EPTCommunity Feedback Update - December 18 - Page 8
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Lunareste
United States3596 Posts
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[PkF] Wire
France24192 Posts
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rockslave
Brazil318 Posts
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TheoMikkelsen
Denmark196 Posts
The community update today reveals exciting potential balance- and ladder changes for a January patch. While the matchmaking part of the update is great, I will solely focus on the upcoming multiplayer changes and cover the Protoss matchups, but I will make a 4th category to summarize my thoughts on the consequences for the other matchups. The actual update can be found here where all specifics are listed: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/20042936861 Protoss versus Protoss These changes are relevant for PvP: Disruptor: Remove +shield damage. Photon Overcharge: 50 energy, 45 damage per shot, 20 (15) seconds duration. - David Kim says 20 (probably HotS) seconds (33% increment) but the actual duration now is 11 seconds, so new overcharge should have 15 seconds of "LotV" duration. As seen in the community update, Protoss versus Protoss is seeing some heavy changes this coming patch. I believe the famous (or infamous) disruptor wars has shown some concerning stalemates as stated in the update, but also great come-back play potential due to the tendancy of getting huge trades with the disruptor projectile. There has been a general consensus throughout the Protoss community that disruptors needed adjustment with respect to PvP. These are the two popular ways of doing so: 1. Remove all +shields damage (Stalkers, zealots, adepts will survive a disruptor shot) 2. Remove partial +shields damage. (Stalkers, zealots adepts will non survive disruptor shot, but disruptors will.) The debate has been on/off whether it should be 1 or 2, but the fact is that it has been problematic that disruptors could one-shot each other. As mentioned above, comeback potential was one of the greatest aspects of LotV PvP, mostly due to the fact that gateway units would be oneshotted by the disruptor. However, this also created an incentive to simply produce disruptors non-stop and mostly only supply that army with stalkers as they can blink to avoid disruptor projectiles. So which one would be best? The community update has suggested to remove all shields damage as they have found it to be more exciting in testing. Maybe this is due to the fact that zealots will be left with 5 hp and stalker/adept will be left with 15. They will basically be rendered useless in a fight if hit by a disruptor shot, so not all potential is removed by going for option 1. However, immortals and archons will be significantly stronger, so who is to say anybody will even build disruptors? My take is that there will always be someone at the highest level who does not build disruptors, and there will always be someone who builds two, maybe four. It is very likely that mass-disruptor production with option 1 will completely disappear, and from a balance and design perspective that is amazing for the game in my book. Maybe the colossuss will be revived if people decides to play chargelots instead of stalkers? Well, that will come down to testing. Because right now, the stalker is still an extremely well-functioning unit in PvP, and not only because of the ability to dodge disruptor shots. It is also perhaps the most capable unit of maneuvering around photon overcharge where adepts and zealots will take much more damage due to the need of close-range to deal damage with lesser mobility. So if disruptors are weaker, will people just massproduce stalkers and immortals instead en masse? This is a hard question to answer, but perhaps we can become smarter if we look at the proposed photon overcharge changes. For PvP there are a few key notes to mention: - The defendor will have trouble photon overcharging pylons at multiple locations due to the limited energy, and may also not have full energy before timings/engagements, thus realistically at best have 3 overcharges at his/her disposal. - The new photon overcharge will do 45 damage per shot over 15 seconds (it is unclear how long it is exactly as what is mentioned in the update is likely HotS-timer, but I am going to assume it is a 33% increase.) instead of 30 damage over 11 seconds. This means: New overcharge will do 675 damage over 15 seconds with a maximum of 4 charges at 50 energy cost. Old overcharge will do 330 damage over 11 seconds with a maximum of 8 charges at 25 energy cost. (All numbers have been rounded as if photon overcharge would shoot once every second. The real attack speed is 0.89) We can therefore assume, in value, that the old overcharge does 660 damage over 22 seconds at 50 energy cost. I note, again, that the community update