@@VK-sz4it Technically the Zerg units you steal are not D-tier on this list. So you can use hive-mind emulator to neutralize them but not fight with them 😉
I think a couple of the really low-rated units got included in the game mainly for multiplayer play. Notably the hellion and reaper are made in nearly any high-level competitive game, as early worker harass and scouting, where they do quite well. However there's never a place in the campaign where your enemy is at that low-level tech and economy where those units can do what they do best: slip in and harass on the back line.
Would write this part, but flipping "added for multiplayer" to "included from multiplayer" since its clear multiplayer was the core of the game and single player units were added to it.
@@123mickymouse123 I still actually use the hellions there, but I find if I plug up the areas between my bunkers while defending, they make great area denial, while still having a reasonable clear speed when massed, since they are pretty fast units. But like the reaper, generally don't build them outside of their intro mission. I generally pretty much lean on the same few units for pretty much every mission : Marine (bunker), Siege Tank, Ghost, Banshee (vs ground heavy sections. They show late in my runs, so really only see play on Char), and battle cruisers (char only). I don't think I have actually used marauders much. Would probably make my life a lot easier if I used them to slow incoming attacks on char. I just hide behind PFs and call it good. In my defense the last time I did a serious run I was like 12, and struggled to beat Safe Haven/Havens fall. So that would actually be my last mission. I don't know why I struggled so badly with it
@@andrewgreeb916 brutal+ modifier for legacy of the void is that enemies get campaign units Also taldarim are also their units so wrathwalker vanguard ground lmao
I will contest the Goliath placement, on grounds that it has more to do with how you like to spend your upgrade funds. I tend to get both upgrades for the Goliath immediately. The big reason is that it *simultaneously* hits ground and air when you've done that. That's something nothing else does. A unique and useful ability, allowing a smaller amount of supply to deal with threats that would otherwise wear you down by too many targets.
@@saphironkindris more range, once your bio ball gets too big you have to stim and run in to get max dps, but with Goliaths they sit in the back. They fill their heavy fire support role very nicely.
Honestly(probably stupid but whatever) I rush goliaths and their upgrades, as it provides basic ground support fire, destroys anything in the sky(at the same time), and it is super low micro.
@@lepidusstupidius2956 Great for protecting Siege Tanks. Close range fire to keep the fast guys out of the deadzone, missiles to keep the sky clear. Tanks can handle the heavy ground stuff. Does mean that instead of multiple barracks and bio upgrades, you do multiple factories and vehicle upgrades. And maybe a couple science vessels to hang out as medics.
Considering that you already have a starport, to pay for a transport slot on a medivac would cost 100(cost in minerals) / 8(number of transport slots on a medivac) = 12.5 minerals and also 12.5 gas (due to the medivac having the same price of minerals and gas). For a hercules it costs (300(mineral cost of hercules) + 50(mineral cost of tech lab) + 150(mineral cost of fusion core)) / 30(number of transport slots on a hercules) = 16.(6) minerals and (200(gas cost of hercules) + 25(gas cost of tech lab) + 150(gas of fusion core)) / 30(number of transport slots on a hercules) = 12.5 gas, therefore the medivac is slightly more efficient if you build only one hercules, however it depends on how many you build, for example 5 hercules come out as 11.(3) minerals and 7.8(3) gas per transport slot. In the end, it depends on how many hercules you build.
Summary: Medivac 12.5 Mins 12.5 Gas/Slot Hercules: 16.7 Mins 12.5 Gas/Slot So it's a better unit and even with all the hassle of getting the fusion core and techlab it's still super close in cost/capacity (bit more expensive in minerals) just getting more accessible for any one over the first you build.
Should the cost in supply be considered? It's not a significant factor when comparing a single Hercules to Medivacs, but I imagine the gap widens a fair bit (much like how the mineral cost gap decreases) as you jump to 2 Hercules.
One funny thing about the Medivac: for some reason, Medics can't "heal up" but Medivacs can. If you're using the Hive Mind Emulator on All In Air the inability to heal Mutas or Brood Lords is weirdly relevant.
I would definitely move Medivacs up a tier just for the simple fact that you can do micro to save valuable units (i.e. mercenaries), not just drop a location.
Merc's really show how small stat boosts and skipping production time and tech requirements is hugely powerful. Makes sense why raynor at the end of the epilogue just only builds mercs
he builds mercs at the production buildings, not the mer compound meaning that they just get the flat damage/health buff i mean, it works with Siege Breakers, sooo
I genuinely really appreciated the breakdown here, my gripe with most tier lists is that they don't explain very well at all *why* something is in a certain tier but this was genuinely helpful knowledge. The rankings all make sense and are well-explained. I'd love to see more tier lists on the channel
@@almaspite68401. He isn't exactly a pro player he is a content creator. 2. A pro player probably would ask what a devil dog is cause theu probably don't play the campaign that much.
I'm personally a bit happy to see as many people defending the Goliath in the comments as I am. I was experiencing a bit of personal success in using them, but assumed it was primarily due to the differences in Brutal versus Hard, and the fact I decided to wait on getting Vikings and Ghosts to see what Tosh and Hanson have to say at the conclusion of other missions.
I've done mech-only Brutal and I think the Goliath is a perfectly fine unit. Your tanks obliterate ground forces and your goliaths sit just in front of them fending off air. They are appreciably better than marines in this role because of the extra bulk and range. (Actually tank + goliath is pretty much the only viable mech-only composition...)
@@MainTopmastStaysailalso for mech comps it really works great with the science vessel as you don't need 2 kind of healers, and critically, you can avoid replacing units as often so micro is easier
Agree with pretty much everything except maybe the goliaths. When I go ground mech, they are usually the core of my army with a couple science vessels for healing, and they can shoot ground and air at the same time, its like having free vikings with it. And they are quite cheap to mass produce.
Also, Vikings suck to use when you play ground! They just fly away now, fly away now, fly awaaaay Seriously, it is ridiculously hard not to lose them against enemy AA simply because they can be hit with it and because they don't bunch up like all ground units do Yes, it's a plus, it's also a minus
I would say that being massively dependent on the upgrades is a negative in my book. If you look at units like the Marine or the Ghost, they are still strong units even without the upgrades. You are better just going bio for Welcome to the Jungle instead of mass goliath like the game encourages. Just like how mass reaper is better for Outbreak over the Helion.
@@jordanread5829 You're right, Marines are better, but I was saying how the Goliaths aren't as bad as they are portrayed and also if you wanna go mech for fun, its really not a bad option.
Honestly that row in the zerg research is just disappointing. Predator is garbage and the Hercules is only good on like 2 or so missions. That being the Mobius Factor and Maw of the Void. The two missions where dropships are mostly needed. Hell, the latter is ultimately mass BC and A move. Even more so if you pick the Science Vessel over the Raven on the Protoss tree. It is weird how the Science Vessel vs Raven makes sense. As you are picking two strong utility units. While for the Zerg research you choose between a paper cat and a dropship. Like neither of them have anything in common.
Same, on paper it sounds really cool and fun to play with, but in reality the enemy armies are way to diverse/strong to be vulnerable to it. It's good at one thing and exactly one thing and has hardly any synergies, making it effectively useless
The problem with Wraiths is that Blizzard made them literally the same as they are in Starcraft/Brood War. The lack of being anti-light and anti-armored makes this even more apparent.
They are actually worse than in Broodwar as their anti ground rate of fire is significantly slower which severely effects it's DPS (it's anti air attack is slower too but it's less noticable) it costs 150 gas instead of broodwars 100, has a slower move speed and takes much longer to build. Basically the only things they didn't nerf is it's damage per hit which is the same and it's HP (which got buffed by 5 lol)
I think the bigger problem is that the viking and the banshee exist. Both are specialized offsprings of it. This means that to be balanced, the viking needs to have better anti air capabilities than the wraith, else the viking would be useless. The same counts for the banshee with ground. So the wraith is stuck in a place where you have better options for both ground and air targets, making it it pretty useless in comparison. It's only unique features compared to viking and banshee is a cloaked anti air attack, but that's by far not enough to justify its existence
I think the game does a good job of showcasing how outdated some of the original units are. The Banshee effectively covers the anti-ground weakness, while the Viking seems based on the superior anti-air unit that was the Valkyrie. Salvaging the superior UED tech did wonders to the evolution of Koprulu Terran tech.
The Medivac and the Hercules (starting with the cost of a starport, so factory + barracks not included) cost per slot is: Medivac: 31.25minerals per slot and 25gas per slot Hercules: 21.67minerals per slot and 15.83gas per slot So, assuming you started with both a barracks and a factory, Hercules is a better dropship But what if you had start with building a factory? Medivac: 50minerals per slot and 37.5gas per slot Hercules: 26.67minerals per slot and 20gas per slot Most campaigns start you off with a barracks, so I'm not doing barracks. I also assumed you aren't using a tech reactor (building a tech lab instead), but medivacs don't need one anyway. I think, as a dropship, that the hercules is wayyyyy better than a medivac can ever be. Now all we need is to be able to put a marine on the back of a predator. Factory: 150m 100g Starport: 150m 100g Tech Lab: 50m 25g Fusion Core: 150m 150g Medivac: 100m 100g 8slots Hercules: 300m 200g 30slots
The Hercules is also a better healer since medics heal units inside it, AND if you stick scvs inside it it is an insanely busted OP science vessel that perma defense matrices the units its healing
I’d absolutely be interested to see HOTS and LOTV units as well. I love when Starcraft elements are discussed it creates the possibility of new ideas or potential great changes to make units viable.
And that is why Infested Diamondback is so much better than regular diamondback. It can (sorta) target flying units, it costs 3 supply instead of 4 and it can be made without tech lab. And it also has prior experience with dying.
Spectres have more dps (7.5+2.5 vs armored) than ghosts (6.7+0.7 vs light), even against light (7.5 vs 7.4). They have 20 less hp and no range upgrade though. On the other hand, they are a little faster (2.75 vs 2.25 speed)
I feel like WoL Campaign suffers just from the points you unlock units and how little upgrade currency you get, especially as you can't un-upgrade. Especially as Marine/Medic by themselves can beat the campaign often easier then using the unlocked unit. Vikings would be good if you got them earlier and they were cheaper but you get them almost near the end of the game depending on mission order. Diamondbacks, Medivacs, Thors, I'd argue even battlecruisers, Hercules, Predators, Ravens, Wraiths, reapers, hellions, vultures ect. never either need to be built outside of their unlocked mission or built at all even in their mission. The main issue? Kerrigan one shots mechanical units and has a max damage per hit she can take. Invalidating almost every unit.
I've been looking forward to this! The big surprise is how much better the mercs are compared to the vanilla units. Saving build time, not needing infrastructure, and being easier to fit in various compositions, all these are bonuses less obvious than the "+x damage, +y HP" that the game advertises. I'd love to see this for the other campaigns as well!
