Starcraft 2 campaign. FINALLY!

[Traab]

Heh, thought I would share this as its amusing to me. But I finally, after long effort, managed to beat the full trilogy storyline and epilogue. Seriously, the second to last mission, protecting kerrigan until she becomes xelnaga, is HARD! I mean geez, artanis manages to get himself killed in the first freaking enemy attack. His base tends to not last much longer. Every time I ran this mission I lost the same way, protoss base is destroyed, then kerrigan gets buried under enemies too fast for me to clear out, usually around the 80% mark. I eventually had to freaking well CHEAT to beat this thing. And even giving myself 10k resources right off the bat I STILL couldnt save artanis! I managed to save the protoss base at least but my god, this is on freaking casual difficulty and its obnoxiously hard. The last mission was fairly simple, the touch with losing command centers/hives every now and then added an interesting challenge but not even close. Glad that I finally know how the series ends, even if I still wish they would have tied up the loose end of the protoss ship kerrigan infested back in her campaign. Makes me wonder if there will be a starcraft 3 and what it will involve.

[Winthur]

Gj!

If you wanna play another Blizzard game with a compelling storyline and a difficulty slider, try the WC3 campaign if you haven't already. I just recently had beaten Reign of Chaos on Hard and, well, it's hard, including one of the most difficult "hold the fort" missions I've played (the final Undead mission).

[Kitten Champion]

I never finished the final mission on Frozen Throne's campaign on Hard difficulty. come to think of it. I forget why, exactly. It's Undead, which was my weakest race in multiplayer, so that probably had something to do with it. I do remember the ending cut-scene 'cause it was all sorts of anime all of a sudden.

... and I must've played it on my old computer because I'm apparently back at the beginning of FT's Sentinel campaign now, though Reign of Chaos' has been completed.

[Traab]

Oh yeah, I have those games, good stories and is why I got started with WoW in the first place. A lot of "and then what?" in my mind. :smalltongue: As for the undead standoff challenge, yeah that was rough, I think, iirc, that the way I beat it was to stack as many ziggurauts on the three sides as I could manage to grab. I concentrated every summoned demon unit on the far right, and split my troops between the other two areas. I may be wrong though, its been a lot of years.

[Olinser]

Heh, thought I would share this as its amusing to me. But I finally, after long effort, managed to beat the full trilogy storyline and epilogue. Seriously, the second to last mission, protecting kerrigan until she becomes xelnaga, is HARD! I mean geez, artanis manages to get himself killed in the first freaking enemy attack. His base tends to not last much longer. Every time I ran this mission I lost the same way, protoss base is destroyed, then kerrigan gets buried under enemies too fast for me to clear out, usually around the 80% mark. I eventually had to freaking well CHEAT to beat this thing. And even giving myself 10k resources right off the bat I STILL couldnt save artanis! I managed to save the protoss base at least but my god, this is on freaking casual difficulty and its obnoxiously hard. The last mission was fairly simple, the touch with losing command centers/hives every now and then added an interesting challenge but not even close. Glad that I finally know how the series ends, even if I still wish they would have tied up the loose end of the protoss ship kerrigan infested back in her campaign. Makes me wonder if there will be a starcraft 3 and what it will involve.

The mission becomes significantly easier when you realize that several units come with exploitable upgrades.

Namely, the enemy does not build detection. Spectres come with permacloak, and Banshees come with the damage-in-line upgrade. 6-8 banshees can cloak for no threat to them and AOE clear out most attacks themselves. If you REALLY want to cheese it you can literally take about 6 Spectres, line them up, issue the Hold Position command, and permanently seal off an attack ramp as their ground units just mill around unable to get up the ramp while the Spectres slowly kill them. (just make sure you don't put any siege tanks near them or they'll die from the AOE).

Also you can constantly use Kerrigan to clear out a couple big units each wave. If you use Kerrigan to kill only siege tanks, ultras, and archons on the right side assaults, Zagara can hold off on her own even on Brutal.

And yeah, Artanis AI is terrible. But you can purposefully kill off his Assimilators and put the auto-refineries for super extra gas :P

[Traab]

Yeah I used kerrigans abilities a lot trying to run it. I took out pretty much all big units though once I lost because everything came up in a huge bioball of blurred together units and I must have hit the wrong unit because suddenly all my photons and anti air units were dead and the battlecruisers was still killing everything. Teach me to pay attention. I honestly hadnt even considered the detection issue, dang, thats clever. I guess I spent too many missions not needing any of that crap. Terran side was basically nothing but marines and marauders with a few medics mixed into a massive force. Zerg were roaches and hydras, protoss were zealots and dragoons. Yeah you COULD get more elaborate, but it was so rarely needed. So I forgot. :p I basically stuck with tanks and marines on the mission as thats what the guide I read said. But I couldnt get enough siege tanks to hold the line at the protoss base in time. I may try it again how you suggested.

