Mutation Creation Contest Winner : Injustice League
Description: We are proud to present the winning entry of our first Mutation Creation contest, as designed and submitted by Saito. In this weekly challenge, vile replications of the Koprulu sector's greatest heroes inspire Amon's forces as they lay siege to Augustgrad. Do not back down in the face of their presence, and focus on saving the city.
Map: Rifts to Korhal
Mutations:
Heroes from the Storm [New!] Every attack wave will be led by a random Hero of increasing power. Each Objective point is also guarded by three random Heroes.
Inspiration [New!] Enemy Heroic units increase the attack speed and armor of all enemies within a small range.
Hardened Will [New!] Enemy Heroic units reduce all incoming damage to a maximum of 10 when any non-heroic enemy unit is near them.
Completely bonkers though. I am not even trying brutal, I can't even guarantee that I can pass hard in a systematic fashion with random teammates. The #1 lesson you should have is to clear all the normal units before attacking the heroes. This means "focus the air units", notably the overseers as they tend to get focused last which renders the heroes nigh invulnerable
By far, the death sentence has been given by the Karax + Nova pair with the 3rd wave. The fast nukes + static defense overwhelm you easily
I managed on the first try as Stukov(+Kerri). But I'd imagine it's quite easy to fail if ally can't hold their own, mine did well enough. That ultra/hydra/kerri army late game seemed quite unstoppable. But in general heroes appeared hard to take early game, but waves didn't seem too bad when you reached mid-game. Definitely get detection though, both Zeratul and Nova heroes surprised me few times.
I went 2 for 2 (once as stukov, once as artanis) pretty easily. Vorazun ally both times. I think the timestop and black hole just dominate this mutation.
I tried Alarak at first because I thought he could just mindblast the heroes but what ended up happening was Alarak taking extremely high damage and just burned through my supplicants and eventually my Ascendns. So anyone got any advice for him?
Eventually I switched to kerrigan and she felt much better with just hydras lings and ultras. Judging from the allies I played with stukov and vorazun is really good.
Yeah... this was insanely hard until my partner switched to Vorazun. Time stop + black hole seem like just about the only thing that can make the hero attack waves manageable in the late game.
I played as Alarak going standard ascendant/supplicant spam with havoc sentries for detecting Zeratul. Some key points: - Make sure to use deathfleet any time we were facing heroes and didn't have time stop. - There is a big red shield animation around the heroic units that have the damage reduction buff from nearby units... Do not waste mind blasts on them while you can see the buff on them (it will only deal 10 damage), but spam mind blast as fast as you can whenever you see one without it.
General things to know about the enemy heroes:
First wave is just Raynor... he just attacks and has a lot of health... easy
Second wave is Dahaka and Tychus, they also just attack and have a lot of health... easy
The third wave is where you have to be on point... this will be Nova and Karax... They will go to an expansion, not your front door and as soon as they get in sight of your nexus Nova will nuke it. Karax immediately builds cannons and kaydarin monoliths... these two can scale out of control fast... we found it best to meet them mid map and start using big cooldowns here to kill them before they got out of control. As Alarak I built 3 pylons at the intercept point so I could throw out all 3 of my photon overcharges on them while my Vorazun ally used black hole to CC them.
Fourth wave is Zeratul and Zagara. Zeratul is cloaked, teleports around a lot, and aggressively targets ground based detectors. Zagara uses her roach drop ability continuously while also summoning hydralisks like normal. She will scale out of control quickly if not dealt with fast similar to Karax.
Wave Five is the hardest combo... Artanis and Kerrigan.
Artanis is insane.... He has a constantly regenerating shield you have to burn through, does constant AoE damage, and when he dies he goes invulnerable for 5 seconds, then explodes like a nuke and revives to full health... This ability has a 1 minute cooldown so you have to kill him AGAIN before that resets.
Kerrigan seems straight forward but at one point she will use some ability from the WoL campaign where she summons a giant sphere of death that kills everything in it almost instantly... similar to Nova's nuke it seems like she will prioritize using this on your expansion/worker line if she sees it.
After wave 5, it cycles through the last 3 combos until you finish... Nova/Karax, Zeratul/Zagara, and Artanis/Kerrigan
Finished with a friend of mine around Gold level in Brutal difficulty, we did Zagara + Artanis, was insanely fun and difficult , holy crap @ Artanis and quick nova nuke.
