It’s all relative. Only 50 mins and only +2 supply 
If nothing else, I suspect they were planning to up those costs even more than what we ended up getting.
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See, I would have been in favor of using the mineral cost even further, maybe adding a gas cost, if it meant not having the increased supply cost. The irony is, in trying to nerf the bunker spam strategy, they nerfed Stukov as a whole. Even while trying to make Mech more viable, they indirectly nerfed mech players, because regardless of what sort of build Stukov goes for, he’s going to want a few Bunkers for base defense. So now, regardless of build, Stukov’s either leaves his bases undefended, or he has a smaller army because his static defenses are taking up half again as much supply as before.
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On defensive maps sure. But why anywhere else? When playing mech you dont need infested duration mastery so you roll with structure infestation instead. It has such a low cooldown you can basically defend against waves using just that on a Barracks which Drops some Marines for AA.
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I hope Stukov players aren’t forgetting about his Infested Missile Turrets. They still cost 100/0/0, and are excellent if you need more in AA. 2 to 3 of those are still cheaper than one Bunk. Plus, they too can uproot and relocate on creep.
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…okay I’ve used infested missile turrets many times but I somehow never noticed that they can uproot. That’s great.
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Heh, that’s nothing. It was only that one person (thus far at least), but on a Lock & Load mission, my ally was completely shocked when I relocated my Bunkerlisks next to one of the locks. He had no clue that Infested Bunkers could move!
On a related note, I was a bit disappointed that “improved regen” and Calcified Armor upgrades only apply to Bunkers, but I guess that’s part of their perk for being so costly (even pre-nerf).
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I feel like the changes took the most thematic playstyle of any commander and threw it into a dumpster, doused it in gasoline, lit it on fire, rolled it off a cliff into an active minefield.
Stukov is basically less interesting swann now. It’s the only commander I don’t ever want to random. I agree it was problematic for myriad reasons before, not least of which was players with computers that struggled with 50 bunkers on the map, but I feel there might be some middle ground between obvious brutation pick every single week and useless.
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One of the problems that still persists with stukov is the cost and difficulty of building up a proper mech force. There is no reason why the player would not buy the infantry upgrades as a good chunk of the army is always infested civilians. Buying the upgrades for mech and infantry is very expensive. I propose the fusion of both of these upgrades(like hand&horner and Dehaka) and punting them in the engineering bay remove the armory upgrades. Then punting the bunker upgrades into the armory. This way going for mech does not require going way out of the player way in order to get them.
The second problem is that infested siege tanks still kinda suck. The upgrade to have them recharge volatile infantry is far to slow and make there DPS next to useless even if you have 4 of them being less than a single regular siege tank. It does have other abilities to make up for this but they don’t seam to make up for this as they are more to be used to help you if you are in a position that you should not be in. 30 seconds is a very long time to wait in order to attack something maybe reducing it down to 20 or 15 this may be worth it. Overall the unit is expensive with splash damage that is not generally needed for stukov. Stukov need anti air units and teching into his siege tanks as it is currently is a wast of the users cognitive time, money and supply that could be going into units that give him better response time to enemy attacks or for countering air units.
Not necessarily a problem but I would like to make a critique on the Masteries and other units that he has.
Infested volitile chance and increased unit live span seams rather boring.
Increase the base lifespan by around 10 and replace it with something like Building speed or starting supply.
Starting supply would greatly help with his early game since he will use not only less minerals on overlords but less larva which is arguable more important.
Building speed might not seem all that impressive but it would greatly help with the production of bunkers which could be extremely helpful.
The volatile infested upgrade can be changed with increased creep spread or increase maximum supply (which is something I am surprised you have not used yet) to of shut the supply cost of bunkers should they want to play that way.
next I would also like to suggest that the upgrade that Calcified Armor and Regenerative Plating also affected the missile turret. Kind of a through away suggestion honestly
This commander Is one of the best to actually use there banshees. The only potential critic is that I would appreciate if there movement speed was increased. in order for them to be a more effective response force which is something that stukov really does not have besides his Diamondbacks.
