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Hi everyone once again,
Some people have lately been vocal about how the changes made to Chrono Boost in LotV may not have been as great of a nerf as others think. It even came to conclusions that the new Chrono Boost is not only not a nerf, but actually significantly helps Protoss early game economy, leading to an advantage of 400-500 minerals per minute through having 4-5 more workers early in the game, compared to the old HotS iteration of Chrono Boost (note: 4-5 workers would equal about 230-300 minerals per (real) minute).
To be fair, these numbers seemed to be unbelievably irrealistic to me, so I decided to carefully analyze the situation to find out if these statements have any merits.
I compared the old (Heart of the Swarm) Chrono Boost with the new (Legacy of the Void) one as closely as I could, and compared the theoretical income rates in both cases. Before showing the results, it is important to understand the difference between the two iterations, and know all the exact numbers in connection with the problem.
As probably all of you know, the LotV Chrono Boost:
- Increases production rate by 15%;
- Stays on the target infinitely;
- Starts on the Nexus itself when it is finished and at the start of the game;
- Does not stack.
The HotS Chrono Boost, however:
- Increases production rate by 50%;
- Lasts only 20 game seconds;
- Costs 25 energy and the Nexus starts the game without energy;
- Does not stack.
The old Chrono Boost cycle lasts approximately 45 game seconds; this is the time the Nexus needs to regenerate 25 energy. This means, out of every 45 gs, 20 gs is active Chrono time, meaning Chrono Boost is active on its target about 45% of the time (not exactly "only a short while"). This results an overall average boost of 50% * 0.45 = 22% (approximately). This is obviously more than the 15% increase of the new LotV Chrono, so even in first approximation, the old one seems to be significantly more effective.
The other claim is that the LotV version is stronger because in HotS, the Nexus had to build up energy before Chrono could be used, while in LotV, the game starts with the Nexus already boosted from the first moment. This seems to be a valid point at first. However, we have to consider that HotS is not directly comparable to LotV because one starts with 12 workers, the other one with 6. To make the two compatible, we can discard the first few minutes of HotS games, and start observing once the 12th Probe is finished. This way, we start at 12 workers in both cases. However, by dropping this part of the game, we dropped the very part when the regeneration in question happens. In fact, a regular (basically every) Protoss build in HotS had almost exactly 25 energy on the Nexus by the time the 12th Probe came out. This means the argument about the regeneration is no longer valid (more details below).
Chrono Boost staying infinitely on structures has also been brought up as a reason why it is stronger in LotV. We saw that, mathematically, that does not make it stronger than the old one (in fact, it is less effective). The fact that in HotS the Nexus had to manually be boosted, while in LotV it happens automatically, is indeed a buff, making it easier for players to reach ideal worker production. However, above a certain level, every Chrono Boost in the early game was hit close to perfectly anyway, so this can't be the reason of any imbalance in higher leagues. Also worth considering that while banking up energy on the Nexus because of forgetting to use it did cost the player, you could always use that energy later, so the opportunity wasn't entirely lost (except if the Nexus reached max. energy, which really didn't ever happen above a decent level). However, if you forget to move Chrono from the Nexus when you are no longer producing Probes (or from any building, for that matter) and you Chrono Boost an inactive structure, you lose that time and can never get it back in any form.
Also, even if it does not affect early game economy where all the boosts go into worker production anyway, it is also worth noting that in HotS you could bank up energy on the Nexus on purpose, and later use it continuously on a longer upgrade or unit, like Warp Gate. This is no longer possible in LotV.
Detailed explanation and proper calculations can be found here, or as pictures in the spoiler tags below:
Detailed analysis:
+ Show Spoiler +
Conclusion: there is absolutely no aspect in which the LotV Chrono Boost is stronger than its HotS counterpart except for the fact that if you forget to use it in the early game, it does not punish your economy. It is, however, objectively weaker, if not by a terribly huge margin, and has other, not quantifiable disadvantages as well.
Finally, this thread is about the differences between the two versions of Chrono Boost alone. I, on purpose, did not compare Chrono Boost to either Larva or MULEs. I know both were nerfed coming into LotV, and now you know that so was Chrono. It doesn't really make sense to compare the percentages between these nerfs, because they make up different percentages of the corresponding races' macro.
