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This is something i have been thinking a lot about in the last couple of days. Its sooo common to see even top master zerg players go roach/hydra/corruptor against gateway/colossus and then ragequit and complain about colossus OP when they lose. Two guys even made a 30 minute vlog complaining about it (no offense to idra and artosis, they are ballers of the highest level)
Disclaimer: Everything presented in this thread represents my personal and completley subjective opinion and i dont want to pretend that im some sort of all knowing guru of starcraft 2, because im not. i could very well be wrong on several occasions and you are free to disagree with anything i say. In fact, im much eager to hear you opinion. This is a thread for constructive debate and open discussion.
Disclaimer: I know some people out there are gonna say "dude hydras pwn gateway units" or something obvious and un-constructive along those lines without even reading what i have to say, but its a pretty widely acknowledged fact that you dont really NEED hydras to handle the protoss gateway units. Roaches, especially with speed, burrow and attack and armor upgrades are very good and cost-effective against any stalker/sentry/zealot composition and will always beat a gateway-only army of equal supply. Its not the zealot and stalkers that kills the zerg so effectivley in the mid game, so there is really no need to get hydras just to counter them. What you need to worry about is to respond to the protoss tech path wich will be colossus
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090407222210/starcraft/images/thumb/b/bf/Hydralisk_SC2_DevRend2.jpg/200px-Hydralisk_SC2_DevRend2.jpg)
To start off, i do think that hydralisk can be a nifty tech choice for the early mid game if you get the hydralisk den before your roach warren and rely on hydralisk/speedling, wich is a great opener and can put on a good amount of pressure with some decent nydus worm/drop play.
Hydras/ling however, becomes completley nullifed and humiliated once the protoss gets out AoE in the form of high templars or even worse, the colossus. thats why you need to make a well timed transition into Roach Warren and Spire, or some other techy build wich can handle the protoss tech units.
Roach/Corruptor or Roach/muta/Corruptor or even Roach/infestor/Corrupter is SOO much more effective against any colossus based build that doesnt include a lot of void rays. Again, people seem to think that you need a major amount of hydras to beat the gateway bulch of the protoss army, wich is just not true.
The deciding factor is that roaches can actually tank the colossus DPS while the corruptors kill them, wich hydras cant. The reason you lost against colossus that deathball despite having a good number of corruptors is because colossus simply kills hydras so fast that his remaining ground army is gonna be superior once the colossus go down and all you have left is 1/4 of your initial army. You overmade hydralisks in a situation where the protoss had devoted his entire tech-path and game plan to hard counter them. With Roaches you can also burrow-move under forcefields and snipe colossus and get into superior positions. Being able to get around and counter well-used forcefields is SUCH a game changing ability thats its almost ridicolous that its not being used to greater extent.
Some people will argue that roaches in big numbers are bad because of their low range tend du cluster up with many of your roaches not being able to get into the front, and therefor you need hydralisks because of their superior range, but getting your troops clumped up is merely a result of poor micro, wich can easily be avoided by
1, Attacking in the right positions, avoiding choke points and narrow enviroments
2, Splitting up your troops. There is absoloutley no reason to have all your roaches/units on one hotkey and zerg should always aim for mulipronged attacks at different locations simultaniously. Forcing the protoss player to split up his huge scary army is necessary in order to beat him
To wrap it up and summerize things, i would like to state that i am by no means trying to imply that the hydralisk is a bad or "Underpowered" unit, its just that some people tend to overmake them without realizing that even after losing continiously. In general it is always good to have a hydralisk den up in the mid-to-later phase of the game, because i do think they have a lot of strenghts and advantages:
*Having a pack of hydralisks at the back of your army provides a great boost in DPS
*Allows you to snipe observers prior to spire tech
*Great resonse to phoenix harrasment (but do not rely on them to counter void ray/corruptor
*Amazing for hit and run missions with nydus worm or overlord drops.
*Once you manage to kill a good amount of colossi, making a dozen of hydra is a GREAT response as most protoss players wont be able to reproduce them fast enough to match your hydra count, and it will prevent any sneaky-tech switches to mass air.
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Roaches in huge numbers are bad exactly because of the range, with no other unit to help in the 10 ish minute battles you will get plummed, the right forcefields will eliminate you quickly.
Also you need hydras because of the fact a protoss will get about 4 to 5 voids to aid the fight, and corruptors are their favorite food.
Hydras need a health buff, back to 90 would be nice.
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I think hydralisks need around 115 HP but that's just me.
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Health buff would basically make storm even more useless.
If hydras get a buff, then storm damage needs to be upped and colossi need a damage nerf.
The problem is obviously colossi, not hydras; hydras are fine as they are, if only a bit slow.
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The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers.
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On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers.
With blink micro you can.
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On February 26 2011 12:58 Valcio wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers. With blink micro you can.
No matter how good your blink micro is, a stalker force will never beat a marauder force of equal supply with stim pack and a couple of medievacs. You simply cant "blink micro" your stalkers when marauders kill them in one volley. it has never happened and probably never wil, but thats pretty off topic anyways.
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I think hydras need a speed buff, or colossus needs a speed nerf. I think it is silly that they are the same speed.
Colossus is an obvious counter to hydras, which is totally fine. What's not fine is that there really isn't any micro or whatever possibility for the hydras to do anything against the colossus. Colossus is way more powerful than hydra. So why does it get to be so fast?
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Why would you even compare hydras and colossus like that?
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On February 26 2011 13:00 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 12:58 Valcio wrote:On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers. With blink micro you can. No matter how good your blink micro is, a stalker force will never beat a marauder force of equal supply with stim pack and a couple of medievacs. You simply cant "blink micro" your stalkers when marauders kill them in one volley. it has never happened and probably never wil, but thats pretty off topic anyways.
I believe this was recently proven by Stephen Hawking, and is an undeniable fact of life. He actually was put up for the Noble Prize for his work in the field of Marauderology.
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On February 26 2011 13:03 dark fury wrote:
Why would you even compare hydras and colossus like that?
Both are glass cannon units. Fragile, extreme damage, and slow. When you grab hydras you are sacrificing mobility for power, much like the colossus.
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On February 26 2011 13:04 Logarythm wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:00 dark fury wrote:On February 26 2011 12:58 Valcio wrote:On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers. With blink micro you can. No matter how good your blink micro is, a stalker force will never beat a marauder force of equal supply with stim pack and a couple of medievacs. You simply cant "blink micro" your stalkers when marauders kill them in one volley. it has never happened and probably never wil, but thats pretty off topic anyways. I believe this was recently proven by Stephen Hawking, and is an undeniable fact of life. He actual was put up for the Noble Prize for his work in the field of Marauderology.
this in combination with your username made me lol :D
On February 26 2011 13:05 DoubleReed wrote:
Both are glass cannon units. Fragile, extreme damage, and slow. When you grab hydras you are sacrificing mobility for power, much like the colossus.
Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep.
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Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep.
Except Colossi are way more powerful. So Hydralisk should be more mobile to compensate. I'm not saying hydra should be fast, just faster.
Don't you think it's a little dull to have in a game "Well derp I made the wrong unit!" There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. Right now it's just "If they have colossus, don't make hydra."
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On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:
There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus.
You mean like being able to shoot up?^^
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On February 26 2011 13:11 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:
There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. You mean like being able to shoot up?^^
lol, fair enough. But I meant strategy-wise. If one army is weaker than another, its usually compensated for mobility in this game. But roach/hydra is weaker than stalker/colossus (or whatever toss army with colossus), so I think it should be more mobiile. That's all I'm saying.
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In the days with Roaches with 3 range, the Roach + Hydra system makes a lot of sense, as upgraded Hydras were double the range of Roaches. This had a Tank + DPS behind setup (think Calvary + Archers), but with Roaches now having 4 range, that isn't quite what it used to be. And while Hydras are solid in the early-mid game, Colossus & HTs destroy them.
In the later game, 2-4 Ultras then Roaches + Corruptors might be the thing. Ultras to plow through the FFs and eat the first damage, Roaches to really deal the damage and some spare Hydras to help in the back.
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On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep. Except Colossi are way more powerful. So Hydralisk should be more mobile to compensate. I'm not saying hydra should be fast, just fast er. Don't you think it's a little dull to have in a game "Well derp I made the wrong unit!" There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. Right now it's just "If they have colossus, don't make hydra."
I think the issue is more finding that time when there is *is* an advantage to Hydras, at least at the upper ranks of play. Hydras are pretty close to being for a timing attack... of which they are so slow compared to the rest of the Zerg army that the concept of "timing attack" with Hydras is a bit of a joke.
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United States7483 Posts
Hydralisks demolish gateway units: protoss HAS to get aoe to deal with them, they're too strong vs. everything else protoss has.
Problem is, once that AoE is out, it's too strong vs. the hydralisks.
Hydras should go back to being a cheaper, tier 1 unit, and be a bit weaker than they are now so that zerg has an early game AA unit (other than the queen), and so they can play a support role throughout the game. Roaches should go up to tier 2, and have their 2 armor back.
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hydras need +1 range, fixed the roach, and basically would fix any thing
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A health buff to Hydralisks seems a reasonable idea, but why not just reduce the supply cost to 1?
By doing that you can effectively have a bigger army to deal with that massive 200/200 Protoss Deathball, when going roach, hydra at least. And since Roaches used to have 1 supply cost but were still considered to good, why not just give that to Hydras, I cannot see how this would make them op like the roaches used to be.
It will not just help the Speedling+Hydra opening build the OP was talking about, but will also help the zerg in general feel more "swarmish". I'm pretty sure many people have noticed how small the zerg army looks or feels when compared to a Protoss or Terran maxed army.
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As i said in the OP, i think hydras are optimal for nydus worm play. you dont need to make too many of them either, 8-9 hydras with speedling support will demolish a base in notime
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Hydralisks are significantly weaker than, say, marines. You'll notice that nobody makes hydras in tvz, simply because hydras are just plain mediocre. (If I spend 100/50 on a unit I expect it to actually be good at something, but hydras are good at nothing. They do 14.5 DPS, compared to 10.5 DPS for a stimmed marine costing a third as much. They're also abysmally slow.)
The problem in zvp is that protoss have so many options that force you to get hydras, even though they're an inferior unit -- forcefields, immortal compositions, etc. This wouldn't be so bad, since hydra/roach is reasonably competent in a straight-up fight against gateway units. This, then, is a good role for the hydra: something to stand behind the roaches and shoot stuff (at least until the protoss gets storm).
The trouble, of course, is cololsi (sic), and thus the corruptor. Hydras suck because colossi melt them especially badly, and zerg has no good counter to cololsi.
Corruptors fucking suck, honestly; they are the dedicated zerg air-to-air unit, yet they lose for cost to voids. What a hell of an air-superiority unit, eh? They also don't kill colossi nearly fast enough to stop them from dominating your ground force.
Suppose a protoss has 4 colossi. If you build 8 corruptors to counter them, you've spent the same amount on anti-colossus units as he has spent on colossi. Anyone with any experience in zvp will immediately say that that's not enough -- you'd need something like 16 corruptors (twice as much minerals/gas!) to kill those colossi before they demolish your ground army.
Even if you do that, though -- even if your corruptors kill *every single one of those colossi*, they've already done massive damage to your ground force before they died, while your corruptors are now dead weight, and you'll lose to the ground force.
This, really, is the problem: corruptors are too weak against both voids and colossi, so the zvp mid- and late-game consists of the zerg desperately trying to come up with a solution to colossi. The entire matchup hinges around this: if the zerg can stop colossi he wins, if he can't he loses horribly. Hydras have no place in countering colossi (since they die so badly to them), so they're irrelevant to the matchup.
If Blizzard doesn't want to fix corruptors, which despite being a dedicated air-to-air unit are terrible at that role, they could perhaps fix things by making hydras actually good. Making the range upgrade add 2 range would be a good start if they want to keep them fragile. Then while zerg would still have to grossly overproduce corruptors to have a chance against colossi the rest of their army would be stronger to make up for it. It probably wouldn't imbalance zvt too much -- at the most it would bring hydras into parity with the rest of zerg options in zvt.
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On February 26 2011 13:21 Whitewing wrote:
Hydralisks demolish gateway units: protoss HAS to get aoe to deal with them, they're too strong vs. everything else protoss has.
Problem is, once that AoE is out, it's too strong vs. the hydralisks.
Hydras should go back to being a cheaper, tier 1 unit, and be a bit weaker than they are now so that zerg has an early game AA unit (other than the queen), and so they can play a support role throughout the game. Roaches should go up to tier 2, and have their 2 armor back.
It's a solid idea... but it'd break ZvZ sooooo badly.
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Entropius: you dont need 16 corruptors to kill 4 colossus. If 8-10 corruptors cant kill the four colossus before most of your ground forces have melted away, you are obviously overmaking hydras. roaches can tank the damage.
Void ray is supposed to counter the corruptor because the corruptor counter the other 2 protoss air units. Phoenix is also considered to be an air superiorty unit, yet it gets killed by the corruptor.
I think the corruptor is fine. Obviously, you cant have a air unit that completley counters all the other races air units.
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Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Hydras are good because they have 2 more range, allowing them to hit over forcefields. Otherwise try to avoid them if possible.
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On February 26 2011 13:21 Whitewing wrote:
Hydralisks demolish gateway units: protoss HAS to get aoe to deal with them, they're too strong vs. everything else protoss has.
Problem is, once that AoE is out, it's too strong vs. the hydralisks.
Hydras should go back to being a cheaper, tier 1 unit, and be a bit weaker than they are now so that zerg has an early game AA unit (other than the queen), and so they can play a support role throughout the game. Roaches should go up to tier 2, and have their 2 armor back.
They don't demolish gateway units that badly, really. They're useful, sure, but a well-composed gateway army is at least competent against them. (They're also dog-slow, which has to be taken into account in considering how good they are.)
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On February 26 2011 13:35 justindab0mb wrote:
Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Isnt it awesome to have an ability called burrow wich allows you to crawl under the forcefields and get into a superior position while regenerating health at an insane rate, then?
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On February 26 2011 13:31 dark fury wrote:
Entropius: you dont need 16 corruptors to kill 4 colossus. If 8-10 corruptors cant kill the four colossus before most of your ground forces have melted away, you are obviously overmaking hydras. roaches can tank the damage.
Void ray is supposed to counter the corruptor because the corruptor counter the other 2 protoss air units. Phoenix is also considered to be an air superiorty unit, yet it gets killed by the corruptor.
I think the corruptor is fine.
You didn't read the next bit. Even if 8 corruptors kill 4 colossi (an even trade in resources), you have traded your 1200/800 on corruptors for his 1200/800 on colossi, but only <i>after</i> those colossi have done large amounts of damage; meanwhile you are left with nothing useful, since your surviving corruptors will then sit around and masturbate until there is something else to shoot at.
Consider a bit of theorycraft: Corruptors do 10.6 DPS vs. Massive. 8 corruptors do 84.8 DPS vs. Massive, and will kill one colossus every 5.3 seconds (4.3 or so with corruption considered, which is about three times its cooldown).
Each colossus will get to fire once before the corruptors get in range.
This means that the first colossus will get to fire 4 times; the second will get to fire 7 times; the third will get to fire 10 times; and the fourth will get to fire 13 times before it dies (assuming your hydra/roach/ling/whatever is busy engaging his gateway units, since to do otherwise is suicide due to colossus range and forcefield).
This is 34 colossus shots. Roaches do the best at tanking them, so let's consider the effect of 34 colossus shots against roaches. Each shot will hit 3-4 roaches, so let's use 3.5. Each shot does 30 damage, * 3.5 roaches hit, * 34 shots = 3570 damage deal to your roaches, which is enough to kill 24.6 of them.
In this scenario, your corruptors kill his colossi. After this happens you each have used up 1200/800 of resources, since his colossi are dead and your corruptors are useless. However, he has gotten ~25 dead roaches out of the deal, and you have a handful of useless corruptors.
Yes, there are some assumptions made in this calculation, but they are not unreasonable ones. Most importantly, the result is so much in favor of the colossi that even some small systematic error in the "theorycrafting" won't change the final result: 8 corruptors cannot kill 4 colossi before
they do enough damage to swing the ground battle.
Regarding void vs. corruptor: Voids can shoot ground. Units that can shoot both ground and air should be significantly weaker than those that can only shoot one or the other. Phoenix do lose to corruptors, but that's not terribly relevant since:
1) those corruptors can do nothing else useful, while the phoenix have graviton and can shoot overlords
2) Phoenix are faster, and thus are never forced into a bad engagement
(most relevantly) 3) Protoss have no compelling tactical reason to maintain an air-to-air force. Zerg *must* maintain significant air-to-air capability or they die to colossi.
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On February 26 2011 13:38 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:35 justindab0mb wrote:
Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Isnt it awesome to have an ability called burrow wich allows you to crawl under the forcefields and get into a superior position while regenerating health at an insane rate, then?
Burrow is rather useless if they have an observer with their army.
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I think hydra should either cost 75 minerals, have 15 more hp or move slightly faster.
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Entropius: Roach corruptor can deal with gateway units+colossus quite efficiently so i dont see any reason for complaining, if the protoss has voidrays to counter corruptor, you should have been able to tech up as well and get the appropriate counter.
Also, in the next patch fungal growth will deal 30% more damage against air units (void ray stalker colossus) wich will make this composition even more reasonable to deal with.
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On February 26 2011 13:58 Bawbjohnson wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:38 dark fury wrote:On February 26 2011 13:35 justindab0mb wrote:
Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Isnt it awesome to have an ability called burrow wich allows you to crawl under the forcefields and get into a superior position while regenerating health at an insane rate, then? Burrow is rather useless if they have an observer with their army.
No, you can still bypass the forcefield. The observer only allows the protoss to attack the roaches while they do so, but thanks to the super high regeneration it is unlikely that the protoss will be able to kill too many of them while you burrow-move.
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On February 26 2011 14:05 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:58 Bawbjohnson wrote:On February 26 2011 13:38 dark fury wrote:On February 26 2011 13:35 justindab0mb wrote:
Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Isnt it awesome to have an ability called burrow wich allows you to crawl under the forcefields and get into a superior position while regenerating health at an insane rate, then? Burrow is rather useless if they have an observer with their army. No, you can still bypass the forcefield. The observer only allows the protoss to attack the roaches while they do so, but thanks to the super high regeneration it is unlikely that the protoss will be able to kill too many of them while you burrow-move.
I think you overestimate the power of burrow-regen. Roach has 2 range less than Stalker which allow quite a bit of free shots from a slow moving Roach. Coupled with Collosi DPS, losing 10+ Roaches without doing any damage is not uncommon.
On February 26 2011 14:04 dark fury wrote:
Entropius: Roach corruptor can deal with gateway units+colossus quite efficiently so i dont see any reason for complaining, if the protoss has voidrays to counter corruptor, you should have been able to tech up as well and get the appropriate counter.
Also, in the next patch fungal growth will deal 30% more damage against air units (void ray stalker colossus) wich will make this composition even more reasonable to deal with.
The only units that stand a chance against Void Rays are Mutas and Hydras, and outnumbering with a large amount of Corruptors. Mutas are a nonoption due to high cost, low survivability and damage output. The Corruptor has already been discussed so I won't bring it up gain, but it leaves the Hydras simply evaporate to Collosi. You can't look at these situations so black and white as "X counters Y so I get Z."
And PTR notes shouldn't be brought up in a current discussion.
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On February 26 2011 14:05 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:58 Bawbjohnson wrote:On February 26 2011 13:38 dark fury wrote:On February 26 2011 13:35 justindab0mb wrote:
Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Isnt it awesome to have an ability called burrow wich allows you to crawl under the forcefields and get into a superior position while regenerating health at an insane rate, then? Burrow is rather useless if they have an observer with their army. No, you can still bypass the forcefield. The observer only allows the protoss to attack the roaches while they do so, but thanks to the super high regeneration it is unlikely that the protoss will be able to kill too many of them while you burrow-move.
