"Yes, Zergs and Terrans win most of the tournaments, but that's because Maru and Serral are so good. If you remove them from the equation, SC2 looks more balanced at the top level". That's the excuse people use to explain why Protoss never wins any tournaments. It's an interesting thought experiment, and one that can be turned around: What if, instead of removing Maru and Serral from the equation, you remove Maxpax and herO from the equation? The Protoss race disappears entirely from top-level SC2. Protoss has been very weak at the top level of play, and this balance patch feels like treating a gunshot wound with a band-aid. Terran and Zerg will just continue to dominate at the tournament level.
TBH, you’re probably 💯% correct…BUT I still worry about any patch that toys around with a center element of ANY given race. Imagine if out of the blue the stalker’s stats were changed? I (and I suspect many others) would legitimately FLIP OUT. So I guess we will see what happens!!
@@NativeNewMexican It really does though. Winter did a video about this today: Serral has like a 90% win rate against everyone; remove him from the equation and the numbers drop massively. A better comparison for Taznak would be let's add in some theoretical UberProt who has a 90% win rate against Terran and Zerg, such that he skews the Protoss win rates to 55-60% at the top eight level. Would that mean that Protoss as a whole needed a nerf, or that UberProt himself is just an outlier for being a god gamer?
@@user-nh2bf4to7g Ok let's data. Remove Serral's games, ZvP win rate drops from 55.0% to 52.2%, the "UberProt" gone with no replacement, ZvP is slightly Z-favoured. Remove Maru's games, TvP win rate drops from 60.4% to 59.2%. Remove the top 2, Maru and Cure, TvP win rate drops to 55.6%, just about what Z has with the "UberProt" playing for them. Assume Serral switched to P and achieves the same win rate against T. Add Serral to PvT and remove the lowest rank (6 out of 38 wins), PvT win rate increases from 39.6% to 45.3%. I'll leave yall to draw your own conclusions.
@@user-nh2bf4to7g there's also the factor of race _choice_ to consider: if that theoretical UberProt player instead chose to main terran or zerg, would they end up having about equal performance, or would they dominate even harder (or less so)? From a casual viewer-only perspective, I imagine the other races have higher skill ceilings than protoss, thanks to things like having much higher army mobility or number of things to micromanage (eg creepspread and larva injection/timing), so at the highest levels a player can get the most out of their skill and practice by using the other races. I suspect the amount of skill one would need to be Serral-level as a protoss player means they'd have been in a league their own had they chosen zerg or terran. Or inversely, if Serral or Maru were protoss mains, they might've ended up being at about the same level as Maxpax or hero Also, having watched the winter video: you seem to be taking an odd conclusion from what he said? He noted that although Serral is an outlier, he also plays disproportionately fewer games compared to the others included, so his impact was smaller than you'd expect, and that the top 8 protoss seem to be underperforming in PvT and PvZ against the top 8 of those races. 5 of the top 8 terran winning 60+% against the top 8 protoss (two having just shy of 80%, or 4/5 odds in their favour, which is horrendously bad from a balance perspective, and even the third is still above 70%) vs only hero having a better than 50% matchup on the other side- and even then, only 55%, which is only higher than the bottom 3 of the remaining terran, for example. Excluding Serral from the dataset is tricky since the games he played factor into the stats of the protoss players (for PvZ) so we can't just subtract them from the results, but as a rough measure, if we just pretend Serral had the same winrate as hero and compare the rest of them to their cross-race counterpart, every single protoss player falls short. It's close enough to be basically a rounding error in MaxPax v Reynor and SKillous v Elazer's case, but the rest have an at least 6% disparity, some close to 20%. Serral only played 23 series in the dataset against top 8 protoss players, so even if we imagine his winrate was the same as herO's, that's only one extra win per protoss player, essentially. That'd be enough to invert the MaxPax v Reynor and Skillous v Elazer disparity, but doesn't bridge any of the others, and still results in a situation where every top 8 zerg is either heavily ahead or roughly equal to their protoss counterpart in terms of PvZ winrates. Ideally I'd like to see some sorta mechanic introduced to protoss that gives them more to deal with that acts like an APM tax or somesuch at the lower levels (or one that makes no difference until the higher levels in addition to a nerf to some of the "over-performs at low levels while under-performing at higher ones" units like the disruptor or dark templar), but at the top levels where the players can manage it, gives them a genuine benefit of some sort. IE something to make the race easier to handle at the lower levels where players might lack the awareness/APM to avoid getting cheesed by things like DTs or disruptors, while giving them tools to push the skill ceiling of the race higher
my Theory is that there is ONE person on the imbalance council made this idea for the Cyclone years ago and just won't let it go even though everyone agrees it doesn't make sense to focus on it right now and also how busted it is, they still go with it. That is my theory. @@xakannax
They are balloons easy to pop and range isn't insane anymore. They're still a huge investment of money that is easy to counter. And all faster moving units outpace them without the speed upgrade in the tech lab.
I think that people thinks that Zerg needed a Nerf because of Serral winning almost all lately but that's not the case. If you look at the top 8 on Major tournament the most promenant race Is Terran not Zerg. Imo, Protos needed a buff (and they received almost none), Zerg was stable and i think the Nerf damage at the baneling was enough, and Terran needed a NERF on the Ghost (that they mad had received with the snipe dmg) 12:40
Something I appreciate about Harstem in this video is how believes that the cyclone change benefits him, due to being a top player, but also acknowledges how it could negatively affect slightly lower mmr players
Played since beta, M1. Also didn't know that. Kinda like the damage bonus for chargelots that got removed... I had no idea it existed, and I main protoss!@@ParleLeVu
I agree with your take on new strategies making the game exciting! this is one of the reason players like Has and Dark and your show of BGwSS are so much fun to watch!
Another thing that is bad about the baneling nerf is that it is coming at the same time as the infestor's fungal growth damage nerf AND the medivac upgrade buff. The whole reason fungal growth was reworked back in the day to be an attack spell was that Zerg struggled against marines big time. Marines usually go with medivacs regenerating their health, which is supposed to be the thing that balances out the damage they get from fungal and keeps them alive. Frankly, why shouldn't two consecutive fungals take out marines running around without medivacs? Infestor energy takes a long time to regenerate, and it's the only ground spellcaster without a regular attack (unlike ghosts, queens, sentries, and high templar). Lack of a regular ranged attack means unless it has energy it has to just sit around doing nothing. This also makes it harder to control because if it's in an army that A-moves, it will derp forward into the middle of the fight instead of keeping its distance.
they hate the infestor is why, at least thats what i speculate lol. its already a fickle unit, hard to keep alive, fungal has been nerfed over and over again over the years and now it is a joke. and dont get me started on infested terran! im still butthurt about that. fuck microbial shroud. even if it was 0 energy it still would be almost useless.
Amen. Why do they not give zerg options that are not ling bane? Infestor is literally the only thing you can do against this bullshit unit other than building banelings. Roaches are not strong enough and they take 648373529 supply to just have a chance against mass marine medivac. Nerf marines. And medivacs. Then we can talk about making baneling less powerful.
Honestly starting to consider a switch to Terran right now lol. I feel like building a factory with a reactor is going to be a catch-all in early / earl-mid game. Also, I think the range tweaks for the cyclone are very weird. A lock-on range which is shorter than the auto-attack range should've been considered as an option. They've basically made a unit for which their auto-attack is an ability (blinding cloud doesn't do a thing) and is basically a ground phenix. The baneling hp nerf also feels a bit scary, but we'll see (vs Terran bio mostly, I feel like vs splash it will be the same). Also curious to see how the math works out vs adepts and zealots, which are light units (harder to kill bcos of the no bonus vs light, as well as less hp).
@@Nico_Dica Did I say it got buffed? I said it's a catch-all, boring early / early-mid game unit. Built a factory with a reactor vs any race and you're good. Air, ground, doesnt matter. Plus you get map control and can be annoying. It's similar how it was with airtoss at one point - it takes no effort to play it, but takes lots of correct moves to stop it. It also doesn't take away anything from what I said about cooldowns and range.
I agree, the health reduction on the already low health baneling is too much. the health is already lower than it's base unit, a zergling. this makes no sense to do, expecially since they just nerfed it's damage vs workers, marines and adepts. I think above 3.6k most people will be fine with most of the changes(mostly because they've dealt with battlemech enough to know how to beat it, and zergs are generally better at setting up surrounds at this level), but it's going to suck for everyone d3 and under(which is most of the playerbase). I've not been able to give it any proper testing though because my PC is dead(lightning) and I cannot play.
At low levels people are awful at controlling battle mech so it will still be easy to beat. The cyclone has been reworked like 3 times by Blizzard and now again by the community. None of these reworks have made the unit fun or engaging to play with or against. Just remove it from the game already.
I feel like any unit that's viable to mass without being hard-countered should make us think twice. Immortals and blink stalkers are more of a soft counter that can still be beaten with mass cyclone if you micro well
Thanks Harstem, does the balance council get access to analytics (beyond basic win rates) to help form an idea of the different unit interactions at the different mmr levels and match ups? (thx for everyone's work on the patch)
@@victorpoiesz9265Alphastar has inhuman micro and bad macro / strategy. Not sure it'd be useful at all to run that simulation to figure out balance. No matter what you did, it would always just use blink stalkers for toss for example.
Ghosts should not be two supply -- its absurd that the ghost now has as much health and occupies as much supply as the rocket launching car. Hellions still do not require gas, still do bonus damage to an entire race.
I think Winter's take is on point. Pro balancing needs to be taken very seriously with any patch and protoss was already trash for the top 8 players of each race. Way more people spectate SC2 than play it. And before anyone argues that spectators shouldn't be considered in balancing, plenty of sports have done things to make the games better to watch. All levels of play need to be accounted for and pro tier game quality needs to be accounted for in a game that is an ESport. The NFL and the NBA both have changed rules for better spectating, I know for sure.
Certainly agree on balancing around spectating, but to be honest I find Protoss by far the least interesting race to spectate, and have never chosen to watch a pro PvP match. I know it's just me, and I acknowledge Protoss is underpowered (which is bad from the perspective of the players), but their being underpowered hasn't affected my enjoyment of spectating.
@@joshuaparks7429it's because they aren't strong is why you find them boring. They only have one comp and can only crutch into those comps because anything else gets them killed.
BALANCE CHANGE PLEASE: i am a D2 toss and i genuinely hate playing TvP because mines are so incredibly frustrating. It seems like I can be infinitely ahead and not pay attention to the minimal for 2 seconds and die, and even if I do pay attention it is very hard to deal with. Please just change mines so that it takes 2 shots to kill workers (maybe they do a little less damage to the “worker” type). This would massively rebalance the mines on the lower level while I don’t think wrecking their use in armies at high level.
I liked the 1v1 new maps but my team mate and I are hating the 2v2 new maps so far. Granted it hasn’t be long since release. I’m loving the new temp temptest and mothership!
The health nerf for banelings will probably lead to more baneling mine use, so that's a good consequenece. I do think, however, that super good micro marine medic players will find ling bane super easy to handle, which will likely throw the matchup out of whack at the highest levels.
Harstem I COMPLETELY agree about the baneling hp nerf. It's ridiculous that it went through, I also worry it will just ruin ZvT. They can't just nerf baneling bio and then not nerf (but actually buff) terran bio.
Z>>T in the early to mid game is when most games are won. Until ghosts are out zerg is already favoured by default. Baneling is ridiculous. 0.5 seconds of inattention to the small a small red blip on your mini map and there goes half your mineral line instantly. To be equivalent terran would need blue flame hellions right out the gate and toss would need those zealots with whirlwind AoE from the campaign to be equivalent.
