Zeratul's issue with variety

Co-op Missions Discussion
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I’m gonna clear things off right the bat; I know Zeratul’s overpowered, and I know he’s really fun, but I just find that he lacks some variety because some of his options are completely overshadowed if not useless.

Edit: Ok I think people are taking my post the wrong way; I’m not complaining about the lack of options, I’m complaining about how most of Zeratul’s options are borderline useless compared to everything else that he has. It’s very disappointing to me to see a commander with a wide array of abilities and units that can only use half of them reliably (cough, Stetmann).

Zeratul’s Artifact mechanic is the most interesting mechanic in Co-op (imo), but the fact that some of the options are either weak or useless, or simply overshadowed by his other options makes me wish they were buffed or changed entirely.

Starting off with his Army summon : Zoraya’s Legion (void rays) is obviously the most picked from what I can see and for good reason; they have high damage, high value and virtually no disadvantage by picking them. They’re great at taking down key targets and helping out in a big fight, especially when there’s a lot of hybrid involved.
That being said, the other two options pale in comparison. Telbrus (zealots + high templar) is weak; his army dies almost instantly in any big fight and Telbrus himself can run out of energy rendering him borderline useless. I get his main utility might be taking out big waves of small units, but late-game he just becomes so bad you’re better off taking one of the other 2 legions. My personal recommendation: increase the amount of zealots and/or increase their life/shields/armor as well as Telbrus’s energy pool, considering he runs out of energy very quickly.
Serdath is good, but the main issue i have with him is that, when he possesses units, possessed units take up YOUR supply. For a commander permanently capped at 100 supply, this is a pretty big issue on paper and turned me off from using him considering I would have to wait until I get a 100 supply-worth army before even considering using him in a big fight where he should be helpful.

As for the artifact abilities, there’s a few nitpicks I want to mention:

Stasis Beam is arguably the worst artifact ability. Not only does it have an awkward way of firing, it barely has any utility considering how hard it can be to actually hit it reliably. At best, this is just a means to prevent enemies from going somewhere until you get there. In big fights, it’s practically useless considering it only takes out a few enemies out of the fight for a few seconds that you might end up forgetting about. Compared to the other 2, this one severely lacks any actual utility that I can see; whereas Tesseract Monolith is a great defensive tool, and Void Crystal is a great way to initiate a big fight.
Steadfast Reinforcements and Tesseract Matrix are nice, but I have an issue with Void Blink considering how little impact it has. To begin with, the blink abilities of all of Zeratul’s units are rather underwhelming and, in the case of his Ambushers, have very little impact with cooldown reduction. Zeratul and his Ambushers can already stack 3 blinks, which renders this ability more or less pointless unless you’re going Void Templars (more on that later). I would rather see this ability replaced, unless they decide to revamp some of the passive upgrades for some of Zeratul’s units with blink so that this gets more value.

And it’s not just Zeratul’s top-bar abilities that I have an issue with; his units suffer from the same overshadowing treatment. Zeratul’s units are great hands down, but I’m disappointed how some of them have counter-intuitive designs. Ambushers have an ability that allows them to deal 200% weapon damage once after they blink, which is great. However, it only works every 8 seconds. This wouldn’t be a problem considering that’s the same as Blink’s cooldown, but i find it counter-intuitive to have 3 stacks of Blink when there’s no other advantage to spamming it other than every 8 seconds like you’re supposed to. I’d rather have something else than the 3 stacks, or replace the 200% weapon damage if you really want to do something with the 3 stacks idea.
While Zeratul’s Enforcers are arguably his best unit, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s annoyed by one of their upgrades. I don’t know the name exactly, but it’s the one that pushes back enemy air units that they shoot at. On paper, being able to deal splash damage to air is nice. In practice, it was implemented in such an annoying way that I can hardly find it useful half the time. The push back works more to your detriment half the time, and rarely will you be able to take advantage of the 50% damage dealt to enemies in the way that comes with it. I know it sounds bland, but wouldn’t it be simpler if their air shots exploded? They’re already slow and powerful, dealing 50% of the damage in an area around the target is obviously less annoying and more powerful than a knockback mechanic.
And then there’s the Void Templars… Honestly, these units aren’t fundamentally broken, but they’re not special. Vorazun’s Dark Templar are reliable and powerful because they can clear out waves of enemies, turn off defenses and deal massive damage all-around. Void Templars are… dark templars with blink? Case in point, there’s nothing special about them aside from the 50 damage blink, which really isn’t enough to make them worthwhile. Sure, they can also resurrect, but that doesn’t make them extremely powerful either. It would be nice if they had some abilities similar to Zeratul’s where they could actually deal with large groups of enemies without necessarily copying what makes Vorazun’s Dark Templars special.