Yea, this is very impractical. This really only works if the forces are quite small, or if they have like only 2 colossi.. Otherwise, you'll simply take way too much damage. Burrow-regen is good, but not THAT good.
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+2 range upgrade instead of 1. Thor should not have a greater ground attack range then a hydra; it should atleast be even. And having a ground unit with decent range would be nice
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On February 26 2011 14:05 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:58 Bawbjohnson wrote:On February 26 2011 13:38 dark fury wrote:On February 26 2011 13:35 justindab0mb wrote:
Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Isnt it awesome to have an ability called burrow wich allows you to crawl under the forcefields and get into a superior position while regenerating health at an insane rate, then? Burrow is rather useless if they have an observer with their army. No, you can still bypass the forcefield. The observer only allows the protoss to attack the roaches while they do so, but thanks to the super high regeneration it is unlikely that the protoss will be able to kill too many of them while you burrow-move.
Like everyone else said, burrowing while they have an observer is just letting them do tons of damage to your Roaches without them doing any back. The regen is good, but when you have that death ball doing damage to you while you slowly move under a FF, well, it's pretty useless.
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On February 26 2011 14:04 dark fury wrote:
Entropius: Roach corruptor can deal with gateway units+colossus quite efficiently so i dont see any reason for complaining, if the protoss has voidrays to counter corruptor, you should have been able to tech up as well and get the appropriate counter.
Also, in the next patch fungal growth will deal 30% more damage against air units (void ray stalker colossus) wich will make this composition even more reasonable to deal with.
Roach corruptor *cannot* deal with gateway units + colossus efficiently. As mentioned earlier, even if you spend as much on corruptors as he has spent on colossi your corruptors will become useless (by being useless) at the same time as his colossi become useless (by being dead), but by that point your roaches have taken so much damage that they'll be flattened.
Pure gateway is actually somewhat competitive against roach, especially if there are immortals or bad terrain (forcefield) mixed in.
What would you tech up to in order to counter voids? The only zerg unit that beats voids for cost is the hydra, and they're useless with colossi on the field.
Edit: Burrow-move is better than nothing against forcefield. It's especially good against splash, like colossi. But once they have 3-4 colossi your roaches will be taking so much damage that any delay will result in a huge number of them dying.
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Personally I rarely have success with any combination of roaches and/or hydras w/ corruptors.
I find that no matter what the case - you're being hard countered. Generally toss is going to mass stalkers which counter roaches. And of course collosus counter hydras. Corruptors do a decent job of taking care of them but they're fairly slow and it's pretty hard to catch a toss deathball out of position. Sure roaches can avoid forcefields, but you're doing it mid battle at the cost of losing your corruptors . If they somehow have an observer alive, your roach burrow was probably not even worth doing.
I tend to do a heavy ling/baneling/muta play (banelings situational) against toss because it pretty much nullifies collosus - Of course the issue with that is you're very fragile against a 4/6 warpgate push - a few well placed forcefields and you unavoidably lose so you're heavily relying on spine crawlers for defense. I find that this style of play usually leaves me in a much better position throughout the game though and I generally only have real trouble with a good blink/stalker build.
I just find that going heavy roach/hydra only really works for the early mid game - and once they get out collosus you're pretty much screwed unless you get some miraculous sniping of collosus with your corruptors and somehow meet their army in a perfect position. So in my mind if I'm going heavy roach/hydra - I am attacking immediately because it's basically going all in.
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The problem with hydras is that they are simply so good against everything the protoss has. Hydras beat zealots, sentries, stalkers, immortals, voidrays and phoenix. And very easily. Upgraded stalkers chew through upgraded roaches I think. Especially with forcefields and a few chargelots or blink.
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On February 26 2011 15:30 Smipims wrote:
The problem with hydras is that they are simply so good against everything the protoss has. Hydras beat zealots, sentries, stalkers, immortals, voidrays and phoenix. And very easily. Upgraded stalkers chew through upgraded roaches I think. Especially with forcefields and a few chargelots or blink.
None of that matters, since hydras die so hard to the everpresent colossi. Marines are an even harder counter to everything non-AoE that Protoss can make, but they are vulnerable to storm and colossi so things are balanced.
The trouble with hydras is that while they're effective against things other than storm and colossi, they're not all *that* effective, and they get owned so utterly hard by colossi that whether or not they beat generic gateway shit is irrelevant.
Yes, sometimes they're good. I just played a protoss 4-gating me and held with ling/roach. Then he expanded and 6-gated me, and I held with ling/roach/hydra. Then I went and killed him with roach/hydra. I could only do that, though, since he had no colossi. Once colossi come out the entire zerg army has to be geared to dealing with them, and hydras have no place in that.
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On February 26 2011 14:04 dark fury wrote:
Also, in the next patch fungal growth will deal 30% more damage against air units (void ray stalker colossus) which will make this composition even more reasonable to deal with.
+30% vs Armored- better against Colossus/Void Ray, but no change against pheonixes.
But fungal won't kill a colossus- not only do they not get snared, but Colossus gets a shot off on the infestor when it comes into range to hit the colossus with fungal.
47 damage a pop to kill a 250 combined health Void Ray or 350 combined health Colossus. . .?
Fungal is actually being nerfed for this matchup, in my opinion. 4 second reduction in snare time, means if you have broodlords, the blink stalkers will be under them that much faster. You ahve less time to get your units into that better flank, Especially if you're flanking with queens/hydras. If you snare phoenixes, you have 4 seconds less time to kill them with your corruptors as well.
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The only problem with the Hydralisk is the attack animation is practically invisible so nobody realises how much damage they're doing.
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On February 26 2011 16:31 STALLONEZONE wrote:
The only problem with the Hydralisk is the attack animation is practically invisible so nobody realises how much damage they're doing.
They do a lot of damage, but not /that/ much. Let's calculate damage per resource for some units:
Drone: 0.067 DPS/$, range 0
Hydralisk: 0.096 DPS/$, range 6
Zergling: 0.29 DPS/$, range 0
Roach: 0.11 DPS/$, range 4
Marine: 0.14 DPS/$, range 5
Stimrine: 0.20 DPS/$, range 5
Thor: 0.0938 DPS/$, range 7
Hydralisks actually deal *less* damage for their cost than roaches. Both of them deal far less damage for their cost than zerglings, but zerglings are a melee unit; they both deal less damage than stimrines.
Hydras even deal less damage for their cost than Thors, and at less range.
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On February 26 2011 16:25 Keifru wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 14:04 dark fury wrote:
Also, in the next patch fungal growth will deal 30% more damage against air units (void ray stalker colossus) which will make this composition even more reasonable to deal with. +30% vs Armored- better against Colossus/Void Ray, but no change against pheonixes. But fungal won't kill a colossus- not only do they not get snared, but Colossus gets a shot off on the infestor when it comes into range to hit the colossus with fungal. 47 damage a pop to kill a 250 combined health Void Ray or 350 combined health Colossus. . .? Fungal is actually being nerfed for this matchup, in my opinion. 4 second reduction in snare time, means if you have broodlords, the blink stalkers will be under them that much faster. You ahve less time to get your units into that better flank, Especially if you're flanking with queens/hydras. If you snare phoenixes, you have 4 seconds less time to kill them with your corruptors as well.
Collosi can be snared by fungal. Only the ultralisk is immune to snares and stuns.
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United States7483 Posts
On February 26 2011 16:58 entropius wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 16:31 STALLONEZONE wrote:
The only problem with the Hydralisk is the attack animation is practically invisible so nobody realises how much damage they're doing. They do a lot of damage, but not /that/ much. Let's calculate damage per resource for some units: Drone: 0.067 DPS/$, range 0 Hydralisk: 0.096 DPS/$, range 6 Zergling: 0.29 DPS/$, range 0 Roach: 0.11 DPS/$, range 4 Marine: 0.14 DPS/$, range 5 Stimrine: 0.20 DPS/$, range 5 Thor: 0.0938 DPS/$, range 7 Hydralisks actually deal *less* damage for their cost than roaches. Both of them deal far less damage for their cost than zerglings, but zerglings are a melee unit; they both deal less damage than stimrines. Hydras even deal less damage for their cost than Thors, and at less range.
Most of which is negated by the fact that typically, zerg has a lot more resources to deal with issues, because they are designed to expand more rapidly and more frequently than the other races, and to be able to build up workers faster.
Making cost comparisons between races isn't particularly useful. Comparing costs between the same race can be useful, but different units have different function. Also, when you've got a capped army, DPS/cost is probably the last thing you want to be worried about, you want DPS/supply.
It's a solid idea... but it'd break ZvZ sooooo badly.
There are easy ways to fix that, like making it so hydras aren't light anymore, just biological, so they won't die to banelings as easily. Hell, based on the freaking size of a hydralisk (much much bigger than a marauder) I have no idea why they are light to begin with. They're frakkin' huge.
The roach is honestly the weird unit, it has a ton of hp, good armor, decent damage and really low cost, it sounds like something you should need or want to tech too. I can easily see bumping the hydralisk down to 75/25, roach up to 100/50 and just reversing the tech tree positions. Nerf the hydralisk slightly (10-12 damage per shot, 60 hp?) and make them hatch tech like they were in broodwar. Solve a lot of problems instantly.
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give hydras 110 hp / replace range upgrade with speed off creep
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Primary advantage of the Zerg is the ability to create swarms out of nowhere. Bases cost 100 min less (well, 100 minus a drone,) so it's pretty easy to expand quickly. On top of that, hatches are the only way to produce units, and you can produce literal swarms with Inject Larvae, fa5r faster than Toss can do with Warp Gate or tech buildings, and faster than Terran can with reactors. It's not the initial size, not the size of this army that'll count, it'll be the size of the army after that, and the one after that, and the one after that. You get good enough macro, you can just chip pieces out of the enemy, split up his army, attack and deny expos... The power of the ungenerated swarm at your fingertips.
Anywho, Hydras are pretty decent vs gateway, Zealots w/o Charge, stalkers w/o Blink, and Sentries in general. One or two plus an observer can mop up DT's fast.
They are decent units, but they do need something more. Siege range once Tier Three would be awesome, as Zerg really only has the hard-to get Brood Lords for ground siege range.
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On February 26 2011 12:42 Pwnographics wrote:
I think hydralisks need around 115 HP but that's just me.
yep just a masochist would want so low hp
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hydralisk is a pretty cute unit in ZvP. Z start off with roaches in the early game, then switch to hydras in mid game, then switch back to roaches in the late game....
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United States7483 Posts
Now that I think of it, bringing back the movement speed upgrade for the hydralisk would also be an excellent fix for the unit.
It's pretty terrible that there are so few significant unit changing upgrades for zerg and protoss, while terran has tons of them.
It's probably my biggest complaint about the game balance right now. Terran has so many ways to modify units to make a big change in their effectiveness, toss and zerg don't.
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I don't see how hyrdras counter gateway units. 1 stalker vs. 1 hydra they both kill each other, +u need a upgrade for hydras to have equal range as stalkers, not to mention they are higher tech. Hydras are basically good for parking in the mineral line and thats about it. What if they had a spell similar to the mechanics of guardian shield or PDD, where it reduced the incoming damage a little? Or would this be OP?
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On February 26 2011 17:12 Viperbird wrote:
I don't see how hyrdras counter gateway units. 1 stalker vs. 1 hydra they both kill each other, +u need a upgrade for hydras to have equal range as stalkers, not to mention they are higher tech. Hydras are basically good for parking in the mineral line and thats about it. What if they had a spell similar to the mechanics of guardian shield or PDD, where it reduced the incoming damage a little? Or would this be OP?
From this I know you don't play the game at all or are even in any reasonable league(Im jsut gonna assume you are silver/bronze)
First of all hydra hard counters pretty much all non-aoe units of toss. Why is it? Because it has high dps. Remember a zerg is never supposed to fight cost effectively versus the other two race because the zerg is ahead on base. So if a stalker just trade for a hydra(this is not even trading evenly as stalkers cost more), toss will fall very behind. Also zerg can produce units much faster than toss.
Gateway/immortal are decent against roaches until upgrades kick in. Stalker will do about the same damage as roaches when both are fully upgraded but is only half the cost. Zealots will be a joke versus max upgraded roach for obvious reasons.
I think the key in beating a toss is building enough corruptors so that you kill the colossuses and weaken their gateway support units. Then just remake zerg army and crush the reminder of toss's gateway. Colossus can not be reinforced as it takes forever to build and is actually very slow(same speed as hydra off creep). The balance is of course is to know how many corruptors to make against their colossus.
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On February 26 2011 12:35 Valcio wrote:
Roaches in huge numbers are bad exactly because of the range, with no other unit to help in the 10 ish minute battles you will get plummed, the right forcefields will eliminate you quickly.
Also you need hydras because of the fact a protoss will get about 4 to 5 voids to aid the fight, and corruptors are their favorite food.
Hydras need a health buff, back to 90 would be nice.
Not so. In late game, some protoss will opt to not have any sentries (to have a pure stalker / collo army). Either way, if you press your roaches against the protoss army, your units become much more cost effective.
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I was simply saying that they dont COUNTER gateway units. Sure they kill them, but its not like I made 20 hydras he had 20 stalkers lololol I got 14 hydras left after the battle. Where as collosus do counter hydras in that sense.Thanks for assuming people are in bronze, always a nice thing to do.
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On February 26 2011 17:33 Viperbird wrote:
I was simply saying that they dont COUNTER gateway units. Sure they kill them, but its not like I made 20 hydras he had 20 stalkers lololol I got 14 hydras left after the battle. Where as collosus do counter hydras in that sense.Thanks for assuming people are in bronze, always a nice thing to do.
They do counter. They are actually pretty much the hardcounter. You want to play online. Ill make all hydra, you can make all stalkers and we can see how many are left.
20 stalkers versus 20 hydras. In the end there will be like 5-6 hydras left probably. And that is huge since 20 stalkers cost way more and if you don't think hydras's counter stalker then I think you just need to play more games.
Also you didnt fact in size which matter a lot in any fight. You can fit a lot more hydra in the same amount of surface area because they are smaller means you are actually applying more dps. So please at least learn the game before trying to say something like "hydras don't counter stalker" It is the same as "marauders don't counter stalkers because if I make 20 fight 20, I wouldn't have 14 marauders left herp derp"
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Hydras are not a hard counter to gateway units. They are reasonably strong against them, and with good positioning they will be cost-efficient and win. However, if the protoss has a slightly larger army, or slightly better positioning (remember, hydras are slow as shit), it'll be even or the protoss will win.
Yes, if I see someone making pure gateway, or gateway plus immortal, I will try to get roach/hydra and push his face in. But I'll also be sacrificing an ovie every minute and making a spire, because I'll have to make a ton of air as soon as I see a colossus, because colossi really are a hard counter to hydras, in a way that hydras are not a hard counter to gateway.
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United States7483 Posts
On February 26 2011 17:40 entropius wrote:
Hydras are not a hard counter to gateway units. They are reasonably strong against them, and with good positioning they will be cost-efficient and win. However, if the protoss has a slightly larger army, or slightly better positioning (remember, hydras are slow as shit), it'll be even or the protoss will win.
Yes, if I see someone making pure gateway, or gateway plus immortal, I will try to get roach/hydra and push his face in. But I'll also be sacrificing an ovie every minute and making a spire, because I'll have to make a ton of air as soon as I see a colossus, because colossi really are a hard counter to hydras, in a way that hydras are not a hard counter to gateway.
We're splitting hairs. In large numbers, hydralisks straight up demolish gateway armies with no problem, even with forcefields.
In smaller numbers gateway units do okay, but not well. Hydras still win.
And what the hell is a 'hard' counter anyway? A unit that you get to stomp the everloving shit out of another unit with no difficulty? I wasn't aware such a relationship existed between units.
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There is no way in hell gateway can be cost effective. Hydras has around twice the dps and cost a lot less. The only harder counter to stalkers is probably stimmed maraduer. If zergs won't even admit hydra counters gateway, is there really anyway to discuss.
Hard counter to me means if you see them making a certain unit, you make the hard counter and will win. Which is pretty much the case with hydra vs non-aoe toss and maraduers against stalekrs. Hard counter vs counter is like the same to me. As long as you can fight cost effectively then it is a counter.
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Hard counter is sort of subjective, but it essentially means that if I make a significant number of X, your Y is ineffective enough that you'd better stop making them unless you have a way to make all the X irrelevant. Infestors are a hard counter to bio without tanks. Mutas are a hard counter to banshees. Colossi (with some gateway stuff around) are a hard counter to lings and hydras. Corruptors are a hard counter to BC's.
@xbankx: Comparing DPS is a little disingenuous, since hydras also have half the health of gateway units. It's been established already that hydras are good against gateway units. The point is that while they are good against pure gateway they aren't *so* good that your gateway stuff becomes irrelevant. A good question to ask is "How much more does the gateway player have to spend to be competitive?" It's probably around 15-20% depending on positioning, which is not *that* big of an advantage, especially since hydras have the disadvantage that they are slow as shit on heroin.
In a vacuum this would be fine, since you'd just make hydra against gateway and leverage this small advantage into a win. Again, the problem is that you don't get the chance to do this. Suppose P makes gateway stuff and you make hydra to deal with his gateway stuff. Fine; after a while you can turn the better efficiency of hydra into a win.
Then he makes colossus and walks all over you.
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Wait, you act as if mass roach will fry gateway/collo. Yes, but only if forcefield decides to stop existing. Lets look at your advice to make roaches work.
1) Attack in the right positions -- Not chokes! Hi forcefield makes chokes. Burrow? No problem, 1 observer, and the protoss army is doing DPS faster then the roaches can heal, and the roaches arnt doing DPS anyways.
2) Attack from different directions -- make the protoss army split up! Hi, forcefield walls off roaches and all of a sudden you are just fighting small groups at different times instead of all at once.
Then, you forget that other build becoming even more common, void / collo. Yea those roaches handle that well. Those corruptors can't beat both voidrays and collos. If you target the voidrays first, collos don't die fast enough to matter. If you target the collos first, then they have voidrays left and well....your roach army doesn't fight air too well.
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Was bored and did some tests in the unit tester... 20 hydras vs 20 stalkers, they come out dead even, sometimes 1 stalker left, sometimes 1 hydra left. ( 0 updgrades, off creep, hydra range upgrade for even range on both units)
Then just for the heck of it put 150 of each against each other, same results, 2 stalkers left over.
Stalkers have 2x the total HP and Hydras have 2x the dps. Also hydras dont do bonus damage whereas stalkers do more to armored.
Sure stalkers do cost more than hydras, but only 25 minerals more, not a lot. Usually gas is the limiting factor. I think perhaps we are misusing the word "counter" here.
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hydras need so many creep. a good buff can be that the hydras can generate creep in a minor radius than a overlord generates.
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On February 26 2011 18:32 xuanzue wrote:
hydras need so many creep. a good buff can be that the hydras can generate creep in a minor radius than a overlord generates.
Or just upgrade Hydralisk Off-creep movement speed, that should work too. And it's less gimmicky.
Personally I would say that Hydralisks are a "timing push"-oriented unit. They are slow as hell and a bit weak in an army, but they have a great effect for example, against Mass Stalker transition vs. Mutas.
I wouldn't use Hydras in my army without thinking about a Timing Attack with them. Like if my opponent goes Forge FE, I 2base Hydra drop his main because he is a bit weak when it arrives.
