EPTI don't really have a problem with roaches, but the hydras are the weakest link in this matchup. They just die so quickly to any form of AoE. Is Roach/Hydra just a bad unit composition? I suspect it isn't and I just don't know how to play with it. Can someone give me a basic idea of how to play with roach/hydra?
[Q] Why would you ever go Roach/Hydra vs Protoss
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Xanbatou
United States805 Posts
I don't really have a problem with roaches, but the hydras are the weakest link in this matchup. They just die so quickly to any form of AoE. Is Roach/Hydra just a bad unit composition? I suspect it isn't and I just don't know how to play with it. Can someone give me a basic idea of how to play with roach/hydra? | ||
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Daria
Australia500 Posts
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
Also understand that you can go slings first for map control and scouting. Going roach/hydra should be like this: Early game - toss has map control until ling speed, when Z takes map control Early-mid - Zerg gives up map control to the Toss sentry+ zeal numbers until roach speed finishes Mid - Zerg retakes map control with roach speed/burrow, and attempts to hit a mid-game timing Later mid - Protoss regains map control with observors and immortals Early late - Zerg's hydras once again give him the army advantage, forcing Toss to turtle until colossi Late - Toss regains map control with his 3rd and 4th colossi and attempts to hit his late game timing Later - Zerg defends by adding 8-12 corruptors, controlling Toss colossi numbers End Game - Roach/Brood + very limited hydra numbers clash with the Toss deathball to decide the game. At no point are you actually relying on the hydras to win you the game. Their sole purpose is to deal with immortals while you transition into your corruptors, and eventual broodlords. | ||
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Vaporized
United States1471 Posts
mixing in a few hydras late game can help boost your armies dps, but for the most part i stay away from them which is a damn shame because hydras are the reason i play zerg. | ||
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Vanity
United States28 Posts
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diegonolan
United States54 Posts
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dementrio
678 Posts
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DoctaD
35 Posts
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Jarlax
76 Posts
14 pool 16 hatch 15 overlord 15 quuen 21 gas another queen when first finish spine crawler, drones to 30, overlord spine crawler ling speed with 100 gas, take second gas (if 4gate u need scout it and put 3 more spines at this point, delay gas and lair a bit, stop drone, spam lings) lair with next 100 gas another 2 spines around 34-38, 6 lings, drones 42-44 roach warren -> as soon as its finished roach speed burrow from lair so they both finish same time (till they finish only make roaches no drones) when they r done push with roaches, put 2 gas on natural, put hydra den, put 3rd base, drones till hydra den is constructing then only hydras till u get like 16-20 + get 3rd queen transfer drones to 3rd, take 2 gas on expo, put 2 evo chambers, get 4th base, get +1/+1, get spire, get few drones 4th base finish get corruptors, build infestors pit, start getting +2/+2, build 2 gas on 4th base and start 5th base, get overlord speed and drops, start hive as soon as finished greater spire and make only hydras + corruptors, morph broodlords, push, keep reinforcing, win. | ||
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
On December 12 2010 06:42 Jarlax wrote: I think starting with roaches is not good idea unless u want go all-in or very aggressive. But going lings -> speed lings -> speed roach -> hydra -> corrupter -> broodlord is quite good. Dunno about others but i start something along this lines against protos: 14 pool 16 hatch 15 overlord 15 quuen 21 gas another queen when first finish spine crawler, drones to 30, overlord spine crawler ling speed with 100 gas, take second gas (if 4gate u need scout it and put 3 more spines at this point, delay gas and lair a bit, stop drone, spam lings) lair with next 100 gas another 2 spines around 34-38, 6 lings, drones 42-44 roach warren -> as soon as its finished roach speed burrow from lair so they both finish same time (till they finish only make roaches no drones) when they r done push with roaches, put 2 gas on natural, put hydra den, put 3rd base, drones till hydra den is constructing then only hydras till u get like 16-20 + get 3rd queen transfer drones to 3rd, take 2 gas on expo, put 2 evo chambers, get 4th base, get +1/+1, get spire, get few drones 4th base finish get corruptors, build infestors pit, start getting +2/+2, build 2 gas on 4th base and start 5th base, get overlord speed and drops, start hive as soon as finished greater spire and make only hydras + corruptors, morph broodlords, push, keep reinforcing, win. This is correct, textbook roach play. ^^ :D | ||
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ishkabibble
Canada161 Posts
I would go muta ling against toss since your mobility makes it hard for the protos to keep enough bases late game without getting all their workers killed by harassment, or go ultra heavy with mutas since ultras can beat stalkers and colossi fairly well (unless on a cliff) which often composes much of toss's late game army. | ||
