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I didn't find a carbot animation about Zagara, so i made this after Carbot Animations, (click on the link to watch the baneling video)
Zagara, is a queen the rules supreme, playing her in co-op is like touching smooth silky velour. She has a way of having very simple and elegant mechanics all while gliding over the opponets. She makes injects easy giving extra larva and similar to Zap Brannigan, she will win by sending wave after wave of her own brood to keep her ally safe.
Mechanically she practically playes herself. The select all army is easy to use with her. I do suggest hotkeying zagara as well. Basically you create a wave of units and push all at once. Aberrations look goofy but buff your units and allies so they are great for increasing survivability and scourge are rediculous anti-air. She's a great hero for brand new starcraft players and achievement grinders. The only challenge really is to get her roach drop acheivement which isn't that hard with a Vorazun teammate. As zap Brannigan says, "when i'm in charge every mission is a suicide mission." ---------------------------- Opener build-
*Fast baneling into expand with zergling speed. + Show Spoiler + 9 pool 0:52 10 gas 1:10 10 queen 1:25 (use the first queen for no injects until after 3 creep tumors) 10 overloard 1:40 12 4 triplets of lings to break rocks 18 baneling nest 2:20 18 second queen 2:33 (inject twice with this queen) Metabolic boost 20 hatchery 3:05 28 Lair 3:45 5:20 Finished droning with 4 gases started 5:40 corrosive acid (I usually do this first since banelings are free and this makes them stronger) 3 evos 6:00 hive 7:20 2 Scourge colonies 7:50 Simplified genome when these finish. (Makes the scourge super cheap)
*Unlike my other two guides i didn't really try to optimize the build at all.
Usually about 10 minutes I start an overseer if i don't have one. ----------------------------------------------
Leveling- Zagara leveling is pretty easy- At level 6 you already unlock the key upgrades needed to beat almost all compositions on brutal. -3 injects give double larvae. really makes it easy to do the whole level with 2 queens and 3 hatcheries for all the production you'd ever need. -4 Simplified genome Saves a lot of gas so you can get all the core upgrades for banes, lings, scourge and zagara. + Show Spoiler + -6 Shredding claws, the broken ling upgrade + Show Spoiler + 9 protective cover which makes aberations not just tank hits but help lings. + Show Spoiler + -10 the key upgrade for getting the zagara Roach acheivement -12 swarmling-Saves a ton of money getting 3 lings instead of 2 for the same cost. -14 splitters, banes have waves of damage.
All Levels- + Show Spoiler + 1-Relentless Swarmer- Zagara has a 100 supply maximum, but her combat units cost less and morph faster. Drones morph in pair (1/2 supply drones) 2-Infested Drop- Zagara can call down roaches with timed life to any location on the map. Drop-Pod deal damage on impact. 3-Inject Larvae- Increase the larvae from the queen's spawn larvae from 4 to 8. 4-Scourge Upgrade Cache- New Research Available on the Scourge Nest *Virulent Spores- Scourge deal 50% of their attack damage in a small area on death. *Simplified Genome- Reduces the amount of vespene gas required to morph scourge by 50. 5-New Unit: Bile Launcher- Unlocks the ability to morph drones into a bile launchers, defensive structures that deal area damage to ground and air targets. 6-Zergling Upgrade Cache- New research available on the spawning pool *Hardened Carapace- Zerglings gain +10 maximum life. *Shredding Claws- Zergling attacks reduce the target's armor for 10 seconds. 7-Baneling Nest:Birthing Chamber- the Baneling nest will periodically spawn free banelings. 8-Incubate Banelings- Abberations spawn 2 banelings when killed. 9-Evolution chamber Upgrade Cache- New Research Available at the Evolution chamber: *Medusa Blades- Zagara's attacks deal area damage, splashing to enemy units near her primary target. *Protective Cover- Aberrations grant +2 armor to units positioned beneath them 10-Darken the Skies- Increases the number of roaches spawned by Zagara's infested drop ability from 10 to 20. 11-Baneling Nest upgrade cache- New research available on the baneling nest: *Increases the banelings base attack damage against the primary target by 100 percent; Splash damage remains the same *Baneling Blast Radius increased by 50% 12-Zergling Evolution:Swarmling- upgrades zerglings into the swarmling strain Fast melee unit that spawns in groups of 3. Morphs almost instantly and morphs into banelings. 13- Bile Launcher:upgrade cache- * Increases the range of the bile launcher's Bombardment. * Reduces the cooldown of the bile launcher's Bombardment. 14-Baneling Evolution: Splitter- Upgrades banelings into the splitter strain Suicide unit deals damage over a small area upon death. Splits into smaller units as it dies. 15-Broodmother- Reduces the energy cost of Zagara's baneling barrage and spawn hunter-Killers abilities by 50%. Increases the nubmer of unit spawned by Zagara's baneling barrage and spawn hunter-Killers abilities by 50%.
