EPTFezvez's' Co-op guide and hero review - Page 27
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Xsyq
143 Posts
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Xsyq
143 Posts
Ramp: Zagara > Raynor > Abathur > Kerrigan > Vorazun > Artanis > Swann > Karax. Disagree that Kerrigan is low on the ramp scale. Once she spawns it's pretty easy to push the first half of most maps with just her, and macroing behind that will get you your army for the rest of the game. Versatility: Abathur > Zagara > Raynor > Artanis > Vorazun > Swann > Karax > Kerrigan Artanis is very high up on the list because Guardian Shell and warp-in speed are so freaking good. At full mastery Shell restores 30% of life and shields and you get 60% stim for 30 seconds on your fresh units, so even if you run into a composition that would normally completely counter yours you can still beat it. I've gone pure dragoon against lib/bc/banshee and won, and tempest/zealot against scourge/viper/bane/ling and won handily. Just make a unit that hits the enemy and you win. Diversity: Abathur > Raynor > Artanis > Karax > Vorazun > Kerrigan > Swann > Zagara Artanis is better than Karax against because of Guardian Shell and Warp-in speed (hereafter referred to as GS and WS). You can make pretty much anything except robo vs air and expect to win, and even then you'll have a chance because you can just make stimmed dragoons. Vorazun also has a bit more variety than Kerrigan imo. You can go Zealot/Archon, Stalker/DT, Void/Corsair, DT/Corsair, or just pure Voids. Kerrigan is stuck with Lings, Hydra/Lurker, or Ultras, maybe some queens or broodlords. Skill: Kerrigan > Raynor > Swann > Karax > Artanis > Zagara > Vorazun > Abathur I think it just might be me sucking at bio that makes me rate Raynor so high, so I will concede the point there. I think managing repair/macro/micro is a bit more complicated as Swann than as Karax, who has a lot of passives that make things easier and is mostly point-and-click (especially when playing tower defense). Abathur has no macro requirement (make two hatches, make units when you want to) and very little micro requirement, so he's definitely at the bottom of the list. Durability: Abathur > Artanis > Karax > Vorazun > Swann > Kerrigan > Raynor > Zagara Hard to quantify between Abathur, Artanis, and Karax, since you can't really get any better than never dying, but I think you've got them in the right order. I think Swann is slightly lower than Vorazun since you really have to factor in the 3 spammable calldowns Vorazun has that stop enemies from killing her. Power: Zagara > Abathur > Swann > Vorazun > Raynor > Artanis > Karax > Kerrigan Zagara is powerful, but only in burst. Abathur's mutalisks don't suicide so they get the high score here. Artanis is only behind Raynor because Spider Mines are so good. I'd invite you to try Whirlwind Zealots vs any ground army sometime, they are better than Shadow Fury DTs in some cases but are much cheaper. It's a tough toss-up between Karax and Kerrigan, but I think the strength of Karax's calldowns wins out in the end. On June 24 2016 16:50 monk wrote: First of all , I think it's pointless to rate commanders at this point with maxed masteries on the non-mutator missions. On non-mutator missions, Abathur clearly dominates the other commanders since he has the highest potential power. Other disagreements: I think it's useful to rank commanders even if it's just for new player reference, and the mutators are sufficiently different that I think any average rating of the commander's performance is bound to be even more inaccurate than this list already is. Kerrigan is harder than Raynor imo. Sure, it seems to be just me thinking the opposite. Mobility should be a category. I don't think that would be a category that conveyed any useful information. Every commander has the ability to respond to anywhere on the map, whether it be calldowns, transports, or teleports. Abathur has Deep Tunnel on both Brutalisks and Swarm Hosts, in addition to 3+ speed roaches on creep and 4 speed mutalisks. He even has nydus networks, not that anyone ever uses them. Finally, co-op is very predicable, even with mutators. An experienced player will be prepared and not need mobility. Abathur is consistently weak in mutators for two reasons: Ramp and Mobility. Yes, Abathur has decent ramp in normal missions, but his ramp is often too slow in mutators where often times, toxic Nests don't work. Abathur also has the worst mobility in the game as he has no calldowns like the other commanders. This is why I say that trying to quantify mutators is bound to be inaccurate. Abathur's core mechanic is biomass. Without it, his units are terrible. Train of the Dead and Bad Weather almost completely break that mechanic. Say one mutator was Rip-field generators everywhere. Would that make Zagara terrible? For that mutation, surely, but not overall, because that's a direct counter to her mechanics. Same with a no-cloaking mutator for Vorazun, or a low-mineral mutator for Raynor, or a mass air mutator for Kerrigan. I don't really see how that makes Abathur consistently weak. He's been able to complete all missions with some support (even Bad Weather) and can carry on First Strike, Time Lock, and War is Hell. Disagree with Zagara's power. Her squishy units make her consistently one of the worst commanders in mutator. Her maxed army is the worst in the game-only Kerrigan is close. There's no way she's as strong as Swann's maxed army or Vorazun's Cosair/DT. Note that Power is not defined as the strongest max army, but as how fast you kill things. Zagara kills things very fast. Mass Goliath isn't that bad. Mass Goliath/Thor is better though. Mass Goliath is the weakest build I see commonly used, so I gave it a 1. I could rate Karax's unupgraded Sentinels a 1, but then every other unit composition would be a 9 or a 10. | ||
