CDC #14 - Arcturus Mengsk, Dominion Emperor

[Labreris-2416]

Arcturus Mengsk, the brutal emperor of the Dominion, is a ranged support that wields cruel weapons of war and a slew of different Dominion units to aid him in achieving victory at any cost. Mengsk aids his team by not only constructing a fortified frontline, but also securing lane control through his excellent map-wide presence.

Stats

Health:	1300 (4%)
Health regen:	2.7 (4%)
Mana:	500 (10)
Mana regen:	3.0 (0.1)
Attack damage:	65 (4%)
Attack speed:	0.83
Attack range:	5.5

Trait

For the Dominion

Whenever an ally or enemy dies near Mengsk or his Liberator, they gain a bolstering aura, granting 1% increased movement speed to them and nearby allies for 10 seconds, stacking up to 15%. Heroes that die instantly grant 15% movement speed. New stacks refresh the duration.

Radius (deaths): 13.00
Radius (aura): 7.0
Multiple auras on the same target do not stack and only apply the greatest one.

Mount

Z

Emperor’s Perspective
60 second cooldown
After 3 seconds, Mengsk calls down and flies off on an elite dropship, becoming immune to all effects and switching to his Commander abilities. Commander abilities have no cooldowns and are instead refreshed when activating Emperor’s Perspective again.

Z

Call-down
Mengsk orders his elite dropship to drop him off at a visible location after 3 seconds, switching to his default abilities and ending Emperor’s Perspective.

Range: Global (requires vision)

Basic Abilities

Commander Abilities

Usable while Emperor’s Perspective (Z) is active.

Q

Earthsplitter Ordnance
3 charges | 5 second cooldown between charges
Mengsk orders an artillery strike upon a visible location, dealing 240 (4%) damage after 2 seconds. Deals 50% increased damage to Minions, Mercenaries and Monsters.

Radius: 4.5
Range: Global (requires vision)

W

Call in Liberator
Mengsk drops in a Liberator at a visible location after 3 seconds. The Liberator has 600 (4%) Health and has two modes.
While Emperor’s Perspective is active, the Liberator can be controlled and this ability can be reactivated to switch the Liberator’s attack mode.

In Fighter Mode, the Liberator moves freely and deals 70 (4%) damage per second that splashes in a small area.

In Defender Mode, the Liberator immobilizes and fires at non-structure enemies in a target area, dealing 140 (4%) damage per second to a single target.

Range (fighter mode): 5.0
Radius (splash damage): 1.5
Range (defender mode ability): 6.5
Radius (defender mode ability): 2.5
Range (deployment): Global (requires vision)

W

Defender Mode
Mengsk orders his Liberator to defend a target area near it, immobilizing it and causing it to shoot at non-structure enemies in the area, dealing 150 (4%) damage per second to a single target.
Requires active Liberator.

W

Fighter Mode
Mengsk’s Liberator reverts to Fighter mode, letting it move and attack normally.
Requires Active Liberator.

E

Recon Drone
2 charges | 1 second cooldown between charges
Place a Recon Drone in a visible location that reveals a large area around it. Recon Drones have 100 (4%) health and last 180 seconds. Only 2 Recon Drones may be active at a time.

Radius: 10.0
Range: Global (requires vision)

Default Abilities

Q

Decisive Maneuver
40 Mana | 8 second cooldown
Mengsk orders a swift artillery strike at a target location, dealing 180 (4%) damage after 1 second and slowing enemies hit by 70%, decaying over 1.5 seconds.

Range: 10.0
Radius: 2.0

W

Forced Conscription
60 Mana | 12 second cooldown | Vector-targeting
Mengsk drops in a squadron of 4 Dominion Troopers in a line at a target location after 1 second. The troopers each have 400 (4%) health and fire at enemies that come close, each dealing 25 (4%) damage per second. Troopers block enemy movement and last 4 seconds.

Range: 7.0
Wall length: 4.0
Trooper attack range: 4.5

E

Emperor’s Shadow
80 Mana | 15 second cooldown | Vector-targeting
Mengsk orders a nearby Ghost to decloak and fire in a line, dealing 150 (4%) damage to the first enemy hit and Silencing for 1.5 seconds. Afterwards, the Ghost stays near Mengsk and mimics his attacks, dealing 65 (4%) damage per second to his target. The Ghost lasts 5 seconds.

