Starcraft 2.5 changes for all 3 races

This is a really really really really really long read. I don’t expect everyone to read its whole contents but please note that some of the changes to one race are affected by changes in an other. thank you for your time I spent a lot of time and thought writing these out in what I hope is a clear and easy read. many of these ideas originated from other regular contributors to the starcraft 2 forum community and i am in no way claiming credit for your ideas i am simply incorporating your good ideas into mine. take it as a compliment if you see your idea on here and just give a shout if you want credit

These are ideas for changes that I think would make a great expansion for starcraft 2. these changes are made with the identity of each race in mind and with spectating and e sports in mind. This is only my second pass at these ideas so I am sure there are imbalances or errors and that is why I share them with you. This thread is to analyze and discuss these changes and improve upon them. Thank you for your time in reading this lengthy post.

as explored in depth by ItWhoSpeaks in his many popular threads the protoss gateway feels weak compared to its Broodwar counterpart. This is due to a tier 1/1.5 power creep by the other races and the current warp in mechanic. Some units are not getting used as much like the phoenix and the void ray because of lack usable role. Changing some of the interactions with late game protoss away from the vortex archon toilet or mass colossus deathball would be a positive thing in my opinion from a player point of view and a spectator point of view. A few of the changes that are in the protoss section are based on making the game even more enjoyable to watch just as much as play. Lets start by looking at the gateway.

Warpgate is now a midgame powerful tool to build an army far out in the field almost instantly instead of a required mechanic for protoss. Learning are using warp in well will differentiate player skill and can now allow gateway units to be balanced around the gateway and not exclusively the warpgate.
Making the immortal weaker and putting it in the gateway allows the protoss to mass immortals into their mainstay army. Hardened shield is now a research. Stalkers have been pushed from main battle unit to anti light mobile harassment unit and anti light air. It makes sense visually as well since it share an attack beam with the phoenix which is anti light. templar tech is unchanged. Archon now deals its damage to all units around it at close range.

the sentry is now a tier 2 robo caster. Force field has been removed in favor of a weak single target version of the Arbiters Stasis Ability. With multiple sentries you can effectively take key targets out of a big fight like the current vortex was meant to do. The colossus now has a slower but much stronger attack that slightly telegraphs its attacks giving skillful opponents the opportunity to micro out of some of the damage. This will also make the colossus overkill at a higher rate in large numbers reducing the effectiveness of the mass colossus death ball while technically buffing the colossus individual dps by a small amount. (from 19 to 22 base damage per second)

the void ray has become a redundant unit. The tempest is now in the void ray's old spot in cost/supply and has gotten some nerfs to compensate. The carrier is now BW carrier. The oracle's time warp is incredibly powerful in its current 3.5 range aoe. This has been reduced by 1 and now gains a 3 minute single target vision ability. Use on queens to get free scouting against zerg for 3 minutes. Mothership vortex is gone. Mothership is now actually a scary unit on the field now not for its own combat abilities but for its mobile power field from which you can warp in units while cloaked. It also can now burst heal shields in a small area. A true powerful mobile support fortress.

With a massable immortal, heavy firepower on the colossus, cheaper tempests and stronger archons comes great responsibility. And this is a good thing! When playing the protoss you should feel like you are controlling an elite group of super units. Each one is important and each loss is great. Warpgate is now a measure of skill and a tech choice, not a macro requirement. This let us get stronger gateway units to help with the power creep of the lesser races. I think the changes to air will have us seeing phoenix much more often and make late game protoss fleet a true terror to be feared.

Terran factory has been needing a change for a while and I know blizzard is working on something for us. I have made some large changes to the armory and smaller tweaks to the barracks and starport. The raven is getting some buffs and the warhound is returning with a new role. The terran forces have had to change a little to accommodate and adapt to the changes in the protoss and zerg and I think they will do quite well with a great number of options in their arsenal. Lets start with the barracks.

Barracks needs relatively little change in my opinion. I saw some interesting ideas posted in some thread on some tweaks so I added them here with a few small changes of my own that I think could make bio a little more diverse than simple marine marauder.

The marauder is a very micro-able unit with strong stats for cost. It has stim for mobility and dps. The only thing wrong is the damn 50% slow that makes units very difficult to micro. This is unfun to play against and to watch. Instead of slowing the marauder shreds 1 armor per attack stack up to 2. now marauders will support your marines not by snaring enemies but increasing their dps on hard targets. Those 6 armor ultras giving you trouble? Bring that armor down to 4 and now you 3 attack rines are doing double damage.
The reaper feels weird. It has a place in the early game but it puts you behind if you fail to get good harassment and it is not a unit that carries forward into the late game or even the early mid game. With a new extra 1 range and 2 damage (1x2 damage) the reaper can now kite more effectively at 5.5 range just under marine range. This hopefully could see them used more later into the game. And remember that marauder? That armor shred adds 4 damage at 2 stacks to the reaper by armor reduction alone. Thats pretty big and we might see interesting marauder reaper pushes come of it
The ghost's snipe having two different vs unit tags means it goes 20 damage to massive and armored, 40 vs light and 50 vs psionic. This means it can now use snipe to take out light units efficiently as well as psionics ((light psionic units take a huge 70 damage)

