The only time I failed in Brutal+ in the past month is the following:
Map: Dead of Night
Commander: Zagara (me) + Tychus
Mutators: (1) Diffusion, (2) Barrier
Before I even began I knew it would be tougher. Barrier with endless zombies is already annoying on this map. On the second day, I felt hopeless. I couldn’t clear anything because lings will just die due to diffusion. So I adjusted my tactics. I use Zagara’s ability to clear buildings (which is super slow) and used all my resource building spines and bile launchers. But we couldn’t hold the 3rd night because the aberration with barriers can run straight into my defense and diffusion will just kill all my structures. I might be able to hold if I relocate to the top right corner but then I wouldn’t have any income.
How could I do any differently to win this game? And a more general question is, how does Zagara deal with diffusion on DoN? Is it possible to solo DoN as Zagara with only diffusion mutator (and no barrier just to make it slightly more viable)?
For non-sustaining commander, your best hope for DoN is to finish before N3. This means as Zagara you’ll have to macro properly and get max (if not near max) before Day 2, this would allow you to wipe out more than 50% of the map (along with your partner). Then after defending Night 2, you go ahead and clean up and win the game.
In fact, on DoN, it is what I call “self-induced difficulty” if any player(s) decide to not win by Night 3. As Night 3 is noticeably harder compared to previous nights.
I honestly don’t understand how this map is winnable that fast. Day 1 is 3m. Night 1 is 4. Day 2 is another 3. Night 2 another 4m. Finally, day 3 is 3 more minutes. So 17m total to build a base and army, then clear the map. And 8 of those minutes needs not insignificant resources devoted to defense - not to mention how much slower it is to clear during the night.
I mean it would take 2-3m for most units to just circumvent the map, much less be fighting the whole time. And the bases to the north and southeast are fairly substantial.
Even with Zagara who has the fastest, high DPS cheap units, it seems crazy.
Zagara can legit clear the map before the bonus even spawns, but this is assuming it’s regular brutal and ally is helping to defend the lower area.
Same with Mengsk, but in his case he can solo via bunkers, calldowns and ESOs
I’ve seen replays so I know it’s possible, but it just doesn’t seem like anything I’d ever get close to, haha. The macro involved is beyond my comprehension.
Pretty straight forward really. This is not a play by play but it’s the general direction:
- Drone up to 14/14, then make an overlord. Zagara’s double drone bonus allows you to literally fully saturate the 27/27 required on Brutal.
- Gas up and Tech up from this point on without much delay. Saturate the gas as you can. Getting to Hive is important before Day 2 (essentially first day of attack).
- Research should be focused on Baneling damage (including your own mastery as well, Ling mastery doesn’t hold enough value on Brutal+ in these cases). This is also why Hive tech is important, you should be on your way (if not completing) all bane research, Zagara’s regen + medusa blades, and if you can squeeze in ling speed (not entirely necessary).
- Ling up and convert into banes. One of the hardest part before Day 2 is balancing your economy between Overlords, Lings, and then into Banelings. The idea is to have as many as you possibly can by Day 2.
- Defend with Zagara. Use abilities often. Night 1 is infamously easy, and if I’m being honest, you shouldn’t need your ally’s help. Since this is Brutal+ we are talking about, your ally shouldn’t be a complete leech either. So this sums up into Night 1 being 0 problem with just Zagara + ally’s anything.
- Day 2 arrives, summon Hunter Killers, Frenzy, IMPORTANT convert Baneling target to buildings. Roll over to cover as much enemy holds as you can. The idea scenario is to use this Frenzy frame to remove as much of the enemy defenders/areas.
- You’ll be generally pressed for gas at this point after the loss of your first mass wave of Banelings. So your reinforcement will be lings, which is why if you had Ling speed it helps. Allow them to clean up the rest of the buildings in those areas you rolled over.
- Before Night 2, depending on the mutators, you might opt at this point to get some defenses - only if you feel you can’t hold it without losing too much of your next mass of banes through the night.
