Ally commander tier list

To be fair, at least according to the data the sc2coop has, Fenix is the least played CO. So it’d make sense you wouldn’t interact with him much if you didn’t play him.

Poor guy was even handed out for free at one point

Oh I understand now, sorry that I so overestimated your comprehension skills let me try to explain!

See, I was obviously referring to the ability of Conservator fields to affect buildings, a perk - if it exists - that I was unaware of. You might be able to figure this out if you actually read the whole post? :thinking:

Certainly I don’t mind Fenix as a commander and have used him a lot.

The things you are unaware of is astounding. Pro B+ player Capitaine!

Obviously by explaining how you didn’t know Conservators abilities existed suddenly changes how the whole context worked. I see I see.

I’d say only 20% of my games have my ally bother with clearing my rocks so I’m not really getting the can clear rocks criteria. And also it seems you are also not properly familiar with all the commander mechanics and perks so I’ll just add some addendums/clarifications to your list.
Vorazun: Can cast black hole that clumps and stuns all enemies, Oracles when upgraded can make mines that stuns enemies and allows you to attack them. Buffs damage, shield and energy regen for cloaked units. Dark Pylons can recall your units.
Kerrigan - Your units passively heal and get buffs while on her creep.
Artanis - Psi-Storms can be upgraded to restore shields.
Zeratul - Can either disable buildings or call in towers that stun, can temporarily project cannons and towers to another location to attack stuff, Void arrays increase shield regen, Avatar of Essence buffs your own units.
Abathur - Blinding Cloud disables enemy structures and ground units.
Tychus - Can heal and buff your army if they take Nikara or Rattlesnake.
Mengsk - Has medivacs that can heal your bio. His detectors can deploy and give buffs to your army.
Dehaka - Has a healing aura. Tyrannozors increase the armor of your ground units that are near them.
Fenix - Conservators can create an area where anything inside gets 35% damage reduction. Arbiter Fenix can cloak your units and recall them.
Nova - Ravens can deploy drones that heal and shield your units.
Raynor - Has medics that give damage reduction and chain heals to another target. Eliminates the need for detectors if they are diligent with scans. Hyperion provides damage buffs to ground units and can deploy drones that shoot down enemy projectiles.
Swann - Can build science vessels to heal your mech stuff and shield them (if they can spare the apm).

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Not sure if I can agree with the list… You speak about some commanders with a lot of emphasis on players’ individual skills, and some you admit not knowing what they do. You also focus a lot on early game on rocks and waves. Take Karax for example, you mentioned “some” of things he can do, but a good Karax player would do a lot more than stay in his base, not to mention he’s mighty supportive even if he does, with all the call downs he can do anywhere in the map.

A lot this is dependent on commander synergy.

Something I thought would be kind of interesting is if each commander got a unit, or upgrade of some sort based who their ally was.

I understand the extra work and in some cases extreme creativity (maybe you keep it only with commanders of same race because of this) it would have taken so I don’t take any issue not having this.

But it is kind cool how Raynor can use Swann’s tech reactors, it got me thinking if Raynor had a Swann ally, why can’t he just build them?

What if Artanis with a Vorazun ally can make Avenger DT from the campaign?

What if Raynor’s Banshee’s get extra or permanent cloaking with Vorazun?

Where it gets hard is some of the Zerg commanders with non zergs. So maybe this would be cool be if it was with commanders of the same race.

Even if it was scaled down where you could access the other commander’s unique upgrade, like Raynor could research maelstrom rounds for his tanks and regenerative bio steel, and Swann could research afterburners. Like Artanis Immortals getting shadow cannon research and Karax Immortals getting improved barrier research.

I think the “perk” idea was proposed before and never realized as usual.

Yeah true. There are genuinely different floors, and some commanders that might be weak mishandled all can do great in proper hands or with team synergies. But i do remember a humorous incident where i had a game where someone was bragging about their “high skill” commander and trashing another… They were literally playing a 14 apm Nova where their highest apm peak was (literally) the part where they built workers for 20 apm lmao while the “low skill” commander was hovering 80-110 apm.

They were playing move command siege tanks, walking through fire without even firing and only issuing a command about average 3-4 seconds. Their ally had to constantly heal them and move around them to protect their allys from dying, but then in the next que.

