[Poll] What commanders need nerf and what need a buff?

Co-op Missions Discussion
112

Alright yeah I do understand that robo is way less effective than ascendants, it was just your choice of words that confused me.

I actually don’t know how well robo works since I only play robo when the game forces me to (aka dead of night) but they do just fine there, it’s just nothing special. Karax and Fenix do robo better so I’d rather play them if I wanted to play a robo build.

As for your ascendant play clearly you are not playing that effectively either, you are supposed to use Alarak aggressively through the whole game and if you really want to compete with stronger commanders you have to split your ascendants and micro them separately while also microing Alarak.

Obviously it’s ok if people don’t want to go that hard into it but it always hurts me when people don’t use Alarak and just leave him behind even though he’s so strong :frowning_face:

2 Likes
113

Those are calldowns with long cooldowns.

But you are right… a few ascendants are as strong as a griffin airstike. Only without cooldown. And airstrike with mastery costs 700 minerals. 3 Ascendants can do the same for less than half the price in supplicants. And you can have 10 times that many.

114

You’re comparing apples and oranges. Alarak can solo waves too… but he has ascendants in addition to that.

115

Sky terran wreck Ascendant if you don’t have enough of them to kill libs and bc

1 Like
116

You’re probably not playing Alarak a lot, when you ask that kind of question.

24 ascendents is not even close to what you can get. You can get them even with shield and alarak upgrades as well as havocs with their upgrades. Cause what else you gonna spend your gas on?

You can mine 170 * 4 = 680 gas per minute once you get your expansion. 24 Ascendents cost 3600 gas… less than 6 minutes of mining. Add another 2 minutes and you can get all the upgrades and support units you want as well.

The only reason i stop making ascendents is because the supplicants they would need to level are worth more DPS when consumed by the already high level ones.

Edit: just played a game for testing on mist opportunities… at the end i had built 60 ascendents. Granted, its a long map (30:00 mins)… but 60 is also a long way from 24.

117

Yeah if you don’t know what you’re doing, sure.

Otherwise 3 level 10 ascendants with 3 supplicants will kablamo the entire terran skywave with the first volley of orbs. Nothing other than BCs will survive the initial cast.

What remains you can take down with mind blast… which you can cast 9 additional times.

Or you just throw another 18 orbs… you know, the kind of orbs of which 3 killed almost everything?

And what’s gonna hurt ascendents? I mean other than standing in liberation zones or not splitting against multiple irradiates? They have 1080 HP… they eat tickle yamatos 240 damage like cereals.

118

The War Prism should be able to pick up any Ascendant that is in danger.
I guess with great micro you could even pick up Ascendant as a yamato is flying towards him?

But i personally never had issues with skyterran as ascendant alarak.
The red spheres of doom kinda kill em from a looong distance away, and anything can be cleaned up by Alarak.

119

I think i have built war prisms in 2 games… just to try them. Never since, and i’m max level.

At that level of micro, you should not need to have to pick up ascendents… you should be amons worst nightmare.

Besides that: what’s the fastest way to kill a bunch of 1080 HP ascendents ?
Put them in a 200 HP war prism !

But ok, jokes aside… one thing i always do to keep ascendents alive is always consume a supplicant right away when you build them. It’s not efficient, but level 0 to 1 makes a huge difference in tankiness. It more than doubles their HP from 80 to 180. Level 0 ascendents are just too fragile… if your micro isn’t excellent, your much better of that way.

120

Ok just to clear my confusion.

  1. Are the Orbs even damage air units? Last time i check the orbs only harm ground units.
  2. I am highly positive that Mind blast has cooldown on it AND consuming Supplicants will NOT refresh the cooldown. So 3 Ascendants = 3 mind blast per 10s. 10s is more than enough to wreck your army with libs and bcs?

Again this is just to clear my confusion because the last time i played Alarak was 3-4 months ago. I am not sure if anything changed the past few months.

Those are all i want to know.

Do orbs damage air?
And
Does mind blast have cooldown?

121

Yeah crap can garbage has been pointed out by other people… like comparing ascendents with air strikes or Dehaka. People who question whether you can build 24 ascendents in a game.

Or comparing them to carriers… what a joke. There is nothing to compare here… cost, build time, DPS, tankiness, AoE… yeah carriers suck monkey balls in every regard compared to ascendents.

Go ahead - point out ONE post between mine and yours that was replied to me and is not complete garbage.

Maybe if you play him. Alarak needs multitasking. Having 24 ascendents clumped together is not the way to play him.

Once you mined enough minerals to have most of your ascendents at level 5 (which costs 7500 minerals in supplicants for 24 ascendents)

Alarak lacks behind in in mobility (which you can address by splitting your OP ascendents) and ramp up time… which is mostly due to supplicant cost.

Thats why i suggested to reduce max level, but give level 1 for free. That would address their OPness as well as their weakness.

Maybe by your imagination.

You know how games go in mine? Trains on oblivion express die before the second wagon gets into vision range. That’s not an exaggeration. Units spawning from the warpgates on void launch die before my ally get’s any kills… and all i’m doing is holding down the mind blast autofire hotkey. I’m not a micro god or anything.

