Can you beat Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void with Zealots Only?

hello ladies and gentlemen this is giant grant games and today i'm here to answer the question is it possible to beat legacy the void with only zealots spoiler alert it's not so today instead of talking about my successes we're going to go through all of the concessions that i had to make in order to actually get through this run with what some people might consider mostly zealots only my goal going into this run was to beat the campaign without using any combat units besides zealots deal no damage with the spear of a dune and only use photon cannons to defend against flyers with that as the basis to start let's get into the run while the rules do say that no build missions don't count i want to give this one my best shot the objective of a four iron is easy clear out the zerg and get to the end of the mission i'm given 32 zealots to work with the zerg on the other hand has four ultralists three guardians two queens two investors 25 spine crawlers 23 roaches 66 hydraulics 10 bailings 10 butylists 480 zerglings and six hybrid totaling 523 supply and costing 12 times as many resources as my initial starting force they also have upgrades and i don't i can rescue some additional zealots around the map but i can never hold a candle to the zerg numbers so i decide to drop the difficulty and i learn something interesting for some reason four ire is exactly the same on the hard and brutal difficulties so i guess i'm going down to normal normal makes the mission significantly more approachable while i don't have the ability to dive enemy emplacements i can follow a simple formula of pulling the enemy groups executing them and waiting for my shields to recharge it's not a fast process but it works reliably for the majority of the mission the end is where things get scary the hybrid kills zealots fast and they have huge hp pools the first three fall but as i reach the final group i don't have enough to fight straight up and zealots aren't exactly known for their arranged kiting so i run and run and run all the way back to the ai controlled mother ship at the beginning of the mission i can't kill these hybrid but selenda sure can i repeat this process two more times for the remaining hybrid and voila the 6 minute a-move mission is done in a quick and easy 42 minutes the growing shadow is impossible to do with zealots only on brutal let's talk about why the mission begins with a short no-build segment with stalkers it's easy enough to not kill anything with them while getting to the base the base segment is flat out undoable though for multiple reasons the crux of the problem lies in the inability to hit air throughout the run photon cannons will be my main air defense structure the mission doesn't give me any of these the only available option to hit air is the stalker at the 8 minute mark the first mute is hit it's just a pair of them but it's a huge problem because protoss can't repair and the mission doesn't give me access to shield batteries there's no way to stop the mutalists from slowly whittling me down but i did come up with a plan i start constructing a nexus at the front of my base it gains hit points faster than it loses them while the mutualists attack it once the nexus is about to complete i cancel it for a 75 refund and then i repeat the process this means that the mutas are only draining about 100 of my minerals every 70 seconds or so this works well enough for the time being and i continue to build up the big problem comes as a 16 minute mark off of my one available base with seven mineral patches i've managed to build up about 120 supply of zealots this is when four more mutalists come to play the six total mutas now deal enough damage that a building nexus dies faster than it's constructed i cannot stall them out any longer the objective is a protoss base on the top left of the map two zerg bases and a protoss encampment lie between me and them i start heading out and see what i can get done and there are another 10 mutalists in the first zerk base i can't even finish that base off and because of well-positioned enemies i can't run past everything topping it off in order to complete the mission a flying carrier must be killed there's no getting around it for these reasons it is impossible to beat this mission with zealots only the spear of a dune is where i finally start to catch a break now i have photon cannons so i can actually defend against air units flyers on the map are still going to ruin my day though there are 4 power cells that must be captured in order to finish the mission after each cell is destroyed the enemy sends an attack wave against me either nidus worms unloadings or troops until destroyed or war prisms warping in protoss units until destroyed of course the flying warp prisms are the first to attack meaning that as soon as i clear a warp conduit protoss units will indefinitely be attacking me fortunately i've been in this position before in legacy of the void deathless i opted to simultaneously destroy all the power cells in order to avoid attack waves i'm going to have to do the same thing here unfortunately unlike in deathless the zealot is not a cost-effective way to clear around the map the nearby power cell is simple enough to clear just a few zerglings and hydrolysks i then move on to the center-right this is the