@@Shattered-Realm i mean you just described Terran though. one moment of inattentive play then boom! your mineral line is gone to a BUFFED widow drop. you also only have spores and queens as anti air so we see how well that does at scaring off drops. banes are slow off creep, and while hard to micro well, you can easily minimize damage dealt. on top of that you are tossing those resources away when the bane detonates, while the widow unburrows faster, loads into a medevac and fires again. all I see in this patch are small nerfs to Terran that will not effect play, and nerfs to p and z that indirectly buff Terran making the nerf pointless. I will not be surprised to see a lot of TvT and serral in the finals due to the unbalanced nature of the patch.
@@Shattered-Realm "s. 0.5 seconds of inattention to the small a small red blip on your mini map and there goes half your mineral line instantly. " Let me introduce to you, the widow mine. And no it's not just "zerg favored" til ghosts come out. There is no basis to that.
Lets leave for a moment the 4k toss struggling against cyclones; I am 3k toss and I am losing constantly to cyclon all-in; even if i manage to hold (very fast blink/charge), I am so far behind that I cannot get back into the game. As you said, at higher levels this is doable, but at my skill level it is impossible. I just dont have the game sense and micro to hold. It is quite frustrating, and I am considering leaving vT games altogether
Idk man. 60% - 40% for TvP respectively between the top 8 players for each race so far this year seems like it was already a problem. Protoss getting an overall nerf (even MaxPax agrees here) doesn't really feel like it's going to help that issue. Banelings were 100% and issue for PvZ, and they took away the ability to 1 shot probes with +2, but they also made it easier for Marines to kill them. TvZ was the most balanced matchup, but now I expect that to be more Terran favored. PvT is just going to be the same results as it has been with Terran still having plenty of 1 base all in options that are very hard for Protoss to hold, and the mid - late game Protoss armies will now be smaller and weaker overall with the Disruptor taking up more supply. Not to mention the fact that they will nerf Bane 1 shots on Probes in the mid game, but they won't do anything about Widow Mine 1 shots on probes in the early game where Protoss is already at it's weakest. Sick logic there. I think this patch is a tragedy for Protoss and a huge win for Terran. TvZ was 51%-49% the past 8 months, but I think that will shift more towards Terran now with the Cyclone and Baneling changes. Not sure about PvZ yet, but I imagine it won't change too much either (45%P - 55%Z). TvP will likely stay around 60% - 40% and be just as sad to watch/play as it has been for a while now.
1) The numbers you make up are nonsense and absolutely not reflective of the state of the game. 2) The raven and emp changes are absolutely massive buffs for protoss against terran, anyone who doesn't see that should not talk about balance. 3) Professional protoss players do not struggle vs widowmine drops whatsoever. 4) 1base terran allins are barely a thing in TvP at the pro level. Like you talk about pro winrates but then all your arguments are about low level play, where protoss performs extremely well. This makes no sense at all.
If they made morphing banes a little cheaper it would offset the new ineffectiveness. As it stands Zerg players need to rely more on Infestors, which i think is fine - i just wish the energy regen was slightly faster or the energy cost was reduced.
Infestor got a nerf too, though: fungal has a lower range and less damage, so it's less of a late game monster and more of a mid-game transitional unit... except there's nothing to transition to, because ghosts still counter every Hive unit, and now banes have gotten the double-nerf so you can't just go back to ling-bane like everyone does now.
Feels like there was a lack of communication after the negative reaction after the Test Tournament; which is why this patch going live more or less "as-is" is a bit of surprise to me and others (even if there was significant behind the scenes testing). Also curious what, if any, input the council had on the Map Pool selection? Hopefully Blizzard will still be open to additional changes in the short/medium term if something turns out to be really problematic. Looking forward to you and the rest of the SC2 Community digging into this regardless. :)
Play 10 matches with my friend(NA server I am 4100 MMR P and he is 4000 MMR T) and I feel that cyclone is very hard to deal with for my skill level. When T proxy a factory for cyclones, you only see 2 gas in their base so you have to respond with chrono stalkers and battery then robo (you do not know if they will fly factory into you main and produce clocked mines or mass cyclone if you do not see the proxied factory). As a result, your first robo unit will likely be an Observer without info and have to micro stalkers against cyclone(after getting familiarized, I can lose nothing and kill one or two cyclones in battery). However, without blink but only one Prism you can not kill the cyclones and they will be active in the map and force your stalkers to split to defend liberator multitasks.This will pressure P a lot to delay the third. And we all know that P can not trade well without half base economy lead. So from a T perspective, proxy factory, constant cyclone and active on map, get liberator/mine drop multitask, then after P split the stalkers use the cyclones for a nice trade or delay third, macro at home for bio and then go for a stim bio push that dominates stalker heavy toss. For a Protoss perspective, P can not be active on the map until clean up cyclones, and will run into one of the reasons P lose (not enough stalkers or too much stalkers). I know disruptor is the key but still it is still super hard to defend that stim push. In summary, cyclone now adds a new strategy to the Terran 2 gas openers and make protoss hard to have an economic lead now. T can be the race to decide where to attack and where to put more APM whereas P even have observers and know what is coming, have to decide to control your main or front line stalkers to not let T get a good trade/secure third. If you look at PVZ, if Z can hold an glave adept pressure, they can mass roach to counter attack and trade well. But even you do not lose unit for the first 6 min as P, your stalker counter push is gonna get shut down by tanks and bio. Then T has a decent 120-140 supply bio against stalker disruptor. So previous patch toss has 3 saturated economy and now have only 2.5. I feel that it is so hard to play as P.
High quality analysis! Great! Main thought of the patch - it won't really impact lower level players. But it's still very good to have it! Plus new maps is really good news!
The takeaway is that is absolutely *will* impact lower-level players, and more than higher-level ones, in that every game versus Terran will be struggling against a proxy Cyclone into Cyclone-tank rush, just like back a few years ago when every versus Protoss game was defending against a proxy Void ray into Tempest rush.
@@user-nh2bf4to7g Well, it depends on what you define as lower level. Diamond? Yeah, than you are probably correct. But if you think about gold and lower - those players do not follow a tide build order or something like that.
Captain, I'm really interested how a pro Protoss would defend against a proxy cyclone. In theory, P only have 1 unit when the first cyclone rolls by, and zealot/stalker/adept cannot contest it at this point. Will batteries became a requirement for future games, or am I missing something?
If they keep the current opening and are able to defend against cyclones, they would indeed have to use stalker + shield batteries. Though maybe this patch will force protoss to do a different opening against terran. Overall this patch is a nerf to pro protoss.
at 4.5k NA, this patch doesnt address anyhting i care about: thor and bc's need to be nerfed - there's no counter to the ultimate terran lategame, even showtime says this "you just need to win before they get there". and lurkers still need a damage nerf. widowmines and mech isnt a problem at this level.
The next nerf to Zerg is that players will have to win 3 games in a row against Serral to unlock the race. Also, this is coming from the perspective of a long time viewer of competitive SC2, but I wanna see more interesting unit compositions and the bane nerf kinda seems like it will do the opposite considering zerg players now require more banelings to get meaningful damage done. Terran was treated like a king this patch and Protoss was just kinda swept under the rug in my opinion
Currently banes & ghosts are overused, so nerfing them can force different unit compositions. However all races have underused units that could use buffs and while the cyclone buff is cool, cyclone wasn't one of these units.
They significantly nerfed ghosts. And the cyclone isn’t really even doing that well. That’s a gross exaggeration for the Terran patch. Also protoss got some nice things like the tempest acceleration increase which I didn’t think was that helpful until I tried it.
@wischmopps293 they also reverted the only meaningful buff, it's combining hydra upgrades into one. i honestly never had a doubt that it will be that way. )
@@berndarndt9924incompetently nerfing banes and ghosts will not force new compositions. It'll just make players produce more banes/ghosts. Let's face it, there's no adequate replacement for these units. They take a niche all its own
- Change landed Viking damage AND bonus mech damage to benefit from both Vehicle Weapons AND Ship Weapons upgrades. * End-game DPS increased to 25.36 (from 21.13) (20% increase) * End-game bonus DPS vs. mech increased to 19.76 (from 15.53) (27% increase) Context: In ground-centric mech builds where air upgrades are unlikely, this allows landed Vikings to join the army throughout the game. Landed Vikings also become 20% stronger in the end-game (23% vs mechanical). I wonder why Viking gets ignored as an anti-mech option when it was already the unit with anti-mechanical damage. Why not try something like the above instead of trying to make Cyclones anti-mech? Everything about the Cyclone's theme suggests it's anti-air. This change doesn't seem to support mech compositions as much as create a new cyclone-only composition, making ACTUAL mech even less likely.
Thanks for all the hard work Captain. Hope the feedback isn't too negative on this one until we actually see the results. Looking forward to playing/watching regardless of cyclone (4.3k protoss).
He does need to get trashed a little for not addressing that the widow mine STILL doesn't get nerfed. It deserves that nerf so bad and it NEVER happens. And I'm not talking about burrow time. We don't give a shit about burrow time. Change the unit so it can NEVER wipe an entire mineral line, so that even a good hit only kills 3 workers, and change it so that 1 hit doesn't kill a full stalker or zealot. In fact, remove the shield bonus and just buff the overall damage instead. Let EVERY race struggle with this little fucker, and not just Protoss.
4:10 Random player here, with terran as main/fave. I can attest to that. I quit playing around that time when toss would always proxygate. Havent played since. Was diamond 1 across all races/random. Scratched lower masters a couple times
Protoss is utter garbage in team games now thanks to the cyclone. Add in any number of lings, and unless protoss has a super battery, they're just dead to cyclone ling.
Why is the mothership still abductable? for a unit where you can only make 1 of at any given point in time (especially when it's cloaked and is the only visible and attackable unit), getting abducted is too hard of a counter...wish we could get the old mothership back but with cd's and not energy and not be abductable to make it feel powerful when its out but by no means a requirement - more of either a comeback or win-more unit but not baseline. It's also supposed to be the largest unit in the game (larger than Ultras) so it being abductable by the Viper is stupid. Also allow Ultras to move over (like Colossus) its own smaller units like lings and roaches so that it has more impact in swarm style groups with a mix of units instead of derping around singular little zerglings
Why you got the game running in the background? LOL I'm so used to hearing that idle sound I couldn't not notice. Thanks for the input on the new changes
I've seen a few high level ZvT on the new patch and it didn't seem like the bane health reduction was very noticeable. Like you said it is hard to tell exactly what the effect is but the fights looked the same as prepatch. Its not like all banes were dying and none connected. For me ghost need a health reduction, the fact it takes 7 banes (I think) to kill a ghost is crazy.
The new cyclone is quite easy for me to use as a diamond player and I think there are some good counters each race could use like Terran: just make tanks/rauder concussive Zerg: Get infestors for fungal since they clump in choke points/ling surround Toss: get immortal shield battery and blink stalkers maybe oracle stasis traps Just my thoughts
Captain, I really enjoyed hearing that you belive one of the most interesting/fun things in the game is coming up with new strategies in response to big changes, as I couldn't agree more. I haven't played enough recently to comment on the Cyclone changes, but my personal opinion is that the baneling nerf goes a little bit too far. I don't know why they couldn't have just reduced the health granted by the upgrade instead of removing it completely, but this is probably only because I am partial to Zerg lol.
