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Zomborgon posted:Is the guy who delivers the snack bars to the military base a valid target Hell yes he is. That motherfucker always forgets the snickers.
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Mar 12, 2024 02:41
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Unit Spotlight: Baneling Overview:
Also, you didn't hear it from me, but I heard that Banelings are the one saving grace Swarmlings have, letting you make a massive group of bombs in just a few seconds. Evolution Pool Upgrades:  Corrosive Acid
Powerful. This cuts the number of Banelings needed to crack a Bunker from five to three, Siege Tanks die in two Banes, and even a Thor only takes five.  Rupture
Would probably be really good in ZvZ missions against hordes of enemy Zerglings! If there were any left.  Regenerative Acid
It was mentioned in the thread that you can combine this with Kerrigan's Spawn Banelings to turn it into a makeshift healing skill, but beyond that I don't see it doing all that much. Banelings will be exploding at the very start of a fight, so they'll patch up some early injuries and not much else. Evolutions Hunter  Hunter strain, strategic asset. Extreme conditions used to guide evolution. Hunter strain can propel itself up cliffs, attack foes caught unawares. Able to leap over Swarm troops, bombard enemies. Banelings no longer trapped behind hungry zerglings. I've already been over why the Hunter is worse. It's pretty much only good for speedruns to beeline to mission objectives and destroy them as fast as possible.  Cliff Jumper
Splitter   Decentranized nervous system of splitter strain increases efficiency at siege warfare. Upon detonation, two baneling spawn split from remains, continue pressing assault. Split only occurs once. Further splits invariably result in acidic fluids of limited sentience.  Division
Field Manual Artwork 
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Mar 12, 2024 03:35
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"Further splits invariably result in acidic fluids of limited sentience." So, wait, the dissipating pool of slime on the floor after you melt someone is, to some degree, able to sense? And given how zerg are, it's more than likely the rest... feel it too? Criminy why do they let these things pop up
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Mar 12, 2024 03:52
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I never realized that a baneling was supposed to be larger than a human in power armor. Yeesh, that's terrifying.
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Mar 12, 2024 04:55
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banelings are about the size of a brown bear. and they explode.
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Mar 12, 2024 04:57
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I also underestimated Zergling and Hydralisk sizes, too, so I'm clearly going to be astounded by how much bigger an Ultralisk is supposed to be than a person.
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Mar 12, 2024 05:09
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Calax posted:Isn't this the Independant Contractors on the Death Star argument? Not really, there's nothing you can do to stop the military threat posed by the Death Star that isn't going to be bad for any independent contractors on it (if that's even a thing that the Star Wars Empire does). It's the definition of a purely military target from every primary source I know of. Meanwhile a planet with factories on it isn't. It's an even larger-scale version of "can you morally level a city if it contains an arms plant" and while that's certainly a thing people do, it's not admirable or heroic. And at the scales we've seen in Starcraft, the city is almost certainly more factory than an entire planet is.
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Mar 12, 2024 05:11
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for those in the thread that have never seen Clerks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQdDRrcAOjA
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Mar 12, 2024 08:15
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Zomborgon posted:"Further splits invariably result in acidic fluids of limited sentience." No, that's Abathur explaining why further splits don't happen. He tried, and it didn't work.
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Mar 12, 2024 10:32
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Szarrukin posted:He's basically Edmund Duke from SC1, I guess Blizzard really regretted killing him off in Brood War and really, really wanted him back. I'm surprised they didn't just handwave Duke back to life - it's not like they acknowledge anything else that happened in Brood War.
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Mar 12, 2024 12:25
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I don't really get equating Warfield and Duke. Absolutely no one would ever say, "Don't worry, Jim. He's our snake now" about Warfield. That would require him to have a personality.
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Mar 12, 2024 14:15
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 I know Jim is Sarah's TWUE WUV and all, but I'm sure he won't mind rotting in jail for a few more days while we do even more atrocities.
