Starcraft II Coop: The game inside the game.

[The_Snark]

Banelings throw me for a loop. Do I ctrl+A them into an area and then wait a second before sending in my zerglings/aberrations? I feel like I lose them before they get into explosion range most of the time.

Well... like I said, I tend to just ctrl-A my whole army into the enemy. I'm sure that's not best practice, but I'm afraid I can't offer much advice on how to do better. It works well enough as long as I keep on top of my macro game.

I usually don't find myself needing to morph banelings manually; I just save the free banelings for major pushes and emergencies. That said, I'm used to playing with all the upgrades and lots of mastery points, so it's possible that un-buffed banelings fall short and I'm just not remembering it.

[Tvtyrant]

Got Zegara up to level 14 and learned how to play Kerrigan along the way. I'm almost sheepish about being so bad at Zerg before, things like having multiple groupings of hatcheries hotkeyed instead of one huge one and utilizing f2, Ctrl+A+shift on the minimap has really transformed my game.

Edit: Unimproved banelings are terrible. They need the +100% damage to function, once they get the splitter property they become amazing. More like a 1/minute summon that removes a chunk of the map then an army.

Edit 2: Most guides suggest Kerri should go Ultralisk/hydralisk, and I'm playing mutalisk/zergling. The zerglings remove armor and the mutalisks kill, more glass cannon like.

[Thomas Cardew]

Just wait until you hit level 99 mastery. All the Commanders become much more enjoyable. Kerrigan's gas unit cost reduction and expeditious evolutions mean you can get crazy OP Kerrigan and a fully upgraded army so much more quickly. Zagara gets another 30 damage on banelings and so much needed life/energy regen. Karax gets to finally build an army...

[Winthur]

Edit 2: Most guides suggest Kerri should go Ultralisk/hydralisk, and I'm playing mutalisk/zergling. The zerglings remove armor and the mutalisks kill, more glass cannon like.

Remember that most of those guides assume having some masteries, and Ultrahydra really benefits a lot from lowered combat unit gas prices, considering the gas it requires. While levelling Kerri, I'd recommend skipping or reducing the Ultra count in favor of Hydras. You don't ever need that many Ultras anyway (up to 6 or so) since they also lower your DPS a little if they block your army.

Anyhow, Mutaling is fine, with Mutas as your main unit and Zerglings as the "mineral dump". Mutaling in particular is also really good at, say, doing train damage on Oblivion Express, because Lings shred armor and Mutas do a lot of bouncy glaive damage to the train. The only problem you might have with Mutas is that clumped up air can be easily taken out by AoE if you aren't good at ensuring this doesn't happen. Mass Zerglings is also generally cool for bursting down objectives.

I'm glad you're doing better with both commanders, especially since Zagara is notorious for having one of the most annoying levelling curves.

[Tvtyrant]

Remember that most of those guides assume having some masteries, and Ultrahydra really benefits a lot from lowered combat unit gas prices, considering the gas it requires. While levelling Kerri, I'd recommend skipping or reducing the Ultra count in favor of Hydras. You don't ever need that many Ultras anyway (up to 6 or so) since they also lower your DPS a little if they block your army.

Anyhow, Mutaling is fine, with Mutas as your main unit and Zerglings as the "mineral dump". Mutaling in particular is also really good at, say, doing train damage on Oblivion Express, because Lings shred armor and Mutas do a lot of bouncy glaive damage to the train. The only problem you might have with Mutas is that clumped up air can be easily taken out by AoE if you aren't good at ensuring this doesn't happen. Mass Zerglings is also generally cool for bursting down objectives.

I'm glad you're doing better with both commanders, especially since Zagara is notorious for having one of the most annoying levelling curves.

That makes sense. If only they had Primal Mutalisk's immortality.

I mastered Zagara yesterday, my third mastered commmander (Stukov, then Dehaka, then Zagara.) So far I have dealt the majority of kills every match, she is incredibly fast.

Zegara actually has made me a much better player overall, I do better as most commanders now. She makes playing as Stettman a little annoying though as I expect my units right NOW and they take 20 seconds to spawn.

[Psyren]

That makes sense. If only they had Primal Mutalisk's immortality.

I mastered Zagara yesterday, my third mastered commmander (Stukov, then Dehaka, then Zagara.) So far I have dealt the majority of kills every match, she is incredibly fast.

Zegara actually has made me a much better player overall, I do better as most commanders now. She makes playing as Stettman a little annoying though as I expect my units right NOW and they take 20 seconds to spawn.

