Warp Ray

[genocide]

I thought these were pretty damn cool, how it focus's all it's energy onto one target to compleatly obliterate it.
and how a group of small marines could easily take them down :P

[hillzagold]

with enough warp ray, you could one hit kill alot of units

[genocide]

One hit kill the mothership :good:

[Gold]

my thoery is that the warp ray replaces reavers in there seige ability, and carriers as a flyer unit, and as an added bonus protoss now get an anti heavy air unit, so maybe replaceing the coursair in the process, either that or the phoenix does.

[Fenix]

Anybody notice the cooldown after firing? One would assume the long you burn, the longer cooldown takes.....

[l2k]

I think it's not considered as cooldown, but animation of opening up its front end to fire and closing after firing.

And I don't really think warp ray is as powerful as most of you think. 75 shield 125 hp is weak and it takes time to consistently build up damage.

[Remy]

It's a rather specialized unit for a specialized purpose in specific situations.

I can already see some fools trying to mass these things. I'm gonna have a field day with my sexy Zerg babies. Woot~

[brc9210]

I agree most air units such as wraiths(if they come back), Phoniexs, and mutas will easily take these guys down. The only units I see these things being particuarly effective aginst are really heavy units such as cruisers, colossus, tempest, motherships, and buildings. Imagine 2-3 of these guys targeting a bunker.

[MrFrancko]

I don't think i'd build a mass of these units unless my opponent was only using BCs or something like that. I would mostly use warp rays as a support unit.

[Malicus]

I agree that the Warp Rays are a very specialized unit intended as a support unit for the lighter Pheonix's. Sort of like wimpy devourers. The are going to be worthless against any kind of mass unit such as Hydras, Mutas, Marines and anything else that mass's. They where absolutely worthless against those marines and would get crushed if they where used to attack by themselves. Imagine swarms of Scourge ripping these to pieces, if they make a return, and I don't see why they wouldent.

[LoserInLosing]

my thoery is that the warp ray replaces reavers in there seige ability, and carriers as a flyer unit, and as an added bonus protoss now get an anti heavy air unit, so maybe replaceing the coursair in the process, either that or the phoenix does.
it doesn replace anything. Reavers are comin back *everyone loves em, except ur facing em*, carriers are replaced by tempests, and cosairs are replaced by phoenix. And warp rays are definately support units, an army of warp rays could be easily countered

[PowerkickasS]

i >_< at this unit lol

[coalescence]

it doesn replace anything. Reavers are comin back *everyone loves em, except ur facing em*, carriers are replaced by tempests, and cosairs are replaced by phoenix. And warp rays are definately support units, an army of warp rays could be easily countered


He knows that, but if you look at the date of his post you would know that when he said that the tempest or reaver weren't confirmed.

[sordid]

The way I see it...if you have Colossus, Warp Rays, and Phoenixes, you will be able to kill pretty much every thing. And cross cliffs etc.

[PowerkickasS]

The way I see it...if you have Colossus, Warp Rays, and Phoenixes, you will be able to kill pretty much every thing. And cross cliffs etc.

from my perspective ill mass lings and win ^_^
or mutas
or BCs (no yamato required)
or marines maybe

[surr]

warp rays would be ez to escape? just run until out of range

[[LightMare]]

warp rays all the way!!!!!! *does a jig* they are one of the best aba (anti-big-air)

[GuiMontag]

SC2 site has just been updated with the warp ray!!
the graphics for the laser attack are just amazing

[Ych9]

From the Warp-Rays page on Blizzards website, it says its role is long range bombardment. That is something I don't get. If you are a long range bombardment, shouldn't you be able to bombard turrets without it hitting you back? But in the screenshots, it clearly shows the turrets firing back, which means, it really isn't a bombardment. Long range bombardment should be like how Guardians works right? Or maybe I just get messed up with the definition. Otherwise, I think their role info should be changed.

[GuiMontag]

its long range for a laser attack, i think its becuase the protoss don't have any long range weapons (scarabs dont count), so any improvement counts as long range lol. It could also be that we havnt seen their maximum range yet, they could be being moved into close range before ordered to attack.

[Remy]

I think "long range bombardment" is just Blizzard throwing words at you Ych9.  This time around, whoever's in charge of all the lore and write ups and stuff seem to kinda suck at it anyway.

Traditionally in SC, when you say siege unit, it usually implied that the unit had an attack range of 8 or longer(towers range is 7).  This included reaver, carrier, siege tank, BC(yama), and guardian.

I seriously doubt that warprays will be a siege unit in that sense.  Protoss already has too many units that fill that role already.

Reaver and carrier are both back this time, although the exact attack range of the tempest is left to be seen.  The MS through its abilities also fits the role of tier 3 siege air unit, like the old carrier, BC, and guardian.  The MS has already demonstrated this in the demo.

I think it's best if we interpret "long range bombardment" merely as "ranged support firepower."

[Lemonparty]

As long Chris Metzen is not doing the lore, Starcraft can survive.

[FlyingTiger]

hmm what?

Chris Metzen is doing the story (or was I not paying attention?) . Wouldn't it be a good thing if he was since he started it all...

Starcraft would survive if Metzen didn't do the story? whaaaa?

[dxreaper]

With most RTS's, ranged units usually focus fire for the most effective strategy. Like the Warp rays did against the battlecruisers in the gameplay trailer. What I'm wondering is whether it would be more effective to have all the warp rays take down the BC's one at a time, or each warp ray focusing on a different target so they dont have to switch targets and lose the built up power they already gained. ???

[josh]

lol. this is even better than the colossus.

