I was watching Neuro react to the changes, and ironically, he took the exact opposite from that change than the developers said. He said it’ll be better in late game with spore forests, which is the opposite of what they wanted lol
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The liberator change is comical. I had a great laugh when I saw it on the test server. Absolutely hilarious. The name “liberator girth” that is flying around for the advanced ballistics upgrade is fantastic too.
On a more serious note, I think a small nerf to both ghosts and vipers would be warranted.
Edit: I just wanted to say that the liberator change completely demonstrates how many people don’t know how the area or a circle works in relationship with its radius.
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Spores most definitely needed to be changed. Late game PvZ has a dynamic where Protoss static defense is extremely valuable and zerg’s is totally useless. That creates a difference in options late game. That difference manifests in the usage of recall. After a recall, the zerg is out of position and loses a base to the protoss. The counter move is to push a protoss base and trade base for base. Zerg can’t do this because protoss has a static defense advantage.
There is another issue and it’s the power level of skytoss vs zerg. Carrier+storm trade at bonkers high efficiency, to the point of having no semblance of balance at all, and the only people to avoid this are extremely high level zergs like Dark and Serral. Outside of those two, skytoss absolute stomps zerg and it’s not even close. Buffing the spore is a good solution because it’s immune to storm already and it will make spore crawlers trade better vs carriers. Carriers will still be advantaged, and zerg will still have to provide support via infestors (microbial shroud), but it won’t be as one-sided as it is currently. The effect that this will have is that in the base-for-base trade scenario (after recall) the protoss doesn’t get the base for completely free, because it costs him mineral in interceptors to kill the spore forest. That’s how it currently works for zerg – you have to lose units to attack into the cannons, so killing a base isn’t free. But as is, the carrier can amove through a spore forest and win like it’s nothing.
Yeah it is pretty crazy. The way I would’ve done it is to make the circle an ellipse or a square so that you can tune the width and height parameters independently. The issue is that the liberator has too much forward penetration, making it very good at harassing mineral lines, and too little horizontal zone control, making it bad at controlling large areas which means terrans simply won’t enter those areas aka the terran will turtle. So to increase map diversity and to decrease turtling, I would’ve made the depth of the liberation zone less and the width wider. The problem I think the balance counsel ran into is that it’s likely the SC2 engine doesn’t support that feature. Adding that feature would be ezpz for a programmer to do – the algorithm for an ellipse or a square are well known and easy to implement. I am guessing they did this as an attempt at approximating this idea. But I suspect they will have to adjust the parameters a bit.
It depends on the timing. Upgrade scaling happens to air units but not to buildings. Spores don’t get +3 attack and +3 armor. So spores become weaker over time. All this does is give zerg slightly more stability when the protoss is low on carriers and low on upgrades. Skytoss players are able to out expand zerg because zerg’s army can’t trade evenly vs protoss even with the aid of spore forests, so zerg definitely has to hug his spore forest. This creates the effect that toss is free to expand and plant a million cannons at each base. The cannons cause a price to kill a base, in minerals as zerglings, which zerg can’t afford when behind in economy. This creates a runaway effect where protoss gets more and more money, which produces both an unstoppable offense and an unstoppable defense simultaneously. The spore buff will tilt that slightly less protoss favored.
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Search area effects like the Liberator’s targeting zone do have a rectangle width and a rectangle height field. There just aren’t any units that use them. So, your suggestion is possible to implement.
Just a thought, it may be better to tweak the Liberator’s damage to balance out the increased radius. For instance, 70 (+5 vs Massive) with +3 (+2 vs Massive) on the upgrades would prevent Liberators from 2-shotting Stalkers. That could be sufficient to balance out a larger radius. If not, the damage can be reduced further.
Another potential tweak would be to change the upgrade such that the Liberator’s range is reduced by the increase to its radius, so Liberators only gain area instead of range.
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LOLLLL skytoss stomps?
Where?
All games where i went skytoss in diamond AND masters, people properly created the counter army and beat me. Corruptors and Vikings for the flying units. And ghost and lurkers for the templar.
Idk what level you are at but it doesnt seem high seeing we see a peak at platinum where skytoss drastically falls off. (you can see this in average length of games played)
But if we are balancing according to your skillevel, Zerg will definatly overpower everything else, considering zerg is harder to grasp then other races due to its unnatural RTS playstyle.
