EPTMatrix being a powerful single target spell made it potent in TvP and TvT but basically never see it in TvZ.
StarCraft II 5.0.16 PTR Patch Notes may 26th
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10372 Posts
Matrix being a powerful single target spell made it potent in TvP and TvT but basically never see it in TvZ. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26972 Posts
On June 03 2026 02:20 Captain Peabody wrote: What do you think of the idea of making Snipe unable to target air units? Feels like it would leave the Ghost a powerful unit against Ultras and Lurkers while giving it more of a genuine vulnerability to Broods, Mutas, etc. Vibes wise, Ghosts should suck against Ultras, be good against Broods and have some viability against lurkers, for me personally Ghosts using their snipers to target down enemies that also work at range I think is thematically fine Ghosts nuking like multiple tons of Zerg muscle easily in the former of Ultras, silly. Note I said thematically, not balance. Ghost stood be bad against *something* in the Zerg tier 3 Arsenal, and Ultras make a lot more sense to me | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26972 Posts
On June 03 2026 03:40 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Don't forget part of the reason Ghost ended up becoming so strong TvZ is because they gutted the Raven as a spellcaster especially in TvZ. Other than having 1-3 for detection or AA missile, you don't use it as a lategame spellcaster the way you do with any of the other race's spellcasters. Matrix being a powerful single target spell made it potent in TvP and TvT but basically never see it in TvZ. Mass Raven did somewhat suck though The current is very niche, partly with tech lab requirements that cut into medivac and Viking production, hence you only tend to see ravens as part of openers in general and it simply becomes to awkward to integrate them I dunno how you fix that. But I think it would be great if Terrans could more flexibly use ravens, without buffing them all that much. If you could build them from a regular starport (unreactored) provided you have say, an armoury also they probably become way easier to fit in. Not a concrete recommendation, a suggestions They feel a good unit, but awkward. They’ve a lot of theoretical utility but unless you actively open for a few and hope they don’t die, or go super late (and basically only in TvT) they’re an awkward unit to fit in Ravens could be super useful to throughout a game, but you need ravens, and the ability to make them. Almost every other unit in the game if you’ve unlocked it on the tech tree and your buildings don’t get blown up, you can make them. Wanna make ravens you have to actively sac reactors on Starports and in all likelihood you will just die cutting those corners | ||
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NinjaDuckBob
185 Posts
Regarding the Raven's defensive abilities in particular, the PDD never was tested with a particular variable that allows for a detailed level of balance tweaking, the laser's rate of fire. The PDD laser always had a cooldown of 0, meaning it blocks projectiles at an infinite rate. Giving it a cooldown means it can only block a certain amount of projectiles at once, and allows some counterplay with focus-fire and with having all units shoot at once. But PDD doesn't directly provide counterplay against Zerg spellcasters, only against a select few combat units, so it might not be the right ability to fill the gap. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1926 Posts
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ETisME
12733 Posts
On June 03 2026 03:40 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Don't forget part of the reason Ghost ended up becoming so strong TvZ is because they gutted the Raven as a spellcaster especially in TvZ. Other than having 1-3 for detection or AA missile, you don't use it as a lategame spellcaster the way you do with any of the other race's spellcasters. Matrix being a powerful single target spell made it potent in TvP and TvT but basically never see it in TvZ. wasn't mass ghost /snipe a thing since WoL? Only reason why raven took over is it did an even better job, easier to land key spells, maneuver and more uses like worker harass etc. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10372 Posts
On June 03 2026 04:18 WombaT wrote: Mass Raven did somewhat suck though The current is very niche, partly with tech lab requirements that cut into medivac and Viking production, hence you only tend to see ravens as part of openers in general and it simply becomes to awkward to integrate them I dunno how you fix that. But I think it would be great if Terrans could more flexibly use ravens, without buffing them all that much. If you could build them from a regular starport (unreactored) provided you have say, an armoury also they probably become way easier to fit in. Not a concrete recommendation, a suggestions They feel a good unit, but awkward. They’ve a lot of theoretical utility but unless you actively open for a few and hope they don’t die, or go super late (and basically only in TvT) they’re an awkward unit to fit in Ravens could be super useful to throughout a game, but you need ravens, and the ability to make them. Almost every other unit in the game if you’ve unlocked it on the tech tree and your buildings don’t get blown up, you can make them. Wanna make ravens you have to actively sac reactors on Starports and in all likelihood you will just die cutting those corners I'm not saying to bring mass Ravens back as a go-to strategy, but that the Raven's redesign was an overreaction and went way too much into a niche unit you only get 1-3 of in TvZ. It's the only spellcaster Blizzard decided to design into being a