The Wraith has been replaced by the Viking in the anti-air role, while the Banshee is far superior in the ground attack role and inherits the Wraith's cloaking ability.
Compared to the Viking, the Wraith is more expensive, slower to build and has much lower air-to-air range, but has the advantages of cloaking, higher speed, and being able to attack ground targets from the air. The damage output of their missiles is a trade-off - the Viking's missiles do more damage (10 +4 versus the wraith's 5 +5), but the Wraith attacks faster. The Viking also has the advantage of not requiring a tech lab, though this is circumvented if the player gets tech reactors.
Strategy[]
Development image
Compared to the Banshee, the Wraith costs one less supply, builds and moves faster, and is able to attack air targets. However, the Banshee costs less vespene gas, and does significantly greater damage to ground targets. As an overall, the Banshee and Viking are preferable to the Wraith, but if the player wishes for an entirely cloaked force, then a fleet of Banshees and Wraiths is perfectly viable.
These improved power cells provide the wraith with a large up-front energy reserve. This allows newly built wraiths to instantly engage in missions with heavy cloaking requirements, rather than having to wait for the reactor to build up a sufficient charge.
ATVX has developed an improved cloaking field that can radically alter the course of incoming projectiles. Field tests have shown that roughly 20% of incoming hits will miss a detected wraith entirely if cloaking is still engaged.[2]
Increase starting energy of all units by 100. Increase maximum energy of all units by 100.[3]
This reactor has a larger energy reserve on startup and can hold a much larger charge. Now our specialist units can use their abilities the moment they hit the battlefield, and they can store more energy when idle for long periods of time. All "Specialists units" use energy: such as the medic, ghost, spectre, thor, wraith, banshee, raven, science vessel and battlecruiser.
Damaged mechanical units recover hit points when out of combat, at a rate of 0.6015 each second.[3]
Our ship and vehicle hulls are now made from a material called Regenerative Bio-Steel. This material uses internal nanobots to slowly repair any damage the hull sustains. While this regeneration process is much slower than conventional SCV repairs, it can be the difference between life and death if no SCVs are available.
Attack upgrades improve attack cooldown of affected units by 5% per level.
These self-replicating ultra capacitors reduce the reload time of weapons and systems. Now each of the weapon upgrades at the armory and engineering bay increases attack speed by 5% in addition to increasing damage.
Armor upgrades increase health of affected units by 5% per level.[4]
We have created a new lightweight alloy called vanadium. Vanadium diffuses weapon impacts much more efficiently than traditional armor plating, and it better preserves the life of our units. Now each of the armor upgrades in the armory and engineering bay increases unit life by 5% in addition to increasing armor.
These upgrades only apply to Swann's version. For the effects of Han & Horner's, see Asteria wraith
Due to their lower gas cost, build time, and no requirement of a tech lab/tech reactor to produce, they are much easier to produce. They also come with cloaking already researched for free, and have commander and unit specific upgrades make up for the shortcomings of the campaign unit's poor survivability and damage.
Cloaking Field
Cloaks the Wraith, preventing enemy units from seeing or attacking it. A cloaked Wraith will only be revealed by detectors or effects.
