First StarCraft II Patch Detailed, Hitting September

Blizzard has announced that the first update for StarCraft II will be hitting in a few weeks and detailed just what we can expect when the patch rolls out in September.

StarCraft II publisher Blizzard has released details of what fans can expect from Patch 1.1 when it hits in the middle of September. Patch 1.1 will contain a number of improvements including additional mod features, Editor improvements and bug fixes, some custom game improvements, and support for Nvidia's 3D Vision, along with some tweaks to gameplay that were outlined as follows:

• Friendly units will no longer provide vision after they're killed. That's right, post-Patch 1.1 we won't have the benefit of those few seconds of field vision that allowed us to jump to the attack location to try and get things under control.
• The addition of destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. The center map watchtower area is being narrowed, too.
• The zealot build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Blizzard says this is because Zealot rushes are too powerful the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small.
• On the Terran side of things, Blizzard is going to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. They'll also be increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds. Blizzard also says siege tanks are performing too well in all matchups. To combat this problem, Siege Mode damage of the siege tank is going from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armoured. To correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armoured. The posting goes on to say that overall, they feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and so they're lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.
• Also deemed too powerful for the cost are ultralisks. As such, ultralisk damage is seeing a reduction comparable to the changes being made to siege tanks and battlecruisers. Ultralisk damage will be decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead.

Read more about Patch 1.1 on the StarCraft II Blog.