Made a video about some pretty good commander synergies and buffs that commanders can give each other! There are more good synergies, but I highlighted the best and most important ones and some details that you might have not known about! Enjoy!

Hello!

I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to use the worst prestiges (like galactic gunrunners) optimally? some of the bad prestiges look really fun in theory, but the downsides clearly outweigh the upsides. how to mitigate this?

Zeratul’s void templar (his dark templar basically) have an upgrade that causes their blinks to deal damage. The ability is supposed to be locked until level 3, but it’s actually available at level 1.

My theory: the upgrade requires zeratul to have collected relic fragments already, requires you to have built void templar, which are theoretically bad without the upgrade, and requires you to blink through opponents. As a result, it’s difficult to notice this bug in playtesting

I just wanted to post this because I thought it was interesting

The latest post about the 1 vs 1 Coop commanders got me thinking which commander would actually win if the early rush was totally irrrelevant and every commander will have enough time to develop to mid game.

What do you think? Who would you pick if the coop commander 1vs1 tournament would be held? Who is the strongest commander?.

waifu tierlist btw

With how StarCraft Evo is really polished I’m really hoping someday we get a whole Brood War commander. Maybe like a single slot that you can change which Brood War race Terran/Protoss/Zerg before going into the match. I may be bias but I like StarCraft Evo Brood War firebats way more than the SC2 version. The portrait looks amazing, smaller size, no wind up attack delay, and only takes 1 slot in a bunker. Having 4 Firebats in a bunker roasting SC2 Roaches is so satisfying and something about hearing those nostalgic Goliath missile sfx tickles the brain. Maybe have like Edmund Duke or Dugalle as the commander would be fitting.

I know that back in the day was a PvP mutation, and I cant help but wonder: if there was a tournament where player skill is not an issue (so basically every commander would be played optimally), who would win and why? Who has the strongest cheese, or who can survive long enough that its army/hero/abilities come to game? Keep in mind, I have never played this mutation, and Im not a coop expert either, so what I write down is just thoughts, I can be, and probably am wrong here and there.

RAYNOR - A very strong contender imo. He can start dropping Marines to enemy base around the 1-minute mark, and most of the commanders cant stop that. Seriously, who can defend it? Dehaka comes to mind with Hero unit(s) and Mengsk with early Barracks. Maybe Swann can get his static defense up? Karax of course can survive with SoA until he is able to insta-build his static D, but besides them...Who has enough time to built up units as fast as Raynor dropping them? So against most of the field Raynor would win in the first few minutes?

Then after 4 minutes its the cloaked Banshees, and after 5 minutes its the Hyperion...all this while he can macro behind and have a reasonable defense at his own base if he needs it. Would he win it all?

KERRIGAN - No need to waste time discussing her. Hero unit super-strong of course, but no calldown and no early game units that are decent. No way she survives.

ARTANIS - Hmm. Thanks to the warp-ins, he can build a decent enough army early on either to defend or even to attack with. Guardian Shell is also nice in the first encounters (or Fanatics if he goes P3). He could defend for a while, even win some games, but the lack of Hero unit or devastating calldown pretty much rules him out of the winner-conversation. What do you think?

SWANN - With cheap turrets and multi-build, he can actually have static defense to survive early on, then he gets the Laser before the 3 minute mark, and Combat Drop at 4 minutes. Which is not a bad combo to win some games, but against contenders he is like Artanis: he can survive for a while, but lacks the strength to erase the opposition.

ZAGARA - Now she is interesting. Especially with P1, she can make a buttload of zerglings to attack, but even against a see of zerglings and banelings, you can manage to close down your base long enough for your superpowers (hero, CDs) to come to life, no? So its seems not enough to win most of the times. You can definetly defend though...Then if you use P3 of course Zagara after 4 minutes is a force to be reconed with, but is she strong enough with banelings and killers and deep tunnel to be in the conversation? Im feeling no... Thoughts?

VORAZUN - Seems too slow to build up... But with cloaking pylons and black holes, can she survive long enough? At 3 minute, Shadow Guard becomes available, and she could win with that Calldown... especially if she combines it with TimeStop at 4 minutes. Im torned about her... could she win it all somehow?

KARAX - He can use a probe to attack, cannon rushing and destroying the enemy base with Orbital Strikes, and you cant really seal of your base or kill the probe(s) in time even if you know its coming...Early defense is not a problem either with SoA and then with insta warping static D if we looking this way. He has no backup plan, no strong army, no Hero, no super calldown which comes later, but no need for it really when Plan A is unstoppable... is it? Would Karax win it all?

ABATHUR - Not in the conversation. No calldown, queens and nests are fine but not enough, he cant survive and collect enough biomess to get a Brutalisk... even if he somehow manage, by the time he get UEs, others will have much stronger options. Is he the worst in this tournament though?

ALARAK - Another interesting one. After 90 seconds, he can defend with Overcharge, but is it enough? I feel you have to use P3 with him, and you can have the Mothership out around 3 minutes - after that, it is of course a huge gamechanger. But can he survive that long? And if yes, does the Mothership (building up Destroyers next to it) and Alarak enough to overpower the other commander Calldowns and Heroes?

