Mutation Week 167 Hostile Territory Ranks/Tiers

Co-op Missions Discussion
1

Hey all adding some new info to these posts, and putting them out earlier. I still get to all the commanders after Mutation Monday, let me know how you all feel.

Here are the Mutations:
Barrier - Enemy units gain a temporary shield upon the first time they take damage.
Photon Overload - All enemy structures attack nearby hostile units.
Power Overwhelming - All enemy units have energy and use random abilities.
This week is all about holding during the night, the first night should be easy but its going to get much harder as you go. Remember that unless you kill all the Infested in 1 hit you will trigger Barrier, so big AOE is good here or defenses that can take a few hits will help too. Try not to lose too much every night as you can find yourself spending most of the day time just building back your defenses; this will lose you time to take out Infested building and might make it so you cant even defend the next night. Good Luck and Have Fun.

Player Commander Link Description
Game 1
Hunter Stukov Link Bunkers and Infested
Sunnyblack Fenix n/a Carriers and Robo
Game 2
Hunter H&H Link Strike Platforms and Widow Mines
CYCY89 Kerrigan n/a Lurkers
Game 3
Hunter Vorazun Link Void Rays
CtG Zeratul Link Cannons
Game 4
Hunter Swann Link Defense Tanks
Sunnyblack Vorazun n/a DT Corsair

Here is the link to the VOD

Commander/Tiers
3 Zagara

  • Not the best this week, Aberrations are probably the best unit to go for if you need to clear as Lings will just die.
  • Bile Launchers might be nice if you have to attack and defend, they don't require any supply and can be used to attack from super far away.
  • Get the upgrades for the units that you want to make.
  • Zagara can do super well supplementing an entrance if help is needed.
  • Be sure to use the Roach Drop to help an entrance that is under a lot of fire.

3 Alarak

  • Not the best this week, if you have to use him go for Vanguards and Supplicants, try to leave Alarak at home as he only hurts your army as he will jump too far ahead and kill off your own army.
  • That being said he is able to hold a side very well if your micro him well.
  • Stalkers can be added to add some anti-air especially if you leave Alarak at home.
  • be sure to ad at least 1 Warp Prism for Over Charge and mobile warp-ins.
  • He really though isn't that great this week.

2 Tychus

    Good commander for this week but on the lower end of tier 2.
  • I would go for Blaze Nikara, Sirius and Cannon Ball.
  • Upgrades as always.
  • If your partner can hold you should never have to come back into base.
  • Odin is great for clearing large areas, the North West, North East, and South East feel like the best place for the Odin.
  • Watch out for Nikara as she is not the smartest cookie.

2 Vorazun

  • Good commander for this week, I like to go for Void Rays this week.
  • They are great for defense and offense.
  • Be sure to get some Cannons, Cloak them if you have the extra energy.
  • Black Hole is great for an entrance that is getting over run.
  • If you can get a Dark Pylon at each entrance then you can get an extra life for your Void Rays which can help a lot.
  • Be sure to split your Void Rays to avoid large AOE attack from the spells.
  • Add a few Corsairs to help with crowd control.

2 H & H

  • Good commander for this week, Strike Platforms are great at clearing. Really good at clearing but Widow Mines are your only real defense and Spells can really hurt them.
  • Once you have a good set up and your Strike Platforms are made and you have a good amount of Widow Mines make a few Wraiths for building clearing during the day time.
  • You should focus the Strike Platforms on the smaller buildings and leave the large ones to the Wraiths that you build.

2 Dehaka

  • Good commander for this week, try you best to get to Guardians or Swarm Hosts here, Guardians are better at attacking and Swarm Hosts are better for defense.
  • Add a few Wurms but not too many that will help with anti-air.
  • Dehaka is good this week to hold a entrance but if Chokers show up you might have an issue early game.
  • Be aware if you go for any air unit that they will stack and AOE will do a lot more.
  • Call downs are still very good this week, so be sure to use them, I like Murvar for defense and Glevig and Dakrun for offense.

