PTR Patch 1.3.0

[hyde]

This patch angers me. I almost want to switch races.

Are terran rushes seriously that strong? I'm only an above average diamond player and most of my 5-6 minute Terran rushes vs Protoss are a 50-50 depending if they are rushing or not.

So far...
-Depot tech for Barracks
-Bunker +5 to 35
-Reaper speed moved to factory
-Increased research for stim
-Increased bunker time to 40 now

Seriously, so many nerfs every patch but nothing to address marauders or MMM balls (reduced movement/attack speed on Stimmed Marauders and this stim research nerf is not enough really.)
Why so much hate on marine based early rushes? This nerf to bunkers is going to make it almost impossible to offensive bunker at 6 minutes now. It was already tight + usually lost a SCV or two when I bunker rushed, now it's going to be near impossible.
And the stim pack - seriously..why?! It was pretty "Fair" already. A decent toss player could still sentry block an early timed stim rush.

As a terran player, with every patch, I feel more pressured to go abuse/cookie cut into MMM balls because it basically requires no micro and forces you to macro. Being a SC1 veteran and a siege tank fanatic, this just....really erks me.

How about this?
If they want to nerf MMM balls... just remove Medivacs and put the medic back in along with the default dropship.
This will make healing the "Ball" much harder, and have obvious consequences of some units not in healing range + more cargo space in the dropships taken by medics. Either that or make medivac heal mode a toggle mode like Siege tanks into siege mode. This will hamper the "Marauder drop + stim + shaft your expansion + run away" tactics.

[GnaReffotsirk]

I think the bunker+ is supposed to address the bunker wall terrans make on one's ramp a tiny bit?

MMM balls does so much DPS on an area over any other unit combo in the game. This of course considering the flow of the game, not just the unit tester. With +HP, marauder slow, and flying healing centers, MMM balls are too much.

Restoring the medic will at least reduce the amount of firepower a group of MM can launch at an area since medics take those spots. Medics are better over medivacs since it provides:

1. Tension in production. Barracks will have to cut from production of damage dealers for healers.

2. Area and DPS.

3. Micro management.

4. Squad composition.

IMO. So, I would agree.

[Todie]

There's too much being said here atm for me to sort through i and quote etc, ill only give my perspective for now:

1: its PTR. chill the fuck out; if a change proves horrible, it wont pass.

2: try harder to keep a constructive mindset; if you dont see or understand the basis for a change, ask about it. if you disagree with the supposed reasoning for the change, then IMO thats your problem; keeping on whining about it is even more pointless than any previous whining; the direction of these changes says something about witch problems blizzard has identified (and what type of changes they're willing to use to address them)

3: some details....

Kaydarian amulet upgrade removal. This upgrade arguably made Gateway based armies too versatile and strong lategame; didnt it generally feel a bit far-fetched to stay with or go back to making Colossi once your HT tech was fully researched? ... not to mention sentries!

The real change here, from my perspective, will be that Protoss players cant keep their momentum swinging by "waping in storms" ... viewed in a vacuum, this is obviously a disadvantage, a ibig nerf. but looking at how the game plays out in general, long term, including mapchanges and nerfs to T (and Z?) to balance it out if needed (keeping a relativistic mindset), i think it can help contribute to richer more varied gameplay; it will no logner be the case that "oh he's got amulet finished now, so this P will ez sink 50% of all gas ever made into HT's and never make a single sentry again"


Vortex nerf: this looks like a knee-jerk "OMG archon toilet is broken" kind of nerf.. 1.5 second invulnerability sounds excessive; hard for the vortex user to be at all certain of positive outcome. maybe 0.5 or even less invulnerability time is enough to limit the instant AoE-stacking insaity of the archon-toilet effect?

Fungal changes: looks like an interesting direction for this spell, but as is, the relatively slow speed of the projectile (and it being block-able by PDD?)

Hidden Content:

seems to fundamentally change the nature of it, to the extent that i cant hope to catch mutas or blink stalkers with it with good rate of sucess, and accuracy vs stimmed infantry or any air unit will be significantly affected. it seems a bit dramatic; i cant helpb being biased here, im hoping for an incresaed projectile speed, even if teh near-isntant effect similar to EMP is unreasonable.

... Terrans got nerfed bunker buildtime and slower stimpack research. i think they'll manage.. considering the Amulet removal for P im somewhat surprised EMP wasnt touched. i dont even play PvT or TvP though so im ignorant on this.


... The map-scape is changing towards more large maps. Arguably this is in favour of warpgate capable protosses in PvT and that might be a reason for P's to be getting the short end of the stick here. Hopefully, time, PTR testing and related debate, will tell....


This patch will be HUGE!

Peace.