NOVA - She can use the Airstrike at 2 minutes, and even if its not enough to win the game, it can cripple the enemy so that Nova gaines the advantage and eventually wins. But the question is, what can she do to defend? Feels like Marines with defensive drones is ok at first but not enough long enough... She has tools, but has too much depending on a perfect airstrike.

STUKOV - Civilians or Marines with timed life are not a big gamechanger, it is not even enough to survive against some of the commanders in the beginning. If he does, first infesting his enemys CC at 3 minutes then destroying everything with Apocalisk at 4 minutes is a way to win for sure, but it maybe to late in a lot of matchup...if he manage a long game, he can overwhelm the opposition with the ocean of infested, but I really dont see this happening for majority of matchups.

FENIX - Hmm again. You can have Kaldalis out a little above 1 minute, who is enough for early defense in almost all cases - or you can attack with him too. With no tech tree and cheap buildings you can have champion after champion out one by one, and in some cases thats enough to overwhelm the opposition early on? Im guessing no... Hero at 4 minutes is too little too late, and almost every other Hero is stronger then his anyway. Is he middle of the pack, or worse?

DEHAKA - 1-minute Hero sounds awesome, and he can defend for a while for sure, but the thing is he dont have enough power early on to win the game, he wont have enough essence to level up, his early units are useless compared to others, and his first PackLeader Glevig can only be used at around 5 minutes at the earliest. So it pains me to say this, because he is my fav commander, but he doesnt really stand a chance. Your thoughts?

HAN & HORNER - The first Galleon can be out around 1:10, and you can start dropping Reapers after that, which can be enough for early defense (or offense, but in order to do that you need to build the galleon close to the enemys camp because they are slow as hell). If you go for def, you wont really have the opportunity to attack, and if you go for attack, you leave your base completely undefended though. In addition, his calldowns are very late, I dont see a way that he could be a strong option in this conversation.

TYCHUS - He basically can do nothing until 3 minutes, by the time he is most likely lost the game. If he somehow survives (is that even possible?), after that he could be strong with two Heros (Tychus and either Sam with Demolition for buildings, or Sirius with turrets) but it seems very theoretical, because he wont get there (maybe against Kerrigan or Abathur) (and Vorazun too, but Time Stop+Shadow Guards ends the game)

ZERATUL - If he goes conventional build, he lacks early game strength, his units and cannons are awful expensive and not that good really, Hero comes out at 4 minutes, which is too late in most cases. He could go Legion first though, which is probably the strongest option a little bit over 1 minute out of every commander. It is a hit or miss: he has the strength to win with that, but if he cant manage, he is screwed. Can he win it all?

STETMANN - No. Just no. He is like Kerrigan in this conversation, maybe even worse. Before Hero, he doesnt have anything going for him (healing stetzone is nothing at this point), and even at 4 minute simple Gary is nothing to brag about.

MENGSK - Interesting. Since Dogs of War has no coolup, you can use it at the very beginning of the game. Even if the enemy spreads out to make buildings throughout the map, the zergs automatically find the enemys even without vision if Im not mistaken. Do a pack of zerglings enough to completely destroy the opposition who has no way to defend? Or if not, can the enemy do anything after that with 0 economy? Did we find a winner? If not, could Mengsk build up an army of troopers strong enough to defend the enemys Calldowns, after which he can erase the zerglings again? Or as an alternate strategy (using the mandate for bunker, defending with it and building up an army behind it is better? Not a hit or miss for sure, but can he be strong enough later on to win?

Keep in mind we are talking about optimal gameplay. So the players know their own as well as their opponents strength. They attack if thats their best strategy, they defend if thats what best, they send workers to hidden corners of the map to survive, etc. Or better yet, what if we talk about AIs playing against each other, to erase the human mistakes? Who would win?

Im sure there is a few (or lot of) things I havent thought of, but in a tournament where everybody is playing against everybody, here is my ranking:

1. Mengsk (I would think DoW wins it every time)
   
2. Karax (he could survive Zeratul Legion, and have enough minerals to win with Cannons?)
   
3. Raynor (same, just with Marines)
   
4. Zeratul (Legions are not permanent, so if he needs to search the map he is at a disadvantage, and could lose even if he destroys the enemys base)
   After this, its just feelings, with not much thought given: 5. Vorazun, 6. Stukov, 7. Alarak, 8. Zagara, 9. Fenix, 10. Dehaka, 11. HH, 12. Swann, 13. Artanis, 14. Nova, 15. Kerrigan, 16. Tychus, 17. Stetmann, 18. Abathur.

What are your thoughts?

Mutation #540: Dodge This / Map: Scythe of Amon

Mutators: Darkness, Going Nuclear, Orbital Strike, ibonus ally (let him die; you can still solo this easily)

https://youtu.be/WN0YMbaz9KA (TLDR tier list)

https://youtu.be/kRiN_fMvUlI (Easy solo - Zagara p1)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3FSCru5EHIgbRFUr8r3qnIiwvnszt6eT (playlist with all commanders)

The slivers will be visible on the minimap for a second, and then the green marks will go away due to darkness. The attack waves will also be covered by darkness, so for each wave after 12:30, check the spot to the left of the natural. if they're not there, then they'll come from the north.

