Make your own patch. Aka what needs to be changed.

[Tritanis]

I’d like to start a discussion about the changes that need to be made in order to make more units useful (aka Ultralisk ) in the current balance and generally make the game more interesting and diverse in the army composition.

I want you to provide your ideas in a form of patchnotes and write a short description as to why do you think something should be changed. I insist you think a bit about your changes before posting it in order to remain a high level of discussion and not get this thread deleted immediately

Well, here are my thoughts:

Overall changes:
- All upgrades that increase starting energy for spellcaster units now also provide extra 25 energy for all those units that are already on the field when researched.
In my opinion it is currently just not profitable to research it for units other than HT’s or Infestors. This change should make upgrading energy for every spellcasters more worth its price, also the one time boost of 25 energy for your units can save save you a game sometimes.

Protoss:
- Force fields can now be destroyed (350 hp with 0 armor) and are treated as buildings for damage calculating purposes, however their special ability prevents any damage that is lower than 40 to damage them at all. Only following units will be able to damage force fields: ultralisks, baneling, siege tanks in siege mode, thor’s strike canons ability, nuke, immortals and dark templars, other units can target fire FF but will do no damage.
This will mainly affect ZvP matchup where ultralisks were almost useless because of force fields. Now ultras can destroy them with just 6 hits. Note that only listed units will try to attack force fields when attack moving, other will consider them neutral structures.

- Chrono boost can now be casted on player units (not allied) to temporarily increase their attack speed for 50% for 20 seconds. On massive units chrono boost lasts only 10 seconds.
I noticed that in protoss late game players just tend to chrono the same buildings all the time. This change will create even more decision making with this awesome nexus ability. Do I want my research to finish faster in order to make a timing push? Do I want more units on the battlefield in the same time with my limited production facilities? Or do I want my units to perform better on the battlefield when my resources are limited?

Zerg:
- Duration of infested terrans increased from 20 seconds to 60 seconds, also when burrowed their lifespan goes away two times slower.
Infestors have two very good spells which leaves no space for SIT in it’s current form, mainly because IT can’t deal much damage in their limited lifespan. With this change you would have to consider if you want to use fungal growth/ neural parasite or spawn few infested terrans and draw fire from your other precious units. It is worth mentioning that with 60 second life ONE infested terran is able to deal up to around 520 damage.

- Increased speed on creep is now a researchable ability (hatchery), for units other than queen. Costs 50/50 and takes 100 seconds to research.
- Speed of zerglings without metabolic boost upgrade slightly lowered.
Both these changes address the inability to scout zerg due to zergling's fast movement. This change wil enable to maintain a scout in zerg's base for a little longer and require a little micro to get rid of scout instead of just one simple right click.

Terran:
- Rebalanced Reaper :
*now requires factory to build (it's still built from barracks with tech lab)
*cost changed to 75 minerals and 75 gas
*hp increased from 50 to 70
*damage increased form 4+5 vs light x 2 to 8+8 vs light x 2
*nitro packs are no longer needed to be researched, reaper comes with default speed of after NP upgrade
Right now reaper is losing much of his harrass potential after early game. This change makes him a deadly mid game harrasser (now kills workers in 2 shots) and a better unit overall which you could integrate to your main army composition.

Please discuss and have fun making your own patch

[guru]

Chrono boost is the main protoss macro mechanic. You can't change it i think

[Tritanis]

Everything can be changed
And I haven't changed it that much, just added some additional use for it, making choice of what you chrono more interesting.

[Mandilorordo]

Don't think I can agree with anything here other then make FF kill-able, but that's just my opinion.

I think a good change to reapers would make it so the marine shield upgrade also gives reapers +10 health, no new model art needed.

I think it might be interesting to swap roaches and hydras in tech placement, not sure it would work but it might.

I'd change the protos's assimilator HP/shields to 250/250 to be on par with zerg's extractor and terran's refinery.

SCV's health up to 50.

Zerglings would be able to run underneath ultras.

[Squarewalker]

Nydus Worms should have a Tier 3 level upgrade to be able to burrow and move underground, so that they're less "luck based" on whether or not your opponent can see them on the minimap, and therefore aren't just reduced in higher level games to protecting expansions with them. This would also make people more likely to get detectors against Z with no more Lurkers in the game; Baneling traps and underground moving Roaches/Infestors just don't really cut it. If needed, the creep generation of Nydus Worms could be reduced or maybe completely removed.

I would actually like to see a different mechanic for spawning Nydus Worms*: Overseers should be able to drop their cocoon underground (Overseers are lacking in spells anyway), and they would be built underground (sort of a Nuke-like mechanic; an upgrade could be required for this as well). I feel like the Nydus Worms could have a lot of potential with the tunneling and Nuke-like mechanics to make the game much more dynamic and interesting while still keeping it balanced. Right now they're just Tier 2 Nydus Canals that don't require creep.