I like to transition from a 2base Fast Spire into 3base Hydralisk because Hydralisks are good against units the Protoss uses to counter Mutas with. I don't know if it's a good timing if he just goes Robo and Colossus, but I certainly believe that I can attack before he has critical Colossus numbers.
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United States7483 Posts
On February 26 2011 18:03 Viperbird wrote:
Was bored and did some tests in the unit tester... 20 hydras vs 20 stalkers, they come out dead even, sometimes 1 stalker left, sometimes 1 hydra left. ( 0 updgrades, off creep, hydra range upgrade for even range on both units)
Then just for the heck of it put 150 of each against each other, same results, 2 stalkers left over.
Stalkers have 2x the total HP and Hydras have 2x the dps. Also hydras dont do bonus damage whereas stalkers do more to armored.
Sure stalkers do cost more than hydras, but only 25 minerals more, not a lot. Usually gas is the limiting factor. I think perhaps we are misusing the word "counter" here.
Not only are hydras cheaper, but you can mass them more easily and faster than you can mass stalkers.
Assuming 1 base toss vs. 2 base zerg, which is typical, you can support 3 gateways worth of stalkers on non-stop production. So.... 3 stalkers per warpgate cooldown, if you dump all your resources into it. Stalkers are expensive.
The zerg can easily make way more hydras in the time it takes to get a decent sized stalker ball.
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The funny thing is, Blizzard said it would be imba if hydras were as good as they used to, that's why they are that slow offcreep and have no HP. A unit which deals a good ammount of ranged demage to both air and ground should have major weaknesses, else everybody would just mass those in most of the games. + Show Spoiler +Ever heard of a player called Marineking?
Like that of the marine. It has some of the highest DPS stimmed, as well as movementspeed can be healed and dropped, produced with reactored baracks, it has a decent HP/cost compared to some other ranged units. But it costs no gas. OH wait, that's actually not a weakness.
Or the stalker, one of the fastest units, can blink which makes them the most mobile ground unit in the game. Its downside could be the cost.
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Make hydra worth 1 supply? Revert some of their stats to BW levels and costs as well? I'd pay 75 mineral and 25 gas for 80 hp, 8 damage at .82 speed, and 1 supply.
Actually that sounds super overpowered. Oh well.
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Now, maybe I'm just crazy. But I think it would be great if Hydras were dropped to 1 food and weakened a bit(HP and damage), but were also made cheaper. That way, we'd have our trusty Brood War bread-and-butter Hydra back. Zerg would have a 1-food unit again, making their late game armies much bigger. It'd make High Templar more viable, due to Storm being able to weaken the big blobs of Hydras.
But that'd make too much sense, so I don't expect Blizzard to do that.
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I think people get really hung up on the idea that colossi make hydras useless. It works both ways, hydras make quite a few P units useless and all but force colossi because getting HT with storm takes forever. I have seen some pretty nasty timing attacks that hit you just before colossi come out which are just devastating because you don't really have anything that effectively deals with them at that point, your also low on units because you are pumping so many resources into getting the colossus. It's happened to me a couple of times and I've lost horribly both times, because Hydras just emasculate gateway units.
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Instead of theorycrafting how hydras should be changed, if you wanna be a little useful, theorycraft how hydras should be used.
They do good against gateway units, great when sitting behind roaches, and rape protoss air.
Ever seen a toss open up with a stargate and some gateways? Thats the time to make hydras, and then to counterattack right away. Just a handful of hydras behind a few roaches will do wonders against any stargate opening. Even hydra-ling is pretty decent there.
You can also use them against pure gateway openers, and they will do quite well there too.
Thats it.
They are not a lategame unit. And they are not meant to be used against colossi or templar tech.
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Hydralisk is fine. A unit that rapes non-storm gate units, rapes the roach counter (you MUST focus fire inmortal with your hydras), rapes air, but gets raped by expensive tier 3 protoss units. Is not a stample, as it is the roach. The propblem with the hydra is how useless it is aganist T, and how cheaply terran get a similar unit (stimmed shield-Marine) which is uberly cost-efective.
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On February 26 2011 20:16 Belha wrote:
Hydralisk is fine. A unit that rapes non-storm gate units, rapes the roach counter (you MUST focus fire inmortal with your hydras), rapes air, but gets raped by expensive tier 3 protoss units. Is not a stample, as it is the roach. The propblem with the hydra is how useless it is aganist T, and how cheaply terran get a similar unit (stimmed shield-Marine) which is uberly cost-efective.
and by rape you mean they come out about even
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On February 26 2011 21:13 Geo.Rion wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 20:16 Belha wrote:
Hydralisk is fine. A unit that rapes non-storm gate units, rapes the roach counter (you MUST focus fire inmortal with your hydras), rapes air, but gets raped by expensive tier 3 protoss units. Is not a stample, as it is the roach. The propblem with the hydra is how useless it is aganist T, and how cheaply terran get a similar unit (stimmed shield-Marine) which is uberly cost-efective. and by rape you mean they come out about even
Hydras do extremely well against gateway units. Provided of course they are sitting safely behind a bunch of roaches.
Saying that hydras counter gateway units is like saying colossi counter hydras.
True, if you match 1 hydra with 1 stalker, the match is pretty even.
Just the same as matching 1 colossus with 3 hydras, and again, its pretty even.
But have the hydras sitting behind some roaches, or have the colossus sitting behind a deathball, and suddenly, the high dps is way more beneficial, while the low amount of life becomes much less important.
How 1 type of unit does against another type of unit isnt really important at all in most situations. Whats important, is what adding that unit does to your army as a whole.
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Hydralisks are good when you use them in this matchup correctly. You can't be afraid of potential threats, you need to use your lair tech in order to scout their tech route. If they have a Robotics then that's when you have to be careful whether you go hydra, I still think it's a smart idea to go at least like 16 hydras if they get more than 2 immortals, and then go spire for corrupters and completely techswitch if they did. Zerg is better at techswitching so take advantage of it. Corrupters are only good against colossi while hydralisks are good against everything but colossi when there is any roach support.
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I think people overestimate hydras. They are good (until collosi appear), but they're not a unit zerg -ever- wants to make unless forced to due to void-rays or phoenix (and even then I sometimes ponder if I can get away with infestors and mutalisks instead). They're so expensive. Every time I go hydra I am broke. (I should consider going hydra when I'm macroing poorly...).
Hydras are good against gateway units. They don't 'demolish them'. They trade well with a gateway army, and very well with a roach/hydra mix against a gateway army, assuming you don't engage in a choke and get split by force fields.
But demolish? No. Collosi demolish hydras; they literally evaportate into flames within a volley. Gateway amounts don't melt under roach/hydra fire, they trade. It's a world of difference.
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i completely agree with all thats been said about the problems of the hydralisk, but i really don't know what to do with it the entire unit seems directionless, as is its a counter to gateway units in terms of efficiency cost etc which is broadly unnecessary and very little role apart from this later in the game. to fix the hydralisk i think it has to be decided what the purpose of the hydralisk is. personally i rather like the idea of swapping roaches and hydras in tech position and changing both units slightly to fit their new positions. but of course that would be an entire new game rather than a fix to this...
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Canada13389 Posts
Hydra/Ling is quite gimmicky. Hydras are slow off creep so once they start fighting they need to finish their fight. If I scout a fasty hydra den or hydras, I will just tech up to collossus since you as Zerg will not be committing to killing my army off creep for a while.
Good forcefield use will render the lings completely useless and the collossus will melt both easily. The gas you invested into hydralisks will likewise keep your corruptors behind and without roaches the hydras will die too quick. I've seen this many times on ladder and in VODs but it almost never works and only if the protoss hasn't played against it before.
to deny scouting observers, sure 2 hydras per base is useful but hydra/ling as an offensive choice is bad.
A good or decent P will watch their minimap and stop nydus worms in base as well as kill the overlords. Overlord Hydra drops are the most efficient and likely of the two choices though.
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On February 26 2011 23:35 B12ad wrote:
Hydralisks are good when you use them in this matchup correctly. You can't be afraid of potential threats, you need to use your lair tech in order to scout their tech route. If they have a Robotics then that's when you have to be careful whether you go hydra, I still think it's a smart idea to go at least like 16 hydras if they get more than 2 immortals, and then go spire for corrupters and completely techswitch if they did. Zerg is better at techswitching so take advantage of it. Corrupters are only good against colossi while hydralisks are good against everything but colossi when there is any roach support.
whats the point of being able to techswitch when you have no techs you can switch to?roaches are the backbone of your army but due to low range their damage output is quite low and with forcefields they will die to colossi quick
whats the point of a unit that has some resistence when it just cant kill anything but zealots?yes you need hydras because their dps is way higher as well as they have more range and will be able to hit stalkers and immortals
so you suggest to get 16 hydras if they got more than 2 immortals - lets say its 4 immortals then its 16 supply compared to 32 covered by hydras; they kill immortals quick but also die extremely fast to colossi
the point im referring to is that both races have its counters for x and y but the point is that the protoss has way more effective counters - in damage and even more in supply just imagine that one colossus has the same supply than 3 hydras and costs of 300/200 compared to 300/150 and the colossus will easily win(not even talking about a comparison of costs/effect of both their range upgrades); on the other hand hydras are supposed to counter immortals - will 2 hydras beat one immortal?
so what would be a better counter for immortals?zerglings ofc - 8 zergling against one immortal would be quite fine, wouldnt it?it just never happens because of forcefields - the naked truth is that colossi will destroy all zerg ground units besides ultras because their damage output before they die is too low; then you have to bring a useless unit of 2 supply to kill the colossi and then you block a lot of supply and stalkers with ff and guardian shield beat your ground army because its slightly stronger but most of all larger due to the fact that you sit on 20+ useless supply
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On February 26 2011 20:02 morimacil wrote:
They do good against gateway units
well, 20 hydras with range upgrade will loss vs 18 chargelots, i don't see the hydras working good against all the gateway units as you're saying.
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I agree completely with the OP.
Most of the time it's best to just avoid hydra's. Pure hydra's aren't that strong, they do worse then pure roach at that point as they are just shitty without a meatshield. Off creep zealots also do fairly well against them.
Hydra's can be good when you have a roach meatshield as they provide really good DPS then without dying so much. Still in many situations I actually think infestors are actually a better backup unit as they are even more pop effective then hydra's and do more DPS when used well, especially after 1.3 with current notes.
Hydra's are good for 2 things only now, a timing push when the opponent went air a la nestea, completely skipping roaches. This works really well when P tries to go air on small maps (which is just suicide). The other scenario is hydra's when you are respawning with the '300 food' attack. They are quite larvae efficient so they are excellent for the instant respawn after you have killed all colossi.
Many pro's just mindlessly mix them in all the time against Zerg now (morrow for example) and always spend early money on the range upgrade. Imo that is just completely wrong and instead focussing on pure roach with spire is much better.
Also pure roach is hardly weaker then roach/hydra against immortals. The immortals will still have a good target for their insane damage anyway. They will only die a bit quicker to hydra focus if you do that. Protoss can never go lots of immortals early on anyway because it is too risky against a muta switch and robo's are too expensive. If they go mass immortal you can always switch in hydra's later.
TL;DR It's best to skip hydra's early on completely unless you need them for quick AA or you want to do a timing push (usually against stargate opening). Pure roach is just better for everything else, unless there are LOTS of immortals in which case you can just mix in hydra's later. In the PTR roach, infestor, corruptor is even more insane as HT's got nerfed and infestors got a pretty big buff against protoss.
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On February 27 2011 01:13 Markwerf wrote:
TL;DR It's best to skip hydra's early on completely unless you need them for quick AA or you want to do a timing push (usually against stargate opening). Pure roach is just better for everything else, unless there are LOTS of immortals in which case you can just mix in hydra's later. In the PTR roach, infestor, corruptor is even more insane as HT's got nerfed and infestors got a pretty big buff against protoss.
How exactly are Roaches better in every thing else than AA and Timing attacks?
I find Hydra drop being much better against a Forge Fast Expand than any Roach variation due to Hydras simply sniping stuff faster. Of course this can be counter as a timing attack as well.
Hydras are better in timing pushes because of the same thing, and because of their longer range, they can fight better against Forcefields.
As for Defence, Hydras behind Spine Crawlers are better than Roaches and Spine crawlers because Hydras can shoot behind the Crawler better than Roaches can. And they have more damage.
If I want to be constantly aggressive and go for a Contain, I just go fast units like Mutalisks and Zerglings. Or course Muta/Ling loses against certain composition but what tells you to get more than 6-10 Mutalisks in the first place? Secure a 3rd and transition before he can exploit the fact that your force is weak to certain timing attacks.
I personally like to open either Mutas or Hydras in ZvP unless it's a almost Pure-Zealot 4gate where Roaches are needed.
I see Roaches needed against a fast 4gate and as Tank units, but never before your 3rd base unless it's the 4gate attack.
Zerg is good at transitioning, use it to your advantage instead of thinking about one composition all the time. Not pointing the one I quoted, but overall.
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Choose your location to battle, 99% of raging zerg players moan about colossus because they attack at stupid locations and dont do anything (or very little) to counter them.
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On February 27 2011 01:32 MrJargon wrote:
Choose your location to battle, 99% of raging zerg players moan about colossus because they attack at stupid locations and dont do anything (or very little) to counter them.
Uninformed at best, troll at worst.
The best that good positioning can do is to get all of your units fighting at once; due to superior range all of the protoss army (barring zealots) will be engaged. You simply cannot engage a protoss ball with anything resembling cost efficiency; if you have a far bigger force you can overwhelm it, or suicide corruptors to kill the colossi and then fight it, but if that is not the case then the only way to play once they get a handful of colossi is to play a skirmish style involving backdoor ling attacks, etc., and pray that you have enough APM and that they are sloppy enough for it to work.
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I have no idea why people insist on going for roaches. I agree that they can be good in low numbers against a gateway army, but later on they are a dead end!
Why does no one build banelings?
They are extremely good for taking down balls, such as the P "death" ball. they are even better when the P have a high number of zealots. A mix of lings and blings + some hydras in support can easily take down early- to mid-game pushes.
Later in 200/200 battles, just mix in 3-5 ultralisks. they are simply amazing in a mix of blings and lings. Even more important they take down the fircefields, so you can just roll in with the blings and crush everything.
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On February 26 2011 16:58 entropius wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 16:31 STALLONEZONE wrote:
The only problem with the Hydralisk is the attack animation is practically invisible so nobody realises how much damage they're doing. They do a lot of damage, but not /that/ much. Let's calculate damage per resource for some units: Drone: 0.067 DPS/$, range 0 Hydralisk: 0.096 DPS/$, range 6 Zergling: 0.29 DPS/$, range 0 Roach: 0.11 DPS/$, range 4 Marine: 0.14 DPS/$, range 5 Stimrine: 0.20 DPS/$, range 5 Thor: 0.0938 DPS/$, range 7 Hydralisks actually deal *less* damage for their cost than roaches. Both of them deal far less damage for their cost than zerglings, but zerglings are a melee unit; they both deal less damage than stimrines. Hydras even deal less damage for their cost than Thors, and at less range.
This is the dumbest way to think. You build hydras so that they can be in range where roaches wouldn't be.
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On February 26 2011 16:58 entropius wrote:
Drone: 0.067 DPS/$, range 0
Hydralisk: 0.096 DPS/$, range 6
Zergling: 0.29 DPS/$, range 0
Roach: 0.11 DPS/$, range 4
Marine: 0.14 DPS/$, range 5
Stimrine: 0.20 DPS/$, range 5
Thor: 0.0938 DPS/$, range 7
i would suggest you trying to compare that to Stalkers,
+ Show Spoiler +
and then start to laugh when you realize how pathetic stalkers are for their cost.
and how worse it gets when you count upgrades too
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On February 27 2011 02:34 STALLONEZONE wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 16:58 entropius wrote:On February 26 2011 16:31 STALLONEZONE wrote:
The only problem with the Hydralisk is the attack animation is practically invisible so nobody realises how much damage they're doing. They do a lot of damage, but not /that/ much. Let's calculate damage per resource for some units: Drone: 0.067 DPS/$, range 0 Hydralisk: 0.096 DPS/$, range 6 Zergling: 0.29 DPS/$, range 0 Roach: 0.11 DPS/$, range 4 Marine: 0.14 DPS/$, range 5 Stimrine: 0.20 DPS/$, range 5 Thor: 0.0938 DPS/$, range 7 Hydralisks actually deal *less* damage for their cost than roaches. Both of them deal far less damage for their cost than zerglings, but zerglings are a melee unit; they both deal less damage than stimrines. Hydras even deal less damage for their cost than Thors, and at less range. This is the dumbest way to think. You build hydras so that they can be in range where roaches wouldn't be.
Congratulations for not reading the thread. Yes, hydras are useful because of their range. But I was responding to a poster who claimed that hydras do "zomg so much dps!", and simply citing statistics that show that they really don't.
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On February 27 2011 01:32 MrJargon wrote:
Choose your location to battle, 99% of raging zerg players moan about colossus because they attack at stupid locations and dont do anything (or very little) to counter them.
thats quite funny - where would you choose your attack location on scrap station?
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Immortals FORCE Hydras. There is no choice but to go Hydras. You will lose with ANYTHING else (unless you grossly out macro or micro the dude). That is the real problem. You have no choice but to get the unit, and then the same exact tech path obliterates it costing Protoss nothing.
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@ Threadopener
I'm not quite sure what this thread is all about, since you just talk a bit about hydras and zvp in general. Do you have a specific question or complain? Because I do not quite get this at all
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On February 27 2011 02:44 freetgy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 16:58 entropius wrote:
Drone: 0.067 DPS/$, range 0
Hydralisk: 0.096 DPS/$, range 6
Zergling: 0.29 DPS/$, range 0
Roach: 0.11 DPS/$, range 4
Marine: 0.14 DPS/$, range 5
Stimrine: 0.20 DPS/$, range 5
Thor: 0.0938 DPS/$, range 7
i would suggest you trying to compare that to Stalkers, and then start to laugh when you realize how pathetic stalkers are for their cost. and how worse it gets when you count upgrades too
I intentionally didn't include protoss units in the comparison, since all protoss units have less dps and more health (except for cololsi); it's an overall characteristic of the race.
Yes, stalkers are not terribly efficient. A useful quantity to calculate for all units is the geometric mean of dps and durability divided by cost; if you have any background in mathematics or modeling you can convince yourself easily that this is the right thing to look at to get a leading-order estimate of cost effectiveness. Note that I am not claiming that this is the end-all be-all of unit efficiency; for instance, it doesn't consider unit range or speed.
This quantity, for some common ranged units. Gas is considered on parity with minerals. Results are normalized such that the value for an unstimmed unupgraded marine is unity.
Stalker: 0.55
Stalker, vs. armored: 0.66
Immortal, engaging roaches (hardened shield included): 0.92
Marine, with stim and shield: 1.22 (!)
Thor: 0.82
Roach: 1.18
Hydralisk: 0.64
Again, though -- you cannot use these results without considering other factors. This implies that you have to spend almost twice as much on stalkers to achieve parity with a roach army, but this neglects the speed and range advantage of the stalkers, which when combined with forcefield is devastating. What it does mean is that stalkers are not so good unless other factors conspire to make them better.
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corruptors can side-step all of those aggravating factors that help stalkers (besides psi-storm), and that's what you use to shoot down colossi
If you are going to contemplate the entire scenario (and you should) you need to compare production methods. Everything zerg does has to be seen through the prism of the way their unit production works. It makes it really hard to use numbers like this to actually come up with a good idea of what is actually going to be effective.
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On February 27 2011 03:36 entropius wrote:
Stalker: 0.55
Stalker, vs. armored: 0.66
Immortal, engaging roaches (hardened shield included): 0.92
Marine, with stim and shield: 1.22 (!)
