New SC2 Balance Test Mod (along with new map pool)

On August 22 2023 22:59 Die4Ever wrote:
they buffed vipers lol

Test Mod TODO: Make this not affect Broodlings from building deaths

On August 23 2023 00:09 tigera6 wrote:
Hydra keep getting buff is making me believe that Meomaika has one of the biggest voice in the balance committee, lol.

On August 23 2023 00:27 JJH777 wrote:
I think this is an okay patch for T and Z. It's dumb to give even a slight buff to the viper and in general feels like Zerg got the most attention but the baneling nerf is so massive that I think TvZ will still be fine even with the big snipe nerf.

Protoss is screwed though lol. Can't believe they are nerfing the disruptor massively again without buffing any of their other forms of splash.

On August 23 2023 00:44 Die4Ever wrote:

I still kinda feel like baneling damage to buildings should maybe be nerfed slightly

On August 23 2023 01:19 Die4Ever wrote:
https://youtu.be/ULgpXr1zrg4

feels like there are a few buffs that zerg doesn't need

On August 23 2023 00:44 Die4Ever wrote:

I still kinda feel like baneling damage to buildings should maybe be nerfed slightly

On August 23 2023 02:35 ejozl wrote:
I'm really struggling to find anything that I like about this patch. I guess the Immortal Barrier functioning, it was always annoying that they don't tank the Disruptor shots. Also the Shields Upgrade buff, since that one has always been shite in SC2. It's different in SC1 because they keep generating Shields while taking damage and so everytime the unit takes damage and it has just 1 shield, its armour is substracting from the overall damage.

And I really didn't expect a Mothership and Disruptor nerf, the Cabal is full of surprises!

On August 23 2023 01:50 Charoisaur wrote:

The Viper change is just a qol change, it changes nothing except preventing Zergs from accidentally killing their hatchery, which maybe happened once every 200 games

On August 23 2023 01:50 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:
Kinda hate these changes.

Why murder infestors so badly? Like I understand banes are overtuned, but seriously, killing fungal? Why?

Why are all the protoss buffs to air of all things? Is another disruptor nerf needed? I get that HTs get stronger overall given the ghost nerfs, but I'd rather see mid-late game buffs for gateway / robo.

Widowmines, which cost nothing and can instantly end the game, now become even more obnoxious in drop play. Cool. Great change. Definitely going in the right direction there

Cyclones being a core unit is cool, and the mothership is possibly more interesting (still a weird one-off but hey). But overall not feeling this one.

Balance mods are available on all servers under the "Community Balance Patch - August 2023" name and via the following links

AM - battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/352863
EU - battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/248793
AS - battlenet:://starcraft/map/3/165660

On August 23 2023 16:42 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
So this might be really dumb, but how do you play the Community Balance Mod?



I went to Custom maps in SC2, searched for Community Balance Patch, and I see nothing.
I tried to enter the link into my chrome URL bar, and nothing happened.

If they want us to playtest these, I think the instructions need to be more dumby proof.

On August 23 2023 16:48 Creager wrote:


If only somebody working at Blizzard still knew how to utilize this button...

+ Show Spoiler +

On August 23 2023 19:48 TaKeTV wrote:
Does anyone here believe the Raven change actually does change anything? Its a 50/50 ~60 seconds upgrade. The timings of the raven both in TvT and in TvP hit later. Players that are using those timings now (especially TvT is rather 2 or 3 raven) will be using them after this patch too.

If you wanted to adress the power of the matrix I think it would have been better to either lower its duration since the current duration for a fast moving RTS like Starcraft is too long OR you could have moved that upgrade to something like the armory or even fusion core if you really wanted to kill those timing / early game specifics.

In my book the matrix is strong in TvT but I'm not sure if I would have named it issue there since it results in interesting engagements and play around the raven.

And last but not least if they wanted to help Protoss I would have preferred to give the battery the ability "cleanse" which could be a slight AoE spell that removes negative abilities from units making it possible for you to cleanse your colossi against the matrix.

I would make that a cooldown ability to not allow Protoss to mass batteries at later stages and buse that ability against anything. Thats just a quick brainstorm.

TLDR: I dont think the 50/50/57 second upgrade changes anything about raven/matrix and their timings

On August 23 2023 22:23 Charoisaur wrote:

In TvP the change is huge because players usually swap the addon to a reactor after building the first Raven. With the patch you either have to idle the Starport for 23 seconds (Raven buildtime=34 seconds) before swapping if you want to finish the upgrade, or build a 2nd Raven. Both options significantly delay the first push.
In TvT this doesn't change much, that's true

On August 22 2023 23:52 CicadaSC wrote:
did the creep nerf from last patch even change anything or was it just disguised as a nerf. i remember pros saying there was no noticeable difference because no one is perfect with creep spreading anyway and then people just sort of ... dropped it. wasn't the nerf done with intention? if it had no impact it should be retuned, no?

On August 23 2023 01:50 Charoisaur wrote:

The Viper change is just a qol change, it changes nothing except preventing Zergs from accidentally killing their hatchery, which maybe happened once every 200 games

On August 24 2023 23:55 Hildegard wrote:
I might be mistaken, but just from watching pro games, I thought that ranged Liberators were the thing Protoss struggled the most against in TvP. EMP was a close second, but I recall very few games that a Protoss won against ranged Liberators. If I'm mistaken, would someone be kind and explain why? 

On August 25 2023 01:24 Hildegard wrote:


Thank you. If you don't mind I have a follow-up question. Isn't that precisely the kind of thing that the balance change should affect? Meaning something that doesn't boost Protoss power for non-professional players, but helps them winning tournaments. An example would be a stalker upgrade located in the Dark Shrine, that helps dealing with Liberators (and Brood Lords)?

On August 25 2023 01:24 Hildegard wrote:


Thank you. If you don't mind I have a follow-up question. Isn't that precisely the kind of thing that the balance change should affect? Meaning something that doesn't boost Protoss power for non-professional players, but helps them winning tournaments. An example would be a stalker upgrade located in the Dark Shrine, that helps dealing with Liberators (and Brood Lords)?

On August 25 2023 06:22 teapot_ wrote:
Latest Heromarine's video about the new cyclone is interesting.

Granted the battle tests are not full realistic, but it looks bad. Aside from early game shenanigans, it seems fairly useless as it is. Useless in Tvt, doesnt make mech viable against toss, might be used in ZvZ but not much more than the current cyclone.

It's also a worse defense against air with the reduced range. It makes terran more vulnerable versus oracles.

Hope it gets tweaked a bit, otherwise I fear we will just not see cyclones anymore, or just for cheese.

On August 25 2023 07:15 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
The new cyclone is a good effort in providing Mech with more stability by giving it a more "all-around" unit, however this approach is a bit misguided. Its strengths are too weak, making it much less useful than the current cyclone in many situations. While overspecialized units can make a race (Protoss) or unit composition (mech) weak or less stable, there are many good reasons to keep in mind as to why Mech units should stay relatively specialized.

1) It's simply part of the unit identity for each unit to feel very powerful in certain situations.
2) It makes the units more different than all-around units like Marines.
3) It makes the style more unique in that it focuses more on having the right unit composition and positioning, instead of micro'ing very actively like with Bio comps.
4) While having the wrong unit composition, or being caught in the wrong situations, can be more punishing, it can also be more rewarding when you have the right composition or fight in the right situations.

