My opinion as long time 1v1 player, OVERALL: Wow! Crazy changes, some good, some bad or way too far... Overall glad to see some improvements on Terran!
To accompany the deployment of Heart of the Swarm Beta patch 2.0.2, we’ve compiled a list of all of the balance changes made to the beta since our previous update.
Terran
• Medivac
• New ability: Emergency Thrusters
• Speed boost that increases movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. 20 second cooldown.
C: Great change, needed to buff Medivacs a bit after their previous nerf, thanks!
• The Medivac’s Caduceus Reactor upgrade at the Starport Tech Lab:
• Health restored per second from 9 to 15.
• Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy.
• Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.
C: I am not sure - won't this bring too strong healing? For such healing T needs some massive bio unit. And we will see how this will help late game TvP TvZ
• Reaper
• Base speed increased from 2.95 to 3.375
• Upgraded speed increased from 3.84 to 4.25.
C: I think undeeded, should've kept like that.
• Widow Mine
• No longer hits cloaked units.
• New upgrade: Drilling Claws
• Decreases burrow time from 3 to 1 second.
• Requires Tech Lab and Armory. Costs 150/150, 110 second research time.
C: That would make the Widow Mine strong with such a short burrow time. Or is it the upgrade that decreases burrow time, then great.
• Thor
• 250mm Strike Cannons has been removed.
• The Thor can now switch between two modes: High-Impact Payload and Explosive Payload. The mode shift takes 4 seconds.
• When in High-Impact Payload mode, the Thor switches to a different anti-air gun (250mm Punisher Cannons) that has 10 range and deals 24 flat damage.
• Thor radius, inner radius, and separation radius increased from 0.8215 to 1.
C: I still prefer the idea of a new terran unit such as Rocket Launcher Vehicle. But the high range Thor, maybe great vs Tempests!
• Raven
• Seeker Missile has been redesigned:
• Can now fire from 10 range.
• Missile comes out and stays immobile in front of the Raven for 3 seconds while charging up, then rapidly moves (it’s not dodgeable at this point) and explodes at the target for 300 single target damage.
• Targeted unit lights up red when targeted. If the unit moves 13 range out of where the Seeker Missile is, the Missile fizzles.
C: looks interesting, let's see
• Hellbat
• Splash damage radius increased from 90 to 110.
C: A fair increase and excellent choice!
• Armory
• The Armory now only has one weapon and one armor upgrade for both air and ground upgrades for both Factory and Starport units.
C: This is one of the changes I think is crazy! Since BW they require different upgrade o_O I do not agree even though it may be easier for us Terrans
Protoss
C: Fair changes for Mothership, Mothership Core, Oracle
• Tempest
• Now requires Fleet Beacon.
• Attacks with two weapons. The primary weapon, Kinetic Overload, hits air units and remains unchanged. The secondary weapon, Resonance Coil, hits ground units, and does not deal bonus damage to massive units.
• Build time is now 60, down from 75.
C: Perfect change for such a unit
• Void Ray
• Prismatic Beam:
• No longer charges up.
• Weapon period decreased from 0.6 to 0.5.
• No longer does passive +massive damage.
• Prismatic Alignment (new ability) increases damage to armored units by 6 for 20 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown. This does not scale with upgrades.
C: Looks fair and good
Zerg
• Hydralisk speed upgrade now requires Lair tech.
• Mutalisk
• Speed increased from 3.75 to 4. Acceleration stays at 3.5.
C: Good!
• Swarm Host health increased from 120 to 160.
• Infestor
• Fungal Growth:
• Is now a projectile.
• Speed of the projectile is 10.
• Range down to 8.
C: PERFECT! Finally projectile fungal! Now this is a great change!
• Infested Terrans no longer gain weapon and armor upgrades.
• Infested Terran egg health down to 70.
C: There was no need to nerf them, they are quite fine unlike locusts..
• Ultralisk
• Burrow Charge has been removed.
• Damage changed from 15+20 armored to 35 flat damage.
C: I never saw how strong burrow charge is, but good.
• Viper health increased from 120 to 150.
C: Neutral, overall good but I think you should have buffed some Z units like hydralisk while nerfing the Locusts... too many in number. But ofc after the T buffs I cannot say how they will be.
I'll be honest, and I've played Starcraft II since WoL beta: I didn't like this patch, not one bit.
Apart from the Zerg, which it seems they're putting efforts in truly balancing it, Blizzard has been making those ridiculous changes to Terran and Protoss. But now I'll talk a bit about the Zerg, before clamping down on Terran, then Protoss.
