"I think this was needed for Terrans against various pesky two base blink builds. Other than that, not sure. It might be quite the nerf in other matchups but not sure."

"I think the MSC change will affect PvP at a lot as well, builds where you scout with the MSC and go blink won't be used anymore."

"Good and bad....It helps Terrans but will make PvP a more difficult matchup. Sending a quick mothership core to your opponents base while poking the front with a stalker was one of the few reliable ways you had to scout. With a vision nerf It will be interesting to see if that is still possible. But again I understand it was needed pvt, I just hope they take a look PVP even though a Protoss always wins :X."

"The mothership Core vision radius is highly debated among players. Some think it will fix blink all-ins, others including myself think the real issue is the way maps are currently designed. Yeonsu, Frost and Heavy Rain are very easy maps to blink all-in/pressure on since the main base is very wide. A map like Habitation Station makes blink opening a lot less viable and would fix the issue. The vision radius would affect the following PvZ and PvP: it would give us less vision to see vipers coming and to scout potential all-ins. In PvP, scouting in the early game is really hard and nerfing the vision range would affect poking around the enemy base with your mothership core."

"I honestly think this change is fine, it gives a lot more risk of blinking in. When the range was 14 we could see almost everything we needed to, this made it so we could always safely blink in."

"This change would have a much bigger impact on the game than most people expect at the moment. The mothership core vision range has been a big crutch Protoss have been leaning on in all matchups and stages of the game (Early game for scouting the enemy base in all matchups, spotting enemy army to take position before an engagement to take proper fights, spotting for/defending against drops, being able to feedback vipers/ghosts, being able to utilize nexus cannon range (vs escaping medivac, f.e.). The effect this change would have one the uses of blink stalkers against Terran seem very minor compared to the overall impact on the Protoss race.
PvP has benefited from the Introduction of the mothership core not only because it made defending an expansion easier, but also because being able to scout the opponents tech tree or things like proxy Stargates/Pylons makes the matchup less random/coinflippy. Nerfing the Vision here would also make the matchup a bit more unstable."

"PvZ -> This won't change anything so I don't care about it; msc has always been too strong vs Zerg in other areas ( the abilities ).
PvT -> This should help a ton with making blink all ins weaker & making it a little harder for Protoss to scout any aggressive Terran build. Good change in that regard"


"I think the best change here is the MSC vision nerf and I know it will have a very big impact on PvP and a decent one in PvZ/PvT."


"Good change, nerfs msc effectiveness in PvT and PvZ. More vision than an overlord always seemed a bit too high, maybe could be 1 more vision though"


"I think this is more of a fix for PvT than anything. I never thought of the unit's vision range as much of a problem in ZvP. Rather, its the spells themselves that make the unit so powerful in ZvP. The time warp energy increase was nice, and I think recall is probably at a good place right now, but I would still prefer something to be done about photon overcharge (nerfing the duration to 50 seconds wouldn't do anything either).

"Good for Zerg. This will make it easier for Zerg to set up flanks during early sentry/zealot based all-ins. Protoss had it a bit easy with scouting thanks to the 14 vision. Skillful players should not be affected too much by this but will have to put in some extra effort (poking to sides to check, moving msc around, using hallucinated phoenix). I think this change is the most important for PvT though.

"I don't think the vision radius decrease will change a lot when it comes blink all-ins in TvP. But it's a good change makes sneaking units around a bit easier and Protoss already has a lot of really good aerial scouting."

"This was probably the first and only change that should've been made initially. The greatest utility of the mothership core is its vision both in terms of enabling the observerless blink play and also in determining where the opponent's army is when doing said play. Assuming the intent here is to reduce the strength of blink play, this change is much more relevant/significant than the others. It would've been better to see how the game played out with said vision change without doing the other ones. That being said, the MSC continues to fill a void in the protoss early/mid game that nothing else can. Even with this change it will continue to be a unit we see in almost every game and to great success."

"I think vision range of msc gonna affect blink stalker all in to some degree but still gonna be viable."