Rather than weakening Mech units' strengths as a tradeoff for softer weaknesses, simply reduce the weaknesses significantly so that the worst case scenarios are less punishing while keeping its strengths in check. This allows players to still have to decide between which unit to make, and rewards assembling the correct unit composition, as well as increasing unit diversity, while making small mistakes in unit composition or army positioning less punishing.

We do not want a Warhound that can move and shoot. And we don't want a Mech-marine that makes up 75% of your army with only 25% being position units such as Tanks.

What Mech needs are units that are very useful and strong in certain situations, while not being so weak that being caught a little off guard can be game ending. It should be potentially very strong when in favorable scenarios, but it should be have clearly defined weaknesses be more potentially more punishing than a more rounded comp like Bio.

Currently, Mech's best scenarios in TvP are still not very strong (other than if you reach the endgame with mass BC or mass OCs with huge army supply). Meanwhile, its worst scenarios are very weak and punishing. The new cyclone takes away some of the strengths that Mech had with the current cyclone, and I'm not sure if the unit being more rounded as is really provides that much benefit. Having specialized units allows for specific compositions that can be carefully strategized to counter/punish your opponent's decisions. For example, if you're opening with 2 base BCs in TvZ, getting as few as 4 Cyclones can be a soft punish against them building ~8-12 Corruptors. In a build like that where BCs already can deal with most units pretty well in that stage of the game, except for Corruptors, Cyclones are a great compliment and cover Corruptors. The new Cyclone wouldn't be able to punish the Corruptors the same because they would be able to retreat without dying, allowing the Zerg to then build units to counter the Cyclones later, before the Cyclones are able to get their value.

I do think the new cyclone has potential. However, it should be a little more specialized than it is right now. To not overlap with the Hellion as much, I would suggest it be shifted slightly closer back into the anti-armor or anti-expensive unit role, as it had been in the past. For example, I would consider changing the damage from 11 (+2 vs Armored) to 10 (+4 vs Armored).

All that said, if the new Cyclone can fulfill the role that the old Cyclone design had (the one with a super strong anti-armor auto attack, and weaker Lock-On that only attacks air), which allowed you to Reactor out 4-6 Cyclones early game vs P and gain some map control, and allowed a small positioning/scouting game vs 4-6 Stalkers, that could be a huge help to Mech getting a 3rd base more safely, and lead to more active early-games. I really miss the old Cyclone for that.

On August 25 2023 10:06 Drahkn wrote:
This patch is insane the medivac buff for example what the hell are they thinking , "hey how can we make Terran even more braindead uhh yeah lets just let Terran stim whenever they want because medivacs cant run out of energy

On August 25 2023 07:15 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:

I do think the new cyclone has potential. However, it should be a little more specialized than it is right now. To not overlap with the Hellion as much, I would suggest it be shifted slightly closer back into the anti-armor or anti-expensive unit role, as it had been in the past. For example, I would consider changing the damage from 11 (+2 vs Armored) to 10 (+4 vs Armored).

All that said, if the new Cyclone can fulfill the role that the old Cyclone design had (the one with a super strong anti-armor auto attack, and weaker Lock-On that only attacks air), which allowed you to Reactor out 4-6 Cyclones early game vs P and gain some map control, and allowed a small positioning/scouting game vs 4-6 Stalkers, that could be a huge help to Mech getting a 3rd base more safely, and lead to more active early-games. I really miss the old Cyclone for that.

On August 25 2023 18:44 tigera6 wrote:
There is no simply fixing to Mech in TvP, period. Unless you deal some surprisingly high eco damage early, its never a fair fight when Protoss start making the Robo units. Immortal/Colossus/Disruptor are made to kill Mech army left and right, and with Archon/Chargelot support, how are you going to touch them? It will follow the same path of turtling with Tanks/Mines and trying to get into Sky Terran while Protoss taking the entire map like Zerg.

Now for TvZ, the new Cyclone together with Helion/Hellbat is a great counter to LingBaneHydra and Roach/Ravager (with tank support). So that should help with the meta a bit, I do not know how this new Cyclone will work against Muta. If Terran can just make Cyclone/Helion to counter most of Zerg opening, and then transition into Tank/Thor and later Ghost, then I think this is very promising in TvZ. But then again, if the banes nerf going through, I think Terran would still prefer Bio over this.

On August 25 2023 19:12 Vision_ wrote:


Yes i agree but the nerf of centrifugal hooks looks necessary (as old blizzard team tried an ultimate nerf on banelings damage and set aside the possibility of tweak his supply cost). Then terran deathball is either overpowered (which means you have to tweak medivacs) or you have to buff hydralisks (which has been an issue with colossus in particulary). So core changes would be really hard to do without creating a map based on relationship between units in each period of the game (which is a lot of work and need a collaboration with pro / big project)


This balance patch seems not to adress a big tweak which everybody agree, but let s imagine you re pro and just played bio terran which is stressfull and apm-demanding, i could think the switch to mech could be interesting in order to rest a little bit.

Then i would be interesting to read comments reaction from pro players regarding this new incomming patch. (and regarding the China community patch also). Something to resume pro toughts by tl writers

Actually looking at the China Community Patch, i can say i like their tweaks concerning Medivacs, Ravens, Infestators, High Templars and Oracle.

I dislike the chtinious buff (prefer a regeneration ability like Mutalisks) and i m pretty curious about BC / Carriers tweaks.

On August 25 2023 19:49 Fubika24 wrote:


Do we really need even more people to come up with their own balance changes? The current esl proposal already took ages to come due to disagreement between pros.
Do Chinese players not have any representation in the balance council?

On August 25 2023 21:04 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


Wow it's been a while, I remember you! Agreed on the new Cyclone not being as potent in the early game in many ways. However, being able to reactor them out for cheap might allow you to gain map control vs Protoss in the early game, if you stay active and keep trading in small numbers (like 4-8 Cyclones) before your army gets too bulky.

One thing you mentioned that would greatly help mech is for their units to become more supply efficient. That's supposed to be a benefit of going mech, you have a weaker smaller army earlier in the game, but as long as you survive you can hopefully eventually get more bases with more army/tanks spread out on the map to hold positions.

If the Cyclone is slightly more supply efficient (I think it might be, since it has 100 HP instead of 80 HP, and if you have good multitasking you can overcome the clunkiness by having multiple squads spread around the map to poke/harass), then that could be an indirect way of allowing Mech to build more tanks.

Baneling HP nerf will also thankfully help PFs defend vs them slightly better, and stop Zerg crashing mass baneling into your 4th/5th.

I would like the balance council to continue to think of creative ways that can make Cyclone stronger specifically for someone playing Mech. One way is to make it so that Cyclones zone a larger space and can force/encourage your opponent to committ into you and your Tanks (or else try to retreat and lose a few units for free). The current Cyclone is kind of good for that since it has a much larger Lock-On range. I would suggest increasing Lock-On to 7, Lock-On range to 12, but maybe give it a 4 second cooldown. That would more allow it to zone and kill expensive units but not infinitely due to the small cooldown, while still being weaker vs smaller cheap units like Zerglings and Marines. Which you have Hellions for.

Being able to snipe expensive units or at least make them more scared to go out on the map freely is important, because your other Mech units like Tanks, Hellions, etc. are already strong at killing big armies of cheaper units. It's the expensive tech units like Immortals, Disruptors, Ravagers, etc. that need an answer, especially with EMP getting weaker and Immortal Barrier being better vs Tanks now.

