Stetmann Possesses Frustrating Mechanics and Takes Twice the Effort To Achieve the Same Power Level As Other Commanders

Hi!
I’m relatively new to Stetmann so I won’t claim to be an expert (lvl 15 + 65 mastery ATM), but I feel that he falls short compared to many other commanders. Although I feel I understand his place in the continuum the various commanders’ playstyles, it seems to me that, for all the effort one can put into properly positioning/micro’ing/macro’ing Stetmann’s armies, other commanders can perform at least as well, if not better, for less effort.

I have a few general issues with him that contribute to this perception (which is, admitedly, an opinion). I would love to hear what other players think of Stetmann, strategies that help him achieve his greatest potential as an ally, etc.

1. Many of his upgrades/abilities simply undo weaknesses that are “baked” in.

  • Multiple simultaneous research
    I first noticed these as I was levelling. His level 9 ability allows you to research two upgrades at once… but, every commander can do this by simply building more than one of that structure. By contrast, Stetmann is limited to only 1 of each structure (sans hatcheries). I propose that this unlockable passive upgrade would have little to no value if Stetmann didn’t have this innate weakness (which seems to exist for no reason other than to make Stetmann weaker?).

  • His energy (purple) Stetzone can be seen in the same way-- as a mechanic that returns Stetmann’s units to baseline rather than truly “buffing” them. it would hardly seem as powerful if Stetmann’s units didn’t lack passive energy regeneration to begin with!

2. His Stetellite mechanic is admittedly powerful, but also very tedious.

  • I thought my favorite part about Stetmann would be the Stetzone fields created by the Stetellites. I do like them, in concept: they are an interesting reimagination of creep and, in terms of gameplay, very versatile and powerful. What I do not like is having to deploy one every 5 seconds, especially if I am actively pushing with my main army, which quickly becomes nearly pwerless outside of a Stetzone. Stetmann’s units already require a high level of micromanagement in order to be effective, I simply do not like having to constantly drop creep tumors on top of my army mid-battle. Maybe the Stetzone radius should be larger, or maybe there should be a mechanic that causes them to gradually expand without player input, but deploying them as often as I’m required to do so is not a very fun mechanic, even if it is powerful.

Stetmann’s units require lots of pretty much every kind of investment (time, resources, micromanagement, …) and don’t really pay off that much.

  • By the time I’ve made my first battlecarrier lord (BCL), I’ve spent 450M/300V on the unit alone. If I want this unit to have access to its abilities, I will have spent another 200M/200V on those (although the upgrade costs are theoretically spread across each BCL I make). The resource cost for this unit is tremendous. The time cost is also great: I need to have teched up to a greater spire, morphed at least one corrupter and then mutated it into a BCL, researched its abilities, etc. With all that investment, you would assume that this unit will be ready to dish out some pain, but that is hardly true: the BCL needs to be managed for its entire lifetime so that it doesn’t deplete it’s energy performing its basic attacks. Consider a single H&H wraith (400M/200V): this unit is available sooner, costs fewer resources, and is arguably more powerful than a BCL. I’t’s one thing to say that Stetmann isn’t an “a-click commander,” but are his units’ strengths enough to justify their immense level of investment?
  • Given the extreme costs of his units/army, they are remarkably fragile: one wrong move or lazily managed skirmish can result in heavy losses. Even with his army at his peak, Stetmann rarely “feels strong” the way other commanders do at the height of their powers.

Since I would rather not make this seem like just a rant about Stetmann’s relative weaknesses, I thought of a few personal suggestions that, in my mind, might make Stetmann more enjoyable:

  1. Allow his “upgrade resource cost reduction” mastery to apply to unit-specific (ability) upgrades. Stetmann’s units are already expensive, why “nickle & dime” me on his masteries?
  2. Allow a way for players to expand the “Stetzone frontier” without spamming his topbar every ~5s. Even just making the Stetzone radius larger (possible mastery?) would go a long way toward reducing the “death by a thousand cuts”-style burden of constantly spreading Stetellites.
  3. Make Stetmann’s units less reliant on Stetzone bonuses for power–or, alternatively, make them more reliant on it but slightly more powerful when this condition is met. Currently Stetmann’s units have, at best, similar power as comparable units but require much greater investment (particularly in terms of micro). I propose that the greater skill floor required to be successful as Stetmann should be accompanied by a greater skill ceiling.
  4. Further explore the uses for Stetzones outside of simple passive bonuses. I enjoy the benefits of Stetzones a lot, such as boosting mineral speed in early game. However, I sometimes feel as though I’m not making strategic choices about which color field to use as much as I’m simply using the field that makes my kill (purple) or not die (green). I like the idea of an offensive component that can be activated (e.g., topbar) to apply to the Stetzones (think Lucio’s “reverse amp” ability from HOTS): for example, the green field could deal damage over time or reduce armor to enemies, blue could slow enemies, purple could deal a “feedback over time” damaging effect, etc. There are a lot of possibilities.

