Filter Profile Blog Joined November 2010 Canada 604 Posts #1



Dream vs. Life - Biomine vs. Ling, Bane, Muta



May 21st, 2015. Dream played a game against Life that was so good I had to share it with my friends. One friends (let’s call him James) response in particular really stands out to me, “I don’t normally watch entire games when you show them to me but that game was amazing, I watched the whole thing all the way through.” This is important, because James doesn’t play Starcraft 2 hell he doesn’t watch any video games, He just plays them.



You can sum up what happened by saying Dream and Life played a super standard Biomine vs. Ling, Bane, Muta game on one of the most boring maps in the pool, Overgrowth. You would be doing a huge disservice to the players skill if you said that though. Featuring massive fights of maxed out armies, and a TON of scrappy skirmishes in the lategame this is one game of starcraft that has it all.



When dream breaks the game wide open at the 28 minute mark by killing Life’s fifth base all hell breaks lose. The next 7 minutes is some of the finest Starcraft you’ll ever be played, and the reason I don’t think there will be another game that can match up. There’s a ton of great games of Starcraft 2, but these 7 minutes are something else entirely. With fights in 3 or 4 different places at once both players showcase their ability to multitask. Life does everything in his power to pickup the win, but in the end Dream is able to finally overpower him.



In the end, you can’t say Life lost the game. Dream deserved the win, but Life did too. Dream might have played 1% better, and the map Overgrowth provided a way for him to translate that into a victory. Maybe next time they play in a series late into tournament play Life will be that 1% better, maybe the final map will favour him and we’ll see the birth of great sc2 rivalry. There will be a next time right?



The Loss of a Loved One



Do you follow LiquidSnute on Twitter? Have you ever watched him stream before? He’s showing all the signs of somebody in pain from the loss of somebody he loved. Time has eased his anger, but anybody that can see him at work knows his performance has dropped off big time. I remember when everybody thought he was going to be the next great one, but something changed all that. Everybody knew it was coming, everybody knew it had to happen but nobody could predict just how bad it was going to get. (All joking aside, I love Snute and hope he can get his form back. Guys got one of the best Zerg streams around. I learned more about Zerg in one day watching him talk about his games than I have from watching any pro games, or studying any number of replays. He’s a beast, and somebody that is extremely easy to cheer for when he plays.)



The Swarmhost nerf wasn’t so bad at first, there were a few outliers playing mech before the nerf. At first there was relief as those who were playing mech before the nerf didn’t have massive spikes in winrates, and we didn’t have to deal with hour long snoozefests of 25k banks on both sides. TvT was also still primarily the grounds of Biotank players like Dream, Maru and MMA and man did they entertain us. With small drops and explosive fights fights for positioning there was still some great starcraft being played, but something massive was blocking the light.



Then map pool changed. With 3 of the new maps being considered forced veto’s by most pro’s because of massive balance concerns, these new maps became the home to insane cheese. While some unique and interesting games were played on these maps, the longer than normal season for them has allowed them to become stale quickly. The best strategies have been figured out, but stopping them? Nobody knows so straight to the veto void they go. These three seemingly innocent maps have created a monster



It’s ironic that Terraform is the shape that it is really. With a few very long attack paths circling around the center, a center that’s always dark and impossible to control. The Swarmhost change opened the door for mech. Terraform made it broken. Terraform is at the center of the massive explosion in popularity of Mech in TvZ and TvT. Proving to be nearly unbeatable, and in the case of Innovation literally unbeatable, Terraform let players become comfortable with mech in a way that has never been seen before. Like some sort of abnormal growth Mech has exploded back onto the scene, but not in the way people had hoped it would.



Mech is not about controlling a zone and slowly pushing and choking your opponent out. It’s doesn’t even lean on the icon that is the siege tank anymore. Sure tanks play an important role in mech staying alive, and they even put in some work in attacking. There comes a point in every siege tank drivers life though, when he gets his marching orders. Turtle for long enough, and well enough you don’t need tanks anymore. Replaced entirely by Vikings, Battlecruisers and Ravens the tank because something not needed anymore. When people wanted Mech to be the dominate style, and to grow in popularity I don’t think they had a giant fleet of Ravens shooting missles at each other and running away in mind. I don’t think they thought they’d see the day when the Siege Tanks join the hellions in the (very skill based, very strategic) suicide runby in the hopes they would do damage, but at the end considered “free units to give away” if they didn’t.



This form of mech doesn’t provide excitement. Yeah, there’s a few people that enjoy it I won’t deny that. I won’t even deny that it does take a ton of skill to play. Hell, even the odd game of TvZ mech or TvT mech can be exciting to watch. More often than not though it’s just suicide runby after suicide runby followed by a giant deathball push that might lose 4 supply to the zerg/bio terrans entire army when the inevitable fight actually happens. You don’t have to look far when you watching streams to see the massive groan in pain when the Zerg/Terran realizes his opponent is playing turtle mech. One wonders how many people that don’t stream let out this same emotion, and even more so how many have simply quit playing because of it. I know I don’t hit very many Zergs anymore on the ladder (unless I play LoTV, in which case that’s all I hit. they might have migrated boys.) The most important thing about any game is that it’s fun to play, and that both players feel like they have a chance. I’m not sure how many people you’ll find that enjoy playing against this variant of mech, but the people that despise playing against it are simply leaving the game to play something else. When you do something for fun in your spare time, and no longer enjoy it you’ll find something else (or another game) to fill your time.



I know people play bio in LoTV still. With the game still being in beta balance is totally out of whack though, and things will change soon there too. Zerg won’t stay that powerful in the lategame (even mech doesn’t stand a chance against a Zerg that can make (and remake) his perfect army there, at least bio) and Protoss won’t be cheesing Terrans with one base adept/stargate garbage forever. Eventually Mech will rise in Legacy if we stay the current path and balance around what’s been built for the game so far.



That’s why I say we’ve already seen the last great game of Starcraft 2 already. There won’t be another epic game at the absolute top level in HoTS because of the things I’ve mentioned here. LoTV will pickup right where HoTS left off once the balance gets ironed out and with Blizzard saying they only have one month left to make major changes we need to talk about the game as much as we possibly can. Before I jump into what I would like to see happen, I’m going to provide some numbers to backup what I’ve already said.



The Terran Legacy



Disclaimer: I mainly play Terran. With that being said the numbers I’m going to provide are from



The Top Ten Mentioned Players in a Top Starcraft 2 Game for HoTS



INnoVation - Terran - 29 (23 from 2013, massive dropoff in 2014)

Flash - Terran - 20

Life - Zerg - 19

Maru - Terran - 18

Polt - Terran - 17

TaeJa - Terran - 16

MMA - Terran - 14

Hero - Protoss - 14

Zest - Protoss - 14

Parting - Protoss - 11



Terran - 6 | Protoss - 3 | Zerg - 1



The Most Frequent Matchups in a Top Starcraft 2 Game for HoTS

TvZ - 83

ZvP - 47

TvP - 45

TvT - 42

PvP - 22

ZvZ - 10



The Most Frequent Races in a Top Starcraft 2 Game for HoTS (Mirrors count x2)

Terran - 212

Protoss - 136

Zerg - 150



The Most Frequent Races in a Top Starcraft 2 Game for HoTS (No Mirrors)

Zerg - 130

Terran - 128

Protoss - 92



Terran and Zerg games ONLY

Terran - 167

Zerg - 101



Terran and Protoss ONLY

Terran - 129

Protoss - 89



Protoss and Zerg ONLY

Protoss - 91

Zerg - 67



What Do the Numbers Tell us?

Stats can lie, they can be manipulated to and only shown in a single context. One could say Terran loses in 99% of the games they make a marine, or 99% of the games they win they make a marine. When presenting these numbers I have tried to present them in a detailed complete form so you can come to your own conclusions as well. Interrupting statistical analysis of anything is tricky, and it’s difficult not to let your own bias factor but I’ll do my best to avoid that.



The biggest thing that jumps out right away is that Terrans own 6 of the top 7 spots with only Life managing to find a way to crack that lineup. This heavily suggests that the Terrans play in non mirror matchups heavily influences how good the game is, rather than the opponents. The reason I say that is despite Zerg having a strong representation overall in the popular games there’s an absolute ton of Zergs with 1 or 2 games on the list. The only Zerg managing to break through on a regular basis is Life. If you made a list of the greatest goals/defensive plays in Soccer (football) history and included the defenders who got beat Messi would show up an absolute ton of that list. Messi would also show up a ton on the greatest defensive plays list because of how special a player he is, the defenders would have to do something spectacular to stop him. However outside of a few exceptions the total list of players would include an absolute ton of Messi, and a ton of defenders who made it 1 or 2 times. Your overall totals would include 100 Attackers and 100 Defenders, but it would be clear that Messi was the star of the show. The key? Messi has the tools and ability available to him to do very special things as the attacker, and a freak of a human being.



Something else worth noting is that all the players who made the list have a signature style, something fans know to look for when they play that is different from anybody else. This even applies to guys who got close, but didn’t make the top ten (Dark is #2 in 2015, just behind Life.) Innovation leans HEAVILY on how many games he appeared in in 2013, he leaned heavily on nearly perfect mechanics and amazing bio army control that year. Flash is known for his greedy mechanical play, getting into a macro game with Flash is borderline suicide even in SC2. Life has an uncanny ability to use Zerglings to far beyond their usual potential, incredible micro and apm are his trademarks. Maru’s TvP has made his name, he managed to reinvent the entire TvP matchup almost entirely on his own. Polt and Taeja are both outliers, they both play rock solid games and rarely if ever deviate from their plans. Polt is the more aggressive of the two and Taeja usually relies on amazing ability to control large armies…. at least until his wrists blew up. Even though they play totally different styles (although both love bio) I’m calling them outliers because they don’t play mainly in the Korean region like the others on this list (MMA did have one run in Korea.) MMA is a positional god. His small movements and ability to drop where no man should get something in makes him an insanely difficult opponent in TvT. People forget this but in TvT late into 2013 everybody was playing mech, until MMA crushed Terran after Terran with his bio play, he also changed the metagame… at least for awhile. Hero is known for incredible defensive play, a monster when it gets to late game. Zest is an absolute ZvP god, in a time when nobody could touch Life Zest was able to bring him down multiple times with incredible builds and control. Zest also brought the concept of early blink stalkers before Colossus against Terran to the forefront. Parting is literally insane, only $0$ has more screws lose than this guy. He leans extremely heavily on his control and ability to throw people off their games by winning in situations he has no business winning.



