Beta Version : Patch 3 (version 0.5.0.14219B)

The Raven is the new Terran end-game caster unit in Starcraft 2, and its abilities are completely new compared to Starcraft 1. Terran players are still carving out its exact role in gameplay, but this unit is definitely not the Science Vessel of old with a new paint job.

The Raven has some kickass abilities that may very well define end-game Terran play against all 3 races. So what’s in the new bag tricks, and where do we use these new abilities?

Starting with the Basics

The Raven requires a Starport with a Tech Lab. It requires 100 minerals, 200 gas, takes 2 supply and 60 ‘seconds’ to build. The end result is a Light Mechanical Unit with 140 HP, 1 Armor and no basic attack. The Raven obviously flies, and it is a Detector with a large sight radius.

The Raven has 2 abilities by default, the Auto Turret and Point Defense Drone, and you can obtain the Seeker Missile ability with an upgrade at the Starport’s Tech Lab, provided you’ve built a Fusion Core building.

The Raven is affected by a total of 6 upgrades.

Ship Armor Plating, Levels 1-3

Auto-Turret and Point Defense Drone Duration Increase (Increases duration from 180 to 240 Seconds on each)

Seeker Missile Upgrade

Raven Starting Energy Upgrade (Increases the starting energy from 50 to 75)

Auto-Turret and Point Defense Drone Range Increase (Increases the range on both by 1)

Building Armor Upgrade (Increases Auto Turret armor from 1 to 3)

Raven Abilities

The Auto Turret

Auto Turrets costs 50 Energy, and you place them manually as if you were creating a building. The Raven then spits the Turret out at that location – the Turret placement itself seems to have a medium range, somewhere from 4-6. You can Shift-Queue up a blanket of Turrets to have multiple Ravens quickly spam them out.

Auto Turrets last for 3 minutes by default, and 4 minutes with the duration upgrade. In the heat of actual gameplay, 3 minutes feels like a very long time. You can easily toss a Turret down in an area you want to keep an eye on, like an expansion or frequently traveled ground lane.

They do 10 DPS, or 8 damage a shot with a 0.8 cooldown. They attack Ground and Air units with a base range of 6 or 7 with the Hi-Sec Auto Tracking upgrade at the Engineering Bay.

They have 150 HP with a Base Armor of 1. The Building Armor upgrade at the Engineering Bay bumps this up to 3.

Auto Turrets are very cheap and durable sources of damage. It’s easy to fire a few of these in an opponent’s base during a pitched battle and watch the damage they cause over their duration.

An uninterrupted Turret constantly firing will do 1800-2400 damage over its duration, which is a pretty good investment for 75 energy. That can rival the efficiency of something like Psi Storm, even.

If the fight moves away from the Auto Turret, then you’ve just paid 75 energy for a stationary scout. That’s still not awful, but it’s clear the placement of Turrets will play heavily into their efficiency. This is another tool in the Terran arsenal which seems best used at their base or yours, but not so much in between.

Lastly, Auto Turrets seem to be a high priority target for the AI. You can throw them down in front of your army to draw fire, or take attention away from your weaker troops. This may give them a great application against threats to the M&M ball like Banelings or Colossus.

The Point Defense Drone



Point Defense Drones are currently being underutilized in Beta, because it’s a little hard to realize what they’re doing exactly and where they fit in a matchup.

Let’s run the numbers.

Point Defense Drones cost 100 Energy, and they have a small placement radius around the Raven itself. You have to manually place them as if you were placing a building, similar to an Auto Turret. Point Defense Drones hover in the air above a fight, and then they work some magic.

Point Defense Drones have 200 energy, and they use this energy to fire a laser that negates enemy projectiles. Each laser is 10 energy per shot from the Point Defense Drone.

The radius it covers is pretty significant.

We can compare this ability to the old defensive Matrix, as they both cost the same amount of energy on a similar tech/tier of unit, and ultimately resulted in less damage taken by the Terran army.

Defense Matrix soaked up 250 damage. The damage a PDD can soak up is variable to the types of damage being thrown at it, however, since it negates the attack completely.

On the low end, if it soaks up 20 shots of a Battlecruiser’s fast-firing 6 damage air-to-air attack, it will have only mitigated 120 damage. Ouch.

However, against a group of Hydralisks firing 12 damage shots, it’s soaking 240. Against a group of Mutalisks firing 13 damage (9+3+1, accounting for the bounce), that puts us at 260. Much better.

