Beta Balance Update #9 - Page 41

On December 17 2012 23:25 kaNt- wrote:
I hope Blizzard focus on bio with Terran, cause mech is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO damn boring to play/watch. Especially TvT.

On December 18 2012 07:37 severetim wrote:
i dont want to make a thread for this so ill post it here. Heres all the balance ideas i have for HOTS.

im just posting this because i wanna hear some opinions if you think these are good ideas or not cuz ill take what i think are my top3 best ideas and post them alot on the b.net forums.

So if u wanna help me pick 1-2 of my ideas and If you think something is a really bad idea tell me why, or a really good idea tell me why. wont bother explaining the *why*, ill just post my ultimate conclusions and if you wanna know the *why* behind a certain conclusion ask me and ill say my reasoning



Seeker Missile:

Energy cost 125
Range 11
flight speed reduced, flight time is infinite so it always strikes its target, very slowly increases speed. flight speed starts at 2.5 and increases by 0.5 every 5 seconds
damage is 100 to initial target, 20 damage in 2.0 aoe (not scaling like current HSM, 20 flat aoe damage)

Ghost Snipe / Cloak:

Snipe 100 damage for 100 energy, refunds 25 when used against psionic. 30 second cooldown.
Ghost cloak is permanent and uses no energy once upgraded. Ghost cloak upgrade cost is 250/250

There might be some mass ghost imbalance against zerg by sniping overseers (possibly a fix could be to give overseers a innate -75% resistance to spells)

Reapers / Mutas:

seem to be greatly balanced now in hots and your going in the right direction. The increased reaper speed and regen is nice for early game power.

Medivac healing rate increase:

I dont think its that overpowered. Seems to be a nice boost but considering mass fungals/banelings/broodlords OR collossi/storm splash the healing boost isnt that massive of a change (who cares about an extra 5 health per second when hundreds of splash damage is being thrown out)

The medivac heal does seem a bit too strong in the midgame (but balanced lategame) and it should possibly be a fusion core upgrade

Vipers:

Cloud removed, HP highly increased (blizzard can balance the numbers), costs 2food, no longer psionic, energy removed, abduct spell is 30 second cooldown no energy required. cost is 100/150. now moves at 3.3 speed

Vipers now have a 11range anti-building acid attack that attacks only buildings and applies a stacking spell damage acid to buildings. blizzard can balance the numbers.

*cloud is just impossible to really balance properly. vipers cloud will either suck or force mass air vs zerg every game. IMO the above viper is a much more exciting unit

Mothership Core:

too strong against early aggression. Recall not needed. recall removed, recall should be a lategame spell. nexus cannon removed.

Mothership should be built at cyber core, 2minute buildtime, it should cost as much as 2stalkers (250/100/4) with roughly the strength of 2 stalkers, flying, stalker speed, and 5range.

I feel the cheap quick air unit makes it so protoss is unkillable early game, where as terran and zerg are still killable, imo that makes for boring games where there is no risk of loss before 11 minutes. Which is why i suggest the 2 minute mscore buildtime.

new mcore spells,

50energy, teleport the core itself to any friendly building. allows for some early mscore harassment which could be exciting
50energy, slightly increase attackspeed by 20% for 20 seconds to be slightly stronger vs allin
50energy, some detection for 20 seconds

all-in-all a mothership core should represent possibly the strength of ~3 stalkers for the price of ~2, that seems like a alright unit to add to protoss as their weak-hero-unit midgame, then they get a strong-hero-unit lategame in the mothership

widow mines:

having these target air is just horrible. they should be ground-only space controllers that act as the needed partner to tanks, so tanks and mines combined together should provide true ground based positional exciting play that viewers want, and then their supply can be reduced to 1 and other areas buffed to compensate.

