New unit speculation for the expansion

[Dalarsco]

So air was horrible in Broodwar. Interesting. Please share your expert knowledge on SC:BW.
.... your attempt at trolling is mediocre at best.

I hate to defend DS, but in this case I have to agree with part of the statement if not the sentiment and wording. While air wasn't "horrible", and the Scourge wasn't too bad, I've never really enjoyed most air in BW. Zerg were the only of the three races that I found could use air as a major attack force with any practicality. Most air units were better against other air units than against ground, so it made more sense to go ground in most cases. Carriers and BCs were usually impractical due to the cost, while Wraiths and Scouts didn't do very high ATG damage for their cost. Corsairs and Science Vessels were useful for their skills, but that was in support of a ground army. Zerg had Mutas and Guardians which had good ATG so could be used to push through an assault.
Conversely, SC2 Zerg have a similar enough airforce, with the BL filling the function of the Guardian and the Corrupter filling the role of the Devourer, with the added bonus that the Corrupters are now what evolve into BLs, meaning that you won't get stuck with useless or nearly useless ATA fighters once you destroy any enemy air units. Phoenixes, like Corsairs, are useful for their skills even if their ATA attack is irrelevant, and the Wraith's useful cloak is given over to the excellent ATG Banshee. The Void Ray and the Viking are both very flexible in their application.
While DS is arrogant and contrarian as always, he is correct in his supposition that air is better in SC2 than in SC1.

[infernal]

i hope the Terrans get some bad ass answer to the mother ship i want more air battles the loki would be very cool to see.

and i believe the expansions will bring more units to all of the races u cant just bring more units to one race

[RamiZ]

I hate to defend DS, but in this case I have to agree with part of the statement if not the sentiment and wording. While air wasn't "horrible", and the Scourge wasn't too bad, I've never really enjoyed most air in BW. Zerg were the only of the three races that I found could use air as a major attack force with any practicality. Most air units were better against other air units than against ground, so it made more sense to go ground in most cases. Carriers and BCs were usually impractical due to the cost, while Wraiths and Scouts didn't do very high ATG damage for their cost. Corsairs and Science Vessels were useful for their skills, but that was in support of a ground army. Zerg had Mutas and Guardians which had good ATG so could be used to push through an assault.
Conversely, SC2 Zerg have a similar enough airforce, with the BL filling the function of the Guardian and the Corrupter filling the role of the Devourer, with the added bonus that the Corrupters are now what evolve into BLs, meaning that you won't get stuck with useless or nearly useless ATA fighters once you destroy any enemy air units. Phoenixes, like Corsairs, are useful for their skills even if their ATA attack is irrelevant, and the Wraith's useful cloak is given over to the excellent ATG Banshee. The Void Ray and the Viking are both very flexible in their application.
While DS is arrogant and contrarian as always, he is correct in his supposition that air is better in SC2 than in SC1.

And not just that, but there are no pure AtA units in SC2. I mean, there are, but they all can affect AtG in some way... Phoenixes got Gravity Beam, Corruptors can corrupt ground units too and Vikings can transform to ground form. With all this, I think that Blizzard accomplished great thing and that is that these units are not useless outside of AtA battle, like Devourers, Valkyries and Scourges were.

[Hammy]

Lost the paragraph I was writing.
Anyways, here is the idea.

So you were more specific with your statement that "they nullified the value of everything except Science Vessels, Mutalisks, Corsairs, and Transports" but that's a completely senseless statement. Doesn't ANYTHING air nullify the usage of banshees? Or half the units in the game nullify void rays? So in the end, you still need combinations to win right? If making wraiths forces a zerg to make either scourge or hydra, isn't that the same as making banshees forcing the zerg to make muta or hydra? If anything, wraiths held their weight against scourge FAR better than banshees do against hydralisks.

one of the two main reasons air was horrible in SC.

If air was so horrible, how come we saw so much of it?

-bisu builds, sair/reaver, shuttle play... Definitely not the kind of strats you used, but definitely VERY frequent. The shuttle got tons more usage in BW than it does in SC2.
-wraith openings in TvZ, very frequent dropship play, Science Vessels in every single friggin TvZ? The vessels got used much more in BW than its SC2 counterpart.