Now, before I end this, I want to make it clear these are all from my own experience; I’m not making an essay based on actual facts, this is a personal rant and I’m looking forward to seeing other people’s vision on these subjects. If you’re gonna go out of your way to call me a dickhead who’s wrong about everything I just said, you might as well go yell at a tree for being planted where it is.

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I’m sure some mouthbreather will be here soon to try to showcase their lack of reading comprehension while trying to make fun of you for asking for Zeratul buffs, but in the meantime…

When the inevitable Zeratul rebalance comes and some of his out of line stuff gets nerfed, I too would love to see some love for his less used units/powers. I like your suggestions! Zeratul definitely doesn’t need the raw power, but at the very least the Legion fixes would be wonderful.

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I was agreeing with about everything you said until I got to the bit about the Void Templar. Honestly I don’t think there is a single more powerful strategy than just straight up Mass Void Templar in co-op. I think there’s only been probably one or two max Brutations that I haven’t been able to beat with the Void Templar since Zeratul was released. You should really try to take them more seriously someday and really try them out in a difficult brutation. The Blink ability basically just insta kills about any wave of units, especially once you have a bunch of them its almost like dropping an Airstike as Nova, and they have so much freakin HP that they can tank an army of Disruptors, Reavers, Templar which is generally notoriously strong against infantry type units and come out clean without losing a single unit. The resurrect has a pretty short cooldown too, so they’re pretty much gods. Most people talk about how his Cannons are insanely strong and one of the most powerful things in co-op, but honestly I think they’re a step below the Void Templar.

I think the problem is when people see an army of like 8 Void Templar which essentially cost as much as 8 carriers they dont see them as worth the price or value of what could also be 8 carriers because its almost ridiculous and silly to view them that way, but I assure you power of just as little as 8 void templar is stronger than as much as what 16 carriers would be and im not exaggerating.

If you get the Void ray legion and Zeratul Attack speed like I do you seriously should never should have to even worry about air units when you go mass void templar unless you’re playing against Terran Air that is.

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I’m not gonna lie, I’m not entirely experienced with Void Templars out of everything Zeratul has to offer. My opinion on them might’ve been half-baked considering I only used them like, twice… I’ll take your word for it though, thanks.

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His void templars have the same mechanic, that they can blink super fast but the 50 damage is just added every 8 seconds right?
That really should be fixed. Same as with his stalkers. Why even do a 50% cooldown reduction to his blinks if its nothing but movementspeed.
No wonder, everyone is playing phase cannons if the rest of the army is either not working with his kit (blink) or just dumb because of knockbacks

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He has way more options than other Commanders, even in the way OP described him.

  1. Top bar: Zoraya Legion or Serdath Legion, Tesseract Monolith or Void Suppression Crystal, any of the three for third tier work.

  2. Army composition: DTs, Immortal/Disruptor, Stalkers, Cannons.

And all of his Masteries have uses as well.

As others have mentioned, it’s a shame that OP never used Zeratul’s DT’s. You never really need more than three Immortals against any enemy composition so I’m surprised that OP says that it’s Zeratul’s best unit. It’s practically a vanilla Immortal against ground units except three times as expensive.

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Gotta disagree with core of original post.

Zeratul has a ton of gameplay options via topbar, army composition, and mastery selection, and the vast majority of those various options / combinations are all viable, strong—and most importantly—fun.

Edit: Lol typed this post right after seeing the original post, and was amused when I read the post by Grumpy directly above mine. Haha what’s that saying about minds thinking alike? :joy:

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I always choose the Dark Archons. More fun. :smiley:

Zoraya is pretty squishy, but still very good if they have backup.

Agreed. Zealots are cool, but I was surprised that you get a very similar number of units compared to the VR or DAs.

Give more zealots for sure, and make the hero unit tougher. As for Serdath, that’s avoidable and not a huge issue if you just send those units to fight at the front lines. That said, I’m not against removing MC supply costs.

Agreed.

I’d like to see these changes:

  1. Smaller hit-zone.
  2. 2-3 charges.
  3. Shorter cooldown.

2 and 3 are interchangeable. This would allow tactical stasis traps, rather than once in awhile stopping the enemies from moving.

Yup, they are on completely different levels.

However, I think a lot of this has to do with the weakness of the units that Blink, because in theory it’s a neat ability. Perhaps it’s the cost?

I’d like to see “50% reduction in blink CD and shields recharge 25% faster” or something.

Running out of time (or patience lol,) so I’ll wrap my reply up…don’t worry about replying to it all.

I think cannons are too easy to use, and his units cost too much. If these could be remedied, he’d be much more enjoyable imo.

