Honestly I think my analysis of Raynor is pretty much right. I’m curious in particular if anyone would contest that he was the worst character in the game pre-prestige update. His P1 and P3 grant such ludicrous upside compared to many other character’s prestiges that I honestly don’t think this is that debatable. Can you imagine if literally any other commander got a prestige that doubled the health of their units?
I think a lot of people base their analysis on Raynor on his performance pre-spider mine nerf. Ditto for Alarak, with the 1QE2C trick. These were exceedingly one-dimensional characters where all top-level advice involved abusing those tricks as much as humanly possible, which allowed them to compete with the top commanders. However, those tricks got nerfed and they got almost nothing to make up for it.
As for Swann, he’s been a perennial choice for bottom tier since the beginning of the game, and his prestiges don’t really move the needle that much. I would also argue that he’s one of the easiest commanders to play, so suggesting that people need to learn him better is kind of silly.
If you disagree, you’re welcome to post some kind of analysis for Raynor or Alarak that puts them on par with Mengsk or Kerrigan but honestly I’m fairly skeptical it can be done.
I’d say this is one of those cases where everybody is sort of right within the parameters that they’ve set for the commanders.
My take on it would be (without saying anyone else’s tiers are wrong):
Raynor: A tier. With slightly above average skill (for coop) Raynor transforms from D-tier to A-tier with massive speed running potential (especially with P1) and niche solutions to mutators (spidermines etc). However, other mutators punish Raynor heavily without very good answers (double edge vs Air compositions for example) which prevents an S-tier rating.
Kerrigan: B+ tier. Fragility of army is the biggest issue though with so many tricks up her sleeves she can manage in many situations however she needs somewhat favourable conditions to shine.
Alarak: C+ to B- tier. Such a favourite commander but the list of mutators that screw Alarak is just too great for a higher rating. Won’t stop me playing him though and having a great time.
Swann: B tier. While I find him adequate for anything I ask him to do I don’t often find him shining. I acknowledge that I’m not the best Swann player though.
Zagara (P3): A+ tier. Incredibly strong against hard mutators. A go-to pick for many of my B+4-6 playing friends. Maybe S-tier.
Tychus (P2): S tier. My go-to pick for B+4-6. Also my go-to pick for leveling friends in B+1+.
Stettman: S tier. So many tricks to overcome almost any tough mutator combination. Any weakness that P2 has is overcome by playing P1.
H&H: B tier. Love these folks but against tough mutators they can struggle. One of the easiest commanders to win B+1 though.
Zaratul: A tier. Agree.
Nova: B tier. Agree but one of my favourites as well and a go-to pick.
Fenix: B tier. Agree. Strongest as P2 when you can keep your shells close by, loses a lot of power against environmental mutators though or if you have to split the champions up.
Artanis: C tier. Another favourite. Not usually a strong choice for anything above B+1 though.
Karax: C to B+ tier. Incredibly strong at whatever thing the prestige in question does. However, if you end up with the wrong prestige for the situation can struggle.
Stukov: P3 trivialises so many weekly mutations however the prevalence of environmental mutators in regular B+1 makes P3 not as strong a pick. B tier.
Dehaka: definitely A+. Well microed Dehaka is an army unto itself. Doubly so with Broodbrothers. All prestiges are useful for different circumstances.
Vorazun: A tier. So many tricks to deal with most hard mutators but not all. Sometimes needs to play as a support role relying on ally.
Abathur: S tier. No doubt. So strong in so many circumstances. Isn’t really any mutator that Abathur can’t handle. Some mutators that should stop/slow Abathur dont because of the way his abilities are coded (Black Death and Double Edge for non-ultimates).
Mengsk: A+ tier. Maybe S tier. So many tools for so many situations. Like Abathur, unique interactions help deal with certain mutators (like Double Edge not affecting units in bunkers).
Added commanders I forgot to rate with edit. Hopefully got them all now!
Within it you can find the exact record times of Raynor, Kerri, Alarak, Mengsk, and all others on full clear, any%, average, etc. on all maps and averaged together.
