Hey boys. Credentials are level 15 all commanders, 150+ brutal wins and all achievements. Here are my opinions on the best ways to play each commander.
Raynor
Power level - Tier 4/ Tier 2 level 10+/ Tier 1 with Artanis
Bio ball with multiple CCs spamming mules. Powerspike at level 10 for double mule calldown. Alternative build is vulture mine spam with vikings for shuttles and temple. Can not losslessly defend wave 1.

Kerrigan
Power level - Tier 5/ Tier 4 level 8+/ Tier 3 level 14+/ Tier 1 level 4+ with Artanis
Uldraling is the only good build. Every other build has glaring weaknesses in either impact or cost. Hero unit has enough power to frontline until ultras. Make 16 hydras before pumping ultras if proficient at using Kerrigan. Do not throw away zerglings on trains; their DPS is critical. Can not losslessly defend wave 1.

Artanis
Power level - Tier 4/ Tier 3 level 9+
Reavers and HTs are critical for defense missions. Goonspam with zealots on assault maps and AOE for defense. Guardian shell is worth an entire tier in power level. Units are poor to average across the board. Can situationally losslessly defend wave 1 (vs terran/zorg with a stalling pylon for perfect bombardment).
Swann
Power level - Tier 3/ Tier 2 level 5+/ Tier 1 at some point between level 5 and 15 with consistently top quality upgrades
Goliaths and hercutanks for all maps. More tanks for defense, more goliaths for assault. Hercules can pick up/drop sieged tanks and globally teleport with them. Prioritise gas drones and drill upgrades. Can losslessly defend with 2 flame turrets and 1 SCV and lossless break rocks with grenade turrets.

Zagara
Power level - Tier 5/ Tier 4 level 4+/ Tier 3 level 7+/ Tier 2 level 11+/ Tier 1 level 12+/ Tier 1 level 6+ with Artanis
The most level dependent commander by far except Karax. Ironically excels on defense missions unless paired with Artanis but is extremely powerful at all roles after levelling up. Suicide units are unparalleled in both impact and efficiency when dealing with densely packed attack waves but are less impressive at pushing. Can losslessly defend wave 1 at level 7+ if baneling nest is rushed. DO NOT get supply blocked. Rush hive tech if scourge required.

Vorazun
Power level - Tier 1/ God tier level 11+
I'm not even going to explain this crap. You can literaly use any combination of her tools and faceroll solo brutal but DT corsair is the best by a significant margin. Dark pylon recall is just stupid. Can losslessly defend wave 1 AND break both rocks at level 3+. Timing for shadowguard varies between maps due to attack wave timing. I personally summon when the red dot appears if rocks are close togther or summon on top of the wave if rocks are apart, followed by splitting 2 shadowguard to each rock after the wave is cleared.

Karax
Power level - Tier 99 if not played correctly/ Tier 5 level 4+/ Tier 3 level 8+/ Tier 1 level 11+ for defense
This commander probably warrants his own guide. The short version is that his impact is entirely dependent on the competent and liberal use of his pew pew lasers. Upgrade solar forge IMMEDIATELY to max level. If pushing, instruct ally to solo push while you snipe key targets/clumps with orbitals until you reach critical mass some time around the second/third objective. Best unit comp by far is zealot colossus as AA units are made redundant by prudent use of orbitals. Regardless of comp, varying numbers of energisers are required. DO NOT MAKE CANNONS UNLESS SHUTTLES/TRAINS/TEMPLE. Is the best commander at losslessly defending wave 1 with only a stalling pylon and lasers.
To level Karax to a point where you won't want to rip your hair out, Spam energisers and possess enemy mechs. It's janky and feels really !@#$ty but it works.

You forgot to add '!@#$ 15+ HT blobs per wave on Brutal' at Raynor :D
One thing I'd add is that when you play Swann, you really need only vomit Goliaths and get 10-12 Science Vessels, all with full upgrades, to get all maps done. You can add siege tanks to the mix on the train map, but its not necessary, unless you're carrying your teammate, then it probably is.
Regarding Karax, yes, he could use a dedicated guide, ideally with a few replays added in the mix to show defence placements on the non-assault maps, but right now only Lock&Load has replays saved.
Thanks for writing that up, man, I was thinking about one too! :D

I was tempted to advocate BCs vs P on trains but I cringed every time I tried to type a letter of that. Still not sure what the correct counter to that !@#$ is supposed to be.