His units self-rez though, so you can end up with a similar scenario anyway - sacrifice a bunch of them in a pitched engagement, you get a bunch back in your base, use F.A.S.T to get them back to the frontlines quickly.

In addition, his army is harder to replace because he can heal it, unlike hers.

[Tvtyrant]

His units self-rez though, so you can end up with a similar scenario anyway - sacrifice a bunch of them in a pitched engagement, you get a bunch back in your base, use F.A.S.T to get them back to the frontlines quickly.

In addition, his army is harder to replace because he can heal it, unlike hers.

Absolutely. I don't think Stettman is worse, just that they are similar enough I click 1 then z and expect to instantly have 100 zerglings and my timing is off because of the delay.

I'm practicing my worm drops with Kerrigan right now, I played one match where I tried to place them ahead of time and then discovered they are more effective as a drop pod. Everyone inside the network, drop the worm into the enemy and everyone pours out then back in after the wave is dead. I think the worms are at least as good as satellites, especially on big maps like Malwarfare.

[Winthur]

Absolutely. I don't think Stettman is worse, just that they are similar enough I click 1 then z and expect to instantly have 100 zerglings and my timing is off because of the delay.

I'm practicing my worm drops with Kerrigan right now, I played one match where I tried to place them ahead of time and then discovered they are more effective as a drop pod. Everyone inside the network, drop the worm into the enemy and everyone pours out then back in after the wave is dead. I think the worms are at least as good as satellites, especially on big maps like Malwarfare.

Couple of tricks (since 4-6 worms is the standard) for bigger assaults:
- snipe objectives by getting vision to some island (with an Overlord), drop the Omega Worm there, unload army, clean just the objective, leave. E.g. the second pirate ship bonus on Rifts to Korhal.
- place multiple worms surrounding a certain area, CTRL+left-click them and unload; you will have units coming from multiple directions which is a nice idea against AoE damage
- place them to bait out tank fire before moving in
- loading and unloading quickly to bait out Storms or force Liberators
- spam Omega Worms in a chokepoint (defending ships on Miner Evacuation or just the base in Dead of Night) to make a quick and easy wall (and put Lurkers and Spines behind it)
- you can even surround Void Reanimators with Omega Worms and they will be unable to leave, and there's a limit to how many can be employed on the map, allowing you to grow a Void Reanimator garden sometimes

--

Current brutation seems pretty easy to do with anyone, worst thing that happens is when your vision is scattered and invisible Long Range units shoot at you while your units twiddle their thumbs, so just spread your detection a bit and maybe Siege Mode it even. If you can spawncamp the waves that come after the bonus, you can even take the bonus.

[Thomas Cardew]

One more. Worms are free and can be used to extend the bounce of mutalisk attacks. If a nasty wave is coming at you spawn a worm (or 4) in front of it. You can then attack your worm from max range which will bounce your attack into the wave decimating it without taking any damage.

[Tvtyrant]

Couple of tricks (since 4-6 worms is the standard) for bigger assaults:
- snipe objectives by getting vision to some island (with an Overlord), drop the Omega Worm there, unload army, clean just the objective, leave. E.g. the second pirate ship bonus on Rifts to Korhal.
- place multiple worms surrounding a certain area, CTRL+left-click them and unload; you will have units coming from multiple directions which is a nice idea against AoE damage
- place them to bait out tank fire before moving in
- loading and unloading quickly to bait out Storms or force Liberators
- spam Omega Worms in a chokepoint (defending ships on Miner Evacuation or just the base in Dead of Night) to make a quick and easy wall (and put Lurkers and Spines behind it)
- you can even surround Void Reanimators with Omega Worms and they will be unable to leave, and there's a limit to how many can be employed on the map, allowing you to grow a Void Reanimator garden sometimes

--

Current brutation seems pretty easy to do with anyone, worst thing that happens is when your vision is scattered and invisible Long Range units shoot at you while your units twiddle their thumbs, so just spread your detection a bit and maybe Siege Mode it even. If you can spawncamp the waves that come after the bonus, you can even take the bonus.

4-6 worms?? The learning curve here is steep, I'm running 2 and 6 spawning pools.

These are neat tricks, I'll need to practice more.

One more. Worms are free and can be used to extend the bounce of mutalisk attacks. If a nasty wave is coming at you spawn a worm (or 4) in front of it. You can then attack your worm from max range which will bounce your attack into the wave decimating it without taking any damage.

