"And then there's the balancing stuff, which I have to imagine will anger many a vocal StarCraft II player for reasons I cannot fully comprehend."
It's not that hard to understand it; the most common reason for patch rage is that the guy raging has no idea how game balance works.

If there's something I KNOW about Blizzard is how they never have and never will balance a game.

... and all their games lack strategical and tactical sense anyway.

The balance changes look decent and well needed. Loving SC2 so far.

@D-roy
Starcraft and Brood War were exceptionally well balanced, and you realize that the S in RTS stands for Strategy, right? /sigh

D-roy: SCBW is pretty much the best balanced rts.
As for your second statement... What?

Definitely a fan of that header image. Thumbs up.

No Rage here. Terran deserved to got bonked down a bit, but all three races were nerfed, with the only noticable buff being given to the Ultralisk - Cleave on buildings!

And D-roy, enjoy playing games that are SO FULL of 'strategical and tactical sense' like Crystal Chronicles. You made yourself look like a fool. Dont cry because you couldnt level a character in WoW, and think you hate Blizzard games.

No patch will ever balance out the overwhelming force that is The Duke's mighty boot, I've got my build order right here mighty boot-shotgun-give cash to stripper-one-liner.

Diane, I'm reading about the new Starcraft II patch. This doesn't look good.

I have to say starcraft 2 wasnt what i was expecting to be , even if i watch the beta test talk to other players try it out and stuff like that but something is missing ...

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?
If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy."

Sure is amateurs in here.

In response to this post, I'm as blank as a fart.

Poor Mr Palmer.

Just when you think they can't make him any more sad, depressing and pathetic, they throw that shit at you.

You know what I'm talkin about.

:(

anyone remember dark reign 2? heh, that was a somewhat fun RTS

This Twin Peaks meme needs to keep going!

dosent matter how much they try, a good zelot rush towards the start of a game would be devistating. then theres the zerg rush and after that the one who spams battle cruisers wins

So rather than rage ensuing you're actually just assuming it will? Awesome!

Looking at the comments it seems the vast majority of players are taking it fine, funnily enough.

I will rage over the fact that I'll never get any resolution to Twin Peaks. And don't say Fire Walk With Me, because that just leaves more unresolved storylines. Watched the series for the first time after playing Alan Wake. Loved every second until it ended abruptly.

Seems like good changes. I'm a fan of a Zealot rush but not a Zealot proxy rush. If that makes sense.

Nice across-the-board changes. I don't feel like anyone gets screwed in particular.

I approve the use of any Twin Peaks images for posts!

lefties support?? that will imablance the game forever!!

/s

Honestly, I think SC2 has gotten a rotten run of it. The hardcore fanbois are all crying because this doesn't have LAN (which affects maybe 1 out 1,000,000 people, can essentially be emulated, and, turns out, a LAN edition will be available). Another set of hardcore fanbois are sad because it's SO MUCH DIFFERENT than SC1. No joke. Then there's a set of people who think it's too much like SC2, as though RTS's like Starcraft just don't belong here anymore. Yeah, like just because Company of Heroes and Dawn of War are around, there can no longer be any games with different resource systems. *facepalm*

Starcraft 2 is a great game, and Blizzard is a great company. The campaign editor is probably the most advanced in a video game on the planet, and certainly is within the world of strategy. The game is polished, well balanced, and a lot of fun. The changes are worthwhile, but the game has it's own classic charm that simply doesn't exist in any other contemporary RTS.

Wanna know the bad part of SC2? The story sucks. Sorry. The story sucks. Everything else is fantastic.

My personal feeling after playing lots and lots of games as Terran is that Terran tends to be slightly overpowered. Not by a lot, but there's all these little individual things that they have going for them, when added up, becomes one heck of a problem to deal with.

Off the top of my head, amazing things that Terran have going for them--100% salvage rate for bunkers, mules, the extreme effectiveness of concussive shells, the incredible efficiency of tier 1 M&M throughout nearly the entire game, sensor towers, the many, many, many harass options they have, the extreme variety of tech options they have that are relatively easy to transition between/into. . .the list is pretty long.

I think tanks are problematic in general, but there's supposed to be ways to get around them--in SC1, zealot bombing and speed zealots and psi storm were generally a solid way to get around the general stupidity of tanks. I'm not sure if there's similar strats in SC2 (baneling drops? Not sure here. . .), but dropping tank damage from 50 to 35 seems a bit much. Maybe slowing the rate of fire when sieged would make more sense. Iunno. I don't really agree with Blizzard's decision here, but I'm pretty sure I'm biased because I love tanks, haha.

protoss are good at quick defence and specials, zelot rushing is good but taking another races worker can prove useful. terran with enough time can battle cruiser spam and the game is pritty much done after that unless you have ghosts. zergs power lies in their quick and easy numbers, with zerg its best to divide and distroy your NME's base on 2 fronts while keeping the air forces at bay with scourges.

Remember, Bob loves chewing gum.