The new Arbiter, The Star Relic

[Peter.Hong]

This is the newest information regarding Star Relics taken from a German Post that was translated and posted on the forums. Post your views about the new information and what you think would be the best strategies for the abilities of the Star Relic with other Protoss units.

# Star Relics have the ability to cloak units underneath them like the Arbiter. They will remain visible while cloaking all units underneath it. The difference from arbiters is that they must remain stationary (units underneath may move)
# Star Relics now have hallucination spell
# Star Relics have a 'Detonate' ability. It allows them lock a blue beam onto an enemy unit. If it remains locked on that unit for some seconds, the unit will explode. You can escape by fleeing, or if the Star Relic is destroyed in time.

I like the idea that the Protoss will still have a massive cloaking ability but i wonder how it will be affected by the fact that the Relic has to remain stationary. Also it says that the Relic will cloak all units underneath of it so that sends the implication that it may not be able to cloak flying units around it which throws off my plans of a few relics and hiding a few Phase Prisms and then porting in a bunch of units under cloak. The hallucination spell is nice because then you can make hallucinations of the Relic giving it some extra survival time while your forces dish out the damage.

I'm wondering how the detonate ability works and if it has a set range. Like as long as the enemy unit is still within range the detonate still works or if the beam has to stay in one specific spot and won't be able to follow the unit. If it can follow it'd be a great tool for targeting levitated terran buildings (if those are possible targets).


Bonus 200 minerals for a great post

[Ych9]

I don't really like the new detonate ability.
It sounds more like a buffed up version of the Warp Rays attack.

[T-man]

The Detonate ability will also deal a large amount of splash damage when the target explodes. If the ability were merely to hurt a single unit, I would agree that it isn't very cool. But the way Blizzard is saying, it will explode a unit, and AOE damage will be dealt to units near it based off of the target's health.
So detonating a Marine is dumb (unless it's in the middle of a cluster of Zerglings or something...), but detonating a CC could be devastating, especially to the workers.

[Fenix]

I'm pissed, mostly cause they killed Recall. I love that ability.

[Dxun]

Well Fenix we haven't seen all protoss units yet...and the ones we have seen aren't final by any means so be patient.

But we do have this new "warp in" mechanic so maybe recall is in the trash ???

[burkid]

haha i wanna use detonate on a thor.
BOOM!


I'm pissed, mostly cause they killed Recall. I love that ability.


its ok fenix, i miss it too. at least they didnt kill stasis field, just revamped it and gave it to the HTs

[Ych9]

Does anyone know if the Detonate ability works like a spell? Or is it a passive attack for the Star Relic.

[burkid]

i really hope its a spell, because otherwise, i would just say "screw tempests, phoenix, and warp rays, im massing Star Relics!"

[Dxun]

I'm pretty sure the interview said "ability" but that could mean anything. And i wonder if the amount of health a unit/building has will effect how long the beam needs to be on it.

Afew seconds for a hydra but maybe like 10-20 for a thor.

[kehmdaddy]

I'm still not big on the name "Star Relic," but the unit sounds pretty cool. I always thought Hallucination fit the Arbiter perfectly so they wouldn't know which one to fire at to reveal your army. I also believe that flying units will still be cloaked and that underneath was not a great choice of words, otherwise it would be far less useful.
Something I want to know though is that when the Star Relic uses its Detonate ability, if the enemy unit flees, will the beam just remain locked on or will the Star Relic attempt to chase it down? I hope the beam just stays locked on until the unit dies or escapes by running far away, but I think the beam should follow it around a screen and a half's length without having to move the Relic. That way you won't unintentionally reveal your whole army if you accidently Detonate a small worthless unit.

[Peter.Hong]

I'm still not big on the name "Star Relic," but the unit sounds pretty cool. I always thought Hallucination fit the Arbiter perfectly so they wouldn't know which one to fire at to reveal your army. I also believe that flying units will still be cloaked and that underneath was not a great choice of words, otherwise it would be far less useful.
Something I want to know though is that when the Star Relic uses its Detonate ability, if the enemy unit flees, will the beam just remain locked on or will the Star Relic attempt to chase it down? I hope the beam just stays locked on until the unit dies or escapes by running far away, but I think the beam should follow it around a screen and a half's length without having to move the Relic. That way you won't unintentionally reveal your whole army if you accidently Detonate a small worthless unit.


