Nikara and Karax are Equals

Co-op Missions Discussion
1

I mean she also has the least mobile/widespread healing but that’s not the point.

Im not comparing their healing, I’m comparing their roles as support at the cost of having a higher dps alternative. By going nikara, you’re decreasing your damage output to get survivability. That’s exactly what Karax does, except he has utility elsewhere and provides survivability differently.

“Karax is useless because he can’t kill things” (not putting words in your mouth, but let’s address this argument)
Nikara is useless because she can’t kill things
“Nikara is useful because she provides best single target healing in the game”
Karax is useful because he has the most mobile wave clear in the game
“Well mobile wave clear doesn’t matter if you get gud”
Well high single target healing doesn’t matter if you get gud
“Well some mutations nikara is really good at countering”
Well some mutations Karax is really good at countering (let’s not forget unity barrier is also a thing)

You see how FREAKING similar these 2 are? They might not fill the same niche (obviously not, they’re a commander vs an outlaw), but they fill the same amount of niche

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2

To be honest I hold Karax’s SOA in higher regard than Nikara because his usage is much more versatile and crucial.
Destructive capability of killing enemies and waves are astounding.
Whenever play Karax I rush to upgrade his SOA in full.

Nikara is even less used as she has no attack, Rattlesnake has good healing/buffing and the crew already have exceptional destructive potential.
However in some mutation where Durability and survivability is the key, I can think of no Outlaw or unit that is better than Nikara as the White mage. And Repair Beam isn’t good enough for Unit healing (even with Mastery)
But in the end SOA still holds upper hand in versatility, effectiveness and potential than Nikara.

3

Im not sure if this was meant to be a post or a reply, but imo. Both are semi Functional. Just there’s a huge difference between a unit you can choose to build and a commander.

If i enter a game as Tychus, i can decide if i want to build Nikara or not. And even then, Nikara isn’t a bad unit per say for raw 1-2 target healing. It’s just that generally a muscles/Gun build with Rattlesnake, Sam, and Sirius and occasssionaly Cannonball or Nux for long missions or Blaze can do.

Meanwhile Karax has very good tower defence and probably the best probes and cannons in the game and static defence, But outside of say timed missions like Temple of the past, what can Karax do, that a calldown can’t? He’s certainly not bad at his job, it’s just it seems like they swung too far and his increased cost passive seems more like a detriment than a ‘upgrade’.

As far as playstyles go, im glad he exists. A good Karax can be very helpful. but a lowbie karax might as well often be a free slot. His units cost too much and have too much impact.

While Nikara if built isn’t a bad hero per say. Just that Rattlesnake tends to heal armies better, free up micro, and doesn’t wander into siege tanks as a squishy. Plus they’re a fixer. For some reason, Tychus’s Fixers just got shafted with a weird thing where Guns are high dps and great abilities with good auto attacks, Muscles are great 500-1000 hp tankies with great abilities, and Fixers are low hp, low/no damage, with okayish abilities. (Minus Vega, who has a great ability, but still terrible damage and some upgrades that don’t make sense). And Fixers hurt tychus where he’s weak only to help a bit where he’s already strong. Even nerfed medivacs,

it feels like you’re more better off skipping Nikara over going into offensive upgrades or a Sam opener with high dps / stun grenades to mitigrate the damage and kill enemies 2x more quickly and regen with medivacs rather than use Nikara. But Rattlesnake is really good. I’ve played a couple times, but it’s not uncommon for rattlesnake to be able to break 60k-120k healing while topping a ally to 100% with just 1 upgrade while Nikara built at the start of the game barely breaks 60k.

She’s a dedicated healer that heals less and is more squishy and takes micro time on not walking into bombs/reavers that could, IMO, be much better used on microing a Sirius or a Blaze or damage splitting your army and a Odin etc. She theoretically DOES provide the highest 1-2 target healing in the game at like 60-120 hps. But Tychus’s problem isn’t HPS, he bursts armies quickly but if anything he needs army/building dps for objectives like void rifts / thrashers. Anywhere you would use Nikara, Rattlesnake would just do it better without compromising your army. (Outside of some niche situations say in this weeks mutation where she can be a detector).

