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The stream of information continues. Fans who were lucky enough to visit the events held by Blizzard in the far east are still supplying us with new interesting tidbits about the game, which we will summarize here.
Note that the builds showcased in different locations have small changes and inconsistencies between them - the Roach, for example, was a melee unit in China, but a ranged one in Korea. In any case, make sure to read our previous posts covering the Zerg to get the full picture. Here’s the full list of changes and other noteworthy bits:
Zerg
* Nearly all of the Zerg’s units can evolve in StarCraft 2.
* Zerg evolution, or upgrades, only affect one unit. For example, the Zergling has 3 levels of evolution: Level one grants it more speed, level two provides +2 to damage and +1 to armor, and level three +1 to damage and +2 to armor. No word has been given about the favorite crack upgrade, which transformed Zerglings into insane machines of destruction in late games of StarCraft 1. The upgrades are researched at the unit’s building - in the Zergling’s case, the Spawning Pool.
* Roaches have alternated between functioning as melee units and ranged anti-ground units. They have clearly been designed for close range battles, as evident by their enormous blades.
The Roach is a lower tier unit than the Hydralisk, which is now tier 2 - putting the Lurker at tier 3.
* The Infestor can use its “Dark Swarm” ability without needing further research. Infest and Disease, however, have to be researched.
* Infested Protoss buildings currently produce Infested Marines - a placeholder for Infested Zealots, perhaps?
* The Overseer has been spotted!
* The Nydus Worm can currently carry twelve of any Zerg ground unit. It is an unfinished unit, though, so expect that to change.
* Hatcheries have two Rally Point options: Rally Point for normal units, and Worker Rally Point for drones - allowing the player to send freshly hatched drones straight to the resources.
Protoss
* The Mothership currently has 4 abilities:
1) Void, a new name for the Black Hole, which now also affects ground units
2) Cloak, which cloaks units around the Mothership - much like the Arbiter of StarCraft 1, but with a larger radius
3) Planet Cracker, the ID4-esque heavy ground damage dealer
4) Time Bomb, which is cast on a specific location and protects friendly units by reducing damage
In addition, the Mothership can drain energy from friendly units and utilize it for its spells.
* Stalkers feel and play like fragile, but more agile, Dragoons. They also serve as excellent economy raiders.
* The Archon’s “Twilight” prefix has been dropped from its name. It now has a “Power Overwhelming” buff, which grants it an additional 20 points of damage. This buff is temporary, and lasts a short time after the Archon’s creation - a great way to effectively use wounded Dark Templars and energy-less High Templars in battle.
* The Phoenix is now an air-to-air unit. It’s quite strong, but slow.
* Even a small group of Colossi can wipe out huge ground armies with ease. They now have a “Heavy Shield” upgrade, which increases their shields’ defense rating. The graphics used for their attack sequence will likely be enhanced soon.
* Gateways can transform to Warpgates and back for free - and it only takes 3 seconds of time. For a more detailed review of Warpgates, check out this post.
Terran
* The Marauder has 80 HP and does 6 points of damage + 4 to armored units. Its range is like that of a Marine. Since it is relatively expensive, it is not effective on its own - the Marauder is strictly a complement to the Marine. The Marauder’s slow effect actually stops the affected unit completely for a short duration, after which it returns to normal speed. Multiple shots from Marauders can almost completely stop an enemy’s advance.
* Jackals deal relatively low damage - around ten points - making them quite ineffective against single units.
* The Banshee no longer deals area-of-effect damage. It now fires more directed rockets at a single target. It is still somewhat structurally weak, with 150 HP. Since it attacks in an oblique line, it has trouble hitting targets directly beneath it.
* Reapers can no longer use the Stim Pack ability. A huge blow for this unit, which has “Raider” as its middle name. The Reaper seems a bit lost in the current build of StarCraft 2 - is it on the way out?
* The Nomad no longer looks like a giant, flying crane. It has received a complete overhaul, and now has a sharper design. No pictures are available yet. Its Auto-Turrets are quite strong and destructive, and currently no longer cost any energy - instead, they require Vespene Gas only.
