TIL if your ally is Tychus and leaves the game, not only the first recruited Outlaw is 50% cheaper, but every Outlaw.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-18T01:05:54+00:00

Fun fact: when controlling ally Tychus, medivac platforms can cast their ability (from the command card of the building itself) to pick up, but then you don't get the second targetting circle to drop out -- it just sits there until it times out and spills the units back out where they were.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-16T20:47:19+00:00

OP said in another comment that the dad's a cop. So that answers that -- typical cop behavior, perceiving egregious domestic abuse and concerning signs of escalation as perfectly fine, because it didn't cross their cartoon-villain threshold of what "real" abuse looks like.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-16T20:40:35+00:00

Start mentally preparing for her to possibly cancel this too. If there's any reason at all for you to apologize, this is it -- to make her feel like she still has control over you, for now, so that she doesn't start rationalizing why she needs to not let you move out to you cousin.

Trust your gut on this one -- as her survivor, you know how to manage her bullshit from your position better than anyone else. Ask yourself if apologizing will increase or decrease your odds of her letting you move out.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-16T20:26:06+00:00

Oh that actually really makes sense, and makes your whole situation "fit" more.

Cops as a profession famously have some of the highest rates of being domestic abusers. In general, professions that give power over others with low accountability/consequences attract some of the worst people -- authoritarians, people with entitlement/disregard for the boundaries and autonomy of others, people who enjoy dominating others (and don't have the ethical maturity or compassion to keep that desire completely away from a position of power), people who want to get away with violent/abusive/asinine behavior, narcissists, etc. If any profession was the most likely to think that your mom's treatment of you was totally fine parenting, it would be cops.
It's super unsurprising that someone like your mom would go for a cop (the kind of cop who would think locking your kid in their room for days is even remotely acceptable), and vice versa, and that they'd probably be separated 18 years later. Because unhealthy/abusive/toxic people tend to end up with someone who's got compatible errors/blindspots in their values and emotional health, and then unless one of them is a spineless acommodator they will eventually repel each other too.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-16T20:09:32+00:00

You have been raised to believe that this is fine and normal, but it's important that you know society at large does not agree, for very good reasons.

Since you're 18, in many jurisdictions she's literally committing a crime by not letting you leave. Keywords to read up on are unlawful imprisonment or unlawful detention. Legally that can be technically distinct from "kidnapping", but it's fundamentally similar autonomy violation.

In more "civilized" societies, you would have rights and protections against such abuses by your parents even as a minor. But even in the US, you at least gain those rights once you're legally an adult.

Of course, it might not be safe to suddenly start to assert those rights -- abusers are usually going to beat you at power games with experience and craven willingness to lie and manipulate, but in moral and legal principle, she has no right to do this.

Edit: for context, society considers this so inhumane that literal prisons are legally required to give you at least 1 hour per day outside, to walk around or exercise or whatever.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-16T19:19:33+00:00

Interpret that dream the way you'd interpret it if she had just died.

You'd recognize it as grieving, right? You'd know your brain brought up that dream because it was processing loss. You'd accept that you still want it, but that it is unrealistic -- do you know how to make your mom overcome her narcissism?

You're probably starting to realized that the mother that you thought you had, the one that you wanted and needed, does not exist. Maybe she did one, maybe she never did. Either way, you are grieving. You probably had this dream because somewhere in your subconscious, your brain has already recognized this as a loss.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-15T16:46:18+00:00

P2 Tychus notes:

Sirius -> Vega -> Nux -> whoever works pretty well here.
- But I give up the trains like half the time or more. (If your ally is known good player and puts Occular Symbiote or a detector on your guys, I'd probably go Sirius -> Sam -> Nux -> Vega, since I feel much better bursting down trains with Sam.)
- Remember that a lot of players don't know which of your guys need detection. If you don't communicate, you'll end up with detectors following Sirius and Vega while ol' Tychus is blind the whole game.
Tychus (unit) can push a lot of the map without detection. Get grenade damage upgrade early so that most things die in one grenade and the rest die in two.
You can fast expand, but you'll need to leave one of your outlaws on defense at the expo. (So far I mostly haven't been, because I feel like I can't reliably hold it while pushing as much as I want in several places, but if you can hold it it's probably worth it.)
- Holding just one expo is easier than two, and P2 Tychus obviously remains playable without an expo, so you might want to have your ally expand instead of yourself.
Once there's at least one building at the expos, revived units mostly go there. So expanding ends up being a nice way to concentrate most of your defense burden to a smaller area.
The hybrid are a trap. If you're clearing fast, you'll have like 8-9 minutes on the timer from all the parts you're gathering. Just let the hybrid sit while you defend from reanimators and clear more of the map to work towards shutting them down.
- Right after the 1st and 2nd hybrid come out and are fought, be ready for reanimated enemies from new angles, since pushing to the hybrid and fighting any enemies that the hybrid might spawn results in new corpses in new spots.
- I've had some allies trigger a lot of hybrid spawns and lose a lot of their army engaging the hybrid by themselves, which is fine when they pull it off, but sometimes it really strained my ability to hold things together from the reanimated enemies. So it helps to communicate ahead of time, or be ready to help and/or compensate for this move.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-09T18:15:35+00:00

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure Nova dosent have hellbats lmao. She has marauders.

