EPTIn my opinion i think we dont want too many drastic changes to the matchups as I believe, since WoL has many more units at release than SC1 did, in its essence WoL has almost as much racial diversity as BW (as most of WoL's unit designs came from BW). The non-mirror matchups in starcraft 2 are currently "feeling" very similar to the way they felt in BW (and battle hellions should bring TvP more in line with feeling like BW)
TvZ in BW is heavily about terran trying to use timings to punish a zerg whos ultimately going for his hive doom army
PvZ is largely the same thing
TvP in WoL is the matchup the most unlike its BW matchup, however if you consider the roles flipped then its like BW because in BW the protoss had army/units that were very strong in small numbers (now terran is like this) and the protoss did harassment fights all over the map trying to attack the terran where his doom army wasnt while the terran was trying to turtle to his doom army
I dont want too much crap being added that just ruins the matchups, and ruins the BW feel that does exist. Theres tons of generic RTS's out there, starcraft shouldnt try to "get away" from feeling like BW or it will just be boring and unfun to watch. The viper is a example of a good unit because its worthless, does pretty much nothing, so it wont ruin the game too much.
The viper will serve only two very small and niche roles, cloud against pure-mass terran bio, and the abduct ability against a protoss relying on turtling with collossi. Pretty much the way devourers were never seen in BW because they only were good to counter carriers and BC's, vipers should be almost never-seen unless the zerg really needs one of these 2 roles fulfilled.
And honestly those 2 roles "feel" zergish so im okay with the viper as a unit.
Pretty much a zerg should almost never want to make a viper (infestors are more powerful) but if a terrans massing pure bio, or if a protoss is camping behind cannons with some collossi in there, then 2-3 vipers could be a good addition to your army. Overall, I think the unit is fine and feels zergish.
The radius of the cloud seems way too small however. Buff its radius.
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The oracle? sort of like the above, at first i hated this unit because its worthless, but now i like it because its worthless as i realized I dont want too many unit additions ruining the way the current matchups "feel" as I think they still are pretty darn close to BW.
Adding some new combat units is ok, but the warhound is a horrible example of how to add a combat unit to this game. Many combat units already fulfill the small amount of roles that could exist, and adding in a bland thing like the warhound that overlaps too much with everything else just feels dumb.
Back to the oracle. A problem with the oracle is its vision ability is very weak (low range) seems to have a low duration and is used in conjunction with the tempest, but i feel the tempest needs to be removed. So remove the oracles vision-ability and cloaking field and give the oracle 2 new spells, one super worthless (like the vipers building damage spell), and one sort of worthless (like the vipers cloud).
I have an idea for the oracle, what about a "empowered shield" ability for the oracle, for 100 energy when casted on a unit improves its shield strength by 100 extra, max of 200 extra, and when the extra shields are destroyed the unit doesnt get them back (it still has normal shields the extra is just extra from the spell). Then make units glow sort of blue-ish or something so you know it has extra shields. So this spell could be casted on collossi or carriers to make them stronger but its a very weak spell (100 energy for 100 life/shields, which is weak compared to fungals 75 energy to deal 250+ damage)
I also believe the cloaking field should be removed and returned to the mothership. Giving mothersihp air stasis, ground vortex, recall, and cloaking field seems fine. The oracle with the cloaking field seems dumb.
As for the third spell of the oracle, I have an idea to turn the vision spell into an actual useful spell. \
Right now, the vision spell of the oracle serves as nothing more than tempest support. But I believe the tempest is retarded and should be removed, and thus with no tempest the oracles vision spell is worthless. But What about making the vision spell of the oracle have, say, 30 sight-range (but make the spell have a low cast-range making the oracle in danger when casting it), and it can only target buildings, and it costs 200 energy and lasts forever, and the building with it on glows bright-green letting the enemy know its there. So for 200 energy and the cost of a oracle the protoss can cast it on your command center and basically go "boom baby i just nuked your base with my maphackz. it costed me 200 energy and was expensive, but now i see 100% of your army movement around your base and i know if your not there then you must be attacking me". So this spell seems powerful, but not too OP as it costs 200 energy and a expensive oracle and you must risk the oracle to use the spell.
A terran could spend 1800 on 4 orbitals for a few scans a minute that provides the same benefit at a increased cost but doesnt require risking an oracles life to perform. So the oracle method is MUCH cheaper than 4 orbitals, but might never work if the enemy keeps killing your oracle because it can cast the spell.
I think that is a great spell idea. So that can serve as the oracles 3 spells. So the oracle spells could be something like entombed, the above vision idea, and the empowered shields (or something else that blizzard comes up with. But I believe the spells of these new casters should be weak as fungal/storm/HSM is already so strong)
Entombed is like a reverse-mule. It does no damage to your units but it reduces the rate at which you mine. Keeping a few marines in the mineral line should deal with it ok but honestly I think it lasts a bit too long maybe make it last only 30 seconds.
EDIT: many people think my vision spell is imbalanced. I contest it very well probably is, however all im saying is the oracle has some useless spells right now and if the tempest is removed then the oracle should have its useless spells replaced with something good. The oracles "scan" to not die to cloaked units is fine IMO but the preordaine ability is only useful with tempests.
