Co-Op Mutation #271: Shields Up!

A spacetime anomaly has enveloped Kaldir. Kinetic energy is diffused in all directions, and pockets of temporal and spatial irregularity litter the battlefield. Fight through them and take down the shuttles.

Diffusion - Damage dealt to enemies is split evenly across all nearby units, including your own.
Mineral Shields - Mineral clusters at player bases are periodically encased in a shield which must be destroyed for gathering to continue.
Shortsighted - Player units and structures have reduced vision range.

Rating:

Video Replays on Brutal difficulty:

Player 1                                   Player 2
[CtG Primal Pack Leader] Ancalagon Templar Apparent
[CtG Shadow of Death] [Punisher Lord of the Horde]
[CtG Chaotic Power Couple] Aommaster Rebel Raider
[CtG Merchant of Death] 통조림 Signal Savant

[Reddit Post Link]

Notes:

  • Diffusion affects units within 5 range of the enemy damaged.
  • Mineral shields are 50 health structures. A minimap ping indicates their arrival. If not destroyed they last a very long time then they disappear on their own.
  • Player units and static defense DO NOT autotarget Mineral Shields.
  • Mineral Shields can activate on any mineral patch within 15 distance away from a Command Center/Hatchery/Nexus or any variant thereof.
  • Raynor’s scanner sweep is unaffected by short-sighted and allows players to shoot enemies from a sufficient distance to avoid damage.
  • Melee units will still attack even without vision.
  • It seems that calldown weapons are immune from Diffusion.
  • Diffusion spreads damage from the mineral shields to your workers.

Commander of the Week: Commander of the week [Shields Up!] - Online Poll - StrawPoll.com
Mutation difficulty: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUE03WFZfPAz00OE5kIixYw/community?lb=Ugwk2tZYeATkUKjtA5d4AaABCQ
Do you like this mutation? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUE03WFZfPAz00OE5kIixYw/community?lb=UgzLBtlZw7VcM_RMQJN4AaABCQ

Commander of the Week winner of last week:

Links:
Weekly Mutation Database
Maguro’s Mutation List
starcraft2coop.com

5 Likes

36,105 … this week 3rd…

this week 1st clear Karax P3+Alarak P3

Mutation(Shield Up!) play list

1 Like

#36 Shields Up! – SOLO ALL CLEAR

Mutators: Diffusion, Mineral Shields, Shortsighted

Not difficult, but very annoying. Shortsighted + diffusion means your ranged units might hurt themselves when they get close to attack. Mineral shields + diffusion means you hurt yourself (only if you’re terran). For this mutation, the hybrids you get actually matter. Getting hybrid destroyers is better than getting hybrid reavers. Hybrid reavers have more HP and they are melee, so you’re more likely to get hit by diffusion. Behemoth vs dominator: this one doesn’t matter as much, but I think fighting dominators is a bit better (same reason as above).

Tips:

Build static D and hotkey them to deal with mineral shields.

Leave an idle SCV in each mineral line to repair your hurt buddies (zerg and protoss will regen quickly, so these commanders don’t need to worry about their workers).

Build lots of static D and/or fat buildings (like a nexus) at the warp conduits to get vision of the shuttles so your units can also attack from afar.

For the last wave, just snipe shuttles; fighting a 7,7 wave is really difficult, especially with diffusion and shortsighted.

Successes [and key points]

Raynor (p3) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Raynor Solo (p3) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass BCs, lots of orbitals for scan]

Kerrigan (p3) [Commentary] Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Kerrigan Solo (p3) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass spores]

Artanis (p0) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Artanis Solo (p0) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass dragoons, put nexus in front of conduits for vision]

Swann (p2) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Swann Solo (p2) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass turrets]

Zagara (p3) [Commentary] Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Zagara Solo (p3) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass spores and bile launchers]

Vorazun (p3) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Vorazun Solo (p3) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass corsairs, put nexus in front of conduits for vision]

Karax (p1) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Karax Solo (p1) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass cannons]

Abathur (p0) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Abathur Solo (p0) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass devourers]

Alarak (p2) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Alarak Solo (p2) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass ascendants, put nexus in front of conduits for overcharge]