There are all ins against protoss that require such precise defense that nobody talks about, yet we all talk about protoss all ins being hard to stop (void ray during that the time harstem mentioned). Proxy marauder is one. Proxy hatch with ravager/spine crawler. Some ravager all ins. These are all super reliant on the battery and building placement. Then theres the widow mine drop which wins games by dropping a unit out of a medivac. I've seens pros lose to it. Why is it that protoss doesn't get a pardon for defenses that require way more skill than the attack they are defending. I don't find widow mine drops particularly fun to watch just like I didn't find the void ray all in fun to watch. I don't understand how these things are fun to watch and we all know they definitely aren't fun to play against.
hatch spine crowler literally needs a scout and five probes to stop and even then could be shut down with good micro if you messed up the ential stages. Cannon rushes and proxy gates against zergs literally required them to not only have full vision a head of time but perfect queen micro unit production queen placement and even if they succeded in stoping the push the protoss player would still often times be ahead and could just switch to playing a macro game after words with no problem. A hatch spine crawler was an all in if it failed you lost game. most protess chesses arent even that despite being easier to execute. that why proxy rushes could literally be played every game no worries on the protess side.
Proxy marauder is extremely easy to stop as protoss, you just need to realize that you're getting proxied from the CC timing or get a battery in case it's a highground wall. The difficult part is only if someone skips the orbital to mindgame, but that is very uncommon below the highest level. Proxy hatch with ravager/spine crawler is not a build, it's a vague description that describes many different builds. Ravager allins are also just ot good. Professional protoss players very rarely lose a lot of probes to minedrops, it happens but it's like 1 in 50 games if not less. And it's not like it isn't an issue on lower level, it's just really hard to do anything to prevent that without causing a balance issue as the mine is so important for terran. Overall, it seems like you vastly underestimate how strong proxy voidray was and vastly overestimate the difficulty of defending the builds you mentioned. The only real example is the proxy hatch build that Fjant used to beat Showtime with, which was invented by Lorimbo.
lol this coming from the race that can win games by rushing marines. How are the Protoss win rates doing? If they are “so hard to defend against” why are Protoss the least popular race to play?
@@somethingsomethingsomethingdar protoss isn't the least popular race to play. it's just the weakest race overall. Protoss is quite fun for a large amount of the playerbase.
My opinion is that changes are great just like the Captain said. As long as there is resources enough to respond to imbalances I think having crazy changes like the cyclone going through is great. Have the ladder be crazy for 3 weeks and then respond to it if necessary
Banelings will get mass wrecked by Siege Tanks + Marines. Before, they get hit and splash dmg, by the time they get close to Marines, they were already nearly dead. Now they'd be dead, or 1 shot from Marines will kill them. This also makes Byun's heavy Marine kiting style much more effective, Stim Marines, stutter step and melt Banelings. Cyclones now are very strong vs Protoss, especially early game rushes building 2 at a time, they melt Stalkers, and can kite other Gateway units easily. Even Immortals, due to no cooldown on Lock On. This patch nerf Ghosts which was required, but buffs Terran in other ways.
Well, it's logical to buff other units when you nerf the most important terran mid/lategame unit. It only looks bad because the other races similar nice buffs.
I glazed through the whole thing because the pokemon silver and gameboy opening speech felt like some childhood horror story returned to terrorize me as an adult...
I for one hope new cyclone survives even if changed in next patch. As long as it stays on reactor it is good chance, but it obviously should not be too strong. As for baneling it may just have to be reversed. We will see couple weeks into new patch
As a StarCraft Terran I am going to make a prediction, and also give my thoughts on how our courageous captain might deal with the cyclone all in.. Cyclones will be able to run away from most units, and a critical mass will be able to quickly destroy units like void rays and immortals but as a Terran the composition I most fear out of Protoss to defend against this in the very early game is Chargelots and Phoenix. The trick is to catch them as they move out. poke with a couple Zealots to use up the enemy cyclones burst attack, then swoop in with the phoenix in a second control group. The phoenix is one of the only units that can escape their range and since the Cyclone is designed to prioritize air units you should be able to bait them all right into the zealots for the win. What do you think captain? Is their a better defense? Oo
The balance council is trying to remove zerg and protoss from tournaments. That much has become obvious now. I could be wrong, but I feel that terran has come out best in this patch, and they were already the most successful race in tournaments for the last year when you look at the top 8 and top 4
Terran is just a bad race. They’re boring, and all of their units are designed to be good at practically any situation. For Protoss and Zerg, what you make matters. If you make the wrong unit. You can get punished hard. Protoss air is pretty OP at non pro ranks, but if I make corrupters and manage to take out a bunch of carriers, it’s meaningful. So many of Terran’s units are cheap, and because of how quickly units die to them they’re units get way stronger the larger the army size, in a way that the other races don’t. The issue with Terran is they’re designed to be practically un-killable. Zerg is guaranteed to lose far more resources fighting them, even when they’re “winning”. This means that Zerg can pretty much only slightly get ahead, and it’s virtually impossible to trade efficiently without having absurd APM, and even then the pros still can’t be efficient. If you know exactly what your opponent is doing, you should be able to punish it. You can in ZvP, but you can’t in ZvT, it pretty much always becomes a drawn out game with the map getting mined out unless they execute a flawless roach rush that has to land at a specific 10-20 seconds time to work. Zerg can’t even really harass Terran early on, but they made sure to give Terran drops, reapers, BC teleportation, Hellions that can wipe out entire mineral lines in less than 2 seconds. They have basically the best unit in the entire game, the marine, which is cheaper but good anti ground and air. Then they have the widow mine, a unit so badly designed that I know people who stopped playing the game against it, and I did for a while too. They don’t even need to scout or have detection. And if you go late game, they objectively have a better economy since they can mass mule and mine out a mineral line in about 60 seconds. Then the ghost is great against everything, with a spell that hard counters late game units. Watching PvT, it feels similar. Terran can basically just make the same armies, and it’s always effective. Terran is a boring race that forces their opponents into making specific units that are the only thing that can even semi fight them, but then constantly complain that it’s unfair that a unit is even allowed to hurt them. Terran is THE reason why SC2 never caught on more: their entire design is just anti fun.
Protoss winrates vs zerg and terran dropped significantly last patch in premier tournaments after the super battery and disruptor nerfs. So the baneling hp nerf may be a good thing for overall pro level balance
@@mothrahlurker788they probably went to the military cause they would rather deal with martinets reprimanding them at every wrong move then deal with PvX matchup - exactly just that
having fun with this as a p1 t player so far. actually had to change my build order for the fist time in ages! tvz does feel MUCH easier but I've yet to get into ghost/ultra or ghost/brood battles. tvp is way more fun but i worry the cyclone is op in the metal/low diamond leagues. building 5 cyclones at a time out of 3 factories in the mid game feels wrong lol.
I agree with this statement. I would even say that the cyclone makes macro games on a lower level very frustrating to play especially in combination with widow mines. Im not sure about the bane nerf seems a bit much but i havent experienced it that much. Rest of the patch seems pretty good, the nine mappool is extremly nice
The correct patch - widow mines do 36 damage splash, no single target bonus. ghosts cost 3 supply and have less hp. Mothership costs 0 supply. VR cheaper, Storm buff. Orbital rework - mostly just make it so orbital spells don't stack.
They announced that the new patch is available since the 28th of September. I just played a few games and we have the same patch 5.0.11 and the same maps. Am I missing something? Thank you
I’m an average D2/3 Zerg and this is the first patch that’s actually scared me. I already lose to mass cyclone and standard Terran all ins regularly, but am 50/50 in longer macro games. Vs toss I play ling bane muta because I just find it fun, and that’s also straight up getting a nerf. I’ve had a good time playing toss in the past, I think I might just switch race to them.
Go for it dude. We welcome you into the kala. Think you might find things aren't as easy over here as it seems. The grass is alway greener on the other side though 👍
I am asking everyone, explain the widow mine buff while explaining the baneling HP and DAMAGE nerf......theres 0 reason the widow mine should be so unbalanced in its risk vs reward. Absolute joke that no one thought maybe the widow mine shouldnt be able to auto kill workers if banes fully upgraded cant while also having their survivability hit.
im going to repeat this to the end of time, the goal for ghost was to reduce the late game brokenness. but the snipe change only affected roaches (not a snipe target), zealots (also not a snipe target), and the ultra - in the completely unrealistic situation where the ultra has taken less than 10 damage in its role as a frontline tanking unit. in other words, the snipe change only made certain cheeses weaker but did not actually change lategame power. meanwhile the zerg units intended to fight the ghost: infestors, banelings, even broodlings and lurkers if you count those, all got weaker. so the ghost was literally buffed for the late game, the exact opposite of the goal. And just like the baneling interaction, you cannot actually confirm this without a large number of games. In fact, it's worse, because it's harder to practice the specific ghost / tier 3 late game scenario, meaning that it could be broken for a very long time without anyone being practiced enough to find it. to my mind to actually reduce ghost late game power you need to affect not the _damage_ of snipe, but the timing. changing energy refunding, snipe target time, what effects count as cancelling (abduct, blinding cloud, eg), or the amount of energy needed to snipe. And how hard it is to kill ghosts / their relative power as a specialist caster should be called into question. Ghosts should have an armor class or otherwise be even less viable for straight up fighting.
Yeah the Ghosts are simply way too good at everything, hp, armor, auto attack damage, invisibility. And they require the same amount of supply as a roach, so you can easily run around with 30 ghosts in the lategame and still have a massive army besides them
In that patch era, I remember harstem vs maru. Harstem did very well but blew two attempted proxy stargates for 2 losses and lost 3-2 in the best of five.
I don't think zerg will be too bad in the current patch. The baneling nerf might be a bit too strong in TvZ, but anything that changes the stale meta of zerg just barricading themselves on ever increasing amount of bases and 90-100 workers and just braindead sending waves and waves of hundreds of banes and lings on the terran and eventually breaking the defenses, is great. Zerg still has a ton of other busted tools, ravagers negate a lot of siege units like tanks and liberators, mutas are an absolute pain in the ass to defend against, lurkers will still shred bio armies without ghost support, both spellcasters, viper and infestor and their overpowered spells have barely been touched by this patch. Infestors are actually immediately usable now after being produced, which is a buff, less damage on consume of vipers is also a buff, it just means a single building will provide 33% more recharges. But if I am wrong, and the rest of the year will just be TvP on the top tournament spots, that's fine by me. I am tired of zergs winning everything, and the same people being always on top.
Zergs never won anything. Serral and Reynor won a lot because they are unbelieveable skilled. Below that terran nearly won everything on Pro-Level. And in the range of 3-5k mmr a zerg has to be 500mmr better to beat a terran. Unfortunately Blizzard does not care about low level balance. So the terran abuse will go on and on forever.
@@melhute.4715 yeah exactly. i played in 3700 range, quit and quite happy now. can just root for serral occasionally. Id say serral will be not too bad in this patch. But he's not too bad in any patch no matter how badly they cripple zerg. lol, like realistically. before the final blizzard patch. zerg race was like 30% stronger than now. queen range +1, queens transfuse off creep, creep spreads faster, broodlord infestor are scary and really punish turtle play. etc etc
I always think of balance patches as intergalactic wide upgrades reflected as stats as scientists desperately try to gain an advantage against the opponents. As one side increases everyone increases a counter or whatever and as units are phased in out or added it just means innovation occurred. The cyclone scientists at blizzard put in some overtime and asked a magic 8 ball for answers. It helps take the emotions out of the patches and makes the game more alive lol
Hey @Harstem, What's your opinion on the cyclone and raven changes in TvT? I'm worried this matchup at my mid-diamond level will now see a lot of bc rushes.. With raven's interference matrix delayed and cyclone lock-on range reduced I'm afraid those will be harder to stop.
