With the recent Patch 5.0.15, Blizzard has made some fantastic changes to improve Starcraft 2. Below are a few more suggestions to further improve the game.
Terran Discussion
First, change Hellbat’s weapon to splash instead of ranged to give Terran a counter to the new Microbial Shroud, thus not inferring 50% damage penalty. Secondly, to give Ravens more usefulness on the battlefield, the unit will have an auto-attack similar to High Templar. Lastly for Battlecruiser, the unit would be unviable without Tactical Jump but should require an upgrade at Fusion Core to delay opponent from teleporting directly into mineral line to provide more time for counter-play.
Hellbat
Napalm Spray weapon is considered splash instead of ranged.
Raven
Raven now has an auto-attack (similar to High Templar).
Battlecruiser
Tactical Jump now requires upgrade at Fusion Core.
New research: Jump Drive
Cost: 150/150, 100 seconds
Research from: Fusion Core
Enables use of the Battlecruiser’s Tactical Jump.
Protoss Discussion
First, to improve Sentry, it would be good to extend range of Guardian Shield by 1 to be reliable in protecting Zealots. Right now, when Sentry and Zealots attack front line, Zealots are always just outside range of shield. In addition, Sentry should be able to create hallucinated capital ships (excluding Mothership). Secondly, for Oracle, increasing the energy cost for Relevation lessens skill from persistent, undeniable vision. Lastly, to improve Colossus, make it slightly less specialized with increasing base damage and decreasing light damage (overall DPS unchanged), thus improving overall viability.
Sentry
Guardian Shield radius increased from 4.5 to 5.5.
Carrier and Tempest added to available hallucinated units (1 per Cast)
Oracle
Revelation energy cost increased from 25 to 50.
Colossus
Thermal Lance damage increased from 10 (+5 light) (x2) to 12 (+3 light) (x2).
Zerg Discussion
First, the main deterrents from researching Burrow is the research time is too long and cost is too high. With lowering both time and cost, it incentives Burrow as a mainstay option for Zerg for sneakier gameplay. Secondly, moving Overlord Ventral Sacs upgrade to Evolution Chamber allows Zerg to be more aggressive early game, and allows Zerg to punish opponents with excessive greediness. Lastly, give Infestor an auto-attack similar to High Templar to make unit stop and attack at a distance. This maintains parity among the main spellcasters for each race.
Burrow
Research time decreased from 71 seconds to 57 seconds.
Research cost decreased from 100/100 to 75/75.
Overlord
Mutate Ventral Sacs upgrade now requires Evolution Chamber instead of Lair.
Infestor
Infestor now has an auto-attack (similar to High Templar).
I am in favor of this, but other players might not be.
Changing the damage type to “splash” would also work, and I would not stop at the Hellbat. Frankly, every splash damage unit that is not doing spell damage should receive this change. That includes Lurkers, Hellbats, Hellions, Colossus, Archons, and Siege Tanks. Liberator AA might also belong on that list.
I would do the same for Infestors and Vipers. The point is to make caster control just a bit easier for most players.
I don’t have a problem with this, but some players might.
I think that having creep heal is an interesting idea, but those values are way too high. At 12 HP per second, Reapers couldn’t harass Drones. 2 or 3 HP per second is more realistic, and even that would seem wild to people.
Burrow should heal and give increase armor to every zerg.
Healing should be creep and should be high enough where they can be effective. Especially zerg defensive is a joke takes huge hit economy but have little support.
It would be fun to try it. I’m not sure if they would change it because a lot of people are used to the speed boost. Banelings would be really bad for example. I’d like to see it with Roaches. Maybe you should try playing mass Baneling first?
Zerg can start off by defending better with creep, and then with good creep spread from the player you can attack with it as it covers large portions of the map. Neutering creep effects will make the game more boring.
Removing the bio tag would mean losing being healed by medivac, which is a tough sell, the rest of the mech army doesnt suffer from archon bonus and mixing a few ghost is a true and tested hard counter to any archon problem.
