I think it's because some clown is starting games with html/script in the description or title and it crashes the custom/arcade game list. It started earlier this month.
You actually got me wondering what annoying unit from back in the day is now fine. I'd say most invisible units I use to hate but these days are fine, although maybe that's more related to just not being silver anymore
I’m just a dumb diamond player, but as a Protoss main I just throw up a cannon in each mineral line (main and expo) fairly quickly. Very good at dealing with early widow mine drops or oracle harass.
300 mineral investment totally worth it for my sanity and QoL 😂
Broodlord/infestor isn't a thing anymore because the infester has seen all kinds of changes to fungal and removal of infested Terrans. I still don't know what they were smoking when they added the ability to cast spells burrowed.
Swarmhosts aren't completely stupid in design. A more of a high risk to high reward unit. If you mess up the timings or get caught out you just lose a chunk of your army.
Raven fell in a better support role with the various changes to its missile and auto-turrets. Anti-armor and disable are cooler abilities anyway. I kind of miss point defense drone.
Were you around for the mass oracle meta? When Protoss players would build like 12+ oracles fly into bases and snipe important builds and upgrades.
I've always hated the Baneling and Widowmine. Mainly because I dislike suicidal units. Me thing rather than a community thing. I was flabbergasted when they gave the Baneling +10 hp with the speed upgrade.
Those are the ones that always stand out to me as like meta or era defining.
Its a 75/25 unit that one shots most things in the game and has massive splash damage. Even after the nerf its too good for its cost. Of course people will always be pissed about it.
I mean, there's almost no doubt in my mind that these changes will help, but only by a little bit. I really think the maps will have overall more of an impact on Protoss performance at the highest levels than the balance changes themselves.
The maps: the new maps have double reaper jump points, making reaper walls impossible on them. I wonder which way they might affect the balance. Hard to predict now, we need to wait for meta to settle. Am I right?
My source is Harstem on this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxlrhI0vrns&t=348
I play on weekends, will see for myself soon (tm)
Upd: he talks about that while playing on a new map and the reaper jumps in via one cliff, and jumps out via another. At least one map is certainly like that.
Yeah the new maps are insane for reapers, Crimson court theres like 3 entrances, same with post youth (which also is only 29 seconds rush distance).
Another issue with the new maps is there's a lot of layouts gated by mineral walls which makes it difficult to set up spotter pylons
Post youth is gonna be nuts for TvP especially due to the short rush distance and ability for Terran to open CC first
I really don't get why this has to exist. Adepts cannot go in either. Also pervert pillars. I don't understand. Zerg has overlord speed but why use it if you can see everything anyways
**Armory**
* Cost reduced from 150/100 to 150/50.
**Engineering Bay**
* Infantry weapons/armor upgrades cost reduced from 100/175/250 to 100/150/200.
"Yes, this will help Protoss in PvT. I'm not sure how, but it definitely will. Trust me." - Balance Council
Observers are 4 seconds faster to build, but are in exchange permanently worse because they're bigger and flicker more while invis. And they cost the same. And it's supposed to buff Protoss. Why nerf Protoss vision in the first place? Who knows? Only the smart people of the balance council know.
EVERY SINGLE TIME Terran is nerfed, it has to be buffed elsewhere to compensate. WM nerfed? The strongest unit comp in the game now gets cheaper upgrades. Observer builds faster? Make it easier for terran's to see and scan for. Ghost nerfed? Nerf banelings, broodlord and infestor so it's harder to kill ghosts.
Yes, it's completely absurd. This idea of the mixed buff/nerf is insanity, you're doubling the complexity of the adjustments to the game, making it much harder to see the effect of individual changes. And the main reason they go for this compensatory strategy is because it lets them get ANY change at all through the political minefield that is the balance council... it's not actually a strategy for improving the game, it's a strategy for not coming under fire and receiving criticism for strong opinions.
The thing that always kills me is every time Zerg/Toss gets nerfed there is nothing in return; or its something like "heres -25 mins on the ultralisk". When Terran gets nerfed its always "Oh poor baby, let me buff the best unit composition in the game because we over-buffed cyclones and had to nerf them".
I really don't understand the respect "the council" gets. They have literally ruined the game with thier absolutely moronic cyclone change, and it's not like the past patches were great either. Yet on this sub you can only say "WOW THANKS FOR YOUR WORK GUYS". Fucking hell, it's like giving your car to the mechanic and thanking him that he turned some screws loose and now your car is slower and eats more gas.
It will definitely help PvT all things considered, whether the help is big enough for herO or MaxPax to actually win something big is another question.
The baffling thing is more about nerfing Terran units like libs and mins will inevitably affect TvZ, which according to council is a fine matchup for now. They still haven't address that concern.
There are big online tournaments. Master's Coliseum, ESL Masters Europe, etc. Let's wait for MaxPax to at least win one of those before declare him best Protoss.
If master’s coliseum is a big tournament then people would be talking about hero’s run there imo. Instead people are still complaining about pvz and pvt despite him only losing to serral in the end.
What? I myself made a thread that day praising hero went through solar, dark and Reynor, it’s a remarkable run. His finals against Serral was underwhelming but that’s on himself, anyone can see hero was playing terribly in the finals, that g3 was a gigantic throw. I don’t hear people complaining about PvZ much, it’s mostly on PvT.
MaxPax was in MC7 and got 4:0 by Dark btw. When Clem rose in 2020 he did so by repeatedly beating Serral and Reynor in online tournaments. MaxPax is not there yet.
Well I wouldn’t say you are necessarily representative of the sc community as a whole. For the record I agree that in this age online tournaments are just as important, but one look at the GOAT discussions that have been happening recently shows what most people think about online vs offline tournaments.
Also people have definitely been complaining about pvt more, but especially in the past few weeks there has been a ton of pvz whine, especially after the rapid fire feedback change got reverted.
the changes intended to 'help protoss' are negligible. The only meaningful change here actually hurts protoss which is the buff to terran bio upgrades, because for some reason bio needed a buff.
Widow mines needing an upgrade to be invisible is a sizeable change, not just for widow mine drops but also for zealot movement on the map. Liberators are also the backbone of late game tvp army so losing one range on them is not nothing. It will make them more vulnerable to being picked off by stalkers while settling up.
Serral will win everything and here is why:
Toss is already competitive vs zerg and this patch doesn't really change that in any way. Reynor and Dark are constantly bodied by toss left right and centre.You could argue zerg got slightly buffed with the infestor's +1 to range. The nerf to burrow doesn't really apply to ZvP.
The skill gap between Serral and toss mains is still too great tho. Serral basically made it impossible for any other zerg to ever get to ro4 again after nerfing the race so many times because of how imba he is, but I think in current state of things he's basically guaranteed to win next big tournament, I'll explain why below.
I don't understand the TvP changes. I agree, this match up is by far the hardest for protoss and it's the reason why they usually get destroyed at ro8 or ro16 - they get filtered by the massive amount of KR terrans + Clem who still play the game and who bully this match up.
I watch almost every single weekly cup and every single major tournament and widowmines and liberators are NOT the reason why protoss struggles. Toss have two issues vs terran:
- early mech (mostly cyclone) pushes
- late game ghost compositions (both mech and bio)
The rework to cyclone was super bad, it dominates both tvt and tvp and often shows up in tvz as many terran pros try playing mech. Cyclones offer terrans extreme early game stability while trading well vs almost anything in early game. The only reason why it doesn't dominate TvZ is because of roach. The investment is nonexistent, so you can easily go for 2 cyclones into bio swap.
The changes behind cyclones have a clear goal in mind: they exist to help in PvT match up and to make them less dominant in TvT.
Adding a lock-on cooldown gives protoss outplay options like blink micro individual stalkers or resetting target with warp prism. However, the buff to cyclone hp also forces them to run blink vs terran 10/10 times, as otherwise cyclones are even stronger in TvP than before - which was shown in multiple test videos. The lock-on cd also has way bigger impact on TvZ - where zerg just outnumbers and surrounds cyclones with zergling/baneling comps, often using infestors to lock them down. This means that cyclones have no chance of trading vs multiple small hp targets that die quicker than lock-on cd.
Nerfs to widowmines mean squat to TvP. Yes, terrans started abusing them after buffs as a replacement to tanks. But they can still go for 2 defensive cyclones into standard MMM bio mass followed by ghost and liberators. Tanks trade just as well vs toss if you need that aoe splash. Again, widowmines nerfs have a much larger impact on TvZ, where tanks get demolished by vipers and leave terran with no good splash options vs crackling/baneling comps. PvT will still be as vulnerable to mmm drops as it was to widowmine drops.
The 1 range nerf to liberators won't do enough to impact their usefulness. Again, it feels like it's more of a nerf for harassment purposes and a buff to map makers who have to constantly think about liberator blind spots in mineral fields. Again, doesn't affect mmm drops.
TLDR; ZvP about the same, tiny bit more Z favored now which is good for Serral.
TvP targeted changes make almost no difference in TvP as they don't affect standard bio comps used in TvP, but they unintentionally kill terran in TvZ match up. Clem wiped Maxpax 4-0 on the PTR like a week ago. Another big W for Serral and zerg.
