I have given some thought into this idea and would love to hear your feedback. I can see why only hearing this proposition would be frowned upon, but please, give me this chance to explain.
Also, this is not a balance change, intention is to leave Protoss in the exactly same spot, that is why I would really like to hear your opinions, since it is quite tall order .
This might get little long, so I will try to structure this post, so you could pick what you are interested in.
Proposition:
Explained below and up for discussion.
Pylon
- New ability Psionic Reconstruction
Psionic Reconstruction
- Can replenish life of friendly Protoss unit or structure
- To repair unit from 1HP to full health cost 100% of resources needed to train said unit and scales accordingly
- Archon´s maximal repair cost is 175 Minerals and 275 Vespene Gas
- Mothership´s maximal repair cost is 400 Minerals and 400 Vespene Gas
- Repair time of unit with 1HP for full health takes as long as build or training time. For units produced at Gateway, their Gateway training time is used
- Archon´s maximal repair time is 67 in-game seconds
- Mothership´s maximal repair time is 130 in-game seconds
- Ability is channeled, has to be casted manually and can only be affecting one unit at time
- Toggling the ability will cause closest building producing affected unit to lose the ability to train units or research upgrades for as long as Psionic Reconstruction is being channeled
- If no production building is able to train units or research upgrades at when cast, ability will fail to be cast
- Gateway or Warpgate is used for Archon and Nexus for Mothership
- Using the ability will set targeted unit´s shields to 0 and allow them to regenerate again 10 in-game seconds after channeling stops
- If energy of targeted unit or structure is higher than that of newly created unit or structure, it will be lowered to this amount and energy will not be allowed to grow higher
- Target unit or structure is disabled for the full duration of this ability
- Ability range is same as its Psionic Matrix, if target unit is out of range, ability will fail to be cast
- Interceptors are not affected
- New ability Psionic Reconstruction
Psionic Reconstruction
- Can replenish life of friendly Protoss unit or structure
- To repair unit from 1HP to full health cost 100% of resources needed to train said unit and scales accordingly
- Archon´s maximal repair cost is 175 Minerals and 275 Vespene Gas
- Mothership´s maximal repair cost is 400 Minerals and 400 Vespene Gas
- Repair time of unit with 1HP for full health takes as long as build or training time. For units produced at Gateway, their Gateway training time is used
- Archon´s maximal repair time is 67 in-game seconds
- Mothership´s maximal repair time is 130 in-game seconds
- Ability is channeled, has to be casted manually and can only be affecting one unit at time
- Toggling the ability will cause closest building producing affected unit to lose the ability to train units or research upgrades for as long as Psionic Reconstruction is being channeled
- If no production building is able to train units or research upgrades at when cast, ability will fail to be cast
- Gateway or Warpgate is used for Archon and Nexus for Mothership
- Using the ability will set targeted unit´s shields to 0 and allow them to regenerate again 10 in-game seconds after channeling stops
- If energy of targeted unit or structure is higher than that of newly created unit or structure, it will be lowered to this amount and energy will not be allowed to grow higher
- Target unit or structure is disabled for the full duration of this ability
- Ability range is same as its Psionic Matrix, if target unit is out of range, ability will fail to be cast
- Interceptors are not affected
Reasoning behind these changes:
First of all, why Pylons? In pylons vicinity, you can already warp-in units, provided you have gateway ready, so it makes sense that they can warp-in additional parts for damaged units.
Having same repair cost as build cost, times percentage of HP missing, is quite logical. It´s reason is to provide Protoss with no economic a advantage be enabling repair (Terran repairs for 25% the cost). Of course, it still costs less than rebuilding, that is why I have other possibility in mind, where repair takes always full build/training time and cost, but shields would be decreased only by amount of HP healed, so 100HP unit with 50HP left and 100 Shields with 75 Shields left will end up with 100HP and 25 Shields after full repair duration. If there isn´t enough shields, ability would fail to be cast.
Repair time has reasoning quite similar to repair cost. It should not provide additional production, so same build time, again scaled, makes sense. Again could be switched with other, HP for shields, version, explained above.
It has both positive and negative effects, so running around pylon with slightly damaged units, if the ability was auto-cast, could end up causing a disaster. I also think it should require some effort to repair an units and army.
It will affect closest building for respective unit in a same way as Overseer´s Contaminate does. It is again used to ensure no advantage in form of additional production is provided. It is closest building, since that is the way targets are picked in SC2´s implementation, for example Scanner Sweep chooses closest Orbital Command with sufficient energy, not the one with most energy. Since Protoss building, in a way, build themselves, no one needs to be disabled in their case.
Resetting the shields to 0 is there to compensate for travel time, new unit would have to cover, in order to move in position. Pylons are often found closer than production buildings and this seemed as most elegant and reasonable solution. Gateway units, that could be warped in with use of proxy Pylon or Warp Prism will heal their shields quickly, but higher tear units that are usually trained at base have to cross the map to get into position, need longer time to regain their shields. If player opted for remaking a building, instead of repairing it, it would be vulnerable for short period, so removing it´s shields respects this property.
Energy is allowed to be at most equal to that of newly created unit of the same type, again to prevent for additional advantage over re-creating units.
This ability is not meant to be used when defending and these adjustments also have purpose of assuring that it is not used so.
I´m not sure about interceptors. Since their health is not even displayed and there is no way to target them with single target ability, I think there is no reason to also allow this for them, since it would present numerous difficulties and little profit. I´m also not sure if Carrier should lose some of its interceptors when targeted, it seems reasonable, but they are not free, but then again, if we return money spent, we allow for refunding of units. Maybe disable interceptors for time it takes to create them and don´t allow the carrier to create more until all are enabled again would work?
But if it is not meant to change the balance, why even do it?
Simple, just to make the game more enjoyable. It is to be used at times where you are in a good spot, have your army, upgrades done or close to being done, you have bank that is still growing and are just frustrated, that your army is battered, with few units having some hull damage, or that forge has still some scars from mid game when opponent tried to cancel your upgrade. You wouldn´t really replace them, since it would affect your strength much, but it still bothers you.
Of course, not everyone minds this, but if it doesn´t make Protoss either stronger or weaker, it also wouldn´t harm anyone, but will make SC2 better for some, which is a clear success in my eyes.
Bottom line:
All written above is subject for change. I would be glad for any reasonable suggestions and wouldn´t hesitate to include them. I would be also glad of corrections, may they be of grammatical, factual, or any other nature. Constructive criticism is always welcomed.
Why am I doing this?
Yes, this is already under bottom line, but it is in a way off the topic and is just to answer one probable question. I personally hate, when I can´t nourish my avatar into full health. In W3, I was able to wait long minutes to allow my army to slowly regenerate, when no healer was available. It is also reason why I refunded DA3 (and many other games I can´t even remember), since you could only heal yourself with potions, that will run out. It is not something I can´t get around, it is just personal preference. For example, someone likes blue color, I like fully replenishable avatars. But it is in fact a reason why I play Protoss only occasionally.
Thank you for reading up to this point (or shame on you for skipping to the very end ).
Freeman