[Update] Star Craft 2

[RiZ3R!]

Hey everyone,

Each year, we take a step back to evaluate what improvements we could make to the game for a post-BlizzCon design patch. As we come closer and closer to stability with each passing year, for 2019, we’ll be focusing more on tweaks and refinements to existing units. Some themes in this year’s patch include:

Introducing new upgrades designed to gate the full power of certain units and improve late-game usage for others.
Strategically reducing ranges of key units and abilities to encourage greater interaction in late game.
Before we start, please bear in mind that this update contains many experimental changes that we’d like to try and test, and we’ll do our best at highlighting which ones we’re especially wary of.

TERRAN
Hellion/Hellbat
Infernal Pre-Igniter research cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100.
In the summer of 2011, the legendary SlayerS Terrans unleashed a revolutionary “Blue Flame Hellion” build upon hapless Zerg players around the world, and the balance team had no choice but to act, cutting the bonus provided by the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade in half. Since then, the upgrade has acted more as a time-gate to the Hellion/Hellbat’s mid-game combat power rather than a core upgrade for matchup-defining openers. As such, we’d like to reduce the cost of this upgrade to encourage earlier and more meaningful Hellion/Hellbat power spikes.

Thor
High Impact Payload damage decreased from 40 (+15 vs Massive) to 25 (+10 vs Massive).
High Impact Payload weapon cooldown decreased from 1.7 to 0.9.
A common complaint we’ve heard regarding the Thor is its ability to be controlled in late-game fights. Because the Thor’s anti-ground and anti-air attacks have such drastically different cooldowns, it can often feel unresponsive in these engagements. Thus, we’d like to try an experimental change that brings the High Impact Payload’s cooldown to the same as that of its anti-ground weapon, Thor’s Hammer. The primary purpose of this change is neither to increase nor decrease the Thor’s power, but rather to improve the responsiveness without hurting its fantasy. Of course, there are tradeoffs to this change; while this new Thor has lower burst damage, it will tend to overkill its targets less frequently. Because we view the lower burst damage to be slightly more impactful than the lower overkill potential, we’ll also be slightly raising the DPS of this weapon to start off.

Viking
Health increased from 135 to 150.
We’d like for the Viking to be a stronger counter to the units it’s intended to fight. After this change, Vikings will generally take additional shots to kill from Corruptors, Stalkers, and Tempests. Perhaps more importantly, it’ll be more resilient against area effects such as Fungal Growth, Parasitic Bomb, and Psionic Storm.

Some concerns we have for this change include the strength of individual Viking in the early game, the potency of timing pushes against Colossi in TvP, and its general power level in TvT. We’ll also be careful to evaluate how impactful this change will be considering other changes proposed, especially those involving the Infestor and Tempest.

Medivac
Moved the Rapid Re-Ignition System upgrade from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core.
In addition to reducing the Medivac's Ignite Afterburners cooldown by 5 seconds, this upgrade will also increase the Medivac's base movement speed from 3.5 to 4.13. However, this upgrade will not affect Medivac’s movement speed during the Ignite Afterburners effect.
In the past, our goals with various Medivac upgrades has always been two-fold: first, to introduce an upgrade that improves mid- or late-game multipronged Medivac harassment. And secondly, to ensure this upgrade does not greatly improve potentially game-ending doom drops.

Previous Medivac upgrades have seen little use as they were viewed as unimpactful and at an awkward position on the Terran tech tree. We’d like to start off by introducing this new, more visibly impactful upgrade on the Fusion Core, a building that often finds itself idling. We believe this could be a potentially powerful upgrade either researched in the late game or from Battlecruiser openers.

Liberator
Advanced Ballistics upgrade moved from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core.
Likewise, the transition to ranged Liberators can also be awkward and, in more than one matchup, lead to a period of inactivity on the Terran’s part. We’d like to try to smooth this transition by transplanting the upgrade to the Fusion Core, and we feel confident we can safely do so with the following change:

Advanced Ballistics upgrade now increases the range of Liberators in Defender Mode by 3, down from 4.
We’d like to reduce the range of a few key units and abilities, including fully upgraded Liberators, in order to promote more unit interaction in the late game. This range reduction is meant to be viewed as a package with the changes to Neural Parasite and the Tempest as they are two units/abilities that often interact with the Liberator.

Raven
Interference Matrix energy cost increased from 50 energy to 75 energy.
Interference Matrix duration increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds.
We believe the Raven is slightly too powerful in early-game TvT, leading to a low level of diversity in this matchup’s openers. As Interference Matrix is key to the Raven’s strength in TvT, we’d like to make some adjustments to divert its power from disabling Siege Tanks. As early-game TvT engagements are characterized by quick exchanges of Tank volleys, we believe an energy cost increase in favor of increased duration would constitute a bigger change in TvT than the other matchups.

Raven movement speed increased from 3.85 to 4.13.
We’d also like to place more of the Raven’s power into the unit's body. When the Raven was potentially lethal with previous iterations of Hunter-seeker missile and Anti-armor missile, the slower movement speed was a necessary counterbalance. Now that the Raven occupies more of a support role, we believe it’s no longer necessary to exercise such restraint, and a higher movement speed could allow it to be more useful at harassment and creep-clearing.

Our goals with these set of changes is to decrease the Raven’s early-game power in TvT while either maintaining or increasing its power in other matchups. If this set of changes fails to achieve either of these goals, we’ll be ready to make tweaks.

Battlecruiser
Tactical Jump now stuns and puts the Battlecruiser into a 1 second vulnerability phase before it teleports.
While we enjoy the increased Battlecruiser usage over the last year, we think it’s a bit too easy for them to escape unfavorable situations, so we’d like to make this change to encourage Battlecruiser players to think twice before committing their fleets into risky predicaments. After this change, Interference Matrix, Fungal Growth, and Abduct will be able to cancel Tactical Jump and put it on cooldown during the Battlecruiser’s vulnerability phase.

Tactical Jump cooldown increased from 71 seconds to 86 seconds.
An alternate potential change we’d like to try is simply to increase Tactical Jump’s cooldown, which would temper its ability to constantly harass and perform hit-and-run tactics on enemies, especially in the late game. When considering options to tweak the Battlecruiser, we’re interested in some combination of the above two changes, but perhaps not both.

Yamato Cannon will no longer cancel itself if a target enters a transport or becomes cloaked/burrowed. Instead, the Yamato Cannon will miss, and the ability will go on cooldown.
In addition, we’d like to introduce some counter-play options against Yamato Cannon.

Mule
Duration decreased from 64 seconds to 63 seconds.
After this change, Mules will still mine the same number of Minerals if left undisturbed. However, they will no longer expire while holding minerals from certain patches.

Mules now always attempt to spawn on the side of minerals closest to a town hall.
This general quality of life change also helps ensure undisturbed Mules always mine their maximum potential