"Yes I think this is a change that is necessary, not only for the purpose of being able to snipe the MSC in the case of blink all-in, but it also will force Protoss to probe scout as it will be more difficult to scout with just MSC (in maps like habit where there is close air)"

"Pretty ridiculous IMHO. If this goes through I'm gonna be fuming for a little while. If they go through with the MSC nerf why do they need to make this change (in case this is meant for PvT, which I believe it is). Blink Stalkers will just become so much weaker in all matchups and I think that's bad for the game overall."

"As for PvT, the blink nerf makes it so it takes a lot longer to blink out once you've blinked into the Terran base. It seems like it would make it a total gamble to jump in, with the MSC vision being nerfed as well. If your opponent already has troops in place..."

"Dear god no, that is way overkill and the blink all in can be nerfed in many better ways. I'm not sure of the correct way, but this is too extreme."

"This blink change is like the Hydralisk 100/25 change from the last test map. Very extreme and will probably not happen. It would make drops harder to defend. Mutalisk would reign supreme and Stalkers wouldn't be able to keep up."

"This change is extreme. I would rather see increased build time for blink instead of cool down. If Blizzard were to change blink it would change quite a few things for Protoss in every match up. PvZ vs mutalisk, stalkers would become less viable than they already are."

"This proposed change seems prompted by the prevalence of Blink openings in PvT, be it 1 base allin, 2 basepressure/allin, or 3 base. Terrans seem to be having trouble with this opening at the moment (Partially due to freshly coming out of an
Oracle heavy metagame, and also because of the maps, of which many are good for blink possibly because mapmakers want the reaper to be able to get scouting information). This change would help with that, but it would affect many other
situations a lot as well.
PvT Drop defense gets harder due to this, also escaping with a blink stalker harass/poke squad from stimmed m&m over longer distances (not too uncommon of a situation actually) becomes impossible.
PvP Blink openings get worse, so Stargate gets even stronger than it currently is. Harassment with Blink stalkers also becomes much more risky meaning there will be more defending until Colossus/Tempest.
In every blink attack in PvZ there would be less potential to micro.
This proposed change sounds a bit like the Hydra gas change from the last testmap, a red herring that most likely won't be implemented.
When was the last time a very core unit was changed? Messing with the core units (zealot, stalker, zergling, roach, marine, marauder) seems like a bad, or risky idea, because it messes with the balance in a bigger
way than if one was to just adjust later game stage or more niche units."

"PvZ -> This will make early game blink all ins (like we saw in Rain vs Solar @ Heavy Rain) useless; but those have never a common PvZ strategy (NaNiwa tried them for awhile but doesn't anymore). Also it will make the heavy blink/stalker immortal attacks off low saturated 3base a little weaker (a very strong attack; but if this goes through as well as a hydra buff; they might become too weak)

PvT -> I think it will be a good change for making blink all ins weaker but can't say I know much about the matchup. The issue is also partially maps are very good in general for blink all-ins currently. A slight blink nerf would be nice, but I feel this is going way too far. The research time is already very long since the nerf in WoL so it's not really possible to increase that any more; but I would think a nerf to maybe just 11- 12 seconds cooldown would be fairer than the proposed 15. It would still be a huge nerf for early all ins, but wouldn't change nearly as much in the mid-late game."


"Don't really see blink allins in ZvP so blink is pretty much a non-issue, usually stalkers are in big deathball where blink cooldown doesn't impact much"

"Again, this affects PvP and PvT than anything, since blink all ins are not THAT common in ZvP. I guess it will be a little bit easier to hold them off now on maps like Yeonsu, but still I can't comment too much on this change."

"Buff for Zerg obviously, probably too much. I think 11 or 12 would be fine as well. Combined with the Hydra buff for Zerg, blink all-ins based off of Forge FE shouldn't be seen anymore. Gateway expand into Blink all-in would still work but will also be more difficult to pull off. It seems like they want to buff Zerg and Terran defense early mid-game..."


"I don't like this change too much, blink is a super fun ability. One of the best in StarCraft 2, I realize blink all-ins are too strong in TvP but for once I'd like to see a timing based solution to this. Making one of the most iconic micro abilities worse is a bad design decision. The main issue is that Terran has to play so carefully because of the early aggression of MSC and oracles, leading to a less possible greedy start. This makes any semi-early timings by Protoss a whole lot stronger."

