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In Utter Darkness [Brutal]

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 HotS
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Masq
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada1792 Posts
July 28 2010 02:39 GMT
#1
Has anyone managed to complete this with the bonus objective on Brutal difficulty?
Any tips?
illusi0n
Profile Joined February 2010
Germany36 Posts
July 28 2010 02:50 GMT
#2
the last protoss mission is easily beatable by building darks and colossi at the beginning, then voidrays only + a shitload of cannons. The attack waves always come without detectors
TheFinalWord
Profile Joined May 2010
Australia790 Posts
July 28 2010 02:54 GMT
#3
Are you talking about defending the archive? I was only playing on hard but a strategy that worked for me well was building collosi and phoenix at the start and picking up the hybrids. After the void rays were unlocked i just spent all my money on them and zealots. Making the choke narrower with pylons seemed to work ok as week. I got to 2750 kills but then they killed all my ground forces (i had like 40 voids) and took out my pylons so I couldn't rebuild my army.
thesickest1
Profile Joined June 2010
United States25 Posts
July 28 2010 03:26 GMT
#4
fukin mission is hard as hell
Masq
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada1792 Posts
July 28 2010 03:29 GMT
#5
On July 28 2010 11:50 illusi0n wrote:
the last protoss mission is easily beatable by building darks and colossi at the beginning, then voidrays only + a shitload of cannons. The attack waves always come without detectors


was this in brutal? I did collosi/voidray and it got stomped pretty hard.
tipakee
Profile Joined April 2010
United States127 Posts
July 28 2010 03:37 GMT
#6
i was able get 2843 kills on hard by taking the high yield as soon as the game starts. Than i maxed out my army using colos, archons and zealots when gas was low. Once you reach 200/200 you can easily stockpile 5k minerals at which point i put down 15 gateways and coated the field in cannons. This helped me rebuild fast in the later waves and the cannon made the nydus worms a joke. hope this works on insane
RisingTide
Profile Joined December 2008
Australia769 Posts
July 28 2010 03:59 GMT
#7
On July 28 2010 12:37 tipakee wrote:
i was able get 2843 kills on hard by taking the high yield as soon as the game starts. Than i maxed out my army using colos, archons and zealots when gas was low. Once you reach 200/200 you can easily stockpile 5k minerals at which point i put down 15 gateways and coated the field in cannons. This helped me rebuild fast in the later waves and the cannon made the nydus worms a joke. hope this works on insane

Wait, does the high yield get attacked? I only noticed it on my last playthrough and decided "no, three placed to defend is enough"
Shifft
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Canada1085 Posts
July 28 2010 04:06 GMT
#8
Mass carriers. Not joking. My friend told me to do this and I got the 750 extra kills and defended the archive on brutal my first try.
=O
xBillehx
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United States1289 Posts
July 28 2010 04:09 GMT
#9
Spent a big part of today doin this mission on Brutal. It was tough, real tough. XD

Anyway, what I did to finally last through the 2500 kills AND protect the library was make a dt wall asap on both sides while using colo stalks zealots dt and nixes to hold off the front until Void Rays came. Once those hit I had 4-5 Stargates pumping Voids nonstop and it got easier as they massed up. One thing I'd suggest is knocking out the worms ASAP and since Voids are fast it shouldn't be a problem.
Taengoo ♥
QuothTheRaven
Profile Joined December 2008
United States5524 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-28 04:19:21
July 28 2010 04:18 GMT
#10
I massed fully upgraded colossus from 3 robo with a few immortals intermingled. I easily beat it on my first try on Brutal, defended the archive, and even got the achievement for getting 750 extra kills before dying.

I spent a huge portion of the level maxed out at 200/200, since I barely lost any units. In these situations, I threw down a ton of cannons, but they didn't do too much imo. I also took the time to go kill the three uberlisks and all the spine crawlers outside of each entrance, but it doesn't do anything.
. . . nevermore
Trion
Profile Joined June 2010
Canada291 Posts
July 28 2010 04:24 GMT
#11
On July 28 2010 12:37 tipakee wrote:
i was able get 2843 kills on hard by taking the high yield as soon as the game starts. Than i maxed out my army using colos, archons and zealots when gas was low. Once you reach 200/200 you can easily stockpile 5k minerals at which point i put down 15 gateways and coated the field in cannons. This helped me rebuild fast in the later waves and the cannon made the nydus worms a joke. hope this works on insane


How do you get up to 200/200??? I am usually able to mine out the gold before I lose it, but how do you get up to 200/200?? Do you just abandon the archives and defend production buildings and Nexi?
theqat
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States2856 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-28 05:30:26
July 28 2010 05:16 GMT
#12
~3000 kills on Brutal w/bonus objective complete by massing Archons/Immortals/Cannons (essentially--threw in a few Zealots here and there when I had excessive mins). No high-yield. Could have had some more kills if I had been feeling the effort needed but I stopped buildin' cannons. I used the HTs for storm until the enemies started sending mostly hybrids because hybrids bathe in storm for pleasure as far as I can tell.

Zealot/Colo was my first instinct but it sucks for some reason--I think because there are so many hybrids and ultras near the end

Don't worry about getting to 200/200 because Cannons will be taking up too many minerals. With exceptional micro you could hit 200 eventually but i only ever got up to like 175
CrunCher
Profile Joined March 2010
United States192 Posts
July 28 2010 05:42 GMT
#13
Start with cannons at each choke, learn how many units come and when, and split your collosi up. Switch to mass carriers as soon as you can, get the upgrades. Got both achievements too.
thesickest1
Profile Joined June 2010
United States25 Posts
July 28 2010 05:44 GMT
#14
I've literally played this mission 10 times on hard and keep losing and tried everything,they just overwhelm you, its crazy hard, even got thehigh yeild
skindzer
Profile Blog Joined May 2005
Chile5114 Posts
July 28 2010 05:46 GMT
#15
I gave up with this one.
Its not only the rain that brings the thunder
CynanMachae
Profile Blog Joined September 2006
Canada1459 Posts
July 28 2010 07:43 GMT
#16
I went for mass colossi with phoenix/void ray support

Key imo is positining, get colossi just behind archive and pu cannons on both sides. Remplace cannons as soon as they die and keep lifting hybrids. As you feel you are getting pushed back soon make another line of cannons on the high ground (around the time the temple objective finishes)

It worked pretty well for me, got 3400 kills

I didn't know there was a gold expo :\
Jang Yoon Chul hwaiting!
Meta
Profile Blog Joined June 2003
United States6225 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-28 07:49:49
July 28 2010 07:47 GMT
#17
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.
good vibes only
Fatmatt2000
Profile Joined January 2006
United States159 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-28 09:38:55
July 28 2010 09:37 GMT
#18
I completed it reasonably well with Colossus -> Void Rays (prioritize void rays over Colossus once you can make them), with a sprinkling of zealots/immortals/cannons with the extra minerals.

Make sure to pump upgrades, air weapons really help, since you get all the free carriers/motherships along with the void rays.

You can stay alive a pretty long time with no buildings or ground units, but just a large blob of air units with some creative vortexes from artanis and void rays.
Quote?
Latham
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
9560 Posts
July 28 2010 09:44 GMT
#19
Utter darkness is actually a lot easier than it seems at first.
+ Show Spoiler [Utter Darkness on Brutal] +

First thing is don't panic. There are 3 entrances to your base. The enemy will come in waves 1 entrance at a time for a good part of the game.
Start by queueing up more probes and putting down a 2nd forge + robotics bay so you can train colossi.
Hotkey all your ground forces together, and hotkey all your air units together. Watch the observers closely. You'll see the enemy massing in front of them before attacking. Move your army to protect the cannons. Don't cross the bridges.
Keep making colossi and keep up all the upgrades both air and ground. Non stop. Also, try to replenish your phoenix numbers if any die.
I started to float on minerals around the 16th minute mark before the archives achievement, so I walled off the south-eastern bridge with lots of cannons.
When the hybrids will start coming, lift them up with the phoenixes and focus fire. Do this on the ranged ones preferably, but later on use it on all the hybrids you encounter.
Finishing the archives bonus mission should be a cake-walk at that point. I was floating on around 5K mins and 200/200 food army worth of colossi/phoenixes/voids.
Once the archives submerge, retreat to the higher ground of your base and start to wall off with cannons too.
If you start losing units, make colossi and void rays. No more phoenixes.
At this point you should easily have 3-3-3 ground army and 3-0 air army. When I killed the 2500 necessary, I just kinda gave up after that. I didn't build anything any more. The enemy needed another 25 minutes to finally beat down my whole army :/. The corruptors and mass mutas come waaaay too late for the Z. Before that, the heroes+ void rays are unkillable.

In the end I defended for 49 mins and killed 3100 units.
For the curse of life is the curse of want. PC = https://be.pcpartpicker.com/list/4JknvV
RisingTide
Profile Joined December 2008
Australia769 Posts
July 28 2010 10:05 GMT
#20
Finished this on Brutal with 3100+ kills, probably woulda gone higher than that, but I sorta gave up after that.

I went mass immortal/temp/phoenix with plenty of cannons. Have 5 to 8 templar at each entrance and have your main army just respond where needed. Use the phoenix to lift all the hybrids, and storm the shit out of regular zerg units. I honestly think I woulda done better to get voids after the first few immos.

Basically, be quick and frequent with your storms, and have some way to deal with the hybrids, and you should be set.
kyophan
Profile Joined January 2010
United States113 Posts
July 28 2010 10:11 GMT
#21
I walled off the entrances with gateways, and then went collosi's and photons. In end, I barely managed 2500 kills. I think it would have turned out better if I invested more on collosus than photons. I'm going to retry it.
tipakee
Profile Joined April 2010
United States127 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-28 12:54:21
July 28 2010 12:38 GMT
#22
On July 28 2010 12:59 RisingTide wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 28 2010 12:37 tipakee wrote:
i was able get 2843 kills on hard by taking the high yield as soon as the game starts. Than i maxed out my army using colos, archons and zealots when gas was low. Once you reach 200/200 you can easily stockpile 5k minerals at which point i put down 15 gateways and coated the field in cannons. This helped me rebuild fast in the later waves and the cannon made the nydus worms a joke. hope this works on insane

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


I placed 3 cannons at the high yield and was able to mine it out completley before it was over ran. The earlier waves are not as challenging, Also upgrade ASAP. +2 archons 1 shot zerglings and own mutas, also micro those phoenix like crazy, pick up all the xelnaga with the grav beam. Getting 200/200 isnt hard if you have the income with all the reinforcements they supply. (5 voids, and 4 carriers and the Mship




How do you get up to 200/200??? I am usually able to mine out the gold before I lose it, but how do you get up to 200/200?? Do you just abandon the archives and defend production buildings and Nexi?"


Not sure if i got lucky but i lost very little units from wave to wave, i think the colos and archons are a nice mix because the archons own bio units hard and regen all the shields if they live from a wave. Also Zealots are a big part of my army and they are real cheap compared to there supply. I just held my army on top of the archive and meet each wave at the chokes. It is important to target fire the brooldlords with your rays. Also dont forget zeratul can CC ultras and phoenix can CC hybrids
Worm104
Profile Joined May 2010
England28 Posts
July 28 2010 13:13 GMT
#23
Not seen anyone post this yet but I hit a 200/200 army at one point then with all my spare minerals threw down 2 forges and a cyber core and got max upgrades. I only just managed the +750 but then they throw in loads of overseers so watch out if you are going DT's. Phoenixes are useful to lift up some of the hybrids so they do less damage at once.
Equalsdee
Profile Joined July 2010
Botswana2 Posts
July 28 2010 17:53 GMT
#24
I managed to complete this after about 10 tries running different setups, the one that worked for me was: Dark Templar wall-in with a good amount of Airunits later on.

Dark Templars lose their worth as soon as zerg starts to spam out those overseers, you will however be able to get around 1k kills without too much problem with just Dark Templars and pheonixes, even managed to get to 2,4k with pure dark templar / pheonix build but in order to make it with that setup you HAVE to know the overseer pattern, when they come and where.

Note: This setup won't make the research bonus, at least not the way i did it in.

However, start out with pumpin DT, the units you are handed at the start will be able to take out the first 4 waves (at least)

when you have finished walling the 2 upper ramps with DT, pump out tons of pheonixes, voidrays and carriers (as soon as you can), you will be able to keep it up for a pretty long time with only DT and by the time the zerg gets out too many overseers, you'll have a solid air army to take out the rest of the kills needed, managed to get to almost 2,9k with this strategy (and i was failing quite hard at some points)

Make sure you pick up the ranged hybrids with phoenixes, always focus overseer until your DT wall is dead.

This might take a few tries to make it work however.(overseer pattern)
=d
AT_Tack
Profile Joined February 2010
Germany435 Posts
July 28 2010 18:44 GMT
#25
On July 28 2010 18:44 Latham wrote:
Utter darkness is actually a lot easier than it seems at first.
+ Show Spoiler [Utter Darkness on Brutal] +

First thing is don't panic. There are 3 entrances to your base. The enemy will come in waves 1 entrance at a time for a good part of the game.
Start by queueing up more probes and putting down a 2nd forge + robotics bay so you can train colossi.
Hotkey all your ground forces together, and hotkey all your air units together. Watch the observers closely. You'll see the enemy massing in front of them before attacking. Move your army to protect the cannons. Don't cross the bridges.
Keep making colossi and keep up all the upgrades both air and ground. Non stop. Also, try to replenish your phoenix numbers if any die.
I started to float on minerals around the 16th minute mark before the archives achievement, so I walled off the south-eastern bridge with lots of cannons.
When the hybrids will start coming, lift them up with the phoenixes and focus fire. Do this on the ranged ones preferably, but later on use it on all the hybrids you encounter.
Finishing the archives bonus mission should be a cake-walk at that point. I was floating on around 5K mins and 200/200 food army worth of colossi/phoenixes/voids.
Once the archives submerge, retreat to the higher ground of your base and start to wall off with cannons too.
If you start losing units, make colossi and void rays. No more phoenixes.
At this point you should easily have 3-3-3 ground army and 3-0 air army. When I killed the 2500 necessary, I just kinda gave up after that. I didn't build anything any more. The enemy needed another 25 minutes to finally beat down my whole army :/. The corruptors and mass mutas come waaaay too late for the Z. Before that, the heroes+ void rays are unkillable.

In the end I defended for 49 mins and killed 3100 units.



that one works perfectly!
EnigmaZero
Profile Joined May 2010
United States56 Posts
July 28 2010 22:58 GMT
#26
On July 29 2010 03:44 AT_Tack wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 28 2010 18:44 Latham wrote:
Utter darkness is actually a lot easier than it seems at first.
+ Show Spoiler [Utter Darkness on Brutal] +

First thing is don't panic. There are 3 entrances to your base. The enemy will come in waves 1 entrance at a time for a good part of the game.
Start by queueing up more probes and putting down a 2nd forge + robotics bay so you can train colossi.
Hotkey all your ground forces together, and hotkey all your air units together. Watch the observers closely. You'll see the enemy massing in front of them before attacking. Move your army to protect the cannons. Don't cross the bridges.
Keep making colossi and keep up all the upgrades both air and ground. Non stop. Also, try to replenish your phoenix numbers if any die.
I started to float on minerals around the 16th minute mark before the archives achievement, so I walled off the south-eastern bridge with lots of cannons.
When the hybrids will start coming, lift them up with the phoenixes and focus fire. Do this on the ranged ones preferably, but later on use it on all the hybrids you encounter.
Finishing the archives bonus mission should be a cake-walk at that point. I was floating on around 5K mins and 200/200 food army worth of colossi/phoenixes/voids.
Once the archives submerge, retreat to the higher ground of your base and start to wall off with cannons too.
If you start losing units, make colossi and void rays. No more phoenixes.
At this point you should easily have 3-3-3 ground army and 3-0 air army. When I killed the 2500 necessary, I just kinda gave up after that. I didn't build anything any more. The enemy needed another 25 minutes to finally beat down my whole army :/. The corruptors and mass mutas come waaaay too late for the Z. Before that, the heroes+ void rays are unkillable.

In the end I defended for 49 mins and killed 3100 units.



that one works perfectly!


Agreed. First time around I hadn't thought of retreating to the high ground and walling off, but doing so allowed me to survive until 2983 kills. Thanks!
Meta
Profile Blog Joined June 2003
United States6225 Posts
July 28 2010 23:51 GMT
#27
Just completed this on brutal, and I have to say upgrades make all the difference.

Here's what I did:

Got enough probes for full saturation (3x the number of mineral nodes) asap. Meanwhile I built a forge and core for double upgrades, and a support bay.

Basically I just spammed upgrades and colossi for the first part of the game, sinking all excess minerals into cannons at each of the 3 chokes. It's also VERY important to keep 6-8 phoenixes up at all times for gravity beaming the ranged hybrids only. Not landing enough gravity beams could mean the difference between dead units and live ones. After void rays come I focused heavily on void ray production, still rebuilding cannons with excess minerals. By the time void rays came I was almost at full upgrades, I think i was starting the last shield upgrade.

Eventually, around 1600-1800 kills, enemies start pouring in from two entrances at once. This is when you should move up to the high ground and start cannoning it. Not long after, around 2200-2300 kills, my entire ground army and base was dead. Luckily I had enough phoenixes leftover to grav beam the ranged hybrids to kill them, and i got the remaining 200 kills from the zerglings and roaches that collect in what used to be the main.

Ended with 2577 kills.
good vibes only
Alindiel
Profile Joined July 2010
United States3 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-29 02:17:03
July 29 2010 02:16 GMT
#28
hi everyone, first post :D i looked this up because i was having a lot of trouble with this mission as well, don't forget you can use the zeratul's void prison on the overseers to deny sight and mow down units with your DTs and giving your air units time to snipe them, game changing.
Stratos_speAr
Profile Joined May 2009
United States6959 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-29 03:27:35
July 29 2010 03:24 GMT
#29
I completely demolished this mission (got to almost 3500 kills) by going purely Colossi/Immortal/Phoenix off of 6 Robo Bays and 4 Stargates. Was pretty damn easy the 2nd time around (first time I tried to get a really cute and cool looking army composition and got rolled). This was me sitting at 200/200 for a while and never getting the high yield (I was on Brutal and any time I tried to expand 50 Zerglings raped it instantly).

Seriously, Immortals are the key. They completely WRECK the hybrids, which are by far the biggest problem.
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
FragKrag
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
United States11552 Posts
July 29 2010 03:51 GMT
#30
I raped this mission pretty easily with just 5 warpgates and 2 colossus. Got 3436 kills with Pure Stalker/Colossus pump along with the trigger units/heroes so I had around 15-20 Colossus at all times along with stalker support and just moved the army around to intercept. While defending the archive or whatever, I pretty much walled off whatever I could with a bunch of cannons and just moved up after the 25 minutes.

Don't see what's so hard about this :/
*TL CJ Entusman #40* "like scissors does anything to paper except MAKE IT MORE NUMEROUS" -paper
Stratos_speAr
Profile Joined May 2009
United States6959 Posts
July 29 2010 03:54 GMT
#31
On July 29 2010 12:51 FragKrag wrote:
I raped this mission pretty easily with just 5 warpgates and 2 colossus. Got 3436 kills with Pure Stalker/Colossus pump along with the trigger units/heroes so I had around 15-20 Colossus at all times along with stalker support and just moved the army around to intercept. While defending the archive or whatever, I pretty much walled off whatever I could with a bunch of cannons and just moved up after the 25 minutes.

Don't see what's so hard about this :/


What difficulty were you on? I'm not convinced that Stalker/Colossi would survive the mass Hybrids.
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
FragKrag
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
United States11552 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-29 03:58:22
July 29 2010 03:55 GMT
#32
Brutal. Colossus breaks down the hybrids fairly easily actually :/

I actually ended having more trouble with broodlords t-t
*TL CJ Entusman #40* "like scissors does anything to paper except MAKE IT MORE NUMEROUS" -paper
Kambing
Profile Joined May 2010
United States1176 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-29 04:03:05
July 29 2010 04:02 GMT
#33
On brutal, I went 3 robo collisi/2 stargate phoenix into void rays once they were available. I used forges to wall off my chokes and burnt excess cash with cannons on the high ground. Worked fairly well as I capped on food during the middle of the mission even though I didn't bother to take the gold.
meatfortress
Profile Joined July 2010
5 Posts
July 29 2010 04:51 GMT
#34
On July 28 2010 16:43 CynanMachae wrote:
I didn't know there was a gold expo :\

the gold is a trap

i rebuilt that expansion 3-4 times before they finished me off. a good 45-60 minutes wasted. tried it again, ignoring the gold and bunkering down a ginormous force next to the library and did just fine
keioh
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
France1099 Posts
July 29 2010 06:19 GMT
#35
A trick : use DT's to block the three entrance. You have two bases and lotsa money, so get'em. I didn't do it in brutal, but it might still work. I used 6 or 7 DT's in line at each entrance in hold position and cleaned the mess with colossi on high ground and a huge air fleet. But be careful as sometimes waves come with an overseer, you have to target him asap and rebuild your line of DT's.
GIMME ALL THE BELGIAN WAFFLES I CAN GET FOR THIS MONEY !!!!!! BELGIAN WAFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFLEEEEEEEEES
silverwind
Profile Joined August 2009
Canada40 Posts
July 29 2010 06:45 GMT
#36
On July 29 2010 12:24 Stratos_speAr wrote:
I completely demolished this mission (got to almost 3500 kills) by going purely Colossi/Immortal/Phoenix off of 6 Robo Bays and 4 Stargates. Was pretty damn easy the 2nd time around (first time I tried to get a really cute and cool looking army composition and got rolled). This was me sitting at 200/200 for a while and never getting the high yield (I was on Brutal and any time I tried to expand 50 Zerglings raped it instantly).

Seriously, Immortals are the key. They completely WRECK the hybrids, which are by far the biggest problem.


Did you make cannons too?
GoShox
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States1837 Posts
July 29 2010 09:10 GMT
#37
I didn't have too many problems with this mission the second time around. I tried taking the gold at the start and it just got destroyed, but the resources you have in your main are good enough. I added a Robo Bay and just pumped pure Colossi while pumping Probes to get a good saturation. I also added a Temp Archives to put a couple of HT's at each entrance.

As others have said, upgrades are very important. From the start I got ground and air weapons. The ground weapons pay off with Colossi. When I was able to build Carriers, I built 3 Stargates and purely pumped from those, putting the air weapons upgrade into effect.

At the left and right entrances you can easily wall off with Gateways and mass Cannons behind them. I wasn't able to find an easy way to wall of at top, so I just threw up a weird Pylon wall to block the Ultras they send and massed Cannons. Of course, being a defensive mission, mass Cannons everywhere are the way to go. Carriers, Colossus, Storm, and the heroes just simply dominate. Of course you get overrun eventually (that's the point of the mission overall ) but I found this to be pretty effective, provided you have a little amount of multitask to Storm and what not.

I can see the other methods (DT wall and pick off Overseers, Phoenix to pick up Hybrids) being perfectly viable as well, but I think this way is just easier seeing as how you can attack move everywhere with Colossi and Carriers and kill everything in sight, while throwing in some Storms into the mix. I think I ended up with about 3500 kills at the end.

The mission made me pretty sad though
Moos
Profile Joined July 2010
4 Posts
July 29 2010 10:58 GMT
#38
On July 28 2010 12:29 GG.Win wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 28 2010 11:50 illusi0n wrote:
the last protoss mission is easily beatable by building darks and colossi at the beginning, then voidrays only + a shitload of cannons. The attack waves always come without detectors


was this in brutal? I did collosi/voidray and it got stomped pretty hard.


Took the strat from another thread, but after losing twice (not even close), void/col worked beautifully.

Went almost pure collosi/void on brutal and ended up somewhere under 4000 kills. Defended the archive too. I think I threw in some stalkers and cannons occasionally. Upgrades are a must, obviously. Phoenix lift the scary guys.

Once the archive goes down, retreat to your main and wall off the two ramps with gates and then mass cannon/void/col. Easy mode..
Fayfay
Profile Joined May 2010
Sweden128 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-29 12:04:55
July 29 2010 12:03 GMT
#39
Managed a 3500 kill defense with massing colossi, void rays and phoenixes, took the gold expo after the first 3 way attack and sent enough workers to mine it out before it got razed. Maxed all upgrades as fast as I could and just pulled back to build cannons everywhere on the highground after I got the archive bonus mission done.

A key to surviving is to micro your phoenixes well and lift up all the hybrids.
Slayer91
Profile Joined February 2006
Ireland23335 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-29 12:17:24
July 29 2010 12:12 GMT
#40
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.


I stumbled on the money composition.
Immortal/Colossus/carrier.
Basically I was using pheonix to lift the hybrids that do tons of damage but you can't lift them all, and it turns out you NEED immortals to kill those dudes. Colossus are good for the AOE and carriers are damage soaks and do quite a bit themselves.
I never rebuilt any cannons except when i was expanding to the gold.

I pumped the odd HT/Zealot or stalker but i had 2 robos pumping colossus/immortal and 2 stargates pumping carriers + seneledis and artanis' ones. Don't know how you guys like like 6 robos and 4 stargates you only get 1-2 bases.
I had to give up the gold after half way in to save the archives and my base. (Shoulda taken it earlyier.

I had like 2600 then i self-killed my whole army because I didn't know there were achievements to go further.
And yeah spam attack upgardes asap armour and shields are secondary.
VonLego
Profile Joined June 2010
United States519 Posts
July 29 2010 12:15 GMT
#41
Keep 6+ phoenixes up at a time to lift hybrids, 10ish colossi with about 30 stalkers. Went carriers towards the end of the mission and managed to eek out a win by a couple hundred kills and defended the data.

They do use detection, zeratul was my first guy to die (about 10 min in)
iloveav
Profile Joined November 2008
Poland1478 Posts
July 29 2010 12:37 GMT
#42
very easy map, i maanged over 3k kills and stoped only cus i got borred. How? easy: phoenixes for the hybrids, mass canons, colossus, dark templars on the ramps/bridges and the most important part: voids (6)+ carriers and micro them. Takes a bit of practice when there s no room to see anything, but its easy when u get used to using 6 or 7 hotkeys like in sc 1 :D
aka LRM)Cats_Paw.
bassbox
Profile Joined April 2010
14 Posts
July 29 2010 13:09 GMT
#43
I made it to 3000+ Kills on hard. Began with Dark Templar + Collossi + Phoenix and got the Gold immediately. Just went where needed with the units. Then i switched to mass Carriers as soon as they were available and defended the two main entrances with additional cannons. gl
If you are running in the wrong direction, you dont have to hurry.
Stratos_speAr
Profile Joined May 2009
United States6959 Posts
July 29 2010 14:05 GMT
#44
On July 29 2010 15:45 silverwind wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 29 2010 12:24 Stratos_speAr wrote:
I completely demolished this mission (got to almost 3500 kills) by going purely Colossi/Immortal/Phoenix off of 6 Robo Bays and 4 Stargates. Was pretty damn easy the 2nd time around (first time I tried to get a really cute and cool looking army composition and got rolled). This was me sitting at 200/200 for a while and never getting the high yield (I was on Brutal and any time I tried to expand 50 Zerglings raped it instantly).

Seriously, Immortals are the key. They completely WRECK the hybrids, which are by far the biggest problem.


Did you make cannons too?


