Full disclosure that I don’t play melee myself, just watch games, and never wrote much higher that Platinum when I did. Anywho, my ideas;
ZERG
Hydralisk
Base attack range increased by 1, Grooved Spines research removed
Light unit tag removed Intent: make the Hydralisk more durable in frontline engagements by removing damage bonuses, and allow them to be fielded quicker
Viper
Abduct can no longer target Massive units
Consume cooldown increased to 30s (begins once casting expires), energy regained increased to 75 Intent: make the Viper less effective as a hard-counter to high-tier expensive units that can be Abducted and killed, and reduce their ability to maintain high amounts of energy in the late game
Ultralisk
Cost reduced to 250/200, HP increased to 600
Attack range increased to 2. Intent: make Ultralisks more viable as tanks for ground-focused armies, and allow them to attack targets without being blocked by Zerglings
TERRAN
SCV
Repair ratio relative to build time increased from 1:1 to 1.5:1, resource cost reduced from 25% to 20%* Intent: make frontline SCVs more viable for supporting mech-based armies. The MULE’s Repair ability is unchanged
Ghost
Supply cost increased to 3
Steady Targeting bonus against Psionic removed
EMP Round damage reduced to 75 shields and energy Intent: reduce the Terran’s ability to mass Ghosts and reduce their potency against Zerg and Protoss armies without nulling it entirely
Hellion/Hellbat
Transformation time reduced to 2.5s (down from 2.86-3.06)
Smart Servos upgrade reduces transformation time to 1.1s (down from 1.43s)
Hellbat cargo sized reduced from 4 to 2 Intent: allow unit to respond faster to enemy movements and attacks, and reduce cargo size to simplify microing Hellbats with Medivacs
Banshee
Cost reduced from 150/100 to 150/75, build time reduced from 43s to 37s
Damage bonus from upgrades increased from +1(x2) to +2(x2) Intent: make Banshee more viable overall as a frontline combat unit and not just a harassment and defense tool
Liberator
Liberation Zone radius reduced from 5 to 4
Advanced Ballistics upgrade increases Liberation Zone radius to 5 and range by 1 (down from 2)
Transformation time from Defender Mode to Fighter Mode changed to 1.93s (up from 1.46s) Intent: make Liberators less effective at controlling large areas of the map without investment into their upgrade, and harder to reposition in the late-game to allow more chances for counter-play
PROTOSS
Sentry
Guardian Shield is now a targeted ability with a range of 5, and is a channeled ability canceled if the Sentry is destroyed
Guardian Shield radius reduced to 4, duration reduced to 10s
Hallucination energy cost reduced to 50, duration reduced to 28s.
New Upgrade added to Cybernetics Core, “Solarite Matrix”, 100/100/60, increases Sentry’s energy regeneration from 0.5625 to 0.6875 Intent: make the Sentry more effective at supporting Gateway-based armies but necessitate deployment of multiple Sentries to aid pushes. Hallucination tweaks allow more frequent use but make it less effective as a scouting tool
Disruptor
Purification Nova damage reduced from 145(+55 vs shields) to 100.
Disruptor can move while using Purification Nova, but speed is reduced to 1.5 Intent: make Disruptors less effective at killing large numbers of enemy units but still effective as splash damage, in exchange make them less vulnerable
Void Ray
Shields increased to 125.
Damage bonus from weapon upgrades increased to +2(+1 vs Armored). Intent: make the Void Ray less fragile in fights and more viable in late-game engagements with weapon upgrades
Okay, so there’s a lot to process here. First thing’s first - if you’re gonna write a proposal for balance changes, this is definitely how you’d do it. Stating the intention of each change is important, as it gives clarity to why it should be implemented, even if it’s not necessarily the best changes to be doing so.
With that said, there are definitely some concerning ones here, though I appreciate the attempt at making some nerfs and buffs across all races.
Both of these together would be significant overkill ('ll explain that in a moment); as it is Zerg already has the Ravager and the Baneling that doesn’t have a tag (biological aside).
Giving +1 range innately isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I do think that the power of that extended range being on the field so quickly could potentially be problematic; there was a reason Hydra upgrades were split into 2, and it primarily had to do with Protoss dying extremely easily to early Hydra timings after they merged the upgrades temporarily. I’m not saying it can’t be done - and it’s even something I’m open to - but it’s something to consider.