Simplest fix? Invert the costs. Cannons should cost more, and units should cost less.

Ok I’m out.

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I kinda laugh at this. This is like saying he has two options: cannons or army. You know how insanely powerful he becomes when you mix the 2? And that’s where zeratul becomes fun: zipping void arrays around the map, dropping armies behind enemy bases surrounded by teleporting cannons and mc ing the heavy hitters like bcs. Which you then warp to a new location to take that out lol.
Straightforward play with zeratul is ez (op units) and boring if you ask me, the fun times are in exploring ways to mess with the map

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It’s not his total number of options being low, it is having options that are unused.

So for example, stasis beam… buff it OR remove it, either would improve Zeratul

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Zeratul is the perfect commander with beautifully interwoven units, calldowns, and masteries.

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I agree that you don’t have to go all-in with either option with Zeratul (cannons or army). Every game I play with zeratul I end up with a maxed out army and about 15-20 cannons on shorter maps and 30-ish cannons on longer ones. I start the cannons fairly early as I get through the early game with legion calldowns and Zeratul himself, and then I start focusing more on his army during the midgame. Synergizing the two makes for a very fun play style.

I do agree with the OP about the Telebrius legion, the statsis beam, and the blink artifact power. They need something more to make them lucrative options.

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his ambushers could use more hp. right now they cost about twice as much as normal stalkers but only have additional 20 hp / 20 shields.
his dts could use some qol. if you tell them to blink and the destination is too far away, they won’t blink at all. Instead let them blink in the direction you ordered them to even if they can’t reach their destination.
the void array should also cost 0 supply. being zeratuls version of the omega worm you have to build each manually, instead of them regenerating a charge every minute like kerigans omega. since he already only has 100 supply, it’s too taxing to make more than 2-3 pairs.
give the enforcers the same anti-ground range like regular immortals. as it is they cost 3x the amount of regular immortals but are even worse against ground since they have only 5 range instead of the 6 range of the regular immortal.
the bubble of the shield guard is too niche atm. it is only useful against projectile and not even against hit-scan projectiles like marines / immortals. maybe instead make it that units inside the bubble have 300 additional shields. kind of like a limited shield overcharge. they are called shield guards after all.
choosing blink upgrade should give every of his units the ability to blink.

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He has way more options than other Commanders, even in the way OP described him.

Gotta disagree with core of original post.
Zeratul has a ton of gameplay options via topbar, army composition, and mastery selection, and the vast majority of those various options / combinations are all viable, strong—and most importantly—fun.

My point wasn’t that there’s a lack of gameplay options, it’s just that most of them are borderline useless.

You never really need more than three Immortals against any enemy composition so I’m surprised that OP says that it’s Zeratul’s best unit.

The fact you can win the game with a handful of Enforcers as Zeratul kindof makes them stronger than normal immortals, dontcha think?
Not to mention, they’re Zeratul’s best anti-air, best anti-armored and best anti-structure/objective.
They’re more expensive than normal Immortals because they have more damage, can attack air units and also can be literally invincible because of their overpowered full-health self-sustain. Pair them up with Shield Guards and you’ve got yourself an almost unkillable army.

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Hard to say that he’s a “perfect” commander.
I almost feel like you’re just trolling.

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As far as his AF0 abilities go, the others aren’t completely useless.

Telebrus… ht+zlot legion has better DPS vs. swarms, and can pick up parts in P&P (although I believe they updated it at some point so air units can now pick them up? If that’s the case, then TBF, these guys are still more mobile then Zoy/VR legion)

DA legion’s MC can pick up some decent targets. IIRC, the MC units are timed, and won’t self-destruct even after his DA legion expires.

Otherwise, I’d say they could tweak the costs. To start off, 400, 500, and 600 for Tel., Dark Archon, and VR legions respectively

If you get the “reduced Blink cd” passive CD ability, it reduces their blink to 4s, which makes that really spammable, fun, and sets them quite apart from Vorazun’s DTs.

Stasis Beam is a way to gain vision. Also, it can fully disable units, whereas Void Suppression Crystal only slows them.

That said, I do prefer his T. Monoliths most of the time, with the Void Suppression Crystal the runner up

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I’d say he’s got decent variety…
Early detection: Cannons, T. Monos

Mobile Detection: Cannon and T. Mono projections, Void Watcher

anti-swarm: Void Templar with Blink cd reduction, or Void Abrogators

AA: Void Ambushers + Enforcers, cannons, Monos

rush: make a few Void Ambushers with Zeratul himself

quick vision: Transport Zeratul himself

rock breaking: VR legion, early units, Z himself, towers

Also remember his units and cannons are more costly since he gets free upgrades when you hunt down Artifact Fragments.

