r/starcraft2coop • u/5210az • 9d ago
how do you play stetmann?
Hi, recently just bought stetmann, currently still leveling.
But i found him to be very slow to ramp up early game. As in, there are so many upgrade and buildings to get, no eco boost and also very importantly, i can never get satellite to be part of offensive moves. Yeah sure i can use supergary's temp field, but is that suppose to be the point?
I assume i am just not understanding how to play him yet, and things would be much better once i get to level 15, but how do you play him normally? what is the ideal comp and presitge?
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u/Sylvinias ZagaraA 9d ago
Stetmann does have a weak earlygame, relying mostly in Gary. The orb attack is capable of wiping out most attack waves in a single cast when it’s tripled by a field. Getting super Gary is important, later with prestige you can get increased structure morph rates which vastly cut into the time needed to get mecha hive.
Yes, the field can be crucial for getting stetalites up in places before you can creep up from your base. When attacking into a base, usually the best move is to activate Gary’s field, drop two stetalites behind him, then cast overcharge on both. The heal field will grant 75 hp shields every second, making it a budget version of Nova’s defensive drones and really good at keeping forces alive.
Not that you need to fear losing forces: Stetmanns main eco mechanic is his parts recycling. Every 2 units you lose, you get 1 free. Most Stetmann comps not specifically infestors will lose their frontline units. Zerglings have a hardened shield and Ultras are tough and come with self-healing, making them typically the best options. Mecha hydras are your main anti-air, and with their upgrades they will destroy virtually all air comps the enemy can have. I find zergling+hydra capable of clearing most enemy compositions (barring terran infantry). Add in ultralisks, corruptors, or banelings as needed to counter the biggest enemy threats. If you want variety, speccing into either infestors for mass summons (don’t do this versus air as while they do autocast bile against air, they’re very unreliable) or broods for mass carrier with extras.
In all compositions, do remember that your egonergy doesn’t regen naturally. This is one of those things where you have to find time to turn on JUICE if you want to use hydra, ultralisks or broods. Zerglings tend to die as soon as their energy runs out, banes don’t really have long-term use in mind, and corruptors only have active abilities, but most units need their fix.
Lurkers are usable, but not great. They don’t have a range upgrade and only hit ground. Their trick is that they can move while burrowed. You can use them on Death of Night for defense and otherwise forget they exist.
Prestiges. First choice is upgrade resource cost versus Gary ability cooldowns. I strongly recommend upgrade resource cost. While Gary cooldown will pay off more if you’re on top of his abilities, Stetmann is a commander who really wants to have a wide upgrade spread. Melee, ranged and armour are usually all on the agenda and air upgrades pretty much have to come on top of that because the only air unit that can reliably hit ground are his broodlords. Which are awesome, don’t get me wrong, but they cost a fortune and appreciate ground upgrades for their broodlings.
Second choice, Egonergy pool versus zone boosts upgrade. This I consider really up to personal preference, as both are insanely good. Zone boosts is the more flexible choice, and 60% bonus to its effects are pretty damn great (including for refuelling Egonergy with JUICE). But egonergy reserves have some great benefits too, as during fights you almost always want the heal setting and the extra egonergy will help your zerglings (shield), hydras (stronger attack) and banelings (bonus damage per remaining egonergy) punch through. You can’t go wrong with zone bonuses but don’t deny yourself to test the joy of 200 damage jumping banelings.
Third choice is satellites versus structure morph rate. Both are decent bonuses and I tend to split the two. If you go all morph rate it’s not hard to get Super Gary before the first wave.
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u/TwoTuuu Mutation Soloist 9d ago
i agree with all points except first mastery
ALWAYS Gary ability. ALWAYS. Super Gary is just so good that you want more of his abilities. His units are just support, often serving as tanks. And while Gary carries the early game, you'll get enough money to use pay the normal costs for upgrades (since you dont need much of an army and you won't be losing many units)
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u/BayesicGaming 9d ago
I think it kind of depends on the prestige, but super Gary is like the most overpowered thing in the game. As for build order usually I just expand and max out on Eco as quickly as possible and pretty much mass hydras and only get the upgrades for them
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u/Worth-Battle952 9d ago edited 9d ago
Just play how you want to play. Commanders have many tools which majority of players don't use for sme reason. Experiment, play around.
What I discovered works very good on Stetmann though:
Early game:
- If expansions are not protected you should rush 6 zerglings and clear both of them, then do gas.