Karax is kinda broken after lvl 11. You can just cannon rush everything alone (with orbitals) and if your partner is another protoss, free shields everywhere.
I never built a single unit besides probes for this guy, you just don't need them haha.

From my experience, I would say that Zagara is by far the strongest commander, followed by Swann and Raynor (depending on playstyle). You are completely wrong about Vorazun but I guess your skill level in the game is below Gold league, nice review though.

I'm fairly certain you're trolling but I'll bite.
What exactly am I wrong about with regards to Vorazun?

I'm fairly certain you're trolling but I'll bite.
What exactly am I wrong about with regards to Vorazun?

You gotta figure out by yourself, nothing is free. And btw in the future it would be nice to not write fav race biased reviews, making players thinking that something is ' op ' (i won't use the words you used about Vorazun in your review), while is not and without having the proper knowledge and skill in the game, but as I mentioned I generally like your review.

You gotta figure out by yourself, nothing is free.

Okay, you're clearly just trolling. Thanks for saving me some effort.

I play vorazun from first lvl to 11 almost each game was the brutal..

Post has been reported? lel

quick question to this guide:
how to swann vs ht+immortal combo? ai seems to produce countering units to my compositions, raynor gets his bioball stormed, swann has to deal with immortals using.. heavy units?
protoss is by far the most difficult opponent ever

They never send enough immortals to put a dent in your deathball. Once you hit critical mass, there's never enough of even a perfect counter to deal with you. If you're struggling to hit critical before they start sending larger numbers of immortals, you need to improve your macro.

The first commander i got to 15 was Vorazun. She is relly really good. IMO the best currently, though not the most fun for me (now this goes to Karax as he can be strong but is harder to play)
Co-OP missions have a few areas we can factor in:
- Early game (defending wave 1 and 2, defeating objective 1, breaking your rocks)
- Economy (worker production, bonuses to gathering, unit prices)
- Unit power (differs on different maps most of the time)
- Special Abilities power

Vorazun:

