The last of Kerrigan’s first-tier abilities comes with both a bonus and a penalty in addition to the active option that it is in and of itself. Leaping Strike costs 50 energy, but has no cooldown at all, allowing you to chain it as long as Kerrigan has energy remaining and you can direct her attack. On the downside, its damage is only half that of Kinetic Blast- a mere 150. While this is less useful for cracking open tough enemies, the fact that it literally drops Kerrigan on their head will usually make up for this by drawing attention to the Queen of Blades herself. On top of allowing Kerrigan to perform a heel-stomp worthy of the great Chun Li, this ability alters Kerrigan’s basic combat ability, reducing her attack range by a whopping 3, but increasing her attack damage by 10. If you’re interested in using your Kerrigan as a front-line unit and having her obliterate things really hard, this is the ability for you.
While the reduction in range can be inconvenient for Kerrigan, the mobility increase will often make up for this, and having her closer to the combat can actually wind up making her more effective, ensuring more nearby targets for some of her abilities, or allowing her to use buffs and heals more effectively on other front-line units. This can be a big liability when you’re trying to head up cliffs or when you don’t have any melee units supporting Kerrigan at all, but that’s a relatively easy difficulty to overcome. As a side bonus, you can have Kerrigan use Leaping Strike on locations without enemies in them, letting her bridge otherwise uncrossable gaps or even leap up and down cliffs rather than going the long way to a ramp.
On the downside, this is unquestionably a less powerful shot than Kinetic Blast for the same energy cost. The lack of cooldown can make it all too easy to blow all of Kerrigan’s energy stomping on things when you might need to have her use another ability, so you need to keep your eye on Kerrigan’s energy meter when using Leaping Strike and make sure you’re leaving enough of her resource for any other energy-spending abilities you want to use. Relocating her to the same place as a powerful enemy can easily backfire as well, so make sure you’re not leaping her into the middle of danger when she’s already injured. The reduction in her range puts her at a distance when attacking that is closer than roaches and hydralisks, but not quite in melee range, so when you don’t use the Leaping Strike attack, this can cripple her ability to mesh with other Zerg in an assault force. This ability is also not useful on airborne enemies, which is a serious shortfalling when comparing it to Kinetic Blast, which can take out pesky medevacs, among other things.
Leaping Strike is best used on Kerrigan with heavy melee support, while keeping her in an army or cluster of units that move at roughly the same speed as Kerrigan at all times. If you’re good at tactically positioning Kerrigan with this ability, it will often more than make up for the reduction it inflicts on her attack range, and the increased damage will always be welcome. Just don’t try to use a Leaping Strike Kerrigan as a fire-and-forget unit, she’ll get munged in the shuffle and drawn into dangerous situations too easily by her AI.