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The Bottle
242 Posts
I think Karax is more diverse than Artanis from sheer play styles. Artanis has more unit compositions, but the play styles are all very similar (very deathball-ish). Playing Karax as a tower pusher vs an army-goer is like playing two completely different commanders. And then, you can even do a mix of the two. (On trains I start with towers and transition into a robotics army, with cannon/batteries as my mineral dump... on lock & load I cannon up the locks, and I either go carriers or immortal/sentry.) You can go robo build, pure air build, zealot/sentry mech-stealing build, and with all those you can choose how much to focus on static D versus army. Furthermore, you can make a choice of how far you want to go into the solar forge upgrades. (Do you leave anti-air to the immortals, or calldowns?) | ||
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MrTic
60 Posts
It's because of warping, pylons only for powering buildings and (almost) all units useful in any composition. Has a good start, can reinforce anywhere, can defend anytime and all that doesn't require much macro. After I fill up my probes, I just hotkey all research buildings and almost never look at my base. | ||
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CeaselessDC
5 Posts
Gratz on 90, it really takes a lot of work. For the most part I agree with what you listed, but I just can't agree with a few of your choices. I was under the impression that this discussion is really be about solo efficiency now, given the fact all the missions and mutations are kind of trivial if both players knows what's going on and participate. So I have a few carry/solo oriented suggestions: For kerrigan please try play like I recommended in #507 and see if you still think kerrigan has a hard time dealing with heavy ground mech or air waves. Also I do think lings aren't needed at all with high mastery, and lurkers should just be used for particular situation. Most the time 3-6 omega worms to pop charge ultra+frenzy hydra should be able to kill anything in seconds. Another goodie I forgot to mention if you play this way is that burrow charge send enemy units fly for a brief second, and if you pop ultra from worms, they come out and charge one by one so generally enemy ground units don't a chance to fight back at all, providing hydras good attack window. For Swann I recommend ARES update over beam as when soloing, the warbots with update can solo first shuffle+ third wave, first train+second wave, first thrasher+second wave, expansion in both guarded expansion maps, and with your first 4-6 tank+herc, they can do way more things like break 2nd barrier in chains mission, 2nd thrasher, chains 2nd hybrids, 2nd void shard defense, or with 8 tanks they can kill one of the final thrasher in temple while your goliath killing the other etc... no doubt beam update benefit in a lot of cases too, but ARES update can get you a better economical start which help speed up swann's slow start. For Vorazun black hole duration can be really helpful too, for example when killing pirate ship, when killing bottom train while enemy attack wave is on their way to your expansion, when trying to use fewer units to defend enemy wave when killing 3rd set of void shards, when having to deal with enemies from both side of temple map and so on. | ||
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MrTic
60 Posts
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The Bottle
242 Posts
On June 25 2016 03:46 MrTic wrote: Out of curiosity, why is Raynor considered one of/the best for the Temple map? Because of mech. Spider mines are absolutely broken for this map. And vikings are godlike anti-air, if you need it. If they're heavy ground and you need to push into an area, you can get banshees. (You'll never need them to defend against ground; mines will do everything.) Your comp should be vulture/vikings, or vulture/viking/banshee if they're heavy ground. Make turrets if they're air. You should never need your calldowns to help defend, which means you can take care of the bonus objectives with calldowns alone. It takes effort. It's not nearly as easy to pull off as, say, defending with Karax. But it's ridiculously effective. | ||
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fezvez
France3021 Posts
In the meantime, I just add pretty pictures to the OP | ||
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Xsyq
143 Posts