Issue is that storm is too good currently, any notion of making the colossus more relevant needs a storm nerf which it needs regardless, but I do like the shifting values into something less specialized, like 11(+4 vs light).
This is a nerf. Being able to heal the Hellbat with the Medivac is a meaningful bit of power - 12.6 HP / sec on your tank is more power than the Archon weakness is a cost, especially as vs Protoss you want a bunch of Ghosts anyway even if you’re playing mech.
Archon damage bonus works out to be 8 (+0.8) DPS ie. less than the medivac heals. As Hellbats are kind of chunky, they won’t be getting obliterated by the splash too severely.
I do not think your assertion that makes this a good change holds. Revelation is not overpowered early on at all. Every race gets multiple mechanics or units that players describe as ‘basically map hacks’ for a reason and Revelation is not an outlier among them.
As primary-Protoss, this completely ruins the Zergling as a concept and I do not think it is a sustainable PvZ change to have the Colossus deal more than 32 damage per attack to light units before upgrades. Above that number, first tier armor upgrades do not counteract the first tier attack upgrade. While it isn’t a problem by the time +2 is available, early situations are massive issues - to the point that it might, but I’m not positive, even be an issue to let +1 colossus be one-shotting +0 armor zerglings.
No?
Mostly ‘why’. If the intent is bringing this earlier, it opens up nonsense (bad); and making it more expensive means people won’t feel like they can justify it (bad).
Category 2: wat
I agree entirely with your logic that makes this be a good idea. However, does Protoss need this buff? The problem is Zealots running out of the bubble: Lowering the Sentry’s attack range and giving it some more vitals would do similarly without increasing the ability of you to use Stalkers for chip while keeping the Sentry out of reach. Of course then we have increased-vital Sentries which also has no particularly huge merit but the unit is so squishy and lowering its range is therefore asking for trouble.
I do not think this addresses anything that you are hoping it addresses. The research time being 14 faster won’t change that it’s still 100/100 and offers no value for most units in combat terms and therefore the investment is better spent on ie. 3 more Banelings instead?
I have no idea what you mean by this. The Mutalisk does not use the delayed bonus regeneration effect in ladder. It just always has an HP regen of 1.4, while other Zerg units always have an HP regen of 0.3828.
I do not think this is necessary in the slightest. However, if you want to give it to the Raven, you should also give such a thing to the Infestor, Viper, and Oracle.
The HT is unique among the spellcasters in that it is grounded and has no defensive effect (Ghosts have a good attack and cloak, Infestors can burrow move). All the aerial casters don’t need it because they’re air units, but it would still be nice to have just so people can stop having their casters suicidal charge.
I’m not really sure if this is better, worse, or a nonchange. It prevents Terran from doing a 2 base turtle type of strategy, but it means proxied BCs are more oppressive. Eh?
Allowing Hellbats to be a consistent counter the new insanity of Microbial Shroud isn’t really making them stronger?
So you want to give most Zerg units a 20% speed bonus.
Exceptions would be the Queen, which would get +125% speed off creep but -16% speed on creep; the Hydralisk with Speed upgrade which gets +12% speed off creep and -3.5% speed on creep; the Ultralisk with Speed upgrade gets +12.9% speed off creep and -3.6% speed on creep.
(Tangent: I did not realise the ultralisk/hydralisk speed upgrades worked that way? Very odd)
I do not feel like I have to explain why giving most ground units in a faction a 20% speed bonus is not a good idea.
I’m going to assume this is missing a decimal point between the two digits. Even at that pace, no, that’s patently absurd and I should not need to say that stapling even that much bonus healing is not necessary.
Yes, Zerg lacks a way to patch up multiple bruised units. But the solution should be to add an ability that does that, not giving a free problem solve.
This actually sounds fine in terms of balance, but I think it’s stupid because burrowed units already “gain defense” in that they need to be detected. Giving them armor kinda just means they take longer to kill while in a helpless state.
