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Hey Guys,
My question for discussion is simply that.
During this GSL and the last few really,
I have not seen much Infestor play happening with the top Zerg players.
In many interviews, when asked, (what is your favorite unit) ((Idra comes to mind))
they say : Infestor
and most of the GSL ZvT games have been very marine heavy and zerg is having trouble catching the marines, yet I still almost never see Infestors being used.
Is anyone else noticing this?
Is there an issue with this unit? is it to hard to micro? is it to expensive for the payoff?
Its deterred me from using them lately and its making my zerg arsenal feel short.
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theyre too gas heavy which means you'll have less mutas and they have 80 hp and are armoured but they have 0 armour so tanks will do 50 dmg.
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On February 01 2011 06:06 Giwoon wrote:
theyre too gas heavy which means you'll have less mutas and they have 80 hp and are armoured but they have 0 armour so tanks will do 50 dmg.
Is this the general opinion of the SC community?
that our main caster unit its to expensive and vulnerable to use?
even when their best counter (lings, blings, mutas, marines) are being used?
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I can't think of a game off-hand where infestors were not use? During the initial pushes, it's perhaps just better to get mutas and pick off the few tanks or harass the mineral lines.
Later on, when bulks of units are quite common, Infestors come into play. It's just a question of where you want to dump your gas/mins.
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Great spells but they're fat and easy to snipe.
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On February 01 2011 06:13 Omni17 wrote:
Great spell but they're fat and easy to snipe.
Fixed.
Infester Terran is the fence for me, I never find myself truly using them.
Neural Parasite, lol, need we really talk about it?
It's all about the Fungal Growth to be honest.
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They´re used very much in Zerg mirror. They´re good vs Terran but you absolutely need mutas for map control to outexpand the terran and to snipe tanks and you just don´t have enough gas to afford mutas AND Banelings AND infestors until like 4+ bases and then your gas is much better spent on tier 3 units.
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I don't know about the pros, but it's more or less how I feel. I'm too busy focusing on macro elements to incorporate infestors and really make good use of them, they just seem to get sniped whenever I try because I can't babysit them without everything else slipping.
But I do think fungal growth is great in each matchup and infestors can compliment just about any army composition. I'm just not good enough to take advantage yet. One step at a time. 
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i LOVE infestors! against terran cuz when my blings run in, the rines always kite back so i fungal growth and just tear thru the rines. the only reason i just used infestors is cuz i needed an extra hotkey because
1-mutas
2-slings,ultras
3-bling
4-hatch
so i put cont group 6 as W so i can fg, sure they have 90 hp but they are worth it
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Spending that much gas can get you 9 banelings, 2 mutas or 1 fungal growth, to get enough infestors to really lock down the marine balls you need to severely cut back on either banelings or mutalisks.
Infestors are amazing once you have them but the resources you need to sink into getting enough of them makes them hard to really use when your having to continually spam units so as to not get run over by Marine/Tank and during the end game when you do have enough gas to support them your normally dedicating your gas to Hive tech units.
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fungal growth and infested terran go hand in hand. And Neural has it's place, its just very rare.
That being said, i'm not quite sure. A lot of the times i've seen marines just kite everything and i've wondered the same thing. Sure its a lot of minerals, but sometimes they are just better than massing units and hoping you can kill them even when they are kiting everything you throw at them.
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Because you have to micro the infestors, and zergs want to play a mAcRoGaMe and basicaly they don't do micro. Micro is for lame races likes terran and protosses. MaCrO is for leet races that lose because blizzard can't do shit with balance.
So most zergs don't use infestors because they don't have the micro skill to use them, so they think infestors sucks.
User was warned for this post
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I always try to get some (only one or two mind you) when I do manage to scuffle together the resources.
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I like catz's playstyle, and honestly he'd be the Zerg I'd have nightmares fighting.
He uses tons of them.
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On February 01 2011 06:19 MrCon wrote:
Because you have to micro the infestors, and zergs want to play a mAcRoGaMe and basicaly they don't do micro. Micro is for lame races likes terran and protosses. MaCrO is for leet races that lose because blizzard can't do shit with balance.
So most zergs don't use infestors because they don't have the micro skill to use them.
Helpful.
On February 01 2011 06:20 Euronyme wrote:
I like catz's playstyle, and honestly he'd be the Zerg I'd have nightmares fighting.
He uses tons of them.
I'm not familiar with his style; when does he get them in ZvT?
On February 01 2011 06:18 bearjuice wrote:Sure its a lot of minerals, but sometimes they are just better than massing units and hoping you can kill them even when they are kiting everything you throw at them.
The issue isn't minerals it's the gas cost as cutting back on mutas means giving up a lot of map control and makes drops much more scary, while cutting back on banes means the terran can push forward much quicker.
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On February 01 2011 06:19 MrCon wrote:
Because you have to micro the infestors, and zergs want to play a mAcRoGaMe and basicaly they don't do micro. Micro is for lame races likes terran and protosses. MaCrO is for leet races that lose because blizzard can't do shit with balance.
So most zergs don't use infestors because they don't have the micro skill to use them, so they think infestors sucks.
I hear a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaambulance coming!!!
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On February 01 2011 06:17 TheButtonmen wrote:
Spending that much gas can get you 9 banelings, 2 mutas or 1 fungal growth, to get enough infestors to really lock down the marine balls you need to severely cut back on either banelings or mutalisks.
Infestors are amazing once you have them but the resources you need to sink into getting enough of them makes them hard to really use when your having to continually spam units so as to not get run over by Marine/Tank and during the end game when you do have enough gas to support them your normally dedicating your gas to Hive tech units.
There are a few things to take into account here.
The infestor has restorable energy.
The enemy is less likely to do the foxer split micro against them, so a successful attack is alot more likely than with banelings.
Units who are fungaled can't move. Banelings kill everything.
Siege tanks that aren't sieged can't siege when fungaled. Go go ling/bane.
I think they're severely underused basically. They rock terran mid to end game. They are used quite often in ZvZ, and in ZvP I personally feel they're not quite as good however, but that's just me.
Whatch the "12 weeks with the pros" by MrBitter on TL when he's coached by catz... it's BEATIFUL!
Edit: Also they shut down drop play.
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3,1k masterleague zerg, i feel like i never have enough gas as zerg. So when i got zerglingspeed (and roach if they open hellion) i rush for tier2 and when the lair is up you will need to pressure back or good terrans will be in a position where they just macro so had that an never ending attack starts, so you need to delay his third for a while and harass, also you need to deal with his harass to get your own macro going so you will need Mutas to deal with drops and harass your opponent
at least you will need about 16 to deal with turrets, so that he cant leave his base so easily, while you get your own macro going, when he got his third and got enough defence to deal with your harass you will be scared of an hard timingattack to deal with these kind of an attack you will need tier3 units i.g. Broodlords, so after you got your 16mutas and you got your macro and upgrades going i like to rush for tier3 and save up as much gas as possible for broodlords, ofc you could try to use infestor to delay his push but you delay your tier3units by that as well, so i like to skip infestor
tbh i tried to go for infestor and drop in midgame instead of mutalisk, but it felt quite harder to deal with drops and also to pressure back, and dropresearch takes quite a while
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IMO, while infestors are good, mutas are better.
Infestors are great defense and a good fungal growth can minimize your baneling losses while maximizing their damage.
But they don't give you map control like mutas do.
They don't delay/deny your opponent's 3rd like mutas do.
They don't force turrets like mutas do.
They can stop drops, but not nearly as efficient as mutas can.
If you wait until after you get mutas to get infestors, you will probably delay your hive by a significant amount, as well as probably not being able to have enough banelings to defend a big mid-game attack.
Another small point to add, is that infestors are slow off-creep, and only mediocre speed on-creep, they have low health and are extremely vulnerable to marauders, tanks, or banshees.
Against a mass marine/thor army or hellion/thor army, I could maybe see infestors being better than mutas, otherwise mutas are superior in most other situations.
edit: another possibility is to cut back mutas after 8-10 or so, using them only to harass & force turrets while getting your 3rd up, then switch to infestors while getting hive. However that is pure theorycraft, I don't know how well that would work.
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On February 01 2011 06:32 sieesch wrote:
3,1k masterleague zerg, i feel like i never have enough gas as zerg. So when i got zerglingspeed (and roach if they open hellion) i rush for tier2 and when the lair is up you will need to pressure back or good terrans will be in a position where they just macro so had that an never ending attack starts, so you need to delay his third for a while and harass, also you need to deal with his harass to get your own macro going so you will need Mutas to deal with drops and harass your opponent
at least you will need about 16 to deal with turrets, so that he cant leave his base so easily, while you get your own macro going, when he got his third and got enough defence to deal with your harass you will be scared of an hard timingattack to deal with these kind of an attack you will need tier3 units i.g. Broodlords, so after you got your 16mutas and you got your macro and upgrades going i like to rush for tier3 and save up as much gas as possible for broodlords, ofc you could try to use infestor to delay his push but you delay your tier3units by that as well, so i like to skip infestor
tbh i tried to go for infestor and drop in midgame instead of mutalisk, but it felt quite harder to deal with drops and also to pressure back, and dropresearch takes quite a while
This.
I am 3k+ masterleague zerg as well, and to be honest, I have NEVER made an infestor in a 1v1 ladder game. Gas is such a precious resource I feel like infestor is a waste. Given a choice between an upgrade or infestor, I will choose upgrade 100% of the time. Not to mention I already feel like I am jumping around constantly with micro/macro/map control/scouting/injecting/creeping, I feel like taking even more time for a perfectly placed fungal growth is too rare an opportunity to be worth it imo.
Then again maybe I just suck and it is a huge leak, but I never used them and don't plan on it anytime soon. Even in ZvZ, when I see my opponent getting infestors, it feels like a free win. Oh, you can lock me down for a few seconds? Well my +2/+2 speedroaches/hydras are still gonna pwn your whole army.
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I think you don't see them too much in professional level zvt because the terran is always threatening with a whole lot of bio and it's tough for zerg to know when they can hold off on baneling production momentarily and spend all that gas to tech to infestors/energy for infestors.
Pretty much it's a lot of gas and zergs are always starving for gas for bling to stay alive or muta to harass/pick off tanks
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Only repeating what a lot of people are saying:
Big and easy to snipe. And their spell range is not that great.
If I compare with HT and Ghost, it is far easier to kill an infestor imo.
Also I liked a comment from Fruitdealer in the last interview I read on TeamLiquid. Due to the interface, I believe too it is harder to micro and macro at the same time for zerg at the moment. I am sure it will change in the future, but while waiting for everyone to get more used to the game; it is just harder for me when I play zerg to macro and micro at the same time. It is much more intensive for me.
If I had more time (meaning less creep tumors, less larva injections, less overlord spreading, less scouting since I have to play very reactionary as zerg) I could micro better my infestor and be more confident with them.
For the time being I am forced to see than when I off race, I have a far easier time microing my units.
But the game is evolving, we will see...
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IMO as of right now vs P and Z, infestors are a niche unit. playing supportive role vs heavy phoenix or muta builds
fungal is their best spell, infested terran is pretty cool too but NP is fairly usless in most situations.
vs T i can see infestors becoming standard, but again mainly for fungal. NP used to be good vs thors and the like but the NP timer as well as the range allow for tanks to nullify it.
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Mr Bitter is using like 6-8 infestors right now! And doing it effectively. It gives me hope 
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As my first post wasn't very helpful, I think a good way to use infestors is to do the following.
A lot of GSL or other tournament TvZ plays like this :the terran 2 raxes, harass a little, then expand and tech to stim while macroing a marine ball (with 3-4 marauders to tank banelings) then push. This push will hit at the typical timing when the zerg have his first 4-6 mutas (that are useless against this push).
The spire takes 100 seconds to build, +33 seconds for the first muta.
The pit takes 50 seconds +50 seconds for first infestor. With 2 infestors that you build immediatly after pit instead of spire you'll have 2 fungals ready at the exact usual first muta timing.
With 2 infestors + some lings you crush this push, with 6 mutas you'll die most of the time (unless you produce an insane amount of lings). Only one fungal on the marines will prevent them from stiming, and in any case will leave them too weak to handle speedlings.
Infestors are safer and allow power droning. I don't say replace mutas by infestors, I just think timing wise infestors are way better than mutas to deal with the first push. After that resume your muta production if you want.
They can be used exactly for the same purpose as the 2 or 3 first lurkers in a bw TvZ.
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additionally i think it would be cool if they made these changes to FG
-longer range (close or slightly less than tank range but again lacking the vision)
-longer/shorter stun time based upon balance testing
-much less dmg
-higher energy cost
-bring up the energy upgrade eto match new energy reqs
-energy upgrdee time down from 80 to 60s and cheaper on the gas and maybe more mineral heavy, depends on balance effects from previous changes, 200-75? 150-100?
The damage of FG while good isnt really necessary as the main utility is the stun.
it might add for some cool mechanics in zvt where one can go infestors to actually delay the terran army until the tech to hive units is reached. similar to swarm in bw. utilizing the max range would require for sight of the army via overlord or burrowed units. it would make infestors a better transitional unit to delay until hive while still being a great unit with the rest of the t1/t2 mix.
id write more but shoulder aching from surgery
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So, should the Infestor be buffed in some way?
Is there ANY way that it can be buffed subtly without making them inba? I mean....they can be EMPed, Sniped, Feedbacked....Super brittle, and their spells just make it easier for OTHER zerg units to perform their roles. Its a true support unit. Other spellcasters do instant damage, or damage over time. While fungal growth does do 36 damage, its mostly a "DONT MOVE WHILE MY BANELINGS OR ZERGLINGS COME IN" spell. I feel a buff to fungal growths AOE, and maybe a movement speed increase and time increase to infested terran would be in order.
I think Pros aren't using them because of a combination of the above. While 1 infestor at every base spells doom for hellions, or a medivac full of marines, it's costly, and APM intensive. Could you somehow hotkey a queen with an infestor, and have one at each base? A queen and an infestor together can make a pretty good defense for any base. Anyway, here is a poll to help maybe express and consolidate feelings about a potential infestor buff.
Poll: Should the Infestor be buffed/how?Not fine/Neural Parasite buff. (54) 40% They're fine the way they are. No. (27) 20% Not fine/Cost decrease. (18) 13% Not fine/HP buff. (13) 10% They're not fine, but I have no idea how. (8) 6% Not fine/Fungal growth buff. (5) 4% They're too powerful. Nerf somehow. (5) 4% Not fine/Movement speed buff. (3) 2% Not fine/Add another ability/utility. (1) 1% Not fine/Infested Terran buff. (1) 1% 135 total votes Your vote: Should the Infestor be buffed/how? (Vote): They're fine the way they are. No.
(Vote): They're not fine, but I have no idea how.
(Vote): Not fine/Fungal growth buff.
(Vote): Not fine/Movement speed buff.
(Vote): Not fine/Add another ability/utility.
(Vote): Not fine/Neural Parasite buff.
(Vote): Not fine/Infested Terran buff.
(Vote): Not fine/Cost decrease.
(Vote): Not fine/HP buff.
(Vote): They're too powerful. Nerf somehow.
1. Are they completely fine and we're just missing a utility?
2. They're not fine, but you have no idea how to make them stronger, without affecting the game negatively?
3. They're not fine, and a fungal growth buff would benefit the infestor, be it range, damage, AOE radius, or mana cost of the spell?
4. They're not fine. Infestors are way too slow to be used properly. If infestors were faster, they could be used to harass with infested terrans, force scans, turrets, and maybe be able to dart to the front lines and then out of danger?
5. They're not fine. It needs another ability or utility. Maybe adding an attack to the infestor, making it so that infestors give off an aura of some sort, giving it consume, or an AOE frenzy spell would benefit its usage while not making it overpowered?
6. They're not fine. Maybe the neural parasite ability needs to be decreased in cost, increased in range, or the time of the spell needs to be changed? (Or reverted back to permanent.)
7. They're not fine. Infested terrans are too weak. If the infested terrans were buffs in strength, speed, or duration, detection, scans, or turrets would have to be used to combat infestors from ransacking bases? (You have to consider the cost of burrow as well when doing harass with infestors)
8. They're not fine. The infestor is too costly. While the infestation pit takes nearly half as much time to get up as a spire, the infestor is too costly to be used with muta play. Maybe decrease its mineral cost to 50 to allow for more lings to be made with the infestor, increasing its effectiveness as a support unit, or for less gas, maybe 25 less, to allow for more mutas to be constructed in conjunction?
9. They're not fine. They're too squishy! Tanks auto target them, and two volleys of tank fire will automatically kill an infestor. Feedback also is an issue, because you're saving up for that money fungal growth, and if you wait just a little bit too long, an infestor can be one shotted right before being able to cast fungal. Increase its HP to combat this?
10. They're too powerful. A nerf is in order. Maybe people haven't found out to proper utilities to infestors in general, but you've witness enough evidence of infestors almost single handedly taking out bases with just a few infested terrans, destroying entire mineral lines with two well placed fungals, or repeatedly negative drop play to justify them remaining at the strength they are now?
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i personally use infestors pretty often in both ZvT and ZvZ and many other "pros" (whatever your definition is for that) do so too...
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i didn't know that pros werent using infestors, did you watch the gsl4?
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On February 01 2011 06:45 MrCon wrote:
As my first post wasn't very helpful, I think a good way to use infestors is to do the following.
A lot of GSL or other tournament TvZ plays like this :the terran 2 raxes, harass a little, then expand and tech to stim while macroing a marine ball (with 3-4 marauders to tank banelings) then push. This push will hit at the typical timing when the zerg have his first 4-6 mutas (that are useless against this push).
The spire takes 100 seconds to build, +33 seconds for the first muta.
The pit takes 50 seconds +50 seconds for first infestor. With 2 infestors that you build immediatly after pit instead of spire you'll have 2 fungals ready at the exact usual first muta timing.
With 2 infestors + some lings you crush this push, with 6 mutas you'll die most of the time (unless you produce an insane amount of lings). Only one fungal on the marines will prevent them from stiming, and in any case will leave them too weak to handle speedlings.
Infestors are safer and allow power droning. I don't say replace mutas by infestors, I just think timing wise infestors are way better than mutas to deal with the first push. After that resume your muta production if you want.
They can be used exactly for the same purpose as the 2 or 3 first lurkers in a bw TvZ.
You can't fungal with 50 energy. Your build is wrong.
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The main issues I find with using them are...
1. They're fat, this makes it hard for them to cast a spell then back up. Often times they get pushed by the zerg wave right into enemy fire.
2. They're high attack priority.
3. Tanks and Colossi rip them apart
4. They're very gas heavy + you need time or 150/150 to be able to use them at all.
Still they're quite useful, just hard/tricky to field. You should seem them semi-regularly in ZvT and ZvZ.
As to TLOBrian, if they need to be buffed lowering their attack priority or giving them more ability to push apart friendly units and path between them is what would be needed. An NP buff couldn't hurt either , I miss the days when you could cast NP while burrowed making it actually usable. It wasn't even really OP when it was in game anyways.
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Remove their armored status and shrink their model by 33% or give remove fungal growths damage and give infestors consume or remove their attack priority so that terrans would need to focus fire their tanks to make chunky salsa out of the infestors.
