Predator

Role
 Req. Rank
 Active Skills

Predator is a powerful melee tank. The most notable talent is Adaptive Armor as it gives you an armor buff every time you are hit, stacking up to +15 Armor. Adaptive Armor can be further upgraded with talents like Ballistic Foam and combined with Block Mastery, allowing Predator to tank even bosses and Ultralisks. Combined with the Phalanx skill and the Irradiate talent, it can give you the power you need early game to survive and kill enemies just by staying close to them.

When playing Predator in a group you are responsible for protection of more squishy teammates. Positioning and timely switching aggro of enemies from teammates to you is crucial for success.

Predator has one of the highest aggro priorities in the game, only behind Odins and Captain Smoker. It means you have to be extra careful when dealing with powerful enemies as Extremely Big Guns won't save you.

If you can't directly tank an enemy or a group of enemies, you may often kite them in circles, while damaging enemies with Corona, Irradiate, help of Crap Patrol structures and units as well as teammates when playing in the group.

You may also kite them to Captain Smoker, who who will take over tanking duties from you. Especially after you pick up the Defense Damage Artifact. But be careful - even though he's very powerful and tanky, strong enemies like ultralisks, bosses and Hive guardians deal a lot of damage to him. So you can't just let him handle everything.

Predator has low point damage, but don't underestimate his area damage from Corona and Irradiate (especially with Toxic Waste perk). Good Predator's damage score can be easily comparable with most of other heroes.

## Masteries

### Sun God Mastery

Sun God Mastery increases Corona's damage by 50, its range from 6 to 8, its beam count by 1. It also causes Predator to passively fire a single Corona beam every 5 seconds. It's even more important early in the game as Predator does more damage AND it'll be able to see cloaked units like the ravager on hellwalker, the nemesis as well.

### Weapons Research Mastery

Each stack of Weapons Research Mastery increases the damage of Corona by 10, Retribution Field by 1, and basic attacks by 2, for a total of +100 Corona, +10 Retribution Field, and +20 basic attack damage.

### Lightweight Equipment Mastery

This mastery is important because it reduces the cooldown of Corona - it's also nice to have the other abilities' cooldown reduced.

### Big Game Hunter Mastery

Gives more damage to your Corona against Massive targets (40 per beam).

### Adaptive Armor Mastery

Adaptive Armor Mastery increases the duration of Adaptive Armor stacks from 8 seconds to 11, and causes each stack of Adaptive Armor to increase Predator's maximum hitpoints by 1%.

### Block Mastery

Block Mastery applies a passive buff causing all standard attacks to deal no more than 125 damage per hit. This gives Predator unique near-immunity to damage from bosses and Ultralisks. Block does not affect spell damage, however it does affect the attacks of the Hybrid General, allowing Predator to fight the General head-on even without the shields of an Odin. This mastery is very necessary to tank Nemesis on Hellwalker and Primals. The primals do LOTS of damage, with block mastery that damage is reduced. Very important to get when you go out alone deeper in zerg territory

### Nuke Mastery

Nuke Mastery increases the blast radius of Nukes from 8 to 11, gives them +600 damage against Heroic targets (including Hatcheries, Lairs, and Hives), and allows them to be fired anywhere on the map within vision. This is not always extremely useful as the increased blast radius can cause friendly fire problems, but with other Nuke talents it allows players to shred the final Hive cluster and cut off the flow of reinforcements heading across the bridge.

### Unstoppable Force Mastery

Unstoppable Force is Predator's Score Unlock Mastery. It increases Predator's energy regeneration, movement speed, Inspire's target count, and Corona's damage by 100, beam count, and structure damage. While it is not available in the early game when such enhancements would be most useful, it can provide useful additional pressure starting from Omegalisk area. Unstoppable force greatly reduces spell damage and make battlecry OP. It'll do wonders on the Elder Hive Guardians and with this ultimate mastery when you use demoralize and battlecry, the fellow players close to you and odins are buffed and nukes will hardly do damage anymore. Combined with Booming voice and oh boy, the area over which predator can buff is significantly increased. For example on Hellwalker, every third nukes will cause a nukeback. In a multi player game when predator has booming voice and unstoppable force, the nukebacks will hardly do damage and anvil can nuke freely. In addition, the fireballs from a ravager are laughable and so are those of brutas. The predator can just tank them with demoralize and battlecry on autocast. PLEASE make sure you've cat lightweight complete so it casts much more quick. Even if a player next to you take a fireball full on the head, no problem, he's buffed. :) Combined with Armor and Block mastery, a predator with battlecry and demoralize on autocast can simply tank a Yagdra and kill it.

