StarCraft 2: Powered - another way to play LotV

To go further in details, the idea was that Broodwar worked because game mechanics are so intense that it's impossible to play a perfect game. The game is won by the one who does the least errors, each player always doing at least some. On StarCraft 2 you can do much less errors because the ergonomy of the game has been greatly improved, which tends to reduce the skill gap between players. A way to bring back this skill gap is to introduce more spells, and to make them more important in the game, while being careful that the spellcasters don't become killer machines. So we have limited the spells doing damage, and increased spells doing control, so that units can make a true difference while still needing to be supported by standard units.

The advantage spells have on strict positionning of the units, is that a positionning can be anticipated, you just need to look at where you're going to attack to see the terrain and play with the topography. For the spells, the calcul is not that simple because you can't see in advance how the opponent's army will behave, so it's impossible to strictly plan things. If you add to that the addtional micro it requires, it should give more rythm to the games from the mid game on.

Obviously all of this is to take with caution. The goal is not to change the game into WarCraft 3 or League of Legends. That's why the game will start with only 6 workers, which will make the early game longer. T2 units will come one by one, which keeps the dynamic allowing for a transition to the mid-game that's often great (ex. Zerglings / Banelings / Mutalisks vs Marines / Mines / Medivac). Once you're above 140 population, the spellcaster becomes a very interesting unit. With a good game sense, you'll be able to take a significant advantage on your opponent, more than right now. That should give us games with more twists, games even more beautiful.

If everything happens as expected, the additional difficulty required by the use of the spells shouldn't affect the beginners, since the spellcasters become really interesting when you understand the basic aspects of the game. So in the low/mid ranks, the changes we made shouldn't discourage the players: having a bigger number of units will be more appealing and effective than spellcasters badly used. As this additional difficulty isn't restrictive in the early and mid game, it should rather empower the beginners to reach a sufficient level to start playing those spellcasters properly.

The goal is to make the spellcasters more operational. We first added the Point Defense Drone to the Ghost to give him a support purpose as soon as he arrives.
It will be useful against Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Adepts, Stalkers and Marauders.
We then added the Lockdown to make the Ghost more effective in the transition toward the late game, by holding off the arrival of the first Ultralisks / Carriers / BattleCruisers.
The Nuke has a reduced cost so Terran players can use it more in offense as well in defense.
Obviously, those new spells mean Steady Targetting will have a lesser impact.
It can still one shot the spellcasters like High Templars, Vipers or Infestators,
but the damages are reduced on others. 6 Steady Targetting shots are now required to kill an Ultralisk, instead of 3. With those new attributes, the Ghost becomes a major unit which will help you get away in many situations.

We removed the Raven because 2 of his 3 spells already existed in the Science Vessel on Broodwar. It seemed more logical to put it back.
Nano Repair has been added to allow the unit to have a support function as soon as it arrives. It's useful for its detection ability, but also its support to mech units.
Vessel EMP will allow Terran players to deal with Vipers which have also been modified and will more easily be stacked and hidden among the rest of the army. Sames goes with mass High Templars / Archons.
Irradiate will force the opponent to micro out the affected unit(s). It can be devastating against packed or weak units if properly micro'ed. It replaces the Seeker Missile that was not really fitting, by giving more opportunities. It's also possible to irradiate your own mechanical unit, which needs you to put in additional micro but also makes it harder for your opponent to avoid. There are more counters, especially burrowing.
The Science Vessel, just like the Ghost becomes an important unit that can be used in several configurations and make the difference.

The Herc is here mainly to replace the Liberator, which was added to give Terrans a way to deal with massive ground units, and partially with light air units. The air light units shouldn't be an issue thanks to Irradiate, PDD and Lockdown, so we focused the functionality of the Herc on massive units.
The first Carriers or Ultralisks can be a disaster for the Terran race, so the Herc will allow Terran players to blow up massive units and try to save the biobal.
The fact the Herc explodes will smoothen the transition to T3, since it won't be possible to snowball the Hercs and accumulate them throughout the game like it's possible with Liberators. The idea is to accept that the Terran race plays mainly with its T2 (MMM as well as Hellbats / Tanks / Vikings) by giving them weapons to keep it rather than reinforce it. The Herc will be a good unit for a moment in the game with equal economy, and will allow Terran players to reach its ultimate composition (BattleCruisers / Vikings / Science Vessel / Ghosts for instance), to snowball once again.