* Differently upgraded Battlecrusiers, with either the Yamato Cannon or the Plasma Torpedo upgrade, are treated as different units - double clicking one version will only select Battlecruisers with the same ability.
* Ghosts have the EMP ability, but can no longer call down Drop Pods.
* Thors are no longer built by SCVs. They are now constructed at the Factory, like other Terran mechanized units. The built-by-SCV unit mechanic was an interesting one, and we hate to see it go.
Other issues:
* In StarCraft 1, units “checked” for new orders every half a second, making for a somewhat unresponsive reaction time. In StarCraft 2, this reaction time has been dramatically reduced, and all units now feel much more responsive.
* Before starting a match, players can communicate with each other using VoIP.
* The match summary screen now contains informative graphs as well as the old number statistics.
* The game requires a Pixel Shader 2.0 capable computer, and at least a GeForce 5200 (or equivalent) graphics card. StarCraft2 should be at least playable on just about every computer that’s been made in the last 5 years.
* The Blizzard 40-strong development team is divided into three equal thirds: programmers, artists and designers. Members are from Korea, China, America and Europe, and two are ex-ProGamers.
Thanks go to NGACN and StarCraft-Source for their coverage and translation.
43 Comments to “StarCraft 2 Korean and Chinese Build Summary”
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Mother of God!!! The VOID (formerly Black Hole) now affects ground units?!? oh my God, this is going to be really good!!!
I hope they take Black Hole away again. Storm > BH
I like the mothership and will play it, but totally dislike the Black Hole - Void, ability, its to much.
I hope it will be build in numbers like battlecruisers and not unique.
Come on, guys. Don’t knock it till you try it…
Haven’t even seen it in action yet, much less tried it in the game.
oh come on! they make the mothership all-powerful but they castrate the thor, they need to give back the bombardment ability for the thor.
I hear that. The Thor used to be a cool, unique unit, but now it’s just another run-of-the-mill Mech. Bring back the built by SCV mechanism and make the Thor a more interesting unit. Giving it some bombardment ability, with it hunkering down and bombing the crap out of something, is a good start.
Excellent blog reporting.
infested marines as infested zealots? this will change rapidly
bad news for thor. i hated drop pods - this is another game.
i loved the idea repars, pls. dont drop them from the game
Ah wuts up with lame nerfs to the Terrans, they were so cool before. And Roach should definitely not be able to shoot; What does it shoot out anyways?
The unique Zerg upgrading is cool and will like to see it remain.
I get the sense that the zerg is the most distinct of the three races. The mechanics of this race seem more different than the differences between the protoss and terran.
Balancing the Thor into the game is difficult. Its hard not to have it too greatly overlap in the role of the siege tank.
Oh my god…whats going on with the Terran?? How can Tier 1 units engage into battles now if they inflict such ‘big’ damage. Another thing, PLS stop making remaking units so that air attacks air only and gound attacks ground only….it WILL be fun, but hard to master….and in my opinion, if it’s hard to balance the thor, i’m sorry to say, just get rid of it
In StarCraft 2 , can I choose my color ? like them WC3 or C&C for example..
Karl
hm.. some very nice stuff but the terran get weakened more and more. i, too, hate it that thors will now be built in the factory.
and drop pods were sooo cute!
sc2 fan is right - now the thor is nothing special anymore, so if you have problems balancing it.. - throw it out!
No, don’t throw it out! Make it bigger, badder and more unique
not just another goliath
In StarCraft 2 , can I choose my color ? like them WC3 or C&C for example..
=) ^^ ^_^ :> !
Karl
Interesting thread.
What’s the source for all this information?
Excellent blogging !
I like the concept of the new zerg upgrading system, but I’m not sure how they will manage to balance it, especially since atm a fully upgraded zergling doesn’t look any better than a fully upgraded SC1 zergling but takes a LOT more work to make (and it’s even worst if you pay for every “evolve”, even with a cheap price it’ll hurt in longer games)
@george
exactly! dont throw it out, make it better. who cares if it overlaps with the siege tank. personally, i mostly use siege tanks as a defense unit, not as an assault unit whereas the thor (with bombardment) can make one hell of an assault unit.