(Also Lurkers lol)
Organic Carapace was a bad upgrade and should not return.
The problem is that you have introduced the Shield Battery - a way for defensive play to directly result in units that can move across the map and kill the opponent - to a race that isn’t exactly struggling with that concept. And giving units speed makes this even more true.
Additionally, you have to remember that Zerg’s whole bit is being the reactor. It always wants to go second when it comes to building units, because that’s where its strengths are – giving it more defensive tools is kind of insane in that light.
Honestly is great to see a new patch and ideas from players sprouting, and to that I´ll share suggestions of my own.
Suggestions for Terran changes:
Widow Mine:
-Always become targetable while taking aim.
Might require speeding up the aiming process to compensate. Allows for split second decisions without constant detection and allows to deal with them with enough firepower, like the original spider mines (which makes position and mine density a more important decision). At the moment doesn’t feel rewarding to use perma clocked mines with such burst damage against opponent.
Bunker:
-High Sec Auto Tracking upgrade affects the bunker range bonus to garrisoned units.
-Hellbat is now able to enter bunkers. Cheap supply garrison.
Both changes aim to give options to defend outer bases better against harrasement and don’t sacrifice the economy boost of the orbital for planetary fortress to keep up.
Ghost:
-2->3 Supply, attack range 6->7.
Keeps the light tag but extra range for safety and synergy with marauders. Supply changed back to 3 considering cost and power of the unit.
Siege tank:
-Smart Servos halves time to unsiege.
Makes reposition more dynamic without huge changes like the tankvac experiment, being caught unsieged remains as punishable as before and makes smart servos more relevant.
Reaper:
-Cost changes to 75/25.
Rebalanced cost so such a squishy unit is not a gas sink.
-New upgrade Phosphorus rounds : +4 vs biological. 100/100 cost Researched in Ghost Academy, research time 100 seconds.
Makes reapers relevant again mid game and gives more use for Ghost Academy, better than hellions at dealing with soft resistance.
Medivac:
-Ignite Afterburners cost 25 energy, increase speed 5.94 → 6.5
Allows for a smoother drop/evac while makes the player consider energy economy and creates scenarios while retreating sooner is best option, rather than drawn out fights and having no energy to boost away to safety. Boosting also slightly outruns air counters for the duration.
-Move Caduceus Reactor to Starport tech lab.
Earlier access to the upgrade to compensate and have options to research on startport for bio compositions, currently upgrade access is too late in the game to have much impact.
Suggestions for Protoss changes:
High Templar
-Fix the visual bug of the storm that is larger than the damage area (you can basically fit a marauder not taking damage on the edge)
-Storm duration reduced to 4 seconds, maintains same dps. so 95 damage over 4 seconds.
-Storm needs to be channeled while inmobile for .5 seconds to cast it.
Currently very very strong AoE damage, lasting too long. Move it slightly in the direction of the disruptor that becomes vulnerable while using its AoE.
Colossus
-Damage changed from 10 (+5 light) (x2) to 11 (+4 light) (x2).
increases the flexibility of the unit to compente with other AoE damage sources avaliable.
Suggestions for Zerg changes:
Creep tumor
-Spawning a creep tumor from another tumor now cost 10 minerals.
-Active Creep Tumors (those that can create another tumor) spread creep in a 20% larger radius.
-Spent creep tumors spread creep in a 20% smaller radius.
Zerg vision and movement bonus from creep is incredible strong for the current resource cost. Gives the player the choice of spreading further but leaving uncreeped patched between them as well as queens planting fresh tumors more relevant.
On a more experimental note:
Zergling
Hypertrophied calfs: Cliffjump for zerglings. 150/150 90 seconds. Researched on Spawning Pool, needs Hive.
Enables more enveloping attacks late game and gives the race access to cliffjump as a whole opening new possibilities.