There are two other things to consider here – it protects every unit under it’s effective radius, whereas Defense Matrix would only protect one unit. This benefits the Terran enormously. If a player is aggressively microing against your army, they can target around one or two units that have been Defense Matrix’d and effectively negate its impact. A player cannot micro around a PDD to still deal damage to your army – they have to run it out, or run away.

Note that a PDD can be destroyed as well, but it will defend itself against projectiles with its laser, just like anything else in its radius. Marines, Archons and Interceptors aren’t effected by it, so watch for those quickly taking it down if you’re trying to use it in those positions.

The last consideration is that the PDD becomes stronger as the game goes on and upgrades kick in. Each shot of the PDD negates an attack no matter how upgraded it is. Viking Missiles do 14 damage vs. armored targets with no upgrades, and 21 damage vs armored targets with 3 upgrades. The Point Defense Drone doesn’t care either way.

So where do you use it? PDD’s seem immediately strongest against Zerg. They would be fantastic against Terran and Protoss if they answered Siege Tanks, Immortals or Colossus, but they do not.

Negating Hydralisk and Mutalisk attacks gives them a clear purpose against the mid-late game Zerg army which includes plenty of either for damage. I would place these near sieged tanks to keep Zerg from pushing forward and taking them out. They can also assist Banshees in harassing or attacking if your opponent is expecting static defense to keep you away.

Lastly, this is another immobile element in Terran’s gameplan, so it’s best used at your base or theirs, or at some critical fight in between. Otherwise, the PDD will have a very lonely point to defend.

The Seeker Missile

The Seeker Missile is a highly destructive ability for the endgame Terran. It has to be researched at the Starport’s Tech Lab after you build the Fusion Core. It also costs a whopping 125 Energy for the Raven to throw.

The result : a slow-moving heat-seeking missile that chases its target, eventually exploding for 100 damage (ignoring armor) over a large area.

The missile lasts for 15 seconds, and it can be outrun. In fact, it moves about as fast as a Medivac when its at a decent range from its target. However, if the Seeker Missile reaches a certain proximity to its target, it will speed up for the kill and explode.

Seeker Missiles hit both the air and ground, and they will do splash damage to your own troops. Firing them at incoming Speedlings would be a Bad Idea™. It’s also very easy for a group of Ravens to spread out as they begin to fire off Seeker Missiles, and a targeted troop running under them could cost you a lot of hurt.

Here’s some testing to show the size of the blast:

Note that many of the troops are hurt, but not killed like the ones at ground zero. There is a second small splash radius outside the first that only does 25 damage.

These things rock in all 3 match-ups, and they can easily do ridiculous damage in the right circumstances. BlasiuS recently posted a Terran Vs. Zerg replay at Megaupload (link is here) which clearly ends as soon as the Seeker Missiles fly. Nearly 40 supply worth of Mutalisks die in 2 missiles because they engaged in a pack. The results were ridiculous.

Here’s another example from a recent game between SssM(T) vs Jero(Z) on Desert Oasis : YouTube VOD Link.

Now, the Zerg could have technically out-microd the missiles by identifying the targeted Mutalisk (very difficult) and sending it away from the pack, or it could have simply run all of the Mutalisks away for 15 seconds. That second option is much more likely, but he would have definitely lost the expansion he was trying to defend for that response, and he would have lost any ground troops that were left behind in the process. That’s a great set of results for Terran.

The Wrap Up

The Seeker Missile gives Terran a way to answer late game clumps of powerful troops, and it gives the Raven a threat while in transit from one base to another. It also gives the Raven powerful harassment potential.

Two ravens could liquidate a supply line using Seeker Missiles and Auto Turrets. More Ravens could place Point Defense Drones to potentially bypass static defenses intended to keep them away from Supply Lines as well.

Science Vessels were exciting against Zerg and Protoss, but they often felt cheesy to play against as Zerg as they rolled across the map delivering Irradiate death sentences.

Seeker Missiles will be a bit harder to use due to the collateral damage possibilities, and the ability for the opponent to out-micro (imagine an Irradiate that could be completely disabled with one successful move action). Realistically, it’s tough to find time to do everything in Starcraft 2, and the Raven certainly puts the pressure on the opponent to perform.

Point Defense Drones often function as a one-sided Dark Swarm, or at the very least as a Defense Matrix spread out over an area. I can see them being used in all 3 match-ups, though especially vs. Zerg.

Auto Turrets give you a quick way to do some efficient damage and add extra incentive to stay away from certain positions, and they could easily be used against all 3 races. If you already need Detection from a mobile unit, this is an easy way to get extra use out of 1-2 Ravens built for that purpose.

Here’s hoping we see more endgame players using these things to hilarious results!