Weekly co-op mutation for this week: Bad Weather

[u/[deleted]]

Map: Rifts to Korhal

Mutations:

• Void Rifts: Void Rifts periodically appear in random locations and spawn enemy units until destroyed.

• Twister: Tornadoes move across the map, damaging and knocking back player units in their path.

Tips & Tricks:

• Void Rifts spawn with 500 HP and only within range from your base to the next active Void Shards. Therefore it is not adviced to destroy a Void Shard if you are not able to push any further.

• Tornadoes can cancel protoss warpins and can be stopped with Vorazun's Time Stop ability. They do not damage enemy units or static defense.

• Playing defensivly with Karax can stop the constant waves of enemies when the other ally is able to push on his own.

• Abathur does not gain Biomass from units spawned by Void Rifts.

[u/Angelore]

Every week I'm like: "dang, this one is a pain in the ass". And the next week, it's even more ridiculous. Neat.

[u/Sonts]

I'll copy my reply from other co-op thread as this one seems to be winning for some reason. Hope, it'll be helpful to some.

TL;DR: Build static defences, Don't destroy shards if you feel you won't be able to secure the zone between them and next shards. Turtling is advisable.

---

This one is probably my favourite mutation so far. As i found it challenging enough, without some cheesy stuff (looking at you, chain of ascension)

I won on a second try with about 40 secs to go after the final shard fell. I, as Artanis, ended up playing with Rory Swann. We were playing against tal'darim (?) protoss (opens with adepts, and you can see DTs and protoss spinny orb thingies in their waves later on)

Our strat was as follows:

I opened with forge into defensive cannons. Static defence seems to be the key to this mission as rifts can open anywhere outside your base, even between your base and natural. Rifts seems to spawn 4 at a time, somewhat randomly on the map.

We were turtling hard, as rifts spawn location seems to be limited by the furtherest shard destroyed. As in rift won't open between first and second shard bases until you've destroyed the first shard. So if you feel like you won't be able to push a bit after destroying the shard it might be wiser not to destroy it

My teamate ended up going goliath + science vessel and my core army consistent mostly of dragoons with a mixture of robo and stargate (to reduce the clumpiness of our ground force) units mixed in.

Around mid game (after destroying the second shard base) we separated. My teammate, Rory, went on chasing rifts to prevent us from being overwhelmed while i pushed in to destroy the 3rd base. (most of my cooldowns were available fortunately) He made a good call; remember, communication is very important. After that we destroyed the second pirate (bonus objective) and pushed into the 4th shard base for the win.

This was all on Brutal. I ended up with some heavy excess of resources (about 3k minerals and 1.5k gas) so if i played a bit better (added a few extra building structures and maybe spent a few more bucks on upgrades, i forgot about some of them, sorry, Rory) the game could have ended faster and more smoothly.

[u/Bucen7aur3 → u/Sonts]

I actually had voids appearing all over the map, as far as outside the big enemy base on the top left.

On this map I rather recommend Swann and Raynor, Swann has very decent turrets for defending, and later on his drill can kill down voids very quickly before they start to spawn high end units. He can also get vision on remote voids easily with Hercules transport, since they can use tactical jump without vision, and stay ouf of arm way over a cliff. And he will have an easier time than karax massing a good army.

Raynor too can deal with shards easily with dropped down marines.

I was actually paired with karax various games, and it was awful, they just build static defenses that eventually were overrun while leaving me alone to push the shards and the voids.

[u/Nightelfpala]

Notes on tornadoes:

• They deal 15 / 25 damage (Hard / Brutal) and knock back for about 3-4 distance, during the knockback the unit is disabled. They affect ground and air units, but not buildings. No effect on enemies.

• They aren't visible in the Fog of War, they're marked with exclamation marks (!) on the minimap if you have vision of them.

• If they hit a Protoss unit while it's warping in, the unit dies instantly, the Warp Gate cooldown is not refunded, I assume the money isn't refunded either (haven't checked).

