I had done it by doing first a mix combo of zealots / colossus / phoenix then, on the second part of it, went for full carriers. Of course, max upgrade (2 cybernetic cores / 3 forges)

So, at the beginning, I was trying to rebuild as often as possible the towers on the edges of my base, was using the gravity spell from the phoenix / helping on mutas.

So I was not really able to get and keep the gold mine on the left .. heard that with full towers it was working but ...

YarNhoj

United States69 Posts

January 20 2011 23:05 GMT

#322

I've managed just north of 3400 kills on that mission (brutal difficulty) by building nothing but collosus, immortals, and cannons. Build one extra forge, one extra robo, and a robo support bay. Pump coll and imm in about a 2.5 to one ratio and get all your upgrades for both air and ground. Set your flying units to a hotkey and your ground units to a hotkey. Build cannons with your extra minerals and just walk around a kill stuff. Once you hit 3400 the game just sends every single unit it can render and kills you. You need to grav the reavers every once in a while otherwise you should be able to easily get all the achievements.

Mortal

2943 Posts

January 20 2011 23:58 GMT

#323

I've also found that double-robo colossus is a very efficient and fairly straightforward way to complete this. The only thing you're required to do is spam cannons when you're out of gas from colossus production, and keep your air active @ cutting down BL numbers, and that's *basically* it.

Having said that, if you want to make it even easier on yourself, graviton beaming the Reavers makes this exponentially more manageable, and can even give you a fighting chance to get all the achievements in one run on brutal. There are absolutely other ways of doing this, like massing VR's, Carriers, etc. The Colossus method just seemed the most intuitive and simple for me personally, but try a bunch of stuff out! If you prefer mobility and just hammering things everwhere and have decent multitasking, VR's might be the way to go. Colossus are just clunky and very passive, which I enjoyed.

It allowed me to catch up on Mythbusters while I was doing the mission

OneofDays

Canada58 Posts

January 28 2011 05:03 GMT

#324

I'm agree with everyone about the Collosus and Cannons. I think it's the most efficient and easiest way to beat this mission on Brutal. With proper cannons placement ( thanks save

), you can get up to 3400 kills + pretty easily .

D3ath3nat0r

United States163 Posts

January 28 2011 05:30 GMT

#325

mass pheonix to pick up those hybrid melee reaver things and mass collosi and photon cannons to soak damage

shoop

United Kingdom228 Posts

January 28 2011 11:13 GMT

#326

On January 28 2011 14:30 D3ath3nat0r wrote:pheonix

psuedovowels make my eyes water.

DarkCount

17 Posts

February 23 2011 23:11 GMT

#327

Hi any 1 got In Utter Darkness on brutal save with 2500 kills or smtg for newest patch (1.2.2)

Shiladie

Canada1631 Posts

February 23 2011 23:33 GMT

#328

On February 24 2011 08:11 DarkCount wrote:
Hi any 1 got In Utter Darkness on brutal save with 2500 kills or smtg for newest patch (1.2.2)

There shouldn't be any real change...

The reason people see this achiev as possibly so hard is that they lose all their ground units/buildings and fly around with air units trying to still fight. The problem here is that the type of spawning waves change once you have no more buildings left, so they include masses more white hybrids.

the best way to get the achiev is to mass void rays and the air upgrades, and then wall off all over with gateways and cannons. Remember the voidrays in the campaign are the oldschool voidrays still, so they rip everything apart with ease. Then it's just micro to lift white hybrids with the free phoenix you get and gg.

whiteLotus

1833 Posts

February 26 2011 22:01 GMT

#329

just beat it on Brutal got to 2600 kills, the main key in this mission is to max voids when u can, and some carriers. Thats all you need, of course few colosi to defend at the begining, but later when u can just start massing voids and mix some phoenixes

Tyrellius

36 Posts

February 27 2011 05:14 GMT

#330

On July 28 2010 12:59 RisingTide wrote:

Wait, does the high yield get attacked? I only noticed it on my last playthrough and decided "no, three placed to defend is enough"

The high yield does indeed get attacked, but it seems to split the force attacking from the west into two prongs, roughly half goes to each. A load of cannons to constrict movement and 2 or 3 colossi rock the HY, you'll have to rebuild the cannons quite a bit though.

Once the archives are saved, I abandon the lower area and place my entire defense on the northern most tip of the upper part. Loads of cannons everywhere with a mothership cloaking a huge army of colossi and either voidrays or carriers and you'll nail the achievement.

