I like this idea as an improvement to Arkship Commandant as currently implemented, if Artanis isn’t added as a hero unit. I personally think that hero Artanis would be the perfect thing to make up for the loss of Guardian Shell, but if that doesn’t happen, this is a good alternative.
This could be very interesting, although the danger there is that the benefit to keeping them apart could make Broodbrother even better compared to P0. Maybe in addition to the split essence idea?
Calldowns are some of the most fun and most effective tools every commander has.
Disabling them is imho an awful awful idea that not only weakens a commander but makes him less fun.
It is also a very cheap and lame design because it is completely unrelated to what the prestige does - its just a generic bland downside that makes the commander more boring.
I can see your point there. Touché. After all, it’s not like Swann P1, Alarak P2, or Nova P2 are being held up as paragons of brilliance. Instead, they’ve been regarded as some of the most unimaginative. (In contrast, Dehaka’s P2 messed around with calldowns in a way that was more original.)
I’ll try to think up an alternate penalty. (I might also implement more changes to Swann’s P1 and Alarak’s P2.)
Perhaps this for H&H P3:
Han and Horner P3 – Galactic Gunrunners
Instead of costing 100% more, Strike Fighter Platforms now take up 1 additional supply. (Thanks to Bogdanov89 for this idea.)
It’s certainly usable as is, though it’s not a particularly exciting prestige. I’ve been playing around in my head with a version of it where Alarak gains a permanent buff to it instead so:
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
I was thinking we keep the prestige reasonably simple, attack and life increased per supply and unique bonus to each unit type for each unit of the same type. For unique bonuses I’d say things like Legionnaires gaining a small splash, Immortals dealing a small splash damage after their target dies, Carriers getting an extra Interceptor slot (perhaps every two Carriers here though); something that reflects the TDW ability of their associated champion. As mentioned, we keep the same shell cap for the altered bonuses though.
For disadvantage we just remove the champions.
I came up with a version where Alarak has Empower Me active 100% of the time, as a passive buff, but he no longer steals life and shields from enemies.
I suspect that isn’t much more interesting though, and it’s probably unbalanced.
I would ask to not just entirely remove the functionality of a prestige, maybe rework to rely on the same fantasy, But stukov P2 does have a different nuance then other stukov. Is it any good or useful in any specific circumstance I don’t know, but I and probably some others like it. Stukov P2 is about creating larger waves of infested then normal. Normally a stukov can stack 2-3 waves by waiting at a rally point, but with the banshees 4 are Equal to 1 wave from the ICC, so 16 is already 4 waves of infested, as the prestige nerfs timed life, you can have 5 waves of infested pushing an objective at a time. Along with the sniping dmgs of the banshees and impact dmg of the unit deployment it’s a more micro oriented stukov, where your create a burst of impact, In exchange for the gradual grinding power of normal stukov waves. It also allows you to save infested after an attack. So that power is maintained for more then 1 push. It’s a different play style from P0 where you have a mix of Hordes, and mech, P1s reliance on diamondback tanks to be a mobile response team. And P3 endless horde. Removing the current P2 would remove a play style I personally like. Maybe I’m odd, but I don’t think it’s bad. Unless your refering to the lag it can cause then fair i guess?
Here:
Stukov P2 – Plague Warden
Hunterlings, Chokers, and Stanks with timed life can be spawned at the Infested Barracks; Infested Banshees can load these as well. Spotters replace Overseers as Detectors. Infested Liberators and Spotters can also load units spawned at the Infested Barracks.
Zagara P1 - Gains Mass Frenzy as a top bar ability. Maybe also Infested Drop.
Mass Frenzy is simply far too powerful to ever be viable to give up, it alone is worth more than all of the benefits granted by this prestige. In general, I feel like P1 is intended to shift Zagara’s general early game dominance more towards late-game, but the lack of Mass Frenzy makes her much weaker than regular Zagara (and P2 Zagara is more powerful at all points in the game). Giving her mass frenzy back would make P1 much more viable. It would also help make this prestige more interesting to play, too.
P3 is gimmicky but it gives her absurd early game power so it has some use.
Artanis P3 : Tweak Orbital Strike to be 10 energy per shot with 5 charges. Not 50 energy for 5 shots.
It be nice just dropping 2 shots for say the first wave at 3:30 instead using all 5 shots or taking it on with 2-3 zealots without Guardian Shell .
I actually have found this prestige viable with optimal / frequent use of full mastery shield overcharge, and maxed out spear of Adun energy. But this small tweak would significantly help with Spear of Adun energy management and offer more flexibility.
Interesting list of suggestions. I agree with some of these and others I’m on the fence about. I will say that for Abathur P3, I think it would make sense if its disadvantage was changed to the following:
The idea is to create a higher-risk playstyle that doesn’t slow down UE evolution if the player is good at keeping their units alive. The reasoning here is that a player using this prestige is not going to care about their normal army as much; every Roach and Mutalisk is not meant to stay as a Roach or Mutalisk, but is a potential UE to be evolved. Additionally, it concentrates more of the army’s durability into the UEs that the player’s looking to evolve anyway. Changing the disadvantage this way also has a nice side effect of aligning the prestige more directly opposite of P1; P1 focuses on the rest of the army at the expense of UEs, and this does the opposite. It makes the ordering of the prestiges a bit more intuitive for people seeing it in the menu.
Actually for that idea: no dropping biomass + Biomass has 20% as much effect (ie one fifth… so you get +60% hp, -10% attack time/cooldowns, +20% energy regen, and 20% life leech.)
I like it, I like it a lot!
