HotS balance update #8 - Page 17
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Sumahi
Guam5609 Posts
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sitromit
7051 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:25 Mr. Nefarious wrote: ZvT is going to be Stim Medivac behind mineral line, regen marines at 15hp/sec in an impossible position, GG. Can't wait. Playing HOTS was the first time since I played Terran in WOL that I actually felt like I had real tech choices and could build powerful units that could really pressure my opponent. These changes are obscene buffs in many places with almost nothing Z gets to deal with them. Mutas become laughably bad in ZvT, a 15hp/sec healing medivac becomes impossible to overcome with even 2-3 marines. Thors counter Mutas even harder, PvZ Mutas went from "ok" to "yeah right". Extra range on the phoenix for free, Oracle now does 25dmg vs light at .86 attack speed... lol. Glad my now slightly faster mutas can fly in a bit faster to get steamrolled. Also, DT shrine now cheaper than Hydralisk den. Uninstalled until next patch. This 100%. They say they want to make Mutalisks viable, then they make everything pretty much hard counter them. Mutalisk play will be even less viable than in WoL with these changes. Infestors are nerfed into the ground too, but hey we have Hydralisks, LOL. | ||
eviltomahawk
United States11133 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:37 HolydaKing wrote: Zerglings definitely won't be enough to kill even marines behind minerals now. ^^ The solution is to nerf minerals. Make them destructable minerals, since minerals are just shiny rocks in the end. | ||
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:36 Breach_hu wrote: Because your amove is better than others amove? Or your bad at Starcraft 2 and assume you lost to a professional player because its the games fault? | ||
Blisse
Canada3710 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:29 Breach_hu wrote: Yes it was, every Zerg just made roaches/swarmhosts to pressure/survive, then Hydras to get more DPS and get Vipers later on, and every matchup got solved, and they could do that while they had 4-5k in the bank, beating maxed out P or T armies with a lots of tanks (hello blinding cloud) and abduct made colossi look silly. It was really funny to have an army as terran (i played againts Idra like 3-4 games on ladder for example) and he just rolled a 200/200 2-2 terran army with 2-2 roach/hydra backed up with 4-5 fully charged viper (hello consume) not even losing half of his army. My army was spread out to negate blinding cloud's effect, but even then my tanks werent shooting at all and i just witnessed that he just murdered my army with an army which has 5k less army value. IdrA has said a lot of times on his stream that there's no one good playing HotS right now so there's really no merit in discussing whether the changes are OP or not. This things take time to be decided. Just because you've run into a wall doesn't mean it's OP. | ||
larse
1611 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:37 HolydaKing wrote: Zerglings definitely won't be enough to kill even marines behind minerals now. ^^ Maybe that's why they buff the hydra and viper? They want to bring back the BW style ![]() | ||
Breach_hu
Hungary2431 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:36 Plansix wrote: There is a strong chance he was better at Starcraft than you and that is the reason you lost. I can send that replay, it will change your mind very fast about this, Idra is better than me, I can agree with that, but if you know the power of the units, and what they are capable of, then you wont think that 20 tanks can be killed by roach hydra without taking very serious damage. Maybe i just used the wrong siege tanks. | ||
Qikz
United Kingdom12022 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:37 HolydaKing wrote: Zerglings definitely won't be enough to kill even marines behind minerals now. ^^ I heard banelings are pretty good against marines. | ||
a176
Canada6688 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:34 larse wrote: With the widow mine upgrade, we can now forcefully move or drop into enemy army and burrow, then boom! they still have pretty low hp so not quite ![]() | ||
Demonhunter04
1530 Posts
On December 06 2012 08:23 Cracy wrote: To accompany the deployment of Heart of the Swarm Beta patch 2.0.2, we’ve compiled a list of all of the balance changes made to the beta since our previous update. Terran Medivac New ability: Emergency Thrusters Speed boost that increases movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. 20 second cooldown. The Medivac’s Caduceus Reactor upgrade at the Starport Tech Lab: Health restored per second from 9 to 15. Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy. Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds. Ok, so it increases heal rate and efficiency by 67%....caduceus reactor went from one of the worst to one of the best upgrades in the game. They didn't make it clear whether or not the cost of medivacs changes because of the upgrade or is just changed overall, but I suspect it's the latter. Thor 250mm Strike Cannons has been removed. The Thor can now switch between two modes: High-Impact Payload and Explosive Payload. The mode shift takes 4 seconds. When in High-Impact Payload mode, the Thor switches to a different anti-air gun (250mm Punisher Cannons) that has 10 range and deals 24 flat damage. Thor radius, inner radius, and separation radius increased from 0.8215 to 1. So thors can now be used much more effectively vs air units other than phoenixes, banshees, ravens, and mutalisks. I'm wondering what the rate of fire is on the new weapon. Probably the same, 3 seconds. So it's still more of a short-term solution against powerful ATS units, so you can fend them off till you can muster some vikings. Increased thor size is going to make them even worse off in tightly packed situations, so an air force could use terrain against Thors very easily. With increased size (and therefore surface area), zerglings and roaches will be even better against them. But now thors are immune to feedback... Raven Seeker Missile has been redesigned: Can now fire from 10 range. Missile comes out and stays immobile in front of the Raven for 3 seconds while charging up, then rapidly moves (it’s not dodgeable at this point) and explodes at the target for 300 single target damage. Targeted