My feeling is that this is alot about building trust between "the game" (in council) and the community, which has failed. After much of the talk about patches being experiments including content creators such as harstem reinforcing this message. The patch going through as a whole, with only minor tweaks isn't inline with that message and broke the (albeit kinda small) amount of trust that emerged from the community. Other strategies, e.g. a staged roll-out of the exact same changes would likely maintained and even fostered that trust. With the use of the term experiment, there's an implication of review and some kind of results and decision making reporting would have been keeping in line with that messaging and beneficial. Especially some form of FAQ around how decisions were made on the more controversial topics.
At the top level pros will mostly be able to deal with the Cyclone, or the Baneling or the proxy crap. This will severely impact the lower levels and we will see a decrease in player-base. No matter how many pros plays, the little guys are the people that keep the game alive. The changes hurt the lower levels, thus are HARMFUL to the game. The new cyclone cant match role as a defensive unit to the previous one, AND its overall design right now favors rush, cheese and massing. in TvP Combination with the new Airtoss changes will most definitely see a rise in hard contains (proxy Voidray, Tempest and their insane movement now with Batteries and Cannons) and Blink Stalker All-ins in TvP. As you already said, as long as Protoss exerts even a little preasure on the Terran, the Cyclone becomes nonviable. TvZ will further enable problem of Zerg sitting and responding to whatever Terran does, now with less map control, less vision, less scouting and less power potential. I expect a lot of less thinking coming from Terran and a lot more stress from Zerg to try to work around the Hellion-Cyclone combinations. Bio will be unstoppable with the Baneling and Lurker nerfs. TvT we will have a large increase in Cloaked Banshee and Battlecruiser rushes, because their best and most reliable counter has been nullified. Not a problem at top level, but lower ones will struggle, AGAIN. We might also see Cyclone drops, the auto-attack that deals bonus damage to Mechanical units will deal huge damage to Terran mineral lines, which can be sustained a long time with their easy micro and rapidly evacuated with a Medivac. PvZ will also be impacted greatly. The nerfed Infestor has a chance of becoming unreliable with its decreased Fungal range, High Templar's Feedback greatly outranges them. The nerfed Banelings I don''t mind really much, but the Disruptor's nerf will cause a lot more Roach Ravager play. Roach Ravager is already strong enough. Other notable mentions: Widow mine need NO buffs. The Viper needs NO buffs. Mothership is still not worth it. Ghosts only started getting used after the EMP upgrade a couple years ago, now they are weaker in both Snipe and EMP against buffed Ultras, Broodlords, Hydras. This patch is probably the most destructive one we have gotten in a long time. It is bad for all levels of MMR. I know that SC2 becomes stale after a long period without a patch, but it is insane to push through a patch with some many untested interactions, community disapproval and with barely any changes to the previously announced one. If you want to change "niche and overspecialized" units here are a couple that are a MUCH better choice than the Cyclone - Reaper, Banshee, Adept, Colossus, Voidray (kinda pushing it but generally bad), Swarmhost.
I feel betrayed…our captain saying the Zerg should not be nerfed into the ground they like to hide in so much. I just want one change, lurkers should do friendly fire, Zerg can make them for free for all I care, I’d just like them to have some actual disadvantage. They are literally a cross between a tank and a DT, and can still put DPS a tank!
I mostly agree with you. except I rather not have any patch than a patch with these 2 changes. the cyclone and baneling change are likely very impactful and were not tested enough particularly at low-level (below 6k). and we know that blizzard will not react in a timely manner if thing are broken. so we are basically taking the risk to have unplayable ladder for a month. I think its a crazy risk to take.
I agree with your ending comment about RTSs needing a trickle of changes to drive new strategies and keep things fresh. As long as they don't move old units to legacy and make you pay to buy the new unit pavk every season, I'd enjoy seeing a aregular shakeup. That takes a lot of work and development that isnt available though so Ill just enjoy balance patches.
@@TheBarcode11 yeah but there's layers to that. You should be able to build your mastery of game mechanics and understanding of strategy that carries forward through changes. Having a stable meta for years until everyone can master it is just describing a stagnant and dead game. For me, being pushed to adapt and having a rotation of tools that drive new meta is a lot more entertaining than grinding the same thing for ages. At the end of the day I'm willing to accept that it's a preference thing and there's going to be people who wouldn't enjoy that, but the alternative is not quintessential to RTS
@@StormgateShorts This is true for pros but not for a healthy pvp playerbase. Most people lose intrest in pvp games if they do not change over time. And without the casuals, games die. This is a big mistake many games make and so the players leave and never come back.
The health change to speed banelings is going to really hurt them in ZvT and ZvZ since it means it takes one less attack from a marine, ling or queen to kill them. Banelings in direct engagements didn't seem that problematic and were an interesting piece for both sides to micro around (and before anyone gets mad about mass banelings rolling into their army; if you opponent can afford to do that you already lost that game). This feels like a change aimed towards lower league players who don't micro their army and cross their fingers their units out DPS the incoming rolly-boys before they connect but at the same time shakes up the high level matchup where every little advantage (like killing with one less attack) matters. Since the baneling is already such a binary unit (either it connects with at least 1hp and deals damage or it doesn't and it wastes 75/25) the 5hp nerf is going to mean a lot more banelings will pop before getting into the range to even connect with the outer radius of their splash damage. I wouldn't be surprised if this change gets reverted in an upcoming patch after everyone tries them out for a bit and realizes how much difference 5hp can make. At least everyone can agree the damage nerf is good. No more queuing up +2 banes into your opponents third to collect an easy 20 worker kills.
if your opponet got to freely enter you base with a bane they could have done the same with a rouch zelot or marine. this was an undeserved zerg neft meant for serral zerg as been weak below the literally top 2 zerg players for years now and its not getting any better.
I want to know who put out the Cyclone change. He seems like playing bio all days so that he thinks "core mech unit" is just "mech marine". Plus I guess Equilibrium is not well-tested. Zerg get so much resource advantages here. I guess Protoss could just allin. And another map that has not been well tested - Terran could set tank to reach the natural from low ground, and 3rd base too.
I think my disappointment comes from a lot of what Winter said in his update video and it just overall big picture and bad update. If the patch was too focus on protoss and where they are, why is the biggest changes and total unit change for Terran? Protoss gets a few small "buffs" and also a nerf to its core unit? Why did we spend over a month trying to fix this issue and came out with Terran changes mostly. Not even saying this changes are broken or Op or gonna ruin the game, but I just don't understand at all what the "balance" council was doing and I don't think they hit their goal at all.
I think that there's going to be some Diamond or Master league hero that's inadvertently playing a perfect blind counter to whatever crazy cyclone stuff is about to start happening all over the ladder and see their MMR go up while everyone else takes a beating for a bit.
I used to think in lategame ZvT the ghost was the most untouchable unit in the game and maybe they should be light units so if zerg somehow manages to penetrate terran formations some of the ghosts might actually die. Making it harder to engage the terran because the baneling was too heavily relied on wasn't a change I was expecting.
Cyclones and mines fuck ya. Terran rampage time. Widow MINES actually out range core RANGED units like Marines and roaches so this will be sweet. They even nurfed banelings and made it take more fungals to kill marines lmoa great time to be terran. This patch is to buff Protoss!!! Hell ya, nerf everything that hurts terran. Make 2 cyclones be able to take down a mother ship and do extra damage to mechanical LOL cant make this shit up. Nurf the disrupter, no more permanent invisibility from mothership haha. Im playin terran till next patch for sure! Protoss just has no Brawler units except Zelots and archons, both other race army comps can be a clicked for decent efficiency. I thought they might lower damage on immortals but speed up attack so it could take on a hand full of light units, or make Collossi do a bit more damage against non-light units etc. but they nurfed the disrupter and took away permanent invisibility given by mothership which I've at least seen people hide corner bases with for a gimmic round where they just keep it in the corner enough to hide the nexus and probes so it might not get noticed. Now goons will be constantly crushed by rhine/rauder/cyclone mass armies worse than they did before. Shits gonna be rough. And now the only race who can insta destroy mineral lines is terran haha. Except terran banes are invisible and re-usable and can be made two at a time, like the cylcone. Your armies late game with protoss will even be smaller now that they made disrupter cost more unit supply, and disrupter is kind of the only way to trade well against mass terran bio.
i think the main reason you don't see more terran mech is terran bio is just too darn good. buffing mech to the point it's competitive with bio would exacerbate the existing balance issues. instead they should tame stim a bit
It kinda feels that zerg got too much nerfs. Beside Serral i think ZvT is pretty even right now, overall it seems like terrans have a bit better winrate. But the nerfs on the baneling, the buff on the cyclone and the nerf i think on the broodlord dont look quite fair.
"Yes, Zergs and Terrans win most of the tournaments, but that's because Maru and Serral are so good. If you remove them from the equation, SC2 looks more balanced at the top level". That's the excuse people use to explain why Protoss never wins any tournaments. It's an interesting thought experiment, and one that can be turned around: What if, instead of removing Maru and Serral from the equation, you remove Maxpax and herO from the equation? The Protoss race disappears entirely from top-level SC2.
Protoss has been very weak at the top level of play, and this balance patch feels like treating a gunshot wound with a band-aid. Terran and Zerg will just continue to dominate at the tournament level.
TBH, you’re probably 💯% correct…BUT I still worry about any patch that toys around with a center element of ANY given race. Imagine if out of the blue the stalker’s stats were changed? I (and I suspect many others) would legitimately FLIP OUT. So I guess we will see what happens!!
Exactly, the data does not show that Maru and Serral cause the win rates to change that much. The data shows that toss is weaker, period.
@@NativeNewMexican It really does though. Winter did a video about this today: Serral has like a 90% win rate against everyone; remove him from the equation and the numbers drop massively. A better comparison for Taznak would be let's add in some theoretical UberProt who has a 90% win rate against Terran and Zerg, such that he skews the Protoss win rates to 55-60% at the top eight level. Would that mean that Protoss as a whole needed a nerf, or that UberProt himself is just an outlier for being a god gamer?
@@user-nh2bf4to7g Ok let's data. Remove Serral's games, ZvP win rate drops from 55.0% to 52.2%, the "UberProt" gone with no replacement, ZvP is slightly Z-favoured.
Remove Maru's games, TvP win rate drops from 60.4% to 59.2%. Remove the top 2, Maru and Cure, TvP win rate drops to 55.6%, just about what Z has with the "UberProt" playing for them.
Assume Serral switched to P and achieves the same win rate against T. Add Serral to PvT and remove the lowest rank (6 out of 38 wins), PvT win rate increases from 39.6% to 45.3%.
I'll leave yall to draw your own conclusions.
@@user-nh2bf4to7g there's also the factor of race _choice_ to consider: if that theoretical UberProt player instead chose to main terran or zerg, would they end up having about equal performance, or would they dominate even harder (or less so)? From a casual viewer-only perspective, I imagine the other races have higher skill ceilings than protoss, thanks to things like having much higher army mobility or number of things to micromanage (eg creepspread and larva injection/timing), so at the highest levels a player can get the most out of their skill and practice by using the other races.
I suspect the amount of skill one would need to be Serral-level as a protoss player means they'd have been in a league their own had they chosen zerg or terran. Or inversely, if Serral or Maru were protoss mains, they might've ended up being at about the same level as Maxpax or hero
Also, having watched the winter video: you seem to be taking an odd conclusion from what he said? He noted that although Serral is an outlier, he also plays disproportionately fewer games compared to the others included, so his impact was smaller than you'd expect, and that the top 8 protoss seem to be underperforming in PvT and PvZ against the top 8 of those races. 5 of the top 8 terran winning 60+% against the top 8 protoss (two having just shy of 80%, or 4/5 odds in their favour, which is horrendously bad from a balance perspective, and even the third is still above 70%) vs only hero having a better than 50% matchup on the other side- and even then, only 55%, which is only higher than the bottom 3 of the remaining terran, for example.
