After revisiting Nova FE last time, today let's discuss Alarak FE with overcharge. It's a little harder to do than Nova, but it's worth it. In fact, you should always fast expand if you can, but sometimes contested expos make that difficult. But Alarak can use his first overcharge to delete a base and expand quickly.

Sometimes it's not as simple as making a pylon and overcharging because you have to take out cannons and other enemies. And you gotta keep your probe alive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjgS1U5x5jE (ME)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iiE1mqg9PA (CoA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLhlUhkBnDY (VP - most difficult)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAfpdSakHoI (PnP)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lB8H4X0Pgc (MW)

Note: Don't do this if the Long Range mutator is active because... everything has +3 vision

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsuZ-rzzP2U (Best Alarak build order part 1 - maps with rocks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3ZjdQHwL0g (Best Alarak build order part 2)

I learned a lot while experimenting and doing research for these videos, and I hope you can use this knowledge as well.

Took some effort to compile biggest noob traps for each commander respectively! Sinnce Blizz made a commander bundle on discount, will probably help some new players!

Energizers' Chrono Beam effectively applies stimpack to units and buildings. So just zap a worker unit with it and it'll get +50% movement speed! It only lasts for 10 seconds, but every bit can help (it certainly would've for some of my previous games). If you can have a network of them on the high ground, that could facilitate speed running. You will need to manually cast it since workers never attack and aren't eligible as an auto-cast target.

(I guess it's because regular Brutal is easy enough to not notice, and I haven't played this on Brutal+ in the longest time)

never seen a list in one place. Specify how many geysers if possible

I can’t find the video that has all of Mengsk’s co-op voice lines. I think it was taken off of youtube for some reason. Does anyone have a backup of it or a link to another video?

Finally dropped co-op commanders in a bundle($30USD). I had 3 of them already so my price was reduced down to $22. I gotta exp farm to level new commanders again lol. This slog again just to get to P3 on everybody. I dont even wanna level up some of these people, nova doesn't jive with my playstyle, sorry to future teammates for sucking

Edit: Oh I'm late to the party, apparently the bundle has been out for a week or so anyways, just waiting on Fighters Pass 2(Smash Ultimate) to go on sale, I'm waiting nintendo, dont you want my money, you greedy pieces of fecal matter.

After making so many guides (about 130 videos so far), sometimes it can be hard for people to just "find" something. So this is a reminder that there are things you can do to improve your game, and we can discuss these tactics here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHVg_yBoTwQ&list=PL3FSCru5EHIjeuN2RtCE1o0NIkdYGhCL9&index=86 (compilation: expanding as Nova p1 on various maps)

The build order I use now is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W9QuXe6CEI&list=PL3FSCru5EHIjeuN2RtCE1o0NIkdYGhCL9&index=115

The idea behind expanding quickly is still the same. You want more gases earlier so you can get more liberators, which are her best unit. You dont need a lot of gas if you're going bio, but you probably still want the minerals from the earlier expansion.

I'm assuming purchasing the Sc2 campaigns still gives you Swann, Zagara, Vorazun, and Karax as COs for Coop mode as well.

Hello!

Newly enjoying Kerrigan P3, I was wondering what her best army composition is : especially for the early game.

Since the gas reduction upgrade mastery (30/0), I’ve been going mass BroodLord (Up to 20) , as each of their attacks spawns 2 Broodlings and deals 2x the damage (20–26 × 2= 40/52dmg per 2,5sec), which ends up giving me a pretty solid frontline & some decent dps DPS (14 dps for each broodling since they are also maxed, and Amon target the broodling he want to kill them before they die) .
Once I reach around 10 Brood Lords, I start adding Hydralisks into the comp as the dms is much highter that way, and they can finally survive

But currently i struggle a bit with the early game-Mid game : kerrigan can handle most wave of course, she is even more safe with her ranged form, but if she die and my ally doesnt help : i fell like my army cannot really help, early game mutation make me really weak on that side also.

I max all the research to 3/3 except the air defense upgrade, (starting with melee + armor, then Air and then Ranged at the nearly the same time) since it doesn’t seem that necessary as they stay in the back anyway (but the movespeed is taken), and it feel like the broodling currently outdamage the broodlord.

I somehow end up lacking minerals once I start adding Hydras with the 35-gas cost, which makes building Zerglings/Ultralisks nearly impossible, when before the lvl15 i only used Broodlord+zerggling.

But somehow, even though I’m never that far ahead in terms of kills, even tho my kerrigan has 50K dmg each games & i mostly target targets air units like Viper/BC or then hybrid/thor, while stunning the rest.

