[Suggestion / PTR / Extension Mod] Raven Rework

Happy New Year everyone!

So those who have been watching my topics on the forum, I’ve made a number of suggestions to the Raven to give it a bit more utility than just an early-game detector, especially if you manage to keep it alive.

On EU or NA, search for “5.0.11 BalanceTest with Reworked Ravens” when creating a game with an extension mod. As the name implies, it is built on the current PTR balance patch (hopefully the transfer of data didn’t result in any errors), but with the following changes:

  • Interference Matrix now reduces the target’s sight range to 1 on top of disabling its attack and abilities (potentially removing high-ground vision if you target an air unit).
  • Anti-Armor Missile now costs 50 energy (remember that it now only removes 2 armour).
  • Auto-Turrets now cost 50 energy again, but fire a projectile (increasing the chance of overkill). Weapon name changed from 12mm Gauss Cannon to 70mm Howitzer.
  • Overlords and Overseers are now Psionic (allowing them to be targetted by Interference Matrix).

It’s not perfect, like there are no satisfying impact maps for the Auto-Turret’s howitzer yet, and the projectile fires from the base of the turret rather than its muzzle, but this doesn’t affect gameplay.

Personally I would rather the Raven’s starting energy be reduced to 50 again but have the Corvid Reactor upgrade returned, possibly increased in price to 200m 200g to offset the cheaper Raven cost, but that’s currently beyond the scope of this extension mod.

Let me know if there are any bugs and how it plays out.


Suggestions were pulled from these three topics:

I don’t see why Terran need blinded cloud since they have no melee units and they out range other to races.

Reducing sight to 1 is little op you remove all micro abilities even ability to escape since player is blind

You can stim marines into banes and be fine.

You can only target a single Mechanical or Psionic unit with it (meaning you can’t target marines with it). It’s not an area of effect. Note that while the unit itself is blind, other units can still see - in large engagements it won’t have any meaningful effect beyond what it does already, but if you are facing a situation where a Viking or Medivac is spotting for a Siege Tank, you can cast Interference Matrix on it to remove its ability to see onto the high ground temporarily. However, if there’s more than one unit spotting, or they simply scan, it gets a bit more difficult.

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i think the only thing we need is Interference Matrix to be able to target lurkers and ultras …

That would be nice but I don’t think that can work unfortunately. Neither zerg unit is particularly Psionic beyond being a member of the hive mind, and you usually get attacked by a sizeable number of them, so disabling one won’t amount to much. Ultralisks are also Frenzied, hence immune to all stuns and snares and the like.

On the plus side, the Anti-Armor Missile is a good choice against Ultralisks due to their high base armour, although reducing the penalty from -3 to -2 does hurt in this regard.

Going back to Interference Matrix though, with Overlords and Overseers being made Psionic as part of this suggestion, one option is to instead target the Overseers in order to remove their detection for a short while, after which you can then use Ghosts to snipe the Ultralisks and Lurkers without getting targetted themselves.

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Okay, so the Raven received a lot of reversions as of the PTR patch on 2nd Jan 2023, namely:

  • Starting energy reduced to 50.
  • Interference Matrix duration reverted back to 11 seconds.
  • Auto-Turret casting energy reduced to 50.

However:

  • Auto-Turret duration reduced from 10.0 to 7.86 seconds, HP reduced from 150 to 100, armour reduced from 1 to 0 and is no longer affected by the Neosteel Armor upgrade.
  • Corvid Reactor upgrade still removed.

It might make the howitzer change on the Auto-Turret unnecessary. Either way, I’ll have to make some updates to the mod tomorrow.

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Extension mod has been updated to reflect the more recent changes to the 5.0.11 PTR patch, which has changed the Raven as follows:

  • Build time reduced from 42.7 to 34 seconds.
  • Gas cost reduced from 200 to 150.
  • Corvid Reactor upgrade removed (see note below)
  • Anti-Armor Missile now only reduces 2 armour/shield instead of 3.
  • Auto-Turret duration reduced from 10.0 to 7.86 seconds, HP reduced from 150 to 100, armor reduced from 1 to 0 and is no longer affected by the Neosteel Armor upgrade (Hi-Sec Auto-Tracking still affects it though).

