Balance Patch 5.0.11 PTR Patch Notes - Page 21

On January 03 2023 07:29 JJH777 wrote:


What tournaments are you using? Just going off liquipedia premiers for 2022 I see 7Z, 4T, 3P for each race wins. In addition to having the most championships Zerg also has the most 2nd places. I would also argue that tournaments like KoB and Afreeca Championship Cup deserve premier status more than WCS EU and were both won by Zerg. That brings it up to 9Z, 4T, 3P.

I would also note that T/P will perform much worse with nerfed ghosts and Carriers/disruptors so from the perspective of the patch they definitely need some serious help unless those nerfs are reverted.

On January 03 2023 09:57 tigera6 wrote:
They actually completely removed the Corvid Reactor upgrade and effect without increasing the initial energy, making its less useful for early harassments role when coupled with the nerf on Auto Turret. But the Interference Matrix got unchanged is correct, because they was increased from 8sec to 11sec with 50 to 75EN cast.

Also noted is that Obs model size increase got rolled back into 10% only, and Sentry also has a slight increase in speed.

On January 03 2023 07:28 Athenau wrote:

Where are you getting those Premier tournament results? Zergs have won 7/14 Premiers this year:
Premier Tournaments

On January 04 2023 05:41 Beelzebub1 wrote:


Tbh this is what I looked at Recent Tournament Results lol why is it different if you click on the p remier tab vs. the premier section on recent?

I stand corrected though, no shock though between Serral and Reynor thats alot of Zerg wins.

On January 04 2023 06:10 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
So I thought about it more, and even though it's highly unlikely anyone will see this (or if people on TL will even agree lol), I thought I'd throw out my Raven rework suggestion. This should accomplish what it seems they're trying (earlier detection, more creep control, less strong for TvP Bio Tank pushes vs Colossus, less strong in TvT vs Tanks), but also do other things (buffs Mech in every MU, makes adding Marauders to your Marine Tank in TvT more of an option, keep lategame potential for Raven without making it too strong early game, maintain same strength of Raven/Hellion)


Raven reduced from 100/200 to 75/150
-Keep it gas heavy, Terran needs a gas sink
-Helps Terran get earlier detection and control creep
-Also helps keep early Hellion/Raven comps from getting too weak (it's already weak/rare in current patch)

Corvid Reactor upgrade cost increased from 150/150 to 200/200
-Raven is power gated so you can't spam Matrix/Turret too early, but still allows for some lategame potential

Build time reduced from 42.9 to 30 seconds
-Helps Terran get earlier detection and control creep

Anti-Armor Missile reworked to be a +15% damage boost (or kept at -3 armor)
-This means it's less strong for Bio, and helps Mech in all MUs, especially Hellbats/Tanks/Thors
-It also would help make TvT not just pure Marine Tank, and make adding in Muaraders more of an option.
-It would also nerf Bio and buff Mech in TvT, allowing more diversity in TvT
-It would also buff defender's advantage a little in TvT, since it buffs Tanks, and helps offset the strength of Matrix taking out sieged positions too easily. (We want to nerf Matrix in TvT, and make Tanks less weak vs Ravens).
-Another option is make them take +2 damage from Biological units, and +4 damage from Mechanical units.

Anti-Armor Missile radius reduced from 2.88 to 2
-This decreases the AOE by HALF (~26 units squared, to ~13 units squared)
-This means 1 AA missile won't effect the whole enemy's army, and there is more potential for splitting
-This gives an option to build a few Ravens instead of just 1, and helps keep Terran lategame strong (since Ghost got nerfed), and helps Mech (since Mech is more likely to be building Ravens). It keeps some lategame strength for Ravens.

AA Missile duration reduced from 21 seconds to 15 seconds
-21 seconds always seemed like an awfully long time to me, 15 seconds is long enough to use it for positional play
-Shortening the duration will help compensate for making sure Tank or Liberator pushes aren't too strong, if we're reworking AA Missile to give +15% damage boost instead of -3 armor.

Auto Turret HP reduced from 150 to 125 (if you MUST nerf something about Auto Turret, but I wouldn't nerf anything)
-They will have less HP to help compensate for being able to make more Ravens for cheaper, without making them too weak if you mass them lategame. Early game, HP is more important, lategame in mass it's more about DPS.
-Less HP will make it more of an option to kill a Turret harassing your workers instead of waiting 10 sec
(Honestly though I would keeping Auto Turret exactly the same as currently would be fine. You rarely want to use Auto Turret over AA Missile or Matrix anyway. Auto Turret pushes aren't strong or anything, so Raven being slightly cheaper won't make Auto Turret mess anything up, as it's the Raven's weakest ability. If you're using Raven/Hellion comp, AA missile already got nerfed which significantly impacts Hellion damage, so it's OK if Auto Turrets are slightly easier to get. If we rework AA Missile to be +15% damage, it still will only give Hellions +1.25 damage vs Stalkers, +2.1 vs Marines, so keeping Auto Turrets as is would help compensate for the reworked AA Missile and keep Raven/Hellion about the same strength early game.)