---------------------------------------------- Choosing transitions and upgrades-
Most people would argue you are doing the same thing as zagara every game. This is actually true for the most part. Basically there are only 2 styles. Why 2? The comvaputer has the possibility of going mass banelings as well. In which case you want to make a pack of queens to help soak damage against banelings. The rest of the time, its just going to be grinding a single style.
Bile launchers don't really do that much damage, you can build them play around with them, but they won't really win you any games, you have to control them. They don't have much damage but a large splash area. I usually just skip them and their upgrades.
Usually for me I like to rush a few upgrades all just to be more cost efficient as soon as possible- + Show Spoiler +
I usually skip scourge nest carapace until I have all the other zergling, baneling, abberation and zagara upgrades.
------------------------------------------ Zagara and the Roach Rampage Acheivement. Zagara is a playable character in co-op. Her two most powerful abilities are
And the baneling barrage is useful for picking off buildings and spawn Hunter-killers is great for the early air waves + Show Spoiler +
A good solid combo is usually to push in with aberrations and scourge, drop the infested drop in their army where the aberations are headed, use the mass frenzy once they drop. Rush in with the rest of your units, then spawn hunter killers where you need extra dps and antiair.
Tips on getting the roach drop achveivement. 1. Tell your ally you are grinding it and try to coordinate the attacks. 2. Vorazun voidray ally is easiest against lings or terran bio. 3. The aberations increase survivability of the roaches
Combo- before the infested drop comes off cooldown, trade out the zerglings from some buildings. (so you have no lings) Once the infested drop comes off cooldown with a vorazun ally, usually push in with zagara and aberrations. have vorazun use the black hole. Infested drop on the black hole, Kill the units and have vorazun kill the biuldings with void rays, then have the vorazun use the time stop once you start taking damage. micro the Roaches to kill the units. After each wave goes off the timer, build and army to push and while its building, check the achivements in game. If you do it right you should gain about 35-50 each time. Just keep track of what levels and which compositions you are having the most success.
Avoiding building lings on the push with vorazun helps a lot to get the acheivement.
------------------------------------------ Ideal Late game composition- The strongest army is centered around the scourge, banes, zerglings and aberrations. If you are playing against large air units like bc's or carriers, you can just make a 6-8 corruptors as well and 2-3 queens.
Full Image Album on IMGUR With all Zagara's Abilities
Here's gameplay I did playing her just so you can see what it looks like. + Show Spoiler +
Zagara is relatively easy to play and probably one of the most user friendly in the game. You can use select all army and just after about 10 minutes focus on keeping a consistent composition. Her army allows her to push on all fronts and defend. Mostly you just want to wait for the army to spawn and ball before each fight, see what was lost and then try to build back to the ideal composition. The only thing that can be a challenge is the achivement to get 100 roach kills with an ally. I recommend doing that with a vorazun teammate after level 10. Just grind out a few games until you play against a zerg and sync Vorazun's time stop with the drops. Good luck!
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Love your guides! They've been very helpful.
Just a side note: the picture for shredded claws is the same as the genome one
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Russian Federation473 Posts
I have difficulties with her achievement, killing 100 units with the roaches in a single mission Tried it like 10 times to no avail
I think this ability is too weak, cooldown should be reduced and/or roach count increased (to like 15/30), and/or roaches buffed
Other than that Zagara is a monster, almost as OP as Vorazun
Wish they gave her 200 supply cap at the level 16 if it ever comes out
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Russian Federation473 Posts
And it would also be nice to have an autoattack on the bile launchers - come on, Swann and Karax have their OP defenses, why Zagara can't have them too?
