Zeratul stands out to me as one of the commanders that needs an overhaul/revamp the most. I think most would agree that they simplified his design far more than was necessary. His biggest issue is that he isn’t just easy, he’s extremely automated to the point that he’s boring.
I do not expect, or necessarily want all of these suggestions to be implemented, but some combination of them, and/or other suggestions should be made to make Zeratul more fun to play.
Pylons. (This particular suggestion has been very unpopular. I am apparently one of very few that think pylons are a fun mechanic) Zeratul could require pylons for his buildings, and/or population. (A lot of people don’t want his population controlled by pylons, so if this were implemented, take the Artanis approach and just require them for buildings) The Dark Pylon model is just begging to be used here. Call it a Void Pylon, and give it an upgrade at the third shard that cloaks units like the dark pylon, it would very thematic. Don’t give it building cloaking though, it’s unnecessary. Because the monoliths are calldowns, I dont think that they should need pylons, but cannons, and everything else should.
Upgrades that aren’t free. (It is said in response to this that not paying for upgrades is part of Zeratul’s uniqueness, and charm. I’m okay with that so long as something is otherwise done to address his issues) While it’s fine to give some of the upgrades from finding a shard for free, some of them could still be paid for. You can even slightly lower the unit cost if you feel the need to compensate for this.
Cannon projection
The pure cannon projection strat is incredibly powerful, and stupidly easy to execute. There are two ways I think this could be fixed. 1. Make the projections easier to kill by either taking more damage from all sources, or giving projections less health in general. (For example, as others have suggested below; lower the amount of shields cannons have to 100, so that projections only have 100 HP) 2. If pylons were implemented, give void pylons a projection ability, and require pylon fields to power projected cannons.
More Artifacts to collect.
A very popular suggestion in this thread has been to increase the number of artifacts that you need to collect. I feel this is a very good way of making Zeratul’s power feel more earned, rather than given just for walking/flying across the map, and then right back to base. If this implemented, I do hope that the pieces spawn separated from each other though. I don’t want to find all three clumped up right next to each other, because that would make separating them into more pieces pointless.
With some of these few changes, and maybe some other suggestions in the comments below, I think that the majority of Zeratul’s problems will be addressed. His units are still overpowered as hell, and you could tweek some if them a bit, but thats kind of the point, and the reason that he only gets 100 population.
If there are any other major issues with Zeratul that you don’t think I have addressed, please leave a comment detailing what you think could be changed to address those concerns.
And now I miss downvotes even more…You are suggesting a complete butchering of Zeratul. His whole thing is only his army and cooldowns cost money, if you change that, then his units will be too expensive for him to be able to do anything, and you’re crippling him across the board. The only time they’ve ever nerfed things in co-op is if it simply doesn’t allow other options. Zeratul has two very powerful builds that are great, so his build diversity is not a problem, so he is unlikely to get nerfed. Don’t ask for a commander to be guttered just because YOU have a problem with it.
Maybe not these particular changes, but Zeratul DOES need nerfing. He’s so unbelievably overpowered that he’s totally boring. I refuse to level him past level 5 because even at level 5 he completely stomps on Brutal missions, I can only imagine how broken he is with full masteries.
If the game is faceroll easy, Co Op isn’t fun. There needs to be challenge for a Co Op game to be fun. Zeratul removes all of the challenge. He’s boring, he’s overpowered and he needs a revamp.
If his macro needs slowing, increase unit cost (or calldown cost) [maybe building cost as well… 2-3x building costs wold be good]
As for Cannons…
give projections less “hp” ie change Cannons from 200 hp 200 sp to 300 hp 100 sp
have projections cost resources and/or supply
have destroyed projections get a longer cooldown (like strike fighters) or do ~5 hp of damage to the ‘sending’ cannon.
some combination of those should work fine.
Possibly have cannons cost gas as well (would fit with Zeratul’s easy gas)
That would be my suggestion
New building costs:
Ancient Nexus 1000 minerals 200 gas
Xelnaga Passageway 400 minerals 100 gas
CoreForge 400 minerals 200 gas
Void Shrine 500 minerals 500 gas
Constructs facility 600 minerals 300 gas
Constructs bay 600 minerals 600 gas
Then Cannons… 300 hp 100 sp, if projection destroyed, base cooldown is 90 seconds instead of 60
Have you tried doing him on mutations? Quite a lot of them just deny him entirely, or at least make it insanely difficult. Brutal clear speed isn’t the indication of commander balance, mutators are the true highest difficulity where they make the balance decisions.
I cant be bothered because of how broken he is in regular missions. If he was actually well designed and fun to play I would pay to unlock the rest of him, but since he’s so stupid in my free to play 5 levels I can’t justify spending the money.
That’s a tragedy. Blizzard designed a Commander so broken and stupid that I won’t buy him even though I want to support their game. That’s why I want them to fix him.
I finally got around to leaving Zeratul to level 15 last night, and I got a full army that stomped everything within 10 minutes. I had no fear of losing, and I had 50000 minurals to blow on call downs and cannon spam that I didnt even need to use if I was trying to win.
This doesn’t gut him. He’ll still be overpowered as hell. I even specificalky said that they could lower the cost if his units if upgrades were changes so that you had to pay for them.
When was the last time you played a different protoss commander? Was it anywhere near as easy as Zeratul? I was playing Artanis before Zeratul last night, and while I won with relative ease, zeratul was a snooze, and I didnt even really have to try, just spam calldowns and cannons to win.
