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Infestors have gone through a lot of changes, and they are a unit I have barely touched so far in beta.
I plan on giving them a try coming up, but I'm wondering if any others have seen success with them or not.
My thought is that I'm going to grab them vs terran for the fungal growth.
So far the small testing I've done shows them as weak, and I believe a buff to their siphon life ability may be in order (though having not tested this extensively I'm not in a position to say.
using fungal growth as almost a poor man's psi storm seems a little rediculous, but I'm wondering whether if microed right, you can lock down an army by chain casting it from different infestors, slowly picking it apart 20 hp at a time.
This in combo with some hydralisks with the range upgrade, outranging marines(but not marauders), may be what I'm looking for in a mid-game counter to the terran marine/marauder ball.
The key factor here is the range that the fungas can be cast at, so whether the infestor will be able to hit an army with it and back off
a suggestion to blizzard to also think of would be to allow the siphon life to target your own units/buildings, so you can charge them up before going into battle, this would make them in combo with some roaches a very effective tier 2 caster.
Neural parasite, now that it's limited to organic may not be worth it anymore, except maybe as an equivilent single shot kill on units in the terran ball, as the rest of the units auto-target the mind controlled one, instantly killing it.
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tbh I think they're just like queens in SC1. Not very useful. The larva/money are better spent on attacking units. And the only reason you get the building that allows you to build them is to tech to Hive.
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I would love siphon to heal both health and energy. That way you could at least fungal isolated units wandering around the map like marines, reapers, or zealots, then kill them while they are stuck but still firing at you.
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On February 20 2010 04:23 onmach wrote:
I would love siphon to heal both health and energy. That way you could at least fungal isolated units wandering around the map like marines, then kill them while they are stuck but still firing at you.
It doesn't heal HP?
the writeup for the ability makes it sound like it does.
Maybe just adding that would be enough to make it worth it to make them
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It is hard to tell, but definitely having a single marine hitting you far outpaces whatever it heals. It is just too hard to keep them alive. Another possibility would be to allow the drain life (in contrast to the other skills) to function while burrowed. The proboscis would pop out of the ground. That way you could walk up to an undefended pylon and use it to heal/regen your unit, and maybe even take down a critically injured building or something.
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On February 20 2010 04:31 onmach wrote:
It is hard to tell, but definitely having a single marine hitting you far outpaces whatever it heals. It is just too hard to keep them alive. Another possibility would be to allow the drain life (in contrast to the other skills) to function while burrowed. The proboscis would pop out of the ground. That way you could walk up to an undefended pylon and use it to heal/regen your unit, and maybe even take down a critically injured building or something.
That's exactly what I found in my admittedly short test, they die extremely fast, I suppose this is how protoss feels about their high templars though, so it may not be all bad.
I don't know how I feel about the drain working while burrowed, it would turn them into an assault unit of sorts, as you pick at enemies from burrow.
What I would rather have is their other abilities be castable while burrowed, but having to come up to drain. This would mean they will stay alive longer in normal situations, but come up when it's time to feed. possibly remove their normal energy regen completely, so you must unburrow and drain to gain energy (if this is done I expect to also be able to drain my own units...)
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What are their abilities now?
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On February 20 2010 04:42 Catch]22 wrote:
What are their abilities now?
Siphon life
4 range
drains 4 hp/second from target unit, half is turned into energy
no CD or cost, auto-castable (becomes the unit's attack)
Burrow
once burrow is researched, they can burrow and move while burrowed without additional upgrades
Neural parasite
50 energy
mind control biological unit for 10 seconds
fungal growth
75 energy
aoe(unknown size
deals 20 damage and immobalizes all units in it for 6 seconds
2 upgrades for it:
+25 starting energy
increased speed while burrowed.
suggestion:
Possibly make a hive level upgrade to be able to use all of it's abilities while burrowed, at that point it's not going to be used for raiding due to the abundance of detection, but instead just increase it's longevity.
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Zurich15325 Posts
Infesters are the most disappointing unit so far. They announced they would redo them completely, but they look more or less the same and I still can't find much use for them.
In the past you could at least use them to mind control colossus, but now even that isn't possible anymore. Really disappointing, considering that P and T have awesome midgame casters.
Looking forward to someone finding a real use for infesters so we won't have another SC1 queen.
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How big is fungal growth's aoe? Man 20 damages is big? And how far is the tech?
Man 3-4 of them could destroy a mineral line or give you a big advantage vs melee or anything below 100 health..
God damn I want into beta
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On February 20 2010 06:07 Messatsu[wut] wrote:
How big is fungal growth's aoe? Man 20 damages is big? And how far is the tech?
Man 3-4 of them could destroy a mineral line or give you a big advantage vs melee or anything below 100 health..
God damn I want into beta
20 damage isn't that big when you compare it to the 80 damage of psi storm (granted some can be dodged) and the 150 damage of the hunter seeker missile (granted can be relegated to just 1 unit affected)
infestor takes the queen's spot in the tech tree, lair level building that opens up hive tech.
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On February 20 2010 06:31 Shiladie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2010 06:07 Messatsu[wut] wrote:
How big is fungal growth's aoe? Man 20 damages is big? And how far is the tech?