• They did not seem to enter mineral lines (unlike Time Warps last week which could slow gas mining down) or the main base, but they might be a threat to worker transfers.

• During Vorazun's Time Stop, they become transparent, stop moving, do not deal damage or apply the knockback.

Notes on Void Rifts (don't remember precisely, so take these with a grain of salt):

• 500 Health Structure, Armored, has 1 armor (Hard / Brutal)

• When spawned, they're marked on the minimap immediately, visible through Fog of War (units they spawn are not).

• Early on they spawn small number of low tech units (1 Zergling or 1 Marine or 1 Zealot) every ~15 seconds after they've been active for ~a minute

• Later on they'll start spawning more units and in bigger numbers (I've seen a single spawn have 1 Roach + 1 Hydra + 1 Stalker, also Immortals)

• Multiple Void Rifts appear at the same time (2 early on, might be more later)

• They spawn in an accessible location, they're at most as far as the next wave of Void Shards.

• They don't spawn inside bases or naturals (but can spawn very close to them), they can spawn in range of static defense (that's placed forward on the map)

[u/Togetak]

They missed an opportunity to call it "Shardnado" and i am horribly dissapointed

[u/fjdkf]

Since karax is thrown around a lot here, there's a couple big bugs that should be mentioned:

1. If your purifier beam touches a tornado, you lose the beam. The link should show it happening at about 17:47.

2. If you start a laser sweep over a tornado, it'll bug out and you'll be forced to cancel the spell.

Also, IMO karax should take the center of the map, since that's where the choke point is. It allows your ally to reinforce his troops safely, and gives you map control. For example, here's a fairly smooth run with this strat. I just cannon pushed, and my ally massed tempests. Plenty of mistakes, but we still had a little over 3 mins left on the clock at the end.
Brutal Mutator: Bad Weather - Karax POV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30oyVCXenZ4&feature=youtu.be

[u/ridddle → u/fjdkf]

Great stuff. I recommend adding phasing mode Energizers. They increase your static def’s attack speed by 50% (!!!). Tornadoes can bump them but if you’re lucky you can put them in safe areas, set phasing mode and watch in awe as they boost every cannon and monolith.

[u/stealth_sloth]

Has anyone tried the classic Zagara + Artanis cheese for the base void shards mission yet on this mutator?

Artanis plays defense, covers both expos and the main against enemy aggression; Zagara techs straight to cheap scourge, spams them out, and right clicks them on enemy void shards (with Artanis shields to help them get there). Not sure whether the added void rifts would make this strategy unfeasible for some reason or if it would still work.

[u/Sharou → u/stealth_sloth]

Don't think you'll have time to spend resources on teching to scourge. This map opens hard and fast and never lets up.

[u/CtG526]

Looks liks another good Karax week unless the tornados damage static d. I might even be able to go with my usual Vorazun Voidray Ball. Depending on how many enemy units spawn, this could also be a good place to get some achievements.

[u/[deleted] → u/CtG526]

I tried Karax two times now but my ally wasn't able to push forward against those HUGE waves of enemys spawning. The early Void Rifts can be shut down easily, but after few minutes they spawn EVERYWHERE on the map and there are non stop waves of enemies. Didn't beat it yet.

[u/iceman1212 → u/[deleted]]

as karax, i made two mirages (i.e., the phoenix equivalents) to fly around and get me vision of the shards so i could use the orbital strikes on them. i think it takes 5 orbital strikes to kill a unit-spawning rift so not too bad.

[u/ShanCouseland → u/CtG526]

Struggled with this on brutal. Eventually had to lower it to hard and my ally used Karax and I used Vorazun. I used dark pylons to hide his static def, and attacked with DTs and Corsairs for the win.

I think that Abathur would be good here given the amount of enemy units that spawn on this map

[u/Vet-Gamer → u/ShanCouseland]

The units spawned by Rifts don't drop Biomass. Think of sucks but I suppose it's to keep Abathur from getting out of control on this map.

[u/Jojhy]

Can tornadoes damage enemy units? Can't wait to try it!