Cost: 75/25/1

buildtime: 20 seconds, can be reactored

burrow time: 10 seconds

damage: mine instantly shoots a missile at any unit that comes within 3range and deals 100 splash magic damage in a 3.0 aoe of that unit. this missile is FIRED INSTANTLY but there is a 0.5 second detonation time. This means there is overkill if you stack too many mines in an area, generally an area will only need a few mines.

if you put 10 mines in an area it would have the same effect as just 2-3 mines there, meaning players are do not benefit from massing mines in a single area. but mines are still strong if you just get a few of them combined with your army.

mine clearing tactics will be powerful against mines with speedlings or chargelots but a couple mines combined with tanks will still be strong even with the clearing tactics as the cost of mines is cheap if used smartly.

after firing the missile, the mines have a 60 second cooldown period where they are unable to move and are no longer cloaked. after 60 seconds they recharge and can move and unburrow and are cloaked when burrowed

MINES CAN NO LONGER be "switched off", while burrowed the detonate missile is autocast and automatic, meaning players cannot turn off mines to avoid mine clearing.

Mothership , vortex:

yes I feel vortex should be removed. Think of new spells to add to the mothership

one idea i have for a mothership spell is a 50energy map teleport spell to teleport the mothership anywhere on the map. This means for 150 energy a mothership can instantly teleport anywhere on the map and recall an army. This may seem overpowered, but given the long buildtime and cost of the mothership and its a one-time-suicide use, i think this could create some very exciting games. Mothership cannot cast spells for 10seconds after teleporting.

and another spell idea for the mothership is a 50energy combat boost that increases speed to 4.0 and doubles damage for 20 seconds. so it could do some cool harassment for 50energy then teleport away for 50energy. Seems cool to me, more exciting than VORTEX*LOL

so yes, please remove vortex blizzard

swarmhosts:

I feel the swarmhosts should probably get a 100/100 upgrade at hive to make locusts fly and target ground units (not air). This wouldnt be that overpowered given 7range pheonix that are super strong against light, and thors that are strong against light. Swarmhosts itself are pretty weak and hard to use so i feel this should be added into the game and then balanced accordingly (probably slight buffs to other races anti-air if its overpowered but i dont think it will be)

infestor:

fungal should not be a projectile. 8range is enough of a nerf

i feel keeping fungals high damage is great given the nerfs to fungal range, and the nerfs to IT. making the IT no longer scale is IMO a good change, since auto turrets also dont scale. Infestors will become a support caster and no longer massed, considering 6 infestors can still blanket an army with fungal to deal tons of damage, i feel infestors will be in a good place in WoL and the zerg will need a huge army to backup his 6 infestors, so infestors will be a good support caster that can output high damage with fungal but IMO it wont be overpowered anymore

Nydus:

network now costs 50/100 (+50 for drone) but has 110 seconds increased buildtime. nydus worms can simply be casted anywhere on the map without vision, if something is blocking the worm, the worm gets automatically placed (pushing the unit) or if a building is there the worm says "cannot be placed"

zerg can only own/control one nydus network. if a network is building or exists and zerg tries to build another network, the game says "cannot make more than 1 network"

nydus worms have a 30 second cooldown and cost 50/50 to place.

when nydus worms are placed it says "nydus worm detected" for the enemy and it pings an area on the map where the worm is.

nydus networks and worms are permanently revealed to the enemy always (like buildings after all hatcheries are dead)

nydus unload rate increased by 30%

nydus network has 1000 increased health and 5 more armor

zerg drops are 100/100 cost but have 100 seconds extra researchtime


New unit distribution:

terran gets widow mines and hellbats
protoss gets oracles, tempests, mscore
zerg gets viper, swarmhosts

i feel it looks kind of unfair on paper that protoss gets 3 units, HOWEVER when you consider the fact that the mscore could simply be "viewed as" the same unit as the mothership (so mothership and mscore still count as one unit) then that means protoss only gets 2 new units.

mothership core can simply be viewed as Nerfs and buffs to the mothership (remove vortex, buffs in early game mothership usage)

On December 18 2012 06:17 ThirdDegree wrote:
I am not a fan of the ease of use of the medivac boost. At first I thought it should cost energy or have a longer cool down or what have you, but another option might be that you need to actually click where you want to boost to (similar to how you blink) and the medivacs will boost in that direction for however many seconds. It's a small change, and seems like it wouldn't be hard for players to use, but at the same time, it would make it slightly more difficult for lower level players.

