Earlier this month we announced our post-Blizzcon design patch containing changes aimed at improving StarCraft II multiplayer. Around the same time, members of the balance team were in Montreal to solicit feedback from top players in the World Championship Series circuit. Based on the feedback we received from the community as well as pro players, we decided to expand the scope of our initial balance proposal. Below is a rundown.
PROTOSS
Shield Battery
Health/shields decreased from 200/200 to 150/150. We’ve been monitoring proxy Shield Battery strategies over the last few months and while we don’t believe they’re unbeatable, we would like to make this strategy slightly more risky. Reducing their total health pool targets weakening offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power. Specifically, this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5, which should provide Zerg players a clearer response to the strategy.
Warp Prism
Pickup range decreased from 6 to 5. Warp Prisms received a ranged pickup in Legacy of the Void, and for the most part, we enjoy how it’s worked out so far. Top Protoss players are able to show off their micro abilities, and it helps promote multipronged offensive options.
One area we feel could see some improvement on is the ability for Zerg players ward off Warp Prism/Archon openings. Currently, the combined range of the Prism pickup and the Archon is 9, which outranges the Queen’s anti-air attack by 1. We’d like to reduce pickup range by 1 to allow Queens to interact more meaningfully with Warp Prism play.
We believe this change could help open up many different potential Zerg openers, but we’re also mindful of the fact that Protoss players rely heavily on Warp Prism based tactics. Thus, we’ll be keeping an especially close eye on this change.
Void Ray
Prismatic Alignment speed reduction decreased from 40% to 25%. Earlier in Legacy of the Void, we added a speed reduction to Prismatic Alignment to prevent Void Rays from overly punishing enemies fighting them. While we’re still satisfied with the direction we took with this change, we believe that we could achieve similar results by toning the speed reduction back a bit.
ZERG
Queen
Transfusion will no longer instantly heal 125 health. Instead, it will instantly heal 75 health and then heal 50 additional health over 7.14 seconds. For Zerg early game, Queens are integral when dealing with light harass and frontal pushes. They also provide a lot of utility with creep spread and their ability to inject larva. We think the Queen might be a bit too “catch-all” of a unit right now, so we’d like to weaken one of these roles.
With this change, the heal-over-time portion of the heal will no longer stack, weakening the effectiveness of chaining Transfusions on high HP units such as other Queens. Our goal with this change is to push players towards building combat units when facing dedicated aggression while maintaining the Queen’s strength against light harass. Additionally, this reduces the late game power of Queens by lowering the efficiency of rapid Transfusions on units like Ultralisks and Brood Lords.
Creep
Building/Creep Tumor creep generation: Time between creep growth periods increased from 0.3 to 0.45. Overlord Generate Creep: Time between creep growth periods increased from 0.36 to 0.45. In the transition from Heart of the Swarm to Legacy of the Void, the Creep growth period was cut in half, from 0.6 to 0.3, to account for other changes made during that period. While this doesn’t practically translate into Creep spreading twice as fast, it has certainly had an effect on Zerg players’ ability to control the map. More recently, after much refinement on the part of Zerg players, we began receiving feedback that Creep spread might be too oppressive, allowing Zerg to control large portions of the map leading into the mid to late game.
To help mitigate this, we’d like to experiment with Creep spread rate, initially by adjusting to a rate that’s halfway between the current live value and the value from Heart of the Swarm. As Creep spread is core to Zerg identity, we’ll be paying close attention to the results of this change.
Roach
Tunneling Claws cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100. Tunneling Claws no longer increases the health regeneration of burrowed Roaches from 7 HP/second to 14 HP/second. In the Zerg vs. Zerg matchup, we see a lot of Tunneling Claws Roaches used to harass mineral lines. While we enjoy both the harass and comeback potential that this ability affords Zerg players, we’ve received a lot of feedback from Zerg players that it might be too good in this role. Because of the high health regeneration with the Tunneling Claws upgrade, it can take over twice the number of defensive Roaches to dislodge harassing Roaches.
In other matchups Tunneling Claws is not seen nearly as much. And when it is used, the moving-while-burrowed functionality is more valued over the additional health regeneration. This set of changes is aimed towards slightly tuning down Roach harass in mirror matches while increasing its potency in other matchups.
Hydralisk
Health increased from 85 to 90. Needle Spines weapon speed changed from 0.54 to 0.57. We received feedback from players of all races at Montreal that they’d rather see an attack speed nerf to Hydralisks as opposed to a health nerf. By reducing attack speed instead of health, we can reduce how deadly the Hydralisk is in large armies making it less of an “all-around” unit, while still maintaining its ability to fight units like Oracles cost effectively. Maintaining the higher health also allows Hydralisks to have more back-and-forth interactions with threats like Psionic Storm.
Infestor
Infestor unit radius decreased from 0.75 to 0.625. Burrowed unit radius now matches the new unborrowed unit radius. Model scale decreased from 0.85 to 0.75. Infestors can now move through units while burrowed. Fungal Growth will no longer allow affected units to Blink, Tactical Jump, or load into transports/buildings. We’ve heard a lot of feedback that Infestors feel clunky to use so we’d like to make a few tweaks to improve their usability. We’d also like to give Fungal Growth some more utility by restoring some of its old functionality, allowing it to prevent certain movement abilities.
Nydus Network
Nydus Network cost decreased from 200/250 to 150/150. We received feedback that while many players like the direction of the new Nydus Network, the initial cost might be a bit too high and Nydus all-ins are sufficiently weakened now that the Worm is no longer invulnerable when tunneling. Because we’re also testing tuning back the Queen’s Transfusion ability in the same update, we’d like to see how far we can go with a Nydus Network cost reduction. This is certainly one of the more experimental changes that we’d like to try out, so we’ll be watching closely to how it plays out.
BUG FIXES
Fixed an issue the caused the attack animation of the Colossus to desync when exiting a transport. Battlecruiser The ATA attack will now deal 5 damage instead of 8. Will no longer be able to use its normal attack when using an ability. Fixed a typo in the Raven’s Anti-Armor Missile description.
These changes will be published to the Testing Matchmaking Queue shortly. As always, we’d like to reiterate that these changes are not final, and we’ll be actively looking at your feedback. Thanks for trying out the new changes and please let us know what you think on the forums or any community sites!
I'm really surprised they are nerfing the archon drop. I understand its not that fun for zergs but I feel like protoss needs to get something in return because every game is stargate into archon drop because its all we have that works.
Might as well keep the Hydra attack speed, that's the most insignificant change I've ever seen. Also I fear Nydus worm spam might become too oppressive. Don't really understand warpprism nerf but the Queen/creep changes are nice.
On September 26 2018 04:45 Charoisaur wrote: Might as well keep the Hydra attack speed, that's the most insignificant change I've ever seen. Also I fear Nydus worm spam might become too oppressive. Don't really understand warpprism nerf but the Queen/creep changes are nice.
i dunno.. that's 5%, it's like hydras always have 0.5 attack upgrade disadvantage. certainly not a spectacular change, but something that zergs might be ok with.
>everyone is sick of only stargate openings in PvZ, what do we do to make robo builds viable, some robo buffs? >maybe, but zerg players hate how they can't kill archons and warprisms without making units >oh ok lets nerf the one other good PvZ macro build besides stargate out of the game by reducing warp prism range
Needle Spines weapon speed changed from 0.54 to 0.57.
How is that even a nerf?
Still don't think this will be enough of a nerf to zerg. Still no word on Swarm Hosts and how laughable new Carriers are. Well, at least it's a step in better direction than first proposed changes.
I wonder if infestors will be a new option vs Terran in midgame now that if you fungle a marine drop they cant get back into the medivac. Might allow you to go infestor zergling baneling instead of hydra zergling baneling. Interesting change, I wonder what it will do to players like Maru when they go 2-1-1. And have le 3 groups of medivac marine out on the map, protected by there ability to get into a medivac and fly away.
On September 26 2018 05:04 youngjiddle wrote: >everyone is sick of only stargate openings in PvZ, what do we do to make robo builds viable, some robo buffs? >maybe, but zerg players hate how they can't kill archons and warprisms without making units >oh ok lets nerf the one other good PvZ macro build besides stargate out of the game by reducing warp prism range
- sc2 balance team
>Read patch notes but see only one change(usually nerf) >whine about it neglecting other changes. (robo cost, colossus buff, disrupter change, creep nerf, queen nerf, hydra nerf) >blame david kim (balance team)
On September 26 2018 05:04 youngjiddle wrote: >everyone is sick of only stargate openings in PvZ, what do we do to make robo builds viable, some robo buffs? >maybe, but zerg players hate how they can't kill archons and warprisms without making units >oh ok lets nerf the one other good PvZ macro build besides stargate out of the game by reducing warp prism range
- sc2 balance team
This is a bit dramatic lol. There are multiple massive changes in the proposal..we have no idea what the meta is going to look like. Ur robo is a bit cheaper now. Warp prism is one of the most ridiculous units in the game in all mu imo. One less range wont break the build order.
On September 26 2018 05:13 washikie wrote: I wonder if infestors will be a new option vs Terran in midgame now that if you fungle a marine drop they cant get back into the medivac. Might allow you to go infestor zergling baneling instead of hydra zergling baneling. Interesting change, I wonder what it will do to players like Maru when they go 2-1-1.
Think itll still probably be pretty difficult to have infestor ling bane out when 2 1 1 hits? Also for the cost of them not sure it would be worth it.
Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
On September 26 2018 05:11 yht9657 wrote: Thanks Blizzard for the void ray speed buff (or more like reduced nerf) but still nobody higher than gold is gonna use them because they suck.
Still great for cheese with shield battery vs terran. This will only make that worse..less hp on a battery means a whole lot when you cant build units that can reach them while also trying to not die to the voids lol.
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
I have to agree with you. To me, problem is PvT here. If terrans don't cheese heavily, they face a hard match-up so any protoss change has to consider the fragile balance of PvT.
On September 26 2018 05:04 youngjiddle wrote: >everyone is sick of only stargate openings in PvZ, what do we do to make robo builds viable, some robo buffs? >maybe, but zerg players hate how they can't kill archons and warprisms without making units >oh ok lets nerf the one other good PvZ macro build besides stargate out of the game by reducing warp prism range
- sc2 balance team
These changes were decided by EU zergs. The only race they have to worry about in the WCS is protoss. So that's why there are so many PvZ nerfs in this patch.
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
I disagree, I think the changes sounds reasonable. Obviously P needs some buffer at the moment, especially against Z and all the nerfs to Z seems to hit at that pretty well. Regarding shield batteries, the nerf mostly effects offensive pushes with batteries or if Z attacks with roaches. Biles is basically the only way a defensive protoss should have their shield battery destroyed since the P usually have army in front of them. I don't believe the health and shield nerf will effect the defensive power of the battery as much you make it sound.
Design wise I love all these changes. The numbers on the creep and hydras will take some time to figure out if the adjustments are to small or too large (hydras might be like .01-.03 too small, creep too large).
my immediate reaction to heal-over-time transfuse is that i'm going to start the baneling transfuse meta in early game ZvZ to keep them alive forever when my opponent tries the 1-2 ling snipe on them
as for warp prism range, i am a protoss player as well, but i think complaining about -1 pickup range is an absolutely ridiculous joke. WP micro will still be stupid strong and range pickup will still allow for comfortable, effective harass. you'll just have to be one hex better at it.
it reminds me of when terrans thought overlord speed buff was going to break zvt LOLLLL
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
I guess you're referring to those aligulac leading/lagging numbers. I always found those numbers odd. Currently aligulac says Zerg is leading with 8% and Protoss is lagging with 14% but how are those numbers calculated? Aligulac also gives precise numbers for every matchup and those are PvT: 52,40%; PvZ: 45.83%; TvZ: 45.23% So if anything, wouldn't be Terran the lagging race? The leading / lagging numbers are not mentioned in aligulacs monthly balance report either, we shouldn't therefore take those numbers to seriously.
I still think shield batteries should only be allowed to be build at a certain radius arround the Nexus. This health change won't stop anyone from proxying, but will make them weaker to Proxies, wich is one of the problems Protoss faces atm.
"In the Zerg vs. Zerg matchup, we see a lot of Tunneling Claws Roaches used to harass mineral lines. While we enjoy both the harass and comeback potential that this ability affords Zerg players, we’ve received a lot of feedback from Zerg players that it might be too good in this role. Because of the high health regeneration with the Tunneling Claws upgrade, it can take over twice the number of defensive Roaches to dislodge harassing Roaches."
A lot? Once every few dozen games is a lot? Who are the whiny players who refuse to build static defense in the mid-late game and don't want to change their playstyle?
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
I disagree, I think the changes sounds reasonable. Obviously P needs some buffer at the moment, especially against Z and all the nerfs to Z seems to hit at that pretty well. Regarding shield batteries, the nerf mostly effects offensive pushes with batteries or if Z attacks with roaches. Biles is basically the only way a defensive protoss should have their shield battery destroyed since the P usually have army in front of them. I don't believe the health and shield nerf will effect the defensive power of the battery as much you make it sound.
agreed, you're correct. with effective SB placement P shouldn't really be worrying about their health. in a few niche situations like defending cyclone or stalker rushes it might add a little bit more kick to the attack, but cheaper robo also means faster immortals which are another huge defensive tool against busts in all 3 matchups
Hey, really good small changes Blizzard. I really applaud where the balance team is taking things. Nothing major, everything small, everything makes sense.
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
I guess you're referring to those aligulac leading/lagging numbers. I always found those numbers odd. Currently aligulac says Zerg is leading with 8% and Protoss is lagging with 14% but how are those numbers calculated? Aligulac also gives precise numbers for every matchup and those are PvT: 52,40%; PvZ: 45.83%; TvZ: 45.23% So if anything, wouldn't be Terran the lagging race? The leading / lagging numbers are not mentioned in aligulacs monthly balance report either, we shouldn't therefore take those numbers to seriously.
Even on those skewed numbers, they show Protoss significantly behind in the match-up where they're being targeted for nerfs. It's important to understand stats and where they are coming from, but knowing the information behind them actually paints a picture far more damning of the current situation.
The facts are simple: there is no data justification for these nerfs, they're just here to justify some internal narrative of those with the loudest voices, which have always been Terran and Zerg players.
On September 26 2018 06:09 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote: "In the Zerg vs. Zerg matchup, we see a lot of Tunneling Claws Roaches used to harass mineral lines. While we enjoy both the harass and comeback potential that this ability affords Zerg players, we’ve received a lot of feedback from Zerg players that it might be too good in this role. Because of the high health regeneration with the Tunneling Claws upgrade, it can take over twice the number of defensive Roaches to dislodge harassing Roaches."
A lot? Once every few dozen games is a lot? Who are the whiny players who refuse to build static defense in the mid-late game and don't want to change their playstyle?
at pro level tunneling claws is insanely effective in the mid-lategame, and there are a lot of scenarios where they cause huge shifts in momentum and map control for very little risk. defending burrow roaches is not a matter of simply building a bunch of static D, it's an incredibly APM intensive and stressful defense.
burrow roaches are in a stupid spot anyway. T and P have detection so consistently that it really is a goofball cheese in other matchups and an annoying, powerful gimmick in zvz
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
I guess you're referring to those aligulac leading/lagging numbers. I always found those numbers odd. Currently aligulac says Zerg is leading with 8% and Protoss is lagging with 14% but how are those numbers calculated? Aligulac also gives precise numbers for every matchup and those are PvT: 52,40%; PvZ: 45.83%; TvZ: 45.23% So if anything, wouldn't be Terran the lagging race? The leading / lagging numbers are not mentioned in aligulacs monthly balance report either, we shouldn't therefore take those numbers to seriously.
Even on those skewed numbers, they show Protoss significantly behind in the match-up where they're being targeted for nerfs. It's important to understand stats and where they are coming from, but knowing the information behind them actually paints a picture far more damning of the current situation.
The facts are simple: there is no data justification for these nerfs, they're just here to justify some internal narrative of those with the loudest voices, which have always been Terran and Zerg players.
Non of these are balance changes, they are obviously made to adress overused/underused strategies and aspects of the game.
- Underused: Muta play (thor nerf), BCs, infestors, nydus, earlygame sentrys - Overused: Queens for defence, proxy cyclones, proxies with shield batteries, mass air (overused as in they want to see them a bit least)
Besides the biggest whiners are obviously protoss players and their martyr complex, nobody is out to get them, you are just as any other player for Blizzard.
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
I guess you're referring to those aligulac leading/lagging numbers. I always found those numbers odd. Currently aligulac says Zerg is leading with 8% and Protoss is lagging with 14% but how are those numbers calculated? Aligulac also gives precise numbers for every matchup and those are PvT: 52,40%; PvZ: 45.83%; TvZ: 45.23% So if anything, wouldn't be Terran the lagging race? The leading / lagging numbers are not mentioned in aligulacs monthly balance report either, we shouldn't therefore take those numbers to seriously.
Even on those skewed numbers, they show Protoss significantly behind in the match-up where they're being targeted for nerfs. It's important to understand stats and where they are coming from, but knowing the information behind them actually paints a picture far more damning of the current situation.
The facts are simple: there is no data justification for these nerfs, they're just here to justify some internal narrative of those with the loudest voices, which have always been Terran and Zerg players.
