I’ve always loved the Zerg flavor; a fast-evolving, lethal alien. It’s been my favorite race during Starcraft 1 times, but I never felt just as attached to that race in Starcraft 2.
As I got back into the game recently, I took a look at the tech tree and got to the sketch board to reimagine it. I always believed it should be purely evolution-oriented. With this remake, every building can morph into another. It leads to having an evolution tree rather than a technology one.
[ZERG Tech Tree] (See link below for graph:)
i
b
b
.
c
o
/
J
2
w
C
8
j
c
Here is a description of the changes:
The Hydralisk is back as an initial unit. It evolves into the Ravager (also a light, versatile unit).
The Roach now evolves into the Lurker (also a heavy ground unit).
The Spawning Pool, Zergling, and Creep Tumor are the only units that can evolve within Tier 1.
The Spine and Spore Crawlers are evolutions from the Creep Tumor after having an Evolution Chamber. The Spine can later morph into a Nydus Network with a Lair and Ultralisk Cavern with a Hive.
The Ultralisk morphs from a Queen.
The Spore can morph into a Spire with a Lair, and later into a Greater Spire with a Hive.
The Infestor can host, infest and morph inside an Extractor, Assimilator, or Refinery to gather gas without the use of any drone.
(Note: I do not have the right image shown for the Lurker and Ravager)
Let me know what you think.
2 Likes
Is this a troll post? Because it makes no sense.
- Ravager model is based on roach, and the lurker on the hydra. Lurkers have always morphed from hydras. So Blizzard is not going to just randomly swap the two when established lore says otherwise.
Creep tumors morph into base defense? Bad idea because you don’t put creep tumors in your mineral line goes against the design of the tumor which is to push forward. Even if you move them, you have random spots with no tumors because they moved elsewhere.
Base defense morph into nydus? Makes no sense. An anti-ground defense becomes a transportation unit? A spore turns into a air production structure? No logical reason for that to happen. Why would base defenses suddenly unlock new units? They aren’t meant to advance the tech tree, They are meant to keep you safe so you can. “Oh my gosh! He’s going to snipe the spire!” “Oh wait it doesn’t matter because the terran opened banshee so the zerg has 5 other spores that he can just morph.”
Ultralisk from queen? Again another random. Queens are ranged units and ultras are melee units. And infestors from an extractor? These add all sorts of weird rules tot he game, and don’t actually solve anything. Why would the extractor randomly morph infestors? They aren’t production structures, zerg come from larva minus the queen.
3 Likes
I gave you a like for the effort, however I do agree with some of the things said by the previous poster.
I do like the idea of making hydralist t1 again, but putting baneling t2 and changing the origin of static defenses is a huge can of worms that does not sound too synergistic with how the race works.
With a bit of optimization there might be potential here, so let me think about it for a couple days and I’ll give you some more feedback.
1 Like
When/ if they make sc3, I would love to see those changes, other than maybe the infestor. Imagine sc3 opening up with a zerg plot line in which abathur makes huge changes to the swarm somehow. I think it would be really cool, while also removing most possibilities of zvz spine rushes.
1 Like
I don’t want to see chitinious playing on queens. Ever.
Overall the idea is good but too complex
Thank you. This is not a troll post.
I know the Tumor, then Spine and Spore Crawlers morphing into regular building units are a complete reimagining for the most part.
Yet the Tumor and Spine are some kind of underground monstruous units, and so is the Nydus beast from the Nydus Network. Then, the Nydus Network summons (or is) a gigantic Beast, the same way as the Ultralisk Cavern does. The Queen, the biggest unit so far with 2 gigantic claws, the ultimate defensive unit, compared to the Ultralisk (King), the ultimate offensive unit. I made it evolve out of that unit because it would, on the other hand, make no sense to evolve from a zergling (or does it more from one of those tiny larvaes?).
The Spore Crawler morphing into a Spire also made sense flavor and looks-wise. The Spore Crawler is a flying-related tower structure, and the Spire looks like an uprooted, flattened Spore Crawler with a small spore opening on top.
The first thing that made me want to remake this tree is the hydralisk. I used to love the powerfully quick build and concept of a bile-spitting unit. But it was swapped with the Roach when moving from SC1 to SC2. That is why it made sense for me to turn the Hydralisk into the Ravager (and because of lower hit points and lighter armor).
The baneling is T1, not T2. Only an Evolution Chamber is needed for the upgrade. I conceived the Evolution Chamber as the ultimate “you can morph” structure in this tree.
I removed the upgrades on the Queen. The goal is not to improve or change balance, but to reconfigure the model based on the original concept (evolving aliens).
The “sniping” is impossible argument, however, is exactly and precisely where this build should go in favor, for the flavor of this race is a kind of “don’t touch it or it will multiply by tenfold” kind of feel.
If this was for a campaign or coop commander, I would love it.
3 Likes
Funny ideas, that would change the whole gameplay, maybe it’s possible in Starcraft 3. 