ZERG: Overall, decent. Still, I'd believe Ultralisks would be more useful if they had just more than 40 damage. Still 35 flat seems promising, especially when using Ultras as meat shields for countering balls. The removal of their Burrow Charge either proves this ability was abused or wasn't being used at all. Simple as that.
TERRAN: Now, here's where the imbecilities begin. I'll start with the Medivac boost. This requires memory, as people remembered the Anti-Air abuses done with the Valkyries in Brood War beta. It's about the same here, by adding extra speed to Terrans decent enough to perform drops and harass players, especially Protoss. Then, the Medivacs Reactor, which promises insta-heal once finished? Man, countering this with expensive prices isn't a COUNTER at all, the health should be from 9 to 12. Because it's a slight and seemingly too small change, but it's things like these who make a game worth playing without Terran sounding too OP.
The Hellbat, this sorry excuse for a name I'll never accept, trying to mix Hellion and Firebat (Or Vulture and Firebat, I don't care.), is your new favorite anti-Zergling hard counter worthy of EA's C&C design, something you should NEVER see in a game like Starcraft! Same thing for the Mine's fast burrow upgrade. Thor's new, super-explosive mode isn't this much impressive, more like a mini-flak cannon which doesn't deliver splash or anti-armored bonuses AT ALL and Raven's seeker is now the alternative Yamato, but there's no Battlecruiser expense!
And finally, making the Armory a Forge, betraying the designs dating from the FIRST STARCRAFT!? WTF?
PROTOSS: Finally, there'll be the saying in HotS: "If you play Protoss, you sure like to lose, huh?". Because it doesn't make any sense the changes done to the Void Ray and the Oracle at all! The Oracle, from a support unit, now becomes this raider/scout in par with the Phoenix, with the ability to attack only ground light units, much like the Banshee does, the Tempest fires a ridiculous red ball, and the Mothership loses the only thing that made the Mothership useful: It's Vortex, which now doesn't counter ANY army at all, only sucks and kills ONE unit and won't counter Massives anymore. IMO, Mothership should've been left as it was. Same for Tempest.
For Void Rays, if they wanted variation, they could've added an ability that'd make the Void Ray hit three targets at the same time, but at 1/3 of it's original damage. No, not Mutalisk-esque, but three separate rays, each hitting one target.
For Oracle, I'd keep the vision thing, and add a stronger shield or a Corsair's Disruptor Ray that's more short-lived. If the Oracle's a support spellcaster, please let it REMAIN as a support spellcaster. Period.
Serious, someone should talk to Blizzard about balance. But someone who REALLY KNOWS about balance, not any fan-boy who keeps complaining "I'm losing, I'm losing, please make my fave unit badass, pllllleeeeeaaaasssseeeeee!".
Some decent explanations. I don't agree with all of em, but it's good to see they're doing something to change up the game. I would rather this than HOTS 2 weeks ago.
Yeah I feel blizzard is walking over dangerous terrain right now with HoTS balance and ideas. They're showing everyone they simply don't know what to do with the new units, hell they don't even know how to make old units more useful, or are using the new units as an excuse to change the old ones an possibly screw them.
Some of the new units are trying to be BW units while not bringing those back. The Hellbat is a joke, anyone can see it was supposed to be the Firebat, but a transformer car that becomes BIOLOGICAL only so it can be healed? They said they wanted a tanky unit from the factory, then you make the most fragile unit a tank? What about making tanks real tanks or making Thors worth the money?
The Seeker missile change was a stupid balance move, nobody asked for it to become a single-target ability. Players wanted it to have longer range and/or smaller energy cost. Now we have 2 units with Yamato and none of the 2 are worth building.
The Medivac boost is insane, maybe it will force air counters to kill them, because every Terran will bring them along after this patch, even more than they did before (and I mainy play Terran).
Widow Mines are not good enough to make an "army", but still too useful as a real mine. And we can see that clearly from how people want to use them. Widow Mine rush? harass? COME ON that thing is supposed to be used for territory control, protect your flanks and mineral lines, not rushes! Terran has Reapers, Banshees and Hellions for harass already. It only tells us how wrong the unit design is. And still people say "widow mines aren't good late game" or "there's no use for Widow Mines in my army late game" and things like that.
And one more thing: Why all new units come full of spells now right from the start? Back in BW all spellcasters had to research an ability or 2. Now Blizzard balances spellcasters solely by their tier. Some people are complaining about the Viper's abilities, why not make those need a reasearch at the Greater Spire? Simply moving the unit up and down the tech tree is stupid.
