EPT[D] mercs only - Page 2
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Blazinghand
United States25558 Posts
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shoop
United Kingdom228 Posts
On December 25 2010 11:16 Phael wrote: I seriously doubt mercenaries only can beat All In on brutal. Kerrigan simply kills too many units for you to replenish with mercs, and that's not even counting the normal unit waves. You guys are forgetting the hive mind emulator. Cheesy, I know. But All-in is not going to be the hardest mission. | ||
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zeross
France310 Posts
gotta try hard one day, brutal seem definitly impossible. nice chalenge, got me do the campaign once more  thanks | ||
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MiKTeX
United States234 Posts
the dig was surprisingly easy. planetary fortresses are quite good on this mission. with the help of the drill, you can actually beat this one with only the two starting tanks and the infantry mercs welcome to the jungle is both a furiously hard and pretty easy mission. I avoided this one until I got orbital commands (I tried it earlier and you just do not get enough money for units, bunkers, and turrets fast enough), where I just made 4 orbitals in the beginning and built planetaries and missile turrets everywhere in addition to my merc army a sinister turn was kind of a nail biter, but doable. I spent almost all of my money on cannons. at the beginning you can bait the zealot guarding the dark shrine into one of the cannons in your base. after that I used them to get the immortal. after I got the shield and armor upgrade, I snuck them around the top/right edge of the protoss base and rambo'd passed the last cannon guarding the three preservers. one DT died but the other survived, allowing me to complete the mission. btw, I did get the templar archives research. at the end I saved up as much minerals as I could and semi cannon rushed the (south and poorly defended side) base on the right and ran my probes by while they were distracted with the cannons and spent the rest of my money on pylons next to the archives before I finished off the last preserver and ended the mission right now I am up to the last missions on char. I don't think the ground all in is possible, so I'm going to do it on air with hive control. the other two missions should be pretty easy. as for doing this on brutal, I don't think the whole game is possible on brutal, but a lot of the missions are definitely doable with mercs/starting units (especially after you get orbitals, lol) | ||
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shoop
United Kingdom228 Posts
@MiKTeX: Great to see other people try this! I may end up using your trick for a sinister turn, thanks. It's interesting that smash and grab is not particularly hard on normal difficulty, but becomes very tricky on higher difficulties. Based on your experience, I'll also be sure to delay Welcome to the Jungle a little bit. I think that ground all-in should be doable on Hard (perhaps not Brutal) with the hive mind emulator and good artifact usage: although the hive mind emulator clearly works better with air (because of brood lords), it should be possible to kill the nydus worms and build up a useful Zerg army with Mercs and mind controlled Zerg. Since you are going to try air, I think I may go for all-in ground, just for the hell of it! | ||
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alpenrahm
Germany629 Posts
anyhow if you manage to beat the nydus rampage without building a single unit you are my personal heroes 2011. gg gl hf | ||
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zeross
France310 Posts
i don't lost units thanks to bunkers, but i'm not fast enough to destriy the golems before the zergs. zerg behind my base keep me behind and i loose too much time | ||
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shoop
United Kingdom228 Posts
On December 29 2010 04:57 zeross wrote: damn this smash and grab in hard is a hell ^^ i don't lost units thanks to bunkers, but i'm not fast enough to destriy the golems before the zergs. zerg behind my base keep me behind and i loose too much time I agree its fucking hard, but if you managed to reach the golems without losing units, you should be able to do this in time. Since this is possibly the hardest mission of all, I've updated the OP with more specific strategy. Good luck! | ||
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zeross
France310 Posts
you can shot the cannon/pillon from a good range and set better traps. with floating barracks and there you go i managed to take all artefact and finish without loosing a single unit and still have a good amount of time left upgrade ftw ! edit : for the zerg attacking your base, i came back the first time to save the base. the second time i already had both upgrades so i just loaded scv in the cc, floated it to grab the left reliqs with scv drop, then floated it to my army. the zerg destroyed my base then came after me. and here is the beautiful thing : i was diging in the toss base by the left side and the zerg attacked me but got hit by the protoss. then it was a zerg v protoss fight where zerg killed me 3 stalker and lured me a cannon allowing me to go trought the base pretty easly. i floated the cc to the last reliqs to scv drop it then puted the cc on the bridge to the golem arena. build 6 bunkers and killed the golmes easly edit 2 : well the evacuation, devil's playground and great train robbery was pretty easy as always. outbreak was long but easy. defended with planetary frotresses during the night with bunkered units to suport and repairing scv, was a piece of cake to survive (gotta love 400+ kills PF =D) toke me like 6 days to wipe all structures cuz i was slow and carefull for the moment i did all the secondary objectives and got all researchs (but did not do the achievements objectives because wel... too hard :p) i'll continue tomorow, wanna beat it | ||
