For Essence Horder, I have found a Queen Spam army works wonders. They can attack both air and ground, and at 125 biomass they essentially have infinite energy for the heal, and attack both air and ground at an insane attack speed.
But what if the enemy composition is Robo-based Protoss ground? Because much as I love using mass Queens, they are armored units and Immortals are the killers of armored units.
@@entarochrist3927 honestly, they aren't that big an issue. At rank 15, Abathur gives all your units lifesteal equal to the amount of biomass they have. When you have queens with 400+ health, 1 second attack timers and lifesteal, they aren't dying.
@@entarochrist3927 immortals are certainly the armor slayers, but queens aren't armored so they're not that bothered by immortals. reavers, however... but that's what you can use swarmhosts for
Something to note: I don't think Prestiges are all about stressing optimal gameplay. In some cases they are there simply for people that want to play differently and have an option for that that is actually viable. Like I think Miner Evac would have been a better showcase for the second Prestige. That map would play to the strengths of extra mobility and defense that using Swarm Hosts provide. Keep up the good work!
Swarm cannot stop evolving, Pinnacle of Evolution is a dead end, it cannot evolve, adapt, therefore it is a failure. Abathur has lost his main focus - ever evolving swarm.
@@demonx3779 I mean Kerrigan did say to Abuthur that he cannot comprehend what she has become in Heart of the Swarm campaign. Therefore, Abuthur is not capable of evolving past ultimate evolutions.
The Limitless sounds counter productive since you *can* have more than 6 UEs but the biomass effectiveness are halved and the requirement twiced, the disadvantage cancels out the advantage. I played with a Limitless Abathur and he didn't even get past 6 UEs versus 2 waves of Brutal *Sky Terran*
maybe the death of Night Map just go for 6 Brutalisk instead of Leviathans and just deep tunnel all over the Map with basically a 600 mineral Army dunno have to try it out I guess
Have to admit, it did feel a bit like you'd prejudged Essence Hoarder for not behaving like regular Abathur, and then condemned it when it doesn't have the same strengths as regular Abathur. Regular Abathur has a big power spike with the first 600 or so biomass, and then coasts from there. Essence Hoarder has a flatter curve, and requires more biomass total to really get going, but it looks like it can potentially result in a really resilient lategame army, with increased biomass generation, each of your units having additional health, attack speed, Biotic Leech, and so on, and any units that do die will drop their Biomass for another unit to pick up (not sure if the 50% extra chance drop works out to 75% or 100%, but it still means you're not going to lose much Biomass to losses). A maxed out Abathur with plenty of biomass can end up with the regular units contributing as much or more than the Ultimates, and this allows the regular units to be stronger. It's probably similar to The Limitless, except that you have more variety in your army and losses aren't going to hurt nearly as much. Not sure if it actually does work out to be worth it in the end when playing for optimal performance (apart from mutations that will punish Ultimate Evolutions), but I think any fair assessment needs to start by recognising that it's just not going to have the early game power spike that regular Abathur has. Regarding Tunneling Horror... while it buffs Hosts, I think it's also reasonable to consider it a Roach/Ravager prestige as well. After all, the downside doesn't affect Roaches at all and only has a minor effect on Ravagers, while giving both access to Deep Tunnel. I think it could be quite useful for situation where you're going to need Deep Tunnel mobility, and you want a little bit of extra firepower and chaff along to reduce the heat on your Brutalisks.
I'm judging it based on my vast experience with playing Abathur. Having fancy glowing roaches just does not compare to the power level of having ultimate evolutions. I understand your disappointment that I've immediately dismissed something that can potentially be cool. It could indeed be cool, but all I'm saying is I'll never go for it unless I'm doing troll builds or am going up against a very specific anti ultimate evolution mutation because it really does feel like a "normal commander" type of deal, whereas Abathur with ultimate evolutions is the VERY STRONGEST commander, and it shows in all the speedrunning records and mutation solo counts. The Ravager option for Tunneling Horror is actually an interesting option, true. I just chose to go for Swarmhosts because the actual attack buff is to the locusts, so it made more sense to me to go into Swarmhosts.
Yeah, it's clearly not going to be as good at speedrunning... but I think that's deliberate. Classic Abathur is strong enough in that respect that Blizzard is probably a bit wary of buffing him further in that domain. So Prestige 2 seems to be oriented at pushing towards a highly mobile roach/ravager/swarmhost composition at the cost of air (the downside will really hurt for air while there's no buffs for air in the prestige), Prestige 3 is pure power fantasy while probably being a bit impractical as a general rule, and Prestige 1 is essentially an option to play Abathur more with his regular units rather than relying on Ultimate Evolutions. Which does make Essence Hoarder weaker in the early game since it doesn't have that initial spike, but Abathur's regular units with the benefits of biomass are still pretty good (and from what Damask said, it's guaranteed that your units will drop biomass, so you'll never lose biomass and can even kill your own units for their biomass if the wrong unit gets it). Now, I don't know if the extra biomass can make a top-supply Prestige 1 Abathur match well against a top supply base Abathur. Blizzard might have been a bit conservative with the prestiges knowing how strong base Abathur is. But it does seem to be oriented as more of a lategame (and a "my Ultimates will just die to a mutator") prestige than something one would use for speedrunning.
The big problem is mobility. One of abathur's best strengths is being able to instantly teleport very strong brutas anywhere as needed. This prestige feels especially weak on the temple defense map.
For abathur P1 (essence hoarder), you should build a large army, example group of queens and roaches .... these units will get stronger through out the game ...then later you add in mutalisk. If you build 1 roach and 1 mutalisk ... you definitely will get killed. Aba P1 is meant for large army build.
CtG, we get it, Ultimate Evo's are very good, don't have to say it every 5 minutes. For the 2nd prestige, I would've just massed Roaches, as they've received deep tunnel, from the prestige, and they don't cost Vespine Gas, so they aren't effected by the gas increase. Also, for the 1st prestige, queens would've been better early anti-air, with transfusion and they get biomass faster than other units. Meh, we each have our own play style, I guess. Regardless, Keep it up, CtG!
On Essence Hoarder, probably use more of Roaches and Ravagers combination. Roaches for tanking, Ravagers for damage and anti-air. They're doing great without the UE.
CtG For essence hoarder, go abathur mutas on dead of night with a defensive ally. Only mutas. Then you will see the meaning of "biomass satisfied." That is the power of biomass.
Man CtG, I've been following you for a while, ever since you started making some super helpful comments on Lowko's coop videos. I'm super happy there is someone covering this niche aspect of SC2. I just feel like this video was off the mark. 1) You gotta try playing each prestige as optimally as possible. I'd rather you focus on trying to take advantage of each prestige rather than just showing off completely unrelated gameplay. 2) I completely get this is just coop, but there's something to be said for improving your macro a bit. It just feels weird when you miss common upgrades. Thanks for these videos though!
