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Co-op Commander Guide: Raynor

Renegade Commander

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Commander Summary

Raynor overwhelms enemies by using his Orbital Drop Pods to quickly reinforce his armies on the battlefield.

Level Unlocks

Level/Icon	Name	Description
	Rapid Recruitment	Raynor trains combat units and builds Barracks 50% faster. Mechanical units cost 20% less gas. Stimpack grants increase bonuses, costs less life, and does not require research.
	Banshee Airstrike	Unlocks the ability to call down cloaked Dusk Wings with timed life, dealing damage to the target area upon arrival. Call down Banshee Airstrike from the top panel.
	Nano Projectors	Increases the Firebat attack range and Medic heal range from 2 to 4.
	Infantry Upgrade Cache	Unlocks the following upgrades at the Barracks Tech Lab: Widen Firebats' damage radius by 40%. Increase Firebats' life from 100 to 200 and armor from 1 to 3. Increase Medics' healing speed, allow them to heal mechanical units, and reduce the damage taken by units they heal.
	Hyperion: Point Defense Drone	Enables the Hyperion to deploy defensive drones that shoots down enemy missiles. Call down the Hyperion from the top panel.
	New Unit: Battlecruiser	Powerful warship. Can use Yamato Cannon and Tactical Jump. Built at the Starport. Can attack ground and air units.
	Battle Bunkers	Equips bunkers with automated turrets that attack ground and air units. Increases the life of bunkers from 400 to 550.
	Orbital Drop Pods	Barracks, Factory, and Starport units are delivered directly to the structure's Rally Point
	Factory Upgrade Cache	Unlocks the following upgrades at the Factory Tech Lab: Increase the blast and trigger radius of the Vulture's Spider Mine by 33%. Reduce Siege Tanks' transformation time and increase their armor in Siege Mode from 1 to 3.
	Vanadium Plating	Armor upgrades at the Armory and Engineering Bay increase the life of affected units (by 10%) in addition to increasing their armor.
	Armory Upgrade Cache	Unlocks the following upgrades at the Armory: Increase the attack range of all vehicles and ships by 1. Allow all vehicles and ships to increase their movement speed by 100% for 8 seconds.
	Orbital Depots	Allows SCVs to instantly deploy Supply Depots from orbit, eliminating their construction time.
	Starport Upgrade Cache	Unlocks the following upgrades at the Starport Tech Lab: Upgrade the Banshee's attacks to fire missiles in a straight line. Upgrade the Vikings' missile attacks to deal area damage.
	Hyperion: Advanced Targeting Systems	Increases the damage dealt by friendly units near the Hyperion by 2. Call down the Hyperion from the top panel.
	Mercenary Munitions	Increases the attack speed of Raynor's combat units and calldowns by 15%.

Highlighted rows denote large power spikes for the commander.

Achievements

The commander-specific achievements for Raynor are:

Achievement	Name	Description
	Feels Good, Man	Heal 10,000 life on allied units in Co-op Missions.
	Hyperactive	Kill 25 units with a single Hyperion calldown on Hard difficulty with Raynor.
	Hyperion Alert	Kill 500 units with Raynor's Hyperion in Co-op Missions.
	The Thunder	Kill 25 units with a single Air-Strike on Hard difficulty.

Calldowns

The calldowns for Raynor, at level 15, with no mastery points added are:

Calldown	Name	Description	Recommended Usage	Numbers
	Banshee Airstrike	Calls down 5 cloaked Dusk Wings, dealing 50 damage to enemies in the drop zone. Dusk Wings are controllable and will fight for 60 seconds.	Should be used as soon as it is off cooldown. With mastery points, Dusk Wings can be present on the map about 50% of the time. Useful for dealing with ground-based attack waves, and before pushing into enemy bases.	Coolup: 240 seconds Cooldown: 240 seconds
	Hyperion	Calls down the Hyperion Battlecruiser. The Hyperion is controllable and will fight for 60 seconds.	Useful for pushing into heavily guarded enemy bases. Use Yamato Cannon to take out key units. Leave the rest of the units for your army to clean up. Once key units are taken out, Hyperjump to another location and repeat the process. Deploy Point Defense Drones in strategic locations to not only protect the Hyperion, but also your army when it comes in to clear.	Coolup: 300 seconds Cooldown: 360 seconds

