LOTV Balance Update Thoughts / Rant



New Reaper grenade ability



I hope there's some sort of drawback to this, but I guess we have to wait to see what damage/aoe the grenade does. Reapers were certainly nerfed by proxy in LOTV because of how the economy works - harrassment units aren't as effective anymore. However, this might be a bit too powerful by the sound of it - again I guess we'll have to wait and see if there's any drawback to the ability or if reapers cost will be modified, or if it's something you'll need to upgrade and how much damage / aoe if any it does.





Mineral amounts changed from 100%/50% to 100%/60%



Dumb. Change economy to the TL proposed Econ Mod, it'd fix most related problems imo, speed up the game, encourage expansions, discourage turtle play. The problem I have with this change is even on 3 base T and P can turtle to a high enough supply of a deathball to move out and take a 4th while being cost efficient, it's just not the right direction, the 10% bonus difference will only push things further into the direction we know no one wants. Especially with how strong the lategame units are atm (Ultras, Carriers, teleporting BC's, uncatchable banshees). Now don't get me wrong, the Economy in LOTV is much better than in HotS, the game is faster paced and better, but this change won't help that, and the TL proposed Econ Mod is in my opinion the best solution anyway, would be nice to at least hear why that's not an option, if that's the case.





Protoss: Warp-in duration reverted to Heart of the Swarm.



That's cool, almost irrelevant - This patch is good for Protoss however - as both the cyclone and ravager got nerfed, those are the early/mid game units that Z and T got in LOTV - Protoss got a harrassing unit (Adept) which was hardly comparable or as impactful. However, with the cyclone change P will likely be locked into stargate openers in PvT - With the ravager change Protoss won't have to worry as much about well the ravager - regardless super fast burrow roaches are still a huge problem for P vs Z in the mid game, and the new SH will be insane vs P for a while too, so I think Z is still favored in the matchup - And PvT might be a bit too one-dimensional when it comes to openers + the cyclone is still too good on the ground so im sure we'll see marine cyclone timings and things like that a lot. So... I guess for P, and speaking for P alone, it's a step in the right direction when it comes to balance, but not necessarily when it comes to design. I'd propose the Disruptor to cost something like 50/50 more and not require a Robotics bay as a simpler more fun way to approach the problems P has in the mid game.





Adept Adept’s weapon’s damage point changed from .4 to default (0.167)



cool





Cyclone Can no longer target air. New upgrade: allows Cyclones to target air



Still too good of a unit imo, but a step in the right direction







Ravager - Weapon period changed from 0.8 to 1.6. Weapon range reduced from 6 to 4



I would be ok with ONE of these 2 nerfs, corrosive bile isn't a reliable spell, it's more of a zoning tool than anything else, and it can be really powerful during fights but it can also end up doing not much - if the intention was to nerf early Ravager all-ins they could've just nerfed corrossive bile to not have such a fast cooldown, or/and one of the changes they made OR they could've just made it so that ravagers require a lair... and then like MAGIC the early game all-in is gone, MAGIC I tell you.



With both changes implemented the ravager is a MUCH more expensive version of a WORSE roach with corrosive bile, also costs 1 additional supply and has 1 less armor (big deal). The Ravager can only now be cost efficient against large armies basically - problem with that of course is even the old ravager wasn't particularly cost efficient against large T and P armies, so I guess we'll see it sprinkled in ZvZ for the most part, but that's about it - this change really bothers me. Without a doubt the Ravager was too strong, but this is just too big of a nerf. The reasoning for these changes is really terrible as well.. "we want to see more units used?" well gj, I guess that's certainly happening.





Swarm Host Cost changed to 200/100/3. No longer requires to upgrade for flying locusts

Locust health down from 65 to 50. Swarm hosts can burrow move at 2 speed



Cost change makes sense, 4 supply for a sh was too much. However, not requiring upgrade for flying locusts is crazy - however they still do cost 200 gas. The problem with units like this is: it requires very little effort, it will be very frustrating for P to play against.



The drawback of getting swarm hosts is they cost so much gas and they are not great defensively, so if it's an even game / P was going for an all in and you were going straight for sh, you'll likely die. however this punishes macro protoss a bit too hard I think. Swarmhosts are gonna be too "swingy" of units and it'll be very hard to punish them with Micro or by outplaying your opponent. There are things P will learn to do like leave spotting zealots / observers similar to what they would do on TvP to spot drops incoming. That's where the swingy bit happens - Either the swarmhosts will get ambushed and pretty much lose zerg the game because of how expensive they are, or they will kill a nexus for free and pretty much win zerg the game because.. yeah well killing a nexus for free is pretty good. Either way, I know i'll play a lot with SH, they're actually fun to use - just not sure if the free flying upgrade was the best way to go about it, the supply, yes that was good. The movement while burrowed? while I don't think it'll have a big impact at all in most games, it might be cute and make for more 'hype' plays from time to time, so that's fine, but by no means a big deal/buff.



My head is currently filled with a ton more opinions on the changes, but im honestly bored of writing so i'll cut it "short". I am glad that Blizzard is willing to make changes, but I personally don't agree with most of these - There's a Player/Blizzard chat on skype with lots of ideas being thrown around by players all the time - Personally I feel like I've been wasting my breath as most of it seems to gets ignored - This is of course no one's fault, Blizzard representatives in the chat are not necessarily game developers, they are community managers and what that means is they are a bridge that tries as best as they can to convey our opinions to the Balance/Game Developers who we never hear back from, so we're waiting like everyone else to see what they come up with.



Please Blizzard: Open more lines of communications between developers and professional gamers and personalities - Open discussions private or public where we can work together to create a better final product with less bumps down the road, not just talking about balance, but the game in general. Atm to me it mostly feels "this is what david and his friends came up with, have fun" and it's really frustrating, can we know why there will or won't be skins? is there anything the community can do to help? - there are plenty of people who understand this game deeply and have ideas that could help out a lot when it comes to balance and design - and if our ideas are too ambitious, if there isn't enough budget to execute them, if there are other reasons for which you chose to ignore them, at least it would be nice to know the reasoning behind it. It's frustrating and discouraging as hell to waste breath and continue to write 8000 word essays for absolutely nothing. To read things like:



"While we don’t know with 100% certainty that this is actually a problem, we decided to tone down the Ravager anyway so that we can see more units being used on the Zerg side"



is almost a bit insulting.

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