unit lights up red when targeted. If the unit moves 13 range out of where the Seeker Missile is, the Missile fizzles. Nice, anti-brood lord/queen/swarm host/carrier/tempest/immortal/colossus ability. The old seeker missile's ability to chase away packs of units will be missed, though. Could've made for some interesting tactical situations. Hellbat Splash damage radius increased from 90 to 110. Didn't they say they wanted to make it more effective vs melee units only? This sorta does it, but so would making the fire do damage inversely proportional to distance. And increased splash helps vs all units. Armory The Armory now only has one weapon and one armor upgrade for both air and ground upgrades for both Factory and Starport units. Awesome, now tech switches from enemies won't be so crippling to mech. Protoss Mothership Recall now functions as it does with the Mothership Core. Vortex now kills a single target. Vortex does not affect massive units. What does it mean "it now kills a single target"? The spell must look completely different and I hope the energy cost changed, too, since it doesn't affect massive units. Phoenix Range increased from 4 to 5. Upgrade still grants +2 range. Lol 7 range phoenix, not bad. May be necessary because of the muta speed buff. Dark Shrine Cost is now 100/100, down from 100/250. Thought they wanted to make DTs better in the lategame...this has a much bigger effect on the early game. But this could be quite good. Tempest Now requires Fleet Beacon. Attacks with two weapons. The primary weapon, Kinetic Overload, hits air units and remains unchanged. The secondary weapon, Resonance Coil, hits ground units, and does not deal bonus damage to massive units. Build time is now 60, down from 75. A bit of a contrived change to make tempests not negate ultralisks. I hope they go to the effort of making the attacks look different. Void Ray Prismatic Beam: No longer charges up. Weapon period decreased from 0.6 to 0.5. No longer does passive +massive damage. Prismatic Alignment (new ability) increases damage to armored units by 6 for 20 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown. This does not scale with upgrades. Wow, 20% flat damage buff (from the attack speed change), and a flat +6 damage to armored boost for 20 seconds...ok so this still doesn't make the void ray require much in the way of micro. Void rays are way stronger vs armored units now, and at the same time, it could be good vs a whole host of light units. Guess void rays will still be the thing to spam in FFA xD. The void ray/pheonix/oracle army that Blizz wants to be viable would still be quite weak to marines, especially when combined with thors, so it might be easy to counter. Time will tell. The zerg counter would be the obvious infestor-corruptor combo; hydralisk-viper will likely get owned. Zerg Mutalisk Speed increased from 3.75 to 4. Acceleration stays at 3.5. Mutalisk harass is gonna be awesome with this change. Infestor Fungal Growth: Is now a projectile. Speed of the projectile is 10. Range down to 8. Infested Terrans no longer gain weapon and armor upgrades. Infested Terran egg health down to 70. Fungal is still a root, unfortunately, but at least it can be dodged more easily and infested terrans have been nerfed. It makes sense that the gauss rifle wouldn't benefit from Zerg ranged attack upgrades, anyway. Ultralisk Burrow Charge has been removed. Damage changed from 15+20 armored to 35 flat damage. I'll miss burrow charge because it looked cool, but this new damage...it's back to early WoL. Marines, zealots, and zerglings are going to melt to ultralisks (well-microed marines will still beat them cost efficiently). | ||
Blisse
Canada3710 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:38 larse wrote: Maybe that's why they buff the hydra and viper? They want to bring back the BW style ![]() They could definitely bring out the 6 mineral 1 gas bases and now everyone's happy. | ||
Nightshade_
United States549 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:37 larse wrote: Wow, some insights there. Haven't think about that yet. GJ. It does both Air and ground attack simultaneously, calling it. | ||
Sithril
Slovakia169 Posts
Blizzard has really done THIS?!? If anyone from Blizz is reading this: hugs, brofists and mannered handshakes to you! This patch is unbelievable! So excited. My favorite patch so far. | ||
kochanfe
Micronesia1338 Posts
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Veldril
Thailand1817 Posts
On December 06 2012 09:27 larse wrote: ok. But it loses the Light-bonus. So it's a trade-off. The buff is not very significant though. Good thing is that you can switch between two modes. If the opponent use a lot of light flying unit (i.e. Muta or Phoenix) then Thor still can kill them with anti-light AA missiles. In later stage of the game, they can switch to single target AA cannon with flat damage. This should increase Thor viability in the long game and make mech more complete. | ||
Nightshade_
United States549 Posts
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Moka
Canada942 Posts
They should replace Vortex with: -Call from Aiur, 175 energy Instantly summon 5 Dragoons, 3 Dark Archons and 5 Corsairs for 40 seconds. + Show Spoiler + I haz a dreamz | ||
Rainling
United States456 Posts
One improvement I can think of is intrigue's idea, making the medivac speed increase a toggled ability that drains mana, similar to banshee cloak. That way it would be a more flexible ability and you wouldn't feel compelled to use it every time the cooldown ended. This would create an interesting dynamic between preserving energy for healing and using it to escape attacking units. I also think making fungal slow and damage an area instead of a complete immobilization would make infestors more interesting to play with and against. You could micro units out of the slow area, and the zerg would need to predict where enemy units would move and preemptively fungal there to continue the slowing and damaging affect. Again, this isn't my idea, this is from a comment on a youtube video (username FS11111). | ||
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Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
I dont understand any of the protoss changes tho, but probably because I haven't played HotS really. @Above: using mana for medivac speed boost sounds completely awesome. | ||
HaRuHi
1220 Posts
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