[ROOT`iaguz]

A few more speculations.

The DT gas decrease probably doesn't change the timings of those builds as drastically as I describe since, well, they do have to build the damn thing which takes a while. I guess it just makes these builds a lot safer since they can fit in an extra sentry, which is pretty huge.

Hope it gets changed somehow anyway. DT's require the most specific and inflexible counter of any Protoss build, and it seems like Protoss have a lot of ******* gay 1 base builds (mo core + blink stalkers, void rays, dt's. No high ground warp in is nice though). Making them this accessible really shits me off.

MEDIVACS

Ok **** what I said before, this buff is insane.

[Thrasher]

I like the DT thing. Its quite common late game to want to incorporate DTs but its hard to justify the huge gas drop. And it's not going to make DT rush stronger. It will make DT expand better but that's not so bad...

And why does everyone see the VR change as a nerf, its a buff!

Finally regarding medivacs, what the ****....

[SLCN.Kez]

Are those buffs to the medivac with the upgrade, or is the upgrade only the speed booster driver thingy? If its 15hp/s thats a ******* lol....

Anywhoo, my other thoughts on all the things!
Terran:
Reaper speed: Don't really care, queens will still be able to deal with them.
Widow mine: IDGAF
Thor: Does the gun have splash? if not cool because muta harassment will be better/easier, if splash then i think thats still a slight nerf to it versus mutas? Since i think its splash and + bonus to air is more than 24 dps? Could be wrong about that tho.
Raven: This definitely helps. Before a ******* nuke would shoot your shit and kill just about everything, now it will kill just 1 thing, even tho it might be slightly more reliable to hit, you'll still need to mass ravens and wait for energy, which will take a long time, and i might not even be going broods as we lead into next change..
....Armory: The **** is this? Mech gonna be imba tvz
Hellbat: IDGAF

Protoss:
Mo ship: I think blord infestor wont be in the game as much, so vortex change is ok i think
Oracle: Looks to be reasonable changes, those fuckers were annoying as shit
Phoenix: This one ill need to test out, are mutas with 4 speed as fast/faster than phoenix now? If mutas are still to slow, then this could be a bit of an issue, However, if they are going mass phoenix to beat your mutas hydras are much better now so depending on meta game this could still be ok.
Dark shrine: rofl.

But seriously, it's probs not gonna make that much of a big difference, well just see dt's a lot more now in mid-late game because why the **** not. Before 250 gas for a building feels like a big investment, but for 100 you'll probs just plant tho ****** down for the hell of it, not just when you get behind, so now ill have to have spores up every game rather than every game im ahead, oh wait...
Voidray: IDGAF

On to the race where i get all excited!
Mutalisk: This change is pretty ****** cool and look forward to improving my terrible mutalisk control!
Hydralisk: Another really cool ****** change, and defs look forward to using these badboys
Swarm host: Another cool unit, more hp can only be better, so cool to see
Infestor: We had some good times my friend. I'll always remember making coutnless newbs rage due to you being useful. Now I'll just give you a call when im drunk and couldnt find any other bitches in the club to take home. But don't think I don't still love you when im putting my penis in other various places
Ultralisk: This is actually a pretty huge change in the zvp matchup. I like to (try) to use ultras a decent amount in pvz, only to be foiled when I kill nearly all their army, to have a warp in of 20 zealots tank for the 1 immortal or 2 archons or 1 colossi, then proceed to take 10 years to kill doing 15 damage, then to have another warp in of 20 zealots come because it took to long to kill the first warp in. Now i see the dps killin these bitches quite quick and i think ultras, especially in conjunction with the hydra speed buff to be pretty good, However, infestors are going to be a lot less prevalent, which you NEED to have with ultras current to make them good, so who knows how this is going to go.
Viper: Health change is good, a lot of time they die before their spells do much, now maybe they wont.