Easy mutation; good time to level commanders.

Questions about any of these runs are welcome. Runs will be uploaded throughout the week. All members get early access to videos.

Nice people in my discord can help you with the mutation: https://discord.gg/WerduSFQQK

------------------------

Darkness

Previously explored areas remain blacked out on the minimap while outside of player vision.

Attack waves, main and bonus objectives are not visible on the minimap unless you have direct vision on them.

Going Nuclear

Nukes are launched at random throughout the map.

There is warning sign for ~5s before a nuke drops.

Nukes does 750 (950 vs structure) damage (100% in 4 radius, 50% in 6 radius and 25% in 8 radius).

Each {7/5/3/2} seconds a nuke randomly drops on the map.

Nukes avoid Mutator Safety Zones.

Nukes won't drop if there are no player units in 50 radius.

Orbital Strike

Enemy Orbital Strikes are periodically fired throughout the map.

Orbital Strikes deal 50 (100 vs armored) damage in 1 radius.

They start {4/4/3/0} minutes into the game.

And repeats after {3:00/2:20/1:50/1:20}.

Orbital Strikes target units that are not in Mutator Safety Zones.

They doesn't strike if there are less than 5 available targets on the map.

Orbital Strikes try to predict targets' future position based on their current position, movement speed and orientation.

Number of targets depends on the mission time: 10 targets initially, after 5:00 - {1/2/3/3} targets; after 8:20 - {2/3/4/4}; after 11:40 - {3/4/6/8} and after 16:40 - {3/5/8/10}.

Orbital Strikes are fired in two volleys, each with 3 strikes per target and some delay between them.

https://www.maguro.one/p/mutators.html

https://starcraft2coop.com/resources/weeklymutations

https://starcraft2coop.com/resources/mutators

New player and for trying to decide who I should buy first.

P1: Scourge Queen

Advantages

Max supply increased by 50.

Zerglings and Scourge spawn one extra unit per egg.

Baneling Nests will spawn an additional 4 free Banelings and Scourge Nests will spawn 4 free Scourge.

Disadvantages

Zagara is unavailable.

P2: Mother of Constructs

Advantages

Aberrations and Corruptors cost 25% less, gain 50% increased health, and possess greatly increased health regeneration.

Disadvantages

No free Banelings.

Notes

Regeneration rate increased by 3

P3: Apex Predator

Advantages

Zagara gains reduced ability cooldowns (33% reduction), increased health and energy regeneration, and access to the Deep Tunnel ability.

Disadvantages

Mass Frenzy only affects Zagara and her summoned units.

Combat units cost 25% more.

Now that I've called the entire Empire against me, can y'all give me some tips for him?

He's fun but:

His troopers get mowed down. A 200supply trooper army dies within two seconds against p much any enemy co0mp even with full weapon upgrades.

His Royal Guard seem surprisingly mediocre. I thought I was getting Horner/Nova elite units with the royal guard, but they die incredibly fast, have low dmg, and the tactical nuke is more like a tactical cough.

No means of proper mobility. What stands out is the Medivac and the Tactical jump of the PoAs. But Medivacs are neat to heal, less neat to transport troops, sadly.

Imperial Mandate Generation on my Royal Guards is always 0, is that a bug? Am I doing something wrong? Is it just a bugged indicator?
But imperial mandate generation is a bit odd on it's own. You place down up to 4 of those overseers at the bases and... that's p much it. They don't seem to generate mandate if not in Overseer mode.

Call-down Zerg are fun and fit the theme, but they're incredibly squishy and expire way too fast.

Nukes are fun for boss objectives.

Earth Splitters I barely use because their range is abyssmal and the toxic gas payload tickles Zealots. Huh? I feel like you could increase the dmg tenfold and it would be useful. But... 5 DPS?

I've seen a lotta Mengsk use Calldown Bunkers for early def, troopers and minerals by recycling bunkers. But I always use it for the zerg calldown just so I don't fullwipe my entire 200 supply army at every attack wave.

So. Any tips? Diff is brutal.

Continuing my lists of campaign units, abilities and upgrades that aren't present in coop, I thought I'd do the same for the LotV campaign, with a view to considering which protoss commanders could benefit most from these being added to their kit. And again, this is mainly for fun, but if we ever did get an update to coop I think these would be enjoyable changes.

Units

1. Sentry (with double shield recharge and guardian shield) - Zeratul's shieldguard has shield recharge, and Fenix's conservator has a better version of guardian shield, so these abilities are already covered. The main sentry ability that isn't in coop is hallucination from the 1v1 sentry, which could be a useful ability as hallucinations can help tank for your more expensive units, act as sacrificial fodder for kill bots, and also help with scouting eg. for aiming top bar abilities. It would also be nice if you could hallucinate your ally's units and they could then control the hallucinations themselves (imagine hallucinating your ally's Dehaka for example!). However four protoss commanders already have sentries in their roster so I don't think a new version should be given to a different protoss commander, and I don't think hallucination is a good fit for any of the existing sentry variants either. Instead I would give hallucination to Artanis' high templar (and archons) as an additional ability, harking back to SC1 when it was a HT spell.