P.S.: Did you know that in HotS, Chrono Boost reduced the energy regeneration rate by 2.5%? This is kind of irrelevant now, since Nexi no longer have energy, so it could only work on an Orbital Command, but it seems that in LotV, this reduction is about 6.5%. 
Check out my previous projects:
+ Show Spoiler +
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Wow, thank You for detailed analysis, very informative. Great work 
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Thank you for doing this. I'll bookmark this for reddit whiners.
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Very nice work once again, Sholip. I have to ask - what is the font you've used the images in the detailed analysis?
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Love your articles, man, it's inspiring. It's great how you can do such a clean comparison with the corresponding numbers and analysis. Got the point, GGWP.
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Netherlands1385 Posts
Nice work. Back in HOTS you could clearly see the difference between a good protoss player and a "bad" one. Nexus with half or full energy was very common to see (yes even high master players...). LOTV made that aspect a lot easier for those type of players.
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This conclusion is very flawed. You tested HotS Protoss vs LotV Protoss, which is useless for a few reasons, the big ones are: The HotS and LotV economies are not comparable, and that the time to build 6 probes (and the lost mining time because of having to build a pylon) at the start of the game in HotS according to your testing procedure means nothing.
A more informative way to test this would be to graph out the first few minutes of minerals mined/income for each of the 3 races in both versions of the game, using what would be considered the 'standard' opener, and compare Protoss vs Terran/Zerg in HotS and in LotV. That way you could reach a meaningful result.
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United States996 Posts
You do really awesome work.
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TBH that's a much smaller difference between them than I expected. 115% bonus vs 122% bonus as an average across the course of the game. That means that the Protoss macro mechanic is still operating at around 94% efficiency (115/122) vs 83% efficiency (25/30) for Terran and 75% efficiency (3/4) for Zerg. Nothing conclusive can be drawn from this of course, since this is looking at the situations in a vaccuum and not taking into account all of the other countless changes that have gone int LotV, but it does seem like Chronoboost was the 'least nerfed' macro mechanic.
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On June 20 2016 05:19 iTzSnypah wrote:
This conclusion is very flawed. You tested HotS Protoss vs LotV Protoss, which is useless for a few reasons, the big ones are: The HotS and LotV economies are not comparable, and that the time to build 6 probes (and the lost mining time because of having to build a pylon) at the start of the game in HotS according to your testing procedure means nothing.
A more informative way to test this would be to graph out the first few minutes of minerals mined/income for each of the 3 races in both versions of the game, using what would be considered the 'standard' opener, and compare Protoss vs Terran/Zerg in HotS and in LotV. That way you could reach a meaningful result.
I agree with this but nonetheless it''s a very iinformative post.
and the question he wanted to adress was if the new chronoboost was a buff compared to the old one and not how it matches up against the other races although that would be the more interesting question imo.
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Good and thorough analysis. As usual.
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Well, ok Now we Know chrono is nerved Compared to Hots times.
Mules and Larva mechanics were nerved as well.
The Point is that chrono has to be activated one time and then being active for ever.
That makes it less demanding to utilize compared to Terran or Zergs Macro mechanics. Mules and Injection are mechanics that are vital to be on Spot Every time. Thais why it may be considered less nerved or even buffed compared to t or z
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All right. According to what you say, the potential highest-level upside of the Chrono change is only present in the first 45 seconds, before the pre-change Protoss would get its first boost. All that is being mined in the first 45 seconds is minerals, and so the relevant production is nothing but Pylons, Gateways, and Nexuses. With this understood, by how much do those accelerated 45 seconds bring forward the timing for potential proxy 2gate or Nexus first builds? These are the two styles of play that stand to gain the most from early mineral gains: greed that can outpace attempts to punish it, and aggression that cannot be stopped. So, then, if the timing is highly significant, we can expect this to be a buff, as the advantage of gaining a very early and safe expansion (as Zerg does) or of simply winning the game is huge.
However, your calculations appear to be suspect. I've been reading through your full article, and there's no explanation for why the first three HotS Probes aren't all taking 17 seconds to build apiece (which is as close as you can get to the critical 45 second mark). In fact, unless I'm horribly misinformed and out of date, the appropriate build is to save Chrono until the first FOUR Probes are completed, and then Chrono as the first Pylon finishes. I highly recommend you go over this section again, avoid trying to streamline it, and actually do the practical, real-world math for analyzing how real builds make use of the relevant resources.