Phew! That’s all I have. Although I do think Stetmann is on the weak side, he has a lot of potential with solid gameplay. My biggest issues are his possession of frustrating mechanics (spamming Stetellites) and “weaknesses-disguised as buffs” (e.g., ‘purple Stetzone<->no passive regeneration’; ‘simultaneous research<->limited buildings’)

What are other players’ thoughts? Do you enjoy Stetmann? If not or if so, why? What are some reasonable changes that could make Stetmann feel better to play as or with?

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He’s limited to effectively 2 research buildings at a time, but that’s still on par with many other COs whom you probably wouldn’t make 3 anyways. For Tychus, it’s practically to make 3 Ebays, but, Tychus is a whole different beast

But some of his abilities that use Egonergy are strong though… even more so then their counterparts from other COs. I’m told that m-Lings for one with their barrier are quite tanky.

They’ve been buffed, but they’re still avoided, or used sparingly because they’re too costly

When you get to talent lv15, you unlock Super Gary. Once you upgrade to him, he can generate a 30s Stetzone on his own, in where you can wander far away from your Stetalite frontlines and bypass that “supply chain”

I don’t really see him that weak, he’s like, sightly better than Artanis in terms of army power, but both are not hard carry commanders at all, but all in all, they make some missions way easier as it saves fron mistakes.

  1. His level 9 is not impactul at all when it comes to ling/hydra/ultra, since it just takes 75 min to make evo, but when it comes to spire you save a bit of gas for that expensive broodlord, easier for protoss to chrono as well.

  2. Morph speed mastery is incredibly usefull, it indirectly reduces stetlites cooldown if you go Super Gary opener and possibly get ultra and broodlord a bit earlier, although I go along with upgrade cost mastery for that.

  3. Speaking of which, Super Gary has the ability to temporally create stetzone, which helps with spreading stetlites at objective, as also providing a lot of cover for his army if you use overcharge.

Although I agree with having something more to help with spreading stetlites, there was a thread about that and someone said about using overlords new ability to make a tiny stetzone temporally in order to help with that, since they’re useless besides supply and early detection vs mutation, that would be amazing.

After the Zeratul mega nerf, Stetmann is my next go to commander when I wanna get serious and play some Brutal+6. His green shields alone and global healing put him in the God Tier League. Usually all I need is regular old bland mass Hydras and Super Gary and I can clear basically anything with little to no casualties.

I agree that Super Gary does help bypass the “supply chain” of stetzones…but that also is one more reason that Stetmann is a little too reliant on Super Gary, which the devs have admitted is more reliance than they feel is ideal (https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/co-op-mission-update-december-16th-2019/6571)

I’m also not sure I was clear about what I meant in my points about the multiple simultaneous research and the purple egonergy zone.

My point is not that those mechanics are weak, or need to be buffed: it’s that they only seem to exist because Stetmann was given baseline nerfs. Simultaneous research would be pointless if he weren’t limited in the number of structures he can build (why waste a levelling talent on an ability that simply brings him “up to par” with other commanders?), and the purple zone would be less vital if all his units didn’t effectively have a baseline nerf (down to 0) to their passive energy regen.

All in all you’re right–and clearly Blizz has made some steps towards addressing some of my gripes with him. Even still, some of his mechanics just seem underwhelming and in need of attention.

Side note: Stettman is limited to one of certain types of buildings (not evochamber by the way he can build as many of those as he likes) because those are respawn points for his recycled units

You must be a lot better at unit management than I am then. I frequently find myself struggling to keep an eye on control groups, prevent my infestors from rushing out in front, and generally “make the most” of Stet’s units’ strengths.

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I hadn’t thought about that. Still, though, that again seems like a self-inflicted problem: the recycled units couldn’t just respawn from the first building, or the one closest to their death location…?

Just because he has a recycle mechanic doesn’t mean he has to have a limited number of buildings.

That might be due to how they programmed him, like, if he has more than 1 building, it can bug out and get 2 units recycled instead of 1.
A more direct example are Zagara’s free banelings.

The recycled parts accumulate in a building… if there were 2 buildings, one could have 3 parts, the other could have 2 parts…5 total parts, but neither building has the 4 parts to make a unit.
(or getting 2 for one as mentioned above)

The way they did it works, and there is almost never a reason for zerg to build more than one spawning pool/hydra den erc.
The only that is useful is evo chamber and spire…and spires are expensive…and you can build multiple evo chambers.