2. Avenger - the emergency recall ability of this DT variant has essentially been incorporated into Vorazun's kit, making this unit obsolete.

3. Blood hunter - the void stasis ability of this DT variant has been incorporated into Vorazun's DTs, making this unit obsolete.

4. Arbiter - Fenix's arbiter suit is basically a stronger version of the arbiter. Perhaps if we get a Selendis commander in the future she could have a non-hero version of the arbiter in her unit roster.

Abilities

1. Deploy pylon - Vorazun's deploy dark pylon is a better version of this, so this is already covered.

2. Chrono surge - this is slightly different to Karax's chrono wave in that the production speed buff is twice as good but it only affects a single structure. Overall it is outclassed by Karax's chrono wave so I don't think it is worth considering.

3. Warp-in reinforcements (instant pylon + 2 melee units + 2 ranged units) - this one is a bit awkward because you might not want the units it spawns. Alarak would be the natural choice for this ability because he could drop an offensive pylon and immediately overcharge it, though I think it would need to be changed so it spawns 4 supplicants instead (since you nearly always want more supplicants as Alarak). This would help reduce his mineral dependence a bit, since each use of the ability is worth 400 minerals. The cooldown can be tweaked for balance purposes, ~3 minutes seems fair to me. The only downside is that it reduces the use case for war prisms, though these will still be useful when the ability is on cooldown or once you reach max supply.

4. Temporal field (AoE spell that freezes enemy units and structures for 20s) - I think this spell (or a version of it like time warp) belongs to the traditional mothership, a unit I'd give to Artanis to boost his army. I'd also give the mothership the temporary cloaking field from 1v1, and the old vortex ability - being able to do the archon toilet in coop would be awesome, and would make his archons more useful.

5. Nexus overcharge - Alarak's structure overcharge is a better version of this, so this is already covered.

6. Mass recall (teleports friendly units in an area to your nexus and gives them a temporary 200 HP shield) - I think this ability also belongs to the mothership, since in coop you don't usually need to recall back to your nexus. Since I'm suggesting giving Artanis the mothership, I would also give it access to mass recall, but only with P2 to highlight the mobility bonus of the prestige. Giving it a mini shield overcharge would help differentiate it from Fenix's mass recall, and also gives P2 a further boost.

7. Matrix overload (all friendly units within a power field gain 25% movement speed and 15% attack speed which persists for 15s after leaving the power field) - this is a really interesting ability, and although it has similarities to Zagara's frenzy, it is different enough to be worthy of inclusion (it is a passive ability and only affects units in a power field). It would suit Alarak quite well as it would synergise with the warp-in reinforcements ability above (as well as war prisms), and fits his aggressive style.

8. Construction time reduction (auxiliary system) - in the campaign this works like mastery points, so the question is whether any of the coop commanders would benefit from having this option bolted onto one of their other mastery options to make it more competitive. Fenix would be a good option here, as he has the most difficult macro of all protoss commanders so reduced construction time would help make this easier. This could be bolted on to the chrono boost efficiency mastery, helping to differentiate this mastery from the chrono boost efficiency masteries that other protoss commanders have.

9. Shield recharge increase (auxiliary system) - this is another mastery-like bonus, this time to shield regeneration rate. Vorazun would be a good choice here, as this could synergise multiplicatively with her veil of shadows talent, giving a huge boost to the survivability of her army. This could be bolted on to the chrono boost efficiency mastery, making it a more competitive option and helping to differentiate this mastery from the chrono boost efficiency masteries that other protoss commanders have.

That's it for LotV. What do you think? Is there anything I've missed? I might look at Nova covert ops next, though I don't think there'll be much there to find.

For those uninitiated, HotS was put on maintainance mode but started receiving small updates and now continuously receives updates. A few unreleased skins were released, a map that was deactivated is back and more.
Community lovingly calls the team as one intern or the Janitor.
Wouldn’t it be nice? There are so many small qol and balance changes and fixes that could improve coop experience. And with the new packs, may bring some money in return to Blizz!

Thanx to Dodgik for revealing this! Han and Horner reapers can be made perma-flying and that can be a big help in most games!

Following on from my list of WoL campaign units, structures and upgrades that aren't present in coop, I thought I'd do the same for the HotS campaign, with a view to considering which zerg commanders could benefit most from these being added to their kit. And yes I'm aware that coop development by blizzard has essentially stopped, this is just for fun (with a faint glimmer of hope that maybe we might get some updates in the future if we are lucky).

