Queen (StarCraft II)

The queen is a zerg support unit that appears in StarCraft II. Despite a shared name, it is a vastly different unit from its predecessor, most notably in that it no longer flies.

Overview
This breed of queen came into use after the Brood War, observed as early as 2502. Sapient beings and tougher than their predecessors, these queens play a limited command role nurturing zerg nest sites. Their new morphology hints at the incorporation of terran or protoss DNA, or perhaps even the zerg-altered genes of the Queen of Blades herself. Such evolution implies a widespread change occured within the zerg hierarchy, a redistribution of power making them more difficult to combat. Queens have the advanced ability to manipulate their "offspring"; for instance, they engineered the zergling morph to the baneling, a breed that can contain its explosive energies until just the right moment. They have also been tasked with the spawning of numerous cocoons and can lob projectiles at their enemies. In leadership roles, they oversee hives and co-ordinate lesser strains.

Game Unit
The queen is now a ground unit with an attack consisting of spines launched by the "wings" on its back.

Queens are strong against hellions, s, and void rays, but are weak against s, s, and s.

A 1:1 ratio of queens to hatcheries will allow the hatcheries to continually produce additional larvae assuming perfect timing of inject larva, though the queen would not be able to generate an energy surplus for other abilities in such a case.

Building excess queens in lieu of or in conjunction with ground units and spine crawlers is a frequent early defense option due to the queen's ability to block small ramps, attack air units, heal with transfusion and later spread creep tumors or relocate to an expansion for larva injection in the mid-game. In addition the queen's lack of an armor type means that few units deal bonus damage to the queen, making her an excellent all-around tanking unit.

The queen's movement speed bonus from creep is much larger than other zerg units, making it especially slow when off of creep, but is fairly quick when on creep.

Production
The queen emerges directly from the hatchery (meaning it is not morphed from a larva but walks out of the hatchery) and requires a spawning pool. You cannot set a rally point for your queen, they always spawn directly next to the hatchery in available space.

Queen Variants

 * Brood mother
 * Char queen