Spellcaster Redesign? (Response to 4.11.0 patch)

General Discussion
1

I’ve been thinking about the recent redesign of the infestor, and I wanted to know what you guys thought of a more complete redesign of spellcasters generally, with a few other tweaks. Here’s what I’ve thought:

General:
Massive units have spell targeting immunity. They can no longer be targeted by hostile targeted spells. Area spells like storm still work.

Zerg:
Infestor: redesigned to be a “unit manipulator.” Abilities:

  • Spawn Infested Marine (infested rockets removed)
  • Neural Parasite: as is
  • Spawn Broodling: Can target ground biological units. After 3 seconds, the target dies and spawns 2 broodlings. Range: same as fungal growth. Energy: 150.

Defiler: Army support unit. Requires Infestation Pit. Abilities:

  • Fungal Growth
  • Microbial Shroud
  • Consume

Viper: as is

Scourge added.

Protoss:
High Templar

  • Psionic Storm: as is
  • Feedback: to reinforce this spell as an anti-spellcaster tool, damage will be multiplied according to how many energy-using abilities the target has. Unresearched abilities are taken into account. For example, feedback on an infestor before neural parasite is researched would deal 2 damage per energy; it would deal 3 damage per energy after researching. Abilities that do not use energy, like tactical jump, would not be included in damage calculation.

Mothership Core: redesigned to be a weaker, less expensive mothership. Requires Fleet Beacon. Abilities:

  • Cloaking Field: Cloaking nearby units and structures is an active ability, lasting 30 seconds and costing 100 energy.
  • Mass Recall: 5 radius instead of mothership’s 6.5.
  • Time Warp: slows enemy units by 33% instead of mothership’s 50%.

Oracle: as is.

Terran:
“Tech” (needs better name): Support unit for mech. Built from Barracks. Requires Engineering Bay. Abilities:

  • Point defense drone: Changed to block only blink-dodgeable projectiles fired from the ground and has a 0.5 second cooldown before blocking another shot.
  • Ablative armor: (possibly instead of point defense drone?) Gives a mech unit +2 armor and 100 non-regenerating shield points for 20 seconds.
  • Overdrive: 1.5 radius area of effect stim for ground mech. Enhances movement speed, attack speed, and transform speed. Deals damage equal to 25% of the units’ max health.
  • Repair: can repair units on the field using resources like an SCV.

Ghost: as is
Raven: as is

Final notes: A lot of the numbers here, like ranges, energy costs, cooldowns, etc would need to be fine-tuned in later updates. I’m mostly concerned about the designs of particular units. I also hope that by giving each race a new spellcaster, it wouldn’t disrupt balance too much, or that any disruption could be addressed through tweaking numbers in later patches. If one of these is too strong, nerf it. If one of these is too weak, buff it. Thoughts? Opinions? Comments? Complaints?

1 Like
2

If you’re going to have a unit manipulator might as well make it the swarm host.

Mothership core? Absolutely not.

Mech stim? Just kill me now.

3

I like the mothership core redesign, I was thinking in something like this. Protoss need a cloak tech rework to bring it down to ground units, since Arbiters are not coming back and Mothership is well, you know. Also the graphic design of the MSC is one of the best. Limit 1 per Nexus. Cost 100/350, supply 4. Recall cost energy 150. If you do this you also need a little tweaks on the Moma to have an excuse to still be in the game, maybe attack while moving and give 1.5 the dps of a BC.

For Terran mech I’ll go ahead and add Goliath back, since heavy ground tech AA is Thor and so slow. Golis are so much fun and will completely redesign TvT, that seems to be in a swamp right now.

Have to think of something for Zerg, but to split infestor into defiler just doesn’t convince me. I guess Shroud could go without an upgrade and give %25 defense for ground attacks, and I always liked the idea of giving burrowed units +2 armor.

As for massive units being inmune to spellcasters, I’m not on board with that, that gives even more reasons to mandatory go air for toss.

4

Honestly I think most of these changes are terrible other than massive units not being able to be abducted.

Terran should be able to disable collosi and snipe an ultralisk.
Zerg ahold be able to neural a battlecruiser.

5

What about REMOVE NEURAL FROM THE GAME and compensate with Microbial Shroud now cloacks units to compete with the Observer/Overseer war.

Also: Mothership imune to abduct.

6

Adding an attack to the mothership seems good, even if only the same one we see in campaign missions.

I’d be fine with adding Goliath as well, even at the cost of removing Thors. I would hope that Thors could be reworked to stay in the game without overlapping Goliaths. Maybe upgrading it to the hero unit that was previewed to us back in alpha. Or go halfway – make it a walking planetary fortress that can also shoot air.

I like the idea of splitting infestor into defiler, but you’re right, it needs some changing. Shroud will probably get buffed in the real game, since I don’t foresee any pros using it in this patch. Possible buffs might be increased area, increased duration, damage reduction buff, damage output buff. A less likely buff would be to reduce damage by 50% for all sources except melee. This would make it resist storm (which I think it kind of needs) and also ground attacks like tank shots. This would bring it in line with Dark Swarm from BW (and that’s the inspiration for Shroud), so it’s not too crazy of an idea.

Massive unit spell “immunity” sounds too good to be true, but think about what air toss would have to contend with:

Against Zerg, Fungal Growth would still affect it. Infested Terrans would be brought back to zone it away, though without rockets. Scourge would be a new threat. Shroud, if buffed, is meant to counter sky armies. And we don’t know how effective infested terrans plus Shroud would be.

Against Terran, EMP still affects massive since it is an AoE spell. Since the Tech would allow stimmed Thors (or Goliaths, lol), that would counter sky pretty well. Sure, Interference Matrix is no longer available, but the other Terran buffs can make up for it.

The game right now is definitely super balanced, so any big changes like this would need another several years of tweaking to get things back to the balance they are at now. But I think the game is a little stale. Adding options (i.e., distinct units) makes things more fun. So what if it’s not totally balanced? We can add fun now, balance later.

7

Spellcaster redesign: remove smart cast.

8

As for the infested Terrans they are gone 4 ever. Rip. Maybe well see them in a skin pack for terrans, wouldnt that be funny. I’m still yet to see a game that someone uses shroud, maybe just remove upgrade requirement now plus adding 25% ground.

As for the massives being inmune is just too much and just insentivate and buff even more the sky transition, that for me is the problem why things become stale, in sc1 air is just another option, in here is mandatory.

With the golis, that stim mech idea wont be needed since they are already fast, they wont remove Thors either but I see a world where they live together, stim mech is just too much. Imagine stimed thors and bc’s that also are inmune to spells, is insane.