It's Been 2 Years. Have I Improved?

it's been two years since i completed my first ever challenge run wings of liberty deathless i've done a lot since then blindfolded pacifist no production and even a little bit of speedrunning but have i gotten any better do these runs actually help me improve as a player or do i need to be hitting the ladder to skill up to celebrate the second anniversary of the giant crank games channel i thought i'd give deathless another go with the same rules as before this way i can see how far i truly have come liberation day has not changed much with only jim raynor and a few marines i don't have any options besides microwell and use the civilians as bait the outlaws is where things get interesting my first optimization of the run is to set up a funnel trap where i can force the enemy attacks into a choke and pick them off one at a time after rescuing the allied encampment comes the bunker of death and i have a plan in heart of the swarm deathless i learned the power of manipulating the ai with the return cargo button on fighting workers it was the only way i could beat the eradicator the bunker of death is no different i grab a load of suvs and charge the oh there's two hellions sitting behind in my next attempt i land a barracks to block the hello there's a lot of marines as well maybe if i send only suvs and medics then wait they pull their own suvs to repair on this mission oh learn something new every day going into this run i was so convinced this was going to be a clever start showing off the tricks that i've learned and applying them to old problems but today the ai was having none of that in the end i get pissed attack with everybody and it worked after clearing the bunker of death the rest of the base goes down easily and then there's zero hour i have nothing to talk about here this mission is a free win and i move on to smash and grab this may be the most changed mission in the run my first time through i had to fight my way through the protoss base and it was not easy but pacifist wings of liberty forced me to look at the mission from a new perspective i lift two barracks float them to the stone zealots and start proxying marauders and medics not to let only one challenge run steal the spotlight i use the command center drop trick from the wings liberty speedrun to grab the bonus objective safely and quickly once my army is big enough i blast through the stone zealots effortlessly this is what i was hoping for with this run after that i do my first shake up in the mission order and head to the evacuation i don't know why i didn't go here earlier in my initial run this is probably the easiest deathless mission where you have to build anything in starcraft 2. marauders and mercenaries are more than enough damage and the stabilizer medpack upgrade is overpowered at the early stages i breeze through with no threat to my army though the dumb allied marine does try his best to get killed again the devil's playground is another easy one after all the experience i've gained there's no way i would ever let my suvs die to lava maybe i'm not as good at this game as i thought after restarting my mostly marauder ball clears through the enemy bases with ease the main mistake i made in the initial run was that i forgot to rescue all of tasha's boys around the map there are 26 units to rescue 5 suvs and 21 reapers this time i remember to grab them all at the end of the mission i count up and 20 reapers oh no i lost one somewhere and i have no idea when it happened during the fade to black i know i'm gonna have to reload the mission and huh 26 out of 26. it turns out there's only 20 reapers tosh is a bro and he counts carl the command center pilot as one of his boys what a guy the first time i did outbreak it took me 42 minutes i played safe backward up a large army and slowly cleared through the infested colonists it's fair to say i've gotten a bit more fast and loose as time goes on in pacifist wings liberty i learned how incredible the reaper is on this mission they melt through colonist buildings like nothing else and this time i can actually kill the broodlings reapers and bunkers are also legitimately overpowered here with the u-238 shells upgrade the infested can barely scratch the paint of my bunkers with these factors combined i dropped the mission's duration by over 15 minutes to a much more reasonable 2648 but i didn't kill the bonus with an suv this time so it's a toss-up which one was better i had to welcome to the jungle next to progress the tosh storyline ghosts are fairly important in deathless and i want them as soon as possible my first time through the mission was pure pain the protoss hit hard and often i took 35 minutes to crawl through it with some tried and true tech i'm sure i can knock that down a bit if you've watched the starcraft glitches video i'm sure you know this one after fortifying the left flank i start harvesting from all four terrazine gas i then repeatedly cancel harvesting the top three suvs and boom no defenders spawn i also go full bronze league opting to sit on one base for the entire mission instead of taking expansion because defending two bases is too much of a pain after grabbing the bonuses i float my command center over grab the final terrazine and get out in under 20 minutes the dig was mostly the same the only real change up was substituting the flimsy bunker for the stalwart engineering bay this was more than just for durability having an unmanned wall means that i don't have to repair it during fights i could keep my suvs safe from systorms and colossus lasers wouldn't roast them the money i saved on repairs went towards missile turrets which made the airwaves an absolute joke i was surprised at how smooth this one was after that comes the three zero tool missions that i'm allowed to do whispers doom is easy as always on a sinister turn i ended up with the same strategy mass blank stalkers the mission is smooth overall but the bust into the final base