StarCraft 2's New Units

TrongaMonga

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According to IGN.com:

The Zerg

Zerglings: Yes, we know, the Zerglings aren't new, but they do get a new ability in StarCraft 2. Each one of these little monsters can be ordered to enter a brief transition state, mutating into Banelings. As Banelings they roll across the landscape and take on a greenish hue, and prove particularly deadly.

The Terran

Reapers: These guys look a little like Marines, but carry dual machine pistols and function differently. Since StarCraft 2 uses the same kind of tiered maps as in the original, you still need to move units up or down ramps to reach each level of the battlefield. Reapers have jump jets allowing them to hop down or up a tier, making them effective tools for exploiting weak spots in an elevated base.

The Protoss

Zealot: Right, Zealots aren't new, but their charge ability is. Blizzard wanted to make the psi-blade wielders more effective at chasing down fleeing foes, or quickly closing in on ranged attackers. The charge allows them to rapidly advance a short distance, and works as a passive ability.

Immortal: This unit activates a near impenetrable shield when under heavy arms fire. During the demonstration at WWI, Blizzard showed how Terran siege tanks were nearly powerless against Immortals, since their heavy tank blasts activated the shields. As a contrast, Terran Reapers' small arms fire made quick work of these guys.

Colossus: Think of the recent film War of the Worlds and you'll have a good idea of how this new unit looks. Their long legs allow them to easily traverse tiers of land. Equipped are a set of dual lasers that can make quick work of smaller, poorly armored units such as Zerglings.

Stalker: A quadripedal unit that can blink, or teleport, forward a short distance. From the WWI demonstration, there seems to be a rather quick cooldown on this ability.

Pheonix: New flying unit, capable of overcharging its weapons to unleash a barrage of projectile volleys. The demonstration showed four of them simultaneously initiate this ability, ravaging a swarm of Zerg Mutalisks. Players need to be careful when engaging the overcharge, as the Pheonix cannot attack or move for several seconds after performing it. Go, death blossom, go.

Warprey: Another new flying unit. These guys blast a continuous laser that increases in damage output the longer it fires. We saw a group of these things take out a Terran Battle Cruiser pretty rapidly. Though they're effective against heavily armored foes, they can still get shredded by small arms fire, like that from Terran Marines.

Mothership: Only one of these can be present on the battlefield at a time. They have three powerful abilities, the first of which is called Time Bomb. Unleashing this attack surrounds the ship in a translucent spherical field capable of stopping incoming missiles. When the field times out, the missiles drop to the ground like harmless Tic-Tacs. The second ability, called Planet Cracker, fires a battery of laser beams (the Protoss like lasers, apparently) at the ground, quickly wiping out whatever's lurking underneath the ship. This ability is particularly useful because the mothership can be ordered around while the Cracker fires, acting like a tornado through a trailer park. The final ability is Black Hole, which, as you might expect, tears a hole in the fabric of "insert nerdy science-fiction term" and actually sucks in whatever units surround it. In the demonstration we saw Blizzard trigger a black hole around about four Terran Battle Cruisers, wiping them out within a few seconds.

Phase Prism: These things can transport Protoss units quickly across the battlefield. They're also capable of acting as replacement pylons, powering all structures within range should a pylon be destroyed.

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I can only imagine, if Blizzard is to balance this game as well as in StarCraft 1, the wonders that will still come from both Terran and Zerg!
 

PauseBreak

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So Zerglings took the place of the Infested Terran? That's cool, I like how the Zerg assimilate new things into their Fold. Plus evolve to newer and 'cooler' creatures. I can only imagine how much more damage an infested unit will be. Maybe we can infest Protoss too! :)

All so exciting!
 

