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On May 06 2017 04:14 BaneRiders wrote:I'm only level 8 with Fenix and already now I feel extremely gas starved. Of course, I want to have all champions and all upgrades asap. Level 10 seems to bring some relief in that sense. 
How many production buildings do you go for? Because with my current really bad macro, I float a lot of both gas and minerals. I find myself starving for minerals and the exception is disruptors where I'm starved for gas instead.
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On May 06 2017 04:23 Rizare wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 04:14 BaneRiders wrote:I'm only level 8 with Fenix and already now I feel extremely gas starved. Of course, I want to have all champions and all upgrades asap. Level 10 seems to bring some relief in that sense. How many production buildings do you go for? Because with my current really bad macro, I float a lot of both gas and minerals. I find myself starving for minerals and the exception is disruptors where I'm starved for gas instead.
My macro probably sucks compared to you, but so far I'd say I go for around 5 gates, 2 forges and one of each of the rest. I haven't built a single disruptor yet, but I keep pumping every other unit. 
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Fenix is overall a nice Commander, but I feel his units aren't so durable after all. Sometimes the "death ball" isn't really so invulnerable, and you struggle to remax after a fight. Being "forced" to follow all tech paths may seem an issue, but actually with no gas for structures it isn't so bad.
One specific thing I really did not like is the Dragoon's manovrability and range: it often stays too far from the fight, can't attack and its abilities are off range. Sure, you can just start with another form, and then warp the dragoon closer to the fight, but this way it is often killed quite fast.
Still leveling up (12 level) but I've also noticed that it is quite harder to carry a bad ally, compared with other commanders, especially at the beginning, as it starts not so fast with his army requiring so many upgrades.
Being able to warp him anywhere may help against side attacks, but much less then with other commanders: both the tank and the dps forms struggle against very large forces, and the third form is useful to teleport everything, but then you leave the current target your main army was attacking.
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I haven't leveled Fenix to the max level but so far I feel he's a bit underwhelming (compared to what we saw in the teaser video). He's not outstanding in earlier and mid game, and cannot carry a not-performing ally. If he builds mass carrier then the late game composition is quite strong. However, in most cases, it's unfeasible to go straight mass carriers.
The most reasonable way to play him, IMO, is to get one of each hero AI unit and mass adept. The adept shadow is a bit overpowering and can greatly reduce army attrition. I find his units die too fast if I mass any other kind of unit. Then I can transition to traditional Protoss death ball of colossi or mass carriers. Disruptors are fun to play with but too expensive in gas.
I also found a bug with his Dragoon suit. If you activate overcharge and swap to another suit before the overcharge is finished, then when you switch back to Dragoon suit again his abilities will still have 0 cooldown.
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On May 07 2017 03:33 Jared00Ye wrote:
I haven't leveled Fenix to the max level but so far I feel he's a bit underwhelming (compared to what we saw in the teaser video). He's not outstanding in earlier and mid game, and cannot carry a not-performing ally. If he builds mass carrier then the late game composition is quite strong. However, in most cases, it's unfeasible to go straight mass carriers.
The most reasonable way to play him, IMO, is to get one of each hero AI unit and mass adept. The adept shadow is a bit overpowering and can greatly reduce army attrition. I find his units die too fast if I mass any other kind of unit. Then I can transition to traditional Protoss death ball of colossi or mass carriers. Disruptors are fun to play with but too expensive in gas.
I also found a bug with his Dragoon suit. If you activate overcharge and swap to another suit before the overcharge is finished, then when you switch back to Dragoon suit again his abilities will still have 0 cooldown.
I do agree that it feels like his units die easily. Even his beefier zealots don't last long. I don't really see a problem with gas cost for disruptors since I see myself floating a lot of gas though that might have to do with my lvl 10 removing gas cost from buildings as well as -30% research cost from masteries. I haven't try the 6 heroes strategy yet since I get the impression that you're stretching yourself too thin by going too many different tech paths and with lvl 15, you try to get at least 10 of each unit to make the heroes abilities stronger.
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Ok, I am done leveling Fenix to 15. He is okay, so not OP, not UP, which is a great thing overall.
The thing that strikes me the most is how well Blizzard managed to mix two completely separate ideas into one smooth mix. By that, I mean that Fenix's army is made of two things :
- a cheap army. Really, his army is mostly just normal ladder units, albeit at a 20% discount rate, which is pretty weak in the Co-op setting
- a limited amount of elite units that rival Nova's own elite units
There are lots of issues with giving weak units, the main one is that the early game is really difficult as you suffer lots of attrition. But thanks to his 7 elite units, it's actually possible to make a smooth transition to the midgame
Anyways, with his mastery points that reduce upgrades cost (up to 30%) and his level upgrade that remove gas cost from buildings, he is not that gas starved anymore.