A different player on the same commander used them as a f2a meatshield and beat brutal on 20 apm lol.

I feel like there’s definitely a lot of times where individual player play makes a huge difference. Like being outspeeded by a average Karax who has slow tech or mostly defensive options is pretty hard to do if you’re competent and using a fast commander like a Dehaka/Tychus/Zeratul imo. But lots of people are really petty on the que.

I don’t have any problems playing Abathur, Raynor or p2 Karax (love armies), at all, but often times my ally will take one look at a commander choice and leave, even if it’s just a 1000 K : 200 K difference to my main to a 600-800 K : 150-400 K differences or 1:1s.

As far as things goes, i feel honestly like a lot of general commanders feel like one trick f2a deathball armies. I am definitely aware the commander i love to play has f2a movers who pick a crappy Nikara and let their tychus die 247 times lmao. But i haven’t had a problem with a Abathur either outside of hitting rocks or if it’s a early air wave that flew over the nests and my ally is like literally one of those people who idles heros at 14 apm where their highest apm peak is (literally) building workers to the 20 apm you get casually making workers lmao. (the 20 apm building workers is actually LITERALLY some 10-14 apm brutal players peak.

Like f2a move afk siege tank nova (14 apm likely indicates no/low ability use).

That isn’t to say that the tools in the hands of a skilled player couldn’t multiply the effectiveness of a poor vs great commander by MILES, everyone knows they can. Just… You can have the sharpest tools in the world, and a idiot who still bangs the toolbox on their head at 14 apm at (literal 1 f2a move command per 4 seconds) where building workers is the peak of their apm is… How they’re playing brutal on their ‘hard commanders’ (barely moving, reacting, learning comps or building complete dogcrap random builds like techless 0 research everythings lmao)

I think the funny thing is, the literal 10-14 apm build people still often still win half their missions, just since like people get outrageously defensive on coop, but outside of poor map picks like lvl 1 swann + lvl 1 karax on brutal, no ARES bots, no decent early units mark, immediate death if they can’t kill a shard within a timer. I think most commanders can handle it.

(Summary)

Yeah, I agree, I feel like for general play, a lot of the best allies can come to being a good partner and using player skill. You can see lots of people playing a [Skill recommended] commander at… 14 apm.

Or easy commanders with say, 9 keybind groups for quick research, army, mind control armies, etc. Or you can play it at f2a move afk 10 apm.

Personally i love playing a mind controlled army at one point and a microed main army at another while pushing a third spot with a dogwalker while simultaneously keeping tabs of each group’s hp, as well as healing their ally, while placing vision scvs at tactical points.

I also enjoy setting chain fires with blaze and setting entire places on fire or just stacking a normal ultimate army with Abathur watching everything endgame basically die for free to his like… barely costed kidnaps, 15 second cd tunnels, and tanky ultimates that people bail on solely because they leave on que even if you’d at least still own your own outkilling them 600-700 : 150-300 fine with a Abathur, dehaka, p2 Karax or ordinary Raynor. But beyond just kills, i like making sure my ally always has the chance to do stuff that’s fun for them.

So I often individually micro my healer off to go heal them off when low while unit shuffling the damaged units so my ally can play at 100% hp while also watching their bases and keeping my units from dying.

I don’t think there’s many commanders that people consider impossible to level lvl 1 if the player is good enough. Honestly i feel like… Lvl 1 swann without… ARES bots is… uh… (kinda seems weaker at expanding or defending the first wave or early attack without a cd?) But… Many people will endorse lvl 1 swann and say if you know him, he’s easier for them to level. So knowing your commander well and how to work with your ally can be one of the strongest things you can do imo.

Yeah, i agree, individual players or skill levels/playstyle can drastically change the list.

I actually find Tychus’s support (incredibly powerful aoe healing, researchable aoe fear = less dmg / psuedo healing, and his tanky setup or dropping tanks such as Cannonballs or Dogwalker odins into squshy armies like Han and Horner reaper armies enable them to quickly SHRED many objectives, minibosses, and the like actually one of the interesting mini comps.

