Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat? Let's Play Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm

[The Glyphstone]

Actually it was a pure viking/banshee mob. The only BC I saw was his Hyperion cool down, hence why I thought P3 Raynor.

[Psyren]

H&H only have one building with a tech lab, their starport, and it cant lift off. The tooltip goes so far as to point out that the tech lab (a special tech lab called Han's tech lab) is physically welded to the starport, incredibly thoroughly.

Correct again.

Alrighty then. Was curious because I pugged with a Raynor the other day but he couldn't figure out how to attach to the reactor I built for him. Then again, he also ran the entire game on a single OC and was building air mech (P3?)

This goes back to the point I made earlier - that lower difficulties in co-op can paradoxically be harder because you get the Timmy players who are going for the coolest-looking deathball, but need to be carried because they either mess up the macro needed to support it, transitioning smoothly from an early/mid-game army into their late-game one, or both. Even Raynor's non-BC air can be tough to mass up quickly with just one OC.

[Winthur]

Alrighty then. Was curious because I pugged with a Raynor the other day but he couldn't figure out how to attach to the reactor I built for him. Then again, he also ran the entire game on a single OC and was building air mech (P3?)

P3 Airnor is very strong and generally doesn't take up as much OCs as bio or vulture compositions, but 1 OC is a bit too little still. P0 can also pull off solid mech in all flavors.
I really wouldn't bother with trying to make Tech Reactors for fellow Raynor players because most pub Raynors are barely sentient creatures and you should focus on performing well on your own. Mechanics that enhance macro (Karax, Swann, chronoboosts) are usually mishandled by pubs and aren't necessary to help a commander max out, so you should bring them out at your convenience.

[Keltest]

games below Hard difficulty also run at a slower game speed, so many veteran players refuse to queue for them at all. when youre used to faster speeds, it can be excruciating to try and do normal or casual.

[The Glyphstone]

I've been pugging Normals when I didn't have a partner to run with. Now that I'm capped out leveling, I think I'll start trying to pug on Hard instead.

[Psyren]

P3 Airnor is very strong and generally doesn't take up as much OCs as bio or vulture compositions, but 1 OC is a bit too little still. P0 can also pull off solid mech in all flavors.
I really wouldn't bother with trying to make Tech Reactors for fellow Raynor players because most pub Raynors are barely sentient creatures and you should focus on performing well on your own. Mechanics that enhance macro (Karax, Swann, chronoboosts) are usually mishandled by pubs and aren't necessary to help a commander max out, so you should bring them out at your convenience.

Agreed - my one exception to this is as Stukov/Artanis/Tychus, volunteering my expansion geysers if I get paired with Nova/Vorazun (and on some maps, Zeratul). Usually they will accept the help, though occasionally I get no response.

games below Hard difficulty also run at a slower game speed, so many veteran players refuse to queue for them at all. when youre used to faster speeds, it can be excruciating to try and do normal or casual.

Oh god yes, it's absolute torture going back below full speed. Worse, it can ruin your macro timings. Eventually you get a sense for what buildings you should have out at what wave during a mission.

I've been pugging Normals when I didn't have a partner to run with. Now that I'm capped out leveling, I think I'll start trying to pug on Hard instead.

WoW 9.1 isn't as demanding in terms of chores as I thought it would be so I can drop you a line on your battletag later on
I got my bf back into it to max out his Stukov p3 and he's now starting on Dehaka p1 so I haven't been pugging as much lately.

[Keltest]

WoW 9.1 isn't as demanding in terms of chores as I thought it would be so I can drop you a line on your battletag later on

Indeed, i was surprised too. Im generally going to be busy on wednesdays for the weekly resets, but other than that i can get all my stuff done before Glyphstone is available.

[The Glyphstone]

Yeah, I've been pretty exclusively running with Keltest after I wake up in the morning. But more people is more fun, since this has mutated into the general Starcraft 2/Co-Op thread as much as it is the Lets Play.

On that note, how should I be looking to build my Masteries, since none of Swanns prestiges look interesting enough to work on. M1 and M3 are the best, but aside from the recommended 19/11 split on M1, I'm not sure where to put points first or how much to drop into the gas drone discount on M3.

[Psyren]

M1 I can see the value of a split, but I tend to err on the side of the Combat Drop. I find it far more useful than widening the beam - able to stop a wave cold and then clear out entrenched positions right afterward without any real investment or direction from you. The beam will usually wipe a whole wave even with no upgrades at all, or at the very least decimate it leaving so little behind that your static or ally can mop it up easily without redirecting your main force.

