Jim Raynor (Co-op Missions)

Jim Raynor is a playable commander in the Co-op Missions mode of Legacy of the Void. He is meant to represent a "standard" terran commander, and his loadout is infantry-based, with access to infantry support units and abilities (such as orbital drop pods, vikings, vultures, firebats, and medics). He has the ability to summon the Hyperion to the field.

Info

 * Recommended for players of all skill levels
 * Calldown and control an elite battlecruiser, the Hyperion
 * Command an infantry army with strategic support units
 * Deploy units anywhere on the battlefield via drop pods

Mastery

 * Power Set 1
 * Stimpack Duration: +2% – 60% (up to a maximum of 24s)
 * Speed Increase for Drop-Pod units: +2% – 60%


 * Power Set 2
 * Reduced cooldown for Hyperion*: -3s – 90s (down to a minimum of 270s)
 * Reduced cooldown for Banshee Airstrike*: -4s – 120s (down to a minimum of 120s)
 * * (Does not affect initial cooldown at the start of the mission.)


 * Power Set 3
 * Medic heal another target: +3% – 90%
 * Reduced damage when healed by medic: +0.5% – 15%

Units and Structures
Raynor has access to the following units and structures:

Talent Progression
Raynor acquires the following talents as he levels up.

Strategies
Raynor is a very infantry oriented commander. The firepower of his bioball lets him to deal with all kinds of targets, and his ability to deploy his created units straight to their rally point allows him to quickly reinforce his army. When he requires extra firepower he can utilize two offensive calldowns as well as various mechanical units to support, and in some cases even supplant his infantry.

Power Set 1: Speed Increases for Drop Pod Units
 * Recommended masteries:

☀Speed Increases for Drop Pod Units: +2%-60% (+2% speed per level)
 * Stimpack self-damage is negligible with a good Medic count and it doesn’t affect Mech Raynor builds. The second mastery is the clear choice here; attack speed buff for 30 seconds is significant when calling down 10+ marines at once mid-battle. The movement speed, energy regeneration, and cooldown reduction could also be very useful for Raynor's other units that can be drop podded in.

Power Set 2:Banshee Airstrike Cooldown

☀Banshee Airstrike Cooldown: -4s - 120s (240s down to a minimum of 120s)
 * Dusk Wings: 33.93 DPS x 5 (every 2 minutes; full mastery)
 * Hyperion: 76.67 DPS (every 4.5 minutes; full mastery)
 * These are both good masteries. The Hyperion (and it's abilities) is objectively the better calldown as it is both more powerful and versatile.  The Dusk Wings' significant cooldown reduction by a huge margin .  Due to its DPS advantage, it can also be useful against mutators (such as Void Rifts) or on timed maps (such as Void Thrashing). The banshee mastery gains slight edge because of that.

Power Set 3: Medic Heal Additional Target

☀Medic Heal Additional Target: +3% - 90% (-3% heal per level)
 * Infantry typically dies against AoE splash damage, not single-target focus fire. In addition, the damage reduction mastery numbers are quite low. The first mastery here is generally considered the better one, as it reduces the numbers of Medics needed to attend to infantry.

Call In Air Support
Raynor's has the ability to call down the Hyperion briefly to the battlefield, with various combat capabilities, including the Yamato cannon which can eliminate groups of enemies with high HP quickly, Point-defense drones that protect Raynor's army, an aura that increases the damage of allied units, and the ability to teleport to any location on the battlefield, wreaking havoc on enemy lines. Summoning and warping the Hyperion does not require line of sight of the location, allowing the player to reach distant objectives before overcoming the enemy forces. Its long range batteries enables you to eliminate dangerous threats to Raynor's infantry before they get within striking distance, such as siege tanks, while the area-of-effect Yamato cannon deals substantial damage to units with large health pools or massed units. PDDs should be used to cover as much area as possible to defend both the Hyperion and surrounding units (Curiously, PDDs will also remove nearby Mag mines, giving a advantage in the mutator Mag-nificent to push safer). The support passive ability of the Hyperion also allows it to buff nearby units, and works well with massed infantry.