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http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6084488485
My opinion as long time 1v1 player, OVERALL: Wow! Crazy changes, some good, some bad or way too far... Overall glad to see some improvements on Terran!
To accompany the deployment of Heart of the Swarm Beta patch 2.0.2, we’ve compiled a list of all of the balance changes made to the beta since our previous update.
Terran
• Medivac
• New ability: Emergency Thrusters
• Speed boost that increases movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. 20 second cooldown.
C: Great change, needed to buff Medivacs a bit after their previous nerf, thanks!
• The Medivac’s Caduceus Reactor upgrade at the Starport Tech Lab:
• Health restored per second from 9 to 15.
• Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy.
• Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.
C: I am not sure - won't this bring too strong healing? For such healing T needs some massive bio unit. And we will see how this will help late game TvP TvZ
• Reaper
• Base speed increased from 2.95 to 3.375
• Upgraded speed increased from 3.84 to 4.25.
C: I think undeeded, should've kept like that.
• Widow Mine
• No longer hits cloaked units.
• New upgrade: Drilling Claws
• Decreases burrow time from 3 to 1 second.
• Requires Tech Lab and Armory. Costs 150/150, 110 second research time.
C: That would make the Widow Mine strong with such a short burrow time. Or is it the upgrade that decreases burrow time, then great.
• Thor
• 250mm Strike Cannons has been removed.
• The Thor can now switch between two modes: High-Impact Payload and Explosive Payload. The mode shift takes 4 seconds.
• When in High-Impact Payload mode, the Thor switches to a different anti-air gun (250mm Punisher Cannons) that has 10 range and deals 24 flat damage.
• Thor radius, inner radius, and separation radius increased from 0.8215 to 1.
C: I still prefer the idea of a new terran unit such as Rocket Launcher Vehicle. But the high range Thor, maybe great vs Tempests!
• Raven
• Seeker Missile has been redesigned:
• Can now fire from 10 range.
• Missile comes out and stays immobile in front of the Raven for 3 seconds while charging up, then rapidly moves (it’s not dodgeable at this point) and explodes at the target for 300 single target damage.
• Targeted unit lights up red when targeted. If the unit moves 13 range out of where the Seeker Missile is, the Missile fizzles.
C: looks interesting, let's see
• Hellbat
• Splash damage radius increased from 90 to 110.
C: A fair increase and excellent choice!
• Armory
• The Armory now only has one weapon and one armor upgrade for both air and ground upgrades for both Factory and Starport units.
C: This is one of the changes I think is crazy! Since BW they require different upgrade o_O I do not agree even though it may be easier for us Terrans
Protoss
C: Fair changes for Mothership, Mothership Core, Oracle
• Tempest
• Now requires Fleet Beacon.
• Attacks with two weapons. The primary weapon, Kinetic Overload, hits air units and remains unchanged. The secondary weapon, Resonance Coil, hits ground units, and does not deal bonus damage to massive units.
• Build time is now 60, down from 75.
C: Perfect change for such a unit
• Void Ray
• Prismatic Beam:
• No longer charges up.
• Weapon period decreased from 0.6 to 0.5.
• No longer does passive +massive damage.
• Prismatic Alignment (new ability) increases damage to armored units by 6 for 20 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown. This does not scale with upgrades.
C: Looks fair and good
Zerg
• Hydralisk speed upgrade now requires Lair tech.
• Mutalisk
• Speed increased from 3.75 to 4. Acceleration stays at 3.5.
C: Good!
• Swarm Host health increased from 120 to 160.
• Infestor
• Fungal Growth:
• Is now a projectile.
• Speed of the projectile is 10.
• Range down to 8.
C: PERFECT! Finally projectile fungal! Now this is a great change!
• Infested Terrans no longer gain weapon and armor upgrades.
• Infested Terran egg health down to 70.
C: There was no need to nerf them, they are quite fine unlike locusts..
• Ultralisk
• Burrow Charge has been removed.
• Damage changed from 15+20 armored to 35 flat damage.
C: I never saw how strong burrow charge is, but good.
• Viper health increased from 120 to 150.
C: Neutral, overall good but I think you should have buffed some Z units like hydralisk while nerfing the Locusts... too many in number. But ofc after the T buffs I cannot say how they will be.
@Eimtr: Go
I'll be honest, and I've played Starcraft II since WoL beta: I didn't like this patch, not one bit.
Apart from the Zerg, which it seems they're putting efforts in truly balancing it, Blizzard has been making those ridiculous changes to Terran and Protoss. But now I'll talk a bit about the Zerg, before clamping down on Terran, then Protoss.
