[inFeZa]

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...3491#Newsintro

Courtesy of Blizzard

This document lists the new units and abilities in the MLG Spring Championship preview build of StarCraft® II: Heart of the Swarm™. Please keep in mind that Heart of the Swarm is still in development, and all of the units and abilities you see described below are subject to change. It's even possible that some of these units and abilities will be discarded and new ones will be created to replace them as we continue to iterate on the game design. What we've listed below is just a snapshot of where we currently stand on multiplayer Heart of the Swarm.

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 an extremely long-range attacker, additional psionic units, and a new form of enemy harassment.

Tempest

Description: The tempest is a new capital ship that can fire at both ground and air targets from long range, doing additional damage to massive units. A further range upgrade can be researched to give the Tempest the ability to fire from incredible distances (note: 22 range with upgrade, compared to 13 for siege tanks. Relatively low DPS to balance it out.).

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 detection and vision around a targeted building, allowing the protoss to see which units or technologies are being researched. Rounding out its kit is Cloak Field, which temporarily cloaks everything around the Oracle (note: has mana cost and is temporary, isn't a permanent passive like the mothership.)

Mothership Core

Description: The Mothership Core is unique in more ways than one. Only a single one can exist in your army at once and it's also immobile, attaching itself to a nexus. There are four abilities available from the Mothership Core. Teleport allows you to move the Mothership Core to any of your other nexuses. Energize tops off the energy stores of any target unit or structure. Purify is a defensive ability that temporarily grants the Mothership Core a powerful, long range attack. Finally, Mass Recall allows players to quickly recall units back to the Mothership Core.

Mothership

Description: It's not really a new unit in Heart of the Swarm, but the Mothership abilities are slightly different from Wings of Liberty. The passive cloaking field is gone, with the cloak now available as an activated ability on the Oracle. The Mothership retains its Recall ability, and the Vortex spell from Wings of Liberty now affects ground units only. A new ability called Stasis is available, which puts the mothership and all air units around it into stasis for about 20 seconds. The Mothership is now created by upgrading the Mothership Core after a Fleet Beacon is constructed.

**In the current multiplayer build of Heart of the Swarm, the Protoss are not able to deploy Carriers. However, we have not yet made a final determination on the Carrier's status..


Terran

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

Widow Mine

Description: The Widow Mine is a new suicide unit built from the Factory that allows the terran player to control areas of the battlefield. The Widow Mine moves into position and sets to stationary mode, which burrows and activates it. When an enemy air or ground unit moves into range, the Widow Mine briefly flashes before moving and attaching itself to that unit. After several seconds, the mine detonates, dealing 200 damage to the unit and a smaller amount of damage to units in the surrounding area.

Warhound

Description: The Warhound is a walking ground mech that is specialized as an anti-mechanical weapon. Smaller and more nimble than a Thor, the Warhound has a standard weapon to hit ground. Its true strength is an additional ability that fires powerful missiles at ground-based mechanical units, making it particularly well suited to taking out enemy siege lines and many protoss ground units. (note: anti-mech missiles auto-launch at mechanical units independent of the warhound's normal attack)

New Abilities

The Hellion has been upgraded to a transforming unit similar to the Viking. When constructed from the factory, the Hellion spawns in its new battle mode, which gives it additional hit points and a stronger flame attack that covers a short forward-facing arc. This makes the Hellion more effective in late-game fights against large clusters of light units such as Zealots. The player can opt to transform the Hellion into its original, more mobile form as well.

In Heart of the Swarm, the Battlecruiser gains a cooldown-based speed-boost ability called Redline Reactor. Finally, the Reaper no longer has a special building attack. Instead, it gains a passive health-regeneration upgrade 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 biological ground units inside the cloud to melee range. Abduct allows the Viper to physically pull a unit to the Viper’s location. Finally, the Viper can use Consume, a channeled ability that allows it to gain some energy back at the expense of damage to your own zerg building.

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 units called Locusts that can be used to lay siege and pressure entrenched enemy positions (note: free spawn every 45 seconds).

New Abilities

Ultralisks have a new Burrow Charge skill that lets them dive underground and quickly surface at a target, allowing them to initiate the fight faster on a crowded battlefield. However, its "frenzy" passive from Wings of Liberty has been removed, meaning the Ultralisk can now be snared by abilities like Fungal Growth. The Overseer has been retained from Wings of Liberty, and changelings can now be spawned from siege range. Finally, the Hydralisk has a new upgrade that allows them to move faster while not on creep.

TL;DR Version:

Protoss Tempest has a range upgrade to boost to 22 (almost 2x siege tank range) Additional massive damage (ie. vs broodfuckers)
Oracle now has mothership cloak but drains energy. (kinda arbiter)
Mothership split, into core (cannot leave base, 4 abilities, - Teleport to another nexus, energize your units (HT/Phoenix/Oracle/Nexus) Purify! Recall) - Actual mothership has no cloak, has recall, and vortex effects ground units only.

