It just occurred to me: THEY NERFED BROODLORDS. Is that really the unit that needed a nerf? Maybe the developers didn’t see what Thors do to them — you don’t even have to focus; they’ll auto-attack and know who to kill.
I don’t know, maybe we’re watching different StarCraft, but in the past year I can’t even remember anyone successfully using broodlords...
On October 09 2025 04:20 BlackEyed wrote: It just occurred to me: THEY NERFED BROODLORDS. Is that really the unit that needed a nerf? Maybe the developers didn’t see what Thors do to them — you don’t even have to focus; they’ll auto-attack and know who to kill.
I don’t know, maybe we’re watching different StarCraft, but in the past year I can’t even remember anyone successfully using broodlords...
Then you must not watch a lot of Starcraft. Try any Serral ZvP series where the games go late
broodlord is now even slower... the race that is supposed to be swarmy is becoming more deathball lategame. nice. goodjob blizz. did literally anybody think the broodlord was OP? why are we nerfing it? come on man...
On October 09 2025 05:51 Haighstrom wrote: Have ya'll complaining about broodlord nerf even seen how insane it is after the "bugfix" that just came out?
I saw the clip on reddit of how it is better vs thors, but still not good. The broodlord, which can only attack ground, loses to a versatile thor just "less so" now. It still traded cost inefficiently. When you can go ultralisk now with microbial shroud and cheaper vikings i dont see why you would ever make the broodlord.
Alas, my friends, let us mourn our recently deceased friend, the Broodlord. We had some glorious moments together, when he was young and powerful. But then he got an ill fate. They nerfed all his life and power until he was just a shadow of himself. May he rest in peace now and forever. Amen.
to be clear i don't think the broodlord is a horrible unit, i just think in most scenarios it will be the worse tier 3 unit choice and not deserving of a nerf. a lot of people including pig were calling for a buff actually.
and also, as i said, making a unit slower encourages deathballing. which i think most people are against. if you wanted to nerf it you could do it in another way.
On October 09 2025 05:51 Haighstrom wrote: Have ya'll complaining about broodlord nerf even seen how insane it is after the "bugfix" that just came out?
I saw the clip on reddit of how it is better vs thors, but still not good. The broodlord, which can only attack ground, loses to a versatile thor just "less so" now. It still traded cost inefficiently. When you can go ultralisk now with microbial shroud and cheaper vikings i dont see why you would ever make the broodlord.
1v1 unit comparisons are pointless, especially since that Thor loses to Zerglings.
On October 09 2025 05:51 Haighstrom wrote: Have ya'll complaining about broodlord nerf even seen how insane it is after the "bugfix" that just came out?
I saw the clip on reddit of how it is better vs thors, but still not good. The broodlord, which can only attack ground, loses to a versatile thor just "less so" now. It still traded cost inefficiently. When you can go ultralisk now with microbial shroud and cheaper vikings i dont see why you would ever make the broodlord.
1v1 unit comparisons are pointless, especially since that Thor loses to Zerglings.
well I dont know if I agree they are "pointless" as its a pretty common unit interaction however I was just responding to op who asked if we saw how insane they are after the bugfix. I haven't seen them in any weekly cups but if I am missing something or another place you guys saw them used I will be happy to take a look and change my mind, but I thought that was what he was talking about.
I rather they buff Terran in other ways than just focusing on the Ghost, the unit is either too OP (per Zerg/Protoss player) or too essential to be nerfed (per Terran player).
On October 09 2025 04:20 BlackEyed wrote: It just occurred to me: THEY NERFED BROODLORDS. Is that really the unit that needed a nerf? Maybe the developers didn’t see what Thors do to them — you don’t even have to focus; they’ll auto-attack and know who to kill.
I don’t know, maybe we’re watching different StarCraft, but in the past year I can’t even remember anyone successfully using broodlords...
Then you must not watch a lot of Starcraft. Try any Serral ZvP series where the games go late
Are you talking from 2018 or something? Because in modern PvZ, Protoss get to Tempests before Zergs get to Brood Lords.
On October 09 2025 04:20 BlackEyed wrote: It just occurred to me: THEY NERFED BROODLORDS. Is that really the unit that needed a nerf? Maybe the developers didn’t see what Thors do to them — you don’t even have to focus; they’ll auto-attack and know who to kill.
