On September 25 2025 08:27 jinjin5000 wrote: I don't understand how there isn't more talks about how strong shroud would be, and feedback is "just fight away from it" or "back off"
People complain about Skytoss or mech on the power on direct fights. People complained about PDD because it nulled a lot of projectile damage coming in. This is just as powerful and a lot more general.
In BW, getting a dark swarm on opponent's side of map is huge pressure and win condition on itself. It's straight up a win if dark swarm gets up near opponent natural. And this is on a game where there's incredibly powerful spellcasters and maps are lot larger and armies move lot, lot slower.
SC2 units move much faster and maps are way more compact. There isn't always a case where you can just back off or play perfectly with perfect vision. Sometimes, army can just maneuver into places where you have to take a fight and this nearly guarantees a win
This screams that +1 hydra range buff that lasted less than a week before it got reverted. All this does is let it run wild for short time before revert which achieves nothing for balance patch, which ultimately resolves nothing. It's a waste of time for everyone
Have you seen the pro games where zergs play with it or tried it yourself? I know you might not main Zerg but I can tell you the spell isn't all that great. It's actually really hard to stay in it and also have your units attack. When I played around with it vs other gms it was hurting me more than it was helping. The best use case for it imo is when you have lurkers vs Terran and they try and stim on top and overwhelm the position. Any other times they can either as you say kite back or if you try and combine them with other unit comps like roaches or hydras in order to stay in the microbial shroud 90% of your units aren't going to be firing. And vs protoss it really felt horrible. Mana showed this in his video lurker hydra won vs his army when no microbial shroud was cast, and lost when it was cast. This is because zealots and archons fighting into the cloud were also taking the 50% reduced damage. The spell completely backfired.
On September 25 2025 08:27 jinjin5000 wrote: I don't understand how there isn't more talks about how strong shroud would be, and feedback is "just fight away from it" or "back off"
People complain about Skytoss or mech on the power on direct fights. People complained about PDD because it nulled a lot of projectile damage coming in. This is just as powerful and a lot more general.
In BW, getting a dark swarm on opponent's side of map is huge pressure and win condition on itself. It's straight up a win if dark swarm gets up near opponent natural. And this is on a game where there's incredibly powerful spellcasters and maps are lot larger and armies move lot, lot slower.
SC2 units move much faster and maps are way more compact. There isn't always a case where you can just back off or play perfectly with perfect vision. Sometimes, army can just maneuver into places where you have to take a fight and this nearly guarantees a win
This screams that +1 hydra range buff that lasted less than a week before it got reverted. All this does is let it run wild for short time before revert which achieves nothing for balance patch, which ultimately resolves nothing. It's a waste of time for everyone
Have you seen the pro games where zergs play with it or tried it yourself? I know you might not main Zerg but I can tell you the spell isn't all that great. It's actually really hard to stay in it and also have your units attack. When I played around with it vs other gms it was hurting me more than it was helping. The best use case for it imo is when you have lurkers vs Terran and they try and stim on top and overwhelm the position. Any other times they can either as you say kite back or if you try and combine them with other unit comps like roaches or hydras in order to stay in the microbial shroud 90% of your units aren't going to be firing. And vs protoss it really felt horrible. Mana showed this in his video lurker hydra won vs his army when no microbial shroud was cast, and lost when it was cast. This is because zealots and archons fighting into the cloud were also taking the 50% reduced damage. The spell completely backfired.
I guess I am seeing this in terran perspective then. PDD was similar as well, fairly meh vs Protoss and broken vs zerg
Shin had some concerns regarding the tvz balance post patch.
On September 25 2025 08:27 jinjin5000 wrote: I don't understand how there isn't more talks about how strong shroud would be, and feedback is "just fight away from it" or "back off"
People complain about Skytoss or mech on the power on direct fights. People complained about PDD because it nulled a lot of projectile damage coming in. This is just as powerful and a lot more general.
In BW, getting a dark swarm on opponent's side of map is huge pressure and win condition on itself. It's straight up a win if dark swarm gets up near opponent natural. And this is on a game where there's incredibly powerful spellcasters and maps are lot larger and armies move lot, lot slower.
SC2 units move much faster and maps are way more compact. There isn't always a case where you can just back off or play perfectly with perfect vision. Sometimes, army can just maneuver into places where you have to take a fight and this nearly guarantees a win
This screams that +1 hydra range buff that lasted less than a week before it got reverted. All this does is let it run wild for short time before revert which achieves nothing for balance patch, which ultimately resolves nothing. It's a waste of time for everyone
Have you seen the pro games where zergs play with it or tried it yourself? I know you might not main Zerg but I can tell you the spell isn't all that great. It's actually really hard to stay in it and also have your units attack. When I played around with it vs other gms it was hurting me more than it was helping. The best use case for it imo is when you have lurkers vs Terran and they try and stim on top and overwhelm the position. Any other times they can either as you say kite back or if you try and combine them with other unit comps like roaches or hydras in order to stay in the microbial shroud 90% of your units aren't going to be firing. And vs protoss it really felt horrible. Mana showed this in his video lurker hydra won vs his army when no microbial shroud was cast, and lost when it was cast. This is because zealots and archons fighting into the cloud were also taking the 50% reduced damage. The spell completely backfired.