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On March 18 2016 00:11 Ganseng wrote:I have difficulties with her achievement, killing 100 units with the roaches in a single mission Tried it like 10 times to no avail I think this ability is too weak, cooldown should be reduced and/or roach count increased (to like 15/30), and/or roaches buffed Other than that Zagara is a monster, almost as OP as Vorazun Wish they gave her 200 supply cap at the level 16 if it ever comes out The Roach achievement is one of the more difficult ones, but no where near the level of grinding for like Swanns Gas achievement. I would recommend finding a partner, and just keeping exiting and leaving until you get a zerg opponent. You will have better luck with a Zerg AI due to the amount of units. I think a 200 supply buff should be later on (assuming if they added more than 1 or 2 levels.) It really would be a big jump in power for 1 level, even with the time it would take to gain XP. Maybe 20-25 range IMO.
On March 18 2016 00:12 Ganseng wrote: And it would also be nice to have an autoattack on the bile launchers - come on, Swann and Karax have their OP defenses, why Zagara can't have them too? I would like Auto attack on biles. But Zagara really is not a defensive player (both in theory and in practice) . The only time I ever even bother using them is on the train mission and very selectively on defense (temple) missions. Most times, Banes and scourge with ling and aberrations support to clean up is usually enough.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
Yeah I agree Zagara is an attacker, not a defender
But she has the bile launcher, and even an upgrade set for it, so why not make it a little bit more user-friendly?
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On March 17 2016 21:13 29 fps wrote: Love your guides! They've been very helpful.
Just a side note: the picture for shredded claws is the same as the genome one
Thanks man!! good looking out! To keep the quality up on these! I fixed it! Sorry the picture took a a bit longer to make so i couldn't do this in the 5 hours i had allotted for it.
On March 18 2016 00:11 Ganseng wrote:I have difficulties with her achievement, killing 100 units with the roaches in a single mission Tried it like 10 times to no avail I think this ability is too weak, cooldown should be reduced and/or roach count increased (to like 15/30), and/or roaches buffed Other than that Zagara is a monster, almost as OP as Vorazun Wish they gave her 200 supply cap at the level 16 if it ever comes out
Yeah good observations, I agree the Bile launchers are cumbersome to use. I picked up the achievement on the second try so I didn't make a video for it. I decided to list what my gameplan was and add a bit on Zagara which helps to strenghthen the guide. Thanks for the feedback and help! My ping is over 300 to EU east or I'd offer to help you get the achievement.
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For Zagara achievement, I chose train level. If I got Terran or Protoss opponent, I just played and won like normal. If I got a zerg, I would roach rampage on train waves. If you roach rampage on top of units, I think it kills the units that it drops on top of and those kills count.
It took a few tries because I would mess up and lose Zagara at the most inopportune times and miss entire train waves
This one may be the hardest achievement out of all of them.
200 Supply Zagara would be way OP unless every commander has a super OP L16 ability. She's already ridiculously OP with 100 Supply. I find her almost as ridiculous as Vorazun. Even more so if it weren't for Black Hole
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Russian Federation473 Posts
Thanks for the advice guys, will keep trying
Why not make Zagara even more OP than she is now? It's not competitive, you can make any commander OP
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I hear a lot of people talking about how bile launchers could use auto-attack, but that'd make Zagara instantly better at defending than Karax or Swann. The bile launcher fires a 75 damage pie-plate that's basically a Psi storm except it does damage instantly and has a delayed impact. It also has 20 range and a 3.5 second cooldown with the upgrades. That's much better than Khaydarin Monoliths, Siege Tanks, and Lurkers for the cost. The only thing stopping Zagara from winning any defensive map by just spitting out 30 bile launchers is the micro requirement.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
but what\s the difference between spamming 30 bile launchers + some crawlers and spamming 30 khaydarin monoliths + some energizers + some photon cannons and spamming 30 devastation turrets + some tanks + some missile turrets?
or spamming 30 lurkers + some spore crawlers? don't tell me it's the cost - any commander has a ton of free resources mid-late game why not, it's a fun mode by the way bile launchers can miss, that's a disadvantage
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I'm with Xsyq on bile launchers. They already do way more damage for their cost than pretty much any unit in the game, including all of Karax's and Swann's defensive structures. They're the only structures that can pretty much wipe out a massive swarm of hard-hitting enemies in seconds. And lurkers may be comparable in destructive capabilities, but they cost a ton of gas, which Kerrigan is always struggling with (at every point in the game) and they can't hit air. Auto-hitting bile launchers would pretty much make any defensive map with Zagara trivial, and would make her a better defensive hero than Karax, which would be pretty silly. Simply put, it would be way too OP.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
So I got all the co-op achievements except for the roach one =( Even the banelings one! With other commanders, I got the single-mission achievements without even being aware of their existance And here, I tried and failed so many times Of course I could have played better, and many players did manage to get the achievement But if it works easily with 6/7 commanders, and works so hard with the 7th, something is wrong with the commander and not only with the player!