On August 25 2023 16:47 Vision_ wrote:
Actually Cyclones statistics are very close to Hydralisks,

Of course they can hit while moving but is it enought ? Do we wait years for having a clone of hydralisks ?



If we are talking about the same thing (Plus there s also TvZ hellbat spot against zergling and broodlings so that s why i suggest to decrease their damage a little bit more) maybe we need to increase their difference between armored and light a little bit more from 11 + 2 to 9 + 5

Then probably their upgraded speed is too high, maybe a small reduction to increase difference with hydralisks

On August 25 2023 20:01 Lyyna wrote:
edit : ddamn that got big. Thought i would just do a couple paragraphs and move on
Maybe i still haven't lost all of my passion...

Haven't commented here in a long time, but it looks like a mech centric patch and the WoL OGs still around may remember me as one of the big mech guys back in the days...

For general street cred, been Master 1 since it existed with occasional forays in GM, playing only mech (as i both hate the bio gameplay and theme, and am slow as hell, and used to be awful at any micro situation) in every matchup, and writer of some of the biggest mech guides, particularly in TvP, on this site.
I am not a pro, but i'm a reasonably good player, and i am VERY experienced with mech play

The goal of making mech better in more situations, particularly TvP, is commendable, as i've always been a believer of the SCBW TvP matchup being one of the most iconic thing in RTS, and i personally find bio awfully boring to watch after a couple of games, especially whenever specialist units such as tanks or ravens are pushed out of it (wooow another drop-centric marine/marauder/mine/medivac game that ends up in EMP carpetting versus the exact same mix of protoss units every game ? daaaamn)
However, it doesn't address any fundamental issue the strategy has, and the notes give a definite taste of suggestions given by people who haven't really played much Mech, and have mostly just watched the couple of progames where it popped, mostly in battlemech style, and usually got destroyed, to draw conclusions

Note that my answer will be generally focused on the higher level of play, assuming good mechanics, knowledge of matchups, and game reading ; it has been amply demonstrated (included by yours truly in WoL & HotS, which were so ridiculously anti-mech it's a miracle i didn't die from heightened blood pressure somewhere in 2013-2014) that below that level, you can get by with any strategy with good macro and a decent understanding of what you're doing.

I am also not going to dwaddle on "solutions" ; this isn't the scope of this topic, quite a few things would touch the core design of the game, and there are a thousand different ways to go about it, and the exercise would be more appropriate for an hour long Youtube video with a clickbaity title ("He wants to do WHAT do fix mech ?!?! INSANE PATCHNOTES PROPOSAL 11111!!")

First of all, what are the issues of mech play right now ?
The main one is a massive vulnerability to specific timing attacks due to the openings you're forced in. The rest actually is almost irrelevant, as this all stems from this : it means most mech games end right at the 10 minute marks from a large timing, or requires so many shenanigans to stay alive that you're so far behind nothing else is important anyway.

The first source of this issue is that Mech play takes a humongous time to come online ; early on, you are very vulnerable to aggression, as you cannot rely on the strength and mobility of stim bio to both control the map, and put pressure on the opponent.

As a result, your openings either fall in the categories of
- being overly defensive (uncommon at the pro level), which is playable but requires massive experience to play as they put you largely in the dark and let a competent opponent pick you apart from getting early map control, or
- being overly focused on harassment (typical example would be BC openings in TvZ, or mine/hellion drop shenanigans in TvP). These can work... if the opponent allows for it. It is the general issue of harass-centric openings : you are gambling a lot of resources hoping to do actual damage, often with specialist units that aren't particularly useful afterwards. By comparison, bio has the option of getting units early on the map that don't require a lot of economic sacrifice, and can be kept alive as they're very mobile and can be withdrawn easily to fight later, while having the capability to swing in and do good damage if the opportunity arises.
And what usually happens, at high level, is that the harassment is mostly deflected with relatively little damage ; it is a natural thing now that the game is very mature and most builds are well figured out
However, it means that the mech infrastructure is often delayed, in order to get these specialist harassment units out, and these units add little to your combat power. You are extremely strapped for resources, in particular gas (though hellions are an insane drain on your mineral as well), and adding 3rd CC/extra facts & arms comes incredibly late, which is bad considering bio openings are now showing they can get away with ever earlier 3rd CCs & uppgrades thanks to well mapped out 2 barracks openings)
Aaaaand that's why we usually get the mech player gets flattened a few minutes later ; usually a massive roach max, which he has a whopping 4-6 gas units out (i'm so betting on 4 cyclones & 2 tanks to beat a roach max. I'm sure these 8 hellions and 2 BCs will also be a major factor here), or any kind of agressive protoss bust on the ground, or a 2-3 raven push where the bio player has the same tank count as you do, but he also has a strong marine/marauder force to face your 10 hellions (though thanksfully that's the rarest ; for some reason even in 2023, GM terrans consider smashing headfirst into tanks with pure bio without any tank or air support a good strategy. No wonder my TvT often got to 70+% winrate over entire seasons...)

The second issue is that mech units are hilariously bad in small numbers ; both due to their own characteristics, and due to the presence of very strong counters
In TvP, the obvious example is the interaction with zealots & immortals ; both of these utterly destroy all mech units until you get to a critical, well uppgraded mass.
Tanks are very costly, particularly in supply, and their damage individually is fairly lackluster versus units they cannot oneshot and can easily reach them.
The hellions is surprisingly good and underrated in large battles, but in small numbers is a joke and suffer from being terrible to micro
The cyclone (current version) is expensive, clunky to maneuver as soon as you get a few out, and unless you can target valuable units, it feels more often that not that you're just killing enemy trash units not even as fast as they're producing them.
The Thor with repair is an early game monster... but it's not exactly realistic to get out, and it's stuck to wherever our SCVs are ; otherwise it gets dismantled in a very litteral sense very easily.
That ties directly into the previous problem ; not only you're forced into an aggro open that strongly delays your infrastructure, and/or have to concede map control to your opponent, but your initial combat units are extremely weak until you get a good number of them, which leads to several minutes of your opponent potentially being at full development while you're still barely starting to get steaming.
There is the added issue (compounded by the lack of map control) of mech units being very specialized. Any mech player who assumed a roach opening and saw these damn 10 mutas flying over your tanks knows the feeling.
On the other hand, early game, is there a thing that bio cannot either fight or run from to find damage elsewhere ?

The third issue is due to a fundamental SC2 design : everything is SO DAMN FAST.
Losing an army very often means death in the midgame, which is why we usually so players focusing on harassing and map control over outright attacks unless they get a definite advantage
In the lategame, when both opponents stretch out over 5-6 bases, you can often recover... assuming you get a decent bank, that you have decent units producing fast, and can easily shuffle around units in order to either defend the enemy from further advancing, recovering lost ground, or putting pressure elsewhere to force him to retreat.
Aaaand if you have experience with mech you know where this is going : this gets pretty bad when you have the most expensive, slowest producing, least mobile army in the game. This gets exacerbated by the lack of experience of a lot of pro players with mech, showing glaring issues (unless you're Cure or Maru) essentially playing mech as either "bio but with hellions or cyclones" or turtling with one specific comp and never adapting to the specificity of the strategy
There are workarounds, and mech can shine in the lategame, but it has massive drawbacks, requires good experience to pick solutions to some of the issues you face, and you usually don't get many advantages over the usual "bio with late game/air transition" which gets all the perks of mech while still retaining a core of fast produced, relatively cheap, extremely mobile & strong units.
And this links up to the previous two issues ; not only you are sacrificing your map control and infrastructure, not only your units are very vulnerable early... but losing a fight early often means death. You can't get units fast, and your opponent can very quickly compound a winning fight into deadly damage.