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Hann1bal
United States46 Posts
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HTODethklok
United States221 Posts
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Kiarip
United States1835 Posts
On December 12 2010 06:17 Xanbatou wrote: I just don't understand it. Time and time again I try this army composition and almost every time I get absolutely destroyed. Protoss has two tech trees that just absolutely demolish this army composition (templar and colossus). I feel so much more comfortable with some form of ling opening because you can actually have map control and feel aggressive. Roach/Hydra gives you absolutely no map control for the early-game. The only time roach/hydra is ever good is if the opponent gets nothing but t1 units. Even then, roach/hydra is incredibly vunerable to any sort of forcefielding play, especially in chokes. I don't really have a problem with roaches, but the hydras are the weakest link in this matchup. They just die so quickly to any form of AoE. Is Roach/Hydra just a bad unit composition? I suspect it isn't and I just don't know how to play with it. Can someone give me a basic idea of how to play with roach/hydra? The stength of hydra is that once you are saturated on your 2 bases you can instantly take map control anywhere where you have creep, because hydra will rape the gateway army composition. So then you can start your third, and start switching to Roaches, while you scout if he's going colossus or high templar. Colossi take a long time to build, and you need a lot of them to be good otherwise you'll run out of sentries, so that gives you a time to get up a spire, and since you're building roaches, you'll accumulate some gas on 4 geyesers, and then you get a bunch of corruptors, and bam, you have a decent composition to deal with colossus. If he's going templar you have a timing to attack him before amulet kicks in, and you'll have great map control because of that so you can get a 4th base. | ||
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kerminator
Austria75 Posts
The general idea of roach hydra i have: Get an early expand (i do 14 pool 16 hatch) and drone hard but scout properly ofc. You get Roaches with speed and burrow at lair tech... so you can fight off 4gates and 6gates and pressure the toss if he has expanded. Also you can prevent him from taking a third. Expand behind this. Meanwhile he will have to add immortals and you'll get +1/+1 and hyras with range upgrade. Then take 4th and add a spire because he will pump colossi by now. If the toss gets colossi you can fend off with roaches and hydras (range upgrade crucial) BUT you will need corrupters and a good position to fight. Hydras are weak but they are important for dps and he will not be able to target them with colossi if your roaches and hydras are posistioned correctly. If he moves forward with colossi then you can just focus them down. Also you have to upgrade to +2/+2 and +3/+3 later. You can then add a greater spire to add broods. If the toss goes storm i'm usually doing fine by researching tunneling claws and pump roaches only. It feels a bit odd first, but once you time it out correctly (and the toss doesnt do some crazy stuff) you will have roaches against gateway units, then roach hydra against gateway units+immortal and then roach/hydra/corrupter against his stalker/coloss ball. If he gets a third too early or fast techs colossi off two base you can punish him with your roaches. | ||
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Xanbatou
United States805 Posts
One my lair is up, I will throw down a spire. Since I am only making lings at this point I have a ton of gas saved up. Once my spire pops, I make a shitton of mutas and take complete map control. I will always get a third at this point, but sometimes I will take it earlier if I have enough lings and +1 is done. I just do not see any value in going roach hydra when you can use a strategy like this. The only time I have a problem is against players with good phoenix control and cannon placement, as it more or less shuts down my mutas. I need to figure out the best thing to transition into when that happens. | ||
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On December 12 2010 06:29 MrBitter wrote: You have to realize that hydras aren't supposed to make up the body of your strategy. They're transitory units to get you through the Toss player's immortal transition. Also understand that you can go slings first for map control and scouting. Going roach/hydra should be like this: Early game - toss has map control until ling speed, when Z takes map control Early-mid - Zerg gives up map control to the Toss sentry+ zeal numbers until roach speed finishes Mid - Zerg retakes map control with roach speed/burrow, and attempts to hit a mid-game timing Later mid - Protoss regains map control with observors and immortals Early late - Zerg's hydras once again give him the army advantage, forcing Toss to turtle until colossi Late - Toss regains map control with his 3rd and 4th colossi and attempts to hit his late game timing Later - Zerg defends by adding 8-12 corruptors, controlling Toss colossi numbers End Game - Roach/Brood + very limited hydra numbers clash with the Toss deathball to decide the game. At no point are you actually relying on the hydras to win you the game. Their sole purpose is to deal with immortals while you transition into your corruptors, and eventual broodlords. This is fairly correct. Unfortunately good Protoss will abuse whatever timings you choose (you go for early speedburrow roach pressure they turtle / you go for more drones they feint pressure right as you are vulnerable) and then tech straight to colossus completely skipping the phase of hydra domination. It's incredibly hard to deal with since you will not get good corrupter numbers out before he completely crushes your ground army with all those damn sentries. Thank god not many Protosses are good and rather rely on their stupid blind timings instead of actually playing the game  | ||
