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I'm flattered you think that's amazing. I've been yolo-dropping the shards for kicks since I figured out how good Hercs were, but only now have I gotten serious about doing it right.
Karax or Vorazun are definitely the best match-ups you can hope for. Karax just complements Swann so well with better AA turrets, energizers, and the reconstruction beam, but Dark Pylon on your defenses makes things almost trivial. Trying to win with other commanders is much tougher, though I think Kerrigan with Lurkers and Omega Worms to support could do well. It can be tough to turret up all the rift spawns if you let them get out of hand, but sending tank hit squads in Hercs to take them out works just as well. Maelstrom tanks only take 5 shots to put down a rift, and there's usually only one or two air units around that can be taken out by the drill easily (banshees won't cloak since you don't have AA in your drop). You'll definitely want to mix in some goliaths and/or thors for air waves. Remember that thors get 330mm cannons, not 250mm, so it's an AOE stun and damage. Of course, tanks already wreak everything on the ground, so 330mm's usefulness is debatable. When you're dropping the shards there's a few things to keep in mind. Ideally you want to wait until all three calldowns are ready, and use the nuke to clear out some space immediately. Once you drop, the Void Shards will launch their stun bombs at the majority of your tanks, so you should drop only a few to bait it out before picking them back up. You'll avoid a ton of damage this way. The best locations to drop where there are little defenses are directly behind the two shards next to the airspace gap, the very top of the map next to the top two of three shards, and the very right of the area with four shards. Putting your goliaths and SCVs in one or two Hercs and dropping them in front of your tanks works very well in my experience.
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I beat this one today on the second attempt after failing something like 15-20 times yesterday.
I beat it playing Raynor with a Karax ally. He defended the bases and I destroyed the rifts and the shards. I had tried this strat before, but the reason we won this time (and quite comfortably) was due to the fact that this ally let me take 3 bases and he stuck to just one, and he was great with his panal abilities to deal with big groups of enemies.
In my opinion Raynor is great at this if you can throw down 3 extra CCs for mules and pump infantry due to mobility and dps. The choke before the final shards can be a problem if there are tons of hurricanes. In any case kiting was needed to destroy the last settlement as the enemy was protoss and the reavers/colossus/disrupters/stormers can easily destroy infantry.
This was actually the most fun and challenging mutation to date for me. Does everyone here play this on Brutal difficulty?
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Wow, I love it. It's the first time I really can't carry on my own
I am 1-3 currently, with my only success being Raynor-Artanis. Raynor cleared the mini rifts while Artanis went for tempests and cleared the big-ass rifts (and not fighting the big things).
Artanis was also on top of spawning zealots at the right place if need be
@WillKongo : Yes, I believe the majority of posts are about Brutal difficulty.
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On June 08 2016 01:20 WillKongo wrote: This was actually the most fun and challenging mutation to date for me. Does everyone here play this on Brutal difficulty?
I agree, this is my favourite mutation. At least it's a tie between this and the first one. I feel like I'm following a TV series and I can't wait for the next episode every week. As to your question, I generally assume most people who describe this mutation, and their strategy, are playing brutal unless stated otherwise. To date, I haven't played a single mutation on anything but brutal, so I don't even know if the extra gimmicks vary in difficulty.
On June 08 2016 01:18 Xsyq wrote: I'm flattered you think that's amazing. I've been yolo-dropping the shards for kicks since I figured out how good Hercs were, but only now have I gotten serious about doing it right.
Karax or Vorazun are definitely the best match-ups you can hope for. Karax just complements Swann so well with better AA turrets, energizers, and the reconstruction beam, but Dark Pylon on your defenses makes things almost trivial. Trying to win with other commanders is much tougher, though I think Kerrigan with Lurkers and Omega Worms to support could do well. It can be tough to turret up all the rift spawns if you let them get out of hand, but sending tank hit squads in Hercs to take them out works just as well. Maelstrom tanks only take 5 shots to put down a rift, and there's usually only one or two air units around that can be taken out by the drill easily (banshees won't cloak since you don't have AA in your drop). You'll definitely want to mix in some goliaths and/or thors for air waves. Remember that thors get 330mm cannons, not 250mm, so it's an AOE stun and damage. Of course, tanks already wreak everything on the ground, so 330mm's usefulness is debatable. When you're dropping the shards there's a few things to keep in mind. Ideally you want to wait until all three calldowns are ready, and use the nuke to clear out some space immediately. Once you drop, the Void Shards will launch their stun bombs at the majority of your tanks, so you should drop only a few to bait it out before picking them back up. You'll avoid a ton of damage this way. The best locations to drop where there are little defenses are directly behind the two shards next to the airspace gap, the very top of the map next to the top two of three shards, and the very right of the area with four shards. Putting your goliaths and SCVs in one or two Hercs and dropping them in front of your tanks works very well in my experience.