Man 3-4 of them could destroy a mineral line or give you a big advantage vs melee or anything below 100 health..
God damn I want into beta 20 damage isn't that big when you compare it to the 80 damage of psi storm (granted some can be dodged) and the 150 damage of the hunter seeker missile (granted can be relegated to just 1 unit affected) infestor takes the queen's spot in the tech tree, lair level building that opens up hive tech.
I understand but god damn, I imagine the possibilities...
Can it be cast while burrowed? I doubt...
Also it can stop your ennemy's micro (hit and run and things like that), block his melees if you have ranges, or make sure that they dont run... Kill their mineral lines easily if they dont have detectors...
And since I dont play the beta, maybe I'm just dreaming...
They could add an attack's speed reduction to it?
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FUNGAL GROWTH IS WICKED
It does damage and ensnares targets. Really nothing else to say.
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On February 20 2010 07:04 Medzo wrote:
FUNGAL GROWTH IS WICKED
It does damage and ensnares targets. Really nothing else to say.
yea, its like an explosive irradiate that ensnares. I won a 2v1 earlier with neural parasite on one of the noobs ultras among other things.
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On February 20 2010 05:30 zatic wrote:
Infesters are the most disappointing unit so far. They announced they would redo them completely, but they look more or less the same and I still can't find much use for them.
In the past you could at least use them to mind control colossus, but now even that isn't possible anymore. Really disappointing, considering that P and T have awesome midgame casters.
Looking forward to someone finding a real use for infesters so we won't have another SC1 queen.
I mean i assume they would be great if 1 units stacked then the slow would be useful big air vs big air but as of now they are pretty useless.
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fungal growth sounds ok , depending on the aoe size?
good defensive spell , or use on ramps to 'freeze' his guys on there
im sure the guys playing beta know more than i do however
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fungal growth is gross. it's like maelstrom + plague for 75 energy and considering how nicely sc2 units like to clump it's pretty effective.
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The problem with fungal growth is that it is weak. Someone fungified your mineral line? A single drop ship will completely nullify the effect. Don't scvs have an autorepair function? I bet that would nullfy it too.
Even if you hit every scv (which would require several casts to cover the area), you'd still have to wait until it ends, like 10 seconds, cast it again all over the scvs, wait another 10 seconds and then cast it again with some magical energy reserve you don't actually have.
I'll concede that it could be used on a ramp to temporarily delay a push or prevent a drop from moving to another part of the base, but when you are in base, you have to wait for them to regen energy the old fashioned way because there is nothing of the enemy with which to siphon.
In fairness, they cost a little less than a ghost, a little more than an HT, and you don't have to research any of their abilities. I also concede that a well placed neural parasite could really ruin someone's day if you can remember the hotkeys for certain spells (psi storm/nuke), but I haven't been able to manage it yet.
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It actually sounds like final growth won't be used for mineral-line harass but rather in big pushes. Being able to immobilize a large chunk of your opponent's army sounds like a powerful tool even without the dmg. It would be much more effective if you can defiler your mana with syphon and if the duration of Fgrowth was greater..
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Fungal Growth sounds like it was made to support Banelings and Zerglings.
Depending on the AOE, the duration, and the casting range, I could see it really messing up M&M armies vs. Zerg melee units.
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fungal growth is pretty useful for even fights, it's not anything special by itself but it's really good support
zvz mainly (if it gets to it) 2 fungal growths instead of like 3-4 extra hydras is immense
neural parasite is more or less a cheaper "alternative" to the old templar snipe, i think
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Fungal growth is like raiders ensnare in wc3. Use on melee and take them out of the fight/bad position or stop someone from falling back without losing trapped units.
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i wonder if people saying fungal growth will be good sound anything like people who said ensnare would be awesome during the SC1 beta
THE INFESTOR SUCKS
ZERG HAVE NO GOOD SPELLCASTERS
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On February 21 2010 12:20 Ideas wrote:i wonder if people saying fungal growth will be good sound anything like people who said ensnare would be awesome during the SC1 beta THE INFESTOR SUCKS ZERG HAVE NO GOOD SPELLCASTERS
SCI Ensare wasn't that useful because Zerg didn't have a ground, aoe version of Scourge, AKA Banelings.
SC2 Zerg do have Banelings.
What are the weaknesses of Banelings? Slow speed, low HP, melee-ranged.
Fungal Growth makes up for the slow speed of Banelings.
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On February 21 2010 13:17 madcow305 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2010 12:20 Ideas wrote:i wonder if people saying fungal growth will be good sound anything like people who said ensnare would be awesome during the SC1 beta THE INFESTOR SUCKS ZERG HAVE NO GOOD SPELLCASTERS SCI Ensare wasn't that useful because Zerg didn't have a ground, aoe version of Scourge, AKA Banelings.SC2 Zerg do have Banelings. What are the weaknesses of Banelings? Slow speed, low HP, melee-ranged. Fungal Growth makes up for the slow speed of Banelings.
ya man lurkers suck!