Nikara isn’t a bad unit per say, she’s just outclassed by Rattlesnake being better while also doing the anti armor / army healing role better. She has some uses in healing Fixer builds like Vega mind control builds since Rattlesnake is 4% of hp a second based. (Often 20-40 hps a second per each Merc), while Nikara is like 60 hps x 2 which doesn’t heal her. Now if she held three charges, and say got at least a filler auto attack or ability rework to say get a better ability/self healing and /or helped compensate for the missing dps somehow. It could really help, or a shorter cd and 3 charges on her abilities to match Rattlesnake.

4

For the sake of completeness lets rephrase what lead up to this discussion:

I claimed karax sux - badly. I said you will feel useless in the game with a decent ally. Not because karax can’t kill stuff, but because others can do it better.

→ Someone else claimed that is ok, because karax is a support commander, making allies life easier.

Then i claimed that whatever support aspect karax has, can be outperformed by multiple other commanders. Therefore that claim not being a justification for his performance. Tychus was one i compared his SoA healing to. More specifically to Nikara.

Now, with that being said, lets get to your points…

Nikaras mobility is not bad, if you consider that you have a global pickup and relocation ability with your medivac. Yes, it is perfectly fine and valid to just pickup Nikara and drop her somewhere else.

The DPS alternative to Nikara almost by definition makes up one fifth of Tychus total DPS. I would even say it is less than 20%, since i would assume that you already picked the best DPS outlaws for the current map and enemy, leaving only worse ones to pick as your fifth choice.

And that assumes, that you utilize all abilities of all your 5 outlaws flawlessly. Because if your apm or reaction time is not enough to do that for all 5, then the abilities of your first 4 outlaws should be prioritized as they contribute more DPS than your fifth slot, essentially dropping the DPS contribution of your fifth outlaw further.

So, with all that in mind, how much DPS do you think you loose without your 5th outlaw? Maybe 15%? It’s significant… but certainly not in a crippling way.

No, in the context i was picturing, you pick nikara to become a better support in terms of healing provided for your ally than karax can. Tychus does not need nikara to survive outside of mutations. And the low pick rate of nikara is a testimony to this claim.

Remember: the argument was “it is ok for karax to suck in all regards, because he makes the life of his ally easier”.

So in that context, it would be ok for Tychus to suck as long as he sucks less than karax, while making the life of his ally easier than karax does.

Can tychus outperform karax in overall contribution to map completion with 4 outlaws excluding Nikara, while dedicating Nikara as a healbot to wherever she is needed?

I think the answer is yes. Tychus can outperform both contribution to map completion and healing provided across the board.

4 outlaws should be sufficient to push bases and clear objectives and waves earlier and more reliable than karax can.

Agree? Disagree? In any case - i think i am done discussions for today.

5

Just want to point out that even if say (either of) you are correct, still nothing has changed.

Nikara and Karax remain very separately different concepts (unit VS commander, choice VS non-choice, etc.) And their game mechanic unchanged.

Why not just enjoy it if you do and don’t play it if you don’t enjoy it. And any improvement needed please propose some solid ideas for change.

6

I like Karax. He’s fun to play sometimes, and I can make lazors go brrrrrrr.

… Was there anything I missed?

7

Karax is weird. As someone who considers themself a “Dehaka main” mostly because of his insane pushing power starting at minute 1, I can definitely feel Karax’s lack of ability to push in at times. He definitely feels like he’s playing second fiddle to most of the commanders in a regular game of brutal co-op. Though, I have had a lot of success with two-life sentinels tanking in the front with energizer and SoA support for pushing; he still takes a little longer to get there. When it comes to Karax’s two play styles, Fenix is the better Protoss army unit pusher than Karax, and Swann is the better defensive commander thank Karax.

But, that being said, sometimes Karax is just what you need for mutations. That’s why he’s weird. His kit and his utility really shine for mutations at times. The recent void rifts and void reanimator mutation on void thrashing was a great example. I pulled my hair out of my head trying to beat it in the solo queue with Dehaka (managed it twice). Then I played it with Karax, and beat it twice almost with ease. His defense / SoA void rift sniping ability was perfect for stabilizing the mission to give you time to push the void thrashers.