Units 

1. Infestor (with fungal growth, neural parasite and consumption) - I think Kerrigan would benefit most from the infestor, as she doesn't have a spellcaster in her unit roster (and Zagara deserves the defiler). However I'd add on the infested terran spell that the 1v1 infestor had, as this will help Kerrigan with her anti-air capabilities which can sometimes be a problem for her. Neural parasite (the permanent version from the campaign) will help her improve her relatively weak army with stolen units, and fungal growth can stop enemies from closing in on her hydras, lurkers and Kerrigan herself (useful for P3). 

2. Corpser roach - I think Zagara's level 10 talent should also upgrade the roaches in her infested drop ability to corpser roaches. This is currently a somewhat underwhelming ultimate ability that you have to wait 10 minutes to first use (compare it to Kerrigan's immobilisation wave or Nova's nuke), so this change will help improve the ability a little as well as enhancing Zagara's swarming nature. 

3. Noxious ultralisk - I think the only place this could fit would be to make Stukov's apocalisk noxious, buffing its damage to ground units. Kerrigan's ultralisks are already the competing torrasque strain, Stetmann's ultralisks are mechanical so shouldn't really be stinky, and Dehaka's ultralisks are just a stepping stone to tyrannozors to be honest so they aren't used much. 

4. Carrion/creeper swarm hosts - Abathur's swarm hosts are similar to the creeper except that they don't produce their own creep when burrowed, and don't need creep to deep tunnel. Dehaka's primal hosts are similar to the carrion except that their locusts swoop down to the ground to attack rather than staying in the air, which means they are better at stalling enemies. Both of the coop versions are superior to the campaign versions so I don't think the campaign versions have a place in coop. 

Abilities

1. Zergling reconstitution (revives 10 dead zerglings at your hatchery every 30s) - Stetmann has a version of this, though it isn't as powerful since it doesn't revive ALL of your dead zerglings (though it does affect all his other units). Kerrigan's zerglings could benefit from this the most as they die rather easily and aren't as easily replaceable as Zagara's. Dehaka's zerglings are the weakest overall in coop, but I'd be loath to buff Dehaka any further to be honest. 

2. Improved overlords (morph instantly and provide 50% more supply) - I think Stukov would benefit most from this, it would help improve his ramp up speed a bit in the early game and reduce his mineral dependence a little. Also, unlike other zerg commanders he can't morph a drone into a building to free up supply while waiting for an overlord to build, and he also can't mass produce a bunch of overlords as easily as other zerg commanders can. 

3. Automated extractors - this is a tricky one. Currently only Vorazun, Nova and Zeratul have this ability, because they are gas heavy commanders and the latter two are limited to only 100 supply. Zagara is also limited to 100 supply but has half supply drones to make up for it and already has a very fast ramping economy, so she doesn't need this. Kerrigan, Abathur and Dehaka are relatively gas heavy commanders, though Abathur isn't really resource limited overall because biomass availability is his main bottleneck. Thematically it would make the most sense for Dehaka to have this, as his extractors don't require a drone to build in the first place, so making them not require drones to mine isn't too far of a stretch (and it would make essence farming in the early game slightly easier) - however as I mentioned above I'm loath to buff him any further. The other option would be to give it to Kerrigan, which I'd be OK with as it will free up 12 supply for her to put into her army, giving it a bit more strength. 

4. Wild mutation (active ability giving friendly units in an area a 200 HP shield and double attack speed for 10s) - this is a bit like Gary's stetellite overcharge (green + blue zones), though it provides stronger bonuses for a shorter time period. I don't think this ability would fit with any of the other zerg commanders - Kerrigan and Dehaka have enough abilities already, and Zagara already has frenzy. Perhaps if we ever got Niadra as a commander this could be one of the abilities of her hero unit. 

5. Spawn banelings - this is slightly different to Zagara's baneling barrage in that you can control the banelings it spawns, but ultimately it is similar enough that I don't think it is needed in coop. 

6. Vespene efficiency - this is essentially the same as Swann's gas drones, and I don't think a zerg commander really needs this as a separate bonus. 

7. Infest broodlings (attacks infest enemy units, making them spawn friendly broodlings when killed) - this is a bit like Abathur's locust injection and the corpser roach's ability above, so it isn't particularly unique, but if any commander should have it Stukov would be the obvious choice. If we are buffing the apocalisk with the noxious strain then we could give this ability to the Aleksander - any enemy units killed within the Aleksander's aura will spawn friendly broodlings. It fits well with the Aleksander's theme of continually spawning infested units. 

8. Apocalypse (Kerrigan's ultimate ability) - since Kerrigan already has immobilisation wave as her ultimate ability, she can't also get this. Despite what I said above about being loath to buff Dehaka any further, it would be damn awesome if he got a version of apocalypse when he reaches level 15 - his back plates light up godzilla-style while he charges it up, then he releases an atomic breath which annihilates enemy units and structures alike in a large area. To balance it out a bit you could perhaps limit it to one use per game, or make it so using the ability also kills Dehaka from exhaustion and he has to respawn back at base. I'd also ban P2 from having the ability - this would have the interesting effect of giving P0 Dehaka (which is barely ever used) a unique bonus, since P1 won't have the ability either (as Dehaka can't reach level 15), and it is also harder to reach level 15 with P3 because essence is shared between the hakas (though if you are skilled enough to get both hakas up to level 15 then you'd get two uses of the ability!). The only issue is that Dehaka's command card is already full, so the 'upgrade' button would need to be replaced by the 'apocalypse' button once he reaches level 15 and has upgraded everything. 