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Mar 12, 2024 14:35
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BlazetheInferno posted:No, that's Abathur explaining why further splits don't happen. He tried, and it didn't work. I figured his explanation was more “sure, they can keep splitting, but they’re basically just a mindless (and uncontrollable) hunk of meat, good luck getting them to detonate after the first split”
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Mar 12, 2024 15:34
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FoolyCharged posted:I don't really get equating Warfield and Duke. Absolutely no one would ever say, "Don't worry, Jim. He's our snake now" about Warfield. That would require him to have a personality. I've been playing through OG Starcraft this week and it is kinda nuts - not only is Duke's characterization fantastic, Kerrigan absolutely loving loathes the man, so a showdown here between Kerrigan & Duke could have been ripe for something interesting. Instead, Kerrigan gives the "Read at 3:06pm" treatment to Warfield's texts.
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Mar 12, 2024 21:04
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BisbyWorl posted:
Probably for the best, considering we've got a real fun atrocity planned for this one.
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Mar 12, 2024 21:38
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Frankly, if we're not playing up all the warcrimes as hard as we can, why does this thread even exist?
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Mar 12, 2024 23:24
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To show a game to people who refuse to give Blizzard any money?
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Mar 12, 2024 23:34
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To point and laugh at the utter absurdity of the plot while chatting about the rather fun gameplay?
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Mar 13, 2024 00:15
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Angry Salami posted:I'm surprised they didn't just handwave Duke back to life - it's not like they acknowledge anything else that happened in Brood War. Fenix is still dead.
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Mar 13, 2024 01:44
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Yeah, Blizzard would never rewrite a dead character! *quietly slides Illidan under the couch*
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Mar 13, 2024 01:52
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Bringing a dead character back to life, especially one whose death was integral to the plot overall and/or the development of specific other characters, is one of the worst writing sins. It is almost without exception the mark of an utterly unskilled hack, or more frequently a marketing-enforced corporate mandate made cynically to try to draw in some attention and/or dollars. I struggle to think of one single instance where it was done well in any context, in a way that added to the plot of the story it happened in. Fortunately Starcraft 2 has not done this and hopefully never will!
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Mar 13, 2024 02:17
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bladededge posted:Bringing a dead character back to life, especially one whose death was integral to the plot overall and/or the development of specific other characters, is one of the worst writing sins. It is almost without exception the mark of an utterly unskilled hack, or more frequently a marketing-enforced corporate mandate made cynically to try to draw in some attention and/or dollars. I struggle to think of one single instance where it was done well in any context, in a way that added to the plot of the story it happened in. Illidan coming back for Legion ruled.
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Mar 13, 2024 02:23
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FoolyCharged posted:Yeah, Blizzard would never rewrite a dead character! and Muradin.
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Mar 13, 2024 02:39
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bladededge posted:Bringing a dead character back to life, especially one whose death was integral to the plot overall and/or the development of specific other characters, is one of the worst writing sins. It is almost without exception the mark of an utterly unskilled hack, or more frequently a marketing-enforced corporate mandate made cynically to try to draw in some attention and/or dollars. I struggle to think of one single instance where it was done well in any context, in a way that added to the plot of the story it happened in. i will gladly go to bat for Final Fantasy 14 having an excellent story, but the second expansion has a real problem with unkilling and re-killing characters the overall effect is a little like the writer saying "sorry about first death, first death was kind of lame, can i get a do-over"
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Mar 13, 2024 03:18
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Lord_Magmar posted:Illidan coming back for Legion ruled. And Superman. And Bucky Barns. And Goku. And Hal Jordan. Ok, to be fair, the only guy who can stay dead in Comic Books is Uncle Ben.
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Mar 13, 2024 05:16
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Raynor's kid has stayed pretty dead (which is surprising since that seems like a cheap plot thread to tug)
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Mar 13, 2024 05:53
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.....jimmy has a kid?
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Mar 13, 2024 06:00
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Yaoi Gagarin posted:.....jimmy has a kid? Had. Had a wife, too. The kid got pinged as psychic, got taken to the Confederate Ghost Academy, and died in training, and his wife died of heartbreak not long after.
