6 Reasons why you should hate Death Grip Crystals (+1 fact)

Death Grip Crystals are extremely dangerous “unit” spawned from Scythe of Amon but fortunately it is found exclusively in Scythe of Amon.
Here are 6 + 1 reasons why you really need to be careful around them.

1. As you know once it grabs any non-heroic unit it stuns then kills it instantly in 10 second unless you destroy the crystal (Even 1500 HP Tyrannozor).

2. Revival abilities like Torrasque reincarnation and also Guardian Shields are rendered useless.

3. The max range is 20 which is even longer than Stukov’s Infested Tank’s 18 range.

4. If the DGC grabs you outside your vision you won’t see the beam where it comes from, it’s especially deadly in Short-sightedness mutator where your vision is heavy restricted (Courtesy of Fluffy Maguro).

5. The amount they could grab depends on combined worth of 800 HP. For example they could grab 18 Marines (45 HP). So potentially a lot.

6. They can be spawned without limits as time goes on.

1. (or 7.) Since they are “units”, they can provide mutation effects like Moment of Silence (it’s a heroic) or Black Death mutator. But fortunately it is susceptible from abilities like Mindblast/Snipe/Broodling etc.

HF

5 Likes

I’m surprised to see many who still don’t know this. Granted, if you can plow through 41,500 of shp (shield + hp) quickly enough, it won’t affect you, but many situations, that won’t happen so you have to play the “longer game”. They try to take on the last Sliver, only to have their forces all wiped out. If there’s plenty of time, then you can muster up another force. However, you’re better off just taking out the DGC first, and again as they respawn. Not unlike defending your bases if the game will still go on.

For Karax, DGC don’t have Armored, so you’ll need 10 OS shots to take one out (250sh +250 hp), or Solar Lance them if they’re close by. Not efficient, but it’s a nice panic button in case all of your and your ally’s units are deposed.

I have one reason for hating them:

  1. They exist.
3 Likes

I knew these annoying crystals exist but the objective kinda dies before they become a huge problem.

perhaps playing with various mutators makes the crystals a much greater threat than they are in standard brutal.

After getting half my army destroyed as Nova by a couple of deathgrips, they are now public enemy number 1 next to elementals. I’m glad blizz didn’t make a weekly mutation where they would randomly spawn throughout the map.

Does this refer to Nova snipe or SpecOps Ghost triple tap snipe?

Nova Snipe. Nova snipe kills a DGC in 2 snipes if you have at least 15 points invested in Primary Ability Damage.

Triple Tap requires biological tag which DGC doesn’t have.

1 Like

This said, I believe Nova Ghosts are still worth it anyways b/c even if the comp isn’t T or P, you’ll still find some BL and Ultras at bases. And you’ll definitely get various hybrids to deal with.

Oh yes, I always have at least a pair as the EMP effectively disarms Hybrid Dominators. Most other casters die too fast or there is better micro to be doing (targeting Goliath’s to attack BCs or Sniping with Nova).

The only way to destroy the DGCs is to focus fire on it.

Had a few games today where Nova’s Snipe or a dominated BCs Yamato seemed to not do any damage to the DGC. What gives?

Interesting, is Yamato blocked by PDD? Maybe a replay to check. I’m not aware of a bug related to this, though it’s quite possible there is one.

I don’t recall any PDDs in Scythe of Amon? But I’m fairly certain Yamato is blocked by PDD, based on my experience with “Power Overwhelming” :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

Some spells are blocked by PDDs, some aren’t (like, for example, Tempest’s Disintegrate isn’t, but Ascendant’s Psionic Orb is). The PDD must have an exception list of which projectiles it can target, or each projectile has a flag that can be set to ignore the PDD.

Since Tempest’s Disintegrate was meant to be in LotV ladder, i’m fairly certain it was specifically made to be ignored by PDDs. Which means that, unless there was an oversight, all other spells on ladder should be ignored too (and that includes the “basic” BC variant that Raynor is supposed to have). But everything added after, or added to the campaign/coop, is unlikely to get included into the ignore list, and will get shot down.

Oh I guess I should clarify this was the Hyperion’s Yamato. No idea if normal BCs are exempted.