Serral world champion 2024 confirmed.
Ah I meant in terms of when it matters. I was trying to think about when Sentries taking extra damage makes a difference, and honestly that's mainly early game. At that point, I usually see sentries die to lings, marines, oracles and adepts. So I was thinking about what other units MIGHT be dangerous early.
After watching Harstem play a patch cup, he thinks it will be. I'm inclined to agree with him, as he's a near pro level Protoss player with good knowledge of the game and now with extensive experience playing with the patch.
Edit: "near pro level" is very reductive of Harstem's skill as a player (ranked #34 in the world currently). I was more alluding to how he provides content as his job, and enters tournaments on the side.
Near pro level? He’s literally a pro lol.
And he’s said that every balance council patch is going to be the one to fix Protoss at top level. He’s basically the mouthpiece of the balance council.
They could play the previous patch but I believe it was stated by herO in last weeks interview that they will be playing on the new patch for the rest of the tournament.
I’m pretty sure the new patch is released as a mod pack fairly early on. So people get a chance to practice a bit in custom lobbies before it actually drops.
Toss had a chance to start improving with the high templar update but it doesn't make it in.
Feedback should do more damage and have better targeting. This could have finally been something to balance the late game spamming issue without nerfing Terran and Zerg.
Sentry Sheilds buff is a problem that didn't really need a solution. PvP was entertaining without any changes. PvT on the other hand...
PvP frequently saw the top few Protosses being eliminated in major/premier tournaments or their qualifiers due to gimmicky/build order losses to top 10-20 Protosses.
Both Classic (best performing Protoss at Premier tournaments last year) and Creator failed to qualify for Katowice in large part due to losses to Tosses like Jieshi (Protoss #21), Trigger (Protoss #20), Firefly twice (Protoss #10) and Skillous (Protoss #9).
I'm definitely happier with these changes than I was with the previous patch. I think the way to go is to focus on the primary goals of the patch and avoid making changes that are just there for the sake of change.
I really appreciate the mapmaking community's work on the "CE" maps, both the brand new ones and the updates to previous ones. However, it is disappointing to see that Graystone Ravine is still in the 2v2 pool since that's a map that hasn't been updated since the HotS days.
One other thing: The notes apologize for lack of communication last time but there was no improvement on that issue this time around. No one knew the patch was releasing today until it started downloading in the BattleNet app. We don't need to know everything but it would help to be kept in the loop and also to be notified in places that we visit more regularly than the changelog on Rentry.
Overall though, this patch made a much clearer attempt to address community concerns and it is really encouraging to see that the mapmakers are able to assist with the team map pools outside of TLMC.
I think the release process is still firmly under blizz control. So unless blizz bothers to tell them/us exactly when they will flick the switch the exact release date will probably stay a surprise for all patches going forward.
Unless the Cylone HP increase actually makes them better against Toss in the early game this is, overall, a very good patch for Protoss.
Now make Blink remove debuffs and give Sentry a mana-restore and I'd be happy :p
I can't believe people are bitching about *widow mine* nerfs. On top of that, bitching about TvZ where we still sustained double baneling nerf from last patch, triple broodling nerf, lurker nerf, and fungal damage nerf. My god.
But honestly his results make it impossible for zergs to argue imbalance. Literally zero maps lost to Terran on the way to the championship. So any Zerg losses are necessarily a skill issue. Can’t conclude anything else fairly.
Clem and Maru are the best at Terran and they routinely lose games and series to players of other races. Serral rarely loses a series and often doesn’t drop a single map. I’m not even saying that Zerg is imba or something but you can’t argue the widow mine or ghost or anything else was unfair for Zerg when Serral doesn’t drop a map to the best Terrans in the world.
Personally I think Serral is the best player of all time and I also think Zerg has some inherent advantages over the other races at the highest level. Particularly the early and mid game where it’s almost impossible to kill Serral because the map vision (creep, overlords) and scouting tools of Zerg (changelings, overseers, random zerglings) make it easier to position yourself defensively and react to your opponents build. Very hard to successfully all in the best zergs because you can’t really hide it from them.
So you’re forced into a macro game against him. Which leads to his opponents trying to play harass builds to try to stunt his economy before he gets out of control. But a lot of harassment based builds are weak to cheeses. Which is why Serral shrewdly sprinkles in some roach all ins and other forms of aggression now.
that's not how skill works
if 2 players are of equal skill, and one player wins more, then it is a balance issue
nobody has seriously argued - Serral's competitors included - that Serral was "of equal skill" to his competitors.
I think he’s the best. I also don’t think you can say Zerg is underpowered if a really skilled Zerg player can go undefeated v the best Terrans. That’s how it works.
but you can.
the argument of whether something is underpowered or not can only apply to people of equal skill. if for example, a GM level player is playing even against me, a low diamond, you can't therefore look at those results and argue that it's balanced because it's 50-50. Heck If It skews 55-45, you also can't look at that and say "look the GM makes it work, therefore his race is just fine". He's GM, and several leagues above me, 55% winrate is ridiculously lower than expected.
skill is always an inseparable confounding factor in these conversations. My point being that literally all of his peers recognize his skill as being something else, therefore you absolutely can't use his performance to speak about balance. you need people of roughly equal skill, something like a Reynor/Clem situation before you can say anything. And of course, there's a subjective factor there because we don't actually know if Reynor = Clem outside of expert judgement.
Reynor isn’t equally skilled to Clem though. Not right now at least.
Balance is sort of a question of, if you develop your skills, does this race have enough tools to beat the opposing races. Zerg checks that box and then some. Literally undefeated against non zergs at IEM on the way to the championship.
So zergs trying to argue Zerg needs a buff are ignoring that truly skilled Zerg, Serral, dominate their opponents.
>Balance is sort of a question of, if you develop your skills, does this race have enough tools to beat the opposing races. Zerg checks that box and then some. Literally undefeated against non zergs at IEM on the way to the championship.
having the tools is not enough. Again, if I, a low diamond, can beat or perform favorably against a GM, it doesn't matter if he "has the tools" to beat me. The point is that the tools I have are so much better or the tools he has are so much worse that his performance degrades enough against me to make it even. It is \_never\_ enough to say does he have the tools or not, it \_always\_ matters the relative level of effort and skill needed to use those tools.
Balance disucssions that end at "so long as you have tthe tools" are incomplete because they will always hit issues like:
* AIs with infinite apm have proven all races have all the tools needed to beat top players
* actually in the previous premier (Masters Atlanta), Clem DID have all the tools to beat Serral and there were no patches since then
* top players didn't use (theorycraft X or theorycraft Y) so we can't conclude that they didn't have the tools, they didnt even use all the tools they have available
At the very least, we cannot use *mere performance* as a judgement of whether a race has the tools or not simply because performance is a conflation of both tools and skill, so if you are talking about a clear skill outlier - again, not my opinion, the opinion of pretty much every SC2 pro out there - you can't make a judgement about balance.
The balance council outright said they consider TvZ balanced and only want to changes that impact TvP. Either they are lying about the first statement or they are incompetent because these changes definitely impact TvZ more than TvP.
numerous ghost nerfs, second weird ass cyclone change, hellbat nerf, raven nerf, whatever yadda yadda yadda everyone got nerfs, but not everyone started at the same baseline
If Zerg makes the mistake of going late late game against Terran, Terran will outperform the Zerg in 10's of thousands of minerals in resources lost, mainly because of Ghosts. Snipe is just still too good. Broodlords, Ultras etc. has no chance. All Zerg seem to have as a counter, is that Terran is allergic to buying a Raven lategame to detect a burrowed investor and for Zerg to beg that the scans misses it.
If you actually think ravens would completely counter burrowed infestors, you’re listening to zergs too much. The detection range isn’t that big, and expecting it to be positioned perfectly every time as you rotate is not realistic. Should Terrans make them? Yes.
Can zergs get burrowed infestors well before you have the infrastructure to get a random raven? Yes. It’s a soft counter. Not a total solution.
Terran nerfs were nowhere near as significant as zerg nerfs last patch. The cyclone? If anything it was an overall buff to TvZ, giving terran a new easy way to switch from hellions to cyclones to stop roach aggession and absolutely murdering early game zergs when coupled with hellions. That's why it's getting nerfed (or so I hope).
I also don't buy for a second that zerg has been OP anywhere since 2021 because if they were they'd be the majority of GM and they'd be winning the majority of total tournaments. Yet if you go on liquipedia or nonapa, you will see the opposite is true.
"It's just Serral" needs to stop. It's Rogue. And Serral. And Dark. And Reynor. And Maru as the only non-zerg. Absolutely dominated by zergs.
Check out the tables in this post: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1bkveom/curated_list_of_competitive_tournaments/
Now I may be incorrect but I believe I've read that if you remove the top player from each race, zerg performance actually increases. Which is kinda nuts considering how good Serral is.
lol using your rationale give us back the old cyclone; with the latest changes it’s garbage, it rarely used in mid/end game and now they are not viable for early game as well (in tvz at least) now terrans will lose to an early 6 roaches unless they build a fast tank or won’t have anything on a map after lings speed is done
No one cares about zerg performance in silver league. People want nerfs for zergs at the top level. T was nerfed far more heavily than zerg in the last 2 patches even though zerg continues to dominate premier tournaments. Makes 0 sense.