1. That's literally what I did. I got a few strong units with lots of biomass in Essence Hoarder, but it looked weak because guess what: No ultimate evolutions! In Tunneling Horror, a literal disadvantage is that units cost 25% more gas, so it does make sense that I would be able to afford fewer of them especially since I had just better units to play with, and drives home the point that it is just a fancy gimmick that doesn't really impact Abathur's power level. In The Limitless, the point is literally to get as many ultimate evolutions as possible, which is exactly what I did. How is any of this "completely unrelated gameplay"? 2. For most other commanders, this would be a good complaint. Macro is in fact the best way to get a good strong army for most commanders, but Abathur operates differently. I had bad macro in these games because minerals and gas are not Abathur's most important resource, and I think that's the whole point. People who primarily play 1v1 may never get the point of Abathur because his most important resource is actually biomass, so I was focusing everything on getting biomass on my forces.
Same here. Really not to complain and I love the content CTG creates. Also looking at his stuff since Lowko showed coop vids. Would just be nice to have a second abathur video after Mengsk showing a lot of love for his fun army build
I played hundreds of rounds with Essence Hoarder alone and it can be refreshing to go without Ultimate Evolutions every once in a while. You could fend off early game with some combo of Roaches, Ravagers, some base defenses and Toxic Nests. Then you can gradually add in some flying units to support your army. You can optionally go full air (Mutas, Devours, Vipers + maybe Guardians too) by killing all your ground units since they drop all their biomass with a 100% chance. It's obviously not as potent as full UE's, but it's for those who want to try some non-UE strategies for once.
You really don't make a good job of showing off the new prestige gameplay if you just play as normal Abathur. What's the points of picking Tunneling Horror if you focus on ultimates for 90% of the game? Everyone already knows that you can solo all the maps with ultimates only.
I disagree. I did try to get as many Swarmhosts as possible, but a literal disadvantage of Tunneling Horror is that the Swarmhosts cost more gas. So I actually think it shows the full picture of both advantages and disadvantages. Rushing straight into Swarmhosts is probably the BAD way to do this because you'll end up sacrificing your early game effectiveness, even just for the sake of showing it in a video. I'll always show the strongest way to play Abathur. And regardless of what prestige you pick, rushing to ultimate evolutions is still the most powerful way to play him. Given the choice to redo the video, I would surely do it again because I always want to help people learn to play the best way. Also, 90% of the Abathur players I see on the solo queue don't actually know how to get ultimate evolutions, so I'll keep hammering in the point until I actually see more Abathurs who know how to get a fast brutalisk. Also, I think it speaks more about how weak his prestige talents are that Ultimate Evolutions are still the story with Abathur, rather than how I'm not trying to show the prestige talents. Because I did try to show off all the prestige talents in all three *games.
@@CtG-Games I agree with your statement. Also, it does give an opportunity to use deep tunneling roaches, but it kinda goes back to your second point of ult evo too op.
@@CtG-Games I watch you when I want to kill time but often find myself frustrated by you because you are often so salty, defensive and have a bad energy. Like at the start of this video when you are complaining about the teammate putting down a spray, its common for you to go on little rants when the rng doesn't go your way in a mutator and keep repeating how 'stupid' the enemy composition is. Compare that to say Lowko who is always making light of situations, having jokes and laughing about bad situations most of the time. You'll notice that trend in alot of popular streamers. I say all this because I think you've been pushing alot to ask people when to stream, change up content etc in a bid to increase viewership, rather than rejecting the feedback like on this comment and the one below from pushanka, perhaps take that advice on board. Maybe we want to see what happens when you go full swarmhost, just like going full immortal, since thats the point of the prestige vid. You have some good niche content of areas of Starcraft at a level others cant achieve easily (Brutal 6 mutations kinda thing) which is what makes me want to watch but your energy and comments make me want to turn off. For the love of god too, please recognise that your 'as the sea' joke doesn't make any sense and isn't funny, poor hunter just gets confused when you say it which is why he goes to his stock reply of 'I see....', it never lands as its not a clever play on words or of a saying and repeating it doesnt make it a thing, in a similar but less frustrating way is how you purposely mispronounce names. If the audience liked it they'd engage in the comments by doing it too and making jokes with you, I don't canvas the comments but have never seen a positive reaction to it.
@@jonsmith5058 Excatly? Like who the f*ck cares for getting sprayed? During the 1st prestige it's just an entire rant that he doesn't have ultimate evulutions, not making enough anti air aginst air units etc... Like I like his content but someties it's just too salt and why always compare co-op to 1v1? never understood that.
@@TheFeri I think this is just his attitude in general. He seems very defensive about everything whenever someone criticizes his methodology. I''m shocked he seems to be a pretty good player considering his poor mindset.
Honestly I really enjoy playing with armies so i really enjoy playing roach-queen and just getting the leviathans when I have the gas because I dont care much for them and i know this isnt the meta but it's really fun and tbh I enjoy that way more than playing the ultimate evolutions also it feels really strong since the queens just annihilate air and heal the roaches and each other for ever
i really enjoy going mass ravanger and just spraying everything down :P only real downside imo is how freaking huge all the units become. I think going mass muta with the no ultimate prestige could be pretty good to.
P3 isn't bad just because of speedrunning. It slows down your snowball such that it took until the very end of MO, the longest autoscroller, for you to even arguably match the power of vanilla Abby at that same point. To put things in perspective, by the end of MO, vanilla Abby should have 6 ultimates, 2 Vipers, and over 100 supply's worth of Mutas (not all with 100 biomass).
Theoretically speaking, there's no reason someone who's willing to put in the APM couldn't have a conventional army alongside the Limitless Ultimate Evolutions. In practice, though, having the macro to build economy and the micro to ensure that your chosen ones for evolution get the biomass they need while the others aren't stealing biomass is probably more effort than it's worth. Especially since a similar power fantasy can be achieved by massing Tyrannozors with Dehaka.
CTG I love that you made all these Prestige videos! It had to be an incredible amount of work! Now, A few thoughts on Abathur. In P1 if the Army didn’t “feel stronger” it was probably because you had only 140/200 supply and 4000+ bank at the end of the game. May as well make some Roaches to tank Ground Hybrids or a couple more Swarm Queens at least. Roughly 200/200 P1 is probably stronger than P0, just can’t see it until mid/late game. Longer maps would be a good choice to showcase it, or Black Death as you mentioned. No longer have to be cautious with your beefy boys. Now, like Mengsk troops, the next man up will grab the weapon (Biomass) and fight. Is P1 better than P0? I would vote no. But it’s interesting to test out the strengths and weaknesses : )
I also did not like Essence Hoarder since it removes so much mobility that it just feels like a huge part of Abathur is gone. Tunneling Horror though...wow what an incredible one. Going purely roach/ravager and brutas only allows your entire army to teleport anywhere without vision. Ravagers are just ridiculous and their gas cost is minimal. Easily the best of his prestiges. Limitless is deceptive. It's more fun than practical and the 200 essence is definitely rough on the early game, but obviously viable. I just think his second prestige is just the best all-round.