Yea, not an incredible amount though, just a decent amount so they wouldn't rampage over my base when I was defending a certain entrance.
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
Licmyobelisk
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
Philippines3682 Posts
July 29 2010 14:34 GMT
#45
On July 29 2010 07:58 EnigmaZero wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 29 2010 03:44 AT_Tack wrote:
On July 28 2010 18:44 Latham wrote:
Utter darkness is actually a lot easier than it seems at first.
+ Show Spoiler [Utter Darkness on Brutal] +

First thing is don't panic. There are 3 entrances to your base. The enemy will come in waves 1 entrance at a time for a good part of the game.
Start by queueing up more probes and putting down a 2nd forge + robotics bay so you can train colossi.
Hotkey all your ground forces together, and hotkey all your air units together. Watch the observers closely. You'll see the enemy massing in front of them before attacking. Move your army to protect the cannons. Don't cross the bridges.
Keep making colossi and keep up all the upgrades both air and ground. Non stop. Also, try to replenish your phoenix numbers if any die.
I started to float on minerals around the 16th minute mark before the archives achievement, so I walled off the south-eastern bridge with lots of cannons.
When the hybrids will start coming, lift them up with the phoenixes and focus fire. Do this on the ranged ones preferably, but later on use it on all the hybrids you encounter.
Finishing the archives bonus mission should be a cake-walk at that point. I was floating on around 5K mins and 200/200 food army worth of colossi/phoenixes/voids.
Once the archives submerge, retreat to the higher ground of your base and start to wall off with cannons too.
If you start losing units, make colossi and void rays. No more phoenixes.
At this point you should easily have 3-3-3 ground army and 3-0 air army. When I killed the 2500 necessary, I just kinda gave up after that. I didn't build anything any more. The enemy needed another 25 minutes to finally beat down my whole army :/. The corruptors and mass mutas come waaaay too late for the Z. Before that, the heroes+ void rays are unkillable.

In the end I defended for 49 mins and killed 3100 units.



that one works perfectly!


Agreed. First time around I hadn't thought of retreating to the high ground and walling off, but doing so allowed me to survive until 2983 kills. Thanks!



If you want the game to go ez mode go for this guide! So good that the first try I got the blaze of glory achievement..
I don't think I've ever wished my opponent good luck prior to a game. When I play, I play to win. I hope every opponent I ever have is cursed with fucking terrible luck. I hope they're stuck playing underneath a stepladder with a black cat in attendance a
Snowfield
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
1289 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-29 16:46:15
July 29 2010 16:24 GMT
#46
mission failed 2200 kills -_-

edit: immortals is teh key in all this, added a bunch of them, yay 3161 kills, they rape everything that colossus / carriers doesnt rape like ultras and hybrids
SharkSpider
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada606 Posts
July 29 2010 23:29 GMT
#47
Mass Void Ray/Colossus is the way to go, along with using excess minerals on massing pylons and cannons all over the map (you'll need them)

Early in the mission use phoenixes to lift hybrids and kill broodlords, later on you can just use Void Rays for that, though be sure to upgrade and faze if you can manage the extra actions.
FeeL_ThE_RusH
Profile Joined February 2010
Ireland227 Posts
July 29 2010 23:35 GMT
#48
I did it with an army of colossi, stalkers, zealots, phoenixes and a couple of immortals now and then with a few HTs from about 15 mins in. When the 25 min mark was up I moved to the upper level of the base, built a pylon wall on the right choke with cannons behind and cannons at the left choke. Was tough goin' but I finished with about 3100 kills. Was important to pick up the hybrids with phoenixes, especially the darker coloured ones.
#starcraft.ie on Quakenet, Irish SC2ers assemble
RozPT
Profile Joined May 2010
Portugal3 Posts
July 30 2010 01:43 GMT
#49
On July 28 2010 18:44 Latham wrote:
Utter darkness is actually a lot easier than it seems at first.
+ Show Spoiler [Utter Darkness on Brutal] +

First thing is don't panic. There are 3 entrances to your base. The enemy will come in waves 1 entrance at a time for a good part of the game.
Start by queueing up more probes and putting down a 2nd forge + robotics bay so you can train colossi.
Hotkey all your ground forces together, and hotkey all your air units together. Watch the observers closely. You'll see the enemy massing in front of them before attacking. Move your army to protect the cannons. Don't cross the bridges.
Keep making colossi and keep up all the upgrades both air and ground. Non stop. Also, try to replenish your phoenix numbers if any die.
I started to float on minerals around the 16th minute mark before the archives achievement, so I walled off the south-eastern bridge with lots of cannons.
When the hybrids will start coming, lift them up with the phoenixes and focus fire. Do this on the ranged ones preferably, but later on use it on all the hybrids you encounter.
Finishing the archives bonus mission should be a cake-walk at that point. I was floating on around 5K mins and 200/200 food army worth of colossi/phoenixes/voids.
Once the archives submerge, retreat to the higher ground of your base and start to wall off with cannons too.
If you start losing units, make colossi and void rays. No more phoenixes.
At this point you should easily have 3-3-3 ground army and 3-0 air army. When I killed the 2500 necessary, I just kinda gave up after that. I didn't build anything any more. The enemy needed another 25 minutes to finally beat down my whole army :/. The corruptors and mass mutas come waaaay too late for the Z. Before that, the heroes+ void rays are unkillable.

In the end I defended for 49 mins and killed 3100 units.


Thanks for the tip, managed to kill 2800, and I know I could have killed more if I instead made more Void Rays than Colossi. Still, pretty happy with the results, Thanks.
SC2Phoenix
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada2814 Posts
July 30 2010 01:46 GMT
#50
Are you guys seriosly getting like 3300 kills on brutal? wtf? My best was 2900 and it took me 3-4 trys.
Who the fuck has a family of fucking trees? This song is so god damn stupid. Fuck you song, fuck you and your stupid trees. -itmeJP
Toadily
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States837 Posts
July 30 2010 02:11 GMT
#51
I don't see how someone said they're are getting to close to 4k, the amount of muta/corrupter that comes at around the 3k mark is just overwhelming even with 150+ supply of carriers
shinosai
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States1577 Posts
July 30 2010 02:14 GMT
#52
I got the Blaze of Glory achievement (2500+750 = 3250 kills, plus another 100 after that) in Brutal difficulty. I massed photon cannons and colossi only. The only air units I made were the ones they gave me for free. Colossi are honestly the best unit to have, they destroy everything, and the free units you get work fine as AA.
Be versatile, know when to retreat, and carry a big gun.
dybydx
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Canada1764 Posts
July 30 2010 02:22 GMT
#53
the mission is pretty much like original SC UMS maps that you play on bnet called Art of Defence (or Art of Survival).

i recommend cybernetic cores to wall off entrances with cannons and colossi backup.
...from the land of imba
arcology
Profile Joined April 2009
United States92 Posts
July 30 2010 02:44 GMT
#54
3260 on brutal ( and i'm sorta new to toss). I made walls of dark templar at each entrance and mass carrier+void ray to snipe any overseers that showed up.
FifthFret
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada14 Posts
July 30 2010 05:09 GMT
#55
Yeah, the colossi/immortal/void/phoenix composition works very nicely.

In addition to what was already posted, some specific things that'll help:

1. Send a probe to get the gold expo up immediately. You don't need a pylon or even cannons over there, and make sure to transfer probes over as soon as it gets up (you especially need the gas early on). Send your troops over to defend the first 2-3 left side waves, which always come after the center ones. Put the colossi/immortals on hold position out of spine crawler range to melt all the ground troops, and micro your phoenixes to kill the mutas (try not to lose any, obviously). After that, you can let that expo get killed off, it'll be mostly mined out and the probes are just wasting psi.

2. After 1-2 cycles of waves (or when money/time management allows, build a little bit of a gateway wall at the top of both of the ramps to the main base, because some zerglings will likely sneak by in the later waves when they come from both sides. Don't wall off completely (obviously) so your reinforcements can get through. Park one colossus at each side, or build some cannons behind the gateways if you're too lazy to send a few troops from your main army to clean up.

3. After about 1000 kills or when your army is maxed, you'll probably have the money to start building lots of cannons around the archive. By this point, you're probably raping everything that comes your way, but whatever, a little overkill never hurt nobody.

4. After about 3300 kills, laugh as your entire army gets obliterated.
imPERSONater
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States1324 Posts
July 30 2010 06:24 GMT
#56
Definitely the hardest mission I have come across yet, this thing is a beast :/ A few of the ideas on here (lifting the hybrids) are brilliant though so I'm sure I'll beat it tomorrow once I enter SC2 mode again. I need to recharge until then......
Fan of: IdrA, Sen, Stephano, Snute, Axlav, Hero
xzidez
Profile Joined April 2010
Sweden147 Posts
July 30 2010 08:34 GMT
#57
I pulled back everything in the beginning here. Didn't even try to defend the lower area. Then mass colossi and phoenix (liftoff those brutal hybrids). After when mineralcount got high I massed cannons.. With more colossi and phoenix : P Survived for 40 min on that strat. Got a whippin 3600 kills :D
flizz
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada14 Posts
July 30 2010 08:36 GMT
#58
I've managed to get 3300 kills on brutal, just block your main base ramps with gateways and put cannons behind them and mass carriers when you're around 1000 kills.
I started making collosi and stalkers and then i transitions into void rays and carriers.
Bluewindz
Profile Joined May 2010
United States3 Posts
July 30 2010 09:36 GMT
#59
Hello guys,

DTs and Phoenixes!

I also had a lot of trouble beating this mission all from a little misunderstanding from that previous mission. I thought all those protozergs had detection abilities. Well they don't! So the only thing I need to worry about was those zerg detectors flying above. So here's how to beat this dam this easy as pie.

Here's the preparation to win. You need all these for this easy setup.
1. Get tons of DTs early in the beginning. You should be able to get around...10ish by the 2nd wave.
2. Prioritize massing phoenixes over DTs as you will need to have air control.
3. Make sure to make plenty of observers.
4. Wall off near the end with cannons and cannon fodder.

Strategy:
So basically you mass phoenixes to hunt down overseers and kill all incoming air units. You prioritize hunting down overseers over anything else because you will have nothing down on the ground except Dark Templars. You keep the 3 points of entry, supplied with observers constantly to give you warning if an overseer is there. You will know when your observer dies. Always keep those 3 areas stocked after you kill the overseer. So you will basically be looking at your mini map almost the entire time checking to see if your observers are dead, or if the map isn't lighted up in an area and then you rush your air units to take them out. Your production of Dark Templars and Phoenixes is capped by your gas production. You will have tons of minerals. Take those minerals and start walling that area behind the archive on high ground. Put your Dark Templar in front of your cannons, so outside of your wall and key an eye for those overseers, by making observers. You do not really need to make any other unit except DTs and Phoenixes!

This is not the greatest strategy, and I am no where as experienced as a SC player as some of the people here, but it worked for me. This strategy, in my opinion is as noob friendly as it gets (low APM req), for brutal difficulty.

Hope this helps someone out.
zer0das
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
United States8519 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-30 14:28:56
July 30 2010 14:25 GMT
#60
I just made a second forged and put priority on upgrades. You can wall in the side entrances pretty well with a few gateways, so I do so, and then put a bunch of cannons behind them. I didn't really try to wallin the middle until much later, and it kept dying. I never really built many phoenixes, but I used them to lift up the hybrids (and the phoenixes they gave me didn't die fro a long time). Then I just massed stalker/immortal/collosi/void ray. When the archive finishes, defend a bit, and then head back to the high ground- I picked the right ramp to defend, and that worked pretty well. Had a really significant army when the mothership showed up. Had 200/200 until the archive finished, then it kind of went downhill from there.

Ended up with 2650 kills or so, but the game started lagging and the hybrids weren't attacking, so I just suicided all my stuff.

Stalkers tend to die really quickly though- have to micro them and blink and at some point they start dropping like flies.

Also, there is a gold expansion!?!? Apparently I am blind. :d Don't forget the fact Zeratul can disable hybrids too... until he dies entirely too soon. T_T
devilesk
Profile Joined May 2005
United States140 Posts
July 30 2010 14:58 GMT
#61
Just beat this on brutal and it was brutal. I had a lot of trouble at first. I tried dt wall strategy and it failed really early, then I tried colossus/cannon in beginning which worked better but I still kept dying. I was making too many cannons and not enough colossus, so eventually I ended up going pure colossus with just a few cannons. Then I just made colossus and void ray while keeping at least 6 phoenixes up. Then I just made carriers once I got them. With excess minerals I kept up a wall of cannons whenever I could.

I ended up with 2590 kills but all my buildings died at 2400. I thought I was screwed, but my army was mostly carriers by that time so all i had to do was clean up all the zerglings before they died.
www.devilesk.com/dota2
Malinor
Profile Joined November 2008
Germany4721 Posts
July 30 2010 15:46 GMT
#62
I failed absolutely horrible 3 times yesterday. Today 3429kills with Void Rays/Colossi/Immortals and 3/3/3 ground and air. Lifting the hybrids helped but wasn't really necessary

The initial troops hold off the first 4 waves and after that you have a big army. Spent the excess minerals on mass cannons on the high ground. And I ignored the high yield.

Really wondering why I had so much trouble yesterday
"Withstand. Suffer. Live as you must now live. There will, one day, be answer to this." ||| "A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come."
Glacierz
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1244 Posts
July 30 2010 15:57 GMT
#63
Did it without making any voidrays or cannons.
DT wall asap on all 3 sides, mass phoenix to snipe overseers before reaching bridge, graviton beams work wonders on hybrids. Use the reinforcement voidrays for nydus, close to 1700 kills fall back to upper ramp, carriers stay close to inner ramp to lure them away from archives, about 13 saves just to figure out the positions of overseers in each wave... ~2700 kills total.

I did not take high yield, only had close to 160 pop. So yeah, the key is those free kills with DTs. The mother ship comes with full energy, mass vortex makes it easy for the left over DTs to snipe ground units while all the broodlords are sucked in
EZjijy
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States1039 Posts
July 30 2010 16:02 GMT
#64
I actually didn't have much trouble with this on brutal although I only got around 2900. I simply massed collossus and stalkers to 200 food and I hugged the archive until it was ready then I went up my ramp and defended my base until I had nothing.
Shiladie
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Canada1631 Posts
July 30 2010 16:07 GMT
#65
3250+ kills on brutal with the bonus objective, probably coulda gone higher, but after the 3250 I stopped. Also I forgot to turn on autobuild on interceptors, so my carriers were all outa interceptors at the end.

VERY easy way to do this on brutal:
start out by queueing up max probes on the nexus's and rallying them, you have the money stop bitching about queueing being bad and just do it so you can focus on other stuff...
Dark shrine + 6 additional gateways asap
pump out non-stop DTs and make a wall on each of the 3 enterences with hold position. Put 2 DTs on non Hold position behind the wall, so they'll fill any hole instantly.
Begin upgrading air and ground weapons and keep them upging all through until you've capped them.
the first detection comes after you can get voidrays, don't bother building anything else until then, just watch your DTs cut through the ground while you micro pheonix's to kill mutas.

Once you can get voidrays, just pump them off the 2 stargates you start with and replace cannons on the ledges. move near and to the side of any attack wave with your growing fleet of void rays and snipe any overseers right as the wave begins to move forward.
This should easily keep you good until the 25 minute mark for the archives, just remember to keep ALL other units back away from the wall, because splash will target the zealot humping the back of your DTs and kill your wall.

After the 25 minute mark you'll start seeing waves with 3 overseers, shift queue and kill them off as usual. Once you lose a side, I think it was banelings that did it to me (banelings only come very late game) fall back with your other 2 DT walls and defend your high ground with 2 new walls. This will give you a lot more room to snipe the overseers, but banelings will soon wipe out those walls too. At this point you have the mothership and you can just sit back with a mit of micro and get your achiev. I had 7k minerals 4k gas without getting the gold expansion when i hit the 3250 mark simply because I'd gotten lazy and didn't bother to rebuild the pylon's I'd lost when I fell back, so I was capped until my army went below 110 food...

With this strat I'd lost a total of about 4 pheonixes 2 voidrays, a DT or 2, and 10 or so cannons when the big ass waves that took out one of my DT walls started (far after the 25 minute archive mark)

Once you realize the DT wall trick, this map is laughably easy
Sevenofnines
Profile Joined May 2010
United States167 Posts
July 31 2010 00:25 GMT
#66
I was having trouble with this until I just went with Colossi/Immortal/Void Ray. Replace Phoenixes if you need to, but mostly focus on those 3 units.

Get 2 Cyber Cores and 2 Forges to speed up upgrades. I didn't make that many cannons except when I had excess minerals. Once the Archives goes into the ground, I retreated to the high ground and started putting up cannons there. Once Artanis warps in you will be virtually invincible until the mass Corruptor wave comes. Got to about 3400 kills before I mined out and then got overrun.
sikyon
Profile Joined June 2010
Canada1045 Posts
July 31 2010 00:57 GMT
#67
First time I fucked up and lost.

On the second try I just pumped collossi (get upgrades ASAP) and used pheonix to pick up hybrids. When void rays become avaliable, I kept pumping pheonix/collossi. When Carriers became avaliable I pumped some some carriers, and more colossi.

Just remember: KEEP UPGRADING EVERYTHING. Also pump collossi.

I lost at 3100 but I had honestly gotten bored and started killing the omegalisks in the corners, etc.

Remember to lift hybrids with pheonix. It's critical to winning.
hhrn
Profile Joined May 2010
157 Posts
July 31 2010 04:10 GMT
#68
The DT wall works amazingly well
CHosEN
Shaithis
Profile Joined March 2010
United States383 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-31 16:29:10
July 31 2010 16:24 GMT
#69
Protip - graviton beam works on hybrids.

Edit: too late.

Anyway, I got to 3150 kills last night on my first try; added 6-8 colossi, then got like 4 stargates up and stockpiled until I could make phoenix (made like 20), then void rays, then carriers.

Late in the mission when you get attacked by 30+ hybrids per wave, it does get kind of tough. The hydras that came with them took out all of my interceptors, so I am thinking that my ~20 carriers towards the end were a bit of a waste (particularly with the large corruptor attacks). Next time, I am going to try a shitload of archons on the ground to back up Zeratul and a phoenix / VR army.
Aaronator
Profile Joined July 2010
2 Posts
July 31 2010 17:03 GMT
#70
I was a little bit suspicious of some of these strategies. Tried 2 attempts the night before and got to about 1800, massing void rays and collosi. When the 1800-2000 wave comes in though they have a LOT of corruptors/mutas and it gets rough after that point.

Today I tried the DT wall strategy and after about 3-4 failed attempts was able to actually pull it off quite successfully. Made a DT wall on each side, with about 2-4 extra in the back (not on Hold Position so they plug up any holes). During the entire game I was massing Phoenixes and getting some extra collosi to snipe behind the DTs. At about 1200~ they start spawning overlords. Take the phoenixes and snipe any incoming overlords (I had to save before each wave and retry if I didn't see them coming, its hard once your observers are killed).

At around 1500 they will spawn a TON of nydeus worms in your main. Before hand make sure you make a massive wall of cannons up on your high ground, it took care of the job for me and I didn't have to even use any units after that.

At about 2500~ banelings will come, I moved all my DTs back to my highground ramp and continued the same strat to about 3000, then was overrun.

This mission makes me sad.
mkfk1
Profile Joined April 2010
United Kingdom153 Posts
July 31 2010 17:44 GMT
#71
if you a protoss player, this mission isnt that hard on brutal. Just a standard 2 base play, mass a defensive balls of units. As long as you have 10 collous with 7 phoenix, + any other units to max 200/200 and you will beat it. I wasnt even trying and I got 3k kills

There so much you can do on this map, sparta gate/block, dt wall, mass void, atanis votexing one entrance while ur army fight the other on high ground. I wouldnt be surprise someone got like 5-6k kills if they really try to abuse the spells, especially on the fucking mother ship, it got like 500 energy.

Do note: you need to cannon the back at your mineral lines, they mass ling pop at the back once you reach 2.5k kills.
789
Profile Joined October 2009
United States959 Posts
July 31 2010 18:15 GMT
#72
I did this one last night, got the 750 achievement on brutal. I don't have a whole lot to add that wasn't already said, but my composition was colossi/immortal/phoenix/carrier. Like others have said, upgrades are very crucial.

Immortals are REALLY key imo. They are very good against hybrids/ultras which are the troublesome units. A line of immortals with shield upgrades can hold up for a very long time even against hybrids. Colossi are useful for obvious reasons - very good for taking down masses of the weaker zerg units.

Phoenix are pretty important - but you don't need a whole lot of them. I kept around 6-8 around including the hero phoenix. Alot of people say to lift the ranged hybrids - but I feel like the melee hybrids are more important to lift up. Immortals can take the ranged hybrids damage easily because of their hardened shields - whil having the range to shoot back as well. However the melee hybrids do more damage (around 60 and x2). With 2 attacks they can take down the immortals shields fairly quickly and once the shields are down their high damage kicks in and an immortal can fall pretty fast. Of course if any mutas/broodlords arrive you can get over there quick and take care of them.

Carriers do a pretty good job of assisting immortals in damage absorption. Alot of shots will be wasted by their hydras/ranged hybrids on interceptors that just fly back and get healed. They also have decent damage output. I usually add a couple more to the free ones you get. The free ones don't cost supply - so I tend to use up my supply on immortals/colossi since you don't get any free supply units of those. The really key role they play is when the mass corruptors come. Use artanis to vortex big chunks of them at a time while killing the others down with carriers. The corruptors will go for interceptors alot which is very helpful in keeping carriers/colossi alive.

Cannons - I don't make a whole lot of them and when I do I put them on the high ground to defend against the nydus worms that pop up there. When the archive goes down - I'm pulling back to the high ground anyway - no use for cannons on the low ground. I like to stockpile minerals for replacing units/interceptors post 2500 kills.

High yield - din go for it. It seems like you can get lucky sometimes and they will ignore it, but most of the time it just seems like to much of a headache to bother with.
Member of Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk Cafe! He's the next Jaedong, baby!
Groovyschlumpf
Profile Joined January 2010
Germany75 Posts
July 31 2010 18:25 GMT
#73
I build an aditionol Robotics, getting a critical number of Collossi and start building mass Immortals ... I also get the upgrades very very fast ... as soon as the voidray arrive, i build up the voidray number to 8 or 9 ... i always try to have enough collossi to evaporate the flood of zerg and enough immortal to instakill the hybrids, which are armored ... almost killed 2800 on brutal ... after the archive is saved IMMIDEATLY RETREAT to the portal where your reinforcements arrive ... from there your "deathball of doom" can roam left and right and evaporate every wave until the doomsdayflood of ravaging biomasses with claws overruns you
"Well, the (football)game lasts 90 Minutes" - Otto Rehagel (his team lost in overtime)
SushiBoat
Profile Joined July 2010
United States28 Posts
July 31 2010 18:32 GMT
#74
I missed the 3250 mark by 5. What made it even sadder was having 2400 minerals in the bank.
Tsagacity
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
United States2124 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-31 18:42:15
July 31 2010 18:41 GMT
#75
I did pure colossus with ~12 or so phoenix to take out air and grav lift those crazy melee hybrids that wreck colossus.
"Everyone worse than me at video games is a noob. Everyone better than me doesn't have a life."
Poobah
Profile Joined February 2010
England91 Posts
July 31 2010 19:54 GMT
#76
I'm having a hell of a time with this; I keep failing early on because I'm not hitting critical mass. I guess I should work on my phoenix grav beam micro maybe, or switch from massing colossi to massing immortals.
This above all: to thine own self be true
789
Profile Joined October 2009
United States959 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-31 20:29:49
July 31 2010 20:06 GMT
#77
On August 01 2010 04:54 Poobah wrote:
I'm having a hell of a time with this; I keep failing early on because I'm not hitting critical mass. I guess I should work on my phoenix grav beam micro maybe, or switch from massing colossi to massing immortals.


If it helps at all, here is what I did early:

I started by throwing down 3 or 4 additional robos + robo support bay immediately. Started weapon upgrades for both air and ground immediately following this - also don't forget to start adding on more probes for quicker mining. After robos finished I started pumping out pure collosi/immortal from all my robos. I'm not actually sure what would be the best ratio to start off with - but I do like gettin a solid amount of immortals quick. Still want to be making colossi though. I usually just started going half and half immortal/colossi and then letting my gas dictate from there, while still getting upgrades. I don't make a whole lot of other units besides replacing lost phoenix until carriers are unlocked. Sometimes I'll warp in a few stalkers here and there but nothing major.

Edit: Don't forget to replenish Immortals when they go down. They are generally going to be your first units to die (after the zealots your start with/get free here and there) since they are going to be taking a good deal of the damage. Personally I like to keep around 16 or so immortals at any given time.

Edit 2: I should clarify - I like to keep around at least 16 immortals, but usually just a little more than that even especially early. When carriers come and I start to tie some of my supply into them my immortal numbers will go down a bit. Even at that point I like to keep at least 16 around.
Member of Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk Cafe! He's the next Jaedong, baby!
Eschin
Profile Joined July 2010
United States2 Posts
July 31 2010 22:21 GMT
#78
Just beat it on brutal, 3,383 kills, and I protected the archive.

Just bunker up directly behind the archive, only go Immortals, Collossi, pheonixes... Then switch to only void rays, then to only carriers. Keep about 8 cannons on each side of the archive...

But the real key, UPGRADES UPGRADES UPGRADES! Get your shields and ground weapons upgraded IMMEDIATELY to level 3, then ground armor and air weapons, then air armor.

And like many have said, micro'ing the pheonixes against the hybrids is key also.

At around the 3,300 kill mark, you get swarmed. No way to hold it off. They send an outrageous amount of enemies at you.
I do not teach, I simply reveal.
Scip
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Czech Republic11293 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-31 23:18:00
July 31 2010 23:15 GMT
#79
Wait... I could somehow get more collossi? >_> Anyway, it is possible to beat it without building more production buildings and without getting colossi and gold AND get the +750 more kills than needed on Brutal. Not easy though. Here is way how I won it:

Build a few probes so you get full saturation at your both mains
immediately begin getting upgrades for both air and ground. This is key!!
I build only Stalkers, Immortals and very few phoenixes, with only 2 carriers and a lot of zealots at the end, although other unit composition might be better =)
Never divide your army! Just be at the entrance the zerg is coming from and you'll be fine. After you save the archives, retreat to your main base. I didn't build cannons though they might be nice for zergling run-bys. No micro is actually needed, but lift-offs from phoenixes on the hybrids might save you a few units. Just constantly produce units and after you retreat to main base, remake some pylons.
EDIT: Yeah, and actually getting more production facilities will certainly make it easier. =) Also, dont forget your rally point - rally is move-order now, unless you rally directly to your unit IIRC.
"It may be pleasurable for some of us to imagine being ravished" - Christopher Hitchens in a debate with feminists RIP 2011 Psalm 2:9 You shall break them with a rod of iron
Mystlord *
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
United States10264 Posts
July 31 2010 23:28 GMT
#80
Liquipedia has a guide here: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Campaign/In_Utter_Darkness

I believe my final count was something like 3521?
It is impossible to be a citizen if you don't make an effort to understand the most basic activities of your government. It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you're a nation of doods.
HaruHaru
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United States988 Posts
July 31 2010 23:40 GMT
#81
Um is there a way for me to play this mission? I beat the campaign without playing this mission and i can't find it on my missions list :/
Long live BroodWar!
4Servy
Profile Joined August 2008
Netherlands1542 Posts
July 31 2010 23:43 GMT
#82
+ Show Spoiler +
go to the lab then play all zeratul missions on the artifact the last one is this ''bonus'' mission.
AlienAlias
Profile Joined June 2009
United States324 Posts
July 31 2010 23:51 GMT
#83
On July 28 2010 12:29 GG.Win wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 28 2010 11:50 illusi0n wrote:
the last protoss mission is easily beatable by building darks and colossi at the beginning, then voidrays only + a shitload of cannons. The attack waves always come without detectors


was this in brutal? I did collosi/voidray and it got stomped pretty hard.


focus on picking up all the hybrids with your phoenixs, they're really strong but you can make them useless
Eiserne
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States340 Posts
July 31 2010 23:53 GMT
#84
My strategy: wall of text alert.

mass collossus and then when it was unlockable mass carrier. basic strategy is, game starts, build two more forges and a robotics support bay. mass collossus while upgrading 3/3/3 ground and 3/3 air (start with level 3 weapons on air.) build zealots with your extra minerals and photon cannons if your multitasking is good enough.

keep 8 phoenixes at all time, use them to kill the random muta/broodlord that are around, and most importantly, -use-them-to-lift-up-hybrids-. All of them if possible, but especially the white ranged ones. if some phoenixes die, replenish them, try to keep 8. when carriers come, stop making colo and mass carriers out of both stargates. don't forget to right click the build interceptor button on all the new carriers.

retreat to the high ground when the archive is safe and spam the fuck out of cannons on the high ground. (you'll have like 4k minerals so don't worry about that.)
HaruHaru
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United States988 Posts
August 01 2010 00:09 GMT
#85
On August 01 2010 08:43 4Servy wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
go to the lab then play all zeratul missions on the artifact the last one is this ''bonus'' mission.

i can't go back into the lab anymore :/ i already went on char and beat the campaign.
Long live BroodWar!
GTR
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
51441 Posts
August 01 2010 00:10 GMT
#86
most important thing is to have a constant supply of phoenixes only to lift the hybrids.
as long as you can keep the choke-points held off by any way you want, you're gravy.
just remember, hybrids -> graviton beam -> victory.
Commentator
writer22816
Profile Blog Joined September 2008
United States5775 Posts
August 01 2010 00:16 GMT
#87
You don't need to do any cheesy stuff like DT wall. Just mass colossus and void rays and 1a around, be sure to max out upgrades. Use leftover minerals on cannons. As long as your mechanics aren't complete junk then you win.
8/4/12 never forget, never forgive.
Zato-1
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Chile4253 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-01 00:43:46
August 01 2010 00:41 GMT
#88
4 Robotics Facilities + 8 Gateways into 20+ Colossi, the air support you get naturally (replenish any of those you lose), max upgrades on forge and cybernetics, and a force of 8-16 zealots on standby to tank the hybrids for the Colossi is how I did it. As soon as the archive is safe, retreat to the high ground- specifically, the alcove that is flanked by both ramps leading up into your main base. Don't forget to build pylons to keep your psi cap at 200 after your forward position is run over.