This is a really neat trick! I was wondering why you would use worms at all with mutalisk/zerglings but tanking with them seems pretty effective.

[Winthur]

4-6 worms?? The learning curve here is steep, I'm running 2 and 6 spawning pools.

I'm gonna assume you meant 6 hatcheries (which might be a little bit excessive but I think it mostly comes from Kerrigan having a hard time dumping all of her minerals due to usually being gas-gated, so it's not, like, the worst). 2 worms is fine on smaller / faster maps, 4 worms is easier to manage on maps that take longer, and I usually go 6 worms if the map takes really long, the need for detection is imperative (such as on the current mutation due to We Move Unseen in play) or if I'm playing hero solo.

This is a really neat trick! I was wondering why you would use worms at all with mutalisk/zerglings but tanking with them seems pretty effective.

Even outside of the trick you still want a worm or two with Mutaling because it lets you instantly warp Kerrigan back to your base to play defense, for detection, and for spreading Malignant Creep - for your ally, if no one else (although fully upgraded Raptorlings are theoretically* the best DPS in the game and Malignant Creep only increases that factor). Your ally can also travel with the Omega Worm, though few pubs will be aware of this. Also, worms are nice to have on The Vermillion Problem for popping them next to crystals and shortening Drone travel time. You don't want many of them with an air build, but they're amazing utility anyway.

*They are made of paper, so their primary use is drawing small amounts of fire, chewing on buildings and objectives (Dead of Night in particular), reducing an objective's armor to 0, and, of course, as a mineral dump. They're amazing for cleaning up after an Immobilization Wave (or a Vorazun Time Stop!), but they don't survive much against anything capable of sneezing within distance, unless you're teamed up with Artanis.

[Tvtyrant]

Finally mastered Kerrigan and finished Swann (I got to level 13 with him before I really tried any other commanders then stopped.)

Tarrasques are just amazing. I played miner rescue on hard and just parked them in a square, didn't lose a single one the entire game. Feels almost as tough as brutalisks with how much life gain they get and doing AOE melee damage.

Queens really improve her economy. two queens and four hatcheries really does the work of six hatcheries, I just have to remember to micro their castings and make the first one early.

Having Kerrigan be at odds with her units in mastery points is frustrating. I can reduce the speed of cool downs and up the power of immobilization waves so I spit them rapidly, or have cheap upgrades and units.

[Winthur]

Having Kerrigan be at odds with her units in mastery points is frustrating. I can reduce the speed of cool downs and up the power of immobilization waves so I spit them rapidly, or have cheap upgrades and units.

Kerrigan is heavily modular, you can mix up with hybrid mastery builds. You can split wave / gas to allow only enough damage for the wave to instantly wipe out units you want dead (count the enemy unit hit points and improve Wave accordingly) and have everything else go into gas cost, you can split energy % / +AD depending on how much you micro Kerrigan / how much you fear air compositions that are Kerri's weakness (IIRC 8 points in Attack Damage mastery is the "magic" number but I believe there are more), and Evo / Kerrigan primary abilities depending on how much you rely on the hero unit and how comfortable are you with your macro. I think I have 22/8, 11/9 and 10/20 on respectively in each tier right now, but it changes all the time depending on mood. It's worth experimenting with in general as hero-centric and army-centric playstyles are viable, but they both ultimately end up with you being maxed out on supply and upgrades, one just does it earlier.

[Tvtyrant]

Kerrigan is heavily modular, you can mix up with hybrid mastery builds. You can split wave / gas to allow only enough damage for the wave to instantly wipe out units you want dead (count the enemy unit hit points and improve Wave accordingly) and have everything else go into gas cost, you can split energy % / +AD depending on how much you micro Kerrigan / how much you fear air compositions that are Kerri's weakness (IIRC 8 points in Attack Damage mastery is the "magic" number but I believe there are more), and Evo / Kerrigan primary abilities depending on how much you rely on the hero unit and how comfortable are you with your macro. I think I have 22/8, 11/9 and 10/20 on respectively in each tier right now, but it changes all the time depending on mood. It's worth experimenting with in general as hero-centric and army-centric playstyles are viable, but they both ultimately end up with you being maxed out on supply and upgrades, one just does it earlier.

Okay great! I tend to play Kerrigan as micro in the early game, waffle mid game and switch to worm hopping late game. So playstyle wise I tend to switch between her micro and army macro.

Kerrigan feels very V shaped power wise, phenomenal early game, okay to bad mid, unstoppable end game.

