[breadfan]

It looks like prior to Christmas, there will be a major balance patch rolled out to HotS that looks as though it aims to address many of the much-deplored issues that have existed in Wings of Liberty. Blizzard dev Dayvie posted on the EU battle.net forums the dev thoughts. As always, these are pre-testing, but it gives a pretty good idea of what Blizzard goals are for these changes.

These goals include bringing some of the lesser used Terran casts into play, as well as improving the late game situation for Terran. The "late game buffs to bio" are intriguing, and the way Blizzard approaches this will certainly be interesting. For Zerg, the changes are largely movement focused, while for Protoss, most of the changes are air-focused. Overall, the changes to protoss air units may be the biggest shakeup to the game in all Pv* matchups.

+ [Planned Patch Changes] +

Terran

1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile
   
2. Push early game Reaper a bit more
   
3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged.
   
4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability.
   
5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak.
   
6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.

Zerg

1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair
   
2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration
   
3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground
   
4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily
   
5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts

Protoss

1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge up ability.
   
2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser.
   
3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game.
   
4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability.
   
5. Fix Tempests to not counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.
   
6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.

Source: http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/to...6979955?page=1

UPDATE:
Today, Kaivax unveiled the full HotS 2.0.2 patch notes. The list includes all changes since the last patch, not necessarily just those planned from the previous post (above). Looks like the patch will hit today, playable after the current maintenance.

Terran

Medivac
New ability: Emergency Thrusters
Speed boost that increases movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. 20 second cooldown.

The Medivac’s Caduceus Reactor upgrade at the Starport Tech Lab:

• Health restored per second from 9 to 15.
• Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy.
• Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.

Reaper
Base speed increased from 2.95 to 3.375
Upgraded speed increased from 3.84 to 4.25.

Widow Mine
No longer hits cloaked units.
New upgrade: Drilling Claws

• Decreases burrow time from 3 to 1 second.
• Requires Tech Lab and Armory. Costs 150/150, 110 second research time.

Thor
250mm Strike Cannons has been removed.
The Thor can now switch between two modes: High-Impact Payload and Explosive Payload. The mode shift takes 4 seconds.
When in High-Impact Payload mode, the Thor switches to a different anti-air gun (250mm Punisher Cannons) that has 10 range and deals 24 flat damage.
Thor radius, inner radius, and separation radius increased from 0.8215 to 1.

Raven
Seeker Missile has been redesigned:

• Can now fire from 10 range.
• Missile comes out and stays immobile in front of the Raven for 3 seconds while charging up, then rapidly moves (it’s not dodgeable at this point) and explodes at the target for 300 single target damage.
• Targeted unit lights up red when targeted. If the unit moves 13 range out of where the Seeker Missile is, the Missile fizzles.

Hellbat
Splash damage radius increased from 90 to 110.

Armory
The Armory now only has one weapon and one armor upgrade for both air and ground upgrades for both Factory and Starport units.


Protoss

Mothership
Recall now functions as it does with the Mothership Core.
Vortex now kills a single target.
Vortex does not affect massive units.

Mothership Core is no longer massive.

Oracle
Pulsar Beam
Now called “Activate Pulsar Beam” and “Deactivate Pulsar Beam”.
When activated, the Oracle’s Pulsar Beam is enabled.
Weapon deals 15+10 light.
Weapon period changed to 0.86, down from 1.
Weapon range reduced to 4.
Energy drain is now 4 per second.

Build time increased to 50, up from 35.

Phoenix
Range increased from 4 to 5. Upgrade still grants +2 range.

Dark Shrine
Dark Shrine cost is now 100/100, down from 100/250.

Tempest
Now requires Fleet Beacon.
Attacks with two weapons. The primary weapon, Kinetic Overload, hits air units and remains unchanged. The secondary weapon, Resonance Coil, hits ground units, and does not deal bonus damage to massive units.
Build time is now 60, down from 75.

Void Ray
Prismatic Beam:

• No longer charges up.
• Weapon period decreased from 0.6 to 0.5.
• No longer does passive +massive damage.

Prismatic Alignment (new ability)
Increases damage to armored units by 6 for 20 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown. This does not scale with upgrades.