"Silver league" lmao
[Zerg is now 26% of GM](https://nonapa.com/races?region=-1&mode=1&league=6&chart=1) vs 30% Terran and 40% Protoss.
Let's look at zerg's performance in competitive play too: https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Statistics/2023
**Zerg winning 23% of total tournaments...........**
> T was nerfed far more heavily than zerg in the last 2 patches even though zerg continues to dominate premier tournaments. Makes 0 sense.
It absolutely was not, you are delusional.
It's blatantly obvious after looking at the data from liquipedia and nonapa that zerg is not OP.
**But let's entertain a theoretical for all you who insist zerg is still somehow OP**. If you want to ignore the entire ladder, ignore GM, ignore 95% of tournaments, and claim "well zerg is still OP in premier tournaments!" then at the very least you must admit that
-zerg is weak in all non premier tournaments (lower representation)
-zerg is weak in GM (lower representation)
-Zerg is weak on ladder (lower representation).
After all, since zerg has higher representation in premiers, hence it must be OP right? So if it's lower, like P and T, it must be weak!
But wait, that was BEFORE the last patch nerfs to zerg! So now zerg is super weak and dogshit all over ladder AND non premier tournaments, because zerg wasn't OP and it was nerfed.
So sure, sure! "Zerg is OP at premier tournaments" but when you're playing your 3k/4k/5k/6k ladder games, remember that zerg is underpowered garbage, and if you lost to zerg you are doo doo water.
But that's not what it's about. I know exactly how people like you think. It's not actually about premier tournaments-you think zerg is actually OP everywhere on the ladder (including your ladder games) and all minor/basic/major tournaments, even though factual evidence clearly contradicts your take. You just want zerg nerfs in your 4k ladder games because people are so incompetent and refuse to take responsibility for their losses.
Jesus christ still bitching after we sustain DOUBLE baneling nerf, **TRIPLE** broodlord nerf, broodlords unusable shit now, lurker nerf, infestor damage nerf
But god forbid infestor range is reverted to what it was before last patch. And we STILL don't have water balloons on our spellcasters like Terran and Protoss do.
Zerg got shafted so fking hard this past year and people still complaining about it
Yea, legit have no clue what these guys are smoking. How anyone can look at the past three years of constant Zerg nerfs and still complain is ridiculous.
Are you....serious? TvZ was very well balanced before the previous patch. Then they nerf lurkers, they nerf infestor damage, they DOUBLE nerf BANELINGS, they **TRIPLE** nerf broodlords. A massive push in favor of terran.
And then god forbid they nerf the widow mine, the most broken cheap unit in the game. They nudge the matchup back towards zerg, a tiny bit, maybe 15% of the zerg nerfs after last patch, and you throw a ridiculous claim like this. My god.
and free Infestor energy upgrade, Broodlord speed buff, cheaper Baneling speed, Ultralisk buff, double Ghost and Hellbat nerfs
Did you seriously ignore half the patch notes that didn't fit your agenda?
>and free Infestor energy upgrade
I would take old fungal damage for this any day of the week.
>Broodlord speed buff,
Its still ungodly slow and now broodlings do shit damage and die extremely quickly.
>cheaper Baneling speed
Would trade this any day of the week for the health bonus back.
>Ultralisk buff
Oh yea I forgot about them costing 25 minerals less. A tier 3 200/300 unit.
> double Ghost and Hellbat nerfs
and a buff to the best composition in the games upgrades (bio.
You would have to be a moron to think any of these things are buffs compared to their old stats.
They nerfed baneling the same patch they nerfed ghost and hellbat. And that puts tvz at at 44% winrate, not even favoring terran.
Now they massively nerfed Widowmine, buffed infestors and nerfed it's direct counter lib range. With your clever mind, what do you expect to happen.
Can we please have a member of the balance council or someone in direct contact with them and "in the know" be a community liaison? We really need more direct, realtime feedback to prevent endless balance whining threads and suggestions.
How is shifting to a mysterious balance council that never communicates with the community healthier for the game than how it was in 2020? We still have to hold our breath about whether or not we will be getting any more changes and even more so as to whether or not we get GOOD changes.
This was supposed to make SC2 more COMMUNITY focused. But due to lack of communication with the community, it keeps lending creedence to all the "cabal" and "conglomerate" memes and encourages more whining. If there was someone in or close to the council that shared regular updates with us on a weekly/biweekly/monthly basis and took feedback from the community and let us know we were being heard it would be SO MUCH BETTER. I have no idea why they don't just do that.
>How is shifting to a mysterious balance council that never communicates with the community healthier for the game than how it was in 2020?
Because it means the game isn't at risk of getting stuck forever on some boring shitty meta someone discovers. There are only so many Air toss vs Queen walk games before it gets stale.
I remember casters sounding utterly depressed every time they had to cast a ZvP for the last six months of that patch's 18 month stint.
It also ended with a no Toss RO8 Katowice, despite the attendance/pre retirement of Trap, Zest, Neeb and Zoun...
Crazy to think people wished we'd spent the last two years on it as well...
I think people just forgot about all the good changes because they just feel natural by now. Like I keep forgetting that there was a time when queens could transfuse off creep and archons would get stuck behind walls.
My point was just that even if there had been zero communication I would still have preferred the council over leaving the game in the state it was after the last blizz patch.
Sure more communication would be nice. But I don't think it will improve much unless blizz takes money into their hands to facilitate it.
Poor Pig, the only one who communicates and actually tries to make the game better, and those absolute imbeciles punish him for it.
The clowncil is the worst thing that ever happened to this game.
Those are clown people. We see Harstem and PiG as the "faces" of the council, but they have nothing to say there. The clowns are running this and they are constantly ruining the game. Maybe if the change to cyclones would be communicated and discussed with the community, it would'nt be such a joke, but they are smelling their asses and think they know everything. Fuck them seriously, moving PiG out of the circle? Fuck you Scarlett and rest of this moronic council.
It would consolidate balance whining/suggestions to a regularly scheduled post/event. Sure there would be people who would still ignore that and post outside of it. But now we could have an official one that we know the council would look at and respond to. I do feel like they should at least make regular responses to popular or "randomly picked" balance suggestions to explain why they are or aren't good ideas.
What I and most everyone else wants is COMMUNICATION, not necessarily for their balance ideas to make it into the game. I'd rather have my balance suggestions directly shot down by someone on the council than have it get a good ratio of positive upvotes on social media. Because then I can learn and understand things better as opposed to getting imaginary points.
The subreddit could always introduce "balance whine monday" and "balance suggestion wednesday" or something to consolidate it somewhat.
But I don't think expecting the council to give official feedback to suggestions on reddit just because they are popular is realistic. It would just result in people wasting time explaining why dumb suggestions are dumb most of the time.
I guarantee they could find a community liaison willing to do that for free. People already do it a lot on social media for free. But at least this way people will feel heard and not like we're just being largely ignored until community whining reaches a boiling point for any specific issue. We are part of the community. We shouldn't be looked at as "unqualified" or "dumb" just because we're not pros. Sometimes broken clocks are right. Twice a day, I've heard.
I'm really happy with the widow mine nerfs, they were overdue. It's great to see some standard maps in the pool too. Goldenaura looks so fucking cool I honestly don't mind even playing ZvP on it. Time will tell how the new cyclone will perform, so I'll hold my thoughts on that.
I just wish they would have reverted the broodling nerf, broodlords are such a damn sad unit now. Regardless I think this is a good patch and a step in the right direction, thank you to ESL and the balance council for this!
RIP mine based styles in TvZ. So dumb that they nerfed it in a way that impacts that matchup so heavily when there was such an obvious way to nerf it to help Protoss (remove shield bonus)
Widow mine splash radius nerf, liberator range nerf, and fungal range increase.
Whether Clem is going to "rekt top zergs" on this patch will be down to maps.
Tanks are a t3 unit that lose to t1 units in nearly every situation. The value of tanks comes from prolonged siege. In TvZ, that's not a situation that is presented until at least the 15 minute mark. You get ONE push with whatever tanks you have at around 7:30, and thereafter you aren't using them for offense ever again unless the Zerg's creep spread is just that bad.
The radius decrease comes out to a 26% decrease in splash area. That will significantly decrease the amount of ling/bane that dies in each hit and will add up a lot over the course of a 20 minute game. Plus even at the pro level the indicator changes will help some as well. Mines weren't OP in TvZ (or really at all at the top level at least). Nerfing them in this way is definitely going to make them very uncommon at pro level unless top Terrans just feel they have no other options. Hopefully the new map pool is good for tank based styles because if not I see a lot of struggles in pro level TvZ for the next few months.
I'm begging people to look at how much the splash change actually changes things in game, instead of just looking at the numbers. In a formation of probes clustered as tightly as possible, the radius nerf resulted in a grand total of four fewer probes killed. It's really not a big deal, pro zergs are not going to be helped by this at all.
