Starcraft 2 patch 1.5 direct

Hi! I am writing this post to provide additional suggestions I think we should have seen for the upcoming balance patch. Some of the changes proposed by Blizzard have been recieved with very negative and mixed reception, which isn't surprising as they don't seem to respond with the initial feedback provided by the community and the current metagame. This is a compilation of several suggestions taken from stream ideas, forum and reddit comments and posts plus some of my own, backed by the reasoning that theoretically backs them.

Terran 

Battlecruiser

• Tactical Jump now requires Weapon Refit upgrade to be used. Research time increased to 57-64 (down from the suggested 100).

A big part of why BC rushes feel hard to defend in most cases is due to how early BCs are able to hit on the mineral line. With this change, BCs will likely hit a minimum of full minute later, but in exchange for the forced upgrade they will be at full full power. This implies more commitment to the build and a reduction for its harass potential.
Thor

• Main Change: Ground attack changed to be much more responsive and micro friendly:

1. Damage point reduced from 0.8 to 0.3.
   
2. Weapon changed to single shot. Damage and attack speed values adjusted to the much more consistent weapon.
   

This change to the ground weapon is targeted at increasing the micro potential of the Thor and reducing its clunkiness, which is actually more important than it seems. Let me explain.
For those who don’t know technical data, the current Thor actually has an incredibly long “aiming” phase. When microing thors, each shot actually takes almost 1s (0.84 real time seconds) to complete (0.58s aim + 0.26 for the second shot) which is TERRIBLE by Starcraft standards (most units have an “aiming” phase of 0.11s, for some its almost 0 and a few have a higher damage point between 0.2 and 0.3 real time seconds) . As the high damage point makes the “targeting” phase really long, if an enemy unit dies before the Thor fires, it basically has to “retarget” again, without dealing damage. This indirectly leads to a situation where the Thor is antinsynergistic with units that can kill other units fast (bio), because they don't get to fire at their targets, constantly swapping from one target to another (Ex: MM Thor vs LBM). This also causes actively microing Thors to be useless, so they can’t be microed to make active use of their range advantage over other ranged units. Important case: Thors vs Immortals. This situation is negatively reinforced by the slow shooting animation, since it has a significant delay between both shots. So the weapon change to be single shot goes in a similar direction. With a micro-friendly weapon, Thors could actually make use of their range advantage over ground units that counter them like immortals.
Additional changes

1. Evaluate increasing move speed a bit.
2. Evaluate if Armor is increased to 2, at the cost of reducing damage output.
3. Evaluate a potential functionality where Thors can fire ground and air weapons at the same time (Multiweapon) at the cost of nerfing them a bit (Maybe only Explosive Payload).

Raven

• Interference Matrix now deals 100+ damage over the full duration. (non-stackable)
• Repair drone back, with changes. Reduced duration (less turtling-friendly), higher durability (HP armor), can be now moved at slow speed.

With Interference doing damage to mech/psionic, several duplicate uses of Interference and Autoturret in TvT (mech disruption) into a more flexible skill that targets lategame units of all races but is asymmetrically stronger vs Terran Mech and Protoss. This change would also bring back some offensive potential (lost on the Missile changes), balanced around the fact that it is not AoE-based and its strength is matchup asymmetric (TvT and TvP oriented mostly), like the snipe ability from the Ghost. As a replacement for the Turret a more balanced and interactive version of the Repair Drone is suggested.
Ghost
We might need to evaluate a minore conomy-oriented change for the unit, which could be an indirect buff. It would be interesting to test inverting mineral and Gas costs. 125/150 or even 100/150 might be interesting option. While this makes the unit in theory more expensive, it makes it easier to fit into the Bio economy, which is totally mineral-oriented.This also aligns with the general dynamic of most caster units in the game, which is in fact designed to limit the total ammount of caster and lategame units on the field as most are very gas intensive.
Cyclone

• Lock-on is interrupted if enemy zerg units burrow.