Range (cast): 7.0
Range (Ghost shot): 6.0
Size (Ghost shot): 0.75 x 0.75
Missile speed (Ghost shot): 50
NOTE: The Ghost is not a regular summon, and most closely resembles LiLi’s Cloud Serpent in function. (Has no health and cannot be damaged)

Heroics

R1

Dogs of War
80 Mana | 80 second cooldown
Mengsk orders a small army of enthralled zerg to emerge at a target location, shaking the area with tremors for 3 seconds. Every second, a Zergling and Hydralisk emerge in the center of the area and enemies in the area take 80 (4%) damage and are slowed by 40% for 2 seconds.
Zerglings deal 30 (4%) damage per second and Hydralisks deal 60 (4%) damage per second. Zerg last 5 seconds.

After casting Dogs of War, Mengsk immediately flees the scene, becoming immune to all effects and switching to his Commander abilities.

Range: 10.0
Radius: 4.0

Zergling Health: 150 (4%)
Zergling attack range: 1.2
Zergling movement speed: 150%

Hydralisk Health: 250 (4%)
Hydralisk attack range: 4.5

R2

Nuclear Annihilation
100 Mana | 120 second cooldown
Mengsk orders complete annihilation of a target area, causing a barrage of missiles to rain down after 4 seconds. When the time is up, Mengsk launches a total of 20 tactical missiles over 4 seconds, each dealing 80 (4%) damage to non-structure enemies. After all 20 tactical missiles, Mengsk drops a nuclear warhead, dealing an additional 400 (4%) damage to non-structure enemies in a 50% larger area.

Range: 10.0
Radius (missiles): 5.0
Radius (nuclear warhead): 7.5

---

Patchnotes

13/3/21	Concept posted
20/3/21	Balance changes 1
Balance changes 1
Earthsplitter Ordnance bonus damage against Minions, Mercenaries and Monsters reduced from 100% to 50%
Cooldown between Earthsplitter Ordnance charges increased from 1 second to 5 seconds.

Emperor’s Perspective cooldown increased from 40 to 60 seconds.
Calldown moved from E to Z
Calldown now has a 3 second delay before dropping off at your target location.

Liberator health reduced from 800 (4%) to 600 (4%)
Liberator attack range reduced to 5.0
Liberator Defender Mode range reduced from 8 to 6.5
Liberator damage reduced to 70 (4%) and 140 (4%) in respective modes.

Recon. Drone moved from (1) to E
Recon. Drone vision radius from from 10 to 6

E ability reworked from Engineering Bay to Emperor’s Shadow

Both Heroics reworked

[waterlong-1416]

Talents

Level 1

Insurance policy
When mengsk takes damage while below half health a device with 100 health is called down on his location that stuns nearby enemies for 1 second after 1.5 seconds. The device self destructs after use.
!Quest: reach level 20
Reward: now calls down an artifact that lasts 20 seconds and has 250 health and can stun again every 5 seconds. The artifact doea not self destruct.

Propaganda campaign
Recon drone now summons a propaganda blimp instead which gains the For the dominion aura.

Weapons calibrations
!Quest: Earthsplitter Ordnance and decisive maneuver gain 2 damage each time they kill an enemy.

Level 4

Personal guard
The duration of the Forced Conscription troopers is paused when mengsk is in 2.5 range of them.

Conscript army
Forced Conscription summons 3 additional troopers, extending the length of the wall but their max health is reduced by 50% and their damage by 30%.

Impenetrable defenses
Allied heroes and Mengsk’s summons gain 20% attack speed while in the Liberators zone. Additionally, Liberators move 25%

Level 7

Concussive Weapons
Decisive maneuver and Emperor’s Shadow reduces the damage of enemies hit by 30% for 3 seconds.
(Just the skillshot from Emperor’s Shadow, not every attack it makes)

Targets identified
Enemy heroes who stay with in 5 range of the recon drones vision for 4 seconds are have their armor reduced by 15 and are revealed for 4 seconds. Additionally, Recon drones have 125% more health.