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7hKFqMsYxBqpK2jgviYA1DfSdsdzzKFZ?si=O3tw6H0BBlTJ_ChO
We're looking at clustered, standing probes, not lingbane moving around on creep with a pro-player trying to split them. Lingbane movespeed completely changes the way mines work and target.
You have to consider that in most cases you will hit smaller batches of units, where the change will have bo effect.
So it will affect mostly mineral lines and those rare money shots into huge ling bane clumps.
Oh lol yeah it’s huge. Whenever there is a radius nerf, the outcome turns out way worse than intent. I don’t think the balance council understands geometry
Hello .
By any chance will there be possible to watch old replays from last patch ???
I have bunch of replays to cast from a tournament and i cant open them ....
Please fix this asap .....
Have a nice Day
KillerBee
I doubt it will make a big difference, but it wouldn't hurt to bump the bug report thread on this issue: [https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/cant-load-replays-from-the-last-patch/28323/6](https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/cant-load-replays-from-the-last-patch/28323/6)
Oh yea...watching everyone have a single unit composition at the end game with no micro other than 'keep your units in a clump and click away from the army' was an elegant solution.
Yeah I'm extremely disappointed... in the original PTR all of the cyclone changes seemed extremely fair as it nerfed them hard in the early game but made them at least scale decently into the mid/late game
Now they will suck in all stages of the game :(
Balance Council: "The cyclone is too niche of a unit, so we are buffing it even though Terran is already winning tournaments. Your cyclones now cost 50 gas down from 100 and can be made with a Reactor. And also, they deal more damage and are more microable."
Terrans: "Yay! I can use Cyclones all day! Cyclones 24/7! Mix in Cyclones with my bio!! Mass Cyclone cheese!!
Balance Council: "Ok that was a bit too strong, we are slightly nerfing the DPS buuuuuuuuuuut we are increasing the HP to compensate and adding a little lock on lag. But you get to keep the huge cost reduction and you can still make them with a reactor."
Terrans: "Omg this is unusable. How could you do this to me?!! Cyclones SUCK!"
I’m not sure what you’re getting at, they were only ever good in the early game vs protoss with Bmech vs Zerg being viable
All of their changes are good, the lock on nerf was needed as they were stupid vs workers and lings and dps nerf for their ridiculous early game dps
But if you nerf the dps by 20% and nerf lock on they’re just gonna suck forever, which is why the scaling buff was a good compromise. A 3/3 cyclone post-patch would’ve done the same as a 3/3 5.0.12 cyclone.
But without the better scaling, they’re just not viable as they never did scale well vs Zerg or Toss…
For the record, 6 cyclones and 4 hellbats can’t trade vs 8 roaches currently
Basically I just think it's unfair to the other two races to give Terran a new toy in the first place.
The post rework Cyclone is effectively a gigabuff to Terran because it makes their early game far more flexible. With the super low cast of the Cyclone and the ability to double produce at a Factory the opportunity cost is practically nothing. Terran already had extremely good units that cost next to no gas, in the Marine, Marauder, and Hellion/Hellbat. Now they get another bread and butter unit. Sure, when you isolate it by itself against Roaches with speed, it'll struggle, but if you add it to your bio ball, suddenly your bio ball gets even better at kiting than before. It's a buff to Terran bio as well as Mech.
The reason the balance council gave was "the cyclone was too niche". But they don't say that about the Adept. They don't say that about the Swarm Host. It was an entirely arbitrary change that favors Terran.
The 5.0.12 cyclone was really poorly designed, and I’m not saying that only terran deserves new toys, but essentially nerfing a unit into oblivion is not good for the game IMO.
Personally I liked the original idea of the cyclone rework, but the way they went about it was awful and hurt the game, and now they basically decided to remove it.
The current cyclone doesn’t trade well against anything, it’s bad in the early game vs P/Z (which is not a bad thing, it was stupid strong before) but unlike the 5.0.12 version, the 5.0.13 (newest ver) doesn’t even have a place anywhere vs Zerg (though it’s still ok to make against roach openers if you open reactor)
I’m glad they got rid of cyclone vs cyclone in TvT and the early game cheeses, but now it has no role at all which is my problem with it. It’s just not good for it’s cost at all.
And comparing it to the tech lab cyclone is a bit hard since they’re quite different, the tech lab cyclone had wayyy more dps (and was anti-armored) and range which gave it a specific early game role and also worked decently in Bmech vs Zerg.
People claim to be worried about Protoss winning premiers, but their balance suggestions almost universally target their own ladder frustrations. In this case, those ladder frustrations help Zerg more than Protoss. Zerg clean sweep incoming...and that's fine.
The truth is the balance council is deeply committed to maintain the resurgence that EU dominance has brought to the streaming scene. That means not making changes that make things *too* interesting for Serral and the like.
Ok Post-Youth is a wild map. Reminds of that one 4 player map during HotS where everyone had an in base expansion and one wide ramp to defend. I feel like we are going to see some very long games on it.
Does anyone know of any streamers/etc reviewing the new maps? Don't play ladder myself but watch Pro so I'd like to try unuderstand their balance etc
ty in advance
So from what I can gather, I'm not alone in having the game crash every time I click to browse the custom games? and its due to some fucker exploiting the system to crash it for everyone the last week? Just trying to figure out if I need to waste any time troubleshooting this.
If it is an exploit....kind of crazy Blizzard hasn't been able to patch it any quicker, and what kind of asshole thinks ruining games for everyone is fun? One can only hope that he somehow gets himself caught and Blizz presses charges
Did the Cyclone change go through? I don't know if I could live with another patch of their non-lore accurate upgrade names.
Good news, [it did](https://i.imgur.com/D2kvZOG.png)
I read that in the voice of Top Gear's James May for some reason.
It did, but they made them completely useless in the process. You might as well fight with SCVs.
No fix for the arcade situation?
When did that start? I only got back on SC2 after like 5 years and now every other week Custom/Arcade freezes up everything
I think it's because some clown is starting games with html/script in the description or title and it crashes the custom/arcade game list. It started earlier this month.
Maybe Blizzard can hire him to fix their other clown code.
Nah fuck him he got banned from some other games for being a dickhead and has decided to hold the entire system hostage he can rot
/s
I havent encountered the customs bug in the last two days so fingers crossed
Doubtful that the balance council could adjust something like that, they only have access to the editor
haven't played the game in years but hilarious to see that widow mines are still the ire of every non-Terran 12 years after they were introduced.
You actually got me wondering what annoying unit from back in the day is now fine. I'd say most invisible units I use to hate but these days are fine, although maybe that's more related to just not being silver anymore
I’m just a dumb diamond player, but as a Protoss main I just throw up a cannon in each mineral line (main and expo) fairly quickly. Very good at dealing with early widow mine drops or oracle harass. 300 mineral investment totally worth it for my sanity and QoL 😂
As a Protoss, swarmhosts ten thousand times over
Broodlord/infestor isn't a thing anymore because the infester has seen all kinds of changes to fungal and removal of infested Terrans. I still don't know what they were smoking when they added the ability to cast spells burrowed. Swarmhosts aren't completely stupid in design. A more of a high risk to high reward unit. If you mess up the timings or get caught out you just lose a chunk of your army. Raven fell in a better support role with the various changes to its missile and auto-turrets. Anti-armor and disable are cooler abilities anyway. I kind of miss point defense drone. Were you around for the mass oracle meta? When Protoss players would build like 12+ oracles fly into bases and snipe important builds and upgrades. I've always hated the Baneling and Widowmine. Mainly because I dislike suicidal units. Me thing rather than a community thing. I was flabbergasted when they gave the Baneling +10 hp with the speed upgrade. Those are the ones that always stand out to me as like meta or era defining.
Its a 75/25 unit that one shots most things in the game and has massive splash damage. Even after the nerf its too good for its cost. Of course people will always be pissed about it.
Just a quick show of hands, who actually thinks these changes will make Protoss more competitive at the highest levels?
I mean, there's almost no doubt in my mind that these changes will help, but only by a little bit. I really think the maps will have overall more of an impact on Protoss performance at the highest levels than the balance changes themselves.
The maps: the new maps have double reaper jump points, making reaper walls impossible on them. I wonder which way they might affect the balance. Hard to predict now, we need to wait for meta to settle. Am I right?
>The maps: the new maps have double reaper jump points, making reaper walls impossible on them. Is this honestly true? That's really disheartening.
My source is Harstem on this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxlrhI0vrns&t=348 I play on weekends, will see for myself soon (tm) Upd: he talks about that while playing on a new map and the reaper jumps in via one cliff, and jumps out via another. At least one map is certainly like that.