Mengsk and Kerrigan simply don’t measure up at all. And your understanding of P1 doubling bio HP as sought-after power is clearly very off, regarding the key component of what makes Raynor strong.
Even within your own initial post regarding Kerrigan stating “her prestige don’t greatly add to her power” is not really correct at all.
Watch some speed runs, solos, etc. and compare Raynor/Alarak performances in the same maps against Kerri/Mengsk (or anyone on your fairly biased list). You will see exactly why people respond to your post as such.
(To simply explain why this is the case would take likely 100 lengthy posts and a good attitude to learn… far too complicated.)
How exactly do you play him? What is your build? There is a learning curve for Swann. You don’t become an expert on Swann over night, like Tychus, Dehaka, Zeratul or Abatur.
Do you know how to macro Raynor? P2 is one of his stronger prestige not p1. P3 is debatable.
P1 can’t really “use” spider mines. As a unit, sure, but not as a strategy as that requires Mules to feed the Vultures. Of course, that might not apply in specific situations that might come up if attempting speed run records for example (where you might need exactly X spidermines to kill a Hybrid and cost that into your build).
I don’t think anyone still playing plays on Hard, let’s not be ridiculous. Even base brutal is barely worth talking about. My analysis is mainly based on the Brutations and Brutal+.
This assumes that speedrunning brutal is a good measure of a character’s strength, but I don’t think it is. Brutal is almost trivially simple for level 15 characters with max ascension points, so when looking at a speedrun we really only care about DPS, which is why Raynor ranks decently well (even then, he’s still only barely above Kerrigan). Speedrunning also allows you to pick the enemy unit composition, so commanders who do well against a few comps but struggle vs others will be heavily overvalued if we base everything on speedruns. And of course, these are all solo speedruns, so that completely ignores the value of any ally support the commanders provide.
To me, reliability at winning vs Mutators is a far better measure of character power, since Brutal+ and Mutations represent the hardest content in the game. Raynor’s bio gaining extra health is immensely valuable against many mutations which otherwise butcher his army. He’s still generally pretty bad against a lot of them, though.
I don’t disagree with much of what you posted, but this is the one I find most interesting. I found in the past that Zagara did really well against certain mutators but I never found her to be enough of a generalist to be at the very top. Which is your go-to prestige for her? I’d kind of assume P2 but if it’s something else that could explain it.
EDIT: Nevermind, I see it’s P3. I might play around with that prestige a bit more to see if it’s better than I initially thought.
Your measure is too arbitrary though. Mutations itself cannot be tested extensively due to its permutation (as is why not ever done).
To complicate this further, the frequency at which certain mutators appear in brutation/weekly is imbalanced (as well as maps in which they repeat on). Neither is any single mutator balanced towards all 18 COs.
So basically you’re measuring using your own biased understanding of COs against a pre-biased system, in which mutators are not balanced, their appearance not a balanced, on maps that are not balanced in their appearance.
Now I’m not saying Brutal is balance or COs are built equally. That said, the reason all sources measuring these are built around Brutal is mostly due to the “lack of variance” that exists there (where in Brutations the easiest to hardest content ranges too widely).
Even when we look at the mutation robustness, Kerrigan and Mengsk are not high up in the list (see any sources essentially). So at this point, it just sounds like you don’t have a good understanding and haven’t provided any evidence to the contrary.
I don’t think it’s “arbitrary”. Mutatations and Brutal+ are the hardest content in the game. Tierlists for PVE games are always based on top-level content. Speedruns of Brutal are consistent but don’t really have a lot of relevance to top-level content, as Brutal is drastically easier and lacks many of the mechanics that determine character viability against mutations.
I agree that it’s harder to get hard stats on mutator and brutal+ performance, and it’s true that you can set different metrics on what you feel represents optimal performance. I feel like the stat you mainly want is “how easily and consistently can this commander win against mutators”, which IMO takes the most aspects of the game into consideration. Of course, even then, we have to consider whether or not the mutator combination is known in advance (it is for Mutations but isn’t for Brutal+), as certain characters can have strong value at counterpicking certain combinations but not do well against random mutations (Karax is a good example of this for example). I took this into account to some degree in my listing. It doesn’t wholly determine character power but I think it is a meaningful factor.