Overarching thoughts: Tvz is going to be mech, no doubt about it.
Pvz: going to be really ****** interesting with speed hydras, faster mutas, better ultras, better protoss air (with carriers getting micro back) with swarm hosts and scorpion casting quarter circle punch everywhere (thats the pudge hook to you dota players)

zvz: Definitely agree with whoever said that mutas will be core in zvz now, depending how hard it is for infestors to hit with the projectile. Which I am quite happy with, as i currently go mutas in abuot 90% of my zvzs, and brag having the best muta v muta (yes thats a challenge to anyone wondering). Noteably also, in zvz it was very hard to punish and kill your opponent if you were slightly ahead of them, and now that might be slightly easier to do since they won't be able to use defenders advantage with fungals quite as effectively, but again, depending on how easy it is to hit this may not make a difference.

[ROOT`iaguz]

The Thor's new AA is a mode that can switched with it's regular AA. It will retain it's anti muta capability as normal.

I think they made spore crawler at Spawning pool tech so there's really no excuse to be losing to the little shits.

Unless you play terran and have no change made to your detection capability (grumble)

[SLCN.Kez]

Oh I was under the impression this new 1 was instead of old air, and u switch between this new air and ground. In that case, looks like this is a tvp change, to make thors better vs carrier/other capital ships, as the aa for thors splash was better vs corrupters/clumped broods, but would probs have to feel this in game.

*edit* just saw your reference to spawning pool change, dt's earlier doesn't really matter so much, as everyone ffe's, and you always have evo up regardless by the time they can come out anyway

[ToRGreenArchon]

So i was thinking, since fungal growth is now a projectile, can it be stopped by point defense drones? If so, well no more infestors and hello ultras

[ROOT`iaguz]

Mucked around ab it in the unit tester.

Ultras annihilate marines. Like holy ******* shit it's not even close. at lvl 3 melee (which zerg tend to have when ultras come out) it's 44 damage. 44! With splash! I don't like the idea of playing bio centric strategies when Zerg basically win once ultras pop (at least that's what it would feel like lol). Unless it's bio widow mine into mass raven. Which sounds ******* siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. 15hp/sec medivacs do not do near enough to counteract this.

Fungal growth's projectile is a joke (yay)

The ravens seeker missile is completley unavoidable if you're a broodlord. vs other units like ultras you have to wait til they close a little bit before you shoot it off or it will fizzle. Fizzling is very bad. They light a very bright shade of red so it's obvious which ones you have to pull back.

Medivac speed lets them move directly past a single turret without dying. They'll be down to roughly 40-60 hp. This is absurd. It's a good thing widow mines exist or mass medivac tvt might become unbearable. Medivac speed also means you can outrun mutalisks for 8 seconds and dodge fungal growths and shit.

Medivacs seem fun.

Thors new AA gun does 30 damage at max level and shoots 50% faster then other attack. It kills broodlords much faster but it does not splash. didn't test it vs tempests.

RAMPANT SPECULATION.

I feel T > Z but P > T in this new patch. Protoss's new range of openers (possible new void ray all ins, cheap as **** dark shrine and mo core being ****** crazy. Oh and oracles too!) should make terran openers really bad. Terran didn't get a lot of new opening plays in TvP in hots (unsure about mines but prolly not enough. And reapers are LOOOOOOOOOOOL). Cannot even begin to speculate how mech fares against them, or bio/thor or... ******* hell so much new business for terran midgame.

Zerg seem like they're entirely fucked though. Mech with air upgrades combined, ravens countering hive tech units, widow mines shutting down mutalisks and bio with 15hp/second regen vs nerfed infestors. Ultra buff is nice but that'll only work vs terrans who are bad and just stay on marines.

Quick Comments

	SLCN.Kez:	yeah i'm gettin real scared for zvt
	mGGDaedalus:	did you test ultra vs marine with upgraded medivacs?

[SFTAElessar]

WOW this is huge!!! I wish medivacs could heal 2 things at once

[Dingobloo]

Originally Posted by ToRGreenArchon

So i was thinking, since fungal growth is now a projectile, can it be stopped by point defense drones? If so, well no more infestors and hello ultras

Just tested it, it doesn't get absorbed.