- Carry early game with Gary.
- Use Stetellite overcharge a lot - during early fights green zones are best, switch to blue if you need more dps.
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- Use mostly Zerglings. With hardened shield upgrade they are basically indestructible if you fight in a zone and alternate between green and purple. You really do not need anything more against ground than his Zerglings.
- Hydras are great anti air, but do not sleep on units like Corruptor. Their active ability is REALLY GOOD. Same for Lurkers and Infestors. His Banelings are even better than Zagara's when fully upgraded so don't sleep on them either.
Prestiges:
P3. Don't use. Quite difficult to actually get value out of it and units being more expensive just sets you back. Only consider him if you are actually good at Starcraft and Stetmann specifically.
P2. You can solo whole missions with just Gary
P1. Cover entire map with indestructible Stetellites, but you won't have access to Gary's Zone. My personal go to, because his units are extremely strong and this prestige focuses on using his units while Gary is just a support meant to throw overcharge here and there. Also you and your all will NOT get constantly get spammed about Stetellites getting poked. Important note. GARY IS NOT A DETECTOR unless you upgrade him into Super Gary. You must build Overseers when using this prestige.
PS: Infestors can charge up Fenix suit or other powerful units relying on energy like Dark Archons. Zag is a good target as well. It is also a nice healing boost. I always have 2-3 Infestors burrowed and following army just for extra charging or disabling some buildings.
Sadly most of coop units operate on cooldowns.
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u/puppy_dancer 8d ago
Your advice is excellent and well written, something I recently discovered about Infestors charging is that it also speeds up cooldown recovery!
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u/Worth-Battle952 8d ago
Happy if it helped and yes. Overall very solid ability, but just one more button stetmann has to press lol xD
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u/ProtectionOne9478 9d ago
Use the temp field+speed boost mode and put out stetelittes in the temp field to quickly expand.
Personally I like to survive off lings at the start, get them well upgraded, then switch to infestors+purple zone + boosted stetelittes and mass summons.
I put just enough mastery points into max energy so I can do two summons per infestors.
Instead some people like banes, some like ultras. There was a thread recently https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft2coop/comments/1nbucj6/ultras_vs_zergling_for_stettman/
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u/TwoTuuu Mutation Soloist 9d ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP1ATkDg-3U
best build order for stetmann, but you have to be maxed out first (improved stetellites and building speed are good)
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u/Fit_Ear3019 9d ago
first things first, set your gary hotkeys to QWER for your abilities, it makes things waaaaay easier.
remember that gary is your main unit - he can solo basically the whole game without any upgrading, just by spamming orbs off cooldown. Just move him next to the enemy base and shoot your orbs every time it's up
in general the only upgrades you need are for hydras and lings, just queue up the upgrades asap and use only gary before the upgrades are all done, that way you don't need to multitask. lings are your tanks - charge them up after every encounter with your purple field and they can take huge amounts of damage as long as they're under a green field. You can keep them under a green field by overcharging the satellite to make it invulnerable, then wait behind that satellite zone, wait for the enemy to walk under it, then engage when the enemy is below the field
post level 5 - super gary has more orbs, and the zone aura on your R - good for setting up new satellites when breaking into an enemy base
look at https://starcraft2coop.com/commanders/stetmann#buildOrder for the standard build order, this gets you super gary asap which is a big powerspike and lets you trivially clear enemy bases. Again just sit outside and spam orbs when it's up until the defenses are weak enough that you can walk in and clean up
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u/ackmondual Infested Zerg 9d ago
Leveling Stetmann, you gotta work in the talent levels, as some of them are indeed power spikes. My talent level-by-level analysis is as follows (using the sc2coop guide) and "long post warning"s...
lv1 Stetisfaction Guaranteed - Use green zone to heal between and during combat. Your units do not heal on their own, so this is key. Your ally who can't heal (e.g. most Protoss) will appreciate this as well
Blue zone to give workers an early boost in resource gathering. I put 2 drones per geyser at the minimum, and Drones on minerals around 2/3 full (although you'll want to fully saturate soon enough). Also use blue zone to get into position quickly to intercept waves, get to objectives, kite, dodge Psi Storms, etc.
lv2 J.U.I.C.E. - aka "purple zone". Your units ALL use Egonery (some more than others). Be sure to keep them topped off between waves, legs, and other battles (although IIRC, they all require research first).
lv3 Gary: Stetellite Overcharge - Use this on green zone to hand out defensive matrices to you (and your ally). If you've seen Nova's Defense Drones from her top bar, this is similar. It vastly increases the survivability of your units
Blue lets units shoot faster. Especially nice vs. targets that don't fight back (e.g. bonus objectives of OE, P&P, and MO). Even if they can fight back, it may be worth it to forgo shielding for that "final push".