I miss the drop pod all ready. They should give ‘rines a teir 3 reaper upgrade similar how WC axe throwers became zerkers along with an grenade upgrade (the marines not the trolls). This solves marines lack of late game involvement, HP upgrade (stupid sheilds), hot spot deployment, and Reaper role overlap.
I could see that working with ‘rines. I did always think ultra advanced mercenaries should have a bit more punch than 2 pistols. Jackals stats seem too weak for a flame thrower. Didn’t a firebat shoot 2wice as fast for 16dmg at a time?
Yeah, but their range was pitiful and they dealt concussive damage. Not only that, their attack counted as two separate ones so each was affected by armor. Useless.
Yes, of course everyone wants the Thor to stay. But now, look at it. From a killer machine with bombardment and built by SCV to what? A built-by-factory transformer with flak cannons?? What’s going on with the Terran? To me, it’s unfair that the Terran does not have any special unit. It’s totally imba. I was expecting the Terran to be some badass dudes blasting away at the Protoss or Zerg with their cannons and stuff…and as I said…the Marines look like babies beside those Zealots…no offense Terran Players… I would love to see Tier 1 Terran units become tougher and stronger.
Yeah, I always imagined the Terran as perhaps not the most sophisticated race but certainly the one with the most extreme firepower and tendency to drop a buttload of ammunition on any problem. The Thor and its bombardment ability fit that picture well…
(Also the Banshee when it had a rocket barrage)
Nice writeup!
Can you expand on this point please: * The match summary screen now contains informative graphs as well as the old number statistics.
Well, SC2 is shaping into a kool game so far, but there is too much… overpoweredness (even if they haven’t balanced the game at all, when they do balance it, some units will still be pretty unbalanced. *hint: MotherShip*
The Roach needs to get a new role. The Zergling/Ultralisk have the melee down, we don’t need another melee unit. If there is to be only one Archon, then it should have Mael Storm at least, and not this Power Overwhelming thing. The Hydralisk attack needs a make-over BADLY, uh… and not all of Zerg should be able to mutate into something else.
Zerg melee seems fine to me (By comparison, protoss have 3 melee, zealot, archon, dark templar), and biological weapons would seem to have a lot of melee by nature of the “tooth and claw” setup.
The Archon actually shoots his lightning over a short distance. I wonder if it still does any splash.
I want the old thor back. the one I saw in the terran gameplay trailer. it seems to me that the thor has shrunk and has ATA(wtf???) yeah I agree with some of the posters here that making it a factory-buildable unit would ultimately take away its fun. blizz please make it SCV-buildable!!(cmon! starcraft never had one of those..) now, I understand that the reason for the thor’s change to its weaker form is that it overlaps with the siege tank. I disagree completely. the siege tank is more of a defense/assault unit(very hard to use in assault, mind you(sorry im a noob)) while the thor is more of a damage soaker. and its 250mm cannons are an ability(make it use energy to balance it) and make it far up the tech tree(maybe before the battlecruiser?) also, to further balance the thor, make it expensive and also increase its build time. and one more thing..the thor is slow and CANNOT BE TRANSPORTED VIA DROPSHIP. (although I want to fix this by having the option to “deconstruct the thor”) THE THOR WON”T OVERLAP THE SIEGE TANK PERIOD!
hmm..the reaper change (removing the stimpacks) is fine with me since 1. it is already fast 2. stimpack further decreases the reaper’s chances of survivability.
also, I don’t think that it really needs the medevac dropship(replacement for medic) for instance, you can just retreat wounded reapers atop a cliff(with medics in waiting)
also: BANELINGS SHOULD BE ROUGHLY THE SAME SIZE AS ZERGLINGS!! and not that huge, fat piece of shit I just saw in the zerg trailer.
that is all.
PS: I know builds change constantly. I just wanna post my thoughts about the CURRENT build(that I know of)
First Post!
