Recently bought Stukov and I know he had some nerfs to his bunkers not too long ago.
Are they still preferable over massing barracks, or do people use a mix of both for optimal play?
From what I’ve played around with so far the rax feel more like a burst option and the bunkers for keeping a healthy defensive/flow/tank line.
His AA seems kind of weak but haven’t played around with starports much yet.
Bunkers can go alone but I personally like Barracks. Just time your Marines with your Civilians and move the Barracks and Compound up so you get the max out of their timed life.
Infested Diamondbacks are also a fun build with some Pseudo anti-air to it. Give it a try.
Personally I just use the compound with a Barracks or two for emergency power. Pair that up with the afore mentioned Diamondbacks, or air force, for a good time.
Just remember to keep moving the compounds and barracks/bunkerlisks closer to the front lines and you don’t need all that large an amount to crush Amon.
Always Bunkers if you’re just going for Infested Marines. Maybe you can think about additional Barracks once you hit 170+ supply.
Sadly Stukov’s AA is kinda weak unless you are running mass Diamondbacks. Dealing with bonus objectives like the elementals or the pirates, I would rather have my ally deal with it as it would potentially take too long to deal with as Stukov.
As for the infested marine production preference, it really depends on the mission and the enemy comp. Sky Terran, Swarm Zerg, and Robo Toss are comps you should not fight against with just bio as they are easily capable of shredding your army within seconds. The attack waves on Scythe of Amon and Void Launch can be especially bad due to the large escort squads of hybrid dominators that can nuke all of your troopers within seconds as well. When fighting those comps, I would recommend going at least half and half with troopers and Diamondbacks, using the troopers to distract the AoE hitters so they don’t take out your more expensive units. You can throw some siege tanks in the mix as long as you are careful not to let them get killed, they are expensive and time-consuming to replace.
I like to support my infested army with queens. You have the gas to spare if you go infantry, and since the Stukov patch they are extremely good. 8-10 queens with rapid fire key bindings can instantly kill any of those bonus objectives.
You have the potential to do 600 instant damage per full energy queen on any unit.
Stukov’s AA is super good if said air units run into blobs of infested marines.
Just need to have enough marines.
I’d typically use bunkers for free range units, with a barracks or two to supplement them.
Played a lot of Stukov recently.
Takes a while to tech up but queens are worth it if you want to deal with tough enemies without using mech, also offensive detection.
Bunkers are still worth making but at this point you’re better off using some of them uprooted, serving as tanks for your marines.
Still, it is worth having Stukov imo, plays a lot differently from your standard races, although he’s very vulnerable to mutations, I really don’t think he’s viable on Brutal+.
It depends on map.
Stukov is a defensive god. Between bunkers, multiple sources of detection and anti air and the ability to quickly reinforce positions, he can hold multiple zones at once.
His weakness is offense. He simply does not have the muscle to push into high density zones with lots of splash damage if his cooldowns are down.
Yes! I feel like a lot of people weirdly overlook that. Root your Infested Bunkers, set up your Infested Siege Tanks and profit.
Can he hit Broodlord with just Bunker? If not, then he is inferior to Mengsk in that defense aspect.
Just waltz your Bunkers forth, brother.
No - but he doesn’t need to. The bunkers kill broodlings as soon as they spawn and with regen+armor they can tank a broodlord indefinitely.
Infested marines are also incredible on defense. They are only weak on offense as it’s hard for them to get a massy surface area.
The only time Stukov gets owned on defense is damage reflect mutators or Reavers.
You know you can still micro them right?
that would be a bad mindset. There is a mutator that evo enemy unit everytime they strike. Letting any unit hitting your bunker indefinitely is definitely a bad move as those free unit will lv up into something that your bunker cannot handle.
Carrier, broodlord, swarmhost while not threatening to your bunker will still spawn infinite Hybrid if you keep it up.
Bunkers are really clunky to micro. Their large size, slow speed and derpy ai makes them sort of suck unburrowed.
If I’m facing oodles of air units, Liberators are rock solid against them. If I’m facing lots of reavers, tanks help.
If I’m facing damage reflect…I restart the mission.
Well…sure. I’ve already mentioned that Stukov can be hard countered by certain mutators. Another particularly impossible combination is infested spawning+damage reflect.
Feel like Stukov is an inferior version of Strettman Infestor.