Remove all mineral lines except first and second base. Artosis winrate 90%

I wish map fog of war worked like SC2. That way new players who aren’t familiar with a map’s layout could see it on the map. This is a change that helps new players without affecting seasoned players or the pro scene.

Gateways should have an animation to indicate units in production and zerg buildings should have animations for research as well

My favorite thing is that everything for Terran was a buff but the other races immediately started getting nerfs lol.

boxer once used optical flare in tvp to blind observers so the carriers could be murdered by cloaked wraiths. was kinda cute

Blizzard to Arty: unfortunately, we cannot implement most of your suggestions. Except, the plasma and scout bluff look good, we will put them on the next patch coming next month.

The defiler is the only thing saving zerg in ZvT so nerfing them without a correspondingly strong buff would ruin the matchup. This is the most terran centric changes, no changes to fix ZvZ, no terran nerfs ...

I’m kinda disappointed you didn’t talk about spire tech in particular greater spire tech. The devourer and guardian are these cool end game air units for zerg but the most we see of them is niche all ins or timings using leftover mutas that such thanks to marines/science vessels. Even then these moves seem to equate to the Zerg just throwing more away than they get out of the attack or more often outright losing the match. I look at Protoss and I can see strong use cases for every unit but maybe the scout. While maybe half of zergs arsenal is entirely situational. You want to nerf defilers fine. How about making it so irradiate doesn’t damage guardians/devourers meaning you need to make units to actually fight them. Zerg have 18 units listed on the wiki, 4 are eggs larvae and cacoons (arguably lurker eggs are an important unit but yeah), then we have broodlings and infested Terran - 6 out of 18 units aren’t even units. Now then there’s the overlord which is also a unit but it doubles as main detector, supply, and transport. For the remaining 12 - queens, devourers, and guardians see next to no play. The overlord and drone are basic parts of the race. Which leaves less than half the roster that’s used regularly. The Zerg has 7 units used with any meaningful frequency in pro play. You wanna talk about underused units on the Protoss and Terran roster but you didn’t touch the fact that a full quarter of zergs roster and all of greater spire tech are worthless.

I believe adding options for Zerg to take on Mutalisks would be a great way to diversify the ZvZ matchup. Maybe somehow give Hydralisks extra damage to Mutalisks or Spore Colonies a tiny AoE as a way to counter them so we can actually get games that are more than just Muta vs Muta and end so quickly.

Just a thing about scouts, they take WAY too long to build too.

In all honesty, making scouts/queens/ghosts/infected terrans/guardians/devourers more playable would not be so bad, as these units are very rarely used in the games I've seen.

I can kind of get behind the swarm Nerf, but without the energy from consume zerg would never be able to survive Terran push with vessels. Irradiation would need a Nerf to compensate. Maybe plus 25 or 50 energy. Edit: If I could have one change...change spore to do AOE against bio, or buff damage against bio. Maybe we could see late game ZVZ for once.

