Goliath in Multiplayer

General Discussion
1

Recently I’ve been going through the WoL campaign again and what happened to the Goliath? It is kinda an all around unit on a brutal campaign but if it was nerfed then why couldn’t it be in multiplayer? I only started playing SC2 kinda seriously about 2 years ago, and I haven’t found a reason not have it, other than it being an OP (tier 1.5, tier 2) unit.

To account for that you could make the unit itself a bit bigger to have less damage density and you could slow the attack speed down for its anti air attack. I don’t expect it to be traded or anything this is just something I’m thinking about recently

2 Likes
2

The design team decided to give almost every unit one active ability to compensate for the easier unit control interface. I think that it was a bad design, but we have what we got.

Terran have the cyclone for mech aa now, it deals great damage, but fragile and micro intensive.

3

The warhound was going to be the goliath 2.0. It had an attack that did bonus to mechanical and it dealt AOE splash damage to air. But then they decided that they were going to bring the thor back, and made the warhound into the monstrosity we know it as. Way back in the day they were going to cut unused units and find something else better fill their role. But they chickened out at the last second and decided to retain every unit if if no one used it or they couldn’t find a way to balance it.

2 Likes
4

To be blunt, that isn’t a “goliath” either.

The point of the Goliath was that it was a very good anti-air and anti-capital ship unit with long range and decent DPS. That combination required the Goliath itself to be squishy (unlike all iterations of the Warhound and the Thor) and to have decent damage against armored air units rather than light.

In any case, Terran is fine without Goliaths at this point (a number of units overlap to fill that role well enough). They just would’ve been very nice to have.

3 Likes
5

I agree, The Thor and Cyclone each have this role covered. Am not a big fan to have BW units in SC2. I like that each game has its own flavor of units

1 Like
6

The viking anti-air is the same anti-air attack of the goliath

And also the ground attack minus the bonus to mech

If there is a unit overlapping the goliath role it’s the viking

1 Like
7

Goliath would be nice. Hopefully it would put an end to viking wars in tvt.

8

Would they have though?

Goliaths wouldn’t have solved anything against protoss because goliaths get annihilated by BW carrier/templar, and that’s without things like immortals and disruptors.

Goliaths might have been useful viking breakers in HotS TvT, but really I think they would have just made the eternal stalemates worse, and in LotV the goliath simply can’t deal with the liberator, unless we give goliaths tempest range at which point, they would only “help” by being broken.

Goliaths might have helped in TvZ against Brood Lords and Vipers, but not against mutas at least (unless we took the WoL tank route of changing the unit to a flat damage unit). And at this point, that little bit the viking could do with killing BL and Vipers is now done even better with the 11 range thor.

9

You do realize I said Goliath 2.0 right. That means similar in role but not 100% the same. It would have been in the same place in the tech tree and filled the Anti-air role but a focus vs like mutalisks instead of capital ships. 2.0 means an improved or altered version. So to be blunt it would have been a goliath 2.0.

1 Like
10

Why would I want a Goliath when Cyclones can do everything they can if not better thanks to lock on and faster move speed?.

11

Well what niche does the Goliath fill that isn’t already filled?

12

Does anyone in the pro-scene even use cyclones for anti-air( besides the occasional early BC ).

Goliath would fill the cheap, reliable, long range ground anti-air that thors and cyclone stumble to fill. Thor is more geared towards massive and anti-mutas while cyclone i’m not sure since when ever i see a pro game they sorta just implode like sheman tanks do in movies.

13

Yeah in my experience unless you have like 90-120 supply of cyclones it’s not a super effective anti air against mass muta, Phoenix, void ray tempest or banshee. Surprisingly they take care of BC and carriers pretty well.

I think the reason to have the Goliath in multiplayer is to have an alternate unit to Vikings for anti air that also effectively deals with ground units. I don’t think the cyclone can deal super well with a lot of marines or zerglings by itself, but the Goliath could really help lower level players like me with early game defense against harass.

For pros I think a really good player would choose the more micro heavy cyclone because they can use it effectively. Since the Goliath is essentially a bigger more expensive marine without stim, I’m not sure it would be used in the pro scene very much.

14

No, the Goliath’s anti-air attack was very different from the Viking’s. Don’t try to butter things up by making false statements.

As an anti-air unit, all versions of the Goliath are outright superior to the Viking, and considering that the anti-mechanical damage was a later change to make Vikings useful on the ground, it is wrong to assume that Goliaths would not have received a similar bonus.

