[nirvAnA]

For those familiar with Wings of Liberty and new to HoTS, this three part series will serve as a complete guide to get your familiar with all the new HotS units. You may be aware of your race's changes but understanding the other races too will help greatly with your understanding of the game. It will talk about their abilities, costs and how they are used in competitive play. It will assume you are already familiar with Starcraft and have played Wings of Liberty. Apart from the mechanical changes which make the game easier to play, HotS has made the game more micro intensive. The ability to cheese has been significantly reduced too. This article was written by Singapore's last Starcraft 2 WCG champion nirvAnA .

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New HoTS Terran Units

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Cost: 75 25 40 2

+ [Widow Mine Explained] +

Arguably the biggest buff to Terran in HoTS with the medivacs, the widow mine can attack both air and land units but it is quite a misunderstood unit, especially for those who do not play Terran. Why? Although it is a good unit, it is not as GREAT as most people think it is!

Firstly it has to burrow first to be able to launch its attack, and this takes 3 whole seconds. This can be reduced later to 1 second after a pricey 'drilling claws' upgrade 110 and costs 150 and 150. After it burrows it takes an additional 1.5 seconds for the mine to lock on to a target in its 5 range radius. If the target moves out of the range within the 1.5 seconds, the missile will not be launched, thus explaining its sometimes unresponsive behaviour. This 4.5 second window usually gives alert players sufficient time to move their units away in the early game. Secondly, it has a really long cool down of 40 seconds between each shot and during that time it is completely defenseless.

Some other notes:

• These mines are much more powerful against Zerg rather than protoss as its splash damage can one shot lings but cannot one shot any other protoss unit through splash damage other than workers. Its rare to see mines being made against protoss after the early game but against zerg they are an army staple made throughout the game.
• It deals a total of 125 +35 shields damage - meaning it one shots stalkers and oracles with its direct damage.
• They deal friendly fire damage and can splash damage your own SCVs, making it a good idea to put them outside your mineral line instead of within it - e.g to deter banshees and oracles.
• Widow mines are not affected by armory damage upgrades.
• When left unattended, the AI won't overkill units and each will lock on to a different target. This can be overridden by manually selecting a target, but this may result in an overkill.
• Mines will not target changelings or hallucinations.

Its biggest impact can be felt in the TvZ matchup, which has completely changed the way it is played. It has allowed Terrans to get away with no longer using tanks - instead just using MMMMs! Marines, Medivacs, Marauders and Mines!

Against Protoss it helps deters a lot of early game cheese, a correctly placed widow mine can one shot an oracle and completely shut down a protoss player's stargate opening.

Cost: 100 0 30 2

+ [Hellbat Explained] +

The hellbat was created to address Terran's late game problem dealing with mass zealots, and to buff its mechanical capabilities. They can be built just like hellions through a reactor (you need an armory though) and you do not need to have the hellbat transformation upgrade research to build them. If you don't have the upgrade it just means they will be unable to change to hellions and vice versa until you get it. Hellbats are incredibly cheap and tough, having 45hp more or 1.5 times the health of a hellion.

I feel they are tremendously underrated at the moment and there is a lot of potential with possible hellbat builds and incorporating them into standard competitive play. Their do 30 damage to light units and 18 damage to other units making them extremely powerful against zealots, zerglings, marines and two shoting all workers. Their only weakness? Their range of 2 and their slow moving speed, but this is mitigated by the improved medivacs which make them deadly in mineral lines especially against zerg. You can tuck them in the sweet spot between the mineral patches forcing the zerg to bring his queens over to defend or build roaches... and they can even heal!

Yes, in this mode the hellbat is recognised as a biological unit and can be healed by medivacs. When they transform back to hellions, they become mechanical again and can be repaired by SCVs. When in medivacs, they take up 4 cargo spaces instead of a hellion's 2. The hellion's Pre-Igniter upgrade has no effect on the hellbat's damage output. The transformation ability takes 110 and costs 150 and 150. Most competitive players do not bother to get this. They would make the standard 2 hellions while waiting for their armory to be done, and then proceed to just make hellbats from then onwards.

Other Terran Changes

• The Reaper has been reworked significantly. It is now faster and able to regenerate health out of combat, does not require a tech lab to build but no longer deals bonus damage to light units or buildings. Without its bonus damage its much harder to kill workers now and it serves primarily as a scout.
• Hellions can transform into hellbats after researching the upgrade at the tech lab and vice versa.
• The Siege Tank now comes with siege mode already researched.
• The Thor's strike cannon has being reworked into a high impact payload (HIP guns), which switches its anti air splash type of attack into a single attack, good versus units like void rays.
• Medivacs have been significantly buffed, having a boosting ability that increases its speed by almost double - 70% for 8 seconds. It does not require any energy cost and it has a 20 second cool down. This change has made dropship play extremely powerful again.
• The Raven's seeker missiles no longer need to be researched
• Ship and vehicle armor now share the same upgrade from the armory.

What to expect in the updated TGM

+ [Sneak Preview] +

TGM Author iaguz shares his thoughts on one of the updated methodologies: There are five main techniques that you see every professional Terran utilise in his play. Kiting, Concave, Splitting, Focus Fire and Multitask. I’ll go into each one in reasonable depth.

MULTITASK.

Multitask is being able to manage several areas at once. It means being able to control a push, macro all your units at home and also manage small groups of units. If you can hit an opponent with a medivac drop at the same time he has to deal with a push it can easily overload his concentration and ability and then he’ll make mistakes. Then he’ll be much easier to beat.

This is the strength of the medivac drop. 8 marines are not hard to deal with by themselves but they can do a lot of damage if they go unanswered. If you drop 2 areas whilst pushing a third area with your main army then your chances of beating your opponent increase a lot.

Multitask and APM are not really the same thing but can be somewhat connected. Multitask is more about being able to split attention around a bunch of different areas and only giving the smallest required amount to each one. It’s also about synchronising your multiple attacks for maximum effect. Dealing with a push can be easy. Dealing with a push and 2 medivac drops all at once is not.

This is a skill you’ll naturally develop as you practice the game and develop your mechanics. There’s no real trick it other than watching Korean terrans and thinking “man I should do more of that”

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This article was written by Singapore's last Starcraft 2 WCG champion nirvAnA who is one of the authors of the Starcraft 2 Guide - The Grandmaster Manual, along with mOOnGLaDe , PiG and iaguz . This will be the start of our TGM guide revision which will be updated with all the latest strategies for HotS and later Legacy of the Void. All new subscribers will also receive access to our earlier WoL TGM content too. Check out the glowing testimonials we have received!

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- A complete guide to Starcraft 2 HotS changes for each race -

Protoss HotS Changes | Terran HotS Changes | Zerg HotS Changes

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