Why talk about how the players play? Well it’s interesting to note that by looking at most their playstyles they all have the ability to do things with basic units and micro. The other trait that most of them have is changing the meta of an entire matchup. Capable of thinking, saying and executing with units and in situations where nobody else would be able to by simply just being better than their opponent and getting more out of their units than was thought possible. This is important because nobody here is known for their brilliant use of forcefields, fungals, swarhosts (old style) or ravens. We’re talking about Marines, Blink Stalkers and Zerglings here.



Simple is Beautiful



Looking forward at the design of Legacy of the Void for all three races, their new units and the new abilities something doesn’t add up. The most exciting players to watch in HoTS have chosen to simplify their armies, forgoing “intended use” and instead choosing to get more out of their personal skillset. Maru is the best example of this, if I told you in 2013 the best TvP player in the entire world would not be making Vikings or Ghosts in TvP and instead relying entirely on his ability to control Marines, Mines, Marauders and Medivacs with flawless precision you would call me insane. Maru has decided that controlling simple units more effectively is better than using the intended “counters”.



The other aspect that is often overlooked of players going simple with their compositions is it allows them to be able to quickly adapt to what their opponents is making. Life doesn’t care if he gets all inned early on, he’s going to be holding with lings and queens with ease. Where another Zerg might be scrambling to get his hydra’s out to counter the immortal sentry all in heading his way Life is intercepting the army in the middle of the map and getting a surround with his lings, he’s taking the proxy pylon out before the Protoss even has a chance to get it up. He’s producing extra Queens back at home and leaning heavily on his micro to take care of the situation he finds himself in. If the Protoss is not looking to all in Life is using his lings to deny a third base, he’s trying to get them in for a runyby. He’s leaning on his skill to take control of the game.



Skirmished Out



Balance concerns aside, Legacy of the Void is shaping up to be completely different. Gone are the small early game skirmishes between simple units. In their place are mass adept pushes teleporting around, lings being dropped into your main where you can’t defend or a Nydus coming up with Queens bursting through. Terrans are flying around with Siege Tanks smashing your worker lines and early defensive units. What’s worth noting is the defending player has very limited options, he needs to do things in a very specific way to defend properly or he’ll lose. You also can not rely on your control or micro to defend, the attacking player has all the power in the world at his disposal. There are isn’t a situation where one player is able to eek out a small skirmish via his control, it’s very one sided and a few mistakes from the defending player result in a near instant gg.



The meta game is going to get extremely stale very quickly in this type of environment. With very specific units required to hold off attacks the races are going to need to open the same way every game, or risk simply losing straight up if their opponent does one of the aggressive openers. Protoss need a stargate or they’ll lose to tank drops, ling drops / nydus. Terran need to open with a wall in AND a bunker or even a small number of adepts will rip them apart. On top of that they need a viking to chase away the oracles that will no doubt be made. Zerg have a few more options, but fast Muta’s seem like the dominate way to play against Terran to remove the tank drops before they get too much work in.



Sure this stuff is exciting to watch at first. Once things settle down though and it becomes the norm to see these openers with little to no deviation, or even room for player expression it will get stale really fast. Nobody likes watching games where build order wins happen often but that’s where Legacy is heading. Yes, in HoTS we do still see build order wins but not anywhere near the frequency it will happen in Legacy with these types of openers available to players. Remember that if Protoss doesn’t get a stargate against Terran they 100% lose to a tank drop, but if Terran doesn’t get a wall in and bunker they lose 100% to adept rushes. These limitations and endings to games just aren’t interesting, and they won’t hold the attention of the viewer, player or really anybody.



The Conclusion of the Last Great Game



I’m not the best writer. I’m a bit all over the place with my descriptions of things, but I hope the point here is clear. The direction of even HoTS right now is not good, and the fact that Protoss is still completely broken and in desperate need of a redesign for Legacy with only one month of “major” changes is extremely worrying as both a player and fan of Starcraft. Units are being designed with very narrow use and low potential, old units are being changed to be even more difficult to play against. Nobody is thinking about how things feel to use in larger compositions (Have fun with your 12 abilities in battle Protoss) or how things feel to play against (find a Terran that enjoys defending against adepts, or ultra’s in the lategame.)



Part 2: Legacy Overhaul



Talking about the games future like this doesn’t do any good unless you present points of discussion and idea’s for change. I felt that I needed to set the table for what I’m about to talk about here though. You probably won’t agree with everything I write and that’s fine, just remember I want to discuss how the game feels to play. I want things to be fun for both players in the game, and I want players of all skill levels to feel like they can enjoy the game. I don’t care about balance, that’s something that can be tweaked and changed in the future. What you can not fix though is game design that is not fun to play. This doesn’t mean that you have to be excited that you got demolished by something, but it does mean you should be able to look at it and find multiple ways you could have done better to win.



I don’t know if you guys have seen bronze, silver and gold league players play the game but the current version of Legacy won’t even be playable for these guys. The pace of the game is simply too high and the units in use too devastating for these guys to enjoy the game. Even with 6 worker starts Bronze players are banking money like crazy, how do you expect them to manage two bases? What about three bases, four or five? Even gm’s and masters players are banking like crazy in the mid game and struggling to keep up.



When these guys decide the games too hard, or they’re not having fun and quit the ladder will slowly dry up and new talent won’t arise. When the meta gets stale and the feeling of losing to things you have very little control over the plat, diamond and masters players will start to leave too. Finally when Maru can no longer play with his flashy bio and Life’s lings are no longer useful the pro scene will start to lose it’s players. We’ll be left with nothing more than memories, and I’m very scared that’s the road Starcraft is heading down.



Anybody that has played the Legacy beta even just a small amount can see these problems. The most clear indication of a very big issue is the number of zergs you’ll hit. When 80% of your games are against one race there has to be a reason for it. Remember guys, just because Zerg’s strong in Legacy doesn’t mean everybody is on that bandwagon. It’s because Terrans and Protoss are having next to no fun playing the beta.



Macro Mechanics, the Removal

*I wrote this before the patch went live. After playing the patch this type of change needs some MAJOR tuning to have any hope of actually working.



I’m actually massively in favour of this change, but probably not for the reasons Blizzard intends or even what gets brought up the most in discussion. I love the consistency this will add to the game and how much it’s going to slow it down. There’s concerns surely, like will Terran be able to compete with their very weak defense (it’s not uncommon for Terran to hemorrhage workers in the mid/late game) with the loss of the mule. Will Protoss be able to survive losing probes to runbys, drops etc with no chrono? Will Zerg even get enough production in general to be viable?



There’s a lot more to Zerg with these changes in terms of early game decision making now. Zerg can’t just make a bunch of blind lings for defense, they’ll need to scout and decide if the investment of more precious larva into those lings is required. When do they need macro hatches? What about extra Queens for those hatches? Should I disable the auto inject for a cycle to get creep started? I’m very worried that auto inject will allow Zerg crazy lategame remaxes, the added hatches and Queens could end up with 100+ banked larva very easily so we probably need to look at the hatch larva cap being lowered… a lot.



For Terran the mule removal might be a good thing. You won’t need to create an early orbital so you can afford a faster CC and your economy will be much more stable. Missing a mule for 15 seconds will no longer throw and entire build completely out of whack. The good Terrans will be producing workers non stop with no gaps, even during the heat of battle instead of just throwing down 4 mules after a fight etc. The income loss from mules will hurt, but it’s more than offset by Zerg’s loss of 2 injects and Protoss’ loss of chronoboost. Builds will be more smooth and less rocky, allowing players to hit their potential much easier.



Protoss needs tech more than economy. This means that getting their tech structures up is going to be easier because the other races have been slowed down so much but it also means they can’t chronoboost out workers and more importantly big upgrades and power units. This will also help with other races scouting of Protoss by simplifying it. You won’t have to scout what tech buildings they have AND where their chronoboost is going anymore, you’ll only need to see what they have to know the timings they can hit at. That’s not really a benefit for Protoss, but it does help the game be a bit more consistent with a race that can traditionally get away with crazy variations.



*If you check my youtube channel you’ll find a video where I talk in detail about this particular subject, I’m going to minimize my writing on the subject for that reason.



Air Control is Major Oversight



Every race needs POWERFUL ground based anti-air, so much so that using the skies for anything more than harassment should be heavily discouraged. The biggest problems in terms of stale gameplay have all revolved heavily around air control being nearly impossible for one side to wrestle back. So much that ground control starts to no longer be of any importance. The current flavour of this is are the Terran’s going to Raven/Viking/Banshee/Battlecruiser against Zerg. The darkest days of Starcraft were dominated by the Broodlord, with infestors patrolling on the ground Protoss relied on a massive gimmick to win and Terran had to pray to god the zerg made a major mistake in order to win.



