Co-Op Mutation #344: Infection Detected

Co-op Missions Discussion
1

When the Taldarim AI took over the purifier facility, it shut down the defensive matrix keeping out the insectoid infestation from the surface below. Now they march toward your forces. Be careful when shooting them down as they have acidic blood that can damage even armored troops.

Outbreak - Enemy Infested Terrans spawn continuously around the map.
Alien Incubation - All enemy units spawn Broodlings upon death.
Self Destruction - Enemy units explode and deal damage to friendly player units upon death.

Rating:

Video Replays on Brutal difficulty:

Player 1                                   Player 2
[CtG Templar Apparent] Kerisband Grease Monkey
[CtG Frightful Fleshwelder] [Nostrebor Tyrant Ascendant]
[CtG Wing Commanders] [Twotuuu Valorous Inspirator]
[CtG Best Buddy] Yellowstone Evolution Master

[ [Reddit Post Link]](Will add later)

Notes:

  • Outbreak spawns Infested Terrans, Infested Medics, Infested Marines later, and later Aberrations from any enemy building.
  • The first set of Infested Terrans arrive around 2:30 into the game.
  • Aberrations spawn starting 20 minutes. These are tough to hold continuously.
  • The number of broodlings spawned depends on the supply count of the unit killed.
  • Buildings do not spawn broodlings when killed.
  • Units that get killed leave small red circles where self-destruction explodes after two seconds.
  • The number of circles depends on the supply count of the unit killed.
  • Infested and Broodlings also self-destruct.

Commander of the Week: Commander of the week [Infection Detected] - Online Poll - StrawPoll.com
Mutation difficulty: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxPI7A1WQm74GiD8B5S84zH2cs0EWdfDe-
Do you like this mutation? https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx0gUHU8YfWYs8-R9w9JawMFTCtv7kmTgA

Commander of the Week winner of last week:

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

2 Likes
2

Mutation overlap 158 this week 2nd

1st clear Mengsk P3+Nova P1

Mutation (Infection Detected) play list

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#158 Infection Detected – SOLO ALL CLEAR

Mutators: Outbreak, Self-Destruction, Alien Incubation

A surprisingly difficult mutation. Outbreak will always be active because the map can’t be full-cleared, so prepare your aberration defenses. Fortunately, broodlings don’t spawn from the infested; they only spawn from Amon’s units. Melee units will have a bad time because there will be lots of explosions, especially against zerg. Keep air units (and lurkers) away from the path broodlings will take.

Beware of aberrations attacking Aurana when she is moving from the fourth to the fifth terminal. Try to clear that area (or parts of it) ahead of time.

Successes [and key points]

Breeze (easy)

Abathur (p2) #158: Infection Detected - Abathur Solo (p2) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [once you get 8 swarmhosts, things will be very easy]

Dehaka (p2) #158: Infection Detected - Dehaka Solo (p2) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [mutas and guardians]

HH (p2) #158: Infection Detected - Han and Horner Solo (p2) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [one try, but probably because the enemy comp was weak]

Karax (p3) #158: Infection Detected - Karax Solo (p3) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [carriers push; defend with groups of cannons]

Kerrigan (p2) #158: Infection Detected - Kerrigan Solo (p2) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [lurkers and ultras]

Mengsk (p3) #158: Infection Detected - Mengsk Solo (p3) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [3-4 full bunkers to defend against the infested]

Nova (p1) #158: Infection Detected - Nova Solo (p1) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [the usual]

Stetmann (p2) #158: Infection Detected - Stetmann Solo (p2) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [the usual]

Stukov (p3) #158: Infection Detected - Stukov Solo (p3) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [the usual]

Tychus (p2) #158: Infection Detected - Tychus Solo (p2) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [the usual]

Zeratul (p2) #158: Infection Detected - Zeratul Solo (p2) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [the usual]

Challenge (medium)

Alarak (p3) #158: Infection Detected - Alarak Solo (p3) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [keep moving to avoid explosions]

Fenix (p2) #158: Infection Detected - Fenix Solo (p2) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [robo and stargate shells at home; teleport when needed]

Torture (difficult)

Artanis (p3) #158: Infection Detected - Artanis Solo (p3) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [dragoon templar]

Raynor (p1) [Commentary] #158: Infection Detected - Raynor Solo (p1) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [tanks with p1?]

