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http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19886262/legacy-of-the-void-beta-balance-update-september-3-2015-9-3-2015
Below are the latest balance changes for the StarCraft II Legacy of the Void Beta. Let us know what you think once you've gotten a chance to test them out.
Protoss
- Zealot
- Zealot Charge damage decreased from 30 to 8.
- Chrono boost is back.
- No energy cost.
Ability is set to autocast by default on the Nexus.
Efficiency is reduced to 20%, but never expires.
- Warpgate research time increased to 160 from 140.
- Photon overcharge
- Overcharge can only be cast on Pylons.
- Has an attack range of 7.
- Has a duration of 30.
- Costs 25 energy.
- Deals 30 damage every 1.25 seconds.
- Colossus
- Increased upgraded range to 9 from 8.
- Tempest
- Now functions as it does in Heart of the Swarm.
- Immortal
- Barrier ability is set to autocast by default.
- Triggers when Immortal is attacked.
- Oracle
- Revelation cast range increased to 12 from 9.
- Carrier
- Increased the cooldown for Release Interceptors to 40 from 20.
Terran
- Orbital Command
- Calldown: MULE is back.
- Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals.
- No energy cost.
- Now has a cooldown.
- 30 range from casting Orbital Command.
- Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
- Scanner Sweep cost increased to 100 from 50.
- Calldown: Extra Supplies cost increased to 75 from 50.
- Siege Tank
- Now has a 0.75 second delay before firing when unloading from a Medivac while in siege mode.
Zerg
- Spawn larva increased from 2 to 3 per cast.
- Creep now spreads and recedes faster.
- Ravager
- New Upgrade: Increases the corrosive bile range to 13 from 9.
- Costs 100/100.
- Requires a Lair.
- Overlord
- Transport upgrade requires a Lair.
For a more in-depth explanation of these changes, read David Kim’s Community Update.
Edit: could a mod please change the title of the thread to something like "Balance Update -- September 3, 2015". I messed up. 
Edit2: Thank you, mysterious HTML god.
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So what's your opinion Big J?
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On September 04 2015 07:29 Tuczniak wrote:
So what's your opinion Big J?
Not sure. The macro stuff feels a bit like they are just trying to balance it out without having to do deeper changes. Which is not what I would have hoped for, but since I like the idea of not having to inject all game long I still like the general direction of those changes.
Zergling drops, yeah, well it's not something that is necessary to nerf but I personally don't like to have lings in my base at 3mins so designwise I think it's nice. If drops are not good enough later on I believe they should tinker with overlord speed, which is currently slower than unstimmed marines (after the speed upgrade).
Colossus change is a small tweak, no clue what it will do. Probably nothing. But it's nice that they do those little tweaks to underused units.
The zealot thing sounds reasonable.
The warpgate nerf is probably reasonable with the reinstated chronoboost.
The tank thing is not good imo. It makes the unit less responsive. Again, not the biggest fan of tank drops to begin with designwise because you start counteracting the tank weakness and forcing the terran to make medivacs with every composition and micro medivacs regardless of what your gameplan is. But if they go that direction, I really dislike that they make the tank micro pay off less, because it is absolutely not imbalanced right now I think? Maybe it's better for TvT but no clue...
Photon Overcharge no clue... gotta try.
Love the immortal change, it's something I have been suggesting a lot. Makes it really interesting to try and trigger the barrier for the opponent, while the protoss doesn't need to click every ability every battle. It's a nice change for both sides I think.
Creep change sounds great.
Ravager upgrade needs to be tested. Could be nice to make them useful later on and counteract lurkers in ZvZ.
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I'm honestly thinking they don't know what to do anymore with the macro mechanics, because having them as auto cast for every race makes them so awkward.
It's a non mechanic that exist only because everything else in the game was balanced around them for years.
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On September 04 2015 07:40 Noocta wrote:
I'm honestly thinking they don't know what to do anymore with the macro mechanics, because having them as auto cast for every race makes them so awkward.
It's a non mechanic that exist only because everything else in the game was balanced around them for years.
Kind of true for mules and injects, but I mean that's kind of like a reactor, right? I think the automated injects are a bit like a reactor. You could build a second barracks for a similar effect, but build orderwise getting a queen might make more sense and be more costefficient. And you can interact with the ractor/queen more than just with another tanky barracks/hatchery.
Mules, yeah, they feel very much like a bandaid solution. But whatever, if you don't have to control it is it really a problem for the actual gameplay?
Chrono as they made it still gives you a lot of choices.
On September 04 2015 07:37 mishimaBeef wrote:
When does it go live?
It just went live.
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SoCal8933 Posts
On September 04 2015 07:40 Noocta wrote:
I'm honestly thinking they don't know what to do anymore with the macro mechanics, because having them as auto cast for every race makes them so awkward.
It's a non mechanic that exist only because everything else in the game was balanced around them for years.
its awkward but i can get used to it after a while. im hoping that this makes the game have less zerg players in it so i dont have to play zvz 9/10 games :D
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I still have a bad feeling with queens. Right now they basically just sit there at your hatcheries all game, acting as a point of weakness to drastically affect Zergs ability to produce. A queen is more of a liability than anything. Also building one queen per hatchery is essentially a must in terms of how a Zerg should play. It doesn't really offer any unique style of anything. If you don't do it, you will most likely lose, especially in ZvZ.