I kept my zealots out of the way whenever there wasn't a big Hybrid wave incoming- that many stacked Colossi can deal with zerglings, hydras and roaches by themselves.
Go here http://vina.biobiochile.cl/ and input the Konami Code (up up down down left right left right B A)
Shjade
Profile Joined August 2010
United States13 Posts
August 01 2010 01:04 GMT
#89
Literally registered to thank this thread (specifically Latham) for the strategies. Best I managed on my own (I don't even remember specifically what I built, but it was too slow anyway) was around 2100. Going straight phoenix/colossi then VR/colossi was dreamy. Oh, and yeah, the upgrades do make a dramatic difference. Just changing that part (noticed one save I'd forgotten to upgrade, went back a few minutes and got them) added a few hundred kills to my wipeout time.

...and remembering to actually USE graviton beam probably helped. >.>;

About the expansion: there's a spot fairly early on where you have enough time to build a nexus and assimilators there without getting attacked and the first wave to hit it afterward is a fairly weak one. After the first hybrid wave, when you get the message to expect an assault and start getting that stream of zerglings from the northwest, you can send a probe up there as soon as that stream ends and start warping things in. It doesn't get hit again until after the void rays arrive and if you've got colossi and those VRs you can plant your flyboys over the nexus, Hold your colossi on the bridge and defend the next wave with minimal effort. Plenty of time to get static defenses up there afterward if you want to invest in a better defense for it (I didn't - I just swept over ahead of each wave on that side to defend it until the minerals emptied out. Messy, but not too bad - it should only take about two defenses to empty the minerals).
Needs more blank race icon.
789
Profile Joined October 2009
United States959 Posts
August 01 2010 01:35 GMT
#90
Well i think the fact that people have alot of different strategies that all work well speaks to something. Lots of things can work as long as you do them well. I think there is a common theme among everyone tho - colossi, upgrades, and graviton beam. As long as you have these things you can make alot of approaches work well.
Member of Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk Cafe! He's the next Jaedong, baby!
Tonyoh
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
France218 Posts
August 01 2010 02:01 GMT
#91
mass phoenix / voidreaver.

But begin with fast colossus + expand goldmine + some templar as well + some photon.

=) Fun achievement btw ^^
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Liquid-Jinro/174837579208018?ref=ts
jehutyanubis
Profile Joined August 2010
2 Posts
August 01 2010 02:35 GMT
#92
Well i used mass colo + DT block the entrance at first part. Didn't go high-yield. The pattern is like. first wave center, left then right.(at least that was the patten i got). Then the 2nd wave cloak detector will come. Hence, while i was wargate those DT i mass canon at high-yield entrance and retreat DT to block the high yield. keep 10 Phonex and 8 colo plus void hold till carries arrive. Then mass carriers. Always kill the cloack detector first. And keep rebuilding canons. Because, later the mothership will arrive and the base will be destroyed eventually which leaves the ground force totally pointless. I got totally 24 carries at max during the last phase with mothership and with a kill 3253.
P.S level up the air units weapon and armors ASAP are very important. And this mission is tough.
banana
Profile Joined January 2009
Netherlands1189 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-01 06:03:45
August 01 2010 06:02 GMT
#93
3338 kills on brutal,including saving archive on the first try;

- Throw down the robotics.
- Fighting at each of the 3 ways in seems pointless, canon around the archive (only to draw mobs to middle - no need to spam), keep your army in middle and just incinerate everything. Staying in middle allows you to cover all 3 sides at once, and makes it very easy since your basicly playing tower defense from then on instead of worrying about 3 sides.
- Get a fair number of collosi, ~8 is pretty decent for starters, just make some immortals after that while you wait for other tech to unlock.
- Get extra voidrays, 6 or so.
- Once carriers become availible, continue to pump colossi/immortal/carriers.
- Don't forget to use lift on the hybrids.
- Retreat to high ground after archive is completed.

But main thing is probably the fact that you should just position your units around the middle and add some collosi for aoe in the start, after you are positioned in the middle, just mass whatever you feel confortable with and watch the slaughter.

aznhockeyboy16
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States558 Posts
August 01 2010 06:18 GMT
#94
mm... I went straight up dt pheonix with tons of cannon support. had to make sure to snipe every single overseer before engaging with dts, then lifted every hybrid. it was horrible, since I'm awful with protoss, so after like 10 tries I made it with exactly 2500. I can't imagine doing any better, unless I actually got good at microing protoss units, which I don't actually care to do.
Runnin
Profile Joined May 2010
208 Posts
August 01 2010 06:42 GMT
#95
I went mass colossus at the start and got max upgrades for ground and air. Once the carriers were unlocked I massed them and sat on the cliff above your main. It's really easy, never expanded and barely made any probes. Highly recommended if you're less confident in the micro required for some of the other strats listed, I tabbed out for the last 500 kills.
Shade692003
Profile Joined August 2005
Canada702 Posts
August 01 2010 06:55 GMT
#96
Banana, did you build alot of cannons in the middle or did you pretty much stopped using them and went only with armies?
I hate the post below mine because it feels War3-ish.
Kayel
Profile Joined May 2010
Australia40 Posts
August 01 2010 07:26 GMT
#97
i didnt expand to gold and felt i had an easier time to defend. im not entirely sure but i think i have enough money on the normal minerals.

i used mass collossus and used extra minerals on zealots to tank damage for me. i also kept all those extra air units the mission gives you to kill air. if i felt hybrids were gonna do more damage then i wanted i use pheonix to lift a few. also dont be worried about letting your heroes die. last thing is upgrades. bout all i really did actually, i didnt storm, i didnt build cannons.

got 750+ achieve on brutral with this build
btlyger
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States470 Posts
August 01 2010 07:36 GMT
#98
Okay straight up, Immortals are the key like people have been saying.

Immortals / Colossi / and a few void rays when they were available and I got 3412 zerg kills on brutal.

After spending like 3 hours previously on this, and doing it so easily this time, it was just a joke.

Oh, make sure you cannon up each of the sides so the lings have something to do till your troops get there.
"Minerals being mined. Minerals being mined. Minerals being mined." Learn how to post: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/posting
HardcoreBilly
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States222 Posts
August 01 2010 08:04 GMT
#99
I finally beat it and got 3338:
Here's how:
-Queue up a total of 16 probes
-Make a Dark Shrine and 4 additional gateways, made them all warp gates
-Make 2 Stargates
-Upgrade Melee Weapons on Forge
-----
-After that make nothing but Dark Templars on ground. Make sure to form a wall of DTs on each of those three spots. Hold Position. Make sure that its sealed and that not even a zergling can get by.
-Make some Phoenixes (think I only made 3) against Mutas
-REMEMBER TO SAVE FREQUENTLY. Cannot stress enough, as anything can go wrong. You can always go back.
-Later when you have an abundance of resource start getting air upgrades
-Once you can get Void Rays, get purely void rays and you should be good.
-Once the Mothership arrived, I had A LOT minerals so I made a bunch of Photon Cannons. I advise you people do the same.

Its as simple, yet hard, as that. Seriously, save A LOT, as you will need to know Overseer positioning. Once you know where Overseer is, kill it off ASAP so the Zergs don't kill the DTs. Hope this helps.
FragKrag
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
United States11552 Posts
August 01 2010 08:29 GMT
#100
I wonder if I can upload a reps of how to beat this level easily o_O
*TL CJ Entusman #40* "like scissors does anything to paper except MAKE IT MORE NUMEROUS" -paper
789
Profile Joined October 2009
United States959 Posts
August 01 2010 19:53 GMT
#101
On August 01 2010 17:29 FragKrag wrote:
I wonder if I can upload a reps of how to beat this level easily o_O


Could always video capture it live. I'd hate to see how much space it takes up though haha.
Member of Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk Cafe! He's the next Jaedong, baby!
b_unnies
Profile Blog Joined March 2006
3579 Posts
August 02 2010 03:50 GMT
#102
how many gateways/robotics/stargates did guys have?


what is better zealots or cannons?
crate
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States2474 Posts
August 02 2010 05:17 GMT
#103
On August 02 2010 12:50 b_unnies wrote:
how many gateways/robotics/stargates did guys have?


what is better zealots or cannons?

I had 4 gateways and the starting amount of robos/stargates (2/1 I think?). I built zealots over cannons until I maxed out, then I spammed some cannons on the high ground.

Built colossus and a few phoenix until I had about 14 colossi and about 4 extra phoenix, then went immo/zealot from there. Replaced some colossi when they died. Had little trouble getting the achievements and all the objectives.
We did. You did. Yes we can. No. || http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/crate.html || twitch.tv/crate3333
reprise
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada316 Posts
August 02 2010 07:14 GMT
#104
At first I tried the DT wall and failed miserably (1900). Second attempt doing something else got 3000+ fairly easily.

I went 5 robos off the bat and just made a lot of collosi and immortals, while also upgrading ground and air. I kept my phoenix count at 6 or 7 but the key was to wall all 3 entrances with cannons with about 5 of them while pumping collosi and immortals. As soon as the cannon wall goes down, rebuild the first chance you get. The wall stops them long enough for your 1a ball to get to that entrance. After the relic submerged, I retreated to the high ground (which I had already cannoned). I probably could have held it off on the low ground longer but I just wanted to play it safe.

I kinda gave up after 2500 and stopped doing anything, and ended up with 3000+.

I've read of people banking 5k but I've always stayed at zero. If all robos are in production, put cannons spaced out everywhere and that deals with the nyduses instantly later on.
for graphs of passion, and charts of stars
JunZ
Profile Joined June 2010
United States314 Posts
August 02 2010 07:21 GMT
#105
I did this with a DT wall and it ended up fine. I made 2500 than I pretty much just left to get a drink.
SpicyCurry
Profile Joined August 2010
1 Post
Last Edited: 2010-08-02 07:40:37
August 02 2010 07:36 GMT
#106
I just finished this on Brutal with 3300 kills. Here are the steps I took:

+ Show Spoiler +

-Spam probes in the beginning, build a second forge, then send a probe or two to the front lines. Begin upgrading ground attack from the forge. The goal is to maximize weapon upgrades as soon as possible.

-This is the most important step! Build 2 gateways (or any large building) to block off each entrance. Without this step, you will lose pieces of your army, and will not be able to save up enough minerals to mass cannon all over the map.

-Mass up Colossi and Immortals. Keep your army as one, and move them to whichever entrance is being attacked. If you save after each attack wave, you can re-load it once you know where the next attack is coming.

-Like others on the thread have said, using Phoenixes to lift the hybrids.

-Once Void Rays come, begin to mass those units. You should hit 200/200 before the archive objective completes, and none of your walls should have fallen yet.

-Second important step! As soon as you max out, begin massing cannons in the middle of the map, southwest of the archive. These cannons are needed to stall the nydus worms that will pop up in the mid game. You can use your Void Rays to snipe the worms, but the cannons are necessary to prevent your main base from being overrun by broodlings.

-After the archive objective completes, I just retreated to the middle and defended from that point onwards. Block off both entrances with cannons, at least 15 cannons on each side. Use hold position on Colossi and put them behind your cannons. Spam cannons until you run out of minerals, while replacing any lost units. By the time this phase begins, you should be maxed out on both ground and air upgrades.

Notes: I was unable to hold the gold mine expansion on Brutal. I don't know if it's worth it to take this expansion, but I was able to complete the mission without it.

I also only had 3 Robotics and 3 Stargates. I had tons of warp gates to block off my chokes. However, I did not build any warp gate units. They just eat up your food, which is better spent on Colossi, Immortals, and Void Rays.



sudde
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands1 Post
Last Edited: 2010-08-02 08:52:24
August 02 2010 08:15 GMT
#107
789
Profile Joined October 2009
United States959 Posts
August 02 2010 17:04 GMT
#108
On August 02 2010 12:50 b_unnies wrote:
how many gateways/robotics/stargates did guys have?


what is better zealots or cannons?


I had 4 or 5 robos, when carriers were unlocked I made 3 more stargates (I think you start with 1 - but I'm not sure), and I didn't make any additional gateways over what you start with - I didn't use gateway units.

As for zealots/cannons - I didn't make a whole lot of either. I did so some cannons on the high ground to guard against nydus worms, but that was it. I mainly saved minerals to rebuild immortals/interceptors.
Member of Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk Cafe! He's the next Jaedong, baby!
tetracycloide
Profile Joined July 2010
295 Posts
August 02 2010 22:50 GMT
#109
On July 31 2010 01:07 Shiladie wrote:Also I forgot to turn on autobuild on interceptors


You can auto-cast build intercepter??!??!??! You just blew my mind!
My vanity is justified
SimpsonsRule
Profile Joined July 2010
3 Posts
August 02 2010 23:21 GMT
#110
On July 30 2010 18:36 Bluewindz wrote:
Hello guys,

DTs and Phoenixes!

I also had a lot of trouble beating this mission all from a little misunderstanding from that previous mission. I thought all those protozergs had detection abilities. Well they don't! So the only thing I need to worry about was those zerg detectors flying above. So here's how to beat this dam this easy as pie.

Here's the preparation to win. You need all these for this easy setup.
1. Get tons of DTs early in the beginning. You should be able to get around...10ish by the 2nd wave.
2. Prioritize massing phoenixes over DTs as you will need to have air control.
3. Make sure to make plenty of observers.
4. Wall off near the end with cannons and cannon fodder.

Strategy:
So basically you mass phoenixes to hunt down overseers and kill all incoming air units. You prioritize hunting down overseers over anything else because you will have nothing down on the ground except Dark Templars. You keep the 3 points of entry, supplied with observers constantly to give you warning if an overseer is there. You will know when your observer dies. Always keep those 3 areas stocked after you kill the overseer. So you will basically be looking at your mini map almost the entire time checking to see if your observers are dead, or if the map isn't lighted up in an area and then you rush your air units to take them out. Your production of Dark Templars and Phoenixes is capped by your gas production. You will have tons of minerals. Take those minerals and start walling that area behind the archive on high ground. Put your Dark Templar in front of your cannons, so outside of your wall and key an eye for those overseers, by making observers. You do not really need to make any other unit except DTs and Phoenixes!

This is not the greatest strategy, and I am no where as experienced as a SC player as some of the people here, but it worked for me. This strategy, in my opinion is as noob friendly as it gets (low APM req), for brutal difficulty.

Hope this helps someone out.


This, all the way. I had initially planned on doing exactly this but when I read this thread I was dissuaded. After having a lot of trouble keeping my units alive (admittedly due to poor Phoenix micro on my part to pick up Hybrid units) when attempting the other suggestions I decided to give this a shot.

Worked wonderfully. Simply use the existing ground units to defend the base until you can block off all three entrances with DTs. Then focus exclusively on Phoenix', making sure to upgrade whenever possible (I went with double forge/cybernetics core).

You may be tempted to make void rays or carriers but there was at least one attack where three overlords were accompanying one group of units while another group on the opposite side had another overlord. The Phoenix' are fast enough to cover the distance and act quickly. You'll have so many minerals too, so just blanket the area with photon cannons.

Very noob friendly.
Ganches
Profile Joined June 2010
Sweden33 Posts
August 02 2010 23:56 GMT
#111
I've said this in some other thread before - There's nothing hard about this mission even on brutal.

All you really need to do is mass colossi from the 2 robotics, then upgrade in both forge and cybernetics.
Any excess minerals(or when 200/200) can be spent on cannons.

This will get you well over 3000 kills with no real effort involved(Hell, I did this twice the same way on brutal) getting you all the research and achievements.
Ghad
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Norway2551 Posts
August 03 2010 01:22 GMT
#112
Lol, I gotta say that on normal I was kinda thinking that 150 supply of void rays was gonna keep me going all night.
forgottendreams: One underage girl, two drunk guys, one gogo dancer and starcraft 2. Apparently just another day in Europe.
yesitsrob
Profile Joined April 2010
United Kingdom43 Posts
August 03 2010 02:38 GMT
#113
After not coming close for about 5 attempts, I ended up going with Colossi/Immortal mix from 3 Robos, Constantly upgraded from 2 forges and air weapons at cybernetics. The fully upgraded collossi completely obliterated the initial waves and the Immortals slaughter the hybrids.

When void rays became available I pumped void rays from 4 Stargates and spent surplus minerals on walling the south and north with cannons. Was at 200 pop for a long long time when the carrier support arrived, just replenished void rays as they died.

Never bothered with the gold, seemed to cause me more trouble than it did good.

Didn't build any additional Phoenix, the free ones you get are enough to handle all mutas till you get carriers anyway.

Finished with about 3400 kills when I eventually did it on brutal... Previous to that I had been failing at about 1500.

When you get the correct mix of units right, you'll breeze through it, even if previous attempts made you think you had no chance :D.
b_unnies
Profile Blog Joined March 2006
3579 Posts
August 03 2010 02:53 GMT
#114
Well I tried 2 more times, finally got it the 2nd time. First time I went mass void rays, and honestly thats even worse. Second time around, I went mass collossus+cannons, and honestly thats a lot better. i stopped building anything by the time motherships arrive
Logo
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States7542 Posts
August 03 2010 04:48 GMT
#115
What worked well for me was this...

-Start by making probes and upgrading ship upgrades (you're going for 3/3 void rays)
-Drop a dark shrine
-Pump immortals and dark templars
-Drop all excess minerals into cannons
-When you get void rays drop 2 more stargates and pump void rays.
-Snipe overseers and void rays so the DTs stay up.
Logo
{ToT}ColmA
Profile Joined November 2007
Japan3260 Posts
August 03 2010 05:06 GMT
#116
i just mixed a lot of collossus with air and cannons
The only virgins in kpop left are the fans
ejac
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
United States1195 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-03 05:23:34
August 03 2010 05:15 GMT
#117
I got 3500 kills

Do like 4 robo in the beginning, producing colloxen and immortals and spend your excess minerals on zealots (4-6 warp gates should be enough, you want to be storing some extra minerals). Upgrade shields and air attack/armor. Be very careful with your phoenix for they will be your main anti-air and also use anti gravity as much as possible on the hybrids. Once void rays come out, stop immortal/colloxen production, just do zealots and save up gas. Save up some minerals as well. Use void rays to snipe broodlords. Once carriers come out, just mass them (4-5 stargates is enough).
esq>n
rezoacken
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada2719 Posts
August 03 2010 11:04 GMT
#118
On July 28 2010 18:44 Latham wrote:
Utter darkness is actually a lot easier than it seems at first.
+ Show Spoiler [Utter Darkness on Brutal] +

First thing is don't panic. There are 3 entrances to your base. The enemy will come in waves 1 entrance at a time for a good part of the game.
Start by queueing up more probes and putting down a 2nd forge + robotics bay so you can train colossi.
Hotkey all your ground forces together, and hotkey all your air units together. Watch the observers closely. You'll see the enemy massing in front of them before attacking. Move your army to protect the cannons. Don't cross the bridges.
Keep making colossi and keep up all the upgrades both air and ground. Non stop. Also, try to replenish your phoenix numbers if any die.
I started to float on minerals around the 16th minute mark before the archives achievement, so I walled off the south-eastern bridge with lots of cannons.
When the hybrids will start coming, lift them up with the phoenixes and focus fire. Do this on the ranged ones preferably, but later on use it on all the hybrids you encounter.
Finishing the archives bonus mission should be a cake-walk at that point. I was floating on around 5K mins and 200/200 food army worth of colossi/phoenixes/voids.
Once the archives submerge, retreat to the higher ground of your base and start to wall off with cannons too.
If you start losing units, make colossi and void rays. No more phoenixes.
At this point you should easily have 3-3-3 ground army and 3-0 air army. When I killed the 2500 necessary, I just kinda gave up after that. I didn't build anything any more. The enemy needed another 25 minutes to finally beat down my whole army :/. The corruptors and mass mutas come waaaay too late for the Z. Before that, the heroes+ void rays are unkillable.

In the end I defended for 49 mins and killed 3100 units.



This one is confirmed to work great... got an easy 3300Kills getting every achievements on brutal.
Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
Mortician
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Bulgaria2332 Posts
August 03 2010 11:29 GMT
#119
Okay, when I did it on Brutal with the DT wall an overseer came and fucked me up... you are walling the first 3 entrances right?
"If anything, the skill cap in sc2 is higher [than sc1] because there are a lot more things you can do at one given time. " darmousseh
Kentor *
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States5784 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-03 12:56:03
August 03 2010 12:55 GMT
#120
- Take gold in the beginning and wall off with 2 gateways and 4+ cannons behind it.
- Walled with 2 gates each on top and right entrances with tons of cannons behind them.
- 4 robotics pumping half immortals half colossus.

So easy with gold expo. You can max out really fast.
SimpsonsRule
Profile Joined July 2010
3 Posts
August 03 2010 19:08 GMT
#121
On August 03 2010 20:29 Mortician wrote:
Okay, when I did it on Brutal with the DT wall an overseer came and fucked me up... you are walling the first 3 entrances right?


Yea but you have to pump out lots of air support to take out the Overseers before the group of zerg attack the entrance. When you see them gathering via the observers just rush in, snipe the Overseers and retreat. You'll most likely lose a unit or two in the process but it's a small price to pay.
Lobo2me
Profile Joined May 2010
Norway1213 Posts
August 03 2010 20:56 GMT
#122
Just did it on Brutal following the advice people have given here. Mass colossi/immortal from 5 robotics and remake phoenixes when you lose. I made a few carriers and void rays along the way but colossi/immortal/phoenix was my main strategy. Just move to the side they come from, split up if they come from two. When I hit 200/200 I started blocking off the upper area with cannons. Moved up to the edge at 3150 kills, ended up at 3550.
Bad manners are better than no manners at all.
FabledIntegral
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States9232 Posts
August 03 2010 21:00 GMT
#123
Was pretty easy to do it on Brutal for me. Just get a ton of Colossus/Stalker/DT. On each choke, I built two gateways and then left a small opening where I"d place 2 DT. It'd majorly fuck up their AI, and I also supported with cannons once I hit 200/200. Just remember keep building Phoenixes vs the Hybrids to lift them up.
dybydx
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Canada1764 Posts
August 03 2010 21:05 GMT
#124
well u guys are baller.

i went cannons archon and colossi. manage to pull it off on brutal but took about 10 load/saves to do it.
...from the land of imba
iloveav
Profile Joined November 2008
Poland1478 Posts
August 03 2010 21:19 GMT
#125
i managed this on brutal this way: first thing is to start +1 atack upgrade for ground, then send 1 probe to make nexus on yellow minerals and transfer all workers currently on normal minerals to that expansion. Then very fast get about 15 dark templars and use them till first overseers come. till then u need: 3-4 colosus, non stop building imortals, and upgrades for ground units. I didnt make any aditional high templars, and used phoenixes on the hybrids that have ranged atacks. For air, ad a few extra phoenixes and get atack upgrades. the key is to control your phoenixes well, add more canons and dont stop spawning in zealots, stalkers if u have extra gas. The tier one units are for hit taking from ling/hydra/roach. the phoenixes are for air and lifting hybrids, imortals will deal with hybrids very well assuming u dont lose them to ling/hydra/roach, but they are normally slow enought to stay at the back. To cover the archive, if u feel like it, remmeber to add extra canons at all 3 entrances, but to keep themat the sides so u allow your units to hit efectivly.

Apart from that, the extra units that you will get from the maps triggerer will do their job almost automaticly, just make sure your voids/phoeninxes dont get in front or hydras will take them down 2 fast.

I managed this was about 2800 kills on brutal, also storm is good, but its not easy to keep up with the storms and controling your phoenixes without loosing them.

Dont forget imortals will soak up the daamge from hybrids really nicely, so dont panic if a few start to get close to your main force.

the moment when a lot of nydus spawn around the archive, use imortals only to take down the nyduses themselves, and the rest of the units to keep forces at bay.

Hope this helps, good luck :D
aka LRM)Cats_Paw.
Av4st
Profile Joined September 2008
Canada92 Posts
August 03 2010 21:21 GMT
#126
I don't know if it's been said yet but getting +2 attack for colossi as fast as possible is very important cuz it allows them to oneshot zerglings
FabledIntegral
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States9232 Posts
August 03 2010 21:22 GMT
#127
On August 04 2010 06:19 iloveav wrote:
i managed this on brutal this way: first thing is to start +1 atack upgrade for ground, then send 1 probe to make nexus on yellow minerals and transfer all workers currently on normal minerals to that expansion. Then very fast get about 15 dark templars and use them till first overseers come. till then u need: 3-4 colosus, non stop building imortals, and upgrades for ground units. I didnt make any aditional high templars, and used phoenixes on the hybrids that have ranged atacks. For air, ad a few extra phoenixes and get atack upgrades. the key is to control your phoenixes well, add more canons and dont stop spawning in zealots, stalkers if u have extra gas. The tier one units are for hit taking from ling/hydra/roach. the phoenixes are for air and lifting hybrids, imortals will deal with hybrids very well assuming u dont lose them to ling/hydra/roach, but they are normally slow enought to stay at the back. To cover the archive, if u feel like it, remmeber to add extra canons at all 3 entrances, but to keep themat the sides so u allow your units to hit efectivly.

Apart from that, the extra units that you will get from the maps triggerer will do their job almost automaticly, just make sure your voids/phoeninxes dont get in front or hydras will take them down 2 fast.

I managed this was about 2800 kills on brutal, also storm is good, but its not easy to keep up with the storms and controling your phoenixes without loosing them.

Dont forget imortals will soak up the daamge from hybrids really nicely, so dont panic if a few start to get close to your main force.

the moment when a lot of nydus spawn around the archive, use imortals only to take down the nyduses themselves, and the rest of the units to keep forces at bay.

Hope this helps, good luck :D


They attacked me at the yellow minerals when I played, but I expanded there after a good 5-10 minutes :-/.
sacrificetheory
Profile Joined September 2004
United States98 Posts
August 03 2010 21:27 GMT
#128
You will notice a common idea which is collosus immortals phoenix. thats all you need + tons of cannons. the void rays they give you are fine. use them to target all nydus worms asap.

How badass is it when Artanis comes out?
dybydx
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Canada1764 Posts
August 03 2010 21:29 GMT
#129
On August 04 2010 06:22 FabledIntegral wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 04 2010 06:19 iloveav wrote:
i managed this on brutal this way: first thing is to start +1 atack upgrade for ground, then send 1 probe to make nexus on yellow minerals and transfer all workers currently on normal minerals to that expansion. Then very fast get about 15 dark templars and use them till first overseers come. till then u need: 3-4 colosus, non stop building imortals, and upgrades for ground units. I didnt make any aditional high templars, and used phoenixes on the hybrids that have ranged atacks. For air, ad a few extra phoenixes and get atack upgrades. the key is to control your phoenixes well, add more canons and dont stop spawning in zealots, stalkers if u have extra gas. The tier one units are for hit taking from ling/hydra/roach. the phoenixes are for air and lifting hybrids, imortals will deal with hybrids very well assuming u dont lose them to ling/hydra/roach, but they are normally slow enought to stay at the back. To cover the archive, if u feel like it, remmeber to add extra canons at all 3 entrances, but to keep themat the sides so u allow your units to hit efectivly.