Zerg

Hydralisk
speed upgrade now requires Lair tech.

Mutalisk
Speed increased from 3.75 to 4. Acceleration stays at 3.5.

Swarm Host
Health increased from 120 to 160.

Infestor
Fungal Growth:

• Is now a projectile.
• Speed of the projectile is 10.
• Range down to 8.

Infested Terrans no longer gain weapon and armor upgrades.
Infested Terran egg health down to 70.

Ultralisk
Burrow Charge has been removed.
Damage changed from 15+20 armored to 35 flat damage.

Viper
Health increased from 120 to 150.

Patch #9
Since this patch is comparatively smaller, I decided to add it on to this thread. This is a subsequent patch (patching now, at time of this post) to tweak some of the changes from the larger Patch #8, described above. This was posted on battle.net here.

Terran

Medivac
The Medivac’s healing beam now changes color once the Caduceus Reactor upgrade is complete.

Widow Mine
Unburrowed Widow Mine attack priority decreased to 19, down from 20.
Burrowed Widow Mine attack priority remains unchanged.

Armory
Vehicle and Ship Weapon upgrades are once again separate.
Vehicle and Ship Plating upgrades are still combined.


Protoss

Oracle
Pulsar Beam activation now costs 25 energy.
While active, Pulsar Beam now drains 2 energy per second, down from 4.

Tempest
Kinetic Overload weapon damage vs. Massive increased from 30 to 50.

Dark Shrine
Dark shrine cost increased from 100/100 to 150/150.


Zerg

Mutalisk
New passive ability: Mutalisk Regeneration
Mutalisk health regeneration rate increased from .2734 to 1.

[FvRelimzkE]

My favourite newspost in a LONG time.

With the exception of muta speed, I think that every change in that list will make for a higher skill ceiling, better games and much better spectating. Starting to get ultra(get it) hyped for HotS. I'm in the beta, I should probably start playing it to see how it's all going

[Glazed]

I like how they'll be nerfing the Infestor, and then buffing the other things that Zerg have. This way, Zergs will have more and more viable options/compositions to play around with, ultimately leading to an awesome game with variety, since we won't be seeing Zergs going Infestors every game in every single matchup as there are other things fun to play with. Not to mention, this also makes scouting a lot more crucial to any level of play.

I like the Mutalisk's buff to speed though ^_^, they aren't seen quite enough in the higher levels of play Possibly make them have the same speed (or a little slower) than stimmed marines so that Mutas can be a kind of hit-and-run unit. Maybe they could also give Mutas a skill whereby they fart a cloud which gives them a speed boost lol (jks).

I hope they don't over-buff Terran though, really don't wish to see them going through another year of nerfing and nerfing.

Overall, I like the direction Blizzard's heading with HotS

On another note, reading the comments/suggestions on the Blizzard thread is giving me brain cancer.

Quick Comments

breadfan:

I like your post

[breadfan]

Originally Posted by Glazed

I like how they'll be nerfing the Infestor, and then buffing the other things that Zerg have. This way, Zergs will have more and more viable options/compositions to play around with, ultimately leading to an awesome game with variety, since we won't be seeing Zergs going Infestors every game in every single matchup as there are other things fun to play with. Not to mention, this also makes scouting a lot more crucial to any level of play.

I agree, I think the thing about the infestor is that it's the lynch pin to nearly every zerg style out there and so they are just trying to make it not so much of that. Having better speed/positionability across so many units will definitely raise skill ceiling like elimzke said, and infestors may go back to a primarily defensive/harrassment role (shutting down drops/warp prisms, burrowing into unsuspecting worker lines).

[CUSupreme]

really disliking the fact there nerfing infestors heavily and even in WoL fungal range from 9 to 8 yet ghost and HT is still 9 fair or unfair? my opinion is it isn't fair

Quick Comments

	Thrasher:	But how slow are HT? And they can't burrow
	ETL.noTTuh:	but how often does toss have obs

[Maynarde]

Originally Posted by CUSupreme

really disliking the fact there nerfing infestors heavily and even in WoL fungal range from 9 to 8 yet ghost and HT is still 9 fair or unfair? my opinion is it isn't fair

It's perfectly fair, storms and EMPs are a LOT easier to dodge and don't hold your units in place like fungal does in WoL.