Swann (p0) #158: Infection Detected - Swann Solo (p0) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [calldowns clear areas, defend with tanks and turrets]

Vorazun (p3) [Commentary] #158: Infection Detected - Vorazun Solo (p3) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [mass voidrays with good cloak walls]

Zagara (p3) [Commentary] #158: Infection Detected - Zagara Solo (p3) [Starcraft 2 Co-op Mutation] - YouTube [bile launchers in the middle]

Questions about any of these runs are welcome.

4

I would recommend using :heart: Karax P2 :heart: and spam immortals. Constantly A-moving them so that they can deal with infested along the way is they key. Shadow cannoning down the stupid towers is also important :thinking:

This mutation was surprisingly tough.

I think that Malwarfare is already one of the hardest missions that puts day one Cradle of Death to shame when it comes to the amount of bullshŃ–t coming your way at all times, so when you add some modifiers it becomes insane. :face_vomiting: :face_vomiting: :face_vomiting:

1 Like
5

Tip: Don’t clear the buildings in the final base since they increase the likelihood of abs spawning there rather than closer to your base.

6

Seems pretty straight forward I might just go random this week.

7

I did this with Mengsk with a Kerrigan ally. Turned out to be a lot harder than I gave it credit for. Zerglings + Self Destruct + Broodlings is pretty nightmarish for Mengsk’s armies.

8

We did it with Swann P3 (Payload Director) & Vanilla Alarak level 13 that needed the XP boost. We were up against a skytoss-carrier composition. At first we thought it would be very hard since tanks can’t shoot up… but with the laser uprades it can be surprising how fast oracles, voidrays and carriers melt, especially when you also cast destruction waves against them and support it with wrathwalkers and slayers.

The beginning felt like a breeze but the end was surprisingly hard because we couldn’t clear all the buildings in time, meaning aberrations kept spawning and my slayers and wrathwalkers kept dwindling down due to too many broodlings. All in all it was a decent challenge on a fun map to play. I think +2 might be rated a bit low but I can see with different commanders how it can be way easier.

9

One of the harder B+2 due to the way the mutators and map combo, especially if you’re playing some commanders.

10

This mutation is ideal for Alarak P2 or P3 or Raynor P3 when the enemy has Classic Mech/Infantry, Raiding Party, Invasionary Swarm, Devouring Scourge, Vanguard of Aiur, Towering Walkers, and Masters and Machines.

11

Ditto. Thought this one sounded like a fun unit mutator.

Checked the minimap and rolled into mass zergling + baneling mutalisks with this mutator that made the map likely a raging burning hellhole vs a lower quantity protoss /terran comp.

You’re able to micro to dodge the fire spots and they seem to target around enemy death so i was able to keep revitalizers mostly up as long as i could before a swarm while assigning blaze and p3 odin his own seperate keybind in order to enable better split pushing as well as precise armie control and reliable chainfire oil fire spreading without f2a move clipping behavior.

My ally was helping decently well but still kinda semi passive, they were a p3 stukov that was kinda offline the first 10 minutes of the game so i realized i made a blunder when i used my first nade and realized tychus just faces a lot of dicey scenarios if he gets surrounded by resurrecting double lings/broodlings and my ally let the first group die.

Thankfully i could rebuild and by the third outlaw set up chainfires blaze to cover the 2nd wave clear and sirius to aoe disrupt and suicide turret, both distracting them with fear and also diverting them. However his units seemed just to be a moving or beacon moving. He let them die to the fire in masse and he wasn’t exactly pushing the first 10 minutes but the beacon gameplay seemed to counter trickles of undead.

Often times the fires of a swarmling + broodling + fire comp was getting ridicolously high.

