Hello everyone, so the time has come for me to ask about another commander: Stukov. I tried Stukov a long while back, but was having a lot of difficulty figuring him out, felt like my infested were made of tissue and not really doing too much. But I feel in a zombie spamming kind of mood and want to try him again.
Probably did not help that he is low level, but still… I think I just need general advice on how to use him and what to build.
On a side note: I am having a lot of fun as Karax, he might actually become one of my mains, was surprised at how well he synergizes with my playstyle.
Stukov is very macro dependent in all his strategies. So it’s something like SCV x 3, Overlord, SCV x some until CC. Then Gas or Barracks from there.
The above works on all maps against all compositions but has some requirements.
These include Apocalysk and Infested Structure (+/-mastery). As it becomes crucial to have early coverage given the route of CC first.
If you’re going the mass infested/bunker route, then learn to use more than the psi emitter top bar.
You don’t have to be a master of micro but even some forms of selecting a group of infested to target down x, y, or z will improve this boring strategy significantly.
Get in on the Mech train.
His main power still lies with the infested mech. Decoratively or en masse, Stukov deal a lot of damage with very little in comparison.
Micro is your friend.
This is always the advanced portion of any commander. Get that Aleksander to move through more than 1 base, don’t just cast-n-leave-it. Move-kite with a DB and you’ll see how much work even 1 can do. Tunnel those tanks off-cooldown as much as you can, they can also unsiege. Just to make a few.
Hope all that helps. Start from the top, I listed them in terms of relative importance and ease, give or take.
Those are some great point above. I’ll add to it, use your infested to whittle down defenses, then follow one of their waves in with either a mass marine wave, uprooted bunkers, or mech. On push missions like Rifts, keep them marching to your objectives the whole time so they can slowly clear a path for when you’re ready. And move your buildings (especially bunkers without mastery, but also colonist compound) closer to extend infested life.
Which playstyle are you more interested in? Do you want to mass infested or do you want to mass diamondbacks/tanks? Stukov can be played in multiple ways, and you should put your mastery points in the playstyle you want to do. Also IMO there is the air route, but I don’t think it’s that good. If there is anything you should take away, it’s this:
With an early focus on your economy you can then constantly pump out units from barracks for finishing the short maps and supplement with tanks. P1 is great for levelling, but some powerful mech upgrades are level-locked.
Be sure to spread creep, either actively using Overlords or passively via building an additional CC or two. (Overlord method is faster and cheaper, but takes some minimal micro.)
Consistently move up your infested spawners, it’ll both extend their active time in combat and potentially can allow multiple spawns to bunch together.
If you go down the mech route, it’s pretty much mass diamondbacks only. P1 is obviously the best prestige for that. Get any masteries related to strengthening mech composition (and completely ignore the ones that do nothing for it). I personally see no reason to make any tanks unless you are on defense duty of any kind (ex: saving the colonists, wiping out the infested, the temple mission).
Some maps the first waves came very early <2 mins so you may want to get barrack first and an overlord to spawn infested marines.
Also to not get u confused.
Infested bunker spawns troopers
Only infested Barrack spawns marines
Troopers have identical stats as marine but only 30s timed life while marines have much more timed life.
In early levels of Stukov, you will have to mix in Diamondback to push heavily defended base because marines and troopers are not strong enough to break through.
The earliest wave that spawns is on RtK, which is at 2min (usually 2:05). Zerglings, Vultures, etc. are amongst the hardest and quickest to arrive at your base. And they don’t arrive until well after 2:40min.
This gives you plenty of time to follow the build. As always it’s a choice, but imo it’s choosing to set yourself up at a disadvantage throughout the game versus not. Seems like a no brainer.
The only time I recommend going non-CC is if you’re entirely comfortable 1-base Stukov. This works best on P1 due to its tech removal and cost reduction. If it’s not obvious enough, this requires a much higher understanding (and m90) to be put to use well. I’d rate this at the peak of Stukov’s skills to master, so I mean I don’t know if it’s entirely relevant for just starting.
Well, in your rock expansion maps, this is where your infested civilians and infested structure is for. The point of fast CC is actually to get your worker saturation. While centred CC for optimized income is always best, that small delay isn’t the bigger issue.
You can use your Apocalysk but frankly it’s a bit of a waste since you can better use that to push down an objective/base. So that balance is where you’ll have to decide. As you play, you’ll see that making that 10-15sec on spot CC with Apocalysk isn’t as worthwhile compared to mauling down a wave + an objective.
That said, on some maps, the timing is so late there is no reason to really wait imo. (I am of the general opinion, a top bar sitting there is a wasted next top bar if you know what I mean.) Also, on maps like RtK, where the wave is so early your infested structure is surely saved for defending. In those more rare cases, you’d save the top bar.
Again, that’s also where your mastery comes in handy. While volatile infested are nice, they have actually very little value in general. I used to have my mastery in this set. It was later on, where I realized that having “anything to draw fire” is what’s more important. As such, and to that end, using more frequent infested structure has higher DPS and frequency of use (and 0 investment).
The compound is great, so don’t get me wrong but it isn’t spawning things fast enough. And the spawned civvies don’t exactly travel fast.
I kid you not when I say that my entire grind of prestige has just been build barracks, set rally, hold Spawn Infested Marine, and win.
Okay, yes. I also use the Infested Compound upgrades but still. It’s literally that easy to play Stukov. It becomes a “Try To Not Fall Asleep Challenge” for me. No idea why people enjoy such a one-dimensional commander with zero challenge.
The debate on this is more or less player-dependent.
Each Infested Marine costs 25min (let’s ignore cooldowns or repeat use). This means for every 400min bunker, you can actually get 16 (x25min) Infested Marine. They last 90-120sec (+/- mastery), thus where the issue lies.
In a 15-25min mission, you have to constantly push, defend, etc. This generally strain your income far more when you have to constantly replace the mass produced Infested Marine. When used correctly, including micro smaller groups, correct targeting, and timing each production cycle, Barracks is superior strategy compared to bunkers. As you’d expect though, mastery of those 3 elements isn’t as easy in practice as it is in my post.
On the other hand, each Infested Bunker comes with 4-6 Infested Troopers (depending on your upgrade). It also generate an extra 1 every 30sec (200% faster… 10sec/cycle P3?). So for a single bunker to pay its barracks equivalent’s worth, it will take [400 - 4 x 25]/25 x 30sec = 360sec or 6min (5min with upgrade, 2.5min still even on P3). The general stream, as you build more and more, makes that push easier to TIME than ‘production cycles’ of the counter-comparative. These guys only last 30-60sec (+/- mastery), so they also fall slightly short while sub15.
They also come with a very big issue. The ‘brainless’ strategy generally promotes (especially newer players) to not-micro. So majority of the stream end up dying to a well-defended base, especially true against Terran. It does eventually gets overrun by your numbers, but for pushing at an adequate pace that is essentially not possible without micro.
And this is exactly why both barracks or bunkers are inferior to mech.