(and sort of Zagara and Karax, but not really)
Swann
Grease Monkey
As many people said it before, this prestige is underwhelming compared to the similar prestige that Karax has. In fact, for pure defense, Swann’s P1 should be better, as the Drill’s AoE and slowdown cover for his turret’s weaknesses. Add more expensive Siege Tanks to the mix (Swann still needs to build them for long-range support, while Karax has Monoliths), and P2 falls further behind.
Perhaps pure defense wasn’t the intended design of this prestige (it’s pretty much the same as P0 when it comes to clearing the map, and better at spawncamping with turrets), but i’ll still make adjustments with the assumptions that it was.Benefits:
- Engineer Bay upgrades are 100% more effective. Armory upgrades are 200% more effective. Both Engineering Bay and Armory upgrades take 50% less time to finish.
- SCVs repair at a 100% increased rate and gain double health.
Drawbacks:
- Factory and Starport units cost 40% more.
It no longer increases only the gas cost of units, but both gas and mineral cost. The reason for that is increased attack and armor upgrades potentially making Hellbats overshadow Flaming Betties (think of 100 mineral Hellbats with 11 armor and more damage, then add the fact that SCVs don’t run all over the place when trying to repair them because they do not burrow, and they can also be healed by Science Vessels).
As for Siege Tanks, despite having less of them, each would be able to deal more damage than it does now (and get to max out on attack upgrades much faster), which means more firepower could be fit into a limited area.
And finally, the biggest problem of any turret Swann is how quickly and randomly the SCVs can die. A (ridiculously high) health increase should mitigate that.
Vorazun
Spirit of Respite
This prestige is a cleverly designed trap to attract the “i mass Void Rays against every composition on every map and mutation” players that think it will make their army unkillable. But it’s all an illusion, as Void Rays still keep dying (they just live for a bit longer before they do). Lack of Recall also completely ruins Vorazun’s high mobility. P3 is simply better for almost everything while still keeping Recall, so something about this prestige needs to change.
Benefits:
- Emergency Recall recalls cloaked units to the closest Nexus or Dark Pylon instead of the primary structure and heals life and shields to full.
- Deploy Dark Pylon cooldown and cost reduced by 50%.
- Emergency Recall cooldown reduced by 75%.
Drawbacks:
- Dark Pylons lose Recall.
- Vorazun’s units can no longer cloak on their own. Stealth Drive cannot be researched.
Mostly the same as the current version, except units lose the ability to cloak (including Dark Templars), so the player needs to make extensive use of Dark Pylons to keep them invisible. HOWEVER, those that can keep up with the demand would benefit greatly from Emergency Recall having just 1 minute cooldown, making Vorazun’s units able to stay alive even with environmental mutators active (and who cares if a Dark Pylon gets destroyed later, they’re dirt cheap anyway). So the player is greatly rewarded for having Dark Pylons everywhere, even if their army isn’t able to be everywhere anymore.
(but perhaps 1 minute cooldown would be too good, and it should be 2 minutes instead?)
Withering Siphon
Another Vorazun prestige that does… something?.. but other than few exceptions, the reward is simply not worth it. I have two versions in mind of what could be done with it, and here’s the first take:
Benefits:
- Unit abilities affect heroic units and deal 20 damage per second while they’re active (this cannot kill).
- Unit attacks ignore target’s armor, and restore shields and energy equal to damage dealt.
- Dark Archons become detectors.
Drawbacks:
- Combat units deal 40% reduced damage.
- Oracles are unavailable.
The biggest difference between this version and the current public one is that, despite units dealing even less damage (-40% instead of -25%), their attacks now ignore armor, which in practice might actually turn into more damage (especially for Corsairs and Void Rays, which wouldn’t need a Black Holes anymore). And while the prestige will still be slower at killing enemies in general, units will now heal themselves while doing so.
As for the Oracles, since they are already almost pointless on P2, then might as well remove them completely and give detection to something else instead - the Dark Archons. In fact, Dark Archons now would have a reason to use their regular attack, as they would be able to regain energy.As for the second take on this prestige… P1 focuses on Dark Pylon, and P3 focuses on Shadow Guard, so why not try a design that focuses on Black Hole?
Benefits:
- Black Hole duration increased by 100%.
- Units attacking targets caught within a Black Hole restore their health, shields and energy, equal to damage dealt.
- Dark Archons become detectors and get +100% attack range.
Drawbacks:
- Combat units deal 25% reduced damage.
- Stargate is unavailable.
Stargate is removed because Coirsair + Black Hole would become even better, Oracles pretty much don’t exist on public P2 anyway, and Void Rays have other prestiges where they can shine. So this version of the prestige focuses Vorazun’s Gateway units, with Dark Archons as its core component (detection and main splash damage dealer).
In fact, the reason for why Dark Archons get a range increase is because they become the sole splash damage dealer for Vorazun (Corsairs gone), and that extra range allows more of them to attack units caught in a Black Hole (and to stay safe behind Centurions).
Abathur
The Limitless
The “best” prestige in the game! (except not really…) Whatever the design direction was, it doesn’t seem to be satisfying to anyone - players that lure enemies into Toxic Nests to get a quick Brutalisk are penalized for even picking this prestige, and players that don’t care about luring will have their Ultimates delayed even more than they were. Plus, P1 already covers the “unstoppable lategame army” theme, and P2 covers the “army that teleports anywhere on the map” theme. So, what’s the point?
I’ll assume the point was to make a prestige similar to Raynor’s Backwater Marshall (more casual friendly gameplay) and make adjustments accordingly.Benefits:
- Ultimate Evolutions are no longer capped at 3 and need 80 biomass to evolve.
- Mend’s heal-over-time effectiveness increased by 100%.
Drawbacks:
- Toxic Nests no longer explode.
- Biomass does not give any benefits.
This completely removes biomass farming through Toxic Nests, and the Nests themselves become glorified Creep Tumors (you can now make jokes about “average random queue Abathur - The Prestige”
Efficiency of Mend is increased to compensate for biomass no longer increasing unit survivability and having to engage enemies with unbuffed units.
Zagara
I didn’t really have any ideas for Zagara prestiges, other than giving Bile Launchers Deep Tunnel ability and limiting them to 10 (so can’t spam the map with teleporting Bile Launchers). The question is, which prestige would fit that the most? (i think P2, but does that one need to have more than it already has?)
Karax
I also didn’t have any ideas for Karax, as i think all of his prestiges are actually good. They are all well-defined and good at what they’re supposed to do. If i was to nitpick anything, it would have to be that baseline Karax is completely pointless now, as P3 does pretty much everything that it does, and lack of Chrono abilities isn’t that big of a deal (in fact, not having to announce Chrono Wave makes it even better
Perhaps P3 should additionally make Energizers lose their Chrono Beam, since it’s also a “chrono” ability. That way P3 Karax’ army and cannons would have less dps than his baseline, actually making P0 the most well-rounded option (as it IMO should be).
