Surprised vs Disappointed

[LordofAscension]

Which units have you been surprised with (as in which you thought were going to suck but are actually pretty good) and which units did you think were going to be awesome and now just suck?

Note: I'm not asking what your favorite units are - just which ones you had an opinion about that is radically different from the apparent reality.

Protoss:

Surprised: Sentry, Colossi (against Z, they seemed nerfed in one of the previous builds), DT's, and Carriers (omg they back?) (and Chrono Boost)

Disappointed: Pheonix & HT (the charge-up animation kills it but saw this one coming from BC)

Terran:

Surprised: Marauders, Medivac, Ghost, and BC (who knew?) (Also - Orbital Command - really? Map-Hack, Free SVC's and Free Supply - IMBA )

Disappointed: Thor, Banshee (ATG is too easy to counter at that tier, IMO)


Zerg:

Surprised: Roach, Hydra (kinda from previous BC builds), Brood Lord (but hi-tech...)

Disappointed: Infestor and Muta

Thoughts? Yours?

This doesn't mean I don't think some of the disappointed units are valuable in their own way - just that I was either surprised or disappointed by what I had previously thought about them.

~LoA

[GRUNT]

Zerg
Surprised:
Mutalisks - I didn't think these would have much use in SC2, but they can really punish Protoss pretty hard if they have insufficient anti-air. I also feel that while good, Phoenixes aren't as good an anti-air unit against mass air because of their lack of splash damage, making a fleet of Mutalisks more viable in an air-to-air fight against Protoss. And against Terran, Mutalisks are still good to keep them contained in their base for a while in the midgame.

Hydralisks - I thought that these would suck, given the increased cost and whopping 2 supply, but even though they're quite frail, they hit darn hard! They're glass cannons to be sure, but with a little finesse, they can do a lot of damage. Siege Tanks, Psi Storm, and Colossi are their main Tier 2 threats.


Disappointed:
Infestor - I've always felt that it's more flavourful for Zerg to win through tooth and claw (and needle spines) rather than 'trickety-tricks', which is best left for the cunning Protoss. However, I can't help but feel a little sad that we get a sorta useless unit .

Corruptor - I prefer its old ability, and I have yet to devise a cunning strategy to employ with its new ability




Protoss
Surprised:
Sentry - First time playing against Protoss: "what's that bubble thing around his army???"

Zealots - !@@#$(% these guys bloody HURT! And Charge is wicked.

Immortal - &^%#$! FIFTY damage vs Armoured targets? D: They make all kinds of units dead, even infantry like Marauders and Roaches. Also, they eat buildings - omnomnom.


Disappointed:
Archon - do these things do splash damage, still? It's hard to tell, but from what I've seen, it doesn't seem like it. As impressive as their base damage is, it just seems to lack a bit of kick.



Terran
Surprised:
Reapers - "D8 charges are a Reaper's regular attack against buildings???"

Siege Tank - I thought maybe there'd be no point building these guys what with all the Thor's crazy firepower and hitpoints, but Tanks still have a definite part in the Terran army.


Disappointed:
Raven - Its voice is weird .

[Hamshank]

LOA you hit it spot on

I did think Mutas sucked until I got rushed with them on my worker line today

[Gifted]

I will simply state this...

Surprised: Sentries. This unit that seemed like a gimmick 1-2 support unit has now become the backbone of all of my strats. But the thing that takes it even further is that the unit "FEELS" good. It doesn't feel overpowered.. it rewards micro and does a simple attack. I'm very surprised how much 8 of these little guys can do.

Disappointed:Pheonix. Right now I feel that either the damage has to be shifted a bit to the natural from the bonus, or more air should be considered light. In many matchups I feel that any time I'd use this, I'd rather use stalkers. The exception is a basic bisu imitation build by imitating the corsairs with pheonix.. but with the high level of rush strats that are prominent, this is nearly a death sentence.

[Nicol Bolas]

Zerg:

Surprised:
Corruptors: Even with their damage nerf and greater expense and lack of the old Corruption mechanic, these things still kind of work they way they ought to. They take out Vikings (though not cost-for-cost) and Phoenixes, while also dealing with bigger ticket air units like Void Rays and such. They are what they are supposed to be: a quick counter for air units. And bringing a few Corruptors on a Mutalisk raid can make everything go that much more smoothly.

Proper Zerg damage bonuses: In SC1, most Zerg units did normal damage. During various points of SC2's development, we saw a lot of Zerg units having damage bonuses. I was rather surprised to see so few make it threw development.