Enough to the point a 1000 hp cannonball would see like damn near what felt like 140 eruptions and attempt to dodge and still just get hit by like 20% of them and lose 300-500+ health in a single clip.

They only seemed to deal like 10-20 dmg to a revitalizer so you could semi keep them up, But a microed to avoid dying nikara for revitalizer destroying mutators can always be considered if the lack of dps doesn’t lead to early deaths.

Might also be worth rushing medivacs asap as well in swarmling scenarios since the combination of this mutator + fast suicide mutator zergling broodling units could easily swarm and pin, and often times it was needed to single medivac or double medivac just to dodge a certain death pin.

I think we beat it, ended up being like a 2500 kills from me and 1500 kills from my p3 stukov beacon ally so not the best but pretty handy. Last week for trains i got someone who played a turtle swann who didn’t really help with the waves and only built like 5 turrets on each path. I was basically stuck brawling and it was something like a 1500 Kill : 400 Kill gap, but they covered the trains since Just a lot of the kit was clogged up.

In retrospect p1 tych over p3 tych probably would have been far more suited here for handling the second waves. My reasoning was that the odin could help divert and distract second sitatuations (and it did), but i always felt like p1 just didn’t seem to fit my jam since i rarely needed to use cds a second time in a normal fight.

But here i often found myself wishing i had more revitalizers, chainfires, and 7-9s vs 20s grenades more than i cared about having the odin as a 6th outlaw.

It was useful for tanking and buying time. But i often found it just got cluttered and surrounded by zerglings/broodlings and basically zerg rushed and bombed.

It wasn’t being useless, but the shift to faster grenades and medivac evacs from p1 probably would have contributed more to this mutator in retrospect. Regardless, another brutation first try, but not a painless one. On a weaker/leveling commander i would probably heavily consider not subjecting a random ally to a weaker game, as others mention, this one can easily give even strong or solid commanders 700 dmg aoes a run for the money.

Or at least, be wary if you roll mass zergling with a mass fire suicide comp. If you roll Toss or ranged terran on this mutator, it’ll likely be a easier time than a mass suicide melee zerg comp since the fires were stacking to damn near 300-700 dmg entire revitalizer range sized firebomb combos whenever what felt like 400 zerglings every 20 seconds died.

12

2 losses so far with Alarak P1:

  • Broodling Corruption: this might have been fine if my ally had been a little better or I was playing a different commander that could push multiple fronts. Unfortunately, a P3 Karax late expand wasn’t going to cut it (I even cleared their expo with my second Overcharge). We lost at the second lock and all they had built unit wise was Zealots (Colossi would have made all the difference vs the Zerglings which were the main problem).
  • Explosive Threats: was doing fine until I glanced away while at second lock to build some additional gateways and lost all tech units. Was playing catch up after that and didn’t have the critical mass to protect WWs and didn’t make the switch to Vanguards or Slayers fast enough. Despite this we made it to within seconds of completion.

Would be jokingly easy as Tychus P2 but maybe getting some Alarak practise is good just have to stay on top of it.

13

Individually the mutators are quite easy to deal with, but when put together, I find the randomly spawned infested terran to be very annoying to deal with.

I tried to use Kerrigan, and while Kerrigan herself with a small army can deal with pushing ahead no problems, but I struggle to simontaneously pay attention to the back of my base when infested terrans show up

I am getting old… so being pressured to push ahead of the transport under a tight time line while sending units to defend the base against infested terran just doesn’t work very well for me… I also tried to upgrade to lurker for defense while kerrigan pushes ahead… but again my attention span is only so short and I find it hard to get things organized

14

Time to bust out P3 Stukov again.

15

Got this as P2 Abathur eith a P3 Dehaka ally that I met in a B+1 game.

Very straight forward though got a zergling comp again so it was necessary to micro back Ults to avoid at least some of the explosions.

Game felt pretty much over when I added a good number of Hosts. Added 6 or so Devourers towards to the end to deal with the air units and to stack damage on the towers.

