Disregarding heroes, mercenaries, and the Spear of Adun, which race had the strongest campaign unit army at the end of the SC2 campaign in lore and in gameplay?
Saw an /r/starcraft thread about this and a majority agreed it was zerg. What are your thoughts?
For me, assuming:
WOL: all unit upgrades obtained, can only pick 1 of the 2 zerg and protoss upgrades, mercenaries disregarded
HOTS: only 1 evolutionary strain and 1 unit upgrade for each group of units
LOTV: only 1 tribe is used for each group of units, Spear of Adun disregarded
NCO: only 1 upgrade can be equipped to each unit and they can’t share any tech
Kerrigan and Spear of Adun are disregarded
The 3 human players controlling the 3 races are all equivalently skilled
Overlords / warp prisms and overseers / observers are utilized
For gameplay, I’d say an army full of Dominion Ghost / Spectres with infinite cloaking + more vision / range OR psionic lash + nukes would be pretty difficult to beat, rivaled only by an army of Nerazim DTs and corsairs with disruption webs.
For lore, it’s hard to say, but I’d still think it’d be zerg given the sheer numbers of their army and how evolutionary strains would significantly increase the efficiency of their numbers. If numerous zerglings could hop over cliffs or buildings, worlds would be consumed in mere days than weeks.
If you want gameplay-wise, there’s gotta be some more parameters. Are we talking 3 players of equivalent skill levels using the “optimal” campaign armies against each other, or are we talking vs AI, the same as how the campaigns handle it? And besides that, do the Protoss and Zerg get their support units that Terran got in WoL? (Drop Overlords/Warp Prisms and Overseers/Observers)
Also, I’m going to assume you’re disregarding Kerrigan as well because its a significantly less fair fight with her abilities if you’re denying the SoA as well.
Besides all that, tentatively (waiting on those clarifications), probably Protoss w/ Taldarim Mothership with decent support or Terran with a fully upgraded bio ball and permacloaked ghosts.
Lorewise the Zerg come out on top based on numbers mostly. The Raiders were not a particularly big group (at least not at the same scale), Nova’s forces were specialists and if recent materials are anything to go by, sparse and basically limited to the Griffin, and the bulk of Artanis’ forces in the campaign are either allies or, until the very end, not under his command.
Yes, I was disregarding Spear of Adun because I implicitly disregarded Kerrigan to balance the odds. Wouldn’t be fair to have units fighting and then the Spear of Adun time stops the battle to victory
These are excellent questions.
Yes, 3 players of equivalent skills using optimal campaign armies.
Yes to overlords / warp prisms with loading capabilities. Yes, overseers and observers are required.
Yes, Kerrigan is disregarded.
To even the odds, let’s say Raynor as the Dominion Commander with all of his unit upgrades rolled out throughout the Dominion. Artanis is the head of the Daelaam, so let’s say he leads and controls all 4 factions (Aiur, Nerazim, Purifiers, and Tal’Darim).
Then definitely not Zerg. I don’t think they can come close to fully upgraded Siege Tanks protected by fully upgraded Vikings. Also Science Vessels with Cellular Reactor are busted.
Lore-wise I think depends on whether you count Kerrigan’s swarm at the end of HotS or at the end of the epilogue. Protoss if the latter and zerg if the former.
Overall I think maxed protoss armies are stronger than anything WoL or HotS can muster though
Gameplay: If we’re talking about in a 1v1, probably zerg. Torrasques and jumping banelings will easily take out Skehan’s siege tanks and any protoss death ball.
If we’re talking pure damage output, then protoss. Void rays and dark templar shadow fury takes a poop on virtually everything else.
Lore: Protoss. With the most advanced technology in the galaxy and their numbers bolstered by purifiers, they come out on top considering how weakened every other race was.
I’m pretty sure protoss. Like I just finished replaying all of them yesterday and let’s say that I’m not that good of a player and I only managed do the last mission in LotV is because I massed out arbiters and froze everything that even my FPS went under 10.
Even if you take away the spear of adun and it’s free pylon&units and the time stop 3 arbiters and a handful of other untes can just destroy everything.
The zerg well depends on the evulutions, but can still give a challange to the protss and uterly destroy poor terrans.
WoL was always the bane of my existence it’s either significantly harder the the rest of the campaings or I just simply suck as a terran, maybe both but the only saving grace to them is the seince vessel and the mercenaries. And even they can only defend, the zerg would ovverrun them before they could get out thors or BCs aginst the protss… well arbiter, taldarin void ray, nerazim immortal and energizer 1 half is frozen the other just disappeared.