I think it’s fine as it is. Losing CD is a price, but you get an AoE attack anywhere your vision is without cooldown, and it slows advancing wave as well.
It is kind of funny how vocal people can be to defend/criticize/suggest things for Swann; especially with how little I see him played. I guess same thing happened with Karax before prestige.
Would I like to see some cool, awesome varied prestiges for Swann and other CO’s? Sure, especially when you see how much thought was put into Karax’s prestiges. But what we have ain’t too bad. P0 is still tried and true. P1 has become his most reliable and mutator resistant prestige and rewards map control. P2 is good if you’re doing mutations that favor mutator resistant defenses. And P3 can be fun with the insane amount of micro you can put into the Herc/tank combo, blasting waves and picking up before enemy projectiles even reach you… Though P3 is hard countered by certain enemy comps and limits your own composition options.
At the end of the day, Swann may not be the best for everything, but he has a lot of tools that allow him to deal with almost everything. There’s a reason he’s in the middle of the ranks for nearly every single brutation.
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What do you feel hard counters P3? I get that tanks can’t shoot up but there is more to P3 even if you have to transition out of the tank opening into Goliath, Wraith, Thor or (I guess) Cyclone.
Hell, P3 can even build turrets with the best of them if you aren’t dealing with environmental mutators.
I still can’t decide on the ideal opening whether Vespene Drone Mastery or drill. Currently trying 50/50 but while it seems to work okay I wonder if it is secretly the worst of both worlds (can’t afford to Drone up immediately and also miss wave timings).
Why not have both?
Perhaps hard countered is a bit much, but if something gets rid of the Herc play, your only left with the negatives. Anything with vipers is the first one that comes to mind. I’ll even try to send in sacrificial hercs to bait the abduct, but every now and then I miss it and get pulled into the loving hugs of scourge and banelings.
The other issue that almost nullifies the benefit of P3 is air comps. Sure, you can load a Herc full of goliaths, but you’re still head-butting an attack wave with your army when any other prestige could have wiped it out before it got to you. Goliaths have a bad tendency of focusing all their firepower on one unit at a time, increasing loses. And if you’re not fully taking advantage of the prestige, then your still stuck with that lazor calldown penalties.
Speaking of lazor penalties, it’s one of the reasons I don’t like to use P3 against mutators. The ability to kill those buffed up attack waves BEFORE they get to your army is essential. However, there’s going to be some that get through due to having less Calldowns, and that can wear your army down real quick.
In the end, P3 ultimately feels like a win harder/lose harder prestige. If you’re going against ground comps that your normal Herc/tank combo can kill, then P3 will let you completely decimate the enemy. If you’re able to methodically pick apart enemy bases, then P3 will speed that up for you. And it’s a blast to play this prestige in those situations. However, if you’re going against maps/mutators where Herc/tank struggles, then you’re now at even more of a disadvantage.
Also, as far as gas drones or drill mastery… It’s a tough one, but I still prefer drill. The calldown penalty doesn’t affect the first 2 blasts of your lazor which can give you more time to ramp up. Likewise, if you’re doing early pushes with 2 tanks and a Herc, then having the drill manually targeting down the one or two flyers guarding an enemy base can be life saver.
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The worst thing that’s happened to Swann’s reputation was Karax’s prestige.
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zerg with viper is nasty. chain abducts and blinding clouds can lead to serious leeeeroy jeeenkins
There’s quite a few comps that Herc/Goliath/Tank doesn’t handle nearly as well. It’s just most enemy comps and enemy bases on missions are by far ground units. And that’s no surprise to anyone. The illusion Herc/Tank is godsend continues to be a mystery. Or shall I say… delusion.
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Me playing it (that’s why I didn’t even unlock it lol).
And worst than that: I would probably still do better than many random 
It’s pretty easy? F2 → tab to herc → unload button → F2 → move command on Herc. Repeat.
Between Tanks being rebuildable and Hercs dropping units when they die and SVs teleporting with your hercs to apply Defensive Matrix it is a very forgiving strategy.
Mix in whatever anti-air you want in the mid game.
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Ah, but you still haven’t addressed one major concern. In the wise singing voice of tank crew Simon and Garfunkel…
Hello Viper my old friend,
You make me come to you again.
Into the massive waiting zerg army,
That proceed to blow all over me,
And I cry, for it will take me, a long while, to rebuild…
All of my…
Tank army
Btw, I literally had to listen to the beginning of that song several times to get this to where I want it, lol.
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Pretty much any of the SkyToss x 2, ClassicSkyToss, SkyTerran, Swarmy when they reach tech 5 is when Herc/Tank start to hurt and need to be careful.