second easiest area the left has a huge number of mutalists and the south houses the strongest defenses of them all despite being the easiest my 150 supply zealot army gets shredded the investor's fungal growth ability is devastating while units like marines take a higher percentage of their life and damage due to a fungal growth at least they can fire their guns immobilized melee units are the most useless thing in the game after 10 minutes of rebuilding my forces i get to try again my mineral fields are getting close to running out so i decide it's time to get a move on i set up a pylon at the bottom of the ramp to reinforce and crash down on the center-right lock its defenders were mostly dealt with in the last wave so i break them easily the army then dives the southern lock none of the defenders have been cleared but my army is large enough to kill the corruption while ignoring the enemies meanwhile my reinforcement zealots head to the final lock and target it down and then calamity strikes an attack wave of hybrid and protoss forces that were supposed to be heading to my base find my zealots my base is being eviscerated by three lock attack waves at the same time i manage to mine enough for six zealots before my probes are killed my last resort is to dive on the final objective the mutilisks and hydras ripping through my zealots but just as it looks like all hope is lost it is my forces are eliminated with 19 of 1000 hp remaining on the objective so i reload wait for the hybrid attack wave to pass and finish the objective off with no issue after spear of a dune i'm given two decisions to make first i'm given the option to go to either shakuras or core hall i'm going to have to delay shakur as long as possible without access to the dark templar the missions on sakuras are pretty rough i need to unlock as much as i can before going there the second choice is between the two zealot subtypes i've unlocked each of these zealot types has a unique attribute that gives them an edge i will be using all three throughout the run but i'm going to opt for the centurion for now the objective of sky shield is super unique there are five platform stabilizers scattered around the map that need to be secured each is guarded by a progressively stronger force of enemies there are two catches first is that i'm on the clock and second there are air units defending the stabilizers i can't capture them until they're destroyed this mission is where the centurion zealot shines the dark coil ability stuns non-massive units for a short period of time this ability scales rather poorly into the later stages of the campaign where attack waves get stronger but the stun doesn't work on the most threatening enemies but on sky shield the layout is perfect for them the map is littered with small outposts of enemies this means that as long as i wait for the ability to be off cooldown before engaging i can permanently keep enemy units stunned as i open up the map this mission is already cutting it very close making sure i lose nothing to the groups around the map is essential after securing the stabilizers adjacent to my base i head to the north clear two of the three bonus objectives and then head to the rightmost stabilizer every time a stabilizer is secured the defenders of the other stabilizers increase in number and quality most players save this one for last but doing so means the defenders get a battle cruiser which i can't beat i dive my zealots in clear out the ground defenders and realize at this point that there are three banshees defending that's not good i grab my entire army and head to the northern stabilizer maybe i can salvage this each claimed lock gives me four minutes on the clock i clean out the north but there's a raven here who i can't hit as i resign myself to going back to the drawing board for this mission the stabilizer secures despite a raven being alive i don't know why but ravens don't count when the game is checking if an area is guarded or not currently i'm in a bit of a pickle i originally wanted to use cannons to defend against air units and not deal damage with the spear of a dune but the number of air units and legacy of the void is completely out of control being forced to make a tough decision i decide that when i'm gonna have to use non-zealots i would rather use photon cannons because they cost resources instead of the spirit of a dune whose energy is free i zip a probe to the right hand side and build some cannons and then pull banshees into them the raven doesn't play nice but it does allow me to confirm that for some reason the raven just doesn't count the force stabilizer is the same idea zealots crash in clear the area and then pull banshees over to some cannons to take them down one remaining at this point my army is big enough that i smash through the final stabilizer with little resistance only a single banshee in the air means i can build cannons right under it and finish the bonus objective that i completely remembered to do until now don't mind my cannons frantically shooting anything besides the banshee so i can get my last 5 solarite oh that was almost bad brothers in arms is a fun mission that i enjoy a lot and this run is no exception i have to kill 5 hybrid on the right side of the map and kill a keystone structure who has 3000 hp the map alternates between two states a normal one where the enemy and my two ai allies