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On February 21 2010 11:39 madcow305 wrote:
Fungal Growth sounds like it was made to support Banelings and Zerglings.
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I had a Zerg player make two of them and MC my HT from a distance and storm my own army. Because MC doesn't make the MC'd unit an enemy, unless you manually target it before it casts a spell, you will take the damage. Also, if you do kill it, you're losing your unit, so you're hesitant. I found them to be effective.
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compared to sc1 defilers they are obviously bullshit. Honestly I tried these things against the computer and was disgusted by their spells. Id really like a useful spellcaster for zerg :/ heck, even the only other spellcasterish unit, the corruptor, seemed to have the better spell. Lets you disable an enemy building for 20 sec. Could be really brutal if you gain air dominance over someones production area.
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On February 21 2010 14:01 damenmofa wrote:
compared to sc1 defilers they are obviously bullshit. Honestly I tried these things against the computer and was disgusted by their spells. Id really like a useful spellcaster for zerg :/ heck, even the only other spellcasterish unit, the corruptor, seemed to have the better spell. Lets you disable an enemy building for 20 sec. Could be really brutal if you gain air dominance over someones production area.
rofl wtf I've never heard of this spell. do give more detail! do you have to research it? and corrupters still are the ones that turn into guardians and not mutas, right?
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United States7166 Posts
no research, costs like 75 energy, corrupts buildings for 30 seconds not 20. the cast range is really low, they gotta fly up right to it, its not very fast casting either.
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fungal growth seems like a maelstrom that does damage...how is that bad???
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Netherlands19135 Posts
Fungal Growth is GOOD vs MM balls. Luckily, so are seeker missiles.
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Well to be fair, in a zvz, if zvz ever gets to muta, a few infestors would end the harassment really quickly. They are essentially the same tech tier now, afterall.
I'm starting to get a better hang of the game now, I think I might be able to use it. I did not realize that mind controlled units were not auto targetted. That actually makes that pretty useful.
But it is still no defiler.
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lol actually I did not realize fungal growth is indeed aoe. Casted it on my own units to see if its aoe but obviously only one unit got ensnared so i thought its single target. lol im dumb ^^ Couldnt cast it on the computer cus well, the very easy AI doesnt ever have a clump of units :D
still, infestors seem pretty underpowered to me
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Fungal Growth actually seems like it could be really useful, but I haven't gotten the chance to play or even see it in action on any streams...
-Can you use it to block a choke/turn your enemies into a wall similar to using Stasis in SC? Imagine you're trying to defend a ramp, none of the enemies can get up as long as you can keep casting FG on it. Or, say you want to quickly kill off your enemies nat, an FG at the ramp could prevent reinforcements from coming in from the main until the nex/cc is dead
-Does siphon life work on your own units? Could be used as a poor man's consume without having to kill a unit, say, your overlords (not really a big deal for an overlord to go from 200 to 50 HP, and that's 75 energy, enough to cast FG again). Or have two infestors cast it on each other for infinite energy gain (I'm guessing they thought of this already and you can't... 4 infestors siphoning each other could lay down permanent, infinite FG lol).
- Could support burrow-move roaches when exploiting gaps in detection, use FG to temporarily divide an army or crush a melee army, or prevent an army with better range than roaches to micro. It kinda seems like they were designed to support roaches since they are the only two units with burrow-move, and roaches stand to benefit both from keeping distance from melee units and being close enough to long-ranged units.
They cost a ton of gas, so if you're not planning on using mostly zerglings and roaches, it might not be viable... but just having one for defense or support could be very useful (depending on the map's exploitable chokes) while teching to hive, especially since you have to get the building anyway and there's no need to research anything.
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On February 21 2010 14:52 Ryuu314 wrote:
fungal growth seems like a maelstrom that does damage...how is that bad??? They can still attack, just can't move.On February 21 2010 16:35 hoborg wrote:
-Does siphon life work on your own units? Nope =/
At the moment infestors feel similar to the SC:BW queen in that it appears it would probably be cost effective to have at least 1 lying around if you already have the tech available. Overall though it pales horribly in comparison to defiler/HT/sentry/raven/ghost.
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It appears nobody has addressed my point:
How well does Fungal Growth work in conjunction with Banelings and Zerglings?
Has anyone tried it in ZvT against the M&M ball, or in ZvP against an opponent with masses of Zealots?
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On February 21 2010 11:39 madcow305 wrote:
Fungal Growth sounds like it was made to support Banelings and Zerglings.
Depending on the AOE, the duration, and the casting range, I could see it really messing up M&M armies vs. Zerg melee units.
Or freezing zeals and shooting them up with hydras.
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I really think that neural parasite will show its true coulors when we get to TvZ ghost lategame^^ it seems likem they're the target group for that spell imo ;P
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TBO, I haven't seen much of any of the spellcasters/support units. But infestor seems worst.
To give the Infestor more punch, rename fungal growth into "infest" and if a terran infantry unit dies by it, it turns into infested terran. Should make a lot of micro decisions necessary for both players. The zerg gotta decide whether to let the stuck units die and turn them or kill them fast, and the terran got to decide whether to heal or to kill his own units to prevent them from turning.