said 15 seconds and 20 seconds respectively for old and new overcharge, which roughly translates to 11 and 15 seconds of actual, LotV time. So which overcharge is better in theory? Which overcharge is better in PvP? If one overcharge does 675 over 15 seconds, and the other does 660 over 22 seconds for the same energy cost, for one overcharge, I believe we can assume that the new overcharge is better if a maximum of 4 pylons is in play. Of course, the old one can utilize up to 8 pylons simultaenously. Another weakness, as mentioned, is that the new overcharge does not have as much "mobility" and cheap cost as the old one does, meaning it is more committed as well. In PvP this means that stalker vs stalker wars can become a bit more volatile. If one does a timing attack and the other tries to take a 3rd, blinking into the main base for a better position can be problematic in some situations where old overcharge is perfered, but the higher damage output might be prefered in other situations. This will come down to testing as well. For the rest of PvP, Photon Overcharge will probably be less significant. 50 energy cost to deflect phoenix/oracle might be problematic as 25 energy cost does the job better, especially for multiple locations, but it may also be the case that the extra damage is perfered (to force the air units out of shield as fast as possible i.e.) The oracle may become a greater annoyance with the increased commitment to Photon Overcharge, and it has since HotS been a unit that is simply shut-down by phoenixes. Maybe we should consider changing the armor tag from the oracle from light to armored, as that will only affect PvP and make stalkers stronger versus oracles, but phoenixes weaker against them? This was originally an idea from Morrow as we disccussed the patch today, and I think changing the oracle to armored is one of the best things that could happen in PvP right now. To conclude, the disruptor and photon overcharge changes will most likely have a positive impact on the game as compared to now. It is particularly the disruptor changes that can boost the excitement of the matchup some and hopefully make the disruptor engagements less volatile and reduce the arbitrary gameplay. A small concern could be mass stalker/immortal wars or blink stalkers abusing terrain and timing advantage to win games with position over someone who is taking a 3rd base with the same but less units due to a potentially weaker overcharge. Testing this will be exciting and hopefully things will turn out positive as predicted. My suggestions for PvP: - Make oracle armored instead of light. This will only affect PvP. Stalkers stronger, phoenix weaker versus them. Protoss versus Zerg These changes are relevant for PvZ: Ravager: morph time from 12 to 20 seconds Viper: Parasitic Bomb from 90 to 60 damage over 7 seconds. Zerglings: Adrenal Glands attack speed increment from 40% to 30% Photon Overcharge: 50 energy, 45 damage per shot, 20 (15) seconds duration. Oh boy. Just Oh boy. Oh sweet mercy. This is where the fun stuff will happen in terms of Protoss versus Zerg. Just a disclaimer, it is my personal opinion that there are quite polarized strengths and weaknesses in this matchup. I do believe that Protoss does perform fairly well against Zerg, but I do also believe that Zerg might have a slight advantage, but most likely due to maps. Starting from the beginning. The ravager and/or the debatable nerf (most likely a nerf) to photon overcharge simply does go hand in hand, and even the 8 extra seconds does not have to mean all in the world to the earlygame ravager timings, which, by the way, is the only area where I believe ravagers may be too strong. Still, this is something I find to be worth testing as the overcharge changes most likely will require compensation, and this is a reasonable one. Still, 20 second ravager build time will make mid-fight ravager morphs much less of an option, which I believe is also good, as ravagers otherwise would be a relatively easy gas-dump. There are of course several mathemathical factors to be included in this matchup with reference to the damage of the new overcharge. As stated in the previous section, the 45 damage will change the killing-efficiency versus some units. For instance, the old 30 damage would two-shot zerglings like this: 30 damage, 5 damage, 30 damage, 5 damage etc. If you rely mostly on overcharge to defend while say, taking a 3rd base, this two-shotting damage is quite ineffective. However, the new overcharge will effectively one-shot by delivering 35 damage per shot. That is almost a 100% more damage versus zerglings. In this case, the new overcharge is better. When the patch is released, experimentation will likely reveal similar scenarioes where the new damage output (or the old) is more or less effective depending on situation. It is my belief that the zergling part of the earlygame is the most important when it comes to the overcharge changes. On the other hand, Zerg will now be able to force overcharges at greater expense. 