You mean like how you can overcharge blue stetzone to get extra attack speed, or overcharge purple stetzone to get more energy for offensive abilities?

For some of his units, yes. BCL just suck. A zergling can eat 4 Yamato cannons to the face and still survive if he’s in the green stetzone. Plus, every 2 lings that die gives you a free refund ling. If survivability is an issue, you need more lings or ultralisks (depending on enemy comp).

Eh… Are you serious? Stetmann is currently the most powerful commander with Abathur. Personally I’m afraid if he get nerfed in the future.

  • The limitations for one building for each tech structure is for regenerations of dead units, just like Zagara’s Baneling nest. And, yeah, it can be messy to upgrade more than one at the low level, but when it comes after Lv15, it’s a great function. That savings for one more drone and costs, times for building another upgrade structure, along with saving of space comes very handy in some mutation’s circumstances.
  • Stetmann’s units are already super powerful, especially when being in healing zone, so if they get passive energy regeneration then definitely it will become OP of OP, being able to rely on more healing zone time than JUICE zone which will buff not only their durability but also fighting power.
  1. I understand Stetellite mechanincs requires your hand busy but it demands it. It’s the core mechanics for Stetmann and it gives huge advantage to whole deathball. If you are good enough to the game then actually it’s not that busy too. On the contrary don’t you think it is much more comfortable when compared to ladder Zerg’s creep expansion? You don’t have to control queens but can use just shortcuts from panel to expand the creep. I don’t find any reason to buff this part since already it’s very powerful.

  2. First to say, BCL costs 350V, not 300V. Anyways, it’s quite reasonable to have that cost. It’s true that at the early launch BCL was terrible to use, but now it’s very decent unit to use. End-tech units are naturally cost-inefficient for its power, but gives very stable force for deathball. And it comes with Stetellites speed, healing, and energy regeneration boost. BCL’s normal attack, with locusceptors are currently very powerful and it comes with 4-stack Yamato cannon with no cooldown and you can charge one(100 energy) in about 12 seconds. Of course the BCL itself rarely take damage since it’s also like combintaions of Brood Lord and Carrier. Although it lacks DPS for that of Mecha Lurkers, it gives you more stability in trade of DPS compared to lower-tech units. Simple.

I mained Zeratul before but now Stetmann. Stetmann is the most powerful commander with Abathur, which got more damage to ground in trade of ‘some durability’. Actually it currently can fight with every mutators and every units have proper position for each mutators.

Honestly I’m surprised that watching someone say Stetmann needs buff when actually me being afraid of Stetmann getting nerf since it’s currently super OP, just like Zeratul in before. Don’t you think the only reliable commander for random Brutal+ is Stetmann? He can do everything and always has options for every mutators.

The only thing what makes me feel relieved is that it requires some micro to get its potential, not like Zeratul in before.

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More so than others I presume? You lose your hero unit for other COs, it still seems like you’re hosed. Or at least, can have a very bumpy recovery.

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Stetmann is a top commanders and extremely solid.
But I can see why some players might struggle with him. I would strongly recommend to force yourself to use hotkeys for all top bar and Gary’s abilities. It makes a big difference for him.

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Quite surprised with these comments, I can see him being top support commander, but overall being one of the best? I can see a bit of why since anything that doesn’t one-shot units is value for stetmann but mutations as well? Then again, haven’t tried using him at difficult mutations.

Eh, I find him to be a more powerful version of Stukov with his infestor though. He can steamroll almost all the mutators with just his infestors alone.

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Because of the variety of very different units he does really well across the set of mutators. For example, Infestors for Black Death, Double-edged etc, or Ultra+Hydra for Transmutation

Stetmann really rewards good micro since there’s a lot of manual abilities to juggle.

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Stetmann is pretty easy if you ask me, like literally all you need to do for 99% of brutations is just do nothing but mass hydras and use the greens shields to make your army basically invincible. I dont know how much HP the shields are worth, but seems like it turns a zergling into an ultralisk when it has the shields. Sometimes infestors might be a slightly better option, but you gotta remember that will hurt your ally a bit too since he wont get healing that much if you choose infestors, plus I also think they’re a bit more work than just A-moving Hydras.

Your ally doesn’t need green shield when they have million of Hp worth meat shield in front of them. You only need to know how to assign fast casting and you can basically sit on purple field all day while the roachs infest the whole map with their presence.

Not saying using infestors is hard, its really easy, but compared to just braindead A-moving an unkillable army of hydras, pshhh I’ll take that almost everyday.