Which COs do you find the most and least *fun* to play and why?

Co-op Missions Discussion
1

If you treat “powerful” or “OP” as fun, then that’s fine. Oh, for everyone, it’d be nice if you can comment briefly on what’s fun to you, along with for each CO

For me, my mains are my most fun:
======= Swann
I’ve really enjoyed Factory units. Swann specializing in those is a plus. Ditto with having the Goliath. He still has a nice array of towers. Last but not least, I really enjoyed the WoL mission where you got to use the DLD (Drakken Laser Drill), so great to see Swann use this as part of his main thing

======= Stukov
He’s the only Zerg that uses infested terran, which is something that fascinated me since the 1st Sc! His style of free units that keep on coming. Infested Marines cost mins, but they’re discounted, and can help you get out of tough spots in a pinch. His Bunkerlisks are costly, but rather unique. Diamondbacks are such a joy to use!

======= Karax
He’s the only CO who doesn’t have a Goon equivalent that he can mass and A-move (which I find annoying), but then, I do rather enjoy using his SoA lasers (not something any other CO really has, let alone Protoss). He can also do offensive towers (of which I’m a “tower person”)

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2

Most fun:
Alarak
Han & Horner
Swann

Least fun:
Stukov
Karax
Stetmann

3

Most fun is Karax alarak and Kerrigan
Least fun is abathur, nova, and tychus
In no particular order

4

Most fun
Swann
Artanis
Stetmann
Mengsk

Least fun
Zeratul
Tychus
H&H

Swann is just very good as either you playing or as ally, the vespene gets your late-game much quicker. Also static defense makes some nasty spawn camps.

Artanis is the dream of swarmy commanders, can clear map real fast if you’re commited to it.

Stetmann is just the best support overall, people often sleep on the energy regen tho.

Mengsk can fit so many comps it is hard to get bored of him, once you get used to the macro that is.

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5

Most

  1. Abathur- yes he’s really strong, but he’s my favorite character in Starcraft, I mained him before he got buffs, I main him in Heroes of the Storm, he’s just a blast. Having big monsters stomp around is a ton of fun, being able to play all-air Zerg is great, and strategic mine placement is always good for a riot; watching entire attack waves just evaporate from 30+ mines is hilarious.
  2. Artanis- specifically, mech-Artanis with Dragoon/Immortal. Immortals are already one of my aesthetically favorite units in the game, but give them the full Warp In speed mastery and drop a bunch right into the ranks of the enemy army as you engage and watch them go to work, it’s a thing of beauty.
  3. Kerrigan- fun hero-micro play that transitions into an awesome Hydra/Ultra army with Nyduses for zipping around the map at will.
  4. Dehaka- carry-over from the Abathur fun, more big monsters! Tyrannozaurs are just the best.
  5. Raynor- Battlecruisers? Orbitals? Yes, please.

Least

  1. Zeratul- I know I like Abathur despite being really strong, but I honestly have a hard time liking Zeratul because he’s really strong. There’s just so little effort you need to make to be good with him, everything he has is just so blatantly overpowered, it’s hard to get excited about playing him.
  2. Alarak- I want to like him, who doesn’t love Sith Lord Q? But most of his builds just pale in comparison to other commanders, and the only thing truly unique about him- his Ascendants build- takes forever to really get rolling. Really needs some quality-of-life buffs to solidify his playstyles.
  3. H&H- Han’s units are aesthetically just kind of meh but so effective and Horner’s units are awesome but so expensive you barely get to use them, I really wish those two groups were more in balance.
  4. Swann- While certainly enjoyable to play, his playstyle is kind of limited; Thors are cool but so outclassed by Goliaths, and I really wish he had Diamondbacks instead of Cyclones.
  5. There is no 5, the rest aren’t the best but they’re fun.
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I like zerg so I play them mostly. The only times I don’t are Nova and Fenix.