1st I was "well, why not - I gonna watch this" and then I have so much fun listening it like a podcast while I was driving... please, make it for the other campaigns as well P.s.: One more positive point for the Hercules - you have to choose between him and the Predator... and I think it's not even a choice here, right? I mean: it's not like you're trading off something good to have it (like Raven vs. Science Vessel)
ah the poor goliath is getting bullied again, I think it's actually pretty close to being a good unit, it's has decent ground attack, good anti-air, not that tanky, but still not made of paper, can attack both ground and air at the same time, which is a very cool and unique thing that very rarely comes up. It just not great at anything and a bit too expensive and also mech. I still think people would not hate it so much if it wasn't introduced in welcome to the jungle, it so abismal on that mission, that it's no wonder people just never use it afterwards. About the wraith, the unit is... garbage, BUT it's good on one single mission. On Haven's fall I think it's better than the viking(or at least on par). It can very effiecently deal with the air, you just snipe the overseer and kill everything while cloaked, and you can just kill the virophage without bothering with the ground. The problem is that they obviously become useless when you try to push the bases Ans yes I think we all would like to watch a hots and lotv tier list as well
I would say the negative about the Goliath is that it really needs the upgrades from the Armory to be a good unit. Mainly the attack ground and air at the same time. It is in the group of units where it is garbage for the mission you get them from. Joining the Firebat, Helion and Wraith. And that is a bad thing considering that the missions in SC2 (mainly WoL) are designed to be cheesed with the unit you unlock in that mission.
I will defend the goliath here, overall without upgrades they are pretty terrible i agree, with upgrades they become a more expensive marine with more hp (that might seem like an insult but that's mostly because the marine is the best unit in the bloody game), that can fire at both ground and air at the same time and can fill any nieche it wants. Enemy air does not exist, seeker missiles dont exist to punish your clumps and ground will die bloody fast as well. I am pretty sure that it could beat the entire game without any other support and no major difficulties which can only really be said for the marines (and the marine only run was still difficult) and ghosts. (you may need a dropship on maw of the void but only for getting on the island initially)
The thing is, it's so much cheaper and faster to get an army of marine than an army of goliath. For goliath, you need to spend quite a lot of gas: the production (2-3 factory techlab), 1-2 armories for upgrade and some for scv repair. And with that amount of time and resource, it's more efficient to make marines, barrack doesn't cost gas, engineering base doesn't cost gas, so it can be use for upgrade, medic, and reactor.
@@ThanhLe-ti8nx If you compare any unit to the marine, it will win. its the best unit in the game and i am not saying it isn't. But after a while it gets really bloody boring to mass marine every mission and steamroll everything with almost 0 things the AI can do. Slap in all the mercanries and you have an easy mission no matter what.
So on the herculese/Medivac math. Because the herculese also requires a tech lab I decided to include the cost for that as well. As a result, a single herculese has a cost of 16.6 minerals/slot and 12.5 gas/slot Compared to the medivac which is 12.5 minerals & gas/slot means a single herculese is technically slightly more mineral intensive per slot than a medivac, and exactly on par gas wise. HOWEVER! Since you only need to build the TL and FC once, the cost/slot drops gradually if you build more herculese. At 2 herculese, the minerals/slot drops to 13.3, and gas/slot drops to 9.6. Making the herculese only barely more mineral intense, and actually more gas efficient than the medivac. At a 3rd herculese, the mineral/slot drops to 12.2 making it EVER SO SLIGHTLY cheaper than a medivac’s 12.5 minerals/slot. The gas of course also drops again making it even more vespene efficient.
Was doing a factory play through of WoL a little while back, found the diamondback with HP upgrade but no range upgrade makes it a good screen for goliaths that sit back further than the DB after it gets its range upgrade. Goliath does have the highest DPS in game if firing both weapons I believe. DB’s are just so absurdly expensive though that even in this screening role it isn’t that great but there is no other choice really. It’s like they made it suck on purpose so people wouldn’t complain on why it isn’t in game. Can mineral dump some throwaway hellions to aid in that gas heavy comp as well btw
It’s really interesting that the coop heroes (swann for example) while only having specific units, have upgrades that solve the major issues of the low tier units making them viable
I agree with most of the unit placings except the Goliath and to a lesser extent the Viking. Imo the Goliaths once you get both upgrades are really nice fire support units to throw into your army composition. Their long-range missiles do a great job taking down enemy air, while any survivors are mopped up by your Marines. They pair up nicely with Siege Tanks too, since their autocannons will kill any unit that survives long enough to breaks through to the tank line, while their missiles deal with the air units. Because I use the Goliath so much I almost never see the need for Vikings. Unlike Vikings, upgraded Goliaths can attack both air and ground without needing to transform, and because of their longer range it means they usually stick behind your Marine army. Whereas Vikings need more micro as they tend to fly ahead of your army into enemy AA, or they need to transform to support ground. I seldom use Ghosts either, but that is mostly because I prefer siding with Tosh in the campaign lol.
I actually like to mix in a few hellions on all in to keep me running out of gas. I always use tech reactor. I like drop pods but find rallying at base is pretty useful to reduce on static defense spending anyway
Tier list videos have the stigma of "low effort", and arguably they're easier to make as other types of videos (which doesn't have to be a bad thing), but they're still enjoyable to watch so that's what counts. I'm looking forward to hearing the insights in your rankings in this video!
Hercules in WoL is 300 minerals, 200 vespene, +150/150 for the fusion core and 50/25 for the tech lab and has 30 slots. Medivac is 100/100 for eight slots. Total for hercules is 500/375 for 20 and medivac is 100/100 for eight. The Hercules is more expensive, but it deploys all of its units at once without a lab upgrade, and the units are not destroyed if it is.
I honestly forgot the Goliath needed a tech lab. I'm so used to playing Swann in multiplayer and they cost no gas and are a base factory unit. Aka, a mineral dump. Curious on your thoughts with the co-op aspects of the units. Just curious, no need for a vid
Why is _Medivac_ in A? It can not transport units, it can not heal units, it can not tank the shots, it's horrifiyngly expensive, there's just no justification for using this unit apart from restraining yourself from using Medics! upd: Why is *REAPER* of all things in A?! _Why?!_
@@bluesbest1 blizzard: "let's just make all the buildings and almost all the units have the light tag to trick people into thinking the hellion is better than it is in this campaign"
@@jeffreywarf At least the third Colonist Unit, the Viking, had an accurate description: a fighter that can transform to land. Jim: "We need fire." Game: "Fire is actually useless."
(Assuming that you already have a starport) medivac: cost: 100/100 slots: 8 cost per slot: 12.5/12.5 One Herc: cost: 300/200 + 150/150* + 50/25* (500/375) slots: 30 cost per slot: 16.6/12.5 Six hercs (enough for max supply) cost: 1800/1200 + 150/150* + 50/25* (2000/1375) slots: 180 cost per slot: 11.1/7.638 *(There's a one time cost for the fusion core and tech lab)
The top comment mentions a D-Tier units challenge. Well, I think it might be possible with some adjustments to the rules... I got pretty far in the campaign with C-Tier and under allowed, but no Goliaths. Static defense is allowed and is a must in early missions, but I picked Perdition Turrets instead of the Planetary, and the HME is not allowed (obviously!) What I wanted wasn't to make an impossible torture test, but to force the usage of under-utilized units like the Reaper and Diamondback. I have the difficulty on Brutal, however. It has been a rousing success so far! I've done several missions using all kinds of different strategies: Evacuation was done with Firebats + Missile Turrets, Smash and Grab with Perdition turrets guarding the base while Reapers wielding clusterbombs cleared the path to the artifact, and I even got the Hellion upgrades to help slay the insane amount of Marines on Cutthroat, allowing me to mass up enough Diamondbacks to storm Orlans base. Air units a huge problem as you'd expect; neither the Thor nor the nor the Wraith have particularly good anti-air. Lack of good AA is currently a hurdle, but it feels possible to win. I feel like I'm close to cracking Bel Shir with Thors and Missile Turrets. As for All-In, I recall hearing that the Thor cannon ability (not the 330mm upgrade version) can stun Kerrigan, so I'm curious to try it.
If the main antagonist of Wings of Liberty hadn't been Zerg, the Spectre would have been better than the Ghost. Stun shreds both Terran and Protoss compositions, but Snipe shreds Zerg compositions. Stun is just an incredible tool for your bioball when you are faced against Siege Tanks and Colossi, but Ultralisks can't be stunned and the rest of the Zerg units are too swarmy to be effectively stunned.
I am super excited for him to do Zerg and Protoss and Nova next, Grant I dont think you know how useful this actually is, I have a few friends that play SC2 but struggle with the units and what to build and I think this will really help them
Things I've learned from this video: Marines are better than I thought. Mercenaries are better than I thought Build some f*king vikings Its time we get the entire sc2 community to find a way to make the predator a good unit
Medivac healing is actually very good. It might not be that useful as a transport but it’s great at heals 1) medivac healing is faster than medic healing, much faster 2) with the upgrade it targets two things: this means that it’s pulling the healing power of two medics with half the supply cost and 50 less minerals 3) is flying and is therefore much safer. No banelings, siege tanks or colossi are going to wipe out your healers when you use Medivacs 4) provides high ground vision for your marine force 5) has a fancier AI that prioritizes injured units more than just whatever is closest
they are still made of paper and can't be healed easily. Plus they require starports, which you never really want to build if you play bio, maybe if you really want revans.
@@norberthiz9318 After you unlock your first air unit you start every mission with a starport. Except on Gates of Hell, in which case it's given to you later. The only exception is that this doesn't include lab research, so the Hercules won't be giving you that free starwort
I would like to see you make tier lists about other campaigns. It also serves a purpose since anyone can see your opinions about units in one place instead of hunting for them in the VODs
I modded my Nightmare Mode predators to jump along with me reapers to give the group something a bit tankier to accompany them with and I sped them up to keep pace. It makes for an interesting niche.
Goliaths do not suck :( The ability to shoot air and ground at the same time is nice. I think of it as a slightly tankier, more expensive marine with permanent stim if air and ground are together. They can also be healed by science vessel and scv, the anti air can cover for any banshee or for the science vessel
@Pallington the Shrike For a mech unit yes, but I conpared it to bio and as such it seems a viable replacement to me. It also has 2 healing source options instead of one
@@YellowEllo the problem is it costs more and takes longer to build up to than bio [in pure production/building time], and one of the repair sources is from the starport [which takes EVEN LONGER], the other costs res [if you mean repair] for something that is vaguely equivalent in combat power to mass marine
I know I'm a year late to comment as I rewatch this, and that it's about the campaign, but the goliath comments made me think about Swann in co-op. It's kinda neat to me that while it retains the hefty cost, it does benefit from his "medic" healing, can be reactored, doesn't have to compete with vikings and you can build the range upgrades mid-mission when you need them. Kinda nice that the co-op version solved some problems the campaign goliath had.
Hi Grant, I had hoped for something like this video for a while now, so thank you. I'd be interested in this ranking for the other campaigns and maybe also for research, kerrigan abilities and solarite options. I have no idea if this can be done for Nova CO. Maybe Nova gear, don't know if units or unit upgrades could be rated somehow because there's just a bunch of combinations. Anyways, have a great day.
If you don't have APM to split bio against AoE then goliath/science vessel is straight up better than MMM. With auto refineries and tech reactor (you need orbital drops only if you want to cheese missions) it's a very well balanced composition.
... Ravens break the campaign a group of them flying over a battlefield laying down defensive drones makes almost all projectiles fail. The enemy gets no ranged attacks. This is amazing as it completely negates several units for the cost of energy. Hydra, stalkers all defensive structures, battlecruisers the list is long. Several missions are made trivial with their use. I tend to just use some banshee and a flight of ravens on bringing down the sky. Fly in with defensive drones, shoot the objective and leave. They can't hurt you because zerg anti air groundfire is all countered. Anything where you can trade energy to not take damage is a very good ability in my opinion. S tier in fact. Also anything that they can't counter, like melee, you use siege tanks for.
