There are a lot of changes here, a lot of them useless and a lot of the great, but I don’t think there is enough. These feel like bandaid changes that would come out during the year, except all thrown into one big patch. The issues bogging the game down stem from so many different areas than what was addressed in the patch.
Like, come on! Do you think 20 extra shields on a completely different upgrade will make adepts useful later in the game? Do you think that instant burrow lurkers with 10 range won’t be a problem in ZvP? Do you think that splitting zealots charge damage into two different upgrades will really fix the issue of zealots being the most cost-efficient choice of gateway unit late in the game?
You can do so so much more with these end of year patches. You can look at the economy, you can look at buffing unused units, you can push the game back to where there is an actual mid-game, not just an early game, then a push, then a late game.
This patch has some amazing changes in it, don’t get me wrong. The IM change, the Thor change, the void ray change, the broodlord change and the nydus change to name a couple, but it’s not enough to really address the issues with Sc2.
I played a few games with the changes in TvP. The lib and medivac changes are HUGE! They’re amazing QoL changes for TvP! Of course I would argue the medivacs are too fast now but thats a conversation for another thread.
Slightly different though in the sense that with the speed upgrade, the warp prism is already incredibly fast. Buffing it even further would be silly, though I understand your example.
Frankly speaking I don’t think the buff to the medivac is necessary, but since the WP prism already has one and the overlord has one, I guess it’s only fair that the medivac does too.
I would agree with this, but the upgrade barrier for adepts to reach their full potential is too much. Adepts aren’t used as much currently past the first six minutes when they have the potential to be used throughout the game. The extra 20 shields would be coming at the same time as when protoss could have charge and charge upgrade, so what’s the point of getting adepts when you can get charglots? What’s the point of 20 extra shields when by the time you get that EMP will be rampant during the game. I want adepts to be used more, but they’re just not good after a certain point in the game.
What that protoss has can hit something from 10 range? Tempests? Because tempests are going to get close enough to kill lurkers late game. Yes, Zergs late game is getting nerfed, but mass spore infestor will still be the strongest late-game army against protoss. This patch won’t change that. Speed voids might do something but they still wont be able to hit lurkers from 10 range. This also has a lot of implications for ZvZ as well.
But does that really solve the issue? This is an end of year patch where blizzard has the chance to change a lot more than something that can be done in the middle of the year, like this upgrade split.
Ok. Blizzard isn’t. I’m lying, they’re addressing the void ray… And I really can’t think of another unit that isn’t used that much right now. Besides early game units that become useless later, like adept and reaper.
80/80 Adepts with Glaive are actually really good. Not even kidding do some tests on the Arcade map called “Balance Unit Tester Online”.
Day and night difference that so many are downplaying.
The difference between the old 9 range and the new 10 range isn’t that much when you consider how the Lurkers spines work.
Also currently there might be a bug with the Lurker where it can’t actually hit anything at 10 range since it can’t hit ghosts that are sniping.
You can still get charge out to defend, but then you can make it stronger later.
They are also addressing the Adept, but I do have 1 change for the Adept that would greatly improve it’s mid-late game utility that complements the blizzard change too.
Colossus in ZvP and PvP
Lurkers in TvZ
Ultralisk in ZvP and ZvZ.
TvP Mech(really just needs a few tiny changes)
Reaper is a sad story of a unit that had so much potential getting nerfed into a glorified scout because of cheese. Mid-late game reapers would be really exciting if done right.
I wont say they aren’t good, just woefully unattainable. If glaves got a price increase and it was merged with the 20 shields I would be ok with that, even if it is a little strong. As long as it makes adepts an option over zealots.
As far as the adept goes, their problems are two fold.
The first is that theyre competing with both zealots and stalkers for resources and warp gate time. They’ve gone back and forth a couple times, but the fundamental design of the unit has always had it so that it tries to do the same job as at least one of those units. No matter what, at least one of the three is going to be redundant here. Changes to the adept alone aren’t going to solve this problem unless it just turns into a completely different unit.
The second problem is that it costs gas. Gas is at a premium in the protoss army, which means that it needs to justify its cost. But due to its more limited ability than the stalker (specifically the lack of AA) and the power of warp gates, the only way it can do that is to be hyper competent at what it does, leading to it being frustrating to play against.
Ive said it before, but ultimately I think the solution here is to change the adept to be a less mobile general DPS unit to support zealot lines in the early and mid game, and make the stalker into a more mobile map control/harass unit with less utility in just barreling across the map in a deathball. The two units need distinct roles, otherwise they’ll always be competing for the same slot in the protoss army.
Why would you want adepts that late in the game though? At that point, you (could) have access to stronger, higher tech DPS units, and due to their gas cost adepts will never replace zealots as a meat shield unit.
Your thinking too much about the current meta rather than thinking about what the meta could be. The new vikings and thor are disgusting, VIkings can trade very favorably against roaches and even roach hydra. Adept builds might be a thing again but we won’t really know what will happen until pros play hundreds of games and try all the options.
Adepts are a middle ground between the Zealot and the Stalker and they do a huge bonus vs light. At +3 attack they 2 shot fully upgraded marines.
Against marauder bio heavy comps(with limited to no vikings) they are actually better than Stalkers for supporting zealots and protecting your high tech units.
Even against non-baneling or Lurker using Zerg they can do pretty well.
I don’t think 10 lurkers range will be a problem because they’ll come really late, because and at some point lurkers become useless vs chargelots/archons/immortals as they don’t have enough burst to survive a front assault.
But, faster lurker den may be a problem in ZvP because they will come sooner and Protoss won’t have the critical mass of army to engage them. So i think you’d rather have to fear +8 range fast lurkers, than +10 range lurkers.
I would improve properly the Adept by just making the Real-DPS near the Paper-DPS (due to overkill). That could be attained (and applied to Tempest too) by having the plasma-ball survive the dead-enemy (the ball killing a Zergling of 2 HP and the remaining 18 damage ball attack the nearest 2-3 range enemy).
Still the Real-DPS would be less than the Paper-DPS but that would be an immense improvement.
One, using large numbers of adepts instead of stalkers to protect your colossi leads to getting overwhelmed when the terran finally does transition to Vikings or liberators, because now you have no AA units at all. Two, you generally want to limit the number of stalkers in your army to whats necessary to ward off air units because of the aforementioned gas cost eating into the availability of said tech units, which will kill ground based armies significantly better than stalkers or adepts would. Air armies too, if youre going templar tech, especially compared to adepts.