Alarak (Edgy McEdgelord)

Overview
Alarak is a Protoss commander, who unlike the others, takes a direct part in the battles.  In fact, a big thing about making him as buff as he can be.  He is the one that should lead an attack, and will always be the last one standing at the cost of your entire army if need be.  Once you unlock all of this skills, he is a force to reckon with.

Units
Alarak: A melee hero that is empowered by his "allies" (more like sacrifices).  He himself doesn't have a lot of health or shields, but is sustained by the army behind you.  He's also got some skills to back up all his smack talk too.  He has no energy; all of his skills only have a cooldown.
- Deadly Charge: charges at your selected target or area.  It will inflict 200(?) damage if it does connect.  Useful for sniping key targets, like disruptors or lurkers.  Also gets him into the fray.
- Destruction Wave: an AoE skill in the shape of a rectangle that starts a little bit behind Alarak and extends in front of him.  Does 50 damage and knockback.  The knockback can act as a short stun, and can wipe out weak enemies.  Very effective against smaller Zerg units, and Terran bio.
- Soul Absoprtion: explained later, but it's his ability to steal life from your own units to survive.
- Empower Me: buffs both his normal and skill damage based on how many friendly units are near him.  This includes both your own and your ally's units.  It can get ridonkulous if you time it just right with your ally.  Even gets more powerful after a certain level.

Supplicant: A light, short ranged warrior that you warp in pairs.  No zealots for you.  They do cost 150 for each pair though, and will eat up supply.  They are mainly to keep Alarak supplied with life during a battle as well as weak damage support.  They are also used as sacrifices for your ascendants as well.

Slayer: A stalker that needed to be even more edgy.  Can blink and gain a skill to avoid damage for a brief moment after taking a hit.  More like emergency anti-air if you ask me.

Havoc: A pure support unit from the gateway.  It has no attack, but acts as a detector which is rather nice, but also can buff the range of non-melee attacks for you and your ally, and make enemies take more damage.  It's worth having a few around, but not too many.  Do note that they only cost 1 supply.

Ascendant:  The edgy HT.  No psi storm, but has a psionic orb skill that launches a ball that travels in a straight line and does AoE damage to anything near it.  Mind Blast is a powerful single target skill which is also for sniping.  Sacrifice basically kills off a supplicant to restore energy.  Later on it also permanently buffs the ascendant and gives it a neat archon like effect.

Vanguard: An immortal that shoots rocket clusters onto an area of ground.  Pretty powerful, and can be buffed to be even more effective.  Not sure if they are worth it though since they are a robo unit, and the other main robo unit has a unique role in your army.  You also have Alarak and Ascendants to do AoE as is.

Wrathwalker: A colossus that replaced its thermal lances for a powerful blast of enregy.  You can upgrade it to attack air and ground, and later, a faster attack speed.  Note that it has a fairly slow attack speed regardless, but it hits very hard.  Also has 9 range to boot.  Unlike Karax, these don't cost and arm and leg to make.

War Prism: Because being a warp prism isn't enough.  It functions like one, but can actually attack while in transport mode.  Otherwise, it's main use is to allow you to warp in anywhere you have them.

Photon Cannon: Because each commander needs static defense available.

Initial Traits and Abilities
- Structure Overcharge: temporarily grants any friendly building the ability to defend itself like Photon Overcharge in multiplayer.  You can store up to 3 charges at a time.  Useful in the early game, and works well in supplementing defense later.  Note that you can use it on your ally's structures too.

- Summon Death Fleet: explained later, but it's a summon ability on a long cooldown.


Level Upgrades
1) Soul Absorption:  Alarak gains 20 life and 20 shields when an enemy is killed near him.  Gives him some ability to sustain himself.  This also sacrifices the life of one of your nearby units if Alarak takes fatal damage so he can recover.  So in essence, if Alarak dies, that means your whole army was destroyed.

2) Overcharge Amplification: when using structure overcharge, the structure also gains a 200 HP barrier.  Helps with defense, so no complaints.