Soooo now onto the patch...
I ask : does the patch address ANY of these issue?
Nope
It turns the cyclone into a general purpose, marauder-ish unit, a bulky, somewhat inexpensive frontline unit made to tank... something the hellion did better, especially being mineral only, and light, which is strong versus most mech counter-units.
It also loses most of its damage, and the early cyclone power was one of the few things allowing for reasonable mech opening that aren't based on harass/early damage ; not particularly good for tournaments, although we're seeing some fun marine/cyclone drops these days, but definitely viable to general purpose ladder play. That also means losing what is making battlemech somewhat relevant : the ability to kill some powerful units very, very fast
This is the kind of modification that comes from someone saying "hey let's make mech more battlemechy" without thinking beyond that.

Amusingly, the raven change makes it even worse for mech : you're already strapped for gas, and it was already a big requirement anyway to get early air superiority while the bio player had to get medivacs out, to deny the enemy's ravens.
So now the mech player has to lose some extra gas early in order to use his ravens to prevent the enemy's bio from matching his tanks and ravens count in the early game while having better mineral-only units and more mobility ? Yeaaaaah !

Aaand that's it for the terran changes relevant to mech..

On the other hand, the broodlord, one of mech's traditional weakness (though it is very easy to fight in the hand of most zergs, as unsupported Thors vs Broodlords is a massacre, on the other hand Broodlords supported by vipers, infestors, and other units massacre any ground-based force so the same doesn't hold true at the pro level), now gets faster. Yeah.
Tempest getting more microable, because it wasn't the death of terran air enough already, yeah.
Air uppgrades getting cheaper across the board, because terran air was too strong i guess, and air transitions weren't enough of a glaring weakness for mech ? Yeaaah


So none of the issues of mech are adressed. The only strong, non-harass based opening that gave some map control is killed. And some of its counters were soft-buffed.
Instead we may just end up with a bastardized version of battlemech, reminiscent of the lovely mass reactored cyclone era, which everyone of course enjoyed so much.

On August 25 2023 22:35 Athenau wrote:

Moving shot is a huge difference. The Cyclone is not a hydralisk clone.

On August 25 2023 22:12 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
....
This reminds me, I would once again like to suggest buffing Hellion damage from 8 (+6 vs Light) to 9 (+5 vs Light). It's such a small change but it really would help Mech players slightly. In TvT, Mech is pretty weak early on because Bio is much stronger than Hellions. And in TvZ, Banelings, Queens, Roach, Ravager, etc. take little damage from Hellions. In TvP, Hellion vs Stalker is already an interesting battle in bigger numbers, but if Stalkers split a little then they win easily.

Giving Hellions just 1 more damage vs these units wouldn't make them suddenly beat them or make players mass Hellions, but it would soften one of Mech's weaknesses and make them more stable, and more supply efficient. That would also allow Cyclones to be more specialized and more powerful. And imagine the fun Hellion vs Blink Stalker micro battles!

On August 25 2023 21:04 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I would like the balance council to continue to think of creative ways that can make Cyclone stronger specifically for someone playing Mech. One way is to make it so that Cyclones zone a larger space and can force/encourage your opponent to committ into you and your Tanks (or else try to retreat and lose a few units for free). The current Cyclone is kind of good for that since it has a much larger Lock-On range. I would suggest increasing Lock-On to 7, Lock-On range to 12, but maybe give it a 4 second cooldown. That would more allow it to zone and kill expensive units but not infinitely due to the small cooldown, while still being weaker vs smaller cheap units like Zerglings and Marines. Which you have Hellions for.

On August 26 2023 02:45 geokilla wrote:
Watching the tournament, I can say with 100% certainty this patch is terrible. Whoever thought letting pros decide balance was a good idea needs to get checked.

On August 26 2023 03:23 WombaT wrote:

What highlights/lowlights were there for any of us who didn’t watch?

On August 26 2023 03:26 geokilla wrote:

I caught Lambo vs Spirit series. Terran mech is really strong, especially Cyclones. Long story short, everything just melts. Wardi said something along the lines of that there's no downside to locking on because there's no cooldown to lockon. I agree with his statement. I'd be frustrated as a Zerg and Protoss player.

On August 26 2023 02:45 geokilla wrote:
Watching the tournament, I can say with 100% certainty this patch is terrible. Whoever thought letting pros decide balance was a good idea needs to get checked.

On August 26 2023 04:24 Lyyna wrote:
It becomes boring specifically only when the defending player has no reason to EVER leave his base (rather than defending until a specific moment) and/or the attacking player has no reason/incentive to attack.. and that's largely due to the "everything is too damn fast in sc2" point i made in my other post : you can't afford to lose an army

On August 26 2023 05:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


Man... I wish more people understood this.

I don't like calling them defensive units, because zoning units can be used both offensively and defensively in theory.
But yes, making mech stronger doesn't result in more turtly or more boring games. In fact, the reason why mech often leads to boring turtle games, is because mech is too weak to move out and interact, AND because the opponent doesn't often feel the need to even try to pick them apart before mech gets to its deathball.

When one player has a stronger lategame, it incentivizes the other opponent to interact and stop the turtling player. As long as one of the players is being forced to engage, there can be intense action and the game isn't boring. As long as there are ways to interact and slow them down or halt their progress from transitioning into their deathball, then it isn't imbalanced for one player to have a stronger lategame or endgame. And if you do let that player reach their deathball, it's totally fine if it means you lose the game because that was their win condition.

When a Zerg or Protoss has just as strong of a lategame as the Mech player, they won't be afraid to take the game late and to mass expand across the map. And that's when we get games where nothing happens for a long time until both players reach their ideal deathball. It isn't problematic for one race or playstyle to have a stronger lategame than another, as long as the MU is balanced.

One thing that's great about Mech games (in theory anyway), is that there is a clear attacker and a clear defender. In other MUs where both sides don't have a strong incentive to attack the other, there can be less tension as both feel comfortable taking many bases before engaging.

On August 26 2023 17:33 Slydie wrote:


This is where maps come in. Having a superior death ball might not matter if the opponent has 3x the money and production to throw several armies into it and also counterattack.

I remember how the natural was often a point of contention in WOL, then the 3rd in HotS, but it is often the 4th or 5th base now.

On August 26 2023 18:04 Vision_ wrote:
Usually in real life or true RTS, u have to travel to harvest ressources.

I m always afraid to share this opinion in this forum, but the fact minerals fields are stack by 8 and aside your previous base means that there s roughly only one way to attack your opponent.

IMO, the game will be far more strategic if you allow workers to cross over cliffs and harvest minerals fields with a long distance mining distributed evenly across the map (of course their travel will bring severals hundred mineral and workers will be buff). Finally, you have to take more risks for harvesting, which is the core of a RTS (harvesting all these minerals near a single base is against the philosophy of strategy)

And, even if workers caracterictics are buff a little bit, then you can add to workers an ability (passive or not) which fits the design of the race, for example :

Probe : speed boost
SCV : armor gain
Drone : queen clone an existing worker

On August 26 2023 18:04 Vision_ wrote:
Usually in real life or true RTS, u have to travel to harvest ressources.

