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On June 21 2011 03:12 TheSubtleArt wrote:
There's literally nothing Hydras do in ZvT that isn't done better by another unit, they're just not good units in that matchup. I think it's a waste of time to try to use a unit just for the sake of using it, especially if your motivation is just brood war nostalgia.
My motivation is more than that... I guess it seems to me that a mid-tier unit can have zero utility in a matchup. Maybe this is just bad design from Blizzard, but the point of this thread is to brainstorm ways that the current Hydra could be utilized more effectively.
If you look at Terran, the only unit that seems like it might be somewhat useless against Zerg would be the Battlecruiser (I say that because by the time you'd have the Fusion Core zerg would have a Spire and could easily pump out corruptors). Every single other unit exists for a purpose and is heavily used in the matchup:
Marine - Staple amazing unit all game
Maurader - Sniping buildings/roaches/ultras/tanking banlingls
Reaper - Scouting, harassment, and even a "massed unit" before the nerf
Ghost - necessary for nullifying mass infestor
Hellion - Destroy lings, harass while expanding
Tank - Kill all ground things forever always everywhere
Thor - Build when muta numbers get more difficult (use with marines)
Medivac - heal bio army + drops... gotten every game
Viking - snipe overlords, kill corruptors/brood lords, sort of helps vs mutas
Banshee - Harass harass harass, force overseers
Raven - maybe this one doesn't have that much use... but allows the terran to save scans and point defense drone is useful vs broods/mutas
Every terran unit is versatile enough to be useful in specific situations in every matchup.
This is a tier 2 unit that's supposed to be an all-purpose massable unit... how is it COMPLETELY useless in this matchup? I have a hard time believing that...
It would be interesting if they buffed Hydra's on-creep speed. I think that how much they rely on creep is an EXTREMELY interesting mechanic that makes them difficult to use... but their speed on creep is still only the same as stimmed marines/marauders. It would be awesome to see them as fast as say, hellions, on creep. It would give other races even more incentive to kill creep and make Hydras a unique and useful unit.
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On June 21 2011 02:29 Exley wrote:
Roach/hydra is better vs. thor/hellion than pure roach. You can also throw hydras into a roach/ling/bling composition to kill medevacs --- see sen's stream.
This is an interesting idea, especially since I've been experimenting with roach/baneling ZvT lately.
Other than that, there are only a few specific uses that I know of for hydras:
ZvP: If the protoss tries some crazy one-base shenanigans for too long, hydras will shut them down completely.
ZvP: After an engagement with roach/corruptor where the protoss loses all of their colossi, remaxing with hydras can be strong.
ZvP: that hydra drop build.
ZvZ: various debatable uses.
I never make hydras except in those situations anymore. Every time I've tried to use hydras in another situation, I've always regretted it. I have a strong feeling hydra is gonna get some significant change in HotS.
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The only time I would go Hydras vs Terran is if he's doing some stupid mass air build with Banshees and Vikings, but I've never seen this so... I literally have not made a Hydra vs Terran since the beta.
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Hydras vs Terran can hit powerful timing creep highwaystyle right before seige mode finishes research (done this on scrap which works quite well at low masters level cause terrans like to go fast banshee tech alot there in my experience)
My main use for hydra though is the follow up to ur death push rally, once their army is broken once (usually with broods, banes, speedlings, infestors), i like to rally hydras (against protoss too) because they are a very stable general purpose unit and in panick mode, small numbers of seige tanks are rarely gotten, its uusualy an attempt at mass bio which they do good against or air
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I've been eaten alive by hydra-infestor combo. The idea was, infestors hold my army in place while hydras outrange them.
This was before the infestor (in this particular instance) nerf.
The thing is, they're too fragile to deal with terran's damage output. In addition, remember: There is no cost effective counter to stimmed marines. (That doesn't AoE) You need to include hydras with some form of AoE damage.
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Hydras are only good vs terrans who go heavy marauders. But Mutalisk are tactically easier to control vs heavy maruaders, so Zerg would rather have Mutalisks instead.
Hydras are also good at scv harass through drop play. But Mutalisk also does the job better.
Hydras are good vs marines if there is not a lot of medivacs. Too bad that if terran doesn't spam medivacs he's spamming Siege Tanks instead....
Hydras are good at defending bases against drops. So does Spines+Spores+Lings...
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On June 21 2011 01:34 BinxyBrown wrote:
VS Marines - Hydras can win but it isn't cost effective, also marines will scale better with ups
VS Tanks - lol
VS Thors - they do pretty well here, unless there is any other type of support
VS Hellions - they do fine until the hellions get on top of them, but roaches do better are available sooner, and cost less.