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Most fun:

  1. Dehaka - Godzilla. He takes over the early game and provides a strong presence from the 1st minute. I enjoy being very active on the map early on. He has a global, be anywhere and do anything, map presence. His army has a lot of choices and directions you can go in for the late game, which keeps it interesting (mutas, gaurdians, swarm hosts, tyrannosaurs). Feels pretty good for most mutations.
  2. Kerrigan - She’s just super fun to play. The omega worms make traveling around the map easy and provide a ton of tanking / detection utility. Super fun to jump into an army and pop immo wave and then empty out a ton of hydras from an omega worm. Kerrigan herself as a unit is a beast.
  3. Mengsk - Has a super fun macro style that rewards macro play. Spamming troopers and weapons as a mineral dump while backing them up with aegis guards or prides of augustgrad is super fun. Oh… and who doesn’t love nuking everything (you left me no choice!)?. Mengsk also has many different ways you can play him, which keeps it interesting.
  4. Tychus - A change of pace and a more simplistic game. A couple of different options that are rewarding. Vega / fixers or Rattlesnake / Sirius and other combinations and compositions are fun to mess around with. Medivac pickup mobility feels amazing. Nikara <3.
  5. Swann - Herc / tank juggling is fun. Pushing yourself to command more herc / tanks is challenging and rewarding. A big laser drill. Science vessels that own. Wraiths are fun to micro and mess around with. He’s a big boy with a big army, and it’s fun to roll over the map with his units.

Least

  1. Artanis - I mean he’s good and all and I love his utility, but I just find his unit comps pretty boring. He can do just about anything, but doesn’t do it flashy or in an interesting way. Protoss has always been boring for me, so I guess that is a reason also.
  2. Raynor - He’s a super strong commander in the right hands, but you have to stay in your base a lot at the beginning of the mission and build up your orbital commands while moving towards your units of choice. Sure he has top bar banshees, but I prefer to be super active on the map as early as possible. M&M&M is super fun to play with though, so after you are done building up his economy and unit production, he is more fun.
  3. Karax - He’s better now since the revamp (which is why he is not the 1. least fun to play), but he’s still slow to ramp up. I do enjoy energizers and fast expanding on contested maps with SoA use. Not a fan of defense or towers as I prefer the good defense is a good offense idea. Also hybrids sniping your lowly probes on the front line… jerks.
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My macro skills are pretty good and my micro skills are descent at best, although I do like active abilities.

Most; Mengsk, Stettmann, Fenix, Kerrigan and Nova (mostly because of Ravens)
Less; Everyone else, in any order. I like every single commander, it’s just that the above commanders feel more ‘natural’ to me.

9

Most fun:

Terran - Raynor. I actually don’t play him too often, but when I do, and whenever I find someone who says he’s bad, I’m forced into a “challenge accepted” mode and proceed to lay waste to the missions.

Zerg - Stukov, since he may as well not be Zerg at all. Though tied with Zagara since I like playing her in a non F2A-move way, though I still wish for the return of manual smartcast Bile Launchers. Good times…

Protoss - Alarak, just because he’s the most different.

Least fun:

Tychus - Even though I find him the least fun, he’s still enjoyable with the right mood to me. Pretty much had to put something here.

Zerg - Stetmann. Laggy, annoying voice, and feels subpar with just about every strategy compared to other commanders.

Protoss - Zeratul. Because… Zeratul.

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10

Most fun -
Swann: my micro isn’t good enough to play him well on maps that require lots of movement, like Malwarefare. But at his best, on my favorite maps, Swann is my favorite. His cooldowns are excellent but also strategic, his units are situationally powerful, and his turrets are second to none. He’s not the easiest, but certainly one of the most rewarding

Tychus: basically the opposite of Swann in every conceivable way. Also fun becomes sometimes I want a completely different type of game

Zagara: embodies The Swarm. She is THE zerg commander, IMO. Perfectly captures the reckless, unrelenting assault of the zerg. Hella fun, though rather one-note.

Least Fun -
Artanis: his cooldowns are fine, I suppose, but his units suck. Expensive but not especially impressive. I always feel like I’m missing something playing Artanis; like marines without medics. Just doesn’t click.

Kerrigan: I need to revisit her because lots of people say she’s good, but so far it has not worked for me. She fragile, her units are fragile, and outside of imm wave, she lacks distinction. I feel like I’m driving a stock, floor model car when everyone else is zooming around in tuned…fancy car. I don’t know cars.

Stetmann: I hate placing stetalites. Hate it. 33.33% of my attention is on the danged stetalites. Drives me bonkers.

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Mengsk
HH
Dehaka
Zeratul
Fenix

12

Updated thread title to include “why?”. I’m interested in hearing people’s reasons. Not just a list.

13

Still fairly new to Co-Op and have not purchased / tried all the commanders:

Most Fun -
Artanis : I like making a death ball with him and the instant reinforced mobile pylon field. Dragoons + Robo with midgame with whirlwind Zealot mineral dumb is my build in all of Co-OP.

Fenix: I like getting all 6 champion AI out. I prefer the mixed army build even if it is a little inefficient, than going down particular tech path. A 200 or near 200 supply Fenix army is very strong.