I guess I am seeing this in terran perspective then. PDD was similar as well, fairly meh vs Protoss and broken vs zerg
Shin had some concerns regarding the tvz balance post patch.
Ah, this is really interesting. I wish we got more balance input from the koreans it's really tough because of the language barrier I feel they often get left out of the conversation. But maybe blizzard does communicate with them still and take their feedback into account? I'm not sure.
Zerg - Crazy buff cross-wide, Spire is big buff, Baneling is huge buff, Shroud is crazy buff. The nerf to Mana and upgrade is there but not that significant. Zerg only has buffs at this point, and should help all non-serral zergs.
Protoss - 1st patch may have felt overdone, but Protoss players may feel satisfied with this interation
Terran - This patch's biggest loser. TvP's problem was that Zealot-Stalker was very strong. Collosi isn't bad, and Storm is OP on current patch. But PTR leaves Zealot-Stalker, Collosi alone, while Storm isn't bad. TvZ gets shroud buff + spire buff + baneling buff. TvZ is Zerg favored in my opinion at high level, but Cyclone gets nerfed on top, which I think TvZ will get ruined and Z heavily favored.
Goal of this patch should be getting TvP to 5:5 since it's heavily P favored right now. But doesn't seem to do that. Feels like it changed from 7:3 > 6:4 to Protoss favored.
As for TvZ, think it's 5:5 overall (No Serral), but Zerg favored when Zerg is good. W/ this PTR, it's at least 6:4 Zerg favored. But better Zergs may have 7:3 on their favor.
Patch has some very surprising things, but they will change a lot more later, right?
----
Zerg
Spire - Blizzard may be encouraging Spire play since LBM is rarely used. Spire is double-edged sword currently. If it works, it's amazing, but game is over if it doesn't. Muta is too polarizing right now but this encourages variety in unit comp. It's not bad, but honestly only good for Zerg
Baneling - LBM currently honestly is strong vs Terran. If you manage to get to 20+ mutas, LBM is plenty strong currently. But buff to baneling and Spire may make LBM comp a viable comp and welcome change to people who enjoy LBM-style vs Terran. It's not autowin comp but viable after this.
Shroud - Mana increased from 75 to 100. Felt really strong at 75. Addition of upgrade but should be really strong even with those.
Protoss
Energy Overcharge- Nerf makes sentry only cast once, and only 1 storm instead of 2 on HTs. Defensive/scouting nerf. But there was buff to make up for it on reuse.
Mothership - Nerfed on Zergs having hard time abducting. For Zergs, it's very good patch and I'm thankful.
Storm- hard to say if it's buff or nerf, but I think it's a buff for beginners, nerf for progamers.
Observer - Nerf to siege mode to have it not invisible, but also increased vision allows Protoss to save them if seen.
Disruptor - Make-up buff for nerf to Storm. Very big buff
Oracle - Stasis ward nerf. I like this a lot because length previously was to point Protoss forgot they even casted it.
Terran
Siege tank - I understand the buff to this, since ghost supply is 3 and terran will have hard time holding position. And there's microbial shroud, so there's another way to mitigate damage. But this is all under ideal condition.
Viking - The gas reduction may have felt huge, but don't know how it will feel anymore after revert
Liberator - I don't quite know why the sight reduction from 10 to 9 happened, but my best guess is because Liberator had some abusable spots where they could fire w/o taking damage from Stalkers. But was that really needed? But I don't think Terrans will take this as a huge nerf anyways because liberator is giga OP at worker harass in first place! You need to nerf that. And late game usage will be similar. The early game impact on mineral siege at around 4-5min where Stalkers can't hit back should be nerfed.
On September 25 2025 03:19 Vision_ wrote: Disruptor still the worst design of the game...
It would have been more funny to have a big energy ball rolling straight over the battlefield dealing damage against armored units
Disruptor is at worst the third worst designed unit in the game.
The Swarm Host is the worst designed by several miles. I'd vote the Cyclone after them, could make an argument for the Disruptor after that.
If i were able to discuss if the owner of the disruptor idea i would ask him if he was drunk during the conception of this units... could he have created a more complex unit ? ... guess not
and for which result ? damage type is even not different from storm but now at least the storm is less deadly (but longer and bigger from what i read)
Zerg - Crazy buff cross-wide, Spire is big buff, Baneling is huge buff, Shroud is crazy buff. The nerf to Mana and upgrade is there but not that significant. Zerg only has buffs at this point, and should help all non-serral zergs.
