Zagara (Co-op Missions)

"As Zagara, you’ll experience with profound clarity why the Zerg are referred to as the Swarm. You’ll multiply your economy at breakneck speeds, and spawn units in relentless waves to assault your opponents. Zagara herself will be present on the battlefield, hosting a repertoire of abilities to lend aid to your efforts. Zagara can call down sacs that rain damage and more Zerg creatures, or spawn potent Hunter Killers to take down priority targets. Zagara can even increase the combat prowess of all friendly units by sending them into a frenzy."

- Commander blurb

Zagara is a playable commander in the Co-op Missions mode of Legacy of the Void. She is a controllable unit within missions, able to use spawning abilities to call down sacs or summon hunter killers. She can also boost combat effectiveness of all friendly units. She is not as powerful a hero as Kerrigan, but instead specializes in overrunning her enemies with swarms of disposable units, particularly banelings.

Info

 * Recommended for experienced players
 * Control Zagara on the mission with spawning abilities
 * Breed a relentless swarm of Zerg to tear apart your enemies

Mastery

 * Power Set 1
 * Zagara's Health and Energy Regeneration: +1% – 30%
 * Zagara's Attack Damage: +1 – 30


 * Power Set 2
 * Baneling Damage: +1% – 30%
 * Evasion: +0.5% – 15%


 * Power Set 3
 * Roach Damage and Life: +2% – 60%
 * Sustained Frenzy: +2% – 60%

Game Unit
Zagara is a deceptively fragile hero unit. Her slow attack rate makes her easily overwhelmed, but her splash damage upgrade helps significantly. Her abilities all spawn units to aid her in combat, and the player should use her Baneling Barrage and Spawn Hunter Killer abilities liberally for this purpose. Against most enemies either or both of these abilities allows Zagara to handle herself well, and she is perfectly effective for sustained engagements due to their low cooldowns and energy costs.

Zagara's major weakness is superior enemy numbers that can overwhelm her Hunter Killers. Alone, Zagara is easily dispatched, and she must rely on her forces, temporary or permanent, to support her. Unlike Kerrigan, Zagara is best used in conjunction with her army, as she has many abilities that can support and augment them.

Zagara takes 4 minutes to spawn at her base. If Zagara is killed, she will respawn 60 seconds later at her player's primary hatchery/lair/hive.

Units and Structures
Zagara has access to the following units and structures:

Talent Progression
Zagara acquires the following talents as she levels up.

Strategies
Zagara's army comprises of extremely fragile, micro-intensive units with extreme mobility. Zagara can solo a lot of early waves and allow you to spend all your resources in upgrades. Zagara struggles more than other commanders against hybrid dominators and hybrid behemoths, both which possess powerful AOE abilities and cleaving attacks; all of which eviscerates her forces in seconds.

Power Set 1: Zagara Life and Energy Regeneration Power Set 2: Baneling Attack Damage
 * Recommended masteries:
 * Zagara Life and Energy Regeneration (+1% – 30%)
 * Zagara relies on her spells in the early game, so Life and Energy Regeneration is certainly the optimal choice here. Top level Zagara players will generally keep Zagara’s energy close to 0 for most of the game - If this doesn’t match your experiences, you can practice utilizing all of Zagara’s energy. Additionally, Zagara has some issues with her personal survivability, especially before she gets her Heroic Fortitude upgrade, so the life regeneration aspect of the first mastery choice is welcomed as well. On the other hand, only the main attack of Zagara benefits from the increased Attack Damage - the split attacks of her Medusa Blades does not receive any benefit. Coupled with her slow attack speed, most of the damage dealt by Zagara comes from her spells and not her normal attacks, making this mastery a weaker choice - use it only if you don’t expect to be able to micromanage Zagara’s abilities.
 * Baneling Attack Damage (+1 – 30)
 * Full points to banelings provide stable damage output; Banelings are a core unit of Zagara’s playstyle; Baneling Attack Damage is the clear choice here. Zerglings are frequently killed by AoE spells and attacks; therefore they don’t benefit from Evasion.