VS Marauders - Hydras do great here as well, not quite as good as lings, but I could see hydra ling being just as acceptable as ling baneling vs just MM, maybe MMM. Once you throw tanks into the mix it gets really bad, also hydras drastically slow your army movement off creep so they can become a liability when you need to do counters or run bys.
VS Banshees - Hydras do find once again, just not as well as queens or mutas that also serve other purposes like spreading creep or harassing/scouting
VS Medivacs - Hydras would be nice for sniping drops after they have unloaded, but nothing queens and ling couldn't take care of almost as well, however at 50 gas each they would cut deep into mutas not to mention the cost of hydra range and the den it self. Mutas are a better answer for deflecting drops in transit or killing drops that have already started to leave your base, and are still decent at drops in progress.
VS BC - they are bad, corruptors hold this down, another reason to choose spire over hydra den, although most terran dont make this unit anyways.
that leaves a hand full of unused units that aren't really problems in the match up yet anyways. Also anything you would use hydras to counter is probably countered harder by either mutas or infestors, which is actually pretty true vs toss as well.
Hydras take as many shots as a roach to die to a tank. FYI. The range also means that they can attack before a roach does.
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On June 21 2011 03:12 TheSubtleArt wrote:There's literally nothing Hydras do in ZvT that isn't done better by another unit, they're just not good units in that matchup. I think it's a waste of time to try to use a unit just for the sake of using it, especially if your motivation is just brood war nostalgia. Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 02:29 Exley wrote:
Roach/hydra is better vs. thor/hellion than pure roach. Massing roaches and allocating your gas to upgrades, infestors, and hive tech is a far better idea vs hellion / thor than usingit on hydras imo.
The other funky thing about Roach/Hydra vs Thor is that Thors will auto-target hydras over roaches.
So while you might be able to kill Thors a little bit faster with that unit comp, you will actually lose a lot more money in the process.
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i use hydra broodlord in obs games vs diamonds and below. It's pretty fun and people think it's a legitimate composition afterwards lol.
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In ZvT Hydralisks are terrible. There isn't any reason to get them. Terran has the easiest time dealing with creep imo, and either marines or helions rape hydralisks as well as outmaneuver them. I'm pretty sure most people would rather have mutas to deal with anything that comes out of a terran starport.
Believe me, I'm no progamer but I've tried a lot of things in ZvT from the beta till now. Nydus, Hydra drops, roach/hydra armies.. slow creep pushes towards the terran main. Guess what though - having a ranged dps unit really don't mean shit when it's ranged 6 and the enemy can hit it from range 9+ with tanks.
The problem is that all the units you want vs terran run off melee upgrades. Ling/bane fares well against any terran comp, Ultras/Broods both synergize and transition from of a muta/ling type build. Hydralisks... Well they just don't fit the tech path.
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On June 21 2011 03:58 GinDo wrote:Hydras take as many shots as a roach to die to a tank. FYI. The range also means that they can attack before a roach does.
On the other hand, the speed upgrade for roaches means that they can reach shooting position faster - and hydras cost double the gas as roaches, but do not provide double the amount of DPS. They have a better DPS/larva ratio, admittedly, and the higher range might keep them out of the area of fire of a few more enemy units. Still, they're exactly the sort of unit that siege tanks slaughter easily.
The only reliable role that I see for hydralisks in ZvT is that of base destroyers in conjunction with some sort of nydus play. They hold chokes reasonably well, after all, and by the time T repositions his tanks he probably has lost half of his base - not good. The reason why I'm mentioning nydus instead of drops is that Z drops are suicidal missions (at least vs T): overlords are slower than unstimmed marines, so you can't reliably get away. At most, you could get in T's base by dropping and get away via nydus (but the gas costs are starting to get a little too high).
Either way, it seems like you'd need to forego mutas and infestors to get hydras - which leaves you vulnerable to midgame siege/marine pushes. Maybe you could get away with proper use of ling/bling drops (which also paves the way for an hydra drop, with the added bonus of throwing down creep for your hydras to move over). The tech time for ventral sacs is roughly the same as that for mutas. The problem is that with high marine counts I don't see any reliable way to get your overlords over the enemy army.
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On June 21 2011 01:26 TheSambassador wrote:
Obviously, we know that hydras can crush Protoss gateway armies... and Hydra drops have been pretty effective vs toss, but what about other uses? I'm mainly interested in Hydras in ZvT.
just want to mention:
pure hydra loses against gateway combos
it's hydra/ling, roach/ling hydra/roach and hydra/roach/ling that are great vs gateway units
On June 21 2011 01:26 TheSambassador wrote:
I was thinking about hydras as drop-counters... keep 2 at each base behind the mineral lines (maybe along with a spine crawler) and try to snipe incoming medivacs. I don't know how fast medivacs drop, but 2 hydras can kill a medivac in about 6 seconds.