## Talents

Vitality Kit MkI                - Grants a flat bonus to maximum life

Shield Kit                      - Grants a flat bonus to shields

Supercharge                    - Greatly improves energy max and energy regeneration

Learn Inspire                  - Allied forces fighting near you will become stronger the longer they fight at your side

Parity Checks                  - Periodically restore 10% of your shields, even if you took damage recently

Learn Corona                    - Unlock new core ability!

Learn Battlecry                - Unlock new core ability!

Learn Phalanx                  - Unlock new core ability!

Mud Stompers                    - Removes the movement speed penalty on creep

Learn Irradiate Aura            - Enemies around you will take every increasing damage

Imperial Funds                  - Periodically receive a large amount of minerals

Compound Plates                - Adaptive Armor grants you additional armor per stack. You can learn this ability 3 times

Nimble feet                    - Increases base movement speed

Learn Demoralize                - Unlock new core ability

Learn Retribution Field        - Auto-attacks have a chance to release a lightning field, damaging enermies around you

Medic Nanites                  - Heal slowly over time, even while in combat

Support Reactor                  - Improves all regeneration (shield regen - life regen - energy regen)

Midnight                        - Greatly reduces Corona cooldown and slightly increases Retribution proc chance

Ballistic Foam                  - Each stack of adaptive Armor grants a small bonus to life regeneration

Heavy Body Armor                - One-time big armor upgrade

Pro Life Kit Delta              - Increases shields, life and energy maximum

Adaptive Shields                - Adaptive Armor grants +1 shield armor per stack

Wolf Pack                      - Increases the effectiveness of Inspire and the base damage of Retribution

Scout                          - Grants a large bonus to vision range

Dusk Wings                      - An elite Banshee will periodically fight by your side

Sonic Reflection                - Demoralize reduces enemy armor

Improved Parity Checks          - Reduces the time between Parity Checks

Vitality Kit X                  - Increases maximum life by an absurd amount

Improved Silos                  - Reduces build time and mineral cost for nukes. You can learn this Talent 2 times

Attack Formations              - Inspired units deal significantly more damage with all attacks and abilities

Improved Shield Generators     - Heavy improvements on every aspect of your shields

Pro Life Kit Alpha              - Increase maximum life and life regeneration rate (life regen - life max)

Dawn Bringer                    - Increases the number of beams fired by Corona

S.H.A.R.D. Generator            - Chance to massacre to permanently increase shield armor

DSL Class Toxins                - Irradiate deals insane bonus vs Heroic

Demolition Expert              - Auto-attacks deal bonus damage vs Structures

Call in the fleet              - Reduces the time in between Battlecruiser deployment for all players and linked Talents

Field Medic                    - Greatly increase life regeneration

Vice Admiral - Grants a high chance to deploy two Battlecruisers instead of one

Phalanx(tm) Shield Regenerator - Greatly increases shield armor and boosts shield max to top (shield armor - shield max

Megaman                        - Increases the range or Inspire and Irradiate. Also improves Inpire's effectiveness slightly

Defending Roar                  - Improves Demoralize's spell-damage penalty and Demoralize lasts forever

Nemesis Module                  - Bonus energy and shield regeneration rate while on creep

Pro Lite Kite Beta              - Increase maximum life and reduces shield recharge delay (shield delay - life max)

Pro Life Kit Echelon            - Increases max life and shield regen and reduces shield regen delay (life max - shield regen - shield delay)

Mechanized Squad Support       - Heavy assault walkers will periodically be deployed at your base and attack the enemy

Dual Armor                      - Increase both armor and shield armor by a moderate amount

My life for Aiur!              - Grants a large bonus to shield armor and a small bonus to regular armor (shield armor - armor)

Vitality Kit III                - Grants a moderate flat life bonus (life max)

KBW Class Toxins                - Irradiate deals insane bonus damage vs Psionic

Nuclear Winter                  - Permanently reduces Nuke mineral cost after earning a Massacre Bonus

Aspect of the Cheetah          - Increases movement speed and sight radius. You can learn this Talent 3 times (movement speed - vision)

Surge                          - Grants a small boost to maximum life, maximum energy and energy regeneration (energy max - energy regen - life max)

Vitality Kite MKII              - Grants a large flat bonus to maximum life (life max)

Elite Support Drops            - Elite mercenary reinforcements will periodically drop near your location

Survival Kit                    - Increases life regen, shield regen and energy max (life regen - shield regen - energy max)

Weapons Cache                  - Anyone picking up Power Cubes permanently increases your auto-attack damage

Impenetrable Armor              - Wear the latest shit on the front lines and get a large boost to armor (armor)

Massive Blast                  - Nukes deal their full damage in the whole area

Radical Restructuring          - Nukes deal bonus damage vs Structures. You can learn this Talent 2 times