Focus fire
Basic attacks against enemies inside the Liberators zone reduce the time before the Liberators next attack by .2 seconds. Emperors shadow attacks also reduce the liberators attack cooldown.

Level 13

Guerilla warfare
Earthsplitter Ordnance deals 50% reduced damage on impact but release gas in the explosion area for 4 seconds that deal 125 damage per second. Additionally, liberators in bushes deal 30% more damage.

Entrenched position
Earthsplitter Ordnance creates craters on impact for 4 seconds that give allies that stand in them 15 armor. Additionally, liberators defender mode gain 20% range.
(Their targeting area can be placed further from the ship)

Frontal assault
Earthsplitter Ordnance gains an extra charge. Additionally, liberators gain 20% more health and a wraith escort that deals 50 damage a second with 250 health.
(The wraith stays next to the lib at all times)

Level 16

Upgrade Order
Activatable
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Order the construction of an armory in the target area over 5 seconds lasting 40 seconds.
Every 8 seconds the armory will increase the attack damage of all nearby allied heroes and Forced Conscription marines by 10% for 10 seconds. This stacks up to 3 times.

Artillery strikes
Gain an activatable that lets mengsk use Earthsplitter Ordnance while outside Emperors Perspective with its own 15 second cooldown.

Total Control
Decisive Maneuver’s now slows for 35% for 1.5 seconds. Additionally, Forced Conscription troopers will focus their fire on heroes hit by Decisive Maneuver and Earthsplitter Ordnance and extends its debuffs as the Troopers attack by up to an additional 2 seconds. (this includes the damage reduction from Concussive rounds and the damage over time from Guerilla warfare)

Level 20

Burned to Ashes
Nuclear annihilation’s cooldown resets when the final nuke hits 3 heroes or after every 4 takedowns. (Vikings count as 1/3rd a takedown for this)

Wolves of war
When Dogs of war ends, an Ultralisk unburrows in the center, knocking enemies away, stunning them for .5 seconds and slowing them by 70% decaying over 2 seconds.
The ultralisk lasts 8 seconds and deals 70 damage per second.

Covert Ops
Emperor’s Shadow’s ghost lasts an additional 7 seconds and each time a Liberator hits a hero while defender mode and each hero hit by Decisive Maneuver reduces its cooldown by 1 second. (you can have more then 1 ghost out at a time)

Take command
Activatable
Cooldown: 80 seconds (starts after the command center is destroyed)
Order the construction of a command center with 1300 health next to a fort/keep that takes 20 seconds to build. When completed, gain direct control over that lanes next 20 minions. Enemies are alerted of its construction and can see it on the map.
Only 1 command center can exist at a time and take command goes on a 60 second cooldown when the command center is destroyed and minions under its control leave the battlefield.
(Changed to gradually build up units rather then gain instant control over existing ones)

Changes sense week 2
New level 1 talent
Impenetrable defenses at 4 gains an additional effect
Take command at 20 gains an additional weakness
Burned to ashes at 20 mustnow hit 3 heroes with the final missile for the reset. Up from 2.

I feel that parts of Mengsk’s kit are misunderstood. I’ll clarify;

Note* minions spawn every 45 sec so take command needs a little over 2 minutes to be a full strength and during this time the command center must protected or progress is lost.

Note 2* many of mengsk’s builds require him to be in the fight to be fully effective. Staying in Emperors perspective for an entire fight will severely limit your effectiveness sense Earthsplitter Ordinance does not recharge while in Emperors perspective. Useing Emperors perspective can sort of be used to escape a fright but it has a 3 second cast time and much like anduin, can be CCed out of (outside of the zerg ult). Additionally if you choose not to enter a fight using Emperors perspective you risk not having your liberators in position and not being able to open a fight with your powerful level 13 talents.

Note 3* Liberators fallow the normal experience rules for summons and will only gain experience from last hits which will happen but not to frequently. Parking a Liberator in a lane can help defend it but wont be nearly as effective a pushing tool as azmodan’s summon sense it can move more often then every 60 seconds and does not posses an ability that oneshots minions.