You know, I don’t actually play exclusively or even favorably towards zeratul, I often enjoy all of the commanders, and am most often on Dehaka, or the horners, ect, and I prefer the support commanders quite a lot as well.
Zeratul’s power level is high yes, but it’s not even the strongest commander in co-op history, and while he could likely use a tone down to his calldowns and cooldowns, He doesn’t need to be so heavily guttered by making him require pylons, or anything like that.
I’m not suggesting that no nerf ever could be okay, I just think your ideas are terrible and would ruin the core theme. You’re acting like he has no weaknesses at all, and you just start the game and get the victory screen.
It’s his core concept that only his army and cooldowns cost him, and that should never change, even if they reduce his powerlevel across the board otherwise. It’s just a terrible suggestion. It’d be like saying Tychus shouldn’t have heros anymore, or Swann doesn’t need the laser drill.
It doesn’t matter that he’s not the strongest Commander, it’s that his power is stupid easy to use.
Kerrigan is probably overall the strongest in the game, but she requires a VERY high skill level to use all of her tools including Creep Spread and Larva Inject.
Zeratul is so automated that it completely removes most of the game for you. That’s stupid. OP has a great point that you don’t even need to pay for upgrades with him. Think about that, UPGRADES! a completely optional power spike for your units is completely free for Zeratul so long as you do the quest that he is designed around and that you have to do anyway.
It’s so dumb. You don’t need to macro, you BARELY need to micro because of how strong his units are, and his CDs solve ANY issue you put them against.
He’s dumb. It’s as simple as that. He needs nerfing.
You know your argument thus far has boiled down to “I don’t like, so it’s stupid, so it needs to change” You haven’t given any support to your argument beyond that you feel strongly about it. It’s okay for a commander to be easy, There are other options if you don’t enjoy that. It’s not like everyone has to like every commander. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s stupid, and you should be able to have a debate without it devolving into just repeating that something is dumb.
Idk, playing Zeratul I usually float upwards of 6000 unused minerals and 1000 to 2000 gas I can’t use because I’ve already reached the supply cap and instantly hit tier3 with all upgrades unlocked because artifacts happened to be right inside my expansion.
He has the most stupid and insufficiently challenged economy of all commanders.
Again, That can be fixed in ways other than removing his identity. Massive increase the cost of his calldowns, and make more of them have a cost. Make projections have a cost to use, ect. You guys are getting tunnel visioned on one aspect and not looking at a big picture.
I’ve offered numerous suggestions in the past to make him more interesting. OP is offering suggestions to make him more interesting.
My criticism is constructive and posting them increases the likelihood of Monk or someone else reading them.
The fact that Stetman is a macro commander instead of another OP hero commander like Tychus and Zeratul is an indication to me that Blizzard is aware of the criticisms of their last two CO releases. And that fact just makes me more confident that what I am posting is being read.
I want the game to the best it can be. I want Co Op to be the most fun it can be. That is why I post.
I’d argue that pylons would make him less interesting, not more, and I’m open to the idea of increasing the cooldown and cost of his top bar, and shade projections.
But you seem hellbent on removing what makes him special, at which point what is the difference between him and nova other than Race? It’s not the fact he floats minerals or gas, that can be solved by increasing his costs, changing the mastery that lowers the price of his legions, ect. He can have more micro-intensive units added if the need arises to make him more intensive, But it all seems to boil down that you will not be happy until he has to pay for upgrades, which is his gimmick that he doesn’t.
I don’t really know how to have a polite discussion when faced with that so I’m going to bow out, I don’t see any point in continuing this when we are at an irreconcilable difference of opinion.
As long as you’re open to weakening him at all we can talk.
Resources matter because it always comes down to player choice on what they choose to spend their money on. The very first thing I would do is to remove the automation when it comes to his Vespene Geysers and Upgrades. You might think it trivial but it matters when a player chooses to build an Assimilator or research an upgrade.
The next thing I would do is what the OP suggests and require pylons for power like other Protoss commanders. You might think it trivial, but it matters that you have to spend that extra 100 minerals for that.
These kinds of small things will make Zeratul feel like an actual Starcraft commander. I want the automation in his macro greatly lessened. If not that, I want his calldowns greatly nerfed because of how powerful they are right now.
If they dont want to touch him, it just decreases the likelihood that I will play him. I want to play him, I want to buy him and support the game more but as he is now I just can’t.
I can understand your frustration, and while I currently enjoy playing all co-op commanders, the fact is I’m abnormal in that way, most players only enjoy one or two. And I think that’s okay, I think in the future they might add a co-op commander that simply doesn’t interest me in the least, and that’s okay. For you, it’s very important to have to research things, build assimilators, ect, and zeratul doesn’t provide that. But all of the other commanders do.
I honestly think it would lower the quality of the commanders if they had to please everyone, Each commander should be special in their own way, do something that no other commander does, even if it’s something technical like no detector units, missing a production building, or in this case, upgrades and macro being more automated.
The thing is, that kind of automation REMOVES core gameplay elements from the game for the player. People might think of those things as monotonous but they are part of what makes Starcraft, Starcraft. I don’t like that. If there is going to be automation there needs to be a trade off. Nova has that in her unit cooldowns and unit cost. Zeratul doesn’t have a fair trade off. That’s what I want to see addressed.
It’s not that I don’t like Commanders having unique flair, I just want that flair to be fair and balanced according to the others. Zeratul just hasn’t reached that level of balance.