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A few days ago, there was a discussion on what are the mechanics when someone on brutal plays with someone on hard. It's an old post but that pretty much confirms what we thought. http://us.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/20748524965#post-5
Basically, waves aimed at brutal player will be brutal-sized while those aimed at hard player will be hard-sized. Stuffs that affect both players are of the lower difficulty.
Edit: And is cc-2 gas-rax-rines really the build after lvl 7? I did it once but I get the impression that if the attack wave comes earlier than usual, I'm pretty defenseless so I go for CC, rax, rines, 2 gas instead. If the attack wave comes earlier, stop constant scv production to get 600 mins for rines+100 for def drone.
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I've been going 2 gas - Rax - Rines - CC, it's probably inefficient in the fast expand department but it always gets me my marines for clearing the first wave since allies tend to be unreliable.
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I just don't feel like there is much need for a quick expansion as Nova, so I don't really worry about it any more. I go 2 gas, then rax, marines or marauders, then focus on filling out the tech tree and deciding what units/upgrades I want open with while being active with Nova and using her sabotage drone to start clearing enemies off the map. I usually have all 3 production facilities, an engineering bay, and an armory before I start my second CC.
Basically the way you would play on Rak'shir or Vermillion Problem where you can't fast expand... I play that way on every map with Nova.
I really think one base is all you need to max out her supply with the unit cooldowns... The second base just lets you focus on more high gas units and have spare minerals for air strikes.
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I never had problems with CC-2gass-rax. But I probably didn't play all maps with Nova and timings can be very different.
I think going eco is very important. I find myself often too starved to even use carpet bombing.
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I've played way too many games with Nova.
gas -> rax -> gas -> marauder -> CC is almost definitely the best start. The CC starts with the rocks broken at 3:23, then the gas rocks go down very quickly. Then rush an armory for Nova upgrades.
You can delay the CC to get a railgun to defend the first wave, but I usually just drop a defensive drone to help my ally with it, or let them beat on my buildings until Nova comes out.
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United States8476 Posts
On October 22 2016 04:43 APurpleCow wrote: I've played way too many games with Nova.
gas -> rax -> gas -> marauder -> CC is almost definitely the best start. The CC starts with the rocks broken at 3:23, then the gas rocks go down very quickly. Then rush an armory for Nova upgrades.
You can delay the CC to get a railgun to defend the first wave, but I usually just drop a defensive drone to help my ally with it, or let them beat on my buildings until Nova comes out.
I think your build does a good killing the rocks ASAP, but it's not necessarily and certainly not definitively the "best" build. You have to also account for numbers of SCVs, gas timings, and a variety of other stuff when talking about Nova builds. To be honest, I'm not even sure which rocks are better to kill first, but I'm leaning towards killing the gas rocks first now.
In addition, imo Marauders are inferior units to Marines in my opinion, because they're less versatile. That automatically brings Marauder openings down in my book.
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On October 22 2016 04:43 APurpleCow wrote: I've played way too many games with Nova.
gas -> rax -> gas -> marauder -> CC is almost definitely the best start. The CC starts with the rocks broken at 3:23, then the gas rocks go down very quickly. Then rush an armory for Nova upgrades.t. So I tried to compare CC first and yours (assuming 3:23 is right).
With this your CC finishes at 5:03. If I go CC first near rocks at 5:03 it's building 7th scv at the right place and rocks for gass are just broken. Yours have a benefit of having tiny bit faster gass at main and 1:07 faster at natural assuming you get refineries there asap.
So the difference is around 450 gass for you (and less cooldown on barrack units) and 1:20 faster full saturation on minerals for CC first, which I don't really know how much is it .
Personally I kill gass rocks first, but this is assuming killing main rocks first for both cases.
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Except for Rifts and Rakshir, I'm really liking 2xGas > CC > Rax > Tech Lab. The tech lab finishes just in time for me to see what units they're sending and decide what to call down. I slightly favor the marauders because they kill the rocks faster, but wait for triple tap ghosts if I can get away with it.
Ghosts/ravens are my backbone, liberators/marauders/hellbats to fill depending on the AI comp. The ravens are so insanely important that playing against viper/scourge is devastating. I'm really underwhelmed by most of her level upgrades; I think the #1 thing I want is my mastery points at 15 so I can get HP regen without ravens.