Nova: I like protoss, and Nova kind of plays like protoss. Her lengthy production cool downs forces you to make a mixed army.

Least Fun:

Stettmen: nothing personal but I get lag on my laptop playing with him and more so playing as him.

Tychus: when I want a moba / RTS hybrid I’ll play Warcraft 3.

Vorazun: I don’t dislike her terribly, she has a great top bar. Part of it is improving my play with her. I’m not profient playing Dark Templar / Corsairs right now, and it doesn’t suit my play style/ skill level. Mass Void Rays has a long ramp up time. She doesn’t have a great mineral dump option mid / late game; and early game I find myself lacking minerals. Protoss is my favorite race, so I’ll probably remove her as I get better with her, and try more commanders.

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Most fun: Stetmann, Fenix, Zeratul
Basically the a-move commanders with multiple viable army compositions.

Least fun: Abathur, Nova, Tychus
Abathur and Nova take too much babysitting to play when you can get the same effect with much less APM using other commanders. Tychus is just too weak for my tastes; I feel like he never shines at any moment of a game.

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Most fun, in order:

  1. Vorazun, after level 24 - Black Hole, Timestop, cloaked primary units, Dark Pylons. Watching super massive units, or many tiny ones, swirl helplessly while they get destroyed. Lvl 24 gives you 8 points for initial SoA energy for DP at the start and Shadow Guard at 3 mins. Do-able from lvl 21 too.
  2. Zeratul - F2A army but variable comp. See Tychus, below. Anti-air Immortals, awesome mobility and/or insta-travel, supply-free observers (which are underutilised). Can do Brutal from mastery level 0 onwards.
  3. Pre-nerf Karax - when you could do a little of everything while still doing something, and not having to wait for an epic windfall to make units. More usable top-bar than Swann. Also has anti-air immortals.
  4. Raynor, at lvl >75 - when calldown cooldowns are greatly reduced, spawn attack speed and multi healing, incl mech units. Very suited to “Timely Reinforcements” style on marines without hurting eco. Good variety of useful army builds.
  5. Artanis - when used in “Timely Reinforcements” style, bad for eco but fun to watch. Most of his top-bar is independent of Mastery level, so he’s a great CO to level-up with; which I realised too late. Psi storms! Downside - his build is too laddery.

Least fun, from most least fun to least least fun:

  1. Swann - super slow build up to a short burst of unimaginable power once your ally has cleared 3/4 of the map/mission. Top-bar mostly on timers. Nice to have as an ally for the “free vespene” and laser drill to auto-whittle down enemies while ally is busy doing something else. CO quite useless below at low levels. One set of mastery points focus on just two units, one of which you shouldn’t use until the very end, if at all - immortality protocol. Would it have been too Karaxian to just give a different buff but to all units? Wanted to like Swann, just couldn’t. Oddly, I prefer to use as static def only (with tanks). I found his macro harder to execute than Raynor’s.
  2. Raynor, at lvl <45 - Raynor without cooled down calldowns sucks balls. If I wanted that experince, I’d play PvP/ladder.
  3. Tychus - Initially fun but most games are one of 2 outlaw combos and maybe one other for Dead of Night and Miner Evac. I had bought him to level up faster on Brutal (since he’s OP) but I got bored enough after one month to then buy Zeratul to continue leveling up. At least with Zera, you have 4-5 diff builds. And Tyhcus’ nuke is first available at 10 mins? For its limited range and use, I don’t bother timing my attacks with its availability. They thought it was so special they’ll only unlock it at lvl 15? lol! Half my games I don’t even bother to research nuke (wtf :angry:) until he reminds me at the 10 minute mark.

Disclaimer: I’ve only played these 7 CO’s, out of 18; and no Zerg yet.

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Karax

Touched by the Hand of God… and I’m lazy.

Zeratul

Hahah, super units go brrrrrt!

Zagara

Keep rollin’ rollin’ rollin’!

Everyone else

I don’t know what I’m doing.

17

funny how opinions can differ.

Anyway, my personal preferences, 1 per race (I play all commanders, have all their achieves, etc.):

Nova – Ghosts and Helions are my favorite terran unit. Not only she gets both, her ghosts are one of the best units in all of Co-Op. I love how impactful her small army is, and perfectly timing a nuke into a moving wave feels extremely satisfying.

Stetmann – Although his satellite placement is annoying (and, IMO, the satellite drop-down animation should be buffed), he has unique counters to unique threats. I like trying to figure out the enemy comp early so I can mass the right unit. It feels really satisfying getting it right.

