Artanis (dem templar builds)

Overview
Artanis is a Protoss commander who specializes in mostly "classic" Protoss units with the help from the Spear of Adun.  He has a couple of neat aspects through traits and leveling that make him an excellent support commander.  You'll have access to all parts of the Protoss tech tree, though some units will be missing or replaced by something else.

Units
Aiur Zealot: Your standard zealot from multiplayer.  At a certain level he will get a large axe to swing around, and an upgrade for some AoE damage.

Dragoon: Large, range unit.  It is similar to the ones from the LotV campaign: slow, fairly high damage (especailly against armored units), and upgradable attack range and health.  If you need a lot of anti-air you can mass up these, though many times there is a better option...

High Templar (HT): a slow moving caster that is iconic to Starcraft.  In coop, they do have a standard attack, and still have their feedback and trademark psionic storm and archon meld abilities.  Psi storm in particular is even more useful here due to certain upgrades.

Archon: the result of merging 2 HT.  They function just like you'd expect from multiplayer, but as you level, they are upgraded to retain the feedback and psi storm abilities, making them an excellent unit all around.  You can use these units to cover any anti-air problems as well.

Immortal: lore-wise, they are dragoons that have been refitted for strict ground-to-ground combat.  They act just like their counterparts in multiplayer.

Reaver: trainable after you level up.  A ground siege unit that hearkens back to Brood War.  The scarabs though are better, as they can scale cliffs, and their damage upgrades align with ground attack upgrades from the forge instead of being a separate researchable upgrade.

Observer: because you need a detector.

Phoenix: air-to-air superiority flyer.  Only 1 mission may entice you to build a large fleet of these, and it's quite fun to watch them graviton beam almost everything in sight by merely flying over them.

Tempest: long range capital ship.  Or so it wants you to believe.  It's range is somewhat deceptive, since it can be rather short based on whether the target is air or ground.  I only built these once, and they aren't bad, but they feel more gimmicky.

Initial Traits and Abilities
- Pylon Power (60 second cooldown): allows you to put a pylon energy field anywhere you have vision, minus the pylon itself.  You can only have 1 deployed at a time.  This lets you reinforce your army quickly and is a staple of any engagement.

- Orbital Strike (50 energy, 60 second cooldown): call down attacks that do 50 (or 100 against armored) damage per strike.  You get to call down 5 strikes.  Works like in the campaign version.  Pales in comparison to Karax's version though, but it can help against initial waves.  The HUD is annoying since you can't see or use the minimap.

- Shield Overcharge (50 energy, 300 second cooldown): places a 100 damage shield over all friendly units and structures that lasts 20 seconds.  Can be upgraded to provide an additional 100 damage protect when you level up a bit.  Great for starting an encounter or saving a base.  Just don't forget you have it!

Level Upgrades
1) Swift Retribution: units you warp in do so almost instantaneously.  Reinforcing a position has never been easier when you combo this with your pylon power skill.  No need to worry about pylon placement near gateways or nexi either.

2) Guardian Shield: friendly units that are going to take fatal damage instead are rendered invulnerable for 5 seconds.  This effect can only proc once a minute.  An immense life saver useful with all heroes; a power spike for sure.

3) Superior Warp Gates: all buildings that can warp in units can store 3 charges.  Useful in tweaking certain build orders.  Not that useful if you are constantly on point with macromanaging your production.  I wouldn't complain though; if you max our your army, the stored charges come in handy.

4) Twilight Council Upgrade Cache: this used to be a major issue with zealots gaining axes and lowering their DPS.  Blizzard has fixed this now, so "axelots" are superior to standard zealots.  Whirlwind gives them AoE to handle swarmy units, and dragoons get a HP buff along with their normal range upgrade.

5) Reaver: REVA REVA REVA REVA REVA REVA REVA REVA ok that's enough.  Instead of colossi, you get these BW iconic siege units instead.  Not totally amazing, but are great as ground-to-ground support DPS.

6) Templar Archives Upgrade Cache: more upgrades for your HTs.  Psi storm restoring shields is more of a perk, as it already does not do damage to friendly units (unlike in multiplayer).  Also, allowing full energy HTs at warp in is useful for quick AoE.

7) High Archon: Allows archons to use feedback and psi storm.  Unless you really wanna get the most out of your energy with psi storm, you can safely make archons from HTs and retain all of their casting abilities.

8) Warp Harmonization: allows your Robotics Facilities and Starports to use the warp-in mechanic.  I'd consider this a power spike as well.  Note that they will automatically be mapped to your warp in hotkey; you just have to tab to them.

9) Reaver Upgrades Pack: upgrades for reavers - extra carrying capacity and larger splash radius.  The latter you should definitely invest in if you build reavers.

10) Solar Bombardment (450 second cooldown): rain lasers in a large area, starting at its center and slowly growing outward.  Each laser does only 15 (30 versus armored) damage, but with 200 shots, you're bound to get a lot of mileage per use.  Best used to wipe out a powerful wave or fortified location.

11) Tempest: mentioned above.  More of a niche unit in coop missions.  I wouldn't recommend them since they aren't the fasting units around, but then again, none of the units Artanis has are fast except for the Phoenix.

12) Fleet Beacon Cache Upgrade: more upgrades for your starport units.  Phoenix can lift 2 units with graviton beam, and Tempest can get the disintegration ability.  The double pickup is rather funny to see when you mass Phoenix, and disintegration is great against very high HP targets.

13) Shield Overcharge: doubles the amount of shields you and your ally get when you use this ability.  There's a lot of shielding to go around now.  A moderate spike in power I'd say.

14) Solar Onslaught: doubles the amount of lasers fired when you use this ability.  More of a gravy skill; it's already powerful, and now it will clear whatever is in the area.

15) Glory of the Daelaam: grants you the supply cap of 200 right from the start.  A massive power spike if you ask me.  You can make Artosis pylons and save thousands of minerals from not having to keep up with pylon production for supply (btw if you don't know what an Artosis pylon is, just image one pylon powering as many buildings as possible).  Whole build orders can change due to this, and the saved minerals can go to earlier zealots to clear expansion rocks or to quicker gateway production, or whatever.

Pointers
- Artanis makes a great support commander with all the shielding skills and lasers he can call down.  Use them early and often to defend against initial enemy waves.

- You can start with 13 pylon 14 gateway.  Assimilator can be started as early as 15, but not necessary.  Most of the time I try to get to at least twilight council tech to get upgrades for zealots ASAP while also trying to take an expansion.  Most of these costs are minerals, so gas can wait a little bit.

- Most working compositions are zealot/dragoon or zealot/archon.  Both are a little slow, but the latter usually wins out since high archons can psi-storm all over the place and are not as mineral intensive as dragoons.  Reavers can be incorporated later if you have spare resources.  Better to plan out which comp you will use, so you can only spend resources on applicable units.

- Phoenix are best used in the Void Launch mission, and Tempests are great for offensive missions in general.

- Even if you don't go for reavers, having the robo bay for observers is necessary at higher difficulties, especially if your enemy is Terran.  You can psi storm cloaked units, but they are still very aggravating to deal with if you only have psi-storm available.

- For early defense, you can have a pylon or building draw in initial waves, and then use your orbital strike to kill them.  Helps if you are fast expanding and only have minimal defenses.