Protoss Mothership review
Initially, I was thinking of starting with the Zealot. It made sense to start with the first unit that’s coming out of the Gateway. However, the Protoss Mothership seems at least 10 times more exciting, so lets forget about build orders for now.
If you interested in how the Mothership fits the storyline, here’s a brief primer:
After the destruction of Auir, and the attacks on Shakuras, the Protoss has decided to create safe havens within the sky. These glass domes encase entire Protoss cities and are a symbol of hope and power. Headed by the leaders of the Protoss Conclave, Motherships are not only armed to the teeth, but also act as a funnel for the Conclave’s immense psionic power.
Let’s look at the gameplay video (Protoss Mothership only)
Protoss Mothership Stats
The production cost for producing a mothership is not clear, yet you know what you get for your money – a finisher that will destroy your opponents fleet and level a heavily fortified base. It has 850 hit points and is protected by a 350-point shield.
The Mothership’s standard attack consists of eight psionic missiles that home to nearby targets. It seems like they’ll be difficult to focus-fire effectively. In the gameplay video, it looked like the Mothership is hitting two or more targets simultaneously. Lets go through the abilities next.
Protoss Mothership Ability: Time bomb
The time bomb ability will slow down to crawl all enemy movement in the area around the Mothership. In addition, all missiles fired by stationary base defenses (maybe Goliath missiles as well) will get caught up in this force field. Once the units are destroyed, the missiles fall to the ground and the Mothership continues unscathed.
Protoss Mothership Ability: Planet Cracker
This ability reminds me of the movie Independence Day. It’s a deathray that hits all targets on ground below the mothership. Its purpose is to level a base and/or destroy all ground reinforcements that enemy throws at you. Not sure if you can use this ability in conjunction with the Time bomb. It seems like a deadly combo to me: no one moves, while I level the base.
Protoss Mothership Ability: Black Hole
In case you’ve got the impression that the Mothership abilities target ground only, here’s my favorite ability: the Black Hole. It looks like the Mothership will expend all its energy on this one (you might even need an energy upgrade). The effect is devastating to all units in range – they are sucked in the black hole, never to be seen again.
This disappearing act takes things a bit too far in my opinion. So maybe Blizzard can balance it with making it a Wormhole instead of a black hole. It could cause damage and throw the sucked units all across the map.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Where did you find the information on the new Conclave?
June 11th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Do you think that you can send this video of the mothership to my email address or make the video available for downloading.
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:42 pm
i dont really know but terran will get the ion cannon ?!
July 5th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I’m sure the Mothership will be balanced. By the looks of it, it does not limit movement and therefore I believe it is more of a disabling move. The player is forced to order all units the radius to begin moving to safer ground, and therefore cannot attack, lest they be destroyed. If this is not the case, then in all probability the Zerg and Terran will have equally destructive special abilities.
July 13th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
i agree with the wormhole idea. it seems like overkill to have such an extremely powerful unit, if the zerg and terran wont have one as well.
July 18th, 2007 at 1:20 am
the blackhole only affects air
July 20th, 2007 at 7:37 am
I think the Terran Nuclear missile would be enough already.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:44 am
This is Blizz making the people…You think they are going to unbalance the game they work so hard balancing with one unit….Be real and think for a second…Of course the Zerg and Terran races are going to get some super uber unit as well, and if you think about it blizz hasn’t exactly revealed much about terran and zerg yet….so sit back and relax you will see the responce to the protoss mother ship in due time…
July 24th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I’m disappointed you can only have one mother ship at a time.
(more than one might be to much)
July 24th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I’m disappointed you can only have one mother ship at a time.
(but more than one might be to much)
July 27th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
The mothership embodies the protoss superiority. Giving the other races a superpowerful unit like the mothership would ruin the uniqueness and power of the protoss. Mabye the zerg could have a swarm cordinator that could provide larva or a bonus at the spot. The terran could have a mobile foundation that could have buildings on it like bunkers or baracks. But the main point is to have units that capture the essence of the team.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:00 am
[...] answer to massed heavy units as their attack increases the longer they shoot at their target. Protoss Mothership – you can only build one of these and Blizzard calls it the Ultimate Protoss weapon. It has three [...]
August 11th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
honestly if you look at the Shield and armor of the mothership, it has just enough to withstand a light assault on itself. a focused attack, say from 3-4 Yamato guns at once, would be a crippling and probably deadly blow to the mothership. Also keep in mind that Protoss units cannot repair their units, so once that armmor is down enough, its toast. Zerg also have plague (i think its plague) that slowly damages armor from even under the shield, and terran can EMP the shield and energy outright with a science vessel. so this ship is in no way invincible.
August 11th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
pwnt
August 13th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Well its simple really for terran all you need to do is Lockdown then nuke and i think one nuke would be enough but it cant do anything if it is lockdowned so it is a sitting duck you could even just lockdown then hack away at it with other units so it is vunlrable by that way and the zerg could just mass scourges so they would just murder it i think so both races still have a good way to destroy it.
August 13th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Well my comment above works only if they keep lockdown in for the terran ghost and if they keep the scourges for the Zerg.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
What chris says is right they well balance every thing out. I know for a fact that the black hole only works on air units they put that in afew offical forums and so forth. Its a good chance lock down well work on the mother ship so think about it. There well be ways to get around the mother ship and its going to be hard to build come on i trust enough in blizz there not going to miss up starcraft to what i have seen and read the game looks really bad ass. Some of you are right when you say when they build a mother ship you are F***ed but hay it well be your fault for leting them haha. I still waiting to see what they brought out for zerg and terran i did hear another rumor don’t know if its ture but zerg well get a unit that has a connection with nukes. I think its like when you nuke the zerg they can make or use mutated men or somthing. Just a rumor don’t know for sure but they be cool. I also heard they are making a creature like from the moves dune the worms those look bad ass. It figured out there useing alot of creatures from movies and stuff. Example…War of the Worlds come on you know that toss thee leg walker came from that. Right when i saw it i knew lol
September 3rd, 2007 at 12:32 pm
i dont think the games well balanced because u can hav more than 1 mothership. and its abilities r to powerful. check info at gamespot.com or ign.com.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
You can only have 1 mothership at a time. It’s in the official blizzard gameplay preview/movie
September 12th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
The game will be balance. The terrans have got that Thor thing which looks like it could level bases and also have nukes. There is a rumor that the zerg might also have a new hybrid unit which i saw in a movie unfortunatly it wasnt a official blizzard movie. Cant remeber where i saw it though.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:22 am
the mothership looks awesome… tho lockdown and three to four yamato gun would do
September 24th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I don’t like the idea of a unique hero unit
November 29th, 2007 at 1:28 am
I hav many stardegies to defeat it. Use the twilight archons to use maelstrom on the mothership. Its energy supply will instead cause it to damadge itself, draining it off energy too. Thereafter after it will be vulnerable to warp rays
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:30 am
I am Zeratul and come from the protoss race. For now, the Mothership does not hav a Black Hole any longer. It is a cloaking feild that can even cloak buildings. If the Blackhole is one of the Mothership’s abilities, it can only affect air.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
protoss have mothership,zerg have queen..while the terran have thor,..
June 26th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
end of discution
) :-j
September 27th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Thank you for the information, but I don\’t see the source.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Looks like they just turned SC2 into another CnC game where all the “super-weapons” just take the fun/balance out of the game.