Praised be the names of the balance council!

General Discussion
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Shield Battery Overcharge ability removed.
New ability added: Energy Overcharge. Energy Overcharge costs 50 Energy and recharges 100 Energy of the targeted allied unit or structure with a maximum range of 8.

Shield battery was a giga trash ability vs terran because they just click the battery. That meant it was only useful to heal long range zoning tools like the colossus. This made protoss super vulnerable to stim timings, especially with medivacs, which could easily reposition away from the battery.

Energy overcharge is an interesting solution to these problems because the energy regained on sentries will last long after the drop has retreated, and the sentries themselves have an ability (forcefield) to stop terrans from simply clicking a shield battery.

Mostly a PvT change. It might create a proxy nexus strat in PvZ and we’ll have to see what happens.

Shield Battery

  • Shield and HP increased from 150/150 to 200/200.

Also good to help stop terrans from right clicking & winning. Might contribute to proxy nexus sentry builds in PvZ and PvP but we will have to see.

Colossus

  • Shield and HP changed from 150/200 to 100/250.

Being one of the weaker units, I like the idea of a tougher colossus. Especially in TvP since the viking buffs and the prolific usage of EMP, the colossus has been giga trash.

Tempest
Supply Cost decreased from 5 to 4.
Damage Point decreased from 0.119 to 0.0857 (28% reduction).
Attack Range vs Air decreased from 14 to 13.

Damage point means a player can micro their units faster after the unit attacks. So tempest will be better at stutter step and toss will be able to afford an extra tempest or carrier in late game armies. The reduce range vs air is nice because it means the tempest is more specialized as an anti ground siege unit, but still very good vs air. This is obviously a moderate nerf vs vikings and a minor nerf vs corruptors. It will be easier to “jump” the tempests if the toss isn’t looking and harder if they are. But it also makes doing a jump attack less risky.

Immortal
Mineral Cost decreased from 275 to 250.
Weapon Cooldown increased from 1.04 to 1.14 (9.6% increase).

Thank god, this unit was insane. In pro games, the immortal typically traded at 2.6:1 efficiency which is just too flipping high, especially for an amove unit. If it were a high micro unit like the stalker, you could counter the efficiency via multitasking (counter attack makes it harder for them to micro in two places) but when it’s an amove unit it always performs that well no matter the situation and no matter who is controlling it. A very good nerf.

Disruptor
Purification Nova Radius increased from 1.375 to 1.5.
Purification Nova Damage decreased from 145 (+55 vs Shields) to 100 (+100 vs Shields).

A very good change. It makes the disruptor more consistent but lowers the peak damage. Basically it’s a variance buff. The disruptor will produce less varying results but on average be about as strong as it was. It will be slightly better at hitting lurkers, tanks, and static defense, though. I’d classify this as a slight buff. Buffing high skill protoss units is very much needed to “un-ape-ify” the race.

Mothership
Mineral, Gas and Supply cost increased from 300/300/6 to 400/400/8.
Shield and HP increased from 250/250 to 350/350.
Maximum damage increased from 6 (damage) x 6 (beams) to 6 (damage) x 4 (beams) x 4 (maximum number of targets), i.e. Mothership now targets up to 4 units at the same time.

Better vs marines and zerglings, maybe hydras. Basically any unit with low health that there are lots of. Combine this with the colosus and things are going to melt pretty fast. Definitely a buff, but not a big one.

Bunker, Missile Turret, Sensor Tower
Salvage ability added for Missile Turret and Sensor Tower (also returning 75% of their cost).
Salvage process is now being canceled upon taking damage.

This increases terran’s ability to evacuate positions, but only if the terran can accurately predict when he needs to do so. A very strategic buff to terran, I rate it 10 out of 10.

Planetary Fortress
Armor decreased from 3 to 2.

This is obviously to nerf the mass planetary styles in TvZ which have been very strong for awhile. It will make planetaries drastically weaker to zergling counter attacks, meaning zerg can use his mineral banks to clear out planetary encampments. Considering the alternatives to fix the same solution (thor, ghost, liberator nerfs), I think this is far superior.