On paper, a Tychus + Han and Horner has no synergy. On practice, while i wouldn’t go for it, the combination of incredibly sturdy units + aggro tanking (tychus) + extremely powerful glass cannon dps combined with 2 second grenade stuns, Sirius aoe fears, ± unit tanking or parking… Its not needed, but it can be a surprisingly base melting combination. Most of Han and Horner’s units are known as like Glass cannons with insanely high dps… When the enemy units are stuck in a Sirius aoe fear or a facetank Cannonball, it’s like the equivilent of handcuffing Amon (stuns), while he’s being eaten alive by Hornets.

There’s not supposed to be synergy between handcuffs (HealBrawly stuns) and Hornets(BIG PAIN, swattable hp)… but if you can’t swat the bees, it can be pretty hilarious just seeing how fast everything dies and explodes in seconds in a stunlock.

Tl;dr: Got off on a bit of a tangent. But yeah, agree! Individual playstyles and players themselves can warp things greatly. A non p1 kerrigan that never builds a nydus is still kerrigan, but missing certain things. A person can have a great toolkit with hundreds of tools, but use it to bang themselves on the head over and over.

(Ex: Some commanders f2a move or (CAN) have intensive micro (full mule + micro marines +- Vulture spawncamping groups vs mass f2a into siege fire) or biomass luring / eating strats.

Others just.. their 'complicated' gameplay is.. 
learning NOT to build a sucky build and then just.. 
f2a moving at 14-50 apm with 'great SKILL' tm lecturing 
the other people with 90-150.. outside 
of frivolous inputs for sake of inputs.)
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I have to say your essay writing is longer than Fear’s! :dizzy_face:

Out of the many times I played Swann and Raynor, I had maybe less than a handful of times my partner did that.

One time I played with a P1 Tychus who used Vega create a mini army. I thought that style was unique.

Imagine a Nova only making ghosts on OE :rofl:

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Technically with P1 Vorazun, they can get perma cloak… And invincibility, lol

I play mostly Swann, and whenever I have a Raynor ally, I always ask them if they want the reactors. Half of them never knew it was a thing, and it’s great to see their reaction. The other half politely decline, since they’ve already got their opening memorized and any changes would just slow them down.

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Oh yeah, the swann reactors are nice. I think one thing the raynor can do, is the Raynor reactors actually convert to tech reactors if a swann lands on them. So if a raynor really wanted.

They could build their barracks next to yours, pre build a couple reactors and fly off, You both swap, and they get a tech reactor and they get one too haha. :slight_smile:

I think the thing though is, raynor actually doesn’t really have as much economic worry. it’s nice having 2 tech reactors, but he probably will float gas in a swann relationship unless he’s going for aerial raynor (RIP no commander ability boosts :/), and if he has mules, he’ll likely float minerals OR not need to replenish as much on a p1.

So it does save him resources and it can be pretty easy, but raynor isn’t one of those commanders who worries about 100 minerals when they can float 1000-10000 and be 200/200 3/3 as much.

It’s still a nice thing to do though and pretty neat! :). And well, if they go sky raynor (such a cool yet impractical/sluggish build on p0 lmao), if the tech reactors work for the airports, that could be big though. They’re gas hungry and need production.

But i haven’t ever gotten there to bother myself haha. (I love the bc fleet theme, but don’t think there’s many practical bc armies. I usually go for 17 bc vega mind control fleets with hyperjumps medivacs and extra yamatos to hit my kicks and giggles haha. + global vision and a 2nd army presence is very nice for tych. )

tl;dr Yeah tech reactors for swann are pretty cool! 

Fun thing is it converts raynor's reactors too, so you 
 can each build one and swap and everyone gets a win win. :). 
He usually still floats 1-10k+ Minerals and gas though haha. 

I don’t do this at all. Almost all the time, the Raynor I play with, doesn’t know how to play it. Which is why I feel that the reactor would be a waste on them. There were maybe once or twice in the past 3-4 months I played with a Raynor partner that was decent.

Props to you for trying to extend a helping hand, even though you are starve for resource early game.

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There are a good number of players who don’t realize how coop progresses. The early game build up is tremendously crucial.

Those who stand on the backs of their ally during early game (inappropriately) then get their stupid army up by mid to late game. And they roll through the map like they did the work are despicable honestly. Their own lack of awareness is what produces the kind of gameplay we see all the time.

Many are good and willing to learn and improve. Meanwhile, others arrogantly think they are good. It’s honestly the biggest joke of coop.