ZERG: Overall, decent. Still, I'd believe Ultralisks would be more useful if they had just more than 40 damage. Still 35 flat seems promising, especially when using Ultras as meat shields for countering balls. The removal of their Burrow Charge either proves this ability was abused or wasn't being used at all. Simple as that.
TERRAN: Now, here's where the imbecilities begin. I'll start with the Medivac boost. This requires memory, as people remembered the Anti-Air abuses done with the Valkyries in Brood War beta. It's about the same here, by adding extra speed to Terrans decent enough to perform drops and harass players, especially Protoss. Then, the Medivacs Reactor, which promises insta-heal once finished? Man, countering this with expensive prices isn't a COUNTER at all, the health should be from 9 to 12. Because it's a slight and seemingly too small change, but it's things like these who make a game worth playing without Terran sounding too OP.
The Hellbat, this sorry excuse for a name I'll never accept, trying to mix Hellion and Firebat (Or Vulture and Firebat, I don't care.), is your new favorite anti-Zergling hard counter worthy of EA's C&C design, something you should NEVER see in a game like Starcraft! Same thing for the Mine's fast burrow upgrade. Thor's new, super-explosive mode isn't this much impressive, more like a mini-flak cannon which doesn't deliver splash or anti-armored bonuses AT ALL and Raven's seeker is now the alternative Yamato, but there's no Battlecruiser expense!
And finally, making the Armory a Forge, betraying the designs dating from the FIRST STARCRAFT!? WTF?
PROTOSS: Finally, there'll be the saying in HotS: "If you play Protoss, you sure like to lose, huh?". Because it doesn't make any sense the changes done to the Void Ray and the Oracle at all! The Oracle, from a support unit, now becomes this raider/scout in par with the Phoenix, with the ability to attack only ground light units, much like the Banshee does, the Tempest fires a ridiculous red ball, and the Mothership loses the only thing that made the Mothership useful: It's Vortex, which now doesn't counter ANY army at all, only sucks and kills ONE unit and won't counter Massives anymore. IMO, Mothership should've been left as it was. Same for Tempest.
For Void Rays, if they wanted variation, they could've added an ability that'd make the Void Ray hit three targets at the same time, but at 1/3 of it's original damage. No, not Mutalisk-esque, but three separate rays, each hitting one target.
For Oracle, I'd keep the vision thing, and add a stronger shield or a Corsair's Disruptor Ray that's more short-lived. If the Oracle's a support spellcaster, please let it REMAIN as a support spellcaster. Period.
Serious, someone should talk to Blizzard about balance. But someone who REALLY KNOWS about balance, not any fan-boy who keeps complaining "I'm losing, I'm losing, please make my fave unit badass, pllllleeeeeaaaasssseeeeee!".
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Some decent explanations. I don't agree with all of em, but it's good to see they're doing something to change up the game. I would rather this than HOTS 2 weeks ago.
Yeah I feel blizzard is walking over dangerous terrain right now with HoTS balance and ideas. They're showing everyone they simply don't know what to do with the new units, hell they don't even know how to make old units more useful, or are using the new units as an excuse to change the old ones an possibly screw them.
Some of the new units are trying to be BW units while not bringing those back. The Hellbat is a joke, anyone can see it was supposed to be the Firebat, but a transformer car that becomes BIOLOGICAL only so it can be healed? They said they wanted a tanky unit from the factory, then you make the most fragile unit a tank? What about making tanks real tanks or making Thors worth the money?
The Seeker missile change was a stupid balance move, nobody asked for it to become a single-target ability. Players wanted it to have longer range and/or smaller energy cost. Now we have 2 units with Yamato and none of the 2 are worth building.
The Medivac boost is insane, maybe it will force air counters to kill them, because every Terran will bring them along after this patch, even more than they did before (and I mainy play Terran).
Widow Mines are not good enough to make an "army", but still too useful as a real mine. And we can see that clearly from how people want to use them. Widow Mine rush? harass? COME ON that thing is supposed to be used for territory control, protect your flanks and mineral lines, not rushes! Terran has Reapers, Banshees and Hellions for harass already. It only tells us how wrong the unit design is. And still people say "widow mines aren't good late game" or "there's no use for Widow Mines in my army late game" and things like that.
And one more thing: Why all new units come full of spells now right from the start? Back in BW all spellcasters had to research an ability or 2. Now Blizzard balances spellcasters solely by their tier. Some people are complaining about the Viper's abilities, why not make those need a reasearch at the Greater Spire? Simply moving the unit up and down the tech tree is stupid.