Sensor Tower
Mineral & Gas Cost decreased from 125/100 to 100/50.
Radar Range decreased from 27 to 22 (34% area size reduction).

Terran has an enormous late game vision advantage which allows him to always be in position while the zerg is never in position (vs liberator/medivac harass) creating a very unfair late game dynamic. The only way to solve this, as zerg, was to have rediculous multitasking skill in the late game. Terran could siege a liberator and forget about it and it would automatically wreck an entire mineral line meanwhile it takes 30 clicks and 10 screen movements to deal with as zerg. This happens because of the late game vision advantage. Reducing sensor tower range is very good because it balances the vision advantage a bit. Terran still has the advantage (mass scans) but not quite as much. The range decrease also means the sensor tower will be more vulnerable, meaning the vision comes at a risk of losing resources which is VERY good. The ability to gain something for nothing is almost always overpowered, and vision is no different. Terrans will have to risk supply to defend a location if he wants to have vision, and that’s a very good thing because it incentivizes them to stop camping and instead move out on the map.

Orbital Command

  • Extra Supplies Calldown now also increases the HP of Supply Depot to 500, immediately repairing it.

A cool move that I don’t think will have much impact. The balance counsel, I think, thinks this will be used early game, which it will but not much, but it will primarily affect late game. With extra orbital energy, you might as well beef up the HP of your depots. So it adds a trade off to the late game scan/mule abilities, which creates more terran strategy. 10/10.

Hellion
Blue Flame upgrade bonus damage versus Light increased from +5 to +9.

Mech’s back on the menu, boys. Time to barbecue some marines and scvs. Zerglings were already bad vs blueflame, so this doesn’t change much anyway. It does hurt mass hydralisk play vs mech, though, but it will come down to the micro (can fungal keep the hellions away?). Mech is absolute trash, so seeing it buffed is a great thing. In particular, mech has no real map control and harass capabilities, so they just kinda sit in their corner and do nothing and that’s boring.

Liberator
Advanced Ballistics effect changed from providing +2 range in Defender mode to increasing the radius in Defender mode from 5 to 6.25 (56% area increase).
Smart Servos upgrade is now also affecting Liberators. With Smart Servos, Liberator siege time is decreased from 2.89 to 2.12 (26.6% reduction) and unsiege time is decreased from 1.46 to 1.13 (23% reduction).

A great change for map diversity. I would’ve made the liberation zones an ellipse but this is a good alternative. This means liberators are more powerful at controlling larger ramps/chokes, allowing larger ramps in the map pool, and allowing mech the ability to control a wider range of terrain out on the map, which means they can stop camping so much.

Thor
Explosive Payload (“splash mode”) Damage is increased from 6 (+6 vs light) to 8 (+4 vs light).
Explosive Payload Splash Radius is increased from 0.5 with 100% splash damage to 0.5 with 100% damage, 0.75 with 75% damage and 1.25 with 50% damage.
Explosive Payload Attack Range is decreased from 10 to 7.

Love to see it. Thors are absolute trash vs protoss (vs skytoss in particular – carriers, tempests) so this means THOR DROP STRATEGIES ARE GOING TO BE A BANGER! Get ready to 1-shot a skytoss ball with a 10-thor drop. LOL

This will also affect mass viking & mass BC strats because of the range and tendency to clump. Thor liberator mech seems to be the future of TvT.

Queen
Mineral Cost increased from 150 to 175.

Thank god, zerg “apes” who mass queens and drones for free wins will have a harder time doing so. :100: out of :100:.

Hatchery
Mineral Cost decreased from 300 to 275.

An obvious counter buff to the queen cost increase meaning hatcheries are cheaper, queens are more expensive, and that incentivizes expanding over turtling. I love this because I do a lot of mass hatchery no queen styles in all matchups and this actually make it semi viable instead of being a meme style. But it means less risk for zerg to spread out, which is a good thing because it increases the probability of the users interacting and that creates action. 10/10.

