For Co-op, I feel like Stukov is the commander that has the most wasted potentiel of having cool stuff and I wanted to make a list of changes I would like to see for the commander. I know there’s practically zero chance of some of theses changes happening, but I still wanted to show my thoughts on how to fix him.
Not all ideas should be implemented at once
New Units
Aberration that can be build in the infested barracks. It would have stats from WoL campaign, so lots of HP and armor, but slow. An upgrade could be gotten at level 7 that would allow them to spawn a blinding cloud when they die. It would require the tech lab to build it and would benefit from bio upgrades.
Infested Planetary fortress. Make them able to walk and shoot 3 infested civilians and 2 infested marines per shoot. It would cost 150/150 to morph the CC into a PF. The planetary upgrade could be gotten at level 5.
Infestor. Stukov needs a ground spellcaster and the infestor would be a good pick. It could be made inside the infested factory. His abilities would be neural parasite (which could be later upgraded to take permanent control of the target), microbial shroud and Frenzy, which would boost attack speed and movement speed for a short delay.
Infested Medic. It could help with the healing problem of Stukov and one unique traits she can have is that she can drain the life of the enemy to gain more energy and so heal more friendly units. It would’nt have a time limit and would require a tech lab.
Changes to current units
infested liberator can now siege up to attack ground ennemies. An upgrade could be made so ennemies that are hit will have a plague affect.
Brood queens’Enhanced Mitochondria upgrade now gives her 100% more passif healing. An other option is to give the ocular symbiote the ability to heal the target for 3 HP/seconds.
Infested diamondback’s slime trail can now heal friendly ground units for 3HP per seconds.
Overlord can now have access to ventral sacs and spreed creep abilities. Spreed creep would be available at the begining (no tech requirement, so taking a far expansion is easier with a bunker/barrack). Overlord provides 12 supply instead of 8. This could help his early game by focusing more on building the tech then having to build overlord.
Infested command center now gives 30 supply instead of 15. This would help stukov to build more CC that could help with creep spreed, but also save ressources on overlords. The cooldown on the spawn worker could be reduced from 16 seconds to 12 seconds to help Stukov with the early game.
Infested bunker uprooted now have 200 more HP. This could help bunker pushing. They can also root 25% faster.
Infested marine cost reduced to 15 minerals.
Mastery
Remove the power set 1 entirely and replace it with the two following options:
-Mech cost reduction, which can go up to a max of 30% when 30/30.
-Additional civilians spawn, which can go up to 30 when 30/30.
Since Stukov has healing via slime trail, the ocular symbiote or the infested medic (assuming one of these healing options gets added) he needs cheaper mech units to mass them more effectively. The additional civilian spawn would be really helpful for his early game to clear the rocks fast and to help your ally in base defense. The volatile infested would be unlock at tier 7 and would be permanent.
Bug fix
Fix the bug of infested structures not being able to root in the fug of war.
It’s not really a bug, but make so that the infested bunker at level 14 cost 4 supply instead of the 6 supply.
Hmm… spend more dev time on a commander who can do Brutal+ or work on a new commander using ideas that haven’t been implemented yet? What a tough decision!
The extra civilians looks good. I know when I played Stukov I played him for my infested swarm marching Amon, crushing his forces underneath my relentless march! And to some extent, this can still be done with just spamming infested marines from barracks. I’d say leave the bunkers as is, bring in the extra civilians and your aberrations(love the idea!!)
Personally I’d go the route of stronger infested over more. People already have some issues with lag with the guy, adding on potentially 90 more units is asking for trouble.
Otherwise there’s some very interesting ideas in here.
I do agree, I think they should fold the mastery into the Compound and replace it with something else.
I’m just of the opinion that adding more Infested on top shouldn’t be the replacement. Not that it wouldn’t be fun, it absolutely would, and if it did work fine I’d be 100% for it. But it just doesn’t work well with the engine.
If those changes happened you could bet I’d be the first right off the bat to do nothing, but mass Infested Planetary Fortresses, I have like 40 of them before the match is over.
I’d love some Liberator buffing. I always have trouble dealing with heavier air units as Stukov, especially when Hybrids are psi-storming the whole field against my infested army.
The old WoL idea where Infestors could take over enemy buildings would be great also, though given how massive ground army usually is, I’d leave that to the Queen (air unit) so it doesn’t have to push through a wall of rotten flesh.
Because there would be no limit? Why not just make 10 barracks (1500 minerals, very achieveable and you’re only paying once) for 160 free units at once every minute or so. Every 150 minerals you get, you can add 20 more infested to that spam. Throughout the course of a mission, you’d have nearly 100 barracks spawning thousands of infested terran and breaking everyone’s computer because you thought it was a good idea to make infested marines free
True, I forgot about that but that’s not the point. If you have infinite free units, that’s dumb. Technically not infinite because of the charge system but you will always regain the charges before the infested die, so you can replace them immediately (back to 200/200) for no cost. You could suicide 80% of your scvs once you get the upgrades, and live off 190ish infinitely replenishing infested marines for free. There’s no game or risk involved in that, making every mutation free (bar transmutation and maybe propagators)
Stukov theme is swarming. Having infinite units swarming the map is literally the point.
If you still have complain, why not tell that to the Stettman Infestor, literally the stronger version while can spawn basically infinite supply of units.
Infestors take much longer to ramp up and are relatively expensive. In order to restore their energy, you have to sacrifice the speed and health stetzones, which are core parts of stetmann’s kit. They take minimal control to use, yes, but even they require more micro than barracks, especially with the maxed out infested duration.
Free marines from barracks would be stronger than even the old bunkers, because bunkers take much longer to spit out an infested than barracks can restore a charge.
I’m ok with swarming the map with hundreds of things if it’s a brood lord or carrier or swarm host mechanic: you have to have a parent unit relatively close to the action in order to use the children
Half the infested duration mastery, and allow barracks to move faster and/or spawn infested while uprooted, and MAYBE free marines could work.
You don’t need “Speed or health” when you sit at home and spam roach. The ramp up is slow but it is a 3 free units that can attack ground/air per infestor (which is better than infested). Also, those roachs don’t have the need for Supply like infested does.
It is fine that way. No other commander build bunker to attack either.
Laugh in Infestor sitting at home while demolish the entire map.
Don’t need to. Stukov infested is squishy and lose to all kind of splash dmg. Giving him a free unit only give him back the identity as a swarm commander as he should be. Also, he is very weak pre-masteries, kind of unplayable without masteries actually.
Just imagine paying 6 supplies fo a bunker that hold only 4 Infested marine. Any kind of nerf that reduce the power of post 15 stukov make anyone play pre 15 Stukov feel like he is a useless commander.
They should have kept units more zerg like with their attacks! I think it would have been cool to make the Banshees have a tentacle attack like the siege tank attacking ground units! And the level 15 ability should have included an upgrade for the Siege Tank and the new tentacle Banshee attack to latch onto a ground unit and take control of that unit! A lot of the less used, less popular units need a little upgrade in CO-OP!
