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StarCraft II - HotS: Balance Update #4
Sep 28 2012, 11:29 pm
By: Ahli  

Sep 28 2012, 11:29 pm Ahli Post #1

I do stuff and thingies... Try widening and reducing the number of small nooks and crannies to correct the problem.


STARCRAFT II: HotS - Balance Update #4
--- HOTS beta balance ---


Quote from Blizzard Entertainment

Protoss

Mothership Core
  • Purify has been changed to the following:
    • Purify can now only be cast on your Nexus at max 10 range.
    • Once cast, the mothership core will attach itself to the Nexus, transforming into a weapon with range 10.
    • While attached to the Nexus, the mothership core will be unable to cast abilities and regenerate energy.
    • The damage of Purify has been lowered to 20 and can attack both air and ground units.
    • Purify will last until cancelled.
  • Recall has been changed to the following:
    • Recall is now a simple cast-and-click ability on a player’s Nexus.
    • Once cast, the mothership core and every friendly unit within a 7-range radius to the core will be recalled to the Nexus.
  • A new ranged weapon called Repulsor Cannon has been added to the mothership core while in its mobile state.
    • Repulsor Cannon deals 8 damage to ground units with an attack speed of 0.85.
  • The cost of the mothership core has increased from 50/50 to 100/100.
  • Movement speed has increased from 0.47 to 1.875.

Oracle
  • Health has increased from 20/80 to 60/100.
  • Speed has decreased from 3.75 to 3.375.
  • The duration of Entomb has increased from 30 to 45.


Terran

Widow Mine
  • The duration of Activate Mine has been decreased to 2 sec.
  • Auto-cast can now be turned off in both activated and deactivated modes.


Zerg

Swarm Host
  • Locust attack range has increased from 2 to 3.
  • Locust damage has been reduced from 14 to 12.


Bug Fixes
  • Battle hellions can no longer load into Bunkers.
  • The splash damage from widow mines will no longer hit friendly activated widow mines.
  • The Stargate Command Card now properly includes a Set Rally Point button.
  • Swarm hosts now have proper collision while burrowed.
Source


Update:
Quote from David Kim, Blizzard Entertainment
As you’ve likely noticed, we’re still actively tuning the numbers on many of the new units we’re introducing in Heart of the Swarm. We’re making these changes after frequently referring to the stats from the beta, our play experiences, discussions taking place on the community forums and fan sites, and pro feedback. We think there’s still a ways to go in terms of number tweaks and are working hard to bring you the best experience possible.

The main design changes for this week are surrounding the mothership core. Due to the variety in maps, we found that no matter how slow we made the mothership core’s movement speed, deadly all-in strategies exist on many different maps and/or positions. To ensure that this unit does not limit us as well as the many tournament map makers around the world, we decided to go in a new direction.

The mothership core’s Purify ability is now cast on a Nexus attaching the unit to the Nexus and enabling a weapon that deals 20 damage. The mothership core will remain attached to the Nexus until cancelled; however, energy will not be regenerated and no abilities can be used while attached. Additionally, the Recall ability has been modified to teleport the mothership core and units nearby to a targeted Nexus. Both of these changes were made to discourage the unit from being used in all-ins. Now that its two spells are strictly defensive, we believe we can make a cooler mothership core. It will now move at a reasonably fast speed and feature an anti-ground attack. We hope these changes will make the unit a lot more fun to use.

We’ve also been carefully monitoring your feedback regarding the map pool and agree that Fractured Glacier isn’t a very competitive 1v1 map. In the future, we will be removing this from the ladder pool and will be replacing it with a new map. Additionally, three Wings of Liberty maps will be added into the beta map pool at a later date. Our current plan is to implement these map pool changes as soon as possible and stick with these eight maps for the remainder of the beta. We anticipate that Heart of the Swarm Season 1 will feature the same map pool; however, this is definitely not set in stone, so feedback on the updated map pool is greatly appreciated.

Next on the design docket:

We’re currently looking at ways to alter the design of the widow mine so that it feels like core terran unit. We’re also reevaluating the oracle's third spell: Phase Shift. While Phase Shift is a cool option against Fungal Growth, is not very appealing in other situations. These are the main things we’re looking at right now, so we encourage you to share your feedback regarding these two topics.

Thank you so much for playing the beta and giving us your feedback. Please remember that nothing is final; we’re doing our best on each of the three races and hope to continue working with our players in order to make Heart of the Swarm awesome.
Source


Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Sep 29 2012, 10:42 am by Ahli.




Sep 28 2012, 11:43 pm Aristocrat Post #2



I was going to say "recall nerf" then noticed that they basically completely revamped the Mothership Core. These changes are actually pretty damn good; as long as the build time of the core is unchanged, my pre-patch builds would still work very well.

Oracle health buff is decent, will likely lead to the unit being used more. I have to sacrifice a lot of gas for oracles though, which is pretty harsh on my economy. One oracle could've been 3 stalkers or one HT. It might just be me being too used to older WoL game mechanics, but I vastly prefer storm drops to entomb and feedbacking enemy casters to phase shield. Revelation is also something I used a couple of times, and while it's cool, it doesn't last long enough for me. Very rarely does the enemy approach me without me noticing if the game is still relatively even; I don't see the oracle helping with that.

Tempest remains useless as usual. No surprise there :|. It's the new carrier of SC2.



None.

Sep 29 2012, 11:28 am Ahli Post #3

I do stuff and thingies... Try widening and reducing the number of small nooks and crannies to correct the problem.

