Description: Time is not on your side. Amon's forces are moving fast, and the battlefield is full of treacherous challenges to slow you down. You'll need to act with both speed and caution in order to win.
Mutations:
Time Warp: Enemy Time Warps are periodically deployed throughout the map.
Speed Freaks: Enemy units have double their normal movement speed.
Mag-nificent: Mag Mines are deployed throughout the map at the start of the mission.
I originally posted this in the "main" co-op thread, but since this one was made I edited it out of there and I'm pasting it here.
I tried the new (third) mutation this morning three times before going to work. I got my ass kicked the first two times but beat it on my third try. (It certainly didn't help that my allies were well below 15 on the first two.) First I tried with Kerrigan, my ally was Vorazun. It was terran air. Kerrigan already struggles with air as it is, so it certainly didn't help that a bunch of liberators and banshees were blowing up my base before I knew what was happening. (The speed upgrade adds more challenge than the other two mutations combined IMO, and I was really thrown back by it.) Then I tried Karax, with a level 5 Abathur who decided to challenge himself by only making roaches. It was protoss robotics. Again, we got wiped pretty hard. Since he didn't have an army at the beginning, and I was trying to go the cannon route for the first lock, it took us too long to get that lock. I also lost my miniature cannon walls a few too many times.
I won with Swann, and a good Zagara ally. Just got lots and lots of hercs with tanks & goliaths (and some SVs) and built towers at the three close locks. The tower health upgrade really helps them hold their own. I also got the laser drill upgrades quickly. The concentration beam maxed out on mastery points is godlike, I'd say even better than the nuke. Hercs are amazing for helping your slow army dodge mag mines, and they're also good for the regular reason they're good on lock & load. Plus, if you get a whole bunch of hercs, even if you fail to dodge some of the mines while you're picking up your army, everything that drops survives and you have more hercs to fill the gap, so at worst, they're still great for tanking the hit for your entire army if you can't avoid some mines last second. Sometimes, when you don't have vision of a lock the enemy is going after, it helps just to teleport one empty herc there so you can blow them up with your laser.
I can see how good Zagara is for this mission too, though, from seeing my ally. Her units are very dispensable. One of the big hurdles in this map is that you have to move extremely slowly, you can't just charge into anywhere new or your whole army will get blown up by mines. But Zagara can afford that, especially if her army is predominantly banelings and scourge, which will get blown up anyway.
I still can't wait to see what the temple mutation will be.
I had a pretty easy time with this as Zagara and Kerrigan. Zagara just doesn't give a shit about mines and Kerrigan herself can jump in to set mines off.
I tried Swann, but I was against Protoss ground. Super fast immortals are NOT fun for him.
It's challenging although little more on the annoying side, but still better than the last mutation. It's still not as good as the first mutation which was the most fun. I wouldn't mind special mode - 2x units as in brutal.
Done the first try as Artanis, with a compaion Zagara. Just built immortals with some charge zealots, with Zagara going ling/bane (very useful for triggering mines!) plus Scourge for anti-air.
Artanis' passive is wonderful against mines, game went smooth as ever.
On May 31 2016 14:16 fezvez wrote: That mission is pretty hard, which is everything I expected from Mutator missions
Thanks Blizz!
Let's hope that when everyone is 90, the missions won't be trivial again
It's a pretty fun one, I'll say. Though I still liked the first one the best out of the three so far, this one comes close. I do like this one far better than the last one (chains of ascension). At least this one doesn't become trivial once you pass the beginning hurdle... in fact it gets harder as it goes along. (Which is true for Lock & Load in general, but this one is on crack.) I still can't wait to see the mutator version of my favourite mission, the temple.
I have been playing more with Zagara. The mission is really easy with her, you can pretty much carry with her. (As long as they know to stand on the lock.) I also used Raynor. I get bio and vultures with him; vikings if they're air. It's good to have a bunch of vultures in your army with the two researches, so they can plant a ton of mines on the locks.
I still haven't tried it with Abathur, Artanis, or Vorazun.
Did they fix the "bug" that let you collect the bounty twice a week? I did it as soon as possible yesterday (was up 3-4 hours at most) and again right now, but sadly no huge chunk of XP
On June 01 2016 02:59 Nocci wrote: Did they fix the "bug" that let you collect the bounty twice a week? I did it as soon as possible yesterday (was up 3-4 hours at most) and again right now, but sadly no huge chunk of XP
Yeah, I went for it and it didn't take this time. Well, we can still run off laughing with our 8 free bounty points.
