Another 'Buff Karax' Thread

His units aren’t bad at all, they are generally average. Problem is without a 30 point mastery they are expensive with mid or high tier building requirements and their true potential is gated behind expensive upgrades.

Sure you can somewhat work around the research and production time but that’ll create a tension in economy. Karax has a very uncompetitive economy.

I don’t doubt its effectiveness, but that’s a WHOLE LOTTA minerals right there! Also eats up 6 supply! On the plus side, this may just be the distraction we need from Stukov’s Bunker nerf

Mengsk has an awesome eco and the ability to recycle weapons makes them a save investment. He can also salvage unneeded bunkers making his calldown able to give him back minerals to use elsewhere. And with fast build mengsk doesn’t struggle to set up a defensive line on the spot.

All of this is not enough as a reason to make Mengsk army squishy btw. The only reason we see Mengsk anywhere near good is because his top bar is OP.

Most of Karax’s problems boil down to resources: his army is overpriced and requires expensive research, his top bar is fantastic but requires multiple expensive upgrades, his defenses are fantastic but also require research to reach peak effectiveness and can’t be salvaged, so they have the potential to become wasted resources if not placed carefully.

His ability to expand early is helpful, and can take a bit of the edge off his resource problems, but Karax is still constantly starved for resources, especially vespine. The poor guy often feels like he’s constantly living hand to mouth.

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I think that’s just Mengsk being overpowered mostly.

If every disparity is solved with buffs instead of nerfs, power creep will only get worse.

Bet.

People already complain about Brutal or Brutations being too easy but they don’t want anything to be nerfed. I understand that it ducks ash to have something you like taken away, but you gotta start somewhere.

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This is what I noticed mostly about him playing last night; just constantly starved until late game. This was with his unit cost reduction mastery as well.

There is so much to tech up in the Solar Forge, on top of the reg forge or cybernetic core. Then you need additional research at the robotics facility or fleet beacon.
They’re all gas intensive.

I found going back to building mastery was more enjoyable and just trying to play support/static defense. There were a couple people getting sour about not having as many overall units as them though.

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It prevents the relevant upgrades from being mandatory. And by association, making the units who benefit from those upgrades mandatory.

If Kerrigan benefited from upgrades, the upgrades she benefited from would be Ground Ranged weapon and Ground Armor. That would mean you would be much better served investing in Hydralisks/Lurkers over anything else in her army.

Investing Zerglings or Ultralisks would mean having to research Ground Melee weapons in addition to researching Ranged Ground weapons for Kerrigan. And investing in Mutalisks or Broodlords would mean having to invest in a whole separate tech tree. Why bother with any of that when you’re already researching everything Hydralisks and Lurkers need for Kerrigan?

However, since Kerrigan doesn’t benefit from any kind of research (aside from her hero-specific research,) there’s no downside to investing in Mutalisks over Hydralisks beyond the differences between the units themselves.

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To me it doesn’t sound like Zeratul at all. Zeratul throws virtual cannons into the battle, in the middle of it. Karax would just be able to move defensive posts from where they’re no longer needed to a place where they are needed (from ship to ship on the miner evacuation map, for example), not in the middle of the battle.

Zeratul doesn’t care if the projections “die”, but Karax would be bringing real buildings with a real cost, that would just be overrun while they’re warping in.

It’s a quality of life change to let Karax move his buildings. Just slap a “warp in time” to them so that they can’t be moved into hostile territory without being destroyed first and you’ve got a completely different playstyle.

Karax should have advanced base-planning controls. He can’t be so easily outplayed by Terran and Zerg on his own game.

Try not to do everything with Karax. For example, I might make a few cannons, but if I rush for Immortals, I can get them out fairly quickly since I’m not being bogged down by other upgrades.

The key to playing Karax in its current state is knowing what to research and when. For fast missions, you can get away with only the first solar efficiency research. Even for long missions 2 is enough. If you have the chrono mastery, the extra energy you get will still let you use your top bar liberally.

For ground heavy waves, get the solar flare fire. For air waves, only get the orbital strike stun. Repair upgrade is only really worth it if your ally goes heavy mech, base 3 simultaneous repairs is enough for yourself.
If there is terran or protoss air, get reclamation instead of shadow cannon. For zerg, the other way around.
For quick offense missions, don’t buy any of the static defense upgrades. If you want to do combined army and cannons like on Malwarfare, the range upgrade is usually enough.

I’ve been practicing Karax on Void Thrashing and Rifts to Korhal because I’m a masochist, and if you get a good build order down and move out with 1 immortal and 1 observer and a couple of energizers and support them with orbital strikes and maybe some cannons and shield batteries built on the field, you can help your ally clean up the earlier bases pretty early in the game. Rushing reclamation is also great on those maps since there are high tech static units in every base.

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That makes a lot of sense but does not apply to a whole lot of heroic commanders (from a design standpoint I get why it’s this way, Kerrigan was the first hero). Protoss heroes wouldn’t have a problem, obviously Tychus and his bunch are different, Nova… maybe. It is mostly a thing with Zerg heroes (minus Zagara who does not have an appropriate damage upgrade).

If karax could build structures from orbit and not have to use a probe or anything at all, then also made his units just cost the regular price he would be just as good as the other strong commanders.

Nobody said he could build them without Probes. Both the idea I proposed and what Krikitt said involve Probes.

I wasnt referring to your ideas

My bad then, brother.

It is time to give Karax free defensive structure to be honest. This guy need some love.

I don’t think so unless we introduce Karax as a hero.

Wouldn’t they? Protoss don’t have a distinction between ranged and melee weapons, but they still have air/ground upgrades.