M2 I personally always do structure health. By the time you're making units that can benefit from Immortality Protocol your economy should be well-established, whereas turrets are useful long before that, especially on early-aggression missions like Rifts or Miner Evac. His engineering bays also benefit from this - you can use them as dirt-cheap walls of HP.to make chokepoints, keep your tanks and other defenses from being swarmed, and the like.

M3 is where I'm more likely to have a split - faster drill is great, but cheaper drones means more gas which you'll need to upgrade the drill sooner anyway.

[The Glyphstone]

The guides suggest 19 into the beam so that it can 1shot Battlecruisers apparently. Right now, I'm trying to figure out which mastery I want to invest in first.

[Thomas Cardew]

Combat drop until you hit the break point for Beam then swap. At the base 400 damage, you one shot everything that isn't a BC/Ultra/Carrier/Tempest (I might have missed something). The minor improvement in width makes it easier to aim, but it is really binary until you hit the damage threshold. Alternatively, 7 point gets to 456 on the beam which will let you one shot Carriers/Tempests, 13 points to over 500 to one shot Ultra. So basically 6 points into drop pods, then swap all of them to beam on the seventh, repeat twice with the next 6 points.

[Psyren]

With some B0 and B+ along with cheesing the weekly we'll get you to 90 in no time

And yeah, good point about the beam being able to fry battlecruisers, they can be really annoying. Again though, I find Swann has fewer problems with that comp than other commanders do anyway.

[Winthur]

Yeah, I've been pretty exclusively running with Keltest after I wake up in the morning. But more people is more fun, since this has mutated into the general Starcraft 2/Co-Op thread as much as it is the Lets Play.

On that note, how should I be looking to build my Masteries, since none of Swanns prestiges look interesting enough to work on. M1 and M3 are the best, but aside from the recommended 19/11 split on M1, I'm not sure where to put points first or how much to drop into the gas drone discount on M3.

Here's my take:
M1: Concentrated Beam has multiple breakpoints like the aforementioned 19 points to one-shot waves, but Combat Drop is such a wonderful "fire and forget" ability that if you are feeling uncertain, you could certainly put more points into it, queue up a bunch of A-moves to various areas, and clear a lot of the map. A neat thing about Concentrated Beam, though: when you hit a train, it will take the Concentrated Beam's damage on every single one of the compartments. I recall once completely one-shotting the first Oblivion Express train by aligning it with a really wide, maxed out beam. Wider Beam will also make it much easier to contribute offensively on Dead of Night and in any situation where you want to push into bases. Verdict: personal preference / consider looking up breakpoints.

M2: Structure Health is more broadly applicable. Early on in the game you want to cut a lot of corners; Structure Health lets you employ the Flying Factory Gambit to spot for your laser more easily and gives your turrets more health. Early on in the game, you should be using turrets to defend, whether it's the dreaded first wave on Rifts to Korhal or the first ship on Miner's Evacuation. Immortality Protocol, while nice, is only... half-useful - Thors aren't great units and even if you find a situation where you want them, you don't build them a lot since they take up a lot of space and bodyblock each other. If you go mass Wraith or Goliath+Vessel, Immortality Protocol is worthless. If you know you are going to run pure HercTank in every single match, Immortality Protocol is decent, but SH is just more applicable and proper HercTank use rarely loses tanks (since they hide in the Hercules), so I'd max out Structure Health.

M3: I'm in the camp of gas drones are horribly overrated - firmly nice to have, but not a defining Swann trait. Their contribution equals some tanks or upgrades earlier, but Swann is mineral-starved and has early tempo issues. Laser Drill helps with both - Armory is gasless to build now, so the only gas you will be spending in the early game is on the drill upgrade as soon as it spawns and your Tech Lab. The drill spawns faster helping you deal with waves, you can use the Flying Factory Gambit to spot for it, and the sooner you have the tier 2 and 3 laser, the sooner you can push into heavily fortified bases. I personally run maxed Drill, but I have ran hybrid in the past (just enough to make the gas drones a bit cheaper). Still, even in hybrid, I lean more towards higher Drill%, just to push it out faster. But here's a good argument for Gas Drone Mastery - it makes putting them into your build order a non-issue since you can slam them on refineries automatically, whereas without the mastery you will have to consider their place in your build order. Gas drones is a fire and forget mastery and it works well in that regard.

[Keltest]

For Swann, M2 and M3 are pretty much entirely personal preference. I rarely use the laser drill when i play him, so having more gas earlier is better. Likewise, i rely on structures a lot when i can, and as a rule try not to lose many siege tanks if i can help it, so seeing immortality protocol get more use is a mixed blessing at best.

[The Glyphstone]

So it's time for an update, and because it's another holiday weekend, you get a bonus update - with a special guest star, even!

