A big one with that is that they don’t have to venture into the range of a Planetary Fortress with Hi-Sec Auto-Tracking. They can lock on and still sit slightly outside of its attack range.
2 Likes
What is all of this? I’m seeing changes reverted back from Carrier? Also this huge mess
(BALANCE) Raven
Interference Matrix change removed
Starting Energy change removed
Auto Turret Energy cost change removed
Auto Turret duration reduced from 10.0 to 7.86
Auto Turret health reduced from 150 to 100
Auto Turret armor reduced from 1 to 0
Auto Turret is no longer affected by Neosteel Armor upgrade
What are the CURRENT changes?
To summarise with the Raven:
- Build time is now 34.3 seconds (42.9 originally, changed to 30 at one point)
- Starts with 50 energy.
- Corvid Reactor has been removed (upgrade allowed them to start with 75 energy instead).
- Interference Matrix is the same as it was originally (costs 75 energy, 11-second duration)
- Anti-Armor Missile removes only 2 armour/shields instead of 3 armour/shields, and the colouration is brighter.
- Auto-Turrets cost 50 energy, but last only 7.86 seconds instead of 10 seconds and are far less durable and no longer benefit from the Neosteel Armor upgrade on the Engineering Bay (Hi-Sec Auto-Tracking still affects them though).
1 Like
In other words bad spells that are almost never used are made even more bad. For reason unknown.
And this is just ridiculous.
My hypothesys is that they saw that the proposed Ghosts change wreck Terran lategame and overall winrate plummet but they still feel they need to throw a bone to Zerg whiners who for the most part designed this patch.
THus far I have a very, very low opinion of people who made this patch. Previous patch was amazingly well-done and with little changes imporved the game very dramatically. This patch is just a pile of garbage.
I wonder was this patch made by people who were recovering from covid or something? That would explain things (it, you know, affects brain cognitive functions too, take months to recover…)
2 Likes
The “important” change to the Carrier was the decision to reduce the Interceptors’ target priority. This means that in all cases where units have a choice, they will prioritize the Carrier or another unit over the Interceptors.
None of the other Carrier changes were necessary. In practice, Carriers need a significant upgrade advantage, powerful splash/anti-armor support, and/or the opponent to waste shots on Interceptors in order to be effective in combat.
Lowering the Interceptors’ target priority means that most anti-air units can beat them on a-move instead of needing to focus-fire.
2 Likes
In the meantime I’ve updated by “Raven Rework” extension mod - you should find it if you search for “5.0.11” when selecting an Extension Mod. Hopefully it’s not full of bugs.
1 Like
Honestly none of the protoss changes were really necessary.
Most of the terran changes were fine especially the ghost nerf. Most of the zerg changes were fine too.
The carrier nerf is mindboggling to me. I don’t understand trying to balance the game based on the experiences of the worst players. I also don’t understand why they won’t fix the void ray which remains to this point a useless unit that Protoss is forced to carry. Or why won’t they fix the tempest?
It is a tricky balance. I agree that the game shouldn’t be balanced around the worst players, although there should be some flexibility in letting people play the way they want to play (e.g. mass Raven builds, which can be easily countered if you know what you’re doing) and also not having situations that you can only counter if you have perfect map awareness and precision with your commands. Tempests though, I agree… they pretty much hard-counter Terran mech and, by extension, defensive builds with their Tectonic Destabilizers upgrade (and mech needs to use Planetary Fortresses etc. to defend distant expansions due to the lack of mobility compared to bio).
I don’t feel the Void Ray is all that useless, although facing Flux Vanes can be a nasty surprise sometimes since they wreck Vikings and Corruptors. It’s also good to get an early Void Ray in PvZ if they’ve opened Roaches, which can then go around to pick off Overlords once the threat is mitigated.
I have my own suggestions and ideas for balance - some of which may be badly mistaken - but there’s no reason for the patch maintainers to pay attention to a scrub like me, let alone test out any ideas. It would be nice, of course, but I’m only Diamond 3 and not well-known.
2 Likes
Protoss is overrepresented in GML.
Changes to Protoss are supposed to address that.
