Patch 5.0.12 has arrived with balance changes, bug fixes, and map pool update.
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Glad we got a team maps rotation! It was getting a lot harder to find games at the higher leagues due to a lack of changing up the boards. However, we should be able to go up from 7 to 8 maps for each teams versus category just like how 1v1 got an extra map. Also, the best approach should’ve been hybrid: Take the best of last season, and incorporate some of the other season maps that are still highly playable. Here’s my recommendations being primarily a teams player since early Wings:
2v2: Efflorescence LE, Arctic Dream LE, Emerald City LE, Nightscape LE, Sludge City, Heavy Artillery LE, Reclamation LE, Traitor’s Exile
3v3: Realities Stimulation LE, Augustine Fall LE, Backcountry, Bastion of the Conclave, Doraelus Hills, Rosebud LE, Snowbound Colony, Bone Temple LE
4v4: Troizinia LE, Sacred Grounds, Multiprocessor LE, Tuonela LE, Sunset Valley LE, Shipwrecked LE, Tropic Shores, Fortitude LE. Honestly, Troizinia LE is definitely my top choice out of them. It’s exceptionally well balanced and I’ve had some of the best games on it.
I want to remove maps with highly abusive play, or a single strategy dominates. It’s important to have maps that offer a myriad of viable strategies. Especially in team games.
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I couldn’t agree more. I also hate Concord LE because of how much that map favors air units.
When does this patch is going to apply?, because i played today and it was still without the balance changes!
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First, thanks for the continued attention to the balance, maps and bugfixing. Rare are games that old who still receive love, so thank you for that. 
Regarding the balance changes :
- The Cyclone in fact gets a redesign, which is a risky move considering the time in between balance updates. It turns the cyclone into something of a mech-marine or goliath, and is the major change of this patch.
- The ghost gets two more nerfs. Or rather, the EMP buff gets reverted, and the snipe gets a big nerf. This means four snipes will be needed to take out an ultralisk, two for a lurker. The other main counters to it were the liberator (=> corruptors), the tank (=> zergling), and the marauder (=>zerling) ± mines (hydras) being soft counters. While I can understand the will to revert the EMP, in TvZ this might create a situation where the Z can counter the terran mainly by choosing the right composition, while the terran will have to micro his life out once again. You’ll have understood I’m not a fan of this change.
- The raven was indeed too powerfull in allins early TvT, but this nerf will impact TvP as will, which isn’t wished for.
- Hellbats are too efficient against lings, this nerf is welcome.
- The mines’ buff is laughable. If it was argued for to compensate the ghost’s nerfs, it clearly doesn’t IMO.
Protoss :
- The MS redesign/nerf is another bold move. But, at least it’ll introduce a bit more control into skytoss based composition, and will lessen the single unit conditional win the MS sometime was. This change is a welcome one.
- Buff upgrades. Unneeded considering the chronoboost and multi forge strats, but more gateball is welcome, and a buff was required to offset the MS nerf.
- Buff sentry : underused unit, control based. This buff is most welcome.
Zerg :
- BL buff speed, nerf broodlings. It’s a tactical buff overall, and I feel like it’s welcome.
- The nerf Lurker speed is slight, but most welcome. I wrote several times having a siege unit move that fast was nonsensical.
- The revert of the banelings HP buff with the centrifugal hook is welcome, as it felt unneeded in the first place. However, another damage nerf ? Not sure about that part.
- Infestor nerf. Not sure where that came from, except lessen the strength of casters and equalize balance with the raven (which is one the the most heavily nerf units ever). But then, why nerf the infestor (which felt fine ?) and not nerf the viper instead ? I don’t get that part.
Overall, despite disagreeing with some of the T/Z nerfs, most of the proposed changes go in the right direction. One thing is sure though, they will renew the metagame alright.
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I think it’s a shame that they only go 2/3 of the way with the Burst-aoe unit changes.
P-Disruptors changes, Z-Bane nerf,
T-WM? no aoe-dmg or radius reduction. 
With Bane you need 2x melee upgrade for Bane one shot, Wm has from start to late ling/worker one-shot no matter which upgrade lead you have.
at the top of the link it says “following goals”:
one point is:
“Make Protoss more stable on a professional level in the early game vs Raven pushes and more able to fight Terran mid-late game armies without solely relying on Disruptors.”
