Patch 15 Notes

[RamiZ]

You think they own the ground? They used to do 70 damage in starcraft 1! The reduction to 50 is completely ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the 3 supply cost vs the old 2 supply cost from starcraft 1.

Oh come on, please, don't think that way when it is just wrong... SC1 and SC2 are different games. Where he did 70 vs. big units, ST only did 35 to small units, which are Zealots/Marines/Zerglings. And in SC2, unlike in SC1 is all about hard counters, where there is a lot more small(light) units in SC2, where ST shines! You already have Marauders/Thors vs. Armored units.
I think that this change is great!

[GRUNT]

You think they own the ground? They used to do 70 damage in starcraft 1! The reduction to 50 is completely ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the 3 supply cost vs the old 2 supply cost from starcraft 1.

I just want to point out that even though Sieged Tanks dealt 70 damage in SC1, it was Explosive damage, so really, they're only dealing 35 damage to Zerglings (not counting the reduced splash damage) and fifty-something damage to Hydralisks .

In SC2, many units' power are increased just by virtue of the new AI and whatnot. The Siege Tank is a great example! Because of its inbuilt refusal to overkill, less shots go wasted (Zealot bombs are also that much less effective because of this), and it kills stuff very efficiently for its cost. Also, the way units cluster up in SC2 means that Siege Tanks often hit more units per shot than their SC1 counterparts might.

Another reason why mech is so dominant is that these maps feel really small compared to what we use in Korean Brood War! The traveling distance from the Terran's base to the Zerg's is usually quite short (except maybe on Desert Oasis ), and the maps are definitely more choke-heavy than what we see in Korean BW. Both these factors combine to give Zerg a much tighter window (and a much tougher time) to pincer a mech army en route to their base.

All that said, if the Siege Tank nerf was indeed specifically to address ZvT, then I definitely agree that it's a bit hasty on Blizzard's part. Imagine if Bisu had invented that Corsair/DT style during a beta, and it was deemed to be OP because Zerg took more than two weeks to find a solution. Blizzard would have nerfhammered something and we wouldn't end up with the metagame we have today. T_T



,

[don]

How are they buffed?

o Hellion
Weapon upgrade bonus decreased from 1 (+1 Light) to 1.

o Siege Tank
Siege Mode damage decreased from 60 to 50.

I think these indirectly buffs Zerglings in mass numbers mid-lategame.

[n00bonicPlague]

I think SC1 Siege Tanks also had a longer cooldown, but I'm not sure.

[RamiZ]

I think SC1 Siege Tanks also had a longer cooldown, but I'm not sure.

Yeah, a lot longer, even in Tank mode, their rate of fire was slow, where in SC2 is fast as hell.

[Drake Clawfang]

The problem is that you can't directly compare singular units from SC1 to their SC2 counterparts. You can compare statistics as a whole, but not on an individual basis.

The SC2 Siege Tank does lower base damage than the SC1 Siege Tank, is more expensive and needs more supply. However, the SC2 Siege Tank builds faster, does normal damage to all units regardless of type, Siege Tech is less expensive, and you can have have the Tech Lab add-on pre-made rather than waiting for the Machine Shop to build once the Factory. Thus, while the SC2 Siege Tanks are more expensive, you have access to them earlier and they come out faster. Which one is stronger? Depends on the opponent's troop line-up due to the SC1 tank's damage penalties.

[Nicol Bolas]

Imagine if Bisu had invented that Corsair/DT style during a beta, and it was deemed to be OP because Zerg took more than two weeks to find a solution. Blizzard would have nerfhammered something and we wouldn't end up with the metagame we have today. T_T

Um, so? We'd end up with a different one.

[GRUNT]

Um, so? We'd end up with a different one.

Yes, we'd probably end up with a game with a less diverse array of builds =/.

Sure we don't know for a fact that changing stuff will break the game, but it's usually easier to mess something up than fix it. How do we know mech is truly overpowered just because it's been dominant for the past couple of weeks?

My concern is that rather than giving much more time to see how players adapt to a particular strategy, Blizzard wants SC2 to be tournament-viable as soon as possible, and that means making sure that no race is too dominant. Unfortunately, overreacting to specific dominant strategies might shoehorn the races into playing in overly-specific styles.

I love balance patches, it's part of what makes the release of a new game so dynamic, but if Blizzard doesn't give some time to see how new strategies develop, it could hurt the game in the long run.

We're getting two expansions, so I'm not overly concerned about vanilla SC2, as I know that multiplayer will surely be quite different by the time we get to Legacy of the Void, but what I said will definitely apply to the balance approach for that expansion as well.

If you have a point to make, Nicol, that's fine, but don't use that attitude. I've fed you enough, now I'm done.

[hyde]

The Siege tank nerf was needed. I've been playing in Diamond/Plat 1v1/2v2random/2v2 arranged as Terran exclusively since day 1 of beta.

It's pretty overpowered once you have like 10 tanks...basically instant death...and the upgrade bonus is pretty good...it's +5 if I remember correctly. The only real troubles I've ever had was blink-stalkers, but that can circumvented by having ravens spotting around you, so they will get hit when trying to get into blink range...even then you should have some marines/marauders as support.


And like yes, what other people have said , the 60 Damage is not the same in SC1 - it auto distributes and does not overkill, and it does 60 pure damage. The SC1 Siege tank did half to small units.

[Crazy_Jonny]

My quick thoughts about the patch:

The Thor and Hellion nerfs were probably needed. Mutas were getting raped real hard by Thors, and Hellions are underestimated. The Seige tank nerf seems a bit steep though, but tbh I haven't used them much, and not for good reasons - so I don't know where they stand now.