2 Artanis

  • Good commander for this week, For both attack and defense Reavers are a great unit.
  • If on defense you will want a wall of Cybernetics Cores will small holes to funnel the enemy units.
  • Be sure to have a few extra Pylons in case Spotters show up.
  • Zealots can have their place but more Cannons might make more sense.
  • During the night keep an eye put for places to use the top bars.
  • Shield Overcharge is great so long as you have some DPS to take full advantage of the extra Shields.

2 Nova

  • Good commander for this week, Tanks Libs and Ravens should be all you nee to defend.
  • You end up building up minerals whilst waiting for units that cost gas so make Turrets and Rail Turrets to help with defense.
  • If done right you can hold all 4 entrances, be sure to use the Ravens turrets as they come off cool down.
  • While pushing out during the day be sure to use the Defensive Drones.
  • Nova can clear a lot by herself but she need the Sabotage Drone and Griffin Air Strike to do the most.

1 Fenix

  • Great commander for this week, Colossus and Cannons for defense and, Carriers and Colossus for offense.
  • Fenix should be able to hold the entire first night (as longs as there are no Chokers).
  • Be sure to get all your upgrades for the units that you make.
  • Praetor Suit for defense and tanking.
  • Once you have your production up try to build constantly and start to work on splitting for clearing and defense, you shouldn't need all your forces to gather at any time.
  • An Observer will help a lot for clearing as there will always be a few Cloaked units.

1 Abathur

  • Great commander for this week, Queens Brutalisks and Swarm Hosts is how I did it.
  • You should split up the Swarm Hosts at each entrance and have a few Spines help with the defense, but it all comes down to the Swarm Hosts.
  • I like to have my Brutalisks and Queens on one control group and have them for clearing and entrances that are being overrun.
  • Be sure to place all your Toxic Nests as they come up, the first Night you can place the Nests under the location that the Infested gather before attacking in, this will get you a lot of Biomass, be sure to manually trigger the Nests by turning off auto cast (wait for the Infested Marines).

1 Raynor

  • Great commander for this week, Bunkers Tanks and a decent amount of Medics.
  • You don't need to fill every Bunker with Marines you really want more Tanks as they kill Infested in one hit and have AOE.
  • Make sure to have Medics in the mineral line to keep your SVCs alive because there will be some spell AOE that will hit them.
  • I ended up floating a few Barracks around the perimeter of the base to pull agro and get me high ground vision.
  • Banshee should be called down in a pinch for defense, and when using them on offense try to call them down around the outside of the map, that way you can avoid a lot of the detection and avoid more spells.

1 Stukov

  • Great commander for this week, Infested for the day time and Bunkers and Tanks for the night.
  • Be sure to add Tanks for the extra DPS as the Infested will be sure to trigger the Barrier and Tanks can kill units in one hit and avoid the Barrier.
  • Be sure to save a Call down until you are sure about your defenses incase you get over run, with the changes to Bunker its a lot harder to come back after losing a bunch of Bunkers.
  • Alexander is god for clearing but again it will trigger Barriers as its hard to 1 shot any unit with Infested.
  • If you need to defend and attack you will want to get Infested Civilian upgrades fast as the trickle of Infested out of Bunker will never overwhelm any units.

1 Stetmann

  • Great commander this week and with good micro our can hold every entrance.
  • Infesters and lots of Spines should hold no matter what.
  • Upgrades as always.
  • Try to leave a hole in the middle of your Spines so that the Roaches and Ravagers can get out.
  • Be sure to send Roaches to each entrance in turn during the night to ensure that you hold.
  • If you can try and spread Stetelite all around the outside of your base so that you can set up your Infesters where every you want to attack during the day.

1 Karax

  • Really great commander for this week, Cannons Monoliths and Carriers (for a safer time) or Colossus (for a faster time).
  • Be sure to leave a small gap way to the Cannons in the Batteries that you place in front to funnel the Infested.
  • Spear of Adun upgrades are great.
  • Be sur to get attack upgrades at least for the unit that you make.
  • Monoliths are important for the defense you don't need to go over board but they really do help a lot.

