Wraith (StarCraft)

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"Wraith awaiting launch orders!"

- Wraith pilot^(src)

Wraith
Unit
Race	Terran
Role	Cloaked Aerospace Fighter
Armament	25 mm burst lasers Gemini AA missiles
Properties
Maximum energy	200 (init. 50)
Size	Large
Sight	7
Production
Minerals	150
Gas	100
Supply	2
Build time	60
Produced from	Starport
Hotkey	W
Movement
Speed	6.67
Protection
Hit points	120
Combat
Ground attack	8
Air attack	20
Cooldown	30 (ground) 22 (air)
Attack range	5

The Wraith is a terran air unit in StarCraft. It is voiced by Glenn Stafford.

Overview

The Wraith is most effective as a mobile anti-air option, especially against large-sized air targets such as battlecruisers, Valkyries, overlords, devourers, guardians, scouts, arbiters, and carriers.

With the Apollo Reactor upgrade a Wraith can remain cloaked for over 3.5 minutes.

The ground attack and cloak make Wraiths useful for harassing the workers of poorly defended expansions. They're also useful for picking out lone units scouting before the opposition can react. They can also harass ground units that cannot fire back, such as opposing siege tanks, forcing the enemy to build anti-air options of their own. Wraiths, however, have a weak and slow-firing ground attack, are fairly fragile against most units that can fire back, and easily damaged due to their zero starting armor. While this can be mitigated with their cloaking ability, Wraiths are generally still not massable due to their cost. For the same price, siege tanks are the far superior option versus ground targets, while goliaths have both superior anti-air attack and ground attack for a cheaper price. The Wraith must take advantage of its speed and flying mobility to be cost effective.

In the campaign, they become available during the mission "Revolution" in Episode I and in "Ruins of Tarsonis" in Episode V.

Abilities

Cloaking Field

The Wraith can cloak. It can still attack while cloaked.

Usage
Hotkey C Cost 25 (+1 per second)

Acquisition
Purchased from Control tower Hotkey C Cost 150 150 100

v • e

Upgrades

Ship Weapons

• +1 bonus to attack per level for Wraith ground attack and Valkyrie attack.
• +2 bonus to attack per level for Wraith air attack.
• +3 bonus to attack per level for battlecruiser attack.

Acquisition
Purchased from Armory Hotkey S Level 1 Cost 100 100 267 Level 2 Cost 150 150 300 Required Science facility Level 3 Cost 200 200 333 Required Science facility

v • e

Ship Plating

• +1 armor to Wraith, dropship, battlecruiser, science vessel, Valkyrie per level.

Acquisition
Purchased from Armory Hotkey H Level 1 Cost 150 150 267 Level 2 Cost 225 225 300 Required Science facility Level 3 Cost 300 300 333 Required Science facility

v • e

Apollo Reactor

• Increases the Wraith's energy by 50.
• Increases starting energy from 50 to 62.5.

Acquisition
Purchased from Control tower Hotkey A Cost 200 200 166

Wraith Heroes

• Tom Kazansky

Quotations

Quotes
Trained
Wraith awaiting launch orders.
Selected	Confirming order
Go ahead command. Transmit coordinates. Standing by. Reporting in.	Coordinates received. Attack formation. Roger. Vector, locked in.
Repeatedly selected
Last transmission... breakin' up... come back. I'm just curious, why am I so good? I gotta get me one of these. You know who the best star fighter in the fleet is? Yours truly. Everybody's gotta die sometime, Red. I am invincible, that's right.
Other lines
Death. Abilities Cloaking Field 1. Cloaking Field 2.

Development

StarCraft alpha Phoenix

During development, the Wraith was known as the Phoenix. In the StarCraft alpha the craft had a different appearance In the StarCraft beta, while the original name was retained, the craft had an appearance identical to its end successor. Both versions of this craft had Gemini missiles. Its unit profile bore resemblance to the marine. The name has since been adopted by a StarCraft II protoss unit.

Early versions of the StarCraft manual state that wraith's the Apollo Reactor and Cloak upgrades were to be researched at the physics lab, and instead the control tower would have a Burst Laser upgrade that would allow wraiths to attack ground. This was changed for later releases of the manual.

Images

Wraith's manual art

Phoenix (alpha wraith) in action

Unit wireframe

Remastered unit wireframe

References

Terran Units and Structures of StarCraft/Brood War v • e

Infantry SCV Marine Firebat Medic (BW) Ghost Ground vehicles Vulture Goliath Siege tank Air units Wraith Dropship Valkyrie (BW) Science vessel Battlecruiser Basic buildings Command center ComSat station Nuclear silo Supply depot Engineering bay Barracks Refinery Missile turret Academy Bunker Advanced buildings Factory Machine shop Armory Starport Control tower Science facility Physics lab Covert ops Other Nuclear missile Spider mine Scrapped units Cargo ship Merc biker Mercenary gunship Raider Spysat Scrapped buildings Cantina Dry docks Power station Repair bay Star base