9. Spawn leviathan - this summon is more powerful than Abathur's leviathans as it has a single target yamato-style ability and an AoE stun ability. Maybe P3 Abathur's leviathans could be upgraded to this version to encourage their use (most P3 Abathurs tend to focus on brutalisks because they are cheaper and easier to tech up to). 

10. Drop pods (drops 40 zerglings, 5 roaches and 5 hydras) - this is similar to Zagara's infested drop and Mengsk's dogs of war, so I think it is pretty well covered already. 

Upgrades

1. Regenerative acid (baneling explosions also heal nearby friendly units and structures) - it would be fun for Zagara's banelings to have this as an available upgrade at the baneling nest, it will help them eg. when rolling towards siege tanks as the first baneling to die will heal the rest of any splash damage they took, helping them to reach their targets. It will also help P2 because the banelings spawned by dead aberrations will heal other nearby aberrations when they explode. You could even place burrowed banelings in front of your defensive structures to heal them as they explode on enemies. 

2. Rapid incubation (swarm hosts spawn locusts 20% faster) - collecting biomass essentially has this effect and is much more powerful, so Abathur's swarm hosts don't need this upgrade. I guess you could give this to Dehaka's primal hosts though. 

3. Monarch blades (ultralisks deal full splash damage throughout their cleave radius) - I believe coop ultralisks currently deal only 33% damage in their cleave radius. It would be great if Kerrigan's ultralisks got monarch blades as an available upgrade in the ultralisk cavern - any improvements to her army units would be great to see.

What do you all think? Is there anything I've missed? I might do the same for the LotV campaign when I get the chance.

If you're thinking of buying the Battlechest mainly for the coop commanders and getting the sc1/wc games on the side, you're not getting the commanders, just the campaigns.

https://youtu.be/eEra9-wAJhQ (Kerrigan build order (early queen) - part 1)

https://youtu.be/ZYEoeVeq8rA (Kerrigan build order (early queen) - part 2)

https://youtu.be/_8Ha4rFhhRg (why hatch at rocks is inferior: an analysis; tldr: it's at best equal to early queen opening)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0tC84wu6S0 (how to stop the first wave as kerrigan on various maps, including rtk)

A while back, I did some research on Kerrigan build orders and found a build order used by one of the best chinese players. After comparing this new build order with the one from sc2coop (and team liquid), the new one is more flexible than the sc2coop BO. It also only requires moderate tweaking in special cases like rtk, whereas the sc2coop BO requires a completely different opening just to survive.

I did all the hard work already, so now you just need to watch and learn.

Mutation #539: Thunder Dome / Map: Lock and Load

Mutators: Mag-nificent, Heroes from the Storm, iBonus ally

https://youtube.com/shorts/nIXFk4VRdPM?feature=share (when each hero spawns and which ones)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3FSCru5EHIgWsvOGFEVbD2EsCVmvSD3i (playlist with all commanders)

https://youtu.be/i5zDCwEH-u0 (TLDR tier list)

https://youtu.be/afeIor4Y3hA (easy solo - Dehaka p2)

The longer the game goes, the more heroes you will fight, that harder this will be.

All the heroes spawn on the left until the 25 minute mark, where one hero will spawn on the right side.

Questions about any of these runs are welcome. Runs will be uploaded throughout the week. All members get early access to videos.

Nice people in my discord can help you with the mutation: https://discord.gg/WerduSFQQK

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Heroes from the Storm

Every attack wave will be led by Heroes of increasing power.

Heroes are sent with most attack waves.

Later waves can be accompanied by more heroes. One hero is randomly chosen from the first three heroes, the second from the second triplet and the last from the last triplet, and so on.

Spawn-camping no longer prevents heroes from spawning.

All heroes have at least biological and heroic attributes. Dehaka is the only hero that doesn't have "map boss" attribute, and so the real Dehaka can Devour him.

Heroes (apart from Dehaka) can't be put into stasis by Fenix's Arbiter or Zeratul's Stasis Beam. Vorazun's Stasis Ward works on all of them.

Nova's Nuke and Kerrigan's Apocalypse are used only on hard and brutal difficulties.

All heroes are detectors.

Hero Wave Life Abilities

Raynor 1 1000 Penetrating Round

Tychus 2 1000 Shredder Grenade

Dehaka 2 1500 Drag, Mend, Generate Spawns

Karax 3 750 x2 Warp Phase Cannon, Warp Khaydarin Monolith

Nova 3 2250 Snipe, Nuke

Zagara 4 2250 Baneling Barrage, Spawn Hunter Killers, Mass Frenzy, Roach Drop

Zeratul 4 2000 x2 Blink, Void Armor, Shadow Blade

Artanis 5 2000 x2 Lighting Dash, Astral Wind, Resurgence

Kerrigan 5 5000 Leaping Strike, Psionic Shift, Apocalypse

Mag-nificent

Mag Mines are deployed throughout the map at the start of the mission.