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dementrio
678 Posts
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majestouch
United States395 Posts
assuming you know how to kite. | ||
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BlasiuS
United States2405 Posts
Only make enough hydra to kill the things that kill roaches, which are immortals, phoenix, and void rays. If he's not making any immortals, phoenix, or void rays, you have no reason to make hydras, so if his army is only made up of zealot/sentry/stalker/templar/archon/dt, you should stick with pure 100% roach army, with possibly the exception of making some hydras if he has a HUGE number of sentries, however, having a disproportionately large # of sentries in a toss army will make it's over all DPS shit, so that hardly ever happens. gateway army -> roach gateway army + void ray/immortal/phoenix -> roach + small amounts of hydra gateway army + colossus -> roach + corruptor gateway army + immortals + colossus -> roach + small amounts of hydra + enough corruptors to kill the colossus. etc. | ||
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On December 12 2010 07:58 BlasiuS wrote: gateway army + colossus -> roach + corruptor etc. I completely disagree. You need the hydra DPS in the back past a certain supply# or else your roaches just get FFed and then 70% of them bug out around behind those that are getting killed, doing NOTHING. Once you are at like 150 supply getting more roaches - especially with our current map pool - is just a waste of larvae and supply imo and a surefire way to lose in a 200/200 engagement. Once I've started putting a small dash of hydras (like 10-15) into my maxed armies and started getting the right upgrades (roaches and hydras benefit from them nicely) I've fared noticely better while trying to re-max in that small timing where P has the potential to crush you with his ground forces. If you max out on roach + corrupter your army just isn't worth anything and has the corresponding DPS output. | ||
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dementrio
678 Posts
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DragonDefonce
United States790 Posts
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dementrio
678 Posts
On December 12 2010 08:09 ChickenLips wrote: I completely disagree. You need the hydra DPS in the back past a certain supply# or else your roaches just get FFed and then 70% of them bug out around behind those that are getting killed, doing NOTHING. Once you are at like 150 supply getting more roaches - especially with our current map pool - is just a waste of larvae and supply imo and a surefire way to lose in a 200/200 engagement. Once I've started putting a small dash of hydras (like 10-15) into my maxed armies and started getting the right upgrades (roaches and hydras benefit from them nicely) I've fared noticely better while trying to re-max in that small timing where P has the potential to crush you with his ground forces. If you max out on roach + corrupter your army just isn't worth anything and has the corresponding DPS output. burrow and unburrow on top of him. a skilled P can keep half your army out of range even when you have hydra. you preferably want to take out the obs (which is not hard), but even when you dont, the lost dps from when you tunnel underground is easily made up from the much better position you have when you effectively surround him. | ||
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On December 12 2010 08:14 dementrio wrote: burrow and unburrow on top of him. a skilled P can keep half your army out of range even when you have hydra. you preferably want to take out the obs (which is not hard), but even when you dont, the lost dps from when you tunnel underground is easily made up from the much better position you have when you effectively surround him. That is such a gimmicky tactic. He will just put another layer of FF infront of him so you can never unburrow + micro back making your effective DPS = 0 while his colossus + stalkers rip your roaches apart. Roaches are so slow burrowed they take like 5 seconds even getting past 1 FF. Add to that the time your opponent gets even more free hits while you burrow and then even more free hits when you finally unburrow. I promise you this won't work in a 200/200 battle. Also saying FF affects roaches (range 4) the same as hydras (range 7) is just pure ignorance. Burrow is just utter crap when your opponent has detection. I've NEVER seen it put to good use. Just keep your stuff above ground and hope it deals as much damage as possible. | ||
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kerminator
Austria75 Posts
You can use burrow when: He 6gates / 4gates you and has no obs or when he goes HT to engage/heal But I never saw someone burrow move under a stalker/coloss ball I also disagree with going pure roach corrupter just because -Roaches are not worth their supply so your 200 supply army will get ripped apart -The more roaches you have the more they get owned by FF -You need the hydras for dps | ||
