Starbow - Page 187

- Spider mines no longer attack Larvas or other Spider mines.
- Null wards no longer attack Larvas, Eggs or Spider mines.
- Scourges now provide points in the score screen.
- And a lot more...

- Roach Tunnel ability cooldown reduced from 12 sec to 6 sec. Duration remains at 4 sec. Roaches now take full dmg from enemy units while burrowed.

- Stalker dmg increased from 7 to 8. (Still deals +50% vs light)
- Stalker shield increased from 40 to 60.
- Blink cooldown reduced from 12 to 9 seconds.
- Stalker armor changed from Armored to Medium

- Marauder starting speed increased from 1.97 to 2.07 (Same as Marines)
- Barrel stabilizer upgrade now increases Marauders attack range by 2. (Marines still get +1 range)

- Elite Reaper training now requires Engineering bay.
- Elite Reaper training BT reduced from 186 sec to 120 sec.
- Reaper Bombs dmg changed from 60+20 vs structure, to 80 vs all. (Allows them to 2-shot Tanks.)

- Flying Viking attack dmg increased from 2x8 dmg to 2x10 dmg.
- Flying Viking splash dmg reduced from 25% to 20%. (Still maintains the same splash DPS)
- Flying Viking turn rate increased so it is more agile.

- Recall can teleport four more units, up to a maximum of 20 units.

The Stalker intends to be a fragile, highly mobile skirmish unit, capable of harassment and damage support.
It is currently a very narrow unit who sees useful play in rare situations: in PvZ vs Mutas, and sometimes in lategame TvP. We would like to make it more meaningful in other stages of the game, preferably in all match-ups.

>>>+ Show Spoiler +<<<

The Roachs ability "Tunnel" now offers more potential for micro, both in combat, for movement across the map and for harassment.

Bio seems to have a hard time having early/mid game map presence vs Protoss. Part of this is because its difficult for the Marauder to get in range and deal dmg vs Dragoons. By gaining 2 extra attack range via the upgrade, the Marauder will hopefully be more useful both vs P and vs T. If the Marauder was given starting range 5, it would have same range as upgraded Dragoons while inside a Bunker. And this would very easily nullify early Dragoon pressure. Perhaps are more adjustments needed to make Bio or Mech + Bio viable in TvT and TvP later on.

Early mass Reapers with Bomb upgrade tend to be lame vs Zerg. By pushing the Bomb upgrade further up the
tech tree, it will now come into play a bit later. We were torn between reintroducing the Factory requirement for it, or give the Engineering bay a try. We decided to opt for the latter solution to see how it works out.

- Ghost will get a modified version of Shock and a "new" spell that is almost completed in the editor. It will get some modifications in stats too.

- Protoss air units will get some improvements.

- Calldown SCV causes two dilemmas:
1) Easy to abuse vs enemy Tanks
2) Easy to take far away island bases

We will look at solutions for this, and it will probably not be too hard to solve.


- The Baneling is a heated topic in this thread. We have read lots of suggestions about it. We will evaluate and look into what might be possible ways to design it, without adding too much confusion to players.

- As has been mentioned before, macro mechanics are a constant thing to keep an eye on. Perhaps will some form of modified macro mechanics come later, that both makes them feel more unique and clean, and if needed, better balanced.

- One large dilemma has always been Bio vs Mech in TvT and TvP. Bio was basically unplayable in BW (except vs Zerg or for early pushes) and it would be nice if Bio or Bio + Mech became a viable way to play vs P and T. (Without feeling as the inferior choice to pure mech.) The Marauder was added into the game as the "easy" solution, as a way to make Bio more durable in combats and able to better survive vs Reaver, Storm etc.

Bioplay must offer enough unique advantages for the player, compared to going mechplay. Perhaps can a better designed and stronger Ghost help with this. Maybe is there room for an even better version of Matrix, or second spell at the Medic. Reapers might need to be redesigned in some way so it becomes truly useful vs T and P. Maybe the Marauder is not needed at all, in case some kind of Combat shield vs splash dmg is introduced for the Marine. All of this is just lose speculations. But still its an area that I think needs to be looked into more.

- Dark Swarm will be reworked so splash attacks work similar to how they did in BW.
Decemberscalm explains it here:



I just need to get it to work properly. >.<