You clearly have so much experience with alarak dude… You are not a bit wrong here. You are completely wrong.

Load up YOUR OWN last Alarak game where you fast expand and went full ascendent build. Even on a rushed 15 minute game you will either reach that amount, or you will float the ressources to do so.

Here is a replay with 60 ascendents build in 30 minutes:

htt ps://www.file-upload.net/download-13745211/MistOpportunities304_60_ascendents.SC2Replay.html]MistOpportunities304_60_ascendents.SC2Replay

Watch that replay and learn how you can play alarak. I’m not even good really… but you guys… you seem to have no idea what alarak is capable of.

122

Seriously man… you don’t even know basic stuff… and you’re arguing about it… like 90% of the people talking here.

Yeah they do. They always did.

Without them ascendents would not be half as good. It’s their most important spell. Late game just cast orbs… don’t think about how many… just throw a dozen on a wave and delet it. You need to level your ascendents anyway - so use up that free 200 energy you get per supplicant.

Libs die to orbs. And if your ascendents die to liberators… i’m sorry, but that has nothing to do about ascendents being bad… its about you. Just walk out of liberation zones…

And about BCs: now this may come as a shocking surprise, but… you can WALK AWAY. You just move your mouse and right click. It’s different than a-move, i know… but its really good too.

You can do other stuff in the mean time, like scratch your head… your ascendents can walk alone once you gave the command.

Do that for 10s and then nuke another 3 BCs. Try it… it’s really good.

123

I guess Ascendants are OP once fully-powered, but they aren’t really OP overall and won’t push Alarak to being a top commander anytime soon. Your suggestion about limiting their lategame power and buffing their earlygame probably would make their strengths and weaknesses more balanced out, but I think Alarak needs a more of an overhaul to make him both stronger and less bland in his unit choices.

Bring back global 1qe2c, please.

2 Likes
124

Well for me he is a top commander. Maybe not the best one, but pretty close to it.

Key to having early game presence is to have structure overcharge whenever you need it… so keep a probe on a hotkey and close by at all times early and mid game.

That i can agree with.

Well you can still do that… just need to have your ascendants close by. I guess the real issue here is: why bother with 1qe2c when you can use your close by ascendants instead.

I never got good with 1qe2c really… but in theory it’s still pretty OP - i imagine someone doing kung-fu alarak like that AND using the free energy you get with every “c” AND using overcharge on cooldown. Too much micro for me… but doable.

125

To be completely precise, i did not argue that Ascendants are weak. I said Terran Sky will wreck them if you don’t have enough of them meaning that you need to use them properly.

And because i am not certain about their abilities, i asked you to clear my confusion. No where in my comment did i claimed that they are weak or they need buff or that you are wrong.

126

I find it amusing to see the Alarak debates going on and no one making mention of his War Prisms being able to be targets for Overcharge. <: It’s such a lovely QoL change, having mobile SO.
Alarak’s faults lie in his ramp-up time and lack of build diversity. Only two builds really function – Mech and Ascendants. Even then, people complain about Mech because of the Vanguards supposedly being bad.
Alarak’s mid-late and late game are pretty good with both builds. Ascendants have unrivaled wave clearing ability thanks to Psionic Orb, and MASSIVE single target DPS with Mind Blast.
Also, I find that 24 Ascendants REALLY isn’t necessary… Anywhere between 12 and 20 is good enough. (I personally only use 14. 14 is barely sustainable with 8 Gateways and still going plus to feed Alarak, just in case.) 60 is just over the top. At that point, make the addition of Wrathwalkers.
As for what the Ascendants even do…
Psionic Orb travels at a slow pace, damaging anything within its path for so much damage. This damage increases based on the number of stacks of Power Overwhelming they have on them. (This also applies to their Mind Blast.) Good for clearing waves.
Mind Blast deals 200 damage base to a single target. Amps up with Power Overwhelming. Offers MASSIVE single target damage once you reach around 6+ stacks.

My personal changes to Alarak would be the following:

  • Allow Alarak to build Blood Hunters and Destroyers. You can use them canonically in the Campaign, so why not? Mass Destroyers is always a fun time.
  • Bring back global 1QE2C. That was a VERY fun style to play with once you got used to it. Alarak solo was quite something.
  • Change Ascendant max stack from 10 to 8. Adjust the amount of power gained per stack to be 1.2x the current value to have the same max power. More power early on, quicker maxing.
127

Amon Buff x (5)Five times.

1 Like
130

I’m going to incorporate more and more of them in my builds (note that I’m only on lv11 as of this post) since they do provide mobile and instant power fields. I still prefer pylons since they both provide supply and don’t use up more of it, but as mentioned, do need to wait for them to warp in.

131

You can actually overcharge a pylon while its warping in.

And warp prism overcharge is meh, overcharging Stetman satalites is the real deal!

132

Yes, but the Pylon doesn’t provide a mobile power field. Sure, the War Prism’s field is smaller, but you don’t really need a big one most of the time.

I’ll always stand behind the idea that the War Prisms are good now that they can take Overcharge.

133

Not anymore. They buffed it 3 times, and I’m pretty sure it’s the same as a pylon now.