"I'm not super sure what the intent of this change is as I don't know much about PvP or ZvP. If it's strictly focused at reducing the strength of TvP blink play then it will do it for sure. The blink cooldown is critical to blink allins as the Protoss player needs to blink once to establish position and then have blink off cooldown to avoid losing stalkers. An extra 5 seconds or 50% increase in cooldown will make it much harder to keep all the stalkers alive and dart around the Terran base."


The blink nerf is imo more of a big deal vs z and p than vs t. Honestly blinkstalker all in is not strong by itself what is strong about it is just the maps that make it almost impossible to defend it.

"I do not think this will go through, simply because this would affect too many situations that aren't blink all-in, if it were to go through then i believe it would have a similar impact to the vision nerf, and would combined with vision nerf would make blink easy to stop"

"They're trying to help Protoss against Swarm Hosts. This is not the way to go imo. They should look at the Swarm Host instead."


Meh...I mean part of me goes yay! I can 3 shot a spore instead of 6 shot, but I don't think this was what the community or players wanted in terms of helping PvZ. This is just a band-aid that will make things go slightly faster....

"Some think the Tempest buff could make proxy builds imbalanced but I can probably count on 1 hand the times Proxy Tempest has been used in any matchup. I'm excited to see what comes out of this buff. It will also give us a chance vs spore crawlers, the real anti-air of Zerg in the late game. The source of the Swarmhost problems we're having is the lack of Zerg options in the late game vs a skytoss composition."

"I don't see this altering the game too much. By this stage in the game protoss also usually has enough tempest to 1-2 shot spores to begin with. The ideal strategy vs swarm host is to be patient to begin with. Ultimately killing spore/spines wont change much as they can easily be replaced. I would really like to see protoss air attack the closest unit attack it, regardless of wether its static or mobile. A big problem when engaging into swarm host is protoss air gets very disorganized when fighting spores/corruptors.Void rays will bypass all spores and chase corruptors into a field of spores When trying to regroup your army will generally clump up making fungals/abducting extremely efficient."

Video provided by Socke and HasuObs
"A change that won't really change anything."

"PvZ -> Sure I think it's a decent change. Hate watching the swarmhost vs lategame toss style and never play it myself. The way Zergs have to deal with lategame toss is silly, and hopefully this will make swarmhost turtle less viable...

We may need a buff to corrupter in the future (it's a trash unit) or some way to deal with the late game toss composition in response however (not this patch; just if it becomes issue in future if it becomes viable for protoss to just turtle into it off 3base). Doesn't affect PvP/PvT."


"From a PvZ standpoint there is a small nerf to swarmhost turtle play, and a small (or maybe large when you think about the blink nerf) buff to other zerg styles where hydras and blink use are more common. I think that if the SH style does get nerfed then zerg needs buffs in other areas so these changes seem like the right step.

"Helps vs Zerg turtles but better than nothing in face of other nerfs"

"This and the hydralisk buff are evidently the 2 attempts that blizzard will make in fixing the turtle swarmhost problem. The first problem I see is that I don't actually think this will make a big difference. I think Zerg will still be able to abduct, fungal, and focus down tempests over static defense just as we have been doing for the past little while. If tempests are allowed to shoot at static defense, then this change will make a huge difference, but I don't think any Zerg that is good with controlling their late game viper/swarmhost-based composition will allow this to happen. The second problem I see is that if this change goes through and does "solve" the swarmhost issue, is that zergs will lack a way to compete with protoss in the lategame and will be forced to try to end the game in the early-midgame, in which the mothership core will prove extremely effective. Even with the hydralisk change, I think it will be necessary that Blizzard implements a change to certain Zerg units (e.g. corruptor, nydus, etc.) so that the game becomes more entertaining and Zerg has a shot in the lategame vs Protoss"

"I think this change is not very necessary since most amounts of Tempest kill spores quite fast as it is. But it will make it more obvious for Protoss players what the purpose of the Tempest actually is. They will hopefully be reminded by this change to target-fire with their Tempests more often and stop shooting Locusts.
I will be happy to see 'Camping Zergs' lose faster as well. Quality SH play is supposed to require army movement control and skill, not insane amounts of still-standing spore crawlers. I do however approve of Spore Crawlers un-rooting to burrow below Tempests with overlords dropping the creep, though. I hope this Nerf does not reduce the chance of that tactic working."

