Is there a reason Original Queen of Blades doesn't scale her Primal self?

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I do understand that her Primal Queen of Blades should be more powerful, but it still seems iffy for her original Queen of Blades to be that much weaker; especially since she's still widely regarded as a threat that could terrorize the universe.

According to this video, which came from Wings of Liberty, Sarah Kerrigan was being portrayed as comparable if not superior to Zeratul. All of the Protoss heroes are High 6-A scaling from Primal QoB Kerrigan's feat. And also, while the Battlecruisers don't yet have a profile, I heard they were at least High 6-A due to being unsusceptible to the Protoss heroes and being comparable to the Carriers. Also, the Implosio ability is shown to be capable of one shotting Battle Cruisers via telekinesis and gravity manipulation. This might also be a massive upgrade to her lifting strength via telekinesis.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

We scaled the large ships as what they were in assumption that they had to be superior, since the Protoss heroes didn't just rip the Leviathans out of the sky when they invaded Auir.

However this may just be a case of PIS. Honestly with this new information I think we should downgrade the ships to 7-B (scaled from Battlecruisers which can level a city in one shot; unless a ship has ever survived being hit by a purifier beam we can't use Low 5-B) and scale normal QoB to that.

In which fight is Kerrigan equal to Zeratul? In the HotS fight Zeratul lets Kerrigan win so he can grab her head and share a vision with her.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Yeah, fair enough about the ships being downgraded. But the video I linked in which Kerrigan and Zeratul were portrayed as comparable came from Wings of Liberty. It came from the first flashback hierarchy; and since the first three missions are flashbacks, they technically take place before Zeratul came to the Hyperion to warn Jim Rayner and thus would be the original QoB. Zeratul was struggling to break out of her telekinesis, but cut off one of her tentacles.

Additionally, I personally just find it strange in general for the whole universe to be so afraid of Kerrigan if she was that much weaker than The Protoss heroes. In the end of the original StarCraft, Sarah Kerrigan's forces were more than a match for the combined forces of the Terran Dominion, the UED, and Artanis forces. There was also that time Kerrigan one shot killed Aldaris, and mind controlled the Matriarch; which strongly implies her psionic powers are superior to both of them. Aldaris should be comparable to Tassadar.

 

[DerpCity]

Personally, I feel that they could have just gotten stronger around the time HotS came around. Its not like its unheard of in fiction for characters to be able to suddenly fight or match characters that are way out of their league without any noticable improvements. If you both think an upgrade to the original QoB is in order though, I have no problem with it.

@Assalt Where does a battlecruiser one shot a city?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

To be fair, throughout most of Heart of the Swarm, Kerrigan is actually weaker than she was in Wings of Liberty; it's not till endgame and beyond that she surpassed her old self. But the separate keys for the Protoss heroes might also be reasonable, but characters like Tassadar would have to be downgraded if we did that.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

So perhaps we should add a key from the Protoss heroes of Post-WoL since they scaled up with Kerrigan? It doesn't make sense that Kerrigan would fight evenly with Zeratul, get a massive power boost, then still fight on par with Zeratul and Artanis. Unless they improved as well they should have gotten wiped by a stronger Kerrigan.

Also I'll try to find the city statement at home. I'm pretty sure it was a link in the Yamato Cannon's profile on the StarCraft 2 wiki.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Also I imagine Tassadar vaporizing his Carrier an using that energy to beat the Zerg is probably calcable. Is the statement explicit enough to use mass-energy conversion? That would probably also give High 6-A results.

 

[DerpCity]

IIRC, I think all Tassadar said was that he'd channel Dark Templar energies through the Ganthrithor right before he made a collision course to the Overmind, and I'm pretty sure visually the ship just kind of explodes and the energy blast just continues floating towards the Overmind, so I'm not sure if you could Mass/Energy convert it.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Destroying his ship to to point that it just goes away is pretty safe on vaporization. Without a more explicit statement mass/energy probably wouldn't fly.

 

[DerpCity]

That reminds me, I should probably get around to that Protoss units to scale calc... and getting pictures for the Zerg one but ehhhhh

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

And another thing, any changes to Kerrigan's lifting strength? If she can telekinetically lift the Battlecruiser, I believe that would be around Class M with telekinesis.

Also, I'm pretty sure of Newton's third law does apply giant energy beams; it's the primary reason Dragon Ball characters aren't glass cannons. Because if it does, then I don't think the Motherships can be glass cannons. I'm also positive their shields are composed of the same technology/energy source as their attacks, we scaled High Templar's durability to his AP for the same reasons. I could be wrong, but Small Planet level durability for Motherships and Carriers actually seems like a maybe.

And as I mentioned earlier, Heart of the Swarm Kerrigan was actually weaker than her Wings of Liberty self throughout most of the game, and persists in Legacy of the Void, which she surpassed her original Queen of Blades self.

 

[DerpCity]

Unless I missed a conversation, I don't think Motherships were ever glass cannons? Or was this just because we didn't scale the carrier's durability to their planet-burning lasers?