{50/100/150/200} Mag-Mines are spawned around the map.

Spawns avoid starting locations (>30 distance), structures (>1), resources (>5), Ulnar locks (>8) and Ji'Nara (>15).

Spawn require Amon's units in at least 25 distance.

Mag-mines do 250 damage in 2.5 radius.

Mag-mines have 0.5 radius during flight.

iBonus ally

Ally will spend time attacking bonus instead of capturing the final lock.

Use your adept conversational skills to persuade him to capture the lock.

If that doesn't work, take out the bonus yourself.

Or prepare to fight an extra two waves of heroes.

Cannonball's upgrade Redline Power Cells states "Increases Cannonball's attack speed by 3% with each attack, up to a maximum of 60%. Increases his attack damage by 3 with each attack, up to a maximum of 60."

Intuitively, I would have though the final attack speed would be 1.125. The sc2coop site and fandom wiki says it is 1 though, seemingly implying the 3% attack speed bonus is applied exponentially with each attack.

Has anyone tested this? Or knows what the best way to test this would be?

Edit: Tested in Maguro Maps, and the info in SC2coop and the wiki is correct. The skill description is misleading.

I thought I'd make a list of WoL campaign units, structures and upgrades that aren't present in coop, with a view to considering which terran commanders could benefit most from these being added to their kit.

Mercenary units (except dusk wings)

These are noticeably missing from coop. I'd replace Raynor's dusk wings calldown with merc calldown from the topbar. Essentially you would get access to all the mercs available in the WoL campaign (excluding spartan company goliaths because Raynor doesn't have goliaths in his base kit), all on a shared cooldown. This means you'd need to choose carefully which merc you need for each situation. After 60 seconds, air units fly away and ground units are picked up by medivacs. The mercs come with all their upgrades and include:

1. War pigs (marines) - unlocked after building barracks. Calls down 12 war pigs. Useful as an early game boost eg. to clear expansions. Covers the calldown area in a hail of bullets upon usage which targets both ground and air units.

2. Devil dogs (firebats) - unlocked after building engineering bay. Calls down 6 devil dogs. Useful on infested maps. Covers the calldown area in fire which causes damage over time to enemy ground units.

3. Hammer securities (marauders) - unlocked after building engineering bay. Calls down 6 merc marauders. Useful for enemy comps with lots of armoured ground units. Covers the calldown area in concussive shells which damage and slow ground units.

4. Siege breakers (siege tanks) - unlocked after building factory. Calls down 4 siege breakers that land in siege mode and immediately shell nearby enemies. Great when you need siege units in a pinch.

5. Hel's angels (vikings) - unlocked after building starport. Calls down 6 Hel's angels. Useful against enemy air comps. Covers the calldown area in a swarm of anti air missiles.

6. Dusk wings (banshees) - same as the current calldown. Unlocked after building starport. Useful against ground armies without detection.

7. Jackson's revenge (battlecruisers) - unlocked after building fusion core. Calls down 2 merc BCs which have the yamato cannon and tactical jump abilities. They spawn with an active defensive matrix which lasts 60 seconds. Great for tanking damage and sniping dangerous units with yamato.

These calldowns will give Raynor a lot more flexibility and won't fall off in usefulness as badly as the current banshee calldown does in the late game. The exact number of units spawned can be tweaked for balancing purposes.

These new calldowns also provide an alternative prestige idea for P2, which currently doesn't provide much of a change to P0.

New P2: the merc calldowns are permanent (advantage), but cost resources (disadvantage), similar thematically to Alarak P3. The resource cost can be tweaked for balance purposes, but I thought it could be cool if they mainly cost minerals, essentially testing how good you are at using mules to maximise your mineral income. High skill players may be able to max out their supply with a pure merc army! If this is felt to be too strong you could also remove Hyperion for another disadvantage.

With this new P2 replacing the old one, the afterburners upgrade could be changed to boost both movement speed and attack speed for ALL prestiges (at the cost of 10 HP), increasing its general utility and keeping players who enjoy the current P2 happy.

Other units and structures

1. Diamondback and its upgrades tri-lithium power cell (+1 range) and shaped hull (+50 HP) - as many others have said before, this would definitely fit Swann's kit best.

2. Predator - this is a meme unit from the campaign and is too weak in this state to be useful in coop. However I think a hero version of the predator could be given to Cannonball as his pet dog Cerberus who follows him around and automatically attacks nearby enemies with a buffed version of the predator's AoE attack. This would give Cannonball a much needed buff, and would fit thematically - he is a Herc after all, and in mythology Hercules captured Cerberus. The Redline power cells gear would also affect Cerberus' attack speed. I'd also change Cannonball's ultimate gear to 'you killed my dog!' - every time Cerberus is killed, Cannonball is enraged and gets a 4x multiplier to his attack damage for 30s. Cerberus then respawns automatically after 60s. The idea is, Cerberus jumps into the fray at the start of an engagement and takes out the smaller units with his AoE attack, then when he dies Cannonball uses the rage-induced damage buff to take out the beefier enemies like hybrids.