We often don’t quantify utility in our assessment of commander strength, because for the base coop game (casual - brutal), you don’t really need utility. All you need is pushing and brute force power. Some mutations really highlight the effectiveness of utility and show some commanders deficiency in it (case in point: Dehaka’s lack of utility vs. Karax’s stronger utility). How do you quantify utility? I’m not sure I can answer that question, but it probably merits some discussion.

Don’t get me wrong though, I still think they could buff Karax some more though. Stukov too.

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8

For the record:

  • Nikara heals at 30 hps, 60 hps with Serum or Twin Beam, up to 120 hps with both.

  • Each Karax beam heals at 5 hps, so 15 hps with 3, 25 hps with all five. Mastery maxes out at 6.5 hps, so 32.5 with all five. This is doubled for buildings, totalling at 63 hps max.

Sounds pretty good for Nikara so far, but if we include cost it gets complicated:

  • Nikara will normally cost 1000/200, choosing her first is generally not a good idea after all. Each upgrade will cost 650/120. So for max healing it will cost 2300/440.

  • Karax base healing (15/19.5 hps) is free. 5 target healing will cost you 150/150.

This is alsp ignoring the (possibly significant) dps penalty of Nikara, and the apm investment to use her to heal your ally’s troops. And Nikara’s ability heal.

That’s a pretty big difference in cost.

(Though in my opinion, they should double the healing on Armoured tagged units as well as Structures, as they often tie up the healing for a long time. )

9

An Ultralisk-tough unit that only cost a rather small amount of minerals.

10

With Tychus I like to go Sam first into Nikara, with good micro you can clear a large portion of the early map before you start needing the healing to continue, by then Nikara can spawn not to mention if you go outlaw availability ontop. I think most people that use Nikara go her first, and it will be obvious the slowdown that proceeds from lack of damage which makes Ratttlesnake look nice.

While Rattlesnake is definitely good I much prefer Nikara’s style of healing as it enables me to act much more like a support to my ally, not being gated behind heal cooldowns. With Nikara’s heal upgrade (which is pretty necessary) and the dual heal upgrade she becomes quite a competent healer. If you have trouble A-moving her just try to not a-move outside the range of your dps units, not across the map, and be ready to a-move backwards if she starts taking damage. With her aoe heal cooldown upgrade she can even tank damage and pull targets into your dps, and use the CD to keep herself from getting too low.

As for Karax I have not played him but what I can say is for a support commander he is the one I want to see first. Do not underestimate how useful chronowave can be for your ally. When I compare chronowave to other supports such as vespene/lazerdrill or guardian shell I think it is the most useful to increase production speeds. Even extras such as han/horner or kerrigan resource pickups hardly come to mind with the effectiveness. Overall I will be happy to solo the map with a Karax boosting me since I usually wont have to worry about defenses with his excellent options, as compared to a Swan that often doesnt want to defend as much or similar.

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11

Chrono Field and Chrono Wave are really undervalued by the community it feels like.

Plus there’s Unity Barrier, but that’s got such a silly long cooldown that it’s not worth much unless you’re playing COs like (Good Guy™) Raynor, Zags, or Mengsk, and throwing units to the grinder.

12

I’ve gotten feedback from a Nova player that losing units is less of an issue. Her production cd’s are lower that they can be replaced more easily.

Raynor can spam more BCs due to quicker build times (from 45 to 39).

Others say worker production is faster which is nice, but it does throw off their build orders (not really in a bad way though)

It’s too hard to notice when you’re in game, but I guess it does give units a small but nontrivial edge. Especially if going against slower and heavy hitters like Reavers or Tanks.

If nothing else, it’s amusing to see a Marine get a Yamato or Seeker Missile to the face, white circular “sparkles” (the visual cue that Unity Barrier activated), shrug that off, and just shoot back like it was nothing.

13

It’s noticeable when you use it where it would be noticable.

People say artanis is fantastic against nuke mutators, yet refuse to use Karax despite having a very similar “DENIED” protection if you get hit (arguably better, since instead of respawning with 30% health, the units just ignore the nuke and stay at full hp). People complain about the Yamato cannon buff but Karax barely notices yamatos anyway.

With many commanders, unity barrier can get more value than nikara’s healing. Can’t heal what’s already dead