What if Probius was a legitimate Champion?

…And you could legitimately use them to fight, like with the other Champions? What sort of ability set would he have? Bonus stats?
Maybe he’d play like the Heroes of the Storm Probius – A mobile power field generator (like Alarak P3 Mothership, but usable for Warp Gates and Structures), and be able to place temporary Cannons like Campaign Karax…
:thinking: Really makes you think about what the hero Probe of the Protoss race would be able to do.

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Just a support one would make the most sense. Whether it’s a healing field, or champion shell tele-field, or buff field. They all work and would add uniqueness to Fenix.

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If Probius dies, does his AI enter another probe? Or do you need to build another probe while all other AI champions are out?

Probius
100 health/ 100 shield
10 damage every second with 6 attack range +1 dmg each upgrade

Abilities
Empowered field (passive) Probius has a power field. Buildings in this power field also attacks/ builds /researches faster by 20%.

Shield Restoration (active) can be set to autocast. Restore 50 shield of nearby allied and friendly units & buildings. Cooldown 5s.

Data web bonus: each supply of probe +2 bonus shield of Shield Restoration. Max at +40.
P2: +4 and max at +80

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I would be fine with just a powerfield and being able to warp in buildings at range for faster building, but to fight?

He’s still a probe so I can’t see the justification of hiking his stats too much to the point of being a strong fighter. For people who just want him to mine I think he should still be able to do so and maybe have something that is oriented to help defend the mineral line that can also be used in combat. With that said…

Probius: Probe AI personality upgraded into the game for 50 minerals
HP: 100
SP: 100
Damage: 10
Range: 6 ground and air (for warping buildings too)
Data network ability: Destabilized warp out
0% (+20% per shell up to 5) chance to Cause destroyed or cancelled buildings near Probius to explode for damage/splash range equal to its mineral cost. Excludes heroic buildings/objectives

Not overpowered but using minerals to fight works for a probe and it is just strong enough to manage to do something against a small force or harasser. In a battle setting, it would make base destroying a little easier by just being near dying enemy buildings and it could otherwise just quickly build a few pylons before an enemy wave gets near and they would hurt themselves if they got too close while attacking.
Probius could otherwise just sit near static defense giving them on-death damage.

While it could definitely do all that, he would still shine most on a mineral line where there are plenty of shells to speed up his little gathering attack :slight_smile:

Not bad, my only nitpick is that it’s already established that the data web only goes up to 5 shells for the bonus normally so… +50 max and +100 with p2 sits better with my ocd

I completely forgot about the prestige so I guess in that case the wording on my idea should be changed to +20% damage per shell instead of “a chance”

Actually, considering how P2 is… I would love for Probius to have a warp field for Champion AIs. Especially Kaldalis.
Just Y E E T him into battle and watch him go!

He goes into another already built Probe, and remains hotkeyed like the other Champions.

Interesting… Would this be like an AoE pulse, or more like Zeratul’s Shieldguards?

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Yeah, I think that kind of mechanic can actually give some real strategic value to Fenix as a whole, definitely more so to P2.

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Careful positioning of Probius mixed with Arbie suit. Would be quite an interesting combo.

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This was my take on it.
100/100 Life/Shield

Like Cerebrate and Silphyre’s idea I made him to be more “supportive” but rely heavily on towers. He fights like Karax from LotV.

Phase Monumental Pylon

  • summons Pylon which has 16 range of Power field and regenerates Fenix’s energy 5 per second.
    Ps. ignore the death animation where the pylon turn into a Void Shard (I don’t know what happened)

Phase Photon Cannon

  • summons average Photon Cannon instantly. Lasts for 25 seconds and has 3 charages

Phase Shield Battery

  • summons average Shield Battery instantly. Lasts for 25 seconds and has 2 charages

Structural Overcharge

  • Cast weaker version of Structural Overcharge with no shield and 25 rapid fire blast with 8 range.
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You’d have to remember to train more probes on minerals / gas. It be kind of annoying because you’d have to check where the new Probius came from each time.