I don’t know, maybe we’re watching different StarCraft, but in the past year I can’t even remember anyone successfully using broodlords...
Then you must not watch a lot of Starcraft. Try any Serral ZvP series where the games go late
Are you talking from 2018 or something? Because in modern PvZ, Protoss get to Tempests before Zergs get to Brood Lords.
That doesn't stop Zerg from building Broodlords. Just watch any Serral lategame, Broodlords will be seen. For example vs Classic at DH Dallas or in EWC groupstage.
Consume ability will now stop when the building is no lower than 7.5 HP.
Does this mean people can no longer kill their own buildings with Consume?
I mean... sure? Seems like a buff rather than a bug fix though.
The more I think about this, the more it annoys me.
Vipers being able to Consume buildings to death wasn't a bug, it was a design feature. It meant that Zerg players needed to pay attention to their Vipers whilst they were using Consume, but now that attention can be spent elsewhere. This is 100% a buff that should be in the balance change section.
I understand that pro players very rarely Consume their buildings to death, and so it's not really going to change anything at the competitive level, but I don't like how they're pretending it's a bug fix when it clearly wasn't a bug to begin with.
I should stop thinking about it. It really doesn't matter at all lmao.
Anyway...
Does anyone know how the Brood Lord bug fix is going to change the DPS of the Brood Lord? I'm seeing conflicting answers. A demonstration video would be nice to see if anyone knows of one.
On October 09 2025 04:20 BlackEyed wrote: It just occurred to me: THEY NERFED BROODLORDS. Is that really the unit that needed a nerf? Maybe the developers didn’t see what Thors do to them — you don’t even have to focus; they’ll auto-attack and know who to kill.
I don’t know, maybe we’re watching different StarCraft, but in the past year I can’t even remember anyone successfully using broodlords...
Then you must not watch a lot of Starcraft. Try any Serral ZvP series where the games go late
Are you talking from 2018 or something? Because in modern PvZ, Protoss get to Tempests before Zergs get to Brood Lords.
That doesn't stop Zerg from building Broodlords. Just watch any Serral lategame, Broodlords will be seen. For example vs Classic at DH Dallas or in EWC groupstage.
And how many macro games with or without Brood Lords have there been over the past couple of years, percentage-wise, huh? And there’s also another matchup — you know, the one where you can still hear the pew-pew. How are things there? Are the Broods too strong in that one, too?
On October 09 2025 04:20 BlackEyed wrote: It just occurred to me: THEY NERFED BROODLORDS. Is that really the unit that needed a nerf? Maybe the developers didn’t see what Thors do to them — you don’t even have to focus; they’ll auto-attack and know who to kill.
I don’t know, maybe we’re watching different StarCraft, but in the past year I can’t even remember anyone successfully using broodlords...
Then you must not watch a lot of Starcraft. Try any Serral ZvP series where the games go late
Are you talking from 2018 or something? Because in modern PvZ, Protoss get to Tempests before Zergs get to Brood Lords.
That doesn't stop Zerg from building Broodlords. Just watch any Serral lategame, Broodlords will be seen. For example vs Classic at DH Dallas or in EWC groupstage.
And how many macro games with or without Brood Lords have there been over the past couple of years, percentage-wise, huh? And there’s also another matchup — you know, the one where you can still hear the pew-pew. How are things there? Are the Broods too strong in that one, too?
Always shifting the goalpost aren't we? First going from broodlords are literally never built and when you realize you're talking bollocks going to statistically Broodlords aren't used as often as other units. Just admit you were wrong.
I don't understand the goals of this set of balance changes. Why has storm been nurfed? Why has the ghost been buffed?
Prior to this patch people complained about the ghost, so now it's less supply and the unit they hard counter (in Protoss) has been nurfed? I don't get it.
Protoss has three units that deal AoE damage, and now two of them require the other player to mess up in order for them to be effective, the balls and storm. How is this good for balance, let alone game design? This means that in order for your Protoss army to be effective you'll need to more heaivly rely on collosus... so they make Vikings cheaper?
I don't get it. The changes to Zerg I like more and I think the original storm buff had a cool effect of maybe making muta more viable as storm was much less effective against a muta player who micro'd... but now muta are just better full stop in ZvP...
