The second patch for the Heart of the Swarm beta is out, implementing some radical changes such as adding the Carrier back into the game and removing Warhounds from the game.
Zerg
Swarm Host
- The locust’s attack range has decreased from 3 to 2.
Protoss
Oracle
- We have removed the oracle’s Preordain ability.We have added a new area of effect ability for the oracle called Phase Shield.
- Targeted friendly units are shielded from harmful effects for 5 seconds.
- Fungal Growth, Corruption, Contaminate, Graviton Beam, Concussive Shells, Abduct, Revelation, Vortex, and 250mm Strike Cannons – Phase Shield removes the effect and prevents units from being affected.
- EMP – Phase Shield removes the anti-cloaking effect but not the damage dealt.
- Neural Parasite – Phase Shield will not remove this effect but it will prevent units from being affected.
- The energy upgrade has been removed.
- Entomb’s duration has been reduced to 25 sec, but the health per Entomb has increased to 100.
- The cost per unit has changed from 150/200 to 150/150.
Tempest
- The attack range has been reduced from 22 to 15.The damage has changed from 30 to 30 + 20 to massive.The ranged upgrade has been removed.
Mothership Core / Mothership
- Recall will now cost 100 energy.
- The mothership core will now start with 50 energy and when upgraded, energy will be set back to 50.
- The range of Purifier Beam has been increased from 7 to 10.
Carrier
- This unit has returned to the game.
Terran
Warhound
- This unit has been removed from the game.
Reaper
- We have added a new passive ability called Combat Awareness. This allows reapers to see up cliffs.
Hellion
- Battle hellions can now be built from the Factory. It has an Armory requirement.There is a new upgrade at the Armory that will allow transformation between Battle Mode and Normal Mode.
Widow Mine
- We have removed the Armory requirement.
One of the developers came forth to explain the decision to add the Carrier and remove the Warhound:
Warhound has been removed from the game
We received a lot of feedback from both the general community along with many pro gamers that this unit was not working in its current state. We definitely agree. The current plan is to remove it from the beta so that we can focus testing other units.
If we locate a better design for the warhound, it will return to the beta; until then, please play the game and give your feedback without the warhound in mind.
Carrier is back!
We continue to receive a lot of feedback from both our community and professional players suggesting that the tempest is difficult to use. We agree that it’s not an easy-to-use capital ship like the carrier, and feel it could be cool to have two big air units in the protoss fleet. The carrier will be the easy-to-use, multifunctional capital ship, whereas the tempest will be a more strategic and positional unit that can’t just be blindly massed. We know how much the carrier means to everyone and think that this is a great opportunity to give the carrier another chance before making a final decision on the unit’s future.
For those wanting to see the original posts, here are the balance notes, the bug fix notes, and the full explanation of the patch.
Source:
Battle.net - Balance Update #2
Battle.net - Beta Patch 2.0.0.23271
Battle.net - Thoughts on Balance Update #2