Yeah, I agree with Spiral Architect,I always imagined terrans solving problems by throwing a shitload of things that go BOOM at enemies.
my one big copmlaint is the marauder.
marine = bread and butter range attacker
reaper = weak raiding range attacker
ghost = caster/ special ops range attacker.
do they need another range attacker? terrans have no melee units. just bring back the firebat. everyone loves it, and it’s totally badass. it seems that the marauder stun ability would be slightly overpowered esp if they were ranged. this can be balanced if the firebat got the ability, since they would have to get closer, and would be targetted more easily.
not to mention that the marauder is redundant. they’re having trouble distinguishing roles of the seige tank and the thor as it is. the marauder is surely no heavy unit, but it’s role is essentially the same imo, just weaker.
my suggestion: firebats -> “thermate pack” upgrade. it could even be an ability, instead of an innate attack ability. when you select firebats to use the thermate pack ability, there would be occasional gigantic balls of flame that roasts the enemy, temporarily immobilizing them. not only does the ability balance out on a melee unit, but it blends in smoothly with the firebat character with no role conflicts, and it brings back the much wanted firebat.
Spam.
Spam.
Spam.
I completely agree with comment #16. It’s too bad that blizzard keeps nerfing terran units like 450hp BC’s and Bombardmentless Thor’s and Stimpackless Reapers. I don’t know what the deal is with that but as long as Thor is concerned, give it back bombardment. AND FOR THE LOVE OF PROTOSS, DON’T GIVE “MOTHERSHIP” VOID! It genuinely looks too powerful (or if it should be used, one time use only per unit made like vulture spider mines).
I also agree with comment #25 but instead of using the word “well”, I would have said “Perfectly.”
dido w/ 16
oh and for a melee unit for terrans the firebat does and will forever rock, and also with the reaper do you really need a medic for them. that goes against the lore of the unit what with the max life of the reaper is six months…
GO THOR, the original thor not this sorry excuss for a better goliath, and make thor weak to air-ground so it can be a counter. and as a noob myself, i never use tanks as an offence their better as a sationary shell buster not their moble form
(i know i am sounding like i am reapeting all the good ideas but thats because they are good)
Oh goodness. The Zergs are imbalanced now. I’m tired of seeing 450 HP Battlecruisers, AoE LESS Banshees, Medivacs, and Thors with no role! Now there comes Ultralisks that BURROW, have 600 HP, deals splash damage, does 25 damage to buildings, and Banelings that burrow and destroy everything! They’ve nerfed the Terrans TOO much, I’m really disappointed, considering I am a Terran player… of course, Arcturus Mengsk isn’t exactly the brightest of all people, and Kerrigan is really smart, but seriously. 450 HP Battlecruisers?
I was upset when the Banshees lost the AoE. I mean, Wraiths were my favorite units in Starcraft I, and now that Banshees stole its thunder, I saw that AoE rockets and got instantly hooked (although I’m still a little sour about the removal of the Wraiths- it was the desktop icon for crying out loud!). But now that the AoE rockets are gone, and as we all know, the Zergs are clustered multiple weak units that come and kill, I’m really disappointed. Really really disappointed. Are they trying to nerf the Terrans so that the Zergs would come and wreak havoc for all they want? Ugh…
Also, check this out. Medivacs. Replacement of Medics… dropships that come out just so they can heal the Reapers that are just too quick for Medics to reach. Er… no thanks. I don’t want to have one Marine out there just to have all my Medivacs come to the enemy base to have a gazillion Spore Colonies destroy them! Medics were just fine! Besides, I’d rather use Medics in conjunction with Marines! If I wanted Reapers to be healed, I’d hit and run and bring them back to the Medics. The Medivacs are just not cool of a concept.
And also, Vikings are back at the Starport… WHAT?!! I liked them built at the Factory, and I always thought of them as Goliaths that transform to an air fighter. And we need the Wraith back!
I don’t know about you, but I think the Zergs are too strong and the Terrans are being nerfed WAY too much.
Wow. 450 HP battlecruisers, useless medivacs, usesless wannabe goliaths (dwarfed thors) and ssshhtupid AoE less banshees and idiotic maruder or whatever it is called just messed up Terran. I love the terran’s gun sounds and BOOM sounds. Don’t listen to those whining kids who say “that’s bad, this is bad…”. Just keep the original Thor, the better HP bc, and replace maruder(?) with the original firebat.