Thor: 0.82
Roach: 1.18
Hydralisk: 0.64
Which shows us that Stalkers unupgraded can barely keepup with Hydras
Now Count in Attackupgrades:
0,7 DPS for Stalkers
1,2 DPS for Hydras
consider Defense upgrades:
Stalkers->only half hp benefits
Hydras -> all hp benefits
and this doesn't count in that Roaches can tank alot of damage.
Mass Roach / Hydra stomp through anything except Colossus in Midgame.
Any Change HP or DPS wise to Hydras will brake this Balance compared to Stalkers even more.
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I can't stop the death ball. 5 or more Colossus is so powerful, you can barely click to corrupt them in the first place, and by the time u've shift clicked after corrupting you're entire side of the map has been destroyed. NERF
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On February 27 2011 01:32 MrJargon wrote:
Choose your location to battle, 99% of raging zerg players moan about colossus because they attack at stupid locations and dont do anything (or very little) to counter them.
ahahaha....where do you engage something with twice the range of your longest ranged unit?? Go back to your cave.
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so many great replies... im baffled to read through 5 pages of interesting posts. thanks all and keep it up!
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On February 27 2011 03:29 telfire wrote:
Immortals FORCE Hydras. There is no choice but to go Hydras. You will lose with ANYTHING else (unless you grossly out macro or micro the dude). That is the real problem. You have no choice but to get the unit, and then the same exact tech path obliterates it costing Protoss nothing.
Mutas will punish the shit out of Immortals.
Roaches are actually perfectly fine cost-to-cost against Immortals and move much faster, but perhaps FF makes it untenable. (Of course, that's extra Protoss money spent in Sentries, so you'll have extra $$$ to spend on something else.)
On February 27 2011 06:11 Zedromas wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2011 01:32 MrJargon wrote:
Choose your location to battle, 99% of raging zerg players moan about colossus because they attack at stupid locations and dont do anything (or very little) to counter them. ahahaha....where do you engage something with twice the range of your longest ranged unit?? Go back to your cave.
Out in the open.
A number of the maps don't actually contain any open spaces, in which case the complaint is more legitimate. But the counter to long ranged splash has always been to surround, which in turn requires you to engage when the opponent is out into the open. Ever played BW against a mech Terran?
If the map allows a longer-ranged player to move from defensible position to defensible position without passing through any open space, that's kind of a stupid map, and you'll have to rely heavily on drop/air/nydus/burrow-move. (But presumably the map is good for those if it's that cluttered, so you may still be OK.)
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As a Protoss player, this is one of the weirdest, most interesting thread I've ever read. A bunch of Zerg players contemplating the usefulness of the Hydralisk? This is good stuff. There are a couple things I'd like to add; perhaps a different perspective might be helpful.
1. As a Protoss player, I must choose my tech wisely. So as such, I sometimes fear a Hydra tech switch. A lot of people got it right here - gateway+immortals demolishes roaches. The time to get Hydras is not to mix it in, but to counter what your opponent creates (i.e., void rays). Do not think of the Hydra as a standalone unit like the Roach, and do not think of a single Protoss unit as a lonesome menace. Protoss is about synergy between units. Sure, Roaches > Stalkers cost for cost, but that is not the usefulness of Stalkers. Also, Hydras > Stalkers, so please get that right too. To all those who don't think this, do you ever see a Protoss mass Stalkers against a Hydra//Roach or pure Hydra army? 0_0
2. Hydras have their place in the game. Currently, a super fast Hydra Den can wreck a Protoss player if they're not ready for it. If I'm in a PvZ and I'm fighting a mass Roach army, then I would be completely foolish to go Immortals. If I did, an immediate tech switch to Hydras would be the end of me. Hydras force Temps or Collosus in the same way that Marines do, so be greatful of this. Collosus are incredibly fragile units that can be picked off with a simple misclick. Personally, I do not like Collosus for this very reason. Roach//Hydra//Corruptor does superbly well cost for cost with a Stalker//Collosus army.
3. Don't complain about force fields. A Protoss player cannot support tech production AND Sentry production; this means that the sentries in a "Protoss Death Ball" are 90% of the time a) from the beginning of the game and b) not going to be replenished. If you can't feight and force force fields then you are greatly misunderstanding the matchup. And once you kill them they're probably not coming back. There's a reason you don't see lategame sentries - they're too gas expensive for little DPS and health.
4. Hydras are damn good units. If I go Immortals, blink Stalkers, or air, I fear Hydras. If I go Collosus or Temps, I fear Roaches. Don't misunderestimate this unit, for I have won many PvZs because the Zerg player was foolish enough to not get a Hydra Den.
Take it for what it's worth; Zerg is the best race at tech switching and Protoss is the worst race at responding to tech switches. Abuse that fact next time you face a "Protoss Death Ball"
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On February 26 2011 18:03 Viperbird wrote:
Was bored and did some tests in the unit tester... 20 hydras vs 20 stalkers, they come out dead even, sometimes 1 stalker left, sometimes 1 hydra left. ( 0 updgrades, off creep, hydra range upgrade for even range on both units)
Then just for the heck of it put 150 of each against each other, same results, 2 stalkers left over.
Stalkers have 2x the total HP and Hydras have 2x the dps. Also hydras dont do bonus damage whereas stalkers do more to armored.
Sure stalkers do cost more than hydras, but only 25 minerals more, not a lot. Usually gas is the limiting factor. I think perhaps we are misusing the word "counter" here.
Wow it is just so hard to explain to people there are more factors than just cost.
Here ill put them into list so you can understand better:
1. on any regular map, there is no open space like unit tester. Hydras are smaller, more fit in a certain area thus can shoot more at once so it has that advantage of higher dps
2. Zerg is always should be ahead on bases, if toss is trading at even mineral/gas toss will lose. You are talking about a senerio which toss is trading at -25 minerals which is LoLs to toss
3. Zerg can mass hydras in a game a lot easier than toss. Hatchery/larva inject can outproduce warpgate very easily.
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if the protoss uses an army of pure stalkers then a pure roach army will eventually win because roaches are much cheaper BUT sentries with ff and guardian shield will decrease the effectivity of roaches a lot; immortals and colossi will continually damage your roaches while you are out of range and can just retreat and when you are not able to attack the stalkers with your ground army then all stalkers will be able to attack your corruptors
hydras are ok imo, roaches for sure too but the true problem are the sentries in early stages that deny any decent pressure and allow the protoss to get their deathball and keep casualties very low
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You don't need them, but they are very helpful. A roach army can beat a gateway army, yes, but by mixing in hydras, which have far better dps, you're elongating the life of your roaches, thus buying more time for your corruptors to kill colossus. That being said, obviously you cannot go too hydra heavy vs any protoss comp that doesn't revolve around massing air units becuase storm and colossus are so cost effective vs hydras.
All in all, I wish they had more efficacy, but I do believe that they're a necessity unless your opp is overproducing colossus/templar.
Good post.
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I think the takeaway is that if you build enough Hydralisks to justify getting the range upgrade, you need a damn good reason.
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At first I applauded the Hydra for being awesome and I wanted to make it a stable of my zerg play. Alas, foolish I was to assume such a thing. Considering that hydras are expensive, weak and slow, I feel a change would be really welcome. They eat a lot of gas, perhaps down that to 25.
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On February 27 2011 09:13 Arisen wrote:
You don't need them, but they are very helpful. A roach army can beat a gateway army, yes, but by mixing in hydras, which have far better dps, you're elongating the life of your roaches, thus buying more time for your corruptors to kill colossus. That being said, obviously you cannot go too hydra heavy vs any protoss comp that doesn't revolve around massing air units becuase storm and colossus are so cost effective vs hydras.
All in all, I wish they had more efficacy, but I do believe that they're a necessity unless your opp is overproducing colossus/templar.
Good post.
as the protoss have a cloaked scout they can easily scout for hydras and if there are no easily stop colossi and make immortal and then the roach army gets killed and corruptors are useless (many toss switch to immo after their initial colossi got sniped by corruptors) and there arent few of top zerg players who try to avoid hydras
from this pov it would be better to get hydra/corruptor but this is mostly too gas heavy
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 26 2011 12:18 dark fury wrote:This is something i have been thinking a lot about in the last couple of days. Its sooo common to see even top master zerg players go roach/hydra/corruptor against gateway/colossus and then ragequit and complain about colossus OP when they lose. Two guys even made a 30 minute vlog complaining about it (no offense to idra and artosis, they are ballers of the highest level) Disclaimer: Everything presented in this thread represents my personal and completley subjective opinion and i dont want to pretend that im some sort of all knowing guru of starcraft 2, because im not. i could very well be wrong on several occasions and you are free to disagree with anything i say. In fact, im much eager to hear you opinion. This is a thread for constructive debate and open discussion. Disclaimer: I know some people out there are gonna say "dude hydras pwn gateway units" or something obvious and un-constructive along those lines without even reading what i have to say, but its a pretty widely acknowledged fact that you dont really NEED hydras to handle the protoss gateway units. Roaches, especially with speed, burrow and attack and armor upgrades are very good and cost-effective against any stalker/sentry/zealot composition and will always beat a gateway-only army of equal supply. Its not the zealot and stalkers that kills the zerg so effectivley in the mid game, so there is really no need to get hydras just to counter them. What you need to worry about is to respond to the protoss tech path wich will be colossus To start off, i do think that hydralisk can be a nifty tech choice for the early mid game if you get the hydralisk den before your roach warren and rely on hydralisk/speedling, wich is a great opener and can put on a good amount of pressure with some decent nydus worm/drop play. Hydras/ling however, becomes completley nullifed and humiliated once the protoss gets out AoE in the form of high templars or even worse, the colossus. thats why you need to make a well timed transition into Roach Warren and Spire, or some other techy build wich can handle the protoss tech units. Roach/Corruptor or Roach/muta/Corruptor or even Roach/infestor/Corrupter is SOO much more effective against any colossus based build that doesnt include a lot of void rays. Again, people seem to think that you need a major amount of hydras to beat the gateway bulch of the protoss army, wich is just not true. The deciding factor is that roaches can actually tank the colossus DPS while the corruptors kill them, wich hydras cant. The reason you lost against colossus that deathball despite having a good number of corruptors is because colossus simply kills hydras so fast that his remaining ground army is gonna be superior once the colossus go down and all you have left is 1/4 of your initial army. You overmade hydralisks in a situation where the protoss had devoted his entire tech-path and game plan to hard counter them. With Roaches you can also burrow-move under forcefields and snipe colossus and get into superior positions. Being able to get around and counter well-used forcefields is SUCH a game changing ability thats its almost ridicolous that its not being used to greater extent. Some people will argue that roaches in big numbers are bad because of their low range tend du cluster up with many of your roaches not being able to get into the front, and therefor you need hydralisks because of their superior range, but getting your troops clumped up is merely a result of poor micro, wich can easily be avoided by 1, Attacking in the right positions, avoiding choke points and narrow enviroments 2, Splitting up your troops. There is absoloutley no reason to have all your roaches/units on one hotkey and zerg should always aim for mulipronged attacks at different locations simultaniously. Forcing the protoss player to split up his huge scary army is necessary in order to beat him To wrap it up and summerize things, i would like to state that i am by no means trying to imply that the hydralisk is a bad or "Underpowered" unit, its just that some people tend to overmake them without realizing that even after losing continiously. In general it is always good to have a hydralisk den up in the mid-to-later phase of the game, because i do think they have a lot of strenghts and advantages: *Having a pack of hydralisks at the back of your army provides a great boost in DPS *Allows you to snipe observers prior to spire tech *Great resonse to phoenix harrasment (but do not rely on them to counter void ray/corruptor *Amazing for hit and run missions with nydus worm or overlord drops. *Once you manage to kill a good amount of colossi, making a dozen of hydra is a GREAT response as most protoss players wont be able to reproduce them fast enough to match your hydra count, and it will prevent any sneaky-tech switches to mass air.
You do not get hydras just to counter gateway units. You get hydras to counter EITHER A) Immortals or B) Stargate play. Roaches are way cost efficient against any gateway unit. Hydras are a response unit. Anyone who says hydras should be a massive part of your army is wrong. You are addressing those people with this thread.
What the heck is roach/muta/corruptor? Since when do mutas get added to the army mix.
Why you gotta take a shot at Greg/Dan? They are clearly more qualified to talk about the matter than pretty much anyone in the strategy thread. There is a reason infestors are getting buffed. Do you think the 30% armor bonus is because of massive tank balls or something? It is because stalkers, colossi, and void rays are all armored and hopefully the protoss will be forced into a different unit mix.
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You do not get hydras just to counter gateway units. You get hydras to counter EITHER A) Immortals or B) Stargate play. Roaches are way cost efficient against any gateway unit. Hydras are a response unit. Anyone who says hydras should be a massive part of your army is wrong. You are addressing those people with this thread.
Actually I've heard from several players alike that fast Hydra is the single best way to deal blink stalker play. Roaches simply are not enough most of the time. You definitely use Hydras against mass gateway plays.
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Infestor/hydra/ultralisk is awesome, if it's bad against anything I don't know what it is.
That's all I've got to say.
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On February 28 2011 09:20 Kazang wrote:
Infestor/hydra/ultralisk is awesome, if it's bad against anything I don't know what it is.
That's all I've got to say.
I think I might know what it's bad against:
+ Show Spoiler +
In all seriousness, though, that composition takes SO MUCH GAS that I just can't see it being viable in any game of reasonable length versus any Protoss of reasonable skill.
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A bit off topic here but who thinks that the pointy years are the hydra's eyes ingame ._.
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On February 28 2011 09:20 Kazang wrote:
Infestor/hydra/ultralisk is awesome, if it's bad against anything I don't know what it is.
That's all I've got to say.
It's actually not that great. Once the ultralisks are focused down by immortals + whatever else you have, the hydras just melt (and the ultras die extremely quickly). It's only really good versus stalker/colossus and is decent against stalker/colossus/VR, depending on the number of VR vs hydra (if there are a certain number of VR, hydras won't be able to deal with them because of hydra range versus colossus range versus VR health). It's terrible against zeal/immortal/templar or anything of the sort.
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On February 27 2011 03:29 telfire wrote:
Immortals FORCE Hydras. There is no choice but to go Hydras. You will lose with ANYTHING else (unless you grossly out macro or micro the dude). That is the real problem. You have no choice but to get the unit, and then the same exact tech path obliterates it costing Protoss nothing.
Actually, you could get roach/ling, which does just fine if not better against immortal + gateway as long as you get a third macro hatch (in my experience). The problem is that colossi obliterate this composition worse than roach/hydra.
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hydras do their job perfectly
why would you get a hydra heavy army against a toss who is heavy on collosus (which is a HARD COUNTER to hydras in its essence)?
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I would argue that the effectiveness of the Hydralisk in PvZ is more dependent on forcefielding by the Protoss player than the Hydralisk itself.
Everybody here is talking about what the hydralisk is on PAPER, but if you're going to discuss a unit it has to be in the context of the actual game's dynamic. Saying who would fight 1 on 1 doesn't accomplish as much.
We all know that on paper the hydralisk does more dps for its cost than the three opening gateway units, except for zealots who are melee. But, with proper forcefield usage, a chargelot sentry combo does very well against pure hydralisk.
In the case of a colossus situation, all normal players are going to forcefield the army in half, cutting off the hydralisk's range, so that the units cannot swarm.
EDIT: Void rays in numbers, mixed with gateway units and good forcefields, can even do well against roach/hydra in the midgame, I've done some good pushes with that unit mix.
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To make matters worse for VR hydra is that void rays stack whereas hydras do not. Combine that with 9 range collossus and stalkers and it just isn't a pretty site.
The issue is that hydras are zerg's only good answer to void rays most of the time. Corruptors are lol against them, mutas are just far too expensive and when there are stalkers too, it isn't viable. Maybe mass queen, but obviously the production issues.
Hydras are in a terrible limbo state. On the one hand, they could be OP even from small changes because of how damn good they are. On the other hand, they are both essential units but get torn apart by the best protoss unit in the game.
I guess the same goes with the marine. Extremely strong, but if you mess up with just a little bit of stuff, they could become too weak.
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Since I stopped using hydra's my winrate in ZvP has risen by a lot. Thats all I will say.
The only time I actually like the unit is in ZvZ, where its actually the second longest range unit in the match up. Its too much of a glass cannon in ZvP and I prefer ling/roach/blingdrops any time of the year over hydra/roach/corruptor.
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Immortals FORCE Hydras. There is no choice but to go Hydras. You will lose with ANYTHING else (unless you grossly out macro or micro the dude). That is the real problem. You have no choice but to get the unit, and then the same exact tech path obliterates it costing Protoss nothing.
No. Although you can be pushed with a 3 gate robo, Mutalisks will work too. Just according to your logic that is. Since Immortals can't attack air of course. And Spire will counter Colossi.
Anyways, remember it's not like his army is 100% Immortal. Likewise, your army will not have to be 100% Hydra or whatever unit that the Immortal "forces" the Zerg to make.
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On February 26 2011 12:42 Pwnographics wrote:
I think hydralisks need around 115 HP but that's just me.
around about 100 and some more offcreep movespeed
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Is this a joke? Hydras are good against every single toss unit EXCEPT the colossus. But you're right. You should just be able to build one unit against protoss and expect it to do well in all situations.
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If you've been watching the latest GSL, you will see that the Zerg players will tech to Banelings and Drop tech inside of Hydras in the mid to late game. I think that a lot of the top players have realized that Hydras are pretty much useless in the versus Protoss matchup, especially with the new larger maps where it is nearly impossible to connect creep all the way across the map.
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On February 28 2011 16:57 CabSauce wrote:
You should just be able to build one unit against protoss and expect it to do well in all situations.
No, thats not what im saying. I play protoss in master league btw, so this is not zerg-biased whining.
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United States7483 Posts
On February 26 2011 18:55 Geo.Rion wrote:The funny thing is, Blizzard said it would be imba if hydras were as good as they used to, that's why they are that slow offcreep and have no HP. A unit which deals a good ammount of ranged demage to both air and ground should have major weaknesses, else everybody would just mass those in most of the games. + Show Spoiler +Ever heard of a player called Marineking? Like that of the marine. It has some of the highest DPS stimmed, as well as movementspeed can be healed and dropped, produced with reactored baracks, it has a decent HP/cost compared to some other ranged units. But it costs no gas. OH wait, that's actually not a weakness. Or the stalker, one of the fastest units, can blink which makes them the most mobile ground unit in the game. Its downside could be the cost.
Downside of the stalker is high cost and shitty DPS. Hydras should honestly be a hatch tech unit again, and slightly weakened vs. their state now. Either that, or give them more upgrades, like a movement speed upgrade, or a move while burrowed upgrade or something.
Yeah, marines are kind of dumb right now.
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The hydralisk is perhaps the only unit in the zerg army (With the exception of the infestor), which can be considered a support unit, roach+hydra is the one of the few zerg combos where units actually help each other, instead of getting in the way with a too different movement speed, or range.
Hydralisks by themself are good against voidrays, stalkers, immortals, but they will not live through sentry/zealot, and they are horrible units outside creep, you need roaches to "tank".
Hydralisks do well against pretty much everything, but the problem with high templars and collosi is that they destroy hydras so much, that they become practicaly useless as soon as the tech is up.
Perhaps the right idea is to make hydras less powerful against gateway units, but more resistant against the high tech AOE? To make the game less hardcounter based
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On February 28 2011 17:45 Bagonad wrote:
The hydralisk is perhaps the only unit in the zerg army (With the exception of the infestor), which can be considered a support unit, roach+hydra is the one of the few zerg combos where units actually help each other, instead of getting in the way with a too different movement speed, or range.
Hydralisks by themself are good against voidrays, stalkers, immortals, but they will not live through sentry/zealot, and they are horrible units outside creep, you need roaches to "tank".
