StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Beta Begins Soon

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StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Beta Begins Soon

Post by dais @ 06:48pm 16/08/12 | 9 Comments

Blizzard have announced that they will soon begin accepting beta testers for the first expansion to their enormously successful StarCraft sequel.

If you are interested in participating in the beta test, please make sure you are opted in for beta testing. You can do this by clicking "Beta Profile Settings" under the Account Management section of your Battle.net account. Note that the opt-in doesn't guarantee entry, but gives you a chance at joining the beta test.

Also mentioned is the fact that they will be giving away more keys via community sites.

Bear in mind the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Beta is for the multiplayer component of the game only. promoted/edited forum item

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IVY_MiKe
Posted 07:21pm 16/8/12

:/

if the timeline is anything to go by that means we *might* see HotS by Christmas (going based off the SCII beta alone...)

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skythra
Posted 07:23pm 16/8/12

Woo. All the new stuff is very welcome in my eyes. More depth! I knew they would make sc2 a little linear because if they have 2 following expansions then that's quite a lot of units. Plus if you came into broodwar late, you would have no fucking idea what's going on if you haven't watched enough games :P

Edit; my two cents about the different stuff is, i like the hooks that the new zerg unit has, and i really like the mothership core, i hate all terran new things. A lot. But not hate them for a good reason, just i hate terran's BS bonus's against mech and they further buffed it!

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dais
Posted 07:33pm 16/8/12

The Terran Widow Mine is very powerful but it costs 75 min and 25 gas. That seems way too expensive for something that can easily be countered with detection. We'll see how it goes but I reckon they should drop the price to 50 minerals and 25 gas. That's still more than a single marine.

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skythra
Posted 07:59pm 16/8/12

The Terran Widow Mine is very powerful but it costs 75 min and 25 gas. That seems way too expensive for something that can easily be countered with detection. We'll see how it goes but I reckon they should drop the price to 50 minerals and 25 gas. That's still more than a single marine.

Here's how it works; protoss have a unit which can make all your minerals shielded and unmineable. That thing jumps onto that unit and brings it to below half hp.

Here's another way; Protoss's long ranged air unit has been harassing by moving slowly around the map independant to it's army and then the army is just turning up when it's in trouble. it's killing your tanks and making you sad. Place them in paths near cliffs that are usual suspects for easy ledge abuse for the protoss. He comes to start annoying with the weapon, you do 1/3rd of it's health.

It's not instant win but it puts the protoss into a much less aggressive stance. It's pretty well priced to do that. The battle reports that have been plays on youtube are pretty good examples of how it can really help.

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dais
Posted 08:23pm 16/8/12

I think it does more damage than that, because in the third Battle Report it was one shotting Queens.

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skythra
Posted 08:28pm 16/8/12

I think it does more damage than that, because in the third Battle Report it was one shotting Queens.

Oh the two protoss units have a fair bit of health, the long range air unit has a heap but it's super slow, and very slow fireing, and the quick caster air unit has not too few HP's. Queens don't quite have the total HP that it does from the hp+shield factor.

It's a situational mine, which is perfect in my eyes, not because it's useful, but because occasionally it'll shine and turn a game, or perhaps sometimes it's just enough of a deterrant to the enemy to make them change their tactic, but either way it'll always add more depth without dominating a change of gameplay style to rushing them.

Although it does make me wonder if you do rush them, how much damage it will do..

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dais
Posted 08:36pm 16/8/12

The coolest thing about them is that you can move them around. I like the fact that they can attack air too :]

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skythra
Posted 08:46pm 16/8/12

The coolest thing about them is that you can move them around :]

watwatwat! That's not how spidermines work! Pretty cute though i've not watched the TvZ yet, because you said that i'm gonna watch it now.

Edit: i have seen that one lol. Still since my diablo fad is over i'm really enjoying sc2 again and the casts especially IEM etc

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