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On February 01 2011 06:38 jdseemoreglass wrote:
I am 3k+ masterleague zerg as well, and to be honest, I have NEVER made an infestor in a 1v1 ladder game. Gas is such a precious resource I feel like infestor is a waste. Given a choice between an upgrade or infestor, I will choose upgrade 100% of the time. Not to mention I already feel like I am jumping around constantly with micro/macro/map control/scouting/injecting/creeping, I feel like taking even more time for a perfectly placed fungal growth is too rare an opportunity to be worth it imo.
Then again maybe I just suck and it is a huge leak, but I never used them and don't plan on it anytime soon. Even in ZvZ, when I see my opponent getting infestors, it feels like a free win. Oh, you can lock me down for a few seconds? Well my +2/+2 speedroaches/hydras are still gonna pwn your whole army.
I'm not quite at your level but I was about to type everything that you just said. Also, I remember some top terrans saying that infestors aren't a problem for them at all.... MarineKing once said something like if he sees infestors then he knows he's going to win.
In ZvT, every infestor means less mutas, less banelings... and you simply need all that you can get. The only unit mix that makes sense that includes infestors in roach/infestor, but terran has stimmed marauders and tanks which make this pretty bad.
In ZvZ it feels like there ought to be room for infestors, but the roach wars can be won and lost on some really small things... slightly faster upgrades, or one or two less roaches. I guess if you get ahead, infestors could help you stay ahead by preventing the enemy from retreating, but it's hard to make them worth it against roaches.
They're definitely useful if the other zerg gets mutas out, but if he does that you should have beaten him with your roaches already.
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On February 01 2011 06:57 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 06:45 MrCon wrote:
As my first post wasn't very helpful, I think a good way to use infestors is to do the following.
A lot of GSL or other tournament TvZ plays like this :the terran 2 raxes, harass a little, then expand and tech to stim while macroing a marine ball (with 3-4 marauders to tank banelings) then push. This push will hit at the typical timing when the zerg have his first 4-6 mutas (that are useless against this push).
The spire takes 100 seconds to build, +33 seconds for the first muta.
The pit takes 50 seconds +50 seconds for first infestor. With 2 infestors that you build immediatly after pit instead of spire you'll have 2 fungals ready at the exact usual first muta timing.
With 2 infestors + some lings you crush this push, with 6 mutas you'll die most of the time (unless you produce an insane amount of lings). Only one fungal on the marines will prevent them from stiming, and in any case will leave them too weak to handle speedlings.
Infestors are safer and allow power droning. I don't say replace mutas by infestors, I just think timing wise infestors are way better than mutas to deal with the first push. After that resume your muta production if you want.
They can be used exactly for the same purpose as the 2 or 3 first lurkers in a bw TvZ. You can't fungal with 50 energy. Your build is wrong.
But you can with 50 energy +33 seconds I guess, that's why the build is not wrong, but I typical zerg is typical. "I didn't saw idra do it, so it sux"
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I actually really agree that infestors are really too big to be useful. Make them defiler sized or something.
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On February 01 2011 07:04 MrCon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 06:57 Jermstuddog wrote:On February 01 2011 06:45 MrCon wrote:
As my first post wasn't very helpful, I think a good way to use infestors is to do the following.
A lot of GSL or other tournament TvZ plays like this :the terran 2 raxes, harass a little, then expand and tech to stim while macroing a marine ball (with 3-4 marauders to tank banelings) then push. This push will hit at the typical timing when the zerg have his first 4-6 mutas (that are useless against this push).
The spire takes 100 seconds to build, +33 seconds for the first muta.
The pit takes 50 seconds +50 seconds for first infestor. With 2 infestors that you build immediatly after pit instead of spire you'll have 2 fungals ready at the exact usual first muta timing.
With 2 infestors + some lings you crush this push, with 6 mutas you'll die most of the time (unless you produce an insane amount of lings). Only one fungal on the marines will prevent them from stiming, and in any case will leave them too weak to handle speedlings.
Infestors are safer and allow power droning. I don't say replace mutas by infestors, I just think timing wise infestors are way better than mutas to deal with the first push. After that resume your muta production if you want.
They can be used exactly for the same purpose as the 2 or 3 first lurkers in a bw TvZ. You can't fungal with 50 energy. Your build is wrong. But you can with 50 energy +33 seconds I guess, that's why the build is not wrong, but I typical zerg is typical. "I didn't saw idra do it, so it sux"
It's 130s if you research glands. (50 pit, 30 glands->start infestor).
Also while in the situation described the infestors are nice they can have their own problems when made first. If he goes for banshees or drop play he can/will overwhelm your infestor energy leaving you completely vulnerable, especially if he combines a push with it as well. Mutas are great ZvT because you can use them to consistently deny Terran harassment.
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On February 01 2011 07:04 MrCon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 06:57 Jermstuddog wrote:On February 01 2011 06:45 MrCon wrote:
As my first post wasn't very helpful, I think a good way to use infestors is to do the following.
A lot of GSL or other tournament TvZ plays like this :the terran 2 raxes, harass a little, then expand and tech to stim while macroing a marine ball (with 3-4 marauders to tank banelings) then push. This push will hit at the typical timing when the zerg have his first 4-6 mutas (that are useless against this push).
The spire takes 100 seconds to build, +33 seconds for the first muta.
The pit takes 50 seconds +50 seconds for first infestor. With 2 infestors that you build immediatly after pit instead of spire you'll have 2 fungals ready at the exact usual first muta timing.
With 2 infestors + some lings you crush this push, with 6 mutas you'll die most of the time (unless you produce an insane amount of lings). Only one fungal on the marines will prevent them from stiming, and in any case will leave them too weak to handle speedlings.
Infestors are safer and allow power droning. I don't say replace mutas by infestors, I just think timing wise infestors are way better than mutas to deal with the first push. After that resume your muta production if you want.
They can be used exactly for the same purpose as the 2 or 3 first lurkers in a bw TvZ. You can't fungal with 50 energy. Your build is wrong. But you can with 50 energy +33 seconds I guess, that's why the build is not wrong, but I typical zerg is typical. "I didn't saw idra do it, so it sux"
2/3 of your posts in this thread are useless trolling; really helpful there.
Also no you can't use infestors to break the initial push, I've tried dozens of times to use a varation of what your suggesting but the issue is even if you get 2 amazing fungals and lock down half the ball you won't have banespeed done in time when your getting fast infestors so the remaining units steamroll you. Also if they open anything other then pure M/M without mutas to snipe dropships, banshees and tanks you auto lose.
The other issue is infestors don't give you the map control mutas do which means their 3rd comes down faster and your third / fourth are very delayed.
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On February 01 2011 07:10 TheButtonmen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 07:04 MrCon wrote:On February 01 2011 06:57 Jermstuddog wrote:On February 01 2011 06:45 MrCon wrote:
As my first post wasn't very helpful, I think a good way to use infestors is to do the following.
A lot of GSL or other tournament TvZ plays like this :the terran 2 raxes, harass a little, then expand and tech to stim while macroing a marine ball (with 3-4 marauders to tank banelings) then push. This push will hit at the typical timing when the zerg have his first 4-6 mutas (that are useless against this push).
The spire takes 100 seconds to build, +33 seconds for the first muta.
The pit takes 50 seconds +50 seconds for first infestor. With 2 infestors that you build immediatly after pit instead of spire you'll have 2 fungals ready at the exact usual first muta timing.
With 2 infestors + some lings you crush this push, with 6 mutas you'll die most of the time (unless you produce an insane amount of lings). Only one fungal on the marines will prevent them from stiming, and in any case will leave them too weak to handle speedlings.
Infestors are safer and allow power droning. I don't say replace mutas by infestors, I just think timing wise infestors are way better than mutas to deal with the first push. After that resume your muta production if you want.
They can be used exactly for the same purpose as the 2 or 3 first lurkers in a bw TvZ. You can't fungal with 50 energy. Your build is wrong. But you can with 50 energy +33 seconds I guess, that's why the build is not wrong, but I typical zerg is typical. "I didn't saw idra do it, so it sux" 2/3 of your posts in this thread are useless trolling; really helpful there. Also no you can't use infestors to break the initial push, I've tried dozens of times to use a varation of what your suggesting but the issue is even if you get 2 amazing fungals and lock down half the ball you won't have banespeed done in time when your getting fast infestors so the remaining units steamroll you. Also if they open anything other then pure M/M without mutas to snipe dropships, banshees and tanks you auto lose. The other issue is infestors don't give you the map control mutas do which means their 3rd comes down faster and your third / fourth are very delayed.
Lets say burrow was a much faster upgrade, and infestors were cheaper, could you see infestors being able to harass effectively to being able to lock down expansions with it?
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On February 01 2011 07:15 TLOBrian wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 07:10 TheButtonmen wrote:On February 01 2011 07:04 MrCon wrote:On February 01 2011 06:57 Jermstuddog wrote:On February 01 2011 06:45 MrCon wrote:
As my first post wasn't very helpful, I think a good way to use infestors is to do the following.
A lot of GSL or other tournament TvZ plays like this :the terran 2 raxes, harass a little, then expand and tech to stim while macroing a marine ball (with 3-4 marauders to tank banelings) then push. This push will hit at the typical timing when the zerg have his first 4-6 mutas (that are useless against this push).
The spire takes 100 seconds to build, +33 seconds for the first muta.
The pit takes 50 seconds +50 seconds for first infestor. With 2 infestors that you build immediatly after pit instead of spire you'll have 2 fungals ready at the exact usual first muta timing.
With 2 infestors + some lings you crush this push, with 6 mutas you'll die most of the time (unless you produce an insane amount of lings). Only one fungal on the marines will prevent them from stiming, and in any case will leave them too weak to handle speedlings.
Infestors are safer and allow power droning. I don't say replace mutas by infestors, I just think timing wise infestors are way better than mutas to deal with the first push. After that resume your muta production if you want.
They can be used exactly for the same purpose as the 2 or 3 first lurkers in a bw TvZ. You can't fungal with 50 energy. Your build is wrong. But you can with 50 energy +33 seconds I guess, that's why the build is not wrong, but I typical zerg is typical. "I didn't saw idra do it, so it sux" 2/3 of your posts in this thread are useless trolling; really helpful there. Also no you can't use infestors to break the initial push, I've tried dozens of times to use a varation of what your suggesting but the issue is even if you get 2 amazing fungals and lock down half the ball you won't have banespeed done in time when your getting fast infestors so the remaining units steamroll you. Also if they open anything other then pure M/M without mutas to snipe dropships, banshees and tanks you auto lose. The other issue is infestors don't give you the map control mutas do which means their 3rd comes down faster and your third / fourth are very delayed. Lets say burrow was a much faster upgrade, and infestors were cheaper, could you see infestors being able to harass effectively to being able to lock down expansions with it?
I don't think faster burrow on Infestors would make them overtake Mutalisks on the harassment/control front.
That being said, I think a lot of us liked what leenock was doing in GSL4, but at the same time it showed the risks of heavy infestor play, he didn't have the means to control/delay Ts expansions and basically ensured a very slow death for himself.
In time, I think roach/ling/bling/muta/infestor will be the way to go against T, but it takes a LOT of practice to get all those things working well together.
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It's why I loved the FruitDealer era ZvT - lots of infestors. Pretty much every unit was used, actually. But yea, siege tanks negate like 80% of the Zerg army so...
Also, infestor micro is pretty tedious. I'm not seeing many ghosts or templars used in pro games either, right now. All the really micro-heavy units. This might chance if JD, Flash etc. switch over to SC2. 
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They do use infestors. EGStrifecro is quite fameous for his use of them in ZvT.
Lots use it in ZvZ form time to time, and i think they will have a place in ZvP in the future.
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They are a glass cannon, but the cannon is not a good thing to have as part of a highly mobile army (which Zerg is based around).
Also the cannon part is a little weak.
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Ehh, infested terran isn't really anything special.
Neural parasite barely even does it's job. Cool I mindcontrol your thor for 15 seconds, assuming my infestor doesn't get killed. Then the thor just starts killing me again.
It's all about fungal growth, but units like siege tanks/colossues/etc kinda negate that
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Infestors are most useful against Terran because they will almost always get marines against zerg. And fungal growth just shreds marines.
In ZvZ they can be useful, but it is usually smarted to just invest in more roaches. If your opponent goes mutas it is usually better to use that gas on hydras or just pump more roaches and get queens.
Against protoss they have very limited use. Fungal growth doesn't really do much to the high hp deathball and it isn't even that great against blink stalkers because they can just blink once it wears off.
Neural parasite is just a joke. You can almost always do more damage with fungal growth and 90% of the time NP will cause your infestors to get sniped. They are one of the few armored units with no armor (also overlords and most of protoss air). I would much rather fungal growth a bunch of marines and a thor than parasite the thor and maybe do about 100 damage before losing my infestor. The fungal growth can easily do 200-300 damage and you can keep your infestor alive.
Infested terrans are not that useful in 1v1s because the unit you are attempting to kill can usually outrun them, and if you have burrow, the enemy will definitely have detection at their bases.
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infestors are more likely a unit you get once your thingies are out ... broodlords. Fungal against the vikings neural against thors or tanks that are trying to gain ground slowly. Also fungal and infested against drops or little marine or hellion run bys.
Pretty much ends up the map halfed as no one can push really. But zerg harass is way more effectiv in that situation. because of maphack creep vision. (but since infestors and neural parasite are so bad zergs will slowly lose after going the first broodlords are fended of)
While infestors aren't doing that good against Marines (without banelings the terra will just shrug it off split marines before and with banelings its overkill, alsways nice to leave a marine line with marauders in it to force baneling a click so all of them die (or are blocked and die as well))
But against mech play infestors are really evil with neural parasite and denying siege and infested marines shot burrowed to make the tanks to splash damage etc.
If the terran of course never has a high medivac count infestors are really good to get a few free kills before engagements against heavy marine play.
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On February 01 2011 07:15 TLOBrian wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 07:10 TheButtonmen wrote:On February 01 2011 07:04 MrCon wrote:On February 01 2011 06:57 Jermstuddog wrote:On February 01 2011 06:45 MrCon wrote:
As my first post wasn't very helpful, I think a good way to use infestors is to do the following.
A lot of GSL or other tournament TvZ plays like this :the terran 2 raxes, harass a little, then expand and tech to stim while macroing a marine ball (with 3-4 marauders to tank banelings) then push. This push will hit at the typical timing when the zerg have his first 4-6 mutas (that are useless against this push).
The spire takes 100 seconds to build, +33 seconds for the first muta.
The pit takes 50 seconds +50 seconds for first infestor. With 2 infestors that you build immediatly after pit instead of spire you'll have 2 fungals ready at the exact usual first muta timing.
With 2 infestors + some lings you crush this push, with 6 mutas you'll die most of the time (unless you produce an insane amount of lings). Only one fungal on the marines will prevent them from stiming, and in any case will leave them too weak to handle speedlings.
Infestors are safer and allow power droning. I don't say replace mutas by infestors, I just think timing wise infestors are way better than mutas to deal with the first push. After that resume your muta production if you want.
They can be used exactly for the same purpose as the 2 or 3 first lurkers in a bw TvZ. You can't fungal with 50 energy. Your build is wrong. But you can with 50 energy +33 seconds I guess, that's why the build is not wrong, but I typical zerg is typical. "I didn't saw idra do it, so it sux" 2/3 of your posts in this thread are useless trolling; really helpful there. Also no you can't use infestors to break the initial push, I've tried dozens of times to use a varation of what your suggesting but the issue is even if you get 2 amazing fungals and lock down half the ball you won't have banespeed done in time when your getting fast infestors so the remaining units steamroll you. Also if they open anything other then pure M/M without mutas to snipe dropships, banshees and tanks you auto lose. The other issue is infestors don't give you the map control mutas do which means their 3rd comes down faster and your third / fourth are very delayed. Lets say burrow was a much faster upgrade, and infestors were cheaper, could you see infestors being able to harass effectively to being able to lock down expansions with it?
Infestors wouldn't be able to harass for several reasons;
A) Speed - Infestors would take too long to get there / move from expansion to expansion and couldn't come back to defend.
B) Land unit - Without being able to ignore cliffs / wall-ins the infestors would have to take the same path as the defending units thus negating their ability to bounce back and forth.
C) Very limited energy - You can't do a prolonged harass as you quickly deplete their energy and once depleted they can't assist on the defence.
D) Vunerability - A single scan and they kill the harassing infestor.
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Several people have already hit this nail on the head, but I think it bears reiterating since people are still going off on uninformed tangents.
They are DEFINITELY more useful than 1.5 mutas ( in terms of gas cost ). Most zerg players just don't have the raw apm to properly micro infestors while still taking care of their own army positioning, not to mention larva injections and drone/reinforcement production.
Zerg is so powerful (I'll refrain from saying "overpowered" because that is a separate discussion) that most zerg players don't even have to know how to micro their army or caster units properly.It's just far easier to shut down harass, make a huge muta ball, and rely on pure economy to carry them. Obviously, this approach is inferior but it is what we see from most zerg players, even upwards of 3k.
A fair comparison, I think, is the ghost. If a terran could afford to win against HT without ghosts they would probably do it. But generally speaking, EMP is a necessity in TvP because zealot/HT compositions pretty much destroy anything the terran can muster until BCs, especially in terms of cost-efficiency. Therefore, a terran is generally compelled to get ghosts in order to counter HTs if he wants to win.
A zerg player has the luxury of being able to forego infestor play because they have other avenues of victory that generally revolve around getting lucky with a huge muta ball (lucky in the sense that the ball is only really effective if the terran doesn't properly counter mutalisks, which is hit or miss for most Terran players) or just overrunning a more passive player with banelings and roaches (those being the more economical units in the zerg arsenal). There is simply no reason for zergs to have to learn to use infestors with the balance as it is.
Personally, I think having two (maybe 1 per base?) infestors around mid-game leading up into larger muta numbers / tier 3 is indispensable. They shut down drops amazingly well, even if the marines are already unloaded/stimmed and obviously they are good in battle also, assuming you don't let them get picked off by 2 marines or siege tanks. They are also useful versus banshees, which although 1/1/2 is rare do present a real threat to zerg in the mid game in large numbers. Infested Terran is good against siege tank/marine play for obvious reasons.
I will concede that Neural Parasite is fairly worthless in 95% of circumstances.
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On February 01 2011 07:52 Warcloud wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Several people have already hit this nail on the head, but I think it bears reiterating since people are still going off on uninformed tangents.
They are DEFINITELY more useful than 1.5 mutas ( in terms of gas cost ). Most zerg players just don't have the raw apm to properly micro infestors while still taking care of their own army positioning, not to mention larva injections and drone/reinforcement production.
Zerg is so powerful (I'll refrain from saying "overpowered" because that is a separate discussion) that most zerg players don't even have to know how to micro their army or caster units properly.It's just far easier to shut down harass, make a huge muta ball, and rely on pure economy to carry them. Obviously, this approach is inferior but it is what we see from most zerg players, even upwards of 3k.