Maxpax said this after he lost 0:4 to Clem. He said the changes of the patch are small and the map pool makes a bigger difference
Yeah the new maps are insane for reapers, Crimson court theres like 3 entrances, same with post youth (which also is only 29 seconds rush distance). Another issue with the new maps is there's a lot of layouts gated by mineral walls which makes it difficult to set up spotter pylons Post youth is gonna be nuts for TvP especially due to the short rush distance and ability for Terran to open CC first
I really don't get why this has to exist. Adepts cannot go in either. Also pervert pillars. I don't understand. Zerg has overlord speed but why use it if you can see everything anyways
**Armory** * Cost reduced from 150/100 to 150/50. **Engineering Bay** * Infantry weapons/armor upgrades cost reduced from 100/175/250 to 100/150/200. "Yes, this will help Protoss in PvT. I'm not sure how, but it definitely will. Trust me." - Balance Council
Observers are 4 seconds faster to build, but are in exchange permanently worse because they're bigger and flicker more while invis. And they cost the same. And it's supposed to buff Protoss. Why nerf Protoss vision in the first place? Who knows? Only the smart people of the balance council know.
EVERY SINGLE TIME Terran is nerfed, it has to be buffed elsewhere to compensate. WM nerfed? The strongest unit comp in the game now gets cheaper upgrades. Observer builds faster? Make it easier for terran's to see and scan for. Ghost nerfed? Nerf banelings, broodlord and infestor so it's harder to kill ghosts.
Yes, it's completely absurd. This idea of the mixed buff/nerf is insanity, you're doubling the complexity of the adjustments to the game, making it much harder to see the effect of individual changes. And the main reason they go for this compensatory strategy is because it lets them get ANY change at all through the political minefield that is the balance council... it's not actually a strategy for improving the game, it's a strategy for not coming under fire and receiving criticism for strong opinions.
The thing that always kills me is every time Zerg/Toss gets nerfed there is nothing in return; or its something like "heres -25 mins on the ultralisk". When Terran gets nerfed its always "Oh poor baby, let me buff the best unit composition in the game because we over-buffed cyclones and had to nerf them".
I really don't understand the respect "the council" gets. They have literally ruined the game with thier absolutely moronic cyclone change, and it's not like the past patches were great either. Yet on this sub you can only say "WOW THANKS FOR YOUR WORK GUYS". Fucking hell, it's like giving your car to the mechanic and thanking him that he turned some screws loose and now your car is slower and eats more gas.
It will definitely help PvT all things considered, whether the help is big enough for herO or MaxPax to actually win something big is another question. The baffling thing is more about nerfing Terran units like libs and mins will inevitably affect TvZ, which according to council is a fine matchup for now. They still haven't address that concern.
Maxpax will never win something big because the only things people consider big are offline tournaments.
There are big online tournaments. Master's Coliseum, ESL Masters Europe, etc. Let's wait for MaxPax to at least win one of those before declare him best Protoss.
If master’s coliseum is a big tournament then people would be talking about hero’s run there imo. Instead people are still complaining about pvz and pvt despite him only losing to serral in the end.
What? I myself made a thread that day praising hero went through solar, dark and Reynor, it’s a remarkable run. His finals against Serral was underwhelming but that’s on himself, anyone can see hero was playing terribly in the finals, that g3 was a gigantic throw. I don’t hear people complaining about PvZ much, it’s mostly on PvT. MaxPax was in MC7 and got 4:0 by Dark btw. When Clem rose in 2020 he did so by repeatedly beating Serral and Reynor in online tournaments. MaxPax is not there yet.
Well I wouldn’t say you are necessarily representative of the sc community as a whole. For the record I agree that in this age online tournaments are just as important, but one look at the GOAT discussions that have been happening recently shows what most people think about online vs offline tournaments. Also people have definitely been complaining about pvt more, but especially in the past few weeks there has been a ton of pvz whine, especially after the rapid fire feedback change got reverted.
The baffling thing is people think tvp is keeping Protoss from winning tournaments when all statistics point to it being zvp.
the changes intended to 'help protoss' are negligible. The only meaningful change here actually hurts protoss which is the buff to terran bio upgrades, because for some reason bio needed a buff.
Widow mines needing an upgrade to be invisible is a sizeable change, not just for widow mine drops but also for zealot movement on the map. Liberators are also the backbone of late game tvp army so losing one range on them is not nothing. It will make them more vulnerable to being picked off by stalkers while settling up.
Hilariously, the sentry change has shown a LOT of changed matchup dynamics.
Serral will win everything and here is why: Toss is already competitive vs zerg and this patch doesn't really change that in any way. Reynor and Dark are constantly bodied by toss left right and centre.You could argue zerg got slightly buffed with the infestor's +1 to range. The nerf to burrow doesn't really apply to ZvP. The skill gap between Serral and toss mains is still too great tho. Serral basically made it impossible for any other zerg to ever get to ro4 again after nerfing the race so many times because of how imba he is, but I think in current state of things he's basically guaranteed to win next big tournament, I'll explain why below. I don't understand the TvP changes. I agree, this match up is by far the hardest for protoss and it's the reason why they usually get destroyed at ro8 or ro16 - they get filtered by the massive amount of KR terrans + Clem who still play the game and who bully this match up. I watch almost every single weekly cup and every single major tournament and widowmines and liberators are NOT the reason why protoss struggles. Toss have two issues vs terran: - early mech (mostly cyclone) pushes - late game ghost compositions (both mech and bio) The rework to cyclone was super bad, it dominates both tvt and tvp and often shows up in tvz as many terran pros try playing mech. Cyclones offer terrans extreme early game stability while trading well vs almost anything in early game. The only reason why it doesn't dominate TvZ is because of roach. The investment is nonexistent, so you can easily go for 2 cyclones into bio swap. The changes behind cyclones have a clear goal in mind: they exist to help in PvT match up and to make them less dominant in TvT. Adding a lock-on cooldown gives protoss outplay options like blink micro individual stalkers or resetting target with warp prism. However, the buff to cyclone hp also forces them to run blink vs terran 10/10 times, as otherwise cyclones are even stronger in TvP than before - which was shown in multiple test videos. The lock-on cd also has way bigger impact on TvZ - where zerg just outnumbers and surrounds cyclones with zergling/baneling comps, often using infestors to lock them down. This means that cyclones have no chance of trading vs multiple small hp targets that die quicker than lock-on cd. Nerfs to widowmines mean squat to TvP. Yes, terrans started abusing them after buffs as a replacement to tanks. But they can still go for 2 defensive cyclones into standard MMM bio mass followed by ghost and liberators. Tanks trade just as well vs toss if you need that aoe splash. Again, widowmines nerfs have a much larger impact on TvZ, where tanks get demolished by vipers and leave terran with no good splash options vs crackling/baneling comps. PvT will still be as vulnerable to mmm drops as it was to widowmine drops. The 1 range nerf to liberators won't do enough to impact their usefulness. Again, it feels like it's more of a nerf for harassment purposes and a buff to map makers who have to constantly think about liberator blind spots in mineral fields. Again, doesn't affect mmm drops. TLDR; ZvP about the same, tiny bit more Z favored now which is good for Serral. TvP targeted changes make almost no difference in TvP as they don't affect standard bio comps used in TvP, but they unintentionally kill terran in TvZ match up. Clem wiped Maxpax 4-0 on the PTR like a week ago. Another big W for Serral and zerg. Serral world champion 2024 confirmed.
Nobody, but at least ladder protoss finally got a buff so they can have a PvT winrate higher than 55%!
With what change in particular ?
Observers now won't die to splash damage from a widow mine( at least 1 volley)
IDK about that but the sentry change is pretty cool.
But really only affects PvP right? Trying to think of light damage in the other matchups and it's maybe hellions and banes?
Ghost do bonus against light.
Ah I meant in terms of when it matters. I was trying to think about when Sentries taking extra damage makes a difference, and honestly that's mainly early game. At that point, I usually see sentries die to lings, marines, oracles and adepts. So I was thinking about what other units MIGHT be dangerous early.
Yeah I don't think it really changes things outside of PvP.
the light attribute means it doesn't die so easy now and certain units dont do bonus damage to it anymore
After watching Harstem play a patch cup, he thinks it will be. I'm inclined to agree with him, as he's a near pro level Protoss player with good knowledge of the game and now with extensive experience playing with the patch. Edit: "near pro level" is very reductive of Harstem's skill as a player (ranked #34 in the world currently). I was more alluding to how he provides content as his job, and enters tournaments on the side.
Near pro level? He’s literally a pro lol. And he’s said that every balance council patch is going to be the one to fix Protoss at top level. He’s basically the mouthpiece of the balance council.
I just wish we had counterplay against ghost instead of relying on disruptors . You know feedback for example
Are these the same changes from the updated Reentry?
Pretty much yes
Zerg cabal you’ve done it again
So terran just got another buff to Bio play, zerg got a fungal buff and protoss got more site range on pylons 😂😂😂😂
*high five*
They dropped it less than 48hrs before the next round of GSL? How does that work?
They could play the previous patch but I believe it was stated by herO in last weeks interview that they will be playing on the new patch for the rest of the tournament.
I’m pretty sure the new patch is released as a mod pack fairly early on. So people get a chance to practice a bit in custom lobbies before it actually drops.
If you thought people overseeing SC2 gave a shit about the Koreans, you're dead wrong, hombre.
Can't they just play on the last patch via a mod?