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Mar 13, 2024 06:09
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Sci-fi super-soldier spies are kind of a textbook situation for lying to sever ties, though. Parents think kid is dead, aren't waiting on them anymore. Kid thinks parents are dead, devotes self fully to the cause instead of looking for parents. Jimmy Jr. showing up as a full-grown Ghost gunning for his pa (who he doesn't know is his pa because he gave up his name a long time ago) is some real low-hanging pathos I'm pleasantly surprised Blizzard hasn't plucked.
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Mar 13, 2024 06:50
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Felinoid posted:(who he doesn't know is his pa because he gave up his name a long time ago) Also because ghosts are so thoroughly mindwiped that he doesn't even know he's going after his dad, so it'll be a surprise for both of them! 
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Mar 13, 2024 07:06
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Jimmy vs Bimmy was always more a Double Dragon motif, anyways.
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Mar 13, 2024 08:59
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Kith posted:Raynor's kid has stayed pretty dead (which is surprising since that seems like a cheap plot thread to tug) Felinoid posted:Sci-fi super-soldier spies are kind of a textbook situation for lying to sever ties, though. Parents think kid is dead, aren't waiting on them anymore. Kid thinks parents are dead, devotes self fully to the cause instead of looking for parents. ...maybe. We'll never know. There's at least one rumour/fan theory that Stone from Nova: Covert Ops is secretly Jimmy's mindwiped ghost kid, so it literally could have happened! But Nova was the last campaign pack released and they did no more after that, so we'll never know....
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Mar 13, 2024 12:28
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is Raynor having a psychic kid ever mentioned in the games themselves, or is that relegated to tie-in media that maybe 5% of players have read/are aware of?
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Mar 14, 2024 02:39
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HannibalBarca posted:is Raynor having a psychic kid ever mentioned in the games themselves, or is that relegated to tie-in media that maybe 5% of players have read/are aware of? It's Blizzard, so take a guess.
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Mar 14, 2024 03:08
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HannibalBarca posted:is Raynor having a psychic kid ever mentioned in the games themselves, or is that relegated to tie-in media that maybe 5% of players have read/are aware of? It came up in Liberty's Crusade, the novelization of the terran campaign.
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Mar 14, 2024 03:10
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Co-op Showcase 3: November Terra (Ft. Kith) Video: Nova Co-op  A bit of info on how the Commanders are split up in terms of how to get them: Raynor, Kerrigan, and Artanis are free, flat out. The next four you get from buying the Campaign Collection today, or you got them for free if you paid for Legacy of the Void prior to the base game going free-to-play. Every Commander after that has to be purchased individually at $6.25 CDN. This is very important, since players were now shelling out cold hard cash specifically on this game mode. As a result, Commanders start to get a lot more detailed to make them worth the money.  At a glance, Nova looks like she has a fairly standard terran army. 