A fair comparison, I think, is the ghost. If a terran could afford to win against HT without ghosts they would probably do it. But generally speaking, EMP is a necessity in TvP because zealot/HT compositions pretty much destroy anything the terran can muster until BCs, especially in terms of cost-efficiency. Therefore, a terran is generally compelled to get ghosts in order to counter HTs if he wants to win.
A zerg player has the luxury of being able to forego infestor play because they have other avenues of victory that generally revolve around getting lucky with a huge muta ball (lucky in the sense that the ball is only really effective if the terran doesn't properly counter mutalisks, which is hit or miss for most Terran players) or just overrunning a more passive player with banelings and roaches (those being the more economical units in the zerg arsenal). There is simply no reason for zergs to have to learn to use infestors with the balance as it is.
Personally, I think having two (maybe 1 per base?) infestors around mid-game leading up into larger muta numbers / tier 3 is indispensable. They shut down drops amazingly well, even if the marines are already unloaded/stimmed and obviously they are good in battle also, assuming you don't let them get picked off by 2 marines or siege tanks. They are also useful versus banshees, which although 1/1/2 is rare do present a real threat to zerg in the mid game in large numbers. Infested Terran is good against siege tank/marine play for obvious reasons.
I will concede that Neural Parasite is fairly worthless in 95% of circumstances.
That's very much missing why Zerg's go mutalisks and kinda reeks of subtle unfounded balance complaints. Zergs go mutas for a few important reasons
1. Aggression, mutas force Terran to be defensive at least a little bit and helps to control the pace of the game.
2. Contain, mutas prevent constant expansion by Terran which is an important for Zerg.
3. Stop ground centric play. With mutas on the field Terran has to respect the need for units that shoot up which prevents compositions like hellion/marauder, or tank heavy play.
4. Prevents harass. While infestors can prevent some harass it's gas inefficient and there's a window where a Terran player can strain the energy of a Zerg's infestors leaving them vulnerable. Infestors are also less mobile and can't defend a 3rd as well as mutalisks can.
So no, it has nothing to do with being easier or having luxuries. Mid/late game you should have infestors and most people do, but you generally don't see a whole lot because mid/late game ZvT usually involves high tank or thor counts. Since people can't open infestor it also makes them less likely to really use infestors. Remember it is a heavy investment to field more than 1-2 infestors especially when you factor in the energy upgrade.
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There was a sick moment in a recent GSL game ( forget whic), where a cliff drop on LT was defended by an infester popping some infested terrans onto the cliff.
EDIT, and Warcloud your logic is convoluted. For one thing most people agree that Zerg's macro mechanics are harder than the other races, particularly in the late game, and more punishing for missing a macro cycle (missing an inject vs forgetting to call a MULE or chrono). And pretty much everyone agrees that Zerg needs to be up a base on Terran and Toss to have a chance. Soooo, the supposed "easy-mode" that you're railing against of having a giant economy and making inefficient trades counting on the fact you can replenish quicker, is in fact the primary hurdle of Zerg play.
You see a lot of roaches and banelings because these units are some of the only cost-effective trades we can make with a mid-size T or P army.
You see a lot of muta because a good Z player can score some damage (any damage, it doesn't even matter what) with insignificant losses. But muta are not real combat units.
Which brings us to the infester. IF everything goes right and you hit at least 1 fungal perfectly on a clump of marines, then the infester pays for itself generally speaking. But its very easy for this perfect scenario not to happen, in which case you've squandered your precious economic advantage (basically the only thing Zerg has going for it) on a unit that cannot contribute to your defense until its energy rebuilds.
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Infestors are useful in ZvP against Phoenix/VR harassment....Protoss wants to force Hydras, and then melt them with Colossi later, but having a handful of infestors allows you to avoid being forced down that path. I know some people love Hydras in ZvP, but I personally can't stand them/use them well, so any reason to avoid making them is great in my books.
The many problems infestors have in ZvT have been brought up already. Muta/Ling/Banes is the standard midgame composition right now, and it's hard to A) work infestors into your mix safely and B) Micro infestors appropriately, due to their limited range, bulky size, low hp, and slow movement speed. It's a pity because Fungal is such an amazing spell when used correctly. Infestors do have a solid place in late-game ZvT compositions though IF Terran never switches from MMM
ZvZ if you're going for the standard Roach/Hydra mix then mixing in some infestors is great if your opponent uses lings or mutas at all. But if they also just mass roaches and hydras FG is pretty limited.
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There is a lot of discussion about this in one of MrBitter's VODs.
http://mrbitter.blip.tv/file/4663284/
LZgamer is the guest on the VOD and he talks about what kind of play causes him problems. There is a lot of discussion about the "standard" muta/ling/bling play and how ling/bling/infestor can be effective in certain situations. Bitter says that he has always played ling/bling/muta and LZ convinces him to try infestor play for a few games.
The results are very interesting, and at the end of the VOD MrBitter says that he really liked the play style and that he will try it a lot more in the future.
The downside of muta play, as discussed in the vod, is that mutas are very unforgiving if your micro isn't perfect. If you are Nestea that's no problem but if you're a normal human then it's pretty easy to misclick and accidentally fly your mutas over a group of marines. Infestor play doesn't have the same frailty.
And it looks like it works pretty well. I'm not a great player but MrBitter is a solid masters player and LZ is a pro. A few good fungals + banelings = epic destruction.
Anyway, watch the VOD for a much more detailed discussion of this and a lot of other ZvT issues.
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Infestors have the problem of being armored imo.
This makes them very squishy against tanks (2 shots kill them regardless of upgrades) and stalkers.
Both units are seeing too much play too make infestors really good outside of ZvZ.
The solution is also simple imo, infestors should be light instead of armored. This makes them better in most common scenario's (vs marine + tank and vs stalker heavy armies) while not changing them in ZvZ.
If they'd survive just a few more stalker / tank shots it would be so much easier to use them and I really think they should be a pivotal support unit in each matchup. The fact that the infestation pit is required for hive tech alone should mean the unit needs to have a better role, making a useless building just to tech hive feels so stupid and ugly imo.
It should be like the sentry, almost always good as 1 or 2 off and in some matchups even good when massed.
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This discussion is making me want to give Infestor play a shot sooner rather than later.
I always thought Roach/Infestor was a gimmicky burrow-move harass style that wouldn't hold up, but I think I recall Ret saying something along the lines of "Infestors can be great to delay ground pushes when you're behind", and there seems to be some consensus that Infestors can really shut down air play, which would be the major weakness of using roach centric ground forces.
Has anyone had much experience using Roach/Infestor? What are the weak points?
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there are a lot of strategies which aren't widely used in this game right now because they require a lot of micro to be as/more effective as other, less micro intensive, strategies.
I'd even go so far to say that all races have underused, micro intensive strategies.
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Yea I also watched most of the Mr. Bitter coaching VOD with LZgamer and that ZvT style looks very interesting and fun to play. However, while it does seem to be a bit more forgiving defensively, the inability to deny expos/harass min lines and make them consider not pushing out whenever they want due to muta counters makes me wary to use it. Also I'm not sure how to cope with a terran who just masses tons of tanks in response to this style unless you get a lucky Fungal when they're unsieged...(maybe someone with experience playing with heavy infestors midgame can shed light on this?)
I like Infestors vs mech (especially thor-heavy), in which case upgraded roach +NP infestor seems solid. I've also seen a few pros going heavy melee/carapace upgrades mass ling/bane with infestor midgame (this is like the style LZgamer talks about and DIMAGA uses sometimes- I think specifically I saw him do this with success vs QXC on Xel'Naga caverns in a recent showmatch) which sets you up for highly upgraded ultras after hive and with adrenal gland lings this can be pretty strong, especially if you have greater spire up for BL/ultra techswitches which are a great finishing blow.
Anyway it's a style I'd definately like to try out and improve at, but I just feel much more comfortable with mutas due to their great mobility and the map presence/awareness they grant you.
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I know its horrible to compare units pound for pound across races, but seriously, this is totally out of hand:
Ghosts have more HP
Better and more Spells (Cloak, EMP, snipe)
Can attack
Are tiny and hard to snipe by comparison
Pros for infestors:
Can burrow move (arguably better than cloak because it doesn't require energy)
Infestors can definitely find uses in the current game, but only when the zerg has un-deniable momentum in the game, which begs the question, "if I have this much of an advantage, why not broodlords/ultras rather than blowing my gas on infestors?".
Something with infestors needs to get cheaper, gas-wise.
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Infestors are used, just not much in ZvP. They're great against terran with everything though. NP for mech, Fungal for bio, Infested Terran for... AA??
And obviously they are in ZvZ where they're practically broken (but to be fair, almost every unit is broken in ZvZ. Even Overseers are amazing). But yea, I've seen lots of infestor play against terran.
Its pretty much a choice between infestor and muta, and most players favor mutas because you can harass and get into your opponent's face more. Infestors are much less aggressive option by far.
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They're too expensive and squishy IMO for pro's to be bothered using them.
Let me explain; At the level of play the OP is talking about, every single point (ie:1) gas/minerals counts. Infestor's by and large, are just too gas heavy to fit into the current popular Zerg builds. (Hydra/Roach, Sling/Muta, etc) It's more economical for the pro players like July, or FD to just spend that gas on more muta's or hyrda's or something else. I think it's just a matter of these pro's have practiced these BO's so many times, and got them down so perfectly that there just isnt room for infestors...
For non-God-like players like the rest of us (or atleast for me) I feel that they are too big a gas dump (most of the time) to be worth it. Any opponent with decent micro will just focus down the infestor. And like other people have said in this thread already, They don't have much hp and no armor...
TL:DR;
Very gas heavy. Too easy to kill.
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There seems to be a misconception that you need to produce infestors mutalisks and banelings all at the same time.
An infestor opening will allow you to get them out very fast, hold off early bio pushes and build energy.
You get your 3 and 4 geysers faster, blast out 4 infesters and have a healthy group of zerglings, and you're safe against bio pushes.
When I play this style, once I get the initial infesters out, I feel very safe to drone, take a third and go straight to mutalisks.
Keep in mind this is against bio openings, if they Have any tanks on the earlier side, you'll be hard pressed to fend it off before a reasonable amount of mutalisks comes out.
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On February 01 2011 07:52 Warcloud wrote:
They are DEFINITELY more useful than 1.5 mutas ( in terms of gas cost ). Most zerg players just don't have the raw apm to properly micro infestors while still taking care of their own army positioning, not to mention larva injections and drone/reinforcement production.
you forget the creep spread.
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On February 01 2011 09:34 HornSnHaloS wrote:
There seems to be a misconception that you need to produce infestors mutalisks and banelings all at the same time.
An infestor opening will allow you to get them out very fast, hold off early bio pushes and build energy.
You get your 3 and 4 geysers faster, blast out 4 infesters and have a healthy group of zerglings, and you're safe against bio pushes.
When I play this style, once I get the initial infesters out, I feel very safe to drone, take a third and go straight to mutalisks.
Keep in mind this is against bio openings, if they Have any tanks on the earlier side, you'll be hard pressed to fend it off before a reasonable amount of mutalisks comes out.
You might find it works a little better to do the opposite. Go Mutalisk first: attack, harass and keep them in their base until they make static defense, which gives you time to make drones and get infestors up. In my experience this works better. However both make sense in their own way I suppose.
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EGStrifeCro uses them almost exclusively in the ZvT match up until he gets 3 bases up -- then transitions to Mutas. I think that is a trend we might see develop in the future. It is very powerful and just feels "safer" to me.
I've used it to great effect at my level (2600 masters). It's almost like Ts are in auto-pilot vs Z and simply expect mutas; their decision making suffers because of (what appears to be) the shock of infestor use.
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As a terran player, infestors dont give too much trouble to me. Just gotta be a bit more careful with marines, and take solace in the fact that he will have many less mutas/blings because of them. The bad part is if they manage to catch you unsieged with fungals - your army will be in a horrible position.
Its not that they are a bad unit, its just the alternatives are slightly better with the current strategies.
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Dimaga uses them. Once pros start using them the ladder sheep will. They are good.
![[image loading]](http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt311/Knightfallspics/Screenshot2010-08-3114_58_57.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt311/Knightfallspics/Screenshot2010-08-3114_59_45.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt311/Knightfallspics/Screenshot2010-08-3115_01_20.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt311/Knightfallspics/Screenshot2010-08-3115_01_43.jpg)
If I had microed better I woulda not lost a single infestor.
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On February 01 2011 09:38 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 09:34 HornSnHaloS wrote:
There seems to be a misconception that you need to produce infestors mutalisks and banelings all at the same time.
An infestor opening will allow you to get them out very fast, hold off early bio pushes and build energy.
You get your 3 and 4 geysers faster, blast out 4 infesters and have a healthy group of zerglings, and you're safe against bio pushes.
When I play this style, once I get the initial infesters out, I feel very safe to drone, take a third and go straight to mutalisks.
Keep in mind this is against bio openings, if they Have any tanks on the earlier side, you'll be hard pressed to fend it off before a reasonable amount of mutalisks comes out. You might find it works a little better to do the opposite. Go Mutalisk first: attack, harass and keep them in their base until they make static defense, which gives you time to make drones and get infestors up. In my experience this works better. However both make sense in their own way I suppose.
Neither is incorrect, they're different responses, for instance vs faster tanks the Mutalisk opening will be safer due to immobility and it just takes away from the infesters.
However in pure bio opening to go mutalisks you have to build a lot more lings and banelings to e safe, which could be drones.
So it's all responsive, how we all should be playing.
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I just want to mention that leenock likes using infestors a lot, it worked great in the past.
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On February 01 2011 09:52 HornSnHaloS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 09:38 DoubleReed wrote:On February 01 2011 09:34 HornSnHaloS wrote:
There seems to be a misconception that you need to produce infestors mutalisks and banelings all at the same time.
An infestor opening will allow you to get them out very fast, hold off early bio pushes and build energy.
You get your 3 and 4 geysers faster, blast out 4 infesters and have a healthy group of zerglings, and you're safe against bio pushes.
When I play this style, once I get the initial infesters out, I feel very safe to drone, take a third and go straight to mutalisks.
Keep in mind this is against bio openings, if they Have any tanks on the earlier side, you'll be hard pressed to fend it off before a reasonable amount of mutalisks comes out. You might find it works a little better to do the opposite. Go Mutalisk first: attack, harass and keep them in their base until they make static defense, which gives you time to make drones and get infestors up. In my experience this works better. However both make sense in their own way I suppose. Neither is incorrect, they're different responses, for instance vs faster tanks the Mutalisk opening will be safer due to immobility and it just takes away from the infesters. However in pure bio opening to go mutalisks you have to build a lot more lings and banelings to e safe, which could be drones. So it's all responsive, how we all should be playing.
Oh ok. That makes sense. The More You Know!!
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Banelings do the same thing as the infestor against marines but more expensive but faster/deadlier. Infestor is the natural transition from roach imo though as i find banelings cost heavy making it take longer to tech.
When i play ZvT i always FE into roaches and lair and then get infestors.
I take my 3rd early if i can defend with just roaches but if i can only defend instead of push out i get infestors and then FG the marines but if mech i get neural parasite upgrade first instead of + energy and get infestors earlier to have the power to push.
But if i feel too much pressure i just get banelings nest and go roach/baneling.
Ultras arent really my favorite unit against marauders and tanks and banshees so i get a spire and make mutas off 3 Bases and harass the terran while getting hive and then greater spire.
Four base broodlords comes then.
I only attack when i scout that he is trying to take his 3rd until then im macroing drones until the 2 base push of death.
Mutas do better against vikings imo.
Im stoned.
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Do you zergies have the feeling that a slight reduction in infestor gas cost would open up new ways to play zerg, and in a certain way "fix" the problems that your race commonly face?
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Recently ive been trying to add infestors into my play against terrans, early on simply put i can not afford infestors until im on 3+ base and i already have 18+ mutas and my upgrades going, the gas cost is just too much to get them earlier, the few times i tried to get them earlier i had to sacrifice upgrades, mutalisks and banelings which made the game much harder than it should have been, but when you get to the late game when you can afford them, they are amazing to add on.
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Didn't use them at all a while ago. Now I've recently started playing SC2 again after 2 months without and I've been trying to get rid of bad habits and such. So, I decided it would be a nice opportunity to start using them, and I found out that they're amazing. Other than in ZvZ, I don't feel like they're worth the gas in the mid-game, as mutas are more important for map control, imo. But, they're amazing in the late-game. Infestors with ultras ZvT is amazing, and ZvP I make a couple of broodlords so they make blink stalkers, then go hydra-infestor.
Also, they're the cutest unit in the game. That's a good enough excuse to use them.
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People dont make a lot of infestors early on, mostly because infestors dont help them at all with the strategy that they are trying to do.
In the standard strategy of muta-ling-bling, the mid-game goal is to harrass with mutas, allowing you to delay his push, prevent his third, stop harrassment, get your third up, and get an economic advantage. That is the goal, and mutas are great at that. Infestors, however, are not so great at that.
Thats why you dont see many infestors mixed in with the classic lin-bling-muta combo. Because they dont actually help you form a mobile army that can counter attack and harrass while you get an economic advantage. They are just not good at that.
What are they good at? Well, they are great against units with low amounts of life, such as zerglings, banelings, and marines, and they are great against very fast units that want to abuse mobility, such as zerglings, mutas, banshees, phoenixes, void rays, heliions, and so on.
If you face for example a protoss player going for a big deathball, with some void rays, colossi, gateway units, and immortals, why then would you get infestors? They are great at dealing with highly mobile forces, which your opponent's army isnt, and they are great at dealing with units that have very low amounts of health, which also isnt the case. Thus, they wouldnt be good there.
On the other hand, if the protoss gets lots of void rays, and phoenixes to harrass with those mobile units a lot, then infestors suddenly seem like a great choice, because you can just lock him down, stop the mobility, and then it helps you a lot.
Same thing against terran. If he is going for something like lots of marines, and medivacs, then infestors will be great. Or lots of hellions. Or banshees. But if instead the terran isnt harrassing a lot, but building a big army with lots of slow, immobile high health units, like tanks, thors, marauders, and so on, then suddenly infestors are a terrible choice.
If you are fighting harrassment from very mobile units, and trying to fend them off with slower units, then as zerg, infestors are great. But if you are dealing with a big doompush, then infestors are not really the units you want.
It depends entirely on your strategy compared to the opponent's strategy, and what your respective roles are. If you were to be making something like broodlord-hydra in the midgame, then suddenly, you would be the one with the really slow deathball, and your opponent would be the one forced to use mobile forces to harass. In that case, infestors would be the perfect unit to help.
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I think it's because they are not comfortable with their use yet. Whenever we see them in tournament games used by pros they are always devestating and effective but getting to that point is usually quite hard.
Give it another month or so of practice and I think they will become a staple of the Z army in all matchups. It's like ravens right now for terran. Just not comfortable enough to start using them to their advantage. Luckily protoss casters are useful in all situations so they get lots of use.
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Getting infestors means you have to cut down on some other gas heavy unit. Usually, you'll be sacraficing mutas to get infestors, either by skipping mutas entirely or by only getting a few, and then getting delayed infestors. Infestors make you much stronger against bio compositions, but they don't allow you to put nearly as much pressure on your opponent as mutas do. Everyone's said this quite a bit already.