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Also Swordier, my Swann portrait is better looking than yours :smiley:

Yeah, honestly its a pretty neat interaction and if the raynor asks or you know them, don’t forget that landing on a prebuilt raynor reactor or tech lab seems to convert it to a swann tech reactor so you could swap or even potentially have a raynor friend you play with prebuild a couple lines of tech reactors. Bio raynor tends to float heavy 1-10k amounts of minerals if he’s properly muling or p1ing and not like… Suicide dropping them into nukes or blizzards or the enemy base or a fail raynor.

I think it’s pretty legitimate to skip it as swann for raynors (unless they heavily request it or have a rarer mech or starport focused build ofc…

I’ve really honestly always wanted a viable non throwing bc raynor to work. But honestly even with prestieges it has too many problems.

It lacks a mobile teleporting healer like a science vessel for the hyper jumps and the early units outside of marines just aren’t strong enough to support it.

The reduced cds do help, but it would have been a lot better if p2 and p3 had a option that came together.

People will trash banshees but they’re still actually a fair niche unit for nova or some no detector DoN /miner evac.

Raynor mass bc is just a casual funs build that takes all the worst parts of a expensive slow army that ignores his normal early-mid game strength and gives you a throw build that doesn’t even have enough 2x mobility for the person to defend their base without stranding their bcs in the middle of nowhere.

Without the ai cheese of unlimited drone carriers or mobility of two hyper jumps or a mobile tele healer (or self repair drones/mules). All the build offers is slow mobility, slow dps, and the people who go for them generally don’t seem to have a build that contributes before the 10-20 minute mark and yet won’t finish the game without help at the 20 minute mark.

It’s just a mostly vanilla build in a game where you often want power peaks on missions on strong commanders done before the 15-20 mark if possible or a unstoppable lategame abathur army or carrier cheese after 15-23.

Thats not to say not even the worst build could still be piloted enough to beat a base brutal. Theres no build that can’t win with a semi competent ally… But no marine bc only p0 raynor and idef cannon only no p1 afk karax on attack maps, as well as a (specificalluy sucky/unlucky) p3 abathur with dead/no ultimate evolutions are probably my ratings for the three weakest ally games i’ve seen.

Not in a losing way but man those are the matches where you get forced to do 1100 kills to 50-200 and you have to pray they at least can at least defend their own base at least HALF the time if you get 2-3 objectives at once.

At least in pug que experiences. There are always serviceable players in all builda. Im just talking about the pug que players who are actually well er… So unoptimal it puts stress on you to solo defend 3 points at once while they’re not even able to defend their own base or pass 5-15% of map kills.

Thats not to shame them i suppose, coop is a pretty chill mode and if you’re comfy nearly any commander played right* can beat most / some brutals at lvl one.

A bad commander or suicide 0/200 brand new raynor can fail any mission ofc though lmao. But if you can always win whatever mode you want, are past lvl 90, don’t need or care about xp. Base brutal can be pretty chillax. Brutations or bad affix brutal+ though… Bleh. I’ll skip 100 propagators fatal attraction stukov or mineral chores or microtransactions anyday. I’ll take long range and life leech and fun ones.

But lots are past unit comps and more "why would anyone want to ‘enjoy this?’ " in a video game moments for me.

I can understand the sentiment behind your post. I don’t agree with much of it.

The reason being there is definitely a very large portion of players who don’t have the mastery of Raynor to make things work “fine”.

For those that have honed their skills enough, things you mentioned like:

  • Floating 1-10k minerals
  • No mobile healer
  • Mass BC doesn’t work
  • Etc.
    They don’t really hold true. Proper macro’d Raynor don’t float money at all. If you do, it is because you’ve wiped the map and waiting for mission to slowly progress. MULEs and SCVs repair is a better option than Medics, and MULEs are definitely mobile enough. Even on P0, long before prestiges were introduced, mass BCs is viable on 90% of the maps/comp combos, without heavy losses (unlike Banshees).

These kind of things don’t occur without some levels of experience and skills for sure. There, however, is a difference between the perceived standard and the functional standard. Of course, that isn’t to say (for example) mass BCs should be used in place of everything else. Or similarly, if Raynor had something like Science Vessel that also can Jump that it wouldn’t be nicer.

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As for raynor i mostly mean end of game raynor, when supply is 200/200. Damaged units might be microed back to the line and units stutter stepped and you just have a quick death ball while maybe perhaps muling with 6-8 CCs and maybe a vulture line to lay traps if one cares.