My general feeling is that the characters I put at the top are likely to do the best when going into a mission where the mission and mutators aren’t known. Kerrigan might not always be the absolute most powerful on every stage but I feel her versatility and power gives her the ability to deal with pretty much anything. Ditto for most of the rest of the characters I had listed at S. Even against a hard mutator, I never really feel like any of them are bad choices.
That’s just not true. Frankly, it’s weird you don’t do your research and continue to dispute.
Take a look at the stats page on sc2coop. Again, while not a be all end all resource but certainly a reputable source. Of over 200k replays uploaded, only ~10?% or so done on Brutation. That alone is telling on the kind of measure you are using.
Your opinion is your own, nobody is saying it isn’t yours. It’s just your opinion isn’t landing much on objective facts. So it’s validity is limited at best, rather skewed if being honest.
Nobody will be credible by saying “of 20k games in 200k, data show Kerri and Mengsk are not Top Performers… but I’ve concluded they are in my experience…”
I don’t think you always have to kill an entire wave (Including Hybrids) with spider mines. As long as the mines remove units with splash (siege tanks, colossuses, HTs, Lurkers, etc.), then the hybrids (even dominators) are easy to kill after that. Spider mines can be a supplement to your P1 bio build.
OP main post:
OP also included other elements such as soloes, speed runs, army mobility and early game strength in the rankings. Mutation Versatility is just one of them.
Most people rank Swann / Raynor low tier is because they don’t have the high skill to play them and play them in mutations. This includes me, I haven’t soloed any mutations with Swann yet. Maybe show your gameplays on these two COs and let us see if you are playing it correctly (on Brutal). It is ok we are all learning.
Since I am asking for a gameplay I will show you one of mine.
I did a Raynor P2 solo on a Brutal+ (it can be done with P0 as well). I used one base only, which is preferred in this mission.
P2 Raynor should be ranked at least A (if you have the skill). I don’t have the skill to handle every mutator with Raynor, but in the right hands it can. A lot of people put P1 Raynor up there is because that does not require high skill to play it, it is forgiving.
I don’t see anything here that really tells us much about character power. It does show winrates, but there’s no ability to filter it to difficulty levels and obviously other factors could be at play here (for example, Raynor has the lowest win rate, but he’s also a free character and a lot of noobs probably use him).
If the site has any statistics on character win rates across specific weekly mutations I wasn’t able to find it.
I would also say that generally, objective facts to support tierlists are usually nonexistent or flawed. If we look at PVP games, for example, you can attempt to build a tierlist based on tournament results, but there’s always the risk that this is skewed by a handful of top players who are so dominant that they would dominate with any character. In Smash Bros, for example, Byleth has incredible results because MkLeo plays that character, but no one else has achieved anywhere near comparable success with the character and they generally aren’t considered to be top tier. The tierlists are usually made up by a bunch of good players simply stating their opinions until some kind of consensus arises.
Sure, but the OP stated that that was also just their own criteria. Obviously everyone’s criteria will differ somewhat.
I sort of feel like saying “this character is secretly good as long as you’re super godlike” is kind of a weak argument, because any character is good if you’re super godlike. It’s not as though a character like Dehaka or Abathur doesn’t also benefit from you having god-tier micro or what not, they just don’t totally require it to function on a basic level. I think, generally speaking, the characters that people consider to be hard to play are those who have very poor fault tolerance, which is a legitimate flaw no matter how good you are. With random mutators specifically, sometimes things happen that you don’t expect and being able to recover from minor mistakes is helpful.
I also checked out the replay and I don’t see anything crazy here. It’s solid gameplay for sure, but it’s not a mission / mutator comp I’d expect Raynor to have a lot of difficulty with. He generally does pretty well against Zerg and Infested because Firebats and Marines are really good against them, and generally he does well against missions that require you to destroy objectives due to his high DPS. I think P1 would definitely be superior on this particular map since your comp was mostly bio, but I don’t know if you got this mutator randomly or were retrying it.