is still a cramped mess i remember it being pretty difficult the first time and it was still pretty hard here finally comes echoes of the future i was aware the first time that zeratul can easily blink through the objectives but speedrunning wings liberty really helped me learn where everything was except this spore crawler which i flew an observer directly into what a dumb way to have to reset once i manage to not run my units into immobile buildings i get zeratul to the points and complete the protoss trilogy because i'm doing the same rules as last time there's no way to do it under darkness i can't get around the objective of holding out until the last unit dies in the past i have gotten to when artana spawns without losing a unit which is basically the end of the mission the key to doing it is mass cybernetics core a lot of photon cannons and big size storm energy but in this run it just can't be done back on the terran side of things i side with nova and unlock the ghost the first segment is easily cleared with slow and methodical play let nova tank and medics heal everybody up between each fight part two is more the same i clear to the nuclear silo grab the weapon and use it to blast the objective in part 3 i decide to not go the easy way getting the nuke and instead shoot this missile turret until it dies and then sneakily wiggling my way up to the objective and sniping it from a safe distance i don't remember why i decided to do this now that i have the ghost i head to a mission that i'd normally do a lot earlier the great train robbery in general isn't that hard with siege tanks but the raven seeker missile can be really frustrating when targeting units that don't have the ability to dodge instead i take a page for my pacifist run and make a bunch of invisible men the cirrus suits permanent cloaking is just not fair on this mission the enemy sends at most two ravens with each train and while ghosts don't hit the trains as hard as a spectre would there's still more than enough firepower for the later trains i pulled out a trick that i honestly don't know where i learned it the ai is smart enough that they won't run through nuclear explosions so if you drop a nuke on an incoming train the escort including the detecting ravens will stay back what i didn't know is that the train will eventually leash their escort if they move too far away pulling them right into the nuke i thought this would just zone the enemy out while i kill the train but this is a much more acceptable answer as i take down the final train and the cutscene begins a raven fires a seeker missile i lose the ability to control my units and he kills five of my ghosts i know technically cutscenes don't count but there's no way i'm letting that one fly cutthroat was another mission where i was excited to use a new strategy this run is done on hard because the enemy ai doesn't specifically target repairing suvs until the brutal difficulty this means i can use my favorite strategy from pacifist the planetary fortress rush i make an engineering bay float my buildings over to orland land my command center and lose all my suvs let's try that again nope they're definitely getting targeted down i don't know why but specifically on cutthroat the ai in orleans base has a different set of target priorities than any other mission in the game it's incredibly odd enemies will target morphing planetary fortresses on normal difficulty they'll target it down on any other mission but specifically here specifically on hard they go after the scvs what a bummer after experimenting with the ai for a bit i resigned to my fate and drop a series of nuclear bombs on orlan for his insolence after the planetary rush didn't work i sort of stopped paying attention to the mission and ended up just forgetting to get one of the protoss research whoops well now i need a bit more protoss research so i head to the end of the columnist questline and opt for haven's fall while the ghost on its own isn't able to carry the mission they do combo well with marauders and medics to create a very durable infantry force that can move around the map one thing i messed up in the original deathless was stopping these colonists from being infested the virophages take a while to finish constructing and if eliminated the colonists will all survive another problem is that i was a bit aggressive with nuke use in the previous run and i'm pretty sure that i killed some of the colonist buildings this time i opted to focus my aggression on the enemy using my bulky army to stop the biophages from completing without the need for nukes this not only makes the run even more deathless but also drastically reduces the pressure on me the three zerg bases on the map take a long time before they send anything significant with no virophages active i was basically never attacked the mobius factor is a mission that can run out of control quickly if you're playing aggressively it can be completed in only a few minutes but the defenses at the end can make it a bit more tricky the first data core is easily cleared with starting forces and the nearby rescued allies the second core is where my strategy splits this time instead of clearing to it i use the old speedrunning trick abusing the large empty area behind the data core to take it out with a siege tank and of course i returned deferium back home at this point i'm afraid of counter-attacks i end up tossing about 30 supply into defenses and build a full wall there's only one objective left but there's something else i have to do the five groups of rescuable allies around the map are a pain in the butt i sneak a group of dropships around the map grabbing all the allies while avoiding the zerg patrols and carefully ferrying them back to the main base as i do this i prepare the final strike this data core is one of the few places i just don't feel comfortable pushing into with a large army the nidus's brood lords and banelings can all end a run in seconds so i opt to stick with