I like macro more than micro. What’s the best commander/s for me? Thanks!
I’d say Raynor with mules, or Swann are the best terran with micro.
Zagara, with her twin drones, can saturate your base really quickly. Stukov, you can set a psi-emitter, and just watch the carnage enfold.
Artanis, his lvl 15 ability automatically maxes him out, so you don’t have to build pylons, warps his units instantly in power-fields.
I believe those commanders, off of the top of my head, are more macro than micro-heavy. Of course, other people might disagree.
Zeratul has
- No pylons.
- Thus no power requirement for buildings.
- Automated, self building assimilators.
- Automatic upgrades/research through the artifact mechanic.
Just make an army and kill things, thats all!
1 Like
He said he wanted macro over micro, so opposite of Zeratul.
6 Likes
Personally, if I was looking for the best macro experience in co-op, I would probably play with either Zag (since she has reason to keep making units forever) or Fenix. You could also do Alarak, but he’s macro and micro.
I mentioned it because there is barely any micro required. Build buildings, build units and move them around in a death ball.
Zera himself will need to break away for artifacts but that’s pretty much it if one wants.
2 Likes
Definitely Fenix. There’s a lot of base management to do to ramp up, because it’s generally optimal to get all 6 Champions out early which means you have a lot of infrastructure. On the flip side, his army attack-moves pretty well and you mainly just want to add in a bit of Conservator micro so they fight under the shield.
Karax is another option. You don’t have as much infrastructure you have to build, but he has pretty demanding strategic macro decisions about what to rush out – how to prioritise upgrades and use Chrono Boost and Wave. He has nice map-specific strategies like rushing the Solar Lance upgrade to handle the first train on Oblivion Express.
Zagara can be played with little micro but her macro isn’t much more than holding down rapidfire keys set to production. Getting better at Zagara is more about strategy and micro, whereas getting better at Fenix is a lot about macro.
Raynor, Swann and Alarak have a lot of macro (Alarak least) but also generally heavy micro. If you want someone who’ll reward strong macro even in the late game, but won’t push micro too hard, you could look at Raynor’s air compositions (P3 or not). But beware they’re a newbie trap – newbies don’t realise just how punishing the macro and strategy is to not be useless throughout the early game.
1 Like
Personally I’d say Raynor, Vorazun, Fenix, or Mengsk.
Raynor get a plus because he’s free, plus I’d say he arguably shows it the most when your macro is on point due to his Mules. But he’s heavy on the micro as well, and outside of his third prestige his BCs are more a trap than anything.
Vorazun has the slowest build up of the four, but between DTs and Void Rays you’ve got the potential to not have to worry about micro too much, depending on Amon’s comp.
Fenix lets you go wild with the build order as his whole tech tree is available from the get go (after he unlocks it through leveling, naturally). He’s got lots of flexibility, build the units that counter Amon and let them rip.
Mengsk is arguably the most complex macro out of the four, with lots of options for how to approach things. You’d think his Troopers need the same kind of micro as Raynor’s Marines, but they’re really just super expendable. So long as you don’t run them all into a bunch of Colossi or something you can really just let them die and replace them.
1 Like
Mengsk is fun macro commander.
Zagara. Especially her P1. Just make a baneling and scourge nest, then a-move.
1 Like
Pretty wide interpretations of what “macro commander” means. Interesting.
To me at least, the macro commanders are Mengsk, Raynor, Kerrigan, Stetmann, Fenix, Artanis, and probably Vorazun (I’ve played her least by far, so I’m not familiar), in something close to that order. These commanders all have lots of buildings and become significantly better the tighter your build order is.
Marco only, Karax p1 and Swann p2. Build cannons or turrets like no tomorrow.
Vanilla Karax and Swann let’s you do a mix of both comfortably.
Zeratul can build cannons and project them any where on the map. I don’t see players do that any more. Zeratul tornado upper cut seems to be popular these days.
Fenix. Really makes you learn to spam pylons/upgrades.
He’s not RTS. It’s why i didn’t get him.
Raynor : Very macro intensive , micro intensive
Kerrigan: Very micro intensive, somewhat macro intensive (need Kerrigan to carry early while you macro up, asymulation aura is important for macro as well, so macro very much dependent on micro).
Artanis: probably best intro / starting out commander. Macro based commander with simple macro, simple micro. Helps if you understand what Artanis tech path will counter enemy comp but mass dragoons will suffice in all matchups.
Swann: macro intensive, and micro intensive (if you doing herc / tank)
Vorazun: pretty simple macro / micro (but ramp up is kind of slow, blink micro if using stalkers).
Zagara: somewhat macro intensive, mildly micro intensive. Mining comes easy the mildly intensive part is you are constantly making units, but the macro is pretty straight forward overall. Zagara army is not micro intensive unless you are casting corruption on stuff, but Zagara herself needs a bit of micro.
Karax: Macro intensive, early on micro intensive (unless you are doing mass cannon style)
Abathur: macro intensive (manage bio mass component), simple micro past early mid game; got to be a bit careful early on.
Nova: Simple macro, micro intensive
Alarak: Macro intensive, very micro intensive
Stukov: Macro intensive, simple micro
Fenix: Macro intensive, simple micro (micro Fenix himself, throw up conservator barriers)
Han &Horner: Macro intensive, early game micro intensive
Dehaka: Micro intensive (very micro intensive early game), simple macro
Typhus: Micro intensive , simple macro
Zeratul: Micro intensive a bit in terms of finding the artifacts, and your micro affects macro. But the army micro, and base macro are very simple.
Stetmann: Somewhat macro intensive as the satellites are another macro component, micro is fairly simple. The micro is using Gary for the most part
Mengsk: Not super duper intensive, but fairly intensive on both micro and macro components.