For reference, 1998-Mar-31 - StarCraft first release 1998-Apr-23 - StarCraft patch 1.01 (bug fixes) 1998-Aug-24 - StarCraft patch 1.02 (bug fixes & first balance patch: hatch 350 → 300 minerals, photon cannons explosive → normal damage, flying units no longer get cover from terrain) 1998-Oct-14 - StarCraft patch 1.03 (bug fixes & new content) 1998-Dec-17 - StarCraft patch 1.04 (first major patch, compatibility with Brood War, lots of new content) 1998-Dec-18 - StarCraft: Brood War first release 1999-May-15 - StarCraft patch 1.05 (major balance patch & bug fixes) 1999-Sep-30 - StarCraft patch 1.06 (major balance patch & bug fixes) 1999-Nov-02 - StarCraft patch 1.07 (Korean tournament support and minor bug fixes) 2001-May-18 - StarCraft patch 1.08 (major balance patch & bug fixes & new content) ... skip a few irrelevant patches ... 2005-Feb-06 - StarCraft patch 1.12 (major ladder change: fast → fastest speed, Korean language support, new features, bug fixes) ... skip some more ... 2017-Mar-26 - StarCraft patch 1.18.0 PTR (confirming Remastered, making the game free, many small changes) 2017-Mar-30 - StarCraft patch 1.18.0 PTRA (last significant balance change: valkyries now fire as intended) ... skip some more ... 2022-Sep-07 - StarCraft patch 1.23.10 (most recent patch released, updating the ladder map pool. So apart from map changes and minor bug fixes, the last chat with any significant balance implications was patch 1.18.0 PTRA in 2017. If we exclude that patch, since its balance implications were the incidental result of fixing a bug, then the last deliberate balnace patch was in May of 2001. There were 26 separate balance changes. Some notable ones were increasing valkyrie damage from 5 to 6 (among other buffs), increasing the carrier supply cost from 4 to 6, slightly buffing zealot defense (80 hp/80 shields to 100 hp/60 shields), and by far most importantly, increasing the cost of the spawning pool from 150 to 200 minerals. TL;DR: Except for Remastered, the last big balance change was in spring of 2001.

I love how unintentionally Terran favored these changes are 😂

Here's a crazy idea I was thinking about. What if scouts had detection like observers? Keep the cost and everything else the same. I wonder if that would make them viable as an alternative to the observer that is more expensive but doesn't die instantly in a fight.

Funny how artosis would actually destroy TvZ balance completely with his balance patch making terran just super favored

This was great! Going into this I did not expect to hear such creative ideas

Plague -> limit of 200 damage + units already plagued are immune to a subsequent plague until the first plague instance wears off. Still effective against most units that it should be effective against, but not so busted vs high health units like Carriers, Battlecruisers, and Ultras.

Scouts need to cost 25m/25g and need to build as fast as scarabs. Also, their ground attack should be the same as their air attack. That would make Scouts at least C tier

Few things missing: vulture nerf. Vulture is most op unit in the game and needs nerf ZvT is always dealing with a terran bio bust. Muta harass holds it off and dark swarm holds it off. Nerf those and every TvZ player just goes SK Terran and wins with push. If you nerf muta (directly or by proxy by buffing turrets) or dark swarm you need to nerf terran too

For Ghosts, I'm actually fine with concussive damage. I actually think that the Academy should unlock ghosts, and the upgrades are left in covert ops. 50 gas cost would also help. Concussive damage actually murders mutas, lings, and shields so early game Ghosts would help Terran a ton. Lowering time to get ocular implants is spot on.

some really good ideas here, but it's obvious that he's Terran-biased. Also would have been nice to hear about non-balance changes to the game's engine / design that would make it less clunky and more UX-friendly.

Love these suggestions!! We should have the pros conglomerate and consider brood wars first ever balance update in 20+ years! I think it could revitalize the community and bring so many people back!

Would be fun to make a custom map with these altered values and gather playerdata to see if they're liked or not.

The consume rework seems bad. Yeah the Zerg player will have already made defilers, but irradiate is already pretty good vs them. Throw in whatever buff you are giving EMP (unless you just make recall not have the cast point) and Zerg is looking rough. Terran typically has map control in this matchup. Drop ships + irradiate and you’re just not getting enough out of your defilers. None of the matchups are worse than 60-40. If you start needing zergs best unit into oblivion, we would see it. If you must nerf defilers, a buff to science vessels makes more sense. The attrition aspect of ZvT is neat. A science vessel buff would make more sense. I don’t eat nearly as much Terran salt as you though. TvP is really bad on some maps like fighting spirit, but that’s mostly blatantly bad map design. Or bad placement of ledges for things like missile turrets vs mutalisk.

buff terran, nerf toss and zerg. sounds good.

correct if im wrong - ZvT doenst favor zerg as far as win rates in competitive play so if both both early and late game ZvT are nerfed (much better terran turrents and weaker defilers) thats going to make ZVT unplayable. yes defilers and mutas are op, but zerg needs them vs terran. just like how irradiate is op but terran needs it vs zerg. if both mutas and defilers are nerfed, then irradiate should get a nerf too. like 75->100 energy or something i mean theres a reason that the outcome of TvZ past mid game is purely decided on the vessel count. there is no zerg counter play to vessels other than out expanding and replacing units that they lose for free after all SC1 is op units countering op units.

