Patch 1.3.0

brimur69

Patch 1.3.0 Now Available on PTR
by Blizzard Entertainment // Feb 26, 2011 12:44:38 AM UTC 767

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty patch 1.3.0 is currently in development and now available for testing on the PTR. This patch contains notable improvements to the Join Custom Game interface, a preview of the new Grandmaster League, several balance adjustments, bug fixes, and more. By participating in the PTR, you'll be among the first to test out the latest changes and help us ensure that when the patch is released it's of the highest quality possible.

To participate in the public test you must have a full North America product license. Further details on how to access the PTR can be found in the FAQ. Once you've had the chance to try things out, be sure to visit the Public Test forum to discuss the patch.



StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty - Patch 1.3.0 PTR Notes

General

Leagues & Ladders
A new Grandmaster League has been added for 1v1 ladders. This league represents the Top 200 players in each region.
Players are automatically drafted into Grandmaster League shortly after a new season starts, and will remain in the Grandmaster league until the end of the season. If a Grandmaster player’s available bonus points get too high due to inactivity, they will be automatically removed from the league and a replacement player will be drafted in.
The Grandmaster League can be viewed by all players through the new Leagues & Ladders > Grandmaster tab
The bonus pool has been reduced for arranged teams.
Leagues will now be locked during the final weeks of the season. As a result players will not accumulate additional bonus points and will not be promoted or demoted out of their current division during this period.
This will allow players to focus on moving up in their current league without being promoted during the final weeks of a season, and having to fight their way up from the bottom ranks of their new higher league.
Players can still utilize any points they previously accumulated.
Ladder data from the prior season can be viewed through the new Leagues & Ladders > Last Season tab.
New league icons have been introduced to indicate division rank. These will indicate the Top 8, 25 and 50 players in each division.
Loss counts are no longer displayed in Profile and Ladder pages for players below Master League.

Join Custom Game
Several improvements have been made to the Join Custom Game section:
The Details panel has been removed from this page. Map details are now shown inside a tooltip for each game.
Players can now bookmark their favorite custom games! The number of times a game has been bookmarked will be shown in that game's tooltip.
Games are now organized into several pages to make finding your desired game type easier:
Featured: Our team is always on the lookout for new games that are lots of fun. Our latest favorites are shown on this page.
Most Popular: Shows all game types, with the most played games sorted to the top.
By Category: This page allows you to browse through Custom Games based on Category.
Up & Coming: This page highlights games that other players are recommending, but haven't yet become popular.
Fun or Not: From this page you can automatically join a random new Custom Game. After the game, players using Fun or Not are asked to recommend the map (or not). Recommending maps helps get them onto the Up & Coming page.
Recently Played: The last several games you’ve played are shown here. Use this to quickly get back into games you play often, or to easily bookmark a game you enjoyed playing.
Bookmarks: Use this page to view your Bookmarked maps.
A search option has been added to the Join Custom Game interface.

Observer and Replay UI
New panels are now available when observing or viewing a replay of 1v1 games. These panels can be toggled via hotkeys which are shown under the Leader Panel drop-down.
Player Name Panel: Displays the players' name, team color, race, and supply count.
Stat Comparison Panels: Shows a head-to-head comparison of players' Resources, Army Supply, Units Killed, or APM.
In 1v1 observed games, both players’ resource rows are shown in the upper right at the same time.
You can now toggle between player unit colors and team unit colors when watching a replay or observing.

Achievements
All achievements in the "Wings Of Liberty: Hard" and "Wings Of Liberty: Brutal" series now show a checklist of what missions you have completed and no longer display a progress bar.
"Liberty Completionist Hard" and "Liberty Completionist Brutal" achievements are now the final achievements in the "Wings Of Liberty: Hard" and "Wings Of Liberty: Brutal" series.

Game Options
A new Control tab is available from the Options Menu. You'll find Mouse, Keyboard and Scrolling options within this new menu.
A new menu option is available in the Gameplay tab to change the behavior of Control Group Buttons. These can now be set to ignore mouse clicks or be hidden completely.
The existing menu option under the Gameplay tab for Menu Bar Clickable now also supports hiding the Menu Bar.


