Jan 20 Balance Test Map Update - Swarm Host & Raven

We’d like to give everyone an update on the current Balance Test Map and also address some of the recent Swarm Host stalemate situations going on.

On the Balance Test Map front:

There weren’t as many top level tournament games going on recently, so we’re unsure if what we were seeing towards the end of last year is still the case.
We’re getting mixed feedback on various issues these days on the pro side. For example, in TvZ we still receive a lot of pro feedback on how Zerg has a slight disadvantage. However, we’re also now hearing from others that Zerg players have adapted better to mid-game timing attacks and now have a slight advantage in the match-up.
We’re holding off on the proposed balance change for now until we can more clearly see what has changed in terms of match-up balance.

Rather than focusing on what occurred near the end of Season 3, please help us in focusing on what’s going on right now in the brand new season. We’ll continue to monitor the need for this change and provide further updates in the future.

Regarding the Swarm Host, we’d like to start testing two changes in a new Balance Test Map:

All Swarm Host changes from Void carried over to HotS.

Redesigned from a siege-tool to a mobile harass tool.
Spawn Locust can now be used while unburrowed, but must be manually activated.
Locusts have been buffed and can be upgraded at Tier 3 to fly over terrain. They must then swoop down to the ground to engage.

Raven Point Defense Drones duration decreasing to 20 seconds

Both of these changes are pretty significant, and while we typically avoid major design changes in balance updates, we feel it’s appropriate in this particular situation. Not only because we’d like to address the turtling scenarios, but also because we’ve already spent a lot of time on these changes internally.

However, we do have a few major concerns.

What happens to vs. Mech?

Internally we are seeing that it’s a nerf and a buff. Nerf for obvious reasons, and buff because Locusts swooping down to a Siege Tank line can be deadly if executed at just the right time. But we would need to know more for certain through public balance testing to see the exact strengths/weaknesses of this change in this scenario.

What happens to mass Protoss air supported by High Templar?

This is a bigger concern for us due to Locusts’ ability to zone out High Templar being greatly diminished. However, there will be a buff on the harassment front so we’re not sure where this will end up. Again, this is something that will need to be heavily tested, and we may need to make additional changes depending on how this turns out.

What happens to the highest pro level?

This issue isn’t as critical of an issue at the highest levels of play, especially the games going on in Korea. Korea has more major tournaments this year, and these changes could negatively/unnecessarily affect that skill level. This will be another area that we’ll need to watch out for.

We feel we’ll need to dedicate a longer period of time to test out major changes like this before potentially pushing them out to the live game. More than ever, getting a large amount of external testing and feedback will be critical to our decision making process. We’ll do our best to contact pro-players around the world to get their feedback, but we ask that everyone put an especially high emphasis in testing out the changes. Without the help of our community and the pros, it won’t be possible to push out a change of this magnitude.

Thank you.