Excluding Serral from the dataset is tricky since the games he played factor into the stats of the protoss players (for PvZ) so we can't just subtract them from the results, but as a rough measure, if we just pretend Serral had the same winrate as hero and compare the rest of them to their cross-race counterpart, every single protoss player falls short. It's close enough to be basically a rounding error in MaxPax v Reynor and SKillous v Elazer's case, but the rest have an at least 6% disparity, some close to 20%.
Serral only played 23 series in the dataset against top 8 protoss players, so even if we imagine his winrate was the same as herO's, that's only one extra win per protoss player, essentially. That'd be enough to invert the MaxPax v Reynor and Skillous v Elazer disparity, but doesn't bridge any of the others, and still results in a situation where every top 8 zerg is either heavily ahead or roughly equal to their protoss counterpart in terms of PvZ winrates.
Ideally I'd like to see some sorta mechanic introduced to protoss that gives them more to deal with that acts like an APM tax or somesuch at the lower levels (or one that makes no difference until the higher levels in addition to a nerf to some of the "over-performs at low levels while under-performing at higher ones" units like the disruptor or dark templar), but at the top levels where the players can manage it, gives them a genuine benefit of some sort.
IE something to make the race easier to handle at the lower levels where players might lack the awareness/APM to avoid getting cheesed by things like DTs or disruptors, while giving them tools to push the skill ceiling of the race higher
I wouldve never thought that the cyclones change made it through
yeah i thought it seemed overly busted in the testing relm, i assumed they would at least nerf them some
my Theory is that there is ONE person on the imbalance council made this idea for the Cyclone years ago and just won't let it go even though everyone agrees it doesn't make sense to focus on it right now and also how busted it is, they still go with it. That is my theory. @@xakannax
@@xakannax of course it actually isn't all that strong
They are balloons easy to pop and range isn't insane anymore. They're still a huge investment of money that is easy to counter. And all faster moving units outpace them without the speed upgrade in the tech lab.
@@krogan3760 which is, of course, why they dominated the balance patch test tournament.
I'm also worried primarily about the bane HP change, the first time i saw that in the patch notes, I told friends it was the biggest change lol.
Exactly. This will ruin ZvT.
I think that people thinks that Zerg needed a Nerf because of Serral winning almost all lately but that's not the case.
If you look at the top 8 on Major tournament the most promenant race Is Terran not Zerg.
Imo, Protos needed a buff (and they received almost none), Zerg was stable and i think the Nerf damage at the baneling was enough, and Terran needed a NERF on the Ghost (that they mad had received with the snipe dmg) 12:40
This is actually a baneling HP reversion. It got the HP buff to help deal with early game mothership core which uh... isn't a thing anymore.
Also to survive 2 storms instead of 1, which is still a thing@@uberculex
@@uberculex if just reversion, then they didn't need to nerf the damage. Combining both is an insane nerf.
The guy who did the poop smearing on your Gameboy grew up to be a Terran player.
Something I appreciate about Harstem in this video is how believes that the cyclone change benefits him, due to being a top player, but also acknowledges how it could negatively affect slightly lower mmr players
I've played this game since the night of release and I'm in M3... I didn't know banelings got a health bonus from the upgrade...
D1 here, neither did I. Played since 2011!
Played since beta, M1. Also didn't know that. Kinda like the damage bonus for chargelots that got removed... I had no idea it existed, and I main protoss!@@ParleLeVu
Lmao same
Glad to hear you talk about banes.the health nerf seems overly harsh
RIP Harstem Gameboy
I agree with your take on new strategies making the game exciting! this is one of the reason players like Has and Dark and your show of BGwSS are so much fun to watch!
wrg
Sadly you still need quite fast pace in order to execute them on the level, that will be appreviated/give results.
Another thing that is bad about the baneling nerf is that it is coming at the same time as the infestor's fungal growth damage nerf AND the medivac upgrade buff. The whole reason fungal growth was reworked back in the day to be an attack spell was that Zerg struggled against marines big time. Marines usually go with medivacs regenerating their health, which is supposed to be the thing that balances out the damage they get from fungal and keeps them alive.
Frankly, why shouldn't two consecutive fungals take out marines running around without medivacs? Infestor energy takes a long time to regenerate, and it's the only ground spellcaster without a regular attack (unlike ghosts, queens, sentries, and high templar). Lack of a regular ranged attack means unless it has energy it has to just sit around doing nothing. This also makes it harder to control because if it's in an army that A-moves, it will derp forward into the middle of the fight instead of keeping its distance.
they hate the infestor is why, at least thats what i speculate lol. its already a fickle unit, hard to keep alive, fungal has been nerfed over and over again over the years and now it is a joke. and dont get me started on infested terran! im still butthurt about that. fuck microbial shroud. even if it was 0 energy it still would be almost useless.
Amen. Why do they not give zerg options that are not ling bane? Infestor is literally the only thing you can do against this bullshit unit other than building banelings. Roaches are not strong enough and they take 648373529 supply to just have a chance against mass marine medivac. Nerf marines. And medivacs. Then we can talk about making baneling less powerful.
Harstems analogies always make me just crack up.
1.) Take a replay with cyclones
2.) send it to yourself
3.) analyze it in iodis
4.) tell yourself you suck
5.) ???
6.) profit
Honestly starting to consider a switch to Terran right now lol. I feel like building a factory with a reactor is going to be a catch-all in early / earl-mid game. Also, I think the range tweaks for the cyclone are very weird. A lock-on range which is shorter than the auto-attack range should've been considered as an option. They've basically made a unit for which their auto-attack is an ability (blinding cloud doesn't do a thing) and is basically a ground phenix. The baneling hp nerf also feels a bit scary, but we'll see (vs Terran bio mostly, I feel like vs splash it will be the same). Also curious to see how the math works out vs adepts and zealots, which are light units (harder to kill bcos of the no bonus vs light, as well as less hp).
Bane hp nerf+infestor fungal nerf lol
You do realize cyclone got nerfed nerfed, right ?
@@Nico_Dica Did I say it got buffed? I said it's a catch-all, boring early / early-mid game unit. Built a factory with a reactor vs any race and you're good. Air, ground, doesnt matter. Plus you get map control and can be annoying. It's similar how it was with airtoss at one point - it takes no effort to play it, but takes lots of correct moves to stop it. It also doesn't take away anything from what I said about cooldowns and range.
I agree, the health reduction on the already low health baneling is too much. the health is already lower than it's base unit, a zergling. this makes no sense to do, expecially since they just nerfed it's damage vs workers, marines and adepts. I think above 3.6k most people will be fine with most of the changes(mostly because they've dealt with battlemech enough to know how to beat it, and zergs are generally better at setting up surrounds at this level), but it's going to suck for everyone d3 and under(which is most of the playerbase). I've not been able to give it any proper testing though because my PC is dead(lightning) and I cannot play.
It's not uncommon for morphed zerg units to have less hp than the base. This comes with the benefit of losing the armored or light trait.
At low levels people are awful at controlling battle mech so it will still be easy to beat.
The cyclone has been reworked like 3 times by Blizzard and now again by the community. None of these reworks have made the unit fun or engaging to play with or against. Just remove it from the game already.
completely agree. the whole point is to change things to see people competing to make new strats!!!
Then why does the protoss have no buffs? Do you want to see stalkers into disruptors into air again for the 50 millionth time?
I feel like any unit that's viable to mass without being hard-countered should make us think twice. Immortals and blink stalkers are more of a soft counter that can still be beaten with mass cyclone if you micro well
mass cyclone tear up stalker/immortal with zero micro right now.
Yup. Totally agree
Thanks Harstem, does the balance council get access to analytics (beyond basic win rates) to help form an idea of the different unit interactions at the different mmr levels and match ups? (thx for everyone's work on the patch)
Imagine if they could use AlphaStar to simulate thousands of games with each change...
@@victorpoiesz9265Alphastar has inhuman micro and bad macro / strategy. Not sure it'd be useful at all to run that simulation to figure out balance. No matter what you did, it would always just use blink stalkers for toss for example.
Ghosts should not be two supply -- its absurd that the ghost now has as much health and occupies as much supply as the rocket launching car. Hellions still do not require gas, still do bonus damage to an entire race.
Ghosts and Roaches requiring the same amount of supply is pretty wild, compare the strength of those units at any point in the game
unit cost, supply cost and capability are nearly unrelated in sc2. @@jacobsvensson8193
was that a real story???
RIP Harstem's Gameboy
I think Winter's take is on point. Pro balancing needs to be taken very seriously with any patch and protoss was already trash for the top 8 players of each race. Way more people spectate SC2 than play it. And before anyone argues that spectators shouldn't be considered in balancing, plenty of sports have done things to make the games better to watch. All levels of play need to be accounted for and pro tier game quality needs to be accounted for in a game that is an ESport. The NFL and the NBA both have changed rules for better spectating, I know for sure.
Certainly agree on balancing around spectating, but to be honest I find Protoss by far the least interesting race to spectate, and have never chosen to watch a pro PvP match. I know it's just me, and I acknowledge Protoss is underpowered (which is bad from the perspective of the players), but their being underpowered hasn't affected my enjoyment of spectating.
@@joshuaparks7429it's because they aren't strong is why you find them boring. They only have one comp and can only crutch into those comps because anything else gets them killed.
BALANCE CHANGE PLEASE: i am a D2 toss and i genuinely hate playing TvP because mines are so incredibly frustrating. It seems like I can be infinitely ahead and not pay attention to the minimal for 2 seconds and die, and even if I do pay attention it is very hard to deal with. Please just change mines so that it takes 2 shots to kill workers (maybe they do a little less damage to the “worker” type). This would massively rebalance the mines on the lower level while I don’t think wrecking their use in armies at high level.
I liked the 1v1 new maps but my team mate and I are hating the 2v2 new maps so far. Granted it hasn’t be long since release. I’m loving the new temp temptest and mothership!
The "new" 2v2 maps aren't even new. They are a collection of old 2v2 maps. But I agree with you. They are terrible, I really dislike them.
The health nerf for banelings will probably lead to more baneling mine use, so that's a good consequenece. I do think, however, that super good micro marine medic players will find ling bane super easy to handle, which will likely throw the matchup out of whack at the highest levels.
Harstem I COMPLETELY agree about the baneling hp nerf. It's ridiculous that it went through, I also worry it will just ruin ZvT. They can't just nerf baneling bio and then not nerf (but actually buff) terran bio.
Z>>T in the early to mid game is when most games are won. Until ghosts are out zerg is already favoured by default. Baneling is ridiculous. 0.5 seconds of inattention to the small a small red blip on your mini map and there goes half your mineral line instantly. To be equivalent terran would need blue flame hellions right out the gate and toss would need those zealots with whirlwind AoE from the campaign to be equivalent.
@@Shattered-Realm i mean you just described Terran though. one moment of inattentive play then boom! your mineral line is gone to a BUFFED widow drop. you also only have spores and queens as anti air so we see how well that does at scaring off drops. banes are slow off creep, and while hard to micro well, you can easily minimize damage dealt. on top of that you are tossing those resources away when the bane detonates, while the widow unburrows faster, loads into a medevac and fires again. all I see in this patch are small nerfs to Terran that will not effect play, and nerfs to p and z that indirectly buff Terran making the nerf pointless. I will not be surprised to see a lot of TvT and serral in the finals due to the unbalanced nature of the patch.
