Zerg Unit Overview

Zergling

The staple of zerg armies, you will end up building these in almost every game you play.

There are two key upgrades zerglings need: speed, for all around improved effectiveness, and carapace, to survive two hit zealots. If the protoss has at least +1 weapon level over the zerg (i.e. protoss has +1 weapons and zerg has +0 carapace, or toss has +3 and zerg +2), zealots will kill zerglings in two hits instead of three. This is very, very bad.

Pros:

• One of the fastest units in the game with their speed upgrade, and have phenomenal DPS for their cost (good DPS value).
• Great at early harassment before the enemy can lock down chokes, remains effective in later game by hitting poorly defended expansions and through drops/nydus worms
• Massing and attacking unexpectedly with them in the early game can sometimes win games easily
• They're really cheap and build quickly.
• They can be morphed into banelings cheaply.

Cons:

• Any unit the lings can't surround they suck against. Since packs of units are harder to surround than lone units, as unit numbers increase zerglings become harder to use. This also applies to chokepoints. Zerglings suck at attacking or defending chokes.
• As the game progresses, lots of units can instantly kill zerglings (colossi, zealots, siege tanks, high templar, hellions...) and they switch from a front line staple to a gas-free meat shield and flanking force. They can still take damage cheaply, but their overall damage plummets even with more zerglings because many of them will die before even reaching the enemy.

Baneling

A neat suiciding ground unit that morphs from zerglings. Brutal damage against light units, mediocre at best against non-light enemies. Its use closely mirrors that of zerglings: able to bust up the front in the early game, but flanks/burrow are necessary for the most damage as the game progresses.

Pros:

• Splash damage
• Automatically explode when killed
• Bonus against light applies to all sorts of spammable units like zealots, zerglings, other banelings, hellions and hydralisks (if they can reach them)
• With the speed upgrade they can outrun most of their intended light targets
• Fairly cheap- the cost comes out to 50 minerals and 25 gas

Cons:

• Transforming from zergling to baneling leaves them vulnerable
• Damage against non-light targets isn't cost effective
• Requires flanking or surprise to be effective, especially later on
• Requires more micro than standard attack-move units
• Can't hit air units (duh)
• Easily avoidable by faster units
• Techniques exist to mitigate damage, such as "feeding" units to the banelings one by one

Roach

The roach is a very interesting unit that has use throughout the game. In the early game it acts as a very efficient damage dealer, providing great defense in small numbers and good offense when massed. In the mid and late games it has lower DPS than hydralisks, but tanks much more effectively. It's also a great unit when you're somewhat low on gas and high on minerals and don't want zerglings.

Pros:

• Completely dominates vanilla zealots and marines. Even zealots with charge and stim/combat shield marines have trouble with roaches still, though the amount of damage the roaches take won't make it quite the slam dunk it was before.
• Effective deterrent against stalkers and hellions. Roaches will easily beat hellions in a straight fight and do well against stalkers (despite the armored damage bonus) but the range of 6 on those units (vs. 3 for roaches) can make fighting a well microed force a nightmare for roaches.
• Similarly, roaches can beat marauders that aren't able to kite them. Marauders do more damage, but roaches are cheaper and much easier to build. However, in the open field concussive shells + kiting can easily pick off roaches with no losses to their force. Mixing in zerglings is advised.
• Their high health makes them a great unit for tanking in general, especially for certain late game units and effects. Psi storm, siege tanks, colossi and thors all come to mind as units that roaches tank well against.
• Roaches 3 shot marines. Roaches with at least +1 weapon over their enemy's carapace level two shot zerglings.
• Large unit size makes it easy to block off areas. This is crucial in the early game for stopping speedling run bys or hellion harassment.
• Roaches share the missile upgrade with hydralisks, leading to an easy transition into that staple mid game unit.
• Fast burrowed regeneration make them a great unit with some micro. Getting tunneling claws also increases their regen now, and allows you to burrow move under forcefields for great effect.

Cons:

• Without their speed upgrade, roaches are pitifully slow off creep and average on creep. This means that you can't chase enemies back early, and roach rushes early on have to expend some of their gas to get the upgrade.
• The actual DPS of roaches is pretty low. They excel in longer fights where their high health is useful.
• Their large size becomes a liability later on in the game, as it prevents more roaches from being able to attack at the same time.
• The limited range on roaches makes it harder to kite and extremely easy to be kited. Stalkers and marauders with conc shells in particular have a field day with roaches if they have room to back up.