Nova (p1) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Nova Solo (p1) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [the usual air army, put raven turrets in the path of the shuttles]

Stukov (p0) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Stukov Solo (p0) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass bunkers, 30 points of infested structure cooldown]

Fenix (p1) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Fenix Solo (p1) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass adepts + a few carriers, put nexus in front of conduits for vision]

Dehaka (p2) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Dehaka Solo (p2) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass creeper hosts]

HH (p2) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Han and Horner Solo (p2) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass BCs, use strike platforms in front of shuttles for vision]

Tychus (p0) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Tychus Solo (p0) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [sirius → nikara → sam → none]

Zeratul (p2) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Zeratul Solo (p2) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass ambushers, obs give lots of vision]

Stetmann (p2) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Stetmann Solo (p2) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [mass hydras, put extra stetellites in the path of the shuttles for vision]

Mengsk (p2) Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation #36: Shields Up! - Mengsk Solo (p2) [=Brutal+1] - YouTube [“mass” BCs (4-6), use ESOs for vision]

Easiest: Stetmann, Dehaka

Proudest: Zagara

Questions about any of these runs are welcome.

7 Likes

It’s easy and painless if you just go Karax P3 and Swann P1. There really should be nothing that bothers you at all. No hassle but boring waits.

1 Like

Does diffusion damage static defenses and structures?

!st clear. Stukov P3 and Zagara P1.

I went Fenix P3, because blind units that kill each other while fighting? I demand a refund! And I get it when they die with P3.
May work better on paper than in reality, but whatever.

Did it in Normal, though my ally brought Hard to the game.
I wish that Swann had made more static defenses, would have worked sooo much better.

Hurt a lot of my probes that started harvesting before I cleared the rocks (so they took damage while I was hitting the rocks…why are the rocks counting as enemies in that case? :weary:)
Also miscalculated photon cannons positions, so I had to clear 1 mineral shield with a probe (didn’t take that long, but still attention grabbing).

And of course, mega-lag in some encounters with hybrids. But that may be the summer?

1 Like

Skipping this week. Shortsighted isn’t a very interesting Mutator to play against.

nice job :+1:

The solo with raynor was pretty straight forward. Build BCs for Shuttles and Hyperion for enemy waves.

Similar to Raynor, for Swann your statics handles the shuttle / wave and CDs for waves.

this was an annoying one… did it with raynor p0 and stukov p3 ally. will prolly not be doing additional runs of this mutation.

P1 Alarak(EU) and P2 Vorazun(US; had to try it sometime)

Did it as Karax p1. It was fun looking my probes and energizers die when a unit came a bit close. Tychus managed to get the objectives and base pushing, but I didnt bother and just made a trillion of cannons.

Beat it first try with Tychus P3 and Stukov P3. Got the bonus as well. Discovered an interesting synergy with that too. Getting both Nikara and Rattlenake with upgrades and then using their abilities on zombie horde makes Stukov’s zombies very broken.

1 Like

Easy as Zera P0 with Swann ally, full Immortals and Sentries with observers here and there

Then play as someone who ignores it altogether. Like Stetmann.

Done as Raynor P3 with a P3 Dehaka from my friend list. Was messy at times, but we managed to pull through, including bonus.

Having to save energy for scans was … refreshing, but it slowed down my Starport production. Should’ve just went for Alarak with Ascendant Psionic Orbs, which don’t really care about Diffusion. Still, was interesting to play a Brutation as Raynor. Haven’t done that in a long time.

1 Like

It isn’t a thing of unfun, it just isn’t interesting. I don’t need the bounty, and I’d rather play against something fun and challenging.

how does stetmann ignore shortsighted? the vision of his stetalites are also affected by the mutator fyi.

karax p1 is easy mode this week though, he definitely shines here.

Yeah but if you have enough of them, it’s still better than no vision at all or getting vision from your own short-sighted units. Free vision is free vision, ya know?

you place a bunch of stetellites at the areas where you want vision, for example, at the enemy spawn point, and that gives a good enough vision, I wouldn’t say he ignores it but in a defensive map such as vl it’s easy to set up.