RTS-Sanctuary News

Protoss

Upon analyzing data from their most recent battles, the protoss have identified a few areas of improvement that would help them maximize effectiveness against their enemies. Based on their findings, the protoss have augmented their arsenal with a second psionic unit, a new way to counter flocks of Mutalisks, and a new form of enemy harassment.

Tempest

Description: The tempest is a new capital ship that deals massive area-of-effect damage to air units. It also has a standard ground attack, but its chief role is to help gain air superiority.

Oracle

Description: The Oracle is a psionic warship, built from a Stargate, that uses several unique abilities to raid and harass the enemy. The first is Entomb, which can temporarily block mineral fields from being harvested. Another ability, Preordain, grants vision of a targeted enemy building, allowing the protoss to see which units or technologies are being researched. Rounding out its kit is Phase Shift, which phases a target building, preventing it from being attacked, using its abilities, or granting technology. Not only can structures like missile turrets be prevented from attacking, but using this ability on a zerg Spire would block the production of Mutalisks, Corruptors, and air upgrades.

Replicant

Description: Replicants have one ability: to transform itself into any non-massive unit. They're expensive, so cloning a Zergling would not be very cost effective, but transforming into a specialized unit like a Raven, Infestor, or Siege Tank could open up interesting strategic options for the protoss.

New Abilities

A new ability called Arc Shield has also been added to the nexus -- this ability will temporarily add additional shield and building armor, as well as a weapon very similar to a photon cannon. The weapon does the same amount of damage as a regular photon cannon but only damages light units. This ability will help the protoss buy time to defend in the case of an unexpected drop from an enemy. Another ability, Mass Recall, has also been added to the nexus, which allows protoss players to teleport armies from out in the field back to the nexus. The recalled units are stunned for a few seconds when recalled.

Retired Units

As we add units to the multiplayer game, sometimes it’s necessary to remove units or alter others’ abilities to maintain game balance and eliminate redundancy. In the current design of Heart of the Swarm, the protoss are not able to deploy Motherships and Carriers, though these and other units that don’t exist in Heart of the Swarm multiplayer will still be available in Wings of Liberty multiplayer and the solo campaign.

Terran

The resourceful terrans have also been improving their technology to better survive their battles in the Koprulu sector.

Shredder

Description: The Shredder is a new unit built from the Factory that allows the terran player to control the battlefield. In its mobile form, the Shredder has no attack -- but when set to stationary mode, it channels area-effect damage to both the air and ground. If a friendly unit enters the range of the Shredder, the weapon shuts off.

Warhound

Description: The Warhound is a small, walking ground mech that wields an effective anti-air weapon with splash damage, much like the Thor from Wings of Liberty. The difference is that the Warhound is smaller and much more nimble, though it gives up some range on its anti-air missiles in exchange for this mobility. The Warhound also wields a small ground attack weapon that does additional damage to mechanical units, making it particularly well suited to taking out enemy Siege Tanks -- though it's not particularly effective against non-mechanical units.

Thor (Modified)

Description: While it was always quite effective against ground and air, one of the biggest problems with the Thor has been that it’s too big and bulky to move around well... so the terrans decided to made it even bigger. In Heart of the Swarm multiplayer, terran players will be limited to having only one Thor at a time, but this new behemoth hits even harder with its regular ground weapons and can absorb a tremendous amount of damage. The terrans have also swapped out the Thor's anti-air weapons for a bombardment ability that does a huge amount of damage to a wide swath of ground. The Thor will need time to set up its bombardment cannons, as well as time to repack them after an attack, much like a Siege Tank. Of course, fielding such a powerful weapon requires a hefty investment in technology, so both an Armory and a Fusion Core will be required before a Thor can be built.

New Abilities

The Hellion has been upgraded to a transforming unit similar to the Viking. When transformed into its new battle mode, the Hellion will gain in hit points and get a stronger flame attack that covers a short arc in front of it. This makes the Hellion more effective in late-game fights against large clusters of light units such as Zealots. The Ghost’s Cloak ability has also been modified -- it will no longer be a toggled effect. Instead, there will be a one-time energy cost to activate Cloak for a specific time duration. Energy regeneration will continue while cloaked, and Ghosts can re-cloak while nuking without interrupting the call-down. The Battlecruiser will gain a speed-boost ability called Redline Reactor, which is governed by a cooldown. And finally, the Reaper no longer has a special building attack, but instead has a passive health-regeneration that allows it to recharge hit points quickly when out of combat.