I wish a queens role would change more toward a defensive, map control unit more so than a hatchery hugger. If I have to pull my queens away to defend I am punished by potentially delaying an inject. Most games I might end up making an extra queen or two to spread creep, so now I have 2 supply per hatchery just to increase production rates + 4-6 supply to spread creep and maybe transfuse. If I'm on 3 base, that's 6 supply just AFK'ing. It just feels like a big band-aid. Blizzard has the potential to do something really cool with queens, or at least make them more present on the maps.
It would just be huge game changer if queens were more active throughout the entire game, and if they could be used more as a defensive unit without being a liability to macro. I have to say the creep change will be interesting to see, it's just unfortunate that most games I try to limit my queen building to one per base. Also still no fix for auto injecting as soon as the queen spawns, bummer.
I believe the purpose was to try to step away from forcing the different races into doing things to stay alive that didn't really make the game interesting, larva inject, mules, chrono. I hope to see a few more changes to the queen to make it a much more active unit within Zerg games.
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I'm really concerned about this overcharge. Have they not considered the potential for offensive pylons....
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On September 04 2015 08:05 WhiteLuminous wrote:
I'm really concerned about this overcharge. Have they not considered the potential for offensive pylons....
The new PO is insane. The damage output is so insane and the cost is way too low. It's not even about offensive pylons, it's just insanely strong... 33% more damage, 75% less energy cost, castable on a pylon instead of nexus only for the cost of 6range? Who came up with this?
Edit: Probably shouldn't be too quick on it, but it feels pretty insane...
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Why can't overseers just get drop by default? That way Zerg drops in the mid game would actually be useful with a unit that is not only a great forward scouting unit but is relatively speedy with the upgrade.
Also, really digging these changes, I'm really liking the reduced autocast mechanics (am I in the minority on this?) because as long as they are there, Queens/Mules will still be valuable to defend/destroy and it frees up time for better mechanics to shine through, like great creep spread, better unit control ect which in LOTV seems to be alot more important then just massing supply quickly.
A bit sad that some units are not getting the attention they rightfully deserve, the Infestor is still bad, Ultralisks are still OP, Adepts usefulness still tanks in the mid - late game while they are hilariously powerful early game especially vs. Terran.
I don't know, maybe I'm asking for more of these small little balance tunes like this patch appears to be, but time will bring these I guess...if I want to be an optimist even for a second.
Honestly it's a good patch, eager to play it out.
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I'm glad Blizzard is constantly tweaking the beta. Excited to try these new changes out.
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What sucks is that automule keeps muling your main so it mines out really quickly. Not beeing able to drop all mules on the third base messes things up badly.
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On September 04 2015 08:05 WhiteLuminous wrote:
I'm really concerned about this overcharge. Have they not considered the potential for offensive pylons....
The game literally patched itself between the games on my ladder session. Without notifying me. First thing I see is a freaking Pylon shooting my mineral line on dash & terminal over the wall. Never been so confused. Never had so much fun either adapting to the game. That was most random thing to happen to me today.
I'm pretty sure someone is going to break this thing somehow. Let's wait and see.
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The automule spams the same patch over and over and over unless it tries to start mining the moment before the old mule dies. This is awful behavior. Optimal macro means having to manually control your mules.
The CCs should do something like prioritize the highest patch or have a secondary mule rally somehow. My dream behavior would be having a mule rally button where you pick a mineral line and then the mule calldown prioritizes the highest patch in that field.
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The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
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Let's put everything on autocast wooooo. Back when they removed auto-cast from locust I got really hopeful that we were done with that crap. I mean I am fine with it being on charge, but that's about it.
Zerg feels way too easy and it's really boring to play without inject. I always figured they added inject to make up for the fact that zerg macro would be way too easy with MBS, but I guess that was never the case. They should at least reward players for turning autocast off and using "makro mechanics" manually. Maybe put a 5 second delay on the autocast version, so they'll still get whatever they want from this, but players with high apm are still rewarded.
The drop change sucks as well, it was such a nice addition to zerg, especially given how underused drops are for zerg in sc2 history and it was my favourite counter to cannon rush ever. Also really looking forward to getting pylon rushed.
I honestly thought LOTV was 1000 times better than hots and getting invited to the beta seriously revived my sc2 passion, in fact I haven't been as motivated to play as this since wol. I thought removing mule was a pretty cool move and I was ok with loosing chrono for it, but all this autocast crap has seriously killed my desire to play at all. I might just wait till the next patch tbh...
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So now I can pylon rush. I no longer have to get a pylon and a cannon up - just a pylon and then I overcharge it. On a normal cannon rush I kill the pylon before the cannon finishes, but now ...
Might be OK as you would need two pylons to kill a hatch (1440 damage over the 30 seconds plus extra from the probe attacking the Hatch).
So take a depised tactic of cannon rushing which has recently been consigned to the grave and buff it by making it earlier.
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On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote:
The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
I had access on Day 1. I'm so glad I have yet to even install it. With all these changes it seems like they are just lost in what to do. 
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On September 04 2015 08:28 DeadByDawn wrote:
So now I can pylon rush. I no longer have to get a pylon and a cannon up - just a pylon and then I overcharge it. On a normal cannon rush I kill the pylon before the cannon finishes, but now ...
Might be OK as you would need two pylons to kill a hatch (1440 damage over the 30 seconds plus extra from the probe attacking the Hatch).
So take a depised tactic of cannon rushing which has recently been consigned to the grave and buff it by making it earlier.
Well, you'd have to get a mothership core over there, obviously. Hopefully by the time you can build a core and get it over to your enemy's base, they can deal with a pylon or two.
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EPT
