Swann has a pretty fast rock break time with Blaster Billy’s, but Mengsk makes him look slow.
Mengsk ramps up to max tech and an army in record time, Swann’s playing catchup and barely has a half-decent army by the time Mengsk is working on the second objective if he’s industrious.
Setting up defenses doesn’t really matter when he’s always got calldowns ready to handle anything that slips through the deathball.
Earthsplitter Ordinance and the Zerg calldown invalidate the need to even push on some maps, to the point that both players could eschew building an army so long as they can defend against waves.
Every time I see a 100+ Mastery Mengsk on the screen, I know that I could AFK and it’d make little difference to the mission’s outcome.
It’s enough to make me pine for a level 4 Mengsk that barely contributes anything and needs a hard carry: at least then I’d get to do something beyond building fortresses on enemy spawn points.
His Starting Mandate Mastery needs a hard nerf or replacement, ideally giving him more gradual build-up of it in the early game where it isn’t functionally unlimited later.
Or heck, maybe he should take awhile to reach a strong late game. Push him to actually use those bunkers to defend at first.
tl;dr - OP is playing a slow commander and is complaining about a commander with faster early game being “OP.”
Mengsk isn’t really OP just because he can expand and get his economy online faster. Raynor, Zeratul, Zagara, and a few others can claim their expansion and have their economy up much faster than Swann. Most of those commanders aren’t OP.
Don’t equate a faster early game with being OP.
Is this an analysis from playing Brutal?
If so, then please step into Brutation or Brutal+ and see how well Mengsk can do.
He is average in Brutal+ so far as I can see it. There are way too many mutations that hard counter Mengsk (Black death, Evolution, Nuke, Minesweeper, Speed freak, Unit can cast spell, Double Edge, ect…).
If you insist on analyzing a commander performance in Brutal, then let me tell you a sad truth: Everything work on Brutal. I can pretty much carry anyone on Brutal with any commander at max masteries.
Now, to be entirely fair, Mengsk being able to drop 2 bunkers at 0 seconds is even worse than when Vorazun could do it with her shadowguard, and it should 110% start on cool down.
That would probably bring him in line with other commanders, though the fact that they can fill a chunk of his expansion’s mineral line would keep it much stronger than Vorazun’s strong expansion.
Part of the problem is “extra starting energy” is useless unless you have something with no coolup to use it on
Vorazun-Pylon
Artanis/Karax-Spear
Perhaps if it was changed to starting AND maximum Mandate (Mengsk could have 115%-130% approval, no cheating honest)…then weakened to 15-30 max it would be good.
So, if I understand you right, the problem is that Mengsk can expand and saturate with way too little effort and time invested. This isn’t actually an unpopular opinion and a fair number of people would agree. I find it a little silly that I can just plop down 2 bunkers and then be 3 laborers and 2 refiners short of a saturation.
Or take expansion immediately and set it up in almost no time at all.
This will likely either be nerfed or used as a balance against other nerfs.
As for artillery, I’ve seen some fill half the map with the damn things, way more than you actually need. Whatever, if they wanna play sub-optimal Mengsk then it’s their choice.
That might work, but I’m still wary of giving him a ton of free workers at the start of the game.
It makes me think that Mastery should just be scrapped, both because of how much of an econ boost it gives and because it’d be nigh impossible for another mastery to compete with it.
Later game presence? Defensive abilities? Vespene supply? Swann has many things that Mengsk doesn’t. Namely thicker units that serve a multitude of purposes.
By this logic, Vorazun, Alarak, Karax, Abathur, and Stukov, all commanders that take time to hit their critical mass, are all bad. Don’t forget that Mengsk has his weaknesses as well.
Mengsk has plenty of later game presence, and his calldowns, including the bunkers, make for a formidable defense. More so with drop pods to reinforce old bunkers.
Swann getting more Vespene is partially negated by his army and defenses consuming tons of it when upgrades are considered.
Swann’s only real edge there is that he can build a defense structure line that doesn’t require units or cool-downs, but a line of Swann defenses that can repel a
mid-late Brutal wave on its own isn’t cheap, and sets his army back further.
The thicker units point would only stand if Mengsk didn’t have his royal guard.
What weaknesses does Mengsk have? Attrition if the enemy has tons of AOE and he refuses to play around it?
When every commander who is strong in the early game can solo a late Brutal game without an issue, it does render slower commanders fairly pointless aside mutations.
Outside of Nuclear Annihilation and Dogs of War, both Supply Bunkers and Earthsplitter Ordinance take A LOT of supply to be effective en masse. Swann just needs a small handful of SCVs and a few tanks to back up his turrets and he’s good.
Mengsk’s Royal Guards eat up most of his gas, especially without the mastery. Your point?
Not true. You can still have decent supply to make offensive units. Mengsk does not. On a map like DoN, Swann has plenty of supply left over once the defenses are up. Mengsk does not. Mengsk… Well, it’s mostly his calldowns for offensive pressure if you’re stuck playing defensive as him.
And can you reliably mass Royal Guard? Most of Swann’s units are either thick enough to last in combat, or have a self-repair system.
Any AoE unit damage (Colossi, Siege Tanks, Banelings, Lurkers), spells (Psi-Storm, Fungal Growth, Seeker Missile.) For map-specific ones, the towers on Malwarfare, the exploding infested on Miner Evac, Lightning storms from Void Thrashers and Void entities in Scythe of Amon… While his Troopers are fast to build, they are EXTREMELY fragile.
Doesn’t render them pointless. It gives them a chance to build up to critical mass without having pressure put onto them. Some even have benefits for their allies, or from their allies.
