Guess We're Doing a Heart of the Swarm Campaign Unit Tier List Now
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
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0:00 - Intro
1:02 - Swarm Queen
2:30 - Raptor Zergling
4:21 - Swarmling Zergling
6:17 - Splitter Baneling
7:25 - Hunter Baneling
8:23 - Corpser Roach
9:29 - Vile Roach
11:06 - Hydralisk
12:14 - Mutalisk
14:00 - Aberration
15:27 - Carrion Swarm Host
16:50 - Creeper Swarm Host
17:42 - Impailer
18:50 - Lurker
19:42 - Infestor
21:21 - Brood Lord
22:55 - Viper
24:00 - Noxious Ultralisk
26:16 - Torrasque Ultralisk
27:32 - Outro 
Игры
I think it's funny that Raptorlings do a fantastic job of highlighting the strengths of zerglings while Swarmlings do a fantastic job of highlighting the weaknesses of zerglings.
I get swarmlings for one reason. Bamelings
The funny thing is that I suspect if you could bring these into multiplayer, Raptorlings and Swarmlings would be roughly similar in power level.
Obviously Raptorlings jumping up cliffs would be super good, of course--Terrans would need bunkers in their mineral lines or need to wall off the reaper jump in spots. But swarmlings starting with movespeed and hatching in two seconds would have absurd defence potential, where you could literally drone until you see an army and maybe still defend anyway by morphing swarmlings at the last second. Not to mention hatching in 2 seconds and starting with movement speed would make early pool attacks hit like...comically early.
But in the campaign...yeah, it's just a long list of campaign specific stuff that makes Raptorlings+Attack Speed just the default choice. Every Kerrigan ability that interacts with zerglings interacts way better with Raptorlings. And the campaign is a lot less timing based than multiplayer--you can't zergling rush the campaign missions, and the campaign missions don't really cheese you.
@@KaitlynBurnellMath Well of course the Swarmlings would be reasonably good in pvp, because then you don't have to compare them to Raptorlings, you only need to compare them to regular Zerglings.
But yeah, I agree with all of your points. The only detriment to Swarmlings is that they fail to improve an army over regular Zerglings in terms of supply, especially notable when using a 200/200 army in the campaign. But in pvp, you aren't limited by power per supply like you are in the campaign, rather you are limited by time and money, while supply is more there to limit late game army size (so the game runs well) and add skill expression to macro in the early game.
I like to watch sc2 “lets plays” as i go to sleep and almost every time i see people choose swarmlings and my heart bleeds a little
Me, who has 0 micro and cannot remember to use abilities:
Infestor is E tier
this is basically me
Had same issue but then figured it out: I just slowed the game to snail's speed
The ability to steal your enemies shit was S tier even to me when I was a dumb kid who didn't understand micro
@@FiftyStates5 it's always been, remember playing C&C RA2 and capturing every building possible with engineers, SC:BW and mindcontrolling enough enemy units with dark archons that it was virtually impossible to move, then SC2 WOL and spamming hive mind emulator as soon as I got it. It's just so satisfying to turn enemy units against him
The fact that you have to micro an army with all the little abilities on top of kerrigan should knock down the viper and investor a tier
Only disagreement is Vile Roach should be at least A tier. It makes is so things like Thors/Colossus/Archon can attack only once, maybe twice in an engagement. Its SO much better than the Corpser. The amount of tanking from the roachlings is not even close to the damage reduction of the vile roach.
I would agree if there were more than a single protoss enemy in the second half of the game. It hard counters protoss in a campaign full of ZvT
@@GiantGrantGamesArchives it not having aoe or range makes it weaker than he marauder, filling a similar role im guessing, correct?
@@snowdrop9810 Also terrans need to keep scary stuff away from their fragile army while zerg are much more effective at attacking and melting enemies in melee, so vile roaches are just not doing anything noticable in most situations except tier3 ground units or protoss.
@@snowdrop9810 Marauders only slow movement, not attack speed. I tested it, a vile roach will kill a marauder 1v1. I think a hammer sec too.
While I agree that the vile roach`s ability is way better than the corpser, I do not think that it is overpowered "enough" to get to the A tier.
Don`t get me wrong; a 75% decrease is absurd, and 20% to heroic is no joke too.
But the problem is that the single-target ability lacks general utility. Even if you mass vile roaches, you cannot debuff the entire enemy army UNLESS you micro your roaches intensively and individually. But such maneuvers are difficult for most of us casual players, and the short attack range doesn`t help either. So usually, you see your 20-30 roaches only affecting 4-5 enemy units in combat.
And that`s why the WOL campaign marauder`s AOE slow can easily go to the A-tier, while this one(though way better) cannot. It`s far easier to slow 10 zerglings with 1 marauder than to slow 5 thors with 10 viles.