This seems like the sort of question you'd have to actively try to not know the answer to, but you can find said answer in about 3 different posts on our front page here, six different front page posts on Reddit and most recent content creator posts on Youtube.
This seems like the sort of question you'd have to actively try to not know the answer to, but you can find said answer in about 3 different posts on our front page here, six different front page posts on Reddit and most recent content creator posts on Youtube.
From my observation of Serral's zvp lategame, broodlords serve a hyper specific role in that matchup. Broodlords are almost required for zerg to beat the protoss deathball of mothership, tempest, archon and storm. However, despite multiple attempts at lowering broodlords' dps in exchange for movement speed, they are still far too slow to keep up with the protoss army. So Serral always goes for lurker ling bane multi prong first. This army cannot fighty protoss head-on but is more mobile, which allows Serral to outmine his opponents. Only after mining out most of the map would Serral go for broodlords because mobility becomes less relevant in that scenario. I also observe that any time Serral is forced to make broodlords early, e.g. vs Reynor in HSC and vs Astrea some time early this year, protoss can use mobility to easily starve zerg to death.
I haven't seen anyone else capable of carrying out this gameplan. In short, broodlords may not be as weak as people make them out to be but their use case is very narrow. And getting to that use case requires patience, strategic vision and almost perfect execution for extended periods of time, which most zerg players simply don't have. Making broodlords eariler is usually bad.
This seems like the sort of question you'd have to actively try to not know the answer to, but you can find said answer in about 3 different posts on our front page here, six different front page posts on Reddit and most recent content creator posts on Youtube.
This seems like the sort of question you'd have to actively try to not know the answer to, but you can find said answer in about 3 different posts on our front page here, six different front page posts on Reddit and most recent content creator posts on Youtube.
Short answer: imba
Storm wasn't broken.
Energy Recharge was broken.
Storm didn't need touching.
And they fixed energy recharge... so why did storm need nerfing? I don't get it.. and there is no alternative, so Protoss is just weaker now, in all match-ups bar PvP
This seems like the sort of question you'd have to actively try to not know the answer to, but you can find said answer in about 3 different posts on our front page here, six different front page posts on Reddit and most recent content creator posts on Youtube.
Short answer: imba
Storm wasn't broken.
Energy Recharge was broken.
Storm didn't need touching.
And they fixed energy recharge... so why did storm need nerfing? I don't get it.. and there is no alternative, so Protoss is just weaker now, in all match-ups bar PvP
Storm didn't need nerfing.
Protoss was overtuned, but not because of Storm.
But Protoss was always going to get over-nerfed, regardless of legitimate problems being present...
On July 01 2025 17:03 MJG wrote: Protoss isn't allowed to win things, but Protoss has recently won THREE things, and such wrongthink will surely be punished by the righteous nerfhammer of the most holy Balance Council.
I was only wrong about it being the Balance Council wielding the hammer.
On October 09 2025 04:20 BlackEyed wrote: It just occurred to me: THEY NERFED BROODLORDS. Is that really the unit that needed a nerf? Maybe the developers didn’t see what Thors do to them — you don’t even have to focus; they’ll auto-attack and know who to kill.
I don’t know, maybe we’re watching different StarCraft, but in the past year I can’t even remember anyone successfully using broodlords...
Then you must not watch a lot of Starcraft. Try any Serral ZvP series where the games go late
Are you talking from 2018 or something? Because in modern PvZ, Protoss get to Tempests before Zergs get to Brood Lords.
That doesn't stop Zerg from building Broodlords. Just watch any Serral lategame, Broodlords will be seen. For example vs Classic at DH Dallas or in EWC groupstage.
We were talking about the current Broodlord... The comment I was replying to specifically said have you seen how strong it is on the new patch(before hotfix) and that's why it needed nerf. I haven't seen anyone making it. But I've definitely seen ultras.
Ghosts are stronger now in nearly every situation? Light tag + 25 hp sounds like a buff and ghosts are back 2 supply, which was OP before. Also random nerf to bloodlord, bloodlords have been ok/weak after all the changes in the last 5 years. Storm nerf seems too big. Why we are seeing constant changes? Cant see any redline here, changes seem very random. Like storm was butchered, buffed, buffed more, now nerfed. Why cant the changes tested properly before going live? Why do we need these changes?
