Starcraft 2 seems a lot like Starcraft 1, but there are some really cool new units in SC2. The Infestor is really not the Defiler. Sure, they are ugly (but which Zerg units aren't?) units which annoy you, but the Infestor gives the Zerg a whole bunch of interesting tools to play around with.

This unit hasn't had a lot written about it; things like the Banshee, Colossus, Marauder, and Mutalisk seem a lot more fun to write posts about, probably because they seem very strong at first (and maybe longer term--we'll see!). When I was kicking around for ideas of what to write about, I decided to ping a few different good players to see which of them had some good replays to use, both to show off the game to those who may be less familiar with it, and also to showcase some of the lesser used units in SC2. Blizzard has done a pretty good job of making the new-to-SC2 units still useful without simply copying the SC1 units!

The Game

Today's game features none other than the legendary SC2 and Warcraft 2 player, KingHillBilly, playing against TeamEG, a team that is doubtless familiar top anyone who has been following Starcraft in the past years.

Steppes of War, a 2 player slug-fest of a map

Today they met on the Steppes of War. This map is a 2 player map, and the rush distances between bases are quite close. Frequently this leads to early-game clashes, as we shall see. The two Xel'Naga Watch Towers are not nearly as conveniently placed as on other maps, and holding the middle is super important, as all expansions are easily reachable from there; with the high ground advantage missing, the enemy natural is highly vulnerable to forces striking from below it on the middle of the map..

TeamEG

KingHillBilly

The game started off with KingHillBilly fast expanding to his Natural, while TeamEG initially opted for a wallin. However, all was not to be quiet, as he realized that the close rush distances gave him an excellent opportunity to punish his Zerg opponent for greed.

A Spine Crawler falls to SCVs

KingHillBilly is immediately taken aback as he is forced to pull Drones in order to stop the Terran. He manages to do so, but his situation is dire, as no sooner has he stopped the rush and begun to rebuild his economy, that ~~toy bikes~~ Hellions arive!

Nephews are certain to love the units of this game

Uh-oh....

Although Spine Crawlers are quite effective at surviving Hellions, Hellions are quite quick, and they immediately zoom up the ramp to puncture the soft Zerg main. Terrans love a good barbequue, and these Hellions proved no differently!

Yes, that's a dead queen... along with most of the Drones in the main.

KingHillBilly eventually kills off the Hellions in his main with Mutalisks, after losing his Baneling Nest and Spawning Pool. This brings us to the ~~men~~ugly beasts of the hour.

Infestors look like Zerg Reavers

As he's been amassing Infestors though, he sent some Mutalisks to harass, but ran into a robotic wall as large as a building.

Boom boom, THOR IS HERE

Mutalisks don't last long against a couple Thors shooting them...

After that setback, KingHillBilly is certainly looking for revenge, in the form of his mastery of Zerg magics.

This image has a lot going on here... there are Brood Lords on the top left, throwing Broodlings onto Marines. All the Marines have been Fungal Growthed by the Infestors, which immobilizes them (they can still shoot though) and does damage over time. The Medivacs are healing Marines, and the Ravens at the top have center have tossed down some Autoturrets to try to help deal extra damage and tank a bit of damage. The Thors in the back are blasting away (90 damage per volley to ground..........) and doing tons of damage to the Broodlings, but unfortunately can't get to the Infestors to kill them.

Infestors take advantage of the Thors

The Terran army falls to the spells of the Infestor and ridiculous might of the Brood Lord

This fight really showed off the power of the Infestor--against small masses of units, it can immobilize them, and the damage from Fungal Growth really really adds up (think of it as a lower damage psi storm that, instead of being dodgable, immobilizes you and will always do 100% damage). Neural Parasite really messes with Thors and other big units (Colossus, for example). For a bit of mana, your Infestor can make the Thor turn around and start laying waste to the enemies, which is exactly what happened here. Four Thors (that's 1200/800) all started turning against each other, leading to an easy victory in this fight.

But the Terran is not through, and puts up a valiant defense at his ramp

Infestors without energy and Overlords really are not very scary

After being temporarily forced back, KingHillBilly comes back and uses the third and final ability of the Infestor which we haven't seen yet this game--the Infested Terran. Now, this Infested Terran is really nothing like the SC1 Infested Terran. He's a weaker-than-average Marine, who only costs 25 energy to spawn. Thus, a group of Infestors can produce a whole ton of the little guys as damage sponges or ways of harassing, but they're not really a viable army to take on the Protoss straight up.