On the other hand, there's 10x less dropship play in SC2 than there was in BW.
Do you see more carriers and battlecruisers in SC2 than you saw in BW?

Basically, don't blame scourge. And don't say nonesense like "Everyone knows that Scourge absolutely dominate in StarCraft.". The fact is, you see plenty of air in SC:BW. Now air is just more specialized, so you don't need to have lots of it them. The scourge was strong, but only a complete amateur would say that "scourge broke air in BW". There is ONE exception to that: the carrier. No doubt, using the carrier is a big no-no in PvZ, but I hardly call that breaking air.

Adding scourge to SC2 would ONLY be broken because the current AtA doesn't have any splash damage, and that doesn't have anything to do with what you were saying.


@Ramiz:
Like I said, in BW ZvP, you saw corsair aaaall the time. And shuttles very frequently. The other protoss air units are all exceptions: the carrier, to which I admitted is the ONLY unit which is broken against Z, and then the scout is useless all around, and the arbiter's cloak is useless+stasis isn't efficient against waves of zerg.
In BW ZvT, some top players relied heavily on wraith openings (Leta for example, one of the most reliable proleague players for a long time), you saw science vessels in every single game (way more than it's SC2 counterpart), and don't get me started on dropship play. Valkyries take the hands of a skilled player, but as long as you don't get overeager with them as use them the same way you'd handle corsairs, then you're safe. 2008-09 saw tons of valkyrie play with the fantasy build. And the battlecruiser didn't do so badly against zerg. It takes 7 scourge to kill one BC, and that's if your micro is godlike. Just flying them in at a D/C level won't get you very fancy results. Besides, I doubt you see any more BCs in SC2 than you did in BW.


Notes and recap:
-OBVIOUSLY this is about 1v1
-Air is not horrible in BW because of the scourge.

[Hammy]

While DS is arrogant and contrarian as always, he is correct in his supposition that air is better in SC2 than in SC1.

But that's not what he's saying. He's saying that one of the TWO reasons air was bad in BW, is the scourge.

While I disagree that air was "horrible" in BW, whatever weaknesses it had are definitely not BECAUSE of the scourge. I should have been more clear about that.

And not just that, but there are no pure AtA units in SC2. I mean, there are, but they all can affect AtG in some way... Phoenixes got Gravity Beam, Corruptors can corrupt ground units too and Vikings can transform to ground form. With all this, I think that Blizzard accomplished great thing and that is that these units are not useless outside of AtA battle, like Devourers, Valkyries and Scourges were.

Yup yup, air is more dynamic now indeed. And the scourge in all this?

[RamiZ]

So you were more specific with your statement that "they nullified the value of everything except Science Vessels, Mutalisks, Corsairs, and Transports" but that's a completely senseless statement. Doesn't ANYTHING air nullify the usage of banshees? Or half the units in the game nullify void rays? So in the end, you still need combinations to win right? If making wraiths forces a zerg to make either scourge or hydra, isn't that the same as making banshees forcing the zerg to make muta or hydra? If anything, wraiths held their weight against scourge FAR better than banshees do against hydralisks.

I didn't say that. Point is, in SC1, Zerg has two Lair "openings", one is Mutas and the other one is Lurkers. You are not forcing them to make Scourges, because they are already making them, since most of the Zerg go straight to the Mutas opening. I mean, yes, you make Banshees and force him to make Hydras or Mutas, but Banshee is great unit, great AtG attacker, just like Void Ray, and I saw many games ended up with them. But, how many games did you see in ZvT and ZvP, to be ended by Wraiths and Scouts? in 20 games of ZvT, I see Wraiths in 1 or 2, and Valkyries in maybe 1 - 4 games. Unlike in Sc2, where you see Air almost every game.

And to finish what I have started, how many times did you see that vs. Every drop, harass or anything, they just keep making Scourges? Six months ago, I was watching intensively SC1, and vs. Protoss, many pro Zergs, skipped the Hydras den, rushed to the Lair to make Spire, and first units that they make after few Zerglings for scouting were Scourges, to instantly counter Corsairs that were coming for harass.

TL;DR the whole point of this statement is that now, you can force Zerg to make Anti-Air, while in SC1, Zerg was forcing you NOT to make Air, or at least, that is how I see it, since they will always have Scourges, which are really effective at what they do and not really expensive.

