Every other race has a unit that can bypass cliffs, gaps in terrain and whatnot that isn't a flyer, in fact protoss get multiple units that can do this. yet zerg don't have a single unit that can do this. This is very important because zerg is also the only race that can't wall off. so early game there's no way for zerg to harass against a wall off but the other races can still harass anyone they please. This early harassment decides a lot of games and zerg is at the complete disadvantage of not being able to do it as well as not having a fullproof method of defending against it. what I wouldn't give to be able to just hop the cliff and be up in a terrans mineral line right at the beginning of a match like they can do to me.
Nydus worm, doom drops, mutas are all effective. If you have good micro using an overlord to get units over a cliff takes over slightly longer than blink
The overlord isn't exactly what I was looking for. Every race also has a drop ship of sorts on top of having units that have built in mobility for early game harass. I think we need something that can do this early game when harassing workers for 5 seconds makes a huge impact on the later game. Everyone else has something like this except zerg. for instance reapers, you build a barracks, add a tech lab and you have reapers. in order to get overlord you have to build a spawning pool, upgrade to lair, upgrade overlords (twice), then load and unload which requires multiple units. overlord drop is a lot longer route that's less efficient, costs more, and doesn't become available until later. also something everyone has. as to nydus, this is also a mid to late game unit as well as not self contained relying on it transporting units one at a time to a fixed location. I do need to try them more before I level judgment on them though. I just get tired of 2 reapers raping my economy 1 minute into the game. I've built spore colonies, left qeens by the workers, chased them with zerglings....they're just too fast to catch. Same thing with blinking stalkers. Zerg should get a unit with that kind of mobility early as well so we aren't always stuck on an uphill battle. Zergling rush works wonders.....against players who don't know what they're doing.
Nydus Worms. Yes, they are technically units - they don't have the "Structure" property under their armor type. You can spawn them anywhere you can see, no creep required. Unless the opponent is paranoid when it comes to building detectors/defensive structures, there will always be at least one blind spot within their starting base, giving you the opportunity to tear them up from the inside out. If anything Zerg are among the most versatile wallers since their defensive buildings can be moved to different locations when the need arises. The drawback is that once you opt for that many Spine/Spore Crawlers, there's no turning back. Your APM would have to higher than a hummingbird on crack to build that many crawlers and produce a big enough attack force. Roaches, Roaches, Roaches. They can't go up/down cliffs, but the burrowed movement upgrade inhibits the range advantage a Bunker full of Marines would have. Even if the opponent has a detector and Siege Tanks, the Roach's per-hit damage is high enough that if you build them en-masse you will utterly destroy any walled-off choke point before tunneling right under the opponent's mineral line. EDIT: Roaches are also great defensively - leave a few burrowed near your mineral line, than catch any harassers by surprise. Hydralisks would also be effective, since their attack range is greater than that of Roaches, and they can attack air units.
That is why Reapers are one of the most fragile units in the game and are never produced from mid to late game. 5 more HP than an SCV. You should easily be able to kill 2 Reapers with a Queen and zerglings. You have to anticipate it, or at least scout them and find out that they're fast teching to tech lab for Reapers. Zerglings are just as fast as unupgraded Reapers and faster on creep.
I'm talking about on the offensive here, not on the defensive when you're on creep. and this isn't a bash on reapers, i know they have low hit points, I'm not saying there is a problem with them. I'm saying that zerg should get a unit that can jump cliffs since the other two races do and it's a HUGE benefit. Id go so far as to say the ability to climb cliffs is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. like I said the worm is cool and I haven't used it enough to level judgment, but the worm is also a higher tier than every other races unit that can jump terrain, being reapers and blink stalkers. I played a single game as terran the other day after only ever playing zerg, and I won with nothing but reapers. I can't tell you how much it felt like playing the game on easy mode after playing nothing but zerg. Every single unit had some special ability or some nifty way of microing to take out something you couldn't have killed with just attack-move. By comparison zerg don't have anything close to that.
I think OP is stating that zerg needs an early viable unit that can traverse cliffs to raid eco and etc. Zerg is designed to fight in the open and not abuse cliffs (that's the terran's forte), what zerg needs are bigger and more open maps not a new unit. If ever, I'l like to have the Ultralisk crawl up cliffs or have the baneling Centrifugal Hooks to allow banes to scale cliffs to do some serious eco damage.