Won the game at the end by ignoring defense and going full warp ins on the last 3 shards with scourge bombs (which survived thanks to guardian shell :D) Insanely fun and tight finish at the end. Great mutation but damn hard.
Did it with Vorazun and a good Raynor ally. We lost once to Kerrigan using Apocalypse (or how is it called..) which destoyed our army in a blink. Next time I just time stopped/black holed her to death.
This one was pretty fun I thought. Went into it the first time without really knowing what to expect and got my expo annihilated by nova and karax lol. beat it with raynor + alarak on my second try. Kerrigan tore the shit out of my bio but my alarak partner just spammed that aoe orb shit and built some buildings mid map to overcharge and we took it pretty easy
Having Vorazun sure helps a lot to control the wave with black holes and timestop. I went the immobilization wave dmg mastery to make sure Kerrigan killed most units so only a few were left to take down hardened will/old immortal shield from heroes. I think the hardest part is the early game where you don't have big armies yet to just overwhelm through sheer numbers once the enemy aoe abilities are down.
I'm wondering about the viability of a Raynor/Swann combo where Swann turtles while Raynor spams OC's, then you can perma-scan incoming waves while Swann drill-snipes the hereos.
On March 14 2017 20:23 Ganseng wrote: this one too hard for me just like the last one don't you feel they should downgrade the difficulty a little bit?
If easy is still too hard, then yes, they should make easy easier^^. Otherwise, I did this with a level 11 artanis to level him on hard with a very mediocre ally(less than one fourth of the units killed). Just focus the supporting units until the shieldbuff around the heros disappears and intercept the nova/karax combo early.
On March 14 2017 20:23 Ganseng wrote: this one too hard for me just like the last one don't you feel they should downgrade the difficulty a little bit?
If easy is still too hard, then yes, they should make easy easier^^. Otherwise, I did this with a level 11 artanis to level him on hard with a very mediocre ally(less than one fourth of the units killed). Just focus the supporting units until the shieldbuff around the heros disappears and intercept the nova/karax combo early.
well a brutal mission is trivial, and this mutation is almost impossible for me on brutal
it feels right to narrow the gap both by increasing the mission difficulty and by decreasing the mutation difficulty
I can see why they should increase the difficulty of brutal for vanilla co-op, but why should they decrease it for the mutation? If brutal is too hard, just play hard. You're not entitled to be able to finish every single mutation on brutal
Well, I think it's fair that mutations should be quite challenging for very good players too, in order to give them a reasonable fun. Others could just lower the difficult a notch or two, in case, since you have the whole range of difficulties for mutators too, as you have for plain coops.
For example, I'm just a simple gold/platinum player, and yet until today there were only 3 mutations I could not do on brutal, and had to do on hard (the previous "Grave Danger" being one of them). I won most mutators at first try, with a few requiring 2 or 3 at most. If a low level player like me can do that, I think the mutations are far from being too hard, actually... except for some specific ones ("Transmutation" being probably the most dangerous mutator seen so far).
I am high diamond/ low masters and I gave so far been able to finish all mutations on brutal. For most of them, I have done it with random partners, but a couple have required me to play with friends who I know are decent. Indeed, the most challenging part about mutations is that my ally usually don't contribute as much as I do (which can't be expected, since most players who play co-op are in the lower leagues). I would find it really disappointing if they made mutations easier to cater to weaker players who could just as easily play on hard
Well I'm a diamond player too and I'm perfectly able to do any mutation. It's the matter of tries and dependency on the partner
I don't believe it's fair to make an average player like me try 10 times to win - it's not fun. I'd say fun is to give your best and to win on 1st of 2nd try
Master level and higher players probably constitute less than 5% of the CoOp player base, why would you make the mutations fun only for this group?
If someone wants an insanely hard mutation there's the custom option to add several hard mutators at once
I did all the campaigns on brutal - why should mutators be any different? Just challenging like the harder missions seems fair to me
I'd also say the hardest missions in the campaigns where you had to either abuse a specific mechanic, or be a pro, or save&load tens of times were not fun either
I like the challenge and granted there are some mutations that is too hard for me to try in Brutal ( i am low Diamond player). I don't think they need to make the mutation easier given that each mutation challenge you can select casual, normal, hard...
The problem is random players who are in lower leagues are going for brutal when they do not have the skills for it. That's the biggest problem I've faced. Sure I can try brutal again and again but if my partner is not pulling his weight, no point.