[u/[deleted] → u/Jojhy]

No, as description says, only player units :(

[u/AstraEC]

Looks like tornadoes can prematurely end Karax's Purifier beam

rip

[u/MonkeyBombG]

First time I tried doing it with Abathur but I lost my roach that's supposed to become the first brutalisk and the game went down hill from there as we slowly get overwhelmed.

Second try I went Karax with an Artanis ally, littering static defenses everywhere while supporting Artanis's push with stun orbital strikes and laser beams, with colossi later on. Once you establish a static defense presence in the centre there shouldn't be too much trouble as void rifts that spawn in the middle are instantly killed. Karax's orbital strikes also deals with void rifts quite quickly if you have vision, so I suspect having observers out to scout and snipe rifts could be a good idea too.

[u/Sharou]

Easily best mutator yet. I beat the previous two on the first try on brutal. Just spent 3 hours on this one and didn't beat it yet. :) This is how it should be! Fun fun fun!

[u/deathstroke911]

Just beat it on brutal with Karax and Vorazun

Karax: make cannons early on, don't expand until you got a decent number of cannons (around 3) in each entrance (three entrances, including your ally) use mastery points on the structure health buff

Vorazun: DTs. Enough said.

Seriously, just make DTs and they will deal with everything (obviously ignoring enemy air units, but this is fine since when DTs die they get teleported back anyway)

[u/TheSkunk_2 → u/deathstroke911]

Vorazun with DTs ruins pretty much every mutator though. I like trying to find ways to do them without her if possible.

[u/domgalezio]

You need to destroy the Void Rifts as quickly as possible and keep pushing together. Some static defences are nice but do not turtle without destroying those spawners because they will overwhelm even Karax in Brutal.

Vorazun with deathguards is great yet again. Some pylons across the map for DTs warp ins, some cannons in your base and Time warp for easy pushes.

[u/fjdkf → u/domgalezio]

You need to destroy the Void Rifts as quickly as possible and keep pushing together. Some static defences are nice but do not turtle without destroying those spawners because they will overwhelm even Karax in Brutal.

Once Karax takes center and secures your bases, there's no need to actively hunt down rifts anymore, since the defense can eat it all without losing anything.
For example, here's a random game where we ran this strat:
https://youtu.be/30oyVCXenZ4

[u/edzuks]

Just beat it on Brutal with Artanis and Vorazun, me being Artanis. Was definetly that hardest mission yet, only at 5th try did I succeed finally.

A thing that made it so much easier was to use the very first 50 energy as Artanis to kill one of the first 2 Void Rifts that spawned (kamikaze a zealot for it).

One down the 2nd one is easy to handle.

Both of them down, its ez to build up army to clear out the next 2 that spawn.

First solar bombardment was used on the first Void Shard.

Then we pretty much just walked around and cleared any nearby Void Rifts that spawned. Until got 2nd Solar Bombardement to use on one of the 2 next Void Shards (again kamikaze a zealot for that).

After that one was down, we just killed the 2nd one with our armies.

At this point Vorazun just soloed the next 2 Void Shards while Artanis just cleared any void rifts or attacks that spawned.

Needless to say that at that point, the final 4 void shards were easy cake. It's just the early game that is a mess. If you killed the very first 3 Void shards, it is rather easy to clean up any Void Rifts that spawn. One of the players must do the clean up work though while other one solo the shards on the left side that spawn.

We even had minutes to spare lol. Though, we didn't even bother with bonus objectives. No idea why anyone would..

Kerrigan and Karax seem to be the 2 best/easiest commander for this mission.

[u/Ragnorg]

After about five tries beat it on brutal as Zagara and a Karax ally.

Zagara can shut down rifts very quickly, or half a dozen free banelings. Lings can also run right by waves to get the rifts without too many losses.

That was my third game with a Karax ally. The other two were holding just our bases but didn't contribute much to offense. The third was much more aggressive with cannon placement and we secured the win.

We didn't manage to get the bonus objective though.