Description: Merely destroying a planet isn't enough for Amon. He has also imbued his forces with raw power, allowing them to wield incredible abilities against you. Even Amon's structures strike at you with conviction. Withstand the onslaught and save Veridia Prime.
Map: The Vermillion Problem
Mutations:
Power Overwhelming All enemy units have energy and use random abilities.
Long Range Enemy units & structures have increased weapon and vision range.
Photon Overload All enemy structures attack nearby hostile units.
Made it quite easily with Nova.. did not even microed much, and my Artanis ally was quite bad too (lost his army multiple times, and rarely fought together with me). Found myself against terrain air, and as usually the goliath's stunning shots are OP.
Enemy AoE was rampant, but with Ravens and after-fight healing from masteries, I lost just and handful of units through the match.
I think Nova's shotgun would also be nice against zerg in the early game (this mutation is hard with zerg: first mass zergling attacks mean a LOT of spells to handle).
Oh. I'd say it's easily the worst mutation for Nova yet. Enemy composition matters tons, and as there's many air-to-air units in enemy comps (nix/scourge/corruptor), those give Nova tons of trouble due to making the defensive drones/ravens quite useless. Also zerg compositions gotta be the worst for this - more enemies there are, more random abilities are thrown at you. Blackhole+aoe combination actually wrecks Nova about as hard as most other commanders.
From what I've seen, Zag/Kerri/Artanis may be strongest for this. Which is nice, not having SUPER Nova/Alarak friendly mutation for once. I beat it as Nova and Artanis, and had multiple fails with both Nova and (lev12) Alarak. If the enemy composition isn't ideal, it didn't seem soloable mission by Nova at least. Towards the end of the mission, there's 2 huge attack waves incoming every time there's no lava. If you have to deal with both, it's hard to actually push to new areas before new lava hits. And pushing yourself on top of the cliff to be surrounded by enemy can be suicidal too so you kinda want to take it slowly from the bottom.
Abathur seems good on this mutation. Toxic nests placements defending attacks, and the biomassed buffed units with swarm queens seem to shrug off all three mutation. Granted, AoE spells are annoying, but the health pool of his units and queen healing seem to survive most things thrown their way.
Karax with carriers was the easiest so far. Interceptors seemed to take the most heat out of mutators so carriers generally survived. I may have been lucky though as I got air terran which might be the easiest matchup. Ironic really, I make carriers but thinking libe/viking/goliath is the easiest setup But no unit walking below you probably helps so the mutators don't get to do too much.
Actually the other mutation on this same map with nukes also was very karax&carrier friendly. There's no big rush, and that's when carriers generally become the easiest armada to turn into unstoppable force. Artanis' top panel just isn't as reliable as Karax' for this.
did it with abathur and a nova partner vs some ling+air combo, did it with mostly brutaliskt and queens. I think the combo made it easy though.
Failed with swann+nova vs a terran mech combo. The buffed tanks outranged my tanks and I lost my army to vortex a few times (since the army is so clumped when dropped from hercs it was devastating )
Beat it with Alarak, but it was super annoying because my ascendants kept getting irradiated to death over and over again. Had to actually mass some wrathwalkers to finish it out just cause I couldn't keep more than 4 or 5 ascendants alive.
Nova: She's just so very stable. She can clear the first expansion with ease. Can instantly kill a lot of units with mines, snipe, and HSM. Defensive Drones are very good for tanking hits from buildings.
Alarak: Mass ascedents outrange every unit the enemy can offer. Has some trouble killing off buildings though, so you'll have to bring a probe around to make overcharged pylons. A floating Terran building also helps a lot.
Kerrigan: Kerrigan herself is the best hero to handle the early game as her jump ability hits buildings hard. Nydus worms are also very good here for transporting her army around. As always, she has a weakness to air especially when the enemy can use Psi Orbs and Psi Storm.
Karax: A very slow and steady commander. A mass carrier army will certainly finish the job eventually and he can kill off units with his Spear easily even when all his units are in a Black Hole. Also, great defensively since he can kill any attacking waves instantly.
Swann: War bots do a great job clearing the initial expansion. As with Karax, he's a bit slow in pushing bases and he ramps up even slower than Swann.
