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Um... I don't know what's all the fuss is about, especially that there have been 14 pages of explanations. My brutal walk over this mission was in two tries:
1 I ended up not even defending the archives.
2 after watching one of youtube vids, I used ONLY dark templars wall-off and carriers/void rays for killing lone overseers. Absolutely no ground armies. Absolutely not a one graviton beam. bah, not even single new phoenix warped in. I defended the archives and got to like 3300 - 3400 kills. Could of hold more if I'd try one more time.
I don't like to brag, so a little description:
1. Warp in dark shrine and start flyer upgrades, armor being more important.
2. Probes to gathering + 10 additional ones. (only ten sufficed the whole time)
3. 6-7 warp gates.
4. Wall of first exit with dt's on hold position. Center your whole army on the temple and forget about them.
At this point the first zerglings should attack.
5. Wall of next two exits with dts on hold positon.
6. Split your flying forces to two control groups and move ONLY with them.
7. After the first few zerg waves make two - three starports.
8. Don't engage with your flying forces nothing except few mutas/coruptors/broodlords from corners, later fly them over to kill ONLY the overseers, not attacking the whole armies. It doesn't matter if you'll lose one or two phoenixes. Positioning of the observers for that is important. I used two on every entrance and kept two at all times somewhere safe in case they get destroyed.
9. At the time when void rays enter, you should have enough recources to sorround the archives with 5-8 cannons for protection when the nyduses arise. Do that and start to train additional void rays as well as weapon and shield upgrades.
This is the longest part of the level where you just fly and protect your dark templar wall, and constantly warpin void rays and carriers when you got them. At this point you got so many minerals, you should cover the whole upper level with cannons.
10. Try to fly over and kill overseers until two of your dt walls fall, then forget about everything else and take your whole flyer army high gound and try to defend that. Mothership is very usefull for cloacking and splitting their army with vortex. Slowly back up where you got cannons left. When they get destroyed also, move your remaining forces up to defend only from air and wait for the inevitable.
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Since I got the achievements already and I don't need the research points for my current campaign, I want just to beat it on Brutal with no need to get the bonus objectives.
It looks to me that it will be easier to just defend the high ground and give up the entire low ground base. Until the Zerg killed the low ground base I should be able to wall myself in on high ground with DTs. Is there any advantage I overlooked or can I save some minerals with just defending the two high ground entrances so I can mass Carrier when I get them unlocked?
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United States22883 Posts
I spent a lot of time trying to do this with a legit ground army and it's ridiculous trying to defend the research with Collosi/Stalker/Zealot/Phoenix. I wasn't able to do it but I'd imagine it would take a huge phoenix/stalker count, as well as 8+ stable collosi. The Phoenixes control is really important.
Then I gave up and did it the easy way. Mass collosi/Phoenix until VRs are available, and then mass pump them.
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I managed to get the research and the extra 250 kills on brutal recently. I got a robo bay and extra forge immediately, and researched ground weapons, and armor and air attack continuously. When I was at +3 air I switched to armor, the same goes for shields. I got ~4 extra phoenix, and continuously pumped collosus out of 2 robos. There was some scattered gateway produciton in there as well, but largely they were inactive, especially once I got void rays. Its very important that you never lose a single collosus, phoenix deaths hurt too, but not as much. Once I got carriers i just swiched to pure carrier/collosus.
Defending the lower area is easier then letting them take it early, but when there is ~1 min left of the research goal it gets much much harder to defend down there.
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Why is it easier to defend the lower area for the first part? You have a larger area to cover.
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i walled of the 3 entrances as someone said with gateways and canons, produce collosus untill you can do void rayds, and void rays untill you can do carriers. research all the upgrades of course, the shield one will be the most important one so the wall off survives much better, it just seemed impossible untill in one try i just lost no units, and I didnt even notice the research timer untill It had already passed
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The easiest way seems to be to let the Zerg overrun the outer defense and to just build Immortals and rally them at the center around the archive. I did not really even need to pick up the hybrids. Later I massed Carriers but may be Void Rays are just as good.
The important part is to skip Colossi. Just keep your two initial Colossi and add Immortals only. You don't need Stalkers, Zealots, DTs or any other init. You don't need additional Phoenixes either (but Carrier or VR once you get access to them.) I managed to get just 46 kills short of the 750 achievement on Brutal because I got lazy after Artanis arrives (at about 2200 kills.)
Beside Pylons and Cannons I also did not build any other structures. The initial structures are 100% ok to get all upgrades and units in time.
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Using gateways to wall in the 3 outer enterences makes this fairly easy-mode
+ Show Spoiler +
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I used dark templars to block each entrance and used antiair to destroy the detectors.The thing is you never know when the detectors are coming so you have to save/load constantly and snipe them.They'll eventually break in , just block the two ramps with dt again and mass colossi , or anything really.The dt wall is op.