Spine Crawler
Build Time decreased from 36 to 32.
Damage increased from 25 (+5 vs Armored) to 30.
Spore Crawler
Damage increased from 15 to 20.
HP decreased from 400 to 300.

Zerg’s static defense is so bad it’s a meme. It’s almost totally useless which is why pro players basically never use it. Increasing the strength (but not the range) is a very good way to make it micro and skill oriented without making turtling strats too powerful. Basically it rewards zergs who can shuffle their static defense faster than the opponent can move their liberators.

Hydralisk
Move Speed on Creep with Muscular Augments upgrade decreased from 5.11 to 4.83 (5.5% reduction).
New ability added: Dash. Dash is researched in Hydralisk Den, requires Hive; the upgrade costs 100 minerals and 100 gas, takes 64 seconds.
Dash is an active non targeted ability with 10 seconds cooldown. Upon its use, Hydralisk receives 60% move speed bonus for 0.71 seconds.

The movement of hydras is slightly slower in exchange for being less predictable, which is definitely a net buff. It means they will be much better at “jumping” medivacs, bcs, liberators, void rays, oracles, etc. It could also have offensive ability because you can burst into a siege line faster or do a surprise attack with less warning. You can also snipe vikings easier in late game. Oh, they are better at retreating too. One of the late game styles I have tried to make work vs ghost liberator mech is mass hydra infestor. You microbial and charge under the liberators. Well, this make actually be a viable counter to liberator mech since the liberator range nerf, microbial buff, and the hydra-cannon buff. Love it.

Infestor
Microbial Shroud is now sticking to units, providing them with its effect for 3.6 seconds while off the Shroud.

Hydra based comps are useless vs liberators and vs skytoss because their air to ground dps is insane. This is a great change in both cases, but especially vs skytoss. I don’t think hydras will be a good comp vs skytoss, still, but it won’t be as bad as it is currently. You might be able to hit some upgradeless 3 infestor timing attacks that kill the third of a triple stargate void ray player or 2 stargate carrier player.

Ultralisk
While moving, Ultralisk is now able to push allied units.

A fabulous change. Ultras are so derpy that it’s unreal. They are practically quadriplegic when attacking into simcity and this will help a lot.

Brood Lord
Broodling HP is increased from 20 to 30.
Broodling Weapon Cooldown decreased from 0.57 to 0.46.
Fixed the bug which prevented Brood Lord from dealing full damage while shooting from the maximum distance.

Broods are really bad at the moment as pure marines+ghost+medivac can beat a brood infestor army while being down in army value, which is nuts, and this will help a lot. Basically the broodlings just die too quickly so the marines can stutter step onto the broods & the ghosts EMP the infestors and that’s how a more expensive army loses to a less expensive army.

Thanks to the balance counsel for all the work they put into bringing this mech needed patch!

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I don’t see how Protoss are going to hold pushes with more HT or sentry energy. I’m not against the idea obviously because watching a Protoss take a 4:15 third and play like a zerg was insane. With a mothership core that can’t use pylon/nexus overcharge it might make sense since having an early air unit and one that mainly works off energy. Maybe they could increase the energy that shield batteries have to 150 or 200.

Colossus being garbage in the only matchup it’s regularly used is always a meme that battlenet likes to promote. Then stating it’s a massive buff when situationally it’s worse in most cases. Colossus won’t be able to continuously poke the edge of a terran with less shields but they would be tankier when the terran decides to do the big SCV pull surround with only ghost bio. Colossus were also the main benefactor of pylon overcharge that it made <3 tank pushes obsolete. They’re also nerfing the 2 protoss counters to lurkers so the real issue is that colossus doesn’t have a place in PvZ like always, lmao.

The Thor is going to be a reliable counter to phoenix colossus. In fact, I think you can dunk on that comp so hard now with the disruptor nerf that it’s going to boost ruff’s MMR by atleast ~200.

You haven’t seen how big these are then and it’s more about TvP than anything. You can’t just blink around so easily. You’re going to have to make tempests which is where the thors come in and stomp face. Thors are almost going to be as good in TvP as they are in TvZ.