I m always afraid to share this opinion in this forum, but the fact minerals fields are stack by 8 and aside your previous base means that there s roughly only one way to attack your opponent.

IMO, the game will be far more strategic if you allow workers to cross over cliffs and harvest minerals fields with a long distance mining distributed evenly across the map (of course their travel will bring severals hundred mineral and workers will be buff). Finally, you have to take more risks for harvesting, which is the core of a RTS (harvesting all these minerals near a single base is against the philosophy of strategy)

And, even if workers caracterictics are buff a little bit, then you can add to workers an ability (passive or not) which fits the design of the race, for example :

Probe : speed boost
SCV : armor gain
Drone : queen clone an existing worker

On August 26 2023 20:03 TaKeTV wrote:


....

I am not sure if workers traveling to gather ressources makes this any more interesting. AoE 4 for example has nearly an economic simulation with the amount of ressources+workers and their travel. I personally dont find that appealing at all.

I dont know what I want from an economy but I know what I dislike at certain games :D

On August 26 2023 21:56 Vision_ wrote:


I m very pleased that you comment my post but i can t agree when you say AoE 4 has a travel harvesting system, you just build a depot near ressources and workers can harvest. This idea comes from games like Red Alert Command and Conquer or Dune, so as i said in my previous post (but not well explained) ressources are located far from base, so your ressource convoy (truck load) can be intercepted.

Then i can hear there was a progress after WoL, and but like gas use are different from race it s hard to suggest an oriented gas harvesting system far from base and btw, the default simulation would be based on minerals. IMO, to resume turtling is a consequence of SC2 economy in which you can so easily conquer and gather minerals really close to your main base and i do think it s the root cause of turtling and so people can t complain about turtling without complaining about SC2 model economy.

That s said, this kind of economy changes (long distance mining) can be paired with the decreasing of firerate units (less speed in fight) which is a recurring suggestion made by the community

You can also watch Stormgate which decided to switch back to a Warcraft economic model (avoid bigger harass problem like in SC2).

Maybe some mid solution can be found, like 3 large minerals field replacing the actual 8 , and which one can be harvested by 5 workers (3x5 = 15 instead of 16) and where they can hide for a longer time

On August 26 2023 22:24 WombaT wrote:

There’s something in simplicity sometimes

Workers in proximity gives you a consistent, predictable rate of income, which lets you make tighter builds and get into your desired gameplan and makes strategic decisions that little more predictable, in a good sense.

Worker convoys coming in all over the place just adds micromanagement and volatility to the equation.

On August 27 2023 01:32 PartingFan wrote:
I really don't understand how the balance council works. Bunch of players, each of them saying they only know a little bit of the whole picture. How the hell are you going to design a balance patch without knowing each and every change?

I manage a remote team myself and this balance patch is the exact thing I would expect a dysfunctional remote team would produce.

On August 26 2023 22:55 Slydie wrote:
I actually like that workerlines are the soft underbellies of your setup in SC2. How they are defended and attacked is how player skills are determined, and usually how games are decided.

Changing that would make a completely different game.

On August 26 2023 22:55 Slydie wrote:
I actually like that workerlines are the soft underbellies of your setup in SC2. How they are defended and attacked is how player skills are determined, and usually how games are decided.

Changing that would make a completely different game.


I do not agree with your point of view because I believe that it is only a way of reducing the harassement factor. The core of the game still works out, and if you are harassing workers and already killed them you can also destroy buildings.

On August 27 2023 03:01 Xamo wrote:
I have another small suggestion to improve PvP: Remove light tag from phoenixes
This would make phoenixes not insta-kill other phoenixes, making the "Phoenix war" situation more stable and in fact helping to ease the transition out of it.
I don't think it'd affect any other unit interaction, but perhaps my memory is not complete...

On August 27 2023 03:28 Slydie wrote:


What do oracles, reapers, helions, banshees and mutalisks have in common? They are mainly designed as harassment units. If you are aiming to kill armies, you better make something else.

Harassment of workerlines is a core feature of sc2. I don't think "reducing the harassment factor" is really worth discussing.

On August 27 2023 03:28 Slydie wrote:


What do oracles, reapers, helions, banshees and mutalisks have in common? They are mainly designed as harassment units. If you are aiming to kill armies, you better make something else.

Harassment of workerlines is a core feature of sc2. I don't think "reducing the harassment factor" is really worth discussing.

On August 27 2023 08:33 [Phantom] wrote:
I dont know why some people here want to make cyclones better vs stalkers. There is already an incredibly annoying cheese with cyclones that is a pain in the ass to deal with that takes advantage of the fact that cyclones do bonus damage vs stalkers.

Now, at some point with micro and positioning and stopping them from egtting critical mass, you can stop cyclones with stalkers. But it's a pain in the ass. And Hellbats are already good vs zealots. So if you make cyclones better vs mechanical units you just delete protoss..

On August 27 2023 13:58 Charoisaur wrote:

Yes they are, Stalkers make it impossible to take a reasonably timed third atm, right now the only way to do that is with Marine tank, but you have to spend lots of resources on useless unupgraded Marines and in consequence have 0 map control

I agree with Goliaths being desperately missing

On August 27 2023 16:31 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Mech is totally fine TvP if they can get a decent/equal economy, it's just a bit too fragile earlier on. And unfortunately the LotV economy changes don't help either. Teching works at a linear speed, so the way the economy ramps up quicker benefits the opponent who can just mass army production without needing to tech. This makes even things like Chargelots stronger, whereas in HotS it was very easy to have plenty of Hellbats to make them not an issue at all. Also, with the way bases run out of resources quicker, Mech has to try to get a 3rd and 4th sooner than before, which of course is also hard because their tech/production takes longer relatively to get up than in HotS.

I don't think early air is a problem in any Mech MU. Buffed Thors and Vikings both give reliable and strong AA coverage. WMs, Cyclones, BCs, and Ravens also have their roles. The only Factory unit that can't shoot up is the Tank, but you can get Turrets.

Mech is just really expensive to get your third while getting your gas heavy production buildings up, while trying to also muster an army to defend. If they have a stronger early game, such as by having cheaper and more efficient Cyclones, that would make enemy air switches even less of an issue, since you have more gas to get your AA like Thors up.

HotS TvP was actually very solid and doable, you were able to use Hellions/WMs/Banshees to gain map control and force the Protoss to stay in their natural and slow down their third while getting yours. But now the economy changes don't allow that window anymore. If you get 1 reactor Factory, you don't have enough Hellions/WMs quick enough anymore to keep as much map control. And you don't really want to get a 2nd Reactor Factory if you can help it. Meanwhile, Protoss can muster up a lot more Chargelots or Blink Stalkers quicker than before, while you still only have a few tanks at most. In LotV, you're more forced to go with unupgraded Marines than HotS, because you can't get as much Hellions/Hellbats up fast enough relative to HotS.

A cyclone that is stronger earlier on and cheaper on gas could potentially help compensate for the LotV economy/timing changes that made Mech relatively harder in the earlier part of the game.

On August 27 2023 13:58 Charoisaur wrote:

Yes they are, Stalkers make it impossible to take a reasonably timed third atm, right now the only way to do that is with Marine tank, but you have to spend lots of resources on useless unupgraded Marines and in consequence have 0 map control

I agree with Goliaths being desperately missing

What is the cyclone best at? Roaming, poking and kiting backwards, they aren’t full glass cannons but they are quite fragile once you’re on top of them. What is the siege tank best at? Defensive and offensive zoning and slowly pushing forwards.

