I do hope you plan to tweak Royal Guard mandate generation as well, because there’s no reason for it to be quite so minuscule and non impactful, both to start with and at max Rank.
3 Likes
Now, I know Mengsk’s Ghosts don’t tend to be used as much. But otherwise, I feel like each unit has a good role. Am I wrong here?
1 Like
My suggestions
Tychus:
- Improving Blaze auto attack range would be a huge quality of life change, make his oil lasts longer to strengthen his debuff/tank role.
- For Vega maybe shorten her Dominate to 20s since the survival of Dominated units are not always guarantee outside of using Medivac to reposition them.
- No comment on Nikara
Zeratul
- I’d suggest giving Stasis Beam, Monolith, Suppression Crystal each different cooldown. Stasis Beam should have the shortest cooldown like 60s for example, so that it would become more competitive when used alongside with Support Calldown Cooldown Reduction mastery, this would also helps increase the viability of said mastery.
- Cannon Projection should have Strike Fighter treatment: longer cooldown when killed by enemy unit, this would discourage recklessly shading projection playstyle.
Stetmann
- I’m not sure about nerfing Infestor further, I always thought they are in a pretty good place as they are after the most recent balance change.
- No comment on Memelords
Mengsk
- I’m strongly against changing his starting mandate, it makes his gameplay unique and fun from other commanders. Mengsk can saturate his bases fast but early economy does not immediately translate into early game power: his troopers are paper, his RGs need ramp up time, he has to rely on bunker turtle to hold off waves early. I think Mengsk needs this early eco boost to stay on his feet.
- Instead I think it’s better to look at Trooper vs Royal Guard Mandate generation. Right Now Trooper generates too much mandate while RG generates too little, shifting more Mandate regen toward RG side would be a good change.
16 Likes
Thanks for the update, here are my thoughts as a mediocre (casual) player:
Tychus
I would have loved to use Nikarah since release, but her behavior while A-moving eliminates her from my Outlaw choice no matter how hard you buff her. The Coop-development team managed to capture a fun “moba style” gameplay with Tychus, and Nikarah just ruins that feeling with her running into the enemy comp first chance.
That said, if you fix that behavior somehow ( I remember people discussing a ranged attack for her) it would already give me an incentive to play her, regardless of buffs, regardless how effective Rattlesnake is in comparison.
Apart from that, a buffed Blaze and (!) Cannonball would also do more for Nikarah I believe. I always wanted to try a really tanky comp based on attrition. If those two would be super tanky I would give them a try.
Mengsk
As a mediocre player (one could say bad, compared to some people here), nerfing that early economy will effectively push me away from an otherwise really fun and well designed commander. I just got Mengsk to level 15 and Brutal missions are kicking my butt left and right. I keep learning each game, how to counter specific comps, I read strategies and guides, but it’s really tough depending on the map, encounter and of course my ally. And that’s totally fine, it’s fun to try and overcome this rather complex commander, but the thought that I would have to work without a fast economy or the current mandate generation is terrifying. Perfectly honest here. Because what the best players consider cheesy is an absolute necessity for me to hold my own already. I also don’t understand the need to nerf mandate generation, since Wolfs of War and the Nukes are cooldown and supply-gated anyway. Nerfing it will only hurt mediocre players like me, who not only need to perfectly time the use of the topbar, but also consider mandate generation on top of it.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand what skilled people can do with Mengsk, I’ve seen the videos on cheese maps. But for mediocre players he is absolutely challenging to play, I need his fast expand and the ease of mandate generation, if only to make up for a messy early game (maybe I had to deal with an attack wave myself and thus got the Witnesses out too late, or I just lost an entire worker line because a horde of Zerglings pushed through).
Anyway, thanks for considering feedback and good job on Mengsk. He’s really fun, if difficult compared to most commanders.
5 Likes
Also this. Many other Commanders have equally powerful and impactful Masteries. I feel like the correct play is to balance the other mastery option to make it more competitive. Boost Royal XP Gain to up to 60% maximum to be impactful, and it would give players a meaningful choice to go all-in on either one for early game start up or late game Royal power, or to try and go half and half for one starting bunker full of workers along with a moderately boosted XP gain.