Infested Terrans help raze the enemy Barracks

Perhaps seeing the savagery of infestation inspired the rest of the Terran army, but they managed to fight off the Zerg and gather their forces. In the air we can see some Vikings--these guys do a whopping 28 damage per volley to armored air units--like those Brood Lords that were causing so much havoc earlier!

Well, it was a nice idea, until KingHillBilly decided to demonstrate another Zerg unit in action: the Corruptor.

These ugly purple things pretty easily tore up the couple Vikings, and a combination of them, Broord Lords, and Infestors yet again drove back the Terran.

Meanwhile, Zerg attempts to break the expansion of the Terran which is guarded by a mighty Planetary Fortress

Well, I have to say, the attempt to break the Planetary Fortress did not really go very well. These things are ridiculously strong, as evidenced by the following:

Kill counts like these are not at all uncommon...

KingHillBilly never did break the Planetary Fortress; realizing its strength and the vulnerability of the main, he instead dove into TeamEG's main, forcing a GG

A crazy game indeed.

The Aftermath

This game really provides a lot of unique opportunities to experiment and use new strategies. I've seen a lot of Zergs, Terrans, and Protosses, and a good portion of them all play the same, as if this is SC1. They make lots of units, maybe they harass a bit with Shuttles, but ultimately they are making large armies of 'standard' units and then attacking with them. Mass Hydra/Roach; Mass Marine/Marauder/Medivac; Mass Stalker/Colossus.

Blizzard has created a lot of really cool units to go with these. High Templars (now combined with Dark Archon feedback!); Ghosts; Ravens; Infestors. A lot of these units are going to provide amazing opportunities for spectators, as shown by KingHillBilly's amazing Neural Parasite/Fungal Growth casts.

Yes, it's easier now to cast lots of spells in quick succession. But it's still not easy to do so while constantly macroing, harassing, and managing a large army of various types of units and making sure they are attacking the right kind of unit to maximize their damage. People have said that this game will lack the crazy micro abilities of SC1, where you see things like Marines being split against Lurkers, Vultures mining Dragoons, Storms blanketing the Terran army. SC2 will have these too, it will just be using Infestors, using Banelings, using Ravens, and so forth.

I'm really optimistic about how great this game will be for the spectator. There are some issues like latency, but this is early in the beta, and Blizzard has already shown us a game that has as much potential as SC2 for broadcasting, in my opinion.

This post was made by the Team Liquid Starcraft 2 Coverage Team. For more of TL's coverage, please visit the Team Liquid Starcraft 2 Beta Page.

synapse China. March 08 2010 12:17. Posts 5035

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Interesting... so Infestors imba now?

Soon, I will have your castle! ...You will visit, perhaps! Fawful will reserve the Crying Room for the crying for your minions. And the crying will be like a savory soda for my soul!

intrigue

Washington, D.C. March 08 2010 12:23. Posts 8435

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infestors are so scary... are lategame colossus in your army going to end up hurting your own army more? is a mothership hard countered by one ugly wrinkly reaver? nice post - link to replay please?

Hey doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet. http://castlesmusic.net

Un Gato United States. March 08 2010 12:36. Posts 123

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On March 08 2010 12:23 intrigue wrote:
infestors are so scary... are lategame colossus in your army going to end up hurting your own army more? is a mothership hard countered by one ugly wrinkly reaver? nice post - link to replay please?

Only hard countered if there's also enough of an army to protect it from being sniped.

I hope they change how the mind control looks, that tongue is just silly.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

synapse China. March 08 2010 12:43. Posts 5035

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On March 08 2010 12:36 Un Gato wrote:

Show nested quote +

Only hard countered if there's also enough of an army to protect it from being sniped.

I hope they change how the mind control looks, that tongue is just silly.

I think it looks okay... its like tentacle rape.
Maybe shooting a broodling-like thing then making the unit become all zerg-like would be better...

Soon, I will have your castle! ...You will visit, perhaps! Fawful will reserve the Crying Room for the crying for your minions. And the crying will be like a savory soda for my soul!

zomgzergrush United States. March 08 2010 12:48. Posts 913

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Replay please?

Yeah, maybe something like those brain slugs from Futurama would be more appropriate than the tongue...

WAIT....can't the corruptor corrupt the planetary fortress?

Last edit: 2010-03-08 12:54:57

Bronze skipping straight to Diamond in 40 games retail release. Bnet 2.0 ladder really takes it's sweet time to think about that league placement.

