There are topics on Karax pushing into enemy base with instant towers, which provides shield generation, long range damage, and detection, the problem being that his towers stay where they are after the battle. Unless it’s near an enemy spawning point, those resources are good as gone, which unlike Mengsk who could salvage his bunker drop after.
If only his cannons could travel.
For those who’ve followed SC2 news since the beginning, Protoss Photon Cannon used to be Phase Cannon, which “could transform into an energy form and move within the powered radius of a pylon or warp prism.”
Here is Phase Cannon in action: StarCraft 2 - Phase Cannon - YouTube
Phase Cannon technology is both functionally and thematically fitting for Karax, and instead of a “creep highway” Karax would be building a “Pylon highway” to transfer his cannons from battlefield to battlefield. Such play style would also allow Karax to reinforce his army anywhere he wants using existing warping tech, now with additional benefits.
A concern which led to the removal of Phase Cannon in beta was that developers feared it’d become unstoppable while accompanied with an army. If it’s unfeasible, perhaps it’d be a life enhancer to allow Karax towers to be salvageable so he could build them else where with refunded resources?
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I had seen the Phase Cannons before, and they’re quite neat. However, at the same time, if you’re playing a large map like Temple, Rifts to Korhal, or Vermillion Problem, this isn’t going to help you very much, trying to get from point A to point B. The best it would do is allow you to “correct” your building placement.
I think a 50% salvage would be nice. I know that Terrans get 100% salvage, but if you’re playing cannon hopping Karax, you’ll have infinite resources lol.
I’d be down if they brought this back. Karax is kind of strange in that he’s probably the only defensive-focused commander who can’t reposition his defenses; Raynor, Mengsk and Swann can salvage, Stukov can uproot and move, hell, Zeratul has the infamous Shade abilities, but Karax has…nothing? He’s the King of Static Defense, and even if he wants to do something as simple as reorganize his defenses to remove gaps and mistakes in original construction, he has to outright destroy and rebuild structures? I get they might not want to implement something like that so offensive Cannons don’t become the meta, but I don’t think being able to move just Cannons and just within a power field would be too game-breaking.
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Id prefer if they gave him something like a 20% discount on all buildings…better for fast start and a builder…rather than “units with the structure tag”
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Yeah, that would be pretty op. That’s why gave it to zerg in the form of uproot.
Joking aside, it would make Karax feel more interesting, at the very least. Balance would depend on how fast they move while in their phase form. I’d be ok with Karax having this ability.
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I like that a lot, Karax’s buildings are 20% cheaper, and his units have 50% more health but cost 30% more. Fits right in as a “Master Smith”.
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Would that make people even less willing to make units, given that his buildings are already the toughest and could warp in instantly to assist a battle?
Well his buildings have the disadvantage of not moving. Also units can act as a “gas dump”.
Part of me is uncertain of this ability because there’s a lot of overlap with Zeratul’s Tesseract Cannons, but at the same time, its power is limited because Karax doesn’t have a Warp Prism, thereby allowing some new synergy with Artanis, Vorazun and Alarak and otherwise allowing players to move some cannons if a particular chokepoint needs shoring up if existing cannons are falling.
Hard to say if it’s a good idea or not, as if you play cannon-rush-style Karax, you’re going to have an excess of gas and minerals because you can ‘recycle’ the cannons at the back by phasing them to the front rather than building new ones as you push forward, thus you can build up a larger conventional army too. It’s something that would have to be playtested, I think.
Give him a recall ability from his Nexus. Targets a large AoE. All insta-built buildings of his (Pylon, Cannon, Mono, Battery) within that AoE are removed from the map, and he gets the resources back. I’m thinking put it on a 2 minute cd, but that can adjusted as necessary.
Definitely do not want Salvage where you select a building click on the Salvage button. That’s more so a Terran thing.
OTOH, it’s be neat if we could see an Infested Photon Cannon. It sprouts legs, and can walk around the map like Stukov’s uprooted structures!
I personally never needed to move canons as Karax. I have cleared maps with canon pushes even without allies help.
So my question is - in what scenario would you ever need this ability?
If this is in mutations - than it will be another Zeratul moving canons around the map.
If this is on brutal - there is enough resources on two bases to cover the whole map in canons. But you don’t need to do that - enemy always comes from the same spot, put canon sin a choke point on the path of enemy. Same logic applies to nests of Aba - placement is the key.
Time after time I see redicilous placements and it is a facepalm moment.
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You have a good point, placement is key and in itself save a lot of resources, if a player is able to stick to Karax until s/he reaches that expertise.
I’d love to hear your experience on using cannons offensively. Do you start building them outside of enemy base/entrance then gradually building in? Do you start with blocking the spawn point before you commit to cannon-push into any base? What support units do you use with this tactic?
On plain field bring a few probes and place battery, canon, monoloth just outside enemy vision. Battery 1st as sometimes get too close and start to draw fire, it will keep probes alive. Still use energiser for attack speed. Can prebuild a few canons to fall back onto. Main thing here is to use range to your advantage.
For going up ramps bring a couple of observers for vision, monolith has 13 range and can shoot everything up the ramp. Support with batteries for shields and canons to deal with units that start moving towards monolith.
However it is a lot more clicking than with an army.
So pulling mobs.
The more I look at it, the more Karax felt like he’s meant to tank for the team. 
For Temple Of The Past, build them just after where the first Void Thrasher shows up for each path. The later ones in the mission will appear on the other side of the cannons.
For Oblivious Express, build them at the bottom of your chokepoint ramps. This way, you can hit the trains and defend at the same time. Later in the mission, you’ll want as many cannons and Monos as you can muster, as you’ll need to bring down trains with (IIRC) 20K+ hp.
For Part & Parcel, you can go all in on the last Hybrid battle since it’ll be done by after that.