Apart from that, the extra units that you will get from the maps triggerer will do their job almost automaticly, just make sure your voids/phoeninxes dont get in front or hydras will take them down 2 fast.

I managed this was about 2800 kills on brutal, also storm is good, but its not easy to keep up with the storms and controling your phoenixes without loosing them.

Dont forget imortals will soak up the daamge from hybrids really nicely, so dont panic if a few start to get close to your main force.

the moment when a lot of nydus spawn around the archive, use imortals only to take down the nyduses themselves, and the rest of the units to keep forces at bay.

Hope this helps, good luck :D


They attacked me at the yellow minerals when I played, but I expanded there after a good 5-10 minutes :-/.


same here. when i played, they attacked the gold expo every time.
...from the land of imba
NeonFlare
Profile Blog Joined September 2008
Finland1307 Posts
August 03 2010 23:55 GMT
#130
3400-ish kills on Brutal, spammed immortals (amazing damage soak with hefty damage to drop hybrids and ultras) and added few phoenix to the initial ones, used 2 gates to wall a bridge and bunch of cannons between/behind them, so enemies had one small place to hit the cannons, seemed like lings tried to rush it more often than the actual gates.

Double forge/core for faster upgrades, started to go about 50/50 in immortals and colossi soon from about 4 robotics and later started to pump voidrays from 2 stargates priorizing them over ground units, rebuilt the walls whenever I could.

Of course you have to pick up hybrids with phoenix (priority on range) and kill worms as fast as you can. After vault thing is secured its just a retreat to upper platform and making some semiwalls with gates/cannons so they lead zergs towards the mid from the ramps where your force is positioned. Rest is just using phoenixes and dropping a vortex if needed.
Ianuus
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Australia349 Posts
August 03 2010 23:59 GMT
#131
Pylon walls at the chokes - this helps immensely when multiple waves attack in succession from all sides, as it lets you concentrate your force to deal with one side while having a wall against the first waves of zerglings for the others.
Thereisnosaurus
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Australia1822 Posts
August 04 2010 00:06 GMT
#132
How badass is it when Artanis comes out?


YO YO YO MY BROS ARTANIS BE IN DA HOUSE, GOT THA PIMPEST RIDE IN TOWN, BITCHES BE ALL MINE LET'S FRY SOME BUGS YO

pretty badass, yeah. I hope to god we see him come back in the campaign, such a dude.
Poisonous Sheep counter Hydras
Fawkes
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada1935 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-04 00:26:40
August 04 2010 00:21 GMT
#133
Massed Colosuss off 3 robos and had like 7 warpgates warping in stalkers until I was 200/200...decided to stop defending the archive and defend the two ramps up my base...just blocked those with cannons and pylons and spent extra gas on templars.

Money went to templars and cannons after I hit 200/200 and started losing units, occasionally pulled out an additional colo if I lost one due to bad micromanagement.
Taeyeon ~ Jennie ~ Seulgi ~ Irene @Fawkes711
Mastermind
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
Canada7096 Posts
August 04 2010 00:34 GMT
#134
This level is too easy. Far too easy.

Just build mass cannons at the three entrances and spam collosus + phoenix. I built the cannons after getting a decent sized army. Use the phoenix to lift up all of the hybrids and have your cannons and the other units they give you through the level to kill the lifted hybrids. The colossus will vapourize everything else on the ground. I also got full upgrades for air and ground units using 3 forges and 2 cores right from the start.
Piski
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Finland3461 Posts
August 04 2010 00:47 GMT
#135
Didn't use the dt's. I just made 2 more gateways and a robo from the start. Then pumpen zealot/stalker with colossus and constantly upgrading ground and air.
Also phoenixes as they falled.
Then when the voidrays came I forgot about the gateway units except if I had excess minerals.
So I built 2 more stargates and just pumped voidrays and phoenixes with colo and then only vr and phoenix.
At the end I had a lot of voidrays, phoenixes and some carriers you get with 3 3 upgrades. They do pretty well against anything.

But I'm guessing this has already been said.
Got even almost that +750 kills achievement, 39 kills short
rredtooth
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
5459 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-05 09:06:00
August 05 2010 09:01 GMT
#136
i just got an extra thousand (3500) going starport units. voidray/colossus/cannons til selendis arrives then just mass carriers. phoenix to lift up all the hybrid units and snipe broodlords. i gave up building colossus after i hit a critical mass of carriers. 3/3/3 is a big help of course.
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]
[formerly sponsored by the artist formerly known as Gene]
Fraud
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada108 Posts
August 05 2010 15:10 GMT
#137
Some people suggested walling off using DT's. I've found greater success walling off first with gateways, with cannons behind (when you start to float on minerals). It helps keep the Zerg on the bridge which makes your collossi that much more effective. Once I got VR's, I made sure 2 starports were producing them and cut back on collossi production. I did this with 3 robos, 2 starports.

Getting upgrades is also really efficient.

I pumped a few phoenixes as I lost them before I got voidrays, but I wouldnt say more than 5-10.
Aeroz135
Profile Joined August 2010
48 Posts
August 05 2010 15:25 GMT
#138
did this in 2 attempts on brutal. first was mad fail, 2nd i used the immortal/collo/phoenix build and steamrolled the comp and managed to save archives and rack up about 3400 kills. started with a 2nd forge, only used the single cyber they give u for air upgrades, only actually made 1 more robo. so basically i 3 robo/2 stargated and was able to easily get a 200/200 army, immortals just wreck the hybrids. you dont even need any more than 10 phoenix id say just cuz the voids and carriers that come automatically later make ur air plenty strong. also threw some cannons near the archives to pull the waves to the mid once all 3 sides were broken. after you save archives, go to the higher level, block ramp, cannon up, enjoy victory.
MangoTango
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States3670 Posts
August 05 2010 15:28 GMT
#139
I got to 3200ish with mass phoenix/colossus, like everyone else. I didn't even know about gold minerals, where are they? :o
"One fish, two fish, red fish, BLUE TANK!" - Artosis
Obsidian
Profile Joined June 2010
United States350 Posts
August 05 2010 15:53 GMT
#140
I went and got the super-achievement, on Brutal, just massing Carriers.

First stages, you build a few extra gateways, start maxing your Air Attack/Armor and Shields, get some dark templar and a few more colossi out. Then just 1a your way through the majority of the waves, when your excess minerals builds up, drop lots of cannons on the second tier of the base. Once carriers get out, get extra starports and just start converting all your pop into carriers.

Hold the two paths up as long as you can, and then just try and keep everything nice and tight.

Graphics get all sorts of choppy even on my superior computer with that many zerg, and that many interceptors around, but it was still enough to chew through enough units and get me all the achievements.
Luke, you are still a wanker!
zoLo
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States5896 Posts
August 05 2010 16:28 GMT
#141
On August 06 2010 00:28 MangoTango wrote:
I got to 3200ish with mass phoenix/colossus, like everyone else. I didn't even know about gold minerals, where are they? :o


Gold minerals are at the top near the zerg spawn. You will have to defend it very well since once the top spawns, it will attack the gold expo.
kaztal
Profile Joined April 2010
Sweden68 Posts
August 05 2010 16:55 GMT
#142
*) get all upgrades. i recommend getting another forge. this is important as shit.
*) get some more gateways and perhaps one more robo facility
*) robo bay
*) pump immortals till robo bay is done, then colossi with some immortals
*) loads and loads of stalkers
*) zealots with excess minerals
*) this is perhaps the most important part: pheonixes can't pick up massive units, but they can pick up the hybrids. doing this rigorously made me go from 2k kills to 2.7k kills. it is a HUGE difference.
*) voidrays are good too.
bleh
Profile Joined June 2010
85 Posts
August 06 2010 08:38 GMT
#143
I had trouble with this mission at first, then I realized that there is almost no detection from the zerg. If you just make 3 zergling-tight walls with DTs on hold position, then mass phoenixes to take out the overseers while they're still in the area where the units mass up before attacking. You can actually hold this for a really, really long time if you actively pick the overseers off, the nydus worm attacks can be easily dealt with by the heroes. I still had the first 2 colossi they give you like 20 minutes into the mission.
Vimsey
Profile Joined May 2010
United Kingdom2235 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-06 10:05:28
August 06 2010 09:57 GMT
#144
To add to lots of good ideas above I constricted the two chokes into the elevated main with forges cos they are cheap and need to get fast upgrades anyways and lots of cannons behind them it also made it an easy place to pick up the hybrids with the phoenix's graviton beams. Yeah I still had my starting collossi right to near the end.

I only lost when I ran out of minerals and didnt even notice the high yield :o


PS. I didnt make DTs because I thought the hybrids where detectors...I would try that DT strat next time I do it If I get bored and want to go for it again.
Barook
Profile Joined July 2010
Germany143 Posts
August 06 2010 10:05 GMT
#145
I finally made it today with 3000+ kills after failing hard before, barely scratching 1k kills.

I spammed DTs in the beginning until I had a nice ball (around 16 DTs) which dealt with the Zerg on the attacked bridges until detectors came into play. If you're fast, you can snipe the Overseer with your Phoenixes, but I would suggest to morph your DTs into Archons at that point. The entire thing is accompanied by a few Collossi and upgrading all your stuff.

Once you get Carrier, spam them out of multiple Stargates and slowly retreat onto high ground once you get overrun. In the meantime, you should have spammed your high ground with cannons from excess minerals. After that, I just tried to let my army hug the Mothership and snipe the incoming Overseer waves to minimize damage to my fleet. Worked like a charm for me.
"Blink is pretty good, it helps your Stalkers to die quicker."
Kentor *
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States5784 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-06 14:10:15
August 06 2010 10:13 GMT
#146
On July 29 2010 13:51 meatfortress wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 28 2010 16:43 CynanMachae wrote:
I didn't know there was a gold expo :\

the gold is a trap

i rebuilt that expansion 3-4 times before they finished me off. a good 45-60 minutes wasted. tried it again, ignoring the gold and bunkering down a ginormous force next to the library and did just fine

[image loading]
easily mine that out with this wall
dybydx
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Canada1764 Posts
August 06 2010 10:31 GMT
#147
@Kentor,

this is a joke. ur playing on normal difficulty. thats day n night difference from brutal.
...from the land of imba
Kentor *
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States5784 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-06 11:45:41
August 06 2010 11:38 GMT
#148
On August 06 2010 19:31 dybydx wrote:
@Kentor,

this is a joke. ur playing on normal difficulty. thats day n night difference from brutal.

Wow really? It really matters what difficulty it is to take a picture of a wall.
[image loading]
r u happy now?
dybydx
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Canada1764 Posts
August 06 2010 12:19 GMT
#149
@Kentor,

show us a picture on brutal, with 2300+ kills, with the bonus quest completed, and significant portion of the gold minerals mined out (send an observer there), THEN we know the strategy works.

otherwise ur just theorycrafting.
...from the land of imba
Ownos
Profile Joined July 2010
United States2147 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-06 12:58:44
August 06 2010 12:55 GMT
#150
4 robo pumping colossus and 4 gates making stalkers. Walled myself in with cannons and gateways at the front choke on all three sides. Cannons will usually draw zerg units toward me so I don't need to wall off the choke and run all over the place. When the archive is about finished, I ran up to the high ground and walled off the two ramps with a bunch of gateways. I probably would've done better if I made the wall a bit thicker. Once the wall was breached it was just chaos from there.

I should mention I completed this mission just barely with my hero carrier sniping off the last few ling kills before dying.

Thinking about it, storms behind cannons with immortals to deal with fat units and voids/phoenix to deal with air sounds way easier. I was too worried about the possibility of an air wave that I went stalker heavy. I think the units they give you for free are enough to deal with air.

ALSO the gold minerals aren't worth it. You're already on two base with 200 supply ready to be filled. It doesn't take long to make a 200 supply army and the rest of the mission you just pile up money to waste on maintaining walls. Not to mention all that supply wasted on probes.
...deeper and deeper into the bowels of El Diablo
RawrAnOcean
Profile Joined February 2006
United States359 Posts
August 06 2010 13:22 GMT
#151
I beat this pretty easily. 3100 kills probably could of gotten higher if I didn't run into my vortex thinking it would help me. My core composition was Immortals/Collosi/Phoenixes. I circled the thing you were suppose to protect with cannons which were also meatshields for my collosi. Phoenixes lift all the hybrids. Immortals tear through the hybrids pretty quick but they should be lifted for the collosi to finish off the little guys. After the first objective is done I ran to the elevated part between the ramps and stalled with cannons phoenixes collosi and immortals. Once you get mothership, just vortex one ramp while you deal with the other ramp.

Make sure you upgrade ground weapons it will help significantly. I couldn't hold the gold minerals. I believe I had 5 robos 2 stargates to hold me through the match.
Kentor *
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States5784 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-06 13:29:01
August 06 2010 13:22 GMT
#152
On August 06 2010 21:19 dybydx wrote:
@Kentor,

show us a picture on brutal, with 2300+ kills, with the bonus quest completed, and significant portion of the gold minerals mined out (send an observer there), THEN we know the strategy works.

otherwise ur just theorycrafting.

I'm helping people out with something that worked for me. What is your problem? I guess everyone responding to these help threads is not allowed to give out tips unless he has a picture ready.
h3r1n6
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
Iceland2039 Posts
August 06 2010 13:29 GMT
#153
The main thing needed for this mission is probably just decent mechanics. Quickly airlifting all the hybrids, spending the money and moving your army in time and it is not that hard.
dybydx
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Canada1764 Posts
August 06 2010 13:32 GMT
#154
@Kentor,

the general consensus here is that getting the gold on brutal was impractical. and with you posting a normal difficulty image on a brutal thread recommending a dubious method simply showed that u are a noob troll.
...from the land of imba
zeidrichthorene
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
Canada83 Posts
August 06 2010 20:02 GMT
#155
Getting the gold on Brutal is easy.

1) Make a nexus before the first wave comes.
2) When the first wave is coming, nexus should be completing. Send 9 probes to nexus. Queue up 5 more probes.
3) Second wave comes from the north entrance first, send your units up there. It's mostly zerglings so use 2-3 storms from your initial templar and clean up.
4) After cleaning up the 10:00 entrance, head your ball to the 3:00 entrance to kill the wave entering from there (zerglings, plus 2 Ultras, plus a few hydras and an infestor)
5) Build 6 cannons, or wall off like Kentor shows at your gold expo. Either wall off the 3:00 entrance with pylons/gateways, or simply add some cannons near the archive.
6) The next wave is hybrids at the middle entrance, graviton them up. Kill the rest with whatever units your strategy calls for.
7) Almost immediately after the hybrids come there will be a stream of zerglings attacking your gold expo. The reason we built the cannons or the wall is to keep them from attacking the nexus before the ball gets there. Head the ball up there, and your phoenixes. Use your ground units to kill off the stream of units coming in, and use your phoenixes to kill the mutalisks, and maybe lift the occasional hydra to lower damage on your units.
8) The attack on the 3:00 entrance will come before the attack at the expo is finished, that is why we built the wall, or the cannons at the archive. The wall will keep them there long enough for you to finish off at the expo and move your units to the south. Kill them.
9) Congratulations, you've had 14 probes mining from 7 rich patches. You will not suffer another attack from that entrance until you are basically mined out. If you want, you can transfer your probes back to your main when you get to one patch left, or you can let them die to recover supply.

This is completely strategy independent, and you can hold out until the point that your expansion is safe without building any units past what you originally start with. Getting the gold that much earlier means you've got 60% more income in the early game. Having more income early means you can afford a larger force, and will thus lose fewer units to attacks, meaning you'll retain more of your force, making it even larger.

The gold is not necessary, but it's very simple to hold until it's mined out if you do an early transfer, start to warp it in before the first wave, and are able to defend the 2 weak early attacks on it.
bleh
Profile Joined June 2010
85 Posts
August 06 2010 20:29 GMT
#156
seriously, try the DT wall strategy, it's way easier than any of the things people here are recommending. You can easily get about 2500 kills before they even start sending more than 1-2 overseers at a time. Just need to be active about picking them off before they get close to the DTs. I actually had to commit suicide toward the end because I completed the mission and my base was completely untouched, so I didn't want to sit there killing things for another 10 minutes.

3 walls of DTs, mass phoenixes, kill the overseers. Mission complete. Even a copper player can win with this strategy.
FabledIntegral
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States9232 Posts
August 06 2010 20:36 GMT
#157
On August 06 2010 19:13 Kentor wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 29 2010 13:51 meatfortress wrote:
On July 28 2010 16:43 CynanMachae wrote:
I didn't know there was a gold expo :\

the gold is a trap

i rebuilt that expansion 3-4 times before they finished me off. a good 45-60 minutes wasted. tried it again, ignoring the gold and bunkering down a ginormous force next to the library and did just fine

[image loading]
easily mine that out with this wall


They'd crush that wall in a second I would think. I believe as soon as you do a sealed wall-off they decide to attack the buildings blocking them. Which is why the DT wall works - the AI thinks there is room to get through.
bleh
Profile Joined June 2010
85 Posts
August 06 2010 20:39 GMT
#158
On August 06 2010 20:38 Kentor wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 06 2010 19:31 dybydx wrote:
@Kentor,

this is a joke. ur playing on normal difficulty. thats day n night difference from brutal.

Wow really? It really matters what difficulty it is to take a picture of a wall.
[image loading]
r u happy now?


I think his point is that this wall clearly can't hold the waves of attacks that will be generated on brutal. Once the hydralisks start pouring out the wall would be demolished very quickly.
Kentor *
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States5784 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-07 11:19:16
August 06 2010 22:47 GMT
#159
On August 07 2010 05:39 bleh wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 06 2010 20:38 Kentor wrote:
On August 06 2010 19:31 dybydx wrote:
@Kentor,

this is a joke. ur playing on normal difficulty. thats day n night difference from brutal.

Wow really? It really matters what difficulty it is to take a picture of a wall.
[image loading]
r u happy now?


I think his point is that this wall clearly can't hold the waves of attacks that will be generated on brutal. Once the hydralisks start pouring out the wall would be demolished very quickly.

Obviously you don't just sit there and let hydras attack your wall. I mean you do have an army. The point is not to let zerglings just run by and destroy your probes and everything else. It holds off long enough for your army to travel to that side of the map. Also I was primarily responding to people who didn't know there was a gold expansion or they found it hard to defend, I'm not saying what strats are the best or whatever. Luckily, I had a saved file on brutal and took a picture. Almost mined out the gold and maxed out on food as well. Once maxed, it's a breeze from there.
[image loading]
mechanix
Profile Joined March 2010
33 Posts
August 06 2010 23:12 GMT
#160
i think kentor just owned you guys
Slayer91
Profile Joined February 2006
Ireland23335 Posts
August 06 2010 23:27 GMT
#161
Taking the gold is definitely the best way to go if you want to get mass mass kills. That wall+templar + having some carriers or something to stall while your main army arrives should be fine. I'll do this mission again soon since I'm doing full achievement run now and just getting to zeratul missions.
Wekapedia
Profile Joined June 2010
Hungary77 Posts
August 07 2010 00:33 GMT
#162
Confirming that the DT-wall + phoenix strategy works. Ended up at 3020 kills, 13.5k minerals and zero gas until the baneling push. Could have probably gotten 3250 for the achievement had I macroed up tons of cannons to burn the minerals. Alas, I did not.

Tried going for the gold before DTs, but the wall caved fairly quickly even with colossi support.
bleh
Profile Joined June 2010
85 Posts
August 07 2010 05:37 GMT
#163
On August 07 2010 08:12 mechanix wrote:
i think kentor just owned you guys


Not really. He basically said himself that you need a max food army to protect it. If that's the case, you don't even need to build the wall, you can just have your army in place before the attack is launched and the same thing would be accomplished. The wall does pretty much nothing but buy you about 5 seconds if your army is out of place, what he posted wasn't helpful at all to the people saying they needed help.
Kentor *
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States5784 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-07 11:21:42
August 07 2010 10:52 GMT
#164
On August 07 2010 14:37 bleh wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 07 2010 08:12 mechanix wrote:
i think kentor just owned you guys


Not really. He basically said himself that you need a max food army to protect it. If that's the case, you don't even need to build the wall, you can just have your army in place before the attack is launched and the same thing would be accomplished. The wall does pretty much nothing but buy you about 5 seconds if your army is out of place, what he posted wasn't helpful at all to the people saying they needed help.

Yeah actually your DT method is the most godliest strat ever ^^ I think it helped me cure my cold.
dybydx
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Canada1764 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-07 13:22:35
August 07 2010 12:57 GMT
#165
ok i tested out the claim taking the gold and building immo/collo/phenix. it does indeed work on brutal. this is what i got on the 1st try. (i forgot to take the gas too)

[image loading]

and then minutes later, this is what i got. u see i got an obs at the gold showing all minerals are mined out. i got 3500+ kills, brutal, first try, no load/save needed.
[image loading]
so yes, kentor's build does work
...from the land of imba
ComTrav
Profile Joined April 2010
United States1093 Posts
August 07 2010 13:29 GMT
#166
Was really struggling with this mission until I found this thread. Personally I found that upgrading, Void Rays, and Colossi made a big difference, as well as using excess minerals to cannon the high ground.
aelesia
Profile Joined April 2010
Singapore8 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-07 20:39:50
August 07 2010 20:37 GMT
#167
I have to say that the TL wiki was spot on with their unit combination.

Basically I made an equal amount of colossi and immortals with 3 robotic bays. I spammed a couple of zealots and stalkers with 5 warp gates as well. Had some about 5 - 8 phoenixes including those given to me.I had about 6 void rays too, although I think it would have been a better idea to build more void rays instead of stalkers because void rays are much more effective against hybrids. I also noticed that in both my games, the void rays as well as the void ray commander was always the last to die.

Also I basically just kept all my units all in one group, except for my phoenixes which were in another group. Huddled all of them around the archive and directed the phoenix to where the mutas were coming from. Stalkers and Void Rays would auto attack any brood lords. I held off easily for the first 25 minutes before retreating back. Even up till about 2900~ kills I was still at 200/200 food supply, although I was running low on resources.

They eventually got steam rolled at around 3300 where a massive swarm of units came in. I held off a little longer due to the mothership's vortex. But there were just too many hybrids attacking me and I didn't have enough void rays to counter them.

But anyway, the sure way to win on Brutal is to make Colossi and Immortals at a 1:1 ratio, spam stalkers and zealots, have about 5+ phoenixes and 5+ void rays, defend the middle point together.

I didn't make any DT walls, nor did I grab the gold expansion. Could probably have held off slightly longer if I grabbed the gold and spammed more void rays at the end.
ily
Ghier
Profile Joined June 2010
99 Posts
August 07 2010 23:09 GMT
#168
I really really dont like this mission
Blisse
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Canada3710 Posts
August 08 2010 00:18 GMT
#169
On August 08 2010 05:37 aelesia wrote:
I have to say that the TL wiki was spot on with their unit combination.

Basically I made an equal amount of colossi and immortals with 3 robotic bays. I spammed a couple of zealots and stalkers with 5 warp gates as well. Had some about 5 - 8 phoenixes including those given to me.I had about 6 void rays too, although I think it would have been a better idea to build more void rays instead of stalkers because void rays are much more effective against hybrids. I also noticed that in both my games, the void rays as well as the void ray commander was always the last to die.

Also I basically just kept all my units all in one group, except for my phoenixes which were in another group. Huddled all of them around the archive and directed the phoenix to where the mutas were coming from. Stalkers and Void Rays would auto attack any brood lords. I held off easily for the first 25 minutes before retreating back. Even up till about 2900~ kills I was still at 200/200 food supply, although I was running low on resources.

They eventually got steam rolled at around 3300 where a massive swarm of units came in. I held off a little longer due to the mothership's vortex. But there were just too many hybrids attacking me and I didn't have enough void rays to counter them.

But anyway, the sure way to win on Brutal is to make Colossi and Immortals at a 1:1 ratio, spam stalkers and zealots, have about 5+ phoenixes and 5+ void rays, defend the middle point together.

I didn't make any DT walls, nor did I grab the gold expansion. Could probably have held off slightly longer if I grabbed the gold and spammed more void rays at the end.


The only annoying thing is that when you're maxed, you still have a sizable ground army, but at that point, the ground is crawling with Zerg. So you have to wait for some of your units to die before getting maxed air units, but the buildings die once your ground force falls.

The wiki guide is spot on, if you just want to get 2500+ kills. Max out using Immortals and Colossi, and you'll easily get the bonus, and the kills. The extra 750 requires a bit more effort and strategy, or just better use of their guide on my part. =)
There is no one like you in the universe.
bleh
Profile Joined June 2010
85 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-08 15:58:22
August 08 2010 15:55 GMT
#170
He didn't post a build or a strategy, he posted a picture of 4 cannons behind 2 gateways and said absolutely nothing else, as if building one tiny wall will instantly win you the level. It's not remotely helpful to the people who are coming here looking for help beating the level, they still need some kind of actual explanation or help other than a picture of a couple of buildings.

On August 07 2010 19:52 Kentor wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 07 2010 14:37 bleh wrote:
On August 07 2010 08:12 mechanix wrote:
i think kentor just owned you guys


Not really. He basically said himself that you need a max food army to protect it. If that's the case, you don't even need to build the wall, you can just have your army in place before the attack is launched and the same thing would be accomplished. The wall does pretty much nothing but buy you about 5 seconds if your army is out of place, what he posted wasn't helpful at all to the people saying they needed help.

Yeah actually your DT method is the most godliest strat ever ^^ I think it helped me cure my cold.


It's actually far more effective, intelligent, and simple than anything you've come up with, moron. Nice sarcasm, but it actually is the easiest and most effective strategy that has been posted in this thread. You posted a picture of 4 cannons, like that is going to win someone the level. You're a fucking retard.

User was banned for this post.
Craton
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States17250 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-08 22:18:27
August 08 2010 22:17 GMT
#171
I haven't read through this thread. I completed this with 3400 kills a week or so ago.

What I did was to spend my early resources on upgrades and colossi and 2 DTs. I put a DT up your left and right ramps that lead to your main, which deal with the lings that beeline into your main. You want to get 2-3 cannons in those locations at first to keep the lings there. Templar are strong early, but they get sniped so don't bother making many. Zealots just get rolled over and die, but you're usually gas-limited so don't be afraid to make some zealots and tons of cannons. Once you get VR tech, constantly make colossi/vr from 2 robos/sgates. Make a point of getting about 10 immortals about midway through -- once ultras start coming they become key. You only need a control group of ground and one of air. Use the air group to take out the air attacks that come from odd angles and your ground army to deal with the waves from the various sides. When you're idle, keep your army positioned near the artifact. Rally your building units to just behind the artifact, so you can see/grab them easily.

Once you max your army, focus on building retarded amounts of cannons. I had about 40 cannons up the ramp to my main on each side, plus cannons on the ridge behind the artifact, and yet more cannons all around the underside of that ridge. The idea is to draw all the zerg into more and more cannons, which will eliminate most of them and give you plenty of time to maneuver. I found carriers and phoenixes largely useless, however when you do have phoenixes alive, be sure to pick up the hybrid ones. They really help nullify the damage output. I did manage to take the left expo around 3100 kills, but I couldn't hold it for very long; you end up spread too thin.

I tried to keep about 12-15 colossi and immortals up at all times. You need to keep a strong balance of colossi/immo/vr.
twitch.tv/cratonz
ScienceRob
Profile Joined April 2010
United States382 Posts
August 08 2010 22:21 GMT
#172
To get the kill objective on Brutal I retreated to the main base at the start. Cannon'd up and made 6+ colossi and 6 stargates. Waited for the Carriers to arrive and then went mass carrier. Lift up the melee hybrid with the phoenix. I got over 3600 kills on brutal this way.
Carpe Diem
Sonic114
Profile Joined August 2010
United States59 Posts
August 08 2010 22:24 GMT
#173
All you need to really do is make a DT wall at all three chokes, and when the overseers come, use your pheonix/voidray army to snipe them off. Transition to MASS carriers when you can.
SplashbackFerret
Profile Joined October 2009
New Zealand846 Posts
August 09 2010 05:10 GMT
#174
I completed this mission in the most vanilla way ever; no special tricks or even attempting to take gold; it was only good for around 2800 kills and failed to save the archive so only try this if the other suggestions hadn't worked out for you.

