Brood War Terran units that didn't make it into StarCraft 2

Clips taken from @ArtosisTV and @Tya. & @SC2HL @LowkoTV
Timecodes:
00:00 Zerg & Protoss units
00:20 Firebat
00:40 Medic
01:20 Vulture
02:40 Goliath
03:36 Wraith
04:00 Valkyrie
05:03 Science Vessel
#sc2
#starcraft2
#esports

[EsportsStoryteller]

Timecodes:
00:00 Zerg & Protoss units
00:20 Firebat
00:40 Medic
01:20 Vulture
02:40 Goliath
03:36 Wraith
04:00 Valkyrie
05:03 Science Vessel

[sakismcmmcm]

Pretty spot on, but imagine.... A 2 hour game in hots, a battlefield full of spider mines vs a full army of swarm hosts.the ultimate snooze fest which would result in an inevitable protoss nerf lol

[RalphsLegend]

Defensive Matrix on the Sci Vessel was INSANE. It was so much value and could easily swing engagements.

[Anomen]

I'd say the unit that replaced the vulture as a fast anti light skirmisher is not the hellion, but the reaper

[BLsurprise]

Sometimes I feel like Blizz is just thinking "God I hate something that shares a role" and should instead be thinking "So we have two units that share the same role, what if we spice things and add different traits to make em both appealing for different tactics this way could create interesting plays". It's true some units would need pretty big modifications to make em viable without too much cheese or ridiculousness but that aint the philosophy of SC2 where cheese is basically the universe.

[thebear]

Saying something shouldn't be moved over to sc2 because an equivalent already exists is circular reasoning.

[PantoniStrikesBack]

Way before the Raven, they tried the Nomad, which was supposedly the replacement for the Science Vessel. It has the ability to deploy auto-turrets. People complained about the looks of the unit (same as the first infestor design), and they changed it for the Raven we all know.

[noname-sjhi]

Q: Why didn't these Terran units make it into SC2?
A: Because Blizzard hates fun.

[PantoniStrikesBack]

So, it's hard to be splitting your units constantly to avoid irradiation, but it's easy to be splitting your units against dozens of banelings, or disruptor shots... yeah, right XD

[dsds]

A theory:
- They decided to nerf the spider mines and replaced them with widow mines.
- They decided to buff the secondary bio unit. Firebats were replaced with marauders so they can shoot at range with the marines.
- But the melee splash option still had enough utility not to be scrapped altogether. After exploring options, they decided to give flamethrowers to the mine-less vulture, giving birth to hellions.
- The wraiths' anti-air role had been taken over by the goliaths, while their cloaked air-to-ground role really could use more DPS. So they split the wraith into the viking and banshee. Goliaths were effectively removed from their anti-air role and their ground attack was given to the viking. But that was only just in case, since the marauders could already play the role of tanky infantry. The viking also had to switch modes between ground-only goliath and air-only wraith, because otherwise it would have been a flying goliath, and that's kind of OP.

I also want to take a moment to appreciate the evolution of starcraft air units that happened in Brood War. Terran got valkyries and protoss got corsairs, both of which dealt splash damage. Meanwhile, zerg got the devourers, which dealt a high (and very slow) single target damage. I think this is a testament that massing mutas worked since the game's first iteration, while they weren't any good at dealing with capital ships. Did the respective additions serve all of the designers' intended purposes? Probably not, as was the case with the devourer. But there was also a lot of happy accidents. The whole competitive scene was, in a way, a happy accident. Who knew how far people could go with this game?

[PantoniStrikesBack]

There's a lot of BS in this. If you don't replace the vulture, you don't have the hellion and you wouldn't need to scrap the firebat. And in the end, they just changed the unit's production building and the looks (Hellbat).

Also the medic... Blizzard was going crazy cause they didn't know what to do with the reaper. The unit had an specific role and didn't have access to healing cause their mobility (medics couldn't follow) . Which was funny, cause lorewise the reapers didn't last for long in combat. But they wanted to give them access to heal, so they scrapped the medic and gave the healing ability to the dropship.

Same stupidity with the Goliath. They stated that it was replaced cause it was very limited due to its mobility. So they changed the Thor (which was an assault juggernaut) to make it an anti-air unit. Funny enough, cause you take out the goliath for limited mobility, yet put instead an oversized, slow, clunky unit. Totally coherent. And all because they moved the viking to the starport (it was produced by the factory at the begining).

But I guess not many people remember the days before the game came out.

Cheers!

[Loppy]

In BW, Blizzard designed units to be fun and interesting, SC2 was designed for 'esports', and BW still ended being more balanced than SC2.

[SohakmetGameplay]

"Here in the SC2 development team, we do our best to find units that fill a role that can't really be done by any other kinds of units. It is part of our design philophy after all!"
>Queens can do everything short of cleaning laundry and could easily be fitted into any composition if need be
>Mothership core has been a thing
>Most Terran units fail to fill their role to such a degree that Marines often just take their place.

Great design, Blizzard. Good job.

[TubeTAG]

So... Terrans kept the Marine, the Siege Tank, the SCV, the Battlecruiser and the Ghost? The Battlecruiser was changed significantly too, so it's almost completely different than its Brood War equivalent.

[calebbarnhouse]

As someone whose only played the campaign, I find the MP of starcraft really disappointing, i get that you can't have stuff like the lab or unit upgrades like the ones you buy with cash, but it feels deeply wrong to cut units because they wouldn't be very useful or redundant, when they are already fully made units in the game, if they are gonna be weak then there's no reason not to have them in the game because it's not like your enemt can force you to build those weak units, you should have a few options in how you do something, and in particular the wraith, a stealth fighter is really cool and worked well with the banshee, snipe the detector regardless of if it's air or ground and you have a few units to harass the enemy, even if the spector was identical stat wise to ghosts just having a little bit of variety in the models and voice lines would be nice, particularly when the spector has multiple missions deadicated towards there story in the game

[SHIBBYiPANDA]

I’d like to see an “anything goes” version of Starcraft 2 multiplayer which includes all these units.😊

[RaynorsWisdom]

Ah, my trusty vulture. That little speed demon got me out of more scrapes than I care to admit. I miss the sound of those spider mines popping like popcorn as we left a trail of destruction behind us. But hey, every dog has its day, and every vulture has its last ride. Maybe it's time to get myself a shiny new ride. Any suggestions?

[lotgc]

Imo the liberator should have just been the Valkyrie with a shiny new toy to play with

Honestly lotv should have been the return of brood war. I mean, the Zerg even got the lurker back, and the disruptor is very functionally similar to the reaver, so why not just make it a reaver? A real waste of an opportunity if you ask me...

[DarckArchon]

Id argue the Goliath is better then Thor. If it has the Broodwar missle upgrade it be a better anti Armored Air unit then the Thor. And while argument comes in "Yeah you got the viking wich is more versatile" cept you need to micro swap to engage Air or Ground and you half half a second of vulnerability before you can attack. And the Medivac is more a Terran nerf because it takes longer time to field those then it was to field normal Medics. Complexity is good for competitivity but sometimes simple is better.

[JimRaynorRaider]

Actually, the reason medic was removed was because of the reapers. Medics couldn't sync with them, so they combined the medic and dropships together to fix this problem...than you know, giving medics jetpacks lol