TLDR: p1 army comp - queens followed by tier 3 air. I feel you didnt do esseence hoarder any justice (p1). my play style on this is to get out 2 queens - lair - queen upgrades (transfuse upgrade essential - birthing chamber is optional) then start adding on more queens, on the back of this tech to greater spire. you want to have about 12 queens or more - but no more than 20, as they body block each other. you want to start pushing out muta's at 3/4 at a time after you have like 6 or 8 queens. each time 3/4 muts pop - morph them to into gaurdian/devourer at the ratio which best matches your emenys army comp. you can even leave them as muta's against some army comps (zerg). Get spire upgrades that benefit you air army comp. When you start to float minerals dont put them into roaches, as they take up suplly, biomass and body block your better units, instead over saturate your mineral lines by 8, and any excess minerals go into spines and spores 8 at a time to compensate for lack of mobility. what this gives you is an army with super high health, being healed quickly, with very high dps. by the early mid game you are unkillable. there are other ways to play p1, but this works for me on nearly every map.
i dont know man, in the first game rushing spire without drones and complaining about a weak abathur is kinda weird imo :D i like your vids but your macro is not that great my friend
I found one way for myself it is mass mutalisk. Advantages: they fast, 480hp, all passive skills empowered by quantity of biomass, can attack few targets and can kill even Stank because of chakrum. I put 3-4 overseers to follow some mutalisks and can't see only Nova in super cloack suit)) I tried to evolve to Devourer few mutas and it's worked pretty good. Also I heard that devourers can attack ground units by their spec upgrade. Will try this rumour later Disadvantageous : I should to gathering a lot of gas, so sir Swann is the best your partner) I collected) 36 Brutals in Mist opportunities map, but with upgrades and 78 in Dead in Night)) Good luck.
I noticed that Essence Hoarder is kinda bugged. Some of my Ravagers got 125 Biomass & some couldn't get past 105. Did you notice it? Speaking of Ravagers, you don't have enough trust in them, so that's the main reason why you felt weak in that game; you missed the built. It's a pitty, because you saw how strong they are when you were soloing on Rifts on Korhal, but you never used them again. They are also easy to get because they are cheap, especially gas & if enemy is air, one more reason to get them. If enemy is air I go full ground, that's my rule for most missions & I've beaten some hard mutations going mass Ravagers against sky enemies. If my ally is Kerrigan, I always go Mass Ravagers, because Ravager army with Omega mobility is the most awesome thing on this planet, last week's mutation being a good example of it.
I think you're a bit too obsessed with Ultimate Evo's. They're very good, no doubt, but that's what makes them boring and some people might prefer to play without them. Essence Hoarder is pretty good for trying out new non-Ultimate builds, which can allow more possibilities when playing Abathur (e.g. Roach, Devourer, Viper build is a pretty cool one). I mean the whole point of Prestiges is to explore new builds and strategies after using the same ones over the course of 1000's of matches.
part i hate about abathur is making brutalisks, i dont care about how strong they are, i dont like them, i like roaches, and hes only commander that has them
swarmhosts are the bomb with essence hoarder because of the 25 extra essence - it also affects the cooldown of spawning locusts on top of their attackspeed. using this build, the air attack upgrade for locusts is key. remember, they also have deep tunnel.
i think you could have easily gotten 20 brutalisks based on the biomass lying around the map. the problem is building single roaches as you see the buimass lying around. after getting 3 brutalisk i would have 3-5 roaches walking with the army to not miss biomass.
12:10, "If I had ultimate evolutions I'd melt this base right now". Proceeds to melt the base without them anyhow lol. I'd miss UE's also but maybe the point is to try other units, which do get stronger due to the biomass buffs that Prestige gets? Dunno for sure but I DO know that if anyone can eventually figure out the best way to use these it'll be you CTG. GJ
The fact Swarmhost no longer need vision with the Prestige is kinda nice though normally you had to send over a Brutalisk first before you could send the Swarmhost
hey CTG. I really enjoy your content. You already said you re-play all the prestiges. i´m really curious about that and lookin forward to it. especially with the new patch. keep it up
The first prestige is likely for lvl 1 to ultimate evolution. It gives more power for whence u can't get ultimate evolution and also u need to rely on units over evolution becos brutalisk dies badly to siege tank without the symbiote
I think the point of essence hoarder is actually making use of the original effect of biomass because realistically you really don't use it normally since UE don't have a benefit from it, however Imho that should come with also a buff to essence drop and or making toxic nests hit air
I wish the Swarm Queens had been given the tunneling ability as well in the P2 talent.... I mean, Queens are also GROUND combat units so it doesn’t make sense why they are the exceptions.
You could have gotten a Leviathan on the last Map Vipers don't require tech just 200 gas turn Viper into a Leviathan you can do Mass roach and take 1 gas and still have a ridiculous Army
Ya ultimate's with queen support invincible. That first prestiege that takes away ultimates is actually best for swarm hosts. The more biomass your swarm hosts have the better the locusts are. Max army of full bio hosts is just stupid. Even just roaches.
I don't know why no one yet has talked about the roach's evolution and how CtG hasn't used them on the first prestige, is it really that bad that no one even acknowledges their existance? I always use them with normal Abathur on pair with the Ultimate Evolutions cause after getting a lot of them you can just spam the skill they have and they do all the work while Ultimates tank and do some damage.
@@CtG-Games Doesn't the skill damage air too if I recall correctly? It's pretty good for me at least, just wondering why no one else seems to use them lol.
@@XwerewolvesX Ravagers are the weakest unit to stack boimass on, most of their dmg comes from bile and it's unaffected by biomass. They're fine for early armies but generally you want to max out on anything else.
I was sitting here about to complain about how he didn't build Leviathans when he realized that Amon had Corsairs and Distruption Web, since that ability doesn't attack air units, and then I realized he wasn't even getting the mutation upgrades and I just had to swallow my complaint
Why didnt you use ravagers for p2? their bile launcher is op against all units and you wont need detectors and they can deep tunnel into fog of war, mix that with rapid fire and he can solo almost any map if youre good enough. I feel like you felt so restricted without UE for p1 that you used your playthrough with p2 to demonstrate how good the UE are and didnt actually utilize the p2 to its full potential.
Little bit disappointing. Essence Hoarder looks like garbage, and the Tunnelling Horror preview you've done kinda ignores the majority of the actual prestige bonus and just looks like a standard game until the game is nearly finished.
Do you know why Essence Hoarder looks like garbage? Because you aren't allowed ultimate evolutions. That is literally the point I've been trying to drive all video long. These prestige talents are merely gimmicks that don't really affect how Abathur is supposed to play. Also, the disadvantage of tunneling horror is that swarmhosts and other units cost 25% more gas, so I think it's actually natural that I would have fewer of them. Instead of complaining about not seeing the effect of the prestige talents, why not instead see the truth that these aren't really all that impactful to begin with if you know how to actually get fast brutalisks as Abathur. I'll say it again, it's just THE strongest way to play him, so that's how I'll advocate playing Abathur 95% of the time.