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dementrio
678 Posts
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sas911
Canada113 Posts
You could say it's kind of like a terran complaining about colossus, and saying marines suck donkey balls. But marines are awesome, and have a good dps. Obviously, like terran, you need the air to air unit to take care of the colossus, but without the colossus, the protoss army gets owned so fast. | ||
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On December 12 2010 08:54 dementrio wrote: burrow works. 0 dps for 5 seconds is not that worse than only half your army hitting (and getting killed) for the duration of the force fields. You will make corruptors anyway, just remember overseers and the obs will be automatically sniped. it is the only thing that I can get to work reliably against lategame colossi deathballs. i would love to see some replays because in theory it sounds _extremely_ bad. | ||
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DarthXX
Australia998 Posts
On December 12 2010 07:49 majestouch wrote: because 1 phoenix > mutalisk^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞ assuming you know how to kite. And assuming you can't micro ur mutas ... | ||
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PantsSC2
United States17 Posts
On December 12 2010 07:49 majestouch wrote: because 1 phoenix > mutalisk^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞^∞ assuming you know how to kite. That's simply not true. Yeah, we've all seen the stupid Youtube video of one Phoenix beating some obscene number of Mutas. Guess what? If the enemy has only a handful of Phoenix, and outnumber them significantly with Mutas, you just ignore the Phoenix and keep harassing the Toss economy for a slow, but sure, win. | ||
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N3rV[Green]
United States1935 Posts
I know that I'm weird cause I just straight up DON'T make colossi, but surely people don't make them every game in PvZ do they? They just seem so useless if the zerg has a spire, plus wtf am I going to do against mutas if I even try making a large colossi force? Colossi just make me sad...wish people wouldn't use them. As for the OP, Roach hydra is ALL about the macro. Your first army won't kill the Toss, but the 3rd, 4rd or 5th will. You just need to get to that big nasty 4 + bases just throwing stupid numbers of units at the Toss, or at least thats how roach hydra beats me. | ||
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achacttn
Australia82 Posts
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Xanbatou
United States805 Posts
Does everybody really get colossi often enough to base your entire playstyle around it? O.o I know that I'm weird cause I just straight up DON'T make colossi, but surely people don't make them every game in PvZ do they? They just seem so useless if the zerg has a spire, plus wtf am I going to do against mutas if I even try making a large colossi force? Colossi just make me sad...wish people wouldn't use them. As for the OP, Roach hydra is ALL about the macro. Your first army won't kill the Toss, but the 3rd, 4rd or 5th will. You just need to get to that big nasty 4 + bases just throwing stupid numbers of units at the Toss, or at least thats how roach hydra beats me. It's not just colossi, it's also high templar with storm. In any case, if you get 4+ bases, throwing ANYTHING at your opponent will get you a win =/. | ||
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birdkicker
United States752 Posts
E: Can anyone give me a solid build order for roach hydra? Thanks. | ||
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Chaosvuistje
Netherlands2581 Posts
Once I started getting roaches more, I now was able to push protosses natural. Which isn't that easy with just lings. And roaches are a nice transition into the mid/late game. Whereas just getting mutalisks is not I feel. Oh and phoenixes just completely topple your plans to go muta anyway. So going ling-muta every game you will bound to fight versus a phoenixing player. | ||
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kerminator
Austria75 Posts
On December 13 2010 02:00 VirtuallyLost wrote: Can anyone give me a solid build order for roach hydra? Thanks. Has been posted in this thread already | ||
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BalanceFx
United States72 Posts
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/7_Roach_Rush_/_Expand_/_Lair | ||
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Steel
Japan2283 Posts
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Wr3k
Canada2533 Posts
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decaf
Austria1797 Posts
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On December 13 2010 02:33 Wr3k wrote: Roach hydra is cost effective against just about everything but mass colossi or immortals or psi storm. If you sent equal cost roach/hydra at mass stalker w/ 2 colossi, you will win with half decent positioning. Protoss needs to fubar you with forcefields or have immortals to deal with the roaches, otherwise its an uphill battle short of having 4-5 colossi (at which point you just mass corruptor). Oh and roach hydra scales much better with upgrades than any protoss unit. I've looked at the critical hits for roaches vs gateway units and I wasn't too impressed then. It might be different for +2 but it certainly isn't as huge as +1 for zealots vs lings. I agree with you on the other points though. Roach / Hydra is the go-to build atm if you wanna play straight up ZvP. | ||
