My Disappointment with the Latest StarCraft II PTR Patch

General Discussion
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I’ve been away from StarCraft II for two years, and I returned to the community because I heard about the new PTR patch. However, after trying it, I’m deeply disappointed, not because of the patch itself, but due to the removal of the Mothership Core, the Tempest buff, the decline of the Carrier, and the nerfs to the Liberator and Siege Tank, which make the game feel strange. It seems Blizzard is trying to restore balance from the chaos, but I believe this patch won’t succeed in achieving that. My suggestions are as follows:

  • Nexus can research an upgrade to become a huge splash cannon, able to use abilities but unable to produce Probes.
  • Carriers can switch Interceptors to Healer Mode, healing nearby units with the same value as their damage.
  • Reduce Tempest HP to 225.
  • Keep the change of Viking cost to 125 minerals/50 gas to counter Tempest.
  • Terran would use SCVs to repair mechanical units, but the new Psionic Storm change eliminates all SCVs. The Planetary Fortress should have a new ability to repair nearby mechanical units.
  • Increase Thor and BattleCruiser movement speed to 3.15 (Due to the Psionic Storm change).
  • Make the Yamato Cannon autocast on enemy mechanical units if it can guarantee a kill (except Interceptors).
  • Buff Liberator air damage to 8 and Siege Tank splash damage to 50 (+30 vs. armored).
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mothership core has been gone for along time bud, if you played sc2 two years ago you would know this.

also all your proposed changes are terrible, carriers healing, thats a joke, nexus becoming a splash cannon, why, and what in the world are you even thinking here. scv’s cant repair cause of storm, what, is your brain damaged. increase bc movement speed cause of storm, your joking right, bcs already dont take hardly any damage from storm, why make them op. yamato autocast on mechanical units, sure cool, except it wont do nothing to zerg, so again this is pointless and low iq, basically giving terrans a handicap for forgetting to yamoto. libs air damage to 8, why there already too good against most units. seige splash ha, just say you want terran op.

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  • The long range of the Tempest destroys the opponent’s economy.
  • Protoss Tier 1 units are a little bit too weak, they need a handy defense structure other than the cannon. Also the healing carrier is the similar idea, with Carrier healing, Protoss Tier 1 units will have better survivability in the late game.
  • I know the damage of Psionic Storm has been reduced, but it’s still effective for dealing damage in narrow spaces and dropping them to harass the opponent’s base.
  • Mechanical units are slow, so they cannot avoid Psionic Storm killing SCVs while they are repairing mechanical units.
  • The video below is not in English, but all the reasons I have mentioned are in the video.

youtube - oM9vHo5pKNI?si=yA1x7RJsZcBVUVia

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all your reasons are terrible. and some one who hasnt played sc2 in over two years shouldnt be making balance suggestions.

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So I understand this may be a puzzling statement, but why do you think each of these is a good idea for a direction of change?

And ex. “new Psionic Storm change eliminates all SCVs” is a consequence of a proposed change - are there any particular consequences of what you propose that come to mind?

For example more than anything, since you weren’t making full arguments in this second bit because it’s a pain to do;

The problem you accuse the Tempest of is its anti-ground range, so why lower its vitals?

This is the reasoning that prompted the Shield Battery to be added when the Mothership Core was removed, and what also caused the addition of Battery Overcharge. Is there something wrong with the Shield Battery that makes it not ‘a handy defense structure’?

Why is this a problem?

But these mechanical units are also higher Health, and thus don’t need instant repairs?

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As you can see in the video, units like the Corruptor cannot do anything against the Tempest’s range. The new Microbial Shroud may give Hydralisks a chance, but the Tempest’s stats are almost 50% higher than they were two years ago. I didn’t think the Tempest was hard to kill two years ago, but the Tempest in this video is the hardest unit I’ve ever seen to take down. Also, for Terran, the only counter to the Tempest is the Viking. That’s why I suggested keeping its cost at 125/50, but perhaps adjusting balance by removing the bonus tag on its ground attack or reducing its HP by 10, which would equal the version before LotV.

Not exactly, the Shield Battery is useful, but it’s not always reliable as a standalone defensive structure. Its effectiveness depends on proper positioning and sufficient energy, and it doesn’t directly deal damage like a cannon or other structures, so in some situations it can’t fully compensate for the weakness of Tier 1 Protoss units. Furthermore, Zerg defensive structures can be healed by the Queen, makes Zerg defenses currently more effective than Protoss and also sustain production speed. Well, that is, before they see the Tempest.

