[A] Starbow - Page 142

The purpose of this upgrade is to make Overlords generate creep ability play a bigger role for Zerg. It will now be a part of the base management. You can place them at choke points, around in your base or on top of your workers to give some extra protection. Or bring them with your army and deploy some creep on the battlefield to give your army an extra edge in combat.

Again, I try to give Zerg more stuff to do with their units/buildings/mechanics etc. P and T has recieved a lot of new things. Zerg has lost a lot of stuff and barely gained anything new.

When I first implemented burrowed movement for Zerg units some months ago, the purpose was to add more content to the basic units. In SC2, that is a special ability for Roaches and Infestors. Since I no longer have Roaches in the game, I thought that special ability could be added to the other units instead. The slow movement speed of 1 felt kinda redundant and unnecessary.

Zerglings and Hydras are still rather slow compared to walking on ground, but the faster move speed will allow them to do some more hit-and-run attacks and other sneaky stuff. That in itself is a characteristic trait of Zerg.

The Infestor is now a unit that purely manipulates the enemy army but it can not kill anything on itself. It is not as good for harassment as before, but since Zerglings and Hydras move faster underground, they will take that role. Plague is the strongest spell and it helps to seperate Infestors from the deathball. Zerg will be able to sneak around with them and Plague the enemy army before any engagements.

For the first time ever the Swarm Guardian finally has a full line-up of spells. I thought a lot about what spell to give besides Dark Swarm. The old Frenzy only increased attack damage by 20%. It was a boring spell since it did not really change anything in the way Zerg units are controlled. You casted it. And thatwas it. Sinze Zerg units at that time were fast as fuck it looked odd to let Frenzy add a speed bonus.

I wanted to stay by the theme of letting the Swarm Guardian be a unit that "boosts" the rather weak Zerg units. You either protect them with Dark Swarm or you boost their fighting capabilities. Since must Zerg units are slower on creep now I thought it was time to give this spell a renascence. The spell is more versatile now. Zerg can:
- boost Overlords flying past turrets
- boost Scourges and Banelings so they connect easier with their targets.
- boost units retreating from combat
- obviously boost all units IN combat or on its way towards combat.
- etc

Consume allows Zerg to sacrifice units to increase the other units efficency in combat.

When I change the way a spell or unit works I replace the icon. This is to make new players pay attention that something is different with the spell/unit/upgrade etc.

The Corruptor has replaced the role of the Devourer from BW. Some players want me to bring back the Devourer, or make the Corruptor work as the Devourer did. But honestly, the Devourer was a boring unit too.. You A-moved with it and it only interacted with enemy air units. It was slow and clumpsy and did not benefit much from micro. Yes, Scourges also interacts with air units. But they are rewarded by micro, splits, flanking and other fun things to increase in efficency.

So I was looking at ways to make the Corruptor offer something more to players than just being an A-moving anti air unit.

What is the role of the Corruptor?

- It has high armor and high HP so it can absord damage from Corsairs and Vikings, which melts all other Zerg air units.
- The Mutalisk is rather weak in engagements. They can be upgraded into Brood lords to be better vs ground, and upgraded into Corruptors to be better vs air units.

Blizzard atleast added a bit more interaction via Corruption. Suddenly Corruptors had something more to do. (Even thought it was not much) In fact, all air units designed to deal with enemy air units in SC2 have some way to interact with other units:
- Vikings can transform.
- Phoenix can lift off.
- Corruptors can use Corruption.

Obviously Zerg will still build it mainly for anti air combat. And thats okey. Every unit must not be used for every purpose. By giving it Contaminate it has a tiiiiiiiiny bit more stuff to do... Maybe will we someday see a game where it actually becomes useful...