Air is a major problem for a very simple reason. It completely removes the ability to hold ground and buy time. On the ground every race has options to buy time for a vital upgrade, some key units or to get that extra base up and running. Lose control of that though and the game snowballs completely out of control very quickly. With no strategic option to regain air control once you start falling behind or lose it, the games pretty much over. There’s no control and it’s no fun to NEED very specific units to gain that back. On top of that the options for interesting micro using pieces of the terrain when you talk about air vs. air just aren’t there anymore. You won’t see muta’s trying to ambush chasing pheonix around the corner of a rock spire anytime soon. You will see a Zerg throw their muta’s in the garbage though, quite literally, while they transition to something more useful once Protoss has air control.



Small flocks of muta’s darting in and out of Terran mineral lines, flying up to snipe a medivac and a few mines or contributing their damage to a fight with extremely strong micro while not taking damage (Life is amazing at this) is exciting as hell to watch. Seeing 40 muta’s flying around killing all the production while the other guy tries desperately to string together some form of palty anti air force isn’t. We need to be REALLY careful with Legacy of the Void to make sure the skies remain relatively open.



The biggest side benefit of keeping the skies clear is that you open the door for small numbers of capital ships to be a major contributing factor to the lategame. Carriers, Battlecruisers (I’m aware they’re being used already) and Boord Lords in very small numbers could be an incredible addition to somebodies army if they relied heavily on controlling the ground to keep these guys alive and operational. The catch though, is that if you get too many of these guys in your army, you’ll lose control of the ground and put those big investments at risk. The nice part though, is the game won’t snowball uncontrollably if one player, or race, is able to absolutely dominate the skies like it currently is in Wings, Hots and Legacy.



Dynamic vs. Binary



The best plays, the best units and the most exciting games all have one thing in common with each other. They’re all dynamic units used in situations where the players skill is the key ingredient in creating excitement. Parting might have great forcefields, but he’s known best for his stalker micro. Maru’s matches consistently provide excitement, you never know what he might pull off next. You know what units he’ll be making but you don’t know what he’ll be doing with them that will create something absolutely special.



When a Protoss whiffs a forcefield everybody laughs at him as the lings stream into his main and the game ends. If he hits that forcefield the game keeps going, but that single moment isn’t interesting or exciting in any real meaningful way. It’s the same thing on the other end as the zerg struggles to get his roaches into position to deal damage through the forcefield walls. It’s even worse to play games in these situations than it is to watch this stuff. Hell in most cases watching a Toss player micro his Zealot against some lings is way more interesting.



Players of all skill levels need to have room to grow into their units to have fun. It’s a lot easier to accept a loss when you micro poorly and the fight slowly gets out of hand until eventually is over. Once more if your opponent is on equal footing and has to micro a similar amount to eek out his victory the fights feel close for both people, and as you go from bronze to pro levels of play the fights scale better and better. Binary is different, if a bronze player misses his forcefield 80% of the time and the pro only misses it 1% of the time that doesn’t help players feel improvement or feel like they’re getting better. Sure the bronze guy might go from 80% whiffs to 30% whiffs by the time he hits plat, but it’s no fun to lose the games along the way and nearly impossible to see that improvement because everytime it will boil down to “well I missed the forcefield so I lost.”



Design for BOTH Players - Anti Snowballing



Everything needs to be looked for legacy. How does something feel to defend against? How fun is something to use? This needs to be the focus of the new units and abilities, and the focus of the balancing of the old ones. It’s okay if something is difficult to deal with, as long as you can have the tools available to you to do so most of the time. It’s also totally fine if certain units are used situationally and dependant on the map being played at the time. The best example of a unit that works just fine in HoTS is the reaper. A light scouting unit that isn’t made after the initial stages of the game. It doesn’t need more utility, and it certainly doesn’t need a reason to be massed up. With it’s ability to jump cliffs and heal they can snowball extremely quickly if given more than very minimal power. With good drone micro and a few lings, zergs at the pro level rarely take any damage from reapers these days and Protoss players almost never do. However the threat of the reaper discovering hidden tech or punishing heavy greed keeps players honest. This is a unit that fits right into the category of can be difficult to deal with but you don’t need to make anything specific to shut them down either. Fun to use but not facepunchingly annoying to play against reapers in HoTS are excellent design.



yet this stuff hasn’t even been tested or talked about? Instead Terrans are forced to either completely ignore bio or win before the Ultra threat kills them. Zergs still have all the same issues to deal with, they derp and crash into everything without doing damage and as a Terran you just gg when you see them if you’re on bio. Other examples of stuff like this are the catch all MSC (Blizzard is talking about it) snowballing blink stalkers and stimmed Marauders with conc shell chasing everything you hold beloved down.



I’m going to go through my idea’s and concepts for changes to the races to enable a more dynamic exciting game, and this type of design philosophy will play a big part in what I talk about. Remember it might not be balanced but balance can come later, what’s most important right now is fun.



Terran

Needs Help

*Reliable short-medium range ground based anti air from factory

*Reliable detection/expansion defense

*Ghost needs mobility to keep up with bio



Needs Fixing

*Marauders are too punishing

*Ravens are too good in large groups

*Mech deathballs instead of spreading and holding ground

*Early oracle defense needs to be better, especially with macro changes (just let us build turrets with no ebay, thanks)



Terran Changes



Siege Tanks

Overkill, but more damage. Tanks should not be creating giant deathballs of damage when sieged up but they should do a much better job of controlling space when they are setup. Giving them more damage but allowing overkill on their targeting means spreading them out properly will be much more important than it was before. Shoving into even just a few tanks with very little thought other than “I can take these” will no longer be the case. You’ll have to think about if there’s an angle you can move in on them to take them out first and then if you can control it just right getting a good spread and early shots fired onto a small group of non vital units they’ll be something breakable.



Best used to cover chokes and in smaller numbers than they currently are tanks will be a major threat. I mention it near the end, but this kind of power can’t come from a medivac so as awesome as tank drops are there won’t be a place for them anymore. Cool as hell, but terrible for balance this is a situation where you can create a dynamic game in many more area’s by buffing tanks up rather than the single focus of how powerful and cool tank drops are.



Goliaths

With decent high attack rate anti ground the Goliath could handle itself just fine in combat against less meaty units like Zerglings, Marines and Zealots. Struggling to punch through armor though you would need to support them with Tanks or even marauders. Using infantry attack upgrades and mechanical armor upgrades it would present an interesting hybrid unit to bridge the gap for both Bio and Mechanical playstyles. Presenting strong short-medium range anti air massing any type of air armor would be dangerous against these guys. With higher base movement speeds than most mechanical units they could hold their own when looking for early map control, keep up with bio and respond to harassment a touch faster than unseiging tanks and certainly faster than thors currently do. Produced from a Barracks with a Tech lab or a factory with a reactor (once the research off the barracks is complete for factory based construction of them) they provide Mech and Bio with something they both need, Mech gets a core unit to keep their tanks company and Bio gets a replacement for the Marine in situations where the Marines low health keep it from being overly effective.



Ravens

Terran engineers have determined Ravens are simply too slow to be used on a regular basis in combat and have adapted them to be a form of static defense. Still built from the Starport the Raven has no abilities, instead it must spend 25 seconds anchoring itself in place. Once in place the Raven can place autoturrets in case of a runby, cast hunter seeker missles to back an incoming army off and of course provide air based detection to stop DT’s from ending lategame tvp’s (like they currently do… when Terran gets there anyway.) Protoss still have the option of taking the raven out with a small group of stalkers before sending dt’s in but it makes both the defense of a base and the harassment of a lategame base more of an interaction than it currently is.



Stimpack Changes

Stim loses 50% of it’s boost to movement speed. Only Marines get stim once it’s researched, however Marauders and now Ghosts can get stim once the required research is completely from the fusion core. Making bio less punishing early on, but more powerful in the lategame this allows Terran more options for where they try to take the game and gives their opponent a less frustrating experience than Marauders being literal gods on the ground.



Marauder Changes

The stim changes go over most of this, however Marauders still need a bit of tuning. The double shot looks super cool but it really doesn’t make the Marauder better for anybody. This just makes them better early game, and fall off even more in the lategame. Lets go back to the one shot, hell keep the animation I don’t care, but just fire one shot again. Lowering their damage a touch against armored units and buffing it slightly against light units will help them out in the long term and late game.



Ghost Changes

Snipe’s back to mainly useful against psi based units like HT. Additionally though Ghosts now do increased damage vs. Biological units instead of just light units. Shifting their cost back over to the gas side and lowering their build time allows ghosts to be a more viable choice to make in the mid/lategame against Terran, Zerg and Protoss without making them the ONLY solution.



Viking Nerfs

Keeping with the theme of toning down air based anti air units Vikings will lose their 9 range and have it dropped to 6 or 7. To make up for this somewhat their damage will get normalized instead of being strong against armored, they will be alright against both armor types. This will allow Protoss to protect Carriers easier, Zerg to protect their Vipers and Broods and finally let Terran protect their bc’s better. This will drastically shift the vikings role to that off a more vision specialist unit but that’s okay. Not having viking air control won’t be near instant death in tank fights because the support Goliaths can help slow those pushes down and instead the Vikings will be used more as spotters. With Colossus getting tossed (more on that later) the Viking does not NEED to be the powerhouse it once was.



Widow Mines

Short and sweet here, with the Goliath entering the fight mines don’t need to shoot up anymore. This means less friendly mine shots on medivacs, but it also means harassment via muta’s/oracles/drops/banshee’s is more about skill than knowing the bullshit place people put mines so you can’t actually see them now. With Muta’s getting some nerfs as well the fights in the middle of the map between Terran and Zerg should still be exciting without being explosively punishing.



