[Idea] Energy Competitor for Dark Pylon

[mr. peasant]

Blizzard has previously mentioned that the Dark Pylon currently lacks a serious energy competitor for Proton Charge. This is probably my hundredth time taking a crack at it. Also, I don't like Null Shield flavor-wise as I feel it makes the Protoss overly cloak-erific and so my suggestion is to replace it with this, which while somewhat similar provides more strategic options.


Mirage

TLDR: Disguises a unit or building as another unit or building similar to how Changelings work for a maximum duration of 5 minutes.

How it works:
Unlike other abilities, Mirage isn't cast by the Dark Pylon onto another unit. Rather, units and buildings within the Dark Pylon's area of influence gains the ability to morph into any other unit or building of the player's choice (obviously, ground to ground, air to air, building to building). This is limited only to Protoss units but includes those the player hasn't yet have access to (e.g. Carrier without Fleet Beacon). While the effect has a maximum duration of 5 minutes, players can manually deactivate the ability at leisure and if for some reason you want to change disguises, it requires deactivating before casting again.

While in disguise, the unit in question will display the stats of the disguised unit akin to Changelings. The disguise is held as long as the unit doesn't display the wrong characteristics (e.g. Colossus climbing down a cliff or a Stalker casting Psionic Storm) with the exception of buildings (they can produce units and research without deactivating Mirage). Disguising as Dark Templar or Observers do not grant the units invisibility and Dark Templars don't lose invisibility when using Mirage (though, why would you).


Function:

1. Hide high value units/casters amidst grunts.
2. Confuse opponents on what to hit (imagine attacking a base filled with nothing but 'Dark Pylons'.
3. Provide false intel to the opponent and misdirect them in both, teching and the start of a firefight.

What it achieves:

1. Creates an energy competitor for Proton Charge.
2. Increases reason to return to base (since buildings are likely to lose Mirage at different times) to maintain charade.
3. Introduces the concept of counterintelligence.
4. Gives Protoss the ability to gate off their base. Terrans have Supply Depots, Zerg have Crawlers.
5. Gives Terrans more reasons to divert energy for Scanner Sweeps.
6. Gives Zerg more reason to pay attention (not to mention an important role) to their Changelings to spot any misdirection.

What do you think?

[Aldrius]

Sounds like fun, but fundamentally I think allowing Null Shield to be cast on buildings allows the same result in a much simpler and more versatile way.

[MattII]

It'd work for buildings, but I can't see it working for much else (the Colossus is too big to hide as anything else, you'd have to be a lunatic to put a HT on the front lines, etc.)

[mr. peasant]

Sounds like fun, but fundamentally I think allowing Null Shield to be cast on buildings allows the same result in a much simpler and more versatile way.

The difference is that it would necessitate the opponent to bring in detectors to target a base or to even discover the extent of a base, which isn't good. It would also mean in order to be balanced, they won't be able to do it at such an extensive scale as to totally hide your tech constantly. Plus, you can't misdirect your opponent. For instance, tricking them into thinking you're going for air when in fact you're going for Dark Templar.

It'd work for buildings, but I can't see it working for much else (the Colossus is too big to hide as anything else, you'd have to be a lunatic to put a HT on the front lines, etc.)

Perhaps not at the front-most line but certainly closer to the frontlines with less risk. It's movements wouldn't be so restricted since it won't have the giant crosshair on its head a HT would normally have.

[DemolitionSquid]

Its to complicated. Way too complicated.

[Aldrius]

The difference is that it would necessitate the opponent to bring in detectors to target a base or to even discover the extent of a base, which isn't good.

What's wrong with that exactly...? If the cloak needs to be maintained and only lasts a short amount of time, then it'll hardly be imbalanced.

[SpiderBrigade]

The idea is pretty cool (like a more robust version of Hallucination) but it is pretty complex. I'd say it is probably too intensive for not enough gain.

I also don't see how this is a worthwhile energy competitor with Proton Charge. If you have to choose between disguising your units/buildings and getting more resources, the resources will pretty much always win. Right now the best competition is Argus Link, but players will probably just build proxy Dark Pylons while keeping ones in their base dedicated for Proton Charge.

[Pandonetho]

The main problem here isn't that there's no energy competitor with the dark pylon, it's that the dark pylon is spammable/massable so even if there is an energy competitor or 2, people will just build a seperate stash of dark pylons purely for proton charge.

[mr. peasant]

Its to complicated. Way too complicated.

How so? It's only about as complex as selecting a building to build (i.e. opening up a submenu and choosing which unit/building you want to disguise as).

What's wrong with that exactly...? If the cloak needs to be maintained and only lasts a short amount of time, then it'll hardly be imbalanced.

The problem is that it's either not spammable enough to use en masse or it's too spammable and thus opponents are absolutely defenseless once their detectors are focus fired.

As far as an energy competitor, I think providing false information to your opponent is a potential alternative to higher resource gathering. Sure, you can build more units with more resources but you can make do for less if your opponent is building to counter the wrong thing.

[SpiderBrigade]

The main problem here isn't that there's no energy competitor with the dark pylon, it's that the dark pylon is spammable/massable so even if there is an energy competitor or 2, people will just build a seperate stash of dark pylons purely for proton charge.

Precisely. I started a separate thread to deal with this issue in isolation.