That said, with so many terrans going so heavy into marines, infestors may see a bit of a resurgance. Infestors combined with drop tech could create a situation where you're able to counter attack after crushing an early-mid push.
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I look forward to the day when infestors becomes much more commonplace in the SC2 scene. It gives me another excuse to use ghosts :D
EMPed infestors bring tears of joy to my eyes.
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This is weird i was actually thinking of why I don't see them used much. And I thought maybe if they had consume ability they will be very much worth it. Just think about after their energy is gone they are basically walking targets with their overgrown self. While high templars can morph and ghosts still can attack without energy.
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United States7483 Posts
I feel that infested terrans are very underused. In any fight where the enemy doesn't have absurd amounts of splash damage, they can be very very strong. It's albeit rare, but there are times when they could be brought out. If you're going roach hydra, your upgrades apply to the infested terrans also, and they do pretty good damage (8 per shot I believe). You can kill command centers and entire worker lines with a couple infestors spamming them in the enemy base, and they can do an amazing job of soaking damage in a battle due to the way the eggs work. Against a terran opponent, it's often hilarious to spawn them on their own units so their tanks kill all their own stuff for you.
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I really love infestors in 2v2. Fungal combined with tanks, colossi, storm, even thors can lead to amazing ownage.
In 1v1 if I get them in the midgame, like most of the people posting, I struggle to use them effectively. I usually end up wishing I had spent the gas on something else.
I do like to get them in late game situations for drop defense, when supply is at a premium and I have to get the pit anyways for hive. A fungal and some infesteds can completely shut down a small drop, especially if I spot it coming with an overlord. Against bigger drops it can still be a difference maker by slowing it down, giving my drones time to escape or my army time to get there and save my tech.
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I'm known for my infestor play from my stream. to this day (since beta) i go 14 hatch 14 gas 13 pool, lair when pool finishes and queen at nat. and get infestors quickly. The reason it works is that with proper control 1 or 2 infestors can hold off early terran agression (with ling fodder), especially considering that zerg no longer has a blind spot in scouting with the build. (or rather the blind spot is very small) what this ends up doing is allowing you to scout that precious gas-taking timing as well as whether the factory/starport is going up for fact/fact or fact/star/tech or rax/rax/rax ect. Pretty much you get to see their tech path as soon as they are starting it, unlike the majority of zerg builds currently. and more information is just better. EDIT: to clarify super fast lair = fast overlord speed/overseer as well as infestors.
EDIT2:
Also the maps have been too short for it. because of the shorter maps mutalisk can control more of the map than infestors, and as such mutalisks are preferred in midgame. however on large maps (such as shakuras, and the new GSL maps) this will be less the case, as mutalisks cannot protect everything, like infestors can. also the "counter' to the early infestor play is a slow methodical tank push leaving no gaps. this push takes about 40 seconds on steppes of war, and doesn't give a good reaction time for the zerg, but on shakuras, the push takes 100 seconds, enough time to build a spire, and if you include scouting (as you should) you have enough time to halt gas spending, get a spire and pump mutas before they arrive and fend off the tanks with muta infestor (a godly combo vs tank marine if controlled correctly). on the even larger GSL maps this will be even more powerful, especially since the much (MUCH) faster scouting potential prevents any sort of shenanigans.
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On February 01 2011 06:12 emazzuca wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 06:06 Giwoon wrote:
theyre too gas heavy which means you'll have less mutas and they have 80 hp and are armoured but they have 0 armour so tanks will do 50 dmg. Is this the general opinion of the SC community? that our main caster unit its to expensive and vulnerable to use? even when their best counter (lings, blings, mutas, marines) are being used?
its also my opinion - they are quite pointless if terran goes tanks even when marines would be a great target - especially on gsl level its doubtful that someone would let you fungal the marines and one infestor equals gas of 6 blings
maybe neural parasite on tanks would work but i guess just once
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I've experimented and failed hard everytime in anything outside ZvZ.
The only thing left I can think of is defending far expos from marine drops TvZ. As far as army comps go though, they are far too squishy, which combined with their high priority just ends up in a gas dump.
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A lot of posts seem to think of Infestors as brute force units. You have to use them more like Sentries. Fungal growth is in many ways equal to, if not superior to force field. Locking enemy units in place means you get:
- Superior concaves, especially when hydras are on the field.
- Block off choke points.
- Buy time for new waves of reinforcements, or for the Nydus to unload.
- Freeze units for baneling bombs.
- Concaves against air. This mechanic is not possible otherwise, but can work with Corruptors or hydras.
- Casters can't get in range for some abilities (like graviton beam)
- all forms of AA can't chase down brood lords. This is amazing, and if I remembered the replay (one of day9's more recent shows), you'd cry nerf.
- Vikings can't transform (I think?)
- Stalkers can't blink in or out, losing their most important attribute- speed.
- Lock down and kill drop ships, keeping bases safe.
- frozen units can't go into drop ships (can they still deploy?)
Can tanks change mode? I'm inclined to think they can't.
Revealing cloaked units is a nice bonus as well, which is mostly not needed except against a Mothership.
For the most part, a Zerg army can not hold up directly against Terran or Protoss. This changes dramatically with Fungal Growth. A few doses can knock a force's health in half or worse, and lose all the kiting power they tend to have over Zerg. It's like fighting someone who a-moves with the handicap settings. The best part is once they're trapped, they can't do much but gladly accept additional doses of Fungal Growth. Most Zerg are over eager with their Infestors, and charge in before FG damage kicks in. Be patient, this is one case where you should let the fungus do its job.
So what isn't there to love?
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On February 01 2011 11:30 vaLentine88 wrote:
I've experimented and failed hard everytime in anything outside ZvZ.
The only thing left I can think of is defending far expos from marine drops TvZ. As far as army comps go though, they are far too squishy, which combined with their high priority just ends up in a gas dump.
I think this is really the issue here.
People play with them and don't instantly own with them so they just quit.
If anyone watched Julyzerg's zvt up/down match, he was using NP on marines at 4 range from a filled bunker, and suiciding groups of infestors into marines while a-moving.
And he's code-S.
People just don't take the time to be good with them. Gas is a good reason, but think even in terms of ZvP vs a "death ball"
Infestors aren't bad, they just require a lot more skill to use than every other unit in the game in my opinion (maybe Raven is equal). because of that, most people just don't have the patience to do it.
I guarantee you that if you check back in a year, Infestors will be much more widely used. And I don't expect them to get any buffs because they are already a tremendous unit.
It's higher risk but much higher reward.
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On February 01 2011 12:06 mlbrandow wrote:
Infestors aren't bad, they just require a lot more skill to use than every other unit in the game in my opinion (maybe Raven is equal). because of that, most people just don't have the patience to do it.
I guarantee you that if you check back in a year, Infestors will be much more widely used. And I don't expect them to get any buffs because they are already a tremendous unit.
It's higher risk but much higher reward.
Sums it up pretty much.
Infestors should and will be as influential in ZvT as Defilers in BW. except defilers do not require nearly as much control. infestor control is similar to muta micro in BW in terms of amount of time and apm.
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LeenockfOu had some nice usage of them in the up/down matches in GSL vs ZeNEXByun ZvT on LT. His nat was dropped with a Tank, a couple of marines and SCVs that built Bunkers and Missile Turrets.
A picture says more than a thousand words, so here you go:
+ Show Spoiler +
Used 3 Infestors, lost one to the Tank, but well worth it. Would probably be effective vs Thor drops too.
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Infestors aren't bad, they just require a lot more skill to use than every other unit in the game in my opinion
Dunno why people seem to think that infestors require so incredibly much skill to use. Seriously, range on fungal is the same as storm, energy cost is the same, radius is a little more. If you can storm an army, you can fungal an army.
Infestors should and will be as influential in ZvT as Defilers in BW.
Not really. They dont have much in common appart from both being pretty powerful casters.
The reason why defilers were good, was that they were very good against ranged units, and structures, which the opponents would have a lot of. If somehow for example firebats ended up being the main army units for terran, then defilers would have quite obviously been a lot less useful.
Defilers with dark swarm are good, if the opponent relies on a lot of ranged units, but if you were faced with something like ultra-ling constantly, then getting dark swarm would be useless.
Infestors are good against highly mobile units, to shut down that mobility. If they get used or not will depend entirely on what the opponents end up using a lot.
Taking terran as an example: the more bio, hellions, and mobile stuff the terran makes, the better the infestors. The more the terran relies on a slow push of leapfrogging tanks though, the less useful infestors will be.
Fungal growth on a bunch of marine marauders trying to abuse mobility to kite ultralisks and banelings: Makes a ton of sense. They are trying to abuse mobility, you shut it down. Good stuff.
Fungal growth on tanks slowly leapfrogging towards your base? sure, you made the tanks even slower, but since they were really slow in the first place, it doesnt really change anything.
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Not really. They dont have much in common appart from both being pretty powerful casters.
The reason why defilers were good, was that they were very good against ranged units, and structures, which the opponents would have a lot of. If somehow for example firebats ended up being the main army units for terran, then defilers would have quite obviously been a lot less useful.
Defilers with dark swarm are good, if the opponent relies on a lot of ranged units, but if you were faced with something like ultra-ling constantly, then getting dark swarm would be useless.
Infestors are good against highly mobile units, to shut down that mobility. If they get used or not will depend entirely on what the opponents end up using a lot.
Taking terran as an example: the more bio, hellions, and mobile stuff the terran makes, the better the infestors. The more the terran relies on a slow push of leapfrogging tanks though, the less useful infestors will be.
Fungal growth on a bunch of marine marauders trying to abuse mobility to kite ultralisks and banelings: Makes a ton of sense. They are trying to abuse mobility, you shut it down. Good stuff.
Fungal growth on tanks slowly leapfrogging towards your base? sure, you made the tanks even slower, but since they were really slow in the first place, it doesnt really change anything.
infestors require alot of skill because unlike storm, you can use it in a variety of ways, and just throwing it out can be harmful compared to it's other use. similarly dark swarm in BW could be used to hold an entrenched position, or leapfrog onto a fortified position. fungal growth can be used to separate enemy units, prevent concaves, damage, forcibly stack enemy air, prevent drops, prevent vikings from landing/taking off, trap units in a choke. all very different uses for different circumstances, Psionic storm has damage, force retreat. and also using infestors requires alot of apm to dance them back and forth in range separate from your army templar are too slow and alot more resilient in this regard.
and i didn't say that defilers = infestors, but i said the impact defilers had on ZvT in BW will = the impact infestors will have on ZvT in SC2. which is very different. and infestors are pretty good vs tanks, forcing siege mode in very poor positions is much stronger than you give credit for. and also forcing a terran to slowly (very) push out is equally strong.
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Why don't terran use Ravens? Ravens so awesome with point defense drone. Because they are expensive. Same go for zerg.
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I recently started using infestors more in my 1v1's and 2v2's. They have improved my gameplay but imo they do not have enough health. They are very gas heavy and a huge committment in your tech route. One micro misteak and the game is instantly lost. Infestors are too expensive and have too little health overall
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On February 01 2011 06:19 MrCon wrote:
Because you have to micro the infestors, and zergs want to play a mAcRoGaMe and basicaly they don't do micro. Micro is for lame races likes terran and protosses. MaCrO is for leet races that lose because blizzard can't do shit with balance.
So most zergs don't use infestors because they don't have the micro skill to use them, so they think infestors sucks.
User was warned for this post
Stimming and sieging tanks isn't some great feat of micro. I would actually say given the shorter range of Zerg units they require more micro than that of the Terran army. Due to the necessity of flanks, concaves and surrounds.
However obviously Toss is most micro intensive where things like positioning of types of units, and placement of storms, feedbacks and force fields are critical.
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On February 01 2011 11:30 vaLentine88 wrote:
I've experimented and failed hard everytime in anything outside ZvZ.
The only thing left I can think of is defending far expos from marine drops TvZ. As far as army comps go though, they are far too squishy, which combined with their high priority just ends up in a gas dump.
I have to agree as well, sometimes I do awesome stuff, but its usually luck/opponent not used to infestors more than anything (other than zvz where they absolutely destroy). Most of the time I use them against air or marines only versus T (when I should be getting NP and doing epic thor and tank ninjas) and I rarely get them versus P, even with all the damn phoenix flying around.
I try so hard to get them every game when I have a reasonable opportunity, but if I overproduce and try to make magic happen I tend to fail, so I only make a few and use them too defensively.
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Well other than being on the more expensive-ish side, they're really only good against Terran cas of their bio, and a much better and cheaper alternative are banelings. You really only see them in ZvP if the P has a lot of Phoenixes which is rare and ZvZ with mass Mutas.
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On February 01 2011 14:00 ChroMe! wrote:
Well other than being on the more expensive-ish side, they're really only good against Terran cas of their bio, and a much better and cheaper alternative are banelings. You really only see them in ZvP if the P has a lot of Phoenixes which is rare and ZvZ with mass Mutas.
not just mutas my friend, roach/hydra/infestor v roach/hydra/infestor zvz leads to epic battles of chicken and tactical decisionmaking
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I feel that there's a few things with infestors that make them not worthwhile at my current level of play:
1) The unit is too big and noticeable. That makes them easy to target, easy to snipe, easy to take out. It should be ghost / high templar sized, so harder to pick out when part of an army.
2) Neural parasite costs too much gas and time to open up midgame (100 for pit, 150 per infestor, 150 or 300 in research, 190 in research time for both upgrades). So getting both upgrades and 6 infestors = 1300 gas. That's 10 mutas +1 or 11 mutas, or 13 mutas if you are getting spire either way. Or just simply 52 banelings. Off 2 bases, that's harsh. Off 4 bases, not so much. So getting it when you have reached tier 3 seems ok - but then they aren't as good as brood lords or even ultras imho, so I don't bother. Probably I should, when I reach 4 bases and is maxed.
3) Ignoring neural parasite (which I don't find too useful mid game because of the above-mentioned cost), fungal growth and infested terrans are useful - but vs Z and vs P, I would rather have extra upgrades than infestors. You attack with your roach hydra +1 + 0, I answer with my roach hydra with +2+2. Those few infestors you got - I pretty much ignore and overpower. I fungal growth your army, you force field and split my army. The split is the problem with force fields, not forcing an engagement. Fungal growth don't split up a protosss army sadly.
I could have 40 roaches and 4 infestors, or 64 roaches. Same gas cost. It's hard for me to say that the infestors are worth it against protoss.
I've found infestors useful to stop harass. But, in the end, it seems it just force a lot of tanks, and I am overpowered later on. Especially if my infestors are sniped. So ... I have concluded that I am not good enough to use them right, it's too hard, and therefore, I would rather focus on doing other things (like getting more stuff), which means I am more likely to win. At my skill level.
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On February 01 2011 14:02 eth3n wrote:
not just mutas my friend, roach/hydra/infestor v roach/hydra/infestor zvz leads to epic battles of chicken and tactical decisionmaking
My experience would be that if you go roach hydra infestor, I will kill you off with my "nothing but roach army with better upgrades" when I max at +2+2 and you are well below maxed.
I guess that could be wrong if your micro is superior, but it seems to hold true in my experience.
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Perhaps one of the greatest complaint is very basic.
The unit itself is very fat, slow and vulnerable unlike other races' casters.
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On February 01 2011 14:09 aebriol wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 14:02 eth3n wrote:
not just mutas my friend, roach/hydra/infestor v roach/hydra/infestor zvz leads to epic battles of chicken and tactical decisionmaking My experience would be that if you go roach hydra infestor, I will kill you off with my "nothing but roach army with better upgrades" when I max at +2+2 and you are well below maxed. I guess that could be wrong if your micro is superior, but it seems to hold true in my experience.
well maybe you are playing a lot of zvz that doesn't get to this point (most of my games end at ling/roach, so I would understand), or I really don't know.
this is what happens every time when its roach/hydra/infestor vs pure roach, your choices are (1) split your army to engage mine (i seriously suggest not doing this, you can FG a suprisingly large number of roaches with even 1 cast) or (2) eat the damage and keep your guys together, my hydras enjoy substantial range advantage. Although I love roaches (and love winning the upgrade war which is so crucial in zvz) to death its pretty hard to win with plain roaches vs roach/hydra/infestor.
Not trying to be the "MY INFESTORS DO THIS AND THEN YOU DO THIS AND THEN I DO THIS" guy, but thats basically all that can happen unless I fuck up FGs against an incredibly large and homogeneous target, its far more fun when both sides have gone roach/hydra/infestor tho ;p
you should play around with FG'n roaches in the unit tester, you might be suprised >:D
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 01 2011 06:04 emazzuca wrote:
...
During this GSL and the last few really,
...
I think a more accurate title would be "Why aren't Zerg pros using infestors any more?
Infestor play was fairly common in 1.1 as I recall. But since 1.2, and the last two seasons of the GSL, the metagame has developed and shown the weaknesses of Infestor play, which is why they are much less used. Specifically, the timing windows in ZvT and ZvP have tightened considerably since 1.1 and Zerg now cant afford to be waiting for Infestors to arrive.
Zerg must be able to deal with very brutal timing pushes in the early mid game. Bio tank pushes. Various nasty protoss builds. Zerg builds need to be very tight in order to survive these pushes.
Infestors are a late mid-game unit. Getting a pit, pathogen glands and just 2 infestors costs 550 gas and 135 seconds build time. They simply do not arrive in time for you to be able to use them to hold off an early mid-game push. Even if you did some infestor rush build and got them out in time, you are unlikely to have the unit composition to hold off what is left of the push after the 2 FGs (ie a lot).
I think in ZvT late mid game and late game you can build a few at your leisure and use them as support units. I think in ZvP you cant build them in mid game at all as you cant delay Hive tech. In late game ZvP you could build a few if you want, but at that stage you have either won the game or lost it, so its irrelevant.
Other criticisms in the thread are valid to some extent. Their size / pathing is clumsy and limits their use in large armies. NP is not worth it, if you are trying to neutralize something specific (ie thors) you are probably better off using alternative means. They are pretty fragile. IT is an average spell.
Currently their use is limited to ZvZ and perhaps to counter flawed builds (mass rine rush etc).
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Infestors are a late mid-game unit. Getting a pit, pathogen glands and just 2 infestors costs 550 gas and 135 seconds build time. They simply do not arrive in time for you to be able to use them to hold off an early mid-game push. Even if you did some infestor rush build and got them out in time, you are unlikely to have the unit composition to hold off what is left of the push after the 2 FGs (ie a lot).
They don't take any longer than mutas to get honestly. I basically think you can make any muta build an infestor build pretty easy by simple substitution and the timings would be very similar. The gameplay would be drastically different, and you can grab a hive earlier, but timing wise they are very close.
I don't really know what they could be for against Toss. I suppose if combined with ultras they'd work well. But the Neural Parasite options aren't the greatest. Colossus are unlikely range-wise, immortals are not common in the matchup. Mothership-grab would be epic. Certainly you can use fungal growth to punish some Air Builds I suppose...