The Hyperion ability brings a Hyperion onto the battlefield. This unit has abilities itself, shown below:

Sub-Ascension Leveling

Difficulty: Moderate

Raynor plays the same way he does at Ascension levels when he is at lower levels. The only difference is that he is a lot slower, due to Supply Depots having a build time, as well as units not being able to be deployed directly onto the battlefield. Because of the latter, ensure the path between your army and your production is cleared to prevent your army units from being intercepted by enemy units.

While leveling through Mastery levels, allocate points with an equal split on Power Set 1.

Masteries

Below are the three Power Sets for Raynor with the recommended point allocations for each. Note that these are meant to serve a general, all-purpose build that is effective across all maps with no Prestiges selected. You are highly encouraged to change these masteries to suit your playstyle and particular challenges you face (e.g. Weekly Mutations).

Power Set 1:

Power	Value	Recommended Points to Add	Further Considerations
Research Resource Cost	-2% per point -60% maximum	15	A careful balance is needed over here. Research cost reductions are great, but they are temporary. Once research is done, you won't be able to take advantage of the mastery. However, going for max unit speed can slow down getting research that significantly powers your army up.
Speed Increases for Drop Pod Units	2% per point 60% maximum	15

This depends a lot on the playstyle of the player. Research Cost Reduction can help with early game upgrades, while Speed Increases can make reinforcing units a lot more powerful.

Power Set 2:

Power	Value	Recommended Points to Add	Further Considerations
Hyperion Cooldown	-4 sec per point -120 sec maximum	0	For players that prefer to have the much more powerful Hyperion more available at their disposal, the Hyperion mastery can be selected. On certain mutators, it might be better to have it present rather than the Banshees that die quickly.
Banshee Airstrike Cooldown	-4 sec per point -120 sec maximum	30

The Banshee Airstrike Cooldown mastery is the better choice here. At maximum level, Banshees can be out on the battlefield for almost 50% of the mission time.

Power Set 3:

Power	Value	Recommended Points to Add	Further Considerations
Medics Heal Additional Target	3% per point 90% maximum	?	This is purely a matter of what kind of build the player prefers to do. Medic heals don't really benefit Mechanical units greatly and thus, the mastery points are better spent on the Mech attack speed.
Mech Attack Speed	1% per point 30% maximum	?

This depends on the playstyle. If going for a Mech build, the Mech Attack Speed is the better choice here. Otherwise, Medic Healing should be picked.

Prestiges

Below are the prestiges for Raynor. Note that "Effective Level" is the level at which the prestige achieves it full effect.

Level	Name	Description	Effective Level	Notes
1	Backwater Marshal	Advantages: Biological combat units gain 100% increased life. Disadvantages: MULEs are unavailable.	1	Stacks with Combat Shield Stacks with Armor Upgrades
This prestige increases the ruggedness of Raynor's army. If you have good micro, you might find this prestige to be particularly valuable. However, its disadvantage is a big one. You lose the ability to spawn-camp effectively using Vultures due to the lack of potentially high mineral income from MULEs. Remember that you will still need Orbital Command Centers for detection.

Level	Name	Description	Effective Level	Notes
2	Rough Rider	Advantages: Afterburners additionally increases attack speed by 100%. Cooldown reduced by 50%. Disadvantages: Units no longer cost less. Afterburners cost 10 life and its movement speed bonus reduced to 50%.	11	None
This prestige is essentially a Stim-for-Mechs prestige. It can be particularly useful when playing under constrained resources, while also playing a Bio+Mech build. You may even combine this with the Mech Attack Speed mastery to get even higher DPS output out of your Mech units.