[Sietsh-Tenk]

Todie, it's funny that you should tell people off for 'whining'. I don't see what's wrong with complaining about a certain balance change, as long as you back it up with reasons. Why would people have to be meek question-askers instead? Pretty much kills all discussion. I think what you call whining is actually called making arguments, and it's how people try to change other people's viewpoints through a dialectic exchange of arguments. Your 'constructive' question-asking just means that people have to humbly ask pre-approved figures of 'wisdom' or 'authority' why a certain change is made and then swallow the answer.

Sorry for the OT, but it always pisses me off when people try to quell discussion under the pretence of promoting constructive discussions, maturity or respect. So whine all you want, as long as you say why, not just OMG WTF IMBA.

Anyway, OT: it seems to me that, overall, zerg gains most from the HT buff because it greatly increases the survivability of Hydralisks on the battlefield, which means an insane increase in DPS (like someone said, Collossi are slaughtered by Corruptors).

While I agree that protoss suffers a lot in reaction time to terran drops, HT's were not easy to use against terran anyway because of ghosts (wait, that means it even sucks more now).

As for the increase in bunker and stim time, I would say it's inadequate to address Marauder dps imbalance and just shafts bunker rushes, which are fun to do imo (terran player).

[JackhammerIV]

@Todie
The new current large maps are not that good for PvT actually. Especially shattered temple with the huge huge wide open area. And any tech choice for toss; air/colossi/HTs prefer tighter walkways to forcefield and kill off armies with AOE or more range,etc. But with these new wide open maps protoss armies can get flanked very easily. Most of the watchtowers don't give good vision on flanking paths.

Perhaps i'll try tons of observers all over the map and mass phoenixes against terran. Perhaps i'll try an air composition against terran. But still......blizzard needs to give some love to the archon. Considering toss has problems with bio and archons do bonus to bio should make sense to make archons against terran. But a 50min/50gas upgrade called concussive shells makes the archon almost useless.

[Todie]

Todie, it's funny that you should tell people off for 'whining'. I don't see what's wrong with complaining about a certain balance change, as long as you back it up with reasons. Why would people have to be meek question-askers instead? Pretty much kills all discussion. I think what you call whining is actually called making arguments, and it's how people try to change other people's viewpoints through a dialectic exchange of arguments.

i didnt mean to imply everyone here is whining.. i just meant to say that i think it'd be easier to make coherent sense with a discussion about possible upcoming changes, if people could at least presume the direction of the changes and the problems that need addressing. fundamentally disagreeing with what the problems are will IMO mainly derail discussion; everyone has and will keep their unique perspective, but i still think its possible to take a step back and put on the blue glasses.. a discussion about where this PTR goes can be more focused and constructive than the general always ongoing one about witch balance problems exist and witch are most important.

it seems to me that, overall, zerg gains most from the HT buff because it greatly increases the survivability of Hydralisks on the battlefield, which means an insane increase in DPS (like someone said, Collossi are slaughtered by Corruptors).

Good point.

The new current large maps are not that good for PvT actually. Especially shattered temple with the huge huge wide open area. And any tech choice for toss; air/colossi/HTs prefer tighter walkways to forcefield and kill off armies with AOE or more range, etc. But with these new wide open maps protoss armies can get flanked very easily. Most of the watchtowers don't give good vision on flanking paths.

This does make sense. Again, im a layman in the matchup. but i did see some resonably fresh screencap of Dayvie saying they considered removing the amulet upgrade because it seemed too strong on the new maps.

Hidden Content:

... this sint some end-all-discussion type of point im trying to make, but its a clear indication that at least, this was a conributing reason for the change.


on the subject of drops, i noticted these among the many "gameplay fixes"

Orders issued to unload units from a Medivac onto itself can now be canceled if the Medivac is scanning for units to heal.

my interpretation of this is that medivacs can no longer heal while unoading. Am i correct in this? will this have any significant impact? maybe medivacs rarely receive the attack-move command while droping anyway; just the move command? so there wont be any difference from before?

Possibly, think it can buy the player defending a drop a few seconds of leeway; ability to kill some untis before the healing starts - IF hes right ontop of the drop as it ocurs. this especially goes for marine-heavy drops, as 8 units take longer to drop than 4... its not much but, its still a welcome help vs terran drops.

[dustinbrowder]

I like all the changes.

[HydraHydra]

im reaaaaally interested in the achievements fix !!!

[JackhammerIV]

Not sure about medivac unloading and healing. Not like we have PTR on the EU servers yet. Maybe someone on the NA server can test it out.

The thing with the amulet was it's too big a nerf to HTs. 45 secs of waiting around with a HT to gain energy. And despite how everyone says "Oh it's the same as the time it takes an infestor or ghost to build" they forget one thing. The HT is not safely waiting inside an egg or building. Instead it's out on the field just asking to be sniped.

[TheEconomist]

45 secs of waiting around with a HT to gain energy.

I thought the first time you mentioned that was a typo. The amulet only adds 25+ energy. Therefore, 25 in-game seconds but less than that if you're playing on fastest.