Predator

## Character Details

Predator is arguably one of the most powerful character in the entire game. Able to reduce damage taken from bosses to a meek 125 while dealing high armour piercing damage to nearby zerg enemies, predator is a force to be reckoned with.

Predator's only weakness is the lack of energy to constantly use his skills, such as his corona beams, his demoralize and his battlecry ability, arguably his strongest skill. However, this can be countered by the Absorption perk or Energy mastery.

## Active Skills

### Battlecry

Battlecry is one of the most important skills of predator. This skill, which can be autocasted, gives a percentage of health and shields to both predator and units around him. This new percentage of health and shields are considered an increase based on the maximum health and shields that the unit currently has, and is able to heal units to full health provided that they stay in predator's range.

### Corona

Corona is another of predator's top skills. This skill, when activated, releases a 4-10 beams (It is a set number and not randomised, but can be upgraded through talents or masteries up to 10) that deal 200 damage (300 damage if the player has researched weapons research mastery) to nearby zerg units, structures, bosses or debris. This damage ignores armour and thus is very strong against all units and structures in the game.

### Demoralize

Demoralize is a great skill that predator needs to have especially against bosses. This is because it reduces armor, attack speed, and can be upgraded to last forever. This helps a lot in clearing out large waves of zerg units or debuffing bosses.

### Phalanx

Phalanx is a strong skill that can be used in times of danger when predator is running out of health. This skill allows predator to gain health when zerg units or structures attack predator, converting 7% of the damage to health. This damage is calculated before damage block, thus it works very well with adaptive armor to help predator regain his health possibly up to full health. This skill is particularly useful against bosses.

### Blink

Blink is a skill that is only unlocked after learning blink mastery. Blink allows the caster to teleport over a short distance. After getting multiple massacres, the range of the blink is increased and the cooldown as well as energy cost is reduced. This skill is very useful in getting the character out of danger or to better kite bosses and ultralisks.

### Tac Nuke Strike

This ability, universal across all heroes, gives the character the ability to call down a tactical nuke strike at the target location after 20 seconds. Nuke damage, radius, cost, time to make and cast range can be upgraded by certain nuke talents and the nuke mastery. Nukes are very good at clearing buildings without getting close to them, thus causing no damage to be taken by the character at all. However, nukes take some time to build (6-60 seconds) and can be very costly in harder difficulties, although that can be reduced drastically by certain talents and a pyro mastery. Note: The picture shows two nukes available. Each player enters the game with a maximum of 1 nuke, but can increase the count to 2 by learning a talent. (Or mastery in pyro's case)

## Passive Skills

### Retribution Field

Retribution field is a passive skill that gives predator a chance to release a ring of damage around him when he attacks. The pulse or ring of damage is very effective against light units, thus can be used to clear out waves relatively easily.

### Adaptive Armor

Adaptive armour gives extra armour when the character is hit, up to 15 times for 8 seconds. This is very useful when being surrounded by numerous units that deal very little damage by themselves but can deal high damage in packs, such as zerglings or banelings.

### Inspire

Inspire increases maximum life, life regeneration and attack speed of crap patrol units that are nearby the character. This increases the longer the unit stays in the character's vicinity. This is very useful when pushing into heavily defended areas such as the omegalisk lair. Certain units such as liberators can have the inspire aura too, inspiring crap patrol units even when the character is not around.

### Irradiate Aura

Irradiate aura is a very useful skill when pushing into heavily defended areas. It damages nearby enemy units and structures, and the damage increases the longer the unit or structure stays in the radius. The damage ramps up even faster when multiple irradiate auras are around, and this can help to kill bosses very easily.

## Masteries

### Energy Mastery

This mastery is very useful in conjunction with lightweight equipment mastery as lightweight equipment mastery will allow you to spam your skills, while energy mastery allows you to sustain the constant usage of corona and demoralize. In addition to increasing your energy regeneration and energy maximum, this mastery also improves the delay of shield regeneration.

### Lightweight Equipment Mastery

This mastery is almost always instantly picked up due to the usefullness early in the game. In exchange for 4000-5000 minerals, the cooldown of all active abilities are reduced. This allows predator to spam out corona and demoralize.

### Weapons Research Mastery

Researching this mastery is similar to the lightweight equipment mastery in the sense that it will cause predator to spend 5000 minerals over time. This increases the overall damage of corona and predator' auto attack, and increase the attack speed of his auto attack too. This is extremely useful compared to most of the other masteries early on in the game.

### Allrounder Mastery

This mastery is usually picked only when grinding rank points, as most players do not want to waste a mastery point on this mastery. However, when grinding rank points, games can be rather long. Thus, the extra 2 talents at the start and the extra 2 talent points every 45 minutes can help a lot. Also, energy maximum is increased, however it is rather small and energy mastery is a better bet.

### Iron Man Mastery

This protects the character's xp and gold hen he or she dies, making it a very good mastery for newer players who might die easily. However, predator is a very strong tank, and does not die very easily. Thus, this mastery is not very useful throughout the entire game for predators.

### Big Game Hunter Mastery

This mastery increases both auto attack and corona damage against massive units, such as ultralisks, queens and abberations. Also, extra xp is given after killing them. This is very useful because predator can learn more talents quickly after killing massive units. This also makes killing the ultralisks easier.

### Sun God Mastery

This mastery is very strong because it allows predator to release a corona beam randomly. Also, it increases corona beam count by 2 when the skill is activated. This mastery should be picked up early in the game because it is one of the masteries that provides the highest amount of damage early in the game.

### Adaptive Armor Mastery

This mastery is very strong because it increases the usefulness of adaptive armor. This also unlocks one of predator's most powerful mastery, which is the block mastery. Thus, this mastery should be learnt as soon as possible.