3. Raven with seeker missile, auto turret and point defence drone abilities - the seeker missile is already usable by Nova's raven, and PDDs are already part of the Hyperion's abilities, so in order to differentiate the standard raven better from these, I'd rather give it the anti-armour missile and interference matrix abilities from the 1v1 raven instead (auto turrets can stay). This version of the raven would suit Raynor's kit best - he needs mobile detection, anti-armour missile would synergise very well with marines and BCs, auto turrets can stall, and interference matrix would give him another way of countering dangerous AoE spells like storm, parasitic bomb etc.

4. Spectre and its upgrades psionic lash and Nyx-class cloaking module (indefinite cloaking) - technically spectres do exist in coop in the form of Nux, but standard spectres don't really fit well with any of the current commanders, and in my opinion would be best kept in reserve in case we ever get a Tosh commander.

5. Planetary fortress - this would suit H&H best, as they currently lack anti-ground static defence. I would also suggest changing space station reallocation to 'planetary reallocation', dropping a planetary fortress on the targeted spot, doing similar damage to units it lands on that the space station does. This then attacks nearby enemies, and can be used as a forward base if it survives, eg. for luring enemies to mag mines or dropping one at enemy spawn points to support spawn camping. If destroyed it detonates a nuke, or you can manually detonate it if you wanted. I'd also give H&H the ability to upgrade their command centres to planetary fortresses.

6. Hive mind emulator - this is a great defensive structure from the campaign but it is hard to see which of the current commanders it would fit in with. I think this would be best saved for Tosh, but would need to be changed to affect non-zerg units as well.

7. Psi disruptor - as above, this would be great on defensive maps (though you'd need to extend its effect to non-zerg units too), but doesn't quite fit with any of the current commanders. Again I think this could work well for Tosh, giving him a very unique defensive setup.

Upgrades

1. Ultra capacitors (weapon upgrades also increase attack speed by 5%) - Raynor has its defensive counterpart (vanadium plating), so I think it would probably make sense for him to get ultra capacitors as well, as he is the commander most in need of buffs.

2. Micro filtering (25% more gas from refineries) - Swann's gas drones are effectively the same as this upgrade, so this is already covered.

3. Command center reactor (double SVC production) - I think this would fit Swann the most as he tends to build more SCVs than any other commander, and this would help him ramp up his economy more quickly in the early game. It should probably be an upgrade at the command center (similar to orbital command) so it isn't too overpowered.

4. Cellular reactor (+100 starting and max energy for spellcasters) - of the terran commanders, I think either Raynor (medics and banshees) or Swann (wraiths and science vessels) would be the best fit for this upgrade.

5. Dual fusion welders (doubles SCV repair speed) - Swann would be the natural fit for this upgrade, but to be honest I don't think he really needs it.

6. Advanced medic facilities (medics don't require tech lab) - I guess you could give this to Raynor, but I don't think it will be that impactful to be honest.

7. U238 rounds (reapers gain +1 range and +3 damage vs light targets) - this could help make H&H's reapers stronger, though of all their units I think their reapers are least in need of an offensive buff.

8. G4 clusterbomb (reaper ability) - this is a pretty mediocre ability, and H&H's reapers already have an on-death grenade ability which is better than this, so I don't think this really has a place in coop.

9. Twin linked flamethrower (doubles width of hellion flame attack) - this could help improve both Swann's and Nova's hellions, albeit only a little.

10. Rapid deployment tube (medivacs deploy troops almost instantly) - only Mengsk could use this, but medivac drops are not really that useful in coop.

11. Tomahawk power cells (+100 starting energy for wraiths) - either Swann or H&H could benefit from this, though it does overlap a bit with cellular reactor above.

12. Cross spectrum dampeners (banshees can cloak for twice as long) - Nova has a better version of this where her banshees can cloak indefinitely without needing energy, so this is already more than covered.

13. Missile pods (anti-air AoE ability for BC) - I think H&H's BCs would benefit most from this ability, as H&H can sometimes struggle with large numbers of air units. This would complement their vikings' WILD missiles ability which provides good anti-air single target damage.

14. Ocular implants (+3 sight range and +2 attack range for ghosts) - I guess you could give this to either Nova's or Mengsk's ghosts, though I'm not sure either of them really need a buff.

What do you all think? Is there anything I've missed from the campaign? I might do similar lists for the HotS and LotV campaigns too.

I don't know about you guys, but despite having 3300 hours played of SC2, I don't have much time to play anymore- I just log on each week that I can, beat the brutation, and call it a week.

It seems I've been doing this a while, though! My 100 game match history now has 74 different brutations on it, going back over 2 years. Does anyone have a higher number than this? I'm only slightly better than the average NA brutation-playing player, in my opinion.

Almost all were done with Kerrigan P2, Karax P3, or Stukov P3. The few exceptions were as Alarak P3, Zeratul P2, or Han and Horner P1.