Id have to agree with “gia” I found Stukuv P3 to be the best for me, definitely not “Torture” tier. Was playing brutal with a level 125 Karax that made a a little defense at the start with my bunkers helping with broodlines blocking the 1st waves until he had a bunch of cannons up & once i had 5 bunkers up we didn’t really have to worry anymore. I just did the usual bunker p3 build & muscled threw the whole map. I’d always have 3-6 oversears to help see the mines & after id clear a area my partner would set up cannons by the rifts to snipe them as soon as they popped. I maxed out once we where hitting the last set of shards & just powered right threw it with 2mins to spare, skipped the bonuses though. Definitely think the combo of those 2 commanders was a perfect fit as tried a few times before succeeding with other partners & didn’t get past the 2nd shard with any of them.
Was this on brutal?
In that setup Karax does the bonuses, defenses vs the first, then send a sneaky observer to the second and topbar it. You may have to support Karax on defense after he wastes his topbar on the 2nd bonus though. Usualy a Karax will have no frontline because they focused on lone spread cannons to cover rifts and theyll use topbar to clear waves.
Most lazy 0 apm build is Karax and Mengsk, Karax just stays home and defends all 5 entrances, bonus if they go out to cover some rifts and clear bonuses as mentioned above. Mengsk orbitals suicide units into the rifts, or esos them, doesnt matter, if they eso however they need defense because the rifts can attack their site.
Exactly, so Karax carries Stukov for quite a while.
I think we’ve concluded that Karax is this week’s carry commander! Or at least the mutators nerfer. So any comments on commander’s strats should be ones played without a Karax treamate. So if you want to evaluate a commander and random a Karax partner…quit! 
Only an advanced Karax would carry (defense + offense), most Karax will focus defense and even forget they have observers, the other player has to deal with offense. That’s coop.
Stukov can defend a spineless Kerrigan until she spawns, he opens capable of defending himself, but would certainly welcome the towers, why wouldn’t you.
I consider sniping Void Rifts part of defense duty, although it was nice that my ally took out any close by.
That’s a player issue. Karax as a commander can do everything in this mutation. Stukov was just there.
Stukov also “can do everything”, but it’s a lot lot lot more difficult.
Yeah, that is true. It seems Karax is one of those commanders that as the week goes by, players who haven’t beaten it easily will just play Karax when Defense is in order and hope to match a good Offense ally. I’m guessing that not many people like to play “traditional Karax” regularly and just go for him when he’s really good for a mutation and all else fails. lol
this mission has these challenges -
- Defense. This is the biggest problem in the first 6-7 minutes, after which you’ve either stabilize or just lose
- Sniping Rifts. Setting up static D is not gonna cut it here; if you can’t close the rifts, no defense will be enough
- Pushing Objectives. Lastly, yeah, the actual mission lol. This takes a particular answer, cause the mines will evaporate ANY army that just walks into them.
So, 1 and 2 are not the biggest hurdle IMO. Several commanders have decent answers for the rifts, but pushing objectives is really challenging.
Stukov can do it by pure attrition, but it’s slow work. I mean, this is absolutely exacerbated by my poor micro, but Kerrigan P2 was the best answer for me. Charge up, blind-fire at everything in a radius. She’ll still get shredded if she charges into a clump of mines, but kinda strafing back and forth and they can be cleared without coming into range. The enemy buildings are really helpful here; attack them a few times to charge up, then use psionic shift (or whatever the dash ability is called).
HH is without doubt the best for clearing the rifts, but they really struggle to push the objectives. First time I beat this, I was using HH, and I really just focused on the rifts. My ally playing P3 raynor did the mission.
I don’t think 3 is the challenging part. Lots of Mine mutations are easy. It’s when you are trying to bum rush the Rifts while dealing with Mines that you get into trouble…which is an urgency created by the Rifts themselves.
In a map like Mists Opportunities…THEN the Mines are the urgent part because you have to race with the clock. But here the objectives are static so you only need to get there just in time which gives you time to inch.
The issue is when both players are moving back and forth to deal with the Rifts and getting all confused and slowed down because of the time devotion to the Rifts. Hence the reason why Karax is good. He can best hold the Rift spawns as well as snipe them with 1 type of unit production and in an ideal case, shortly past the beginning, the Objective player can just deal with one mutator with a small enemy add. Then he can also burn a large area of the Objective when you get there.
Swann is a pretty decent Rift commander. He can hold off some stuff in the beginning and using a Herc to Drill a Rift is surprisingly effective since most of the upper spawns are near some edge (along with no Widow Mines nearby). You can go P1 and forgo the Beam and do decently well since it randomly kills a lot of stuff while you are busy Turretting the map. On top of this, he can later field a Herc force as well to help. If you are good with micro, I guess you can Herc stuff around the cleared areas to hit the Rifts instead of using Turretting.
Swan P1 is for noob who can’t micro… if your micro is good, P3 owns P1. And you can kill rifts just the same. Splas is useless to kill rifts… and the 1s extra lock-in time makes little difference. You don’t play P1 cause it’s good for rifts.
You play P1 cause you want enemy army drop dead without you doing anything. forums is full of no knowledge noobs. I bet you haven‘t even tried to give P3 a chance… all you do is read „laser splash „ and think that’s great cause you get more DPS without moving a finger, am I right?
P1 Swann is certainly the worst Swann prestige this week because his top bars are great vs rifts and mines. But you’re recommending P3 which nerfs his topbar. Can you really say everyone who uses P1 Swann for regular brutal is a “no knowledge noob”? Why not post your completion of this week’s brutation as Swann P3, ideally solo, to show your expert control of Swann. I won’t hold my breath.
If you read above, I first commented on an “easy” Swann P3 win I had with a Karax partner. But looking at the replay, you are right that the teleport stuff was good for Rifts as it seems I handled most of the early to mid game Rifts with just Hercules and Science Vessels albiet maybe like half the DPS was from Orbital Strikes and Orbital Repairs help too no doubt. I didn’t really get to use a big army until later when he was able to take care of those. But it was moslty for clearing a path.
Swann P1 is just an alternate effective build as well, however because it allows you to concentrate on D while still being able to Rift. If you only have so much micro the cripple and splash helps not only hold off trickles while you do something else, but also DPSes and slows waves. Automatic DPS actually helps you micro…somewhere else. I mean, that’s why you’d Turret half the map anyway…to auto DPS Rifts. If the Drill can handle most of the D, you can spring off to the bonus even while ally clears. Also, P1 can negate one caveat of the Beam calldown on this Mutation. The Beam actually clears a deep area for new Rifts to spawn due to Mine overlap mechanics, right?
I was playing with a Tycas partner and he deployed what must be a “Zone Strat” to handle Rifts where each hero sticks arround an area to quickly respond to Rift spawns.
I’m wondering what other units/squads would be viable and pretty nifty? Idealy each should be able to handle air spawns that get out before you tend to it, I suppose. And you shouldn’t spread you forces too thin as a main force needs to be available for objective/waves.
So sounds like he was P2/Lone Wolf? That would be one way to spread out while keeping the power up, since that prestige forces you to spread out anyways for the power.
Oh yeah, he was definately using that.
But I thought I’d open up a dicussion on what units ppl with other commanders (can) use to replicate this via “Lone Pack”. 
Almost all commanders. Watch my runs and you’ll see.