Non of these are balance changes, they are obviously made to adress overused/underused strategies and aspects of the game.
- Underused: Muta play (thor nerf), BCs, infestors, nydus, earlygame sentrys - Overused: Queens for defence, proxy cyclones, proxies with shield batteries, mass air (overused as in they want to see them a bit least)
Besides the biggest whiners are obviously protoss players and their martyr complex, nobody is out to get them, you are just as any other player for Blizzard.
I think you're right but they should not call it "Balance" Mod Update if it wasn't a Balance Mod Update.
THIS IS AMAZING!!!! I love you Blizz, so many positive changes, I really hope they stick with this. Blizzcon can't come soon enough. Sad to see the battery become less tanky, I also know how annoying it can be to play against them, but the zerg changes, oh man, they might not swing the balance a whole lot, but it gives me more options to mess around, be bit more comfortable with hydras under storm/tank fire and less clunky infestors, oh hell. Also really looking forward to nydus and tunneling being less of a commitment in early game. Darn, I'm so happy with these changes.
On September 26 2018 04:36 Nakajin wrote: What does "unit radius" mean? They say they will reduce infestor unit radus
You can get a really good for how clunky burrowed infestor is if you make like 16, pair them with other units and then try to properly position them, it's a mess. The fact that units can walk over them now, they take up less space and you get one extra range for infested terrans makes them so much nicer to play with.
On September 26 2018 06:00 brickrd wrote: my immediate reaction to heal-over-time transfuse is that i'm going to start the baneling transfuse meta in early game ZvZ to keep them alive forever when my opponent tries the 1-2 ling snipe on them
That would be quite difficult to do, since you have to damage them first it order to allow them to be transfused. Although, it might be cool enough that the impracticality might go out the window. Recently, I'm making early fast dropperlord for my creep queen and spreading creep from 2/3 of a way to my opponent. It is not all that practical, but the coolness of it and the surprise of my opponents is well worth it :D .
On September 26 2018 05:13 washikie wrote: I wonder if infestors will be a new option vs Terran in midgame now that if you fungle a marine drop they cant get back into the medivac. Might allow you to go infestor zergling baneling instead of hydra zergling baneling. Interesting change, I wonder what it will do to players like Maru when they go 2-1-1.
Think itll still probably be pretty difficult to have infestor ling bane out when 2 1 1 hits? Also for the cost of them not sure it would be worth it.
I'm more referring to the follow up period after 2-1-1 hits right now Terran generally stay out on the map even when hydras are out using squads of marine medivac to keep back creep if they opened 2-1-1 if you go hydras you can drive these back but really good Terran won't lose the units even when you do, you have to comit to at leas mutas if you really want to permanently clear the drops, or you have to distract Terran and take them out while t is preoccupied. Infestors though could deny the escape before Terran gets any kind of notification which could be fairly usefull.
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
I guess you're referring to those aligulac leading/lagging numbers. I always found those numbers odd. Currently aligulac says Zerg is leading with 8% and Protoss is lagging with 14% but how are those numbers calculated? Aligulac also gives precise numbers for every matchup and those are PvT: 52,40%; PvZ: 45.83%; TvZ: 45.23% So if anything, wouldn't be Terran the lagging race? The leading / lagging numbers are not mentioned in aligulacs monthly balance report either, we shouldn't therefore take those numbers to seriously.
Even on those skewed numbers, they show Protoss significantly behind in the match-up where they're being targeted for nerfs. It's important to understand stats and where they are coming from, but knowing the information behind them actually paints a picture far more damning of the current situation.
The facts are simple: there is no data justification for these nerfs, they're just here to justify some internal narrative of those with the loudest voices, which have always been Terran and Zerg players.
That's not an explanation on how those numbers are calculated, we don't know how they compared the top players to one another plus narrowing the sample size brings the negative effect that players with outstanding individual skill(like maru, serral) influence the numbers even more.
Besides, this update is not necessarily a straight up nerf for protoss in PvZ. They nerf the shield battery/ ravager interaktion and the warp prism, which will not make double Archon prism unavailable, but they also going to nerf the Queen and creep spread which is huge.
I really like most of the changes on the test server and i like this update.The only thing they should think about again is the carrier change, that is a bit too much. And I'm concerned that protoss ground compositions with tempest support become to agile in TvP.
a lot of zerg changes, no terran changes, 2 protoss changes that are also about zerg. small wonder, it's been a tough year for zerg, and clearly the devs understand this too. and don't you go and push serral on a pedestal! while no one can deny is insane achievements this year,it only shows his dominance as an individual, while zerg players as a whole were not very successful lately, to say the least.
I like the changes, they are very good but they are totally lacking in giving stuff to P.
I hope that if they look towards that, they look at buffing stalkers and maybe adepts. 15 damage stalkers could help, changing their upgraded damage from +1+1vs armored to +2, perhaps buff a few movement speeds, make protoss gateway units be capable of defending on their own. Perhaps even changing WP from 200 minerals to 175.
As for protoss all ins being buffed with that I think most changes already prevent that, old marauders and faster to build minerals already help terran and zerg never really had a hard time against gateway units with the only possible exception being adept all ins, wich aren't that prevalent anyway.
I like most of these Zerg changes. The Queen should be nerfed even more though, it is stupid to see 6-10 queens every game. They are uninteresting defensive units.
Now Protoss is nerfed in early (shield battery), mid (warp prism) and late (high Templar and carrier) game. After not winning almost anything in 2018, the race plainly faces extinction in 2019. I do not think that the viewership of WCS will keep increasing if all RO4 games are ZvZ ... again and again. Same with TvT in GSL, unless Serral moves there.
It is not understandable that the offensive use of transfuse and shield batteries is nerfed, but nothing is said about offensive repair. Which is the only real issue now with terrans proxying every game.
What about Terran late game in TvP? Did Blizzard just give up?
I find it really frustrating that they are nerfing Transfusion and Creep Tumors before addressing Queen range.
That is the single most obnoxious thing about them being a "catch all" unit, I'll take what I can get but seriously no mention at all of their AA range eh? Even after Nerfing Liberators and now Warp Prisms why do they still need to keep that obnoxious 9 range?
On September 26 2018 07:28 batatm wrote: a lot of zerg changes, no terran changes, 2 protoss changes that are also about zerg. small wonder, it's been a tough year for zerg, and clearly the devs understand this too. and don't you go and push serral on a pedestal! while no one can deny is insane achievements this year,it only shows his dominance as an individual, while zerg players as a whole were not very successful lately, to say the least.
I think Zerg was pretty successful this year even if we took out Serral. WCS in the foreign scene is filled with zerg players (serral won his last WCS circuit playing only zvz). Zerg has been represented well in most of the premier tournaments this year. Which tournament are you referring to that did not have good zerg representation?
Even as a Protoss player, I think these changes are really good. I expect Protoss to be pretty shitty when the patch arrives (kinda like Terran post 4.0), but I like the direction the game is heading.
1. Fungal growth splash should be revert back to before they nerf it long time ago. The rationale for reducing FG splash was bc it was too good to trap units. But now FG simply slow units down....they should tone it back up.
2. Remove light unit type from Hydra. Not sure why they allow hellion (a tier one unit that cost no gas) rip up hydra (tier two unit with gas) with ease, especially after blue flamed is upgraded. Hydras are already units that ain't super powerful. They can't move fast (can't retreat with ease) and not as strong as marines. Simply removing light unit status won't buff hydra but will make it more useful unit verses mech.
On September 26 2018 09:31 BigRedDog wrote: Two things i am always curious....
1. Fungal growth splash should be revert back to before they nerf it long time ago. The rationale for reducing FG splash was bc it was too good to trap units. But now FG simply slow units down....they should tone it back up.
2. Remove light unit type from Hydra. Not sure why they allow hellion (a tier one unit that cost no gas) rip up hydra (tier two unit with gas) with ease, especially after blue flamed is upgraded. Hydras are already units that ain't super powerful. They can't move fast (can't retreat with ease) and not as strong as marines. Simply removing light unit status won't buff hydra but will make it more useful unit verses mech.
umm hydras are super powerful and they kill hellions so fast that it dosent matter that they are light units, and what are you talking about they are stronger than marines
On September 26 2018 09:31 BigRedDog wrote: Two things i am always curious....
1. Fungal growth splash should be revert back to before they nerf it long time ago. The rationale for reducing FG splash was bc it was too good to trap units. But now FG simply slow units down....they should tone it back up.
2. Remove light unit type from Hydra. Not sure why they allow hellion (a tier one unit that cost no gas) rip up hydra (tier two unit with gas) with ease, especially after blue flamed is upgraded. Hydras are already units that ain't super powerful. They can't move fast (can't retreat with ease) and not as strong as marines. Simply removing light unit status won't buff hydra but will make it more useful unit verses mech.
umm hydras are super powerful and they kill hellions so fast that it dosent matter that they are light units, and what are you talking about they are stronger than marines
While BigRedDog is completely wrong about hydras being weak, let's be realistic and not use extreme hyperbole. Marines are definitely tied for strongest unit in the game alongside carriers. Marines scale incredibly well with upgrades, they both move and attack incredibly fast, they are cheap, efficient, quick to build, and easily massable at any point in the game. Marines also combine fluidly with every terran unit composition except dedicated Thor/Raven mech compositions. Also mass groups of marines beat basically any unit composition except High Templars or sieged Tanks. The game has developed enough so that basic marine splits are relatively easy and target firing banelings is not a huge problem. Hell MKP target fired banelings in 2011.
This isn't to say anything about balance or "marines are too strong" or anything like that, I just want us to operate in an objective reality
I guess in blizzard time September 25th is April 1st. Where the unbalance team attempts to kill sc2 viewership. No offense to the new guys at blizzard but maybe you should look at the tournament results and talk to pros. There are some real issues with the game atm but none of these changes really addresses anything and some of them make it much worse.
On September 26 2018 06:09 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote: "In the Zerg vs. Zerg matchup, we see a lot of Tunneling Claws Roaches used to harass mineral lines. While we enjoy both the harass and comeback potential that this ability affords Zerg players, we’ve received a lot of feedback from Zerg players that it might be too good in this role. Because of the high health regeneration with the Tunneling Claws upgrade, it can take over twice the number of defensive Roaches to dislodge harassing Roaches."
A lot? Once every few dozen games is a lot? Who are the whiny players who refuse to build static defense in the mid-late game and don't want to change their playstyle?
at pro level tunneling claws is insanely effective in the mid-lategame, and there are a lot of scenarios where they cause huge shifts in momentum and map control for very little risk. defending burrow roaches is not a matter of simply building a bunch of static D, it's an incredibly APM intensive and stressful defense.
burrow roaches are in a stupid spot anyway. T and P have detection so consistently that it really is a goofball cheese in other matchups and an annoying, powerful gimmick in zvz
Honestly this just feels like a direct nerf to Serral as he is the best player by far to use this strat, you can't really argue that zerg doesn't have enough detection or even less than the other two races.
On September 26 2018 05:11 yht9657 wrote: Thanks Blizzard for the void ray speed buff (or more like reduced nerf) but still nobody higher than gold is gonna use them because they suck.
In just about every team game of 3v3 or 4v4 with a toss, in all leagues, someone rushes voids and comes in from the side and beams down your base and there's almost nothing you can do about it unless you went straight to a build to counter 6 voids and have great scouting. They are used in every team game, usually then transitioning into CARRY-ERs and 1a'ing across the map in the air. Makes for real fun times.
On September 26 2018 09:31 BigRedDog wrote: Two things i am always curious....
2. Remove light unit type from Hydra. Not sure why they allow hellion (a tier one unit that cost no gas) rip up hydra (tier two unit with gas) with ease, especially after blue flamed is upgraded. Hydras are already units that ain't super powerful. They can't move fast (can't retreat with ease) and not as strong as marines. Simply removing light unit status won't buff hydra but will make it more useful unit verses mech.
Protoss would quite literally never win if this happened since before storm or colossus, protoss' only reliable chance of beating hydra-based attacks is adepts with glades and sentry support. It's already common to see zerg players on ladder quite literally do mass hydra as a strategy if they know protoss has delayed storm or as a follow-up to a successful earlier attack in the game if they put protoss behind on getting splash damage. The hydra is the last unit in the game to need anything resembling a buff at this point.
On another topic, I think something still needs to be done about proxy cyclone with some pulled SCVs on auto-repair. It feels the same as hatchery tech drops in that you can't really know it is coming because until it's hitting unless you get lucky with scouting as protoss (which won't happen if the terran does a good job with their reaper since it will kill scout probes and force gateway units to stay in the main to defend the probes from harass). Most people doing it also do an early second depot to block scouting so protoss can't know for sure if there's one gas taken or two (which is why it is so strong. This can easily be faked into a command center or other build but still look like cyclones). Observers won't scout the terran base in time and hallucinations can't be cast before the attack hits.
The only way to beat it is to be prepared in advance, and if terran fakes it they're automatically ahead since protoss has to delay tech and rush out units. It's also much harder to beat as protoss in the actual fighting than to do as terran since the SCVs will repair on their own and protoss has to target a bunch of workers before they can even hope to do damage against the cyclones.
Honestly I'm not a fan of the battery change. I get proxy battery is hard to play vs, I have had many frustrating games with it myself but I dont think it is all that op. There are several strats in this game that are equaly cheesy and hard to play against. some examples: proxy hatchery rushes, proxy barracks rushes, proxy imortal rushes, proxy cylone rushes, tvt proxy reaper rushes. The list goes on. I don't think that this strategy is strong enough to merrit a nerf to a now pivitol part of protos's early game. nerfing this will make Terran allins in tvp even stronger something we really don't need, ( and I say this as a primarily Terran player) It also makes the already difficult for toss early stages of pvz even more unstable and makes holds to various rushes to hard. The problem with toss is that they are to good late game and to week early game, (provided they are not doing some crazy allin of there own) protoss needs more stability in the early game not less and they need there late game power toned down a bit more in return than where this patch is headed. I'm not a fan of the way the balance is headed with toss. They are still extremely strong late but very vulnerable early on. I would hope that we could get to a place like tvz, where a one race strong early one race strong late dynamic is still very clear but feels less problematic because terran can still win late game a reasonable amount of the time, and its not to bad for zerg to hold of Terran aggression provided they make some cuts to there build that slow down the late game steam roller. tvz just feels alot less extreme than pv x matchups right now where protoss is extremely vulnerable early game but extremely powerful late game.
The creep and the roach burrow changes kinda seem like targeting Serral. I mean creeptumor nerf (while completely and utterly unnecessary) is bad for every zerg, but it hurts those who have really good multitasking skills. And the spectacular roach-burrow comebacks the Blizz devs talk about are mostly Serral comebacks as far as the games I ve seen.
Also, some replies here are so detached from reality they arent event worth answering. I started out writing some rebuttals but kinda gave up, there s no way to change the mind of some people.
Well they nerf the one and only opening on pvz and give back nothing... isn't that coooooool? Not to mention the overused proxy on any terran game is till there.
Must admit I quite like these changes. They seem well thought through. Still a bit disappointed with Protoss changes overall. I'd like to see more of... just stuff.
I like some of the design changes but still don't understand why protoss is getting consistent nerfs when they are already doing poorly in every region.
after armor reduce, cyclones should be able to shoot while moving or some other dmg change, obviously they will have to look at this issue again but why wait another 6-12 month.
Why don't they add a "close to nexus" requirement to shield battery (similar to fast warping pylon mechanics). Bam! Offensive abuse problem solved. The way they are trying to fix it is a bandaid that lowers SB's defense capabilities. Cyclones are already smashing them on the attack. Now they gonna abuse this even more.
Leave nydus as it right now just remove invincibility and add armour (or remove it from the game). For what reason does zerg need 2 overlapping mechanics to transfer units? Why? Why do you keep forcing this shit? They just abuse it for allining. That's clear as daylight. You did an awesome thange to Overlords in LotV. Now nydus is just an atrocity.
Regarding mines. Well... I hoped that after those Maru games they would consider nerfing mines, but instead we got this. I mean, yeah, the proposing change won't change much and i'm fine if it goes through. But what i would really like to see is changing mines mechanics completely. Mines are oblitirating protoss mineral lines since 2014 and i believe it's not how it supposed to be. Risk / reward ratio is really favouring terran here. Boost in, drop mines, booom! boost out. Almost zero risks taken, but could be a game ending move for a protoss. We witness that in pro matches every fcking time. Why? Why do terrans have such insane harrass options? No other race can do that. They already have hellions for that. Same goes for baneling blows. It could be fun for viewrs, yes. But i don't really see how a 20 baneling kill could be legit, from both design and balance perspective. So i would really consider adding a kill limit for single mine detonation. Like 5 or something, that could be increased with upgraid to 8 or 10. Make them invisible w/o upgraid i don't care then. Or reduce splash radius. Or make them not target workers (similar to bw mines). tldr: mines may be fine as they are in the lategame, but as a spammable tier1(1.5) unit it is heavily abused on early stages. That should be adressed.
Good stuff, I am sure Protoss will get a buff before it goes live and if Terran proxies don't stop it will be addressed. But this is a good patch for now.