@@Shattered-Realm "s. 0.5 seconds of inattention to the small a small red blip on your mini map and there goes half your mineral line instantly. " Let me introduce to you, the widow mine. And no it's not just "zerg favored" til ghosts come out. There is no basis to that.
I already struggled with ZvT. With the bane nerf, zerg may be unplayable. This patch sucks
Switch to the dark side and play roaches :) it's what I did before the patch.
Lets leave for a moment the 4k toss struggling against cyclones; I am 3k toss and I am losing constantly to cyclon all-in; even if i manage to hold (very fast blink/charge), I am so far behind that I cannot get back into the game. As you said, at higher levels this is doable, but at my skill level it is impossible. I just dont have the game sense and micro to hold.
It is quite frustrating, and I am considering leaving vT games altogether
Idk man. 60% - 40% for TvP respectively between the top 8 players for each race so far this year seems like it was already a problem. Protoss getting an overall nerf (even MaxPax agrees here) doesn't really feel like it's going to help that issue. Banelings were 100% and issue for PvZ, and they took away the ability to 1 shot probes with +2, but they also made it easier for Marines to kill them. TvZ was the most balanced matchup, but now I expect that to be more Terran favored. PvT is just going to be the same results as it has been with Terran still having plenty of 1 base all in options that are very hard for Protoss to hold, and the mid - late game Protoss armies will now be smaller and weaker overall with the Disruptor taking up more supply. Not to mention the fact that they will nerf Bane 1 shots on Probes in the mid game, but they won't do anything about Widow Mine 1 shots on probes in the early game where Protoss is already at it's weakest. Sick logic there.
I think this patch is a tragedy for Protoss and a huge win for Terran. TvZ was 51%-49% the past 8 months, but I think that will shift more towards Terran now with the Cyclone and Baneling changes. Not sure about PvZ yet, but I imagine it won't change too much either (45%P - 55%Z). TvP will likely stay around 60% - 40% and be just as sad to watch/play as it has been for a while now.
1) The numbers you make up are nonsense and absolutely not reflective of the state of the game.
2) The raven and emp changes are absolutely massive buffs for protoss against terran, anyone who doesn't see that should not talk about balance.
3) Professional protoss players do not struggle vs widowmine drops whatsoever.
4) 1base terran allins are barely a thing in TvP at the pro level.
Like you talk about pro winrates but then all your arguments are about low level play, where protoss performs extremely well. This makes no sense at all.
If they made morphing banes a little cheaper it would offset the new ineffectiveness. As it stands Zerg players need to rely more on Infestors, which i think is fine - i just wish the energy regen was slightly faster or the energy cost was reduced.
Infestor got a nerf too, though: fungal has a lower range and less damage, so it's less of a late game monster and more of a mid-game transitional unit... except there's nothing to transition to, because ghosts still counter every Hive unit, and now banes have gotten the double-nerf so you can't just go back to ling-bane like everyone does now.
@@user-nh2bf4to7gi can finally transition into burrowed ultras
My body is ready to abuse toss and zergs.
Feels like there was a lack of communication after the negative reaction after the Test Tournament; which is why this patch going live more or less "as-is" is a bit of surprise to me and others (even if there was significant behind the scenes testing). Also curious what, if any, input the council had on the Map Pool selection?
Hopefully Blizzard will still be open to additional changes in the short/medium term if something turns out to be really problematic.
Looking forward to you and the rest of the SC2 Community digging into this regardless. :)
appreciate how articulate this was!
Play 10 matches with my friend(NA server I am 4100 MMR P and he is 4000 MMR T) and I feel that cyclone is very hard to deal with for my skill level.
When T proxy a factory for cyclones, you only see 2 gas in their base so you have to respond with chrono stalkers and battery then robo (you do not know if they will fly factory into you main and produce clocked mines or mass cyclone if you do not see the proxied factory). As a result, your first robo unit will likely be an Observer without info and have to micro stalkers against cyclone(after getting familiarized, I can lose nothing and kill one or two cyclones in battery). However, without blink but only one Prism you can not kill the cyclones and they will be active in the map and force your stalkers to split to defend liberator multitasks.This will pressure P a lot to delay the third. And we all know that P can not trade well without half base economy lead. So from a T perspective, proxy factory, constant cyclone and active on map, get liberator/mine drop multitask, then after P split the stalkers use the cyclones for a nice trade or delay third, macro at home for bio and then go for a stim bio push that dominates stalker heavy toss. For a Protoss perspective, P can not be active on the map until clean up cyclones, and will run into one of the reasons P lose (not enough stalkers or too much stalkers). I know disruptor is the key but still it is still super hard to defend that stim push.
In summary, cyclone now adds a new strategy to the Terran 2 gas openers and make protoss hard to have an economic lead now. T can be the race to decide where to attack and where to put more APM whereas P even have observers and know what is coming, have to decide to control your main or front line stalkers to not let T get a good trade/secure third. If you look at PVZ, if Z can hold an glave adept pressure, they can mass roach to counter attack and trade well. But even you do not lose unit for the first 6 min as P, your stalker counter push is gonna get shut down by tanks and bio. Then T has a decent 120-140 supply bio against stalker disruptor. So previous patch toss has 3 saturated economy and now have only 2.5. I feel that it is so hard to play as P.
High quality analysis! Great!
Main thought of the patch - it won't really impact lower level players. But it's still very good to have it! Plus new maps is really good news!
The takeaway is that is absolutely *will* impact lower-level players, and more than higher-level ones, in that every game versus Terran will be struggling against a proxy Cyclone into Cyclone-tank rush, just like back a few years ago when every versus Protoss game was defending against a proxy Void ray into Tempest rush.
@@user-nh2bf4to7g Well, it depends on what you define as lower level.
Diamond? Yeah, than you are probably correct.
But if you think about gold and lower - those players do not follow a tide build order or something like that.
Change is great. I tend to agree with what you’d said. Bane +2 bonus reduction is great, the health was a step too far.
Captain, I'm really interested how a pro Protoss would defend against a proxy cyclone. In theory, P only have 1 unit when the first cyclone rolls by, and zealot/stalker/adept cannot contest it at this point.
Will batteries became a requirement for future games, or am I missing something?
If you only have 1 unit out by the time a cyclone finishes you are doing something very wrong.
If they keep the current opening and are able to defend against cyclones, they would indeed have to use stalker + shield batteries. Though maybe this patch will force protoss to do a different opening against terran. Overall this patch is a nerf to pro protoss.
Interesting take. Your idea to just test 1 change at a time and check win rates is the smartest I heard, ofc it require more time.
Thats literally just called testing, its an extremely common practice in all forms of software development. You make one change and then you test it.
@@TheSuperappelflapso that's what ptr should've been. instead of public test realm we have pubic testicles raw
The opening joke is freakin hilarious 🤣
at 4.5k NA, this patch doesnt address anyhting i care about: thor and bc's need to be nerfed - there's no counter to the ultimate terran lategame, even showtime says this "you just need to win before they get there". and lurkers still need a damage nerf. widowmines and mech isnt a problem at this level.
The next nerf to Zerg is that players will have to win 3 games in a row against Serral to unlock the race. Also, this is coming from the perspective of a long time viewer of competitive SC2, but I wanna see more interesting unit compositions and the bane nerf kinda seems like it will do the opposite considering zerg players now require more banelings to get meaningful damage done. Terran was treated like a king this patch and Protoss was just kinda swept under the rug in my opinion
Currently banes & ghosts are overused, so nerfing them can force different unit compositions. However all races have underused units that could use buffs and while the cyclone buff is cool, cyclone wasn't one of these units.
They significantly nerfed ghosts. And the cyclone isn’t really even doing that well. That’s a gross exaggeration for the Terran patch. Also protoss got some nice things like the tempest acceleration increase which I didn’t think was that helpful until I tried it.
@wischmopps293 Also Zerg is doing really great at a pro level. Virtually always has been, I don’t see why it would need a buff.
@wischmopps293 they also reverted the only meaningful buff, it's combining hydra upgrades into one. i honestly never had a doubt that it will be that way. )
@@berndarndt9924incompetently nerfing banes and ghosts will not force new compositions. It'll just make players produce more banes/ghosts. Let's face it, there's no adequate replacement for these units. They take a niche all its own
- Change landed Viking damage AND bonus mech damage to benefit from both Vehicle Weapons AND Ship Weapons upgrades.
* End-game DPS increased to 25.36 (from 21.13) (20% increase)
* End-game bonus DPS vs. mech increased to 19.76 (from 15.53) (27% increase)
Context: In ground-centric mech builds where air upgrades are unlikely, this allows landed Vikings to join the army throughout the game. Landed Vikings also become 20% stronger in the end-game (23% vs mechanical).
I wonder why Viking gets ignored as an anti-mech option when it was already the unit with anti-mechanical damage. Why not try something like the above instead of trying to make Cyclones anti-mech? Everything about the Cyclone's theme suggests it's anti-air. This change doesn't seem to support mech compositions as much as create a new cyclone-only composition, making ACTUAL mech even less likely.
Thanks for all the hard work Captain. Hope the feedback isn't too negative on this one until we actually see the results. Looking forward to playing/watching regardless of cyclone (4.3k protoss).
He does need to get trashed a little for not addressing that the widow mine STILL doesn't get nerfed. It deserves that nerf so bad and it NEVER happens. And I'm not talking about burrow time. We don't give a shit about burrow time. Change the unit so it can NEVER wipe an entire mineral line, so that even a good hit only kills 3 workers, and change it so that 1 hit doesn't kill a full stalker or zealot. In fact, remove the shield bonus and just buff the overall damage instead. Let EVERY race struggle with this little fucker, and not just Protoss.
Making a commitment to visit a Bed bath & beyond to prepare to bath in Zerg & Terran tears
4:10 Random player here, with terran as main/fave. I can attest to that. I quit playing around that time when toss would always proxygate. Havent played since.
Was diamond 1 across all races/random. Scratched lower masters a couple times
Random M3 gigachad
Protoss is utter garbage in team games now thanks to the cyclone. Add in any number of lings, and unless protoss has a super battery, they're just dead to cyclone ling.
oh exciting, are we now going to see some IIIODIS games that end in "it is imba"?
Why is the mothership still abductable? for a unit where you can only make 1 of at any given point in time (especially when it's cloaked and is the only visible and attackable unit), getting abducted is too hard of a counter...wish we could get the old mothership back but with cd's and not energy and not be abductable to make it feel powerful when its out but by no means a requirement - more of either a comeback or win-more unit but not baseline. It's also supposed to be the largest unit in the game (larger than Ultras) so it being abductable by the Viper is stupid. Also allow Ultras to move over (like Colossus) its own smaller units like lings and roaches so that it has more impact in swarm style groups with a mix of units instead of derping around singular little zerglings
Why you got the game running in the background? LOL I'm so used to hearing that idle sound I couldn't not notice. Thanks for the input on the new changes
I've seen a few high level ZvT on the new patch and it didn't seem like the bane health reduction was very noticeable. Like you said it is hard to tell exactly what the effect is but the fights looked the same as prepatch. Its not like all banes were dying and none connected. For me ghost need a health reduction, the fact it takes 7 banes (I think) to kill a ghost is crazy.
The new cyclone is quite easy for me to use as a diamond player and I think there are some good counters each race could use like
Terran: just make tanks/rauder concussive
Zerg: Get infestors for fungal since they clump in choke points/ling surround
Toss: get immortal shield battery and blink stalkers maybe oracle stasis traps
Just my thoughts
Captain, I really enjoyed hearing that you belive one of the most interesting/fun things in the game is coming up with new strategies in response to big changes, as I couldn't agree more. I haven't played enough recently to comment on the Cyclone changes, but my personal opinion is that the baneling nerf goes a little bit too far. I don't know why they couldn't have just reduced the health granted by the upgrade instead of removing it completely, but this is probably only because I am partial to Zerg lol.