Ah the Tarrasque, it's basically "What if Ultralisk, but even more durability."
What if ultralisk had an ultralisk
@@gorkemaykut5230 Yo dawg i herd you like ultralisks so i put a ultralisk in your ultralisk so you can ultralisk while you ultralisk.
so what if we put more ultralisk to your ultralisk
ultralisk doesn't even feel like a word anymore
Double my ultralisk and give it to the next person
Grant could do a playthrough of each campaign using only C and D tier units. It would be sooo good...
Haha mass firebats gonna brrr
“Can you beat SC2 with only the worst units?” Beating WoL, HotS, and LotV with only D-tier units. Could use a mod that gave him access to all D-tier units (but only those units) from the start of each campaign. Would be a fun challenge.
It would have the same chaotic energy as the randomizers, but still allow for any form of strategy whatsoever. I approve.
*on brutal
Pretty easy, most mutations are useable. So even with the worse alternative you're not really in any trouble
On Vile Roaches: In the last few seconds of any engagement, Thors and Bunkers get - effectively - stunned.
On Hydras: They're Queens but with less bulk. I always take the range upgrade to keep 'em out of harm's way. Works well against air or thors.
Aberration: It's your Ultralisk before Korhal, exactly.
Heart of the Swarm campaign has a lot of great units, especially with the evolutions, but it's a shame that we don't get to use kinda half of them before half of the campaign. if all the units would unlock earlier, we could just have more options to use them in the campaign overall. evolution missions should be available right after we get a unit, it would be cool if we could use Impalers on the Crucible for example
It certainly doesnt help that Heart of the Swarm has far less missions than Wings of Liberty. If there was like 5-6 more missions on Heart of the Swarm to use your more interesting units on it would be alot better.
@@TheTriforceDragon Yeah, I think it would be better than WoL if it had more missions. It's a great campaign with a lot of fun ideas.
@@dankwarmouse6248 Yeah, for example having two extra worlds and those Queen invasion missions would have been great.
Also same thing with the taldarim mothership in legacy of the void. It’s a cool unit you can only use on like 3-4 missions. At least you have it in coop lol.
@@yonokhanman654 I think the way to do it would have been to have a small sequence when Kerrigan start her assault on the Dominion where she sends Zagara and Dehaka off to hit important dominion targets, similar to what we hear the other queens do and then have some missions just as Zagara / Dehaka. It allows you to do stuff you can't with Kerrigan due to her power and allows you to get some additional characterisation for those two.
One idea for a mission I had would have been Kerrigan learning that Mengsk is using a Psylure to gather a feral queen's Zerg in one place so he can wipe them out with nukes.
Kerrigan then sends Dehaka and his brood, since they will be immune to the lures effect as they are primal Zerg and you have a mission which is about destroying the Psylure, playing around the constant Zerg forces gathering near it location and utilising them by destroying Dominion defences to let the other Zerg forces wash through the base and distract enemies, allowing you to push forward.
This would obviously be on a timer before Mengsk nukes the entire place.
The thing with Gassy Ultras is that they're good against melee units, because they have a tendency to surround the Ultra, and bulky/decently durable units like Archon and Roaches, where the DoT can rack up a decent amount of damage before the unit dies, especially if the Ultra can get in the middle of the army.
By the time you get Gassy Ultras, you're only fighting against Terran, and Terran has neither of those things. You can make the argument that it can do a number to Mech but Mech units, aside from Thors, isn't that durable to begin with, and Siege Tanks kind of murders Ultras real well.
Stinkylisks are good against smaller guys, I could see them being massed against zerg or a few against protoss but terran just shoot them from the other side of the map
Marimes get murdered even by the base Ultra, so that's a minus for the Stinkylisks.
Though I wonder, does the Tissue Assimilation mutation (lifesteal) work with the Stinkylisks?
@@amplesstratleholm7609 The lifesteal works on the regular attacks but not on the smell.
Also isnt gas armor-piercing
i think it would slaughter in zvz or pvz but zvt is just a ton of ranged vs a swarm of units. also free ultra will easily top an ultra with a little more aoe damage. free ultras are just too damn good.
Creeper swarmhosts have one niche mission where they're 'ok'. On Infestation, I use them to defend the virophages.
They can also be used as a rapid response squad in planetfall, but they aren't necessary as long as you put other defenses in place.
Yeah, I've used them there too. There is a certain fun factor at having about 15 just POP out of the ground
I used them for the last mission to burrow to the entrenched nydus worms. I did it because I thought it would be nice to actually use them for something.
Impaler is one of my favorite units here. I'm a Terran fan and the Impaler is very nearly a biological burrowing siege tank.