Vorazun: DTs + blink allow you to clear ground units without too many spells flying at you. Has some trouble with air as you have to rely on Corsairs + Black Hole all the time. She needs to push bases with the help of Time Stop as her units are very frail.
Abathur: Very slow in the early stage as he has a really hard time pushing the first expo with weak Roaches and no calldowns. Can do well later on, but you really need to rely on your ally in the early stages of the game.
Artanis: Similarly very slow in the early game when pushing the first expo. If your ally doesn't contribute much, you'll have to use up a Solar bombardment. Tempests are the best choice here generally, but you'll have very annoying PDDs to deal with.
Zagara: Same problem as always with Zagara. She does very well early on, but falters later on when the armies get too big.
Raynor: I had to mine out the entire map when I beat this mutation with Raynor using mass Bio and Mines. AoE and Black Hole just tear Raynor's units up.
Yeah I just played kerrigan vs. Protoss air. Partner was a Karax who didn't have a single unit he cannoned up the entrances to our base...and then the expos, failing to even stop any waves that were coming, and just built more cannons. No shield batteries or anything. Zero units 14 minutes in when I couldn't solo the mission and gave up. Lost rather horribly when my hydra's got black holed>storm twice while trying to clear a base. Kerrigan herself really can't do that much to air, even if she can deal with the photon overcharges better than almost any other commander.
I have to disagree quite heavily with many choices on that list. This is NOT Nova friendly mutation. Nova is OP usually, but is quite mortal on this. I have to imagine some of the choices are put like that due to playing commander once and getting lucky/unlucky comps. Because Arta#8, Zag#9, Nova #1 and Alarak#2 are about the opposite of truth imo.
Nova doesn't expand fast at all. She can usually have 4gas <5min, that's nowhere near truth on this. And just in general she just doesn't kill the buildings that fast at expansion. Marine+rauder drop, few snipes, attack drone, then shotgun mode to tank dmg. That does the job 2x slower than Zag does with just the hero. Zag on the other hand can do more economic opening as she doesn't need lings to kill rocks like usually. I didn't feel like Artanis' expansion was that slow either. Admittedly I cleared it with 3 tempests so obv it wasn't fast either, but by rushing them you can get them out quite fast, close to Nova speed. It really is Nova who suffers the most, as on free expansion maps she has one of the most economic ways to open, and here many commanders do it faster than her.
Nova doesn't have good ways to defend attack waves if she's supposed to push on objectives. So with bad allies she's constantly in trouble. Zag autocleans everything up, has "ulti" up for pushing between each lava wave, can even remax and continue attack during same lava break. While Zag doesn't have the strongest late game, it's enough to kill anything enemy throws at her on this. I felt like mass reaver/ground toss was kinda hard comp for Zag as both sides lost a lot every fight, but it still was very easy with instant remaxes. There's just nothing I'd put in favor of Nova>Zag here, this is absolutely made for Zag.
I'd also say Nova, like Alarak, just don't push thru areas fast at all. Both have issues due to low hp pool against aoe combos and have good chance in losing bunch of bio/adept/ascendants in single fights. Nova specially suffers vs. scourge zerg and phoenix/airtoss in having issues in keeping def drones and ravens alive.
And while Artanis may be slow, he doesn't lose anything during the game. I'm not saying Artanis is better than Karax, but Karax does rely on mastery levels to do efficient carriers, while Artanis can do tempest style even pre-15 to carry the mutation. But I guess balancing is based on all mastery90 options available.
IMO the losers of mutation are Nova, Alarak, Aba, Raynor. Winners Zag, Kerri at least. But I can't see justification for that Zag#9 as this is one of the most Zag friendly mutations ever. Despite only beating it once as her, I've seen ally Zags be the most beneficial allies too.
On November 30 2016 20:18 Ouga wrote: I have to disagree quite heavily with many choices on that list. This is NOT Nova friendly mutation. Nova is OP usually, but is quite mortal on this. I have to imagine some of the choices are put like that due to playing commander once and getting lucky/unlucky comps. Because Arta#8, Zag#9, Nova #1 and Alarak#2 are about the opposite of truth imo.
Going to refute each of the points on your list. First of all, I played each commander at least twice, playing Nova and Alarak four times each this mutation.