8 zerglings could for instance attack the pylon and force a 50 energy overcharge rather than 25. Plus, zerg attacks with say roach/zergling may be more difficult now as you can not maximize your damage output with more than 4 pylons. Plus, each pylon that zerg will kill now will mean more lost Protoss damage output. In a sense the "photon overcharge HP" is lost as well, and this is especially important due to the longer duration, meaning zerg has more time to kill pylons and therefore get rid of the additional seconds of damage that the pylon would have. The old overcharge would have 8 pylons of HP, whereas the new one only has 4. This is a concern for protoss as well, mostly mattering in the PvZ matchup. This does make one seem to think that the new overcharge theoretically is worse than the old one, despite it being mostly relevant in PvZ. Zerg is, however, due to receive a lot of nerfs here, so for PvZ a Protoss should not have much to say, and it might even be that the ravager nerf is enough compensation. Whether or not the ravager morph nerf is vulnerable to timing attacks from protoss is unclear untill it has been tested as map variety is a huge factor here. It is of course worse for zerg, but how much? I do believe it is not significantly worse. The next big thing is parasitic bomb. A spell that has received a lot of criticism especially in TvZ and versus voidrays and phoenixes. Initially, I believe, it even used to kill interceptors. Blizzard has recently talked about making it friendly fire, but I agree it seems more reasonable to go with a direct damage nerf. And a nerf there should definitely be, the question is, how big of a damage nerf? Currently parasitic bomb stacks. Infinitely. This is the only AoE-spell in the game that effectively allows you to do more damage to a single terrestrial location. This is what makes it incredibely dangerous against air-units as their clumping-pathing makes them particularly vulnerable, however, it is mostly only smaller air units that tends to do this such as mutalisk, voidray, phoenix, viking, liberator, oracle etc. The damage output of parasitic bomb, 90 over 7 seconds, is so great that it forces a limit on how many of each unit type you can produce. For example, phoenixes used to be a relatively amassable unit versus mutalisk, but the threat of parasitic bomb greatly reduces this fact. So how strong is parasitic bomb exactly? well at 90 damage the short answer is very strong. But only versus the mentioned units above. In fact, versus tempest, carrier or battle cruisers, parasitic bomb is actually... just good, depending on the situation. Capitol ships such as these does not split as much, therefore parasitic bomb is not as great versus them. So what does this mean? Well, if you reduce the damage to 60 parasitic bomb might be too weak versus capital ships. I personally believe the right approach is to go for 70 damage from 90. This will promote more production air units in the small-to-medium sized category, but still make parasitic bomb slightly more useful versus captiol ships as well. With that being said, I believe the parasitic bomb nerf is justified as zerg already has a large spectrum of lategame power through the vast buffs to it with LotV release. The last part of the PvZ section is of course the adrenal glands nerf. "Cracklings", as they are called when this upgrade is present, was capable of perform, per ling, at full upgrades, 24 damage per second. 24. I would without calculation assume, per supply, that is the highest damage in the entire game. Cracklings are also extremely mobile, cheap too. At +/- 6.5 movement speed (more on creep) and only 50 minerals in cost, these fellas are extremely, extremely dangerous with a +40% attack speed upgrade. A nerf to 30% is simply a must. But this is only to be said in a narrow perspective. The truth is, zerg might need extremely strong zerglings in the lategame. Protoss can seem unbreakable at times with walls, cannons, and who is to say that the disruptor is not like the crackling of zerg? A very strong unit but necessary to the grand design? Well, as for now I think the 40 to 30% nerf is justified and should be tested, but with all the zerg nerfs combined here it is very likely zerg will not end up being the favored race here, but I predict it would still be relatively even. Protoss is received a significant nerf too, of course, but where does that leave zerg versus terran? As far as PvZ goes, the crackling at 40% has been able to annihilate any X amounts of pylons and cannons even protected by walls cost-effectively. This has been a major weakness for Protoss in the lategame so far, but obviously protoss has different types of lategame strength too, mostly with the immortal versus ultralisk