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On Scouts (and Wraiths): Their terrible ground attack is a victim of how Brood War rebalanced the air game. Pre-BW, their ground attack was nearly twice as fast, which made them actually reasonable to use to raid workers and such, at least in casual skilled team games. I think they got increased air-to-air damage out of it at least.
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Aug 8, 2023 05:03
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Kermit The Grog posted:As someone who got in to watching competitive Starcraft from reading this thread, it is so weird seeing Scouts in the Protoss army at all let alone being used as an affective branch of it. Yeah it really is quite an oddity, isn't it? It's for two reasons: First, the camapign has more situations that cater to the Scout's niche, and second, resource inefficiency is just not a concern for us, especially not in these early missions (I mean we're in like the last fifth of the game but early in the Protoss campaign). Decoy Badger posted:Isn't the emergency warp device in zealot suits a SC2 retcon? Dark templars have the same death animation and they seem to wear ragged Jedi robes at best. You know what? I think you might be right. I'm searching and I'm not seeing any references to the emergency warp from the BW era. Might not even be a retcon, then - could even be tech that the Protoss added during the interbellum. I'll check some sources again but I believe this was, in fact, a "whoopsie" on my part. Either way, thanks for pointing it out.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:07
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Kermit The Grog posted:As someone who got in to watching competitive Starcraft from reading this thread, it is so weird seeing Scouts in the Protoss army at all let alone being used as an affective branch of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahnzlVnvdPE&t=4384s
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Aug 8, 2023 16:37
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Unit Spotlight: High Templar The High Templar as seen in the manual. Cost: 50 minerals, 150 Vespene, 2 supply HP: 40 Shields: 40 Armour: 0 Size: Small Damage: N/A Speed: 3.2 Sight: 7 Requirements: Gateway; Templar Archives Special: Spellcaster The High Templar's total cost of 200 resources isn't all that bad, but the heavy weighting towards Vespene makes them pricier than they might seem. They're also the frailest Protoss unit we've seen so far (other than the Probe), being closer to a Hydralisk or Defiler in terms of durability. Most importantly, though, the High Templar has awful speed - in fact, it's the second slowest ground unit in the game, with only the Reaver being more sluggish. Of course, these are all necessary balancing factors to compensate for the Templar's incredible spellcasting abilities, unlocked with the unit itself at the Templar Archives. At 200 each of minerals and gas, Psionic Storm is tied for the most expensive tech in the game, and with good reason - as we've seen both here and in several late Zerg missions, it's a terrifying spell. It covers a radius of 3, same as an EMP, and will do 112 spell damage to any unit, friend or foe, within that radius over the course of ~2.5 seconds. Arguably the most appealing part, however, is its incredibly competitive cost of a mere 75 Space Mana, making it one of the cheapest spells to actually cast. This spell is a key part of Protoss play and if you have even a passing interest in the race, getting good with it is a must.  Reposting this picture since it's been a while - the Pylons in the selection box are one that would be hit if EMP were cast on the center one. Storm's range is identical - except, of course, it doesn't harm buildings. It's been a long time since we talked about spell damage, so a quick refresher: it's like normal damage, but it also ignores armour. So you're doing 112 to every target. I think we covered this back when Kerrigan got this spell in Zerg 6, but it also doesn't overlap - or rather, you can cast multiple concurrent Storms on the same spot, but it won't increase the damage dealt. And maybe the most important thing to know about Storms, both for effectively using them and effectively dodging them, is that they don't actually start doing damage immediately - there's a short tick between when the Storm appears and when it starts harming units. For Protoss, this means that when an enemy's on the move you want to lead your Storm even more than you might think you do. For Zerg and Terran, this means you've got a minute grace period for getting your guys out of there. With a slightly lower price tag of 150 of each resource, Hallucination is nonetheless a much more niche spell. Any spell in this slot was going to be niche just because Storm is so good. Remember the Science Vessel spotlight, where we talked about how Defensive Matrix is an awesome, grade-A spell that doesn't see much use because people want to conserve their Space Mana for the even more awesome, grade-A+ spells that are Irradiate and EMP? You run into a similar issue here, where very few spells would be strong enough to compete with Storm for your energy (and my theory is that this harsh reality of mana opportunity cost is why Blizzard transitioned away from the six-spell Mages and Death Knights of Warcraft 2). Hallucination, though, would be kind of niche even in the best of circumstances. As we saw, it costs 100 energy (more than Storm, even!) and creates two illusory copies of a friendly unit that, to the enemy, are indistinguishable from normal units. These copies have identical stats to the unit they're a copy of, with the following exceptions: they receive double damage, they deal no damage, they have a timer and expire when it runs out, and they do not receive active abilities (e.g. Templar hallucs can't cast spells, if we'd halluc'd Jimmy he wouldn't have been able to lay mines, etc). Also notable is that hallucs can't be cloaked by any means - if you cast Hallucination on a permanently cloaked unit, like, say, an Observer, it will just be permanently visible to your opponent. It also has some quirks, though. As we saw, any spell that targets a Hallucination will fizzle and instead just auto-kill the Hallucination instead. This includes friendly spells, like Defensive Matrix. However, there's two notable exceptions: first, Hallucinations can in fact be targeted by Hallucination, creating two additional copies. This is no different than copying an ordinary unit, but it's funny. Second, for reasons I'm not sure of, the Yamato Cannon does not auto-kill. What makes this bizarre is that because hallucs take double damage, every single unit in the game sees their halluc get one-shotted by Yamato anyway. But I guess if you were to halluc a particularly powerful hero unit, it wouldn't get auto-killed. We'll use this to scout for the time being, but it's pretty narrow in its application. Also re-iterating here that it is only in Starcraft 2 that Hallucinations are identified by Detectors. Here they are not; it's up to the player to tell them apart. The Templar have a third ability, merging into an Archon, but we'll leave both the technical data and the fluff for the Archon spotlight there. The only thing I'll do here is highlight what some have said in the thread, that two merging Templar type in "idspispopd" similar to mining workers. This can sometimes be exploited to glitch them into places they couldn't otherwise go (which, unlike mineral walking, is banned in competitive play) and also can sometimes interfere with their pathfinding, resulting in this weird circling dance where it takes them ages to merge. Finally, 150 of each resource can also get us Khaydarin Amulets, the obligatory energy upgrade. Actually quite appealing in this case. Let's take a look at the Three Criteria back from the Defiler spotlight: 1. Will you produce enough of this unit that the extra energy is a justifiable expense? 2. Will this unit be able to actually accumulate the extra energy? 3. Does this unit get any extra utility out of the extra energy? For 1, the answer is yes. You always want HTs. For 2, the answer is also yes. Defensive Templar are a huge use for them both in campaign and competitive so they're going to be sitting around accumulating all their energy. And for 3, the extra energy means an extra Storm. All that comes together to mean that Khaydarin Amulets are a great upgrade and should be at least medium priority.  