Zerg Tarantula Superunit

i dont think immortals can shoot air at this stage. (i am like 99% sure...)
btw, have any of you seen the protoss tech tree for starcraft2? you get stalkers and immortals at the same time! The thing is, that the special shield the Immortals have is a upgrade, like Siege mode.
you get the Immortal about the same time as a terran player gets Siege Tanks, if not earlier.

 

Immortals definitely cannot attack air at the moment.
Also at this stage nothing can be said about when in the game certain units will be able to be acquired. Nothing at this stage is certain and on top of that nothing has been balanced yet. So even if Blizzard does say 'Yes, we definitely want the Immortal to be available at this stage in the game', it might end up turning out that it would be completely unbalanced for them to be available then. Also if they say 'No, we definitely do not want them to be available at this stage in the game', it might turn out that then is the only time where it would be balanced. Nothing is certain, nothing has been balanced.

 

we can still use the tech trees used in blizzcon for discussion purposes. And, i still don't think immortals will change to tier 1 or 3. They are tier 2. Blizzard wont change that.
They are balancing, i know, but they know when you should get the units for God sake!
"hhmmm, maybe we should make marines early tier 2 and siege tanks late tier 3"

 

If zerg is to have a superunit, I think it would be best, as someone else already said, that it is supportive. It could give buffs to your units that are in range if they amount to a specific supply (for instance, if you have at least for 50 supply worth of units around you, not counting the "tarantula", they (the units in a certain radius that counted towards the required supply) could get a buff called strenght of the swarm or something that allows them to attack 25% faster). It could also provide larvas (but at a bit slower rate than a hatchery, or maybe even not). The "tarantula" would be slow moving, so you can't use it in a suprise attack, only when you go on a full-scale assault. Maybe it's third ability could be to hide in a "shell" or something, like a turtle, and increase it's armor significantly, but at this time it would not give any buffs, would not be able to move or produce larvas. This would be because it's slow moving and could be easily picked off when focused.
Thoughts?


EDIT: The "shell" idea.

 

How about giving the shell idea to an ultralisk so that it can activate when it reaches the front line and soak up all the damage, making the ultralisk a better tanker?

 

I still reckon that the Ultralisk should be the largest unit in the Zerg Swarm (excluding Buildings). There shouldn't be any super-unit even if it does only give auras/buff and not attack. After all the Zerg are supposed to be a big swarm, comprised entirely of little guys, so if you suddenly bring in a massive spider-like thing it detracts from the image of the Swarm. Also, with the shell idea for the Ultralisk, it would be better if they just gave it more armor and an additional armor upgrade from the Ultralisk Cavern (like Chitinous Plating in StarCraft1).

 

meh all right i guess, sort of overpowered and dont really fit the zerg...

 

Unless the upgrades to Ultralisks is so enormous that you can barely recognize them, they'll still be hardly used. They are too late in the tech tree to soak up damage for about 90% of the game and they cost too many resources. I'd just prefer some kind of a new building, like a cerebrate or something, that gives units buffs.

 

Why would they an upgrade so powerful you can hardly recognize them just because they're late in the tech tree? They would still be used. Your probably not using them for their proper role. All of the late game units were always used:
BattleCruisers were still used. They had Yamato which suited their role as a Heavy Support.
Carriers were still used, increasing the number of Interceptors they had suited their role of harassing the enemy.
Ultralisks were used, and Anabolic Synthesis and Chitinous Plating suited them perfectly by making them get into battle quicker and last longer. Their role was to take damage, and take down buildings.

 

the ultralisk must stay, although they do need some serious improvements badly. extra damage against buildings and splash/double attacks works for me. also they shouldn't get stuck behind small units like zerglings meaning they should move through them like colosuss did in the protoss demo video

 

I think the blizzard is already doing that, and i would also like to see the ultralisk to have a double attack like planetary fortress.

But instead of extra damage against building lets give him (or her because bugs tends to often be females) extra damage against heavy unit types

 

people think that the ultra is really expencive, but i think it should cost about the same, especially if it gets buffed up.
Actually, i am quite happy with the ultra. The only change should be to make it mid tier 2 or something, so when terran gets siege tanks, you can rush forward with a bunch of ultras soaking up damage.

 

Sorry this is starcraft , not Arachnaphobia.
The concept seems ... ok .. but dont we already have ultralisks?

 

Gasmaskguy i have to totally disagree with you on that ultralisk's should be mid tiers. Let them stay top tiers

 

I understand, but i think Immortals, Siege Tanks and most of the more powerful tier 2 units are on the same lvl as the ultralisk. Its just annoying that if a terran gets STs you gotta go muta quick (or something similar). Protoss have Immortals to counter such situations with land units, just like zerg should get ultras a little earlier than before to be able to still use land units if thats what desired.

 

I though Zerg mutalisk would easily take care of STs....

Well, they ARE second tier right?

 

Getting the Ultralisk at the same time as the Protoss' Immortal is more an advantage for them (Protoss) rather than us (Zerg). The Ultralisk's attack would easily trigger the Immortal's Hardened Shield. Besides, just because they other teams get large-type units in tier 2 doesn't mean we should. If anything I'd prefer a weaker unit (compared to Siege Tank/Immortal) that can be made in larger numbers.

 

Against the Protoss the solution is always to throw more zerglings at the problem. Everything else is too expensive and will activate their fancy special shielding

 

zerglings, hydras and mutas are the 3 primary damage dealing troops for the zerg and mither of them is going to activate hardened shield. so i don't see the immortal being a problem for the zergs, zerglings will chew on them like they did on dragoons, muta will attack them without retaliation and hydras will also be good as immortals has shorter range than dragoons, nullifying dragoons' range advantage in sc1

 

I am not talking about countering Immortals with Ultras. I am talking about countering Siege Tanks with a zerg land unit, so that you dont HAVE to choose mutas. All i said about Immortals is that when Protoss gets them, and Terran gets Siege Tanks, Zerg should shortly after that get ultras.