I can already see SHINN and the Zerg players that copy him (Batz) dashing into a “undefended” base with a big smirk just before it gets blasted by a deep tank line. Good luck with that champ. XD Catching medivacs might be easier though.

We can stop pretending these 2 are bad units/abilities now. I can’t wait to use these in team games. Can we agree on that Zerg players? Just like how Batz was pretending the broodling hp and cooldown change was a buff now when it was a buff before. XD… Enjoy chomping on PFs with broodlings.

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Yeah, depends. If there are 3 tanks and the colossus pokes, the shield battery really doesn’t help. So the new colossus should be better in that scenario. But vs non burst damage the colossus will probably have a reduced ability to poke.

They can be used as a followup to 2 base disruptor allins. They also hard counter swarm host roach builds. Hero did that vs Soo in the GSL. Soo looked like absolute trash for even trying. So the colossus might not be used but that’s because it hard counters the things it counters so hard that nobody does them.

You are right, the freedom zones are huge. Don’t worry, protoss will finally learn how to abuse the apm requirements of liberator shuffling by doing multiprong attacks :zzz:

I do think that thor hellbad medivac might be a way to play in PvT on this patch. It would hard counter skytoss because you’d do offensive boost/drop micro. Terrans will adapt to this since they do it all the time with marines, which are harder due to the number of untis to manage. The best counter to this is disruptors, but liberators probably counter those. Thors will be better, too, because the immortal is being taken down a peg. Also, the disruptor nerf should in theory make thors stronger because it has lower peak damage so it might take more shots to one tap a cluster of thors. The probability of every disruptor hit landing is probably inversely related to the number of disruptors. So thors will be hit with lighter taps and this gives them more time to be repaired.

Come to think of it, thor medivac probably hard counters disruptors purely from medivac pickup micro. The exception obviously being vs tempests which could hit the medivacs that picked up the thors.

Depends on the scenario. If it’s a scenario where terran is low on tank count, from opening speedshees, then totally. Another scenario is if you rush lair and he hellbat allins. You can kill a terran’s third quite easily as is. I was starting a 7 minute hive and kill terran’s thirds already. So, yeah, it’s gonna be great.

They are really bad, though. On the new patch, both will be better but I suspect still the worst of the available options. I have two examples. Maxed hydra infestor vs pure carriers easily loses just due to the mineral only cost of interceptors which trade out for gas costing hydras. You just go broke. You have to have abduct to pull carriers to you, but those are countered by templar. Corruptor ultralisk is probably the best way to do it since Dark won a GSL with it and it only went away because protoss started to include like 7 immortals. But the immortal is being nerfed, so maybe. Second example, I played a game vs a 2/1/1 allin failed, turned late third expo by terran. Massive eco advantage for zerg. Easy win if you just morph broods and make 2 vipers. Instead, I went ultras. Maxxed out. Attacked in. Everything died without making even a 10 supply dent in his army. The game was lost from there because the ghost count was out of control and the tempo advantage was lost meaning he’s banking energy on the ghosts. Ultras will always be a defensive unit because they are hard countered by simcity. They are ridiculously bad vs buildings.

Ling counter attacks will kill planetaries and intercept thor rallies. So that’s going to be huge, in particular since the sensor tower range will give less warning to preposition. The brood will benefit here as well because the terran has a lower ability to be in position vs a brood that is faster.

The planetary and sensor tower nerfs seem like reasonable changes to tvz late game. There is another covert nerf aka the supply drop adding hp to depots. Terrns will be tempted to do this when it’s better to bank for scans. So it’s a covert nerf.

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They’re also nerfing the 2 protoss counters to lurkers so the real issue is that colossus doesn’t have a place in PvZ like always, lmao

I think this is a big issue. Lurkers now don’t get two-tapped by novas and will survive with 1-2 HP unless both charges land at the same time. They should adjust Lurkers to have 195 HP instead of 200 because of this interaction change in my opinion.