The expo feels absolutely necessary early on but later on I end up spamming static and sending SCVs to die so I can call down more units, not sure what the balance is there yet.
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I just gotta say that it's hard as shit to come back with Nova if your army gets wiped. Makes me think twice before i make some iffy gungho pushes.
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I've changed my starting build to 2gas -> CC -> marauder -> kill gas rocks first + use a Sabotage Drone on rocks.
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United States8476 Posts
On October 23 2016 00:41 APurpleCow wrote: I've changed my starting build to 2gas -> CC -> marauder -> kill gas rocks first + use a Sabotage Drone on rocks. =) I'm curious, what was your reasoning behind this change?
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What army comps do you guys tend to favor with Nova? Are there any units you think particularly suck or are better than the rest?
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So I've got nova with full achievements and at level 15, so my base comments on each unit
Barracks: Marines: Core of my army, good easy mineral dump and provides supplemental anti-air for the random mutalisk or w/e that is in the bases. Late game they're replaceable by more supply efficient units, but until you get to that point you want marines. Marauders: Solid anti-ground unit, provides good DPS and a little beef to protect your marines (Defensive drone only shields units that have taken damage, anything that gets one shot won't be shielded) Ghosts: Awesome awesome unit, triple tap + EMP make hybrids not a threat. How many you get is dependent on how good triple tap is against the rest of the enemy comp.
Factory Hellbats: Pretty underwhelming, they're useful if the enemy is heavy on ling/bling but I still see these as very expendable Goliath: Very strong on Void Launch and Void Shards due to their ability to stunlock mechanical air units (Main objective and bonus objective respectively), otherwise only get if the enemy is heavy on air otherwise. Actually makes Terran air (The liberator/banshee/raven) comp pretty manageable since your goliaths have comparable range to even libs. Siege Tank: MVP of defense (Temple/Trains), spider mines are great at cleaning up the random crap that spawns and with graduating range you can basically place them near the temple and they will be in range of any drops on that side of the temple. Otherwise suffer mobility issues that make them less favorable.
Starport Liberator: Very strong, but very gas heavy. I've been experimenting with them and while I like how much raw power they add I find that it really inhibits my other tech options, so I'm inclined to say that these are support units and you simply cannot rely heavily on them. Raven: #1 MVP, if you're making ravens on cooldown you're playing nova wrong. Gets absurdly powerful once you get the upgrade cache as being able to store 3 stacks of any of the abilities makes it so 3 ravens can hold off even a late game attack wave by themselves, or if you feel like it just throw down the railgun turrets to stall the attack wave for your griffin air strike Banshees: Pretty meh, I find them too micro intensive for what I'm getting out of them. Gas heavy, only hits ground, and requiring a lot of attention in already the most micro heavy commander makes me not a fan.
Overall comments: My general comp goes like this: Marines/Marauders/Ghosts/(Goliaths if I have them) on 1, Ravens on 2, and then supplemental units (Tanks, Libs) on 3. Nova I keep separate for her micro. Stick all 3 production units on one command card and use tab I've found it works just fine.
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On October 23 2016 01:06 monk wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2016 00:41 APurpleCow wrote: I've changed my starting build to 2gas -> CC -> marauder -> kill gas rocks first + use a Sabotage Drone on rocks. =) I'm curious, what was your reasoning behind this change?
After you brought up some other starts, I realized that there really isn't much of a benefit to getting the CC rocks down quickly without having the CC itself done. This build, compared to my previous, seems to just be strictly better.
On October 23 2016 03:47 Tachion wrote: What army comps do you guys tend to favor with Nova? Are there any units you think particularly suck or are better than the rest?
ChaosOS' evaluations are pretty close to what mine were when I first hit level 15 with Nova, but as I've played her more my army composition has changed. What we seem to agree on is this:
Marines, marauders are your mineral dump. Use them to fill up supply, then kill them off later.
Goliaths are great anti-air and should be maxed in most games.
I've found no use for hellbats.
Siege tanks are good, and on maps where there are predictable enemy ground waves you should be maxing siege tanks and spending all of your excess minerals on mines.
Where the disagreement comes in is on air units and Ghosts. I used to think Ghosts and Ravens were great and Liberators and Banshees were bad, but I've completely flipped on that. I never make Ravens anymore as I find they're redundant with Defensive Drones, mastery, and the other air units. I still think ghosts are alright and occasionally make them, but most of the time I'd rather have something else for the gas cost. Especially against comps like Terran mech, Protoss disruptor/reaver balls, or even just Vipers, you're gonna want to try going a more air-centric style.
