BlizzCon: A look at the new HotS units and the multiplayer aspect

The StarCraft 2 balance team, with David Kim in the lead, opened up the multiplayer discussion panel by showing some statistics and racial balance that showed a global evenness in all matchups. However, looking at Master level, Zerg players had an advantage over Protoss players in Europe and Terrans had an advantage over Protoss in Korea.

They then went on to explain the recent updates that came with the 1.4 patch, such as the Immortal buff which was added in because the unit wasn't used heavily except in Protoss mirror matches.

- "We always try to go for the smallest change possible," explained David Kim, and said that after the patch they received a lot of good feedback from both progamers and the overall community regarding the balance especially in Protoss versus Terran.

Blizzard is also looking at possibly reducing the radius of the EMP. They see it as a wee bit too strong, as it can deal over 1000 damage if you manage to hit 10 clumped up units with one missile.

Another thought to even out the slight skew of balance, is to decrease Protoss forge upgrade costs for levels two, three and shield costs in general to allow the mid-game units to weigh more.

As the new expansion was developed the balance team did their homework from Wings of Liberty, and with the new units thrown in they hope to fill in the gaps and replace units that were not used as they should or not at all.

For Heart of the Swarm, they will replace Overseer, Mothership and the Carrier to make room for new units. Some of the already existing units and structures have also undergone changes, like the Thor, the Nexus, the Ultralisk and the Battlecruiser.

Blizzard also assured us that they will continue to support Wings of Liberty to the best of their efforts, even if all eSport organzations decide to move over to Heart of the Swarm. Dustin Browder evidently said that it was "up to [the eSports organizations]" and that he believes MLG and other organzations will make the right calls.

And while Browder said it didn't really matter when people decided to switch, he did face up to that they hope the game to get balanced enough for people to switch duing mid-beta.





Bye bye, Carrier. The zeppeline look-alike is gone in Heart of the Swarm and is replaced by a slick crescent-shaped Tempest. With massive anti-air damage and even the possibility to fire against ground, the Tempest seems to be much more efficient than its predecessor - if it makes the cut.

The air-spash damage is for taking care of that massive mutalisk ball. To save us from going "SUPER-IMBA!" instead of just "IMBA!", the ground attack is not splash. Thank god. Rumour has it this ship isn't so expensive either, although you need as much as Fleet Beacon tech to get it.




The Oracle is a gas expensive (200) spell caster which is meant as a scouter and harasser. Its three abilities are meant to slow down or gain intel on your opponent.

Entomb is the first spell, which can temporarily block mineral fields from being harvested at. It can be destroyed by enemy fire or get timed out.

Preordain is a spell that grants vision of a targeted enemy building. It would allow the Protoss intel on which units or technologies are being researched.

And perhaps the coolest ability yet: It has phase shift which targets a structure so that it gets phased out completey hindering it to do or receive any damage, nor can the structure upgrade, train or do anything. The possibilities to use this for both offensive and defensive intention will prove interesting as the game moves along. It's sort of like Stasis field from StarCraft 1's Arbiter but only for structures instead of units.

This unit took on the role as they had planned for the Mothership which results in the unused psionic balloon has been sacked.




The Replicant is a spellcaster-only unit, and can transform into any unit you have vision of except for massive units. Due to its very intelligent brain or psionic functionality, the unit it becomes comes with all the upgrades.

The downside of the unit is that it costs as much as 200 minerals and 200 gas. From a developer's perspective it might be a unit that might be the biggest game changer.

Dustin Browder, lead developer, brought up that if the unit gets too powerful it might be a major game changer. Terran players might just refuse to build any siege tanks against Protoss because they are too afraid of having to face the opponent's replicated siege tanks.

The developers said in the Q&A session that they were having some difficulties with the unit and that they welcome any sort of feedback. It seems to be one of the more crazy and far-out there units, so don't be surprised if it doesn't go all the way into game release.



The Hellion receives a new ability, which turn themselves into a firebatish unit. It gives them a stronger flame attack which is effective in mid-late game battles against huge clusters of units.

Developer David Kim mentioned that this upgrade was a way to deal with the mid to late game mass chargelot in the Terran versus Protoss matchup. The Hellion loses much of its speed, though.




The Warhound is much like an upgraded version of the Goliath, with a whooping 240 hit points it is not only able to take some heavy fire, but it is also swift and can be used with a mobility that the Thor could not.

The unit takes the anti-air role in the Terran army that was meant to be held by the Thor in Wings of Liberty. In Heart of the Swarm they have instead remade the Thor to be a more "uberunit" that you can only have one of. Thor now looks more like the "Odin" from the Wings of Liberty campaign, sporting an AoE spell that does over 200 damage over 12 seconds and a ground damage of 60x2.




Shredder is a very special unit, but its functionality is somewhat inspired by spider mine play in StarCraft 1, or Lurker positioning. It's about "board control". The Shredder deals 20 damage per second to to its nearby enemies.

Looking at the in-game snippet it looks very deadly, however it can not operate if any friendly units (aside from fellow Shredders) are inside the radius. It will then deactivate.

The unit holds some very interesting strategical potential. Imagine being used as expansion defense, or how about about deploying it into an enemy's mineral line?




Swarm Host is a cool but questioned unit. It can burrow and set a rally point to send its small broodling lookalike spawns "locusts" which is a melee unit with 90 hit points. While the spawns themselves don't do that much damage, it will keep opponent busy.

The developers seemed to be very happy with getting this sort of unit into multiplayer mode, as it feels "very Zergy". It was also added to give Zerg players more abilities to get better map control.

It could also work wonders as mineral line harassment.




The Defil-- I mean Viper is a spellcaster with three very usable abilities. One is very similar to StarCraft 1's Dark Swarm, and is called Blinding Cloud. It reduces the attack range of all ground units under the cloud to melee range. It also seems like it stops any energy-based abilities.

Abduct is another spell that will be very useful if you want to snipe units off, say like a Colossus or a siege tank. It allowos the viper to pull a unit to its location.

Last but not least it has a reversed Parasite (from StarCraft 1) called Ocular Parasite which can turn any non-massive friendly units into a detector.



And while the Ultralisk is not a new unit, it has been given a great new ability called Burrow Charge. It's as deadly as it sounds as it gives the ultralisk the ability to dive right up into the action to avoid siege or any ranged attacks as it tries to reach the fray.


Some other changes made in Heart of the Swarm were that Banelings can now move while being burrowed, just like Roaches. Hydralisks have a speed upgrade which is currently at hive tech level. The Corruptor's Corruption has been replaced by a new ability called Siphon which is laid upon structures. The damage dealt then gets transformed into resources.

The Terrans seems to have been using the Protoss and Zerg research accumulated by the protagonist in the Wings of Liberty campaign, as their reapers can regenerate while not in combat. Battlecruisers have received a cooldown-controlled speed boost which allow the ships to move at 110% and leap in or out of battle.

Also not to forget are the added abilities to the Nexus. Arc Shield is a defensive ability that places a cannon on top of any structure for a short while. It also has Recall which is just like the spell Mothership had only that it takes you back to your base instead of to your Mothership.