After giving it a lot of thought, Artosis has arrived at the conclusion that he wants "some sort of fix here" to EMP versus Arbiters.

Looks like a wish list for Santa

There are some truths in your reasoning but I only see buffs for the race that historically has won the most and nerfs for the other races.

Agreed with many of those points. Solid patch. I'd personally look at a small bump in the price of Vultures (+10-15 minerals), because they're ridiculously cost effective; and maybe a tiny reduction in the attack rate of cracklings, because they're a joke. But fixing awful units would be a priority, definitely - scouts, infested Terrans, ghosts, etc.

Don't let modern Blizzard touch the balance. It will be a neverending nightmare. There is something very cool about an untouched classic game that remains the same forever.

To me, if I could change anything, I'd like to see the queen be more useful. I think a flat RoF debuff with Ensnare instead of a case-by-case thing would be nice, and maybe make broodling at most cost 125 energy. I guess making parasite cheaper, like 25 energy, could be nice but idk

Would those changes not just make arbiter recall literally never happen ever again for the rest of time? They already need to suicide mission into turret fields just to get the recall off in time, and still have to play very sneakily to dodge emp (even with how bad you say emp is). Your proposed changes would never balance that interaction, they would just remove one of the most interesting parts of the entire matchup. If recall wasn't as good as it is right now, protoss would never win against Terran because removing the recall means removing the threat of recall too, so Terran can cut more corners and tank push faster without worrying about a backstab (since this would also massively nerf shuttle drops). But I get the fact that these are just fun ideas. The whole point of Broodwar is that EVERYTHING is broken and it's fun to watch them all clash together in creative ways. It encourages risky play that has a real weight behind the risk. And I think that's awesome. :-)

I think dark swarm would be more reasonable if it reduced all range to 1 while in it and you cant shoot into it.

I think removing the group-wide indicator for Queen vision would be supremely nice. Still visible upon individual targeting and obviously you'd see it happen in a fight. Because Zerg could use more vision imho as silly as that sounds.

+2 armour on zealots don't really help becuase plague leaves them all on 1 hp anyways. But this could make zealots really strong vs hydras and lings lategame so zealot runbys could be better against under-defended zerg bases but it doesn't change the core problem. Ideas to help lategame pvz to actually deal with the defiler could be: -shields are too expensive. they cost about 50 percent more than armour and only really good on archons. also protoss units default have 1 armour on their heath and 0 armour on shields as artosis mentioned. - an extra attack upgrade for zealots so that they two shot lings instead of 3 and kill maxed out hydras more efficiently. - May be better just to have a super expensive lategame upgrade that allows for zealots or protoss units to be unaffected (all protoss units unaffected may be overkill or not, really needs testing) by plague because super lategame zerg cracklings and lurkers trade super well vs zealots anyways with full upgrades even without plague and protoss needs to spend more on upgrades than zerg for shields for units that trade less cost efficiently vs zerg melee even without lurker support. - archons be able to not be affected under darkswarm allowing for archons to actually kill lurkers and kill lings in darkswarm. A protoss in a splitmap scenario with careful micro to preserve the archon count and lots of gases could afford many archons. This could reward high skill protoss players(artosis is laughing right now). Archons after all are very expensive and extremely cost in-efficient if you don't get value out of the 2 high templars initially and requires the shield upgrades to be good whilst armour makes more sense for protoss to get first as other protoss units have more health than shields hitpoint wise. -Another unit to note is the dragoon which becomes completely useless after defiler tech comes out. the dragoon is a mainstay and used in every other protoss matchup heavily. I don't know if anything should be done about this because goon templar zealot is slightly stronger than defiler-less zerg comps or about equal strength to zerg armines maxed out vs maxed out,(opinions vary) but it means there will be no incentive for zerg or protoss to get lategame units out because only defilers wreck protoss goon based comps and heavily nerfing defilers may just make zvp endless midgame armies fighting. Thus, I don't feel like goons really should have a big impact in lategame vs zerg and that reavers in shuttles to replace the goon in killing lurker fields require more micro and be more exciting than a-moving goons(scourge vs shuttle interaction as well as reaver shuttle micro to avoid hydras and lings trying to kill the reaver). -reaver scarab damage buff to oneshot lurkers? maybe too strong? who knows. some notes: -another problem with nerfing darkswarm is that protoss expansions with templar cannons and later reavers could be just about unbreakable if darkswarm gets nerfed and darkswarm is about the only thing keeping zerg alive vs terran. Depending on how swarm is nerfed, this could play a factor. -or give an ability to protoss to heal health but that goes against the race's design and theme, better to just be immune to plague than go this route. probably only 1 or 2 of the changes above mentioned should be implemented for balace purposes.