This just covers P0. Certain prestiges can deviate from commander’s default macro / micro demands to a degree . Like Zagara P1 requires even less micro but you’re making new units even more constantly. Raynor P1 makes him a lot less intense both micro and macro wise, but also limits his potential .
2 Likes
It’s either Raynor or Swann. Pretty much with Raynor you can do whatever you want and win.
Mass marines with or without medics, get a free win.
Mass tanks and vultures (but don’t forget to make some Vikings for anti-air) and get a free win.
Mass battlecruiser, get a free win.
Raynor’s mastery unlock is ridiculously cheap upgrades, so you can get 3/3 Battlecruisers or 3/3 mech very easily.
Swann the only thing you need to do is make about 8 hellbats at the very beginning of the game, and then mass goliaths for the rest of the game, with 4 to 6 Science vessels for detection and healing. If you play Swann correctly, you don’t need ANY Static Defense, not even on Brutal difficulty, except one Blaster Billy to shoot rocks when you fast expand on FE maps, then sell it for the money back. Speed build Factories, Command Centers, and Refineries, but normal build Supply depots, as long as you don’t get supply blocked anyway.
I don’t remember what the “ideal” number of workers is to speed build each structure, but I THINK it’s 4 workers on command centers, factories, and tech structures, and 2 workers per refinery. You can also speed build the Blaster Billy with 4 workers.
Call down all 8 of the gas harvester bots AS SOON as you can afford the minerals.
Speed building the command cente with 4 workers is worth it, because you get the command center over a minute earlier.
Speed build blaster billy, means the rocks die about 15 seconds earlier, which means you start your command center 15 seconds earlier, then you speed build the command center and finish it a minute earlier, or 75 total seconds ahead of no speed buildgni at all, which means you can train 5 extra SCVS from the command center by the time you would have started training your first SCV. This means the 5 earlier SCVS pay for the lost worker time of the 3 “speed building” SCVS, so then you can speed build your extractors and start mining extra gas like 90 seconds earlier than no speed build at all, which gives you enough bonus gas to pay for your two armories for earlier upgrades.
So by speed building the expansion with 4 SCVS total, you save 90 seconds on getting the refineries and 75 seconds on getting your first 5 expansion SCVS. This means you get 30 worker-cycles per worker on yoru geysers more than no speed build at all, so that’s 90 workers cycles at 4 gas per cycle per geyser or 180 x4, which means you mine 720 extra gas by speed building the entire expansion, which is enough gas to buy almost all of your armory upgrades for the game.
You save 75 seconds worth of mining time for 10 extra SCVS (5 from the main base walking them over) so that’s I think 25 worker cycles at 5 minerals per cycle per worker, times ten, which is 1250 extra minerals saved by speed building vs not speed building, which pays for all of your armory upgrades mineral cost. So Swann’s Speed built expansion is a bigger economic boost than Artanis’ level 15 “Glory of the Daelam” unlock.
the third SCV on minerals only actually mines about 1/4th efficiency compared to the first 2 SCV on minerals, so it’s worth it to pull the 7 “extra” SCVs from your main base to the speed built expansion immediately, then macro back up to 21 on minerals in the main and 18 on minerals in the expansion. The 3rd mineral worker is less efficient than the first 2, but over the course of a game it’s still worth it.
So by Mayanarding your main base workers, you probably mine another 500 or so bonus resources, I would need to test it in-game to know exactly what it adds up to because there is some walking time, so you don’t get the full 75 seconds benefit from the speed built command center, but you probably get about 60 extra seconds of those 7 SCVS mining at 100% efficiency vs mininig at 25% efficiency as the 3rd workers on the main base, if you understand. Sto assuming it is 60 seconds, that would be 60/3 is 20 cycles per SCV times 5 per cycle times 7 SCVs would be yet another 700 minerals mined by speed building and maynarding combined. Which pays for 4.6 extra goliaths, or put another way pays for your Hellbats for the game that I recommended making at the start…
this also means that in Ladder, Maynarding to your natural expansion pays for your 3rd and 4th expansion over the next 60 to 75 seconds vs not maynarding at all. So unless you are going for a 1 base all-in, you should maynard your workers every time you expand.
For macro demanding commanders it’s:
Raynor: He’s a starter commander but to be frank, he’s not, the gap between a fairly new player to a coop veteran is huge with this commander, due to mule macro, build order, best usage of calldowns and such.
Mengsk: He’s APM intensive from the very start of the match if you got him at max mastery, due to being able to get fast eco and tech, you need to know control groups to play well with him.
Swann: He’s macro demanding but not because of high APM, but because he’s currently the slowest commander, so you don’t want to get his build order wrong.
Kerrigan: You can hero-solo with her, but going with army and suddenly she requires inject macro or macro hatcheries, creep spread and stuff.
Karax: it’s really troublesome to level him up, but masteries makes him really strong, at max mastery, he requires carefull choices of army comp as he’s a very gas-starved commander, as well requiring to get the build order right to scale well.
Raynor as long as you’re playing P1 so you can a-move everything and not worry about taking too many losses.
Swann because he has high supply costs in his units and no economic boost to mineral gathering (which is basically why I stopped playing him entirely).
Kerrigan just need to control her and a-move everything else while doing typical zerg things, with omega worms things get even easier.
Fenix is probably the most macro heavy commander as you constantly need to be building pylons, getting upgrades for the champions, and teching up all at the same time.
P1 is the prestige that trims back on macro and forces you to micro because you can’t afford losses. P0 you can afford to lose hundreds of marines and still be fine if you have enough orbitals.
Raynor isn’t the same macro anymore. Sure, when he had the double mules, which were legendary, he was.
One of his prestiges takes away his mules altogether. Also, he has instant supply depots. He’s not as much macro.