They don’t neatly dovetail together like vulture/tank does where the vulture can both use its speed to be annoying all over the place, but also in big engagements push out front and buffer and take advantage of its potency against light to keep tank killers like manlots away.

The cyclone on a design level you kind of want them also staying away from the tip of the spear, you almost want them to be the same range away as the tanks they’re ostensibly covering. So you end up with this overlap that, depending on the numbers of the unit see cyclones either as too weak and not desirous to have versus tanks later in a game, or they’re too strong in which case why wouldn’t you mass cyclones with their mobility over building a tank-centric army with its downside of sieging/unsieging and friendly fire?

On August 27 2023 23:48 WombaT wrote:
@Athenau yeah just feels it’s quite hard to get optimal composition ratios and cover the anti-air problem, as well as force the correct kind of engagements in a real game.

In a custom game where you pick your army and test it versus other compositions over and over you’ll definitely have pretty good results, but trickier when we’re talking a standard kinda game.

@Yoshi yeah can’t really disagree with much of that!

On August 28 2023 01:01 Kyadytim wrote:
Replying to Yoshi Kirishima,
+ Show Spoiler +
Sorry for the wall of quotations, but I wanted to collect it all in one place.
Let me see if I have this right. You want

• Terran to have a stronger lategame than Protoss, so that Protoss is forced to attack Terran.
  
• Terran to have map control early, so that they can get their third up while delaying the Protoss third.
  
• Hellions and Cyclones to be stronger against Stalkers.
  
• Mech to retain its strong positional play that lends itself to powerful defensive positions.
  

Does anybody else see a problem with this?

Cyclone
Damage 11 + 2 vs armored -> 10 + 5 vs armored, +1 (+1 vs armored) per upgrade
Speed 3.6 to 3.94, 5.1 to 4.96 after upgrade
Upgrade now additionally increases health by 20, Cost 100/100 -> 150/150

On August 29 2023 13:39 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks for the heads up on the update!

...

And yes Vision i do agree that changing it so that the damage gives a bonus to Shield or Mechanical would be better than Armored. We don't need it to be good vs non-armored, we already have Hellions and WMs for that.

On August 29 2023 13:39 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks for the heads up on the update!

Wow so it's more specialized vs expensive units which i agree with, the damage is such that attack upgrades will scale better (+2 dmg instead of +1), the base speed is buffed in return for only slightly worse upgraded speed,
and the upgrade also gives them more HP so that they scale better and can also be better at tanking for Tanks

I'm not really sure they know what they're doing, it still just seems like a Warhound that skates. Other than the HP buff how does this compliment Mech specifically? And what clear counters are there? The new update makes it move faster so that Zerglings are even worse at surrounding them, and Cyclones are even better vs Roaches. So they're even stronger in TvZ. The increased damage vs armored is nice in TvP because it started to falloff in larger numbers in the midgame, and we already have the Hellion to deal with non-armored units, but the upgrade also giving it +20 HP is weird for an upgrade, and makes it scale even better into the midgame and lategame...

For the Cyclone specifically, it would be nice if they shared what their goal of the unit is. They said they want Mech TvP to be more viable and allow you to be more active, but how does the Cyclone facilitate that? Do they even agree that Mech TvP struggles in the early game, and that the Cyclone so far doesn't seem to compliment Tanks much, and just encourage mass Cyclone with a few Tanks as if it was MMM Tank?

And yes Vision i do agree that changing it so that the damage gives a bonus to Shield or Mechanical would be better than Armored. We don't need it to be good vs non-armored, we already have Hellions and WMs for that.


Harstem and Pig were pointing out a good point. Unlike the current cyclone (not the patch ones), which actually could be dealt with by Chargelot flanks/surrounds, the new Cyclone is really good vs Chargelots because they're so fast, can lockon infinitely, and lower supply thus take more space and are harder to surround. But we already have Hellions which are great vs Chargelots. And the new Cyclone will be pretty decent vs Stalkers and even Immortals now for how mobile they are, which Tanks already deal really well with.

I'm just anxious and really hope that the new Cyclone will actually be more useful than the current one... the current one DOES fulfill the role of being useful early game in dealing with early air harass or early air armies, helping defend drops, being able to poke and scout, etc. And if you want to go for more Cyclone based mech, you can do that before transitioning more into Tanks later as the Cyclones get clunkier and harder to trade effectively.
I don't think the current Cyclone is far off from what it could be to help Mech TvP more. I think mainly it's just a bit gas expensive and comes out a bit late, and you can't get many of them, so it's heavily taxing on your production, without scaling as well as Tanks, and they are also a bit supply inefficient. From what I'm seeing so far I'd prefer if they just tweaked the current Cyclone design to be more supply efficient, easier to pump out, and move some of its damage from Lock-On to the auto attack so it's less volatile, then it might be much better than the new Cyclone.

On August 29 2023 22:29 The_Red_Viper wrote:

This is a tangent so bear with me, but i honestly think the idea that matchup specific balancing is to be avoided is just nonsense. I'd go as far and say that even if units would have different stats altogether depending on matchup (finetuning, ofc each unit should still feel like itself) that would be totally fine. Is it 'elegant' ? Maybe not, but who cares? That seems more like a misguided priority which ultimately doesn't matter as much as having a game which is fair and fun in each matchup.
I've seen people say that it would be too confusing, but i honestly also do not believe that is a real reason to not try it, because i don't really think that people generally learn the stats anyway, they learn how units interact vs other units, relatively. So if a baneling has slightly more hp in one matchup to account for unit interactions which do not exist in another matchup, what really is the problem? (random example).

This is ofc just a random inclusion here, so people might as well ignore it, but that thought is something i have for a while now, and i hope future rts games aren't as married to the idea of 'elegance'.

On August 29 2023 23:55 SHODAN wrote:
just spitballing here, in response to Yoshi and others worried that the cyclone will lose its usefulness

baseline cyclone:

lock-on is no longer on cooldown
9 max range
2 supply

new upgrade: charon boosters

every cyclone gains the ability to activate charon boosters, a spell which temporarily increases lock-on activation range from 6 to 7, increases the max lock-on range to 15 (the old values), and reverts to spell damage.

possible follow-ups:

A) put these "super-charged" spell-damage lock-ons on a very long cooldown (i.e. twice as long as the current live patch)

B) give cyclones two super-charged lock-ons (and only ever two, with each cyclone). a limited, expendable, non-replenishable resource like spider mines

the latter would be a very large mechanic to implement, but I think it would be the most interesting. it would preserve the mini-game of baiting out lock-ons (or at least, the most valuable kind of lock-ons) and the mini-game of saving scans so you can kite with impunity

it's a large mechanic because you would need some visual indicator to show the opponent when super-charged lock-on is active, and perhaps to show how many charges are left on each cyclone. maybe give it 2 red glowing laser dots inside its missile pods when it has 2 charges, then 1 glowing laser, then none when all charges are spent. also, you might need a different sound effect noise when super-charged lock-on is cast, and then differentiate the missile animation (or perhaps just cover the entire cyclone model in cheeto dust or something)

either way, I think that some of the cyclone's power ought to be locked behind a 2nd upgrade.