"I really don't think that'll change anything. Minerals aren't the bottleneck in the turtle swarmhost situations and you don't get to shoot buildings that often anyway. At bests you'll gain 1000-2000 minerals more in a whole game if Zerg isn't careful. But we'll see I suppose."

"I've only ever seen proxy tempest once, and never since the most recent patch. Maybe it's something that happens at other levels of play? No comment on this."

Somewhere in the US Rotterdam will be a sad panda :D

"I think the notion that proxy tempest is too strong is hilarious"

"Not sure about this one. It might be okay, but I'd have to see exactly what this means for the game before commenting further on it."

"The Jin Air Terrans are already using mines in TvP like you would in TvZ. With the buff to mines... it's already difficult to face now."

"Terrans are already starting to mix in mines vs high templar openings, IMO I think they should have waited on this one I want to see if the ghost buffs were enough. However if they were not, this is another interesting way to make pvt a little more exciting in the mid game, numbers can always be changed."

"I fear this widow mine buff will make mech slightly too strong vs Protoss. I've seen great mech players zone out the immortals with widowmine and those were very effective I understand the need for the buff and it is a great change to help bio play be more exciting. Hopefully, Blizzard isn't too slow to review Mech afterwards if my prediction comes to fruition."

"I honestly don't know what to think of this one. Widow mines are already starting to be used more and I thought they were already pretty effective. I would have to play more/see more games with it to make a statement."

"It's very hard to predict the impact this change would have on the current game balance. When used for harass it probably wont make a huge difference since even with the current widowmines the Protoss is either
perfectly prepared and shuts down the widowmine drop/harass hard, or the Protoss economy suffers hugely. This would stay pretty much the same.
How this would affect main army battles in PvT, I cant really predict without having tested it in real games. Would kind of take the same role hellbats would have vs Chargelot?"

"Seems good for diversity in TvP"

"This is probably an okay change, it only helps Terran in the defense early on. I don't see this making mines viable as part of your army composition. I also generally like changes that only affect 1 matchup and I'd like to see blizzard try changes like that more."

"This change feels really strange. I guess blizzard wants widow mines to be more useful against protoss in general. Right now we see them a fair amount in the early game to deal with oracles and do pressure, but not much more besides that. Maybe they want mass widow mines to work vs zealot/ht kind of like it does vs ling/bling/muta? I guess it can lead to more strategic diversity as players have more options to fight mass zealots, but I don't see it being particularly useful late late game or when the Protoss has made some colossus."


Widow mine hmm well nowadays people only make widow mine when Protoss go oracle into templar play and somehow they lose oracle otherwise you really don't make mines. It might give some more strength to 2 base mine drop but in all honesty you shouldn't lose the oracle and then Terran cant make a mine, or if they open robo as well Terran can't make mines either.

"I think this is even less likely to go through, but also very necessary. Currently zealot/templar with 3 nexus (off oracle or fake blink) is extremely strong and quickly becoming the meta. Protoss being forced to build a robo to counteract the widow mines would slow this build order down by a lot and in general make zealot/templar easier to play against."

"I really don't think the top Zergs are struggling vs Protoss right now. There are plenty of good ways to play, and I think this, along with the Stalker nerf, could scew ZvP heavily towards Zerg. However if the Blink change doesn't go through this might be okay. For other matchups I'm not sure. Could be quite strong in ZvT, but I think that's good for the game as long as it's not too strong."

"The hydralisk change, I can't really tell how it's going to feel in game. But I think hydralisks already do their job fine now. If they want to buff hydras, I think lowering the research time for their upgrades would be better."

"It's my understanding this was for tvz and zvz. I can't say im knowledgeable in those matchups, so I will just stick with pvz. I think it's an alright change, I don't think it will get people to suddely go for hydras instead of swarmhosts. I think a different buff is in order for hydras to become effective."

"I understand that they want hydralisk to be an option in TvZ and ZvZ. However, it will make Protoss all-ins a lot weaker. It's probably too early to tell how ineffective all-ins will be after this buff but if they want to help the Zerg anti-air options, they should look at the corruptor."

