I could use some advices on utilizing Earthsplitter.
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How many do people usually build? I do 4~6 since I want enough supply for mobilized army and Royal Guards, but is it enough?
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Do people put up bunkers to guard their Earthsplitters, assuming they were built in an open area? Like in #1, I feel like it’s eating supplies where a more versatile army could be used.
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When do people start committing to Earthsplitter? I tend to build then right after Exp since on many maps it’s right at the center. Would it be wiser to have a large army before building, or just build them in pairs gradually over the course of the game?
1- I’ve seen as many as 20 at one point. Typically, they start off with 4, then plateau at 8 to 14.
For the Rifts To Korhal cheese, one guy made 20…
2- Build as little defense as you can get away with. If I see my ally going ESO to go after objectives, I’ll be sure to help cover for him (e.g. Karax, build a bunch of cannons and batt).
You may be able to use CD for the bulk of the ESO’s defenses
3- If it’s a map where ESO can do objectives, then you can forgo army. Otherwise, army is more important and should be prioritized. ESOs can still be helpful in providing vision, and softening up attack waves and fortifications.
Agreed. Army is faster than ESO, but for variety ESO is good on certain maps.
Build them right after expo, with random damage you want to start early. Number depends on how much resources you are floating.
You do not need to guard them, they have infantry inside, pop out, kill attacking unit, jump back in.
ESO is kinda situational if you’re not commited to use them as objective snipe.
6 of them is a sweet spot to use the contamination strike to help army, but I prefer getting the Pride of Augustrad first for the 1+ range on my army, then go from there to either aegis guard or the earthsplitters.
If I’m not going mass ESO builds, I build 4 early on, then up to 10 for maximum usage of Contaminated Strike (The more you have, the more ground CS covers.)
Not really, no. You’ll usually be using it to snipe from a long range, and an ally can help cover you, or you can just call down Dogs of War/Nuclear Annihilation to stop attack waves if ESOs can’t deal with them.
If you’re going mass ESO, don’t bother with an army. Just get a bunch of Troopers/Laborers and fill them up. The more inside, the faster they shoot.
I tend to make 20+ every game. With Troopers and a few RG, they basically act as Liberator zones to fight under and bombard the living crap out of areas you’re about to fight in.
And as a bonus, Troopers can multi build them so why wouldn’t I make clusters of 6-10 all around the map? They don’t cost supply and while they’re not super amazing when not garrison’d they are still useful for support and for Contaminated Strike intercepting an attack wave.
For myself I go mass Aegis these days (with Troopers, of course), so I don’t have any spare gas to build the ESOs. Granted I do lose out on Contaminated Strike, but Aegis are just so strong that it never seems to matter.
I only make them on Oblivion expres and Temple of the past to be honest, and then only in mid/late game after a somewhat descent army (still get to up like 20+), always be sure to fully man them and have 1 or 2 level 3 battlecruiser just to have a third ‘o sh*t’ button.
Mass troopers with Royal Guards according to enemy comp feels more natural to me on all the other maps (where I only go Viking on the shuttle map and never go ghosts…),
Sometimes I go Eathsplitter when bored and i have a good ally (like on Missed Opportunities), but that’s the exeption, not the rule.
There are however a billion ways to play Mengsk. so feel free to experiment!
ESO has a lot of Brutal+ immunity and they are usually the only thing you need at all. ESO works for me in high level brutal+ like 80% of the time, the other 15% of the time I usually just do mass troopers because of something like Double Edge that can shut ESOs down. Usually when I do mass ESOs I get like 20-40 of them, I’ll use contaminated stikes often when fighting against air compositions and use maybe a bunker drop or two to clean up.