They announced a new WoW expansion (big surprise), details on Diablo III’s Collector’s edition, and more important for us, details on new units from Heart of The Swarm.
Protoss
Race Changes
- The Nexus is given a new ability called Arc Shield, which grants bonus armor to itself and a Photon Cannon like weapon temporarily. This seems to be primarily to give them a counter against early aggression and cheese.
- The Nexus also gains Mass Recall, which works just like the Mothership’s, allowing the Nexus to instantly warp units in the target area to the Nexus.
- The Carrier and Mothership seem to be removed.
New Units
Tempest
A powerful anti air unit using a splash attack, and with a weak anti ground attack.
Oracle
Ability based harassment unit. It’s Entomb command causes the target Mineral field to not be harvested from temporarily. It’s Preordain ability causes the targeted enemy building to show the units or upgrades it is warping in or researching. And finally, it’s Phase Shift causes a building to temporarily be invulnerable, but cannot operate and will also deny any tech tree paths it grants.
Replicant
Can morph into any non massive unit for any of the races, allowing for quick tactical units to be placed on the field.
Terran
Race Changes
- The Reaper no longer has a second attack to quickly take out enemy buildings, but instead will gain life regeneration.
- Battlecruisers will be able to gain a new upgrade that gives them a temporary boost in movement speed.
- Hellions are able to transform into a fighter mode that deals cleave like damage which is more effective against upgraded biological units such as Charge-Zealots and Speed-Lings.
- Thors are now changed so that you can only have one at a time. It is however a much more powerful Thor, with plenty more HP and a strong new anti ground attack. It does however lose its anti air weapon.
- Ghost’s Cloak is now changed so that it is no longer able to be turned off and on within a moments notice. It instead can be used for a specified amount of time and if used strategically can help save Energy.
New Units
Shredder
A new unit that will deal Area of Effect damage to all enemies nearby, but disables itself if a friendly unit is in range.
Warhound
A Goliath like unit that has a powerful anti air weapon. It’s anti ground weapon is weak, but is somewhat effective against armored units.
Zerg
Race Changes
- The Corruptor loses its Corruption ability and gains a Siphon, which damages the targeted building dealing damage and gives resources to the Zerg player.
- Ultralisks gain a Burrow Charge like ability, allowing them to close in on enemies from underground easily.
- Hydralisks gain a new upgrade to move faster when not on creep.
- Banelings can now move while burrowed, allowing better ambush attacks on enemies.
- The Overseer is removed from the game.
New Units
Viper
The Viper is a new support unit that has 3 new abilities. Blinding Cloud acts like the Defiler’s Dark Swarm, causes all units in the Cloud’s area to only be able to attack at melee range. Abduct allows the Viper to pull the target unit to the location of the Viper, allowing you to drag enemies into dangerous areas. They also gain a one per Viper ability called Ocular Parasite, which acts like Parasite from the original granting permanent shared vision of the target enemy unit.
Swarm Host
Has no attack when above ground, but when Burrowed releases Locusts, a small new unit that acts as a Broodling to pound on enemies and force them to get detection before being overrun.