Heart of the Swarm units revealed

The Heart of the Swarm trailer from BlizzCon is out, and pictures (Terran, Protoss, Zerg) have been leaked. Read after the break for a detailed walkthrough on the new units and features.

Quick Links: Unit videos (YouTube playlist), full list of changes

Zerg

  • Banelings get an upgrade to allow burrowed movement similar to Roaches
  • Hydralisk gets a speed upgrade which only increases off-creep spead
  • Corruptor gets a new channeled ability – do 1 DPS to (friendly?) building for 1 mineral/second income
  • Ultralisk gets a charge ability – burrows, sprints and un-burrows under its target
  • New unit: Swarm Host – acts like a ground Brood Lord, slowly spawns high DPS units while burrowed
  • Overseer removed from game
  • New unit: Viper – flying support unit with 3 abilities
    • Occular Power – give any friendly unit permanent detection
    • Blinding Cloud – temporarily reduces the attack range of all ground units inside the cloud to melee range, and prevents energy-based abilities from being used
    • Abduct – pull any unit (friendly or not) towards it

Protoss

  • Nexus gets two new abilities: Mass Recall (like a Mothership) for 75 energy and Arc Cannon – temporarily (20 seconds) add additional shield and building armor, as well as a weapon similar to a photon cannon but only does damage vs light units – 25 energy
  • New unit: Replicant – expensive unit that transforms into an enemy unit
  • New unit: Tempest – slow but strong air-to-air AoE, best vs light targets – “strong beam” against ground targets
  • Carriers + Mothership removed from game
  • New unit: Oracle – has 4 abilities (some may be passive)
    • Entomb – denies mining from mineral patches through forcefields that can be attacked
    • Preordain – grants vision of a targeted enemy building, allowing you to see what’s being made or researched there
    • Phase Shift – prevents a building (friendly or enemy) from being attacked, using its attacks (so can be used vs static defense), or researching (also denies tech – i.e. use it on a Spire and the Zerg cannot build air units)

Terran

  • Reaper anti-building attack removed, but heals by itself when out of combat
  • Ghost cloak is no longer a on/off ability, but a static spell that costs X energy and grants cloak for Y seconds
  • Hellions can transform into battle mode, essentially functioning like Firebats (video)
  • Battlecruiser gets an ability to boost movement speed for a short period of time
  • New unit: Warhound – Factory unit, bonus damage vs mechanical units, AoE anti-air like old Thor
  • New unit: Shredder – does no damage while moving, but deploy it and it does constant AoE damage around it – stops attacking any time a friendly unit enters its attack radius
  • Thor gets a major overhaul
    • you can only have one at the time
    • costs 600 minerals, requires Fusion Core
    • anti-air attack replaced with the AoE from single player (must be researched)

Other

  • Collapsible rocks will allow you to block paths by attacking them – can probably be destroyed again

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=277868