Queen

From The StarCraft 2 Wiki

The Queen is similar in appearance to the Queen of the Brood War, but has lost her capability to fly, and is now one of the prime defenders of the Hive Clusters.

Contents 1 Background 2 Game Unit 2.1 StarCraft II 2.1.1 Hive Queen 2.1.2 Abilities 2.1.3 Upgrades 3 Queen Breeds 3.1 Brood War 3.2 StarCraft II 4 Development 5 Gallery 6 Reference

Background

StarCraft II Unit [e]
Queen
Race:	Zerg, Tier 1
Role:	Main Defence
Unit Statistics
Size:	Large
Type:	Ground, Biological
Speed:	Normal
Transport Slots:	N/A
Hit Points:	175
Plasma Shields:	N/A
Energy Points:	200
Offence
Armament:	Claws, Acid Spines
Ground Attack:	4x2 (Fast)
Air Attack:	9 (Fast)
Range:	3 (Claws), 7 (Acid Spines)
Defence
Armor:	1 (Light)
Sight:	x
Cooldown:	N/A
Special Abilities
Lay Creep Tumor Lays down a Creep Tumor on the ground Larvae Growth Makes a targeted Hatchery produce 4 extra larvae Regeneration Instantly restores 100 hp from unit/building
Production
Hotkey:	Q
Supply:	0
Resources:	150 0
Build Time:	25
Produced by:	Hatchery
Prerequisite:	Spawning Pool

Zerg Queens are the gene-strand that has seen the biggest change throughout starcraft history. In Starcraft 2 they have reached a new level of potential and power. With the Cerebrates long gone, Kerrigan made the fragile flying Queens into deadly ground-based defenders of the Hive Cluster. These improved queens reign over the cluster, and provide several defensive benefits to them.

Unlike other creatures of the swarm, the Queen is birthed directly from a Hatchery, bypassing the usual morphing. The queen is able to evolve alongside the Hive Cluster, retaining her power as the game progresses. However, if the Queen is killed you will lose all of her accompanying upgrades and the new Queen will have to re-upgrade. Suffice to say, the Zerg must be very protective of their Queens.

The Queen has the ability to lay eggs that hatch into Creep Tumors. These tumors are burrowed units that create creep around themselves, allowing better positioning of defenses or creep-related abilities.

In addition to the previously mentioned abilities, the Hive Queen can dig deep tunnels between Zerg outposts, a very powerful ability as it currently works on enemy zerg buildings as well. The Hive Queen can also or activate any building with Swarm Infestation, granting it an attack ability. The Queen is also capable of making the very creep toxic to enemy units. Finally, each evolution makes the queen stronger and more durable, keeping her useful in the late game.

Game Unit

StarCraft II

Hive Queen

The Starcraft 2 Queen bears only superficial resemblances to the original Queen. While she retains her wings, she is now a ground-based one-of unit that focuses primarily on defense. There are some very interesting features with the Hive Queen, such as both being able to fend off smaller attacks itself, and healing/engaging regular buildings to attack. This is besides being the builder of the defence.

Some have claimed that the Zerg Queen is a "Hero Unit" as in WarCraft III. Relevant discussion can be seen in various Starcraft forums or in articles such as this one.

Abilities

• Burrow
• Lay Creep Tumor
• Larvae Growth

Upgrades

The Hive Queen will benefit from the following upgrades.

• Missile Attacks

Queen Breeds

Brood War

• Queen
• Empress Queen
• Eschutriarch
• Matriarch
• Siren

StarCraft II

• Queen

Development

The Queen started out as an interesting idea, but she never got power enough to really be called a "queen" in StarCraft I. As Dustin Browder said: "She could have been called anything, and people would not have noticed." With StarCraft II, there has been a great change in direction, and the Queen is now much bigger, land based and a lot more deadly and useful. Her name now suits her.

