With Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm finally having been launched players are being welcomed by the numerous changes to the various races. I have already provided an introduction to the Protoss updates in a previous article, located here, and in this article I will begin to document some of the changes we’ve seen to the Zerg race in HotS.

As I’ve stated in the previous article, many people have either played the beta already or have been watching the various streams and tournaments that have already occurred with HotS. This article is not for you people! This article is geared much more toward the people who are getting interested in the SC2 scene as a result of HotS and might be asking themselves “what’s this whole SC2 thing about anyway?” And with that I’d like to dive right into an overview of the changes to Zerg that have arrived with Heart of the Swarm!

So to kick it off it’s best to start with the “fun” stuff, the new units! With Heart of the Swarm, Zerg has received two new units to their arsenal which only actually come into play at late Lair tech/Hive tech meaning, for the most part, the early game for Zergs is exactly the same. It’s also interesting to note that both of the new Zerg units, the Swarm Host and the Viper, are support units. By that I mean they are not the crushing, meaty unit, they are support units, neither will win the game outright, but they will provide significant aid in doing so. With that, let’s take a look at the Viper.

As I mentioned above, the Viper is a support unit. By that I mean it has no direct attack of its own. The idea behind the Viper is that, like the Infestor, it is a spell caster which is designed to work with the rest of your army to make them more cost efficient. It does this by virtue of the spells it has at its disposal which are: Blinding Cloud, Abduct and Consume. Consume is an interesting ability and adds a unique mechanic to the way the unit itself functions. While it is rather gas heavy, the unit itself is not particularly expensive as it costs 100/200/40/3 and requires only a Hive to build, despite the fact that it is flying, no Spire is required for a Viper.

The first of its abilities we will examine is called Blinding Cloud. This spell costs 100 energy, has a range of 9 and a duration of 14 seconds. Blinding Cloud is an area of effect spell and by that I mean that it is cast over a target area and all units within the specified radius will be affected by the spell. Moving out of the radius of the cloud removes the effect from the units. So what exactly does this spell do? Well it reduces all units within it to melee range, that is, range 1. While under its effect, any range units have that range nullified and can only attack if they are directly on top of another unit. This can be immensely effective against units like Stalkers, Marines or even Siege Tanks. Something that is incredibly important to note about Blinding Cloud is that it also affects friendly units! If you walk into your own Blinding Cloud, you will have your range reduced to 1 as well! So you definitely want to be careful where you walk during battles!

Blinding Cloud is not the only ability that Vipers have at their disposal. The second ability they can make use of is called “Abduct”. This is a really intriguing ability in the game, Essentially, it allows the Viper to “grab” any unit and pull it toward the Viper. This can be extremely useful in dealing with Colossus or Siege Tanks very efficiently. Grabbing a Colossus before it is able to get too many volleys off and pull it directly into the center of your army can be crippling to a Protoss army. The range on the ability is rather large, 9, but you should be careful not to get too close as the unit is pretty fragile!

The final Viper ability, Consume, is not inherently aggressive, but leads to aggressive capabilities. A Viper casts Consume on a friendly structure and drains the life of the structure in return for energy. This allows the Viper the replenish its energy supply incredibly quickly and allows it to be more useful in combat. As a result of this players are building numerous Evolution Chambers (due to their extremely low cost) and using them explicitly for Consuming! Watch out for High Templars Feedbacks though! That can do some serious damage!

The other new unit that Zerg players will see is the Swarm Host. While it is also a support unit, unlike the Viper, it is not a spell caster, some have described it as a burrowed Brood Lord due to the way that it functions. The Swarm Host is a ground unit which requires in Infestation Pit to produce and costs 200/100/40/3. The interesting thing about it is that the unit itself does not actually deal any damage. It has an ability on it called “Spawn Locusts” which is cooldown based and periodically sends locusts from the Swarm Hosts to any rallied position. Interestingly, Swarm Hosts need to be burrowed to actually be able to spawn locusts which makes them difficult to destroy but also difficult to retreat effectively.

The Swarm Host has one upgrade available to it which is researched at the Infestation Pit, it is a rather expensive one, but can be extremely useful. The upgrade is called “Enduring Locusts” and costs 200/200/120 and once upgraded it extends the lifespan of locusts by 10 seconds. The reason this is useful is because it can allow the Zerg player to burrow their Swarm Hosts even farther from their opponent’s base and still have the same amount of damage get done. Essentially it is a defensive mechanism which can be used to preserve the lives of Swarm Hosts.

Ultimately, these two new units make incredible changes to the Zerg army and I feel fundamentally change the way the game is played out when compared to Wings of Liberty. In my opinion, the Swarm Host is probably the most exciting new unit that has been added to the game. At the moment, the pros are making very little use of it, however, I believe there is so much potential within it. Staggering burrows of the Swarm Host to essentially have a constant stream of locusts, using them for defensive purposes or for multipronged aggression, perhaps in conjunction with an Overlord’s Ventral Sacks upgrade we could see Swarm Host drops! All of these, to me, are very exciting propositions and I’m looking forward to see how the units will be used in tournaments!

With these new units, I feel Blizzard has definitely succeeded in raising the skill ceiling of the game while not making it completely inaccessible to casual players and for that I have to commend them.

Again, as with the Protoss article, this will be split up into two parts. In the second article, I will discuss the number of changes that have been made to the Zerg race that go beyond new units. These changes include those made to the Infestor, Mutalisk, Hydralisk, Hatchery upgrades and a few others! So stay tuned, that article will be arriving shortly!