The Tech Reactor makes it easier for the Terran to adjust its army composition in the late game. The upgrade being in the Fusion Core, it also helps with the transition to T3, by giving another reason to Terran players to build it. Once it's done, take the step towards BattleCruisers will be much easier, especially since it will be possible to produce 2 of them at once in the same Spatioport.

The Infested Terran, like the Auto Turret, have been removed from the game to avoid the situation where the players would make a lot of them to tank up and make damage. To stay in the idea of spellcasters being support units, we replaced it by the Tunnel which will allow the Infestator to chase units to use Neural Parasite on them.
Neural Parasite becomes a dreadful weapon which will be able to punish positionning errors of the opponent, and to make a difference against big units if you use the Viper in addition.
Fungal Growth is a bit nerfed in its capacity to stop the opponent's army to increase the need of skill for the combo with Ravagers.
The Infestator becomes a key unit in the mid game up to the late game with the new Neural Parasite.

Blinding Cloud was often forcing the Vipers to take too much risks by being on the front line to be able to target for example the tanks behind the Terran lines. With Dark Swarm, the Viper will be able to stay back and support units from there.
Dark Swarm is interesting when engaging, because it will be easy to avoid it in the middle of the map, by going in or disengaging, but almost impossible to avoid if the Zerg player has you corned in your base. It will also help the Zerg to finish off their games, which tends to be difficult even when they have the advantage, especially because of their opponent's base layout. With Dark Swarm, an advantage gained will be easier to transform into a siege which can finish the game, if the opponent can't produce the counter units (Storm / Nova / Stasis / Irradiate / Vessel EMP / PDD)

The moving speed of the Brood Lord is too much of a burden. It will make the Brood Lord play more interesting and viable to play.

This capacity is interesting because it will diversify the Protoss gameplay with a greater need of reflexion. The fact that the Sentry keeps its life makes weak units replicated stronger (ex. a Zergling with 40/40 instead of 35), while strong units will be weaker (Immortals for instance), avoiding a spell that would be overpowered.
It makes Replicate a tactical-based decision, where you want to pick the right units instead of just building mass Sentries and spamming the spell.
Just like the Ghost and the Infestator, the Sentry becomes a must-have, with the combinaison of the Forcefields to control the terrain, Guardian Shield to protect your other units, Hallucination to scout and Replicate to return bad situations to your advantage.
Replicate is going in the same direction as Forcefield or Storm: a reflex-based spell which requires good thinking and tactical decision-making.

Mass Recall is removed because the Mothership Core should rather be a defensive unit than be used to support the army when leaving the base, especially when Photon Overcharge is so important to defend the base.
The Protoss race having problems to make its gameplay dynamic, simply removing the Mass Recall would have been complicated. To help with that, we separated Mass Recall from the Mothership Core, so Protoss players don't have to wait for a critical amount of units to go out of their base.
Managing run by and drops will be easier by using good recalls.
Time Warp is improved to allow players to better control the terrain while moving their army.
Photon Overcharge is nerfed to avoid making it too strong in defense, while still being strong enough to kill and Oracle or a drop Mine, and that way being effective in early game.

Since we gave a lot of new spells to other races (Lockdown and Irradiate for Terran, Neural Parasite and Dark Swarm for Zerg), it was important to help the Protoss defend themselves against them by either doing more damage, or to lower it, as soon as the beginning of the mid game. Cleanse requires skill and to keep the units alive for the late game.
Cleanse won't work against Neural Parasite during the 5 seconds the Infestator is still "attached" to the unit it targetted. It will work however on a completely converted unit, and will give it back to the Protoss.

The Vortex is added to give the ability to players to get out of a bad engagement. Since it takes 3 seconds to be effective, the opponent has ti,e to disengage, which is the main point of the Vortex. It also allows the player to control a zone. In a way, it's still possible to make a combo with the Archon Toilet, without it being too powerful with both the 3 seconds delay and the 1 second immunity of all units to damage. This way, the Mothership becomes a key unit again if well used.