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United Arab Emirates333 Posts
one thing that REALLY REALLY helped is at the end when you have like 4k-5k minerals and 0 gas just mass towers at your base. By that point you should have amothership and whatever unit of choice you chose to mass(for me it was collosi and pheonix). It helped alot. Basically that ramp where your buildings are and the middle,,,from my nexus to said ramp was filled with cannons and my units were on that high ground between the two ramps.
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On October 19 2010 01:15 Kywalk wrote:
I used dark templars to block each entrance and used antiair to destroy the detectors.The thing is you never know when the detectors are coming so you have to save/load constantly and snipe them.They'll eventually break in , just block the two ramps with dt again and mass colossi , or anything really.The dt wall is op. I don't think that the DT wall is OP. You always need to look for detectors and you need to save the game alot. With Immortals you don't need to care about enemy detection. You don't need to lift the hybrids. You just need to A-move the group of Phoenixes to the Mutas and Broodlords.
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I just did this, as many have said Immortals are the key. I just build a 2nd forge, a 3rd Robo and a Robo Support Bay and started Pumping Immortals and Colossi.
In the first waves of hybrids you need to lift them with your free Phoenix because you have a small force by then. I got around 3400 kills with this, I tried the DT wall but it requires you to be super fast in killing the detectors.
I assume that if you take the Gold I would focus more on the Gas because I was always Vespene blocked.
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Anyone NOT suggesting Carriers is a fool. Carriers wreck face.
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for brutal, I made a mistake, and still got all the achievements, etc. Here's how I did it:
DT wall off (just survive till you can do this)
Then you can relax- the first overseer comes when the archive can fall*
* if you're replaying this mission, you can simply ignore defending the archive and fall back.
I then started massing phoenix when I could (~10? in the end), VR's when those were open, then carriers.
Then a mistake was made, and I lost everything but my nexus.
At this point, my fleet barely stayed under the mothership's cloak, so I had all of them hold position. I then used my phoenix to run around and snipe the overseers as they came. The ground units walked up to the mothership, went "oh... nothing to see here" and just sat there until they got killed. The air attacking units went for the mothership, but switched their targeting to the interceptors.
I could have kept this up until I ran out of minerals in all the patches, but I got bored, and ended it.
To surmise:
Fleet under the mothership.
Snipe the overseers.
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whoohoo 3 days work on that mission hard as hell. i think i was kind of lucky (got 2510 kills and the arhives.
I just made mass collossus all the time and 2 pheonixes 2 carriers and 2 voidrays and a lot of cannons, what a great feeling I got when the mothership came :D
p.s i didnt take the gold and was still maxed outfor a quiet of long time
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Collossus Death Ball+Phoenix+Void ray=winz. Usually do some gateway wall off as well with cannons behind.
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I made a crap ton of dark templar and void rays. Void rays were to kill overseers. To kill everything with the DTs you need to line them up shoulder to shoulder at the chokepoints. Start on one side and have that DT hug the wall. Then select the next DT and have him "follow" the first by right clicking on the first. Then have them both hold position. Continue making a line of dark templar until the entire bridge is blocked off. Make SURE not to let overseers get even remotely close to the line and you've basically got the mission in the bag. By lining up the DTs properly no zerglings can squeeze through.
I also built a ton of cannons on the high grounds and then blocked them off with 2 gateways and 2 pylons. I made sure to defend the cannons from broodlords. Also, in front of the Dark templar lines I made sure to have a bunch of dark templar (once i had it walled off) to just deal more damage.
MAKE SURE TO KILL OVERSEERS.
I killed it using this strategy on my first attempt on brutal.
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my friend Midian said he only made collossi and carrier on brutal and finished 500 over the requirement, me i struggled to even complete it on brutal using dt voidray ;p
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On July 28 2010 16:47 Meta wrote:
Clearly some people in this thread are bullshitting, this mission is tough.
First attempt i went pure cannons/colossus/void rays which got me up to 2290. Second attempt I tried doing the DT wall thing someone suggested, into immortal/archon/zealot late game, and it failed utterly, not even breaching 2000 kills. The problem with that strategy is that it takes 8-9 DTs to wall one side off, and then they just send overseers (the second post in this thread is wrong) so the wall dies. Waste of money.
I'm gonna try mass colossus with phoenix/void ray support though, seems legit.
With the extra phoenixes and void rays you can snipe the overseers easily. Just watch the minimap closely.
I did the DTwall to mass carriers and cannons, made it to 2700.
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First two tries on brutal I tried some cute tactics and failed completely. The third time I just massed colossi immortal (around 16 colossi and 8 immortals) and a few extra phoenixes (like 5). When I had a 200/200 army and started to get a lot of minerals I cannoned up the second level, ended up getting 3400 kills without too much effort. I did save like 20 times and loaded if I wasn't with my colossi at the correct entrance in time.
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EPT