11:03 i have never had these problems with the Hydralisk on Brutal. The Adrenal Surge ability, i think is what it is called, combined with the Kerrigan ability, gives Hydralisks such a stupidly high DPS that they take out things WAAAAAY above their weight class, tearing through them like they're made of paper (Thors, Tanks, Hellbats, Battlecruisers, Immortals, Archons, Hybrid, etc), and also very nicely solves their problem of not being very durable. The DPS you get per supply when they are fully-buffed im pretty sure is _the most_ by a very very large margin in the entirety of HOTS outside of Kerrigan. Even splash damage from Banes or Lurkers probably doesn't really compete, although Ultras might. As far as doing damage goes, nothing else really comes even close to competing with it (again, outside of Kerrigan).
Hydra with frenzy+wild mutation+malignant creep+upgrades is what primal crack looks like
@@shinyespeon3995 Been there, done that. You could give marines triple stim and Hydras would still be better.
I really like the symmetry of your finished list, that is very pleasing.
Literally the entire tier list is "Brutal breaks this unit for X reason". It's damn sad.
Hard and below is already pretty easy, imo, you can make pretty much anything and it will work. If you have a decent macro, brutal is the only campaign that has any challenge
From what I have been told, brutal damage modifier was added last minute because the campaign was far too easy. It wasn't well tested and as a result really messed things up.
@@GiantGrantGamesArchives That makes sense. Kerrigan is absurd, as demonstrated in no production.
@@GiantGrantGamesArchives No pressure, but HotS, nightmare edition is a must. Sooner or later. Sooner or later.
I'm confused about something: at the end of the Vile Roach segment you said "It doesn't have a huge impact", but a minute earlier you said their bile is "a huge drastic decrease in enemy power". Personally I'd rank the Vile Roaches A tier because, as you said, you don't need to mass them, just make sure you always have a handful in your army for them to have an impact.
Yeah. They are a support unit. High value with diminishing returns. The enemy attach speed debuff is worth it in most situations.
I phrased poorly. They don't have a huge impact against the enemy army as a whole, but can be very good at disabling select targets inside of that army. Its very powerful for sure but I don't think I can give A tier because of how they tend to melt in the later stages of the campaign without connecting with their targets. The second half of the campaign is dominated by things the vile roach isn't able to deal with. Dusk wings, Battlecruisers, and Siege Tanks reign supreme and the roach gets crushed by all of those.
@@GiantGrantGamesArchives I see. Then with this explanation in mind, I believe they deserve B tier because there's not a lot of missions they can be useful in. It has been a while since I've played SC2 so I forgot they're not very good late in the campaign. However, once Brutal+ is released publicly, I am very much interested in playing SC2 again with your launcher.
@@GiantGrantGamesArchives But if in that case, shouldn't Corpser get a tier down on it? It's strange to see that it gets complained about being target fire prioity, facing similar problem with all roaches have, the fact it require unit dead within certain time stamp to spawn only two heavy broodling almost already render it only viable agaist zerg(which is early-mid game stuff) or some zealot heavy early-toss, while Vile having it's sprinkle worth even when facing the hybrid.
@@desmondgray2717 well, corpsers are also good en-mass against Terran infantry, but I see where you're going
Every time that I watch Grant's videos and hear him explain the technical details of a game's units, mechanics, and their interactions I feel like a lightbulb turns on in my head as my whole worldview changes. It's so interesting to have these things be pulled apart and examined beneath the surface level of understanding that I tend to content myself with.
I love this format of video, not many people have your insight on the campaign and all of it's units especially in what scenarios you've had to use them in. Hoping you're going for a LoTV one next cuz I'm excited to see it!
if for some reason you dont want to use zerglings, the swarmling can at least work for baneling fodder. The quick spawn means that you can easily defend an attack wave if you can buy 10 seconds to morph them, and the swarmlings themselves can but that time. But yeah, they suck.
As for the hydras, i think they are pretty good as anti air in mend kerrygan comps. They dont excell but they are hardly outclassed by anything except maybe the viper once you can mend the hydras back to full
For me, swarmlings were basically a means to getting more banelings, lol. Yeah they make decent emergency defenders too, but the real reason I wanted them was to pop out more banelings, who I took the leaping mutation for to compensate for not having raptorlings, and let them go hog wild. They proved extra useful against the Hybrids in the Stukov missions where they can just jump over whatever terrans are in the way and explode en masse on a hybrid and kill it instantly.
The Reckoning is so much fun with Infestors. I'd build a group of eight Infestors with Kerrigan following them around with mend. Because her mend ability doesn't affect mind-controlled Terran units, I need to make sure I don't do as much damage on a group while I work my way towards mind-controlling the heavy-hitter mercenaries.
I have a saved game where I have 50 Sky Furies, 8 Pride of Augustgrads, 15 Shock Divisions, and 10 Blackhammers. The hero Vikings alone can assault Mengsk's palace and clear it out.
"I used the Dominion to destroy the Dominion"
@@badopinionssquid1735 Pretty much!