I completely agree with you there because i think it would be pointless if the lockon was only a small distance. I wouldn't even bother researching the ability if most units could outrun the beam before it even did anything. However i like the idea of targeting Thor since he is a slowmoving unit that has trouble turning around. Good call on that BURKID.


I'm pissed, mostly cause they killed Recall. I love that ability.


What I'm thinking is that the recall ability is completely gone now because of the new ability of the Protoss being able to port their units into anywhere that there is a psi field. This is an interesting way of being able to defend a far outlying expansion too so it may be more useful than recall if you think about it. For example, to defend an early expansion it means you would have to tech arbiters pretty early/dropships/just send a force out there and leave them there. With the teleporting technology (assuming its not hard to tech to) you can easily defend you're posts by just porting units to your expansion as you need them while your main forces can stay at home base where they're really needed if an attack is launched before you attack your enemy.

[burkid]

why thank you peter.
and since the explosion from detonate is larger from larger units, i would think that the radius of a detonate on a thor would be equal to slightly less of the radius of a SC1 nuke, but with obviously less damage, able to kill off the thor, infantry, and severly damage/ kill vehicals depending on how close they are to the thor and how armored it is.

[Peter.Hong]

Scratch what I said in my previous post regarding Porting your units to outlying base via PSI. I think it turns out that only NEWLY produced units can warp via PSI to any location. Otherwise you must utilize a Prism to transport units. Darn =\ there goes my OPed Protoss...

[i2new@aol.com]

I'm glade Recall got the Blizzard Boot. Recall was very sloppy and coasted energy at that too. The Psi field port is looks cool and i bet it's free. How cool

[DontHate]

are you kidding me? i loved recall! just hallucinate an arbiter and recall in their base. lol.

[i2new@aol.com]

Dude recall sucked! it took to much energy to me. But i think the arbiters moving clock field will be greatly missed... stupid star relic

[DontHate]

i'm pretty sure that the star relic has passive cloak too. dunno though.

[burkid]

it does. just the relic has to be stationary for cloak to work.

[PancakeChef]

I think they made the Recall in the frist Starcraft cost a lot of energy for a reason. If it was too cheap you could just be warping your guys in and out all the time. The higher energy cost makes you think and use it more stragetically.

I don't know what to say about the Star relic so far, since I havn't seen it in action yet.

[DontHate]

150 isn't THAT much energy, considering you might be destroying an expo/base. Also, with the upgrade u only wait for 50 more energies and u can statis.

[i2new@aol.com]

Come on man recall sucks and u know it. The warp ablity with the Psi energy is much better and the Phase flyers can produce that energy so it's not like recall is even gone. and the Phase flyers can do it for free. so stop crying about recall. It sucked in SC1 it was almost never uesd. and no one eles will care about it.

[burkid]

it actually was used a lot. its a lot easier to sneak 1 arbiter into an enemy base and recall your army in then sneak a ton of shuttles in. a lot less potential loss. and that would ruin any opponents day.

[i2new@aol.com]

I used it alot. just not for recall. it dosent matter anymore. the Arbiter is gone and the star Relic is here now. We will just have to make it work wether you like it or not.

[DontHate]

well, for one thing, i like the design of it. It's like a slave1.

[PhantomFF]

Methinks detonate is just the star relic's attack. (rather then the pretty pathetic one the arbiter had). Problem being that the other player has to be stupid enough not to move his units at all while you are beaming his unit (preping it for KABOOM).

Thus I think a good strategy with something like this is attacking from the front, then disintigrating a building near workers in the rear. (like take a pylon or supply depot) This will effectively halt the economy and mass winings would ensue. (hopefully)

[ArchLimit]

I love the design for the Star Relic. It's got this exotic feel to it. As far as the detonator ability goes, it sounds a lot like the Kodo Beast spell to eat/digest an opponent. I think it has potential to be pretty cool. What comes to mind is what happens during a Protoss versus Protoss game and the Star Relic "locks on" to an enemy Mothership. That'll be a sight to see if it succeeds.