New Unit Leviathan:
800 hp 450/450 cost
Requieres great Spire, limited to 1.
Spells corrosive blast: high damage AoE Proyectile.
Helps Zerg late game dealing with Max out armies specially skytoss, and discourages from grouping into a deathball, rather than being a support like mothership is an offensive end tier unit.
And would like to add a quality of life proposal, small but actually really impactful and helpful i think:
have Changelings no longer just spawn below Overseers, but instead require targeting on the map or on the minimap, and the Changeling then spawns as usual but begins walking towards the targeted location automatically (one by one for each target, not all at once from all Overseers selected).
I wouldn’t necessarily mind removing bio tag but honestly Mech vs Protoss has way more issues than just the hellbat.
I know Napalm Spray is categorized as ranged, but I’m not sure what those values are tied to; whether they’re a separate category or if it’s tied to the actual attack range. This could potentially make it a sizable nerf.
Sure. But we should do the same for Vipers and Infestors as well.
Absolutely not.
Not only is this a silly idea, Tac Jump’s cool-down should be tied directly to Yamato’s cooldown to force choice between them. I would even argue that Tac Jump should be its own separate research in addition to Yamato.
We already have enough issues with map-folding with warp-gate, recall and nydus.
Sure, this is fine.
I… guess? I would rather that we just make Revelation cost more energy.
This is a massive and completely unnecessary buff. The colossus isn’t a weak unit, rather it’s a specialised unit. Increasing its power further, against both the thing it’s already good against, in addition to increasing it’s general strength against the things that counter it is, frankly, absurd to the extreme. And they’re not small buffs either; it’s 6 additional damage per swipe, which adds up very quickly.
I would have been fine if it had been something like:
But it’s important to note that Protoss already has an abundancy of splash damage as it is, and making this stronger is something we should be wary of, especially given the buffs to storm recently.
Sure, more burrow play would be good.
I like this. This needs to happen because Zerg really struggles to punish extremely early greed - especially fast third nexus; their builds are very limited early game and this opens it up quite nicely with ling/roach drops.
I don’t like this however; personally I feel it’s an unneeded nerf.
The problem with mutas is that, from a design standpoint it’s super easy for them to scale out of control with Rapid Regeneration, because damage is irrelevant to them unless it kills them there and then.
As a direct result, it means the Muta needs to be a weak combat unit to compensate for the absurd staying power of Rapid Regen, making it an expensive hit-and-run unit that nobody really wants to make.
In order to fix this, Mutas would effectively require a full redesign, and Rapid Regeneration would 100% have to go for them to be effective as a combat unit.
It’s already visible when it begins its lock-on. It’s just not targetable until after it fires.
The mine frankly just needed its splash damage reverted, but I doubt that will happen any time soon because people hate the unit despite it being necessary. Nerfing the unit further, even when it’s already hilariously bad is just overkill.
I… guess? These are… interesting ideas, but I don’t necessarily hate them.
Ghosts honestly probably don’t need the extra range. I’m happy to wait on the supply change because I can still see ghosts being to strong as they are currently.
No. Siege tanks are one of the few units with extremely clear cut counters, and this change significantly negates at least one of those, which I think is a negative.
I… guess? This doesn’t stop the unit from being either a problematic unit or just generally useless later on.
This probably does give significant utility, but frankly I feel like this is probably a pretty insane upgrade and would be wildly strong against Zerg.
Eh, honestly don’t care for this change, but it’s not awful…
This is arguably a nerf not a buff; you almost never want to build tech-labbed starports until you’re on at least 2, maybe 3 ports minimum, outside of very specific early game builds, and you can’t afford medivac upgrades during that. With the fusion core, you can continue to double-pump reactored medivacs while researching the medivac upgrades - and other more useful ones.
Considering that storm now has 140 damage, the duration change would be a direct and absolutely gargantuan buff even in spite of the half-second channel time being added - which is almost nothing comparatively.
I would honestly be okay with this.
