Problem is, if we make Swann, a 1, into a 2, Zeratul, then he’s no longer a 1 anymore
We need to nerf zeratuls and others OP, not make decent commander OP. Simple. This noob don’t count free gas + healing and drill support to ally, and can’t even matrix his science vessel properly, no point in conversating with him, rly.
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It’s like you hate fun.
It’s like you hate fun.
And on a “personal” level, this is true. I can level things “easier” with an old-style (pre nerf) cannon-spam Zeratul much easier/faster/better etc. than even my “advanced” Swann.
However
We’re talking a whole different series of thoughts here. Such as:
Is Swann capable of “doing his job”? General Answer: Yes.
Does Swann have strengths that other commander’s can’t reach, such as, oh, herc-tank obliterating entire ground sectors with little to no perma-losses? General Answer: Yes. Is said strength something that can be considered OP? Yes.
Does Swann have answers to get him to his “OP” point? General Answer: Yes.
I’ll agree, the “problem” with Swann is that his “OP point” is relatively “late game”, compared to Tychus / pre-nerf (and many still say post-nerf) cannon spam Zeratul / decently built ESO Mengsk / all the hero commanders who can hit their “OP point” in mid (or some cases Early) game and use that to snowball past Swann making him “seem ineffective” or “seem weaker” than the commanders who “get OP” earlier than him.
Yet, sometimes this is a “hidden strength” to Swann. How many times do you hear / run into a case where as Zagara / off her game Kerrigan starts to “peter out” because they’re late game strength is poor to compensate for them owning early-mid, the late game hero Swann tac-jumps in to save the day? How many times to you hear / run into situations where his “support functions” (Sci-vessel heal, defense matrix, tower defense, vespene bonus, drill, etc.) cause the game to end earlier than he can reach his OP-ness / even faster than some of these other commanders are used to?
Remember the name of this mode. I don’t see “solo capable” or “speedrun” in the title - those are “player made challenges”. And in light of being a “co-op” mode, Swann fits in nicely, but not necessarily perfectly.
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The problem with that is that Swann’s “OP” late game is average at best. Late game Swann is easily outclassed by Vorazun, Alarak, Mengsk, Zeratul, Abathur, or Karax. Plus several more commanders have “late game comps” such as mass infestor or mass carrier which will have a higher peak performance than anything Swann is capable of.
Basically, this statement:
Is not even close to true and I can name at least half a dozen late game options that can obliterate larger ground waves faster and with fewer loses than Swann’s tanks, and that’s without even touching on hero units.
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this…
Ascendants annihilates any enemy composition
Abba / Dehaka Guardians kills any ground army in seconds
Karax p3 kils any ground army instantly
Mengsk with esos has global map presence, no fancy micro needed
Zagara P1 clears the whole map before Swann ramps up
Vorazin DTs melts anything on ground before you can see it
Tychus needs single granade + storm
Nova is simply Nova…
Swan is decent when piloted by really good co-op player, P3 is good, but faar from "Does Swann have strengths that other commander’s can’t reach, such as, oh, herc-tank obliterating entire ground sectors with little to no perma-losses? General Answer: Yes.!
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I wouldn’t call a lot of these free. P1 Zagara and Alarak most notably. And I have to say I would rather an army of Swann’s tanks over p1 Zagara any day, despite her good tempo and outstanding anti-air. But yeah, ESO, DTs, Karax… all good examples.
You can change your build order a little bit to be effective early-mid game. I have been experimenting with a build order, where you expand late and focus on getting your laser drill upgrades, defense towers and your 8 tanks/1Herc out. It is pretty effective early-mid game.
Getting that 8 siege tanks and 1 Herc out is most important. You can demolish any early-mid level bases with that 8 tanks. If you face air comp, you can build some missile turrets to cover until you mass Goliaths.
Other than that I agree with everything you said.
Swann doesn’t need 200 supply to be good in late game. 150 is pretty good versus most things. That’s 16+ tanks plus some Goliaths could instance (3-5 seconds well positioned) kill most ground comp.
I mean you have to get there first. Herc warps in drop, kills. Ascendants are generally slow and Alarak as a CO lack mobility.
Karax needs vision to be able to do that and so does Mengsk. Unless Mengsk player knows the map well, can random bomb the map.
I agree with this but Zagara can out do most COs in kill count.
I mean 16 or 32+ tanks do obliterate any ground comp. Or 50+ Goliaths + 2 or 3 Thors for tanking vs any air comp.
I mean I played Nova and Swann a lot. For me when I compare their destructive power, Swann win hands down. It is just much easier to do things with Nova.
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To me Swann is great, not because he has one “more powerful than anyone else” option, but that he has a large number of powerful choices. So for mutators he’s rarely the favourite or easiest, but it’s hard to find one where he doesn’t have something powerful to contribute.
