What can Karax do for you?

Co-op Missions Discussion
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This is sort of a guide, but also part reminder of everything I picked up ever since I finally was able to try out all COs in depth (leveling them up past mastery). Also, only counting active stuff. Not passive stuff like Chrono Field, or Reconstruction Beam (unless it involves the mastery points, or researching this to cover 2 extra targets)

========= in general
—Get Recon Beam upgrade if your ally is going heavy on mech. Pre-game, consider putting points into that mastery
—take care of 1st wave
—take care of straggling enemies
Saves some COs a whole teleport spell

—If your ally has solid attack forces, then attach Energizers to them as a force multiplier
—Use Purifier Beam to soften up attack waves and/or fortifications
—If you have Phase Detonation researched (and you should :wink: ), it’s helpful to accompany COs who have “glass cannons”, like Raynor’s bioball, HH’s Reapers, Mengk’s Troopers, Vorazun’s units, Zagara’s units. Even stunning a portion of the enemy army will give them a leg up in battle.
You don’t even need to unload massive amounts of SoA energy into this. Just time it so that you keep maximum amount of enemies in perpetual stun (they stay stunned for 1.5s, so work out a rhythm if you want to stun multiple portions)

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========= mission specific
==== Oblivious Express
Make a few cannons or Mono + Obs to keep nuking ghosts at bay

===== Dead Of Night
If you’re going d, then focus on that. Properly taking care of d lets your ally focus on pushing. Even at night

===== Cradle Of Death
Make defense! They always pile on your main base, from all 3 entrances

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========= CO specific
===== HH
Make defenses for them. They can focus on pushing
===== Tychus
Ditto here as with above
===== Raynor
Ditto here

==== Nova
Give Chrono Boost to her production. nearly Any other Protoss CO can do this, but with Karax, even more so. Also, be sure to hit Chrono Wave often (I’m assuming your typical Nova player won’t leave their production charges maxed out)

==== Dehaka
This is assuming you have mastery in SoA start energy/max energy, take out towers early on. Early level Dehaka sucks at taking out towers. He only does 20 to 40 damage, and doesn’t really have any applicable skills vs. them. It’s like some sort of “mandatory rockslapping”. I got thanked a few times for this. The feeling’s mutual, as the quicker Dehaka can get up and running, the better it is for the both of us
bunkers = 4 shots (400hp. 550 if Amon bunkers get that fortified upgrade)… add an extra shot if you’d like to take out the lot of infantry in there (although some Dehaka players will want to Consume them)
Cannons = 3 shots 150/150
Spine Crawler = 4 shots (300hp + 2 armor)

==== Abathur
Ditto. Take out towers, try to lead units into Toxic Nests. Same principle here… the quicker his UEs get up and running, the fast it is for everyone else

===== Stukov
Snipe anti-swarmy threats (e.g. Colossi, HT, Reavers, Tanks, Banalings)

==== Artanis
Even though he has Deploy Power Field, it has a 30s cd, and can only be in one place at a time. Dropping Pylons on the field lets both of you have greater map coverage. Also give him Pylons for base use. He doesn’t need the supply. Just the power fields, so if you can coordinate that, it saves him resources and time

===== Fenix
Similar deal here. Deploy Adepts to the frontline easier. It also gives Fenix himself vision to teleport his various suits for rapid reinforcement

==== Alarak
Drop pylons for Structure Overload. He can just bring a War Prism and put it in stationary mode, but I have yet to see anybody actually do this.

==== Vorazun
If she drops a Dark Pylon in a defensive area, then make a few cannons (yours are better and have 0 bt), and Shield Batteries (they go a long way towards keeping her costly Dpylons alive).

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Some great cooperative synergy advices.

:+1:

Also gave me a laugh when I read:

:joy: he’s definitely one of them thicc boyz

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Heh… not the first time I did that. I think I keep fat-fingering the Y and H. I can’t even blame auto correct on that!

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Honest mistake that brightened my day man. :smiley:

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Orbital strike is unaffected by armor. It would take 5 shots to kill bunker and 4 to kill cannon if it did. Spine survives with 1 hp because zerg units regen 1 hp instantly the first time they’re hit. Point still stands though.

:clap:Make :clap: god :clap: damn :clap: colossi :clap:
You can have 2 + an energizer out during the first day which lets you kill things. People underestimate how tanky colossi are with the unit hp mastery. They won’t be quick at killing buildings, but you have to try pretty hard to lose them. Heck, you can send them to ally to convince them you’re helping while you’re defending.

During the nights, a colossus or 2 at each entrance makes a cannon+battery wall SO much stronger.

Focus mainly on the southern entrances. A couple cannons + a couple orbital strikes should be more than enough for the eastern and western ones. South entrances don’t need that much more. 5-6 + a couple batteries is usually fine.

Did… you forget you were talking about Karax, not swann?

To clarify, you need cannons in order to have batteries improve survivability of dark pylon. Batteries don’t heal dark pylons automatically, only offensive structures.

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The best thing a good Karax can do for himself is - clear the map himself. Relying on random allies is a lost cause.

