I think people are giving too much credit to early expansion, to me it is actually bad.
Try this: Tech up fast enough so that you don’t lose units in fight, then because doing this is gas-heavy you will float minerals - use this mineral to build expansion.
I’m 99% sure that all your slow ramp-up or weak start blah blah will just go away if you simply learn how to keep your units alive and snowball that way.
I have to say, I’ve been noticing the same Cryswar, the new Zerglings found a taste for machinery after that patch, because Sentinels are being eaten alive.
Their role of tanking for Energizers and Colossi isn’t working anymore. The fact Karax suffers to get +3 upgrades makes it even worse.
I’ve been trying to use a few Carriers with Repair Drones as to keep them alive, but that upgrade is pathetic. Although it is 5 hp/s, and I believe stacks with Repair Beam, the behavior of the Repair Drones is terrible.
I’ve been testing in the Map Editor, but basically it has flags telling it to search for a target to heal only if the carrier isn’t moving. That makes it super clunky to do some work.
People, including me, do it for a reason. Teching up is an honourable effort, but you’re simply missing out a cruicial point: If u want to have noticable impact later on in the mission, you need your economy get floating.
The more you delay your expo and therefore your economy the more negligible your impact is later on in the mission. A handful of zealots early game won’t make a noteworthy difference at any stage of the mission.
You shouldn’t be losing gas units in early fights anyways. That’s what I was referring to with a skirmishing unit. The only casualties anyone should have before 6 minutes is mineral only units lost to the first wave, and even that is map and commander dependent.
As for Karax, there is a reason he has orbital strike, and it’s not to shoot rocks. It’s to make sure you don’t have to endanger units until you have proper and durable gas units, with either cannons or reconstruction sentinels in front of them.
I’m the type of person who think zealots and sentinels are a waste of resources.
Just learn how to kill 40 zerglings with orbital and one immortal with pure micro. It doesn’t cost minerals. Once you have 3 immortal, 1 observer and 2 colossi and lastly warp in two energizers your near invincible mini-deathball will roll out as you are still adding workers in your expo. It is a bit odd that gateway units should be built last, but this is the natural result of warp-in that eliminate their build time.
If you have a good reason that you need tank, bring probe, make pylon and shield battery before the engagement. One immortal can kill a medium sized attack wave, just tank while SoA doing all the work. After battle you should lose nothing. It is 100x better than making units that bleed resources in the long run.
Your late game minerals should be spent on cannons because karax can’t teleport, they are needed to defend against attack wave while your deathball is busy killing the map.
Sentinels should be deployed as a last resort because you can warp them in (where immortal/colossi/carrier reinforcement probably can’t reach the frontline quick enough). They should be used to protect the deathball but nothing else, meaning you should make none of them before completing the deathball. Never use them like basic unit, their value doesn’t exist without actual high-tech units.
Sounds pretty slow
Instead we can expand between 2:30-2:50, chrono saturate soon / immediately, and have booming economy
Even so I might have, for example, Colossus out by 9:00, though if satisfied with Sentinels with Energizer and Spear support, those can do ok for the time being and be got out far earlier. Upgrading Reconstruction at the same time
A one base building chain rush can get out said Colossus far earlier, but then economy is weaker. However, might work in the meantime until expo is built; definitely will at lower difficulties
I’d love if they revamp Karax to the point of having 2 viable and solid gameplays.
The known classical static defense style
And the army Karax one
Hence removing the units cost or reworking the masteries should be a must.
Right now playing Karax/Swann feels less rewarding for what they demand in their gameplays compared to other newer and casual friendly commanders but at least Swann can go both styles w/o issues.
If you build army and save on Orbital Strike energy, then you can Orbital Strike waves while they get caught in the outer defences, in my case a pylon maze, and of course probes can then build cannons in time if needed
I tend to build exactly 0 cannons in my Brutal games
I wonder where people lean on these two main play-styles and how they should flow from one other.
Should a Karax player be able to smoothly transition from one main style to another & vice versa during different phases of a game?
Or would a player prefer if they could be used more isolated without the other, like instead wanting to be able to use structures more offensively in-replacement of combat units.
Obviously you could just build both at the same time during a game, but that’s not the question. If a player could buff one of these styles, which way would they lean?
There is a niche for mass sentinel builds on shorter maps, where you spend almost all your gas on getting 3/3/3 with lvl. 3 SoA, and you support with reclamation energizers and a trickle of immortals.
Karax has a lot of different kinds of chrono, so you can get this all up by like 8 minutes, at which point your sentinels kinda just ignore enemey fire from small units because of the armour, and the Spear of Adun has effectively infinite energy to kill anything big and provide AoE.
However, yes, the main job of the sentinel is usually to suppliment the deathball with a bit of a meat wall, since you don’t really need the minerals. If the map has an opportunity for it, I will sometimes use sentinels to clear out side bases because sufficiently upgraded immortal/colossus or carrier balls don’t need the help anymore, but then it’s often better to just have a probe run off and build some cannons, even if I don’t usually invest the 400/400 into upgrading said cannons.
Should a Karax player be able to smoothly transition from one main style to another & vice versa during different phases of a game?
I was thinking in something more like Raynor & Stukov where you previously need to choose within your masteries if you are gonna empower mech or bio. In this case static or army.
So if the additional cost for units is removed or revamped everyone will just do whatever they want, mix both, prioritise units or static.
That’s already how it works now and it is AA poor choice. Def or army depends on map and enemy comp not your preference.
I believe Stukov and Raynor’s mastery design is a mistake though.
In a game like coop you shouldn’t be picking your composition before you see which map you got into, or the composition you are fighting against.
Now, with Raynor and Stukov, both commanders with a healthy roster of powerful generalist units, it kind of works.
But having to pick between Static Defense and an Army with Karax would not work. Cannon Rushing is a terrible strategy, and defenses require units such as Energizers and even Colossi sometimes.
Just defending is also frowned upon, and usually people have to attack even if their are mainly defending anyway.
Karax also vastly benefits from combining both Static Defenses and Army even in offensive situations. He can build them instantly for a reason.
Karax’s unit tax has to go.
Not to mention that any attacking Karax’s cannons can do, Zeratul’s can do a million times better.
#ChangeKaraxNow
5chars
I believe Stukov and Raynor’s mastery design is a mistake though.
It’s not the only case I also forgot to mention Swann who has to choose between gas drones or drill masteries.
And I don’t know whether I’m forgetting other cases either.
I’d rather have a tree tech for commanders similar to how campaigns worked than the mastery systems though.
That’s already how it works now and it is AA poor choice. Def or army depends on map and enemy comp not your preference.
Yes, obviously it is how it works and how it has always worked. Nothing new. I’ve played all maps with army Karax and while takes longer, they could be cheaper to have more options for him, especially due to his mediocre and expensive AA.
Do you realise that you have 80k resources on two bases? That is enough resources to build canons anywhere you want.
On Scythe of Amon I kill slivers with canons by building them all the way to objective.
But both comanders cannot be Zeratuls and if both want to attack with cannons they can.
Unless you are Raynor, you don’t actually have access to those minerals; the vast majority of maps the objective will make you lose long, LONG before you mine out.