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Fungal growth sounds a lot like ensnare and that never really got used except to be cute.
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Does fungal growth work on flying units?
If yes then it would be very useful in ZvZ to counter mutas.
Hydra + 1 or 2 Infestors would rape zerg air so badly.
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I wish infestor had a plague/ensnare ability... then +bane/ling would be epic combo :0
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I think we need to be particularly careful with trying to evaluate the usefulness of spellcasters this early. It took people years to realise just how ridiculously good arbiters and defilers are and while the infestor doesn't look too impressive right now (except for fungal growth which actually sounds pretty cool), it's very possible we'll find uses for it soon enough.
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On February 20 2010 12:34 onmach wrote:
The problem with fungal growth is that it is weak. Someone fungified your mineral line? A single drop ship will completely nullify the effect. Don't scvs have an autorepair function? I bet that would nullfy it too.
Even if you hit every scv (which would require several casts to cover the area), you'd still have to wait until it ends, like 10 seconds, cast it again all over the scvs, wait another 10 seconds and then cast it again with some magical energy reserve you don't actually have.
I'll concede that it could be used on a ramp to temporarily delay a push or prevent a drop from moving to another part of the base, but when you are in base, you have to wait for them to regen energy the old fashioned way because there is nothing of the enemy with which to siphon.
In fairness, they cost a little less than a ghost, a little more than an HT, and you don't have to research any of their abilities. I also concede that a well placed neural parasite could really ruin someone's day if you can remember the hotkeys for certain spells (psi storm/nuke), but I haven't been able to manage it yet.
Your post gave me a great idea. Since the infestor can move under ground keep it in a control group with roaches. Pop up in their mineral line, cast fungal w/e under the most clumped amount of workers and let the roaches do the rest, the workers CAN'T run and they are 20 hp weaker so the roaches finish them off quickly. Anyone agree.
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wait so is FG 20 damage overall or 20 damage/s so 100 damage? This would make it identical to storm which is 80 damage/4 seconds
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On February 22 2010 13:43 Dr.Frost wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2010 12:34 onmach wrote:
The problem with fungal growth is that it is weak. Someone fungified your mineral line? A single drop ship will completely nullify the effect. Don't scvs have an autorepair function? I bet that would nullfy it too.
Even if you hit every scv (which would require several casts to cover the area), you'd still have to wait until it ends, like 10 seconds, cast it again all over the scvs, wait another 10 seconds and then cast it again with some magical energy reserve you don't actually have.
I'll concede that it could be used on a ramp to temporarily delay a push or prevent a drop from moving to another part of the base, but when you are in base, you have to wait for them to regen energy the old fashioned way because there is nothing of the enemy with which to siphon.
In fairness, they cost a little less than a ghost, a little more than an HT, and you don't have to research any of their abilities. I also concede that a well placed neural parasite could really ruin someone's day if you can remember the hotkeys for certain spells (psi storm/nuke), but I haven't been able to manage it yet. Your post gave me a great idea. Since the infestor can move under ground keep it in a control group with roaches. Pop up in their mineral line, cast fungal w/e under the most clumped amount of workers and let the roaches do the rest, the workers CAN'T run and they are 20 hp weaker so the roaches finish them off quickly. Anyone agree.
Hm still, compared to the other races casters they pretty much blow. Those other casters have friggin obvious, huge usefulness, nobody needs to theorycraft all day long about their usability. Infestors are only viable in 2on2 coupled with storm, nuke or other aoe shenanigans.
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On February 22 2010 13:46 caution.slip wrote:
wait so is FG 20 damage overall or 20 damage/s so 100 damage? This would make it identical to storm which is 80 damage/4 seconds
20 dmg overall. Else it would be waaaaaaaaay overpowered, storm that immobilizes the units it hits? Seriously, nobody would discuss the viability of Infestors then, they would be the best casters of the entire game ^^
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I experimented quite a bit with infestors vs all 3 matchups, a strictly hydra/3 infestor counter push for ZvT, Roach/Hydra Infestor for ZvP and Roach/Infestor zvz.
Only thing that really stuck out was how small the radius of fungal spore was, ZvT was semi effective vs medivac bio but I felt like roach/hydra would of cleaned it up better and left me with a bigger army (Hydras outrange marines), ZvP kept -some- zealots from doing too much damage but the timing works out so that most P have zealot legs and is hard to ensnare all of them. ZvZ seemed pointless as 20 damage was garbage vs 135hp roaches. In most cases, I thought to myself, "hey I could probably be in a better position if I just made 12 banelings".
I can understand why they made the radius so small, it would be devastating if it hit the entire army ball but as soon as the units clash, they split up. I estimate only hitting maybe 4-6 units per cast. I also initially thought that the 20 damage done was instant and tried to unburrow spam 6 shots but it turns out that the 20 damage is over 6 seconds. Garbage. It wouldn't be that bad if the unit actually had other uses but as of right now, in my eye, its a waste of gas.
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On February 22 2010 01:55 synapse wrote:
I wish infestor had a plague/ensnare ability... then +bane/ling would be epic combo :0
can't tell if this is sarcastic. but fungal growth is like a mix between plague/ensnare...