LunarC United States. March 08 2010 12:51. Posts 1068

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Can infested units use their special abilities? I'd kill to see a reverse Mass Recall... or a reverse Nuke.

EDIT: I think they use the tongue so that it's easier to see where the Infestors are located. Makes them more snipe-able.

Last edit: 2010-03-08 12:51:55

REEBUH!!!

Exteray United States. March 08 2010 12:56. Posts 1094

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That was a sick sick game...

synapse China. March 08 2010 12:58. Posts 5035

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On March 08 2010 12:48 zomgzergrush wrote:
Replay please?

Yeah, maybe something like those brain slugs from Futurama would be more appropriate than the tongue...

WAIT....can't the corruptor corrupt the planetary fortress?

WAIT.... can't you have like 4 corrupters constantly corrupting a Terran's CC = no minerals?

Soon, I will have your castle! ...You will visit, perhaps! Fawful will reserve the Crying Room for the crying for your minions. And the crying will be like a savory soda for my soul!

flamewheel March 08 2010 13:04. Posts 16951

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Sick game, sick game. Thanks for the write-up!

MSL forever.

m3rciless United States. March 08 2010 13:05. Posts 1049

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I think in the future, these sorts of battle reports should be done on max graphics settings. Visual clarity isn't really an issue when its still pictures, and the visuals are really nice.

Anyway, a nice writeup overall, very entertaining.

White-Ra fighting!

Carnivorous Sheep March 08 2010 13:08. Posts 7415

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I object to calling Zerg units ugly >:[

Baa?

KwarK United Kingdom. March 08 2010 13:11. Posts 16058

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Colossus are mechanical, like reavers in sc1. That kind of spell shouldn't work on them, like spawn broodling on reavers.

The angels have the phone box

0neder United States. March 08 2010 13:14. Posts 2860

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Let's highlight the Raven with the point defense drone and HSM next!

Contemporary TvZ is BW level exciting now. Just hoping for TvP now...=)

KingHillBilly United States. March 08 2010 13:20. Posts 98

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Nice write up! Was a fun game =]

Here's the link to the replay, this is in patch 3.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ltiamwz2kf1

Simply the Best

onmach United States. March 08 2010 13:23. Posts 1240

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My problem with the infestor's spells is that blizzard seems to have run out of idea for zerg. Instead of a new zerg unit, let's make them summon marines. And hey, instead of a zergy ability, let's allow them to steal other race's units. That way zerg can use dropships to heal itself instead of some zerg unit that might do that in a very zergy way. If it were just biological I wouldn't mind so much, but it isn't.

Also, the way it is now where it works on every unit, you could imagine that one day when the pros have gotten good at it, the infestor will just negate entire classes of units, anything that normally appears in small numbers in an army, like collosus, immortals, dropships, thors, etc. That's not good at all.

blabber United States. March 08 2010 13:26. Posts 3856

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On March 08 2010 12:51 LunarC wrote:
Can infested units use their special abilities? I'd kill to see a reverse Mass Recall... or a reverse Nuke.

EDIT: I think they use the tongue so that it's easier to see where the Infestors are located. Makes them more snipe-able.

don't think you can nuke since zergs typically don't have a Ghost Academy to arm a nuke. But you can definitely EMP or Snipe anything you like. I've been incorporating infestors into my play a lot. Neural Parasite has pretty long range and taking control of 3 or 4 colossus can turn the battle into your favor

" "

Fanatic-Templar Canada. March 08 2010 13:36. Posts 388

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Hmm. If splitting Marines against Lurkers is so desired, why don't people split them against Collosi? They both do line splash damage, don't they? Just perpendicular to one another.

EDIT: Kinda really off topic, sorry. Just a thought that occured to me after reading this part of the conclusion: People have said that this game will lack the crazy micro abilities of SC1, where you see things like Marines being split against Lurkers, Vultures mining Dragoons, Storms blanketing the Terran army. SC2 will have these too, it will just be using Infestors, using Banelings, using Ravens, and so forth.

Incidentally, that's a real question, I don't have the Beta, so I was wondering.

Last edit: 2010-03-08 13:37:44

"It is said that ignorance is bliss. Tell me, is that true?" - Protoss Zealot

RPGabe United States. March 08 2010 13:49. Posts 188

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I really want to see a combination of Fungal Growth and Banelings now. Lordy.