The Lurker Redesign - Perfect Solution

It will be a completely unique unit within the Zerg arsenal, and those reasons are listed below:
- highly specialized anti-armored unit (VERY weak vs light units)
- ground unit with siege range
- ranged unit with splash damage
- able to attack when burrowed

Lurker Stats:
- Morph from Hydra, 3 supply
- Tier 2.5, Lurker Den Upgrade (Required Lair, it would not compete with Tier 3 units)
- 200 hp
- 1 Armor
- 10 damage + 20 vs Armored Bonus (Lurker weak vs light units)
- 8 Range when burrowed
- Armored, Biological
- Tunneling Claws Ability (The Roach would lose this ability and give it to the Lurker)

This would strengthen the Hydralisk and would prevent the spamming of Roaches. It would provide more strategic options for a Zerg player and help with defense of their hive clusters. Also, the Zerg would do well to have a unit that specializes as an anti-armor unit to take down those heavy guns, such as the Roach, Ultra, Colossus and Tanks. Furthermore, the Lurker would only have a range of 8 which is less than both the Colossus and Siege Tank because of its ability to attack while burrowed.

Specific Roles

* The Roach: Geared for tanking with organic carapace.
* The Lurker: Anti-armored attacker with tunneling claws
* The Baneling: Sapper that is good against light infantry and buildings

Specific Counters

* Roach is countered by Lurkers (This would force diversity by getting hydras and morphing)
* Hydra is countered by Zergling, Baneling, Roach
* Lurker is countered by Zergling, Baneling, Hydra

Mix things up for ZVZ Matches

I think this would seriously change up early ZvZ gameplay. Do you go Roaches which get countered hardcore by Lurkers? Hydras which are countered by Banelings and Roaches? Lurkers which are countered by Hydras and Zergling? It would also require you to actually use more detection against Zerg which imo is a great thing considering Zerg lost a lot of their detection and also their biggest threat the Lurker.

Currently, Roaches are the answer to everything.... that needs to change for the health of the game.
Lurkers would counter roaches hardcore... and that is what the Zerg army needs... diversity.

The developers say that Lurkers were taken out because their goal is to keep the unit count of the game as small as possible so that players know their choices and understand their enemy choices as well. They feel that the Roach uses the Lurker's burrow ability well, while Ultralisks and Banelings have the splash damage covered. Many units took over Lurkers’ roles over the period of development, so they didn't think they were as valuable anymore. But we all do miss them!

Well this is our point of view. I think that Lurkers should not really be Tier2 in the current build, because they don't really fit in there and they wouldn't really be a good counter to Roaches, given the fact that ZvZ is a very dynamic matchup and you would probably still prefer Ultralisks or Broodlords at T3. What do you think about it?