Spoiler: Update 13.5: Mutalisk Evolution Mission

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Organism designation: Abathur. Exist to guide evolution of Swarm, improve strengths and eliminate weaknesses. Must also guide evolution of self. Optimize for purpose, perform role better. Have observed organism Noracolby. Records thoughts, memories, in external data archive. Compensating for inferior Terran biology. Trait has adaptation potential.

Have spun sequences for detachable symbiote. Possesses high volume, long-term memory storage. Can delegate memories of completed experiments to symbiote, free up neural capacity for current projects. Must test to evaluate viability. Current objective – refine Mutalisk strain. Redundant sequences, formerly tied to Guardian aspect transformation. Now obsolete, can re-purpose for new secondary form.



Dominion defense platform Sigma Centauri. Key outpost in Dominion perimeter.



Missile turrets designed to kill mutalisks. Defenses impenetrable without Brood Lords.



Feral Brood Lords nearby. Unresponsive to Swarm commands.





Assimilating essence from Brood Lords with mutalisks.





Brood Lord sequences now dominant. Ready for renewed assault on Dominion base.



Missile turrets unable to strike at Brood Lords. Easily destroyed by broodling bombardment.



Caution: Brood Lords defenseless against aerial threats. Additional mutalisks needed to stand guard.





Mobile ground units equally vulnerable. Overwhelmed by swarming broodlings, torn to pieces.





Planetary fortress destroyed. Test complete. Moving to secondary testing site.



Planet Brokas Hur. Dominion storage world.



Transport crashed with cargo of jorium crystals onboard. Useful for experimentation, augments psionic potential. Must acquire.





Have completed research on primal essence. New strain created: viper, evolved from mutalisk.





Viper can abduct enemy units, drag them to its location. Pulls siege tanks down into range of abberations.





Secondary viper ability – Disabling Cloud. Obscures vision, paralyzes enemies. Cannot attack, easy prey for destruction.





Viper can also abduct allied units. Drag abberations up cliff, enable traversal of vertical terrain.





Surprise attack effective. Dominion guards eliminated, jorium crystals acquired.

Final evaluation: Brood Lords provide powerful offensive asset, demolish fixed enemy defenses without retaliation. Suited to Queen's directive – Zerg lives not inherently disposable assets. Viper is pure support unit, minimal offensive ability. Dependency on help from others is contrary to overriding purpose of Swarm. Brood Lord strain superior. Will return to evolution pit and complete integration into Mutalisk.

Value of memory-symbiote: inconclusive. Will require further testing.

Spoiler: Update 14: In Which It Rains, Then Pours

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March 12, 2506:

With the Swarm scouring the lab for Narud's bolthole, I was holed up in the shuttle again. Playing dodge-the-Baneling was getting old, and Zagara would have to give up eventually. The knocking on the hatch surprised me, and at first I thought she had switched tactics, but it turned out to be Sarah looking oddly pensive. At first I was worried, but she'd just come to talk.



“The first time Jim and I really talked was over cups of coffee, but I woke up this morning and realized I couldn't remember what coffee tasted like. You think love keeps me human, but I'm starting to forget what being human means at all. Talk to me about human things, normal things.”

So we talked. Well, I talked mostly while she listened, but it wasn't entirely one-sided. Foods and snacks I missed, games I'd played and movies I had seen. How it felt sorting through my sweater collection. That reminded me that I was legally dead right now, which was a bit of a downer, and how I didn't know what had happened to Kate, which was worse. Possibly the oddest conversation I'd ever had, but somehow I knew it had helped Sarah...recenter, I guess. Being queen isn't easy on the best days, I figure.

March 13, 2506:

Turns out there's a whole mess of caverns deep below the surface. That Narud guy was hiding them somehow, but it fell apart when a Nydus worm tunneled through the ceiling by accident and gave everything away. It had to be where he was holed up, so Sarah and Stukov went after him.



The hidden labs had a dead Ultralisk, that Narud had also been experimenting on. At least, it looked dead, and Stukov thought so too. Turns out we're both wrong, at least when the Queen of the Zerg is around.



With a bit of power, she “reconstituted” it, which is apparently Zerg-speak for “regenerate its mangled carcass and revive it to life”.



Good thing, too, because these caverns were full of angry Protoss. It was the Tal'darim again, those stupid laser-stealing jerks.



With some banelings to soften up the defenses, Sarah and Stukov cleared out the guards and started building a new hive cluster for their base camp.





It got Narud to show himself, at least. At first, he just looked like a grouchy old man, but then he started shooting a giant green laser beam right at Sarah.





