Patch 16 Notes

Patch notes are below.

I'm not really sure why rallying got changed from "move" to "attack move". I can't see how you'd want "move" to happen more often than "attack move".

I'm scared to ask what "cross-social" features exist between WoW and SC2. Can we not get away from that game ever?

Zerg changes:

WOOT.

Love the buffs. Frenzy was too difficult to use. It's micro intensive and you need a unit to stay alive long enough to have the buff be useful and justify not spending the energy on fungal growth... which basically only applies to brood lords and ultralisks.

Infested Terrans coming back to infestors is neat, but I still doubt it'll see much use.

But the biggest change of all is that Ultras are now immune to mind control and stuns. No more 250mm annihilation. I mean, 500 damage over 5 seconds still hurts like an anvil dropping on your foot, but the lack of stun is awesome. Not for the ultralisks that had 250mm casted on it- that guy is dead. For the OTHER units behind that ultralisk. The problem with 250mm is that if you did it in a line, all the units behind the stunned ultralisks would get pinned back and mess up timings as well as take splash damage.

Sweet change.

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StarCraft II Beta – Patch 16 (version 0.19.0.15976)

General

• Rally points now behave as a move command, instead of an attack move command.
  
• Enabled the ability to manually add a StarCraft II character friend using the player's character code. Character code is a server-assigned numerical code that is displayed within the Add Friend panel.
  
• Battle.net Achievements & Rewards have been updated.
  
• All Quick Match modes are now available: 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and Free For All.
  
• All A.I. difficulties are now available for play.
  
• Cooperative matchmaking versus A.I. players is now available as a play mode.
  
• Enabled cross-game social features between World of Warcraft and StarCraft II.

Balance Changes

• ZERG
  
  
  • Infestor
    
    
    • Frenzy spell removed.
      
    • Infested Terran spell added.
    
    
  • Overseer
    
    
    • Infested Terran spell removed.
    
    
  • Ultralisk
    
    
    • Now immune to stuns and mind control.

SC2 Beta Phase 2 Now Up!

Good luck actually playing a game though. 615k players online, 0 games being played. The buttons to start matchmaking are frozen or erroring out.

It's pretty cool to see that many people online, though. How many games in HISTORY can say they've had that many players online at once? And this is in a closed beta, at that. Sort of closed, anyway- people who want to get in, can't anymore, so that's closed enough for me.

I'm not even sure if that's US only.

Also, while I was bored I saw this:

Not really sure what to make of this. Assuming they haven't released any new functionality, the only way this is possible is to mind control a probe and start building gateways, I guess.

Interviews with White-Ra

White-Ra, the famous Ukranian player who's probably the top SC2 player in the world at the moment, has his own official site about him. He posted a couple interviews of him talking about SC2.

White-Ra Interviews

He talks about his practice routine, some favorite strategies, thoughts on balance, and has some photos of him on vacation too.

Also, he offers some advice about what to do while the beta is down.

This is why TLO is awesome.

This was Game 1 of the HDH Invitational, round of 8 between TheLittleOne and WhiteRa.

One of the most exciting games I've seen in the beta and continued proof of how TLO will always keep a game interesting, win or lose. This one isn't settled until the last minute.

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft#p/u/128/UbH2kmfGQ-g

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft#p/u/127/m461kJZ-TVI

If you want some early spoilers/setup:

TLO is Zerg against WhiteRa's Protoss on Kulas Ravine. WhiteRa shows 3 gates to warp gate tech, which causes TLO to stick to 1 base play and builds a roach warren. WhiteRa ends up keeping his unit count low while pumping drones and getting an observer and immortals.

TLO scouts and realizes that WhiteRa has been pumping his economy and goes straight for the gold. WhiteRa scouts the gold with his observer and moves out with his army after TLO breaks down his rocks and opens a hole to his base.

Watch the video for the exciting final battles.

More shoutcasts from HDStarcraft and Husky

Husky has a great youtube channel with shoutcasts he does of Sc2 games, mostly top level players.

http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft#p/u/155/YR0L81omiXM

It's really obvious that day9 is a much more experienced player than Husky, but Husky does a good job of keeping his eye on the action, making a decent amount of observations about trends/unit strategies and staying enthusiastic.

I prefer his shoutcasts of live games rather than his analysis of replays, which isn't nearly as deep as day9's (which is understandable).

Contaminate

Contaminate, the zerg Overseer ability that prevents buildings from functioning, can be used on floating Terran buildings to prevent them from moving or landing.

Just a useful thing to know. Thanks to TLO for doing that in one of his games :-)

Hallucination

Hallucinate

A fun spell that sentries can cast, but it has to be researched from a cybernetics core for 100/100 first.

Hallucinate allows you to spawn hallucinated units that cannot attack and take double damage. Your opponent cannot visually tell the difference between real and hallucinated units without detection (though the fact that they aren't attacking will make it obvious real fast usually).

Above are the units that you can create with hallucinate. However, they spawn in differing amounts. Lower tech units spawn in more numbers. For a full list, check out this link.

Some uses of hallucinate:

1. Scouting. Spawn some hallucinations and send them off to scout for free. Some players will even research hallucinate quickly (from the cybernetics core) so they can spawn a phoenix ASAP and take a look at their opponent. Phoenixes also can give you high ground vision, which is useful for not just shooting upwards but allow safe blinking with stalkers.
2. Soak up damage.
3. Scare the enemy. Spawning several void rays and floating them near his base will scare the crap out of him. Mixing hallucinations in with real void rays will really scare him. This can be used to force him to build units/structures he doesn't want to or to call off an attack he'd otherwise have won.
4. Block movement. Just make some hallucinations and run them to a ramp or chokepoint to clog up the enemy. Even if they know they're fake, they'll need to shoot through them before they can proceed.
5. Crush force fields. WTF?

Yep. Colossi are massive units, and massive units crush force fields. Hallucinated ones do as well, apparently.