In the meantime, 5.0.11 BalanceTest with Reworked Ravens has the following changes on top:

  • Raven is no longer Light (it is Mechanical only).
  • Base armour reduced from 1 to 0.
  • Interference Matrix now reduces the target’s sight range to 1 on top of disabling its attack and abilities (potentially removing high-ground vision if you target an air unit).
  • Anti-Armor Missile now costs 50 energy instead of 75.
  • Auto-Turret duration increased back to 10 seconds, but it now fires a projectile (increasing the chance of overkill). Weapon name changed from 12mm Gauss Cannon to 70mm Howitzer.
  • Corvid Reactor returned, but cost increased to 200m 200g to reflect cheaper Raven cost.
  • Overlords and Overseers are now Psionic (allowing them to be targetted by Interference Matrix).

Hopefully there aren’t any bugs with the transfer of changes over from the balance mod.

I’ve released a second extension mod with some more experimental suggestions, named 5.0.11 BalanceTest with Experimental Changes - this one has stuff for all three races. I don’t want to think any of them are grossly unbalanced, but I hope I have some sound logic.

TERRAN

Cyclone

  • Mag-Field Accelerator bonus increased from +10 to +12.

Raven

  • No longer has the Light attribute (is Mechanical only).
  • Base armour reduced from 1 to 0.
  • Corvid Reactor returned, but now costs 200m 200g
  • Auto-Turret lasts 10 seconds again, but now fires a projectile instead of hitscan (increases the chance of overkill); renamed from 12mm Gauss Cannon to 70mm Howitzer.
  • Anti-Armor Missile now costs 50 energy (since it only removes 2 armour, not 3)
  • Interference Matrix now also reduces target’s sight range to 1.

Battlecruiser

  • Yamato Cannon damage increased from 240 to 240 (+60 vs. Structures)

ZERG

Baneling

  • Centrifugal Hooks upgrade split into 2:
    • Calloused Pustules (50m 50g, 50 seconds) - Banelings gain +5 life (does NOT require Lair).
    • Centrifugal Hooks (100m 100g, 79 seconds) - increases Baneling movement speed.

Ravager

  • New upgrade at Roach Warren: Potent Bile (200m 200g, 85 seconds) - increases damage of Corrosive Bile by 40% (to 84) - requires Hive.

PROTOSS

Sentry

  • New upgrade at Cybernetics Core: Khaydarin Matrix (150m 150g, 85 seconds) - increases the starting energy of Sentries by 25.

Tempest

  • Bonus from Tectonic Destabilizers reduced from +40 vs. Structures to +25 vs. Structures.

High Templar

  • New upgrade at Templar Archives: Twilight Focus (100m 100g, 56 seconds) - doubles the damage of Feedback (to 1 HP / energy)

To explain my logic somewhat… the small buff to the Cyclone upgrade aims to improve the unit against what it traditionally used to counter in Battlemech compositions, like Infestors (it will 3-shot them again) and Stalkers (will 5-shot them).

Traditionally, Yamato Cannon would 1-shot terran and protoss static defence, and the +60 vs. Structures bonus will ensure that, while making sure it doesn’t 1-shot soft-counters like Void Rays (the reason why it was reduced from 300 to 240 in the first place).

Originally, Banelings were planned to have a +5 HP buff from the off, but this caused major problems in ZvZ. I suggested locking it behind a new upgrade back then but instead it was wrapped into Centrifugal Hooks. Now it has been split into two separate upgrades (with an equal combined cost), but the fact that Calloused Pustules (+5 HP) doesn’t require the Lair might open up some new Hatchery-tech strategies, since a Baneling will be able to survive 2 Roach attacks with it (it costs the equivalent gas cost of 2 Banelings though). The timing is 7 seconds shorter than the Lair morph time, so you should be able to morph and research the two near-simultaneously without changing standard strategies too much.

The Ravager upgrade is probably the shakiest of my suggestions, since there’s no real strong reason for it, and would be more of a low-league upgrade since professional players have the skill to dodge the shots better. I did plan 90 damage originally, but I felt this would be overpowered given it would 2-shot Siege Tanks, Liberators and Warp Prisms and 1-shot Widow Mines. At 84, the bile numbers will remain the same. It would, however, be good for breaking fortified positions in the endgame, and can snipe enemy High Templars in one hit.

The Sentry energy upgrade competes with Warp Gate and costs a lot of gas, but it will allow new Sentries to cast Guardian Shield the moment they warp in and get a second Force Field faster, possibly reintroducing some Sentry-based all-ins. However, the fact that the Cybernetics Core will be researching without any Stargate tech is a big tell.