And itll need severe buffs at the lower levels to be seen as ‘fair’ because of APM taxing wich lower level players dont do. Inject and maintain creep properly. wich lower players also dont tend to do.
Knowing when to scout and knowing when the drone. Also something lower level players ussually dont consider.
Bring me some actuall facts please instead of disguising your opinionated bias with legal mumbo jumbo words,
Wich, btw, half the time fall flat when you are fact checked.
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I did a lot of WC3 map building and modding but never any SC2. I was on to building my own games at that point. I don’t know much about how it works except what I can infer from a distance as a developer myself.
I think their reasoning is to counter balance the sensor tower nerfs with the liberator range increase. But yeah I think it will need some further adjustment. Preventing mass liberator camping is probably a smart idea so making stalkers better vs them might be necessary. My main concern though is a reactored starport mass liberator strategy vs zerg. Zerg has a very hard time getting behind the liberation zones to get at the liberator itself IF the liberator is positioned against a wall or a cliff.
That’s what it currently does. They are losing +2 range but gaining +1.25 radius so it’s a net range nerf of -0.75. This is obviously to make the liberator better at controlling zones and worse at harassing mineral lines. The issue is that it’s crazy hard to get your queens behind the liberators by doing a rotation maneuver. You can only do a charge-forward manuever, with stutter step & transfuse. This isn’t a bad thing per se but it will limit map design which means it kinda defeats the point.
Thrasher thinks they got the idea from me because at one point I was talking about making the liberator’s width greater and reducing it’s depth via making it an ellipse. The reason that would solve the queen issue is because it gives more room for rotation manuevers. So liberators would be vulnerable to side attacks, and rotation manuevers that create side attacks, if the height of the circle were less than the width. It just gives more room to maneuver queens behind the liberator when it’s tucked against a cliff.
This would still have the benefit of increasing the liberator’s zone control potential while reducing its mineral harass potential.
Yeah thats true. Im looking forward to the Energy Change. As they Said and its mainly true that shield bat Overcharge even didnt do that much on pro Level because you can wait those 14 s or you Just destroy the shield bat. Energy recharge will greatly improve storm Play but as Stated often, Ghosts are still too Strong / the committment is pretty high. Even clem agrees they need a Nerf in both matchups:
https://x. com/Clem_sc2/status/1849867494011568516
Im Kinda irritated what He means with TVP going in the right direction since TVP is t favored and will be more t favored. Yes, i know your opinion on that one. You will cite aligulac and i will cite past 20 tournies and pro Players agreeing (and Balance council also agreeing…tho they dont Act Like it. They Just say it, lol).
But it opens Up for a better Future thats true.
Initially misread the Change. I think its a good Change since they only get +100 HP and heal. Thought they get another +500 HP 
my Bad
Im still baffled how they say we Like to Nerf Camping and later Stated they buffed blue Flame because they wanted to make mech more viable. Absolutely hilarous.
Also as harstem Said If the truly wanted to Nerf Turtle they need to Adress Planetary Further. Whats worse ? Shield bat that you have to activate and is in cooldown and the Base gets defended from a smallish runby vs a literal Fortress defending itself with 1500 or Something HP with Splash that gets repaired? Its beyond me that protoss gets all the hate while terran have a built in Fortress that you cant harass or Attack unless you have truly the dps to outdamage the repair.
Blah. Address turtling? 4 supply lurkers, 4 supply tanks. Maybe even a siege mode upgrade to make it so we don’t have to give Protoss more band-aids to even out the early game. That’ll be a hard nerf to late-game ghosts since they would struggle to get there, and hold positions. It also evens out the disruptor-lurker dynamic so that you don’t have to have 12 supply to get rid of 3.
If they want to actually nerf ghosts, and the results would be causing air wars more than anything. Go with the idea batz suggested that ghosts can’t snipe air units or they do significantly less damage. For TvP they can just make EMP an upgrade. Delays bio ghost pushes, gives a bit more time for HT to shine.
No, I meant change the upgrade such that researching Ballistics does not increase range. If the radius is increased by 1.25, then the ability is reduced by 1.25 to keep it constant.