Early game 10/10: due to Shadow Guard. Nothing can clear these guys and they can break rocks. After that you will already have regulard DTs with assault.
Economy 8/10: orbital vespane is great, you can build 4 assimilators early and stockpile gas for your tech. You can always stay fully upgraded with Vorazun due to this. Chrono boost on Nexi means you will outproduce the terrans on workers and break even with Zerg early on.
Unit power 10/10: DTs with full upgrades on a lvl 15 Vorazun steamroll ground units. They can solo objectives, they can do whatever they want. Stun Zealots are great early on if your ally is a slow starter and a good way to dump excess minerals. On maps with Protoss and Terran enemies it is entirely vialbe to rush Mind Control and Dark Archons and just steamroll the map with stolen Thors/Battlecruisers/Immortals/Colossi/Carriers/Void Rays. Did I say Void Rays? Yes. You can mass your own Void Rays and completely noob stomp the map with clever use of abilities. Corsairs/DTs is an extremely powerful deathball that perfectly covers both ground and air.
Special Abilities 10/10: A perfect mix of abilities. Shadow Guard fixes your early game on any map and Black Hole is superb. After you and your ally hit at least 100 supply it's time to not spend energy on Shadow Guard but instead save it for Black Hole which costs only 25, has no cooldown and disables and clumps up enemty waves (and shuttles). The lack of cooldown is really important, it will save your bacon many times on Brutal. Can be combined with any AOE special abilites from Artanis/Karax, with Psi Storm, with Archons, with your own mass Voidrays, Corsairs or DTs, with Zagara's suicide units - with anything really. Time Freeze is an excellent panick button that lets you pause objectives most of the time and lets you complete double pronged attacks and such. Dark Pylon is incredible on Temple and can be used once level 15 as a free dmage boost of 25% for you and your allies due to your passive at 15.
Now for Karax:
You must know that Karax play varies greatly depending on his level and ally. A lvl 1 Karax is vastly inferior to a lvl 15 one.
Early game 1/10. 7/10 with instant warping: Before you get the passive where you warp in pylons, canons and batteries instantly, your early game is horrendeous. Due to the cost of your zealots, your only chance at expansion and objectives is simple mass cannons or relying on your team mate. After instant warping, you are tied with Zagara on fastest expansion and expansion saturation speed. You can defend wave 1 really well with instant canons if needed or wtih just your orbital strike. Still not perfect since on offensive missions you have to rely on your temmate or really spend a ton of minerals on cannons.
Economy 1/10 without any upgrades, 3/10 with the 15% passive increase on build times for units, 6/10 with Chrono lvl 1 and 10/10 with Chrono lvl 2: Yeah, a lvl 1 Karax is a sad thing indeeed. But your economy gets stronger and stronger as you level, reaching God tier at lvl 2 Chronoboost. The best part is that this economy bonus transfers to your ally as well! Karax is truly a support/synergy commander. A perfect first Chrono will allow you incredible saturation or if you wish: fast upgrades instead. Also, please don't mix up his economy potential with his unit/upgrade costs!!
Unit power 1/10 early game, 10/10 deathball. 10/10 as support to heavy units. Early on you will need to rely on your team mate or cannons. One of the best things you can do early is make energizers and a few zealots and just spam bloodlust on your ally and let him clear. It takes a lot of time to get your deathball rolling - you need the most upgrades out of any commander! But once your zealots are fully upgraded, your Colossii have range + flaming lance, your solarite core allows you to heal 4 units at a time and you have 3/3 for attack and armour you will STEAMROLL anything on the map that isn't mass corruptor+leviathan+flying hybrids. But you only ever get those on the shuttles map and at that point you will have a million cannons in the middle. We can't accurately judge Karax's unit power without factoring in first that upgraded cannons and batteris can supplement your weaknesses on Shuttles/Train/Rifts and can completely steamroll Temple, and that Energizer mind control is basically a poor man's Dark Archon vs Toss/Terran enemies but wtih an added benefit of also boosting teh attack speed of your own and your allie's units. If you have Swann with mass Goliaths or Thors for example, Energizer bloodlust on them is amazing! Same for Goons, Corsiars and so on. If you are paired with Zerg or with Raynor, your lvl 15 passive that grants them 10 extra HP is basically enough to let them solo early and mid game untill you get your ball rolling. Few people appreciate just how much that 10 HP is on zerglins, marines and hydras! The bottom line is though, that you will always need to rely and work with your ally. Even on the Temple, where you are the dankest boss of bosses, you still need your ally to kill early Thrashers.
Special Abilities power 10/10 fully upgraded: As with all things Karax, this too requires a considerable investment in leveling him up and ingame in upgrading them. A lvl 1 Karax is basically an orbital strike bot. Once you get lvl 2 Chronoboost you are now the best economy booster in the game. And fully maxed and with a lvl 4 upgraded solarite core you can mow down enemy waves via just your abilites. Flaming Lances and Purifier Beam oblitherate even the biggest waves and orbital strikes can take out troublesome units.

Solid post but two glaring issues.
#1 Despite lauding her advantages and singing her praises, you still managed to downplay how horrendously broken Vorazun is. Don't worry, it's hard not to.
#2 You're completely wrong about Karax's earlygame. You can defend every single wave solo without a single turret. This depends purely on player skill for early waves and the level for the third solarite upgrade for later ones. A good Karax will clear every single attack wave on every map except temple, shuttles and trains without building a single turret or breaking a sweat.
Reconsider your options with this knowledge.

Solid post but two glaring issues.
#1 Despite lauding her advantages and singing her praises, you still managed to downplay how horrendously broken Vorazun is. Don't worry, it's hard not to.
#2 You're completely wrong about Karax's earlygame. You can defend every single wave solo without a single turret. This depends purely on player skill for early waves and the level for the third solarite upgrade for later ones. A good Karax will clear every single attack wave on every map except temple, shuttles and trains without building a single turret or breaking a sweat.
Reconsider your options with this knowledge.

Your opinion is not the holy book of Co-Op SC2. Vorazun is the best, but she is not lightyears beyond the others due to the simple reason that at some point the maps are just too easy and crushing hard or harder doesn't matter.
Karax's lasers are good and I said it, I think I've played enough games with him to say that compared to the other commanders his early game is the worst.

