If you think the unit tax is not a problem to Karax, just post nil.
Again, I’m just curious.
*[As always, I’ll try to remain neutral thus will not reply to anyone.]
nil
Personally I believe that with his combat units receiving a 50% increase in life a few months ago paired with unity barrier and reconstruction beam, Karax has some of the tankiest Protoss units and justifies the cost increase. They also become even tankier with the increased combat unit health/shield mastery.
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nil, I guess. Plenty of people seem to play Karax just fine, and his kit not meshing with my play style shouldn’t be held against him.
My question is Why would anyone make anything but carriers. His units are so expensive, why risk making more than a few of anything that doesn’t have the built-in survivability of a carrier? That’s my main problem with Karax; his units don’t seem worth it aside from carriers or situationally, Colassi.
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Am curious to know either.
I don’t play Karax often but when I do, I generally go mass sentinel to dump minerals and tank for my ally (especially good with terran and Kerrigan/Hydralisk comps) while focusing on getting Spear of Adun upgrades. This gives me more army presence earlier into the game compared to mass carriers and with the increased amount of vespene available, I can make my topbar more powerful earlier in the game as well.
Edit: Also energizers for the attack/movement speed buff
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nil
Now after the health buff on the units and the extra on mastery, I take the cost as justifiable, as he also have the energizers.
What I don’t like is the overall gas that you have to spend on to get a solid army, if I had to sacrifice whichever mastery 2 set are for the gas reduction on upgrades I would take it.
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Nil. I can’t justify it. Well, okay, the “basic” units (Sentinel, Energizer, Observer, and Mirage) are okay on price. However, the Immortal, Colossus, and Carrier are entirely too expensive. Considering you need to make them, it’s just like… It takes away all the fun of playing unit Karax.
When you compare them to another Commander with expensive units, ala Mengsk, Han & Horner, and Nova, their price costs are actually justifiable, especially when you have cost reduction on some. (Namely Mengsk’s Royal Guards.)
- Royal Guards gain levels and power based on experience, plus having their own bits of research.
- Han & Horner’s Dominion Units are super powered units that not only are thicker, but deal more damage and have very useful researches on top of passive abilitiy synergy (Significant Others).
- Nova’s Elite Units are beefier, but her supply amount is hard capped at 100. On top of this, you spawn them in groups instead of just one at a time. They are also cooldown based, and she has a lot of options to deal with various things.
Karax? Not so much.
*His immortals are over glorified immortals.
- His Colossi are only really good vs a heavy ground composition like Bio Terran, Bio/Tank, and anything that is ground based in Zerg that isn’t Bane/Scourge.
- Carriers are no longer good enough to make en masse, with how stupidly expensive they are and how long it takes to actually get into them. You dump all those resources for what? Some angry bees and overglorified Swann SCVs?
While I love the change that his units are beefier… Their costs are not justifiable at all. Not in my books, at least.
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For me, his Carriers are too expensive to justify on missions that take less than 20 minutes.
Plus, I do enjoy using his Immortals and Sentinels. Bonus with Gate units are they can warp into power fields, which Karax doesn’t struggle with since his Pylons warp in instantly.
On missions where you’d need to push and not rely so much on towers (e.g. CoD, P&P, Void Thr, RtK), I tend to focus more on units. They can tank all the same for SoA strikes.
The tax needed to go. It was not welcomed before, not welcoming now. Karax does not have any general purpose unit except for his overpriced terrible carriers.
If kerrigan or abby has this tax, i can understand but not karax
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Nil, Karax can solo most missions just cannonrushing and his units are very strong and self repairing - so the tax is only right
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But the cost is still overburdening, especially in early stages.
The minerals aren’t the problem its the gas (the Sentinels are best tankers (Waay better than Supplicants)).
I mean you need your advanced units to create better death balls but the big tax forces Karax to pop them out slowly (I mean really slow).
It would be nice to remove Chrono Wave Energy Regeneration Mastery at Set 2 and replace it with "Combat Unit Discount " mastery up to 15% to balance the affordability and effectiveness.
A problem for what?
If you want Kharax to have offensive power just like he was Dehaka or Abathur then yea, unit tax is a problem.
But if you want Kharax to be a defensive commander with a modest offense potentional then no, unit tax is not a problem.
Are you talking to me? 
Let’s be honest. With the change of his mastery, Karax’s army is just there to provide you with vision for Orbital Strike and he is more than ever a Top-bar commander. His total damage output is still sh*t tier if not worse than before because there is not way to get around the tax restriction.
Which is why Chrono Boost mastery is even less required and favorable than the Solarite mastery, effectively making the mastery set 2 and 3 completely unbalanced.
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I still hold the less popular belief that overall it works in Karax’s benefit, at least for his Sentinels and Mirage the increased health is a big improvement for them, as the increase affects Reconstruction and Phasing Armor in a fairly major way. Immortals are maybe a touch too expensive now; though the health increase on them is very helpful and leads to more Barrier casts (so even more health) and the changes to Shadow Cannon improved it’s efficiency quite a bit, the loss of auto-attack damage does hurt them as well.
Collossi and Carriers though, they need help.
Yep, which is why Karax is top-bar now. His units are just observer for Vision to orbital strike.
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The tax is half justified right now. Minerals? Yes, those Sentinels alone are insanely tanky and able to get massive value for their cost. But his gas costs should not have a tax, he already has so many upgrades he needs to spend gas on that he can’t spare spending 30% more for his units; it’s part of why Sentinels are so damn good, because you can spam the hell out of them while saving your gas for other things.
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Can’t be justified currently, would need to increase the base damage of his units across the board since firepower matters a lot more than HP in coop, though that would be a clumsy solution.
The basic problem is the painfully slow unit ramp-up which doesn’t feel satisfying, the unit mastery is really boring too.
The only solution is just removing the tax IMO.
Or at least lowering the costs of his advanced tech units. 337/whatever gas amount his Immortals are is way too much to pay for an over glorified ladder Immortal.
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Again just my opinion, but while his top bar is certainly a big emphasis especially now, I wouldn’t go quite that far. Putting aside Energizers versus heavy mech, it’s true that he just doesn’t have as high a dps at the start of fights. But, as the fight goes on he loses so little these days that his dps remains pretty much the same throughout the fight. Attrition just isn’t a concern to him.
Granted though, compared to other COs that don’t have to worry about attrition as much either like Raynor and Tychus, he certainly doesn’t have as much army power.
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