Balance Update - August 13, 2020 - Page 3

On August 16 2020 10:27 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Note: Feel free to just read my TL;DR I just wanted to spill all my thoughts out.

Good adjustment, it is worrisome to continuously make units move faster and faster. Particularly air units, which can become very dangerous when massed due to stacking DPS and traversing terrain. Air units are already mobile because they fly, we really don't need to have so many units that have 5 speed, it is pretty insane, especially with the Void Ray being (at least historically/currently) a slower but stronger unit, compared to the weaker but faster Phoenix for example.

Baneling Change
Baneling change may or may not help a lot, but it is definitely a good place to shave off some Zerg power and help encourage them to try other comps instead of defaulting to Banelings all the time. Making them consider other units even ever so slightly more, can lead to them wanting to diversify their tech a bit more which can have a ever so slight effect on slowing Zerg's econ. Anyway, it's not a huge change, but any help is good and it doesn't really have any side effects. A few stalkers surviving with 10 health can be important. It will also make cyclone/hellion based mech die slightly less easily to ling bling muta, like last game of DRG vs Innovation this season, which I think is good.

Void Ray Deserves Better Design
Balance aside, another big issue is the Void Ray and Tempest simply aren't very fun or interesting units. Terran and Zerg have become very robust over time, with basically every unit having a role in most situations/MUs. However the Void Ray and Tempest are 2 of the least used and least useful units, both belonging to Protoss. While it is fine to find a role for them for the sake of balance, can we not try to find them more interesting roles that can provide other options for midgame for example? I suppose they are trying this by pushing Void Ray to be quicker and more cost effective, so that it can be a mobile map control unit as well as help defend zerg aggression, kind of like Terran's banshee. But a fast Void Ray + the ability it has, I don't know, it just doesn't feel very interesting, it feels like an awkard of forced design.

Biggest question I have for the Void Ray is, would it really be so bad to revert the early HotS change, and make it back to 3 supply? The reason for changing it from 3 to 4 supply in very early HotS was because the balance team said mass voids seemed to be problematic. However that was before HotS even released. The game has changed a TON. Zerg has parabomb for example to help deal with mass air. Would making Void 3 supply, and thus allowing Protoss to make a few more units in endgame army situations be so bad? It would help make Protoss very slightly stronger vs Zerg lategame. Also, it would help keep its purity as a Corruptor counter. Right now, Voids do counter Corruptors by cost, but in endgame scenarios, if you are taking 10 Corruptors, you can only have 5 Void Rays. The Void Rays will barely win, so it is not really a counter at all. Is it so bad to allow it to be 12 Corruptors vs 8 Void Rays? Zerg still has Viper/Infestor/Queen spellcaster spam + movable Spores, etc.

Old Raven Unnecessarily Gutted, and Replaced with Mass BCs with Warp
I also really question the new Raven. Again it feels like an awkward, forced design. Sorry this will be a bit of a dump of my opinions so feel free to skip it. It feels like a crime to make Raven basically just a detector in TvZ and very useless especially for a Mech player in that MU. Why couldn't they have come up with abilities that aren't so limited to the MU? It is OK for zerg to mass spellcasters lategame (combination of queen/infestor/viper), but it is not OK to make more than 3 Ravens anymore? Mass Ravens was certainly broken in HotS, but consider that Zerg did not have Parabomb, Corruptors were much slower, etc. They could have nerfed/reworked PDD and Seeker Missle in ways that kept their zoning traits, while making them scale much less hard lategame. They were unique and interesting zoning, positional tools, and they gutted them for much less interesting abilities. Another easy change was to make Raven 3 supply instead of 2, so that instead of having 30 Ravens you'd only have 20, unless you wanted to cut into your other army supply. It is OK for Zerg to spam spore forests and spellcasters lategame, and control huge areas of the map, but it is not ok for a Mech player to make 10-20 Ravens + Turrets + PFs to do something similar? Not saying I want super turtle styles, but positional battles can be very interesting and offer a unique way to play the game. I just feel like they really overreacted to Mass Ravens and overnerfed them, I do not understand why it is a unit they only want you to make 1-2 of, when no spellcaster is designed to be like that beside the hero Mothership. (Yeah, disable is really good in TvT and you can definitely make make 10 if you want, and having several Ravens for disable can be useful enough vs Protoss, but in TvZ there is basically nothing useful to disable, and Anti Armor missile is designed to compliment Bio way more than Mech, other than if you were to go mass Libs or mass BCs or such).