lets start with the hellion, I’ve never liked its attack. It seem really silly to me. Now the hellion has much less range but can attack while moving and attack much faster for lower damage. It has an overall net increase in dps with much less range. Battle hellion mode is unchanged from its current form other than removing the upgrade requirement.
the new widow mine seeder retains its original purpose of passive area denial and attrition but has more counter play with a much smaller individual mine activation range it punishes units that don’t have detection but is countered by most forms of detection. In all its a technical buff to the widow mine's damage at the cost of utility/range (270 (342 with 3 upgrade) single target damage if all mines are activated on the same target) the widow mine can still hit air but must be within2 range to activate. On the ground it has 3 range.
THOR IS HERE AND IN TIER 3 BABY! The Thor's current role is an awkward anti light air/anti tough ground unit/sort of meat shield that doesn't shine in any of these roles. It is nonviable in TvP due to being countered by high templars (feedback) and immortals and its uses in TvZ are to counter mutaballs (and then they get magicboxed). This new Thor is completely pushed into the anti tough unit role by slowing its attack and heavily increasing it's damage. It also further adds to it's innate weakness against swarms of lighter units. The Thor's new basic attack has a cool up time of 1 second before firing to prevent hit and run abuse or silly thorship drop micro from being too strong (still effective but the thor has to be on the ground for 1 second to fire) It also now has a secondary role as a siege breaker (a role blizzard has shown an interest in with the original warhound) due to its new ability Haywire missile strike. This ability has the limitation of 8 minimum range from the Thor but has a whopping 16 range max. it also has an anti mechanical damage bonus and can easily be dodged by mobile units. It primary function would be to kill siege tank lines and to soften defensive emplacements. I think this will not only be an effective ability but one that is fun to watch from a spectator standpoint as it's counter play is micro due to its slow missile speed so landing a great haywire strike will be very rewarding. (it can 1 shot tanks) this will also promote more tank spreading in TvT to prevent haywire strikes to kill more than one tank at a time. fun fact: new thor can 1 shot marauders when fully upgraded. GET ME INTO DA FIGHT!
the Warhound is now a ground Valkyrie from brood war. It attacks by launching 6 mini rockets at a target and is specialized against light air units. It's attack is not very strong against ground and non light air targets due to armor being 6x effective but it also inversely gains a large attack bonus from upgrades, making this unit able to take advantage of upgrade advantages in the early/mid game. And always deal a minimum of 6 damage to targets with armor. It essentially replaces the Thor's old anti air role and position on the tech tree.

I feel like the viking sound have been a light unit from the start and that there are too many “armored” units in the game as it is. It also is a big buff the the usability of the phoenix in PvT and should promote more interesting air dominance wars in TvT. This change doesn't change much in the TvZ matchup. The viking's new matchups are affected as follows:
Weaker Against:
Pheonix
new Warhound
new anti light Stalker (match up unchanged)
unchanged against:
zerg
capital ships
tempest
stronger against:
other vikings (makes viking wars less binary due to the unit no longer being its own counter)

ground viking gain +2 dmg per upgrade but also reduces its effectiveness vs armor. To compensate it fires slightly faster resulting in a slight net dps boost. Will also make the viking better at killing workers in ground mode making it a better harasser. And also no longer activates the immortal's hardened shield. It also no longer is tagged as armored or light when on the ground and only takes bonus damage from vs mechanical which will help its survivability against anti armor counters. It can now also gain the ability to move while changing modes but requires a tech lab at the starport to do so.
The battlecruiser has suffered for a while and I think giving it +1 range over marines is justifiable in its own right. Could be OP I dont know it would have to be tested.
Now for the Raven :} the raven is just a weird terran painted arbiter from starcraft 1 and its visual style does not match its function whatsoever. Change it to a beefier looking flying mini factory looking unit and it will fit much nicer. Changing it's starting energy upgrade to a max energy upgrade means that it can now cast 2 seekers at full energy. Its auto turrets energy cost has been reduced by half and it has gotten some small nerfs to compensate. The durable materials upgrade is now incorporated into the building armor upgrade to reduce the number of upgrades needed for maxed ravens.

the changes to terran and mostly tweaks to make them more enjoyable to watch. The sweeping changes in the factory will make late late game terran mech much stronger and more dynamic. The air power of the vikings is now vulnerable to phoenix weapons but can be supported by warhounds to clear the skies. Widow mine seeders punish enemies who dont get detection and can help protect difficult to defend expansions from runbys and drops.