The removal of the light tag, I feel, would primarily effect PvZ the most, specifically the relationship against colossus, who’s damage is already… mediocre… against anything non-light. My main concern is how quickly that Hydras can be fielded in tandem with what is effectively the removal of one of the few ways Protoss actually has to deal with Hydras currently; this arguably would make the previously mentioned Hydra timings even more potent and problematic.
Hydras are supposed to be glass-cannon units as well, their DPS output is great, but the unit isn’t supposed to be able to do everything; it’s why lings or roaches tend to front-line for the Hydra.
I’ll be honest, I actually really don’t like either of these changes, though I don’t hate the consume change outright.
My issue is primarily with the abduct change; it’s one of the few ways Zerg has to effectively deal with larger, more dangerous units like the Carrier, Thor, Colossus or Battlecruiser, by slowly whittling away at the unit count until they’re either bled dry or they’re forced to engage into you; this is important because Zerg is very limited in ways that they can effectively fight such armies as it currently is, and this is limiting them even further than they already are.
If this was a change aimed at targeting the vulnerability of the Mothership, for example, then it might have been better served to make the mothership immune to abduct - which frankly I would prefer as a change.
The consume change, as I said, I don’t hate, but I also don’t necessarily think it’s overpowered as it currently is - having said that, you might be on to something here as both feedback and EMP feel fairly impotent against vipers as a direct result of consume’s existence, so I see why you put it in, all the more given your EMP nerf further down the line.
No. Absolutely not.
Firstly this doesn’t actually solve any of the issues with the unit - it’s never been a cost problem, and it’s never had an issue absorbing damage. The unit already generates huge threat by it’s very existence on the field, and despite what many Zerg players say, it’s still extremely dangerous and must be respected.
The cost reduction is kinda meh, but again the cost was never the issue; the issue was always pathing related as the unit struggled to close onto opposing units.
This brings me to your 2nd suggestion, the attack range increase. While on paper not necessarily a bad idea, I feel that it’s a somewhat clumsy way of solving the big issue at hand; it’s been proposed before - and frankly I feel this is a much more elegant solution - that ultras should have push priority - that is to say they shove smaller units out of the way to get to the frontline.
Alternatively, allow them to walk over units (which would significantly increase the damage output of Zerg armies as ultras with Zerglings under them would have a TON of DPS given the sheer DPS of Cracklings alone)
Nope; frankly this won’t make mech more viable than it already is; all this will really do is make Planetary Fortresses more cost effective to repair and easier to keep alive as well, which isn’t really necessary.
I can get behind the supply cost increase; that’s actually a really good way of nerfing Ghosts which are, currently too strong.
I’m a little more uncertain about the steady-targeting anti-psionic change. It actually doesn’t change the damage output vs anything except the viper specifically, which will now survive getting 1-shot by it. Steady Targeting will still one-shot Infestors and High templar, and still 2-shot queens, though you almost never see it vs queens (though queens will survive with slightly more HP). The change actually feels kinda… pointless?
EMP is the big concern I have though; this is actually a sizable nerf as it now takes 3 EMPs to fully drain the energy on any caster, rather than 2, which is huge. Particularly when players have to drop 3 EMPs on a templar that’s just popped out of a warp prism, which means you have to do another EMP on a reaction that already requires a hair-trigger to pull off if you want to prevent storms from dropping on your army. It’s hard enough to do that as it currently is.
Despite EMP’s existence, the dance between templar and ghosts hasn’t really changed all that much since WoL (given the reversion to previous WoL EMP values) outside of feedback getting nerfed. I also don’t think this is necessary at all since EMP radius upgrade got removed; players have to focus EMPs on the casters first, rather than blanket EMPing the Protoss army. Given that the protoss army is significantly more durable than the Terran army, EMP is also one of the few ways that Terrans can actually even the fight.
Personally I’d like to see this restored fully with a 1:1 feedback damage rather than 2:1 (energy/damage)
While I understand the intention behind this, this is something that should be treated with extreme caution as early hellbat builds have previously been extremely devastating and incredibly difficult to hold. Granted, we’re not in HotS now and the game is quite different, but part of the reason their cargo size was increased to 4 in the first place was because of builds like fast hellbat drops.
I’m not necessarily opposed to it, but I also don’t think it’s a particularly good idea.