Set 1 ought to be completely overhauled. Just merge both masteries together, and have one option just boost ALL mandate generation, and give a brand new Royal Guard option to compete with it, that directly affects the Royals themselves, boosting their performance. Like Royal Guard Attack Speed, or even better, a mastery that takes advantage of their unique stat gains from Ranking up, boosting their attack damage and health and energy max they get with each Rank.
That would synergize with other Royal Guard masteries, and give each Set a Top Bar vs Royal Guard choice.
12 Likes
I agree too. At the moment I love only three things on Mengsk if he is my partner.
His early speed, it is loved by both and makes the game go in faster so you can start earlier making an army
His Zergcalldown, those are a nice mobile meatshield that can sometimes even do something meaningfull
His Artellary, because it weakens the enemy while I get ready
Most of the times he whas as a partner in mid or lategame only halfusefull and from my experience his early start is so that he can be at least good there while I prepare deathball. If the enemy is massaoe he is effectivly useless.
3 Likes
Tychus:
I love the idea of buffing nikara. I used to love her when she was able to heal herself with beam. Feel free to reduce the instant heal from medivac(maybe change instant heal to heal over time? like one cast will still heal the same amount, but over 10 seconds) And please dont increase the cooldown of medivac.
Zeratul:
Even if you delete cannon, zera still has one of the strongest army, with great mobility, great damage, great sustain, great survivability. I’m not worried about zeratul, he will still be one of the strongest commander if his cannon is nerfed.
Mengsk:
Make medivac detection pls!
2 Likes
Mengsk mandate generation should be inverse, the less supply, the higher rate… helps early economy and slows down in late game when your army is already powerful.
No I don’t want Nikara. Don’t care about her in non mutation games. I want to use Blaze, make his flamethrowers usable, give them range! I want to use other outlaws too!
I would have an idea. For now it would help if she would get an attack which does only one damage but reduce enemy attack with chance to even stun it. That would counter her main critic point that she is like Aqua.
Description for people who do not know: _https://konosuba.fandom.com/wiki/Aqua
Great, I can see some NERFs on these strong commanders will be happening in a “PvE” Coop game (Yes! I don’t even see the points of nerfing in a PvE game!). Does Blizzard ever stop thinking about “making players play our games in the way that we (Blizzard) want”. Do you see how Warframe lost lots of players just because Digital Extremes introduced lots of nerfing in a PvE-based game? Real example, right there.
If you really want to have something to work on, how about giving some more BUFFs to the commanders who have troubles soloing or carrying a brutal match without any mutators. By making these commanders much stronger, they are more competitive, and players who use them will not feel useless in a non-mutation situation when watching Zeratul doing every thing. (Like Artanis, Karax, Stukov, Raynor, etc. And, if you do so… Yeah, here we go again, re-adjust everyone throughout the whole year)
Oh, btw, I meant with accounting for situations against all possible enemy combos. Don’t argue that you can carry a game easily with Artanis when Roaches come as first attack wave. Then how about Reapers come as first wave? It is doable, but harder and even much harder if you don’t remember the entire map.
I really don’t want to see the ideas like “Fenix’s carriers are too popular, so let’s just nerf it but not buffing other weaker units of Fenix”, but you are the boss after all.
Or… Even better idea. Don’t think about changing and balancing a just-for-fun PvE game right now. Just simply don’t think about anything and enjoy the holidays.
PS. Maybe “Whether Mengsk is your commander or choice or not” should be “Whether Mengsk is your commander of choice or not”. 
6 Likes
After taking some time to collect my thoughts, here’s what I think about some of Mengsk’s units and forces and changes for them.
Royals in general
I think a single point of life regeneration per Rank they earned might be a good way to let experienced Royals shrug off attrition damage, while still requiring Laborer support for extensive repairs should they come under serious fire. Both Nova and Horner Elite forces have Out of Combat life regeneration as either masteries or talents, and as fellow Elite units, Mengsk’s Royals should have something similar.
In this case, it’s constant life regen, but it is dependent on the Royals actually achieving Rank Ups in order to earn it, making it distinct and fitting. Earning 1 HP per second per Star.
The other thing they need is greater Push Priority in regards to Troopers and Laborers. Royals should be able to bully their way to the front line in order to better use abilities and not get bodyblocked.
