I couldn't give a more apt title since this list of suggestions is fairly general, and while I know there are many suggestion threads, I intend to make this one have feasible changes, not some ramblings from a Zerg fanboi. First off, I feel that burrow at Lair is too late. It prevents the distinct Zerg ability from becoming widely used when Zerg are supposed to be 'feared' by 'appearing out of nowhere', at least by my understanding. I seem to remember reading that it was moved to tier 2 to avoid roach regeneration becoming overpowered. It certainly solves that problem, but it's the easy way of going about it which incidentally also prevents burrow to be widely used. In order to balance the roach, the increased regeneration could become a tier 2 ability just like spewing creep for the overlord. This way possibly more players would research burrow and the potential for early micro intensive tactics would open up (remember Boxer or whoever it was who messed around with zealots early on by burrowing/unburrowing)... in other words, not only would tier 1 burrow restore the distinct Zerg ability, but it would also contribute to the longevity of SC2. Secondly, I feel that the queen has too few uses, a notion which seems to be supported by many people (as well as the fake 1.1 patch if anyone had the opportunity to read the patch notes) by constantly wanting to automate larva injection, since that's about all she's used for. And as we're human players, we can't be expected to always inject larva from mid-game on, so the queen will end up with a pool of unused energy. I would like to see this pool made use of as well as make multiple/mass queens a possibility by creating a tier 2 upgrade for them to be able to move off of creep faster, with only the already existing global penalty. Again this would open up offensive queening via transfusion, for example, and would thus make ultralisks more useful and more often used in my opinion. These are the two things that I've been thinking about for a while now. These are rather big changes, but I feel that with nicely tweaked costs it would not tip the balance in any way, but would open up many more possibilities for Zerg. I don't expect any of this to actually get implemented, but I sure do like phantasising about the strategies these changes would make viable.
I would like these changes too myself. while faster movement of the creep it likely going a bit too far.. i don't think autocast is.
Actually, the reason burrow is a tier 2 tech is so ZvZ doesn't get ruined. If burrow was tier 1, then a Zerg player could research burrow ASAP and then burrow a drone in the opponent's natural, thus forcing the enemy to one base play until he gets his lair and an overseer. This wasn't a problem in SC1 because overlords were detectors. (And it's not a problem for other races because they are usually fine with staying on one base until they get robotics or orbital command) As for queens, they have plenty of use besides just spawn larva. They are excellent early anti-air, and if you have more than one per base, they can spam creep tumors to speed up your entire ground army or spam transfusion on other queens or base defenses to easily ward off small attacks.
Regarding burrow, that exploit could easily be fixed if expansions (hell, even your main) wasn't designed in such an artificial way. I still don't get the idea behind arranging resources like that - if they were a bit more scattered then you could shift the placement of your expansion slightly, thereby countering the burrowed unit block. As for queens, I said mid-game and later, where you don't have early air or are otherwise prepared for it. There's no reason to spam creep tumours since by mid-game the outskirts of your creep are so far away that I can guarantee you that you won't take your queens for walks for fear of not arriving back in time to inject right away. And transfusion is useless if you don't have damaged buildings/units. Which is why the upgrade would make them viable to support your army, especially ultras and brood lords.
i have a great idea!! what about if you could inject more larvae more than once on your hatchery.. so that if you kinda forgot it because you were in a battle and your queen had like 75 energy you could inject larvae 3 times in a row (instead of that 50 energy just being wasted) its just like terran can summon 3 mules at a time or protoss can use cronobost on 3 building at once (assuming they have the energy to do it) then zerg can inject larvae 3 times in a row! ^^ now that would be fair >:3
Wouldn't fix it. Expansions would still be blocked by 2-3 burrowed zerglings. Who says the enemy can't make 2-3 banshees and attack your mineral line while your army is off fighting elsewhere? You can move ultralisks and brood lords back to base to be healed, there's no rule stating that the queens must come to them.
I agree to the notion that burrow needs to be made available sooner. One way around previously mentioned issues is have some units learn burrow automatically while it would have to be researched for others. Not the best idea, but I think it's ridiculos to deny all units an upgrade early on just because of some issues with a few units.
Here's an idea that would fix both problems. 1. Zerg units begin the game with the ability to Burrow, ON CREEP ONLY. The Lair upgrade gives them the capacity to burrow anywhere. 2. Roaches start with REGULAR regeneration. Both Glial Reconstitution AND Tunneling Claws add 5 hp/sec to that, rather than just Tunneling Claws. If that was done, Zerg wouldn't be able to burrow-block each other, while creep and thus Queens would have greater importance. The second change is done to balance the Roaches accordingly, as super-regen on defense vs. Terran/Protoss and on offense vs. other Zerg in the early game would be OP.
That variant still rules out offensive use of the burrow. Meh it seems that the viability of cloked units against Zerg is more important than burrow (which I agree with, but I'm a bit sad nonetheless ). And moving back ultras and brood lords? Are we playing the same game? If you have the chance to move back lords you're already won. Ultras are slightly faster so maybe I can understand that (especially with worms). I still think a couple of queen spearheading an attack would look cool.
So perhaps that's another reason why Burrow is higher tier/cost, since in SC1, Drones and Ultras did NOT get Burrow.
I guess if you really wanted to heal your brood lords in battle, you can nydus a few queens over to them, and you would still have the nydus worm to reinforce your ground army.
I definitely like the free burrow on creep idea period by itself there's really nothing wrong with it that I can see, and it makes creep management much more important. On a side note drones could always burrow in sc1 as well, that never changed. Only unit that couldn't was the ultra Also I agree on the point of the 2 part roach regen. I also do however agree that burrow should be a tier 1 research option just because of what an integral part of the zerg it is.... I wonder if making the creep tumor a burrowed unit detector (kinda DOES make sense in a way), making the queen a detector, or making overlord detection researchable would be too op?
1. In SC1 Drones could burrow once the upgrade was researched. Only Ultraslisks could not burrow. Lurkers also had the ability ingrained and didn't need the research. 2. I always like the idea that the Queen would grow with the hatchery. Meaning she would upgrade once you got a Lair and again once you got a Hive. Maybe once you had a hive she would become a better unit able to move with a normal speed off Creep and spread creep in non-continuous areas (plant it off Creep, etc.) It would help Zerg in its campaign for map control late game which seems to be lacking (though it might roll over the Overlord a bit) 3. I'm almost certain allowing someone to have unlimited Queens with transfusion on a late-game battlefield would spell OP. Never-dying Ultras which are already tough to kill for T. I think we should be looking at better way to nerf Protoss rather than buff everyone else.
Two problems that aren't being addressed here: 1) I still maintain banelings are a MAJOR reason why implementing tier 1 burrow is difficult. It wouldn't be that difficult to utilize a baneling rush strategy where you simply burrow banelings into your opponent's resource line. Running the workers away doesn't help because your economy is still effectively crippled while they are out. If you send more than a few in at a time to mine, the opponent detonates the banelings. 2) Only allowing burrow on creep wouldn't stop expansion blocking. It would just increase the cost by 30 minerals, since you could just start a hatchery at their expansion, cancel it, and burrow on the temporary creep spot.