and for example tempest versus brood lords and... yeah... storm versus everything. Zerg seems to be very much only able to hard-counter complete air units through parasitic bomb and complete ground with ultralisk and zergling. It could seem if protoss is using mixed composition with ground and air, zerg lategame strength quickly diminishes. My final thoughts here are as follows: In with every zerg nerf here, but consider leaving parasitic bomb at higher damage. Zerg has been strong for a time now, but protoss has also been increasingly showing strength. With the pylon overcharge nerf, these changes seem reasonable as well. My suggestions for PvZ: - Make parasitic bomb 70 damage instead of 60. Capitol air units needs to feel the damage. Protoss versus Terran These changes are relevant for PvZ: Thor: Damage changed to flat 12. Buff versus armored air units. Photon Overcharge: 50 energy, 45 damage per shot, 20 (15) seconds duration. Photon Overcharge will be able to one-shot non-combatshields marines or stimmed marines. This does, to me, seem like an earlygame buff to defensive protoss versus marine-based timings, but since terran can open with different strategies, this one really comes down to testing. For example, drops might be much harder to gain space/range against with photon overcharge as you have much less charges available. This will promote especially widow-mine based drops a lot and Terran might find this to be a huge help versus protoss as they, recently, seem to think protoss is the hardest to play against. Further is of course the midgame. Currently you would have 8 charges to force medivacs to back away, but with 4 charges, defending multiple locations as Protoss will be even harder now. Since terran is to receive no nerfs, I feel this is where protoss may seem to hurt the most, and I am not necessarily of the opinion that Protoss is too strong versus terran. I think adepts might be too strong, but the mid/lategame seems reasonable for Terran at the present moment. It is unclear to me in which situations photon overcharge will be better or worse after changes versus terran, generally I think it will be worse in almost every situation, execept versus marines, where the damage efficiency was still relatively much the same with 30 or 45 damage per shot. I still believe all the changes in the community update a great, so it is 100% worth testing. If protoss is in need of compensation, we shall see. Hopefully the 45 damage per shot will be enough compensation for Protoss. As far as thor goes, well. They will obviously be great versus armored air units now, but will the splash be sufficient to make them useful against, say, carriers? tempests? voidrays? As opposed to Liberators or vikings? This is unclear, but thors also have a very strong ground-attack, so with their support against ground, the answer is likely yes, they will have a place versus lategame protoss or with mech. Testing shall reveal this sooner rather than later as I think the thor changes makes the unit cooler. There was not much to say about Terran versus Protoss, the matchup does not change much other than the fact that Terran can deal with photon overcharge more easily, and hopefully protoss will not suffer too much from the changes. The 45 damage compensation however should minimize the worst case scenarioes, and it is therefore very reasonable to go through with the changes with respect to PvT as well. My suggestions for PvZ: Other Matchups Parasitic bomb nerf will probably mean the most in TvZ, and may be the reason why the damage is nerfed to 60. Ravens, liberators and vikings are the strongest terran air units and all small, thus more vulnerable to parasitic bomb. It is not clear to me whether the liberator will be replaceable with the thor as they both have a strong ground attack. Ravager nerf should make small-maps TvZ allins significantly better for Terran, and I have seen they have had a hard time too. Thanks! | ||
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mCon.Hephaistas
Netherlands891 Posts
That's a shame | ||
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Glorfindel!
Sweden1815 Posts
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Elentos
55510 Posts
On December 20 2015 00:24 Glorfindel! wrote: A marauder comes for the same price as an Adept. What is the best unit? :D Marauders are better than adepts in many things. Though I will say adepts are a curious unit. 150 max health, 1 base armor, 2-shots workers, light unit that can teleport. And all of those are without upgrades. That amount of versatility and strength for that cost and that tech requirement is pretty hard to balance. | ||
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SolidZeal
United States393 Posts
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KatatoniK
United Kingdom978 Posts
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Glorfindel!