Hydralisks do well against pretty much everything, but the problem with high templars and collosi is that they destroy hydras so much, that they become practicaly useless as soon as the tech is up.
Perhaps the right idea is to make hydras less powerful against gateway units, but more resistant against the high tech AOE? To make the game less hardcounter based
That would take off any Zerg timing attacks there are. Hydra drops vs. Forge Fast Expand. Hydra Timing attack vs. a Stargate opening etc.
I'd rather have a scout-and-adapt based decision/micro/macro game than just a micro/macro game with Roach/Hydra based army vs. a Core Protoss army.
I know this happens in the late-game, but I'd rather have a series of timing attacks and defends with different compositions in early/mid-game than games that start building the core army from the 1st second of the game.
Maybe upgrade Hydralisk off-creep movement speed, maybe. They are not supposed to be used against Splash damage units and that's a fact. They are good Timing push units and IMO that is enough.
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i just want hydra to move as fast as roaches, exactly the same speed.
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While the BW hydra did less damage but was faster, the SC2 hydra is stronger but slower. Survivability is similar, but the cost differs a lot (+25/+25/+1). Does this make up for the increased damage?
I'd say there are 4 options that are discussable, 2 regarding cost and 2 regarding survivability:
- Lower mineral cost by 25 minerals (-> 75/50/2). This would free up minerals for zerglings/expos, but a light-based army is very weak against storm/collossi.
- Lower gas cost by 25 gas (-> 100/25/2). Seems quite fair to me. You don't make that many hydras. Zerg needs a lot of gas and this would free up max 250/500 gas for more hydras or better yet, other tech.
- Increase hydra base armor by 1 (0 -> 1). This will be very strong for early hydra tech (I'd love to see that). But is borderline OP (although the marauder is OP in a similar fashion). It wouldn't help much vs collossi/storm.
- Increase hydra hp by 10 (80->90). This would help vs everything and prevents 1-shot storms. It would at least force new strats on the pro level and may not even be OP. Ridiculous that the Infestor has more hp.
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On February 28 2011 23:01 evanthebouncy! wrote:
i just want hydra to move as fast as roaches, exactly the same speed.
Roaches and Hydras have the same speed -.-
Upgrades roaches have a speed of 3 off creep,
meaning they are even faster then stalker, and thus faster than most Protoss units.
(fully upgraded roaches imho are one of the best units in the game)
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On February 26 2011 13:24 Exe_adrian wrote:
A health buff to Hydralisks seems a reasonable idea, but why not just reduce the supply cost to 1?
By doing that you can effectively have a bigger army to deal with that massive 200/200 Protoss Deathball, when going roach, hydra at least. And since Roaches used to have 1 supply cost but were still considered to good, why not just give that to Hydras, I cannot see how this would make them op like the roaches used to be.
actually, roaches at 1 supply aren't op now either.... While the testing I did wasn't done by pros/isn't perfect. Me and another player went into the unit tester and built 130 roaches (and other combos) and they lost horribly to toss death ball, Terran tank/marine/thor/medi/maurader etc. They didn't even beat 110 marines w/ 10 medivacs (in fact they lost pretty bad).
What I'm trying to say is that a lot of people assume and say something when they really don't know what they are talking about; and it hinders the growth of the game and the community.
It will not just help the Speedling+Hydra opening build the OP was talking about, but will also help the zerg in general feel more "swarmish". I'm pretty sure many people have noticed how small the zerg army looks or feels when compared to a Protoss or Terran maxed army.
changing the hydra to 1 food and moving it to tier 1 while making its damage proportionate to it's cost (back to 75/25) and adding a speed upgrade in the hydra den would be a dream come true.
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On February 26 2011 13:28 Taf the Ghost wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:21 Whitewing wrote:
Hydralisks demolish gateway units: protoss HAS to get aoe to deal with them, they're too strong vs. everything else protoss has.
Problem is, once that AoE is out, it's too strong vs. the hydralisks.
Hydras should go back to being a cheaper, tier 1 unit, and be a bit weaker than they are now so that zerg has an early game AA unit (other than the queen), and so they can play a support role throughout the game. Roaches should go up to tier 2, and have their 2 armor back. It's a solid idea... but it'd break ZvZ sooooo badly.
how do you break a mirror >.>
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On February 26 2011 13:38 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:35 justindab0mb wrote:
Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Isnt it awesome to have an ability called burrow wich allows you to crawl under the forcefields and get into a superior position while regenerating health at an insane rate, then?
isn't it awesome having a unit that is permanently invisible, flys and detects?
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On February 28 2011 23:54 ixi.genocide wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:28 Taf the Ghost wrote:On February 26 2011 13:21 Whitewing wrote:
Hydralisks demolish gateway units: protoss HAS to get aoe to deal with them, they're too strong vs. everything else protoss has.
Problem is, once that AoE is out, it's too strong vs. the hydralisks.
Hydras should go back to being a cheaper, tier 1 unit, and be a bit weaker than they are now so that zerg has an early game AA unit (other than the queen), and so they can play a support role throughout the game. Roaches should go up to tier 2, and have their 2 armor back. It's a solid idea... but it'd break ZvZ sooooo badly. how do you break a mirror >.>
I'll tell you how. Tier 1 hydralisks, meet the baneling. It kills you cost effectively every time and you will die to the lings that run rampant after. AKA every ZvZ will turn into a baneling/zergling fest.
Lets say we take that out of the equation, lets say we teched to the lair and we want mutalisks. Welp, no more. Hydra's outrange mutalisks by a lot and even with less damage they would still tear them a new one.
The way ZvZ is now its very dynamic. Neither the roach path or the ling/bling path is unviable. Hydra's are good for support in ZvZ and a bit in ZvP. And I don't mind that as long as there are other units that are more viable.
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On February 26 2011 17:45 Whitewing wrote:
And what the hell is a 'hard' counter anyway? A unit that you get to stomp the everloving shit out of another unit with no difficulty? I wasn't aware such a relationship existed between units.
In BW there really wasn't such a term, and some would have you believe that the term shouldn't be used now but yes Colossi stomp the everloving shit out of hydras with practically no difficulty. hellions w/ blue flame stomp the everloving shit out of lings. high templar stomp the everloving shit out of marines. tanks stomp the everloving shit out of everything (jk, just most things).
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On February 26 2011 19:09 GreenManalishi wrote:
Make hydra worth 1 supply? Revert some of their stats to BW levels and costs as well? I'd pay 75 mineral and 25 gas for 80 hp, 8 damage at .82 speed, and 1 supply.
Actually that sounds super overpowered. Oh well.
drop hp to 65, 7 damage is 8.4 dps and 1 supply for the unit. Makes it barely better dps than the marine (not stimmed) and quite a bit larger. Add in a movement speed upgrade and remove "light" and this unit still wouldn't be op.
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It's actually really simple. Hydras are awesome ZvP, but melt to colossi and/or storm. So you make them when you don't have to fight colossi, or have to stand still in the middle of a storm. It may however be nice to add in some in a roach composition if you feel you can spare the gas.
so...
if you get 4gated, or get stargated or whatever, or if you for some reason don't have to be afraid of meeting storm/colossi, you can add lots of hydras to your roaches assuming you are willing to commit to a timing push before colossi are out. If you are hydra-heavy and attack into gateway/stargate/immortal or whatever, you annihilate everything. And when his colossi later gets out, they are awkward and naked without gateway units, if you don't just win outright. That also gives you map-control, and he can't secure his third = you win. Hydras can be awesome. If you wait for him to get colossuses with lance, or templars, and you have lots of hydras meeting his death-ball, they suck. If you send your super-expensive slow hydras into his +2 meatgrinder colossus death-ball, you can't whine for loosing.
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On February 26 2011 21:34 morimacil wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 21:13 Geo.Rion wrote:On February 26 2011 20:16 Belha wrote:
Hydralisk is fine. A unit that rapes non-storm gate units, rapes the roach counter (you MUST focus fire inmortal with your hydras), rapes air, but gets raped by expensive tier 3 protoss units. Is not a stample, as it is the roach. The propblem with the hydra is how useless it is aganist T, and how cheaply terran get a similar unit (stimmed shield-Marine) which is uberly cost-efective. and by rape you mean they come out about even Hydras do extremely well against gateway units. Provided of course they are sitting safely behind a bunch of roaches. Saying that hydras counter gateway units is like saying colossi counter hydras. True, if you match 1 hydra with 1 stalker, the match is pretty even. Just the same as matching 1 colossus with 3 hydras, and again, its pretty even. But have the hydras sitting behind some roaches, or have the colossus sitting behind a deathball, and suddenly, the high dps is way more beneficial, while the low amount of life becomes much less important. How 1 type of unit does against another type of unit isnt really important at all in most situations. Whats important, is what adding that unit does to your army as a whole.
Not only do you have gameplay working against you but you also are neglecting quite a bit, starting with colossi having 9 range targeting priority on hydras...
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On March 01 2011 00:22 ixi.genocide wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 19:09 GreenManalishi wrote:
Make hydra worth 1 supply? Revert some of their stats to BW levels and costs as well? I'd pay 75 mineral and 25 gas for 80 hp, 8 damage at .82 speed, and 1 supply.
Actually that sounds super overpowered. Oh well. drop hp to 65, 7 damage is 8.4 dps and 1 supply for the unit. Makes it barely better dps than the marine (not stimmed) and quite a bit larger. Add in a movement speed upgrade and remove "light" and this unit still wouldn't be op.
Lol I'm pretty sure that would break the game.
Zerg has very strong production rates in exchange for inefficient units. Removing absolutely ALL the weaknesses of the Hydralisk ( Speed and Cost) would most definitely break the game.
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Thing is, hydras don't just kill gateway units, they shit on the entire protoss arsenal from great height - the collusus and templar excluded of course.
So we basically have the same problem as in tvp, gateway units are too weak and the colossus is way to strong.
... anyway, clearly the best solution would be some sort of bunker build time increase...
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On March 01 2011 00:29 RoarMan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2011 00:22 ixi.genocide wrote:On February 26 2011 19:09 GreenManalishi wrote:
Make hydra worth 1 supply? Revert some of their stats to BW levels and costs as well? I'd pay 75 mineral and 25 gas for 80 hp, 8 damage at .82 speed, and 1 supply.
Actually that sounds super overpowered. Oh well. drop hp to 65, 7 damage is 8.4 dps and 1 supply for the unit. Makes it barely better dps than the marine (not stimmed) and quite a bit larger. Add in a movement speed upgrade and remove "light" and this unit still wouldn't be op. Lol I'm pretty sure that would break the game. Zerg has very strong production rates in exchange for inefficient units. Removing absolutely ALL the weaknesses of the Hydralisk ( Speed and Cost) would most definitely break the game.
reducing dps to marginally better than the marine (worse than stim) would even out the speed and cost portion. Terran can consistently make more marines than a Z can consistently make roaches and based off of the changes that I would propose the marines would be better than the hydra (like bw) but the hydra wouldn't be completely outclassed.
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On February 28 2011 23:56 ixi.genocide wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:38 dark fury wrote:On February 26 2011 13:35 justindab0mb wrote:
Ehem... the reason my roaches aren't attacking isn't because of poor micro... it's because of this particular spell which is VERY powerful (hint, it starts with an F)...
Isnt it awesome to have an ability called burrow wich allows you to crawl under the forcefields and get into a superior position while regenerating health at an insane rate, then? isn't it awesome having a unit that is permanently invisible, flys and detects?
observers prevent you from burrowing under forcefeild? now thats new, you should tell the top zerg players to immidietly stop using burrow to counter forcefield!
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I was thinking
T1 Hydra
75/25
10dmg, Same attack speed
80Health, Unit type changed to Normal
Makes him equitable to two marines. Not the same, but close
Roach turned into an anti-armor tankish T2 for 100/50
Maybe with a 15+10 armored or something attack.
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Why are people giving such specific stats when they clearly haven't tested anything?
If Hydras were faster and/or Colossi were slower, I think that would be a significant change enough. That way, the weaker zerg army could still outmaneuver the colossi-based army if they can't face them directly. Hydras would be perfectly solid units if their speed was reasonable.
And don't tell me "oh but the hydra is as fast as-" No. Seriously. We're zerg. We're supposed to be faster than you. Especially with such a fragile unit, zerg needs speed. Hydras are incredibly slow for being zerg and being so fragile.
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Hydras need a nerf =/ Just putting it out there.
Mass roaches will kill a collosus ball used right. That's why if you see the opponent mass roaches, the response is that you *MUST* get immortals and not collosus because immortals are that much more efficient against mass roaches.
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Hydras need to be faster, or have a speed upgrade.
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I have been experimenting with doing hydra drop's around the time I would normally be popping mutalisk out in ZvP and ZvT and it has had amazing success. I have found that taking exactly 2 overlords with 8 hydralisk has been the most efficient way, and 8 hydras can still completely clear out a saturated mineral line in literally about 10 sec or snipe the CC or Nexus in about 12-15. Hydra's seem to do incredibly well in small numbers, like marines and marauders but almost better. For example for a toss to make me pull my 8 hydras out of his base he needs to bring 10 stalkers, or 4 stalkers/ 4 zealots, or I have even killed 4 stalkers and a collosi with just 8 hydras and the 2 OL's generating creep. Also this is one of the only tech paths that is hard to scout, there is no building that deffinately gives it away and until they actually see the OL zooming around the map they won't realize its coming and two overlords don't definitely signal that I am dropping you.
Also in ZvT I've been able to lure an army out of position with roaches and drop my hydras on-top of his tanks a few times. In ZvP even if I don't drop it gives me a quick and deadly response to 4 gate attacks because I can load every unit I have, hydras included quickly move across the map before he can rebuild and do real damage while still having the option of retreating with my slow ass hydras( yes drop tech usually isn't ready until 2 minutes~ after the 4 gate has stopped but the timing is still very potent ).
Moral of the story is, hydralisk drops can work almost just like MM drops and are very deadly. The more you think about how the hydralisk works and its fragile nature with high dmg the more it starts to become clear it was meant to be used in drops and in quick hit and runs like the OP states, not in super high numbers. It's really spiced my game up a lot in ZvT and ZvP now, seems to be very viable at mid masters anyways, plus its really fun to wreck a terrans svc line for once after this early harassment fails and not just have to sit there like a fucking punching bag for 20 minutes + until he just mines out and throws in the towel.
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That's great, Synk. I've been thinking about doing something similar for a while now, but haven't had a chance to try it yet. You have inspired me!
What I've been playing with a bit is hit and run attacks with hydra and nydus in ZvP. I found that even though my play was a little awkward due to the vastly different style, it was quite effective. Against a 3-4 base protoss, I could bounce back and forth between his bases with nydus, and when he moved to defend with his death ball, I would simultaneously run the hydras back into the nydus while attacking a different front with my speed roaches. This was at ~2800 diamond level, and I suspect it would be even more effective in better hands.
edit - it really allowed me to take as many expos as I wanted, because he was constantly running back and forth to defend and never had an opportunity to attack. Even trying an all-in base trade, he would likely lose due to my spread out multiple bases and the fact that I could either kill his bases faster, or just hop in the nydus and still defend.
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I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone:
Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player.
But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. 
Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment. 
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On March 02 2011 08:17 UruzuNine wrote:I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone: Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player. But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment.
Sadly i highly doubt Blizzard will do such a radical change. Note the amount of Love they give their New Units. Also note how its their new Units that have always been on the top list for discussion about imbalance.
I think Blizz was so occupied in making "Interesting" units that they didn't really consider the long term implications of their units.
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On March 01 2011 00:35 flodeskum wrote:
Thing is, hydras don't just kill gateway units, they shit on the entire protoss arsenal from great height - the collusus and templar excluded of course.
So we basically have the same problem as in tvp, gateway units are too weak and the colossus is way to strong.
... anyway, clearly the best solution would be some sort of bunker build time increase...
Why thank you, I just snorted my coffee... LOL
The thing about protoss is that the gateway units are balanced around the forcefields, make them stronger and with good forcefield placement and you get an unstoppable T1 army. So they are only good once the late game units start appearing and they lose their dependencies on forcefields.
As a protoss player I hate that, and I despise Colossi in general.
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On March 02 2011 08:23 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 08:17 UruzuNine wrote:I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone: Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player. But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment. Sadly i highly doubt Blizzard will do such a radical change. Note the amount of Love they give their New Units. Also note how its their new Units that have always been on the top list for discussion about imbalance. I think Blizz was so occupied in making "Interesting" units that they didn't really consider the long term implications of their units.
I personally love the new units in SC2. I also don't really think there's anything wrong with them. I also don't agree with the thing about new units being the focus of balance. High Templar is getting a nerf in 1.3, the but HT isn't a "new unit," for example. Bunkers have gotten both build time buffs and nerfs, as well. The list goes on.
I further think that Blizzard is more than capable of such "radical" changes; after all, they swapped the tier levels of the roach and hydra in the first place. It used to be hydra T1 and roach T2 waayyy waaayyy back. For example, a discussion:
http://sc2armory.com/forums/topic/8904
Interestingly, there were people advocating roach to be moved to T1 and hydra moved up to T2.
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I think it would be cool if, either through upgrade or tech tree, if hydra's could morph into a unit that could burrow and do AOE damage. It could be used to defend expos, set up contains, or in pushes.
I think it would be a cool unit that would "lurk" around the map, opening up interesting new strategies.
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On March 02 2011 08:17 UruzuNine wrote:I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone: Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player. But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment.
back in bw your best chance of holding off hydras was with zealots, that would be a joke now with their dps buff. even in bw zvz was entirely muta / ling, just like tvt was mech and pvp was dragoon / reaver. I dont think substituting baneling micro for 'attack click hydras' is an answer to you dilemma .
IMO if you want balance you would have mentioned something about the queens, making t2 units t1 is like asking blizzard to give zerglings range attacks and stim while they are at it.
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On March 02 2011 08:25 Mikelius wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2011 00:35 flodeskum wrote:
Thing is, hydras don't just kill gateway units, they shit on the entire protoss arsenal from great height - the collusus and templar excluded of course.
So we basically have the same problem as in tvp, gateway units are too weak and the colossus is way to strong.
... anyway, clearly the best solution would be some sort of bunker build time increase... Why thank you, I just snorted my coffee... LOL The thing about protoss is that the gateway units are balanced around the forcefields, make them stronger and with good forcefield placement and you get an unstoppable T1 army. So they are only good once the late game units start appearing and they lose their dependencies on forcefields. As a protoss player I hate that, and I despise Colossi in general.
Note how alot of complaints revolve around alot of the new features Blizzard added like Forcefields and Collosi.
I seriously miss BW Protoss play with mass Gateways with spritz' of support units. But Note how every Protoss match up is 1) GateWay All-in 2) Collosi. The Collosi is a broken unit in my opinion.
If it weren't for the fact that they are vulnerable to air(Something i find very gimmicky) they would be practically unbeatable.
Collosi are fast, have excellent range and attack, and have splash(with no friendly splash). Its the ultimate ground unit. Its inly weakeness is Air. The Reaver on the other hand though strong(redicoulouly strong) was balanced because of its mobility, friendly splash, and normal range.
ForceFields also make for very stupid battles.
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since it seems like the main problem for hydralisks are colossi, why not make corruptors slightly cheaper, like 150/75, and make brood lords more expensive (gas wise), like 150/175
or make it weaker like the guardian and cheaper, 100/150 but with less health
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On February 26 2011 14:04 dark fury wrote:
Entropius: Roach corruptor can deal with gateway units+colossus quite efficiently so i dont see any reason for complaining, if the protoss has voidrays to counter corruptor, you should have been able to tech up as well and get the appropriate counter.
