The Horror of the Infestor!!

Well, now that info about the new units is trickling out, I think its about time to start a discussion about the Zerg's new spellcaster, the Infestor! With its ability to move while burrowed, cast disease, dark swarm and take over buildings (infesting buildings), this creates some interesting interpretations about how this unit can be used.

Imagine attacking an expansion while your infestors tunnel into their main base, and take over their unit production buildings...instant severance of your opponents ability to create units.

Is disease just like plague, or does it degenerate life even faster.

A nydus wyrm sprouts up in the back of your base, Zerglings, Banelings and Roaches come pouring out...what do you do!?

 

Now that I typed my hands off with the translations, let the interpretations begin!

I think disease is similar to plague. Also, infesting doesn't take place right away. It takes them a while to infest the building.

Nydus worms need a spotter to show where they're going. They can't just choose where they want to go. It works almost exactly like a Nuke or Drop Pod.

 

I like the idea behind the Infestor, but I hate the visuals. Both the Infestor itself and its attack projectile look awful. As I've said in another topic, it looks like an anamorphic blog with a bunch of circular teeth, and it's attack just looks rancid. Before I knew what it was actually called, I had nicknamed it the 'Defecator'. I love the Infested Barracks and the Infested Marines look great. I really like how they no longer suicide or fire corrupted ammunition like they did and would have in StarCraft1 and StarCraft:Ghost respectively. Anyone know what infesting Supply Depots achieves?
But seriously. I don't usually complain about the models, etc, and I don't mean to be a drag, but this is just awful.
[img width=265 height=229]http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee72/itzahexgor/infester.jpg[/img]

 

Accordin to the 9 min video infestation does take time but it's not too long. Also there was some other building than barracks infested and it also produced infested terran. I wouldn't get my hopes up for multiple types of infested units.

If it won't take much time in final build, it should be possible to infest sensor tower and move in with lurkers before enemy gets new detector. Infestors could be sent for another vital target in the meantime

 

The infestor is the perfect concept but they got the design and attack all wrong. Having it spray then turn the building into an infested one quickly makes it over powered. They should physically infest the building like the Queen did, this would allow Terran players to fight back without losing their whole base. Having it work like that allows way for that very fast infested Marine production.

 

@ Meee. I think the only two Infestable buildings, so far, are the Barracks and Supply Depot. The Barracks obviously makes Infested Marines, I'm not sure about the Depot. You sure it also produces Infested Marines? Also, I too, very much doubt that they'll have more than one Infested unit. If they have too many units in that category then they'll pretty much be like a faction of Zerg, instead of an aspect, which they are now. Lastly, I doubt that they can Infest Sensor Towers. It'd probably be quicker to destroy them anyway.
@ Zergalicious. I very much doubt that that will be the finalised speed. They often speed things up just for demonstration, like build time for the Thor in the Terran Gameplay. Also, notice how quickly Infested Terran are produced. This could only be for demonstration purposes, and wouldn't be finalised. Also, does anyone know if it's time based? Or do they have to 'destroy' the building but instead it become Infested? On a similar note does anyone know if the Corruptor gives the player control of the corrupted unit?

 

Look at the vid, there's four barracks and one other building being infested. I think it may be engineering bay, but it's definately not barracks nor supply depot
The quality of youtube vid gets crappy at this point ( ) but I believe it also spits infested terrans / marines things like barracks.

 

The 5. building is a supply depot...
And the infested marines pops out of the barracks ONLY

 

It must be noted that maybe blizzard increased the speed of the "infection" in the video to give a sense of "OMG THAT IS AWESOME" in the viewer and thus the true speed may be much slower, the production of the "infested" marines was nearly instant and they appeared to have the same attack and hp (from how long they lasted) that a normal marine has so its reasonable to assume that certain elements of this video may have been exaggerated.

Also: I do agree the infection animation should be changed to something like: the infector attaches itself to the building, starts infecting it by covering the building with a thin layer of creep like organic material, then the building becomes infected.

I also can't seem the shake the feeling that the unit (in its current state) would be rather imbalanced in game since someone could just mass them and (assuming they can infest EVERYTHING) take over an entire enemy base without much effort on part of the player to put into a conventional attack, however it must be noted that we still know very little about the unit and it might be a good idea to wait a while before making any solid accusations about the unit.

 

@Itza.
I completely agree about the visuals. That round piece of sh*t can't possibly tunnel around.
We need a sleeker, more Defileresque look. Currently it looks like a deformed baby Hatchery.

I think I heard somewhere that infesting a Supply Depot will deny the former owner his 8 supplies, and possibly add 8 supplies to the Zerg.

 

The Infestor is definitely one ugly piece of sh*t. It's just a fat purple sack with legs. I hope the model slims up later on. As for the infestation...I really don't want to see explosive diarrhea all over the place, especially after having had the stomach flu recently. I hope it ends up being like the Queen, where you have to be in melee range to infest, and have some cool animation where tentacles envelope the structure.

Disease - Sounds same as Plague. I'm hoping that's true

 

A cooler animation would be if the Infestor got semi-burrowed, and then fleshy roots would stretch over the ground and slither towards the targeted building.

 

Great idea! But I think it should be invisible. You could just see the roots, and by the time you know what's happening - BANG! You're dead!

I agree. All units need more touching up. But hey, the game is not even in its alpha stages yet.

 

Did I say it wouldn't be visible? The Infestor would not be completely burrowed, if at all burrowed, and the roots would move on the ground.

 

Yeah you right, the "model" isnt good, but the important part of the unit isnt the grafics (they can easily be changed), but the idea behind.

 

So here's a problem: Dark Swarm is still in, but no real melee Terran unit.
Will Terran players have to abuse Tank splash or perhaps mass SCV's?

 

What ever happened to green? I liked it when the zerg shot green stuff. Not this brown raw sewage stuff.

Interesting unit though and Im glad to see the infested terrans actually use their guns. I hope we see other infested units. Infested tank anyone?

 

Well if you think about it, its probably not an imbalance. More thenlikely if they INfestor is killed while it is infesting the building it will cancel the infestation. Also it will probably be low HP, much like the Defiler, so one blast from a siege tank and its dead!

I had a cool idea for a strategy against lets say a range intensive protoss player with alot of cannons, tunnel the infestors into a remote corner of the map by their base, emerge and blanket the area with dark swarm, then have all your troop loaded nydus wyrms emerge from the ground under cover, and do a push forward with the probably now, easier to micro dark swarm. Protoss = Dead.

I think the infestation animation is cool, its very grotesque/vile. This makes the graphics somewhat more realistic, we don't want to see silly cartoony infestation looking abilities. A nasty little maggot squirting bile on my buildings will scare the #$%^ out of me each time it happens. Just let the new info appreciate a bit...don't hate on it! Come to appreciate it!

 

I love the infestor...but...is it just me or does it literelly look like a pile of dog crap with mouths.
The idea is great...the model is terrible. Something more insect like.

 

I personally think that the building infestation ability is rigged. You can infest any building. So say you infest a Protoss pylon, sure they have Phase Prisms, but still that will get annoying if you have say twenty infestors and just infest every single pylon. You could also infest every single supply depot. You could also infest a nexus or command center! Plus, they can move while burrowed which adds to the deadliness.