The original Brood War Goliath’s attack cooldown was about 1.25 (that is 0.89 in SC2 faster units), and it fired two attacks that each dealt 5 (+5 v. armored) with +2 damage on upgrades. That is 8 DPS with 16 DPS against armored compared to the Viking’s 10 DPS and 14 DPS against armored. With upgrades, the Brood War Goliath pulled ahead at 12.8 DPS against non-armored units and 20.8 DPS against armored units.

In practice, this means that the Goliath had 28% to 48.57% more DPS than the Viking at 33% less cost. It outright outperforms the Viking as an anti-air unit.

The scrapped StarCraft II version of the Goliath was ahead by even more. That unit fired two missiles at 8 + 8 v. armored on a 1.5 second cooldown (1.07 seconds on faster) with the same +2 damage per missile.
The SC2 Goliath starts at 10.66 DPS against non-armored air and it has 21.333 DPS against armored air (50% more than the Viking). At +3 upgrades the SC2 Goliath has 14.666 DPS against non-armored air and 25.3333 DPS against armored air.

In both cases, the Goliath ends up beating every air unit that Vikings do and a number of air units that Vikings lose against.

The Viking’s ground attack without the bonus to mech is actually stronger than the original Brood War Goliath’s.
However, the SC2 Goliath’s attack started with the same DPS, and it is fair to assume that it would have received a similar anti-ground change to the Viking.

Goliaths hard-counter Carriers. The only way that Brood War Carriers are able to compete with Goliaths is by abusing terrain to ensure that most of the Goliaths cannot fight back.
Templar are not a good argument against Goliaths. Vikings have the exact same problems against Storms that Goliaths do, and Goliaths would arguably fair better because they cannot clump as tightly and because some iterations of the Goliath actually have more health (about 150).

The Immortal and Disruptor are the cases that would be more problematic. Goliaths are always vulnerable to those units, so they would be much easier to beat from the ground.

There’s also the Tempest case. Vikings have always been very bad at dealing with Tempests because they are a ranged unit that relies on outranging other units and doesn’t have the speed or health to charge forward and kill something safely.
Goliaths would be much better against Tempests simply because the Tempest’s range against ground is much lower.

The Thor’s anti-air DPS is an always has been very low for its supply. Thors simply cannot be balanced with much anti-air DPS when you take their range and supply into account. Thors end up beating Brood Lords only because most of the Brood Lords’ DPS is tied up in its Broodlings and you can kill those immediately with Hellbats.

Individual Goliaths have about the same DPS against air as a Thor, and they can be balanced with that DPS because they are much squishier. If you defend your army with Goliaths, then you can basically kill most air units much faster so that they have less time to attack the rest of your forces.

Basically, Goliaths would be nice to have. It would be nice to have a ground unit in mech that can shoot up without crap DPS (Thor) or a lock-on requirement, but it isn’t necessary because three units currently overlap to deal with all enemy air units.

2 Likes
15

cool answer and congratulations for putting so much effort into it

but unfortunately I will still say that “the viking anti-air is the same anti-air attack of the goliath”

try again

16

Terrain, or a unit wall. Once you have enough zealot/dragoon, your carrier’s can charge into the open field, unless they have enough tanks. And then if you get storm Templar, it all falls apart. Also, Goliaths were 125 health too, same as pre-buff Vikings.

On the other hand, Vikings ignore the terrain problem, but for fighting carriers you are far better off making Thors, who are solid against the unit problem.

The only real advantage of Goliaths in SC2 would be that originally Goliaths needed no add-on, which would theoretically translate into Goliaths being a reactor unit.

17

I just want Goliaths because they are cool. Combat walkers forever.

1 Like
18

It’s a cheap 50 gas unit (going by BW stats), that’s a good niche, also they could be reactored in SC2.

1 Like
19

Niches in SC2 are roles, not price tags. If we start going by price tags we can add units all over the place. However, if we go by roles, the goliath is low gas unit focused on large anti-air units (rockets deal explosive damage which does 50% vs Light, 75% vs Med, and 100% vs large) that has an anti-ground attack worth 2 marines for a higher cost than 2 marines. It also has less mobility than marines but it does benefit from longer range.
The issue is, the anti-air and range portions are covered by the Cyclone and Viking quite well. The anti-ground portion is covered by marines. Honestly, the Viking covers the role of the Goliath well on its own and always struck me as its replacement; the exception being it has to land to do land damage and it isn’t used for that outside of specific situations. There’s also the Thor which, while slower, also has massive range (exceeding the upgraded range of the goliath by 2 in splash mode) for anti-air.

1 Like
20

Cost can be niche. If zerglings cost 200 minerals would anyone build them?

Why make hydras instead of mutas? It’s 50 gas. If mutas cost 50 gas, muta/ling/bane HoTS style would still be a thing.

1 Like