On October 09 2025 18:29 omop wrote: Ghosts are stronger now in nearly every situation? Light tag + 25 hp sounds like a buff and ghosts are back 2 supply, which was OP before. Also random nerf to bloodlord, bloodlords have been ok/weak after all the changes in the last 5 years. Storm nerf seems too big. Why we are seeing constant changes? Cant see any redline here, changes seem very random. Like storm was butchered, buffed, buffed more, now nerfed. Why cant the changes tested properly before going live? Why do we need these changes?
The change to Light mean that they're more vulnerable to Banelings, even with an HP increase.
The HP increase means that Colossi won't kill them faster despite the change to Light.
The HP increase means that Disruptors won't one-shot them.
So it's a Ghost survivability nerf against Zerg, a Ghost survivability buff against Protoss, and an overall buff to supply cost.
On October 09 2025 18:29 omop wrote: Ghosts are stronger now in nearly every situation? Light tag + 25 hp sounds like a buff and ghosts are back 2 supply, which was OP before. Also random nerf to bloodlord, bloodlords have been ok/weak after all the changes in the last 5 years. Storm nerf seems too big. Why we are seeing constant changes? Cant see any redline here, changes seem very random. Like storm was butchered, buffed, buffed more, now nerfed. Why cant the changes tested properly before going live? Why do we need these changes?
The Ghost change to Light mean that they're more vulnerable to Banelings, even with an HP increase.
The HP increase means that Colossi won't kill them faster despite the change to Light.
The HP increase means that Disruptors won't one-shot them.
So it's a Ghost survivability nerf against Zerg, a Ghost survivability buff against Protoss, and an overall buff to supply cost.
Vikings are buffed, so makes colossi worse in pvt. Vs zerg might be a slight nerf, but it is very situational. Hydras, hydras, roaches, ravagers and lings also are important damage dealers to ghosts. Killing ghosts have been hard to zergs previosly, when mass ghost style was common.
On October 09 2025 18:29 omop wrote: Ghosts are stronger now in nearly every situation? Light tag + 25 hp sounds like a buff and ghosts are back 2 supply, which was OP before. Also random nerf to bloodlord, bloodlords have been ok/weak after all the changes in the last 5 years. Storm nerf seems too big. Why we are seeing constant changes? Cant see any redline here, changes seem very random. Like storm was butchered, buffed, buffed more, now nerfed. Why cant the changes tested properly before going live? Why do we need these changes?
The change to Light mean that they're more vulnerable to Banelings, even with an HP increase.
The HP increase means that Colossi won't kill them faster despite the change to Light.
The HP increase means that Disruptors won't one-shot them.
So it's a Ghost survivability nerf against Zerg, a Ghost survivability buff against Protoss, and an overall buff to supply cost.
The supply buff seems more impactful in TvZ than the light-tag, because it means there will be more ghosts avaliable to T in the late game, which basically counter all late game Zerg units...
On October 09 2025 18:29 omop wrote: Ghosts are stronger now in nearly every situation? Light tag + 25 hp sounds like a buff and ghosts are back 2 supply, which was OP before. Also random nerf to bloodlord, bloodlords have been ok/weak after all the changes in the last 5 years. Storm nerf seems too big. Why we are seeing constant changes? Cant see any redline here, changes seem very random. Like storm was butchered, buffed, buffed more, now nerfed. Why cant the changes tested properly before going live? Why do we need these changes?
The Ghost change to Light mean that they're more vulnerable to Banelings, even with an HP increase.
The HP increase means that Colossi won't kill them faster despite the change to Light.
The HP increase means that Disruptors won't one-shot them.
So it's a Ghost survivability nerf against Zerg, a Ghost survivability buff against Protoss, and an overall buff to supply cost.
Vikings are buffed, so makes colossi worse in pvt. Vs zerg might be a slight nerf, but it is very situational. Hydras, hydras, roaches, ravagers and lings also are important damage dealers to ghosts. Killing ghosts have been hard to zergs previosly, when mass ghost style was common.
The changes seem to make Protoss overall significantly weaker vs T. The ball changes I don't think are going to be that impactful because getting them to be effective requires a good amount of luck on the side of the Protoss player, its situational and/or the Terran needs to be not paying attention to their army...