To make the Wraith more viable as an offensive unit, I would increase its ground attack speed and damage output, but keep its health as is because it's already very easy to kill (and if need be, adjust its price and/or build time to make sure it doesnt break the game).

the funny thing is, if SC1 did get a balance patch, terran would probably be hit the hardest. I know for a fact they would nerf vultures and spider mines. It's been agreed for a long time that is one of the biggest changes the game needs. 75m for the fastest unit in the game and 3 invisible bombs of death?! Yeah. but... i also don't think the turret change is a bad idea.

My only change would be increase scout ground damage by 1, -50 minerals -10 gas cost.

"Remove Protoss.. this is the first change" hahahahaha, nice 1, Artosis! To be fair and objective - if we compare Brood War to other popular RTS games - it is just insanely difficult to balance and Blizzard did a great job with the original product that came out. To this day I am still not sure how they managed to do it, but it is super impressive! At the time SC1 and Brood War came out - it was an amazing accomplishment for that era..

Not buffing mass queens strategy feels like a mistake, I cant remember a pro game where the zerg player either went mass queens to get the opponent off guard or because he felt he was too behind and he actually won... Whenever we see queens, Zerg loses... maybe take the energy consumption down a bit would help a lot

My patch would include: - Scout armor 1 (Up from 0) - Scout vision base 9 (Up from 8) - Scout vision upgrade to 12 (making it an actual scout by name) - Price 150/150 - Scout speed 4.963 (Up from 3.720) - Scout is now an energy unit - Scout speed upgrade: "Gravitic Drive Boosters" - allows temporary boost of speed up to 5.50, cost 100 energy - Price 100/100 - Speed / Sight upgraded at Cybernetic Core (Down from Fleet Beacon) - Scout Price 250/100/2 (Down from 275/125/3) Role change: Instead of a niche unit as anti-Capital Ship or a troll unit, the Scout can be an actual scout with its vision buff and speed buff. Quickly send one around the map to get intel, with a chance to defend itself. Boost it to get away from Scourge or in and out for a quick kill on a Science Vessel.

I loved all your proposals.

Interesting! Few things. - restoration I actually use, to remove parasite - ghost concussive: ghosts in bunkers is the only thing that kills 400 lings with full upgrades because they will never take a single hit of dmg - it might seem strange but its the only thing that has the range with quick enough speed to do it. You might not believe it but just try.

Probe has +1 vision and +1 range vs SCV. Artosis thinks that's crazy. SCVs have +20 HP (+50%) vs probes and Artosis doesn't bat an eye.

How about a late game upgrade to shield battery that allows it to heal actual health, that seems like it could be a decent solution to plague. It could be tied to templar archives, arbiter tribunal or the robotic support bay.

