Patch 1.4 PTR Preview

[Comadevil]

The long awaited Hellion and Infestor nerf

Patch Notes

[jerom]

I actually missed out on the helion's OP part

[Gomezd]

Yeh I too missed out on the whole Infestor and Hellion is OP thing. I think I lost maybe 2 games to infestors all up, dont thing I ever saw serious hellion use against me either.

And I dont like the unit vision up ramps thing makes it harder to poke with stalkers vs walled in terrans

[iZyne]

what will zergs do D:

immortal now > roaches... if they add zealots ... ling useless D:

[HeJurmhoanni]

Wow now 4 gate wont be a solid option in PvP. FF and you cant blink/warp over the force field. Warp prism got 60 more shields omg thats huge! I hope that scvs can still repair other scvs and mech units inside a bunker/cc/planetary/medivac. Dunno if the blink change was necessary. Maybe its ok siince infestors arent as good anymore. Also zergs will be able to scout quite well with overseers without sacrificing 100 gas.

[Comadevil]

I hope that scvs can still repair other scvs and mech units inside a bunker/cc/planetary/medivac.

No, it is not possible anymore. Read Patch Notes Bugfixes

[36drew]

Amazing patch!

[Andre_1993]

+1

[HeJurmhoanni]

I hope that scvs can still repair other scvs and mech units inside a bunker/cc/planetary/medivac.

No, it is not possible anymore. Read Patch Notes Bugfixes

They didnt say anything about other mech units.

[Aaryn_GenD]

@Gomezd: just watch the recent MLGs and cups, hellions are way overused and roast your eco in 3 seconds^^

my take on the patch notes in bold letters, i removed some of the line, so they are not the full patch notes. for full notes follow coma's link:

Here's a sneak peek at the upcoming PTR patch notes. We're currently working to make the PTR available as soon as possible!


StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty - Patch 1.4.0


General

A new Career page displaying placement in past seasons has been added to the League & Ladders section of the Profile.
SLI performance has been improved.
D3D memory management has been improved.

        again, engine improvements^^ i love them as tehy make for a smoother game
Game Options
Added three privacy settings to the Options menu under the Battle.net section.
Only allow friends to send me invites.
Only allow friends to send me chat messages.
Set status to Busy when playing a game.
                this shows that htey listened to the community ,many people were asking for these settings and now here they are

UI and Display
A Launch PTR button will now appear on the login screen when the PTR is available. Clicking this button will close the retail client and launch the PTR client.
Improved error messages when a unit is required but none is targeted to provide required target information.
UI Frame used in .SC2Layout files has more anchoring flexibility.
Loading an old saved game will now give an option to restart the mission in the new version of StarCraft II instead of loading it in the old version without access to achievements.
Player names in the Name Panel in observer or replay mode will now be based off the player’s locations on the minimap.  For example the player closer to the left side of the minimap will appear on the left side of the name panel.
When a building is canceled or salvaged the minerals returned will be displayed at the building location for the owner, for enemy players a floating text will be displayed.
Toggle Team Colors in 1v1 and Free-for-All when observing and during a replay will not change player colors.

              again, these were annoying concerns which now got fixed, the communty made lots of threads about this. +1 for user friendliness
Sound
An error notification sound is now played if a placement location cannot be found when unit training completes.
Most existing alert sounds are now reduced in volume when a new alert sound plays.
Transmissions without a valid sound file will now display a subtitle during cinematics even if the player has turned off subtitles.
Added a new Alert Fade option to control how much existing alert sounds fade when new alert sounds are played.
           
                this is my personal favourite, the sounds were annoying, they didn't fade out right away, now we can adjust it
Balance

General
Unit vision up ramps has been reduced by 1.
          this will be huge^^

PROTOSS
Immortal
Attack range increased from 5 to 6.
        it was hard to use them between stalkers but now they should be fine. finalyl something to deal with mass roaches.
Mothership
Acceleration increased from 0.3 to 1.375.
The Mothership’s Cloaking Field no longer cloaks all units instantaneously, but rather adds units to the cloak field over time (maximum of 25 per second).  This should alleviate “Mothership Lag” issue when a Mothership comes online.
      i noticed many times that the mothership accelerated very slow, and was slow switching diretions. also the lag issue being fixed is great
Stalker
Blink research time increased from 110 to 140.
      overnerf. why not 120 seconds??


TERRAN
Barracks
Build time increased from 60 to 65.
        lol this wil lbe huge for mass rax early and general tech delay for every terran
Hellion
Infernal Pre-Igniter damage upgrade decreased from 10 to 5.
        why not +7? i feel overnerf again
Raven
Seeker missile movement speed increased from 2.5 to 2.953.
        lets see if this makes the HSM more useful

ZERG
Infestor
Fungal Growth damage changed from 36 (+30% armored) to 30 (40 vs Armored).
        not enough. need a bigger nerf^^
Overseer
Morph cost decreased from 50/100 to 50/50.
Contaminate energy cost increased from 75 to 125.
        will be way easier to prepare for DT or banshees now.
Ultralisk
Build time decreased from 70 to 55.
        quite huge, now they should be able to tech switch lategame quite handily

