Editor's Note: Happymint, a former World of WarCraft pro gamer, attended the WarCraft III finals in Cologne, Germany. The following Q&A session is a polished sum-up of the information that he has graciously shared with the SC:L community:

Can you describe your overall impressions in detail?

Well, after playing the game I realized that in 4 more short days I was going to not be able to play it again. I was like "Oh shit this is going to suck when I get home" so I was constantly going from Blizz employee to Blizz employee trying to get some sort of information on when to expect beta. I generally hung out with the four staff members who I played StarCraft with/against the most. They were really down to earth and great guys, one night we talked about StarCraft II alone for like three hours while having some drinks. I can say that no matter how I tried I could never get them to say exactly when (they sincerely did not know I think). Though as often as I brought it up all I can say is that I got the impression that it was not going to be really soon. Sure they could have been pulling my leg, but I built up a good amount of rapport with them over the course of the week. And I think that if it was honestly in like 1-2 months from then and they knew that it was, at least one of them would have told me.

The impression I got was basically, there was 0 rush on this game. They would not - no matter what - release it until it was perfect. They were like 100% content playing it amongst themselves for however long it takes to actually get a build they felt was really solid and balanced. It is like there is absolutely no overhead Blizz president/board member/ whatever calling the devs every day saying "Hey, when's my beta going to be done, I need MONEY!" After all, Blizz has plenty of money. They put us up in four star hotels, unlimited room service, free meals every meal. It was a ballin good time haha.

What are the overpowered elements that you found in StarCraft II?

The Raven (previously named Nighthawk), the new Terran "Science Vessel", can basically be teched to incredibly fast. It has turrets that it can drop. These are not for those "Oh crap!" situations; they are actually quite good. The turrets only cost fifty energy, have two armor, 150 health, and do eight damage per attack. It attacks at approximately the same speed as a non-stimmed Marine. Energy seems to regenerate faster than in StarCraft I from what I could tell. This made it so I could kill players entirely with turrets or with the Raven's heat seeking missiles, which are also really good. The misses, according to the Blizzard staff were nerfed in the most recent build to move slower than the one I was in. They were very good and perhaps needed the nerf. However, if you use them, you have to be dangerously close to enemy units for it to actually hit. There is also an upgrade the range at which it will chase units.

There were games where I had eight Ravens and flew over the Zerg expansion and base and used smart casting to drop approximately thirty turrets on their base. The player had to sacrifice almost its entire army to fend off these turrets which gives terran very quick map control.

Another overpowered element was the Baneling. In the build I played, their AOE was a bit smaller. However, they did forty damage on each explosion which one shot infantry. They were incredibly good. The newest build nerfed them according to the Blizzard staff there, but they increased their AOE abilities.

The last overpowered element I can remember was the Planetary Fortress. A big Terran weakness in StarCraft I is the inability to easily defend expansions, because they had no sunkens/photon cannons. In StarCraft 2, a player can turn their Command Center into a Planetary Fortress. This can be spam repaired with a player's SCV's. It only hits ground but does AOE damage and forty damage per attack. There was a game I had my Planetary Fortress take out 12 zealots and 5 immortals while I was spam repairing, allowing it's HP to never drop. It is not without cost, however; a player can only get this OR the Comsat.

Comsat has a really cool element in which a player can spend fifty energy on a Comsat, or a player can spend fifty energy on dropping a MULe for mining. MULe's actually mine at the SAME time as your SCV's on the same mineral patches the SCVs can mine at. This can drastically increase a player's income. A player can drop a MULE anywhere that he has vision of.

What are some things that you think should be changed or things that you think will be changed?

Some things that need to be changed are: (1)the turret energy requirement increased; (2)Baneling damage nerfed and AOE increased; (3)Siege Tank damage increased; (4)Zerg tech reworked. The Zerg seems to only be good right now because of the Baneling. Every good unit is way too late in the tech tree and Zerg seem to constantly lose in the early or mid-game, as can be seen in Battle Report #3. The temporary Force Field that can be put up by early Protoss tech Disruptor is obscenely good. In my opinion, it needs less AOE or cost more energy.

Can you describe in detail how Creep Tumors are used? Is the ability instant and does it have a cooldown? When casting on receding creep, does it instantly halt the recession and will it magnify creep around it within a radius?

I didn't play Zerg all that much unfortunately, but the Creep stays for a good while. It costs energy and has no cooldown as far as I know. If a player makes Creep Tumors, he can't inject Larva into his Hatcheries because of the lack of energy. It's very important to do so because Zerg no longer needs to spam Hatcheries for Larva; one or two Queens is all that is needed. I had like twelve larva on one Hatchery at one point. Its quite good.

Are there any significant changes with the UI from what we've seen in the latest screenshots? Can players now draw on the minimap in addition to the standard ping?

The UI seems to be about the same as the in the screenshots I have seen. I was unable to draw on the mini map, and the Blizzard staff never mentioned anything about it in all my discussions with them.