Except you are going for banshee raven, which is a gas-intensive composition. By the time it hits critical mass, most other strategies would have completed the mission. The problem with the raven is that it doesn't complement ground forces very well. It's useless against banes, siege tanks, colossus, any melee unit, storm, immortals, etc. So if ravens want to be a core part of the strategy (which it should be, by definition of S tier), the only viable option is sky terran and all of its problems (gas-intensive, time required to tech up, expensive Hyperion armory upgrades, etc).
A Medivac costs 100/100/2 for 8 slots (12.5/12.5/0.25 per slot). If you assume that Medivacs can replace some of the Medics you would otherwise have to build and transport with your bio army, as opposed to just being transport units, their cost efficiency goes up dramatically. Even if you only use 1 less Medic for every 2 Medivacs, that drops the effective cost to 75/87.5/1.5 for 8 slots and 0.5 virtual slots from the extra unit you don't have to bring (8.82/10.3/0.18 per effective slot). A Hercules costs 300/200/6 for 30 slots (10/6.77/0.20 per slot). Assuming you build only one and aren't going for BCs or any other Tech Lab Starport units, the additional cost of a Fusion Core (150/150) and a Tech Lab (50/25) brings the total cost up to 500/375/6 for 30 slots (16.67/12.5/0.20 per slot). At 2 Hercules, you beat Medivacs on gas but not on minerals, with a total cost of 800/575/12 for 60 slots (13.33/9.58/0.20 per slot). You need at least 3 of them to break mineral parity with Medivacs with 1100/775/18 for 90 slots (12.22/8.61/0.2 per slot). Also worth noting, until your army hits the 200 supply cap, each extra unit of supply costs 12.5 minerals in Supply Depots, plus an indeterminate amount of lost SCV mining time that I won't attempt to estimate. Consequently, you can add 3.125 minerals/slot to the Medivac's effective cost and 2.5 minerals/slot to the Hercules's effective cost, which makes 2 Hercules only 1.33% more expensive in minerals per slot than Medivacs (15.833 vs. 15.625). It's also worth noting that you can tailor your Medivac troop size to more closely match the size of your droppable army, whereas Hercules come in larger packets of 30 slots. If you don't fill up that last Hercules, you might be able to save on fewer Medivacs. Ex: 2 Hercules can provide 60 slots which would otherwise require 8 Medivacs to carry, but if you only have 45 slots worth of units to drop it still takes 2 Hercules, but only 6 Medivacs. Note: Costs are listed in minerals/gas/supply.
For your last point on 45 slots of units to carry, you're not forced to only build hercules, you can mix and match. So 1 hercules and 2 medivacs will do the trick.
I was comparing the Vulture to the Hellion for the purposes of a Light unit in a mech comp (for tanking i.e. Immortals). They both cost 1 mineral per HP, with the Hellion having 100 and Vulture 75, but the bizarre thing is that the Vulture has 1 armor and the Hellion has 0. Why does a dude on a space motorcycle have 1 armor?
*Good question.* - Shrek. Comparing Vultures and Hellions is absurd - dem Vulture bikes win on Hellions you've seen on Mar-Sara 10 out of 10 times, they're simply better in every way
Another couple of benefits of the Hercules that makes it better than the Medivac. It has natural rapid drop, the Medivac requires an upgrade. This holds the Medi even further back because now units can die if it gets popped out of the sky, and it is slow to drop troops off. The Hercules is also quite fast! Considering it`s a Fusion Core unit, it has no business being as fast as it is, and yet I was quite surprised how quick a unit that is relatively high on the Tier list and pretty tanky moves quite quickly. Compare it to its fellow Fusion Core Unit the BC, or even the Medivac speed. Lastly, although this is very mission specific, on the 1st Char Mission (forget the name, the one where you want to grab the drop pods). If you plan ahead a little bit, it is possible to gain an army that exceeds 200 supply and pump out 2 Hercules units before that happens. It is rare to have an army that huge, but in that specific situation, it is quite useful to be able to load up a vast majority of that force, and go into a hot zone with rapid drop and not need to worry about it all getting blown out of the sky. Especially when that mission is somewhat resource starved compared to other missions.
Honestly compared to Thors goliaths feel way better, Thors are slow factory units that are only good against ground, for which the Tank is just way better both for sieging and just fights. So the Thor doesnt rly do anything while the Goliath fixes the total Lack of anti air that all the other factory mechs have, the only reason Not to Go goliaths is because marine medic is just better i
Goliath + diamondback is fun. Maybe not optimal in cost, but you can stutter step the Goliath with its fast attack. Goliath hits air hard and takes down light ground, then the diamondbacks punch through any heavy ground unit.
It’s funny that the Goliath is outclassed as an anti-air platform by the Viking considering that is literally the lore reason why we have the Viking. The Viking was introduced as a replacement for the Goliath as a anti-air fighter which can transition into an anti-ground walker, filling the same multi-role walker niche as the Goliath.
for the warpigs: not only do you not have them early, you also don't get a huge number of them all at once. its what, 3 charges? so by the end of the mission you can max out at 12 war pigs? by late mission thats not enough to make a significant impact on your army. i usually just use war pigs for bunker duty. edit: i'd say the wraith deserves c-tier just based on it 1. being a stealth unit and 2. hitting both ground and air. its got some major downsides, but both those 2 abilities mean that its at least something you can use.
Medivac/Hercules cost comparison. Conclusion- Medivacs are 4.1 minerals cheaper and have the exact same gas cost per 1 cargo space when compared to the Hercules and hence Medivacs are technically more efficient when only comparing cargo space- Workings out below. I will be ignoring the cost to make a Starport since they both need it anyway so it would be cancelled out. Medivac costs 100 minerals and 100 gas for 8 cargo space, so 1 cargo space is 12.5 minerals and 12.5 gas Hercules costs 300 minerals and 200 gas to build, it also requires a tech lab which costs 50 minerals and 25 gas, it also requires a Fusion Core which costs 150 minerals and 150 gas, added altogether the first Hercules you build requires 500 minerals and 375 gas for 30 cargo space which means 1 cargo space costs 16.6 minerals and 12.5 gas. So for 1 cargo space the Medivac costs 4.1 minerals less and has the exact same gas cost, however this doesn't take into consideration that if you were to build Medivacs you couldn't get exactly 30 cargo space (because it goes up in increments of 8) meaning you would have to build 4 (giving you 32) to match the Hercules which would cost 400 minerals and 400 gas, 100 minerals less than the first Hercules and 25 gas more but giving you 2 extra cargo space. Overall the Medivac per cargo space is actually more efficient and does save you money if you want to go down that route (unless the 25 gas you save means more to you than the 100 minerals you waste building the Hercules). However it should be stressed, this is only comparing cargo space, this does not take into account the overall unit health/Supply cost, or things like the Hercules keeping its passengers alive even in the event of its death. TLDR: The medivac is overall cheaper if you're only considering cargo Edit- Because its fun lets work out what I mentioned Supply, Medivac- 100/100 and 2 supply, so 50/50 per 1 supply, Hercules 500/375 (using the numbers we worked out earlier) so 83.3/62.5 per 1 supply, so the Hercules cost per supply is much worse (when considering things like tech lab/fusion core), However again to match the Hercules you would have to build 4 Medivacs which would be 8 supply for 32 cargo, so 2 cargo more for 2 supply more, obviously not worth it. For Health- Medivac 150 health for 100/100 so for every 1 hp a Medivac costs 0.67/0.67 (2dp) while a hercules has 500 hp and again using the numbers worked out before 500/375, 1 hp costs 1/0.75, again more expensive than the Medivac in a 1-1 comparison, in addition if you were to build 4 Medivacs as mentioned previously you would have 600 hp (150x4) 100 more than the Hercules for 100 less minerals and 25 more gas. However this doesn't take into consideration armor, the Hercules has 3 armor compared to the Medivac 1, so all the damage taken by the Hercules is reduced by 3 compared to the Medivac 1, so the Medivac takes 2 more damage, how much this matters depends on what unit is attacking it so this cost can be offset depending on what units you'll be facing in the mission, plan accordingly. So again conclusion- The Medivac seems to be overall more efficient if you're comparing the cost of each stat to each other, but this is really an in theory not in practice thing, in reality the higher bulk of the Hercules meaning it doesn't get killed by Anti-Air as easily and doesn't kill its passengers on death more than make up for its bonus cost, the healing ability of the Medivac and its lower cost really don't make up for the things the Hercules does better, the Medivac is more of a support unit (which you don't need when the Medic exists) while the Hercules does what its supposed to do, be a drop ship. Also it goes without saying all these numbers change when you're making the second Hercules, since you'll already have a tech lab and fusion core built, so I wouldn't add it to the cost again.
Goliaths: D tier, just watch how you struggled on your last welcome to the jungle. Tanks: S tier, easily. Diamondbacks: A tier, they are just like ghosts, long range and they don't die. I like addding vanadium plating, a science vessel and a pack of hells angels and they just clean up anything. Try a direct approach on moebius factor next time with them.
hmm, maybe if predator was a barracks unit? you know, as accessible as the marine but otherwise unchanged, a stopgap to keep the melee units of the other factions nailed in pace while your marines unload from behind them, kinda like roaches and hydralisks.
26:12 Unless the Hercules is over water. Even a little strip of it. Then everything dies. That was a very harsh discovery on Moebius Factor one day! 😮🤦♂🤪
I like how the good units coincide with bio and bio-tank multiplayer play, maybe with the exception of hellions and medivacs. I would also like to see how the hots and lotv fit in here, but I understand it's a stretch.
Now that you mention units from StarCraft 1 that got ported into StarCraft 2 WoL. I don't understand why the Wraith requires tech lab. The in SC1 the Wraith was the ONLY unit you could create without an Add-on to your starport. Goliaths in SC1 can be created WITHOUT an add-on but require an Armory. Since the Barracks didn't have an add-on, but required Academy for all other units outside of the Marine, it makes sense that the Marauder, Firebat, Medic, Reaper, and Ghost/Specter, require tech lab. Still, the point is, some of these units could be made better by shifting the requirements around. Nerf the Science Vessel so that it requires a Physics lab, but the Raven doesn't. Buff the Goliath to 150HP and only make the armory it's only pre-requisite (i.e. reactor but with a caveat). Wraiths don't require tech lab.
I know im late but I will defend the goliath for 1 simple reason: Its an anti-air unit thats built in a factory. When I played WoL I found the most success in going a factory focused built, basically just playing like it was SC1. Vultures and siege tanks would do really well with dealing with all the ground units since they deal bonus damage to both light and armor, and when they have their mines and are sieged up, its basically impossible to push into them. So all thats left is dealing with air, and the easiest solution was to just put in a few goliaths to protect my tanks when they were sieged. Not too many but just enough to where I didnt have to worry about air units. If i went vikings, I would have to build a starport and get seperate upgrades. However with the goliath its already apart of the same building as my other units im going for, and it has the same upgrades. So It just made sense to build goliaths instead of going anything else. So Instead of D I would go like a C+ simple because going siege tank + vulture is good and goliaths just seems like the best anti air option once you go that route.
Hercules are more supply efficient than medivacs, and even at their worst (assuming you need to build both a tech lab and a fusion core and build only a single hercules) are exactly as gas efficient as medivacs, factoring in the extra safety I'd agree they're the superior dropship, but I can only think of a single mission where dropships are useful. I feel they're very similar to battlecruisers and diamondbacks, great in the one mission designed around them but forgotten for the rest of the campaign.
I want predators and firebats to be better too. Also, I'm sure that, if they went through with the idea of the merc. reapers, those would be, like so many other merc units, a good thing to pick up to add to your army without having to worry about the extra costs in normal production of that kind of unit. Also, I eagerly await not only the LotV one (as you've done HotS by the time of my comment), but also Nova Ops for the unit upgrades there too.
