Ease of Control: Stukov’s Psi Emitter allows him to direct his infantry and then forget about them — they’ll get the job done. This frees up APM and allows you to focus your attention towards optimizing the usage of Stukov’s tech units, as well as his powerful calldowns.

Stalwart Defense: Stukov’s Infested Bunkers provide a sturdy wall with high health regen and constantly respawning Infested Troopers. Infested Siege Tanks can be positioned behind these to deal large amounts of area damage. Additionally, his low-cooldown Infest Structure ability spawns a large number of Broodlings, which can distract enemies and buy his other units time to arrive.

Poor Mobility: The bulk of Stukov’s army will typically consist of a mindless mob of slow-moving Infested infantry spread out haphazardly across a wide area of the map. These units are somewhat sluggish at responding to threats as they emerge, and demand that players plan ahead when placing the Psi Emitter. Though Stukov’s Infested Siege Tanks have access to Deep Tunnel, they do not fare well without access to a source of Infested to act as ammunition. Stukov’s calldowns, while powerful and usable anywhere with vision, also have prohibitive cooldowns and are not able to move across the map in a timely manner once summoned. His Infested and Infested Bunkers are also much slower off creep, limiting his range of movement before creep has adequately spread throughout the map. Additionally, Stukov’s ground units have an unfortunate tendency to take up a lot of space, which reduces their effective damage output and can sometimes be a detriment to Stukov’s ally, should they fight in the same space.

The main force of Stukov’s army is comprised of the Infested Civilians and Volatile Infested that spawn from his Infested Colonist Compound. Infested Bunkers are another mainstay of Stukov’s army, and are capable of spawning Infested Troopers with timed life; they can also uproot and attack directly in order to support the frontlines. Stukov’s various mechanical units can also be added to your build in order to counter specific enemy unit compositions.

In the case of the Infested Bunker, Infest Structure can only be used on the Bunker while it is rooted, but you can uproot it after using Infest Structure on it in order to create a moving, regenerating Broodling spawner. Other structures that can move such as Stukov’s own production structures or regular Terran structures can be targeted by Infest Structure even while floating or uprooted.

300 second cooldown (down to 210 with mastery) and lasts for 60 seconds. The Apocalisk deals 150 damage to units in a radius of 2 on spawn. The Apocalisk is your primary early game calldown and is well suited to clearing out large numbers of ground units. Its Cluster Rockets can deal damage to individual air units, but it should not be relied on to clear large groups of enemy air units.

Cluster Rockets: 40 charges, uses 5 charges per cast of the ability. Each charge launches a missile that deals 20 damage to a nearby air target. Recharges all 40 charges every 10 seconds.

Burrow Charge: Burrows into the ground and moves to the targeted point, unburrowing and dealing 150 damage to all enemy units in a radius of 2, stunning and knocking affected enemies away.

360 second cooldown (down to 300 with mastery) and lasts for 60 seconds. The Aleksander’s air attack mind controls enemy air units, allowing you to control them and even cast spells such as Yamato Cannon. If taking over a Carrier, you may want to turn off autocast for Build Interceptor in order to avoid wasting minerals on Interceptors you don’t need. Upon death or when it times out, the Aleksander crashes into the ground, dealing 300 damage to any ground units or structures underneath, and continues to spawn Infested Troopers and Civilians for an additional 30 seconds.

The Aleksander also possesses an aura that reduces the damage taken by nearby friendly units by 20%. Use this to assist an ally or enhance a push into heavily fortified territory.

The Aleksander’s anti-ground weapon has a weapon speed of 1.5 and spawns either an Infested Civilian or an Infested Trooper with each attack, each with an 8 second duration. Infested Civilians can be spawned as Volatile Infested instead if you have points invested in the Volatile Infested Mastery. These Infested will spawn Broodlings upon death if you have the Broodling Gestation upgrade.

Groups of Infested Civilians are spawned as cocoons from the Infested Colonist Compound every 60 seconds and take 30 seconds to hatch. Though they are expendable, it is better to use them intelligently and in combination with other measures whenever possible — such as alongside your own calldowns or your ally’s forces — than to just throw them away recklessly as fast as you can. Once upgraded, Infested Civilians become a force to be reckoned with. Each Infested Civilian has 35 HP, plus an additional 30 HP in the form of the Broodling they will spawn on death after researching Broodling Gestation. Infested Civilians last 90 (or up to 120 with mastery) seconds before expiring — this means that you can have up to two groups of Infested Civilians active on the field at once. It can therefore be wise to hold off on sending your Infested into the meat grinder immediately on some occasions, instead waiting until the second wave of Infested arrives — this is useful in the early game while a single Infested wave is still easily repelled by enemy base defenses, as you will be attacking with twice the number of Infested.

