Description: Amon has drawn you into a war of attrition. Your forces are exhausted, and even the simplest of tasks are a drain on your resources. Missiles rain down from above, and minerals can sometimes be hard to gather. hang in there, secure the longs, and it will all be worth it.
Map: Lock & Load
Mutations:
Micro Transactions Giving commands to your units costs resources based on the unit's cost.
Mineral Shields Mineral clusters at player bases are periodically encased in a shield which must be destroyed for gathering to continue.
Missile Command Endless missile bombardments target your structures and must be shot down throughout the mission.
Made it first try playing Karax, with an Alarak ally. Karax is strong already on this map, securing locks with additional defenses, and in this mutation he can defend both bases from missiles with some more cannons, that can double as mineral shield removal (but you have to manually target them when they appear).
Made it on my second attempt (quit first when I saw that may ally made 5 turrets before anything else even though I was Karax). My second time I was Karax and my ally was Zagara. Zagara cleared out enemy bases surprisingly fast and cannons, shield batteries and sentries made securing the locks EZ. Took maybe 15 minutes or so, which was perfect as I was cooking potatoes! :D
Stukov is also really powerful as you can command your massive army with the Psi Emitter, making it very cheap. Your top-bars can also easily clear the locks. You can build turrets and bunkers which melt any missiles coming at you. All you need is an ally to hold the locks, like Karax, Swann, etc. I had a Raynor partner and he just left 8-10 marines at each lock, which helped a lot as missiles flew past them and we just pushed with massive packs of marines. I didn't even finish my upgrades before the mission ended.
As a bonus, it appears that mineral shields are not working on Stukov for some reason. I've seen several videos, and regardless which side he is on, he doesn't get them. With this, bunkers/turrets/ally, and easy A-move that costs almost nothing, he is very strong on this mission.
I also got no shields as Stukov. Had a Karax friend and did it on the first try. I cleared the locks and he cleared the waves. Was one of the easy ones.
Apparently the mutation is programmed to check for a Nexus, Command Center, or a Hatch/Lair/Hive and only then does it spawn crystals. It hasn't been updated to reflect Infested Command Center, so Stukov can essentially ignore two of the mutations.
Did this as Stukov with a random Abathur partner. We lost a few locks before taking the 5th, and we both took a beating in our main. A round of scourge/viper cleaned out his ovies in the process, but once we got on top of all that we just claimed the last 3 locks, no problems really. And yes, no mineral blocks for me as Stukov.
On January 03 2017 05:41 DrSeRRoD wrote: Apparently the mutation is programmed to check for a Nexus, Command Center, or a Hatch/Lair/Hive and only then does it spawn crystals. It hasn't been updated to reflect Infested Command Center, so Stukov can essentially ignore two of the mutations.
That would explain it. And until this is fixed, this makes Stukov the best commander for this mission by far. I was luck to win this commander two weeks ago
Yeah what the hell man. I'm 69 stukov, played with a 71 karax. That was just about the easiest damn mutation I've played. Those two commanders completely break this mutation lol. Didn't have to worry about minerals because A) Stukov doesn't get them blocked but B) the karax was very damn quick doing his strikes to kill all his. Didn't have to worry about missiles because Karax repair is OP.
I basically cleared the locks and then placed 1 bunker at the locks while he cannoned the hell out of everything. Only reason I build a bunker per lock was so I could immediately start to psi emitter my zombies to a new location and have my scv and his probe capture the locks.
Playing this mission makes me realize how damn awesome Karax & Stukov work together though. Chrono boost means you can get your 3-3 & civ upgrades out a shitload quicker and using infest structure on cannons/batteries just makes that defense 10x stronger. Repair is great for pushing bunkers if you want since they are beefy as hell too. Such a strong combo.
Rankings this week: This is one of the easiest mutations in a while. I'm not so confident about the middle rankings and I can see them moving around a lot, but the top few are clear. The most interesting thing about this mutation for me is that you're generally mineral starved. Both mineral shields and the need to build static defenses contribute to this factor.
Stukov: Rallying your Psi Emitter is basically free and redirects your entire army. Bunkers kill Nukes easily and have huge range. His mineral patches don't get blocks, but I count that as more of a bug than a strength. Basically Stukov can ignore almost the entire mutation.
Karax: Monoliths ignore PDDs, Cannons hold positions, and all of Karax's buildings repair themselves. A-move Carriers is also pretty good.
Artanis: A big surprise for me that he did so well here. The trick is to make all your Tempests follow a single Tempest and just make that single Tempest a-move across the map to save on microtransactions.