 Nuke and Holo Decoy Cooldown: -3s per point, -90s max. Griffin Airstrike Cost: -10 minerals per point, -300 max. Nova Primary Ability Improvement: +1.67% per point, +50% max. Combat Unit Attack Speed: +0.5% per point. +15% max. Nova Energy Regeneration: +1% per point, +30% max. Unit Life Regeneration: 0.2 per point, 6 max. Prestiges Soldier of Fortune
 Today we go back to scenic Kaldir. Make sure you don't trip on any of the bodies Kerrigan left behind!  Right off the bat, you can see that while Nova has a much smaller army size, she doesn't have to worry about Supply Depots. She's at 100 supply the moment the map starts. This both saves her some time building and a decent chunk of minerals. Also, most of her stuff gets a new coat of paint, right down to her adjutant!  Nova herself has a four minute initial spawn.  Not every mission gets a returning character or someone from Heroes of the Storm. Some just get random nobodies.  This mission is Literally Shoot the Messenger. Right down to two more conduits popping up later in the mission. Automated Refineries are a godsend for Nova. Both to maximize early gas income, and to shave 12 SCVs off her already tight supply cap.  Nova starts off with a Ghost Academy built, which holds her upgrades and is the launch point of the Obligatory Nuke. It starts off with Ghost Visor and Caduceus Reactor (increases Nova's regen rate from 5 to 10) then unlocks Operational Efficiency and Infernal Projectiles (which we've seen in her level list) upon building an Armory.  As soon as the Barracks finishes I immediately get started on a Factory.  This is important because rather than training units normally, all of Nova's production structures instead spawn a squad of units instantly with a massive cooldown afterwards like the Mercenaries in Wings. However, each unit can hold multiple charges and the timer starts the second they structure is built, so beelining a Barracks, Factory, and Starport first thing gets the clock rolling on those while I'm getting established. Also Nova's units are loving expensive. That's 150 minerals per Marine! Her most basic unit! The limited charges, combined with extreme unit costs, means Nova takes losses harder than any other Commander. If you screw up and lose your army near the end of a map, all you can do is pray your partner can finish the job because you're not coming back from that.  On the plus side, she has drop pods for all her units so they can be spawned in anywhere. The Elite Marine (all of Nova's units get fancier names) is a perfect showcase of Nova's quality vs quantity philosophy. 150 minerals a head is a lot, yes, but not when they have 150 life and deal an extra 3 damage a shot! A general rule of thumb for Nova's units is that they get 3x the health and deal 1.5x damage over their stock counterparts.  Each unit has two upgrades in the Tech Lab, one is unlocked by default while the other is unlocked with either the Engineering Bay (for infantry) or Armory (for mech). Elite Marines (600 minerals, 4 units) get Laser Targeting System and Super Stimpack (increases movement and attack speed by 50% and heals 2 life a second for 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown. Autocasts.). Marauder Commandos (500 minerals, 130 gas, 2 units) get Suppression Shells (50% AOE slow on attack) and Magrail Munitions (gives an extra weapon that shoots once every 30 seconds for 90 damage). Spec Ops Ghosts (1000 minerals, 500 gas, 2 units) get EMP Rounds (deals 100 shield damage and depletes energy of enemies in target area, as well as revealing cloaked units for 10 seconds) and Triple Tap (Snipe fires two extra rounds for 85 damage each). The Ghost shows off an important part of Nova's army, in that some of her units are heavily dependant on what enemy you're facing. Zerg (or biological mission targets like Void Thrashers) melt under Snipe and Triple Tap, but is useless against mech heavy comps. EMP Round gives options against protoss and spellcasters, but can't actually kill anything.  Nova's production structures have a hard cap of one each, which heavily simplifies her macro when combined with the lack of Supply Depots. Barracks, Factory, Starport, two Engineering Bays and Armories. Done.   The wonders of modern technology.And here's Nova now!  Nova starts off in Stealth Mode, giving her permanent cloak as well as her canister rifle that deals 30 damage a shot.  