Banelings and Broodlings can screw up Nova’s bio if you don’t have a critical mass and if you have any bad engagements you can end up in sticky situations. Throw some mutators on top and it can lead to a bad time. Bio does work great but it is also a higher risk play imo (except against comps that don’t have banes or broods ofc).
If you send out a scout immediately then you are losing the mining of an SCV that mines at 40 mineral/minute perhaps permanently if it dies (mainly dependent on mutators). If you send out the scout after refineries finish then the SCV you send out would only be mining roughly 20 mineral/minute and by the time you get your scout information you’ll have the gas to start a production structure.
Not a big difference but just the strategy that works for me.
About the threat of banelings, it should be reminded that the ability of those lazy slacker defense drones can be used manually, instead of waiting that an unit take damage like the autocast do.
Which will go a lot further on factory units than on barracks units.
Can we agree that confronting Swarmy’s mass Banelings with Bio or Mech is just dumb? This is like asking what would hurt more, getting punched in the face or kicked in the face… the idea here is “don’t get hit in the face at all”.
Most sensible Nova players would simply use Assault Mode to blast down the Banelings/Zerglings and tank with her shield. Sure, it’ll take more Banelings to kill a Tank than to kill a Marauder, but Amon doesn’t care for cost-efficiency… it’s all free.
When it comes to choosing the right strategy, it is more so geared between (1) not hard-countered (like Protoss Air vs mass tanks) and (2) optimized against mission (like liberators on SoA as opposed to bio mass).
Mech’s Hellbats do quite well actually, since they one shot banelings with a splash attack, so long as the player doesn’t get/use the jump and suicide them.
But yeah
That’s all that’s really needed.
Right, Nova cost nothing unless you suicide her into things and replace her with minerals. Basically miscontrol, which is no different than doing so against any other units of hers. While things like Hellbats or Mech in general can rank better even when miscontrolled, doesn’t mean the ideal way to approach it should be that. So why face-tank anything, especially in the context of efficient and effective unit comp. It isn’t like controlling Nova’s shot gun blast is harder than “Drone, manual cast on Mech, then cast mines or manoeuvre to front, etc.”
this is my new FE build on maps with rocks. keep 14 workers mining, use new workers to break gas rocks.
get two geysers
start barracks when you have 50-60 gas
when you have 100 gas, begin starport, and the starport will finish before the barracks
malwarfare airstrike expand
SoA sneak an early gas
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Nicely done, thanks for adding to how stagger works on multiple maps 
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you can also airstrike expand on PnP and CoA, but I didn’t have time to find the VODs
Indeed. It’s fine, I just did a random quick search and found it when OP posted it, so I thought it’d be easier to show it instead. Nice videos btw, every week 
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ToP Video: That’s an interesting way of expanding.
I haven’t done any solo mutators on ToP with Nova yet, only on regular Brutal. Seems a lot of microing going on there and a lot of planning in advance. I also used siege tank + mines to defend other side. That bio + siege tanks comp worked out for your liberators + Assault mode built.
This was sometime ago, regular brutal. I haven’t post any videos as of late. Will try your way of expanding. Nice job.
Please note in all of the videos posted (so far), the need for scouting is next to pointless. The coverage of Nova during these games and a general plan to approach the mission itself were more than adequate. Again reiterating the minimal benefit of scouting (in the context of optimization).
For P1 it only matters which building finishes first, not which building gets started first. So you do get to have railgun and if you go starport you even get an extra one from your first raven. You’ll probably want more gas if you go starport and railguns happen to be very good at clearing gas rocks if they’re right next to each other. Gas doesn’t require a command center and the command center doesn’t have to wait for the main rock since it can fly after it’s done. Yes you’ll be a little slower don’t worry just keep building scvs.
Btw I like to go 12 refinery 12 refinery before I start making scvs.
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