Tank Drops Have to Go

With reduced mobility of a ton of different units, there simply isn’t room for this. Yeah it’s cool as hell and takes a ton of skill to pull off. Hell I love it but it really limits how Protoss and Zerg need to open to be safe against it. I wouldn’t mind seeing it stuck on an upgrade later on in the game, but it’s just too much power early on for Terran. Even my subpar control of a couple of tank drops can kill 1-2000 resources of stuff for free if my opponent doesn’t get fast muta’s or open sg. Again, cool as hell to watch and fun as hell to do… but absolutely the most frustrating thing in the world to deal with as the defender.



No Liberators, No Cyclones and No Reaper Grenade

Terran has a ton of tools, and a lot of ways to use them. Both of these units are giant snowballs and don’t really do anything new. Terran doesn’t need them, they feel forced and very situational. There’s no reason to force something into the game just to try and sell more copies because “terran gets two new units!” I’d much rather have a fun, balanced game than a couple of new toys that are either op as hell or useless because they overlap so heavily with the rest of the Terran army. No medviac upgrades, if anything they need to move slower not faster.



Terran Conclusion

When I did my research into the most popular games in the history of HoTS it was clear that Terran and more specifically bio Terran was the most interesting to watch. Right now LoTV has completely removed the heart of what makes Terran Terran and that’s a big problem for me. I wanted to try to address things that are frustrating to play against with Terran and buff them in some area’s that they need it. To be totally honest though, Terran really doesn’t need a whole lot of help but they do need better tools to transition into the late game in a non frustrating for their opponents way.



With Ghosts being given a much more prominent role in the Terran army we’re already adding more power to them. The cyclone is an interesting concept, but it really doesn’t fit what Terran is and it feels very, very clunky to actually use properly. It also does not synergize very well with anything else that Terran has.



The Goliath addition I think is the most interesting part of this, and the one that makes the most sense. This makes the Goliath a very interesting link between bio and mech, a unit that can work in both compositions very well. It provides a use for all those reactors a bio player made earlier if they want to swap factories onto them to replace their marine count (then put tech labs on their barracks for Marauders or Ghosts.) For a bio player the Goliath can be a major damage dealer because it will use the bio weapon upgrades, but for the mech player it would contribute more as anti-air and a tanky buffer because it uses the mechanical armor upgrades. More of a transitional unit for Bio and more of a core unit for mech it’s a very cool concept.



The door is also a lot more open for biomech style compositions. I’m really tired of this “Mech only or bio only” garbage when it comes to balance. Terran is a race that should use all their tools, even if they do lean more towards one type of composition over another.



Finally, I wanted to address some of the more frustrating aspects of Terran to play against. Things like the Widow Mine, Raven, Cyclone and now Liberator are really frustrating to deal with. Cutting the unit where it overlaps (Liberator) and changing it with something much cooler (Goliath > Cyclone) are steps in that direction. Trimming the power of the marauder and reducing the speed boost of stim to make it less punishing are also steps in that direction.



Zerg Changes

Needs Help

Zerg’s help will mainly come from opening up more micro for them and removing things they struggle with ie. Widow mines showing their target, stim giving less speed, no forcefields etc

Needs Fixing

*Punishingly fast units limit opponents expansions and make ZvZ awful

*Muta’s have limited counterplay options because of speed/regen

*Roach’s are either way too strong, or garbage to be thrown away to free up supply

*Ultra’s are extremely derpy

*Broodlords feel like driving a 1956 Cadillac Deville in europe.



Zerglings/Banelings

Speedlings now lose 50% of their bonus, and speedbanes also lose that bonus. Easier to react to for Terran, Zerg and Protoss when defending an expansion (in the case of ZvZ their natural or third based even) this change will help promote a slower pace to the game instead of the near instant punishment it is now. With Terran’s stim also losing a lot of it’s speed Zerg units will be very similar in terms of performance vs. bio. Adrenal Glands can keep it’s LoTV of 40% attack speed increase with these changes as well.



Muta’s

The speed changes from Wings -> HoTS get reverted to allow tanks back into TvZ. The Regen factor for muta’s is also gone. To compensate for this widow mines won’t be hitting, or dealing splash to air units anymore though. Muta’s will have to be used very carefully now with the other races having more options to deal with them open to them. Best used and most exciting to see in small groups, they retain their flavour without being giant flying snowballs of Wolverine's healing factor of death. A great player won’t take any damage on his muta’s, an average player will get them chipped and heavily damaged needing much longer or extreme care to be useful again and a weak player will still get his killed stupidly. However this means that the skill difference in players muta use will skyrocket and potentially give rise to the next Jaedong, just as Terran has their Maru for banshee’s.



Roaches

Stephano showed the power of the Roach to make a game look extremely one sided, and now the Roach makes games look extremely one sided one way or another. They either kill everything without going down because of a minor mistake, or they get blendered by tanks and worst of all immortals behind forcefields making the Zerg look like a jackass. On top of all of that they make zvz fights a test of inject willpower rather than impressive micro. Moving them in fights is generally worse than just letting them sit in the concave. Roaches need major changes, and the Ravager is not the solution.



Roaches should be one supply again. They should be relegated from their role as the backbone of a zerg all in, or army into trashcan to be thrown away into something more dignified. Smaller less tanky roaches can still be extremely effective. For starters you can have 2 instead of 1, why is this a big deal? Simple it’s the same reason Marines are so good, when one dies you still have half the damage that 2 would have (aka 1 normal big roach.) This means against non splash units like zerglings, marines and even marauders they would be a lot more effective. Roach speed would need to be removed, but you could offset that by allowing them to move while burrowed with only burrow research required(at 75% of slow speed) to be used as light harassment. Cheaper smaller roaches would help stabilize the early game in ZvZ by making big ling floods easier to defend and making early baneling based all ins extremely risky. This would provide some major strides in making ZvZ a better matchup.



There is a catch to the roach changes though. Splash damage would be much more impactful against them. This means for use in big all ins and as a backbone style unit they wouldn’t be very strong as Tanks, Mines and Reavers would crush them. This means that investing in a few to use as defense is a good thing, and later on you could use them to harass after you get the burrow upgrade. Maxing out on them though? don’t do that boys. The last thing to mention on Roaches is that Roach/Hydra vs. Ling/Bane would be a very possible option as the banes splash in strong enough numbers would be effective against the roaches. No more pure mirror based ZvZ’s in terms of unit compositions, it would be a stylistic option!



Hydralisk

Hydra’s as they stand right now in HoTS see some use, and in LoTV are extremely powerful. That being said with power taken off the roach and Terran/Protoss gaining more powerful splash options Hydra’s need a bit of love. The first thing is to pull off the projectile and make them function more like marines do. The removal of overkill will be a massive boost to their damage and really help them take a place as the dominate direct engagement unit. They might need to lose a bit of the pure damage they have now but that’s alright.



The speed upgrade shuffles it’s way back to hive but maintains it’s benefit. With the nerfs to ling speed, bane speed and stim speed this upgrade would be far too strong at lair tech. However to keep them effective in the super late game this upgrade needs to stay around. The range upgrade can stay on lair tech though. Upgrades like range, stim etc are great because they give time for somebody to scout a composition before it hits it’s true power spike, this opens up that period of time more.



Finally they need more health. Tweaking would obviously take some time to get right but hydra’s need more hp to handle storms, small numbers of tanks etc. This helps position the Hydra as something zerg doesn’t have right now, a true core unit that can be reliable in almost every situation. With supportive units like Muta’s, banes, roaches and of course Lurkers changing how you’ll want to utilize your hydra’s they really need to play a key role for Zergs army. The added benefit of the nerfs to air/anti air is that hydra’s will become insanely strong anti air as well.



Lurkers

Zerg desperately needs space control on the ground. The current LoTV Lurker does this, but it also heavily overperforms in situations where you just run them at your opponent's army then burrow them and that… is not really cool to play against or watch. Slowing down the Lurkers attack rate and having them overkill will help slow that down and make positioning them more important. They also need to have their movement speed reduced, moving them out on the map will be incredibly risky however if you get a few in position they will be devastating units.



Used to help support core units from getting dove on and to hold expansions from attacks despite being out numbered Lurkers can be powerful tools when used properly. Again with air options limited, holding ground will be incredibly valuable and map design/use will play a large role in how much use a player can make of them.



Corrupters

HoTS corrupters will perform very well given the changes to how air control works. Used mainly if you need something beefy in the skies and eventually turned over into Brood Lords they don’t need to be much more than very situation units. It’s totally okay if you don’t use them for primary anti-air (hydra’s will take over this role) and just use them in specialist situations. Zerg should never be in a situation where they need to make 60 of them to suicide into some crazy ass Terran army anymore.



Brood Lords

Bumping up their base movement speed a touch and increasing their acceleration will let them feel more responsive. You’ll still have to be careful though, as everybody now has powerful tools on the ground to deal with them they’ll need excellent support to be mobile siege. Ideally used in small numbers to support your ground army in their engagement and help break well held positions your Brood Lords won’t be the ultimate be all and end all capital ship like they were in Wings but they will be much more useful than they are right now.



Ultralisks

yeah, that, lets do that.



Vipers

I feel like Vipers with parasitic bomb, plus a more expensive blinding cloud and near max energy pull will fit right in. The reason to increase the cost of the spells is simply that while anti-air will be very powerful, the range will be shorter on a lot of the anti-air units. This means getting in for your viper to throw down it’s spells will be a lot less risky than it is now adding more consistency to fights. Pull needs to be a lot more expensive because pulling in a shuttle with 2 reavers in it would crush the Protoss army, so having 8 or 9 pulls available from just a few Vipers would be far, far too strong. Parasitic bomb though is fine. The ability for Vipers to just flat out scare people out of going with armies consisting entirely of air is fine, because well air is just not that fun to play against.