Love your tier list, for me I would put the thor to a C because it's 330mm Barrage Cannon is really good at wiping out ground units when properly placed. I absolutely love them in any protoss missions where they send a bunch of archons and immortals coming your way. Which the ghosts are very helpful anticipating when they come. Only two are necessary for me. Their tankiness is also appreciated which is what I combo with Hercules and I rate the Hercules an A tier. If they decide to focus on and start pounding on one of the thor units while the rest of your smaller bio composition is gunning the enemy down, Hercules can come in and transport Thor or any of your valuable ground units such as mercenaries off the battlefield, saving the unit because of how fast and bulky they are. Their tankiness is also greatly appreciated for transporting and flanking the enemy. Yet again, I've only played on regular Brutal difficulty, I can't imagine how much of a different ball park it is playing from Brutal to Brutal+ My plans will likely fall flat on its face. lol 😅
For the Predator, I would have loved to have seen it have upgrades at the armory (as well as the Hercules). Both of these units have to compete with other upgraded units, and they just can't compete. I would have loved to have seen a combat "raptor zergling" upgrade to the Predator - it would work great with the theme of a mechanic pouncing panther, and a defensive upgrade to make mech-only more viable or a utility upgrade like making them a mobile sensor tower (like predator instincts) or a weaker mobile psi disruptor
i feel like i could make an entire co-op commander from the D and C teir list with maybe one tech unit thrown in for fun. making warfield and trying to get the gorgon to work even a little like it does in the heart of the swarm would also be hilarious.
One really interesting thing to note regarding Ghosts and Spectres in the campaign is that, due to the campaign-only Ghost not having EMP (even though enemy Ghosts do, Nova rips us off), it's only good vs Zerg but shreds them like no tomorrow. In comparison, the Spectre is usable vs everything since its abilities don't care if the target is bio or mech, but said abilities don't have the wtf-everything-died power of Snipe spam albeit stunlock spam is applicable against everything and in some cases can be better.
I bet someone else has mentioned this already since the video has been up for a while, but Thors with the upgraded Strike Cannons can stunlock Kerrigan on All-In, completely trivializing her while Siege Tanks or whatever else blast her in to oblivion. Not really something that would elevate it out of C tier, it leaves it in the same spot as most of the other units in C tier such as Diamondback or Battlecruiser: Useful for one mission only, and rarely if ever used elsewhere
Ghosts are great with rapid-fire Snipe, but what about without it? As a much more average player playing in the year or so after SC2's release, I remember finding it almost unusable. Alternating between Q and click meant I could get off maybe 3 Snipes per second at best, and usually less than that as enemy units would move out from under my mouse cursor before I could click on them or I'd mess up the timing and click before pressing Q and just deselect all my units.
rapid fire snipe is may be the most overpowered thing in sc2, I can't even imagine that people played against that in 1v1 at some point. It is soo easy to use, you literally just hold down a key move around your mouse and every zerg unit dies. I don't understand what you mean by " but what about without it? ", what would siege tanks be without siege mode, it's just there and you supposed to use it, why wouldn't you use it? Ghost are also a pretty good a move unit and are very easy to use, they have perma cloak, insane range, pretty good dps, and are fairly tanky. The unit is just soo insanely overpowered
In my opinion the firebat is decent in bunkers as a defense against zerglings and I make them for that early in my campaign. The problem is, as soon as you can get the flame turret, you lose every need for the firebat
I would love to see for each tier a list of things buffs and or tweaks no needs unless stupid overpowered like the raven, that could be done to improve each unit in custom campaigns to make each one a viable unit in almost any build you can think of. Just a future video idea.
I'm surprised that it wasn't mentioned that Thor's upgraded siege cannon ability can stunlock the final boss if couple of them take turns to land the ability proper
I find it interesting how lowly you find the goliath when the math says it's combat stats make it worth, about, 6-9 marines. It deals, about double damage to ground, 25% more to air, and has a little under triple HP (about 2.5x) and 50% more range. It's also the perfect compliment to Siege tank for a Factory force that, pretty much answers everything. Sure they need a Science Vessel to fill the Medic's role in the team but I don't see how it's that much worse than the bio equivalents.
@@AlexaRobin21 ummmm, it's been so long since I did that math I forget! Good point overall though. If it's without stim then you're swining the damage higher for less bulk for sliiiightly similar net result, closer to 5-7 depending on what stats you weigh more and lanchester law antics
In theory, Goliaths seem much better than Marines. But then there's also factors such as unit size (more marines can fit in an area and thus more concentrated fire) and then there's also the fact that marines have great synergy with marauders and medics (The MMM) . In practice, I found the MMM to be much more effective force than Goliaths. Even in the Bel Shir mission, the mission where we get Goliaths, the MMM makes the mission much easier.
A big reason i think the BC belongs in C tier is that its a late game unit that you dont get untill the end of the game, so you only get it on the last few missions. Not a problem by itself. But when you consider that you have 1 gas on Gates of Hell, basically half a base worth of gas making BCs hard to make in mass, Belly of the Beast is a no build mission so you don't have access to them at all, and in all in you have one 3 gas, so you cant mass them easily, they attack slowly against overwhelming zerg numbers, and are useless against Kerrigan who can 1 hit them and will kill a bunch of them each fight, you realize that about half the missions after you unlock it, its not great on. It works on Maw of the void but that's the mission you unlock them. Its really good on media blitz, assuming you play that mission last, and it's pretty unnecessary on the mission, the odin gets the job done. The best mission for it is shatter the sky where you can get 3 bases easy. But unless you do a werid mission order you arent going to find a ton of great moments to make battlecruisers in large numbers
Hercules cost per slot: 300|200 for herc, 150|150 for fusion core, 30 slots at 500hp 450|350 / 30 w/ 500 / 30 = 15 minerals and 11.6 repeating gas per hercules slot, with 16.6 repeating hercules hp per slot (with 3 base armor) medevac cost per slot 100|100 for medevac, 8 slots at 150hp 100|100 / 8 w/ 150 / 8 = 12.5 minerals and gas per medivac slot, with 16.75 medivac hp per slot (with 1 base armor) conclusion: the hercules is effectively about the same amount of cost per slot as the medivac, being just a little more mineral-weighted. it's got about the same hp per slot too, but has 2 more base armor, and the bonus of being able to take 350 more damage before blowing up, where 2/3 medivacs would die to the same amount of damage. hercules probably better overall if you make more than one edit: forgot tech lab but that doesnt matter too much, someone else did those if you wanna look
I feel rather sad that the awesome late game units like the Battlecruiser and the Thor got put down so low, but at the same time I am not in the slightest bit surprised considering the literal first unit you are given, the Marine, is so utterly busted. Though I do think the Goliath should be B tier at least. Without any upgrades at all it is rather weak, however the upgrades completely change that around. It does 8(16 vs armored)x2 air damage at an insane 9 range at base, and max upgrades gives it 14/20x2 damage, and also a really solid 18 damage versus ground units at 7 range, just two higher than Marines. Like it's description directly says, it's a Support fire unit, meant to supplement your marine ball by being "Anti-air siegetanks" sniping down air enemies at extreme range, while giving a bit more of a solid hit versus ground targets, at the same time too due to their duel-targeting systems. They are expensive, because if the enemy is attacking them and not the marines then something is going very wrong because in order to reach them, the enemy needs to fly overtop of a massive ball of marines. If you want pure dedicated AA, then yeah the Viking does a much better job, but the Goliath is more of a "mecha marine", being a flexible all-purpose unit that is at the very least "good" no matter the context. You might not want to make a death ball out of them since Marines are just so much better overall, but throwing in 5-7 of them in the back of your army is never a bad idea.
Putting Firebat in D tier reminded me of when Grant were running Haven's fall during some challenge run with insane infested, and Grant was trying to use firebats with bunkers to deal with the absurd pressure and just kept getting overrun. until he built the hellion(a unit Grant puts also in D-tier) and completely wiped the floor with that mission Don't remember the challenge run unfortunately, but damn was it funny for us watching(including Grant)all to have collectively over-estimated the firebat despite thinking it sucked.
Now that the tier list is settled, let's answer the question:
CAN YOU BEAT ALL IN WITH D-TIER UNITS ONLY?
Firebat, Hellion, Predator and Wraith? No. No he cannot.
I doubt that he could do that even on casual.
@@stormwing9123 the wraith can deal with all in air but ground is a bit sus since there isnt anti armoured ground units in the comp
With hive-mind emulator - it is easy. Without - man, that would be interesting to watch!
@@VK-sz4it Technically the Zerg units you steal are not D-tier on this list. So you can use hive-mind emulator to neutralize them but not fight with them 😉
I think a couple of the really low-rated units got included in the game mainly for multiplayer play. Notably the hellion and reaper are made in nearly any high-level competitive game, as early worker harass and scouting, where they do quite well. However there's never a place in the campaign where your enemy is at that low-level tech and economy where those units can do what they do best: slip in and harass on the back line.
For the reaper there is *one* notable exception where they are stellar, which is ironically the Hellion into mission.
Would write this part, but flipping "added for multiplayer" to "included from multiplayer" since its clear multiplayer was the core of the game and single player units were added to it.
@@123mickymouse123 I still actually use the hellions there, but I find if I plug up the areas between my bunkers while defending, they make great area denial, while still having a reasonable clear speed when massed, since they are pretty fast units. But like the reaper, generally don't build them outside of their intro mission. I generally pretty much lean on the same few units for pretty much every mission : Marine (bunker), Siege Tank, Ghost, Banshee (vs ground heavy sections. They show late in my runs, so really only see play on Char), and battle cruisers (char only). I don't think I have actually used marauders much. Would probably make my life a lot easier if I used them to slow incoming attacks on char. I just hide behind PFs and call it good. In my defense the last time I did a serious run I was like 12, and struggled to beat Safe Haven/Havens fall. So that would actually be my last mission. I don't know why I struggled so badly with it
Vultures are also not in multiplayer, which aids hellions there.
also the medivacs are the strongest harass force of any race
Would love to see tierlists for the other campaign units! Especially LoV because my tiny brain can't process how good every unit variation is
Vanguard S+ tier
Nerazim DT is its own in SSSSS+++++ tier
@@CsabaGamings 18 * 16 splash damage, can you believe that...
@@andrewgreeb916 brutal+ modifier for legacy of the void is that enemies get campaign units
Also taldarim are also their units so wrathwalker vanguard ground lmao
@@CsabaGamings exacty what I wanted to comment lol
I will contest the Goliath placement, on grounds that it has more to do with how you like to spend your upgrade funds. I tend to get both upgrades for the Goliath immediately. The big reason is that it *simultaneously* hits ground and air when you've done that. That's something nothing else does. A unique and useful ability, allowing a smaller amount of supply to deal with threats that would otherwise wear you down by too many targets.
@@saphironkindris more range, once your bio ball gets too big you have to stim and run in to get max dps, but with Goliaths they sit in the back. They fill their heavy fire support role very nicely.
Honestly(probably stupid but whatever) I rush goliaths and their upgrades, as it provides basic ground support fire, destroys anything in the sky(at the same time), and it is super low micro.
@@lepidusstupidius2956 Great for protecting Siege Tanks. Close range fire to keep the fast guys out of the deadzone, missiles to keep the sky clear. Tanks can handle the heavy ground stuff.
Does mean that instead of multiple barracks and bio upgrades, you do multiple factories and vehicle upgrades. And maybe a couple science vessels to hang out as medics.