Blackhammers
I feel like Blackhammers need only minor improvements. Given that Mengsk’s top tier units are supposed to have strong support effects, I think Overwatch Mode should grant Detection and Vision for the OW Zone, offseting Mengsk’s otherwise clunky detection with the Blimps. Since Blackhammers are like Liberators, take a leaf from the Versus Liberations and give them Selective Vision instead of Radial Vision, allowing them to serve as front-line spotters with micro, able to bypass LOS blockers and see onto high ground with Overwatch in addition to knocking down air units.
With this, Rank 2 should be buffed from +2 cast range to +4 cast range on Overwatch Mode. Perhaps a slight base damage boost on the Inferno Volley, like from 8 to 10, along with this extra range, will solidify the Blackhammer as the most powerful surface-to-air weapon system in the Koprulu Sector.
Finally, the Bulwark Field needs a greater radius, as right now, it feels like it does absolutely nothing. Or better yet, have the Bulwark Field affect the Blackhammer itself, allowing a fully veteran mech to have 9 armor, making these heavy assault mechs virtually immune to small arms fire. I would gladly take a price increase on the Research if it meant better functionally on the Bulwark Field
Emperor’s Shadow
I dislike not having actual Nuke calldowns, and feel like the Tactical Missiles are an incredibly underwhelming substitute, and I feel like one could find a way to balance having Ladder nukes in Coop, but I imagine such changes are beyond the purview of a revamp, so I will focus on my other concerns
Cast range feels kind of small, but I could learn to live with it if Shadows had better push priority to get around Troopers in combat to get off their spells. Otherwise, my big issue are the Cooldowns on the two spells, Pyro and EMP. Shadows use energy for their spells, not Cooldowns, and should not be limited by both. If I want to chain multiple spells in an engagement and blow all my energy on a Shadow, I feel like I should be able to. It’s especially egregious with the EMP, since one cannot use a single Shadow to hit a Protoss deathball or hit spread out spellcasters due to the long cooldown in between EMP Blasts.
If autocast is the reason you put a cooldown on the spells, then limit the cooldown only for autocast behavior, and let players be free to use their Shadow energy on rapid spells manually if they want or need to.
Pride of Augustgrad
Way too much power is frontloaded into their Yamato, I feel, as it is a little silly that single PoA can absolutely demolish a Brutal attack wave with one button press. In particular, I feel like you could reduce the Splash of Rank 2 to 50% or 33%, or 150 or 100 damage respectively, and put some of that power into the base attack damage of the Laser Batteries, putting them on par or above that of the Laser Batteries of the Sovereigns. Let the Yamatos devastate waves, but high end units will survive, and in exchange, the BCs can now serve as effective beatstick units instead of having pitiful autoattack damage.
In conjunction with this, improve the Field-Assist Targeting System. Just like with my suggestion with the Bulwark Field, have the FATS affect the PoA itself, allowing it to have greater autoattack range, furthering its ability to serve as a raw DPS beatstick outside of the Yamato. In addition, have it also affect Air units in addition to ground, allowing it to support Tankivacs, and especially Sky Furies, by giving them greater range, as well as helping the air units of the Allied commander. Again, I would gladly take a price hike on the Research for better functionality on the upgrade. It should feel impactful.
Sky Fury Squadron
I feel like these are a contender for the worst unit in Mengsk’s arsenal, and that is a real shame, because Vikings are such fun units to begin with. I can’t think of a single time where I used the Furies where some other unit Mengsk has couldn’t have done better. They don’t have a clearly established role; fighting massive units just isn’t enough, and they are so flimsy despite being “Durable” support units.
I think Rank 1 could also be changed to include Structures in addition to Massive, making Sky Furies a sort of unit you can use to snipe key targets and Objectives with, using their mobility and speed to hit a mission objective and then get out.
Rank 3 is where I have the biggest issue with, for their defense abilities they get are just wholly underwhelming for a final tier ability. The Phoenix Protocol should activate regardless of Form; merely changing to Flight form if they are not already. I can’t speak for others, but most of my losses of Sky Furies are in the air. Likewise, Evasion should be boosted to 45%, same as Zagara’s Zergling Evasion Mastery. 45% feels like a magic number for an RNG based ability. 30% doesn’t quite feel like it dodges enough damage.