All Infested move at a significantly reduced movement speed when off creep, which can be a major hindrance to Stukov’s effectiveness on many maps. The Anaerobic Enhancement upgrade will allow your Infested Civilians and Volatile Infested to leap at enemies within a range of 4, which somewhat alleviates this concern.

Volatile Infested are spawned from Infested Siege Tanks and in place of Infested Civilians if you have the Volatile Infested Mastery. They provide a powerful burst of area damage against ground units to supplement the sustained damage of other Infested. They make for an extremely useful addition to Stukov’s arsenal. For the ones spawned from the Compound, it can be a good idea to manually move them to the middle of the pack of Infested. This will let them survive the initial volley of enemy attacks, but leave them close enough to be able to take down dangerous enemies, allowing for more Infested Civilians to survive.

Infested Marines are spawned from Stukov’s Barracks for only 25 minerals, though they come with a timed duration of 90 seconds (120 with mastery). Though powerful enough to be used from start to finish as your primary mineral dump throughout a mission, this is not an ideal use of minerals due to their timed life and low HP. The Infested Bunker is an overall more effective and flexible choice — however, switching to Infested Marines towards the end of a mission for an extra boost to your pushing power may be a good idea.

Their Plagued Munitions upgrade causes them to apply a damage over time effect to any enemy unit hit by Infested Marine attacks, dealing 50 damage over 15 seconds. This effect doesn’t stack.Infested Troopers are spawned from Infested Bunkers and are identical to Infested Marines in all respects save duration — they instead last 30 (60) seconds.

Infested Bunkers are one of the most powerful units throughout Co-op, being both a beefy unit in its own right and possessing the capacity to spawn a stream of Infested Troopers while idle, as well as being a mineral-only unit.

Spawns an Infested Trooper every 24 seconds, lasting 30 (60) seconds for as long as the Infested Bunker remains rooted. When initially constructed, Infested Bunkers spawn with 6 Infested Troopers, which makes for a significant value in and of itself. Assuming that the Infested Bunker itself is disregarded and that each Infested Trooper is valued at 25 minerals, this means that the Infested Bunker will have paid itself off after only 144 seconds, and will afterwards continue to provide you with value for the rest of the game.

Uprooted Infested Bunkers make for very strong frontliners and are the go-to unit for supporting your army of Infested during a push into an enemy base. For more details on how to use these better, refer to the Bunker Micro section.Using Bunkers solely for Trooper generation is a viable choice, but should not be relied on too heavily, as uprooted Bunkers used aggressively are able to outshine Bunkers used only as passive unit spawners by a significant margin. Infested Bunkers have high HP regeneration while they remain rooted, regaining 4 (8 with upgrade) HP every second.

Infested Siege Tanks are a great addition to your army when facing groups of ground units. Position them near your Infested and quickly reposition them as need be with Deep Tunnel to achieve the best results.The Infested Siege Tank’s siege attack essentially just spawns a Volatile Infested with an 8 sec duration beside the target it is aiming at. With its extraordinarily long range, it can deliver its payload very effectively.Can Deep Tunnel to anywhere on the map where you have both vision and creep. Has a 60 second cooldown and a 2 second cast time.

Tanks gain ammunition by consuming nearby Infested Civilians or Troopers within 5 range, with a cooldown of 2.5 seconds. Infested Marines spawned from the Barracks will not be consumed. Each time a unit is consumed, the Infested Siege Tank recovers 20 hp.Stores up to 8 rounds of ammunition. Tanks run out of ammunition very quickly if not supported, though they can be upgraded at the Tech Lab to slowly regenerate one round every 30 seconds. Infested Siege Tanks that are killed will drop all of their ammo as Volatile Infested with a duration of 60-90 seconds.

Though intended to be Stukov’s second ground to air option against larger, armored enemies, Infested Diamondbacks suffer from a large unit size, mediocre range, and an inability to snare and attack Hybrid Nemeses. This makes them only half-decent in engagements with an equal number of enemy air units to themselves, or against melee/low range enemies such as Zerglings and Zealots. The Diamondback’s high mineral cost makes it fairly weak early on, as attack waves and enemy bases will tend to come with many more air units than they can handle, and their Fungal Snare cooldown is too long for it to be cast multiple times per engagement. Once larger numbers of Infested Diamondbacks are amassed, their combined size will make them more difficult to use effectively against ground enemies. However, large groups do work against high tech air comps, as they convert the high ground damage from Infested Civilians and themselves into pseudo anti-air damage, but be careful as the long buildup severely limits your early game.

