StarCraft II 0.8.0.14593 Patch Notes

[Norfindel]

Or you know, maybe it's fine because the Stalkers have double the range.

Put 5 Stalkers against 8 Roaches, and attack-move both groups. Then you tested the cost-effectivity of the units. If the Roaches win by a good margin all the time, they're better for cost.

Micro is something that the player does to get an edge, not something he's required to do for a unit that is supposed to do the job.

Both players should have the option of increasing the effectivity of their units with micro, but you cannot force a player to micro for it's units to remain cost-effective, while the other player can attack-move that's crazy.

I know that Immortals can rape Roaches, but then you must climb to T2 to counter a T1 unit as your only choice, and what's the role of the Stalker in the Protoss army?

[arthas]

Put 5 Stalkers against 8 Roaches, and attack-move both groups. Then you tested the cost-effectivity of the units. If the Roaches win by a good margin all the time, they're better for cost.

Micro is something that the player does to get an edge, not something he's required to do for a unit that is supposed to do the job.

Both players should have the option of increasing the effectivity of their units with micro, but you cannot force a player to micro for it's units to remain cost-effective, while the other player can attack-move that's crazy.

I know that Immortals can rape Roaches, but then you must climb to T2 to counter a T1 unit as your only choice, and what's the role of the Stalker in the Protoss army?

The role is fast mobile ranged unit good vs both Air and harass,If you ask me the whole +4vs armored is useless,They need 12 damage flat +(2 per upg) to make too good vs both mutas and fast harrasers like hellions and reapears....

[Nicol Bolas]

Put 5 Stalkers against 8 Roaches, and attack-move both groups. Then you tested the cost-effectivity of the units.

No, you have not. And this is the reason why buffing the Stalker was a bad idea.

The Stalker is a very execution-dependent unit. Even without Blink, you can get a lot out of them with just positional and focus-fire micro. Roaches are not. While focus-fire micro helps, positional micro is essentially useless due to their terribly short range.

If you are just a-moving Stalkers, you are using them wrong. Just like a-moving Siege Tanks is using them wrong.

but you cannot force a player to micro for it's units to remain cost-effective

SC1 did it all the time. If you didn't micro your units and just a-moved them, your Dragoons would fall prey to spider mine traps constantly. And 50 minerals to take out 3 Dragoons is pretty brutal, cost-effectiveness wise.

SC has never been balanced on a-move.

[Aldrius]

I know that Immortals can rape Roaches, but then you must climb to T2 to counter a T1 unit as your only choice, and what's the role of the Stalker in the Protoss army?

This is different from getting siege tanks to counter dragoons how?

The role of the stalker is fast-moving, highly mobile ranged unit. This has never been a game about hard counters. Even though they do exist. (Vulture, siege tank, etc.)

As for Roaches 'raping' zealots. Roaches deal 16 damage (14 with guardian shield) to zealots and have 145 health, and 3 range. Zealots deal 12 damage to roaches and have 150 health and melee range. They're also faster than Roaches.

Mass roaches mutilates zealots no question. But if they nerfed the Roach, then mass zealots would be REALLY effective against zerg. And they can't just buff the stalker because it's already really effective against armored units. It'd completely throw off the stalker vs. marauder balance for one thing.

The stalker buff was mainly done to help Protoss counter mutalisks and banshees.

[Norfindel]

No, you have not. And this is the reason why buffing the Stalker was a bad idea.

The Stalker is a very execution-dependent unit. Even without Blink, you can get a lot out of them with just positional and focus-fire micro. Roaches are not. While focus-fire micro helps, positional micro is essentially useless due to their terribly short range.

If you are just a-moving Stalkers, you are using them wrong. Just like a-moving Siege Tanks is using them wrong.

I don't get the "a-moving Siege Tanks" part...

SC1 did it all the time. If you didn't micro your units and just a-moved them, your Dragoons would fall prey to spider mine traps constantly. And 50 minerals to take out 3 Dragoons is pretty brutal, cost-effectiveness wise.

SC has never been balanced on a-move.

No, SC was never intended nor designed to work like that, it just happened to work like that, but it's ok, because planting Mines next to Dragoons also required a lot of micro form the Terran player, compare that with Roaches, and it should be obvious why there's a balance issue. Skill should also be balanced, you cannot ask for a player to micro and the other not to.

This is different from getting siege tanks to counter dragoons how?