Protoss - 1st patch may have felt overdone, but Protoss players may feel satisfied with this interation
Terran - This patch's biggest loser. TvP's problem was that Zealot-Stalker was very strong. Collosi isn't bad, and Storm is OP on current patch. But PTR leaves Zealot-Stalker, Collosi alone, while Storm isn't bad. TvZ gets shroud buff + spire buff + baneling buff. TvZ is Zerg favored in my opinion at high level, but Cyclone gets nerfed on top, which I think TvZ will get ruined and Z heavily favored.
Goal of this patch should be getting TvP to 5:5 since it's heavily P favored right now. But doesn't seem to do that. Feels like it changed from 7:3 > 6:4 to Protoss favored.
As for TvZ, think it's 5:5 overall (No Serral), but Zerg favored when Zerg is good. W/ this PTR, it's at least 6:4 Zerg favored. But better Zergs may have 7:3 on their favor.
Patch has some very surprising things, but they will change a lot more later, right?
Spire - Blizzard may be encouraging Spire play since LBM is rarely used. Spire is double-edged sword currently. If it works, it's amazing, but game is over if it doesn't. Muta is too polarizing right now but this encourages variety in unit comp. It's not bad, but honestly only good for Zerg
Baneling - LBM currently honestly is strong vs Terran. If you manage to get to 20+ mutas, LBM is plenty strong currently. But buff to baneling and Spire may make LBM comp a viable comp and welcome change to people who enjoy LBM-style vs Terran. It's not autowin comp but viable after this.
Shroud - Mana increased from 75 to 100. Felt really strong at 75. Addition of upgrade but should be really strong even with those.
Energy Overcharge- Nerf makes sentry only cast once, and only 1 storm instead of 2 on HTs. Defensive/scouting nerf. But there was buff to make up for it on reuse.
Mothership - Nerfed on Zergs having hard time abducting. For Zergs, it's very good patch and I'm thankful.
Storm- hard to say if it's buff or nerf, but I think it's a buff for beginners, nerf for progamers.
Observer - Nerf to siege mode to have it not invisible, but also increased vision allows Protoss to save them if seen.
Disruptor - Make-up buff for nerf to Storm. Very big buff
Oracle - Stasis ward nerf. I like this a lot because length previously was to point Protoss forgot they even casted it.
Siege tank - I understand the buff to this, since ghost supply is 3 and terran will have hard time holding position. And there's microbial shroud, so there's another way to mitigate damage. But this is all under ideal condition.
Viking - The gas reduction may have felt huge, but don't know how it will feel anymore after revert
Liberator - I don't quite know why the sight reduction from 10 to 9 happened, but my best guess is because Liberator had some abusable spots where they could fire w/o taking damage from Stalkers. But was that really needed? But I don't think Terrans will take this as a huge nerf anyways because liberator is giga OP at worker harass in first place! You need to nerf that. And late game usage will be similar. The early game impact on mineral siege at around 4-5min where Stalkers can't hit back should be nerfed.
On September 25 2025 03:19 Vision_ wrote: Disruptor still the worst design of the game...
It would have been more funny to have a big energy ball rolling straight over the battlefield dealing damage against armored units
Disruptor is at worst the third worst designed unit in the game.
The Swarm Host is the worst designed by several miles. I'd vote the Cyclone after them, could make an argument for the Disruptor after that.
If i were able to discuss if the owner of the disruptor idea i would ask him if he was drunk during the conception of this units... could he have created a more complex unit ? ... guess not
and for which result ? damage type is even not different from storm but now at least the storm is less deadly (but longer and bigger from what i read)
Both Swarm Hosts and Disruptors are units that I consider "unbalanceable".
If they're viable then they're completely oppressive and un-fun.
If they're not viable then (almost) nobody makes them.
I think lings from the campaign had a real locust-like feel, so I wonder if locusts that are melee bur able to jump cliffs and on top of units would be cool, also, spawning these should cost 5 minerals.
Disruptors should deal 100+100 vs. armored, 60+60 vs. armoured and 30+30 vs armoured in 3 splash radi. The 100+100 should basically be 0 radius so the nova unit itself needs to be on top, this then won't be able to hit buildings and hitting 2x thors with 200 dmg is neigh impossible.
On September 25 2025 03:19 Vision_ wrote: Disruptor still the worst design of the game...
It would have been more funny to have a big energy ball rolling straight over the battlefield dealing damage against armored units
Disruptor is at worst the third worst designed unit in the game.
The Swarm Host is the worst designed by several miles. I'd vote the Cyclone after them, could make an argument for the Disruptor after that.
