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StarCraft II 5.0.2 Patch Notes (balance test changes) - Pa…

Forum Index > SC2 General
162 CommentsPost a Reply
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Ciaus_Dronu
Profile Joined June 2017
South Africa1848 Posts
August 07 2020 08:14 GMT
#61
On August 07 2020 07:31 stilt wrote:
Actually, the patch changes quite a lot in zvz, baneling 3 shotting themselves seems pretty bad.


Wait... seriously?
In that case, this change is, to put it lightly, ****ing atrocious.
Also while this makes spore forests irrelevant, tempests are still terrible units.
AssyrianKing
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
Australia2116 Posts
August 07 2020 08:21 GMT
#62
I think they want the Voidray to be relevant again
John 15:13
sneakyfox
Profile Joined January 2017
8216 Posts
August 07 2020 08:51 GMT
#63
If all the changes goes through I'm getting nervous for TvP. It's already a matchup that Protoss are doing very well in and I could see Voidrays being very powerful here when just kept with the main protoss army: they will obliterate medivacs in seconds, and they will also deal with liberators and tanks very quickly.
And then of course all the all-ins we're going to see at lower levels...
I'm also surprised that they are so happy about the widow mine change from last time. It seems to me that it hasn't really worked as intended (making protoss less greedy), and since so many (non-Terran) people don't like it it would have made sense to look for a different solution.

It's great to see another nerf to the baneling, aka. the new warp prism, but I really would like to see them look at the structure damage. Banes rolling in and blowing up nexuses and planetaries like its nothing does not seem good to me.
"I saw what sneakyfox wrote on TL.net and it made me furious" - PartinG
xelnaga_empire
Profile Joined March 2012
627 Posts
August 07 2020 08:53 GMT
#64
These are aweful changes by the balance team. The changes to Protoss will just encourage more cannon rushes and shield battery rushes with Void Rays and Tempests, the last thing we need. Pretty disappointed in the balance team decisions for this patch. If they want to fix PvsZ, they made the wrong decisions because now they just made PvsT and PvsZ that much worse.
LuckyGnomTV
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
Russian Federation367 Posts
August 07 2020 09:28 GMT
#65
Weapon damage changed from 18(+17 vs light) to 15(+20 vs light).

Why would they buff Zerg in ZvT match up? What?!
stilt
Profile Joined October 2012
France2754 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-08-07 10:22:44
August 07 2020 09:37 GMT
#66
On August 07 2020 18:28 LuckyGnomTV wrote:
Show nested quote +
Weapon damage changed from 18(+17 vs light) to 15(+20 vs light).

Why would they buff Zerg in ZvT match up? What?!



Baneling get their damage reduced from 16-17% against non light unit while dealing the same damage against light units, woah, such a buff.
They don't even 2 shooting themselves now, would be nice to nerf baneling without actually affecting the 3 fucking mu and especially zvz.

Edit : as expected, they don't mention zvz and don't even seem to realize they actually fucked it up, nice... The balance team does obviously a better job than DK but still, make the bane at 16 if you want to reduce its stats.
SpaceBoar
Profile Joined November 2019
52 Posts
August 07 2020 09:47 GMT
#67
On August 07 2020 18:28 LuckyGnomTV wrote:
Show nested quote +
Weapon damage changed from 18(+17 vs light) to 15(+20 vs light).

Why would they buff Zerg in ZvT match up? What?!

Dude, it's a nerf.
Serral | soO | HeroMarine | SpeCial
SpaceBoar
Profile Joined November 2019
52 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-08-07 10:04:25
August 07 2020 10:03 GMT
#68
Looking at those changes it seems the balance team's vision for the future is to buff air armies and increase gimmicky play for the Protoss and it's really awful imo. Late game air armies are the most boring to watch and usually require little skill to control while being very difficult to dismantle (especially at lower level of play). On top of that it would be nice to see Protoss going for a straight up early/mid game and not having to resolve to gimmicky play and all-ins so often (PvZ especially).
Serral | soO | HeroMarine | SpeCial
Scarlett`
Profile Joined April 2011
Canada2392 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-08-07 10:20:35
August 07 2020 10:15 GMT
#69
On August 07 2020 18:28 LuckyGnomTV wrote:
Show nested quote +
Weapon damage changed from 18(+17 vs light) to 15(+20 vs light).

