EPTGeneral:
Leagues & Ladders
- A new Grandmaster League has been added for 1v1 ladders. This league represents the Top 200 players in each region.
- Players are automatically drafted into Grandmaster League shortly after a new season starts, and will remain in the Grandmaster league until the end of the season. If a Grandmaster player’s available bonus points get too high due to inactivity, they will be automatically removed from the league and a replacement player will be drafted in.
- The Grandmaster League can be viewed by all players through the new Leagues & Ladders > Grandmaster tab
- The bonus pool has been reduced for arranged teams.
- Leagues will now be locked during the final weeks of the season. As a result players will not accumulate additional bonus points and will not be promoted or demoted out of their current division during this period.
- This will allow players to focus on moving up in their current league without being promoted during the final weeks of a season, and having to fight their way up from the bottom ranks of their new higher league.
- Players can still utilize any points they previously accumulated.
- Ladder data from the prior season can be viewed through the new Leagues & Ladders > Last Season tab.
- New league icons have been introduced to indicate division rank. These will indicate the Top 8, 25 and 50 players in each division.
- Loss counts are no longer displayed in Profile and Ladder pages for players below Master League.
Leagues & Ladders
- A new Grandmaster League has been added for 1v1 ladders. This league represents the Top 200 players in each region.
- Players are automatically drafted into Grandmaster League shortly after a new season starts, and will remain in the Grandmaster league until the end of the season. If a Grandmaster player’s available bonus points get too high due to inactivity, they will be automatically removed from the league and a replacement player will be drafted in.
- The Grandmaster League can be viewed by all players through the new Leagues & Ladders > Grandmaster tab
- The bonus pool has been reduced for arranged teams.
- Leagues will now be locked during the final weeks of the season. As a result players will not accumulate additional bonus points and will not be promoted or demoted out of their current division during this period.
- This will allow players to focus on moving up in their current league without being promoted during the final weeks of a season, and having to fight their way up from the bottom ranks of their new higher league.
- Players can still utilize any points they previously accumulated.
- Ladder data from the prior season can be viewed through the new Leagues & Ladders > Last Season tab.
- New league icons have been introduced to indicate division rank. These will indicate the Top 8, 25 and 50 players in each division.
- Loss counts are no longer displayed in Profile and Ladder pages for players below Master League.
One big addition and a few minor, but welcome tweaks. The addition of the grandmaster league will help anyone who stalks progamers for new build orders; shoving the best ladder players in the world into a single, easily accessible page will allow much easier access to their game histories. The privacy of these players is a concern, as is hiding a potential b.o. for the sake of tournament play, but at this point every progamer seems to have least one personal smurf as well as access to team accounts. If they want to practice privately, there's nothing preventing them from doing so.
Observer and Replay UI
- New panels are now available when observing or viewing a replay of 1v1 games. These panels can be toggled via hotkeys which are shown under the Leader Panel drop-down.
- Player Name Panel: Displays the players' name, team color, race, and supply count.
- Stat Comparison Panels: Shows a head-to-head comparison of players' Resources, Army Supply, Units Killed, or APM.
- In 1v1 observed games, both players’ resource rows are shown in the upper right at the same time.
- You can now toggle between player unit colors and team unit colors when watching a replay or observing.
- New panels are now available when observing or viewing a replay of 1v1 games. These panels can be toggled via hotkeys which are shown under the Leader Panel drop-down.
- Player Name Panel: Displays the players' name, team color, race, and supply count.
- Stat Comparison Panels: Shows a head-to-head comparison of players' Resources, Army Supply, Units Killed, or APM.
- In 1v1 observed games, both players’ resource rows are shown in the upper right at the same time.
- You can now toggle between player unit colors and team unit colors when watching a replay or observing.
I'll reserve 100% judgment until I see the actual implementation of these changes, but all seem like welcome additions, particularly the penultimate item re: parallel resource rows. I'm not clear on what "Stat Comparison Panels" refers to, as it seems redundant with the panels already in the game.
And now on to the Apocalypse of David Kim (which probably should be the last chapter of the StarCraft Bible).
Balance
GENERAL
- Players can no longer hide units by setting them in a close proximity patrol (Viking flower).
GENERAL
- Players can no longer hide units by setting them in a close proximity patrol (Viking flower).
I suspect there was an issue in TvT where viking battles would devolve into a situation in which the player with the first volley would win the battle and gain air dominance. In PvT and ZvT, however, the Viking Flower was just an invitation for a well-placed storm or fungal.