are fighting until a disruption pulse is fired off and then the disruption pulse stuns all allied and enemy terran units for a few minutes during the stun the hybrid attack my allies if my allies command centers die i lose this is the first mission that i get to take a second base and this is really exciting to me because i like money i've switched off of the century and zeal it to the ire zealot the centurion's stun does not work against the hybrid the iron zealot on the other hand has an ability called whirlwind which deals 10 damage per second in an area around the zealot this ability has one weird factor that makes it incredible here the zealot has no unit collision while it's whirlwinding it can move through both enemies and allies against big enemy forces this is often a liability the zealots will stack up and get melted by area of effect attacks but it also covers one of their biggest weaknesses a lack of damage density when fighting small groups of units such as hybrid most of the zealots will be stuck behind each other doing effectively nothing the whirlwind ability means that for a short period of time my entire army can temporarily hit one target though buildings and flyers are immune while i engage the first hybrid attack wave i send one zealot to clear out the bonus objective to the north the enemies up there are all terrans so he can clear all but one banshee out during the stun i don't feel like cannon rushing this banshees so i leave it alone for now after maxing out is where the fun begins the customary hybrid attack wave comes and 80 whirlwind zealots melt through it in seconds allowing me plenty of time to push towards the objective my goal is to win during the next disruption event but i still have one bonus objective to deal with because of that banshee i decide to recruit one of jim raynor's goliaths and escort him over to the enemy banshee to take him out and the goliath dies luckily this heroic goliath had a brother who was desperate to avenge him so i gently show goliath number two where the evil banshee is he takes it out and i get my bonus objective my strategy for the final disruption is easy walk past all the terran make the hybrid star on the next episode of willow blend and then kill the keystone structure the three dominators can put some serious area damage out with their psionic storms i have to send my forces in waves to mitigate the damage until two of them are dead and then i vitamix the final hybrid in less than a quarter of a second as i bask in the afterglow of melting one of the scariest starcraft enemies in a fraction of a second with a meme unit i remember something jim is stunned and currently being attacked by the hybrid i burned down the keystone and less than a second later jim's command center dies i got so excited by my zealots that i almost lost after core hall i had the forbidden weapon this mission is a race against mr laser to get to the vault at the end this is the final time i'll be using a whirlwind zealot i need the damage over survivability if i want to beat the clock this is one of the final missions that i'm stuck on one base and i'm really feeling it the enemy protoss have a full tech tree unlocked as well as good upgrades i have 20 minutes to reach the end of the long path normally there's a shortcut that can be accessed with the solar lance ability that skips about half of the enemies but i don't have access to the luxury of combat spear of a dune abilities instead i wait around for half the time building up my forces protos area of effect is really powerful and because the iron zealots stack i have to be very careful around archons templar and colossus otherwise i can lose my entire army in seconds against templar i specifically opt to send small squads of zealots to bait out the storms before engaging the main force after destroying an enemy outpost and defending a rather large attack against my base i realize i have one minute left and a quarter of the path remaining i charge my 50 zealots through the remaining taldarum forces drop temporal field on a particularly scary templar and bash the first pylon wall dive through the second and grab the objective while the laser is literally touching it i held off going to shakuras for as long as i could without the right options available amon's reach is a frightening mission normally it's pretty simple the ground is littered with a powerful army of zerg units but the enemy detectors are fairly limited this is conveniently the mission where you get to unlock the dark templar instead i'm gonna have to clear my way through the old fashioned way during the mission five void thrashers spawn each will drain the hit points of the shuttle launch bay as long as they remain on brutal they spawn fast and the bay can only take a few minutes of punishment before falling fortunately the first void thrasher is basically unguarded and the only way to take damage from him is to stand in these circles completing glaciers before heading here was important doing so unlocks the sentinel variant of the zealot unlike the whirlwind or centurion zealots the sentinel does not gain any in-combat improvements instead it has the ability reconstruction reviving it from the dead once every three minutes the fact of the matter is that zealots are never going to have the incredible damage output of marines or raptor zerglings i'm also lacking the incredible mining