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Finally got 15 and after a couple more games, the army HP regen mastery is amazing. I feel like I can live without ravens if I have to now instead of being an anchor against viper/scourge.
On October 23 2016 03:47 Tachion wrote: What army comps do you guys tend to favor with Nova? Are there any units you think particularly suck or are better than the rest?
Really underwhelmed by marines and hellbats except against ling/bane. Assault mode takes care of light units so easily there's almost no point in building a unit for that purpose. I haven't used or missed banshees.
Ghost/Raven is core, marauder vs P/T, marine vs lings (or to fill). I really like the goliaths, they're amazing against P/T/obj and do a job against Z (or at least shoot up while I'm building marauders against roach/ultra). Liberators if needed & won't get deleted by scourge but I'm not convinced they're worth the micro against a majority of comps. Tanks seem good but I don't use them much. Her army is slow enough as it is and if I could spare the micro I'd probably just use liberators.
e: disruptor/reaver is a good point though, you can't realistically snipe all of those before they do a ton of damage. lib/tank/banshee probably really strong there. I just use airstrikes liberally.
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At level 8 currently, so still a long way to go until max.
I don't really like to build that many barracks units aside from ghosts. Marines/marauders are good for early game, but I transition out to mech ASAP.
Tanks are super good. I'll build at least 4 unless it's heavy air. Being able to almost instantly put up a massive minefield is just super strong. Haven't had mobility issues since I got the griffin.
Goliaths are also ridiculous with the stun.
As for starport
Liberators are extremely strong vs. air, but they're somewhat fragile and super expensive. Tanks are a better option vs. ground units, so I would probably pass on building them in a lot of cases. Just not cost efficient, even if they are supply efficient.
Ravens on CD until you have probably 3-4. They give the army so much staying power and seeker spam is probably one of the best ways to deal with mass air units.
I think I've built like 2-3 sets of banshees, and I'm not really impressed. Tanks just add far more utility to an army with the spider mines.
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I've been playing at 15 for a few days now and I completely agree with everything you've said Amui.
At this point I've started to try to make exclusively tanks, ghosts, and ravens while mixing in goliaths if facing a terran or protoss air heavy composition such as mass tempest or mass liberators. If possible I even skip my first group of marines and wait for tanks to break my rocks. I can get them out at about the same time as nova spawns if I tech straight to them. This means I have to rely on my ally to stop the first wave unless it comes very late though so sometimes I end up calling in a squad of marines, marauders or hellbats to clean up that first attack.
I spend the excess minerals that I would have spent on bio units on more airstrikes and airlifts.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
I've played some games recently after a long break
Alarak seems fine, apart from ascendants with many sacrifice stacks. They should lower the cap to 8 or even 6. Maybe give minor buffs to other units to compensate (wraithwalker range from 9 to 10 like in the campaign would be nice)
Nova seems overpowered as hell. I'd love see all her units' hp cut by 50%, and cost and cooldowns decreased by ~30%
150 hp marines. Come on guys
I was never able to outkill a high mastery Nova ally, she seems more broken than Vorazun or Abathur with much biomass
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On October 29 2016 17:48 Ganseng wrote: I've played some games recently after a long break
Alarak seems fine, apart from ascendants with many sacrifice stacks. They should lower the cap to 8 or even 6. Maybe give minor buffs to other units to compensate (wraithwalker range from 9 to 10 like in the campaign would be nice)
Nova seems overpowered as hell. I'd love see all her units' hp cut by 50%, and cost and cooldowns decreased by ~30%
150 hp marines. Come on guys
I was never able to outkill a high mastery Nova ally, she seems more broken than Vorazun or Abathur with much biomass
The thing about it is that all commanders are way overpowered on standard brutal missions, but almost any commander can be best depending on the mutation. I'd say there's two tiers; the higher tier having Vorazun, Abathur, Alarak, Karax, and Nova. It's hard to choose between any of those.
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Personally I have never met Nova player on ladder that would come close to my kills. But meeting top tier players on random matchmaking is very unlikely. Those I consider very good I met only once or twice, so perhaps I don't see Nova at full potential.
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