@@CtG-Games In that case, I think I'm inclined to agree with luke's comment below. These don't add anything at all. There's no need for the units to be OP to be useful, but that definitely seems to be better than what Blizzard have provided for Abathur. Think I'll skip this trash commander in the future.
@@jtsoldier Ultimate Evolutions are a core mechanic of his, and is the strongest way to play him. CtG is great at showing how commanders are played. I do agree that he didn't do a great job of showcasing other ways this prestige can be played. The deep tunnel with vile strain roaches, ravages, and hosts is quite incredible. It can have a slower ramp up time due to the gas tax, but is by far the best commander setup for map presence. (You can deep tunnel hosts while burrowed too) You can drop an entire army anywhere on the map, bypassing bases or waves of infested. I haven't tried limitless but it might be my choice for Abathur if I want a ground comp vs a mostly air.
CtG you should just rename this video “I hate abathur’s first prestige” because that’s all this is. You spend all the second game ignoring your macro (you literally harp on this yourself) then say you couldn’t afford more swarmhosts. Gee, I wonder why? You can like or dislike whatever you want, but it’s pretty clear you didn’t even try to show off anything about these prestige options. It’s just a 1 hour rant about Ultimate Evos disguised as a showcase.
@Mazso normal biomass increases attack speed by 1% per. Limitless increases attack speed by .5% per. So a full stack in both cases gives 100% increased attack speed.
Essence hoarder was probably designed with the idea of "Hey what if we changed the way Abathur scaled with stronger generic units?" Which makes sense conceptually - and the 25 biomass buff is no joke, bringing roaches from being 580 hp ultralisks to 680 hp behemoths, with buffed attack speed and leech Stupidly though, the removal of ultimate evolutions is a far more significant nerf that also hampers this prestige. Early biomass? How do you lure from more dangerous places without Brutalisks? The usual fast ramp up now becomes effectively dependent on your ally as you can't do it yourself. It doesn't help that even a group of roaches have less pushing power than Ultimate Evolutions, despite having better sustain with leech. Maybe if they buffed the benefit further, either by increased biomass or a larger biomass cap per unit, then it might actually feel significant. Eg. 150 biomass roaches If this prestige is meant to make Abathur's regular units feel like God's, there's still much to do
Damn. Never seen someone do so badly at abathar’s 1st prestige before :/ it’s like easy mode. Literally hold down a macro key and win. “I need a brutalisk” hahaha bro it’s sc2, not wc3. You don’t need a hero to win
I have had no luck playing Aba since resetting him. These Prestige options all feel like garbage. Maybe they feel better with mastery points behind them but as I have been grinding commanders I have not had time to play Aba with Mastery yet. Other commander prestige options either feel strong as hell or at least changing up how they play to the point of being kinda a whole new flavor (but still works as a viable option). Aba on the other hand FEELS miserable. First options of Essence Hoarder is garbage. No Ultimate Evolution takes literally the best unit in your kit and tosses it for the benefit of never losing essence and a 125 cap. But without brutes my front line is much weaker. Not only are brutes insane damage sponges plus being immune to tons of spells/abilities but they are also your best option for anti air early. (queens die really fast and take a bit to get multiples where I can get 1-2 brutes before 1-2 queens). I don't need zero loss of essence if nothing dies due to Brutes being your best unit. I lose way more units without early Brutes. The second option is his only viable one but that gas cost is no joke. An you can't get the benefit till later just due to costs. (best option has been to spam roaches and get tunnel but then they still feel like a worse option than simply sending the 3 brutes. An the last one sucks cause it delays Brutes and made biomass weaker overall. For more ultimate evos but Brutes will be suffering diminishing returns due to choke points (similar to having to many Ultras) and Leviathans are your best option fro making multiple of and still get use out of but due to the 200 requirement you end up not actually getting that many. Sadly I have been doing better using Vanilla Aba than any of his Prestige variants. (which every other commander that hasn't been true) I am an Aba main, he's my go to favorite Commander to play. Him and Tycus were the two commanders that even on Brutal+ I could solo carry if need be, with only minor effort. But after prestige drop and trying to force myself to use Aba I have been really struggling. Almost every game that I don't just run vanilla version I end up being carried by my ally. An the games I do run vanilla I am crushing it with easy. I hate Aba's options. If one of them was simply Essence automatically collects in your base so you don't have to play the collection mini game I would be more excited for that than any of these other options.
I would say they are more mutation specific oriented. Tbf nothing much can make abathur stronger without straight up breaking the game. His tankiness. Insane. His dmg insane. His healing well his queen's are efficient. His toxic nest and creep usage decent as well. He also has mobility. All on just his ue. There isn't a way to straight up buff ue to not break the game.
For Essence Horder, I have found a Queen Spam army works wonders. They can attack both air and ground, and at 125 biomass they essentially have infinite energy for the heal, and attack both air and ground at an insane attack speed.
Ty for the tip..gonna try it
But what if the enemy composition is Robo-based Protoss ground? Because much as I love using mass Queens, they are armored units and Immortals are the killers of armored units.
@@entarochrist3927 honestly, they aren't that big an issue. At rank 15, Abathur gives all your units lifesteal equal to the amount of biomass they have. When you have queens with 400+ health, 1 second attack timers and lifesteal, they aren't dying.
@@entarochrist3927 immortals are certainly the armor slayers, but queens aren't armored so they're not that bothered by immortals. reavers, however...
but that's what you can use swarmhosts for
@@Underscore_Qwin Even if some dies they have 100% chance to drop all biomass so next one will get 125 biomass instantly.
Something to note: I don't think Prestiges are all about stressing optimal gameplay. In some cases they are there simply for people that want to play differently and have an option for that that is actually viable. Like I think Miner Evac would have been a better showcase for the second Prestige. That map would play to the strengths of extra mobility and defense that using Swarm Hosts provide.
Keep up the good work!
Watching this, I think Abathur has a fundamental design problem - the fact Ultimate Evolutions exist
Swarm cannot stop evolving, Pinnacle of Evolution is a dead end, it cannot evolve, adapt, therefore it is a failure. Abathur has lost his main focus - ever evolving swarm.
@@demonx3779 I mean Kerrigan did say to Abuthur that he cannot comprehend what she has become in Heart of the Swarm campaign. Therefore, Abuthur is not capable of evolving past ultimate evolutions.