Why would they buff Zerg in ZvT match up? What?!

try putting these complex equations into your calculator to see what they total

no words for the patch itself; gonna keep playing broodwar
Progamer
hiroshOne
Profile Joined October 2015
Poland425 Posts
August 07 2020 10:19 GMT
#70
These are horrible changes. Especially when we got literally 3 pro Zergs that are winning vs Protoss- Serral, Reynor and Rogue- arguably the best players in the world. So much effort to stop Serral from winning, seems to be ballshit not balancing the game. More and more nerfs for Zerg. It's ridiculous.
Ultima Ratio Regum
mounteast0
Profile Joined January 2020
59 Posts
August 07 2020 11:09 GMT
#71
1, baneling from 18+17 to 15+20

This in theory is going to be slightly nerf baneling against non light. However, the primary problem with baneling, due to game design, is a economy issue. In game, Z usually have more base, and thus more income. Baneling, even in pre 5.0 state (20+15) is never cost efficient unless you can kill a clump of high gas cost unit e.g. ghost, infestor, cyclone. The whole reason why baneling can be use is that the Z have a higher economy, so they can delete the opponent's army, even with a significant resource lost. This nerf does not address it properly.

The other thing the balance team should consider is to reduce baneling damage against CC or nexus. This is a big problem for T and P to get more than 4 bases against Z since there is no way for P (and to a lesser degree, T) to stop a s*itload of baneling from running in and nuke the nexus. While on paper it is cost inefficient for Z to do it, once the nexus / CC is killed, the worker have to long distant mining until the new nexus is done (71s). That is a long time with reduced mining rate. T can float the orbital command in, but there is nothing P can do.

2, oracle revelation change

decent change, not a big deal.

3, void ray decrease cost

This make void ray the cheapest air fighting unit per supply in game.

4, void ray speed change

base speed change make it same speed with viking, raven non-upgraded banshee, faster than medivac. May be P can open void ray to shut down T harress?

The speed increase with Flux vane upgrade make it faster than most unit in the game. It will be interesting to see how thing plan out, T probably will have hard time against it. For Z, if the Z loss the air battle, he will lost the whole army, there will be no point pulling anything back.

If you go to unit testing, on equal supply, void ray actually beat most air units on A move. The reason it is not use as much is the opponent can micro against it, I wonder if it is a good idea to make it impossible to micro againist?

5. Carrier neural change

Not sure how this change affect the balance.
Feel like a buff to neural because the neuraled carrier will not loss its interceptor as fast?

6, tempest building attack upgrade.
Look like a change to help break turtle position. hopefully it won't be use in base sniping and teleport out kind of tactic. it will be very frustrating to play against.
Zzzapper
Profile Joined September 2011
1797 Posts
August 07 2020 11:14 GMT
#72
The baneling nerf is probably ok in non-mirrors. My main concern there is that battlemech might get a bit strong when you need more banes to kill cyclones.
Making banes 3 shot banes seems like a terrible idea though, there's just no reason mess with early game ZvZ like that. unupgraded banes should never go below 16/35 damage imo. If bane damage has to be nerfed beyond that, it should be upgrade scaling or splash radius, really anything that leaves ling/bane wars as is.

The tempest upgrade seems like it could make a real difference. With it and at least, tempests will take 6/5/5/5 shots instead of 11/10/9/8 to kill a spore and it seems to me like that would make it quite a bit easier to keep spore forests in check; the revelation buff will help out there as well.