my old strategy of nuking the enemy into submission this is the last time the ghost is going to trivialize a mission for now up next is supernova a mission that i'm never looking forward to after eliminating most of the initial defenses i use another pacifist strategy sitting around in the initial no build segment as mercenary charges come off cooldown at first it surprised me how many of the strategies i ended up adopting from the pacifist run specifically but it makes sense because everything in that run was so extreme it did wonders for my understanding of the game after five minutes i blast the final building and head into the mission proper on my first supernova run i had to bust the center base to earn enough money to reach the talderan vault this time i don't do that using mercenary vikings to cover the air science vessels to heal and a fleet of banshees i defend as i mine out the first two bases sneak up the top snipe the objective and remember to slam the escape key as hard as possible to avoid marines dying in the cutscene honestly really easy the reason i went to supernova so early this time is to unlock them all battle cruisers are the only viable option here and this is the mission that you unlock them so it's a pretty easy answer no matter when you hit the mission up i don't actually enjoy this mission though so i rush after rescuing the allied dark templar i retreat to the island so i can't be easily counter-attacked i then skim my battle cruisers down the bottom of the map fire of all of your motto cannons at the enemy mothership mess up get vortexed and die reset repeat the same process and kill the objective i'm not really a fan of the low money capital ship missions but at least this one can be done somewhat quickly [Music] having access to battlecruisers makes engine of destruction significantly easier last time i opted for a large force of cloaked raids to cover the odin i weaved in and out sniping flying targets while the odin dealt with the ground it wasn't pretty raids are made of paper and the suvs repairing the odin are vulnerable to splash it was a reset heavy mission with a new route the mission is a joke each base is owned by a separate player and the first two bases don't have any detection the odin can easily take down the first base on his own while the wraiths head up to the second i use my cloaked fighters to take down the high priority targets like the siege tanks and flyers leaving just enough enemies that tychus will take a bit but not enough that he'll get blown away by the time that he's done i have a fleet of battle cruisers the odin is no longer required i push ahead of tikus crushing bases three four and five as tikus reaches the end of the mission i'm a little bit bored so i decide to kill the elite loki battle cruiser this bonus objective has no point but i might as well right what could possibly go wrong right as i activate the loki the game steals control of my camera to show the odin nuking some buildings meanwhile the loki is pummeling my battle cruiser when i get control back the bc is at one third health and i have to retreat the loki charges up the yamato cannon and the screen fades to black as the shot connects i have no idea how my battle cruiser managed to survive that this challenge is easy media blitz is just as simple during the sneak attack i use the route that i developed for no production that manages to remove both the factory and starboard bases from the game once the macro section of the mission begins only the anti-light base remains a repaired odin can easily solo it leaving nobody who can make attack waves i remember to unlock the secret mission make some battle cruisers because they're no risk and secure the broadcast towers at my leisure at this point we can go to the end game char but there are a couple missions that i avoided in my original play through let's knock those out of the way first piercing the shroud is the secret mission and honestly it's really easy the mission's two sections are linear and not timed having jim raynor tank everything and waiting patiently for medic energy allows everything up into the garage to be an easy clear inside the garage is a bit more annoying normally i'm expected to use the ares warbot to help fight but it has a timed life it's not too bad though it's pretty common to save the warbot to fight the brutalist bonus objective later so i knew that slow pulling and using jim's grenades would make things manageable after the garage i get to pick some reinforcements i opt for marines and medics so i can have all the healing i can get in the next room there's a brutalist that gives zerg research i've had the cap of 25 zerg research for a long time at this point so it has no value but i decide to try my luck anyway it turns out with a full army and spamming the plasma shot pickup the raiders can barely take him down before jim has turned into swiss cheese after that is the escape which is honestly underwhelming the chrono rift device completely invalidates the hybrid as a threat and having nine marines is way more damage than the section was designed for i sort of just walk out and nobody stops me the other mission that i missed is safe haven the split choice where jim squares off against the protoss instead of the infested at the end of the colonist questline the mission has always been one of my favorites in terms of design and one of the most disappointing in terms of execution before fighting the purifier mothership i need to destroy three nexus i use my initial vikings fly to a convenient ledge and shoot the objective until it explodes and then i mess up i forgot that there are terror fleets that attack my colonist allies i don't get there in time forcing this heroic marine to sacrifice his life to hold the carriers off well that's a dumb reset the second time through i take the carriers down kill nexus 2 using convenient ledge number two and fly behind the third nexus and avoid all the defenders i think this mission is