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On February 01 2011 14:19 eth3n wrote:
[this is what happens every time when its roach/hydra/infestor vs pure roach, your choices are (1) split your army to engage mine (i seriously suggest not doing this, you can FG a suprisingly large number of roaches with even 1 cast) or (2) eat the damage and keep your guys together, my hydras enjoy substantial range advantage. Although I love roaches (and love winning the upgrade war which is so crucial in zvz) to death its pretty hard to win with plain roaches vs roach/hydra/infestor.
Not trying to be the "MY INFESTORS DO THIS AND THEN YOU DO THIS AND THEN I DO THIS" guy, but thats basically all that can happen unless I fuck up FGs against an incredibly large and homogeneous target, its far more fun when both sides have gone roach/hydra/infestor tho ;p
you should play around with FG'n roaches in the unit tester, you might be suprised >:D
I am pretty low masters league (2500? eu), so you might be the better player.
What I do is ... the moment I start up the last roaches to hit 200, I have my +2+2. I rally my hatcheries to one of the roaches in the back, keep my entire army together, and attack. When I reach your bases, I make sure to get in close position (ie, not attack at 4 range, but move the armies into each other as best I can. While continuing to pump roaches whenever my supply drop as far as I can.
My experience is that, you will land 4-5 fungals, I will break through the roach wall pretty quick and start killing hydras too fast and your inferior (in numbers!) army will crumble.
Now, at higher levels, this probably doesn't work as well. And you would be correct in that I don't reach this point too often and many games end up with either side being heavily favored earlier in the game.
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On February 01 2011 14:27 Drae wrote:
Infestors are a late mid-game unit. Getting a pit, pathogen glands and just 2 infestors costs 550 gas and 135 seconds build time. They simply do not arrive in time for you to be able to use them to hold off an early mid-game push. Even if you did some infestor rush build and got them out in time, you are unlikely to have the unit composition to hold off what is left of the push after the 2 FGs (ie a lot).
Thisis wrong. as 50pit + 30pathogen +50 when you start infestors = 130 not 135. which is 3 seconds faster than mutalisks. and a spire + 4 mutalisks (133 build time and 600 gas) is even more ineffective to hold of an early mid game push. the fact is they do well, you just have to use them well, abuse AI, and time it well. and i guess what i do is a "infestor rush build" where i get infestors at the 5:45 mark ish. which is roughly the same time as an early mid game push. and if you are properly pooling larva you should definitely have enough lings/ect to fend off any attack. before.
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On February 01 2011 14:36 aebriol wrote:
I am pretty low masters league (2500? eu), so you might be the better player.
What I do is ... the moment I start up the last roaches to hit 200, I have my +2+2. I rally my hatcheries to one of the roaches in the back, keep my entire army together, and attack. When I reach your bases, I make sure to get in close position (ie, not attack at 4 range, but move the armies into each other as best I can. While continuing to pump roaches whenever my supply drop as far as I can.
My experience is that, you will land 4-5 fungals, I will break through the roach wall pretty quick and start killing hydras too fast and your inferior (in numbers!) army will crumble.
Now, at higher levels, this probably doesn't work as well. And you would be correct in that I don't reach this point too often and many games end up with either side being heavily favored earlier in the game.
what time in the game is this because usually when i see mass mass roach i get 4 infestors and stuff to defend but i pretty much panic button banes and blow a huge hole in your army with my remaining gas, and then the ling pumps clean it up. and yeah banes suck vs roaches, but 20-40 banes vs 50 roaches = 20 hurt roaches vs 60-70 food of zergling infestor. Oh and i go hydra bane infestor instead of hydra roach infestor, since vs hydra roach infestor you use lings to snipe infestors, then circle with banes and kill the hydras, and then fungal'd roaches vs long ranged hydras tend to be one sided. but my strategy is also a bit unorthadox.
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On February 01 2011 14:35 DoubleReed wrote:They don't take any longer than mutas to get honestly. I basically think you can make any muta build an infestor build pretty easy by simple substitution and the timings would be very similar. The gameplay would be drastically different, and you can grab a hive earlier, but timing wise they are very close.
You dont hold an early mid game timing push (z or p) with mutas.
You need speed banes for for ZvT mostly these days. For ZvP its mostly roach / hydra, but if you were to go ling muta, you would be holding an early mid game push with a LOT of lings and spines.
On February 01 2011 14:36 PrinceXizor wrote:Thisis wrong. as 50pit + 30pathogen +50 when you start infestors = 130 not 135. which is 3 seconds faster than mutalisks. and a spire + 4 mutalisks (133 build time and 600 gas) is even more ineffective to hold of an early mid game push. the fact is they do well, you just have to use them well, abuse AI, and time it well. and i guess what i do is a "infestor rush build" where i get infestors at the 5:45 mark ish. which is roughly the same time as an early mid game push. and if you are properly pooling larva you should definitely have enough lings/ect to fend off any attack. before.
See above for mutas.
For timings, you dont really start to build your Infestors at exactly 50 game seconds before pathogen is done. You need a safety net, or you risk your Infestors spwaning before its done. In practice you wait until Pathogen glands is at least 50% done (40 out of 80 game seconds), so its really 140 game games. I said 135 to be generous.
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On February 01 2011 14:41 Drae wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 14:35 DoubleReed wrote:They don't take any longer than mutas to get honestly. I basically think you can make any muta build an infestor build pretty easy by simple substitution and the timings would be very similar. The gameplay would be drastically different, and you can grab a hive earlier, but timing wise they are very close. You dont hold an early mid game timing push (z or p) with mutas. You need speed banes for t, upgraded roach +/- hydra for p.
speed banes are roughly equivilent to infestors in dealing with the timing push. speed banes are 20 gameseconds faster than infestors. and it just takes about 10-16 lings in a minor counter attack to stall that much tbh.
EDIT: to be fair, you need aoe damage to handle those ealry game pushes because of the lack of strength of zerg production at the time. and there are two solutions: the 100% most effective : Speed banes, is also the most costly in larva. where infestors is only more costly in gas (cheaper in minerals). usually i see infestorzergs taking a third shortly after their infestors pop anyway. which 100% mitigates the gas issue. and provides even more production.
On February 01 2011 14:41 Drae wrote:
For timings, you dont really start to build your Infestors at exactly 50 game seconds before pathogen is done. You need a safety net, or you risk your Infestors spwaning before its done. In practice you wait until Pathogen glands is at least 50% done (40 out of 80 game seconds), so its really 140 game games. I said 135 to be generous.
maybe you need that buffer, but for infestorzergs we know our timings very well thank you very much.
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On February 01 2011 14:35 DoubleReed wrote:For timings, you dont really start to build your Infestors at exactly 50 game seconds before pathogen is done. You need a safety net, or you risk your Infestors spwaning before its done. In practice you wait until Pathogen glands is at least 50% done (40 out of 80 game seconds), so its really 140 game games. I said 135 to be generous.
Yes but while you wait for centrifugal you arent naked, you can use banes on creep if your creep spread has been good enough. If you are going Infestors you are literally just praying that they dont attack you until they pop.
On February 01 2011 14:35 DoubleReed wrote:maybe you need that buffer, but for infestorzergs we know our timings very well thank you very much.
Lol.
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They will make their way in. fungal growth is too strong, especially against terran(and dont say "tanks". they often poke at you will small groups of marines. which would be obliterated by fungal. i cant see the zergling baneling muta metagame staying in exactly that way for much longer. 2 infestors are surely more valuable to a fight than like 3 additional mutas to your group of 12 mutas. and the olny lategame transition zerg does at the moment is broodlord. I wouldnt be surprised if they became an integral part of zvt 2 months from now
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On February 01 2011 06:12 emazzuca wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 06:06 Giwoon wrote:
theyre too gas heavy which means you'll have less mutas and they have 80 hp and are armoured but they have 0 armour so tanks will do 50 dmg. Is this the general opinion of the SC community? that our main caster unit its to expensive and vulnerable to use? Also so huge and easy for your opponent to focus/ avoid.
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On February 01 2011 14:51 Drae wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 14:35 DoubleReed wrote:maybe you need that buffer, but for infestorzergs we know our timings very well thank you very much. Lol.
Your argument on the timing is quite poor and warrants that response. you pretty much argued that stim pushes need to wait until stim finishes before pushing out instead of when they are arriving it finishes. but in zergy terms with unit timings. and if you can't stall a terran army and plan on using infestors you deserve that loss. as thats what infestors are FOR. stalling and manipulating the battle.
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On February 01 2011 14:39 PrinceXizor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 14:36 aebriol wrote:
I am pretty low masters league (2500? eu), so you might be the better player.
What I do is ... the moment I start up the last roaches to hit 200, I have my +2+2. I rally my hatcheries to one of the roaches in the back, keep my entire army together, and attack. When I reach your bases, I make sure to get in close position (ie, not attack at 4 range, but move the armies into each other as best I can. While continuing to pump roaches whenever my supply drop as far as I can.
My experience is that, you will land 4-5 fungals, I will break through the roach wall pretty quick and start killing hydras too fast and your inferior (in numbers!) army will crumble.
Now, at higher levels, this probably doesn't work as well. And you would be correct in that I don't reach this point too often and many games end up with either side being heavily favored earlier in the game. what time in the game is this because usually when i see mass mass roach i get 4 infestors and stuff to defend but i pretty much panic button banes and blow a huge hole in your army with my remaining gas, and then the ling pumps clean it up. and yeah banes suck vs roaches, but 20-40 banes vs 50 roaches = 20 hurt roaches vs 60-70 food of zergling infestor. Oh and i go hydra bane infestor instead of hydra roach infestor, since vs hydra roach infestor you use lings to snipe infestors, then circle with banes and kill the hydras, and then fungal'd roaches vs long ranged hydras tend to be one sided. but my strategy is also a bit unorthadox.
Well, that's another thing. I haven't played against that mix, so I wouldn't know how it would turn out. It's vs roach hydra infestors, that quite a few people use, that I've found pure roach to be better. It's just my experience.
And I guess I would have roughly 55-65 roaches when I attack depending on being 2 or 3 bases. So a 110-130 food army.
At what time ... mmm, that depends too much on the early game. It requires both players to go roaches and expand after initial openings (or both fast expand, which doesn't really happen much to me), and neither committing to heavy ling bling attacks.I will see if I can find a replay of it happening.
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On February 01 2011 14:56 aebriol wrote:
Well, that's another thing. I haven't played against that mix, so I wouldn't know how it would turn out. It's vs roach hydra infestors, that quite a few people use, that I've found pure roach to be better. It's just my experience.
And I guess I would have roughly 55-65 roaches when I attack depending on being 2 or 3 bases. So a 110-130 food army.
At what time ... mmm, that depends too much on the early game. It requires both players to go roaches and expand after initial openings (or both fast expand, which doesn't really happen much to me), and neither committing to heavy ling bling attacks.I will see if I can find a replay of it happening.
yeah it's weird, and i never WANT to make the banes, it's always a reaction to just survive the attack. also i tend to upgrade melee and armor rapidly so i'd expect to be close to 2/2 if not at it going for 3/3. since vs roach i often speedily get to ultras as well. my ZvZ is really weird and the timings were 100% based on going up against mutalisks and going into the infestor centric mid game and if i saw roaches i had banes as my last resort strategy.
EDIT: also i open ling bling with +1 armor to counter any ling bling entirely, and vs quick roaches it's +1 attack instead usually involving a quick expand if they do, or vs roaches.
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On February 01 2011 14:53 PrinceXizor wrote:Your argument on the timing is quite poor and warrants that response. you pretty much argued that stim pushes need to wait until stim finishes before pushing out instead of when they are arriving it finishes. but in zergy terms with unit timings. and if you can't stall a terran army and plan on using infestors you deserve that loss. as thats what infestors are FOR. stalling and manipulating the battle.
I am amused because you make no sense.
You are arguing that you can build Infestors within a 1-2 second window and not miss the Pathogen Upgrade. You must be a super saiyan nerd!
As for Stim marines, I have no idea what you are saying. Unlike Infestors, you can make marines, move them around the map while you want for stim to finish. Unlike Pathogen, its not an upgrade you need to wait to spawn for.
Using Infestors to delay Terran pushes is a great tatic. For a late mid game push. For an early mid game push, those tanks and marines are outside your natural while you are waiting for pathogen to finish.
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On February 01 2011 15:02 Drae wrote:
I am amused because you make no sense.
You are arguing that you can build Infestors within a 1-2 second window and not miss the Pathogen Upgrade. You must be a super saiyan nerd!
As for Stim marines, I have no idea what you are saying. Unlike Infestors, you can make marines, move them around the map while you want for stim to finish. Unlike Pathogen, its not an upgrade you need to wait to spawn for.
i can build infestors within 1 second of it hitting 30. i hotkey my infestor pit and incorporate it into my checks with spam/click ect. and i know roughly the size of the bar at 28-30 seconds and typically pause over the pit and once it hits 30 i go 1 s ff. which takes <1 second to do. when you play a strategy that relies on timing, you do what you can to make the timing work. (and the hotkey of my pit becomes my infestor hotkey!)
Stim marines was an analogy because you said that to be safe from a bad situation (infestors with 50 energy, marines caught without stim in a fight) you needed the extra time to be safe. when players used to the strategy know exactly what to get away with.
but yeah i guess i'd be f'd if they had more than 1 or 2 tanks and a bunch of marines outside my base, and i haven't stalled them at all at about 5:45 into the game when pathogen finishes.
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On February 01 2011 15:05 PrinceXizor wrote:
i can build infestors within 1 second of it hitting 30. i hotkey my infestor pit and incorporate it into my checks with spam/click ect. and i know roughly the size of the bar at 28-30 seconds and typically pause over the pit and once it hits 30 i go 1 s ff. which takes <1 second to do. when you play a strategy that relies on timing, you do what you can to make the timing work. (and the hotkey of my pit becomes my infestor hotkey!)
Stim marines was an analogy because you said that to be safe from a bad situation (infestors with 50 energy, marines caught without stim in a fight) you needed the extra time to be safe. when players used to the strategy know exactly what to get away with.
Replay please
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On February 01 2011 15:01 PrinceXizor wrote:
EDIT: also i open ling bling with +1 armor to counter any ling bling entirely, and vs quick roaches it's +1 attack instead usually involving a quick expand if they do, or vs roaches.
I open roaches, but play defensively usually, as I find it easier to hold off pushes, than making them myself. Unless I go all in of course. But generally, I find that roaches do better defensively than offensively early game, and if I want to be offensive, I am a mass speedling player. At most I will move out 2/3rds of the way over before retreating. I like to scout for spire constantly though, that's pretty much it.
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On February 01 2011 15:08 Drae wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 15:05 PrinceXizor wrote:
i can build infestors within 1 second of it hitting 30. i hotkey my infestor pit and incorporate it into my checks with spam/click ect. and i know roughly the size of the bar at 28-30 seconds and typically pause over the pit and once it hits 30 i go 1 s ff. which takes <1 second to do. when you play a strategy that relies on timing, you do what you can to make the timing work. (and the hotkey of my pit becomes my infestor hotkey!)
Stim marines was an analogy because you said that to be safe from a bad situation (infestors with 50 energy, marines caught without stim in a fight) you needed the extra time to be safe. when players used to the strategy know exactly what to get away with. Replay please
i have old ones (like pre 1.1 and 1.2) where i don't hotkey my infestor pit but get it within 2 seconds. if you want. can also send replays tomorrow and PM you the replays. tonight i'm studying for exams.
On February 01 2011 15:12 aebriol wrote:
I open roaches, but play defensively usually, as I find it easier to hold off pushes, than making them myself. Unless I go all in of course. But generally, I find that roaches do better defensively than offensively early game, and if I want to be offensive, I am a mass speedling player. At most I will move out 2/3rds of the way over before retreating. I like to scout for spire constantly though, that's pretty much it.
Yeah i'm pretty much defensive with my ling bane as well. pretty much use +2/3 cracklings in the mid/late game to control opponents expos, you have to have a pretty sizable army at each base to defend them, which cuts down alot on the attacks on you, and allow you to expand with your better mobility (only thing more mobile is muta, which infestors wreck)
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I just finished the entirety of the latest GSL and was amazed by the lack of infestors as well.
I hear people saying they'll just roflstomp an infestor user, that fungal growth does little to no damage compared to others, that locking a person down to slow their push as day[9] says "aint nuttin to a boss".
In this last GSL i can't count how many banelings i saw that were completely wasted because of a player microing away from infestors. Games were lost because of terran backpedaling off creep and kiting massive control groups of banelings. I hear people complain about infestors cost but i saw so much money thrown away to people microing away from banelings, i feel like if some of those players had infestors to lock down armies gosu style, that money wasted on banelings would have turned into money well spent
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On February 01 2011 15:14 Malminos wrote:
I just finished the entirety of the latest GSL and was amazed by the lack of infestors as well.
I hear people saying they'll just roflstomp an infestor user, that fungal growth does little to no damage compared to others, that locking a person down to slow their push as day[9] says "aint nuttin to a boss".
In this last GSL i can't count how many banelings i saw that were completely wasted because of a player microing away from infestors. Games were lost because of terran backpedaling off creep and kiting massive control groups of banelings. I hear people complain about infestors cost but i saw so much money thrown away to people microing away from banelings, i feel like if some of those players had infestors to lock down armies gosu style, that money wasted on banelings would have turned into money well spent
one of the issues is that big tank number slow push in the late mid game that kinda hurts infestor play alot, which is countered by larger maps (shakuras and bigger), the other is lack of play of infestors, which hurts the ability to play infestors, because the transition timings aren't developed well, for instance my ultra transition hits anywhere from 5 minutes after infestors to 15, entirely on my own ability to control the situation, which is bad, and needs to be more standardized. the only positive timing infestorzergs have is that third base around 6-6:30 into the game.
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I would be happy if NP was more useful. The people would have 2 reasons to get infestors
Personally I would like NP to not require research and be cast while burrowed.
Would make them worth the cost, plus NP is so awesome to see.
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It's hard to believe a spell like fungal growth won't be used in the long run. Perhaps 2 years from now we'll be looking back on this with comments like "Wow, people really didn't use infestors??"
Didn't Fruitdealer use infestors in his games vs Rainbow in GSL 1. I think I remember him having infestors at his expansions to deal with drops on Delta Quadrant. I don't really remember much use of it outside of that though.. Maybe if TLO returns..
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On February 01 2011 15:24 Befree wrote:
It's hard to believe a spell like fungal growth won't be used in the long run. Perhaps 2 years from now we'll be looking back on this with comments like "Wow, people really didn't use infestors??"
Didn't Fruitdealer use infestors in his games vs Rainbow in GSL 1. I think I remember him having infestors at his expansions to deal with drops on Delta Quadrant. I don't really remember much use of it outside of that though.. Maybe if TLO returns..
Fruitdealer had four parts to his game season 1
Infestorplay
Mutaplay
baneling Drops
Ultras
and he varied the order of the first three depending on situation. and the third he used to end any big pushes. not sure why he strayed from everything but baneling drops, that should be save dfor +2/+3 drop harrassment and not vs armies.