The Hyperion's attack is different from the other units, since it attacks any enemy units even while moving or being affected by a mutator effect, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage. For example, it will continue to attack even under the Fear mutator effect (which will prevent it from being wasted), the Fatal Attraction mutator effect (although in this case it can be detrimental since it will prevent your forces can be withdrawing), and the Polarity mutator effect (it tries to attack any unit even if it can't be killed; unlike other units, which will only attack units that can be killed).

Raynor's secondary calldown is the Dusk Wings, a group of banshees that start cloaked on the field and will attack nearby ground units. This has a faster cooldown than the Hyperion, and can be used for precision strikes at key targets as well as add extra damage to a push. Upon initially being summoned, they will strafe the area under them, useful for dealing damage to concentrated light units. However, their cloaking fields are not permanent, and can be deactivated before the Dusk Wings despawn to draw the enemy's attention. As the Dusk Wings despawn, they will have a moment of invulnerability as they fly off the map, but they will still be able to attack while the animation plays out. In some maps it is possible to have ready the dusk wings around the first wave (It is possible to use a building with SCVs to hold them for a few seconds) allowing them to defend and expand, using the resources they saved to develop their economy faster

Remember that these calldowns benefit from attack upgrades (thus avoiding the loss of DPS by increase of armor of enemy units as the game progresses), armor upgrades (including the health bonus), and range upgrades from the armory.

Toughest Frag Magnets
Raynor focuses primarily on infantry units in his army, with support deriving from factory and starport units. Marines, marauders and medics are a classic pairing, Although marines possess good DPS, are produced quickly and can attack both ground and air units, they are vulnerable to anti-light compositions. Meanwhile, marauders are strong against armored units and have more than twice the HP than marines (which makes them less vulnerable to splash damage) but are vulnerable to air attacks and anti-armored units. Using marines and marauders together allows them to cover their weaknesses and maintain their strengths. Firebats can be very useful for killing large groups of light enemy of enemy waves (such as zerglings and zealots) as well as serving as a meat shield for bioball (their range makes them tend to lead attacks but not away from bioball), but the core damage of the infantry army should come from the marines. Once upgraded, medics can heal and reduce the damage received to all allied units, biological and mechanical alike. Siege tanks provide siege support in defensive missions, serving as an alternative to the effective but high-maintenance spider mines of the vultures.

Raynor's bunkers supported with SCVs are a great way to deal with early attack waves, and a single fully loaded bunker with level upgrades can hold off the initial attack waves while Raynor and his ally build up their forces for a push out. Stimpacks can be used inside bunkers allowing for the player to have extra damage when enemy attack waves bear down.

Always Have a Card to Play
Among Raynor's aerial units are the vikings, the banshees and the battlecruisers; his vikings are relatively inexpensive units that when properly amassed and upgraded can be some of the most powerful air units in the game, capable of inflicting a large amount of damage in area, with a large enough range to attack from behind while other units tank the frontlines. Vikings can travel long distances considerably fast for brief moments. Vikings have a ground mode that allows them to attack land units, but their relatively bulky size reduces their efficiency considerably compared to Raynor's other anti-terrestrial options; being more of a way to avoid wasting DPS when there are no longer many air threats. Raynor's banshees are effective when having to counter enemy waves with a large number of ground units, and their cloak allows them to deal out heavy damage to priority targets without fear of retribution. Raynor's battlecruisers are be expensive and slow to produce, with lower DPS/supply than many of his bio units. An interesting note is that their Tactical Jump is improved compared to their multiplayer counterparts; rather than appear at the target location after a short delay they appear immediately. This can be useful for when a location needs immediate reinforcing but you can't or won't use a calldown to handle it. They work best in combination with the dusk wings (especially if you have a high enough mastery points to use it constantly), battlecruisers can serve for tanking and provide anti-aircraft DPS while the deadly but fragile dusk wings provide antiground DPS.

This Is My Rifle
Raynor can build combat units 50% faster than average, and his orbital drop allows him to reinforce anywhere on the map instantly. A good strategy is to just create a massive army of infantry units with support units aiding the push. Aside from the occasional air threat, there is not much the biological army cannot handle. However, Raynor's army can be ground down, as such it should be constantly reinforced and rally points should be set on top of the army. Often times just marines will do as they are the quickest to produce and those extra seconds can make all the difference in critical fights. Some missions will necessitate getting higher-tier units, however, especially if the enemy fields splash damage units (lurkers, reavers, disruptors, banelings, ultralisks, siege tanks, etc.) which can annihilate infantry armies. Enemy high templars and infestors can also cause Raynor's infantry a lot of grief, and should be focused down by support units or by Raynor's calldowns. Because Raynor's core bio army is ranged and heavily mobile, it is easy for Raynor to kite enemy forces from out of defensive positions, allowing Raynor to engage them without them being attacked by static defenses. This allows for smaller engagements with fewer casualties.