Her first ability in Stealth mode is the usual Snipe, which now deals 200 damage and costs 50 energy instead of being timer based like in Ghost of a Chance. Hero units in Co-op tend towards the Primal Kerrigan style of 100 energy that regens really fast over having a bunch of energy that runs dry. Her second ability is much more fun.  Sabotage Drone burns her entire energy bar to spawn one of these, which will normally float over to whatever point you target and root itself. By directly selecting it, however, you can move it however you want before it roots itself automatically after 10 seconds. Enemies will not react to the Drone, even if they have detection.  Once you find a perfect spot for it to root, it'll wait for another 10 seconds before exploding for 200 (+200 vs Structure) damage. Sabotage Drone is an extremely potent tool to start cracking defenses before you start building an army.  Oh look, an attack wave packed with Zerglings!  Ready for assault!That's what Assault Mode is for! Assault Mode trades the cloak for a 30% movement speed boost, and her rifle for a shotgun that deals 20 (+20 vs Light) damage to nearby ground enemies. If this seems like a metric ton of stuff to cram into one unit, it's because a lot of Nova's tools are previews of what we'll be seeing in Covert Ops down the line.  Snipe is swapped out for Penetrating Blast.  Which is a fuckoff AOE that deals 50 (+50 vs Light) to every target in range.  Of course, this leaves Nova with no way to defend herself against that sole Mutalisk until her stance swap comes off cooldown.  But thankfully Sabotage Drone is replaced with Blink, combining a short range teleport with a 200 life shield. Blink can hold up to 3 charges, has an 8 second cooldown, and the shield lasts for 8 seconds. Against small fights like this it makes Nova effectively immortal.  So while I wait for my Marines to catch up with me Nova can finish off this group of enemies.  Here's the first wave.  Nova's Factory gets Hellbat Rangers (500 minerals, 2 units), Strike Goliaths (750 minerals, 250 gas, 2 units), and Heavy Siege Tanks (800 minerals, 600 gas, 2 units). None of them will see much use in this mission.  Although I will point out the Goliath's upgrades. One of them is the usual +1/+3 ground/air range boost they always get. The other is a little number called Lockdown Missiles that stuns any (non-Heroic) mechanical air units it hits for 3 seconds. Mostly useless if you're against a ground-focused protoss or terran comp, and 100% useless against zerg as a whole, but it can utterly shut down any mechanical air comp. When Nova first came out Lockdown Missiles worked just fine on Heroic units, letting them stunlock mission targets like the Shuttles. That got patched out real quick.  The Starport has Raid Liberators (750 minerals, 750 gas, 2 units), Covert Banshees (700 minerals, 375 gas, 2 units), and Raven Type-II (100 minerals, 200 gas, 1 unit). Ravens in particular will be in your army no matter what, as they have a new healing ability.  I'll show off Liberators later, but for now the Banshee gets Advanced Cloaking Field (perma-cloak) and Rocket Barrage (active ability that deals 75 damage in an AOE). Ravens get Research Covert Triage and Enhanced Manufacturing (Raven can now store 3 charges of all abilities).  The Raven Type-II has three abilities, all of which are spins on what the Wings Raven had. Build Auto-Turret has been replaced with Build Railgun Turret, which has more bulk and has a line AOE. Seeker Missile is now Predator Missile, dealing 100 (+35 vs shields) damage and losing the friendly fire. Their most important ability, meanwhile, is Deploy Bio-Mechanical Repair Drone, which spawns a drone that lasts for 30 seconds and heals any allied units in range that can also be manually selected and moved around to keep up with your army. While the other two abilities have to be used by hand, Repair Drone is set to autocast whenever a damaged unit is nearby. This means that I can just set my Ravens to follow the rest of my army and they'll do their most important job on their own. Also, a small detail with Nova's units is that they all have randomized names. A cute little touch that enourages you to keep everyone alive   The first Shuttle wave arrives with an attack wave alongside its escort, and you can see a Repair Drone floating after some Marines took a bit of damage.  Here's a lovely time to bring up an important fact about Nova's top bar: they all cost minerals.  