Assimilators should definitely have 250/250 HP and shields, because right now it's very easy to double gas steal with P.

Arbiters should be reintroduced over the Mothership, and maybe the Mothership could be put back into the game in one of the expansions, by which time they could be more fun to use as well as balanced at the same time.

Reapers should get a late-game ability.

Ultralisks should be immune to spells (so all those previous changes to Neural Parasite, 250mm Strike Cannon, etc. wouldn't be necessary; without this, Fungal Growth would be a problem anyway; while Marauders' Concussive Shells already don't have any effect on massive units, and Psi Storm barely scratches Ultras, so this wouldn't be imbalanced) other than maybe to Ravens' Seeker Missiles' splash.

Ultralisks should also have a somewhat reliable way to get into battle, because Zerglings and Force Fields get into their way a lot. Perhaps reduce model size like for the Thor, and/or make it be able to walk over small units.

They should bring back Tempests (cheaper "Carriers" with melee damaging Shurikens, and stronger GtA shield but weaker AtA shield) over the Carrier, seeing as Void Rays' role overlaps with that of the Carrier; Void Rays are superior with their much faster movement speed (therefore much more mobile and easier to micro) and have similar damage output and durability, for a lower cost. Tempests however could cover up the mass Marines/Hydra/Stalker weakness of the Void Rays to not overlap with them, and that would also make P air more diverse.

They said they would replace Spawn Infested Terrans with a different ability, and honestly I would like to see that Infest ability come back in some form where they could infest Barracks and whatnot, but I'm not exactly sure how that could be balanced.



*I don't take credit for the Overseer dropping the Nydus Worm's cocoon underground idea, it had been posted ages ago on the bnet sc2 forums but I wanted to bring this up again

[Donat]

Patch X

Zerg

* Queen rate of energy recharge increased
* Corruptors cast corruption again,
* Infested terran removed,
* Adrenal upgrade moved from 'hive' to 'lair tech

Protoss
* Voidray Build time increased, cost increased, ect ect
* The dark shrine now takes 80 units of time to build, instead of 100
* Immortal oversheild damage threshold increased, now takes 15 instead of 10
* chrono boost now costs 30 energy, but can be used on buildings to reduce build time.

Terran
* Ghost cost dramatically decreased
* Thor size decreased to make them more Goliath like, model replaced by a Goliath, GOLIATH!
* SCVs now have 1 armor to stop the annoying killing while building that protoss like to do.

[Triceron]

ChronoBoost is specifically a macro-mechanic ability. Casting it on units turns it into a micro ability and a uninhibited DPS boost that would make units like Colossus way too powerful.

[PraetorKoronis]

I think there are a lot of problems with some of these suggestions. I'll go over those later, after I talk about what I'd like to see changed.

I have two suggestions:
1. Difference in worker cost and stats. Honestly, you lose drones every time you build a building, but they're still the same price as probes and SCVs. Given that hatcheries now have queens to add even more larva potential, I think that it would make sense to slighly decrease cost of zerg buildings or decrease (by even 5 minerals) the cost of drones. Similarly, SCV should increase HP, since that used to be its defining difference against the probe (probes just need to warp, so in order to balance SCVs against probes, they got more HP so they could survive the building process).

2. Roaches need to be changed some how. Simply doubling their supply cost was an idiotic fix, I'd looking forward to seeing how they patch it now.

Objections:

1. I don't think immortal overshields should get an increase, that would make zealots irrelevant against them, which is bad.

2. I don't think chronoboosting to speed-up building build-times would be balanced: mass nexuses would then be extremely optimal because it would double the macro options of protoss, which would mean terran needs something better than reactors (seriously, reactors suck. Actually, there should be a change to reactors...but seeing that terran unit composition is better than any other race currently in the game, it's not too big of a deal)

3. Ghost cost CANNOT decrease. They are devastating in TvP, making them more accessible would clearly tip the scales in favor of terran.

4. Letting nydus worms build would be absolutely unbalanced. What are the bounds to their movement? Like a traditional unit? Also, note that in SC1, you could only build a nydus canal ON opponent's CREEP. Think about what that means...talk about scoutable? Something doesn't need to move in order to be usable...

5. I think that ultralisks don't need to be boosted, forcefields don't need to be nerfed, etc. Rather, ultralisks simply need to be reduced in size. That would solve the pathing issue. I don't think having lings run under ultralisks while still attacking is something viable at this point in the game--that would take a lot of recoding.

