Possible better abilities for the Dark Pylon

Hey guys I know it's really annoying when people post all of these crazy ideas. Although this is my first post, I have been browsing these boards for almost a year and have come up with several ideas. Most of the time I just stay quiet but I had this idea since the first dark pylon was introduced and thought it would be a good idea to share it. So here it is:

The dark pylon should provide psi just like a regular pylon, but with no psi field. However it's ability should go hand in hand with the nullifier's hallucination so that it can expend energy (around 75-100 energy) to look llike another structure of choice for a limited amount of time (around 15 seconds). It would also have the same size until the effects are over. This ability will not change the hit point stats but if the structure were to come under attack the stats would appear as if it were the real structure. However once the 200/200 shield/hp points are at zero it would be destroyed.

Also the dark pylon should be able to phase in and out similar to the old phase cannon, but at the cost of energy per unit of length traveled.

Another mechanic I think would be good is a shroud ability. This ability should be able to increase the fog of war in a large area around the pylon so that enemy scouts would only be able to see around a range of 2 around itself. It should cost around 25 energy to activate and 5 energy per second while it is active.
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Think of the new strategies this could bring versus the current dark pylon. The halucinated builds would allow fake builds including fake fast expands. With the energy requirements, the protoss player would only be able to cast the ability once or maybe twice consecutively. So the fake build can still be scouted if the opponent can keep their scout alive long enough. This is definitely possible because the protoss first line of defense is usually a melee unit.

Also the shroud and movement ability can keep the dark pylon useful even in the late game. A pylon can be built or moved into a battle field to limit an opponents intel by creating shroud.

Let me know what you guys think, and don't be afraid to tell me the idea is absurd. Thanks for reading this guys.

 

I don't quite understand the first part. What do you mean by "with no psi field?"

The shroud ability actually sounds pretty cool, provided it only affects enemies. I'd find it funny to watch an enemy attack a protoss base, only to "have the lights turned out" on em and watch their forces be decimated.

 

What he meant by 'no psi field' is the area around the pylon so buildings can be built but without it.

And what is the actual use of the movement ability? it doesn't really give the depth to the game when moving the pylon around while it can just cast AoE spells on workers and invisibility on units.

 

Kaaraa - MarineCorp explained it quite well. It would not be able to power Protoss structures the way a normal pylon would.

MarineCorp - It is kind of a shallow ability, but I was thinking along the lines making the abilities useful for late game. So shroud could be used out in the battlefield. I should have been more specific.

 

So your idea is to make it so that it doesn't power buildings, and allow it to be a trickster type unit? but still have it increase the amount of protoss units you can have?

 

Yes, that was what I was thinking. Maybe the dark pylon is the best choice for this ability, but I really like this fake BO ability. Combined with the nullifier hallucination ability and it could be very cool.

 

I trhink without the psi field, would it really still be a pylon? Because it doesnt provide power, but still provides food..The shroud idea is quite good, LOL @ Karaa's statement 'the lights turned out', that'd be hilarious!!! Hopefully they do this so i can laugh my head off trying this out!!!

 

Dark pylon you say?? i say let it have an alternate aura like dark argus field - drains 10 psi shield energy for non Dark-side protoss unit (which of course means it will also affect youj for the double edge if used unwisely)

Other than that i better leave it alone since Theres nothing that much special to a dark pylon anyway haha... is it the color? or is it just me! - Zerg rules!

 

Does it preeeetty much look the same except darker/black like?

 

The Dark pylon



bigger and seems to have crystals floating around it and also a greenish blue color instead of sky blue

Original pylon



Smaller and sky blue in color

As for different abilities it seems the dark pylon already has really good abilities.

 

Ty, must look at those pics once I get on MY computer at home tomorrow...Am on a school computer and its sooo bad it cant see those images xD. The abilities seem alright but i think that the nexus should get the ability Proton Charge, so that you dont need to build another building that has near nothing to do with probe's. Make it so that maybe it costs shield points so that you dont use it all the time. Sounds like a good idea to me

 

Personally I kind of liked the original plan to make it emit a cloaking field, before it got axed and the MS got that ability. Anyways here's my idea:

The Dark Pylon forces fog of war in its range. What this means is any non-detector unit will see the area as if it were still in the fog of war, even if it is within sight range. What this means is, any hostile troop movements are hidden, as normal with fog of war, any buildings that were seen on the last scouting run will still be shown, but the status will not be, Essentially, you know where the building is, but not what it is doing or even if it has been destroyed yet. So you can bombard a line of cannons, but not know when they are gone, and you can't be sure that that gateway you saw on the last run has been turned into a warp gate.