Hellions are one of the most aggressive mech units, so that isn’t a contradiction. Hellbat-mode is usually better for turtling or sustained fights.
Yeah but…doesnt blue Flame affect both? Meaning both Units got buffed therefore also the hellbat that is better in turtleing scenario. Again, they Said they wanted to Nerf Camping. And buffing 2 Units (,hellbat and liberator) that are very good in the Camping Style is Just contradictionary.
Or Like harstem and auch suggested make it dot.
Would that solve zvt? If they still do damage vs Air you would still want to build Ghosts and you would build Ghosts vs Ultras anyway ? We need to Switch to a Game where terran is building Like 10 Ghosts max and Not 30. And also it wouldnt be wise to give liberator the Task of the Ghost because liberator is a unit for Camping Style.
Finally a Front protoss cant be nerfed at
Yeah. Maybe. I fear the early Game cheeses now that super battery is gone 
Which is why the fortress had its armour reduced (and trust me, that difference is really noticable when you’re unable to hold vs lings, Zealots and marines) and sensor tower had its vision radius massively reduced; Terran really isn’t as mobile as either protoss (recall, mass recall, Warp-Gate) or Zerg (creep, Nydus) defensively, regardless of whether you’re playing mech or bio.
Yeah; hatted-supply depots always had 400 HP total IIRC, so this does change their total HP by 100, which I’m not really sure is necessary - on the other hand it definitely presents a risk/reward type of deal with decision making as well, because they’re drastically more vulnerable with the added supply, being a prime target, but the potential for using them correctly could be pretty good too.
50/50 change IMO.
Yeah, I’m not denying they need a nerf; IMO EMP is fine (Personally I’d like to see feedback buffed back to 1-1 ratio instead of EMP being nerfed, since this would mean that ghosts die at 100 energy, rather than 200, and would fix a number of issues protoss has vs Viper/infestor), but I do think that Steady targeting needs some sort of change as well. Same total damage, but maybe a part of it is as a DoT like with Transfuse.
Blue-flame affects both, but the upgrade change only affects helions specifically. Hellbats damage output remain unchanged.
Side note; you guys see the bugged mothership? It’s really strong now (and it’s genuinely pretty cool) - it’s doing 6 attacks per target instead of 4 attacks per target, so it’s doing 36 damage per target lmao.
I’d still like to see the MS given some sort of buff to (partially) negate abduct; abduct should still be able to pull it, but only half the range, maybe, to make it harder to displace, and to require more vipers to pull/kill it.
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StarCraft II upgrades have different entries for every single change. in an effect array.
Currently, Blue Flame increases Hellion damage versus light by 5, and Hellbat damage versus light by 12.
This change updates Hellion damage versus light by 9, but the Hellbat damage remains the same (+12). There are very few cases where a Terran player wants to keep their Hellions in Hellion-mode in direct combat, so this is almost strictly a harassment buff.
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Didnt realize terran was such a bs race, lol.
I always thought blue flame is blue flame and hellbats would benefit enough from blue flame since they shoot faster than hellions. I mean in hellbat mode they can be healed and have more hp so they dont also need so much bonus dmg. No wonder why i died randomly as a zerg vs that i wasnt aware.
But ok, still, buffing blueflame hellions because as quoted it would help mech playstyle is still contradictory to their overall statements of making the game less campy, since frankly speaking the amount of non campy mech is very low and even battlemech has at least the chance to get to turtle mech. this shouldnt be enforced. And you rarely go blue flame with bio.
Harstem said its not nearly enough and wants all armor gone. Dont know what his take is on that currently after he played some matches but i feel like its reasonable. But i agree would also need to look how it changed. But its basic sc2. you dont defend properly, you die.
PF is increeeedibly strong. When people complain about sb overcharge being strong and lame i dont think they ever thought about the pf ^^
rightfully so. i would even argue we should take this further and stripping off armor AND make orbital command not being able to fly (CC can still fly). Seems to be drastic, i know, but having the advantage to build your base in your own base and also lift your base or make it into a fortress that really cant be killed is kind weird. Not to mention that both things are so much stronger in NOT tvt scenarios, since marines dont really care about the a lifted OC and can blast through PF and even if they dont, tanks still outrange PF. VS toss and zerg you often see OC getting lifted (zealots and lings cant hit air) and PF being able to shut so many things down because you rarely can outdps or outrange the PF.