An idea is for Rank 3 to grant a powerful Out of Combat life regeneration passive, furthering their role of a hit-and-run unit that can harass enemy waves or targets, healing off damage by flying away for a few moments.
Imperial Intercessor and Witness
These are fine, I think, so long as you fix the bug with Intercessors that makes them actively ignore all commands you give them, as well as their tendency to sit at the backline and not move forward to help troopers actively taking damage. Maybe give Tankivacs the ability to use Afterburners, but the Tanks lose the ability to shoot while the ability is active, so you can tote them around faster with bursts of speed.
While rebalancing the Mandate generation for Troopers, perhaps give Witnesses the ability to affect units within Bunkers for the purposes of Mandate generation.
4 Likes
By that, we should understand Zoraya Legion, right? 
Don’t think Telbrus Legion in particular needs any nerfs (might even need buffs, at least for Telbrus himself).
Does that mean Cannons are simply getting a cost increase? I hope not, because I don’t think it would really matter. Cannons would still remain a risk-free way to ignore most annoyances (like certain mutators) because they would suffer 0 losses.
I think the projections themselves need to be looked at, things along the lines of:
- having shorter duration
- increasing the time projections take to finish “warping in” (so they can’t be warped directly on an army without losing all of them)
- increase the damage projections take from all damage sources (like Hallucinations receive double damage from attacks)
- increase the Cannon’s regular health and decrease its shields (and by extension the projection’s shields) by the same amount
Don’t know if any of these paths will be taken, but it’s definitely the projections themselves that should be nerfed.
4 Likes
What do you mean by this blizzard?:
“the final Co-op commander revamp…”
Please explain!
1 Like
It meant “weak” commanders will not get more buffs (in short time)… Not that there will be no more new commanders (because new commanders make money)
Now that’s what I like to hear 
I just hope these current bugs are patched and no new bugs are introduced for the Christmas Holidays:
- Suicidal trains
- Tychus outlaw build indicator not shown
- Some Protoss Nexus do not chrono boost themselves after being warped
- Tosh can’t enter certain areas in his WoL Breakout mission
- Our online Blizzard profile achievements still have missing images / incorrect descriptions
2 Likes
Good, then I will be expecting to see average-skilled players having trouble using these so called “hundred things” to carry a brutal non-mutation game when their teammates sucks.
Oh…what? That is not happening? Oh, I see, because people don’t use them frequently.
“It seems more sensible to change that one thing and not the other hundred things.” Oh, then why didn’t we just kept the nerf of carriers instead of giving buff to other Fenix units? You know what? I like that idea too, it was much simpler than “changing hundreds of other thing”.
Because I don’t use Fenix that frequently. Do you get it now?
Revamp is long overdue especially for Tychus and Zeratul.
Karax, Alarak and Stukov be crying right now.
Should add Cannonball as well.
Going the Stukov Bunker nerf path for the cannons?
Also consider the clunkiness of Stettelites. An upgrade to increase the radius would be handy.
It looks like days of two free bunkers are numbered.
I think Blizzard got Brutal+ wholly wrong and should be reconsidered as a concept as it currently stands.
Brutal+ should have been normal gameplay with simply tougher enemies and objectives, similar to increasing difficulty from Hard to Brutal.
Adding mutators changes the gameplay completely where normal tactics are thrown out in order to counter the battle conditions that mutators typically bring in.
And this is before factoring in that the mutators are determined by RNG which has its own issues; think Wheel of Misfortune and how much flak that cops.
6 Likes
Nice news.
So, some thoughts on upcoming changes.
Tychus.
Nice overall. I think Blaze needs more range to stop wandering across the map and stay close to the party to be properly healed and maybe buff his ultimate gear to reduce any damage to 20 instead of 30.
Nikara also needs something to prevent her rushing into the enemies, autoattack seems a little bit off, but some ability similar to Alarak’s sentry (Destroyer?) that increases damage dealt to enemy (Find Weakness?) would be good, and for God’s sake, bring back her ability to heal herself.
Vega - seems pretty OK to me, I always use her against enemy air compositions, but probably increasing autoattack will be nice, cause Nux and Vega only useful for their abilities and if they are on CD, they are pretty useless. Probably this is main point of Fixers’ design, and buffing damage will be kinda against it, so maybe more buffs to dominated units will also be good.