Sweden1815 Posts
On December 20 2015 00:34 Elentos wrote: Marauders are better than adepts in many things. Though I will say adepts are a curious unit. 150 max health, 1 base armor, 2-shots workers, light unit that can teleport. And all of those are without upgrades. That amount of versatility and strength for that cost and that tech requirement is pretty hard to balance. What "Many things"? :D | ||
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asongdotnet
United States1060 Posts
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WhaleOFaTALE1
47 Posts
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ZackAttack
United States884 Posts
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Elentos
55510 Posts
Marauders are armored. They have higher range than adepts. They can slow enemy units down. They are better at fighting armored units. They are better at destroying buildings. You know, things marauders do. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
On December 19 2015 22:35 HeroMystic wrote: So if Siege Tanks are strong, your opponent works on staying out of it's range... sounds like it's doing it's job to me. The big picture is, Siege Tanks do not trade efficiently right now, and Tankivacs is a workaround, not a problem solver. The Siege Tank count can't get too high because of the obscene amount of hard counters in this game. Buffing the damage allows it to trade efficiently before dying to good counterplay. How exactly does one clearly delineate what constitutes a fundamental solution versus a mere workaround? I don't think it's that simple. Siege tanks did not work in Heart of the Swarm to an appreciable extent and in Legacy of the Void they are much more flexible and useful by giving them synergy with the most ubiquitous terran unit. One main reason to call it a workaround is to restrict oneself by reminiscing about the siege tank's true purpose as derived from Brood War strategy instead of looking at its de facto role in SC2 and thinking of ways to improve it. I feel that if you think that way you are not really contributing to the conversation because the post serves only to foreshadow some larger, substantial criticism of all of Starcraft 2. Why should the siege tank be an efficient unit? I'm sure it was intended that way, but there are vastly more counters to the unit in this game to make that role difficult to fulfill. Generic counters, which increase the dynamic potential of an army as a whole. There is a general trend in the game to make units more survivable, resilient, reusable and so on which means that a dedicated player can virtually always overcome defensive set-ups that lack commitment. Blizzard's change goes a long way into allowing the siege tank to move with the times to function in this new environment. There can be specific issues with siege tank pick-up, like the delay to fire or the type of mode active upon returning to the ground and such, but if one conflates those with a larger criticism of the tank's role one's argument might become independent of any tinkering to balance the unit, i.e. one falls outside of the discourse. | ||
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royalroadweed
United States8301 Posts
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Moonsalt
267 Posts
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Deleted User 132135
702 Posts
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Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
On December 20 2015 02:27 Grumbels wrote: How exactly does one clearly delineate what constitutes a fundamental solution versus a mere workaround? I don't think it's that simple. Siege tanks did not work in Heart of the Swarm to an appreciable extent and in Legacy of the Void they are much more flexible and useful by giving them synergy with the most ubiquitous terran unit. One main reason to call it a workaround is to restrict oneself by reminiscing about the siege tank's true purpose as derived from Brood War strategy instead of looking at its de facto role in SC2 and thinking of ways to improve it. I feel that if you think that way you are not really contributing to the conversation because the post serves only to foreshadow some larger, substantial criticism of all of Starcraft 2. Why should the siege tank be an efficient unit? I'm sure it was intended that way, but there are vastly more counters to the unit in this game to make that role difficult to fulfill. Generic counters, which increase the dynamic potential of an army as a whole. There is a general trend in the game to make units more survivable, resilient, reusable and so on which means that a dedicated player can virtually always overcome defensive set-ups that lack commitment. Blizzard's change goes a long way into allowing the siege tank to move with the times to function in this new environment. There can be specific issues with siege tank pick-up, like the delay to fire or the type of mode active upon returning to the ground and such, but if one conflates those with a larger criticism of the tank's role one's argument might become independent of any tinkering to balance the unit, i.e. one falls outside of the discourse. Nah, just needs to do more dmg. The Lurkers shows that even low mobility when it's put together with a strong attack makes for a very powerful unit. | ||
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Elentos
55510 Posts
On December 20 2015 03:25 Sapphire.lux wrote: Nah, just needs to do more dmg. The Lurkers shows that even low mobility when it's put together with a strong attack makes for a very powerful unit. The lurker doesn't have much higher DPS than siege tanks (it has lower DPS against armored units actually) and it's easier to micro against. Seriously the lurker attack damage is only 30, the tank is 35 but slightly slower (50 vs armored). | ||
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