Also Protoss gets serious buffs to upgrades. This is supposed to make mass gateway PvZ style stronger.
Personally I would buff Protoss in a different way though.
Tempest and Void Ray are very strong units in certain scenarios and against certain units. Thus they can’t be buffed
I’m curious - what changes would you make?
Okay, but first I will write what gameplay I want to achieve, and then I will write changes that I believe can bring such gameplay without breaking other 2 match-ups.
I want PvZ to look more like it was during early LotV. Can’t say exact patches because that was too long ago.
In short, back then Sentry played way bigger role than it does today. There were Sentry-Adept pushes and Sentry-Immortal pushes with addition of Colossus and Archons in lategame.
Sentry in LotV is not nearly as strong as it used to be because of Ravager which can destroy Force Field quickly and easily. So, what I would do is to change this interaction to bring back stronger Force Field.
I see two ways how it can be done.
First way is to decrease the cost of FF: make it cost 30 or even 25 energy. That will obviously give Protoss more FF per Sentry. The potential problem with this solution is that a single Sentry with max would be able to cast a lot more FF than now and that can hypothetically change some other units interactions that I can’t foresee.
Second way is to make Force Field itself more resilient: make it strong enough to survive a single Ravager Bile, so that Zerg will need to cast 2 biles per FF. Visually after being hit once FF can change its color and/or shape (i.e. corrosive stuff from Ravager now covers the FF but it holds). That will be just straight nerf to Ravager Bile. The potential problem I see is that such change could be too big of a nerf. Must be tested.
One of the reasons people stopped playing PvZ the way it was played was Banelings getting 5 hp buff which allowed them to roll through Storms. So, another possible change is to revert this buff. This will also address the issue of Zerg being too strong in middle game ZvT, but I would rather change other things.
Another problem with modern PvZ is the strength of Lurker that Zerg can get relatively quickly and Lurker being so strong that it forces Protoss to go either mass disruptors or air. I strongly believe that Lurker Den should be locked behind the Hive. It was moved to Lair when Lurker was not nearly as strong as it is now.
That would also affect TvZ in a good way - delaying the timing of Zerg getting access to unit that is hard counter to all ground.
Another thing I want to see again is Archon drop. It stopped being as strong as it was due to WP pick-up range nerf. This nerf was due to strength of WP-immortal cheese.
This nerf also made Immortal-Sentry push significantly less strong.
Fixing it is much harder than FF however.
I suggest making WP Speed Upgrade also increasing WP pick up range by 1, but I’m not sure if it will work as I want…
Finally, I would revert patch change that increased the cost of Immortal and decreased cost of Robo.
When they did that Blizzard said that they want to “promote proxy Robo play in PvP”. They were successful in that… So successful that they introduced terrible crutch that is “Battery Overcharge” to deal with “strength of the proxy Robo play in PvP”. Darn…
PS. Is it me writing with so many mistakes or some sort of auto-correct keep changing prepositions to wrong ones? Grrrr
Has the balance patch been installed? Where can I see the final changes?
1 Like
There’s an extension mod called 5.0.11 BalanceTest that you can play a Custom game with. That will allow you to test a game personally.
I do have an idea of my own for that. I am thinking of putting together a more experimental extension mod based on 5.0.11 BalanceTest that incorporates these:
- New upgrade at Cybernetics Core - Khaydarin Matrix: 150m 150g 120 seconds to research. Sentries start with +25 energy. This doesn’t change how Force Fields behave, but it means Sentries have more energy to play with in pushes, and a defensive Sentry can use Guardian Shield right as it warps in. The fact it’s on the Cybernetics Core means it competes with Warp Gate research and the gas cost is equal to 1.5 Sentries, so you have to choose wisely. Also it gives protoss an energy upgrade!
One suggestion I made back when they first got their +5 HP buff was to split the Centrifugal Hooks upgrade into two (actually it was to put the +5 HP buff behind an upgrade since they experimented with Banelings having +5 HP from the off). 100m 100g for Centrifugal Hooks that increases their movement speed, and a 50m 50g upgrade named, say, Calloused Pustules, that grants +5 HP, but notably doesn’t require the Lair so it might make for some interesting new ZvZ openers (the gas cost eats into Baneling production though). The research time of Calloused Pustules would be equal to the Lair, so the two can mostly be upgraded side-by-side.