So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
I like the changes, but I think the real problem at this point are with the power units. TvP is stable more or less, maybe a bit terran favored, but the unit which ruins the game is the Disruptor. I don`t like that unit at all, toss already has AOE with Collo and Storm, I don`t see why they need 3rd AOE. (archon I would not even put it as AOE). I would maybe buff the voyrray and rething the disruptor.
TvT is in ok state, lot of openings, raven disable mechanism changed allot the game.
TvZ bane/ling/Corruptor too strong. Ultralisk too strong in late game... doesn`t really have a strong counter, marauder tanks, but that are countered by lings.
I agree T has a lot of worker harassment abilities, and that sucks for zerg and terran, but at this point is hard to rework the medivac, also would take the fun of playing terran out of the game. At high level I don`t see problem with Terran hellion/mine drop at worker lines, but it affects quite much everything under master. It is really easy for T to make damage in the worker line, but that is basically because of bad defense, not balance issue imho.
Thank god I am not playing anymore. Protoss gets nerf after nerf. PvZ is going to be a lot of fun without an opening strategy or a viable all in. Protoss will just stay on their side of the map defending all game untill they just lose, while the zerg just drones up and throws punches nonstop
I am not expecting anything but it is very disappointing to me that the final expansion of SC2 failed to make mech TvP work even if to a weak viability. I love the game but it makes me sad that it will probably never be viable and that it seems even worse than in HotS. I was happy with how it was in HotS, even if most people didn't consider it viable. It was at least decent solid and worked on almost maps, styles, strategies, even if it wasn't as "good" as bio. I honestly can't think of anything to adjust that would give mech tvp some help without fucking with the balance of other things, so I can't fault them if they gave up though...
Mech TvP did get lots of buffs, like stronger tanks, cyclones, BCs that teleport, etc., but many changes have made it harder too. Immortals no longer having old hardened shields is great for the game in general, but bad for mech. Now you don't need ghosts, but going ghostless was pointless anyway unless if it was early game where it was too expensive to add them, and ghosts (which had their gas cost reverted after all these years) are useful in general anyway vs Protoss. I like the design of the new Immortals, just that as a mech player it was better the old way so I could just EMP them and burst them down immediately, etc. Adept pushes are really hard to deal with in my experience and you can only hold them off with a specific type of build, and on some maps it just seems unrealistic to defend it without being really behind. Protoss has so many more ways to interact and harass terran that everything feels a lot harder as a mech player. And sky toss just feels so strong now due to the carrier buffs
If I missed any new developments/ideas/strats, feel free to share them. I got back into playing a few months ago but took a break again. My TvP winrate was like 20% or something ungodly whereas in HotS it was actually 50% give or take a few.
I think the changes they are proposing all sound good overall though. I have been pretty happy with the direction of all the patches throughout SC2, but especially in recent years.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
I detect some decent american highschool education in your post. Thats not how attackspeed works my friend.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
Every 18 shots, the new hydralisk will shoot 1 shot less than before the patch. This is a dps nerf of 1.17 damage per second. It's not that they shoot less, but it's that it's a fairly high number of shots before a hydralisk actually fires slow enough to lose a shot.
In other words, it's such a small nerf that it's unlikely to make any tangible difference in a game.
On September 26 2018 19:00 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: RIP nothing for TvP mech
I am not expecting anything but it is very disappointing to me that the final expansion of SC2 failed to make mech TvP work even if to a weak viability. I love the game but it makes me sad that it will probably never be viable and that it seems even worse than in HotS. I was happy with how it was in HotS, even if most people didn't consider it viable. It was at least decent solid and worked on almost maps, styles, strategies, even if it wasn't as "good" as bio. I honestly can't think of anything to adjust that would give mech tvp some help without fucking with the balance of other things, so I can't fault them if they gave up though...
Mech TvP did get lots of buffs, like stronger tanks, cyclones, BCs that teleport, etc., but many changes have made it harder too. Immortals no longer having old hardened shields is great for the game in general, but bad for mech. Now you don't need ghosts, but going ghostless was pointless anyway unless if it was early game where it was too expensive to add them, and ghosts (which had their gas cost reverted after all these years) are useful in general anyway vs Protoss. I like the design of the new Immortals, just that as a mech player it was better the old way so I could just EMP them and burst them down immediately, etc. Adept pushes are really hard to deal with in my experience and you can only hold them off with a specific type of build, and on some maps it just seems unrealistic to defend it without being really behind. Protoss has so many more ways to interact and harass terran that everything feels a lot harder as a mech player. And sky toss just feels so strong now due to the carrier buffs
If I missed any new developments/ideas/strats, feel free to share them. I got back into playing a few months ago but took a break again. My TvP winrate was like 20% or something ungodly whereas in HotS it was actually 50% give or take a few.
I think the changes they are proposing all sound good overall though. I have been pretty happy with the direction of all the patches throughout SC2, but especially in recent years.
Tank/Hellbat works decently when you get the tank the tank count up.
The problem has always been air. Carriers are completly OP vs mech pre-patch but I think they are more balanced post patch. Both Thors and Vikings should do better now vs Protoss air, at least until they get mass air + HT.
BCs will still be useless of course since the new Tempest will hardcounter them even harder than before.
Still ground mech with viking support will work better post patch compared to pre patch.
Nerf Orbital Command. Why? because: - lost many SCV, np Calldown MULE - lost suplydepot, np Calldown Extra Supplies - DT atack, np Scanner Sweep
Have everythin ~1:30.
so you run a lone DT into a mineralline even if you dont spot a fresh mule? thats to opposite of smart. And complain about extra supplies? Really? And with chronoboost and injections mules are needed for balance
Just make Starcraft 3. SC2 right now is beyond redemption. These changes are great but not good enough and also they are too late. SC2 own problems are still there. Mech vs toss, deathball, 3 second- ending-game-battle...
As a Terran - it's kinda sad seeing how this year's balance patch will royally screw Protoss in pretty similar fashion to how last year's balance patch screwed over Terran.
On September 26 2018 19:00 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: RIP nothing for TvP mech
I am not expecting anything but it is very disappointing to me that the final expansion of SC2 failed to make mech TvP work even if to a weak viability. I love the game but it makes me sad that it will probably never be viable and that it seems even worse than in HotS. I was happy with how it was in HotS, even if most people didn't consider it viable. It was at least decent solid and worked on almost maps, styles, strategies, even if it wasn't as "good" as bio. I honestly can't think of anything to adjust that would give mech tvp some help without fucking with the balance of other things, so I can't fault them if they gave up though...
Mech TvP did get lots of buffs, like stronger tanks, cyclones, BCs that teleport, etc., but many changes have made it harder too. Immortals no longer having old hardened shields is great for the game in general, but bad for mech. Now you don't need ghosts, but going ghostless was pointless anyway unless if it was early game where it was too expensive to add them, and ghosts (which had their gas cost reverted after all these years) are useful in general anyway vs Protoss. I like the design of the new Immortals, just that as a mech player it was better the old way so I could just EMP them and burst them down immediately, etc. Adept pushes are really hard to deal with in my experience and you can only hold them off with a specific type of build, and on some maps it just seems unrealistic to defend it without being really behind. Protoss has so many more ways to interact and harass terran that everything feels a lot harder as a mech player. And sky toss just feels so strong now due to the carrier buffs
If I missed any new developments/ideas/strats, feel free to share them. I got back into playing a few months ago but took a break again. My TvP winrate was like 20% or something ungodly whereas in HotS it was actually 50% give or take a few.
I think the changes they are proposing all sound good overall though. I have been pretty happy with the direction of all the patches throughout SC2, but especially in recent years.
Tank/Hellbat works decently when you get the tank the tank count up.
The problem has always been air. Carriers are completly OP vs mech pre-patch but I think they are more balanced post patch. Both Thors and Vikings should do better now vs Protoss air, at least until they get mass air + HT.
BCs will still be useless of course since the new Tempest will hardcounter them even harder than before.
Still ground mech with viking support will work better post patch compared to pre patch.
My biggest problem with mech right is early-mid, and mid-late, pretty much the transition between periods.
While you can do good damage with silly factory/starport based shenanigans theres a period before mid where you don't have enough tank/hellbat to defend agression, specially multi agression, if you are trying to take a 3rd base fast (wich you need least the toss over run you), a WP, a few starport units and some blink stalkers can really wreak havoc because you don't have enough stuff and your stuff isn't very mobile.
And then the period between ground mech and sky terran, the protoss has the a much faster transitioning capability tanks to warp gate and chrono boost, and while a the toss can start chrono boosting 3 stargate carriers while warping zealots in your bases a terran has a much harder time transitioning to BCs. Wich is why it was so common to see mech getting destroyed by sky toss before fully transitioning to sky terran.
The solution to this would be to have a catch all unit that serves as a fast support unit with good but not great AA, kinda like the stalker for toss, wich used to be the cyclone until 4.0 hit.
About Creep spread I think the problem isn't that it spreads faster now. In HotS Creep spread wasn't that oppressive because terran could paradepush with Bio/mine which made it easy to deny Creep. With the metagame-shift to Hydras terran isn't able to push anymore before having the critical mass of tanks which means the only option to clear Creep before the push is with medivac drops but that isn't really effective because a good Zerg will just immediately replace the tumors. If the metagame shifts back to Ling Bane Muta the Creep spread nerf might not be necessary anymore.
Creep nerf is a horrible idea and shows clear favoritism toward the foreign scene by the balance team. Clearing creep and maintaining pressure is just as much of a skill as spreading it, don't punish foreign zergs for being better than their opponents. Not to mention the Korean scene, where zerg has yet to win a gsl in lotv. In the Korean scene denying creep is one of the most common ways viewers can know that the zergs opponent is playing well that game, artosis even made a comment about it recently in a game saying 'this creep spread looks like 2016 creep spread' as a way of saying that the Terran was doing a great job pressuring and denying creep.
Wow, considering my lastest diffulties in zvt, I am pretty happy of my pause haha. Joke aside, I am bit concerned for pro zergs with the creep nerf, it seems a pretty hard one but let's see how it turns out.
On the topic of creep spread, I think the value of map control and vision the creep gives is not given enough importance. Zerg right now can build a lot of queens stay safe from almost everything while getting map control and vision for free(creep+OL) and get ahead economically. So thats where we are usually when we enter midgame unless the zerg opponent went for an early attack and if the opponent did chances are zerg is stil ahead economically and map control wise.
So how is this fair, zerg gets basically three big advantages from how strong queens have been recently. Safe from allins and harass, strong economy and map control. This creep and transfusion nerfs both attempt to nerf the queen which in my opinion is reasonable, maybe zerg needs other buffs to balance it out but some of zergs power needs to be moved from queens to literally anywhere else.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
What he means is that in the time a hydra used to do 15 attacks, it now does 14. It makes perfect sense to me. The nerf is an approximate 5% attack speed nerf, so for every 10 shots a hydra does now, they get 9.5ish shots with the speed change.
Doing the actual math of 0.54/0.57 to get the difference in speed (which is 0.94736... attacks for every current attack), it actually takes 19 attacks at the current speed to lose one complete attack at the new speed (so 18 attacks at the new speed for every 19 attack a hydra currently takes). A simpler way of thinking about it is a hydra currently does 19 attacks in 10.26 seconds (0.54*19 = 10.26), after the patch it will do 18 attacks in that 10.26 seconds (18*0.57 = 10.26). For shorter fights, the difference will be minuscule.
To put into perspective how tiny this change is, for 4.0, the stalker attack speed changed from 1.0 to 1.54 (or for every 3 attacks a stalker did prior to 4.0 and after it was reverted, it would do 2 attacks on the 4.0 patch). That change was easily noticeable but wasn't as dramatic as it sounds and was quickly adjusted to by most protoss players.
From a psychological perspective, most players probably won't even notice a change of around 5% on an already short attack speed. There's a thing called the Weber-Fechner Law that delves into this kind of thing. A change this tiny won't require any adjustment to play with since it is quite literally 3/100ths of a second difference in attack speed on an attack that takes slightly more than half a second.
On September 27 2018 03:07 Shuffleblade wrote: On the topic of creep spread, I think the value of map control and vision the creep gives is not given enough importance. Zerg right now can build a lot of queens stay safe from almost everything while getting map control and vision for free(creep+OL) and get ahead economically. So thats where we are usually when we enter midgame unless the zerg opponent went for an early attack and if the opponent did chances are zerg is stil ahead economically and map control wise.
So how is this fair, zerg gets basically three big advantages from how strong queens have been recently. Safe from allins and harass, strong economy and map control. This creep and transfusion nerfs both attempt to nerf the queen which in my opinion is reasonable, maybe zerg needs other buffs to balance it out but some of zergs power needs to be moved from queens to literally anywhere else.
It's not free, queens cost minerals and creep takes multi tasking and energy. Overlords can easily be denied by Vikings and phoenixes, and in fact that's one of the biggest reasons behind the meta shift into such heavy creep spread: because overlord vision is denied so easily. Zerg needs to be ahead economically just to fight on even footing, that's how the race works.
It's fair because of the big three types of investment in starcraft. There's army, tech, and economy. Zerg invests heavily in economy and army (600+ minerals in queens) early on, while Terran invests in army and tech and protoss invests in tech and economy. Map control is an extension of how active you are on the map, and if you watch Koreans play they'll do things like snipe creep tumors with their reaper and hellions which are just multi tasking skills to help them keep map control. See the other side of this is anything that isn't covered in creep is not controlled by the zerg and if the Terran or protoss has the multi tasking to keep spotting units alive there, then they have map control there.
Also queens will not save you from allins or even all harass openers. Even just defending hellions is a micro battle on both sides.
Honestly, complaining about queens is a meme to me and I can't believe blizzard is actually listening to these whiners.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
What he means is that in the time a hydra used to do 15 attacks, it now does 14. It makes perfect sense to me. The nerf is an approximate 5% attack speed nerf, so for every 10 shots a hydra does now, they get 9.5ish shots with the speed change.
Doing the actual math of 0.54/0.57 to get the difference in speed (which is 0.94736... attacks for every current attack), it actually takes 19 attacks at the current speed to lose one complete attack at the new speed (so 18 attacks at the new speed for every 19 attack a hydra currently takes). A simpler way of thinking about it is a hydra currently does 19 attacks in 10.26 seconds (0.54*19 = 10.26), after the patch it will do 18 attacks in that 10.26 seconds (18*0.57 = 10.26). For shorter fights, the difference will be minuscule.
To put into perspective how tiny this change is, for 4.0, the stalker attack speed changed from 1.0 to 1.54 (or for every 3 attacks a stalker did prior to 4.0 and after it was reverted, it would do 2 attacks on the 4.0 patch). That change was easily noticeable but wasn't as dramatic as it sounds and was quickly adjusted to by most protoss players.
From a psychological perspective, most players probably won't even notice a change of around 5% on an already short attack speed. There's a thing called the Weber-Fechner Law that delves into this kind of thing. A change this tiny won't require any adjustment to play with since it is quite literally 3/100ths of a second difference in attack speed on an attack that takes slightly more than half a second.
What the original poster and you from the looks of it fail to realize is that this change can make a huge difference in short fight. The difference is not as you say minuscule.
The attack speed reduction makes it so that in some situations three hydras used to have time to attack two times each but after the patch they only had time to shoot once before the medivac or warpprism got away. That is one examle how in a short fight this nerf can make the difference between a dead loaded medivac or a live one. It all depends if the nerf makes the hydra take one less shot that it would have before the nerf or not, if it doesn't the effect is 0 but if it does the effect can be big. It all depends from engagement to engagement but it is definitely not a meaningless change.
On September 27 2018 03:07 Shuffleblade wrote: On the topic of creep spread, I think the value of map control and vision the creep gives is not given enough importance. Zerg right now can build a lot of queens stay safe from almost everything while getting map control and vision for free(creep+OL) and get ahead economically. So thats where we are usually when we enter midgame unless the zerg opponent went for an early attack and if the opponent did chances are zerg is stil ahead economically and map control wise.
So how is this fair, zerg gets basically three big advantages from how strong queens have been recently. Safe from allins and harass, strong economy and map control. This creep and transfusion nerfs both attempt to nerf the queen which in my opinion is reasonable, maybe zerg needs other buffs to balance it out but some of zergs power needs to be moved from queens to literally anywhere else.
It's not free, queens cost minerals and creep takes multi tasking and energy. Overlords can easily be denied by Vikings and phoenixes, and in fact that's one of the biggest reasons behind the meta shift into such heavy creep spread: because overlord vision is denied so easily. Zerg needs to be ahead economically just to fight on even footing, that's how the race works.
It's fair because of the big three types of investment in starcraft. There's army, tech, and economy. Zerg invests heavily in economy and army (600+ minerals in queens) early on, while Terran invests in army and tech and protoss invests in tech and economy. Map control is an extension of how active you are on the map, and if you watch Koreans play they'll do things like snipe creep tumors with their reaper and hellions which are just multi tasking skills to help them keep map control. See the other side of this is anything that isn't covered in creep is not controlled by the zerg and if the Terran or protoss has the multi tasking to keep spotting units alive there, then they have map control there.
Also queens will not save you from allins or even all harass openers. Even just defending hellions is a micro battle on both sides.