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Let’s all just agree to like the roundboi for his girth, then call it a day. What do y’all say?
I don’t like him like that … but ok for now.
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This is an example of “Does Swann have ways to get to his “OP” point”… 
Between Tac-Jump, herc lift-drop micro, & immortality protocol, we have the “little to no perma-losses” thing covered. The thing is, and I admit it even though I snipped a lot of it out of the quote, this isn’t something that tends to happen a lot in “early” game, or even the “early stages of mid-game”, this is a “late mid to flat out late game” setup - one which is hard to reach sometimes in this world of “Co-op sux if it’s not speedran by two perfectly in sync randos”…
Yet, when the proverbial stuff hits the fan, someone who has the ability to do these things with a Swann can turn a “devastating loss” into a case of… shall we say… “suboptimal XP earning”…
You’re losing a pretty decent amount of gas with each use of immortality protocol. Better than losing the tanks, but worse than say “emergency recall” or “back to the shadows”. And ESOs are even more extreme on not losing anything.
I hope you aren’t just planning to get carried through the first half of TotP against avenger or something, with the whole “I need nothing until the late game” mentality. That said, I find it ironic that the biggest advantage of herc/tank over many other lossless styles is that it ramps up a lot faster. The disadvantage is Swann having lower peak power.
Frankly, I really think you have Swann backwards. The problem with Swann isn’t that his army takes too long to ramp up, it’s that all the stronger lossless styles come from commanders who have potent enough topbar or hero unit options to solo the first up to 10 minutes without needing a single unit. That or Mengsk, who’s bunkers are just silly effective and who’s peak power once those ESOs come online is able to overshadow almost every commander.
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ESO does feel so silly, clearing all waves and objectives with just ESO not moving out of the base without ally involvement makes Aba sit in the corner.
My experiences with Swann - mostly on hard with my son as a consistent partner, is that if I were to take a “full carry” from him, I can have this “OP build” - 16 Golaiths, 8 sieges, 2 hercs, 2 sci vessels, all lab upgrades, and 2-2 if not 3-3, by the approach to the 3rd objective of your “average 4 objective map”. (which is, if I’m understanding right, the latter point of “mid-game”). If he had a “bad carry day”, I’m showing up to polish off the second objective. With “decent” micro (not my strong suit at all), I can press on to the final objectives and finish the map.
If I do things like “turret/siege tank the bases and leave said defenses behind so that he/we never have to go home and defend”, or "show up earlier but take too many “unforced” losses (my poor micro), then I’m pushing my OP army into the final objective.
Which seems to mirror the experiences of the “other forumites” with Swann.
But while human nature / the “perception” that the community wants nothing but “get to OP and wipe map as fast as humanly possible to maximize XP gains” makes Swann’s “lateness” in reaching OP a “liability” when picking commanders, those of us who aren’t focused purely on “getting OP / wiping maps like speedrunners” see how the entirety of Swann’s kit works - getting enough of a turret wall or cheap hellions up to defend the base from RtK’s first fast attack / void riftians through what the lazer does to field objectives that the ally is slapping around to giving the ally a better economy than they’re used to via vespene drones or even, as you say, “sacrificing” the timing / ever reaching OP because situations / your desires call for you to contribute earlier or in other ways (for example, on the DoN with reanimators/just die, I built my usual turret walls as a P2 L13 Swann while my son’s P3 L13 Infiltration Nova was pulling a small ghost force through the buildings and dropping his better siege tanks behind my turrets - so I built a wraith army to pop void reanimators with as my enhanced turrets / his super sieges made it where nothing sniffed the base at all on the “hardtation” (my macro is a little slow, my micro sucks too much for me to pull off brutals).
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I think maybe you could use a look into your opening build order because that army is… not very big. If your target army really is only 8 tanks with 16 goliaths (and starport change), you should be ready by 10 minutes, preferably sooner.
I’ve played Swann a few times.
This reminds me of Swann ally on DoN who made 20 turrets for 1st night and had no economy - you do not need a wall at all. Two is fine, a wall is not fine.
I probably could/should, and in a way I’m trying to do that slowly and (to me) organically - experiment sometimes with different orders, play other commanders and see how to apply what I learn there to Swann, etc.
So I’m at a point where, if I go “pure army”, I know I can have the 16/8/2/2 army I’m aiming for at 10 min, but I also enjoy building my “turret walls”, which consist of at most 4 of each type of turret (4 dizzys in the “front” to deal with air/spot/tank, 4 flaming bettys in the middle due to their shorter range, and 4 big guns in the rear to do the actual damage/slow stuff). Toss in a pair of tanks behind each wall when appropriate (infested maps, TotP, the player 2 expo on ME because of the massive hybrid containing wave that inevitably strikes there) and hit a point where we can shift from a “worry about the homebase” to “do nothing but worry about the field/objectives”…