The Zerg Brood Lord is a new flying unit appearing in Starcraft 2. It is a very powerful air-to-ground attacking unit that takes a lot of time and resources to make, but is well worth the effort.
The Basics
Corrupters can be morphed into Brood Lords after you have upgraded your Hatchery into a Hive, and upgraded your Spire into a Greater Spire. Each Brood Lord costs 150 minerals, 150 gas, and 2 supply over and above the 2 supply the Corrupter costs (thus making each Brood Lord use 4 supply). Classified as an Armored Biological Massive unit, the Brood Lord has 225 hit points, 1 armor, and a Move Speed of Very Slow.
The Brood Lord’s attack is called Broodling Strike, which shoots 2 Broodlings at its target. The attack does 20 damage at a range of 9.5, with a Weapon Speed of Very Slow. The Broodlings live for 8 seconds, doing 4 damage with a Weapon Speed of Fast at Melee range. The Broodlings are Light Biological units with only 30 hit points and 0 armor, but they do have a Move Speed of Fast. What makes the Brood Lord’s attack so deadly is that it keeps shooting Broodlings every time it attacks, so you can overrun a ground army quickly if you have a decent number of Brood Lords.
Available Upgrades For The Brood Lord
There are 2 upgrades available at the Spire, Flyer Attacks and Flyer Carapace. Each Flyer Attacks upgrade adds 3 to the initial damage of Broodling Strike, and each Flyer Carapace upgrade adds 1 armor.
The Broodlings that are spawned with the Broodling Strike benefit from upgrades at the Evolution Chamber. Each Melee Attacks upgrade adds 1 damage to the Broodling’s attack, and each Ground Carapace adds 1 armor to the Broodling.
Brood Lord Strengths
The Brood Lord’s strength is doing lots of damage at a long range. The long range of the Brood Lord, plus the fact that the number of Broodlings spawned can add up quickly, causes enemy ground units to automatically target the Broodlings instead of the Brood Lord. This lets your Brood Lords wreck your opponent’s base with impunity if he does not command his units to focus fire your Brood Lords.
Brood Lord Weaknesses
Brood Lords do have a few weaknesses that can be exploited. They can only attack ground, and they move painfully slow. If they have no other air units to support them, they will quickly be killed by flying units that can attack air. Also, since they are classified as both Armored and Massive, they take extra damage from more units than if they were one or the other.
Best Uses Of The Zerg Brood Lord
The Brood Lord is best used as part of a final push to destroy your enemy’s base, with ample protection from other units so that they can do their extraordinary damage to units and buildings on the ground. It is rarely a good idea to try to rush your way up the tech tree to make them, as any decent opponent will be able to overwhelm you before you are able to produce them.
See also:
Starcraft 2 Beta New Unit Spotlight: Zerg Queen
Starcraft 2 Beta New Unit Spotlight: Zerg Baneling
Starcraft 2 Beta New Unit Spotlight: Zerg Roach
Starcraft 2 Beta New Unit Spotlight: Zerg Infestor
Starcraft 2 Beta New Unit Spotlight: Zerg Corrupter