Finally a suggestion for the bunker meta that seamed to powerful (and a lot of people are complaining about). Instead of the Nerf that you have presented maybe just Nerf the production of infested infantry. Make bunkers spawn with no infantry in it and have to wait for it to build up units. Reduce the amount of unit production and make an upgrade to return it to pre Nerfed status.
2 Likes
I would also like to add that I would like to see new units added to the existing commanders in order to increase the creativity and replay ability of the commanders. I would love if the kaboomer, spotters, chokers from the dead of night map would be added to stukovs arsenal as it would make him a significantly more unique.
I like your infantry/mech upgrade fusion and your suggestions to replace those boring masteries. I always supported the idea to make volatile infested chance permanent btw.
Stukov feels super weak early game now. I would advocate a remedy for this, reducing his primary building upgrade cost and research duration so he still feels relevant without causing the massive lag issues he did before with bunker spam. I would also love to see upgrade for infantry and mech units merged.
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But-but… It’s STUKOV!
I feel that Strettman infestor belong to Stukov since Swarming is Stukov theme. If not, then make all Stukov building have energy and he can make free unit with those energy.
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I really love CoOp and I think a lot of it’s basically perfect, but I feel a bit sad about where Stu’s bio is at right now. I think the bunker nerf was understandable, but now Stu’s bio feels like the noticeably weaker choice. Is there a way to buff infested civilians with psy blades? Obviously not at first, make it post-armory-tier tech. It could be called, “Infested Protoss Civilians”, which makes 25%-50% of civilians become protoss civilians, with something like 100/100 health? No armor, of course.
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Protoss can’t be infested. Maybe go with an Infested H.E.R.C. as an alternative.
I never understood the bunker nerf, or at least not such a harsh one, we aren’t on ladder where everything needs to be balanced, it’s more important to have fun and to have strong builds for all skill levels, and I simply don’t find it fun to play Stukov anymore.
Especially considering how OP Stettman infestors are even after the nerf (and it’s not like they are micro intensive either, you basically hold down rapidfire and wave you arm like a baboon, and they caused more lag than Stukov ever did).
I think it might be time to revert that bunker nerf, or at least tone it down. It really hurts both his early game and late-game in many mutations where you need at least a few bunkers in front of tanks, and any bunkers harshly cuts into the amount of mech you can field.
I think his mech is in a decent place except for the weak Banshees, it’s time to give his bio some love again. If they don’t want to have bunkers overshadow barracks style, they could just make infested from barracks a tad cheaper (perhaps 20 min?), and perhaps also remove the 20% faster spawn rate level upgrade (and decrease Barracks and Factory cooldown instead), while keeping the current bunker cost, but reverting the bunker supply cost back to 4.
It makes sense for it to be six supply, it’s six marines worth of firepower.
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Bunkers are fine, they were nerfed but are still OP, and mass bunker still works. (just not the ideal)
Stetfestors do have problems (although they aren’t most of his lag)
Roaches away
-is really powerful.
-It makes the setting that usually Doesn’t help your ally the best
-Has the same disposable units as Bunkers
-Position matters even less because Roaches are faster than Troopers… and last longer (plus Bunkers can be placed for defense MechInf must stay behind the lines)
Perhaps
- make MecInf immune to the JUICE setting Stetelites, and let them regenerate Egonergy ?when burrowed?. (internal generaters…say 2/second)
That way they don’t hog the Stetelite setting
- reduce the move speed + survival time of MechaRoaches/Ravagers
so the MInf have to be closer to the target
Finally
3. Change the other abilities to be easier to use
-give Deconstruct a long range autocast ability
-make the UMI-C cord an Egonergy transfer that also heals the target (also autocastable)
One player chimed in saying it was too brainless (no pun intended). He just keeps making them, and then proceeds to watch Netflix. I’d imagine he changes the Psi Emitter every now and then, but it seems no micro nor major macro beyond that.
Heh… try telling that to the group that feels Zeratul’s too OP.
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3 very short lived marines.
Even in 1v1 swarm host’s dps is almost 3 time that of the hydra, while the host costs only 1 supply and 25 gas more.
1 Like