Five months ago, I have written what Blizzard revealed and have planned for the next StarCraft expansion in the campaign. Just last week, they unveiled more details and we were greeted by new potential and improved units for the multiplayer. I also wanted to remind everyone what Dustin said about Terran, and I quote -  

“We just have too many good units in that race.”

And we were introduced 3 new potential Terran units regardless, damn it Dustin.

For those who don't know what happened, let me sum it up for you. The highlight of SC in Blizzcon was each race are getting 2-3 new units, and some small changes which can be found here.

Terran

What is it? - A transformer hellion! (Blizzard seems to have a transformer fetish)

Similarly to the viking the hellion can transform into a battle hellion mode, in other words it transforms into an oversized firebat with a badass mech armor. Reportedly to have better more hp (which doesn't make sense, at least give them better armor instead of adding more life), better damage on buildings, wider fire width instead of being linear and slow movement, Blizzard’s reason for the battle hellion was to give terran to deal with mass light armor units like cracklings (fully upgraded zerglings) and chargelots (zealot with charge upgraded, and it's weird considering that Terran MMM (marine, marauder, medivac) + ghost emp often does well).

Perhaps they want Terran mech to do well against Protoss too and don't want TvP to be an automatic bio build, and an oversize firebat like that is likely to get a pass to the next expansion. 

Verdict? - Pass

What is it? – A mini thor/new goliath version.

The warhound is a new mechanical unit that replaces the thor (more on that later), it does quite similarly to the thor except that its ground attack has a bonus damage against mechanical units only, so it would be quite useless against zergs, but however its anti air missiles still has the calibre of the goliath and the thor. Its model design also somehow reminds me of MechWarrior game series (classic game).

The thor on the other hand, has gone back to its original roots design which is to be a toy of destruction. Its anti javelin missiles are removed and was replaced with the “bombardment” ability like the one in the campaign, its size, HP, ground attack and cost has increased (no gas though), and requires a fusion core as an extra to produce one. Also like the mothership, you can only make one.

I welcome the change as it solves the mobility problem of the thor, but then again, it might make terran anti air a bit too powerful (they got vikings remember? owh and marines too). The model can use some fixing too.

Verdict? - Moderately pass.

What is it? – A new robotic unit/really fat spider mine.

A unit specifically designed to gain ground control, the robot digs itself on the ground to be stationary and sends out electrical waves passively. Great for defending expansions and tower controls, the disadvantage however that is if your untis are too near it will deactivate.

As I have mentioned earlier on Dustin's quote, terran has too many good units. For example, not only it is an area controller, the shredder can be a worker killer too, effectively sharing the same role with the reaper, banshee, hellion, and the ever terrifying medivac marine squad drop. And just imagine the Terran players abusing it with siege tanks while containing, in fact Nestea has already experienced it from MVP the shredder first hand.

Verdict? - No.

Zerg

What is it? – A new flying zerg spell caster/flying defiler, which flies and modelled like a dragonfly.

This new zerg addition has three abilities.

• Blinding Cloud – Reduces enemies’ range attack to melee mode while inside the aoe, functions more like the corsair's disruptoin web instead of the defiler's dark swarm. It also prevents enemies to cast spells if caught inside the cloud.
• Ocular Parasite – Can make one of your non massive units to be a detector (energy usage is not clear, but can only cast one time).
• Abduction - It's Scorpion's trademark, GET OVER HERE!!

Abduction used some nerf like not being able to grab massive units, because it looks ridiculous (even though I secretly like it), other than that it’s a must have for the swarm.

Verdict? - *Thumbs up*

What is it? – A new slow zerg ground unit, that looks like an infested tortoise and acts like a lurker brood lord.

Taking its role as a siege unit (finally!), it has no attack so it relies on its locust to deal damageh hence the name swarm host. It can only attack while it burrows, just like the lurker.

Although the race is lacking a siege unit, but however infestors can also do the role as well by spawning spamming infested terrans while tunnelling, the mobility and damaged dealt by the infested terrans produce better results than a bunch of swarm hosts. And what’s more it’s acting like a brood lord ground version, very uncreative if you ask me. It's also pretty funny and ironic that for a siege unit, it cannot attack from a higher ground with no ramp since the locusts need to walk to their target.

