Let's talk about Promethean

[Dominicius]

First off. Let me just say that I don't think that Promethean is a bad ST but it is unfortunately very inflexible. There is only a single powerful strategy that it enables - Purifier rush. Some races like the Vanguard, Dvar and maybe Syndicate and Assembly are the ones that can do it. For this reason, most other races have little synergy with this particular secret tech, which is a shame. Ideally, I would like it to have a bit more strategic variety, so here is my proposal:

1. Completely rethink the Aegis Tank. It does not currently have any concrete role in the game. Not as a damage dealer or a support. The most it ever seems to do is soak up damage and if the AI just ignored it it would be utterly worthless. And clumping up your units is almost never a good idea.

2. Rethink the first Promethean tech.This is the secret tech that is supposed to be all about battlefield hazards yet the only way to reliably spawn them is either through Purifiers or the lategame Pyrex Bombs mod. Instead, I purpose that Purifiers lose their plasma grenade ability (they are good enough already) and instead make it a mod that we can move to the first Promethean tech. If we allow it to be equipped on any infantry, it will make the influence of this ST be felt even if you don't go very deep into it. This will replace one of the mods but I think it can be rolled into the Emergency Shielding OP or moved to another tech. You could also introduce special doctrines that make grenade tossing a free action and substantially increase the duration of fire hazards or add to the existing ones, since they are a bit lackluster.

3. Allow laser and explosive weapon mods to be used on plasma weapons.

4. This is just my own personal opinion but I think the devs have missed on opportunity to add Voidbringers to the list of enemies for the Extermination Squad hero ability. Also Promethean Doomsday OP is a bit of a letdown. In any given battle it doesn't even cover 10% of a battlefield in hazards when I would have expected something closer to 40% or 50%.

Just my thoughts. While picking the right race and drowning my opponents in purifiers is fun, I would appreciate my Promethean armies being a bit less one dimensional.

[Midas]

I hear the 'clumping up your units' thing for sure. That's not just true of the aegis tank, it's true of EVERYTHING that can clump up. Most adjacency benefits are not good enough for the risks that accompany them, but for something like the Aegis tank, which is supposed to be all about shielding things, it should be pretty amazing.

edit: Actually, all things considered, the sheer defensive aspect of the aegis is pretty decent, but one of the biggest hazards of clustering up is that most aoes also have status effects attached to them, stagger at the very least, and it doesn't matter if you're not taking much damage if you can't fight back either. Resistence is nice, but given what the aegis tank is, outright immunity might be much better. Or at least high enough resistence that status effects are highly unlikely to work.

[sandman25dcsss]

1. What is wrong with 22 attack and mass concussion 14 attack? You can put 1 unit near the tank so only 2 will be attacked with AoE, you can't have 2 tiles between all your units anyway.
2. There is early tactical operation which spawns hazards. You are supposed to spam it like shreder bomb.
3. It will be OP. Some other ST have similar limit (heritor, voidtech).
4. Promethian have machines with their +4 psi res.
Aegis tank costs just 800 points to research.

[MattStriker]

The promethean doomsday may not produce that many hazard hexes, but there's usually enough to give you some good fighting positions that boost your PyrX Absorption units. It also applies choking to any enemy susceptible to it, which is a fairly significant debuff.

[enricofermi2]

1. I think just buffing it would probally be enough. I'm not sure it really needs to be completly reworked. Mabey the shield could have larger AOE, or protect against more status effects.

2.I like the idea of having an early mod that generates fire hazards. However I don't really think this would require you to remove the purifiers ability. As an example Psynumbra have the healing/damage mod, that is very similar to the initiates base ability.

3. I don't agree with this. Having a unique weapon type makes the secret tech easier to use on any race. I'd rather just add more plasma mods to the secret tree.

4. I think this is resonable, but kinda nitpicky.

Personally I think that promethian tech doesn't lean enough into the fire hazards. Only the purifier can really make them in any usefull quantity. Otherwise relying on tactical ops just to generate fires isn't great.

[Hieronymous]

Definitely not enough fire starting methods. An early mod to generate thermal hazards, maybe as a free action, would be welcome. I also think the Mutant tag needs to be added to Extermination Squad, and that Purifiers should have some innate bonuses against everything tagged under Extermination Squad; +crit or damage or something.

[Dominicius]

I don't think the operation is a good way of spreading fire hazards. You only have a limited amount of energy and operation points after all. But even if that were not the case, you want to drop your fire hazard bombs on enemy positions while Promethean mods seem to expect you to wading through and standing in fire hazards. That will not be very likely unless you are have a melee focused army.

Also yea, the 4th point is nitpicky but it was mostly just flavor there. Minor tweaks that I am perfectly fine doing without. And I suppose that merging laser and explosives to plasma might be a bit extreme too.

Still, I think the Aegis Tank needs to be looked over. Maybe give it a repeating attack or explosive attack. Maybe give it the new disoriented status effect. Maybe give it demolisher to its big attack. Maybe allow it to project its Fallout shields over a distance instead of only those standing next to it. All I know is that I feel that the Amazon Arboreal is pretty much everything the Aegis Tank wants to be and more while being a tier lower.

[Charlando[SunsOfStmChrts]]

You realize you can attack ground with the purifiers normal attack by holding alt,right?

[enricofermi2]

Originally posted by CharlandoSunsOfStmChrts:

You realize you can attack ground with the purifiers normal attack by holding alt,right?

It works but it's not really a great usage of your time. It's literally 1 tile. Using an entire action just to activate the healing mod, and it only lasts 2 turns anyways.

[Midas]

Originally posted by enricofermi2:

Originally posted by CharlandoSunsOfStmChrts:

You realize you can attack ground with the purifiers normal attack by holding alt,right?

It works but it's not really a great usage of your time. It's literally 1 tile. Using an entire action just to activate the healing mod, and it only lasts 2 turns anyways.

Might be better if missed purifier shots ignited in an aoe instead of a splash, so the ground fire could be a utility. Still a very limited utility though.

[Wintermute]

I'm somewhat bitter that devs removed volcanic exploitations from the game. It allowed for some interesting terraforming potential with Prometheans. Instead, they now have 2 ways of negating volcanic debuffs. Dvar Prometheans have 3. Amazing -_-