Honestly, complaining about queens is a meme to me and I can't believe blizzard is actually listening to these whiners.
Dude queens are zergs main source of production, without queens for injects zerg would stop functioning as a race. So no 600 minerals use on queens is not zerg putting money into defense and creep spread, it is zerg putting money into their necessary infrastructure. That needed infrastructre also happens to give the following for free; map control and strong defense. If you want to argue that the minerals is put to use in that way then show me the pro level build(that is not an allin) where the players does not build queens. Spoiler it doesn't exist because queens are bloody necessary by design.
The proof queens needs toning down is in the builds of the pros, how many pros builds extra queens past the necessary 1 per hatch? The answer is basically everyone, why? Because they are overpowered, if the weren't we would see a greater variation in builds. Why is this a problem? Because something being overpowered in itself means its a problem but also because seeing the same thing every damn game is boring, for players as well as spectators. Your opinion does not change the facts.
On September 27 2018 03:07 Shuffleblade wrote: On the topic of creep spread, I think the value of map control and vision the creep gives is not given enough importance. Zerg right now can build a lot of queens stay safe from almost everything while getting map control and vision for free(creep+OL) and get ahead economically. So thats where we are usually when we enter midgame unless the zerg opponent went for an early attack and if the opponent did chances are zerg is stil ahead economically and map control wise.
So how is this fair, zerg gets basically three big advantages from how strong queens have been recently. Safe from allins and harass, strong economy and map control. This creep and transfusion nerfs both attempt to nerf the queen which in my opinion is reasonable, maybe zerg needs other buffs to balance it out but some of zergs power needs to be moved from queens to literally anywhere else.
It's not free, queens cost minerals and creep takes multi tasking and energy. Overlords can easily be denied by Vikings and phoenixes, and in fact that's one of the biggest reasons behind the meta shift into such heavy creep spread: because overlord vision is denied so easily. Zerg needs to be ahead economically just to fight on even footing, that's how the race works.
It's fair because of the big three types of investment in starcraft. There's army, tech, and economy. Zerg invests heavily in economy and army (600+ minerals in queens) early on, while Terran invests in army and tech and protoss invests in tech and economy. Map control is an extension of how active you are on the map, and if you watch Koreans play they'll do things like snipe creep tumors with their reaper and hellions which are just multi tasking skills to help them keep map control. See the other side of this is anything that isn't covered in creep is not controlled by the zerg and if the Terran or protoss has the multi tasking to keep spotting units alive there, then they have map control there.
Also queens will not save you from allins or even all harass openers. Even just defending hellions is a micro battle on both sides.
Honestly, complaining about queens is a meme to me and I can't believe blizzard is actually listening to these whiners.
while i agree with you overall, i do think queens are in a pretty strong place. and with basic ling support they actually can surprisingly defend certain allins you wouldn't expect them to.
to me the issue is that the queen meta evolved from terran and protoss both relying on a lot of potent LOTV harassment that made it very difficult for zerg to do anything to control the pace of the game.
we have to understand that zerg is more singular in how it works than T or P because of larva. there's a vicious cycle with zerg and the meta which makes it most often the case that zerg tends to oscillate more rapidly between being strong and weak.
1. T and P almost always MUST limit zerg economic growth to succeed 2. this means T and P rely on harassment and/or timings that cut off zerg's third base saturation. currently i think this is more true for T, but still true for both races 3. as T and P become better and better at limiting zerg economy, the harassment becomes more potent, which necessitates an in-between option that allows zerg to have attacking units while also using larvae for drones. hence, in this case, queen buffs and mass queen builds 4. as zerg become better and better at using queens defensively and anticipating harass, T and P start struggling to achieve that damage, which gives the feeling of having to work harder to achieve damage than zerg does to defend - somewhat similar to the HotS TvP meta where heavy harass was necessary, possible, but very difficult against a prepared opponent
obviously all these things are debatable when it comes to the game being "fair and balanced," and obviously all races are capable of beating each other at all levels, but this is a general picture of one of the major problems with balancing zerg. i am open to redesigns that relegate queens back to support as long as there's a better solution being proposed for how zerg can play games out without being forced into simply cutting at the exact same number of drones every game and hoping to win every defensive fight until they gain enough advantage to instantly counterattack. people get bored with the meta when zerg does the same thing every game - with the exception of when a matchup is just widely considered mechanically beautiful on both sides like bio mine vs ling bane muta in HotS. but even that matchup had to be altered eventually.
On September 27 2018 03:07 Shuffleblade wrote: On the topic of creep spread, I think the value of map control and vision the creep gives is not given enough importance. Zerg right now can build a lot of queens stay safe from almost everything while getting map control and vision for free(creep+OL) and get ahead economically. So thats where we are usually when we enter midgame unless the zerg opponent went for an early attack and if the opponent did chances are zerg is stil ahead economically and map control wise.
So how is this fair, zerg gets basically three big advantages from how strong queens have been recently. Safe from allins and harass, strong economy and map control. This creep and transfusion nerfs both attempt to nerf the queen which in my opinion is reasonable, maybe zerg needs other buffs to balance it out but some of zergs power needs to be moved from queens to literally anywhere else.
It's not free, queens cost minerals and creep takes multi tasking and energy. Overlords can easily be denied by Vikings and phoenixes, and in fact that's one of the biggest reasons behind the meta shift into such heavy creep spread: because overlord vision is denied so easily. Zerg needs to be ahead economically just to fight on even footing, that's how the race works.
It's fair because of the big three types of investment in starcraft. There's army, tech, and economy. Zerg invests heavily in economy and army (600+ minerals in queens) early on, while Terran invests in army and tech and protoss invests in tech and economy. Map control is an extension of how active you are on the map, and if you watch Koreans play they'll do things like snipe creep tumors with their reaper and hellions which are just multi tasking skills to help them keep map control. See the other side of this is anything that isn't covered in creep is not controlled by the zerg and if the Terran or protoss has the multi tasking to keep spotting units alive there, then they have map control there.
Also queens will not save you from allins or even all harass openers. Even just defending hellions is a micro battle on both sides.
Honestly, complaining about queens is a meme to me and I can't believe blizzard is actually listening to these whiners.
while i agree with you overall, i do think queens are in a pretty strong place. and with basic ling support they actually can surprisingly defend certain allins you wouldn't expect them to.
to me the issue is that the queen meta evolved from terran and protoss both relying on a lot of potent LOTV harassment that made it very difficult for zerg to do anything to control the pace of the game.
we have to understand that zerg is more singular in how it works than T or P because of larva. there's a vicious cycle with zerg and the meta which makes it most often the case that zerg tends to oscillate more rapidly between being strong and weak.
1. T and P almost always MUST limit zerg economic growth to succeed 2. this means T and P rely on harassment and/or timings that cut off zerg's third base saturation. currently i think this is more true for T, but still true for both races 3. as T and P become better and better at limiting zerg economy, the harassment becomes more potent, which necessitates an in-between option that allows zerg to have attacking units while also using larvae for drones. hence, in this case, queen buffs and mass queen builds 4. as zerg become better and better at using queens defensively and anticipating harass, T and P start struggling to achieve that damage, which gives the feeling of having to work harder to achieve damage than zerg does to defend - somewhat similar to the HotS TvP meta where heavy harass was necessary, possible, but very difficult against a prepared opponent
obviously all these things are debatable when it comes to the game being "fair and balanced," and obviously all races are capable of beating each other at all levels, but this is a general picture of one of the major problems with balancing zerg. i am open to redesigns that relegate queens back to support as long as there's a better solution being proposed for how zerg can play games out without being forced into simply cutting at the exact same number of drones every game and hoping to win every defensive fight until they gain enough advantage to instantly counterattack. people get bored with the meta when zerg does the same thing every game - with the exception of when a matchup is just widely considered mechanically beautiful on both sides like bio mine vs ling bane muta in HotS. but even that matchup had to be altered eventually.
Had to I'm not really sure it had to be altered it was so adored by the community. But it was any way. Constant action, a pinnacle of mechanicle skill for any matchup in the game. I miss it.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
What he means is that in the time a hydra used to do 15 attacks, it now does 14. It makes perfect sense to me. The nerf is an approximate 5% attack speed nerf, so for every 10 shots a hydra does now, they get 9.5ish shots with the speed change.
Doing the actual math of 0.54/0.57 to get the difference in speed (which is 0.94736... attacks for every current attack), it actually takes 19 attacks at the current speed to lose one complete attack at the new speed (so 18 attacks at the new speed for every 19 attack a hydra currently takes). A simpler way of thinking about it is a hydra currently does 19 attacks in 10.26 seconds (0.54*19 = 10.26), after the patch it will do 18 attacks in that 10.26 seconds (18*0.57 = 10.26). For shorter fights, the difference will be minuscule.
To put into perspective how tiny this change is, for 4.0, the stalker attack speed changed from 1.0 to 1.54 (or for every 3 attacks a stalker did prior to 4.0 and after it was reverted, it would do 2 attacks on the 4.0 patch). That change was easily noticeable but wasn't as dramatic as it sounds and was quickly adjusted to by most protoss players.
From a psychological perspective, most players probably won't even notice a change of around 5% on an already short attack speed. There's a thing called the Weber-Fechner Law that delves into this kind of thing. A change this tiny won't require any adjustment to play with since it is quite literally 3/100ths of a second difference in attack speed on an attack that takes slightly more than half a second.
What the original poster and you from the looks of it fail to realize is that this change can make a huge difference in short fight. The difference is not as you say minuscule.
The attack speed reduction makes it so that in some situations three hydras used to have time to attack two times each but after the patch they only had time to shoot once before the medivac or warpprism got away. That is one examle how in a short fight this nerf can make the difference between a dead loaded medivac or a live one. It all depends if the nerf makes the hydra take one less shot that it would have before the nerf or not, if it doesn't the effect is 0 but if it does the effect can be big. It all depends from engagement to engagement but it is definitely not a meaningless change.
While I don't disagree that there can be incredibly specific situations where it will make a difference, I will point out that with two attacks we're talking about essentially 0.06 seconds for two attacks, and at that small of a scale, latency can be as big of a factor as well. The entire difference will be in if the medivac can move out of range in that 6/100ths of a second. Chances are, if the medivac was boosting at either attack speed it would be out of range in either case.
Again, we're talking less than a twentieth of a second here. Amounts of time small enough that your brain can't actually comprehend them. In cases where hydras are fighting other units, it takes multiple seconds of sustained fighting without the hydras ever repositioning for this change to make any difference. In reality, in most fights units have to reposition so much that that 3/100ths of a second won't matter.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
What he means is that in the time a hydra used to do 15 attacks, it now does 14. It makes perfect sense to me. The nerf is an approximate 5% attack speed nerf, so for every 10 shots a hydra does now, they get 9.5ish shots with the speed change.
Doing the actual math of 0.54/0.57 to get the difference in speed (which is 0.94736... attacks for every current attack), it actually takes 19 attacks at the current speed to lose one complete attack at the new speed (so 18 attacks at the new speed for every 19 attack a hydra currently takes). A simpler way of thinking about it is a hydra currently does 19 attacks in 10.26 seconds (0.54*19 = 10.26), after the patch it will do 18 attacks in that 10.26 seconds (18*0.57 = 10.26). For shorter fights, the difference will be minuscule.
To put into perspective how tiny this change is, for 4.0, the stalker attack speed changed from 1.0 to 1.54 (or for every 3 attacks a stalker did prior to 4.0 and after it was reverted, it would do 2 attacks on the 4.0 patch). That change was easily noticeable but wasn't as dramatic as it sounds and was quickly adjusted to by most protoss players.
From a psychological perspective, most players probably won't even notice a change of around 5% on an already short attack speed. There's a thing called the Weber-Fechner Law that delves into this kind of thing. A change this tiny won't require any adjustment to play with since it is quite literally 3/100ths of a second difference in attack speed on an attack that takes slightly more than half a second.
What the original poster and you from the looks of it fail to realize is that this change can make a huge difference in short fight. The difference is not as you say minuscule.
The attack speed reduction makes it so that in some situations three hydras used to have time to attack two times each but after the patch they only had time to shoot once before the medivac or warpprism got away. That is one examle how in a short fight this nerf can make the difference between a dead loaded medivac or a live one. It all depends if the nerf makes the hydra take one less shot that it would have before the nerf or not, if it doesn't the effect is 0 but if it does the effect can be big. It all depends from engagement to engagement but it is definitely not a meaningless change.
While I don't disagree that there can be incredibly specific situations where it will make a difference, I will point out that with two attacks we're talking about essentially 0.06 seconds for two attacks, and at that small of a scale, latency can be as big of a factor as well. The entire difference will be in if the medivac can move out of range in that 6/100ths of a second. Chances are, if the medivac was boosting at either attack speed it would be out of range in either case.
Again, we're talking less than a twentieth of a second here. Amounts of time small enough that your brain can't actually comprehend them. In cases where hydras are fighting other units, it takes multiple seconds of sustained fighting without the hydras ever repositioning for this change to make any difference. In reality, in most fights units have to reposition so much that that 3/100ths of a second won't matter.
Thats true, it is a very small time frame where the nerf can affect the outcome, with latency in mind it gets even more unlikely it would make the difference. You're right!
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
What he means is that in the time a hydra used to do 15 attacks, it now does 14. It makes perfect sense to me. The nerf is an approximate 5% attack speed nerf, so for every 10 shots a hydra does now, they get 9.5ish shots with the speed change.
Doing the actual math of 0.54/0.57 to get the difference in speed (which is 0.94736... attacks for every current attack), it actually takes 19 attacks at the current speed to lose one complete attack at the new speed (so 18 attacks at the new speed for every 19 attack a hydra currently takes). A simpler way of thinking about it is a hydra currently does 19 attacks in 10.26 seconds (0.54*19 = 10.26), after the patch it will do 18 attacks in that 10.26 seconds (18*0.57 = 10.26). For shorter fights, the difference will be minuscule.
To put into perspective how tiny this change is, for 4.0, the stalker attack speed changed from 1.0 to 1.54 (or for every 3 attacks a stalker did prior to 4.0 and after it was reverted, it would do 2 attacks on the 4.0 patch). That change was easily noticeable but wasn't as dramatic as it sounds and was quickly adjusted to by most protoss players.
From a psychological perspective, most players probably won't even notice a change of around 5% on an already short attack speed. There's a thing called the Weber-Fechner Law that delves into this kind of thing. A change this tiny won't require any adjustment to play with since it is quite literally 3/100ths of a second difference in attack speed on an attack that takes slightly more than half a second.
What the original poster and you from the looks of it fail to realize is that this change can make a huge difference in short fight. The difference is not as you say minuscule.
The attack speed reduction makes it so that in some situations three hydras used to have time to attack two times each but after the patch they only had time to shoot once before the medivac or warpprism got away. That is one examle how in a short fight this nerf can make the difference between a dead loaded medivac or a live one. It all depends if the nerf makes the hydra take one less shot that it would have before the nerf or not, if it doesn't the effect is 0 but if it does the effect can be big. It all depends from engagement to engagement but it is definitely not a meaningless change.
While I don't disagree that there can be incredibly specific situations where it will make a difference, I will point out that with two attacks we're talking about essentially 0.06 seconds for two attacks, and at that small of a scale, latency can be as big of a factor as well. The entire difference will be in if the medivac can move out of range in that 6/100ths of a second. Chances are, if the medivac was boosting at either attack speed it would be out of range in either case.
Again, we're talking less than a twentieth of a second here. Amounts of time small enough that your brain can't actually comprehend them. In cases where hydras are fighting other units, it takes multiple seconds of sustained fighting without the hydras ever repositioning for this change to make any difference. In reality, in most fights units have to reposition so much that that 3/100ths of a second won't matter.
Thats true, it is a very small time frame where the nerf can affect the outcome, with latency in mind it gets even more unlikely it would make the difference. You're right!
It won't make a difference when all hydras can fire. The difference will be felt in army vs. army engagements with the back row of hydras losing more of their DPS compared to the front row. It will still be a small difference.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
What he means is that in the time a hydra used to do 15 attacks, it now does 14. It makes perfect sense to me. The nerf is an approximate 5% attack speed nerf, so for every 10 shots a hydra does now, they get 9.5ish shots with the speed change.
Doing the actual math of 0.54/0.57 to get the difference in speed (which is 0.94736... attacks for every current attack), it actually takes 19 attacks at the current speed to lose one complete attack at the new speed (so 18 attacks at the new speed for every 19 attack a hydra currently takes). A simpler way of thinking about it is a hydra currently does 19 attacks in 10.26 seconds (0.54*19 = 10.26), after the patch it will do 18 attacks in that 10.26 seconds (18*0.57 = 10.26). For shorter fights, the difference will be minuscule.
To put into perspective how tiny this change is, for 4.0, the stalker attack speed changed from 1.0 to 1.54 (or for every 3 attacks a stalker did prior to 4.0 and after it was reverted, it would do 2 attacks on the 4.0 patch). That change was easily noticeable but wasn't as dramatic as it sounds and was quickly adjusted to by most protoss players.
From a psychological perspective, most players probably won't even notice a change of around 5% on an already short attack speed. There's a thing called the Weber-Fechner Law that delves into this kind of thing. A change this tiny won't require any adjustment to play with since it is quite literally 3/100ths of a second difference in attack speed on an attack that takes slightly more than half a second.