I have no real thought on the transformation/smart server transformation time changes. These are small changes that are honestly fairly negligible QoL buffs; not necessary, but not necessarily bad either.
Interesting idea, I’d be curious to see how it plays out. I don’t think that it will really play out the way you might expect though; more likely we’d see more instances of banshee hit-and-run squads in later games, rather than them fighting on the front-lines - they’re simply to squishy to actually be able to do that with any real effectiveness if there is any form of detection there.
Given how much advanced ballistics has already been nerfed, you might as well just remove the upgrade at this point. At the point advanced ballistics actually hits, units that can counter it should be reasonably easy to field as it is. All this is really doing is making static defense better against them, which, given that liberators can’t attack buildings, makes the unit straight up worse. This feels like it’s a direct attempt at weakening Terran’s ability to play a late-game match, in which they basically already have to turtle (and turtle hard) to win that late-game.
Liberation Zone radius being smaller by default makes the unit even easier to deal with; pretty much everyone that’s not Terran can deal with them with a stalker or queen since good positioning ultimately will prevent ground units from taking any damage from them anyway. Again, feels unnecessary.
The transformation time from ground attack to air being made longer… That one I wouldn’t mind seeing the effect of, though I suspect it all it will ultimately end up doing is reducing skill expression (in keeping the liberator alive) and make Terran players straight up ignore it since if it’s being attacked it will be dead by the time it transforms.
Interesting concept here. I assume that the intention behind the Guardian Shield change is to help prevent sentries from getting sniped, as you’re casting guardian shield at a location, rather than on the sentry itself? I wonder if that could also be used against a protoss player by having the opponent push them out of the guardian shield and have the guardian shield do damage reduction for their units, rather than the protoss? Something I’d like to see tried.
Hallucination energy cost reduction I can get behind. I don’t think that the duration needs to be reduced; hallucinations aren’t that common as it is.
The energy upgrade for Sentries is an interesting idea too; it certainly would promote more forcefield usage. I’d be okay to see this tried too, though I’d personally prefer if there was an upgrade for sentries that allowed forcefields to tank two Ravager Biles rather than breaking on the first one.
Honestly, this just seems like it would make the disruptor worse. I don’t think the damage reduction is necessary. I wouldn’t mind disruptors being allowed to move at a snail’s pace during firing though, but possibly slightly slower - 1.0 maybe; feasibly that could allow it to barely escape to safety rather than being left behind when retreat-firing.
Hard no to both of these upgrades. The unit doesn’t struggle vs armoured units currently, and all this does is make it better at killing the units it’s supposed to be countered by.
The shield buff would be okay if it was an upgrade, but as a flat buff it’s just further encouraging proxy shenanigans that we used to see (not necessarily a bad thing, but proxy void ray was one of the most difficult to defend as it was, and used to be downright busted - I don’t want to go back to that).
TLDR: Some good concepts, some not so good concepts. I appreciate the attempt as they at least appear to be reasonably thought out ideas with clear intent and direction behind them, even if I don’t necessarily agree with some of those ideas/intentions.
Thank you for the reasonable feedback Fair points all-around, several I’ve no comment on, even if you disagreed with me you made convincing arguments to the contrary. To respond to some specific points;
The removal of the light tag, I feel, would primarily effect PvZ the most
True, and given the potency of Hydra timings against Protoss as you mentioned, I can see this going. Maybe just the +1 base range?
My issue is primarily with the abduct change; it’s one of the few ways Zerg has to effectively deal with larger, more dangerous units like the Carrier, Thor, Colossus or Battlecruiser
I agree, but I feel the problem is that it’s too good a tool to deal with those units. Once a unit is abducted, 9/10 times it gets pulled in the middle of the Zerg army and is quickly shot down. IMHO it doesn’t take a lot of skill or micro to pull them either, since ofc Massive units are big and easy to see and click on.
I’d also considered a tweak that Abduct doesn’t pull Massive units directly to the Viper, but only pulls them towards it like, 5 tiles or so, but I don’t know if that’d do the job I wanted to pull off.
I’m a little more uncertain about the steady-targeting anti-psionic change.
I actually included that because, on looking at the stats, the damage bonus is pointless except vs Vipers, and given that I’d nerfed them, giving them a bit more survivability in TvZ seemed a fair trade-off.