Kerrigan is really good, but so are Whirlwind Zealots (I really can't emphasize enough how cheap and effective they are), and Artanis simply has better AA options than Kerrigan, so I can't really rank her higher. I think the opposite about Karax. No matter what units you make, your core is always going to be playing wack-a-mole with Orbital Strikes while the rest of your units clean up. @CeaselessDC: I based all ratings off solo play, otherwise the rankings would be a lot more complicated. (8 commanders is 28 distinct pairs to rate.) Please do not mistake me saying Kerrigan has a hard time with me saying it is impossible for Kerrigan. Any wave is beatable with any commander, I just think Kerrigan has the hardest time dealing with certain combinations. Every other commander has better AA than hydras (scourge, marine/viking, mutalisk/devourer, orbital strikes, stim tempest/storm/feedback, corsairs, goliath/thor). Frankly I don't need ARES upgrades to do all those things you mentioned. I usually have tanks and a herc out by the second wave, at which point ARES become irrelevant except for emergency AA. One-shotting everything with beam is far more useful imo. I also don't agree with increased black hole duration. All the examples you mentioned either do not require increased duration in my experience or can be solved more easily with dark pylon range and recall. On June 25 2016 04:04 The Bottle wrote: you can get banshees. get banshees banshees :| BCs 4 lyfe, get that banshee crap out of here. | ||
monk
United States8476 Posts
On June 25 2016 01:31 CeaselessDC wrote: @Xsyq Gratz on 90, it really takes a lot of work. For the most part I agree with what you listed, but I just can't agree with a few of your choices. I was under the impression that this discussion is really be about solo efficiency now, given the fact all the missions and mutations are kind of trivial if both players knows what's going on and participate. So I have a few carry/solo oriented suggestions: For kerrigan please try play like I recommended in #507 and see if you still think kerrigan has a hard time dealing with heavy ground mech or air waves. Also I do think lings aren't needed at all with high mastery, and lurkers should just be used for particular situation. Most the time 3-6 omega worms to pop charge ultra+frenzy hydra should be able to kill anything in seconds. Another goodie I forgot to mention if you play this way is that burrow charge send enemy units fly for a brief second, and if you pop ultra from worms, they come out and charge one by one so generally enemy ground units don't a chance to fight back at all, providing hydras good attack window. For Swann I recommend ARES update over beam as when soloing, the warbots with update can solo first shuffle+ third wave, first train+second wave, first thrasher+second wave, expansion in both guarded expansion maps, and with your first 4-6 tank+herc, they can do way more things like break 2nd barrier in chains mission, 2nd thrasher, chains 2nd hybrids, 2nd void shard defense, or with 8 tanks they can kill one of the final thrasher in temple while your goliath killing the other etc... no doubt beam update benefit in a lot of cases too, but ARES update can get you a better economical start which help speed up swann's slow start. For Vorazun black hole duration can be really helpful too, for example when killing pirate ship, when killing bottom train while enemy attack wave is on their way to your expansion, when trying to use fewer units to defend enemy wave when killing 3rd set of void shards, when having to deal with enemies from both side of temple map and so on. I play exactly like you do with Kerrigan and still struggle with Air/mech. The issue is that her army isn't as durable as Abathur/Karax/Vorazun/Artanis/Swann and isn't as spamable as Raynor/Zagara. You will have a few Hydras shaved off in each wave. I agree with Xsyq that Kerrigan struggles with waves like that more than any other commander struggles with any other waves. | ||
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Alphazeta33
15 Posts
On June 25 2016 06:14 monk wrote: I play exactly like you do with Kerrigan and still struggle with Air/mech. The issue is that her army isn't as durable as Abathur/Karax/Vorazun/Artanis/Swann and isn't as spamable as Raynor/Zagara. You will have a few Hydras shaved off in each wave. I agree with Xsyq that Kerrigan struggles with waves like that more than any other commander struggles with any other waves. I'm at mastery 73 and Kerrigan mass muta is actually very viable now. I go macro hatch at 19, pool & gas at 20, expand and fight with Kerrigan while you macro. All gas goes into Lair > Hive > Kerrigan upgrades > double Spire > +1 attack and unique Muta upgrades. Then when the upgrades are done pop out 20-25 mutas that melt everything. I have all mastery points in Kerrigan damage + gas cost, and use Assimilation Aura as often as possible to keep the gas flowing. You're still gas starved, but waiting for the upgrades and a decent mass of mutas means they're far less likely to die, which means less gas down the drain. Keep them in their own control group from Kerrigan to micro away from storms and infestors. You still suffer vs ravens and viper/scourge, but that's pretty much expected. | ||