I want the BOOM factor of the terrans. Not the dwarfed boom sounds. Come on blizzard. I love your games. I have bought WC1,2 and 3. And I have SC too. I would really like to buy SC 2, and please, make it the best game you have ever built. Don’t listen to the whiners.
I agree with my Terran brothers, the random downplaying of Terran units is really starting to get annoying, I won’t say that they are unplayable, but seriously, look what they have to work with at this point in development, their primary air counter’s are the Viking, which in the air is like a Wraith without the cloaking ability making it less than idea in the air and on the ground is a Goliath without an air attack making it a raider and little more, and the Thor, which is now just a big Goliath with an extra supply requirement for shame, and now taking the stims away from Reapers, which are supposedly “adamant” users of them, and if that isn’t enough the Battle Cruiser, which is now reduced in power AGAIN, seriously if they are going to down power so much of its traits then they need to give it new ones, a person target Defensive matrix, temp boosters to up their speed for a short time, something, and on top of it all nukes are doing less damage, so we have above average infantry and a worthless high end tech tree, we need more
PS bring back the Cobra
I agree, even though i play zerg (mostly) i still think this random downplay for terrans is ridiculous. The firebat was my favorite terran unit, and i feel the marauder is a firebat without the fire, in other words lame. The thor was a cool unit, but now that they nerfed it really does seem useless. The banshee was awesome in the original demo of terran game play, a low tier aoe, so i dont see why they took it away, because waiting for plasma torpedoes on bc’s is just going to get you wiped early on by mass zerglings.
Speaking of zerg, wat is the role of the roach? besides being a low tier tank, which i admit the zerg do need, i dont like it, it seems too much like a big zergling, or a fat low range hydra.
Honestly, Stop nerfing the terrans, nerf the protoss for god sake. You always use the “balance factor” as a pitiful excuse for removing the good stuff the terrans have such as the AoE attack from Banshees, the cobra & the back cannon the thor, THEN WHAT ABOUT THE PROTOSS MOTHERSHIP!!! Where’s the balance in that, the mothership costs only slightly more than the terran battlecruiser & it probably could destroy 10 battlecruisers at once. Also, what the hell is the deal with the medivacs, you’re better off using armed dropships. Can the medivacs even use the “restore” ability that once medics have? Also, the mothership also have 800HP and only 300 shields. why don’t you make it the otherway around so there will be an easier strategy to defeat it. Also, where is the balance when you allow the player to build as many motherships as they want? The balancing they use at blizzard is completely distorted. Speaking of which, where’s the lockdown ability that the ghosts once had. I remember the executives at blizzard once said “the ghosts in starcraft 2 is way stronger than the ghosts in the original starcraft”, how much stronger are they against the protoss when the lockdown is removed & replaced with some anti-terran ability. I am now having questions about the EMP ability on ghosts, is it going to be like the missile fired from science vessels or is it going to be like a grenade or will the ghost have to walk very close to the target in order to detonate the EMP? will the EMP shot damage protoss air units aswell? Also, why did you remove the plasma rays on the battlecruiser & replace it with the missile barrage, which will probably look like the attack of the valkyries in brood war. Didn’t the people at blizzard removed the valkyries because they were useless? Installing a missile barrage function completely defeats the purpose of removing the valkryries. Also, didn’t you get replace the bombardment cannons on the thor and replace them with flak cannons so to deal with massive numbers of air units? so why add another ability for battlecruisers to do the same? I am a big fan of starcraft and I always play the terrans in skirmish games because of the frustration involved in coordinating attacks with protoss units and the zergs make me sick. Stop adding useless abilities to terran units and bring back some of the old units in brood war such as the medics and/or add some of their old abilities to the new units of starcraft 2. Stop beefing up the protoss. Please bring back the cobra you once removed from the game and the area of effect attack of the banshees. I always noticed starcraft lacked realism but what I heard recently about starcraft 2 really surprise me. I would expect the terrans to have better technology many years after suffering a major defeat at the hands of the zergs, NOT worse.