Please Buff Karax (Karax Buff Idea)

Co-op Missions Discussion
1

Karax have expensive unit that have average power. He have lots of expensive upgrade compared to other commander, and his talent progression are a bit weak, with the level 7 and 11 talent give direct benefit while leveling him. So my idea of buffing Karax is to combine either buff option 1 or 2 and the universal buff below.

BUFF OPTION 1
The first option is to make unit and Solar Forge upgrade also give extra benefit to building.

Repair Drones. Grant 1 repairing drones to each pylon.
Solar Flare. When Shield Battery restoring shield to friendly unit/building, enemy attacking said unit/building burned for 15 dps over 5s.
Phasing Armor. Make Photon Cannon get 3s Invulnerable time after attacked. 10s cd.
Phase Detonation. Make Photon Cannon attack stun target for 0.5s (0.2s vs Heroic).
Fire Beam. Make Monolith attack burn 30 dps over 5s to target and enemy nearby the target.
Shadow Cannon. Make Monolith attack ignore armor.

BUFF OPTION 2
The second option is making forge and cybernatic core upgrade to also give bonus to building.

Ground Weapon Also give +5 damage (photon cannon), +15 damage (monolith) per level.
Ground Armor Also give structure +1 armor per level.
Air Weapon Also give structure +1 range per level.
Air Armor Also give shield battery +1 target per level. Max 4 target restored at once.

UNIVERSAL BUFF
This buff idea is to make leveling Karax easier by buffing his research, unit and talent. Combine the buff with either the buff option 1 or 2.

All research including Spear of Adun got their cost reduced by 50/50.
All research including Spear of Adun got their research time reduced by 40s.

Unit:
Probe
Also benefitted from Sentinel Reconstruction upgrade and Observer Gravitic booster upgrade.
*This to make probe have more survivability when making forward cannon.

Energizer
+2 damage (8 dps)
+8 damage vs mechanical (16 dps vs mechanical).
Ground Weapon upgrade from +1 to +1/+2 vs mechanical per level.
*Being the only Karax ground unit that able to attack air reliably without ability, this make Energizer Karax option for fighting against Protoss and Terran air combined with it Reclamation ability.

Immortal
Shadow Cannon can be auto-casted to target air unit.
Use Adun Immortal Skin to differentiate from Artanis Immortal.
*Why not?

Talent:
Orbital Assault level 1
New addition: Also give Nexus overcharge after 180s.

Chrono Overload level 5
New addition: Passive. Un-warped Gateway, Robotic Facility, Stargate create unit 50% faster.

Khalai Ingenuity level 11
New addition: Building except Nexus, Assimilator, Gateway, Robotic Facility, and Stargate warp in almost instantly.

Purifier Protocol level 13
New addition: Reduce non-initial Purifier Beam cooldown from 450s to 360s.

Unity Barrier level 15
Reduce cooldown to 180s.

That’s all my idea, I really hope dev will buff Karax somehow.

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2

Most of these are power creep. And Karax doesn’t really have a problem with his cannons.

The real problem is with the units.

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3

This has been kinda brought up before. Someone suggested going full-on Zeratul, and having solar forge efficiency upgrade literally all of Karax’s stuff. Weapons/armor upgrades, ability researches, static def researches, everything, tied to the level of solar efficiency.

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4

Consider MMO. A healer will rarely out DPS a dedicated DPS class. That’s the case with Karax.
I love having him or Swann as teammate over any other commander. It significantly increases my units potential. So unless his support abilities are curbed, he is fine.

5

Karax will also never outheal Swann, Stetmann, Abathur, often not even Nova, and arguably is inferior in effect to guardian shell.

6

Just turn his 2nd set of masteries into something useful (for example, decrease costs of upgrades, 30% for all across the board or 60% for specific Solar Forge upgrades or 60% for Attack/Armor/Shields). HIs units are pretty strong as they are now, but too expensive even with full mastery considering they need a lot of upgrades and a lot of upgrades needed for his Solar Forge.
Current bonuses to Restoration Beam and Chronowave are trash.

7

Karax already have that as “Repair beam”.

3 Likes
8

All Karax needs is Zeratul’s ability to project his towers and Karax is more than fine. Take it from Zeratul that is already op and then you get amazing tower toss commander.