The storm changes mean that bio can just stim through storms if they want
Now that the Ghost is buffed again, can we please revert back to 3 supply? And wtf is that Broodlord nerf? Why? To address what? Please revert. Storm was a bit over the top and it takes a while to find the sweet spot. Fine with that
nerfs storm to unusable then buffs storm to overpowered everyone says storm is OP just casually rolls out patch then hotfix nerfs storm back to unusable
On October 09 2025 18:54 Harris1st wrote: Now that the Ghost is buffed again, can we please revert back to 3 supply? And wtf is that Broodlord nerf? Why? To address what? Please revert. Storm was a bit over the top and it takes a while to find the sweet spot. Fine with that
The sweet spot was the spot in which it has been for 15 years with no issue. Now they're creating problems out of nowhere
I don't understand giving ghosts bonus hit points. Why make them light if you are just going to make them as strong vs things that are good vs light, and are somehow even better than they were against non-light. This completely counteracts the extra damage collosus would do, and makes them survive disruptor shots, and makes them just generally more resistant to storm.
Like, why? Ghosts are already super strong at 2 supply, which is why they got nerfed in the first place, why revert the nerf, and give them a buff at the same time?
I completely agree with this. The issue was the effective energy cost buff brought about by energy overcharge. Why they started going down this rabbit hole of tinkering with time and radius is above my paygrade.
BW ghost was at 45 hp, btw, it now has almost triple that hp. And part of the reason for adding light tag to the ghost is that this unit seems much tankier than it looks, and now they have the same hp as the marauder? Light tag is actually stronger than armoured tag, so they'll actually be tankier than marauders, which would be like making the hydra tankier than the roach..
Storm will still be decent you can't underestimate a size buff from 1.5 -> 2, but protoss will probably do worse than on last patch now, with a severely nerfed overcharge, similar to what happened to battery overcharge that was the breaking point between protoss winning gsl's to not ever winning anything.
I wonder what the role of the disruptor should be now, the little timing from when hydras hit to when vipers and lurkers are out, or what exactly should we be spending 4 supply on?
I also wanna note that this is probably the fastest balance change in history, for it's not a hotfix, but a balance change. Other broken things introduced like 7 range hydra, or 2.5 radius fungal from invisible units took 2 weeks to patch out, while this one only took 8 days. I guess it's nice that the response time is quick, or is it? - this patch seems like it's feedback from a single terran player, and I'm not sure that's how we want to see balancing happen.
On October 09 2025 21:36 ejozl wrote: BW ghost was at 45 hp, btw, it now has almost triple that hp. And part of the reason for adding light tag to the ghost is that this unit seems much tankier than it looks, and now they have the same hp as the marauder? Light tag is actually stronger than armoured tag, so they'll actually be tankier than marauders, which would be like making the hydra tankier than the roach..
Storm will still be decent you can't underestimate a size buff from 1.5 -> 2, but protoss will probably do worse than on last patch now, with a severely nerfed overcharge, similar to what happened to battery overcharge that was the breaking point between protoss winning gsl's to not ever winning anything.
I wonder what the role of the disruptor should be now, the little timing from when hydras hit to when vipers and lurkers are out, or what exactly should we be spending 4 supply on?
I also wanna note that this is probably the fastest balance change in history, for it's not a hotfix, but a balance change. Other broken things introduced like 7 range hydra, or 2.5 radius fungal from invisible units took 2 weeks to patch out, while this one only took 8 days. I guess it's nice that the response time is quick, or is it? - this patch seems like it's feedback from a single terran player, and I'm not sure that's how we want to see balancing happen.
Don't forget busted insta nydus that we had to let play out in tournaments despite clearly being broken lol.
But really not sure what their goals are and I hope we get a more clear picture of that. Moving storm around that much in such a short span is weird, buffing and nerfing ghosts etc. so we shall see if more blizz involvement is gonna be good or bad
I mean, its quite easy to nerf Ghost more, like make them only half speed while cloak, also Snipe while Cloak would take double the time. And with the range reduction of Storm, maybe its time to increase HT speed to match of Infestor?
On October 10 2025 01:14 tigera6 wrote: I mean, its quite easy to nerf Ghost more, like make them only half speed while cloak, also Snipe while Cloak would take double the time. And with the range reduction of Storm, maybe its time to increase HT speed to match of Infestor?