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tested this in a rediculous FFA game, the in game tooltip says it's 8 seconds now, which makes the damage dealt slower.
the radius is tiny, and as mentioned above, you will only hit a few units with each cast
the range is also small, compared to the SC1 queen's massive range on all her spells as well as high flying mobility, the infestor has to get right in close to a fight, to cast it's ineffectual spell.
It was mentioned that units don't auto-attack mind controlled units, which can be a positive and a negative really.
People are getting stuck on remembering SC1, where an 8 second imobalize would be godlike for zerg to have because of swarm and lurkers, but both of those have been removed. while fighting a terran army I'd rather have the extra troops then a fungal growth or 2 in the fight.
While it may be cute to come in and fungal growth an army,then neural parasite a HT to storm the rooted enemies, I don't see this situation coming up enough to warrent the money/micro spent.
I only see infestors as being extra reinforcement of the fact ZvZ will never go late game, any broodlords or ultras would be snagged immediately by neural parasite.
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I could see neural parasite being extremely useful in all the matchups.
ZvT: take control of ghosts and emp their ravens/other ghosts and snipe what you can.
ZvP: take control of HTs and storm the protoss units; take control of DTs and... well you know =P
ZvZ: take control of power units lategame, queens, or other infestors =D
I think the infestor is potentially the most bogus caster of all, in these tiny 1 base vs 1 base chz games it doesn't have a place, but we'll see it more when the metagame evolves.
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On February 21 2010 12:20 Ideas wrote:i wonder if people saying fungal growth will be good sound anything like people who said ensnare would be awesome during the SC1 beta THE INFESTOR SUCKS ZERG HAVE NO GOOD SPELLCASTERS
Huge difference between SC and SC2 is the fact that casters have smart casting now.
You can build 3 infestors and spam Fungal Growth all over the place with relatively no APM required.
Queens would indeed be cost effective in lategame for zerg.Ensnare reduces the effectiveness of most units by 50% for just few hundred gas and makes your lurker/ling surrounds waaay easier
When your army consists of 20 ultras, 80 zerglings and 18 lurkers, investing few hundred gas to few queens would be correct choice 100% of the time.
The problem is that it is unbelievably tough to micro/macro a lategame zerg.
You have 10 groups of lings/ultras/lurkers.
You have defilers.
You have 10 hatcheries to constantly pump units, rally them
etc. etc.
Adding queens is just too tough and cubersome, so even progamers don't bother.
I remember JD telling that in the interview after the whole Ensnare+Lurker "Hyvaa" build got popular.
Same reason ghosts with lockdown aren't used.
It takes too much time to keep pressing on all the individual ghosts and split up all the spells on each individual unit.
One misclick and all 5 of your ghosts will waste all their energy on 1 lockdown.
If Lockdown was in SC2, it would be rather imba actually
So again, SC2 has easier mechanical aspect for casters.
You won't waste all the energy by clicking on 1 unit because of smart casting.
So as long as the cost isn't horribly over the top, I'm quite sure that casters will be used very commonly.
Considering how well units clump in SC2, casting few fungal growths on enemy ball of units and rolling in with some banelings should be fun 
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On February 23 2010 02:21 Floophead_III wrote:
ZvT: take control of ghosts and emp their ravens/other ghosts and snipe what you can.
ZvP: take control of HTs and storm the protoss units; take control of DTs and... well you know =P
I think both of these would be true only if neural parasite outranged storm/emp (I don't know what the range of these are).
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Everyone is theorycrafting them to have a use, and I won't deny SOME use for them, but I really think if they arn't changed, zerg simply won't have a caster that's used.
Anyone else find it odd zerg get only 1 caster?
ghost+nighthawk
sentry+high templar
infestor+?
overseer cannot be considered a caster with it's only ability being changlings
I think they should give overseers back fungal growth, and find something else to give infestors. They kept high templars with psi storm, let us have our dark swarm back!
Edit:
other possibilities for fungal growth use:
increases speed/hp regen of friendly units, while doing the same thing it does now to enemy units, giving it more utility/choice of how to use it.
simply increase it's cast range/aoe size, or increase the damage it deals
just adding lurkers back into the game would make fungal growth incredibly more useful
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United States22883 Posts
On February 22 2010 13:49 damenmofa wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 13:43 Dr.Frost wrote:On February 20 2010 12:34 onmach wrote:
The problem with fungal growth is that it is weak. Someone fungified your mineral line? A single drop ship will completely nullify the effect. Don't scvs have an autorepair function? I bet that would nullfy it too.
Even if you hit every scv (which would require several casts to cover the area), you'd still have to wait until it ends, like 10 seconds, cast it again all over the scvs, wait another 10 seconds and then cast it again with some magical energy reserve you don't actually have.
I'll concede that it could be used on a ramp to temporarily delay a push or prevent a drop from moving to another part of the base, but when you are in base, you have to wait for them to regen energy the old fashioned way because there is nothing of the enemy with which to siphon.