I really LOVE these tier lists :)
i actually thought specifically because the hunter Banes dont connect they are stronger. they leap into armies and occupy all units with running away, meaning your enemy cannot attack. that makes it possible to preserve some squishy hydras for example, so they can deal a ton of dps to practically stunned units
The one mission where I did get good use out of the teleporting Swarm Host was planetfall, where you have to defend all the bile launchers, they're all covered in creep, and you can see the attack waves coming, but I've never played that mission on Brutal.
how many of them did you lose?
I suppose that you used the AA mutation, meaning that your shrooms were sticking out
I have a soft spot for the Creeper Swarm Host. The teleport ability is actually really useful for a, erm, creeping siege, since you can just reposition the swarm hosts closer to the enemy defenses immediately, and being able to teleport around the map really helps on missions (particularly the final one in the campaign) where you need to switch your attention from one side of the map to another.
Its slow as balls, don't get me wrong, and not everyone's idea of fun, but if you go Mass Creeper Swarm Hosts and get enough of a count of them, eventually you kinda just win. Kerrigan tanks on defense, you can retreat from one side of the map to the other in an instant if needed, and once you get a large number of them, you just let them whittle away at the enemy until they're all dead...
I love the aberration a lot and wish it got some more love in the campaign. Some mutations to pick from would have been cool like something along the lines of
1. On death they spawn to banelings
2. They offer damage reduction to units under them
3. I couldn't think of a third so maybe lifesteal but actually good
I think a flat out health increase or armor increase could be cool. Also don't they already do the damage reduction or was that a coop thing only?
I really like the creeper swarmhosts. I know they arent great, but having mobile creep colonies are nice. I think I would have preferred the creeper swarmhosts to just be nydus worms tho.
I think there's an unused Nydus Worm-type structure in the editor that spews creep in massive area.
This has been so informative! I can barely even beat the second easiest difficulty and now I have some good ideas why I can’t bear hard, and also HOW to beat hard.
Thanks!
I usually don't care about tier lists at all but the insight into why you think the units go where you put them makes these videos very enjoyable. I'm sure you were going to anyway, but here's my vote for wanting a Legacy of the Void tier list as well
Most tier lists are lazy and sloppy. Grant just does it proper justice, like TierZoo
Would love to see more of these for LOTV and NCO. (And possible the SC1 campaigns too if you still need more videos :P)
Thanks for the content as always
Thanks for these kind of videos.
What I really like about both roach evolution is you can virtually add a handful if them to pretty much any composition, because their effect apply regardless of their number.
Swarmlings and Splitter Banelings are S tier for quick cheap base defense or offense. Also, Carrion Swarm host should be a at least a B, its good for attacking at a safe distance or scouting.
Those tier lists are REALLY REALLY good.
Well, especially with Zerg, I would have liked to the defensive structures too
I remember using Creeper Swarm Host with air/ground mutation but on hard difficulty on MASS. Their ability to push the front line and then protect was very good.
But you needed an army of them
I love how grant mentioned the ratling where you wild mutation some raptorlings and watch the absolute carnage
but he missed malignant creep for the bonus 30percent bonus attack speed
only now noticed that ratlings from Warhammer are a pun
As he pointed out with the queen though, the AI clears creep too efficiently to make creep practical for combat in a lot of situations.
Malignant creep+wild mutation+that one mutation that increases attack speed+raptor+all upgrades is just funny.
Fucking chainsawlings wiping out bases in seconds
@@quickdraw6893 What. The AI sucks at clearing creep. _Especially_ with the extra range on creep. And if you put creep literally on the attack path with detectors, that is a YOU problem.
@@clemenscohn7371 The AI sends detection along frequently with their waves, and you're gonna have a lot of gaps in your creep if you try to keep the tumors far from the attack paths, even with the added range.
This isn't just my word, Grant literally talks about it in the video.
Creeper swarm hosts are really nice in the infestation Skygeirt mission, you push with infested and tunnel to wherever you need to defend
Hunter bane should have the same tracking that raptors have on their attack, landing the attack AS PART of the jump, not after it. It's a tiny change, but similar to removing the delay on the firebat's attack, it would make all the difference.
I was doing a HOTS run on hard where I was trying out stuff that usually don't do, in the last mission I used swarm hosts only with teleporting variant and the attack air and ground mutation, and was surprised at how efficient it was, it took about an hour but I took very little casualties and ended the mission with something like 21k minerals and ungodly amount of gas as I never needed to replace my army, whenever my base or Raynor got attacked I just teleported my hole army ro defend and then back to attack, it does require you keep attacking constantly and make sure the creep is spreading all over, but I really liked it.
I do like those jumping bainlings a lot more than the splitting ones. In the combo with the raptorlings, which surround and hold your enemies in place, it is really powerfull. I do thing that this is the thought behind this unit. Get through your own blocking zerlings and into the enemy.