ADDENDUM: Regarding Psionic Storm, the ability dishes damage in blocks of 10, so with the zerg units healing 1 HP almost immediately, 35 HP shouldn’t make a difference compared to 30.
This one I do agree with. It increased the strength of proxy Robotics cheeses while harming late-gate Immortal production (which is needed in PvZ if the zerg player switces into mass Ultralisks). The price of the Warp Prism was increased too, but given its speed and long pick-up range, this should probably stay at 250m.
1 Like
The carrier is a ridiculous unit and needs to be nerfed to the ground or be completely reworked. Makes for longer and less interesting games. Skytoss should have never been a trigger phrase to begin with
Isnt this both a buff and a nerf to carrier?
This makes Raven useless…
Why was this even a thing? Because they wipe out stalkers? reduce their attack range if anything
wtf is this?
This was dumb and glad it was reverted
Carriers really only need A move and minor kiting
(Just note that I’m only relaying what’s in the patch notes for 5.0.11 BalanceTest - none of this is my doing!)
- The Interceptors have 40 HP, 40 shields once again, so they are more resilient against single-target defenders like Marines, Hydralisks and static defense, but they cluster over their targets more, making them more vulnerable to splash damage (Widow Mines especially).
- The main thing with the Raven is that they’ve reduced their build time from 42 seconds to 34 seconds and their gas cost from 200 to 150. Nerfing their abilities seems to be a compromise due to these changes. From what I’ve observed though, it’s not really having the desired effect of making them easier to build in the early-game since they’re too slow and fragile (especially against Phoenixes) and, with bio, scanner sweep tends to be more efficient.
- The damage point is the delay before a unit fires once it engages a target. Fighter mode is when it’s flying, and it’s meant to make it easier to kite with them.
- The Gravitic Boosters change reverts a change in an earlier patch where the Observer’s upgraded speed was slowed down because, apparently, it was an annoying situation where a terran player scanned for an Observer but it zipped out of the range of the scanner sweep before it could be killed. I’m not sure where this came from though because I’ve never seen anyone outright complain about it until Blizzard brought it up.
- With Hydralisks, most players tend to get Muscular Augments first so they can be used to attack faster. You only tend to get Grooved Spines first if you are on the defensive (e.g. against an all-in), so I do agree that this dichotomy during this short window should be kept.
- For Carriers, you still need to use some micro to get the most out of them, like moving them or focusing on different targets so the Interceptors don’t return to their hangars while you pull away, and selecting lower-health targets as well as the basic thing of pulling them back to their maximum leash range so it’s harder for defenders to target the Carriers themselves.
I like and agree with all of these changes,
One thing is, why can the Oracle be so amazing and have so much utility, but the Raven be the exact opposite and only made worse? Bring us back the Science Vessel from Sc1 BW rather than this scrap.
2 Likes
Blocks of 20. It does 4 ticks of damage for a total of 80 damage.
Nah, I disagree.
The auto-turret is a problem in much the same way all free-units are. This tones it down just a little without really effecting the rest of the unit, and frankly speaking, the auto turret really shouldn’t be the main focus or attraction of the Raven.
The cost and build time reduction is fairly substantial given the strength of interference matrix has been reverted to its former strength. In tandem with the starting energy upgrade being integrated from the word go, this makes both AAM and Interference Matrix quite a bit stronger because it comes out a lot earlier with that energy to use the unit’s abilities right off the bat.
AAM having less armour reduction is a fairly substantial nerf versus units like the Ultra and the Corruptor (primarily the latter as that’s most often when it’s seen), but given the other buffs, this might be warranted. However, it’s already an underutilized, niche spell, and nerfing this makes it even less likely to be seen.
This is the air combat mode. It’s basically making the air-to-air mode more microable.
Observer speed upgrade increases move speed more.
Reduced. The idea was to keep it more in line with upgraded roach move speed.
3 Likes