6. I don't think that your suggestions concerning the reaper are relevant. You can still sneak 6 reapers into someone's base at anytime of the game and devastate their mineral line. This is especially true for expansions. Why can't reapers simply NOT be for open combat late game? Ghosts were simply not for open combat in SC1; it's only their early game accessibility and cheaper cost of lockdown that makes them a presence now. (Oh, and snipe)

7. With the way that unit strength/production speeds are for zerg, switching roaches and hydralisks is impossible. Zergs would get creamed by a strong mnm push early game, because off of one base--or even two--hydralisks can't be pumped out fast enough. Keep in mind that lings are extremely weak against MnM, and also, you need time to saturate the expansion. This means that there is no viable unit at least at that period of ZvT.

8. Why do forcefields have to be killable...with speed upgrades, the ultralisks and the rest of your army can simply move and reengage. Sentries have relatively slow mana accumulation, so they can't cast as many forcefields the next battle. Also, if you have a mostly melee army which is trying to engage a ranged force with sentries, you should try to make them waste forcefields then retreating anyways.

9. I do not think creep should overall should be researchable. That would absolutely unbalance the game...zergs would have 300% incentive to spread creep all over the map, which is a micro allotment lure: IE, toss needs to chronoboost to remain competitive (this is a macro allotment), zergs also need to inject larva from the queen, terran need to summon mules, supplies, or scan (micro/macro allotments).

I mean micro or macro allotment as in actions that MUST be taken in order for that race to remain competitive in the game.

Given that, zergs would be forced to allocate too much time to that. I'm not sure how that would affect balance. But also, it gives them an advantage if it's pulled off...it would be far too difficult to win a battle on creep.

[Skyze]

Cant say I agree with ANY of the OP's changes =[ cept maybe Infested terrans up to like 45, altho they said they are most likely going to remove that spell for good with something better.

What I would do, is just this;

1. Roach back to 1 supply, but cost 100/25 (same mineral cost as an extra ovie for 4 would be, still making it usable lategame)

2. Void Ray HP or armor reduction, very slightly. Maybe even range?

3. Terran needs some kind of nerf, they are totally dominating the Korean server right now, altho im not sure what. It might be enough just putting roach back at 1 supply.

[Wankey]

Patch 13:

Terran:

Marines
Added research - improve range + 1 (same research gives reaper as well)
Research requires Engineering bay 100/100

Marauder
HP reduced to 100
Slow removed
New ability armor breaking - breaks enemy armor - 1 costs 50/50
Damage reduced to 10+6 armored

Reaper
Added research - improve range + 1 (same research gives marine as well)
Research requires Engineering bay
Added research - grenades 50/50
Research requires Engineering bay
Sped up cliff jumping
Reduced damage 4+4 vs light

Battlecruiser
Cost reduced to 350/250
Range increased to 7
Damage per shot increased to 12
Shots per volley decreased to 4
New research
Missile battery (anti-air) 100/150
Yamato (anti-building) 150/100
Head seeker missile (anti-ground) 150/100
Once these researched, Battlecruiser has to be upgraded on the fly, takes 12 seconds
First config is free, 25/50 afterwards

Ghost
Added new ability - blind. Blinds detectors
Psi round is now a research ability costing 50/50
Magazine of 3 rounds, no mana cost

Raven
Top speed increase
Acceleration decreased
Removed Heat Seeking Missile
Removed Auto turret
Added D-Matrix
Added Snare (slows down enemies)

Thor
Cost reduced 250/175
HP reduced to 250
New research - improve speed to 2.25 (same as marine)
Reduced cannon research cost to 75/75 and reduced time

Hellion
Reduced speed
Added research ability - drop spider mines 150/100
Added research ability - speed increase 100/100

Protoss
There's nothing much to add to this race... I dunno why they keep nerfing an already great race.

Zerg
Zerglings
Metabolic boost atk speed increase increased
New research enabled via hive tech - 4 zerglings spawn per egg at a cost of 100

Hydralisks
Added research - increased movement speed, on creep movement is still the same
Decreased cost to 75/25
Decrease food to 1
Decreased hp to 75
Moved to Tier 1.5

Queen
Removed transfusion ability

Overseer
Added spread creep ability
Added transfusion ability

Roach
Increased time taken to unburrow
Burrow enabled by default
Increased armor to 2
Moved to tier 2
Return hive level roach regen to its proper usage. IE, roaches regen above ground. But craveat is that they must be out of combat for this to happen (same as protoss shields)

Infestor
Added infest ability - able to infest enemy buildings to stop them from working
Able to cast while burrowed
Removed infested Terran ability

Corruptor
Changed attack to a more interesting one. Look at either devourer or the attack that corrupted masses had. Current attack animation is a joke.