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I think its hilarious people on the bnet coop forums are calling Fenix weak. Am I the only one who thinks 300/200 carriers with cheap upgrades and gas free building is utterly bonkers?
BTW blizzard if you're reading this, theres a bug with Fenix. If you switch suits during the overcharge ability of the dragoon, the dragoon has no cooldowns on his abilities for the rest of the game without activating the overcharge ability.
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Can people with high-ish mutation level tell me their build order with Fenix?
I have started to go gas first to be able to have the upgraded zealot right off the bat the moment he goes out of the gateway. It's just in time for the earliest waves and he is pretty good at clearing the rocks.
So for me
- 14 pylon
- 15 gas
- 16 gateway
Create zealot and zealot upgrade as soon as gateway finishes. I typically look at what the 1st wave is made of to determine the tech path from there
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Lately I have been starting with an immortal, even on games where I won't go for a robotics build. (The robo facility will still be useful for producing observers later.) I think the immortal hero is the best starting champion for two reasons. One obvious reason is that it breaks the rocks the fastest. The second is that it holds its own better than the scout or zealot (the other two fast champions you can get). It's good for helping clear those expansion zones on maps where your expansion is guarded by enemies. It holds its own very well because it's ranged, and its attack basically stuns multiple enemies. Plus it's very tanky. I think the immortal lets you expand the fastest, regardless of whether your expansion bottleneck is rocks or enemies.
Besides, it takes quite a while before you're wanting for gas, so you can start by building robo and/or stargate units, and make gateway units last, when you get to the point that you need a mineral dump.
My build is 14 pylon, 15 gas, 16 robo, 17 pylon, 18 gas. You can start building the immortal pretty much immediately after the robo facility is done, but it takes some time to get the gas for the champion research. I chrono boost the champion research, and the immortal becomes a champion only seconds after it's out. You can already start doing work with him some time before Fenix is available.
I'd say the sole exception is Void Launch, in which I start with the scout champion. But the opening build is pretty similar.
On May 08 2017 09:56 Icysoul wrote:
I think its hilarious people on the bnet coop forums are calling Fenix weak. Am I the only one who thinks 300/200 carriers with cheap upgrades and gas free building is utterly bonkers?
Well it's bonkers compared to ladder, for sure. But that's never really a good metric for evaluating the strength of a co-op hero. I think the reason people on the forums are disappointed is because we've been spoiled by the last three commander releases. They're all above average in commander strength (or average strength with below-average effort required, in Stukov's case). So I think people have come to expect that from commander releases. But that shouldn't be what we expect. Fenix, IMO, is roughly of average commander strength (or maybe even below average, since the previous three commanders are too strong), but that's a good thing! I want all the commanders to be on par. For me, the measure of whether a commander release is satisfying is how fun they are, and how unique their style is compared to the existing commanders. And I think Fenix passes both of those with flying colors.
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On May 08 2017 23:04 fezvez wrote:
Can people with high-ish mutation level tell me their build order with Fenix?
I have started to go gas first to be able to have the upgraded zealot right off the bat the moment he goes out of the gateway. It's just in time for the earliest waves and he is pretty good at clearing the rocks.
So for me
- 14 pylon
- 15 gas
- 16 gateway
Create zealot and zealot upgrade as soon as gateway finishes. I typically look at what the 1st wave is made of to determine the tech path from there
I actually skip gateway and cybercore early. I usually go straight for carriers or immortals. Obviously you won't have a carrier before the first waves and Fenix will still be on cooldown. No worries! You can either rely on your ally or let your main building tank some damage until Fenix arrives. Your main building can tank a lot of damage and is unlikely to be attacked at any later point of the mission.
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On May 08 2017 23:19 The Bottle wrote:Lately I have been starting with an immortal, even on games where I won't go for a robotics build. (The robo facility will still be useful for producing observers later.) I think the immortal hero is the best starting champion for two reasons. One obvious reason is that it breaks the rocks the fastest. The second is that it holds its own better than the scout or zealot (the other two fast champions you can get). It's good for helping clear those expansion zones on maps where your expansion is guarded by enemies. It holds its own very well because it's ranged, and its attack basically stuns multiple enemies. Plus it's very tanky. I think the immortal lets you expand the fastest, regardless of whether your expansion bottleneck is rocks or enemies. Besides, it takes quite a while before you're wanting for gas, so you can start by building robo and/or stargate units, and make gateway units last, when you get to the point that you need a mineral dump. My build is 14 pylon, 15 gas, 16 robo, 17 pylon, 18 gas. You can start building the immortal pretty much immediately after the robo facility is done, but it takes some time to get the gas for the champion research. I chrono boost the champion research, and the immortal becomes a champion only seconds after it's out. You can already start doing work with him some time before Fenix is available. I'd say the sole exception is Void Launch, in which I start with the scout champion. But the opening build is pretty similar. Show nested quote +On May 08 2017 09:56 Icysoul wrote:
I think its hilarious people on the bnet coop forums are calling Fenix weak. Am I the only one who thinks 300/200 carriers with cheap upgrades and gas free building is utterly bonkers?
