Just when you’ve caught up in the recent list of changes, there’s been a whole heap more to come out of the Blizzcon 08 build.

I was originally holding off on posting these because I first wanted to see if I could find some official confirmation (a few didn’t sound quite right), but the list looks pretty solid.  It’s evident that a lot of the new abilities have yet to be polished and balanced, but the developers are certainly trying a few new ideas.

No more Planet Cracker?

The Protoss

The Protoss capital ship, the Mothership, has had its ability list pulled back to three: Time Bomb, Cloaking Field and Vortex.  Planet Cracker appears to have been dropped, as too with the Energy Transfer and Recall abilities.  Assuming Vortex hasn’t changed much from it’s last instalment, it can be considered a much weaker Black Hole that slows or immobilizes nearby enemies.

One of the biggest shocks is the loss of the Overload ability for the Phoenix.  This has instead been replaced with a slightly tweaked version of the Nullifiers Anti-Gravity that can lift two enemy/friendly units or structures into the air.  Sticking to it’s namesake, the Phoenix would still be offline for the 12 second duration.

With Anti-Gravity moved to the Phoenix, the Nullifier now gets Hallucination as well as a new skill: Molecular Displacement.

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	The Molecular Disrupter is a new ability we are testing out on the Nullifier, in which the unit fires a psionic projectile which bounces between units of the same type, doing 10 damage with each hit, up to a maximum of 10 bounces. Thus, if you were to use this ability on 2 Marines (with 40 hit points each, not upgraded), both Marines would die easily. If there were 3 Marines, it would kill 1 Marine and leave the last two at 10 hp each. Currently, the ability costs 125 energy. Stats are of course all subject to balance.

This then required the High Templars to learn a new skill by the name of Phase Shift, a target spell that temporarily removes a unit from the battlefield.

Finally, and it’s only a rumor as far as I’m concerned, but there’s talk of the Dark Templar having two (or three) different in-game models.  The “plan” is that a random model will be selected whenever a DT is created, with the options being a DT with a Scythe or one, or two, Warp-blade/s.

The Terran Nighthawk and Siege Tanks

The Terrans

The article made mention that the Siege Tanks got a nerf, but it’s not yet clear on how.  It’s unlikely to have lost Siege Mode, so a damage and/or range reduction might have occurred.

The Nighthawk was also rumored to have received a new ability called the Seismic Thumper, however a lot of Blizzcon attendees swear they never saw it in game.  The skill might have been in the build briefly, but regardless it looks to have been removed:

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	The Seismic Thumper is no longer in the multiplayer game, but was originally dropped on the battlefield, which slows all units within it’s radius by 50% (including friendlies). The only way to stop it was to destroy the Seismic Thumper itself.

Two Infesters and some Infested Terrans

The Zerg

After much hype and planning the concept of the Queen evolution has been scrapped; it will no longer evolve into three tiers.  It is now possible to produce multiple Queens and each come with three skills: the Mutant Larvae, Razor Swarm and Creep Tumor.

You may have heard the Mutant Larvae before - possibly under the name “Morphalisk”.  This skill spawns three large larvae at a Hatchery that can be controlled by the player.  They can then be evolved into existing Zerg units, though with a much faster build time.

Razor swarm is the new skill of the three and is described as “a giant cloud of insects and dust that damages any enemies caught within”.  It looks to also be controllable by the player, but it’s unclear whether it has a timed life or a set amount of Hit Points.

The Infester has also had a makeover, receiving three new abilities: Neural Parasite, Fungal Infestation and Spawn Infested Terrans.  Neural Parasite is very similar to the Dark Archons Mind Control skill, except it only lasts 10 second but does work on workers.

Fungal Infestation, like Disease, deals damage over time to a single target.  This is said to be non-curable and the target explodes on death, thus it will always result in at least one unit being killed.

The third skill, Spawn Infested Terrans, creates five eggs around the Infester that eventually hatch into Infested Terran.  It’s unclear whether they still have a time limit, though it’s likely, however there looks to be no infested Protoss.

Interestingly, it’s also mentioned that the Infester can cast spells while burrowed underground.

Source: Leord; Starcraft II Armory

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