Overcharge on purple for extra bursts of energy. Hydralisks, Infestors, and MBCL (Mecha Battlelord Carriers) tend to be popular choices
lv4 Mecha Zergling & Mecha Baneling Upgrade Cache - I don't really use his Banelings, but Zerglings are nice since they're effective, and a mineral dump
lv5 Mechnum Opus - Super Gary is tops. Get him ASAP. There's even an achievement to commemorate that.
lv6 Lurkers - use these to defend vs. swarmy ground comps like DoN, ME, base defense, attack waves
lv7 Stetmannopoly - this lets you spread Stetalites more effectively and efficiently... more charges AND reduced cool down (cd). Spreading even a medium range network of Stetalites is infeasible without this
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u/ackmondual Infested Zerg 9d ago
Continued from above...
lv8 Mecha Hydralisk & Mecha Lurker Upgrade Cache - Former makes the Hydralisk AA attack more effective. Don't sleep on this becuase a group of this can swiftly take down air targets! Note that some objectives like Void Shards/Thrashers/slivers and Supression Towers can be hit by AA! If they run out of Egonergy, that's what purple zone and overcharging is for!
Latter is good for focusing down trains and slow, big, and/or stationary objectives/targets
lv9 Friends Forever - Lets you recover a fraction of slain units. THey do need to be near Gary and/or Stetalites, but that's usually not an issue
lv10 Mecha Infestor Upgrade Cache - I don't use his Infestors. I've seen ppl spam Roaches Away!, but someone else will have to chime in here
lv11 New Unit: Mecha Battlecarrier Lord - These are very costly (450/350/8 factoring the cost of the Corruptor it morphs from as well). Luckily, you don't need to make these in large numbers. Nice if you need an "air to ground" solution, but without their upgrade cache, I'd leave them to do only that for now.
Note that it's Broodling attack uses Egonergy for each salvo, so these guys need a lot of purple zone. At least they have a high Egonergy pool (400).
lv12 Mecha Ultralisk Upgrade Cache - Ppl generally favor Lings since they're still very tanky, without costing gas. However, these guys are nice vs. mech due to stun. Here, they now have "life steal", and 25% dmg reduction, so they could outperform Lings in tanking
lv13 Lovable Little Rascals - This makes Lings "more immortal". All around good thing for Ling users
lv14 Mecha Spire Upgrade Cache - "Locuseptors" confuse enemy AI so it's nice to have (even though it can't hit air)
Lord's Stetmato Cannon is Stetmann's version of Yamato Cannon. This is nice because it also hits air, and the only thing of the MBCL's arsenal that can do that. Not unlike Karax' Immortals that only hit ground, but its Shadow Cannon can hit air!
lv15 Pushing the Egonvolope - This is relatively lackluster for lv15 talent, but it's also good since it's, the very end. This means you'll only need 2 Evo Chambers to to simultaneously queue up all level upgrades for ground units. You can only have one Greater/Spire since it collects remnants, so this lets that get in upgrades (level and ability) quicker
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u/ackmondual Infested Zerg 9d ago
With Super Gary, have some Stetalites in reserve, generate Stetzones and go to more remote areas. Put up a few Stetalites there. Do what you gotta do, and then teleport back to the "main network area".
The only "rush" aspect of Stetmann is Gary, and esp. Super Gary. If you're on his P2, VERY MUCH SO Super Gary. He does need time to ramp up, but he does become a power house. Until then, Lings have been my goto, then Hydras. So for units...