unit you only get 1-2 of (in their words). Making it into such a niche unit means that the Ghost has to fulfill all the "lategame spellcaster" roles in the TvZ matchup. Making it less interesting because instead of having to choose Ghosts or Ravens, or having to get tech to get both or switch between both in the lategame, you simply mass one of them. Maybe if they make Matrix 10 range instead of 9 range, it might see some niche use against Vipers, but since it's only 9 range Vipers can abduct if they come up. And ultimately it's still stronger to just EMP them instead. That said, I don't think disabling units is the best design (even if it is Starcraft-y), and I don't really like anti armor missile either (not very Starcraft-y, overly favors low damage fast firing units, and messed with TvP balance). I much preferred the old Raven and PDD, which was such a Terran-y ability with its positional and defensive capabilities. I always believed they overlooked the true reason why PDD was broken design wise. PDD allowed you to put down just 1 PDD to block 20 projectiles at once. This means that you could put 1 PDD at a time and even if you chase them down across the map or if you try to run away, the Ravens can just drop 1-2 PDD at a time with no commitment. If it was redesigned so that each PDD can only block 2-3 projectiles per second for example, you'd need to put down 10 PDDs if you want to block 20 Corruptors' shots at once, which is a huge energy drain and allows the counterplay of simply backing off until the PDDs expire in 15-20 secs, or re-engage somewhere else. In smaller numbers or in the early to mid game, 1 PDD being able to still block 20 projectiles over 7-10 secs (if able to block only 2-3 projectiles per second) is still significant. If your opponent's army has 20 Stalkers for example, you'd still be reducing their dps by ~15-20% over 7-10 seconds, and the amount of dps reduction decreases as the opponent's army out scales your Raven count unless you commit to massing Ravens which you then drain their energy by being interactive and forcing them to burn PDDs in one place then go attack elsewhere. I always felt what they did to Seeker Missile is silly too. It was an ability that, similar to PDD, you could avoid by backing off or engaging elsewhere. Like a bio army poking a protoss making them burn storms until you commit to a real fight. Then the community said the ability was too useless, so they kept buffing it to the point that it became reasonably realistic to land mass AOE nukes on your opponent (to be fair, progamers always underestimated the damage and often tanked them instead of retreating even if they'd lose some units while being chased down). Then, instead of just realizing they messed up turning it from a zoning ability into a high damage aoe nuke and reverting the buffs, they decided the damage was the issue and changed it to the early versions of AA missile where it still did like 5 damage. Which of course, still got massed because any aoe damage nuke that can be used reliably is incredibly strong in a game like SC2. And then, as if they still didn't realize the issue was the reliable damage and not the amount of damage, they got rid of the damage entirely making it simply reduce your armor.. I feel like this happened to the auto turret too, and many other SC2 changes. Understandably, as the dev/balance team changed over the years, they wouldn't have the full context of how things reached the point it did. But it's still disappointing feeling that patches seem to forget why certain things became broken, and instead of reverting those changes and trying to keep the original concept which worked, they keep straying further from the original vision. On June 03 2026 08:53 ETisME wrote: wasn't mass ghost /snipe a thing since WoL? Only reason why raven took over is it did an even better job, easier to land key spells, maneuver and more uses like worker harass etc. Yes, mass snipe was OP early WoL until MVP showcased it against Nestea in a high visibility Blizzcon match where he evaporated Nestea's ultra/BL army. It got nerfed but was always potent, and as a high damage energy ability that does massive damage we know from history they probably still didn't abuse ghosts enough post-nerfs (probably because they found the Raven to be even more OP). LotV was interesting where snipe had more of a delay, and could be cancelled if they take damage. But ended up doing a lot of damage again, so it became volatile and thus very potent if you can get snipes off. Getting the energy refunded on cancel was a big buff too, it made having the spell cancelable a small downside to doing a lot of damage again after the WoL nerfs. | ||
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tigera6
3493 Posts
On June 03 2026 02:20 Captain Peabody wrote: What do you think of the idea of making Snipe unable to target air units? Feels like it would leave the Ghost a powerful unit against Ultras and Lurkers while giving it more of a genuine vulnerability to Broods, Mutas, etc. I think thats a fine idea, although I havent seen many lategame TvZ where mass Ghost straight up fight against mass BLord, you gotta make enough Thors to fight BLord in most instances. | ||
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Captain Peabody
United States3134 Posts