Activating Defensive Drone!The thing with Nova is that while her units are expensive, it's the gas cost that hurt more than the minerals if you go for mech units. Once I'm teched up and start getting other units (or just hit my supply cap) I'll end up with a massive mineral bank that I can't really do much with. So to give me a use for all those otherwise useless minerals, I have a constant dump in the form of abilities. Defensive Drone is a potent tool for keeping my army alive, giving any unit a massive shield the moment they get damaged and giving my Repair Drones time get to work.   And here's the bonus.  There's Xel'naga poo poo on the map, a ship will go out to scan it, make sure it doesn't die.  But I might as well help out Kith while I wait for the shuttle to get over.  Upon picking a starting point for a Griffin Airstrike, the map pulls back so you can set the exact angle. Backing out at this point will refund the minerals.    And then all enemies in that line, ground or air, eat 500 damage. This kills the vast majority of units on the spot and even takes a good chunk out of late mission attack waves filled with Hybrid. It's really good.  Since zerg is all bio, I go for some Spec Ops Ghosts. Spec Ops introduce generic female Ghosts, and they even have their own set of voice lines!  Welp, might as well go help with the shuttles. I'm sure I have time before the bonus gets attacked.  And then I get caught up in an attack wave anyways!  That attack wave was pointed at the bonus, and only one attack will hit each shrine, so I can move on to something more important:  Clearing out the entire enemy base! Some missions like Void Launch will have actual enemy bases you can claim as an extra expansion, but by the time you can get an entire base built and saturated you'll have the rest of the map cleared out.  Nova's ultimate abilities also came off cooldown.  In Assault Mode she gets Holo Decoy, which spawns an invincible, uncontrollable clone with a sword that lasts for 60 seconds and runs around slashing things for 100 damage a pop.   Stealth Mode gets a nuke for 600 damage, natch. You can also see the cooldown status of each ult regardless of mode, so you know when they're both ready.  Unlike Shoot the Messenger which lets you get a quick win by destroying the launch bays, the ones in Void Launch are invincible. No speedrunning the mission for easy XP.  Although it does let you spawn camp the shuttles as they spawn in, so it's still worth it.  Oh hey, speak of the devil!  The funny thing is that before the Shuttle start moving towards a conduit they'll move away from damage like any other unit.   And after this, the entire map is ours.  And done. Attack waves can still spawn in, but beyond that we can just chill for the rest of the mission.   There's also something really funny you can do after clearing the map.  Surround a spawn point with static defense.  Look at it...     Not even the escort stands a chance.  Might as well show off Tactical Airlift while I wait for the last wave.  You grab every allied unit in a sizable area, your partner included.  Everyone in the ship! Go, go, go!The Griffin drops in.   Then you chose where to drop them off. Since Nova can't really afford to burn supply on units to defend her base, this lets you quickly hop back to defend yourself. Nova's fourth, grayed out, top bar ability is Instant Regeneration. It can only be used if Nova dies, and lets you immediately respawn her wherever you want instead of waiting 90 seconds for her to revive normally at your base. It costs 450 minerals, with the cost dropping by 5 for each second she's been dead.  But that's Void Launch. A slow, chill mission that lets you do some sillier stuff if you're aggressive enough.  Not even a Leviathan can handle the power of the Circle of Missiles.     Now, I really want to show off some of Nova's other units, but they're all ground-focused so Void Launch is sorta a bad mission for them.  SO NEW MISSION DOUBLE FEATURE LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOO!   The reason for this mission is because Miner Evacuation is a unique map that's mostly against the infested, with Amon's forces only showing up in attack waves. Since what I want to showcase has a lot of anti-ground, this is perfect.  The mission for this map is to protect several of these ships for two minutes each while they try to run away. Standing on the circle for 10 seconds starts the defense timer on that ship.  Take too long getting to them, and they'll start to leave on their own.  This puts an extra minute on the timer, but they'll only get attacked starting at the 2 minute mark like a normal defense.  