Concussive damage should simply be changed from 25, 50, 100 to 50, 75, 100.

Devourers need a huge HP buff, probably to 330 HP or so. They are insanely overpriced for what they do, and even the units they were supposed to counter - BCs actually shred them with Yamato. On some maps there's no counter play to BCs sitting on a ledge shooting the gas geyser outside of spore range. This large buff is chosen to make them viable vs. mutalisk/scourge so they can take 3 scourge hits

Guy in the chat was right, if the intention of the +2 armor late game zealot upgrade is to combat plague and swarm, any zealots that have already been plagued will have 1hp, the armor won’t help in anyway. Maybe a +1 to shields since they go all around, but i think your better off reworking an answer too it like reaver scarabs navigate right through it, or an archon upgrade to become immune to dark swarm, eyes of fire or some sheep.

the last balance update for brood war was actually in may 2001 over 20 years ago, which is crazy to me

These suggestions were actually really reasonable.

Many things that Artosis said here have got merit. The vision of Protoss elements for example.

Hmm maybe a 2nd episode with Scan. Scv need to be melee. At least do something under dark swarm

I've been thinking about a theoretical change myself where the Queen's ensnare ability becomes their starting ability and parasite gets buffed to a point where someone might actually research it to use it. Specifically I just want zergs to have another option in midgame zvz and I feel like ensnare becoming viable might be enough to slow down the match up so we can have some longer zvzs. Although I would be worried about this messing up the delicate TvZ matchup during which the queen's nest as useful as an appendix (but is always built late game) as ensnare is really good against marine clumps.

These changes do seem reasonable in isolation, and I like them. But the thing is, when it comes to Starcraft balance, butterfly effect is a thing.

Scout : -75m -50g. Consume: Gain Energy based on unit mineral cost. Dark Swarm: Sets dodge chance to 98%, 99% if high ground. Plague: Does not effect shields. Consume: Can consume biological enemy units upgrade (to deal with the zealots instead of armor). Spore Colony: Deals AOE damage, upgrade on evo chamber or spawning pool. Marines: Stim addiction 2% chance upon stim use, when at full health will stim automatically, can be cured with restore, or buy an upgrade to stop it entirely. SCV: Yes to range upgrade, but health lowered to just +5 over the other races, and give them a small dodge chance during construction proportional to how much health lost. Otherwise I agree.

Sees thumbnail: Ooooo 'Dis gonna be good 😎

What I would like to see in a patch would be some form of addressing the weird stutter between attacks or spell casts sometimes. Next to that I think a change for EMP to also be used to clear things like Disruption web and Dark Swarm would be neat.

The ghost’s shot should have the strength of a DT.

MAKE SCOUTS AFFORDABLE YOU COWARDS

Sounds quite good, I would Like that as a *FINAL* Broodwar Patch except the +2 late zealot Armor Upgrade. Too strong even for late Game imo

I remember when I was a kid and I watched Boxer use Flare on Overlords. It was so cool..

Hallucination: 50 energy but 1 hallucinated unit (it can be used before archon merger) Mind control: 25 energy/supply + all shield (MC can be played with shield batteries then) Scout: Apial Sensors give +8 vision (16 in total), but only movement detection under fog of war (to give the unit a real scout feature) Spawn Broodling: 75 energy/supply, 2 broodlings spawn by supply (works better on bio units, more broodlings per cast) Guardian/Devourer: Speed updates (separately) in Greater Spire Valkyrie: IFV Capacity research (ghosts and medics can enter the unit and cast their spells from there, except heal and cloak... more use of underused spells, especially restoration) Ghost: 40 damage instead of 10, but concussive.... an alternative DT type harrassment for late game with Lockdown support

I think we should have loot boxes in the game, pay 1 dollar to select more than 12 units in the game

These seem like reasonable changes. I would also add some QoL map balance changes such as: - change map fog of war to 'explored'; - change unit spawn from buildings to the closest point in the direction of rally point; - allow workers to rally on minerals/gas; - allow building add-ons to be placed on either left or right side; - all buildings missing research animations have them added.