On December 18 2012 06:47 Von wrote:


Funny, I just watched a HoTs TvT on Husky's channel last night that went for almost a full 60 minutes.

I watched the entire thing, for the entire hour, and I was thoroughly entertained the whole way through.

Totally sick actually. Much more interesting than WoL. To each his own ...

On December 18 2012 08:08 Zahir wrote:


I'm honestly astounded how many things I found wrong with this post. Fungal->projectile was one of blizzard's smartest changes while Muta fast healing and medivac buff are some of the worst. Aoe should be dodgeable with skill, damage to units should matter.... That's just fundamental rts design.

Reapers are not fine, either, they are even more of a "rush only" unit than before, it needs more late game utility and less early game. Flying locusts would mean SH has too few counters and make it extremely good at harassment, which Zerg already has plenty of... The purpose of SH is and should be as a siege unit or possibly, a space control unit like the tank. Your change makes it more like the mutalisk.

Your proposed changes to widow mines, Nydus network are overly complicated and unintuitive. Units should be simple and visually and mechanically easy to understand, for both players and spectators. Mines do magic damage? Why? Mines are uncloaked and immobile during Cooldown? That's just too many unit specific, special rules.

Most of the stuff you suggested for ms and mscore overlap with oracles, not that I don't have a healthy contempt for mothership core. Actually, you have a good sense of WHAT units need to be changed but sadly, not how. If your proposals were a lot simpler I could get behind them a bit more.

At least you didn't create a thread..

On December 18 2012 08:13 Hider wrote:


Disagree. Its insanely entertaining and increases the amount of action in the game.
This is of course only from a design perspective. Balance wise is another discussion though.

On December 18 2012 08:40 MilesTeg wrote:


I'm not sure if it's imbalanced but it's really permissive. You can get your bio army crushed, but you'll still be able to save your medivacs, even if there are Mutas. Same thing with drops, there's almost no risk involved at all.

I'm a Muta lover but this unit feels increasingly silly every game in ZvT...

On December 18 2012 11:14 Hider wrote:
Btw the biggest differen in how terrans will play if the speed boosts costs energy compared to if it doesn't will be when they want their medivac to go from A to B. I like the idea of terrans using the speed button to quickly go from A to B as it speed up the pace of the game and rewards multitasking. I dislike the idea of terans saving up energy as this still means that they can always use the speed button to get away, but it will lead to less actionpacked games.

On December 18 2012 15:35 BlessedHammers wrote:
is it just me or does the widow mine seem like it just makes the game more un fun? just watching videos of it just seems like a really annoying unit. randomly walking into explosions all the time does not seem fun at all lol

On December 18 2012 06:47 Von wrote:


Funny, I just watched a HoTs TvT on Husky's channel last night that went for almost a full 60 minutes.

I watched the entire thing, for the entire hour, and I was thoroughly entertained the whole way through.

Totally sick actually. Much more interesting than WoL. To each his own ...

On December 18 2012 16:31 Zahir wrote:


I'm worried about this as well. I saw one extremely entertaining TvT the other day involving widow mines. Both players were pushing and harassing like crazy, which often forced the enemy out of position and into some waiting mines. While this was cool, and allowed the momentum of the match to swing many times, it felt a bit coinflippy. Like the player who'd blundered into the mines just kind of got unlucky. However, by the end game they were both throwing down tons of scans when moving their armies, so it was less random. Then they had to use different tactics with the mines... there was one amazing moment where the attacker threw down a bunch of MULES to trap the enemy army while his widow mines came in to flank.

Basically, I think players will get better at knowing when to use detection against a mine user. Also, I'm holding out hope that Blizzard will make mines not hit air, in which case, players could easily send overseers or ravens ahead to spot the mines and react in advance.

On December 18 2012 07:37 severetim wrote:
i dont want to make a thread for this so ill post it here. Heres all the balance ideas i have for HOTS.

im just posting this because i wanna hear some opinions if you think these are good ideas or not cuz ill take what i think are my top3 best ideas and post them alot on the b.net forums.

