Well one thing this patch does is making it better possible to do mech openings. The removal of detection from MsC means that at least you dont have to worry about really early agression, and changes to hellbats should improve them also alot early game.

Also not complaining about raven changes, 5 seconds may be too much, but at least they arent a cheap yamato rip-off anymore, and you can use it directly out of starport (if upgraded). And finally the lame high ground vision of reapers removed.

But so much for the good parts. Damage nerf to reapers is bad (I can agree with nerf vs light, but then buff it overall), and just give it back its anti-building attack. I won't complain about removal of siege tech, also helps early game mech a bit, but doesnt do anything lategame. And I expect hellbat changes to help alot more in a thor/hellbat 1a army, than coupled with tanks. And not just against toss, also against heavy roach armies.

And late game it does very little for TvP positional mech. People are dillusional if they think toss air is the only problem for it. The difference in mobility is huge, terran cant really handle blink stalkers with mech. PFs arent that good against them, and a few tanks on the highground just get sniped by them without doing damage. Now it looks blizzards solution is improving hellbats, so you can go to them as hellions and transform, but the idea behind positional play is not that you have a fast force that can defeat every raid, but that you need to split of part of your main army. So they should make that a possibility.
And they still got the same problems in a straight up ground fight. Yes a complete mech army can defeat the toss deathball, but it shouldnt require the complete mech army since a toss can just walk around it. And dont tell me mech army melts toss ground deathball. Yes I have melted enough toss armies with mech. But the only way that happens when they a-move through a choke. Nice of them to do that, but that doesnt mean mech melted them, the players stupidity did.

Apparently, lategame, with ravens hellbat and tanks, a mech army can trade efficiently lategame against protoss.

And that isnt nearly enough, trading efficiently. They should devastate a toss ground army if you keep your entire mech army together. And at the same time that should be suicide since all your bases are unprotected against toss with superior mobility (that part is already the case).

Edit: Btw I assume every toss now sends MsC to enemy mineral line to cast time warp?

Melwach

Germany176 Posts

January 10 2013 08:29 GMT

#665

Mh, I don't know what to say. A lot of pretty unexpected changes. And I don't see a real direction here.
I'm very curious how this will turn out, I doubt any terran lategame problems are fixed by this though.
Intead we get some early/mid timings..

Guess I need to play a few HotS games again.

Asturas

Finland587 Posts

January 10 2013 08:34 GMT

#666

On January 10 2013 17:26 Sissors wrote:
Edit: Btw I assume every toss now sends MsC to enemy mineral line to cast time warp?

Oh...
I didn't even think about it... Awesome... wait, not really.

Blizzard! Stop redesigning the game every 5 minutes proving you have no idea what you're doing. Please, hire some pro gamers to do the job for you.
No... I am not asking, I am demanding. Hire pro gamers! ASAP!

Scrubwave

Poland1786 Posts

January 10 2013 08:36 GMT

#667

--- Nuked ---

Kranyum

77 Posts

January 10 2013 08:36 GMT

#668

Sad to see Blizzard still trying to make their silly units/abilities work when it's obvious to everyone but them that they are just badly designed.

boxerfred

Germany8360 Posts

January 10 2013 08:38 GMT

#669

111 just got imbalanced in PvT. Interesting to see some unupgraded marines and fast tanks kicking front while a banshee provides vision.

Pandemona

Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts

January 10 2013 08:39 GMT

#670

Woop more decent updates. Making a new game ftw.

The tank not requiring siege mode, seems interesting. Why they rename medivac speed ;_; i liked emergency thrusters!!

MoonCricket

222 Posts

January 10 2013 08:40 GMT

#671

Man, MSC with Time Warp is insane, open straight into mineral line harassment and then you get to keep it around in order to stop T/Z from retreating, retreat yourself or just ninja Recall. Toss is getting a bit ridiculous at this point.

Kreb

4834 Posts

January 10 2013 08:43 GMT

#672

Seeker missile change good. Having two Yamatos felt pretty unneeded.

Hellbat changes done with a good idea in mind. But feels impossible to know exactly how it will pan out.

Siege mode change just...... "feels" wrong. I guess it was never that big of an invesment to get the upgrade before so removing it shouldnt change much. But siege mode research just feels like it "should" be there. Rather just make it faster and/or cheaper.

Reaper: No idea lol. Big change, hard to judge whats gonna happen.

P/Z changes overall look good. Especially Z changes werent that huge and seem quite ok. P changes not sure.

Hokay

United States738 Posts

January 10 2013 08:45 GMT

#673

Ladder just got a lot more interesting. Having fun atm with & against some of the new openings. I think it's too early to condemn most of the changes. These forums are like the fucking battle.net forums (terrible).

drkcid

Spain196 Posts

January 10 2013 08:57 GMT

#674

I think that this patch is a bit random:

- Reapers are totally wrong: you can build reapers earlier but now they are too nerfed on damage, now they are even more useless. They still need ages to build one (now two with reactor) but past min 5 why bother. Lets hope that some Gm player shows me that im wrong and reapers can be cool at least to watch.
- Ravens HSM now overlaps widow-mines, terran has 3 ways to make splash damage and only one to deal huge damage to one target, terran are going to have a hard time against buffed ultras and tempest.
- And hellbat it seems ok.
- Siege mode.... dont know what to think.

Z and P changes.... no idea either.

SuperYo1000

United States880 Posts

January 10 2013 08:58 GMT

#675

On January 10 2013 17:34 Asturas wrote:

Show nested quote +

lol its total crap. It nets you about 100 minerals in lost mining time...it doesnt slow the mining, just the travel time from a patch to the CC or hatchery or nexus

Sissors

1395 Posts

January 10 2013 08:59 GMT

#676

On January 10 2013 17:38 boxerfred wrote:
111 just got imbalanced in PvT. Interesting to see some unupgraded marines and fast tanks kicking front while a banshee provides vision.

Honestly I dont see that composition being unbalanced. Right now in WoL it isn't close to being OP. Now what is changes is tanks not requiring upgrade, since you will have siege upgrade anyway before you got 2 tanks to the toss base, and you are limitted on production speed, this means you wont really see tanks faster, or more of them, but that you can spend a bit more gas on starport units/start bio upgrade sooner.

To compensate toss got the MsC with photon overcharge. So toss can just hang back, and either you dont do anything besides sitting outside his base, which generally isnt the idea of a 1-1-1, or you attack meaning he can cast photon overcharge.

lol its total crap. It nets you about 100 minerals in lost mining time...it doesnt slow the mining, just the travel time from a patch to the CC or hatchery or nexus

100 minerals risk free removed from opponent early game + the normal damage of MsC + that marines/queen that reacts will also be slowed down by it so you can stay longer is not total crap imo.

Cyro

United Kingdom20320 Posts

January 10 2013 09:09 GMT

#677

Honestly I dont see that composition being unbalanced. Right now in WoL it isn't close to being OP

I guess you wasnt around in the second half of 2011 when toss had 1 player in ro16 GSL mainly because of 1-1-1 imbalance?

Im a little curious as to what terran could do with a couple of really fast tanks and bunkers TvP if mothership core doesnt shut it down

Garmer

1286 Posts

January 10 2013 09:11 GMT

#678

this is the definition of a random patch really

gronnelg

Norway354 Posts

January 10 2013 09:12 GMT

#679

Mech needs a stronger midgame, bio needs a stronger lategame. Hellbat now does insane damage, and can be used in mech midgame (and later, obviously), and bio lategame (and earlier obviously).
Does the hellbat fix these two problems? Any opinions?