Queen
- Anti-air weapon range decreased from 8 to 7.
The Queen’s increased anti-air range was introduced at a point in the game when defending both Liberators and range-upgraded Liberators were a concern in early-game. But with both map design tightening up to account for Liberators and range-upgraded Liberators receiving -1 range, now might be a good time to revert this change to more empower early-game air harassment from other races.
Our biggest concern is how instrumental large numbers of Queens typically are at dealing with Battlecruiser openers, which did not exist in the past. However, if this becomes an issue, our current thinking is that we’d prefer to address it from the Battlecruiser side than the Queen side.
That change is literally was in my Better Game Balance extension mod!
Opening up more early air play against Zerg should be really good.
High Templar
- Feedback range increased from 9 to 10.
When we ask professional-level Protoss players why they’re reluctant to go into late-game, the most common response is that the Feedback/Abduct interaction currently favors Zerg. We believe increasing Feedback range to 10 is the healthiest way to balance out this interaction, as it would allow High Templar to more effectively zone out Vipers, whose Abduct range is 9. In the past, we would have been cautious about bringing Feedback range closer to EMP Round range, but with the new Enhanced Shockwaves upgrade, we feel more comfortable making this change.
Awesome change!.
Widow Mine
- Drilling Claws upgrade no longer grants Widow Mines invisibility. Instead, the existence of an Armory will grant Widow Mines invisibility.
- The red laser attachment for Widow Mines will now communicate the existence of an Armory instead of the existence of the Drilling Claws upgrade.
Terran players often talk about feeling economically behind, especially in the TvP matchup. While we are open to making changes to Terran economy, a blanket buff is not something we’re currently looking at considering the state of TvZ, as well as planned changes for Zerg. Though TvP economy is a complicated issue, we believe the primary reasons for Terrans feeling behind in this matchup are changes made in the transition from HotS to LotV. Some key ones include changes to Chrono Boost/MULEs and Widow Mines revealing themselves after detonating, thus reducing the importance of early-game detection, which allows Protoss players to take a third earlier and more easily. With that line of thinking and TvP in mind, we’re looking to make this change for the following reasons:
- To encourage more dynamic gameplay in TvP. First, we believe Widow Mines naturally lend themselves to more multiprong tactics and drop play over their Siege Tank counterparts. In addition, because of the increased strain placed on Observer placement, we believe this change will create more openings for Terrans to drop in general.
- To put indirect economic pressure on Protoss by increasing the number of potential Terran openers and putting strain on their defenses across multiple bases. We believe this change could encourage more thoughtful positioning of Stalkers as well as force earlier Photon Cannons, both of which detract from the power of the Protoss’ primary army.
- To help ease the transition to 2-2 Infantry upgrades.
This is interesting, but doesn’t this also mean that sniping an armory will reveal the mines now?.
Baneling
- Centrifugal Hooks no longer grants Banelings +5 HP.
- Centrifugal Hooks cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100.
Similarly, Banelings originally gained +5 HP at a time when Zergs were struggling in mid game. Fast forward to today, where the most common piece of feedback we receive from both Terran and Protoss players is the strength of the Baneling in a variety of roles. Internally, we considered a variety of options to adjust either the Baneling or the units that interact with the Baneling in more targeted ways, but because the feedback that we received was that the Baneling was so generally strong, we decided to take a more generalized approach.
In initial feedback from professional players, a concern brought up was the difficulty of holding onto fourth bases against a three-base Terran bio push with this change. As the feedback surrounding Banelings centers around their strength over the course of a long game rather than an initial power spike, we’d like to try decreasing Centrifugal Hooks’ cost to mitigate this concern.
Good solid change.
Infestor
- Microbial Shroud no longer requires an upgrade.
In general, when trying to craft novel abilities, we try to tune them towards being powerful. However, with the perception of Zerg last year, we tried to be more careful. This change is one further step we’d like to take towards un-gating the power behind Microbial Shroud, and we’re open to future alterations should we see the need.
Great change.
Creep Tumor
- “Armored” tag removed.
- “Light” tag added.
This experimental change is intended to promote interactivity with creep. It targets Adepts, Oracles, and Hellions, and puts greater importance on the Zerg to defend their Creep Tumors. This is one of the changes we’re more interested in feedback for, and we’re especially curious as to how much it would impact the Creep-clearing minigame of Terran and Protoss.
Really liking this change.
Nexus
- New ability: “Battery Overcharge”
- Effect: Overcharges a target Shield Battery, increasing its shield restoration rate by 100% and causing it to regenerate 100 energy over 21 seconds.
- Cost: 75 Energy.
- Cooldown: 0 seconds.
- Range: 8.
This addition is intended to generally reinforce Protoss’ defender’s advantage and help Protoss players stabilize in PvP, both on two bases and on three bases.
The initial numbers for this ability were specifically designed with PvP and Proxy Robotics builds in mind; as a testament to the strength of this ability, a Stalker being restored by an “overcharged” Battery will often survive over seven volleys from a typical 4-Stalker, 1-Immortal poke off of Proxy Robotics, up from two when compared to a uncharged Shield Battery. This allows a defending player with two Nexuses to leverage their Nexus energy as a key resource to defend against aggressive attacks, granting them the leeway to build fewer Shield Batteries, and providing them with time to reposition their units while the opponent bounces back and forth between their main and natural.
Against typical two/three base aggression in PvP, we see this ability as a powerful form of defender’s advantage, effectively quadrupling the effectiveness of a Shield Battery, allowing it to restore 1200 shields.
However, this ability still has counterplay in the form of:
- Bursting down the targeted Shield Battery, such as with Corrosive Biles, Banelings, or simple focus fire (if it is insufficiently protected).
- Sieging the Protoss base, such as with Siege Tanks, Lurkers, or Disruptors.
- Backing off until the effects of the Battery Overcharge are over.
- EMP Round.
We view this addition as having the most impact on PvP, because options 1, 2, and 4 are generally not as valid for the current typical mid-game PvP army. At the same time, we also expect effective use of this ability especially against Zerg all-ins, typical mid game Zerg attacks, and Terran attacks when Tanks and Ghosts aren’t involved.
We’re also aware that this new ability will draw some obvious comparisons with Pylon Overcharge, but we believe there are two keys differences. First, unless you get extremely creative, you will not be able to offensively Battery Overcharge rush your opponents. Second, defending harass (especially Terran drops) will require additional commitment, both in the form of units in position to help support the Battery and the investment of building the Battery itself.
Of all the changes in this update, this is the one we’re looking for the most testing and feedback about, both regarding its effectiveness in each matchup (especially PvP), and how we should tune the numbers.
Really awesome change!.
Oracle
- Revelation energy cost decreased from 50 to 25.
- Revelation cooldown increased from 2 seconds to 10 seconds.
- Revelation duration decreased from 30 seconds to 15 seconds.
This redesign of the Revelation ability is intended to grant it improved utility for clearing Creep Tumors. There are many subtle implications with this redesign, but a key one we’ll be looking out for is how much more effective Revelation will be at detecting Widow Mines, Banshees, and Dark Templar. As a precaution, we’ve preemptively increased the cooldown of this ability to make it more difficult for a single Oracle detect multiple spread-out cloaked units.
This change also interacts directly with our proposed Widow Mine changes, and we’re hoping the net result falls in favor of the Widow Mine.
Finally, we’ll be flagging this change as another one we’re especially looking for feedback on and one we’re likely to tweak before it hits live.
This is pretty good.