Classic Piece of Engineering
One of the most powerful units in Raynor's arsenal (particularly on maps with set defensive lanes such as Mist Opportunities, Temple of the Past, and Malwarfare) are his vultures. Upgraded spider mines are powerful, recharge quickly, and can instantly wipe out most ground based attack waves. Stack them in small choke points, and the enemy will be unable to clear them before the mines are able to quickly destroy their hybrid behemoths. In defensive missions this tactic can be expensive so it is advisable to have enough extra orbital commands to maintain demand. Vikings or other anti-air units should also be deployed to aid the vultures to help cover from air units the enemy may bring.

Interestingly, they are immune to both self-generated explosions and nuclear explosions (this includes those generated by ground hybrids in the mutator Mutually Assured Destruction).

Show Me The Money
Having multiple orbital command centers will not only give Raynor a strong influx of minerals, but also give him the ability to use multiple scans whenever cloaked units attack, give sight to enemy bases or raised zones before a push, or allow the allied player to use calldowns or unit skills preemptively on previously hidden areas. This gives him a advantage with mutators affecting vision such as Shortsighted, Darkness and Afraid of the Dark; however, due to the fact that this is Raynor's only means of detection he can have problems with mutators like We Move Unseen and Minesweeper that force him to expend energy in more scans than usual, reducing his MULEs in the early game.

Because of his MULEs, Raynor has the ability to churn out marines and lower gas cost units with ease, so a large number of orbital commands should be met with an equally large number of barracks. MULEs can also be used in situations where a unit is needed to hold a point (like "Lock & Load" or "Chain of Ascension") or to repair allied units if the medics are not close by.

Command centers and orbital commands have the ability to lift off and move, allowing them to be built before clearing an expansion of rocks or enemy fortifications and be placed on the expansion after the area is clear. Since much of Raynor's biological units cost only minerals, building refineries can be delayed in favor of constructing orbital commands and an initial army of marines and vultures. Alternately, Raynor can take only the essential geysers needed for units like medics and upgrades for his core units, and give the geysers at his expansions to more gas heavy allies like Nova and Vorazun.

Protoss Commanders
Artanis is an excellent teammate for Raynor. Artanis's Guardian Shell and Shield Overcharge greatly extends the lifespan of Raynor's fragile infantry units, especially against enemy AoE attacks. Artanis' immortals can deal with heavy hybrid behemoths, thus compensating for Raynor's general lack of durable units. Raynor's marines provide superior anti-air capabilities over Artanis's dragoons. Medics can extend the lifespan of zealots (which tend to die rapidly otherwise), and bring units that have triggered their guardian shells back to full health.

Karax is a questionable teammate for Raynor. With the exception of powerful battlecruisers, Raynor's Rapid Recruitment talent creates redundancy with Chrono Field, but if combined with Chrono Wave, Raynor can replenish full armies almost instantly. Unity Barrier can make Raynor's infantry slightly more durable. Karax's superior automated defenses allows Raynor to forgo bunkers. Reconstruction Beam may not affect Raynor's infantry, but it can help his mechanized units and bunkers, the latter of which normally have survivability issues at higher difficulties. Its defenses can be redundant with the spider mines in most of the maps (one tends to overshadow the other depending on the situation), since Raynor once has its developed economy can arm a great army and defend itself with spider mines, Karax can opt for reducing the amount of defenses on offensive maps and arm an army that can also be supported by the medics with extra healing and reduction of damage. Vikings and marines compensates for Karax's weak anti-air capabilities. Additionally scan can combine well with solar flare and orbital assaults, allowing the elimination of enemy waves from a distance.