Hydra Infestor seems extremely powerful against bio, but add in siege tanks and the hydras melt.
Any other ideas? Has anybody seen Hydras used effectively in ZvT?
anything with infestors is powerful vs pure bio (without ghosts), the one interessting part with hydra/infestor is, that you can kill the medivacs and outrange fungaled marines.
yet with the infestor change, the hydra part of hydra/infestor got worse, as they only have 4sec instead of 8 to outrange marines now...
the only way I can see hydras maybe working in ZvT, is in a Ultra/Infestor/Hydra lategame combo, in which the Ultra takes the "roach" part and the hydras getting insanly good vs marauders that focus ultras, yet due to the different upgrade path of hydras, the gasconflict with ultra/infestor and the usual presence of tanks, I think it is insanely hard to get to this, and even if you get it, it is extremly fragile...
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I too have been trying hard to incorporate Hydras in ZvT, as many of you have pointed out, they're just not viable the way ZvT is currently played... so I've tried to do things a little bit different, and what I came up with was some kind of funky spine/ling/hydra/infestor build, trying to slowly move forward with spines and hydras and using lings for map control and scouting if T is expanding and stuff like that. Doing drops or nydus play to do some quick damage and retreat... still need to work a lot on it, but it doesn't feel that weak, if you're actively spreading creep hydras work well defensively, the only major problem is when facing tons of tanks.
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I really would like them to buff the hydra in some way for HOTS such as nerf their damage, but make them 1 supply and 75/25.
Then again I just think hydras should go back to t1 with roaches and lings, and have banelings replaced by t2 lurkers. 
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Hydras are great for insulting your opponent, and is something you should exclusively make when on at least 5 bases to the Terran's two base. The point being, they could be good if you have the necessary economy to back up production, although it would be extremely hard to get to such a point without using ling/bane/infestor. But hey, if you ever get to late game, then a tech switch to hydra could be pretty damn fun.
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Hydra's arent actually that good against gateway units. As a high diamond random, every time I make hydras they always seem to underperform. I tested this in a unit tester, and you still need a LOT more in terms of resources to beat gateway units with hydra heavy composition, especially if they're zealot heavy.
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Hydras need a good upgrade. Wheee more range... really? Mauraders get slow and stim. Marines get a health boost and stim. Roaches get burrow-move, which is cool and useful. Hydras get screwed.
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Roach/Hydra is a semi-viable composition vs Terran whenever you get close positions on Shattered or Metalopolis. Other positions, not so much, because you become super vulnerable to drops.
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This is a tier 2 unit that's supposed to be an all-purpose massable unit... how is it COMPLETELY useless in this matchup? I have a hard time believing that...
Well, think of it like this:
The Hydra at it's current balancing is pretty much a zerg-marine. Yet giving the zerg marines would be OP, because of the larva mechanism, you could mass them too easily (not saying that terran has a hard time to mass marines, but building 2rounds of marines of 3-4 bases as zerg would mean something like 40-60marines in 1:20min; not even considering how powerful rushes would be...)
that being said, I guess you can see that a zerg-marine has to be less powerful:
-) half the 3/4 of the dps per supply; (14.5/2 vs 10stimmed)
-) 1/2 of the dps per cost (14.5/150 vs 10/50 stimmed)
-) limited by gas
-) less mobile
-) higher tier
now if we think about the marines role vs a terran:
a) stim and snipe unsieged tanks
b) tank damage in tank/marine vs tank/marine battles
c) drops and sucide missions
d) complement the gasheavy tanks
and compare them to a similar use in ZvT:
a) not fast enough to run in and snipe stuff
b) tank damage for which other unit?
c) I guess you can do that, yet in a lot of cases 2banelings (100/50, 1supply) in a mineral line will be more costefficient than one hydra (100/50, 2supply)
d) hydras are gasheavy, so they have to be complemented mineral heavy units: zerglings, queens and spines
so anything you want to do with hydras either has to heavily abuse larvamechanism (which seems unlikely, as hydras are usually not limited by larva but by cost), needs something mineralheavy to counter marines, tanks and hellions (which I simply don't see in the zerg arsenal), or is able to avoid any bigger combat
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wow OP I was theory crafting this aswell exept I was thinking of putting about 6hydras in a nydus and popping them anywhere i see a drop they snipe the medivac before it lands
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EPT