In fairness, they cost a little less than a ghost, a little more than an HT, and you don't have to research any of their abilities. I also concede that a well placed neural parasite could really ruin someone's day if you can remember the hotkeys for certain spells (psi storm/nuke), but I haven't been able to manage it yet. Your post gave me a great idea. Since the infestor can move under ground keep it in a control group with roaches. Pop up in their mineral line, cast fungal w/e under the most clumped amount of workers and let the roaches do the rest, the workers CAN'T run and they are 20 hp weaker so the roaches finish them off quickly. Anyone agree. Hm still, compared to the other races casters they pretty much blow. Those other casters ihave friggin obvious, huge usefulness, nobody needs to theorycraft all day long about their usability. Infestors are only viable in 2on2 coupled with storm, nuke or other aoe shenanigans. That's because those do direct damage. This sounds a lot like complaining about defilers before people understood how to use swarm properly.
That worker line thing sounds fantastic, and the damage is secondary to freezing a worker pull.
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I've tried using infestors a bit... but overall they have been very underwhelming. The only time I had any success with them was against a protoss player who got a little too aggressive. I was able to spring an ambush with burrow, and threw fungus on his units as they turned to ran. I was able to get some free kill on units which might have otherwise escaped back to his base.
But in general they are pretty bad t.t; Expensive with mediocre abilities. The AoE for fungus is small, and it only lasts 6 *game* seconds. It feels like nothing at all. I'm wondering if it could be useful in ZvZ to help hold your ramp vs superior roach numbers, but it's just too much gas that needs to be put towards either hydra or muta. T_T;
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On February 22 2010 01:37 Tritanis wrote:
Does fungal growth work on flying units?
If yes then it would be very useful in ZvZ to counter mutas.
Hydra + 1 or 2 Infestors would rape zerg air so badly.
Yes it works on flying units and I just used it for exactly this purpose. Its still not idea but if your scouting fails and you find yourself against a huge muta flock it can work.
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I think the Infestor is much more useful in 2v2 battles, particularily when your partner is Protoss.
Fungal + Storm, anybody?
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Infestors are EXTREMELY good in 2v2 with a protoss partner.
Fungal growth + storm is a very effective combo as Zeke suggested
Also something I thought up with neural parasite. The only effective counter vs Immortals are ghosts. A typical terran will use scanner sweep instead of ravens, so you burrow your infestor, neural parasite one of their ghosts, and use it to EMP the rest of their ghosts. You pretty much just won the match with that simple maneuver.
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Fungal Growth + Banelings/Zerglings/Roaches against Terran M&M army, or Protoss Zealot-based army before Colossus/HT are out.
Can someone PLEASE do this combo and report how it goes? This entire thread is full of whining, and nobody has tested the most OBVIOUS use for Fungal Growth: to help Banelings and Zerglings.
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Sure, any spell caster can help, but the question is do they help a huge amount? It seems that infestation pit is never going to be first thing built after lair unless the zerg is hive rushing, because infestors seem not to be strategically decisive like the other tech options available are (hydra, muta, nydus). And if the zerg is hive rushing, a faster hive is likely more useful.
So, if this is correct, they aren't just tier 2, but later on in tier 2. There shouldn't be pure zealot or M&M armies running around at this point.
Strategically, the infestor feels a lot like the dark archon, with a crappy version of maelstrom and mind control. There are situations that you can imagine it will be useful, even clutch, but in 90% of situations it just won't help that much. Spellcasters that were actually used in SC1 were the ones that had a pretty significant impact on whatever battle they participated in. does it matter whether the science vessel, high temp, or defiler were present at a battle? hell yes. DA, ghost, queen? not so much.
infestors should gain dark swarm, researchable only after hive is built 
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The maps right now seem like there is less room to play with. I'd hate to see a direct reincarnation of Dark Swarm.
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I don't think dark swarm is useful anyways without consume
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On February 23 2010 19:12 7mk wrote:
I don't think dark swarm is useful anyways without consume
Probably true. Although if Siphon Life would also be able to target your own units, it would be like a "fixed" consume. Although Siphon Life + roach = free "slow" energy.
I see some potential for Fungal Growth if they tweak the numbers a bit. Would a "increased attack cooldown" added feature be OP?
Neural parasite seems way too situational as it is now. I was really liking it as a Colossus counter before, can't really see it being used now. Then again, what do I know
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So what does Siphon Life do exactly? Take over the mana from an enemy spellcaster? does it kill it too?
Maybe they should make it that you can cast siphon life burrowed, that way you have an easier time gathering a good amount of mana and having just 1/2 infestors will be more useful.
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Rofl I just came from that site, was about to edit my post
so yeah if you can cast that while burrowed that would be pretty cool.
Could also be a tense moment when ur opponent sees his units life getting drained going like "oh shit, where is that bastard".
Otherwise it seems like a really useless spell because wtf if hes on the ground the opponents army will just destroy it (its not like they send you single units just to feed you) , if you have an army vs army battle than a spellcaster should do much much much more damage than just drain the life out of one freaking unit. In warcraft 3 it's a different story but this isnt warcraft
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Someone may have mentioned this here already but if infestors are still able to move/cast while burrowed, fungal growth wouldnt be that bad to delay supply/mineral lines.