1 Kerri

  • Really good commander for this week< Lurkers are great for defense and even if you don't have any units clearing during the day Kerrigan will work very well.
  • Be sure to get a few Omega Worms for mobility during the day and to use them to funnel the Infested during the night.
  • Immobilization Wave is good but doesn't have as much utility save for helping an entrance the is being over run.
  • Be sure to get all the upgrades for the units that you make.
  • I like Spores for air defense, but Hydras have really good DPS.

1 Swann

  • Really great commander for this week, Turrets Tanks Science Vessels, and the Laser Drill will make this easy.
  • Be sure to start off with Turrets for the first day and then right after start in on the Tanks.
  • You can use the Concentrated Beam to clear Infested Buildings and then drop the Combat Drop to clear things further out on the map.
  • For the North West and East entrances be sure to place the Tanks between the North and East and the North and West entrances, that way you can cover all 3 entrances with just 2 sets of Tanks.
  • Science Vessels are good for vision over the high ground.
  • Make a few sets of static defense behind your mineral lines and be aware that you might end up getting hit by spells if there are Spotters or Hunterlings.

1 Zeratul

  • One of the best this week, Cannons and Abrogators are the best this week.
  • Be sure to put the Cannons in the middle of the base and only use the Projections to defend as you don't want to lose actual Cannons during the night.
  • Try to not use all the Cannons during the day to clear leave that to your units and just use Cannons during the first part of the day and if there are Cloaked units.
  • Be sure to get the Robotics Support Bay to get all the upgrades that you need.
  • Having a Void Array will help a lot to move your forces around and get the most out of every day cycle.

Tiers
Tier 1 Can hold the night and clear in the daytime with ease.
Tier 2 Nights are fine but slow day time clearing, or good clearing power but bad defense.
Tier 3 Not recommended.

2 Likes
2

Karax sounds like he’ll be T1 for this?

Cannons, Batt, and Monos for defense. Offensive cannons during the day if he has surplus resources. Otherwise, get some Carriers, combine that with SoA strikes to go offense if your partner needs some hand with that.

I’ll have to see if I’m available this week to try this…

3

The issue with Karax will be that carriers and cannons will trigger barrier, since they can’t one-shot, so he’ll have a harder time than Swann.

4

All commanders should be viable for this week without too much trouble, but some commanders will naturally have an easier time dealing with the Barrier and/or Power Overwhelming mutators than others. Fairly obvious, of course.

A few things to make note of:

The more units you and/or your ally have in an area, the more spells Amon will use via Power Overwhelming. Try to split as much as possible to reduce the number spells and to preemptively avoid taking lots of damage or crowd control from certain aoe abilities.

Be very mindful of your mineral lines, especially if you have Hunterlings or Spotters in your game. Reinforce your mineral line and/or your ally’s mineral line if your defenses are more effective than theirs, the moment Hunterlings or Spotters appear.

Commanders with hero units and/or smaller armies will trigger less spells from Amon, and these units tend to be stronger per supply cost, so they can take the hits and stay in the fight, especially when utilizing any means of hp regen.

Conversely, commanders with essentially disposable armies will trigger more spells, but will care less about the spells, as long as you are making cost-effective trades. Pairing with Artanis for Guardian Shell will be the single, overall best strategy for Zagara, Stukov, Raynor, Kerrigan, and perhaps Stetmann.

Artanis is also obviously a great ally for any other commander this week, so if you have trouble with this mutation, consider playing as Artanis or finding an Artanis ally, especially if you’re playing as one of the commanders listed in the paragraph above.

5

Kerrigan’s Lurkers aren’t that great. They’re vulnerable to Irradiate, Chokers, maybe even storm, and they’re pretty expensive. They don’t even have the multiplayer speed burrow thing, which is hilarious. Maybe broodlords would be better.

Once again, Zeratul’s cannons win the day. I just wish they buff the second artifact so that cannon projection could come out sooner. You’re just screwed if you don’t build your cannons in the front and you can’t get it fast enough before the wave comes.