Interference Matrix reduced from 11 sec to 8 sec
-It just makes sense if the Raven is cheaper and builds faster
-This would further help weaken Ravens vs Tanks in TvT, and further weaken Bio Tank pushes vs Colossus in early-mid TvP

On January 05 2023 00:49 ejozl wrote:

I think the idea is that Turrets are quite strong in TvT. The Raven is just a god unit in TvT, because it buffs the strongest unit Terran have the Marine, by an insane amount. It disables the Tank which is the best counter Terran has to the massed Marine unit. And then it also places Auto Turrets which is a beefier, but worse Marine that provides an insane buffer and makes it hard to engage the Tanks. All the while, benefitting +1 range to your Tanks. The Viking, which is another unit that provides +1 range for your Tanks and can actually combat these Raven, also gets quite the buff from the oily missile and the Raven can disable 2 Vikings and even place an Auto Turret, if it turns into a mostly anti air vs. anti air battle.

I think it's a no brainer to remove the Covid Reactor, because it's an upgrade that gets better the more Ravens you spam and I guess this is what they want to remove.
I actually agree with you that I think the Raven should be a proper late game unit. If I were to remake the Raven, I would nerf its move speed and give it Seeker Missile instead of the oily missile, I would give it a nerfed PDD and keep Auto Turret and Interference Matrix. The Viper already cheats with having 4 abilties, so the Raven can have it as well. This way Terran has proper late game, I would also take a look at the BC (remove the move&shoot, but make its Yamato and Jump stronger again.)
But as far as this new mod version of the Raven goes, I think they did a pretty good job. The Auto Turret is simply a worse straight up unit. They removed the Auto Turret benefitting from Neosteel Armour, so I think it follows that it should also not benefit from the +1 range, this would also quite nerf the murder (cloud of Ravens.) The more turrets you spam, the harder it becomes for them all to shoot at once.

On January 05 2023 12:44 [Phantom] wrote:
I have an honest to God plea for the balance council.

Don't ruin the relatively ok balance that we have in the search for something that "would be cool to have". The game balance is in a relatively good state. There are a few problematic units and strategies, focus on fixing those issues, and not in changes that would be cool to have but don't serve balance.

What I mean:

It would be cool to see more micreable hydras, but that buff in what is basically a core unit could have a lot of consequences specially since the Hydra is already used effectively. It's not necessary at all for the balance of the game at the moment.

Same with the ultras. Yes, it would be amazing if they were more agile. Why do you think in 13 years of SC2 they never changed the size? Because the size is part of the balance of the unit, so you don't mass them and to control their DPS. Even if 1 ultra doesn't it is still tanking a lot of damage. If they are smaller, you are increasing the damage of ultra comps while maintaining the tankyness. How are you compensating? You aren't. You would need to rebalance the whole unit (change supply/cost/buildtime etc).

Sure it would be cool if the ultra would have been smaller. But it isn't. Zerg doesn't need the buff, this change doesn't serve balance. It's something that would be "cool" but there is no telling the effect it will have, considering how Zerg can insta remax-insta tech switch to them.

So please. Please. Don't screw the balance we have now. Much less with so many Zerg buffs in what is already considered by most to be a decent balance state with a slight advantage to Zerg.

Focus on fixing the small issues.

I know you mean well, I know you are exited to be able to make the big changes you think some units need. But you don't know the full impact those big changes will have, we don't know the full extent either. What we do know is this could be the last SC2 patch in a year, if not ever.

The carrier is problematic? Nerf it.
The Lurker is too strong vs Protoss, nerf it (which you haven't even proposed which is baffling).
The archon doesn't pass through a single square, fix it.
The ghost is too strong? Nerf it.
The shield battery is unfair? Nerf it

But stop playing around with raven reworks that who knows how they'll work. Stop playing around with liberator changes and then reverting them that just make it seem you have no idea what to do.

We all would love if the disruptor wasn't as binary, but that's how legacy of the void was balanced, you cannot nerf it without giving back something big, which you aren't doing. And if you did that big thing it would break other things. Just leave the thing alone. They'll change it in sc3.

Leave the BL alone, it doesn't need changes, nor the ultra, nor the Liberator, not the hydras. You aren't working in sc3. Fix the actual issues the current balance has and don't push changes just because they would be "nice" and "cool" because that's the only reason I can think of why you'd want to change hydras and Ultras and BL and Ravens. Not balance.

Focus on the balance issues. Forget about something that would be cool. Help blizzard and frost gigant in their future games if you want to do that.

I know you mean well. But it's just not the time anymore to be doing these things.

On January 05 2023 20:29 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:
Anyone know what the mod with current considered changes is called?

On January 06 2023 00:51 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:

Most players will simply never reach a level where playing against carriers is a vaguely even affair.

On January 05 2023 12:44 [Phantom] wrote:
I have an honest to God plea for the balance council.

Don't ruin the relatively ok balance that we have in the search for something that "would be cool to have". The game balance is in a relatively good state. There are a few problematic units and strategies, focus on fixing those issues, and not in changes that would be cool to have but don't serve balance.


What I mean:

It would be cool to see more micreable hydras, but that buff in what is basically a core unit could have a lot of consequences specially since the Hydra is already used effectively. It's not necessary at all for the balance of the game at the moment.