The pathing is atrocious against moving units for jumplings. Splitting ones guarantee hits and do more damage.
@@andybogdan4380 I disagree. I heard the same thing spoken from the video and I just disagree. I have just completed the campaign on brutal and, while it's true that sometimes it has to jump several times (I agree the IA is messy), i dont agree that the splitting ones guarantee hits more than the jumping one. The splitter has to still get to the target, and unless you are walking on creep they still can be targetted with splash damage, the splitted variants do in general very little damage, unless is single target + evolution. With the jumping banes you can strom really quickly a base and they are phenomenal in my opinion, leaving that "doesn't connect" a problem that hardly happens ( again, you will face some situations where they jump several times, but is not as horrible as you depict it) . Also allowing to jump over terrain has very nice uses that are not mentioned whatsoever
looooove these tier lists. Thanks GGG.
Might seem crazy and you havent played it in a while but what about a series or tier lists for Warcraft? Would give you more videos to put out, ya know? ;)
There´s also the fact that the Queen moves at re4duced speed once it´s off the Creep, severely hampering its role as healer because it cannot be at the front where the units get injured.
But it´s also the very first anti-air unit the player gets.
Circle with r=6 has 113,1 squares of whatever you use, cirlce of 9 has 254,47 squares. So you are correct, more than twice the area.
Brood Lords are shockingly inefficient because they don´t shoot directly and instead launch little ceratures that land and attack on the ground.
now i wanna see a video of grant going through every HotS mission with only torrasques
Can't wait for the hybrid tier list!
Well, this makes me think that spellcasters do make a big difference. Usually I dont use them as zerg because you have to control Kerrigan and you also have too many units if you want to micro
I don't know how useful the ability actually is, but you didn't mention that Creeper Swarm Hosts generate creep arround them while burrowed, so it is possible to use them as mobile creep tumors. It might be used to quickly make a battle line or something like that.
Hey Grant, awesome video 😎 just wanted to add that the Noxious Ultra also has a small AoE dot around it 😁 its not gonna really change much, but does mean that you don't need Monarch Blades on them so you can take Burrow Charge
Regardless, awesome video, and it gives me some more thought for subsequent Brutal HOTS runs 😃
Love the tier list, can u do one for LOTV units?
I've finished all of HotS on brutal(I only have two LotV epilogue to go for all brutal). In almost every mission, I was pretty successful with my creep spread.
The thing to note is that creep in the middle doesn't die, they only die from the edge in. So if you spread it very wide and the enemy only clear the ones they encounter in the middle, the creep stays even if the tumor dies. I always have tumors along the edge of the map as I spread so in most missions, it doesn't really matter if they clear on incoming wave or not.
Now, I'm a very slow and methodical player. Barring the few mission with time constricts one way or another, I tend to advance slowly and securely. So my creep have more time to develop than normal.
It is also worth noting that unlike melee, the tumor doesn't cost energy, so I just drop them pretty much on cd, which is the same cd as the tumor spread so whenever I spread, I drop a new round because why not. I don't quite do it on cd, because my micro isn't that good, but when I do spread, there is like 20-40 of them being spread by mid game(well, mid game for me). I don't even try to make them optimal or anything, I just go EVERYWHERE.
Ofc, my preferred perk on the relevant tier is the tumor/creep perk, that also help a lot.
can't wait for you to go through three versions of each unit for lotv lol
The most broken thing about infestors is that the neural parasite targets don't cost you supply. So if you really want to, you can have a 1000 supply army. Any mission that doesn't have a time constrict, you can just bunker down, spend half your supply on them and just steal almost the entirety of every enemy attack wave. Save them up and repeat. Once you have more units than you can ever hope to manage, A move, done.
Especially good against terran, grab a couple science vessel and medic and the super mega army can be all topped off to boot.
Must be some quality weed the devs were smoking.
I generally don't like caster units, because my micro is meh. But these are just busted.
I think the tunnel host slept on ability is that it gets creep, meaning if you take the faster creep spread Kerrigan ability, mix one in with your attack force and have a queen drop a tumor just before your push, you'll get the attack speed increase from the creep and they won't be able to replace any buildings until they clear out the creep. Probably too situational to raise it's rank, but an interesting theorycraft.
You were pretty close with estimating lurker's and impaler's area of range, it's ~114 vs. ~254
I think the attack on the viper is there to make it more a move friendly and keep it from running into enemies
A great video as always, Grant. In general, I totally agree with your list; especially the higher(S and A) ones.
In particular, I was glad to see that you too appreciate the value of the aberrations. Some people may see them as a discount ultra, but actually they are on par with(or better than) ultras in all aspects. Compared to ultras, abberations deal way more damage, cost less gas, and they do not suffer from being stuck with your other units.