I’m just glad they added multiplayer maps. 🎉🎉🎉
There are all ins against protoss that require such precise defense that nobody talks about, yet we all talk about protoss all ins being hard to stop (void ray during that the time harstem mentioned). Proxy marauder is one. Proxy hatch with ravager/spine crawler. Some ravager all ins. These are all super reliant on the battery and building placement. Then theres the widow mine drop which wins games by dropping a unit out of a medivac. I've seens pros lose to it. Why is it that protoss doesn't get a pardon for defenses that require way more skill than the attack they are defending. I don't find widow mine drops particularly fun to watch just like I didn't find the void ray all in fun to watch. I don't understand how these things are fun to watch and we all know they definitely aren't fun to play against.
hatch spine crowler literally needs a scout and five probes to stop and even then could be shut down with good micro if you messed up the ential stages.
Cannon rushes and proxy gates against zergs literally required them to not only have full vision a head of time but perfect queen micro unit production queen placement and even if they succeded in stoping the push the protoss player would still often times be ahead and could just switch to playing a macro game after words with no problem.
A hatch spine crawler was an all in if it failed you lost game. most protess chesses arent even that despite being easier to execute.
that why proxy rushes could literally be played every game no worries on the protess side.
Proxy marauder is extremely easy to stop as protoss, you just need to realize that you're getting proxied from the CC timing or get a battery in case it's a highground wall. The difficult part is only if someone skips the orbital to mindgame, but that is very uncommon below the highest level. Proxy hatch with ravager/spine crawler is not a build, it's a vague description that describes many different builds. Ravager allins are also just ot good.
Professional protoss players very rarely lose a lot of probes to minedrops, it happens but it's like 1 in 50 games if not less. And it's not like it isn't an issue on lower level, it's just really hard to do anything to prevent that without causing a balance issue as the mine is so important for terran.
Overall, it seems like you vastly underestimate how strong proxy voidray was and vastly overestimate the difficulty of defending the builds you mentioned. The only real example is the proxy hatch build that Fjant used to beat Showtime with, which was invented by Lorimbo.
lol this coming from the race that can win games by rushing marines. How are the Protoss win rates doing? If they are “so hard to defend against” why are Protoss the least popular race to play?
@@somethingsomethingsomethingdar protoss isn't the least popular race to play. it's just the weakest race overall. Protoss is quite fun for a large amount of the playerbase.
Is the canon / spine crawler damage the same? If so, okay fine but if not, they should be equally capable of handling widow mine drops.
My opinion is that changes are great just like the Captain said. As long as there is resources enough to respond to imbalances I think having crazy changes like the cyclone going through is great. Have the ladder be crazy for 3 weeks and then respond to it if necessary
Banelings will get mass wrecked by Siege Tanks + Marines. Before, they get hit and splash dmg, by the time they get close to Marines, they were already nearly dead. Now they'd be dead, or 1 shot from Marines will kill them.
This also makes Byun's heavy Marine kiting style much more effective, Stim Marines, stutter step and melt Banelings.
Cyclones now are very strong vs Protoss, especially early game rushes building 2 at a time, they melt Stalkers, and can kite other Gateway units easily. Even Immortals, due to no cooldown on Lock On.
This patch nerf Ghosts which was required, but buffs Terran in other ways.
Well, it's logical to buff other units when you nerf the most important terran mid/lategame unit. It only looks bad because the other races similar nice buffs.
I glazed through the whole thing because the pokemon silver and gameboy opening speech felt like some childhood horror story returned to terrorize me as an adult...
Time for a partial patch revert! Those two changes suck. Robbing the zerg of two important ground aoe tools against bio seems really silly to me.
we still don't have a terran 100% winrate so... keep patching it
@@sakesauruskek
I for one hope new cyclone survives even if changed in next patch.
As long as it stays on reactor it is good chance, but it obviously should not be too strong.
As for baneling it may just have to be reversed. We will see couple weeks into new patch
As a StarCraft Terran I am going to make a prediction, and also give my thoughts on how our courageous captain might deal with the cyclone all in.. Cyclones will be able to run away from most units, and a critical mass will be able to quickly destroy units like void rays and immortals but as a Terran the composition I most fear out of Protoss to defend against this in the very early game is Chargelots and Phoenix. The trick is to catch them as they move out. poke with a couple Zealots to use up the enemy cyclones burst attack, then swoop in with the phoenix in a second control group. The phoenix is one of the only units that can escape their range and since the Cyclone is designed to prioritize air units you should be able to bait them all right into the zealots for the win. What do you think captain? Is their a better defense? Oo
The balance council is trying to remove zerg and protoss from tournaments. That much has become obvious now.
I could be wrong, but I feel that terran has come out best in this patch, and they were already the most successful race in tournaments for the last year when you look at the top 8 and top 4
Terran is just a bad race. They’re boring, and all of their units are designed to be good at practically any situation. For Protoss and Zerg, what you make matters. If you make the wrong unit. You can get punished hard. Protoss air is pretty OP at non pro ranks, but if I make corrupters and manage to take out a bunch of carriers, it’s meaningful. So many of Terran’s units are cheap, and because of how quickly units die to them they’re units get way stronger the larger the army size, in a way that the other races don’t. The issue with Terran is they’re designed to be practically un-killable. Zerg is guaranteed to lose far more resources fighting them, even when they’re “winning”. This means that Zerg can pretty much only slightly get ahead, and it’s virtually impossible to trade efficiently without having absurd APM, and even then the pros still can’t be efficient.
If you know exactly what your opponent is doing, you should be able to punish it. You can in ZvP, but you can’t in ZvT, it pretty much always becomes a drawn out game with the map getting mined out unless they execute a flawless roach rush that has to land at a specific 10-20 seconds time to work. Zerg can’t even really harass Terran early on, but they made sure to give Terran drops, reapers, BC teleportation, Hellions that can wipe out entire mineral lines in less than 2 seconds. They have basically the best unit in the entire game, the marine, which is cheaper but good anti ground and air. Then they have the widow mine, a unit so badly designed that I know people who stopped playing the game against it, and I did for a while too. They don’t even need to scout or have detection. And if you go late game, they objectively have a better economy since they can mass mule and mine out a mineral line in about 60 seconds.
Then the ghost is great against everything, with a spell that hard counters late game units. Watching PvT, it feels similar. Terran can basically just make the same armies, and it’s always effective. Terran is a boring race that forces their opponents into making specific units that are the only thing that can even semi fight them, but then constantly complain that it’s unfair that a unit is even allowed to hurt them.
Terran is THE reason why SC2 never caught on more: their entire design is just anti fun.
@@ChimpSmithington-ef8sume: sees air toss
me: makes a few ultras and goes to kill their base
Honestly. When will they learn
Important patch notes question: Are you still friends with the guy who smeared poop on your Gameboy? Were you ever friends again after that?
Protoss winrates vs zerg and terran dropped significantly last patch in premier tournaments after the super battery and disruptor nerfs. So the baneling hp nerf may be a good thing for overall pro level balance
A couple professional protoss players retired/went to the korean military, that was much more impactful than any patch.
Banes got a pretty major nerf already with the dmg reduction, why not start with that and see if more is needed
@@mothrahlurker788they probably went to the military cause they would rather deal with martinets reprimanding them at every wrong move then deal with PvX matchup - exactly just that
Those super battery and disruptor nerfs were crazy. Especially the battery nerf which meant that toss couldn't defend vs 2 base terran pushes anymore.
having fun with this as a p1 t player so far. actually had to change my build order for the fist time in ages! tvz does feel MUCH easier but I've yet to get into ghost/ultra or ghost/brood battles. tvp is way more fun but i worry the cyclone is op in the metal/low diamond leagues. building 5 cyclones at a time out of 3 factories in the mid game feels wrong lol.
I agree with this statement. I would even say that the cyclone makes macro games on a lower level very frustrating to play especially in combination with widow mines. Im not sure about the bane nerf seems a bit much but i havent experienced it that much. Rest of the patch seems pretty good, the nine mappool is extremly nice
The correct patch - widow mines do 36 damage splash, no single target bonus. ghosts cost 3 supply and have less hp. Mothership costs 0 supply. VR cheaper, Storm buff. Orbital rework - mostly just make it so orbital spells don't stack.
HAHAHAHA man that first 50secs intro was hilarious!!!! 😂😂😂
They announced that the new patch is available since the 28th of September.
I just played a few games and we have the same patch 5.0.11 and the same maps.
Am I missing something?
Thank you
Lol I was playing TvT last night and tried to interference matrix the enemy tanks. I was screaming
I’m an average D2/3 Zerg and this is the first patch that’s actually scared me. I already lose to mass cyclone and standard Terran all ins regularly, but am 50/50 in longer macro games. Vs toss I play ling bane muta because I just find it fun, and that’s also straight up getting a nerf.
I’ve had a good time playing toss in the past, I think I might just switch race to them.
Go for it dude. We welcome you into the kala. Think you might find things aren't as easy over here as it seems. The grass is alway greener on the other side though 👍
I am asking everyone, explain the widow mine buff while explaining the baneling HP and DAMAGE nerf......theres 0 reason the widow mine should be so unbalanced in its risk vs reward. Absolute joke that no one thought maybe the widow mine shouldnt be able to auto kill workers if banes fully upgraded cant while also having their survivability hit.
now with ridiculous terran buffs lets bring back warhounds
im going to repeat this to the end of time, the goal for ghost was to reduce the late game brokenness. but the snipe change only affected roaches (not a snipe target), zealots (also not a snipe target), and the ultra - in the completely unrealistic situation where the ultra has taken less than 10 damage in its role as a frontline tanking unit. in other words, the snipe change only made certain cheeses weaker but did not actually change lategame power.
meanwhile the zerg units intended to fight the ghost: infestors, banelings, even broodlings and lurkers if you count those, all got weaker. so the ghost was literally buffed for the late game, the exact opposite of the goal. And just like the baneling interaction, you cannot actually confirm this without a large number of games. In fact, it's worse, because it's harder to practice the specific ghost / tier 3 late game scenario, meaning that it could be broken for a very long time without anyone being practiced enough to find it.
to my mind to actually reduce ghost late game power you need to affect not the _damage_ of snipe, but the timing. changing energy refunding, snipe target time, what effects count as cancelling (abduct, blinding cloud, eg), or the amount of energy needed to snipe. And how hard it is to kill ghosts / their relative power as a specialist caster should be called into question. Ghosts should have an armor class or otherwise be even less viable for straight up fighting.
Yeah the Ghosts are simply way too good at everything, hp, armor, auto attack damage, invisibility. And they require the same amount of supply as a roach, so you can easily run around with 30 ghosts in the lategame and still have a massive army besides them
Great video, and completely agreed.
In that patch era, I remember harstem vs maru. Harstem did very well but blew two attempted proxy stargates for 2 losses and lost 3-2 in the best of five.
I don't think zerg will be too bad in the current patch. The baneling nerf might be a bit too strong in TvZ, but anything that changes the stale meta of zerg just barricading themselves on ever increasing amount of bases and 90-100 workers and just braindead sending waves and waves of hundreds of banes and lings on the terran and eventually breaking the defenses, is great. Zerg still has a ton of other busted tools, ravagers negate a lot of siege units like tanks and liberators, mutas are an absolute pain in the ass to defend against, lurkers will still shred bio armies without ghost support, both spellcasters, viper and infestor and their overpowered spells have barely been touched by this patch. Infestors are actually immediately usable now after being produced, which is a buff, less damage on consume of vipers is also a buff, it just means a single building will provide 33% more recharges.