PROTOSS
Mothership
- Units leaving the Mothership's Vortex are now un-targetable and immune to damage for 1.5 seconds.
Mothership
- Units leaving the Mothership's Vortex are now un-targetable and immune to damage for 1.5 seconds.
This is an overreaction, as the archon toilet was never particularly easy to pull off and is generally viewed as the Protoss equivalent of dropping mules in your opponent's base in that you have the game won in any situation in which you attempt it. Moreover, it actually turns vortex into a last-ditch defensive spell, as now Protoss will have to vortex and run for fear of being rolled over by an untargetable and invincible enemy army once it emerges from the vortex.
High Templar
- Khaydarin Amulet upgrade (+25 starting energy) has been removed.
- Khaydarin Amulet upgrade (+25 starting energy) has been removed.
The last PTR sent the community into an uproar with the nerf to fungal; this is no different, and the removal of the amulet has no chance whatsoever of being implemented in the game. At present, Templar are primarily used as a means of crippling Terran who invest too heavily in Vikings to support their tier 1 infantry armies. Pre-PTR changes, they're more APM-intensive than colossi and take forever to become viable due to the necessity of both the storm and amulet research. In short, they're less useful than colossi in 90% of situations, the other 10% generally being storm drops and cases in which vikings or corrupters were overproduced.
Removing the amulet upgrade will do nothing but ensure that Protoss never make Templar. This change will never see the light of day.
Zealot
- Charging Zealots will now hit fleeing targets at least once.
- Charging Zealots will now hit fleeing targets at least once.
I didn't know this was an issue, but it looks like a reasonable change. Generally speaking, though, if you're running away from charging zealots, you're not in a good position to win the game.
TERRAN
Battlecruiser
- Movement speed increased from 1.406 to 1.875.
Bunker
- Build time increased from 35 to 40 seconds.
Tech Lab
- Stimpack upgrade research time increased from 140 to 170 seconds.
Battlecruiser
- Movement speed increased from 1.406 to 1.875.
Bunker
- Build time increased from 35 to 40 seconds.
Tech Lab
- Stimpack upgrade research time increased from 140 to 170 seconds.
BC speed means nothing to me, as I haven't seen BCs used effectively since their ATG damage was nerfed a while ago.
The bunker build time will help slightly in rebalancing ZvT, where 2-barracks play with bunker pushing remains a concern.
The stimpack change seems unnecessary, though. I've played zerg and protoss exclusively for months now, and I can't think of a single game in which stim arrived too quickly for me to deal with it. Concussive shells, yes, stim, no. If this change goes live, it provides Protoss with a much, much larger window for effective rushing, and MC's 6-gate, 2-base push in PvT will become even more ridiculous.
ZERG
Infestor
- Health increased from 90 to 110.
Fungal Growth
- Stun duration decreased from 8 to 4 seconds.
- Damage increased by +30% vs. armored units.
- Now fires a missile instead of being instant cast.
Infestor
- Health increased from 90 to 110.
Fungal Growth
- Stun duration decreased from 8 to 4 seconds.
- Damage increased by +30% vs. armored units.
- Now fires a missile instead of being instant cast.
Presumably the hp increase will allow infestors to get in a couple more hits with neural parasited units. I'd be more inclined to increase the range of NP by one, but I won't complain here.
I haven't had the chance to play around with the new version of fungal growth, but this looks like a redesign of the ability to my eyes. The change from instant case to projectile is a nerf, but the missile speed is fast enough that it won't be easily dodged like, say, the Seeker Missile. Presumably this will add a bit more skill back into the game, as an alert terran will be able to stim and retreat some of his units out of range.
The change in stun duration is a double-edged sword. For one, medvacs will now have a much harder time healing infantry units that are suffering damage at twice the original rate. On the other hand, zerg can now delay a terran push for only half as long as before. Taken together with the boost to damage against armored units, this seems to be an attempt to make fungal more useful as an offensive ability, not just a way of delaying attacks or preventing marines from splitting up against your banelings.
The final word: the loss of amulet should never see the light of day and is as ill advised as making fungal a ground-only spell. Templar were already the colossus's ugly kid brother; with this change, they'd be kicked out of the family altogether.
The research increase on stim is unnecessary. It does nothing to correct the imbalance in early game TvZ (which was never dependent on stim in the first place) and makes Terran even more vulnerable to Protoss when fast expanding.
And the jury is out on the changes to fungal growth.
