Heart of the Swarm Campaign- Kerrigan Abilities: Infest Broodlings (Level 50)
Infest Broodlings is a curious little ability that sort of turns Kerrigan into a form of swarmer roach or brood lord. Selection of this unit causes Kerrigan to lay an effect on any enemy she hits- any unit killed by Kerrigan’s attack or within a short time after she has damaged it with her attack will produce two broodlings when it dies, just as though it had been shot by a brood lord. While broodlings are not in and of themselves particularly terrifying or even bothersome, they perform as an excellent screen and, in large numbers, can really tip things in favor of Zerg forces at no resource cost- so the issue here becomes ensuring that Kerrigan’s attacks will produce a significant enough number of broodlings that the ability will actually mean something.
Most key in this is ensuring that Kerrigan attacks as often and as many targets as possible. Attacks is the key word, as her abilities that directly deal damage (such as Kinetic Blast, Leaping Strike, Crushing Grip, or Psionic Shift) do not count as attacks for the purpose of this ability. Also of note is the fact that the smaller the number of enemies present in a given force, the less effective this ability becomes- while it may start an assault strong as you mow down light frontline forces, if the attack takes some time to complete the power becomes less and less useful, as the timed broodlings die off and are not replaced as quickly. This therefore makes it of tantamount importance to kill off individual powerful enemy units as quickly as possible through means other than Kerrigan’s attack, which becomes better spent on light enemy forces.
Fortunately, you already have access to a couple of ways to boost this ability’s effectiveness- Chain Reaction. Since Chain Reaction causes Kerrigan’s attacks to hit four additional enemies (provided such enemies are present), it can drastically increase the rate at which broodlings are produced by Infest Broodlings, especially when there is an abundance of enemy targets. Additionally, using the Wild Mutation ability to boost Kerrigan’s attack speed will increase the rate at which she kills off light units, resulting in a dogpile on heavier units and structures in later stages of a base assault- and a larger number of broodlings remaining at that point to offset their timed life.
This ability works particularly well with a ranged-attack Kerrigan, as the broodlings she spawns can interfere with unit movements in combat but aren’t an obstacle to ranged attacks- combining it with the swarmer roach evolution can easily result in an assault force that creates its own melee shield at a rate enemy forces just won’t be able to compensate for, and thus a sort of ‘charging rhino’ effect- an attack force that is a bit slow to start up but gains so much momentum that it becomes unstoppable if not halted almost as soon as it begins. Which, of course, is exactly what you really need when attacking the large, sprawling enemy bases that are so common in the single-player campaign.