Believe it or not, I finally make some Hellbats!  Infested means Light units, and Light units mean a target rich environment for them.  Just make sure to transform them to Hellions. You want to keep your distance.  The defense starts off against some standard infested.  Since this is the mech showcase, the Factory Tech Lab has Infernal Pre-Igniter (Hellbats/Hellions deal an extra +15 vs Light), and Jump Jet Assault (Hellbats gain an autocast leap that briefly gives +4 armor and stuns nearby enemies on landing) for Hellbats. Siege Tanks get Spider Mines (Siege Tanks can now create sets of Spider Mines), and Graduating Range (Siege Tank gains +1 range every 3 seconds while in Siege Mode. Max increase of 5).  The last 45 seconds or so has the infested swarm you.  While also throwing in Volatile Infested to try and sneak in an explode.  Aberrations also show up.  But once the ship takes off any survivors will burrow and vanish.  Amon will make the occasional raid against a ship.   But who gives a poo poo, I got Siege Tanks!  The bonus pops.   The Siege Tank Spider Mines get a few bonuses over the Vulture's. Replenishment comes stock instead of needing an additional upgrade, they can be spawned at a distance instead of having to move around and...  ...they spawn three at a time, giving each Tank nine mines to throw around at will. Nova's Siege Tanks both build on their strengths and negate their own weaknesses. They hit harder, shoot farther, and don't have to worry about minimum range because anything that gets close will just get blown to hell by Spider Mines.  I actually make some static defense this time, because the second ship in particular is mean and has infested spawn above the expansions, catching you off guard if you aren't aware. Nova's ground static defense are the same Railway Turrets a Raven can spawn. Also, this is another mission where the expansions start off capped by an enemy base, but Kith cleared it out off screen.  A few turrets won't be enough here, but that's what Liberators are for!  The Liberator is a unit introduced in Legacy of the Void.  In Fighter Mode, they act as dedicated anti-air fighters like the Viking or the Valkryie.  But Liberators have an alternate mode like a Siege Tank.  Defender Mode immobilizes them and swaps out their missiles for a long range, ground-only gun that deals 125 damage a shot to any unit in their targeting circle. The catch is that they can only hit targets within the circle. If you try to use it in a wide open area and an enemy walks around it, the Liberator is helpless until you shift them back to Fighter Mode and target a new area in Defender Mode. Their upgrades are Raid Artillery (can now attack structures in Defender Mode) and Smart Servos (can transform 4x faster).  Meanwhile Kith has been dealing with Blightbringer. It pukes on you, burrows for long periods and spawns infested cocoons.  I started the timer offscreen.  More tanks!  And the Liberators are putting in work.  Look at all the mines! Each one is 125 damage!  Tanks and Liberators are godlike on ground-heavy maps like this one.  Now that I have defenses up I just start the next ship right away. You can also see how quickly Nova builds a mineral bank when going mech.   It's sorta funny how the map actually has a bunch of infested terran units like Marauders and Siege Tanks as pre-placed defenders, but I barely show any of them because Kith's been slaughtering them all while I've been handling ships.  By the third ship they start throwing in Hybrid.  As well as Infested Banshees, which are the reason I have so many Marines on hand.  Also here's the other bonus. The Eradicators use the same model as the one we saw during Lab Rat, but uses a bunch of telegraphed AOE attacks.   Now, we still have two ships left to save.   But there's nothing stopping you from starting two ships at once, and by using Alt and left click I can flag a point to let Kith know.    Six Siege Tanks means 54 Spider Mines in one shot.  Also here are some Nemesis Hybrid, the only flying Hybrid. They're really god drat annoying to fight as protoss thanks to their Phase Shift ability. Phase Shift is basically Stasis for buildings, and they'll happily throw it at a Pylon that's powering all your static defense and making everything nearby cut out for several seconds.  But there's not much they can do against this. 
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Mar 14, 2024 03:27
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Greene's hair looks like toilet paper.