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They can move but not cast while burrowed.
Edit: on a side note the tool tip for siphon life seem to be incorrect. It does damage and boosts energy regen ever so slightly, but it does not heal the infester.
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i was playing this for the first time yesterday and i was disappointed about no infested barracks or infested marines.
trailer was big lie
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Fungal Growth:
Units in the area of effect (including friendly units) are immobilized and suffer 20 damage over 8 seconds. Cloaked and burrowed units are revealed.
Looks like it can counter observer and dark templar
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Any time you have a version build where a race can win simply by massing assault units, the support units are going to be either a) not used at all or b) you're not going to find yourself in practical situations where you should need them.
Of all my games I've played the most as Z (i'm a sc1 z player normally) and I think the mechanics of the game as far as the timings due to spawn larva and the strength of the zerg unit as compared to SC1 being buffed significantly makes Z extremely strong.
With that said, I've used them in zvz for fun because every one of them you have is a potential 8 unit swap during a fight. You steal up to 4 units per infestor for 10 seconds which puts you up 4 and them down 4 which can win a fight you would have otherwise lost. I think it has potential but right now it's too easy to mass units and sauron them to death.
I've never had anyone try to nuke me, but I thought it would be cool to steal a ghost and nuke them with it, but I'm not sure if that's possible. I'm sure Jaedong will pull it off one day~
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Well basicly zerg no longer is the race with more untis but weaker, because of roaches and generally thier units they can stand toe to toe with unit for unit against toss and terran. In sc1 the numbers at the start gave an advantage, but then lategame they had spellcasters (defilers) to back them up when numbers doesn't really help. In sc2 thier untis are much stronger so they dont need a strong spellcaster lateg ame to help them, so i think the infestor might be okay but not used as much as the defiler, and if blizzard were to make the infestor better they would need to weaken zerg more.
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Haven't used them personally but i've seen them used in 2v2 quite often especially in defend>expand>get200food games. In huge army battles they serve a lot of purposes not just for buffing ht's storm but to make the enemy's back units trying to get around the stuck bunches of units instead of actually getting to you. Also i dare to say they work well in conjuncture with raven's missiles even better than with storm.
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BTW, can someone please tell me if Siphon Life ignores shield?? Cuz if so, it can kill archon.
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On February 24 2010 07:28 Loverman wrote:
Haven't used them personally but i've seen them used in 2v2 quite often especially in defend>expand>get200food games.
Great, maybe they'll be useful in compstomps too?
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i've noticed that upgraded hydras outrange marines, perhaps a hydra + 2-3 infestor army can deal with a large infantry ball by using fungal growth; pin the marines in place, and they can't shoot back while hydras decimate them. And if terran decides to use tanks, you can then use neural parasite to take them over during battle.
It's just an idea at this point, I haven't tried it.
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I say they should revert it back to its original function of infesting building... have the infester infest something, especially now that the corrupter no longer does something similar with units. I'm upset at this also btw because they basically turned the corruptor into a lesser frost wyrm from WC3
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On February 23 2010 02:21 Floophead_III wrote:
I could see neural parasite being extremely useful in all the matchups.
ZvT: take control of ghosts and emp their ravens/other ghosts and snipe what you can.
ZvP: take control of HTs and storm the protoss units; take control of DTs and... well you know =P
ZvZ: take control of power units lategame, queens, or other infestors =D
I think the infestor is potentially the most bogus caster of all, in these tiny 1 base vs 1 base chz games it doesn't have a place, but we'll see it more when the metagame evolves.
If you can really mind control a high templar and storm, it might be viable in ZvP. I personally have used infestors in all my ZvT games ever since i lost a mass marine / medic vs mass hydra game, and i haven't lost a single ZvT since. Even though I use these units, I still think they are very underpowered, because the radius of the fungal growth is about 2 and their mind control ability got nerfed into the dirt. They are very good against drop play terrans, because they CAN infest air units (medivacs etc), however they really have no meaningful use in ZvZ or ZvP that I can think of.
If zerg could evolve into a mutalisk vs hydralisk match it could be useful, however mutalisks get absolutely destroyed by hydralisks, so high level gamers would not make mutalisks en-masse to attack their opponents.
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I'd like some more info about Siphon Life, because http://www.sc2armory.com/game/zerg/units/infestor doesn't really say much. Only "stats, energy and range".
Siphon Life gives +4 hp/s, so does that mean the target loses 4 hp/s?(an obvious 'yes', I guess but it seems so low that I have to ask)
Is the spell channeled?
How long does it last?
It also says the spell costs 50 energy and "Half the siphoned life is turned into energy.", so you get 2 energy per second? You would have to siphon life for 25 sec to break even -_-
ps obviously I don't have a key so I can't try this myself :[
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On February 25 2010 03:22 tre2ettsexsju wrote:I'd like some more info about Siphon Life, because http://www.sc2armory.com/game/zerg/units/infestor doesn't really say much. Only "stats, energy and range". Siphon Life gives +4 hp/s, so does that mean the target loses 4 hp/s?(an obvious 'yes', I guess but it seems so low that I have to ask) Is the spell channeled? How long does it last? It also says the spell costs 50 energy and "Half the siphoned life is turned into energy.", so you get 2 energy per second? You would have to siphon life for 25 sec to break even -_- ps obviously I don't have a key so I can't try this myself :[
it doesn't cost energy, it just essentially gives the infestor an attack for 4 damage every second.