[Icewraith]

Heh, thought I would share this as its amusing to me. But I finally, after long effort, managed to beat the full trilogy storyline and epilogue. Seriously, the second to last mission, protecting kerrigan until she becomes xelnaga, is HARD! I mean geez, artanis manages to get himself killed in the first freaking enemy attack. His base tends to not last much longer. Every time I ran this mission I lost the same way, protoss base is destroyed, then kerrigan gets buried under enemies too fast for me to clear out, usually around the 80% mark. I eventually had to freaking well CHEAT to beat this thing. And even giving myself 10k resources right off the bat I STILL couldnt save artanis! I managed to save the protoss base at least but my god, this is on freaking casual difficulty and its obnoxiously hard. The last mission was fairly simple, the touch with losing command centers/hives every now and then added an interesting challenge but not even close. Glad that I finally know how the series ends, even if I still wish they would have tied up the loose end of the protoss ship kerrigan infested back in her campaign. Makes me wonder if there will be a starcraft 3 and what it will involve.

You're having this kind of trouble on casual? Are you building enough probes/drones/scvs?

IIRC, early in the mission you need to move your army from base to base until you've got a big enough force to defend multiple fronts at once. The only issue I remember having was that I couldn't build on creep, so no bunkers to support the Zerg forces.

Also, are you using Kerrigan's ability? Yeah it prolongs the mission, but you can nuke the first couple waves until you've built up a respectable defense.

[Olinser]

Yeah I used kerrigans abilities a lot trying to run it. I took out pretty much all big units though once I lost because everything came up in a huge bioball of blurred together units and I must have hit the wrong unit because suddenly all my photons and anti air units were dead and the battlecruisers was still killing everything. Teach me to pay attention. I honestly hadnt even considered the detection issue, dang, thats clever. I guess I spent too many missions not needing any of that crap. Terran side was basically nothing but marines and marauders with a few medics mixed into a massive force. Zerg were roaches and hydras, protoss were zealots and dragoons. Yeah you COULD get more elaborate, but it was so rarely needed. So I forgot. :p I basically stuck with tanks and marines on the mission as thats what the guide I read said. But I couldnt get enough siege tanks to hold the line at the protoss base in time. I may try it again how you suggested.

Literally the first thing you should be spending money on is expanding to the base to the left and filling it with SCVs. Especially on lower difficulties if you just hotkey kerrigan and kill the Thor/Ultra/Tank/Archon that comes with waves you can hold out for quite a while with no more defenses, and the AI can hold off 3-4 attacks on their own before you have to use anything but Kerrigan. You shouldn't be using her on smaller units they're not worth it. On Normal you only need 3 bunkers, 2-4 tanks, a couple missile turrets and an SCV with auto-repair on to hold any entrance and you can get that easily with 2 bases. On Casual you probably need even less.

And don't forget upgrades - infantry weapons is the key one you need for bunker damage.

If you're getting overwhelmed on Casual you're probably either not expanding or waiting way too long to expand, and not repairing during attacks.

[Dienekes]

Hmm, I remember beating that level on Hard without too much difficulty. But that might be because I have naturally tanky tendencies and know how to make Terran work.

On the other hand, I had to knock the last mission down to either Normal or Easy (don't remember which) because I do not get Zerg. I just can't get them to do what I want.

[Olinser]

Hmm, I remember beating that level on Hard without too much difficulty. But that might be because I have naturally tanky tendencies and know how to make Terran work.

On the other hand, I had to knock the last mission down to either Normal or Easy (don't remember which) because I do not get Zerg. I just can't get them to do what I want.

Yeah the Terran one I found extremely easy even on Brutal mainly because Kerrigan is so good at trimming the really dangerous enemies out of waves. The Hard achievement was actually really difficult to get, though, because the kill count is so strict and you start out having to kill 3 Thrashers, you basically can only use Kerrigan to kill about 6-8 non-thrasher enemies, so you have to defend much faster and much harder and don't have that safety net. Turtling and a banshee airforce still beat it pretty easily, though.

Last mission is stupid easy just by massing standard Mutas. You can get 3 bases really fast and since mutas only take 2 supply you can have 70+ mutas, 3 weapon upgrade mutas literally kill a crystal in seconds and with Kerrigan sitting under them hitting her heal means you don't lose a single one killing a crystal.

Incidentally that is also the easiest strategy to get the Hard achievement on that mission because Mutas kill crystals so fast and can get to another crystal equally fast.

[Dienekes]

Yeah the Terran one I found extremely easy even on Brutal mainly because Kerrigan is so good at trimming the really dangerous enemies out of waves. The Hard achievement was actually really difficult to get, though, because the kill count is so strict and you start out having to kill 3 Thrashers, you basically can only use Kerrigan to kill about 6-8 non-thrasher enemies, so you have to defend much faster and much harder and don't have that safety net. Turtling and a banshee airforce still beat it pretty easily, though.