Nova doesn't expand fast at all. She can usually have 4gas <5min, that's nowhere near truth on this. And just in general she just doesn't kill the buildings that fast at expansion. Marine+rauder drop, few snipes, attack drone, then shotgun mode to tank dmg. That does the job 2x slower than Zag does with just the hero. Zag on the other hand can do more economic opening as she doesn't need lings to kill rocks like usually. I didn't feel like Artanis' expansion was that slow either. Admittedly I cleared it with 3 tempests so obv it wasn't fast either, but by rushing them you can get them out quite fast, close to Nova speed. It really is Nova who suffers the most, as on free expansion maps she has one of the most economic ways to open, and here many commanders do it faster than her.
The only commanders I'd consider who have trouble expanding on this mutation are Abathur, Artanis, and MAYBE Karax. The other commanders clear around the same speed. For this clear, I semi-rush Stim and clear the expo with 4 marines and 1 Raven.
I don't think Nova necessarily has one of the more economic ways to open on expo maps. I'd say she's behind Alarak, Zagara, and Raynor. Around the same as Vorazun, Artanis, Swann, Ahead of Kerrigan, Abathur. Karax is somewhere up there as well depending on which opening you want to do.
I also don't think she benefits the most from a free rock- expo either. I think Abathur, Karax, and Swann benefit the most from those since they have a bit of ramp up time and often slightly more difficulty pushing than some of the other commanders.
Nova doesn't have good ways to defend attack waves if she's supposed to push on objectives. So with bad allies she's constantly in trouble. Zag autocleans everything up, has "ulti" up for pushing between each lava wave, can even remax and continue attack during same lava break. While Zag doesn't have the strongest late game, it's enough to kill anything enemy throws at her on this. I felt like mass reaver/ground toss was kinda hard comp for Zag as both sides lost a lot every fight, but it still was very easy with instant remaxes. There's just nothing I'd put in favor of Nova>Zag here, this is absolutely made for Zag.
With my second set of Siege Tanks, I keep them in base and use them for mine duty. The mines alone are enough to clear any ground-based waves. Admittedly, she has a lot more difficulty defending air based wvaes.
With a bad ally, Zagara tends to run out of resources even faster, especially if she's attacking and defending on two fronts. Bile Launchers do help quite a bit though admittedly.
The other issue is that as the game drags on past the 30 minute mark, as it probably will if you have a bad ally, the enemy attacking waves get enormous. They're so big that a maxed Zagara army has some trouble killing them.
I also forgot to mention one of my biggest gripes with Zagara with regards to this mutation in the description. When I played with her, my Scourge kept getting owned by various spells, such as Psi Storm, Psi Orb, and Black Hole.
I'd also say Nova, like Alarak, just don't push thru areas fast at all. Both have issues due to low hp pool against aoe combos and have good chance in losing bunch of bio/adept/ascendants in single fights. Nova specially suffers vs. scourge zerg and phoenix/airtoss in having issues in keeping def drones and ravens alive.
I never lost huge chunks of my army in any of my Nova playthroughs, only stray marines here and there.
I also did face Scourge Zerg. They can be handled with pulling Ravens back + Defensive Drone. Also, Snipes in the late game. Scourge Zerg tends not to have any air units that can actually do much damage, so Mines will clear up the ground without the support of Ravens.
However, I did not face any airtoss. I think this is the strongest point in your argument as I do imagine she struggles a lot more when she can't rely on Mines as much on the ground beating everything easily. I'll queue up a few more as Nova and try to hit air-toss.
And while Artanis may be slow, he doesn't lose anything during the game. I'm not saying Artanis is better than Karax, but Karax does rely on mastery levels to do efficient carriers, while Artanis can do tempest style even pre-15 to carry the mutation. But I guess balancing is based on all mastery90 options available.
All the rankings are made with the assumption of level 90 Mastery and pretty high leveled player playing the commanders.
Karax has a huge leg up on Artanis since he can easily both push and defend all the bases easily at the same time. If this mission weren't timed, I'd be most confident with using Karax to beat it.
IMO the losers of mutation are Nova, Alarak, Aba, Raynor. Winners Zag, Kerri at least. But I can't see justification for that Zag#9 as this is one of the most Zag friendly mutations ever. Despite only beating it once as her, I've seen ally Zags be the most beneficial allies too.
