is anyone doing good with alarak? it seems like he is a pretty weak hero with his army not having any sustain or aoe damage. maybe im not playing him right but he just seems meh to me.

AlphaPancake

19 Posts

September 15 2016 03:54 GMT

I've only played him to level 5 or so, but I am really enjoying him. I particularly like the robo units, especially with the reversed roles; wrathwalkers do insanely high single target damage (like 120 damage per shot, ground and air with an upgrade), and vanguards do AOE (128 damage AOE, if I did the math correctly). The immortal is one of my favorite units of protoss in general, so that twist is neat to me. I think the havoc is cool because it increases the range of your range units (wrathwalkers now have 11 range!!) and increases the damage done by all of your units to a single target by 15%. Very powerful, I think. I also like the suplicant, as it feels similar to Zagara's swarm; spawns in pairs, low damage, low health, only there to meatshield/support the other units.

All in all, I'm really enjoying him!

Amui

Canada10567 Posts

September 15 2016 04:26 GMT

On September 15 2016 11:14 SwiftRH wrote:
is anyone doing good with alarak? it seems like he is a pretty weak hero with his army not having any sustain or aoe damage. maybe im not playing him right but he just seems meh to me.

His anti-ground army is one of the strongest in the game once upgraded with long range vanguards that will evaporate anything other than hybrids, and when empowered he can destroy entire armies in a single destruction wave.

He relies on the hero more than any of the other commanders, both to tank damage and to deal it with 50 damage AoE, and sniping key targets while also keeping stuff locked down.

His anti air sucks balls while the empower ability is down though. Maybe once I get upgrade ascendants that'll change, but it ascendants seem almost impossible to keep alive atm.

tokinho

United States792 Posts

September 15 2016 21:47 GMT

The new micro is fun as hell. I love all of the abilities. The alarak vorazun mission was one of the best in LOTV. Now I get to mess around with alarak in co-op. Just epic gameplay. Co-op is fun because there is a lot less macro and just a lot of new and interesting micro. And the warp prism micro <3 Thanks soooooooo much blizzard. Alarak is one of my favs.

I wish all the commanders had a controllable hero.

Ouga

Finland645 Posts

September 15 2016 23:54 GMT

I'd say he's one of the strongest heroes now. Ironically while he feels the most amove hero in game, skill cap is also the highest if you go for ascendants (which I wouldn't suggest before lev12+). But he has many styles, only one thing is common is making few havocs and tons of supplicants and 1a over everything while microing Alarak. What you have behind that is either mass immo, colo or ascendants depending on map and comps - immos would not work vs. heavy air. Robostyles definitely off 2 robos.

FeyFey

Germany10114 Posts

September 16 2016 00:12 GMT

push back + forcefields are rawr <3 .

riotjune

United States3393 Posts

September 16 2016 02:08 GMT

4.99? But that's like almost 5 cheeseburgers (excluding tax).

Zedd

Czech Republic107 Posts

September 16 2016 09:43 GMT

Insanely OP, on par or even better than Karax, will be probably nerfed soon

His true power comes from ascendants/supplicants, so this will be your endgame comp. Collosus/sentry/immortal combo also viable if player is not proficient enough to control spellcaster only army.

DrSeRRoD

United States490 Posts

September 16 2016 13:05 GMT

They also nerfed him from the Gamescom version. He doesn't feel significantly more powerful than every other commander, though with the Vorazun changes, I can see him being one of the top-tier 'offensive' pushing heroes for mutations and clearing easily with a small group, similar to Kerrigan. His skins and voice alone are enough to make him top-tier.

Mkers_SC2

United Kingdom31 Posts

September 16 2016 15:46 GMT

#10

Ive been levelling him, generally running 7gate 2robo Supplicants and Wraithguard with some Havocs and 2x Warp Prisms as support.

He is a true protoss deathball!

imJealous

United States1382 Posts

September 16 2016 19:23 GMT

#11

He's a fantastic hero.

Him plus a small group of supplicants early on is even stronger than kerrigan early game.

His base defense ability is fantastic, especially with the mastery upgrades for it at 15.

Once you've unlocked everything, his army has no particular weakness... supplicants do most of the dying for you while you build up your choice of wrath walkers or ascendants.