And at the end of the day, we can still buff / tweak things. I mean i wouldnt be as mean as they are to toss. Pretending we could tweak things but every tweak comes with another nerf every half a year 
But why should we only look at protoss turtle/protoss defense abilities?
On top pro its always about finding holes in the defense and get ahead via eco dmg or small skirmishes. Maybe its a skill issue but we mainly see protoss having the short end of the stick and so we see many no games for protoss. Because of that protoss seems so fragile and terran so robust (maybe thats why the terrans never leaves stereotype comes from; they will micro their heart out with their 2 remaining medivac drops since they actually can do much with it).
but also its cost and is salvageable. Its 2/3 (please note 50 gas less!!) of the previous cost and radius got nerfed by 34% (ofc ofc i know, area is not radius but it seems reasonable). and as harstem said its a bonkers op mechanic anyway. plus you actually also have scan available. those 2 are verrrry powerful tools.
yeah. kinda reasonable. i mean we got an indirect ht energy buff. it still doesnt feel ok that emp hits that hard but if they at least change the interaction a little it would help a lot. Kinda sad to see that in both matchups we can see regulary that archive gets built but only for archons
yeah, saw the harstem cheese video. that looked hella fun. attack priority was also buggy, or did they fix it? it attacked buildings rather than units?!
It’s not “bs”. 18 +12 vs. light is the correct amount of damage for Hellbats to fill their role as an anti-light meat-shield, given that they are short ranged and slow. The only reason why the anti-light damage even requires the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade is to prevent early Hellbat drops from being problematic; and limiting the strength of early timings is the best possible reason to have an upgrade requirement.
No, it really isn’t, because Hellions aren’t typically used for turtling. Better Hellions incentivizes players to be more active with them, which is a good change.
If a player is really turtling, they will probably just morph their Hellions into Hellbats whenever combat starts, and this change has no effect on that case.
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The task would be given to thors. That’s the approach the balance council went with. marine, tank, ghost will be susceptible to broodlord timings and it would promote edge cases like mutas. The con is that twitch chat would lose memes.
Its actually stated: " As the Blue Flame upgrade is rarely utilized as a harassment tool, this change is added to allow Hellions with Blue Flame to 2-shot workers of all races. This might also help underused mech playstyles in all matchups and promote generally more active early and midgame from the Terran players."
Meaning they want to buff mech terran (hellions as a harassment tool). Which is still a turtle style. You can then use some hellions as a harrassment tool to kill more workers → its a buff for turtle or in other words: turtle style is getting promoted.
I played tons of matches vs turtle mech terrans that harassed with blue flame hellions. Hellions. Not hellbats.
If you are regularly harassing the opponent, whether that is to pick off workers, combat units, or structures; then you are not turtling.
This is a buff to harassment, not turtling. Claiming that it is a buff to turtling makes no more sense than claiming a buff to Marines, Marauders, or Medivacs would be a buff to turtling.
The one thing doesnt really have anything to do with the other. If you sit behind a siege tank line and slowly amass an army, you can just regulary build a banshee or do a hellion runby to do damage to your opponent. Simple harassment. While you are turtleing you arent doing much, so you have plenty apm to keep your opponent busy, which is also a thing you want to do as a turtle player. distract an opponent to break your siege or find holes in your defense. its also the perfect time to expand and to turtle to the next base.
it would be same with oracle and skytoss. you can sit behind a million cannons slowly amassing carrier, but if you regulary build an oracle to harass, you wouldnt be turtleing by your definition. or do a zealot runby. same logic here. if you do a zealot runby more often than 2 times it wouldnt be turtleing anymore?
Same logic with skytoss applies here.
If we say, hey lets nerf skytoss and by that we mean lategame carrier ht mothership, then it would also be contradictionary to buff voidrays. voidrays arent viable as skytoss in lategame but guarantee a transition to skytoss. its promoting skytoss play.
Yes, the hellions in itself dont turtle BUT it can promote turtle/mech play by buffing blue flame hellions (which are like only built when you play mech anyway) so much that it feels viable to sit around build tanks and thors and do an occasional hellion runby…like they do it right now too? Because…with turtle mech you gonna float mins. What you gonna do with them? → hellions.