Showing possible enemy placements on a map has been increased to 25 seconds.
Protoss
Removed Chrono Boost.
Warp Gate research time reduced to 140 from 160.
Nexus provides 11 supply up from 10.
Zealot
Charge now deals 30 damage on hit.
Charge speed buff reduced to 2.75, down from 2.95.
Warp Gate
Warping in units at a Pylon increased to 16 seconds, up from 5.
Warping in units at a Pylon that is near a Warp Gate or a Nexus will take 2 seconds.
Warp Prism
Warping in units takes 2 seconds, down from 5.
Disruptor
Purification Nova removed.
New ability: The disruptor becomes immobile and shoots out a ball of energy that can be controlled and detonates after a few seconds, dealing 145 damage and 55 damage to shields.
If the Disruptor is destroyed before the energy ball detonates, it will fail to explode.
Build time reduced to 50 seconds from 60.
Terran
Calldown: MULE has been removed.
Cyclone
Lock On damage reduced to 300 over 20 sec.
Can use Lock ON against air units; deals 120 damage over 20 sec.
New Upgrade: Increases Lock On damage to 600 over 20 sec against ground units and 360 over 20 sec for air units.
Medivac
Removed faster unload upgrade.
New upgrade increases Ignite Afterburners by 50%.
Zerg
Spawn Larva
Spawns 2 larva, down from 4.
Set to autocast by default.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that caused clicking sounds when launching StarCraft II for Windows 10 users.
In a lengthy post, Blizzard has announced that "Automated Tournaments" will be coming to the Legacy of the Void beta. These automated tournaments will be a way for people to compete without the managing, organizing, and communication normally required to hold a tournament.
Once the tournament begins , you will receive a notifcation (even while in-game) that will take you to prepare for your first match. You will get a chance to veto up to three maps of your choice each round, allowing you to cater your map choices to the opponent you’re playing next. Your opponent will do the same, not knowing your veto choices. You’ll be able to see your opponent’s win record on each map to help with your veto decisions.
Signing up to an automated tournament is done in the game client. 3-round tournaments are held Mondays to Thursdays, and 6-round tournaments are held Fridays to Sundays. The rules for each of these are different, as seen below:
There are two tournament formats:
3-Round Tournaments
Schedule: Monday–Thursday
Duration: Approximately 60–90 minutes
Format: Single-elimination bracket
6-Round Tournaments
Schedule: Friday–Sunday
Duration: Approximately 3-4 hours
Format: Group Stage -> Single-elimination bracket
More information on how to sign up to tournaments can be found on this page. Also on that page are Blizzard's plans to add onto the automated tournament system, and what's to come in the future.
Legacy of the Void, the next expansion for StarCraft II, is now available for prepurchase. The expansion, which includes new units for all the races, new multiplayer features, and a new singleplayer campaign, costs $39.99 USD for the standard edition. The digital deluxe edition, which costs $59.99 USD, includes in addition: new portraits and Protoss unit skin for StarCraft II, a pet for World of Warcraft, a card back for Hearthstone, transmogs for Diablo III, and a Voidseeker mount for Heroes of the Storm.
The shop page for the game does not state a specific release date for the game, though it does say "Expected Game Release Winter 2015/2016*" and "*Game is due for release before March 20, 2016.", which means that we can expect the game by late March 2016 at the latest. There is also confirmation of an epilogue past the end of the singleplayer campaign which shows the various races and what happens to them.
After you play through the Prologue and the Protoss single-player campaign, wrap up the StarCraft II trilogy storyline by finding out what happens to each race in the Epilogue.
For the Blizzard store page for Legacy of the Void, click here. Also, for the news post of the start of prepurchases, which has an FAQ and some announcements, click here.
Reminiscent of the original StarCraft Precursor Campaign and the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Protoss mini-campaign, Blizzard has announced a three-mission prologue campaign, titled Whispers of Oblivion, that will bridge the gap between Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. The announcement was made by Dustin Browder, StarCraft II's Game Director, and Chris Sigaty, StarCraft II's Executive Producer, during the inaugural E3 PC Gaming Show. The three-mission series will follow, the Dark Templar Prelate turned mystic, Zeratul's quest to unravel the final piece of the Xel'Naga prophecy. Since the Legacy of the Void campaign will focus on Artanis, the Protoss Hierarch, this addition to the canon will provide players with another opportunity to experience more of the StarCraft mythos from another perspective.
During the reveal, Dustin Browder also announced that Whispers of the Void would be released for free to all players regardless of whether they have purchased any of the previous StarCraft games. However, to receive early access, players will need to pre-order Legacy of the Void.
What is Whispers of Oblivion?
Whispers of Oblivion is a special three-mission prologue series that has been created to bridge the storyline between Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void.
What can we expect from these missions?
In Whispers of Oblivion, players will join Zeratul for the first time since Wings of Liberty to unravel the final piece of the Xel’naga prophecy.
How can I play these new campaign missions?
We will be making Whispers of Oblivion available to all players before the game’s release, but prior to that, we will be providing early access to the Prologue missions with pre-purchase of the game. Look for more details sometime in July.
The announcement of Whispers of Oblivion is an unexpected and exciting development. As the original StarCraft arcs are wrapped up in Legacy of the Void, it is fantastic that more single-player content will be provided than players originally anticipated. If this series proves to be a success, perhaps it lays the foundation for Blizzard to consider producing mini-campaigns as paid DLCs. The creation of mini-campaigns would provide several benefits to the StarCraft community. They would provide high-quality first-party content regularly into the game's ecosystem, provide a mechanism to explore new lore on a continuous basis, and provide perpetual momentum for the StarCraft product as a whole.
As we get closer to the release of this mini-series and Legacy of the Void, we'll continue to provide coverage of the conclusion to the story that began almost seventeen years ago.
David Kim has made a forum post to talk about some proposed changes to Zerg in Heart of the Swarm. The post talks mainly about Roaches and Swarm Hosts, and how to make both units viable in play.
Analyzing the effects of the last Swarm Host patch is one of our top priorities for Heart of the Swarm right now, so we wanted to share some more thoughts in this area to get more input from you.
Currently we’re not seeing much new Swarm Host usage. We see two potential reasons for this: The Swarm Host isn’t effective enough in its current state or players haven’t figured out the best use cases with them yet. The answer is probably a mix of both factors, and we’re hoping to see more Zerg games in all matchups in order to drill down on the correct course of action here.
There's a preview out for the first Legacy of the Void balance update. It explains some of the changes that are coming in, and what parts of the game they will affect.
Lurker starts off with 9 range, and upgrade is removed. Lurker attack is also more responsive after burrowing. The Lurker feels buried at the moment, especially in ZvZ vs. Roaches where we’d really love to see more Lurker play. Against other races the steps needed to start using Lurkers also feels like too much. Hydralisk Den has to be upgraded to the Lurker Den, which also competes with the Hydralisk upgrade, Lurkers then need to be morphed and also research the upgrade before Lurkers are useful. We’d like to try out this change in order to see what happens when Lurker timing is sped up.
