Balance issues

[MatthewMarinets]

Creating an issue to track misc balancing issues we want to keep an eye on or address:

Issues

• Stalwarts don't feel good -- their shield buff doesn't defend against light / melee units enough to make them a worthwhile frontline when they have pre-war council short range. They're also not too well distinguished from immortals
  • Proposal from CrazedCollie: some kind of ability to restore shields to friendly units around where they attack
  • Proposal from Alice: Change their attack to be more like a flamethrower
  • Proposal from phaneros: further increase their survivability with more shields and a lower damage-to-shield cap
  • Proposal from Ziktofel: give Stalwarts an upgrade like Trillic Compression from dragoons to give shield regen in combat
• Warp Rays aren't distinct from void rays
  • Proposal from phaneros: make them siege up before they can charge, similar to a flying siege tank
• Hunter Killers should be double-stat hydralisks in terms of health and damage. Currently just copied sc1 stats, which don't match.
  • Also ensure upgrades like +20 health are properly doubled for HKs
• Mechanical Know-How currently gives global +20% mech life, which is insane. Maybe make it like 5%, or +25?
• Mercenary Munitions gives global +15% attack speed, which is ridiculous. Maybe only apply to mercenaries, or only infantry?
• Frightful Fleshwelder is far too powerful -- there was discussion of splitting it into multiple resource efficiency upgrades and reducing the scale of the discount.
• Should SOA ults have combined cooldown?
• Infested Diamondbacks are far too strong right now

Nerf abils category

Have some powerful abilities nerfed off the baseline and restored with an item (which can be excluded!)

• Infestor campaign mind control -> melee Neural Parasite
• SOA ults should cost energy
• SOA Solar lance should cost 100 energy
• Siege Tank WoL damage (flat 60) to later expansions (35 +15armoured)
• Carrier interceptors cost money
• Trireme Bombers cost money
• Zerg larva spawn maximum / spawn rate

Keeping an eye out

• Skylord balance
• Skirmishers may need more feedback
• Triremes do huge damage, but friendly-fire. If friendly-fire is reduced, damage should go down as well. Friendly fire reduced, bomber capacity reduced.
• Mothership nerfs will likely come with war council (see Protoss War Council rebalance checklist #152)

[SirChuckOfTheChuckles]

Resource Efficiency Imbalance for some units:
Ghost/Spectre - Reduces Ghost/Spectre cost by 125 minerals, 75 gas, and 1 supply.
Reaver - Reduces Reaver cost by 100 minerals, 100 gas, and 2 supply.
Scout - Reduces Scout cost by 125 minerals, 25 gas, and 1 supply.
Centurion - Reduces Centurion cost by 50 gas. (Expensive given centurions are generally a mineral dump unit for frontline).

[MatthewMarinets]

Ghost/Spectre RE should be addressed in PR #279.

[itsjustbones]

Infested marines from infestor and infested barracks should be the same unit - from discord