Make obsidian shield regen useful

In 2018 and 2020 there were two buffs to make T3 units shields useful, especially 2018 one. It reduced time to recharge shields & overall regen rate.

2018 year, patch 3696:

Harbringer:
Shield Regen Rate: 9 -> 30
Shield Recharge Time: 63-> 40
Titan:
Recharge Time: 60 -> 15
Regen Rate: 9 -> 20

2020 year, patch 3714:

Titan:
Recharge Time: 15 -> 12
Harbringer. :
ShieldRechargeTime: 40 -> 30

Both of this patches made Titans & Harbs have less health, but faster shield regen, thus upgrading more micro and versatile usage of units.

But there was no similar rebalance of Obsidian, which would perfectly fit him. Let's compare shield stats:
Unit: shield health/regen/recharge time
Obsid: 1500/+2 ./75
Titan: ...700/+20/12
Harb: 1000/+30/30

The obsidian has the strongest shield, yet the weakest regen. And so much so, that if obsidian's shield is damaged down to 10, it will take him 1490/2 = 745 seconds, more than 12 minutes to regenerate!

Recharge time is broken as well, since it buffs regen speed disproportionally. If unit's shield completely destroyed, it gets recharging instead of regenerating. And recharing is effectively faster per second than regenerating. Let's how much.

For Titan & Harb the difference between regen and recharge is not very big. 700/12 = +58.3 effective shield regen per second for TItan instead of +20, 2.9x times difference. 1000/30=33 effective shield regen per second for Harbringer, 1.1x times difference (small 10% bonus).

If obsidian's shield is destroyed completely, it gets fully replaced after 75 seconds. It means that shield recharge effectively gives obsidian 1500/75 = +20 regen per second instead of 2, 10x the difference!

So obsidian either need to get his shield destroyed completely to get a new one in a 75 seconds or wait more than 12 minutes for natural regen. It makes little sense for this unit to have a shield with current values, it could be just raw 2750 health unit.

I suggest to considerably buff shield regen for this unit. In order to not make it OP, up energy drain & reduce shield health:

Obsidian
Power Drain: 10 -> 25
Shield: 1500 -> 1200
Shield Regen Rate: 2 -> 12
Shield Recharge Time: 75-> 60

This rebalance would also make Obsidian reflect overall game philosophy "save damaged units that have shields, they will regenerate quickly" we have in balance for a few years already.

Alternative proposition for Nomander (copied from Discord). Losing 300 HP is also too much so we can try to go for something that keeps its HP but makes the regen more comparable to recharge:

Shield Regen Rate: 2 -> 9

@sainserow said in Make obsidian shield regen useful:

The obsidian has the strongest shield, yet the weakest regen. And so much so, that if obsidian's shield is damaged down to 10, it will take him 1490/2 = 745 seconds, more than 12 minutes to regenerate!

There is a hotkey you can add to dispell a shield so you can recharge it instead of regen it

@theweakie Can I? Which hotkey? What's it called?

@sainserow Check in F1

(Note: by default there's no keybind)

@deletethis It partially helps, but comes with multiple disadvantages (very much hidden from player, doesn’t have a dedicated icon). Though those are problems of different kind.

And doesn’t really solves the problem. Between +2 and +20 there is still huge 10x difference. 75s recharge time is also very long and discourages manual shield recharge. Because risking having no shield at all will be scary even for those 1-out-20 players who knows about this hotkey.

Adjusting shield regen rate would give more gradual fix of the problem. 10 remaining hp on the shield is extreme, where discharge is more beneficial. But having 700-1100 hp on the shield remains isn’t pleasant nor for regen rate, neither for recharge at their current values.

I don’t actually think the Obsidian’s shield is intended to recharge in real games, notice how it’s much stronger than the shields for the T3 units. The Obsidian’s movement speed is also very slow along with shield recharge which doesn’t facilitate pulling it in and out of battle with micro. I always took it to be a unit which is incredibly tanky but can be circumvented if you cause your opponent to power stall via destroying pgens or forcing bad economy balancing

Moved to the balance discussion area as requested by the poster.

There is a cost difference between t2 and t3, to make the obsidian build able as a t2 it might not have the greatest shield Regen equipment

@sainserow said in Make obsidian shield regen useful:

Alternative proposition for Nomander (copied from Discord). Losing 300 HP is also too much so we can try to go for something that keeps its HP but makes the regen more comparable to recharge:
Shield Regen Rate: 2 -> 9

Honestly I think this idea is even better than my original one since cutting of 300 hp can be indeed too much even in spite of higher shield regen. Maybe it can be balanced with a little bit higher power drain but no hp/shield nerf.