The defiler thing would instantly break the game, zergs most of the time are relying on clutch timings to defend, especially when a single vessel can fly in and irradiate all your defilers, they die within mere 10 secons or so, and the vessel can cast from far away so they have the oportunity to survive. lurkers are not invincible under swarm, you can actually irradiate hem, and it doesn't cost much energy

My crazy idea for the Scout would be to lean into the "scouting". -Transfer HP to Shield, so it is more of an hit and run unit and can quickly restore health from the battery. -Give either the sight range upgrade or speed upgrade for free, but remove their missiles and let they use their blasters against air too. -Add an expensive/slow upgrade that restrores the AA missiles, turning it from it's midgame scouting role to a late-game AA unit

I think the removal of the weird +1 sight to toss is good, except for on the nexus. That one actually makes sense since terran can move their buildings and zergs have natural extra sight from overlords. (Terran also have scan). The way to code that the dark swarm would just be to give +255 armor vs range. I remember how it used to work in UMS maps back in the day. It makes units hit for 1 damage and miss every other attack. Artosis, I am so impressed by the quality and fairness of your suggestions. I thought I would likely laugh off these balance changes, but really props. By the way I think the scout is designed to cost exactly half of the carrier. (3 supply 275 minerals and 125 gas) vs carrier + 8 intercepters (550 minerals, 250 gas, and 6 supply). I know carriers used to be 8 supply when the game was released, but fun fact.

Changing the Turret damage type is too extreme I think. It would result in Mutas being killed in 6 less shots (6 instead of 12) and Interceptors in 2 less shots (4 instead of 6). If you want to tweak it, just increase its damage by 4, which would allow for 1 less shot needed to kill a Muta (11 istead of 12), 1 less shot to kill and Interceptor (5 instead of 6), and about 3-4 less shots to kill an Arbiter (15-16 instead of 18-19). Keep the cost the same. Voila, now you have a lot better defense with the meta not being broken and I think it would remain fairly balanced. I disagree with the EMP vs Stasis debate. Stasis is not instantaneous, Arbiter actually waits for a considerable amount of time before casting the spell. If both players command their units at the same time, the EMP missile will fly, but the Vessel will be Stasis'd before the EMP hits the Arbiter. As for Recall, I'm not sure how to address it. Honestly simply buffing the Turret damage by 4 would also address this as well, now the Arbiters would have a tougher time to "JUST FLY OVER EVERYTHING". Assimilator Shield nerf is acceptable, but 150 is too much imo. I'm fine with Nexus and Assimilator sight nerf, but Probe nerf is unnecessary. If you don't want Probes to be building cannons in your base, hold your ramp. As for Scouts, I don't think it's a cost issue, I think it's a niche issue. Scouts doesn't do anything special, it's just a flying Dragoon. It should have some sort of utility to have any use in the game, otherwise it will continue to be useless, considering in every matchup the meta for the opponent already automatically counters Scout (Hydras for Zerg, Goons for Toss, Gols for Terran). I would fiddle around with it's sight range, maybe have that upgrade inherent to the unit from the get go, and maybe give it an ability or something, I don't know. I can jive with Consume rework into regen instead of instant recovery, but the numbers are way too low, also you're losing the ability to Consume multiple units for a large boost, which is the main point of the Zerg race. If multiple instances of Consume regen are allowed to stack, I can agree. Dark Swarm change is unacceptable, it would break Zerg completely. If you want to nerf DS, make it so that the shots miss something like 90% of the time instead of 100%. Even that is too much I think. +2 Armor to Zealot in the late game would probably break PvT, while not addressing the issues Protoss is having against Zergs in PvZ, since when Plagued, those +2 armor Zealots will die in 1 hit after their Shields are gone anyway. I guess a reasonable suggestion could be reworking the Shield upgrade, though I'm not sure how to work that in. Maybe the -100/-100 already is enough, or maybe change the functionality of the Shields, or something like that. I'm ok with every other proposed change, I don't think they would affect the game negatively.

