pootis- The reason for my Alarak rating is that I think he is poorly positioned as the 4th protoss commander of minor variations on the basic race. Sure he’s the biggest minor variation with a hero unit, but the army around that hero unit is really boring. Fenix is in a really similar position, but his army is more interesting, and for Starcraft I think the army is more important than the hero.
RayoftheSun- Yeah, Dehaka has a lot of unique stuff, but in some ways I think that’s actually a detractor for him. He has too many “respond anywhere” abilities with all the calldowns and the teleport. Where’s the downside to this commander? Only having strengths is really just an indicator that he’s overpowered, not that he’s well designed. The surest mark of a good design is when you’re dealing with a weakness, and discover there’s a new tool to deal with it. Dehaka never faces this situation, even in mutators. The fact he always spawns before the first wave is just the icing on the cake of never-having-a-weakness.
And regarding Stukov, I think Lord of the Horde prestige definitely dumbed him down to the lowest denominator (plus it’s way overtuned so everyone always plays it), but the base commander has a lot of different tools for different situations and also a need to mix those tools together in various combinations to make them work best. This is why something being overpowered doesn’t necessarily make for a good design. If I was just rating the Lord of the Horde prestige I would give Stukov a below average rating, but the commander as a whole has a lot of variety and interest to him… it simply gets overshadowed by one OP build that is neither varied or interesting.