Can you discuss Psi Storm? How is it in terms of importance/usefulness?

Psi Storm is just as good as it has ever been. When the Blizzard devs talked about ZvP with me they would talk about the game before and after "storm". This is because it's that big of a difference. When you cast it, similar to WC3 when you're casting say - blizzard for example - you get a circle on the ground where it will show up. There is smart casting now so there is no need to single select each Templar to cast, you can just press T click T click T Click and 3 of your selected Templars will each make a cast etc. The graphic is a bit different, it no longer looks like lightning, it looks more like a very high quality version of the Corsairs web but all "stormy" for lack of a better term. It is still a very integral part of Protoss play.

What was the Thor like, and how effective did you find this unit?

The Thor is a funky unit. It's actually not that expensive, only slightly more than a Siege Tank. It's clunky and slow and its damage is pretty measly. There are only two good things about the Thor: (1)It has an instant 300 damage (something near there), and (2)a five second single-target stun that requires energy. The Thor is also like the Goliath 2.0 against air. It shoots off volleys of around six rockets in the air. Unless the rocket damage is upgraded later in the game, they are relatively low damage rockets though, making them ineffective against units with level three armor.

An adjacent Sensor Tower is now needed to grant detection to Missile Turrets. Can you confirm this? Also, does the Sensor Tower still reveal itself to enemies once constructed?

It does reveal itself to enemies once constructed. I have no idea why; it doesn't make sense to me to be honest. I cannot confirm that sensor towers are needed for detection for Missie Turrets. I can say that the Turrets are substantially better than before, though slightly more expensive. A welcome change if you ask me.

What was your impression of Proton Charge?

Proton charge is pretty easy to keep up and is low tech so you can get the Dark Pylon very fast. I think it only requires a Gateway. You select it then a huge AOE pops up and you have to physically click where to put the charge. It simply makes Probes get 1 more minerals per trip instead of 5, now 6. Everyone gets it pretty early from what I saw.

I am pretty sure they balanced the Mule and Proton charge to give these races approx the same minerals/minute if both used every time possible. Down side is that Mule is energy that can't be used for a Comsat.

How is the macro aspect of the game?

Macro as you would expect is much easier in StarCraft II. They pretty much added dark pylon / Queen / mule to force players to macro. Having rally straight to minerals and being able to hot key all your CC's hatcheries/whatever to one key makes the game much more seamless to play. I welcome the changes, I know some people are hesitant b/c it will require less APM, which is why they put in these new abilities.

Hatcheries now have two rallys. One for workers, one for everything else. It's nice. One thing I hope is that they get rid of the two geysers. I feel like two geysers really screws Zerg because they need gas more than any other race and have to sac four Drones PER gas instead of three. The idea is that if you don't want to tech super fast you can just go one gas. But I found that almost every race seems to need two geysers pretty early to produce anything outside of lings/lots/marines

Did you use Tanks much at all? Or Helions? If so how did you feel they compared to a more bio build?

From what I can tell this is basically how it works with Terran. Bio is strong by itself. Mech is "ok" by itself. Bio Mech is very strong. Bio Mech + Air is also very strong. Unlike in StarCraft I where spamming two units is the best way to go, armies in StarCraft II seemed a bit more diverse to me. For example, Banshees are really strong. Great damage to ground, and can really supplement ground units along with Ravens. You really *can* get a bit of everything at the moment. Tanks in regular mode are the same as in StarCraft I

I personally didn't like Helions that much. They have their uses but I honestly just love Vultures so much they just seemed like crappy Vultures so I avoided them a lot. I felt like their attack was a bit clunky. Vultures can patrol, move micro and fire to harass. Hellions basically stand still to attack which means I don't like the role it fills quite as much. They're more like buff Firebats and less like Vultures.

Did you try any cheese or silly builds? (like proxy Planetary Fortress) or run into any cheese-like builds from Protoss?

The only cheese I really did was mass Ravens and spammed turrets because it's abusing what is in my opinion an overpowered game element. I heard of games of people spamming Planetary Fortresses but I never really did that myself hehe. Keep in mind, you cannot lift Planetary Fortresses. So you can't like... attack with them.

I used Tanks all the time, but never in large numbers. They are REALLY really weak in comparison to StarCraft I. You have to have an Armory to upgrade Siege mode (Armory doesn't upgrade damage anymore either) so Tanks are later in tech, more expensive, deal less damage, and still slow.

If you get a Lair your Overlords can basically drop creep anywhere (you don't even have to research it). And Nydus Network only requires a Lair now. So one game a friend of mine found a corner of my base, dropped creep then a Nydus Worm, flew out, and about 25 Banelings wrecked my base from behind. It was funny, but also a good strategy.

How did you handle Hydralisks and Roaches? Do you recall their stats?

