Evo Complete Extension Update 1.11.4

Hey everyone while players are duking it out in the amazing Group Stage for the SEL we’ve continued work on several fronts but mostly we wanted to release our new Defiler Mound model as well as fixing several bugs.

• Added New Defiler Mound Model

This one has been a long time coming and we’d like to thank TOP for sponsoring the creation of this model and its animations

Bug fixes & changes

• StarCraft 1 Soundtrack will now properly play while watching as an Observer
• SC1 Ghost Nuclear launch no longer plays an extra sound at the target location for enemy players (Multi)
• Updated Reaver Weapon Tooltips
• Updated Marine Ragdoll Death Models
• Updated Marine Attack Animations
• Added New Marine Animation State while U-238 Upgrade is active
• Updated Citadel of Adun Placement and WarpIn Models
• Updated Observatory Placement and WarpIn Models
• Updated Arbiter Tribunal Placement and WarpIn Models
• Updated Dark Archon icons
• Updated Shield Battery rotation to match SC1
• Fixed Ghost Weapons Free ability removing all buffs & debuffs from the unit
• Fixed Zealots not being able to re-target correctly during their weapon swing.
• Fixed Valkyries being able to keep firing at grounded targets. (Landed Vikings, Phoenix Lift, Landed Locusts)
• Fixed Lockdown visual sometimes appearing through fog of war
• Fixed Spider Mine detonation not always correctly killing other nearby spider mines (Multi)
• Fixed issue with Zergling death particles
• Fixed Widow Mines being able to target Larva (Multi)
• Fixed Widow Mines auto targeting on Larva Eggs (Multi)

Evo Complete Extension Update 1.11.3

This update implements a few more changes to check the strength of early aggression, ahead of the SEL Fall Championship.

Sadly due to issues with Blizzard’s Servers in the reigon of South Korea we were unable to deploy the update, as soon as they’re back online we will continue attempting to deploy the update.

• Classic StarCraft 1 Skins are now disabled while playing as StarCraft 2 Races

• Added New Marine Model
• Added New Shuttle Model
• Added New Dark Archon Model
• Added New Zergling Model

Balance Changes

Marine

• Increased production time: 24 -> 25 (Faster: 17 -> 18)

Firebat

• Increased production time: 24 -> 25 (Faster: 17 -> 18)

Medic

• Increased production time: 24 -> 25 (Faster: 17 -> 18)

In previous patches, the build time of the Barracks and other infantry-related technology was sped up. In particular, this impacted proxy aggression. Therefore, we are tuning this back by slightly decreasing the production time of the basic Biological units.

Drone

• Increased attack period: 1.5 -> 1.6 (Faster: 1.07 -> 1.14)

BW Zerg has a very strong 12 Pool Drone pull against SC2 Protoss, which is difficult to hold even when scouted. Considering the strength of BW Zerglings, we are adjusting the DPS of Drones to compensate.

Zealot

• Increase Plasma Shields: 60 -> 65

We previously nerfed reduced the Plasma Shields of the Zealot from 70 to 60. We are partly reverting this change to match the relative severity of the other nerfs, as well as mitigate the detriment to BW Protoss in macro games.

Evo Complete Extension Update 1.11.2

This update contains a few changes to address the ease of controlling BW Protoss’ basic units. In particular, we hope that they will have an outsized effect at lower levels of play. We are aware of the possibility of further changes, but they will be reserved for the next PTR cycle.

Balance Changes

Zealot

• Decreased Plasma Shields: 70 -> 60

Early Zealot pressure tends to be very strong and easy to execute, and this has only become more true with their recent attack period buff. We would like to tune this down by making the Zealot slightly less durable.

Dragoon

• Increased Singularity Charge research time: 150 -> 175 (Faster: 107 -> 125)

One of the key interactions in the early game between BW Protoss and SC2 Terran is when Dragoons begin attacking the Terran’s natural Bunker. When Singularity Charge completes, the Bunker will inevitably fall, unless Marauders or Siege Tanks are present. In practice, only Siege Tanks are a viable response as Terran cannot afford the infrastructure for enough Marauders.

The window in which Terran must complete a Siege Tank or forfeit their Bunker (and consequently, their natural base) offers little time to use early Factory production time to inflict counterdamage. For something which essentially entails no risk from the BW Protoss player, we feel that this interaction is quite lopsided. Giving Terran some additional time to generate threats across the map should help to even out the earlygame.

