I’m not going to call it bad - there’s far worse Prestiges out there…but as far as Mengsk goes I feel like P2 is just awful.
The big reason why is because of the supply cost increase. It makes it near impossible to field an army which can actually take advantage of the Royal Guard buffs and basically turns P2 into a “Rush Augustgrad” Prestige or a “Mass Aegis Guard” Prestige.
I feel like the additional supply cost should just be flat out removed. If a downside has to exist I’d make the Prestige increase the energy required for Bunker Calldown from 25 to 30 or 35.
Right now Mensk’s P2 is literally fighting itself, it wants you to make Royal Guards but then punishes you for doing exactly that.
The supply increase is a benefit directly increases mandate generation. P2’s entire point is to allow the player to smoothly field an army of RGs instead with far less troopers (if at all).
As is with any prestige/CO, you need an optimized build order for it to work properly. Some more forgiving than others.
None of Mengsk’s prestiges are appealing to me. I know some people like P1 and P3 but neither of those have even close to enough appeal for me to want to grind out the xp for them.
Mandate generation was never a problem with Mengsk and given that Toxic Strike on P2 isn’t exactly great, what are you supposed to spend the mandate on? Bunker drops are great but it has a charge system and once you’re fully saturated with 4 CCs…bunker drops become pretty mundane.
P1 is really, really good but it’s a unique playstyle that’s heavily macro orientated (and is only really good on specific maps). P3 is supposed to be broken if you can upgrade weapons fast enough. Makes them global calldown banelings, basically.
Going pure RG is pretty fun though. They have a lot of powerful abilities. Reducing their gas cost makes it easier to produce them (you can double pump Aegis Guards or Sky Furies, the rest are still only really able to be produced one at a time unless you have a Swann ally.)
I play Mengsk P2 Pure RG quite a bit. Sure, their supply cost goes up, but that doesn’t matter much when you’ve got Shadow/Blackhammer/Guard/Pride just barreling down attack waves and objectives. You can even meme with mass Sky Furies on certain maps/vs certain compositions. Or Shockivacs.
If you think that it’s nothing more than “mass Guard”/“mass Pride” then you really haven’t played it, or Mengsk, to their full potential.
You said it was awful and provided a single reason that RG supply cost increase was the cause.
That alone to anyone who plays P2 indicate that you clearly didn’t spend the time to learn it?
Why is your takeaway that I think you suck? I just said to learn more about P2. Or are you so good at coop that you’ve mastered it all? The mere thought of someone suggesting you need to learn is insulting your ego…? Since when is learning something insulting?
What is it about the coop forum in particular riddled with players who think they are beyond learning anything. And their own assessment is beyond truth? Put it another way, why is it many people can play P2 fine? Are they just wrong but somehow can make it work but not you?
I’ve realised numerous things about P2 over the time I’ve played it:
you don’t need max mastery in Royal Guard reduction mastery when you don’t have a problem in maxing out on Royal Guards anyway (20, 25 or 30 points in Terrible Damage opens up some nice boosts to damage for DoW, CS and NA)
with max Royal Guard mandate mastery you can get better mandate generation going for early Royal Guard rather than Imperial Witness because of the supply penalty allowing a lot more early game power (2-4 Aegis Guard can beat most early game waves/bases)
don’t forget weapons upgrades in the Engineering Bay for Dogs of War and bunker calldowns
practise some Emperors Shadow micro with rapid fire and mass nuke spam
don’t forget 4+ ESO’s for Contaminated Strike (hit attack waves as they spawn to break their pathing)
can still go mass ESO’s if it will win the map (even I forget this sometimes!)
can leave some supply free for bunker calldowns to spend your minerals on weapons
Overall, maybe not as strong as P3 against Mutations but much more staying power. P1 has some unique tricks but most times P1 wins any other P could also build ESO’s (or do something else faster).
P2 is my go to Prestige and the most important thing I learned about it is it’s not meant to be a mass Royal guard prestige in the sense you spend your entire supply on one or two IG units. The best way to play it is to play it like Fenix P2; Assemble a core team of IG units and then adjust according to the enemy comp, that core team being Aegis Guards, Shadows, Blackhammers, and Prides. Then adjust by adding an intercessor carried shock division vs. air comps, and furies vs. capital ship heavy comps (or when playing in void launch).
But I’m not saying it’s the best prestige out there, it definitely struggles in hold out missions such as Dead of Night and Temple of the Past since you can’t make as many Shock divisions and bunkers to cover your entrances but in assault missions P2 really shines. In the end I think it just boils down to preference.
Interesting. So early game do you still invest in fully equipped troopers? I can barely churn out a couple of AGs to clear my expo with the cost reduction maxed.
It’s the truth, nobody’s going to force you to play P2. And nobody can force you to learn more about it unless you choose to learn.
Kind of like all these wonderful comments sharing their experiences of P2. You chose to focus on the one tiny part of the conversation to argue… and all based on you think I think you suck… which I don’t.
What I do think is you don’t care to have a true discussion and learn more. If anything, don’t like your attitude.
I understand your issue, as I got screwed with Mengsk P2 on Oblivion Express when I wanted to keep a defense force behind so that the rest of the army could destroy stuff around the map: there was no supply for a “rest of the army”.
It take away some fun, because it requires to make unnatural sacrifices, but some prestiges such have some shortcomings like that, it’s unavoidable.