Re: HotS changing fungal to a projectile adds to the skill ceiling of the game. Pretty much every change in this patch is in an effort to make the game more fun and exciting to spectate! Two big thumbs up from me

[Dingobloo]

Originally Posted by Maynarde

It's perfectly fair, storms and EMPs are a LOT easier to dodge and don't hold your units in place like fungal does in WoL.

Re: HotS changing fungal to a projectile adds to the skill ceiling of the game. Pretty much every change in this patch is in an effort to make the game more fun and exciting to spectate! Two big thumbs up from me

Wondering if it will be absorbed by PDD now, I don't think EMP is but that could be interesting.

Edit: Wow reapers are now faster by default than roaches on creep and stalkers O_o?

Not sure how that's going to stay.

[CyniX]

Might have to learn mutalisks now

Quick Comments

Glazed:

Mutas are good ^_^

[UHF]

This is live? or going live soon?

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/803..._202-12_5_2012

[mGGNemesis]

I like the ones for toss (esp pt 3) but will miss vortex. I like the way they think :P

I think it's time to break my record of the number of dts on the map in team games

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by breadfan

Push early game Reaper a bit more

This already seems really good in TvT atm. If they push this far enough to make it good against current zerg/protoss builds, I wonder how TvT will end up... :/

[Stallion]

ROFL im sorry buffing dts sounds like blizzard have never seen how much of a douchebag I can be with those :P, overall it sounds good as im playing random generally in hots and trying to keep a non protoss centric view.

ok so for terran:-
1. cool for thors that ability was useless and this could be really cool and make thors more viable vs toss, as for ravens i liked hunter seeker missle but im not a top terran so idk how useful it is
2. o god why, reapers vs toss shut down as soon as stalker i guess TvT its still kinda viable (i think) TvZ i can see why they want to give more options than hellion openings and would lead into bio easier
3. I don't understand this i've seen hellbats melt zealots and lings
4. speed booster would put them even more ahead of your army not really needed imo maybe an ability that can use some of the energy for heal so drops can get in and out easier?
5. a buff to bio late game would be very interesting although with infestors going to nerfed is it needed??? i know people will say toss imba in pvt but thats just until mvp/flash are like heres how u do it and show people
6. o god why o god o god o god T_T

Zerg
Ill update later

Protoss
Ill update later

Quick Comments

	breadfan:	To me, hellbat chat sounds like it's directed at zealots rather than lings
	mushistar:	You can be a giant dick with DTs X_X.

[mushistar]

Medivac
New ability: Emergency Thrusters
Speed boost that increases movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. 20 second cooldown.

The Medivac’s Caduceus Reactor upgrade at the Starport Tech Lab:
Health restored per second from 9 to 15.
Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy.
Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.

Marines just got imba again

[fur]

Fcking LOL @ the medivac buff

To quote Reddit:
"Medivacs are too slow and need to heal more"

-Said no one ever

[ROCCAT_Savior]

Figured I may as well do a post similiar to Stallions.

Teran
1. Not a good start. So mutas, even with their buff will still not be able to kill fleeing medivacs.
Almost doubling how much health is healed is a bit silly, medivacs are good enough as is IMO.

2. Eh, don't really care about this, good idea though, gives T more incentive to use it.

3. I don't like this unit, buffing it more seems a bit dodgy.

4. Kind of cool, I don't really understand both payloads, would need to play against them to speak more on the topic.

5. Making HSM only target 1 unit is interesting. I guess if you now mass ravens it doesn't matter how well I split my broods.....

6. Cool...

7. This is a problem. The fact that Terran now get insta 3-3 vikings to accompany their Mech makes BL's significantly weaker. It basically means that in general it will be 1-1 BL's v 3-3 Vikings which again, I'll need to play to see further, but I think vikings will just tear them a new one. I can't see this change sticking, tooo many knock on effects.

Protoss
1. So Vortex kills 1 non-massive unit??? Are there any really expensive non-massive units?

2. Eh oracle change, IDGAF.

3. IGAF. 5 range phoenix...come on, even with a muta buff these are still gonna kill them ezpz, +7 and I doubt mutas will even touch them....