Goodbye Swarmhosts, Ravagers and Infestors

With forcefield getting erased (more on that later) and the roach getting a complete retune the Ravager doesn’t really need to be in the game. With Boord Lords and Lurkers moving in to take the place of the Swarhost it doesn’t really have a place either. Finally Vipers will do what Infestors do better than they can so they don’t really have a place in the game either. Rather than trying to shoehorn these units into roles that already exist, or give them weird gimmicks to make them powerful doesn’t make sense so let’s just remove them and call it a day. The only thing that might make sense to keep is the Infestor, but just leave it like it is right now. Let Zergs that are more creative than me figure out what situations it can be useful in and go from there. It’s fine if it sees limited use, or very situation use because not every unit needs to be extremely viable/super effective.



Zerg Philosophy

I wanted to give Zerg stylistic options and get rid of the idea of throwing things away to make something better. The changes to air go a long way to help with that, and the Hydra stepping up it’s role in Zerg armies also leads into that. I also wanted to give Zerg more options for holding ground and create better chances for micro. The final thought was helping ZvZ become a lot more interesting that it currently is to watch. The Roach, ling and bane changes were all aimed at that.



The Protoss changes listed below, and the Terran changes listed above also have a lot of things aimed at making things better for Zerg. Widow mines not taking out muta flocks makes taking them out much easier, and at the same time Mech will no longer be able to deathball push like it currently does.



Zerg should be very powerful in direct engagements with the Hydralisk buffs, and holding ground with Lurkers defensively will be a great option as well. Using creep, overlords and small groups of lings out on the map vision will come easier to Zerg than the other races so catching fights before a Terran sets up his tanks properly will be an important part of the game. At the same time engaging directly into Protoss or Terran that has a strong defensive position setup will be difficult, but buffed Brood Lords can help aid in breaking those defensive lines.



Harassment options for Zerg will be more limited than they currently are, but that is more than made up for with heavily beefed up defensive abilities. They will also be a lot less random though, and with a more efficient army than ever before smaller amounts of damage will stretch to go a lot further than they currently do.



Finally a Zerg players ability to micro and setup smart attacks with well placed Lurkers will come to the forefront. You’ll have to think about how you’re going to use Vipers energy a lot more than before, but Zergs will have a few different options open to them to deal with big armies from Protoss and Terran. Your control over your small ultra’s for example will be much more important than it was before, but you won’t need to sneak them into the game for fear of getting them hard countered anymore.



Protoss

Needs Help

*Lackluster Early Defense

*Reliable Ground Based Anti Air

*No Good Core Units

*Poor Early Game Scouting



Needs Fixing

*Too Many Abilities to Use

*Warpgate is Far too Good Offensively

*Snowballs like Nothing Else



Warp Gate

Cost bumped to 150/150, but all gateway based units have their build times lowered before warp gate is finished. Heavily decreased research time because warping in offensively is no longer really an option (16second warp ins on a pylon.) Warp ins are discussed more with the Warp Prism as well, but are used to produce units at home (2seconds on a pylon next to a gateway or nexus.) Early on though the Warp Gate research will be a choice not a requirement for Protoss players. With gateways able to produce units faster and Robo’s with reduced costs (more on that later) Warp gate won’t be a required upgrade when defending on 1 or 2 bases. Once you start to spread out to 3, 4 or 5 though and you’ll want this upgrade plus be able to afford it. Again Warp Gate is now about defensive use more than anything else, rather than a tactic for Toss to all in each other. Protoss however does get compensated very heavily for this via Terran losing some power on Stim and Marauders, and Zerg no longer gets as much of a boost with Zergling speed.



Adepts

The original LoTV version of the adept was fine, it was used early game to scout and handle smaller attacks like Lings, Reapers etc. The shadow had to be used smartly because being caught in a bad spot meant instant death for the Adept. The way it is now it forces the opponent to defend two places at once, against a unit that is much faster than anything they have AND beats said units in a straight up fight anyway. This forces Terran to split their marines into two places in situations they might not be able to win anyway, and certainly not if they split their marines. While using the current LoTV version of the adept might be fun, it’s an absolute nightmare for your opponent so lets strip that power.



Zealots

The HoTS Zealot is fine, they don’t need a buff. Zealots are already extremely powerful at killing tech and units that are not being micro’d putting even more burden on the defending player isn’t very good design.



Stalkers

With Marauders losing stim until much later on and roaches seeing a complete overall Stalkers are already picking up a ton of extra power. Blink is still a big problem though, and although it’s great fun to use Blink Stalkers and even exciting to watch amazing blink micro in battle it present a major problem for snowballing. I would also argue that Stalkers without blink are much cooler to watch how a player moves them around and repositions them to get the most out of them. Watching a Zerg struggle to hold while a Protoss (with great blink micro) slowly chips them down from a 30 or 40 supply lead without losing anything is painful though. The same thing applies in PvT during all ins, and the only thing keeping PvP sane is the fact that Immortals crush stalkers. Blink needs to go, it’s simply too snowbally to create an interesting game.



That being said the removal of Blink opens up the ability to add a bit of extra power to the Stalker. Let’s up it’s damage a touch and SHRINK the physical size of the Stalker so that more of them can fire at once. This will also help them be more micro heavy in skirmishes unlike the giant boxes of awkward they can be right now. They don’t need to shrink to the size of a marine, but a loss of 15%-20% body weight could really do wonders for their mobility.



High Templar

With Ghosts being able to take them out via snipe again High Templar need a bit of love. With armies being in general more tanky with more health and the marine being a unit that Terran will eventually want to phase out of their army to replace with Goliaths/Ghosts/Marauders storm needs to do more damage. The numbers will need to be tweaked a lot, but increasing the gas cost for High Templar because of an overall more mineral heavy Protoss economy (Immortals, Stalkers, Warp Prisms and Reavers are mineral heavy) will lower the incentive to make a ton of them but the increased damage of storm will help make that increased cost worthwhile.



Robo Facility

With more units being produced here the cost of the Robo needs to go down, a lot. Somewhere in the range of 150/75 would probably help things out. Opening up with even double Robo to get Immortal and Observer production rolling should be totally viable to help Protoss get some meat on their army early on.



Immortals

Hardened shield is gone completely. Their damage needs to drop a lot too, bring it down from 50 vs. armored to 10 damage with 2 shots fired and +2 gained per upgrade. This lets the Immortal gain more from attack upgrades than almost any other unit to scale it into the late game. The attack rate and movement speed of those guys will both also need to go up so they can keep up a bit better with Stalkers and kill smaller units faster. The supply, cost and build time required will also all be heavily reduced to compensate for the nerfs. Keep their high health and shields though, and immortals can now be used much more freely in regular compositions without being the dominating forces they currently are. Filling the role as a meaty medium damage units for Protoss that can be teamed up with stalkers will allow their army to move around early on in the game much more freely than it currently can.



Reavers

Featuring incredibly high splash damage Reavers finally enter the game of Starcraft 2 to stand alongside their Goliath and Lurker brothers. With most of the other spellcaster style units gone from Protoss, this is where they can spend their APM to really show off that micro skill. With near glacial base movement speed before the upgrade, and slightly above glacial speed after the upgrade Reavers will be able to dominate ground they stand on. Getting them to that ground will be the tricky part, and fueling the cost of Scarabs that they fire creating a mineral sink for Protoss they won’t be used in massive quantities but when they show up they can change a fight.



Because they will overkill, spreading your Reavers out will be vital. The recharge time on building scarabs also means you’ll have to be very careful about utilizing them all together in one large group. Make 8 Reavers and send them into battle clustered up and they’ll nuke a small area of ground once they get into range, but you’ll watch as your opponent hammers you when that payload went off all in one location. The skilled Protoss player will have their Reavers carefully loaded and stored in Warp Prisms only dropping one at a time, or two at a time if he’s able to get them on opposite sides of the battle. Picking them up and dropping them between shots preventing any major damage from taking out these expensive monsters Protoss players will finally feel like they are taking charge of the fight with their own skill.



I’m aware this is a straight rip from Brood War, but it’s also something Protoss needs extremely badly. The Colossus was supposed to fill this role but with it’s high supply and extreme vulnerability when it derps over cliffs it was never as good. It also required very specific counters to take out and until Maru showed the way the mobile siege of the Colossus was devastating to deal with properly for Terrans and Zergs alike. While sniping the Warp Prism carrying the Reavers around is certainly an option for players, there will be a ton of strategic and micro opportunities for both sides to micro around the Reaver and how it interacts with the game compared to the Colossus.



Warp Prism

Takes 16 seconds to warp stuff in and limited to warping in 6 units at once but does not need to enter phase mode to warp in. While warping in it will be locked in place and while moving it has a slower base speed than it did before the buffs and finally has no speed upgrade from the Robo Bay. That being said the pickup range increase stays and the use and power of this little guy will go up a ton with Reavers. Carrying a Reaver for Harassment is a completely viable option but you’ll have to watch out for vikings, muta’s and Phoenix looking to chase you down.



Warping in a massive amount of things to kill tech is gone but if you have a couple of them with you you’ll still be able to use them to reinforce your army. More about use with your primary army and less about harass the numbers will probably need tuning to be effective.



Oracles

HoTS style oracle play is actually really cool when they are used 1-2 at a time to pick on weak spots in defense and to scout and gather information. Let’s bring that back, but lower the oracles damage to allow more counterplay. Half might seem like a massive nerf, but smart Protoss players understand the power of a well used oracle for detection/scouting and not the game ending damage it can do. With Widow mines no longer an option to kill them as they won’t shoot or splash up anymore, Oracles can move much more freely through a Terrans base to find those picks. What they can’t do though is mow down an entire mineral line and end a game because somebody got last scout on a four player map as 3 or 4 marines instead of 6 will be able to chase them off.