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Alternatively, Disruptor damage can be increased to 105, without any need to nerf Lurkers. The hits-to-kill will be the same on almost everything else, except for a few structures.

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This is will 1-shot stimmed marauder.

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Then 101-104 would be better.

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Honestly I think stimmed marauders getting tapped by disruptors would be good. I don’t play toss, but even just through the pro matches I watched, Marauders being able to live past a disruptor hit is genuinely scary to think about. I do appreciate the fact that the balance team is trying to make the game less explosive though.

If you ask me, then Widow mines, Banelings and Disruptors should never have been in the game in the first place.

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Yeah i think that would be a good compromise tbh. A full health non-stimmed marauder lives, a stimmed one dies.

Makes for interesting decisions too. Do you stim to try and escape the nova, but risk it dying if you mess up, or do you eat the nova and have a low health, but alive marauder that can either be healed or picked off

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Yeah I’m down for that compromise; I like the idea.

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That lib change could be a serious problem and Protoss getting uhhh…nerfed again? Really? What stats support this or is the balance council just throwing bad ideas into the mix again?

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Reading through all these changes…this is insane lol. Fire the balance council if this is the crap they’re going to pull.

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Do you mind elaborating?

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I think it’s worth approaching these things with a more open mind lol. There’s a month’s worth of testing to be done, and honestly it’s heartening that they’re willing to shake things up this much. Hopefully they’re planning to be more active with balance changes going forward.

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There’s a lot to unpack.

Blue flame buff is a buff to harass and to battle mech/hellion runbys. Not a massive deal but it could be.

Liberator buff is inexcusable stupidity. There’s a reason why the radius was nerfed when it became an issue due to Bunny build. This is a net increase over that bugged stat back then.

Being able to salvage turrets is going to encourage terran turtling.

Thors are now straight up op vs all air.

And the supply drop healing is going to be a very, very large issue. It literally gives Terrans a get out of jail free card vs allins and aggression during the timings where they’re still vulnerable to attrition wars.

Then we get into the changes with other races.

An 8 range, 50 second cooldown restore energy ability is garbage. Every single hold involving the shield battery now has to be redone and re-optimized, if it’s even possible which I doubt.

Disruptors no longer 1 shot Marauders but OHHH BOY are they even more sacky in PvP now!

The mothership “buff” is inconsequential. People don’t buy that unit for damage, they buy it for the abilities. Doing no damage to 4 additional units isn’t going to do anything. Should have just given it a ton of health and shields instead since it living through battles is the problem the unit has.

And the queen nerf/spore buff which is going to have some interesting interactions in both ZvZ and ZvP.

It’s a mess. The entire patch is bad, really, really bad and overtly Terran biased.

Just disband the balance council and hire a few casters like PiG to meet once a month with other casters to discuss balance and changes, if the statistics support the change. Pro players shouldn’t be allowed to balance due to conflict of interest and bias.

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I can spot a few blatant “why the hell would you do something this stupid?” changes.

Lib change cannot go live. Will break the game.

Energy Recharge cannot go live, will break the game.

Disruptor nerf cannot go live, will break the game.

Supply Drop healing cannot go live, will break the game.

This is a pretty bloody bad patch. We’re talking nerfing the Observer levels of stupid here.

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Please stop posting fake news. The buff only affects TvT and it’s to punish people that go 3 raven every game. It will now 2 shot SCVs and marines which is HUGE in a matchup that gets combat shields at around the 8-9 minute mark. It is exclusive to TvT only and it will bring the meta back to similar situations in WoL.

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I guess lings, banes and zealots don’t exist then, hey?

Stay in ur lane bud.

Oh, also , hellion drops are a thing. Almost forgot that exists in all matchups.

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Yup, see BF hellion drops all the time in pro play and not the regular 4 hellion instead that accomplishes the same thing with less investment.

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Pros aren’t the only players and considering them ONLY has lead to nothing but balance headaches.

It’s a flawed approach being defended by someone who couldn’t even consider the general, greater ramifications of a blue flame buff other than ‘muh tvt’.

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