Power Set 3: Roach Damage and Life
 * Roach Damage and Life (+2% – 60%)
 * Zagara’s Infested Drop is generally a poor ultimate ability without Level 10 and the mastery, which significantly increases the amount of damage they can sustain when used separately from your main army, as well as giving them increased damage-output. On the other hand, to get the most out of the Sustained Frenzy Mastery, you would need to coordinate with your ally to some extent, which is usually too much to ask for in most games. Default to the Infested Drop Mastery unless you have a very good reason for picking Sustained Frenzy.

Relentless Swarmer
Zagara is capable of raising an entire army in a matter of seconds and very cheaply due to her discount on offensive units and their fast mutate times. The catch is she only has a maximum supply of 100; a huge problem that forces Zagara to spam units more frequently than any other hero. Because of this, her army will need to be replaced several times and Zagara's casualty ratings will be exceptionally high upon ending the game, second only to Stukov. Take advantage of this trait by forming an entire army that is both damaging and completely expendable. Even with exceptionally careful micromanagement Zagara's army will need to be replaced at least once, as such multiple queens or hatcheries are absolutely essential to keeping Zagara in the game.

Another thing to bear in mind is the specialized nature of Zagara's forces: they are capable of attacking only one type of target. Her ground forces, bar Zagara and her hunter killers, can only target ground units and her air units can only target air units. Keeping this in mind is needed, as her fragile army can be destroyed rapidly if the enemy manages to overwhelm one set of specialists. Use micro and the ability to replenish Zagara's forces to compensate for this.

Supporting the Onslaught
Zagara is very different from Kerrigan and Dehaka. She is quite fragile even with full upgrades, and she takes longer to revive. Her abilities are based on spawning expendable forces over and over again. Zagara's banelings can be used to destroy towers or weaken enemy forces, especially waves of weaker forces such as infested or zerglings. Her hunter killers are critical to master; they are her only anti-air support for much of the early game, and spawning them before an attack provides extra firepower for the player's offense.

Her final abilities, Infested Drop and Mass Frenzy, are very powerful. While her banelings and hunter killers are key support, her final abilities can easily be the difference between the defeat of Zagara's army or victory. Her Infested Drop deals damage directly to enemy units, so it is best used to as a bombardment to distract the main enemy force, followed by a Zagara rushing the enemy with her army and using Frenzy to empower her troops. Frenzy also aids the allied player, this allows Zagara to drastically enhance the damage output of both armies and overwhelm enemy bases.

The Kamikaze Offense
Zagara has terrible ground-based anti-air capabilities; she relies on her hunter killer summons and corruptors until her hive-tier scourge upgrades are researched. Focus on getting a strong economy that can support Zagara's resource guzzling playstyle. Once her resources are steady, a player can upgrade zerglings and banelings and should constantly mutate more of both for this strategy. Use Zagara's banelings and scourge to wipe out the majority of enemy defenders, then allow your ally to send in their more durable forces and clean up what's left while Zagara replenishes her forces--repeat as needed to decimate enemies swiftly. This type of aggressive playstyle makes Zagara well-suited for offensive missions as a supporting combatant with the ability to swiftly demolish enemy forces. However, Zagara will be left relying on her ally to finish off the enemy, and the player is left relying on Zagara and her summoning abilities while her army is being rebuilt.

Overwhelming the Enemy
Zagara relies very heavily on her zerglings, more so than any other Zerg character. Her swarmlings allow her to produce waves of expendable units and morph banelings at an incredible rate. However such a kamikaze offense may not work on maps where Zagara is the primary aggressor. As such, players may wish to use a more conventional approach to building their forces.

Zerglings will provide the fastest units in Zagara's army, and fully upgraded a rush of zerglings is effective with ally support. However, players will struggle mightily against hybrid and sentry fortifications if they rely on zerglings alone. Instead, a player should take advantage of the banelings provided by the Birthing Chamber ability. Using the free banelings as a damaging ally to the zerglings to provide Zagara with some much needed firepower. Corrupters or scourge provide the anti-air once mixed with Zagara and her hunter killers. If possible, try to clear a way for banelings since they can be blocked by allied units such as zerglings.

