So Mech is considered weak in TvP for a number of reasons, but one has to be careful in any suggested power buff. I was thinking back to the days of the original StarCraft and its expansion, Brood War, and in that game, all weapons do full damage versus shields, regardless of whether it’s Normal, Concussive or Explosive. This really shone with Firebats when fighting Zealots (although they were already small units) and ripping through structures, with the obvious drawback that they have to close the distance.
So how about a new passive for Hellions and Hellbats:
- Plasma Discharge: This unit’s weapon does full damage to plasma shields.
In essence, when attacking a protoss unit with its shields up, the damage dealt is as if it were a Light unit regardless of their actual attributes (so a Hellbat with Infernal Pre-Igniter would do 30 damage to shields). Once the shields are depleted though, then the attributes are applied as normal. When facing Immortal-heavy armies, this would rip through their Barrier extremely quickly if they’re allowed to get close, while there would be no difference when fighting Zealots and Adepts since they’re already Light. Dedicated anti-Light units like the Colossus would still counter them pretty effectively though, especially as most of its durability is in HP rather than shields. Archons are a bit of a mixed bag because normally you use Ghosts to counter them, and even if Hellbats got to engage them, Archons tend to counter them because of their splash damage and the bonus to Biological.
Being a passive, it also avoids any kind of matchup-specific upgrade. How does it sound?