Tols Take On The Zerg 06.29.2008

I have been playing a lot of Starcraft 2 trying to get all the possible information I can. The problem with gathering information is that it doesn't convey the feel of the game, or how it plays. That's the information I really want to get out to everyone. I will be writing up gameplay articles for the Terran and the Zerg. I may do the Protoss as well if time permits.

On to the Zerg!

The Zerg are very frightening, everything about the makes you feel like you really are controlling a massive swarm. Visually, they have done some amazing things. First off the creep. They have changed the way creep looks from the gritty purple mass to a purple slime that appears to ooze and move. When creep expands they have changed it from adding blocks of creep to an effect that appears to be creep tendrils stringing out, corrupting the land. It makes everything else seem much more alive.

The buildings of the Zerg have also gotten a great overhaul. They all ooze and pulsate. Its almost to the point where you get dizzy from all the constant movement on the screen. The Zerg really are a living race now, instead of just having ugly buildings on strange purple stuff.

With my awe for the graphics partly aside, I would like to move to more strategic information. All of the Zerg units have a distinct purpose in Starcraft 2. While not everything is fully balanced yet, the roles are there and they all feel very natural.

The Zergling

The Zergling is still very much in the game. If anything it is more a part of the Zerg force than it ever was in the original. Zergling are the first option for offense and they are a large chunk of damage if you can keep them alive. The problem is that they are like walking pieces of paper. They die extremely fast...for example, a Zealot can 2 shot a Zergling.

The Zergling really takes advantage of the new UI. With the ability to control an unlimited number of units, you really can build 40 or 50 Zerglings and control them effectively. Zergling excel in swarms and as long as you have a lot of them, they are amazing. Zergling are also very fast. With no upgrades they are fast enough to outrun basic Zealots with ease. When you upgrade their movement speed, they can run circles around nearly every unit.

As of yet, the only effective counter to Zergling early game are Zealots with charge. This is not because the Zergling is over powered, really it is fairly balanced, if anything it is on the weak side. However, if you use their speed to your advantage you can ninja kill bases without ever having to fight another unit. This takes some micro, but with the ability to control 24 or 36 Zergling with one click it is not difficult or unmanageable.

The Roach

The Zergling's only major weakness is its lack of survivability. This is not an issue for the Roach. The Roach is so hard to kill it is amazing. During one of my Terran games, I used 3 Snipe's on a single upgraded Roach, and it stayed alive, with every little effort. To put this into context, Snipe kills a Drone instantly. I have seen Zealots beat on Roaches and not kill a single one. Marines will get slaughtered if they are not micro'd to focus fire one Roach at a time.

Roaches are your tanks before you get Ultralisks, so for the majority of games, they will be taking the damage. The Roaches however, are not perfect. They lack a speed upgrade which means that unless you spend a lot of effort micro'ing your units they will blaze right past your Roaches and go straight into the fight, negating the Roach's entire role.

The Roach also does very little damage, and its damage is ranged. This creates a semi awkward unit as it is built for tanking, but yet it shoots its targets instead of running in and getting knee deep in the carnage. In the event that you attack a player with Roaches and lings, they could affectivly avoid your roaches and slaughter your Zergling. Without a mass number of Roaches, or backup, they have a hard time killing anything.

Overall though, the Roach is a unit I would like to see nerf'd. Its health regen is so powerful that it is hard for anything to stand up to it. If you upgrade their life regen (Requires a Hive) they will regen about 40hp every second, maybe more. That is not something that I feel should be on a tier two unit. On the upside of this though, because of the late game upgrades to Zerglings and Roaches, the basic Zerg units are effective through out the entire game.

The Baneling

The Baneling is a unit that I feel has been over hyped. It is fun to watch and interesting indeed, but beyond basic harassment, it falls short. The Baneling is too weak to send into battle, and although it does do massive damage, it is extremely hard to deliver effectively. A few marines can kill a baneling with out it getting close enough to kill them.

With that being said, the Baneling excels in gorilla attacks. Morping a Zergling into a Baneling takes very little time, and because of this you can use the amazing speed of Zergling to get into someone's base, and then do a mass morph into Banelings. This however, is really the only effective way to use Banelings that I have found.