I don't agree with the health upgrade. a speedy 2 supply unit with this much micro potential doesn't need a health buff (especially not arbitrarily lumped in with the speed upgrade). the cyclone's defense should be its ability to kite and move out of harm's way.

these are not BW goliaths that move in staggered formation, and which can be attacked from all sides. cyclones clump up like a shoal of fish, leaving only limited surface area for zerglings and zealots to hit them.

the ability to mass them in greater numbers is already a huge defensive buff.

the health boost should be replaced with an upgrade that increases its lock-on activation range (cast range) and its max kite range, at least in some limited capacity

On August 30 2023 01:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
The current Cyclone already doesn't need any bonus damage in order to have roles in all 3 MUs, the new patch's Cyclone having a small armor bonus isn't really important in the first place, so I think replacing it with a Mechanical or Shield bonus would be totally fine. I think something like the Hellbat being both Biological and Mechanical is much weirder, but even we've gotten used to that. Or if a unit got 2 different types of bonus damage, which would be unprecedented.

On August 30 2023 01:44 Athenau wrote:
New HeroMarine video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psjWkrLcuR8&t=1021s
TL;DR version is that the Cyclone is pretty busted with these changes. So yeah, get rid of the HP bonus.

On August 30 2023 02:05 SHODAN wrote:


maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. we'll see. I'm in favour of making units more interesting where possible, and also putting them in a good place

while the cyclone redesign is several steps in the right direction, I think it's also important to preserve the fun factor of this unit. for example, nuking an unguarded hatchery with multiple lock-ons. that's a beautiful thing. also, I'd like being able to punish over-extensions by activating charon boosters and melting a big clump of queens / roaches / ravagers

the natural counter to cyclones should be infestor / lurker. the infestor should be tweaked carefully so that it has a fun cat-and-mouse dynamic with the cyclone. speed-mech relying heavily on scans to do big damage is interesting because it gives zerg more opportunities with burrow. blowing up speed-mech with burrowed infestors + fungal, defensive lurkers, and maybe even burrowed banelings to to burn up scans too. that is fun! it's why I think it's not a bad idea to balance speed-mech around burrow, detection, and a longer maximum lock-on range that needs exceeds speed-mech's typical vision range

I have no fuckin idea how it would play out vP though lol. that's uncharted territory. maybe you would need to buff protoss so that they have a more nuanced counterplay. in the current balance mod, it seems to boil down to who has the critical mass of cyclones vs gateway units, and that shit is just boring... but we're still in the early days of pros figuring out how to actually play against cyclones in this matchup. zerg have at least had some experience dealing with weird speed-mech builds in the past. I guess the closest equivalent protoss have to a fungal-type spell is stasis ward. I think it'd be really cool if that became the go-to counterplay -- again, forcing T to burn up scans in order to be so active on the map

On August 30 2023 01:44 Athenau wrote:
New HeroMarine video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psjWkrLcuR8&t=1021s
TL;DR version is that the Cyclone is pretty busted with these changes. So yeah, get rid of the HP bonus.

On August 30 2023 05:31 SHODAN wrote:
I've played thousands upon thousands of mech games in M1 / GM. SC2 mech was in the FUN ZONE at the start of LotV, before zergs learned knew how to deal with speedmech. that right there was a magical time for me

non-stop pumping cyclone / hellion / mines from 8 factories, with a single armory spinning that vehicle plating. I have always maintained that the synergy between those 3 units is something special, and represents a tragic missed opportunity. with just a few tweaks in the right direction, terran could have had an alternative style that rivalled stimmed bio / medivac at the top level. but no... Blizzard never followed up on it, and the cyclone got redesigned, revised, reverted so many times it'd make your head spin: until finally, it was relegated to an extremely vocational early-game crutch unit to defend against air.

On August 30 2023 05:31 SHODAN wrote:
it became one of those units, like the reaper, that you build one or two of and that's it. once it's served its purpose, you just move onto making the "real" terran units

I find that very sad. especially for the cyclone, which IMO is one of the most tactilely satisfying terran units to control. I think lock-on is a super cool spell and one of those unique units that helped give SC2 mech its own identity.

On August 30 2023 05:31 SHODAN wrote:
mass cyclone unsupported? nope. not gonna happen. once the balance team are done tweaking the damage stats, no. we are NOT going to see pure mass cyclone. cyclones will need support from hellions, widow mines and other units.

hellions to roast ling / zealot

widow mines to zone, grant vision, to bait out biles and novas and to deter strong ground armies from chasing after the cyclones

On August 30 2023 05:31 SHODAN wrote:
who cares about the diamond league meta? why is this even up for discussion? if a few lower league ladders find that their strategies are obsolete after a patch, so be it lol. SC2 should be balanced around the pro level first and foremost

On August 30 2023 05:31 SHODAN wrote:

SC2 mech has never had anything in common with BW mech. it's never about the tank. not in TvT and not in TvZ either. SC2 mech always meant something different. loosely: an army comp that isn't stimmed bio and medivacs.

it will never be about the tank, because SC2 is just too fast, too explosive, to become centered around a unit like the siege tank. cyclones synergize much better with hellions and mines in general. it's fine to have a version of mech where tanks are more of a support / specialized unit

On August 30 2023 05:31 SHODAN wrote:
the current test mod version of the cyclone looks busted, but I'd rather them go all-out with big design changes. maybe this is what it takes to incentivize a redesign of protoss and completely shake up the game. I prefer the experimental approach. I've lived through brood lord / infestor, stupidly strong hellbats, and the great book of protoss bullshit. I'm happy for the game to be unstable for a few months while they continue to experiment. exciting times we're living in!

On August 30 2023 10:40 robopork wrote:
I'm confused by the logic behind the sum of the mothership changes. Granted I wasn't around for a lot of the skytoss dominance era but isn't the cloaking field the primary reason to build it?

On August 30 2023 03:50 Lyyna wrote:
So yup, going with the "cyclone being a busted, no-real-downside" unit. It's the warhound on steroids with its downsides removed

On August 30 2023 12:03 SHODAN wrote:


I'm not sure why you say I made a strawman argument. your definition of the Mech playstyle (with a capital M) seems relevant to the discussion around the cyclone

"How does it relate to mech as the strategy is generally understood after now several DECADES of seeing it played out over both SC games ? Hint : it's not "massing a single high damage high mobility versatile unit and calling it mech because it comes from a factory"

this says to me that you're a Mech purist: that slow, static units are the heart of Mech play

the liberator / mine / turret transition is the closest thing SC2 had to a slow, defensive Mech playstyle. the only guy who plays Tank Mech in its purest form is Goody

mech play (with a small "m") just means that the terran is focusing on a mechanized unit composition, rather than bionic units

BW ground mech wasn't always such a static, slow, defensive affair. you had fast, speedy vultures raiding non-stop, lots of skirmishing and sometimes drop-play. mech vZ revolved more heavily around the goliath rather than the tank.