I didn’t say this is a problem. in fact, it’s a good change to distinguish the Storm from other AoE units. But the change of larger area is a little bit too good against defensive structure and unit like Thor and BattleCruiser.

Sorry, I means something like this, not an instant heal.
youtube(youtu.be) - 24FFEqpLSk8?t=123

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Macro automation is a design trend in newer RTS titles to streamline gameplay, make the RTS genre more approachable and focusing on decisions over rote clicking. Carrier healing and Yamato Cannon autocast are smart-cast features that fit modern RTS mechanics. If Blizzard hadn’t abandoned RTS, they should have used the PTR opportunity to optimize controls or streamline macro mechanics.

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no, you aint streamlineing anything your just making really really bad suggestions, to the point where your now a joke.

here ill even give you reasoning why your now a joke.

carriers that heal: lets build ten carriers, set five to heal and the other five to attack mode, guess what, you can now a move more then ever across the map and insta win, cause the five carriers attacking are immortal, while the healing ones sit back out of battle. All protoss would need to do every game is build carriers, which is pretty easy to do.

auto yamoto: why this is absurdly bad, one: your handicapping terrans who cant control there units, rewarding low level players for their incompetance. 2. your screwing players who do know how to yamoto right. for example a terran warps bcs into anothers base, the other terran has 10 thors sitting ther tanks and hellions. the hellions die to easilly to bc lasers so no need to yamato them right, guess what auto yamoto just wasted all your yamotos on one hellion, while the big boy thors and tanks sit there and laugh in your face. obviously the yamoto on autocast will target the very first mechanical unit closest to it causing every bc to fire upon a single unit. If you cant see this as a completely bad suggestion by now, then lets talk about the final nail in the coffin with this one, ZERG. Wheres the mechanical units in that race… let me let you in on a secret, there is none, zergs all bio, so now the terran who has relied on the auto yamato will have to go back to manually casting, making the auto cast totally useless against a whole entire race.

again, your now a joke for even suggesting this kinda bs, as well as the rest of your totally absurd changes.

and with that, i gotta ask, DO YOU EVEN PLAY THIS GAME? anyone who actually does play it is gonna tell you the same thing, there bad ideas all around. The second question i gotta ask is, IF YOU DO PLAY THIS GAME WHAT LEVEL ARE YOU? cause if you do, and your making suggestions like this, you gotta be some low level bronze league dude.

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There are few unit that can kill incepter easily, 1. marine, 2.hydralisk, 3. Librator (it would be better if its air damage raise to at least 7, I have tested it before); How about Protoss? Tempest are the hard counter of carrier. Therefore, I said, ‘the decline of the Carrier’ means that in the current environment, if your opponent has this unit, you will likely waste 350/250 resources.

Auto-Yamato as a toggleable option allows players to use it for clearing weak mechanical units while retaining manual casting for precise shots. If Yamato cannon rework into an AoE spell, launched in a targeted direction with straight-line damage, I would keep BC stats as is. Althrough, it would be too effective against Zerg.

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1. Not only is the video is in chinese, therefore, I have no idea what it is on about, I did not find it particularly watchable due to its editing, nor is it informative.

2. Having, despite that, watched this whole video, it did not demonstrate, to me, the assertion that the Tempest’s range is some problematic interaction. It shows a Protoss who knows how to use their units?

seriously

A major part of this? The Tempests are pretty mediocre for a long time after their initial snipe, which happens not because the Corruptors are weak, but because there is twice as many resources of Tempest than Corruptor and the Tempests still are recalled out, one nearly dying. At 12:30 and 14:40, Corruptors are zoned… by Storm and Archons. Woah, a unit gets countered. Like how the Ultralisks are functionally immune to the Storm. At 15:25, the Corruptors have no trouble swooping in from below where the Archons can’t reach, and just snapping down a Tempest? like. actually.
At 15:45, 16:45, 17:50, 18:25, 18:45, when the Corruptors actually just go in, they have no problem just slaughtering all the capital ships in that fight. They do end the fight rather damaged … and it’s because they sat in storm or archon range to do it. The Tempests are immaterial: This video demonstrates that High Templar and Archons counter Corruptor balls.
The ending fight at 19:15 being sped up makes it nearly impossible to tell what’s going on due to the compression, but there are seven corruptors, four ultralisks, a no-energy viper, four lurkers; against four stalkers, a templar, three archons, an immortal, four tempests, and a mothership.