The mothership core is now as fast as:
- Overseer (unupgraded)
- Overlord (upgraded)
- Battlecruiser
- Thor
- Carrier
- High Templar
- Locust (offcreep)

Mutalisks are now faster than the Oracle.

- MS Core has the same range as Marines
- 2 Marines (no upgrades) kill the shield of the Core and do a tiny bit of damage versus the Core
- 3 Marines (no no upgrades) bring the Core down to approx 54 hp
- 4 Marines (no no upgrades) kill the Core with 1 full Marine and one with 21hp.
- Queens can outrange the Core by 2
- Core can kill 1 unmicroed Queen, with enough creep space it might be possible to kill the Core with only 1 queen (but the Core can fly away and recharge its shields and come again)

- Attached MS Core dies with Nexus
- 3 Mutalisks are required to kill the attached Core (if you attack it immediatly, if you fly around and give the Core 2 unnecessary shots, the Mutalisks will die)
- Purify (weapon of attached Core) can't be upgraded. It stays at 20.
- Vipers cannot abduct attached Cores
- Cores can make a moving shot (hit stop hotkey, then right click to move)
- HTs can feedback the Core while possibly receiving 1 hit
- The attached Core does not regenerate energy.
- Ghosts can EMP Core and Nexus (but they need to target more towards the middle of the Nexus)
- Units will acquire the Core when they are attacked by it instead of attacking the workers.

edit:
Blizzard seemed to reveal some new unit dance move via Husky. You can win your HotS beta access, too:


edit:
Also, Ghost has a problem with his uncloak button being on the same spot as the cloak button now. You can't tell a mixed group of cloaked/uncloaked units to cloak or uncloak... you would need to cloak them all and uncloak them all again which would waste 25 energy per initially uncloaked ghost.
The Banshee has still 2 separate spots for those buttons.

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Sep 29 2012, 2:59 pm by Ahli.




Sep 29 2012, 6:03 pm Pr0nogo Post #4



Is the core considered massive? I don't think Vipers should be allowed to abduct massive units, but then there's the issue of the Tempest/Carrier. They'll have to make a validator called, "Not Mothership Core". Lerl.

/e

Quote from name:bluzzard
Swarm hosts now have proper collision while burrowed.
:lol:

Quote from name:bluzzard
The Stargate Command Card now properly includes a Set Rally Point button.
:lmfao:

Quote from name:bluzzard
Battle hellions can no longer load into Bunkers.
:rip:

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 29 2012, 6:09 pm by Pr0nogo.




Oct 1 2012, 4:04 pm ClansAreForGays Post #5



Quote from Pr0nogo
Is the core considered massive? I don't think Vipers should be allowed to abduct massive units, but then there's the issue of the Tempest/Carrier. They'll have to make a validator called, "Not Mothership Core". Lerl.
:|
It's entire purpose is to counter Collosus and other massives that are tucked into deathballs.


I hate the very idea of Mothership core moving around. Might as well just be the mothership.




Oct 2 2012, 2:04 pm Pr0nogo Post #6



Yeah but the entire purpose of the new Protoss units was to not create deathballs. The Core now aids them very easily. Just take your entire deathball with your Core and recall after wiping out an enemy base.




Oct 2 2012, 4:34 pm TiKels Post #7



Quote from Pr0nogo
Yeah but the entire purpose of the new Protoss units was to not create deathballs.
Some examples, if you would kindly? I just don't see it.

I'm beginning to lean towards the idea that you're just making stuff up.



"If a topic that clearly interest noone needs to be closed to underline the "we don't want this here" message, is up to debate."

-NudeRaider

Oct 2 2012, 10:17 pm Pr0nogo Post #8



Perhaps I misworded it. The new Protoss units were meant to avoid strengthening the deathballs that Protoss players can already make.

Look at the Oracle. It was originally a new unit that had nothing to do with an aggressive playstyle. It was a support unit that didn't directly augment the offensive capabilities of the deathball. Now it's slightly different, and has abilities that turn it into more of an advance scout/Observer clone. The Oracle now supports the deathball in a scouting manner (more than it did before, at least), but doesn't directly support the deathball even so.

Then we have the Tempest, which is basically never used (and for good reason). It doesn't augment any deathball because it's too slow to keep up with the main army effectively, too specialised for direct use in an a-move + spell micro deathball attack, and too large of a target to dish out enough damage if the player has built counters that the player would build to counter other units anyways (Corruptors/Vikings for the Colossi also work on the Tempest, Viper can drag it in, etc.). This hasn't really changed much and doesn't support the deathball.

Next up is the Mothership Core, a stationary defence/support unit that was essentially a structure attached to any given Nexus. It originally had statistics and abilities that made it a support unit for defending against early pushes and supporting risky macro choices like fast expansions. Now, it is a mobile unit that can travel with the deathball, help the deathball destroy x amount of enemy units/structures, and then recall the entire deathball back to a Nexus before the enemy deathball arrives to help, resulting in minimal or no losses to the deathball and a much larger loss for the enemy by comparison. This unit is tantamount to giving Protoss deathballs the ability to almost effortlessly make incursions against the enemy without taking anywhere near as many losses, whereas without the unit there, such a thing would not be possible.

Furthermore, I never once claimed that Blizzard not wanting to strengthen deathballs was a good or bad idea. What I did say was that the original purpose of these new units was to allow more strategic options without making Protoss players rely even more on deathballs to counter the other races. That's not accomplished by these units, in most cases, but that doesn't really come as a surprise to me.




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