speaking of Goliaths, I dont think Vikings are cost effective vs Mutas but they deal about the same amount of damage vs mutas as Scouts did. However, only BC Missielbarrage and Thors deal splashdamage. I predict that Terran will get some type of dedicated anti light air unit, but not until the 2nd expansion.

 

like they did on SC1?? i dont think so..