Balance Update - August 6, 2020

General Discussion
84

Marines are balanced as glass cannons. They have 55 health and die very quickly, particularly against splash damage. This is what balances the Marine’s high DPS.

Tougher units tend to have lower DPS relative to their supply; although other factors such as the unit’s abilities, mobility, and specialization play into that.

While you are looking at the Void Ray’s DPS in a vacuum, you are ignoring that it lasts more than 4x as long as the Marines; which end up losing potential DPS output at a much faster rate in combat because of that fact. The Void Rays is also an air unit, so there are less threats which can damage it.

Yes, Cyclones do that much damage while they are locked on.
They also have a cooldown between lock-ons which limits their sustained DPS, they require a lot of space to operate effectively, they melt very quickly against almost anything which can fight back thanks to their very low health/supply, and they scale very poorly in larger engagements because they each need to get close to lock-on and they do not have the health to survive that.
These are the factors which balance Cyclones out. If any of those factors were reduced, Cyclones would have to be nerfed accordingly.

Your suggested change increases the Void Ray’s base DPS by 19% normally and by 138% while charged.
Those Void Rays will slaughter Hydralisks rather easily, and they will definitely slaughter Queens when charged if they don’t just defeat them otherwise.

Void Rays in particular also scale up far better than most other air units because their beam attack wastes no shots and retargets immediately.

Immortals are more durable and stronger against armored ground targets in particular. They don’t scale up nearly as effectively, and they aren’t a threat to the numerous air units that Void Rays are.

Your assessment is wrong. The Void Ray’s main problems are:

  • The hefty cost (getting fixed).
  • That it is designed with a fast, relatively low burst attack (i.e. more DPS lost to armor) when it is supposed to be an anti-armor unit. The attack simply doesn’t fit the purpose.
  • That this one attack has to be balanced against both air and ground units (arguably limiting it’s effectiveness against one or the other and making it difficult to make Void Ray’s useful without becoming problematic).
  • That it has always been finnicky thanks to it’s dependence on a charge up (in WOL) or an ability to be effective against Corruptors, BCs, etc.

Not with your changes; and quite frankly you seem to be forgetting to add any splash damage to your army. Both this suggestion and your ridiculous Marine-Thor suggestion fall apart entirely if you simply build a decent comp instead of massing Void Rays on their own.

I never suggested cannon rushing was a problem.

Adepts are very weak against Banelings. They take a long time to fire, and waste shots easily. Adepts would barely be able to respond to Banelings with stellar micro even if they could two-shot them.

85

After thinking about it, I think the cost reduction and the build time reduction for voids would be enough. I don’t think there’s a need for voids to go vroom vroom.

I do think that voids are a strong untapped unit because of their cost and how hard it is to reach a strong mass of them in a game, but I can see how strong they can be if given a few small tweaks here and there. Another small late game protoss buff targeted to PvZ would be nice since watching late game PvZ is literally waiting for the protoss to get a massive golden armada and laugh at them as it dies in 10 seconds to a clump of corruptors.

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86

No, that was months ago. And we are still seeing these strats being highly succesful, eg: stats vs rogue or reynor vs trap.

They won’t be if you make banelings light.

They are ranged units that can threaten two locations at once vs melee suicide bombers…

87

Proof that Protoss can’t attack anything without hitting F2 first IMO

For reference, the majority of this feedback relates to the following:

  • The inability of clearing Creep without necessitating the presence of the entire Protoss army.
88

I’m in disbelief that the balance team actually proposed a buff to Toss macro play (or in general) that is actually genuine in trying to help. Normally, it’s something to sooth defective people. Like making fun of someone and them not getting the joke is on them kinda thing.

It almost makes me wonder if they actually realize how sizeable of a buff it might be. Or… they’ve tested it out and realize vipers still auto win games by themselves, basically.

Either way, this is the kinda stuff the game needed long ago. With no expansions coming, these are the kinda “expansion like changes” that should have been happening. Not just actually helping with balance and not being completely random, but big enough changes to actually excite at least one person on the planet. I honestly can’t believe my eyes.

I would always open up with 3 stargate pure void rays. Simply making corruptors countered it. Didn’t matter if I started making 3 stargate void rays many minutes before they even had a spire. That summed up P vs Z. You open with what is supposed to be the counter to a unit… and then they REACT with the unit that is supposed to be countered by what you’re making, and they just run you over, regardless.

Imagine how hard P vs Z is when you don’t have the “counter unit.” I just wonder if they’ve anointed anyone to take credit for my void ray builds when they become meta if changes go through. Has Wardi ever played a game with Toss? He sounds like a nice guy who may have made a void ray before, so that should be grounds enough.