First priority was to saturate the minerals in base and build a support bay; after that you just build colossi and stalkers with upgrades - no focus on air except to replenish lost phoenixes.

The reason I tried this strat was because generally in my failed attempts I unintentionally lose phoenixes to mutas a lot and thus find myself pretty helpless when hybrid waves appear. With a stalker heavy composition I could retreat my phoenixes over my ground ball when being chased by mutas and have them die to stalker fire.

General strategy applies - when you become gas limited start massing cannons on the high-ground and lift any hybrids that appear; phoenixes should be safe behind the ground army to avoid ranged hybrid attacks and prioritise lifting melee hybrids.

I retreated to my high-ground cannons pretty early, they provide great cannon-fodder to slow down ultras and hybrids for my ranged-heavy army to melt everything, i'm convinced that with better micro and mixing in immortals rather than going pure colossi with my robos I could save the archive and get more kills.

Anyway, a victory is a victory and getting to 2500 is all that matters - I just repeated the mission on normal difficulty for the additional achievements and research.
Splashy the Splashback Awareness Ferret
Raelcun
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States3747 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-09 05:56:52
August 09 2010 05:53 GMT
#175
On August 09 2010 07:24 Sonic114 wrote:
All you need to really do is make a DT wall at all three chokes, and when the overseers come, use your pheonix/voidray army to snipe them off. Transition to MASS carriers when you can.


Except hybrids are detectors on brutal? Why does everyone say this works havent tried it but seems like the hybrids would detect the DTs and fuck it up. Does the DT wall mess up their unit pathing somehow?

I did this on the standard base (ie no gold) built a robo bay first thing, went up to 4 robo/stargate made about a 60/40 split of colossus and phoenix. Got 3-3-3 upgrades on everything and saved up a huge stockpile once I had a huge stockpile ie over 4k each I sacced probes to have a true 200/200 army of colossus and phoenixes pulled back up my ramps past 25 minutes and laughed at the ezwin. Lift up the hybrids to take them out of the battle until the other smaller stuff is dead and win as the colossus kill everything on the ground and the phoenixes rape the air. Didn't even need the gold, cannon whored up my ramps with the massive amounts of excess minerals so that any zerglings that got by me woudlnt tear up my base and it helps deal with the zerg drop pods.
Celestial
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
United States652 Posts
August 09 2010 06:10 GMT
#176
I got to about 3400-ish kills going Colossus/Voidrays with a ton of cannons littering the whole base. I still had control of the low ground at around the 3k mark and a ton of cannons surrounding everything when they really started to pour in tons of units, forcing the retreat to high ground. It was certainly a fun mission, just don't forget that Immortals are never a bad thing. Phoenix micro is of course the best to staying alive longer.

Also once you start getting close to max just spam cannons everywhere in your base but the perimeters where broodlords enter, it's pretty helpful once you feel you need to make the retreat to high ground if you stayed too long on the low. Colossus have this odd AI pathing though, so be careful to allow some grid space so the colossus don't spaz out getting stuck in corners between cannons and pylons.
TriniMasta
Profile Joined December 2009
United States1323 Posts
August 09 2010 06:25 GMT
#177
Lift that overpowered Hybrid crap. Storm should make the rest a BIT easier. I don't think I got any air units at all, except for 2-3 void rays in the late stages. Just non stop colossus and warping in. I had a crapload of High Templars later on.
정명훈 FIGHTING!!! Play both T and P.
SoMuchBetter
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Australia10606 Posts
August 09 2010 06:27 GMT
#178
On August 09 2010 14:53 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 09 2010 07:24 Sonic114 wrote:
All you need to really do is make a DT wall at all three chokes, and when the overseers come, use your pheonix/voidray army to snipe them off. Transition to MASS carriers when you can.


Except hybrids are detectors on brutal? Why does everyone say this works havent tried it but seems like the hybrids would detect the DTs and fuck it up. Does the DT wall mess up their unit pathing somehow?

theyre not detectors.
that one hybrid in a sinister turn was a detector
AUSSIESCUM
TeamLiquid eSTROgeneral #1 • RIP
fant0m
Profile Joined May 2010
964 Posts
August 09 2010 06:57 GMT
#179
I completed this on my 2nd try (Brutal), lost at 3187 kills due to not being sure if I should suicide after 2500 or keep trying, got me behind due to not rebuilding.

The strat is simple.

1) Saturate your minerals, build about 3 robo and 3 stargate, 2+ of each upgrade building and spam upgrades.

2) MAKE COLOSSUS

3) MAKE COLOSSUS

4) ???

5) Profit!

I literally had a page of colossus on this level. I immediately retreated to the high ground, no need to defend the bonus objective on Brutal. Spam cannons on high ground with extra minerals, blah blah blah.

With the units that you are given, you don't really need any gateway units or phoenix. Just spam gravitron beam on Hybrids, snipe mutas with your given air, and mass colossus. TBH I built too many cannons and my Colo couldn't move around effectively at the end, it would have been better if I had remembered to leave them paths to get around in.

Once you get Void Rays you can transition to those, you don't need more than a page of colossus (hence the star gates and upgrades). I believe void rays are better than carriers per supply, but it's really your choice, the mission isn't very hard.

------------

And to people worrying about their useless ground units (like the zealots you're given).... ATTACK THEM. This is Starcraft, of course there's friendly fire! You can also suicide them to help out a little bit, but in a pinch if you're supply capped, just a click your own guys and replace them with more useful colo/void ray.
Raelcun
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States3747 Posts
August 09 2010 07:48 GMT
#180
About killing the units any of them that come in from reinforcements are technically hero units and do not take up supply, ie when the carriers come in and you gain a few ground units with I believe they're a different color but the zealots that you start will will die off anyway.
BuzzJuice
Profile Joined April 2010
United States97 Posts
August 09 2010 08:33 GMT
#181
Right. Those hybrid units aren't detectors so you can kill them with DTs and what not. And those hero units and those units you get with Selendis and the other heros don't count towards your supply so keep them. I agree with a lot of these guys and many of their strats are dead on. Get loads of Collosi and Immortals as well for dealing with the ground units and then move into Void Rays. Wall off chokes and make sure you have plenty of unit producing structures (I got to nearly 3700 on Brutal with about 10 Stargates and 8 Robo Bays. In those idle moments when the attacks stop, being able to reinforce really quickly is crucial.) Grabbing the gold, walling off, getting plenty of cannons and making sure you upgrade quickly etc.

Q. Is there an achievement after 2750 one? I noticed in the end game screen that there were 127 kills left to next achievement. Is it just like that or something else?
Macro and Micro - the only M&M you need to know
Insanecorn
Profile Joined August 2010
11 Posts
August 09 2010 09:21 GMT
#182
on brutal u have 2750 achievement, all objective achievement and 3250 kills achievement. Hard you have 2250->all objective then 2750. So either A) secret achievement or B) your kills are off.


After a few tries of going collussus and phoenix and zealots or colussus and phoenix etc I just went meh and tried full collusus/immortal off the bat and got to 1900 or so...had built like 6 extra robos though at the start. Tried again building only 2 extra robos, a forge and the colussus building(robo bay or such). Had 2 of the robo facilities building immortals and the other 2 building colussus(leaned more colussus early on). Upgraded shields and attack at the start(shields help all units so phoenix and such last longer) and yeah. I only used the air units i was given and had them in a seperate tab. When carriers were unlocked I went to those(though due to having like 18x supply with immortal/collussus i could only build 2 extras). Strat only failed when I let my base die and due to lack of pylons/probes to rebuild reinforcing was impossible...survived to 3249(got the achieve on first playthrough on normal though so yeah...was still a kick in the nuts...id say VR would prob be better in this situation though as the reason i didnt get 3250 was the remaining carriers had no interceptors...also interceptors eat up minerals like crazy...especially as it will be all BUILD 1 ATTACK...etc)
Raelcun
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States3747 Posts
August 09 2010 09:53 GMT
#183
There are two extra kill achievements +250 on normal and +750 on hard or the other way around I don't remember so when playing on brutal you get one at 2750 for the +250 and then one at 3250 for the +750 kills if you were at 3700 and it showed another achievement in progress then I don't know I didn't look closely enought o see anything like that.
sparknineone
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States52 Posts
August 10 2010 22:29 GMT
#184
On Brutal

If you mass Colossi and Immortals, you can literally AFK half the time and win. You'll be at 200/200 before the Carriers arrive and you'll lose little to no units. I think I had 4 Robo Bays but you only need three. Expansion wasn't necessary either. Had a lot of trouble when I tried to use Gateway units, so stay away from that and this should be easy.
Vokasak
Profile Joined July 2010
United States388 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-10 22:42:05
August 10 2010 22:39 GMT
#185
First thing I did was throw down six additional gateways to total out to 8. You can get enough DTs to wall off one side by the time the second attack comes. You can DT wall all three by the time the 5th or so attack comes. Overseers aren't a problem since they don't send any until you get the void rays or so, and even then it's only like one at a time until Artanis shows up. Just pay attention to what's coming in the next wave (You'll see if it's Overseers) and snipe if needed with your air force. 2-3 collosus behind the DT wall and maybe some cannons is all it takes up until your mothership shows up, and by that time you should have enough cash stockpiled to fall back to your high ground and do whatever the hell you want to get the last few kills. I seriously just made a bunch of cannons and had every unit in my maxed out army patrol back and forth between the two entrances and AFKed and still got the extra 750 easy. I'd imagine with some basic micro and rebuilding cannons and forces I could have dragged it out longer.

Didn't notice the gold expo on my play through, but then again I didn't really need it. I suppose it could be useful and wouldn't be that much harder to defend than the bridge would be. You would just need some extra cannons and an obs for your mineral line, and you would need to react faster to waves coming from the left.
Practical wisdom is the combination of moral will and moral skill
Cham
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
797 Posts
August 11 2010 03:35 GMT
#186
I can attest for the Colossi strategy. Although I only made 2200 kills, all I made was about 15 immortals at first, and then Colossi until 200/200 and a ton of cannons. If I would've bothered making any anti air support, I would've easily gotten the 2 achievements.
I also grabbed the yellow minerals right as the map started.
heretic
Profile Joined May 2010
United States7 Posts
August 11 2010 06:04 GMT
#187
On July 28 2010 13:06 Shifft wrote:
Mass carriers. Not joking. My friend told me to do this and I got the 750 extra kills and defended the archive on brutal my first try.


Mass carriers did it for me 750+ on Hard. I didn't know at that time did you could do it on Normal or I wouldn't of taken the time.

That mission is surprisingly simple.
Ownos
Profile Joined July 2010
United States2147 Posts
August 11 2010 06:16 GMT
#188
It's +250 and +750 on at least normal. That's it. I got both just roflstomping it on normal.
...deeper and deeper into the bowels of El Diablo
theytookourjobs
Profile Joined July 2010
Sweden79 Posts
August 11 2010 18:08 GMT
#189
Why do I have such problems with this mission on brutal difficulty, been trying for like 4 hours now. On hard difficulty it wasn't any problem at all to get the extra kills achievements. Now I keep dying 150-200 kills before the main objective. Tried lots of unit combinations and mass immortal/colossi went really bad. My supply dropped from like 180 to 22 almost instantly in the end, and then I still had 200-250 kills to go. Even supported with mass cannons.
groms
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada1017 Posts
August 11 2010 18:31 GMT
#190
I got it the first time on brutal using carriers. Just gotta pop up 6 more stargates and another cyber core early on and get 3/3 ups with max shield from forge.

Just my way of doing it anyhow seemed like the easiest way. Void rays prob do ok as well though I didn't feel like having to micro them(charge them up on a building b4 waves show up)

Also throw in some phoenix so that you can life those hybrids it can really help alot.
I have a recurring dream that I'm running away from a terran player but the marauders keep slowing me down. - Artosis
Annatar11
Profile Joined May 2010
United States27 Posts
August 11 2010 21:22 GMT
#191
On August 12 2010 03:08 theytookourjobs wrote:
Why do I have such problems with this mission on brutal difficulty, been trying for like 4 hours now. On hard difficulty it wasn't any problem at all to get the extra kills achievements. Now I keep dying 150-200 kills before the main objective. Tried lots of unit combinations and mass immortal/colossi went really bad. My supply dropped from like 180 to 22 almost instantly in the end, and then I still had 200-250 kills to go. Even supported with mass cannons.


Use the phoenixes you get to lift up the hybrids. It doesn't hurt to make more, because they'll get picked off here and there by Hydras and Mutas/Corruptors. Also make sure your Immortals are tanking for the Collosi - it doesn't work if the Collosi are in front. Need the Immortals' hardened shields for the hybrids that aren't lifted.
excess
Profile Joined May 2010
Germany24 Posts
August 11 2010 21:57 GMT
#192
at the beginning i had problems with this mission. but then i figured out whats important and it was easy on whatever dificulty.
i had 3100+ kills on brutal before i started to move units into enemy without attacking to end this.
here r some key points.

u have to get upgrades as soon as u can. (2 ground attack is one of most important and 3 air is very strong)
i get them this way: 1 attack 1 airattack; 2 attack 2 airattack; 3 attack 3 airattack build second forge; after that armore shield and airshield until its done.

u have to build some pylons near ur mineralline to not get psylocked after first attack from all directions.

if u take expo then do it right at the start so u can abbandon it as soon as u can. build 2wall of 2 warpgates and some cannons behind. lure enemy up to the ramp with collosses or stalker so they dont destroy ur wall.
u DONT need more than 6 colosses at a time. its a waste.
immos and voidrays can kill hybrides very fast. u should lift at least hybrides with shield because they rangeattack ur airforce.
u should have voidrays and cariers on extra key and make a attackqueue on hybrides every time u see some.
u should send units without shield back to replenish them.
u can blink stalker away if they have no shield left!!!
u should make some zealots to eat up dmg and to deffend expensive units.
dont lose ur observer so u can see whats going on on the spawnpoints. watch out for overseer and pull away.
rebuild interceptores!!! elseway ur carier r useless!
dont deffend expo after its mined out. u r weaker than the enemy at this spot!!!
make an arc of units at entrances so that many of ur units r fighting against few of enemyunits on this chokes.
build units all the time except u r capped. try to be capped before reinforcements r ariving so u have more units. after bonustarget pull back to ramp at ur base u can kill a lot of enemyunits before they can even see u up there.

have fun. thats what games r for!
non-purchasable
PhiliBiRD
Profile Joined November 2009
United States2643 Posts
August 12 2010 02:51 GMT
#193
just did it on brutal first try, got 3414 kills

i started with immortal/colussus 1:2 ratio
made a an extra 10-12 phoenix or so.
upgraded ground dmg/shields and protoss air/armor
once u get void rays, make a crapload.
i also made a few extra carriers as u dont seem to lose many interceptors, but mass air is definitely the win for this.
tonytongji
Profile Joined January 2008
67 Posts
August 12 2010 03:02 GMT
#194
not sure about defending the archive (on brutal) if that's what you are talking about since i already got the all mission objective achievement.
on brutal, i just abandoned lower level right away, and made only colossi and phoenix , and wall with cybernetics core (best cost/size/hp ratio) with colossi&canon behind and put all your "free" hero units on patrol and only micro-ed my phoenix to pick up every hybrid possible
no need for void ray, no need for carrier, no need for immortal, micro your phoenix correctly i got 3300+ kill first try
Sqq
Profile Joined August 2010
Norway2023 Posts
August 12 2010 03:08 GMT
#195
I've done most brutal missions but i cant get past the 3rd wave here. I must be screwing something up so badly. Could someone do a really retarded walkthrough of unit building \ buildings ? I feel dirty asking.
Dead girls don't say no.
Sqq
Profile Joined August 2010
Norway2023 Posts
August 12 2010 03:34 GMT
#196
Trying this some more i get to about 1900, then im so badly overrun i try to hide my carriers in a corner :p
Dead girls don't say no.
Luoson
Profile Joined May 2010
New Zealand153 Posts
August 12 2010 03:38 GMT
#197
Easy way to win this is take top left gold mine right at the start, wall off with gateways at the choke with a few cannons. mass DTs n a few phoenix, when they get detectors just morph them all into archon's n chuck in a few colossi
brain_
Profile Joined June 2010
United States812 Posts
August 12 2010 10:58 GMT
#198
I made giant Gateway walls and shot over them with 10+ Colossi... Then moved to massing Carriers.
Sandrosuperstar
Profile Joined November 2009
Sweden525 Posts
August 12 2010 12:41 GMT
#199
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.


wen you wall with dt ur supposed to have pylons with cannons at the back aswell since it messes up the ai so you'll only need 3 dts for a wall
I'm homo for Lomo, gay for GGplay, but at the end of the day I put my dong in Lee Jaedong
Dfgj
Profile Joined May 2008
Singapore5922 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-12 15:20:28
August 12 2010 15:18 GMT
#200
Not really tough at all.

Get a robo bay right from the start, and throw down a forge/cybercore to dual upgrade weapons and armor for air. Make 2 immortals from the robos you have, start powering probes, and build cannons around the archive. Aside from the buildings mentioned here (tech/upgrades), you don't need to make any other buildings but cannons and replacement pylons.

From there, make colossi/immortals at whatever ratio fits your econ (priority on colossi, though), and get phoenixes up until about 12. When voids arrive, pump voidrays (but maintain phoenix numbers). Since gas is the big limiter here if you've been making probes, use extra minerals to cannon around the archive.

Once you've about 5 minutes left on the archive, start cannoning the high ground, and making extra pylons to replace what you'll lose when you abandon the lowground. Your units should be around max upgrades (you can start upgrading shield if you wish, but gas is limited) and be comprised entirely of colossus/immortal/phoenix/void (plus hero units). Just drag around a doom ball of everything on one hotkey with phoenixes on 2 - use phoenixes to clear air (especially broodlords), the megaball to crush everything else. Lift hybrids when they come in range of your units, and keep them in the air as much as possible.

Once the archive goes down, just take the high ground and continue to hold with mass void/colossus/immortal (again, maintaining phoenix numbers). You should pretty much coast until 3250 is done, at which point the swarm coming at you becomes ridiculous (and you'll have pretty much mined out the base), and you can just see how long you can hold.
Sqq
Profile Joined August 2010
Norway2023 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-12 21:50:27
August 12 2010 21:14 GMT
#201
Its doing my tits in now. I die at 1865-1890 every time. As soon as Artanis spawns in I get fucked hard.

So I finally did it. Got 2750.

Want to know what the difference between 1900 and 2750 was ? Upgrades. I had not upgraded one singel thing during the other tries. Upgraded it and it was a cakewalk. Jesus christ.
Dead girls don't say no.
champignones
Profile Joined September 2008
Panama160 Posts
August 12 2010 23:23 GMT
#202
i finished it in brutal and completed also protecting the archives, I did mass Dt´s + a lot aerial units( void rays + phoenix + carriers) + stalkers + colossi, you just have to be aware of the overseer to wipe them out, even if you miss killing one overseer they wont kill you many dark templars because i have like 20 of them or so, then i replenish more and more and of course used cannons to help my dts, i didnt do dt wall at all just massed them.
you shouldnt worry if everybody ignore you, you should be worry when they dont anymore.
Justifer
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
107 Posts
August 12 2010 23:35 GMT
#203
K its pretty simple..... Build an extra 2 gate ways at the beginning so you have around four. WHile your doing this get a dark shrine. wall off all your chokes with dts and then save after every wave so you can memorize where the overseers come from.... i did this on brutal. worked like a charm
atkwai
Profile Joined October 2009
Canada31 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-12 23:43:56
August 12 2010 23:43 GMT
#204
i kept about 8-10 colossi, 12-14 immortals, rest stalkers, and whatever free units i get. 3/3/3 ground and 3/3 air upgrade.

i made 2 extra gate ways, 2 extra robo. did not make extra forge/cybernetics. the game is long enough to get 3/3/3 and 3/3 out of 1 of each.

go to 3465 before i wiped on wave 72 on brutal.

http://i313.photobucket.com/albums/ll365/atkwai/Screenshot2010-08-0308_44_51.jpg



edit:

The Key is really upgrades. first time i did this. i kinda forgot about upgrades. same army composition. but i only reached 2100 or so
champignones
Profile Joined September 2008
Panama160 Posts
August 12 2010 23:50 GMT
#205
i didtnt do upgrades at all , maybe if i did my units killed could raise a little more
you shouldnt worry if everybody ignore you, you should be worry when they dont anymore.
Illuminaire
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany11 Posts
August 13 2010 00:41 GMT
#206
High Templars wont work. On Brutal the AI dodges the storms ... on hard it worked just fine with Temps+Cannons+Colossi.

On brutal I built at first colossus with meatshields (Photon cannons) while upgrading everything. In this stage, it is crucial to lift up the hybrids with the pheonixes, as they destroy your colossi. As mentioned before, the key to winning is the upgrades. When the Void Rays are available, I built 4 Star Gates, and from then Void Rays only with excess minerals into cannons. It worked like a charm. I got to over 3500 kills. Void Rays dominate everything easily (with Upgrades!!)
Snacker
Profile Joined August 2010
10 Posts
August 13 2010 10:15 GMT
#207
i have been trying this on brutal for like 10 restarts, then i noticed the zergs allways gather outside your base before they attack, where your observers are. with always having an eye on the minimap, i finally did it with ease because i could put all troops to the right place, rather then having them on all 3 entries idling
Dfgj
Profile Joined May 2008
Singapore5922 Posts
August 13 2010 10:57 GMT
#208
On August 13 2010 19:15 Snacker wrote:
i have been trying this on brutal for like 10 restarts, then i noticed the zergs allways gather outside your base before they attack, where your observers are. with always having an eye on the minimap, i finally did it with ease because i could put all troops to the right place, rather then having them on all 3 entries idling

Just sit your entire army at the archive itself, so they don't have to travel around and can hit any side (with air/colossi). Cannon ring the archive itself and forget holding the gates - the chokepoints aren't that important.
Ownos
Profile Joined July 2010
United States2147 Posts
August 15 2010 01:31 GMT
#209
On August 12 2010 03:08 theytookourjobs wrote:
Why do I have such problems with this mission on brutal difficulty, been trying for like 4 hours now. On hard difficulty it wasn't any problem at all to get the extra kills achievements. Now I keep dying 150-200 kills before the main objective. Tried lots of unit combinations and mass immortal/colossi went really bad. My supply dropped from like 180 to 22 almost instantly in the end, and then I still had 200-250 kills to go. Even supported with mass cannons.


Tried to lower your colossi count? They're not that important, just to burn through lings. It's the hybrids that will give you trouble which need hard hitting +armored units to kill quickly. I know some in this thread are like "lol 100000 colossi easy win" but it's not true the hybrids will gib your colossi so fast.
...deeper and deeper into the bowels of El Diablo
b_unnies
Profile Blog Joined March 2006
3579 Posts
August 15 2010 04:31 GMT
#210
On August 15 2010 10:31 Ownos wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 12 2010 03:08 theytookourjobs wrote:
Why do I have such problems with this mission on brutal difficulty, been trying for like 4 hours now. On hard difficulty it wasn't any problem at all to get the extra kills achievements. Now I keep dying 150-200 kills before the main objective. Tried lots of unit combinations and mass immortal/colossi went really bad. My supply dropped from like 180 to 22 almost instantly in the end, and then I still had 200-250 kills to go. Even supported with mass cannons.


Tried to lower your colossi count? They're not that important, just to burn through lings. It's the hybrids that will give you trouble which need hard hitting +armored units to kill quickly. I know some in this thread are like "lol 100000 colossi easy win" but it's not true the hybrids will gib your colossi so fast.


i built mass colossus+cannons then transition to carriers. i stopped building anything once i reached 2k and still won easily. i built 0 immortals
revy
Profile Joined September 2009
United States1524 Posts
August 15 2010 19:58 GMT
#211
On July 29 2010 19:58 Moos wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 28 2010 12:29 GG.Win wrote:
On July 28 2010 11:50 illusi0n wrote:
the last protoss mission is easily beatable by building darks and colossi at the beginning, then voidrays only + a shitload of cannons. The attack waves always come without detectors


was this in brutal? I did collosi/voidray and it got stomped pretty hard.


Took the strat from another thread, but after losing twice (not even close), void/col worked beautifully.

Went almost pure collosi/void on brutal and ended up somewhere under 4000 kills. Defended the archive too. I think I threw in some stalkers and cannons occasionally. Upgrades are a must, obviously. Phoenix lift the scary guys.

Once the archive goes down, retreat to your main and wall off the two ramps with gates and then mass cannon/void/col. Easy mode..


While I didn't have quite the success you did, another vote for brutal colossus/void. Immediately putu up a second forge and researched shield upgrades + ground weapons and started pumping 4 robo colossus and cannoned up around the archives. Kept the colossus behind the archives before a push, moved to intercept during a push, this kept a nice meatshield of cannons infront of the colossus. When VRs became available I spammed 6 stargates and researched up weapons + armor for air. Pretty much went pure VR at this point. Spare minerals went to adding to the cannons immediately surrounding the archives. With about 2 mins left on the archive timer I started cannoning in my main base and retreated to high ground. The remaining cannons around archives held off until that submission was complete. Then I pretty much just spammed more VRs and cannoned my main. After Artanis joined in I started to have some difficulties, I tried to vortex clumps of the ranged hybrids and mop up the others. I ended up with somewhere around 2800 kills, all in all a success.
PhiliBiRD
Profile Joined November 2009
United States2643 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-15 20:02:09
August 15 2010 20:01 GMT
#212
phoenix air lift to deal with hydbrids (easy mode)
+ void rays = 99% of your damage
Archon_Wing
Profile Joined May 2004
United States378 Posts
August 16 2010 04:01 GMT
#213
You can pretty much build nothing but dts and replacement phoenix for the 1st 1k or so kills. If you get graviton beam regularly on the hybrids it shouldn't be a problem.

Use your extra resources to get collosi and ups. (Get air ups in anticipation of the void rays) When you get voids, I pretty much build nothing but them and the random immortal and dark templar; rally the new void raids straight on your heroes. When the archive countdown is almost done, you'll have a ton of nydus worms in your base, so just build a dozen so cannons or so to prepare. When they start popping up, warp some dts in that area.

You don't really need to be so worried about defending the archive; a couple of cannons and your main army will do fine.

Nothing witty here atm
Arco
Profile Joined September 2009
United States2090 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-16 05:06:12
August 16 2010 05:05 GMT
#214
Get a Robotics Bay and extra forge and start ground and air weapon upgrades, and ground armor when the 2nd forge finishes. Continue upgrading throughout the game.

Pump Collosus/Phoenix at the beginning, mainly Collosus though.

When Void Rays become available, start building those. (and Collosus with extra money)

Surround the Archives in cannons.

You Phoenix to lift Hybrids. If you start losing phoenix, rebuild some so you have a healthy amount (around 10)

Really easy mission as far as Brutal is concerned, imo. At least you don't have to worry about having certain tech/research.
groms
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada1017 Posts
August 16 2010 05:31 GMT
#215
I just used phoenix and Carriers with 3/3/3 ups to complete it. Wasn't too hard I guess. Early stages you want some colossi though to deal with zerglings. Phoenix to lift the hybrids is also useful.
I have a recurring dream that I'm running away from a terran player but the marauders keep slowing me down. - Artosis
Ouga
Profile Joined March 2008
Finland645 Posts
August 16 2010 05:48 GMT
#216
I had this on brutal with 3398 kills. First pumped 2robo colossus and made few cannons, and by the time nyduses start to pop on midarea fall back and defend with remaining colos and VRs I had started pumped pretty early. In the end I had about 30 cannons, blocked both ramps totally with gateways, ~8 colos and 30 VRs/carriers (the given carriers only). I could imagine someone going way over 3,5k with slight changes to strat.
Dfgj
Profile Joined May 2008
Singapore5922 Posts
August 16 2010 07:47 GMT
#217
On August 16 2010 14:48 Ouga wrote:
I had this on brutal with 3398 kills. First pumped 2robo colossus and made few cannons, and by the time nyduses start to pop on midarea fall back and defend with remaining colos and VRs I had started pumped pretty early. In the end I had about 30 cannons, blocked both ramps totally with gateways, ~8 colos and 30 VRs/carriers (the given carriers only). I could imagine someone going way over 3,5k with slight changes to strat.