On that note, why are brood lords so bad?? Stettman and Kerrigan both have tragically awful brood lords, they only seem okay on Dead of Night.

[Winthur]

On that note, why are brood lords so bad?? Stettman and Kerrigan both have tragically awful brood lords, they only seem okay on Dead of Night.

They have some really niche uses for strictly defensive / stalling purposes, like for example you can use them to bait out Psionic Storm from a Templar composition, or, as you noticed, keeping the swarms of small, fragile infested at the entrances (preferrably while Kerrigan goes hunting at night if you can handle yourself there). I would actually say they're really really good on DoN for that reason, rather than just "okay", since you just hold position at a blocked entrance and nothing comes through, as a gas dump while Kerri+mass lings exterminate the rest.
They can be sometimes useful against that one mutator where enemy units explode whenever they die, or against anything where you don't want to have units in proximity (Moment of Silence where an AoE silence pops whenever an enemy unit dies, or Black Death where enemy units carry a virus that is contagious to meleers, but if you're playing Kerrigan on Black Death you are probably nuts anyway).

As for Kerri's mid-game, well, with maxed macro masteries you can hit 200/200 3/3/3 in like 14-15 minutes along with like 2-4 worms. I'd say it's more that Kerri has the hardest time catching up because it's kinda hard to bounce back after DAMN IT MY MINIONS ARE GETTING TORN APART OUT THERE because Mr. Mutalisk Stack and Mr. Widow Mine don't wanna be friends, or because you got your Hydras panzerschrecked, and if you lose Kerri's hero unit then it really hinders your army's ability to push (no 1000 HP fast regenerating tank to take the brunt of it nor overpowered AoE stun). Just typing about it made me realize Kerri is about the only hero commander with no Get Outta Respawn At A Reasonable Price Card.

[Keltest]

One thing to consider with Kerrigan is that there are a few breakpoints in her Immobilization Wave mastery that cause it to do enough damage to outright kill units like void rays and tanks. This can be more or less helpful depending on your playstyle.

[Winthur]

One thing to consider with Kerrigan is that there are a few breakpoints in her Immobilization Wave mastery that cause it to do enough damage to outright kill units like void rays and tanks. This can be more or less helpful depending on your playstyle.

I wrote that although looking back that entire sentence / paragraph is a mess. To clarify, for example, 11 points into Immo Wave one-shots Banshees and Swarm Hosts (source). That source also has other breakpoints for stuff like recommended Energy Regeneration / Attack Damage balance depending on need (and also is generally a very good repository of co-op knowledge; the Teamliquid commander guides are also good but some haven't been updated and so it's a bit jarring to see Tempest / Zealot Artanis still being recommended after the Dragoon Renaissance of the past few patches).

But yeah, with masteries in general, they're all about finetuning according to your preferences, situation (some annoying mutation) or mere whim.

[Thomas Cardew]

As for Kerri's mid-game, well, with maxed macro masteries you can hit 200/200 3/3/3 in like 14-15 minutes along with like 2-4 worms. I'd say it's more that Kerri has the hardest time catching up because it's kinda hard to bounce back after DAMN IT MY MINIONS ARE GETTING TORN APART OUT THERE because Mr. Mutalisk Stack and Mr. Widow Mine don't wanna be friends, or because you got your Hydras panzerschrecked, and if you lose Kerri's hero unit then it really hinders your army's ability to push (no 1000 HP fast regenerating tank to take the brunt of it nor overpowered AoE stun). Just typing about it made me realize Kerri is about the only hero commander with no Get Outta Respawn At A Reasonable Price Card.

I think its that her units are especially fragile and typically gas heavy. Hydras are made of paper. Mutas group which means it's both harder to micro out a targetrd aoe unit, and that if you don't, 2 raven missiles, or one zero circle of doom later, blink your eyes and everything's dead. If a H&H loses all their Reapers who cares it's only minerals.

All the original heroes are like that. Kerrigan, zagera, and Alarak all lack a quick respawn option. Of course if Alark died, your whole army probably wiped unless you were grossly out of position...

[Thomas Cardew]

Mutation seems comically easy this week. Just a DPS check. Played Vorazun and one shot it with a Random Raynor against Terran Ground (Marine/Medic/Tank) which was probably the best possible roll for me. Skipped the first objective because I was lagging slightly/ didn't want to risk it. Got the second.

Probably a bad map for Tychus though, His grenades won't one shot waves like most people are used too.

