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On August 05 2010 06:34 Casta wrote:
Although the Wraith upgrades was somewhat useless, I disagree with your bashing of the unit. The fact that its a cloaked air unit that hits both air and ground made them very dangerous if used right... and by right I mean, not just a-move.
At least I abused them heavily from the moment I got them, and found them particular useful in both colonist finale missions, where you're supposed to use vikings instead. I did however use them mostly backed up by raven point defense drones when taking out detection.
The units you prefer all depends on playstyle though, although I find it hard to see anyone playing the campaign on brutal without core units like siege tanks or stimmed rines.
Yea, I think cloaked wraiths would make a nice addition to a squad of banshees when you're going nydus worm hunting in all in to help take out overseers.
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Predator sucks and Hercules is very inconvenient with the need of a fusion core =/.
+25% gas is always good.
CC reactor is a must - most campaigns starts you off with only 6-8 scvs and it makes it so much faster to turn that number into ~30. There are only a small handful of missions (ie: media blitz, supernova) where you can "expand" via refinery.
Science vessel is so important: heals faster than repair and a 300 energy health prob save you more than the resources you spent on the vessel itself. The heal is very slow ~1hp/s?
Planetary fortress I find a lot more useful over the flame turret. Very good on the defend missions/just throw on down at entrance of base while your army is away. I find it making a huge difference on All In (2 PFs each choke).
Psi emitter vs mind control tower imo depends on which mode of All In you plan to do.
First upgrade I ever get is quick medic healing - so many missions where you work with medics! Medics w/o tech lab is handy too since you can build 2 from a reactor. M&M+stim is enough for 75% of the missions.
BCs I got defensive matrix. That alone allows 2 BCs to single handedly take out 2 platforms by themselves on brutal shatter the sky.
I find both viking upgrades to be very handy - there are so many missions where you face mutas!
Perma cloaked 300 energy ghosts + droppods can make raid night achievement very easy. I go tech reactor otherwise.
I rely solely on banshees for taking out nydus in All-In so I got their cloak upgrade.
I got AoE missile turret for base defenses (all those annoying mutas!) - that also boosts turret dps.
Double repair speed is handy if you every go mech/defend. Combined with the building repair drone thing a PF is almost invincible and tanks kerrigan w/o losing much hp.
Both tank upgrades are essential - I would actually get smart shells first.
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I did the vs. air version of All In on Hard, and the vs Nydus version on Brutal, for the record. I found it by far the hardest mission where you can build stuff on Brutal and the other mission I found harder than normal (Piercing the Shroud) doesn't make you want any upgrades you don't want to get anyway. Hence I think that there are definitely upgrades worth getting just because of All In.
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Fully upgrade marines, medics (well, the no-tech-lab is optional, but very convenient), tanks, goliaths, and vikings imo. Get Orbital Command at some point because you can (the one mission where it's huge imo is the one where you have to collect 6000 minerals, though it's not bad on All-In either). Get SCV upgrades by the final mission. No need to bother with anything else, though you might as well spend up what spare credits you have.
M&M is just plain broken in most missions once you get stim and the medic heal upgrade. The only protoss unit that can do much is high templar (medics outheal colossus dps, so unless you're against multiple colossi they're mostly a nonissue), and the zerg only really have banelings (except if they're in numbers like in All In). Tanks still hurt though, so I wouldn't recommend M&M vs terran.
Goliaths are better than vikings in pretty much every mission except for the mission where you get vikings (either version), arguably the mission where you get the Odin, and All In (vs air; vs nydus you'd be stupid to build either unit though). As the OP says, there aren't many big air battles in the game, and goliaths are better when you're fighting a mixed air-and-ground army (which is much more common). They're cheaper, better tank shields, get vehicle upgrades, and much better against ground units. But they suck without upgrades, I admit.
Tanks are obviously good. Upgrades are pretty much optional until All In (I think I used unsieged tanks more than sieged ones because I could just a-move to victory), but they're way too good to pass up there.
Viking upgrades are completely skippable unless you go with the air version of All In (because goliaths are better), in which case they're not.
Orbital command, SCV repair speed boost, and multiple SCV build are useful at times, but probably skippable. The SCV upgrades are super good for All In though. I didn't use the rest of the units at all except vultures (which are just mineral sinks if I'm going mech), for which the upgrades are handy but entirely optional, and Thors to stun Kerrigan but the upgrades are useless for that anyway.
I didn't build bunkers. Missile turret upgrades are pretty much mandatory for the air version of All In but otherwise only really matter on The Dig imo.
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I would definitely hire the siege tank and viking mercs, I found both of them very useful (even though the vikings are a bit gas-heavy). They're both units that are good in small numbers and they both get very nice stat boosts. Others are optional, I didn't use them at all except when it clearly didn't matter (except War Pigs, but you don't have to buy those). Having more stuff to call in at the end of All In isn't bad though (assuming you managed to max out and thus store up some cash).