[GaebeW-2704]

Ey yo gamers hope you are having a good day, if not start having one now

[Bliztron-1378]

Overall Score

Creativity - 5/5
Cohesiveness - 5/5
Thematic - 5/5
Interaction - 3/5

Total - 18/20

Creativity - 5/5

This concept has a lot going for it! The base kit and each ability seems complex enough to create a compelling gameplay loop, mostly due to the interesting use of his trait to really elevate a pseudo form switching gimmick. While each ability itself is relatively simple, they each fulfill their purpose, and overall contribute to the character design itself being interesting. I would like to see talents spice up the actual usage and effects of these abilities though, and am excited to see what you all make of them.

Cohesiveness - 5/5

In terms of Cohesiveness, there are two main ways in which this is held together. Emperor’s Perspective really ties the entire concept together with explicit interactions and a nice mirror between the Q’s. The other main foundation is the implicit interactions between his grounded forms. Since these are the abilities the Mengsk will be using most often, I think it is important they feel the best to use. While I do have reservations about the fun, interactiveness, and cohesion of the Engineering Bay, and I think it could be tweaked up a bit, I like the idea about using the dominion troopers to obstruct enemies as you wait for either a Decisive Strike or EarthSplitter Ordinance to drop on them. Forced Conscription working with his trait was also a clever use of summons. I considered dropping a point here for two reasons, but overall decided to consolidate it in Interaction. The first is that the Commander Abilities could easily be condensed to save valuable space and reduce screen clutter. The Recon Drones could easily be shifted to the E ability, and the E moved to the mount used again. I understand there may have been the idea to keep the wards consistent on the 1 key, but I don’t think it holds enough value to outweigh consolidating the design area. It would be nice to also see the full ability bar shift when you are in your commander form, instead of just having a 1 key appear, or, much worse, it just being greyed out. It also clears up space if you wanted to use secondary abilities in the talents. The second is that Engineering Bay feels like it fails the kit. I understand the idea of leaving it in a lane and providing global pressure that way, but I think the cost of such an ability on making Mengsk fun is too great. His gameplay loop outside of his Emperor’s Perspective loop needs to bear the complete weight of the design upon it, and with Engineering Bay being a relatively place and forget ability, you are relying on two abilities instead of three. I think there should be efforts made to make it more active in Mengsk’s mind, even if by simply making it an Imperial Witness you need to move around. For example, making it grant its benefits when it remains still for more than a second, and having it gain movement speed as it moves, so that positioning it is an actual game you need to play with your enemies in lane. This simple change would add a completely new pillar of gameplay to focus on, so you don’t feel like you are waiting for your Emperor’s Perspective to come off cooldown.

Thematic - 5/5

From the bombardment of enemies, to observing the battlefield from above, to the use of his soldiers and experiments to control the battlefield, nothing here lacks the distinct feel of Mengsk. I think this is perhaps one of the best designs to effectively capture who Mengsk is, while still making a reasonable hero concept in the process. Very good job.