The strong backbone of the army will be the aberration. These units, in spite of their higher supply cost, are anti-armor specialists that allow Zagara to assault hybrid even when her banelings are expended. The Protective Cover upgrade is extremely useful. The extra armor the upgrade provides other units allows the aberrations to not only function as shields, but increase the longevity of zerglings and allow banelings to reach their targets.

Due to their fragile nature, this army will rely on Zagara herself for support. Her roaches, hunter killers, banelings, and Mass Frenzy will be needed in order for victory to be achieved.

This army, like the kamikaze offense, will need to take advantage of a strong economy and the ability to quickly replenish forces. The player will need to swiftly alternate between micro with Zagara and spawning more zerglings, aberrations, and corrupters from their main base.

The Best Defense is a Good Offense
Zagara, contrary to first impressions, is decent on the defense. Her standard spore and spine crawlers are familiar to players, and her Bile Launchers allow her to construct a poor man's siege tank(one that has to be manually controlled) to provide support for her crawlers.

Where Zagara truly shines is in terms of army-supported defense. Zagara herself can be a powerful aid to towers, her spawn baneling and her hunter killers can allow her to provide anti-ground and anti-air firepower instantly. In addition to this, the rapid spawning of her zerglings can allow Zagara to send a wall of cheap units to slow down the enemy, and Infested Drop can be used to call down reinforcements directly on top of enemy forces to buy an ally more time to build defenses.

Protoss Commanders
Note that all protoss commanders can use their Nexus' Chrono Boost on Zagaras's baneling nest to increase the frequency of free banelings.

Artanis is an excellent teammate for Zagara. Shield Overcharge and Guardian Shell alleviates the fragility of Zagara's numerically superior offensive units. Zagara's swarmlings and aberrations in turn will cover ground units and melee combat, letting the Artanis player devote more resources to more powerful, higher-tier reavers, archons, and tempests. Be warned, however. Banelings and Scourge do not benefit from Guardian Shell, so they can be intercepted by area of effect attacks before they can deal significant damage, even as the rest of Zagara's army continues to fight under the fire of things like enemy High Templar, Infestors, and Disruptors.

Karax offers negligible synergy to Zagara, since her units already all mutate quickly. His Unity Barrier can give her swarmlings and banelings a little more toughness, but beyond that he isn't hugely beneficial to her (although his Chrono Wave can speed up her research, and his heavy defenses can compensate for her poorer static defenses).

Vorazun can use her black hole in combination with Zagara's banelings to heavy damage a large number of units. Her time stop is also devastating since Zagara's units are generally high damage but low life. Zagara has no cloaked units and does not benefit at all from Vorazun's cloak bonuses, though.

Alarak is an effective teammate for Zagara. Zagara provides a very large expandable melee army for Alarak's "Empower Me" ability. Supplicants shielded by aberrations are surprisingly effective tanks due to their defensive buffs. Alarak can use Destruction Wave to knock enemies into the range of Zagara's mostly short-ranged army. Ascendants are good to focus down powerful enemy units Zagara's army may have trouble with.

Fenix is a powerful teammate for Zagara, as both cover for each other's weaknesses. Fenix's heroes in the early game allow Zagara to transition into her powerful mid game, and her support abilities also benefit Fenix's forces. Frenzy can add heavy damage to scouts, colossi and immortals, and hunter killers, scourges an corruptors can compensate for Fenix's lack of reliable anti-air in the mid game. Fenix meanwhile can be mobile with recall and his suit changes being a global teleport, and can provide needed burst damage with his solarite dragoon's arsenal overcharge.

