Let Tychus's Blaze drop a Bunker as ult

Co-op Missions Discussion
1

Hi there,

Blaze and Nikara are the two of Tychus’s mercs who most people agree need a buff the most. As most of you know, I’ve tried to request buffs and changes for Nikara for a long long time.

Not too many people have addressed Blaze, but there’s a near-universal consensus that he’s too weak right now.

He was first introduced into the Heroes of the Storm game, where one of his ultimates is a high health bunker, which drops on the battlefield, and Blaze and his team can then enter the bunker and fry everything from it.

So, I thought, since Blaze is supposed to be a tank in coop, why not port the bunker from HotS to here? You got a giant enemy wave, he drops the bunker and enters it with his four teammates, and then they proceed to blast the enemy wave while the wave tries to destroy the high-health bunker.

I think this is the very essence of the tank concept, and it could be combined with Sirius’s turrets, which sprout around the bunker, Sam’s demo charges, which Sam can fire out of the bunker, Tychus’s Shredder grenade, etc. The bunker wouldn’t be outright invincible, but it should have so much life that if the player isn’t being lazy, that’s all the time he’ll need.

Then, the bunker blows up either after its life is overwhelmed or after its timer runs out, and a substantial cooldown triggers, after which Blaze can use it again.

The cooldown would force the player to use the ultimate strategically. And, realistically, Blaze will need some offensive ability reworks to be fully up to speed. But, I think the bunker would REALLY make him much more fun to play.

7 Likes
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He could also be a hellion transformer I guess as he was originally meant to.
And Nikara with a blinding area attack or an autoatack would make here more relevant too maybe?

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Well, hellions use flamethrowers so that would make sense. I am a little concerned, though, that hellions are high-mobility units, and wouldn’t it place the whole team in danger if one of the mercs was way faster than the others?

Regarding Nikara, what you suggest is great. :smiley:

I am glad you like the idea, because you’re much better at SC than me, so I know now it probably wasn’t too dumb of an idea on my part.

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Well I guess with proper micro he would be safe, don’t think they are changing him or Nikara though but would love if they consider doing their gameply more fun and varied.

You play very well and you know it :wink:

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Well, that’s definitely true: just because Blaze CAN transform into a hellion doesn’t mean you can’t do it smart and situationally.

Thanks, bro. :smiley:

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Yeah, they had to scrap that since he had 2 or 3 “activate to use” abilities, which violated their original philosophy of “all Outlaws being usable and fitting on a single command card”. FWIW, they could just make him with one of those abilities (assuming there wasn’t some synergy that would’ve been off)

You already have to worry about Crooked Sam doing that. He’s faster as a reaper, and can take shortcuts up/down cliffs (which can REALLY separate him from the pack). If this “Hellion Blaze” can transform into a Hellbat, then that should take care of that!

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Crooked Sam actually has the same movement speed as the others, but you’re right about the cliff-jumping part.

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You’re actually both right about Sam’s speed.

The Procyon Shade Suit upgrade, (his only upgrade not tied to demolition charges,) increases his movement speed by 80% for 5 seconds after being attacked, and this can only happen once every 15 seconds. It also makes him invincible for the 5 second time period.

So, if you buy this upgrade, sometimes he’s faster than the rest, sometimes he’s not. Personally, it’s the first I buy for him unless the mission strongly requires demo charges; and if the mission doesn’t require demo charges at all, it’s sometimes the only upgrade I buy for him.

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Personally, I would suggest removing the firing delay before he attacks, since that gives him the most problems, since if his target dies before the flames erupt, he doesn’t attack at all, even if there are other enemies right next to it.

For his ultimate, I would ponder about replacing his ultimate with a much larger firing cone so he can truly incinerate large clusters of small units. As for the Immortal-like shield he has, I think it would fit Cannonball better, since he is designed to actually jump right into the fray, but this would replace his damage buff, so it may need retweaking.

7 Likes
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My suggestions have been:
—give him 5 to 8 range
—let him attack air too
Doesn’t make much sense, but then again, consider that Sirius (Warhound) and Crooked Sam (Reaper) don’t do AA standard. Also, Tychus’ Shredder Grenade can hit air, and Zeratul’s Shadow Cleave can also hit air

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He’s using a flame thrower. A reaper has guns that they could logically aim into the sky, and same goes for warhounds. A flame thrower isn’t going to go high enough to reach flying units.

Blaze should have the range and start up time of Raynor’s firebats. They have 2 range, 4 with upgrades. Blaze only has 0.1 range. It’s a joke.

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Your logic for Blaze’s Flame Throwers not hitting air but Sam’s guns hitting air doesn’t work for Tychus’s Shredder Grenade, or Zeratul’s Shadow Cleave. Or Sieged-up Tanks, Immortals, Banshees, landed Vikings, etc etc…

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Fancy you mention that… Zeratul’s Void Enforcers (Immortals) can do AA :slight_smile: The sky’s literally the limit :wink:

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14

Well, Rattlesnake is always chosen because he heals… what if Blaze did the same, but in a different way? Maybe as long as there are enemies burning allies around Blaze get increased regeneration (more potent on Blaze himself, to keep himself alive)? Just like he regenerates health in burning oil in Heroes of the Storm.

Exhilarating Fumes or some absurd name.

Also, make the oil burn for a while when lighted up.

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This would be a massive departure from other Ultimate abilities on other commanders, as all of them are passive effects. Your bunker solution would swing the pendulum much too far in the opposite direction imo. I do hope and expect we will see some balance changes for both Blaze and Nikara in Tychus’ revamp that is expected to be coming soon though.

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It’s not a bad idea in isolation, but Tychus as a whole is constrained by UI: each Outlaw has only one ability you need to cast. How would you depart from that, and is it really worth doing?

Personally I’d probably prefer the Bunker calldown to the Odin, so for me you could make it a commander top bar and not Blaze’s ultimate and call it a day. Maybe have it mechanically like the Tesseract Monolith: permanent and charges accumulate from 0:00. But the Odin is thematically popular so I’m probably in the minority on this.

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Alternate to a bunker, why not change it to the following:

  1. Ultimate gain an absorptive shield (similar to Defensive matrix) based on enemy burning. (ie. Each ignited enemy adds x shield dynamically)
  2. Ultimate increase Damage based on enemy burning.
  3. Ultimate increase range (both length and width) of attack based on enemy burning (a self potentiating ability).

This keeps with Blaze’s theme, keeps his current versus light utility, and increase his durability and DPS. The balance between 1) and 2)&3) can be toggled to keep him more Muscle than Gun.

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They’re still freaking pistols. There are FPS where you can try to shoot at air objects with a small sidearm, but they’re not that much more effective than a flamethrower. Besides, with extra range on Blaze, it does make it more “realistic”.

And you haven’t addressed how a simple frag grenade can hit high-up air units.

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I think the problem with blaze is he has a good ability but struggles with implementation. Maybe they could just replace his ability with his Combustion Ult from HotS in that he just spreads the burning status in a large AoE around him, no oilspill needed. And visually, maybe replace his flamethrower attack with that of a firebat with the flame gauntlets upgrade.

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20

A lot of you guys are saying that giving Blaze the bunker would interfere with the single commander card concept for Tychus.

What about the Bunker becoming an unlocked Calldown on the top bar, placed by the Medivacs and Odin once Blaze is selected? Do you think that would deal with that issue?

1 Like