Update (July 17): Definitive list of balance changes has been added to the blog.

We wanted to give you all an update on the specific changes we are planning for the next balance update. Little of this should come as a surprise for those of you who have been reading, giving feedback, and interacting with us on the weekly dev updates. Please remember that none of this is final, and we definitely want to hear your thoughts before and after you play with the changes once they go live to the beta.

General

• Siege tanks and Immortals will now track the nearest enemy while moving.
• Added mini-map icons for destructible rocks and destructible towers.
• Made improvements when controlling a large number of air units.

Protoss

• Disruptor
  • Cost reduced to 100/200.
  • Supply reduced to 3.
  • Purification Nova
    • Range reduced to 1.5.
    • After Purification Nova ends, the Disruptor is invulnerable for 3 seconds.
    • Speed when invulnerable increased to 4.25.
    • Can be picked up by Warp Prism during Purification Nova, canceling its effect.

Terran

• Vehicle and ship armor upgrades have been combined.
• Ghost
  • New Ability: Steady Targeting.
    • Deals 170 damage after channeling for 3 seconds.
    • Can be interrupted if Ghost is attacked.
    • Costs 50 energy.
• Liberator
  • Anti-Ground Mode no longer has to be researched; now only requires an Armory.
  • Switching back to Anti-Air mode duration reduced to 2 seconds.
  • Increased Anti-Ground range by 1.
  • Fixed issue allowing Liberators to fire into multiple AG zones.
• Raven
  • Auto turret
    • Damage increased to 16.
    • Duration decreased to 10 seconds.
  • Seeker missile cost increased to 125.
  • Durable materials upgrade removed.
  • New Upgrade: Explosive Shrapnel Shells.
    • Increases damage of Seeker Missile and Auto Turret by 30%.

Zerg

• Ravager
  • Range increased to 6.

REVIEW OF THE CHANGES

Addressed an issue with air unit separation when in larger numbers.

We made some changes to allow for smoother microing of larger numbers of air units.

Enabled Siege Tank/immortal turret tracking

Per community suggestion, we have made a change to the way Siege Tank and Immortal turrets behave when firing and moving in quick succession.

Added minimap icons for destructible rocks and towers

With the high rate at which maps rotate in and out of the ladder, we wanted to give some support in this area for Void. These were the two main things that were missing on the minimap, so we’ve added icons to indicate where the destructible units are on the map.

Added possible enemy spawn location support at the start of games

Some maps have special rules on enemy spawn locations. We wanted the game to easily point this out, because we will most likely continue to have special case rules on new maps going forward. At the start of the game for 10 seconds, you will be able to see the possible enemy start locations on the minimap.

Ghost new snipe ability – 170 damage after 3 seconds, but ability is cancelled if the ghost is hit. Targets bio only.

We’ve replaced the armor debuff drone ability with this version of Snipe, mainly due to your feedback regarding the fantasy of the Ghost lacking with the previous ability we tried. We wanted to capture the fantasy of Ghosts sneaking around or being positioned really well out of harms way in order to deal massive single target damage. This new ability works a bit differently from most abilities in that you can’t just run away to cancel the ability. Instead, you must interrupt the Ghost’s set up time by dealing damage to the Ghost. The reason we wanted to try this route was to have some interaction between both players instead of Snipe being an ability that only one player is involved in.

Disruptor Changes

Our main goal here was to reduce the maximum impact of the current Disruptor so that each shot is not so game ending, and also to increase the minimum impact per shot of Disruptors so that each shot is a bit more reliable. We also wanted to make Disruptors less of a suicide unit, and turn them into more of a unit where the Protoss player has to add up a bunch of smaller wins in order to be successful with them.

In order to do so, we’ve significantly lowered the radius that the Disruptors hit, increased its speed to make each shot a bit easier to hit at least some units, and increased its survivability. Please remember that the balance might not quite be there yet, but we mainly wanted to get a wider playtesting with this unit in order to better tune it throughout the beta.

Raven changes + Raven upgrade changes

The main goal here was to reduce the potential stalemate scenarios with Ravens in the future, and to have Ravens see a bit more play. With the much higher damage of auto turrets, they would be much stronger in a specific combat situation rather than being persistent forces on the map. And with the new Raven upgrade, our hope is to have more strategies where the one time usage of spells in specific situations could be stronger. At the same time, we hope to nerf the mass Raven case mostly through the auto turret duration change and the Seeker missile cost change.

Combined mech armor upgrades

We felt the complete split in upgrade was too much of a nerf in terms of mech play, and wanted to go back a little bit. We chose to combine only the armor upgrades so that it helps full mech strategies out a bit more so than bio play supported by mech. We felt bio play supported by mech often times only get weapon upgrades on mech units, so by doing this, that type of play style will still need to research 2 different weapon upgrades if they want to utilize units from both the factory and starport.

Ravager range increase from 4 to 6

This change is to help Ravagers stay behind Roaches better and focus on firing its ability. We felt Ravagers could use a bit more help, and this change popularly suggested by our community was a solid direction when we tested it out internally.

Liberator changes

We wanted to make the anti-ground role of the Liberator a bit more core to the unit, so we reduced the requirement to mode switch to just an Armory requirement. We also wanted to try reducing the time required to switch back to mobile form in order to have Liberators run away a bit easier. This should help allow the anti-ground mode to be used a bit more aggressively around the map.

We also fixed a bug that was occurring with the Liberator that caused it to shoot further than its indicator whenever there were overlapping indicators. This unintentionally ended up nerfing the Liberator, so we increased the radius which is actually a buff in the overall case, and about the same effectiveness in the overlapping area.

These changes will be coming to the beta very soon. Thank you for continuing to help test various ideas and changes throughout the beta, and we’re looking forward to hearing what you have to say about these specific topics. Thank you.