Hydralisk

When zerg hits midgame, they have essentially two options for an upgrade to roaches: hydralisks or mutalisks. Hydras are a phenomenal ranged DPS unit (they have one of the highest of all zerg units) for a unit that's cheaper than stalkers by 25 minerals but does over twice as much damage (albeit with less health). They easily destroy any air units that stay within range (they have the standard 6 when upgraded) and rip through most ground forces with easy. Their high DPS make them a common ground staple all the way to the end of the game.

Pros:

• Extremely high DPS. The highest damage dealer of all "spammable" units.
• The only non-queen ground zerg unit that can hit air. That's pretty important.
• Has the "standard" range of 6 when upgraded.
• Slaughters most other spammable units. Marines, marauders, roaches, stalkers, zealots... all fall to hydralisks.
• Their low base damage but high rate of fire makes them effective against immortal shields.
• Their classification as "light" barely acts as a problem, as the main units that do bonus damage to "light" are banelings and hellions, neither of which pose threats to hydralisks normally.

Cons:

• Low health for a mid game unit makes them crumple easily when they're taking damage.
• For a zerg unit they're expensive. Much gas needs to be collected to support nonstop hydra production. You usually need to mix in non-hydra units like zerglings or roaches to use all your larvae.
• Slow unit in general, especially off creep. Has trouble pulling off flanking maneuvers or harassment. In many regards, hydralisks are glass cannons- they deal tons of damage, but have low health and poor speed.

Mutalisk

Mutalisks are the other side of the mid game coin for zerg. Hydras are slow but strong damage dealers with low health.. Mutalisks are fast, aerial units that deal moderate damage and excel at harassment and killing packs of low health units due to their bounce. You'll want mutalisks to wreck ground armies with no or insufficient air, to harass bases and force them to spend minerals on anti-air emplacements, and to confine their mobility and keep them in their base, leaving you to expand. They're also your versatile anti-harassment force, able to fend off most air harass and attacks on your more distant expansions as mutalisks are very fast.

Pros:

• While individual damage is low, the bounce damage can add up very quickly
• Bounce damage is very effective against low health units
• Beats vikings in packs (but not solo)
• Fast enough to harass and back off, as well as to defend distant expansions
• Great at intercepting rallying units
• Great at sniping off targets (templar, ghosts, sentries)
• Can overwhelm terran ground armies that rely on marines for defense if they don't have enough of them
• Tendency to "clump" makes individual targeting of mutas by the enemy difficult and allows many mutas to hit the same target at the same time
• Able to attack ground and air without special effects: only one of the early air units to do so (phoenixes need to lift and vikings need to land)

Cons:

• Low single target damage makes them poor against high health units (ultralisks, colossi, thors), especially when the unit is alone, as well as buildings
• Relatively low health makes them fragile
• Not a cheap unit: 100/100
• Low range allows well microed vikings and phoenixes especially to chew away at them while taking minimal return damage
• Doesn't upgrade or transition into anything well. If the enemy gets a good counter (thors+marines, well microed phoenixes, etc.) mutas have no upgrades or good transitions
• Clumping makes them vulnerable to AoE attacks like Thor missiles, psi storm and archons (yes, that happened to me once, and it sucked)

Corruptors

The zerg air-to-air unit, this unit has an odd line of stats. It does better DPS against a single target than mutas do, but mutas do more as long as there are at least two targets remaining. Generally this means that mutas are better than corruptors at straight fights in the air. However, corruptors have a great +6 damage against massive units. As far as I know, the only massive unit they can hit are colossi (terran buildings lifted off are not massive). You can't even use it in 2v2s with phoenix lifts, since you can't lift a massive unit to begin with.

Pros:

• 200 hp is a lot of health for a 150/100 unit.
• Range 6 allows them to fight off microing phoenixes (range 4) but not vikings (range 9)
• Bonus against massives makes them the key unit against colossi. High health allows them to keep shooting through focus fire
• The corruption ability (+20% damage to an enemy unit or structure) is useful for taking down higher health units and structures, usually colossi. The cast time on it means that it's not worth it for most lower health units.

Cons:

• Not really fast, so it's more of an AA defense force. Can't gain air superiority because it can't hunt down enemy air units.

Brood Lord

The highest tech unit for zerg along with the ultralisk, the brood lord is the ultimate air to ground unit. It does decent straight damage and has great range (9), but the best part is the broodling spawn. Every hit spawns two broodlings immediately, which are similar to weak zerglings. In small numbers it's not a problem, but as the brood lords keep attacking the broodlings add up. They also serve as a good buffer for higher damage units like hydralisks.

Broodlings can hit a "critical mass"; a state where broodlings are being spawned faster than they are killed, which usually spells the end for your opponents.

Brood lords must be supported. They're vulnerable to air attacks as well as quick rushes by ground forces who ignore the broodlings and focus fire the brood lords.