High Templar

• Psionic Storm initial delay: 0.1875 -> 0.42 (Faster: 0.13 -> 0.3)
  • This is the delay between the beginning of the Psionic Storm animation and the first instance of damage.

One of the most exciting parts of BW Protoss, according to both players and viewers of the gamemode, is the Psionic Storm animation. Unfortunately, it is also one of the more frustrating parts for those who face it. In contrast to SC2’s Psionic Storm, the BW Psionic Storm lacks strong audiovisual cues, delaying response time. Combined with slightly faster and significant stronger damage ticks, this makes the BW Psionic Storm unnaturally difficult to play against. We feel that increasing the initial delay will improve counterplay against Psionic Storm in zoning situations, while not hurting its efficacy in large-scale confrontations.

Evo Complete Extension Update 1.11.1

We have another minor update to addres some erroneous interactions between spells as well as added some new visual indicators for Disruption Web.

• Hallucinated Reavers can now launch fake scarabs
• Disruption Web affected targets now gain visual indicator on their weapons
• Fixed Scarab targeting not clearing on recall teleports
• Fixed Recall & Disruption web visuals being visible behind line of sight blockers

Evo Complete Extension Update 1.11

Hello, everyone,

This update follows an unusually in-depth PTR cycle where we investigated multiple issues, especially the state of BW Protoss vs SC2 Protoss. Overall, we are satisfied with our findings and changes here, and look forward to the next PTR cycle. We are confident that these changes will help to portray the current balance climate in a better light ahead of the $1,100 SEL Fall Championship 2024.

Since the initial rationale for many of these changes has already been discussed in the PTR 1.11 announcement post, we will only describe them briefly here, as well our findings during testing and any adjustments based on them. Only changes introduced in the transition from PTR to live release will be described in detail.

Once again, we would like thank all of the generous sponsors who make our work possible. If you would like to support us, you can give us a one-time donation on PayPal or a recurring contribution on Patreon:

Balance Changes

For the first time, all time-related changes are provided in both exact Normal and approximate Faster values. Rejoice!

• Decreased Engineering Bay build time: 35 -> 30 (Faster: 25 -> 21)
• Decreased Armory build time: 55 -> 50 (Faster: 39 -> 36)

These changes speed up the prerequisites for the Missile Turret and the Goliath, respectively, to aid in defending proxy Stargate play.

Medic

• Decreased Caduceus Reactor research cost: 100/100 -> 50/50
• Decreased Caduceus Reactor research time: 80 -> 65 (Faster: 57 -> 46)
• Increased Heal HP per energy: 2 -> 2.5

We experimented with several changes to the Medic during the PTR, and found that some of them made Biological play too one-dimensionally strong. We believe these changes will add more opportunities for BW Terran players to extract value from their forces through careful control and build order selection.

Ghost

• Decreased Lockdown duration: 41.4 -> 37.8 (Faster: 30 -> 27)

During playtesting, we continued to find that BW Terran tends to have an especially forgiving window after using Lockdown to finish off immobilized units. This was especially noticeable against SC2 Protoss, which tends to amass large numbers of high-supply units such as Colossi, Disruptors, Tempests, and Carriers. This change looks to further optimize the window in which BW Terran can punish disabled forces.

Dropship

• Decreased cost: 100/75 -> 100/25

This change makes drop play more accessible and helps to force a dedicated anti-drop response, especially from SC2 Zerg, while maintaining the poor movement stats of the Dropship to discourage mass drop styles, in keeping with the original design of BW Terran.

Battlecruiser

• Increased Battlecruiser attack period: 1.125 -> 1.175 (Faster: 0.8 -> 0.84)

This change tunes the effectiveness of Battlecruisers against high-armor foes, particularly Ultralisks and Corruptors.

• Increased Sunken Colony attack period: 2 -> 2.125 (Faster: 1.43 -> 1.52)
• Decreased Sunken Colony HP: 350 -> 325
• Decreased Spore Colony attack range: 8.5 -> 8

Hydralisk

• Increased Hydralisk attack period: 0.938 -> 1.0312 (Faster: 0.67 -> 0.74)

These changes mitigate the overbuffing of Zerg earlygame defense from previous patches and scale down the previously unchecked aggressive potential of the Hydralisk.

