[EXCL]

Originally Posted by Xavi

early pressure from the gateway should be even better now. it would really get a zealot and stalker out fast, especially with saved crono, 2 gate early pressure might be quite powerful againest terran if they haven't walled in or bunkered up, could mabe even get some cool transitions into fast expand from it

Agreed... so looking forward to experimenting!

[TAXanT]

Whilst 4-gating has won me plenty of games I feel more comfortable these days doing 3-gate robo so won't be too much different for me. Will definitely be doing more early stalker/zealot harassment.

[near]

well. i just hope those **** bout imbalance is over now. hate those ppl who qq bout balance when they lose. imbalance only comes into play when you are masters or higher. just like unstable said. learn to play the game. dont whine. though i havent played BW before. i think that this patch is quite good. any idea when it will be implemented?

[Monk]

Originally Posted by near

well. i just hope those **** bout imbalance is over now. hate those ppl who qq bout balance when they lose. imbalance only comes into play when you are masters or higher. just like unstable said. learn to play the game. dont whine. though i havent played BW before. i think that this patch is quite good. any idea when it will be implemented?

This is just going to make a lot more QQ from Zerg in particular. 2 gate proxies will be an instant loss if you don't scout it in time(2v2/4v4 maps) or sac your econ in blind-sight and get mass lings/spines. 2 gate pressure was VERY hard to hold off as Zerg in Beta, let alone 2 proxy gate.

[tin]

so how is this going to stop 4 gating in pvp? wont everyone just 3 gate robon rush to get colos now? ALL THE TIME...?

[ToRDeathsFang]

Yeah so what it is is pretty much from 4 gating every game it will probably go to either delayed/modified 4 gates or 3 gate robo, then it will go on like that forever....

[cruxis]

Updated patch notes.

General
The default hotkey to toggle in-game music on/off has been reverted to its hotkey prior to Patch 1.3.0. The hotkey to display APM in the observer stat panel has been changed as a result.

Balance

PROTOSS

Archon
Now a Massive unit.
Range increased from 2 to 3.

Cybernetics Core
Research Warp Gate time increased from 140 to 180.
*This change was revoked.

Research Warp Gate time increased from 140 to 160.

Gateway
Stalker train time decreased from 42 to 37.
Zealot train time decreased from 38 to 33.
*These changes were revoked.

Sentry train time decreased from 42 to 37.
Warp Gate unit train times remain unchanged.
Pylon power radius has been decreased from 7.5 to 6.5.

TERRAN

Bunker
Salvage resource return reduced from 100% to 75%.

Ghost
Cost changed from 150/150 to 200/100.

Thor
Thor now has 200 max energy, and starts with 50 energy.
250mm Strike Cannons now cost 150 energy to use (cooldown removed).

ZERG

Infestor
Speed decreased from 2.5 to 2.25.

Spore Crawler
Root time decreased from 12 to 6.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where Ghosts could not quickly EMP the same location.

Fixed an issue that allowed players to stack air units when issuing a queued stop command before the units reached the end of their patrol point.

Fixed an issue where unplugging your USB headset while another player was talking to you could cause a crash.

Fixed an issue where the APM statistic could be artificially increased.

Fixed an issue where 3D unit portraits were not animating smoothly at slow game speeds.

Fixed an issue where, when viewing a replay, no text message was displayed when a player left a game.

The Taiwanese hotkey to display/hide the game UI while in Observer mode now works correctly.

[cruxBsK]

when is this going live?

[LennX]

They reverted back quite a few stuff. Great. Now thors are a little mroe useless against HTs feedback again. Wish they will make up their mind on the units training speed.

[UncleTom]

Originally Posted by cruxis

Updated patch notes.

Everything I would complain about has been changed looking to be one of the best patch to date.

[PantlessPete]

My thoughts:

Thor energy coming back - gives toss another way to beat mech in PvT. Before the only option was double robo (1/2 colossi 1/2 immortal), now feedback is awesome and should give more incentive to use high templar

Stalker/Zealot build time back to normal - I like it. I was VERY afraid 2gate would become the norm vs zerg again, and helps strike a balance with the next change (but faster sentries really helps out 3gate robo defend against 4gate).