How do we fix this? No idea. Maybe a co-op test to make sure you can try Brutal mutations? Probably too complicated for Blizzard to do that.
Keep brutal as brutal. It is fun to know that there some challenges that are too hard.
If the mutations are easier, many of us will complain that it is too easy (which we had done in the past).
Don't think anybody would be prepared for Nova+Karax on the first try, they raped my expo from out of nowhere. Second time I just said fuck it and went Vorazun, was ready for them this time
I question folks claiming to be diamond players struggling with brutal mutations. I was gold league... practically about to be demoted to silver when Co-op came out, and I haven't touched ladder since but I only struggle with the very hardest mutations like void rifts.
This week's mutator was a great spot difficulty wise... it wrecked my world the first few times but once we learned how to adjust to the mechanics and counter the unique challenges of this map we were able to beat it.
On March 15 2017 02:51 imJealous wrote: I question folks claiming to be diamond players struggling with brutal mutations. I was gold league... practically about to be demoted to silver when Co-op came out, and I haven't touched ladder since but I only struggle with the very hardest mutations like void rifts.
This week's mutator was a great spot difficulty wise... it wrecked my world the first few times but once we learned how to adjust to the mechanics and counter the unique challenges of this map we were able to beat it.
well you can find me on battlenet if you want
you're saying that you have an arranged partner. of course it's easier with an arranged partner after you've learned how to beat it. but with random partner it's often almost impossible to beat it after a reasonable number of tries, even if both players are decent
This is not even one of the hardest mutations. I have 50% winrate with random partners.
In my opinion weekly challenge on the hardest difficulty should be hard. You are not supposed to win it every time. You are supposed to win it 1 time.
I don't understand people who on one side don't want a challenge, and on other side can't stand there is a difficulty that can't beat. And getting a partner and preparing strategy? Herecy!
On March 15 2017 07:11 Tuczniak wrote: This is not even one of the hardest mutations. I have 50% winrate with random partners.
In my opinion weekly challenge on the hardest difficulty should be hard. You are not supposed to win it every time. You are supposed to win it 1 time.
I don't understand people who on one side don't want a challenge, and on other side can't stand there is a difficulty that can't beat. And getting a partner and preparing strategy? Herecy!
I am perfectly happy with brutal but I can understand people not wanna play on hard because it has lower game speed. Levling up a new commander is a pain in the ass because you have to start on hard or endure 90%just insta leaving because of your low level. Just increase the game speed on hard to make it the same as on brutal and imo it should be fine.
On March 15 2017 01:31 riotjune wrote: Don't think anybody would be prepared for Nova+Karax on the first try, they raped my expo from out of nowhere. Second time I just said fuck it and went Vorazun, was ready for them this time
Yeah, I have huge trouble believing that people could make it on their first try. This wave and the insta-kill spells of Artanis/Kerrigan are game ending if you don't know them.
I am also a lazy gold/plat level player who mostly A-moves to attack. I have also beaten all but 2-3 missions on brutal. I don't think making it easier is the right move. I think if they change the game speed on hard mode, more people are likely to play it. The best way to avoid random partners is to befriend those who you think/know are good players and team up with them each week.
Having a 'test' to see if a player is capable of beating brutal or not is probably a bad idea, but having a commander requirement might be okay. I don't like playing the mutations with sub-10 commanders on brutal just because it feels like a handicap from the start.
On March 15 2017 13:13 29 fps wrote: I don't like playing the mutations with sub-10 commanders on brutal just because it feels like a handicap from the start.
I'm the same way, I only started playing Mutations maybe ~15 or 20 weeks ago and have been able to beat all of them on brutal but this is one thing I don't really understand. I think I've only left one or two games before as I tend to give everybody a chance because you never know when you're playing with a smurf or some GM level player but nothing like loading into a mutation with a level 9 or 10 commander that doesn't even play their commander correctly.
That 3 gate zealot spam from Vorazun is really going to hold out against that temple mission just the other week. I can't recall him even getting any gas, he just spammed out so many un-upgraded zealots. Like...wtfmate, you trollin?
On March 15 2017 00:19 Ganseng wrote: Well I'm a diamond player too and I'm perfectly able to do any mutation. It's the matter of tries and dependency on the partner
I don't believe it's fair to make an average player like me try 10 times to win - it's not fun. I'd say fun is to give your best and to win on 1st of 2nd try
Master level and higher players probably constitute less than 5% of the CoOp player base, why would you make the mutations fun only for this group?
