Situation Report: Patch 1.1 and Beyond
Greetings, citizens of the Koprulu sector! StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is celebrating its one-month anniversary and we’re extremely excited to witness the amazing community that’s come together around the game. To that end, we want you to know we are hard at work on the first feature and balance patch, and expect to have it completed and available by the middle of September. Patch 1.1 will contain a number of improvements including additional mod features, Editor improvements and bug fixes, some custom game improvements, support for NVIDIA’s 3D Vision, and more. We'd also like to share some specific plans for this patch with you.
To begin, we've heard a lot of feedback from our global community about standardized hotkey options. We're happy to announce that in patch 1.1 we are going to make the Standard (US) and Standard for Lefties (US) hotkey options available in all regions.
Balance Changes
We have several balance changes in store. One general change we're making is that friendly units will no longer provide vision after being killed. Enemy units previously revealed will no longer be targetable. Now let's break down the additional balance changes we're implementing.
Maps
We're going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.
Protoss
We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby "proxy" gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.
Terran
There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.
Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we're changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.
Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We're aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.
Zerg
Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.
And Beyond...
We are reading your posts on the forums and creating lists of features and bugs to address in future patches. We have mid- to long-term plans to further evolve the Custom Game experience, and soon, enhance our social features with the addition of chat channels. We will be sharing more specific information in the coming weeks. As with all of our previous games, we will support StarCraft II for many years to come. Your feedback and participation is critical in making this not only the best game it can be, but also the most engaged gaming community in the world. We look forward to the implementation of patch 1.1, as well as sharing our plans for our future gameplay and Battle.net features.
We'll see you online!
Comments (2,877)
Zealots and reapers are both fast rush units and got nerffed but zerg didn't get that love. I would rather see all these extra fast rush units be removed.
Also where are zerg harassment buffs? where is hydra tuning ?(yes its too weak for its cost, compare all the stats to stalker) where is mothership buff? where is marauder gas cost increase? where is concusive shells reaserch time aswell as cost increase? where is cd on concussive shells ? where is nerf for the EMP? where is salvage nerf? (there is no decision for terran w/e he wants to lose money on STATIC defense or not, its just temporary investment unlike for zerg or protoss)
where are interesting abilities for zerg units like hydra or mutalisk? its boring to have speed/range/armor upgrade for every unit... especially when hydra range upgrade only matches hydras with stalkers when it comes to range, while stalkers get sexy ability called blink. Remove most of passive upgrades for zerg and introduce some interesting upgrades please. Also you could merge zerg melee and ranged attack upgrades (like protoss have for all ground units) and add another 1 increasing regeneration rate of ALL zerg units.(would be like zerg version of plasma shield)
ps. why the hell this post box is so freakishly small -_-
Looking forward the most to chat channels !
Thx, Blizzard. Hate u.
my game tells me that i have porblem with my internet connection BUT i have no problem with it>;( what should I do????
It's not that I mind the change, but the reasoning comes to me as downright bizarre.
I agree w all the changes but zealot building time increases?? This will make it an auto loss for Protoss in ZvP matchups if the Zerg 6 pool. And seeing cheese as the current trend, I have no doubt this change will put the balance scale further from balanced.
Do you sincerely agree with the siege tank damage reduction ? Do you realize that a siege tank shot wouldn't even kill a single +1 armored zergling now ? Does that make any sense ? Compared to that the zealot nerf seems pretty unsignificant, even though I'm protoss like you.
GJ Blizzard.
I'm very disappointed! :[
Increasing Zealot production time and leaving it same for Zergling will make suffer Protoss players against Zerg players. This way, Protoss players have to loose their time and minerals for producing Photon Cannon in the beginning of the game...
Should make defending against those rather interesting.
As many people already pointed out, protoss players will be far more susceptible to early rushes and it will also be quite a bit harder to prevent a zerg from getting an early running expansion.
I think a zealot rush can be scouted in time, I've lost quite some times against as well against it, but with a proper build order you can scout it and react in time. Therefore an unnecessary change in my opinion.
Protoss players can play around the warpgate nerf by making more gateways, but I think this change was not needed.
As for battle cruisers. I've seen my hydralisks getting %@*%d by BCs as well, so it is true that BCs are excellent versus them, but corruptors work much better and as a zerg, you get a spire anyways. Therefore I think, if you don't scout BCs , which are slow and take a long time to get and don't get corruptors, then you deserve to lose.
Siege tank change is good, although there is a risk that speedlings+banelings becomes too strong against terran, since the natural counter, hellions also get %@*%d by speedlings + banelings unless properly microed.
Reapers, like the change, since their functionality remains as it is.
For ultralisks a nerf was needed as they chopped through armies in a blink. I liked the ram attack, not damage wise, but it just looked nice ;)
Why not increase the damage of the ram attack instead removing it completely?
If they use their normal attack against buildings, they will destroy a bunch of supply depots very very quickly.