I would argue that clear time is largely important only after that become the main priority. Tychus for example is far more powerful than Raynor for those that are not as skilled in the game.
Either way, clearly we should just agree to disagree on this. At the least, thank you for engaging in the argument with me without either of us turning to name calling or personal attacks.
So what’s your priority then if full clear is not the objective?
Tychus is designed to be noob-friendly while Raynor is not. You can only get the most out of a commander with the right hands. If you include ease of use as a strength then I have nothing to say.
Removing 2 cheesable maps will not change the ranking order much. We still have a total of 13 maps left to measure. Also , to be specific, the speedrun measures mostly how well commanders perform in normal coop mode, which is the case of discussion; for mutation I suspect it to change quite a bit.
I think most of us can agree that Abathur is the most powerful commander. He is able to early game push and rush, decent macro to get that army up and running, as well as having such a powerful late game…He just stomps everything.
He is able to take on any mutator solo thus far as I have seen.
So that on, for example, the call it a comeback mutation, you can pick up the slack when your ally gets demolished by one of the final waves.
Well, it should be simply the ability to get just the objective on the highest standardized difficulty.
Unfortunately, people ignore weekly mutations for whatever reason, and brutal+ is rejected due to the heavy randomness, mutators that nullify massive subgroups of strategies or eliminate 75%+ of units as options, and game breaking interactions that have as yet seen no response from blizzard.
So that leaves us with standard brutal. So, in theory, we should look at average win rate on brutal, but the problem is that that would be roughly 100% for literally all the commanders. People turn to speed running as a metric because victory is virtually a guarantee. And this is because it’s the least hypothetical way of estimating how a commander would perform if the game were made harder, barring weekly mutations. If time limits were shrunk to a breaking point, this would be the rough win rate distribution. It’s much harder to estimate how commanders would perform given waves spawning 3 times as often, or earlier appearance of tech units, or significantly increased number of hybrid, or randomized spawn points.
Personally, I still would say that the real best pure statistical value of commander strength we have is the tally of successful weekly mutation solos for each commander. Even then commanders with very strong ally synergy like Swann or Artanis (gas and guardian shell) will perform below their true strength compared to commanders like Alarak or Dehaka with nothing to offer their ally, and more importantly it’s tainted somewhat by things like Lilarrin being a rediculously good Raynor, potentially inflating his “power”. Still, this is probably more accurate than speed running.
Don’t play with frag stealers if kill count is very important to you. Oh wait, you are one of these guys that run before allies tanks (for example) for the sake of just not letting ally do its part of the job. I hope it’s not the case. Because these guys are not very reliable as source of information.
And don’t forget that any solo is not an option to analyze in co-op mode (sound pretty strange, how co-op is could be measured other way than playing solo). Even if someone tried to use speedruns as a metric, you should compare dual speedruns, not solo. Or this analysis is just empty for co-op mode.
The objective won’t wait for my ally to get his army up and running. So if I have to go in with my forces and do it, I will. It’s not about padding numbers; it’s about winning, plain and simple. If I am playing Zagara and my ally is Karax, I am not going to hold back my abilities just to ensure he gets his fair share in.
Well, what’s your point actually ?
Except cheesing situations, it’s an accurate metric.
Just L2P.
Some people get angry if you are not fast enough … esp. on CoA. I had teammate ragequit when I did not want to push Jinara any further (and trigger next group of hybrids) before I finish the bonus objective (that he ignored) and get my army in position. I then completed the mission at my own pace 
My point is that speedrunning doesn’t show the whole picture. This is something I want people to keep in mind when they use it to try and justify whatever change their advocating. There are other metrics that should also be considered, this thread is full of them. I will admit that it’s probably the best we can easily obtain that is quantitative in nature, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only one that matters.
Also, it’s amusing that you think I have difficulty playing the game. I’m not even sure how you came to that conclusion. Nowhere in the op did I mention or indicate that I was having a hard time playing the game. A quick glance at my profile should’ve given you some sort of indication that I can handle brutal coop. Even brutal+ can be pretty easy at times.
If this is the only metric we’d like to use, then sure.
For me, I figured DPS, ability to get economy going, flexibility in handling various comps (can even include mutators), ease of use, learning curve, etc. also factor in.
Karax don’t have tanks. If you are going to run into enemy wave which is your ally prepared to engage while other map is not cleared yet it’s called frag steal.
Good example of such irrational behaviour is not letting Karax kill expansion sleaver on Scythe of Amon when he set up cannons here. Because cannons will do the job, but they can’t walk, so it’s better to leave sleaver to them while for example killing first bonus sleaver. For that type of players, ability to get there first and steal frag is more important than doing actual impact on the gameplay.
I do that each time I speedrun, but I survive every time!
Oh dear, thread necroing and making threats, somebody’s in a mood.
Dayum Calm down mate!
And there is a long list of Commander Attributes to define whether they have DPS, ability to get economy going, flexibility in handling various comps (can even include mutators), ease of use, learning curve, etc.