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I loved fruitdealer's play in GSL 1. From what I remember, he'd get the spire out like most zerg players do and pump out 5-8 mutas. He'd do some light harass with them, allowing himself to expand, but then he'd stop that as he'd transition into infestor/baneling. At that point he could:
- defend 2 drops at once using mutas in one place and infestors at another
- fungal the army to delay buying himself more time
- fungal the army to enable his banelings to charge in
- rebuild with MASS ULTRAS. I suppose you might get to hive faster when you focus on getting infestors faster
I think the difficulty with this strategy is the challenge in only using a few mutas to control the map and intercepting drops. Much easier with a massive ball of mutas.
I really like burrowed infestors + infested terrans against large tank lines. With a large amount of tanks sieged up, throwing eggs into his army will result in a lot of friendly splash damage. If he unsieges, you can fungal him in unsieged mode. Getting ravens or turrets will slow down his push. All of this can buy you time to get to brood lords.
I also remember Ret in one of Mr. Bitter's vods mentioned something about a late game gas heavy composition involving mass infestors/brood lord/ corruptor. Basically, the infested terrans provide a disposable support army for the brood lords. Has anyone seen this in action?
PS - you can also use NP to BM your opponent by mind controlling his weak/sucky units.
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I'm kind of shocked to see that master league zerg players are claiming they never use Infestors. I'm a 2.8k + diamond zerg player, and although my mid/late game needs improvement, I feel like infestors are an absolute must due to fungal growth and infested terrans are also useful.
This is why:
1. Fungal growth immobilzes your opponent and makes it easier for you to get a surround.
2. Placing the infestors at strategic location, such near ramps will allow you to split his main force when entering your base.
3. While fungal growth won't nullify medivacs they will keep them busy.
4. Infested terrans thrown near tanks is a great way to get rid of them.
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i would rather have the gas on more mutas zvt, but infestors are very useful in zvz and zvp in certain situations
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I use them a lot in zvz on maps where engagements are likely to happen in chokes and narrow areas. Otherwise its usually better to max out on roach and reinforce as you will be way ahead in numbers.
I love the unit but i think they are a bit fragile and would love to see NP upgrade removed and mana required for NP reduced, increased duration or some other tweak
They are too easily picked off as they get outranged :\
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Easy to mismicro them and have several Infestors die right off the bat because they need your army to be all the way across the map so the units aren't in the way, and there's no health pool to make up for that. Plus, with Fungal Growth's effective range being 7, you're basically setting yourself up to be in range of basically all Terran and Protoss units.
Simply put, they're a big investment that's hard to use and easy to lose.
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I love to use infestors, I just never feel like I'm able to until the lategame. If you prioritize infestors over multilisks a few things happen.
You don't contain the Terran. They can expand more freely
You aren't harassing the Terran. They can concentrate on macro and their own forms of harassment.
You are no longer 'drop proof'. Yes you can fungal + infested terran on a medivac but that costs a lot of energy, and leaves you with little energy if a push comes. Overlord coverage + a muta ball means instant death for most all drops.
It's very vulnerable to the Terran's strong ground army(marauders/tanks/marines/hellions). Since infestors are a high target priority, they are killed first by tanks and It's very hard to beat back a slow siege push with them. Mutas allow you to pick off reinforcements and tanks if there are not enough marines around to support them. When you push in to engage, all you have to do is kill the marines and let your mutas clean up the rest. With Infestor play you'll typically lose more $ worth of units in the engagement since you can only beat back the tanks with your ground forces and you are taking damage the whole time.
All that being said, Infestors can still be a great unit, but that doesn't come until you have at least 3+ bases worth of gas and after mutalisks.
Infestor/muta/ling/bane can also be quite troublesome to micro. get a fungal, send in lings, then banes, magic box the mutas in, send infestors back in for more fungals, re-control the banes so they don't just a-move into tanks. Prob not as hard as a MKP marine split but it's prob the most difficult micro engagement that a zerg has.
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On February 01 2011 17:20 Tropical Bob wrote:
Easy to mismicro them and have several Infestors die right off the bat because they need your army to be all the way across the map so the units aren't in the way, and there's no health pool to make up for that. Plus, with Fungal Growth's effective range being 7, you're basically setting yourself up to be in range of basically all Terran and Protoss units.
Simply put, they're a big investment that's hard to use and easy to lose.
i view it as an opposite tbh having a range of 7-11 depending on how you choose to use it. don't forget fungal keeps tanks from sieging/unsieging
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As awesome as the Infestor seems, in general it helps to see it in perspective.
The Infestor is generally fragile, but so are most spellcasters so that;s okay as well as the fact that burrow move comes standard is a plus.
Spells:
Spawn Infested Terran - Is generally used as extra dps in roach on roach, for worker line harass, or as a panic attack spell used in tandem with Fungal growth to kill dropships.
Neural Parasite - Great for annoying massive units or spellcasters but otherwise generally useless.
Fungal Growth - Is literally an insta baneling on anywhere you choose. Fungal does almost exactly the same damage as a baneling and holds units in their place.
Now, since most players see the Infestor as a fungal growth farm, one might understand why one might not get them. Why have the near CERTAINTY of striking with ONE fungal growth than the POSSIBILITY of landing with EIGHT banelings?
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Because muta/baneling/ling in many of an opinion is just more solid than infestor/baneling/ling.
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What's the big deal with getting pathogen glands? It's a major gas investment for not having any infestors on the field. I mean, if you just BUILD the Infestors first thing, they'll have time to build up most of that energy anyway, as well as getting into position.
The raw numbers say there's a window of about 15 seconds where researching PG gives more energy than simply getting the infestors right away. Naturally you'd want to get PG at some point, but the immediate advantage doesn't seem worth the cost.
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On February 01 2011 21:58 bobucles wrote:
The raw numbers say there's a window of about 15 seconds where researching PG gives more energy than simply getting the infestors right away. Naturally you'd want to get PG at some point, but the immediate advantage doesn't seem worth the cost.
It depends on whether or not you are confident in your ability to keep your original infestors alive.
If you plan on continue building infestors, you will have the most benefit if you get the upgrade instantly. That way, you will have the longest period of time where the upgrade is useful. Getting it later, means that there will be a timing window where you won't have it available if you keep building units.
Me personally, I think that if you go infestors, you pretty much need it.
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On February 01 2011 14:09 aebriol wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 14:02 eth3n wrote:
not just mutas my friend, roach/hydra/infestor v roach/hydra/infestor zvz leads to epic battles of chicken and tactical decisionmaking My experience would be that if you go roach hydra infestor, I will kill you off with my "nothing but roach army with better upgrades" when I max at +2+2 and you are well below maxed. I guess that could be wrong if your micro is superior, but it seems to hold true in my experience.
unless you dont build up all extractors you will have quite a lot of gas left if you go for roaches only and thats why infestors are a good addition
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Most zergs just want that massive muta ball to feel safe. So no gas left for other (non-baneling) units.
Personally I feel that mutaball-safety once I get 5 infestors in zvt. Mutas come after that.
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As terran my fav unit is ghost, however in most games am unable to use that unit as i will struggle to make them pay for themselfs and also they are very micro intensive units,,Alot of top zergs do use infestors but because of the way zerg is they cannot just simply mass them up along with other units, they come as a response in various situations and becuase most zerg pro's will use a zerg unit within 20-30 seconds of it spawning, if they were going to go infestors then they would not have enough energy to make them cost effective.. There is nothing wrong with infestors however they are used a fair amount in the EU ladder with quite high sucess and as more strategies and builds are refined and developed over time you will see them put to good use.
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United States7483 Posts
The best part about infestors vs. banelings, is that after you fungal growth (or other spells) to do the damage you need it to, the unit is still alive, and if you burrow or just run away you have a pretty good chance of using the infestor again later, something these cost comparisons aren't considering.
No matter how good your micro is, a baneling can only do damage once.
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just got into this thread, and im going to go through all 7 pages soon but first i'll comment lol, if you were watching screddit with destiny he brought up a important point about having infestors in your army, even though they have great spells there energy does have to regenerate, so if the opponent is constantly engaging they don't have time to regenerate the energy to use their spells, Its the same with Terran having alot of ravens or toss having too many sentries. At least thats what I think lol
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On February 01 2011 06:38 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 06:32 sieesch wrote:
3,1k masterleague zerg, i feel like i never have enough gas as zerg. So when i got zerglingspeed (and roach if they open hellion) i rush for tier2 and when the lair is up you will need to pressure back or good terrans will be in a position where they just macro so had that an never ending attack starts, so you need to delay his third for a while and harass, also you need to deal with his harass to get your own macro going so you will need Mutas to deal with drops and harass your opponent
at least you will need about 16 to deal with turrets, so that he cant leave his base so easily, while you get your own macro going, when he got his third and got enough defence to deal with your harass you will be scared of an hard timingattack to deal with these kind of an attack you will need tier3 units i.g. Broodlords, so after you got your 16mutas and you got your macro and upgrades going i like to rush for tier3 and save up as much gas as possible for broodlords, ofc you could try to use infestor to delay his push but you delay your tier3units by that as well, so i like to skip infestor
tbh i tried to go for infestor and drop in midgame instead of mutalisk, but it felt quite harder to deal with drops and also to pressure back, and dropresearch takes quite a while This. I am 3k+ masterleague zerg as well, and to be honest, I have NEVER made an infestor in a 1v1 ladder game. Gas is such a precious resource I feel like infestor is a waste. Given a choice between an upgrade or infestor, I will choose upgrade 100% of the time. Not to mention I already feel like I am jumping around constantly with micro/macro/map control/scouting/injecting/creeping, I feel like taking even more time for a perfectly placed fungal growth is too rare an opportunity to be worth it imo. Then again maybe I just suck and it is a huge leak, but I never used them and don't plan on it anytime soon. Even in ZvZ, when I see my opponent getting infestors, it feels like a free win. Oh, you can lock me down for a few seconds? Well my +2/+2 speedroaches/hydras are still gonna pwn your whole army.
Sadly I think you two guys are generally correct, infestors usually aren't the best way to spend mid game gas. I'm a 2650 Diamond (#1 rank, no masters league yet, doh) that used to use infestors extensively with mixed results. Infestors are hard to analyze because like other spellcaster units, when you make infestors and don't use them immediately, their effectiveness actually goes up. Therefore any infestor strategy that incorporates a way to delay or stall the enemy is going to have the most effect. Similarly, making infestors sooner, is better than making infestors later, but ONLY if you can prevent early engagements. This is why Leenock went fast 1 base infestor on Delta Quadrant versus ZenexByun, he needed to get his 4 infestors out quickly so that he could maximize their energy build up.
Here is my experience with infestors...
In ZvZ - Using Infestors solely for Infested Terran raids:
I often take a defensive position at my natural, with a few spines, as many roaches as I can afford, while making 2 or 3 infestors with burrow, for the sole purpose of raiding the other Z's mineral line. Zerg so rarely get detection for their bases (usually if they get an overseer its near MY base) that its been working about 50-75% of the time on ladder. The real key to this working is being very patient and letting the infestors energy build up to near maximum before launching the ITs. The trick is of course defending the other zerg's roach/hydra army when you are down 400 - 600 gas (infestors, burrow, infestation pit cost) while your commando infestors build up energy. I sometimes just die to a strong macro zerg that hits me fast with roach hydra with 2/0 upgrades or similar. If the zerg does not attack me soon enough though, and instead takes a 3rd, I almost always win. If he finally attacks me later on, or I lure his army away from his natural (to defend his 3rd for instance), that is when I launch the ITs from my 3 near full energy infestors. Usually I kill 10 - 20 drones, and if his drones flee immediately the ITs can often just snipe the hatchery. I usually get my infestors burrowed and into his mineral line by the 9 or 10 min mark, where they camp out. Oddly enough Zergs almost never have an overseer near their own mineral line, so its best to get your infestors in to position ASAP, before its likely that an overseer will guard the front of his base. Pathogen glands are too expensive for this type of strategy and not useful, as the plan is just to make 2 infestors and wait for energy anyway. Also I gotta admit that this strategy is gimmicky, the only reason it works is nobody expects it, otherwise its easily countered.
In ZvZ - Using Infestors to counter muta:
Nothing fancy here, everyone uses fungal and hydra to punish heavy muta. The risk here is that adding infestors makes your composition more defensive, than offensive.
In ZvZ - Infestors to counter delayed ling/bane:
When zerg stick with speedling/bane into the mid game, it is wickedly devastating to land a single fungal on clumped banes or lings. Yes, you will have a smalller roach/hydra army if you made a couple of infestors, but that's all you will need to clean him up afterwards. The risk is that you don't land a good fungal.
In ZvT - Infestor versus MMM:
Surprisingly I have discovered this is usually bad! Infestor seem like the perfect counter, but by forgoing or having fewer banes, I tend to get run over by a strong MMM army. The reason here is the timing attacks always come before the infestors have much energy. Like a previous poster mentioned, you can get 9 banes for the gas cost of an infestor. Infestors make more sense here when you add them to a 150 - 175 supply army, to round it out, after gas is less of an issue, and you are just aiming at good unit composition. Likewise if you have to make the infestation pit anyway are going to hive tech, making 2 infestor, and having them camp in your base gaining energy is a good idea I think.
In ZvT - Infestor to support Broodlords:
I've done this just to lock down those pesky, kiting vikings, so I can kill them with my corruptors.
In ZvT - Fungal Raids on specific maps:
Maps like Xel Naga, where the 3rd is on low ground, the mineral line is ridiculously vulnerable to fungal raids. We've seen zerg do this in the GSL.
In ZvT - Neural Parasite versus Thors:
It works and its cost effective, believe it! Its all about the technique and ensuring you still have some kind of normal army to compliment the infestors.
In ZvP - Fungaling Phoenix/Void:
Best way to kill Phoenix. Sometimes the only way to kill phoenix! Only useful if they make a lot of them.
In ZvP - Fungal to prevent Colossus kite:
I rarely bother with infestors in ZvP, but in quite a few games versus good opponents, I found that a simple fungal on their deathball makes everything easier for zerg. Your roaches get a better surround. You more easily can snipe the colossus. Its a pretty good win, especially if you have Ultras, a 1 or 2 fungals can turn the entire battle. Neural Parasite versus Colossus/Immortal I've rarely tried, but I am curious about its possibilities. So hard to keep the infestor alive in this situation. Much better in small skirmishes, but you usually won't have NP researched when the right opportunity comes up.
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For people going for infestors in ZvT and ZvP, where do you find the gas? I think infestors are great in ZvZ vs mass roach or muta play, but vs T and P my comps are gas heavy as is (bane/muta/ling into broods or roach->brood vs mech against terran, ling/muta or roach/hydra/corrupter into broods vs P). I'm definitely lacking in mechanics/apm vs the players I get matched with but even if I had the APM I just can't see having the economy for infestors w/out crippling your army.
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On February 02 2011 02:44 tskarzyn wrote:
For people going for infestors in ZvT and ZvP, where do you find the gas? I think infestors are great in ZvZ vs mass roach or muta play, but vs T and P my comps are gas heavy as is (bane/muta/ling into broods or roach->brood vs mech against terran, ling/muta or roach/hydra/corrupter into broods vs P). I'm definitely lacking in mechanics/apm vs the players I get matched with but even if I had the APM I just can't see having the economy for infestors w/out crippling your army.
Early infestors gets you a 3rd faster than mutalisk midgames, which gets you more gas.also a 4th and 5th base are easier to defend with infestors, allowing you to take even more bases (and more gas)
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I agree with the sentiment that they're so fat they're easy to snipe. Protoss spellcaster: templar. Tiny. Terran spellcaster: ghost (tiny), Raven (shields and lots of HP).
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On February 01 2011 06:12 emazzuca wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 06:06 Giwoon wrote:
theyre too gas heavy which means you'll have less mutas and they have 80 hp and are armoured but they have 0 armour so tanks will do 50 dmg. Is this the general opinion of the SC community? that our main caster unit its to expensive and vulnerable to use? even when their best counter (lings, blings, mutas, marines) are being used?
"general opinion" after 1 reply? lol.
its alot more to micro. its also a risk unit, if it doesnt get good spells off successfully uve went and wasted your money, where as if u bought regular military units they would have guranteed some damage being dealt.
infestors are fine, they are a superb spell caster. by all means its far better than a ghost or raven.
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If I remember correctly, fruitdealer used them in some clutch situations to shut down drops in GSL1.
Lately I've been using infestors in ZvT instead of mutas, and it has been working well. The thing I don't like about mutas is you can really waste a huge gas investment with little to no return if the terran gets some thors or has good turret placement, then the mutas are almost always not good in a straight up fight. Infestors on the other hand are fantastic in a straight up fight, and you actually still have strong map control with speedlings.
I find that they whole gameflow changes with infestors, instead of the old style where I max, fight, and then remax with tier 3, I am actually hitting tier 3 before I even max, and finish off the terran. Using ling/bling with heavy upgrades and then adding in ultras to snipe his PFs. This is because I am handling the terran harassment much more cost effectively - no stim kiting, shuts down drops just as good as mutas, and I'm not investing huge amounts of gas into units that can't cost effectively fight 10 marines. You don't need nearly as many lings and blings to kill a bio ball that has been fungal'ed. Often times I see how low their health is after stim + fungal and decide to just let the lings clean up while I save the blings for something more important.
The most important thing when using infestors is to keep them alive at all costs, and keep building them when you think you might need a fungal. Eventually you will have enough to have a constant supply of fungals, and the return of gas spend goes up and up.
The biggest weakness to infestor play is heavy siege tank play, it all depends on how many tanks, but this isn't always a bad thing because it further reduces the already slow terran army, and as long as you are careful you can still mow through the siege line when you get ultras out. I find infestors make it much easier to get to that point, and even be ahead.
Another thing that is important to consider, it's not like I just played one game and was like "wow, I kick ass now". Infestors are micro intensive and mistakes are much more costly, and you also need to get in the habit of spreading them out to defend all your bases. Once you get used to it though it's a very strong style of play.
(just a noob 2700 dia zerg)
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i use infestors all the time but my big beef with them is they are HUGE. in a roach hydra army the struggle to get into position to use the spells and they get sniped. it's ridiculous. if they were the size of a ht they would be much better.
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On February 02 2011 03:34 boblzer0 wrote:
i use infestors all the time but my big beef with them is they are HUGE. in a roach hydra army the struggle to get into position to use the spells and they get sniped. it's ridiculous. if they were the size of a ht they would be much better.
Which is why they work much better with a melee ling/bling composition.
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infestor is gas intensive while if u get banelings u almost get the same result. infestor has aoe spell and banelings are also aoe. infestors run out of energy. if that happens u got a unit that cant attack. tanks outrange fungal so they get killed b4 u can lay a fungal. infestors are good but u rlly need a lot of gas to support them. personally, i think they're better in zvz and zvp where u can fungal a death ball and kill everything with brood lords and lings. also infestors are good in roachwars and muta harrassment in zvz.
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EDIT: Not pertinent to the OP
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I dont get why the infestors are so HUGE and therefore easier to see, click on and snipe for the opponent, when the other spellcasters are tiny and even fucking cloaked.
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On February 02 2011 03:37 Treemonkeys wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 03:34 boblzer0 wrote:
i use infestors all the time but my big beef with them is they are HUGE. in a roach hydra army the struggle to get into position to use the spells and they get sniped. it's ridiculous. if they were the size of a ht they would be much better. Which is why they work much better with a melee ling/bling composition.
yeah i'm just not sure on blizzards logic. was there intent to make them clog everything up and be clunky? i mean the ultra has always been big so at least that makes sense. the defiler was small as hell.