I don't think you've sufficiently convinced me here, but I'll keep playing a bit and report back my results.
http://i.imgur.com/uO8Kqpc.png from one of the earlier mutations, I'd say Nova is top tier at regular rock expanding. For sure no others than Vora can have full 4gas mining <5min, I think those rauders finish the job fast enough to allow 4th gas to be finished pre5. Fine, not others need all that gas, but Nova does! At least I felt like I couldn't afford even marine/ghost/raven army properly until later in the mission. I just think she suffers more from the spells like vessels' irradiate than any other (except probably Ray). Not from it alone, but during blackhole combos they seemed to kill marines constantly, even ghosts sometimes.
I don't think I faced full "airtoss" either, maybe it can't even happen on this (?). I think there's more strict unit comps on this, I just remember losing some ravens to phoenix+something comps. Scourges were def worse though. What would defense drones do when they get 1 shot by 10+ scourges coming at once :/ I know it's possible to keep ravens alive by keeping them further back but idk, never had luck keeping them alive full missions vs scourge comps. May be something I'd manage if focused on it, but I'm sure that "pretty high leveled player" doesn't generally do that well with that.
I don't remember what my ally did on my Zag game, but I do remember constantly losing 10 aberrations/lingmasses, but still finishing with 5k/3k in bank at the end of maybe ~27m game. I know, useless info, maybe my ally did something to help with that. But I personally felt Zag to have the easiest time carrying mid game due to how fast she has access to full saturation at the expansion. IMO a lot faster than the next fastest. But I don't think the own scourges dying is that common problem? Against what compositions, other than terran air, can't Zag do them alone? I guess I saw enough mutas once to realize they may overpower hydras.
Anyway good talk. I'll disagree with many things still but that's cool. Honestly I just wish the leaderboards would come, then can easily tell whose techniques are most effective hopefully As I *never* get someone better than me from random queue, it's probable I misplay few commanders composition wise still due to never seeing anything done better than what I do. For example I've never gone bio/mine as Ray, and I usually skip tanks as Nova due to their high gas cost at first (I know they balance themselves with mines later). But I usually beat mutation "only" like 7 times per week so usually skipping few commanders. Could be you know some things better!
On December 01 2016 01:01 Ouga wrote: http://i.imgur.com/uO8Kqpc.png from one of the earlier mutations, I'd say Nova is top tier at regular rock expanding. For sure no others than Vora can have full 4gas mining <5min, I think those rauders finish the job fast enough to allow 4th gas to be finished pre5. Fine, not others need all that gas, but Nova does! At least I felt like I couldn't afford even marine/ghost/raven army properly until later in the mission.
Alarak and Raynor are for sure top tier since Alarak kills the rocks at around 1:45 and Raynor doesn't need to kill rocks until 4:00, by which time he'll have 3OCs ready. Karax has the option to kill the rocks near the start of the game, but still needs cannons to kill the gas rocks. Vorazun instantly kills at 3:00. Zagara also kills rocks extremely fast, especially with the armor nerf and can get full saturation faster than anyone. That's already 5 commanders who rock expand better than Nova. In addition, Swann and Artanis clear the rocks at similar rates to Nova, but they don't reach full gas saturation as fast. Abathur and Kerrigan are probably at the bottom. So all in all, I'd say Nova is a solid 5th or 6th out of 10 in terms of rock expanding, definitely not top tier.
Marines are better now than maruders at clearing rocks after the rock armor nerf. I saw someone do a calculation on the bnet froums earlier. Also, she's not particularly vulnerable to irradiate at all in my experience, since she has so many healing options. Marines alone have stim heal, defensive drone heal, raven drone heal, and mastery heal.
In my experience, there are no locked unit combinations on any mission or mutation. In total, there are 13 possible unit combinations and five of them feature heavy air. This means that Zagara has an extremely hard time 5/13th of the time with Scourge dying. Here is a good guide on possible unit combinations: http://us.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/20749865078
Also, Tanks are by far Nova's best unit, even though she has so many good units.You're missing out a lot if you're not using them. I would rank them as one of the best/most imbalanced units in the game along with Vulture Mines, Vipers, Devourers, and Ascendents. You can use mines defensively as most people do or offensively, instantly killing any ground force, even more efficiently than Ascendents. On an average mission, I probably spend 90% of my time in tank mode and 10% of my time in siege mode as I use them more as mine layers than siege weapons.
