While I agree that Artanis is the best for this, I find Swann to be the most fun. Mass tanks and goliaths carried by hercs, with science vessels to peek forward. Placing tanks down once allows you to clear mines out way ahead, with SVs guiding them. Then you just pick them up and put them down more forward. It can get a bit tedious, but you can do it in very large steps thanks to tank range. Also, since your whole army is mobile by air, you can drop into the second pirate's base without having to go through all that long annoying path. Your SVs + laser will clear a landing spot for you if there are mines.
Played a couple more times and I think Swann is probably the best at this one. Karax is good as well but it's a cakewalk for Swann. Protoss and Zerg AI was extremely easy, only Terran AI with Siege tanks and BCs are annoying since they get the first shots off from range but defense matrix mitigates that easily.
Xsyq and I tried twice and on our second time speedran it at 15:47. Our first run was 17:10 with Artanis/Karax, but we found that Carriers had a hard time reinforcing the front line. Swann, on the other hand, can reinforce easily with Hercs and provides Artanis with more Tempests. Looking forward to try it again as we both obviously made mistakes in our first run with the combo.
On July 20 2016 04:07 tokinho wrote: Ye seemed easy, i ran it with abathur+Zagara in 15:10
Cool, can you describe your strategy? I would have never though to use that particular combo. And how much improvement do you think you could get in your run? For instance, I'd estimate that Artanis/Swann could break 15:00.
On July 19 2016 00:04 Tuczniak wrote: Artanis can solo this mission with tempest. An ally died to first attack and still it was easy.
The interesting things I didn't know - overcharged can be only limited number of buildings - managing economy with artanis and vorazun probes is pain. Neither probes can give resources to others nexus and neither can mine from others assimilators. When Vora left it's better to kill all her probes and nexus if you want the gass.
This is not how it works IIRC - The reason u cant mine from vora's geysers is that they are automatic. But if vora leaves, u are better off only building her assimilators, since u get all the ressources anyway.
On July 20 2016 04:07 tokinho wrote: Ye seemed easy, i ran it with abathur+Zagara in 15:10
Did you go for the bonuses? I also wonder about your tactics.
We tried to optimize our pathing/builds a bit and after about 8 tries, our lowest time was 15:13. Protoss waves seem by far the easiest. For some reason, there always seems to be more widow mines with Terran waves. I'm confident we can get it down under 15:00 with some work. 14:30 would be a reach goal.
Things we optimized included:
Worker cuts: Swann should cut at around 34 workers, not sure about Artanis yet. We haven't decided whether cutting probes is best or dumping money into zealots after 10:00 is best.
Exact builds: Swann is a bit more complicated because of the speed building involved.
Chornoboost allocation: We switch chronoboost between the Drill, the Factory, and various upgrades.
Mastery allocation: We went back and forth between Swann's masteries.
Calldown allocation: This is something we can improve on too, but we're planning out where each of our calldowns go.
Mapping the path: We tried two different paths before concluding that the more straight-forward path is better than backdooring the shards.
Things to improve on:
Party leader: Important for Swann's drill angle.
Exact builds: Swann especially can always look for improvement.
Herc/Tank micro: Can always be improved, especially on the 2nd and 3rd set of shards.
Mine clearing: There's certain points where mine clearing can be improved on and save ~30 seconds.
Calldown allocation: Again, something to improve on.
Also, I really don't see how this is possible with Abathur/Zagara on brutal in 15:10.
Had a couple games where there were a few mines at expo, but what was crazy was my last game vs a terran AI. SO MANY MINES,had around 30+ mines littered between my base and expo, had to get units and clear it all before I could take down the rocks.
Not going for a SR, but I've been having fun with mass wraith/science vessels and ~8 tanks w 1 herc as Swann with success on brutal. Production being 1 factory and 3 starports and maxed armory, drill, starport tech reactor upgrades and maelstrom rounds.
Knowing the waves lets you plan turret choices and I get 2-4 goliaths if I know it's air before the above comp.
Never thought about it until reading monk's post, but Swann's drill angle really is important on this map for concentrated beam.
@monk Perhaps Artanis + Swan is the safest way to do it, but not the fastest? Zagara kills fast, the problem is just getting close to Shards.. If radom mine spawns and enemy composition aligns to be easiest to deal with, could there be some other commander combo capable of doing it significantly faster?
@MrTic That's a very big if. Even one widow mine shot can wipe out 20+ scourge. Besides, tanks actually bring down the shards faster because they do almost as much damage (90+ with maelstrom rounds vs 110+ for scourge) but don't suicide.
I think the fastest way would be Artanis + Swann where Artanis fast expands and Swann handles the initial two waves alone. Then there also needs to be no mines spawned near rocks for both commanders. AI needs to be air Toss or something. Do the first three objectives together and then Swann heads alone for the last set while Artanis quickly snipes the bonus from the side.
Just did this mutation twice on brutal last night. Was partnered with a Swann both times.
Swann + Zagara - Yeah, it's pretty tough with Zagara but ended up making about 5 hatcheries and spamming mainly ling/bling Just suicide in batches of 3 or 4 lings at a time to disable some of the mines if you want to. My partner swann ended up going sci vessel + wraith. It was close, we won with only like ~1 minute left but did get both objectives.
Swann + Artanis - Easy. He went Goliath + Sci vessel death ball, said he would handle the first two waves, I just went full economy and spamming tempest + observer and it wasn't even tough. He basically 1a'd his units to get the bonus objectives and I 1a'd my units to kill the shards.