4. Dark shrine change is a joke. Do not like. Just throwing this out there, the only game Lucifron lost on sea was to a dt rush executed by a gold player.

5. Is there any differance between the 2 weapons in terms of damage? If not, kind of pointless tbh..

6. Does this mean VR's are instaly fully charged, or start and stay uncharged? Don't know what weapon period decrease means.

Jerg
1. Should have been this way from the begining.

2. Would be really good if not for the medivac speed buff and phoenix range.

3. Swarm hosts did feel a tad fragile in the relatively small amount of hots I've played. Small health buff is justified.

4. See I would be fine with it being a projectile, but they've nerfed every aspect of the infestor now, so eeeeeehh, yea I'd be fine with this if the bloody Terran armoury change got reversed.
I think the fact that they now have 70 health is enough to leave the armour and weapon upgrades. Oh well.

5. Ultracharge was cool, but rarely used, fair enough removing it. 35 flat damage is cool, more powerful ultras is definitely needed as blfestor has recieved a big nerf with this patch.

6. oops forgot viper, see Swarm Host.

also figured I'd add that the effect of the infestor projectile is going to have a really cool but at the same time gay effect on ZvZ. Because you can now dodge fungal Muta play is going to be the best, so ZvZ I'd imagine will end up as muta v muta a lot more, which, unfortunately isthe worst zvz midgame to both watch and play. Kind of torn because it adds a really nice skill element, but makes a fun match up incredibly tedious.

Overall, from a Zerg perspective, I think for the most part this patch is good, but there are going to be a couple of knock on effects regarding super stronk vikings etc, which ultimately don't leave Zerg with that good of a mid-end game unit comp. Sure mutas got a buff, but Terran and Protoss got buffs in areas to help deal with this, the medivac changes especially make Mutas even less viable. Sure they move a tad faster now, but medivacs with that speed boost move faster still, so should you happen to win a fight with them you can't kill many medivacs. Ugh early morning, coherent enough I hope, I don't think that Zerg, with these changes, will actually do that well mid-late, and its not as though we can really win games early game either.

Quick Comments

breadfan:

I wish I knew what all those numbers referred to so I wouldn't have to keep cross referencing

[ROOT`iaguz]

THE FOLLOWING IS ALL SPECULATION AND CAN EASILY BE COMPLETELY WRONG.

TERRAN

Medivac upgrade.

The speed boost thing seems kind of nice but perhaps unnecessary. Drop play is less of a factor after they changed the maps to have less abuseable airspace not because medivacs are too slow (compare dropping in shakuras plateau where the medivac can fly around the whole protoss main and drop damn near anywhere compared to daybreak or cloud or ohana, where you cannot). I guess it means I can use it to make dropping safer (drops nowadays in TvP is more about poking anyway. The dropship goes in cautiously just to see if Protoss isn't guarding it properly. If he's not, drop time! if he is, well, as long as we don't lose anything it doesn't cost us anything).

The medivac upgrade looks really cool but requiring a techlab starport makes it a bit clunky imo. they said they wanted to buff lategame bio strategies, let's see if this does anything.

REAPER

Being a little faster probably won't be enough. I just see this making TvT more gay then helping the other matchups.

WIDOW MINE

Burrow/unburrow time was a problem?! I'm curious what the implications for this upgrade are supposed to be. I can see it being really good against slower air units, but slower air units can just gun the fuckers down as they try to get in, so... ok?

Also it still probably shouldn't hit air units at all! I guess it won't snipe random observers anymore though.

THOR

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Removing it's unnecessary energy bar makes it viable vs protoss and it's anti air attack seems like it would be a useful temporary measure against broods and tempests, which means the pre hive mech timing that the strategy is about gets a bit extended, assuming 24 dps is enough vs broods (it actually might not be, hmmm), which is good! For terran!

Also did they shrink it a little? I guess that's nice?

RAVEN

I can't really speculate on this change I'd have to see it in action. 3 seconds of not moving seems like a lot, and ultras are pretty fast. I really like how being 300 single target damage it's useful against big Zerg things so you're theoretically less screwed against ultra/brood switches, and in TvT you can use it to snipe away tank lines (that's actually a pretty huge deal). Assuming it has a chance of actually connecting, I can see this doing so much for TvZ and TvT lategames.