Also, in the next patch fungal growth will deal 30% more damage against air units (void ray stalker colossus) wich will make this composition even more reasonable to deal with.
Pray tell then what is the Zerg counter to a few charged VR's? Corruptors don't work that's for sure. Hydra's won't work if he's got the Collossi to back his ground forces, and Muta's arn't cost effective enough to work. Not to mention a Stalker based Gateway force (especially with Blink) eat Muta's for breakfast.
deal 30% more damage against air units
I thought it was +damage Vs Armored? Or have they changed their minds?
I'm interested to see Zerg come up with some new tactics to deal with the P deathball. I think Infestor/Roach might be the way to go. Heavy on upgrades and just NP as many of the Collossi as possible.
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On March 02 2011 08:38 UruzuNine wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 08:23 GinDo wrote:On March 02 2011 08:17 UruzuNine wrote:I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone: Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player. But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment. Sadly i highly doubt Blizzard will do such a radical change. Note the amount of Love they give their New Units. Also note how its their new Units that have always been on the top list for discussion about imbalance. I think Blizz was so occupied in making "Interesting" units that they didn't really consider the long term implications of their units. I personally love the new units in SC2. I also don't really think there's anything wrong with them. I also don't agree with the thing about new units being the focus of balance. High Templar is getting a nerf in 1.3, the but HT isn't a "new unit," for example. Bunkers have gotten both build time buffs and nerfs, as well. The list goes on. I further think that Blizzard is more than capable of such "radical" changes; after all, they swapped the tier levels of the roach and hydra in the first place. It used to be hydra T1 and roach T2 waayyy waaayyy back. For example, a discussion: http://sc2armory.com/forums/topic/8904Interestingly, there were people advocating roach to be moved to T1 and hydra moved up to T2.
That was a pre-beta discussion(alpha). But interesting find none the less. Problem is that people simply didn't understand how the units would play out.
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On March 02 2011 08:39 Rhythm.102 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 08:17 UruzuNine wrote:I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone: Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player. But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment. back in bw your best chance of holding off hydras was with zealots, that would be a joke now with their dps buff. even in bw zvz was entirely muta / ling, just like tvt was mech and pvp was dragoon / reaver. I dont think substituting baneling micro for 'attack click hydras' is an answer to you dilemma . IMO if you want balance you would have mentioned something about the queens, making t2 units t1 is like asking blizzard to give zerglings range attacks and stim while they are at it.
A few things:
First, BW didn't have sentries and stalkers are much different from dragoons, so there's no point to trying to compare the two scenarios. Second, nobody said anything about keeping the DPS buff that hydralisks currently have; it could be possible that the unit's stats would require some re-tweaking to accommodate T1, and the same is true for the roach moving to T2. Third, how would (potentially) weaker, T1 hydras remove all use of banelings, given how banelings are currently used in every matchup? Finally, exactly what does any of this have to do with balance and how does changing queens affect that?
My post wasn't a balance discussion, as Zergs have access to both roaches and hydras regardless. It was more about how the Zerg tech tree tends to flow, and how I feel swapping hydra and roach back to their original tech levels makes more sense, especially given that Zerg tends to make heavy use of roach in the T2-dominated mid-game if they go ground army instead of air. It's more about how the race plays through the game than about giving buffs or nerfs.
I won't comment in depth on your nonsensical zergling remark, other than to say it's ridiculous.
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On March 02 2011 08:49 Ridiculisk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 14:04 dark fury wrote:
Entropius: Roach corruptor can deal with gateway units+colossus quite efficiently so i dont see any reason for complaining, if the protoss has voidrays to counter corruptor, you should have been able to tech up as well and get the appropriate counter.
Also, in the next patch fungal growth will deal 30% more damage against air units (void ray stalker colossus) wich will make this composition even more reasonable to deal with. Pray tell then what is the Zerg counter to a few charged VR's? Corruptors don't work that's for sure. Hydra's won't work if he's got the Collossi to back his ground forces, and Muta's arn't cost effective enough to work. Not to mention a Stalker based Gateway force (especially with Blink) eat Muta's for breakfast. I thought it was +damage Vs Armored? Or have they changed their minds? I'm interested to see Zerg come up with some new tactics to deal with the P deathball. I think Infestor/Roach might be the way to go. Heavy on upgrades and just NP as many of the Collossi as possible.
Broodlord + hydra + infestor,
queens move around the same speed as broodlords, if you wish to include them in your army to heal them
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On March 02 2011 08:54 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 08:38 UruzuNine wrote:On March 02 2011 08:23 GinDo wrote:On March 02 2011 08:17 UruzuNine wrote:I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone: Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player. But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment. Sadly i highly doubt Blizzard will do such a radical change. Note the amount of Love they give their New Units. Also note how its their new Units that have always been on the top list for discussion about imbalance. I think Blizz was so occupied in making "Interesting" units that they didn't really consider the long term implications of their units. I personally love the new units in SC2. I also don't really think there's anything wrong with them. I also don't agree with the thing about new units being the focus of balance. High Templar is getting a nerf in 1.3, the but HT isn't a "new unit," for example. Bunkers have gotten both build time buffs and nerfs, as well. The list goes on. I further think that Blizzard is more than capable of such "radical" changes; after all, they swapped the tier levels of the roach and hydra in the first place. It used to be hydra T1 and roach T2 waayyy waaayyy back. For example, a discussion: http://sc2armory.com/forums/topic/8904Interestingly, there were people advocating roach to be moved to T1 and hydra moved up to T2. That was a pre-beta discussion(alpha). But interesting find none the less. Problem is that people simply didn't understand how the units would play out.
Yes indeed it was, hence why I said "waaaay waaay back." I think it's important to note, however, as Blizzard was originally designing the Zerg race around hydra being T1 like in BW, and the roach being a new T2 unit. I'm sure some people will recall that the roach got huuuge nerfs back in the beta, partly because some things were imbalanced (Only 1 food? Really?) but also partly because they were originally designed as a T2 unit and got dropped down to T1. Consequently, Zergs feel the hydralisk is kind of weak because it was originally a T1 unit that got pushed up to T2, got some damage buffs, increased cost, but now comes out at a time that T and P are starting (and/or considering) to make units that really put the pain on them. For example: siege tanks, hellions (this one's kinda 50/50), colossi, high templar.
IMO the hydralisk is a good unit, it just comes out at a time where many Zergs end up asking, "why go hydra when I can get either spire tech or infestors to support my roach army?"
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On March 02 2011 09:09 UruzuNine wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 08:54 GinDo wrote:On March 02 2011 08:38 UruzuNine wrote:On March 02 2011 08:23 GinDo wrote:On March 02 2011 08:17 UruzuNine wrote:I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone: Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player. But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment. Sadly i highly doubt Blizzard will do such a radical change. Note the amount of Love they give their New Units. Also note how its their new Units that have always been on the top list for discussion about imbalance. I think Blizz was so occupied in making "Interesting" units that they didn't really consider the long term implications of their units. I personally love the new units in SC2. I also don't really think there's anything wrong with them. I also don't agree with the thing about new units being the focus of balance. High Templar is getting a nerf in 1.3, the but HT isn't a "new unit," for example. Bunkers have gotten both build time buffs and nerfs, as well. The list goes on. I further think that Blizzard is more than capable of such "radical" changes; after all, they swapped the tier levels of the roach and hydra in the first place. It used to be hydra T1 and roach T2 waayyy waaayyy back. For example, a discussion: http://sc2armory.com/forums/topic/8904Interestingly, there were people advocating roach to be moved to T1 and hydra moved up to T2. That was a pre-beta discussion(alpha). But interesting find none the less. Problem is that people simply didn't understand how the units would play out. Yes indeed it was, hence why I said "waaaay waaay back." I think it's important to note, however, as Blizzard was originally designing the Zerg race around hydra being T1 like in BW, and the roach being a new T2 unit. I'm sure some people will recall that the roach got huuuge nerfs back in the beta, partly because some things were imbalanced (Only 1 food? Really?) but also partly because they were originally designed as a T2 unit and got dropped down to T1. Consequently, Zergs feel the hydralisk is kind of weak because it was originally a T1 unit that got pushed up to T2, got some damage buffs, increased cost, but now comes out at a time that T and P are starting (and/or considering) to make units that really put the pain on them. For example: siege tanks, hellions (this one's kinda 50/50), colossi, high templar. IMO the hydralisk is a good unit, it just comes out at a time where many Zergs end up asking, "why go hydra when I can get either spire tech or infestors to support my roach army?"
That explains why Roaches and Hydras just seem to overlap in roles. If people remember in BW Hydras were also very fragile units. The difference was they were 1 food and cheap as hell and fast. So you could spam Hydras lose a ton of hydras and still be well off.
Zerg needs that type of unit. Kind of funny that the response to Tanks in BW was Hydra  .
Personally i feel Hydras should be T1 with all their BW specs and Roaches out of the game.
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On March 02 2011 09:29 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 09:09 UruzuNine wrote:On March 02 2011 08:54 GinDo wrote:On March 02 2011 08:38 UruzuNine wrote:On March 02 2011 08:23 GinDo wrote:On March 02 2011 08:17 UruzuNine wrote:I have to admit, I'd love to see the hydralisk returned to T1 and the roach returned to T2, like it used to be long before release. Just focusing on ZvZ alone: Hydralisk would equalize the sheer strength of baneling purely due to DPS and range. Just imagine how many more ZvZ games would go to lair and beyond because of the reduced number of "oh a baneling got all my zerglings, GG." Currently, roaches don't cut it nearly as well because lings can overwhelm them, and it's a lot easier/natural to get a lot of lings when making banes. It's a lot more volatile as you cross your fingers and hope you can reach that critical mass of roaches needed to hold. Slow hydras off of creep also means a low chance of aggressive hydra play in the early game, which makes them a defensive choice to safely get you to lair-tech and beyond. Ling/bane would be the aggressive (and possibly risky) choice for a Zerg wanting to apply early game pressure against a defensive hydra player. But yeah, having the hydralisk back to T1 with something like its BW stats back feels better to me -- and not because of BW nostalgia or anything. It (subjectively) fits better in the SC2 Zerg tech tree that way, even when comparing against the new tech trees of Terran and Protoss. Lower-DPS T1 hydralisk vs. 4-gate, for example. Or against 2-rax timing pushes. Having difficulty with Sky Protoss? No problem, we got T1 hydras. It would take some testing to see if T1 hydra would actually be better in the long run, but I'd love to see some testing. Maybe I (or someone else who wants to take up the endeavour) should make a custom map that just modifies the Zerg tech tree like this... would make for a good TL experiment. Sadly i highly doubt Blizzard will do such a radical change. Note the amount of Love they give their New Units. Also note how its their new Units that have always been on the top list for discussion about imbalance. I think Blizz was so occupied in making "Interesting" units that they didn't really consider the long term implications of their units. I personally love the new units in SC2. I also don't really think there's anything wrong with them. I also don't agree with the thing about new units being the focus of balance. High Templar is getting a nerf in 1.3, the but HT isn't a "new unit," for example. Bunkers have gotten both build time buffs and nerfs, as well. The list goes on. I further think that Blizzard is more than capable of such "radical" changes; after all, they swapped the tier levels of the roach and hydra in the first place. It used to be hydra T1 and roach T2 waayyy waaayyy back. For example, a discussion: http://sc2armory.com/forums/topic/8904Interestingly, there were people advocating roach to be moved to T1 and hydra moved up to T2. That was a pre-beta discussion(alpha). But interesting find none the less. Problem is that people simply didn't understand how the units would play out. Yes indeed it was, hence why I said "waaaay waaay back." I think it's important to note, however, as Blizzard was originally designing the Zerg race around hydra being T1 like in BW, and the roach being a new T2 unit. I'm sure some people will recall that the roach got huuuge nerfs back in the beta, partly because some things were imbalanced (Only 1 food? Really?) but also partly because they were originally designed as a T2 unit and got dropped down to T1. Consequently, Zergs feel the hydralisk is kind of weak because it was originally a T1 unit that got pushed up to T2, got some damage buffs, increased cost, but now comes out at a time that T and P are starting (and/or considering) to make units that really put the pain on them. For example: siege tanks, hellions (this one's kinda 50/50), colossi, high templar. IMO the hydralisk is a good unit, it just comes out at a time where many Zergs end up asking, "why go hydra when I can get either spire tech or infestors to support my roach army?" That explains why Roaches and Hydras just seem to overlap in roles. If people remember in BW Hydras were also very fragile units. The difference was they were 1 food and cheap as hell and fast. So you could spam Hydras lose a ton of hydras and still be well off. Zerg needs that type of unit. Kind of funny that the response to Tanks in BW was Hydra . Personally i feel Hydras should be T1 with all their BW specs and Roaches out of the game.
Noooooo, I love the roach. I think it fits perfectly in a mid-game composition, as it's currently used for. If you notice, though, a lot of high-level Zerg players won't get their roach warren until they're either morphing or already have lair tech -- with the exception of ZvZ, just because they don't want to die in 5-6 minutes. IMO the unit just makes more sense in that capacity.
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i only use hydras for a timing attack in close positions, when i see that he isnt going to 4 gate me.
pretty much the strategy from idra on his steppes of war match.
other than that they are pretty bad.
mass voidray, a few colossus and high templars kill em pretty effectively. its like if protoss gets anything pass stalker, zealot sentry. but even mass zealot stalker sentry can kill mass hydras off creep. its pretty hard to use em effectively against protoss.
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On February 26 2011 13:05 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:03 dark fury wrote:
Why would you even compare hydras and colossus like that? Both are glass cannon units. Fragile, extreme damage, and slow. When you grab hydras you are sacrificing mobility for power, much like the colossus.
I take serious issue with you calling collossus a "glass cannon". They're not particularly fragile, they're a lot easier to protect since they can just walk over stuff, including forcefields, they can easily outrun hydras off creep, and they can walk up and down cliffs.
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On March 01 2011 00:35 flodeskum wrote:
Thing is, hydras don't just kill gateway units, they shit on the entire protoss arsenal from great height - the collusus and templar excluded of course.
So we basically have the same problem as in tvp, gateway units are too weak and the colossus is way to strong.
... anyway, clearly the best solution would be some sort of bunker build time increase...
I didn't know Blizzard employees posted on TL.
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The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
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Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
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On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
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Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
The problem is that the Collosi with FF is far to easy to use. Personally i feel any gameplay involving the Collosi and ForceField to be very boring to watch.
PvX- Protoss make Collosi Ball. X makes mass Anti air to kill collosi inorder to Rape Protoss Ball. Protoss makes Stalkers to kill anti air and FF to Trap units. Thats every protoss match-up except for PvP were the counter to collosi is more Collosi.
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On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
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Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do.
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hydras are an emergency unit. very short build time on that hydra den and you can attack both air and ground units. the spire takes forever to finish. so if you need to defend vs 3 or less phoenix or 1 or two banshees get hydras and connect your bases. otherwise get em when you can afford to throw away your cash.
funny thing i ve seen today in that ace vs idra replay: how ace got 15phoenix and just lifeted every single hydra that idra built. so dont get more than 3 id say. better 2 at most.
hydralisks might be useful vs heavy marauder hellion builds. but you d have to split them.
has anyone ever tested mass hydra vs mass carrier? i can imagine lots of those interceptors go down in hydra dps.
hm what else.. one possibly valuable position for hydras would be to actually protect brood lords from vikings and the likes in a situation where fungal ccs the terran army, the blords dps and the vikings go down to hydra dmg. that would actually force terran to get bcs. a more appropriate counter to the very long and expensive tech to blords. (i mean how can you counter a unit that expensive with such a crap?) ye but need very very good micro managment to make it happen.
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its not thats hyrdras cant beat colsi its the whole aggro thing if an equal supply of hydras fought and equal colsi the fight is not as one sided as u may think..
for protoss the only way to win against zerg or terran for that matter is to have those higher tech units once we lose the voids of colsi are army is well dead.
i am not saying colsi or high temps arent strong but with out them u will never see a protoss win again our units are far to weak ( by units i mean; Zealot, Stalker, Sentry) the Fact is gateway units dont stand a chance against marine/ marrauder | or roaches | or hydras | or roaches and hydras.
so plz stop whinning about Toss being over powered and start thinking about how to beat or stop our tech cuz with out tech protoss aint winning any games
On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep. Except Colossi are way more powerful. So Hydralisk should be more mobile to compensate. I'm not saying hydra should be fast, just fast er. Don't you think it's a little dull to have in a game "Well derp I made the wrong unit!" There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. Right now it's just "If they have colossus, don't make hydra."
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Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do.
This is pretty accurate. I think the whole zvp matchup is badly designed. There are several things that are bad about it, some on both sides, but the end result is that the P ball is too strong. Colossi seem intended to be a hard-counter-ish unit, in that they hard counter everything on the ground and are countered by air. But Zerg have pathetic air when it comes to an actual fight (mutas are notable only for their speed and ease of tech-switching) and yet their ground army is hard-countered by colossi the hardest. Terran at least have tanks, thors, and marauders which stand up to colossi better than zerg units, plus they have vikings which can kill the things much better than corruptors.
A corruptor does 10.6 DPS at range 6 to Massive, while a viking does 14 DPS at range 9, costs less gas, gets its bonus damage against VR's also, and can land. The extra durability of the corruptors isn't terribly relevant, both due to the range of the vikings and due to the fact that their goal is to kill the colossi quickly before they wipe out your entire army.
Corruptors are *not* really a hard counter to colossi. They can kill them, sure, but you have to spend at least as much on them as he has spent colossi, and then once you kill the colossi, the corruptors have nothing to do. You could spend 2250/1500 on fifteen corruptors in order to deal with six colossi costing 1800/1200. Of course, after those corruptors kill the colossi, your investment is useless, while he's still killed thousands of resources worth of roach/hydra/ling/whatever with those colossi in the meantime.
There's also the issue that corruptors do not kill VR's effectively, making the VR/Colossus deathball even worse to deal with.
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On March 02 2011 10:55 jyLee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
...
Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do.
Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more..
Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?".
you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them.
Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!!
sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light
My life for auir
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On March 02 2011 11:21 ZeRoMist wrote:
its not thats hyrdras cant beat colsi its the whole aggro thing if an equal supply of hydras fought and equal colsi the fight is not as one sided as u may think..
for protoss the only way to win against zerg or terran for that matter is to have those higher tech units once we lose the voids of colsi are army is well dead.
i am not saying colsi or high temps arent strong but with out them u will never see a protoss win again our units are far to weak ( by units i mean; Zealot, Stalker, Sentry) the Fact is gateway units dont stand a chance against marine/ marrauder | or roaches | or hydras | or roaches and hydras.
so plz stop whinning about Toss being over powered and start thinking about how to beat or stop our tech cuz with out tech protoss aint winning any games
"Stop them from teching" is not a meaningful contribution to the conversation. Stopping a P player from teching to colossi after a careful sentry expand opening is impossible.
Gateway units are somewhat weaker than roach/hydra, although not *that* much weaker. However, protoss has two great equalizers: warpin and forcefield.
Everyone knows forcefield is good.
Warp-in means that there is less of a defender's advantage when defending against a gateway push. If a Terran player wants to hit you at 10:00 with rax/factory units, he will have about 8:30 worth of money in his army: the stuff that hits you at 10:00 was paid for at 8:30, started walking toward your base at 9:15, and got there at 10:00. (Roughly.)
Meanwhile, the last of the gateway units that are hitting you at 10:00 were paid for at 9:50 -- five seconds to warp in and five seconds to walk from the proxy pylon to the battle. Does this mean that 4-gate pushes are imbalanced? They're certainly strong, but they're beatable; the warpin mechanic is a neat part of the race.
