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![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/8/8b/Infestor.png/200px-Infestor.png)
+ Show Spoiler [Obvious things] +Health: 90/90
Energy: 50/200
Type: Armored - Biological - Psionic
Armor: 0
Speed: 2.25(2.0 burrowed) - 2.925(2,6 burrowed) on creep
Production Time: 50 seconds.
Abilities:
Infested Terran: Spawns an Infested Terran which hatches in 5 seconds and has 100 health that lasts 30 seconds and benefits from ranged attack upgrades. 25 energy.
Fungal Growth: Locks down units in an area, dealing 36(46,8 vs armored) damage over 4 seconds(11,7 dps vs armored, 9 dps vs others). 75 energy, 9 range.
Neural Parasite: Controls the targeted unit for 15 seconds. The unit is not auto-targeted by neither player, and can still cast spells while also having all the upgrades of the original owner. Neural Parasite has a casting range of 9, but it can still control a unit up to 14 range from the infestor. 100 energy. Requires Neural Parasite upgraded from the Infestation Pit.
Upgrades:
Zerg ground Carapace, Burrow
Pathogen Glands - Increases the starting energy of new infestors by 25. 80 seconds.
Neural Parasite - Allows Infestors to cast Neural Parasite. 110 seconds.
So, Zerg's offesive caster, the Infestor. Early on the game, around august 2010, Infestor was seen just as a 'compliment' for the Zerg army, maybe a cool "gosu" unit that synergizes with banelings, or a "lulz" unit for mass parasites and maybe to get the Zerglot achievement.
Not too long in the game development, however, Mr Bitter came up with this cool new strategy which he entitled as Skipping Mutas for Infestors in ZvT. Basically he would deviate from the famous Muta/Ling popularized by IdrA and play with zerglings and infestors in ZvT, favoring massive amounts of upgrades and getting a quick tier 3 for both Adrenal Glands and either Brood Lords or Ultralisks.
This was before the Infestor Buff that reduced the duration of fungal growths by four seconds(while maintaining the damage). In that time, infestor/ling would be seen as a very hard to use build, but also very efficient.
Recently however, people seem to have changed their mind. Not only Infestors are dealing insane DPS for this build, compositions like Infestor/Brood Lord are said to be unbeatable if Zerg is capable of achieving that economy level. The idea is that infestors lock-down(and kill) marines and vikings, while Brood Lords either force tanks to unsiege or just straight up kill them. If the tanks unsiege, then space is open for zerglings(and even banelings) to wreak havoc on the terran army - which is supposedly behind in upgrades.
Players like Destiny or coL.CatZ - and even Spanishiwa, who loves using them on ZvP as well - are achieving some huge wins thanks to these guys. Games where they would have outright lost, are won because of their infestor use. Zerg needs one more base? Not really, because infestor/ling(/ultra) is so cost efficient. For an example, Day9 casted an insane game between Destiny and Startale's Bomber, where a usual zerg would have left the game right on the first minutes of the game.
This happens because of the versatility of Infestors: Infested Terrans can take down expansions in no time(if you ever watched destiny's ZvZs on his stream, you'd understand it), they can freak tanks out similar to brood lings and are free, stronger marines.
Fungal Growth is an insane DPS dealer while it is also stops the possibility of micro from your opponent. Neural Parasite has its uses as well: taking tanks and using your opponent against himself is the best example.
However, as people said time and time, ghosts hard counter infestors thanks to EMP. However, is that really true or is it just a "soft" counter? Ever since the ghost was nerfed to be balanced against HTs(who also lost their amulet), infestors have become stronger. The fact that you need 4, maybe 5 EMPs to essentially take down all infestor's energy is quite huge, considering their model size(which make EMPs inefficient compared to HTs) and considering that it is very common to achieve over 100 energy. Also, infestors without fungals aren't useless: they can still throw infested terrans to buff your army, even if they are slow(as hell).