And I think that this tier would still hold true, even in lower difficulties than brutal. Sure, some of the lower units may be more viable without the 125% damage modifier. But then again, it also means that the higher units will also perform even better.
On a personal note, I would put the corpser strain roach and the swarmling in lower tiers respectively.
Though the roachlings do have value as a free tanking unit, I don`t think they are 'as useful as' the other B-tier units(queen`s heals, vile`s debuff, and the sheer specs of the two tankers.)
As for the swarmlings, I think that they really don`t provide decent advantages as a unit strain. They are just normal zerglings that are created faster. A swarmling is slightly cheaper than a normal one(16.7 vs 25), but it doesn`t really matter much. Meanwhile the raptor is just superior, in terms of both damage AND mobility. I cannot find any situation in which swarmlings perform better than raptors. The only possible case, is if you build zerglings just so that you can morph them into banelings. Yet still, it is usually way better to use that morphing resources to make other sustainable units.
The impaler is actually based off the Sunken Colonies of Starcraft 1. I thought that was a funny tidbit.
I love swarmlings for urgent base defense. Forgot to leave any units at base and a enemy attack wave is 5 seconds away? Pump 50 swarmlings in like 3 seconds and either defend fully or stall for you main army to come back. Easy peasy, and I don't tend to use zerglings in my main army anyway except as mineral dumps.
You gotta feel for those muffin bois. They look like such derps, and they are!
Thanks for reminding me of the time I just build like 11 torrasques on the last mission and just ignored the air enemies until I got through most of the map when I remembered that they don't shoot air. Fun times.
I think Swarm Queens are actually pretty solid, like maybe A-Tier just as companion pieces to the Torrasque, but I guess you really only have Torrasque unlocked for 2 missions, so it’s not enough to bump them up.
I never really used the Impaler/Lurker, mostly because I'm too lazy to bother redeploying them when I get them into position. Infestors, on the other hand, I always have a couple of and take as many of the enemy's best units as possible.
For the swarm hosts I just pick creeper strain not for the burrow but for the fast creep spread for malignant creep buff so I only use one of them XD
ironically enough, I tend to stop using the Swarm Queen right about the time Zagara joins my squad.
Generally agree! Only two i dont:
Vile (purple) roach: I think you undervalued these. Their effect is so strong it may as well be a stun. In addition to not needing to focus on casting an ability (like frenzy hydra). Theyre definitely A or maybe S.
Creeper (purple) host: I dont think theyre crazy good, but theyre great for easy defense that takes low effort. Build like 4-6 of them, put all in the same control group and drop them at one entrance. Brutal enemy will attack from lots of different angles. These are an instant response force that at worst can delay until you bring back your mutas or whatever your main army is out doing. Id probably put them in B.
That math was very accurate Grant! it's 2.25 which is an engineers 3 and a physicists 2.5
Tbh, the flying swarm host thingy can have anti air if you choose. Basically clears the entire Map if you get 12-15.
ive seen swarm hosts used really well in MP alongside nydus worms to attack from everywhere, but in single player they use so much space and just cant really do much but pick at stuff.
With how many surplus minerals are available, i really like to go with a steady supply of extra hp swarmlings as a meatshield and go for extra range hydras for dps density. This might not be a good strategy according to this list but hots was by far the easiest on brutal anyway imo. Not that I mind, I think it helped ensure aggressive play was viable for all skill levels. I think swarmlings could get bumped up one purely for how easy they make the kerrigan evolution mission
Swarmling is good for getting to many banelings, can understand if you like raptor, just cause it's better of the two, but if you just use em a stepping stones to baneling just get swarmling
I did hots brutal all achievements because of the corpser roach they are so powerful cause u can snow ball fight and clear ennemy base really fast/ezaly and its really good with aberation and hydralisk
I do like the swarmling for the occasions when my army dies but a quick reinforcement helps finish off the mostly dead base where otherwise they would rebuild
Also faster constructed and cheaper banes and also your stated point of fast emergency defense. Always felt lings fall off pretty early and hard anyway so that niche is all I use them for, while the superior on paper raptors just never get built.
Noxious operates on the same principle of dead things don’t do DPS so survivability not needed, ultras tank enough and hardly die as is but yeah complete immortality is just broken in case you want to faceroll but only at after an hour of collecting resources and they move and kill things at a snails pace. Not gonna lie by this point in the campaign I’m into face rolling things so go for torrasque anyway
I use a single creeper host with a swarm queen and malignant creep to provide mobile creep placement, as the overlord cant, and sometimes I need creep to take a fight, thats the use of the creeper. a source of creep for tumors..not great, but better the alternitive
One thing about swarmling you left out is that if you’re only making lings to turn them into banelings it could be good for that. Early game raptor wins hands down, but if you want a bunch of banelings to push into a base and you aren’t really using zerglings, swarmlings could be viable.
