There are very few commanders that aren’t strong late game or just consistent throughout. Karax also starts slow but you aren’t getting through his defenses at least. Even if he just dropped them as the attack showed up.
swann is outdated and with lame prestiges.
a ton of swann units are inferior and underused compared to tank/goliath
swann also suffers from slow ramp up and mineral starvation.
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I prefer oldy but goody. He definitely plays a little dated, but he’s solid. Wraiths, Goliaths, vessels, tanks, and hercs are all good units. Thors, cyclones, and hellbats/hellions are more situational, but not without uses (his upgraded hellbats are about the tankiest 100m unit, alongside P1 Raynor’s firebats or Abathur’s full biomass roaches).
His biggest weakness is his prestige levels are very underwhelming. Whereas Karax was given three really strong options to boost anything you might want to do with him, Swann was given 3 at best lateral shifts in play (and they might be nerfs). In comparison to what other commanders got, it’s pretty lame.
P0 to P0 though, and Swann is strong. Best static defense, an actually good and functional army, and excellent ally support.
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I love Swann, he’s one of my favorite commanders and also one of the best IMO. I don’t like any of his prestiges though.
Biggest flaw I see when people play him is not utilizing multiple SCVs to build the same structure and not putting SCVs out in the field to drive by for army repairs to help the Science Vessels out. Also, not precasting Science Vessel bubble before meeting attack waves or engaging defenses.
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Swann is really powerful and has massive burst damage but is so easy to play badly/wrong. If you put in the effort to get really good with him you’ll be rewarded. If that sounds like too much work then he’s not your style of commander.
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Swann main here. I use him for most brutations and brutal+. He’s in a strange spot where, if you can macro, he’s better in the late game, and if you micro, you can do amazing things with Herc/tank earlier on. The key is, if you can do both really well, then he can do some amazing things though out the whole game.
Covering early waves and early defensive objectives with turrets, fast expanding on non contested maps with blaster billies, while managing your supply, ramping up production, and still pushing enemy encampments with 1 Herc with 2-3 tanks in it while microing your laser to kill threatening targets… Yea, it can take more work than other CO’s to get the same result, but it sure does feel good. And later on, there’s nothing like having a teleporting army capable of killing enemies and bases before they get close, camping enemy spawns with turrets, destroying any additional waves with cool downs, and supporting your Ally by giving them all the extra gas in the world.
Maybe one day I’ll post my amazing replays.
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Lol that’s amazing 
Swann has improved SCVs…
… pile on 3 of them, and Supply Depot gets done in 14s instead of 30. You can rapid build any structure as a means to rapidly speed up your econ, tech tree, etc., so it’s a nice fallback if your macro slips
Tanks have Immortality Protocol. I have max mastery in this, so tanks that would die in the field get rebuilt quickly, at discount. No need to tie up Factories, nor have to move them back to the front lines
Gollies with the “shoot ground and air” upgrade are strong against Void Slivers, Void Shards, and Void Thrashers. They’re generally nice AA, esp. with their long range. It helps to repair them, or use Science Vessel Def. Matrix to prolong their lives. Otherwise, be ready to replace them.
Oh, also possible since he has Tech Reactors!
Warbots may be boring, but are a tried and true “panic button”
Drakken Laser Drill usually racks up the most damage done by a single entity on the stats screen
Concentrated Beam clears most waves and forts (and provides limited, short time vision).
Pulse Cannon is his version of Nuke. On the last escort force for Chain of Ascension, a single Pulse Cannon took out 11 Thors, a smattering of Gollies, Tanks, and other Terran Factory units, while severely weakening Hybrids for easy mop up.
His towers are versatile, can be quick built via Improved SCVs, can be upgraded, and salvaged if you need to minerals. Flaming Betty for AG (anti-ground) swarmy comps. Billy Blaster for hard hitting and more range. Spinning Dizzy for AA (also includes missile pod for AoE AA)
Many COs appreciate Harvester Drones for extra gas.
.
EDIT: I haven’t even mentioned Wraiths and Hercs, so everything above can be done with far less than “super man micro”. If you can master those, you’ll get even more mileage out of Swann.
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In my book he is.
His early game is so bad, that his late game cannot in any way compensate for that. His late game would need to be 3 times as powerful as it is now.
There are maps and objectives, that are almost impossible for swann to solo early game. Hercules tank drop and the +40 damage upgrade for tanks is the only thing that keeps Swann competitive at all… yet only those two units - hercules / tank drop micro require 10 times more difficult play from the user than all that tychus / dehaka have to deal with in their entire army arsenal.