The new Queen was revealed in March 2008 during the Zerg Reveal[1], and has changed much through the alpha, pre-beta and up to closed beta. Originally, the queen was a unique unit (like the Mothership originally was) of the Zerg[2], who could be mutated into two consecutive upgrades. From Queen to Large Queen to Huge Queen. The normal Queen could Burrow, Lay Creep Tumors, Lay Swarm Clutch, Lay Shrieker, Evolve Queen and cast Regeneration. Basically, she was in charge of the Hive Cluster's defence.

Her abilities increased as a Large Queen, adding Deep Tunnel and Swarm Infestation to the array of skills, making her better at transporting between bases and also more able to defend the base. The Huge Queen could not evolve further, but instead use Toxic Creep, which made creep poisonous to walk on. Each size increase also significantly boosted her hit points, armor and damage. She originally had only a very limited air attack, using her tentacles to nearby flying units.

By mid December the same year, the Queen was no longer unique, and the Swarm Clutches and Shriekers were definitely overpowered. The change to make her non-unique was possibly at the time also to make the Mothership more of a unique feature.

The way creep and defences work also changed slightly over the coming year, and now the queen has nothing to do with the defence of the Hive Cluster, other than casting Regeneration on a defensive structure or unit. Multiple queens is almost a necessity to keep using the Larvae Growth.

Gallery

Here are a few Hive Queen pictures.

Updated render from the 6th of May update.	Queen concept art.	StarCraft I in-game unit.	StarCraft II In-game model.
Zerg combat. Hive Queen to the right.	A few random concept sketches, with some Queen-like creatures.	One early incarnation of the Hive Queen.	A mosquito-like queen by Samwise Didier.

Reference

• Zerg Reveal Event 2008
• The Zerg Queen (March 2008)

Zerg Units (StarCraft II) [e]
(i) = Infested (z) = Zerg-evolution (g) = Swarm Guardian spawn
Ground Units:	Hive Queen | Larva | Drone | Zergling | Baneling (z) | Roach | Hydralisk | Lurker (z) | Nydus Worm | Infestor | Ultralisk
Air Units:	Overlord | Overseer (z) | Mutalisk | Swarm Guardian (z) | Corruptor |
Additional Units:	Broodling (g) | Infested Terran (i) | Infested Protoss (i) | Egg (z) | Lurker egg (z) | Cocoon (z)
Basic Buildings:	Hatchery | Extractor | Creep Tumor | Spawning Pool | Spine Crawler | Roach Den | Baneling Nest | Evolution Chamber | Spore Crawler
Advanced Buildings:	Lair | Hydralisk Den | Deep Warren | Spire | Nydus Network | Hive | Greater Spire | Infestor Pit | Ultralisk Cavern
Cancelled Units:	Shrieker (z)
Cancelled Buildings:	Sunken Colony | Spore Colony | Swarm Clutch

Zerg Units (StarCraft I & Brood War) [e]
(q) = Queen-infested (z) = Zerg-evolution
Ground Units:	Larva | Drone | Zergling | Hydralisk | Lurker | Defiler | Ultralisk
Air Units:	Overlord | Scourge | Mutalisk | Guardian | Devourer | Queen
Additional Units:	Broodling (q) | Infested Terran (q) | Egg (z) | Lurker egg (z) | Cocoon (z)
Basic Buildings:	Hatchery | Extractor | Evolution Chamber | Spawning Pool | Creep Colony | Spore Colony | Sunken Colony | Hydralisk Den
Advanced Buildings:	Lair | Hive | Spire | Greater Spire | Queen's Nest | Nydus Canal | Defiler Mound | Ultralisk Cavern | Infested Command Center (q)
Hero ground units:	Torrasque (ult) | Matriarch (qu) | Infested Kerrigan (it) | Unclean One (def) | Hunter Killer (hyd) | Devouring One (zlng) | Infested Duran (unk)
Hero air units:	Kukulza (mut, grd) | Yggdrasill (ovl)
(ult) = Ultralisk -- (qu) = Queen -- (it) = Infested Terran -- (def) = Defiler -- (hyd) = Hydralisk -- (zlng) = Zergling -- (unk) = Unknown -- (mut) = Mutalisk -- (grd) = Guardian -- (ovl) = Overlord