Fair points on the EMP nerf. I feel that it is particularly too effective against Protoss, true the Protoss army is more durable than the Terran army, but an EMP or two instantly depletes half their total health pool and that durability is negated. Maybe simply reduce the shield damage to 75 while keeping the energy damage the same?
I assume that the intention behind the Guardian Shield change is to help prevent sentries from getting sniped, as you’re casting guardian shield at a location, rather than on the sentry itself?
That, plus to help it support Zealots who are going to likely run out of Guardian Shield’s range in the current state of things.
but possibly slightly slower - 1.0 maybe
I’d actually had it as 1.05 during composing the post, 33% normal, but I thought maybe it was too slow.
As for the Void Ray, I feel that in the current state of things, the Phoenix and Oracle are superior as base Stargate units; they’re significantly cheaper, faster to build, faster to move, and more effective harassment tools. Then in the late-game a player will go for Tempest and/or Carriers for their Skytoss deathball. So when and where does the Void Ray find time to be of use?
Hydralisks were problematic against Protoss back when Groove Spines and Metabolic boost were combined. Changing the base range to 6 will only cause worse issues.
Hard no. Hydralisks are supposed to be glass cannons, and this removes about 4 potential counters to them–Adepts, Hellions, Hellbats, and Colossus). If Hydralisks needed more health it would be better to buff their health directly, but they don’t need more health.
You should normally have some Roaches, Zerglings, or other units in front of your Hydralisks. Both Zerglings and Roaches units have about ~70 effective health per supply when the opponent is not using splash damage, specialized damage, or something else that affects these numbers.
I could personally get behind that, but it might require other compensatory changes to be made elsewhere. Another potential option might be to modify the ability to have a higher energy cost against massive units. This is possible, but no other ability does this.
No to all of these. Ultralisks do not have a stat or a cost problem. Their biggest drawback is that you need space to use them, so massing Ultralisks and using them in one place is usually a bad idea.
You would be better off suggesting another size decrease or push priority.
This could definitely buff Mech, but it isn’t necessary.
Out of all of these, only the supply cost increase is a good idea. Increasing the Ghost’s supply will limit the power of compositions like Ghost+Mech in TvZ, and it would push Ghosts more into a support role in TvP (rather than being a “potential” replacement for Marines.
EMP would be too ineffective against other casters if it only drained 75 energy. You are not guaranteed to be able to hit a clump of casters in one place, so it is necessary for this ability to remove more energy than its own cost.
I oppose Steady-Targeting as a mechanic, but it has anti-psionic damage for a reason. That change was intended to nerf Steady-Targeting’s damage and still be an effective counter against Vipers. The best option for Steady-Targeting would be to replace it with an ability that doesn’t scale up with the number of casters, so that it is used for support instead of encouraging mass Ghost.
Failing that, another potential option would be to change Steady-Targeting to inflict damage over time after the initial hit so that massing Ghosts is slightly less effective. For instance, it could deal 26 (+8 vs. Psionic) on impact, followed by 8 ticks of 13 (+4 vs. Psionic) in rapid succession. This is one of the changes that I have in my extension mod “Terranic’s Random Tweak Mod”, but nobody seems to be interested in it (which is fair).
As a mech player, these would definitely be nice. The Hellbat/Hellion transformation time definitely feels too long before the upgrade. The question is whether the minimum transformation time after the upgrade is too low.
No, this was very problematic in the past. Hellbats explicitly received two nerfs because of Hellbat drops:
Anti-light damage removed and locked behind the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade.
Cargo size increase so that a single Medivac cannot carry enough Hellbats to one-shot Mineral-lines before the upgrade.
Banshees don’t really have the health or range for players to want to use them as a front-line combat unit. That said, both of these would definitely make Banshees more effective in harassment and skirmishes, so it is just a question of whether or not that extra strength is “balanced”.
Three problems:
That initial radius is too low. Liberators basically work by picking a spot on the ground, and they can hit anything in that radius. It is like placing a Widow Mine at the target location, and just like with a Widow Mine, the unit will not be effective if it cannot cover enough ground after it immobilizes itself.
The transformation time is too long. Siege Tanks have a long transformation time because they cover a 13 radius circle, and the enemy may need that much time to pounce if the Terran player makes a mistake. The Liberator’s circle with your changes is 4/5, and Liberators already need to siege/unsiege in combat quite often.
