Zerg Strategy Guide

While burrowed a Zerg unit can not do anything except unburrow. While burrowed, the unit's owner sees nothing but a pockmark on the ground. He can select the pockmark to get the unit's status info. Enemy players see nothing unless they have a detection unit nearby. Even with a nearby detection unit, the enemy will only see the pockmark. Depending on the terrain and cover, the pockmark can still be hard to see.

This ability, once researched, will allow you to regain energy points by sacrificing the life of one of your own Zerg units. You can use the ability an unlimited amount of times, but the Defiler still may not hold more than the energy maximum (200/250 with upgrade). The range for consume is very short. Consume will not work on Terran or Protoss units even if they are on your team. Since using Consume means the death of a Zerg unit, you normally want to use the cheapest units possible: Zerglings. Put a group of Zerglings next to your Defiler like a box of ammo. Burrow them to keep them safe while they are waiting.

Dark Swarm appears on the battlefield as an orange smoke cloud. The cloud encompasses a 6x6 matrix area. Units within the cloud take no damage from ranged attacks. Only units with melee, splash, or special weaponry are able to affect a unit underneath a Dark Swarm. Note that the Swarm will only protect units, and any buildings in the cloud are still vulnerable to attack by ranged weapons.

Since all airborne units possess ranged attacks, Dark Swarm is a particularly effective tool against an attack from the air when you place Hydralisks under the cloud. When used as part of an attack or defense on the ground, care must be taken to prevent enemy units from also using the Dark Swarm as protection. The Dark Swarm can also protect enemy units from the ranged attacks of your own Hydralisks, Mutalisks, and Guardians. Position your own ground forces to block the path of the enemy troops into your protective cloud.

The following units are able to damage units underneath a Dark Swarm with their normal attacks:

Plague is an area effect ability that affects any unit or building with a 3x3 matrix of the target. A unit affected by a Plague slowly begins to lose hit points until either the maximum of 300 points of damage is done or the unit reaches one health. Plague alone cannot kill anything, but the effects can still be rather crippling. Plague is particularly devastating to Terran Buildings, as will continue to take further damage from burning if the building has less than 1/3 of its original hit points. The Protoss are able to better withstand Plague, as their Psi-based Shields are unaffected by the biotoxins of the Plague. Plague does not affect burrowed units, but if a unit is infected, then burrows, the unit will still continue to take damage. The viscous biotoxins of a Plague will also stick to Cloaked units, revealing them as long as the Plague lasts.

Cost: None

By infesting a Terran Command Center with her parasitic bio-toxin, the Queen brings volatile new creations into the Swarm.

Once a Command Center has been infested it can produce Infested Terrans. It also will further regenerate its hit points when damaged.

Parasites are used by a Zerg brood to provide battlefield reconnaissance information. Queens can launch the parasitic creatures onto the unsuspecting host from up to 12 matrices away. Once the Parasite is attached, the controller of the Parasite can now see what the affected unit sees. If a unit with cloak detection has an attached parasite, then cloaked units will also be seen by the Parasite. The owner of the affected unit can detect the parasite in two ways. When the unit is selected as part of a group, the border of the unit's wireframe diagram will turn green. If just the single affected unit is selected, a "Parasite Detected" warning in green text will appear along with the rest of the unit's statistics.

The only way to remove a Parasite to have a Medic use her Restoration ability on the affected unit. If Medics or restoration are not available, destroying the host will also destroy the Parasite. A Zerg drone with an attached Parasite could also be turned into a Zerg building to remove the annoyance.

The viscous green goo expelled when a Queen uses her Ensnare ability will cover any unburrowed unit in a 4x4 matrix area. Units covered with the goo have their movement rate cut by half. This can cause a host of problems for the enemy. Ensnared melee units will face additional rounds of ranged fire before reaching their targets, units will not be able to spread out as effectively to fire on their targets, and retreating can become difficult. Ensnare will also reveal the presence of units hiding under the protection of a cloaking field until the goo wears off.

The Spawn Broodling ability is one of the most feared weapons in the Zerg arsenal. A Queen with this ability can instantaneously destroy any non-robotic ground unit in the game, including units such as Templar, Ultralisks, and Siege Tanks. While the energy cost for this ability is high, the ability to rapidly turn the tide of battle with the destruction of a key unit is not to be underestimated. The Broodlings resulting from the destruction of the targetted unit are also not to be completely ignored. Broodlings receive the same Melee and Carapace upgrades as a Zergling or Ultralisk, and their attacks are quite swift. If a pair of Broodlings are left unattended by the enemy, the Broodlings can cause decent damage to defenseless buildings or troops. Broodlings will also quickly fall to any kind of organized defense, having only 30 hit points. Broodlings also die on their own approximately 120 seconds after their creation.