Commander power creep

http://zero-k.info/Forum/Post/171882#171882

quote: Base health per level before the change: Strike: 2500 - 2500 - 3000 - 4000 - 5000 - 6000 Recon: 1650 - 1650 - 2100 - 2600 - 3100 - 3600 Support: 2000 - 2000 - 2500 - 3000 - 3700 - 4500 Guardian: 3000 - 3000 - 3800 - 4900 - 6000 - 7200 Base health per level after the change: Strike: 3200 - 3200 - 3800 - 4600 - 5500 - 6400 Recon: 2400 - 2400 - 2800 - 3200 - 3600 - 4000 Support: 2800 - 2800 - 3400 - 3800 - 4500 - 5000 Guardian: 3600 - 3600 - 4400 - 5500 - 6600 - 7600 Increased Peashooter DPS by 14%. Peashooter is now better at hitting raiders. Starting health increased by ~800. This increase is reduced to ~400 by level 6. Details below. Speed module (+10% speed) now costs 100 health.

https://zero-k.info/Forum/Post/204300#204300

quote: Strike 3200/3200/3800/4600/5500/6400 -> 4200/4200/4600/5200/5800/6400 Guardian 3600/3600/4400/5500/6600/7600 -> 4400/4400/5000/5700/6600/7600 Support 2800/2800/3400/3800/4500/5000 -> 3800/3800/4000/4300/4600/5000 Recon 2400/2400/2800/3200/3600/4000 -> 3250/3250/3400/3600/3800/4000

There was an update which made the lvl3 morph much more expensive.
Then there was an update that added the much more powerful beam laser to lvl1 commanders.

As you can see:
Two times in a row, early game coms have been buffed and commorphing has been nerfed.

We are currently dealing with a problem where Recon is really the only viable (non troll) chassis.
In both of these updates, Recon got the biggest HP % increase.

Well... from the format of the post you might get the feeling that it was better before.
And well...
For some reference:
Before the first update the only used non-troll chassis were Recon and Engi.
Engi was suprisigly common, and I had no idea why. (I still don't.) The build range was not worth the low speed imo.
I remember that you could easily kill an lvl1 engi com with 3 bandits. The other coms needed 5 bandits.
Com morphing was widely considered a bad idea. Of course, that didn't stop anyone from making them. Dgun Trollcoms and the old high range high speed morphers were about equally as common.
I used to make lichos to deepstrike into enemy territory to kill their engi coms in 1 hit.

After the update, people used the coms about the same. But there were some gradual changes.
Slowly, Recon com started being more popular and Engi less popular.
Non-Dgun trollcoms stopped being a thing. (Pretty sure the update which made lvl3 morphs more expensive was the nail in the coffin)
In 1v1s, people were more courageous with their coms.

And after the latest update:
Engi com is unused, just like Guardian.
Coms are way too hard to kill. Some light antiheavies (Scalpel, Krow) were hit pretty hard by this.
Morphing is for dgun trollcoms only. You also can rarely see a recon com with disruptor bomb.
In 1v1s, coms are a very hard to kill. A commander death in also much more impactful.

Note: All of these updates made commorphing less effective per metal spent. With the massive early game increases to HP, you see almost no increase in late lvl HP, making morphing even worse.

Now, I have some suggestions, but I first need to know if poeple actually feel the same way.
So I have some questions for the community and GoogleFrog.
How do you feel about the powerful early game coms? Are they too hard too kill?
What do you think about the multiple nerfs to commorphing?
Is Guardian/Engineer chassis even viable?
Could we compensate for Recon's jump (useful of offense, defense and eco) by making it fragile?
( Something like 2000 - 2000 - 2500 - 3000 - 3700 - 4500)
Should we make non-dgun morphed commanders more viable?

I kind of preferred the old easy to kill commanders. I'd like to see the harder to kill properties get pushed onto lv 2 or 3 so investing in the first two levels becomes more viable.

Ok, I wrote most of this post before the balance change, but my points still stand.

quote: Some light antiheavies (Scalpel, Krow)

I meant units which are effective against the heavy ~4000HP units, but are pretty bad against the 12000 HP striders.

you do realize that by old standards coms are still pretty damn weak

and 2k metal heavy will absolutely wipe the floor with any com morf

it used to be that coms were mostly balanced with units

but then certain players would play only com micro. and it worked...
then the devs "decided" that isn't how you should play game

hence we are here

comms should be slightly worse than regular units per cost as there is less stuff to micro, but they shouldn't be this shit. thinking of learning lua so i can fix this cancer

so do minotaurs...

to be fair
early game comms are now boss, late game they are total trash

Seems drone addition is pretty large buff for guardian trollcoms especially in lubster ranks. Morphed guardian now counter ultis, infis, skitles and in some situation cant be stopped and win by attrition. Of corse its on lubster rank.