Title. What strange but viable Army Compositions have you discovered? For me, Mass Tempest as Artanis is one. Yeah, Reaver-Dragoon can delete stuff fast, but Mass Tempest works too. I start off with Zealots for the first few minutes while I get my Stargate and Fleet Beacon up and running, then transition into Phoenix’s and start my Expo, and finally transition into 2 Warp-Stargate Mass Tempest.
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i know one player that uses that strategy when playing with artanis. i use it too.
For Artanis, I like High Templar/Immortal and Dragoon/Phoenix, and I haven’t seen anyone on the forum mention playing either.
But if you want really strange, but still viable, Zeratul mass Shieldguard. CtG recently tried it as a joke but I’ve been playing it on-and-off since day one. It’s… less stupid than you’d think. In the very, very early game, you’re mineral-blocked, so your first 8–10 Shieldguards come out much faster than equivalent DPS of any other build. When the build begins to stumble, you’ve got the second artifact unlocked and have enough of a mineral bank to dump into Cannons. It’s sort of a Cannon build, but with a very different early game.
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Shieldguards are surprisingly strong. I did it once, and they were able to kill 7/7 tempest wave before it spawned (or close enough).
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Abathur with mass queens.
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I’m not surprised about that being viable, it’s kinda just my default for when I play Aba. (Which I haven’t done recently.)
I normally go for roach/queen/viper for ground or queen/devourer for air. But I never gone just mass queen. Takes a while to kill things but still funny.
Challenging the meta is my thing. I can think of some I use sometimes.
- Swann’s Hellbat/SciVessel. Surprisingly effective against zerg, between Irradiate and 3 range 50~ damage cones from Hellbats, everything dies miserably and fast.
- Vorazun’s Dark Archon/Centurion. Also very effective against zerg, banelings and scourge kill each other immediately after Confusion leaving the remaining forces irrelevant against your army. Works against many otherthings.
- Dehaka’s Zergling/Igniter/Tyrannozor. My bread and butter with Dehaka, works against everything I’ve played against so far. Very efficient and tanky army.
- Stukov’s Diamondback/Banshee. Probably highest single target DPS of the entire game. The comp kinda sucks, but works? If you don’t mind losing units and crying most of the game, you will still get the victory anyway.
Everything else I do I’ve seen people do some times.
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Weird, I never have that issue.
Might be because I always have them inside Dark Pylon’s field, and mind control Vipers when possible.
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Tempest with Zealots for mineral sink is quite standard. It’s used in a lot of speedruns as well due to their ability to sustain strong pushes.
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No, like I Build literally zero Ground Units besides the first 5 or so Zealots, and use Pheonix’s as a Mineral Dump lol.
These “strange” builds you are referring to are just non-meta builds. They are the best part of coop.
Vorazun: mass stalkers + oracles is my fave build for her.
Swann with mass wraiths + sci-v is also nice and fun.
Kerrigan mass Queen + Lurker, Queens in Dropperlords, Lurkers in Nydus Worms
Raynor: Did mass vulture on OE against a ground como once and just put Spider Mines everywhere. I’ve also fallen out with MMM, my standard comp had become Marine/Medic/Banshee or Viking depending on comp.
Artanis: Mass Phoenix + Zealots. Very mobile, don’t use against armored air comp.
Kerrigan: Mass Broodlord against a ground comp. Very inefficient, but it works.
Swann: Mass Wraith + Hellbat/Sci Vessel. There are also times when I go mass Turret on DoN and ToP.
Karax: Mass Energizer + Sentinel
Alarak: Mass Vanguard on ME
Nova: Not sure if it’s weird but I usually go with Siege Tank/Liberator/Marine
Stukov: Mass Brood Queen + Mass Barracks.
Fenix: Mass Disruptor + Legionnaire against ground comp.
Dehaka: Mass Primal Wurm.
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I’ve seen Vorazun going mass oracles. Oracles ONLY. On Dead of night. And that was damn effective. Gotta try that next time.
I have a list of them, some are probably already mentioned though:
Raynor - Marines, Medics, Vikings. Kills most comps except Anti-ground, either run away or zerg them with Marines with Vikings behind as support.
Kerrigan - Mass Lurkers with some Hydra support. Works best in defensive maps like Dead of Night and Miner Evacuation. Requires good macro to be used offensively. Mass Brood Lords works too, but you need to split them around the map in a few groups and always be near a Nydus worm when engaging an enemy.
Artanis - Mass Zealots with Archon support. This is an old build I used heavily back in the Wings of Liberty era as Protoss, it still hits like a truck, even more so in co-op.
Swann - Mass Cyclones. It requires good macro to use them properly, especially against anti-ground or swarmy comps. Another is 20 SCV’s, how does that work? You play like Karax but more carefully.
Zagara - Mass Aberrations with scourge support. This comp will wreck ground, but it has trouble with air. Use Zagara/HK’s and Scourges to counter.
Vorazun - Mass Centurions with Stalker support. This comp I used to level Vorazun and it worked very well, kills everything with minimal macro. Another is mass Oracles, requires good macro to pull off.
Karax - Mass Energizers. This comp is meant to follow your teammate’s army and make them go super saiyan. If you have enough of them, they can do some serious damage against air comps.
Abathur - Mass Queens. Stupidly effective against everything, even more so when you get them maxed out on bio-essence.
Alarak - Mass Slayers with Havoc Support. Kills everything, even anti-ground, requires some macro since Alarak’s dumb @ss has a bad habit of face tanking the world far away from your units.
Nova - Mastery Nova. Just Nova, no support, you run around and wreck the map with your 1337 micro and macro skills while leaving some units at base for defense.
Stukov - Mass Brood Queens with Liberator support. Requires a lot of macro, but the payoff is that you wipe out the map more quickly than you ever could with mass bunkers and calldowns pre-nerf.
Fenix - Mass Adepts. Wrecks everything, can quickly recover from fatal mistakes.
Dehaka - Zerglings/Igniters/Tyrannozor. Kills anything with proper macro.
H&H - Strike Rush. Mass strike platforms with upgrades as fast as possible. Use them to clear the map and send your units to clean up the survivors. 8/10 you will come out on top for kill score.
Tychus - Tychus/Nikara. If you have the micro and macro skills, you can solo most maps with just Tychus.
Zeratul - Nothing special comes to mind here, he is so damn powerful that any combo pretty much works.
Stetmann - Zerglings and Banelings. Murders ground, but struggles with air. Use Super Gary to deal with air.
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Raynor: Firebat, Marauder, Medic
Arta: Phoenix
Swann: Cyclone + Hellbat
Vora: Dark Archon + Zealot
Karax: Mirage
Abathur: Roach + Ravager
Alarak: Slayer + Ascendent
Nova: Ghost only
Stukov: Queen
Dehaka: No primal combat
H&H: Air only
Stetmann: Lings + Bane
Tempest: 300 minerals, 200 gas, 4 supply
Phoenix: 150 minerals, 100 gas, 2 supply.
The point of a mineral dump is to not cut into your gas reserves, so that you can keep making gas heavy units. Proportionally, phoenixes are exactly the same as tempests so they can’t be a mineral dump.
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Raynor: Siege Tank, Firebat, Medic, Viking. Absolutely shreds zerg swarmy.
Vorazun: Stalker, DT, Dark Archon, Centurion mineral dump if needed. Has become my go to build with her.