Raynor needs a buff

As of the current update he is easily the weakest human commander, and possibly the weakest commander in the game. I’ve seen experienced Raynor players lose their entire army, bioball, tanks, battlecruisers, any of the variations, to a single attack wave on Brutal.

I’m not suggesting nerfing the other commanders or weakening the AI. That wouldn’t fix the real issue. Raynor needs some upgrades.

I’m thinking of a couple of things:

Command Center Reactor. This was incredibly useful in the campaign, and would assist Raynor’s slow early game. The ability to train two SCVs at once would allow him to get his base operational and expand faster, getting his bioball or mechs on the field a little sooner.

An alternate idea would be for the first, and only the first Command Center, start out as an Orbital Command. This would also jumpstart Raynor’s economy, and give him some early detection. The problem with this would be that players could get used to having one Orbital Command, and not build any more, so the reactor would likely be the better choice.

Finally, a flat 10HP or 15HP boost to all units would be helpful. This could be an endgame upgrade at the Armory or the Fusion Core, but his forces, besides battlecruisers, die extremely easily on Brutal or mutators, and even the battlecruisers bite the dust pretty fast. It should probably not enhance the standard health upgrades Raynor’s troops get in that it should only be an overall 10HP or 15HP boost no matter when it is researched. For example, getting this health boost and then researching all the armor upgrades should net the same overall health as if a player had researched all the armor upgrades first.

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He definitely doesn’t. If he needs anything it’s an “Experienced Players” label added to him. When you actually get good at him you’ll see that he has super powerful mechanics.

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Raynor is fine. Players make mistake sometimes. I played Raynor many times and I only lost a few game.

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Raynor doesn’t need any changes right now, he’s fine. Swann is generally the weakest Terran commander, just due to how long his startup time is.

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raynor is only weak in hands of low apm players

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Raynor is in the top 5 of strongest commanders.

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Swann is definitely not weak. If I said any of the Terran commanders were weak (and for the record I am NOT saying that) it would be Han and Horner. Swann is super strong, not great vs EVERY mutation but definitely good vs a lot of them.

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Raynor is weak in the hand of a baby who doesn’t know how to press more than one button.

That’s kind of how it works again aoe. That’s why he has many OC and barracks to rebuild army in 10 sec.

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Raynor does not have a slow early game. If there’s anyone who would have a case for a CC Reactor it would be H&H.

Maybe for inexperienced Raynor players. But for others it’s not an issue as the recommendation is to roll with 4 Orbital Commands.

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Nope, that’s on their skill than Raynor being weak really.
I can agree mutations since you really have to be carefull with them, but Brutal with no mutation? He can do it fairly easy as long as he nails the early game and hotkey his production.
I cannot call him bad at all, especially for a commander that legit can clear the minerals on his main/expo if he’s commited to more than 5 orbitals.

If you ask me, it’s just that you haven’t seen a good Raynor player, which it is expected since he’s one of the starter commanders and is quite macro-heavy one to play well.

Now Orbital at the start would already be a massive buff to him, you already need to play greedy with him early game anyways, possibly sneak a 4CC before barracks rahter than 3? Not sure.

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Raynor is definitely not regarded as a weak commander, unless they aren’t familiar with needing to MULE it up - one of the valuable ladder skills that applies to co-op. (Raynor is meant for ladder terran players able to execute a fairly standard macro build; Arcturus or even Stukov is better for bunker rushes, while Nova and Tychus are for micro specialists.) Any perceptions of weakness is probably because of the fact that Raynor is one of the starter commanders, and as such, you get to see a wide disparity in skill, and people not necessarily following the standard orthodoxy (one orbital per 5 minutes of gameplay, more if mutations require liberal amounts of scanning). As a starter commander, you may see a fair share of rock slapping as well. (lack of micro leaving armies shredded by AOE, army composition mismatches, or simply failure to ramp up - mass battlecruisers is fun, but rushing battlecruisers is rock slapping)

Among experienced co-op players, Raynor is regarded as one of the strongest due to a strong bio/bio-vulture core, and the tools to cheese missions (vikings, tanks, banshees, or even simply dropping marines behind enemy lines) where necessary; Raynor has been shown to be able to handle all but a few weekly mutations solo.