If they really want to keep it, they have to change something to be more terrifying and badass. Like if it can burrow completely and release the locusts underground and tunnel until it comes out of the target’s side.

Verdict? - Seems redundant at the moment.

Protoss

What is it? – A new robotic sphere that can copy any non massive unit entirely.

Build from the robotics bay, they cost 200 minerals and 200 gas so it’s not ideal to copy a zergling or a marine (or is it?). When it copies a targeted unit, it has access to all abilities that the unit has. For example, if it replicates a raven or infestor, it will have access to all abilities regardless if the opponent has not upgrade it. It is not known of how long will it stay in their copy form.

In my opinion, the replicant could actually be an improve version of hallucination instead of being a new unit (with balance). The unit would also be almost entirely useless in vs protoss.

Verdict? - Maybe

What is it? – A new “harass” air unit that does not kill (wud?).

It has three abilities.

• Entomb – Blocks workers from harvesting minerals.
• Pre-ordain – Able to “hack” into an enemy building to see what unit or tech are being researched.
• Phase Shift – Able to phase a building out of existence for a few seconds, for example, if casted on spore crawler then it won’t be able to attack, if it’s casted on a tech building like a spire, then the zerg player would not be able to produce any spire units.

As you may or may not know, this unit actually replaced the mamaship in the multiplayer which is kinda bizarre. I think the pre-ordain ability could move to the observer, I’m not sure of the entomb ability since the warp prism is very useful now as it causes a greater economic damage, but on the other hand entombing the minerals will not alert the player. Phase shift can prove useful and it was was a skill of the high templar back in alpha, it seems that Blizzard is trying really hard to have it in the game, perhaps they can put it in for the sentry, then the replicant hallucination ability that I just mentioned can move back to the high templar.

So what I'm just saying is, some existing Protoss units should actually have some of the oracle's skill sets.

Verdict? - Maybe

What is it? – A new capital ship/corsair 2.0 of the Protoss fleet.

It's not weird that Protoss do have trouble against mass air units like mutalisks and vikings, because they do not have an air unit that does splash damage, but it's weird because you see the phoenix is made for that but they just don't have what it takes to fight a fleet of vikings. Blizzard acknowledged the problem and brought in the tempest, which throws out a ball of electrical splash damage and can attack ground units too (single only).

For those who did not follow SC2 alpha development, the tempest was actually a dark templar carrier version (like the current carrier but darker colour), and instead of interceptors it uses "shurikens", thank goodness they scraped that. Speaking of the carrier, the unit is cut in the next expansion in favour of the tempest, because it’s not used a lot in competitive gaming.

Verdict? - Protoss needs it badly, but removing the carrier seems kind of uncalled for

because if they did that would mean Protoss have no aircraft units that can attack from long range.

Keep in mind that not all will make it, but this however also means that some current units might get kicked out as well instead of adding them.

The unlucky ones

• Overseer
• Carrier
• Mamaship

None of the Terran units are even listed, coincidence?  Ha! Not really, Terrans has too many good units remember?

In my experience the overseer doesn't seem that redundant, getting information with it is crucial with this unit. Although the changeling could use some improvements, such as being able to imitate critters. As for both the carrier and mamaship, it's a big question mark on why they should make way for the tempest and oracle respectively. Perhaps Blizzard should re-evaluate on the units rather than just kicking them out to make them more useful, like how they buffed the ultralisk build time and speeding up the battlcruiser a little bit.

Also if you've noticed that I have written some bw units above. It's because in this interview with Dustin in Blizzcon, he did said that Blizzard did not want SC2 to be Brood War 2.0 (it's somewhere in the video, but he really said that), and I find it very amusing and once again contradicting because...I can't help but to point out the obvious that most of the new HotS units are kind of like from BW.

Nonetheless, despite all the contradictions and facepalms I think it's safe to say that we're all still looking forward to the expansion. Why? Well in a way Dustin is right about the game that it shouldn't be a BW 2.0, because the direction of HotS seems like a true sequel to BW compared to Wings of Liberty.  Plus, it's all written in the units' face (check it the pictures below).

Glhf!