Roaches are generally reserved for ZvZ and in ZVP they seem to only be pretty good against Zealots from what I understand. Banelings were just so good in the build I played no one got much Roaches because they would just rather have Banelings. Roaches can't hit air so banelings are like better all around for the money. Hydralisks are stronger, I don't remember the stats specifically for them; some people got Hydralisks but usually everyone just spammed Banelings. Lings + Banelings is insane against ground...

Did you get to play with the Disruptor? If so, did you play with Hallucination?

I didn't play with it myself, but I played against people who did. It's a very good unit and the damage isn't *that* bad either. No one used Hallucination from what I can recall, just the force fields. People seemed to just prefer Stalkers to them overall. Blink is insane.

Whats the state of the Neural Parasite ability? Has it changed much since the examples in Battlereport 3?

Neural Parasite is pretty much the same as in Battlereport 3. One really great thing about it is that it is standard when you create an Infestor. Infestors only require a Lair and Neural Parasite does not need to be researched. Thus you can actually tech to Infestors really quickly and use parasites relatively early game which is one of the really strong aspects of Zerg. However, as you would expect, the longer the game continues the better they get overall as the higher tech units they can mind control.

Did you get to see any use of the Corrupter? What were your impressions?

Corrupters are actually really strong, and they are actually more microable than Mutas. They are better for "Jaedong style gibbing" than Mutas currently are. With Corrupters there is what they call a "critical mass" number for them. Once a person has like 6 or 7 of them they can 2 shot almost any air unit in the game (save carriers/BC's etc) and give Zerg major air superiority. They're almost necessary against Terran that uses Ravens since there are no more Scourge in the game.

It's like, all the bad parts of Siege tanks from before: slow, clunky, immobile, with nerfed damage, higher tech required to make it, and a good chunk more expensive. They're still good, but massing them isn't realistic or worth it overall. This is all subject to change when people actually figure out tried and true strategies. But overall in the limited amount of time I had to play, I never really felt they were that amazing. I felt like Terran infantry got the job done better overall. Having Tanks is great for support, but massing them is unrealistic due to expense.

What is the status of the Mothership?

Mothership is ridiculously slow (not as expensive as you would expect) but relatively weak in terms of dealing damage. It can take a ridiculous amount of damage. I never got to use it myself, I only played against it, and I was never impressed. It is so unbelievably immobile (other than being able to blink to buildings) that it makes it difficult to keep up with the pace of battle. You can easily just avoid it. The blink around ability does cost energy which makes it less of a caster. It looks really cool though.

Did you get a chance to try Lurkers? What is their current role? A while back, they were 11 range anti-building siege units.

Not a single person got Lurkers the entire time I was there. They require a Hive now, and their cost is high. I can't comment on them myself unfortunately. It's a shame because they're like a late game unit now instead of the early response to M&M (though there are no more early game Medics either).

Any change in unit designs portraits?

The new portraits look about as life-like as you can get. The Zerg look absolutely...disgusting..and awesome. I honestly didn't pay too much attention to the details of the units. The one thing I regret most is not spam clicking them to hear what goofy stuff they might say.

What is the Zerg response to Psionic Storm?

I honestly would assume Ultras if they can get to them. Ultras are so obscenely powerful they change games. They have like 600 health now and damage is increased and they cleave everything around them for partial damage.

How fast can Medivacs be acquired? is rushing them a common strategy?

Medivacs only require a Starport (no Tech Lab necessary) so they are really easy to get and mass with a Reactor. You can get them very quickly and they basically serve as the new Medics. They are 100/100 in costs and can be made quickly. You can offensively drop as a Terran faster than in the original StarCraft. The healing they do is probably the same as before though because you can't really mass them like you can Medics.

How is the Zerg Base defense with the mobility of the Spine/Spore Crawlers? Do the little things that come out when a building dies contribute at all, or are they more just eye candy for dead buildings?

Zerg base defense seems weaker overall, but the mobility of it is a plus. Most people didn't get many Spine Crawlers. One person got Spore Crawlers to stop my Banshees but they did not do much good because banshees are still pretty devastating. The little things that come out when the building die are in between eye candy and useful. They will actually kill off a unit maybe, but most importantly they eat damage. So if you move units in right as the building dies you have a little army that is far superior to either by itself.

Was the Carrier model improved, or it's still a yellow Tempest?

The Carriers looked pretty cool to me, but I will say they didn't seem all that powerful. I had a set of 12 Vikings pretty much decimate my opponents 6 Carriers. I felt like Carriers are not quite as powerful as they were in the original.

What units do you think are best for a Medivac drop? Simple Marines for cheapness? Or something else.

I usually just went with Marines, they are still the best for worker gibbing and overall harassment. A lot of the time I really wished I could have two Dropships per eight Marines

*Note - For more Q&A from HappyMint, visit this thread.

This is a StarCraft: Legacy (http://sclegacy.com/) feature event article.

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