Commander Mobility

Co-op Missions Discussion
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I’ve heard a lot of discussion about commanders with map presence abilities like Tychus’ Medivacs, Nova’s Griffin Taxi, Vorazun’s Dark Pylon Recall, Deep Tunnel, Tactical Jump, stuff like that. Personally I love these abilities, because in most missions, the ability to be anywhere on the map in an instant is such a huge advantage.

What amuses me though is when I hear people complain about Tychus’ Medivacs and his ability to be everywhere, because my first thought is just “…have you guys never seen a Kerrigan player properly utilize her Omega Network?” Because having recently gotten back into playing Kerrigan, her worms put Tychus’ taxi to shame. She can be everywhere, and while her worms don’t heal, I’d say they have way more utility because they’re detectors and can be used by your allies (though most allies I’ve had never seem to remember that, or at least never think to use them).

Honestly, having played with her worms more, I would definitely nominate Kerrigan as my pick for the commander with the best map presence and mobility. Tychus might be a close second, but Kerrigan has the added benefit of providing mobility and map presence to her ally as well (there are several other commanders that can relocate their allies troops, but those require careful coordination with your ally, Kerrigan’s worms are one of the few forms of ally mobility that are controlled by your ally).

Which commanders have the best map presence/mobility in your opinions?

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Definitely Karax, if you have enough probes.

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I think the reason why Nydus don’t come up as often is because good nydus play actually require some skill, granted not a lot but you still have to constantly load and unload your units and always have Kerrigan first so that you can easily move her around when you have a lot of units in the worm. Also worms benefit your ally just as much, a good Kerrigan always solve my mobility problems with Alarak just by being there and that’s not even mentioning the benefits of malignant creep and detection.

Meanwhile Tychus is just press a button, click and that’s it while also being a mechanic that doesn’t benefit your ally in any way.

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I would say that aside from Kerri mass worm, best map-presence award has to go to Stetmann.

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As Jolleon says, it’s a question of the execution difficulty of their mobility.

When I think of best mobility, the way I measure it, I think of Kerrigan, Vorazun and Zeratul. What’s special about them is that they can move their entire army back and forth across the map endlessly, including workers on Vermillion Problem.

But all three of them take more effort to do it than Tychus. Tychus’s extremely accessible mobility is usually something other commanders only have in more restrained forms: Nova’s/Stetmann’s longer cooldown, Abathur only having crazy mobility on his Brutalisks, etc.

Of Kerrigan/Vorazun/Zeratul, Kerrigan’s probably the one I’d personally put top. I find really extreme use of Zeratul’s Void Arrays to be really fiddly (and unnecessary when he has top bars and Cannons). Vorazun’s Recall has its limitations too, but its key advantage over Kerrigan is it’s fast enough to dodge nuke mutators.

But Kerrigan’s the one who my friend hates me playing because he can’t keep track of where I am. So yep, she’s crazily good.

(Edit: note I’m talking just mobility in this, ‘map presence’ for me is a slightly different characteristic, and ‘reach’ is another.)

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I’d also like to throw in Fenix’s Mass Recall into the ring. Although most Fenix players seem to forget about Mass Recall or are always keeping Fenix in his Cyrbros Arbiter suit making them unable to instantly deploy it elsewhere for a quick recall.

But Kerrigan definitely is the queen of map mobility for me. Her worms also act like medivacs in the regard that the units within benefit from the regeneration from Malignant Creep. The additional creep spread is good too.

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Is there a difference between “commander mobility” vs. “map presence”?

I presume that the former is getting troops are attacking there quickly, vs. the latter having vision, or being able to go to a place quickly enough?

Amongst all the COs I’ve played in depth:
Swann
Low mobility - Hercules transport. Wraith air unit. Hellion’s quick speed help, but don’t seem to be “all that”

Low presence - Concentrated Beam and Hercules can grant vision with faraway regions

Karax
low mobility - Energizer can create power field to warp in Warp Gate units. However, his Orbital Strikes alleviate the need for units if there’s vision (e.g. Stetmann’s satelites, or if your ally’s already got units there

Low presence - He relies on spreading pylons throughout the map, or sending obs

Stukov
Both low
Needs creep for Inf. walkers to move quicker
2 CDs are prominent thought
Infested Dbs are quick
Infested Tanks can deep tunnel

Zagara
Her units are quick. Her Drop Pods do NOT require vision, but have high cd (3 to 4 minutes IIRC)

Zeratul
Zeratul himself can warp to anyplace, even without vision.
His Void Arrays are supposed to be “reasonable enough” to Kerr’s Omega Worms, but I’ve never really tried them in any depth

If you’d care to build them, his Void Observers cost 0 supply, so surplus resources means you can deploy them throughout the map.

Tychus
Needs vision, but otherwise, good mobility, but low presence. I’ve seen some guides and comments saying all 3 Medivacs aren’t really necessary! :open_mouth:

Abathur
Swarm Hosts and Brutalisks can deep tunnel, so higher mobility. But medium on presence if you’re willing to deploy Ol throughout

HH
Medium presence. Their Strike Fighters grant vision ANYWHERE on the map for about 5 to 10s

Vorazun
Dark Pylons are nice

Stetmann
Stetalites grant vision to large portions of the map. Super/Gary can grant recall units to any stetatlite

Artanis
Power field projection place warp units to any power field, gives them that high initial mobility. Need Obs for presence.

Raynor
Scan, build, and deploy units via Orbital drop talent.

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Yeah, I use these three terms in close but slightly different ways.

Reach: ability to get vision, and ideally a strike force, into an unexplored location. Key commanders: Raynor, H&H, Abathur, Swann. Anti-Void Rift trait.

Mobility: ability to get entire army from one place to another, and back again, as easily and limitlessly as possible. Key commanders: Kerrigan, Vorazun, Zeratul (Void Array hopping), Tychus.

Map presence: ability to multitask and troubleshoot at multiple locations quickly and potentially at once. Key commanders: less definitive list, but here you’d say e.g. Nova can split her forces much better than Tychus can.

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Good concept but how come you overlook Fenix for Mobility? 30seconds is a fairly nonexistent limit compared to anyone but Kerrigan but in turn he can also transport air units and allies without asking for additional micro on their part.

Likewise, a Nova who splits her forces and multitasks is always at risk of losing something irreplaceable. Not to mention even handling just one group of unit frequently pushes her limit for control groups. Yet you mention her over, say, Artanis who can deploy disposable invulnerable stim warriors in any location at any time and even in dozens of places at once?

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Bit pedantic. : ) I was just giving examples. I’d put Fenix next after the top three. All four of them have unique features of their approach, so it’s not guaranteed we’ll all value them the same way. For me, Fenix’s is a bit less useful because he might want to be using a different suit, he might get the Arbiter destroyed, and even if not, he can’t warp back and forth across a map quite as often.

Oh come on sir, that’s even more pedantic! I said this was a much less definitive measure, and only gave a single example. Anyway, I play Nova a lot, so for me, it’s fairly routine to split Nova off alone, my Ravens off alone, and the rest of my forces somewhere else. I rank Artanis a bit below Nova for map presence as I play her, but he’s still good… though unfortunately less good at it vs air compositions, and his warp-ins stop working when he maxes out.