Using Banelings like spider mines?

erm, never thought of bringing a detector with your army?

 

Yeah I was gonna say. This is good for quick ambushes on forces, but not to the scale you're talking about and probably not good for late game when expeditions will have atleast one detector with them. If banes are early in the tech tree then yes your strat is plausible though for that exact reason they may be limited to mid-later game

 

ya most guys would take a detector with them... but how fast do you guys think it takes to morph into the baneling? cause according to the video, those zerglings morphed really fast. so what if you Incorporated this into a new strategy where you sent your main army. when the enemy brings out the high tier units, or masses lots of guys, such as marines, you have say ur hydralisk in front shooting and your zerglings behind morphing when they are done you send the zerglings and baneling mix ( you would keep some of the original zerglings) towards the enemy. the zerglings would mainly attract the fire since they run faster (or at least we suppose) and the banelings explode on the clusters of marines that usually protect the tanks, or the immortals, supposing that the enemies zealots have engaged in a battle with your hydralisk. of course this would probably require lots of macroing, it could be done i think. The most limiting factor would be that the baneling might take a while to morph, therefore it actually may make more sense to do it before.

Another idea would b to load banelings on a overlord, like the infesteddrop idea, and drop them behind enemy lines, this would rely on the fact that banelings, unlike the infested Terran, have a good targeting system. In SC 1 they would just fall out and usually die... But wut if u use this idea to attack the big gun units in the back of the line? , such as the tanks and colossus. They are just ideas though and I'm not saying they are possible, just that they are not impossible.

 

I reckon that the time it takes for Zerglings to morph into Banelings would be around the same as Hydras to Lurkers and Mutas to Guardians/Devourers. (All that stuff is sped up in the demonstration videos, just check out how quickly they built the Thor!) This would make it hard to morph during an attack. I'd say if your doing a proper assault, keep a fair few Banelings rolling at the back of your army, so that you can either then bring them through to blow up the brunt of their defense while the rest of your army takes the damage, or keep them for the end for if your assault is successful. They'd make destroying buildings a whole lot easier if they're anything like Infested Terran.

Overlording the Banelings in would be an awesome tactic, if you can find a safe flight path to the back of their base then you could instantly destroy their economy and even take down the Command Center/Nexus/Hive if your lucky. Taking out their main building would be one hell of a hindrance.

 

If Blizzard keep their philosophy, Banelings shouldn't be expensive and they could be used as "Zerg Spider Mines". But those rolling things... it is one of the points that I don't like in SC2. It is pointless to me- if I will use any of them, just to make "Spider Mines".

 

Yeah that rolling thing is ridiculous. In fact, unlike a few weeks ago when I mentioned it, I can say it's unrealistic because the word is actually used in the latest Q&A! So Blizzard actually takes realism into account to a certain extent. Now it's obvious we'll only see realism in a conservative way from a sci-fi RTS point of view, but even that rules some things out, like the banelings doing somersaults, it's just not good for the eyes.
I'd rather see a demented kind of move for them, like those suicidal things in Diablo 2.

 

It's not that ridiculous, the rolling of the Banelings. They have so much acid inside them that they get fat and can't walk. The only way of locomotion is rolling.

I am pretty sure that is why Blizzard chose to make them roll like a ball. I don't think you would need to use them as Spider Mines, unless the enemy doesn't have any detectors. I'd much rather have a moving bomb then a hidden stationary one.

Maybe they can have a Burrow upgrade specifically for the Banelings, so they can be used as a Spider Mine, maybe?

 

... that wouldn't make much sense imho. Why would Zerglings lose their ability to burrow? Anyway, being fat doesn't justify the idiotic rolling. Walruses are fat yet they crawl and jump and do whatever it takes to get from A to B even though it'd be real easy for them to roll on their sides.

 

they should be like centipedes when moving and the rolling should be an upgrade, problem solved :thumbup:

 

I like the idea of using canals to ambush armies with them... bye bye siege tanks.

 

I think he means that there will be an upgrade for all Zerg except Banelings to burrow, like StarCraft1, and then there would be a Baneling Burrow upgrade after the first one. I don't like the idea of Banelings Burrowing though, because they don't have any claws or anything to Burrow with. Also, Walrus are not filled with explosive chemicals, so obviously they are able to crawl and jump. Think of the Banelings as portable eggs, like the ones when evolving Larvae to proper units. It does make sense, but I would still prefer it if it had little legs underneath it like a tick.