Thor vs Collosus

[Nicol Bolas]

if you had your Thors target a Colossus, would the Thors be contempt with sitting back at 10 range attacking the Colossus with its air attacks, or would the Thor run forward while attacking with its air attack until it would come in range of the Colossus to use it's arm cannons

That's a pretty good question. My guess is that it would stop moving the moment any of its attacks came into range. That's what would happen if they used the simplest programming logic for it.

i think Karune said that they've changed the collossus so that it can only be hit as a ground unit.

Karune has said no such thing.

[Zigurd]

In terms of cost effectiveness, which one is the best unit ?
They have different roles, but which would you say is the most useful one ?

[warrior6]

While "technically" your comparison is correct, a better and more accurate one would be "The Thor will use its more powerful attack once it is in range, just like how the Hydralisk will switch to its more powerful GTA."

umm i think its somewhat like comparing the reaver to a broodwar siege tank. with the thor being the siege tank.

[Runei]

thats really cool, hydras switch to melee visual when in range? i didnt know that... anyone have a vid of this I can check out?

[DemolitionSquid]

thats really cool, hydras switch to melee visual when in range? i didnt know that... anyone have a vid of this I can check out?

BR2. Hydra's melee auto turrets.

[Kimera757]

In terms of cost effectiveness, which one is the best unit ?
They have different roles, but which would you say is the most useful one ?

"They have different roles" therefor you can't compare their cost-effectiveness. Colossi are better at killing SCVs and worse at killing buildings than Thors, but you need to do both to win (as an example).

[Norfindel]

In terms of cost effectiveness, which one is the best unit ?
They have different roles, but which would you say is the most useful one ?

Taking into account that the Colossus can kill Marines in one hit now, i think that the Colossus is probably more cost-effective. The Thor seems to be mainly a damage soaker, but if you see the stats from sc2armory, they have only 50 more life than a Colossus, that have a splash attack that can potentially destroy a lot of weak massed ground units at once.
The Thor attack looks powerfull, but you must take into account that at the unit cost, it will be outnumbered quite easily. I'm not conviced on it's anti-air role, either. It would be cumbersome to counter air units with a few Thors, but would be usefull when attacking, to keep light enemy air units away.

[Kimera757]

The Thor seems to be mainly a damage soaker, but if you see the stats from sc2armory, they have only 50 more life than a Colossus.

The old colossus could have double the hit points (with Mechanical Rebirth) and the new one has some kind of plasma beam attack that we know little to nothing about. Either way, we shouldn't examine the Thor without taking its special abilities into account.

[MattII]

Also, are we taking the Colossus before or after its +3 range upgrade?

[Nicol Bolas]

Which is more cost-effective? The question itself is just inappropriate in this case. They do different things.

For all of the Colossus's "killing Marines in one shot" attack, it's still not as good as a Thor against single targets. The Thor's refire rate is about 3x greater than the Colossus. The Colossus is best against clusters of enemies; against a single target, it wastes too much damage to be effective. Whereas the Thor is terrible against clusters of enemies; it is best against a smaller number of things with lots of Hp (since they do 30x2 damage. A big waste to kill a Zergling).

Also, the Thor can shoot flying things, which the Colossus can't. Similarly, the Colossus can cliff-climb, which the Thor can't.

The two units best signify the ideals of their respective races. The Colossus is an artist's unit. You position it well, and you get reasonable damage. It's mobile and long-ranged.

The Thor is a rock. It's hard to kill, and has lots of big guns on it. It can shoot everything, ground and air. It's overkill in armored form.