I’ve discussed Karax a fair bit on these forums, but I feel like a thread specific to the increased cost of his units might be prudent, because I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it feels arbitrary, but I’ve heard it argued that the increased cost was meant to guide him towards a specific playstyle geared towards defense and the Spear of Adun, and I can definitely see the logic there.
That said, the developers can’t seem to make up their minds on said tax. If the unit tax is important for reinforcing Karax’s role and keeping him balanced, then why have a mastery that can remove it? And if, as said mastery indicates, the developers believe that allowing Karax to create units at normal price is acceptable, then why not remove the price increase all together and replace that mastery with something meaningful?
The logic confuses me: clearly the devs are okay with Karax being able to build his army for the same price as everyone else, which is why they allow that mastery to exist, but at the same time, why saddle a commander with an arbitrary handicap that no other commander has to deal with if you’re just going to allow players to remove it? Either keep the tax or remove it, but keeping the tax and then taking it away as players level up feels strange. It’s like breaking something belonging to someone else, then offering to repair it as a reward. It wouldn’t have needed repair in the first place if you hadn’t broken it. It basically just leaves Karax in the same place as every other commander, except he only has two masteries instead of three.
I’d be fine with the unit tax if they used his masteries to improve his intended role instead, and I’d be fine if they removed it. But the devs really need to make up their minds about what they want for Karax, because this half-measure leaves him in a weird, unsatisfying place.
TL;DR: Either the unit tax is important to who Karax is or important to keep him balanced, or it’s not important. If the former, why allow players to remove the handicap via mastery levels? And if the latter, why give him the handicap in the first place?
Either way, that mastery doesn’t make sense, and gives the feeling that the devs are afraid to make a decision about how Karax should play.
Also, there’s something I’ve noticed. Fenix has more expensive zealots, but has a unit DISCOUNT for everything else. Even though Fenix and Karax both have all-robotic army’s, Fenix’s individual units are both more powerful (Champions) and cheaper.
Can’t deny that Fenix’s units are way stronger, but the way I see it, Fenix has cheaper units for players to be able to maximize the Tactical Data Web talent for his champions. Shame most random Fenixes tend to go for mass carriers, Clolarion doesn’t really get much out of TDW.
Karax’s design has issues and needs to be rectified. Day 8494 (didn’t bother checking his release and calculated), Karax re-revamp still needs to happen.
They really just need to establish a clear identity for him as a commander and stick to it. They’re likely afraid of removing the tax because it would remove the focus on his defensive aspects, but they’re simultaneously afraid of removing the mastery because that would anger the people who actually want to use him to build an army. They’re stuck, and can’t decide what to do with him. I admit, it’s a tough choice, but going back and forth and refusing to make a real decision on the matter is worse than either of the two choices.
Did the devs recently acknowledged this in some way and we’re waiting to hear back from them, or are we forcing them to relook into this?
I say “recently” b/c one of Karax updates years back did address this. His tax got reduced from 150% of base template to 130%, while the Mastery that gave a discount got reduced from 30% max to 22.5% max. Net effect is it’s cheaper for those leveling him up or choose not to select that Mastery, while still putting their costs on par with previous max Mastery into unit cost.
They reduced the tax to make leveling him up less of a chore, but the end result at max level remains the same.
The problem remains: having an arbitrary handicap no other commander suffers from and a mastery which removes it will always be unsatisfying and a mystifying design choice, because by the very existence of such a mastery, you prove the handicap wasn’t necessary for balance or the identity of the commander, and all you’ve accomplished is wasting a third of the player’s mastery points.
I’m hoping the devs will eventually address this, and at this point I don’t care if the keep the tax or nots so long as they make up their minds on whether or not it’s necessary and use Karax’s masteries to enhance his intended play style instead. Not like we can force them to do anything, we can only point out the flaw in the design choice and hope against hope they might actually be listening. I doubt it, given that this is one of the most requested things on these forums since Karax was first introduced, but I can dream.
I would bring the tax back to 50% and remove the mastery, if that’s the case, but, that would require serious buffs to units.
And we are not talking +50% HP, we are talking Damage.
Horrible and Unnecessary Suggestion List
Sentinel: Way too weak. A normal zealot with 2 lifes ain’t nothing in coop. I would straight up give it a Plasma Cannon, turning it into a protoss super-marine. All problems with anti-air will disappear, and its synergy with other units will vastly increase, such as with Mirages and Colossi. They can shoot units the Mirage lift, and they can protect Colossi from air units.