Zeratul – much like Stetmann and Nova; Zeratul has many viable army compositions. You normally try to counter depending on what the enemy has. Zeratul’s advantage, however, is that he can swap army comp in an instant as he doesn’t need to waste time with research.

So, in general, I love the commanders whose entire unit line up is useful one way or another (BCL is Stetmann’s only bad unit, but that could be fixed easily by making them his ‘general purpose’ unit).

Commanders I like the least:

Raynor – constantly letting marines die makes me feel uncomfortable. I prefer a durable army. It’s also weird for Raynor to play this way; feels like a tactic more suited for Mengsk or even Alarak. It’s like I’m using expendable marines without a care for their lives or their families.

Abathur – if I had to pick one zerg, Abathur is my least favorite. He’s not bad, the others are just more fun. I also dislike his voice, even though that’s a selling point for some people.

Artanis – Dragoons are his only option. That’s just annoying and boring. Why even have a unit selection if only one unit (plus Zealot Mineral dump) is ever going to be useful? If it wasn’t for Guardian Shell I’d probably never play this commander.

18

~slapathurs you so hard~

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19

Most fun:
Alarak - he’s generally satisfying to play with just the hero alone but when combined with a strong selection of units and calldowns he only keeps getting better
Fenix - tough to macro but the feeling of steamrolling through bases using brute force never gets old to me and having a powerful early game is a big plus
Mengsk - versatile unit set and ability to expand quickly is great but add in the ridiculous earthshakers and powerful calldowns and he’s amazing
Swann - I’m a meching Terran at heart so this is an obvious choice but he can support allies pretty well with his science vessels and he’s only really slow to get going if you’re going with the typical tanks and goliaths and not battlemech which is far more exciting
Zagara - blowing up anything in a blink of an eye never gets old on top of getting free banelings makes things just comical, the bile launcher on defensive maps is also pretty decent

Eh tier:
Raynor - bio play is just stressful to me because of the constant need to babysit everything during fights otherwise everything dies then you have the constant need to macro to get your orbitals going and to get your mules mining otherwise you have no money to replace all your dead marines but he is fun to play once you get past that

Least fun:
Kerrigan - spam nydus worms everywhere, mass hydralisks (with ultras being optional), select Kerrigan and mash Q to get into an enemy base then press R, make a new nydrus in the base and unload your units then win, rinse and repeat, the only exception is if you’re doing a muta-ling build but that’s pretty slow to get going and situational at best
Han & Horner - mindlessly spam reapers, upgrade the galleons then win, any of Mira’s other units are optional but your money is better spent on the starport units

20

Most fun:

  1. Raynor: One of the most versatile commanders, and a challenge to play well. Also, I love dodging or otherwise defeating all the splash and aoe. The best thing though is when you are able to get those huge concaves or surrounds with your bio. Microing his bio in general is a great feeling that I just don’t get from other commanders.

  2. Han&Horner: Powerful air units and top bar abilities. I tend to an aggressive player and there are few commanders more aggressive than H&H. incoming enemy wave? Drop a space station. Assaulting an enemy base? Call down the fleet or use some tactial air strikes to soften it up. Enemy is flanking your base on the other side of the map? Warp all your air units over there in an instant.

  3. Alarak: Want to see a huge army, Hybrids and all, melt in 2 seconds flat. Alarak’s your guy. Empower me is just one of the coolest abilities in the game. Also, aggressive pylon overcharge baby.

Least fun:

  1. Zeratul: Hey want a brain dead easy commander to play? Hereeee’s Zeratul! Now not only do you have almost no macro to do, but now no micro as well! Wow! As an added bonus we’ve also thrown in amazing mobility options so he can be anywhere on the map just as fast as Kerrigan! Hell, with cannons you don’t even need an army! What value!

  2. Tychus: Similar to Zeratul, he has great mobility, damage, and toughness without almost any drawback. Easy as hell macro, and almost as easy to micro as zeratul. Certainly, he is easier to micro than other similar micro heavy commanders like say Nova. At least it feels that way to me.

  3. Abathur: Mainly, I just think he is too good at everything and at almost all points in the game. At least with a high enough skilled player at the controls. His units require little micro, other than using a few active abilites. Not to mention he has one of the most overpowered spell casters in the game (the viper) and an unbeatable late game army. To date he is the only commander to be able to solo every mutation and also holds the majority of speed run records too, I believe. To top all this off, I am just tired of seeing him as my ally. I swear I get so many Abathur coop partners It’s not even funny. People please use other commanders. I’m begging you!

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