Does anybody else feel they need to patch the roaches? Like decrease the cooldown and increase the life time?
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On April 04 2016 22:59 Ganseng wrote: So I got all the co-op achievements except for the roach one =( Even the banelings one! With other commanders, I got the single-mission achievements without even being aware of their existance And here, I tried and failed so many times Of course I could have played better, and many players did manage to get the achievement But if it works easily with 6/7 commanders, and works so hard with the 7th, something is wrong with the commander and not only with the player!
Does anybody else feel they need to patch the roaches? Like decrease the cooldown and increase the life time?
its not hard. find a vorazun teammate and micro the roaches.
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On April 04 2016 22:59 Ganseng wrote: So I got all the co-op achievements except for the roach one =( Even the banelings one! With other commanders, I got the single-mission achievements without even being aware of their existance And here, I tried and failed so many times Of course I could have played better, and many players did manage to get the achievement But if it works easily with 6/7 commanders, and works so hard with the 7th, something is wrong with the commander and not only with the player!
Does anybody else feel they need to patch the roaches? Like decrease the cooldown and increase the life time?
With no micro or Vorazun teammate helping, I got over 100 roach kills. Here's what I did.
Pick the train level (as someone said above). Check the right side of the map for creep. Play normally/quit if it is protoss or terran. Get ready for action if it's zerg. If they send lings, you can get the achievement easily. If they send roaches, play normally or quit. On train waves, you can burrow lings on the track for vision and drop the roaches on top of clumps of lings. Use frenzy (or whatever that 'E' ability is that makes them attack faster) and kill stuff. Killing broodlings from broodlords counts, I think. You only have enough time for 3 roach drops, so you need to average about 33 kills. (I actually got 100 with 2 drops; not exactly sure what happened) I think I used them on the 3rd, 5th, and 7th train waves. Basically, use it on the train wave after the cooldown is over.
Alternatively, you can play with a friend on Lock and Load. Get rid of all the enemies, but don't activate the locks (just don't put both people there). Use roach drops on the incoming waves and/or enemy bases. Press F9 and check your status.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
On April 04 2016 23:04 tokinho wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2016 22:59 Ganseng wrote: So I got all the co-op achievements except for the roach one =( Even the banelings one! With other commanders, I got the single-mission achievements without even being aware of their existance And here, I tried and failed so many times Of course I could have played better, and many players did manage to get the achievement But if it works easily with 6/7 commanders, and works so hard with the 7th, something is wrong with the commander and not only with the player!
Does anybody else feel they need to patch the roaches? Like decrease the cooldown and increase the life time? its not hard. find a vorazun teammate and micro the roaches. Well it's not hard for you
I didn't get it even on the chain of ascension, (the map virtually without a time limit), after I had mined out my main
I mean yes it's possible to get the achievement eventually, but it's so much harder than any other achievement of any other commander that they just need to fix it
In my opinion at least
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On April 06 2016 00:39 Ganseng wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2016 23:04 tokinho wrote:On April 04 2016 22:59 Ganseng wrote: So I got all the co-op achievements except for the roach one =( Even the banelings one! With other commanders, I got the single-mission achievements without even being aware of their existance And here, I tried and failed so many times Of course I could have played better, and many players did manage to get the achievement But if it works easily with 6/7 commanders, and works so hard with the 7th, something is wrong with the commander and not only with the player!
Does anybody else feel they need to patch the roaches? Like decrease the cooldown and increase the life time? its not hard. find a vorazun teammate and micro the roaches. Well it's not hard for you I didn't get it even on the chain of ascension, (the map virtually without a time limit), after I had mined out my main I mean yes it's possible to get the achievement eventually, but it's so much harder than any other achievement of any other commander that they just need to fix it In my opinion at least
I don't know. I could go through it with you. I've helped 3 people do it. All of them within 2 tries. We could do it in less than half an hour.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
On April 06 2016 00:55 tokinho wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2016 00:39 Ganseng wrote:On April 04 2016 23:04 tokinho wrote:On April 04 2016 22:59 Ganseng wrote: So I got all the co-op achievements except for the roach one =( Even the banelings one! With other commanders, I got the single-mission achievements without even being aware of their existance And here, I tried and failed so many times Of course I could have played better, and many players did manage to get the achievement But if it works easily with 6/7 commanders, and works so hard with the 7th, something is wrong with the commander and not only with the player!