* sad colossus noises *
@@Whatthe914 storms
ultras
siege tanks?
Considering that you already have a starport, to pay for a transport slot on a medivac would cost 100(cost in minerals) / 8(number of transport slots on a medivac) = 12.5 minerals and also 12.5 gas (due to the medivac having the same price of minerals and gas). For a hercules it costs (300(mineral cost of hercules) + 50(mineral cost of tech lab) + 150(mineral cost of fusion core)) / 30(number of transport slots on a hercules) = 16.(6) minerals and (200(gas cost of hercules) + 25(gas cost of tech lab) + 150(gas of fusion core)) / 30(number of transport slots on a hercules) = 12.5 gas, therefore the medivac is slightly more efficient if you build only one hercules, however it depends on how many you build, for example 5 hercules come out as 11.(3) minerals and 7.8(3) gas per transport slot. In the end, it depends on how many hercules you build.
Summary:
Medivac 12.5 Mins 12.5 Gas/Slot
Hercules: 16.7 Mins 12.5 Gas/Slot
So it's a better unit and even with all the hassle of getting the fusion core and techlab it's still super close in cost/capacity (bit more expensive in minerals) just getting more accessible for any one over the first you build.
If you have to build a starport, the efficiency gap really widens and the hercules becomes a lot better. If you have to build a factory, oh my.
But if you fill your supply with Hercules then they are the most efficient.
@@Archphoenix1
Medics are more efficient if your bio can survive on ground.
Hercules main advatange is survival ability and deployment speed.
Should the cost in supply be considered? It's not a significant factor when comparing a single Hercules to Medivacs, but I imagine the gap widens a fair bit (much like how the mineral cost gap decreases) as you jump to 2 Hercules.
One funny thing about the Medivac: for some reason, Medics can't "heal up" but Medivacs can. If you're using the Hive Mind Emulator on All In Air the inability to heal Mutas or Brood Lords is weirdly relevant.
I would definitely move Medivacs up a tier just for the simple fact that you can do micro to save valuable units (i.e. mercenaries), not just drop a location.
Merc's really show how small stat boosts and skipping production time and tech requirements is hugely powerful. Makes sense why raynor at the end of the epilogue just only builds mercs
he builds mercs at the production buildings, not the mer compound
meaning that they just get the flat damage/health buff
i mean, it works with Siege Breakers, sooo
I genuinely really appreciated the breakdown here, my gripe with most tier lists is that they don't explain very well at all *why* something is in a certain tier but this was genuinely helpful knowledge. The rankings all make sense and are well-explained. I'd love to see more tier lists on the channel
I like how the regular firebat stole the devil dogs place in the tier list XD...just goes to show how simmaler the models are
Devil dog is pretty different, but yeah they are close
"Smells like... victory."
i thinked it was wierd from a pro starcraft player to think the devil dogs is the firebat
@@almaspite68401. He isn't exactly a pro player he is a content creator.
2. A pro player probably would ask what a devil dog is cause theu probably don't play the campaign that much.
Kinda fair and true and i gues
@@badrinath5306
I'm personally a bit happy to see as many people defending the Goliath in the comments as I am. I was experiencing a bit of personal success in using them, but assumed it was primarily due to the differences in Brutal versus Hard, and the fact I decided to wait on getting Vikings and Ghosts to see what Tosh and Hanson have to say at the conclusion of other missions.
I've done mech-only Brutal and I think the Goliath is a perfectly fine unit. Your tanks obliterate ground forces and your goliaths sit just in front of them fending off air. They are appreciably better than marines in this role because of the extra bulk and range. (Actually tank + goliath is pretty much the only viable mech-only composition...)
@@MainTopmastStaysailalso for mech comps it really works great with the science vessel as you don't need 2 kind of healers, and critically, you can avoid replacing units as often so micro is easier
Agree with pretty much everything except maybe the goliaths. When I go ground mech, they are usually the core of my army with a couple science vessels for healing, and they can shoot ground and air at the same time, its like having free vikings with it. And they are quite cheap to mass produce.
Have you considered that the Goliath is not a Marine?
Also, Vikings suck to use when you play ground!
They just fly away now, fly away now, fly awaaaay
Seriously, it is ridiculously hard not to lose them against enemy AA simply because they can be hit with it and because they don't bunch up like all ground units do
Yes, it's a plus, it's also a minus
I would say that being massively dependent on the upgrades is a negative in my book. If you look at units like the Marine or the Ghost, they are still strong units even without the upgrades. You are better just going bio for Welcome to the Jungle instead of mass goliath like the game encourages. Just like how mass reaper is better for Outbreak over the Helion.
@@jordanread5829 You're right, Marines are better, but I was saying how the Goliaths aren't as bad as they are portrayed and also if you wanna go mech for fun, its really not a bad option.
@@jordanread5829 it's not like that
Hellions are always horrible
I remember choosing the predator for the first time, thinking it would be amazing! I was immediately regretting my choice.
Same lmao. It _sounds_ so cool, and then you field a few, and it's like "... oh."
Honestly that row in the zerg research is just disappointing. Predator is garbage and the Hercules is only good on like 2 or so missions. That being the Mobius Factor and Maw of the Void. The two missions where dropships are mostly needed. Hell, the latter is ultimately mass BC and A move. Even more so if you pick the Science Vessel over the Raven on the Protoss tree.
It is weird how the Science Vessel vs Raven makes sense. As you are picking two strong utility units. While for the Zerg research you choose between a paper cat and a dropship. Like neither of them have anything in common.
Same, on paper it sounds really cool and fun to play with, but in reality the enemy armies are way to diverse/strong to be vulnerable to it. It's good at one thing and exactly one thing and has hardly any synergies, making it effectively useless
The problem with Wraiths is that Blizzard made them literally the same as they are in Starcraft/Brood War. The lack of being anti-light and anti-armored makes this even more apparent.
There is one change, for the worse: They need a Tech Lab to be produced. The basic fighter from the previous game needs a tech upgrade.
They are actually worse than in Broodwar as their anti ground rate of fire is significantly slower which severely effects it's DPS (it's anti air attack is slower too but it's less noticable) it costs 150 gas instead of broodwars 100, has a slower move speed and takes much longer to build. Basically the only things they didn't nerf is it's damage per hit which is the same and it's HP (which got buffed by 5 lol)
I think the bigger problem is that the viking and the banshee exist. Both are specialized offsprings of it. This means that to be balanced, the viking needs to have better anti air capabilities than the wraith, else the viking would be useless. The same counts for the banshee with ground. So the wraith is stuck in a place where you have better options for both ground and air targets, making it it pretty useless in comparison. It's only unique features compared to viking and banshee is a cloaked anti air attack, but that's by far not enough to justify its existence
I think the game does a good job of showcasing how outdated some of the original units are. The Banshee effectively covers the anti-ground weakness, while the Viking seems based on the superior anti-air unit that was the Valkyrie. Salvaging the superior UED tech did wonders to the evolution of Koprulu Terran tech.
@@zeratai2465And then they salvaged the Valkryie again and it gave us the Liberator
The Medivac and the Hercules (starting with the cost of a starport, so factory + barracks not included) cost per slot is:
Medivac: 31.25minerals per slot and 25gas per slot
Hercules: 21.67minerals per slot and 15.83gas per slot
So, assuming you started with both a barracks and a factory, Hercules is a better dropship
But what if you had start with building a factory?
Medivac: 50minerals per slot and 37.5gas per slot
Hercules: 26.67minerals per slot and 20gas per slot
Most campaigns start you off with a barracks, so I'm not doing barracks. I also assumed you aren't using a tech reactor (building a tech lab instead), but medivacs don't need one anyway.
I think, as a dropship, that the hercules is wayyyyy better than a medivac can ever be. Now all we need is to be able to put a marine on the back of a predator.
Factory: 150m 100g
Starport: 150m 100g
Tech Lab: 50m 25g
Fusion Core: 150m 150g
Medivac: 100m 100g 8slots
Hercules: 300m 200g 30slots
The Hercules is also a better healer since medics heal units inside it, AND if you stick scvs inside it it is an insanely busted OP science vessel that perma defense matrices the units its healing
I’d absolutely be interested to see HOTS and LOTV units as well. I love when Starcraft elements are discussed it creates the possibility of new ideas or potential great changes to make units viable.
And that is why Infested Diamondback is so much better than regular diamondback. It can (sorta) target flying units, it costs 3 supply instead of 4 and it can be made without tech lab.
And it also has prior experience with dying.
As an added bonus it's pretty much immune to getting hit by melee if mirco'd
@@dondaketype8811 Especially if mucus trail is evolved. You just can't touch this
@@HalfGroxus yup. The downsides (being bio and only +10 vs armored vs +20) are not enough to outweigh all the buffs they gave the infested version
Spectres have more dps (7.5+2.5 vs armored) than ghosts (6.7+0.7 vs light), even against light (7.5 vs 7.4). They have 20 less hp and no range upgrade though. On the other hand, they are a little faster (2.75 vs 2.25 speed)
Spectres also shoot slower than ghosts
@@SenyiKimmo already took that into consideration when calculating dps
Spectres are my go to! Can't betray my man Tosh.
I feel like WoL Campaign suffers just from the points you unlock units and how little upgrade currency you get, especially as you can't un-upgrade. Especially as Marine/Medic by themselves can beat the campaign often easier then using the unlocked unit. Vikings would be good if you got them earlier and they were cheaper but you get them almost near the end of the game depending on mission order.
Diamondbacks, Medivacs, Thors, I'd argue even battlecruisers, Hercules, Predators, Ravens, Wraiths, reapers, hellions, vultures ect. never either need to be built outside of their unlocked mission or built at all even in their mission.
The main issue? Kerrigan one shots mechanical units and has a max damage per hit she can take. Invalidating almost every unit.
I've been looking forward to this!
The big surprise is how much better the mercs are compared to the vanilla units. Saving build time, not needing infrastructure, and being easier to fit in various compositions, all these are bonuses less obvious than the "+x damage, +y HP" that the game advertises.
I'd love to see this for the other campaigns as well!
1st I was "well, why not - I gonna watch this" and then I have so much fun listening it like a podcast while I was driving... please, make it for the other campaigns as well
P.s.: One more positive point for the Hercules - you have to choose between him and the Predator... and I think it's not even a choice here, right? I mean: it's not like you're trading off something good to have it (like Raven vs. Science Vessel)
ah the poor goliath is getting bullied again, I think it's actually pretty close to being a good unit, it's has decent ground attack, good anti-air, not that tanky, but still not made of paper, can attack both ground and air at the same time, which is a very cool and unique thing that very rarely comes up. It just not great at anything and a bit too expensive and also mech. I still think people would not hate it so much if it wasn't introduced in welcome to the jungle, it so abismal on that mission, that it's no wonder people just never use it afterwards.
About the wraith, the unit is... garbage, BUT it's good on one single mission. On Haven's fall I think it's better than the viking(or at least on par). It can very effiecently deal with the air, you just snipe the overseer and kill everything while cloaked, and you can just kill the virophage without bothering with the ground. The problem is that they obviously become useless when you try to push the bases
Ans yes I think we all would like to watch a hots and lotv tier list as well
I would say the negative about the Goliath is that it really needs the upgrades from the Armory to be a good unit. Mainly the attack ground and air at the same time. It is in the group of units where it is garbage for the mission you get them from. Joining the Firebat, Helion and Wraith. And that is a bad thing considering that the missions in SC2 (mainly WoL) are designed to be cheesed with the unit you unlock in that mission.