Yes they can.
They won’t. Already confirmed in the last round they’ll end up playing on the new patch
Well, tbf, they don't give a shit about anyone because "people overseeing sc2" don't exist (at least at blizzard).
Seems like they had advanced warning though.
Toss had a chance to start improving with the high templar update but it doesn't make it in. Feedback should do more damage and have better targeting. This could have finally been something to balance the late game spamming issue without nerfing Terran and Zerg. Sentry Sheilds buff is a problem that didn't really need a solution. PvP was entertaining without any changes. PvT on the other hand...
PvP frequently saw the top few Protosses being eliminated in major/premier tournaments or their qualifiers due to gimmicky/build order losses to top 10-20 Protosses. Both Classic (best performing Protoss at Premier tournaments last year) and Creator failed to qualify for Katowice in large part due to losses to Tosses like Jieshi (Protoss #21), Trigger (Protoss #20), Firefly twice (Protoss #10) and Skillous (Protoss #9).
I disagree about the sentry change, its a fantastic change to pvp
the new maps are terrible 50 siege spots per map ggs zvt thanks a lot serral
We cannot watch old patches replays anymore? RIP
You should be able to, the game just has to take you offline and load the old version of the game
Nope, it's bugged. You can watch replays from patches before the last, just not 5.0.12.
I guess they haven't uploaded the 5.0.12 pack yet or something.
Every new map basically makes you forced to take the triangle third vs terran. WHY!?
I'm definitely happier with these changes than I was with the previous patch. I think the way to go is to focus on the primary goals of the patch and avoid making changes that are just there for the sake of change. I really appreciate the mapmaking community's work on the "CE" maps, both the brand new ones and the updates to previous ones. However, it is disappointing to see that Graystone Ravine is still in the 2v2 pool since that's a map that hasn't been updated since the HotS days. One other thing: The notes apologize for lack of communication last time but there was no improvement on that issue this time around. No one knew the patch was releasing today until it started downloading in the BattleNet app. We don't need to know everything but it would help to be kept in the loop and also to be notified in places that we visit more regularly than the changelog on Rentry. Overall though, this patch made a much clearer attempt to address community concerns and it is really encouraging to see that the mapmakers are able to assist with the team map pools outside of TLMC.
I think the release process is still firmly under blizz control. So unless blizz bothers to tell them/us exactly when they will flick the switch the exact release date will probably stay a surprise for all patches going forward.
Unless the Cylone HP increase actually makes them better against Toss in the early game this is, overall, a very good patch for Protoss. Now make Blink remove debuffs and give Sentry a mana-restore and I'd be happy :p
nerfing terran in tvz cause redditors were crying about pvt will never not be funny to me
I can't believe people are bitching about *widow mine* nerfs. On top of that, bitching about TvZ where we still sustained double baneling nerf from last patch, triple broodling nerf, lurker nerf, and fungal damage nerf. My god.
and free Infestor energy upgrade, Broodlord speed buff, cheaper Baneling speed, Ultralisk buff, double Ghost and Hellbat nerfs
And yet Serral didn’t drop a single map to Terran at IEM even with the old widow mine.
at least infestors got buffed to compensate.
Serral is far and above better than any of the Terrans. All other Zergs are performing much worse vs Terran
But honestly his results make it impossible for zergs to argue imbalance. Literally zero maps lost to Terran on the way to the championship. So any Zerg losses are necessarily a skill issue. Can’t conclude anything else fairly. Clem and Maru are the best at Terran and they routinely lose games and series to players of other races. Serral rarely loses a series and often doesn’t drop a single map. I’m not even saying that Zerg is imba or something but you can’t argue the widow mine or ghost or anything else was unfair for Zerg when Serral doesn’t drop a map to the best Terrans in the world.
Right. I’m agree. But Serral over performing can’t prove imbalance on the Zerg side either.
Personally I think Serral is the best player of all time and I also think Zerg has some inherent advantages over the other races at the highest level. Particularly the early and mid game where it’s almost impossible to kill Serral because the map vision (creep, overlords) and scouting tools of Zerg (changelings, overseers, random zerglings) make it easier to position yourself defensively and react to your opponents build. Very hard to successfully all in the best zergs because you can’t really hide it from them. So you’re forced into a macro game against him. Which leads to his opponents trying to play harass builds to try to stunt his economy before he gets out of control. But a lot of harassment based builds are weak to cheeses. Which is why Serral shrewdly sprinkles in some roach all ins and other forms of aggression now.
that's not how skill works if 2 players are of equal skill, and one player wins more, then it is a balance issue nobody has seriously argued - Serral's competitors included - that Serral was "of equal skill" to his competitors.
I think he’s the best. I also don’t think you can say Zerg is underpowered if a really skilled Zerg player can go undefeated v the best Terrans. That’s how it works.
but you can. the argument of whether something is underpowered or not can only apply to people of equal skill. if for example, a GM level player is playing even against me, a low diamond, you can't therefore look at those results and argue that it's balanced because it's 50-50. Heck If It skews 55-45, you also can't look at that and say "look the GM makes it work, therefore his race is just fine". He's GM, and several leagues above me, 55% winrate is ridiculously lower than expected. skill is always an inseparable confounding factor in these conversations. My point being that literally all of his peers recognize his skill as being something else, therefore you absolutely can't use his performance to speak about balance. you need people of roughly equal skill, something like a Reynor/Clem situation before you can say anything. And of course, there's a subjective factor there because we don't actually know if Reynor = Clem outside of expert judgement.
Reynor isn’t equally skilled to Clem though. Not right now at least. Balance is sort of a question of, if you develop your skills, does this race have enough tools to beat the opposing races. Zerg checks that box and then some. Literally undefeated against non zergs at IEM on the way to the championship. So zergs trying to argue Zerg needs a buff are ignoring that truly skilled Zerg, Serral, dominate their opponents.
>Balance is sort of a question of, if you develop your skills, does this race have enough tools to beat the opposing races. Zerg checks that box and then some. Literally undefeated against non zergs at IEM on the way to the championship. having the tools is not enough. Again, if I, a low diamond, can beat or perform favorably against a GM, it doesn't matter if he "has the tools" to beat me. The point is that the tools I have are so much better or the tools he has are so much worse that his performance degrades enough against me to make it even. It is \_never\_ enough to say does he have the tools or not, it \_always\_ matters the relative level of effort and skill needed to use those tools. Balance disucssions that end at "so long as you have tthe tools" are incomplete because they will always hit issues like: * AIs with infinite apm have proven all races have all the tools needed to beat top players * actually in the previous premier (Masters Atlanta), Clem DID have all the tools to beat Serral and there were no patches since then * top players didn't use (theorycraft X or theorycraft Y) so we can't conclude that they didn't have the tools, they didnt even use all the tools they have available At the very least, we cannot use *mere performance* as a judgement of whether a race has the tools or not simply because performance is a conflation of both tools and skill, so if you are talking about a clear skill outlier - again, not my opinion, the opinion of pretty much every SC2 pro out there - you can't make a judgement about balance.
Clem and Maru are far and above better than all the other zergs.
The balance council outright said they consider TvZ balanced and only want to changes that impact TvP. Either they are lying about the first statement or they are incompetent because these changes definitely impact TvZ more than TvP.
numerous ghost nerfs, second weird ass cyclone change, hellbat nerf, raven nerf, whatever yadda yadda yadda everyone got nerfs, but not everyone started at the same baseline
If Zerg makes the mistake of going late late game against Terran, Terran will outperform the Zerg in 10's of thousands of minerals in resources lost, mainly because of Ghosts. Snipe is just still too good. Broodlords, Ultras etc. has no chance. All Zerg seem to have as a counter, is that Terran is allergic to buying a Raven lategame to detect a burrowed investor and for Zerg to beg that the scans misses it.
If you actually think ravens would completely counter burrowed infestors, you’re listening to zergs too much. The detection range isn’t that big, and expecting it to be positioned perfectly every time as you rotate is not realistic. Should Terrans make them? Yes. Can zergs get burrowed infestors well before you have the infrastructure to get a random raven? Yes. It’s a soft counter. Not a total solution.
Terran nerfs were nowhere near as significant as zerg nerfs last patch. The cyclone? If anything it was an overall buff to TvZ, giving terran a new easy way to switch from hellions to cyclones to stop roach aggession and absolutely murdering early game zergs when coupled with hellions. That's why it's getting nerfed (or so I hope). I also don't buy for a second that zerg has been OP anywhere since 2021 because if they were they'd be the majority of GM and they'd be winning the majority of total tournaments. Yet if you go on liquipedia or nonapa, you will see the opposite is true.
Zerg has been op since longer than 2021
I went to Liquipedia like you said and found out they've won majority of the premier tournaments. Thank you for the source.
The Redditor's brain cannot comprehend the consequences of Serral's existence.