Another criticism is that the Auto Turret basically makes the Raven like some generic GtA harass unit, why does every Terran unit need to do harass in the form of killing workers? There are other types of harass possible you know? Liberator is already the "haha you didn't look for 3 seconds" harass unit for Terran, we don't need Raven Auto Turret to also basically be "did you pull your workers quick enough?". Because it is such a short duration with high dps, the only counterplay is to pull workers off temporarily. For example if it were reworked to last 20 seconds but do less damage, it would be more of a decision to try to kill the turret because maybe you don't want to waste 20 seconds of mining. Due to not being as punishing if you don't react quickly, it can be given 3 Range back. That and the duration buff would allow the AT to be more useful for Mech armies and can be used as a wall when pushing a position on the map, or it could be dropped to harass bases and threaten to kill buildings if not dealt with as it could do more total damage across its lifetime. The old AT was nice because it could be used in so many ways, the new one just makes the Raven feel like it has an awkward GtA attack. It also is very hard to use AT in situations other than harassing because of the very limited 2 range to place the turret. This is is another thing that makes it difficult to use to help supplement Mech positions on the map, it is too hard to place multiple turrets down at once.

With the Raven having so much more limited use, Mech strength growth really stops at the end of midgame, which is problematic because Mech should be a positional style that you need to either kill early or try to take the whole map and overwhelm them or win a war of attrition. If Mech is on a timer then it is much more 1 dimensional of a style, much like old Protoss being on a timer some needing to do some sort of all-in or deathball push. Of course, we now have the heavily buffed BC which offers immense endgame potential for Mech and Terran in general, but I feel BC Warp is quite toxic and problematic. BC is already the strongest straight up fighting unit, its weakness was its immobility but now it can even counter Tempest by just Warping on them? And being able to Warp so many BCs lategame makes it basically impossible to properly defend vs them as they can teleport anywhere. I guess Blizzard prefers warping BCs over being able to make 10-20 Ravens in endgame??? Idk. I think it would be much more fair if BCs were given energy bar back, since Feedback only does 0.5 damage per energy drained, and that way Terran would have to decide whether to spend energy more on Yamato or Warp. Right now BC is quite uninteresting because you basically just want to use your free Yamato+Warp back home whenever it's off cooldown, there's much less strategic decisions involved. I would prefer toning down BC and giving more ways to counterplay, and revert the Raven to its old self and simply rework the abilities to scale much less and increase its supply to 3 to specifically nerf it lategame. (Examples: Add cooldown to each PDD shot so you can only block 2 projectiles a second per PDD placed which allows the opponent to still do some degree of steady damage to you, perhaps increase PDD energy to 125, reduce Seeker Missile splash severely, increase Raven supply to 3, etc).

Sorry if that was a bit of a rant on the Raven, really wanted to talk about it, as it was my favorite unit, and feel there were many ways they could have toned it down and made it scale less hard lategame (supply, reworking abilities slightly), and would have been fine with Parabomb now being in LotV, it would be very potent vs Mass Ravens. Even Hydras have gotten buffed and they already did well vs PDD/Ravens in HotS.

Zerg Lategame + Spellcasters
Bringing it back more on topic, Zerg has the most versatile and strongest spellcasters. Terran only has 1.5, since Ghost and Raven are each mostly useless in certain MUs (depending on if you go bio or mech of course).They have the highest # of general use spellcasters that are effective each MU in all stages of the game, and overall the most amount of spells, and they also happen to be spells that offer a combination of great AOE/damage/crowd control. Protoss has HTs and Sentries, with ~3 spells, Oracle and MS can provide support but only Time Warp really is a "battle" spell. Zerg meanwhile has Abduct, Blinding Cloud, Parabomb, Neural Parasite, Fungal, Transfuse, and yes Microbial Shroud (lategame you only need 1-2 to provide significant support to support Hydras when fighting airtoss, like how Serral uses it). I think the number of potent Zerg battle spells is part of what makes lategame PvZ look so tough. (I'm not sure I really agree that PvZ lategame is fine and that it is just that it is difficult for Protoss to enter lategame on even footing, being able to abduct so many units and spam multiple AOE spells just seems so efficient and strong, when I feel that Zerg as the econ race should be designed to be strong due to being able to take a huge part of the map and overwhelm you despite being cost inefficient, rather than having lots of cost efficient low supply spellcasters). Protoss is the tech race and should have the strongest and most expensive endgame army. Terran is the army race and has versatile, efficient units.