Ghosts are good but not cost-efficient early on as they can't deal with hordes of units well and are situational depending on the enemy unit composition. I only add them in late game, because they're extremely supply-efficient.
I'd say that Nova (lvl 90 played well) is as strong as usual. You can't really a-move things and you have to be deliberate and precise in your control. Always use defensive drones when fighting buildings, don't rush in vs a big army, use blink and shotgun blast to consistently wipe out large forces with low HP, put ghosts on a separate hotkey and USE EMP! Can't stress enough the value of EMP since the spells are energy dependent.
My build is actually cc first (or rather cc after 2 gases) and keep building scvs. That way when you expand you immediatly have a fully saturated expansion. Sure you delay army, but Nova can carry early game. The only real drawback is that you delay cooldown for factory and starport units, but I have found it to be worth it so far.
Had one of the easiest times this morning with Kerrigan when the attack comp was Marine+Siege tank while I just went full ultras. One thing I noticed is Kerrigan got picked off relatively early (right before 3rd lava wave) when she got graviton beamed against the defending viking/lib/goliath. I thought graviton beam couldn't hit heroic units?
On December 01 2016 01:01 Ouga wrote: http://i.imgur.com/uO8Kqpc.png from one of the earlier mutations, I'd say Nova is top tier at regular rock expanding. For sure no others than Vora can have full 4gas mining <5min, I think those rauders finish the job fast enough to allow 4th gas to be finished pre5. Fine, not others need all that gas, but Nova does! At least I felt like I couldn't afford even marine/ghost/raven army properly until later in the mission.
Alarak and Raynor are for sure top tier since Alarak kills the rocks at around 1:45 and Raynor doesn't need to kill rocks until 4:00, by which time he'll have 3OCs ready. Karax has the option to kill the rocks near the start of the game, but still needs cannons to kill the gas rocks. Vorazun instantly kills at 3:00. Zagara also kills rocks extremely fast, especially with the armor nerf and can get full saturation faster than anyone. That's already 5 commanders who rock expand better than Nova. In addition, Swann and Artanis clear the rocks at similar rates to Nova, but they don't reach full gas saturation as fast. Abathur and Kerrigan are probably at the bottom. So all in all, I'd say Nova is a solid 5th or 6th out of 10 in terms of rock expanding, definitely not top tier.
The point of the picture was that CC was landed at 3:52 WITH 2gas opening, and without slowing fac/star too much either. All commanders have a bit different situation in what they give up for fastest expansion, but Nova's version is very balanced. The time when rocks are killed is not important at all? It's about when the expansion is completed at the rock spot what matters, and how fast you can reach max saturation. I can see Ray having mineral advantage, Zag getting max saturation faster, Vora getting nat gases slightly faster. None of them are truly ahead of Nova though imo when include the fact that Nova gets 4gases 2nd fastest, has expansion mining at nat faster than all of them. Will reach max saturation slower than Zag probably and Ray will balance plain mineral income to his favor. All in all everyone give up something though.
What makes Alarak top tier? Correct me if I'm wrong but his nexus still takes 100s to build? So he has slower gas mining at both main/nat and expansion is only finished at 3:30 or so. This does not make Alarak superior to Nova imo. Slightly better mineral income sure, but comparisons can't be made that simple when Nova is as gas intense as she is. I'm not going to claim who's #1 #2 #3 at expanding, but Nova's expanding plays so naturally to her strengths that it's fair to say she's up there.
I have used Nova's tanks, but only on defense mutations. Most of the mutations in Nova's lifespan have not had need for that - you generally start needing hybrid waves or strong ground armies (colossus etc) before Nova shotgun can't cut it anymore. Obv it's better to have tanks in 100pop, but I've favored going cheap units (rauder/goli) to max out rather than pay money anytime tanks kill units. So I favor them only when mutation is kinda hard and you actually lose units. Maybe this one is better to use them on though as I did lose marines often.