The void ray buff is big, I can't remember the last time a unit was buffed in so many different ways at once. The problem is that none of them should make a big difference where they really needs to: lategame PvZ. With these changes, voids could get stronger for some kind of PvT all-ins and for holding all-ins and general aggression with stargate openings vs. zerg but I doubt lategame skytoss will change much. maybe speed voids being able to chase down corruptors will be useful, idk

The carrier buff is difficult to judge without having seen it in play. On one hand, running all the carriers out of interceptors by neuraling a couple is a strong move right now and that won't work as well but on the other hand, neuraling carriers is always going to be strong, it's just so much dps that you're not just removing from your enemy but also adding to your own. It think it will make the biggest difference for those fight where zerg only manages to keep up the neural for a few seconds, enough to more or less get rid of the of the interceptors but not enough to completely break the fight. If protoss lets their carriers stay neuraled for longer than that, they're still gonna lose.

Then there's the general issue that protoss is actually doing alright against zerg outside of the tier 1 players. The European #20-#40 range is already overwhelmingly protoss and big tournaments everywhere tend to have strong protoss representation until the top 8 or 16. I know there's a philosophy of balancing the game around the highest level of play but does that mean the top 50 pros in the world or only the top 10? Based on recent decisions, it's starting to look like the latter.
Does protoss need to be buffed until they start winning premiers and if so, what happens when Stats and Zest go to the military? At least part of the reason that protoss players aren't winning is that some of the best are gone. Classic was the #1 protoss when he retired and herO was up there. Soon, 2 of the current top 4 tosses will be gone, there would need to be massive changes to the game for the remaining players to win as much as the other races. If Maru, Inno and TY retired, you wouldn't expect terran to take a lot of trophies.
sneakyfox
Profile Joined January 2017
8216 Posts
August 07 2020 11:30 GMT
#73
On August 07 2020 19:15 Scarlett` wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 07 2020 18:28 LuckyGnomTV wrote:
Weapon damage changed from 18(+17 vs light) to 15(+20 vs light).

Why would they buff Zerg in ZvT match up? What?!

try putting these complex equations into your calculator to see what they total

no words for the patch itself; gonna keep playing broodwar


I'm curious since you're a SC2 progamer: what is it that you like better about BW?
"I saw what sneakyfox wrote on TL.net and it made me furious" - PartinG
Luolis
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
Finland7142 Posts
August 07 2020 11:38 GMT
#74
Why is it so hard for blizz to nerf baneling hp...
pro cheese woman / Its never Sunny in Finland. Perkele / FinnishStarcraftTrivia
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26222 Posts
August 07 2020 11:44 GMT
#75
Reading the rationales for changes/non-changes Blizz specifically mentioned mech becoming more prevalent recently.

Ok they’re looking at more than purely the tip top of the pro game, but that echelon of competition has been really affected by cross server play and latency, with bio play taking the biggest hit in effectiveness.

Surely if ever there’s a time not to patch much it’s now? With the caveat that I know these changes aren’t set in stone:

Zerg:
Baneling - ?/10
Rationale of this change is ok, I’m not as au fait with how numbers work in ZvZ specifically and apparently bane wars will be impacted which sounds an oversight (if true). Other impacts seem an improvement but even with lower damage 40+ banes will still be a potent threat.

Protoss:
Oracle - 7/10
Probably doesn’t get enough love as a unit that’s ended up as a really good support unit that benefits from skill and diligence and has a ton of utility. Nice little boost that isn’t overboard and just gives Protoss a little love. Only 5 seconds so hardly gamebreaking but gives Protoss who are good with oracles more chances to gain vision of armies and get into good offensive/defensive positions.

Carrier - 6/10?
A real nightmare of spawned units is them absolutely screwing with targeting, so I like that getting your carrier neuralled won’t trigger targeting. Personal preference there! As someone else mentioned presumably this means a neuralled Carrier will also keep more offensive capability for longer as it will not have its interceptors nuked as quickly. On the other hand, this isn’t a reaction we’ve seen much of this meta so I’m unsure what differences it will make.

Tempest - ?/10
In previous metas and patches this would have been an impactful change in lategame in vZ, vT and vP, especially. Equally those air wars + massed static scenarios kind of sucked so I’d rather we didn’t see a ton of them again.

Void Ray - 2/10
What’s so wrong about a unit being a meme unit, or at least a very niche one?

