I don't play Zerg, but from every ZvT replay I've seen, the reaper nerf was absolutely needed. Blizzard's comments basically echo Idra's, and I think he's as well qualified as anyone to say. Reapers restrict Zerg too much in the opening. Even though it's "only" 5 seconds, it'll add up with multiple reapers, cascading into the timing of the rest of the build. The end result is that the Zerg player will have more quite a few more options because of slightly bigger window.
The zealot nerf is probably a net positive. Zealots are almost as bad for Zerg as reapers, and early zealot rushes have gotten kind of silly in PvP too. I'd be worried about 6-pool, but I never see Zerg players on the ladder so it doesn't affect me.
I've heard everything from "6-pool will be auto-win on Steppes!" to "6-pool already beats your first zealot on short rush maps anyway, but you'll be fine because it's easy to kill the first wave of zerglings with probe micro." I'm not good enough to know which is true.I can't believe how many players think all warpgate units have the same cooldown time and think the patch increases warpgate cooldown by 5 seconds for all units. Seriously, even some platinum and diamond players think this. I don't know how you could have played more than 10 games as Protoss and still not notice that different units have different cooldown times.
Proxy rax is eventually going to become standard in PvT with a slower first zealot. It already works almost every time I've seen it in a stream or replay. I think the only reason it hasn't become the standard already is because nobody's noticed how broken it is.
The tank nerf is good, I suppose, but I would have gladly traded it for a marauder nerf. Yes, breaking a seiged up Terran is hard. Stopping early marauders is much harder.
As far as features... I agree that it's strange it's taken this long for basic stuff like chat support.
There's a lot of whining about the game clock too - that it makes it too easy for the n00bs. So? I guess they complained about stuff like auto-mine and control groups too. I mean, it's not like strong players didn't make use of the APM and mental overhead freed up from not having to send their workers to mine. Guess what, if they don't have to waste their time on busy-work, they can do other stuff and the best players will still come out on top!
I think it'll be the same with the clock. Low level players won't get any benefit, since their mechanics are so bad that timings don't matter. Improving players will have a new learning tool, so the quality of play will improve. The very top level players don't need the clock because their timing is already pretty good. At "regular" diamond level play, it will be harder to get away with well known timings that you get off some build on the Internet. People who have unusual or creative play, or who can find novel timings will be rewarded. And I think that will improve the overall quality of play.
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. Felt dirty, but it was fun...hopefully I can get more opportunities to try it so I can polish it up. 