To makeup for this lack of ability to do game ending damage the Oracles cost will need to be reduced heavily, probably to 100/100. This smooths out of the power curve and reason to make Oracles and helps it transition to it’s new role as early game map control and scouting with a bit of light harass. These changes to the Oracle will smooth it’s power curve from being very risky even all in to a very viable safe decision of opener for Protoss, and it smooths out how easily it can end a game on certain maps with a diceroll. That can still happen, but it will be a less often. Don’t forget, widow mines don’t take them out anymore, so it’s much easier to move them in and around a Terran base without being piss scared of losing them.



Phoenix

Upgrades gone, but so is muta regen so you won’t be using your Phoenix to directly counter the muta’s anymore as the ONLY option. Instead you can use them to harass pickoff key units from your opponent, like Ravers or their Warp Prism. Nothing major in terms of changes.



Void Rays

Button press is gone, they’re back to being situationally useful units. With roaches getting heavily nerfed even that slight niche is gone. However they still might see some play, so we can buff their overall damage a touch to bring them back up to par. I’ll talk more about why they should stay in the game later on.



Carriers

The Carrier on the other hand needs some serious love. The intercepters will die if the Carrier goes down, unlike current LoTV, however you will be able to launch them and then move a leash point around that the interceptors will stay close to. The Carrier is free to move, but if it goes out of range of the leash point you’ve set that leash point will simply move closer to the Carrier based on how it’s moving. Think of it like tieing a string to something and dragging it around.



Carrier damage will be reduced a bit and interceptors will no longer benefit from armor upgrades for air to compensate for reduced anti air splash options available to all races. However with less speed on the map, and way less power in the skies the Carriers will start to see more play. They also need to have their build time slammed from 90 seconds to 50 because of the removal of chronoboost and the fact they need to actually build the interceptors once they enter the field.



Not a unit you want to mass up, but something you can make if you want some really powerful damage in your army the Carrier should prove to be a very valuable siege style option for Protoss.



Goodbye Mothership Core, Sentries, Colossus, Disrupter and Tempest

With Stalkers being more powerful, Robo’s being cheaper and Terran and Zerg seeing some major nerfs to their early game mobility with Protoss gaining some powerful scouting tools in the Adept and Oracle the Gimmick Core does not need to be in the game anymore. Remember the changes to warp gate’s research cost? Here’s where you get that money without impacting your game is a big way. I don’t want to go back to the days of 3gate expands for Protoss in Wings and the MSC did a good job of correcting that, however if it’s gone the game will need to be watched very carefully to make sure Protoss is capable of staying on even footing with their opponents. It’s very possible to allow Reaver construction without a Robo Bay to help aid with early defense using it’s massive splash, keep in mind though it’s movement speed will make sure it stays at home defensively until you get the required tech out.



Again with the power changes to certain Protoss units and the additional scouting options they now have we can finally kiss the forcefield goodbye. With that gone sentries don’t really serve a purpose other than to cast guardian shield. While Guardian shield is VERY good, we can monitor and keep an eye out on how Protoss performs without it and tweak armor values or damage values accordingly to ensure a smooth transition to life without Sentries. The forcefield is one of the worst mechanics in the game, for both players, so I’ll be more than happy to see it go without the need to make the Ravager a thing.



The Reaver does what the Disrupter wants to, if Blizzard really doesn’t want to bring Reavers back just call my idea for a Reaver a Disrupter and apply said graphics etc to it.



Tempest Don’t need to be in the game anymore, Carriers can perform the same role in a much cooler more “Starcraft” fashion. With Ultra’s and Colossus gone their specialty doesn’t really serve a purpose. It’s okay to let things go, if the game gets better for it. Something with that kind of range though in the air, won’t really fit in that well with the rest of the design trying to get mass air out of the picture so to speak.



Removing the Colossus allows all the previously talked about anti-air changes to go through. With it in the game at a reasonable level of strength and you need to give races VERY powerful anti air capability. Take it out and buff Storm and allow the Reaver to be a powerhouse and it really doesn’t serve much purpose anymore. While it looks great on box art, it’s time to let go of this boring relic and move onto to something better.



Protoss Philosophy

Protoss used to be about casting your 14 abilities in combat correctly. With these changes in play it will be much more about small mouse movements moving units around to maximize their combat potential. Even things like picking up and moving Reavers around follow this concept rather than casting an ability off a Disrupter. This kind of micro scales very well with player skill and creates some extremely awesome to watch situations for spectators. It also heavily reduces the frustration of playing against Protoss and watching as a couple of key spells devastate your army (like forcefield, timewarp etc.)



With an incredibly mobile army Protoss will be able to matchup well with bio using Reavers and HT to buy space and prevent a hard engage. With strong micro they will be able to crush these fights, but both players will have a chance to take the fight based on their own skill. Players will also be able to show off their own styles and build compositions that suit how they want to play and what fits them best, rather than building an army designed to directly counter what their opponent makes or if they don’t do that losing.



More about how well a player controls his units than those units raw power, PvX matchups should be dynamic and full of incredible highlights of player skill. The race is transformed from a gimmick caster machine into something that makes a truly skilled player extremely scary. Capable of interesting forms of harassment, storm drops, reaver drops or even immortals/zealots/stalkers you will have to be on your guard at all times against a Protoss. However you won’t be trying to deal with 15 Zealots crushing your hive, production or expansion anymore but you won’t be completely safe anymore.



The most drastically changed Race, the changes of both Zerg and Terran were heavily influenced by how Protoss should be changed. Sometimes less is more and when you remove things from the game but add things that offer more options and versatility you add a lot more depth and skill to the game. I know having bullet points on the box like *2 new Protoss units can help sell, but so can *No Mothership Core, *Gateway Units Actually Good Early.



The Newbie



Somewhere along the line it feels like both the community and Blizzard have forgotten what it feels like to play a new game. If you ever play team games and get low level players in the games do you know what the most commonly used unit is? The Void Ray. Why do people love their void rays? Because they’re very simple and easy to use. You just attack move them and they kill things very quickly. As players get better and better the Void Ray gets worse and worse because players can very easily out micro them and if you try to mass them you’ll usually die because there will be too many holes in your defense. At low levels though, those things don’t happen and you don’t get punished for making them. Hell in bronze and silver it’s not uncommon for a Protoss to open with cannons all over the place while they try to build their Void Ray fleet.



I bring this up because new players don’t care about castable abilities. In fact they just make things even more confusing for them. New players/low level players don’t spend their money very fast and they certainly don’t expect all over the map at breakneck pacing either. The economic changes don’t affect them at all, their skill is not capped by not having enough money it’s capped by not being able to actually spend it. At the same time units that require a very specific counter unit are incredibly frustrating to play against.



They can see, use and understand units that shoot both ground and air, or just ground. They can’t understand why having 7 sentries to forcefield the army in small chunks to kill with stalkers is important. They’ll fiddle around with and make basic stuff that doesn’t do anything special because they understand how to use that kind of stuff.



The more simple units are in terms of what they do they easier it is for somebody to get into the game AND enjoy it. Games like League of Legends and Dota 2 and nearly impossible for a new player to get used to and feel intuitive. Yes getting good at Starcraft 2 takes just as long as those other games, but to even get a baseline feel for what everybody’s character does is difficult in those games. Hell most people even stick to one character to learn how they work for a long time while learning those games. Starcrafts different though, it really doesn’t take very long for somebody to start playing and enjoying the game. There’s a reason the campaigns get played so heavily even by people that have never played an RTS game before.



Activatable abilities don’t help with this, having to read what something does and then figure out how to use it is MUCH more difficult than simply making things and shuffling them around the map that can fight well without that interaction. For a new player units that are very simple to use and do something with, no matter how deep they end up being, is very important to growing and keeping your playerbase.



Go grab 90 people from the street who have no Starcraft 2 experience. Get 10 people to play each race on each version of the game for a morning and afternoon against each other. Find out what they do, what units they make, what upgrades they research and study how they play. Watch the games, watch them play and see what happens. Record all the stats, record the winrates and find out if they’re having fun.



During lunch let them ask you questions about the game. Find out what frustrates them, what they enjoy and what they need help with. Give them some advice based on what they ask you and then turn them loose for the afternoon session. Do the same thing you did in the morning for the afternoon, then break that data down.



What units were made the most? What upgrades were used? What spells did people use? Compare this data to what happens in higher level games. You’ll learn a LOT about what a new player does in the game. These new players are the most important thing you can look at and get feedback from, because without new players the game will simply die. If the game feels too complex and complicated to even be fun at a basic level they won’t try to get past it. This isn’t League of Legends or Dota 2, your friends can’t help you nearly as much as they can in those games. The game needs to feel intuitive and fun very early on.



The Pro



Pro players are VITAL to having a healthy playerbase. The more superstars you have that people want to emulate and recreate the playstyles of the better. Without these guys at the top of the scene you don’t have anybody playing your game. There’s a reason competitive multiplayer games dominate the current gaming market. Players need to be striving to get better, to do more and most importantly there needs to be a gap between how I do something and how Maru does something. When you have something like disrupters, forcefields or a giant pack of lurkers running into an army and wrecking it in a pro match there’s no difference. I might miss that forcefield more than the pro, but it certainly doesn’t feel special when I hit it. Maru might get that perfect spread and take a protoss player completely apart with his insane bio/drop control nearly every game. When I play I’ll butcher it and lose a fight because it’s beyond my skill at the time, but as I get better the fights will get closer and closer until I finally get it just right one time and that.. that feels amazing.



Pro players need tools to express themselves. To create stars you need to give them many different options to handle situations. Maru is a superstar because he plays TvP in a way that leans so heavily on how good he is everybody wants to watch him to play to see what kind of crazy game he’s going to pull off next. The Terran race is full of superstar players that can carry viewership almost entirely on their own backs. Zerg and Protoss are lacking in this department, and there’s a reason for that.