Disappointed:
Hydralisks: The power of Hydralisks swings wildly. They do stupid quantities of damage, but certain units counter them hard (Colossi, Siege Tanks, any AoE, really). They're very expensive, so a lot of times, you commit to Hydralisks. Then bam: the counter comes out and you get rolled. Transitioning out of Hydralisk tech is too hard, and the counters are too effective.

Roaches: These things keep getting more annoying. They make you go through 3 upgrades in order to keep them worthwhile, and the Tier 3 upgrade is so far from worth getting it's ridiculous. They're good Tier 1 and Tier 2 units. But by the time you hit Tier 3, you need to be transitioning into MutaLing, HydraLing, or CorruptorLord. Which brings me to:

Ranged attack bonuses: Totally not worthwhile. Roaches only get a +1 damage mod. WTF? That's only 6% of their 16 damage. Hydras get slightly less than 10%. What do Zerglings get? 20%. Banelings? 13% AoE, and 10% against their preferred targets. Maybe if the Lurker comes back in some capacity, this will be worthwhile. But I doubt it.

Ultralisks: Way too nerfed! Not even close to worth the money. Not with CorruptorLords. At least give them their linear AoE back.

Banelings: Not powerful enough. Too focused on killing light units. These need burrowed movement more than Roaches.

Protoss:

Surprised:
Void Rays: Who made these so effective? These things can carve up armored units really fast.

Stalkers: Making them focused on killing armored units was really the right move. It gives the Phoenix a real purpose in the Protoss army (killing the air units that Stalkers can't). And it allows the Zerg to really punish a Protoss player that goes too strongly for ground tech with no air support.

Disappointed:
Phoenixes: These things have one job. Just one job: kill Light air units. This is not a hard job. They just need to do it, and do it more cost-effectively than the enemy has in fighting back. How do they fail so badly at it? Even with doing 20 damage a shot, they can't out-fight groups of Mutalisks. Cost-for-cost, maybe, but Phoenixes are a lot more limited in utility than Mutalisks; they need to do better than cost-for-cost. You don't see Corruptors losing to Muta. AoE is not the way to go for Phoenixes; give them a 30% or so attack speed boost, and they'll be fine.

Terran:

Surprised:
Reapers: OK Blizzard, you made them useful. Just don't nerf them into oblivion due to nerd rage; we can deal with them just fine as is.

Vikings: These work too. Even in ground form, they can hold their own against certain kinds of units.

Disappointed:
BattleCruisers: WTF?! You had a great thing going: BCs with separate upgrades. Now it's just Yamato? And instead of firing in a salvo, they're just basically really high HP Marines now?

[RamiZ]

Ultralisks: Way too nerfed! Not even close to worth the money. Not with CorruptorLords. At least give them their linear AoE back.

They have Linear AoE attack.... Read it in unit description, unless they didn't change the description and changed the attack...

Look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2hno...F435E4&index=2

[GRUNT]

Ranged attack bonuses: Totally not worthwhile. Roaches only get a +1 damage mod. WTF? That's only 6% of their 16 damage. Hydras get slightly less than 10%. What do Zerglings get? 20%. Banelings? 13% AoE, and 10% against their preferred targets. Maybe if the Lurker comes back in some capacity, this will be worthwhile. But I doubt it.

I know it may seem like very little, but in Brood War, you could do quite an effective 3-hatch push with Hydras against Protoss before Psi Storm comes online. With this build, you'd quickly get the lvl 1 ground range attack upgrade before any other from the Evolution Chamber.

I myself am not sure how the math works out, but that's what professionals did, so I'm sure it must make enough of a difference to be worthwhile .

As for Ultralisks, Ramiz is correct - they still do linear AoE damage. I'm quite happy with them .

[Pandonetho]

Reading all these changes just make me go WTF?

Why the hell did Blizz change SO much from the game before anyone even got to test it?

[Santrega]

I do have to chime in on the corruptors... I watched a late game where a friend of mine disabled about 20 cannons practically at the same time using smart cast. It lasted quite a while and allowed him to destroy the base without taking very many casualties...

Also, think about destroying workers at a base and then disabling the nexus/command center (I dont think it would work on hatchery?). It would completely halt the economy at one base for the length of the disable... which is significant.

Also, How is no one surprised about how useful Nydus worms are without that limitation? Man they are fun to watch (and i'm sure to use as well).

[Aldrius]

Also, think about destroying workers at a base and then disabling the nexus/command center (I dont think it would work on hatchery?). It would completely halt the economy at one base for the length of the disable... which is significant.

Uh... well... that would be PRETTY difficult to pull off. I mean if you kill off all their probes their economy is pretty much halted for a while anyway.