I would like to suggest a change for merc marines since they're used so "one-dimensionally"
Usually you see them used for defense during SD and not for offensive drops before SD. People easily glean 150 minerals for a pod and will keep dropping them in SD to "exploit" their 0 supply cost. They last a long time as well. It's a brain dead decision on whether dropping merc marines is a good idea in SD. If you have support tower, and marine tech, you're gonna drop to maintain a supply advantage.
Another thing about marines...sometimes when you go marines and you lose map control due to air i think merc marine drop is a viable way to get around air's presence. However, 750 minerals for a chance could really set you back if it fails... the risk is too high. I would like to see this change and perhaps see more drops in the early to mid game.
Merc marines also scale like elites, any upgrade can increase their stats equally, not half like normal marines. For the cost of 150 minerals and 0 supply, I think this is really strong.
I have some proposed changes:
- Make merc marines cost 100 minerals, but scale by 10 minerals after each pod dropped. That gives an early entry to drop at any point in the game: to drop someone's compound, or to reinforce during SD. On the other hand, it deters the spam of merc marines late game, but doesn't remove the option.
- OR Make merc marines cost supply. That'll put an upper bound to your power. This will hurt the drops you use against a merc compound or a CC, but you should be distracting that player or fighting them head on anyways.
- OR Make merc marines last a shorter duration. They currently last 120 in game seconds (3 minutes or more?). If you need a little more firepower to kill a hero, or to defend in a clutch situation, it should really only last during that engagement. You just gained an advantage if you defended well or sniped a hero, but their use has to stop there. This won't affect early game drops because they don't usually last 3 minutes if defended well.
- OR Make merc marines cooldown longer. Similar to the shorter cooldown justification
- Lastly Another possible solution is to limit the number of drops available like turrets or savior at the CC. Players will choose wisely when they want to have their advantage.
All these changes assume all else remains equal.
Also akash, fix their acceleration, they slide.