Batch #36 of Q&As is here. Featuring ScreenCraft in form an action packed Baneling assault screenshot, the fresh information deals mainly with very specific StarCraft 2 unit details. Starting off, here’s the new picture and its description:

ScreenCraft: This batch’s screenshot is to show the significant size increase of the Baneling since the original Protoss announcement gameplay trailer. The size increase is to allow the possibility of focus firing on incoming Banelings with additional micromanagement.

It appears the Baneling has received some adjustments and improvements since its inception. In this picture, the Banelings’ corrosive acid’s compartments are glowing in radioactive green.

Karune had some more information to provide about the constantly improving graphics:

The Art Team is constantly polishing the units, animations, buildings, maps, and textures.

Even after they’ve added the ‘gritty’ nature to the Terran buildings, they still have not finished. Since then, they’ve added additional animations to them, as well as Terran faction ‘emblems’ to them, and completely new Bunker art too.

As much as the gameplay is always being revised, so is the art. The Zerg of all 3 races probably still have the most art additions waiting to be made on it.

With the settings set to ‘High or Ultra,’ there will be some amazing textures, with the Zerg creep being exceptionally notable.

On to the Q&A:

1. Do Protoss Immortals get killed when a Nuke explodes next to them(seeing as the Hardened Shield blocks all high profile attacks and that a Nuke is definitely a high profile attack)?

In term of units, the only units that will be able to survive a Nuke will be the Protoss Mothership and Immortals upgraded with Hardened Shields. An upgraded Immortal will take 10 damage from a Nuke. To all other units, the Nuke will do 800 damage, thus making it much more powerful than the Nuke in the original StarCraft.

It has been made clear by now that the StarCraft 2 Ghost is getting a lot more love than its previous incarnation – its abilities included. The Nuke is now 60% more devastating, and we’re not sure it’ll be the only improvement made to it.
Blizzard’s will to integrate neglected but powerful StarCraft 1 abilities such as Infestation, Hallucination and the Nuke into standard StarCraft 2 tactic arsenal is apparent – each has received significant improvements.

2. How powerful is the Roach’s regeneration ability? How much time is needed to regenerate from 1 to full hp?

The Roach currently regenerates 15 hit points per second, allowing it to regenerate to full health in 6 seconds. In countering Roaches, a player must either micromanage the battle to make sure they are focus firing on each Roach one at a time, or they have to bring in high damage units such as Siege Tanks or Archons.

The StarCraft 2 Roaches are going to be a nightmare for players who are not micromanage-oriented, inflicting major losses on their armies in the lower-tier portions of the game. This is the unit you’ve been waiting to buy a new gaming mouse for.

Karune adds:

If you had a single Roach vs another Roach, the game would not end If you have groups of them, focus firing them will still do the trick.

The Roach at 90 hit points and 15 hp/sec regeneration excels at small number skirmishes, but at large encounters, they are not extremely hard to fight.

1vs1 a Roach will beat a Stalker. 5vs5 a Stalker group which focus fires and a little micromanagement can beat the Roaches with little to no losses.

Roaches are the best at countering units that attack a bit slower and do not do huge amounts of damage with a single attack, such as the Zealot.

3. Are Overseers any tougher than Overlords?

When an Overlord evolves into an Overseer, it will gain a speed bonus, passive detection, the ability to generate creep below it, and the ability to corrupt’ resources to make it more difficult for opponents to gain access to them. Furthermore, when Overseers sit in the same spot, over time its visual range will increase (but not its detection range).

Addressing some questions on the subject, Karune provides a few more pieces of information:

1) The tier 1 Overlord is very slow and does not have detection, though still essential for scouting throughout the game.

2) In generating creep, the Overlord essentially unloads a bunch of creep straight to the ground below it, which expands. Corrupting minerals takes some time to fully cast, but it creates a non-attacking creature that takes over that resource, and needs to be killed before those minerals are able to be gathered. Furthermore, you can corrupt resources that are already being mined, introducing potential Overseer raids to slow the enemy’s production.

3) Neither abilities require energy. Creep generation does not have a cooldown whereas corrupt minerals has a small cooldown timer.

4. Is it worth it to build a Terran Reactor Add-on since the benefit of doubling your queue list is not that useful, as it is often a bad idea to have your queue full?