Quick Comments

ToRGreenArchon:

Sweet, infestors won't be completely fazed out then

[ROOT`iaguz]

played a few games before back to WoL (have to practice that for IEM Poland qualifiers coming up)

I tried doing a reaper build tvp but died instantly when the mo core solo'd 2 marines by itself. So ******* stupid. "We think what's holding reapers back is that they cannot outrun a stalker" no what's holding them back is THE ******* MOTHERSHIP CORE HAVING 195 HP AND 8 DAMAGE HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THIS DAEMON ENGINE.

Don't play bio vs Zerg. Play mech. Mech is better.

Terran's new stuff destroys old WoL stuff easily. A thor/BC/Raven/Tank army did horrible things to brood/corruptor infestor. Having 3/3 bc's out before 3/3 spire units is absurd. Fun, but absurd. It seems that Terran will have the God composition in this match up of Thor/Tank/Raven with some bc or ghost sprinkled in for funsies. Mass hellion harass and a few widow mines here and there and I'm not sure how zerg can compete with that.

[SLCN.Kez]

I call it the Protoss method:
tage 1: 2-3 base timings and all-ins, then qq retardedly whilst terran sits on their ass because they realize we are trying to all in them.
Stage 2: Attempt to play late game after doing failed mid game timing/all-in, lose, qq more.
Stage 3: Complain to blizzard about balance
Stage 4: Terran gets nerfed
Stage 5: Profit.

[ROOT`iaguz]

Terran's still going to have to do things which result in mountains of dead drones, just we can do it without the feel of dreadful doom hanging above our heads called broodlords.

[ROOT`iaguz]

Oh and to answer deadalus.

When I was testing new ultra damage I had a composition of 4 medivacs with reactor, 6-ish marauders and 23-ish marines vs 6 ultras. 3/3 vs 3/5 ultras. I tested with both mashing them into each other and with the bio pre split. Every time the ultras just cleaned it up easily. As soon as 2 ultras are hitting a marine it dies. The heal beam doesn't heal fast enough.

I wasn't doing any kite micro, and obviously it's not a real engagement with infestors, terrain and more then 4 medivacs which a bio player would certainly have out by then but the speed that the ultras were cleaving through bio makes me think there's absolutely no chance for marines to be a presence when ultras hit the field. Which probably means you should play mech, that style they buffed tremendously which transitions into sky terran wonderfully.

Funnily enough that test initially had infestors in it but I wanted to see what happened when I just sent in only ultras first. Then I decided to pretend the infestors didn't exist at all because holy crap 6 ultras were doing far too much.

[SLCN.StoicWilly]

wow starcraft 2 is going to be so interesting once HOTS come out. I wonder how the pros are going to utilize the new units and ablities. Going to be a great year in 2013 so pumped

[breadfan]

OP updated with the most recent patch changes (since for the most part they are tweaks to things in Patch #8, and are a little more minor than the previous as well)

[Dingobloo]

I like that they're trying to buff the mutalisk, I don't like the way they did it in this patch.

It seems to make playing defensive with HTs against mutas even worse which is the more interesting way it can play out due to the inbuilt asymmetry compared to forcing a bunch of phoenix and then having it devolve into composition wars of how few corruptors you can get away with making.

ZvT it doesn't affect whats currently holding back mutas in the match up which are heavily upgraded marines but does affect the ability for thors to act as a good deterrent.

[SFTAElessar]

i cant even do anything on HotS beat now that i updated it with this patch all my achievements are gone and i can't see friends, my ladder, ranks, or even custom games... anyone else having same problem?

Quick Comments

syfChadMann:

New Season would explain some of that...?

[SFTAElessar]

no chadman its not that...

[FaDeBadger]

Yes it is, at the very least your achievements, ladder and ranks are gone because of new patch/season.

Quick Comments

SFTAElessar:

ohhhh i see :( that sucks haha i was looking forward to using new patch