Devourer

• Increased armor: 2 -> 3
• Increased base damage: 20.25 {+1.5/upgrade} -> 22.5 {+2.25/upgrade}
  • Damage vs Armored: 27 {+2/upgrade} -> 30 {+3/upgrade}
• Increased HP: 250 -> 275

These changes address BW Zerg’s lack of answers to air-heavy lategame deathballs by making the Devourer more durable, as well as more effective in hit-and-run maneuvers.

• Increased Restore Plasma Shields regeneration speed: 14 -> 28 (Faster: 20 -> 39)
  • Note: This value was misreported in a previous blogpost as 20 (Faster: 28). The initial value of 14 (Faster: 20) here reflects the correct and actual value in 1.10.2.
• Decreased Observeratory build time: 28 -> 21 (Faster: 20 -> 15)
• Increased Observatory HP: 200 -> 250
• Increased Observatory Plasma Shields: 200 -> 250
• Decreased Stargate cost: 150/150 -> 150/100
• Decreased Fleet Beacon cost: 250/200 -> 200/150
• Increased Arbiter Tribunal cost: 200/150 -> 250/200

Reaver

• Reaver attack damage: 100 -> 105 (+50 vs Shields)
• Scarab Damage upgrade damage bonus: 25 -> 20 (+35 vs Shields)

Observer

• Decreased Observer build time: 14 -> 10 (Normal Speed: 20 -> 14)
• Decreased Gravitic Booster research cost: 100/100 -> 50/50
• Decreased Sensor Array research cost: 100/100 -> 50/50

Scout

• Increased Scout anti-ground attack period: 1.6875 -> 1.875 (Faster: 1.21 -> 1.34)
• Increased Scout anti-ground damage: 9 {+1/upgrade} -> 10 {+1/upgrade} (+5 vs Shields)

Carrier

• Increased Carrier Capacity research cost: 100/100 -> 200/200
• Increased Carrier Capacity research time: 80 -> 90 (Faster: 57 -> 64)

Protoss players in the StarCraft Evolution League biweeklies have been much less likely than their Terran and Zerg counterparts to select Brood War over StarCraft 2, especially in a mirror match against a Protoss opponent. Due to this striking disparity, we focused our efforts on investigating the state of BW Protoss matchups in this PTR cycle.

These changes aim to make the Corsair and the Scout more viable options and overall promote the use of Stargate technology (especially against SC2 Protoss), while maintaining the same difficulty of transitioning into Carriers and Arbiters. They also turn the Reaver into an effective backbone unit against enemies with Plasma Shields, drastically improving the frontal fighting power of BW Protoss against SC2 Protoss. As per user feedback, the compensating increase in cost to Carrier Capacity research was partially mitigated with an increase in research time instead.

In our analysis, we also noticed a general trend, not just against SC2 Protoss but against all SC2 races: BW Protoss lacks reliable scouting information outside of committed aggression (particularly Reaver drops). Observers could help to remedy this problem, but Robotics Facility production time is greatly constrained as BW Protoss has difficulty trading efficiently without Reavers, and Shuttles are nigh-mandatory to transport them. In the earlygame, especially against SC2 Protoss, there is little time to spare for Observer production.

Respecting the original design of BW Protoss, we decided not to trivialize the acquisition of Observer tech through cost decreases (for example, by making the Observatory only cost 25/25), but rather shorten the build time of the Observer and its prerequisite Observatory. We also decreased the research cost of the expensive Observer upgrades, and increased the Observatory’s vitals to prevent its destruction by a single Dark Templar while warping in. We recognize that, from a balance perspective, this will not be as impactful as removing the Observatory as a prerequisite outright, and we will continue to particularly monitor the state of BW Protoss scouting and map vision.

Lastly, the healing rate of the Shield Battery’s Restore ability was increased to provide adequate defense against a single Oracle, while differentiating it from the SC2 Shield Battery by maintaining a lower healing rate.

Bug fixes & changes

• Made slight adjustments to Scarab movement
• Interceptors now retreat to their parent Carriers when they are affected by Stasis Field or Lockdown
• Lockdown now plays an additional sound when the projectile is launched (similar to how they do in Brood War)
• Dark Templar no longer create an attack sound when missing their attacks
• Fixed an issue where Cyclones would not target Brood War defensive structures using Lock On