[F_]aths

Germany3947 Posts

February 28 2011 09:19 GMT

#331

On February 24 2011 08:11 DarkCount wrote:
Hi any 1 got In Utter Darkness on brutal save with 2500 kills or smtg for newest patch (1.2.2)

You can play it yourself if you build a ton of immortals and upgrade them. They blast away hybrids. Also build some phoenixes to fight his air. Later use either carriers or void rays if you want but you can play it on brutal with the achievement with essentially just immortals and phoenixes. You don't need to take the gold base.

For the start, save often and go with your main army (which should be reinforced by immortals) where the enemy attacks. You can build some cannons to dump your minerals. Use you phoenixes to snipe mutas and brood lords. In later stages you may be need two control groups of phoenixes to be able to respond in time. You can also use the save-and-look-where-he-spawnes-again trick.

Don't lift hybrids because the best counter is go kill them.

If you retreat on highground, build additional cannons. Once you get overrun, you probably still need 100-200 kills. Use cannons to snipe zerglings.

han.

United States51 Posts

March 13 2011 00:53 GMT

#332

I don't know what the rest of you guys are talking about but back when I did this (around when it was first released) most of the waves came with overseers so cloaking with mothership or using dark templars would get you nowhere.

That being said, I think the gold expansion is easily worth taking because if you watch the timing, you'll notice that the waves will never come in all at once, so if you have observers at the AI spawning area, you can see where the next wave is coming. Then it's just about moving to that side and killing asap before moving to the next wave. I used this strategy and got full upgrades on everything with the extra resources from the gold expansion. The extra gas is what's really helpful.

After that you can just spam colossi/immortals/phoenix and zealots/cannons with spare minerals and it should be pretty easy. I believe I had 10+ warpgates, 5 robos, and 5 stargates. I made it to 3500 kills with that strategy. I dont think the level is designed to be played much further than 3500 kills btw because from there on you get about ~100 hybrids every few minutes which is pretty much impossible with a food cap.

Happykola

United Kingdom62 Posts

March 13 2011 12:04 GMT

#333

not difficult, just take the expansion to the left immediately, wall it off and make collosi

DoubleReed

United States4130 Posts

March 13 2011 15:02 GMT

#334

Yea I tried DT walls, but 1 overseer always completely ruined my day. I just went Immortal/Colossus into Mass Void Ray or Carrier. Carriers seemed worse because you have the danger of running out of minerals for interceptors. People suggest Phoenix and I'm not sure why because the Phoenices I got in the mission seemed like enough.

I never was able to take the expansion though. They always killed it immediately...

Dfgj

Singapore5922 Posts

March 13 2011 15:44 GMT

#335

I never bothered with the expansion or making production facilities, just pump VR/Colo with a phoenix squad (10-12) and 3/3 upgrades, throw extra minerals to cannons.

Rylaji

Sweden580 Posts

March 22 2011 05:33 GMT

#336

Mass Carriers with some Phoenix worked for me

Whitewing

United States7483 Posts

March 22 2011 14:14 GMT

#337

I've done this with over 5k kills before. 2 robo colossus, fast 3/3/3 upgrades on your ground units, and cannons where appropriate. Be active with your phoenix to pick off brood lords and mutalisks, and to lift hybrids wherever and whenever possible. Hold your green forces back until later on, they don't take up or require supply so they'll allow your later game force to be much stronger. You don't want to lose any of those early on. Colossi are just absurdly strong here, against everything.

radscorpion9

Canada2252 Posts

March 22 2011 17:04 GMT

#338

Dark Templar walls do work, that's how I finished this mission at least.

Since the first attacks aren't that strong it should give you enough time to set up. Its also good because you don't need to take the extra gold base as others have talked about (because its hard to defend and stretches APM, making it more difficult for an average player). Of course later on they start bringing in overseers with each attack group - but all you really need to do is start massing pheonixes and pick them off. Then the rest of the forces die off mindlessly. They always bring one overseer per attack (until later in the mission when they send more) - so as long as you shoot them early you're okay

I don't remember my playthrough exactly but I remember it being pretty easy (this is on brutal of course). I suppose if you feel you have enough pheonixes you could build some back up collosi and start building tons of cannons in your main as well (since you may as well do something with your minerals when you're maxed). Its more than enough to get the all the achievements (bonus included), and its probably one of the easier strategies as you don't need to have a lot of micro to pick off overseers, until they start spawning 4 per group. But by that point you've practically won

Mookeypoop

2 Posts

July 22 2012 17:56 GMT

#339

Agreed with the last post All u do is get DT +phoenix dts to kill the grounds units (wall

)and the phoenix to kill the air

if you know where the overseers are at or where they would be just take your phoenix kill the overseers then run away simple

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