3) Aggressive Tactics - your deadly charge can strike from a further distance, and has a shorter cooldown.  Sorely needed since I always felt like I'm waiting on this skill.

4) Death Council Upgrade Cache - unlocks upgrades to grants 25 more shields to supplicants to make them beefier, and the slayer ability to avoid damage for 2 seconds after taking a hit.  Both are made to make your standing army last longer.

5) Empower Me: explained earlier, but it's a new ability for Alarak, giving him a lot of power (and I mean a lot in the later game if you build up your numbers).

6) Robotics Bay Upgrade Cache: unlocks the upgrade to the Vanguard's splash area and the Wrathwalker attack speed.  Both are useful, the latter even more so.  Your anti-air is somewhat limited, and they provide hard-hitting damage against heavy air units.

7) Lightning Surge: basically, when you sacrifice a supplicant, Alarak's next deadly charge is buffed up to do AoE to 4 targets near your primary target.  It's amazing once the other upgrade is unlocked for him at level 15.

8) New Unit: Ascendant: Powerful caster.  Explained earlier.  Strangely I find myself more mineral starved than gas starved, so you should be able to fit some of these in your forces.  They do have a normal attack as well, but it does not target air units.

9) Havoc Upgrade Cache: unlocks upgrades at the cybernetics core, one for increasing the target lock damage and increased range of force field and squad sight.  I don't use FF that much, but the buff to the other skills are welcomed.

10) Summon Death Fleet: summons a Mothership and a squad of Destroyers (Tal'Darim void rays) to a targeted location with timed life.  Perfect for adding additional punch to an attack or for emergency defense.  And they all can attack air targets.  The Mothership can use recall to port itself and nearby units to a targeted location.  Also gets another ability later.  Destroyers are similar to the ones from the campaign with their evil chain lightning attack.

11) Overpowered:  just like what it says.  Using empower me makes Alarak do AoE with each attack.  Yeah.

12) Ascendant Upgrade Cache: unlocks upgrades to allow psionic orb to travel farther, and allow sacrifice to permanently buff your ascendant's shields and ability damage.  It also turns him into an archon (in looks only, but still cool).  If you like casters, you'll love this upgrade.  Psionic orb can mow through weak units ground and air alike.

13) Burning Skies: your summon death fleet will summon 4 more Destroyers.  Your Mothership also gains the thermal lance ability, which does damage across a line that originates from the Mothership itself.  It's called a Death Fleet, so it should bring forth death to your enemies.

14) Alarak Upgrade Cache: finally, more upgrades for him.  Unlocks the ability to stun with normal attacks (wow), and doubles the knockback from destruction wave.  I dunno about the latter since there are some cases where knocking your enemies around may screw up certain things like your ally calldown skills, but the former is very welcomed.  Though the knockback also works like a stun, as well as giving your army more distance between them (your Wrathwalkers in particular).

15) Wrath of the Highlord: reduces the cooldown of Alarak's deadly charge and destruction wave abilities when you sacrifice a supplicant. In game it says by 10 and 5 seconds respectively, which I think are almost their normal cooldowns.  That means you can spam these a lot whenever Alarak leads the charge.


Pointers
- Photon, I mean structure overcharge, can handle initial attack waves, sometimes by itself.  I'd suggest creating a hotkey for abilities like these, since by default the game does not do this.

- You'll be making quite a few suppliants.  Consider this in your build order; you don't need to mine gas that quickly.

- A simple go to army composition is Alarak + supplicants + wrathwalkers, with a few havoc sprinkled in there.  You might have to build some slayers to start if you desperately need more anti-air capabilities, but Alarak does have a ground-to-air attack, and can use destruction wave to attack air units.

- If you haven't noticed already, he does not have access to stargates.  You might want to rely a bit on your ally at first, then later have wrathwalkers or ascendants to help.

- Keep an extra eye on your supply.  Supplicants come in pairs, and cost 4 supply each time.  You may find yourself supply blocked faster than you expected.

- If Alarak dies, you can warp in supplicants near where he is reviving.  He will sacrifice them to gain health to revive faster.