I’ve been trying to make it work, but I don’t think it remotely competes with the early game economy boost of a free Depot and 6 Workers.
I never notice the boost to Royal Guard experience, but I’m painfully aware of how much slower it makes Mengsk in the early game.
It even feels worse for builds rushing a high-tech Royal Guard because Starting Mandate can get them out much sooner.
I think it could either use a huge buff or a rework to even come close to competing with the free Bunker.
If anything, this change makes Set 3 even more one-sided. Had they buffed Royal XP Gain to make it impactful like the original Starting Mandate, like up to 60% instead of the virtually worthless 15%, that would have been a competitive late game choice to balance out the early game power.
That would have given meaningful choices of either going all-in on one or the other, or going half-and-half on both or trying to find some breakpoint, getting one extra bunker in exchange for a moderate XP boost.
But now, I kind of can’t ever see picking anything other than the Starting Mandate now that it is nerfed and you have to basically go all in just to get the one extra bunker.
Royal guards are pointless except for a few Pride of Augustgrad in the very endgame
Royal Guards are amazing, and unless you’re spamming Earthsplitters they’re a perfect gas sink to complement the Mineral-hungry Troopers.
What if the exp gain actually affected starting exp of all RG. Like each point gives 4% exp. this means at 30 points, all royal guards start at rank 1 and 20% of the way to rank 2.
Due to different XP requirements for ranking up, that would help heavier RG’s a lot more.
It’d be nice to compensate the slower ramp-up with a different kind of early game power, though.
But honestly, I’m not sure if it would be worth it if they just started fully ranked.
Unless the mastery give all RG rank 2 upon max out, it won’t be able to compete with quick starting.
Oh my good sir, let me introduce you to the marauder. You have no idea what you are missing out on; I am actually convinced it is his best unit in all scenarios and the more I play on brutal+ the more I believe that.
I believe it if I see it. The Marauder is always in the back of the army. He is so expensive that he is out when you have already a critical mass of troopers, so he does not add significant advantage
Do you still use them against air comps? The Thor still seems pointless since you rarely have problem against light air just with your trooper bioball, plus it’s way too slow. Sky Furies feel pretty meh too. I usually bring some Shadows and a Pride or two against air, and then missile troopers of course. Unless it’s one of those Oracle comps that just delete your troopers in 2 seconds.
The Blackhammer’s AA deploy is really fun to use, but their slow speed makes them a bit painfully clunky and Troopers are far better suited to take down Air than Ground anyway.
Sky Furies always feel too fragile to me, especially on the ground.
Yup. They kill hybrid and objectives so crazy fast it STILL feels like a good idea to get at least 3 or 4. But against air I like to add ghosts or flying tanks, depending on exactly what air it is. Or in specific scenarios, BCs because at 3 stars a single BC can more or less wipe an attack wave from the face of the earth if it has both Yamato charges ready.
If they made the bulwark field radius 4 times bigger, I would probably use them a lot more. As is, the only map I consistently use them on is oblivion express against air comps, because the waves just come right at you and you don’t have far to walk at all. Even before the buff, 5 thors at 2 and 3 stars could easily kill mass tempest skytoss on the second set of double trains without a single Thor even going into the yellow. That’s with the troopers getting one train while the thors solo the other one, and my ally, was busy clearing the map because why not.
That’d be a nice change.
I know they get more range on their deploy with rank, but their starting zone of effect feels pretty puny in my opinion. I think they should get more out of ranking up.
Pride of Augustgrad gets insane wave-wiping triple AOE Yamatos and Tactical Jump spam with rank: Blackhammers basically get better at killing air waves.
Maybe their first rank could also give some AOE to their ground attack while the second gives range and the third attack speed?
They’re huge, slow, and clunky specialists that draw Gas away from Royal Guard that are either more versatile, or fill a niche that Troopers actually need support in.
Pretty much. The problem though is that Mengsk has so many good anti-air options that several of them are going to become very very niche. Vikings are in as bad a place as Thor’s honestly, only any good for void launch if and only if you are on a high enough level of brutal+ that you actually have to snipe shuttles rather than face tanking everything.
Also, can I again point out the problem that literally ALL of Mengsk’s good AA options come with levels? Even if the first and most versatile is at level 2, needing to level up to “unlock” being able to put up a fight against half the comps in the game seems like an oversight.
This is pretty much my primary complaint about the Blackhammer now that the range issue is fixed. Liberators don’t have to upgrade from a really tiny and ineffectual circle, and neither should Blackhammers, having the full circle size by default.
This frees up the Rank 1 ability, which could be a bonus against Armored, or perhaps a bonus damage to the primary target (splash remains the same), or some other idea that actually feels impactful and not something that should come with the Blackhammer out of the box.
Giving Blackhammers more anti-ground power when ranked seems fair for dealing with their clunk vs the Pride of Augustgrad’s mobility.
If Sky Furies were way more survivable and reliable against ground targets…they’d still be totally outshined by the Prides, but they’d be a fun option.
Maybe a shield whenever they transform, with the ability to hit ground and air targets in both forms to promote swapping to dodge.
It’s absurd that they have to pay for non-slug movement speed than Pride’s get to Tactical Jump for free.
At least Raynor’s Vikings can be spammed and have absurd range while Han’s get the flashy missile barrage ability.
Mengsk needing to unlock his AA options is pretty bad, but at least his base mandate generation is less painful for leveling now.
I make one Thor and one BC for +3 armor and +1 range to infantry. That seems the best use of royal guards.
I would prefer making them way tankier. Right now, even PrIde of Augustgrads feel very flimsy in certain scenarios. And the black hammers are even less tanky. Tbh, the marauders are the only unit he has that DON’T feel flimsy.
That, and when they do the emergency lift off they should self heal and get a longer invulnerability period. Right now, they left off, flash orange for 1 second, and then die instantly.
It’s a trend really. Lvl. 1 nova gets no super stim, no griffin air strike, no raven upgrades, no lockdown missiles. Lvl. 1 H&H don’t get flying reapers, meaning no reaper AA. Lvl. 1 Vorazun’s corsairs are frankly quite weak. Lvl. 1 Abathur doesn’t get ultimate evos AT ALL. Lvl. 1 Artanis doesn’t get stacking storms, and lvl. 1 Alarack doesn’t even get ascendants. Anything that is good against mass air, it requires levels before you can use it. Yet all the siege tanks get the more important part of their power from level 1, seemingly because it’s anti-ground power.
Did you notice the Thor gives armor in a radius of about 2? Yeah, I stopped adding a Thor for the armor, seeing as they won’t actually give it to anyone in practice.