"I think this was mainly for zvt. I don't really seeing it alter pvz too much. We will have to see. It might be too much to nerf blink and buff hydras. There are other strategies that dont involve blink, but having another strategy be eliminated wouldn't be to fun. (That is if the blink change goes through as it is now.)"

"The idea behind this is to shift ZvZ away from Roach only. As far as I know, Hydra is already playable in certain situations/maps ZvT, and this probably wont change much there.
Against Protoss Hydras already see quite a bit of use. Will be slightly better there, change seems uncalled for though. The trend David Kim mentioned about Protoss being stronger than Zerg is news to me."

"TvZ -> I don't see this changing much for bio; other than some rare roach hydra timings will be a little stronger (they aren't very good if scouted anyways). What it will do is hopefully make another style viable vs mech, with aggressive roach/hydra/viper attacks or something like that.

PvZ -> Maybe this will make the silly mass void ray composition a little more vulnerable to timing attacks (right now it's really too easy for Protoss to defend timings in PvZ), but won't be a big deal after storm or collosus is out. I would have rathered a change to either Hydralisk hp or how their upgrades (speed/range) work, but this is alright as well.

This could also finally make immortal sentry not overly hard to defend even when scouted on some maps; which is nice (Savage vs PartinG @ Yeonsu... PartinG did have very good execution but the problem is no matter what the Zerg does, it is up to how well the Protoss executes in whether it works)

ZvZ -> Hopefully muta openings are still viable.

I still think giving Zerg more aggressive options would make a better game than the proposed Zerg buffs (hydra) recently (nydus/drop tech being viable other than obscure all ins~ PLZ)

These suggested changes would probably affect PvT/PvP more than any Zerg matchup; but PvT is the biggest issue atm so that's alright."

"I don't think the hydra change will do much in TvZ and ZvZ but it's definitely something I'd have to test first."

"Good change, I love hydras but they are so trash. Will be better vs toss timings, zvz roach wars and ZvT vs pdd."

"I agree that hydralisks do need a buff, especially vs mech and it should make ZvZ a little more interesting as well as helping Zergs in ZvP. However, I think the problem with the hydralisk has always been that it is a glass cannon - it dies way too quickly. I would prefer to see a buff of armour or health or something along those lines instead of improving what the hydralisk is already good at - dealing good damage in a short period of time. I think letting the hydralisk stay alive longer would be a much more effective buff.

"ZvT: Small buff vs Mech and somewhat bigger vs Bio. Nice to see Roach/Hydra closer to becoming a possible Muta/Ling/Bane alternative vs. Bio but it's difficult for me to judge the efficiency of it right now due to small sample sizes in my head.
ZvP: Using 6 gas Hydralisk to secure a 4th vs Phoenix openers is somewhat easier now. This buff is a huge nerf to delayed Immortal and gate-way all-ins. 3rd base breaker strategies from Zerg might become too strong now, especially vs. Stargate and Twilight players.
ZvZ: Roach/Hydra is already very bad versus Roach/Speedbane, but it will aid players that use Roach/Hydra/Infestor vs. Roaches, Roach/Infestor and Ultralisk. It also increases the efficiency of 2 base Roach Hydra all-ins vs. 2 base Muta into 3 base Roach."


"Yup this is good, definitely a much more sensible change than the 25 gas. It'll help a bit in ZvP and ZvZ. It won't be enough to make roach hydra viable in ZvT I think but you can't over buff the Hydra without breaking ZvP"

"Do hydralisks need a buff? Based on this and the previous patch blizzard seems to think so. In TvZ hydras could perhaps be a bit stronger and see more use, but it always felt like the hydra was a response to mech while muta/ling/bling was a response to bio. They haven't been trying to make ling/bling better vs mech so why try to make hydras better vs bio (and mech in this case). Might be more ZvZ/PvZ oriented changes so I don't have much else to add."


