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Blizzard's most recent situation report talks about Widow Mines replacing Tanks, Void Rays in PvZ and gameplay-staling strategies.
In the opening sections of the report, lead balance designer David Kim states how the game has improved pace and diversity-wise, thus becoming more interesting to watch and play. Additionally, the change towards promoting skill and multitasking is also well embraced by the development team and the recent Warp Prism test changes as well as Innovation's use of bio/mine compositions are mentioned.
Two widely discussed units and their "OP-ness" in particular - the Void Ray and the Widow Mine - are also among the focuses of the situation report. Kim's state on the matter is as follows:
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Void Ray
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- We’re seeing a lot of Void Ray play in PvZ, but Protoss is still not statistically overpowered.
- Zerg all-ins aren’t the only counter, as we see many PvZ matches last into the mid- and late-game, ending in a Zerg victory, despite the usage of Void Rays.
- Void Rays are much better than they used to be, but we don’t think this is a bad thing.
- Stargate used to be almost unusable, and now it’s quite important. We also see a lot of Robo and Templar play.
- All tech options are viable now throughout the course of the game.
- We don’t currently have any plans to nerf Void Rays.
Widow Mine
- Widow Mines are currently overshadowing units such as Siege Tanks and Thors, but their use doesn’t correlate distinctly with wins over Protoss or Zerg opponents.
- So our question here becomes “is this a good thing that Widow Mines have replaced Siege Tanks as the primary splash damage units?”
- We believe the answer is yes.
- When you see an army of Marines and tanks clash with a Zerg army, you pretty much know who will come out ahead, even before the battle.
- When you see an army of Marines and Widow Mines, it comes down to the skill of the players in that specific battle.
- The current design of Widow Mines rewards both players who are skilled at using them and opposing players who are skilled at defeating them.
- It doesn’t look like Siege Tanks have disappeared. They’re critical in TvT, and in TvZ they’re key to playing a safe early/mid game. Additionally, Terran Mech also has potential.
- As long as Widow Mines reward skilled players and Terran can’t legitimately be said to be better than the other races, we don’t plan to adjust this unit.
For wrap up, Kim talks in short about the balance team's future testing plans, which include "dealing with units/strategies that are making gameplay stale", the Swarm Host turtling in combination with mass static defenses - a style widely used by EG's Stephano among others - mentioned in particular.