This usually get to be ignored on some maps as tech 5 usually don’t arrive after 15min or so. Perhaps that’s why it may seem to many this strategy is somehow fool proof.
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It slows, in an AoE, and reacquires targets very quickly. It can lock down clumps of units, and over extended times, they’ll be dead, or ready to just mop up.
It is a shame, but the other 3 ability upgrades means his towers can easily hold their own vs. waves
For those of us who aren’t great at Herc + Tank, it’s a nice boost. SV that can tac jump is nice too
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I think we’re all aware that tanks can’t fight air compositions. Still often a good option to open with a few tanks to deal with early T1 ground waves and then can add choice of anti-air.
This is awesome you should record a music video. Indeed, Explosive Threats is the composition that I default straight to Hellbat/Thor which performs excellently. When your Thor’s get abducted you have options to defensive matrix, herc pick up or immortality protocol (a primary reason for Immortality Protocol cost reduction mastery as this is one of the hardest comps).
Still, I don’t think Vipers qualify as a hard counter as by the time they are a problem you should be able to have a full herc of tanks which can be deployed to attack and then picked up and even if the herc is abducted it can jump away to deploy the tanks again. Vipers can’t do much if everything on the ground is getting hit by tank alpha shots. Hellbat/Thor is definitely safer though!
I mean it doesn’t get much more “hard countered” than that really. You’re just being overly defensive if you insist otherwise.
This is the same as saying Swarmy’s Banelings don’t “really” hard counter Raynor’s bio. Truth is of course it does, but if my control is good and I use some Marauders then it’s no problem. Just because I’m hard countered, it doesn’t mean I (or you, the player) can’t make it work.
By that kind of thinking then everything is not a hard counter. And this is where Cyclones somehow don’t get the same treatment. Whereas the mystery begins yet again, somehow Herc/Tank users die hard defend it like this (exactly how you’ve described it). Then they turn around and say Cyclones can’t do the same, but why? Lol.
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Of course with good knowledge, skill, and changing your comp, you can overcome nearly anything thrown at you and make P3 work. However, none of his other prestiges put you at a disadvantage like P3 does. (P2 is kind of an exception, but you should really only pick that if you KNOW your going mass turrets to begin with). That fact alone puts it behind the other prestiges. It goes back into the, “win harder or suffer harder” nature of P3. You’re either at an advantage, or you have to fight an uphill battle. For random enemy comps or random mutations, I’ll stick with the reliable prestiges.
Yeah sorry, I was trying to stay on this topic:
But got distracted talking about tanks instead. Point i was trying to get at was that P3 does not equal tanks… all other comps remain viable and so P3 does not get hard countered by any unit comp though there may be times you wish you were playing another prestige.
Which is a good thing! Even Tychus P2, Stettman P2 and Zaratul P3 all have the same problem sometimes which suggests some amount of balance between prestiges.
The important question is if P3 is win-more or not. Does it increase or decrease the ability to win tough match ups?
Easy answers to tough match ups:
- Explosive Threats - Tank/Hellbat/Thor P3 is great!
- Shadow Tech - Tank/Goliath P3 is great!
- Machines of War: Tank P3 is great!
- Classic Mech: Tank/Goliath P3 is great!
Hard answers:
- Dominion Battlegroup - best counter?
- SkyToss Tempest - best counter?
- SkyToss Carrier - best counter?
- SkyToss Classic - best counter?
Does the prestige matter so much though? Is the prestige going to be the difference between winning and losing if, for instance, your ally loses their whole army or something similar?
It’s a bit weird though as it feels like to me that while P1 is super strong early game it’s effectiveness tapers off in the end game unless you can spawn camp air waves (which counts as a win-more situation). P3 meanwhile has increased cooldowns as a disadvantage on those sometimes crucial top bar abilities but lately with the 15/15 split I’ve been trying I’ve found the abilities to be off cooldown and available when needed.
Does the prestige matter when it comes to mutations either B+1 random queue or B+2-6? B+1 random excludes P2 imo as too many environmental mutators hard counter turrets. Is it between P1 and P3 or is P0 in the running as well? A lot of environmental mutators favour drop play or Wraith depending on micro skills. A particular point in favour of P3 is that SV teleport becomes very valuable in these situations.
In this case, I think it matters.
Swann’s P3 actually brings next to 0 benefit outside of the tele cooldown. In practice, SV rarely need to stick to Hercs. Though undeniably having tele allows other options.
On the other hand, P3’s downside is hugely prominent (but luckily as Sword mentioned at least doesn’t affect coolup). As the top bar abilities remain relevant through any game.