I've probably watched 90% of Mvp's broadcasted games. the majority of his (small "m") mech games vZ was just a protoss-inspired deathball timing at 160-170 supply with 4 thors and some hellion / banshee / viking (plus medivacs once you get into HotS). sometimes he only brought 4 tanks for that push. sometimes you'd see him with 6 tanks, but he'd keep them unsieged, or only siege 2 of them, because it would be disadvantageous to siege them all. that's not a slow, positional playstyle. that's just deathballing. Mvp was a glorious mech protoss player

fair enough if you like this sort of thing, but I don't care much for the Mech playstyle. slow, positional, turtle tank / turret / liberator stuff isn't the most compelling gameplay for me. I also find the ghost-mech lategames vZ to be tiresome. I just don't think SC2 is suited for the slow, positional gameplay. it's boring to watch and tedious to play

time for something a bit more speedy and dynamic. cyclones becoming a core unit should help deliver on that. I do agree though that it needs more tweaking: a more strongly defined role, with more pronounced strengths and weaknesses. it should be attractive enough as a core unit that pros will still make plenty of them in the midgame, but have enough weaknesses that it will need support from other factory and starport units. obviously, any kind of monovalent mass cyclone meta would be bad for the game

I think the sweet-spot lies somewhere between the current live cyclone and the current test cyclone. this test version of the cyclone is still much, MUCH better than the tornado blaster cyclones you refer to. tornado blaster cyclones (the ones without ground-to-ground lock-on) were the most retarded unit ever to feature in a live patch of SC2

On August 30 2023 14:15 Kyadytim wrote:
I have a hunch that the cloaking field change is going to cause problems. If the new Mothership shows up in PvT, I expect that pro Terrans will try to optimize away from wasting scans on uncloaked units, and as a result will rarely take an avoidable loss because they don't react fast enough to the cloaking field being turned on.

And then timing of using cloaking field will be just one more gimmicky way Protoss win games that everybody hates.

On August 29 2023 21:03 Athenau wrote:
The +armored should not be replaced with +mechanical or +shields. Adding weapon bonuses that are useless by design vs a faction is bad because units only have one bonus damage modifier and adding what's effectively a matchup specific bonus means that you can't tune that knob for the other matchups.

The balance council's first priority should be making the cyclone useful (outside of the early game) in at least one non-mirror matchup, and given that mech is already close to viable in TvZ, they should focus there. Any improvements to TvP are a bonus, and the game should not be distorted around making mech TvP viable.

On August 31 2023 03:23 Vision_ wrote:


With the current design i would prefer an ability as Shodan suggested to improve fun and make cyclones less good-at-everything (increasing range with cooldown or charges no matter what) but i doubt that council will do a new tweak.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

That s why, and because i m pessimist by nature, i only advocate for a nerf against Zerg, replacing armored bonus against mechanical bonus. Zerg have been crushed in this tournament Solar v Spirit and Solar v Clem especially, and like hellions are only efficient against light (which are 25% of the kind of units, most of units are armored in SC2), i think it s interesting to have an alternative to hellions against Zerg even if those Cyclones lose their bonus. (but cyclones are expensive in gas). But maybe today Cyclones do better than i think, i must admit that i don t remember a good TvZ mech, (only gumiho so maybe this is the kind of player who have to answer)

Cyclone

Damage changed:
Old: 10 + 5 vs armored, +1 (+1 vs armored) per upgrade
New: 11 + 3 vs mechanical, +1 per upgrade
Speed 4.96 after upgrade -> 4.73
Health 100 + 20 after upgrade -> 110

Reduce the strength of mass Cyclone against Protoss and Zerg from previous iterations

On August 31 2023 04:36 Athenau wrote:

The "bird in the hand" is TvZ. What you're advocating for is throwing away the utility the unit has in TvZ (because it's not going to be useful with a flat 10 damage vs everything) in return for a speculative change for TvP, when they could just nerf the current version appropriately for TvZ.

On August 31 2023 11:24 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Damn Hellbats getting slightlyyy nerfed vs Chargelots... but it's so small that not 1 shotting Zerglings might be worth the change.

Also yayy, the Cyclone health bonus from the upgrade is gone, and the base HP is simply 110 now. Odd number, but definitely appreciated compared to the 100 which feels a bit glass canon-y for the fantasy of the unit.
Speed being nerfed should help Chargelots be an OK option against them again.

And having 11+3 dmg vs Mechanical will be nice! It'll do more damage to most Protoss units now. It'll be less weak vs Stalker/Immortal, and also be more effective at defending early air units (to maintain more of the usefulness of the current Cyclone at deflecting early-game drops and air harass)

On August 31 2023 11:32 Beelzebub1 wrote:


I agree with this, I think steering the general direction to being a half way okay skirmisher against ground but a reliable form of mobile anti-air is a good move for making mech just better in general.

Still hurts to see a Terran unit getting this type of attention and Protoss getting kind of neglected when this would be a good time to test out some additional changes. I stand by earlier posts, buffing the Sentry could be a good move for improving the race strength.

My moderate proposal is to make force field require 2 biles instead of 1, making it better vs. Zerg only helps Protoss in the MU, no way it would break anything.

My more ambitious proposals would be to make Guardian Shield increase the movement speed of units inside of it, or maybe even increase the damage reduction by 1, making them alot more useful vs. Terran in particular.

On August 31 2023 15:37 [Phantom] wrote:
I was watching the wardi tournament, and also thinking about the cyclone changes and the newest changes from today...

Making them good vs mechanical units is...a band aid. But Ok.

I think the main problem with the cyclone is it shoots while moving, like the phoenix. But the thing is the phoenix to compensate has a very short range, whereas the cyclone has a very big range.

Sure, Phoenix gets a range upgra,de, in the lategame with the fleet beacon, but it's mainly used so that it's a little bit better vs mutas, and it's super situational. And phoenix still has the issue of not attacking ground at all, whereas the cyclone attacks both air and ground.

If the ciclone shoots while moving, then it needs to have a shorter range. If it is going to have a longer range, it should stop to be able to shoot, just like a hellion.

On August 31 2023 21:45 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
But hey, the new patch Cyclone is seeming to be great, and knowing that future patches and hotfixes may not be frequent, I guess I can just keep my mouth shut and enjoy having a Warhound with lower HP but has skates hehe

On August 31 2023 21:45 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
It would be cool if we kept or even strengthened the zoning ability of units/abilities in SC2, to where you can cast it to gain ground positionally without directly damaging your opponent's units if they decide to re-engage elsewhere. And for these zoning abilities to be threatening enough that they do often decide to re-engage elsewhere. The current cyclone has a powerful lock-on with super long range, but you can avoid it by cancelling its lockon or pulling away during the initial delay before it starts shooting much. But because of this drawback, it allows the lock-on to be much more powerful once the opponent can no longer avoid it and has to fight. I think that volatility and tension is much more interesting than having Lock-On be weaker but constant.

On August 31 2023 23:29 Athenau wrote:

Honestly, Terran doesn't need more zoning tools. And the current design of the lock-on feels a bit like an awkward middle ground between a sniper and a skirmisher. There's potential in going in the opposite direction, giving the lock-on (slightly) longer range and higher damage, but with a longer cooldown (pushing it towards the sniper archetype), but both directions are valid.

On September 01 2023 01:55 SHODAN wrote:
I honestly don't think SC2 fans are prepared for such a style that could potentially play out in the long run. that is obvious to me, from the amount of whining about the cyclone changes. people think it's such an unnecessary part of the patch, but I disagree. it could potentially bring about a monumental change in the way TvX is played. anyway, I look forward to seeing how it develops in the hands of someone like GuMiho. exciting times we're living in

On September 01 2023 04:51 WombaT wrote:
I’m still unsure why when P is clearly the lagging race why there’s so much focus on trying to bolster Terran mech

I mean I don’t super disagree with the latter by any means as a goal but it seems a curious focus

On September 01 2023 04:55 Athenau wrote:

You can do two things at once, and this arguably the only change aimed at making Mech more viable. And you don't need to redesign a unit to buff Protoss anyway.