If someone wants an insanely hard mutation there's the custom option to add several hard mutators at once
I did all the campaigns on brutal - why should mutators be any different? Just challenging like the harder missions seems fair to me
I'd also say the hardest missions in the campaigns where you had to either abuse a specific mechanic, or be a pro, or save&load tens of times were not fun either
To me, the campaigns were a complete joke even on brutal. I'm usually pretty good at finding abusive strategies vs ai and to identify what compositions to go for (which doesn't help me at all when playing 1v1). If mutations were as easy as campaign missions I would never enjoy them. Trying to figure out the ideal composition and strategy to beat a mutation is what I enjoy the most- not random easy mutations you can beat with any commander and a-move. I still don't get why brutal mutations need to cater to players below diamond level. Just play hard, if brutal is too....brutal. No shame in reducing the difficulty and you can even get all achievements when playing hard mutations.
Finally did it on Brutal after ~20 tries with random allies of which ~90% had no idea how to deal with the heroes *at all* ~80% completely refused to coordinate anything ~70% wasted their armies trying to overrun a base with shards just before the next hero wave ~60% lost their entire army to Zeratul because they had no detection even after I warned them repeatedly ~50% refused to even talk to me besides "glhf" ~40% instantly left the game after building a thousand turrets at their expansion and having them nuked by Nova ~30% used their top panel abilities in the worst possible way, be it timing or placement ~20% never took their expansion ~10% did try hard but simply had not a high enough level of skill and/or mastery
That being said, the - by far - most entertaining Mutation so far. And quite challenging with random allies.
Strategy Hint for ppl who fail to do Brutal Difficulty so far: In all these tries I felt Artanis the most comfortable commander, he only needs a tanky ally who can place a real beefy bunch of units or towers in the middle. (Abathur, Swann, Karax for example - in case of mass towers don't forget to intercept and snipe Nova before she can nuke a whole screen of defense).
Two Gateways as Opening, spamming Zealots to hold off the first two Waves together with the ally. Even kill the first Shard just with Zealots + Ally. Meanwhile taking the expansion and Stargates/FleetBeacon. Just when the first Shard has fallen, set a blockade with all units in the middle just in front of the base with the two shards. Warp In Tempests and keep pushing that base. When heroes come, fall back a bit and intercept them together, use AoE Abilities to quickly bring down the non-hero units. Your ally should never waste any units to run into the NPC bases, just build an ever-increasing army of Tempests and do all the pushing with them (spam Disintegration). The ally just masses and masses units and defense in the middle and if he is maxed out, save resources to instantly rebuild any losses.
After killing the base with the 3 Shards, Artanis should have around 20 Tempests, at this time you can simply overrun the last base with both combined armies and ignore further hero waves, they won't kill your bases fast enough to prevent you from killing the 4 shards.
That way its quite doable if the ally is at least half competent in just building stuff, bringing detection and evading nukes.
Beat it last night on brutal after a handful of attempts. Tried it as Swann (lost but held on for ~10minutes), Tried it as Zagara and lost on karax/nova wave. Then did Vorazun, got an artanis ally and we won.
I had to take points out of my dark pylon range in favor of black hole duration and at that point it was not too hard at all. I just went mass DT, he went Mass Tempest with some dragoons thrown in early and we slowly pushed our way to victory. Artanis + Vorazun is awesome because it's like my dts have double lifes, die guardian shell, die warp back to base. Then usually by the time they "die" again guardian shell is back up, which then hopefully if they did again after that they just warp back to my base lol.
Plus Artanis putting his pylon field down wherever we are attacking to instantly reinforce more tempests & dts is so good.
Vorazun + any commander is quite easy. First time I thought Stukov is a good idea as his free units can overwhelm anything. It was fine until Kerrigan, who gets carapace for killing waves of my free infested. I have no way to kill her and my ally wasn't helping either. I was so fed up with incompetent allies so I did Vorazun on my second try, and I got a Karax ally. I basically blackhole every hero wave and he uses Adun abilities to blast the shit out of enemies in the black hole. That was actually the easiest mutation game I had for the last couple weeks.
I saw some ex pro gamers did it with Abathur and Zagara. Impressive! I wonder if I can do this with a decent ally. Link: