Our first Situation Report took a look at the changes with Patch 11 and while not a large patch, we wanted to continue sharing our insight on balance changes with Patch 12. Please keep in mind that we are continuing to keep a close eye on many of these changes to better gauge their effects and may not apply all of our planned changes into any one patch. This allows us to track the effects a bit better and layer in our planned changes to better set the pace of how they affect balance overall.

We have a few minor changes implemented as a part of the balance for this patch and are also planning some more ability changes for the zerg in the next.

Thor – Radius decreased from 1.375 to 0.8125. Model size reduced to match new radius.

We have reduced the physical and pathing size of the Thor just to make him more useable. This will end up being a minor buff to the Thor (which he didn’t really need). We made the change just to make him less frustrating to use. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how this change plays out and if Thors become too dominant we will deal with them in other ways in future patches.

Forge – Build time increased from 35 to 45. Life and shield values decreased from 550/550 to 400/400.

We are seeing a Photon Cannon rush against protoss and zerg. Against protoss, players usually use a cliff edge or the enemy minerals in combination with their forge to protect their pylon. Against zerg, you can use the Forge and Pylon to block the zerg player’s ramp. We have a few numbers we can tweak to fix this, build time on the Forge being the most obvious. However if we make the build time too high it will be difficult to panic build a Forge and Cannons to block a badly played cloak attack. So we are going to try a mixture of health nerfs to the Forge and a small timing change.

Mothership – Vortex now removes Force Fields within its area of effect.

Vortex continues to be an exciting ability with some known issues. Limiting how Force Fields are used around Vortexes will help fix a few exploitable situations. Our thanks go to the community for continuing to find and report issues with it. =)

Roach – Supply count increased from 1 to 2.

Roaches are just too mighty to be a 1 supply unit. In 200 supply battles Roaches can be very difficult to deal with even with the correct counters in play by protoss or terran players.

As always, we appreciate the ongoing constructive feedback and will continue to closely monitor the effects of these changes within the game.

StarCraft II Beta — Patch 12 (version 0.14.0.15343)

The latest patch notes can always be found on our StarCraft II Beta General Discussion forum.

Balance Changes

PROTOSS

  • Forge
    • Build time increased from 35 to 45.
    • Life and shield values decreased from 550/550 to 400/400.
  • Mothership
    • Vortex now removes Force Fields within its area of effect.

TERRAN

  • Thor
    • Radius decreased from 1.375 to 0.8125.
    • Model size reduced to match new radius.

ZERG

  • Roach
    • Supply count increased from 1 to 2.

User Interface

  • Several Hotkey changes have been made (German client only).

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a crash which sometimes occurred when quitting the program.