power of the mule or the steady reinforcements provided by zergling reconstitution instead i'm going to have to focus on making my zealots as durable as possible playing into their only advantage over their peers the second thrasher is harder than the first but it's really not that bad normally approaching it is supposed to be difficult because of the first detectors that you encounter zealots don't care about that after this is when the first problem of the mission arrives the third thrasher is on the far side of a zerg base i decide to kill three birds with one stone here if i take out the zerg base then i won't have to worry of attack waves from the left while i'm clearing the right later on and i can take the base for myself to double my zealot production the void thrashers now spawn nidus worms to assist them during combat zealots are not great at killing the worms before they start unloading it's easy to get overwhelmed instead i do something a bit cheeky the nidus worms spawn in the same exact positions every time i drop temporal fields on top of those positions causing the worms to be stunned the moment that they appear trivializing the fight because i saved so many of my forces with the temporal field cheese my zealot force is looking pretty good i don't know where the knight is to spawn in the next fight but my force is so overwhelming that i don't care at this point i have enough hp on the warp conduit that i can allow the final thrasher to bombard it until i have a maxed out army who clears everything easily last stand is a time defense mission and my rules from the start come back to bite me here i decided that static defense that only costs minerals is okay because i need a way to hit air units this rule specifically excludes the kaiderin monolith from being produced which is the highest range of all the static defense in the game it would really be a shame if this mission were to attack with units at higher range than my cannons the first objective is to kill three zenith stones around the map normally the three dark templars that you start with are more than enough to deal with them while you set up static defense i instead opt to build a large forces zealous early on to defend this means that once i finish off an attack wave i can go to a nearby zenith stone and take it down i've unlocked my first passive ability of the run photon overcharge turns my nexus into a giant low dps cannon it's a fine ability it doesn't cost any solarite and the other options don't do anything for me so i stick with it once all three of the zenith stones are down it's time to turtle with photon cannons for the majority of the mission there's not much to talk about it's not ideal but sentinels combined with photon cannons and shield batteries is enough to deal with all the ground lanes the big problem comes with the back the air attack route sends guardians which have nine range that's two more than my photon cannons the first guardian attack manages to take down multiple photon cannons on my side however they end up advancing forward enough that i'm able to build cannons directly under them and take them out near the end there's just too many guardians though the back is broken and i have no way to recover while i do manage to hit the required 1 billion zerg on the planet there's no way that i can get to the 1.5 for the bonus objective it's pretty sad losing valuable solarite at this point in the run temple of unification is infamous for being arguably the biggest difficulty spike in starcraft 2. the enemy is relentlessly aggressive has a full protoss and taren tech tree to work with and the map requires you to secure 5 locations at the same time it's pretty funny that one of the hardest campaign missions got translated into one of the easiest co-op missions in order to secure all five locks i'm gonna need a ton of money i expand as fast as possible and fortify my bases zealots are able to clear the ground however every unit around the lock must be killed including the void rays i start building photon cannons and shield batteries near the lock this works well enough and one lock out of 5 is secure and then i get to the middle lock 3 wraiths 2 banshees 3 void rays and a carrier that's a lot of air i try to set up a cannon cluster but the enemy keeps attacking me as long as both enemy bases are sending constant raids i can't secure these areas on the map with cannons i head towards the protoss base with a maxed out army and full upgrades over 10 void rays a bunch of colossus some scouts and carriers slaughter my force before i can do anything against them void rays and banshees then clear out my cannon emplacements on the map there's not enough available money to remax and i reset at this point i'm 100 sure that the correct answer is to get a quick zeal at max out and kill the protoss i need to stop one of the factions from harassing me if i want to finish i decide to switch to the centurion their ability to charge through each other will be helpful in the choke points of the protoss base this was not correct the centurions do about as well as before meanwhile the taren counter attacks me and i'm dead again after a good deal of deliberation and viewer pulling we decided that with the current rule set the rest of legacy of the void can't be done i decide to take a vote and the overwhelming number of my viewers are cool with me powering up the