The changes are significant enough that I’m not certain if the Liberator’s range uprade is worth keeping.
What if the Protoss player wants to actually move their army? Can they move this circle after placing it? If not, then this is actually a waste of energy, and it is better to just have a mobile sentry hiding in your middle or back ranks.
A counterproposal would be to give this to sentries as a second ability. Both Guardian Shield and this placed version would apply the same buff to units inside of their radius, so the effect doesn’t stack, but the Sentry is still more versatile.
That’s probably fine.
Any nerf to the Disruptor’s damage output probably requires changes elsewhere (such as a lower cooldown or a higher hit chance) to balance it out. I’m not certain that this movement will be sufficient to compensate for reducing the Disruptor’s damage that much.
I am personally a fan of changing Disruptors to deal 100%/50%/25% damage at different radii like a Siege Tank, and massively reducing the Disruptor’s cooldown, but any change will probably take a lot of time to tweak and get right.
Hard no. The Void Ray’s attack scales up way too fast to justify these kinds of buffs. Void Rays in sufficient numbers can already beat many of their intended counters (including things such as Hydralisks) as-is.
The combined upgrades made this timing very dangerous; granted the game is in a much different state, so I’m not opposed to trying it out - though it would likely need to come with a research time nerf on Muscular Augments (hydra speed) to delay the fully power of hydras coming online. Much like Terranic, I’m of the belief that this will likely cause more issues than it will solve though.
This I could get behind.
The problem with many of those units is that they’re extremely strong when massed, so being able to pick away at them is very important. For the Mothership specifically though, I could see it being simply immune to abduct (after all, it’s literally a floating city!)
I don’t necessarily think it’s needed, ultimately, since the radius upgrade being removed means it’s much harder to blanket EMP - and you need significantly more resources sunk into ghosts to be able to do it with the same effectiveness.
The other thing to consider is that most units wouldn’t even be effected by the EMP nerf outside of those same heavy hitting units.
Every gateway unit with the exception of the stalker (which would survive with 5 shields) would not have any significant impact through the change, each of them get one-tapped either way. Phoenix, oracles and observers would not be changed in any way either, each getting 1-tapped. EMP would still require a double-tap on colossus and carriers to fully strip shields like it does now, so no change there either.
Immortals, Void Rays and Tempests (not that tempests should really be in range for EMP anyway) would have 25 shields left (meaning instead of 1 it now takes 2). Void-rays wouldn’t actually change at all if you added your initial void ray change to it too.
Mothership and Archons would go from 3 EMPs to 4 EMPs to fully strip.
This probably wouldn’t change things there; zealots are a meat-shield, GS is primarily more about protecting ranged units, rather than melee units; I’m not entirely sure how the interaction between a GS that’s on location would interact with opposing units in the bubble either - being inside might negate the damage reduction from opposing units, which IIRC is what happens now (I could be mistaken on this though). If opposing units are inside, would they also get bonus damage reduction if being fired on from the outside?
Depends on the game, of course, but they have use defensively; they’re much better vs units like roaches, for example, than oracles or phoenix which tend to be for vision or air control respectively. Void-rays are a very peculiar state themselves; very difficult to balance because of the way they work in general. They’re also extremely good at hit and run in later stages of the game; sniping bases much more effectively than anything else aside from DTs.
I didn’t even know you made one! Might have to check it out sometime hah!
The problem with this is that Terran is almost entirely reliant on ghosts for their late-game, which is otherwise absolutely worthless without them currently.
As I mentioned to Drake earlier, this is a very different game now, so while it’s a dangerous change, it’s not one I’m unwilling to see trialled given how much faster things are to ramp up. However, I’m generally of the belief that, yes, this would still remain problematic.
I’d like to see this, though with a revert back to the disruptor’s earlier damage radius.
I can only think of small things, and I don’t know what kind of consequences would happen:
SCV
When given a command to move/gather/patrol/build/etc while building, they will exit the appropriate side on completion of the structure they’re working on.
Drone
When completing mutating into a structure, resource on that drone is added to the resource pool. (ie holding on to mineral or gas will add +5)
Fair points all-around, several I’ve no comment on, even if you disagreed with me you made convincing arguments to the contrary. To respond to some specific points;