But it’s better than training a new probe. Maybe Probious could automatically fill an idol probe shell first, the mineral probe, then a gas probe. If it worked that way you can just have an idol probe out at all times. I usually have a builder probe.

With P2 this matters less as you swim in money so not a big deal if you lose some probes mining later on . I usually don’t fully saturate my expo with P2. I also spam cannons with P2 because you might as well spend those resources.

Give him the ability to mine like a mule and plant things instantly… he is a probe after all.

He would overlap with Karax.

Yeah, I think anything related to “insta-build” or “power field but mobile” is really not very useful. Fenix already has Conservators, their entire function is for that and protection too. While he is a probe, but I think we can have more creative and useful ways to add to Fenix.

The insta-transfer of champion A.I. is one idea that can help multi-front assault by splitting army from champions (or part of champions). The idea being the Probius unit can have the researched champion A.I. selected/deselected to allow who gets transferred when it dies.

I think another idea of buffing can be done by keeping with the theme of “champion dies, then transfer to gain x”, similar to Avenging Protocol. Or perhaps Probius’s AP, in that instead of Probius getting buffed, his death cast a buff (akin to how Dehaka P1) would in a way. Length and time and type of buff can/probably should stack like AP. And I think this adds to the previous idea of multi-front.

One issue that was brought up and not addressed yet is what happens to the champion A.I. transfer when Probius dies. How does Probius get back. Having it transfer to another probe, then bringing that new ‘probius’ back into the fight/army is obviously far too cumbersome to allow either idea to function easily. So I think it makes sense to give Probius only 1 active ability, and that is personal teleport to your own unit. There should be a cooldown to keep it in check (as each death would add the on-death buff effect… we wouldn’t want it abused for continuous insta-tele into death just to buff yours or ally’s army).

:thinking: Would Probius’ AP ability grant nearby Champions a stack of their AP? If Probius had the Champion Teleport and the AP stack ability, he would be insanely useful for P2 and P3.

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Idea: Probius can summon (through a “recall”-like ability) holograms (since purifiers can make those based on Malwarfare) of existing player units with a buff and timed life, to defend the probes and base.
The holograms would be generated with a mechanism like the one of Zeratul base defenses, so it would disable the main units for the duration.
At the end of timed life or when destroyed, the holograms would disappear and reactivated the main bodies.

This address:

  • No need to make Probius an unit on the front line, it work along its main job of probe and allow it to contribute to defense.
  • It recycle both game mechanisms (Zeratul turrets) and “coop canon” from Malwarfare (Purifiers being able to produce combat holograms) to not be too weird.

That’s only a base idea, may need some work to become something actual.

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The data web does not count your shells. It counts the supply of all the shells.

For example, Kaldaris Empowered blade received +1.5 per supply of Legionnaire you have.
If you have 6 Legionnaires, the data web gives +1.5 x 3 supply x 6 legionnaire = 27 bonus damage.

Tactical data maxed out at 20 supply. For Kal’daris, it means at max tactical data web he received +1.5 x 20 supply = 30 bonus damage.

To reach max tactical data web, Kal’daris needs at least 7 legionnaires.

The same for every single other champions.
Talis needs 10 Adepts
Tal’darin needs 5 Immortals
Warbringer needs 4 Colossus
Mojo needs 7 Scouts
Clorarion needs 4 Carriers

It is exactly like Artanis’s Astral wind and Kerrigan’s Mend in the campaign which is an AOE restoration spell.

The difference is my proposed “Shield Restoration” only restore shield and it is auto-casted every time there is an unit/building that has damaged shield in the range of the spell.

I would give Probius the abilities of the units that don’t have champions, observers, conservators and disruptors. Probius would be a champion representing all the other units
So, permanent invisibility, detection, Purification Nova, Protective Field and Optimized Emitters

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So, yes. Essentially an AoE pulse. I could easily get behind that!

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I just had a funny idea… what if Probius’s only ability was to randomly summon some other calldown from the other commanders every 300 seconds… such as space station reallocation, the Hyperion, solar bombardment, etc

Avenging stacks and shell bonus could make the cooldown faster. Is it a serious idea? not really, but it would be hilarious.