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Mar 14, 2024 04:23
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Alright, Nova. I wanna talk about Infiltration Specialist. P1 and P2 are kinda whatever. Even with SoF's cooldown reduction you still need a balanced force so it never felt like it did anything other than hamper my ability to get the supplemental forces I need, and Tactical Airlift is a meme strat outside pairing up with a Zerg who is spreading creep tumors everywhere on a very specific mission since you can't airlift into the fog of war. But Infiltration Specialist is a game-changer. "Super-Cloak" makes you immune to detection, no matter the source. You can walk up and hump a missile turret and no one will be any the wiser. The downside is that if you use any of your "direct" attacks like your auto attack or snipe, the cloak is removed until you stop attacking for 4 seconds. You also lose assault mode which you might feel against the early attack waves of some comps. But that leaves Sabotage Drone and Nukes. Neither breaks your super cloak. This is where the bullshit starts. 50% increased radius and 50% CD reduction means you can throw these abilities out like candy, even the Nuke with the -90 seconds from your Masteries. The fact that she can't be detected at all means you can run her anywhere on the map and delete everything there with absolutely no risk to Nova. The increased radius means that you can take out decent sized clusters of units with the drone, and a good 80% of a base with the Nuke. Which is how I ended up playing Nova on Brutal and B+: As soon as we were out of the initial attack wave, Nova was running ahead of the army to clear defenses and bases. Get to a base, drop a nuke to kill 80% of it, and start heading for the next base as your army arrives to mop up the now mostly defenseless group of heavily damaged structures. Meanwhile, Nova is systematically dismantling and nuking the next base. All while completely undetected. I really can't overstate how loving goofy this is when you're doing it. Some missions are less accommodating than others (Hi Miner Evacuation) while others are practically made for it (Rifts to Korhal and that one where you gotta escort the protoss thing). But it means your army is very much getting an easy job, with the Griffin Airstrike doing the job of sorting out any large Amon waves the game chucks at you. As Bisby pointed out, these will delete most of an incoming wave leaving only the sturdiest units to be mopped up after you've gotten some practice at aiming the thing. I was skeptical of paying $5 USD for Nova, of all people, but boy howdy did I get my money worth of fun from her playstyle. tl;dr: Infiltration Specialist trivializes any mission where one of the main hurdles is a large number of enemies/bases defending objective points or routes because you are the Kopuru Sector's #1 distributor of nukes and nuke accessories.
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Mar 14, 2024 06:59
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Nova is great fun, and surprisingly simple to play (at least compared to Raynor and as long as you can keep your boys and girls alive and your micro is on point). I go back and forth on going vanilla or Soldier of Fortune. Specializing on one type of force has its benefits if you know how to handle the enemy comp (or can rely on your partner to fill any deficiencies). This is ideally how prestiges should be, as something to choose of neutral or equal power to each other, rather than as we will see of some of them being way more overpowered than they should for whatever a reason. (Also in my opinion the game should make more clearer which building has been chosen for both players. They should perhaps also remove the gas cost entirely from building the Factory and Starport, but vehicles and ships are definitely more late game so I can see why they didn't. It's still a bit annoying though to have to wait for gas to buildup before constructing them.) Tactical Dispatcher is...not great. It can be good if mobility is required but there are far better (and free!) ways which also doesn't interfere in watching the Griffin do strafing runs. And you'll definitely prefer those strafing runs to having your army be forced to engage directly and perhaps take unrecoverable losses that a teleport can't completely solve. That leaves Infiltration Specialist, of which I very much refer to Warmachine before me. Mad Bomber Nova is great silliness indeed, especially in a game mode that rewards such aggressive deep infield plays. However you have to be aware of Mutators in play, the mission layout, base compositions and locations, and what measures you need for enemy attacks, since she most likely won't be participating in too much active combat and you'll have the rest of your units (and your partner) for that. Also to slightly add: Nova Primary Ability Improvement applies to her Snipe, Penetrating Blast, Sabotage Drone (in case you want your P3 to be even more powerful), and Blink's Shield. This Mastery is obviously focused on her, since the Unit Attack Speed is just that only for them. Combat Unit Life Regeneration will only activate 10 seconds out of combat. Still very useful though, obviously. Nova has her own regeneration upgrade as listed. Even if playing P3 you can still have that for your units; there won't be much energy drain if she focuses purely on Drones which are more cooldown restrained, and you won't really be using Snipe all too much due to its breaking of her Super! Cloak.
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Mar 14, 2024 08:05
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:21 |
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In terms of Nova's Masteries, Soldier of Fortune is probably the best both in terms of gameplay and design. It's got a reasonable drawback, but if you scout enough to see the enemy composition, you can easily adjust your army composition to bypass said drawback. Even if you're feeling lazy, Hellbat + Goliath solves all problems. Though, I've gotta ask: Bisby, what do you have against Hellbats? They're good! They look stupid, sure, but they're good!
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Mar 14, 2024 08:53
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