Build and cost time will help a little with really aggressive Zerg builds, have some use in PvP too. Equally it’ll probably be more useful in cheese with batteries.

Move speed buff, need to consult Feardragon about the move speeds of every unit in the game. It will give it more utility sure but I think it outruns some units it really shouldn’t outrun.

Flux vanes buff. Oh boi this is the real kicker. In combination with both a lower cost and lessened build time. Void Rays on crack flying around the map that can be recalled and basically cannot be caught by most Protoss units. Hell throw a speed obs lagging behind too! Flocks of Phoenix would shut down Void hitsquads, but then I guess it makes standing armies v standing armies a bit wonky as well. Like when Zerg and Terran overbuild corruptors and vikings.


General Thoughts - 5/10
I dunno Kev seems PvP is settling well into being a good matchup in all stages of the game now. Seems that lategame could return to a ridiculous clusterfuck.

Between easier transitions (well, if one wanted to mass these new Voids) and a slight Tempest buff it seems Blizz are veering back towards just making Airtoss the thing for the lategame and not addressing other root issues.

That seems the intent anyway, there may be things of benefit outside that apparent intent. Perhaps a quicker, cheaper void may come out in time off certain openers to make Protoss safer to a variety of Z allins for example and make more openers viable.

'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
fLyiNgDroNe
Profile Joined September 2005
Belgium4033 Posts
August 07 2020 11:58 GMT
#76
On August 07 2020 19:15 Scarlett` wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 07 2020 18:28 LuckyGnomTV wrote:
Weapon damage changed from 18(+17 vs light) to 15(+20 vs light).

Why would they buff Zerg in ZvT match up? What?!

try putting these complex equations into your calculator to see what they total

no words for the patch itself; gonna keep playing broodwar


Amen <3
Drone is a way of living
stilt
Profile Joined October 2012
France2754 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-08-07 12:04:13
August 07 2020 12:04 GMT
#77
On August 07 2020 20:38 Luolis wrote:
Why is it so hard for blizz to nerf baneling hp...


I rather take bane hp nerf than this bs
ytherik
Profile Joined July 2020
199 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-08-07 12:14:13
August 07 2020 12:13 GMT
#78
Was anybody complaining about baneling damage actually? Banelings are de bombas, they are supposed to deal terrible damage, that's the design of the unit. Why not just make them more expensive or more squishy if they seem too strong? Weird decision with the damage nerf indeed.
Elentos
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
55561 Posts
August 07 2020 12:19 GMT
#79
On August 07 2020 21:13 ytherik wrote:
Was anybody complaining about baneling damage actually? Banelings are de bombas, they are supposed to deal terrible damage, that's the design of the unit. Why not just make them more expensive or more squishy if they seem too strong? Weird decision with the damage nerf indeed.

The only damage complaint I regularly see is that +2 banelings one-shot probes which this doesn't affect at all. I assume this is an attempt to make it so Zergs can't just go mass baneling against stalker/colossus and get away with it. But I really don't think that's the problem with Zerg or banelings.
Every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes.
ytherik
Profile Joined July 2020
199 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-08-07 12:25:02
August 07 2020 12:23 GMT
#80
On August 07 2020 21:19 Elentos wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 07 2020 21:13 ytherik wrote:
Was anybody complaining about baneling damage actually? Banelings are de bombas, they are supposed to deal terrible damage, that's the design of the unit. Why not just make them more expensive or more squishy if they seem too strong? Weird decision with the damage nerf indeed.

The only damage complaint I regularly see is that +2 banelings one-shot probes which this doesn't affect at all. I assume this is an attempt to make it so Zergs can't just go mass baneling against stalker/colossus and get away with it. But I really don't think that's the problem with Zerg or banelings.

Wouldn't lowering bane dmg vs mechanical fix the problem more elegantly then? Then it wouldn't affect ZvZ nor Bane vs Zealot interaction. That's the first thing that comes to my mind. It even makes sense lore wise since bane is full of some toxic substance that should not affect mechanical units and structures so much.
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