weapon systems of the spear of a dune i do put a limiter on myself i decide that the spear of a dune can only be used to attack enemies where the primary threat is air units hitting ground targets is unavoidable because the ai loves stacking up but i diligently try to keep things as much about the zealot as i could i grab solar lance return to the sentinel zealot and try again because solar lance use is limited and there's enough air i must be pretty precise with my shots the run starts to adopt a really weird sub game of trying to lose as few zealots as possible while lining up the enemy flyers it's actually pretty fun and then i died a counter-attack came in and quickly killed all of my production while i was on the map i got stuck with almost 5 000 minerals in the bank and no ability to spend it before i was eliminated it looks like i still need to kill the protoss base in trying number four i combine my strategies i go for a quick push into the protoss base but this time with the sentinel and solar lance being able to take care of some of the void rays at the beginning takes a good deal of the pressure off of my back i managed to eliminate all the protoss buildings and probes leaving only a skytoss presence in their former base because these fights take so long the enemy terran will always counter attack me even if i move out the moment i clean up one of their waves after coming fairly close to losing my expansion i decide that maybe it's in my best interest to take out the terran as well but first some housekeeping the talderhim aren't using their base anymore and i want it my main base is starting to run dry and the probes need something to do this involves a good deal of weirdly running my zealots around grabbing all the remaining forces and blasting them once this base is secure i feel significantly more comfortable in fighting the terran this was a good move the terran base is incredible banshees and battle cruisers deal a significantly larger amount of damage than their protoss counterparts it takes a maxed out army and multiple 16 zealot war pins to reinforce before i break the base with both of the bases gone there'll be no more reinforcements or attacks i can take my time clearing each of the locks even when breaking them takes 40 or 50 supply i don't care with four locks secure and the final one free of enemies i remember that the titanic warp prism exists as a bonus objective so i can in russia after the pain that was the temple of unification comes the infinite cycle a no-build mission with artanis and kerrigan unfortunately kerrigan never finished her zealot training so she has to set out the problem is artanis doesn't actually do any damage he's built as a powerful tank and healer while kerrigan is the glass cannon there are multiple events in this mission that are timed and artanis doesn't have the damage output to complete them depending on the event he either gets overwhelmed or can't reach the ending safely while the rules do say that no build segments of the campaign don't count i still get a bit sad when i can't make them work out harbinger of oblivion is a mission whose difficulty always surprises me after a short no build segment where i slowly peel the defenders apart with my centurions i get my base and turn my eyes on the four objectives while solar lance is technically allowed i'm trying my best to avoid using it i probably should have but i was being really stubborn normally on the left hand side a couple of adepts can slip by and kill the objective uncontested i try to do this with my sentinels and it doesn't work instead i opt to fight with kerrigan's support while she does help a bit her zerglings do a great job of getting in my way and she doesn't actually bring any heavy firepower to the table so it's more symbolic than anything else the first objective is poorly defended and falls quickly but the remaining three are too much for a straight on fight i opt for a hit and fade strategy with my new recall ability these sort of strategies work well for zerglings only but are really clunky for the big zealot my first attempt on the left objective was a resounding failure a few of my zealots get to the objective but the majority get caught in a really impressive surround by the ai the objective lives with 5 hp and the shields start to recharge after rebuilding for a while i try again there's an upside to requiring multiple waves enemy hybrid don't have an energy regeneration rate the dominator who crushed me with scistorm last fight can only auto attack now this makes finishing off the objective and recalling much safer the third objective has the strongest defenses but there is a trick there are two entrances to this base attacking from the northeast drastically reduces the number of defenders while i do lose 50 supply of zealots i get the objective so i feel fine the mission ends in failure when kerrigan's hive dies around the 25 minute mark i have some time to rebuild before striking the last void crystal but the enemy attack waves are slowing me down a ton i lose here multiple times the banshees and void rays manage to snipe my nexus i go all in and fail i end up utilizing kerrigan's forces to help distract some of the attackers so i can clean up more easily at 24 minutes and 15 seconds i dive my entire strategy is to repeatedly spam f2 and click the objective this means that every time a zealot revives he's