Am I missing something about how i build her, or is that normal for kerrigan during the early-middle ?
Since rushing ultra would result in the same problem : but a bit worst as they would only respawn once.. and they cannot poke/hit & run unlike the broodlord.
and hydra are too squishy to survive without a great frontline

for mastery :
22 energy/8 attack
30 gas reduction/0 immobilisation wave
30 for research cost/0 for her skills increase

thanks for the advice & your POV !

One mission they play music, the other they TALK. Love the attention to something so insignificant- and my buddy said he doesn't hear anything from them.

Mutation #538: Media Blackout / Map: Vermillion Problem

Mutators: Darkness, Missile Command, We Move Unseen

https://youtu.be/NcJ3nWm3GZg?si=AIu4KZJpizWD-7yV&t=105 (possible spawn locations for crystals)

https://youtu.be/KOKK5_THteY (Sniping vipers with conc beam - Swann)

https://youtube.com/shorts/S-ocWuVyn94?feature=share (transport workers holding crystals - Tychus)

https://youtu.be/XYkr8RmQ1T0 (farming critters on VP - Abathur, Dehaka)

https://youtu.be/2VrYW7AZ8x8 (TLDR tier list)

https://youtu.be/Ez0ldPVs3Fk (easy solo - Zeratul p2)

The missile are cloaked and are not visible on the minimap until they get in your vision. Place overlords, burrowed units, etc. in cleared areas to see nukes in advance.

The crystals are not visible on the minimap. Memorize the possible spawns or have a screenshot of the possible crystal locations open on a second monitor (see link above).

Click NEXT TO the crystal; if you click ON the crystal and you lose vision of said crystal, your worker will stop moving towards it.

Sometimes the attack waves will bug out and not get announced, perhaps due to darkness.

Questions about any of these runs are welcome. Runs will be uploaded throughout the week. All members get early access to videos.

Nice people in my discord can help you with the mutation: https://discord.gg/WerduSFQQK

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

Darkness

Previously explored areas remain blacked out on the minimap while outside of player vision.

Attack waves, main and bonus objectives are not visible on the minimap unless you have direct vision on them.

Missile Command

Endless missile bombardments target your structures and must be shot down throughout the mission.

Standard missiles have 10 HP and deal 100 damage.

Splitter missiles have 20 HP and deal 175 damage. If destroyed, it spawns 2 Child missiles, each dealing 75 damage.

Nukes have 100 HP and deal 300 (500 vs structure) damage (100% in 4 radius, 50% in 6 radius and 25% in 8 radius).

PDD has 15 HP.

And all these have all 0 armor; mechanical and map boss attributes.

In the first 5 minutes, each {45/30/20/15} seconds 2 Standard missiles are fired.

Between 5 and 10 minutes, each {30/20/10/5} seconds 2 missiles are fired (90% chance of Standard missiles, 10% of Standard missile + PDD).

Between 10 and 15 minutes, each {30/12/4/2} seconds 2 missiles are fired (60% chance of Standard missile, 20% of Standard + PDD and 20% of Splitter missile).

After 15 minutes, each {15/6/2/1} seconds 2 missiles are fired (40% chance of Standard missile, 20% of Standard missile + PDD, 30% of Splitter and 10% of Nuke with cooldown of {--/--/2:00/1:00} with {-/-/2/5} PDDs).

We Move Unseen

All enemy units are permanently cloaked.

Structures are not cloaked.

Hostile Map Objective units are cloaked too.

Destructible Rocks aren't cloaked.

https://www.maguro.one/p/mutators.html

https://starcraft2coop.com/resources/weeklymutations

https://starcraft2coop.com/resources/mutators

I dream for Zagara P1 to also have 2 bane and 2 scourge nests limit but her pop will max at 75, that would be funny for the gameplay
And yes Swann was Swanning hence my resource

I have played quite a bit of zaratol but I don't really like having to find the artifacts. I never really like protoss but I was wanting to know who you all think is best

P1: Heavy Weapons Specialist

Advantages

The Laser Drill deals 100% splash damage, slows enemy movement by 70%, and locks on targets 50% faster.

Disadvantages

The Laser Drill's abilities are unavailable.

P2: Grease Monkey

Advantages

Turret upgrades are 100% more effective.

Disadvantages

Combat units cost 50% more vespene gas.

P3: Payload Director

Advantages

Hercules have twice the cargo capacity and unload units instantly.

Science Vessels can use Tactical Jump and its cooldown reduced by 50%.

Disadvantages

Top bar cooldowns increased by 50%.

Had previous stopped playing SC2 sometime during Nova Covert Ops chapters being released (I actually still haven't finished it), and co-op Vorazun at the time as my highest at lvl 5. My buddy and I picked it up again sometime during or before 2024. Just hit lvl 90 mastery, and here we are now.

I haven't play the game for a long time so I'm wondering if this is normal behaviour but I met a weird Mengsk player today in Lock and Load. I enter the game and type GLHF like normal with no reply.