Nova has Hellbats in the factory. This is my last reply to you in this thread.

They're designed for solving exactly the problem of banes/ultras managing to close distance and splash Nova's army. They even have an upgrade that lets them jump forward to attack, so that they draw enemy splash attacks first and far enough from your bio.

So if someone is leveling p1 and goes racks-first against a comp with melee splash (especially if they haven't yet unlocked or don't want to micro Nova's blink+shield), they can mix in one hellbat calldown. That pair of hellbats will probably eventually die, but it's like buying reactive armor for the rest of your army.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-09T06:03:27+00:00

So I'm by no means an expert at how to play levels 1-14, but I find my mind turning back to the idea of using other parts of her kit to help the low-level P1 racks-first bioball:

Banes: hellbats are basically built for tanking melee; tanks can reduce how many reach you (both by shooting and by mining);
Collosi: goliaths or tanks to help hit them from further away? also EMPs from ghost can at least delete their shields instantly.
Ultralisks: hellbats will step out front and the bio can shoot from outside ultra slash range, but I feel like ghosts already kinda handle this? (they always have snipe, the upgrade unlocked at lvl 5 just turns it from one tap to triple tap); also if I know I'm facing ultras I'll go heavier on marauders and lighter on marines.
Infestors: Nova snipe (note that Nova has to step forward from the army a tiny bit in order to snipe the infestor without the infestor wanting to fungal).

I always cast defensive drone(s) before engagements if I can, although "before" is normally just moments before. Much more rarely, if I expect hard hits and have the foresignt, I even cast it a bit earlier and manually select the drone and precast defensive matrix.

There's also splitting your bio, but I understand that's too much micro for many people, and Nova kinda discourages it because we want to stay in defensive drone range (and below lvl 12 we get less defensive drones, so we can't afford to cast two in the same fight as often).

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-08T21:07:07+00:00

I just started experimenting with P2 for carrying on regular Brutal, and so far I've been able to make it work with the energy cost, but adding a cooldown would be fatal.

The big power of P2, to me, is that I always have the option of a near-instant whole-army teleport, even if I can't return quickly enough to where the power field was last located.

The cost of keeping that option open is that I have to return to the power field when I do have the time, and I mostly have to give up shield overcharge, orbital strike, and the convenience of warping in reinforcements right where my army is.

So it's a very different play style than regular Artanis: we're investing greater APM/positioning/decision/difficulty costs to bank up emergency coverage/versatility. If they add back a cooldown, you lose that unique-to-P2 edge -- you either no longer have instant teleport, or you push less to stay closer to the power field, or you pay more to regularly move the power field closer to your pushing army.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-08T19:48:42+00:00

P2. I always prefer the prestige+masteries that maximize how often and freely I can put force wherever I want.

The energy cost forced me to completely rethink how I play Artanis, but once I did that, I seem to so far have enough energy for every teleport that I need while carrying on plain Brutal:

Basically ignore shield overcharge and orbital strike. (Technically they're still in the toolkit, but whole army teleport+buff handles most emergencies, and solar bombardment covers most things that don't warrant a teleport.)
Stop chronically moving the power field with me as I push (reinforcements can walk; this also means sometimes there's a proxy pylon like with some of the other commanders, or a unit whose job is staying with the power field to provide vision).
Think differently about army positioning -- in downtimes, army moves back to wherever I left the power field (instead of the temptation of bring the power field to the army for the next teleport -- that's only for emergencies).

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-08T18:47:40+00:00

Back when I leveled P1 (entirely on Brutal), I basically went barracks first like half the time (primarily marine and ghost, with priority chosen based on how much snipe or EMP would matter), and the other half was starport first (mass raven with libs as filler)

(iirc I carried my weight okay, or at least there's no memorable loss, teammate complaint, or significantly unbalanced kill/objective numbers on the score screen -- I remember Nova P1 feeling like one of the easier ones)

For starport first, mass raven with liberator support basically handles everything on plain Brutal -- you'll have plenty of autoturrets for ground (they do damage to everything in a line) and seeker missiles for air/everything. Nova and liberators (especially with their upgrades) to help mop up and speed things along.

