Balance Update #7 10/26/12

Oracle

We’ve received a lot of community and pro-player feedback on the Oracle, some of which we totally agree with. In particular, we felt that the following feedback was spot on:

1. The Oracle was a unit that didn’t allow players to show much differentiation in skill. Entomb was its main spell, and it made little difference whether it was a Silver or Master level player casting this ability.
2. Entomb wasn’t a fun spectator spell because there were no varying degrees of success; it was either cast or not cast.
3. The Oracle didn’t add much to the army when it was done harassing the enemy’s base.

In response, we’re taking a different direction with the Oracle. We’ve tried many different abilities for this unit and have come up with two that we think are a step in the right direction – Pulsar Beam and Time Warp.

Oracle
This unit has a new ability called Pulsar Beam.
The Oracle channels a beam at an enemy structure that deals 25 damage every second.
2 mana is drained per second from the Oracle while this ability is channeled.
This ability has a range of 5.
This unit has a new ability called Time Warp.
The Oracle creates a temporal field that slows all ground units’ movement speed within a 3.5 radius by 50%.
This ability costs 75 energy to cast
This ability can be cast from 9 range.


We believe that Pulsar Beam solves issues 1 and 2. Even in internal testing, we’re seeing a crystal clear difference when a Master level player uses it versus when a platinum player uses it, and there are always different degrees of success depending on how well the player uses it and how well the opponent counters it. For the last ability, we want a spell that does two main things: allows the Oracle to join the army and affect the battle, and help improve Pulsar Beam harassment. We feel Time Warp does both of these things.

We’re very excited to test the new Oracle in the live beta environment, and encourage you to share your constructive feedback once you’ve played with the new spells.

Mothership Core’s new detection spell

We heard a lot of your feedback regarding the way the Mothership Core grants detection following the changes brought about in the last beta patch. We felt that because detection was tied to the Nexus after the last patch, we lost the original intent for the spell which was to give Protoss players the option to not have to build a Robotics Bay when there are only 1-2 cloaked units in play. After further discussion, we decided that what we want with the temporary detection spell is something that can be used as a soft detection mechanism versus a very small number of cloaked threats, but still requires Protoss players to build Observers if their opponent is building a larger number of cloaked Banshees or Dark Templars.

Spine Crawlers

The changes to Spine Crawlers were made to help Zerg defense in early game ZvZ. We found that Zerg tier 2 and 3 battles have changed a lot in Heart of the Swarm, and we wanted to make it slightly easier for Zerg players to get to tier 2 in the matchup. Not only that, newer players found it confusing that Spine Crawlers appear to block pathing in a 2x2 radius when built, but small units such as Zerglings were able to squeeze by. Therefore, we made the decision to prevent pathing around this unit when placed next to other structures, and we increased its size slightly to reflect this.

You may also notice that we’ve tweaked a few other numbers this week, so please take some time to read over the patch notes to see exactly what’s changed. As always, we will continue adjusting the numbers throughout the beta and keeping a close on your feedback, so please continue to share your constructive feedback.