9

If Karax were to get cannon projections, there would be no need to ever build an army.

Plus it would arguably make Zeratul’s cannon projections practically obsolete.

Every commander has something unique to them; breaking that would be a big disservice to what has kept co-op going for so long.

4 Likes
10

Zeratul doesn’t need Cannon Projections. He is already very strong with just his army. Remember that cannon projections have cd and also it will make Karax save minerals and gas on building new cannons in every defensive point that he can spend on Energizers or Carriers as other Karax units are rarely useful anyway.

In my oppinion Zeratul needs complete rework. It’s design is ridiculus - no pylons, free asimilators without need of putting there any probes. I get it that’s because of his instant 100 supply limit but it makes him just too simple. Barely any micro and any macro commander.

11

I do like reconstructing probes, that’s definitely cool but I think he’s good otherwise. I’m one of the ones who thought he was completely fine before.

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12

I have liked the rebalancing Blizzard has been doing to bring forth new play styles but I do feel Karax could use another play style of his own. IMO Karax doesn’t need a major rework to be viable just an increase to damage output of his units. He is kinda of an A-move commander but his units hit like a wet noodle for what they cost. Just increasing their damage could allow him to be more viable in the mid game and by the time he maxes out in the late game he will feel more in line with other commanders.

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13

Part of Karax’s problem is his severe lack of AA. You have three options;

  • Immortal Shadow Cannon, which deals 200 damage and has a long cooldown.
  • Mass Mirage, which doesn’t like many sky compositions (especially Terran ones carrying Ravens.)
  • Mass Carrier, slow and expensive.
    I don’t count Energizers since all that they have are tickle beams, and they are flimsy as all get-out. Poor Unit Karax got shafted, and became even worse with the new enemy unit compositions.
14

The point is that Zeratul was supposed to be as alike as possible to the Zeratul hero missions without ANY base at all. Obviously they couldn’t create a baseless hero, because otherwise that would give his ally 3/4 base economy every game, so they just made a super simplified base that would still take up the bases, but otherwise mostly be a placeholder.

Personally, I find that the artifact hunt instead of macro for Zeratul is very cool, and that his gateway units are very micro intensive units if you want real value out of them. Predictive Blink is really bad if you rely on the autocast alone. Plus, Zeratul as a hero unit has far more micro potential than basically any other hero unit.

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15

Karax AA works (kinda) in the sense that air units are either relatively rare (bases) or extremely common (attack waves).
So you have meh anti air options designed to deal with a few air units and spear of adun to kill attack waves regardless of unit comp so you don’t really need to commit to a ton of anti air.
Gaps are filled most times with energizer reclaimation, which you forgot to mention. He only struggles vs zerg air, and only if you just don’t make mirages/carriers.

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16

As much as it pains me to say, Karax doesn’t seem to be the type of CO where you can mass Adepts/Goons/Stalkers/their equivalent and A-move them to victory. You’re meant to also rely on his offensive towers, and SoA for support.

17

Death from above via calldowns is the best AA.

2 Likes
18

If I were to give Karax a buff it would probably making his Sentinel reconstruction baseline, it would help him immensely in the early game and to help push objectives.
It would also make it not feel like a waist building his Sentinel before getting the upgrade.
Maybe keep the upgrade but make it effect another ground unit?

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19

He’s not a healer. He’s a SUPPORT class. Repair beam is amazingly good with certain allies sure, but you have chrono wave, energizes following your ally’s army, stunning orbital strikes decimating waves, 52% chrono boost on your ally’s production buildings, and a hella good, instant defense where it’s needed.

Karax is amazing. And he was NOT underpowered when he was first released. But these new commanders are so strong that Karax simply needs some attention to bring him up to standard. He doesn’t need MUCH; I think tying in upgrades to solar power is a fantastic idea. Most maps I mass mirages and sentinels, but only upgrade air and ground weapons, neglecting armor past +1 because his army is already expensive enough.

Cheers to tying upgrades with solar efficiency!

3 Likes
20

The first next generational power level commander was Abathur, though he was way ahead of his time. The second was Fenix, and it happened through a rework. Most of the new commanders were “so OP” in order to compete with the reworked Fenix, along with the reworked other commanders after that. Now Fenix is average due reworks to so many other commanders, but Karax almost entirely missed the boat with his “rework”.

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