On June 03 2026 20:31 tigera6 wrote: I think thats a fine idea, although I havent seen many lategame TvZ where mass Ghost straight up fight against mass BLord, you gotta make enough Thors to fight BLord in most instances. Right, it wouldn't be match-up breaking, but would at least reduce the utility in some scenarios of making a giant blob of ghosts. I don't think the problem with the Ghost is balance fundamentally, it's the "feel" and "frustration" of how flexible they are, such that it's rarely a big problem to "overbuild" Ghosts in late-game. There are all kinds of scenarios where a blob of Ghosts in the right place can punish almost anything Zerg has; this also reduces the impact of tech switches where things start coming out in smaller numbers initially. The fact that Ghosts already aren't core/ideal to defeating heavy air comps, though, is intended, since it reduces the immediate balance impact and doesn't leave Terran with huge gaping vulnerabilities. Terran already has the tools to deal with Zerg air, this would just make it more important to incorporate more of those tools earlier and more punishing if Terran doesn't anticipate tech switches. That's the theory, anyway! | ||
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seopthi
399 Posts
On May 30 2026 01:26 seopthi wrote: If the intern is reading this, please consider (an option?) for F2 to ignore units on hold and/or patrol. Hold would make perfect sense imo Also visual changes to EMP so it is easier to see, and Protoss door (though could be alleviated w/ the first suggestion) The changling change seems to be strange ad hoc, it'd be easier to make them less spammable, no? One more suggestion I'd like to propose -- I just watched Tasteless' take on the patch and he mentioned that he thinks that the game should be balanced for pros, which I agree with. The natural problem is that if we get 50% winrate in the GSL, it may be greatly different in GM or Silver on ladder. Historically it has been like this many times, e.g., Protoss favored in GM while Terran in Bronze. The thing I would love Blizzard to consider, is for ladder MMR to be per matchup and the overall being the average of the three. There would be no such worry about balance per skill level; for example, if Protoss is easier to play with low apm compare to Zerg, PvZ could be matched against a player that would currently be considered stronger. The purpose of MMR is to have 50% winrate, which overall players have, but they clearly do not have per matchup; I have had 70% winrate in one and 30% in another, for example. Of course, I can focus on improving on the lowest winrate, but it being uneven is unavoidable. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26972 Posts
On June 03 2026 23:12 seopthi wrote: One more suggestion I'd like to propose -- I just watched Tasteless' take on the patch and he mentioned that he thinks that the game should be balanced for pros, which I agree with. The natural problem is that if we get 50% winrate in the GSL, it may be greatly different in GM or Silver on ladder. Historically it has been like this many times, e.g., Protoss favored in GM while Terran in Bronze. The thing I would love Blizzard to consider, is for ladder MMR to be per matchup and the overall being the average of the three. There would be no such worry about balance per skill level; for example, if Protoss is easier to play with low apm compare to Zerg, PvZ could be matched against a player that would currently be considered stronger. The purpose of MMR is to have 50% winrate, which overall players have, but they clearly do not have per matchup; I have had 70% winrate in one and 30% in another, for example. Of course, I can focus on improving on the lowest winrate, but it being uneven is unavoidable. Giving me a magic wand, the game is balanced for the pros, but fun for us plebs. I think SC2 can often suffer on the latter, where interactions that are ultimately balanced, just suck to play against at lower levels. Like Serral can dismantle an Airtoss fleet with Templar support, but at lower levels a Zerg is just getting A-moved to death because they lack the ability to pick it apart I’ve played other games where they’re actively more fun when you suck, and all sorts of things are viable, get good and it’s play meta and skip about 80% of other options I’ve got zero idea how to actually do that, but just as a general concept. | ||
BluemoonSC
SoCal8913 Posts
i dont think any amount of changes are going to magically bring in brand new players to the genre or the franchise. balance for high levels of play if the plan is to touch it once a year. | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19366 Posts
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Fleetfeet
Canada2741 Posts
On June 04 2026 06:14 BisuDagger wrote: Anyone else ever dream of a patch that lets you choose the campaign style tech trees prior to starting the game? Both the campaign and Co-Op offer such a variety of play that could exist if there were pre-game tech trees. I think there's SOME room for this if you emulate TCG's sideboarding for series games, but I think you can look at mobas (League's rune / summoner spells system, dota's Facets system) to see how it would go. Basically there's a statistically 'correct' choice in most cases so you don't increase strategic versatility as much as you'd hope. It works in campaign because the balance isn't decided on win or lose, it's decided on how it feels to play. | ||
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TeamMamba
227 Posts
On June 03 2026 23:22 WombaT wrote: Giving me a magic wand, the game is balanced for the pros, but fun for us plebs. I think SC2 can often suffer on the latter, where interactions that are ultimately balanced, just suck to play against at lower levels. Like Serral can dismantle an Airtoss fleet with Templar support, but at lower levels a Zerg is just getting A-moved to death because they lack the ability to pick it apart I’ve played other games where they’re actively more fun when you suck, and all sorts of things are viable, get good and it’s play meta and skip about 80% of other options I’ve got zero idea how to actually do that, but just as a general concept. Depending on what your “lower level” is. Takes forever for toss to get the airtoss fleet plat or lower I’m playing diamond / master on a regular basis and my airtoss fleet with templer support against Zergs isn’t auto win either. At this level lurkers and corruptors shiets on airtoss. Most toss on below masters has no idea how to pick off lurkers one by one with tempest oracle combo. Most of the time we lost our obs and lurkers just kills all the ground support | ||
