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Some Ideas to buff Kassad, Analyzing why Kassad is underpowered and proposals to make him better
Doctor X
post 9 Mar 2018, 20:15
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Hi! I am new to this forum and having played SW since it first rolled out, I have noticed Kassad is generally a really underpowered General.

Overall, ShockWave improves the trash pile that Kassad is in the original game. The addition of anti-infantry units (Assasins) and artillery that Kassad lacked in ZH (and seriously crippled him) allows him to fare better in battles than he used to do. Machine Gun Nests, Fundamentalists (a strong anti-vehicle and anti-building unit) and the auto-cloaked Scud Storm are also some useful additions. However, ShockWave still doesnt go far enough and Kassad is still pretty weak: He's stealth might sound exciting but isnt really worth it after all. When it come to buildings, camo netting is kinda expensive and once the cloak is revealed by stealth-detecting units (done really easily by aircraft), the opponet can take note of their locations. Unless he is too dumb and forgets, he can easily remember their location, even if they go cloaked again, because buildings are immobile. So camo netting is pretty useless. The strategy "once a building is detected, sell it and go build it elsewhere" isnt a good remedy for this, because it requires too much time, $$$ and micromanagment. Plus if your whole base gets exposed by aircraft for example, you cant simply sell it all up and build it somewhere else. The auto-cloaking of Scud Storm somewhat improves this disadvantage, because it is difficult to find it in the first place, if the player is smart enough to build it somewhere far away. After it has been noticed however, cloaking becomes useless for the reasons sated before. When it comes to defenses, camo netting is moar useless, because, even if they are auto-cloaked, you dont even need to send a stealth-detecting unit to discover them. Any unit going near them will do the trick, because defenses will attack it and immediately blow their covers off. Then the opponet will be alerted, notice their location, and easily remember it. Even if he is too dumb to remember the exact location of a building, he can always randomly shell its approximate location with artillery or some general's ability, it's not that hard to figure where someone's base is located after all.

However, buildings are not the problem with Kassad. They are a disadvatage for sure, but it's a disadvantage that has to exist in order to add to the game's balance, just like every general that must have a disadvantage of some kind. My main objection is with his units. And it's not his lack of units that troubles me, ie his non-existant heavy tanks. The problem is that the rest of his units dont fit into his strategy: He is supposed to be a stealth General capable of massing units and getting them under the nose of his enemies without getting traced. But nahhh he cant do that. He can cloak all of his buildings with camo netting, but when it come to units, he only get 3-4 cloaked ones (rebels, bikes etc). The rest can only get cloaking through... ughh... "GPS Scrambler"... This pathetic ability sounds soooo exciting hoorrayy imma get invisible terrorists and tankz. Except in praxis this ability is dramatically limited. First, its area of effect is so small, it can only cloak about 5-6 infantry, and even less if spacious vehicles are blended in. To make matters worse, its cooldown is extremely, tragically long. In ZH, it was on every 3 minutes. In ShockWave it's on every 4 minutes, if I am not mistaken. Pls tell me why??? Like, Scud Storm that is a super power with destructive capabilites far greater than the ~5 units that a GPS Scrambler can cloak, takes 5 minutes and a GPSS 3-4. Couple the small radious with the sluggish cooldown and all Kassad can get is a handful of cloaked units every blue moon. That means Kassad's strategy "stealth" is pretty much negated (or shall I say, is "non-existant") as he cannot cloak units efficiently and he is forced to fight with an uncloaked-units-majority army, that lacks both stealth (that was supposed to make it powerful) and heavy firepower.

Shockwave's goal was to make the game be how it may have been, had Electronic Arts not chainsawed the development time, am I right? While the goal I think had been accomplished brilliantly concerning all Generals, when it comes to Kassad, I think it hasnt. How can Kassad be a Stealth general if he cant use stealthed units and structures effectively?

So in my humble opinion, some tweaks must be made to make Kassad more playable. I think these things below would help:
1) Make Kassad's defenses be able to switch on and off their auto-attacks. This may sound weird and useless at first, but think about it: As I have analyzed above, Kassad's defenses may by cloaked by default but once a unit gets near them they start attacking automatically and get exposed to the enemy instantly. In the beginning, players usually send cannon fodder infantry and fast vehicles to scout. This means that Kassad's defenses get easily discovered early on and afterwards no player is too dumb to forget where they're approximately located.
If however his defenses are capable of turning off their auto-attacks, they will be kept from exposing themselves. This will prove extremely useful in the early game, when opponets will send their cannon fodder scouts and Kassad's defenses will withhold their fire, meaning their positions will not be found out by enemy. They wont waste their cloaks fighting weak units and will be kept hidden until much later in the game, when more threating units come by. Then they can switch their attacks on, "surprising" and ambushing the enemy, who may have not known of their existance if he hadnt used stealth-detecting units. Since I have some modding skills, I was able to test it (albeit in ZH only) and it worked smoothly! I lured a swarm of my friend's stronk Overlordz into a wall of stinger sites he never knew was there and boom! Afterwards I sold them all off and rebuilded them somewhere else, while he was left wasting his gen's abilities on an empty space.

2) Buff GPS Scrambler. 3-4 minutes cooldown is wayy to much. You can reduce it to like 1.30 or 1 minute. I was also able to test it (1 min, albeit in ZH only) and it didnt seem op. Kassad simply got a lot more cloaked units at his disposal. Which is supposed to happen, because he is the freakin Stealth General. Also, as noted here http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/GPS_Scrambler#Normal GPS Scrambler was supposed to have 3 different levels in general's powers (just like Repair for example), each one further increasing the area of effect. This was left out in ZH, leaving us stuck with a really limited version of it. I was surprised that in ShockWave this was not improved, but it seems we are stuck with the same limitation too. Bringing back this scrapped feature and coupling it with a reduced to 1-1.30 min cooldown would greatly benefit Kassad, solving his lack of stealth units (his lack of heavy firepower was fortunately addressed in ShockWave. He may still not have access to heavy tanks, but this is part of his intended disadvantages)

3) Reduce the build time of Hijackers, so Kassad can spam them a bit more often and get access to the heavy tanks that he lacks in late game

4)Make Sneak attack available earlier and also make it stealthed

This post has been edited by Doctor X: 9 Mar 2018, 20:30
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ZunZero97
post 24 Mar 2018, 10:13
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A Legendary Fox
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i dont think Kassad is low-performance he actually have good kit to deal his enemies, personally i liked the rocket sniper, is so good. Maybe he doesnt have good armor, but is very versatile-guerilla-ambush.
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