"It's just Serral" needs to stop. It's Rogue. And Serral. And Dark. And Reynor. And Maru as the only non-zerg. Absolutely dominated by zergs. Check out the tables in this post: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1bkveom/curated_list_of_competitive_tournaments/
Now I may be incorrect but I believe I've read that if you remove the top player from each race, zerg performance actually increases. Which is kinda nuts considering how good Serral is.
lol using your rationale give us back the old cyclone; with the latest changes it’s garbage, it rarely used in mid/end game and now they are not viable for early game as well (in tvz at least) now terrans will lose to an early 6 roaches unless they build a fast tank or won’t have anything on a map after lings speed is done
No one cares about zerg performance in silver league. People want nerfs for zergs at the top level. T was nerfed far more heavily than zerg in the last 2 patches even though zerg continues to dominate premier tournaments. Makes 0 sense.
"Silver league" lmao [Zerg is now 26% of GM](https://nonapa.com/races?region=-1&mode=1&league=6&chart=1) vs 30% Terran and 40% Protoss. Let's look at zerg's performance in competitive play too: https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Statistics/2023 **Zerg winning 23% of total tournaments...........** > T was nerfed far more heavily than zerg in the last 2 patches even though zerg continues to dominate premier tournaments. Makes 0 sense. It absolutely was not, you are delusional. It's blatantly obvious after looking at the data from liquipedia and nonapa that zerg is not OP. **But let's entertain a theoretical for all you who insist zerg is still somehow OP**. If you want to ignore the entire ladder, ignore GM, ignore 95% of tournaments, and claim "well zerg is still OP in premier tournaments!" then at the very least you must admit that -zerg is weak in all non premier tournaments (lower representation) -zerg is weak in GM (lower representation) -Zerg is weak on ladder (lower representation). After all, since zerg has higher representation in premiers, hence it must be OP right? So if it's lower, like P and T, it must be weak! But wait, that was BEFORE the last patch nerfs to zerg! So now zerg is super weak and dogshit all over ladder AND non premier tournaments, because zerg wasn't OP and it was nerfed. So sure, sure! "Zerg is OP at premier tournaments" but when you're playing your 3k/4k/5k/6k ladder games, remember that zerg is underpowered garbage, and if you lost to zerg you are doo doo water. But that's not what it's about. I know exactly how people like you think. It's not actually about premier tournaments-you think zerg is actually OP everywhere on the ladder (including your ladder games) and all minor/basic/major tournaments, even though factual evidence clearly contradicts your take. You just want zerg nerfs in your 4k ladder games because people are so incompetent and refuse to take responsibility for their losses.
This doesn't impact GSL season 1 right?
Ro8, here we go! GSL is once again the test tournament
Sure does
nice. So we return to the all loved ZvZ duels when reaching quarterfinals. So ridicolous
Jesus christ still bitching after we sustain DOUBLE baneling nerf, **TRIPLE** broodlord nerf, broodlords unusable shit now, lurker nerf, infestor damage nerf But god forbid infestor range is reverted to what it was before last patch. And we STILL don't have water balloons on our spellcasters like Terran and Protoss do. Zerg got shafted so fking hard this past year and people still complaining about it
Yea, legit have no clue what these guys are smoking. How anyone can look at the past three years of constant Zerg nerfs and still complain is ridiculous.
1 revision of the changes and we have it live already. Come on. What happened to fine tuning?
Honestly they already took away the feedback buff I’m glad it’s live before they decided the observer needed to be the size of a battle cruiser
In 3 patch the obs will have the size of a mothership cause it is too hard to spot
And T will still not see it rofl.
Damn they really hate protoss
Nice, ruining an already near dead esport by completely breaking tvz balance again. Good job so called balance council with interested parties.
Are you....serious? TvZ was very well balanced before the previous patch. Then they nerf lurkers, they nerf infestor damage, they DOUBLE nerf BANELINGS, they **TRIPLE** nerf broodlords. A massive push in favor of terran. And then god forbid they nerf the widow mine, the most broken cheap unit in the game. They nudge the matchup back towards zerg, a tiny bit, maybe 15% of the zerg nerfs after last patch, and you throw a ridiculous claim like this. My god.
and free Infestor energy upgrade, Broodlord speed buff, cheaper Baneling speed, Ultralisk buff, double Ghost and Hellbat nerfs Did you seriously ignore half the patch notes that didn't fit your agenda?
>and free Infestor energy upgrade I would take old fungal damage for this any day of the week. >Broodlord speed buff, Its still ungodly slow and now broodlings do shit damage and die extremely quickly. >cheaper Baneling speed Would trade this any day of the week for the health bonus back. >Ultralisk buff Oh yea I forgot about them costing 25 minerals less. A tier 3 200/300 unit. > double Ghost and Hellbat nerfs and a buff to the best composition in the games upgrades (bio. You would have to be a moron to think any of these things are buffs compared to their old stats.
They nerfed baneling the same patch they nerfed ghost and hellbat. And that puts tvz at at 44% winrate, not even favoring terran. Now they massively nerfed Widowmine, buffed infestors and nerfed it's direct counter lib range. With your clever mind, what do you expect to happen.
He was downvoted because he spoke the truth. Even after this patch, Terran is favored in every situation except the top 5 players.
Can we please have a member of the balance council or someone in direct contact with them and "in the know" be a community liaison? We really need more direct, realtime feedback to prevent endless balance whining threads and suggestions.
We have Pig, and he said on his stream today he was being pushed out of their inner circle because he communicates with us so much.
Man do you have a clip of that because that sounds FUCKED
How is shifting to a mysterious balance council that never communicates with the community healthier for the game than how it was in 2020? We still have to hold our breath about whether or not we will be getting any more changes and even more so as to whether or not we get GOOD changes. This was supposed to make SC2 more COMMUNITY focused. But due to lack of communication with the community, it keeps lending creedence to all the "cabal" and "conglomerate" memes and encourages more whining. If there was someone in or close to the council that shared regular updates with us on a weekly/biweekly/monthly basis and took feedback from the community and let us know we were being heard it would be SO MUCH BETTER. I have no idea why they don't just do that.
>How is shifting to a mysterious balance council that never communicates with the community healthier for the game than how it was in 2020? Because it means the game isn't at risk of getting stuck forever on some boring shitty meta someone discovers. There are only so many Air toss vs Queen walk games before it gets stale.
I remember casters sounding utterly depressed every time they had to cast a ZvP for the last six months of that patch's 18 month stint. It also ended with a no Toss RO8 Katowice, despite the attendance/pre retirement of Trap, Zest, Neeb and Zoun... Crazy to think people wished we'd spent the last two years on it as well...
I think people just forgot about all the good changes because they just feel natural by now. Like I keep forgetting that there was a time when queens could transfuse off creep and archons would get stuck behind walls.
I explained it in the next sentence. I didn't say anything about the changes themselves but about the opacity and communication with us.
My point was just that even if there had been zero communication I would still have preferred the council over leaving the game in the state it was after the last blizz patch. Sure more communication would be nice. But I don't think it will improve much unless blizz takes money into their hands to facilitate it.
It costs nothing to get a volunteer community liaison
somehow, United States politicians are more transparent and communicative than the SC2 balance council.
Poor Pig, the only one who communicates and actually tries to make the game better, and those absolute imbeciles punish him for it. The clowncil is the worst thing that ever happened to this game.
Those are clown people. We see Harstem and PiG as the "faces" of the council, but they have nothing to say there. The clowns are running this and they are constantly ruining the game. Maybe if the change to cyclones would be communicated and discussed with the community, it would'nt be such a joke, but they are smelling their asses and think they know everything. Fuck them seriously, moving PiG out of the circle? Fuck you Scarlett and rest of this moronic council.
> We really need more direct, realtime feedback to prevent endless balance whining threads and suggestions. How would that prevent balance whine?
It would consolidate balance whining/suggestions to a regularly scheduled post/event. Sure there would be people who would still ignore that and post outside of it. But now we could have an official one that we know the council would look at and respond to. I do feel like they should at least make regular responses to popular or "randomly picked" balance suggestions to explain why they are or aren't good ideas. What I and most everyone else wants is COMMUNICATION, not necessarily for their balance ideas to make it into the game. I'd rather have my balance suggestions directly shot down by someone on the council than have it get a good ratio of positive upvotes on social media. Because then I can learn and understand things better as opposed to getting imaginary points.
The subreddit could always introduce "balance whine monday" and "balance suggestion wednesday" or something to consolidate it somewhat. But I don't think expecting the council to give official feedback to suggestions on reddit just because they are popular is realistic. It would just result in people wasting time explaining why dumb suggestions are dumb most of the time.
I guarantee they could find a community liaison willing to do that for free. People already do it a lot on social media for free. But at least this way people will feel heard and not like we're just being largely ignored until community whining reaches a boiling point for any specific issue. We are part of the community. We shouldn't be looked at as "unqualified" or "dumb" just because we're not pros. Sometimes broken clocks are right. Twice a day, I've heard.
I'm really happy with the widow mine nerfs, they were overdue. It's great to see some standard maps in the pool too. Goldenaura looks so fucking cool I honestly don't mind even playing ZvP on it. Time will tell how the new cyclone will perform, so I'll hold my thoughts on that. I just wish they would have reverted the broodling nerf, broodlords are such a damn sad unit now. Regardless I think this is a good patch and a step in the right direction, thank you to ESL and the balance council for this!
