Supersonic SC2 Q&A

[pure.Wasted]

SCQ: Viking/Ghost portraits. Existant? For Banshee, is it still the Desert Storm pilot (hope so) or have they updated it?

SCQ: have you ever seen Medivacs used primarily without Marines? IE, Marauder/Meds, Reaper/Meds? Are Reapers viable outside of their early/mid-game harassment role? What can they offer in late game?

SCQ: How useful are Ultralisks? Are they better as support units, or as an army of their own?

SCQ: Corruptors. Anything new on these guys? How are they doing?

SCQ: Burrow seems to really be coming into its own now that Detection is A) more spread out, and B) more expensive to purchase (gas prices ^). Have you seen it used to deadly effect as it was in BR#3, and if so, was it ever done with units other than Banelings? How long into the game can it usually go before detectors make it irrelevant? Have you seen any anti-Burrow tactics develop in the early/mid game, ie, troop placement, troop movement, etc?

DQ: What, if anything, makes the Witch Doctor stand out and not feel like a Necromancer clone? Do you feel that Blizz. are on the right track with this class, or that it might be conceptually/gameplay-wise stepping on its predecessor's toes a little too much? On that note, which class felt the most interesting/new, as far as gameplay goes?

DQ: Does your character speak at all when interacting with NPCs? I recall that the original presentation of speech bubbles gave us many questions to choose from; has that been followed up on, and if so are they voiced at all?

DQ: Has Blizz implemented any more "rare" animations yet? IE, when a character dies, certain monsters have a chance to kill them differently (like the Siege Breaker we saw). Is there anything else like it in combat?



As always thanks very much for sharing.

[supersonic]

SCQ: Viking/Ghost portraits. Existant? For Banshee, is it still the Desert Storm pilot (hope so) or have they updated it?

SCQ: have you ever seen Medivacs used primarily without Marines? IE, Marauder/Meds, Reaper/Meds? Are Reapers viable outside of their early/mid-game harassment role? What can they offer in late game?

SCQ: How useful are Ultralisks? Are they better as support units, or as an army of their own?

SCQ: Corruptors. Anything new on these guys? How are they doing?

SCQ: Burrow seems to really be coming into its own now that Detection is A) more spread out, and B) more expensive to purchase (gas prices ^). Have you seen it used to deadly effect as it was in BR#3, and if so, was it ever done with units other than Banelings? How long into the game can it usually go before detectors make it irrelevant? Have you seen any anti-Burrow tactics develop in the early/mid game, ie, troop placement, troop movement, etc?

DQ: What, if anything, makes the Witch Doctor stand out and not feel like a Necromancer clone? Do you feel that Blizz. are on the right track with this class, or that it might be conceptually/gameplay-wise stepping on its predecessor's toes a little too much? On that note, which class felt the most interesting/new, as far as gameplay goes?

DQ: Does your character speak at all when interacting with NPCs? I recall that the original presentation of speech bubbles gave us many questions to choose from; has that been followed up on, and if so are they voiced at all?

DQ: Has Blizz implemented any more "rare" animations yet? IE, when a character dies, certain monsters have a chance to kill them differently (like the Siege Breaker we saw). Is there anything else like it in combat?



As always thanks very much for sharing.

A1 SC: Everyone that I could tell had their own portrait, as for Banshee it is still the desert storm pilot.

A2 SC: I didn't really see medivacs getting a lot of use, just because they were expensive and couldn't heal each other and had to heal 1 at a time. Most of the time Terran would go right for a mech build. As for late game all they can really offer is carrying units. I very strongly believe they should bring back the Medic and make the Dropship normal again (current cost is 200m 100g)

A3 SC: Funny you should ask this really, as me and a buddy set up a 99 Zealots and as many Ultras as he could make in 20 mins fight, and the Ultras came on top easily. They have a TON of hp and hit buildings like trucks, as well as slaughtering lower tier units with cleave. An army of Ultras is prob best stopped by Carriers or a strong air unit like that ie Void Ray.

A4 SC: Corruptors only really come out when you desperitly need some anti air/fighting Colossus, again because Mutalisk get the job done so well, but when push comes to shove they will make the difference if you need the intense air support.

A5 SC: Burrow is strong early game, because if I saw correctly Zerg regains more HP faster while burrowed. Later game vs Protoss and Terran, Observers and Ravens become more prominent making burrow less effective, but it is still useful in mid-end game situations if there is no detection around especially with Ultras and air units. Burrow is a friend to Roaches.

A6 D3: The WD feels a lot more of a hard hitting/summoning/support class compared to the necro being a more quick attacker (spell wise) or hardcore summoner, which the WD doesn't rely on as heavily. To me personally I felt that the most different class was the Monk, it's a new approach of a kind of "evading" style of fighting, although he is mostly melee he has a lot of moves to help him not take hits, which I think is interesting.

A7 D3: The demo was mostly all action based, just to get the game play and feel of the game out there for people wondering how it is vs D2, which I can say was very close and much improved. If you are at all worried about the removing of potions and how that will effect that game, don't be, the "health orbs" are a very well worked mechanic and still keep the pace of battle effectively. So to actually answer your question, no I did not have a chance to interact with the NPCs from what I experienced, they could however be saving that for when it's more polished.