But if I am wrong, and the rest of the year will just be TvP on the top tournament spots, that's fine by me. I am tired of zergs winning everything, and the same people being always on top.
Zergs never won anything. Serral and Reynor won a lot because they are unbelieveable skilled. Below that terran nearly won everything on Pro-Level. And in the range of 3-5k mmr a zerg has to be 500mmr better to beat a terran. Unfortunately Blizzard does not care about low level balance. So the terran abuse will go on and on forever.
@@melhute.4715 yeah exactly. i played in 3700 range, quit and quite happy now. can just root for serral occasionally. Id say serral will be not too bad in this patch. But he's not too bad in any patch no matter how badly they cripple zerg. lol, like realistically. before the final blizzard patch. zerg race was like 30% stronger than now. queen range +1, queens transfuse off creep, creep spreads faster, broodlord infestor are scary and really punish turtle play. etc etc
Dude mech is for us the casuals. Cmon, mech is just crazy fun and this cyclones sound game changing.
I always think of balance patches as intergalactic wide upgrades reflected as stats as scientists desperately try to gain an advantage against the opponents. As one side increases everyone increases a counter or whatever and as units are phased in out or added it just means innovation occurred.
The cyclone scientists at blizzard put in some overtime and asked a magic 8 ball for answers.
It helps take the emotions out of the patches and makes the game more alive lol
Hey @Harstem,
What's your opinion on the cyclone and raven changes in TvT? I'm worried this matchup at my mid-diamond level will now see a lot of bc rushes..
With raven's interference matrix delayed and cyclone lock-on range reduced I'm afraid those will be harder to stop.
I wish the puff for protos was intended for high-level players and nerfed for lower players as it could adjust the imbalance in races played.
My feeling is that this is alot about building trust between "the game" (in council) and the community, which has failed. After much of the talk about patches being experiments including content creators such as harstem reinforcing this message. The patch going through as a whole, with only minor tweaks isn't inline with that message and broke the (albeit kinda small) amount of trust that emerged from the community.
Other strategies, e.g. a staged roll-out of the exact same changes would likely maintained and even fostered that trust.
With the use of the term experiment, there's an implication of review and some kind of results and decision making reporting would have been keeping in line with that messaging and beneficial. Especially some form of FAQ around how decisions were made on the more controversial topics.
At the top level pros will mostly be able to deal with the Cyclone, or the Baneling or the proxy crap. This will severely impact the lower levels and we will see a decrease in player-base. No matter how many pros plays, the little guys are the people that keep the game alive. The changes hurt the lower levels, thus are HARMFUL to the game. The new cyclone cant match role as a defensive unit to the previous one, AND its overall design right now favors rush, cheese and massing.
in TvP Combination with the new Airtoss changes will most definitely see a rise in hard contains (proxy Voidray, Tempest and their insane movement now with Batteries and Cannons) and Blink Stalker All-ins in TvP. As you already said, as long as Protoss exerts even a little preasure on the Terran, the Cyclone becomes nonviable.
TvZ will further enable problem of Zerg sitting and responding to whatever Terran does, now with less map control, less vision, less scouting and less power potential. I expect a lot of less thinking coming from Terran and a lot more stress from Zerg to try to work around the Hellion-Cyclone combinations. Bio will be unstoppable with the Baneling and Lurker nerfs.
TvT we will have a large increase in Cloaked Banshee and Battlecruiser rushes, because their best and most reliable counter has been nullified. Not a problem at top level, but lower ones will struggle, AGAIN. We might also see Cyclone drops, the auto-attack that deals bonus damage to Mechanical units will deal huge damage to Terran mineral lines, which can be sustained a long time with their easy micro and rapidly evacuated with a Medivac.
PvZ will also be impacted greatly. The nerfed Infestor has a chance of becoming unreliable with its decreased Fungal range, High Templar's Feedback greatly outranges them. The nerfed Banelings I don''t mind really much, but the Disruptor's nerf will cause a lot more Roach Ravager play. Roach Ravager is already strong enough.
Other notable mentions:
Widow mine need NO buffs.
The Viper needs NO buffs.
Mothership is still not worth it.
Ghosts only started getting used after the EMP upgrade a couple years ago, now they are weaker in both Snipe and EMP against buffed Ultras, Broodlords, Hydras.
This patch is probably the most destructive one we have gotten in a long time. It is bad for all levels of MMR. I know that SC2 becomes stale after a long period without a patch, but it is insane to push through a patch with some many untested interactions, community disapproval and with barely any changes to the previously announced one. If you want to change "niche and overspecialized" units here are a couple that are a MUCH better choice than the Cyclone - Reaper, Banshee, Adept, Colossus, Voidray (kinda pushing it but generally bad), Swarmhost.
yay for swam host buff. I really want get them back.
I feel betrayed…our captain saying the Zerg should not be nerfed into the ground they like to hide in so much. I just want one change, lurkers should do friendly fire, Zerg can make them for free for all I care, I’d just like them to have some actual disadvantage. They are literally a cross between a tank and a DT, and can still put DPS a tank!
I mostly agree with you. except I rather not have any patch than a patch with these 2 changes.
the cyclone and baneling change are likely very impactful and were not tested enough particularly at low-level (below 6k). and we know that blizzard will not react in a timely manner if thing are broken. so we are basically taking the risk to have unplayable ladder for a month. I think its a crazy risk to take.
So which protoss(es) on the imbalance Council should we execute and where is Judicator Aldaris when we need him?
I agree with your ending comment about RTSs needing a trickle of changes to drive new strategies and keep things fresh. As long as they don't move old units to legacy and make you pay to buy the new unit pavk every season, I'd enjoy seeing a aregular shakeup. That takes a lot of work and development that isnt available though so Ill just enjoy balance patches.
@@TheBarcode11 yeah but there's layers to that. You should be able to build your mastery of game mechanics and understanding of strategy that carries forward through changes. Having a stable meta for years until everyone can master it is just describing a stagnant and dead game.
For me, being pushed to adapt and having a rotation of tools that drive new meta is a lot more entertaining than grinding the same thing for ages.
At the end of the day I'm willing to accept that it's a preference thing and there's going to be people who wouldn't enjoy that, but the alternative is not quintessential to RTS
@@StormgateShorts This is true for pros but not for a healthy pvp playerbase. Most people lose intrest in pvp games if they do not change over time. And without the casuals, games die.
This is a big mistake many games make and so the players leave and never come back.
THAT INTRO LMAO
ngl, it looks to me that they want to put off what's left of the player base and get them back into WoW. I'm not even kidding.
The health change to speed banelings is going to really hurt them in ZvT and ZvZ since it means it takes one less attack from a marine, ling or queen to kill them. Banelings in direct engagements didn't seem that problematic and were an interesting piece for both sides to micro around (and before anyone gets mad about mass banelings rolling into their army; if you opponent can afford to do that you already lost that game). This feels like a change aimed towards lower league players who don't micro their army and cross their fingers their units out DPS the incoming rolly-boys before they connect but at the same time shakes up the high level matchup where every little advantage (like killing with one less attack) matters.
Since the baneling is already such a binary unit (either it connects with at least 1hp and deals damage or it doesn't and it wastes 75/25) the 5hp nerf is going to mean a lot more banelings will pop before getting into the range to even connect with the outer radius of their splash damage. I wouldn't be surprised if this change gets reverted in an upcoming patch after everyone tries them out for a bit and realizes how much difference 5hp can make.
At least everyone can agree the damage nerf is good. No more queuing up +2 banes into your opponents third to collect an easy 20 worker kills.
if your opponet got to freely enter you base with a bane they could have done the same with a rouch zelot or marine.
this was an undeserved zerg neft meant for serral zerg as been weak below the literally top 2 zerg players for years now and its not getting any better.
wrg
I want to know who put out the Cyclone change. He seems like playing bio all days so that he thinks "core mech unit" is just "mech marine".
Plus I guess Equilibrium is not well-tested. Zerg get so much resource advantages here. I guess Protoss could just allin. And another map that has not been well tested - Terran could set tank to reach the natural from low ground, and 3rd base too.
I think my disappointment comes from a lot of what Winter said in his update video and it just overall big picture and bad update. If the patch was too focus on protoss and where they are, why is the biggest changes and total unit change for Terran? Protoss gets a few small "buffs" and also a nerf to its core unit? Why did we spend over a month trying to fix this issue and came out with Terran changes mostly. Not even saying this changes are broken or Op or gonna ruin the game, but I just don't understand at all what the "balance" council was doing and I don't think they hit their goal at all.
Please watch Harstem's previous videos on the patch, he explains this very well and why these changes are way better than what you're suggesting.
@@mothrahlurker788 I did. I didn’t see him once agree that the focus should be on the cyclone and Terran units.
Maybe that's why Serral has been doing roach builds recently...
I think that there's going to be some Diamond or Master league hero that's inadvertently playing a perfect blind counter to whatever crazy cyclone stuff is about to start happening all over the ladder and see their MMR go up while everyone else takes a beating for a bit.
I used to think in lategame ZvT the ghost was the most untouchable unit in the game and maybe they should be light units so if zerg somehow manages to penetrate terran formations some of the ghosts might actually die. Making it harder to engage the terran because the baneling was too heavily relied on wasn't a change I was expecting.
Beautiful captain!
Any advice on playing the new cyclone? I tried using it to hold stalker two base all-ins but I keep losing to toss anyway. (Diamond NA)
Cyclones and mines fuck ya. Terran rampage time. Widow MINES actually out range core RANGED units like Marines and roaches so this will be sweet. They even nurfed banelings and made it take more fungals to kill marines lmoa great time to be terran. This patch is to buff Protoss!!! Hell ya, nerf everything that hurts terran. Make 2 cyclones be able to take down a mother ship and do extra damage to mechanical LOL cant make this shit up. Nurf the disrupter, no more permanent invisibility from mothership haha. Im playin terran till next patch for sure!
Protoss just has no Brawler units except Zelots and archons, both other race army comps can be a clicked for decent efficiency. I thought they might lower damage on immortals but speed up attack so it could take on a hand full of light units, or make Collossi do a bit more damage against non-light units etc. but they nurfed the disrupter and took away permanent invisibility given by mothership which I've at least seen people hide corner bases with for a gimmic round where they just keep it in the corner enough to hide the nexus and probes so it might not get noticed. Now goons will be constantly crushed by rhine/rauder/cyclone mass armies worse than they did before. Shits gonna be rough.
And now the only race who can insta destroy mineral lines is terran haha. Except terran banes are invisible and re-usable and can be made two at a time, like the cylcone. Your armies late game with protoss will even be smaller now that they made disrupter cost more unit supply, and disrupter is kind of the only way to trade well against mass terran bio.
i think the main reason you don't see more terran mech is terran bio is just too darn good. buffing mech to the point it's competitive with bio would exacerbate the existing balance issues. instead they should tame stim a bit
Stim is not too strong, that is a crazy suggestion.
That's somewhat true for ladder play, but pro play shows that's not the case. Making bio as bad as mech (pre-patch) would just make Terran bad.
It kinda feels that zerg got too much nerfs. Beside Serral i think ZvT is pretty even right now, overall it seems like terrans have a bit better winrate. But the nerfs on the baneling, the buff on the cyclone and the nerf i think on the broodlord dont look quite fair.
I head the first 3 seconds of your video and hit the like button, thank you harstem, keep doing what you do best.
bruh just replace it with goliath
just bring goliath back. It worked pretty well
With bio it's practically the opposite: protoss has to be ahead or terran just wins