StarCraft II 5.0.14 PTR Patch Notes
news.blizzard.com
We are happy to present the next major multiplayer balance update, featuring changes for 14 units and 10 buildings, as well as two new abilities.

New balance patch is live on the PTR.

    • JTskulk@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      First of all, here’s a 2nd more wilder balance change proposition from the balance team: https://rentry.co/BalanceModNotes

      2nd of all, I’m a biased (4.5k NA) zerg so take what I say with a grain of salt.

      I love that super battery is getting fuckin’ deleted, they nailed it on the head when they basically said that everyone hates it. I’m kinda sad that ghosts weren’t touched at all, I really feel like ghosts effectively counter everything zerg can make. Just ask a terran: in what lategame situation do you not make ghosts? There isn’t one because it’s never a bad time to have lots of ghosts. It goes against blizzard’s philosphy of not allowing players to just mass one unit and win, hence the deletion of infested terrans.

      I think Brood lords still suck a lot and I’m sad they didn’t see any bigger changes.

      I’m a little scared of buffed early blue flame hellion timings as I’ve been getting hit with those lately, I think that’s one of the best mech openers you can do. Having fewer queens makes this tougher as well. I wonder how much the queen thing will shake up the meta. People forget that zerg has to have more economy to be on even footing, and we do that by making many drones and defending with queens. Making just 4 roaches in the early game is a huge investment and they’re honestly not even that great at killing hellions, they’re just good at not dying to them. I predict we’ll see either see the same mass queen play or zergs walling the natural more.

      The hydra change sounds really cool but I just recently saw the gif of it in action and it looks very underwhelming. I guess I’ll wait to see what it feels like too.

      Everything else seems pretty cool and interesting.

      P.S. check out my youtube for mostly ladder play :) https://www.youtube.com/@JTHundley

      • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
        31·
        10 days ago

        I think they needed to test the turtling changes before they modified the ghost, since the ghost is indirectly impacted by the planetary fortress change, the hydra change also makes ghosts worse, they’re much easier to snipe.

      • Malta Soron@sopuli.xyz
        1·
        10 days ago

        I peaked at 3.3k as an EU Terran, so take this with a grain of salt. But when playing mech in TvZ, I found it really difficult to deal with early baneling busts if I went heavy on hellions. Blue Flame means delaying one or more tanks, and microing hellions against lings when defending is not easy.

        • JTskulk@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          9 days ago

          The truth is that mech openers are just kinda bad in general. I think if you just continually crank out hellions and then kite away from the ling/bane during a bust you should survive though.

    • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
      21·
      10 days ago

      I wish they’d learn some things from immortal gates of pyre, that game plays so much better ux wise

      i love bases auto rallying to minerals, I agree with the overall goals of the patch, what are they complaining about?

      also I just kinda hate some of the units and think they should be removed, the liberator is not fun to play against, widow mines are not fun to play against, same with the disruptor and banelings, even if they lead to some hype moments, the game just being over because you looked away for one second is not a good experience. cloak is just a lame binary of “did you build detection? No? You lose!”, the select all units hotkey is useless because it selects units that are already in control groups, inject, chrono boost and mules are boring macro machanics because there is basically no choice but to push a button every x seconds or lose at the high level

      I think they’re too scared to make real interesting changes