Terran Commanders
Raynor is a questionable choice of teammate for Zagara, gaining a lot of benefit from Mass Frenzy, but not providing her very much useful utility. Scanner Sweeps can keep Zagara from needing to make overseers, but medics are not helpful for Zagara's suicidal strategy (except for her corruptors and aberrations). Both can rapidly reproduce armies, allowing for constant aggression, but both are also vulnerable to splash damage and spells.

Swann is another good choice for teammates. Swarmlings can occupy enemy ground forces while Swann's goliaths and thors decimate air units and siege tanks provide ranged support. Swann's drones are extremely useful for Zagara, due to her late game army requiring heavy use of gas.

Nova doesn't have great synergy with Zagara, as the two combined field small armies and Zagara doesn't help in keeping Nova's troops alive. However, Zagara's army can attack a position earlier, giving Nova a chance to plan ahead and target-firing down detectors and dangerous enemies. Both are strong at destroying bases, and Zagara can constantly apply pressure with her rapidly-respawning armies while Nova recovers if she suffers a big loss.

Han and Horner and Zagara cover a lot of the same roles, but their ability to buff their expendable armies is a massive boon to one another. Hellion’s aerosol stim makes Zagara’s mass zerglings even more of a threat, while Zagara’s frenzy can make Han’s massed mercenary units push even harder. The downside however is both have armies designed to be lost and rebuilt, so there’s a chance if a push isn’t done hard enough that both will be exposed for a time. However, Han and Horner can make up for this with powerful, persistent Horner air units in the late game, as well as devastating calldowns to help finalize any objective.

Zerg Commanders
Kerrigan has mutalisks and ultralisks that are generally superior to corruptors and aberrations, so there is little Zagara can offer her that Kerrigan cannot do better herself. Kerrigan's Malignant Creep, however, is very handy for Zagara, and Zagara's queens can provide more larva to Kerrigan's hatcheries than her own queens can.

While Zagara's forces are weaker than Kerrigan's, they are useful for support if managed properly. Aberrations, as in the campaign, have complementary skills with ultralisks. Likewise, corrupters can use their special ability to soften enemy targets for mutalisks or brood lords to slaughter. But, by the late mid-game to the endgame, Kerrigan will have little to no need of Zagara's help due to her forces simply being stronger than the Zagara's.

Abathur has some synergy, arguably the most out of the zerg characters, with Zagara. This is in spite of them being polar opposites in terms of how they use their units. Zagara's rapid start and cheap units can shield Abathur's weakness in the early game, and Abathur's juggernaut units can screen for Zagara's cheap but fragile army. Abathur also has multiple air unit options, which can alleviate Zagara's primary weakness in the late game. The difficulty of this pairing is that the commanders need to use them carefully. Zagara's fast army can outrun Abathur and get crushed if the commander isn't careful. Likewise, Abathur need to be careful that he doesn't take Zagara's army for granted and be taken off guard when the expendable forces are destroyed.

Stukov gives Zagara infinite creep, allowing her forces to swiftly move to where they're needed. However, both have disposable armies designed to screen for more powerful units, and as such do not synergize particularly well, especially when there is dead time between large engagements where neither player will have a powerful force to defend against unexpected threats. Primarily, Zagara will defend Stukov until he can unleash his powerful endgame army, instead of trying for a push. However, when they do push, Zagara's frenzy can really help Stukov's infested civilians and marines, while Stukov's calldowns can help defend against threats that may attack during the down time while both forces are rebuilding.

Dehaka and Zagara have moderate synergy. Zagara relies on heavy masses of disposable units that she can buff, while Dehaka’s heavy frontline covers a lot of the same role. As such, Dehakas with Zagara should go for lighter units that benefit from her zerglings tying up enemy waves like hydralisks or guardians. Frenzy is a massive boon to Dehaka, as all of his units and calldowns benefit from it and can clear out attack waves with it, while Dehaka himself can also cover for Zagara as she deals her damage.

Trivia

 * Data exists in the Galaxy Map Editor for a devouring maw ability for Zagara in Co-op Missions, similar to her Heroes of the Storm appearance.