- Similarly, defend Night 2 with your ally (again, the key is to conserve enough to rinse and repeat on Day 3). You’ll have Drop Pods through this night, so use it wisely. On a regular brutal, you can use it to wisely to wipe say East area (in between those 2 larger bases).
- Concept is the same, Day 3 arrives and time to Frenzy and roll over the remaining areas.
Now if your ally is remotely decent, which should be inherent if we are discussing Brutal+, then the game should 100% end by Night 3. Obviously sparing the entirety of dealing with 4 entrances, Nydus, Stank, and all forms of special infested + those mutators.
The gameplay generally doesn’t change on Brutal+, the non-fun part of it is that the player has to understand the limit of their commander’s capabilities at different timings (not much different in ladder in that regard). So as mutators are added, it puts a cap on those. So the above 10 steps won’t play out exactly, but honestly shouldn’t change that much… conceptually anyway.
Hope all that helps people.
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Well with diffusion structures and Zagara’s pure melee army, that might be a problem.
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Not really, there are very few units that can avoid the Diffusion damage. If your point is that Zagara’s Swarmlings die easily then don’t use solely just them. Each mutator will change the step-by-step detail of how you will play. What’s being presented is the general direction.
Saying diffusion makes it hard for Zagara is like saying Black Death is hard for a non-healing commander. No single mutator out-right destroys any commander. The point of them are to “force players” into a certain build or force-alter their gameplay. It is the very thing that makes some people enjoy them and others hate them.
Also, it is a cooperative mission at core. So if your goal going in is to “solo” Brutal+ mutators, then I got news for ya - some commanders just can’t solo some Brutal+ that easily. Work together and cover each other’s weaknesses. Pointing out why a mammoth can’t pick up a pin is literally the opposite of what anyone should be doing, especially on Brutal+.
OP is asking how to deal with it. Pointing out it is hard to deal with is not very useful now, is it?
Diffusion is pretty hard for zagara and this map is also hard for tychus so you were in a pretty bad spot, I don’t think you could clear before night 3 given this situation, one thing you can try is to make hatcheries at the entrances to create choke points for the bile launchers to attack and to use queens to heal the hatcheries, not easy to cover every entrance this way but maybe you could divide the entrances with your ally and hopefully the enemy doesn’t have chokers shutting tychus down.
The advice on this thread seems to be forgetting there was a mutation, barriers makes you use significantly more banes and diffusion makes lings useless, also the damage of the first bane that hits the enemy gets diffused into the rest of the banes, killing them if you have too many, so “just clear before night 3” is completely missing the point of the thread.
A small thing zagara can do for diffusion is to use only small groups of banes to attack each time so there aren’t enough to just kill each other, still this makes the clear slow and painful.
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I know that’s the case in general, but with Diffusion mutator, I don’t know what I can use to kill buildings. Maybe queens and Zagara. That’s not going to be fast enough.
I’m asking because I’ve thought hard about possible strategies and I can’t think of any. Sometimes I see creative plays so that some commanders can beat mutators that hard-counter them. Like Mengsk against double-edge: using ghost to nuke and then pick them up to avoid the double-edge damage. I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to get creative with Zagara.
Pair up with a Swann player. Zagara is fine, just don’t use suicide units. Hunter killers outrange diffusion.
Have you tried Aberrations? They are equally viable compared to Banelings. They can tank the diffused damage much better compared to Lings and Banes, and they drop the Banes post death.
ya just cant be zagara on don
Resource wise it’s not better. One problem with Zagara on DoN is that resource is pretty constrained.
I would disagree on that front. Yes, it costs more in a one-to-one comparison but we can’t compare a BC to a Tank in terms of cost. The key is cost-efficiency.
So on a mutation with Diffusion, where it seems to be the key of this discussion. The cost efficiency of Banes are reduced (lings even more so), your alternative is Aberrations. You can relatively max to the same level as Banes in terms of population per 100 by Day 2.
Give it a try, otherwise all of these are nothing but discussion with no real use.