Vorazun is a questionable teammate for Raynor. Vorazun is fully capable of annihilating even the toughest enemy forces on its own. Corsairs can be very useful to Raynor by disabling the attacks of dangerous waves or fortified bases, so that he can attack without fear of reprisals. Raynor's scanner sweeps are invaluable towards her detection issues; Vorazun's oracles have a higher tendency to die than observers. Emergency Recall can be useful to Raynor if Vorazun uses her Dark Pylon smartly, saving his fragile infantry from death. Lastly, Raynor's marines are generally better at anti-air than Vorazun's stalkers, so he can cover against air attacks in her stead while she focuses more on ground forces, also can take advantage of the dark pylons to transport the troops quickly.

Alarak is an excellent teammate for Raynor. Raynor's large anti-air support infantry increase the effectiveness of Empower Me; Alarak's havocs to boost the attack range of marines. Coordinating 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, and thereby 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.

Fenix is a powerful teammate for Raynor, with Raynor covering for many of Fenix's weaknesses. Both armies are high damage but low health, but the addition of medics means Fenix' forces, which normally can't heal, become more hardy. This means frontline forces like legionaries, Kaldalis and Fenix' preator armor can soak more damage. In addition, Raynor's calldowns can help defend against enemy attacks and help in pushes, while Fenix's recall can also give Raynor's marines much needed mobility to push, take objectives or fall back.

Terran Commanders
Swann is a questionable teammate for Raynor. Both commander's armies can function perfectly well without the other; Swann's vespene gas production bonus is rarely an issue for Raynor's biorganic infantry, but it is very helpful if Raynor wants to field higher-tech units. Swann's superior automated turrets allows Raynor to forgo bunkers. While Swann can give his tech reactors to Raynor, they have very little value compared to the cost (resources and time) to make them. Raynor's mechanized units can also benefit from having Swann's science vessels to repair them, or have Swann's SCVs perform repairs without costing anything and vice versa with medics and their reduction of damage.

Nova can be a powerful teammate with Raynor. Raynor possesses the larger force, while Nova's more small tactical force can clear key targets. Air strike entrenched positions as Raynor pushes forward. In addition, medics, especially with the ability to heal mechanical units, augment their already powerful force Nova has and makes them even harder to kill during combat. Raynor going the vulture/spider mine build can focus their efforts on specific attack paths, as Nova's forces can take out most attack waves on their own. Defensive drones can provide excellent survivability to Raynor's units.

Han and Horner work fantastic with Raynor, fitting to Horner and Raynor's friendship. Medics can heal Han and Horner’s units as well as Raynor’s, providing a beefier frontline to allow Raynor’s longer ranged infantry to push harder without the threat of being targeted. Both have tactical jump capabilities, and Raynor’s scanner sweep enables Horner’s armada to push anywhere on the map, or for strike fighters to lock onto key enemy targets without having to worry about the fog of war. Both have powerful calldowns, with Raynor’s slightly more consistent calldowns making up for Han and Horner’s longer cooldowns.

Zerg Commanders
Kerrigan is an excellent teammate for Raynor. Kerrigan benefits from medics' healing; her zerglings and ultralisks can lead charges while "meat shielding" for Raynor's infantry. Unfortunately, Raynor rarely benefits by Kerrigan's Assimilation Aura due to his MULEs and low gas requirements for infantry, and Orbital Drop Pods creates redundancy with Kerrigan's Omega Worms as a way of replenishing troops, but although it can still allow his troops to travel long distances quickly. Finally, Kerrigan's immobilizing wave will allow him to attack the enemy without fear of reprisals. Creep spread allows marines to heal some stimpack damage without medics.

Zagara is a questionable teammate for Raynor. Zagara benefits from medics's healing, but it is generally redundant as her army tends to be suicidal. Zagara can destroy entrenched positions easily, and her aberrations and roaches can lead charges while "meat shielding" for Raynor's infantry. Both use units with high attack velocity (especially with Zagara's Mass Frenzy), so both armies benefit greatly from the Hyperion's +2 attack buff and the armor reduction debuff's zerglings, allowing them to inflict a lot of damage on little time. Zagara's Mass Frenzy can push Raynor's infantry to absurd speeds and attack rates when they also use stimpacks. Raynor's mines can give them powerful defenses while Zagara is free to push in to enemy bases with bio support.