They gain 2 energy/second while it's happening, unsure if they gain any hp
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It should just be their basic attack at that rate. I'm sure you might see some in ZvZ with banelings or something. I suppose if someone got Ultralisks in a ZvZ you could at least turn that on them for 10 seconds. I couldn't see you wanting to do anything but fungal growth though in that matchup. at least Lings would almost die to it and Hydras would take a beating. I don't see any other use though. (obviously getting a HT in ZvP would be valuable -not sure what you'd want to control Bio wise from Terran though)
Does Siphon life bypass shields? Like kill an Archon in 3 seconds?
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On February 25 2010 04:28 brn4meplz wrote:
Does Siphon life bypass shields? Like kill an Archon in 3 seconds?
Curious about this too. Highly doubt it though :<
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On February 25 2010 07:25 tre2ettsexsju wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2010 04:28 brn4meplz wrote:
Does Siphon life bypass shields? Like kill an Archon in 3 seconds? Curious about this too. Highly doubt it though :<
Would be interesting to know but the range is so small that its unlikely the infester would last 3 seconds against a protoss ball featureing Archons. They also cost way too much to be practical in the front lines.
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Siphon life does damage to shield 1st just like everything else.
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a suggestion to blizzard to also think of would be to allow the siphon life to target your own units/buildings, so you can charge them up before going into battle, this would make them in combo with some roaches a very effective tier 2 caster.
Please do not make suggestions to game designers. Your job is to look for bugs and imbalances. Not to make suggestions on how to correct said imbalances. Game designers hate it when you give them suggestions. They ignore them. That's why people who get paid to test games only test things out for bugs. That's kind of what you're supposed to do.
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On February 25 2010 11:48 obesechicken13 wrote:Show nested quote +
a suggestion to blizzard to also think of would be to allow the siphon life to target your own units/buildings, so you can charge them up before going into battle, this would make them in combo with some roaches a very effective tier 2 caster.
Please do not make suggestions to game designers. Your job is to look for bugs and imbalances. Not to make suggestions on how to correct said imbalances. Game designers hate it when you give them suggestions. They ignore them. That's why people who get paid to test games only test things out for bugs. That's kind of what you're supposed to do.
LOL
i dont even know what to say
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I think the infestors need a change unless blizzard wants them to be completely useless as a unit and it's such a waste for the zerg's main spellcaster. Needs a buff imo.
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On February 25 2010 11:55 Ideas wrote:
LOL
i dont even know what to say
+1
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I just played a game today using infestor / hydra vs a bio build (marauder / marine) terran. Two infestors turned the game from an "almost even" army size, to a position where I easily won the game... pretty amazing to see it in action. I think infestors are difficult to use effectively, easy to avoid, and are slightly underpowered in terms of their other two abilities (they can't even siphon life from behind hydras, they have to be in front of them)... but so far I have liked the results of fungal growth.
In SC BW terrans are very used to pushing against a zerg to put "pressure" without actually doing anything, having infestors pretty much can sweep the game in your direction very quickly if the terran moves his army up just to see how much you have, and if you're being too greedy with drones. This does not mean that I think fungal regrowth is as amazing as protoss spellcasters (mothership / psi storm) but it atleast can be used strategically .
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On February 25 2010 11:48 obesechicken13 wrote:Show nested quote +
a suggestion to blizzard to also think of would be to allow the siphon life to target your own units/buildings, so you can charge them up before going into battle, this would make them in combo with some roaches a very effective tier 2 caster.
Please do not make suggestions to game designers. Your job is to look for bugs and imbalances. Not to make suggestions on how to correct said imbalances. Game designers hate it when you give them suggestions. They ignore them. That's why people who get paid to test games only test things out for bugs. That's kind of what you're supposed to do.
lol, get out
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On February 25 2010 11:48 obesechicken13 wrote:Show nested quote +
a suggestion to blizzard to also think of would be to allow the siphon life to target your own units/buildings, so you can charge them up before going into battle, this would make them in combo with some roaches a very effective tier 2 caster.
Please do not make suggestions to game designers. Your job is to look for bugs and imbalances. Not to make suggestions on how to correct said imbalances. Game designers hate it when you give them suggestions. They ignore them. That's why people who get paid to test games only test things out for bugs. That's kind of what you're supposed to do.
READ THIS and stop being asshole (who additionally is wrong).
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Infestors+Banelings! AOE stun+explosions.
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EDIT: Changes might be bogus, waiting for an official update on this patch.
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Fungal growth on escaping drones + a few zerglings = dead drones. Now that neutral parasite needs to be used above ground, it doesnt seem very effective since the infestor is so fragile.
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the fungal growth AOE is about half the size of the storm AOE. it can be effective to mix one or two into your push zvt or zvz.
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EPT
