Alarak (Co-op Missions)

"Alarak is unique as a Commander: he is the first Protoss Commander that you’ll directly control in battle, and he has Hero abilities as well as global abilities that can be activated at the top of the screen. He wields massive destructive potential, but is also relatively fragile as Hero units go. He makes up for this weakness by drawing upon the life force of friend and foe alike. His passive, Soul Absorption, restores health and shields whenever an enemy is slain. It also allows him to steal the souls of his allies whenever he is near death—with no cooldown. Alarak -WILL- be the last one standing!"

- Commander blurb

Alarak is a commander in the Co-op Missions mode of Legacy of the Void. Alarak personally takes the field as a hero unit similar to Kerrigan and Zagara. In addition, he has the ability to field powerful Tal'darim units, and call down the Death Fleet to annihilate his foes.

Alarak was made available with the release of Patch 3.6 (14th September) and can be unlocked for $4.99 USD.

Overview
Alarak functions as a hero unit, taking the field personally. He retains his soul absorption, destruction wave and deadly charge abilities from Legacy of the Void, and an ability named empower me, which allows him to gain power from nearby friendly units. In addition, Alarak is able to use photon overcharge on structures, as well as summon a Tal'darim mothership surrounded by destroyers.

Info

 * Recommended for experienced players
 * Control Alarak directly on the battlefield, using his devastating abilities to change the tide of battle
 * Alarak can use the lifeforce of both friend and foe to sustain his essence and increase his power
 * Command an army of loyal and fanatical Tal'darim units

Mastery
Alarak attack damage: +1 – +30
 * Power Set 1

Combat unit attack speed: +0.5% – +15%

Empower Me duration: +0.5 sec – +15 sec
 * Power Set 2

Death Fleet cooldown: +2 sec – +60 sec


 * Power Set 3
 * Structure Overcharge shield and attack speed: +7% – +210%
 * Alarak Beacon warp in time: +0.5 sec – +15 sec

Game Unit
As a hero unit, Alarak is fragile, but a powerful all-around attacker. His Deadly Charge and Destruction Wave abilities let him deal heavy damage, and does not need energy for them, letting him use them constantly without fear. With a healthy supply of supplicants to support him, Alarak is virtually invincible, automatically healing constantly as he fights. He can also use Destruction Wave to knock enemies into range of his army, disallowing them an escape.

The utility of Alarak's Empower Me ability cannot be overstated. With enough allied units nearby, Alarak's attacking abilities can deal several hundred damage, letting him decimate waves upon waves of enemies with ease. There is no cap to how strong he can become as long as there are units near him, his power will continue to grow. However, due to its lengthy cooldown, Empower Me is best saved for heavy battles where Alarak will need the boost in offense.

Alarak's biggest weakness is that, by himself, he is not very effective; he can kill small groups of enemies alone, but requires a healthy supply of supplicants to keep alive. While his damaging abilities are spammable, they don't do much damage by themselves. Alarak is best used in tandem with a large army that can provide support fire and tributes to heal him, while Alarak himself charges into combat to draw fire and soften up enemies for his followers to finish off. Alone, he is easily overwhelmed and killed.

Abilities
Alarak has the following abilities as a hero unit:

Calldown Abilities
Alarak has the following abilities activated from the top menu.

Units
Alarak has access to the following units and structures:

Progression
Alarak acquires the following talents as he levels up.

Strategy
Alarak obliterates his enemies with overwhelming power while sacrificing his own army to achieve his goals. His army focuses on maximizing damage and decimating its foes with brutal efficiency.

Alarak is the first Protoss Commander that can be directly control in battle. He wields massive destructive potential, but is also relatively fragile as Hero units go. He makes up for this weakness by drawing upon the life force of friend and foe alike. His passive, soul absorption, restores health and shields whenever an enemy is slain. It also allows him to steal the souls of his allies whenever he is near death—with no cooldown. This is where the supplicants come in. These durable servants are summoned two at a time and make for excellent meat shields. The supplicants are Alarak’s most loyal followers and the first to willingly sacrifice their life-force. Maintaining a healthy supply of supplicants at all times will be important to successfully controlling the Tal’darim. The Tal’darim faction has its own unique designs compared to the standard protoss forces.


 * In the early game, use structure overcharge to defend against initial attack waves and focus on building up a strong economy. You can also use this to help your ally in a pinch.
 * Since Alarak will kill his own units to selfishly stay alive, always make sure to keep an eye on his health. If he gets into too much trouble, your army will pay the ultimate price.
 * Supplicants are an extremely important unit in any army composition. Not only do they have a high amount of life and shields for a relatively low cost, they will also always sacrifice themselves to Alarak before any other unit. Always make sure to keep a healthy supply of Supplicants around if you have a lot of high value units like vanguard and wrathwalkers.
 * Havocs are Alarak’s form of mobile detection. They also have an upgrade that allows them to be permanently cloaked. In addition to providing detection they also come with a powerful buff for your army and a single target debuff for the enemy. Don’t overlook the value of this unit.
 * Alarak’s Empower Me ability has a fairly short cooldown. Make sure to use it proactively to crush the enemy before you lose too many of your own units. Your partner’s army will also empower Alarak, so stick together and open with this ability for a huge push.
 * The Death Fleet mothership has a teleport ability which can let you attack multiple locations in succession. You can use this ability to help an ally or retreat from a bad situation.
 * The war prism is an important unit to keep around so that you can constantly reinforce on the battlefield. Without it, you might find yourself low on Supplicants in the middle of a fight, and be forced to retreat.
 * Alarak favors a ground battle and therefore does not have any need for a stargate. When facing an enemy that favors air units, make sure you have the right composition to take them out. A healthy combination of Slayers, upgraded wrathwalkers, and Alarak’s own destruction wave can deal with both swarms of smaller units as well as large targets.

