You leave an Observer in siege mode on your ramp or your base, and then simply use two Orbital Strikes to kill any Ghosts when you get a nuclear launch warning.
My condolences…
4 Likes
Eh, I’m sure it’s fun, but I kinda like the way it works vanilla. You have to use solar lance strategically if you’re spread thin all over the map, so it feels rewarding when you put it to good use. I think Karax has my favorite army, funnily enough. So getting to make whatever I want in whatever composition I want and have it work because you can produce it in large numbers puts P2 pretty up there.
I almost never make observers. I just beam where the cloaked units are and kill them. 
Especially easy with lurkers since all you have to do is see where the trail of spikes starts. Similar with banshees, though they’re proper stealthed so it’s easier. Ghosts are a little tricky due to how tiny their character model is. Worst case scenario, just block off your entrance with pylons/shield batteries and force them to nuke that first so you can warp a zealot on the other side of it/have time to look for the ghost and give him a little Sunny D.
I’d be faster just to find an ally who could agree to completing one part of an objective objective, then suiciding your bases.
This isn’t versus mode. It’s ok to have cheap overpowered units in co-op and most commanders do have them, in fact, that’s the whole point of co-op. I’m yet to see army Karax outpacing stonger commanders even with his 40% discount.
3 Likes
For the sake of balance, it’s not really OK.
Lot of us tries to maintain balance to prevent one commander/unit becoming too overpowered enough to ruin the fun.
Trust me I know.
Strange, judging from the health/shield statistic and 40% cost Karax should easily have one of the most powerful army (I say Karax’s Death ball alone is a Abathur/Dehaka/Alarak level or perhaps more).
For the sake of balance, it’s not really OK.
Lot of us tries to maintain balance to prevent one commander/unit becoming too overpowered enough to ruin the fun.Trust me I know.
Should we nerf 100 mineral brutalisks then? Or Nova’s 100 minerals for 300 HP shield drone? Or Alarak’s ascendants? Or Dehaka’s psionic explosion? Or Disabling cloud and Disruption web? Or maybe overpowered calldowns that wipe entire attack waves? Or any hero commander that can push objectives before their ally builds critical mass of units?
If you want balance you are free to go and play versus mode.
Strange, judging from the health/shield statistic and 40% cost Karax should easily have one of the most powerful army (I say Karax’s Death ball alone is a Abathur/Dehaka/Alarak level or perhaps more).
Fenix’s Immortal vs P2 Karax’s Immortal vs Artanis’s Immortal:
200 minerals and 80 gas
vs
195 minerals and 78 gas
vs
250 minerals and 100 gas
461.5 effective HP under conservator’s shield bubble + much faster ramp up time because of no tech requirements, no gas and 50% mineral discount for buildings.
vs
400 (520 with mastery) effective HP + repair + 25% increased DPS from energizer + Shadowcannon
vs
300 HP + guardian shell (45-90 HP + invul) + on demand 200-380 HP from shield overcharge and 60% increased DPS from P2.
Where is this extraordinary stat difference because I’m not seeing any?
I’m also yet to see P2 Karax players with their supposedly overpowered prestige outpacing their Tychus/Zeratul/Dehaka/Abathur allies, especially in mutations.
6 Likes
Mass Energizers every game unless ur playing against zerg
It actually makes Karax fun to play most.
1 Like
Some of those powerful aspects are limited by conditions (Abathur’s UE 6 limit, Ascendants cooldown limit/supplicant consumption).
Some of them needs a slight nerf but not all of it (Dehaka’s Psionic boom).
Karax’s 40% cost deduction has almost no condition that limits or weakens the advantage.
Even for immortal comparing, Karax’s are clear better because they have Healing (improved one), superior Shield health/shields etc and surprising fast to pop them out with chrono field/wave/surge granted and coupled with cheap price.
Besides if Karax’s army is protected by 16 Sentinels then build upon on with several advanced units you rarely lose units unlike other protoss Commanders (excluding Zeratul).
I suppose the extraordinary difference is the sheer buildup power and its extreme durability compared to others
I am saying “I know” because I proposed lots of Overpowered concepts, before.
After understanding them I deemed Karax’s 40% discount op because there were too many benefits on his army making and Death ball itself (lot of partners ajd articles confirmed).