The Queen

I know a lot of people are worried about the Queen. The demos we have seen show her slaughtering every unit she comes in contact with. What they don't sho you though, is that they have the highest level Queen against very basic units. This doesn't happen in normal games. The Queen is extremely weak. During almost every attack I would have to have her use an ability and then stay burrowed until the cool down was finished.

The Queen does have some interesting abilities. She is able to transform a Larva into a Mutant Larva which gives the Zerg a very fast way to adapt to invading forces. The Mutant Larva will transform into most units in ten seconds. The added adaptation gives the Zerg an edge when defending that the Protoss have with the help of Warp Gates.

The Queen is purely a defensive unit and most times the Zerg are on the offensive so much that they are rarely attacked. The Queen, while nice, is not a must have unit, and indeed is nowhere near overpowered.

The Hydralisk

This old favorite is back, and with a vengence. The Hydralisk deals some amazing damage, and it does it quickly. With its damage bonus to armored units, it slaughters buildings, Thor's, Battle Cruisers, etc. A group of eight Hydras can kill a Phase Cannon in about four seconds. It is truly a scary sight.

However, as with everything else, not all is peaches and creme. The Hydralisk costs a lot of resources, and it is a tier three unit. This means that you will get your first Hydralisk close to mid game, if not later. With the changes to the base units (Zergling, Marine, Zealots) very few games ge into the mid game. In my playing experience, only about 20% of my games made it to a level at which I could get Hydralisks.

To give you an idea of how fast the games go, Blizzard has a 20 minute timer on all games, if it takes longer than 20 minutes the game ends in a tie. This may sound a bit extreme, but it is plenty of time unless both players are very good.

The Corruptor

The Corruptor is designated as the Zerg anti air unit. It does quite a bit of damage, though not enough to make it amazing. The Corruptor's attacks turn air units agains their own teamates. While this sounds like a cool gimmick it really doesn't pan out well. The Corrupted units are not the kind of thing that turn the tide of a fight, and you need to kill a unit's life bar to Corrupt it.

The one place the Corruptor is terrible is in Zerg against Zerg. Corruptors can kill Overlords fairly well, but when matched against Mutalisks, they get slaughtered. The Corruptor's damage bonus agains armored units is what makes it very scary, against the Zerg though, this does not come into play. Zerg against Zerg, there really is no counter for air units.

The slight edge that Corruptors have is that they only require a Lair to build. This means that you can get Corruptors before the other Zerg player has any anti air unit, as they have next to nothing early game. With all of this in mind, the only applies to Zerg against Zerg matches. When fighting against Terran or Protoss, the Corruptor is a must have anti air unit

The Mutalisk

Another old favorite is back, however, not much has changed. The Mutalisk is a relatively powerful, all purpose, unit. Wen comparing it to original Starcraft, it is almost identical. The Mutalisk is fast and effective, but as before, is expensive. With the plethora of ground effectiveness the Zerg have, it is hard to justify spending large amounts of resources on air units.

As I have stated before, the late game really doesn't happen very often. So I apologize for my lack of experience in this area. I was never able to use the Infestor. This is because of two factors. The first is that there are very few Terran players, and as such the Infestor loses its Gimmick (You cannot infest protoss in the build I played), the second is that by the time I was able to get them, the Alternative of the Ultralisk was much more appealing

The Ultralisk is extremely powerful. Its new cleaving attack makes it so that it can dispatch mass amounts of units. It has a huge amount of life and armor which makes it a great front runner for your Hydralisks and Lurkers. The one game where I was able to get Ultralisks was against another Zerg player. I had three Ultralisks, and they dispatched an entire force of 20 Zergling and 5 Roaches with relative ease.

Other than the new splash attack and its ability to burrow, the Ultralisk is very plain. It is extremely expensive, but in the event that the game gets to a point where you can use them then the game has gone on far too long.

The Zerg provides for a very fierce gameplay experience. When I compare it to the original Zerg I would have to say that this incarnation is much more "Zerg" than the original Starcraft ever thought about being.

The Zerg's adaptation, as always, is the key to winning with them, they can change from one strategy to another with ease. Their basic units each have a role that allows them to be extremely competitive in the early game, and mid game they gain the old favorites. I am loving the way Blizzard has taken the Zerg, and I hope they continue to keep going this direction.