Protoss Commanders
Artanis is an effective teammate for Alarak. His Aiur zealots, s, and tempests compliment Alarak perfectly by providing powerful melee attackers and anti-air power, while Alarak's wrathwalkers are more powerful and mobile than Artanis' s. Alarak's ascendants are generally superior to Artanis' high templar as offensive casters, but an Artanis player may still wish to make use of Plasma Surge-upgraded Psionic Storms to restore shields to their units. If Alarak is in peril, Artanis' Power Field cooldown is invaluable to warp in supplicants in the field.

Karax is a moderately effective teammate for Alarak. While Alarak is geared towards overwhelming offense, Karax favors impenetrable defense. Thus Alarak can focus his attention on attacking the enemy while Karax defends their bases and uses his calldown abilities to focus down stronger units Alarak may have trouble with. Reconstruction Beam is invaluable to support Alarak's fragile wrathwalkers and vanguards, and s with repair drones makes a powerful army combined with Alarak's robotic forces. The player can use Alarak's Structure Overcharge to power up Karax's defenses even further when faced with an overwhelming enemy force.

Vorazun is a questionable teammate for Alarak, due to minimal synergy between their armies. Her Emergency Recall will save his valuable havocs, and her s and void rays provide powerful air support to suppliment Alarak's ground-focused armies. In large offensive battles, Alarak can use the mothership summoned by the Death Fleet to warp to the players' bases to retrieve units saved by Emergency Recall, then teleport them back to the front lines. Black Hole can set up large numbers of enemy ground units, particularly hybrid, to be decimated by Alarak's vanguards, or to be trapped by Force Fields. Alarak's havocs alleviate Vorazun's reliance on oracles for detection, saving her time having to tech to stargates.

Terran Commanders
Raynor is an excellent teammate for Alarak, providing a large army to increase the effectiveness of Empower Me as well as anti-air support with marines. Alarak in turn can provide havocs to boost the attack range of marines. Combining their cooldowns allows Raynor to warp the Hyperion to any point on the map, at which point Alarak can immediately send in the Death Fleet to support it, or even better, teleport their armies to the Hyperion en masse. Alarak's wrathwalkers and ascendants can quickly focus down powerful enemy units that pose a threat to Raynor's fragile marines.

Swann is a fair teammate for Alarak. His goliaths and thors provide a powerful anti-air army to supplement Alarak's ground-focused army, and Swann's science vessels and SCVs can repair Alarak's robotic units and use Defensive Matrix to save them from death. Together they are the only two commanders to both have access to transports, the war prism and hercules, making them highly mobile. Swann's vespene harvesters are invaluable to give Alarak more gas for upgrading and training his ascendants in large numbers.

Zerg Commanders
Kerrigan is an effective teammate. She has a strong anti-air presence with hydralisks and mutalisks, while Alarak provides crowd control she lacks with ascendants and vanguards. Kerrigan's raptors and upgraded torrasques can bypass Alarak's supplicants to get into melee range easily, while hydralisks fire from behind them and ascendants from behind them, thus their armies synergize perfectly in battle. Havoc support to increase their attack range and damage to select enemies is also of great benefit, on top of negating the necessity of overseers. Immobilization wave will also minimize damage received, keeping supplicants in high numbers much longer. Together, Kerrigan and Alarak can decimate enemies as hero units, especially when both are level 15 at which point all of their ability cool-downs are either super fast or nonexistant. Omega worms are also a perfect alternative for rapid army transition without the Death Fleet to teleport units.

Zagara is an effective teammate. She provides a very large army for Alarak's Empower Me ability, and her swarmlings provide expendable melee troops to enter battle with Alarak. Supplicants shielded by aberrations are surprisingly effective tanks due to their defensive buffs, and Mass Frenzy also powers them up greatly. Alarak can use Destruction Wave to knock enemies into the range of Zagara's mostly short-ranged army, and otherwise is ascendants are good to focus down powerful enemy units Zagara's army may have trouble with.

Abathur is a debatable teammate. Abathur tends to have a small army of short-ranged units, while Alarak wants a large ally for Empower Me and likewise must rely on short-ranged units, the supplicant. When paired, it is best for Alarak to focus on a ground army while Abathur gets an aerial army, their two forces complimenting the other. In addition to mend, Swarm Queens can empower Alarak while also using rapid transfusion. Because of Alarak's damage output, it should be easy to kill large numbers of enemies while leaving Abathur to collect more biomass so brutalisks and leviathans draw fire away from Alarak, keeping him and his supplicants alive longer. In a pinch, Alarak and expensive army units can be abducted to safety. Further empowerment is possible with large groups of locusts.

Development
Alarak was chosen as the Co-op commander after Abathur, as, in the words of Blizzard, "the community wanted Alarak, and they wanted him now." The choice was also driven by player feedback that they wanted a non-zerg hero unit. It was decided that Alarak would be a good choice to reflect this, per his over-the-top personality and devastating power. John de Lancie was brought back into the studio to do new voice lines.

As Alarak was designed, it was intended that his sinister nature and the brutality of the Tal'darim shine through. The supplicant and Alarak's sacrifice ability reflect this.

Trivia

 * Alarak is currently the only commander to have a hero unit as well as calldown abilities activated from the top menu.
 * In the mission "Chain of Ascension," Ji'nara will sometimes use different dialogue throughout the mission to directly address Alarak.
 * Sometimes while casting Structure Overcharge, Alarak will say, "I find your lack of defenses disturbing." This is a reference to a similar line said by Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.