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The tempest? Im sorry but this units "purpose" does not need to exist, and should not exist for protoss.
The design of the tempest is to have longrange thus forcing engagements or slowly damaging your enemy. Sorry but that just does not belong on protoss. It doesnt belong in the game at all, but if it did it would belong on terran, but terran already has a unit that is designed to serve that role (siege tank). This means the tempest should just be removed, or redesigned and given a new role.
The role of "longrange unit, if your enemy is turtling you use it to force him out with its longrange" is a role that protoss unit does not need. Protoss does not need it, remove it. Bring back the carrier, give it 90 second buildtime (and give BC's 75 while ur at it), allow it to attack while moving (allowing it to kite BC's and moveshot bases like in bw). Make the attack-while-moving ability of the carrier a toggled ability, meaning the protoss can turn it on or off (as theres some moments like sieging a base and getting into position where you dont want your carriers to fire all their interceptors into turrets and marines)
Boom youve got a great unit. Carriers are never seen now BECAUSE mech sucks. With battle hellions making mech good, carriers will see new play. Carriers are ALREADY the standard lategame PvZ unit, why the fuck remove it? Stop it Dustin, keep carriers in, When your entire design team is telling you you're wrong, you're wrong.
When battlecruisers were first introduced they had HORRENDOUS movement speed which was actually balanced because they were so much stronger than carriers but carriers could kite them. When BC's were buffed to have movement speed higher, it really through out of whack carriers perceived balance compared to BC's because carriers can no longer kite BC's (yes every 2 BC's can yamato and instantly 1shot a carrier, and BC's do counter carriers, but they didnt counter them as-hard when they were kite-able, and with templars to feedback/storm the BC's you had a shot)
EDIT:
It seems many protoss here feel that tempests are needed to combat infestor/broodlord.
I feel thats incorrect. I think one problem that does exist however is that carriers received a "nerf" in patch 1.5 where the interceptors clump up alot more now, making 1fungal hit almost all the interceptors.
I think carriers would be a better counter to infestor/broodlords if fungal was changed to no longer work against interceptors.
How about just make interceptors immune to spells, boom I think thats perfect and thats all thats needed. So thor splash still works against interceptors, but spells (hsm/storm/fungal) do nothing to interceptors.
You can still chain fungal on the carriers and kill them with corrupters or launch 50 infested terrans and fungal the carriers, you just cannot chain fungal the interceptors anymore and kill 80% of the interceptors with 2 fungals.
If interceptors were buffed to be immune to spells, it would fix alot of stuff in lategame PvZ (combined with letting carriers attack while moving, and reducing buildtime by a bit). Right now I feel most zergs are starting to abuse fungal vs interceptors when the toss reponds with carriers, and it does seem a little too good.
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Warhound?
Warhounds "fix" a problem (tank stalemate TvT) that does not exist.
Warhounds werent needed in TvP because the problem with TvP mech was there was no real viable tanking unit for the tanks (like mines in bw) to contest zealots. And the battle hellions solve that. With the introduction of battle hellions (which is essentially a entirely new unit, a mineral-only high-hp unit to soak damage for your tanks) mech should be fixed in TvP and warhounds are not needed.
Not only that, blizzard even added mines? i was against the mines at first thinking it didnt really need to exist and was just giving some free AoE dps on top of tanks for no reason. But now that their damage is alot weaker I think im slightly starting to like them. Make mines no longer target air units IMO, and I think they are a nice addition.
Warhounds are nothing more than a glorified roach/marauder with no reason to exist. Mech doesnt need something like warhound anymore in TvP, and in TvT its pointless. Its just a super buff marauder. It overlaps in role of the marauder, and its anti-mech missiles are a game-design void of purpose. It doesnt need to exist, terran doesnt need a anti-mech "unit" to slaughter the protoss race which is all mech. It forces protoss to get archon/chargelot with 100% of their minerals/gas in order to "avoid" the anti-mech missiles.
The warhound as a unit cannot be balanced to have combat stats allowing it to be use-able against zerg, while at the same time having free anti-mech missiles. This means the unit would be balanced to have strong stats, and then free missiles on top of it? making it overpowered against protoss. Or on the flip side, if the warhounds were balanced to be not overpowered against protoss with the missiles, then they would be underpowered against zerg with reduced stats and no missiles.
Either way the warhound cannot exist with its current design. One option could be to make the warhound missiles a transformation like the hellion where the user clicks the missiles to arm them, and then once armed with the missiles the warhound will have reduced strength in combat, but improved strength against mech with its missiles activated, making the unit balanced against protoss. And then the terran could de-activate his missiles against zerg since the missiles are useless against zerg.
Or the second option is to just remove the warhound and replace it with a better designed unit actually fitting a role that seems "terran-ish" or at least a role that seems "exciting to watch as an esport". Sure I guess the marauder is exciting in my eyes and i guess the role of the warhound which overlaps the marauder "can" in some ways be exciting. But it does a really bad job of it. In my opinion the marauder already fills the role of the warhound in a more exciting way, so sorry, but the warhound needs to be axed (or completely redesigned).