I look forward to the community that never fails to cease to amaze. Who knows, maybe sOs will become the number 1 Toss player in the world, on the back of void rays in P vs T. That would be something. This game needs “something.” Something different than the past forever that has resulted in apathy for most.

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90

TvP is broken because:

  • mules were nerfed from 240-270 to only 225
  • supply depot was nerfed only because 3 rax reaper, which is now fixed to: 21 from 18…
  • chrono boost in LOTV takes 2 times amount less multi-tasking!
  • protoss would have to stop probe production at 9/10 to get his pylon in HOTS
  • rax would start at 11 supply in HOTS for Terran! While in LOTV at 15 supply meaning: 1st,2nd,3rd mule hits later in comparison to natural timing and how many workers would protoss have etc. than when it would hit in HOTS!!!
  • protoss have natural slightly faster, yet can halt your natural, than has fully saturated third, when terrans just finished and is ahead in tech and units and production and upgrades, yet pressuring you with blink, so TvP is opposite of even…
  • protoss had only 10 supply per nexus, while terran 11 in HOTS

Total garbage patch as usual…

91

We would love to have back the 10 second Chrono with 50 energy and 100% acceleration.
Blizzard removed it and gave us the current Chrono not to buff Protoss but to nerff them.
Be careful of what you ask for…you could get it.

92

We would love to have back the 10 second Chrono with 50 energy and 100% acceleration.
Blizzard removed it and gave us the current Chrono not to buff Protoss but to nerff them.
Be careful of what you ask for…you could get it.

bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla

93

Adepts are not capable of killing off packs of low-health units like Zerglings efficiently. They waste too many shots and have far too much downtime between attacks in anything but the smallest (<4 Adepts or so) engagements.

Adepts already struggle against Zerglings for this exact reason, and they will not perform any better against light Banelings (where the same exact overkill and downtime problems apply, and enemy’s damage piles up much faster).

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94

Yes they are… Why do you think zerg is forced into roaches every game vs 4 gate glaivedept?

They do not.

95

Zerglings can still beat Adepts, Roaches are simply a better option to make because they have the same range, they have better larva-efficiency, they have an easier cost to afford, they are less affected by surface area, and they are much more resilient to the Adept’s anti-light attack.

96

They can’t in large number, especially so without adrenal.

Roaches would not be made if zerg could handle 4 gate glaives with pure ling.

97

While nerfing one of the least cost effective units for Zerg :+1:

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98

You shouldn’t base yourself on Maguro’s automated cost efficiency reports to appreciate that. Those reports classify the Viper as the third or fourth less cost efficient unit in the game, right next to the SCV’s drill and the drones claws. Anyone who knows how cost efficient abducts can be would then start looking at those reports with extreme caution.

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99

Obviously those metrics aren’t accurate for spellcasters that don’t deal damage but it’s decently accurate for attacking units. There’s other things to consider besides cost efficiency for units as well, but banelings have never been cost efficient and people overrate them.

100

I have only watched a couple of patch reviews from high level players, and both of them (Harstem and beastyqt) said that the baneling change feels unnecessary and beastyqt said it was even too much of a nerf.

It’s true that pvz is in a weird spot, P is weak, but still able to fight back, and currently aligulac wr is particularly good for P so it’s not like P needs buffs and Z big nerfs.

Let’s see what will happen on the GSL finals, many people say Rogue will destroy Stats because its a zvp.

101

Indedd nerf bane no needs lets see another wall of ravager+bane against archont zealot immotals wow skill

102

Yeah, buff the dps directly. Why don’t we do this to all units that you secretly like.

103

the only problem with Rogue is that he is very cheese and aggressive vs Toss.
Rogue once said he finds it hard against Toss in the mid-game.
So you don’t see many Rogue PvZ-late.

to the Patch:
yay, PvZ cannon rush into sky toss.
cheaper void so you can build the first one earlier and then you can build more.
faster build time so that the first void can attack faster and more voids can be built in less time (wait, that fits well with the costs)
move faster. so that they reach the opponent’s base earlier and he cannot prepare for it.

casual void terror.

104

Banelings are one of the ways zerg has to leverage an economic lead into a military advantage. Basically, they are very supply efficient but quite expensive, the result is being able to pack a lot of value into supply.

Effectively, the equivalent of throwing money at the problem.

They can be very cost efficient, in the right circumstances (say like against clumped up marines), but in the majority of cases cost efficiency is not the reason to go for banes. Rather, supply efficiency and stopping power are the reason you go for banes.

Honestly, I am a believer that the viper is the best unit in the game. Not that it should be touched in any way, but I firmly believe that even when infestor broodlord was all the rage, vipers were quietly behind putting in the work.

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