Going along with that, I feel it is OK to buff Protoss endgame slightly. I mean, at worst, it becomes slightly Protoss favored, and is that so bad? I think it would be a fine dynamic because Zerg can grow so quickly early and midgame, so Protoss endgame army being stronger would put some pressure and incentive on Zerg to interact with and try to end Protoss, rather than put the entire burden on Protoss to try to slow Zerg and also end them early. Again I think changing Void back to 3 supply would be nice here so they can fit a few more units in.

Tempest Upgrade is Contrived and has Side Effects
As for the Tempest, this was supposed to be a cool capital ship unit, but it is so niche and cost inefficient. I really don't like the forced +40 building damage role it is being given. I am worried it will invalidate turtle styles in general. If someone wants to turtle, they are already giving up map control and risking drying up on resources in return for stability and easier defense. Being able to just poke at them from afar and kill buildings at a safe distance will be much more lame than the Protoss actually interacting through harass or attacks, right? So what if Tempest was just given another slight boost in damage, and perhaps give an upgrade where its ground range gets increased? That way you can safely kill spores without being abducted, and maybe the Tempest could be more usable in other situations. Yea, it'll be slow, but it doesn't matter if it's slow as long as it forces Zerg to actually do something and not just sit at their spores. Personally I feel it would be really cool to round out Skytoss by giving them 1 air unit with splash in the form of Tempest. The AOE could just be 1 matrix, like bile, and be relatively weak, but it would still help a lot vs marines and lategame vs air units. Random ideas aside, I feel they can push Tempest into a more interesting and useful role than just "oh upgrade this to kill spores lategame and I guess turtling mech players". Like, is this really the best we can do for the Tempest and Void Ray?

Guardian Shield to Block 1-2 Melee Damage to Buff Gateway Comp vs Zerg
I think buffing Protoss gateway vs zerg in some way is probably a good idea. Someone mentioned buffing Guardian Shield so that the +2 damage block also applies to Melee. This sounds great as it would make them much less weak vs plain Zerglings. However, would this be problematic for zealots in PvP? If not, I think that would be a great change no? Or make it so it gives +2 damage block to projectiles and +1 damage block to melee.

TL;DR
Sorry for the huge long post, haven't posted much recently but just had so many thoughts and wanted to put them out there... I am quite disappointed in the new limited, awkward Raven with such contrived spells, that unnecessarily was designed to just make 0-3 of in most cases and was redesigned into being an early GtA harass unit + early spellcaster. While I don't know a perfect solution, I'm sure something could have been figured out with the old Raven but simply tone down the scaling of its spells and increase supply to 3, with Parabomb now in the game. BC buffs do compensate and give Mech the powerful lategame scaling they need to not simply be a style that is on a limited timer and needs to do huge damage with its 2/2 push, but BC Warp in particular is very problematic and toxic and I say this as a Terran player, perhaps as much or more toxic than Mass Raven in HotS. Protoss could use slight help lategame PvZ without breaking anything by just reverting Void supply to 3 because mass Voids has not been a thing since HotS beta, and perhaps allowing Guardian Shield to block 1 or 2 melee damage to make Gateway comps stronger vs Zerg earlygame without ruining PvT or PvP as Zerglings would be by far the most affected.

