StarCraft 2

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm
12,391
11,798
The only thing I don't like is if your commander isn't 15 you can't use Mastery at all. The Brutal mutator bounty was a pain in the ass, their spawned attack waves are just masses of adepts/immortals or oracles/void rays and later tempests which chew right through some unit comps and makes some commanders worthless.

Even at 90 Mastery the boosts for some abilities aren't that useful. Like Swann's is lowering his Vespene Drone by -3% per point, which means at 20/20 you're saving 60 minerals x 8 geysers = 480 minerals saved. But then the other option is Laser Drill Production Time which has a nice little "Does not affect upgrade time" so like the ones with spawning heroes it lets you get the unit available earlier when nothing is attacking and why would it ever die and need faster respawn in the first place?
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
Yeah, the rule that some commanders or combos trivialize everything you throw at them still applies. Vorazun breaks the game on her own and for example Artanis+Raynor complement each other really well.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,557
50,823
Oh I somehow missed the Abathur release, but now I see he's 5 bucks so I no longer care. If they're planning to charge for all future co-op commanders I doubt I'll buy any. Or maybe I'll just say fuck it and get them since it's only 5 bucks.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,557
50,823
Nope. And I gotta give them some credit, Sudden Strike (the second mission) is rough as hell going for the achievement or brutal completion.

That mutation shit is no joke, or maybe it's balanced around higher mastery levels. I tried it once on just hard and got my shit pushed in pretty hard about halfway through. Trouble may have been my partner though, I went cannons with Karax and my Swann partner went turrets instead of troops, so he got in my way and leeched my repair beams.

As to whomever was complaining about Swann's bottom masteries, the mining laser one is pretty weak, but cheaper gas drones means you can call them down sooner without disrupting your economy, and that extra bit of gas early on can make a noticeable difference for a gas hungry partner like Karax or Kerrigan.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
606
Ladder revamp dropped. Wish I had any desire to play this but if I need to get my competitive juices flowing I prefer Overwatch.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,557
50,823
Lol, just had something disastrously funny happen while leveling Abathur. Went mutas on rifts to korhal with vorazun as my partner. First bonus objective she black holes to interrupt the aoe stun...except it doesn't actually interrupt it, it fires off as soon as the black hole ends. So my entire hotkey of mutalisks could not move out of the way of his forward charge and every single one died. Was only normal so I did just fine switching to roaches, but god damn that would have been instant game over on brutal, maybe hard too.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,557
50,823
This week's mutation is probably even more unbalanced in terms of punishing certain races more than others. All enemy units cloaked, widow and spider mines scattered throughout the map, and all enemy buildings get photon overload. The scenario is basically custom built for Artanis, Karax and Abathur are also very good, Kerrigan is ok as long as it isn't an air comp, Swann's detection is terrible, Raynor and Vorazun are basically fucked, and Zagara is literally unplayable without Artanis as a partner.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,557
50,823
Man Abathur is fucking ridiculous once you get him to 15. Even more gas-hungry than Kerrigan, but his mutas are pure insanity. regen out of combat, 9 bounces, double damage to armor, and life leech equal to their stacks of biomass. Gotta babysit them a bit at first to get the stack going, but shit just explodes once you get hit critical mass. Only thing that gives me trouble once my mutas get rolling is clumps of scourges.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,557
50,823
It's gay but I'm pretty sure the time I spent just leveling him to 15 justified a 5 dollar purchase, much less all the time I'll spend on him in the future. He's one of the best all around commanders, very well rounded.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,557
50,823
I don't mean that he's overpowered, I just mean that he's very well rounded and you rarely have to adjust around the enemy comp. His mutas aren't quite as gas hungry as Kerrigan because even though she gets a gas discount mastery, Abathur is much better at keeping his alive. Despite multiple nerfs I'm pretty sure Vorazun is still the strongest commander due to how powerful black hole and time stop are. Gets hard to rate them after that, I'd say Raynor and Kerrigan are the worst. Kerrigan is better than she was with the gas mastery but she's still pretty janky relative to the other commanders, and despite the recent buffs, Raynor's still very one dimensional and their attempts to force people to diversify will continue to fail as long as two of his mastery categories are specific to bio.

But mutations are the closest thing to an 'end game' that co-op has now, and due to how specific the scenarios are, it wildly changes which heroes are good and which are bad. Karax has been good both weeks. Artanis is absolutely AMAZING this week. Zagara was great last week but is borderline unplayable this week. Vorazun was bad last week and is bad this week.