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Swarm host?
I think this is a good unit because terran and protoss now have much stronger anti-zergling options in the form of battle hellion AND the powerful midgame presence of the mothership core allowing the protoss to more safely and greedily macro up and get to collossus faster and safer so protoss will have more collossi.
This means the strength of zerglings has gone down dramatically (still useful, but, other races were given large options against it. zerglings are now heavily super early unit, and a lategame swarm option after most of your enemies battle hellions and collossi have been destroyed by roaches+fungal+swarmhosts)
So zerg needs the swarm hosts now because in WoL zergs could swarm in and suicide armies of lings and be okay, but with terrans battle hellions and tosses mothership core (allowing a strong midgame presence, so faster/stronger collossi) the suicide armies of lings will be much less potent
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And finally the mothership core. A first i hated it, but now I love it because its an actual unit and serves as protosses "new combat unit".
The mothership core fixes everything toss needed. Protoss has plenty lategame power units (collossi, immortal, voidrays, carrier, mothership, storms, archons) and felt like the midgame had something to be desired. Now the mothership core fits in there perfectly.
The mothership core will be used as a offensive unit more than a defensive unit. It flies, comes fast, and is extremely powerful. I expect protosses to build a mothership core after their cyber, attack terran/zerg with it, let it die (killing many marines or queens in the process), then build another and attack with your main army plus another core. The mothership core is very powerful in cost/strength but you can only build one of them and it will be used in the army (until ultimately lategame its replaced by mothership)
The mothership core seems like a good unit added to protoss that fits-in well like the battle hellion fits-in well. I think the mothership core is serving well as the "new protoss unit".
The mothership core moves extremely slow, but it is cheap and you can actually attack a enemy with it pretty quickly at about 8 minutes if you fly it to your enemies base after getting it at a normal time. A offensive mothership core is almost as powerful as a flying collossi, but comes alot faster, at 8 minutes, but moves super slow, and I honestly dont think its imbalanced as queens/marines both deal with it very well and it serves as a mid-game strength unit that protoss seemed to be lacking.
But toss can only spend their money on 1 mothership core, while terran/zerg can spend all their money on bio/roaches, so protoss gets to have this one powerful midgame unit, but only one of them, then the rest of protoss money is spent getting to their endgame goodies.
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Reapers. I feel the reapers are going in the wrong direction. Reapers could be a strong harassment unit but they dont need the regeneration because medivacs exist, let them keep their speed as i think the speed has been removed).
The problem with reapers is their buildtime. The days of 3range queens and 3range roaches are over, zerg no longer is worried about reapers, so the buildtime of reapers should be changed to like 20 seconds. Yes, 20 seconds, you heard me. Marauders are 30 seconds with a techlab, I feel 15-20 seconds for a reaper buildtime with a techlab is completely fine given the fact that marauders are 30 seconds for 2food, why 15 seconds for 1food seems fine.
Also, reapers can serve as a great harassment unit with this improved buildtime (which means less barracks are needed for reaper production). With speed and the improved buildtime, reapers could be a great addition to lategame bio with upgrades being fast and strong and they dont need the health regeneration lategame due to medivacs.
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So far with my above ideas (remove warhound, remove tempest, allow carrier to attack while moving, change oracles useless spells) I think that is the direction hots should go.
Looking at my above ideas it would produce the following changes
Terran has mines and battle hellions added. Honesty, I think thats fine, stop there, add nothing more to terran. Remember battle hellions are essentially completely new combat unit, like a powerful zealot you can add to your mech army to tank for your tanks. Then terran gets mines instead of a semi-worthless caster. I dont think "mech" needs more anti-air then the thor since the viking is also there as an anti-air option. The thor is a fine anti-air unit that fits more in line with how mech should be than the goliath. The thor with +3 upgrades and some viking/hellion support should do just fine against broodlords (heck, marineking won a game lastnite against a similar supply broodlord army using thors. We saw MVP at IEM crushing zerg broodlord armies with thor timing attacks when the zerg cant have 10+ broods. When the supply count of broodlords/thors is less than 50 and both have backup support, thors do well against broods. And when the supply count of broodlords is over 70, then you better best damn have some HSM's and vikings and possibly BC's)
Protoss has mothership core and oracle added. That seems fine to. Add nothing more.
Zerg has viper added swarm host added.
The above seems perfect. Basically Im the jist of my write-up is I think the warhound and tempest are complete Dustin Browder C&C units that dont belong in starcraft and their design and purpose is shit and they shouldnt exist. It will only make the game worse.
With the above plan I propose, each race gets 2 new units, and the balance seems pretty well. Then in LOTV each race can each receive 1 new amazing pure-combat unit (no lame spellcasters) that are hopefully better designed than the warhound/tempest and actually fit a good role that feels well within its race.
Whatever blizzard does I hope it works. I know i come off as egotistical in this thread most likely but im sorry, I guess you cant write a huge analysis thread like this without throwing your own ideas in there.