Halve the cost of the Fleet Beacon but double the cost of the Interceptor upgrade. Make Apial Sensors grant Detection ability. Make Cloak a default ability for Ghosts without requiring an upgrade. Voila, Scouts and Ghosts are now viable in niche situations. Protoss no longer have to go Robo for detection, they can also go Stargate tree instead, just like Oracles allow this in SC2. Also gives Toss a less easily-sniped detector.

Can we reduce range or irradiate by 1 then to suplement defiler debuff? And ok wxtend range of emp

What change for Zerg would have the smallest impact on ZvT and ZvP that would make it so you can make more than 2 units in ZvZ every game

new balance patch artosis has infinite resources and all his units have huge amount of hp

I would be very worried about balances built around anything but the pro level. But here's a stab at a giving some love to little used units and general balance changes. Vessels, defilers, and high templars are fine. Terran: Ghosts: Lockdown range +2. +8 base damage (+2 scale), attack speed reduced from .924 to 1.26 seconds/attack, +25 minerals cost. Firebats: +2 scale Protoss: Dark Archons - Maelstrom +1 radius, Feedback range +2 Scout: 175 minerals/100 gas/2 supply. 100hp/80shield. Speed 6.67 (upgrades to 8). Arbiters: +15 damage (+2 scale) New upgrade at the Arbiter Tribunal: Disciplined training - Gateway units: +1 attack/+1 armor/+1 shields (250/250 cost) Zerg: Queens - Parasite reduced to 50 mana. +1 radius Ensnare. Cocoon: +5 armor. Devourers: attack speed increased from 4.2 to 2.1 seconds/attack

I was using optical flare when zerg was doing fast lurks, just to blind them and kill them while they are on the way from his base into my.

You don't think tanks or vultures could need a nerf while buffing the other units?

Thank you Artosis! for sharing your serious thoughts on a hypothetical balance patch. I love this! I'd also love if you responded to some peoples' stupid ideas (like that one video you did a while ago). I do have a ton of serious ideas, including making Mutalisks medium units instead of small unit (synergizes with other changes) - thats an alternative to your turrets idea. I'll share those another time, hopefully. here are just a FEW 'other' ideas I have, I think you will really like my idea for Defilers. I really like your 1damage idea. Terran: Battlecruisers have Guardians attack vs ground, but no Yamato Gun (still have ATA Laser Battery) Protoss: Carriers cannot build interceptors, they have Battlecruisers' Laser Batteries and Yamato Gun instead. Reavers cannot build scarabs, they have a straight-line powerful "plasma/laser" attack to 8range (like a Lurker attack, but longer range, deals friendly fire damage like siege tanks) Zerg: Guardians cannot attack, they can build interceptors instead (called Locusts or something) Lurkers cannot attack, they can build scarabs instead (called scarabs... or banelings) Defilers consume can only be cast on other Defilers. it causes the surviving Defiler to morph into an egg, and hatch ~13s later as an Ultralisk. thanks for reading - if anyone did i'd love to hear any thoughts you might have.

Would it be crazy to up the cost of restoration or optical flare and make them aoe? Like a true counter to plague abs change optical flare from permanent to temporary. If you shut down enemy vision for say 5 seconds they can’t shoot back it’s on par with dark swarm or stasis as a sort of CC?

Awesome video!

They should include a “flip a coin” all-in guideline function for protoss. Heads = Nexus first, zealot rush, DT drop Tails = Nexus first, straight into carriers

A lot of people are trying to make it sound like your changes are extreme, but I found this to be rather reasonable. Especially since you state that it is more of a concept than the actual numbers for some of the more "controversial" changes.

I'd make Optical Flare similar to Dim Vision from Diablo 2. It will give advantage to terran, but in cost of additional micro.