She shot a giant purple laser beam right back at him, and they collided in the middle like something out of a superhero cartoon. Oddly underwhelming for a psionic duel between two super-powerful people, but if that 'null zone' hit Kerrigan we were all doomed.



According to Sarah, the Xel'Naga temples nearby were feeding Narud power. All her strength was going into holding him back, but she was losing. Stukov and the Swarm had to deactivate those temples to turn the tide.



“Deactivate a temple to a bunch of ancient aliens. What do I look like, some kind of space wizard? I don't anything about this psionic nonsense, but that looks fragile, so let's see what happens when I break it.”

And so he just started...tearing apart the temple with his bare hands. Well, he was dousing the
stone in acid first to melt it, and one of his hands was actually a gigantic Zerg spike-claw, but 'with his bare hands' just sounds better, okay?





Narud didn't like that at all, and sent a hybrid to stop him. This was a new kind, less glowy-psychic and more stompy-teeth-and-claws, but still scary as heck. Without those ultralisks it might have gotten hairy, but Stukov was able to finish demolishing the temple before turning around to help demolish the hybrid too.





That bought Sarah a little bit of time, but Narud was still winning. Stukov took a larger escort with him on the way to the second temple, which was good foresight on his part. This time, the Tal'darim warped in a bunch of their dumb fanatic warriors to help the hybrid.



He got smart for the third temple, and set his troops out to ambush the Tal'darim as they were trying to warp in.



Two hybrids showed up this time, but without their Protoss minions to help they were badly outnumbered and pretty easily killed.



One particular floating crystal stood out from all the other pylons. It looked older, at least, and the Tal'darim were really hot to keep it in one piece. So I think Stukov smashed it simply out of spite.



Another one just like it got reinforcements brought in, but not in time to save it. Stukov was doing that weird lung-choking raspy laugh he has, clearly enjoying himself as he obliterated million-year-old artifacts.



That pissed off the Tal'darim something fierce, mostly surprising me that they could get any angrier than they already were. A whole mess of archons and carriers went for Stukov's head, for all the good that it did them.



At the fourth temple, he didn't even wait for the Hybrid to arrive and sent his horde out to meet it halfway. Sarah's purple laser was pushing Narud's back hard, almost halfway between them now.



There was only one temple left for him to draw power out of, and he'd send everything he had left at Stukov to stop him. But the Swarm was ready and waiting.





Three hybrids led a charge of Tal'darim soldiers, but the Zerg just drowned them in bodies like they always do. The hybrids made for good meat walls, but thats all they could do and Ultralisks were almost as good at the job.







The tides changed now, with Sarah's purple laser pushing the null zone back hard until it collided with Narud. There was a big flashy explosion, and when it faded he was gone.



Not dead though. Sarah could feel him inside the big temple ahead – weakened but alive, and vulnerable. She went in alone to find him, while Stukov cleaned up the rest of the Protoss. With no way to keep watching her directly, I went for the next best thing. A nydus worm was burrowed down below the caverns, and for a giant blind worm its senses were amazingly sharp. I'd figured out how to tap a Zerg's ability to sense vibrations, but for most it was sort of fuzzy and blurry on the surface. Nydus worms were sensitive enough to be like having eyes (if everything was in black and white) and could even “see” sound.

Sarah was alone – then suddenly she wasn't. The fight was over surprisingly fast. Narud tried a few different faces to mess with her, cause evil shapeshifter. Stealing Mr Raynor's face just pissed Sarah off, but stealing her own face from before she got Zerged worked better. It ended with Real Sarah curled around a huge gut wound and Narud/Sarah impaled a few dozen times by wing-blades. The poor nydus worm got used as a surfboard in the process and blown apart, though. The last thing I caught before the mangled worm finally died was Evil Sarah's last words.

“You've already...lost. Amon...lives. You will...see him soon...”

That was probably bad. Like, epic bad. Apocalyptic bad. But evil alien gods coming back from the dead was also way above my cosmic pay grade. A bottle from the secret floor stash and some TV would go a long way towards numbing the shock, until I flipped past a channel and saw Kate's face in the overlay graphic.

Terrorist cell uncovered in UNN!
”More details emerged today about the recent raid by Dominion Security on the UNN studio building. Former lead anchor Katherine Lockwell and several other senior staff members were arrested and sent to New Folsom Prison for resocialization, on treason charges related to last year's slanderous broadcasts of alleged 'crimes' committed by the Emperor prior to his ascension. No official statement has been made, but sources off the record name Lockwell as the mastermind of this sleeper cell for Raynor's Raiders based on images captured by an undercover agent within the terrorist organization. While the agent's identity remains classified, they positively identified her as, quote, “that damn fool reporter woman”...”