The Limitless sounds counter productive since you *can* have more than 6 UEs but the biomass effectiveness are halved and the requirement twiced, the disadvantage cancels out the advantage. I played with a Limitless Abathur and he didn't even get past 6 UEs versus 2 waves of Brutal *Sky Terran*
maybe the death of Night Map just go for 6 Brutalisk instead of Leviathans and just deep tunnel all over the Map with basically a 600 mineral Army dunno have to try it out I guess
uh sky terran gives the least biomass
Have to admit, it did feel a bit like you'd prejudged Essence Hoarder for not behaving like regular Abathur, and then condemned it when it doesn't have the same strengths as regular Abathur.
Regular Abathur has a big power spike with the first 600 or so biomass, and then coasts from there. Essence Hoarder has a flatter curve, and requires more biomass total to really get going, but it looks like it can potentially result in a really resilient lategame army, with increased biomass generation, each of your units having additional health, attack speed, Biotic Leech, and so on, and any units that do die will drop their Biomass for another unit to pick up (not sure if the 50% extra chance drop works out to 75% or 100%, but it still means you're not going to lose much Biomass to losses). A maxed out Abathur with plenty of biomass can end up with the regular units contributing as much or more than the Ultimates, and this allows the regular units to be stronger. It's probably similar to The Limitless, except that you have more variety in your army and losses aren't going to hurt nearly as much.
Not sure if it actually does work out to be worth it in the end when playing for optimal performance (apart from mutations that will punish Ultimate Evolutions), but I think any fair assessment needs to start by recognising that it's just not going to have the early game power spike that regular Abathur has.
Regarding Tunneling Horror... while it buffs Hosts, I think it's also reasonable to consider it a Roach/Ravager prestige as well. After all, the downside doesn't affect Roaches at all and only has a minor effect on Ravagers, while giving both access to Deep Tunnel. I think it could be quite useful for situation where you're going to need Deep Tunnel mobility, and you want a little bit of extra firepower and chaff along to reduce the heat on your Brutalisks.
I'm judging it based on my vast experience with playing Abathur. Having fancy glowing roaches just does not compare to the power level of having ultimate evolutions. I understand your disappointment that I've immediately dismissed something that can potentially be cool. It could indeed be cool, but all I'm saying is I'll never go for it unless I'm doing troll builds or am going up against a very specific anti ultimate evolution mutation because it really does feel like a "normal commander" type of deal, whereas Abathur with ultimate evolutions is the VERY STRONGEST commander, and it shows in all the speedrunning records and mutation solo counts.
The Ravager option for Tunneling Horror is actually an interesting option, true. I just chose to go for Swarmhosts because the actual attack buff is to the locusts, so it made more sense to me to go into Swarmhosts.
Essence horder gives 100% chance to drop biomass after the 50% is added
Yeah, it's clearly not going to be as good at speedrunning... but I think that's deliberate. Classic Abathur is strong enough in that respect that Blizzard is probably a bit wary of buffing him further in that domain. So Prestige 2 seems to be oriented at pushing towards a highly mobile roach/ravager/swarmhost composition at the cost of air (the downside will really hurt for air while there's no buffs for air in the prestige), Prestige 3 is pure power fantasy while probably being a bit impractical as a general rule, and Prestige 1 is essentially an option to play Abathur more with his regular units rather than relying on Ultimate Evolutions.
Which does make Essence Hoarder weaker in the early game since it doesn't have that initial spike, but Abathur's regular units with the benefits of biomass are still pretty good (and from what Damask said, it's guaranteed that your units will drop biomass, so you'll never lose biomass and can even kill your own units for their biomass if the wrong unit gets it). Now, I don't know if the extra biomass can make a top-supply Prestige 1 Abathur match well against a top supply base Abathur. Blizzard might have been a bit conservative with the prestiges knowing how strong base Abathur is. But it does seem to be oriented as more of a lategame (and a "my Ultimates will just die to a mutator") prestige than something one would use for speedrunning.
@@CtG-Games Hello and i have this comander Abathur but is lvl 5 now my Europian account have a Nice day bye bye bye 😅😮🎉🎉❤❤
there's no problem not having ultimate evulutions, you just have to treat abathur like any other zerg not complaining not having them
The big problem is mobility. One of abathur's best strengths is being able to instantly teleport very strong brutas anywhere as needed. This prestige feels especially weak on the temple defense map.
any other zerg has zerglings with speed upgrade...
Then just play zagara then
For abathur P1 (essence hoarder), you should build a large army, example group of queens and roaches .... these units will get stronger through out the game ...then later you add in mutalisk. If you build 1 roach and 1 mutalisk ... you definitely will get killed. Aba P1 is meant for large army build.
Just play prestige 3 then where U can have a larger army full of ultimate evos
CtG, we get it, Ultimate Evo's are very good, don't have to say it every 5 minutes.
For the 2nd prestige, I would've just massed Roaches, as they've received deep tunnel, from the prestige, and they don't cost Vespine Gas, so they aren't effected by the gas increase.
Also, for the 1st prestige, queens would've been better early anti-air, with transfusion and they get biomass faster than other units. Meh, we each have our own play style, I guess. Regardless, Keep it up, CtG!
On Essence Hoarder, probably use more of Roaches and Ravagers combination. Roaches for tanking, Ravagers for damage and anti-air. They're doing great without the UE.
CtG
For essence hoarder, go abathur mutas on dead of night with a defensive ally. Only mutas. Then you will see the meaning of "biomass satisfied."
That is the power of biomass.
it was good even before prestige. must be awesome now
Man CtG, I've been following you for a while, ever since you started making some super helpful comments on Lowko's coop videos. I'm super happy there is someone covering this niche aspect of SC2. I just feel like this video was off the mark.
1) You gotta try playing each prestige as optimally as possible. I'd rather you focus on trying to take advantage of each prestige rather than just showing off completely unrelated gameplay.
2) I completely get this is just coop, but there's something to be said for improving your macro a bit. It just feels weird when you miss common upgrades.
Thanks for these videos though!
1. That's literally what I did. I got a few strong units with lots of biomass in Essence Hoarder, but it looked weak because guess what: No ultimate evolutions! In Tunneling Horror, a literal disadvantage is that units cost 25% more gas, so it does make sense that I would be able to afford fewer of them especially since I had just better units to play with, and drives home the point that it is just a fancy gimmick that doesn't really impact Abathur's power level. In The Limitless, the point is literally to get as many ultimate evolutions as possible, which is exactly what I did. How is any of this "completely unrelated gameplay"?
2. For most other commanders, this would be a good complaint. Macro is in fact the best way to get a good strong army for most commanders, but Abathur operates differently. I had bad macro in these games because minerals and gas are not Abathur's most important resource, and I think that's the whole point. People who primarily play 1v1 may never get the point of Abathur because his most important resource is actually biomass, so I was focusing everything on getting biomass on my forces.
@@CtG-Games mass ravagers with a few queens is the way to go with 1 prestige even on normal abathur without extra biomass is far too strong
@@CtG-Games Definitely hoped I didn't come off as attacking you! Still like your content was just giving my 2 cents as a viewer. Good job keep it up!