Fungal Snare brings a single non-heroic enemy air unit to the ground, leaving it immobilized and allowing anti-ground units to hit it. 45 second cooldown, reduced to 30 with the upgrade.Caustic Mucus deals 20 damage per second to enemies caught within it as well as slowing move and attack speeds by 75% (20% against heroic). The trail lasts for 4 seconds before dissipating.

Infested Banshees are a good option when you want to snipe specific ground units such as Siege Tanks or High Templar. However, their lack of anti-air capabilities and their tendency towards grouping up makes them much worse in comparison to just outlasting enemies with waves of Infested. Additionally, they require a large time investment into tech and production time before they can become useful.Can be a good choice for very specific purposes, but otherwise you may want to stick with more traditional units.Burrow regenerates 20 health and energy every second.

Infested Liberators are Stukov’s air superiority fighter, capable of dealing heavy splash damage to clustered air units. With the Cloud Dispersal upgrade, they become far more durable, gaining 90% damage reduction during attacks. This also makes them very difficult to control, with a massive delay before attacking, an inability to move during the attack, and an extreme tendency towards overkilling. Keep numbers low, or use spread out groups of Liberators to avoid wasting attacks. When damaged, they regenerate at a very slow rate, requiring SCVs or an ally’s healing abilities in order to keep them repaired throughout multiple engagements. Though you can make effective use of them against the heaviest of late game air compositions, odds are that you are better off simply building Infested Bunkers or Brood Queens instead.

Brood Queens are aerial spellcasters with access to a variety of situational abilities.Fungal Growth deals 80 damage over 4 seconds in a radius of 2, rooting and revealing affected enemies.Spawn Broodling instantly destroys a target unit, spawning a pair of Broodlings in its place. Massive and heroic units are immune.Ocular Symbiote provides a target friendly unit with detection for 60 seconds.

Spawns with full energy and regenerates 1.11 energy/second, or 200 energy every 3 minutes, after researching their Enhanced Mitochondria upgrade. Upgrade this first, then wait at least 25 seconds before building the first Brood Queen so that they will spawn at full energy.

While their spells are typically lacklustre against enemy bases, Brood Queens can be used to great effect against masses of fragile ground units, such as Zerglings and Banelings, or against heavily stacked air units, such as those found in mid- and late game attack waves against enemy air compositions. Spawn Broodling, while effective in theory against enemy siege units, is held back by the Brood Queen’s low health which prevents it from directly engaging enemies. If you attack with Infested waves, Civilians can distract the enemy forces to allow for quick pickoffs with this spell. Ocular Symbiote should be used only if your Overseers have died and enemies are spread out, or if you are facing a large amount of anti-air.

Stukov’s Overseers suffer from requiring an Infested Starport to be morphed. Because of this, Stukov may often run into situations where his Infested are faced with enemies such as Lurkers and Dark Templar with no means to detect them. Two ways to alleviate this problem are to either attack a different location or to manually detonate Volatile Infested on top of the cloaked units.

Only detects while rooted.

Decent anti air structure, but Infested Troopers and Infested Bunkers can attack both air and ground and are generally better. Still useful on longer maps against air waves, especially on Void Launch, since they can be easily moved and do not take up any supply.

Anaerobic Enhancement and Broodling Gestation both multiply the effectiveness of each individual Infested, and should be prioritized even above Compound Infestation Level upgrades.

The Colonist Compound can be uprooted, and should be periodically relocated to the front lines to extend the effective lifespan of your Infested. While the Compound won’t spawn cocoons while uprooted, the cooldown for spawning will continue to count down, allowing for free movement between spawn waves.Chrono Boost does not affect spawn rate of Infested, but still helps to accelerate research.Each Infestation Level upgrade level also increases the health of the Infested Colonist Compound by 500.

Focuses on Compound upgrades and an early expansion. There are different ways to secure your expansion, but in many cases you will be using Civilians and Infest Structure.

Mech attack speed is a viable choice, but Stukov’s Infantry far outperforms his mech units. Stukov’s best mech unit, the Infested Siege Tank, tends to be limited by its ammo capacity rather than its attack speed, and increased attack speed on the Infested Siege Tanks only leads to requiring more infantry to feed them, which you have less of since you won’t have longer-lasting Infested. Stukov’s other mechanical units certainly still benefit from this mastery, but their role is often more to clean up than as something that is used in important enemy engagements.