I guess I must have gotten lucky with my allies. I did out-kill both of them, especially Karax (I covered about 1/3 of all the covered rifts that game, I'm guessing, plus did all the offense) but Vorazun had tremendously higher shard damage than I did. I also failed once this morning (first try with this strat) with a Zagara ally, but that's because both the first rifts spawned way out of our reach, and they both came in the front with the first wave, way too much for my perdition + blaster turret to deal with (and my ally didn't offer any help). Although in my experience, Zagara is amazing at the beginning of this mission. It's really easy for her to take out all the rifts herself for the first few attack waves. There's definitely a lot of luck factor in the rift spawns. For example, if one of the first ones spawn where you can build blaster turrets at your expo to take out both those and your rocks, it makes a tremendous difference in your favour.
I haven't used the hercs to jump straight on the shards; I've only done it for the rifts. I generally push in the shards from the front, but I use my panel abilities to clear the way. Also, warbots are amazing for taking out rifts early game. I usually have all my mastery points in the concentration beam, but for this I put them all in war bots.
I'm going to try Kerrigan a lot when I get home. My primary strat will be to fill my nydus canal with lurkers and drones, and just keep putting lurkers + spores at the rifts, while my main army consists of queens + BLs (or some variation, depending on the enemy). Kerrigan probably has the best early game in this mutation, hands down, purely because of Kerrigan herself.
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Kerrigan's strong early, true, but she doesn't come out in time for the first wave, so that can end you pretty quick if you aren't prepared.
Played a few games with Tuczniak, and as long as you're on top of the rift spawns you can make pretty much whatever you want and win. We did Tempest/Tank/Goliath, Tempest/Ling/Hydra/Ultra, Goliath/Void/Corsair, Goliath/Energizer/Cannons, and Goliath/Carrier. It really comes down to having a good partner and getting the most out of your early calldowns before things snowball out of control, otherwise you end up needing to turtle up hard and miss the shards.
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Just won my second game, this time using Swann with a random (but pretty good) Karax ally. We had three minutes left (but didn't go for bonus). Tank pushing with cannons littered behind is a pretty surefire way to win this one (and energizer support, of course). Swann's probably the best hero to carry with for this one, especially since scattered blaster turrets work well at killing shards.
I also think Artanis + Zagara/Raynor would work pretty well, with Zagara/Raynor taking on the role of rift-bitch and Artanis pushing forward.
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On June 08 2016 06:55 APurpleCow wrote: Just won my second game, this time using Swann with a random (but pretty good) Karax ally. We had three minutes left (but didn't go for bonus). Tank pushing with cannons littered behind is a pretty surefire way to win this one (and energizer support, of course). Swann's probably the best hero to carry with for this one, especially since scattered blaster turrets work well at killing shards.
I also think Artanis + Zagara/Raynor would work pretty well, with Zagara/Raynor taking on the role of rift-bitch and Artanis pushing forward.
Artanis + Zagara/Raynor ye when i'm showing people how to do it i use this combo. Most people actually beat it on the first try with this if you explain to them how to play it out. Its about as hard as dargleins multitasking trainer, so its not really that bad.