commanded to attack the crystal and with 15 seconds remaining the crystal falls if the theme of zerglings only was mining out the map legacy of the void is all about having no time remaining on objectives this is getting a bit ridiculous after ulnar i opt to do the purifier questline before the taulderum after an unskippable no build segment with long zealots i get my base escorting the megalith to each lock can be a pain while it has a lot of bulk the megalith's attack is horrible and its ai is really dumb all in all unsealing the past is not a very difficult mission if you follow a few tricks the ai controlled megalith will always walk in a set path until finding an enemy and then attacks it once it reaches the lock it fully heals letting the megalith do its own thing early on in the mission is a great way to get some extra forces out before things get tough there's a zerg base to the left of the second lock clearing it out both increases my income as well as stops the majority of the attacks during the mission after the second lock my army is large enough that anything on the ground will get shredded and anything in the air will get solar lanced but every plan has its weakness i did not properly prepare for a bunch of cliff-dwelling zerg i can't solar lance these guys because there are no flyers and i can't attack them the megalith dies and i restart to grab the deploy pylon ability after reaching the same spot i realize that the entire high ground is covered in creep there's no valid place to put a pylon to warp in high ground zealots i try some janky stuff like a cluster of shield batteries to protect the megalith while the zealot absorbed shots but nothing worked in the end i had to fold and admit these were close enough to being flying units and unleash the lance i kept the deploy pylon ability though the megalo gives high ground vision allowing me to use the pylons to access the bonus objectives the remainder of the mission isn't particularly eventful it took me a couple tries to get through the difficult cave sequence but eventually the zerg base dies and all of the locks are claimed i opted to go down the purifier quest line because unsealing the past is pretty easy but purification is an absolute mess this mission sports the most dangerous hybrid in starcraft 2 and they attack from all angles and often i start off with a single base which is not nearly enough money for the mission when all the circuits in section are destroyed an ai attack wave spawns and clears out a zerg base i need the minerals at those bases if i'm going to keep up each quadrant has a sort of theme the scariest is to the east who has a huge number of flyers including the viper spellcaster who can disable attacks in an area slightly easier but still tough is the south who sports mass and fester and can immobilize my forces next is the north who likes bailings and ultralisks and then the west whose theme seems to be not having many units all i really have to do on that side is click on the three null circuits and they die unfortunately the campaign is pre-creep nerf so it literally takes decades for the creep to recede this base is secured at the seven minute mark and i don't get a nexus down because of creep until 16 minutes as i start to pressure the second lock the ai is getting aggressive zealots are not nimble units and the ground path to the bottom of my base is a long one i have to fortify the area shield overcharge is integral here using its damage absorption i can target down the null circuits though it is a one-way trip for most of my zealots once the hybrid behemoths start attacking i'm in trouble in addition to having an area cleave attack they unleash a wave of nickelodeon goo that slows the attack speed of all my units each behemoth guarantees heavy losses the top falls at the 13 minute mark but i'm forced to idle around for a long period of time after that the next six minutes are filled with me macroing up and defending against attacks eventually i get impatient and launch an attack on the south i thought that the right was filled with flyers but it turns out the south is too i didn't bring solar lance to this mission because i didn't have the soul right to afford both it and shield overcharge i literally have no way to fight the air i get slaughtered counter-attacked and die trying again i use temporal field to stun the mutalisks and target down the circuits i get slaughtered counter-attacked and die this time i wait until a hybrid attack clean it up and push the bottom and it goes fairly well with only three objectives remaining i figure the final area might not be that bad no investors means that my zealots can't be locked down the large flyer numbers are annoying but that means that i can path right past them there's not much to block me and i can probably just continue my strategy of targeting down the objective and ignoring everything else i get slaughtered but because three of the four zerg bases are dead i don't get counter-attacked and i don't die i rebuild try again and finish off the last circuit heading to slain i unlock the final passive ability for the run repair beam its hp restoration only works on robotic targets meaning that i'm stuck with the sentinel forever and while the healing is significantly worse than really any other healing option in the campaigns it does mean that i will be able to go into every fight at full health