Interaction - 3/5

And now we arrive at the issues of the kit. I have four main issues with the kit that I think detract from the gameplay in their own ways. The first major issue is that the global effectiveness and contributions, especially the mobility, offered by Emperor’s Perspective are just way too overwhelming for such a pitifully low cooldown. Comparing it to Brightwing, who gains less overall effectiveness from it with a far more limiting usage at a 50 second cooldown, this just seems very overtuned. Global contributions are always hard to work with, but when you offload a huge amount of power onto it, you need to make the power budget cuts somewhere, and this concept just doesn’t feel like it does that. To keep the impact of the kit, I think reducing Mengsk’s access to this form and mobility while simultaneously bolstering how fun his base kit is will offer a more fair gameplay experience while still being as fun to play. My second main issue is that his capacity to dual soak and contribute large amounts of pressure requires him to risk himself very little. In his grounded form, all of his abilities have really long ranges, minimizing the risk he will ever have to face. And his Liberator can be thrown into an empty lane to auto-farm until an enemy comes to deal with it, which gives them little benefit for how much work it can put in (great for dual soaking and split pushing, has moderate health bar). I think something needs to give here, because even though his healthpool is understandably low, he still has too much safety for the amount of global contribution he can bring, which is already an issue that plagues Abathur’s design. The third main issue is just the heroics. Both heroics offer a unique problem. For obvious reasons, Dogs of War simply does not work well in a MOBA. Summoning a ton of moderately damaging zerg to ravage a base or teamfight would either have now effect at all (the enemies have good AoE), or it would devastate the gamestate. We can see a small piece of this polarization in Braxis Holdout, but this being on a hero is far worse. I think it would be smarter to go down the Kerrigan route and make the summons actually have an effect upon entry, and then reduce the contributions of the summons, most likely by reducing the amount of summons by a moderate margin. The second heroic seems better at first glance, but abilities that constantly fear or displace from a target location are actually far more problematic than one might expect, especially with a moderately large radius and a long duration. Effects like this are prone to break geometry to an insane degree. It will be much easier to score a 4 second disable on one or two enemies and scattering the rest of the enemy team using a simple way than it may appear. We can see this in multiple other MOBA’s who have tried this exact same ability, namely Smite’s Hun Batz and Battle for Graxia (Rise of Immortals)’s Lord Trovoc. Each had an ultimate that did basically the same thing, with one having the character become the most top character until the game died, and the other reducing its duration by an extreme margin. You have to keep in mind that Smite also has much more CC in general than HotS (due to other game design features), and Hun Batz’s ultimate eats most of his character’s power budget in that game. An ability like this can single handedly win teamfights in a very unfun manner. The final issue is that Engineering Bay reduces the impact of Mengsk and allows him to contribute to all three lanes if he has a Liberator up. It’s radius isn’t huge, but since you can place this close to your tower, it will extend long enough that your team will maintain its benefit while being in most of the lane. You can compare this to a Probius placing a Pylon near his base, and the amount of reach it has to grant him mana. It’s not the biggest issue, but with the other issues with the ability described in Cohesiveness, I think it is fair to access that it is a problem.

[Damian-1581]

Overall Score

Creativity - 4/5
Cohesiveness - 5/5
Thematic - 5/5
Interaction - 3/5

Total - 17/20

Creativity - 4/5
Firstly the kit itself is actually quite Mengsk like and uses what Deathwing added to a much better degree specially with Emperors Shadow being added in, now onto Talents themselves while some are quite nice such as Focus Fire, Guerilla Warfare and Upgrade Order, there are other thats just fall out of that spectrum mostly due to being plain as hell such as plain ‘gains damage’ talent or his Fority Positions talent just adding a singular turret with no additional detail, text or effect.
One thing i could add is that there isnt much interaction between the ‘stance’ change that Mengsk has granted Deathwing also suffers this a little, to the point you could actually turn half the kit into talents.

Cohesiveness - 5/5
Everything in his talents just works for his base kit specially the supportive stuff, the rest just ramps up damage in certain ways or alters them like with Guerilla Warfare which is neat to see.

Thematic - 5/5
Thematically this is literally just Mengsk kit and talents and it works out, his talents just add more to this as he makes more use of what he has plus altering effects to be even more like Mengsk over in Co-op SC2.

Interaction - 3/5
His talents seem to magnify everything that was the design of the base kit nicely, problem is this causes problems that Deathwing similarly has which is Global harassment and removing yourself from the field itself, makes him a problem to deal with for the enemy team and his talents increase that issue (although the change from Engineering Bay to Emperors’s Shadow fixed some of this very nicely), Take Command for example is one of these as by right you can mega push a lane on the opposite side of the map harder than a Sylvanas can only dream of (dont get me wrong its a nice talent thematically but still), another example is Fortify Position making him near impossible to deal with in the early game when pressuring Forts, thats just for enemies but for teammates while your able to fight in combat you deal with Deathwing syndrome of disappearing from a fight leaving them for dead (even if this ironically fits Mengsk perfectly hahaha XD) and at other times you can just pressure a lane instead of objectives for better or worse though again Emperors Shadow made this so much better than beforehand.
Will add his Burned to Ashes talent might be very strong in the right situations given it sounds like both resets can occur within microseconds causings literal Nuclear Annihilation in that area for better or worse interactions wise.

[waterlong-1416]

Also updated my week 2 post a bit

Week 3 stuff
voicelines

To whitemane
Your devotion is exactly what im looking for

To anduin
You are weak and your views narrow

To nova
Remember, just as we planned.
Nova, I have a mission for you.