Yes! The Terran Reactor doesn’t just double the size of your queue list. For a mere 50 minerals and 50 gas cost for the Reactor, that Barracks, Factory, or Starport will have the ability to create two units simultaneously (assuming that unit doesn’t require a tech lab add-on). Most of the time, building the Reactor will be worth it, rather than building a second Barracks, Factory, or Starport. Not only will you be able to build from a single building the production of two normal buildings, you will be able to salvage that Reactor if needed to get 100% of the cost back. Being able to salvage allows for quick tech shifts or evacuations.

The Reactor add-on is indeed a great advantage for the Terran forces, and constitutes a new gameplay concept for StarCraft 2, as we have discussed in our New StarCraft 2 Gameplay Concepts post. What Karune doesn’t mention is the amazing flexibility Terran players are granted when setting up a couple of reactors, allowing them to quickly shift the stress of their production from Infantry to Mechanized to Air Power and back as needed.

5. Will there be different building textures resembling the actual terrain? (in Warcraft 2 the buildings were snowy on the winter maps)

This is something the art team would like to do, though it will ultimately come down to time. There’s a lot of art work still left to do, such as their current task, which is putting the finishing touches on the Terran Marauder amongst several other units. On the Marauder, players will be able to see many intricate animations for both the weapons and their power suits.

6. Did the High Templar’s Hallucination ability undergo any changes due to the introduction of new tough units, such as Thor or Colossus?

The Hallucination ability did not undergo changes because of those new units, but it did get significant buffs since the original StarCraft. First off, hallucinated units still have the same hit points as the original unit, but take double damage. Furthermore, the duration the unit lasts for will be around 2-3 minutes, which will be significantly longer than the original StarCraft. On top of that, to hallucinate a unit only costs 40 energy, which is much cheaper than the original StarCraft’s cost of 100 energy.

As with the Nuke and Infestation abilities, Hallucination has received a major improvement over its StarCraft 1 version. Coupled with the introduction of additional tough units such the Mothership, Colossus and the Terran Thor, Blizzard has provided plenty of incentives for the Protoss players to make Hallucination a part of their standard arsenal.

Related Posts:

• » Two Massive Q&A Sessions: Battle.Net and Beta In-Depth
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: Protoss Strategies Overview
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: Yo Mommaship Got Nerfed
• » One Week Into The StarCraft 2 Beta: New Patch, Blizzcast

47 Comments to “Q&A 36: Nukes Vs Immortals, Roach Micro, Hallucination 2”

1. Anonymous — April 25, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
   

   yea got first comment of page LOL

2. Arthur Santana — April 25, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
   

   With all that quality, maybe they should get allucinations detectable.

3. Anonymous — April 25, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
   

   will there ever be any units that go on water?

   will there be a zerg unit that can come up out of the ground and eat units it would make it more zerg like

4. Anonymous — April 25, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
   

   yea

5. Anonymous — April 25, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
   

   i just watched the opening video to brood war and it would be cool if the marine could get an upgrade with a mini roket launcher

6. Yank31 — April 25, 2008 @ 6:24 pm
   

   w00t ^^

7. Joe — April 25, 2008 @ 7:45 pm
   

   Go art team!

   The roach seems annoying already! Although I think maybe they should do extra damage against other roaches, to stop the endless roach battle situation.

   The overseer’s create creep ability has no cooldown and costs no energy… I’ve got to see this in action! It sounds… strange… I like the resource monster idea! I’m fondly imagining it to be kind of like a cookie monster

   I would very much appreciate different building textures resembling the actual terrain. Just for visuals.

8. Anonymous — April 25, 2008 @ 8:30 pm
   

   anyone know how big a battle cruiser is?

   and the endless roach fight lol

9. Anonymous — April 25, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
   

   Uh, I must say, the Overlord and Overseer changes were unexpected. I had thought that Overlords specialized in Creep Generation and Resource Corruption, both of which are skills that can be very potent early game. A Creep Generating Overlord could effectively shut down any Fast Expand builds, while corrupting resources is basically Manner Pylon and can hamper early game economy nicely. Overseers were meant to be Detection-oriented versions of Overlords, and cloak comes into play later into the game anyway. The fact that Overseers would lose the earlier abilities meant that the Zerg players would have to determine exactly how many Overlords to morph.
   But now… it looks like Overseers are superior to Overlords IN EVERY WAY. What the hell, Blizzard?