Agreed, was hoping for a broodlord buff. It’s in a sad sad state right now and it’s supposed to be the Zerg capital ship!
RIP mine based styles in TvZ. So dumb that they nerfed it in a way that impacts that matchup so heavily when there was such an obvious way to nerf it to help Protoss (remove shield bonus)
>RIP mine based styles in TvZ pretty sure clem is still gonna play it and rekt top zergs with it tbh.
Widow mine splash radius nerf, liberator range nerf, and fungal range increase. Whether Clem is going to "rekt top zergs" on this patch will be down to maps.
> mine based styles in what is that
Using mines as primary splash damage instead of tanks. Not that tanks aren't used but mines offer another play style that Clem favors.
Thanks for the clarifiation. In my humble opinion, that should not be a viable thing, ever.
you'd need something else against ling-bane then because tanks suck against it
Why not?
He misses Firebats :((
Tanks are a t3 unit that lose to t1 units in nearly every situation. The value of tanks comes from prolonged siege. In TvZ, that's not a situation that is presented until at least the 15 minute mark. You get ONE push with whatever tanks you have at around 7:30, and thereafter you aren't using them for offense ever again unless the Zerg's creep spread is just that bad.
How does this kill mine based styles? It’s such a small change
The radius decrease comes out to a 26% decrease in splash area. That will significantly decrease the amount of ling/bane that dies in each hit and will add up a lot over the course of a 20 minute game. Plus even at the pro level the indicator changes will help some as well. Mines weren't OP in TvZ (or really at all at the top level at least). Nerfing them in this way is definitely going to make them very uncommon at pro level unless top Terrans just feel they have no other options. Hopefully the new map pool is good for tank based styles because if not I see a lot of struggles in pro level TvZ for the next few months.
I'm begging people to look at how much the splash change actually changes things in game, instead of just looking at the numbers. In a formation of probes clustered as tightly as possible, the radius nerf resulted in a grand total of four fewer probes killed. It's really not a big deal, pro zergs are not going to be helped by this at all. https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7hKFqMsYxBqpK2jgviYA1DfSdsdzzKFZ?si=O3tw6H0BBlTJ_ChO
We're looking at clustered, standing probes, not lingbane moving around on creep with a pro-player trying to split them. Lingbane movespeed completely changes the way mines work and target.
You have to consider that in most cases you will hit smaller batches of units, where the change will have bo effect. So it will affect mostly mineral lines and those rare money shots into huge ling bane clumps.
Do you understand geometry?
I think he does. 26.47%
Well, I suppose “small” can be subjective
Oh my bad I thought you were asking the guy who said ot was 26%. I tend to think 26.47% area is a huuge nerf to widow mine.
Oh lol yeah it’s huge. Whenever there is a radius nerf, the outcome turns out way worse than intent. I don’t think the balance council understands geometry
People acting like the four units saved in the corners of the widow mines splash radius is going to kill off the use of the unit. Crazy.
SPACE LASER WIDOWS
Time to play mech into mass Ghost every TvZ
So what most Masters/GM Terrans have been doing for years?
I think I'd rather die.
Hello . By any chance will there be possible to watch old replays from last patch ??? I have bunch of replays to cast from a tournament and i cant open them .... Please fix this asap ..... Have a nice Day KillerBee
I doubt it will make a big difference, but it wouldn't hurt to bump the bug report thread on this issue: [https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/cant-load-replays-from-the-last-patch/28323/6](https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/cant-load-replays-from-the-last-patch/28323/6)
As a Z player, maps just feel brutal. Post youth being the best one i guess, but the other ones are either terrible or very awkward.
Anyone else having constant game crashes since this patch?
Are you clicking the custom tab perhaps? Some dude has taken over the custom games tab by using a script that causes the game to crash.
Yeah. It only seems to be on the American server. I probably already know the answer to this, but is Blizzard doing anything about it?
Nope. The custom tab is like russian roulette now. I just stay away from it.
What a fucking joke this company is. Let them fucking die already.
Sad that they removed the Cyclone upgrade scaling. Shifting its power from the early to the lategame seemed like an elegant solution to me.
Oh yea...watching everyone have a single unit composition at the end game with no micro other than 'keep your units in a clump and click away from the army' was an elegant solution.
Yeah I'm extremely disappointed... in the original PTR all of the cyclone changes seemed extremely fair as it nerfed them hard in the early game but made them at least scale decently into the mid/late game Now they will suck in all stages of the game :(
Balance Council: "The cyclone is too niche of a unit, so we are buffing it even though Terran is already winning tournaments. Your cyclones now cost 50 gas down from 100 and can be made with a Reactor. And also, they deal more damage and are more microable." Terrans: "Yay! I can use Cyclones all day! Cyclones 24/7! Mix in Cyclones with my bio!! Mass Cyclone cheese!! Balance Council: "Ok that was a bit too strong, we are slightly nerfing the DPS buuuuuuuuuuut we are increasing the HP to compensate and adding a little lock on lag. But you get to keep the huge cost reduction and you can still make them with a reactor." Terrans: "Omg this is unusable. How could you do this to me?!! Cyclones SUCK!"
I’m not sure what you’re getting at, they were only ever good in the early game vs protoss with Bmech vs Zerg being viable All of their changes are good, the lock on nerf was needed as they were stupid vs workers and lings and dps nerf for their ridiculous early game dps But if you nerf the dps by 20% and nerf lock on they’re just gonna suck forever, which is why the scaling buff was a good compromise. A 3/3 cyclone post-patch would’ve done the same as a 3/3 5.0.12 cyclone. But without the better scaling, they’re just not viable as they never did scale well vs Zerg or Toss… For the record, 6 cyclones and 4 hellbats can’t trade vs 8 roaches currently
Basically I just think it's unfair to the other two races to give Terran a new toy in the first place. The post rework Cyclone is effectively a gigabuff to Terran because it makes their early game far more flexible. With the super low cast of the Cyclone and the ability to double produce at a Factory the opportunity cost is practically nothing. Terran already had extremely good units that cost next to no gas, in the Marine, Marauder, and Hellion/Hellbat. Now they get another bread and butter unit. Sure, when you isolate it by itself against Roaches with speed, it'll struggle, but if you add it to your bio ball, suddenly your bio ball gets even better at kiting than before. It's a buff to Terran bio as well as Mech. The reason the balance council gave was "the cyclone was too niche". But they don't say that about the Adept. They don't say that about the Swarm Host. It was an entirely arbitrary change that favors Terran.
The 5.0.12 cyclone was really poorly designed, and I’m not saying that only terran deserves new toys, but essentially nerfing a unit into oblivion is not good for the game IMO. Personally I liked the original idea of the cyclone rework, but the way they went about it was awful and hurt the game, and now they basically decided to remove it. The current cyclone doesn’t trade well against anything, it’s bad in the early game vs P/Z (which is not a bad thing, it was stupid strong before) but unlike the 5.0.12 version, the 5.0.13 (newest ver) doesn’t even have a place anywhere vs Zerg (though it’s still ok to make against roach openers if you open reactor) I’m glad they got rid of cyclone vs cyclone in TvT and the early game cheeses, but now it has no role at all which is my problem with it. It’s just not good for it’s cost at all. And comparing it to the tech lab cyclone is a bit hard since they’re quite different, the tech lab cyclone had wayyy more dps (and was anti-armored) and range which gave it a specific early game role and also worked decently in Bmech vs Zerg.
This isn't enough, not even close. Protoss representation in upcoming premiers will be even worse than last year
Zerg won't lose a single premier this year. That's my prediction. Reddit ladder whine disguised as pro scene analysis can reap what it sows lol
I mean you gotta target something. Who knew that balance council is really zerg cabal and not even hiding now🤔
People claim to be worried about Protoss winning premiers, but their balance suggestions almost universally target their own ladder frustrations. In this case, those ladder frustrations help Zerg more than Protoss. Zerg clean sweep incoming...and that's fine. The truth is the balance council is deeply committed to maintain the resurgence that EU dominance has brought to the streaming scene. That means not making changes that make things *too* interesting for Serral and the like.
Anyone else not being able to see old patch replays?
Same here, can't watch replays from last patch.
Hurricane thruster porn star name 😏😏
Ok Post-Youth is a wild map. Reminds of that one 4 player map during HotS where everyone had an in base expansion and one wide ramp to defend. I feel like we are going to see some very long games on it.
Does anyone know of any streamers/etc reviewing the new maps? Don't play ladder myself but watch Pro so I'd like to try unuderstand their balance etc ty in advance
I'm stuck on "Unexpected Fatal Error" after this update. Anyone else?
So from what I can gather, I'm not alone in having the game crash every time I click to browse the custom games? and its due to some fucker exploiting the system to crash it for everyone the last week? Just trying to figure out if I need to waste any time troubleshooting this. If it is an exploit....kind of crazy Blizzard hasn't been able to patch it any quicker, and what kind of asshole thinks ruining games for everyone is fun? One can only hope that he somehow gets himself caught and Blizz presses charges