Level	Name	Description	Effective Level	Notes
3	Rebel Raider	Advantages: The Starport, Armory and Orbital Command no longer have tech requirements. The Starport no longer has a gas cost and its units cost 30% less gas Vikings, Banshees and Battlecruisers increase top bar cooldown rates by 1% per supply used. Disadvantages: Combat units cost 50% more minerals.	6	Cooldown Reduction mastery is applied first, then prestige cooldown increase applied
This prestige is particularly useful if you prefer to use air units and rushing Battlecruisers. The lack of tech requirements combined with the gas cost reduction makes Battlecruiser rushing a viable strategy. you may even combine this with the Hyperion cooldown mastery to be able to spam Hyperions much more frequently.

While Backwater Marshal can provide you with an overall army effectiveness increase, playing without a Prestige is generally better if you prefer Bio-style play, or Rough Rider if you prefer a Mech-style play.

Recommended Army Composition

The recommended army composition for Raynor is below. Note that this assumes no Prestige talent selected and recommended Mastery Allocations. This is a basic recommendation for your army framework. It is recommended to gain an understanding for each of the units in the Units section and further add tech units so that you are able to better handle the situations you face.

The Marine/Marauder/Medic army composition is a solid army composition for Raynor. Damage is dealt through cheap units like Marines, with a few Marauders to soak up damage. Medics provide the healing as well as damage reduction.

Add Firebats to the mix to provide extra splash damage (e.g. when dealing with Infested Units) or when you need to tank high amounts of damage (e.g. when dealing with Banelings).

Add Vultures when you have access to enemy attack wave spawn locations to spawn-camp waves that primarily consist of ground units.

Combat Units

For more information on Raynor's unit stats, comparison between units and upgrade calculations, visit the Data Tables page.

Raynor's combat units are listed below:

Build Order

Below is the standard economic build order for Raynor. For more information on how to read and construct your own build orders, please check the Build Order Theory page.

14 Supply Depot
16 Command Center at Rocks
19 Barracks
20 Orbital Command Upgrade
20 Command Center at Rocks
21 Orbital Command Upgrade
21 Refinery
22 Refinery
25 Command Center at Main

Gameplay Guide

Playstyle Traps

A common trap for Raynor players is to try and rush Battlecruisers, given their strength, while either ignoring/using their calldowns inefficiently. This causes them to be extremely weak in the early game.

In order to rush Battlecruisers, players must be familiar with their build order and ensure that they are able to macro up and build their economy. Additionally, they also need to use their calldowns as efficiently as possible (as these calldowns will be the sole damage output from them for a while). In the early phases of the game where only a few Battlecruisers are present, players will need to also actively micro them, to ensure they do not lose any unnecessarily.

An additional note to make is that a player should focus on one type of build, and not hybridize their build unless they intend on playing a long game. This is because when doing a Hybrid build, the player's resources are stretched too thinly and can weaken their entire army. For longer games, players can choose to transition into higher tech units in order to deal with high tech attack waves, such as Reavers and Disruptors.

Playstyle Tips

• Build at least 4 Orbital Command Centers and drop Mules to quickly boost your mineral income.
• Ensure you always have enough energy for Scans, as that will be where most of your detection comes from.
• It is recommended to have at least 5 Barracks in the game if doing a Bio-based build (2 Tech'ed, and 3 Reactor'ed).
• If doing a Bio-based build, spend any floating minerals on more Orbital Command Centers and Barracks. This will allow you to re-max your army almost instantly.
• Take advantage of your calldowns, especially during the early game as you attempt to ramp up.
• Armor upgrades are highly recommended with Raynor due to them being able to increase your units' HP.
• The Hyperion deals roughly 3x more damage while it is moving, at a cost of having a lower range, non-single target attack. Move-command the Hyperion to increase its damage. This is demonstrated in the video below:
• If using Spider Mines for defense, place them on the top of your ramp so they can take advantage of high-ground vision range.

Note: All data generated on this site is based on Brutal difficulty. Timings, compositions and other elements may differ on easier difficulty levels.

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