As Swann I just went thors and wraiths with a few science vessels, sacrificing individual cloaked wraiths to trigger mines before walking in the death ball. If we got over eager and triggered some mines, thors can rebuild themselves if they get blown up! Wraiths are shit in general, but at least they can get around the map relatively quickly and are great for triggering the mines. Was pretty easy with a Karax ally defending the points behind me.
As Abathur I had a bit harder time. At first I tried going mass mutas as it really is the most powerful composition and I thought it would be easy to dodge the mines with them, but if you slip up even once... Boom the whole cloud of 30-40 mutas and all the bio mass they are carrying is gone, and I have no gas left over to rebuild that kind of force quickly.
What I found worked better was just going for 10 or so mutas at a time and focusing on getting them stocked with as much biomass as possible while filling out the rest of my supply with disposable roaches. Even a few mutas will wreck the enemy armies without dying once they stock up on enough biomass... and if I did lose them, I had gas in the bank to replace them.
I think that is the bottom line key for success with this mutator: Have an army that you can afford to lose and quickly replace rather than a deathball and you'll be fine.
i played raynor, made 8 orbitals - and mined out both mine and my allies bases when the locks were at 80%. I lost so many marines to mines it was crazy, especially since i was taking the locks alone and my ally was just building turrets.
The last lock had to be taken with hyperion scvs and a desperation banshee calldown had to claim the 99% lock because there were no other units left on the map.
Looks like literally everyone is queing as Karax now claiming the "I'm only going to build defense" role hoping to get carried through this week's mutator :/
Been winning every game with Artanis. Put full points into the warp-in unit speed boost and 5-6 upgraded zealots can take out most attack waves by themselves. Just put observers at the closest three locks so you can warp in if you need to while the rest of your army takes the other locks.
Won first try with Artanis after reading this thread. Locks didn't even get to 70%. Had a good Zagara teammate, he was only level 12 but our comps worked together pretty well. We even had more than enough time to get the bonus objective but teammate didn't want to risk it. We faced Zerg Air AI. AI attacked with a mix of Lings/Banelings/Abominatons/Scourge. Btw 2x speed Scourge are basically impossible to kill a group of before they explode, making detection hard. I also made a single Stargate for Phoenix, which I used in groups of two to demine the whole map. I had 3 groups of them and waited till the death CD was done to use them again. We didn't lose any units to mines. Went with a relatively equal mix of Dragoons and Archons with Zealots as fodder. Although to be honest, I think it was Zagara who did most of the clearing, she is crazy good with Artanis support. We took the first lock quickly and reinforced it well (both ramps) so we wouldn't have to keep coming back to it. We didn't build anything at the other locks. Zagara left a couple units buried at the locks so I could drop a power grid and warp units whenever there was an attack. Could have finished a bit faster but I didn't react to an attack on the northeast lock and we had to retake it.
Overall a really fun mutation. It's all continious action with no lulls in the fighting. I feel like one misplay on this mutation can end up costing you the game since it can be harder to rebuild an army quickly. Artanis and Zagara definitely work together well and make this one easy.
As it turns out, the patch Blizzard pushed out to fix people beating Lock n' Load with Overlords in less than three minutes was only enough to push it back to four minutes with Artanis and Raynor. Found a video on the battlenet forums and decided to try it out.
I and a friend got the build down pretty well, consistently beating this mutation by 4:20. Linked video is the run we got the bonus too, but it's actually less efficient in terms of exp-to-time.
Build for Raynor: 12 Barracks 12 SCV 13 Orbital 13 Build one marine, rally to backside of left lock. 14 Build another marine, rally to far side of middle lock. 15 Supply Depot. 15 Marine rallied to right side of bottom lock. Depending on the AI race you'll want to build 2-3 more barracks; terran bunkers are a pain to take out, but spines are easy and cannons are in the middle. Once you've finished your barracks, just spam marines behind the last two locks until you've cleared out enough room to activate the lock without getting shot at. Be careful not to move too far and draw aggro from sitting enemies, as that will significantly impact your finishing time. Artanis should be using Orbital strike to help and warping in Zealots to tank. Personal best time is 3:57 against zerg.