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I cant find anything in the guide book or in game.

Can someone explain what exactly Burrow does?

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Brood War Burrow

What it does do

  • ✔ Make the unit invisible to opponents, unless they reveal the area with detection.

  • ✔ Allow lurkers to attack. Lurkers can only attack when burrowed; but like other Zerg units, lurkers need to unburrow to move. It's nice to mention Stop Lurkers, because the technique is a direct result of lurkers not being able to move while burrowed.

  • ✔ Provide reduced vision. Burrowed units will have their vision reduced (it be interesting to measure how much), but they're invisible, so they're essentially poor-man's observers.

  • ✔ Obstruct buildings. Although opponents cannot see the burrowed unit without detection, they will be unable to build or land buildings on top of the unit.

  • ✔/✘ Stack units [PATCHED in 1.15] (Thanks to Decency for reminding me!). Used to be able to quickly burrow, unburrow, move together and the units would become stacked. Good thing you can't anymore because it was way more powerful than stacked mutas.

What it does NOT do

  • ✘ Allow units to move. Zerg units able to burrow must unburrow to move.

  • ✘ Avoid splash damage. Burrowed units can be killed by splash damage alone, usually by seige tanks, reavers or archons.

  • ✘ Avoid damage from or effects of spells. Psi-storm's gonna getcha. So will other spells including plague (pending testing), ensnare, maelstrom (just for lulz XD), disruption web and EMP (although EMP won't do anything).

  • ✘ Avoid spider mines. Yeah, spider mines aren't detectors (they don't reveal cloaked or burrowed units), but for some reason they still attack cloaked and burrowed units.

  • ✘ Regenerate health faster. This is a misconception since health regen is variable in SC2, and especially since roaches regenerate faster while burrowed. Units and buildings (with the exception of eggs) all regenerate health at 0.372 hp/s or 1 hp per 2.685 sec, regardless of whether they are off creep, on creep or burrowed.

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    Burrow in conjunction with Dark Swarm actually does allow you to dodge splash damage, which is frequently used against Siege Tanks. Slightly noteworthy.
    – Decency
    Aug 24, 2012 at 9:35
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    Haha Lurkers + Dark Swarm + Seige Tanks is such a complicated situation that I don't know if I want to mention it in this post. For example, there's the caveat to your caveat that if the tank is actually shooting something behind the lurker, then the splash will damage the lurker. But anyways...
    – Atav32
    Aug 24, 2012 at 15:55
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You can check out the Starcraft wiki that I've linked for more information, but other than healing quicker, units that are burrowed are invisible to your opponents. This can lend itself to, among other things, leaving scouts at choke points or resources and setting traps for your opponents.

Burrowed units are also unable to move while burrowed.

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Burrow

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  • ah ok cool. The healing was what I meanly wanted to check, cause the rest I could tell just by using Burrow
    – Gareth Jones
    Jul 3, 2012 at 20:26
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    In Brood Wars, there's also the Lurker, an unit that can attack only when burrowed: wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Lurker
    – Wilerson
    Jul 3, 2012 at 20:32
  • @Wilerson Its the only unit that you don't have to research burrow for an't it? They are fun to use, but not to used against....
    – Gareth Jones
    Jul 3, 2012 at 20:40
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    I'm pretty sure you don't heal quicker while burrowed. Another aspect of burrow is that it allows you to stack multiple units on top of each other, which has many uses.
    – Decency
    Jul 3, 2012 at 21:04
  • staaaacking...yum
    – Atav32
    Jul 4, 2012 at 3:01

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