The more a unit can be used in situations nobody thought of the better. The more the micro and control of a situation is incredibly difficult to pull off the better. The more a player gets caught with a poor army composition but pulls off an incredible micro heavy defense the better. The more the skill between two players shows in the games the better.



The Pro game not only needs to be balanced, it needs to have strong representation of skill in every matchup. The pro’s need to feel like the game gives them the opportunity to get out micro’d, to get out macro’d and they need to feel like the game was most importantly fair. Anything binary for winning a game is bad, there should never be a situation in a pro game where they either whiffed an ability or hit it. It needs to be a culmination of all the aspects of the game that create the winner and loser as often as possible.



There are risks you can take, corners you can cut. That stuff is a part of the game but it should be kept to a minimum. MMA just got knocked out of the GSL by Parting in a game that best exemplifies some of the problems of the current game. The build MMA did is risky, but with decent scouting information he has the ability to defend against Partings proxy oracle on Cactus Valley. MMA scouted Parting last, and despite the fact Parting took a chance on his Proxy on the far side of the map the Oracle did enough damage to really set MMA behind. Followed up with a Blink Stalker all in that was impossible for MMA to scout he was gone. It’s fine if these games happen from time to time, but based on the way the game works and the information MMA had he really is in a no win situation. There wasn’t any way for him to try and minimize the damage of Partings next move without guessing and in the case of MMA he guessed Parting was going to bust his front with Stargate units. MMA was wrong, and he’s out now. No Pro wants to be put in this situation or position no matter what the matchup is. Legacy of the Void currently just makes this much worse or in some cases forces the meta to very, very strict do this or lose style openers.



Competitive Suicide



The schedule for Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void scares me. There is no possible way for the game to be ready this year. Releasing the game anytime soon will kill your playerbase. Despite the Beta being out and easy for anybody to access HoTS is still the players choice and it’s not just a balance thing. LoTV right now just doesn’t feel like Starcraft anymore. Bio isn’t even playable, Protoss have to be even more gimmick filled all inning specialists and Zerg might be strong enough to actually leave the game and take over the world. There’s a reason 80% of the Legacy games you play are against Zergs.



Nothing kills a game faster than officially releasing it before it’s ready. There’s tons of examples of this throughout history, even if you do eventually go back and fix what was broken it doesn’t matter. The words out, the players know and the games done. You don’t even have to look any further than Diablo 3 to see what happens when a game comes out before it’s ready. Sure Diablo 3 isn’t a complete failure, but it’s certainly not close to the level of Diablo 2. The game might have been flashy and fun for the casual player but people quickly moved on. There’s been a ton of effort put into fixing Diablo 3 but it doesn’t matter. The game already has it’s reputation and no amount of work can fix that.



If Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void comes out anywhere close to the condition it’s in right now, the Starcraft 2 scene is done. You can tune it as much as you want over the course of a year but you’re not going to win your playerbase back, even if the game does start to improve. With Legacy you have a chance to hit a huge home run and while I doubt Starcraft will ever be what it once was trying to fix it after it’s released will certainly make sure that it doesn’t even stand a chance. Instead it will slowly bleed out and game stores will go back to having battle chests of Brood War and Diablo 2 on their shelves and the North American, Europe and Korean ladders will start to resemble the SEA ladder. Hell the North American GM league is already starting to go that route with a complete lack of top tier players using it for practice.



Message for Michael Morhaime From a Lifelong Blizzard Fan



Blizzard Entertainment has a special Legacy. The name alone on a game used to be a lock that it would be one of the best games you’d ever play. Look around, look at the awards and articles that are surely framed in the halls of the Blizzard offices. Look at the dates and the games that dominate the picture frames. Remember the meetings and development of those games. Remember when it was unacceptable to release a product before it was ready? Do you really feel like Legacy of the Void will be ready this year in your heart?



Blizzard used to care more about a product being really, really amazing and having staying power. Games used to be full of depth that only the most hardcore of players would be able to see and enjoy and you know what? That was okay. Blizzard games used to have staying power, they used to dominate the shelves (and now the online stores) years after they came out. It didn’t matter if a game came out and didn’t set massive sales records because it appealed to the LCD demographic because over time that game would keep bringing in sales. They used to hold up to the test of time, they were able to provide entertainment years after their initial release because the core mechanics while simple from the outside provided an insane amount of depth.



Don’t turn your back on Starcraft players. Blizzard used to care about every franchise equally, taking care of each one regardless of how big it was. This is why your games have exploded and provided something special. Not every game is going to break records, but the games that do are rarely ever forced. Games that die, games that end franchises though those games are released before they’re ready and they never get a chance to become something different.



When I last played Legacy of the Void and logged off for the day I genuinely felt depressed. The game was very clearly going in a direction that I wasn’t going to enjoy. Blizzard games and more specifically Starcraft 2 have given me more than you, or really anybody knows. The games have carried me through some incredibly difficult times in my life and pulled me out of some really dark places. If Legacy of the Void isn’t something I’ll enjoy, I won’t play it and I’m sure I won’t be alone. That doesn’t take away from what you, and well everybody at Blizzard has given me with Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm though. Maybe someday I’ll talk about it more or write a blog, but I’m sure I’m not the only person that has used some of the amazing games Blizzard has made in the past to forget about problems around you.



Have we seen the last great game?