a great example of taking the idea that it's cool to make a newly unlocked unit good and going way too far with it anyway i shoot the defensive smothership with rockets until it explodes let's go to char with everything else out of the way it's finally time for the end game it's well known that char is incredibly difficult on my first deathless run i spent over 6 hours here no production was another 7. marines only over 4 and on pacifist over 15. wait doesn't that mean i should be really good at these missions by now uh yeah for gates of hell i follow a simple strategy before winning i have to rescue each of the 10 allied drop pods around the map i know exactly where each of these will land so i move my escort squadron and grab them quickly once secured i blow up the nidus with nukes there are two variants of all in picking to either destroy the enemy air units or ground in general ground is considered the easier variant but i've done that already and i wanted to give air a go that means instead of shattering the sky i have to go into the belly of the beast there's not a whole lot to say here the mission in general is pretty straightforward there are four hero units that are all quite powerful if you wait for cooldowns on each engagement it's easy to make things smooth technically each of the hero units is knocked out if reduced to zero hp and then he gets up a little bit later but i decided that this counts as a unit death to keep things a bit more interesting the only scary bit in the run is the babysitting each section has a group of non-hero units to rescue during the progression parts of the mission this is not a problem i can just keep the infantry behind but when defending the charges i have to nest my units in a tight bundle and give them cover having so many forces at the end of the mission makes the final boss fight really easy the most difficult part is supposed to be the huge number of eggs that she spawns zerg out of having 14 infantry to clear out the majority of the eggs before she manages to reach them makes it a cake walk really the only bad part of the mission is that i couldn't use flame and betty because she has a timed life sorry swan finally we get to all in and i'm a bit worried while i've done this before it was by far and away the hardest mission and on top of that i'm now doing the harder air version this mission can technically be trivialized by using a large number of hivemind emulators to mind control a big swarm of mutualists and broodboards but the mutilisk is made of paper and broodlord's literally spawn timed units so that's off the table here instead i have a plan in fact it's a plan that i've had for over a year now and i've only now been able to put it into action the constant pressure on this mission is the brood lord with 9 range it can safely hit every frontline defense spawning broodlings that can mess with pathing and kill suvs they're really tough to deal with fighting them from one angle would be fine but this mission has six separate places they attack from often simultaneously i need a passive solution to the problem the solution is ghosts again brood lords have nine range and ghosts only have six but the ocular implants upgrade from the armory increases that by two to eight loading them into a bunker with a projectile accelerator upgrade increases it to nine i now have a unit that can fire back against a brood lord while inside of a bunker the damage is pathetic it takes a really long time to take the broods down but it is constant and reliable it also fixes another big problem with the mission kerrigan at this point we all know the answer to the queen of blades bait out razor swarm move in with an invisible firing squad and spam snipe force her to retreat before the second swarm can fire previously i had to balance my supply between base defenses and ghosts to make sure that everything was secure well this time ghosts are my base defense meaning i have a lot more than normal all i have to do is fire off the artifact to remove any non-carrigan attackers unload my ghost from my bunkers and kerrigan drops faster than ever once the leviathan appeared and started spawning flyers at rapid pace i ignored him instead i reinforced the high ground and had no issues keeping in mind the first time i did all in it took me three and a half hours real time and the mission takes 21 and a half minutes real time to complete flawlessly how long did this all in take 23 minutes my only problems were i accidentally unloaded onto the wrong side of a bunker and a battle cruiser was too close to kerrigan once deathless all-in was legitimately easy one of the smoothest missions in the run so it's time to answer the question how much have i improved two years ago deathless took me slightly over 24 hours to complete run number two about nine and a half hours that's 40 percent as long there's no single reason for this knowing the run was invaluable the number of new strategies from all other videos were great as well but honestly i think the biggest differentiator was micro throughout the run i kept engaging into fights where i had clear memories of getting crushed and frustrated only to breathe through with better control bailings in particular were drastically less deadly due to better positioning and target fire micro i also have more patience after eons of banging my head through these challenges i no longer wonder if something can be done but how knowing that i will eventually figure it out weirdly makes things faster because of the lack of stress so the answer is a definitive yes it turns out you don't have to sit on ladder to improve while doing 1v1 is the best way to improve at 1v1 there's a whole host of overlapping skills you can develop no matter how you choose to play the game i'm still never beating cyril though

Channel: GiantGrantGames

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Id: bqvghv7Ng1g

Length: 21min 57sec (1317 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 08 2022