Make of that what you will, but in my book that is enough to call Swann the weakest commander overall.
I find Karax early game way worse. His early units just gets rekt by air comps. Also goiaths has multi lock upgrade. As polietly as possible… are you sure it’s not just you?
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This is true. Swann relies heavily on good warbots use in early game. He is golden agaist swarmy zerg (hellbats are cheap and effective) and terran bio, but air is pain to deal with and so is toss immortal composition. He needs critical mass to deal with them and his units and upgrades are very expensive. His earlygame might be amog the hardest od all commanders.
Karax weak early game? What?
Ok so first off, it’s been proven that with p3 it is possible to solo TotP and OE with literally just Spear of Adun, not just for waves but for trains and thrashers. So at this point it’s safe to put the Spear’s power level on par with the stronger hero commanders like Kerrigan or Dehaka, only spawning at 0 seconds in to the game.
And then there’s turrets where Karax doesn’t need a massive swarm of workers to build a quick turret line in the early game, he needs 1. Unlike Swann. This makes it vastly more viable to rely upon turrets in the early game.
And for army… this isn’t even an early game thing Karax’s units are just better. A lot better. Even a non-reviving, no-mastery sentinel has more hp than a Goliath, and immortals are basically an already very good unit with a superior version of the cyclone functionality dumped on top. Plus Karax gets repair beam which early on can target the most of his early units, without any upgrades required.
Honestly, I don’t know how you can think of anything Karax does as weaker than Swann.
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I actually find goliaths quite effective vs air comps. Also if the enemy is all air and no ground the mix in some wraiths. I struggle way more myself with karax.
Never said he is weaker. Just that I find his early game harder. Goes to show how we’re all good and bad at different things doesn’t it? Also, siege tanks, since you asked what Swann does better. Siege tanks is one of the best units vs ground in the game. They can also rebuild in the field. Thor 330 mm barrages are basically spear of adun orbital strikes but without energy limitation for ground, and goliaths do not lose efficency vs ground over air and vice versa. Science vessels are superior healers to carriers with drones due to defensive matrix.
They are both defense experts and both very strong. There is no vs to be had here tho. We are talking about Swann, I just mentioned someone I consider to be even worse in the ramp up since it was brought up.
Goliaths attacks are about as effective against air as dragoons, but they are far FAAAAR less tanky. Just like goons they overkill stuff like crazy, cause in every big fight, all your Goliaths will be attacking 2-3 targets at a time, even if you have 40 of them.
They are among the worst anti air units… 20 goliaths cannot even prevent 20 scourges from totally obliterating all your science vessels. And Goliaths whole purpose of existense IS to be an anti air unit… let that sink in for a minute.
Plain old Raynors marines deal with air 300% better than the same amount of supply in Goliaths.
And on top of that, if you don’t have vessels + D-matrix and great micro, you will bleed out expensive goliaths in every engagement and never reach max supply couse they are bascially made of paper…
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goliath’s aint even expensive, nor are they made of paper. yes you need to have science vessels to keep them alive, but you also have the option to simply spam goliaths and tanks with the regenerative biosteel upgrade. If it’s a scourge comp then it means there won’t be a lot of air units that can attack ground, and siege tanks destroys ground. Idk, produce more, it works for me and apparently a lot of other people.
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I thino at this point it’s best to just watch a replay of Swann, this discussion ain’t gonna get solved by talking.
I’ll just gonna be clear that Swann’s late game is one of the best there is, the problem is getting there as you don’t want to lose your first few goliaths in order to scale.
Swann’s ramp is slow. This can be compensated by drill top bar. The issue is more prominent during leveling. Without them, it’s just a slow build up.
Both Swann and Karax have this issue. Karax is a bit more forgiving but overall it’s one slow commander versus another slow commander.
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It’s called “unwieldiest”.
You need to have Science Vessels put matrix shields on Goliaths that will be tanking. Goliath air attacks a little faster than dragoons and range is a little further. Goliaths get two range upgrades, one from armory and the other from tech reactor.
You got to move your science vessels to the back allow Goliaths to do their work and put matrix shields on the science vessels. Scourge and banelings are tricky for a lot of commanders. If you play Swann, you will need mix builds Goliaths + tanks. You got to micro, micro, micro … Don’t use F2 often. Click on individual units and move them.
Yup this commander will take a lot of practice. You can’t A-move or B-move like other easier commanders. Swann is more like C-move. It requires a lot of work to be great at it.
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