Abathur is an excellent teammate for Raynor. Abathur's mend ability can aid in large engagements when used alongside Raynor's medics. Raynor's marines can also cover Abathur's lack of early game anti-air. In mid-late game, Abathur's heavy units and high area of effect damage goes well with heavy infantry support from Raynor. Mend can also heal Raynor's infantry in huge numbers, saving his medics precious energy.

Stukov and Raynor have fairly minimal synergy. Both rely on large, more disposable armies, but Stukov can still screen for Raynor's infantry. Medics will often waste their energy on disposable infested, putting their further ahead and at risk during attacks. Both have high damage global abilities, but both have high cooldowns.

Dehaka and Raynor are a strong combination. Dehaka’s units and Dehaka himself gain extreme benefits from having medics around, especially in the early game where Dehaka is lower leveled. Both have powerful defensive global abilities at relatively the same cooldown and scans can give vision, let Dehaka use his calldowns and deep tunnel to any part of the map, and Dehaka’s primal worms can function as impromptu detectors in the early game. In the late game, Dehaka becomes a strong tank for Raynor’s army, and is powerful alongside bio, allowing Raynor to do the damage while Dehaka and his higher health units like tyrannozors and primal igniters hold up enemy lines.

Patches

 * Prior to Patch 3.1.3, Raynor's initial talent Rapid Recruitment was named Infantry Specialist, and had different effects. Additionally, the Improved Stim ability was the standard Stimpack ability in terms of usage; it had to be researched, provides 50% boosts to movement and attack speed, and needed 10 HP to use. The Stabilizer Medpack upgrade also did reduce the 25% damage taken by units being healed; this passive behavior is called "Safeguard".
 * Prior to patch 3.3.0, Raynor’s level 8 upgrade, Orbital Drop Pods, did not applies to Starport units.
 * Prior to patch 3.3.2 Mastery: Medics heal a nearby additional target for X% of heal. Only increase 2% per level (Now is 3%)
 * Prior to patch 3.4.0, the bunkers only had 400 HP, to gain + 150HP and shrike turret needed to be investigated. Developer Comments: Bunkers are not getting a lot of use. They have some upgrades available but they don't help in the early game and have questionable value in terms of cost and time investment later on. Instead of unlocking research at level 7, Raynor will now be able to build upgraded Bunkers at level 7. The life bonus has also been increased slightly. Instead of Level 10 Armor upgrades in the Armory and Engineering Bay increased life in addition to increasing armor there was Level 10 Double Mule. Developer Comments: The double M.U.L.E. upgrade is currently encouraging a mass Orbital Command strategy which allows Raynor to make an endless stream of only Marines. Players not employing this strategy gain a fairly minor power increase. We decided to replace this upgrade with a powerful combat upgrade instead which should help Raynor against area damage and increase his overall survivability. This upgrade also effects all unit types including mechanical, so it should also help to make Factory and Starport units viable, rather than just allowing Raynor to simply make more Marines. In addition, the bonus of speed of attack of Level 15 only affected to the infantry units and there was not a clarification on the masters that affected the calldowns. Developer Comments: We also want to change this upgrade to affect all units including mechanical, again to open up Raynor's strategic options. While Raynor's core strength is his biological army, it was important to us not to discourage the use of the other units. We want to supplement his army with the right tools depending on the situation, and we were sending the wrong message by having this upgrade affect only his Barracks units.
 * Prior to patch 3.6.0, the battlecruisers had a energy bar, their skills had no cooldown and only had 450 HP. Developer Comments: Battlecruisers have increased life and no longer have energy. Yamato Cannon is now a cooldown based ability and can be used more often.
 * Prior to patch 3.7.0, the Medic's Stabilizer Medpacks upgrade only allowed medics to heal faster. Developer Comments: We're changing this upgrade to enable Medics to target Mechanical units. We're continuing to look at how Raynor can both be a better partner as well as open up additional army compositions. This also makes his Medic mastery bonuses viable for players who choose to go heavy mech.
 * Prior to patch 3.17.0, Spider mines were invulnerable after being triggered and Drop Pod mastery affected the Dusk wings.
 * Prior to patch 4.0, Tactical Jump requires vision. Dev Comment: We are standardizing Tactical Jump across all commanders to require vision. Raynor can still use Orbital Scan to jump anywhere, but other commanders will have to gain vision in other ways before jumping. The Hyperion is special and can still jump without vision. Siege Tank starts to use turret tracking.