Call to Action: January 31 Balance Testing - Page 4

On February 01 2014 10:31 avilo wrote:


That and cannot honestly believe that Protoss is being buffed again, lategame of all things...(tempests)...

I've said it many places, but the changes they currently have listed above for TvP, time warp and photon overcharge. As they are right now, they will not impact the match-up or balance it in any meaningful way.

The current imbalance of options the Protoss player has over the Terran player will remain in the game after those changes. The strength of photon overcharge will remain exactly the same, 10 seconds is nothing. Time warp costing 25 more energy does not matter if the game immediately ends from the blink all-in killing the Terran player...

Everyone knows this that watches and plays SC2 at even a decent level or especially high levels.

If they want to make meaningful changes that won't break balance, here is what they should do:

1. Revert Oracle Speed - making it so oracles do not 100% kill things every single game and can also have a chance to be killed by the Terran. Right now a good player will never lose their oracle ever because it was overbuffed. There's no risk to going oracle at all, especially with photon overcharge in the game.

2. Remove sight range from the mothership core or severely reduce it to the point that stalkers cannot shoot the Terran's supply depots on their ramp from the low ground without needing to move onto the ramp.

This will nerf the strength of blink all-ins which are too easy to execute and are low risk, high reward. It also indirectly opens up more Terran build diversity because Terran will now be able to hide information from the Protoss player meaning Protoss cannot play mega greedy as they do right now by knowing 100% information of the Terran's base.

This change 100% needs to happen for TvP to have any sort of decent balance.

3. Remove the engineering bay pre-req from turrets and sensor towers.

What does this do? It allows there to be reasonable counter play to finding a proxied stargate, or scouting a blink all-in. Sensor tower helps a lot against blink all-ins, and the ability to build a turret on the fly if you scout a proxied stargate changes the entire game from, "oh i autolose because i didn't blindly build an ebay and wasted 125 minerals" to "oh, i can build a turret and not just outright lose the game."

It also helps reduce the strength of blink all-ins because it saves Terran 125 minerals in the case that a blink all-in is scouted that could have gone towards another barracks or factory.

This is another change that will not break the game - it still allows Protoss those options they currently have, but it gives Terran a more reasonable defense against them.

4. DT shrine price put back to wings of liberty price.

It was nice that they wanted more diversity and options for Protoss...but they went overboard and made it so Protoss has waaaaaaaaaay too many options. DT shrine price needs to go to 200 gas at the least. The only people who argue against this are the people that enjoy freewins from proxying DT shrines and right clicking to the Terran's base.

That's not Starcraft - it's poker. No one enjoys watching something like this on a professional game that blatantly takes zero skill or thought and is very randomized, especially when in conjunction with the metagame of all the other Protoss all-ins.

5. Armory price reduced to 100/50 to allow mech players to upgrade their units at a more reasonable time versus Protoss and Zerg.

This does not impact unit balance in any way, it simply cuts a gas cost to Terran's that want to go mech so they can afford their factories and starports, tanks, blue flame, etc. at more reasonable times in the game.

This change makes 200% more sense than the ghost change blizzard proposes. The ghost change has zero impact on mech, although it would cut 100 minerals/100 vespene gas. The armory change I just mentioned does essentially the same thing - it cuts 100 minerals/100 vespene gas but actually is a meaningful mech change to help mech out...

Blizzard seriously...please listen to me on this. Everyone else should push forward a change like this because it makes infinitely more sense.

6. A +15 damage vs shields bonus applied to siege tanks, making siege tanks / mech a viable option vs Protoss.

This puts the tank back at 50 damage vs Protoss as it was in wings of liberty, and maybe then we'll see tanks not get run over in the most ridiculous fashions. The ghost change that blizzard proposes does absolutely nothing for mech viability because it doesn't change anything meaningful for mech vs Protoss.

The only thing the ghost change does is buff BIO and cut a 1 time 100 vespene gas cost. It does not help mech whatsoever.

Tanks back at +35 damage (+15 damage to shields) vs Protoss shieldsessentially reverts the previous tank damage nerf specifically vs Protoss, as 50 damage might be overkill versus Zerg.

Those are just my thoughts. Reading the blizzard proposed changes, I honestly do not know if it's them being out of touch with the game or that they are not willing or too timid to make changes to really balance TvP.

p.s. I bold faced my thoughts about the mobius reactor change/ghost change blizzard proposes to "buff mech" because it's quite obvious that change will do nothing to buff mech, whereas the change to armory price does exactly the same thing resource-wise but actually will influence mech 100% more than blizzard's poorly thought out change.

On February 01 2014 16:33 Tossim111 wrote:
Well recent results and from his experience of course. He listed his reasoning for each, and they all seem reasonable.

I thought Tempest rushing was a troll build, but it puts on alot of pressure on the T once the Tempest numbers go to 4; holding against this buff TvP will be really difficult.