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Xsyq
143 Posts
Edit: Let me elaborate a bit more on why Kerrigan's mutas suck and Abathur's make everything else suck in comparison, cause I think it's important. First there's the rather obvious comparison: Abathur's mutalisks can get up to 5x the health, 3x the attack speed, and >25x the life regeneration of Kerrigan's mutas, while hers just cost 70% of what Abathur's do. Fairly obvious imbalance there, but I also want to talk about the relevant builds. With Abathur, you can 2 spine expo (or queen/roach/viper expo on Vermillion or Chain) and build your expo in 24 seconds, plus you have 2x the normal larva production to pump drones with. Kerrigan has to build lings and/or a macro hatch (or just wait for Kerrigan on Vermillion/Chain) with the full 60 second hatch build time and only 1.6x larva production, so she's behind in banking resources from the start. Then, once you have your expansion up, you have to get your spire out and upgrades done. Abathur again has a huge advantage here, with 60% reduced time to morph on Lair, Hive, Spire, and all the upgrades. By the time Kerrigan has Sundering Glaive done, Abathur has already finished RR, VG, and SG, and is working on +1 attack. Finally, Abathur can start pushing with just one mutalisk because they're so ridiculously hard to kill. Kerrigan needs to build up a critical mass before she can even think of attacking with her mutalisks. So what ends up happening is Kerrigan soloing the map until 15 minutes, then you can finally attack with your army that's been doing little else besides sitting in your base. By that time, Abathur has already cleared 75% of the map and is finishing up the mission. TL;DR - Kerrigan Mutas still die too quick, start too slow, require too much gas, and just aren't that great. | ||
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GamerJatt
63 Posts
I feel like some commanders are really gimped on brutal when you can't fast expand. I don't even know what I would do as Karax on this map so I don't even play him on random map Brutal anymore. | ||
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MrTic
60 Posts
 Btw, am I understanding this right - when you deliver a crystal, the timer just resets (it doesn't add additional time)? It makes sense, but I never bothered to pay attention to this lol... | ||
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hellokitty[hk]
United States1309 Posts
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GamerJatt
63 Posts
On June 27 2016 09:20 MrTic wrote: ^ Swann usualy takes some time to get going, you can probably blame the ally for this one Btw, am I understanding this right - when you deliver a crystal, the timer just resets (it doesn't add additional time)? It makes sense, but I never bothered to pay attention to this lol... It adds time per crystal, forgot how much though. | ||
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fezvez
France3021 Posts
On June 27 2016 09:45 GamerJatt wrote: It adds time per crystal, forgot how much though. I think it's 90 seconds. At least for the two first ones. | ||
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MrTic
60 Posts
On June 27 2016 09:32 hellokitty[hk] wrote: Lets discus the fastest way to farm. I've read Lock & Load can be completed in just a few minutes even after the patch that added aditional guards at some locks. But I've never tried it. I wouldn't even if it's doable, it sounds very boring. What other map is timed by player's actions and not by time scripted events? Rifts in Korhal? And the question is, would the faster completion compensate for the 25% random bonus? | ||
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Xsyq
143 Posts
The fastest exp is grinding out Lock n Load with Raynor and Artanis. Raynor drops a marine at the backside of the first three locks while Artanis warps in a zealot, then you spam marines, zealots, and orbital strikes to overwhelm the defenses at the back of the last two locks. You can finish in 3:30 with zerg, 3:40 with protoss, and 4:00 with terran, which gets you more than twice as much exp per minute than grinding Void Thrashing (usually 10 minutes with a good partner). But yes, it is very boring. | ||
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APurpleCow
United States1372 Posts
On June 27 2016 09:09 GamerJatt wrote: Just lost a game on the new map as Swann. My ally wasn't doing much as he was only level 8 but still I thought I should have been able to win it. I rushed out six goliaths and sent them out for the first crystal along with 4 SCVs for repair (and gather). By the time I brought the first crystal back, timer went off... I feel like some commanders are really gimped on brutal when you can't fast expand. I don't even know what I would do as Karax on this map so I don't even play him on random map Brutal anymore. Karax is great on the map. Get solar energy upgrades then mass Sentinel+Energizer, mixing in immortals as the game goes on. As always, save Solar Lance for the attack waves. | ||
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