He'd have to be pretty insane, because the sheer mass of units that start arriving in wave 70+ (3500~) is rather daunting. I'd like to see it though, I always seem to go down to wave 72 at about 3480.
Flawm
Profile Joined July 2010
United States8 Posts
August 18 2010 05:27 GMT
#218
Someone mention that massing carriers would bone on brutal, and that they easily got 2750 on brutal. So I did exactly that, except I'm on hard. Its pretty hard to do because you don't get access to carriers until 1200-1500 kills. But when I did I had 3/3/3 23 carriers, including selendis. My whole air army; 6 voids, I didn't build any more than the ones mohinder came with, I was stockpiling my minerals for the expensive carriers. 10 or so pheonixes, as almost everyone mentioned, their grav lift makes the hybrids a dirty joke. And than I held out as long as I could and got crushed. Barely making 2200 or so kills.
I love you.
dukethegold
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Canada5645 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-18 06:08:46
August 18 2010 06:08 GMT
#219
Anyhow, I read the this thread and learned. My 2nd attempt at Utter Darkness on brutal netted me 3300+ kills pretty easily(my first attempt was an uninformed one with a cute army composition. It got raped hardcore).

Here are the keys:

1. Ignore that gold expansion. You don't need it
2. Continue to pump ONLY Colossus from two robo and keep your Phoenix count around 7-8. Two robo facilities are enough. You have no need for any other unit whatsoever. Dump your excessive mineral into cannons. You need to keep pumping Colossus throughout the entire level.
3. Use your Phoenixes to lift the hybrids and focus fire. I prioritized the range ones. Colossus will rape everything else.
4. UPGRADE, UPGRADE, UPGRADE! Don't be shy and don't be afraid of making another forge. I even went ahead and made a second core. Upgrade both air and ground. You will need them.
5. Build three Stargates once you have the money. As soon as you have access to void rays, pump void rays from the three stargates. Don't forget to keep your Phoenix count around 8.
6. Phoenix lift hybrids, void ray kill hybrids and ultra very fast. Colossus rape everything else.
7. Once you have access to carriers, build carriers instead of void rays.
8. Once the archive countdown timer is down to one minute or so, pull all your troops back to the highground and spam the highground with cannons.
9. Artanis will arrive with that giant mothership once you reach 2500 kills. Its vortex ability is awesome, use it on chokes.
10. Keep pumping colossus and carriers. Keep on killing. Don't forget to make 4 cannons or so around your mineral line. Worms will pop up in your mineral line and can kill all your probes with just a handful of lings.
11. At 3200 kill mark, the AI will flow you with the entire Char worth of zergs, just sit tight and watch your protoss army rip another 100 or so kills before perishing.

I made a final stand with what's left of my air fleet at 5 o'clock after my entire main got sacked. The hero carrier and hero void ray were the last to die. It was sad.

RedTerror
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
New Zealand742 Posts
August 18 2010 07:18 GMT
#220
Should I kill the nydus worms? I thought the whole point was to get a high kill count, its far easier dealing with zerg units that hybrids.
Dfgj
Profile Joined May 2008
Singapore5922 Posts
August 18 2010 07:29 GMT
#221
On August 18 2010 15:08 dukethegold wrote:
2. Continue to pump ONLY Colossus from two robo

5. Build three Stargates once you have the money. As soon as you have access to void rays, pump void rays from the three stargates. Don't forget to keep your Phoenix count around 8.

Minor disagreements here, I feel.

2. Immortals do a little better versus hybrids, but also importantly, gas is limited - it can be better to get 2 immortals out than 1 colossus in a lot of circumstances (ie: busy pumping VRs as well). I prioritize colossi but I don't think they're the only thing you should make at all.

5. You get 2 stargates (and a Beacon) when Urun arrives, so you don't really need to make any more (1 at most, perhaps). I found 2 stargates more than enough to rapidly make a ton of air, because you do need gas for your robo units as well, and the sheer amount of time you have to make units lets you max out easily.
growl
Profile Joined January 2010
United States203 Posts
August 19 2010 18:26 GMT
#222
So here's some advice that I think would have made it easier for me my first time:
1) Initially, you want to get a robo bay, dark shrine, and upgrades going ASAP. Queue up probes, and make zealots with any spare minerals. There will be zergling heavy waves initially, so replenishing zealots is a pretty good way to deflect the waves without losing many units. Also try to get up to 5 gateways and 4 robotics facilities total when you have the money.

2) Once your dark shrine comes up, it's pretty handy to put some dark temps on the bridges to block the waves coming in. Especially useful cause they block hybrids. Don't go too overboard though, you want to be spending most of your gas on getting colossi and upgrades and voidrays when you get them. Also replenishing phoenix numbers is a good idea, and remember to lift all hybrids you see. Remember to keep making zeals with spare minerals, and stalkers are super useful too.

3) After you have a good number of colossi (I think I had maybe 10?), you want to mostly switch to making immortals, since they're really good against hybrids. I think what got me through the mission was the mentality that i need to make zeal/stalker to protect my colossus/immortal from the waves while defending the temple for the last few minutes. Keep adding to immortals and voidrays and keep replenishing colossi and gateway units, especially zealots.

4) I think with about 1 minute or 1:30 to go on the temple time you can retreat up to your high ground. Make sure you have a 200/200 army and are still upgrading, then spend any extra minerals on cannons. On all my failed attempts (2000-2400 kills) I went really overboard on the cannons and neglected making gateway units. Try to keep your army 200/200 as your main goal and replenish cannons as the waves hit you. I hope this works for you. Worked for me, 3200+ kills and the bonus objective. Good luck!
Kindred
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada396 Posts
August 19 2010 19:23 GMT
#223
I read someone say Mass Carriers with 3/3 upgrades. Ill try that first for sure :D
Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores) + 32GB RAM + Four 512GB Solid-State Drives + Two ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB + Two Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel) + Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Bair
Profile Joined May 2010
United States698 Posts
August 21 2010 04:15 GMT
#224
On August 20 2010 03:26 growl wrote:
So here's some advice that I think would have made it easier for me my first time:
1) Initially, you want to get a robo bay, dark shrine, and upgrades going ASAP. Queue up probes, and make zealots with any spare minerals. There will be zergling heavy waves initially, so replenishing zealots is a pretty good way to deflect the waves without losing many units. Also try to get up to 5 gateways and 4 robotics facilities total when you have the money.

2) Once your dark shrine comes up, it's pretty handy to put some dark temps on the bridges to block the waves coming in. Especially useful cause they block hybrids. Don't go too overboard though, you want to be spending most of your gas on getting colossi and upgrades and voidrays when you get them. Also replenishing phoenix numbers is a good idea, and remember to lift all hybrids you see. Remember to keep making zeals with spare minerals, and stalkers are super useful too.

3) After you have a good number of colossi (I think I had maybe 10?), you want to mostly switch to making immortals, since they're really good against hybrids. I think what got me through the mission was the mentality that i need to make zeal/stalker to protect my colossus/immortal from the waves while defending the temple for the last few minutes. Keep adding to immortals and voidrays and keep replenishing colossi and gateway units, especially zealots.

4) I think with about 1 minute or 1:30 to go on the temple time you can retreat up to your high ground. Make sure you have a 200/200 army and are still upgrading, then spend any extra minerals on cannons. On all my failed attempts (2000-2400 kills) I went really overboard on the cannons and neglected making gateway units. Try to keep your army 200/200 as your main goal and replenish cannons as the waves hit you. I hope this works for you. Worked for me, 3200+ kills and the bonus objective. Good luck!


This is perfect. Immortal/Colossi is the easier way. Immortals evaporate hybrids/ultras, and colossi get the rest of ground units. Just make sure to make a few phoenixes and a few void rays for air (in addition to what you get. It helps)

Also
+ Show Spoiler +
Heirarch Artanis?!? Fuck ya!

In Roaches I Rust.
han.
Profile Joined May 2010
United States51 Posts
August 21 2010 09:50 GMT
#225
Reading the responses I feel like this might not help for a lot of people but any high quality Protoss player can do this easily.

I got to 3500+ kills (I think it caps at 3500 because my kill counter stopped at 3500) by using a standard 200/200 Protoss ground army composition with zealots, stalkers, sentries, immortals, colossi, and high templars with a control group 10 or so phoenix just for broodlords.

Did not bother walling in or rebuilding any cannons. I also took the gold expansion extremely early and defended it until it was mined out. Before my base was overwhelmed I was sitting on 20 gateways, 8 stargates, and 6 robo facilities with full upgrades. Slowly transitioned into a 200/200 carrier and voidray army around the time Artanis spawns.

At the end I gave up my ground forces (except Zeratul, who kept hacking away while my air army warded off overseers) and base and just continued killing with my carriers and voidrays. Artanis has a ridiculous amount of mana so you can use vortex to great effect to prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed. The final wave where I died I think was not designed to be beatable as it consists of something like 50 hybrids, 75 mutas, and 75 hydras.
hallo~
TheMute
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States458 Posts
August 21 2010 10:06 GMT
#226
Initially get colossi. When hybrids come, mix in some immortals. Replenish pheonixes when they die. Gravitate hybrids with them. When about 30 seconds is left of the research thing in the center being done, retreat to your high ground. Nydus attack is coming.

Get atk ground/air ups first followed by armor. I funneled the 3 chokes to even smaller chokes with pylons. Replenish cannons when needed, only on the high ground. With excess minerals build pylons, cannons, or warp in zeals. With excess gas, warp in templar to storm or change to archons.
Friends are simply people you can do/say vulgar things to.
TsoBadGuy
Profile Joined April 2010
United States221 Posts
August 21 2010 11:28 GMT
#227
what is anyone talking about when they say no detectors come? On brutal I have to move my OBS so they don't get merked, on the run I went to ~3,300 kills on brutal I didn't make a single DT/HT/Archon. And Zeratul died around 600.

I didn't read every single thread, but all the ones I did read suggested colo and either VRs or DTs.

Colos are great, get a lot initially.

Get about 5 more probes on each nexus for minerals.

WEAPON UPGRADES, get them. When colo's kill lings in one swipe, you're sitting pretty.

VRs do about the dmg of a marine until the get that charged beam, against mostly lings, that charged beam isn't doing much anyways.

Don't mass phoenix, but if you lose them replace them. The graviton beam is the best way to keep the ranged hybrids from face melting.

lastly, most important part, MASS STALKERS. The thing about zealots, DTs, and archons is they all move up as the attack to get to the target. A few zealots and archons on hold position EARLY is ok, but ultimately, they will die, and if you blink a lot, you won't die as much.

I built cannons around the main base when I was maxed to prepare for when the first 3 chokes fall when you get the archive research. that last attack before you abandon the triple chokes is huge, and if you are close to 200 after that you'll probably hit 3250 easy.

Bnet ID: TsoBadGuy Code: 795 Who wants friends? :D
Cirqueunflex
Profile Joined August 2010
1 Post
August 23 2010 01:02 GMT
#228
i did manage to beat the level on my first real try (well to be honest it was my second one, on my first try i split up all my army in 3 groups to defend all 3 entrances at the same time since i thought it would be a triple attack each time, not a single one. So yes, i lost after not even 10 minutes in the game).

I have never build any new production facility (except gateways to wall off) and finished with a final score of 3506 on brutal (could have been a bit more, i just got lazy and sit back and enjoyed the fireworks ^^), weird enough Zeratul survived until like 2500 or 3k or so.

Here is what i did:
Start with producing probes. One of the initial probes builds a forge, a robo bay and a cybernetics core. Start researching attack for ground units and as soon as possible shields with your second forge. You don't need to start researching for air right away since there is no shield upgrades for air (although getting early dmg might help).
Until the robo bay (i think this is how its called but not sure right now) finishes and makes you capable of producing colossi get one immortal out of each of your robo facilities. This is not necessary right away (since mostly non-armored units will attack at the first waves) but i thought it is better to produce units i need later on than just to sit and wait until i can produce colossi.

Send your initial building probe to each of the 3 entrances and wall them off with gateways (and if there is still a zergling gap cannons as well. It is funny when zerglings attack and they all go for your cannon but due to placement only one zergling really attacks). Use 2 at each side and for the northern one just get one in between the cannons. As soon as the cannons go down wall off the north for a total of 3 gateways.
Hint: I hotkeyed my hero probe with the hotkey "3", where 1 and 2 were ground and air forces and 4/5 were robo facilities and stargates. This way i could really fast rebuild if a gateway should go down.

Continue to build probes for the first like 5-8 minutes until you feel you have more than enough.
Use your full starting army in one group to defend, all air units should be in a second control group to quickly take care of some brood lords/mutas.
Hint: If you lack micro (as i do) just morph your initial High Templars into an archon. The archon is pretty good to soak up some damage as he completely heals after each wave and he does fairly well vs zerglings.
I didn't even once use the phoenix ability to lift off any unit since i really had only few air units and my ground army could not shoot air, so don't worry too much about it.
As long as you walled off your chokes in time you should not be forced to engage the first waves in melee, therefore your zealots/stalker last that much longer to take away crucial blows later on.
Never stop producing at your robo facilities (this is why i hotkeyed them to 4). Of course you might get more than your initial ones but i found 2 to be exactly enough if they produce every second in that game until you get carriers. Just get nearly maxed with just immortals/colossi and as long as you wall off after each wave you should not have to worry about melee hybrid enemies. Use your airforce only to engage airforce (well if you have more void rays/carriers then of course use them to help your army but until you get carriers better take care of brood lords/muta). I have build a few void rays (like 4-6) but that wasn't really important. Just wall in and kill from distance, your 12-15 colossi and about 10 immortals should do the work easily.

When you start piling up some minerals build cannons in your base up the ramp on each side (not the middle of your plateau! This is where you retreat your army to as soon as the archieves fall so your army just stands in the middle and can shoot on both ramps).
I got about 20 cannons each left and right (also this helps vs nydus worms), the cannons help later on really to take blows and deal some extra damage (just replenish them after each wave, you might also think about getting some gateways to block).
The mothership is just bonus, it didn't really make a difference in my game. Just sit in the middle on high ground and smash everything below you. Since there is not that much space on the cliff i didn't rebuild robo units as soon as i got carriers and was building only carriers/few void rays.
Of course it was also really important to get the upgrades early in the game.
The wall in with your ranged units and your air force taking care of enemy air force hardly makes you lose even more than 1 unit each wave (after your fragile stalker/zealots have gone to a better world)

What i noticed was that there is a chance to get a higher score. I lost some colossi/immortals early on, lost like 20-25 supply worth of robo units when the archive finished and i had a total amount of like 40-60 probes at the end sitting in my base just wasting psy. Also i didn't get the gold expo (due to my bad micro/macro/game sense i didn't think i could pull it off). Therefore i was always for the entire game on about 800/300 ressources. So with more ressources (and a lot more cannons with that extra cash from the gold mine) it should be possible to get to like 3700+ kills in this scenario. But i think 3506 is also okay for me being a noob and my first try.

Sorry i wrote that much, i thought my strategy was pretty simple, so here is a short summary:

wall off with gateways, build only robo units (and later on carriers) and build a lot of cannons on the high ground to fall back to when the archieve is done.
Bockit
Profile Blog Joined November 2004
Sydney2287 Posts
August 23 2010 02:23 GMT
#229
On August 21 2010 18:50 han. wrote:
Reading the responses I feel like this might not help for a lot of people but any high quality Protoss player can do this easily.

I got to 3500+ kills (I think it caps at 3500 because my kill counter stopped at 3500) by using a standard 200/200 Protoss ground army composition with zealots, stalkers, sentries, immortals, colossi, and high templars with a control group 10 or so phoenix just for broodlords.

Did not bother walling in or rebuilding any cannons. I also took the gold expansion extremely early and defended it until it was mined out. Before my base was overwhelmed I was sitting on 20 gateways, 8 stargates, and 6 robo facilities with full upgrades. Slowly transitioned into a 200/200 carrier and voidray army around the time Artanis spawns.

At the end I gave up my ground forces (except Zeratul, who kept hacking away while my air army warded off overseers) and base and just continued killing with my carriers and voidrays. Artanis has a ridiculous amount of mana so you can use vortex to great effect to prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed. The final wave where I died I think was not designed to be beatable as it consists of something like 50 hybrids, 75 mutas, and 75 hydras.


I'm pretty sure sentries aren't an option to build in this level.
Their are four errors in this sentance.
DarthMarth
Profile Joined August 2010
United States1 Post
August 23 2010 19:15 GMT
#230
To anyone who has successfully exploited the gold expansion: how did you defend it? I mistakenly played on casual (great practice for quickly getting the right units out and cannons up, at least) and the second Zerg wave (right at the beginning) went straight for it and overwhelmed it. This was on casual, so I assume it's worse on brutal. If all the attacks from the northwest are going for the expansion I don't see how it's worth it. Is it just luck?
willkillson
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States123 Posts
August 23 2010 19:57 GMT
#231
The hybrids hit wayy to hard so you have to use immortals and pheonix's to pick em up. I guess I got lucky on this level beat it on my first try :D
poop
jinorazi
Profile Joined October 2004
Korea (South)4948 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-24 00:26:04
August 23 2010 22:01 GMT
#232
did thing long time ago on brutal so i don't know the exact unit combinations but the key parts were:

block entrances with DT lining up (until they sent in detectors), colossi in the back punishing.
while the entraces were blocked off, i had a group of zealots, stalker, pheonix, colossi, immortal running around the map depending on where they attack.

made cannons everywhere as money was following in faster than i can spend.

grab the expansion, wall with gateways and cannons in the back and defend it with the army that's always running around.
age: 84 | location: california | sex: 잘함
monad
Profile Joined March 2010
United States156 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-23 22:13:51
August 23 2010 22:13 GMT
#233
On August 24 2010 04:15 DarthMarth wrote:
To anyone who has successfully exploited the gold expansion: how did you defend it? I mistakenly played on casual (great practice for quickly getting the right units out and cannons up, at least) and the second Zerg wave (right at the beginning) went straight for it and overwhelmed it. This was on casual, so I assume it's worse on brutal. If all the attacks from the northwest are going for the expansion I don't see how it's worth it. Is it just luck?


I did the gold expansion on Normal and completely mined it out. I didn't take it until AFTER I got void rays. Once I had void rays I sent about 5 probes up there with about 5 void rays and 7 or 8 DTs. I first built a pylon up near the top vespene gyser and when it was done I built about 8 cannons around it. Once all those were done I put the nexus down. 5 void rays, 7 DTs, and all those cannons were plenty to defend it. As I started mining it I put some more cannons around the bottom, but start at the top. The enemies won't notice cannons at the top, but they will notice cannons at the bottom, as well as a nexus. So make sure you safely get your defense up first.
me_viet
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Australia1350 Posts
August 24 2010 17:15 GMT
#234
okay, is it even possible to defend the archive on brutal?

I throw down 2x forge + 1 core as soon as start and pump probes. But as soon as they come in streams rather than waves, my robo army becomes too slow to defend at the choke. Then mass carriers carried me to 2.5ish, but I had no buildings. so yea..... Should I just abandon archive on brutal and redo it on hard?
Mobius
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada1268 Posts
August 24 2010 17:37 GMT
#235
On August 25 2010 02:15 me_viet wrote:
okay, is it even possible to defend the archive on brutal?

I throw down 2x forge + 1 core as soon as start and pump probes. But as soon as they come in streams rather than waves, my robo army becomes too slow to defend at the choke. Then mass carriers carried me to 2.5ish, but I had no buildings. so yea..... Should I just abandon archive on brutal and redo it on hard?

no.. separate your army in to 3 groups? its what i did lol
then just 1a2a3a at the choke being attacked.. then by the time they start attacking from all directions you can just go on to high ground
worked for me at least.
Entusman #51
me_viet
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Australia1350 Posts
August 24 2010 18:00 GMT
#236
On August 25 2010 02:37 Mobius wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 25 2010 02:15 me_viet wrote:
okay, is it even possible to defend the archive on brutal?

I throw down 2x forge + 1 core as soon as start and pump probes. But as soon as they come in streams rather than waves, my robo army becomes too slow to defend at the choke. Then mass carriers carried me to 2.5ish, but I had no buildings. so yea..... Should I just abandon archive on brutal and redo it on hard?

no.. separate your army in to 3 groups? its what i did lol
then just 1a2a3a at the choke being attacked.. then by the time they start attacking from all directions you can just go on to high ground
worked for me at least.


never mind, i just did it lol. on brutal and everything, defended archive with 3485 kills =] Fark, i evened mined out my min line lol
DarkSeerTurbo
Profile Joined May 2010
United States105 Posts
August 24 2010 18:32 GMT
#237
DT wall with massive air support hotkeyed. when an overseer shows his face, run QUICK to the appropriate DT line to take it out. this strat will get you near the kill limit. then, build a crap load of cannons near your base once the pace really picks up.you will have a ton of minerals. build carriers to support the carrier group that will proct after X amount of time.

i unlocked every achievement for that level without the gold expo using the strat i just mentioned. i'm curious how people got the gold expo on brutal.
Iri
Profile Joined January 2010
150 Posts
August 25 2010 08:14 GMT
#238
This mission wasn't even hard... I HATE playing with protoss, struggled with some of Zeratul's earlier missions, but on this got every achievement, mined out the entire map, killed everything on the map, and only finally died because I got tired of rebuilding cannons and warping in zealots and just sat back to see how long it'd take 'em to bust me. Think I ended with about 9k minerals. I stopped paying attention to the kill counter once it passed 3300, although I'm wanting to say I saw something that started with 37 at some point? Just mass colossus and phoenix out of 4 robo and 2-3 stargate, with cannon spam everywhere and about 15 warp gates to spam zealots. Add a few immortals later. Pretty easy stuff, really, as long as you have moderately decent macro and can micro phoenix.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Pit667
Profile Joined March 2009
Poland130 Posts
August 25 2010 10:54 GMT
#239
Hello,
Imho this mission is very easy on Hard only mass to 200/200 of everything and thats all, no need cannons and no need expo dont know about brutal but it shouldnt be tough.
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012
Jameser
Profile Joined July 2010
Sweden951 Posts
August 25 2010 12:44 GMT
#240
at first this mission seemed ridiculously impossible on brutal, but then I basically stopped using gateway units after the 3rd wave or so in favour of 7-8 colossus and 10-12 immortals + mass air (~~24 void rays ~~8 carriers ~~7phoenix + heroes) and getting 3500 kills was no problem on brutal, just make sure you use graviton beam from phoenixes and you should be set (upgrades are a given)


However, when I did this mission there seemed to be a bug with the achievement server and I didn't get ANY of the achievements (I protected the archives too) so that made me rage a bit, luckily I have a save file from just before my units died so I'll just load it again when blizz fixes their shit

gl
Sirmixalock
Profile Joined August 2010
Australia1 Post
August 29 2010 17:28 GMT
#241
I definitely found this to be the hardest mission in the game on Brutal. All-In was cake compared to this.

First off, I think DT wall is a terrible way to do it on Brutal, waste of Gas, takes too long and taking out the detectors is a PITA. Instead I decided to wall off with Gateways, seriously worked perfectly

Started off with getting more probes. Built a forge (Upgraded everything 3/3/3 Ground 3/3 Air) / Robo Bay (or whatever gets you Colossi) straight off then sent my hero probe down to the three entrances and blocked them off with Gateways and a few cannons.Started pumping out Immortal / Colossi in that order and hot keyed my Air and Ground to different keys. Use the Gravitron beam on the Pheonixes and Hybrids are a joke.

Got a nice mix of Immortals / Colossi, replaced the Phoenixes that died and then pumped out a few Void Rays when they were available (But saved my gas for Carriers). Once I had access to Carriers I made them almost non-stop.

I made sure to cover my high ground / main base with Cannons for the second Nydus wave and retreated back at around 1 minute - walled off both entrances with more Gateways and pretty much got the 2500 kills really easily. After that I gave up and still got to 3400 before my last units fell.

This way you should easily be able to defend the Archives and get the two kill Achievements on Brutal.

TriniMasta
Profile Joined December 2009
United States1323 Posts
August 29 2010 19:52 GMT
#242
On July 28 2010 18:44 Latham wrote:
Utter darkness is actually a lot easier than it seems at first.
+ Show Spoiler [Utter Darkness on Brutal] +

First thing is don't panic. There are 3 entrances to your base. The enemy will come in waves 1 entrance at a time for a good part of the game.
Start by queueing up more probes and putting down a 2nd forge + robotics bay so you can train colossi.
Hotkey all your ground forces together, and hotkey all your air units together. Watch the observers closely. You'll see the enemy massing in front of them before attacking. Move your army to protect the cannons. Don't cross the bridges.
Keep making colossi and keep up all the upgrades both air and ground. Non stop. Also, try to replenish your phoenix numbers if any die.
I started to float on minerals around the 16th minute mark before the archives achievement, so I walled off the south-eastern bridge with lots of cannons.
When the hybrids will start coming, lift them up with the phoenixes and focus fire. Do this on the ranged ones preferably, but later on use it on all the hybrids you encounter.
Finishing the archives bonus mission should be a cake-walk at that point. I was floating on around 5K mins and 200/200 food army worth of colossi/phoenixes/voids.
Once the archives submerge, retreat to the higher ground of your base and start to wall off with cannons too.
If you start losing units, make colossi and void rays. No more phoenixes.
At this point you should easily have 3-3-3 ground army and 3-0 air army. When I killed the 2500 necessary, I just kinda gave up after that. I didn't build anything any more. The enemy needed another 25 minutes to finally beat down my whole army :/. The corruptors and mass mutas come waaaay too late for the Z. Before that, the heroes+ void rays are unkillable.

In the end I defended for 49 mins and killed 3100 units.

lol my Zeratul died first cuz I was too lazy to micro him =(
정명훈 FIGHTING!!! Play both T and P.
Hatsch
Profile Joined August 2010
1 Post
August 30 2010 20:11 GMT
#243
awesome thanks very much for the strategy with the gateways, went perfectly on second try (first try i screwed up the positioning of the gateways)
even did it with archive which i didnt care much about
Latham
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
9560 Posts
August 30 2010 20:22 GMT
#244
On August 30 2010 04:52 TriniMasta wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 28 2010 18:44 Latham wrote:
Utter darkness is actually a lot easier than it seems at first.
+ Show Spoiler [Utter Darkness on Brutal] +

First thing is don't panic. There are 3 entrances to your base. The enemy will come in waves 1 entrance at a time for a good part of the game.
Start by queueing up more probes and putting down a 2nd forge + robotics bay so you can train colossi.
Hotkey all your ground forces together, and hotkey all your air units together. Watch the observers closely. You'll see the enemy massing in front of them before attacking. Move your army to protect the cannons. Don't cross the bridges.
Keep making colossi and keep up all the upgrades both air and ground. Non stop. Also, try to replenish your phoenix numbers if any die.
I started to float on minerals around the 16th minute mark before the archives achievement, so I walled off the south-eastern bridge with lots of cannons.
When the hybrids will start coming, lift them up with the phoenixes and focus fire. Do this on the ranged ones preferably, but later on use it on all the hybrids you encounter.
Finishing the archives bonus mission should be a cake-walk at that point. I was floating on around 5K mins and 200/200 food army worth of colossi/phoenixes/voids.
Once the archives submerge, retreat to the higher ground of your base and start to wall off with cannons too.
If you start losing units, make colossi and void rays. No more phoenixes.
At this point you should easily have 3-3-3 ground army and 3-0 air army. When I killed the 2500 necessary, I just kinda gave up after that. I didn't build anything any more. The enemy needed another 25 minutes to finally beat down my whole army :/. The corruptors and mass mutas come waaaay too late for the Z. Before that, the heroes+ void rays are unkillable.