For the most part, H&H is seen to be the weakest of the terran commanders, largely because they have the worst defense of the terran commanders and their mutator weaknesses are more pronounced (anything that counters mass reapers is going to give H&H a hard time), which forces them to play very aggressively as a result; they see play because they are still worth it in a supporting capacity (for example, round-the-clock strike fighters on Dead of Night).

A small “neato” factor for Raynor would be if he could get Goliaths. However, Swann and Nova at least have those

But he’s quite the powerhouse late game. Suffering through a longer ramp up time (which TBH, isn’t THAT bad since he has ARES warbots CD, and quick build towers) is not too shabby a tradeoff.

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Why would Raynor need command center reactor? He has orbitals, which hugely effects economy.

Why would his units need extra hp? They receive it by researching armor upgrades.

No. I think that friend of yours just had bad luck.

Raynor is fine for brutal, but I do think he lags behind other commanders when facing a fair number of mutators. Yes, a top tier coop player can overcome them. Particularly with good use of widow-mines. However, the average coop player can’t and even good Raynors will have difficulty versus specific ones. Compare that to Abathur, Tychus, or Zeratul and the difference is clear. Power creep has left its mark.

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That isn’t mutually exclusive to Raynor. Some COs will struggle greatly with quite a few mutators (i.e. early game mineral-starved ones against kill bots for instance), while others will obviously be better than Raynor when pitted up against anti-bioball mutations.

It’s a tough dichotomy but what else were you expecting? Co-op isn’t balanced with mutations as a focus. It’s an optional game mode that nets you bonus XP, bragging rights and nothing else.

Eh, the gap isn’t actually that wide between Tychus and to a lesser extent, Abathur.

Zeratul on the other hand, has and always will be no. 1 for everything even after he was supposedly “nerfed”. Nothing short of something ridiculous like turning the Hyperion into a permanent hero unit will allow Raynor catch up with Zeratul.

Raynor is only as weak as the player that controls him.

I don’t know how experienced the player that lost an entire Raynor’s army is but the fact that he lost everything to a mere wave means that player isn’t experienced at all.

Raynor himself is a mineral cheater AI, he isn’t weak. If anything Mengsk is even weaker than Raynor.

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The problem with both Raynor and Mengsk is they have a gazillion tools to use for different occasions, but most players be like “I like these 2 tools, I’m gonna use these and only these every single game!”…

And then complain the commander is weak…
It takes a while to REALLY get to know a commander, but most if not all of them are more versatile then people let you make believe.

And also it’s just cruel they mark 1 of the HARDEST commanders out there as “for beginning players”. Raynor should really change spots with Nova, as I consider her the most “beginner friendly” of the Terran commanders (speaking as someone who started brutal with Nova)*

  • Excluding Tychus cause he ain’t really a true “Terran” but more a “moba” commander.

Also I still have my “if you think Zeratul is the strongest commander you still have so much to learn” opinion, Zeratul is noob friendly and his turrets cheat many mutations, but he ain’t even in what I consider the top 6 solo potentials (Abathur, Dehaka, Kerrigan, Alarak (Vs non structure missions), Mengsk/Stett)

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I don’t think that Raynor is weak. There are a few times or situations I feel that he is stronger than other commanders.

The only need to be changed is his description. He is not user-friendly and easy to use commander at all despite the in-game told us he is easy to use. You need a decent APM and able to multitasking to use him. He is certainly harder to use compare to Abathur, Tychus or Dehaka due to his fragile units at early game.

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Yeah, generally i will also just use 1 or 2 units out of an entire list of each commander.

Alarak Mech
Raynor Marines, Medic, Marauder
Stukov Barrack infested
Kerrigan Hydra + Omega
Dehaka Muta
Tychus - Herc, Marauder, Reaper and Warhound team every single match regardless the comp or map

but for me, Mengsk doesn’t have this Swiss-knife unit. I haven’t really found anything like that.

Still Raynor doesn’t need buff in my understanding. He needs a better description is what i am thinking.