Yup yup, air is more dynamic now indeed. And the scourge in all this?

What do you mean by the last sentence?

[TheEconomist]

Yes I would, especially since Scourge were one of the two main reasons air was horrible in SC. The other being shitty ATG, which has been remedied a bit in SC2, thank Tassadar.

Anything that made StarCraft great, you hate.

Now, you hate the Banshee and Reaper and they're one of the main reasons that StarCraft 2 is fun. Your opinions are terrible.

[Maul]

It's far too early to speculate what new units we might see.

As cool as some of the campaign units for Terran are I don't think we'll ever see them as multiplayer units. The only ones I think are possible are firebats and diamondbacks.

It's also worth mentioning that all units and abilities added in BW were very useful and used in most games, with the exception of the dark archon and the corsair's disruption web ability.

Right now I'm just having fun playing SC2 in it's current form and the metagame hasn't evolved much yet so let's just take it one step at a time :P

[TheEconomist]

I'm no troll. I'm just smarter than you.

Ever heard of Corsairs? They annihilate Scourges. Scourges are easy to counter.

Also, you think you know more about the game than Hammy? I've 1v1'd him quite a few times and I can tell you with absolute certainty that he is one of the best players I've seen and has a lot of knowledge about the game. He is the SCL Strategy staff after all.

You, on the other hand, are a Bronze or Silver last I saw and have admitted yourself to have a hard time remembering counters. But, if you think you know more about the game then maybe you should ask him to 1v1.

Your arrogance has deluded you into believing that you know what you're talking about and that your opinion is worth "a few hundred bucks" as opposed to our two cents.

[DemolitionSquid]

Anything that made StarCraft great, you hate.

Now, you hate the Banshee and Reaper and they're one of the main reasons that StarCraft 2 is fun. Your opinions are terrible.

Please stop trying to troll me. Your attempts are pathetic. I do not "hate" the Banshee or the Reaper. I merely feel that of the current Terran units, they are the two which could be removed and saved for expansions if such a thing was deemed necessary. I'll even explain again why I chose two units.

Terran has the Viking which can act as harassment just as the Wraith did in SC1, and Ravens can drop Auto-Turrets. Infantry drops are more effective with the Medevac. The Banshee's trait is cloaking in the ATG battle for Terran unit effectiveness, which clearly has its uses, but I think the Terran could survive without the Banshee for awhile. There are simply other viable options that are generally more cost effective.

The Reaper is strong early game but becomes very weak later. Blizzard has yet to find a way to fix this. For the relative cost and build time of a Reaper you can get 2-3 Marines which, while less mobile, will arguably have a higher damage output and survivability. It takes great skill to use the Reaper well, and I support the need for mechanics that encourage skill and practice, but the game is so new I think there's enough for people to learn right now that the Reaper could easily have been saved for an expansion. It serves no niche beyond early harassment and is just a gimmick as far as I'm concerned.

As for the Scourge, I stand by my position it was too strong in StarCraft. Once Zerg got Scourge most other air production for Terran and Protoss stopped. The only air units you'd see were the absolutely vital transports, and Corsairs, Wraiths, and Science Vessels - units which were well suited to, unsurprisingly, killing Scourge.

Ever heard of Corsairs? They annihilate Scourges. Scourges are easy to counter.

Also, you think you know more about the game than Hammy? I've 1v1'd him quite a few times and I can tell you with absolute certainty that he is one of the best players I've seen and has a lot of knowledge about the game. He is the SCL Strategy staff after all.

You, on the other hand, are a Bronze or Silver last I saw and have admitted yourself to have a hard time remembering counters. But, if you think you know more about the game then maybe you should ask him to 1v1.

Your arrogance has deluded you into believing that you know what you're talking about and that your opinion is worth "a few hundred bucks" as opposed to our two cents.

I'm Gold/Platnium League, just FYI. And the reason I'm not higher is because I haven't trained my fingers to be fast enough or know all the hotkeys yet, as well as being a micro-oriented player in what is clear an macro/economy based game. There's a large difference between knowledge and strategy, and pure mechanical skill. Also note I mentioned Corsairs before you decided to chime in when Hammy first questioned my position.

L2R.