16

I feel like some of the 400 mass zergling comps can add their own grief to the mutators like these.

I was watching a protoss run and noticed the player was clearly talented but there seemed to be a fair bit of much easier to avoid damage when the unit quanities are 6x lower or a toss comp for mechanical reasons. Our match up was pretty much just a zerg swarm where the masses of zerglings + broodling double swarms was so board swarming you often needed 2-3x clears of a blaze nade chainfire medivac hop just to avoid 300-700 dmg map filling fires.

They’d just swarm you and trap your commander in the fire while the toss comp.

It looked like it might have well been any revive toss comp. Still a remarkable achievement but looked like if someone was going for a tamer run, choosing to roll against ranged or flying comps non zergling enemy comps to play that can’t trap and suicide kamikaze your units could tame the mutation.

The importance of being able to dodge vs a swarmy build that can pin you and spawn mass broodlings and fires on death can seem to feel like a major one. While toss comps seem like they’d be much tamer by comparison.

Anyone else ever feel like on death mutators like chain attraction stunlocks against lings vs a couple void rays/terran always feels a lot tamer?

I feel like a lot of on death mutations can really seem to be detrimentally a lot worse on swarm comps. Avenges, fear, suicide bombings, broodlings, fire, etc.

Maybe concussion doesn’t benefit small units much more than large ones. But it seems like if you run into a swarm comp on some of these this week.

You might want to be prepared for 200-400 fires and 2-3x ling/broodlings/undead/lings waves if you roll them. Its good that you can see if you roll zerg on the terain minimap just by clicking the second down button. so if someone was trying to level a sub 15 commander (as ive seen a couple in chat. )

I’d probably either roll a lighter comp or a better week in a random que unless both were in line. This one wasn’t the worst but i wouldn’t say it couldn’t be no push over.

I felt like i had to do lots of microing and chainfires as well as a seperate keys to micro the outlaws while it felt like my partner just set a beacon the entire game and watched his auto moving army sit and become barbequed at 10-30 apm vs 120-210 apm micro. At least the trickle was pretty good for killing the undead.

But it felt like i had to be super aware of all my cooldowns every second and recharge while pushing the clock as his units just died over and over, unmicroed in a dying afk auto rallying blob being lit on fire to the tune of 10 apm popcorn.

At least the suiciding army was infinite at least. It’s always great to be able to handle stuff with two solid allies or be able to pick up enough slack with another.

A good ally can entirely make or break a tough but beatable map. While a afk or underleveled one at the wrong time can just spell a gruesome or stressful end sometimes. Glad to see everyone taking a whack at it! At least it isn’t another fatal attraction polarity concussion computer crash brutation this week with stukov + stetmans lag x5000 lol

17

So I think I got confused with Self Destruction and Scored Earth mutators… seems that self-destruction DOES hurt air units… “lost a lot of guy out there” (wraits :cry: ) to that!!

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18

Yup they can hurt very quickly, the broodling swarms and infested swarms can make good work of that. Roll the right comp and you might only have like 6 to dodge.

It feels like they mostly either seemed to spawn where the units seem to die or home in spread out to your units. Killing a wave and dipping back to dodge can be very nice, but enemy zerglings can be very adept at surrounding and kamikazing while also easily blocking your path like a suicide surrounding unit, making zerglings even more potentially deadly like a rapid dps glass cannon that turns into a baneling artillery squad and drops another suicide broodling on top of you.

If you roll a Amon air comp though it seems like it’d be easier to dodge since the air units might hit harder, but they can’t box you in, making it easier to dodge stuff. But yeah, not the best mutation to take for granted.

19

Yes I agree that zergling comps are harder which is why it took me 3 tries (I got a zergling comp EVERY SINGLE TIME). However, the explosions and spawned broodlings are based on supply so the extra risk of zergling comps is from the “minimum 1 mechanic” where zerglings take 1/2 a supply (resulting in twice the broodlings and twice the explosions and then those doubled up broodlings produce explosions themselves).