10. meo123 — April 26, 2008 @ 5:03 am
    

    And I thought that Blizzard announced that the Colossi also have the Hardened Shields? Does it mean that the Hardened Shields of Colossi are much weaker than the Immortals’?Because it seems to me that the Colossi have more health.

11. Dill — April 26, 2008 @ 6:51 am
    

    But now… it looks like Overseers are superior to Overlords IN EVERY WAY. What the hell, Blizzard?

    It depends on how much they cost to morph.

12. Ken — April 26, 2008 @ 8:31 am
    

    “Immortals, huh… we shall put their name to the test.”

    - King Leonidas to Stelios

13. Anonymous — April 26, 2008 @ 8:31 am
    

    @Dill
    If you will, consider the other Zerg units we’ve seen so far that can morph. Mutalisks play a very different role from both Guardians and Devourers. The latter two can’t be ubermicroed in a stack to dart in and out and kill units, for example. Guardians aren’t just “Faster Mutalisks with a Stronger Ground Attack and More Hitpoints”. There are clear negatives to morphing a Mutalisk into a Guardian, such as the relative lack of mobility.

    Compare the Lurker with the Hydralisk. One’s good at taking out large masses of low tier ground unit, while the other works best in large groups all of them focus-firing to take out priority air and ground targets.

    Removing all of the Overlord’s previous upgrades and abilities (as well as the new ones announced for SC2) and splitting them up amongst the Overseers and Nydus Worms leaves Overlords bland and flavor-less. About as exciting as a floating supply depot.

14. Dill — April 26, 2008 @ 10:12 am
    

    True

15. jibbiajabba — April 26, 2008 @ 11:40 am
    

    I think it’s silly for blizzard to allow no cooldown and no energy for creep generation for overlords. A skilled player can cover the opponent’s ground with creep for other races, especially the protoss who need to build near pylons.

16. Aaron Kaplan — April 26, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
    

    So this is the first I’m hearing about the necessity of corruption for Zerg to mine minerals… and I don’t think I like the game dynamic of that. It’s a huge disadvantage, despite the obvious advantages of the inability of other races to mine while the minerals are corrupted. Unless there’s some counterbalancing factor at work here?

    Also, although I’ve said this many, many times, I’d like to reiterate how disappointed I am in the building graphics for all three races. Although Blizzard devs have done a wonderful job creating new unique dimensions to old units, and adding in a lot of new gameplay factors with the new ones, the buildings, have been left sorely behind.

    Although a lot of cool new elements are being added through buildings, (like the Reactor Core, Sensor Tower, moving Spore and Sunken Colonies, and Warp Gate) the graphics and names of most of them are exactly the same as SC. What’s up with that? Why are Gateways and Templar Archives completely unchanged? Why have Zerg developed shiny new Banelings, but left their Hatcheries and Ultralisk Caverns to moulder?

17. sese — April 26, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
    

    no cooldown time? no energy? then what – minerals or gas? with no costs it sounds foolish – u could creep everything. in SC1 if no building on them the creep died slowly. what about now?

18. Arthur Santana — April 26, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
    

    I agree that it would be nice that the Overseer wasn’t a super Overlord. Maybe it doesn’t count for supply?

    And I also agree that terrain-specific buildings would be REALLY KICK ASS.

19. brainlessant — April 26, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
    

    i want to see zerg’s building being ALIVE, not just throbbing…moving tentacles or mucus spewing

20. Anonymous — April 26, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
    

    @Aaron Kaplan
    I think you misread, Zerg do NOT require a mineral path to be corrupted in order to mine from. (Especially considering the ability is now on the Overseer, which is a Tier 2 unit. If it were so, how are the Zerg to mine early game?) Resource Corruption makes that particular crystal patch “unmine-able” until the corruption is killed off. Its only used offensively by Zerg players to shut down the mining of their opponents.

21. JMM — April 26, 2008 @ 9:47 pm
    

    They should change the Overlord and Overseer functions back to the way there were.

22. SC2 Fan — April 27, 2008 @ 5:51 am
    

    For those whos say SC2 is still similar to SC, think again. Blizzard have given enough explanation to show that SC@ is WAY WAY more different than SC, totally.

    Keep up the good work guys! We will ALWAYS be waiting! but not too long

23. SC2 Fan — April 27, 2008 @ 5:52 am
    

    line 2 – …SC2* is WAY WAY…..

    sry

24. Anonymous — April 27, 2008 @ 9:09 am
    

    When they call down the thunder, apparently immortals thrive… other than scorpions and cockroaches…

    Banelings damage through corrosive acid and not concussion/explosion, right? So… by that convention, they are supposed to be kinda more effective than siege tanks against immortals. Yay for random thoughts!

    Good job, Blizzard. On the comments on why have a better overlord. ‘Cause the swarm needs a better overlord during late game. How could we properly utilize the Queen’s offensive side if those flying cows can’t get to the enemy on time. That would drastically degrade the movability of the zerg. Wouldn’t it be better to actually use the Queen with your advance towards the enemy.

    Imagine, your battalion of flesh is heading straight for a bunkered up Terran. Seeing that this is the final battle, you make sure you win. The Overseers, fast enough to keep up with your advancing swarm unlike the Overlords that get left behind or slow down the advance, pump out creep while the Queen pumps out turrets to help with the battle.

    This would make the Queen more useful other than ZvZ matches. =D

25. Insert_cool_username_here — April 27, 2008 @ 9:11 am
    

    O_o Oops… forgot to log-in… =D

26. Anonymous — April 27, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
    

    i wonder if the terrans win starcraft 2

    GO TERRANS!!!!!!!!!

27. Joe — April 27, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
    

    The queen still sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

    Maybe it should lay eggs or produce larvae or something, and maybe attack using the creep and poisons, so that it is not confused with an offensive unit.

    At the moment it resembles a hero unit VERY closely.

    Hehe, maybe it could be like when you have a water fight in the pool: The queen could splash creep on the enemies

    I’m always on topic! While you’re bringing hallucination back, bring parasite back too!

28. Anonymous — April 27, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
    

    @Anonymous
    Of course Zerg need to upgrade their Overlords as the game progresses, just as in SC 1. But this doesn’t mean that ‘vanilla’ Overlords must be made even more boring (No detection… no abilities at all, in fact.) than their Starcraft 1 counterparts!

    Now I’m not saying that Overlords should be given detection again, since the development have clearly given this a lot of thought, and having Zerg get detection later makes cloaking a lot more useful in vs. Zerg match-ups. The point is that the previous versions of Overlords were pretty cool, slower and more fragile, but still quite useful for their unique abilities.

    I hope I’m not repeating myself *too* much.

29. Joe — April 28, 2008 @ 1:12 am
    

    Are the vanilla overlords cheaper than they were in sc1?

30. Arthur Santana — April 29, 2008 @ 11:38 am
    

    I think the Overlords should be able to carry units. Flying Nydus Worms are TOO WEIRD.

31. Yokelassence — April 29, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
    

    Nydus worms do not fly.

32. Lonia — April 30, 2008 @ 5:25 pm
    

    nydus worms go through wormhole~

33. Arthur Santana — April 30, 2008 @ 8:16 pm
    

    Yes, Nydus Worms fly. They are not air units, they just fly. See the last posts.

34. Starcraft 2 — April 30, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
    

    those banelings are massive, how does a small zergling evolve into something so much bigger?

35. lalalala — May 1, 2008 @ 4:29 am
    

    Dun worry guys, i’m sure the starcraft team is breaking their asses working to improve, balance and polish up starcraft as we speak….. you’ll see…. in the months to come. terran and protoss players have nothing to worry abt

    and BTW, Happy labours day, Blizzard!!!!

36. Korean — May 1, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
    

    Terrian and Protoss was cool.
    But I don’t like zurg in SCII. Unique Queen sounds difficult for begginer(It wil be amazing unit for expert). I don’t like difference between Overload and Overseer. And I don’t like zurg building(looks just weird).

    I guess they should make Baneling weaker against unit. If hundred of unit fight each other who can micromanage to kill Baneling?

