I am a mid-high ranking gold zerg and i have some trouble finding a good roach to hydra ratio. I know that it is a very strong combination and i have used it many times but as i progress, i'm starting to have more trouble with it. If i try mass roach, (assume i have no upgrades and neither does the enemy) i have a durable army that results in longer battles but usually end in defeat if the enemy has good positioned tanks or collossus because I don't have the DPS i need. When i try mass hydra, the battles are much shorter but the hydras are killed instantly by collossus or tanks. What is a good roach to hydra ratio that gives me a strong durable army but with a high DPS?

Or instead, should i just try to spend more energy on scouting so i can switch my tech path and just avoid the whole roach hydra ball?

confusedcrib

United States1307 Posts

December 17 2010 04:12 GMT

Roach Hydra is a "buy me time" composition, meant to bolster your economy while keeping you alive, you should always have a plan on how to get out of it, as it will even lose too Terran MMM, never mind tech. The ratio is usually about 50/50 but vs toss if he's zealot heavy you go roach heavy, if he's stalker heavy go hydra heavy. Your ratio should be reactionary, but always have a plan for after your economy is up with roach hydra.

Lobotomist

United States1541 Posts

December 17 2010 04:18 GMT

First, don't build hydras against terran. There MIGHT be a situation where they're good, but I dunno what it is.

Against Protoss, for a mid-game army, you want a 2-1 or 3-1 roach to hydra composition. When you know they're going to add collosi, you want to start adding corruptors, as roach/hydra simply will not beat collosi/stalker/sentry with any good forcefielding.

EDIT: Here is a really good explanation of ZvP roach hydra use, timing and transitions, as coached by EGMachine: http://mrbitter.blip.tv/file/4447419/

KezseN

Singapore1450 Posts

December 17 2010 04:23 GMT

Roach hydra as one of your strategys when palying agaisnt P or Z. Its not that good vs T but unless you have infestors in your army, that would change the battle to your favor if you FG agrressively, as in FG first, wait for the medievacs to deplete their energy.

basically Lobotomist summarized it all for ya. GL

EDIT: typos

itsme

Canada46 Posts

December 17 2010 04:25 GMT

never do roach hydra vs terran, specifically because it gets easily killed by too many things and isnt as cost effective when it comes to dealing with rine/tank/marauder/thor etc. the only time u would ever consider using hydras is when he goes mass vikings or some rediculous build like that which is highly unlikely. go for ling/bling/roach/infestor/mutas instead.
With protoss however, they become pretty handy and instead roaches become the unwanted because immortals would become a problem for zergs. So i go nazgul build for +1melee slings and hydra to back which is extremely effective against mid game vs standard toss ball of zeal/stalk/sentry. the best way for hydra roach to be effective is when the opponent becomes sentry heavy where they try to break up ur army but ur army is all ranged so that it doesnt effect u as much. But when there i a collossus out try to go for a hive tech or some corruptors

Terminator(471)

United States243 Posts

December 17 2010 04:27 GMT

I've recently been trying the build that dimaga utilized against rootQXC. Tons of lings, blings, infestors, and ultras. So far im 3 for 3 trying this build. The battles weren't even close. The terrans just got crushed. Is this the only way I can deal with terran mech? Because no roaches or hydras vs terran takes out a huge part of the zerg tech path.

OriginalBeast

United States709 Posts

December 17 2010 04:28 GMT

Not really a zerg expert, but maybe you should try burrowed roaches then cut the hydras out, you can burrow under colossus to pick them off, then reburrow and leave maybe take an expansion and go back in and use some burrow micro (roach getting low on health burrow it, works with box selecting aswell) also you cant really get ff'd unlike blink burrow has no cooldown.

Terminator(471)

United States243 Posts

December 17 2010 04:32 GMT

On December 17 2010 13:28 OriginalBeast wrote:
Not really a zerg expert, but maybe you should try burrowed roaches then cut the hydras out, you can burrow under colossus to pick them off, then reburrow and leave maybe take an expansion and go back in and use some burrow micro (roach getting low on health burrow it, works with box selecting aswell) also you cant really get ff'd unlike blink burrow has no cooldown.

I've tried burrowed roach micro but unfortunately it isn't too effective against protoss, especially when they already have a robo, because if they don't already have an observer, which every good protoss does, he can chrono one out pretty quickly and shut it down. Thanks for the suggestion though!

FrostedMiniWeet

United States636 Posts

December 17 2010 04:35 GMT

There is no "best" ratio, as it is completely dependent upon what unit composition the enemy has. It's like asking what is the "best" build order, or the "best" strategy, there simply isn't one. If he's got collosus, then pretty much stop making hydras and get roaches and corruptors, if he's got all gateway units, then only get enough roaches to survive and get as many hydras as you can before collosus come out. If he's got a lot of voids/phoenix, obviously get more hydras.

charlie420247

United States692 Posts

December 17 2010 04:38 GMT

#10

50/50 for the ratio but ideally you dont really wanna fight it out with roach hydra, you can make it work. even against terran if you fungal marines they cant attack your hydras while hydras can just mop them up ez pz. roaches and hydras both are better at just keeping you alive, keeping you safe from void rays/phoenix etc while you add upgrades and tech to lords or ultras.

asmo.0

Norway318 Posts

December 17 2010 04:47 GMT

#11

I'd say as a general rule about 3-1 ratio of roach/hydra vs protoss and zerg.
It depends a little on composition of the opponent. If the Protoss has large ball of colossi I prefer to have only roaches and 2-3 corruptors per colossus. If he's going for gatewayunits, I'd rather go for a 1-1 ratio roach/hydra.

Of course, against P roach/hydra is just stalling for time untill broodlords can get out, even if most are won at this stage...

Against terran, I'd highly recommend skipping hydras completely.

King K. Rool

Canada4408 Posts

December 17 2010 04:53 GMT

#12

NaN

Lobotomist

United States1541 Posts

December 17 2010 19:48 GMT

#13

On December 17 2010 13:27 Terminator(471) wrote:
I've recently been trying the build that dimaga utilized against rootQXC. Tons of lings, blings, infestors, and ultras. So far im 3 for 3 trying this build. The battles weren't even close. The terrans just got crushed. Is this the only way I can deal with terran mech? Because no roaches or hydras vs terran takes out a huge part of the zerg tech path.

Roaches are useful against terran mech but I don't really build roaches unless I see 2+ factories. If they're going mech/bio off 1 factory you can stay with the usual ZvT composition of ling/baneling/muta. If they go heavy mech ling/baneling/muta gets much weaker, as tanks will slaughter your banelings, infernal hellions will slaughter your lings and thors will slaughter your mutas. Roaches aren't as hard countered, but they're cost-ineffective against bio.

Alphasquad

Austria505 Posts

December 17 2010 20:09 GMT

#14

roaches are really nice against mech especially with burrow and regeneration tech and the fact that you can get large amounts of them really really fast and i think the mech play has been stopped by mass roaches; the only scenario where i saw hydras being useful in zvt was 2 starport banshee as the hydra den is built much faster than spire

i personally dislike playing zvt without mutas because it takes away a lot of mobility and makes you quite weak against marine drops if you have more than 2 bases (like dimaga lost against demuslim)

in zvp i think its not a good idea to have a 50/50 ratio between roaches and hydras because hydras are very costly and fragile to both protoss prime weapons colossi and storm

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