A cutscene of a High Templar channeling a Psionic Storm. It's from SC2, so we won't be seeing it - at least not here, but you'll be sure to catch it eventually if you head over to BisbyWorl's excellent LP of that game! Eel-Repellent: Despite all appearances, High Templar are not, in fact, hovering units. Their movement animations kind of looks like they're levitating, and they've got this blue shadow of themselves that appears behind them when they move which creates the illusion of accelerating and decelerating, but it's just an ordinary walker unit. Fluff: Veteran Zealots that have reached the higher ranks of the Khala set aside their psi-blades and power suits to instead focus on the awesome power of their minds. So presumably at one point these High Templar could throw down with the best of them on the front lines, but have likely let their martial skills lapse over the years. Tech Fluff: The Protoss are such powerful psionics by nature that every single one of them naturally sends out what the manual calls "psionic ripples" that can be devastating to the psyche of other creatures. Learning to close off their minds so that they don't randomly tear apart creatures around them is the first and most basic lesson of the Khala (boy, things must have been real awkward before that was developed). However, a Protoss that has sufficiently mastered the Khala is able to not only control these ripples, but project them over an area, according to the manual "literally tearing apart the minds of lesser species" (and other Protoss, for that matter). A bit of an oddity in that it also works on units that aren't alive, like the fully robotic Reaver, but I guess it makes sense that psychically tearing apart a robit's CPU isn't that different from a brain. This is also why it doesn't affect structures, as that's a bit more complicated than just psionically zapping a motherboard - huh, although I guess Zerg structures are alive. At the same time, they probably don't really have much "brain" beyond a central nervous system. So is it possible that maybe the lightning forks we see are just a visualization to help the player, and in actual fact Psi Storm is invisible and when it gets cast people just kinda suddenly mentally implode? Sadly cinematics from StarCraft 2 seem to show that this is not the case, but since it's SC1 we can pretend if you want. High Templar also have the ability to use their psychic powers to implant false images in the minds of their enemies. These Hallucinations are without substance but nonetheless convincing enough to draw the enemy's fire, making them a potent tool for distracting and befuddling the enemies of Aiur. Note that the SC1 manual is actually potentially a bit inconsistent here - the lore description for Hallucination in the Templar entry seems to suggest that they're actual, fully-formed illusions, whereas the description for Hallucination in the Templar Archives entry seems to suggest that it's all in the enemy's head. Gameplay suggests the former, the fact that it's psionically-induced suggests the latter, so either/or. Or maybe both/and. And finally, the High Templar can be outfitted with Khaydarin Amulets, which use fragments of Khaydarin Crystal to better focus the Templar's connection to the Khala.  Artwork of the High Templar as seen in the manual. Note the Khaydarin Amulet worn around its head. Campaign Usage: More or less what you saw here. We may not see Hallucinations much after the next couple missions, but Psi Storm is going to be a core part of our arsenal. Expect to see these units every single mission. Competitive Usage: Again, every matchup. Absolutely. You want this unit. And again, it's almost entirely for Storm. The one thing to remember about Storm is that it's always good, against every unit. Yes, it's at it's most effective - and most dramatic - when used against low HP units that get one-shot by it, but it's still incredibly strong against anything else. Deleting a big portion of a unit's HP is never trivial. If you'll remember we talked about this a bit in the Ultralisk spotlight - we mentioned that they're a good option for tanking Storms, but only relatively speaking, because Storm still does big damage to Ultras, it's just not as devastating. One thing that you'll see in all three matchups is Storm Dropping. Grab a Shuttle, fly the Templar to the enemy's base, and just melt their mineral lines. I'm not going to mention it specifically in any matchup but just assume it's something Protoss is always at least actively considering as an option, if not outright planning. Vs. Terran: Storms are one of several reasons why Bio is so uncommon in this matchup - it shreds Marines like nothing else. It's also strong against mech. It can one-shot Vultures, but they're super fast and so can scoot out of the way real easily. A much better use is on Tanks - there's almost no way they're making it out of the AoE before they take full damage, and while that won't kill them, deleting about ⅔ of a Tank's HP will make life just so much easier for your Zealots and Dragoons (starting to see the pieces come together for the whole "Zealot and Dragoon core, everything higher tech supports" picture?). If you're going to see Hallucinations, it'll be here. The main use is to cast it on Arbiters to make a sort of shell game where Terran has to guess which is the real one that has to be EMP'd before it can Recall a Protoss army behind their tank lines. It might also be very rarely used to make Hallucinated Zealots to clear out Spider Mines, and maybe even drag them into Terran's forces. Maybe it's just the games I've been watching, but that feels less common to me. Not to sound like a dick, I just feel like a lot of the time, the 1 and ⅓ Psi Storm you get from the 100 energy is worth more than the lives of the Zealots you're potentially sparing. War's hell, kid. This is also possibly the matchup where Templar are the most vulnerable, though, so Protoss has to be careful. Four well-controlled Vultures can easily one-shot a Templar, they're always at risk of a Science Vessel zooming by and just deleting their energy, and Siege Tanks' firing range (in Siege Mode) is longer than HTs' casting range, so watch out.  S15 Ro.16 Group D (Tastosis) - YouTube - 0-56-31.jpeg) Mind's tanks there are trouble for Bisu's Dragoons, Arbiter or no.  S15 Ro.16 Group D (Tastosis) - YouTube - 0-56-32.jpeg)  S15 Ro.16 Group D (Tastosis) - YouTube - 0-56-36.jpeg) Fortunately a High Templar is there to even the odds. Vs Zerg: Storm one-shots Zerglings, Defilers, and Hydras; devastates Mutas, and even does substantial damage to Ultras. It hard-counters a powerful expansion unit Lurkers, works under Swarm, and the mere possibility of its presence is enough to discourage Zerg from getting Guardians. What more could you ask for? The main trouble is what we saw in the Zerg campaign: Zerg is (for the most part) maneuverable enough to skirt out of the way if they catch it early, so it can be a bit of a crapshoot how much damage the Storm actually does. Storm Leading, the art of dropping Storms where you think the enemy will be rather than where they are, is especially important here. This is also where defensive Templar see the most use. Protoss will almost always leave a lone HT behind at their bases to discourage Muta harass. You'll often get a cat-and-mouse thing going where Zerg tries to bait Protoss into premature Storms, then striking when the Templar's out of energy. A wing of Mutas can one-shot an HT, but it'll usually put them on such a predictable trajectory that it makes them very easy to Storm. Generally not a good trade. (ZERG CORNER: A fun way of dealing with this if Protoss doesn't have any static defence is to position your Mutas over the mineral line. Then they can't storm you without storming their own workers!)  S15 Ro.16 Group D (Tastosis) - YouTube - 2-54-04.jpeg) Hero's Hydras manage to outflank Bisu's attacking force...  S15 Ro.16 Group D (Tastosis) - YouTube - 2-54-05.jpeg)  S15 Ro.16 Group D (Tastosis) - YouTube - 2-54-07.jpeg)  S15 Ro.16 Group D (Tastosis) - YouTube - 2-54-09.jpeg) ...but the Templar was ready for them. Vs. Protoss: Despite the fact that there are hardly any Protoss units that can be one-shot by Storm, it's nonetheless a core part of this matchup. Traditional PvP tends to follow a trajectory of Dragoon Wars -> Reaver Wars -> Storm Wars, but note that this trajectory is cumulative, i.e. the Dragoon Wars don't stop just because the Reaver or Storm Wars have started. So later in the game Protoss wants to get HT out and just blanket the enemy's Dragoon forces in Storms. They're also helpful for inflicting heavy damage on the Shuttles that are inevitably carrying the Reavers. Basically, late game PvP is just whoever has the most and best-microed High Templar wins.  S10 Ro.16 Day3 - YouTube - 4-03-35.jpeg)  S10 Ro.16 Day3 - YouTube - 4-03-38.jpeg) Free drops some Storms on Snow's army, doing big damage to those who don't get away in time and slowing the advance of the rest So, to summarize: PvT: Basically deletes Bio as an option, and incredibly powerful tool against Mech. PvZ: Mandatory weapon that devastates Zerg both offensively and defensively. PvP: The defining unit of the late game and often the key to victory. We've seen the hero unit, Tassadar. Not too shabby as far as caster heroes go, though I really wish Blizzard had instead gone the route of giving caster heroes extra energy. …all this and these guys aren't even Protoss' best spellcaster. Sheesh. JohnKilltrane fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Aug 8, 2023 |
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Aug 8, 2023 21:56
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One important fact I've learned from watching pro matches: Khaydarin amulet increases starting energy. Starting energy is not fixed at 50, but instead at 25% of maximum - so fresh High Templar with the upgrade start at 62 instead. This means it takes half as long before thay can cast their first Psi Storm, which can potentially be a game-changer.
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Aug 9, 2023 17:00
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Oh man, I can't believe I forgot to touch on that. This is like the only time it's relevant, too (at least in competitive play). The rate of energy regen is also a percentage and thus is also modestly boosted by energy upgrades, although that's generally less noticeable, particularly with the Templar, where it's semi-common to just merge them into Archons once they run out of energy (something I chose to defer to the Archon spotlight).
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Aug 9, 2023 19:47
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How long does it take to generate one storm's worth of energy, either with or without the upgrade?