Zerg

The zerg continue to evolve and adapt to changing environments, particularly the dangers they face on the battlefield. New creatures will help the zerg stage more effective sieges and add unique enemy-manipulating abilities to their arsenal.

Viper

Description: The Viper is a new flying unit with three unique abilities. Blinding Cloud temporarily reduces the attack range of all ground units inside the cloud to melee range, and prevents energy-based abilities from being used. Abduct allows the Viper to physically pull a unit to the Viper’s location. Finally, the Viper has a one-time ability called Ocular Parasite, which allows it to detach its eye stalk and meld it onto any friendly, non-massive unit, turning that unit into a detector.

Swarm Host

Description: The Swarm Host is a slow-moving ground unit that has no standard attack. When burrowed, the Swarm Host spawns a continuous stream of slow-moving melee units called Locusts that can be used to lay siege and pressure entrenched enemy positions.

New Abilities

The Corruptor's Corruption ability has been replaced by a new ability called Siphon that allows Corruptors to target buildings and slowly damage them. This damage is converted into resources for the zerg at the same time. Ultralisks have a new Burrow Charge skill that lets them dive underground and instantly surface at a target, allowing them to initiate the fight faster on a crowded battlefield. Finally, the Baneling has evolved tunneling claws similar to the Roach, which allows them to move while burrowed -- this new evolution will mean other races will need to be even more wary about hidden drops and making sure to have detectors with their army. Finally, the Hydralisk has a new upgrade that allows them to move faster while not on creep.

Retired Units

The Overseer has been cut; its detection ability has been replaced by the Viper and its Ocular Parasite.

This afternoon we attended a sit down Q&A session with Chris Sigaty (Lead Producer) and David Kim (Game Balance Designer) to discuss Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm, Esports, LAN, Replays and more.

A full video and text transcript will probably be available soon from other community sites - we've selected some of the points/answers that are most relevant to the progaming community. A bunch of guys were recording it, so can get exact quotes etc in the next few days.

Note: Some of this may sound negative/cut and dry. The full Q&A was an hour long but i tried to extract the information that affects us most in day-to-day esports life. In the greater picture, they were more "giving" on other questions about things like separate ladders hots/wol, custom map stuff, Blizzard Dota etc.

"The List" implies features they want but haven't got in yet. They could be patched in, expansioned in, warped in, or never make it in. The list is as solid as a rock and vaporous as a cloud, but they did confirm that it does actually exist.


LAN
No Lan. Chris said that he doesn't foresee LAN during the SC2 life cycle (from WoL -> end of life). With regards to esports they are very aware of the issues and see them when they happen (although that doesn't really help the problem ;o). He also said they are more positive about the idea of having some sort of offline server capability for the MLGs, GSLs etc of the world....but they have no current plans to implement one. My question was basically, at what point do the interests of the esports industry start to outweigh the reasoning they've given us in the past for no offline play ("the list", IP protection, business etc).
tl;dr: it could happen next year, it could happen in 3 years, but it wont be related to an expansion release.

Clan Support
Its on "the list". They want it. They are working on it. Unclear whether it will make HotS - could be released after. But yes, its coming.

Group Replays
Its on "the list". They realize the game needs it and in general they want a more meaningful way to distribute replays across battle.net.

HLTV/Dota2 Viewing
I asked Chris about the amazing spectating abilities of Dota2 (allows you to jump into a top level game from the client and start watching...even while you are waiting for a game in ladder queue). He nodded intently as i explained how the feature worked and said that its something he really wants at some point (maybe Legacy of the Void). In general they want better ways to bridge the gap from general fans to competitive gaming through battle.net.

Blizzard Arcade
The new name for the market place to release premium blizzard content and user content. Blizzard Dota will be the first major Blizzard release which will come around HotS. They will have some ranking/rating features and will have a system to make sure only good user-submitted content is being charged for.

WoL vs HotS Balance
Asked David about how he "balances" (sorry LOL) the concerns of balancing WoL vs filling those holes with HotS features, abilities and units. He said he considers WoL to be pretty balanced and that they only want to make tiny changes to fix problems that they see. HotS is effectively a reset on the balance process, but they feel overall it will be an even better game filling many of the issues they saw with the original.

He feels that the beta will give the design team much more substantial data than WoL because there's such a rich pool of pros to work with. He thinks pros will adapt to the changes pretty quickly and be able to give solid feedback.

Saving Multiplayer Games/Reconnect ala LoL/Dota2 etc
They have talked about it. They like the idea of it but it hasn't made it in yet (watching group replays is more important to them right now). Didn't commit but its something they are looking at.