So if u wanna help me pick 1-2 of my ideas and If you think something is a really bad idea tell me why, or a really good idea tell me why. wont bother explaining the *why*, ill just post my ultimate conclusions and if you wanna know the *why* behind a certain conclusion ask me and ill say my reasoning



Seeker Missile:

Energy cost 125
Range 11
flight speed reduced, flight time is infinite so it always strikes its target, very slowly increases speed. flight speed starts at 2.5 and increases by 0.5 every 5 seconds
damage is 100 to initial target, 20 damage in 2.0 aoe (not scaling like current HSM, 20 flat aoe damage)

Ghost Snipe / Cloak:

Snipe 100 damage for 100 energy, refunds 25 when used against psionic. 30 second cooldown.
Ghost cloak is permanent and uses no energy once upgraded. Ghost cloak upgrade cost is 250/250

There might be some mass ghost imbalance against zerg by sniping overseers (possibly a fix could be to give overseers a innate -75% resistance to spells)

Reapers / Mutas:

seem to be heading in the right direction. The increased reaper speed and regen is nice for early game power. I believe these units are not complete yet but they are definitely heading in the right direction. I feel a few more changes to each unit as good as the previous changes should hopefully turn these units into strong harassment options that are still useful in armies but are not overpowered.

Medivac healing rate increase:

I dont think its that overpowered. Seems to be a nice boost but considering mass fungals/banelings/broodlords OR collossi/storm splash the healing boost isnt that massive of a change (who cares about an extra 5 health per second when hundreds of splash damage is being thrown out)

The medivac heal does seem a bit too strong in the midgame (but balanced lategame) and it should possibly be a fusion core upgrade

Vipers:

Cloud removed, HP highly increased (blizzard can balance the numbers), costs 2food, no longer psionic, energy removed, abduct spell is 30 second cooldown no energy required. cost is 100/150. now moves at 3.3 speed

Vipers now have a 11range anti-building acid attack that attacks only buildings and applies a stacking spell damage acid to buildings. blizzard can balance the numbers.

*cloud is just impossible to really balance properly. vipers cloud will either suck or force mass air vs zerg every game. IMO the above viper is a much more exciting unit

Mothership Core:

too strong against early aggression. Recall not needed. recall removed, recall should be a lategame spell. nexus cannon removed.

Mothership should be built at cyber core, 2minute buildtime, it should cost as much as 2stalkers (250/100/4) with roughly the strength of 2 stalkers, flying, stalker speed, and 5range.

I feel the cheap quick air unit makes it so protoss is unkillable early game, where as terran and zerg are still killable, imo that makes for boring games where there is no risk of loss before 11 minutes. Which is why i suggest the 2 minute mscore buildtime.

new mcore spells,

50energy, teleport the core itself to any friendly building. allows for some early mscore harassment which could be exciting
50energy, slightly increase attackspeed by 20% for 20 seconds to be slightly stronger vs allin
50energy, some detection for 20 seconds

all-in-all a mothership core should represent possibly the strength of ~3 stalkers for the price of ~2, that seems like a alright unit to add to protoss as their weak-hero-unit midgame, then they get a strong-hero-unit lategame in the mothership

widow mines:

having these target air is just horrible. they should be ground-only space controllers that act as the needed partner to tanks, so tanks and mines combined together should provide true ground based positional exciting play that viewers want, and then their supply can be reduced to 1 and other areas buffed to compensate.