To raynor
So this is where you’ve been hiding.
James raynor…

To kerrigan
I made you what you are.
How does it feel, working together?
Even now, you cannot strike me down.

To orphea
I will rule this relm, or see it burned to ashes around me.

To bwamsamdi
A deal? I’ll consider it.

Genaric negative
You will not get in my way.
Its fortunate you still have your uses.

Generic neural
Fight, in the name of the Dominion!
Show then our pride!
War is coming.

To protoss hero
Your interference will not go unanswered.

To zerg hero
You are only a means to an end.

---

Skin 1
Hearthstone enthusiast mengsk

Mengsk wears his normal outfit but very colorful and absolutely cluttered with hearthstone medals and carries a deck instead of his sidearm.
Mengsk loves removal and secrets so he plays mage but also cheats and puts whatever in his deck.

Recolors represent the different rarities in HS

Spell effects

Mengsk uses the mage hero power for his basic attack

Entering Emporers perspective sees mengsk board a flying platform with a hearthstone bord and takes a seat in front of it. The platform then flies off screen.

Q1: Earthsplitter Ordinance
A fireball card appears and shoots down a fireball

W1: the liberator becomes a ragnaros card portrait thing when defending and is the full card when moving.

E1: its a floating flare card

In hero mode

Q2: just like Earthsplitter Ordinance but with the lava burst card

W2: play a bunch of elven archer cards and give em all taunt

E2: summon a knige juggler who hurls a knife and then joins mengks

R1: mengsk plays an onixia who creates a bunch of whelps. At 20 onixia her self shows up instead of the ultralisk

R2: mengsk plays an archmage antonidas who procedes to spam fireballs fallowed by a pyroblast

---

Skin 2
Professor mengsk
Mengsk is the worst teacher ever

Dressed in semi professional attire Mengsk hates his class and his class hates him.

His basic attack is throwing chalk and erasers at people

Entering Emporors perspective has mengsk sit as his fancy desk and chair and asend off screen

Q1: Earthsplitter Ordinance is now an F- bomb that announces your failing grade to everyone

W1: is a paper airplane (but still sorta resenbles a lib)

E1: is a drone mengsk use as his personal PA system

In Hero mode

Q2: just a D- bomb. Highest score in the class

W2: become all his rowdy students. They throw all sorts of things for their attacks

E2: is mengsk’s teachers pet. The only guy who isnt on his bad side. He also throws chalk and erasers.

R1: mengsk completely loses control of his class and he just bails. All the zerg are his students

R2: mengsk drops stacks after stacks of homework on people

---

edit: forgive the sloppiness, I thought I only had like 10 min to make this section : p

[Nortin-1980]

Total Score - 15/20

Creativity - 4/5
Starting off, For the Dominion is straightforward but does a good job of encouraging Mengsk to place his Liberator defensively while joining his team in fights. The core gimmick of Emperor’s Perspective and Call-down is also solid, I feel it pushes a similar gimmick to Deathwing’s mount but gives the character more engaging reasons to be in the air mode. Earthsplitter Ordnance is a simple but effective core skill for Commander mode and the Recon Drone provides nice utility. I’m not very enthusiastic about the Liberator existing as a long term summon, but I think the associated cooldown and restrictive nature make it work well as a pseudo-body in Commander mode and a defensive area in ground mode. Decisive Maneuver is again a simple but effective core skill, and I appreciate that it mirrors Earthsplitter Ordnance to maintain cohesion between the forms. Forced Conscription is a decently creative utility/zoning skill, I don’t have much else to say on it here. I’m a little less keen on Emperor’s Shadow, because its immediate effect is fine, but the followup is just a less interesting version of Li Li’s Cloud Serpent; it’s not bad to have abilities with similar functionality already existing in the game (putting line skillshots off-limits would be a massive design restriction, for example), but Emperor’s Shadow feels like it’s missing something in comparison. I’d prefer if the ghost’s sustained effect had more to it than “Cloud Serpent without healing”, or if it were removed to put more emphasis on the skillshot aspect with Mengsk setting up assassins beforehand to disable opponents. Dogs of War looks like Earthquake mixed with Demonic Invasion, and I feel like it needs another iteration; perhaps integrating the Psi Emitter could give it a good direction, since sticking to just “Zerg spam” makes it hard to create something interesting. Nuclear Annihilation looks like a suped-up Rain of Destruction (based on the ability description, I’d guess the 20 smaller missiles are randomly spread in the same way); I think it has potential as a unique super-zoning ultimate but could use more than raw damage to justify and differentiate it.