Dark Swarm : Only able to be cast on creep, as it was suppose to be a defensive spell. Could be a really good trick in ZvZ as the spell could be use in enemy base too.

make dark swarm not last 20 min

I think the pros voted for no patch because like you said it's too risky. But, this list alone shows all the units and abilities that are never/rarely used and that's an obvious balance issue. I think we all agree that patching all or some of these things at the very least are experimental. This means it would take time and more than one patch to perfect it all. Creating different balance issues is always a possibility whenever any changes are made. With that being said, i do agree with all of these..........hypothetically. Late game PvZ, for example, a small group of zerglings with the adrenaline upgrade and one defiler can obliterate expansions in seconds. A few cannons and a nexus literally melt away. On the flip side, defending a small expansion with a few sunkens, a few units, and a defiler can be hard to break. Dark swarm is so OP and we have seen some games on this channel where zergs supply is doubled(if not more) and zerg grinds it out. You can say the same for TvZ in this scenario. I remember a game with Scan recently and he was up like 60 supply, which wasn't quite double, but he tapped out. Couldn't keep an expansion long enough to do much of anything but quit. Crazy.

consume should perhaps be like queen transfuse rework in sc2.. 50% energy is instant, like 25, the 25 left is gradually regenerated over couple of seconds

To add to restoration, it should do more than 1 unit, like how plague spreads to multiple units

Yes!. Protoss Scout needs a considerable buff: 12 ground attack dmg(6x2), and speed upgrade cost 100/100 Zerg Guardian needs a little buff (+1 armor) Optional: Carrier -1 armor, interceptor 15 minerals, Valkirye 225 hp, Devourer 30 dmg, Dark Archon Maelstorm 75 mana

artosis siege tonks can now fire on the move and every shell does splash regardless of mode

With the energy change to devourer consume would zerg need a way to purge irradiate to keep up or would they just have to focus more on keeping the vessel count in check? As for the missile turret change, maybe you could turn a normal turret into an "upgraded" one that either shoots faster but can't detect stealth or maybe the upgrade is just to make it aoe so its good against groups but bad against things like drops. This should have been prefaced with that I don't play the game and that I mainly watch it through ASL or artosis' stream so I'll just use those as excuses in case anything I say is laughable lol.

I love that the chat is on fire

My only problem with broodwar is that protoss can be played at pro level with a 120apm. Where the other 2 need 300's. Every single terran unit has a skill to be used, zerg has so many cheap units they require a really high apm. But protoss is just click and move. You can literally get to b rank with protoss just a moving with 2 unit types. Goon and zlot. There is a reason, below a rank. Protoss is played by 75% of players But i would like to see scouts, ghost and maybe 1 zerg unit get buffs. To make them used more. Especially ghost and scouts. Or if infested terran's were a hatchery unit. That would be cool. That way they can be made in all matches.

Should buff the Queen a Little bit, broodling takes to Long to get and parasite should be cheaper, ensnare is Good but should be cheaper to upgrade

What about the low sight range for some Terran structures in relation to thier p/z counterpart?

The one thing I really think you're missing is observers. As protoss only mobile detection need to do something. Like reduce upgrade cost and time and add another upgrade to make them more bulky. Possibly so takes 2 scourge hits? Or at least just reduce observer gas cost? Something like that. Maybe even reduce robotics gas cost as 200/200 is quite a bit. Not exactly sure, but something really seems like it should be done there.

Give the spore colony an AOE upgrade from the spawning pool to nerf mutas in ZvZ. I know one of SC2's problems is theres too much AOE but I think this could help without effecting the other matchups in any significant way

It makes me happy that players can come together and say definitively that the game does not need a balance update. Incredible how a game that has existed for 25 odd years still has good opportunities for new strategies to arise, and equal chances for each race to come out on top.

I'm really surprised artosis didn't mention the invisible men. Also devourer changes?

Easiest way to fix the arbiter is to jsut make the recall time much slower. Would prevent Toss to just recall in the middle of an army without any consequences whatsoever