Next up for StarCraft II: Zerg improvements

Naturally, the next of the balance changes for StarCraft II will address the Zerg. Lead designer Dustin Browder breaks it down on the game’s official site:

• We’re increasing roach range. This will allow roaches to be more effective in large groups, giving the zerg more options in the mid to end game.
• Fungal Growth will now prevent Blink, which will give zerg a way to stop endlessly Blinking stalkers which can be very challenging to deal with in large numbers.
• The Barracks are going to require a Supply Depot, which will impact a lot of early terran reaper pushes.
• The reaper speed upgrade will require the Factory, which is meant to weaken a lot of the early terran reaper attacks that dominate so many matches, especially in team games.
• We’re making a number of increases to the health of zerg buildings, which will make the very vulnerable zerg technology structures more resistant to raids.  We don’t expect these hit point changes to have a super significant impact on the game, but the current numbers felt way too low.

The intent is to make Zerg matches “feel and play better,” and the aforementioned bullet points are only some of the planned tweaks for the impending patch. If you are big into numbers, Blizzard also has some stats on how the three races stack up amongst the 1v1 scene across the different leagues.