Talents are a mixed bag. Starting with Tier 1, Insurance Policy is an interesting enough defensive talent (though the quest is very odd) and Propaganda Campaign encourages more aggressive placement of Sensor Drones; Weapons Calibrations stands out as a classic and uninspired damage stacking quest, which is fine to have one of I suppose even though I’m not a fan. Tier 2, Personal Guard is fine and encourages both more aggressive and defensive plays from Mengsk; Conscript Army seems fine on the surface but I’m not sure it changes that much about how the ability is used; and Impenetrable Defenses is rather standard. Tier 3 is fine overall, either encouraging more aggressive play or providing some general defense. Tier 5 talents are hit-and-miss overall. Guerilla Warfare’s Earthsplitter Ordnance effect just makes the ability much better at what it already did, while the Liberator effect is decently interesting for strategic placement but I’m not sure it’ll make much of an impact. Entrenched Position’s Earthsplitter Ordnance effect is great and I like how it gives Mengsk more support potential while encouraging new usage of the ability, while the Liberator effect is passable only because it’s tied to another effect. Frontal Assault is lacking overall, with straightforward number buffs and tacking on a random summon. On to Tier 6, I am not at all a fan of Upgrade Order; buff building is clunky to set up, clunky to get use out of, and just generally an underwhelming effect. I like Artillery Strikes quite a bit, since it adds more strategy to ground form and lets some Commander form talents impact fights more often. Total Control is fine from a creativity perspective and I don’t have much to say. For Tier 7, Burned to Ashes is a mediocre upgrade, but I think it might’ve been necessary to keep its upgrade bland with how polarizing the ability is baseline; ideally, I’d like to see Nuclear Annihilation tuned differently so a more interesting upgrade can be given to it. Wolves of War is a solid upgrade for Dogs of War, but doesn’t do much to change my problems with the base ability. Covert Ops is straightforward but I can see it being fun to use and build around. Take Command is another talent I’m very much not a fan of; controlling lane minions seems really jank and not worthwhile, and I think it’s ideal effect (hiding the minions to zerg a fort when the enemies aren’t looking) puts it in a similar area to Abathur’s Monstrosity.

As for the fluff, all quotes are solid and earn full marks. The skins are also very inspired, though I have some other complaints with them I’ll bring up later. I’d say full points here.

Overall, Mengsk’s base kit starts strong with his core gimmick and a bunch of solid abilities, but Emperor’s Shadow and Dogs of War (and to a lesser extend, Nuclear Annihilation) fall short of the rest of the kit. Talents are solid overall, though I think they lack standout interesting talents and there are quite a few bad ones sprinkled around. As stated with fluff, no concerns; as a result, I’d put this concept at a high but not perfect score.

Cohesiveness - 3/5
For the base kit, cohesiveness is solid. As previously mentioned, For the Dominion encourages Mengsk to both be defensive with his Liberator while offensively guiding his team. His Commander mode abilities are good at setting up for this, with harass/clear, the Liberator itself, and the utility of Recon Drones. Ground form abilities offer solid suppression and poke for Mengsk to push his team and make use of For the Dominion. Both heroics play further into this, offering high-impact area of effect skills for teamfights.

On to talents, most of them further support this aggressive playstyle, whether they provide some defensive tools for Mengsk while he fights (Insurance Policy, Personal Guard), defensive tools for his whole team (Concussive Weapons, Entrenched Position), or offensive tools for his team (Propaganda Campaign, Impenetrable Defenses, Targets Identified). He also has a fair amount of talents that make him better at taking down enemies himself (Weapons Calibrations, Focus Fire, Artillery Strike, Total Control, Covert Ops). The talents I left out generally don’t contribute much to Mengsk’s playstyle (Conscript Army, Upgrade Order, Take Command), or are too general/specific to come in useful or specialize how Mengsk is played (Guerilla Warfare, Frontal Assault). It’s also worth mentioning that while some talents based on the Liberator’s Defensive mode area of effect seem fine, I think they’d be very hard to use in practice with how rarely and how much commitment Mengsk needs to reposition the Liberator; they could be cool for a bit immediately after Mengsk jumps in from Call-Down, but if the fight’s location moves, they’re not contributing anymore. Talents exclusively affecting Commander mode abilities are in a similar boat, but not as badly, where they’re less impactful on average; they should either be tuned up more or have similar impacts on the ground mode. Weapons Calibrations also gets a shoutout for being really awkward to use; to effectively utilize this talent, Mengsk needs to spam Emperor’s Perspective on cooldown to farm minions with Earthsplitter Ordnance then get out as soon as possible. It’s like Azmodan’s globe stacking talents but so much more awkward, and I really want to see it removed or heavily reworked.