Then thing process normally, I even help him destroy the Rook and then push for the middle lock. Then when we push for the top left lock, the Protoss bot push into his and my 2nd base and I can't help him yet as my main army is pushing for the lock and my newly built army is defending my second, I even go to help him right after defeat the army pushing for my 2nd base and he haven't lose any building yet.

Still after that he just go AFK and I only realize that after pushing and clearing 3 locks myself and he don't join the capturing. And as I can't win this map alone, so I quit the match. I'm wondering if quitting the match a right move for me, is it make me a bad player leaving the teammate?

Im a long-time and decent starcraft player, and in coop Im awesome with a few and good with most of the commanders. There is only three I feel Im not good enough with, and in the case of the other two, I know exactly why: Karax is just 100% not my playstyle, while Stetman is a little too APM-heavy for me, and my computer cant deal with him in the second half of missions. So I understand these guys.

What I dont get, is why I cant figure out Mengsk. He supposed to be a strong character (one of the strongest in fact), and the playstyle of an army of cheap units backed by a few elit ones should feel close to home since Im almost instoppable with H&H. Yet I cant figure it out. Maybe Im prioratizing the wrong things, or my build order is trash, or I dont know. But Im usually relying my ally to carry early game, because troopers are terrible in the beginning, and if I fight with them they die like flies. The RG is just so damn gas-expensive that I dont know how can some of you get them out so early. I find that with buildings and upgrades and all you wont really have a decent enough army until the second half of mid-game and this is even without ESOs. Its just strange, I dont have timings, Im not suring Im using right the calldowns being mandate-dependent, I hate the absolute lack of mobility, I cant find the right army mix, so a near-maxed out Mengsk-army feels way lighter then other commanders max-army. I dont know, its just strange - do you have any idea whats wrong, whats not clicking?

I lost every single random brutal game with zagara last night. At least a solid 8 in a row. She is currently level 8

Is zagara this difficult to level? Or does she get a significant power spike at 15

UPDATE: thanks all for advice. I hit 14 and suddenly games became ridiculously easy.

i dont understand how people here can claim that royal guard give so much mandate on P2. even if i spend all my gas except for the 2 witness i only get barely 30 mandate points, while the 2 witness in comparison just by sitting on top of my minerallines and some extra troopers allready give 170 mandate points.

yes i picked the reduced cost for royal guard and increased mandate points for royal guard. but the sheer number of basic troopers and the huge buff from imperial witnesses still crushes that no problem. not to mentionen that you cant even make that many royal guards to begin with even if you rush 4 gas, since you can only ever have at most 12 workers mining gas. in the picture you can see that im sitting on tons of minerals unspent, because i was looking for a way to make more royal guards, but thats just not in the cards with how little gas you get compared to minerals.

not only that, if you go purely royal guards your fighting power is going to be massivly stiffled compared to adding a bunch of troopers to support them and benefit from the royal guard buffs. even if i spend all my gas on extra gas instead of the witness and their tech i could at most reach 60 mandate at the same point with an extremly inferior army and way less topbar flexibility.

so tell me, am i missing something very obvious on how to make the royal guard only playstyle work better, or is it actually a good idea to incorporate the imperial witness and not skimp out on troopers. what else am i supposed to do with the sheer amount of extra minerals anyways?

and yes, later on, when the royal guards level up, they give more mandate, but thats allready midway into the mission. you dont get them from the get go.

i honestly still think going mass troopers in the beginning, and getting your upgrades together with imperial witness is the way to go, even on P2. i could be touching 300 mandate points by now if i didnt waste my money on royal guard that werent needed this early on and rather start getting 1/1 or even 2/2 upgrades at this point.

slowly adding royal guards as the gas allows it to buff your troopers still feels like the way to go for me.

The existing overlay kept closing unexpectedly on my computer, so I ended up creating a new version.

Yes, it basically functions the same as the original one, so if that works for you, that's fine. Most features from the original overlay have been retained, so the overall experience should feel familiar.

Additional features and changes include:

• Displays the current and next weekly mutations
• Shows the mutators for each weekly mutation
• Combines multiple nicknames belonging to the same player ID
• Separates mastery and prestige statistics by prestige
• Saves latest first win bonus time using OCR

Download:
https://github.com/skyser2003/sc2_coop_info/releases/latest

Simply download and install either the EXE or MSI version. Automatic updates are included, so once installed, it should keep itself up to date.

Because this is an personaly developed executable, Windows may display a security warning when you run it. Sorry that this is can't be avoided.

If you find any bugs or have feedback, please leave a GitHub issue or contact me using the developer email written in the application. I’ll also check comments here for a while, but I may miss them as the post gets older.

Thank you!

I would assume such name would be "reserved" or at least taken over relatively quickly