Nova: Doesn't have good defenses, but otherwise still great. Her units are cheap to micro relative to their power level.
Zagara: Have your units follow Zagara and a-move across the map.
Raynor: For the inexperienced player, I would rate Raynor much lower. His army costs a lot to micro, but it's offset by the power of Mules and Bunkers easily dealing with Nukes/Missles.
Swann: As always, has a slow start, but very powerful as the game goes on. Other commanders tend to be mineral-starved on this mutation, but Swann can maintain a good balance of the two resources here.
Alarak: Powerful pushing power with his robotics-based army, Pylon Overcharge, and Mothership calldowns.
Abathur: Surprising tends to be very mineral starved on this particular mutation. Heroic units tend to be pretty good, however.
Kerrigan: Queens aren't as powerful here as they normally are due to being mineral starved. Kerrigan has low pushing power in the mid-game due to having to spend time to tech to Ultras and Hydralisks. Nydus Worms are also not the most effective method of transport here.
Vorazun: It's been a while since Vorazun has been on the bottom. Her army of Cosair/Dt is relatively difficult to a-move compared to armies of other commanders. It can be relatively difficult to push with her without a Time Stop.
Oh wow... I just did this in one try as Stukov and was a total dick to my Alarak partner cause it seemed like he was doing nothing... It didn't even occur to me that I had normal income and no mineral shields!
It still took at least half an hour because I had to clear the whole map myself, hold each point, and defend both our bases. I basically just built barracks and missile turrets everywhere until I could spawn a massive army from any of the major positions of the map. Once I had everything but the lock in the far opposite corner from my spawn completely locked down he finally moved his tiny stalker/sentry/alarak force to each of the points to finally cap them with me.
He called in his death fleet to help me take the last point and we barely got it before the timer ran out.
Tried the 5 mins stunt with Raynor and Artanis, and it is really very doable.. I did it in 6 mins.. To those who wanna clock brutal mutation wins to clear achievements, here's your chance! However, it does get boring after a while.. ;P
On January 05 2017 18:19 Sithslayer wrote: Tried the 5 mins stunt with Raynor and Artanis, and it is really very doable.. I did it in 6 mins.. To those who wanna clock brutal mutation wins to clear achievements, here's your chance! However, it does get boring after a while.. ;P
I did that trick the first time this map had a mutation. Grinded maybe 80 games or so. Was so boring I was ready to quit starcraft, but I got the achievement and that's all that counts. :D
Did this a few more times last night. Fairly easy mutation overall imo.
Hardest one I did last night was I was Stukov with a like level 50 Vorazun that told me he was lagging bad...I think he did nothing but build cannons but had like 3 or 4 corsairs and maybe 1 or 2 void rays. That was it. Thank god Stukov is so broken in this mutation otherwise I'm not sure we would have won.
Alarak was fun (although he's probably my fav commander) just having his Wrathwalker deathball. Thinking ascendents would be better but I was drunk and didn't feel like microing as much.
Lastly played a Swann and at first I thought missiles might be tough but then I just put 1 scv with auto repair on and that was all you need until you get a few turrets up. Just went straight vessel + goliath because why not. Thinking tanks + herc would be fun since you could just warp wherever you need but again, alcohol = less micro ability = go 1a unit comp if possible lol.
To be fair, out of like the ~5x I've done this mutation so far I haven't lost yet, which is surprising to me.
I haven't played this mutation yet. I've been intentionally putting it off, though since I'm only one or two mutations away from maxing out the mutation bounty achievement, I'll do it eventually. From what it sounds like here, I figure Stukov is an easy way to get it out of the way.
I just feel like I must express, once again, how much I hate the microtransactions mutation. In fact, this is the only one I hate (I'm okay with the other ones that are commonly hated, such as vertigo or blizzard). It really is a way of punishing you for playing this game in a way that's fun. Maybe it's just my ADD-like behaviour when issuing commands, but nothing feels more like a ball and chains on myself than this one. (Yes there are mutations that constrain the movements of your army, but they're not constraining the movements of me, the person playing the game.) I don't even mind mutations that restrict your income, in fact I like those mutations. Something like a continuous drain on your minerals and gas would be something I'd be happy with. Microtransactions just feels so antithetical to what makes this game fun for me.
Of course I can appreciate the fact that it has some strategic depth to it. There is an element to it that forces you to be smarter about the commands you give, and even come up with creative strategies (such as putting your army on follow command on a critical unit). But the good just does not outweigh the bad for me.
EPT