Medivac nerfs - i guess little nerf to cooldown mastery (like down to -30 from -45) and reducing instant healing to healing over time will be enough.
Zeratul.
I still don’t understand why people are so mad about his cannons, cause they are really weak comparing to his army. And mobility is also is not a problem if you’re on top of prism micro. The only situation where cannons are better is some mutations which counter units and do not affect buildings and having options besides Karax for these mutations is not bad at all. And the cannons are also really useful mineral dump when you already maxed out. So what can be done to them - maybe increase cost to 300 and, but buff HP to promote using them like regular cannons and nerf mass projection style a bit.
Legions - not sure about nerfs here cause Zeratuls army is pretty expensive and often the Legions are the only option to survive early attacks on Rifts to Korhal, for example. Maybe just implement a thing where each next summon of a legion will be 100 minerals more expensive? But could be too complicated. Or maybe buff/change alternative mastery for avatar cooldown, i feel like nobody using it.
As for the rarely used top panel abilities - i guess only Stasis need buffs and a couple of good thoughts were already written by others, no need repeat it. And probably buff to Zealot Legion cause now the choice is only between Void Rays and Dark Archons for me now.
Stetmann.
I guess Mecha Roaches can survive a slight nerf, but considering all previous nerfs it has to be really careful not to throw this strategy in the trash. Maybe just little hp/damage nerf?
Mecha Battlecarrier Lords - still pretty good against ground, but maybe decrease energy cost of building new interceptor. And please, no, PLEASE, decrease cast time of Stetmato cannon (and also for Raynor’s BC’s Yamato) and maybe decrease/remove cooldown on this ability. Such a long cast time is unacceptable, in almost every scenario before Stetmato/Yamato is actually casted its either your enemy is already dead or you already dead/suffered heavy losses. There is a good step in this direction already with Pride of Augustgrad, but considering Pride of Augustgrad’s Yamato much more powerful decreasing cast time for BC’s and MBL’s even more won’t be broken and just make this ability viable and worth micro to use.
Mengsk.
I’ll just say from the beginning that Mengsk absolutely needs AT LEAST 1 bunker drop from the start with his mastery used. Yes, 2 may be too much from some points of view, but you just can’t nerf it lower than 1, it will ruin so many things for this commander. His troops are so fragile in the start of the game so he can only rely on their numbers and for this good economy is needed. Imperial Support from indocrinated troopes in the mid-late game is insane, yes, but still, using abilities is limited by cooldowns, so nerfing this a bit won’t hurt much, but what about start? Mengsk heavily relies on his top panel in the start of the game and nerfs here could have big impact.
Now to underused units. Ghosts - EMP is good, but fix the bug with shield/energy depleting not affecting heroic units. Nukes are useless (again, if ability deals damage with significant delay, impact has to be really big to be wotrh it, fights are happening too quickly in Starcraft), launching nuke takes too much time for such a little effect. So either make it launch istantly or make it significantly bigger and stronger. Pyrocinetic something is also almost useless (not worth microing it) or it just seems like it. In my opinion for it to be useful it needs area of effect like a psi storm (at least not upgraded storm) or significant damage buff.
Tanks - on ground they are good defensive unit, but this tankivac mode doesn’t make much sense. Maybe let them attack with the same speed as on the ground?
Thors - too clunky, need to walk over units like Tyrranosour. Range of Overwatch mode is too small, is says 18 in tooltip, but actually is barely 10. This combined make Thors completely unusable. Maybe without issues with stucking between troopers and decent range of overwatch mode they will became OK.
Vikings - in flyer mode they just rush into turrets, spores or some other stuff and die horribly, in walker mode - stuck between troopers. I’m just not sure about their role, cause everything they do can be done better, easier and safer with other units - marauders and rocket launcher troopers.
I think the general issue with all the Royal Guards except Marauder (at least for me and my level of skill) is that they require significant micro but efforts do not pay off (except BC’s Yamato, its godlike) because in fights you have to constantly siege-move-unsiege Imperial Witness and dodge aoe with troopers, it just gives much more benefit.
Brutal+
Nice. But for Brutal+1 there can be 2 mutators cap, I think.
2 Likes