6

Lurkers are fine when paired with Omega Worms in front of them (this is pretty standard)

Also fine when paired with Artanis

Speed burrow should probably be an upgrade Kerri’s lurkers have, especially if they don’t actually have it. Been a long time since I’ve played Kerri so I honestly don’t recall.

7

Artanis with cannon reavers and tempests should stomp this.

Make sure you push all to energy regen/ability cooldown mastery because it will cause reavers to restock and fire scrabs 80% faster.

8

Tried with that strat and it seems to be working.

Until we run out of resources and just get steamrolled.

It’s hard to push when the enemy just black hole your entire army. And that six range vs air for the tempests really hurt them against anything air. I guess you have to micro disintegration for them.

My fault as well for not having an observer (must have died somewhere in battle) and not noticing that dts are slaughtering my reavers.

9

You need cannon reaver, always stay your reavers behind a unfinished wall to funnel enemy units so that a few reavers is enough to blast them easily, with pylons and some cannons behind it. And yes you will need to build pylon wall because of disabling abilities even though you don’t really need that supply. The reavers cost too much gas anyway you should have all the minerals for cannons and pylons.

And yes disintegration will be your main anti-air option because PDD will disable your projectiles (reason why you should never mass dragoon on power overwhelming mutator). The tempests are also great for destroying nydus and stanks. Call zealot to stop the stank from reaching your wall/reavers.

10

Swann is the best, you can hard-carry pretty much any partner. Flame turrets, tanks, spinning dizzies, then make an army.

2 Likes
11

Does Artanis’ High Templar feedback work on the units with energy? Or Nova’s Ghost EMP?

12

They should but unless against single powerful units or high threat casters your energy is better used on storm instead. If you get reavers for antiground and archons/HT for AA but your archon tank can be too expensive to lose, especially vulnerable if they got abducted. You cannot keep HT, because they will be irradiated so must turn into archon, by doing the 2 HT summon, throw 4 storms and turn into archon trick. It will work against large number of air units.

Dragoons are the best meatshield with protoss shield and combat shield regen upgrades, you can get a few to support your reavers for the day, just there to tank damage as their shield regen quickly, as their attack can struggle against PDD you shouldn’t make more than 4~6 dragoons though. Siege up observer and disintegrate or orbital is a more effective way of dealing with air enemies defending the infested structures. If you have larger fleet of tempests you can disintegrate the infested structures as the weaker ones only take 1 shot to kill, that you can clear it rapidly with proper micro and retreat before they explode to ignore the broodlings (the broodlings also have spells that can cause serious damage if you attack them with dragoon reavers). The long cooldown even with max cooldown mastery prevent you from spamming it all the time if your numbers are low.

1 Like
13

Dragoons are not for meatshield, they are for damage and AA. Meatshield are zealots.

14

Alarak’s best choice is probably massing Slayers and focusing on clearing buildings during the day, since everything else will keep dying from random spells.
Slayers are basically his only unit with some form of damage reduction and mobility to avoid annoying spells, and their blink damage increase makes it easier for them to one-shot buildings.

2 Likes
15

All Commanders is live here!

16

Did it with Zeratul. Defended the entire base on my own with my Tyhcus ally doing barely anything.

He’s broken again as usual. Didn’t want to use him because I’m bored with him, but in the end, he’s the only viable one for my (and my ally)'s skill level.

18

Finally got around to figuring out how you guys were uploading those Sc2 Replays to Youtube, so figured I’d go ahead and share this replay of a Brutation #167 Solo with an AFK ally as Zeratul. If anyone is interest I could probably show you an AFK solo with any commander you’re trying to learn or at least just a regular solo.

2 Likes
19

Alarak is really deserving of tier 3.
Tuff game going Vanguard + Supplicant - no sustain - dieing to random seeker missle/Storms/Black Holes.

And according to the KR - replays, stalkers are FTW. Which was a surprise ^ ^

1 Like
20

For Nitrousoxide, how about a Zagara solo?

21

Sure I can try that, might be a few days before I get it uploaded to YouTube tho, cuz it seem like it takes forever to upload for some reason.