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I would “feel the room”. I’ve had games where it didn’t feel like my ally was going to be aggressive about that, so in that case, yeah, switch gears to go heavier on units, and cut back on d. (In one P&P game, I ended up collecting most of the parts. Yet, my ally wasn’t a character who was lousy at pushing).

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I tend to go mass colossi anyway. You can defend just as easily if need be and still able to clear DoN by Day4 (without any help). With ransoms you just never know. And the last thing I want is to be stuck defending DoN for 5-6 nights, sooooo boring lol.

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Get this upgrade anyway, no matter who you’re allied with. Every single Karax unit is mechanical, even his probes and his structures. This upgrade is cheap and it heals everything Karax has. It’s a must have.

Same thing here, Energizers are super helpful to have no matter what comp you’re playing, the only exceptions here would be mass air since they can’t really keep up with them.

There are certain enemy compositions where even massing Energizers is a strong tactic such as vs Protoss or Terran air compositions.

Here’s another tip for Karax that you missed. Always invest 30/30 points in starting SoA energy. The increased Chronoboost efficency isn’t a great mastery anyway and it’s even more pointless on Karax who has Chronowave.

You can use that SoA energy to take a fast 16 Nexus on maps with uncontested natural expansions. An expansion that fast is key in getting Karax the economy he needs to really thrive.

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Swann: Park an energizer behind the drill.

Artanis: Consider making more units and fewer towers. Only units get guardian shell.

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That’s good Karax advice in general.

Unless you’re playing Dead of Night or Temple of the Past, you never want to overmake static defense. Make just what you need and focus the rest of your money on units. The worst kind of Karax player is the kind that leaves his ally to do all of the lifting all game long when it comes to pushing objectives.

Setting up some defenses so your ally can go 100% offense is one thing. Not contributing at all to offense at all is something else.

Also as anyone that has played multiplayer would know, Shield Batteries work just as well on units as they do on structures. even better in a lot of cases.

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Here are some of my thoughts

Expo
If you have 90 mastery, use your SoA energy for expo unless there are void rifts or something. In some maps orbital strikes can hit the rocks of both the gas and nexus site; otherwise you need a cannon to demolish the gas rocks.

----In RoK you will regain ~30 energy at the first wave. Don’t throw them pointlessly. Build a pylon near the ramp and wait until the enemies to hit it. 30 SoA energy is well enough to deal with the first wave, regardless of the AI comp.

----In Cradle, you can actually have your truck rushing toward the construct and clear the enemy with a solar lance.

----In Scythe of Amon, you can actually sneak one probe to the left of the silver at expo site, build a pylon and 2-3 cannons, and use a solar lance to clear the attracted enemies. Don’t forget to kill the void rift as well.

SoA upgrades
Solar flare is quite uselsss because obviously you would like to eliminate the waves in a matter of seconds. One exception is on DoN. Solar lances with flare can kill infested huts in a line, so don’t just stay at your base defending but rather use observers to clear the huts.
The orbital strike stun is also quite embarassing for similar reasons. But it can be useful against air comp. Enemy air units tend to aggregate so this ability helps you to kill them with least cost of energy.

Tips on some maps
DoN: Go gate first. Thus you can have an energizer at the beginning of night 1. Cannons are instantly built so long as the forge is completed. Don’t panic.

RoK: I’ve mentioned it previously in other sections. In addition, you can use you first purifier beam for the right half of rifts site #2. You can then move your probe to set up defense there (and demolish the rift safely). Waves on this map are in a quite regular basis, so clearing them with SoA would also be easy.
Phoenix works great on this map, since you only need to take down the rifts while the bonus objective is an air unit.

Some complaints on carriers
Yep. Carriers are fair units before, but they seriously become worse with the latest patch. The price has gone up, while the hit points increase on the carrier itself is just stupid… Spending 325 gas on such a baby firepower is definitely not worth it.
Other units are totally fine with the latest patch. Sentinels and phoenices are buffed in most occasions. Carriers, instead, need a revamp.

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Karax in general I’d say. Check out M’s Karax 2.0 on his maps. I’d say that’s a good direction.

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What if I don’t play swarmy Stukov?

About batteries and pylons (especially dark ones): When i play defensively, i save all my batteries at control group, in order to force them replenish non-combat structure shields (such as dark pylon) manually because batteries replenish only combat structure shields automatically.

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He’s saying Stukov is a swarmy type of commander. So as a Karax ally, use SoA strikes to take out those splash units, so your Stukov ally has an easier time. Lol, “what if I don’t play Stukov”, then I guess you don’t play Stukov :joy:

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What you can do here is to rush the truck towards the construct, Orbital Strike it down, then repeat when the truck respawns. This allows you to clear expo completely without needing to kill anything else.

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He is not saying that, and stukov is swarmy commander only for half, like a raynor. I play Stukov.

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I wonder sometimes why you comment the way you do, but it seems that perhaps it’s just you not reading things fully.

This entire topic is called “What Can Karax Do For You”, as in if you are Karax how to help your ally.

And Stukov is not like “a Raynor” like at all.

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Wow keep trolling people further, looks like it’s working out for you.

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Why do you keep doing this?

So you made a mistake reading, big deal. Just trying to inform you.

Always taking things the wrong way and proceed with the exact same “you trolling” comment.

Anyway, you do you, sorry I tried lol.