In the end I defended for 49 mins and killed 3100 units.

lol my Zeratul died first cuz I was too lazy to micro him =(


Working as intended. He's supposed to kick the bucket 1st. He's a melee char, he has no place on that map.
For the curse of life is the curse of want. PC = https://be.pcpartpicker.com/list/4JknvV
numLoCK
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Canada1416 Posts
August 31 2010 07:45 GMT
#245
Gaaah just a question, I stupidly went to Char without finishing this mission, and then beat the Char missions, is there an easy way to play this again? I thought for sure that I'd be able to play it, as it said I wouldn't be able to go to other planets but I figured I'd keep the lil artifact thing with me.
dybydx
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Canada1764 Posts
August 31 2010 08:12 GMT
#246
@numlock, check the mission archive after u beat the game. if u see it, then yes. if not, then u have to load a saved game from before char.
...from the land of imba
seolinker
Profile Joined July 2010
Ukraine69 Posts
August 31 2010 11:56 GMT
#247
I have passed it with almost no problems but what is high yield everyone is talking about and gold minerals, where is it ? lol
Cool dude, I hope:)
seolinker
Profile Joined July 2010
Ukraine69 Posts
August 31 2010 12:02 GMT
#248
Did it just now with DT walls, fenixes, carriers and void rays - lot of air i.e.
Make sure to not leave any holes in that DT walls. Double check it between attacks.

Gateways, photon canons, zealots, stalkers, even colosses all BS on brutal. Even on Hard it's not good. On normal I did just collosses + carriers.

Key to snipe out detectors, at least 2 times of 3 when they come from both sides of three possible and in batches of 3. Use phoenixes for that. Like 10-15 for each entrance. And make upgrades too. Use mothership abilities ofthen it have full mana from start. Did 3150 kills on my first try.

Really have no idea why people call it HARDEST. Try Engine of Destruction on Brutal with Wraith only, that what I call Brutal. This mission is really piece of cake. 3 tries max even for newbie.
They simply send lot of times like 1500 zerlings overall mission. Not hard to kill them all Maybe even 2000 of them.
Cool dude, I hope:)
mashdar
Profile Joined September 2010
United States4 Posts
September 01 2010 00:26 GMT
#249
Hey all! Registered just to post this. Since it is on page 13 (?) maybe people won't see it, but hopefully it is helpful!

I am now 99.99% sure that if you have no ground units, the zerg come all anti-air. This is important 1) if you are going for the 750 achievement, or 2) you are losing all of your buildings at ~2200 and cant make it the last few kills.

I personally got the achievement even though my base was overrun by the time the mothership arrived. My method? I kept a few buildings cloaked so the zerglings and ultras kept on coming!

I went dt/colossi, then void, then carriers as each became available. When the mothership came, I had ~12 each void rays and carriers. I just camped out over one of my nexusses (nexi?) and kept it cloaked. Of course, observers are a problem, but if you keep your air forces on the enemy-side of the buildings most of the overseers/corruptors will stay far enough away.

The nice thing about all this is that only ~1/3 of the units coming at you are threats. I was not sure I would hit 2500, and ended up hitting 3500! This was only my second try, too, so I'm sure you could do better with a little effort.

(PS yes all of this was on Brutal)

Good luck!
quote.
mashdar
Profile Joined September 2010
United States4 Posts
September 01 2010 00:34 GMT
#250
PPS if you want a play-by-play, I:
pumped out 20+ more probes for mineral mining
immediately built robo bay, dt thingy, forge, and cyber core.
Upgraded air fully, and ground as much as I could until I got void rays (then only shields from forge).
Ended up with tons of extra minerals, so I used extras to build cannons (kept a few probes on call by the archive).

Built ~10 DT and ~4 colossi before void rays were available. With those DT I owned many waves, up to ~1000 kills. The last few I had to snipe a few overseers with the pheonixes. It was easy to know when this started because the hydras attacked my observers.

By the time DT are no longer effective, I had about 8 colossi and as many void rays as I could pump out (gas was always the limiting factor). I kept on building tons of cannons, and moved my whole army from entrance to entrance (although sometimes I had to split it).

At some point just after the archive was done I retreated to the upper level, making sure I had lots of cannons up there first. Soon after I was overrun, but the mothership came just in time! Then it was a matter of camping out over a few buildings and killing all the delicious ground units that came my way.

750+ on Brutal! Voila!
quote.
Dfgj
Profile Joined May 2008
Singapore5922 Posts
September 01 2010 00:37 GMT
#251
On August 30 2010 02:28 Sirmixalock wrote:
I definitely found this to be the hardest mission in the game on Brutal. All-In was cake compared to this.

First off, I think DT wall is a terrible way to do it on Brutal, waste of Gas, takes too long and taking out the detectors is a PITA. Instead I decided to wall off with Gateways, seriously worked perfectly

I find walling off in general to be unnecessary when you can just turret ring the archive and make a giant doom ball of units. The AI attacks from one side at a time, so they're already funneled for colossi to hammer.

The only units seriously dangerous to your ground force are the Hybrids, and you should be lifting them when they're in range of the bulk of your forces anyway. Walling to block zerg units is redundant when they instantly die to 10+ colossi.
mashdar
Profile Joined September 2010
United States4 Posts
September 01 2010 00:39 GMT
#252
PPPS (sorry to spam) I agree with seolinker that Engine of Destruction on brutal was much harder. But then, I have not used any research or credits, so ymmv. I imagine science vessels, fast repair, etc make that mission 10^20 times easier.
quote.
cromar
Profile Joined September 2010
2 Posts
September 02 2010 10:07 GMT
#253
I've started a series of video tutorials/walkthroughs for SC2 on Brutal. I just uploaded 2 version of In Utter Darkness today, one with and one without the bonus objective.

My channel: The Real Cromar

Direct link to the version with the bonus objective: Part 1, Part 2.

Should I make a full thread here about my channel? I came here to do just that, but it looks like TheThinkingGamer beat me to it by about a week. I don't know if it's kosher.
Doraemon
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
Australia14949 Posts
September 02 2010 12:44 GMT
#254
man...i got to 3200 kills and died..so gehhhhh

is VR or carriers late game?
Do yourself a favour and just STFU
DJK
Profile Joined September 2010
Belgium1 Post
September 03 2010 01:36 GMT
#255
Hi, can someone pretty please upload a savegame with the brutal achievements completed (a savegame in the mission itself, not on the hyperion), that way I can load it up let myself be killed and get my last brutal achievement...

Because seriously I can't see this mission anymore, I have every other mission done on brutal but sick of this one ... read this and other strategies on the web, watched video tutorials it just ain't working :'(

If anyone can upload a savegame in-mission i'd be thanks x1000

Thanks ! (999 will follow after the upload :p)
Dfgj
Profile Joined May 2008
Singapore5922 Posts
September 03 2010 01:47 GMT
#256
On September 02 2010 21:44 Doraemon wrote:
man...i got to 3200 kills and died..so gehhhhh

is VR or carriers late game?

I prefer VRs (with ground support of colo/immo), because you can start massing them earlier, and it's easier to get a large number out without investing in additional stargates.
mhousser
Profile Joined June 2006
Canada10 Posts
September 04 2010 09:09 GMT
#257
Just pulled off 3340 Screenshot available if you care.

Things to note about my strategy:

- I *immediately* retreated to my base and defended the ramp. Mass cannons, as much as I can spare.
- Obviously upgrading 3-3-3 is required.
- Mass phoenixes and colossi only.
- Make sure to auto-build your carrier interceptors
- Why mass phoenixes? Key point: I would use the grav beam on EVERY SINGLE hybrid that started coming up the ramp! Float 8 hybrids super quickly if you need to, then start picking them off with your anti air. More phoenixes = won't run out of energy to do this. This leaves your massive group of colossi with dealing mostly with the lings/hydras/roaches/etc. TRY TO FLOAT AND PICK OFF AS MANY HYBRIDS AS POSSIBLE!

This was my third attempt.. it was like night and day for me.
shannn
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Netherlands2891 Posts
September 04 2010 12:55 GMT
#258
On September 04 2010 18:09 mhousser wrote:
Just pulled off 3340 Screenshot available if you care.

Things to note about my strategy:

- I *immediately* retreated to my base and defended the ramp. Mass cannons, as much as I can spare.
- Obviously upgrading 3-3-3 is required.
- Mass phoenixes and colossi only.
- Make sure to auto-build your carrier interceptors
- Why mass phoenixes? Key point: I would use the grav beam on EVERY SINGLE hybrid that started coming up the ramp! Float 8 hybrids super quickly if you need to, then start picking them off with your anti air. More phoenixes = won't run out of energy to do this. This leaves your massive group of colossi with dealing mostly with the lings/hydras/roaches/etc. TRY TO FLOAT AND PICK OFF AS MANY HYBRIDS AS POSSIBLE!

This was my third attempt.. it was like night and day for me.

Yea I guess about 3350 is where you'd have lost it all by then.
I did about the same as you but I massed up collossi and cannoned up my ramp and in the beginning just walked aroudn with my starting units killing all units and canons do the rest.
Eventually got to 3359 and by then there were just too many it was l ike a 400 food army vs a 200 protoss food army ><
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=6321864 Epic post.
me_viet
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Australia1350 Posts
September 04 2010 13:38 GMT
#259
Has any1 been able to do this while holding on to the low ground at 3250 kills? This is my next goal for this mission haha. I love defense missions (hence I play Zerg), and losing all those buildings on the low ground makes me sad =[


On Brutal obv.
Final_Judicator
Profile Joined November 2008
Germany85 Posts
September 05 2010 13:48 GMT
#260
Well, IMHO this has to be the most epic and awesome mission in the whole campaign.

After a few tries I managed to get 3717 kills. I don't know how much is technically possible, but I'm actually running out of ideas how to improve my strategy. Yet, I might give it a few more tries

Maybe I'll even try to hold the low ground, sounds fun and should be possible with 3250 kills.

If you are still interested, I could also post my strategy, but I fear that I might be the only hardcore fan of this mission...

Regards,

Final_Judicator
Kal_rA
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States2925 Posts
September 07 2010 05:50 GMT
#261
wow thanks guys!

just tried it on brutal after reading through a couple posts and got 3399! (so close to 3400!!!!)
that was my second try.. first was barley over 1200 (i did the campaign on like normal so i did what i did then to pass the level... 15 gates zealot stalker with hts storming.. hahha got raped this time)

collosi/pheonix and zealot with extra min did the trick switched pheonixs to void rays after a while

yay for full upgrades!
Jaedong.
BigAndrew5000
Profile Joined September 2010
United States17 Posts
September 19 2010 21:44 GMT
#262
Do you guys try to get the golden expo on the outside? I am on hard, and have just not been able to keep up, damn...
If you must do it... Do it with honor!
moopie
Profile Joined July 2009
12605 Posts
September 19 2010 21:56 GMT
#263
On September 20 2010 06:44 BigAndrew5000 wrote:
Do you guys try to get the golden expo on the outside? I am on hard, and have just not been able to keep up, damn...

I took it within seconds of starting the match (after queuing up a few more probes, getting my colo tech and dark shrine). Since the waves come 1 at a time, and your army should go intercept them on the bridges anyway, taking the gold with a couple cannons and a pylon (to block lings mainly) will be enough of a defense since your army should be there within a couple seconds if you're on top of things. You can mine out the mins there before everything goes to hell later on in the map (as well as get a bunch of gas out of it), and it helps a lot with the cannon spamming and mid-game mass VR/phoenix transition.
I'm going to sleep, let me get some of that carpet.
Rakanishu2
Profile Joined May 2009
United States475 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-19 22:16:08
September 19 2010 22:14 GMT
#264
Immortals are VERY underrated on this mission, the hybrids hit like a freaking seige tank, and immortals can take those hits like a champ. Get some Colossus, immortals, and maybe a few pheonixs in your mix, but your anti air does ok with just the 4 air heros you recieve.

The bread and butter zerg units dont really get to your ball in time to do damage, but the hybrids do, and their armored, and do big swaths of damage that immortals handle really well.

But by the end, your carpet of cannons on the uphill locations will make ground units a little unwieldy, so massing carriers at this point can be a good move.

edit: and no, on brutal they roll over your expo pretty hard, not worth trying to defend. (you have massive amounts of minerals, and you wont be able to get much gas out of it in time anyway).
10 G's in the packet and I'm ready to roll, on fire like a rocket and I'm ready to blow
Deathstar
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
9150 Posts
September 19 2010 22:22 GMT
#265
Is it possible to beat this on brutal with pure carriers (or pure voidrays) and gateway units?
rip passion
moopie
Profile Joined July 2009
12605 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-19 22:30:50
September 19 2010 22:29 GMT
#266
On September 20 2010 07:14 Rakanishu2 wrote:
Immortals are VERY underrated on this mission, the hybrids hit like a freaking seige tank, and immortals can take those hits like a champ. Get some Colossus, immortals, and maybe a few pheonixs in your mix, but your anti air does ok with just the 4 air heros you recieve.

The bread and butter zerg units dont really get to your ball in time to do damage, but the hybrids do, and their armored, and do big swaths of damage that immortals handle really well.

But by the end, your carpet of cannons on the uphill locations will make ground units a little unwieldy, so massing carriers at this point can be a good move.

Immortals aren't very mobile, and they don't really build fast. In the beginning of the mission, a mobile army of Stalkers/DTs/Colossus is good to control the lowground, but after you cannon up everywhere and especially towards the lategame its better to just stop ground production altogether. Hybrids should be picked up before engaging so their hits shouldn't be a huge concern.
On September 20 2010 07:14 Rakanishu2 wrote:
edit: and no, on brutal they roll over your expo pretty hard, not worth trying to defend. (you have massive amounts of minerals, and you wont be able to get much gas out of it in time anyway).

I still say it was well worth taking the gold. Thanks to the gold I was able to mass cannon like mad while building up a very large fleet for the lategame. Just have to watch if units are coming from the top left and meet them, while having a pylon or two with a couple cannons behind to block zergling pathing. If you take the gold early on, you can get the hell out of there before the heavy artillery rolls out.
I'm going to sleep, let me get some of that carpet.
BigAndrew5000
Profile Joined September 2010
United States17 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-19 22:59:41
September 19 2010 22:47 GMT
#267
On September 20 2010 06:56 moopie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 20 2010 06:44 BigAndrew5000 wrote:
Do you guys try to get the golden expo on the outside? I am on hard, and have just not been able to keep up, damn...

I took it within seconds of starting the match (after queuing up a few more probes, getting my colo tech and dark shrine). Since the waves come 1 at a time, and your army should go intercept them on the bridges anyway, taking the gold with a couple cannons and a pylon (to block lings mainly) will be enough of a defense since your army should be there within a couple seconds if you're on top of things. You can mine out the mins there before everything goes to hell later on in the map (as well as get a bunch of gas out of it), and it helps a lot with the cannon spamming and mid-game mass VR/phoenix transition.


Hey, yeah, I will totally try this on brutal. I just gave up and am happy to have done it on hard, with all achievements...

So I didn't get the expo, and got 2786 kills on hard. I just ran completelly out of money at some point, but then I already had some 2200 kills. I paved the base with cannons, on low and high ground, then after the archives went down and stuff started getting destroyed, i moved to high ground.

I started out making 2 more forges and 1 cybernetics core to make all upgrades simultaneously. Made gateways on the 3 top entrances to block them like my life depended on it and from then on it was a cakewalk :D.

I had 2 probes hotkeyed building stuff like gateways and cannons. I tried to keep the 3 entrances blocked with gateways all the time.

Then when I was retreating I blocked the entrances to higher ground with gateways too. Gotta love gateways....

I made colossi and voidrays, just that, nothing else, no immortals, no phoenixes (as they didn't die anyway). Used phoenixes to lift the hybrids, with the ranged white ones being lifted first.

For most of the time I was maxed out at 200/200. But this was hard, not brutal, ok?

I guess if I had taken the gold like some dudes did, it would have been better, specially on hard. Thanks for the help guys.
If you must do it... Do it with honor!
Kagormund
Profile Joined July 2010
Canada27 Posts
September 20 2010 03:12 GMT
#268
I beat this mission on brutal with 3332 (no joke here) kills. Basically what I did was:

Pump colossus out of 3 robo bays while getting 3/3/3 for ground and 3 for air attack. I then kept my phoenix count at 8 always. If i lost one, I'd replace it instantly. the trick is to use the phoenix to kill all broodlords (Urun is OP) and lift all the hybrids. I dumped all my minerals into zealots and replacing dead cannons.

Once the archives was done (Research points yay ^_^) I pulled all my forces back onto the higher ledge and just let everything on the ground floor die. (including Zeratul unfortunately D At this point I got my 3 air armor upgrades because enough hybrids were showing up to kill larger amounts of my air units. I continued to pump colossus and zealots while replacing any lost phoenix. Once I was mined out, I tried to move to the gold. I picked a bad time unfortunately and got my colossus surrounded and then I died xD

It is probably possible to hit over 3500 kills using this strategy if you don't make any stupid mistakes (ME!!!!!!).

Good luck and happy massacring!
And then there was that zergling. With 50 of my SCV's as kills.
Trang
Profile Joined October 2009
Australia324 Posts
September 20 2010 09:27 GMT
#269
Here is an easy to read list of how to auto-win this level on Brutal:
1) Immediately take the gold expansion (with both gases).
2) Upgrade Air Weapons/Armor/Shields off 2 Cybers and a Forge.
3) Non-stop spam Void Rays, building more stargates if you need to in order to use up ALL your gas.
4) Non-stop spam Cannons with ALL spare minerals to wall off each entrance.
5) Keep alive the Phoenixes you start with, and use them to lift off the Hybrids.
6) Win.

Some others in this thread have said effectively the same thing. But I like pretty lists
pat777
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States356 Posts
September 20 2010 14:05 GMT
#270
On September 05 2010 22:48 Final_Judicator wrote:
If you are still interested, I could also post my strategy, but I fear that I might be the only hardcore fan of this mission...

I am interested. I'm assuming you massed carriers for the endgame but if you did anything different, let me know.
Draconicfire
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada2562 Posts
September 20 2010 19:18 GMT
#271
Just did all the achievements on this mission on Brutal. Heres what I did.

- Built a Robo Bay, DT Shrine and second Forge at the start. Massed Immortals while Bay was building, made some Stalkers. Start upgrading your weapons and stuff at the forges and cyber core
- When Bay is done, mass Collosus. If you have the gas, make some DTs, if you have too many minerals, make some Zealots.
- When the Phoenixes come, start making Phoenixes
- Use your Phoenixes to lift up as many Hybrids as you can
- Make Cannons around the three base entrances if you have extra minerals
- When Void Rays come out, stop production of Phoenixes and make Void Rays, Continue making Collosus
- When Carriers are out, mass Carriers and Collosus
- Once the timed objective is done, retreat to the middle section of the highground between the two entrances, throw down a bunch of cannons and just try to stay there
- When you get the Mothership, feel free to drop Vortexes on the ramps leading up to the highground to control the flow of units a bit better

Thats pretty much all I did. After I got the basic 2500 objective, that army lasted me to 3250 too so I got the 750 additional one as well. The key is to mass Collosus and Carriers, I think. Didn't even need the gold base.
@Drayxs | Drayxs.221 | Drayxs#1802
SageFantasma
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States383 Posts
September 20 2010 19:31 GMT
#272
I thought this was incredibly easy to do. O_O As soon as it started up, I threw down a Dark Shrine, 7-10 gates, and pumped out nothing but DT. Whenever I was out of gas, I just pumped Zeals(however you want to keep DT and Zeals apart, otherwise Ultras will DESTROY the combination of Zeals+DT) out of my gates. I also threw down 3 Forges right off the bat and researched up to 3-3-3. By doing this strategy, I literally ROFLSTOMPED everything. Didn't even need the expo. However getting that extra 750 with this strategy is hard, just because of the tons of Overseers that pop up once you get Artanis. As soon as I got Artanis I switched to straight up Zeal/Stalker and turned all of my DT into Archons(I think? I can't remember too well, lol). This strat was extremely easy to execute and was fun too, just watching massive Ultras struggling to get past my mass of DTs,
Vimsey
Profile Joined May 2010
United Kingdom2235 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-21 02:39:18
September 21 2010 02:33 GMT
#273
On September 20 2010 07:29 moopie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 20 2010 07:14 Rakanishu2 wrote:
Immortals are VERY underrated on this mission, the hybrids hit like a freaking seige tank, and immortals can take those hits like a champ. Get some Colossus, immortals, and maybe a few pheonixs in your mix, but your anti air does ok with just the 4 air heros you recieve.

The bread and butter zerg units dont really get to your ball in time to do damage, but the hybrids do, and their armored, and do big swaths of damage that immortals handle really well.

But by the end, your carpet of cannons on the uphill locations will make ground units a little unwieldy, so massing carriers at this point can be a good move.

Immortals aren't very mobile, and they don't really build fast. In the beginning of the mission, a mobile army of Stalkers/DTs/Colossus is good to control the lowground, but after you cannon up everywhere and especially towards the lategame its better to just stop ground production altogether. Hybrids should be picked up before engaging so their hits shouldn't be a huge concern.
Show nested quote +
On September 20 2010 07:14 Rakanishu2 wrote:
edit: and no, on brutal they roll over your expo pretty hard, not worth trying to defend. (you have massive amounts of minerals, and you wont be able to get much gas out of it in time anyway).

I still say it was well worth taking the gold. Thanks to the gold I was able to mass cannon like mad while building up a very large fleet for the lategame. Just have to watch if units are coming from the top left and meet them, while having a pylon or two with a couple cannons behind to block zergling pathing. If you take the gold early on, you can get the hell out of there before the heavy artillery rolls out.
Immortals and Colossus are definitely viable if you aim to go that build (hint build more robo facility's that way you get more quickly) it works on all difficulties, the one unit you definitely need regardless are phoenix and yes to transition into air later on is best. As long as you keep an eye on the minimap and keep your observers alive you know which direction the attack is coming from so they are mobile enough. I think its great that there are a number of ways of completing this even on Brutal the gold helps but is by no means essential and can still cannon up very nicely.
psychopat
Profile Joined October 2009
Canada417 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-29 04:12:34
September 29 2010 04:10 GMT
#274
I just got 3386 on Brutal with the DT method while ignoring the gold... Made 1 starport, 2 gateways, a DT pillar (whatever it's called) and a second cybernetics core at the start to double up on air upgrades.

At the start, the biggest priority is to crank out a ton of DTs. It takes about 8 per side, but don't bother lining them up nicely until you've got about 16 of them because you'll need them to run from entrance to entrance at first. I even used Zeratul as part of my wall; he can be a lifesaver on his ramp if you mess up later on by doing the prison on the overseer... Anyway, once I had all 3 sides walled off with DTs, I made 4 more as insurance in case I screwed up and needed a fast replacement. After that, the gateways went dormant and were never used again. This allows you to have a ton of spare minerals so just spam cannons everywhere, preferably on the high ground. I covered the place in them, but they don't take priority over ships & ship upgrades.

I never made any extra colossi/immortals/zealots/stalkers; the robotics was only used to replenish observers (in order to see where the Zerg is massing, so I can go kill the overseers before their attack). If you're doing this strategy, it's always a good idea to have one or two standby observers ready because the whole thing relies on the DTs being safe. Being slow on killing the overseers just once can get you killed with as few as 900 kills...

The starting ground army was used for emergency backup in case a wall was breached. If you're on top of the ball with the air units, the ground army should be hugging the archive and not really doing anything at all until you unlock the research points.

The 3 starports were constantly cranking whatever the highest unlocked air unit was as gas becomes available. Don't bother to lift anything with the phoenixes at this point since it's putting them in harm's way for no reason. I had all my air units on 1 hotkey and their priorities were 1-kill overseers, 2-kill brood lords, 3-kill mutalisks, 4-run away from everything else.

Once the archives go underground, the DTs start to lose their value so I retreated everything to the high ground, made 2 DT lines to wall off the ramps and converted the leftover DTs into archons. At this point you've pretty much already won because you should have about 30-35 ships sitting there dominating everything. Just keep rebuilding the cannons near the ramps as needed and make sure your interceptors are set to autobuild on both the hero and the regular carriers. Lifting the ranged hybrids once the DT walls fall is now a good idea too. Once you're left with no base and just a fleet, repeatedly vortexing the groups of hybrids and/or corrupters can buy you lots of time to rack up more kills on lings/hydras/banelings.
david0925
Profile Joined September 2010
212 Posts
October 02 2010 06:26 GMT
#275
I'd like to go over a couple of details that others have not said.

To reiterate things that have been said, the general idea of frontal assault (meaning no DT wall. I find that cheesy, but how you play is entirely up to you), is critical massing Colossi until you are able to kill things reliably before the next wave or right as the next wave spawns. I had trouble with this mission for the first 7 minutes while I struggle to maintain my Rich-Yield Expo. After I reached about 10-12 Colossi, things just melted until I hit the 3250 mark, at which point things start to melt down anyway (ended up with 3495 Kills, could have gotten more if I vortex-ed the mass anti-air/hybrid clusters and killed ground stuff).


-Brutal AI targets workers and Pylons a lot, so use that to your advantage. I paved the low ground with 1:3 Cannon to Pylon, and they waste a lot of time trying to knock down Pylons while I melt them. As for targeting probes, it just means if you actually take the High Yield, you need to extend over the bridge to kill things, or you risk losing your expo. I've seen videos where the expo was completely untouched, and could not reproduce that myself.

-Keep a steady number of Phoenixes (8 at least) so you can lift up Hybrids when necessary. They also do bonus damage against the early Mutalisk masses. Once you get Void Rays and Carriers, you want to turn to those and just keep enough Phoenix for lifting Hybrids, as Carriers kill Mutas just as easily and Void Rays completely destroy Hybrids/Ultras/etc.

-Mass Colossi and "tank" with building and terrain: This was funny. I had a harder time with this mission for the first 10 minutes after I started playing Multiplayer, than before. The reason was that I was in the mindset that the opponent will snipe my Colossi and constantly warped in Zealots to tank. This doesn't work (at least, not that well) here, as AI goes after Pylons or Cannons (I think as much of a priority as, if not higher, than Colossi). This means your Colossi can kill things without Zealot Tanks, and just tank with buildings. With the excess minerals, just pave the road with cannons and pylons. They are "fatter" than Zealots and will fare much better in "tanking"
TSM
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Great Britain584 Posts
October 02 2010 09:55 GMT
#276
gets boring after a whlie
The person to smile when everything goes wrong has found someone to blame it on - arthur bloch **** tl:dr *user was banned for this post*
Hautamaki
Profile Blog Joined December 2003
Canada1311 Posts
October 02 2010 16:08 GMT
#277
Hmm I beat this mission on brutal on my first try with 3300~ kills by just massing colossi and slowly upgrading with the forge and cyber core you start with. Colossi and phoenix were literally the only units I built, though I was happy to add the warping in hero units to the ball, and certainly I was happy to make use of the phoenix ability on the anti-air hybrids. I think I may have replaced a few phoenixes as they died but pretty much I pumped a constant stream of colossi from the two robo facs and upgraded ground and air attack to use up gas, and used up excess minerals on cannons. At around 3000 kills which is right before the attacks get absurd I was 200/200 with about 15-20 colossi, most of the air hero units still alive, and around 40 or 50 cannons packed onto the high ground (by then the archives is long since protected and buried). What ultimately killed me was probably the sheer numbers of broodlords whittling down my cannons faster than my air units could kill them. Everything on land was getting obliterated by my massive ball of 3-3-3 colossi backed up by cannons almost instantly.
True learning is not the memorization of knowledge; it is the internalization of patterns.
Final_Judicator
Profile Joined November 2008
Germany85 Posts
October 02 2010 18:37 GMT
#278
On September 20 2010 23:05 pat777 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 05 2010 22:48 Final_Judicator wrote:
If you are still interested, I could also post my strategy, but I fear that I might be the only hardcore fan of this mission...

I am interested. I'm assuming you massed carriers for the endgame but if you did anything different, let me know.


