Braxis Holdout

Unique Objectives
* Controlling both beacons will fill your Holding Cell with Zergs
* When one of the Holding Cells are full, both will open and unleash the Zergs inside
 First Objective
 Subsequent Objectives
 Lanes
 Announcer

The **Braxis Holdout** is a two-lane Starcraft themed battleground. Capturing two beacons stores Zerg in Holding Cells. Once a team's Hold Cell is full, it can be unleashed on the enemy team in multiple Zerg Waves. Siege camps consist of two Hellbats, the bruiser camps have three Goliaths and a Raven that shoots seeking missiles, and the boss is a Archangel.

The first Beacons will activate 90 seconds into the match, following a 30-second warning. Beacon events after the first will spawn 2 minutes and 10 seconds after a previous Zerg wave has been defeated.

## Background

"The United Earth Directorate used the remote and hostile planet Braxis to conduct experiments on ways to turn the Zerg swarm into a weapon they could unleash on their enemies. Though the main psi disrupter was destroyed, this space platform's beacons remain fully operational and ready to be used. Capture the beacons and watch what happens when a flood of weaponized Zerg ravages the battlefield."
## Map layout

The "Braxis Holdout" battleground has two lanes with all of the objectives located in the middle of each lane.

### Areas of interest

 **Description:** | Capture Both Beacons to fill the Zerg dens.

### Mercenary Camps

There are five Mercenary camps to be recruited in this battleground. Mercenaries are disabled during the Primary Objectives.

* **Spawns:** After 1 min and respawns 1:30 min after the Camp has been captured.
* **Location:** Located at the northeast and southwest of center. Moves down their closest lane.
* **Spawns:** After 1 min and respawns 4 min after the Camp has been captured.
* **Location:** Located at the northwest and southeast of center. Moves down their closest lane.
* **Spawns:** After 5 min and respawns 4:10 min after the Camp has been captured.
* **Location:** Located at the center of the map. It prioritizes the lane where the Fort complex has the most remaining Health (sum of all buildings' health except Walls), then the highest Keep complex health as a tiebreaker. Otherwise it chooses randomly.
* **Description:** The Archangel fires an extremely high-damage stream of bullets at the closest enemy making and can fires a rocket dealing damage.

## Unique objective

### Core Ability: Missiles

* Every 4 seconds, the Core will shoot 5 missiles at a nearby enemy Hero, dealing 5% maximum Health as damage per missile.

### Capture the Beacons

Periodically two beacons will activate. Capture both to fill your Holding Cell with Zerg.

* The first Beacons will activate 90 seconds into the match, following a 30-second warning. Beacon events after the first will spawn 2 minutes and 10 seconds after a previous Zerg wave has been defeated.
* Capturing a beacon takes 3 seconds if it's uncaptured, or 6 seconds if the enemy has captured it.
* Beacons progress by 2% every 0.75 seconds.
* Going straight from 0% to 100% takes 37.5s seconds.

### Fill Holding Cells

Once either Holding Cell fills, both open and unleash waves of Zerg at each team's base.

* The initial Zerg Wave spawn location is random.
* Subsequent Zerg waves swap lanes from the previous one.

### Zerg Waves

*Main article:* Zerg Wave

Hold out against the enemy's Zerg while helping yours.

* A 0% wave gives 10 Zerglings, 2 Hydralisks, 1 Guardian, and 1 Ultralisk. By contrast, a 100% wave gives 10 Zerglings, 10 Banelings, 6 Hydralisks, 3 Guardians, and 3 Ultralisks.
* The Zerg will attack Heroes, so engage cautiously.
* Zerg waves prioritize Minions and Structures.
* While attacking, Guardian and Ultralisks spawn Drop Pods with 3 Zerglings and 1 Hydralisk (can occur once every 13 seconds)​
* Banelings deal decent kamikaze siege damage but have low HP. It's a good idea to clear those first.
* Beacon events after the first will spawn 2 minutes and 10 seconds after a previous Zerg wave has been defeated.

## Trivia

* In the art of the loading screen of this battleground, there are the following heroes: Grunty, Lt. Morales, Nova, Raynor, Zeratul, Zagara and Raider Rexxar.
* Heroes of the Stars and Braxis Outpost are PvP Brawls set on a modified version of Braxis Holdout.
	+ Escape From Braxis is a PvE Brawl set on a modified version of Braxis Holdout.
* The numbers/letters below the top holding pens spell "Nestea" and "Yellow". These were two very famous Zerg professional players during the heyday *StarCraft: Brood War'*s competitive scene.
* Core pilots wear robes with "BoxeR" and "Flash" on the backs. These were two Terran professional players in the *Starcraft: Brood War'*s competitive scene. The text can be seen in the beginning on the match, when a pilot climbs the ladder to the Core's cockpit.
* The Archangel boss has a "K-4E0" text on top of it which is possible reference to one of the game developers, Kaéo Milker.
* There are a bunch of arcade machines on the map, some with Space Wars (likely the Space Lord Leoric skin universe), but others for *Samuro Showdown* (which was added before Samuro was added) and Lost Vikings. Lost Vikings is a playable arcade game in Wings of Liberty that later got transplanted into Overwatch's arcade machines. These of course reference the Lost Vikings games. If you click the Samuro arcade machines, it plays a little holographic fighting game.
* Initially, the map description said that the Dominion controlled the Psi Disrupter and did research on the zerg on Braxis (instead of the UED), but this was changed after a reddit user complained about it.
* Various map details are from StarCraft:
	+ All structures are terran buildings from StarCraft: Towers are Missile Turrets, Forts and Keeps are Bunkers.
	+ All minions are terran units from StarCraft: Melee Minions are Marauders, Ranged Minions are Marines, the Wizard Minions are Ghosts, and the Catapult Minions are Cyclones.
	+ Behind your starting area, which is shaped like a command center, SCVs (terran mining units) mine minerals and vespene gas. This is how you gain resources to build units in StarCraft.
	+ Around the starting area are square Supply Depots, storage facilities which allow terran players to increase the maximum number of units they can build.
	+ In the center of the map there is an infested terran Factory, which allow terran players to build mechanical units like Siege Tanks. Factories in the center of the map start normal but become infested when the Archangel boss spawns.
	+ The symbols on the Hall of Storms, the Forts and Walls are the symbol of Raynor's Raiders, Jim Raynor's revolutionary group.
	+ The metal shields that circle the Core when it's protected has 54, which is a reference to the art team (54) that did a lot of work on StarCraft II, who left their mark on a lot of terran units and structures and units by putting their number on it.
	+ The music on this map is that of Terran 3 from StarCraft 1. When the zerg pens spawn, the music changes a mix of the tracks Zerg 4 and Zerg 1 from StarCraft 1.
	+ Until July 2018, if your team got 0% of the charge on the beacons, your wave had six zerglings. This was a reference to the StarCraft 1 strategy named "six pool", where you would only use your starting four workers to mine enough to get a spawning pool (structure that lets you build zerglings) then rush out zerglings before the opponent could build any defenses. Initially the wave was three zerglings, but it was changed at the suggestion of the community.

## Gallery

* Mercenary Camp Locations
* Beacon Locations
* The Zerg Wave

## References

1. ↑ Braxis Holdout
2. ↑ Nexus Master: Braxis Holdout
3. ↑ Reddit: Our in-house experts are here to answer your questions regarding Machines of War.

## External links

* Braxis Holdout - Heroes of the Storm
* Braxis Holdout Changelog - Heroes Patch Notes
* Braxis Holdout Sound Files - Sounds of the Storm
* Braxis Holdout - StarCraft Wiki

 **Removed**\_ | Hanamura