Protoss airforce disappointing, artwise and gameplay wise

[Kimera757]

That post could have used more detail.

You win by (among other things) killing the enemy's economy and their buildings. Void rays are good at killing buildings, banshees are good at killing both.

Compare this to StarCraft I, where the only terran and protoss units that were good at AtG were capital ships, which are very high-tier; games often don't even get to this point. (Making carriers more useful in smaller numbers is a good thing, IMO, so you don't have to cripple your economy trying to make dozens of them.)

[GeeGee]

I really like the Phoenix and Mothership design. The Void Ray could be touched up.

Personally, I'm hoping that they will begin to pay more attention to Terran unit/building renders. Some of them look like crap.

[sandwich_bird]

There is no basis for this at all.

The Void Ray and Banshee make this null and void.

I will develop on this a bit more then.

First of all, I will like to point out that for me, an interesting air force would be an army consisting of mostly useful damaging flying units. By saying groundcraft I'm implying that the fights will be held between ground units and not air units. With that said, all support units don't count since you can't mass them.

What are we left with? These:
-Mutalisk, Corrupters
-Void ray, Pheonix, Carrier, Mothership
-BC, viking, banshee

Mutalisk, broodlords and void rays are the only air units that looks useful if you want to GG your opponent with. All the other units are more support type units or just not useful/interesting enough imo. This leaves us with a huge difference with the number of ground units and the number of air units which of course make the chance of actually making a big air force slimmer. This of course leads to more match being held between ground forces instead of air.

Now why don't I support the other damaging air units? Well lets see...

Banshee: The banshee feels to me like an harasser only pretty much because of recent sources on the subject:

Similarly with banshees. 6 or 7 of them 1 shot anything on the ground - but you will never be able to build that many in a typical game.
My explanation is that Terran infantry is just too good against anything. There is no metal anymore, it's either marines or marauders.
I hate to say it but even the Siege Tank felt kind of unnecessary. It was not really useless like the hellion but it was questionable if it's worth the money for Factories and addons.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...topic_id=96528

Viking: Viking are half ground and half air making them not really a pure air unit....

BC: Well firs off they are too far away in the tech tree. They will most likely suffer from everything they did suffer in the original sc. Most likely a rare sight once again in competitive gameplay.


Mothership: Most people find it useless and from what I can tell it probably is.

Mothership: It moves very, very slowly. I fail to see its usefulness in most games, as the only way to get it to the battlefield is to make a proxy pylon and warp to it. Browder is OK with it being a marginalized unit though - he notes that SC1 had its own share of "fuck you" units in the scout and queen.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...topic_id=96528


Phoenix: Sounds more of a support unit/harasser to me than anything else. First of is attack is only ATA. You can't really mass them. I know, the gravitron beam... This will be useful against huge ground units like the ultralisk or siege tanks but simple marines can easily deal with the threat.

Carrier: Same thing as the BC. Even though carriers are far more used, they shouldn't be that much of a common sight. Corruptors can easily deal with carriers and marines + medivac combo will do the trick in tvp since marines are so much stronger and they were already a viable counter to carriers.

Corruptor: Well it's a counter air unit... Not really useful if no one use air.

[Nicol Bolas]

The banshee feels to me like an harasser only pretty much because of recent sources on the subject:

Oh please. If you want to build a flock of Banshees, you most certainly can. Just like covering the ground in Siege Tanks was possible in SC1. It's all about building the StarPorts with TechLabs and just pumping them out.

4-Port Banshee isn't an unreasonable prospect. I mean, you're not going to start with that, but you could probably transition to it on 2 bases.

BC: Well firs off they are too far away in the tech tree. They will most likely suffer from everything they did suffer in the original sc. Most likely a rare sight once again in competitive gameplay.

BCs are way more viable in SC2. First, you don't need to get 8 of them to have a useful number; thanks to the 3 abilities, just getting one or two can bolster any force. An anti-air version can help you deal with someone going for Brood Lords or Banshees. The Defensive Matrix version is a neigh-unkillable behemoth that can wade into battle and create chaos while your main force swings around to attack the newly-exposed weak point. And the Yamato version can take out a few choice units from range.

This will be useful against huge ground units like the ultralisk or siege tanks

Actually, it won't. Ultralisks are Massive, and GB doesn't work on Massive units.

Corruptor: Well it's a counter air unit... Not really useful if no one use air.

And why would someone not want to use air against the Zerg? Besides drop play, you might recall that the Zerg have their supply in the air, ready and waiting to be attacked by a few Vikings.

[Pandonetho]

Air is more viable than ever with SC2.

BCs are way more viable in SC2. First, you don't need to get 8 of them to have a useful number; thanks to the 3 abilities, just getting one or two can bolster any force

Don't forget its new attack type which will devestate any units with little to no armour.

[sandwich_bird]

Oh please. If you want to build a flock of Banshees, you most certainly can. Just like covering the ground in Siege Tanks was possible in SC1. It's all about building the StarPorts with TechLabs and just pumping them out.

4-Port Banshee isn't an unreasonable prospect. I mean, you're not going to start with that, but you could probably transition to it on 2 bases.



BCs are way more viable in SC2. First, you don't need to get 8 of them to have a useful number; thanks to the 3 abilities, just getting one or two can bolster any force. An anti-air version can help you deal with someone going for Brood Lords or Banshees. The Defensive Matrix version is a neigh-unkillable behemoth that can wade into battle and create chaos while your main force swings around to attack the newly-exposed weak point. And the Yamato version can take out a few choice units from range.



Actually, it won't. Ultralisks are Massive, and GB doesn't work on Massive units.



And why would someone not want to use air against the Zerg? Besides drop play, you might recall that the Zerg have their supply in the air, ready and waiting to be attacked by a few Vikings.

Good points. I'm not too sure about the BC though. I know he got those new kick ass abilities but at the same time it's still late in the tech tree and you can probably use your money on something else more useful. We'll see. They are gonna be major killers in BGH and other huge map game though that's for sure.

[spychi]

Queen is an useful unit in SC, I always use it!!

[Zabimaru]

Queen is a usefull unit in SC, I always use it!!

It's one of the most god damn annoying units in SC.... How I hate broodling... yet love to do it to others. and Inested CC's are a good feeling.

[spychi]

It's one of the most god damn annoying units in SC.... How I hate broodling... yet love to do it to others. and Inested CC's are a good feeling.

I love to use vs Terran the spawn broodling, 4 queens and gg tanks in large groups

[Aldrius]

Oh please. If you want to build a flock of Banshees, you most certainly can. Just like covering the ground in Siege Tanks was possible in SC1. It's all about building the StarPorts with TechLabs and just pumping them out.

4-Port Banshee isn't an unreasonable prospect. I mean, you're not going to start with that, but you could probably transition to it on 2 bases.

Just an addendum: stats can change. The Banshee is intended as a pure anti-ground unit, and I've read reports from the SAME event that say that the Banshee is really, really strong.

But because it's a pure anti-ground unit, it should almost definitely be... good against ground units, in a combat situation. But it should always be fragile, because it can cloak. If you can see it, it should not be hard to kill. The thing that should be different from the wraith, though, is that it should be able to kill stuff REALLY quickly. So like a glass cannon, either it dies quickly, or your opponent dies quickly.