Suggestion: Replace thor with an Anti-Air Siege tank

[Eligor]

This thread was almost painful to read, so many arbitrary statements...

And I have a question. Why exactly is the Thor a bad GtA unit? People seem to be throwing around the word "sucky" a lot without saying why.

[unentschieden]

Because it works like a GTA Valkyre. The AOE Anti Air attack is multihit, ergo less effective against high Armor value Units. That attack has a HUGE range - counteracting the key advantage of air units - their mobility. (Remember Charon boosters?)
Apart from that the Thor is the Terrans most "meaty" unit, at least for cost and has apparently a "good" ergo not specialised GTG attack.

As mentioned it doesn´t guarrantee Air Superiority like some argue it should. Also there is ambiguity about it´s mobility, especially if it´s transportable.

[Eligor]

Because it works like a GTA Valkyre. The AOE Anti Air attack is multihit, ergo less effective against high Armor value Units. That attack has a HUGE range - counteracting the key advantage of air units - their mobility. (Remember Charon boosters?)

But wouldn't all this be balanced out by the Thor's slowness and cost? Unlike the Goliath it's not a massable unit.

[TheEconomist]

I say we wait for those beta videos demonstrating the Thor We could actually be wanting to buff an already overpowered unit

[icephantom02]

Background
Since it's introduction into the game, I have always had a hatred of the Thor. I don't know why. It might be that it's reason at the time was to be a "beefier" Siege Tank. I have always loved the ST...I am a "turtle" player by nature. I don't like to attack...I like to defend and make sure no one can get into my area. The ST has been perfect for this. When you have it deploy and if you give it some Detection and some Anti-Air, you have almost the perfect defense. When the Thor was thrown into the equation, that was all thrown into the air. Sure, I could always decide to not build the Thor and keep using my ST turtle, but the Thor would then just sit there...unwanted and unused. Why have a unit like that in StarCraft 2? It would end up coming down to the decision for the player: Siege Tank or Thor.

Problem
They then gave it some AA-Guns and said "Hey, now look! It's not a beefed-up Siege Tank. It's has it's own purpose. It can shoot air units down with its pretty shoulder cannons and make fireworks in the sky!" Um.....why? There aren't any direct AA units for the Terran. There's the Viking and that unit is more of a mobile defense base. Then there's the Battlecruiser that can be upgraded to have a special anti-air special ability. Of course, you always have your trusty criminal marines. Other than that, there are no real DIRECT counters to air units. Here's a question that might throw some major RTS nuts off the line: why do we need one? Sure, the Valkyrie and the Wraith were really nice in StarCraft: Brood War...but, seriously why do you need this formula of direct counters, whether its a flying unit or not.

Solution
My proposal is this: cut the Thor....get rid of it....it has no purpose in the Terran arsenal. Don't create a unit that's sole purpose is to combat air units. That leaves you with one less choice to make on the battlefield....one less waste of minerals/gas.

IP02

[Whanhee]

Personally I think the biggest problem with the Thor has always been the design team's unwillingness to change the Siege Tank, I mean even the Battlecruiser has seen an attack-pattern change (1*25 -> 8*8).

Change the siege tank? HERESY!

I like the current anti-armour role the thor has. Though I don't think it will be that useful in other matchups. vs zerg? ultralisk? hm.... vs toss? probably colossi. It really isn't worth it to counter units so it'd be better vs bases and base defenses, which incidentally also get raped by tanks. So if the thor is to fulfill this role, tanks must be made a pure anti-unit weapon. What then? people still don't build thors because massed base defenses is stupid and once you beat the defending army with your super anti-unit tanks you can just march in and destroy their economy anyways.

So yeah, changing tanks to accommodate the current thor is not worth it imo.

[flabortast]

Siege tanks are already very different from before. They cost more and do more damage. They fire faster in tank mode and they are actually useful w/o siege tech. Siege mode has longer range and more power at the cost of additional cooldown. We'll be seeing less tanks on the field, less in siege mode, more often in tank mode. The 15+10 damage vs armored with normal attack speed really looks powerful, in contrast to the 30 explosive damage with slow attack speed.

[Norfindel]

What about giving the Viking in ground mode the ability to shoot air units with it's machineguns? Maybe even give the machineguns a bonus vs Light armor, then the Viking in air mode would be good vs heavy air targets (as it's today), and good vs Light air/ground units while in ground mode. But to be honest, maybe it's currently fair vs light air, anyways.

The Thor can then be what it looks like: a heavy damage soaker. It could be given a specific role, like a counter to Armored units, with a slow, powerfull attack that deals increased damage against them, for example: 30 (+70 vs Armored).
Maybe throw some special ability in, like call down Drop Pods filled with Marines (with an energy, mineral and supply cost), and it could also have Defensive Matrix, and what about some smoke bomb that blocks vision (or just enemy vision), like if it would be tall grass, or something like that?

[Crazy_Jonny]

To me, the Thor is becoming a valkyre on the ground, plus a ground attack for the sake of defending itself. Im ok with it, but I wouldnt mind a change. What makes it better than a valk is it should actually works, because I hated when valks froze in SC1. Not to mention its a meat shield with incredible range. This will make the Thor a really great support unit, but not massable, which excuses its high cost.

As far as an anti air tank, I always thought if they were gonna do something like that, it would be just another research to the regular tank, and it would be a heavy gta, because the Terrans currently lack that. Meanwhile the Thor would be for AoE Gta.

[n00bonicPlague]

You could still do my idea, but with shorter range on the missiles (4 instead of 6).