Energizer: Energizers’ buffs should receive a 3rd effect that speeds up cooldown regeneration by 100%. That would mean Immortal’s Shadow Cannons coming every 30s, Sentinel’s Resurrection every 60s, and Mirage Phasing Armor every 2.5s, assuming they are buffed 100% of the time.
Carriers: The repair drone upgrade requires units to take health damage, usually that is already too late. I would make it both repair AND restore shields at the same time, so it is always helping.
Unit Cost Reduction Mastery: Just straight up change it into a Shield/HP increase mastery. 45% sounds nice. Would buff the building one too to be around the same.
Potential Consequences no one Asked for
Good Luck reaching 200/200 supply.
Massing a single unit type would suck.
Synergies between multiple unit types would be required.
No more Mass Carriers.
You will probably have gas for nothing.
Macro will be a nightmare, because everything will take forever to make.
Since Karax is an accomplished phase smith, I think the unit cost reaction mastery should be replaced with a upgrade cost reduction (like raynors).
Further, since Karax units cost more, I think a fitting theme for a master phase smith is that all his units have weapons and armor at level 3 already researched.
While his units cost more, they would be more tanky, and be upgraded right away with armor and weapons, making them more impactful intially and promoting mixed unit tactics.
Individual unit upgrades like shadow cannon, charge, and cannon upgrades (+SoA upgrades) would still need to be reasearched, hence the upgrade cost reduction mastery.
if you compare him to artanis, karax has a better topbar, which he can even get upgrades for at the solar lance. his orbital strike doesn’t have a cooldown for instance and he can fire 1 for 5 energy instead artanis version where u have to use 5 for the price of 25 energy. solar lance is also very good at clearing attack waves and has a short 120 second cooldown.
if you would just remove the cost penalty then karax would be basically artanis only with a much better top bar.
karax has to use one mastery set to somewhat offset this unit cost penalty.
on the contrary artanis can choose to upgrade a top bar ability at the cost of a power set, since he otherwise can’t get upgrades for them.
if you would compare karax to let’s say dehaka, who has the strongest hero-unit, super powerful calldowns (glevig especially), very strong units (even recently buffed) and free 200 supply then ofc karax would look very old.
I’d argue that while Artanis’ spear of Adun can’t compete with Karax’s, even if one were to remove the cost increase from Karax’s units, I’d probably still prefer Artanis’ unit pool, and so long as Artanis still has Guardian Shell and 200 free supply, he will remain one of the more effective and powerful commanders. But yes, I agree that Karax’s problems have only been thrown into sharper relief over time as new commanders have been introduced.
but artanis 200 supply isn’t free, unlike dehaka’s. it’s his level 15 talent. also karax has repair beam, which is better than guardian shell, especially for high tier expensive units.
Uh…Repair beam is NOT better than guardian shell. Guardian shell is quite possibly the single most powerful ability in all of co-op. Back when Artanis was just flat out trash in everyway other than the shell, People STILL took him into brutal mutations damn near always, because the shell more than justified him in any scenario. And it hasn’t really been reduced in power other than a cooldown adjustment. Trust me, it’s VERY strong, even for high tier units.
I’ve suspected it’s because his top bar and towers were above par.
It’s not different than saying Tychus has no units when the Outlaws make up for their lack of numbers in hero level units.
I still see plenty of Karax players kickass as him. So while I would enjoy seeing him get buffs, folks are making do OK, not unlike Stukov 2.0 (which FYI, I also miss the old bunkers).
I’ve asked if this were put on some “agenda to be reviewed” b/c I have a feeling that our response is either going to be “no, we won’t do more with Karax”, or just ‘no response’.
Since Karax gets free repairs from his passive, he sort of already has that. Unless you mean on top of that, then that’s worth considering.
And “elite” is a bit misleading. I don’t think his units were ever meant to be on a similar level to say, Nova’s (which I consider THEM to be elite. His blurb of “power units” seems to be a marketing ploy at this point. Not unlike how all of the COs that say they’re for inexperienced players are actually better suited for experienced players
I’m not necessarily advocating for buffs. I’m fine with them keeping the tax and replacing the unit cost mastery with something more appropriate for Karax’s play style. I’m also fine with them removing the tax. It’s this weird half-measure of keeping the tax and letting people waste a third of their mastery points just to put him on the same level as everyone else that bothers me. Don’t give me a handicap, then remove it and call it a reward.
I would honestly be more down to them just keeping the tax and boosting the unit life, shields, and attack damage by 30% to match. Keeping with the strong and costly theme. Granted, there is a ‘slight’ overlap with Zeratul in terms of somewhat elite units, but I really don’t see anything wrong with that. We have Nova and Horner who overlap like that for the Terran side of elite units. Not every single detail about every commander needs to be completely and totally unique.