Well it's bonkers compared to ladder, for sure. But that's never really a good metric for evaluating the strength of a co-op hero. I think the reason people on the forums are disappointed is because we've been spoiled by the last three commander releases. They're all above average in commander strength (or average strength with below-average effort required, in Stukov's case). So I think people have come to expect that from commander releases. But that shouldn't be what we expect. Fenix, IMO, is roughly of average commander strength (or maybe even below average, since the previous three commanders are too strong), but that's a good thing! I want all the commanders to be on par. For me, the measure of whether a commander release is satisfying is how fun they are, and how unique their style is compared to the existing commanders. And I think Fenix passes both of those with flying colors.
Oh, can the hero immortal can handle 1st wave of lings, marines or zealots? A main concern I had with opening a tech path instead of gateway was that while yes you get your tech really early, the tech unit wouldn't handle all kind of 1st wave attack. And if after the 1st wave I need to go air, then I kinda wasted money on robo when I could have gone stargate first instead. At least with gateway opening, you'll still use it if you go robo or stargate. I'm not very open to experimentation and didn't try it to see if the immortal could really hold its own and instead just copy what was said here. Does the hero immortal get out in time for Rifts to Korhal where the attack wave hits before 3 minutes and at 2m30s if it's fast units?
For openings so far, I used the 2 cannons expand on rock maps where it lets me build the nexus around 3 minutes whereas for non-rock maps and Rifts to Korhal where the attack wave hits very early, I go the hero zealot expand which was suggested by someone else in a previous page. The zealot expand lets me build the nexus around 3m25s.
As for Fenix, you're right that he doesn't look noticeably broken compared to other dlc commanders. I do enjoy switching Fenix suit and manage the health and energy of those. I think what could be considered broken for him is the dragoon form where you can remove all cooldowns to dish out a lot of damage but it requires you have a lot of energy as well using your skills right and his arbiter form being able to stasis heroic units like hybrid behemoth or dominator and bonus objectives like the eradicators on Miner Evacuation. I expected the limitation for stasis field being heroic units but turns out it isn't the case and you really get to divide and conquer everything if needed.
Edit: I tried your build and I think there's something I'm doing wrong. It feels like forever until the immortal becomes a hero. It seems like he couldn't deal with a first wave of zealots and it's a little too late for Korhal but could work on other maps.
If you can, a replay would be nice to see what I'm doing wrong but also once past the early-game, what to do in mid/late-game because my macro is still completely off and I especially float too much gas despite not going disruptors. I find that there's no vision in my gameplay beside a vague uhhh get the tech units to counter the composition and map as well as all those possible ups. I find myself lagging behind on forge ups as well.
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He definitely doesn't come out in time in Korhal, but he does for every other map. As for whether he can handle all first waves, to be honest, I don't know. I haven't played Fenix enough to get him on the magical combination of a map where the wave comes before Fenix can come out, but not on Korhal, where my ally hasn't helped on the first wave, but where the first wave is something tough (like lings or zealots). Or maybe I have, but I don't remember. I never lost the immortal hero, but I have had cases where i had to kite with him until I could call down Fenix.
Anyway, if you go pylon, gas, robo, gas, pylon you can easily have the immortal hero out before the first wave, on every map except Korhal. Just don't fill up your second gas right away, only fill it up just enough so that you still have 14 probes on minerals (2 per patch). First train the immortal, then get the hero upgrade. You can cut probes to make sure you get the hero upgrade ASAP, though it's not worth it unless you want to break the rocks as soon as possible. Hell, if you're amazing with timing you can time your hero upgrade so that it finishes right when the first wave comes, and you have that speed boost for 10 seconds. Though I can't do this, nor do I think it's worth trying. (Maybe on a tough mutation?)
I think you're right that it's not worth it to get the robo and immortal hero if you want to get stargates that game. (Unless your ally is Swann, then you can go Robo and Stargate and skip gateway tech.) And to be honest, I haven't done a lot of gateway openings since I got the level 10 upgrade, so I don't have a great idea of how they compare. Learning Fenix is still a work in progress for me.
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as Nova when exactly should you build ghost?
I use them vs zerg (and infested) sometimes and sometimes lategame to help with hybrids but not much else than that.
They are just to expensive and outside of snipe I dont find them have much utility and you are in most cases served better with other units.
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Why wouldn't you get ghosts? They automatically instagib the most dangerous units in the game. The only time I don't buy ghosts on cooldown is when there is another unit I need more, like tanks for mines or goliaths for freezing air units.