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MiKTeX
United States234 Posts
@op after reading your remark about doing the ground all in using hive control (as opposed to psi disruptor as most people get), i change my mind and i think its probably quite doable if you can grab enough ultralisks/roaches/etc very fun playthrough and very rewarding once you finally complete a really tricky mission. i found out some really cool tricks that i am definitely going to use in future playthroughs smash and grab: building bunkers vs. the stone zealots the great train robbery: building bunkers/planetary fortresses in the path of the train (planetaries vs. the last train is ooolllololol) a sinister turn: sneaking DTs by the cannons (not sure about this but i bet you could probably do this mission REALLY fast with this strategy) safe haven: building missile turrets vs. the terror fleets (they dont attack the turrets until they reach their destination so they are really powerful) welcome to the jungle: building bunkers/turrets before getting terrazine | ||
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shoop
United Kingdom228 Posts
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stalking.d00m
213 Posts
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shoop
United Kingdom228 Posts
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Sufficiency
Canada23833 Posts
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Dixons
Finland10 Posts
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shoop
United Kingdom228 Posts
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Kinetik_Inferno
United States1431 Posts
hire some devil dogs mercs and shove them in the bunkers, have scvs set to auto repair next to them, have the fully upgraded siege tank mercs on the cliff, and the hive mind emulator getting you extra units. | ||
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shoop
United Kingdom228 Posts
On January 07 2011 10:01 Alekh47 wrote: all in hire some devil dogs mercs and shove them in the bunkers, have scvs set to auto repair next to them, have the fully upgraded siege tank mercs on the cliff, and the hive mind emulator getting you extra units. The way you put it, it sounds like a walk in the park :-) problem is, by the later stages your scvs will begin to die and you can't really replenish them; if a bunker falls and you don't save the marines they can't be replaced since hydralisks can't be put in bunkers. Also Kerrigan will use her one-shot kill ability on your irreplacable tanks and BCs. I just completed all-in ground, and it was by no means easy. | ||
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AimlessAmoeba
Canada704 Posts
I'm assuming this doesn't count the protoss mission where you fend off the dark voice forever and ever | ||
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BlueSorc
United Kingdom119 Posts
The hardest aspect of the entire process is the inability to build SCVs. Many missions, particularly early on, only give you 4 scvs, which means you have to pick and choose which mercs to go for. Once you have unlocked most of the mercs, there's little real difference between this and a normal run aside from the SCVs. With so few SCVs, you're using up all your money on mercs... which are in general more cost efficent than normal units, so the ability to build mercs is actually something of an advantage. You wouldn't be able to build units, even if you could. Contrary to what you might initially think, the challenge gets much easier as you go on. Once you have orbital command, automated refineries and the upgrade that increases the rate of gas collection, your SCV problem is greatly diminished. The hive mind emulator makes char a cakewalk, on Normal. Especially all-in: For the first time in the entire campaign, you have a butt tonne of money, and nothing to spend it on but planetary fortresses and hive mind emulator. Kerrigan dies real quick to 15 control groups of mutas. Its probably harder, but still eminently doable, on the ground version. I'm not entirely sure why people consider Maw of the Void to be a nightmare: the three BCs at the beginning are plenty enough to get the first rip generator and the southmost rip generator. The initial group of DTs are enough to take out the 2nd rip generator. Thats all you need to do : vikings and turrets kill the mothership and cloaked banshees are then pretty much free to blast apart the vault. Supernova and Welcome to the Jungle were probably the hardest missions. The former because the time limit restricts the number of mercs you can pump out, the latter because its early in the game and it only gives you 4 or 5 scvs. Which is really irritating when you need to send one of them out to get the gas canisters. If I were to try it on brutal, planning out mission order would be critical: You need to get to 15 protoss research ASAP for the refinery upgrades. I suspect the hardest part of the entire run, aside from Supernova, will be the first 2 missions you choose after Mar Sara. | ||
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