Give Thor Haywire. Everyone Wins.

[flak4321]

Colossi are helpless without units to tank for them. Those units are Zealots, Stalkers, Immortals, Archons. Right now, you need Vikings to kill Colossi.

So here are the scenarios I'm building:

TvP
Keeping the Templar avenue of play viable is vital as a counter to Terran mech play. However, with Haywire from a couple Thors evaporating the Stalkers and Immortals, and Battle Hellions melting the Zealots, all you'd have to acctually deal with an average death ball are the Archons and Colossi. Haywire hits Colossi as well, and Thors crush Force Feilds, so once you can get your Thors close enough (Haywire 6 range) they'll demolish the Colossi. The tradeoff in cost of Thor versus Viking utility will be negligible.

Building Thors for your mech army will cut into your Siege Tanks, Hellions, and Vikings. It is also true they are usually a later game unit. Adding Haywire acctually solves these issues. By buffing the Thor this way, the Thor becomes a response unit to seeing a Protoss building up their Stalker/Colossi deathball. By only adding a few Thors, a single production cycle from the 4-8 Factories you'll have anyway as a meching player, will easily help the Thor become a powerhouse in anti Protoss mech play.

TvT
The purpose of Haywire/Warhound in TvT was to help break siege lines. Thors have already used in the past to bust down Terran Siege Tank lines, they're just not extremely effective at it. Because bio play is so prominent, Nukes are preferred for the line-breaking task. By giving the Thor Haywire, a meching player as a real alternative to Nukes, regardless of if the enemy play is going bio supported by tanks or pure mech themselves. The Thor becomes a more useful unit all around.



I'm considering the possibility that the Thor be given a direct + attack instead of the Haywire ability. Right now its 30 x 2 has no bonus. Making its regular attack [(30 + 20 vs Mechanical) x 2] could be effective, just as the Archon has (25 + 10 vs Biological).

Lol. I'll admit I did not consider all possible unit back-up possibilities. I was thinking of mass instances where you would have 6-10 collos with reasonable support vs the same or even a slightly larger number of thors with proper support. I usually have chargelot blinker supporting my collos with some archons if gas allows. Upgrades as close to max, inc shields, as possible.

I would agree with both the haywire and the bonus on the Thor on the grounds that the haywire missile would need to be used in place of the damage. I.E. the haywire upgrade at the armory would replace one of the thors primary weapons giving it 30 + 20 vs mech x1 plus 1 haywire launcher.

[Rake]

.

I'm considering the possibility that the Thor be given a direct + attack instead of the Haywire ability. Right now its 30 x 2 has no bonus. Making its regular attack [(30 + 20 vs Mechanical) x 2] could be effective, just as the Archon has (25 + 10 vs Biological).

A bonus v mechanical could certainly be effective. However, a missile attack could create extra micro opportunities, especially if it had a greater range than the standard attack or was able to front load a lot of damage.

[TheEconomist]

Thor.

Micro.

What?

[DemolitionSquid]

Thor.

Micro.

What?

Not microing the Thor. Microing against the Thor.

[Rake]

Not microing the Thor. Microing against the Thor.

That, and also I suggest that the missile is targetable by the play so selecting targets would be important. It would also be autocast.

[Quirel]

That, and also I suggest that the missile is targetable by the play so selecting targets would be important. It would also be autocast.

So... the missile can be targeted by a unit?

They tried that in WoL alpha with the Infestor. Didn't seem to work out.

[Rake]

So... the missile can be targeted by a unit?

They tried that in WoL alpha with the Infestor. Didn't seem to work out.

Whoops. Sorry, I meant that you can control the thor to fire the missile where you want. Or it can be set to random and auto-cast.

[TheProgramer]

From Dustin:

"We did test out Haywire missile on the Thor yesterday. It has some value, but didn't do all that much because of the cost of the Thor. The unit is expensive enough that it is difficult to get a lot of them into play. The other concern we had was that it was just a huge burst of damage at the beginning of a fight and not all that interesting. You just know that when you engage a force with a couple of Thors you were going to lose some mech units to start with."

SOURCE: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6934365340#11

[DemolitionSquid]

Why didn't they try just giving the Thor a +X vs Mechanical bonus to its regular attack?

Like seriously, DERP.

[phazonjunkie]

"We did test out Haywire missile on the Thor yesterday. It has some value, but didn't do all that much because of the cost of the Thor. The unit is expensive enough that it is difficult to get a lot of them into play. The other concern we had was that it was just a huge burst of damage at the beginning of a fight and not all that interesting. You just know that when you engage a force with a couple of Thors you were going to lose some mech units to start with."