To be blunt, it overall demonstrated to me the exact opposite of what your argument is. It showed me a Protoss who leveraged the synergy of their units and prevented the Zerg from splitting them apart?

3. I am only particularly interested in your own opinions and feelings; and a video is a cop out. This video has no argument and as evidence I find it demonstrates the exact opposite of your point.

The Tempest’s stats have been basically unchanged:
August 2020: Addition of anti-structure upgrade.
September 2023: Acceleration 2.1 → 4.2, model and radius reduced by 10%.
November 2024: Supply cost 5 → 4, Air range 14 → 13.

So bzzzzt. Don’t lie like this. Yes the acceleration change is very important for how the unit handles and makes it significantly stronger because it can hit-and-run reasonably.

Cyclones do exist and work great at smaller counts. It doesn’t scale up too well, certainly. Thors also actually work quite well because they can compete with their range, have high base and significant bonus damage, and are able to take hits from the ship! Finally, the Marine actually works against the Tempest very well, due to how the Tempest shoots single big shots.

Yes, Thors die to Immortals and Marines and Vikings die to Storm/Archon. But look, that’s the same situation as with the Corruptors. Two armies made up of units that counter units in the other army working together to make a synergetic composition.

Yes. That’s because it preserves units, which can then go and attack if the defense is held, which ought to leave the base vulnerable.

Think of the Shield Battery like the Bunker. You pay money to preserve your units. It makes up for not being able to solo-counter units very well by letting you form a counter-offensive with what you do have.

If the Queen is healing units, the Queen is not injecting larva. Yes, I’m aware people build multiple Queens, but that means they, once again, paid specifically extra money to get that feature. This is nice and parallel? Chrono Boost lets you have more units while Energy Recharge on a battery lets you have more healing and both cost energy.

I fundamentally disagree that the larger area by itself is a problem for these units.

The combination of larger area and potential damage is, though. I think it’s extremely awful.

I also do not mean a burst heal effect, I mean “you do not need to immediately pull workers to start performing repairs”, ie. It’s okay for the 400 HP Thor to take 200 damage before you repair it, because that will take an amount of time, unlike dealing 50 damage to the 55 HP Marine.

Carriers don’t heal. That’s not part of their function.

Yamato, due to disabling the BC’s weapons, may frequently not be what you want it to be doing. It’s not a great choice for an auto-cast ability, because if it’s properly intelligent then it makes the unit start getting close to its maximum level of effectiveness without taking player attention, and that’s an essential part of how this game’s unit interactions have ended up being shaped; that you cannot be in all places.

Also I am, again asking:

Genuinely, why. Not to trap, not for nonsense, but curiousity on your logic.

but perhaps adjusting balance by removing the bonus tag on its ground attack or reducing its HP by 10, which would equal the version before LotV.

This is a change that has half of a why. Lower cost coupled with a stat drop. But why is this counter nerf the one you think is appropriate?

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There are few unit that can kill incepter easily, 1. marine, 2.hydralisk, 3. Librator (it would be better if its air damage raise to at least 7, I have tested it before); How about Protoss? Tempest are the hard counter of carrier. Therefore, I said, ‘the decline of the Carrier’ means that in the current environment, if your opponent has this unit, you will likely waste 350/250 resources.
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those healing carriers with the range the interceptor has dont need to be in battle, while the other half of attacking carriers are outside of battle and only there interceptors are battling, do you not even know how carriers work? do you not see how this would be a major problem.

why in the world would you want to auto cast yamoto on low end easy to kill units, yamato is meant for big units for heavy damage. secondly making it a aoe spell, why? to make bc more op. are you brain damaged. and how would autocast on zerg be effective at all, zerg again is not mechanical, not a single unit is mechanical. the auto cast would never work on zerg period.

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Photon Overcharge was already tried and removed. I don’t think it is a good idea to bring it back.

Protoss also has a mix of defensive Warp Ins, Photon Cannons, Recall, and Shield Batteries to bolster their defenses, so I don’t think they need something like this.

I do have an unpublished mod (publishing is still disabled) where overcharged Pylons (not Warp Prisms) grant Protoss units increased shield regen, energy regeneration, and attack speed (if they aren’t Photon Cannons); but that is part of a package where the base shield regeneration of Protoss units is nerfed by the same amount. Protoss requires an upgrade to get their full shield regeneration back.