Since Roaches are the only core early-midgame units significantly affected by the Cyclone upgrade (because they are armored) it seems interesting that instead an of nerfing an upgrade that affects all matchups, we promote the usage of certain tech options that is highly synergistic with the Roach that is already present in the Zerg tech Tree. This change nerfs Cyclones only specifically vs Zerg by forcing a counter upgrade and a micro-oriented response to be used, and at the same time forcing the Terran players to use detection actively against burrow roaches which overall slightly reduces the strength of Mech strategies in TvZ.

Protoss 

Phoenix

• Graviton Beam duration reduced by 20% (7 > 5.6) [10>8 game data]

This change mainly targets the strength of phoenixes against units they cannot kill directly very fast, which is the case of high HP armored units. This change heavily targets the strength of Phoenixes in PvP, where lifting Stalkers and Immortals plays an important role on the general strength of Phoenixes in that matchup. In other matchups, this change is expected to be much less impactful as Graviton Beam is typically used against more fragile units (Marines, Miines, Hydras.although it might indirectly reduce the strength of heavy phoenix play against positional units with high HP (Tanks and Lurkers) which should not affect the matchups in general as Protoss already has several options against them.
Oracle

• Implemented Weapon cooldown fix and keep the Armored tag change.
• Damage changed from 15+7 to 12+6. Cooldown reduced from 0.61 to 0.5 (DPS stays roughly the same)

With the change, oracles deal the same constant DPS but will have less downtime from the weapon cooldown fix, which is specially important against swarms of units that are killed fast. In other hand, it standarizes its worker killing potential which makes stargate openers more symmetric. The oracle is now better than with the weapon fix implemented, but still slightly worse than before. Damage values could easily change or scale with upgrades, so maybe only their value as opener is slightly nerfed.
Estimated values with new weapon vs old weapon (with fix)

1. Zergling (2 damage periods + recharge): 1.83 vs 1.5 (20% improvement)
2. Marine/SCV/now all workers: (3 periods + recharge) 2.43 vs 2. (16% improvement)

Sentry

• Evaluate: Range/HP increase

As the other only antiair option of the basic Protoss units and a historically important unit for earlygame in PvZ, the usage of the Sentry has significantly decreased with the introduction of the Ravager in the game, as they pose a direct counter to ForceFields. In line with the objectives of slightly buffing early PvZ and indirectly nerfing Stargate openers in PvP, a range increase puts Sentries in a slightly safer position during fights. Another interesting option would be to slightly strengthen the Sentry as a core unit with an increase of their HP/shields so they contribute a bit more than via their abilities in the battlefield.

Zerg 

Infestor

• Infested Marine egg HP or hatching speed slightly increased. Infested Marine lifetime slightly reduced.
• Armored tag removed.

Simple change targeted at slightly buffing infestors, namely against both Mech and Mutalisk (Muta Wars in ZvZ). Since Infested terrans spawn with an HP proportional to the current HP of the egg, a buff in either hatch speed or Egg HP makes Infested terran spawn more reliable to use. Paired the Armored tag removal, it will make the unit a bit more appealing to use, specially against Mech (Tanks/Cyclones) and, in ZvZ it will incentivize at transitioning out of Muta vs Mutalisk.

Additional considerations (things to look into the future) 

Adept
We can evaluate minor adjustments to shade speed and cooldown to slightly tune down Adept travel speed by some additional seconds.
Hellions

• We can evaluate removing the Light armor tag from Hellions.

This change is significantly targeted at TvP, since Protoss probably has the most early game units which deal bonus damage to Light (Adept, Phoenix, Oracle). We have to consider that several changes introduced in LotV (Adepts, Shield Battery, Stalker poke-targeted weapon change) indirectly reduce the strength of early game Hellion pressure. In other matchups, this change would probably have much less impact as only realistically Hellions and Banelings (which are slower than Hellions) deal bonus damage to Light.
Gateway/Warpagate
The Gateway/Warpgate/Chronoboost and early game vulnerability actually needs another pots itself.