Tempests with Tectonic Destabilizers is one of the reasons why mech still doesn’t work that well against protoss, since it’s just a little bit too good at destroying fortified positions and distant expansions, given the Tempest already counters most mech units and are fairly even, cost-for-cost, against Thors. Of course, Vikings are the answer, but overproducing these comes with its own problems. This tunes back the damage slightly so there’s more counterplay. To make sure that Spire forests don’t make a return though…

The Twilight Focus upgrade returns Feedback to its original strength, allowing High Templars to kill late-game spellcasters like Vipers and Ravens. Well-placed High Templars will once again be able to kill a badly-placed Viper. Care still has to be taken though since the unit is very fragile and will die in one hit to an upgraded Corrosive Bile. This is normally a late-game upgrade since you’ll want to research Psionic Storm first, although I can possibly see Twilight Focus being researched first in PvP games if the opponent has gone for a large number of Phoenixes, say.


Of course I’m not expecting these to be accepted en masse, but if even one or two of these gain attention and consideration, I would be beyond grateful.

ADDENDUM: This was posted at exactly the same time as 5.0.11 went live.

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I don’t know, man. Look at it like this: It costs the same or more than any caster in the game, even still.

Compare it to the Templar? Blanket an entire army with damage, feedback key units
The Disruptor can win a game with a single spell cast

The Ghost can remove a third of your entire opponent’s HP and nullify spells

The Viper is a Swiss army knife of utility which also obliterates smaller air units
The Infestor has great QOE and mind control

Vs the Raven, which has a spell which can be completely negated by a unit from a gateway, at half the cost. Turrets are paperweights, and Disable is great, but only in TVT.

Face it, the Raven is a dead unit, it would have to be completely redesigned from the ground up to make it not nearly worthless.

Well, I still want to try at least. Removing the Light attribute softens one of protoss’ hard counters at least (Phoenixes tend to shut down Ravens far more strongly than High Templars). Note that a High Templar and a Raven have the same gas cost now. I just think weakening its late-game potential is the wrong move. Most Terran players just scan if they need detection to deal with creep, say.

All protoss changes are horrible.

Sentry buff will never happen, as the sentries SHOULD NOT be able to cast a second force field too quickly. The proof of it is the introduction of the ravager, who can destroy them, which clearly shows, that mass force field from HOTS should not exist in game.

Do you realize that tempest is a siege unit? Do you understand that for the price it has, it can’t do anything other than destroying tower defense and kill some air units with huge overkill, for the huge price and t3 tech requirement? What kind of counter play are you talking about? They get annihilated by thors or vikings. Tempest has no chance at beating equal supply of thors by any means, what are you talking about?

Balance team takes away the ability of HT to kill units with the single feedback, because it creates problems in balance, you bring that back :man_facepalming: : Who would do that in pvp? Against phoenixes? A good player will NEVER have even 100 energy on phoenixes, they would always be empty, so feedback will never kill them.

I start to have the suspicion that MyOhMind has returned.

I’m fairly certain the main problem for mech is building up to critical mass and securing expansions. Not Tempests; which can be dealt with using either Thors or Vikings, or a combination of both.

Tempests definitely need a strong anti-structure attack for PvZ, since Zerg players tend to make Crawler forests that are hard to engage into.

It’s just the speed at which Tempests can destroy an expansion that gets troublesome. Granted there’s also Chargelot/Immortal, but at least you can kind of fight that. Originally Spore forests weren’t as problematic because Feedback could kill Vipers, but when that was nerfed, they could recover their lost energy fairly rapidly while the High Templar had no such luxury. At least that’s the intention behind the Twilight Focus upgrade, being less of a sledgehammer of a response to Spore forests that affects other matchups.

The Tempest is supposed to be a siege unit while the Carrier is an assault unit, but it feels like the Tempest does the assaulting far better, especially as you can shut down Interceptors with well-placed Widow Mines (e.g. if you have a Planetary Fortress, Widow Mines in the mineral line, rather than out front, will generally catch a large cloud of Interceptors). I guess I may have to accept that reality.

I’m not sure that I agree. Most Terran units can match or surpass the Tempest’s anti-structure DPS on lower supply.

The anti-structure DPS is definitely in line with a siege unit, and Carriers have significantly more DPS (and less overkill) than Tempests.

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I guess you’re right. I’ve been probably wrong on this, and on the new role of the Raven. At least it’s seeing some use in TvZ now. I think part of me hasn’t been used to change. I’m not sure why I’ve struggled to accept the Tempest even as a Protoss main.