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For research:
Bunker choice doesn't matter imo, like I said I didn't use them. I'd personally get the turret just because it's a 0-supply defense.
Planetary Fortress is godly in All In. I assume the flame turret isn't as good there, and certainly I wouldn't bother with static defense on other missions.
The Hercules is really good in one mission (the one where you get medivacs) and useless elsewhere. The predator is useless. Doesn't matter, but I'd pick hercules.
Energy boost is really good pretty much all the time, unless you somehow aren't using any units with energy except medics. I didn't get the mech regen to see how fast it is to compare though.
The last zerg research, just pick the better one for your final mission. Psi disruptor is good vs nydus but mostly useless vs air; hive mind emulator is pretty useless vs nydus but really good vs air.
I think weapon attack speed boost is probably better than armor HP boost. First, it's obviously better on All In because it makes siege tanks much better (extra HP doesn't help). Second, you want weapons before armor for every terran unit except maybe Battlecruisers anyway. I do think the armor would be better for M&M and thus just as good for the rest of the campaign though.
I feel like the extra gas is a no-brainer over orbital supply. I was often short on gas with the upgrade, I don't want to think about how pressed I'd have been with only 4 gas per trip instead of 5. That's 20% fewer siege tanks in All In, which does not seem good.
Not sure about CC reactor vs autorefinery.... Both feel good. Reactor is better on All In imo because you lose lots of SCVs there if you're repairing and building a lot (and autorefinery doesn't matter there). Autorefinery is probably better for other missions where you go mech, but CC reactor is better for M&M because gas is a nonissue.
Science vessel feels like a no-brainer too. Irradiate is good vs Kerrigan (and in All In in general), heal is always good, raven spells are expensive.
I think that drop pods are better than tech reactor except on All In. Particularly if you beeline Protoss research you could just use drop-pod-supported M&M armies to breeze through most of the campaign ... but you're pretty cramped on All In and your marines hardly have to walk anywhere anyway.
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On All In, you can use drop pod marines to do suicide runs on nydus worms that are protected by spore crawlers to save your banshees. also very handy on the other Char missions and the Moebius Factor achievements.
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On August 05 2010 08:17 Hikari wrote:
CC reactor is a must - most campaigns starts you off with only 6-8 scvs and it makes it so much faster to turn that number into ~30. There are only a small handful of missions (ie: media blitz, supernova) where you can "expand" via refinery.
You do not need to expand at all to make it effective.
Just to be even with the reactor CC, you would need 10+ scv production cycles to compensate for the 6 "free" scvs + the minerals saved by using the automated refineries and by that time your mineral line would be close to or already fully satured.
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My first time through the game I started on normal and went to hard later on out of bordem, so this time through I wanted to play the whole campaign through hard knowing what upgrades I was getting and everyone is extremly underating the falme turret. I picked it over the planetary fortress out of curiousity and if you just set a wall of flame turrets + a couple seige tanks and an scv to repair them and nothing is getting through that. I've done it on the dig, outbreak and havens fall and the only one I had to rebuild was because I wasnt paying attention to the collusi. Of course the real test comes on char and then I'll have psi disruptors behind them slowing the zerg to get burnt to a crisp
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research:
tech reactor, sci vessel is critical on the toss side. regenerative biosteel (i do a lot of banshees and tanks) is amazing. psi disruptor and hive mind emulator are key for all-in, depending on what you want to do.
armory:
stim and faster medic healing is key. siege tank (both upgrade), and banshee/viking aoe are key as well. the others are more play-style specific, but can be very useful. as i mostly use banshee/viking for a mobile, deadly strike force, those upgrades were most important for me.
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My Hercules is awesome. What other unit can transfer my entire MnM army without dieing on the way there?
I wub it.
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On August 06 2010 03:27 n3mo wrote:
research:
tech reactor, sci vessel is critical on the toss side. regenerative biosteel (i do a lot of banshees and tanks) is amazing. psi disruptor and hive mind emulator are key for all-in, depending on what you want to do.
armory:
stim and faster medic healing is key. siege tank (both upgrade), and banshee/viking aoe are key as well. the others are more play-style specific, but can be very useful. as i mostly use banshee/viking for a mobile, deadly strike force, those upgrades were most important for me.
i agree with most of what u said except regen steel. the regen is slower than toss shield. imo the added energy instead is better.
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OK, I updated the OP with some of your comments. There seems to be a lot of people trying to give advice based on their casual/normal campaign experience; I will kindly ask you to remove your garbage from this thread.
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First post, sorry if my question has been answered somewhere already, I tried to search  . Which mercs are worth the investment in Brutal? Some of them (marauders eg) I can see being useful as stated in OP for saving money on the shell upgrade. Which other slightly-buffed up units are worth the credit investment which could otherwise go to unit tech?
