New Units and Their Counter Units.

[Peter.Hong]

On many of the posts I've made I've made references to how the different races are balanced and how each of the new units/old units being brought back have perfect counters for them in each race. Here is a list of the newest units which we know exist and old units we know that are being brought back. Post your views on which unit would be best to counter another one and reasons why.

Protoss: Terran: Zerg


The Zealot The Marine The Baneling
The Immortal The Reaper The Nydus Worm
The Stalker The Ghost The Zerling
The Phase Prism The Siege Tank
The Phoenix The Viking
The Colossus The Banshee
The Warp Ray The Battle Cruiser
The Twilight Archon The Thor
The Mother Ship The Cobra
The High Templar
The Star Relic
NEW:The Dark Templar
NEW:The Reaver
NEW:The Tempest


I'll make a few posts after you guys have had a go because I don't want to make a huge long post. Also please post about any units you feel are missing. I will update this post as more units are introduced.

EDIT: I would prefer that this post be kept to Unit On Unit/Units strategies. In other words how a type of unit (marines or a marine) has advantages over one unit or multiple other units rather than an all out strategy guide on what to do like tech tree and finding expansions (unless you think a particular unit is unique over the other units in scouting) and etc. In addition if you feel that you can add in strategies involving how one unit ACCOUNTS for another's weakness (having immortals to take out tanks since tanks can easily deal a lot of damage to your colossus, etc.) feel free to include that because I'm sure no one would complain. If you would like to post full strategies with regards to teching/how to expand/which units to build in what order, etc. please refer to the specific appropriate Race Boards. Thanks :)

[burkid]

immortal to banelings, tanks, and thor.

marines, stalkers, pheonix and vikings to warp rays

marines, reapers, ghosts, zealots, stalkers, zerglings, cobras, and vikings to immortals (assuming all of the stated have greater numbers or are being micro'd)

thats all i feel like posting for now.

edit: you could put dts and reavers in because we are pretty much assured that they are in the game from magazines and screenshots.

[marshal109]

banshee to nydus worm sorry its all i could think about

[TidalSpiral]

Banshee > Zergling - This is pretty obvious I guess. Zerglings tend to pack together like angry, angry rice. Two or three cloaked Banshee would make short work of them with streams of bombs, with no chance of getting hurt unless the Zerg have support. I imagine they fly fairly nimbly too, so it can probably escape if a horde arrives.

Cobra > Nydus Worm - If they truly have acquired the mine laying abilities of the late Vulture, the Cobra will be ideal for ending these subterranean beasts. Just scatter a few out on the field where you suspect one will cross and apparently when the movement of the worm stops, the mines will detonate and remove his life.

Ghost > Immortal - With the new sniper benefits of the Ghost, and the Immortal's particular weakness against small arms fire, I imagine it will become common to see this match-up. Siege Tanks and other brutes of the Terran army will inspire Protoss players to keep Immortals around because of the shielding, but they have no way to defend against targeted Ghost rounds.

Immortal / Stalker > Thor - I imagine Thor's array of guns will be strong enough to activate the Immortal shield. If so, then simply harass it with a few pointless Zealots and allow four to five Immortal's to cut the robot down. Alternatively the Stalker can blink, and combined with the sluggishness of the Thor you could probably teleport behind him and open fire relentlessly until he turns. When he does, BLINK, you're behind him again.

Might have more later. Oh and power up to Mr. Hong. :powerup:

[Peter.Hong]

immortal to banelings, tanks, and thor.

marines, stalkers, pheonix and vikings to warp rays

marines, reapers, ghosts, zealots, stalkers, zerglings, cobras, and vikings to immortals (assuming all of the stated have greater numbers or are being micro'd)

thats all i feel like posting for now.

edit: you could put dts and reavers in because we are pretty much assured that they are in the game from magazines and screenshots.