I will defend the goliath here, overall without upgrades they are pretty terrible i agree, with upgrades they become a more expensive marine with more hp (that might seem like an insult but that's mostly because the marine is the best unit in the bloody game), that can fire at both ground and air at the same time and can fill any nieche it wants. Enemy air does not exist, seeker missiles dont exist to punish your clumps and ground will die bloody fast as well. I am pretty sure that it could beat the entire game without any other support and no major difficulties which can only really be said for the marines (and the marine only run was still difficult) and ghosts. (you may need a dropship on maw of the void but only for getting on the island initially)
Now i want to see maw of the void goliath only
The thing is, it's so much cheaper and faster to get an army of marine than an army of goliath.
For goliath, you need to spend quite a lot of gas: the production (2-3 factory techlab), 1-2 armories for upgrade and some for scv repair. And with that amount of time and resource, it's more efficient to make marines, barrack doesn't cost gas, engineering base doesn't cost gas, so it can be use for upgrade, medic, and reactor.
Banelings ahahahahahahah
I mean you could use tech reactor rather than build a third factory (infact i never gotten orbital drop pods)
@@ThanhLe-ti8nx If you compare any unit to the marine, it will win.
its the best unit in the game and i am not saying it isn't. But after a while it gets really bloody boring to mass marine every mission and steamroll everything with almost 0 things the AI can do. Slap in all the mercanries and you have an easy mission no matter what.
Next: Real-scale tier list
Yeah, I'd love to see tier lists for the other campaigns, especially since Hots and Lotv have mutually exclusive units competing with each other.
Would love to see the other campaigns too.
So on the herculese/Medivac math.
Because the herculese also requires a tech lab I decided to include the cost for that as well.
As a result, a single herculese has a cost of 16.6 minerals/slot and 12.5 gas/slot
Compared to the medivac which is 12.5 minerals & gas/slot means a single herculese is technically slightly more mineral intensive per slot than a medivac, and exactly on par gas wise.
HOWEVER! Since you only need to build the TL and FC once, the cost/slot drops gradually if you build more herculese.
At 2 herculese, the minerals/slot drops to 13.3, and gas/slot drops to 9.6. Making the herculese only barely more mineral intense, and actually more gas efficient than the medivac.
At a 3rd herculese, the mineral/slot drops to 12.2 making it EVER SO SLIGHTLY cheaper than a medivac’s 12.5 minerals/slot. The gas of course also drops again making it even more vespene efficient.
Was doing a factory play through of WoL a little while back, found the diamondback with HP upgrade but no range upgrade makes it a good screen for goliaths that sit back further than the DB after it gets its range upgrade. Goliath does have the highest DPS in game if firing both weapons I believe. DB’s are just so absurdly expensive though that even in this screening role it isn’t that great but there is no other choice really. It’s like they made it suck on purpose so people wouldn’t complain on why it isn’t in game.
Can mineral dump some throwaway hellions to aid in that gas heavy comp as well btw
I kinda love how the Thor went from bad against air in WoL to being the go to ground to air unit in LotV
one thing about the medic it can heal in a bunker for brutal+
It’s really interesting that the coop heroes (swann for example) while only having specific units, have upgrades that solve the major issues of the low tier units making them viable
I agree with most of the unit placings except the Goliath and to a lesser extent the Viking. Imo the Goliaths once you get both upgrades are really nice fire support units to throw into your army composition. Their long-range missiles do a great job taking down enemy air, while any survivors are mopped up by your Marines. They pair up nicely with Siege Tanks too, since their autocannons will kill any unit that survives long enough to breaks through to the tank line, while their missiles deal with the air units.
Because I use the Goliath so much I almost never see the need for Vikings. Unlike Vikings, upgraded Goliaths can attack both air and ground without needing to transform, and because of their longer range it means they usually stick behind your Marine army. Whereas Vikings need more micro as they tend to fly ahead of your army into enemy AA, or they need to transform to support ground.
I seldom use Ghosts either, but that is mostly because I prefer siding with Tosh in the campaign lol.
I actually like to mix in a few hellions on all in to keep me running out of gas. I always use tech reactor. I like drop pods but find rallying at base is pretty useful to reduce on static defense spending anyway
I can't believe grant forgot the greatest unit the scv it is the unit that is needed in any composition hance forth the scv is the omega s tier imo
No, no, no, it's not S tier, it's SCV, tier, which is far above S tier
Tier list videos have the stigma of "low effort", and arguably they're easier to make as other types of videos (which doesn't have to be a bad thing), but they're still enjoyable to watch so that's what counts.
I'm looking forward to hearing the insights in your rankings in this video!
Hercules in WoL is 300 minerals, 200 vespene, +150/150 for the fusion core and 50/25 for the tech lab and has 30 slots. Medivac is 100/100 for eight slots. Total for hercules is 500/375 for 20 and medivac is 100/100 for eight. The Hercules is more expensive, but it deploys all of its units at once without a lab upgrade, and the units are not destroyed if it is.
Little nitpick, you switched up Devil Dogs and Firebats
I honestly forgot the Goliath needed a tech lab. I'm so used to playing Swann in multiplayer and they cost no gas and are a base factory unit. Aka, a mineral dump. Curious on your thoughts with the co-op aspects of the units. Just curious, no need for a vid
Prediction before watching the video
S: Marine, Tank
A: Marauder, Ghost, Banshee, Medievac, Medic, Raven, Reaper
B: Thor, BC, Vessel, Spectre, Viking, Goliath
C: Wraith, Vulture, Hercules, Hellion, DBack
D: FBat, Predator
Huh, not too far off on some of those
Reaper and Medivac are weeping at what could have been.
Why is _Medivac_ in A?
It can not transport units, it can not heal units, it can not tank the shots, it's horrifiyngly expensive, there's just no justification for using this unit apart from restraining yourself from using Medics!
upd: Why is *REAPER* of all things in A?!
_Why?!_
firebat should do bonus damage to biological and have stim. that would differentiate it from the hellion in a useful manner
You'd think that those two would do that by default, especially considering where and how they're introduced.
@@bluesbest1 blizzard: "let's just make all the buildings and almost all the units have the light tag to trick people into thinking the hellion is better than it is in this campaign"
@@jeffreywarf At least the third Colonist Unit, the Viking, had an accurate description: a fighter that can transform to land.
Jim: "We need fire."
Game: "Fire is actually useless."
(Assuming that you already have a starport)
medivac:
cost: 100/100
slots: 8
cost per slot: 12.5/12.5
One Herc:
cost: 300/200 + 150/150* + 50/25* (500/375)
slots: 30
cost per slot: 16.6/12.5
Six hercs (enough for max supply)
cost: 1800/1200 + 150/150* + 50/25* (2000/1375)
slots: 180
cost per slot: 11.1/7.638
*(There's a one time cost for the fusion core and tech lab)
The top comment mentions a D-Tier units challenge. Well, I think it might be possible with some adjustments to the rules... I got pretty far in the campaign with C-Tier and under allowed, but no Goliaths. Static defense is allowed and is a must in early missions, but I picked Perdition Turrets instead of the Planetary, and the HME is not allowed (obviously!)
What I wanted wasn't to make an impossible torture test, but to force the usage of under-utilized units like the Reaper and Diamondback. I have the difficulty on Brutal, however.
It has been a rousing success so far! I've done several missions using all kinds of different strategies: Evacuation was done with Firebats + Missile Turrets, Smash and Grab with Perdition turrets guarding the base while Reapers wielding clusterbombs cleared the path to the artifact, and I even got the Hellion upgrades to help slay the insane amount of Marines on Cutthroat, allowing me to mass up enough Diamondbacks to storm Orlans base. Air units a huge problem as you'd expect; neither the Thor nor the nor the Wraith have particularly good anti-air. Lack of good AA is currently a hurdle, but it feels possible to win. I feel like I'm close to cracking Bel Shir with Thors and Missile Turrets.
As for All-In, I recall hearing that the Thor cannon ability (not the 330mm upgrade version) can stun Kerrigan, so I'm curious to try it.
Nice one. Would you mind recording a playthrough like that? I'd love to see it in action.
If the main antagonist of Wings of Liberty hadn't been Zerg, the Spectre would have been better than the Ghost. Stun shreds both Terran and Protoss compositions, but Snipe shreds Zerg compositions. Stun is just an incredible tool for your bioball when you are faced against Siege Tanks and Colossi, but Ultralisks can't be stunned and the rest of the Zerg units are too swarmy to be effectively stunned.
Marines are just so splashable. Like, everything can be enhanced by having Marines.
I am super excited for him to do Zerg and Protoss and Nova next, Grant I dont think you know how useful this actually is, I have a few friends that play SC2 but struggle with the units and what to build and I think this will really help them
Things I've learned from this video:
Marines are better than I thought.
Mercenaries are better than I thought
Build some f*king vikings
Its time we get the entire sc2 community to find a way to make the predator a good unit
We did! Check out the Three Player Campaign!
Medivac healing is actually very good. It might not be that useful as a transport but it’s great at heals
1) medivac healing is faster than medic healing, much faster
2) with the upgrade it targets two things: this means that it’s pulling the healing power of two medics with half the supply cost and 50 less minerals
3) is flying and is therefore much safer. No banelings, siege tanks or colossi are going to wipe out your healers when you use Medivacs
4) provides high ground vision for your marine force
5) has a fancier AI that prioritizes injured units more than just whatever is closest
they are still made of paper and can't be healed easily. Plus they require starports, which you never really want to build if you play bio, maybe if you really want revans.
@@norberthiz9318 After you unlock your first air unit you start every mission with a starport. Except on Gates of Hell, in which case it's given to you later. The only exception is that this doesn't include lab research, so the Hercules won't be giving you that free starwort
I would like to see you make tier lists about other campaigns. It also serves a purpose since anyone can see your opinions about units in one place instead of hunting for them in the VODs
Has he done a tier list for the Terran research upgrades? I'd like to hear his thoughts on stuff like auto refineries, vanadium plating etc.
I modded my Nightmare Mode predators to jump along with me reapers to give the group something a bit tankier to accompany them with and I sped them up to keep pace. It makes for an interesting niche.
If all units could jump, I wonder what the worst jumper would be and then what the worst one to have jump into your base would be.
Goliaths do not suck :( The ability to shoot air and ground at the same time is nice. I think of it as a slightly tankier, more expensive marine with permanent stim if air and ground are together. They can also be healed by science vessel and scv, the anti air can cover for any banshee or for the science vessel
goliath fragile
@Pallington the Shrike For a mech unit yes, but I conpared it to bio and as such it seems a viable replacement to me. It also has 2 healing source options instead of one
@@YellowEllo the problem is it costs more and takes longer to build up to than bio [in pure production/building time], and one of the repair sources is from the starport [which takes EVEN LONGER], the other costs res [if you mean repair]
for something that is vaguely equivalent in combat power to mass marine
@@pallingtontheshrike6374 But its cooler
I know I'm a year late to comment as I rewatch this, and that it's about the campaign, but the goliath comments made me think about Swann in co-op.
It's kinda neat to me that while it retains the hefty cost, it does benefit from his "medic" healing, can be reactored, doesn't have to compete with vikings and you can build the range upgrades mid-mission when you need them. Kinda nice that the co-op version solved some problems the campaign goliath had.
Spectres have higher DPS vs armoured targets than Ghosts. I actually think they’re quite awesome. 🤩
Hi Grant,
I had hoped for something like this video for a while now, so thank you.
I'd be interested in this ranking for the other campaigns and maybe also for research, kerrigan abilities and solarite options.