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Aug 9, 2023 20:46
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it's important to point out that the increases in starting energy and regen and stuff applies to every unit that has energy (and therefore an energy capacity upgrade). I don't pay attention to if energy upgrades for Science Vessels and Defilers are often gotten in pro matches, but that may be because those units have a lot of other versatility, that and Defilers have consume and so it's quite easy to restore used energy
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Aug 9, 2023 20:54
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Arcturas posted:How long does it take to generate one storm's worth of energy, either with or without the upgrade? So this is crazy. I wanted an answer to your question, so I looked up the numbers, and it turns out that from the first time I talked about this back in Terran 05, I've been dead wrong. Energy upgrades have no impact on regen rate, they only affect starting and maximum energy. Unlike starting energy, energy regen is not a percentage of max energy, it is always a fixed amount. There was some back and forth on this, but people finally were able to dig into the code and confirm: https://makingcomputerdothings.com/brood-war-api-the-comprehensive-guide-distances-high-ground-and-unit-behavior/ No energy regen boost from upgrades. However, we did learn that the Cloaking Field utilized by Wraiths actually drains energy slightly faster than the Personal Cloaking used by Ghosts and Infested Kerrigan, which is a wild bit of trivia. It makes sense and it's kinda cool, but it's also going to have zero impact on gameplay. To answer your actual question, the code gives the regen rate as 8/256 per frame, which translates to 0.77 energy/second at fastest speed. So it takes about a minute and a half for a High Templar to go from empty to the 75 energy needed to cast Storm, and this also means that Khaydarin Amulets shave roughly 16 seconds off the time an HT needs to wait to cast Storm which can make a big difference when it comes to getting them into the action ASAP. I also learned that energy upgrades only increase a unit's starting energy if it's researched before the unit starts production. So if you're warping in a High Templar while you finish researching Khaydarin Amulets, that HT will still start with only 50 energy even if the Amulets finish researching before it finishes warping. An even odder application of this is that because they aren't build traditionally, Dark Archons do not receive the bonus starting energy from their energy upgrade. Bonkers. I'm going to end up consolidating all of this into a mechanicspost in the future but I'm saving a lot of this sort of thing for Brood War when we won't have many unit spotlights to do. Aces High posted:I don't pay attention to if energy upgrades for Science Vessels and Defilers are often gotten in pro matches, but that may be because those units have a lot of other versatility, that and Defilers have consume and so it's quite easy to restore used energy Defilers yes, Vessels no. Like you said, Defiler can max quickly with Consume so it can almost always be at a full 250 energy, and having that allows it to cast a Swarm and a Plague without needing a top-up. Vessels, on the other hand, are (at least in pro play) out zooming around the map. They're dropping spells as often as they can, so they'll never reach 250 energy, meaning the only benefit they receive from the energy upgrade is the extra +12.5 starting energy, which is better than a kick in the head but normally isn't enough to justify the upgrade cost for Terran.
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Aug 10, 2023 14:46
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JohnKilltrane posted:Energy upgrades have no impact on regen rate, they only affect starting and maximum energy. Unlike starting energy, energy regen is not a percentage of max energy, it is always a fixed amount. That is so weird. I really thought that was a thing. I wonder if that was in another game, and we all just thought it was true for StarCraft as well?
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Aug 11, 2023 04:59
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Protoss 5: Choosing Sides  Executor, by following Tassadar and attempting to rescue the Dark Templar, you have openly defied the will of the Conclave. Abandon this mad scheme now, and the Conclave may show you mercy. Don't let him control you, Executor. The Judicator have long since steered the actions of the Templar to their own ends. It's time we acted of our own accord. Ah, Tassadar, have you fallen so far? To think that you were our brightest hope; our most beloved son. Now you are everything that we are not. You are lost to us. Not only have you damned yourself, but you have damned those who have followed you. Such is the price for our race's salvation, Judicator! I have been here with the Dark Templar, these last few months. While I helped them in their fight against the Zerg, I learned many of their secrets from their Prelate, Zeratul. Apparently, the energies which empower the Dark Templar also course through the Overmind and its Cerebrates. The same Cerebrate which you told us to destroy. Your advice was useless, for the creature was reincarnated before our eyes! Unfortunately, yes. Your attack on the Cerebrate failed because the energies that you wield are useless when used directly against the Overmind and its Cerebrates. I am sorry, Judicator, but if there is even a slim chance that the Dark Templar might overcome the Overmind, it is worth taking, no matter the cost. You were warned, Executor. The Conclave will not be pleased. Excellent! I am most grateful for your assistance, Executor - and more importantly, your trust. I am unable to sense Zeratul directly, but I believe he is hiding in a Terran structure not far from here. Then we shall go there at once, and tear it apart piece by piece if need be. Alas, Executor, we are being hunted by a vicious creature known as the Queen of Blades, and I am loathe to draw her attention. Should you prepare the way for us, myself and some guards should be able to slip in without raising suspicion that this is anything more than a raid. Very well.Well, that was an eventful briefing. It also raises the question: Why did Tassadar tell us to kill the Cerebrate if he knew it didn't work? I suppose either a) He didn't know it wouldn't work, and our failure was the final piece of evidence he needed to confirm the link between the Dark Templar and the Overmind, or b) He knew how stubborn his people in general and the Conclave in particular could be and so manipulated them into attacking the Cerebrate so they would see for themselves the futility of their methods and their need for the Dark Templar. I guess it comes down to how ruthless you want to interpret Tassadar as being. Mission Objectives: Bring Tassadar and two Zealots to the installation entrance. Here's our start:  A smattering of Zealots drizzled in a light Dragoon glaze. Tassadar is here as well, and having a fully-teched Templar from the get-go is no mean advantage. We also get a new unit:  It's the Shuttle! Okay, maybe not the most exciting unit, but it's a far more integral part of the Protoss arsenal than Dropships or Ventral Sacs are for Terran and Zerg. We've seen plenty of these, of course - for half the Zerg campaign they were our go-to Parasite victims.  Hey, what's up, man? Listen, I know this isn't the best time to ask, but do you mind if we borrow a shuttle for a bit? Me and Matt are planning to head back to our base camp and start seeing if we can't whip some of boys into shape so we can be of more help to you. Certainly. Be safe, friend Raynor.As our Probes get to work, we start with some scouting…  Which reveals our geyser, a long way away from our Nexus. I've mentioned this before, but this is a big bug in Protoss' craw. Terran can just fly their Command Center to make it near the geyser or at least equidistant to the minerals and gas, and Zerg wants lots of Hatcheries anyway, but as Protoss we're kind of stuck with either building a second Nexus just for gas or running like a ten-Probe conga line. Also doesn't help that it's pretty small. 3500 gas is not a lot. Guess we won't be massing Archons. While we ponder that, moar scouting:  A ramp. Not sure what's done there, but probably Zerg. Fortunately we've got our buddy Tassadar to make things easier:    (Note that this is not a Vespene geyser, just a map doodad. I think the Char tileset is the only one where the depleted geyser appears).   A big, healthy-looking expansion that we're almost certainly going to need.  And poof! We never actually got to see this last time, but the timer on our Hallucinations just expired. They did important work, though - they found our expansion, showed that for once there aren't any burrowed Zerg lurking right outside our door, and though it might be hard to tell from the screenshots they showed us that we're on an island. Neat. That makes defense a bit easier. I guess that also explains the Shuttle.  We did settle on biting the bullet and getting a second Nexus, PS. Efficient gas harvesting is worth 400 minerals. Again, if we were Terran this would at least mean either more scans or more nukes. Sadly, the Nexus does nothing exciting, and never will. We build up our base. These missions are starting to get involved enough that I'll be cutting most of the base-building screenshots unless they're relevant, to the relief of probably many of you. We're able to make some good progress, getting some Cannons up and everything, before the first Zerg incursion:    Just a few orange Zerglings being carried in by Overlord, nothing special. Wait, orange? Zasz? You're alive? Welcome back, buddy! Okay, Zasz is actually not alive and I don't know what's happening here. It's mostly just odd because Blizzard is normally pretty good about this sort of thing: Zasz's brood was a common foe in the Terran campaign, but we haven't seen them since they were eradicated by Steve. We also won't see them after this, either - it's just a weird anomaly where I guess someone forgot. Oh well. Let's say that the Overmind has created a new Cerebrate who's starting a new brood here on Char and taking Zasz's colours. Oh, and speaking of Cerebrates that should be dead but aren't, I'm officially declaring that Steve is alive. In Blizzard's canon, the Cerebrate of Episode 2 is killed by An island map can mean only one thing:   It's time for Double Stargate. Scouts have just an abysmal ground attack, but they're our only option for clearing a beachhead for our Shuttles to use, so we'll have to do the best we can with them. Since they build so slow, we're gonna need two Stargates. It'd be nice if we could do even more, but Scouts are just too expensive for that. Oh, since I forgot to showcase it earlier, here's our destination:  It's revealed from the get-go, just need to bring Tassadar and two Zealots there. Simple, right? We'll need a plan, though, so our Scouts go, uh, scout.  