What the original poster and you from the looks of it fail to realize is that this change can make a huge difference in short fight. The difference is not as you say minuscule.
The attack speed reduction makes it so that in some situations three hydras used to have time to attack two times each but after the patch they only had time to shoot once before the medivac or warpprism got away. That is one examle how in a short fight this nerf can make the difference between a dead loaded medivac or a live one. It all depends if the nerf makes the hydra take one less shot that it would have before the nerf or not, if it doesn't the effect is 0 but if it does the effect can be big. It all depends from engagement to engagement but it is definitely not a meaningless change.
While I don't disagree that there can be incredibly specific situations where it will make a difference, I will point out that with two attacks we're talking about essentially 0.06 seconds for two attacks, and at that small of a scale, latency can be as big of a factor as well. The entire difference will be in if the medivac can move out of range in that 6/100ths of a second. Chances are, if the medivac was boosting at either attack speed it would be out of range in either case.
Again, we're talking less than a twentieth of a second here. Amounts of time small enough that your brain can't actually comprehend them. In cases where hydras are fighting other units, it takes multiple seconds of sustained fighting without the hydras ever repositioning for this change to make any difference. In reality, in most fights units have to reposition so much that that 3/100ths of a second won't matter.
After you put it that way this change seems so small why is bliz even bothering in the first place? The creep and queen changes are huge but this hardly seems to matter at all.
On September 26 2018 16:48 RuFF_SC2 wrote: So blizzard changes hydra hp back to nerf dps so that instead a hydra can fire 14 times instead of 15 times, you know the battles over by than. This logic makes no sense.
Hydras fire every shot slower than before. Not just 15th. That logic makes no sense.
I think hydras have been in fine spot after the split upgrades. Hydras don't need big nerf. At least not versus mech. I hope they don't nerf hydra hp. They are already glass cannons vs storms and tanks.
What he means is that in the time a hydra used to do 15 attacks, it now does 14. It makes perfect sense to me. The nerf is an approximate 5% attack speed nerf, so for every 10 shots a hydra does now, they get 9.5ish shots with the speed change.
Doing the actual math of 0.54/0.57 to get the difference in speed (which is 0.94736... attacks for every current attack), it actually takes 19 attacks at the current speed to lose one complete attack at the new speed (so 18 attacks at the new speed for every 19 attack a hydra currently takes). A simpler way of thinking about it is a hydra currently does 19 attacks in 10.26 seconds (0.54*19 = 10.26), after the patch it will do 18 attacks in that 10.26 seconds (18*0.57 = 10.26). For shorter fights, the difference will be minuscule.
To put into perspective how tiny this change is, for 4.0, the stalker attack speed changed from 1.0 to 1.54 (or for every 3 attacks a stalker did prior to 4.0 and after it was reverted, it would do 2 attacks on the 4.0 patch). That change was easily noticeable but wasn't as dramatic as it sounds and was quickly adjusted to by most protoss players.
From a psychological perspective, most players probably won't even notice a change of around 5% on an already short attack speed. There's a thing called the Weber-Fechner Law that delves into this kind of thing. A change this tiny won't require any adjustment to play with since it is quite literally 3/100ths of a second difference in attack speed on an attack that takes slightly more than half a second.
What the original poster and you from the looks of it fail to realize is that this change can make a huge difference in short fight. The difference is not as you say minuscule.
The attack speed reduction makes it so that in some situations three hydras used to have time to attack two times each but after the patch they only had time to shoot once before the medivac or warpprism got away. That is one examle how in a short fight this nerf can make the difference between a dead loaded medivac or a live one. It all depends if the nerf makes the hydra take one less shot that it would have before the nerf or not, if it doesn't the effect is 0 but if it does the effect can be big. It all depends from engagement to engagement but it is definitely not a meaningless change.
While I don't disagree that there can be incredibly specific situations where it will make a difference, I will point out that with two attacks we're talking about essentially 0.06 seconds for two attacks, and at that small of a scale, latency can be as big of a factor as well. The entire difference will be in if the medivac can move out of range in that 6/100ths of a second. Chances are, if the medivac was boosting at either attack speed it would be out of range in either case.
Again, we're talking less than a twentieth of a second here. Amounts of time small enough that your brain can't actually comprehend them. In cases where hydras are fighting other units, it takes multiple seconds of sustained fighting without the hydras ever repositioning for this change to make any difference. In reality, in most fights units have to reposition so much that that 3/100ths of a second won't matter.
After you put it that way this change seems so small why is bliz even bothering in the first place? The creep and queen changes are huge but this hardly seems to matter at all.
I kinda laughed when I saw it, to be honest. It seems kinda pointless. They've fine tuned numbers in the past but this just seems silly in how tiny the change is.
The only way I can possibly think of that makes it sounds anything other than trivially small is that the DPS of hydras changes from around 22.2 to 21.1. So basically, after the patch you will need 21 hydras to do roughly the same amount of DPS 20 hydras currently do. But again, at that scale, so many other factors will come into play that it's not likely to actually matter. That one DPS isn't exactly big given most units have 45 health or more (outside of probes and drones, which will still get killed in two shots). There might be a few situations where it will take a single extra hit from a group of hydras to kill something but that's about it.
I looked up the marine to compare, and the hydra is still faster, though just barely (an unstimmed marine has an attack speed/cooldown of 0.61. With stim it's halved to 0.305).
Looking at older patches, the few times there have been attack speed changes, it's on the quarter to half second scale. Not 3/100ths of a second. For example, for 4.0 they changed the stalker to have an attack speed of 1.54 instead of 1. Then when they changed the attack to tone it down a bit they changed it to 1.34. The only other change I can find in LoTV patches that comes close to this one in terms of smallness is when they changed siege tanks sieged attack to have an attack speed/cooldown of 2.14 instead of 2, which around a 6-7% change.
I don't think there's any magical reasoning behind the dps change, other than they wanted to make it roughly the same magnitude as the earlier HP nerf (~5%). In isolation, they're roughly equivalent. That said, they're ignoring the fact that the HP nerf actually does change some unit interactions that changing the dps doesn't, like: 1. Liberators one-shotting hydras at +3 2. Tanks start two-shotting hydras at +1 instead of +3 3. Immortals start four-shotting hydras at +2 instead of +3 (and at +1 if the Zerg is doesn't have carapace upgrades) 4. Oracles four-shotting instead of five and so on
Then again, the thing about the dps-nerf is that it comes into effect as long as the hydras are firing, whereas a HP nerf only matters when they take damage. A lot of times they're going to be behind a meatshield and if your units get on top of them you've probably already won the fight (this is probably more true against Protoss than Terran because it's easier to target-fire hydras with longer-ranged siege units like tanks and liberators).
If I had to guess I'd say the HP nerf is more consequential, but I don't think the dps nerf is completely insignificant either.
Sure, this was feedback from the pros. I suspect one of the entitled European zergs (dont think it was Serral or Stephano) who advocated for this. After the region lock to prop up their ineptitude, aggressively pushing this Zerg favored agenda.
On September 27 2018 03:07 Shuffleblade wrote: On the topic of creep spread, I think the value of map control and vision the creep gives is not given enough importance. Zerg right now can build a lot of queens stay safe from almost everything while getting map control and vision for free(creep+OL) and get ahead economically. So thats where we are usually when we enter midgame unless the zerg opponent went for an early attack and if the opponent did chances are zerg is stil ahead economically and map control wise.
So how is this fair, zerg gets basically three big advantages from how strong queens have been recently. Safe from allins and harass, strong economy and map control. This creep and transfusion nerfs both attempt to nerf the queen which in my opinion is reasonable, maybe zerg needs other buffs to balance it out but some of zergs power needs to be moved from queens to literally anywhere else.
It's not free, queens cost minerals and creep takes multi tasking and energy. Overlords can easily be denied by Vikings and phoenixes, and in fact that's one of the biggest reasons behind the meta shift into such heavy creep spread: because overlord vision is denied so easily. Zerg needs to be ahead economically just to fight on even footing, that's how the race works.
It's fair because of the big three types of investment in starcraft. There's army, tech, and economy. Zerg invests heavily in economy and army (600+ minerals in queens) early on, while Terran invests in army and tech and protoss invests in tech and economy. Map control is an extension of how active you are on the map, and if you watch Koreans play they'll do things like snipe creep tumors with their reaper and hellions which are just multi tasking skills to help them keep map control. See the other side of this is anything that isn't covered in creep is not controlled by the zerg and if the Terran or protoss has the multi tasking to keep spotting units alive there, then they have map control there.
Also queens will not save you from allins or even all harass openers. Even just defending hellions is a micro battle on both sides.
Honestly, complaining about queens is a meme to me and I can't believe blizzard is actually listening to these whiners.
because denying creep is harder than spreading it on big maps and it's getting out of control for terran, so much panick already for such a small nerf, and queens def can defend any allin with lings.
I don't like the hydra attack speed nerf. It's a fragile ranged damage dealer, and the health buffs made it less fragile.
If a nerf is required, nerfing the attack speed will actually make it more "all around" because less specialised, which contradicts what blizzard wants (and what would be good) for the unit.
Moreover a 5 hitpoints nerf is perfectly sensible. Would make the unit a little more fragile but nothing crazy.
On September 27 2018 03:07 Shuffleblade wrote: On the topic of creep spread, I think the value of map control and vision the creep gives is not given enough importance. Zerg right now can build a lot of queens stay safe from almost everything while getting map control and vision for free(creep+OL) and get ahead economically. So thats where we are usually when we enter midgame unless the zerg opponent went for an early attack and if the opponent did chances are zerg is stil ahead economically and map control wise.
So how is this fair, zerg gets basically three big advantages from how strong queens have been recently. Safe from allins and harass, strong economy and map control. This creep and transfusion nerfs both attempt to nerf the queen which in my opinion is reasonable, maybe zerg needs other buffs to balance it out but some of zergs power needs to be moved from queens to literally anywhere else.
It's not free, queens cost minerals and creep takes multi tasking and energy. Overlords can easily be denied by Vikings and phoenixes, and in fact that's one of the biggest reasons behind the meta shift into such heavy creep spread: because overlord vision is denied so easily. Zerg needs to be ahead economically just to fight on even footing, that's how the race works.
It's fair because of the big three types of investment in starcraft. There's army, tech, and economy. Zerg invests heavily in economy and army (600+ minerals in queens) early on, while Terran invests in army and tech and protoss invests in tech and economy. Map control is an extension of how active you are on the map, and if you watch Koreans play they'll do things like snipe creep tumors with their reaper and hellions which are just multi tasking skills to help them keep map control. See the other side of this is anything that isn't covered in creep is not controlled by the zerg and if the Terran or protoss has the multi tasking to keep spotting units alive there, then they have map control there.
Also queens will not save you from allins or even all harass openers. Even just defending hellions is a micro battle on both sides.
Honestly, complaining about queens is a meme to me and I can't believe blizzard is actually listening to these whiners.
because denying creep is harder than spreading it on big maps and it's getting out of control for terran, so much panick already for such a small nerf, and queens def can defend any allin with lings.
Meh, this way written it sounds so ezpz and nice, but have you played the zerg? Finding the balance between building queens(150 min) and 3 drones isn't exactly as easy as it sounds. The problem is that queens go way out of hand in the later stages, but having too many queens in early stages of the game places you in disadvantage. You cannot attack(they're slow walkers) and you invested into something that's doing nothing. Larvae is nice, but if you don't have the economy...
To balance out queens Blizzard would need to redesign Zerg and that's not happening They are strong, but they have to be strong because that's how Zerg works. It's the same as nerfing chrono/MULEs and then be surprised both races suck hard.
On September 26 2018 16:14 Musicus wrote: Good stuff, I am sure Protoss will get a buff before it goes live and if Terran proxies don't stop it will be addressed. But this is a good patch for now.
What else can terran do but proxy?? its not like we can win late game
On September 26 2018 21:36 DubiousC2 wrote: Lol @ the "nerf" to Hydras.
As a Terran - it's kinda sad seeing how this year's balance patch will royally screw Protoss in pretty similar fashion to how last year's balance patch screwed over Terran.
trust me, protoss will always have terrans they can get freewins of.
On September 26 2018 07:28 batatm wrote: a lot of zerg changes, no terran changes, 2 protoss changes that are also about zerg. small wonder, it's been a tough year for zerg, and clearly the devs understand this too. and don't you go and push serral on a pedestal! while no one can deny is insane achievements this year,it only shows his dominance as an individual, while zerg players as a whole were not very successful lately, to say the least.
I think Zerg was pretty successful this year even if we took out Serral. WCS in the foreign scene is filled with zerg players (serral won his last WCS circuit playing only zvz). Zerg has been represented well in most of the premier tournaments this year. Which tournament are you referring to that did not have good zerg representation?
late, i know, but i still think you're eligible for an answer. so, mainly GSL, i admit that's the one format i watched pretty consistently this year (not to say i didn't watch foreign tournaments at all). other than that, wcs standings in both regions might suggest there's a problem as well. i know some might say that it's not indicative enough to rely on, but it IS the accumulated resuls of the whole year.
At first I thought the changes to protoss were slightly interesting with making something like gateway armies stronger again if carriers were nerfed, but i cant understand some of the stuff theyre doing now. they're literally just trying to force a change in the meta....? O.o
Current GM shares: - Americas * Top 10: 50% Zerg 40% Protoss * Top 100: 38% Zerg 33 % Protoss * Top 200: 36 % Zerg 28% Protoss - Europe * Top 10: 20% Zerg 50% Protoss * Top 100: 35% Zerg 29 % Protoss * Top 200: 35 % Zerg 27% Protoss - Korea * Top 10: 50% Zerg 20% Protoss * Top 100: 38% Zerg 27 % Protoss * Top 200: 35 % Zerg 30% Protoss
And of course Z has had the most people entering the play offs in the all the WCS events this season. So yeah, easy to see that Z needs buffs vs. P.
Over the months somebody on this forum has repeatedly talked about some important balance team member publicly stated in an interview that his favorite race is Z.
On a different note: the new maps seem to massively favor T, because last season it was like 50% Zerg across the board and P always between 33%. But the season is still young ...
On September 28 2018 03:18 QuinnTheEskimo wrote: LOL! I'm so glad I quit the game.
Current GM shares: - Americas * Top 10: 50% Zerg 40% Protoss * Top 100: 38% Zerg 33 % Protoss * Top 200: 36 % Zerg 28% Protoss - Europe * Top 10: 20% Zerg 50% Protoss * Top 100: 35% Zerg 29 % Protoss * Top 200: 35 % Zerg 27% Protoss - Korea * Top 10: 50% Zerg 20% Protoss * Top 100: 38% Zerg 27 % Protoss * Top 200: 35 % Zerg 30% Protoss
And of course Z has had the most people entering the play offs in the all the WCS events this season. So yeah, easy to see that Z needs buffs vs. P.
Over the months somebody on this forum has repeatedly talked about some important balance team member publicly stated in an interview that his favorite race is Z.
On a different note: the new maps seem to massively favor T, because last season it was like 50% Zerg across the board and P always between 33%. But the season is still young ...
GM isn't top level play.
i place highest on competitive ladders playing as Zerg in both Brood War and SC2. I've accepted the fact that a diverse race game can only be perfectly balanced at one level of play. Most game makers choose the top level of play.
i'd rather have a diverse race game than a perfectly balanced game where i place the same on the ladder with all races. this is true not just for SC2 and Brood War but for every diverse race RTS game i've played for the past 18 years. CoH1, RA2, and RA3, and C&C3 all have this same issue. meh.
Diverse race RTS games are never balanced. To quote Chris Jericho : "Never ... Ever"
On September 27 2018 23:31 -Kyo- wrote: At first I thought the changes to protoss were slightly interesting with making something like gateway armies stronger again if carriers were nerfed, but i cant understand some of the stuff theyre doing now. they're literally just trying to force a change in the meta....? O.o
This is what puzzles me the most about all these changes. There are clear directions they are looking at for terran and zerg (trying to bring back mutas in TvZ, mines in various terran matchups, making infestors easier to use and more viable, directing zerg slightly away from hydra-heavy compositions) but none of the Protoss changes point to any particular goal other than getting rid of mass carriers as a viable strategy, making tempests slightly less terrible (I have a strong feeling they will walk back a lot of these tempest changes), making recall work how it should have in the first place, and reverting distruptors. The cheaper robo is nice (though it could be problematic) but other than that every other change they've made to protoss either is a weirdly specific nerf or is some fiddly little change that won't have that big of an impact. The only change I've seen so far that I think is actually clever is the guardian shield change. It's subtle but will be useful and will encourage more sentry use.
I still think that changing hallucination to 75 energy is a dumb half-measure and that it needs to be 50. Then it would actually be useful for scouting since a hallucination can be sent as soon as the sentry is made (if changes have to be made to the hallucinations themselves to balance it then so be it). Better scouting would solve so many of the issues protoss has right now and would allow actual meaningful changes to be made to protoss. A good chunk of the stuff we see being abused by protoss players also happens to be stuff vital to protoss not dying to various all-ins and proxies that they can't reliably scout right now. Shield batteries are probably too good right now but without them protoss dies to a whole range of things.
