Attached Queen

[Rake]

I've been thinking about the queen.

In my opinion it has potential to be even better as a unit and as part of macro mechanics.

Here is my suggestion:

**Attached Queen**

Inspired by that scene in Aliens where we see the ferocious Queen attached to the giant egg sac, the Queen is able to attach to the hatchery to increase its abilities.



Mechanics:

When the Queen is attached, no further larva are spawned from the hatchery.
Larva from spawn larva will still pop off but no new spawn larvas can be cast.

The Queen takes a short time to attach to the hatchery but a longer time to detach from the hatchery. This ensures that there is always some production capacity that is lost by doing this.The Queen can not move far from the hatchery while attached

The Queen gains two abilities from being attached to the hatchery:

1) A lurker style underground splash attack and more powerful anti-air attack.

Advantages: Allows zerg to defend more easily for a significant cost to production.
Counters: Pressure the zerg and force the queen to attach. Therefore you have cost the zerg production.
Extra: Research burrow and the queen can Lurker attack while burrowed.


2) Heal Flies- For some energy the queen can cause the hatchery to spawn a Heal Fly.
A Heal Fly is a small flying thing (like a point defense drone but mobile) that heals for a fixed amount of energy and then dies. It has NO vision, flies quickly, exists for a timed duration then dies.

Advantages: Make the zerg army temporarily more robust at a cost to production and fewer spawn larvae/creep tumors.
Counters: Target the fly, use emp to kill a whole swarm instantly, use psi storm, thor or archon splash to kill a swarm, healing is inefficient compared to transfuse. Cannot be used to scout since it provides no vision.
Extra: Increase the options for zerg army. Want your scouting overlord to survive? Send a fly to heal it. Need to heal a whole lot of hydras in the middle of a map? Send a swarm of flies to heal them.


Things that can be altered for balance:
-time to attach/detach
-damage/attack rate of attached queen
-energy cost of heal fly
-amount/rate of healing by fly
-lurker style attack could cost energy


Rule of Cool:

-The Queen plunges its spikes into the ground and they come back up in line, lurker spine style.

-Swarms of flies leave a mature zerg nest, follow the zerg army, breifly heal it, then collapse dead onto the ground.


TL/DR:

The Queen can attach itself to the hatchery and do more damage and spawn tiny, temporary healing units.

[CrowToss]

Basically then, the Zerg get a free PF and medivacs? If you throw down an extra hatch, what's to stop you from spamming heal flies (as I imagine you can do if you're able to whip up a swarm on a moments notice)? Sure, it's cool, but the Zerg don't need a buff like that atm. Maybe more mechanics will fit in HotS.

[Rake]

It would be much less powerful than both a PF and much less effective than a medivac, and it would be far from free. It would require a new 300 min hatch and a 150 min queen which together would produce no units. Sure it might be worth it sometime but that is the point, sometimes but not always.

Yes, this mechanic was thought up with regard to HotS.

[Duckyyy]

Basically then, the Zerg get a free PF and medivacs? If you throw down an extra hatch, what's to stop you from spamming heal flies (as I imagine you can do if you're able to whip up a swarm on a moments notice)? Sure, it's cool, but the Zerg don't need a buff like that atm. Maybe more mechanics will fit in HotS.

it cant be compared to a medivac more like a sc1 medic, it doesnt give the ability to do gay ass drops in mineral lines

[Todie]

It would be much less powerful than both a PF and much less effective than a medivac, and it would be far from free. It would require a new 300 min hatch and a 150 min queen which together would produce no units. Sure it might be worth it sometime but that is the point, sometimes but not always.

Yes, this mechanic was thought up with regard to HotS.

thats not so epxnesive. thats all mienrals... also, you said previously injected larvas would still spawn, so it oculd still help with larva..

Its a cool idea, we need more of those, but im not in a mood or place to actively speculate how such an idea could fit into any know or unknown metagame or hw it could be adjusted to make a better fit.

Finally, i hate the lrukersplasattack idea. or any direct attack from the hatcher really.

[Wankey]

They're adding a flying queen evolution upgrade for HotS, mark my words.

[TheEconomist]

For the record: how serious are you about that comment?

I don't want any backstepping when HOTS is released