StarCraft 2
- Thread starter Stosh
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Finished the campaign on Brutal. FO4 stole a bunch of my time so I somewhat doddled on the last few missions. Like I said previously it is really, really good. The only real problem is Void Rays are so good in mass that once you get them they trivialize the rest of the missions. I did get the achievement on the final mission to lose no nexuses; strategy in spoiler
Loadout: -20% warp-in time, Passive Gas, Passive heal, Chrono Surge, Lance, [Doesn't matter], That Giant Beam
Over-arching strategy: Void rays. Lots of void rays.
When you spawn keep making probes and keep your CB on your nexus. Since you have passive gas harvesting build assimilators on your 4 available geysers (you can still harvest gas at the nat without a nexus there)
First things first is a bit counter to the strategy: Build a Templar Archives and warp in 2x Dark Archons
When you have 400 minerals make a Nexus
You need to defend the three locations with your initial starting units (this isn't hard)
When you have 75 energy queue up +1/+1 on your Core for Air units and Chrono Surge the upgrade. Start +2 when that finishes
Around this time the first Golden Armada will spawn at the south. Use a Dark Archon to MC to Tempest. The units there can clean up everything but the Tempest. Make sure to kill the Prism as well.
Start 2 more Stargates
Another Golden Armada will spawn at the right. Use your Dark Archon to MC 2 of the 3 carriers.
Rally one Stargate to the left, one to the bottom, one to the right. Contiunously make 3x Void Rays (Chrono should now be on your Cybernetics Core and a Stargate)
All your Spear energy will go towards Lancing units because you'll be lacking proper forces to fight for a bit
Eventually you'll start floating money and put down a 4th and 5th Stargate. Rally these to the Keystone until one is built then rally them to that Void Ray. (Control group these)
At this point you'll be floating minerals and not enough gas to make more Gates. Now you start spamming cannons at all the bases.
With your control group of Void Rays these are your support units mainly in charge of responding to the Golden Armada attacks. For the most part you'll keep these inbetween the Dark Templar and Tal'Darim base. The Purifiers are pretty good once you give them a ton of Cannons since they build Colossus. So your Cannons + VR will gib the Ultras letting the Colossus take care of the lings. Without Cannons there they appear to be the weakest, though.
Get up to 200/200 on 48 probes and the rest Void Rays. Replace Void Rays as necessary but mostly make sure to just keep building cannons. Win.
Over-arching strategy: Void rays. Lots of void rays.
When you spawn keep making probes and keep your CB on your nexus. Since you have passive gas harvesting build assimilators on your 4 available geysers (you can still harvest gas at the nat without a nexus there)
First things first is a bit counter to the strategy: Build a Templar Archives and warp in 2x Dark Archons
When you have 400 minerals make a Nexus
You need to defend the three locations with your initial starting units (this isn't hard)
When you have 75 energy queue up +1/+1 on your Core for Air units and Chrono Surge the upgrade. Start +2 when that finishes
Around this time the first Golden Armada will spawn at the south. Use a Dark Archon to MC to Tempest. The units there can clean up everything but the Tempest. Make sure to kill the Prism as well.
Start 2 more Stargates
Another Golden Armada will spawn at the right. Use your Dark Archon to MC 2 of the 3 carriers.
Rally one Stargate to the left, one to the bottom, one to the right. Contiunously make 3x Void Rays (Chrono should now be on your Cybernetics Core and a Stargate)
All your Spear energy will go towards Lancing units because you'll be lacking proper forces to fight for a bit
Eventually you'll start floating money and put down a 4th and 5th Stargate. Rally these to the Keystone until one is built then rally them to that Void Ray. (Control group these)
At this point you'll be floating minerals and not enough gas to make more Gates. Now you start spamming cannons at all the bases.
With your control group of Void Rays these are your support units mainly in charge of responding to the Golden Armada attacks. For the most part you'll keep these inbetween the Dark Templar and Tal'Darim base. The Purifiers are pretty good once you give them a ton of Cannons since they build Colossus. So your Cannons + VR will gib the Ultras letting the Colossus take care of the lings. Without Cannons there they appear to be the weakest, though.
Get up to 200/200 on 48 probes and the rest Void Rays. Replace Void Rays as necessary but mostly make sure to just keep building cannons. Win.