Hmm, do you think that the banelings deal enough damage to activate the shields? Also its sort of melee damage isn't it? Blowing up? So far all we've seen activate the shields are siege tank damage. But if it activates the shields then spectacular, a good counter for those darn banelings. Nice Post

The Warp Rays do seem very fragile in terms of attacking small units that wont run away. A nice ability is to take down a group of tanks while they focus on your ground attack force. It seems like warp ray's best use will be only as support of your main troops and for leveling an enemy base.

Honestly the dragoon was my favorite unit in SC1 so I'm a little disappointed that they replaced him. However we don't know how much damage they deal so they could still be efficient in dealing with aerial units. Hopefully...

And thanks for the information on the units BURKID. I will be adding them to the list.


Banshee > Zergling - This is pretty obvious I guess. Zerglings tend to pack together like angry, angry rice. Two or three cloaked Banshee would make short work of them with streams of bombs, with no chance of getting hurt unless the Zerg have support. I imagine they fly fairly nimbly too, so it can probably escape if a horde arrives.

Cobra > Nydus Worm - If they truly have acquired the mine laying abilities of the late Vulture, the Cobra will be ideal for ending these subterranean beasts. Just scatter a few out on the field where you suspect one will cross and apparently when the movement of the worm stops, the mines will detonate and remove his life.

Ghost > Immortal - With the new sniper benefits of the Ghost, and the Immortal's particular weakness against small arms fire, I imagine it will become common to see this match-up. Siege Tanks and other brutes of the Terran army will inspire Protoss players to keep Immortals around because of the shielding, but they have no way to defend against targeted Ghost rounds.

Immortal / Stalker > Thor - I imagine Thor's array of guns will be strong enough to activate the Immortal shield. If so, then simply harass it with a few pointless Zealots and allow four to five Immortal's to cut the robot down. Alternatively the Stalker can blink, and combined with the sluggishness of the Thor you could probably teleport behind him and open fire relentlessly until he turns. When he does, BLINK, you're behind him again.

Might have more later. Oh and power up to Mr. Hong. :powerup:



Awesome post man. I've enjoyed reading your posts a lot because of your new spin/view on things. You've earned a powerup yourself just from this post :powerup:. Anyways as for the units you mentioned, i haven't seen the banshee in action yet so i don't know about it much however, you've made some good points so i'm willing to take what you say as truth and if it is true that is a great counter for zerling/banelings.

Combra/Nydus: Well I'm not sure about this because we still don't know if nydus worms have to burrow or if they can just randomly pop up like its an ability. Example: Click "uproot units" and then click a spot on the map where u want it to uproot. This is still a possibility but if what you have speculated turns out to be true then the spider mines could be very advantageous as they would blow up the units coming out of the nydus worm along with the worm itself.

Ghost/Immortal: Well the snipe ability of ghosts shows that it only affects biological units. Do we know if immortals will count as machines/biological yet? If yes someone please add in that information. Furthermore snipers attack sort of slowly in SC1 so i'm not sure if they would be effective dealing only minimal damage to the immortal at a time. This is the only spot where i'm not sure if your strategy would work well but otherwise great post and nice idea.

Stalker/Thor: AWESOME THINKING. I actually never even took into consideration of blinking behind Thor because he turned slow. Good call on that, I think that this will be an effective cheap strategy of dealing with Thor and will be utilized by many many protoss players in the future. If any players claim that strategy as their own I will personally defend that you came up with it first.

Great posts guys and please keep it up. The knowledge you place here not only gives you room to expand on your thinking by seeing what you have come up with on your own but gives people a glance into what strategies they have not taken into consideration and gives them a chance to expand on what great information you have already placed here. :thumbup:

[burkid]

spidermines have been replaced by reapers time bomb. which would still be effective vs nydus worms.

immortals are mechanical, like how dragoons used to be.

for the thor, cobras will also be able to effectivly stay behind them

stalkers>seige tanks, you can blink inside minimum range

stalkers> immortals, stalkers have higher range and probably dont activate hardened shields and attack faster, so with a few blinks, you could take down an immortal without getting hit.

warp rays>thor, thors have enough health for warp rays to get to maximum damage, and we have yet to see if thors have an air attack.

[TidalSpiral]

@Peter Hong
Thank you very much for the compliments, your posts are also very well articulated and thought out. Your ideas are impressive so I was eager to read your views on these gameplay facts. I'm holding you to your promise though, TidalSpiral blinks the Thor! ;)

Very good point about the Ghost sniping. I hadn't even thought about it but Immortals may very well be mechanical units and immune. If I may I thought of a replacement strategy for it and a new one.

Viking > Immortal - If indeed it only fires a chain gun, I bet the bullets count as small fire and not initiate the shield. In that case it would be a good toe-to-toe Immortal fighter and with a little distraction make them easier to destroy. For the distraction you could simply transform one into a fighter plane, as it supposedly gains more armor while flying.

Dark Templar > Reapers / Ghosts - I would make it a personal habit of stationing at least two of these on all nearby cliffs when playing Protoss VS Terran. If they send a couple Reapers over early (and I'm guessing this will happen because the time bombs are like a lesser nuke) you won't have to worry, because as soon as they come sneaking up the wall they'll get chopped in half. Same with Ghosts who get dropped on a close cliff to nuke you. Stationing another Templar by your minerals would probably be smart just in case.

[burkid]

star relic > small army + thor, use detonate on the thor, and since the larger the unit, the larger the blast, you could take out a chunk of the army, or at least severly damage them as well as eliminating the thor.

DT> tanks, if the tanks are shelling you from a cliff and have no detectors, you can send a DT or 2 up there and take them out.

@tidalspiral, nice idea with the DTs! that would make a base much safer!

[TidalSpiral]

Thanks Burkid, hopefully it won't have an easy counter!

I like your idea to Stalker blink within Siege Mode limits, those tanks might become useless against Protoss. And Star Relic melting the Thor would be a thing of beauty. lol

Reaver > Marine - This is sort of a classic one but it deserves to be mentioned. I doubt marines will fair any better in SC2 against a Reaver, they simply die by the dozens. While the stream of gunfire is formidable, a single scarab can knock down a line of infantry.

[Peter.Hong]

Nice ideas about the DTs for base defense. I always coupled them into my minerals with workers or at exps.

Good idea with the star relic i never took into consideration the idea of a blast radius. If its true then coupling a few units with a star relic and letting the units battle it out with the other units while u detonate Thor could be pretty interesting. I'm sad about Star Relic having to be stationary to cloak units under her because i think she'd be so much more useful if she could move and cloak but Blizzard knows what they're doing.

Another tactic that I wrote about on another post would be the warp rays who deal increasing damage. Coupled with templars to statis field the units around thor could make quick work of an expensive unit and surely annoy your opponent.

Reaver vs. Marines/Zerling OR THE ever feared Banelings. That would so great. Your opponent sending a bunch of baneling expecting to blow your units to oblivion and then what the...they all exploded before reaching your units... and your opponent types "OH a REAVER, REAL ORIGINAL.... -.- "

[burkid]

reaper + ghost or cobra>tanks, use the reaper to put a time bomb on the ghost or cobra (i think i read somewhere that you can put them on units too) then cloak the ghost or wait a moment with the cobra for the timer to go down a bit, then send it straight into a base or a group of tanks, then just watch the fireworks.

Colossus > marines/reapers/zerglings/zealots, pretty self explanitory, but with a height advantage, makes it even more deadly. you could have a colossus on a cliff and do something that people would do with lurkers: keep hitting stop until the units were right on top of you, or in this case, just below the cliff, then unleash hell.

[Peter.Hong]

@BURKID

Great idea on the Colossus. That is going to be a nice strategy when used right especially on scouting units. You guys have come up with some great things and I'm glad you guys are contributing. I'm going to be offline for a few days because of an upcoming exam and work however, so do your best to keep this post alive. :good: Thanks for your ideas, I learned a lot. :powerup: Burkid for some awesome strat ideas.