Hey, what's that thing in the bottom right, there in the fog?  Yep, that's a Missile Turret, alright. Weird. Wonder what it's doing here. It looks white, which would be Alpha Squadron, meaning Duke, so… probably hostile. Let's explore a more direct route to our objective instead:  Looks like Not-Zasz is between us, and man are Spore Colonies tough for Scouts to deal with. They're the tankiest defense building, which doesn't mesh well with our pitiful damage. Meanwhile, back at the ranch we're getting our new building up and running:   It's the Robotics Facility! Requiring a Cybernetics Core, it's our third and final unit production center, and as the name suggests there's no Protoss to be found here; the units we recruit from it are entirely robotic. If the Gateway is the Protoss Barracks and the Stargate is the Protoss Starport, you might think that this is the Protoss Factory, but it isn't. The Robo Facility is actually pretty unique in StarCraft and really in RTS games in general: it's a source of units that you absolutely, 100% want in almost every situation but that you almost never want to mass-produce. So it's a weird thing where Protoss generally wants exactly one Robo Facility. You don't want to skip it, and you don't want extra. This is good because at 200 of each resource it's also the most expensive unit production center in the game. For now, it's the source of our new unit, the Shuttle, but you may have seen something greyed out there. Well, we get two new buildings this time around:  This is the Robo-  Yo what the hell Steve be cool man I'm trying to showcase a new building here.   One cool thing about Tassadar as a hero is it means defensive Storms from the get-go. Also important to note that it looks like we're facing two enemy Zerg this time around. Steve, Duke, even Zasz came out of retirement for this one. Is there anyone that isn't here? Anyway. As I was saying before we were rudely interrupted…  This is the Robotics Support Bay. It's a tech building, allowing us to produce Reavers at our Robo Facility (yay!) and giving us access to upgrades for the Reaver and Shuttle upgrades, one of which is selected here. I think it's also my favourite building aesthetically - I just love those giant arms, I want them on every building. Even the Zerg ones. Wait, no. Especially the Zerg ones. The fluff here we've delved into a little bit before; as a people in decline, life is a very dear thing among the Protoss and so a non-trivial portion of their military has been given over to robots. The Facility produces these robots (so these units aren't being warped in), while the Support Bay manufactures and supplies the Facility with the heavy-duty parts it needs for more complex machinery. The upgrade here, the Shuttle movement speed, is extremely important and a key tech for Protoss, so we want to get it ASAP. It makes our Shuttles real zoomy. While we were teching, our Stargates have been busy:  Let's go look for some trouble.  This Spore is easier to deal with now, and - ah, crap. Scourge. Big pain for Scouts to deal with. We can focus-fire them down, but the Scout's short range makes it tough to finish them off before they collide. What makes matters worse is that the high speed and small size of the Scourge makes it hard to select, so what's intended to be a command to focus-fire a Scourge can easily be misclicked into a command to move without firing towards the Scourge. Not good. But one problem at a time.   Now let's snipe some Scourge:   One downside to the Scout unique to this LP is that the big blue blasts their air to air missiles make tend to obscure death animations and make it unclear what's happening. In this case, some Scourge got blow'd up. We push further in…   …but as Not-Zasz begins to rally their defenses…  …things quickly start to go south.   Okay, new plan. Breaking through by the most direct route doesn't seem our best bet. While we rebuild our air force, let's do some more teching.  The two remaining upgrades are for the Reaver, and they're actually almost never researched in competitive play even though the Reaver is ubiquitous - but we'll save that for the spotlight. We'll get them here, of course, and in probably every mission, because upgrading units is fun and cool. This one makes our Reaver attacks do more damage. How much more damage? Well…  25 more, to be exact. The biggest damage upgrade in the game. The next closest would be the Siege Tank, which with three weapon upgrades giving +5 each gets a total +15 damage. It is worth noting that this is their only damage upgrade - Reavers don't benefit from the ground weapons upgrades at the Forge. But with that much extra, who needs 'em? Our next upgrade…  …Doubles our Scarab capacity. Remember when we last saw Reavers, back in Protoss 2? We have to build their ammunition manually, with each Scarab costing 15 minerals. Normally we can build up to 5, but with this upgrade each Reaver can house up to 10 at a time, massively reducing the need to micro in to rebuild Scarabs in the heat of battle. "Wow, these two upgrades seem really strong," you might be thinking. "Are you sure they're almost never used in pro play? That seems crazy to me." Right? But like I said, we'll save that for the spotlight. It's a whole Thing. The Reaver's gonna be the next spotlight, if that helps.  Our Scouts have reassembled, so let's go searching again. This time, we'll see what lies to the east.  Yep, the Turret's hostile. Definitely Duke. Oh well.  Turrets are a fair bit weaker than Spore Colonies.   Protoss commander, this is General Edmund Duke of the Terran Dominion Armada. You are in violation of our airspace and have endangered human lives in your reckless attack against the Zerg. I order you to withdraw your ships immediately. If you fail to comply, I will not hesitate to open fire upon your vessels. General Duke, I am Tassadar, and you are well known to me. Whatever leniency I extended to you and your comrades before may have been in error. If you persist in halting our course, we will burn your pathetic fleet down to the last man. I'm going to have to assume that was a hostile response…Looks like when the Swarm (mostly) vacated Char to visit Aiur, Mengsk decided to try and add the planet to his new Terran Dominion. If you destroy a Terran structure anywhere on this map, Duke's fleet spawns in and this exchange happens. They then start heading towards our base. Note that it's just a Battlecruiser - it's not the Norad II or anything. Duke himself isn't present here. Nine Wraiths and a Battlecruiser vs nine Scouts. How will this go?       "Pathetic fleet" is right. Scouts may not be great units, but don't try them in a dogfight. Around now it occurs to me that we've got a better way to scout the map:  Thanks to the upgrade, Shuttles are real speedy now and can cover a lot of ground  Huh, looks like Not-Zasz's base is on an island that isn't even connected to the main objective. That, okay, that may not be clear from the screenshot, but it's on an island. Good thing we didn't commit much to that, would have been a waste.  This looks like Steve's territory, and given its proximity to the Beacon it's probably what we have to go through to win.  Yep, there it is. Steve's territory alright. But it looks like that's a pretty recent change - given the burning Academy and Supply Depots, not to mention the Infested Command Centre, it seems like this area until very recently belonged to Duke and the Dominion. So with this intel in mind, it looks like maybe looping around from the left side will be our best bet. The Scouts go to test the waters:   Seems pretty safe so far.  Ah crap. Scourge.  And look. More Scourge.   In the second screenshot you can see puffs of green gas on one of the Scouts, which is the remnant of a colliding Scourge. Ouch. Well, that's actually fine. Mostly we just want to clear them out of the way, and I don't think the AI will replace them. At the eastern approach to the base, we see…  Guardians! This is the first time we've faced them (aside from maybe the occasional stray one in Zerg 7). Fortunately…   They're Scout food. Unfortunately…  A couple manage to escape behind the Spore Colonies. Man I wish Scouts had better range. Every time I start to feel more well-disposed towards these guys they give me a reason to be annoyed with them again. Well, that's okay. We only have enough Scouts to take out one of the Spore Colonies, but...    Fortunately that's all we need. It's just enough of a beachhead. Speaking of which, we're preparing our landing forces, but it's taking a minute. We need an immense amount of Shuttles. Why? Well...   Zealots and High Templar take up two slots each (oh, also, the white outline around a unit in a transport indicates that it's a hero unit - in this case, Tassadar) and Dragoons take up a huge four slots each. When we finally move out:  Eleven Shuttles. Eleven. Might have been worth getting a second Robo Facility after all. Oh, and here's what the Dragoons look like in a Shuttle:  You know. Just in case you were wondering. We land:  A stack of Zealots, a stack of Dragoons, four Templar (including Tassadar), the remainder of our Scouts, and two Reavers. Which reminds me, remember earlier when I said that Robo Facilities are for units that are extremely important but that you'll never build in bulk? Yeah, that's an important thing to note about Reavers. They're extremely slow and they have awful pathfinding, so you never want to mass a stack of them the way you would Siege Tanks. I'm sure most people have experienced this: get a whole bunch of Reavers to attack with and you're left thinking "Wow, this sucks. This is the worst thing ever." Two, maybe even four Reavers, on the other hand, are fun and powerful and awesome and just generally great to have around. In that sense, Reavers are the Starcraft siege units that bear the most resemblance to Catapults/Ballistae in Warcraft 1 and 2. Well, I'm assuming. I've never actually tried an "Oops all death wagons" build in Warcraft. Anyway, our Shuttles unload our troops, and...  