Projecting a bit? I never said anything about Karax other than his lack of need of turrets in the earlygame. Considering you used that as a qualifier for your assessment of Karax, this new information should lead you to reexamine the situation instead of lashing out needlessly at me.
Half of the heroes are incapable of clearing wave 1 without making economic sacrifices. Are you honestly saying Karax has a weaker earlygame than them?

quick question to this guide:
how to swann vs ht+immortal combo? ai seems to produce countering units to my compositions, raynor gets his bioball stormed, swann has to deal with immortals using.. heavy units?
protoss is by far the most difficult opponent ever

Besides what ViS said, remember to use your Vessels' shields on the ones taking hits. You should have that researched by the time the number of immortals starts to go nuts. Also, Irradiate is your friend. I'm still practicing to 1, not forget about it 2 to have the APM to make good use of it.
While I don't see much point in talking about just how strong Vorazun is, I'd really like to support the notion that Karax indeed has the most cost-efficient wave clears in the early game, from a mineral/gas/cooldowns perspective. It costs 5 energy and has no cooldown. Shadow Guard costs 50 and has a several minutes long cooldown. Swann with two flame turrets is also a strong contender, assuming both survive to be recycled, but you do miss out on some mining time on 2 SCVs, so that's not 100% free either.
EDIT:
After trying to make sense of Artanis (again), I think I've found a solution (on Hard only so far, I don't want to ruin others' games in Brutal with my testing). Ironically for a species on the brink of extinction, he plays a bit like Zagara. Your meatshield and beatstick are your Zealots, while your High Archons provide anti-air and shield recharge support. From what I've seen, Psi Storm heals 50 shields instantly, though I don't know yet if it only does it on impact, or you can move through it and still get fixed. You aim to fill lost shields with them, not to do damage, since even with 10-12 High Archons, you'll have to be prudent about your Stoms, depending on the map -> wave strength/frequency. This setup favours winning decisive engagements, while shines a bit less when you're on the defensive.
I think if Psi Storm came with a +1 range for HTs and Archons, and Khaydarin Amulet with an energy regen increase as an added, passive bonus, they would really shine.
Thoughts on this? Is this something new or did I just invent the wheel in a car shop?

Zealot archon is the way to play Artanis now that axelots got that buff, yeah. I haven't updated the guide but I'd actually put him in at tier 2 now that they're so ridiculously strong. He only lacks tier 1 status because of his lack of a clean way to deal with wave 1 but you'll have 2-3 archons and a bunch of zealots out by the time wave 2 hits if you build correctly.
Storms restore shields on impact over the course of a a few seconds. Just throw them on the enemy frontline and your zeals will pass through after melting everything in their way. The only counters to you would be mass air that approach from multiple directions that are NOT banshees or mutas (shuttle mission only) since you can feedback banshees and mutas just suck.
Artanis is very powerful and fun now that he has a frontline that actually does something. The sheer absurdity of high archons can now be realised.

I have to pay attention to patch notes, I must have missed it when they moved the axelot dmg from 8 to 16. I'm glad I'm late to the party though, means more people can have fun with Artanis now.
The Psi Storm thing seemed instant though. I have to check next time.

The sheer absurdity of high archons can now be realised.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Co-op is the developers' 'Things We Couldn't Do In The Campaign' alternative reality. :D
Makes me wonder what Stukov will do.

as Karax I wouldnt spam Zealots and energizers. His zealots cost 150 mineral and so are those instant warping cannons. And those cannons are stronger, u can use 1 energizer to speed up karax cannons. In early level, Karax doesnt have much choice, so in mid game just upgrade zealot and energizer, spear of adun and go for collossi.
But after got level 9 u can upgrade shadow cannons for immortal. His immortals are ofc more expensive, but it has both barrier and shadow cannon. 3 immortal can almost instant (2 sec) kill a carrier or battlecruiser with shadow cannon. Or u can one hit kill any flying units with less than 200 HP. And it has long range, 2x shw cannons can take a cannon or bunker from far away.
So, early game, use spear of adun and static defense and upgrade to immortal cannons asap. Mid game after build enough pylons u can spam some more zealot to not wasting minerals. Collossi are very powerful but die easily and slow to upgrade, it cost too much gas and not worthy without 2 expensive upgrades. U can kill fragile units with spear of adun anyway

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