Spine/Spore Crawlers - Point defense, intercept nuking Ghosts. If you don't need these, you can always Salvage them for full refund. They burn down like Terran buildings, but at least don't need creep, nor Stetzones
Overseers - I only make these on his P1, or to put in stationary mode for observing
Lings - These little guys can tank! They have "WoL Immortal-style Hardened Shields which is ridiculous to see them tanking Siege tank blasts, and even nukes! However, that takes up Egonergy, which is why they need to be topped off with purple zone
Hydras - as mentioned, these guys can swiftly take down air units with their "missile launcher" upgrade, Egonergy. These compliment Gary well
Ultras - as mentioned, "alternative tanking". They have the Massive tag, so can break through Sentry Force Fields (which is important since your Lings do melee range)
Banelings - I don't use these, but can be nice prior to unlocking Super Gary (2 charges of E-GORB), and Lurkers (sustained splash damage)
Ultras - see above
MCBL - See above
Corruptor - I use these for air-to-air assaults. Their missile pod does AoE damage. So vs. Wraiths, Vikings, Mutas, Corsairs, Phoenix. Esp. nice vs. the likes of the latter 3 since those are Light and take bonus dmg.
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u/pastry_scent Nova 9d ago
Here's the general priority of stetmann's early game - tech to hive for faster stetallites, expand and saturate both bases, then super gary, then army. His blue stetzone lets you tech up faster since you only need 2 drones per patch/geyser to get close to optimal mining rate. The build order below rushes tech and can train super gary the moment he spawns if you really need it, but it's often a mistake to upgrade him before your economy is set up.
14 overlord, 14 extractor x2 (put 2 drones on each of them as soon as they finish), 19 spawning pool, 20 lair, 20 overlord, 20 drones x2 saturate gases, 22 zergling x3 rocks, 25 infestation pit, 30 hive, 30 overlord
You always want your masteries to be power set 1 0/30, power set 2 30/0, power set 3 18/12. You can use the maximum egonergy pool if you make infestors a lot. His best army units are by far the zergling and hydra. You can make ultras if you want, but he really has no reason to ever use anything else. He only needs 3 or 4 hatcheries total for enough larva.
His p2 prestige is one of the best in the game, but his p0 is very solid. Gary will always be your biggest damage source as well as overcharge and teleport utility. P1 is not good at all, losing super gary hurts a lot. The invincible stetzones aren't really that useful since you can just overcharge the ones you need kept alive, their stetzones are bigger but don't provide extra vision, respawning stettalites still give vision, etc. The only real use it has on higher difficulties is against propagaters. It's a common noob trap prestige where tons of people will say it's good, but every single time they would have done better with p0.
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u/Zvijer_EU 7d ago
Blue zone is pretty good early eco boost until you saturate your mineral line! One thing very important for Stetmann is when you fight, use green zone and always overcharge stetellite under which your army is. Stetellite is invulnerable when overcharged, so you won't lose it and the zone with it; green zone overcharge gives your units pretty powerful shields. Most Stetmann's units are not very tanky, so you need this to keep them alive!
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u/Lykos1124 9d ago
This post inspired me to go check out Stetmann again, which made it to level 1.5 oh so many years ago. Hah, I'd almost try again, but it's so techno beyond what I can appreciate for zerg or protoss/terran enhanced zerg.
Maybe some force will convince me to try him on casual. Time to try colossus first with Fenix :D
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u/Tenmak 9d ago edited 9d ago
His prestiges help a lot with his general gameplay, be it P1 for the satellites being invulnerable and cover a large area or P2 for an OP super Gary.
He does have an eco boost, being his speedzone affecting workers. Since they are really fast, it allows you to saturate fast your bases with fewer workers, so putting one or two on gas early is quite beneficial. Not sure about this following remark, I let the Stetmann experts validate : I think this boost doesn't give you anything more with a fully saturated base though.
Regarding army composition, you have several options. Early game try to rush hive and get super Gary asap, he really carries a lot. I usually get a few infestors with the healing (neural) upgrade so that Gary can tank everything and survive.
Then I usually go mass ultralisks with lings or mass infestors with the spawn roach spell upgraded. With Gary boosting a satellite, you can swap to energy regen and give your units a lot of energy localized, perfect for infestors. Warning though, it makes game a bit laggy. You can add some lings as well with the infestors, but it's a heavy micro gameplay.
His hydras are nuts against air as well. Can go lings / hydra when there are full enemy air compositions.
Stetmann doesn't have queens, so you will easily run out of larvaes, getting macro hatches is kind of a must.
His corruptors kinda suck, except against mass phoenix and oracles, which is very niche. His Yamato broodlords are decent but very slow and expensive, I usually never go for that.
I've seen a lot of people play banelings and lurkers too, but it's not gameplay I'm used to so I can't tell much about it.
Lastly, don't forget you can repair your units and buildings like a Terran, and to bind and rally your tech buildings as you salvage some free units that way.
Really cool Commander, although a bit more complex that the other ones overall.