Hahahaha what the hell. I guess the downside to only clearing one Spore Colony is that our forces have to unload all in one area, which makes us highly susceptible to spells. I guess we should be grateful that it was just Ensnare and not like Plague or Storm or something. Still, that's not great. Fortunately...          It's not enough to stop us. Tassadar, our warriors have prepared the way for you.Tassadar: My thanks, Executor. I go now to rescue our dark brethren.   Cinematic time!  We open on a camp:   And focus on...  This man on lookout duty.     It is not exciting. But wait!   He spots something. A closer look...         A Dragoon!   He puts it down for a second and considers. Something's not right.    Ah. There it is. Not sure if you can make it out in the screenshots, but the Dragoon's rightmost leg is dragging and sending sparks up. Our friend the lookout realizes this is above his paygrade.  Lookout: Hey sergeant! Saaaarge! Hey!  The sergeant emerges. Sergeant: You will immediately tell me why you have called me from my desk, private! Lookout: Protoss unit, sarge! Comin' through the south pass. It looks broke!     Our sergeant considers. Sarge: Kill it!  A Terran weapon of war is revealed, and it goes into action.             Sarge puts out his cigarette:      Sarge: Fire.              (If those last few shots are confusing, it's because we see the same impact repeatedly from different angles). Our jubilant lookout dances to celebrate the small victory:      Lookout: Woo-hoo! Oh yeah! Yeah! Feel that hot love come right up your tailpipe!  Uh-oh.                    The ambush is successful and the Terran camp is devastated. But where are all these Dragoons coming from?    Ah. Arbiter. That would do it. So I know this is going to be like my eighth time mentioning that these cinematics were one of the first things finished in the game, but it's particularly obvious with this one because it has absolutely nothing to do with anything. According to the opening it's supposed to be a conflict between us and Dominion forces on Char? But that doesn't super fit with what's going on. That being said, I'm glad it was included anyway cause it's very cool. Also that mysterious missile-launching unit caused a lot of speculation when we were kids. Is it a secret unit that cheat codes can unlock? Is it a hint at something Terran will be getting in the expansion? Does it mean that Siege Tanks are actually just representative units that are an abstraction for a variety of artillery? Is it a unit that was originally meant to be in the game but later cut? Is it some prototype that never became widely adopted? My theory now is that it's actually none of those - I like to think that it's something that's been MacGuyver'd together out of spare parts and machinery by some Marine in camp that used to be a mechanic. They probably have a nickname for it like Robbie the Rocket Car and have made it an honorary squad member and in the evening take it up on the cliffs and throw empties off and see if they can use Robbie to blow them up before they hit the ground. JohnKilltrane fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Aug 13, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 20:28
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Does it work to use hallucinated air units to soak the scourge? I assume blowing up the terran structures in Steve's Poil fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 21:13
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quote:Also important to note that it looks like we're facing two enemy Zerg this time around. Steve, Duke, even Zasz came out of retirement for this one. Is there anyone that isn't here?
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Aug 12, 2023 21:14
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I don't think tassadar was playing mind games about the cerberate murder attempt. And if he was, he was gravely underestimating the conclave's stupidity. Remember, Aldaris' response to the failed attack was, "I knew this dishonorable tactic of targeting enemy generals would fail! We shall return to our proper, honorable tactics of attempting to defeat every last zerg in their endless alien swarm through fair and open combat!" If his intent was to show them what they were doing wasn't working it backfired spectacularly.Szarrukin posted:Were Tal'darim a thing in SC1? Nope. They literally exist to give Raynor an excuse to fight protoss in order to have to prevent having a bunch of contrived situations forcing him to fight his friends he made in sc1.
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Aug 12, 2023 21:25
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Poil posted:Does it work to use hallucinated air units to soak the scourge? It does! I kinda can't believe that I didn't think of that. And yes, exactly. The burning structures in Steve's base can also summon Duke if they're destroyed, and in fact I suppose that would make his line about "reckless attack on the Zerg" more pertinent.
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Aug 12, 2023 21:29
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JohnKilltrane posted:And yes, exactly. The burning structures in Steve's base can also summon Duke if they're destroyed, and in fact I suppose that would make his line about "reckless attack on the Zerg" more pertinent. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the purpose of Duke being here. Otherwise it's just a base in the corner of the map, not interacting with the mission, that won't attack you until you attack it. Also that this is the only time the Protoss fight the Terrans before the expansion. As for the orange zerg, the zerg broods do repeat colours - we were fighting purple zerg in the terran campaign plenty before Steve was spawned. This is probably a new Cerebrate.
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Aug 12, 2023 21:44
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Tenebrais posted:Also that this is the only time the Protoss fight the Terrans before the expansion. Yeah which I'm pretty sure is the main reason for Duke being here, they said "Oh right it's been ten missions since we last saw Terrans, that's a third of the game." It's crazy just how little TvP there is in the campaign - especially when you consider that in the initial design phases a Terran-Protoss war was the main focus. quote:As for the orange zerg, the zerg broods do repeat colours - we were fighting purple zerg in the terran campaign plenty before Steve was spawned. This is probably a new Cerebrate. Huh, true enough. That's a good point.
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Aug 12, 2023 21:50
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It's worth noting that Steve's Canonical Death actually comes at Tassadar's hands, not Zeratul's, and is likely the event that makes Tassadar realize that only the Dark Templar can truly harm the Zerg. Tassadar has, after all, been learning to channel Dark Templar powers under Zeratul's tutelage. Mass Recall, the mod for Starcraft 2 that recreates these campaigns in the latter game's more advanced engine, represents that by giving Tassadar the "Feedback" ability. Players more familiar with Starcraft 2 won't blink much at this, as it's a spell used by High Templar in Starcraft 2. But in Starcraft 1, that ability belonged to a different spellcaster... one we won't see until Brood War. The Dark Archon.
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Aug 12, 2023 22:15
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Poil posted:Does it work to use hallucinated air units to soak the scourge? Doing just that with the starting shuttle and beelining to the objective with Tassadar and zealots allows this mission to be completed in under 40 seconds with some luck. Though the current record somehow avoids their aggro despite flying very near them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjMu4IusL1I
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Aug 13, 2023 00:15
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Worth noting is the excellent, excellent acting for Aldaris here (and in other briefings) by Paul Eiding, also known for Colonel Campbell in the Metal Gear games. Go listen to these briefings on youtube if you're in this thread but didn't actually play Starcraft back in the day. Aldaris is just dripping with oily outraged contempt and you can feel the smug superiority complex just radiating off every line. Outstanding work.
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Aug 13, 2023 01:15
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BlazetheInferno posted:It's worth noting that Steve's Canonical Death actually comes at Tassadar's hands, not Zeratul's, and is likely the event that makes Tassadar realize that only the Dark Templar can truly harm the Zerg. Tassadar has, after all, been learning to channel Dark Templar powers under Zeratul's tutelage. Fixed! Thanks, I didn't know that. Also neat that they gave him that spell in Mass Recall, my memory of that mod is real shaky. bladededge posted:Worth noting is the excellent, excellent acting for Aldaris here (and in other briefings) by Paul Eiding, also known for Colonel Campbell in the Metal Gear games. Go listen to these briefings on youtube if you're in this thread but didn't actually play Starcraft back in the day. Aldaris is just dripping with oily outraged contempt and you can feel the smug superiority complex just radiating off every line. Outstanding work. +100. He's the absolute worst, in the best kind of way. I actually will say that as far as bootlicking trash goes, Aldaris is a lot more tolerable than Duke. The former is well-intended. Stubborn, ignorant, bigoted, and arrogant, yes, but he's genuinely doing what he believes to be best for his people. Duke's just an amoral opportunist who loves power and doesn't balk at stepping on people to get it.