[burkid]

sure thing, any time. actually you should probably tank tidalspiral too, because i thought up a bunch of my strats by looking at his. i would give you a powerup too, but it hasnt been 72hrs. yet :P

reapers > bases, jump the reapers in, attack miners, and when defences come, put as many bombs down as you can, like 1 on the CC, 1 on a barracks, factory, try to get 1 or 2 on SCVs, because those would be harder to stop. edit: you could also put the bombs down first, then the defences has less time to stop them.

[FlyingTiger]

Oh I think you are missing the Tempest.

[TidalSpiral]

lol... "Reaver, REAL original."

@Burkid
I had considered the time bomb on Cobra thing, but I'm very confused about how it truly works. Some say it's only on buildings, some say all units, some say it can be shot to death by the enemy and I guess that defuses the blast so I don't know if this strategy is in but excellent idea. And you're right about Colossus on a cliff, that will probably be the biggest thing to go up there.

@Peter Hong
Reavers ALWAYS killed me! That is the one unit I hated most in SC cause I couldn't learn how to use it but I got pwned with it constantly. lol Great idea with Stasis to freeze a support squad, then using Warp Rays to melt whatever the bigger threat(s) are.

One factor I'm thinking about is the Ghost ability to call reinforcements. This stands out to me as the hardest to understand how to use. The only idea I had for it involved the so-called Observatories, maybe someone here read that one - basically take an Observ. with two ghosts, one to snipe or make nuclear drops and the other to snipe or call marines if zerglings show up.

I have a question too, are we doing just one on one unit strategies or like strategies using multiple marines or different units mixed?

[burkid]

haha you're right. i didnt even notice.
that gives me an idea
Tempest > darkswarm, assuming its still in. since the tempests shurikens are melee, they could hit anything under darkswarm with a ranged attack of kinds, since the tempests are hitting at range, even though the damage is melee.

@tidal, i heard that the bomb was on units and buildings, had about 30 second delay between placing and detonating, and it could be shot off. the 30 second timer is why i said the cobras should wait a moment before going after the tanks, because if the cobra did manage to make it to the tanks, it probably wouldnt have 10 or 15 seconds to kill, so if you wait for about 10 seconds before sending it, the bomb would go off when the cobra gets there.

[Peter.Hong]

I would prefer that this post be kept to Unit On Unit/Units strategies. In other words how a type of unit (marines or a marine) has advantages over one unit or multiple other units rather than an all out strategy guide on what to do like tech tree and finding expansions (unless you think a particular unit is unique over the other units in scouting) and etc. In addition if you feel that you can add in strategies involving how one unit ACCOUNTS for another's weakness (having immortals to take out tanks since tanks can easily deal a lot of damage to your colossus, etc.) feel free to include that because I'm sure no one would complain.

[burkid]

ok sure thing. the tempest/darkswarm thing was just something that popped in my head because flyingtiger mentioned that the tempest wasnt on the list.

reaper and banshee combo: use reapers, or some other unit or group to make a distraction at the front of an enemy base, then have cloaked banshees fly in and take out the miners, then take out buildings like barracks, gateways, factories, etc.

[Peter.Hong]

ok sure thing. the tempest/darkswarm thing was just something that popped in my head because flyingtiger mentioned that the tempest wasnt on the list.

reaper and banshee combo: use reapers, or some other unit or group to make a distraction at the front of an enemy base, then have cloaked banshees fly in and take out the miners, then take out buildings like barracks, gateways, factories, etc.


lol, that wasn't directed at you BURKID. It was to address Tide's question. :P Crazy you've made perfectly good posts.

[burkid]

oh. haha. i thought you were adressing my darkswarm strat. my mistake. ;D

i have run dry on ideas for the moment. i might post some more strats later.

[TidalSpiral]

Sounds good, trying to stay on topic is hard sometimes.

@Burkid
Yes, good plan. Might take some time to learn how to time the Reaper bombs but that would be so awesome. Your enemy sees this one Cobra and goes "what is THAT gonna do noob". However they will soon cry as it bursts into flames on top of their army. :D Nice call with the dark swarm and Tempest too, that would be highly effective if the Defilers come back.