I always think of Impalers as Zerg Siege Tanks
I just finished heart of the swarm on brutal and i found the brood lord to be quite good. I would do a squad of 6 to 10 of them and the rest would be ultras and hydras that way I would just use the brood lords to siege since they do insane damage and the ai really likes prioritizing killing brood lings to the brood lords.
The mission where you control stukov is a great one for them since they just destroy hybrids as well as the last mission they are pretty good at slowly pushing through with minimal casualties. Just make sure to stutter step back if they take aggro so they don't die and the enemies come into your kerrigan and your main army and after a few rounds of hits you can easily come through with he rest of your army after the tanks are gone and the hybrids are gone.
Other then that i kind of agree that hydras are not great but i have to say what makes them a tier for me is the fact that there is simply no unit that can attack air other then them, mutas and tjmhe swarm host version (unless you went vipers)
The Swarmhost are bad and the mutas need to be micro since they are swift air they can tend to just suicide if you are not looking or just paying attention to what is happening. Hydralisk on the other end are just great behind torasque which for me bumped them up a lot at the end. I could also say that swarmlings with extra hp can be good as a mineral dump to tank so i do think they could somewhat be a little higher but at the same time I am not sure I would say they deserve to be ranked 1 under then raptorlings considering how much worse they are.
I personally like using the Overlords to fly around with my Infestors to consume in order to give them a purpose other than just providing supply
I think this took longer because of the mutations, so while there are less total units, there is more to talk about with each one. and also the opportunity cost of picking one evolution over another, which WoL doesnt have with its units
Research units?
Y'know, [Rave]ns and Science Vessels, Predators and Hercules'seses
@@The-jy3yq true, but thats literally 2, rather than the majority of the units HotS has. and predators are useless while hercules isnt, so nothing really to talk about there
you can use the Tarrasque every misson!
there are onlt two missons left by the time you get it!
was kinda surprised not to see the vile roaches in S or if I'm being thoughtful instead of reactive a very strong A: they are effectively a dirt cheap caster that never runs out of energy and completely changes the fight pretty much any time there is something on the ground for them to hit, they aren't _quite_ broken since they don't reach everything and don't do anything like automatically targeting non-slimed units but they are incredibly strong and they are with you and doing work for most of the campaign instead of being something overtly broken you get towards the end of your power creep.
they are a straight up good unit that makes all the rest of your units and your force as a whole much better by way of just straight up keeping your stuff alive. survivability snowballs in any rts and these guys go a loooooooong way towards making that happen.
Another knock against the Corpser strain is that the little roaches fill a role that is pretty saturated by Zerg. If you want little melee dudes that pathblock and harass enemy forces, get brood lords or zerglings. Either will do more damage than the little roaches, or draw aggro, or both. I felt like the little roaches just get in the way of stuff that I actually want to be hitting the enemy.
I think swarmlings are pretty good if you want play some baneling composition, because, they you will get them faster (and aren’t raptorlings and swarmlings same prize for cocoon? - in that case banes will be somewhat cheaper)
I haven't tried brutal, so that's an important distinction. But I actually prefer the hunter baneling. That bounce onto stationary defenses rips them apart in to time flat. I tend to go swarming hunter banelings so I can crank out banelings quickly. I run them in right after sending a distraction force, then bounce banelings on all the bunkers, cannons etc
I preffered them too, but now that he explained their behaviour - it makes perfect sense.
I didn't remember it because last playthrough was not on brutal but with specialist achievement hunting and hunter banelings were awesome there.
@@VK-sz4it I think with how I used them I never noticed the missing jumps : I didn't use them against troops that were fast enough to dodge them. Siege Tanks and bunkers, well known for their mobility.
@@edschramm6757 You can see them missing jumps in some of his streams. There was a classic moment in one of them on the Niadra mission, where they just bounced like basketballs after a high templar without ever connecting.
The swarm host made his comeback in nightmare difficulty
Attack waves with infestors is basically free real estate
That's a nice video, especially when playing wol Zerg edition, because All In in brutal is absurd without siege tanks and mercenaries. What do you actually suggest using there? I only can get up to 75% before I get overwhelmed with Ultras, where Lurkers don't cut it anymore, and if you go Broodlords the Hydras just run up to you. I don't think you can field enough Ultras to be effective. I think you have too many Zerg against you to actually use Impailers effectively. I do intend to try Infestors at some point if I can't win this, but I have to wait for Ultras to pop up for maximum effectiveness, not much use vs the constant Zergling streams...
You get a Tarrasque! You get a Tarrasque! EVERYBODY GET A TARRASQUE!
I’m thinking of making a tier list for Lego battles units. Is there a way to add explanations in tier maker for why things get their place?