[Psyren]

Mutation seems comically easy this week. Just a DPS check. Played Vorazun and one shot it with a Random Raynor against Terran Ground (Marine/Medic/Tank) which was probably the best possible roll for me. Skipped the first objective because I was lagging slightly/ didn't want to risk it. Got the second.

Probably a bad map for Tychus though, His grenades won't one shot waves like most people are used too.

You could always combine them with Nux's storms for extra AoE, though that's more of a mid-late game strat. If you research the vacuum grenades and aim them well, you can suck an entire wave back into the storm's eye for more ticks.

[Winthur]

Probably a bad map for Tychus though, His grenades won't one shot waves like most people are used too.

HunterSC2's rankings are subjective and don't usually take specific synergies into account but he says Sirius > Rattlesnake > Nux > Cannonball does really well and Grenade+Storm has no problems.

[Thomas Cardew]

HunterSC2's rankings are subjective and don't usually take specific synergies into account but he says Sirius > Rattlesnake > Nux > Cannonball does really well and Grenade+Storm has no problems.

Yeah. I actually played with a random tychus last night against terran air and had no real problems. Did both bonus objectives. I think he went vega> rattlesnake > nux>??.

[Psyren]

I always do Sirius first - the turrets are beast against early waves, especially with the mass fear upgrade. They also provide on-demand detection, anti-air, and are good against both swarms of weaklings and a few bruisers.

[Thomas Cardew]

I always do Sirius first - the turrets are beast against early waves, especially with the mass fear upgrade. They also provide on-demand detection, anti-air, and are good against both swarms of weaklings and a few bruisers.

That's my preferred build as well. Sirius>Rattlesnake>Nux>Sam/Vega depending on map. But the other guy was playing Tychus...

[Winthur]

Y'all are alright in my book unless you go Nikara first

[Tvtyrant]

Y'all are alright in my book unless you go Nikara first

D: Even if my ally is Abathur??

[Thomas Cardew]

Y'all are alright in my book unless you go Nikara first

But if I go Nikara first, then I don't have to build medivacs! THAT'S 600/600 SAVED.

[Psyren]

Even if I wanted healing that badly, Rattlesnake over Nikara all day imo

[Tvtyrant]

Even if I wanted healing that badly, Rattlesnake over Nikara all day imo

I don't play Tychus much, but I do appreciate Nikara when I am playing Abathur or Dehaka aggressively. Being able to just ram into the enemy base without worrying about losing Brutalisks or Dehaka early on is very nice.

Although as Dehaka what I really want is Abathur as an ally, I see very little of him online for some reason. Being able to lure enemies into mines first thing and then snowball both of our forces once they get a Brutalisk is amazing.

[Winthur]

D: Even if my ally is Abathur??

tl;dr: Nikara in general is usually not optimal but she also won't lose you games. Try not to get her out as your first outlaw, and if you want to learn stronger Tychus play try learning to rely less on healers (and more on Medivacs). She is okay for correcting errors in play and preventing wipes but skilled players usually find her unnecessary outside of Mutation environment.

As you see yourself, Nikara's use is mostly niche, for some dumb mutations or if you are hell-bent on supporting a carry (but is that really fun?).
She is kinda superfluous most of the time compared to Rattlesnake; it's during specific mutations where the damage intake becomes higher and she becomes a good choice (though still usually not someone you pick first).
For most all-purpose builds you're better off learning to play with Rattlesnake, then Medivacs, then more aggressive openings. Healer-first builds can be a bit of a crutch and it's worth trying to get out of the cradle, but of course you should play for fun and try your best anyhow.
I'm also bothering to write this up because a lot of initial discussion on Tychus play recommended going Nikara first and put the cute medic on autoinclude, but that's generally not the case anymore.
Between the two healers Rattlesnake offers more early on, but the most rewarding Tychus play (also fun to pull off!) goes greedy on the DPS and relies on Medivac healing until later. On quite a few maps, with some skill applied, you can get away without having a healer on the team at all, Medivacs can be just enough.

Especially if your ally is a turnip it helps to learn more aggro openers because you might simply lack pushing / defending power with Tychus->Nikara. Tychus has sorta low sustained DPS in my experience (as painfully evident when Just Die! / Polarity on Oblivion Express made my Tychus player buddy sweat), so you probably don't want to delay that even further if it can be helped, especially on maps with high HP, high armored objectives on a time limit (Oblivion Express is one thing, but also Scythe of Amon, perhaps?)