I wouldn’t call it a nerf, but a change.
Fungal has a nerf in range and damage, but emp has reduced radius.
But Infestor is now playable earlier and gives actions for the mid game. see here again “following goals”.
Yeah but terran having more efficient harass is aimed to balance the other race’s having faster developing economy otherwise. And… WM damage has already been nerfed in the past.
Not sure what they were seeking with the unburrow buff though, since in lategame you’ll be wanting to multitask, and likely not be able to babysit them back into safety. 
Indeed. Can’t say that I agree though, since getting the protoss off balance is one of the keys of TvP. There are other ways though. Anyway, fair point.
It’s definitely a nerf, since the reduced damage/range will be the only difference once the infestor are plentiful in energy. Yet indeed, they do justify it in their goals.
This is specifically why they changed the raven. Tvt is anside effect, the TvP change was intended.
Snipe count for lurker doesnt change but does make picking them off harder with units left over since they will have a lot more HP left.
Snipe itself did to much as it was but I still thinknit is a necessary evil - Zerg is already super oppressive lategame and this really hurts T’s ability to play lategame as it is since the ghost is basically the lategame pinnacle for Terran and there isn’t anything that can replace it either.
This change came out of nowhere for me, I didn’t think this was an issue since it only applied at +3 anyway.
I don’t think the mine buff matters at all, but it does restore some micro capability with burrow unburrow shenanigans with DC researched but it will never really see much play. Mines are strong as it is IMO the build time needs to be reverted back to the 28 seconds it was prior.
5 Damage nerf in exchange for having infestors capable of dropping fungal instantly, and not needing pathogen glands to be researched. Net buff IMO.
Viper consume buff was… weird but okay I guess.
And unlike banes, can’t be mass produced in overwhelming numbers at a near instant pace, and costs 4x the supply of banes while also being completely useless after they fire if they live.
They’re also the only unit in the game who can have a buff removed midgame if you destroy the armoury. I do think they need to have their build time reverted to 28 seconds but otherwise its in a fine spot as it is.
Mines are, unfortunately, a necessity in both TvP and TvZ.
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bane aren’t they for ZvP/T? or Disruptors in PvT?
Both have been adjusted but wm left as they are?
The idea was to customize the game and make it more enjoyable and for me WM belong exactly in the category bane/Disruptors.
Burrorw and forget → Wm are only active when another unit is nearby → Wm work as a zone tool and not as no brainer.
WM are extremely cheap for what they do… and the “argument” after an attack they die is also so lala.
as said here only 2/3 of the way was gone.
Thanks for working on the game.
Any chance to nerf the Protoss “cannon rush” strategy so that 40 apm players can’t hit masters?
Adding a distance limit to buildings would be nice, say maximum 30 range from a nexus/cc/hatch.
Code could be recycled from the pylon power requirement.
Same needs to be applied to terran bunkers and missile turrets as well. For Zerg, spore and spine crawlers should no longer be able to uproot and move.
Hellions/Hellbats also have that problem. I kind of wish Smart-Servos and Drilling Claws served as secondary options for each. The SC2 “requirements” system is basically just a conditional statement, so you can have “or” conditions.
Well, the logic provided was as follows;
Increase the variety in the mid game and late game army compositions by reducing the strength of massed Ghosts, Banelings, and Disruptors.
Widow Mines may be strong against specific compositions in the early and mid-game, but they actually do fall off in usefulness later after certain units come out (Disruptors, Colossus, Brood Lords, Lurkers, etc). The specific units that were targeted are units that are either massed all game long, or massed in the late game.
It should also be noted that the Baneling damage change was specifically targeted at preventing Banelings from one-shotting workers, similar to the Hellbat change to prevent one-shotting Zerglings. The number of hits needed to kill most other light units remains the same.
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Fair point.
Completely agree with that.
I’m playing as a random player right now. And, subjectively, hellbats already feel a bit too strong of a counter to lings right off the bat ( so to speak =o). Having them being able to OS 3-3 lings at +3/infernal pre-igniter feels like uneeded worsening of that situation, specially with the growing amounts of terrans going for very a-clic friendly mech based compositions.