playing into the durability theme i've opted for steps on the right showcases why this durability is so important whenever the terrazine fog arrives waves of spooky ghost enemies attack me they're significantly weaker than their non-halloween counterparts but they have all levels of technology from all three races available instead of solar lance i use temporal field being able to segment and disable enemy ground groups is a best option to engage early on after the first fog i need an expansion the base's location makes it difficult to defend during the fog but i need a huge mineral income for this mission there are two threats that can eliminate me the fog and skytoss attack waves the fog sends a lot of long ranged air units the only thing that can hit them is my nexus and the nexus does damage very slowly meaning i have to sit zealots in front and soak shots the four objectives on the map are actually a lot less difficult than i thought they would be the mission expects me to make void race and the ai has some decent anti-air and a lot of anti-armored immortals every base has a surprising lack of anti-zealot though because the sentinel is a robot not biological the enemy archons which are normally a counter to zealots aren't actually good against them and the main objectives don't even have the ability to attack ground units which is something i didn't know before there's a bonus objective to destroy two talder and motherships unfortunately my zealots can't leap up and chew on their starships so i'm out of luck the rest of the mission is a pretty simple rotation defend the attacks on my base clear to the objective use shield overcharge to snipe it and pull back with a decent number of forces remaining this was a surprisingly easy mission for how late into the campaign it is rakshir sucks the mission is a simple tug of war push alarak across the map to win the problem is that the talderam are keenly aware that i'm doing a zealots only run and they love carriers my plan is pretty simple get alurak to a safe spot and build up a defensive line max out on zealots and bank up 200 solar energy and then make a monster push down to the end it doesn't work starting at the 20-minute mark the game starts repeating a cycle of attacks forever an attack wave hits and then one minute later another attack hits and then 30 seconds later a third hits the time between these attacks alternates between 30 seconds and 1 minute each attack wave has air units that need to be solar lanced for me to progress this means that i need a solar lance on average every 45 seconds and solar lance has a one minute cooldown and the spirit of a dune takes two minutes to get the 50 energy required to use it if i hit the 20 minute mark these repeating attacks start and i'm dead i have to rush and manage my energy perfectly instead of building a safe defensive line i aggressively clear to the enemy base and use just a couple cannons to take down some voids being unable to max out makes the fight tough the hybrid dominators dish out pain and the pre-placed air units are spread out thin making solar lances difficult to land it took a few resets including losing my main but the combination of learning the fight and getting some lucky lances was enough to finish the mission before the insanity began also the bonus objective on this mission is flying because everything in legacy the void flies i delayed templar's charge as long as i could this is one of the missions where i needed to have a plan before the run even started there's no room for decision making on the fly the mission is incredibly starved for resources and built to be completely inaccessible by ground forces by no uncertain terms this is supposed to be the carrier mission clearing the beginning phases of the mission is difficult i couldn't bring shield over charge with me because i needed solarite for time stop my goal is to finish off all three power cores quickly the attack waves are pure air and eventually become mass battle cruiser banshee i will get overwhelmed each base mines for three to four minutes before being exhausted after securing the third mineral line i get working for my first objective i use the time stop ability dive zealots pass the defenders snipe it and recall each mineral lost is precious here so i do my best to keep as many forces alive as possible the next objective is also where i want my next base to be this means i have to do a full clear of the area after it's secured i throw down 8 warp gates and start building up resources at this point the battlecruiser attack waves have started this is a signal that i need to go or the ai is going to start bleeding me dry the final objective has a bit of a problem not only is it stationed behind one of the most heavily defended bases in all of starcraft 2 but it's also on an area of high ground with no ramp and no way for ground units to get vision of the area my plan here needed a very specific set of sphere of a dune skills all used in tandem to work i recall my 20 zealots to the nexus this gives them a temporary shield and now they run all my zealots charge into the base that has tanks bunkers hybrid elite thor and a planetary fortress as soon as i get close i time stop use solar lance onto the high ground and then use the vision granted by solar lance to deploy a pylon onto the high ground i then use my 11 warp gates to reenact the legacy of the