Gateway units aren't that weak. People die to 4-gate and 6-gates all the time, and the very fact that an aggressive zerg is unable to apply enough pressure to slow a protoss' tech indicates that they're good on defense, too. (Forcefields...)
Oh, and if an equal supply of hydras fought an equal supply of colossi (that's 3 hydras per colossus) it'd be an absolute slaughter. I suggest you try it.
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Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army
This is not practical, and your post lost credibility after this. (Not all games hit the 200/200 mark, but most of them get over 140-150, easily high enough for colossi to be relevant.)
for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that
Forcefields.
and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more..
The reason zerg reaches max food faster is because they have, indirectly, a lower army size cap because roaches and lings cost so much food. Attacking sooner just means losing stuff to forcefields; it is very, very difficult to press the attack against a protoss army in a defensible position.
Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?".
You cannot stop protoss from teching to colossi.
you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box.
You sound like Gene Ray, honestly, between the claims of openminded enlightenment and liberally-ladled-out accusations of stupidity toward everyone else. (Gene Ray is the Time Cube guy: see timecube.com.)
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On March 02 2011 11:31 ZeRoMist wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 10:55 jyLee wrote:On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
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Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do. Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more.. Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?". you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them. Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!! sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light My life for auir
All protoss needs to do is turtle until they have about a max army, any attack zerg can do will do little to no damage. Also early roach rush only kills the greedy protosses or those who don't know what they're doing.
I agree zergs should experiment more but when it takes a drastically better zerg to beat a protoss of the same calibre something is wrong in the concept of the match up.
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I would love to see Hydras bumped down to 1 food. It would make end-game Zerg armies more on-par with the Protoss.
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KevinIX, that would be interesting, but it creates an interesting dichotomy, where roaches are good for their mineral/gas cost but bad for their food cost, and marines are bad for their mineral/gas cost and good for their food cost.
I'm not sure that's a good idea; hydras would become the most expensive and strongest unit in the game for its food cost.
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the one and only thing hydras miss currently is...
speed.
they should be as fast as speedroaches are. give them a bloody upgrade.
also i've stopped making hydras in ZvP, instead making lings, they do just as much damage as the hydras will (unless i magically get a golden attack spot where my hydras doesn't melt instantly) also lings are cheaper on both food and mineral/gas usage which gives me more corruptors
but to be honest, i personally think we need to up the bunker build time...
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On March 02 2011 11:31 ZeRoMist wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 10:55 jyLee wrote:On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
...
Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do. Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more.. Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?". you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them. Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!! sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light My life for auir
And so the only possible way for a Z to beat a P, in your opinion, is to roach rush every game? 7rr or 3r/lings? Sure i can win my way to masters doing that every game but i don't think my gameplay would improve any bit and to be honest, i'd rather a long macro game because it's so much more fun.
I play Z and sure there are many diamonds (i'm not masters) that won't know how to counter early roach aggression. But the point here, is that a Z player of a certain calibre would almost certainly lose to a less adept P player because of how ridiculously strong the late game deathball is. A good P player would have VRs as well as phoenixes (or phoenii, as Artosis calls it) protecting their stalker/colo ball. And corruptors built to counter the colo just wouldn't cut it against their air units and thus the need for hydras in a late game situation. Which in turn, gets slagged by thermal lance and psi storms.
But anyway i don't think that this problem would kill the game. I still feel that this matchup is largely winnable for Z because if the game goes to the stage of 200 supply, Z usually has the advantage simply because its much easier to remax and maintain a large army. But of course, this is assuming that the player expands and continues to macro and maintain an economic lead. Also, I feel that the nydus is being underused. It can be used effectively to harass especially in late game situations when you can flood lings (cheap) into undefended mains to take out production structures the same way T uses medievac drops.
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On February 26 2011 13:05 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:03 dark fury wrote:
Why would you even compare hydras and colossus like that? Both are glass cannon units. Fragile, extreme damage, and slow. When you grab hydras you are sacrificing mobility for power, much like the colossus.
Accept Protoss grab colossi to win, while Zerg grab Hydra to survive. Huge difference. And don't call the Hydra extreme damage when you compare it with the colossi. Hydras are useless off creep, need a range upgrade to even be used. Colossi do massive amounts of splash damage, and with a range upgrade, can't be reached by the Zerg army when force-fields and unit placement is done correctly. Zerg are missing a unit that has any kind of purpose like that. Zerg T3 is a joke compared to the other races. Ultralisks: melee unit and easily sniped by any T1/T2 level army. Broodlords: easily picked off by blink stalkers/stimmed marines. Zerg don't have a viable and useful tech against Colossi that doesn't make it a balancing issue between a ground unit that can only hit ground, or an air unit that can only target air.
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On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
...
Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
The corrupter really doesn't pwn that colossus. You need a ton of corruptors in order to be able to destroy the colossi before they've already eliminated your ground army. And even if you successfully kill off the colossi with the corruptors, you're left with a unit that can't target the gateway units. And what about the Protoss integrating void rays into his build? Then he has an air unit that not only targets ground and unleashes great dps, but he does bonus damage against the Zergs anti air. Do you not see the issue here?
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On March 02 2011 11:54 entropius wrote:
I'm not sure that's a good idea; hydras would become the most expensive and strongest unit in the game for its food cost.
Not really... Both ghosts and ravens are exactly the same cost for population (150/1pop).
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On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep. Don't you think it's a little dull to have in a game "Well derp I made the wrong unit!" There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. Right now it's just "If they have colossus, don't make hydra."
Why should you reward a player for only making one type of unit? The whole point of acting and reaction is to constantly have a better mix than the other guy. Spamming one unit is stupid.
Your opponent makes colossi? Great, make things good against them. If you lose because they went colossi and you decided to go hydra because "screw it, I want hydras," then you deserve to lose. Imagine if you went mass hydra and the protoss decided "screw it, I want mass phoenix or VR;" you'd crush it. If the Protoss then came onto the forums and cried that hydras were overpowered because "durp I made the wrong unit" and that pho/VR need buffs to be able to deal with hydras, you'd turn around and tell them its their own fault for not making the right units.
Well, that goes for you, too.
The whole premise of the game is to figure out what the opponent is doing and react appropriately, not just build something because you feel like it.
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On March 02 2011 11:42 ZidaneTribal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 11:31 ZeRoMist wrote:On March 02 2011 10:55 jyLee wrote:On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
...
Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do. Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more.. Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?". you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them. Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!! sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light My life for auir All protoss needs to do is turtle until they have about a max army, any attack zerg can do will do little to no damage. Also early roach rush only kills the greedy protosses or those who don't know what they're doing. I agree zergs should experiment more but when it takes a drastically better zerg to beat a protoss of the same calibre something is wrong in the concept of the match up.
Wow only a few months ago Zerg was saying the same for Terran.Especially this line thats bolded.Ironically the only change that happened was an increase in roach range, but that seriously didn;t really change anything in the match up, but zerg stopped complaining as much.
Back on Topic- It seems the problem Zerg is having revolves around Splash. Tanks, Collosi, Storm. Blame Blizzard on their Clumpy game engine.
Zerg=Small units with low HP that Clump.
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United States7483 Posts
On March 02 2011 11:42 ZidaneTribal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 11:31 ZeRoMist wrote:On March 02 2011 10:55 jyLee wrote:On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
...
Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do. Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more.. Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?". you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them. Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!! sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light My life for auir All protoss needs to do is turtle until they have about a max army, any attack zerg can do will do little to no damage. Also early roach rush only kills the greedy protosses or those who don't know what they're doing. I agree zergs should experiment more but when it takes a drastically better zerg to beat a protoss of the same calibre something is wrong in the concept of the match up.
Uh, what? If the Protoss is of the same caliber, than the zerg isn't drastically better. That's what it means to be of the same caliber.
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On March 02 2011 12:43 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 11:42 ZidaneTribal wrote:On March 02 2011 11:31 ZeRoMist wrote:On March 02 2011 10:55 jyLee wrote:On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
...
Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do. Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more.. Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?". you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them. Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!! sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light My life for auir All protoss needs to do is turtle until they have about a max army, any attack zerg can do will do little to no damage. Also early roach rush only kills the greedy protosses or those who don't know what they're doing. I agree zergs should experiment more but when it takes a drastically better zerg to beat a protoss of the same calibre something is wrong in the concept of the match up. Uh, what? If the Protoss is of the same caliber, than the zerg isn't drastically better. That's what it means to be of the same caliber.
I think we all know what he means is that it's tough for a Z player to beat a P of the same calibre and the Z player has to be drastically better to do so when playing a macro game.
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On March 02 2011 11:31 ZeRoMist wrote:
Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more..
Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?".
you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them.
Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!!
sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light
My life for auir
lol 10/10. THIS is how you troll.
/facepalm
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Hydras definitely have their spot in ZvP. Roach corruptor may be the way to deal with the colossus/gateway unit ball but the reinforcements when attacking this army are really a huge factor obviously. If the colossus count is 2-3 and you have 12-15 corruptors you should be reinforcing with ling/hydra to deal with the gateway units more effectively. Basically if you think the colossus will go down with your roach/corruptor push it is smart to use hydras, if you don't think the colossus will go down then you need to keep going roach/corruptor, in my opinion.
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I'd really disagree with some of your points in roach play. Roaches aren't exceptional against gateway units, they do fairly well with the speed upgrade but in even numbers it's not a complete domination. I'd say that you will normally get a hydra den in ZvP. People will argue this to death but even with colossi out I feel roach/hydra is stronger than pure roach. Hydras offer the greater range which lets them establish a good concave easier, you claim you can do the same thing with roaches in large numbers but with space constraints and realism I don't see that happening. Hydras also simply do much more damage than roaches. This isn't new to anyone but it's important to remember. Hydras often lose because their low health means they die before the can do their damage. With roaches tanking and Hydras doing their stuff it works quite well.
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I don't feel like the hydra is the weak link in this match up, it's the roach. I'm hoping that perhaps Day[9] will do a Funday Monday where Zerg are constrained to not making any roaches in ZvP. I've found that:
1) I can macro much better due to the freed up supply alone.
2) I can tech and get upgrades much quicker.
3) Roaches do lousy DPS in mid-late game, and end up blocking out other units which do better DPS.
They are suppose to tank damage, yet all they do is block space and supply of other potentially better units. You may as well use banelings instead - your roaches wouldn't live through the fight anyways, so you may as well do all your DPS up-front and let your other units try and clean up the mess.
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The thing is you cannot play roach only defensively. At least not for long against a solid gateway mix with sentries and proper ff control.
Roach hydra is a much better choice with proper creep spread. I usually play them semi-aggressive and when i lose the roaches i pull back and wait for roach reinforcements.
The key point in playing roach/hydra with our without corruptors are usually the upgrades. If you get a pretty fast 2/2 upgrade with hydra range and roach speed, or generally manage to stay ahead in upgrades, then there are several timings when you can kinda push the protoss or prevent him from taking a third or sniping it. Furthermore hydras simply give me the security to not die to all kinds of crap Protoss can pull and thus the security to drone up when necessary.
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now it is the roach that is weak?
Roach is by far the easily massable early unit in the game.
Good HP, Decent DMG, Larva efficient, scales great with upgrades.
Of course the roach gets weaker in the later stages, but that doesn't make it useless, it may be useless for your macro strategy. don't make your own inability to use roaches effectivly for fact.
if Zerg learns to play more aggressiv they will learn that Roaches are one off the best units of aggression (earlygame)
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I'm actually beginning to use much more Hydras in ZvP and less Roaches, just cuz a maxed Army made out of Roaches is too weak against a Deathball, but if you use your Corruptors well to snipe the Collossi before the fight get's in full-swing, the high DPS of the Hydras and the better spread because of their higher Range will work very well against Stalker/Zealot/VR's and hopefully not that many Collossi. If there are very few Collossi left and not many Zealots on the field, I'll reinforce with Speedlings and otherwise with Roaches.
I also like skipping Roaches if I don't scout a 4-Warpgate and on certain Maps, where it's easy to defend with Spine-Crawlers, I skip Roaches even if I see a 4-Warpgate. This just gets you a much faster tech and faster Hydras, which is very good against any sort of early Air-Aggression or any Midgame-pushes without Collossi.
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On February 26 2011 18:03 Viperbird wrote:
Was bored and did some tests in the unit tester... 20 hydras vs 20 stalkers, they come out dead even, sometimes 1 stalker left, sometimes 1 hydra left. ( 0 updgrades, off creep, hydra range upgrade for even range on both units)
Then just for the heck of it put 150 of each against each other, same results, 2 stalkers left over.
Stalkers have 2x the total HP and Hydras have 2x the dps. Also hydras dont do bonus damage whereas stalkers do more to armored.
Sure stalkers do cost more than hydras, but only 25 minerals more, not a lot. Usually gas is the limiting factor. I think perhaps we are misusing the word "counter" here.
25 minerals extra per stalker with 20 stalkers is 500 minerals. So go make 20 zerglings for equal cost and tell me how that battle turns out.
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One of the problems I face in this match up (and hydralisks play a factor) is that:
If protoss turtles on 2 (or 3) bases I have a hard time winning the game. Why? The "appropriate" response as a zerg is to take the map. The problem with taking the map is simply that it doesn't reward zerg enough! Even if you can max faster, have a higher econ, reinforce faster, throw waves of units at someone, it doesn't matter since the 200/200 protoss ball will only lose 20 supply when you chuck your roach/hydra/corruptor/ling army at it. I think realistically zerg needs to tech to Broods faster OR have a highly mobile muta/ling army hitting different spots and ready to tech switch on a dime. "taking the map" just doesn't seem to reward zerg enough.
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On March 03 2011 01:11 DiracMonopole wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 18:03 Viperbird wrote:
Was bored and did some tests in the unit tester... 20 hydras vs 20 stalkers, they come out dead even, sometimes 1 stalker left, sometimes 1 hydra left. ( 0 updgrades, off creep, hydra range upgrade for even range on both units)
Then just for the heck of it put 150 of each against each other, same results, 2 stalkers left over.
Stalkers have 2x the total HP and Hydras have 2x the dps. Also hydras dont do bonus damage whereas stalkers do more to armored.
Sure stalkers do cost more than hydras, but only 25 minerals more, not a lot. Usually gas is the limiting factor. I think perhaps we are misusing the word "counter" here. 25 minerals extra per stalker with 20 stalkers is 500 minerals. So go make 20 zerglings for equal cost and tell me how that battle turns out.
His point is that Hydras are not as hard a counter to gateway units as many people seem to think - you often hear arguments that resemble "hydras rape gateway units!" or something similar, implying that the relation between Hydras and gateway units resembles that of Blue-Flame Hellions against Zerglings or Banelings against Marines.
Which is simply exaggerated - they are cost-efficient and even better with upgrades since the attack upgrade of Z scales "faster" then the toss defensive upgrades (because of the separated shield/armor upgrades), but still very dependant on Lings/Roaches to tank damage for them.
People give Hydras too much and Roaches not enough credit, which is imho the only thing those figures are meant to show.
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On March 03 2011 03:38 lambnrice wrote:
One of the problems I face in this match up (and hydralisks play a factor) is that:
If protoss turtles on 2 (or 3) bases I have a hard time winning the game. Why? The "appropriate" response as a zerg is to take the map. The problem with taking the map is simply that it doesn't reward zerg enough! Even if you can max faster, have a higher econ, reinforce faster, throw waves of units at someone, it doesn't matter since the 200/200 protoss ball will only lose 20 supply when you chuck your roach/hydra/corruptor/ling army at it. I think realistically zerg needs to tech to Broods faster OR have a highly mobile muta/ling army hitting different spots and ready to tech switch on a dime. "taking the map" just doesn't seem to reward zerg enough.
Well... When you have taken the map, you are on t3, Ultras to kill FFs and even possibly BL.
Roach/Hydra/Corruptor isn't the best late-game strat around. It's very good in mid-game tho'. You basically have units that are less supply efficient than the Protoss army.
Ultras to kill FF, a buttload of Banelings and something else. He will definitely lose more than 20 supply worth of units.
Getting rid of your mid-game Roach/Hydra/Corruptor to free supply for t3 is another case tho'
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On March 03 2011 04:18 Airact wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2011 03:38 lambnrice wrote:
One of the problems I face in this match up (and hydralisks play a factor) is that:
If protoss turtles on 2 (or 3) bases I have a hard time winning the game. Why? The "appropriate" response as a zerg is to take the map. The problem with taking the map is simply that it doesn't reward zerg enough! Even if you can max faster, have a higher econ, reinforce faster, throw waves of units at someone, it doesn't matter since the 200/200 protoss ball will only lose 20 supply when you chuck your roach/hydra/corruptor/ling army at it. I think realistically zerg needs to tech to Broods faster OR have a highly mobile muta/ling army hitting different spots and ready to tech switch on a dime. "taking the map" just doesn't seem to reward zerg enough. Well... When you have taken the map, you are on t3, Ultras to kill FFs and even possibly BL. Roach/Hydra/Corruptor isn't the best late-game strat around. It's very good in mid-game tho'. You basically have units that are less supply efficient than the Protoss army. Ultras to kill FF, a buttload of Banelings and something else. He will definitely lose more than 20 supply worth of units. Getting rid of your mid-game Roach/Hydra/Corruptor to free supply for t3 is another case tho'
You just told Zergs to use the 2 least cost-effective units in the game against one of the most cost-effective death balls in the game. Logic, ftw? You would waste a ton of money on Ultras and Banelings to kill a whole 60 food if you got lucky. Banelings won't do shit if the Protoss spreads his units out a little bit, which isn't that hard to do. And if your Ultras get sniped quickly, FFs will just make you run.
On March 02 2011 12:40 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 11:42 ZidaneTribal wrote:On March 02 2011 11:31 ZeRoMist wrote:On March 02 2011 10:55 jyLee wrote:On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
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Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do. Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more.. Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?". you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them. Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!! sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light My life for auir All protoss needs to do is turtle until they have about a max army, any attack zerg can do will do little to no damage. Also early roach rush only kills the greedy protosses or those who don't know what they're doing. I agree zergs should experiment more but when it takes a drastically better zerg to beat a protoss of the same calibre something is wrong in the concept of the match up. Wow only a few months ago Zerg was saying the same for Terran.Especially this line thats bolded.Ironically the only change that happened was an increase in roach range, but that seriously didn;t really change anything in the match up, but zerg stopped complaining as much. Back on Topic- It seems the problem Zerg is having revolves around Splash. Tanks, Collosi, Storm. Blame Blizzard on their Clumpy game engine. Zerg=Small units with low HP that Clump.
1-range on the Roaches did have a huge impact. Roaches can finally get in range of the Terran army and shoot them. Before Roaches got that one range upgrade tons of units would die before they even got a shot in. The same thing still happens, but now that the ranges are closer, it makes it a lot easier.
Either way, it wasn't just the roach range upgrade that made it easier on Zergs. Terran did get a lot of nerfs as well.
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If Blizzard increases Hydras - actually my favourite unit in sc1 - speed, I'm going to switch to Zerg.
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I think a core issue is that more bases aren't rewarded enough. As you move past the bases, you get less and less benefit because of the supply needed to run those bases. At most, you want three bases and maybe a few gas only bases because more bases than that just eats up too much supply in workers. This is obviously primarily a problem with zerg, since we need more bases for the stronger econ, but more bases means less army supply.
The strength of two base collossus/void ray is unbelievable given that its....two bases. It should take way more than two bases to develop a ball like that. In BW, the end case scenario was both zerg and protoss fighting to hold expo since the main/nat would be completely eaten up. You would use your more agile zerg force (cracklings and defilers) to try and snipe expos while the protoss ball would move around.
But now, the amount of stuff you can pump out of two base and small map size means this doesn't happen as much. Instead, you can get this enormous protoss deathball that can go win the game immediately. BW did not have such a deathball; you had reavers and templar as the primary toss power units, neither of which compare to collossi when it comes to making an uber deathball. Not to mention dark swarm/plague gave the zerg some extra edge as well.