Ntrik_

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So Zerglings took the place of the Infested Terran? That's cool, I like how the Zerg assimilate new things into their Fold. Plus evolve to newer and 'cooler' creatures. I can only imagine how much more damage an infested unit will be. Maybe we can infest Protoss too! :)

All so exciting!
I saw 2~3 of them destroying colosuss in the trailer

dunno, seemed like alot of dmg, wiped out group of zlots and 2 colosuss in a small number (llike maybe 8 of lings? :S)
 

Renzokuken

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They have shit for health, just like the infested terran. L2shoothemdownbeforethey****youup.
 

KCspdracer

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re

I wonder what super units the Terrans and Zerg will have? Reminds me of Rise of legends. The 3 sides have a super unit.

SC1 sure does look primitive now.
 

TrongaMonga

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Why's that? It wasn't a bad rushing race back then.
 

x42bn6

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Wasn't bad but I was always under the impression that it moved the slowest out of all the races.

The leaping will just make things slightly faster and more fun.*
 

TrongaMonga

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Zealots can't leap stuff, so it'll be the same. As far as I know, the only low tech units that can leap are the reapers (and I'm highly guessing here), so there's not much change.

No, the dragoons were not low tech :p
 

Emperor Pan I

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Most expensive race me thinks means slowest, etc.

I think the Protoss have some neat toys to fiddle around with, but my SC race of choice is Terran, and I'm hoping for some sweet surprises. Humans have spent thousands of years practicing the art of warfare and improving ways to kill each other. Just turn that on the other races, and win! UED kicked ass until they got teamed up on.
 

TrongaMonga

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Yes, I completly agree. My favourite race in SC was also the Terrans, because they simply had an easy way to counter every freaking thing in that game.

Well, they all had, but Terrans are humans. Nuff said :p
 

Emperor Pan I

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Terran seems to be the middle of the SC spectrum. Zerg seem to be numbers and speed, terran is balanced and Protoss are slower but more powerful.
 

Vadriel

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I just want to input that IGN (the source for that unit info) has it wrong on one count. They call the Protoss air unit a "Warprey" when the screen readout clearly says "Warp Ray." Pronounced pretty much the same, but I just thought I'd nitpick.
 

Lizardbreath

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"Reapers: These guys look a little like Marines, but carry dual machine pistols and function differently. Since StarCraft 2 uses the same kind of tiered maps as in the original, you still need to move units up or down ramps to reach each level of the battlefield. Reapers have jump jets allowing them to hop down or up a tier, making them effective tools for exploiting weak spots in an elevated base."


THIS IS IMBALANCED.
 

Emperor Pan I

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"Reapers: These guys look a little like Marines, but carry dual machine pistols and function differently. Since StarCraft 2 uses the same kind of tiered maps as in the original, you still need to move units up or down ramps to reach each level of the battlefield. Reapers have jump jets allowing them to hop down or up a tier, making them effective tools for exploiting weak spots in an elevated base."


THIS IS IMBALANCED.
You obviously have never played a RTS.

DOW doesn't seem to suffer from massive imbalances. strange.
 

Lizardbreath

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If there is no cooldown on this effect then it seems pretty imbalanced to me.
 

Emperor Pan I

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How many tiers are you expecting to jump repeatedly?

If it was a move like Blink and it had no cool down that would be imbalanced.

Being able to jump a tier repeatedly means nothing.
 

Lizardbreath

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You jump a tier and destroy a base and then jump down. Unless this is a tier 2 unit then you are able to do this before any of the other 2 races....which makes it imbalanced.
 

RyanXWing

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Its going to take some gas, as is the logical thing. I assume it will be like a firebat. With maybe a bit of a higher cost.
 

Emperor Pan I

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You jump a tier and destroy a base and then jump down. Unless this is a tier 2 unit then you are able to do this before any of the other 2 races....which makes it imbalanced.
Forgot the nukes that reapers are being given that would make them be able to destroy a base then jump away.

And I suppose a cool down would have helped that how? Unless it was a 5 minute cool down, a unit with pistols for weapons isn't going to destroy any base, not even close.

I'm surprised I'm not hearing you complain the colossus is imbalanced since it can just walk up the same cliff, except it actually has some power behind it.
 
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