Balance

GENERAL
Players can no longer hide units by setting them in a close proximity patrol (Viking flower).

PROTOSS
Mothership
Units leaving the Mothership's Vortex are now un-targetable and immune to damage for 1.5 seconds.
High Templar
Khaydarin Amulet upgrade (+25 starting energy) has been removed.
Zealot
Charging Zealots will now hit fleeing targets at least once.

TERRAN
Battlecruiser
Movement speed increased from 1.406 to 1.875.
Bunker
Build time increased from 35 to 40 seconds.
Tech Lab
Stimpack upgrade research time increased from 140 to 170 seconds.

ZERG
Infestor
Health increased from 90 to 110.
Fungal Growth
Stun duration decreased from 8 to 4 seconds.
Damage increased by +30% vs. armored units.
Now fires a missile instead of being instant cast.

Source http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/2356436#blog

RoyalMarine

lovin that stim pack research increase!

high templar nerf is nice too. finally my lings are that much safer.

The_Keeper

Good to see that Blizzard are fixing the Archon Toilet, have had that happen to my army one too many times!

The HT nerf is huge, no more deflecting attacks with one or two wapred in HTs, and now my mineral line is considereably safer.

BC movement speed increased is good to see, makes them a bit more viable.

Not sure about the bunker buid time increase, really makes it increasingly difficult to throw up defenses for a counter-attack. Although zerg have really been moaning about bunker rushes so will be interesting to see if this does enough.

Stimpack upgrade time increase is probably a good thing, keeps protoss a little safer in the early game.

The infestor changes are good and bad. The fungal growth DPS has been doubled, allowing for even quicker decimation of bio balls, fire one fungal growth, 2 seconds later fire a second and all the marines will be dead. The missle change is interesting, allows for some quick dodging skills (saw a video of a stalker constantly blinking away from the fungal missle). Not sure if a PDD will stop the fungal growth though.

brimur69

The_Keeper wrote: »

Good to see that Blizzard are fixing the Archon Toilet, have had that happen to my army one too many times!

Did you catch Nestea v SanZenith at the weekend? There was almost a perfect Archon toilet oppertunity in that game, its like he forgot to put his archons in.

Sabre0001

Not delighted about the changes (as a Bronze level player still gaining experience). Archon toilet is expensive on so many fronts! Lack of Amulet makes me sad too.

Unfortunately, I play against a T friend that's big on the Battlecruiser front...Last thing I need to see is faster BCs in 1v1.

Ramza

OT ; What's with the new maps? Played some 1v1s yesterday and was like wtf is this shattered temple?

and then there is new gsl maps? me confused

The_Keeper

brimur69 wrote: »

Did you catch Nestea v SanZenith at the weekend? There was almost a perfect Archon toilet oppertunity in that game, its like he forgot to put his archons in.

Haven't been able to keep up with the GSL unfortunately, crappy internet connection for some reason will load gsl VODS at a max of 15kb/sec, very annoying.

gearoidof

1v1
removed
Blistering Sands (2)
Jungle Basin (2)
Steppes of War (2)
Lost Temple (4)
Shakuras Plateau (4)

Scrap Station (2)
Xel’Naga Caverns (2)
Delta Quadrant (4)
Metalopolis (4)

added
Backwater Gulch (4)
Slag Pits (4)
The Shattered Temple (4)
Typhon Peaks (4)

http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/1957545
2v2, 3v3, 4v4 and FFA changes are there too

IRL_Sinister

Stim nerf is a bit much. It's already the longest T1(2?) research in the game, no need to nerf it already. By the time you get Stim in the current state of the game it's not THAT game-breaking that you need to add +30 ingame build time to it. That's pretty bad from their front.

I like the Zerg and Protoss nerfs though, the HT one was definitely needed and Infestor's were pretty sick before.

Funky

I hate this patch. I avoided using colossi(well in PvT) cause they're so easily counterable and freakin boring to use for so long and now there's pretty much no other midgame option available... I kinda wish they'd just get rid of it, add something else that isn't a completely retarded unit and then rebalance gateway units to not suck or something. Hell even remove warp gates if necessary.