The last great game of Starcraft 2 has already been played. The Legacy of a game played by few and watched by even less will be real Life but the memories of a Dream will leave a Void of what could have been. That’s a bold statement, and it really doesn’t have to be this way but for things to change we need to take a deep look back into what made that game special as well as Blizzards past. This won’t be short, but if you don’t express how you feel nobody will know. I don’t want to remember Flash’s of something that was a major part of life, and regret never at least putting my thoughts on paper.May 21st, 2015. Dream played a game against Life that was so good I had to share it with my friends. One friends (let’s call him James) response in particular really stands out to me, “I don’t normally watch entire games when you show them to me but that game was amazing, I watched the whole thing all the way through.” This is important, because James doesn’t play Starcraft 2 hell he doesn’t watch any video games, He just plays them.You can sum up what happened by saying Dream and Life played a super standard Biomine vs. Ling, Bane, Muta game on one of the most boring maps in the pool, Overgrowth. You would be doing a huge disservice to the players skill if you said that though. Featuring massive fights of maxed out armies, and a TON of scrappy skirmishes in the lategame this is one game of starcraft that has it all.When dream breaks the game wide open at the 28 minute mark by killing Life’s fifth base all hell breaks lose. The next 7 minutes is some of the finest Starcraft you’ll ever be played, and the reason I don’t think there will be another game that can match up. There’s a ton of great games of Starcraft 2, but these 7 minutes are something else entirely. With fights in 3 or 4 different places at once both players showcase their ability to multitask. Life does everything in his power to pickup the win, but in the end Dream is able to finally overpower him.In the end, you can’t say Life lost the game. Dream deserved the win, but Life did too. Dream might have played 1% better, and the map Overgrowth provided a way for him to translate that into a victory. Maybe next time they play in a series late into tournament play Life will be that 1% better, maybe the final map will favour him and we’ll see the birth of great sc2 rivalry. There will be a next time right?Do you follow LiquidSnute on Twitter? Have you ever watched him stream before? He’s showing all the signs of somebody in pain from the loss of somebody he loved. Time has eased his anger, but anybody that can see him at work knows his performance has dropped off big time. I remember when everybody thought he was going to be the next great one, but something changed all that. Everybody knew it was coming, everybody knew it had to happen but nobody could predict just how bad it was going to get. (All joking aside, I love Snute and hope he can get his form back. Guys got one of the best Zerg streams around. I learned more about Zerg in one day watching him talk about his games than I have from watching any pro games, or studying any number of replays. He’s a beast, and somebody that is extremely easy to cheer for when he plays.)The Swarmhost nerf wasn’t so bad at first, there were a few outliers playing mech before the nerf. At first there was relief as those who were playing mech before the nerf didn’t have massive spikes in winrates, and we didn’t have to deal with hour long snoozefests of 25k banks on both sides. TvT was also still primarily the grounds of Biotank players like Dream, Maru and MMA and man did they entertain us. With small drops and explosive fights fights for positioning there was still some great starcraft being played, but something massive was blocking the light.Then map pool changed. With 3 of the new maps being considered forced veto’s by most pro’s because of massive balance concerns, these new maps became the home to insane cheese. While some unique and interesting games were played on these maps, the longer than normal season for them has allowed them to become stale quickly. The best strategies have been figured out, but stopping them? Nobody knows so straight to the veto void they go. These three seemingly innocent maps have created a monsterIt’s ironic that Terraform is the shape that it is really. With a few very long attack paths circling around the center, a center that’s always dark and impossible to control. The Swarmhost change opened the door for mech. Terraform made it broken. Terraform is at the center of the massive explosion in popularity of Mech in TvZ and TvT. Proving to be nearly unbeatable, and in the case of Innovation literally unbeatable, Terraform let players become comfortable with mech in a way that has never been seen before. Like some sort of abnormal growth Mech has exploded back onto the scene, but not in the way people had hoped it would.Mech is not about controlling a zone and slowly pushing and choking your opponent out. It’s doesn’t even lean on the icon that is the siege tank anymore. Sure tanks play an important role in mech staying alive, and they even put in some work in attacking. There comes a point in every siege tank drivers life though, when he gets his marching orders. Turtle for long enough, and well enough you don’t need tanks anymore. Replaced entirely by Vikings, Battlecruisers and Ravens the tank because something not needed anymore. When people wanted Mech to be the dominate style, and to grow in popularity I don’t think they had a giant fleet of Ravens shooting missles at each other and running away in mind. I don’t think they thought they’d see the day when the Siege Tanks join the hellions in the (very skill based, very strategic) suicide runby in the hopes they would do damage, but at the end considered “free units to give away” if they didn’t.This form of mech doesn’t provide excitement. Yeah, there’s a few people that enjoy it I won’t deny that. I won’t even deny that it does take a ton of skill to play. Hell, even the odd game of TvZ mech or TvT mech can be exciting to watch. More often than not though it’s just suicide runby after suicide runby followed by a giant deathball push that might lose 4 supply to the zerg/bio terrans entire army when the inevitable fight actually happens. You don’t have to look far when you watching streams to see the massive groan in pain when the Zerg/Terran realizes his opponent is playing turtle mech. One wonders how many people that don’t stream let out this same emotion, and even more so how many have simply quit playing because of it. I know I don’t hit very many Zergs anymore on the ladder (unless I play LoTV, in which case that’s all I hit. they might have migrated boys.) The most important thing about any game is that it’s fun to play, and that both players feel like they have a chance. I’m not sure how many people you’ll find that enjoy playing against this variant of mech, but the people that despise playing against it are simply leaving the game to play something else. When you do something for fun in your spare time, and no longer enjoy it you’ll find something else (or another game) to fill your time.I know people play bio in LoTV still. With the game still being in beta balance is totally out of whack though, and things will change soon there too. Zerg won’t stay that powerful in the lategame (even mech doesn’t stand a chance against a Zerg that can make (and remake) his perfect army there, at least bio) and Protoss won’t be cheesing Terrans with one base adept/stargate garbage forever. Eventually Mech will rise in Legacy if we stay the current path and balance around what’s been built for the game so far.That’s why I say we’ve already seen the last great game of Starcraft 2 already. There won’t be another epic game at the absolute top level in HoTS because of the things I’ve mentioned here. LoTV will pickup right where HoTS left off once the balance gets ironed out and with Blizzard saying they only have one month left to make major changes we need to talk about the game as much as we possibly can. Before I jump into what I would like to see happen, I’m going to provide some numbers to backup what I’ve already said.Disclaimer: I mainly play Terran. With that being said the numbers I’m going to provide are from Teamliquid’s best of HoTS thread of the most popular players and matchups. Understand this, when I talk about certain strategies and races being gimmicky or not fun to play against (ie. Protoss one base all ins on four player rng maps, zerg showing 20 roaches to your hellions at his front door from nowhere etc) I am not aiming to get your favourite race nerfed so Terran can be best#!11!1!11. I’m not providing these numbers for the best games of HoTS as per Teamliquid to be a Terran elitest. I’m doing it because I want all races to showcase their skill like the top Terran players showcase theirs. So please, check your bias at the door when you comment. Please be constructive with your comments and most importantly remember this: The game needs to be fun for everybody, not just the guy using the unit/ability and winning the game. That is literally the only thing that should matter to you, Blizzard and I know that’s all that matters to me.INnoVation - Terran - 29 (23 from 2013, massive dropoff in 2014)Flash - Terran - 20Life - Zerg - 19Maru - Terran - 18Polt - Terran - 17TaeJa - Terran - 16MMA - Terran - 14Hero - Protoss - 14Zest - Protoss - 14Parting - Protoss - 11Terran - 6 | Protoss - 3 | Zerg - 1TvZ - 83ZvP - 47TvP - 45TvT - 42PvP - 22ZvZ - 10Terran - 212Protoss - 136Zerg - 150Zerg - 130Terran - 128Protoss - 92Terran - 167Zerg - 101Terran - 129Protoss - 89Protoss - 91Zerg - 67Stats can lie, they can be manipulated to and only shown in a single context. One could say Terran loses in 99% of the games they make a marine, or 99% of the games they win they make a marine. When presenting these numbers I have tried to present them in a detailed complete form so you can come to your own conclusions as well. Interrupting statistical analysis of anything is tricky, and it’s difficult not to let your own bias factor but I’ll do my best to avoid that.The biggest thing that jumps out right away is that Terrans own 6 of the top 7 spots with only Life managing to find a way to crack that lineup. This heavily suggests that the Terrans play in non mirror matchups heavily influences how good the game is, rather than the opponents. The reason I say that is despite Zerg having a strong representation overall in the popular games there’s an absolute ton of Zergs with 1 or 2 games on the list. The only Zerg managing to break through on a regular basis is Life. If you made a list of the greatest goals/defensive plays in Soccer (football) history and included the defenders who got beat Messi would show up an absolute ton of that list. Messi would also show up a ton on the greatest defensive plays list because of how special a player he is, the defenders would have to do something spectacular to stop him. However outside of a few exceptions the total list of players would include an absolute ton of Messi, and a ton of defenders who made it 1 or 2 times. Your overall totals would include 100 Attackers and 100 Defenders, but it would be clear that Messi was the star of the show. The key? Messi has the tools and ability available to him to do very special things as the attacker, and a freak of a human being.Something else worth noting is that all the players who made the list have a signature style, something fans know to look for when they play that is different from anybody else. This even applies to guys who got close, but didn’t make the top ten (Dark is #2 in 2015, just behind Life.) Innovation leans HEAVILY on how many games he appeared in in 2013, he leaned heavily on nearly perfect mechanics and amazing bio army control that year. Flash is known for his greedy mechanical play, getting into a macro game with Flash is borderline suicide even in SC2. Life has an uncanny ability to use Zerglings to far beyond their usual potential, incredible micro and apm are his trademarks. Maru’s TvP has made his name, he managed to reinvent the entire TvP matchup almost entirely on his own. Polt and Taeja are both outliers, they both play rock solid games and rarely if ever deviate from their plans. Polt is the more aggressive of the two and Taeja usually relies on amazing ability to control large armies…. at least until his wrists blew up. Even though they play totally different styles (although both love bio) I’m calling them outliers because they don’t play mainly in the Korean region like the others on this list (MMA did have one run in Korea.) MMA is a positional god. His small movements and ability to drop where no man should get something in makes him an insanely difficult opponent in TvT. People forget this but in TvT late into 2013 everybody was playing mech, until MMA crushed Terran after Terran with his bio play, he also changed the metagame… at least for awhile. Hero is known for incredible defensive play, a monster when it gets to late game. Zest is an absolute ZvP god, in a time when nobody could touch Life Zest was able to bring him down multiple times with incredible builds and control. Zest also brought the concept of early blink stalkers before Colossus against Terran to the forefront. Parting is literally insane, only $0$ has more screws lose than this guy. He leans extremely heavily on his control and ability to throw people off their games by winning in situations he has no business winning.Why talk about how the players play? Well it’s interesting to note that by looking at most their playstyles they all have the ability to do things with basic units and micro. The other trait that most of them have is changing the meta of an entire matchup. Capable of thinking, saying and executing with units and in situations where nobody else would be able to by simply just being better than their opponent and getting more out of their units than was thought possible. This is important because nobody here is known for their brilliant use of forcefields, fungals, swarhosts (old style) or ravens. We’re talking about Marines, Blink Stalkers and Zerglings here.Looking forward at the design of Legacy of the Void for all three races, their new units and the new abilities something doesn’t add up. The most exciting players to watch in HoTS have chosen to simplify their armies, forgoing “intended use” and instead choosing to get more out of their personal skillset. Maru is the best example of this, if I told you in 2013 the best TvP player in the entire world would not be making Vikings or Ghosts in TvP and instead relying entirely on his ability to control Marines, Mines, Marauders and Medivacs with flawless precision you would call me insane. Maru has decided that controlling simple units more effectively is better than using the intended “counters”.The other aspect that is often overlooked of players going simple with their compositions is it allows them to be able to quickly adapt to what their opponents is making. Life doesn’t care if he gets all inned early on, he’s going to be holding with lings and queens with ease. Where another Zerg might be scrambling to get his hydra’s out to counter the immortal sentry all in heading his way Life is intercepting the army in the middle of the map and getting a surround with his lings, he’s taking the proxy pylon out before the Protoss even has a chance to get it up. He’s producing extra Queens back at home and leaning heavily on his micro to take care of the situation he finds himself in. If the Protoss is not looking to all in Life is using his lings to deny a third base, he’s trying to get them in for a runyby. He’s leaning on his skill to take control of the game.Balance concerns aside, Legacy of the Void is shaping up to be completely different. Gone are the small early game skirmishes between simple units. In their place are mass adept pushes teleporting around, lings being dropped into your main where you can’t defend or a Nydus coming up with Queens bursting through. Terrans are flying around with Siege Tanks smashing your worker lines and early defensive units. What’s worth noting is the defending player has very limited options, he needs to do things in a very specific way to defend properly or he’ll lose. You also can not rely on your control or micro to defend, the attacking player has all the power in the world at his disposal. There are isn’t a situation where one player is able to eek out a small skirmish via his control, it’s very one sided and a few mistakes from the defending player result in a near instant gg.The meta game is going to get extremely stale very quickly in this type of environment. With very specific units required to hold off attacks the races are going to need to open the same way every game, or risk simply losing straight up if their opponent does one of the aggressive openers. Protoss need a stargate or they’ll lose to tank drops, ling drops / nydus. Terran need to open with a wall in AND a bunker or even a small number of adepts will rip them apart. On top of that they need a viking to chase away the oracles that will no doubt be made. Zerg have a few more options, but fast Muta’s seem like the dominate way to play against Terran to remove the tank drops before they get too much work in.Sure this stuff is exciting to watch at first. Once things settle down though and it becomes the norm to see these openers with little to no deviation, or even room for player expression it will get stale really fast. Nobody likes watching games where build order wins happen often but that’s where Legacy is heading. Yes, in HoTS we do still see build order wins but not anywhere near the frequency it will happen in Legacy with these types of openers available to players. Remember that if Protoss doesn’t get a starga