It's still vulnerable to feedback though, can't see it doing much work in TvP. Which is fine! Probably.

HELLBAT

yawn.

ARMOURY

Holy shit. I remember when David previewed this ability I thought it would imbalance TvZ mech play. This could still be the case! This makes broodlords so much worse (imagine playing a marine/tank style getting the weapon attacks as normal for your tanks then when broods pop you switch into vikings to counter except they're already at +3. Vs nerfed infestors.). This is probably the biggest change in the patch, so freakin' huge. I mean **** BC's already to like +2 damage per shot to ground this patch. Now they're popping out at +3 by default. Bonkers...

PROTOSS

MO CORE

No change to it's ability to scout for free and defend everything terran can do early game. Which isn't a big deal since terran are probably playing mech and turtling anyway.

ORACLE

Can't say. Seems annoying as fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, but a single viking shuts her down so.... ok?


DARK SHRINE

Oh god ******* dammit.

So DT's can win games by themselves. If they don't outright win then they can put Protoss in a place where they are basically unbeatable, they have huge amounts of map control and require constant scanning to kill assuming you're too lazy to make a raven (which you probably are!). 1 gate FE into dt is a build people do sometimes. If you go 2 gas before gateway the dts hit as early as about 7:00. At 150 less gas these timings get sharper by about... 30 seconds maybe? A dt ending the game at 6:30 sounds like a horrible game. Having to make an ebay just in case at this time seems awful. I'm really not looking forward to cheesy dt rushing fucks making TvP opening more horrible then it needs to be (the Mo Core already does that!)

PHOENIX

Ok?

TEMPEST

Cool!

VOID RAY

Hmm. return of the 3 gate Void Ray? Spider8 gonna love him some HotS. Hopefully not imba at all (but it probably is, sigh)

ZERG

HYDRALISK

Should of had this in WoL. Can't believe they never got around to implementing it. I feel it has limited use vs Mech players but vs more Bio centric players could be quite good.

MUTALISK

Very small speed buff. Still, good muta micro players become even scarier. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

SWARM HOST

Fair enough. Unit kinda sucks anyway, guess it sucks less now.

INFESTOR

You Tube

You Tube

ULTRALISK

Oh goddammit. If you have marines when these guys come out, well, prepare to not have marines for very much longer. I guess this means late game TvZ becomes a lot more about having higher gas units rather then just chucking marines everywhere. Interesting ot see how this matchup develops in HotS, so much is changing.

VIPER

Have never seen one made vs me in HotS. That said I've not played all that much hots so I guess that'll do it.

[TADivinity]

I know these changes are obviously pretty extreme and just to test, but I dont understand why they would give terran such massive buffs and nerf zerg at the same time.

And they said they wanted to make DT play more viable in the late game without making their rush potential easier. That dark shrine change is the exact opposite, what ze ****?

I know im pretty bias here, but given the terran changes (theyre the same that were hinted a week ago), I was really expecting more of a buff to hydra / muta - given an infestor nerf.

Quick Comments

Maynarde:

Move speed at lair isn't a solid buff? D:

[ROOTPetraeus]

The majority of these changes seem pretty decent. The only ones I completely disagree with are the medivac buff and merging the armory upgrades. These alone will make Terran imbalanced.

I like the change of the dark shrine but it may be a bit too severe.. would not surprise me if they raised the cost later on.

Quick Comments

	Malice:	DT rush imba
	breadfan:	But you'll have less medivacs early game coz of cost (big TvP effect) and you need to research it at some point.

[2ezy]

Medivacs,
It's going to be painful dislodging marauders from between minerals especially with the healing increase, they should be getting in there easier now as well.

Tempest.
Sad to see it go back to the annoying little brother of the Carrier, I liked having real teeth in the mid game.

Will need to test out the rest >.<

[syfSoundwave]

Some of these changes are just ******* strange.

Who asked for a dark shrine to cost less? Who asked for void rays to be nerfed?

Quick Comments

	Synizta:	Blizzard are just playing around changes, as they should in beta imo.
	Dingobloo:	I like the intent of the dt change, dt's were a huge commitment, this isn't how I would do it thought.