I don't feel toss are underpowered really but just so boring to use.

seraphimvc

bare in mind that this is just PTR, T=test. alot of stuffs from last PTR patch didnt make it through e.g. Infestor's FG not work on air units(which is fcking retarded).

Stim research time increased is nice but I seriously hope that Blizzard can really look into the real issues of marine. and at this point it really feels like Blizz's team is merely playing terran most of the time, WHO THE F give damn to BC???! whats the deal with keep buff/neff-ing BC since these patches?? Templar neff is directly appointed to neff toss in late game PvT(terran's been crying their Bio ball doesnt work in late game....). i hope the kaydarin research wont be taken out it just feels weird.

infestor is actually a small buff at the same time. 36dps in 4s now is quite OP lol (used to be 36dps in 8s)it actually became a mini HT. Infestor will be a offensive caster rather than its supportive role before. I am not sure how will this work out for zerg lol ZvZ will defo be more infestor play i'd say.

Columc

seraphimvc wrote: »

Stim research time increased is nice but I seriously hope that Blizzard can really look into the real issues of marine. and at this point it really feels like Blizz's team is merely playing terran most of the time, WHO THE F give damn to BC???! whats the deal with keep buff/neff-ing BC since these patches?? Templar neff is directly appointed to neff toss in late game PvT(terran's been crying their Bio ball doesnt work in late game....). i hope the kaydarin research wont be taken out it just feels weird.

The stim pack will be a massive nerf to terran, Marines are our core units. They are used in pretty much everything, and a nerf to their main ability will be extremly hard it will through off a lot of timing attacks against protoss mainly. The bunker is understandable with the amount of whining people are giving with bunker rush zerg hatch which at the moment is extremly powerful if a zerg does go hatch first. Havent used much BC to know how important the speed upgrade are.

seraphimvc wrote: »

infestor is actually a small buff at the same time. 36dps in 4s now is quite OP lol (used to be 36dps in 8s)it actually became a mini HT. Infestor will be a offensive caster rather than its supportive role before. I am not sure how will this work out for zerg lol ZvZ will defo be more infestor play i'd say.

The infestor buff/nerf is intresting and will see how it works out. As you can see it is a lot easier now to kite the fungal with blink stalkers and probably charginf zealots. I think they raised the health a bit to much for them descreasing the time of damage but keeping the same about of damage, and then +40 on armor also.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lSeH0U8H4M&feature=player_embedded


The protoss changes are good, the amulet was just way over powered were you can just warp in a unit and cause so much damage straight away. And then the change to the vortex disabling the Archon toilet also. Which is a pity as we just started to see it in pro matchups now, protoss going for motherships.

NeoSlicerZ

Funky wrote: »

I hate this patch. I avoided using colossi(well in PvT) cause they're so easily counterable and freakin boring to use for so long and now there's pretty much no other midgame option available... I kinda wish they'd just get rid of it, add something else that isn't a completely retarded unit and then rebalance gateway units to not suck or something. Hell even remove warp gates if necessary.

I don't feel toss are underpowered really but just so boring to use.

PvT will drift towards double forge stuff I think, followed by 3 base colossus or straight up Phoenix Colossus. PvZ is kinda sucky then and will be a delicate balancing of immo/stalker/colossus ratios with much more DT play.

BUfels

Nerfing infestors and high templars... Because marines just weren't powerful enough.
And making Protoss even more reliant on Colossi.

The_Keeper

BUfels wrote: »

Nerfing infestors and high templars... Because marines just weren't powerful enough.
And making Protoss even more reliant on Colossi.

Change to infestors is a buff. The fungal growth dps has been doubled meaning they can kill marines in half the time.

The ability to warp in HTs anywhere on the map with instant psi storm is crazy. Drops can be deflected extremely easy with this ability, as well as easy mineral line harass. A warp prism doesn't even have to take a risk by loading up HTs before setting off to a mineral line, so if it is spotted it's only a prism loss.

Grimebox

• Ghost EMP now drains up to 100 energy instead of all available energy. The effect on Protoss shields remains unchanged
• Infestor Health increased from 90 to 110. -- This change has been revoked.
• Fungal Growth Now fires a missile instead of being instant cast. -- This change has been revoked.

Source source


I've only just started using storm drops and they take them away from me...