That kinda triggers an experience, where I lost about that supply of Kerrigan mutalisks to storm+parasitic swarm on vermillion problem. Devastating. That was waaaay back then, though, before I learned how to use Omega Worms and just mass muta a-moved, so definitely huge failure on my part.
Apart from that I think, that the Eradicators on miner evac quite often screwed me, when I attempted to destroy them with ground troops.
Honestly, my most painful one was during a Brutation. I forget which one it was, but I was playing Ascendant Alarak (pre-Prestige). Took a rough fight and lost damn near all of my Ascendants (plus other units.) I don’t recall if we won or not but man… That was just a “well, I guess I should just give up and gg out” moment.
Had plenty of moments like this, but the one that got recorded and I remember the most is at the end of rockslapping champions 110, I was down to 30 supply 18 minutes into coa but ended winning.
Question for you sir (or anyone else for that matter). As the authority on Alarak. If you make a mistake, you’re distracted, whatever the reasons, and you take just a terrible engagement, that you lose all or nearly all your ascendents; is it worth trying to re-mass ascendants. Do you try to re-mass ascendents or you just make a bunch of supplicants and slayers at that point?
I don’t claim to have any answer either way. But not only are ascendants gas heavy, but then you lost all those sacrifice stacks that you had built up throughout the match up until that point. On other hand even entry level ascendants are strong. Just wondering if at a certain point one is better off just trying to mass cheep stuff or should one always try to remake their ascendents .
Depends upon how far into the game you are. If it’s still earlyish on in a long map, yes. It’s definitely still worth it to re-ball up with Ascendants. If you lose a lot of them later on, then it’s a lot more crippling… But can still be fine, as the others can cover for you.
The main issue really comes in on shorter maps, or losing all of them during a Brutation. In those circumstances (partly out of tilt), I’ll switch from Ascendant play to Mech play (assuming the mutators aren’t going to be a problem.) Rebuild with Slayers while you tech into Wrathwalkers, then Chrono pump them out.
It’s hard to come back in some circumstances, honestly. It’s really a case-by-case basis as to whether you rebuild your Ascendants, switch to Mech, or concede on the spot due to not being able to actually come back from the massive financial loss under map/mutator pressure.
…Of course there’s also the option of just playing P3 as a default and having the all too easy back-up plan of mass Destroyers, lmao.
Maybe we can take inspiration from pro ladder players who lose their high tech deathballs in big engagements and then Warp in massive amounts of Stalkers to win the game (the idea here is to only switch to low tech units if it’s going to be a final push to victory).
In that case, it is more like the time to mass up high tech units (such as 3-4 immortals or colossi) is too long. There is usually no infrastructure in place to do so quickly (as in ladder, players don’t invest into say 4 Robos). The presumed inevitable outcome is past certain point, your ally who’s in a better tech and economic position will overshadow you.
In coop, this environment is entirely different. If the resource banked is there, and the infrastructure should already be there. The only question is how much long is the player willing to go. Will you spend 30min to do this mission using Ascendants or 20min going Slayers now.
Similar to the final push in ladder (like pulling the boyz), making a bunch of lower tech units like Slayers can get the mission done. What differs here is that there usually is no time limitation (although not always, as some mission do). Whereas in ladder, time limit is the presumed opponent will hit you harder and out grow you.
I’m a bit unclear about what point you’re making here but when I think back to a recent experience this is what I can say:
I actually like the idea of warping in a squad of Slayers to support Structure Overcharge against late game waves and might try to give this a go to see how it performs in a game.
Simply that going Slayers or re-maxing Ascendants are both fine (or even switch tech to WW). It’s all viable just that time taken will differ.
Solely going Slayers with the notion that ladder does this is not quite a good comparison is all.
I have to disagree, as with going Ascendants, you generally are not taking Weapons upgrades. Slayers are there only for faster maps if you lose most of your spellcasters. The reason you’d tech switch into Slayer/Wrathwalker on a longer map is to have that instant firepower access while you switch your Forge(s) to Attack/Shield instead of Shield/Armor.
The reason for this is that when going Ascendant, your entire damage pool is from spells. Spells are not affected by Weapon upgrades (except for Structure Overcharge), so it is better to make your Ascendants as survivable as possible.
Exchanging your Supplicants and Ascendants for Slayers on a longer map should only happen as an emergency button to help try and keep air units off what little Ascendants you have left, or as a small ball to supplement Alarak while you get Wrathwalkers online. Mass Slayers have a problem of damage density, unlike with Wrathwalkers and their overkill damage numbers.
Last night, I played a game on SoA. I was an idiot. Playing as Nova made too many ground units against Reaver / Disruptor comp. Late with my micro and defensive drones, lost my entire army except 2 Liberators, and 3 Ravens.
Luckily my Raynor ally who was massing battlecruisers, while I didn’t a lot of the heavy clearing on the early crystals, finally had his fleet up and ready. I went liberator-banshee, and mineral dumped into Griffin Strikes, and helped out a bit for the last crystal but I wasn’t in any sort of solo fighting shape the rest of the game.