I still think that changing hallucination to 75 energy is a dumb half-measure and that it needs to be 50. Then it would actually be useful for scouting since a hallucination can be sent as soon as the sentry is made (if changes have to be made to the hallucinations themselves to balance it then so be it). Better scouting would solve so many of the issues protoss has right now and would allow actual meaningful changes to be made to protoss. A good chunk of the stuff we see being abused by protoss players also happens to be stuff vital to protoss not dying to various all-ins and proxies that they can't reliably scout right now. Shield batteries are probably too good right now but without them protoss dies to a whole range of things.
i think with 50 energy hallucinations would give protoss too much scouting ability. With few sentries you can scout every minute. And there isn't much counter play to hallucination scouting. Maybe if hallucination duration or hp would be reduced, it would be good change.
I still think that changing hallucination to 75 energy is a dumb half-measure and that it needs to be 50. Then it would actually be useful for scouting since a hallucination can be sent as soon as the sentry is made (if changes have to be made to the hallucinations themselves to balance it then so be it). Better scouting would solve so many of the issues protoss has right now and would allow actual meaningful changes to be made to protoss. A good chunk of the stuff we see being abused by protoss players also happens to be stuff vital to protoss not dying to various all-ins and proxies that they can't reliably scout right now. Shield batteries are probably too good right now but without them protoss dies to a whole range of things.
i think with 50 energy hallucinations would give protoss too much scouting ability. With few sentries you can scout every minute. And there isn't much counter play to hallucination scouting. Maybe if hallucination duration or hp would be reduced, it would be good change.
That's what I mean by adjust the hallucinations to compensate. If the hallucinations had shorter durations or something like that they would still be quite useful. Even just long enough to scout the main of an opponent, it would be a massive improvement over what protoss has now, which is basically nothing until either the robo/stargate finishes or a sentry is built and is left to generate 100 energy, all of which are too late to be prepared for a lot of situations, especially proxies.
Also, terran scans are 50 energy so hallucinations become a bit of an equivalent. Spamming hallucination scouts wouldn't be good because each hallucination would sacrifice a forcefield, so it's a trade-off in the same way scans are.
i've never seen a balance team in a RTS being just so out of touch with their own game.
legacy of the void suffers from deep fundamental issues and dev team is dancing around nonsense changes all the time, then they let the game die for a whole new year and then they release a new set of strange out of touch changes.
you wanna make BC a more attractive unit by making it even easier to counter ?
you wanna nerf nydus play by making nydus better ?
you wanna make thors a better anti air option vs broodlords, meanwhile you nerf thors armor ?
you wanna make mech viable, but you let zerg go 3hatch every game on pure queens and then mass 20 swarmhosts that have absolut zero counterplay
...
the list goes on.
It's insane to me. Serisouly.
Edit: if you're a terran player you really wonder why you even keep playing this game, i personally literally play SC2 out of nostalgia. I wish i could enjoy this game again, but you just keep pushing dumb changes for whatever reason.
I don't like the pick up range nerf bcs is not only a buff to zerg but it'll shorten the ability of protoss to micro Immortals/Archons in fights, this is even worse with the unecessary buff to Fungal Growth, imo that's not fair that blizz removed the AOE damage of Ravens and gave so much power to Infestors.
I like to see the alien artifact monitoring a fight from far away. Also, ik they will give 0 attention to this but it's ridiculous that a flying bug can pull a freaking Mothership, removing the ability of Vipers to pull colossal units would add realy well in terms of balance, or even sieged tanks stuck on the ground, our fellow terrans would apreciate it, though I think that would be ask for too much. :p
On September 28 2018 03:18 QuinnTheEskimo wrote: LOL! I'm so glad I quit the game.
Current GM shares: - Americas * Top 10: 50% Zerg 40% Protoss * Top 100: 38% Zerg 33 % Protoss * Top 200: 36 % Zerg 28% Protoss - Europe * Top 10: 20% Zerg 50% Protoss * Top 100: 35% Zerg 29 % Protoss * Top 200: 35 % Zerg 27% Protoss - Korea * Top 10: 50% Zerg 20% Protoss * Top 100: 38% Zerg 27 % Protoss * Top 200: 35 % Zerg 30% Protoss
And of course Z has had the most people entering the play offs in the all the WCS events this season. So yeah, easy to see that Z needs buffs vs. P.
Over the months somebody on this forum has repeatedly talked about some important balance team member publicly stated in an interview that his favorite race is Z.
On a different note: the new maps seem to massively favor T, because last season it was like 50% Zerg across the board and P always between 33%. But the season is still young ...
The community lost a real gem in you, you ll be sorely missed
On September 28 2018 09:54 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: i've never seen a balance team in a RTS being just so out of touch with their own game.
legacy of the void suffers from deep fundamental issues and dev team is dancing around nonsense changes all the time, then they let the game die for a whole new year and then they release a new set of strange out of touch changes.
you wanna make BC a more attractive unit by making it even easier to counter ?
you wanna nerf nydus play by making nydus better ?
you wanna make thors a better anti air option vs broodlords, meanwhile you nerf thors armor ?
you wanna make mech viable, but you let zerg go 3hatch every game on pure queens and then mass 20 swarmhosts that have absolut zero counterplay
...
the list goes on.
It's insane to me. Serisouly.
Edit: if you're a terran player you really wonder why you even keep playing this game, i personally literally play SC2 out of nostalgia. I wish i could enjoy this game again, but you just keep pushing dumb changes for whatever reason.
Tbh I only see mass swarmhost vs mech on your stream. But that's probably the stream snipers trying to annoy you. Just hang in there bro, eventually they will grow tired of it. And then you can Mech it happen!
On September 28 2018 09:54 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: i've never seen a balance team in a RTS being just so out of touch with their own game.
legacy of the void suffers from deep fundamental issues and dev team is dancing around nonsense changes all the time, then they let the game die for a whole new year and then they release a new set of strange out of touch changes.
you wanna make BC a more attractive unit by making it even easier to counter ?
you wanna nerf nydus play by making nydus better ?
you wanna make thors a better anti air option vs broodlords, meanwhile you nerf thors armor ?
you wanna make mech viable, but you let zerg go 3hatch every game on pure queens and then mass 20 swarmhosts that have absolut zero counterplay
...
the list goes on.
It's insane to me. Serisouly.
Edit: if you're a terran player you really wonder why you even keep playing this game, i personally literally play SC2 out of nostalgia. I wish i could enjoy this game again, but you just keep pushing dumb changes for whatever reason.
On September 28 2018 12:41 Shaddark wrote: I don't like the pick up range nerf bcs is not only a buff to zerg but it'll shorten the ability of protoss to micro Immortals/Archons in fights, this is even worse with the unecessary buff to Fungal Growth, imo that's not fair that blizz removed the AOE damage of Ravens and gave so much power to Infestors.
I like to see the alien artifact monitoring a fight from far away. Also, ik they will give 0 attention to this but it's ridiculous that a flying bug can pull a freaking Mothership, removing the ability of Vipers to pull colossal units would add realy well in terms of balance, or even sieged tanks stuck on the ground, our fellow terrans would apreciate it, though I think that would be ask for too much. :p
they really should start fixing nonsense like abduct on giants, ravagers without evo chamber, invisible burrowed banes.
On September 28 2018 12:41 Shaddark wrote: I don't like the pick up range nerf bcs is not only a buff to zerg but it'll shorten the ability of protoss to micro Immortals/Archons in fights, this is even worse with the unecessary buff to Fungal Growth, imo that's not fair that blizz removed the AOE damage of Ravens and gave so much power to Infestors.
I like to see the alien artifact monitoring a fight from far away. Also, ik they will give 0 attention to this but it's ridiculous that a flying bug can pull a freaking Mothership, removing the ability of Vipers to pull colossal units would add realy well in terms of balance, or even sieged tanks stuck on the ground, our fellow terrans would apreciate it, though I think that would be ask for too much. :p
they really should start fixing nonsense like abduct on giants, ravagers without evo chamber, invisible burrowed banes.
On September 28 2018 09:54 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: i've never seen a balance team in a RTS being just so out of touch with their own game.
legacy of the void suffers from deep fundamental issues and dev team is dancing around nonsense changes all the time, then they let the game die for a whole new year and then they release a new set of strange out of touch changes.
you wanna make mech viable, but you let zerg go 3hatch every game on pure queens and then mass 20 swarmhosts that have absolut zero counterplay
I disagree with your description of early-game mech vZ. mech has ways to force lots of units out of zerg before he even starts thinking about swarm-hosts. the third hatch is inconsequential... forget about the third hatch. what matters is how fast zerg can drone that third hatch and take a fourth base. mech can easily delay / snipe the fourth hatch, several times, over and over, until zerg makes enough units to stop you. pure queen defense has weaknesses that you can exploit. mech has absolutely no problems at this phase of the game.
the problem with mech vs swarm-hosts is that the meching terran has no way to force the swarmhosts to play defensively. if you get even slightly behind vs swarm-hosts, you are dead. why? because mech has no fast unit that can threaten a hatchery and which also has the ability to retreat.
tornado blaster cyclones can't do this because they're unmicroable, too slow, can't shoot while they move, can't retreat, hard-countered by lings, and don't trade well vs hydra / roach / ravager.
bring back lock-on cyclones with 7 activation range and their old movement speed (same speed as hellion) and suddenly the swarm-host vs mech problem is magically fixed.
On September 28 2018 12:41 Shaddark wrote: I don't like the pick up range nerf bcs is not only a buff to zerg but it'll shorten the ability of protoss to micro Immortals/Archons in fights, this is even worse with the unecessary buff to Fungal Growth, imo that's not fair that blizz removed the AOE damage of Ravens and gave so much power to Infestors.
I like to see the alien artifact monitoring a fight from far away. Also, ik they will give 0 attention to this but it's ridiculous that a flying bug can pull a freaking Mothership, removing the ability of Vipers to pull colossal units would add realy well in terms of balance, or even sieged tanks stuck on the ground, our fellow terrans would apreciate it, though I think that would be ask for too much. :p
they really should start fixing nonsense like abduct on giants, ravagers without evo chamber, invisible burrowed banes.
Whining on burrow banes...
whining on whining from you by your logic then
you must be a moron if this is ok to be in the game
I'm baffled. Why is the Queen meant to balance defenses against a Tier 2/3 drop? I think Zerg should have to make some gas investment if their opponent is making a Robotics Bay and Templar Archives/Dark Shrine if they want to counter it, rather than using their macro unit.
I haven't been watching much SC2 lately though, is the Queen the only reasonable defense against an Archon drop?
On September 29 2018 12:03 zyce wrote: I'm baffled. Why is the Queen meant to balance defenses against a Tier 2/3 drop? I think Zerg should have to make some gas investment if their opponent is making a Robotics Bay and Templar Archives/Dark Shrine if they want to counter it, rather than using their macro unit.
I haven't been watching much SC2 lately though, is the Queen the only reasonable defense against an Archon drop?
It's the only unit that shoot up zerg has at this timing.
Archons drops are already really strong as it does free dmg at a cost of a few shield that will regenerate. The only way to counter the push is to kill the WP (or to low his HP enough the P player stop harassing not to lose his archons).
And vs archons drops, the defense is usually roach + queens, queens alone die vs archons, lings too, roach alone don't have the dps to kill the archons. Queens are mandatory, and even with roach + queens, this BO still do dmg and it's still one of the most popular opener of PvZ.
On September 29 2018 21:45 allmotor1 wrote: what happened to all the rest of the proposed changes such as carriers and thors getting a buff vs capital ships etc?
I guess those had to go - Protoss is supposed to win when they get Carriers so the Carrier nerf was a slip-up in an otherwise flawless patch process.
On September 29 2018 21:45 allmotor1 wrote: what happened to all the rest of the proposed changes such as carriers and thors getting a buff vs capital ships etc?
This is all additional changes they will be making along side all of the earlier ones. The first paragraph of their press release say as much. They say in the notes any changes that will be replacing earlier changes.
Based on the feedback we received from the community as well as pro players, we decided to expand the scope of our initial balance proposal.
Balance team from diamond very bad. No one used battlecruisers - they will nerf battlecruisers. No one used ravens in TvZ and TvP - they will nerf ravens.
On September 30 2018 00:51 BRAT_OK wrote: Balance team from diamond very bad. No one used battlecruisers - they will nerf battlecruisers. No one used ravens in TvZ and TvP - they will nerf ravens.
On September 26 2018 05:24 Yonnua wrote: Well, that's a ridiculous and disappointing set of suggestions.
Protoss is currently lagging statistically behind by more than 10%, and behind zerg by more than 20%. Protoss has won only one Premier tournament all year, and PvZ specifically hasn't statistically fallen in favour of protoss since July 2016.
Meanwhile, Blizzard's priority is more nerfs to protoss, and specifically nerfs to make the game less fun and more difficult to play. The nerf to shield batteries for the sake of avoiding a niche and rare strategy comes at the cost of being able to defend against early aggression anywhere near as easily. The cavalier throwaway lines "this will reduce the number of Corrosive Biles it takes to destroy them from 7 to 5" but it "weaken[s] offensive usage while mostly maintaining their defensive power" shows how shortsighted and poorly thought out these changes are.
There is just no justification for this current line of changes; they can't be called balance changes because they will make the game less balanced.
After watching PiG's video I think Blizzard should look a bit more into some Protoss changes.
a) the shield battery nerf seems to harsh in defensive play. Maybe they can bind the shield battery's starting energy to the pylon power field.
b) the carrier seems to be complete garbage. I saw a few protoss going carriers on Nathanias stream, it was laughable, they have to bring back the graviton catapult upgrade in some form.
c) Tempests are super strong and I fear they will annihilate late game Liberator play in TvP, which will annihilate late game TvP as a whole (again). They have to nerf the movement speed so that vikings catch up in a reasonable amount of time. A middle ground between the current speed and the proposed one would be good, maybe 3.0.
On September 30 2018 22:31 Lexender wrote: "Toss is the lagging race"
Says as 7 out of 16 in Blizzcon are protoss and we just had a PvP finals.
yeah sos and classic cheesed out their opponents with dt's and adept rushes and immortal all ins after standard play failed and took the first major tournament won all year by a protoss player. Clearly we can ignore every other tournament and the thousands of games played and watch PvX devolve into sos dice roll being the standard play. Sign of a very healthy match up.
On September 30 2018 22:31 Lexender wrote: "Toss is the lagging race"
Says as 7 out of 16 in Blizzcon are protoss and we just had a PvP finals.
yeah sos and classic cheesed out their opponents with dt's and adept rushes and immortal all ins after standard play failed and took the first major tournament won all year by a protoss player. Clearly we can ignore every other tournament and the thousands of games played and watch PvX devolve into sos dice roll being the standard play. Sign of a very healthy match up.
I guess sOs and Classic took the reddit advices too literal and played just like Maru
Btw Stats won Super tournament 1 so this isn't the first protoss win at a major tournament this year. Also, 7 out of 16 players at Blizzcon will be Protoss.
They should focus on making the gameplay and unit interactions less cancerous, less annoying and frustrating. I think legacy of the void just went way too far in a lot of ways.
Sc2 needs to become a little bit more down to earth again. Nobody enjoys watching pro games end in a single move and nobody enjoys playing a game like this in the long run.
On September 30 2018 22:31 Lexender wrote: "Toss is the lagging race"
Says as 7 out of 16 in Blizzcon are protoss and we just had a PvP finals.
yeah sos and classic cheesed out their opponents with dt's and adept rushes and immortal all ins after standard play failed and took the first major tournament won all year by a protoss player. Clearly we can ignore every other tournament and the thousands of games played and watch PvX devolve into sos dice roll being the standard play. Sign of a very healthy match up.
I guess sOs and Classic took the reddit advices too literal and played just like Maru
Btw Stats won Super tournament 1 so this isn't the first protoss win at a major tournament this year. Also, 7 out of 16 players at Blizzcon will be Protoss.
Right, so we have 2 P wins, 7 Z wins, and 4 T wins. P still has far less tournament wins despite being in practically every final.
Also, the amount of P players in Blizzcon doesn't say much considering the top player in each region has more points than most other players combined. More P players means that of the lower top players, more of them were Protoss
Here's the point spread with Blizzcon race numbers and average points per player. 26,360 T 4 6590 30,330 Z 5 6066 33,770 P 7 4824 So yes, Protoss have more points, but if you look at the average number of points that these three races have per person, overall, Protoss has performed worse.
Last year
30,000 P 3 10,000 31,630 T 5 6,326 41,915 Z 8 5,238
It means that on average, P way outperformed their T and Z counter parts, but only a few did very well. Z overall did well, but they made up a lot of the lower ranks, and T did about average with an average number of points per player and 5 players.
On September 30 2018 22:31 Lexender wrote: "Toss is the lagging race"
Says as 7 out of 16 in Blizzcon are protoss and we just had a PvP finals.
yeah sos and classic cheesed out their opponents with dt's and adept rushes and immortal all ins after standard play failed and took the first major tournament won all year by a protoss player. Clearly we can ignore every other tournament and the thousands of games played and watch PvX devolve into sos dice roll being the standard play. Sign of a very healthy match up.