Actually, you can kill Dragoons with Marines, and you can kill Zealots with Firebats. It would been a very good T1 situation, if not by the Firebat being useless vs anything else, and Terran Infantry being completely useless later against Toss, but you could always counter a T1 unit with a T1 unit. That part of balance was right.
If the Stalker was at least cost-effective vs Roaches, the Protoss player could use other tech paths.
The Zerg also have a problem with Roaches themselves, why is it so common to go mass Roaches? Massing one kind of unit shouldn't be considered good gameplay.

The role of the stalker is fast-moving, highly mobile ranged unit. This has never been a game about hard counters. Even though they do exist. (Vulture, siege tank, etc.)

Come on! That's the new Blizzard speech, but taking a look at BW's damage system and the units, a lot of them are hard counters:
Firebat: hard counter against Small Ground units.
Goliath: hard counter against Large Air units.
Vulture: hard counter against Small Ground units.
Valkyrie: hard counter against Small Air units.
Siege Tank: hard counter against Large Ground units, but in mass they can wipe pretty much everything before they get close.
That's from 9 Terran combat units, excluding spellcasters (and i should had excluded the Ghost also, as it's mostly an spellcaster)

As for Roaches 'raping' zealots. Roaches deal 16 damage (14 with guardian shield) to zealots and have 145 health, and 3 range. Zealots deal 12 damage to roaches and have 150 health and melee range. They're also faster than Roaches.

Mass roaches mutilates zealots no question. But if they nerfed the Roach, then mass zealots would be REALLY effective against zerg. And they can't just buff the stalker because it's already really effective against armored units. It'd completely throw off the stalker vs. marauder balance for one thing.

The stalker buff was mainly done to help Protoss counter mutalisks and banshees.

I never said they nerf the Roach, i said they focus their attack. If instead of 16 dmg, they get 8 +8 vs Light, or whatever combination is deemed fair, they will continue to rape Zealots the same, but won't rape the Stalkers, and so the Protoss player won't be forced into going Robotics, and could choose Starport, or Council, depending on the situation.

[AFXFTW]

I agree with Nicol that SC2 is not and should not be balanced on A-move. But I think the stalkers did need some kind of buff. I'm not sure if the one they got is going to be the right one, but they did not seem to be cost effective in the general sense, that is, the APM cost of microing them plus the resource and opportunity costs of getting them didn't seem commensurate with their real potential to deal damage. They were just too fragile and their attack sucked.

[sandwich_bird]

"You can now view any player's profile after completion of a game by right-clicking on their name in the score screen and choosing View Profile. "

Is it just me or you still have to add them as a friend first before checking their profile? I'm not able to check it before adding them which is kinda stupid. I just want to see what kind of players I was playing against. I don't want to go through the process of adding and then removing the guy from my friend list each time.

[TheRabidDeer]

"You can now view any player's profile after completion of a game by right-clicking on their name in the score screen and choosing View Profile. "

Is it just me or you still have to add them as a friend first before checking their profile? I'm not able to check it before adding them which is kinda stupid. I just want to see what kind of players I was playing against. I don't want to go through the process of adding and then removing the guy from my friend list each time.

Yea it doesnt work for me either.

[SlickR]

"You can now view any player's profile after completion of a game by right-clicking on their name in the score screen and choosing View Profile. "

Is it just me or you still have to add them as a friend first before checking their profile? I'm not able to check it before adding them which is kinda stupid. I just want to see what kind of players I was playing against. I don't want to go through the process of adding and then removing the guy from my friend list each time.

Maybe blizz just forgot to place the option in the update ?

[Nicol Bolas]

I don't get the "a-moving Siege Tanks" part...

You must micro Siege Tanks to make them useful. Put them in the right place and Siege up, and they become powerful. Don't Siege Mode them, and just A-move them like an idiot, and they'll die quick and bloody to anything.

Skill should also be balanced, you cannot ask for a player to micro and the other not to.

It happens all the time, in both SC1 and SC2. Roaches force a player to either micro or tech. Those who can't micro, tech. For a Terran, the Immortal screws up Factory tech. They can either build a bunch of Marines and A-move, or micro Ghosts and keep most of their tech pattern intact.

I never said they nerf the Roach, i said they focus their attack.

That still constitutes a nerf. Turning a unit that can handle more units into one that can handle fewer makes it less useful. And therefore is a nerf.