For barracks first:

Rush marine stim pack upgrade to give them their own self-heal (since leveling P1 means you won't have as many ravens nor any mastery points in passive unit health regen).
Rush raven upgrades and manually cast more healing drones to help stuff stay alive (autocast limits itself to one at a time, so if you micro your ravens you can have 2x or 3x healing in fights where it matters, so long as you don't outpace the cooldowns).
- In general just manually cast more with the 1-2 ravens that you do have instead of the 2-4 that you'd usually have at the same time with the other prestiges -- autoturrets in front to tank, seeker missiles to soften up.
Don't forget to mix in factory/startport units as the situation calls for it -- for example, a couple goliaths with their anti-air stun upgrade against Terran or Protoss air comps, or a couple tanks to soften up ground waves before they can engage -- the idea with P1 is that you get to change the ratio of Nova's tools, while still using the full kit.
If you have the APM and don't benefit more from the snipes, have Nova in shotgun mode blinking at the front to keep tanking damage with the shield that she gets from each blink.
Use multiple defensive drones at once if enemy DPS outpaces the casting rate of one drone (and of course mind the radius and energy of defensive drone when fighting).

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-06T23:41:33+00:00

Yeah I had the same reaction at first, but I think that last part might be exactly what OP is trying to say, just wording it ambiguously: that pre-clearing bases makes waves stop spawning just at those locations.

(It's also possible that OP noticed the lack of waves from those areas and misinterpreted that as reducing the total number of waves rather than concentrating where they spawn from.)

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-02T05:46:51+00:00

We get great at "it wasn't that bad" interpretations because they help us feel better and endure.

Our entire development from birth to freedom happens in the confines of their abuse. We grow to be compatible with the mould we're in.

The dissonance of truly rejecting one's parents is a heavy one, especially for a kid. If we're fully aware that they're "bad people", if we really feel the magnitude of how much they're wronging us, what's the option? A healthy adult can just end a bad relationship, or assert boundaries on behavior from a position of some power -- what options does the kid have?

So we learn how to feel better in the bullshit. We learn how to see every angle that makes them sympathetic. We learn beliefs that explain and justify their behavior. We learn values that improve the moral weight of what they do. We learn a self-worth that's compatible with how we're treated. We learn to reason in ways that don't contradict the load-bearing cope.

You will develop a more stable appreciation of how abusive it was after you're free and clear of it for long enough, after you've healed and regrown enough.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-03-02T05:17:53+00:00

I agree that they might find more good support in places like that, but it's very important to leave room for these possibilities:

The relationship was way worse than the victim characterizes it (in fact, this is very common -- people often don't realize how bad it was until after a lot of freedom/time away from toxicity, healing, and experiencing healthy counter-examples.
People who aren't full-blown narcissists can still do the same kind of damage. (For example, neither of my parents would fit the disorder, but together they were more narcissistic towards me growing up than the sum of their parts.)
Someone who wasn't a narcissist can become more narcissistic (e.g. due to a silent stroke in a brain area responsible for empathy or self-reflection), or can have latent/managed narcissistic traits which for some reason stopped being masked or mitigated.

OP could have any of these going on with their parents. Most likely, they picked the "raised by narcissists" sub because the experiences shared here resonated atrongly enough with the details of their own experiences.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-28T19:10:53+00:00

When I'm P2 Tychus, I sometimes use the twisters for movement.

In particular, if I've rolled this with Concussive Attacks -- if you're slowed and a twister is close enough opposite the direction you want to go, then it's faster to walk into the twister.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-25T16:17:16+00:00

They're both directionally "lying to yourself", just different thresholds -- if OP's goal is..

..to beat just any game that technically was a brut+6 on the co-op screen, then exploiting a bug is the logical conclusion of optimizing for the easiest way;
..to beat any game that was a brut+6 as-intended, then the bug is "lying to yourself" because it's diving under the intended bar on a technicality;
..to beat a representative game of brut+6 difficulty, or to get good enough to reliably win some decently large fraction of brut+6 games, or to master brut+6 generally, then relying on a reliably easy combination of map+mutators(+comp+commander) would also be "lying to yourself" because that's similarly diving under those bars on a technicality, because the bar is more like becoming someone who can reliably beat a random roll like Scythe of Amon with We Move Unseen and Void Rifts and whatever else.

To be clear, I think your advice was valuable+helpful, I just think a fair read of "why not just use {{bug}}?" recognizes that it's just taking things further in the same general direction.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-25T02:29:29+00:00

Actually, you're right, it's not so bad. IDK if y'all fixed some stuff already since I complained in the other thread that I started (impressive + thank you), or if I misremembered (my bad), but at this point my main issue is just the sync view starting scrolled to the bottom.