Bringing in a detector will push back the fog of war, of course, giving you a full view of the area under the dark pylon. Also it won't n a cloak exactly, though it will obscure units, due to how the fog of war works, you will still be able to target buildings once scouted, though if you keep firing on the ruins of a building you only thought was there, you will waste firepower.

Of course a ordinary cloak would be fine I guess.
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Also The Dark Pylon shouldn't just be a cloaking unit, it should also provide, either psi, or power.

 

Personally I kind of liked the original plan to make it emit a cloaking field, before it got axed and the MS got that ability. Anyways here's my idea:

The Dark Pylon forces fog of war in its range. What this means is any non-detector unit will see the area as if it were still in the fog of war, even if it is within sight range. What this means is, any hostile troop movements are hidden, as normal with fog of war, any buildings that were seen on the last scouting run will still be shown, but the status will not be, Essentially, you know where the building is, but not what it is doing or even if it has been destroyed yet. So you can bombard a line of cannons, but not know when they are gone, and you can't be sure that that gateway you saw on the last run has been turned into a warp gate.

Bringing in a detector will push back the fog of war, of course, giving you a full view of the area under the dark pylon. Also it won't n a cloak exactly, though it will obscure units, due to how the fog of war works, you will still be able to target buildings once scouted, though if you keep firing on the ruins of a building you only thought was there, you will waste firepower.

Of course a ordinary cloak would be fine I guess.
I also think it should be a passive ability.

Other ideas would be an ability that makes buildings less susceptible to damage, or a phasing field that allows all buildings inside the field to phase out and move around. When phased out, the armor drops to zero, and the hitpoints become very small, also the building can't leave the phasing field, this means if the dark pylon is destroyed without another close enough to still cover the building, it goes poof. You could then use pylons to power your base, and dark pylons to rearrange it, which might give some extra dependability, by reacting to threats, and moving defenses, or retreating buildings,

Note, however, that this won't be the same as Terrans buildings flying around, they will still be freely attackable by melee units, they will be much weaker, and they not only have to deal with impassable terrain, but they will also be restrained by the power and phasing fields (the power field won't be needed to move around, but planting a building in an area without power won't be that useful, unless it happens to be a pylon.)

 

That sounds veeeeeery good to me BoP!

 

Very cool BirdofPrey, so it is basically a wide AoE passive Optic Flare that causes all enemy ground units to have extremely small sight. This can prevent Changeling scouts from taking a peek if you place several Dark Pylons around here and there, while balancing it by allowing Air units/detectors to retain Line of Sight.

I think while units are under this effect, the Dark Pylon responsible should reveal itself in a small sight circle, inside that Fog of War. It will return to fogged when units exit the field's range.

Question, do the Protoss player himself get affected by this?


-Psi

 

The shroud idea is pretty nice, though the one where you can transform the dark pylon into some other building, I find that kind of useless. For example you transform it into a photon cannon. What then, most of the people that are attacking your base, will then focus on the transformed dark pylon. But the shroud ability is interesting, though then you will be using that ability only if you just build those dark pylons randomly on the map, and then when you see an enemy shroud it. Not the easiest thing to do if you have more then one pylon.

 

I like the first person's abilities better
The AoE Fog of War ability would seem too easy to figure out a dark pylon and the other player would just be get dection fast.
Also its not very realistic

 

Shouldn't a Dark Pylon be a darker color? Why would a dark pylon have a light color?

 

I guess thats ur opinion...

 

I love this idea. But the only problem with this is you have to give a similar ability to the terran, and the zerg. Or it's not balanced, and blizzard will never do it. But if you can do that, then we will have a better chance of seeing it. The ability reminds me of the Gap Generator in Red Alert 1 and 2.