Same here. Really not to complain and I love the content CTG creates. Also looking at his stuff since Lowko showed coop vids. Would just be nice to have a second abathur video after Mengsk showing a lot of love for his fun army build
I played hundreds of rounds with Essence Hoarder alone and it can be refreshing to go without Ultimate Evolutions every once in a while. You could fend off early game with some combo of Roaches, Ravagers, some base defenses and Toxic Nests. Then you can gradually add in some flying units to support your army. You can optionally go full air (Mutas, Devours, Vipers + maybe Guardians too) by killing all your ground units since they drop all their biomass with a 100% chance. It's obviously not as potent as full UE's, but it's for those who want to try some non-UE strategies for once.
You really don't make a good job of showing off the new prestige gameplay if you just play as normal Abathur. What's the points of picking Tunneling Horror if you focus on ultimates for 90% of the game? Everyone already knows that you can solo all the maps with ultimates only.
I disagree. I did try to get as many Swarmhosts as possible, but a literal disadvantage of Tunneling Horror is that the Swarmhosts cost more gas. So I actually think it shows the full picture of both advantages and disadvantages. Rushing straight into Swarmhosts is probably the BAD way to do this because you'll end up sacrificing your early game effectiveness, even just for the sake of showing it in a video.
I'll always show the strongest way to play Abathur. And regardless of what prestige you pick, rushing to ultimate evolutions is still the most powerful way to play him. Given the choice to redo the video, I would surely do it again because I always want to help people learn to play the best way. Also, 90% of the Abathur players I see on the solo queue don't actually know how to get ultimate evolutions, so I'll keep hammering in the point until I actually see more Abathurs who know how to get a fast brutalisk.
Also, I think it speaks more about how weak his prestige talents are that Ultimate Evolutions are still the story with Abathur, rather than how I'm not trying to show the prestige talents. Because I did try to show off all the prestige talents in all three *games.
@@CtG-Games I agree with your statement. Also, it does give an opportunity to use deep tunneling roaches, but it kinda goes back to your second point of ult evo too op.
@@CtG-Games I watch you when I want to kill time but often find myself frustrated by you because you are often so salty, defensive and have a bad energy. Like at the start of this video when you are complaining about the teammate putting down a spray, its common for you to go on little rants when the rng doesn't go your way in a mutator and keep repeating how 'stupid' the enemy composition is. Compare that to say Lowko who is always making light of situations, having jokes and laughing about bad situations most of the time. You'll notice that trend in alot of popular streamers. I say all this because I think you've been pushing alot to ask people when to stream, change up content etc in a bid to increase viewership, rather than rejecting the feedback like on this comment and the one below from pushanka, perhaps take that advice on board. Maybe we want to see what happens when you go full swarmhost, just like going full immortal, since thats the point of the prestige vid. You have some good niche content of areas of Starcraft at a level others cant achieve easily (Brutal 6 mutations kinda thing) which is what makes me want to watch but your energy and comments make me want to turn off. For the love of god too, please recognise that your 'as the sea' joke doesn't make any sense and isn't funny, poor hunter just gets confused when you say it which is why he goes to his stock reply of 'I see....', it never lands as its not a clever play on words or of a saying and repeating it doesnt make it a thing, in a similar but less frustrating way is how you purposely mispronounce names. If the audience liked it they'd engage in the comments by doing it too and making jokes with you, I don't canvas the comments but have never seen a positive reaction to it.
@@jonsmith5058 Excatly? Like who the f*ck cares for getting sprayed? During the 1st prestige it's just an entire rant that he doesn't have ultimate evulutions, not making enough anti air aginst air units etc... Like I like his content but someties it's just too salt and why always compare co-op to 1v1? never understood that.
@@TheFeri I think this is just his attitude in general. He seems very defensive about everything whenever someone criticizes his methodology. I''m shocked he seems to be a pretty good player considering his poor mindset.
Honestly I really enjoy playing with armies so i really enjoy playing roach-queen and just getting the leviathans when I have the gas because I dont care much for them and i know this isnt the meta but it's really fun and tbh I enjoy that way more than playing the ultimate evolutions also it feels really strong since the queens just annihilate air and heal the roaches and each other for ever
i really enjoy going mass ravanger and just spraying everything down :P only real downside imo is how freaking huge all the units become. I think going mass muta with the no ultimate prestige could be pretty good to.
P3 isn't bad just because of speedrunning. It slows down your snowball such that it took until the very end of MO, the longest autoscroller, for you to even arguably match the power of vanilla Abby at that same point. To put things in perspective, by the end of MO, vanilla Abby should have 6 ultimates, 2 Vipers, and over 100 supply's worth of Mutas (not all with 100 biomass).
Theoretically speaking, there's no reason someone who's willing to put in the APM couldn't have a conventional army alongside the Limitless Ultimate Evolutions. In practice, though, having the macro to build economy and the micro to ensure that your chosen ones for evolution get the biomass they need while the others aren't stealing biomass is probably more effort than it's worth. Especially since a similar power fantasy can be achieved by massing Tyrannozors with Dehaka.
CTG I love that you made all these Prestige videos! It had to be an incredible amount of work!
Now, A few thoughts on Abathur. In P1 if the Army didn’t “feel stronger” it was probably because you had only 140/200 supply and 4000+ bank at the end of the game. May as well make some Roaches to tank Ground Hybrids or a couple more Swarm Queens at least.
Roughly 200/200 P1 is probably stronger than P0, just can’t see it until mid/late game. Longer maps would be a good choice to showcase it, or Black Death as you mentioned. No longer have to be cautious with your beefy boys. Now, like Mengsk troops, the next man up will grab the weapon (Biomass) and fight.
Is P1 better than P0? I would vote no. But it’s interesting to test out the strengths and weaknesses : )
I also did not like Essence Hoarder since it removes so much mobility that it just feels like a huge part of Abathur is gone. Tunneling Horror though...wow what an incredible one. Going purely roach/ravager and brutas only allows your entire army to teleport anywhere without vision. Ravagers are just ridiculous and their gas cost is minimal. Easily the best of his prestiges. Limitless is deceptive. It's more fun than practical and the 200 essence is definitely rough on the early game, but obviously viable. I just think his second prestige is just the best all-round.
TLDR: p1 army comp - queens followed by tier 3 air.
I feel you didnt do esseence hoarder any justice (p1). my play style on this is to get out 2 queens - lair - queen upgrades (transfuse upgrade essential - birthing chamber is optional) then start adding on more queens, on the back of this tech to greater spire. you want to have about 12 queens or more - but no more than 20, as they body block each other. you want to start pushing out muta's at 3/4 at a time after you have like 6 or 8 queens. each time 3/4 muts pop - morph them to into gaurdian/devourer at the ratio which best matches your emenys army comp. you can even leave them as muta's against some army comps (zerg). Get spire upgrades that benefit you air army comp. When you start to float minerals dont put them into roaches, as they take up suplly, biomass and body block your better units, instead over saturate your mineral lines by 8, and any excess minerals go into spines and spores 8 at a time to compensate for lack of mobility.
what this gives you is an army with super high health, being healed quickly, with very high dps. by the early mid game you are unkillable. there are other ways to play p1, but this works for me on nearly every map.