Adventurer has proposed giving Protoss a set & forget defensive unit equivalent to the Tank or Lurkers; and that would probably be fine as well.

While I am not opposed to Protoss healing, I think it is a very bad idea to give it to one of their better late-game combat units.

Assuming you mean total shields & hp, that is a fairly substantial nerf. I am not certain it is warranted.

No. Vikings are fine in TvT and TvP, and their main problem in TvZ is Parasitic Bomb. The game would be better off if the counter was somewhat weakened.

No, Terran doesn’t need that. Personally, I would rather the current storm suggestion not go through.

Battlecruisers don’t need a speed increase; however, I don’t think increasing the Thor’s movement speed by a bit would be a problem. I would stop it at 2.8.

This is a bad idea for multiple reasons:

  1. Battlecruisers in particular don’t need this kind of ease-of-use change. There are other units that “could” be made easier to use, but I don’t think Battlecruisers belong on that list.
  2. This auto-cast is useless against Zerg.
  3. There is a very high chance that the auto-cast would be wasted on cheaper mechanical units such as Hellions, Hellbats, Stalkers, or Widow Mines.
  4. “Guaranteed kill” is a very bad metric to use because it leads to #3. You would be better off restricting the auto-cast to units “above a certain health” or maybe also casters. Regardless of how you do it, you will miss some cases where Yamato Cannons are worth it.

I primarily play Terran mech, and I have a bias towards making mech viable in all match-ups. However, neither of these units need this:

  • The Liberator change is quite insane unless you accompany it with a substantial nerf (such as splitting the splash radius to deal reduced damage to units further away from the target point).
  • Siege Tank already have the right amount of health and damage. I don’t believe that they need any changes, whether buffs or nerfs. I would rather see changes to Hellions/Hellbats or some of mech’s counters over buffing Siege Tanks.
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This can be fixed by preventing healing mode interceptors from healing the Carrier or other interceptors.

Before Legacy of the Void (LotV), the Viking was a hard counter to nearly all air units except the Void ray and Carrier. I believe the stats of air units before LotV were better balanced than in LotV. Of course, I agree with the Tempest buff, but considering the PTR changes to Protoss and Zerg, I think Terran air units are somewhat weak.

Then please swap the Yamato Cannon with the PTR Storm, and you’ll see how weak the High Templar would be wielding the Yamato Cannon in combat, while the Battlecruiser would become incredibly strong with the PTR Storm.

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No. They don’t need even better defense than they already have between recall, batteries, warpgate and recharge.

Absolutely not.

Ironically, Tempest is the one unit that vikings actually do okay against. This isn’t the problem with vikings in the first place, the problem is that they’re absurdly frail and fail to counter literally everything else they’re supposed to counter, because they have no base armour.

This is, frankly, a really stupid idea for so, so many reasons.

No. BCs and thors both should be slow units because of how Tanky they actually are. They should have some weaknesses, and this is completely unnecessary.

No. Removing skill from a unit that already has a very limited skill ceiling is something that doesn’t need to happen.

Again, why? Liberator AA I can kinda see, but it’s so easy for this unit to become a problem again vs Air given that it does splash damage.

And the siege tank is already an incredible unit as it currently is and doesn’t need changes. There’s literally no reason to make this change.

All your suggestions are bad for so, so many reasons, and you should feel bad - these changes haven’t been thought through even in the slightest.

???

It hasn’t, it’s been buffed to 130. It just ticks slightly slower, but in compensation it does more damage and has a much larger radius.

Which is fine. That’s a skill that needs to be learned, in a skill based game.

Nor does a bunker. Not ever defensive structure needs to be damaging.

Different races are different. This is fine, and not a problem. What you’re suggesting is eliminating any (already limited) weakness to Protoss’ early game. Your suggestion is still bad, and still hasn’t been thought through.

The corruptor is literally a high HP, fast moving anti-massive unit. It’s the definition of the counter unit to tempests. The problem isn’t tempests, it’s archons doing bonus to bio, and the fact that corruptors need to dive on tempests, and subsequently archons, to kill them in the majority of cases.

Except in practice this is literally never the case unless the opponent is really, really bad.

The BC has a host of problems, and frankly Yamato is only one of them. Making it auto-fire makes it even easier to use, and this does nothing to fix any of the issues that it has.

I’m sorry, no. Vikings have literally always been terrible air units. Prior to LotV though, they were also Terran’s only real AA starport unit.

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Terrible ragebait post, 0/10, go back to the drawing board

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