I'm pretty sure it is a nerf, for reference, but your article doesn't do a thing to prove it.
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Your post have flaws. Beside ones mention before, here is this
On June 20 2016 04:10 Sholip wrote:
The other claim is that the LotV version is stronger because in HotS, the Nexus had to build up energy before Chrono could be used, while in LotV, the game starts with the Nexus already boosted from the first moment. This seems to be a valid point at first. However, we have to consider that HotS is not directly comparable to LotV because one starts with 12 workers, the other one with 6. To make the two compatible, we can discard the first few minutes of HotS games, and start observing once the 12th Probe is finished. This way, we start at 12 workers in both cases. However, by dropping this part of the game, we dropped the very part when the regeneration in question happens. In fact, a regular (basically every) Protoss build in HotS had almost exactly 25 energy on the Nexus by the time the 12th Probe came out. This means the argument about the regeneration is no longer valid (more details below).]
Well here you are forgetting to mention that by this time, macro boosters for terran and zerg are ready, while in LOTV terran needs to build depot, then rex and only then can build orbital and zerg needs to start a new hatch and build pool to create queens. Big difference.
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@Zulu23
This might be correct but it is also incorrect in a certain way.
Let's do a speculation here which I base on something I heard from a well-known streamer recently: "The pros do not perfectly use chronoboost either right now".
If you look at the way e.g. terrans, especially lower level terrans, tend to use the energy of their orbitals it has a certain pattern. Most terran players will have experienced that at a certain time they used to automatically just press the mule button as soon as it was available. This can lead to e.g. not being able to scan when you consciously want to and this will change during the later stages of a game where scans become the primary energy use (and the focus is on the army instead of the base).
Now let's look at what a protoss player has to do now: They need to switch chronoboost everytime they want but not in a certain pattern that could be automated as much but in a reactive pattern which creates a, theoretically, higher focus or mental ressources to change the chronoboost accordingly to the correct target. I think it would be very interesting to actually search pro replays and lower-level player replays for how they are using chronoboost and when they are chronoboosting empty buildings. I would bet that as much as lower level players tended to forget chronoboost and stack energy in HotS they will also tend to forget to switch chronoboost accordingly in LotV, making it much less effective because, as the OP wrote, the time cannot be gained back.
Looking at this hypothesis, the new chronoboost would be a buff for certain things which need to be maintained for a longer time (e.g. probe production or upgrades) but the usage has to be a lot more constant and refined in a reactive pattern which is harder to automate.
Just my 2 cents about this topic.
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At the time Scan becomes relevant to be the primary consumer of orbital energy Protoss usually has 3full satuarated bases and uses the chrono permanently on upgrades...
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On June 20 2016 06:27 kill3r_cro wrote:
Well here you are forgetting to mention that by this time, macro boosters for terran and zerg are ready
By the time the 12th probe is out in HotS, MULEs and injects are actually nowhere near ready with a standard build. The time difference between the chrono and the first MULE/inject in LotV is longer than in HotS, but since the production boost by chrono is less, that's actually not too big of a deal.
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Great post! As usual a simple calm headed non butt hurt approach to understanding the game triumphs over whine and the emotional maturity of adults with Peter Pan/ Christ syndromes. Well played.
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On June 20 2016 07:02 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2016 06:27 kill3r_cro wrote:
Well here you are forgetting to mention that by this time, macro boosters for terran and zerg are ready By the time the 12th probe is out in HotS, MULEs and injects are actually nowhere near ready with a standard build. The time difference between the chrono and the first MULE/inject in LotV is longer than in HotS, but since the production boost by chrono is less, that's actually not too big of a deal.
Maybe its not ready, but its a lot longer and its big period on start that toss does have macro booster and other two races just have to start to climb tech tree to get it, and we all know that advantage on start exponentionaly rises through game. And since new PO and toss early game safety, one can expo without any concerns of early pressure and macro booster multiplies.
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Holy shit... Your detailed analysis was brilliant! A pleasure to read, you put some amazing work and thought into this. Thank you very much!
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