Does anybody else feel they need to patch the roaches? Like decrease the cooldown and increase the life time? its not hard. find a vorazun teammate and micro the roaches. Well it's not hard for you I didn't get it even on the chain of ascension, (the map virtually without a time limit), after I had mined out my main I mean yes it's possible to get the achievement eventually, but it's so much harder than any other achievement of any other commander that they just need to fix it In my opinion at least I don't know. I could go through it with you. I've helped 3 people do it. All of them within 2 tries. We could do it in less than half an hour.
thanks, but you said your ping to Eastern Europe is very high
I think I'll better wait for a patch =)
See, you admit yourself that you have to help people get it, and I assume you're pretty good at the game =)
Seriously, there is something wrong with this achievement
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I got the roach achievement on the train map against terran. It may be hard now because two of the terran compositions go big heavy units, but they can still get bio. It helps if you aggressively go after the armor upgrades, to help keep them alive, use frenzy right after you drop the roaches, and buffer them with lings. You may be afraid that the lings will steal all the kills, but they should get your roaches more kills by keeping them alive. Also drop the roaches on top of the incoming wave, I'm pretty sure that does damage.
Yes, it's the hardest achievement. (I actually find this one comparable to Kerrigan's leaping strike achievement, since you almost always want to use psionic shift instead of leaping strike, and not doing the former can often get you in big trouble.) There is always going to be a hardest achievement, I find nothing wrong with that. If they made it easier, as per your request, then there would be a different hardest achievement. Would they have to nerf that too, to level it with the others? At what point do you become happy with the unavoidable asymmetry?
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On April 06 2016 02:31 Ganseng wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2016 00:55 tokinho wrote:On April 06 2016 00:39 Ganseng wrote:On April 04 2016 23:04 tokinho wrote:On April 04 2016 22:59 Ganseng wrote: So I got all the co-op achievements except for the roach one =( Even the banelings one! With other commanders, I got the single-mission achievements without even being aware of their existance And here, I tried and failed so many times Of course I could have played better, and many players did manage to get the achievement But if it works easily with 6/7 commanders, and works so hard with the 7th, something is wrong with the commander and not only with the player!
Does anybody else feel they need to patch the roaches? Like decrease the cooldown and increase the life time? its not hard. find a vorazun teammate and micro the roaches. Well it's not hard for you I didn't get it even on the chain of ascension, (the map virtually without a time limit), after I had mined out my main I mean yes it's possible to get the achievement eventually, but it's so much harder than any other achievement of any other commander that they just need to fix it In my opinion at least I don't know. I could go through it with you. I've helped 3 people do it. All of them within 2 tries. We could do it in less than half an hour. thanks, but you said your ping to Eastern Europe is very high I think I'll better wait for a patch =) See, you admit yourself that you have to help people get it, and I assume you're pretty good at the game =) Seriously, there is something wrong with this achievement
I don't think that is going to happen soon. I don't think there is anything wrong with it. saying that i've helped people to udnerstand how to get it is really weak evidence for that claim...... I usually ask people who are level 15 what they are trying to do. I have helped people with a lot of achievements, mostly the swann/kerrigan ones. I am 100% sure that Blizzard doesn't patch this one. Everyone I've helped has been as described above, except i do it on rifts of korhal.(and just have them check the count and explain how to improve on it while in game. you can do ti with the first big wave before killing the second set of rifts, then the counter waves in the next area and you still have 1 more to spare if you just wait.
Yes, it's the hardest achievement. (I actually find this one comparable to Kerrigan's leaping strike achievement, since you almost always want to use psionic shift instead of leaping strike, and not doing the former can often get you in big trouble.) There is always going to be a hardest achievement, I find nothing wrong with that. If they made it easier, as per your request, then there would be a different hardest achievement. Would they have to nerf that too, to level it with the others? At what point do you become happy with the unavoidable asymmetry?
Ye i thought the kerrigan one is harder.
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