From what i have started to do, i created an EMP which remove only 50 mana at the outside of the radius (100 point mana inside the inner radius)
Should have just left Ghosts and Storm alone. Now they've gone and started tweaking and now the entire interaction is even more imbalanced than it was before.
I don’t know who’s in charge of balance over there, but it feels like they’re just trolling us at this point. I simply can’t believe this is serious. Think about it: first they buff one of the strongest and most problematic units in the game (the same one they nerfed not that long ago because people were tired of watching doom stacks of ghosts), and how do they suggest we counter it? With banelings? A tier 1 unit? Seriously? And in PvT, with colossi? Yeah, sure...
And then they go and just give it 25% more HP for free. Now the ghost tanks better than a marauder. This has to be a joke
"Consume ability will now stop when the building is no lower than 7.5 HP."
Great, so we can revert the Consume buff right? Where it drained less HP due to pros stupidly consuming their Hives instead of gas extractors or other buildings?
Ghost HP buff to 125 is pretty huge... i don't understand why that was warranted. Surely colossus, phoenix, adept, hellions, and banelings aren't suddenly invalidating Ghosts?
This makes Ghost rushes and ghost hellion opener in TvZ much stronger now haha
Kinda silly that they rebuffed banelings to have that +5 HP, so they're now doubly strong vs Light Ghosts... They should just keep the banelings without that +5 HP, and keep Ghosts Light with 100 HP. Banelings have enough of a role and are always potent. They are cost inefficient but a way to force your enemy's army to blow up and keep trading with your superior economy.
Also for those asking why BL movespeed nerfed, it's because supposedly the broodling "bug fixes" make BLs way stronger in battle now. So reverting the movespeed buff they got a couple years ago (when broodlings were nerfed and BL pushed more into Guardian role) makes sense.
On October 10 2025 05:32 Vindicare605 wrote: Should have just left Ghosts and Storm alone. Now they've gone and started tweaking and now the entire interaction is even more imbalanced than it was before.
There’s too much tinkering in general.
Not all of it bad, but I think they’re changing too much, too quickly. It’s introducing new problems in trying to fix existing ones.
We’ve had what, two passes, three already? And some of those passes are changing multiple things.
I’ll give some credit, their pace of working is pretty good. But if anything, and it seems there’s perhaps more than the usual skeleton crew, I think gives you a bit more space.
Do like, half of what you’re doing this patch, let it settle and tweak if bugs etc, then come back and do the other half a few months down the line or whatever.
Oh, I love it. Finally some action in the scene again I hope they change even more stuff, the game has been so boring over the last years, every game felt the same. And then came a community patch with "overlord speed increased by 0.2%, Thor cost reduced by 4,2 minerals and some endless changes of the cyclone." In the end only the pros could see a difference. Boring.
Bring some imbalance into the game, something where even the pros need some time to adjust and to figure out what to do. Best thing to happen to the game in a long time. When every race is whining, they must have done something right. Game has been way to stable way to long. Now please stop making maps with 3-4 free bases and bring some interesting features back there, too. Imbalanced maps with exciting strategies. I don't care for balance and stable play. Chaos is way more interesting. I want players like Rogue, Parting, SoS or Dark to come up with incredible weird imba stuff again and shake all the meta over and over.
On October 10 2025 20:28 Rob-Zero wrote: Oh, I love it. Finally some action in the scene again I hope they change even more stuff, the game has been so boring over the last years, every game felt the same. And then came a community patch with "overlord speed increased by 0.2%, Thor cost reduced by 4,2 minerals and some endless changes of the cyclone." In the end only the pros could see a difference. Boring.
Bring some imbalance into the game, something where even the pros need some time to adjust and to figure out what to do. Best thing to happen to the game in a long time. When every race is whining, they must have done something right. Game has been way to stable way to long. Now please stop making maps with 3-4 free bases and bring some interesting features back there, too. Imbalanced maps with exciting strategies. I don't care for balance and stable play. Chaos is way more interesting. I want players like Rogue, Parting, SoS or Dark to come up with incredible weird imba stuff again and shake all the meta over and over.
This is so much on point! Change big things for all races, especially "the fun stuff" then let pros figure it out and when still OP change numbers. Bring back fun to the game!
EPT