void opening cinematic destroy the power core and even manage to recall home templar's charge is another no build mission but this time there are actually zealots to work with the dungeon is a linear cave and i start with some iron zealots as well as their step cell at artanus the mission is very light on area damage meaning the whirlwind pushes out some serious pressure artanical's astral winds do a great job at keeping the boys alive after the purifier forces have been rescued i get some sentinels to work with making this the only time that i get to play with two zealots at once the mission is easy outside of the final chamber infinite zerg spawned from two caves and nidus worms the boys can't kill zerg faster than they spawn and the blue energy that i've been running from is approaching quickly the zealots sacrificed their lives to buy our tanus enough time to collapse the rocks and kill the worms then i dive artanis into the blue goo and use its damage over time to kill majority of the zerg forces for me leaving only two wounded ultralisks to finish off the host is the biggest macro mission and legacy of the void in addition to the typical each objective is defended by a progressively stronger group of enemies the defenders here respawn this is a big problem the beginning of the mission goes off pretty well the first three shards each have a mineral field associated with them meaning that my income here is the highest it will ever be clearing the second shard starts to showcase the big problem for the mission flyers are already obnoxious but infinitely respawning flyers are out of control even when using all of my spear of a dune abilities i'm sustaining high losses each fight thankfully there are three ai allies that can be rescued on the map their attacks that they send are pretty underwhelming but they do have literally any ability to hit air so i take them after 30 minutes of running around clearing the eastern half of the map comes the difficult part i dive the fourth shard with alurak's support a maxed army and maxed upgrades i managed to win the fight but i lose 120 supply in the process and then i try the final shard it can't be that much more difficult right well i lose 150 supply dealing about 500 damage to the void shard units were having a really hard time getting to the objective for wave number 2 i had to resort to using time stop so my zealots could navigate the traffic it really feels like a shame that such a large amount of this campaign boils down to ignoring unkillable enemies and sniping objectives it is the nature of challenge runs that at times the only viable solution isn't the most exciting but i can't help but feel the legacy of the void's mission design is not doing this run any favors the last stop is the time defense mission salvation there are two things to keep track of here first are the lane attacks my three allies are positioned at the end of each lane but they need assistance holding off enemies similar to the host my allies aren't exactly stellar but they do have any amount of anti-air the majority of enemy attacks are these lane waves and they're not much to talk about the scariness comes from the golden armada attacks these airstrikes come in from angles that the ai defenders can't reach why are the air units the one thing i have to manage on my own starting out things go pretty well the air attacks are minor and my front line means that my allies take almost no losses during every fight upon reaching 50 is where everything starts to break down i lose the ability to solar lance and now have no effective way to fight the ever-growing air forces i have to start getting cute using time stop to cannon rush a mothership is hilarious but not reliable eventually tempests enter the mix and that spells my doom tempus dps is not great but they have insane range there's no way cannons can ever kill them to make things worse my allies really like ignoring the tempest letting them slowly clear out the bases i have no available cooldowns and no way to hit the enemy i'm dead so in the final minutes of this run i have to change another rule the kydaren monolith isn't the greatest defensive structure but it can always fire back i add them to my list of available defenses they are enough support to get me to the final unending tide of protoss and then i have to spend half an hour trying to figure out how to not die to the final seconds of this mission the enemies are crazy strong the infinite number of dragoons immortals and carriers shred my maxed out zealot force in seconds and kill my allies just as quickly in the last seconds i'm frantically building anything i can to soak shots for the keystone everything ends up dead but i do manage to finish the mission so let's try to answer the question in the title of this video can you beat legacy of the void with only zealots everybody is entitled to their own opinion on what exactly counts and what doesn't but i'm gonna say no there's just way too much air to count this as a zealot only run maybe i should have dropped the difficulty down from brutal or maybe you guys think this is fine but i'm not convinced that it's possible to beat this game with only zealots

Channel: GiantGrantGames

Views: 817,109

Keywords: sc2, starcraft, starcraft 2, sc2 2021, sc2 highlights

Id: D5p3QeqSvRs

Length: 38min 18sec (2298 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 28 2021