Pros:

• Great range
• Decent on hit damage
• Broodlings add extra damage and take extra hits
• Hard to focus fire due to decent health (225), flying unit and range

Cons:

• Cost: 300/250
• Requires Hive + Greater Spire
• Slow attack speed
• Takes several shots or a good number of brood lords to reach "critical mass"
• AoE attacks can easily kill broodlings (hellions, psi storm)
• Large ranged armies can often kill broodlings as fast as they spawn
• Very slow

Ultralisk

The other highest tech unit zerg has is the ultralisk. The highest health unit in the game besides the mothership with high armor, theoretically it's a tanking best. In reality, it's much more complicated than that.

Even after the most recent patch that buffed their health and speed, I still can't see the ultralisk as a good choice in all but the most specific circumstances. The only unique thing about them is their ability to run through force fields. By the time ultralisks come out ranged units of ANY kind can kill one in a single volley. For their enormous cost and time to build it's really not worth it.

More specifically, ultralisks are almost never worth it compared to their alternative, which is brood lords. Which would you rather have, a slow but long ranged aerial unit that does good ground damage and spawns zerglings on hit, or a moderate speed melee unit that usually dies before reaching the enemy?

For comparison: an ultralisk costs 300/200, 6 supply and takes 70 seconds to build. A carrier takes 350/250, 6 pop and 120 seconds.

Which would you rather have, 10 ultralisks or 8 carriers? Yea, this unit still needs a buff.

Brood lords cost 300/250 and 74 seconds to build, for reference.

Pros:

• As a massive unit, it automatically breaks force fields when it runs into them. Ultralisks and zerglings make for a good combination.
• Also can't be lifted because it's a massive unit.
• Very high health makes it very survivable, especially against slow rate of fire AoE attacks like siege tanks or colossi.
• Splash melee damage makes it good against low health units that clump like marines or zerglings.
• Fast attack speed combined with good base damage means it can beat just about anything once it gets within melee range.
• Special alternate attack vs. buildings allows it to kill strutures quickly.
• High armor (3 after upgrades) makes it take much less damage from fast firing, low per-hit damage units like marines.
• Can burrow- surprise ultralisk attacks are deadly.

Cons:

• Susceptible to 250mm strike cannons from a Thor.
• Requires a ton of tech to get.
• Expensive (300/200) and builds slowly (70 seconds)
• Poor at retreating because it's a melee unit.
• Large collision size prevents many ultralisks from being able to attack at once.
• Very slow health regeneration requires ultralisks that survive battles to be transfused by queens to recover.
• As an armored unit, a lot of big damage dealers do more damage against it.
• High supply (6)

Queen

One of the most unique units added to the zerg's arsenal, the SC2 queen is completely different than its predecessor. It's more of a hatchery guardian now, but has a few powerful defensive abilities.

The queen is also the only zerg ground unit that can hit air besides hydralisks, making it invaluable against early air rushes.

Pros:

• Can hit air and has decent range/DPS.
• Vomit larvae is a requirement to zerg macro success. There is no way you can ever become a good zerg player without using it.
• Provides excellent early defense against rushes.
• Transfusion is helpful for getting high health units back to full such as roaches, brood lords, corruptors or ultralisks.
• Creep tumors are important for linking bases and expanding creep into the middle of the map, giving you map control.
• Very high health for an early game unit (175) gives it great survivability.
• Only mineral cost
• Low supply (2)
• Large collision size allows it to block enemies easily

Cons:

• Extremely bad speed off creep.
• Since it is required every 40 seconds to spew larvae, can't move far from a hatchery/lair/hive unless it's a duplicate queen.
• Builds slowly, making lost queens a pain to rebuild
• Lots of macro attention must be dedicated to constantly spewing larvae at all hatcheries.
• Can't beat a banshee in a solo fight
• Because of its high value to the zergling economy, it is often focus fired

Overlord

A worse version of the original SC1 overlords, as they no longer have detection.

Pros:

• It's a flying farm! (gives you supply)
• It flies. Units that hit ground only can't hit it.
• It can be upgraded to have moderate speed and transport units for drops.
• It acts as an early scout and provides valuable vision around the map.
• It can spread creep under it for free once you have a Lair.
• It can be upgraded into an overseer.
• Serves as a high ground spotter and can detect drops on your base early
• Can be thrown into the enemies to serve as meat shields so that other air units gain valuable time when attacking or dropping

Cons:

• Insanely slow before the upgrade, such that even a single anti-air unit can kill it. Even when it has the speed upgrade it's only below-average speed at best.

Overseer

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Infested Terran

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