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I found the hercules very useful (in brutal) in a few missions. I used bio for most of the campaign, and the hercules is just great for moving bio around quickly. I liked the instant depot building too, since I always forget depots. I definitely regret getting the perdition turrets. I used them in the last mission to fill holes on the plateau to block endless nyduses, but I probably wouldn't have needed them had I had planetary fortresses. I liked the autoturret on bunkers, I was making those things anyway, why not get a slightly bigger bang for my buck? I didn't upgrade medivacs at all, medics were doing an awesome job, and hercules makes the medivac obsolete as a dropship (medics can heal eachother, and scvs repairing medivacs die fast). And I liked autorefineries more than reactor cc, it frees up scvs to mine minerals enabling me to not spend more on scvs with limited resources. I never had excess minerals in all-in, so I don't see that the reactor cc pumping more scvs to repair would help much. I found maurauders fairly useless though, no stim and no emp meant they were basically useless vs protoss, and marines have higher dps vs armoured without stim anyway.
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dezi
Germany1536 Posts
Due to the cash bug in the game i was able to get all armory upgrades, so why bother with which to chose? ^^
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Kentor
United States5784 Posts
On August 13 2010 05:48 Zero.Tha.Hero wrote:First post, sorry if my question has been answered somewhere already, I tried to search . Which mercs are worth the investment in Brutal? Some of them (marauders eg) I can see being useful as stated in OP for saving money on the shell upgrade. Which other slightly-buffed up units are worth the credit investment which could otherwise go to unit tech?
I did brutal without any mercs besides the elite marines. Of course mercs are also cheap and you probably will have left over credits if you did most of the side missions. Depending if you're going to do nydus or air for All In, I'd say the banshee or the vikings mercs would be great, and maybe siege breakers as well.
On August 13 2010 06:38 dezi wrote:
Due to the cash bug in the game i was able to get all armory upgrades, so why bother with which to chose? ^^
can't get all the research upgrades
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On August 12 2010 07:27 Shaithis wrote:
OK, I updated the OP with some of your comments. There seems to be a lot of people trying to give advice based on their casual/normal campaign experience; I will kindly ask you to remove your garbage from this thread.
Dude, you called the thread "Brutal critical research/upgrades"you're thread failed before it started.
Nothing is critical it's all situational.
I picked a load of stuff you decided is bad like health instead of attack speed, autoturrets for bunkers (but no other upgrades), no planetary fortress, full ghost upgrades etc...
Yet I beat all-in Brutal with ease first attempt, could have got Aces High if I knew about the achievement.
What you choose is not as important as maximising the effectiveness of what you choose.
And let's not pretend Brutal is difficult.
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How is Brutal not difficult?
Please explain.
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On August 04 2010 00:56 Shaithis wrote:
Medic: The first upgrade is only for dedicated mm massers, which isn't really a great or very fun strategy on brutal, plus it is extraneous with tech reactors. The increased heal ability, on the other hand, can be very useful in the first half of the game, where you will indubitably be running a bio-heavy army. Rating: 3 and 9.
I strongly strongly disagree with this. Marine + medic is the best strategy for the majority of the levels in the campaign. I used pure mm for 80% of the levels when you are able to macro. Marine + medic is often much better than the unit they give you to complete a level. The banshee level and the goliath level are rape fests using pure mm. The first medic upgrade is great, especially for the first half of the campaign when you dont have the tech reactors.
The upgrades I think are important are marine, medic, tank, scv, commandcenter, turrets, and banshees. That is all you need to complete the entire campaign on brutal. You dont need any mercenaries either. I agree with the OP's assessment of the p/z research upgrades.
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You can probably reach 1590/1600 with just Reactor + Core and improved SCVs. I don't think any of these upgrades are very important. Scan helps.
Almost forgot, I hired everyone.
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Regarding the unit upgrades, my guidline would be like:
No brainers: both Marine upgrades, Medic faster heal, both Tank upgrades, Orbital Command
Strong Choices: faster repair, viking range
Nice to have: Banshee upgrades (Splash > Cloak), autorepair, turret upgrades (more dmg > more hp)
So im mostly agreeing with you. However I never found good use for bunkers, so I'd be fine skipping their upgrades.
+ Show Spoiler +In the last mission I wasn't blocking the zerg at all, as slow towers und dozens of tanks were all I needed.
On the other hand I liked the turret upgrades, mostly so in the majority of the artifact missions.
Techwise I'd recommend getting the hercules transport over the predator, if you happen to unlock those before you start the mission to unlock medivacs. Never happened to me tho.
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On August 04 2010 02:09 Weasel- wrote:
I can't see the logic in wanting command centre reactor over automated refinery. Spend minerals to build 6 SCVs faster versus not having to build those SCVs in the first place (and on some missions, not having to build a command centre next to the refinery but still having full gas harvesting from it)?
The rest of the OP I agree with completely, but I did find myself making a lot of goliaths (far prefer them to thors and they're cheaper than vikings).
A lot of missions are timed. Getting your base saturated faster > saving a few minerals on 6 SCVs. A lot of missions, even on brutal start you out with a ton of resources.
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EPT