Some commanders can easily devour all money before the 20 minute mark, while others tend to float it (after 200/200, 3/3 researchs, etc), much earlier. While others can still always be gas hungry at the late marks.

As far as things go, for the mobile teleporting healer remark, i was mostly referring to the average PUG que commander, outside of mutations that may force use.

I suppose personal playstyles always vary, but it’s more common imo to see a Raynor that doesn’t care or even always even takes their gas with reduced research cost and mass marines (if they even mule).

One of the problems i’ve noticed with raynor Mass BCs is often for a ally, it seems like they have one good teleport, and then their battlecruisers are too immobile (at least on p0 without p2/p3 afterburners or cds), for them to rapidly deploy and help out most areas of the map.

Of course it’s always definitely arguable. There’s definitely like mastery lvl 900 people who excel or those who seem to have odd strats on commanders they… don’t really know… Like… no army zeratul… 10 minute late expansions.

Or people who either play Raynor like a army rainer or turtle in the base for 20 minutes, use one bc jump to attack a objective, and then get attacked at base on 2-3 points and need a assist without building filler marines or any units the first 10-15 units past cds. (Especially no prestiege mass bc raynors)

It think imo, it probably depends a bit, i tend to play commanders i feel comfy with and have fun with…

But i think i’d heavily argue viable vs suboptimal. I’d take a Nova building a few banshees or a stettman with broodlords in a main army vs a non p2/p3 “hai i p0 raynor. i make only bc, plz defend me 20 minutes” raynor. XD.

That isn’t to say any comp isn’t viable, but some comps uh… Those are the ones i remember that heavily ended up literal 1000 : 50-200 kill maps for me haha for my solo ques haha.

P3 bc raynor is fair, i suppose since it skips the tech, but i still find it kinda middling.

It’s definitely seems a improvement, but i think just the major problem is they’re low dps and slow to build for the cost on p0 and commanders are build and made on commander boosts to stock units to make them stand out in coop where amon gets 100s of free units.

Battlecruisers work, but after the one jump, most people have a tendency to just… well they just move at like half the speed of most armies while most commanders will have a sturdy army with like 15 second teles, practically unlimited abathur viper kidnaps, the ability to spam 50% reflection shields on whims on a common unit (zeratuls), etc.

It’s not that i still don’t love battlecruisers. I tend to mostly steal or mind control them with like 175% dmg + 50% faster attack boosts or something for fun with vega and start a 17 bc + odin + army fleet and push three points with control groups :), and the teleports are incredibly handy for vision and medivacs anywhere or Yamatoing a objective while laying down turrets and a 2nd healer in the control group so they can assault points without many losses.

But i just wouldn’t really feel like BC only p0 raynor is a optimal 90% of situations commander outside of maybe niches with p2/p3.

Even then, i feel like it’s more f2p candy than like a optimal build. It’s expensive, slow lategame without much mobility that hits everything, on a commander who mostly just has stock airports. Mengsk’s elite BCs will get royal guard bonuses, some others will have like 1000 hp or triple yamatos, others get mind controlled 175-250% dps BCs with 1-2 solid main army/pushers.

P0 Raynor gets… Stock ones… i guess? On a infantry specialist?
(P0 raynors in pug que tends to be the people who do it, p2/p3 BC raynors might be more useful, but most of the results i’ve seen are semi functional with prestieges, but it still seems performance level only. Like a crippled build, like a dead/killed Ultimates no viper abathur. )

tl;dr: Sure, every build is functional. But.... When it comes to personal ally lists.. Im not sure of a lot of builds weaker i'd put p0 defend me 20 minutes p0 mass bc raynor over..

(Extra:) Other than next to like.. Dead ultimate no vipers Abathur and a cannons only attack Karax on a attack map. Sure every build is viable, but.. those are the ones i've seen too many 1000 K : 50-200 K games with. (Where the ally does 75-95% of the map)

Afterburner is available to all prestiges of Raynor as far as I know. Although I think the point of being out of position isn’t necessarily relevant to BCs Jumping at all.

Similar cases can be found in many commanders, there are a ton of units with similar movement speeds as BC. Being out of position is simply a common error made often by inexperienced players.

Debatable, subjective, and questionable

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