Bug Fixes

Gameplay
Hitting Escape when using the Options menu while playing a game will now properly revert any changes made.
Loading a saved game with a game speed different than the minimum game speed now works correctly.
Failing to load a saved game from a previous build will now show the proper error message.
Reduced Violence no longer prevents custom death models from working.
Repeated control group and selection commands will no longer count as unique actions for APM calculation purposes.
                wonder how much this will lower the apm value. i remember this is no tthe fist time they fixed these things.
In the Load Game Panel it is no longer possible to delete a saved game while playing it.
In the Load Game Panel, choosing to keep\save an unsaved file in the Recent Tab now properly saves the file.
Switching between a control group hotkey and selecting a unit no longer registers as a double-click.
The Base Camera and Jump to Location hotkeys can no longer be used while the game is paused.
                ye this was quite lame, pause the game and jump between locations to see what's up, gave you free extra time
Escape and F12 can no longer be used for custom grid hotkey profiles.
Default key display will not show up when Custom Observer hotkey has been set.
The range for structures hitting other structures is now consistent with non-structure units.
Units with movement suppressed can now issue an order to board a transport instead of just follow it.
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
                this is to stop the drops terran players did with using the minimap and just forces you to be more aware now. good change
A full refund will now be issued for any training requests that cannot complete because unit placement fails.
Commands that have no charges left will display a 0 instead of just hiding the number.
Resources spent repairing are now reported as resources lost when the repaired unit dies.
Fixed an issue with the Camera Follow mode not turning off when scrolling away from a unit being followed.
Fixed an issue with cycling chat recipients while in a party and watching a replay.
Fixed an issue in the Load Game Panel that sometimes caused the wrong map preview image to display.
Fixed an issue where the Hotkey dialog sometimes displayed inaccurate unit commands.
Fixed an issue where units would seem to pop when travelling along cliffs.
Fixed an issue where flyers may not decelerate in some cases.
Fixed an issue where flying unit separation wasn’t consistent.
              does this mean air units won't be so tight together anymore? i hope
Fixed issues displaying some hotkeys for non-US keyboard layouts.
Fixed issues with cursors when using NVidia 3DVision.
Fixed issues where an ally unit’s command card was visible without shared control enabled.
Fixed some issues with DVORAK keyboards not working correctly with Grid hotkey profiles.
Fixed several issues with the Units Lost tab not tracking resources correctly.
Fixed erroneous hotkey conflict detections with some observer commands.

Protoss

Issuing new orders to charging zealots will cause them to lose the charge buff.
                dang^^
Sentry Guardian Shield now correctly reduces damage from Hellion, Void ray, and Colossus attacks as well as the Siege Tank’s sieged attack.
                great, i've always been a friend of GS.
Fixed an issue where Colossus thermal lance beams would track a unit much further than the range of the weapon.
              huuge. now colossus will be even weaker. not the first time they got a change in this direction.
Fixed an issue where workers would not path around Force Field while harvesting.
Fixed an animation bug that would occur when Graviton Beam was used on unburrowing Zerg units.

Terran

The Command Center Load SCV command will now only ask to load as many SCVs as it can contain.
SCVs will now always face the building when resuming construction.
                also great
SCVs can no longer repair themselves while inside a Bunker or Medivac.
                YAY
Fixed an issue where the Reaper could get stuck in some cases.

Zerg
Overseer & Brood Lord cocoons can now display waypoint lines when issuing queued patrol orders.
Baneling's Attack Structure ability is now a toggle to Enable/Disable Attack Structure.  The toggle will determine whether structures are valid targets for auto-attack.  This change fixes an issue which caused Banelings to prioritize buildings over hostile units.
Burrowed units are no longer cloaked by the Mothership, as this is redundant.
Attack upgrades are now retained by units controlled by Neural Parasite.
If a unit provides power, that power is temporarily transferred to a player using Neural Parasite.
Canceling more than one of the same structure at the same time as Zerg will add all Drones to the selection.
Improved Larva placement when the bottom edge of a hatchery is on a cliff edge to prevent Larva from getting killed.
Spore Crawlers and Spine Crawlers now disable their Stop button when rooting.
Fixed an issue where Drone attacks could be more easily dodged than SCV or Probes.
                i remember a thread about it, you could escape drones more easily than probes or scvs. again, listening to the community.

if anything, this patch shows that htey listen to the community way more than we might think. it's a solid patch where is disagree with 2-3 changes. 

[Comadevil]

        again, engine improvements^^ i love them as tehy make for a smoother game
Game Options
Added three privacy settings to the Options menu under the Battle.net section.
Only allow friends to send me invites.
Only allow friends to send me chat messages.
Set status to Busy when playing a game.
                this shows that htey listened to the community ,many people were asking for these settings and now here they are

Well the MLG "We don't release replays" issue sped that up, i guess

TERRAN
Barracks
Build time increased from 60 to 65.
        lol this wil lbe huge for mass rax early and general tech delay for every terran
Hellion
Infernal Pre-Igniter damage upgrade decreased from 10 to 5.
        why not +7? i feel overnerf again

Barracks: Don't really think so, that it will be a huge delay for mass rax, more a dely for 2 rax vs Zerg
BF:Because only +5 and under fix the two shot worker issue

Raven
Seeker missile movement speed increased from 2.5 to 2.953.
        lets see if this makes the HSM more useful

At least they are faster than vikings now. Maybe we will see soon a viking split challenge??

ZERG
Infestor
Fungal Growth damage changed from 36 (+30% armored) to 30 (40 vs Armored).
        not enough. need a bigger nerf^^

They shouldn't nerf too much. If the nerf is not enough, well they can nerf again

[Gomezd]

@Aaryn

Yeah I have, and thats the curious thing about infestors, while they haven't hurt me personally just from seeing how they can be properly abused angers me haha, I hate em.

[36drew]

In masters you see infestors all the time.

[Aaryn_GenD]

the biggest problem with them is the stun and freeze.
this game is so frig'gin fast, being able to stun for more than half a second is automatically lame.
lets see if the damage is appropriate now.

i also laughed at this

i have had upwards of 200 apm + for 30 min games. after a recent 25 min game on PTR my apm was roughly... 105. lol!

seems like this time the APM changes really make a huge difference

[36drew]

The APM change will be intersting. I don't usually look at it, but sometimes I do.