the zerg by far have the most extreme changes in store. Many units have been changed to be invidually mutated from lesser zerg strains. There is literally too many changes to sum up in an opening statement to lets just dive right into it. I will save the explanations til the end as the zerg tech tree is different than terran and protoss. Lets start at the hatchery.

ok. big changes. Lots of new stuff. Might be a little overwhelming so lets break it down.
Zerglings dont turn into banelings. They turn into beefier anti light Locusts with a mini leap and radius based stealth at lair tech. These new guys are base raiding terrors and will tear up light units.
The roach is now smaller cheaper and weaker. It also costs only 1 supply. Roach is now a massable lifestealing unit and it has had it's burrow move and healing removed. The roach now mutates into the Infestor once you have an infestation pit. It can also mutate into our first new unit
The Nydalisk. Think big caterpillar/centipede/zerg. Also think very slow above ground moderately fast burrow moving. It is an ambushing unit with a role sort of like current mid/late game roach. It has 2 range. It requires an expensive upgrade at the roach warren to unlock so it is now a conscious decision to tech into.
The infestor's fungal growth no longer snares units. It now slows them initially by 90% and this slow decreases over 2 seconds to 0%. also infested terran are replaced by sporelings. Same unit different look.
Hydralisk is smaller cheaper and 1 supply hydra speed is now lair tech.
there is now a new building that requires the hydralisk den called the swarm lair. The swarm host is now tied to this building and mutates from the hydralisk. Instead of spawning locusts the swarm hosts spawn mini banelings.
The Hunterkiller is a new unit the mutates from the hydralisk at hive tech. It has 4 attacks and 7 range and can be upgraded with a bonus vs armored. Its a larger more expensive spikier looking hydra/scorpion. It will be much more able to go toe to toe with other race's late game units buts costs more supply and is slower than the hydralisks. Making using these units more of a commitment.
The corruptor is also getting the cheaper weaker 1supply treatment. It now slows enemy ships stacking up to 30%. corruptors now mutate into scourgelords when greater spire is up
Scourgelord spawns scourges at a slow rate but can store up to 5 in its body. When it attacks it lauches all its scourges at long range and they try to suicide bomb their targets. Surviving scourges return to the scourge lord if there are no more targets nearby. Scourges are able to be targetted and have little hp but deal tremendous damage when they hit and move very quickly.
Viper can now deal some direct damage by stealing hp from biological units. Replaces abduct
Broodlord now mutates from mutalisks and no longer spawns broodlings on each hit but deals damage over time for 5 seconds/shot (stacks) and if a unit is killed by any source while taking damage over time it spawns 2 broodlings. This means broodlords are more effective against large groups of weaker units like marines because they will spawn more broodlings.
Ultralisk is cheaper weaker and costs 4 supply instead of 6. it no longer cleaves but gains a 4 range charge with a small area of effect knockback on non massive targets with a minimum range. Its also now has large bonus damage vs structures. Ultralisks can mutate into Omegalisks after a quick upgrade at the ultralisk cavern
Omegalisk is the last new unit. It is very similar to the current ultralisk with 1 less armor and slightly less speed but deals much more damage in an aoe with its 4 cleave attacks.
Hope that helped clear up any confusion with the stats, I know they can be a little awkward to visualize with just raw data.

Lots of stuff to discuss here. Even though the baneling is gone from tier 1 the zergling can mutate into a stronger version with an anti light modifier filling the gap nicely. Since zerg now have much more options of weaker 1 supply medium low hp units it means they can have a very large high damage efficiency army made up of roaches and hydras but they will be melted by any area effect damage you opponent brings on the field. However now instead of seeing his colossus army or siege tank line after having build a large army of roach hydra is no longer the end of the world. You can mutate your roaches into infestors or hydralisk to ambush and throw off your opponent and mutate your hydralisks into swarm hosts to siege your enemy with mini banelings. And eventually you can mutate your hydras into hunterkillers. Bigger meaner anti armor hydras in hive tech that can actually stand up a little bit fo AoE damage and dish out pain of their own. Corrupters are now cheaper and more massable and slow enemies they fight. So now their role is to hunt down and catch enemy ships and slow them so the rest of you forces can move in to take them out. Scourgelords are going to be the zerg air dominance monster. It spawns killable suicide scourges that tear apart armored targets like tempests and battlecruisers and sends them out at long range. The ultralisk is now easier to get and cheaper with a charge/knockback mechanic that could see some interesting plays with flanking attacks pushing enemy forces into your nydalisks or into range of your hunter killers. It also provides a lategame reliable wallbuster with its anti building attack bonus. The omegalisk is the late late game anti mass melee units. Its cleave is very stong and will tear apart marines, zealots and zerglings like a meat grinder.

All these changes makes the zerg army feel more like a constantly adapting and evolving swarm of smaller units en mass supported by specialized mutated strains.