I really worry about air units having their speed continuously buffed as that is very dangerous and Voids are already awkwardly fast and can chase down and kill Viking/Banshee due to its leash. Void Ray and Tempest deserve to have more love and not just pushed into awkward contrived niche roles. Especially the Tempest +structure damage upgrade seems problematic as it will have unwanted side effects in being a response to mech turtle styles in a very uninteresting way. Midgame turtling styles play a necessary role in the game, but Zerg lategame is too strong with its Spore Forest + spellcaster spam, so we need to make Tempest be able to discourage that without making them able to counter positional Mech styles by killing buildings safely from afar as it is very uninteresting and uninteractive. If they want to give Protoss more tools to respond to mass Spores, can they not just increase Tempest cost effectiveness, either in slight base damage buff, or some expensive upgrade that gives more overall damage or buff ground range to 14, so that it is only something you really have time and money to get in the lategame (or possibly midgame if you are committing to skytoss)? Or heck, what if Tempest actually had bonus damage to Biological? Then it wouldn't become toxic vs Mech, it would maybe be somewhat usable vs Bio, not ruin anything in PvP, and it would be much more useful vs Zerg overall as well as vs Spores.

My suggestions:
-Tempest some bonus +Biological damage for Bio and Zerg units and buildings
-Tempest to have some kind of lategame ground attack range upgrade to gently stop Zerg from sitting in Spore forests, and be more usable in MUs overall, instead of the suggested +Structure damage upgrade which will harshly counter Mech trying to be defensive in midgame
-Guardian Shield to block 1-2 melee damage to help vs zerglings without changing Zealots much in PvP
-Void Ray supply reverted to 3 to slightly buff PvZ lategame since mass Voids isn't and won't be a thing
-Personally I would also revert to old Raven, tone down PDD and Seeker Missile so they don't scale as hard into lategame anymore while keeping their identity as positional and zoning support spells, and nerf supply to 3
-To go with the above, I would nerf BC by bringing the energy bar back and making players strategize whether to use Warp or Yamato instead of just using braindead free Yamato->Warp combo whenever it's off cooldown

On August 16 2020 17:43 Snakestyle11 wrote:
Say what you want about zerg, Rogue almost always completely dominate his opponents. He makes it look not even close, even more so than serral and reynor do.

This guy might be the smartest SC2 player right now. His strategic choices are insanely good. He really knows how to play a series off like noone else.

On August 16 2020 20:55 MockHamill wrote:
TvP is already hell to play, at least below pro level.

Making void rays better and giving tempest bonus damage to buildings will only make shield battery proxies even harder to play against for normal players.

But I doubt the void ray and tempest change will have much impact on pro level PvZ.

The patch screws over casual player in the wrong matchup while having almost no impact on the intended machup and level of play.

On August 16 2020 11:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
Brutally plagiarised from my own terrible posting history.

Hm, think we should just spitball preposterous asymmetric PvZ ideas at this stage. Terrans have EMP, which has other utility but has clear Protoss-specific dimensions. Overall Blizz don’t seem too found of interactions that only occur between two of the game’s races but I think investigating

WombaT’s Ridiculous IdeaTM
Sentry - New unit ability Creep Eradication Field

Active ability. Energy cost - Fuck knows /second.

Upon activation a field is generated that totally isn’t a recoloured guardian shield and can eliminate rumours without vision.

The rationale behind this change is to enable more gateway ‘sharking’ to control the spread of creep while enabling non-committal or committed aggression that is more smoothly. A Protoss player can open oracles off Stargate and keep them active in a harassment capacity for longer as they don’t need to be withdrawn to grant creep vision. Alternatively Protoss players can free up robotics production for units with more defensive or offensive capability by skipping observers at phases of the game and still being able to clear creep.

In theory this doesn’t greatly augment the Great Book of Protoss Bullshit too much either.

On August 17 2020 02:34 RandomPlayer416 wrote:

The void ray doesn't do a whole lot vs zerg early game and a speed buff isn't going to change that. What it is going to do is make them MUCH more effective vs Terran. The mobility will make them much more micro-able and safer against marines, thus forcing out early cyclones which will delay production of other units that you actually need to be able to do enough early game damage to the protoss player. So now the void ray all in becomes a void ray opener that is safe, low risk and effective and will force the Terran player to respect it. Just the threat of early void ray harass will have an impact.

There are other options to help protoss vs zerg that wouldn't effect the other matchup but this is what they chose to go for. Personally I think they could of buffed sentries, maybe make force fields last longer?? Maybe make them require 2 corrossive biles to break ?