Actually, I think one of Raynor’s biggest issues is that he doesn’t have a clear best prestige, with which prestige you want depending heavily on the map / mutator combination. For example, on a map with a lot of environmental damage, the extra health from P1 is very helpful, but on some mutators this isn’t needed and thus you’d rather have the extra money or cheaper air units / faster calldowns.
IMO, the way Brutal+ ought to work is that when you click it, it generates a mutator and map combo for you, and then it lets you pick your character / prestige / power set, but it doesn’t work that way. I feel that P1 or P3 are the most reliable for a random combination, but neither would be something I’d consider a high pick.
Not solely my opinion but rather the opinions of a bunch of people. You’re welcome to provide your own opinions if you feel like contributing to the topic, just saying “nuh-uh website says otherwise” doesn’t really add much to the discussion.
Similarly, I’m seeing a lot of nitpicking with no actual posting of people’s own tierlists. I see you did one super early in the thread but there’s been very few, particularly ones that have enough justification to even say anything about them. I guess that’s probably why mine is getting so much attention.
I get it, you all think Raynor is not the worst, who cares. It’s been a meme forever that Raynor is secretly the best character but you need 10000+ hours on him before he becomes good. I remain unconvinced, but I also don’t care that much. It’s also not like I always lose as Raynor or anything, I can play him to some degree, but I feel he has to work way harder than the other commanders to achieve the same results and he would certainly never be my go-to for any mutations. You’re welcome to post whom you think is actually the worst character and have everyone else accuse you of just not knowing how to play them correctly.
From what I’m seeing people seem to think my list is mostly right except possibly for Raynor and Swann. Like I don’t think anyone seriously debates that Abathur / Dehaka / Tychus / Zeratul are near top, but if they do I would welcome them to post their own thoughts.
Also, purely for the sake of interest, let’s take a look at the brutal speedrun tierlist, since apparently this proves that I’m totally wrong.
S (<16:00 average): Alarak, Dehaka, Abathur, Zeratul
A (<17:30 average): Tychus, Stetmann, Raynor, Kerrigan
B (<20:00 average): Stukov, Zagara, Nova, Fenix, Mengsk
C (>20:00 average): Karax, Han and Horner, Artanis, Swann, Vorazun
Apart from a couple major outliers (Raynor, Mengsk, Vorazun, Alarak), most of the characters are pretty close to where I ranked them, despite using totally different criteria. For those that aren’t, I feel it’s fairly obvious why they don’t - ie, Vorazun has noticeably slower ramp-up compared to many other commanders, and Raynor does really well when you can savescum for an enemy comp that gets insta-wiped by spider mines. The biggest outlier is actually Alarak, which oddly no one complained about.
Basically saying “mine (you) and supposedly a few people’s opinion is valid” and “yours (me) and 200k+ other player’s actual experience are not valid”.
I mean we’ve already established you are welcome to your opinion. It’s just said opinion is entirely wrong and off-base.
None of these discussion changes your skill or opinion. So I’m not sure what you’re are debating about? You provided a tier list of your opinion. Great! People like me pointed out it’s rather biased cuz it’s just your opinion (when compared to facts). And you keep coming back to how invalid everyone else but your opinion is. I mean… lmao
I’m on board actually about Raynor. I tried to go back to Raynor and give it another go when I was playing at my peak and try the different strategies and prestiges but unlike many other commanders I didn’t feel like I could roll a random B+4-6 and have a better than average chance of beating it on the first try with Raynor.
Speed runs and brutations are a different equation. You know your strategy before the game starts and perhaps even fish for a certain comp that you can handle. Which Raynor is great at (hence getting a good rating).
I wonder in the stats what custom and weekly mutations count as. Would they just be Brutal? This might skew the results.
Also, completely agree about mutations ability assessments being the most important. I haven’t willingly played a regular Brutal game since I last had to level a commander as really, what’s the point?