Last mission is stupid easy just by massing standard Mutas. You can get 3 bases really fast and since mutas only take 2 supply you can literally have 70+ mutas, 3 weapon upgrade mutas literally kill a crystal in seconds and with Kerrigan sitting under them hitting her heal means you don't lose a single one killing a crystal.

Incidentally that is also the easiest strategy to get the Hard achievement on that mission because Mutas kill crystals so fast and can get to another crystal equally fast.

You see, I did mass mutas. And still lost several times until I finally got a mixed force (though admittedly muta heavy) finally won it for me.

[Olinser]

You see, I did mass mutas. And still lost several times until I finally got a mixed force (though admittedly muta heavy) finally won it for me.

You either didn't upgrade them, were trying to kill the stuff around the crystal instead of just killing the crystal, didn't have enough mutas, or didn't bring Kerrigan to heal.

Exclusively mass mutas is how I got the Hard achievement and that requires you kill 4 crystals in a total of 60 seconds (incidentally that's not 60 seconds between crystals - you have 59 seconds after you kill the first one to kill 3 more). 70-80 +3 weapon upgrade mutas kills a crystal in under 5 seconds (ignore everything else and just target the crystal), just hammer the Heal button on Kerrigan and move on to the next crystal.

[Dienekes]

You either didn't upgrade them, were trying to kill the stuff around the crystal instead of just killing the crystal, didn't have enough mutas, or didn't bring Kerrigan to heal.

Exclusively mass mutas is how I got the Hard achievement and that requires you kill 4 crystals in a total of 60 seconds (incidentally that's not 60 seconds between crystals - you have 59 seconds after you kill the first one to kill 3 more). 70-80 +3 weapon upgrade mutas kills a crystal in under 5 seconds (ignore everything else and just target the crystal), just hammer the Heal button on Kerrigan and move on to the next crystal.

Might be the case. Have no interest in trying again. I hate playing Zerg, and thought the end of the campaign was horse****. No need to subject myself to it all again.

[Olinser]

Might be the case. Have no interest in trying again. I hate playing Zerg, and thought the end of the campaign was horse****. No need to subject myself to it all again.

I'm an achievement hunter so I went back for Brutal and for 100% achievements.

I think that might actually have been the LAST achievement I got for 100% on all campaigns, though.

[Traab]

I didnt have to do anything special to beat the last mission. Hell, I didnt even need mutas. I just did my standard roach/hydra swarm backed up by kerrigan and slaughtered my way through everything. I think I only lost the one hive before winning and that was on my first try. In hindsight mutas would have been a much better option though. I remember I used to use them all the time in the original starcraft campaign maps. Hotkey as many full groups as you can build, then move in a flying swarm across the map and even heavy anti air cant stop you. The bouncing shots just burn down everything so fast. Kerrigans heal is so op it was scary. My army just kept getting bigger because so few units died. Im sure at higher difficulties that changes but even so, its a seriously nice effect.

As far as races go, ive always been a zerg/toss fan so im very out of practice with the terrans. I admittedly did not expand to the second set of resources, ive honestly never been much of a base expander like that unless its one of those stupid maps where each section only has a little like the protoss mission where you control the device your base is built on and move it along the rails from sector to sector.

[Iruka]

Yeah the Terran one I found extremely easy even on Brutal mainly because Kerrigan is so good at trimming the really dangerous enemies out of waves. The Hard achievement was actually really difficult to get, though, because the kill count is so strict and you start out having to kill 3 Thrashers, you basically can only use Kerrigan to kill about 6-8 non-thrasher enemies, so you have to defend much faster and much harder and don't have that safety net. Turtling and a banshee airforce still beat it pretty easily, though.

Last mission is stupid easy just by massing standard Mutas. You can get 3 bases really fast and since mutas only take 2 supply you can have 70+ mutas, 3 weapon upgrade mutas literally kill a crystal in seconds and with Kerrigan sitting under them hitting her heal means you don't lose a single one killing a crystal.

Incidentally that is also the easiest strategy to get the Hard achievement on that mission because Mutas kill crystals so fast and can get to another crystal equally fast.

The last mission was indeed quite easy after the nightmare of the terran mission, but I still did not manage to get the mastery achievement. Had about 80 fully upgraded mutas but killing a crystal still took a while. Maybe I will try again with better creep spread so Kerrigan can teleport.

[Olinser]

The last mission was indeed quite easy after the nightmare of the terran mission, but I still did not manage to get the mastery achievement. Had about 80 fully upgraded mutas but killing a crystal still took a while. Maybe I will try again with better creep spread so Kerrigan can teleport.

Yeah it was definitely one of the most annoying achievements. You have to not kill a single one until you're ready to go for the achievement and you have to wait until 4 are spawned at once.

Just make sure you get 3/3 upgrades and supply max on mutas. Ignore the defensive crystals and only kill the main one. If you feel like you don't have enough damage kill off your drones and build more mutas.

If you're having trouble what you can do is seed some damage on airborne crystals (the ones over the void don't spawn healing crystals) to make it faster, the timer doesn't start until you actually KILL one of them.