Terran get spider mines (attaches not chases)
Warhound anti mech mini thor. (another ******* marauder, just from the factory) Anti mech missles auto launch
Hellion transform still exists
Battlecruiser and reaper abilities still exist.

Zerg Viper, Imbalance cloud, abduct still exist. now has consume ala BW
Swarm Host Same shit.
Ultras still have burrowed charge, now no more frenzy.
changelings have seige spawn range.
Hydra upgrade still exists

You Tube

You Tube

pretty much Protoss OP

[Dingobloo]

Tempest is just so unnecessary in so many ways, I also have concerns about the viability of tanks in ANY match up right now.

But overall I like how it's looking I think the oracle is extremely improved to how it was when they first showed it, it used to be able to harass and then just not be able to defend, now has a really unique method of defense. I worry the cloaking might come out too early and we might just see 2 base oracle warp gate pushes with cloak that would be a bit ridiculous.

The mother ship core is nice, it consolidates a lot of the stuff they were going to shove on to the nexus making it a lot more interesting while still retaining usefulness of an end-game mother ship and making them mutually exclusive.

It's also just different. I think the worst thing that could have happened is that they leaned too much on the status quo and got something uninteresting.

[FaDeHellfyre]

While i enjoy zerg finally getting a siege unit... is it just my low level and lack of knowledge or are zerg's still getting a raw deal?

I can certainly see that PvT is going to be much much more interesting come HotS as well. All these new abilities on units that will make spectating high level games much more exciting. Can't wait.

[Chappo]

I like the spider mines and the oracle. Everything else is breaking my brain.
That abduct ability just seems insane though.

[mGGDrGooSe]

For the love of god, give zerg an anti mana spell.

Quick Comments

	mGGAequitas:	neural parasite?
	FsDronesInJail:	neural parasite sucks with its low cast range,, theres a reason why pros dont use it anymore

[Kepler]

I guess they changed Spider Mines slightly so they can give it a name change, I'm fine with that.

No unit gives passive cloaking anymore, the arbiter is dead and gone.

Blizzard confirmed for hating Protoss.

[TABottles]

I'm still going to be making marines and maruaders.

[Peleus]

22 Range - What - The - ****

[Dingobloo]

Originally Posted by mGGDrGooSe

For the love of god, give zerg an anti mana spell.

They're intentionally not doing this to make the races different, if all they wanted was balance we'd play TvT all day.

[jayaiwhy]

less deathbally, or at least thats what they're trying to do in the video...

[Heady]

So the mothership is now a hat for the nexus? I am sold.

Quick Comments

	inFeZa:	valve influence!
	TCPLemminks:	INB4 Hats for all units

[VB_Rhuubarb]

I wonder if the Warhound is ground only?

Also the 22 range will make my TvP mech interesting as it will change the dynamic me being able to be passive until I feel it's ok to fight. (Note, I said interesting, not unfair) The rest of the terran changes make me happy for my TvP Mech

[eCKo`Tazerenix]

I really really like the ability for the oracle to add detection to friendly buildings. If nothing else I'd love blizzard to keep that. Would really allow protoss to safely go stargate tech against protoss and terran.

Quick Comments

Dingobloo:

I actually didn't know it added detection that's awesome.

[xGKingdelete]

looks awesome to me

Quick Comments

TAavanar:

your awesome

[Dingobloo]

Originally Posted by Acies

So the mothership is now a hat for the nexus? I am sold.

Not quite, it's a hat for the nexus UNTIL you want a mothership, you just get to use some the abilities of the mothership pre-mothership for a fraction of the cost, and then once the mothership is built it acts like normal and your nexus hat is gone.

[mGGDaedalus]

The beta build doesn't look as stupid as I thought it would at this stage. Of course there's gonna be massive imbalances discovered in beta but overall the units seem more fun than what we saw with the last HotS preview.

[eCKo`Tazerenix]

Does anyone know if you can have a mothership core if you also have a mothership?

Quick Comments

inFeZa:

core can transform into the mothership

[inFeZa]

Originally Posted by Tazerenix

I really really like the ability for the oracle to add detection to friendly buildings. If nothing else I'd love blizzard to keep that. Would really allow protoss to safely go stargate tech against protoss and terran.

Well if you go oracle and he goes banshee, then you can just use the cloak to counter cloak his cloak.
:P

But seriously, it can be used defensively vs a cloaked banshee while you get out an obs.

[Rage]

Anyone else totally bored by MLG now that we saw those two demo battle reports?

Play rest of MLG on HotS computers plz thx

Quick Comments

VB_Rhuubarb:

Yep!

[Free]

22 range ? And the mothership has a child ? O.o