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On March 03 2011 04:30 Joementum wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2011 04:18 Airact wrote:On March 03 2011 03:38 lambnrice wrote:
One of the problems I face in this match up (and hydralisks play a factor) is that:
If protoss turtles on 2 (or 3) bases I have a hard time winning the game. Why? The "appropriate" response as a zerg is to take the map. The problem with taking the map is simply that it doesn't reward zerg enough! Even if you can max faster, have a higher econ, reinforce faster, throw waves of units at someone, it doesn't matter since the 200/200 protoss ball will only lose 20 supply when you chuck your roach/hydra/corruptor/ling army at it. I think realistically zerg needs to tech to Broods faster OR have a highly mobile muta/ling army hitting different spots and ready to tech switch on a dime. "taking the map" just doesn't seem to reward zerg enough. Well... When you have taken the map, you are on t3, Ultras to kill FFs and even possibly BL. Roach/Hydra/Corruptor isn't the best late-game strat around. It's very good in mid-game tho'. You basically have units that are less supply efficient than the Protoss army. Ultras to kill FF, a buttload of Banelings and something else. He will definitely lose more than 20 supply worth of units. Getting rid of your mid-game Roach/Hydra/Corruptor to free supply for t3 is another case tho' You just told Zergs to use the 2 least cost-effective units in the game against one of the most cost-effective death balls in the game. Logic, ftw? You would waste a ton of money on Ultras and Banelings to kill a whole 60 food if you got lucky. Banelings won't do shit if the Protoss spreads his units out a little bit, which isn't that hard to do. And if your Ultras get sniped quickly, FFs will just make you run. Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 12:40 GinDo wrote:On March 02 2011 11:42 ZidaneTribal wrote:On March 02 2011 11:31 ZeRoMist wrote:On March 02 2011 10:55 jyLee wrote:On March 02 2011 10:35 Krede wrote:
The real problem is that the corruptor pwns the colossus. To fix this obvious problem we need to secure some kind of antiair ability for the colossus - or at least ensure that the colossus can outrun the corruptor!
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Seriously, here's my point: You cannot discuss balance around 2 units. You need to take a look at the entire match up. Hydras have a specific roll in the zvp match up, colossus another and the corruptor a third.
Flawed logic. So the zerg is forced to get corruptors JUST to counter a single unit that has absolutely zero use other than to morph into broodlords later on, while the colossus shits on everything zerg can put out there. 200/200 battles in zvp are already heavily in favor of p but now you have a chunk of that food taken up by corruptors that can only shoot at colossus. Now its not just a matter of remacroing up fast enough to pick away at the 200 food toss army when your 200 z army is so far behind. Hydras need to be moved into tier one and corruptors need to be more versatile. Nerfing colossus is probably not the way to go. Idra and Artosis got it right when they said sc2 is balanced around too many hard counters and not enough soft counters so skill doesnt play as much a role as builds do. Heres a cool plan dont let the toss get a 200 200 army for good grief do none of u see how strong early roaches are against toss a roach rush is one of the scarest things for me to see coming not much i can do about that and hey zergs you max out faster then any other race so why not attack more.. Instead of saying GOD this units is so strong its should be nerfed why not say " how do i not let them get the unit or how do i kill him with out have to actually fight him?". you are all thinking about this with a one dimensional mind open up think out side the box. The answer to winning a game should never be how can i cry enough to get blizzard to make this unit weaker its should be how do i change and adpt to the way things are and overcome them. Take real war as an example just cuz the other guys have more money which mean they can have all the better stuff doesnt mean they always win and dont say they do go look back in history viet nam anyone!! sorry mod for the double post i didnt mean to i wrote the last replay before seeing this and my passion for my race made me have to set things in a different light My life for auir All protoss needs to do is turtle until they have about a max army, any attack zerg can do will do little to no damage. Also early roach rush only kills the greedy protosses or those who don't know what they're doing. I agree zergs should experiment more but when it takes a drastically better zerg to beat a protoss of the same calibre something is wrong in the concept of the match up. Wow only a few months ago Zerg was saying the same for Terran.Especially this line thats bolded.Ironically the only change that happened was an increase in roach range, but that seriously didn;t really change anything in the match up, but zerg stopped complaining as much. Back on Topic- It seems the problem Zerg is having revolves around Splash. Tanks, Collosi, Storm. Blame Blizzard on their Clumpy game engine. Zerg=Small units with low HP that Clump. 1-range on the Roaches did have a huge impact. Roaches can finally get in range of the Terran army and shoot them. Before Roaches got that one range upgrade tons of units would die before they even got a shot in. The same thing still happens, but now that the ranges are closer, it makes it a lot easier.
Really? Every TvZ I pray the Zerg goes Roach so i can roffle stomp him. Any Tech Terran gets pretty much counters Roaches. Marines,Maruaders, Tanks. The onlything that patch did was make it so Roach all ins are stronger. But no change, Roaches still crap in TvZ
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His point is that Hydras are not as hard a counter to gateway units as many people seem to think - you often hear arguments that resemble "hydras rape gateway units!" or something similar, implying that the relation between Hydras and gateway units resembles that of Blue-Flame Hellions against Zerglings or Banelings against Marines.
Which is simply exaggerated - they are cost-efficient and even better with upgrades since the attack upgrade of Z scales "faster" then the toss defensive upgrades (because of the separated shield/armor upgrades), but still very dependant on Lings/Roaches to tank damage for them. Of course they need something to tank damage, they are far too fragile for their DPS to be put at the front line. It' would be a bit like throwing colossi at an equal cost of roaches, the colossi will die, but the unit is still are very effective against groups of roaches.
10 zealots will defeat 10 hydras, even without charge, but if you replace 2 hydras with 8 zerglings, the zerg wins overwhelmigly. You just need something to cover the hydras whenever you make some.
Note that I don't play zerg, so I can't speak about roaches or hydras vs gateway.
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On March 02 2011 20:02 freetgy wrote:
now it is the roach that is weak?
Roach is by far the easily massable early unit in the game.
Good HP, Decent DMG, Larva efficient, scales great with upgrades.
Of course the roach gets weaker in the later stages, but that doesn't make it useless, it may be useless for your macro strategy. don't make your own inability to use roaches effectivly for fact.
if Zerg learns to play more aggressiv they will learn that Roaches are one off the best units of aggression (earlygame)
First off, roach is more massable than banelings? They are the same cost, and banelings are less food, so I must disagree with that statement.
Secondly, Roaches aren't useless, but I don't see a reason to make them over banelings. I don't roach rush or be aggressive early with roaches, since it forces you to justify their cost by doing damage to the P economy.
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On March 03 2011 04:18 Airact wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2011 03:38 lambnrice wrote:
One of the problems I face in this match up (and hydralisks play a factor) is that:
If protoss turtles on 2 (or 3) bases I have a hard time winning the game. Why? The "appropriate" response as a zerg is to take the map. The problem with taking the map is simply that it doesn't reward zerg enough! Even if you can max faster, have a higher econ, reinforce faster, throw waves of units at someone, it doesn't matter since the 200/200 protoss ball will only lose 20 supply when you chuck your roach/hydra/corruptor/ling army at it. I think realistically zerg needs to tech to Broods faster OR have a highly mobile muta/ling army hitting different spots and ready to tech switch on a dime. "taking the map" just doesn't seem to reward zerg enough. Well... When you have taken the map, you are on t3, Ultras to kill FFs and even possibly BL.
This is flawed logic. It can't be assumed that I'm on t3 when i have taken the map. One happens before the other, and if it is simultaneous it's hard to imagine not dying before this happens.
Roach/Hydra/Corruptor isn't the best late-game strat around. It's very good in mid-game tho'. You basically have units that are less supply efficient than the Protoss army.
Ultras to kill FF, a buttload of Banelings and something else. He will definitely lose more than 20 supply worth of units.
Getting rid of your mid-game Roach/Hydra/Corruptor to free supply for t3 is another case tho'
These unit compositions sound great, and they probably are. The problem is safely getting to them without pouring too much econ into other units. The other problem is - are we to never pressure protoss until this stage in the game? If this is true (which i dont believe it is), that would suggest the match up has some inherent problems.
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On March 03 2011 04:30 Joementum wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 12:40 GinDo wrote:
Wow only a few months ago Zerg was saying the same for Terran.Especially this line thats bolded.Ironically the only change that happened was an increase in roach range, but that seriously didn;t really change anything in the match up, but zerg stopped complaining as much.
1-range on the Roaches did have a huge impact. Roaches can finally get in range of the Terran army and shoot them. Before Roaches got that one range upgrade tons of units would die before they even got a shot in. The same thing still happens, but now that the ranges are closer, it makes it a lot easier. Either way, it wasn't just the roach range upgrade that made it easier on Zergs. Terran did get a lot of nerfs as well.
I hardly ever see roaches in ZvT unless terran goes mech. The big change was the nerf to tanks vs unarmored units allowed ling/bling to be viable. Ling/bling/muta vs tank/marine is a pretty even fight right now, but can you imagine if tanks were still doing +15 damage? It would pretty much be unplayable.
In retrospect, it's clear that zerg was right to complain about the ZvT matchup a few months back. So just maybe they're right to complain about the current ZvP as well?
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On March 02 2011 12:40 GinDo wrote:
Wow only a few months ago Zerg was saying the same for Terran.Especially this line thats bolded.Ironically the only change that happened was an increase in roach range, but that seriously didn;t really change anything in the match up, but zerg stopped complaining as much.
Back on Topic- It seems the problem Zerg is having revolves around Splash. Tanks, Collosi, Storm. Blame Blizzard on their Clumpy game engine.
Zerg=Small units with low HP that Clump.
Hate to break it to you but it wasn't the roach range increase that changed that... it was the reaper nerf. In addition the bolded line is still accurate and Zerg QQ never really stopped (for a reason)
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For me, hydras are my my ant-protoss-one baser. Except for 4gate in which you can't get them in time (but roaches are fine anyway), hydras dominate protoss one base attacks. Void rays, immortals, phoenix, etc. are all ineffective when you have some hydras with lings/roaches.
They really are a fantastic unit, its just too bad they melt to collossi.
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On March 03 2011 09:46 dave333 wrote:
For me, hydras are my my ant-protoss-one baser. Except for 4gate in which you can't get them in time (but roaches are fine anyway), hydras dominate protoss one base attacks. Void rays, immortals, phoenix, etc. are all ineffective when you have some hydras with lings/roaches.
They really are a fantastic unit, its just too bad they melt to collossi.
unfortunately their use got quite reduced as barely any good protoss is playing one base in a while
though i recently watched some games where hydras were used with OL drops against protoss FE into phoenix play (i think foxmoon vs atnsocke)
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Playing as zerg i have built starts around lings, muta, infesters, roaches, and broodlords (never really get around to ultra, never get enough gas =P). But I have never built anything around the hydra cuz you tend to just get rolled over (by you i mean me.). I mean im sure if i had the control of a bitchin rock star from mars i could make something happen but seeing as i dont, the hydras only come out in very rare specific situations. This general "feel" alone says to me something needs to be done about hydra.
bear in mind this is the opinion of a gold level player so yes obviously it could be more of an issue with my skill level than anything else but by far the hydra is the least used unit in the game for me. Right behind reapers.
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I'm curious how Moon will fare against Ace in the finals. it looks like Moon absolutely loves hydras be it for overlord drops or for making up the majority of his ground army, and he makes it work by making enough Corruptors to take down Collossi down fast leaving the Protoss ball with a unit comp that Hydras are effective against (except for HTs).
however, I don't think Ace can tech rush for HTs because of the threat of aggression from Moon. Moon has definitely shown a willingness to attempt doom drops or roach/ling pressure like on G5 Meta against Squirtle.
anyways, curious to see if Moon can continue to make his hydralisk heavy unit comp work for him against Ace or whether Ace will punish Moon for using a unit that many consider to become too much of a liability the longer the game goes.
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It just gets crushed by collo. The big problem i feel is that the Collos aoe is in a striaght line so goodbye arch idea.
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i was very surprised to see moon succeed with that kind of play. i think its going in the right direction making use of zerg unit mobility and dragging the p around without ever really having to face the p in bad spots open and vulnerable to the p deathball. id love to see him use nydus aswell. but really gotta hand it to moon for playing such amazing games.
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hydras are the bane existence of any toss ranged unit, counting aoe units as their own class even if ranged . And hydras are normal speed ... just not normal for someone used to zerg. Anyway since the hydra is such a beast it has some units that are beasts when dealing with hydras. So plan B for the zerg, get rid of the non ranged units and lose your army at the same time, build up hydras and run over the rest.
Plan A is do a hydra push from 2 bases do some nice damage and retreat in time, and techswitch to conter the hydra conter, so you can hold back your hydras until the hydra conter is gone and win.
tosses seem to struggle abit against 2 base aggression if they are rushing with their tech and expanded fast. If this 2 base aggression is successful the toss is slowed in the tech and you got the time to conter it and all the toss can do is try to get 200 supply and look how the zerg is taking the whole map.
One reason is probably because there are alot of possibilitys for the zerg to go at once lair is done. And when you tech and expanded you can't prepare for all of it.
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i guess its not worth pointing out that hydras that cant run away(forcefield) lose to zealots and cost double as much and lose to stalkers when shooting through gaurdian shield
where does this myth come from that hydras are a "good" unit vs gateway. they are about even cost for cost, if you are lucky or your playing the only protoss in the whole game who doesnt like sentries. and then you are opening yourself up to getting analy fisted by colossi in about 3/4 minutes time.
and saying that hydras are normal speed is stupid. i played around a bit with hydra ling earlier against a friend but i could barely touch his units because even on an "open" map like shakuras by the time i can catch the colossi he can get up a hill with them. zerg units need to be as fast as they are to ever get a favorable battle area, right now even on creep the hydras speed is pathetic.
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On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep. Except Colossi are way more powerful. So Hydralisk should be more mobile to compensate. I'm not saying hydra should be fast, just fast er. Don't you think it's a little dull to have in a game "Well derp I made the wrong unit!" There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. Right now it's just "If they have colossus, don't make hydra."
Also Collosi cost a hell of alot more and are a bit higher up(Not by much granted) tech wise.
Collosi -300 mineral, 200 Gas 75 second build time 6 supply
Hydralisk - 100 mineral, 50 gas 33 second build time 2 supply
So with costing over 3x as much, why should the hdyralisk have an advantage over its counter that costs 3x as much? that would be just silly...
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Being even for cost against gateway units is good. That's the idea behind zerg; you get strong economic/production abilities and overwhelm your opponent despite being less cost efficient. The fact that hydras are even for cost against gateway tips them in zergs favor.
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Hydra's are just principle reinforce units, along with Zerglings, that are MADE to be streetsweepers that prevent and suitable counter from the Protoss once it's lost its critical mass ball.
Hydras are, in abstract, utterly overpowering, each creep highway hydralisk is the proverbial equivalent of a superdurable perma-stimmed marine and a half. But, as a Protoss player, I feel as though they've been short changed. Give Hydralisks another two points of damage to make them utterly despicable, and let's call it even :D
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On March 05 2011 11:08 ShatterZer0 wrote:
Hydras are, in abstract, utterly overpowering, each creep highway hydralisk is the proverbial equivalent of a superdurable perma-stimmed marine and a half. :D
i think you might be inflating the Hydras dps just a little.
3 roaches cost the same as 2 hydras, 3 roaches have 24 dps 2 hydras have 29-ish dps
with +2 attack its even worse,
3r = 30 dps
2h = 33-ish dps
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Hydras atm have a pretty limited role in ZvP currently.
Roach + Hydra is only slightly more effective than pure Roach or Roach + Ling vs pure gateway. Any gateway army is going to do OK against any Roach +/- Ling +/- Hydra comp with good positioning, terrain and forcefields.
If they are going collo, it hard counters any of the above unit comps. If anything, I think going Hydra against collo is a bad move because it arrives around the same time colossus does anyway. The days of a timing push with Roach Hydra are gone, the Protoss builds have refined, and they will get collo out in time to stop it. You are either better off going allin with ling / roach +/- drops or nydas (as FD tried to do in the GSL recently) before collo spawns. Or skipping hydra and getting a good number of corrupters faster.
Vs stargate I think Hydra are only bad vs a bad protoss (heavy VR without collo or whatever). Vs phoenix harrass a few spores and queens are fine.
The only role for Hydra ZvP right now is vs gateway immortal, which is rare, and also quite hard to differentiate from gateway collo.
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I think Hydras play a very limited role against Protoss (and no role at all VS Terran).
They´re dps is good, but imo they dont counter Gateway units in a way that they are a must have against them.
Take this example: 4gate against Zerg is a strong (all in) build because Zerg doesnt have more economy then Toss and if Zergs not going blindly against he won´t have Speedlings and Roaches.
So every Warp-in Toss can decide if he wants to have more Roach counters or more Speedling/Zergling counters on the field.
But once u went on to the midgame you will have Zerglingspeed and Roaches with Roachspeed and if u want it even Burrow/Regeneration for your Roaches. And this unit combo is absolutly fine vs Gateway attacks. (ofc it depends very strongly on positioning, ForceFields etc. how the battle will end but its the same for Hydras)
If you go more Hydras instead of Roaches its way more gas expenssive but performs equally to upgraded Roach/ling against Gateway units.
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On February 26 2011 12:58 Valcio wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers. With blink micro you can.
I'd love to see u try. Marauders beat stalkers hands down with stim pack and same economy. The stalkers don't stand a chance, however they may wish to jump here and there.
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On March 05 2011 10:40 Necro)Phagist( wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep. Except Colossi are way more powerful. So Hydralisk should be more mobile to compensate. I'm not saying hydra should be fast, just fast er. Don't you think it's a little dull to have in a game "Well derp I made the wrong unit!" There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. Right now it's just "If they have colossus, don't make hydra." Also Collosi cost a hell of alot more and are a bit higher up(Not by much granted) tech wise. Collosi -300 mineral, 200 Gas 75 second build time 6 supply Hydralisk - 100 mineral, 50 gas 33 second build time 2 supply So with costing over 3x as much, why should the hdyralisk have an advantage over its counter that costs 3x as much? that would be just silly...
You are going to have like 5 colossi... My 30 hydra will melt to your 5 colossi if you have gateway support; Now my unit costs more.
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Hydras either need to
Have more hp
OR
back to 1 food, tier 1, and speed and range upgradeable + damage nerf
You either make it a heavy dps unit, or you make it a zerg unit, easily massasble.
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i recommend all of you to watch SanZenith vs OGS.TheWind
+ Show Spoiler +Even though thewind lost the series 2-1, especialy in the last game on xel naga he showed GREAT strategy and uderstanding of the matchup, dropping at the perfect timing while taking out expansions. He managed to lose the game cause of some really bad mistake (leaving corruptors on H position at the opponents xel naga tower, attacking with 6 brood lords but no corrupters/hydras to counter void rays
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On March 06 2011 03:04 DwmC_Foefen wrote:
Hydras either need to
Have more hp
OR
back to 1 food, tier 1, and speed and range upgradeable + damage nerf
You either make it a heavy dps unit, or you make it a zerg unit, easily massasble.
The hydra already is a heavy dps unit, you are talking about making it more tanky.
As a protoss player, I really think that hydras are counterunits. They are not spammable like roaches and lings. In my modest opininon, they should not be brought afield if the protoss oponent does not have anything it "counters".
Hydras are not obsolete, they combat all protoss air cost efficently, but they have their role. They also work as "general purpose" units as they are pretty much decent against anything (except collosus and storms), but they are slow.
This is my first comment on tl so please don't flame me to hard ;D
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EPT