[Ghost]

Id use warprays in combination with colossus,

Colossus owns everysingle small target.
Warprays take down structures and heavy units.

On its own I'd say the warp ray is pretty useless.

[mc2]

Warp rays are probably best combined with stalkers and zealots. It's like the muta-ling combo. The WR can take out most air units, While fast moving zealots and the stalkers can take out most ground units.
But I think to tech up to a fleet of warp rays will be quite expensive and time comsuming. So maybe a mass fleet of zealots + stalkers + archons + immortals + a few colossus would be more ideal.

[Ych9]

Getting up a decent amount of WarpRays will require a bit of time because from the 1up article, their build-time is 90 sec. Tempest and Star Relic on the other hand, only needs 60 sec. So I'm assuming that WarpRays will be very specialized on what they are doing. It will be very hard to mass a fleet of them and it won't be effective. But with combined forces, it can take out key units in battle with efficiency.

[BoydofZINJ]

From looking at the video and reading the warp ray info. It does very little damage at first. After a bit it increases damage. After a while it does even more damage. If you notice it took approx 5 - 7 seconds to kill a single marine with a warp ray. 7 seconds that the marine is firing back. The warp ray is probably a costly unit. Against a single marine it should live. Against 2 marines it should live. Against a squad....

If you think a fleet a warp rays would defeat an equal size marine force? It should! However, the warp rays will probably cost 5 times as much as a single marine. In theory the classic Million Marine march should over whelm the Warp Rays. I betcha that a fleet of 12 warp rays will cost as much as 5 groups of 12 marines and probably take as much time to build (but build time is unknown). Protoss has always been gas heavy for upper level tech. I would imagine the Warp Ray is no different - gas heavy. Marines, are classically 50 minerals and 0 gas.

Warp Rays seem to be the protoss answer to direct artillery. I would use them in the back ground to break the static defenses like enemy tanks and fortifications. The enemy has allot of static defenses (such as protoss cannons) I would send a few suicide units to distract the cannons while I use the Warp Rays to take out the static defenses. Against the ultimate terran defense I would use the Warp Rays to attack the storage depots that the terran is using as a wall and then move the warp rays to the tanks and missle defenses.

[JudicatorPrime]

You realize they said in the first footage NOT to put warp rays against Marines? Infantry and small units but they used Marines specifically. So that was pretty much a given...

Yeah... Warp rays need more range if they're long range bombardment, perhaps he was talking in a zerglings point of view?

[Eye_Carumba]

I sincerely hope Warp Rays can move faster the longer they stay on movement, just like the Shuttle in SC1. After the Scout is gone, i'm missing a fast moving air unit to raid enemy bases. :-(

[shadow]

i hear you man, gonna miss the scout.


i like the warp ray consept. it is like the ideal protoss unit. :powerup:

[BnechbReaker]

the warp ray introduces a new strategy - building harassment

[Protosscommander]

Well based on my thoughts, Protoss Warp ray now, is good enough to change and improved in sc2 right ??? :)

[EonMaster]

The ability to completely abliterate buildings before suficient enemy retaliation can arive will help the protoss become excelent base raiders

especially against ppl who build miltiple bases all over the map to collect resources but don't use great defences to protect them like tanks, hydras, and AA units

[ItzaHexGor]

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but I was wondering about the Warp Ray's colouration. I know that it originally had the 'High' colour scheme and that it was changed to have the 'Dark' colour scheme, but in a recent screenshot it looked as though it wasn't really either. I left in the Stalker and surrounding buildings so that you can compare it to the other colour scheme and it doesn't looks as dark and blue as the Stalker, nor does it look as bright and yellow as the buildings. It's definitely closer to the Stalker's than the buildings' colour, but it's definitely not the same.
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee72/itzahexgor/Warpraystalker.jpg

[Gasmaskguy]

The Stalker is standing in the shadow, which could explain why the Warp Ray is more shiny.

[ItzaHexGor]

It doesn't look as though it's in a shadow. You can see the shadows on the ground and the Stalker doesn't seem to be in one. Also, the buildings are all the same colour throughout, so I doubt it's a shadow related issue.

[Gasmaskguy]

True. Maybe they just want it to look slightly different to avoid selection confusion during battles.

[ItzaHexGor]

Maybe, but they don't seem to have that problem with the normal, yellow coloured units, and there are a lot more of them as well.

[Meee]

I don't like this colour, make it either purple/blue like dark templar or yellow like HT, not only it'd be more fitting it just looks plain better

[Gasmaskguy]

Well, if you look at the left side of the Stalker, it is as bright as the Warp Ray on a few spots.
The Warp Ray just seems to have a larger area facing the sun.

[ItzaHexGor]

That would mean that the areas on the Warp Ray that are in shadow should look like the shadowed areas on the Stalker, which they don't. They're definitely different colour schemes.

[Gasmaskguy]

Yes, they definitely are. But that's a good thing IMO. (They're still Dark)

[Smokiehunter]

I think they should make the Dark units seem more black purple or even metallic. they just look dull and gray now. but maybe its just the screen shot

[Meee]

Or maybe these are the effects of messing with colours, like making terran grittier. Not that protoss ever needed that -.-

[ItzaHexGor]

Here's the full screenshot. You can compare it to all of the Stalkers and buildings there and it's definitely an off-ish colour. I hope they change the colour scheme to either being completely Dark or completely High. At the moment it looks like a mix of both.
http://www.sc2armory.com/media/screenshots/ultralisk_spearhead/158/

[Gforce]

yeah, it is a bit off.

[Tankman131]

shoudl be much more shiny