Hey, I am just wondering what the Thor's role is, what you are supposed to counter with it, and why you would ever build one over a Siege tank for anti-ground work. I haven't really seen a Thor in a situation it looked cost-effective in yet.
It's basically a great all-around mech destroyer, awesome against anything on the ground, but also works well against air targets that are classified as light (mutalisks, phoenixes, and banshees for example). It functions very well as a front line unit, while the siege tank is more powerful but less mobile, and far more vulnerable to air and to fast units that can get within it's minimum range.
People seem to forget that it's ability also stuns, and kills buildings before you can say "i'm here, click me". You could go as far as picking a few up with medvacs, and killing poorly defended expos with them real fast.
Still, it just seems weaker than another unit at every job. Is it really cost-effective against light air?
Well the thor's air attack does slight splash so they are extremely good against tightly packed mutalisks. But other than that, no they aren't really that effective against air, but at least it's better than siege tanks and marauders who can't hit air at all.
Because to get battlecruisers and upgrade them, you need the following: barracks, factory, starport w/ tech lab, fusion core, armory. To get thors and upgrade them, you need the following: barracks, factory w/ tech lab, armory. That's two less expensive buildings you need. And, despite being less expensive than battlecruisers in every way, they actually deal more damage per second to ground targets than BCs.
I just can't think of a situation where I would cost-wise want Thors other than steamrolling, but BCs seem to do that job just fine. EDIT: How many Thors does it take to kill a Nexus/ Hatchery in one ability volley? (Or get close enough that a few quick hits finish the job.)
The role of the THOR is to be HERAAAAA. hahaha, Thor is does suprisingly well against light air. In addition, thor has the highest damage per second unit for the Terrans. I think its like 35 or something. With its long range and high damage, thors can really be the backbone of any terran army.
You can sit one in your mineral line as a temporary missile turret, it absolutely flays air. So many goddamn scvs can heal it. On some maps you can park him on a cliff and take out an expo. Also nice special ability, good single target attack.
Thors are great building destroyers, but that's about it. They attack far too slow to be useful against units, and they do pathetic damage to air units (assuming your opponent knows how to magic box of course).
thors are used quite a lot actually. they are seen a lot against muta play especially, but they are seen for pretty much every situation. with autorepairing scvs, thors are a huge problem for both P and Z.