Also, if you take a look at korean ladder and metagame, you hardly see infestors used "Destiny style", which could even justify bomber's loss(he is not used to it). Why is it? Maybe koreans know something about them that make them so useless, or maybe these infestor-based zergs are just ahead on the metagame? What is it that a Terran player - a korean terran - do that makes korean zergs not use these infestors? Ghosts, who are efficient against Zerg's ultras and brood lords and also against infestors, why is it that they weren't quite enough for Bomber(or most of the terrans that lose to these guys really)? Are ghosts too weak? Are infestors too strong? Or maybe there is a completely different answer to infestors that Terrans are not using enough?
What can the Terrans do against this "crazy" mass infestor/tier 3(or infestor/ling) that is being so effective against terran's compositions?
I'd like to see people's opinions about this controversial unit, the Infestor. Yes, this thread is kind-of a balance related thread, but it has the purpose of a discussion about the unit, not about "THIS OP NERF IT" and that's it. I wonder if this would fit better in the Strategy section though, since what I want to know about is, in essence, "how do terrans deal with infestors lategame".
+ Show Spoiler [Disclaimer] +I'm a Zerg player sick of being called overpowered for using infestors abilities to their full extent, and having no answer to the "how do i deal with it?" question.
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Time for Terrans to re think their strategy I guess.
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The idea that the infestor is OP is questionable at best. No doubt it's much stronger than the rest of the Zerg army, however I feel its a crutch for the mid/late game when certain unit combinations from T/P threatened to completely nullify at Zerg as a race (mass mech, toss deathball, mass 3/3 marine). As a diamond zerg I've lost quite a few games using infestor play; mainly against HT, ghost, siege tanks and mass air. There are plenty of counters to infestor play as long as you don't pack all of your units into a tiny area. Dealing with infestor is very similar to dealing with storm except you have a much bigger target for EMP/Feedback. Personally I feel infestor play is more dangerous than HT play, if your infestors get Feedbacked/EMP'd/Killed it's instant GG. When you dump all that gas into infestors the rest of the already sad Zerg army becomes a complete rollover if the infestors are not effective.
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Caster are OP, all of them.
That's why the game is good.
People need to stop think about that. I can't imagine what people would say if we still had Defilers, old Templar or Science Vessel. -_-
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On July 05 2011 05:30 Mr. Nefarious wrote:
The idea that the infestor is OP is a joke. Forcefield has been negating micro since the beta, is tier 1.5, costs a ton less and is part of at least 80% of toss armies. The infestor was buffed since Zerg win rates were atrocious against the deathball and mass mech. As a diamond zerg I've lost quite a few games using infestor play; mainly against HT, ghost, siege tanks and mass air. There are plenty of counters to infestor play as long as you don't pack all of your units into a tiny area. Dealing with infestor is very similar to dealing with storm except you have a much bigger target for EMP/Feedback. Personally I feel infestor play is more dangerous than HT play, if your infestors get Feedbacked/EMP'd/Killed it's instant GG. When you dump all that gas into infestors the rest of the already sad Zerg army becomes a complete rollover if the infestors are not effective.
THIS
User was warned for this post
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What's so terrible about having to make ghosts? I see a lot of successful infestor play and a lot of terrible responses to it. Fungal is as good of a spell as storm is and infested terrans are only as useful as the situation. If you complain about having 4 infestors dump Infested Terrans into your mineral line, maybe you should consider building a missile turret and a PF. The most common response I hear when late game DT or drop play is utilized against zerg is "Stop being so greedy and build a spore and spine at your expos". Terran can do the same. Better, in fact- PFs and Missile Turrets are freaking awesome.
Terran just needs to rethink what to respond to mass infestor with.
On July 05 2011 05:32 Noocta wrote:
Caster are OP, all of them.
That's why the game is good.
People need to stop think about that. I can't imagine what people would say if we still had Defilers, old Templar or Science Vessel. -_-
Can you imagine plague on 40 marines at once? ooh deeear god yes.
