But, but, I meak mareee, I meak rauda, why me no win?
I am not looking at Mutations at all. I’m looking at the base game. His slow speed makes him SUPER weak early on, but better in the mid-late to late game.
Yes, yes he is. It’s just getting there that really holds him back. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy playing Swann! But his early game is super butts, especially on a map like Vermillion Problem.
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Nah, I used to think that till I started to abuse his turrets. Those things WRECK anything, also free repair and free salvage…
Try Mengsk Marauder + trooper (with 2 witnesses and 4 intercessors)
Unless it’s Terran Sky, I’ll usually dump my minerals into Hellbats/Hellions, so I have something mobile instead of Turrets.
Free?..
Swann’s SCVs start repairing for free from level 7, so basically he does all repairs for free (sci vessel repairs only cost energy).
Oh, i thought you was talking about Mengsk.
100% salvage return them. Rush them whenever needed early on and salvage after…
“Raynor is super strong, you just need to be experienced and have 120APM” is not an answer to Raynor needs a buff. If the question was “is it possible to do well with every commander,” then yes, that would apply. But Raynor gets less for equal input, which in my mind means he’s weaker than other commanders.
To be clear, he’s far from unplayable, but he’s noticeably weaker.
On the other hand, people who play Raynor seem to largely suck. When I get a Raynor partner, I know 9/10 times it’s going to be a hairy mission where I have to carry them a bit. That 10th time they shred, so yes, there’s something to the “low floor, high ceiling” argument, but to me that generally means he’s weaker.
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Well, I don’t really want for Raynor to compete with Zeratul to have an easy strong army mid-game.
If he really needs a buff, then it should be a minor thing related to his early-game or upgrades, but no changes straight to his units unless his mastery is changed, in order to have easier time with mutations, which is what he struggles a lot.
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Exactly. I generally try and avoid partnering with Raynor, because I know that unless I’m working with somebody who has spent a lot of time practicing him, or we’re on a defense map, I’m going to be doing most of the heavy-lifting.
Like I said, I’ve seen experienced Raynor players, and I mean Gold League players, Brutal 500 players, etc., seriously struggle with playing him. I’m not saying he’s completely awful or outright unplayable, but players have to be very precise with APM to get anywhere with him. His army tends to collapse at critical moments to enemy CC if the player isn’t incredibly careful. I think the main issue is that Raynor, at least as of now, seems to be somewhat unreliable due to his high skill ceiling. He’s either doing well or he is falling apart, and the latter is more common. That’s why he needs a buff.
I don’t really think that outside of mutators Raynor really needs all that much APM to work properly to be honest. He’s pretty darned strong, it’s more of an education and technique issue rather than his actual capabilities.
Really, the big trick in Raynor is the setup. Even if you’re staunchly against using anything but Bio, you can just deal with splash by having a massive industry behind the army. The only think you need to worry about is building up correctly, and making sure to drop Mules from time to time.
Gets even easier if you’re willing to do what other COs do and match your units to stomp Amon’s comp. Siege Tanks and/or Banshees behind the Marine line can deal with most sources of splash pretty easily, Firebats can deal with the others.
I’m not a Raynor expert, but at least I’ve gotten better at him.
One thing I noticed was I had to change my “workflow” with him. It helped A LOT to separate out Barracks with Reactors vs. Barracks with Tech Labs into 2 different control groups so that I could quickly spam produce Marines, vs. everything else (Meds, Marauders, Firebats).
They’re fun to use just that on Miner Excavation. Bring in 12 SCVs, and mass build them. Then mass salvage them, and move on to the next ship!
His Missile Turrets are nice. Single target DPS for higher damage, while its missile pod thingy is one of the few towers that do AA AoE. HH’s MM isn’t a traditional tower. Zagara’s Bile Launchers are unconventional. Zeratul’s Monoliths work on charges
Did you mean the Engineering Bay Upgrade Cache? That’s lv11. Also, it repairs itself to 50% max life, so you’ll still want an SCV or 2 around to get them to 100%
Allow structures to automatically extinguish fires and repair themselves to 50% of their maximum life.
No one of Swann’s “hidden” techs is SCV’s repair for free.
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Comes with the advanced construction perk iirc.
Oh… that’s lv8 then! I also thought “free” was in terms of some opportunity cost.
That’s actually not strictly true. On speedruns Zeratul comes 2nd/3rd on average, and is only slightly ahead of Raynor on average 100% clears. The difference I’ve found is that you need to actually know what you’re doing with Raynor. Something simple like only starting with one CC and maybe not going OC till late is an absolute killer for Raynor. With Zeratul you can kinda do anything and be okay.
Ladder skill and ascension level have almost no relationship to how well someone plays Raynor. If you check some basic guides and have a good starting build order you’ll do so much better.
This in my mind is the key point. Raynor rewards people who take the time to learn to play him really well. I know I’m nowhere near pro level, but I get satisfaction out of doing well with Raynor.
So here’s something for those who think Raynor needs a buff to consider:
Those who like that Raynor takes more skill, find some commanders boring and would like the game to be harder. Should the easier commanders be made trickier to play in order to make them happy? Or should there be variety with some harder and some easier?
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Not sure if you meant it to sound this way, but what you typed seems pretty condescending. Regardless, it isn’t so much a question of variety as accessibility. Raynor is either too weak or unintuitive for mid to lower skilled players to use well. While higher skilled players will need to have a greater level of knowledge and mechanics to perform as equally well with him as they would with most any other commander.
As for wanting the game to be harder, that should come in the form of better a.i. and maps. Alternating and random attack routes, constant and multiple forms of harassment, different base layouts, stronger or more frequent waves, better a.i micro, all of these changes would make the game more difficult without becoming too tedious, unlike certain mutators. In addition, in my opinion at least, they would increase the level of enjoyment players get from coop.
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This is why I am so against Zeratul and Tychus being so brain dead easy to play. It gives players this mentality of “well I can play these guys on Brutal why cant I play EVERY CO on Brutal just as well?!”
The problem with these players is their own refusal to learn the nuances of each CO. Raynor is a VERY strong CO but he actually requires some ability to properly manage his economy. Raynor players that for example don’t make more than 2 Orbital Commands (and seriously, how hard is this to do) are never going to be effective with him because his entire economy (as well as his detection) is built around that mechanic.
It’s like playing Kerrigan and not using Kerrigan’s Assimilation Aura. You have tools in your toolbox, USE THEM!
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Raynor falling apart is the fault of the player, it’s not because Raynor has a persistently glaring weakness that justifiably demands a buff.