Starcraft – Psionic storms – how exactly do they work

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I'm trying to understand how exactly do psionic storms do damage, and how to deal with them.

  1. I understand they do damage-over-time – is that evenly spread over the storm's duration?
  2. How many times per second is a damage-over-time "packet" applied? i.e. how many times per second will a unit in the area-of-effect lose health?
  3. Do the storms do full damage to friendly units?
  4. Is it worth trying to run away from storms, or is it better to stay? Since if you run away they can storm you again, but they can't do it if you stay and fight because storms don't stack…
  5. Do the storms do regular damage, or do they have some special properties such as extra damage to some unit type, or armor-ignoring damage, etc?
  6. Do the storms hurt buildings? Do they hurt units inside bunkers? Do they hurt units inside transports? Do they hurt interceptors inside carriers?
  7. What is the range the Templar needs to be from the storm's center in order to cast it? Is it more than his view range?

EDIT:
According to this video, psionic storm does 10 points of damage every 0.35, but that results in total of 114 damage, which is not consistent with the damage I know they do (80). But maybe it hints that the damage is done every 0.35 seconds anyway.

Best Answer

Starcraft 1 has a different psionic storm than Starcraft 2, so I'll only be answering Starcraft 2

It is 80 damage spread out over 4 seconds. Psionic storm is true damage and is not reduced by abilities or armor. Any unit caught under the storm (friendly or otherwise) will take 80 damage if it remains for the full duration. Its worth noting that Zerg units at full health will regenerate 1 HP when first hit. Storms do not stack. Any unit under a storm gains the storm effect. It is this effect which conveys the damage. You can only have 1 storm effect at a time on a given unit.

Depending on your army composition running through storms is often recommended you run from storms. Because there is a slight animation delay (1.5 seconds) you can negate a large portion of the damage if you act quickly.

Storms only hurt units. Units inside bunkers or carriers or other transport are unaffected.

Storms have a range of 8.25 to 9.75 as they have a radius of 1.5. Smart cast means the closest templar will energy will cast the storm.

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