• October 31, 2021

Starcraft 2 Elite guide: the best research options to beat Starcraft 2 in Brutal Part 2

A lot of people have been asking me about the single player campaign and what decisions I made for the Zerg and Protoss research when I tried to beat the game brutally. First of all, I have to say that taking on Brutal mode in Starcraft 2 is not an easy task, to say the least. I’m going to show you what is, in my opinion, the best research path to follow in trying to conquer a brutal difficulty.

Protoss Research:

Tier 1: The choice is between Ultra Capacitors, which grants 5% more attack speed when upgrading weapons (and applies to both the Armory and Engineering Bay) and Vanadium Plating which grants 5% health in addition to armor upgrades (also applies to the Armory and Engineering Bay). Like I said before, the best defense is a good offense and I found that going with the ultracapacitors turned out to be more beneficial. The health upgrade looks nice, but once I updated the stabilizing med packs for medics and advanced healing AI for medics, I didn’t see the point in extra HP.

Winner: Ultracapacitors

Level 2: The second option is between Orbital Depots, which allows you to instantly drop supply depots and microfiltration, which allows you to collect vespene gas 25% faster and also applies to automated refineries. While the Orbital Depots seem fast and efficient, the only serious use I could see is making a quick wall out of them. Now I assume that since you’ve gotten here, you’ve gotten used to building supply depots as needed, and furthermore, many of the more difficult missions actually max out your supply right away, making this update almost useless. However, microfiltering seemed like the best option to me simply because it allows you to fire the big guns and get upgrades faster in missions.

Winner: Microfiltered

Level 3: The third option is between the automated refinery that allows refineries to no longer require SCVs to collect gas and the command center reactor that allows you to train 2 SCVs at a time. I’ve seen people go for both options, but I think the automated refinery takes the cake. I don’t see the point in training 2 SCVs at once when I could have the refinery automated and be able to build 6 less SCVs per base. Okay, you could ramp up your economy at a faster rate, but isn’t MULE for that once you’ve upgraded Orbital Command?

Winner: automated refinery

Level 4: The fourth option is between the Raven and the Science Vessel. Now I’ve seen the power of Ravens against Zerg and they can be absolutely devastating, but I don’t think this can even come close to competing with Science Vessel. The Science Vessel’s abilities far exceed those of the Raven. Being able to heal your ships and vehicles, as well as gaining access to Radiate (which is pretty much the ground-based version of fungal growth) is much greater than being able to launch auto turrets and homing missiles. The Science Vessel is the most obvious choice.

Winner: Science Vessel

Level 5: The final choice is between Tech Reactor, which combines Tech Lab and Reactor in a simple add-on, and Orbital Strike, which allows Barracks Units to drop at the Barracks rally point. When it comes to Orbital Strike, there is one keyword you need to pay attention to and that is Barracks units. If this had applied to factories and starports as well, I’d understand taking it, but being able to simply drop 2 marines or marauders or medics on the rally point becomes useless at this stage of the game when you are most likely building the most of your attack force from the Starport. The Tech Reactor simplifies everything and allows you to pump everything you can build quickly and efficiently.

Winner: Tech Reactor

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