David Kim's Thoughts on Balance Update #8

Medivac

When we looked at various strategies and metagames throughout Wings of Liberty history, we felt that multi-directional Medivac drops were both unique and fun to watch, especially in combination with main army vs. main army plays. We aren’t seeing as much in the way of multi-pronged Medivac harass anymore, and wanted to add something fun that might help bring these Medivac tactics back to the forefront.

For this reason, we chose to give the Medivac a new speed boost ability that has a short cooldown. We want this ability to feel powerful and have a direct impact on the outcome of an engagement when it’s used. If Medivac timing issues arise in the future, we’ll probably slow it down by implementing an upgrade requirement for the speed boost, rather than nerf the strength of the ability itself.

Furthermore, we feel Terran bio compositions face many new threats in Heart of the Swarm. Constant Locust volleys from Swarm Hosts, the revamped Ultralisk, and Time Warp, in combination with splash damage, all tear through Bio units. We felt it was necessary to buff Terran infantry in the late game to account for some of these threats. As a result, we decided to change the “Caduceus Reactor” upgrade to increase the healing rate of Medivac’s by two.


Reaper

We want to encourage the use of Reapers as an early game option against Protoss. We think that in order for Reapers to be good in the TvP early game, they need enough movement speed to outrun Stalkers.

We are also hearing your feedback on how tough it is to deal with Reapers in TvT, but we’d like to really push Reapers to see their full potential before dialing back on them slightly. If Reapers need to be weaker against Marines in the future, we can reduce their bonus damage against light units.


Widow Mine

The Widow Mine wasn’t getting much mid to late game usage against Protoss, and its ability to hit cloaked units felt like a rather strange rule to have on this unit. As a result, we decided to remove this component from the Widow Mine.

In order to help Widow Mines come back into play during the later stages of the game, we gave it an upgrade to reduce burrow time. This will allow Widow Mines to be used more easily on offense when combined with either mech or bio based armies.


Thor

With units like Tempests, Brood Lords, and the revamped Void Ray, we felt that Factory units could use a more standard anti air attack. As such, we’ve given the Thor a new weapon that can be swapped with its anti-light, AoE weapon when it may be more useful for a particular situation.

Due to the weapon change mentioned above, we expect players will mass Thors more often in Heart of the Swarm. As a result, we’ve given the Thor a few more size/radius changes in order to prevent too many units from hiding behind them.


Raven

After exploring a range of options for the Raven’s Seeker Missile ability, we settled on a high-damage, single target version that will be good against large units. Brood Lords are quite powerful, Thors received buffs with this patch, Ultralisks are stronger than ever, and Colossi have always been a threat. As a result, we feel there are enough suitable targets to justify this change to Seeker Missile. Please check out this ability in game and let us know how it’s working in combination with different Terran unit compositions in Heart of the Swarm.


Hellbat

We wanted to buff Hellbats against Zealots without affecting ranged units too much. We decided to keep the Hellbat’s splash range the same, but feel the improved attack radius against melee units is a solid choice.


Armory upgrades

We wanted to encourage Terran mech play with this patch, and feel that we’re giving mech armies a huge buff by combining the Armory’s air and ground upgrades. As a side effect, these changes will also greatly benefit Terran air compositions. Initially, we want to try this change to see how it affects the game. We think it will be fun seeing Banshees and Battlecruisers become viable in the late game for Terran players.

Mothership

Vortex has received a massive nerf with this patch. We don’t really like seeing Motherships in every PvZ game because the results are always all or nothing. You Vortex perfectly and win, or Vortex fails and you lose. We feel that it’s not a good thing for a single ability to have such a huge impact on the game.

We want other units, such as the Tempest, to take the place of the Mothership when combating Brood Lord and Infestor compositions. If necessary, Tempests can be buffed against Massive units to make this possible.


Oracle

We heard your feedback that players want to harass workers with the Oracle. We also felt that Oracle’s structure attack overlapped too much with our new direction for the Void Ray. For these reasons, we decided to go with an activated attack that is good against workers, but drains the Oracle’s energy. We feel this energy-based attack will help differentiate the Oracle from other air units that are effective against worker lines. With enough energy available, it will be possible to deal a lot of damage very quickly to an unprepared opponent.


Phoenix

We decided to increase the base attack range of the Phoenix to five in order to help Protoss players deal with the Mutalisk buffs in this patch. The Anion Pulse-Crystals upgrade still increases Phoenix range by two.


Dark Shrine cost reduction

We wanted the Dark Shrine to feel like a more desirable tech option for players. By reducing the cost of the Dark Shrine, Dark Templar can be utilized in more late game scenarios.


Tempest

We felt Tempests were countering too many late game tech options, and wanted to point Tempests more toward units like Colossi and Brood Lords. These Tempest weapon changes give us the freedom to increase damage as necessary to make sure those units are dealt with appropriately in Heart of the Swarm.


Void Ray

We felt that giving players control over the Void Ray’s charge up ability will make this unit a more appealing tech choice, and incentivize opponents to back away until the charge wears off. We’ve also aimed for damage numbers that will help Void Rays beat most armored units for cost.

Hydralisk

We felt that moving the Hydralisk speed upgrade to Lair tech would help Zerg players deal with new more effectively, especially when buffs to Protoss air units, heavy Infestor nerfs, and the need for an earlier six range counter to Widow Mines are taken into consideration.


Mutalisk

We felt some of the most fun plays for Zerg came in the form of Mutalisk-based board control, and wanted to encourage more of these tactics. We’ll continue exploring other options, because we’re not completely sure the speed buff in this patch is enough.


Swarm host

We felt a buff to the Swarm Host was necessary now that both Protoss and Terran air compositions are a lot stronger. The reason we went with a health buff is to allow easier repositioning of Swarm Hosts between Locust spawns. We think this type of positional play is one of the most fun ways to use Swarm Hosts, and wanted to promote more of it.


Infestor

For Heart of the Swarm, we want to push players to mass units like Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Swarm Hosts, or Ultralisks, rather than the Infestor. As such, we’ve heavily nerfed the Infestor to make it less core to the Zerg army.


Ultralisk

We wanted to make the Ultralisk much more deadly against ground units in Heart of the Swarm, and feel the damage buff in this patch accomplishes that goal. However, if this change isn’t enough to make Ultralisks awesome in the late game, we are prepared to make additional changes.

Burrow charge was cut because we believe it’s better for the Ultralisk to be an all-around powerful ground threat, than a teleporting anti armored unit.
Viper

We made a minor tweak to Viper health in order to give it more survivability. Our next step with this caster unit is to evaluate its abilities to make sure they are powerful enough, if they aren’t already.