Therefore I deemed 30% price may be right level to make it more balanced.
I agree balance is very important but at the same time we have Abathur and Dehaka who are easily twice as strong as any average commander.
Karax could get an 80% unit discount and he would still never come close to Abathur and Dehaka levels of power.
1 Like
30% discount would just give him vanilla units, i think it’s fine, it’s like a vanilla zeratul without void arrays level. He has a good top bar, but not a lot of good automatic air so he often has to use orbital strikes or shadow cannons or carriers to deal with problems and still ramps up later. Sure he can build a army well for once, but without a hero unit, there’s a noticable delay if you’re on a highly contested xpac like Miner’s Evac with a active ship and Karax doesn’t get his 2nd expo quick, it can still take quite a while for him to start producing a effective armor while he’s gas starved and research.
Unless you go all ground it’s really hard to support all his Spear + Shield/life upgrades + air upgrades when all his good units are gas heavy. Sure it’s probably one of karax’s best ones, but it’s probabily still like 2 minutes slower than hitting critical mass and getting guardian shell on stock Artanis or a Zeratul. I’d probably put P2 karax at a Stock Zeratul’s army imo. He’s basically paying 78% for units that take three sets of buildings from Gateway, then a cybernetic core, than a twilight council, than a stargate/robobay, then a fleet beacon / robothing to get going at like the 10 minute mark. It seems fine to me, i’d honestly they get rid of the unit tax on karax honestly. There just doesn’t seem to be a real point to it and it’s a shame he has all these unique units and the only way to play normally is to take the cannons away.
3 Likes
Karax’s army disadvantage is that he’s karax and already taxed 30% for not +50% more life AND shields, but only life… on a protoss commander that often relies on shields with three to four times as much research as other commanders while all his good base units cost like 300-700 gas for a aoe collosi or carrier. Karax’s prestiege would honestly just be like a static -20% cost on any other commander and he really suffers if situations prevent him from getting his 2nd expo’s gas quick, he gets quickly gas starved.
3 Likes
The unit cost reduction is fun but without the cannons, I cannot camp enemies in Mist opportunity and settle defense in map that enemies attack in many directions. I actually do a little better as lvl 1 vanilla Karax on Cradle map with 10 cannons on each side to protect my base while Zealot and phoenix attack the construct.
Overall, i think i will stick with vanilla Karax at lvl 1-4.
I say let good things be. Karax has needed this love for a long time. His P2 is perfectly alright. I wouldn’t be changing him any time soon, given how long and hard people advocated for this.
8 Likes
Why suicide? You can just leave after the first objective and you’ll get the XP.
As i much prefered playing unit based karax even before the prestige, i like this one a lot.
What i dislike is that now he has 0 static defenses, which is not ok. Even H&H has missile turrets for anti air and detection.
As it is now, robo is the only source of detection for this prestige, which would make we-move-unseen mutator really painful to deal with.
Also getting missile command mutator on brutal+ is basically game over for this prestige… i mean what is he supposed to do? Have 20 mirages on patrol over your base? Burden your ally defending both himself and you too?
I would rather prefer, that he still had regular cannons, and the cannon upgrades on the forge removed instead.
3 Likes
I dunno if I’d say Karax P2 is overpowered, but it’s definitely extremely powerful. The fact you can just warp in zealots on a whim and have them revive makes them probably the best fodder unit in the game. Nothing will ever touch your other units as long as you have minerals to burn.
With that said, though, his army is probably my favorite in the game now. Their cost before was so high that building up to them wasn’t very fun. And it’s rare that I genuinely like every single unit in a commander’s roster, where any composition seems like it could work to counter a specific enemy comp in more than one way. It feels really balanced. So if anyone was going to get a prestige that made experimenting with their army more attractive, it’s Karax. Though 40% might be a bit too generous.
I mostly agree that we shouldn’t be looking to nerf things and just enjoy how differently “overpowered” commanders are. The only problem with that is Blizzard’s choices on difficulty don’t reflect that. Brutal is just an absolute joke with some prestiges/commanders/unit types and the only step up is RNG mutations. We need a true brutal+ now more than ever, to put these prestiges to good use.
I pretty much never need cannons with his topbar kit. You just have to manage energy decently and have a little foresight of what to expect within the next few minutes.