I have no idea if this can be done for Nova CO. Maybe Nova gear, don't know if units or unit upgrades could be rated somehow because there's just a bunch of combinations.
Anyways, have a great day.
All da units be like "yeah we are Raynor's Raiders"
Raven: I AM G R E E N
If you don't have APM to split bio against AoE then goliath/science vessel is straight up better than MMM. With auto refineries and tech reactor (you need orbital drops only if you want to cheese missions) it's a very well balanced composition.
... Ravens break the campaign a group of them flying over a battlefield laying down defensive drones makes almost all projectiles fail. The enemy gets no ranged attacks. This is amazing as it completely negates several units for the cost of energy. Hydra, stalkers all defensive structures, battlecruisers the list is long. Several missions are made trivial with their use. I tend to just use some banshee and a flight of ravens on bringing down the sky. Fly in with defensive drones, shoot the objective and leave. They can't hurt you because zerg anti air groundfire is all countered.
Anything where you can trade energy to not take damage is a very good ability in my opinion. S tier in fact. Also anything that they can't counter, like melee, you use siege tanks for.
Except you are going for banshee raven, which is a gas-intensive composition. By the time it hits critical mass, most other strategies would have completed the mission.
The problem with the raven is that it doesn't complement ground forces very well. It's useless against banes, siege tanks, colossus, any melee unit, storm, immortals, etc. So if ravens want to be a core part of the strategy (which it should be, by definition of S tier), the only viable option is sky terran and all of its problems (gas-intensive, time required to tech up, expensive Hyperion armory upgrades, etc).
A Medivac costs 100/100/2 for 8 slots (12.5/12.5/0.25 per slot). If you assume that Medivacs can replace some of the Medics you would otherwise have to build and transport with your bio army, as opposed to just being transport units, their cost efficiency goes up dramatically. Even if you only use 1 less Medic for every 2 Medivacs, that drops the effective cost to 75/87.5/1.5 for 8 slots and 0.5 virtual slots from the extra unit you don't have to bring (8.82/10.3/0.18 per effective slot).
A Hercules costs 300/200/6 for 30 slots (10/6.77/0.20 per slot). Assuming you build only one and aren't going for BCs or any other Tech Lab Starport units, the additional cost of a Fusion Core (150/150) and a Tech Lab (50/25) brings the total cost up to 500/375/6 for 30 slots (16.67/12.5/0.20 per slot). At 2 Hercules, you beat Medivacs on gas but not on minerals, with a total cost of 800/575/12 for 60 slots (13.33/9.58/0.20 per slot). You need at least 3 of them to break mineral parity with Medivacs with 1100/775/18 for 90 slots (12.22/8.61/0.2 per slot).
Also worth noting, until your army hits the 200 supply cap, each extra unit of supply costs 12.5 minerals in Supply Depots, plus an indeterminate amount of lost SCV mining time that I won't attempt to estimate. Consequently, you can add 3.125 minerals/slot to the Medivac's effective cost and 2.5 minerals/slot to the Hercules's effective cost, which makes 2 Hercules only 1.33% more expensive in minerals per slot than Medivacs (15.833 vs. 15.625).
It's also worth noting that you can tailor your Medivac troop size to more closely match the size of your droppable army, whereas Hercules come in larger packets of 30 slots. If you don't fill up that last Hercules, you might be able to save on fewer Medivacs. Ex: 2 Hercules can provide 60 slots which would otherwise require 8 Medivacs to carry, but if you only have 45 slots worth of units to drop it still takes 2 Hercules, but only 6 Medivacs.
Note: Costs are listed in minerals/gas/supply.
For your last point on 45 slots of units to carry, you're not forced to only build hercules, you can mix and match.
So 1 hercules and 2 medivacs will do the trick.
Grant: I am a tier-list purist. S is for Sacred. There could be only one, at least two items for the S-tier.
Also Grant:
What's wrong with three units in S tier?
It's not like Artosis's SC1 unit tierlist's S tier.
@@andrewgreeb916 i know. A just don't think Ghost are THAT good. Also I'm just joking on Grant by using his own words
Well, he did say at the start how this tier list works
wraith - D tier performance, S tier voice actor
I was comparing the Vulture to the Hellion for the purposes of a Light unit in a mech comp (for tanking i.e. Immortals). They both cost 1 mineral per HP, with the Hellion having 100 and Vulture 75, but the bizarre thing is that the Vulture has 1 armor and the Hellion has 0. Why does a dude on a space motorcycle have 1 armor?
Leather jacket. And RC cars are made of plastic.
*Good question.* - Shrek.
Comparing Vultures and Hellions is absurd - dem Vulture bikes win on Hellions you've seen on Mar-Sara 10 out of 10 times, they're simply better in every way
Another couple of benefits of the Hercules that makes it better than the Medivac. It has natural rapid drop, the Medivac requires an upgrade. This holds the Medi even further back because now units can die if it gets popped out of the sky, and it is slow to drop troops off. The Hercules is also quite fast! Considering it`s a Fusion Core unit, it has no business being as fast as it is, and yet I was quite surprised how quick a unit that is relatively high on the Tier list and pretty tanky moves quite quickly. Compare it to its fellow Fusion Core Unit the BC, or even the Medivac speed.
Lastly, although this is very mission specific, on the 1st Char Mission (forget the name, the one where you want to grab the drop pods). If you plan ahead a little bit, it is possible to gain an army that exceeds 200 supply and pump out 2 Hercules units before that happens. It is rare to have an army that huge, but in that specific situation, it is quite useful to be able to load up a vast majority of that force, and go into a hot zone with rapid drop and not need to worry about it all getting blown out of the sky. Especially when that mission is somewhat resource starved compared to other missions.
Honestly compared to Thors goliaths feel way better, Thors are slow factory units that are only good against ground, for which the Tank is just way better both for sieging and just fights. So the Thor doesnt rly do anything while the Goliath fixes the total Lack of anti air that all the other factory mechs have, the only reason Not to Go goliaths is because marine medic is just better i
But you can always add some Goliaths at the back of your bio, they have good range
Goliath + diamondback is fun. Maybe not optimal in cost, but you can stutter step the Goliath with its fast attack. Goliath hits air hard and takes down light ground, then the diamondbacks punch through any heavy ground unit.
It’s funny that the Goliath is outclassed as an anti-air platform by the Viking considering that is literally the lore reason why we have the Viking. The Viking was introduced as a replacement for the Goliath as a anti-air fighter which can transition into an anti-ground walker, filling the same multi-role walker niche as the Goliath.
Mass predator is so much fun in Haven's Fall. That's the only mission I've ever used it in though
for the warpigs: not only do you not have them early, you also don't get a huge number of them all at once. its what, 3 charges? so by the end of the mission you can max out at 12 war pigs? by late mission thats not enough to make a significant impact on your army. i usually just use war pigs for bunker duty.
edit: i'd say the wraith deserves c-tier just based on it 1. being a stealth unit and 2. hitting both ground and air. its got some major downsides, but both those 2 abilities mean that its at least something you can use.
Medivac/Hercules cost comparison.
Conclusion- Medivacs are 4.1 minerals cheaper and have the exact same gas cost per 1 cargo space when compared to the Hercules and hence Medivacs are technically more efficient when only comparing cargo space- Workings out below.
I will be ignoring the cost to make a Starport since they both need it anyway so it would be cancelled out.
Medivac costs 100 minerals and 100 gas for 8 cargo space, so 1 cargo space is 12.5 minerals and 12.5 gas
Hercules costs 300 minerals and 200 gas to build, it also requires a tech lab which costs 50 minerals and 25 gas, it also requires a Fusion Core which costs 150 minerals and 150 gas, added altogether the first Hercules you build requires 500 minerals and 375 gas for 30 cargo space which means 1 cargo space costs 16.6 minerals and 12.5 gas.
So for 1 cargo space the Medivac costs 4.1 minerals less and has the exact same gas cost, however this doesn't take into consideration that if you were to build Medivacs you couldn't get exactly 30 cargo space (because it goes up in increments of 8) meaning you would have to build 4 (giving you 32) to match the Hercules which would cost 400 minerals and 400 gas, 100 minerals less than the first Hercules and 25 gas more but giving you 2 extra cargo space.
Overall the Medivac per cargo space is actually more efficient and does save you money if you want to go down that route (unless the 25 gas you save means more to you than the 100 minerals you waste building the Hercules). However it should be stressed, this is only comparing cargo space, this does not take into account the overall unit health/Supply cost, or things like the Hercules keeping its passengers alive even in the event of its death.
TLDR: The medivac is overall cheaper if you're only considering cargo
Edit- Because its fun lets work out what I mentioned
Supply, Medivac- 100/100 and 2 supply, so 50/50 per 1 supply, Hercules 500/375 (using the numbers we worked out earlier) so 83.3/62.5 per 1 supply, so the Hercules cost per supply is much worse (when considering things like tech lab/fusion core), However again to match the Hercules you would have to build 4 Medivacs which would be 8 supply for 32 cargo, so 2 cargo more for 2 supply more, obviously not worth it.
For Health- Medivac 150 health for 100/100 so for every 1 hp a Medivac costs 0.67/0.67 (2dp) while a hercules has 500 hp and again using the numbers worked out before 500/375, 1 hp costs 1/0.75, again more expensive than the Medivac in a 1-1 comparison, in addition if you were to build 4 Medivacs as mentioned previously you would have 600 hp (150x4) 100 more than the Hercules for 100 less minerals and 25 more gas.
However this doesn't take into consideration armor, the Hercules has 3 armor compared to the Medivac 1, so all the damage taken by the Hercules is reduced by 3 compared to the Medivac 1, so the Medivac takes 2 more damage, how much this matters depends on what unit is attacking it so this cost can be offset depending on what units you'll be facing in the mission, plan accordingly.
So again conclusion- The Medivac seems to be overall more efficient if you're comparing the cost of each stat to each other, but this is really an in theory not in practice thing, in reality the higher bulk of the Hercules meaning it doesn't get killed by Anti-Air as easily and doesn't kill its passengers on death more than make up for its bonus cost, the healing ability of the Medivac and its lower cost really don't make up for the things the Hercules does better, the Medivac is more of a support unit (which you don't need when the Medic exists) while the Hercules does what its supposed to do, be a drop ship.
Also it goes without saying all these numbers change when you're making the second Hercules, since you'll already have a tech lab and fusion core built, so I wouldn't add it to the cost again.
Great list! Please do make one for HotS and LotV! I'd love to have your thoughts on all units of these campaigns.
Goliaths: D tier, just watch how you struggled on your last welcome to the jungle. Tanks: S tier, easily. Diamondbacks: A tier, they are just like ghosts, long range and they don't die. I like addding vanadium plating, a science vessel and a pack of hells angels and they just clean up anything. Try a direct approach on moebius factor next time with them.
hmm, maybe if predator was a barracks unit? you know, as accessible as the marine but otherwise unchanged, a stopgap to keep the melee units of the other factions nailed in pace while your marines unload from behind them, kinda like roaches and hydralisks.
26:12 Unless the Hercules is over water. Even a little strip of it. Then everything dies.
That was a very harsh discovery on Moebius Factor one day! 😮🤦♂🤪
I like how the good units coincide with bio and bio-tank multiplayer play, maybe with the exception of hellions and medivacs. I would also like to see how the hots and lotv fit in here, but I understand it's a stretch.
Now that you mention units from StarCraft 1 that got ported into StarCraft 2 WoL. I don't understand why the Wraith requires tech lab. The in SC1 the Wraith was the ONLY unit you could create without an Add-on to your starport.