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well since i face pretty much the like top 20in GM consistently and most top T just laugh at infestors cuz they find that infestors are gimicky and easyto out micro if u spread marines the right way and spread tanks the right way then infestors are ez to deal with. Also T has this unit that has really cool spells too i think its called umm....... hmm..... A GHOST?!?!?!? no wary a unit that can EMP and deal snipe for 25 energy to do 45 dmg?!!?!?!? what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .,....................
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On July 05 2011 05:30 Mr. Nefarious wrote:
The idea that the infestor is OP is questionable at best. No doubt it's much stronger than the rest of the Zerg army, however I feel its a crutch for the mid/late game when certain unit combinations from T/P threatened to completely nullify at Zerg as a race (mass mech, toss deathball, mass 3/3 marine). As a diamond zerg I've lost quite a few games using infestor play; mainly against HT, ghost, siege tanks and mass air. There are plenty of counters to infestor play as long as you don't pack all of your units into a tiny area. Dealing with infestor is very similar to dealing with storm except you have a much bigger target for EMP/Feedback. Personally I feel infestor play is more dangerous than HT play, if your infestors get Feedbacked/EMP'd/Killed it's instant GG. When you dump all that gas into infestors the rest of the already sad Zerg army becomes a complete rollover if the infestors are not effective.
This.
User was warned for this post
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On July 05 2011 05:30 Mr. Nefarious wrote:
The idea that the infestor is OP is questionable at best. No doubt it's much stronger than the rest of the Zerg army, however I feel its a crutch for the mid/late game when certain unit combinations from T/P threatened to completely nullify at Zerg as a race (mass mech, toss deathball, mass 3/3 marine). As a diamond zerg I've lost quite a few games using infestor play; mainly against HT, ghost, siege tanks and mass air. There are plenty of counters to infestor play as long as you don't pack all of your units into a tiny area. Dealing with infestor is very similar to dealing with storm except you have a much bigger target for EMP/Feedback. Personally I feel infestor play is more dangerous than HT play, if your infestors get Feedbacked/EMP'd/Killed it's instant GG. When you dump all that gas into infestors the rest of the already sad Zerg army becomes a complete rollover if the infestors are not effective.
No offense, but as a diamond anything, the reason you're losing is very rarely because of balance (I'm a diamond zerg too... and it's pretty obvious from my replays that I lose for reasons beyond balance). Only point I'm making is that I wouldn't use anecdotal evidence from your own play as evidence for balance.
That said, I personally don't think there is enough evidence to say the infestor is balanced or imbalanced. Maybe a month from now every terran will be using ghosts and crushing infestors and zergs will be crying that ghosts are imba? Heavy infestor strategies are still relatively new and it takes time for strategies to develop to counter them. Although I think we are starting to see more and more terrans using ghosts (thorzain uses them like every game against zerg, so do morrow and major).
It takes quite a bit of time for balance conclusions to be made. It's only been a few month since the infestor buff. I would hesitate before I call it imbalanced.
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Terrans are starting to warm up to ghosts versus zerg, which has been a long time coming. Infestors are fine as long as the terran has ghosts to counterbalance.
Or so I've heard.
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On July 05 2011 05:32 Noocta wrote:
Caster are OP, all of them.
Naahh, i think it's pretty much every AOE units that are ''OP'', because of the insane clumping and ball effect.
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Ghosts are a great answer for late game infestor play. During midgame timings when gas is limited, you need every single scrap of it thrown towards tanks otherwise you'll die to ling/baneling. Other than that infestor play isn't hard to deal with, only really tough in the midgame where tanks are so important.
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Might want to spoiler the parts about Destiny v Bomber. I hadn't watched the games yet but they are kind of ruined now. Not a big deal though.
Yeah, I think we will see infestors used a lot more in all matchups here soon. I really wish they would put back in the projectile for the fungal growth like they had for PTR at one point or at least make it easier to see what is fungaled and what isn't. It's too hard to see on units like Stalkers but on Roaches it's covers too much of the unit model.
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Casters should be really, really strong. The infestor is just that, and it's one of the most fun units as a zerg player to use.
