- Yes to giving Artanis the shield regen + Guardian Shield Sentries.
- No to auto blink Stalkers. That takes away from Zeratul’s Stalker uniqueness, I’d feel.
- I’d be fine giving Karax the Instigator (Purifier Stalker).
Something to increase the longevity of the zealots. They’re amazing in the early and mid game, but drop off pretty hard once hybrids start showing up in force. A kind of bad answer is a sentinel/healing type unit, but it might not work so well because the zealots are incredibly fast and spread out almost immediately.
I think a better answer to to reduce their cost and thus make them more expendable. Make a high level upgrade that reduces the supply to 1 and mineral cost to 75.
Air force could be improved too, though I’d be again more in favor of reducing cost than making them more powerful.
A thematically cool feature could be a passive that reduces the cost of dragoons for each zealot that dies on a credit basis. Like a zealot dies, and the next dragoon is cheaper. If 10 zealots die, than the next 10 dragoons are cheap. This could even be implemented by creating the dragoons where the zealot died. This would create a swarmy, 2nd wave army to give Artanis more staying power.
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Zeratul Stalkers are the only ones that really dont need auto-blink - because they are pretty strong as it is. Unfortunately, other stalkers arent good enough to be effective unit, and only thing they need is auto-blink. I mean do u play vora mass stalker very often on hard mutations? Alarak stalkers has more damage but little less survivabiity sometimes, but they are built sometimes cuz alarak dont have alot of good unit options, not cuz they are very cool.
Not directly related to buffing Artanis but in his pre-Mastery leveling up, putting “Glory of the Daelaam” (Increases starting supply to 200) as a level 15 benefit is a little stupid.
You do the entire leveling up without one of the chief characteristics that determines much of his playstyle - not needing Pylons for supply, only to power structures. At the very least, giving him a starting supply of 100 should have been done around level 5, so pylon-making is a mid-game issue. And by lvl 10, it should be 200.
For comparison, Vorazun’s orbital refineries are available at lvl 2. So basically, in your 2nd game with her. Or to remain on-point: Tychus, Zagara, Nova, Zeratul - all CO’s with “free” supply (capped at 100) get theirs at level 1.
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A new research in Twilight Council that allow Zealot to throw their halberd weapon to their enemies and stun them.
I will give Artanis bigger Pylon field and power field (top bar)
And do something about the Tempest by either remove it or give it a better role
“Very cool” is subjective. Vorazun’s Stalkers have plenty of uses, and the shield recharge on blink is a very useful tool.
Alarak’s Slayers are built on faster maps, or when playing Robo. They can help take Air-to-Ground heat off of your Wrathwalkers, and supply a decent bit of power to boot.
They don’t need auto blink. They have other things to make up for such things.
- Multiple Power Fields. Having two seems like enough, three may be overkill or unnecessary. It would allow to push objectives and be defensive simultaneously…given enough charges on all gates and resources available.
It would also encourage attacking/defending with as few units as possible, warping in meat shields and distractions while more expensive units make up the core army strength. Takes advantage of warp-in unit speed.
And to box in an enemy force from two sides. - Shield Battery - It does feel like it’s missing for his army.
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Artanis already has unlimited extra power fields… they are deployed by a probe and cost 100 min each.
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they are deployed by a probe and cost 100 min each. And require 25 seconds to complete. FTFY.
Was your comment to do with warping in units for base defense? How about two Power Fields for offensive use?
Two power fields to deploy pretty much feels like a waste. There’s no real point when you have a power field at home (or a +1 pylon to extend your field), plus you can use allied power fields to warp in.
If you get me as Karax, I always make pylons out on the field for this purpose. Along with Shield Batteries!
Don’t forget about Energizers! They can deploy fields, too.
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Phoenix gets more anti-armored damage.
Some kind of slow healing for the army out of combat.
Zeratul Stalkers “don’t need” auto-blink too. But they have it. Despite being less fragile than others. I see no problem in other stalkers having “not needed” feature too.
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Well, that’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. I will disagree with it at every instance, as I feel that the other Stalker models don’t require it in any way. Zeratul’s Stalkers are a purely offensive Blink, leaving behind a damaging orb. Vorazun’s Stalkers blinks are defensive, cloaking the Stalkers and regenerating shields. Alarak’s are offensive, giving them more power.
In my opinion Zeratul’s Stalkers are fine with auto blink, because their blink “bonus” is pretty crap. If you shift it to Vorazun’s, then you have some ridiculously hard to kill Stalkers that require next to no micro. Alarak’s Stalkers well… They’re a bit of a complicated mess. If you let them have auto blink, then the army gets weirdly shuffled, and their double damage would be wasted on things like Zerglings or Zealots.
Micro is required only in situations where u need to decide some certain ways for units to react on a situation. In case of stalkers u manually blink when its offensive, other time u always want to fall back. When u demand from player to micro unit just for it being not useless is just a bad game-design. Stalkers are not spellcasters and no need make them only micro or be useless unit.
On the field, I’d rather have them mobile to Chrono Beam armies on the move.
I don’t think Artanis needs major buffs, he’s already pretty good after the last few rounds of changes - maybe a little unimpressive after Blizzard’s inane choice to megabuff the damage output of every enemy comp but still perfectly playable and IMO reasonably balanced.
If he was going to get any changes, I think MP-style shield batteries would be fine; you don’t want him to become Better Karax with all the upgrades, but letting him have an island of safety between fights could be fun. Arbiters would be cool for his incredibly lacking army mobility but aren’t necessary by any means, warping in stuff across map runs out of steam eventually with a large army but if you don’t go for a 200/200 it can stay pretty useful.
It is not so much of a buff… I would just wish he got a new spell caster, just so he deeper to play.