There's an easier way to execute that strategy for those of us who are bad at managing a ton of stuff:
If you build a single Stargate near Kerax, it will benefit from his +1000% build speed. Combined with a quick +attack using chrono surge, you can get up to scale with voidrays so that they can kill off the golden armada alone without having to worry about any other tech, other Stargates, etc. and then eventually become your primary defense at all 3 entrances (throw in a carrier for additional repairs). Just need to over-defend the south to make sure Kerax doesn't get killed off (I think I walled him back w/ cannons).
Finished the campaign finally. (I'm slow, work interference, blahblah.)
I hate their dialogue at (a number of) times, to say nothing of the whole Primal Zerg arc in HotS, but if there was one thing I thought the writing did correctly, it was the closure at the end. Did not expect Raynor to get that ending at all. It actually felt like an ending, and certainly better than Mass Effect 3's was.
I'm sure they'll add some more free ones then offer pay2play missions as well
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Played through the campaign.
I don't know what is. Maybe it's that I don't plan on playing multiplayer much. Maybe that it's hard to establish empathy for Zerg or Protoss because they're distinctly nonhuman. Maybe it's because the story is abhorrently bad. New conversations, skip. New 'cutscene' that actually isn't a cutscene, skip.
I don't remember SC1, BW, or SC2:WoL story being anything remotely bad. I think it's because the stakes are more realistic and relatable. After WoL, SC2's story takes a turn quite similar to what Stargate did with the Ori. Just seems so silly and absurd.
And what a waste of John De Lancie. Why get A-list actors to voice such 2-dimensional cretins? Was Blizz Dev #957 not available that day?
The missions were fun enough. A shame none of it felt new. Maybe the genre is stretched to its absolute limit, but nothing felt like something they hadn't introduced in WoL or HoTS. Doesn't help that at least half the missions can be cheesed with Void Rays.
I don't remember SC1, BW, or SC2:WoL story being anything remotely bad. I think it's because the stakes are more realistic and relatable. After WoL, SC2's story takes a turn quite similar to what Stargate did with the Ori. Just seems so silly and absurd.
And what a waste of John De Lancie. Why get A-list actors to voice such 2-dimensional cretins? Was Blizz Dev #957 not available that day?
The missions were fun enough. A shame none of it felt new. Maybe the genre is stretched to its absolute limit, but nothing felt like something they hadn't introduced in WoL or HoTS. Doesn't help that at least half the missions can be cheesed with Void Rays.
I think "half" is a bit of an overstatement since I don't recall getting void rays until like 75% through the campaign. But like I said they do make the game pretty absurdly easy once you get them. I wish they added things in the campaign to discourage massing air like they have in multi player with Liberators and Parasitic Bomb.
Zaphid
Trakanon Raider
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I know he says he wants to be KT's coach but I'd be shocked if he doesn't at least cash in on Afreeca for like 6 months time
I think the prologue mission where you have to protect
may actually be one of the better multi-player trainer missions out there. It forces you to maintain production, send troops in various directions but most importantly you need to observe the minimap to use the map-specific mechanic or you'll just get crushed.
Not sure if there is an easy way to cheese it but I beat it fairly easy (all achievements on Brutal) by just going 4 fact (4 tech reactor) and making tanks when gas allowed and making hellions when gas didn't. I'd just use the map mechanic on things that tanks suck vs (Immortal, flying capital ships).
Kerrigan while becoming a XelNaga
Not sure if there is an easy way to cheese it but I beat it fairly easy (all achievements on Brutal) by just going 4 fact (4 tech reactor) and making tanks when gas allowed and making hellions when gas didn't. I'd just use the map mechanic on things that tanks suck vs (Immortal, flying capital ships).
Zaphid
Trakanon Raider
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Maybe his actual official contract isn't up until Jan? This way announcing it a month ahead of time makes it easier for him to transition out of the KT house.
Zaphid
Trakanon Raider
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Possibly.
In God's Hands: Flash Retires from Starcraft
Includes a list of his greatest BW and SC2 games, so I know what I'm watching for the next few days.
In God's Hands: Flash Retires from Starcraft
Includes a list of his greatest BW and SC2 games, so I know what I'm watching for the next few days.