A8 D3: Not 100% sure on this because we didn't really fight any "big bosses" specifically, but from what I could tell I thought for sure there were animations from dieing to fire, lightning etc, so I would imagine there would be for bosses.

[ArcherofAiur]

anytime, if you think of some later just come back and ask =]

Oh I will

[Nicol Bolas]

I didn't really see medivacs getting a lot of use, just because they were expensive and couldn't heal each other and had to heal 1 at a time. Most of the time Terran would go right for a mech build. As for late game all they can really offer is carrying units. I very strongly believe they should bring back the Medic and make the Dropship normal again (current cost is 200m 100g)

So you're saying that it needs to be cheaper. Like it was in previous builds (didn't have a gas cost).

[Dsceptor]

SC2 Questions:

How powerful are Archons? Can they stand toe to toe with Ultralisks or do they get squashed?

How prominent are drops in SC2 compared to SC1? From the battles i've seen so far, it seems like fights are bigger and head to head.

Are Ghosts commonly used and how effective are their abilities?

Have you seen Battlecruisers using their new abilities (I might be outdated, but i thought they had energy shields and torpedoes) and how effective is that?

Is there any reason to get Protoss Starfighters since Stalkers seem more cost effective and quicker on the tech-tree?

Thank you

[supersonic]

So you're saying that it needs to be cheaper. Like it was in previous builds (didn't have a gas cost).

Well not just that. The fact that they cannot heal each other is a pain and you will have overall less of them because of how expensive they are, and how unrealistic it really is to over produce them. I feel Medics did a better job and were more game play friendly than the Medivacs. Although I would not change the cost of it other than possibly making it 200m 50g, to be more on par with the other carrying units for the other races, but I'll be mad if i have to pay minerals for Phase Prisms.

[supersonic]

SC2 Questions:

How powerful are Archons? Can they stand toe to toe with Ultralisks or do they get squashed?

How prominent are drops in SC2 compared to SC1? From the battles i've seen so far, it seems like fights are bigger and head to head.

Are Ghosts commonly used and how effective are their abilities?

Have you seen Battlecruisers using their new abilities (I might be outdated, but i thought they had energy shields and torpedoes) and how effective is that?

Is there any reason to get Protoss Starfighters since Stalkers seem more cost effective and quicker on the tech-tree?

Thank you

Drop can still be effective but we only got 20 minutes of play so I didn't really see much of that, although I am not a friend of the Medivac idea, it will be very interesting to see how the pros use them.

I have heard that the Ghost was very effective vs the Mutalisk but when I went to use them I painfully found they were 200g each so they are a very unrealistic unit imo. Because of the such high gas cost they only really came out in single numbers and just to launch nukes, which have much more flexibility.

Again because of time I didn't get to see a lot of BCs but the Defensive Matrix was pretty effective for protecting the BC for coming in quick for attacks w/o losing HP.

Stalkers imo are the most IMBA unit I've ever seen, there were many games where you could tech only Stalkers and beat just about every build out there. it probably didn't help that Protoss got a ton of minerals from PC and the gas cost was so low (125m 50g) to build them. but you could mass produce Stalkers easily, and their no push over unit either, think Dragoon with good pathing and Blink. Blink give HUGE mobility to Stalkers making Siege tank defenses completely useless.

[Rogueleader89]

Are Ghosts commonly used and how effective are their abilities?

I didn't see them used alot either, though i did go for them a few times early game, snipe can really decide a low-mid tier battle if you have even just a few ghosts, they aren't too bad against mutas and the like either, but they certainly don't work by themselves, they are more of a unit to shift the power in your favor in a battle than to outright win it for you, and emp is always useful, though i found myself picking snipe over it most times (with the large exception of stalker masses...), to me their low hp and high cost really stopped them from being used later in the game minus the nuke use mentioned above by supersonic (which was rather useful against zerg given how overlords are no longer detectors, though i suspect zerg players will adapt to that change quickly once beta starts)

Have you seen Battlecruisers using their new abilities (I might be outdated, but i thought they had energy shields and torpedoes) and how effective is that?

Battlecruisers are pretty good, didn't play with them much, but defense matrix is very strong, saved quite a few battlecruisers from untimely deaths, yatamo is about the same as before, and I'm not really sure on the torpedos, it was rare to go against airforces against which that upgrade would be useful.

[Pandonetho]

Stalkers imo are the most IMBA unit I've ever seen, there were many games where you could tech only Stalkers and beat just about every build out there. it probably didn't help that Protoss got a ton of minerals from PC and the gas cost was so low (125m 50g) to build them. but you could mass produce Stalkers easily, and their no push over unit either, think Dragoon with good pathing and Blink. Blink give HUGE mobility to Stalkers making Siege tank defenses completely useless.

Woah, my friend said the EXACT same thing. When he played, he said Stalkers pretty much own everything.

[Rogueleader89]

Woah, my friend said the EXACT same thing. When he played, he said Stalkers pretty much own everything.

yeah, at least after they get blink this is true, though marauders do well against them after that still. I'm sure it will be balanced out sooner or later