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Infestors are amazing for several reasons.
One I haven't heard mentioned is that it turns chokes to the Zerg's advantage (most commonly in conjunction with brood lords). Do you guys know how wonderful this is? To love fighting in a choke as a Zerg player? It's devastatingly awesome. Infestor's open up whole new avenues of tactical engagement for the swarm.
I would LOVE to open ling/bling/infestor in TvZ. The problem is that tanks are just too damn good. Sure I can try some cutesy burrow/NP play, but if that fails? I just lost the game.
I hate, HATE not being able to cull tanks. Harassment is nice, picking off SCVs is nice, but the MAIN reason I adore mutas is their ability to snipe tanks. So crucial. If I open infestors, I can't do this.
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On February 02 2011 04:19 MrPrezbo wrote:
I hate, HATE not being able to cull tanks. Harassment is nice, picking off SCVs is nice, but the MAIN reason I adore mutas is their ability to snipe tanks. So crucial. If I open infestors, I can't do this.
Try fungalling tanks that are moving and then charge in with speedlings to surround and kill them, fungaling the marines ect to keep them from defending the tanks.
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On February 02 2011 04:50 PrinceXizor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 04:19 MrPrezbo wrote:
I hate, HATE not being able to cull tanks. Harassment is nice, picking off SCVs is nice, but the MAIN reason I adore mutas is their ability to snipe tanks. So crucial. If I open infestors, I can't do this.
Try fungalling tanks that are moving and then charge in with speedlings to surround and kill them, fungaling the marines ect to keep them from defending the tanks.
In theory that's completely possible. In practice, not so much. It's a much riskier avenue to destroy tanks than simple muta harass, which is why I opt for that instead.
Put simply, to me, opening infestor is higher risk for the same reward as muta.
EDIT: typos
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On February 02 2011 04:52 MrPrezbo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 04:50 PrinceXizor wrote:On February 02 2011 04:19 MrPrezbo wrote:
I hate, HATE not being able to cull tanks. Harassment is nice, picking off SCVs is nice, but the MAIN reason I adore mutas is their ability to snipe tanks. So crucial. If I open infestors, I can't do this.
Try fungalling tanks that are moving and then charge in with speedlings to surround and kill them, fungaling the marines ect to keep them from defending the tanks. In theory that's completely possible. In practice, not so much. It's a much riskier avenue to destroy tanks than simple muta harass, which is why I opt for that instead. Put simply, to me, opening infestor is higher risk for the same reward as muta. EDIT: typos
your reward for infestors is a faster 3rd and better defended 4th and 5th bases. and using infestors ling to kill tanks is super easy to do once you practice it. same as using mutalisks vs thors. once you get the hang of it it's obvious.
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for the same reason Terrans don't use ghosts.
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Pros use infestors all the time.
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I simply dont use them because I don't have the Gas for them unless I am on 4-5 Bases
unless the Terran is really focusing on Marines, then they are really great just because you can hit Banelings easily and they do a ton of damage with fungal growth against them.
Since Terrans on my level of play are more focusing on Tank/Thor + MMM I go almost every time for as many Mutas as possible.
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On February 02 2011 05:43 PrinceXizor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 04:52 MrPrezbo wrote:On February 02 2011 04:50 PrinceXizor wrote:On February 02 2011 04:19 MrPrezbo wrote:
I hate, HATE not being able to cull tanks. Harassment is nice, picking off SCVs is nice, but the MAIN reason I adore mutas is their ability to snipe tanks. So crucial. If I open infestors, I can't do this.
Try fungalling tanks that are moving and then charge in with speedlings to surround and kill them, fungaling the marines ect to keep them from defending the tanks. In theory that's completely possible. In practice, not so much. It's a much riskier avenue to destroy tanks than simple muta harass, which is why I opt for that instead. Put simply, to me, opening infestor is higher risk for the same reward as muta. EDIT: typos your reward for infestors is a faster 3rd and better defended 4th and 5th bases. and using infestors ling to kill tanks is super easy to do once you practice it. same as using mutalisks vs thors. once you get the hang of it it's obvious.
I disagree that it's "super easy." That's fine, I'm sure it's a viable opener to use. It just doesn't suit my play-style. I prefer the mobility and harass options that quick mutas give me. And once I secure a third, I can always acquire infestors from there.
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On February 02 2011 06:23 MrPrezbo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 05:43 PrinceXizor wrote:On February 02 2011 04:52 MrPrezbo wrote:On February 02 2011 04:50 PrinceXizor wrote:On February 02 2011 04:19 MrPrezbo wrote:
I hate, HATE not being able to cull tanks. Harassment is nice, picking off SCVs is nice, but the MAIN reason I adore mutas is their ability to snipe tanks. So crucial. If I open infestors, I can't do this.
Try fungalling tanks that are moving and then charge in with speedlings to surround and kill them, fungaling the marines ect to keep them from defending the tanks. In theory that's completely possible. In practice, not so much. It's a much riskier avenue to destroy tanks than simple muta harass, which is why I opt for that instead. Put simply, to me, opening infestor is higher risk for the same reward as muta. EDIT: typos your reward for infestors is a faster 3rd and better defended 4th and 5th bases. and using infestors ling to kill tanks is super easy to do once you practice it. same as using mutalisks vs thors. once you get the hang of it it's obvious. I disagree that it's "super easy." That's fine, I'm sure it's a viable opener to use. It just doesn't suit my play-style. I prefer the mobility and harass options that quick mutas give me. And once I secure a third, I can always acquire infestors from there.
yeah it's stylistic for sure. and super easy is for me. because i've been using infestor opennings since beta. i probably have one of the most consistant practice with infestors of anyone, TLO did it while he was zerg until he went T (now R again), Artosis and korea did it for one month, and i've been doing it forever heh.
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On February 02 2011 04:17 boblzer0 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 03:37 Treemonkeys wrote:On February 02 2011 03:34 boblzer0 wrote:
i use infestors all the time but my big beef with them is they are HUGE. in a roach hydra army the struggle to get into position to use the spells and they get sniped. it's ridiculous. if they were the size of a ht they would be much better. Which is why they work much better with a melee ling/bling composition. yeah i'm just not sure on blizzards logic. was there intent to make them clog everything up and be clunky? i mean the ultra has always been big so at least that makes sense. the defiler was small as hell.
Except generally with ling/bling/ultralisk the advantage you have is being mobile. Infestors blatantly cancel that advantage. It's better to use them with a muscle force like roach/hydra/broodlord simply because of their speed. Mutalisks are better choice for mobility.
However, they are also amazing with blings and ultralisks. Huh. Clearly this game is not as simple as it seems.
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people are looking at this wrong. infestors aren't a viable option vs marine tank (as far as i see) cause zerg play vs that is so fragile, tanks have too much range for FG to get thrown on the marines.
bane-muta-infestor doesn't really work because 200 gas per infestor plus 150 for the upgrade..
lategame infestors are great.. with ultras to trap bio or with broods to kill vikings. there's plenty of great uses for infestors, but they're not the solution to losing to marine tank.
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On February 02 2011 04:17 boblzer0 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 03:37 Treemonkeys wrote:On February 02 2011 03:34 boblzer0 wrote:
i use infestors all the time but my big beef with them is they are HUGE. in a roach hydra army the struggle to get into position to use the spells and they get sniped. it's ridiculous. if they were the size of a ht they would be much better. Which is why they work much better with a melee ling/bling composition. yeah i'm just not sure on blizzards logic. was there intent to make them clog everything up and be clunky? i mean the ultra has always been big so at least that makes sense. the defiler was small as hell.
did you play bw? defilers size was never an issue because of bw pathing. and infestors were terrifyingly slow. i remember one game JD lost to bisu in a GOM finals that he lost because an infestor was trailing and got killed by a DT when it was following some cracklings to snipe an expo. i'd rather bulky and quick over small (debatable) and slow.
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They're a defensive unit, and Zerg can't win without denying expansions.
I think that's pretty much it. If you're getting infestors, it means you're not getting mutas and you're losing map control.
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On February 02 2011 07:33 kerpal wrote:
people are looking at this wrong. infestors aren't a viable option vs marine tank (as far as i see) cause zerg play vs that is so fragile, tanks have too much range for FG to get thrown on the marines.
bane-muta-infestor doesn't really work because 200 gas per infestor plus 150 for the upgrade..
lategame infestors are great.. with ultras to trap bio or with broods to kill vikings. there's plenty of great uses for infestors, but they're not the solution to losing to marine tank.
if they are keeping their tanks and marines in the exact same spot (the only way you can keep the marines from getting fungalled by infestors) then mutalisks would also not work in that situation. and infestors are 100/150 not 100/200. people who don't even know how much they cost shouldn't talk about them not being useful.
On February 02 2011 07:56 ChThoniC wrote:
They're a defensive unit, and Zerg can't win without denying expansions.
I think that's pretty much it. If you're getting infestors, it means you're not getting mutas and you're losing map control.
This conclusion is also decidedly wrong. I deny expos with zerglings, creep, and mutas if i need them, and i still open infestor, your mutas arrive on 3 base instead of 2 base if you choose to go muta, but they are not that delayed. infestors allow you much much more map control. if you are defending with infestors, the rest of your army can be out doing stuff, and then come back to kill the fungal'd army when they try to attack.
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When you're going for an infestor build, you are pinned back by opponent's pressure more than a mutalisk build.
For example, against a blue flame hellion build, mutas end the pressure and allow you to put pressure back immidiately. Infestors help deflect the pressure, but you can't put pressure back on blue flame hellions with just zerglings, meaning a Terran is free to take their third quickly.
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On February 02 2011 08:38 ChThoniC wrote:
When you're going for an infestor build, you are pinned back by opponent's pressure more than a mutalisk build.
For example, against a blue flame hellion build, mutas end the pressure and allow you to put pressure back immidiately. Infestors help deflect the pressure, but you can't put pressure back on blue flame hellions with just zerglings, meaning a Terran is free to take their third quickly.
if you fungal blue flame hellions all you need are 3 groups of 6 lings to kill 4 hellions. since once surrounded they only hit 1 or 2 lings at a time.and if you have 2-3 infestors you can just fungal them to death. alternately fungal + queen works or fungal + spine.
counter attack with lings and you can always do counter bane busts on hellion builds, it's super strong since they invest so much in the hellion expand and pressure they are vulnerable to counter busting. which even if you only take out reactors, and depots puts them so far behind that they can't even keep their natural, mutalisk play can't do that.
Mutalisks: either protect harrassment or harrass
infestors: protect harrassment WHILE allowing harrass at the same time.
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On February 02 2011 06:09 Mephs wrote:
Pros use infestors all the time.
Not in the last GSL they didn't.
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United States1307 Posts
I just attempted infestor use in my last ZvT on the ladder, and they were very helpful; however, this is only when the terran is attempting to push through one area, they are incredibly immobile meaning they die easily and I never want to get more as the cost is so high. I think they could use a speed increase.
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Infestors have nice potential, but they are very fragile and have limited casting range. Both fungal and infested terran have their use. Neural parasite really should be buffed a bit. But the biggest problem is the fact that they are HUGE units. Compare that to the unclickable HT or even the sentry. 80 hp armored while having no armor makes them way too weak. 80 hp psionic only was a nice suggestion i've seen somewhere.
And what is it with the mineral cost? At 100/150 I think it's a bit overpriced... compare to the 50/150 HT for example, which also can be warped in instantly (making the amulet upgrade a lot more useful than the Pathogen Glands upgrade)..
Typical stuff that needs to be tweaked.. too bad we won't see any of that in 1.3..
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Infestors appear better than they actually are in the eyes of Blizzard.
This unit had so much potential but it is so freaking expensive it's not often worth getting considering how valuable the gas for a) the unit and b) it's upgrades are when compared with having a bigger army.
I love Infestors and try to use them whenever I can. I just got into Master League recently and while I try to use Infestors I'm finding more often that I cannot justify the tech path vs. the better players. Good players are great at avoiding fungals, or they just macro through it. EMP, while rare, is an option I've faced, as is just outright blasting the Infestor (3 shots from a marauder, right?) another extremely easy counter. Let's also not forget how easy they are to counter via anything with half decent range, since Infestors have paltry range themselves.
This brings me to my biggest point of contention with Blizzard's assessment of Infestors - the NP nerf from ages ago. Why that skill has a timer is beyond me. There are reams of examples where NP is a) not very strong b) a resource sink or c) easily countered. I just don't get why it was deemed so strong. You can usually kill off the NP before the unit under it's control actually does any serious damage. The NP range is so short that the Infestor casting it is usually in jeopardy.
Infestors have so much potential but they're just not as strong as Blizzard thinks they are. Mutas are far more versatile.
Oh, and I should add - IT is a gimmick. Such a joke.
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The biggest weakness to infestor play is heavy siege tank play, it all depends on how many tanks, but this isn't always a bad thing because it further reduces the already slow terran army, and as long as you are careful you can still mow through the siege line when you get ultras out. I find infestors make it much easier to get to that point, and even be ahead.
Actually I saw some really clever play against Siege tanks once with Infestors.
The Terran was trying to take the gold expo, and had a wall of 6 - 7 Sieged ST's infront of the CC. He didn't have any detection though...except for scan.
Anywho, Zerg attacks and withdraws from the ST line, realising they can't get past that many ST's. Then the Zerg sends his burrowed Infestors up fairly close to the ST's and begins to spawn a singular infested terran right next to each ST. Obviously the other ST's all fire on the egg thingy, and the splash damage destroys the ST...was absolutly amazing to watch.
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On February 02 2011 09:29 Mjolnir wrote:
Infestors appear better than they actually are in the eyes of Blizzard.
This unit had so much potential but it is so freaking expensive it's not often worth getting considering how valuable the gas for a) the unit and b) it's upgrades are when compared with having a bigger army.
The gas cost is mitigatd by the quicker third and easily defended 4th and 5th providing much more gas than mutalisk builds.
I love Infestors and try to use them whenever I can. I just got into Master League recently and while I try to use Infestors I'm finding more often that I cannot justify the tech path vs. the better players. Good players are great at avoiding fungals
I don't really know you can avoid an instant spell cast, if you mean spreading to deal with them, then they already weaken their army vs zerg melee (and mutas)
or they just macro through it. how exactly do you macro through fungal, i know you mean replacing the army that you killed, but it doesn't make sense, in that regard you can macro through everything but all ins. since yeah you can replace the army, but now you know exactly when the next attack is possible to come ect.
EMP, while rare, is an option I've faced yeah EMP is good, and this is why you need good fungal control and not clump them so badly, also this is where their size comes in handy as is just outright blasting the Infestor (3 shots from a marauder, right?) another extremely easy counter. 4 shots with no upgrades, and assuming you are unable to burrow fungal or put any units in the way of the marauder and the infestor Let's also not forget how easy they are to counter via anything with half decent range, since Infestors have paltry range themselves. fungal has range 9, meaning with the size of the AOe they can fungal anything at about 10.5 rangish, longer than any other unit except sieged tanks, which you can maneuver to fungal them while only taking a single tank shot.
This brings me to my biggest point of contention with Blizzard's assessment of Infestors - the NP nerf from ages ago. Why that skill has a timer is beyond me. There are reams of examples where NP is a) not very strong b) a resource sink or c) easily countered. I just don't get why it was deemed so strong. You can usually kill off the NP before the unit under it's control actually does any serious damage. The NP range is so short that the Infestor casting it is usually in jeopardy.
any situation you need NP in you can find a use for, but those situations are 1/1000. NP is pretty bad. i only get it for show or for BCs.
Infestors have so much potential but they're just not as strong as Blizzard thinks they are. Mutas are far more versatile.
mutas are not that versatile, only fast. mutalisks require massive investments to become worthwhile in a game, 4 mutalisks is nothing, 8 mutalisks is annoying, 16+ mutalisks becomes a threat. 2 infestors can change a game, 4 infestors can win it, 8 infestors makes you harrassment proof entirely.
Oh, and I should add - IT is a gimmick. Such a joke.
depends on how you use it, if you are using ITs as defense against air or cliff drops or as tank killers or as boosted DPS to your army they are not a joke, if you are using them as harrassment vs min lines or as your army they are pretty gimmicky.
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PrinceXizor, i havent checked your thread for your infestor build recently, but do u have any recent replay packs of you using them? I remember i watched all of your replays from the pack several months back;when you first kicked off that other thread about fast infestors; but i'm sure you've gotten more fancy with your infestor use since then.
Got any new, fresh replays? I'm pretty sold on the idea that the infestor isn't as bad as it is generally perceived and would love to see them put to good use. (to give me some ideas of how to use them better)
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I wish the infected Terran would hatch quicker and stay longer. I'm no pro with balancing but it'd be nice if they stayed forever or until killed. Thats almost adding a new unit to the game though. You'd probably see infestor farms spitting out blobs of IT for later fights.
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On February 02 2011 10:00 Malminos wrote:PrinceXizor, i havent checked your thread for your infestor build recently, but do u have any recent replay packs of you using them? I remember i watched all of your replays from the pack several months back;when you first kicked off that other thread about fast infestors; but i'm sure you've gotten more fancy with your infestor use since then. Got any new, fresh replays? I'm pretty sold on the idea that the infestor isn't as bad as it is generally perceived and would love to see them put to good use. (to give me some ideas of how to use them better)
been a while tbh i'm shaking off alot of rust, pretty much my infestor play is similar but my timings out of it are better. also been trying out overlord drop as a way to position infestors on cliffs like lost temple ect to harrass any passing armies. but it seems only good once every few games. so I need to learn the situations it's useful with. I'll have new replays once i get back into my solid practice routine. i'm down to one of two games a day, from my 4-6 hours of practice a day.
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I'm gold. They seem kinda expensive. It's hard to get all those friggin upgrades, I don't know when to get em and don't know what to do when I get em. That aside, I really WANT to use them, but it's just that hard to me. And ofc I can't micro them because I never use them. =P Hard to break this cycle.
Introductions apart, my questions in a order that are likely to help ppl who'd like to use them but don't know even how much they cost (me 5 minutes ago. They cost 100/150 from what I've heard btw)
-My questions. (What I've catched reading this thread and my comments)
-When to get em? (Midgame as defense, lategame usually ultras/brood are more wort)
-How to get em? (Build a infestor pit, lol. I mean, are they usefull without the upgrades? If not which one I get first? Burrow? Pathogen Glans? And about how many of them for what ou intend on doing with em?
-What to do with them? (NOT harass mineral line, defend from air, delay pushes, lock infantry)
-How to micro them? (Get better noob is what I expect... But a hotkey for them would be nice since from the times I used them I learned that putting em with your army doesn't work very well...)
-Can I open T2 with them? (A way to force myself to use them. Seems Prince Xizor has a build in these lines, I'll check it out)
Thanks in advance.
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On February 02 2011 09:51 PrinceXizor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 09:29 Mjolnir wrote:
Infestors appear better than they actually are in the eyes of Blizzard.