I guess sOs and Classic took the reddit advices too literal and played just like Maru
Btw Stats won Super tournament 1 so this isn't the first protoss win at a major tournament this year. Also, 7 out of 16 players at Blizzcon will be Protoss.
Right, so we have 2 P wins, 7 Z wins, and 4 T wins. P still has far less tournament wins despite being in practically every final.
Also, the amount of P players in Blizzcon doesn't say much considering the top player in each region has more points than most other players combined. More P players means that of the lower top players, more of them were Protoss
Here's the point spread with Blizzcon race numbers and average points per player. 26,360 T 4 6590 30,330 Z 5 6066 33,770 P 7 4824 So yes, Protoss have more points, but if you look at the average number of points that these three races have per person, overall, Protoss has performed worse.
Last year
30,000 P 3 10,000 31,630 T 5 6,326 41,915 Z 8 5,238
It means that on average, P way outperformed their T and Z counter parts, but only a few did very well. Z overall did well, but they made up a lot of the lower ranks, and T did about average with an average number of points per player and 5 players.
So protoss isn't the weakest race and balance is actually pretty good amongst all race, only exception being the zerg over reprentation we have had in the foreigner scene since forever and the fact that 2 players overperform the other pros.
On September 30 2018 22:31 Lexender wrote: "Toss is the lagging race"
Says as 7 out of 16 in Blizzcon are protoss and we just had a PvP finals.
yeah sos and classic cheesed out their opponents with dt's and adept rushes and immortal all ins after standard play failed and took the first major tournament won all year by a protoss player. Clearly we can ignore every other tournament and the thousands of games played and watch PvX devolve into sos dice roll being the standard play. Sign of a very healthy match up.
I guess sOs and Classic took the reddit advices too literal and played just like Maru
Btw Stats won Super tournament 1 so this isn't the first protoss win at a major tournament this year. Also, 7 out of 16 players at Blizzcon will be Protoss.
Right, so we have 2 P wins, 7 Z wins, and 4 T wins. P still has far less tournament wins despite being in practically every final.
Also, the amount of P players in Blizzcon doesn't say much considering the top player in each region has more points than most other players combined. More P players means that of the lower top players, more of them were Protoss
Here's the point spread with Blizzcon race numbers and average points per player. 26,360 T 4 6590 30,330 Z 5 6066 33,770 P 7 4824 So yes, Protoss have more points, but if you look at the average number of points that these three races have per person, overall, Protoss has performed worse.
Last year
30,000 P 3 10,000 31,630 T 5 6,326 41,915 Z 8 5,238
It means that on average, P way outperformed their T and Z counter parts, but only a few did very well. Z overall did well, but they made up a lot of the lower ranks, and T did about average with an average number of points per player and 5 players.
So protoss isn't the weakest race and balance is actually pretty good amongst all race, only exception being the zerg over reprentation we have had in the foreigner scene since forever and the fact that 2 players overperform the other pros.
Glad we cleared that up.
Actually, no that's not what the data says. It says T and Z on average do better than P at the highest level while P does better at a lower level. The fact that Maru and Serral are only one player balances itself out in the player average.
On September 30 2018 22:31 Lexender wrote: "Toss is the lagging race"
Says as 7 out of 16 in Blizzcon are protoss and we just had a PvP finals.
yeah sos and classic cheesed out their opponents with dt's and adept rushes and immortal all ins after standard play failed and took the first major tournament won all year by a protoss player. Clearly we can ignore every other tournament and the thousands of games played and watch PvX devolve into sos dice roll being the standard play. Sign of a very healthy match up.
I guess sOs and Classic took the reddit advices too literal and played just like Maru
Btw Stats won Super tournament 1 so this isn't the first protoss win at a major tournament this year. Also, 7 out of 16 players at Blizzcon will be Protoss.
Right, so we have 2 P wins, 7 Z wins, and 4 T wins. P still has far less tournament wins despite being in practically every final.
Also, the amount of P players in Blizzcon doesn't say much considering the top player in each region has more points than most other players combined. More P players means that of the lower top players, more of them were Protoss
Here's the point spread with Blizzcon race numbers and average points per player. 26,360 T 4 6590 30,330 Z 5 6066 33,770 P 7 4824 So yes, Protoss have more points, but if you look at the average number of points that these three races have per person, overall, Protoss has performed worse.
Last year
30,000 P 3 10,000 31,630 T 5 6,326 41,915 Z 8 5,238
It means that on average, P way outperformed their T and Z counter parts, but only a few did very well. Z overall did well, but they made up a lot of the lower ranks, and T did about average with an average number of points per player and 5 players.
So protoss isn't the weakest race and balance is actually pretty good amongst all race, only exception being the zerg over reprentation we have had in the foreigner scene since forever and the fact that 2 players overperform the other pros.
Glad we cleared that up.
Actually, no that's not what the data says. It says T and Z on average do better than P at the highest level while P does better at a lower level. The fact that Maru and Serral are only one player balances itself out in the player average.
Please, if you want to whine about balance dont use stats since they re not saying what you re trying to make them sound are saying. Protoss in Korea are doing well. Not in europe, no, but Korea is still the hardest server and competition and there Zerg is the most underrepresented, and Protoss are doing well. 4 out of the 8 people qualified are P.
GSL finals this season T>P T>P T>T GSL Super tournament P>Z P>P
GSL vs the world Foreign Zerg> Korean P
There is precisely one instance this year when a Korean zerg in a Korean competition made it to the finals, where he lost to P. Yes, Serral wiped the floor with the competition on the Circuit, that makes Zerg overall having a lot of wins in non-Korean events. Also Maru won 3 times in the GSL making Terran look good. The only race that consistently got into the finals and seminfals and wasnt just carried by a flag-bearing player this year is Protoss. Stats, sOs, Classic, Zest - four different players making it to the finals 5 different times this year.
I still think that changing hallucination to 75 energy is a dumb half-measure and that it needs to be 50. Then it would actually be useful for scouting since a hallucination can be sent as soon as the sentry is made (if changes have to be made to the hallucinations themselves to balance it then so be it). Better scouting would solve so many of the issues protoss has right now and would allow actual meaningful changes to be made to protoss. A good chunk of the stuff we see being abused by protoss players also happens to be stuff vital to protoss not dying to various all-ins and proxies that they can't reliably scout right now. Shield batteries are probably too good right now but without them protoss dies to a whole range of things.
i think with 50 energy hallucinations would give protoss too much scouting ability. With few sentries you can scout every minute. And there isn't much counter play to hallucination scouting. Maybe if hallucination duration or hp would be reduced, it would be good change.
That's what I mean by adjust the hallucinations to compensate. If the hallucinations had shorter durations or something like that they would still be quite useful. Even just long enough to scout the main of an opponent, it would be a massive improvement over what protoss has now, which is basically nothing until either the robo/stargate finishes or a sentry is built and is left to generate 100 energy, all of which are too late to be prepared for a lot of situations, especially proxies.
Also, terran scans are 50 energy so hallucinations become a bit of an equivalent. Spamming hallucination scouts wouldn't be good because each hallucination would sacrifice a forcefield, so it's a trade-off in the same way scans are.
I think overall I agree with your hallucination proposal, but I disagree with the justification you used for it. 1) adept shades are excellent early game scouting and gives almost all the information you could ask for (usually). 2) Equating a scan to a 50 energy hallucination is not fair in my opinion. A scan is -240 minerals for a terran who absolutely MUST mule in order to keep up economically with P and Z macro mechanics (Chrono/Injects). The sacrifice to scan economically costs much more than the 50 energy, so the sacrifice of a force field for near constant scouting is almost infinitely better.
Agree with you though that if they did reduce energy cost for hallu. than a change would be needed for the hallu. unit itself.
Blizzard have severely overestimated the effect of removing Graviton Catapult from the Carrier. The effect is very slight and typically only change the outcome of a battle by a few percent.
Carrier hit point increase combined with that Carriers are built much faster will have a much larger impact.
Currently you at least have a timing widow where you can can try to kill Protoss when they transition to Carriers. With the new build time that window is almost gone.
Combine this with Thors being even worse against Carriers (If you do not believe me, test it yourself) and the new super Tempest that can kite you to death. How are you even supposed to fight Tempest with HT support? Vikings will hardly even reach the kiting Tempest before being stormed to death.
I think we will not see a single TvP mech game at pro level. It will still be proxy all-in or 2-base all-ins or die trying. Every Terran will still avoid TvP late game like the plague.
How to solve all this? Do not increase the Carrier hit points. Let Thor keep their 2 native armor. Lower Tempest range to 13.
Even then mech would be weak in TvP but at least a little bit useful, maybe, on some maps.
I still think that changing hallucination to 75 energy is a dumb half-measure and that it needs to be 50. Then it would actually be useful for scouting since a hallucination can be sent as soon as the sentry is made (if changes have to be made to the hallucinations themselves to balance it then so be it). Better scouting would solve so many of the issues protoss has right now and would allow actual meaningful changes to be made to protoss. A good chunk of the stuff we see being abused by protoss players also happens to be stuff vital to protoss not dying to various all-ins and proxies that they can't reliably scout right now. Shield batteries are probably too good right now but without them protoss dies to a whole range of things.
i think with 50 energy hallucinations would give protoss too much scouting ability. With few sentries you can scout every minute. And there isn't much counter play to hallucination scouting. Maybe if hallucination duration or hp would be reduced, it would be good change.
That's what I mean by adjust the hallucinations to compensate. If the hallucinations had shorter durations or something like that they would still be quite useful. Even just long enough to scout the main of an opponent, it would be a massive improvement over what protoss has now, which is basically nothing until either the robo/stargate finishes or a sentry is built and is left to generate 100 energy, all of which are too late to be prepared for a lot of situations, especially proxies.
Also, terran scans are 50 energy so hallucinations become a bit of an equivalent. Spamming hallucination scouts wouldn't be good because each hallucination would sacrifice a forcefield, so it's a trade-off in the same way scans are.
I think overall I agree with your hallucination proposal, but I disagree with the justification you used for it. 1) adept shades are excellent early game scouting and gives almost all the information you could ask for (usually). 2) Equating a scan to a 50 energy hallucination is not fair in my opinion. A scan is -240 minerals for a terran who absolutely MUST mule in order to keep up economically with P and Z macro mechanics (Chrono/Injects). The sacrifice to scan economically costs much more than the 50 energy, so the sacrifice of a force field for near constant scouting is almost infinitely better.
Agree with you though that if they did reduce energy cost for hallu. than a change would be needed for the hallu. unit itself.
We can't compare scan to hallu because scan is unstoppable(and by definition hit or miss). Hallucination takes double the damage and can be countered, because many players send the hallucinations in patterns.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages, so comparing those two won't work. And the price was one factor in the history why player scouted by proxy raxing ;-)
I still think that changing hallucination to 75 energy is a dumb half-measure and that it needs to be 50. Then it would actually be useful for scouting since a hallucination can be sent as soon as the sentry is made (if changes have to be made to the hallucinations themselves to balance it then so be it). Better scouting would solve so many of the issues protoss has right now and would allow actual meaningful changes to be made to protoss. A good chunk of the stuff we see being abused by protoss players also happens to be stuff vital to protoss not dying to various all-ins and proxies that they can't reliably scout right now. Shield batteries are probably too good right now but without them protoss dies to a whole range of things.
i think with 50 energy hallucinations would give protoss too much scouting ability. With few sentries you can scout every minute. And there isn't much counter play to hallucination scouting. Maybe if hallucination duration or hp would be reduced, it would be good change.
That's what I mean by adjust the hallucinations to compensate. If the hallucinations had shorter durations or something like that they would still be quite useful. Even just long enough to scout the main of an opponent, it would be a massive improvement over what protoss has now, which is basically nothing until either the robo/stargate finishes or a sentry is built and is left to generate 100 energy, all of which are too late to be prepared for a lot of situations, especially proxies.
Also, terran scans are 50 energy so hallucinations become a bit of an equivalent. Spamming hallucination scouts wouldn't be good because each hallucination would sacrifice a forcefield, so it's a trade-off in the same way scans are.
I think overall I agree with your hallucination proposal, but I disagree with the justification you used for it. 1) adept shades are excellent early game scouting and gives almost all the information you could ask for (usually). 2) Equating a scan to a 50 energy hallucination is not fair in my opinion. A scan is -240 minerals for a terran who absolutely MUST mule in order to keep up economically with P and Z macro mechanics (Chrono/Injects). The sacrifice to scan economically costs much more than the 50 energy, so the sacrifice of a force field for near constant scouting is almost infinitely better.
Agree with you though that if they did reduce energy cost for hallu. than a change would be needed for the hallu. unit itself.
We can't compare scan to hallu because scan is unstoppable(and by definition hit or miss). Hallucination takes double the damage and can be countered, because many players send the hallucinations in patterns.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages, so comparing those two won't work. And the price was one factor in the history why player scouted by proxy raxing ;-)
As a terran i m happy to see changes about Creep.. Every times i complained in the last YEARS, i was surprised cause i felt alone with this subject..
Blizzard finally accept to change creep spread, and it s a good thing.
In patch 4.0.0 (last year), i was surprised from the small nerf of the fungal growth but i didn t notice (cause i ve stopped playing sc2 during LoTV) you could upload your marines and lfew !!
Now this buff was reverted (and i agree with this changes..), i still wonder if the fungal nerf was too small..
I would like fungal growth decrease speed units from 100% to 66% (instead of 75%) cause banelings / fungal is too punishing.
Can blizzard please make a right-click able command card for protoss and terran facilities (and for queens too) so that facilities auto-make the next unit as soon as the production spot is free if there's enough money?
On October 05 2018 06:07 KR_4EVR wrote: Quality of life change:
Can blizzard please make a right-click able command card for protoss and terran facilities (and for queens too) so that facilities auto-make the next unit as soon as the production spot is free if there's enough money?
On October 08 2018 20:56 MrFreeman wrote: Is there any indication regarding when the final shape of these changes will be revealed?
probably at Blizzcon but they will continue change the game after this changes hit the live game.
Well, I didn't expect this to be the last balance change ever, no worries about that, just wanted to know, when will I learn what exactly will be pushed on the main ladder. Honestly, I think it could stay the way it is now, since these changes are real good.
I hope they release another update this week, I'm really curious where they are standing right now, considering all the uproar, specially from protoss players.
Most of the changes are reasonable but removing Thor and Cyclone armor so that they will perform worse against carrier after the patch does not make sense. It is like the design goal points in one direction but the actual effect points in the other direction.
Granted marines will be better against Carriers, but bio did not have problems with Carriers.
The only thing Thor will be better against is Brood Lords. But Thors were already decent against Brood Lords, the problem has always been the Carriers, not the Brood Lords.
I have also problem understanding the role of Battlecruicers. They will be better vs ground but their counters (Tempest) will be even better in its role. BCs will also be worse against Carriers compared to pre-patch.
I am trying to think of a scenario outside of TvT where getting BCs in the right call. If you wish to win the air battle Vikings will do better. If you wish to win the ground battle Tanks get you more effect. If you wish to harass medivacs are almost always better.
I think it would have been better if Blizzard tried to solve larger problems instead of just looking at individual units.
For instance: How to make cheese and proxies weaker and promote macro games since a large majority of the player base prefer macro? How to make TvP less Protoss favored in the late game? How to make it easier for Protoss to hold Zerg mid game timings?
I think the problem with hydra is that they counter every unit in the game except for siege tanks/colossus/psistorm. Currently the unit has 90 health and 22.4 dps and costs 100/50. for comparison the stalker costs 125/50 and does 9.7 dps. The current patchnotes won't do anything to change how overpowered the hydralisk is. A real change would be to reduce hydra DPS to more like 18 dps. Another problem with the hydralisk is that its movespeed off creep is as fast as a stalker. and on creep is almost as fast as an oracle but the hydralisks cost and dps don't take this advantage into account. This makes no sense at all and makes hydralisk pushes way too strong and risk free and also makes retreating from a group of hydras too oppressive. Hydra should also lose 0.25 to 0.5 movespeed accross the board. I doubt these changes will make hydralisk underpowered or underutilized because atm the hydra is the new 2016 adept. Another option is to increase the cost of the hydra to 125/50 which would also go a long way to bringing their stats into some semblance of balance.
Comparing Hydra to Stalker...now that's golden and completely ignoring the fact that both units are totally different and have different role in the game. Not mentioning about vs armoured bonus and blink for Stalkers...
Nerfing hydras more in current ZvP meta means Zerg looses every PvZ. Mutas countered hard by phoenixes and Archons, Roach Ravager, hard countered by Immortals. Well, what's not hard countered by Immortals anyway? Lings wrecked by adept/zealot/Archon not to mention about massive AOE like Psistorm, and let's not forget about Disruptors rebuffed, and Collosus buffed.
If I were u, i would stop whining, and wait for the final changes and let it roll for sometime, because in my opinion creep nerf, queen nerf and hydra nerf means Zerg underpowered in this matchup in the future.
On October 09 2018 14:16 hiroshOne wrote: Comparing Hydra to Stalker...now that's golden and completely ignoring the fact that both units are totally different and have different role in the game. Not mentioning about vs armoured bonus and blink for Stalkers...