4 Sentries can permanently Force Field a ramp if you get the timing right. The thing with the upgrade is that it takes a long time and it’s not likely you’ll build 2 Cybernetics Cores in the early game or severely delay Warp Gate to get it. By that time, terran players have Medivacs to hop units over Force Fields and zerg can get more Ravagers, especially as it should be quite easy to scout the researching Cybernetics Core to know what’s up. Yes, mass Force Field was a problem because of how early they came and the lack of answers that zerg had to circumvent them, but that’s not an issue now - in fact, the balance team reduced their Gateway build time so it was more likely you had one in the early game. Note the upgrade will eat into your Sentry production a bit and whatever you would spend minerals on.

I may have been wrong with the Tempest, yes. The answer to give them extra structure damage to fix an endgame PvZ problem comes off as a sledgehammer though since High Templars could no longer kill Vipers. The Feedback upgrade suggestion with PvP, I was a little vague but I didn’t mean they could kill the Phoenixes, more of just do extra damage on them since they are quite difficult to kill with ground units due to their high speed and Light attribute. Outside of Photon Cannons, Archons are best, but have very limited range and mobility (and Psionic Storm is not something you would use on them).

Considering that even with cybercore after nexus, you get warp-in earlier than around 4th minute, I can assume that by 6th minute you would easily have the second upgrade. 4 sentries can’t forcefield the ramp, because the ravagers destroy them. The idea of forcefields is not to block the opponent, but to a) protect your forces from surround, especially with banelings. b) Block the opponent from infinity kite. It helps zealots a lot. The sentry should not be able to block the ramp infinite amount of time.

HT will not be able to even break shield of phoenixes with 0,5 or 1, so this change does not help you in pvp at all.

I figured with the HT upgrade the Phoenixes would not die or be significantly damaged (since it will only be an extra 25 to 30 damage or so) unless there are, say, Blink Stalkers to back them up. It was more of a small helping hand in that regard before merging the HT into Archons. Otherwise it would do more damage against enemy Oracles (same issue with Phoenixes though when it comes to energy), Sentries, other High Templars and the Mothership (which has too much HP and shields to be noticeable). Most players try to keep their energy down, so things like Medivacs don’t get completely shut down… the intention was to be a bit better against Vipers, which is arguably the strongest spellcaster in the game, or at least up there with the Ghost.

And yes, the 4 Sentries infinitely blocking a ramp was, I think, one reason why the Ravager was introduced. I admit I only managed to pull it off once in my own HotS games with a Warp Prism of 3 Zealots and 1 Sentry… unload them, Force Field the ramp, warp in 3 more Sentries and some more Zealots and Stalkers and let them go to town! Meanwhile, I time the Sentries so the ramp is permanently blocked and the main destroyed. Of course, that can still happen in Legacy of the Void if there are no Ravagers out, but that’s why many zergs get a ‘safety Roach Warren’ in ZvP, just in case.

If my calculations are correct here, having two Sentries with 75 energy will be able to hold the ramp for a duration of 4 Force Fields, after which they won’t have enough energy (they will have 25 each), but which is probably enough time for the main to be severely damaged. With that in mind, should the upgrade price be increased to 200m 200g so you’d have to forgo 2 earlier Sentries to get it quickly? Originally I pondered about the upgrade requiring the Robotics Facility (with the logic that the Sentry is a robotic unit), but this wouldn’t help and would probably just enforce an Immortal/Sentry-style all-in.

I guess my protoss suggestions have flaws at best. Are the other two races just as bad here?

I think the viper already got nerfed, so I don’t see any reason to nerf it further.
I am protoss player, so I can’t really tell how much of an effect your raven changes have on tvt.

I guess so. However, if a Viper of full energy abducts a unit and gets Feedback’d during the delay, they lose a maximum of 125 energy and the unit they abducted will still likely be killed. Even with increased damage, that’s not enough to kill the Viper, and 125 HP is exactly one Transfuse (75 + 5 * 10) from a Queen. You’d still have to catch the Viper out of position to get it to pay off.

For the Raven TvT thing, I think it has become more chaotic in the early game due to the faster Raven. If something like a tank is hit with Interference Matrix, the reduced sight range won’t make a difference if there are marines around to support it, but what you can do is hit the Viking or Medivac etc that’s spotting for it, which may offer some interesting scenarios if they lose high ground vision as a result. For the Auto-Turrets, it’s largely a nerf, I think. Turrets will last their original duration so you have to retreat if you can’t destroy it, but if they are spammed, the chance of overkilling is greatly increased. For example, it takes 3 shots to kill worker, but if two turrets are dropped simultaneously and they end up shooting at the same unit, 2 shots each will be fired. At least that was my reasoning behind keeping its duration (and originally its durability and 50 energy), since they would become inefficient in large numbers.