I have always thought that the corpser roach is really just a poor zergling replacement unit
We should have been able to switch the evolutions since it kind of fits the zerg style, being able to adapt rapidly.
Grant talking about the Lurkers:
*9 is huge*
_6 is not_
69
I do feel like that hydras should have been bumped up a few tiers, for the simple reason that they are one of the far too few anti-air units available
I think massing creeper swarm host is legit way to win last missions on brutal. If you have enough of them you launch locusts. Then when locust fight, they tank whatever and you can move swarmhosts forward without unburrowing. Next wave will have more range.
I cleared most of the Brutal missions by using Raptor Zerglings + Wild Mutation - just before hitting a heavily fortified ramp, just click on top of Kerrigan so that all of your zerglings smoosh together, Wild Mutate and then F2 A Move into the AI base and watch it melt. I broke most of the missions by using zerglings to just cripple or destroy enemy bases so I didn't have to worry about doing the mission properly. For missions with more enemy air units, I just get 12-14 Hydralisks in the wild mutation and Shift attack queue all their air units while the zerglings go nuts.
I really think raptor zerglings are S tier - using zergling constitution, you can just have constant pressure with high damage zerglings - so if a base push fails, the constant flow of zerglings can help prevent the AI from resetting their defenses without it costing you anything.
I personally don't use banelings; and yes, I know they are stupidly good at breaking almost any type of fortification; but I hate using suicide units - in any game that I've played. I just don't like investing resources into a unit that can only be used once. It hurts my soul xD
what is the best anti-air for zerg in hots? they dont seem to have many options.
You should prioritise units left and right as well within each tier
I think a lot of units, muta, infestor, viper, baneling are rated much lower personally. Not because they aren't insane units, but because the hots campaign is so easy. There is no mission in hots that are hard enough to not just a move through in which case the only concern I have when building an army is how few buttons I need to press to win and how fast I win. For this Hydra + something to tank is amazing! ...or it's kinda bad but kerrigan takes down all the scary units anyways and just need something to clear out the stragglers afterwards
I just want to say that creeper host with malig creep is fun. Maybe not good but still fun. I should also say that they spread creep.
Hunter banelings can actually disrupt the enemy's attack pattern on brutal. Of course you would need a bunch of them to do this because the AI is deathly afraid of one but logarithmically would be the best way to describe it; essentially you scare the shit out of the AI until a certain point and an extra one doesn't scare it anymore than before.
Although Spliters seems to actually heal you if you take that mutation. I can't figure out how much but if a bunch of them dives through ur abombs it fully heals ur them. I guess that's why they used an abomb in that mutation's video.
Swarmling does one thing MUCH better then Raptorling: Zergling Reconstitution. Because, yes, they DO scale up the respawn rate for them! Base 10 respawnlings becomes 15 'lings every thirty seconds. Let's brute force the math here.
Seconds:Raptors:Swarmlings.
30:10:15
60:20:30
90:30:45
120:40:60
150:50:75
180:60:90
3 minutes in, and you're already a hypothetical 30 'lings ahead. And the disparity only continues to grow. HOWEVER, I now need to justify the sacrifice to you're dps.
Three words my friend: meatshields, economy, suicide(-charges. Shaddup).
Combined with Zergling Reconstitution, Swarmlings become infinite fodder for the grinder! Sure they get chewed up like papermache, but by the time the fight is over you're liable to have already respawned at least half of them, so not money out of you're pocket, AND the time they spent die-ing was time other stuff WASN'T. Which means you spend less on replacing stuff you care about, and practically NOTHING on meatshields! The more they die, the cheaper they get!
And it's not like they deal NO damage. I once cleared the entire first Zerus map by just chucking the same batch of swarmlings at them again, and again, and again! It was hilarious. And an excellent demonstration on how to get the pop you spent on them back. It's not like they mind chilling out in the respawning pool until somezergy else kicks the bucket and they can hop back into the grinder once, twice, or infinite times more!
Anyway this definitely comes with two major caveats:
First, this is not a mathed out, super optimal strategy. It's a fun way to use zerglings without worrying about getting the most out of them. Nothing feels quite so "zerg" as a-moving 30~60 zerglings into a fortified position, then again, and again, until you've either whittled them into oblivion or finished building you're ACTUAL core to finish the job proper!
*Cough*, anyway, the second is...
You HAVE to take Zergling Constitution. Because without the ability to respawn for free, at such a rapid rate, Swarmlings really just can't compete with Raptors in a meaningful way.
...Actually, on the flip side, does anyone else feel that Reconstitution feels kinda weak when it isn't swarmlings? Sure, in theory it's still free 'lings to chuck at a problem, but... ok, who averages 10 minutes or less on most build mission?
600:200:300
Brick joke and 100 extra zerg!
26:23 grant over here with 300 supply of ultra