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Aug 13, 2023 01:39
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the cinematic always confused me as a kid, because once I figured out the trick for beating the mission with just the starting shuttle and zealots, that's all I ever did. I like RTS, but I also don't have a lot of patience (maybe that's why I like speedrun strategies) so I never discovered the thing with spawning Duke's fleet until watching a longplay of SC1 about...7 years ago. Also, even though most of the VAs that Blizzard used weren't prolific, they were pretty dedicated to whatever their delivery is. Paul Eiding was the narrator for Diablo 1 and I think his delivery of the expository texts you find throughout the game went a long way to it leaving a lasting impression on gamers (in addition to other memorable quotes like "aaaahhhh fresh MEAT")
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Aug 13, 2023 02:53
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JustJeff88 posted:I never internalised the obvious when I and this game were young: Reavers were never meant to move on their own. Neither did Blizzard, I recently learned - they didn't anticipate the Reaver/Shuttle interplay and as a result had to patch the game to add a cooldown to the Reaver after being dropped. On release, the Reaver could fire immediately after being unloaded, which... uh, wasn't the best for balance, to put it lightly.
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Aug 13, 2023 20:36
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JohnKilltrane posted:Neither did Blizzard, I recently learned - they didn't anticipate the Reaver/Shuttle interplay and as a result had to patch the game to add a cooldown to the Reaver after being dropped. On release, the Reaver could fire immediately after being unloaded, which... uh, wasn't the best for balance, to put it lightly. Interesting - I never knew that. Still feel bad for scouts too.
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Aug 13, 2023 22:30
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FoolyCharged posted:Nope. They literally exist to give Raynor an excuse to fight protoss in order to have to prevent having a bunch of contrived situations forcing him to fight his friends he made in sc1. Sort of a minor point, but the Tal'darim first appear as a concept in a series of tie-in novels that got released in the mid-late aughts. They're a group of Protoss who remained in hiding on Aiur after the Zerg conquest. Chris Metzen I think eventually handwaved them away as being entirely unrelated to the game Tal'darm 
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Aug 14, 2023 02:21
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HannibalBarca posted:Sort of a minor point, but the Tal'darim first appear as a concept in a series of tie-in novels that got released in the mid-late aughts. They're a group of Protoss who remained in hiding on Aiur after the Zerg conquest. Chris Metzen I think eventually handwaved them away as being entirely unrelated to the game Tal'darm I think Chris hinted that they were connected initially, but I honestly suspect that the writing team were still early in figuring out various details of these Tal'darim as they went, before eventually another member of the writing team (lead writer for Starcraft 2 as of 2016) confirmed the two groups were unconnected. The long and short is that Ulrezaj's Tal'darim named themselves after the Tal'darim that would go on to show up in Starcraft 2.
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Aug 14, 2023 03:41
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Once we run out of new units to spotlight, I'd love a spotlight on the history of balancing via map pool and map design.
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Aug 14, 2023 18:30
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Smiling Knight posted:Once we run out of new units to spotlight, I'd love a spotlight on the history of balancing via map pool and map design. Huh, that's a great idea! That'll be a good Brood War post. I'm also looking at doing a history of balancing via patching, which is actually quite short. I knew this game had few balance updates, I just didn't realize how few. I think there's like... two. Three, if you count Brood War. But in any case, yeah, map design has been an infinitely larger part of this game's balance.
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Aug 15, 2023 15:39
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I’m very interested in map design chat. Please give a special segment to all the weird, gimmicky maps they have one of every ASL that all the pros veto every time.
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Aug 15, 2023 16:05
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My favorite maps were always the ones with some kind of strong theme or gimmick. Three Kingdoms, Crossroads, Opposing City-States. Something that forces you to change up your approach based on the terrain, at least until air units were available and affordable. Lost Temple or BGH is like the guy who insists on final destination no items. Fite me.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:45
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Smiling Knight posted:Once we run out of new units to spotlight, I'd love a spotlight on the history of balancing via map pool and map design. I'd also love a post on how competitive Starcraft first got started and why it became so big in Korea.
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Aug 15, 2023 20:02
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It stinks how they barely come up with any Terran vs Protoss fights for the campaign. You have the single mission in the Terran campaign where the Protoss only field a small part of their tech tree and the avoidable encounter in this mission, and that's it. And the automatic base defense doodads in the next mission. Brood War doesn't have much more, two missions where you fight the Terrans as Protoss, three if you count the secret mission, and only one vice versa.
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Aug 19, 2023 03:44
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If we're suggesting topics, I wouldn't mind a post focused specifically on attack/armor upgrades - not the unit-specific ones (which you're already covering in the unit spotlights), but the generic "Air Attack" or "Ground Armor" ones (plus I guess "Shields" for Protoss). Are these upgrades generally considered useless for pros? Are some of them chosen by certain races but not others? If they're used, is it a high priority to get them or do you try to mass units early and wait on upgrades till later? Etc...
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Aug 19, 2023 04:34
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Lore post I wanna see is intentionally silly and funny things in the first three games and how they have tried to shove them into canon
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Aug 19, 2023 04:50
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Unit Spotlight: Reaver The Reaver as seen in the manual. Cost: 200 minerals, 100 Vespene, 4 supply HP: 100 Shields: 80 Armour: 0 (+1) Size: Large Damage: 100 (+25) Damage Type: Normal DPS: 39.7 Range: 8 Speed: 1.8 Sight: 10 Special: Produces Scarabs, Splash Damage (no friendly fire) Reavers are horrifying death machines that the Protoss can use to instantly delete large amounts of weaker units or do massive damage to stronger units. Their standard attack is the strongest in the game even before their upgrade - only spells like Yamato Cannon, Irradiate, and Plague inflict more damage. If that weren’t enough, they do huge splash - roughly triple the radius of a Siege Tank’s splash - that only harms enemies. Well, I think maybe it can harm allies in team games. But it doesn’t harm your own units, is my point. They're also quite tanky, being as durable as a Dragoon and therefore tougher than the majority of ground units in the game (only Ultras and Archons outpace them). Of course, this unprecedented power also comes with massive drawbacks. Reavers are the slowest ground unit in the game by a considerable margin, nearly twice again as slow as the second-slowest ground unit, the High Templar. If you remember our pathfinding post, they're also the final member of the Frustrating Four who are just awful to control. Unlike the Dragoon and Goliath, however, which are infamous, the Reaver is much less known, simply because it's so impossibly slow that it's hard to even notice that bad pathfinding (the fourth, the Zergling, is also little known, simply because as we've seen, its terrible pathfinding works itself out once it gets the speed upgrade, and who uses Zerglings without getting Metabolic Boost?). In competitive play and even the campaign, this generally doesn’t make a big difference, since Reavers really want to be moving much without the aid of Shuttles anyway, but anyone who's ever spent much time with custom maps probably knows a lot of pain here. You play a map where it uses Reavers to represent something you want to spawn dozens of and it's just hell. The other issues Reavers face is their weird range. 8 might look impressive - the same as a Guardian - but it's hampered by the fact that the Reaver isn't really firing a projectile up to 8 squares away but rather spitting out a melee attack that can travel up to 8 squares away. So no firing across chasms, or up and down cliffs without a nearby ramp, or over walls. Beyond that, as we saw in mission 2, 8 range has pitfalls of its own. Most static defense has 7 range, so Reavers do outrange it, but only just barely, and a small mistake in positioning coupled with the Reaver's appalling speed can lead to disaster. Reading them all together like that might make these weaknesses seem crippling, but the Reaver's offensive power is so overwhelming that they combine to make it only "really really strong."  