 

[Assaltwaffle]

The Purification Beams aren't used in combat, and I am pretty sure nothing has been hit by one.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Well, there is a calc for the Purifier that's Low 5-B, but the durability of Carrier is still Multi-Continent level durability. We didn't scale durability yet at least.

Edit: I know the Purifier's are never used for combat, because they probably don't want to destroy planets normally, but newton's third law is a scientific fact proving that durability should always scale to AP unless it's either a suicide attack or a bomb not technically connected to their ship. But the laser comes strait from their ship, so if the Mothership's durability didn't scale to the Purifier, the Mothership would theoretically explode the second a Purifier is used.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Yes, we don't scale durability for the Purification Beam. Also we were planning do downgrade the Battlecruiser, Carrier, and other massive ships to 7-B. The reason for this is b/c they were only High 6-A due to being superior to the heroes, but now it was found that QoB Kerrigan has the ability to destroy them. Therefore hitting the fallback feat of Battlecruisers one-shotting a city.

 

[Gemmysaur]

Battlecruisers - Have laser batteries of unknown AP though it has the reputation of being the strongest Terran vessel so it should at least scale to the lower ones; Has the Yamato Cannon which was mentioned to decimate cities; And, it has nukes.

"No discussion of the terran battlecruiser is complete without mention of the legendary Yamato cannon, a devastating plasma weapon with enough firepower to decimate cities. Mounted on the ship's prow, the big gun draws its intense power from the ship's power core, and then uses an intense magnetic field to focus a controlled nuclear explosion into a cohesive beam of energy. The cannon is so massive that it requires its own conversion generator and a dedicated fire-control station manned by nearly 100 gunnery specialists."

- Dominion Marine Corps Combat Handbook: Infantry Edition

It's Yamato is also higher than its durability except the Gorgon which can tank a few. It has FTL travel and a short-ranged warp drive.

Infested Kerriga iirc, defeated both Tassadar and Zeratul in the Queen of Blades novel, and the power that was absorbed by the Xel'Naga relic to revert her back to human was what was used to power the creation of Amon's body outside the void.

Tassadar in the novel was barely registering in Raynor's Marine sensors due to being too fast iirc, also used psi blades without bracers and shot it into the sky to down airborn enemies. He also turned his body and his entire Carrier into energy (though it's notable that there are pieces of it flying away. His sacrifice was also such that the Overmind was destroyed and sucked into the void. How do we make of that?

Zeratul outright spamdodged Tassadar.

That said, neither of them are really up to par with Kerrigan in SC1. It was only in SC2 where they had to make Artanis relevant beside her were the Protoss heroes that strong.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

I think downgrading the capital ships to 7-B is a good idea, while we give the Protoss Heroes a separate key. Gemmy is correct in saying that only after Wings of Liberty did the Protoss Heroes become relevant.

 

[DerpCity]

Now that I think about it, in the first mission of the Brood War Protoss campaign has you kill an Ultralisk with zealots, dragoons, and Zeratul right before getting access to a couple of high templar to make an Archon. I'm not going to argue that Zealots and Dragoons should be Ultralisk-tier, but Zeratul's Brood War key could be.

Other than that I agree with downgrading the capital ships and the Brood War heroes.

 

[Gemmysaur]

Psi blades and Warp blades nope durability anyway, so they could still do damage if they can sink it deep enough. That said, Zeratul is known for coming in and out of Zerg hive clusters so scaling him to the strongest land unit is not out of left field.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

I mean I was pretty sure that Zeratul and the Protoss heroes are above ultras even b4 Legacy of the Void, so that is kindof expected. And like Gemmy said, they can overwhelm the ultra with numbers and durability neg.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Yeah, I'm alright with 8-B pre Legacy of the Void Protoss heroes. Although, would Nova and possibly Jim Raynor's penetrator round (Once Jim Raynor gets a profile) also scale to the Ultralisks?

 

[Gemmysaur]

I dunno. Nova's tech isn't exactly anything special, though I can't play Nova Ops (or was it corps?) for money reasons.

Raynor's penetrator rounds should be at least hypersonic and fire shells big as a thumb and heavy enough to dig through earth just by falling. Maybe we could get something out of that.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I mean, though do severely injure various mid tier Zergs. Jim Raynor's infinite range is obviously game mechanics/NLF, but killing 50+ fodder with a single bullet is pretty impressive. Albeit, draining more than half a Nydus Worm's HP is where the money is at.

 

[Gemmysaur]

Raynor has infinite range? That's news to me.

Re: Nydus, it's impressive but we can't go off with hp damage. I only remember seeing a cinematic of it blasting through a hydralisk like a hot knife through butter. Does it have any other showings?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

The 8-B calc came from the Nydus Worm effortlessly penetrating through the ground. And yeah, I know HP damage is game mechanics, buy Raynor is canonically far superior to the average marine, as are Tychus and Horace.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Tunneling through stone, but that's what got it 8-B in the first place.

 

[Gemmysaur]

Nice tidbits:


Ghost rifles can shoot 5km away.


So... 8-B Penetrator for Raynor then? He's a glass cannon now, but at least he's got some dakka, I suppose.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Yeah, he does ^^, too bad Jimmy Vs Spike ain't gonna happen; would have been awesome to see a battle between two space cowboys.