    Idea of Nydus Worms is cool, but frying Nydus Worms? WEIRD!
    Nydus Worms has a lot of advantage unlike Terrian and Protoss.
    Nydus Worms is alway stealth. It means only detetecter can catch the Nydus Worms.If opponent has few detecter or detective building, We had no way to catch the Nydus Worms.

37. Yokelassence — May 1, 2008 @ 5:58 pm
    

    Nydus worms do not fry either…unless they travel through lava

    but seriously, I looked at the previous posts and they do indeed fly through open space. Pardon me for missing that.

    Then again it that any wierder than overlords, Mutalisks and Banshee’s floating through space?

    Blizzard will probably just make up some lore, i.e: Nydus worms carry similar methods of propulsion compared to overlords. That will work for most people.

    PS: Zerglings can morph to the size of the baneling for the same reason Hydralisks can morph to the size of Lurkers; Growth hormones. Not too hard to emagine.

38. Arthur Santana — May 2, 2008 @ 5:18 am
    

    Yokelassence, you are right about that, but then we should be able to use Nydus Worms as an air transport! (suppose there’s a bunch of sunkens and overseers on the way)

39. Stupidumb — May 2, 2008 @ 6:57 am
    

    I don’t think “moving through open space” means they can fly. I think it just means that they can sometimes travel above ground in an open space (not outer space). For example, in a map with varying heights of land, a worm underground moves from high ground to low ground and you can see it briefly. That’s what I think anyway.

40. Anonymous — May 2, 2008 @ 7:45 am
    

    @Yokelassence
    Personally, its not the fact that Nydus Worms fly between space platforms that bugs me, its the fact that we can SEE them doing so. Where’s the stealth then?
    This would mean Zerg drops will be severely underpowered on every Space Platform map.
    Or they could make the Nydus Worms have some form of cloak. But Zerg and cloaking? Ugh.

41. Nattaboy — May 2, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
    

    If Nydus Worms move quickly, then I don’t think it will really matter if they can be seen. They should be able to travel at a decent speed, and when they launch between space platforms/etc they hkind of go really quick, like BOOM and it throws its head twice or three times as fast as usual, then maybe have to take a second or so to ’secure itself’ to the platform.
    Like anonymous says, Zerg and cloaking? Ugh.

42. Nattaboy — May 2, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
    

    I think Nydus Worm does not fly, it jus launches itself powerfully across the void…

43. Shadow templar — May 2, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
    

    La idea de que el nydus worms pueda volar es razonable, ahora la pregunta es como lo haria, a simple vista se ve que es una unidad 100% terrestre a no ser que tenga una habilidad que le permita volar o hacer saltos espaciales,y esa es otra pregunta como hacen los zergs para hacer saltos espaciales o a otras regiones de la galaxia se debe tener tecnologia protoss para hacerse…:)

44. Yokelassence — May 2, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
    

    In english…

    “The idea that nydus worms can fly is reasonable, now the question is like the haria, at first it sees that it is a terrestrial unit 100% unless it has an ability that allows him to fly or to make jumps space, and that is another question since they make zergs to make jumps space or to other regions of the galaxy tecnologia is due to have protoss to become…:)”

    My best guess is that Blizzard just will skip all these technicalities and just make Nydus Worms hidden no matter where they travel. I have not known them to keep everything consistently realistic.

    Of course Blizzard has also stated that they still have plently of changes to inflict upon this unit

45. Dill — May 2, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
    

    They might just do a similar effect with water, Lava, desert rifts, or any other water equivalent (assuming they keep the current Nydus worm crosses everything method of travel).

46. meo123 — May 3, 2008 @ 3:53 am
    

    I don’t know about the Nydus Worm but for the Mutalisks, from this source they say that the Mutalisks fly with some kind of magic. Don’t know if it’s reliable though.

    http:// homepage.mac.com/cheethorne/Starcraft/mutalisk.htm

    (Seems like i cannot post direct links in here so delete the blank space between “http:// homepage” to view)

47. Nattaboy — May 4, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
    

    I think it could go underwater (maybe not lava, dunno though)
    without being seen, it could just dig deeper and go underneath. Although it would be cool if it had a similar moving animation to the burrowed defiler while its moving, a sort of dirt trail, but then it changes to a trail of bubbles underwater…

    maybe effect only visible to player, like how nuke launch symbol is MASSIVE and really visible to player, but classic red dot for enemy…