The easy vs hard comps are ranged vs melee units. Rather than looking for a protoss comp which usually includes Zealots instead go for a terran comp as they are mostly ranged units and fight it with ranged units.

20

Oh yeah, wanted to be a one and done but curiosity on broodlings got the best of me and got to redo this one with a non ling comp and wanted to mess around with another prestiege with the lessons of the first in mind.

Didn’t feel like playing ally roulette and enjoyed the varied micro and wanted to mess with a alt setup for fun. First mass ling game i had went chainfire blaze and cannonball as a meat shield on p3 and found the entire map was on fire. Something like 2500K to 1700 ally kills. Not the best and my ally seemed to be p3 stukov beacon afking it while i had to often count and watch my 0/3 depleted revitalizer and nade and vac charges to push the objectives he was afking or detonating into or leaving open.

But my new ally made me realize having a automatic afk army to defend brutation could be replaced with entirely afk for 30 seconds 2 feet away from a objective wasnt the worst it could be.

Thankfully going in a second time, we got airterran libs and cruisers.

Good p1 malwarefare vega 3rd mc comp minus the part anything mind controlled with aoe confusion immediately got suicide bombed and died lmao. The fires were much more tame and clustered. Maybe you’re right on it being supply based with a minimum.

I felt like it felt like 6-20 tightly clustered and easily dodgable fires than mass lings + broodlings waves. But it was much more relaxed.

P1 i didn’t end up needing the second nade as much as i expected to. I fought what felt like 5-10 broodlings a wave vs 100s. It seemed like they were afterthoughts in the air terran matchup.

And while p1 wasnt as much impact as i hoped, having extra revitalizers and rapid nades was quite good piece of minds swapping masteries around from p3 attack speed odin to nade medivac.

Honestly at times i missed having odin as a stall and at points i had to miss using the nuke because my ally had routine stand away 5 feet away from a objective, then go on a safari with whole army while 2-3 points were under attack lvl 50 zera syndrome. But he was gonna get that xp to good use and at the end i cleared the ne after finishing the last three towers (albeit slowlyier as i had to juggle attack waves, his base being attacked, him afking 5 feet away from objectives and safaring).

I had to balance mobility charges so i asked a bit if he had any interest in tele cannons and wouldnt mind building one on our expos to def/stall if he didnt mind. No response and he would ignore attacks with his shielded buildings and shot workers and i had objectives i needed to focus on so i had to build a couple defense turrets on my expo with a spare scv to def.

It siphoned like 300-500 minerals away from upgrades but it was enough to kill small 1-3 packs and conserve teles for bigger swarms.

It seems like the fire effects feel centered on mob death, so while zerglings swarm and trap in death bombings, air units while still decently base brutal hefty were much mutator easier.

Much less stress than the first run knowing what to expect and having a versatile option open with p1 nades, sirius and nux and vega potential.

I could cover 5 suicide turrets, 20s to 9-14s nades, 3 nux aoes, mc bcs and thors, and drop more revitalizers and micro each group much more efficently with less fires and use the kidnapped for vision.

Could my ally just f2a spin and walk into the healing beams or make a infinite cannon tp ladder and teleport endlessly if they wanted?

Yeah, but they were busy being afk 20 seconds 5 feet away from the objectives and probably needed the exp for their lvl 50 zeratul anyways.

Ended up a 1700K to 600K on toss comp vs the usual 300-800 kills for toss. So the broodlings being supply based was probably fair.

It seems like this mutation seems to favor advantages picking a good commander who has either defense, sustain, wave clear and aoe options but is also able to push and handle a lot of counter aoe as well.

There does seem to be a lot of damage taken unless microed but i am curious what a well microed bio raynor with spawncamp mines and mass mules resupplies and micro dodging before anything got in range and banshees/siege tanks on infest defense might look like.

Still, a one and done i wouldn’t underestimate or throw out the window. Ranged comps are pretty usual but swarmling kamikaze comps are probably something to keep a eye out and have plans for if you see it on the terrain creep spying minimap. Gl and hf all this week!