Starcraft 2 Zerg Strategy

This is the Starcraft 2 Strategy Guide. Zerg is a very different race from Protoss and Terran, forcing you to think in different ways. Some say it’s the hardest race to play, but personally I think it’s one of the most fun races in Starcraft 2. Here you will learn more about what is different about the Zerg, and how to think when playing the swarm.

Larva

Larva is continually spawning from you Hatchery, and most Zerg units are built from them. This gives you a burst-production no other races can match, but it also forces you to continually choose between making drones and combat units. If you use all your larva for workers, you have no larva left to make other units. This usually means that you will have periods where you make drones, and other periods where you use all your larva to build your army. Making workers is often refered to as droning up.

The fact that you can save up larva, especially combined with the Queen’s Spawn Larva-ability, can give you a wild burstproduction. Unlike the other races, you can start producing a lot of units when you reach a new tech-level. This means you will often have the ability to do so-called timing attacks. When you reach Mutalisks, you can save up larva and resources so you can make ten of them at once. Other races are not able to react the same way. The larva and the fact that you make most units from them, also means you can quickly switch to a new type of unitproduction. You do not have any Factories that stays around unused if you switch to air units.

Larva: The Larva is the most important zerg unit, where most other units come from. Using the Queen's ability to inject larva, allows you to save up larva for the future if you can't build units now.

The Queen

The Queen is a powerful unit in the Zerg arsenal, and one of the very nice improvements above Starcraft 1. All of the three abilites of the Queen, Transfusion, Spawn Larva and Spawn Creep Tumor, is useful during the whole game. The Queen is also a good combat unit, especially against air units early in the game. If you see your opponent planning to attack you with Void-Rays or Banshees, a few Queens can save the day. They can also help your Zerglings fend of early Hellions or Reapers.

The Spawn Larva-ability is the core ability you want to make sure you use all the time. Have a system with hotkeys to make sure you are always injecting larva. This will more than double your larva-production. If you are waiting for new tech or have a maxed out army, injecting larva means you are building up and can quickly produce new units when you need to.

Spread the creep: Creep can be spread by both Overlords and Creep Tumors from the Queen. The creep allows your units to move faster, and gives you sight.

Second we have the spawn Creep Tumor-ability. This will increase the range of the creep around your base. Creep is important for a zerg-player, as you get sight, and most zerg-units move quicker and regenerate health when on creep. The spawned Creep Tumor can then spawn new Tumors, giving you sight and a quick way to other places of the map. Always keep spreading the creep with Creep Tumors, and at least make sure you are connecting you bases together.

The last ability is Transfusion, which heals a friendly target. This is useful if you are using your Queens to fight, either to save other Queens, Spine Crawlers or other combat units. It can also heal up your buildings after you have been attacked, to make sure another attack aren’t able to take them down quickly.

Burrow

One of the abilites of all Zerg ground units is that they can burrow, after you have upgraded it. Burrow allows you to hide your forces, surprise the enemy and lay traps. Burrowed Banelings make terran-players shiver with fear. Some units, Roaches and Infestors, can actually move while burrowed, allowing you to go around or up to the enemy unnoticed. It can also save workers that are being harassed. If you have the resources, research burrow and use it.

Infestor

The Infestor is the Zerg unit with the most abilites. The three abilites, Fungal Growth, Terran Infestation and Neural Parasite, are all useful in most matchups. The Neural Parasite has to be researched, while you get the Fungal Growth and Terran Infestation as soon as you get Infestors. However, you need enough energy to use them.

Fungal Growth is an area of effect-ability that immobilizes the units and damages them. It is very useful when being harassed, or facing units that use hit and run-tactics. For melee units it’s deadly, as they are not able to attack anything that isn’t stationary close to them. It also reveals burrowed or cloaked units.

Fungal Growth: Fungal Growth allows your zerglings to get close to the units, and it damages them. The Infestor is a nice addition to any zerg army.

The Terran Infestation is used to spawn one Infested Terran. The Infested Terran lives for 30 seconds and can hit both ground and air. They are cheap, costing only 25 energy, which means an Infestor with full energy can spawn 8 Infested Terrans. This can turn a battle in your favor. Terran Infestation can also be used while the Infestor is burrowed, which means it’s very useful for harassment of workers or to make Siege Tanks shoot in the middle of their own forces.

The last ability is Neural Parasite. This means the unit will be yours for 30 seconds, or until the Infestor dies. This is mostly useful against smaller forces with a few heavy units like Siege Tank, Battlecruiser, Carrier, Colossus, Brood Lord or Ultralisk. Controlling such an unit for thirty seconds could turn the tide in your favor, but make sure you protect your Infestor. Most players will quickly target the Infestor if they know you have Neural Parasite.

Scouting as Zerg

Zerg has a lot of possibilites when it comes to scouting. Zerglings are fast and cheap, and can do a good job by just sitting outside the opponents base or by a Xel’Naga Tower. With burrow researched, you can burrow zerglings around the map and keep tabs on the enemy’s movement.

The second weapon of the zerg arsenal of scouting is the Overlords. You have to produce a lot of Overlords, and you can place these around the map to know what the enemy is doing. Early you might even scout the base with them, but make sure they are somewhat hidden when you start to see anti-air units around. Overlords are very slow if you don’t upgrade the speed.

Overlord for scouting: Using your first Overlord for scouting is an easy way to see what the enemy is up to. Just make sure to move away before the first marine is out.

Overlords can also be upgraded to an Overseer. An Overseer is a detector, and a very good scout. They move faster than Overlords, allowing them to sweep over the enemy base quickly. A common tactic for scouting in the early/mid-game is to have an Overlord outside the enemy base, then evolve it into an Overseer. Overseers can also spawn changelings, which is surprisingly uncommon to see. Changelings will camouflage itself into either a zergling, zealot or marine, based on the enemy’s race. The enemy will not see the difference without noticing he can’t move the unit. If you put the changeling on follow on his other basic units, you might be able to follow his movement for the lifespan of the changeling.

Harassing as Zerg

The two primary harassing units of Zerg is the Zergling and the Mutalisk. Both of these are able to take out a lot of workers if the enemy is unprepared or out of position. Running zerglings through the defenses of the enemy and into the base is called a run-by, and is very annoying for any race. Zerglings can also be used to attack exposed expansions.

The Mutalisk is the most important harassment-tool of Zerg. With Mutalisks in the air you are forcing the opponent to build defenses and turtle up in their base, giving you map control and the ability to pick off vulnerable targets like workers and Supply Depots.

Overlords with lings: Using overlords to drop zerglings inside the enemy base can do a lot of damage.

There are other ways to harass, like using Nydus Networks to get behind into the base, drops of Banelings and other units from Overlords and spawning Infested Terran with Infestors. Usually you will have to use some of these methods to harass the enemy, or just macro up a bigger army.

Rushing as Zerg

Zerg-rush is equal to Zergling-rush for most people. If you are going to rush, Zerglings usually have to be part of the plan. Zerglings with upgraded speed, Speedlings, are very powerful early in the game, especially against slow units. Zerglings will probably be your mineral-dump later on too, so early Speedlings for harassing and scouting is almost always a good idea. If you are playing against another Zerg, and want to avoid the Baneling and/or Mutalisk-play, you can also try to rush. In addition to Zerglings, use your scouting Drone to construct a Spine Crawler inside his base, and support with your Zerglings. If your opponent doesn’t respond quickly, this can with you the game.

Rushing mutalisks: Early mutalisks can kill workers and force your enemy to stay inside his base. Use them to kill anything that is not well protected.