Even if they don’t get implemented, there definitely needs some changes.
Newest set of updates and additions:
ADDITIONS
Kerrigan P1 – Malevolent Matriarch
Malignant Creep increases friendly ground unit movement speed by 100%.
Zagara P1 – Scourge Queen
Each of Zagara’s units gains a Frenzy ability, increasing movement and attack speed by 25% for 15 seconds. (Banelings and Scourges only benefit from movement speed.) The ability benefits from the Intensified Frenzy mastery. Cooldown 90 seconds per individual unit.
Zagara P2 – Mother of Constructs
Aberrations and Corruptors each create 50% more Banelings or Scourges on death.
Stukov P1 – Frightful Fleshwelder
The Infested Factory and Infested Starport no longer have gas costs. (Thanks to Account for this suggestion.)
CHANGES
Abathur P3 – The Limitless
Ultimate Evolution cost requirement reduced back to 100. Biomass is now 20% less powerful instead of 50%, and no longer drops on death. (Thanks to Saviour and KrikkitOne for this idea.)
[Previously reduced Toxic Nest charge regeneration rate by 50%.]
Han and Horner P2 – Wing Commanders
Horner’s units’ mineral costs are reduced by 20%. Horner’s units’ vespene gas costs reduced by 30% instead of 20%. Drone Hangar build time reduced by 75%.
Han and Horner P3 – Galactic Gunrunners
Precision Strike cooldown reduced by 50%. Instead of costing 100% more, each Strike Fighter Platform now costs 2 additional supply. (Thanks to Bogdanov89 for this idea.)
[Previously cost 1 additional supply.]
This is actually what I’d like to see added to P1, Scourge Queen. I’m not a huge fan of Prestiges reducing your unit choices too much, and since Banelings and Scourge are cheaper on P1, Aberrations and Corruptors now give less % value recycled on death. More dramatic for Corruptors: 17% mineral recycle drops to 11%.
Here are the figures for both our suggestions. In yours, an Aberration would refund 81% of its mineral cost and 82% of its gas cost as Banelings, which seems steep, and Mother of Constructs isn’t weak anyway.
In my view, Scourge Queen is a bit less powerful than the others and loses a lot of flexibility from losing the hero. Raising the % recycled up to 54%/55% would make Aberrations and Corruptors a little less irrelevant to the prestige, but not overpower it.
| Unit | Prestige | Min | Gas | Death Spawn | % Min Recycle | % Gas Recycle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aberration | Base | 180 | 68 | 2 | 41% | 41% |
| Aberration | P1 | 180 | 68 | 2 | 37% (–) | 41% |
| Aberration | P2 | 135 | 51 | 2 | 54% (+) | 55% (+) |
| Aberration | P3 | 225 | 85 | 2 | 41% | 41% |
| Aberration | P1 (Buff) | 180 | 68 | 3 | 56% (+) | 62% (+) |
| Aberration | P2 (Buff) | 135 | 51 | 3 | 81% (+++) | 82% (+++) |
Further changes:
Zagara P1 – Scourge Queen
Aberrations and Corruptors each create an additional Baneling or Scourge on death. Each of Zagara’s units gains a Frenzy ability, increasing movement and attack speed by 25% for 15 seconds. (Banelings and Scourges only benefit from movement speed.) The ability benefits from the Intensified Frenzy mastery. Cooldown 90 seconds per individual unit.
Zagara P2 – Mother of Constructs
Zagara’s defensive structures also benefit from the cost reduction, increased health, and increased health regeneration given to Aberrations and Corruptors.
Can we add fixing Zagara’s P3 Frenzy? It doesn’t affect her like it should.
I didn’t include that because it’s a bug and not related to balance, but it wasn’t too much trouble to add it in – so I just did.
On the subject of that issue, I bet it’s because they added a targeting validator to check whether potential targets were Zagara’s summons – and forgot to include Zagara herself in it. I’m almost certain that’s it.
Or they added in the normal version of Zags instead of super Zags. Definitely one or the other for sure.
I haven’t examined the data, but my guess would be that the changes to Zagara were achieved using an upgrade and an applied skin. It would be rather inefficient to create an entire separate unit dataset for Zagara, just for the prestige.
There’s even been precedent for modifying existing units into new units – Fenix’s Legionnaires are actually just Karax’s Sentinels; the commander upgrade simply doubles their stats. (Each commander has its own “background” upgrade, which is never seen or researched, but is automatically applied at the start of the game. For example, Karax’s raises all his unit costs. Each commander talent has a separate upgrade as well; although they’re not researched upgrades, they’re encoded in the same way.) They probably decided it was simpler to do that, when otherwise they’d have to add another unit to the armor, weapon, and shield upgrades. Similarly, Alarak’s Slayers are just renamed Stalkers, and Zeratul’s Xel’naga Precursors are just renamed Probes. (Zeratul’s other units all use separate data.) This isn’t common beyond these examples though; most co-op units belonging to later commanders use separate data, even if they share another unit’s name – H&H’s Reapers are an example, as are Fenix’s Adepts. (Even the SCVs of H&H and Tychus use separate data from the basic SCV used by other Terran commanders. This is likely due to the complex command cards, as well as the different set of armor upgrades used by those commanders – with everything compartmentalized, it becomes simpler to manage.)
That’s why I find it unlikely they’d create a duplicate hero unit for P3. I’d bet that every prestige has its own upgrade, just like each commander has its own upgrade, and the upgrade for P3 includes all the modifications to Zagara’s stats, ability cooldowns, everything. If so, the model change is likely controlled by a skin.