Man... you really needed some cheese with all that whine....
i dont know man, in the first game rushing spire without drones and complaining about a weak abathur is kinda weird imo :D i like your vids but your macro is not that great my friend
I found one way for myself it is mass mutalisk. Advantages: they fast, 480hp, all passive skills empowered by quantity of biomass, can attack few targets and can kill even Stank because of chakrum. I put 3-4 overseers to follow some mutalisks and can't see only Nova in super cloack suit))
I tried to evolve to Devourer few mutas and it's worked pretty good. Also I heard that devourers can attack ground units by their spec upgrade. Will try this rumour later
Disadvantageous : I should to gathering a lot of gas, so sir Swann is the best your partner)
I collected) 36 Brutals in Mist opportunities map, but with upgrades and 78 in Dead in Night))
Good luck.
"Have you ever seen 30 supply be this strong?"
Yes, Zeratul with cannons.
Karax
Tychus
I noticed that Essence Hoarder is kinda bugged. Some of my Ravagers got 125 Biomass & some couldn't get past 105. Did you notice it?
Speaking of Ravagers, you don't have enough trust in them, so that's the main reason why you felt weak in that game; you missed the built. It's a pitty, because you saw how strong they are when you were soloing on Rifts on Korhal, but you never used them again. They are also easy to get because they are cheap, especially gas & if enemy is air, one more reason to get them. If enemy is air I go full ground, that's my rule for most missions & I've beaten some hard mutations going mass Ravagers against sky enemies. If my ally is Kerrigan, I always go Mass Ravagers, because Ravager army with Omega mobility is the most awesome thing on this planet, last week's mutation being a good example of it.
you got the right idea, mass ravagers is far stronger than having ultimate evolutions and with fast cast waves barely last something
I think you're a bit too obsessed with Ultimate Evo's. They're very good, no doubt, but that's what makes them boring and some people might prefer to play without them. Essence Hoarder is pretty good for trying out new non-Ultimate builds, which can allow more possibilities when playing Abathur (e.g. Roach, Devourer, Viper build is a pretty cool one). I mean the whole point of Prestiges is to explore new builds and strategies after using the same ones over the course of 1000's of matches.
roach speed looks to be a must for limitless so you can get the roaches to the biomass faster
part i hate about abathur is making brutalisks, i dont care about how strong they are, i dont like them, i like roaches, and hes only commander that has them
Dehaka has roaches
Zagara has roaches
@@StimpackGamer343 zagara doesn't count, she summon roaches, it's just like saying you like mengsk zerglings
Ricardo Magalhães alright then Mecha Roach from stetmans infestors
@@some_shitposting_idiot3023 i like roaches as core of my army, the only reason you made roaches as dehaka is guardians.
swarmhosts are the bomb with essence hoarder because of the 25 extra essence - it also affects the cooldown of spawning locusts on top of their attackspeed. using this build, the air attack upgrade for locusts is key. remember, they also have deep tunnel.
i think you could have easily gotten 20 brutalisks based on the biomass lying around the map. the problem is building single roaches as you see the buimass lying around. after getting 3 brutalisk i would have 3-5 roaches walking with the army to not miss biomass.
Left symbiote improvement in essence hoarder already
And after such a massive improvement on the flawless Karax prestige video
Bogus Juan 0:46
12:10, "If I had ultimate evolutions I'd melt this base right now". Proceeds to melt the base without them anyhow lol. I'd miss UE's also but maybe the point is to try other units, which do get stronger due to the biomass buffs that Prestige gets? Dunno for sure but I DO know that if anyone can eventually figure out the best way to use these it'll be you CTG. GJ
The fact Swarmhost no longer need vision with the Prestige is kinda nice though normally you had to send over a Brutalisk first before you could send the Swarmhost
This is true. The Brutalisk is just much better at tanking damage and allowing your Swarmhosts to follow safely.
As always good content
Only thing i would add is a couple swarm queens for ult healing
Swam host queen +static for prestige 1. Lots. Get the upgrades fast so the hosts hit air and can dt.
hey CTG. I really enjoy your content. You already said you re-play all the prestiges. i´m really curious about that and lookin forward to it. especially with the new patch. keep it up
The first prestige is likely for lvl 1 to ultimate evolution. It gives more power for whence u can't get ultimate evolution and also u need to rely on units over evolution becos brutalisk dies badly to siege tank without the symbiote
Try essence hoarder with mass swarmhosts...
I think the point of essence hoarder is actually making use of the original effect of biomass because realistically you really don't use it normally since UE don't have a benefit from it, however Imho that should come with also a buff to essence drop and or making toxic nests hit air
It would hurt to lose ultimate evolutions I'm like build queens and you sorted....
Omg you grinded all of this you deserve more audience
you got my sub for 20:51
If you have time, I wanna see max supply ue army. Just like you did vorazun dark-archon mindcontroll post-max-supply-army.
I wish the Swarm Queens had been given the tunneling ability as well in the P2 talent.... I mean, Queens are also GROUND combat units so it doesn’t make sense why they are the exceptions.
You could have gotten a Leviathan on the last Map Vipers don't require tech just 200 gas turn Viper into a Leviathan you can do Mass roach and take 1 gas and still have a ridiculous Army
You have to reset your hero like 3-4 times and just grind through? I love my Zerg heroes but not sure if the prestige options are good enough
Ya ultimate's with queen support invincible. That first prestiege that takes away ultimates is actually best for swarm hosts. The more biomass your swarm hosts have the better the locusts are. Max army of full bio hosts is just stupid. Even just roaches.
I don't know why no one yet has talked about the roach's evolution and how CtG hasn't used them on the first prestige, is it really that bad that no one even acknowledges their existance? I always use them with normal Abathur on pair with the Ultimate Evolutions cause after getting a lot of them you can just spam the skill they have and they do all the work while Ultimates tank and do some damage.
The roaches I made were primarily a mineral dump. The enemy composition was skyterran, so I needed to focus more heavily on anti-air.
@@CtG-Games Doesn't the skill damage air too if I recall correctly? It's pretty good for me at least, just wondering why no one else seems to use them lol.
@@XwerewolvesX Ravagers are the weakest unit to stack boimass on, most of their dmg comes from bile and it's unaffected by biomass. They're fine for early armies but generally you want to max out on anything else.
@@semioticwish Alright thanks for the explanation, didn't know that cause I don't play him that much hehe.
@@semioticwish Bile gets cooldown reduction depending on how much biomass you have. It went down to 5s for 100 biomass ravager.