If terran players really cannot solve infestors, buff their own caster units: ghosts (snipe buff?) and ravens. But nerfing infestor is not the way to go imo.
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once all the terrans establish ghosts as a standard response to this (it's almost there but I still see games where top terrans don't try and answer the infestors T___T you can't beat infestor/broodlord with vikings alone), then we can take a better look and see if it is actually too strong (I doubt it, but it's possible). until then, everything is speculation
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When I see 4 hellions burning 20-30 of my lings cause I have no creep in this sector I'm not complaining.
When I see 5 tanks raping my roach army, I'm not complaining
When I see tanks getting on terrain I can't reach (aka on STemple, Shakuras etc...) I'm not complaining
When I see blue flames drop or banshee killing 20+ drones cause I was not 110% focused at the verry second their entered my base, I'm not complaining
When I see an offensive 2 barrackd + 2-3 bunkers and it success cause I did some bad micro and they win 5mins in the game, I'm not complaining...
...
etc...
So when I use infestors LATE game, a unit that cost more than it's share in gaz, that requires upgrade in order to not suck for a minute and require 2 other upgrade (the burrow and np) to be "fully used" and that only has 90hp for his cost (200gaz).... I better see no one complaining. Also... it is required to deal with protoss deathball.
On a side note: terran has the perfect answer to them:
1. Cloacked ghost Emp + Snipe = gg infestors
2. Tanks, if infestors get in tank ranges... infestors are dead period
3. Banshee (cloacked preferably) will own them if you're skipping mutalisk
and pretty much any units that can get to them will kill them in 2-3 hits max.
So complaining about infestors.... how easy do you want SC2 to be for terrans?? 
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On July 05 2011 05:25 Volka wrote:
Time for Terrans to re think their strategy I guess.
Are you sure they shouldn't just sit on teamliquid forums and whine for days on end like the zergs did when terrans told them to "rethink their strategies" a few months ago?
I have a lot of difficulty in dealing with infestors. Partly down to my poor unit control but also because as a T i'm just not at all sure what beats them
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My practice partner always used to get a headache from the Destiny infestor/broodlord deathball. However, we found out that Ravens actually deny broodlord shots, so you can just throw a point defense drone and save your tanks. We're still kinda working on the infestor issue, but Broodlords are so expensive that once you catch them unable to fire, you can do some serious damage.
EDIT: Didn't know this was a thread made by a fanboy of Bomber looking for reasons as to why the obviously inferior player Destiny.
Does anyone else not know how vulnerable infestor tech is to drop harass? As soon as Bomber saw infestors, he believed idra's reasoning against infestors. They have poor aggressive potential, so you can simply mass expand without any fear. However, it's important to realize that Infestors are great at stalling pushes. The problem with deathballs as Zerg is that you can't really remax quick enough. With Infestor's stalling power, you can easily buy yourself time. So frontal pushes are a no-no. A single infestor is downright incapable of handling a drop, and you need a lot of infestors to handle deathball pushes. If you've seen MMA play, his style is perfectly suited to dealing with this infestor style. Pushing timidly with tanks and marines at the front while dropping Zerg's main and natural. Zerg has to be perfect with his infestors to be able to handle all of those different attacks.
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I don't get it, you're making this argument for how strong infestors are, and your examples are Destiny, Catz, and Spanishiwa...? I think you need far better examples aside from 3 players who haven't actually accomplished anything with this style.
If you absolutely must talk about the strength of infestors vs Terran, the obvious focal point should be brood/corruptor/infestor.
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The days when Terran can just walk a 200/200 max army into the Zerg base and win is over. In BW, late game Terrans had to deal with Lurkers, Defiler, and Ultralisks, which are just as devastating and "imba" as Infestor Broodlord. The way Terrans won in BW is by constantly harassing and dropping Zerg expansions, and winning through attrition. It made for exciting games that tested both players' multitasking abilities to the extreme. SC2 should be like this.
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EPT