I guess maybe its worth explaining some of my thoughts. maybe that would be helpful. The first shard part you can sort of do at your own tempo, the first shard you can kill whenever you feel like. Usually like i wait until i kill both our rocks to kill it. then when the second set comes up, i usually either try to kill the far left side or far rright side of the second shards quickly and use those two lanes created to keep the spawners down. usually i use 3 control groups as zagara. i put like 1 as main army, and 2 and 3 as groups of lings to run around and kill the spawners as they come up. With the main group i usually defend pushes and then after defending each time i push with my ally. As raynor, i use the calldowns instead of clearing the area for the same purpose, and make a small group of vultures to clear the ones that i don't have calldowns for and can spare it. raynor is particularly nice because he gives vision. Once the main defenses are cleared each time one player returns to the center of the map to defend. it sort of alternates after killing the 3rd set of shards because the spawn rate of the spawners goes pretty quickyl. Then, you just have to push and kill them before time runs out. You can skill killing some of the pfs and stuff and focus them down. Just have to practice to figure out what you can skip. I haven't had much success yet with karax teammates actually. I don't really understand how he's supposed to win.
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a few combo that have won me games on Brutal : 1st Vorazun DT Sair + Swan Goli Ves mass army going around killing all as they spawn and kill bases with Time Stop 2nd: Artanis Zeal to Mass Tempest + Karax Offensive Cannons 3rd : Artanis Zeal to Mass Tempest + Swan Goli Ves 4rd Karax Cannon Carrier + Raynor Mass MM
Vorazun Dt Sair + Swan Goli Vessel is the ezest getting all obj with Attack move Artanis Tempest and Swan Goli requires good Spells timing and teamwork for all objectives
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You can win with whatever unit combo you want to use, as long as you can keep them alive to get the ball rolling. It's just that you have to work with your teammate a little on Rift killing duties and pushing, haven't been able to carry a terrible teammate to a win like I can in normal Brutal.
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Myself and a recurring random beat this today with Artanis and Vorazun. Vorazun went full DT spam to attack the shards while I used Artanis to warp in Zealots and Dragoons into defence points as required while roaming and smashing the rifts and using all my panel abilities off cooldown to slow the advance of the rifts.
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Did it with Vorazun and Zagara. Just spammed lings and scourges \o/
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Karax:
Observers (speed upgrade) + Orbital Strikes on rifts = easy going
With an ally that doesn't waste their army and simply pushes the shards when time is running low, it's actually not that difficult anymore.
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United States8476 Posts
Commander Tier List for this mission
These may change as I play more games.
- Swann: Turrets early on defend well. Hercs+Tanks lets you be mobile and kill stuff. The extra gas for your ally is extremely helpful. Also, with some vision help from your allies, you can use your drill to kill rifts.
- Vorazun: Standard OP Vorzaun stuff. Dark Pylons are more useful than normal though. Cosair/DT is the best unit composition.
- Karax: Cannon defense with energizers is very good here and if you cover all the area, the rifts will hardly ever spawn. Observers are also helpful with various allies and let you shoot rifts. He requires a good ally though and is not good at attacking into Shards.
- Artanis: Zealots clear out rifts early on. Mass Tempests is simply the best army you can get in the entire game for this mission. Observers are great to give vision to rifts as always. And Guardian Shell always helps.
- Kerrigan: Kerrigan kills rifts easily in the early game. Her creep gives good vision around the map. Omega Worms let you run around the map plus they're free 1000HP buildings that can tank various attacks. As always though, her late-game army is very mediocre.
- Raynor: Mech doesn't really work here; you have to go bio. Two tricks that you can use to help out are getting a few Vulture for mines and massing bunkers around the map with the Turret upgrade to kill rifts. You'll need at least 6 OCs for this strategy and you'll need to steal minerals from your allies' base. Overall though, Raynor can't really abuse anything special on this map unlike all the heroes higher on the list.
- Zagara: Can kill rifts early on, but so can many other commanders. Also notably doesn't have many abilities that help her ally. She's not great at constantly battling armies and can get whittled down. She also has a relatively weak maxed army.
- Abathur: Has a really hard time starting out and even getting one Brutalisk. His Toxic Nests are not very good here either as the Rift units trigger them, but they don't drop Biomass. He also has no abilities that can help snipe Rifts.
