Karune @ Battle.net Forum ⁽¹⁾

Welcome back to another edition of our StarCraft II Q&A! The past couple of weeks have been exciting with preparations for this summers Worldwide Invitational. We just launched the sign-ups for the StarCraft II Community tournament that will be open for attendees of the event. Also we were happy to see so many great entrees for the "I <3 SC" contest come in. We had a fun time deciding on the winners that will be announced and put into the mosaic in the coming days. You can still submit your pictures for the "I <3 SC" mosaic, but the contest is now officially over. But now, enjoy this week's batch of our Q&A!

One of the latest changes the Devs are trying for the Nomad is replacing their previous stationary Mine Drone with Spider Mines. The Spider Mines behave the same as Spider Mines from the original StarCraft. It now also does 50 damage plus 50 additional damage towards armored units. Instead of only having 3 Spider Mines, the Nomad will be able to plant Spider Mines with the cost of 15 energy. These Mines will definitely prove quite formidable against mass Tier 1 units such as Zerglings and charging Zealots. As always, feel free to give the Devs and I a w00t if you are enjoying the batches.

While the Ghost will not be able to snipe casters in the fog of war, their current range to detect casters(units with energy) is 30, giving you plenty of time to prepare for incoming threats.

Yes, the Reapers' mines will be visible, though depending on the placement, they can be covered by enemy units moving over them. The mines have very few hit points and can be killed easily. Nonetheless, it is important to note that they are very small, making it more difficult to micromanage those attacks when there are several mines. Mines damage both enemy and friendly units/buildings, so making sure you don't blow up your own Reapers is quite important ;) Mines will not detonate other mines, have a 30 second cooldown, and they currently do 30 damage plus 30 additional damage to armored units (including buildings). Furthermore, the mine is now an upgradeable ability of the Reaper.

Actually, the ability to lift destructible doodads has been classified as a bug and has been fixed in the latest builds. Nullifiers have already proved to be quite strong when used in groups, being able to lift up Siege Tanks and Ultralisks, effectively taking them out of combat until the rest of their reinforcements are dead.

Yes, when Banelings die while being lifted by Anti-Gravity, their explosion will hit air units in its area of effect. This could undoubtedly open up some unique and unexpected strategies in team games.

One of the main goals for StarCraft II is to keep the game very visually intuitive and readable. As Dustin has mentioned in our recent chat, visually When a unit teleports, it teleports. When it shoots, it looks like it is shooting. It should be easy to follow on a screen and players should be able to quickly understand what is happening in the battles. Futhermore, Blizzard's games has followed the premise of easy to learn and hard to master. StarCraft II will follow this philosophy.

When the Marauder's concussion grenade hits an enemy target, it will reduce that unit's speed immediately by a set percentage. The cooldown of the concussion grenade shot is subject to balance. Nonetheless, a charging Zealot slowed by a concussion grenade is still pretty fast. Before the Protoss player upgrades their Zealots with charge, a Marauder can kite a Zealot with relatively little micromanagement.