Nerfing hydras more in current ZvP meta means Zerg looses every PvZ. Mutas countered hard by phoenixes and Archons, Roach Ravager, hard countered by Immortals. Well, what's not hard countered by Immortals anyway? Lings wrecked by adept/zealot/Archon not to mention about massive AOE like Psistorm, and let's not forget about Disruptors rebuffed, and Collosus buffed.
If I were u, i would stop whining, and wait for the final changes and let it roll for sometime, because in my opinion creep nerf, queen nerf and hydra nerf means Zerg underpowered in this matchup in the future.
Can't tell if this is a serious post lol. Stalker bonus vs armored is actually a disadvantage because it makes the unit much weaker vs light units where has hydra does full damage to everything. So your saying a 6 range 2 supply unit are totally different and can't be compared. You do realize that the Hydralisk was buffed from WoL to unimaginable levels right? All of my changes are only walking back a little bit from LoTV but are still buffed units from WoL. WoL hydralisk had 2.25 movespeed offcreep. WoL hydralisk had 80 health. WoL hydralisk had 14.5 dps. Zerg still made Hydra in PvZ and it still worked. No other unit has been buffed to such levels from WoL to LoTV. Marines got nothing, marauder later got no more 2x, zealots got 8 damage on charge and slightly slower charge speed. but hydralisk got massive dps buff, +10 hp, and massive movespeed buff. In WoL Hydralisk were better than stalker but it wasn't to the point where stalkers were useless. In LoTV we don't even see stalkers at all because they are even weaker due to slow attack speed and hydra are so ungodly op they can smash 2x their cost in stalker. This match up has been zerg favored for 2 years straight with protoss sometimes coming close to 50/50 but never reaching it.
The current patch barely solves any of this at all. .57 from .54 attack speed is still 21+ dps. hydra still move like oracles, queens still have 8 range and are still being spammed to counter everything. If a match up has been 1 sided for 2 years heck even 1 year its time to balance the game and do something about it.
On October 09 2018 14:16 hiroshOne wrote: Comparing Hydra to Stalker...now that's golden and completely ignoring the fact that both units are totally different and have different role in the game. Not mentioning about vs armoured bonus and blink for Stalkers...
Nerfing hydras more in current ZvP meta means Zerg looses every PvZ. Mutas countered hard by phoenixes and Archons, Roach Ravager, hard countered by Immortals. Well, what's not hard countered by Immortals anyway? Lings wrecked by adept/zealot/Archon not to mention about massive AOE like Psistorm, and let's not forget about Disruptors rebuffed, and Collosus buffed.
If I were u, i would stop whining, and wait for the final changes and let it roll for sometime, because in my opinion creep nerf, queen nerf and hydra nerf means Zerg underpowered in this matchup in the future.
Can't tell if this is a serious post lol. Stalker bonus vs armored is actually a disadvantage because it makes the unit much weaker vs light units where has hydra does full damage to everything. So your saying a 6 range 2 supply unit are totally different and can't be compared. You do realize that the Hydralisk was buffed from WoL to unimaginable levels right? All of my changes are only walking back a little bit from LoTV but are still buffed units from WoL. WoL hydralisk had 2.25 movespeed offcreep. WoL hydralisk had 80 health. WoL hydralisk had 14.5 dps. Zerg still made Hydra in PvZ and it still worked. No other unit has been buffed to such levels from WoL to LoTV. Marines got nothing, marauder later got no more 2x, zealots got 8 damage on charge and slightly slower charge speed. but hydralisk got massive dps buff, +10 hp, and massive movespeed buff. In WoL Hydralisk were better than stalker but it wasn't to the point where stalkers were useless. In LoTV we don't even see stalkers at all because they are even weaker due to slow attack speed and hydra are so ungodly op they can smash 2x their cost in stalker. This match up has been zerg favored for 2 years straight with protoss sometimes coming close to 50/50 but never reaching it.
The current patch barely solves any of this at all. .57 from .54 attack speed is still 21+ dps. hydra still move like oracles, queens still have 8 range and are still being spammed to counter everything. If a match up has been 1 sided for 2 years heck even 1 year its time to balance the game and do something about it.
First- Hydra is higher tier unit than Stalker. That's to begin with.
Second. Comparing, WOL to LOTV it's the most stupid thing u could do. Those are totally different games. Not mentioning meta and unit roles. Hydra was buffed due this tine, because everything else Zerg had in midgame, was nerfed. Just to mention Infestors for example. Hydralisks are what they suppose to be- core Zerg unit. Just as it was in Broodwar. U just can't compare units, a d they bare statistics, completely ignoring meta, and synergies with other units and so on and on. U're pulling them out of their context. Same way u can go whine about Marines too. Because they wreck everything on stim, and cost only 50 minerals, no gas. It's much more rounded unit that hydra will ever be.
And if u got problems with hydras, just go watch some pro protosses how they wreck Hydra timings with their High Templars timings. Not to mention about newest balance changes and how crazy imba new/old Disruptor will be vs those.
Which Zerg unit was nerfed? zergling? roach? Infestors I agree were overnerfed and need buffs. I don't mind Hydralisk being a core zerg unit. As you've stated high templar timing is the counter to hydra timing. I also agree that hydralisk should be cost effective vs stalkers. The problem is as you've alluded to in your post the only realistic method to dealing with hydra is psistorm. this makes engagements where zerg is attacking one dimensional where the protoss player needs to have enough storms banked to hold off the attack or game over. Unfortunately storm has its limits and one of the major limits is that high templar are slow and hydralisk have the same movespeed as stalker offcreep, and 5.1 movespeed oncreep. this makes psi storm very easy to move out of. Imagine protoss had a unit called adeptlisk that was cost effective vs everything zerg has except fungal growth and killed everything so quickly that even though i sat all of my adeptlisks under a fungal, all of my 10 hp adeplisks still cleared your whole army. If the adeptlisk were actually able to do that I don't think the community would let the unit even stay in the game that broken unit would be removed asap, but here we are.
Dunno about anyone else all i care about is them addressing and fixing swarmhosts. Either remove flying locusts, make the unit light, make it x2 more expensive (that wouldn't do much tbh), do SOMETHING.
I think making swarmhost light and making locust not fly would probably address the entire unit so that it's never seen again, but there needs to be some mention of it imo.
On October 09 2018 14:16 hiroshOne wrote: Comparing Hydra to Stalker...now that's golden and completely ignoring the fact that both units are totally different and have different role in the game. Not mentioning about vs armoured bonus and blink for Stalkers...
Nerfing hydras more in current ZvP meta means Zerg looses every PvZ. Mutas countered hard by phoenixes and Archons, Roach Ravager, hard countered by Immortals. Well, what's not hard countered by Immortals anyway? Lings wrecked by adept/zealot/Archon not to mention about massive AOE like Psistorm, and let's not forget about Disruptors rebuffed, and Collosus buffed.
If I were u, i would stop whining, and wait for the final changes and let it roll for sometime, because in my opinion creep nerf, queen nerf and hydra nerf means Zerg underpowered in this matchup in the future.
Maybe, JUST MAYBE, if Blizzard finally solves the problem named the design of Protoss, then, JUST MAYBE, we can remove all the hardcounters P players so love. And MAYBE, just MAYBE, if they rebalance the mutalisks, so they don't have to balance everything around mutalisks, then, JUST MAYBE, we can balance even further! (check balance patches how many changes there was around mutalisks! It's insane). And maybe, JUST MAYBE, they can address the problem named the design of Zerg to balance queens which are hilarious.
Both races are so badly designed it's not even fun(although Protoss is ahead in this by miles).
On October 09 2018 15:39 Near_sc2 wrote: Which Zerg unit was nerfed? zergling? roach? Infestors I agree were overnerfed and need buffs. I don't mind Hydralisk being a core zerg unit. As you've stated high templar timing is the counter to hydra timing. I also agree that hydralisk should be cost effective vs stalkers. The problem is as you've alluded to in your post the only realistic method to dealing with hydra is psistorm. this makes engagements where zerg is attacking one dimensional where the protoss player needs to have enough storms banked to hold off the attack or game over. Unfortunately storm has its limits and one of the major limits is that high templar are slow and hydralisk have the same movespeed as stalker offcreep, and 5.1 movespeed oncreep. this makes psi storm very easy to move out of. Imagine protoss had a unit called adeptlisk that was cost effective vs everything zerg has except fungal growth and killed everything so quickly that even though i sat all of my adeptlisks under a fungal, all of my 10 hp adeplisks still cleared your whole army. If the adeptlisk were actually able to do that I don't think the community would let the unit even stay in the game that broken unit would be removed asap, but here we are.
Colossus are getting buffed, both in kiting and in production (cheaper robo). The disruptor is getting changed so that single zerglings won't trigger the explosion. Many consider this a buff vs zerg. The poster did mention colossus and disruptor as ways to deal with hydralisk.
massive AOE like Psistorm, and let's not forget about Disruptors rebuffed, and Collosus buffed.
Also, as Hirosh said, don't take things out of context. The zerg midgame got nerfed by the changed immortal shield and the introduction of oracles, adepts and disruptors in PvZ. In TvZ, you have buffed siege tanks, liberators, widow mines and cyclones to consider. The context matters a lot.
On October 09 2018 05:49 MockHamill wrote: Most of the changes are reasonable but removing Thor and Cyclone armor so that they will perform worse against carrier after the patch does not make sense. It is like the design goal points in one direction but the actual effect points in the other direction.
Granted marines will be better against Carriers, but bio did not have problems with Carriers.
The only thing Thor will be better against is Brood Lords. But Thors were already decent against Brood Lords, the problem has always been the Carriers, not the Brood Lords.
I have also problem understanding the role of Battlecruicers. They will be better vs ground but their counters (Tempest) will be even better in its role. BCs will also be worse against Carriers compared to pre-patch.
I am trying to think of a scenario outside of TvT where getting BCs in the right call. If you wish to win the air battle Vikings will do better. If you wish to win the ground battle Tanks get you more effect. If you wish to harass medivacs are almost always better.
I think it would have been better if Blizzard tried to solve larger problems instead of just looking at individual units.
For instance: How to make cheese and proxies weaker and promote macro games since a large majority of the player base prefer macro? How to make TvP less Protoss favored in the late game? How to make it easier for Protoss to hold Zerg mid game timings?
I don't think you need to worry about carriers with the current patchnotes.
On October 09 2018 05:49 MockHamill wrote: Most of the changes are reasonable but removing Thor and Cyclone armor so that they will perform worse against carrier after the patch does not make sense. It is like the design goal points in one direction but the actual effect points in the other direction.
Granted marines will be better against Carriers, but bio did not have problems with Carriers.
The only thing Thor will be better against is Brood Lords. But Thors were already decent against Brood Lords, the problem has always been the Carriers, not the Brood Lords.
I have also problem understanding the role of Battlecruicers. They will be better vs ground but their counters (Tempest) will be even better in its role. BCs will also be worse against Carriers compared to pre-patch.
I am trying to think of a scenario outside of TvT where getting BCs in the right call. If you wish to win the air battle Vikings will do better. If you wish to win the ground battle Tanks get you more effect. If you wish to harass medivacs are almost always better.
I think it would have been better if Blizzard tried to solve larger problems instead of just looking at individual units.
For instance: How to make cheese and proxies weaker and promote macro games since a large majority of the player base prefer macro? How to make TvP less Protoss favored in the late game? How to make it easier for Protoss to hold Zerg mid game timings?
I don't think you need to worry about carriers with the current patchnotes.
Not against bio but against mech Carriers will actually be stronger. Both Thor and Cyclones will perform worse against Carriers. Vikings will never work as a counter due to leach range plus storm.
Cyclones used to be useful against a low number of Carriers since you could overwhelm the Carriers just as they transition to air. Now Carriers will do the same DPS vs Cyclones but have more hitpoints and produce faster while Cyclones will be even more useless against the Zealot meatshield.
Blizzard is so near making mech semi-viable in TvP but they always do some unnecessary change that prevents it.
Just let Cyclones or Thor keep their armor.
If they want to make Mutas better vs Thors just change the javelin missiles so that is does more base damage, remove the bonus vs light and give it bonus vs mechanical. Removing the Thor armor is just a bad idea.
The new Thor will be better vs Brood Lords but worse against everything else. Which is completely unnecessary since Thors is just a niche unit that is not overused.
Either make sure that Thors actually perform better as a "giant killer" (ie counters Carriers) or keep the current stats.
I suspect that if the current changes goes through you will only see Thors against mass muta or Brood Lords, and never in any other situation.
What is the problem with hydra ? Why it should not be an overall unit ? It was a tech 1 unit in broodwar and 25 gas & mineral cheaper. I think it should be the same in sc2 so cost efficiently overpowered Terrans may be forced to do something other than marines or flynig siege tanks named liberator Zerg is the weakest race right now (and Terran is the strongest) because you have to tech switch everytime thanks to lack of overall unit. You lose 1 drone to build something. Losing drones is not something tolerable (while it is tolerable for terran because of mules and tolorable for protoss beause of chrono) because if you have to make drones you can't make more army Btw complaining Protoss Do you ever make 4 6 immortals and 2 colossus or 2 4 templar before attacking the zerg ? They are very easy to make since you can start with 2 bases right now. Immortals kill even lurkers easily. If you cant kill hydras without their roach sheilds then it is your problem.
On October 09 2018 23:01 Hydralich wrote: What is the problem with hydra ? Why it should not be an overall unit ? It was a tech 1 unit in broodwar and 25 gas & mineral cheaper. I think it should be the same in sc2 so cost efficiently overpowered Terrans may be forced to do something other than marines or flynig siege tanks named liberator Zerg is the weakest race right now (and Terran is the strongest) because you have to tech switch everytime thanks to lack of overall unit. You lose 1 drone to build something. Losing drones is not something tolerable (while it is tolerable for terran because of mules and tolorable for protoss beause of chrono) because if you have to make drones you can't make more army Btw complaining Protoss Do you ever make 4 6 immortals and 2 colossus or 2 4 templar before attacking the zerg ? They are very easy to make since you can start with 2 bases right now. Immortals kill even lurkers easily. If you cant kill hydras without their roach sheilds then it is your problem.
Idk what bronze bubble you're living in where zerg is considered the weakest - Z has been the strongest for some time now
hydras are op vs protoss - idk how many pro/gm games I've watched where a protoss prepares for the hydras and still gets rolled by Z just rallying to their third and amoving. It's definetely not what I'd consider fun to watch/play let alone balanced.
On October 09 2018 23:01 Hydralich wrote: What is the problem with hydra ? Why it should not be an overall unit ? It was a tech 1 unit in broodwar and 25 gas & mineral cheaper. I think it should be the same in sc2 so cost efficiently overpowered Terrans may be forced to do something other than marines or flynig siege tanks named liberator Zerg is the weakest race right now (and Terran is the strongest) because you have to tech switch everytime thanks to lack of overall unit. You lose 1 drone to build something. Losing drones is not something tolerable (while it is tolerable for terran because of mules and tolorable for protoss beause of chrono) because if you have to make drones you can't make more army Btw complaining Protoss Do you ever make 4 6 immortals and 2 colossus or 2 4 templar before attacking the zerg ? They are very easy to make since you can start with 2 bases right now. Immortals kill even lurkers easily. If you cant kill hydras without their roach sheilds then it is your problem.
Idk what bronze bubble you're living in where zerg is considered the weakest - Z has been the strongest for some time now
hydras are op vs protoss - idk how many pro/gm games I've watched where a protoss prepares for the hydras and still gets rolled by Z just rallying to their third and amoving. It's definetely not what I'd consider fun to watch/play let alone balanced.
Aligulac only shows that there are more Zerg players over other races on the ladder. And that's true. One Serral doesn't mean that Zerg race is the strongest. It means that Serral is strong. Look at korean scene- Zerg is dead race there.
And I wonder in whad wooden league bubble do u live in, if u think that Zerg a-moves on pro level. If pro Zeegs woukd do that, they would be dead already. The succes of timing that u're referring is based on multipronged attack, where u pressure 2 or even 3 places at once- usually third, natural a d try to drop in mainbase. It's hard to defend for Protoss, but it's not impossible. On the other hand it's not easy to execute for Zerg too.
Zerg is the strongest right now, period. Also, terran has been the hardest to play since WoL, which explains why no foreign terrans ever won anything ever.
On October 10 2018 03:40 IshinShishi wrote: Zerg is the strongest right now, period. Also, terran has been the hardest to play since WoL, which explains why no foreign terrans ever won anything ever.
Thats correct. I hope we can get a change that makes US terran have good lategame so protoss and zerg have to kill us in the mid game! also make us have really good early deffence so shield battery and mass ling/roach all ins isnt effektiv as it has been.. maybe its time for terran to have less skill and be in top leagues?
On October 10 2018 03:40 IshinShishi wrote: Zerg is the strongest right now, period. Also, terran has been the hardest to play since WoL, which explains why no foreign terrans ever won anything ever.
Thats correct. I hope we can get a change that makes US terrans have good lategame so protoss and zerg have to kill us in the mid game! also make us have really good early deffence so shield battery and mass ling/roach all ins isnt effektiv as it has been.. maybe its time for terran to have less skill and be in top leagues?
EPT
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