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Just translating the article posted by Thud on OGaming.tv. Food for though:
Original Article
![[image loading]](http://www.ogaming.tv/sites/ogaming.tv/files/styles/news_large/public/news/large/davidkim-sc2-banner.jpg?itok=D1ZtnR9F)
Thud:
Stuck in the train coming back from the Cebit in Hannover, I had the opportunity to speak about balance for 2 hours with David Kim, AKA the big boss of Starcraft 2. Yes sir, he is the one in charge of game balancing, with his team, at Blizzard. Note that David Kim, using the name NoobExplosion (in Korean), is Grand Master in all three races. At the bottom of the league, sure, but still, respect! Grubby was participating in the discussion. I insist that this interview does NOT commit Blizzard Entertainment to anything. Amen.
Translator note: The original interview does not specify which server David Kim is GM on.
The game globally balanced, I repeat, the game is globally balanced. The modifications discussed here are minor and will only impact extremely high level of play. The team considers that the game balancing should be rated as a good 9/10.
![[image loading]](http://www.ogaming.tv/sites/ogaming.tv/files/upload/news/sc2/SC2-WidowMine.jpg)
Widow Mines: The next nerf
The entire development team agrees to say that the Widow Mines are currently too strong. Even Martians were aware of this anyway. Where doubts lingers though, is the the nature of the nerf. David thinks that the players have not yet learned to react efficiently against strategies based around Widow Mines, and does not want to make the unit useless. He is not shocked that a single mine can one shot a Stalker, since the stalker has more range. This is his opinion. The nerf that would make the most sense to him would be to reduce the size of the explosion, without hurting its damage, in order to limit its use against the mineral line or a pack of Zerglings.
![[image loading]](http://www.ogaming.tv/sites/ogaming.tv/files/upload/news/sc2/SC2-Oracle.jpg)
Orcales: The eternal dilemma of Grand Masters vs Bronzes
To my big surprise, all the statistics indicate that the Oracle deserve a slight buff at high level. According to David, the choice to open Oracle is very engaging for a Protoss gas wise. With this strategy, no fast +2 from the Forge (it is thus less versatile than the Twilight Counsel way) and is often hard to make profitable at high level. Knowing that, buffing the unit would provoke the anger of player from low division, due to the fact that they do not often know how to defend against the various proxy Oracles cheeses.
![[image loading]](http://www.ogaming.tv/sites/ogaming.tv/files/upload/news/sc2/SC2-VoidRay.jpg)
Void Ray: The dark side of the force
The team believe that Void Rays are currently slightly too strong. In PvP, all the variations based on VR (sometimes Immortals) have the advantage over compositions based on Colossus. In PvZ, the Void Rays make late game compositions very hard to handle for Zergs, and the VR / HT mixes make minced meat out of Corruptors. But the development team prefers to wait before modifying this unit.
![[image loading]](http://www.ogaming.tv/sites/ogaming.tv/files/upload/news/sc2/SC2-Hellbat.jpg)
Hellbat: Everything is OK, thank you
In the last patch, the team was not sure of the nerf done to the Battle Hellions (now called Hellbats). Every one agreed to say that the Hellbat drops in early games were too strong. But how to nerf the efficiency of the unit without destroying it? Not wanting to weaken the Bioball + Hellbat compositions, the team decided to keep the Medivac's heal but the increase the size they would have inside them. In the end, the unit seems well balanced.
![[image loading]](http://www.ogaming.tv/sites/ogaming.tv/files/upload/news/sc2/SC2-Ultralisk.jpg)
Ultralisks: The return of the charge?
The removal of the Ultralisk's charge was really a change that brought debates within David's team. Opinions were divided. The problem was the following: seeing the rising of the Terran Mec, there was a need to either, give the ability to Ultralisks to reach the desired targets within the Terran army (Thors, Tanks), or to increase slightly the damage they did to Battle Hellions they met on the way. Unfortunately, the bump made by the charge created mini-bugs, caused by things such as doing a charge while going downhill on a ramp. Also, according to David, the ability was judged too similar to the Stalkers' Blink. These two reasons made Blizzard lean towards the removal of the Charge. But it is still being discussed today.