Dunno roach hydra vs Terran can be hard to stop the lamebuild.sc2 gonna become the superlamebuild.sc2 now D:

"To me, this change follows Blizzard's approach of "avoid the problem and apply a band-aid fix". The buff to the hydra is basically saying, Zerg late game is either too strong or too weak, so instead of fixing late game lets just change the mid game so that we can avoid the late game entirely. The problem with this is that no matter what Hydra buff is inserted into the game, in about 3 months from now Protoss will learn how to effectively deal with it and then once again we're left with swarm host only action which in turns results in another bandaid fix. Of course I don't believe SC2 will ever have unit interactions like it's predecessor, I hope for the future of SC2 that blizzard stops making small "dodging the problem" changes like this and open up to bigger changes that actually address the problems in the game.
TvZ - most likely Roach hydra will still not be viable due to the inherent flaws (lack of mobility etc) extra damage does not help this problem. Most likely, more all-ins will form with roach hydra, but they wont be different from the ones that are already here."

"I don't believe they would actually implement all of those changes. Each one would have such a huge influence on the game, compared to things like the nexus-cannon duration nerf. I'm not sure why they want to patch so fast after the last one. I think Blizzard should at least wait until after this GSL. Overall it feels like you're shutting down half of the Protoss all-in options."

"I like that Blizzard is being more proactive about balance. Some of these changes are good and some of these changes can wait. If they could take a look at the Nydus and buff it in the late game, that would be great.Like a Hive upgrade that makes the nydus not cost gas afterwards. That way, you would see Zergs double or triple Nydus to counter attack or unload quicker. Also the corruptor needs to be looked at if we want to one day stop seeing swarmhosts every game. Some of these changes are good and some of these changes can wait. I hope they put the same amount of effort into balancing new maps. Brood war was balanced around maps which made it refreshing and exciting and I think Blizzard could go in the same direction with success."

"So far Blizzard has followed and had the policy of small changes in balance to avoid messing with the game too much. If Changes are in fact desperately needed (Mothership Core, blink) Blizzard should rather keep doing small changes at a time.
Overall balance of races has been pretty good throughout Heart of the Swarm. In current WCS Korea Terran is struggling, but the very recent patch (EMP/Timewarp) still has not really taken effect, and sometimes the metagame takes more than 3 months (2.0.12) to settle down.

"To me, the biggest story here is the changes they aren't making. Swarmhosts seem to be the elephant in the room for Blizzard. They constantly acknowledge that they are an issue, but always indirectly. They want to buff tempests to deal with swarm hosts, when the issue is the swarm host itself. The problem with swarm host isn't one of balance. We've seen plenty of top level games where SH users lose and where their opponents also lose. The issue is one of fun, watchability, and playability. Swarm hosts have the potential to turn a fun game into a mind numbing endurance marathon. The issue isn't that swarm hosts can't be used well, it's that they have potential to be used in the worst possible way.

The combination of incredibly high range, and constantly spawning free units that soak and deal damage allows players to take an incredibly passive stance in the game where the cost efficiency of static defense can be combined with the cost efficiency of not spending money to make ground units. The ability of the swarm host to drag games out to absurd lengths needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed now before any other change.

Disclaimer: In order to maintain the swarm host as a viable unit it may need some buffs to counter balance the reductions in power. That being said, the changes listed below are designed primarily to remove/greatly reduce the swarm host's ability to create a boring/uninteresting game to watch & play

Some proposed changes that actually address the issue
- Make each wave of locusts cost money. Something similar to how reavers or carrier function.
- Make locusts move faster off creep and slower on creep. This would turn the swarm host into a more aggressively oriented. It would be stronger on the offense, weaker behind static defense and closer to the action in general.
- Spawning a wave of locusts deals damage to the swarm host
- Increase the amount of time between subsequent locust waves (allowing for greater options of aggression and more decision making on zerg's part of when to actually send the locusts)"


"I've been saying forever that the MSC should have be nerfed T_T. If think if they're not going to change hallucination being free, then they should change the speed of warp prism and oracles back to what they wore. Fin!

Even toss players will say this, but the oracle buff really came out of nowhere"


"In general I don't think they should change how Protoss works vs Swarm hosts, but rather change swarm hosts. The problem currently is that if swarm hosts were removed Z would have no proper answer in the late game to either mech or sky toss. The even bigger problem is that WoL suffered a terrible fate (rip sc2) due to Blizzard not nerfing the infestor because Zerg had no other answer in the late game. If blizzard doesn't put in another answer and instead makes Zerg mid-game stronger, and swarm hosts become the meta (which they already have to a greater extent) then HotS will suffer the same fate as WoL"