I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, they spread faster and give more vision, but on the other hand I think these are pretty sizable nerfs as well. It’s also strange and frankly feels like a clunky solution to something that IMO just isn’t a problem.
Absolutely not, this would be an insane buff to have for a unit that’s super cheap, super fast and doesn’t cost any gas
Can we not, please? As cool an idea as it is to have the Leviathan or the Odin in the game, hero units are super hard to balance for in general, and adding another is just making it even harder.
I would rather just revert those changes to Microbial Shroud and Storm; or make Tanks, Hellions, and Hellbats immune to Shroud.
That cost change is probably a nerf. The early build-up with Terran is limited by minerals rather than gas, even if you do need gas to build Factories and Starports.
These are mostly nerfs.
The Caduceus reactor upgrade was moved from the Tech Lab to the Fusion Core because Terran rarely wants a Tech Lab on their Starports. Despite the Fusion Core’s cost and build time, shifting this upgrade to the Fusion Core was a buff.
Are you using editor values or real time values?
What is the total damage?
Is the radius still increased?
This is a terrible idea. Zerg’s early-game is strictly balanced by walls and other means to keep Zerglings out of the base.
You are right, but the Hellbat is probably the easiest unit to adjust without causing problems. The other “best” options may be nerfing mech’s counters.
Damage effects have a specific field that specifies the damage “kind” There is also a field that specifies the splash damage “kind”, but that field only applies to damage effects that have a bulit-in “search area” field. Siege Tanks and Archons use such a field, while Colossus, Hellions, Hellbats, and Lurkers do not.
The “fix” here is simple. Just change the field from range to splash. Nothing else needs to change.
Honestly, thats on me for being vague, 95 damage over 4 seconds. With a time for channeling the radious could maybe stay, at the moment the visuals for the storm are bugged, as the visual effect is considerable larger than the actual storm, so its harder to feel the effect of it on matches.
I mentioned it´d need Hive to research it, hardly counts as early game, It would need testing for sure but I think the meta can adapt, and be more interesting for it. Regardless, its quite a big change so its not a hill I´d die on.
Well, if that is in real time 4 seconds real time is 5.6 seconds in editor), then it is about a 15% DPS reduction, but the total damage is still increased by 18.75%. That is more reasonable than the actual change in 5.0.15.
If that is in editor time, then you are looking at roughly an 18.75% increase to Storm’s overall damage and DPS, and that change would not be reasonable.
That fixes one problem, but I’m still not sure that giving zerglings the ability to ignore certain terrain is a good thing. Maps might need to be explicitly changed (gaps instead of cliffs in many places) to account for this.
Due to how fast SC2 units acquire targets, this would basically remove any chance that the Widow Mine ever does anything against even a small force of actual combat units.
This is already where the Widow Mine’s weak.
I cannot express enough how insane I feel you must be to think that this is not turboludicrous.
I do not think this is a good choice.
95 damage over 4 seconds is worse than 80 damage over 2.86. Reverting Storm’s kind of a better choice in my mind; because I agree that its current state is exceptionally ridiculous.
Making Psionic Storm more like Purification Nova is terrible on every level - Disruptors suck, having two units be similar is bad; but summarily making a caster be intentionally clunky for the sake of making them clunkier is. A Decision Of All Time, if I may borrow that template.
wwwwwhy.
I do not think this is of merit because it becomes something you have to account for in the power budget of a unit that is already good.
I agree that Zerg getting a cliff jumper would be nice, and I agree that the Zergling is the most logical unit to get it, however, the Zergling is a unit that is already good due to Adrenal Glands and being only minerals. All cliff-violating units cost gas and I do not think it makes sense to skip.
I hate the Battlecruiser for exactly this reason. I doubt anyone else would bat for this
It would make the unit next to unviable. Something like “Using either ability puts the other on a 11 second cooldown” would be much less kill-the-unit while still addressing one of its stupidest cases.