If i were able to discuss if the owner of the disruptor idea i would ask him if he was drunk during the conception of this units... could he have created a more complex unit ? ... guess not
and for which result ? damage type is even not different from storm but now at least the storm is less deadly (but longer and bigger from what i read)
Both Swarm Hosts and Disruptors are units that I consider "unbalanceable".
If they're viable then they're completely oppressive and un-fun.
If they're not viable then (almost) nobody makes them.
Are swarm hosts really in such a bad spot right now design-wise, especially in PvZ? They can be snowbally, but we don't see them that often. Swarm host games are often fun to watch too - lots of action with toss running around trying to put out nyduses, pressure on the Zerg to transition past a certain point, etc. They add a tiny bit of variety, especially on maps whose architecture favors them, but are not too common and are very beatable.
Swarm hosts absolutely shouldn't be buffed further though, the swarm host era might be the worst meta in SC2 history.
For fun I just pulled up 2024's and 2023's S-tier results 2024: 4 Terran, 4 Zerg, 0 Protoss (~$171,500 prize pool averaged across the 8) 2023: 6 Zerg, 4 Terran, 0 Protoss (~$141,800 prize pool averages across the 10)
Game is pretty much as balanced as it's ever been for the top players. Without deeper more functional or experimental changes we're probably heading back to previous years' (lack of) representation.
For fun I just pulled up 2024's and 2023's S-tier results 2024: 4 Terran, 4 Zerg, 0 Protoss (~$171,500 prize pool averaged across the 8) 2023: 6 Zerg, 4 Terran, 0 Protoss (~$141,800 prize pool averages across the 10)
Game is pretty much as balanced as it's ever been for the top players. Without deeper more functional or experimental changes we're probably heading back to previous years' (lack of) representation.
I love how this apologist randomly pick a random set of Tier S and Tier A tournaments while omitting others like the one Zoun won this year. Protoss players are really something else.
For fun I just pulled up 2024's and 2023's S-tier results 2024: 4 Terran, 4 Zerg, 0 Protoss (~$171,500 prize pool averaged across the 8) 2023: 6 Zerg, 4 Terran, 0 Protoss (~$141,800 prize pool averages across the 10)
Game is pretty much as balanced as it's ever been for the top players. Without deeper more functional or experimental changes we're probably heading back to previous years' (lack of) representation.
I love how this apologist randomly pick a random set of Tier S and Tier A tournaments while omitting others like the one Zoun won this year. Protoss players are really something else.
Weak bait. Randomly pick? It's literally every tournament on liquidpedia. S-Tier Tournaments
Since there was only 4 tournaments for S tier this year I chose to include every top prize money one (hence the best players are most likely to be participating). You can find those at the bottom: Statistics/2025
Also, thinking I currently play protoss (or sc2 for that matter)
Siege tank - I understand the buff to this, since ghost supply is 3 and terran will have hard time holding position. And there's microbial shroud, so there's another way to mitigate damage. But this is all under ideal condition.
Abduct isn t enought versatile
A simple way to balance this spell is to allow abduct on massive with 66% (abduct spell range 9, missile turret range 7 (+1) ...) of the distance when the unit is grabbed.
In this case, Zerg could consider tanks being a massive unit when the tank is sieged...
Note : After casting Abduct the Viper can not move or use abilities for 0.57 seconds (removed)
Abduct is a strong spell and yes, it shouldn't be able to lick at two units at the same time. It can do that now btw, so that silly 0.56s nerf didn't even fix this.. but why are we nerfing it when we never saw less vipers than we do now. Blinding cloud should get its 3 seconds back even, this was never warranted, terran just needs to learn to siege their tanks with a bigger spread.
I'm personally not rdy for a patch, live game is the most exciting it's been since parting played. I find powerful energy recharge rly cool and it feels so like protoss.
Changes such as the abduct change just isn't starcraft, I liked catz video explaining what's obvious to many who played blizz games their entire life, but needs to be said to the modern player base.
I'll mention some inconsistencies that needs to be fixed:
Baneling gaining +2 pr. Upg despite dealing 15+20vs light dmg, these should be giving +2(+2).
Ultras dealing 35 should be getting +4 pr. Upg, not +3.
Thor javelins dealing 6+6vs. Light should be getting +1, not +1(+1).
Baneling 80 dmg vs. structures shouldn't be getting +5 pr. Upg, but if they do, then armour must reduce its dmg.
Tempest should be getting +1 vs. structures on ground attack and +2 vs. structures on air attack pr. Upg, there could be a reason to skip this, say if a unit can be both a structure and massive, but that is not the case. (Upgs musn't exceed +5.
Hellbats should be getting +1 vs. light pr. Upg.
Stasis should probably be and would be cooler with priority 19 like the widow mine.
EPT
S-Tier Tournaments