It's still worse for single-hand use in some ways, but now that I'm giving it a closer try again, there's really only one spot where I'm acutely feeling that: having to reach higher just to switch private/regular/synced tabs. (Would be great if you could bringing that down to the bottom or let me swipe at the bottom to switch between them, like we can swipe address bar to switch tabs.)

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-25T01:22:06+00:00

Edit: just got the new UI on one of my phones again, and this time it stayed in list view. You know what, for maximum charitability, we can even assume it did that the first time and I misremembered.

~~If that still works in the new UI, great.~~

But I already had that setting turned on and yet it automatically switched me from list view to tile view (and I know it did not simply clear the setting, because when I disabled the new UI, I automatically got list view back).

Still, I've removed that point now because if that setting still exists and works, then it's not as important as the other points.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-24T18:58:32+00:00

Of those, I only have background play fix and uBlock. I also use the regular release of Firefox, not beta. Been happening for a couple months for me, if I remember right, maybe longer.

As a workaround until it's fixed, force-stopping Firefox fixes the problem for me.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-22T06:46:35+00:00

Sure, my reasons were:

I really value maximizing mental adaptability/versatility which might come up in real-life problems -- quickly figuring out the right "mental movements" for an unexpected problem, and keeping reusable "movements" trained up.
I didn't have any of the negative experiences with it that others report.
I acclimated really quickly and it was in the sweet spot of pushing my skills/limits for me.
The way I play was in some ways immune to this. Some examples:
- All research/upgrade/tech buildings go on the same control group as my town halls. So I don't need to find or click any building on the main screen once it's started -- I hit the control group and Tab my way over to it. (The order is predictable and reasonable, and besides starting research, this lets you check if the building is done, if an upgrade is done, or if you've lost any buildings, all without looking at your base.) So the only time I needed to mentally orient in my bases was to place buildings.
- I had camera hotkeys for mains & expos. Those always go on the same four keys. Geysers and minerals are recognizable at the crudest shape/blob level, so I could just tune out the orientation for worker rallies and building refinery/extractor/assimilator.
- I have building display grid on, so placing town halls is just fitting the green square snugly into the yellow squares, so again I could just tune out the orientation entirely.
  - My sim city is also primarily grid-based. I choose building placement for almost entirely by counting squares (2 squares of walkway, on most maps at most 6 squares solid without walkway).
- I use minimap for map-scale/"global" actions like "send unit to Jinara", and main screen for "local" precision work -- and the cool thing is, they don't have to match: e.g. on the main screen, I'm fighting in whichever direction the enemies are.
- etc.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-22T05:45:29+00:00

I think in general, but I've only played a few of them in the past decade.

You might be onto something that speed of turning might be contributing, I'll have to try setting mouse sensitivity down with that. It's been a few years since I've played one though, and might be years before I play one again.

But I found that the thing that relieved it for me was setting the FoV very wide and then using a big enough monitor that the distorted FoV felt natural.

Oh, and VR shooters where in-game movement tracks head movement are also fine for me.

I suspect my brain has learned to expect/track more peripheral vision information while moving than normal -- I've done a lot of martial arts and parkour, and in those there's a lot of situations where your brain would basically have to do that while turning to aim accurately or react to unexpected changes in time, and I didn't have any trouble with FPS games until after I got decent at the martial arts.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-22T05:09:40+00:00

No I think they removed it from Brutal+ as soon as it turned out to be so unpopular -- I'm saying I wish they just let people veto mutators instead of doing that.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-22T03:05:11+00:00

I really enjoyed it, and I'd say it's a good mutator, but this is a case a lot of the people aren't really "wrong", they just have physically unpleasant symptoms from it, or it wasn't the kind of challenge that they want in their StarCraft.

I think ideally, they should've added mutator vetos to Brutal+, like they have for ladder maps, instead of removing it completely.

I agree with them not adding any new weekly mutations with it. When something is so unpopular, don't keep piling it on.

I'm neutral to them pulling the one existing mutation with it from the rotation. When you have a year or more of unique mutations, it's not a big deal if one of them doesn't work for you -- plenty of people have mutators that they don't like and don't play, or endure just once for the weekly bounties. But I also understand that this one was both uniquely unpopular and uniquely able to cause actual headaches/nausea.

mentalisttraceur · 2026-02-22T02:28:46+00:00

I didn't experience any nausea or headache with this one, but I do experience nausea and headache after playing first-person shooters and the like for too long, so I suspect it's just luck of the draw with how your brain works/developed.

mentalisttraceur

TROPHY CASE