- Protoss have AoE simultaneously powerful mobile, long ranged and reusable, the disruptor, yet those are costly, slow to produced and require a lenghty tech tree (and way more micromanagement btw).
- Terrans have a less powerful, immobile but ranged and reusable with the mine ; yet they are significantly less costly and much faster to produce.
- And finally the Zerg have less powerful, mobile (and friendly fire free !) yet disposable and melee splash. They being cheaper and mass produced able feel only logical compared to the two other races .
I don’t see the problem there, each of those example suits the philosophy of each race. Mines are reusable (which is specially significant in harass timings situation), and have already eaten quite the nerfs in the past, no need to weaken them even further IMO. They can feel punishing on the receiving end, but so do banes and disruptors.
Simply put they give you one third of a 75 energy spell for free, but you might need three spells instead of two now. Awesome discount ! XD Though indeed, the 25 energy will always feel like a buff with the two other spells.
As for the viper change, the unit already felt like top tier even among casters, and was only slightly nerfed in the past compared to the raven, or even the infestor if the raven example is too strong. So I don’t get where is buff is coming from either. 0=)
Countering cannon rush is a matter of reacting adequately (which varies depending on the setup/timing), and of scouting it in time. Just like bio players are required to learned splitting, and the protoss to wall-in. In other words, it’s a L2P issue and not a balance one.
Adjust your scouting, and learn the counters ; you’ll be rewarded with a large advantage upon achieving so against cannon rushers. 
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So we are nerfing not only baneling damage but baneling HP-how is zerg supposed to deal with Terran bio? Not only that-you’re nerfing infestor cast range and damage, nerfing lurkers, and buffing terran bio with a medivac upgrade.
This patch will absolutely ruin ZvT. Baneling HP nerf needs to be reverted at minimum.
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Wait and see. Given how oppressive banes generally are, and the fact they did just fine pre health buff, I don’t think it’s going to be an issue.
The bane nerf can hit hard because zerg is dependent on current bane. Especially the interaction between bane-PF/ bane-bio can be problematic after the patch.
But many changes were made, example: infestor in late weaker but for the mid game more atractive. Hydra was also adjusted.
maybe these changes are enough for a mid game.
Now we have to hope that everything will be well tested.
sure… I remember when snip was only slightly adjusted in the last patch. And Terran have predicted the end of t-late game.
miro, simply removes the auto attack from ghost and then: Wait and see.
2013: widow mines get gutted. Terran players literally disappear from tournaments almost overnight - every zerg player ever (because suddenly they didnt have to learn how to do basic micro) “wait and see!” For almost a year.
Yeah look I’m not going to lie, I certainly wasnt (and am not fond of) the ghost changes to snipe given that the ghost is the pinacle of terran lategame tech and there is nothing that really can compensate if the ghost is removed… but I at least recognise that change is needed.
The change to banes is at the bare minimum reverting a buff with the HP change, and a nerf on the damage.
I do have one or two concerns about it in TvZ, but I honestly think that the need for changes in PvZ outweighs the TvZ right now, especially since we have previously had banes be perfectly fine pre health buff. I do know PFs don’t take any less damage from banes than they did before, but banes rolling PFs was always a bad sign anyway, least as far as I was concerned, and if youre able to spend enough on rolling banes into a PF then you’re not going to care about the difference because you’re already so far ahead that its almost certainly not going to matter.
Worst comes to worst we can always make further changes, but PvZ had been in the worst spot in competetive play for an extremely long time (for various reasons), with banes being a significant cause of it. I suspect that PvZ issues will require more though.
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Looks like big changes, the banes nerf, the Ghost less used for mass sniping, the EMP nerf, I disagree that Storm was not used before, now they will just have more reason to spam it more.
The Cyclone has been a boring concept to me from the start, OK the mech marine, never liked playing mass cyclone.
This also shows that WM as bad design as it is, is not considered such a problem
OK have to see how tournaments go after these changes just to see who this balance is gonna favor
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Please revert this patch 
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LMAO the NEW MAPS ARE TERRIBLE THANKS
CYA dont want to play this garbage game, ENJOY ZERG still winning half of tournaments