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They exploded after 2 minutes. Because Zeratul’s army are expensive, you won’t reach max 100 very soon. It does NOT matter if you summon them in early game when you are far below 100, and it does NOT matter when you already reach 100 in late game since you cannot build any combat units anyway.

About Ambusher, the 3 stacks blink does not make a big effect like other powerful ability, but the Ambusher itself, with its 200% damage, is already a good unit with high dps against everything. Though it may use some buff to replace the 3-blink, it is not the end of world if it keeps as it.

Only against air. The Enforcer is an anti-air specialist, and you rarely need more than 3 or 4 of them for the entire game, even the enemy is a heavy-air composition and in mutation. However, its anti-ground is not so great compare to its cost. It does exactly same damage and attacks exactly same fast as a regular immortal but also 1 less range.

Are you really serious about this? The Enforcer relies on this abilities against enemy air units. Though they are great, a few enforcer can NOT hold against later game air group without the push back when they begin to attack your enforcer. However, with 11 range (longer than every air units’ anti-ground weapon range except liberator in defense mode) and push back, no enemy air unit would ever touch the Enforcer. That’s why I said you rarely need more than a few of them against ground, thus saving resource to build other anti-ground units.

About Void Templar,

You should notice that Vorazun’s Dark Templar’s shadow fury only do damage against single target per strike, for a total of (20+15 light)*5 in every 15 seconds.

This 50 damage is an aoe attack, against EVERY enemy units in a line, and there is NO limit how many units it may hit. If there are 10 units in the blink path, every of them will receive 50 damage, for a total of 500 damage. If you have 10 Void templars all blink together across a large group of enemy ground units, most of them will evaporate instantly. If not, you can blink again after 4 seconds, and that is where you want to choose the Void Blink artifact ability. Some mutation, such as Obvilion Express with Just Die! mutator, it is a must choose.

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I feel like you’re missing out on core parts of my arguments.

Telebrus… ht+zlot legion has better DPS vs. swarms, and can pick up parts in P&P (although I believe they updated it at some point so air units can now pick them up? If that’s the case, then TBF, these guys are still more mobile then Zoy/VR legion)

If you read what I said completely, I know they’re made to deal with swarms of small enemies, but that’s precisely the problem. Late-game, when you’ll be dealing with swarms of big enemies with hybrid among other things, they really start to lose some value.

DA legion’s MC can pick up some decent targets. IIRC, the MC units are timed, and won’t self-destruct even after his DA legion expires.

I wasn’t criticizing the core concept of MC, just the fact it takes up YOUR supply when they do it, which is really taxing for a commander with 100 max supply.

If you get the “reduced Blink cd” passive CD ability, it reduces their blink to 4s, which makes that really spammable, fun, and sets them quite apart from Vorazun’s DTs.

You’re basically saying that the reduced blink cd only works with 1 army comp, who’s already pretty situational to begin with?

Stasis Beam is a way to gain vision. Also, it can fully disable units, whereas Void Suppression Crystal only slows them.

There are better ways to get vision, and since Zeratul already has a fully revealed map when you play him this seems kinda pointless. Void Suppression Crystal is good because it slows enemy units AND disables enemy structures, so bunkers, photon cannons, spine crawlers, any anti-air are rendered completely useless along with having enemy units slowed down to a crawl.
Also, when units are slowed by the Void Suppression Crystal, you can still attack them.
Units hit by Stasis Beam are disabled, sure, but also rendered invulnerable; you can’t do anything to them until the timer wears off.
Also also, the argument that the beam can be used for vision makes it sound like you would use Swann’s beam for the same purpose.

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Vision isn’t just seeing what the map terrain is (which isn’t revealed to your ally since he’s on the standard fog of war mechanics). It lets you use CD (e.g. Swann’s warbots, Raynor’s Hyperion, Stukov’s Apocalisk), but also deploy units there, like Raynor’s units, transport via Griffon or Medivac for Nova and Tychus respectively.

I’ve put in suggestions to stagger the legions costs by what I believe are by popularity.

Otherwise, I wouldn’t mind if Zer. got fixes, but TBH, if they never changed him, I’m fine with that too.

For those complaining that he just steamrolls over everything, then consider using Darch. or the Telb. legions from time to time. You might discover something new, and it gives you the challenge you’re all seeking.

ANY case where you deal with swarmy comps.

Especially excellent on DoN and Miner Excavation, since Infested walkers are the core enemy comps there. Hell, even Blaze shines on DoN, and he gets buff requests that puts Zeratul to shame.

Having DTs take down higher health targets isn’t half bad on its own