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For me, there are two very different strategies for this mutation :
- Straightforward, just kill everything. In this case, the tier list provided by monk seems fairly accurate. Just be on top of spawning rifts, make your deathball and win - One ally controls the center while the other one uses air units to kill the shards. It's important to skip most of the defenses. In this case, Raynor and Karax are particularly good at controlling the center, while Artanis (tempest) and Abathur (muta) can kill the shards from the side
I actually won more often with the second strategy (each time with less than 10 seconds remaining)
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I got this with a non random ally in a Raynor + Artanis Combo without the bonus. I was going 3 barracks CC and building some bunkers, turrets and 6 tanks for defense (two on every entrance). My ally was going immo/dragoons and some cannons at his expansion. This was enough to keep our bases secure while we roamed the map to kill spawns and the shards. After the second set i had a 200/200 2/2 army and was able to solo the third set. Then the only problem was the the ramp to the fourth set, but emergency shields + hyperion cleared that up. We lost our defense back home, but it hold long enough that we did not lose any production until the second to last shard was destroyed, after which it became irrelevant. But it took us a few tries to get the builds right.
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Karax Tip.
This mutation becomes easier when you completely wall off your main before the first wave and use the sides to exit. This means that I make 2 probes (one immediately and one when the forge is building) and stop making more to complete wall off before resuming the probe production. Yes, it sacrifices early economy but it is worth it. I make a wall with the following: 2 pylons, forge, gateway, 2 shield batteries, 2 canons. (First pylon at the back, another to complete the wall.) I add more canons gradually.
I also send a probe to the first rift spawns to kill them with adun fire. I can actually kill rift spawns by sending probes to get vision until I get observers. The trick is to immediately send probes before thay can spawn units. (Even if your probe dies when it reaches the rift, you can still kill the rifts with rapidly firing because if the timegap between the two shots is small, the first one gives vision for the next one. That is, as long as you get vision just enough to fire a single shot, you can keep firing as long as you do it really quickly.)
I make a pylon and 2 canons at the natural for destroying the rocks. I add a shield battery a bit later and it makes a useful defense.
It is very important to tell your ally your plan when the game starts so that he can build a strong economy without the burden of preparing for the initial attacks.
Essentially as Karax you are sacrificing your early economy so that your ally has a good economy and your main ramp is well-defended.
Any Karax army composition seems to work with this strategy.
Using this wall-off strategy I consistently (%80) beat this map with a friend of mine who has tried various heros successfully. The trick is to kill rifts just after they appear and to control the middle of the map.
By the way, a Raynor ally should make spare orbitals for scanning so that Karax can get vision of the distant rifts with scan and kill them using adun fire.
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Australia18228 Posts
On June 09 2016 17:55 monk wrote: Commander Tier List for this mission
These may change as I play more games.
[*]Raynor: Mech doesn't really work here; you have to go bio. Two tricks that you can use to help out are getting a few Vulture for mines and massing bunkers around the map with the Turret upgrade to kill rifts. You'll need at least 6 OCs for this strategy and you'll need to steal minerals from your allies' base. Overall though, Raynor can't really abuse anything special on this map unlike all the heroes higher on the list.
I think you're not abusing Raynor properly on this map. Hyperion + hyperjump can clear every single rift spawn.
I found this map to be pretty easy for Raynor. SCV repairing + bunker holds off everything early on and you can spam CCs early using Banshees/Hyperion to defend. After that, it's just mass bio and 1A while using Hyperion to clear out the spawns
Of course, this relies on Raynor being high enough level, not sure how good he'd be without the upgrades
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Made it with Kerrigan + Artanis, tried to shut down the rifts asap with kerrigan while going for hydras, artanis for archons. But we needed a few tries
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zagara+artanis, beat it on 1st try. basically just zagara building 9pool+gas then make 6 supply of lings to clear rock, at the same time build a baneling nest asap and let artanis keep chrono boost on it forever, artanis should also use 1 zealot roaming outside when 1st rift spawns so he can kill one of them with orbital. after that zagara just get 3-5 base and abuse lings + upgraded mass banelings + scourge(if needed) + zaraga abilities to rush everything. with guardian shield it shouldn't require much more micro than 1a while artanis clearing rifts with whatever unit he prefers
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On June 09 2016 06:06 Nocci wrote: Karax:
Observers (speed upgrade) + Orbital Strikes on rifts = easy going
With an ally that doesn't waste their army and simply pushes the shards when time is running low, it's actually not that difficult anymore.
Great tip! Definitely the highest winrate when playing with randoms that I have so far, by a huge margin. Just won with 4 minutes left with a Swann ally!
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