Cost: 75/25/1

buildtime: 20 seconds, can be reactored

burrow time: 10 seconds

damage: mine instantly shoots a missile at any unit that comes within 3range and deals 100 splash magic damage in a 3.0 aoe of that unit. this missile is FIRED INSTANTLY but there is a 0.5 second detonation time. This means there is overkill if you stack too many mines in an area, generally an area will only need a few mines.

if you put 10 mines in an area it would have the same effect as just 2-3 mines there, meaning players are do not benefit from massing mines in a single area. but mines are still strong if you just get a few of them combined with your army.

mine clearing tactics will be powerful against mines with speedlings or chargelots but a couple mines combined with tanks will still be strong even with the clearing tactics as the cost of mines is cheap if used smartly.

after firing the missile, the mines have a 60 second cooldown period where they are unable to move and are no longer cloaked. after 60 seconds they recharge and can move and unburrow and are cloaked when burrowed

MINES CAN NO LONGER be "switched off", while burrowed the detonate missile is autocast and automatic, meaning players cannot turn off mines to avoid mine clearing.

Mothership , vortex:

yes I feel vortex should be removed. Think of new spells to add to the mothership

one idea i have for a mothership spell is a 50energy map teleport spell to teleport the mothership anywhere on the map. This means for 150 energy a mothership can instantly teleport anywhere on the map and recall an army. This may seem overpowered, but given the long buildtime and cost of the mothership and its a one-time-suicide use, i think this could create some very exciting games. Mothership cannot cast spells for 10seconds after teleporting.

and another spell idea for the mothership is a 50energy combat boost that increases speed to 4.0 and doubles damage for 20 seconds. so it could do some cool harassment for 50energy then teleport away for 50energy. Seems cool to me, more exciting than VORTEX*LOL

so yes, please remove vortex blizzard

swarmhosts:

I feel the swarmhosts should probably get a 100/100 upgrade at hive to make locusts fly and target ground units (not air). This wouldnt be that overpowered given 7range pheonix that are super strong against light, and thors that are strong against light. Swarmhosts itself are pretty weak and hard to use so i feel this should be added into the game and then balanced accordingly (probably slight buffs to other races anti-air if its overpowered but i dont think it will be)

infestor:

fungal should not be a projectile. 8range is enough of a nerf

i feel keeping fungals high damage is great given the nerfs to fungal range, and the nerfs to IT. making the IT no longer scale is IMO a good change, since auto turrets also dont scale. Infestors will become a support caster and no longer massed, considering 6 infestors can still blanket an army with fungal to deal tons of damage, i feel infestors will be in a good place in WoL and the zerg will need a huge army to backup his 6 infestors, so infestors will be a good support caster that can output high damage with fungal but IMO it wont be overpowered anymore

Nydus:

network now costs 50/100 (+50 for drone) but has 110 seconds increased buildtime. nydus worms can simply be casted anywhere on the map without vision, if something is blocking the worm, the worm gets automatically placed (pushing the unit) or if a building is there the worm says "cannot be placed"

zerg can only own/control one nydus network. if a network is building or exists and zerg tries to build another network, the game says "cannot make more than 1 network"

nydus worms have a 30 second cooldown and cost 50/50 to place.

when nydus worms are placed it says "nydus worm detected" for the enemy and it pings an area on the map where the worm is.

nydus networks and worms are permanently revealed to the enemy always (like buildings after all hatcheries are dead)

nydus unload rate increased by 30%

nydus network has 1000 increased health

zerg drops are 100/100 cost but have 100 seconds extra researchtime


New unit distribution:

terran gets widow mines and hellbats
protoss gets oracles, tempests, mscore
zerg gets viper, swarmhosts

i feel it looks kind of unfair on paper that protoss gets 3 units, HOWEVER when you consider the fact that the mscore could simply be "viewed as" the same unit as the mothership (so mothership and mscore still count as one unit) then that means protoss only gets 2 new units.

mothership core can simply be viewed as Nerfs and buffs to the mothership (remove vortex, buffs in early game mothership usage)

On December 18 2012 06:38 Empirimancer wrote:
Yesterday a played a TvT. Our macro was nearly identical, and we both went bio with very minor differences. I won because the other guy forgot to upgrade medivac healing. I had like a 70 supply lead after the big battle was over.

On December 18 2012 20:11 NarAliya wrote:


Well that's just stupid. In the case where you both didn't just a-move into each other, you mean to say that he lost simply because he didn't get a passive upgrade? If so, I reiterate that's very stupid and completely not the direction players are expecting HoTS to go.