At the end of the day, David Kim wish to have more transparency regarding the role of the team. All around him is a team of specialists that analyse every tournament and discuss modifications to apply. Each decision is thoroughly made and is never done by one man only.
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Grandmaster with all 3 races? Pretty awesome.
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Gm with all 3 races on kr ladder, maybe he is underrated after all. Except the maps are still bad. Thia interview makes me have faith !
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this is so cool! i hope the buff the ultra 
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Wow, impressive. Thanks for the interview. I agree with most things he said, as a protoss player.
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What a wonderful interview. The incredible amount of Blizzard content around launch time (interviews, trailers, community participation) has been awesome and I hope that this increase in engagement isn't completely temporary. Sounds like balancing the oracle presents a big dilemma.
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Interesting there is no mention of medivacs, a little surprised tbh. Nice read though, gj!
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I'm not so sure Bronze players should be considered with balance for unit nerfing or buffing, such as the Oracle. With Bronze league, I feel the bigger problem is macroing properly and knowing what the general builds are.
I have a friend playing HOTS and he goes like 1 base 6 rax. Ya it gets the job done, but it's not viable in the long term if your opponent can muster a sufficient defense.
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As we know his name, are there replays out of him playing against top players?
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GM times three on kr ladder is seriously impressive. I'd love to see him in a tournament as a random player :D I want a rando hero! I'm sure blizz doesn't allow it though due to conflicts of interest and whatnot.
Interview sounded very reasonable. +5 respect stat to Mr.Kim in my mind. Looking forward to seeing what the team does in the future. The whole "more transparency" thing sounds superb as well. 
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Ah, very good information! Thanks. Especially good to know that David Kim is KR GM in all races.
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Maybe i am not following the Hots scene close enough but in all the really high level tvz games i have watched, terran went mmm with mines/hellions. I don't see pure mech games at all. Viper does a really good job against tanks and thors by pulling them and blinding cloud already. Do they really need ultra charge or am i missing something?
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On March 15 2013 06:13 geokilla wrote:
I'm not so sure Bronze players should be considered with balance for unit nerfing or buffing, such as the Oracle. With Bronze league, I feel the bigger problem is macroing properly and knowing what the general builds are.
I have a friend playing HOTS and he goes like 1 base 6 rax. Ya it gets the job done, but it's not viable in the long term if your opponent can muster a sufficient defense.
The problem is will a protoss ever switch into a macro game, when his proxy oracle is so much more effective? Will he invest all the time to reach a similar level when the same performance can be reached so easily? As I heard Bronze is cheese vs cheese all day anyway. And you can go to Master with cheese only (even grandmaster, but then you need to be a really good cheeser I assume). Macro games will be more fun to the players, but nobody likes getting crushed by players he could easily beat before and cheese gets boring faster as all games are the same.
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On March 15 2013 06:15 MuteZephyr wrote:GM times three on kr ladder is seriously impressive. I'd love to see him in a tournament as a random player :D I want a rando hero! I'm sure blizz doesn't allow it though due to conflicts of interest and whatnot. Interview sounded very reasonable. +5 respect stat to Mr.Kim in my mind. Looking forward to seeing what the team does in the future. The whole "more transparency" thing sounds superb as well.
From Liquipedia: He has not played in any tournaments, except in house (Blizzard only) ones, as he is a Blizzard employee. However, Dustin Browder at Blizzcon 2010 stated that David Kim has placed either first or second in every single one.
Does this mean there is a second person working for Blizzard that can beat a korean grandmaster? Also when they buffed infestor projectile speed they said something like our grandmaster players (plural) were unable to hit mutas.
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No discussion about Swarm Hosts?
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David Kim should really do some showmatches at Blizzcon/WSC.
Would be dam interesting to see and its all just show and fun.
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Nooooo my widow mines 
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Well this makes me have a bit more faith in Blizzard and the balance team. Not because X is going to get nerfed or Y is fine and Z is getting buffed, but because they analyse major tournaments and have a KR 3x GM on the team.
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I'm calling bs on the gm three races thing
That means he is performing at a similar if not higher level than thorzain, sase and a lesser tier Korean pro Zerg at their respective races? Yeah bullshit.
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EPT