Goliaths in SC1 can be created WITHOUT an add-on but require an Armory.
Since the Barracks didn't have an add-on, but required Academy for all other units outside of the Marine, it makes sense that the Marauder, Firebat, Medic, Reaper, and Ghost/Specter, require tech lab.
Still, the point is, some of these units could be made better by shifting the requirements around.
Nerf the Science Vessel so that it requires a Physics lab, but the Raven doesn't.
Buff the Goliath to 150HP and only make the armory it's only pre-requisite (i.e. reactor but with a caveat).
Wraiths don't require tech lab.
I know im late but I will defend the goliath for 1 simple reason: Its an anti-air unit thats built in a factory.
When I played WoL I found the most success in going a factory focused built, basically just playing like it was SC1. Vultures and siege tanks would do really well with dealing with all the ground units since they deal bonus damage to both light and armor, and when they have their mines and are sieged up, its basically impossible to push into them. So all thats left is dealing with air, and the easiest solution was to just put in a few goliaths to protect my tanks when they were sieged. Not too many but just enough to where I didnt have to worry about air units. If i went vikings, I would have to build a starport and get seperate upgrades. However with the goliath its already apart of the same building as my other units im going for, and it has the same upgrades. So It just made sense to build goliaths instead of going anything else. So Instead of D I would go like a C+ simple because going siege tank + vulture is good and goliaths just seems like the best anti air option once you go that route.
Hercules are more supply efficient than medivacs, and even at their worst (assuming you need to build both a tech lab and a fusion core and build only a single hercules) are exactly as gas efficient as medivacs, factoring in the extra safety I'd agree they're the superior dropship, but I can only think of a single mission where dropships are useful. I feel they're very similar to battlecruisers and diamondbacks, great in the one mission designed around them but forgotten for the rest of the campaign.
I want predators and firebats to be better too. Also, I'm sure that, if they went through with the idea of the merc. reapers, those would be, like so many other merc units, a good thing to pick up to add to your army without having to worry about the extra costs in normal production of that kind of unit.
Also, I eagerly await not only the LotV one (as you've done HotS by the time of my comment), but also Nova Ops for the unit upgrades there too.
Love your tier list, for me I would put the thor to a C because it's 330mm Barrage Cannon is really good at wiping out ground units when properly placed. I absolutely love them in any protoss missions where they send a bunch of archons and immortals coming your way. Which the ghosts are very helpful anticipating when they come. Only two are necessary for me.
Their tankiness is also appreciated which is what I combo with Hercules and I rate the Hercules an A tier. If they decide to focus on and start pounding on one of the thor units while the rest of your smaller bio composition is gunning the enemy down, Hercules can come in and transport Thor or any of your valuable ground units such as mercenaries off the battlefield, saving the unit because of how fast and bulky they are.
Their tankiness is also greatly appreciated for transporting and flanking the enemy.
Yet again, I've only played on regular Brutal difficulty, I can't imagine how much of a different ball park it is playing from Brutal to Brutal+ My plans will likely fall flat on its face. lol 😅
For the Predator, I would have loved to have seen it have upgrades at the armory (as well as the Hercules). Both of these units have to compete with other upgraded units, and they just can't compete. I would have loved to have seen a combat "raptor zergling" upgrade to the Predator - it would work great with the theme of a mechanic pouncing panther, and a defensive upgrade to make mech-only more viable or a utility upgrade like making them a mobile sensor tower (like predator instincts) or a weaker mobile psi disruptor
i feel like i could make an entire co-op commander from the D and C teir list with maybe one tech unit thrown in for fun.
making warfield and trying to get the gorgon to work even a little like it does in the heart of the swarm would also be hilarious.
One really interesting thing to note regarding Ghosts and Spectres in the campaign is that, due to the campaign-only Ghost not having EMP (even though enemy Ghosts do, Nova rips us off), it's only good vs Zerg but shreds them like no tomorrow. In comparison, the Spectre is usable vs everything since its abilities don't care if the target is bio or mech, but said abilities don't have the wtf-everything-died power of Snipe spam albeit stunlock spam is applicable against everything and in some cases can be better.
Don't they also get psyonic lash which if memory is correct deals 200 damage (as an upgrade)
@@oliverking8633
Yes but it is much slower than Snipe, and usually Ultrasonic Pulse spam stunlock is way better.
I bet someone else has mentioned this already since the video has been up for a while, but Thors with the upgraded Strike Cannons can stunlock Kerrigan on All-In, completely trivializing her while Siege Tanks or whatever else blast her in to oblivion.
Not really something that would elevate it out of C tier, it leaves it in the same spot as most of the other units in C tier such as Diamondback or Battlecruiser: Useful for one mission only, and rarely if ever used elsewhere
This for coop units would get a lot of views imo.
15:36
*ALL RIGHT, BRING IT ON*
_ALL RIGHT, BRING IT ON_
*ALL RIGHT, BRING IT ON*
_ALL RIGHT, BRING IT ON_
Thor in WoL: Die to any Air
Thor after: Air falls from the sky
The cattle bruiser and Goliath are S tier in my heart
Ghosts are great with rapid-fire Snipe, but what about without it? As a much more average player playing in the year or so after SC2's release, I remember finding it almost unusable. Alternating between Q and click meant I could get off maybe 3 Snipes per second at best, and usually less than that as enemy units would move out from under my mouse cursor before I could click on them or I'd mess up the timing and click before pressing Q and just deselect all my units.
rapid fire snipe is may be the most overpowered thing in sc2, I can't even imagine that people played against that in 1v1 at some point. It is soo easy to use, you literally just hold down a key move around your mouse and every zerg unit dies. I don't understand what you mean by " but what about without it? ", what would siege tanks be without siege mode, it's just there and you supposed to use it, why wouldn't you use it? Ghost are also a pretty good a move unit and are very easy to use, they have perma cloak, insane range, pretty good dps, and are fairly tanky. The unit is just soo insanely overpowered
Q + Shift + click and you just keep clicking without having to press Q. You're welcome :)
Yes please do the rest of the campaigns units as tierlists 🙏
In my opinion the firebat is decent in bunkers as a defense against zerglings and I make them for that early in my campaign. The problem is, as soon as you can get the flame turret, you lose every need for the firebat
love your vids really cool info! Helps mods and just regular players
I would love to see for each tier a list of things buffs and or tweaks no needs unless stupid overpowered like the raven, that could be done to improve each unit in custom campaigns to make each one a viable unit in almost any build you can think of. Just a future video idea.
Come on! Firebats are great. They are taking all the hits for the marines. With all the upgrades they have 6 armor
I'm surprised that it wasn't mentioned that Thor's upgraded siege cannon ability can stunlock the final boss if couple of them take turns to land the ability proper
I find it interesting how lowly you find the goliath when the math says it's combat stats make it worth, about, 6-9 marines. It deals, about double damage to ground, 25% more to air, and has a little under triple HP (about 2.5x) and 50% more range. It's also the perfect compliment to Siege tank for a Factory force that, pretty much answers everything. Sure they need a Science Vessel to fill the Medic's role in the team but I don't see how it's that much worse than the bio equivalents.
Is the damage output compared to a stimmed or unstimmed Marine?
@@AlexaRobin21 ummmm, it's been so long since I did that math I forget! Good point overall though. If it's without stim then you're swining the damage higher for less bulk for sliiiightly similar net result, closer to 5-7 depending on what stats you weigh more and lanchester law antics
In theory, Goliaths seem much better than Marines. But then there's also factors such as unit size (more marines can fit in an area and thus more concentrated fire) and then there's also the fact that marines have great synergy with marauders and medics (The MMM) .
In practice, I found the MMM to be much more effective force than Goliaths. Even in the Bel Shir mission, the mission where we get Goliaths, the MMM makes the mission much easier.
A big reason i think the BC belongs in C tier is that its a late game unit that you dont get untill the end of the game, so you only get it on the last few missions. Not a problem by itself. But when you consider that you have 1 gas on Gates of Hell, basically half a base worth of gas making BCs hard to make in mass, Belly of the Beast is a no build mission so you don't have access to them at all, and in all in you have one 3 gas, so you cant mass them easily, they attack slowly against overwhelming zerg numbers, and are useless against Kerrigan who can 1 hit them and will kill a bunch of them each fight, you realize that about half the missions after you unlock it, its not great on. It works on Maw of the void but that's the mission you unlock them. Its really good on media blitz, assuming you play that mission last, and it's pretty unnecessary on the mission, the odin gets the job done. The best mission for it is shatter the sky where you can get 3 bases easy. But unless you do a werid mission order you arent going to find a ton of great moments to make battlecruisers in large numbers
Grant... you mixed up the Devil Dog and Firebat pictures..
Hercules cost per slot:
300|200 for herc, 150|150 for fusion core, 30 slots at 500hp
450|350 / 30 w/ 500 / 30 =
15 minerals and 11.6 repeating gas per hercules slot, with 16.6 repeating hercules hp per slot (with 3 base armor)
medevac cost per slot
100|100 for medevac, 8 slots at 150hp
100|100 / 8 w/ 150 / 8 =
12.5 minerals and gas per medivac slot, with 16.75 medivac hp per slot (with 1 base armor)
conclusion:
the hercules is effectively about the same amount of cost per slot as the medivac, being just a little more mineral-weighted. it's got about the same hp per slot too, but has 2 more base armor, and the bonus of being able to take 350 more damage before blowing up, where 2/3 medivacs would die to the same amount of damage.
hercules probably better overall if you make more than one
edit: forgot tech lab but that doesnt matter too much, someone else did those if you wanna look
I liked this video a lot! I'd be up for more tier lists.
I feel rather sad that the awesome late game units like the Battlecruiser and the Thor got put down so low, but at the same time I am not in the slightest bit surprised considering the literal first unit you are given, the Marine, is so utterly busted.
Though I do think the Goliath should be B tier at least. Without any upgrades at all it is rather weak, however the upgrades completely change that around. It does 8(16 vs armored)x2 air damage at an insane 9 range at base, and max upgrades gives it 14/20x2 damage, and also a really solid 18 damage versus ground units at 7 range, just two higher than Marines. Like it's description directly says, it's a Support fire unit, meant to supplement your marine ball by being "Anti-air siegetanks" sniping down air enemies at extreme range, while giving a bit more of a solid hit versus ground targets, at the same time too due to their duel-targeting systems. They are expensive, because if the enemy is attacking them and not the marines then something is going very wrong because in order to reach them, the enemy needs to fly overtop of a massive ball of marines.
If you want pure dedicated AA, then yeah the Viking does a much better job, but the Goliath is more of a "mecha marine", being a flexible all-purpose unit that is at the very least "good" no matter the context. You might not want to make a death ball out of them since Marines are just so much better overall, but throwing in 5-7 of them in the back of your army is never a bad idea.
They also complement Siege tank very well.Anything not destroyed by siege tank will be finished by 8/10 goliath
We all choose spectre over ghost not because we think that he is efficient but because we love our bros
Putting Firebat in D tier reminded me of when Grant were running Haven's fall during some challenge run with insane infested, and Grant was trying to use firebats with bunkers to deal with the absurd pressure and just kept getting overrun.
until he built the hellion(a unit Grant puts also in D-tier) and completely wiped the floor with that mission
Don't remember the challenge run unfortunately, but damn was it funny for us watching(including Grant)all to have collectively over-estimated the firebat despite thinking it sucked.
Challenge was burn all the infested. So it had to be firebat or hellion.
@@honourabledoctoredwinmoria3126 thank you!