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kerminator
Austria75 Posts
On December 13 2010 02:33 Wr3k wrote: If you sent equal cost roach/hydra at mass stalker w/ 2 colossi, you will win with half decent positioning. Actually you will get ripped apart by FF, guardian shield | ||
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On December 13 2010 03:54 kerminator wrote: Actually you will get ripped apart by FF, guardian shield Yeah, as I know it there's 2 solutions to that currently. 1) Play agressively to actively kill his sentries (he will be too greedy to rebuild them most of the time) or at least deplete his FF. 2) Have a lot more shit. Unfortunately 1 doesn't work against smart Protosses that know how to position themselves defensively and 2 is very very hard if he applies constant pressure and knows how to play PvZ in general. | ||
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sas911
Canada113 Posts
Baneling drops! Deal crazy damage, and you're actually using your ovies. The banelings and overlord sacrifices will obviously be larger in cost, but if you wipe out their max supply army, you can remake WAY faster than them, and take an easy win? | ||
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batmankiller
13 Posts
If you A-move like you can do with a Terran ball, then you will lose. But if you micro effectively and keep the Hydras well behind the roaches, its very hard for a Toss to Storm effectively and it is relatively easy for your Roaches to focus down colossus. | ||
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kerminator
Austria75 Posts
On December 13 2010 05:43 batmankiller wrote: and it is relatively easy for your Roaches to focus down colossus. Roach range 4 Coloss range 9 I wonder what toss players you play against ... | ||
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Forsaken
United States43 Posts
If you wanna talk about colossi, then I should mention a unit called an infestor. Or just mention zerg shouldn't be at even pop count with toss upon engaugement if they're playing correctly. | ||
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Cheerio
Ukraine3178 Posts
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On December 15 2010 22:21 Forsaken wrote: Hydras are glass cannons. Roaches have shit range and a lot of HP\armour. This should be self explanatory as to how mixing them works. If you wanna talk about colossi, then I should mention a unit called an infestor. Or just mention zerg shouldn't be at even pop count with toss upon engaugement if they're playing correctly. That's a very easy thing to say, however if your opponent plays very defensily it's extremely hard to stop them from just maxing and a moving all over you. In which case you need Broodlords which take supply and are the fucking slowest-to-get unit in the game. If you think neural parasite is good vs Colossus then you're bonkers. | ||
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Evoshadow
United States88 Posts
If they are stargating you have an opening to push for the win, otherwise add the spire and roach warren and add corruptors (if they go collosi) and roaches to tank for the hydras Then tech to tier 3 and win with broodlords. Certainly not the only ZvP build but it works for me a good amount, these days soo many protoss are opening stargate because of the commonness of roach and muta openings and this build just crushes them before late mid game It should be noted that on a map with a back door (BS especially) this build will die every time to a good fairly early 4 gate push because it is so dependent on static defense to hold till hydras, if its a later push its actually ok because hydras demolish late 4 gates | ||
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Crackensan
United States479 Posts
Early Game: Roach/Ling (usually 1 base roach into Expo) Early-->Mid Transition: Roach/Hydra, Ling Mineral Dump (2-3 base Z) Mid: Roach/Hydra, Spire should be close to finishing (3 Base Z) Mid--> Late: Roach/Hydra, Enough Corruptors to kill Colossi. (Taking 4th) Late: Roach/Hydra, 3-5 Corruptors, Transition to Brood Lords. (Taking 5th if necessary, complete map control) General plan Vs. Protoss every game. I don't have a strict build order, but general looks that I go for every game, which gives pretty decent flexibility to react to strange things. | ||
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Thor1104
16 Posts
If you both get to 200 food, make sure you are at least one base ahead, stockpile resources, tech to hive if possible (so you can get greater spire and make your corrupters into broods after the Collauss die). To engage the 200 protoss death ball, engage as close to his base as possible where you can get a good positions. Although you might "lose" the 200 on 200 clash, all or all but one of his collaus should be dead due to corrupters, and his numbers will be low. Since his numbers are low, your replacement rate should be higher (stockpiled resources and macro hatcheries), and you engaged near his base, you will have time to macro up another round of roaches/hydras before he pushes to your base. It takes a while to rebuild the collauses count, so you have a window of timing after your replenish your army where you can take out or deny his 3rd base, take your own 4th or 5th base, and generally gain a huge advantage due to map control. | ||
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