Sadly, I didn't find carriers particularly effective since rebuilding interceptors will drain your minerals quickly. And around ~3500 kills, you will have harvested everything on the map!


Alright, here is it:

Unit combo:
- 8+ Colossi (most important - but more than 10 are slightly excessive)
- 10+ Immortals (basically, use excess supply on immortals and get as many as you can)
- 8+ Phoenix (always use Grav Beam on the hybrids!)
- 5+ Templars to fend of the overwhelming masses of corruptors/mutalisks in the end
- VOID RAYS! 12+ of them, to counter hybrids and ultralisks. In the end, they will basically be perma-charged, making them a superb DPS unit when all the light Zerg units are slaughtered by Colossi
- maybe a few archons in the very end

Strategie outline:
Basically, most of it was already said:
- get expo/start upgrading/build robotics bay right at the beginning
- wall everything with gateways and put ~10 canons behind it
- build 2-3 temps at each wall from the gateways to support fending off masses with Storm
- When the last reinforcement (Artanis) arrives, pull back to higher ground
- again, wall, mass canon, colossi, immortals, void rays, templars (vs air!)
- when the masses get truly overwhelming, dont forget vortex! It will buy you quite some time and thus, quite a few more kills!
- try to keep all the reinforcements alive, they dont count to your supply!
- dont forget getting full uprgrades!
- keep your heroes alive as long as possible (even Zeratul - use Void Prison on ultralisks since they are not affected by grav beam)

GL HF!

Regards,

Final_Judicator

PS: made it to 3765 a few days ago. Templars are mandatory in the end. Maybe Archons are the key to fend off the air masses. I start missing shield batteries...
Hamlet
Profile Joined May 2010
United States27 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-02 19:18:47
October 02 2010 19:18 GMT
#279
Made a video of this showing a pretty simple strategy (not DT abuse) that got me to 3500 without having to do anything particularly demanding. Might be helpful for people looking for a good way to do the level (HD video if you click through):
BigAndrew5000
Profile Joined September 2010
United States17 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-05 06:10:40
October 05 2010 00:55 GMT
#280
Dude I am trying this on a brutal play through now... What a pain in the ass.... I mean, i have been raging even..... God damn zerg...

You absolutely HAVE to use Phoenixes to PICK UP the dark blue hybrids. It's not the white ones that are a problem. It's the dark hybrids because they hit for 60 damage and it absolutely wrecks your gateway barrier or whatever ground units you have.

Use phoenixes and graviton bean on them all the time, do not let them on the ground. If they get to your colossi, kiss them goodbye.

And I still haven't succeeded in getting the golden expo without problems. Did better without it.

EDIT: Finally made it to 3100 kills. I took the golden expansion out too, and mined it out.

I was messing up because I didn't have colossi on both sides (behind the gateway walls). So I split them up and put some on each side. And every time I saw those dark blue hybrids I picked them up with voidrays so they wouldn't destroy my things.

Those bastards do 60 damage but they have 2 hits on each swing, so it sums up to 120 damage! That is way too much. Not even ultralisks of the omegalisk do that much I think...

Good luck all who are still trying or will try. I made group 1 & 2 colossi (around 8-10 each), 3 for aerial units like voidrays, carriers and phoenixes (important to pick up) and kept making colossi and carriers.

And I made a carpet of cannons with some extra pylons here and there on the second floor.

When there were 10 seconds to go on the archives I just went up, nothing was going at it anyway.
If you must do it... Do it with honor!
kudlaty_true
Profile Joined November 2009
Poland158 Posts
October 05 2010 10:09 GMT
#281
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.
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
October 11 2010 12:25 GMT
#282
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?
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
Jibba
Profile Blog Joined October 2007
United States22883 Posts
October 12 2010 12:28 GMT
#283
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.
ModeratorNow I'm distant, dark in this anthrobeat
NukeTheBunnys
Profile Joined July 2010
United States1004 Posts
October 12 2010 16:43 GMT
#284
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.
When you play the game of drones you win or you die.
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
October 13 2010 15:29 GMT
#285
Why is it easier to defend the lower area for the first part? You have a larger area to cover.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
Matkap
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Spain627 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-13 16:28:58
October 13 2010 16:28 GMT
#286
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
A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal.
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-18 14:50:10
October 18 2010 14:48 GMT
#287
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.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
Shiladie
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Canada1631 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-18 15:03:03
October 18 2010 15:01 GMT
#288
Using gateways to wall in the 3 outer enterences makes this fairly easy-mode
+ Show Spoiler +




Kywalk
Profile Joined August 2010
Brazil23 Posts
October 18 2010 16:15 GMT
#289
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.
RainWhisper
Profile Joined May 2009
United Arab Emirates333 Posts
October 19 2010 03:40 GMT
#290
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.
Hi can i get one McGracken please?
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-21 12:58:06
October 21 2010 12:49 GMT
#291
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.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
windsupernova
Profile Joined October 2010
Mexico5280 Posts
October 21 2010 15:35 GMT
#292
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.
"Its easy, just trust your CPU".-Boxer on being good at games
HollowLord
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States3862 Posts
October 22 2010 07:14 GMT
#293
Anyone NOT suggesting Carriers is a fool. Carriers wreck face.
dota 2 stream #noskill #feed #noob twitch.tv/dmcredgrave
Selkie
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States530 Posts
October 22 2010 07:44 GMT
#294
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.
NextToU
Profile Joined September 2010
Sweden3 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-31 23:23:24
October 31 2010 23:22 GMT
#295
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
dave333
Profile Joined August 2010
United States915 Posts
November 01 2010 17:13 GMT
#296
Collossus Death Ball+Phoenix+Void ray=winz. Usually do some gateway wall off as well with cannons behind.

orcslayermac
Profile Joined July 2010
United States138 Posts
November 01 2010 19:04 GMT
#297
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.
Terran A+move... Right into my banelings? Yes please!
xZiGGY
Profile Joined August 2010
United Kingdom801 Posts
November 01 2010 19:11 GMT
#298
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
Meh.
Sh0guni
Profile Joined October 2010
Finland126 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-11-01 19:39:47
November 01 2010 19:39 GMT
#299
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.
Lobo2me
Profile Joined May 2010
Norway1213 Posts
November 01 2010 19:45 GMT
#300
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.
Bad manners are better than no manners at all.
Aervhorn
Profile Joined October 2010
Norway67 Posts
November 02 2010 14:00 GMT
#301
After you have protected the temple for the limited duration you still need more kills.
I solved this by retreating just up on the high ground so that the waves are forced into the ramps/chokes. Have 20 collossi standing there under Artanis invisibility aura and PHOENIXES are brilliant to lift up Hybrids with, disabling them!
undyinglight
Profile Joined December 2008
United States611 Posts
November 16 2010 11:11 GMT
#302
On October 19 2010 00:01 Shiladie wrote:
Using gateways to wall in the 3 outer enterences makes this fairly easy-mode
+ Show Spoiler +

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNfq4xJQfio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iaZ-OF1zN0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6wM0hgv7mI


I am going to try a variant of this when I get a chance, I am not going to build any units until Carriers are available, than I will just go pure Carrier. I will report back when I have a chance.
Rise Up!
Nazza
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Australia1654 Posts
November 16 2010 11:16 GMT
#303
Hotkey your Phoenixes and lift off any Hybrid reavers. They can catch your collisi out of position quite badly, and pretty much can destroy them in 20 seconds flat. It's a good idea to have 8-14 of them around just to deal with mutas and broods as well.

Later on it's a good idea to wall off with gateways, as your forces will have to be spread thin.
No one ever remembers second place, eh? eh? GIVE ME COMMAND
Spikeke
Profile Joined October 2010
Canada106 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-11-16 23:01:05
November 16 2010 23:00 GMT
#304
Just did this mission today on brutal, it was tough at first but then I tried Collosi / Immortal / Phoenix / Voidray, like suggested here and it worked great. Didn't even need the gold expansion, Hit 200 food, Upgraded Air and Ground to 3. Ended with 3K kills. With careful walling/cannons and phoenix micro, you should be able to clear 2500 no problem.

If you are having trouble with this mission on brutal, like I was. Try the Collosi / Immortal / Phoenix / Voidray that has been suggested here.

Btw. Thanks for the help everyone.
johanngrunt
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Hong Kong1555 Posts
November 17 2010 01:41 GMT
#305
There is a video by Zai on Psystarcraft's channel detailing how to to this mission.

Basically you only need to add 1 forge, 1 robotics a few probes and a shitton of cannons and colossi.

do check it out. he did it with near zero micro.
Wivyx
Profile Joined May 2009
Norway624 Posts
November 17 2010 02:03 GMT
#306
I got exactly 3333 kills by massing Colossi off 3 robos. That was litterally the only unit I built (besides probes). Use your air reinforcements to fend of mutas and broodlords. Whenever you're maxed out or out of gas start massing cannons on the ledges (where there are some cannons already). Melee units will have to run around to kill them, making them quite cost effective. When things gets too hot (I believe this was at ~2500 kills) pull up to the upper level and continue pumping colossi as best you can while warping in cannons. You should be able to get the achievement for 3250 kills.

Oh, and do get upgrades going ASAP. They're extremely important.

I wouldn't recommend doing mass void rays, as you will get overrun by zerglings who'll actually just destroy your base before you can wipe them out.
selendisforever:)
Profile Joined November 2010
Great Britain1 Post
November 22 2010 16:19 GMT
#307
since the latest patch void ray's damage in "in utter darkness" is 2(6 vs. armored). Blizzard should really solve this problem
Exclamator
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Korea (North)27 Posts
November 22 2010 17:39 GMT
#308
On November 23 2010 01:19 selendisforever wrote:
since the latest patch void ray's damage in "in utter darkness" is 2(6 vs. armored). Blizzard should really solve this problem


Single Player isn't affected by patches.
undyinglight
Profile Joined December 2008
United States611 Posts
December 04 2010 23:43 GMT
#309
I just beat this on Brutal, wall off with Gateways early on and constantly save. I mostly went Collosi/Void Rays it worked pretty well. I switched to Carriers a little before I lost my base, they won me the mission though. Mass Carriers as early as you can, and keep them alive. My main got overrun about the time that Artanis showed up. After you lose your base clean out all of the Zerglings left over in your base, it is a good 200 or so kills which should bring you up to about 2400. Not much Micro can be done, you either have enough of an air force to hold out or not at that point. A few of the Vortex from Artanis will help if it gets crazy clutch. Keep Artanis in the back, as he will be visible and will be a prime target. Keep him in the back and the Hybrid/Zerg will target the interceptors from your Carriers as they fly out. Just keep focused and don't get frustrated. Maintain equanimity at all times.
Rise Up!
Whitewing
Profile Joined October 2010
United States7483 Posts
December 05 2010 09:33 GMT
#310
This one was absurdly easy for me with some marginal micro.

Get fast max upgrades on weapons for your ground units, get air weapon upgrades if you can, but it's not a huge deal. Get colossus out ASAP: lots of colossus. Throw down cannons when you can afford it, but it's no big deal. Keep getting colossus, and make use of the free units you get. Maybe get some stalkers in there to help shield the colossus and hit air. Move your units around in a ball as a group and move them to each attacking wave, meeting each wave with all your units. Lift hybrids into the air with your phoenix. When the archive goes underground, wall off the top of one of the ramps with forges or gateways, and put cannons behind it, then move your army up the ramp to the other choke. Then it's just a short amount of time 'till your win. You'll spend most of the battle at 200/200 supply. It's very important to keep your units bunched up so they all strengthen each other. If you split them, you'll be losing units left and right. If you want, just group them all up at the archive and let the enemies come to you. Once you get enough colossi out, they'll utterly annihilate everything on the ground absurdly fast, even ultralisks and hybrids (although you should still life hybrids. Your free phoenix, void rays, carriers, and later mothership can deal with the air units easily, although you may want to build a few extra phoenix to help with the air and for some extra lifts (especially if you lose a phoenix or two).

Dark templar are useless: they do send detectors after the first few initial waves, and they start to send a ton of them later at a time, so you can't count on sniping them. High templar aren't particularly strong here, they are too gas heavy and aren't cost effective against the bigger units. Gateways aren't useful here: sentries would be awesome but you can't build them, and you only need a few (if any) stalkers.
Strategy"You know I fucking hate the way you play, right?" ~SC2John
nehl
Profile Joined November 2010
Germany270 Posts
December 05 2010 10:49 GMT
#311
On December 05 2010 18:33 Whitewing wrote:
Dark templar are useless: they do send detectors after the first few initial waves, and they start to send a ton of them later at a time, so you can't count on sniping them. High templar aren't particularly strong here, they are too gas heavy and aren't cost effective against the bigger units. Gateways aren't useful here: sentries would be awesome but you can't build them, and you only need a few (if any) stalkers.


thats not true. DT's are not worthless. the first time i did it ever (on brutal) i went dt, to block the entrences. then i went air, to snipe the overseer. it worked. i think i did one archievement for extra kills. the banelings killed me in the end. but it definetly works. just make shure to snipe the overseer.
but i have to admit, the way zai did it is much easiere^^
Wysp
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
Canada2299 Posts
December 06 2010 10:12 GMT
#312
It took me 3 tries to get this but I can't remember exactly what I did. Pretty sure it was just mass collos immortal stalker zealot pheonix. Just dont try and hold all three ramps too long and be ready to withdraw into one massive collos ball of rape.
an overdeveloped sense of self preservation
undyinglight
Profile Joined December 2008
United States611 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-15 23:27:28
December 06 2010 23:34 GMT
#313
+ Show Spoiler +
On December 05 2010 08:43 undyinglight wrote:
I just beat this on Brutal, wall off with Gateways early on and constantly save. I mostly went Collosi/Void Rays it worked pretty well. I switched to Carriers a little before I lost my base, they won me the mission though. Mass Carriers as early as you can, and keep them alive. My main got overrun about the time that Artanis showed up. After you lose your base clean out all of the Zerglings left over in your base, it is a good 200 or so kills which should bring you up to about 2400. Not much Micro can be done, you either have enough of an air force to hold out or not at that point. A few of the Vortex from Artanis will help if it gets crazy clutch. Keep Artanis in the back, as he will be visible and will be a prime target. Keep him in the back and the Hybrid/Zerg will target the interceptors from your Carriers as they fly out. Just keep focused and don't get frustrated. Maintain equanimity at all times.



As to note I didn't go pure Carrier as I originally planed as that would be rather difficult, instead I went pure Collosi early with the exception being that at the very offset I got two extra Phoenix, this really helped having an extra pair in order to have an extra 240 life and 120 shields in order to absorb some extra dmage that Phoenix take from the Mutas. It also didn't hurt having more energy for Graviton Beam on Hybrids and Hybrid Reavers. Although I teched to Carriers slightly to late when I beat this on Brutal you don't want to tech to them to early either as rebuilding Interceptoors can be rather taxing on your economy. As to note once the Zerglings have been cleared out of your base retreat to the cliff to your left before the Mysterious Voice speaks again, as that will trigger the next wave which will be full of Hybrid which will counter your air force. As to note the cliff to the left of your main is slightly safer as it is larger, and the Hybrid can not hit you. On the right side cliff they can hit your Interceptors, thus lowering your damage output meaning that it will take longer for you to kill the Corrupter/Mutas/Overseers that will come at you and you will take more damage. If you don't constantly clump your air units together on the right side cliff they can even get hit from the Hybrid, and their will be maybe 30 of them clumped up ready to hit your units. It is just better and safer to stick on the left side cliff. Remember Keep Artanis behind your other units so he can take as little damage as possible. Once he goes down yor remaining force wll quickly crumble.
Rise Up!
cepheids
Profile Joined December 2010
Singapore3 Posts
January 15 2011 07:43 GMT
#314
just did a 3419 on brutal, can probably hit 3500 but its already +750 so i didn't bother.

not particularly hard, basically, take the gold immediately. upgrade shields, ground defense and air attack. ball up your forces and put the phoenixes on group 2, everything else in group 1. the key is not to try to defend your outlying cannons and pylons.

for the first few waves, anticipate the attack locations and defend. train only colossus and immortals for ground, and rotate between carriers, phoenixes and voids from stargates when they become available.

wall up your base with 2 to 3 layers of cannons about 5 minutes before the archives objective is achieved and retreat there. make sure you have a good number of colossus to take out the mass zerglings that will wipe out everything if you do not have ground troops.

also make sure you use graviton beam on all hybrids. it should be a cake walk up to 3250 kills, afterwhich they swarm in with insane numbers.
iloveav
Profile Joined November 2008
Poland1478 Posts
January 15 2011 10:53 GMT
#315
Its easy if you get a good mix, u need at least 10 imortals so they tank up hybrid damage (you wont be able to pick them all later with phoenixes anyway)
aka LRM)Cats_Paw.
Issi
Profile Joined December 2010
Norway45 Posts
January 16 2011 00:16 GMT
#316
Make only Collosusses, when your maxed start making cannons on the two high grounds, when they are filled make them at the chokes. around the place, keep your air units alive to pick off broodlords, easy as that. also upgrade ground weapons, armor and then shields + air weapons.
Regstata
Profile Joined October 2010
United States207 Posts
January 16 2011 12:53 GMT
#317
I beat this mission today with 501 extra kills. I did fairly well on my first try on brutal (I did it once on normal my first run though) with collossi and the air units provided. Voidprism-ing the ultras and lifting the hybrids was very helpful. I was so focused on getting over 3000 kills that I got excited and thought there was a +500 achievement . I'll come back and try it again with better cannon placement and more phoenixes for graviton beam
mineraahhhllllllsss
cozzE
Profile Joined September 2010
Australia357 Posts
January 16 2011 13:40 GMT
#318
I got the bonus objective and the achievement on brutal really easily by DT walling each choke. Make sure you have alot of phoenixes/air units at each side ready to snipe observers.

I found this mission was mostly a race to snipe observers ASAP whilst keeping up with macro and replacing any lost units. I tried doing what other people had suggested like camping the high ground with Colossi and expanding to the gold early on and they just didn't work :/.

Hope this helps anyone.
iloveav
Profile Joined November 2008
Poland1478 Posts
January 16 2011 15:51 GMT
#319
I got about 3550, im wondering if there is a glitch to get 100% win ratio here and bug the map to stop sending units actually (would be awasome that someone would have such a smart head for RTS that yould defy protoss End :D).
aka LRM)Cats_Paw.
DoubleReed
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States4130 Posts
January 16 2011 19:59 GMT
#320
I completed it on Brutal simply by going hard Immortal Colossus, not worrying about the chokes, just defending the archives. Just rely on the free phoenixes for AA. Once carriers came online, I just maxed out on carriers.

I tried dt walls, but they're just too fragile if there is ever an overseer. It can be frankly annoying to lose tons of units that quickly. Immortal Colossus is the way to go.
Toony
Profile Joined January 2011
France27 Posts
January 20 2011 22:16 GMT
#321
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
Profile Joined November 2010
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.
"Wait...wait...don't start another game yet...I need a beer"
Mortal
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
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
The universe created an audience for itself.
OneofDays
Profile Joined December 2010
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 .
EG.IdrA - "Immortal / Roach is pretty good against stalkers."
D3ath3nat0r
Profile Joined October 2010
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
Nothing
shoop
Profile Joined November 2009
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
Profile Joined December 2010
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
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
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
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
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
The bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame
Tyrellius
Profile Joined February 2011
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
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-02-28 09:20:58
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.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
han.
Profile Joined May 2010
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.
hallo~
Happykola
Profile Joined March 2010
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
Ars long, Vita brevis, Occasio praeceps, Experimentum periculosum, Iudicium difficile
DoubleReed
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States4130 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-13 20:52:43
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
Profile Joined May 2008
Singapore5922 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-13 15:44:43
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
Profile Joined January 2011
Sweden580 Posts
March 22 2011 05:33 GMT
#336
Mass Carriers with some Phoenix worked for me
Official Fan of; Obama oGs.MC // God of War ST.JulyZerg // d.Naniwa // ST.Squirtle // SlayerS_Alicia // Emperor SlayerS_BoxeR // EG.HuK // White-Ra // MarineKing.Prime.WE // oGs.NaDa's Body // SlayerS.MMA // MvP.DongRaeGu
Whitewing
Profile Joined October 2010
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.
Strategy"You know I fucking hate the way you play, right?" ~SC2John
radscorpion9
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Canada2252 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-22 17:09:34
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
Profile Joined July 2012
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

User was warned for this post
Never give up or face your Demise
HornyHerring
Profile Joined March 2011
Papua New Guinea1059 Posts
July 23 2012 13:07 GMT
#340
Cool necro bro. I just made a regular deathball and had no problem with it at all.
oh, hai
Yoduh
Profile Joined August 2010
United States216 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-07-23 13:13:16
July 23 2012 13:12 GMT
#341
On July 23 2012 02:56 Mookeypoop wrote:
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


reviving a dead thread of 16 months just to agree with someone. best first post ever.
HaXXspetten
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Sweden15718 Posts
July 23 2012 18:35 GMT
#342
On July 23 2012 22:12 Yoduh wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 23 2012 02:56 Mookeypoop wrote:
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


reviving a dead thread of 16 months just to agree with someone. best first post ever.

hey at least he didn't disagree with it
D4V3Z02
Profile Joined April 2011
Germany693 Posts
July 24 2012 10:48 GMT
#343
DT wallin with phoenixes sniping overseers. EZ.
http://www.twitch.tv/d4v3z02 all your base are belong to overlord
baselmarkit
Profile Joined July 2012
14 Posts
July 24 2012 15:42 GMT
#344
mass carriers. make cannons.

gg gl
AAsh
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden1 Post
Last Edited: 2012-07-27 20:23:15
July 27 2012 20:22 GMT
#345
What i did was to mass colossuses and wall of the bridges with cybernetic cores. And when you max on colossuses start making cannons in an arc behind the cores. Maybe you can make some phoenixes to but thats optional.
Kyrillion
Profile Joined August 2011
Russian Federation748 Posts
July 31 2012 10:14 GMT
#346
What i did was to mass colossuses


Ouch. I understand why you would use Latin plurals in English.
If you seek well, you shall find.
iCpryde
Profile Joined November 2011
Canada12 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-05 07:05:16
March 05 2013 07:02 GMT
#347
I just finished doing this campaign Mission and was able to get to 3425 that was going colossus + pheonix and I took the gold base i take the gold after around the 3rd swarm hit and than leave it mining as much as it can till it finally gets over run but by than i usually get a ton of minerals and put canons all around the research facility to help protect it and once I have secured that location and got the achievement I move up to the main base and put as many canons as possible from the 2 entrances to hold off enemy units as long as possible by than I had a 200 max our army with full upgrades (maybe missing 1 or 2) and was just easy killing from there and eventually theres just to much but that was after while like I said I got to 3425 kills.

It is a hard mission but Colossus and Pheonix with upgrades seems to be the way to go for sure and canons never stop rebuilding canons!

edit: well I apologize for this post, I was replying to a campaign post for WOL for the In Utter Darkness mission and ended up in HOTS section somehow? I would delete this but I dont see a delete option.
To the one and only legend SlayerSBoxer
Lunareste
Profile Joined July 2011
United States3596 Posts
March 05 2013 07:06 GMT
#348
It's alright iCpryde, the HOTS forum was the single player campaign forum until shortly after HOTS went into beta. I imagine they're going to revert it back soon.
KT FlaSh FOREVER
ZergOwaR
Profile Joined March 2010
Norway280 Posts
March 05 2013 07:52 GMT
#349
i did it in a sligthly exploit way, but not realy.
using dark templars in a line (hold position) in every opening. Done right they take care of everything on the ground, until overseers arrive.
if fast enough you take out the overseers and sacc a few phoenixes on it.
then ofc cannons everywhere and so on.
dig dig dig dig dig dig die!
Splatterbug
Profile Joined January 2012
Netherlands24 Posts
March 05 2013 21:20 GMT
#350
I just massed up only collosi and used all the air forces you get to lift the hybrids and focus down brood lords and other air. Then use all your excess minerals to cannon up the three platforms. After that just cannons on the low ground. I got through it with 3100ish kills I believe.
I resent being called sick. It implies that I can be cured.
purakushi
Profile Joined August 2012
United States3300 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-05 22:16:24
March 05 2013 22:15 GMT
#351
Confused why this is in the HotS section O_O

EDIT: Nevermind. Answered above.
T P Z sagi
Quochobao
Profile Joined October 2010
United States350 Posts
March 05 2013 22:17 GMT
#352
What is this gold base everyone keeps talking about? Is it in the protoss base?
Best or nothing.
SSJTribe
Profile Joined August 2012
United States18 Posts
March 05 2013 22:38 GMT
#353
On March 06 2013 07:17 Quochobao wrote:
What is this gold base everyone keeps talking about? Is it in the protoss base?


The gold base is on the left side of the map, past the bridge the zerg attack you from.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/3/37/InUtterDarkness_map.jpg/400px-InUtterDarkness_map.jpg
this map should help you out
TheV
Profile Joined August 2010
Brazil107 Posts
March 05 2013 23:30 GMT
#354
Dark Templar + Phoenix.

No shit, you can hold position the dark templars at each entrance and use the phoenixes to kill the overseers, it is literally impossible for any zerg unit to enter.

And use lots of cannons to shut down the nydus worms immediately.
Storm is coming that cannot be avoided.
Quochobao
Profile Joined October 2010
United States350 Posts
March 05 2013 23:53 GMT
#355
On March 06 2013 07:38 SSJTribe wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 06 2013 07:17 Quochobao wrote:
What is this gold base everyone keeps talking about? Is it in the protoss base?


The gold base is on the left side of the map, past the bridge the zerg attack you from.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/3/37/InUtterDarkness_map.jpg/400px-InUtterDarkness_map.jpg
this map should help you out


Thanks! I beat this on brutal with all the achievements, but I probably should try the gold mine again
Best or nothing.
Kakaru2
Profile Joined March 2011
198 Posts
March 06 2013 05:44 GMT
#356
I've used the build only colossi and stick to original base way to beat it on Brutal and get all achievements.
Xahhk
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada540 Posts
March 06 2013 08:11 GMT
#357
DT walls. And transition to air army and float yourself above dead space.
Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany2959 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-07 15:31:48
March 07 2013 15:22 GMT
#358
When I was watching Artosis' campaign walkthrough I realized I've somehow managed to never see that gold base for some weird reason, despite playing the mission often, even flying around everywhere I think.

Either way, started to do another quick campaign brutal run and just managed to get 3591 kills, though I think I've gotten 260x before at some point.

[image loading]

My strategy is to be (obviously) as effective as possible. Which means early upgrades, always build lots and lots of cannons if you got the money and as far as units go: 8-10 Collossi (get those first) then get roughly up to 20 Phoenixes, 1-2 Immortals that should be positioned to take hits instead of Collossi, the couple Carriers you get (patrol them in the archive area, same for Mothership) and then fill up supply with Voidrays. Over the course of the run I only really need to refill Phoenixes and Voids at times.

Make extremely heavy usage of Graviton Beam! Constantly hold all the Hybrids up in the air, especially the melee ones which destroy everything ridiculously quickly with their damage. I suggest putting Phoenixes and Voidrays in one control group and use that one mostly while Collossi etc. are either on hold position or Patrol. Unfortunately Phoenixes in the campaign do not have the "shoot while moving" update, so keep that in mind. Don't use Graviton Beam with shift, just hold down the hotkey you use for it, makes controlling it that much more easy.

As you can see in the screenshot I have a lot of resources left and if I just build much more canons I'd go over 3.6k easily. That said, except for maybe mass warpgates you won't get much out of your money wants the ridiculously huge wave hits. It will completely annihilate you no matter what and producing no units takes too long.

It may be possible however with nice Vortex and Storm usage (perhaps even Archon-Toilette?!? (are they actually available?) to get quite a few more kills. May have to try that out. But it's already really micro intensive and even 10 Vortexes can't hold back that shit later on.

Really great mission though, I love that one and All-in (with no artifact usage). Hope there'll be similar ones in HotS.
WrathBringerReturns said: No no no. Sarcasm is detected in the voice. When this forum is riddled with stupidity, you think I can tell every post apart? Fair enough it was intended sarcastically, was it obvious? Of course not.
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