Warp gates 160 seconds - so now it's only 20 seconds more? I guess every extra second counts in PvP, and again helps out 3gate robo as a 4gate defense. Seems like they might have thought it necessary incase they gimp PvT and PvZ.

Archon range - so we get a T3 unit that now can't be slowed and reaches the bioball much easier and is far less fragile than colossii? Thankyou =)

Infestor speed nerf - interesting, but makes sense. Honestly there's times when it feels like you have no chance to catch the infestors before they cast their spells, and it leads to instant GG (either vs marine balls, or quickly moving into position to NP colossi/tanks)

tl;dr I like the changes. I was already hyped for 1.3.3, and I think blizzard has made better revisions now than before. Some things will need to be seen, like the balance between not-as-nerfed warpgate research, and sentries building faster (for both mirror and non), but that's to be expected with the game being so young. Be patient, it took Broodwar a long time to be balanced AND completely thought out.

[pikk0n]

I'd use archons more but with the ghost buff and EMP still decreasing the shield, archons to me seem just as useful/useless as immortals are... :S You'd have to have extremely good micro with your high templars to feedback the ghosts or just stick to your good old colo.... I can't remember off by head what the archon's health is without shield in sc2 since I rarely use them apart from for lulz, but in BW, they would have 200-250 shiels and just 15 health. LOL! That's worst than an EMPed immortal. Nevertheless, archons would work better against zergs. I'd love to see some pro gamers play protoss and how archons can be used better for those players with higher APMs.

Sentry spamming ftw! WOOHOO!

[cruxis]

Idra was calling the Infestor speed decrease a buff, because now they're not going to run in front of the army and die after just getting 1 fungal off.

[Monk]

Originally Posted by Avelestar

My thoughts:

Thor energy coming back - gives toss another way to beat mech in PvT. Before the only option was double robo (1/2 colossi 1/2 immortal), now feedback is awesome and should give more incentive to use high templar.

Any good terran would use the excess energy with strike cannons and only leave enough for one strike cannon on each Thor or use it all. Strike Cannons are seriously powerful, ThorZain has proven that. If any terran who goes Thor heavy and doesn't get Strike Cannons DESERVES to be feedbacked.

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by Monk

Any good terran would use the excess energy with strike cannons and only leave enough for one strike cannon on each Thor or use it all. Strike Cannons are seriously powerful, ThorZain has proven that. If any terran who goes Thor heavy and doesn't get Strike Cannons DESERVES to be feedbacked.

Did you miss the part where it costs 150 energy now It's not possible to 'leave it' with just enough for one. And you can't use it until the energy bar is 75% full.

[Strafe]

Sigh, seems like it will take blizzard forever to create a dynamic fast paced game like broodwar. Those bunker changes are ridiculous and so is the Thor change? I mean it was barely used as it was

[ToRDeathsFang]

I'm not a Brood War player but from what i've read it took several years to become a balanced and very successful game. Starcraft 2 has barely hit its 1 year anniversary, just be patient! There are still 2 expansions to come and many, many and i emphasize MANY patches as well. Just because things aren't all balanced now doesn't mean it will be forever.

[AvPoker]

Originally Posted by Strafe

Sigh, seems like it will take blizzard forever to create a dynamic fast paced game like broodwar.

Bad idea.

Starcraft II is an entirely different game. Making it similar to brood war will wreck the entire gameplay which SCII is based on.

On another note:
"Research Warp Gate time increased from 140 to 160"

+ Show +

[cruxis]

Originally Posted by Strafe

Sigh, seems like it will take blizzard forever to create a dynamic fast paced game like broodwar. Those bunker changes are ridiculous and so is the Thor change? I mean it was barely used as it was

Obviously you don't play team games where 1 player just goes mass thors and no one can counter them.

[Strafe]

True, it did take blizzard up until patch 1.08 before it was balanced and this was stretched over 2-3 years I think. The first few patches were horribly imbalanced. (yes I am that old to know )

I don't see why making SCII fast paced and more dynamic will wreck the gameplay? Blizzard stated over and over they intended to recreate the fast and dynamic gamestyle that Brood war was renown for. In everything I see that they've tried, but I feel it is getting stuck, because the game has too many hard counters.

And yes I don't play team games, but 1:1 is more important than that IMO and in my experience when 1:1 is balanced, there will be a way for 2:2 to play.