So I just had a random thought of another rework for P2 and here’s the deets:
Pros: The Aleksander and Apocalisk are permanent. Air units controlled by the Aleksander no longer take damage from the tentacles. The Aleksandr may pick up the Apocalisk to transport it, but does not disable the Apocalisk’s Cluster Rockets.
Cons: The Calldowns have 200% increased cooldown (except initial cooldown). When transporting the Apocalisk, the Aleksander’s Infested Cannon is disabled. The infested starport cannot be built.
With this prestige it’s basically Alarak’s P3 but highlighting Stukov’s calldowns. He will still rely on his infested horde for support and ideally some siege tanks or DBacks for backline support.
Do you think this would be broken or underwhelming? And what changes would you suggest to make it balanced/better?
(Disclaimer: yes I know blizz won’t work on this in the foreseeable future, just making a topic for some friendly discussion)
Honestly, having both be permanent is a bit too strong. Should only be one that’s permanent. If I had to pick one, Apocalisk.
Pros:
Apocalisk is now permanent. It gains +100% health and armor (6000 HP, 10 armor), and 50% extra movement speed (2.82 MS). Cluster Rockets now deals AoE damage. Apocalisk is now available at the start, but costs 300/300 to deploy.
Cons:
Cooldown increased by 200%. Aleksander cooldown increased by 50%. Can only have 1 Apocalisk active at a given time.
This would definitely serve to highlight the calldowns. And I think it’s definitely broken powerful xD.
So I’d play this exactly as described by double casting the 2 calldowns then pick up Apoc with Alek. This would allow a long range continuous ground pound of infested, air control, as well as periodic cluster rockets. What you lose in Apocalysk’s ground blades, you gain in mobility, which you can always drop off when it’s safer.
Why? So not to ever lose them and thus take advantage of a non-disadvantage state of no-200% cooldown. I actually love this idea but your disadvantage definitely need to be more to balance it. I think one easy way to do this is to double the supply cost of everything (yes everything, and give apoc/alek each a supply cost of 10 as well.) This would effectively cost the player ~100 supply just to have 2 saturated bases and 2 calldowns out, leaving very little room for further army that again cost double supply. It also means your base level overlords needed this cost is much higher than current cost.
I like the idea of imitating Alarak P3, but I think one thing that made that work, was that the mothership could make its own army, and then you would not need the ordinary army anymore (though you can still choose to do a mix instead).
On the other hand, there’s no army restriction here. Removing the starport is a bit ridiculous, as one of the reason P2 exist in its current form may be because people forget the starport exist in the first place
I think there should be something related to infested civilians/troopers/marines.
…
One idea that just crossed my mind (though not worked on at all): maybe leave the calldowns temporary, but allow them to feed from the infested (like siege tanks) to refill their hp and time before expiring.
Once again, it’s not worked on at all, probably need some other ideas to balance it, but it may be a clue.
Having giant monstrosities consuming an endless wave of infested to keep itself sustained while other poor souls crawl up on it’s body to fuze themselves to it’s skin to repair it sounds awesome.
+1 here to the permanent Apoc and Alex being too strong. +200% cd may not be enough to compensate for that.
Also, this is in spirit a P4 (prestige four), as it’s waay off from what P2 actually does (I was expecting tweaks to it). However, if you meant to completely toss away P2 as is, then yeah, makes sense.
Guess I’m on the other side of the fence. I would rather pick Aleksander. It’s just a very good macro unit.
Unfortunately, I made it so that Alex cannot attack ground while picking up the Apoc. This is compensated for by allowing the Apoc to fire off its rockets. So this config is meant to maximize anti-air offense.
That would be nice as well and it would emphasize the need to have them push along with your infested horde.
In hindsight I should’ve put a price tag on them as well seeing as how Stukov can bank a lot of resources.
Like his infestation skill duration increased by 300% but does not heal buildings anymore and cd increased.
Furthermore his queen from the starport cost 600% more but it’s broodling skill has no energycost anymore and no cd, only one queen can be active at all times.
Given the fact that the queen draws a hell amount of Aggro in fights this would be adequate.