For talent builds, I think they are immediately hurt by many of the problem talents mentioned in the previous section. Weapons Calibrations works in a more aggressive Mengsk build, but restricts his playstyle so heavily and is so awkward to build up that any build using it doesn’t feel reasonable. Impenetrable Defenses and Focus Fire could theoretically be useful in a build based on starting a fight from Call-Down with a power spike, but their effects are relatively mild and won’t be useful for long enough to consider this as a real build. Upgrade Order and Take Command both just awkwardly sit around not wanting to be picked, though Conscript Army technically gives Mengsk more burst. Past that, talent builds have a problem that actually comes from a strength from the previous section: because most talents contribute to Mengsk’s style overall, specialization is much harder and talent builds won’t feel distinct. This is very much exasperated by the previously mentioned problems with lots of talents feeling like they don’t fit into any builds or have much too niche usage. The options I see are basically general damage with an emphasis on ground mode, and general utility with an emphasis on Commander mode. There’s definitely potential to specialize options like a rush-down build after dropping from Call-Down with a power spike, a more defensive build that utilizes Commander mode heavily to zone enemies, and a ground-focused build that uses constant suppression to help his team aggress; it seems like some steps were made toward these, but things just fall short due to the mentioned problems.

In conclusion, the base kit’s cohesion is spot on with no complaints. However, many talents suffer from not fitting into Mengsk’s playstyle or having too much of a niche usage, and this has an effect of further hurting build path potential by having very few impactful options and leaving all of Mengsk’s talent builds feeling samey. I’d put the talent tree at an average at best, and I think it justifies a modest drop in the cohesiveness score.

Thematic - 4/5
This concept nails the thematic for Mengsk overall, with only one concern. All of the abilities fit Mengsk to a tee, and the talents continue this trend. The voice lines are again perfect for Mengsk. My main problem with theme is the skins; even though they’re very creative, I feel like there’s a lot of dissonance with how their effects would look compared to Mengsk’s normal effects. I considered putting this complaint in Interaction since it would make it hard for enemies to recognize all of Mengsk’s abilities in any skin (especially the Hearthstone one, as the numerous floating cards would cause lots of confusion on the battlefield) and create skin advantages, but I decided that it matched Thematic better since bad visual matchup represents the themes of the skins not working well for Mengsk’s kit. I don’t know if fluff is being considered in the final week, but regardless I’d encourage some tuning up on the skins (possibly even replacing them) so that they don’t clash so hard with the ability effects and models of Mengsk’s kit.

Interaction - 4/5
I think a fair amount has been done to hedge the interaction concerns from previous weeks, but plenty of problems still remain. Dogs of War went from unreasonable summon spam to modest but still bad summon spam, and Nuclear Annihilation’s massive radius, substantial sustained damage, and huge duration all make it a very polarizing ability that can be frustrating to work around. The cooldown increase to Emperor’s Perspective made it more reasonable, but I still think it’s probably too low. For reference, Falstad’s not-quite-global reposition has a 75 second cooldown, and Falstad doesn’t get to throw around global abilities in the meantime that don’t correspond to his landing location. Mengsk is relatively weaker than Falstad outside of Command mode, but I still think the power balance is putting too much into Mengsk’s Commander mode. As stated previously, these problems have been improved over time, but I think are still too present to get full points. I also want to add a post-note that Guerilla Warfare seems incredibly overtuned, since it basically turns each shot of Earthsplitter Ordnance into a heroic ability’s level of damage.