I’m not really knocking P3 down. It’s just that it really has nothing hugely impactful the moment the player chooses to not use Herc/Tank. Despite that, you’ll be just fine if you know how to play Swann.
I wanted to add that I think part of the sight-blindedness of it all is that Herc/Tank players who don’t use other strategies often (perhaps due to discomfort) will have a harder time seeing the difference/impact top bar has. And as a result, when all they can see is P3’s added impact on Herc/Tank, then if someone mentions how it isn’t quite so “outside” of Herc/Tank that they seem to brain melt. In a sarcastic way 
.
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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CsaKRmgIDQ-gE9xQCLvE3nxMdkIOzF6z?usp=sharing
Here’s a P3 play against one of the worst comps to go against, Protoss air with Oracles and Void Rays, done on MO. If it was Tempests and such, I can dodge the projectiles to some extent, but not here. Kill ratio was 78% me to 22% premastery P3 Stukov. I will admit though, his infested did a lot of tanking for me. I’ll see if I can get a few more battles in. I might have been able to build a few more goliaths, but I still needed the amount of tanks I had to kill the ground before they got to the bots. Also, the amount of micro involved can really hamper your production back home. As for calldowns, I had to save some of them for known big waves and have my army butt heads with the smaller waves. The drop and load can really spread out the damage luckily, and the SCV’s inside the herc made sure to keep everyone topped off as much as possible. You’ll also notice I delayed getting my expansion. Indeed, the only reason I got it was because it’s a longer map. Otherwise, I sometimes do 1 base with P3, since ideally my micro can mitigate my losses.
I will say though, I was really wishing for either the P1 lazor splash, or some extra calldowns. Anyways, I’ll try to get a few more games to shake off some rust.
EDIT1: I did P&P as well added to that file folder. 1 base Swann P3. This time it was against Terran Raiding Party, so was a bit easier. Luckily I spaced out my calldowns to take care of the later enemy waves that had BC’s in them. There was one big attack wave I did confront with my trusty battle-herc in which I lost 2 tanks I believe. However, outside of a few sacrificial hercs, no other units were lost. I had 67% kills to my ally Zeratul 33%, with me also getting more parts.
Edit2: Alright, last one I swear. This was RtK, ground zerg comp. The ideal comp. Had a Mastry 39 P1 Nova as an ally. Kills split 60% to 40%. Only lost 2 tanks again, this time to those damn vipers. Seriously, I hate hate hate those things with herc/tank. I was lucky that Void Thrashing doesn’t have the most defended bases.
I’d be open to receive any feedback, I’m sure they’re not the best played, and I still don’t know if 1 base is the best thing yet or not since I can’t really afford attack upgrades outside of the maelstrom rounds. But the earlier you can get your force out on the field, the earlier you can start pushing into enemy bases before they get a lot of upgrades. The insane micro potential is something to keep in consideration, plus it is fun when it works. But damn, does some of the enemy comps and vipers take it out of you sometimes. Ironically, I also only use the Science Vessels for detection. All healing is done by the SCV’s inside the herc, since they can repair units loaded up inside while your driving around.
I know you can build comps outside of Herc/tank…but nothing else gives you nearly as much bang for your buck. If I didn’t use Herc/tank, I could just be showing you footage of P0 and you’d never know aside from some extra lazor’s. And considering how many kills I still racked up with lazor calldowns, a few extra would have been much appreciated.
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I just want more damage to the laser, maybe +5 upgrade from armory for every upgrade (max 65 dmg).
Every thing else is fine.
There is a joke in there somewhere (being heavy), but I don’t agree with this. Removing lazer abilities is fine, just add more damage to lazeeeeer.
Current tanks / Thors are fine for him.
That’s what I thought at first but I am in love with this prestigeeeeeeee.
Swann p1 similar to Karax P3
Swann p2 similar to Karax P1
Swann p3 not that similar to Karax P2.
If we had a prestige called Immortality
Advantage: All Swann Combat units can use immortal protocol with reduce resource cost at 50% (let’s say)
Disadvantage: Swann unable to build Statics.
I say this prestige would be a direct equalivent to Karax P2.
I think people would like to see Swann get something that is equivalent to what Alarak got for his p3. But I think the developer wanted to keep Swann as “Swann.”
Best to just build Thors if you are faced with that comp.
really thors? how do i use them?
for me the best way to approch this comp is actualy patience. instead of pushing aggressively forward with my herc i fly in a factory or a shielded scienece vessel to snipe (erridiate & drill) the vipers.