Artanis’ prestige talents don’t dramatically alter his play-style like those of other commanders. He may not be the most interesting Protoss commander these days, but I haven’t seen anyone talk about our OG and wanted to thrown in my two cents.
Valorous Inspirator
It goes without saying that this one is good. +100% effectiveness of all combat units’ active abilities with the drawback of +30% recourse cost for all units. The obvious thing to do is mass Templars, and that is very powerful. However this talent also works great with Zealots, Reavers, and Tempests. A solid talent for anyone not wanting to mass Dragoons.
Nexus Legate
Another good talent. This one lets you warp all of your units in a Power Field projection to anywhere you have vision at the cost of 10 energy per cast. Most importantly, any units you warp will gain increased attack speed and movement speed from your Power Set 2. This talent works well with any build of Artanis. It gives you incredible mobility and amazing pushing power with an established army.
The only downside is it requires you to manage your energy better. While you’re unlikely to be using Orbital Strikes past the second attack wave, you might be finding yourself without a Shield Overcharge if you’re not careful.
Arkship Commandant
This one is a stinker. The Unbound Fanatics you get are miserably weak and only last 15 seconds. They can barely clear out your rocks at best.
Shield Overcharge becoming a targeted AOE is considered an advantage, but might as well be a disadvantage. While it does have 50% less cooldown and energy cost, as well as allowing for more tactical usage of the calldown, the downside is the AOE is too small to affect both your ally’s army as well as your own. Especially not if you’re microing split armies. It just feels like a bad version of Nova’s Defensive Drones.
All of this is before we mention the actual disadvantages of the talent. Orbital Strike cost goes up to 50 and Guardian Shell is disabled.
I don’t understand what this talent is trying to achieve. Does it want to make Orbital Strike more viable throughout the course of the game? If so, why have such hefty disadvantages for such a small advantage. Is it trying to push for a more tactical style of play or perhaps a more calldown oriented style of play? Well, it’s not achieving either. This talent needs a big rework or perhaps be something entirely different.
Where the first two talents make Artanis feel more on-par with the newer commanders, I feel like the third one should lean in towards an alternative playstyle. I understand that might not be easy, given that Artanis is as straight forward as commanders get, but perhaps making his third talent lean into a more tactical or calldown heavy playstyle is where it needs to be.