I was sitting here about to complain about how he didn't build Leviathans when he realized that Amon had Corsairs and Distruption Web, since that ability doesn't attack air units, and then I realized he wasn't even getting the mutation upgrades and I just had to swallow my complaint
is P3 for abathur still bugged where you don't need 200 biomass, just 100 still?
We on that prestidge
Brutalists and Leviathans benefit from Biotic Leech or not ?
Why didnt you use ravagers for p2? their bile launcher is op against all units and you wont need detectors and they can deep tunnel into fog of war, mix that with rapid fire and he can solo almost any map if youre good enough. I feel like you felt so restricted without UE for p1 that you used your playthrough with p2 to demonstrate how good the UE are and didnt actually utilize the p2 to its full potential.
Little bit disappointing. Essence Hoarder looks like garbage, and the Tunnelling Horror preview you've done kinda ignores the majority of the actual prestige bonus and just looks like a standard game until the game is nearly finished.
Do you know why Essence Hoarder looks like garbage? Because you aren't allowed ultimate evolutions. That is literally the point I've been trying to drive all video long. These prestige talents are merely gimmicks that don't really affect how Abathur is supposed to play. Also, the disadvantage of tunneling horror is that swarmhosts and other units cost 25% more gas, so I think it's actually natural that I would have fewer of them.
Instead of complaining about not seeing the effect of the prestige talents, why not instead see the truth that these aren't really all that impactful to begin with if you know how to actually get fast brutalisks as Abathur. I'll say it again, it's just THE strongest way to play him, so that's how I'll advocate playing Abathur 95% of the time.
@@CtG-Games In that case, I think I'm inclined to agree with luke's comment below. These don't add anything at all.
There's no need for the units to be OP to be useful, but that definitely seems to be better than what Blizzard have provided for Abathur.
Think I'll skip this trash commander in the future.
@@jtsoldier Ultimate Evolutions are a core mechanic of his, and is the strongest way to play him. CtG is great at showing how commanders are played. I do agree that he didn't do a great job of showcasing other ways this prestige can be played. The deep tunnel with vile strain roaches, ravages, and hosts is quite incredible. It can have a slower ramp up time due to the gas tax, but is by far the best commander setup for map presence. (You can deep tunnel hosts while burrowed too)
You can drop an entire army anywhere on the map, bypassing bases or waves of infested. I haven't tried limitless but it might be my choice for Abathur if I want a ground comp vs a mostly air.
CtG you should just rename this video “I hate abathur’s first prestige” because that’s all this is. You spend all the second game ignoring your macro (you literally harp on this yourself) then say you couldn’t afford more swarmhosts. Gee, I wonder why?
You can like or dislike whatever you want, but it’s pretty clear you didn’t even try to show off anything about these prestige options. It’s just a 1 hour rant about Ultimate Evos disguised as a showcase.
mass ravagers for p1.... fun to micro as well
Also, you dont need obs nor AA
how i made my trops be green ?
Just curious... first one is units with 125 biomass limit, with second one... can you disable brutalisk and have units with 200 biomass?
You could, but biomass is only half as effective. So no better than normal units at 100.
@Mazso normal biomass increases attack speed by 1% per. Limitless increases attack speed by .5% per. So a full stack in both cases gives 100% increased attack speed.
First one Needs more queens
Just missed the stream
why did you hate his spray so much?
Abathur P2 is super OP.
Essence hoarder was probably designed with the idea of "Hey what if we changed the way Abathur scaled with stronger generic units?"
Which makes sense conceptually - and the 25 biomass buff is no joke, bringing roaches from being 580 hp ultralisks to 680 hp behemoths, with buffed attack speed and leech
Stupidly though, the removal of ultimate evolutions is a far more significant nerf that also hampers this prestige. Early biomass? How do you lure from more dangerous places without Brutalisks?
The usual fast ramp up now becomes effectively dependent on your ally as you can't do it yourself. It doesn't help that even a group of roaches have less pushing power than Ultimate Evolutions, despite having better sustain with leech.
Maybe if they buffed the benefit further, either by increased biomass or a larger biomass cap per unit, then it might actually feel significant. Eg. 150 biomass roaches
If this prestige is meant to make Abathur's regular units feel like God's, there's still much to do
wtf was that toxic bit at the start lmao
Random comment because algorithm.
Just go swarm host as Abathur op
18 Brutalisk
Doesn't lose a single unit.... cont I need to harp about how weak the commander is....
Evolution complete. 😂 😂 😂
Damn. Never seen someone do so badly at abathar’s 1st prestige before :/ it’s like easy mode. Literally hold down a macro key and win. “I need a brutalisk” hahaha bro it’s sc2, not wc3. You don’t need a hero to win
Yeah playing without UE is out of the question.
I have had no luck playing Aba since resetting him. These Prestige options all feel like garbage. Maybe they feel better with mastery points behind them but as I have been grinding commanders I have not had time to play Aba with Mastery yet. Other commander prestige options either feel strong as hell or at least changing up how they play to the point of being kinda a whole new flavor (but still works as a viable option). Aba on the other hand FEELS miserable.
First options of Essence Hoarder is garbage. No Ultimate Evolution takes literally the best unit in your kit and tosses it for the benefit of never losing essence and a 125 cap. But without brutes my front line is much weaker. Not only are brutes insane damage sponges plus being immune to tons of spells/abilities but they are also your best option for anti air early. (queens die really fast and take a bit to get multiples where I can get 1-2 brutes before 1-2 queens). I don't need zero loss of essence if nothing dies due to Brutes being your best unit. I lose way more units without early Brutes. The second option is his only viable one but that gas cost is no joke. An you can't get the benefit till later just due to costs. (best option has been to spam roaches and get tunnel but then they still feel like a worse option than simply sending the 3 brutes. An the last one sucks cause it delays Brutes and made biomass weaker overall. For more ultimate evos but Brutes will be suffering diminishing returns due to choke points (similar to having to many Ultras) and Leviathans are your best option fro making multiple of and still get use out of but due to the 200 requirement you end up not actually getting that many. Sadly I have been doing better using Vanilla Aba than any of his Prestige variants. (which every other commander that hasn't been true)
I am an Aba main, he's my go to favorite Commander to play. Him and Tycus were the two commanders that even on Brutal+ I could solo carry if need be, with only minor effort. But after prestige drop and trying to force myself to use Aba I have been really struggling. Almost every game that I don't just run vanilla version I end up being carried by my ally. An the games I do run vanilla I am crushing it with easy.
I hate Aba's options. If one of them was simply Essence automatically collects in your base so you don't have to play the collection mini game I would be more excited for that than any of these other options.
I would say they are more mutation specific oriented. Tbf nothing much can make abathur stronger without straight up breaking the game. His tankiness. Insane. His dmg insane. His healing well his queen's are efficient. His toxic nest and creep usage decent as well. He also has mobility. All on just his ue. There isn't a way to straight up buff ue to not break the game.
clearly, limitless is the winner of the 3. they should cap the ult to 6.
Dude he’s nice and you get salty dam.