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On May 11 2017 05:15 The Bottle wrote:
He definitely doesn't come out in time in Korhal, but he does for every other map. As for whether he can handle all first waves, to be honest, I don't know. I haven't played Fenix enough to get him on the magical combination of a map where the wave comes before Fenix can come out, but not on Korhal, where my ally hasn't helped on the first wave, but where the first wave is something tough (like lings or zealots). Or maybe I have, but I don't remember. I never lost the immortal hero, but I have had cases where i had to kite with him until I could call down Fenix.
Anyway, if you go pylon, gas, robo, gas, pylon you can easily have the immortal hero out before the first wave, on every map except Korhal. Just don't fill up your second gas right away, only fill it up just enough so that you still have 14 probes on minerals (2 per patch). First train the immortal, then get the hero upgrade. You can cut probes to make sure you get the hero upgrade ASAP, though it's not worth it unless you want to break the rocks as soon as possible. Hell, if you're amazing with timing you can time your hero upgrade so that it finishes right when the first wave comes, and you have that speed boost for 10 seconds. Though I can't do this, nor do I think it's worth trying. (Maybe on a tough mutation?)
I think you're right that it's not worth it to get the robo and immortal hero if you want to get stargates that game. (Unless your ally is Swann, then you can go Robo and Stargate and skip gateway tech.) And to be honest, I haven't done a lot of gateway openings since I got the level 10 upgrade, so I don't have a great idea of how they compare. Learning Fenix is still a work in progress for me.
Yesterday I got 21 ling kills with one hero zealot on Korhal. He got out there and took the entire first wave alone. He wasn't high on health after that to be sure.
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On May 11 2017 23:13 imJealous wrote:
Why wouldn't you get ghosts? They automatically instagib the most dangerous units in the game. The only time I don't buy ghosts on cooldown is when there is another unit I need more, like tanks for mines or goliaths for freezing air units.
I wouldnt get them against terran air/mech or protoss air/robo since there are very few biological targets, but even against bio and gateway comp the only biological targets are ground which tanks just destroy. They of course help with the hybrids
but I feel like there are other options that deals with hybrids good enough and have a broader use.
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I guess the way I think about nova's "macro" (if you can even call it that) is just different. I just have unit priority list in my mind that I consult when I have the apm to cycle through my macro buildings...
1. Ravens
2. Tanks
3. Ghosts
4. Marines
Insert Goliaths above or below Tanks if dealing with mechanized air, depending upon how manageable ground is.
I just consult my "list" and make the units in that priority if the resources and cooldowns are available. Obviously I adjust my priorities mid battle if it makes sense or if a certain mutator calls for it. Libs and Banshees get added when it makes sense (robo protoss), etc...
I almost always reach a point where I don't feel like I need any more units to clean up the enemy army unless its an air comp due to the power of tanks, mines, airstrike, etc and all that's left to improve is more ravens for healing/support and more ghosts for finishing off hybrids faster. So end game, my list ends up boiling down to just those two units. Anything else feels like a waste of supply.
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My go-to Nova army is tanks, libs, and ravens. I use goliaths on Void Launch, or vs terran or protoss air. Tanks that throw mines in your face are pretty much all you need vs ground. For light ground that's not worth the mines, nova's assault suit does just fine. Libs are amazing all-purpose units, and are more than enough to take care of non-heavy air. It's a gas-heavy build, but stockpiling minerals is good with Nova, because you can use your calldowns more liberally.
I used to get ghosts against some zerg comps, but now I think it's just a waste. Those other units do more than enough for any zerg comp, and you can control where the damage goes a lot better than you can with ghosts. (Unless you turn snipe off autocast and use it well manually, but I don't have anywhere near the skills required to do that.) I think the only time I ever get ghosts, now, is on the mutation where hybrids explode.
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My list is something like
1. Raven
2. Tank
3. goliath vs terran/protoss, marines and later on ghost vs zerg
if air switch 2 and 3.
I think there is some merit to go ghost instead as third option vs t/p that is not air since ravens+nova should be enough for any stray mechanical air units I am gonna try it out.
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United States8476 Posts
The power of Ghosts comes from their power against Bio units and their supply-efficiency. Along with Nova's Ravens, Nova's Ghosts are some of the most supply efficient units in the game.
My base composition for Nova is Marine/Tank/Raven, which uses up most of your gas along with 1 Engineering Bay and 1 Armory constantly upgrading. Then I add Goliaths, Liberators, or Ghosts depending on the enemy unit composition.
Ghosts: Zerg Ground, Zerg Mutaling, Zerg Swarmy, Protoss Gateway, Protoss Techy
Goliaths: Sky Terran, ShadowTech, SkytossCarrier, Skytoss Tempest
Liberators: Terran Mech, Sky Terran, ZergSwarmy, RoboReaver, RoboColossi, SkytossCarrier, Skytoss Tempest
I eventually kill off my own Marines as the game goes on.
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EPT
