I am not a fan of any of the Protoss commanders. Going back to SC1, I never liked Protoss’ style - lessor amounts of expensive units that (supposedly) make up the difference with quality. Plausibly it’s my own lacking micro skill, but I’ve never been able to get the results from Protoss.
And that brings me to Alarack. IMO, his features (drawing power and health from sacrifices) fixes the problem I have with Protoss, and suddenly it clicks. An effectively unkillable Alarack tanks and the expensive Protoss units are suddenly free to actually do what they’re supposed to, instead of getting swarmed and dying.
This basic dynamic has been a revelation. And that’s not even mentioning Overcharge, which is one of the most versatile and useful top bar abilities, a relatively simple econ, one of the most powerful single units in co op (even if they take a ton of time and resources to set up), and a hero unit with nifty abilities on extremely short cool down. Biggest weakness is obviously mobility, but it’s manageable.
Ok that’s my case, of a sorts. Why don’t people play Alarack?
I do not play Alarak too often for some reasons. Firstly, as hero he is powerful in early game, but in mid-end game he sucks. Also, there are a lot of more fun to play and easy to play commanders. And the last one… you cannot build destroyers.
Fair enough. I’m not necessarily trying to convince anyone of anything. I just find him far more fun and easier to play than Artanis, Karax, Vorazun, or Fenix, yet all of those commanders are significantly more popular.
So my commander tiers are:
Raynor - really bad, only special use.
Kerrigan - Not good not bad.
Artanis - Mostly Good.
Swaun - Mostly defending, sometimes attacking. Science vessels are nice.
Vorazun - Really good. Abilities are unique.
Zagara - A lil bit imbalance, her zergling armada can destroy everything in rage mode.
Karax - Defending purposes only.
Abathur - really good but sometimes considered to be imbalance because he is A click.
Alarak - I said here.
Nova - her army is strong but expensive and if it dies, it is a loss for Nova.
Stukov - Makes PCs melt. His infected are good.
Fenix - Welp, he is good, but mostly built in bad builds.
Han and Horner - I really do not like this commander, but as long as it makes effect in game, why not?
Dehaka - my favourite commander. But he really sucks in army questions, at least for me. But dehaka mostly makes it out without army.
Tychus - I hate this commander. OP and requires no macro. Why he exists?
Zeratul - Very OP, but has nova-like army problem.
Stetmann - Drones make us LAG. Without drones he is weak. That’s the problem to me.
Mengsk - I do not know what he is like. Really OP, but his army melts very fast. It is replaceable, but strange for me. Also imperial guard sucks if you have no Swaun, Karax or no SCVs chasing the tech and fix it.
From my view, Alarak is frowned upon because he has a very limited set of builds, has a weak top bar, and because Alarak himself can cause your entire army to disappear if you make a fatal mistake due to sacrifice. It can happen at any moment so you have to babysit him constantly especially considering there are no melee units in his arsenal to divert enemy focus. It isn’t terrible in Brutal, but in high end mutations it’s pretty much GG if that happens.
From a numbers perspective, how is it any different than a traditional army? If he’s taking damage fast enough to wipe out the army before the army can wipe out the enemy, it seems to me that would happen whether Alarack was keeping himself alive or not. But with Alarack, there’s at least a buffer zone of expendable units and a focused tank to give your damaging units effective cover.
And true, I’m not going to argue his top bar is the best. But it’s far from the worst either, and including Empower Me, he has a a good mix of power buttons.
The thing about Alarak is that he’s a micro-heavy commander, that also needs macro to get his army going, this becomes much more apparent when going ascendants and/or doing objective while an attack wave is coming.
Alarak weakness is frustating for players who are not that skilled with hotkeys.
Don’t get me wrong, I actually play him a lot as he is indeed powerfull, his havocs are really good, but I can see why players who do Zeratul/Dehaka/Abathur would dislike Alarak, because unlike them, Alarak outside calldowns he has no global presence and leaving him on “A-move and forget” can punish him hard, making him more difficult to solo carry.
That’s just not welcoming for everyone, he fits the category for commanders that requires more skilled players to play well with him, those who knows group and camera hotkeys will abuse his strengh much more than a player who mostly uses the mouse to play the game.
I like Alarak’s army choices, the hero unit, and just about everything about him in general. I like how he challenges my APM to get the most out of him. It makes it super fun. I also enjoy fast expanding strats on no rock expansion missions.
The biggest kicker for me in why I don’t enjoy Alarak as much as other commanders or play him often is just his super poor mobility. His lack of global map presence makes him cumbersome to play. Even the bulk of his units are slow walking and take forever to get places. On the contrary, my favorite commanders—Dehaka, Tychus, Kerrigan, Mengsk, and to a lesser extent Zeratul and Swann—all have a powerful way to affect the map globally and can handle situations in multiple places at once or at a moments notice. The death fleet has a recall, but it’s on a long cool down and requires a building setup to make it happen. It just kinda takes some of the fun out of it for me.
I could also do without Alarak eating ascendants, but that is just a small nitpick.
Only 2 real builds, both of which need significant spending
He said Raynor is “really bad, only special use”, both of which are wrong.
Raynor is only bad if the player is bad which applies to basically any commander. Special use implies he’s a one-trick pony when in actuality Raynor is quite versatile.
He also said Abathur is a-move, and that that was why people thought he was OP, when he’s not very a-move, and his most OP things are his spell-casters and other manual cast abilities.
A lot if the reason that people shy away from Alarak is because of the micro required to play him effectively. You have to be able to make split-second decisions and rapid micro management mid-combat, especially during Brutations. You have to manage Alarak and either your Robotic units or your Ascendants at the same time, which for many is pretty daunting when their best capabilities is A-Move. Alarak isn’t an A-Move GG friendly commander, unlike Artanis or Fenix.
Personally, I love playing Alarak. He’s very satisfying to me, and watching some intense replays and seeing how high my APM can go while my brain is on fire is a good feeling. It also helps that I enjoy his demeanor, and being voiced by John DeLancie (Also known for playing Q and Discord) is the cherry on top.
Alarak is my main homie, and no other Protoss Commander will take his spot at the top seat.