3 questions:
Yeah I think I agree with your points though. Too much setup for a Slayer switch though I might try getting upgrades for them sometimes just to be able to handle late game waves with a Warp in supported by SO. Tech switch to WW/VG would require some extreme situation I think, can’t think of when it would be.
Honestly, with Alarak, Vanguards would be a waste of space. There’s a few good reasons that they aren’t actively made; Their weapons are nerfed from the campaign, their shots don’t track so if Alarak uses Destruction Wave they will miss their targets, and Alarak does a far better job dealing with swarmy units than they ever will. If Alarak wasn’t a Hero unit, then maybe Vanguards would have a niche use, but then they would still be outclassed by Ascendants.
Mass Wrathwalker or Wrathwalker/Slayer is far and a way a better composition than Wrathwalker/Vanguard.
I think in the context of “if you’re getting armor and/or shield at all” then definitely. I also think getting either in a game is a waste. Especially in that time frame of fitting them in, you’re sacrificing 1-2 key units (like Ascendant or WW) just to have a +1/1 arm/sh. That in turn snowballs to a much slower pace, mostly because you can barely afford 1-2 key units to begin with (whilst trying to upgrade them).
In a coop game, those don’t mitigate much of anything. Especially when coop is not a resource trade-off concept between players. Amon cares little if you lost 500 resources in an engagement or 5000.
Rule of thumb, get Raynor and Tychus’s armor upgrades… for every other CO, only if you’ve place yourself into a long map position (by design or choice), then get them because now you have gas to spare.
I wholeheartly disagree here. Your Ascendants are squishy AF until they get around 2 to 3 stacks. So even that +1 Shield or +1/+1 Shield/Armor is very valuable. But if you aren’t going to bother getting them, then you might as well skip Forge altogether. The only upgrade that would become worthwhile out of it when going mass Ascendants is Destruction Wave’s upgrade. Alarak’s stun is garbage, Supp/Asc weapons are garbage, and no other upgrades in the Forge affect Alarak. This means you just invested 300/150 for a building that’s going to idly sit there after getting one upgrade.
How is +1/1 mitigating 1 damage going to help ascendants?
Whereas even the additional Supplicant sacrificed for 1x stack would give you more “bulk”.
So Amon starts with +1 already. The timing of it was going to help would be to hit your +1 armor/sh before 10min (preferably long before). As Amon gets +2 weapons by 10min.
What this meant is that as the player you need to factor getting +1 armor/sh before 10min and thereafter for +2/+3 if you are going to do it at all.
So that means those accumulative gas, mineral, and time are wasted onto getting them whereas Ascendant gains +100 shield points for every minute of sacrifice. So for a Shield Armor to be worth 1 Sacrifice, it mitigates 1 damage x 100 attacks taken… assuming the attack only does 1-2dmg, which is never.
Perspective: for the money into Forge, then time and money waiting for +1 armor/sh. You’d have at least 3 stacks. 300sp versus +1armor/sh… 
Perhaps fast units with low damage and high attack speed like lings? Maybe marines, shieldguards, phoenix, muta?
At risk of the universe imploding I have to say that Fear and I are in complete agreement here. Better to completely skip armour/shields for Alarak (and most of every other commander).
However, Stettman Zerglings benefit from Armour upgrades as it is applied after damage is reduced to 10 so with 3 Armour every attack does just 7 damage.
Did a quick test on RtK solo (so sub-optimal than most as 2nd OC delays fast expansion). Despite this, at 5:45 is when the first Ascendant comes out. At this time:
So once Power Overwhelming is researched (which is 1 min later, if I recall correctly). You can instantly pop 1x sacrifice on up to 3 Ascendant by that time. Whereas by comparison, if I had gone for Forge then +1 armor (which meant I need to get 2x Forge, spend 2x 100/100 for weapon and shield).
So for both of these scenario:
TOOOO latE! 
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I think there are some caveats here mostly around the fact that once you have your 16-24 strong Ascendant army you’ll start to float gas in which case the opportunity cost for weapon/armour/Shield upgrades decreases dramatically though in this case I would definitely prioritise weapons first, then shields, then Armour even if you never build a mech unit.
Weapon upgrades give a slight advantage to your Supplicants but also gives options to branch into some Destroyers, Slayers or WWs either for anti-building DPS or perhaps to handle some waves without having to take your whole army back via a quick Slayer Warp in.
I found this description on TL Alarak section:
“Whenever you complete a shield or weapon upgrade at the Forge, the shield and attack damage of Structure Overcharge increase by 20 and 4, respectively. This gives them 260 shields and 52 damage with level 3 upgrades.”
Which makes me wonder if this alone is an argument for always getting weapons+shields for Alarak if you are able to utilise SO effectively.
Still, I’d never build Forge(s) until at least your first 8 or so Ascendants hit the field.