His lack of mobility and inability to split his forces is mitigated by the summon death fleet ability. Not only does it let you summon a force anywhere you can see, but with some skill and preparation you can also use the mothership to teleport your army to key positions.

For example: I was playing the tug of war map where you have to push the protoss into the pit with a Vorazun ally and the bonus objective spawned way deep behind enemy lines...
- Vorazun summoned his temporary DTs and just suicide ran them around the edge of the map into the bonus objective area.
- I summoned the deathfleet on top of our combined army
- I used the mothership's teleport ability to transport both our armies to his DTs that made it to the bonus objective
- We killed the objective
- I used the mothership teleport to port our armies back to a probe and pylon I had waiting next to the dueling protosses.

While he is super death-bally, his reliance on ascendants really makes him rather fun to control and keeps him from being just an a-move blob like most death balls feel in the late game.

He's also not snow-bally like say Abathur... What I mean is that even if you do screw up and suffer a major loss, you can get back into it fairly quickly by summoning some new ascendants and supplicants to power them. And along that line, he's actually pretty ok at responding to emergencies if its small enough that you can take care of it with a few fresh ascendants since they spawn with full energy.

All and all I think he's an A+ new character. A little bit singular in his play style options, but its a very good, polished play style with enough depth to keep it interesting.

BEARDiaguz

Australia2362 Posts

September 17 2016 02:45 GMT

#12

He's very strong, perhaps a wee bit too much. It's like if Kerrigan had good units. And could summon some Airtoss on occasion.

Xsyq

143 Posts

September 17 2016 20:57 GMT

#13

I definitely agree that Alarak is one of the stronger commanders for all the reasons stated in this thread. However, my main problem with him is that he's fairly boring to play. When I pick him I feel like I'm just playing Artanis with Kerrigan instead of Guardian Shell minus the ability to make air. No matter what units you end up making as Alarak you're just going to end up with a big slow deathball that you move to the objectives and win. Abathur on the other hand has a completely unique core mechanic and several different builds that play very differently, which is why I enjoyed him so much. Alarak's core mechanic of sacrifice is unique lore-wise but falls very flat in-game. It doesn't matter if Alarak kills your units or the enemy kills your units, you still have to remake them either way.

PinoKotsBeer

Netherlands1385 Posts

September 17 2016 22:17 GMT

#14

It;s a fun hero to play, really enjoying it. I like the skin of the units as well

Hockleberry

63 Posts

September 18 2016 18:06 GMT

#15

I am really enjoying Alarak. I played only with Karax and Swann...so this is my first time playing one of the hero-based commanders and it has been a blast!!!

Playing around with all the new units has been a lot of fun, but the artwork is so good and so immersive...also the lines Alarak have the same feel as the campaign. Nice Job Blizzard!!

Tachion

Canada8573 Posts

September 19 2016 00:28 GMT

#16

I find Alarak to be pretty fun, I just can't decide if hes actually strong or not. His lategame deathball is definitely great, it's just very slow and takes a long time to reach the right mix of units and upgrades.
I like trying to make my ascendants as powerful as possible. Fun having guys that do 700 dmg spell nukes with 1000 shields and high damage aoe. Everything just disappears.

zyce

United States649 Posts

September 19 2016 01:42 GMT

#17

I'm not a big fan of the hero-based commanders. Alarak is a fun change of pace, and I think they got his power level done pretty well. I like that he scales with player skill quite a lot, and I just love playing with Havocs.

Quateras

Germany867 Posts

September 19 2016 12:13 GMT

#18

After reaching Masteries I'd put Alarak in the top leagues together with Vora and Karax, definetely top Tier.

What i love the most about Alarak tho is definetely what zyce mentioned above, Alarak scales insanely with how well of a player you are.Which is also the reason why i enjoy him the most at the moment , the more you play him the better you become as a player, as its really taxing on your APM.
Its a super fun Commander to play that is more enjoable than any other Hero to me.

Highways

Australia6103 Posts

September 22 2016 13:49 GMT

#19

alarak has weak anti air

Icysoul

Canada254 Posts

September 22 2016 16:01 GMT

#20

Ascendents sacrifice CD should be looked at imo. For how well they scale, they scale a little too fast. Increase CD so they still fulfill their end-game fantasy but it should take a little more time to get there.

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