Tips For Playing Mengsk

Right now I am at 12 going on 13, and I am having a tough time keeping up with people on brutal in certain missions. Does anyone know any optimal builds that would make it easier? Because so far I haven’t really found any except blowing 20k minerals on a constant worker river with a random assortment of royals to back them up. Recently I figured out that posting up Imperial Witnesses will boost the top bar meter, a detailed explanation of those workings would be much appreciated as well.

EDIT:

Thanks to this thread I was able to understand Mengsk and play him with ease. If you want to know an easy way to play him to discover other great builds, view this post:

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Take a couple of imperial witnesess and park them to blast propaganda over your mineral lines.
The are two ways of generating more top bar energy “mandate”: having troopers under the effect of a witness and having plenty of royal guard. mandate is important since you need it for you top bar abilities.
Don’t forget the mandate generation upgrade you can get at the fussion core for the troopers.

Second, get some weapons, the weapons pass from trooper to trooper so it wont be a waste if the trooper you just upgraded gets blasted. They are very good aswell, the rocket launcher is esentially a goliath air attack, the flamer gives 100 extra hp to the trooper holding it and the heavy machine gun gives the troopers +6 attack

troopers can still group build bunkers, missile turrets and ordenances, so if you have to defend point its good to qickly entrench yourself or cranking a missile turret real quick for detection

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Forgot to mention my usual build. I’ve been rushing tech to get those imperial witnesses as fast as possible, and then getting an extra 2 CCs up for trooper production. Then grab at least one of those cannons for the top bar ( I have not fully explored those yet) and whatever the enemy comp is I build the counter royal against it.

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Haven’t played him, but the Mengsk players that I’ve seen doing well build a ton of those artillery things and just bombed the nuts off anything they needed dead.

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Oh, and did anyone come up with any good early expo strats? Because that I have no idea if I am doing as fast as I could be.

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Do they build them in base or near areas they need to push?

It wont matter once you get to the masterys, there is one that makes expo cleaning a joke.
What i did before that is building the bunkers in order to defend against the first wave, once i’m set in the main i start sending troopers to clear rocks or start a small army otherwise, when done i build a bunker real quick convert 10 troopers to workers and group build a CC.
In case you have 10 troopers to spare, or think your ally can take care of early game, you can also convert your army into workers, group build everything you need tech wise and convert them back. Alos try to build supply with your troopers while they are idling, no need to pester the mineral line to do it

They have limited range even if it is massive, so i try to get them in good defendable positions where they can hit all i need, but they are 100% salvageable, so you can stop. put some together, soften your targets, salvage, and then attack.

I’ve been doing roughly the same thing for early expo, so I guess that’s covered for now.

Gonna try the cannons next and see how that goes, thanks for that info.

For fast expo pre-mastery I used this:

  • 13/15 Supply Bunker
  • 22/27 Enlistment Center (Use 10 Laborers)
  • 24/27 Convert the 10 Laborers into Troopers and use them to break the rocks, lift spare Enlistment center to the expansion (or build it at the expansion if you REALLY want to.)
  • Continue into a 1/1/2 build (I always go double Starport to pump out the air units I need.) Add on an additional Rax or Factory depending upon match-up. If Sky, either add on your second Factory or just build from your double Starport.
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Further tip: rush fusion core and get the amplified airwaves upgrade ASAP. Once you get 200/200 with all your dudes under imperial witnesses, you should never have to fight anything threatening without a Zerg wave again, so try to avoid unnecessary fights with troopers early on.

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Your biggest objective early game is to tech up to Imperial Witness and it’s upgrade, not only for the mandate, but for detection, you don’t wanna get caught off guard and let them detroy all your bunkers.

Mostly as Mengsk you have to react on enemy comp quite more than other commanders, air comps is surprisingly easy mode(compared to well… most commanders), but armored, splash is your poison, get siege tanks and/or marauders once you’ll see them.

When it comes to deal with tough bases, don’t bother attacking, use artillery until most ground enemies are down, especially splash dmg ones.

Before mastery and having to deal with contested expo maps, it’s worth giving 1 or 2 flame weapons to troopers since it gives 100 hp, making them a good tank to deal with static and tier 1 enemies.

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Once you get like 8 or so earthsplitters fully loaded you start feeiling invincible. I usually shoot for about 20 total.

Those cannons are bloody awesome but you need to keep em fully loaded to have em firing at peak efficiency and you will want a fair number of the things to really lay into your enemies.

And don’t forget that your workers can power build your tech tree by working together on the same build.
(for no additional cost!)

A flamer gives 100HP and costs 160 minerals. For that same money you can have four extra troopers adding a total of 180HP and their firepower.

Well, it is meant to avoid losing more units than you should, zealots and roaches packs quite a punch, you can go without it, but you will have to compensate with micro in some maps.

Flamer is 160 for the weapon, for a single weapon you can convert a theoretical infinite amount of troopers, with just three tropeers picking the thing up you can have 435 hp for 280, wich beats the equivalent 315 for 7 troppers at the same price

EDIT:sorry, it’s a bit late for math ATM

Yes, in the longer term, but this was specifically about the first wave. More troopers is probably more efficient since you need more for generating mandate and teching up. Plus, you can just build a bunker near expo for expanding even before L15.

Yes, more troopers is always better, however i always choose to get flamers just before engaging in order to add a bit of resiliance to the bioball, it comes with the upside of being inmediatly available.

Witnesses may not be ready just yet and you can only group build with a maximum of 10 units at a time

Whatever works for you. :slight_smile:

Very good tips in here, thanks for this. I got Mengsk to lvl 15 before turkey day, haven’t been on since.

Question on mandate (top bar energy) does it have a limit on how much you can generate?

Also, does anyone have a good presentation video on how to properly build and win with the cannons? As said in other threads, I had a real hard time trying to get those to work in my favor.