Co-op Commander Guide: Zeratul

Co-op Missions Discussion
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https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/551722-co-op-commander-guide-zeratul

Here’s the guide for Zeratul, the commander that’s as dead as Starcraft (or so random internet weirdo’s tell me).

You want a tl;dr?

Gateway units: ultra high DPS, micro heavy, squishy
Robo units: a-move friendly, durable, splash, low single target
Calldowns: Blizz buff zealots plz
Crowd Control: Blizz buff stasis plz
Avatars: Form for microless split pushing, Essence for force multiplication.

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Uh what’s with the advertisement here?

TeamLiquid Guides are a great resource for all commanders, though some are outdated a little. Still a good read for any beginners.

Why specifically make a topic on the Zeratul Guide? Or are you the author of it, just proud of the work? Imma little confused.

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Maybe because it was just published.

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I see

Moar karaktors

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Fresh guide, hot out of the oven! Get it while it’s hot!

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Couple of things I saw and said in the coop Discord, but I’ll also say it here:

  • Zeratul’s air units can’t pick up artifact fragments. Rather inconvenient if Zeratul somehow dies after revealing a fragment in the middle of enemy base and you need to make a quick dash and grab somehow. Plus Maguro touched on a bug in TotP involving destroying the bonus objective causes artifacts spawning there to become inaccessible, which can be fixed by letting air units grab the artifact.
  • Regarding fast expand strategy on Scythe of Amon: I would advise against luring enemies into Zoraya Legion range, because after they destroyed the Void Sliver (delayed by killing the void rift and the ranged units there) they won’t have enough time to eliminate all the leftover melee units in the area. Luring units into range of Zoraya Legion can endanger your Nexus if the legion times out before all the units die (which will be the case in 99% of the time).
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There is an issue associate with Void Templar’s Second Fragment upgrade ability- Void Fury. If the target point of your blink is occupied by Amon’s unit or structure, this blink would probably deal no damage along its path. So it would be better to point Void Templar’s blink further behind the enemy to utilize its full damage.

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As they’ve done with every other commander.

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But everyone goes mass cannon only…

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LOL, didn’t know Shieldguards reflection ability can be set to autocast. And is also stackable. Why is it not on autocast by default then? It even costs zero energy. Btw, I wonder what is reflected by it and what is not. I have seen Yamato being reflected (so not just base attacks) but tank shots was not (so not everything ranged). Is it everything that have a visible projectile?

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Open up its crispy outside, and “hot” comes out! :hotsprings:

That said, despite being outdated in some areas, the TL Guides are still good stuff. People have been clamoring for updates and new COs (indeed, I’ve been telling people online to check out the TL guide with the caveat that some of the later COs don’t have guides yet). It’s something to hold us over until we get new Missions, COs, and more updates to the actual game

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Only projectiles are reflected by shieldguards: stalker shots, reaver shots, spells like Fungal Snare and Yamato Cannon, even the Hybrid Dominator’s big nuke.
Tank shots are hitscan and thus will not be reflected.

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Hey thank you for the awesome guides through all these years!

I hope that one day you get the chance to update the older guides according to the revamp changes.

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It’s not autocast due to it’s cooldown of 60 sec. Default on autocast is generally used for abilities when there is no major loss for using it (healing stim packs are autocast while normal packs aren’t). 75% ability downtime is not a minor thing.

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It will only be 75% downtime if you are defending against infested or some mutation with streaming units. Or attacking a large base. Otherwise you will probably kill all enemies by the time first shield expires. Compare with Corsair’s web, it’s 10 sec duration with 30 cooldown, enemies leave webbed area quickly, it doesn’t stack and Corsairs tend to waste all charges on single location, yet it is on auto-cast by default. Well, it’s not a big deal to turn auto-cast on, it’s just that many players don’t realize that it could be set to auto-cast.

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ILikePie, I don’t know if you’ve co-authored all the Commander Guides, but that’s some fine work. All your guides have always been extremely helpful to me. I’ve pored over your guides nigh-religiously over the past 9 months. You’ve really helped me enjoy this game better. Realtalk, I hope you have a great day.

I play a lot of Zeratul, but never knew all the incremental bonuses each unit gets per Artifact. Thanks so much for the in-depth breakdown. You really make my day with these guides.

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But everyone goes mass cannon only…

I don’t go cannon Zeratul outside of mutations that heavily disfavor army, and I know a few people that also do the same.

ILikePie, I don’t know if you’ve co-authored all the Commander Guides, but that’s some fine work.

There’s a list of people that contributed to the guides at the bottom of each guide, btw. I don’t know if OP is one of them though.