I'm not sure what came after that, or where the rest of the bottle's contents ended up.

And one of the increasingly few chances to VOTE, this time for a mutation on our new Ultralisks.

1) Burrow Charge: Ultralisks can charge past obstacles, stuns nearby enemies on impact.
2) Tissue Assimilation: Ultralisks heal for 40% of primary damage dealt.
3) Monarch Blades: Ultralisks deal +20 splash damage with melee attacks.

[Traab]

Monarch blades. Aoe damage is good damage.

Nice update, i like how nora is helping kerrigan not go totally zerg. And the temple mission is a fun one. I love having to take and hold objectives. The one thing I didnt like, iirc, is that you cant wipe out the taldarim in this one. No matter what you do they either keep spawning in or the base recovers somehow. It was a major pain just to break into their main bases and to find that it didnt really accomplish anything sucked. I liked that one terrazine gas level where if you killed the protoss completely you auto won the mission.

[Keltest]

Im a big fan of Tissue Assimilation myself. The only thing left to fight with them is terrans, which means theyre going to be taking a lot of high DPS fire. More survivability means theyre better at their jobs.

[noob]

Im a big fan of Tissue Assimilation myself. The only thing left to fight with them is terrans, which means theyre going to be taking a lot of high DPS fire. More survivability means theyre better at their jobs.

Reaching the target earlier also helps at killing it and so at surviving.

[The Glyphstone]

Reaching the target earlier also helps at killing it and so at surviving.

Ultralisks normally have pretty terrible DPS for their size and cost, as I understand it. Their job is to tank incoming fire for the squishier stuff behind them.

[Keltest]

Ultralisks normally have pretty terrible DPS for their size and cost, as I understand it. Their job is to tank incoming fire for the squishier stuff behind them.

In the specific circumstance of fighting marines and (for one mission) zealots, theyre pretty good lawnmowers. Otherwise yes, you want to treat them as fat zerglings that last more than one fight. You want enough to hold a front line, and then stop making them.

Once on Korhal, when you can actually choose an evolution for them, one of the options is the Noxious strain, which actually does give them some decent damage, but theyre still no substitute for muta/brood lord or just a bunch of hydralisks, in part because they are very fat. They just dont scale well as DPS units.

[Techwarrior]

Ya, honestly even with splash damage they just don't do enough. Healing from damage from me. Loved the Abathur update too, that was humorous.

[Psyren]

I do Torrasque strain because I use them as others have said, as tanks for pushing into fortified bases. They soak fire from the static defenses and enemy front line, allowing the 'lisks and 'lings to mop up. Torrasque effectively doubles their health making them even better for that role. (Plus I find the name to just be metal as hell.)

[The Glyphstone]

I'm counting noob for Burrow Charge and Psyren for Tissue Assimilation then, based on context?

[Thomas Cardew]

My vote's for Burrowing Charge and Torrasque when you get there. Stuns are fantastic and the charge really helps with ultralisk pathing, getting them out of your blob and into the enemy where they should be tanking.

[Psyren]

I'm counting noob for Burrow Charge and Psyren for Tissue Assimilation then, based on context?

Oh, I was speaking more generally rather than that specific choice.

Uhh, if you're not that confident in your micro-ability I would probably go Burrow so you can reposition them more easily, but personally I think it's not too hard to just subselect them all and move them to the front line of your deathball before a big push. Generally you don't need to move them around during a fight more than that. So yeah, put me down for the life leech. Keeping them alive is paramount given the cost and time to make more.

[Morgaln]

I think all of the upgrades are viable,but I'll vote for Tissue Assimilation. With something as expensive as an Ultra, you want it to survive as long as possible.

[Artanis]

I'm going to vote for Burrow Charge. Ultralisks' job is to get in close and then not die, and the lifeleech doesn't help if they're stuck on terrain or your other troops.

[The Glyphstone]

That's 4 for Tissue Assimilation and 3 for Burrow Charge so far, with 1 for Monarch Blades. Looks like this might be our first competitive vote since the Hydralisk mutation.

[Iruka]

That's 4 for Tissue Assimilation and 3 for Burrow Charge so far, with 1 for Monarch Blades. Looks like this might be our first competitive vote since the Hydralisk mutation.

Make that 4 for Burrow Charge. If I recall the other choices correctly, this means half your army jumps forward on enemy contact.

[Psyren]

If Ultras are getting stuck on terrain then chances are you made too many. Generally I go for between 4-8 ultras depending on the map and ramp sizes, with the bulk of the army made up of broodlords + hydras/mutas depending on the enemy comp.