Boss Killer                    - Greatly increases auto-attack damage against bosses, hatcheries, lairs ans hives

Surgical Bombs                  - Partially refunds Nukes which deal a lot of damage and no friendly fire

Gladiator                      - Sometimes gain a small permanent bonus to life after earning a Massacre bonus (massacre - life max)

Endurance                      - Life and shield regenerate at a much higher rate (life regen - shield regen)

Battle Hardened                - Large bonus to maximum health and shield for you and your summoned units (life max - shield max)

Unity                          - Grants a percentage bonus to life and shields for all friendly players (CP upgrade - life max)

Emergency Kit                  - When health drops low, immediately restore a large portion, 60 seconds cooldown

Moxie Cache                    - Anyone picking up Power Cubes permanently increases your shield armor and energy maximum (Power Cube - Shield armor - energy max)

Power Crystals                  - Provides a large boost to energy regeneration (energy regen)

Bio Implants                    - Regenerate life much quicker at the cost of reduced max energy (life regen - energy max)

Widow Mines Drop                - Periodically drops 5 Widow Mines which can be controlled by you for 10 minutes

Bolstering Shout                - Increases the life bonus of Battlecry

Booster Cache                  - Anyone picking up Power Cubes permanently increases your life maximum (Power Cube - life max)

Highpower Capacitors        - Grants a large bonus to energy regen and shield maximum (energy regen - shield max)

Aspect of  the Bear            - Increases maximum life and Retribution deals bonus damage vs heroic enemies (life max - weapon)

Aftermath                      - Massacre bonuses restore a percentage of your energy scaling with kills

Survivor                        - Massacre bonuses have a chance to permanently increase life regeneration

Electrostatic Fallout          - Nukes deal bonus damage vs Psionic and Heroic

Infantry Support Drops        - Infantry reinforcements will periodically drops near your location

Heightened Senses              - Battlecry increases spell-damage

Support Drop Auto-Turret      - Periodically call down an Auto-Turret near your location

Field Research                  - Massacre has chance to permanently increase energy regen and energy max (massacre - energy max - energy regen)

Weapons of Mass Destruction    - You have up to 2 nukes stored and reduces nuke mineral cost

Reinforced Exoskeleton         - Greatly improves life and armor by a flat amount (armor - life max)

Modular Shields                - Sometimes gain a permanent bonus to shields after earning a Massacre Bonus (massacre - shield max)

Rainmaker                      - Launching a nuke has a chance to deploy Battlecruiser support

Fried Zergling                  - Retribution deals insane bonus damage vs light enemies

## Significant Talents and Explanation

***Compound plates*** are very important for the predator. You can learn compound plates 3 times. With only one time compound plates you remain somewhat squishy. So you need to have this talent at least twice to be able to sustain more damage. I quote: "Adaptive Armor grants you additional armor per stack". The question that remains are these: 1) how much additional armor per stack? 2) how much is a stack? Without these answers it remains very vague. The other very important talent I always want it ***Adaptive Shields***, it states: "Adaptive Armor grants +1 shield armor per stack". Question again: how much is a stack? ***Ballistic Foam*** is another notable one: "Each stack of adaptive Armor grants a small bonus to life regeneration". Question: how much is a stack of adaptive armor?

The questions are addressed below in an answer from Thenarden:

Adaptive armor is a buff that can stack on the hero, meaning multiple "versions" or instances of the buff at the same time. And each of these instances keeps its own duration (8 sec). This means that the first time your hero gets hit, he gets the buff with 8 second duration (1st stack). After this 8 seconds, the buff would disappear. BUT: If you get hit again in this time, a counter is increased (now 2 stacks). 8 secs after the first hit, the counter is decreased. And 8 seconds after the second hit, the buff is removed.

The default maximum stack count for adaptive armor is 15 (and I don't know wether that is changed somewhere somehow)

So if you get hit 15x in a period of 8secs, you have 15 stacks of adaptive armor. Same rules from above applying; 8sec after first hit, the counter is decreased.(edited)

So much for how stacks work. Each instance of the buff has certain effects. The base (not upgraded by talents) effect is a Life Armor Bonus of 1. So each time you get hit, you have 1 bonus armor for 8 seconds, up to 15 bonus. Each ***Compound plates*** talent you learn increases this bonus by 1. So with 1x Compound plates, you get +2 bonus armor per buff instance (=stack) up to +30 bonus, with 2x Compound plates you get +3 up to +45 and so on. ***Adaptive Shields*** grants a similar bonus on shield armor. So again, each buff instance gives +1 shield armor, up to +15 and with ***Ballistic Foam***, you get a life regeneration bonus per talent and buff instance on your hero (can't give exact value, since I don't know how "Vial Regeneration Bonus Scaled" actually works).