Dark Templar + Other > Tempest - While this isn't exactly a killing plan I did think it was worth considering. If the Shurikens (god they better change that name...) from the Tempest sink to ground level for attacks, they probably continue to fly around at ground level as they rip people apart. A well placed Dark Templar around anything under Tempest attack should be able to destroy the Shurikens in one hit without the Tempest being able to strike back. This would effectively nuetralize the Tempest unless they can afford to keep building Shurikens forever.

[burkid]

ugh im starting to have a hard time thinking up new things.

@peter, mutalisk isnt on the list for zerg.

Thor+cobra. The thor dishes out the damage, while cobras cover it and prevent units from attacking from behind.

[kehmdaddy]

Tidal, while the Dark Templar countering the shurikens of a Tempest sounds good in theory, I don't know if they'll really be able to hit them. Although they should still come low enough to be hit, I think they will probably still count as flying units. The Dark Templar cliff defense idea is interesting, although I think what would be even greater would be the Reaver cliff defense! Just set up a Reaver a little bit off from the cliff, if any Reapers try to sneak in they'll simply be blasted apart. A Colossus would be a little bit different since those guys have a huge amount of health, but hopefully by then you'll have other units to help take care of it.
Ghost > Thor
Although this might be a little obvious, a single Ghost should be able to take down a Thor pretty effectively. Lock it down, call in a bunch of marines on top of it, and the poor bastard will just be a sitting duck.
Stalkers > Viking
If you remember in the gameplay video, the Stalker is able to simultaneously attack a ground and air unit (it looks pretty lame though). If you are fighting Vikings and some of them try to fly away to escape, that will just help increase the Stalkers' damage output. Additionally, the Stalker's blink should make it easy to catch up with the escaping air units.
Phoenix > Colossus?
Since the Colossus is able to be struck by air units and can't fight back, shouldn't the Phoenix's overload ability simply rip them apart? That's a whole lot of undefendable damage right there, and they can't even make up for the fact that the Phoenix powers down after it uses it! That's a great one :good:

[burkid]

viking > tempest. it can go air form to evade the ground shields of the tempest.

cobra > zealots/ zerglings/banelings. doesnt need to stop to attack so it can stay just ahead off them, pounding on 'em.

oh, you're missing mutalisks.

[i2new@aol.com]

I dont want to seem noobish, but they said cobras can move and fire at the same time.......... what the heck! thats messed up. If there running away and a slow unit cant catch them theres ganna be a problem. if cobras are the replacement for Vultures then i'm ganna abuse them to death

[burkid]

the whole point to the "move and fire" thing is they will be able to kite slow units and melee units very effectivly, because it doesnt matter how weak they are if they dont get hit.

[marshal109]

i dont think spider mines were all together "replaced"

[Blackskies]

Anyone got a good counter for the mothership? Only one I can think of is if your zerg to use scourges. Terran I think a Nomad with BC's to take it out use the EMP and nock out any defences or powers it could use then Blast it with the Yomato cannon. I'm not sure if this would work though considering it could have back up units. Only scourges seem to have any positive outcome in all turns. (provided we still get scourges in SC2.)

[Peter.Hong]

Wow, I started this thread back in July, I'm surprised its still up.

But anyways in response to your question, I think that a variety of things could easily take down a mothership. Her devastating abilities have been removed or will be tweaked so that they are not as strong as what we saw in the demo video and they are also making it so that you can have more than one mothership now that her abilities have been balanced. In terms of dealing significant damage to her I would think that stalkers would do well considering that they can blink away from her Planet Cracker. Another good unit might be the High Templar with psionic storm. I'm sure other people have great ideas too though so just wait and see if anyone else provides good input.

[furrer]

Some counters that i could think of:
Stalkers because of the bonus vs mech
Vikings
Yamato gun + ghost with emp

[10-Neon]

The Mothership is not a unit you have to think hard about counters for. Its' weapons are just strong enough to hold off small numbers of attackers; a full-scale assault with just about anything will take a MS down. You might have trouble taking one down with Marines...that's about it. Talking about countering the Mothership is like talking about countering the Arbiter: the thing's not a combat unit, if you can't kill it you're having some serious problems.