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naventus
United States1338 Posts
These complaints about Ghosts being oppressive, obviously this unit has been a crutch in the mess of late game design. Truly removing this crutch, you'd have to change the way the economy and map control looks like in late game TvZ and/or give all the power of Ghosts to some other units. I don't even know what that second picture looks like, and everyone seems to be able to identify the first part, but incapable of making concrete suggestions on the second. But this point seems symbolic to me of the fundamental pain point of SC2, that there was never an opinionated and correct (read: genius) designer behind the game. What is the point of these amateur balance patches, is the intention to keep pumping these out year after year? To achieve what overarching design goal? If there is no overarching design goal, then won't we just keep going in circles? If there is an overarching goal than piecemeal vibes, has it been articulated? Here's a conceptual design goal, morph economy, unit interaction, unit balance such that the game can be balanced through maps instead of aimless tweaks. | ||
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Creager
Germany1940 Posts
On June 04 2026 06:14 BisuDagger wrote: Anyone else ever dream of a patch that lets you choose the campaign style tech trees prior to starting the game? Both the campaign and Co-Op offer such a variety of play that could exist if there were pre-game tech trees. Sounds cool, but would be a complete balance nightmare, I believe. Imagine SC Evo, but you could combine features of both race iterations. | ||
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Besfren
1 Post
Now if you have read all of this rant, I salute you for actually understanding and not being bias like most players or viewers are that they only love Zerg and Terran along with their matchups TvZ. Hope they will actually kick off those bias council members in the patches and make Protoss a good and balanced race versus the others again. User was warned for this post | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26972 Posts
On June 04 2026 18:27 Besfren wrote: They should really remove all the council members for the patches as it is apparent that all of them are Zerg and Terran lovers. In today's patch, Zerg is still the most OP race then closely behind it is Terran while Protoss is still kicked to the curb and made it even more shitty. More free units (broodlings, locusts, changelings) for Zerg + more vision (overlords, tumors, changelings) compared to protoss where the only free unit is the adept shade and it only gives you vision and doesn't even attack, illusions from a sentry aren't free as they cost energy as well as oracle attacks and revelations in which none deal damage and only for mild vision, carriers cost 25 minerals per interceptors which can be shot down making it inept one the interceptors are dead and also destroys the interceptors once the carrier is also dead (IMO, make the interceptors free as well as make the interceptors auto attack in the area or have a timed life once the carrier drops dead to make it even with the zerg's free attack, as well as let the adepts do the original attacks even without the shade debuffs just like in the campaign to be worth it to use. For the observer, would be best to have a unit limit count to make like say 10-15 and have them cost no supply at all and should be moved to a Nexus to make instead of a robotics and have it a tech structure as a requirement like cybernetics core). Now Terran is like a jack of all trades but their EMP would automatically wipe out protoss' shields immediately dropping protoss half their effectivity while marines are effectively the best unit in the game as they cost only 50 minerals and 1 supply. They can also have a better run by with hellions on the mineral fields doing splash damage or fast reapers jumping up and down a cliff or have marines drop, Zerg has very quick and super many zerglings like 2 per 1 supply so you'd have 10 supply = 20 zerglings on a run by that can easily kill a lot or roaches tunneling towards their worker lines, now compare that to a 10 supply protoss of run by zealots which is only like 5 zealots and no splash and has a charge cooldown or an adept shade that you need upgrades to get it to attack faster and in contrast to the drop you need to upgrade to warpgate then buy a prism and have them slow warp in to the battle field or mineral fields wherein enemies can already have their workers run away. For an advanced race compared to Terran and Zerg, the Protoss is one massively overpriced, underpopulated and heavily nerfed race, it's like Elves vs Humans and Undead (NOT in WC3) lore that they'll be ultimately get wiped out first even if they have magic and long lives. Now if you have read all of this rant, I salute you for actually understanding and not being bias like most players or viewers are that they only love Zerg and Terran along with their matchups TvZ. Hope they will actually kick off those bias council members in the patches and make Protoss a good and balanced race versus the others again. You don’t think Protoss is strong right now? | ||
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TelecoM
United States10743 Posts
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