The Reaver as seen in the Starcraft Field Manual. As we saw, it has two upgrades, each costing 200 of each resource. The first, Scarab Damage, increases the Reaver's damage by a massive +25 per shot. The second, Increased Scarab Capacity, increases the total amount of Scarabs a Reaver can have at once from 5 to 10. I noted in the previous mission that these are basically never used in competitive, so let's get into why. Well, first, let's note that it's kind of funny that unlike nearly every other upgrade in the game, Reaver tech doesn't have any sort of in-universe name like "Tachyon Bombs" or "Durasteel Bays" or something. They're just named after what they do. Anyway. Why these aren't used. We'll start with Scarab Capacity, which has the dubious honour of being the only upgrade in the game considered not only not worth getting, but actively a liability. If you're a pro, it's very important that you're always aware of exactly how many Scarabs a Reaver has at any given moment. Scarabs can have five Scarabs and, like buildings, can queue up to five to be produced. So with a limit of five, you can just spam the "Produce Scarab" hotkey and immediately tell at a glance how many you have ready to go based on how full the queue is. But with a limit of ten, having a full queue of five Scarabs in production means you have anywhere between 0-5 currently available, and that's a number you can't really afford to ballpark on. Of course, this is at the pro level. For us here in the campaign, or people playing online in more casual settings, Scarab Capacity is a solid upgrade that allows piece of mind (...get it? Get it? Cause we're using extra Scarabs to blow the enemy to… eh, come to think of it, it's not actually that funny. Oh well) and keeps our Reavers operating smoothly without the need for high-APM micro. Now, you might say "Well, hey, this seems like it has an easy fix. Can't we just expand the queue so that ten Scarabs can be queued up at once?" Three problems with that solution: First, Brood War's code is janky enough that implementing something like that is liable to break twelve other seemingly unrelated things and end up being more trouble than it's worth. Second, even if it could be changed, the way Reavers are used so often in conjunction with Shuttles (drop off Reavers where they'll do the most damag, Reavers fire, pick them up again to save them from return fire, find another likely spot, rinse and repeat) means that frequently the length of time between shots can actually be longer than the time it takes to produce a new Scarab, minimizing the benefit of increased capacity. Most of all, though, the issue is that the Reaver is just a ludicrously powerful unit that's very much not hurting from a lack of upgrades. You're not going to find anyone, at least at the higher echelons of play, who will say "drat the Reaver is a pretty mid unit. If only Increased Scarab Capacity was more useable." Scarab Damage isn't bad, it just doesn't really do anything. "But didn't we just call it the biggest damage upgrade in the game?" Sure, but the problem is that it doesn't really take the Reaver over any break points. A Hydra or Vulture gets one-shot with or without the upgrade. A Siege Tank or Lurker takes two shots with or without the upgrade. An upgraded Reaver will kill an Archon in 3 shots instead of 4, and an Ultra in 4 shots instead of 5, which, you know, can be helpful, it's better than a finger in the eye, but if you're dropping 200/200 on an upgrade you're generally going to want something a bit more significant than "it's not inconsequential." There's really two scenarios where you'd want this upgrade. The first is busting Supply Depots. Depots have 500 HP so this upgrade allows a pair of Reavers to level one in two volleys each instead of three. Sometimes this will be used to quickly snipe a Depot that Terran is using as a wall; other times Protoss will sometimes Shuttle in Reavers to Terran's Depot fields and just go ham blowing them up and supply capping Terran. These are both pretty niche. The second has to do with radius - if you need a refresher on how splash attacks work, they do damage in three concentric rings. Targets in the first ring, ground zero, take full damage. Targets in the second ring take 50% damage and targets in the third ring take 25% damage. Upgrading Scarab damage gives a couple break points there - crucially, allowing SCVs in the second ring to be one-shot and in the third ring to be two-shot - that can make it helpful for clearing big clumps of units. Again, a very niche application, and also mostly skewed towards vs Terran.  Despite how prevalent they are in gameplay, Reavers don't really appear in any cutscenes or even fanart, so here's art of a Reaver from the doomed Starcraft: Ghost. Ooh, You're Making Me Live: It's been mentioned a few times, but the Reaver rarely goes anywhere without its best friend the Shuttle. Shuttles provide much-needed maneuverability to the Reaver and transform it from a sluggish pain to an instrument of doom, racing around the battlefield. And remember what I said earlier about Reavers being limited by not being a true ranged unit? They can't attack across chasms or (usually) up/down cliffs? Shuttles help to mitigate that a whole lot. Another big weakness Reavers have is the long cooldown between attacks - they spend a great deal of time as sitting ducks. Why not have a handy Shuttle pick it up for a few seconds so it can avoid return fire? As we saw in the previous mission, they also synergize quite well tech-wise. A match made in heaven. But what might be less obvious is that Reavers are also good buddies with High Templar. In fact, looking at it on paper, you might think the opposite: they're both fairly micro-intensive units doing similar amounts of damage to big swathes of units and they both come in similar places on the tech tree. They kind of seem like one would make the other redundant, or that they'd be working at cross-purposes. On the contrary, they make a great team. You might drop a Storm on stronger units, then have the Reaver drop a Scarab for the kill. Or maybe you'll plunk a Storm down on weak, mobile units like Hydras, then as the enemy tries to dodge the storm they end up clumping their units together, and boom! Reaver decimates them. Or maybe you want to use Storm to discourage air units from sniping your Reavers. So many possibilities. It's just nice, you know? These two units could have been rivals but instead they've decided to work together and it's a little heartwarming. It's a good tack to take if you every want to try to get your mom into Brood War. Looks Just Like You, Poindexter: Scarabs are probably the wildest "units" in the game when it comes to pathfinding, which means if you play Protoss, you're gonna have to learn how to accept the dud. See, sometimes Scarabs just… whiff. They just wink out of existence without doing any harm to anything. This usually happens when there's a lot of traffic between the Reaver and its target - the Scarab runs into one or more things it's not trying to connect with, gets stuck or confused, and after a bit the Scarab times out and the game has it harmlessly dissipate. Why? Well, the Scarab is a unit. It can't be controlled or even selected by any player, but it nonetheless is a unit and has to follow all the rules units do. So pathfinding is an issue and collision is an issue. Duds are particularly noticeable when harassing workers because both the tight clusters of workers and the mineral lines themselves form obstacles that the Scarab finds difficult to navigate. Furthermore, the timer on Scarabs is always there - it's not something that just starts counting down when a unit gets stuck. This means that rarely it's possible for the target to outrun the Scarab, keeping away from it until it times out. This normally happens when the Reaver targets fast-moving units while that unit is already moving away from the Reaver. The end result is that while Reavers may seem like fire-and-forget siege weapons that, aside from occasionally needing to be topped up on Scarabs, can just be pointed at the enemy, where in reality they're needy little micro-machines - but with skilled supervision their damage output is unparalleled. I don't play Protoss on ladder so take this with a grain of salt, but I think it's fair to say that compared to High Templar, Reavers are much easier to use, but much more difficult to use well. Blanketing an enemy army in Storms seems daunting to a new or casual player, but it ends up taking far less practice than effective use of the seemingly-accessible Reaver. In any case, the take-away is that Reavers need a lot of attention and really need the player to help them choose the best targets - minimize duds, focus on groups instead of lone units, and no wandering off to pester harmless buildings while your army is dying. Liquipedia has a picture that provides a handy example of this:  It's a little small, I know. I apologize. But the idea is if the leftmost Reaver targets tank 1, the Scarab will most likely hit x1, only really damaging the one enemy. Targeting tank 3 would most likely result in x5, doing good damage, but not optimal. Targeting tank 2 is the best option, with the Scarab probably hitting x3, doing big damage to all three units. How quickly you can examine a situation, assess the best spot for a Reaver to target, and put that into action is an important Protoss skill. Fluff: The Reaver is essentially a mobile factory containing a micro-manufacturing plant that it uses to assemble Scarab drones on the spot. It can then launch these drones which explode into a large electromagnetic field that tears apart anything unlucky enough to be caught within. Funnily enough, the manual says that Scarabs are "launched in groups." This could mean that each Scarab is an abstraction representing several drones, or that maybe at one point in the game's development the Reaver fire multiple Scarabs at once. Or maybe it's just an oddly-worded reference to the Reaver's ability to manufacture, store, and fire multiple drones. Probably that last one, I guess. In later material, Blizzard would reveal that the Reaver was originally a civilian tool used by presumably Khalai to provide on-the-spot manufacturing of tools and machinery. This was then jury-rigged to produce and unleash explosive ordinance instead, likely in some battle against one of the many ambiguous aliens that would get wiped out by the Protoss. I've always felt this explanation to be pretty cool and make sense - the Reaver sure doesn't seem like something that was initially designed for warfare. Tech Fluff: Interestingly enough, despite having bland, technical names, Reaver tech does have fluff to it. By outfitting our Reavers with recent developments in micro-manufacturing technology, we can give them Increased Capacity (the manual calls this a "neoteric micro-manufacturing plant," neoteric being not a substance nor energy type but just a word meaning "recent" - though ironically enough, the word neoteric is fairly archaic. The more you know). Meanwhile, we can also tweak our Scarabs to have them synchronize their electro-magnetic blasts, giving us improved Scarab Damage (synchronizing blasts? Again, really kinda sounds like Scarabs were at one point fired in swarms, or at least one projectile that was visually a swarm). Campaign Usage: Yeeeessss? Ish? I'm gonna be honest, I'm just not good enough at this game to really showcase what Reavers are capable of. We will still see plenty of them, though. They're a unit that grows in usefulness as the campaign picks up. Here, where we're often facing strike forces of, like, two Zerglings and a Hydra, Reavers are kind of unimpressive. They're mostly just there to serve as No Name brand Siege Tanks to help blast down static defense from afar. As things pick up, though, and the enemy becomes more and more serious, the Reaver will also become a more powerful tool, blasting away huge packs of enemies. That will happen… Hmm, I'm trying to remember. It's been a long time. Like we'll hit that point in the expansion, but I think we'll also see it by the end of this campaign? Time will tell. Competitive Usage: All the time. Like the High Templar, the Reaver is an essential complement to the Zealot/Dragoon core in all three matchups and good luck playing Protoss if you don't use this unit. Equally devastating in defensive, harassment, and offensive roles, the Reaver is a must-have tool. Vs. Terran: First of all, the Reaver is what just flat-out no-sells Bio in this matchup. Terran infantry would have trouble with Storms and find Dragoons a real headache, but Reavers just annihilate Marines in droves (some have mentioned in the thread that advanced AI has demonstrated that Bio actually beats Reavers if sufficiently micro'd, but the level of micro we're talking here is exponentially beyond what a human could ever be capable of, so for all intents and purposes, Reavers delete Bio). They're also extremely strong against Mech - just not without some caveats. Reavers can one-shot Vultures, but the Vulture's speed can make this tricky (remember above the bit about making Scarabs dud by outrunning them? Vultures are particularly notorious for making this happen). Siege Tanks are also a tricky part of the equation as they outrange Reavers by a large margin. What gives Reavers a chance is the small delay it takes Siege Tanks to rotate their turret before firing. Whether Reavers win or lose vs tanks really comes down to one question: how good is your Shuttle micro? If you're skilled, you can land in the right spot, pop off a Scarab that'll hit multiple tanks, then rush back into the Shuttle before you've taken any hits. Do it again, or have a complementary Templar along to Storm, and you've just quickly and easily deleted a deadly threat. Do it poorly, however, and the tanks will obliterate your Reaver before you get a shot off. As funny as it sounds, two Reavers in a Shuttle are kind of Protoss’ equivalent of a wing of Mutas, and this is particularly the way you’ll see them used in this matchup. Drop some Reavers in their mineral line, do some big damage. See some Tanks that are out of position, or in the middle of changing from Siege Mode? Drop the Reavers and murder them. For our example today, we’re going to be looking at some footage from Artosis. I normally try to avoid this sort of thing for spotlight examples because a) he’s not a pro player, and b) as much as I value and appreciate his caster persona, I am just really not a fan of his toxic saltmonster streamer persona. But this was just too good to pass up.   Artosis spots the Shuttle passing overhead and, immediately knowing what's up, starts to pull his SCVs off of mining and away to safety while getting a Siege Tank in place.  Protoss, however, cleverly drops the Reaver inside the tank's minimum range.   Boom! Note that after firing, the Shuttle picked the Reaver up, but it had already been unloaded again by the time the SCVs' death animation finished.  Terran drops a mine...   ...but Protoss is able to scoop the Reaver up between the mine connecting and the mine exploding, sparing the Reaver but killing the Vulture. And from here, it's a short trip to wiping out the expansion and ending the game.    Again, pros would handle this better than Artosis, but it's not every day you see Reaver micro good enough to blow up a Vulture with its own Spider Mine. Vs. Zerg: Reavers are actually a fair bit less common in this matchup. The unit on its own is far too bulky to do much against the highly manoeuvrable Zerg and in between Mutas, Scourge, and even Hydras, Shuttles don't have a terribly long life expectancy (it's actually a bit more complicated than that, but we'll wait for the Shuttle spotlight to go into it). So here Storms end up doing the bulk of the heavy lifting when it comes to big damage, with Reavers often taking a more defensive role, laying in wait to decimate Zerg's attempts to use Hydras to snipe expansions. If Zerg decides to mix in a bunch of either Ultras, Defilers, or both, that's where you'll sometimes see Reavers start to take a more offensive role. Full damage under Swarm and quickly carving out big chunks of Ultra life make this an invaluable unit in those situations.  Jaedong tries to raid Best's base with Zerglings and Guardians, but Best is ready for them.    Jaedong drops a Swarm to shield the Zerglings from the Cannons...  ...but it doesn't help. Vs. Protoss: An essential unit of this matchup, Reavers are a huge part of the midgame. If the early Dragoon Wars are inconclusive, players turn to Reaver Wars to bring the unit's awesome powers of destruction to bear against the enemy's ground forces. Not really much to them here beyond "Reavers make Dragoons go boom," but it's worth noting that as the game progresses and High Templar start to come out to play, caution is advised: Storm makes life real difficult for Shuttles. Reavers might actually be the main reason why this isn't my favourite matchup - the whole "Two players shooting Scarabs at each other but both load their Reavers into Shuttles before the enemy Scarab can connect" thing can feel a little interminable sometimes.  Snow takes shots at Bisu's base...  ...so Bisu's forces respond. Guess how it goes for them?   So, to summarize... TvP: Mandatory tool that, with careful and skilled micro, can pay massive dividends. ZvP: Less important but still useful defensive weapon that can hard-counter some Zerg shenanigans. PvP: Reaver Wars are one of the defining aspects of this matchup and you may well live or die on how well you control your Reavers compared to your enemy. Five Minutes Shorter: The Warbringer is a powerful variant of the Reaver, built for heavy-duty siege projects. 400 Shields, 200 HP, and 3 Armour gives it nearly triple the durability of a standard Reaver. The problem with the Warbringer is that since Scarabs count as a unit, and there is no Scarab hero, the Warbringer's damage output is no different than a standard Reaver (aside from getting Scarab Damage for free, of course). But being so tanky sure doesn't hurt anyone. The Warbringer doesn't make an appearance in any of the main campaigns, but should we elect to do a bonus campaign we might end up seeing it there. There's actually no fluff for the Warbringer itself, I guess it's just a more durable form of Reaver? But the AI for it does get preserved, ultimately being inserted into a Colossus and becoming a hero unit in SC2 Co-op, making it, I believe, the only non-plot relevant hero unit to appear in later material.
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Aug 19, 2023 18:32
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Oh god, the micro! I'm so awful at micro. And having to spend resources on ammo is my least favourite thing ever. ... except for the Earthshakers. But that's for the Emperor and the Imperium.
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Aug 20, 2023 01:00
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bunnyofdoom posted:Lore post I wanna see is intentionally silly and funny things in the first three games and how they have tried to shove them into canon Not The Wendigo posted:I'd also love a post on how competitive Starcraft first got started and why it became so big in Korea. MagusofStars posted:If we're suggesting topics, I wouldn't mind a post focused specifically on attack/armor upgrades - not the unit-specific ones (which you're already covering in the unit spotlights), but the generic "Air Attack" or "Ground Armor" ones (plus I guess "Shields" for Protoss). Are these upgrades generally considered useless for pros? Are some of them chosen by certain races but not others? If they're used, is it a high priority to get them or do you try to mass units early and wait on upgrades till later? Etc... These are all great suggestions, thanks! painedforever posted:Oh god, the micro! Yeah to me it's the funny thing about the unit - it requires so much more micro than you'd expect on first blush. It can make them a little frustrating, too, at first, because in the campaign at least Reavers are a fair bit harder to make good use of than Siege Tanks are, but the AI's much better with Reavers than with Tanks, so they're difficult to both use and play against.
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Aug 20, 2023 15:32
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Uhhhhh whoops. Mine was for the warcraft thread (hence the 3) but like it also works here so happy accident
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Aug 20, 2023 21:22
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No worries, I nearly posted this past spotlight in the StarCraft 2 thread. Didn't even notice until I previewed it. It'll probably end up happening sooner or later.
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Aug 20, 2023 23:37
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JohnKilltrane posted:No worries, I nearly posted this past spotlight in the StarCraft 2 thread. Didn't even notice until I previewed it. It'll probably end up happening sooner or later. We are having something of a golden age of screenshot LPs of Blizzard's RTSes, aren't we?
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Aug 20, 2023 23:38
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