This unit had so much potential but it is so freaking expensive it's not often worth getting considering how valuable the gas for a) the unit and b) it's upgrades are when compared with having a bigger army.
The gas cost is mitigatd by the quicker third and easily defended 4th and 5th providing much more gas than mutalisk builds. Show nested quote +
I love Infestors and try to use them whenever I can. I just got into Master League recently and while I try to use Infestors I'm finding more often that I cannot justify the tech path vs. the better players. Good players are great at avoiding fungals
I don't really know you can avoid an instant spell cast, if you mean spreading to deal with them, then they already weaken their army vs zerg melee (and mutas) how exactly do you macro through fungal, i know you mean replacing the army that you killed, but it doesn't make sense, in that regard you can macro through everything but all ins. since yeah you can replace the army, but now you know exactly when the next attack is possible to come ect. yeah EMP is good, and this is why you need good fungal control and not clump them so badly, also this is where their size comes in handy Show nested quote +as is just outright blasting the Infestor (3 shots from a marauder, right?) another extremely easy counter. 4 shots with no upgrades, and assuming you are unable to burrow fungal or put any units in the way of the marauder and the infestor Show nested quote + Let's also not forget how easy they are to counter via anything with half decent range, since Infestors have paltry range themselves. fungal has range 9, meaning with the size of the AOe they can fungal anything at about 10.5 rangish, longer than any other unit except sieged tanks, which you can maneuver to fungal them while only taking a single tank shot. Show nested quote +
This brings me to my biggest point of contention with Blizzard's assessment of Infestors - the NP nerf from ages ago. Why that skill has a timer is beyond me. There are reams of examples where NP is a) not very strong b) a resource sink or c) easily countered. I just don't get why it was deemed so strong. You can usually kill off the NP before the unit under it's control actually does any serious damage. The NP range is so short that the Infestor casting it is usually in jeopardy.
any situation you need NP in you can find a use for, but those situations are 1/1000. NP is pretty bad. i only get it for show or for BCs. Show nested quote +
Infestors have so much potential but they're just not as strong as Blizzard thinks they are. Mutas are far more versatile.
mutas are not that versatile, only fast. mutalisks require massive investments to become worthwhile in a game, 4 mutalisks is nothing, 8 mutalisks is annoying, 16+ mutalisks becomes a threat. 2 infestors can change a game, 4 infestors can win it, 8 infestors makes you harrassment proof entirely. depends on how you use it, if you are using ITs as defense against air or cliff drops or as tank killers or as boosted DPS to your army they are not a joke, if you are using them as harrassment vs min lines or as your army they are pretty gimmicky.
I've rarely had an issue with taking someone's expos after they've teched infestor and try to run the map with Infestors as defense. I don't have to use muta exclusively and I have had lots of success just massing units to overrun their extended armies. A handful of infestors spread out don't prevent a hard hit to an expo.
Good players avoid the fungals by baiting it - hit and run, constantly changing direction, or hitting where even if the fungal catches you, they don't have enough army around to annihilate your army. When I mention "macro through it" I meant they eat the 38 dmg from the fungals and just power through with a bigger army.
With regard to range I was referring to NP, which is shit.
I think mutas are versatile because they're fast and offer defence/offence on multiple fields of play without the concern for energy and upgrades. I also think Infestors are as easy to counter as mutas.
I have never had an issue vs. ITs, if someone is trying to snipe tanks, one scan kills their Infestors. Harassing min lines, not an issue and easily prevented imo.
Of course I just hit Master League and I'm sure I'm going to face tougher competition (as stated).
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Their just too gas heavy.
150 gas for every single infestor.
Its also a high priority target, fat and easily targetable, low health, and has no armor.
Obviously it has alot of amazing uses, but it just cuts into muta/bling/upgrade gas money waaay too much.
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I wish theyd reduce Infestor priority, Neural would be pretty awesome then.
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On February 02 2011 11:08 Smigi wrote:
Their just too gas heavy.
150 gas for every single infestor.
Its also a high priority target, fat and easily targetable, low health, and has no armor.
Obviously it has alot of amazing uses, but it just cuts into muta/bling/upgrade gas money waaay too much.
trust me when i say muta ling bane won't last as standard as it's not economy centric enough of a midgame for big maps
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On February 02 2011 12:01 PrinceXizor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 11:08 Smigi wrote:
Their just too gas heavy.
150 gas for every single infestor.
Its also a high priority target, fat and easily targetable, low health, and has no armor.
Obviously it has alot of amazing uses, but it just cuts into muta/bling/upgrade gas money waaay too much. trust me when i say muta ling bane won't last as standard as it's not economy centric enough of a midgame for big maps
you really think muta/ling/baneling is going to die as a strategy? If anything on bigger maps it'll be stronger not weaker (flanking/mobility). I would love to hear your reasoning on how its not economy centric enough also.
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On February 02 2011 12:14 blade55555 wrote:
you really think muta/ling/baneling is going to die as a strategy? If anything on bigger maps it'll be stronger not weaker (flanking/mobility). I would love to hear your reasoning on how its not economy centric enough also.
mobility is good yes, but mutalisks serve two functions that require them to be at 3 places at once, this is possible on smaller maps due to their speed. but on large maps mutalisks will have a tough time, finding and killing tanks, defending from drops and harrass, harrassing oppoenents base at the same time.
besides that, it's terribly inefficient larva and mineral wise. both of those things contribute greatly to economy, mineral surpluses go to expos and extra larva become drones. the average expansion is much slower than infestor strats, and muta ling bane tend to have issues keeping their upgrades going with the lack of gas.
and before people say: but infestors cost more gas than mutas. if you control the infestors right you never end up makiing more than 10, which is 15 mutas of gas, but 10 mutas of larva. and 10 mutas of minerals. most people going mutaling bane get alot more mutas than 15, unless the mutas are shut down completely, in which case they blew 300/300 on a useless tech pattern (note spire and +1 upgrade). where the infestationn pit + glands, even if by some godlike micro the infestors become useless, thats only 150/150 in a useless tech pattern (note glands) since the pit helps with hive it is not useless even without infestors.
little things like that add up in games especially back and forth macro games, that i feel ling muta bane, if it happens is only a minor segment of the game, and will be replaced beforehand by infestors, and after by infestor muta. IE open infestor transition to muta ling bane (with leftover infestors) and then make more infestors and use high muta counts + high infestor counts to control the game.
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I've been experimenting with quick infestor into quick brood lords, but I don't think it lets you keep down the army size of Terran enough. If they scout that greater spire and get some vikes out, their deathball will still rape yours.
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Infestors need some kind of buff, fosho. Where is my dark swarm? ;-)
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On February 02 2011 15:30 ChThoniC wrote:
I've been experimenting with quick infestor into quick brood lords, but I don't think it lets you keep down the army size of Terran enough. If they scout that greater spire and get some vikes out, their deathball will still rape yours.
there is no such thing as a quick broodlord 
I just go quick infestors into a bunch of expands, get some mutas ect if i feel i want them, transition to ultras, and have the whole map and eveyr upgrade and just win by default.
also if you really want to "beat" Vikings with broods you really have to use star1 style Muta micro with them, since broodlings lock on instantly and fireo n their own yuo can run in hold position and run out (run is used more like crawl), and that allows you to get shots off without taking as many viking volleys.
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Would love to use them more but cost is the main reason I tend to skip them. Not sure if they need a buff, maybe just a reduction in cost (or infested terran "egg" spawn time).
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Well when i play against terran and get into the mid game i get mutas which forces thors by then i get infestors that control the thors lol i am in plat but still use this and it works against some diamond player i have played against so meh... i think that nerual parasite is quite good and should be used more in tournaments and stuff.... just my opinon.....
:D
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i almost always get infestors in zvz. they are necessary to counter mutas and give a huge positioning advantage in roach wars.
against terran, they tend to be only useful once marine numbers reach 40+ or if they mass thors.
against protoss they are really only good against blink stalkers and mass air builds.
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well i just feel like there are only a few zerg pros 1, and 2 they tend to get rushed in the gsl where they cant even get infestors so i think when bigger maps come the infestor will come in more and we will see some gosu FG and infestor use
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I feel that having map control and therefore the ability to drone hard is more important than playing defensively with infestors. You're right, people should use Infestors more, but at 150 gas for a fat unit that dies fairly quickly, it's not really worth it relative to mutalisks.
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On February 02 2011 15:52 PrinceXizor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 15:30 ChThoniC wrote:
I've been experimenting with quick infestor into quick brood lords, but I don't think it lets you keep down the army size of Terran enough. If they scout that greater spire and get some vikes out, their deathball will still rape yours. there is no such thing as a quick broodlord I just go quick infestors into a bunch of expands, get some mutas ect if i feel i want them, transition to ultras, and have the whole map and eveyr upgrade and just win by default. also if you really want to "beat" Vikings with broods you really have to use star1 style Muta micro with them, since broodlings lock on instantly and fireo n their own yuo can run in hold position and run out (run is used more like crawl), and that allows you to get shots off without taking as many viking volleys.
I've been reading your later posts and it seems you have a pretty solid strat in mind with Infestors.
I have some questions:
1. Do you focus on Infestor over muta in every match up?
2. When you're using Infestor to run the map and tech to Ultras, how do you handle timed pushes with heavy units such as Thor or heavy Roach? Infestors and a heap of Zerglings or Hydras?
3. Do you have any replays that we could watch where we see your strategy at work vs. Zergs, Terran, or Protoss?
Thanks
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FYI, Roach-Infestor is so much fun in team games ^_^
I try to get Infestors every game, but more towards the late-game instead of mid-game. I feel that 3-4 energy-upgraded Infestors make your deathball much stronger with FG and infested terrans. We all know how effective it is in ZvT, and the recent Roach-Infestor trend in ZvZ. In ZvP, I tend to primarily use this to stall the P army while I try to snipe their 3rd/4th. I also always try to cliff-abuse in LT and DQ with Infestor and Nydus, if they did not open with stargate.
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On February 03 2011 08:36 Mjolnir wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 15:52 PrinceXizor wrote:On February 02 2011 15:30 ChThoniC wrote:
I've been experimenting with quick infestor into quick brood lords, but I don't think it lets you keep down the army size of Terran enough. If they scout that greater spire and get some vikes out, their deathball will still rape yours. there is no such thing as a quick broodlord I just go quick infestors into a bunch of expands, get some mutas ect if i feel i want them, transition to ultras, and have the whole map and eveyr upgrade and just win by default. also if you really want to "beat" Vikings with broods you really have to use star1 style Muta micro with them, since broodlings lock on instantly and fireo n their own yuo can run in hold position and run out (run is used more like crawl), and that allows you to get shots off without taking as many viking volleys. I've been reading your later posts and it seems you have a pretty solid strat in mind with Infestors. I have some questions: 1. Do you focus on Infestor over muta in every match up? 2. When you're using Infestor to run the map and tech to Ultras, how do you handle timed pushes with heavy units such as Thor or heavy Roach? Infestors and a heap of Zerglings or Hydras? 3. Do you have any replays that we could watch where we see your strategy at work vs. Zergs, Terran, or Protoss? Thanks
1. In ZvZ I tend to get get to lair and hydra infestor fairly quickly, ignoring mutas, due to the extreme APM requirements to control mutas vs infestors (3-4 control groups all moving simultaeneously).
In ZvT i get infestors quickly and if they go for the siege tank all in that is very strong vs early infestors then i start mutas when i scout that. generally once i hit hive i put up a spire and pump out mutas every time i kill a harrassment or army in order to counter with lings in the front and mutas in the economy.
in ZvP i tend to ignore both infestors and mutalisk until the late game where i get 2-3 infestors to deal with collosus stalker balls. I don't use mutas much in this matchup at all.
2. pushes with thors generally at the stage i'm getting ultras would be 1-3 thors with a bunch of bio, so infestors with zerglings can handle that with proper control and good fungals. the plan is to get hive tech pretty quickly, expand alot and sit on my tech until i decide what i need.
Heavy roach tends to be more of an issue for infestor hydra, and i tend to just sacrifice economic solutions for the survival solution and just mass banes and fungal and blow up the roaches inefficiently while i try to keep their base count low with cracklings and such.
but hydra ling infestor or hydra roach infestor is dealt with with your own infestor ling hydra with good fungals and baneling flanks to kill off hydras and lings. you have to avoid clumping up mot of your banes or infestors 1 shot them however.
3. i have only old replays, i said earlier in this thread my practice time has been taken away by school and stuff so once i get back to better form and my schedule is back i'll have newer replays.
about 27 replays are here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=146843
not all of them have great players as opponents as earlier on diamond was pretty random in skill. but all of them tend to showcase the most primitive forms of that build (it's alot more refined in it's timing now.
EDIT: vs P is my weakest matchup and i'm still kind of struggling to find builds that fit my style to handle protoss.
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Before counting the cost of Infestors v other units, think about what Fungal Growth lets you do. ZvZ you can lock an entire Mutalisk swarm in place and rip them apart with Hydralisks. ZvP you could hold a Colossus death ball in place to minimize the damage Corruptors take while hitting Colossi as half the Stalkers are out of range and can't Blink. ZvT you can hold that entire MMM ball in place and make your Banelings that much more effective.
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Idra v. IMMVP, recent game from Idra's stream casted by Artosis: http://www.youtube.com/user/ArtosisTV?blend=2&ob=1#p/u/0/NmEWrxklf8U Idra uses Infestors to back up ultras and also snipe vikings after having forced them by using Brood Lords.
Part of it is situational, and part of it is also that ZvT often ends on 2 bases for Terran one way or the other, but pro Z players are certainly using Infestors. I think you might be reading into it too much; as the meta-game develops and macro games become more common, I think it's very likely that we'll see more Infestor play from Z pros in GSL.
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I only get infestors out after broods. They are so good to lock down the vikings. But before that they just dont work as great
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Basically, you do see them, just not in great numbers because they're simply too expensive. I see Zergs get like 3-4 of them all the time though if games last long enough. They are a great support unit for the mid and late game.
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On February 01 2011 06:19 MrCon wrote:
Because you have to micro the infestors, and zergs want to play a mAcRoGaMe and basicaly they don't do micro. Micro is for lame races likes terran and protosses. MaCrO is for leet races that lose because blizzard can't do shit with balance.
So most zergs don't use infestors because they don't have the micro skill to use them, so they think infestors sucks.
User was warned for this post
Does utilizing Mutalisks for harass not count as micro? I mean I occasionally play with this Masters zerg player who's way better then me, and he has great Muta control. I feel like landing a nice Fungal Growth sometimes isn't as difficult as keeping Mutalisks alive against Stimmed-Marines or Templar.
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as far as i know, they are??? they are not stable 'yea i'm ALWAYS getting infestors, fuck yea fungal growth!' type units but they are situationally awesome, especially the later the game goes. they're a core of some mid-game zvz compositions and are awesome with hive tech vs terran. they are also situationally useful against the mothership/blink build that's been popping up, though i'm not compltely certain on where and how it fits ultimately
i think what a lot of people are saying is true too, about how infestors add that extra degree of control. you really have to babysit them a lot actually, because they tend to run off and kill themselves after using their spell, similar to high templar but they actually move at a decent speed so unlike high templar, they will rush the front line that much faster. most average zerg players can't handle this sort of unit babysitting right now and it really is required to make infestors efficient, because if you're only getting 1 fungal per infestor, it's not worth making
edit: i do however like mrbitter's, though it needs a little work on the build timings, infestor/ling/bling against the first major marine/tank timing vs t. it's not really his build originally but he's just an example of someone who you can watch on stream doing it regularly. marine/tank hits at a time where your muta count is low and vulnerable, and unless you're like nestea or idra level of good, handling that is a very scary thing. i think for the middle of the road player, infestors actually make that situation easier, and your mutalisks are delayed but you almost always handle the attack so well that you feel comfortable transitioning into a spire. i think you're good for a third base if they push out when you have infestors, which allows 3 hatch muta to build up quite fast, and the mutalisks allow you to take more bases while infestors delay things at home
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do you guys know if fungal growth dmg is upgradable from melee attack upgrade in the evo chamber?
how about infested terrans is it upgradable dmg from the range attack in the evo chamber?
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Well i only recentrly started playing zerg, but i use infestors all the time. Especially vs colossus. I if can NP half his colo for 3-4 seconds (which is far from hard imo) i dont my 200 army absolutely crushes the protoss 200 army.
Just my $0.02
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I remember watching a practice match between Ret and Fruitdealer where ret went Infestor roach and entirely countered muta ling play with it...was rather amusing watching someone with no units that can directly shoot air killing mutas with only spells, really quite amusing
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I use infestors against Terrans with heavy bio builds. Infestor/ling/bling is pretty ownage against bio builds.
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Infestors in generally are really bad vs T because even if you kill that first wave of Marines, you simply cannot keep up with 5 rax / 2 fac play against a T on 2 bases if he pressures you constantly. Once he's got you pressured like that you are basically dead meat on the 2nd wave.
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I really like Infestors in TvZ cuz they are good against Bio, very versatile (cath drops, uncloak and DMG Banshees, burrow them and harrass, upgradeable with Neural Parasite if the Terran goes heavy Mech etc.)
The only Problem is, that they are a big investment and take quite some time to get out and they can delay your tech. Often times I don't feel safe or in the need of an Infestor when I got my Banelings finally Speed-Upgraded +other Upgrades and my Mutas are out with +1 or even +2 attack and if you play well with Mutas and snipe the Tanks (most Terrans play heavy Marine+Tank nowadays), the Bio really is no Problem for the Blings and you can also catch Dropships with the Mutas.
Also, Infestors cost so much gas and you pretty much need their Energy-Upgrade, that you have to produce more Lings than you want or expand, which is Problematic, cuz you'd rather expand having lot's of Mutas, cuz they actually give you Mapcontrol, which the Infestor does not.
But maybe I'll try using them more earlier in the game, when their versatility is a huge Bonus (pretty much stops Bio-All-ins, is pretty good against Banshees, Hellions etc.) whereas faster Blings or Mutas are actually always very fragile to at least one of those common strategies.
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Infestors are a great unit thats not being used alot at the high levels. Its nothing to do with too much micro, watch idra/machine's zergling micro against zealots or other lings. Top players know how to micro. The reason is that they are gas heavy and they are useless after they expend their mana. (infestors take 2 supply also) Unlike Terrans or protoss, zerg's main caster(aside from the queen, who can attack) has no use once their mana is up. HT can merge into archons. Ravens can detect. Ghost can shoot. No other unit is useless after mana depletion like the infestor.
Burrow move is nice, but by the time you attack with infestors, T's, P's and maybe some Z's already have detectors in their base. So the reality of oh, i survived this encounter, i'll move my burrowed infestor to their mineral line and harass when i get 75 energy..not viable in most cases.
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Since the latest patch they are kickass :O
fungal growth even threatens roaches now
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On April 12 2011 20:10 Kaleb aka. Mngzkhuel wrote:
Since the latest patch they are kickass :O
fungal growth even threatens roaches now
I've seen a lot better 2months old bumps
Anyway, yes, now that the patch is there for a while and people starting to play with infestors a lot more, we're starting to see a lot more games with great infestors play.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RYF4E.jpg)
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