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I really, really want to use Hydralisks. They were my favorite unit in SC1... relatively fast, good overall backbone unit. They also made that sweet gushy-explosion sound when they attacked. They were great against "large units" and served a pretty good purpose in ZvT.
Now we have Hydras in SC2... and they seem so underused. Most people would say that there are good reasons for that... but I don't really want to have a balance discussion on them. I'm interested in viable uses of the Hydralisk. It doesn't seem "right" that one unit can have no practical role in an entire matchup.
Stats:
HP: 80 (0 armor)
Attack: 12 (+1) with .83 CD (14.5 DPS)
Speed: 2.25 (3.375 on creep), same speed as unstimmed/stimmed marine
Cost: 100/50, 33 build time
Requires Lair/Hydralisk Den
150/150 upgrade for +1 range.
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.
So far, in my play, the only time that I get hydras is against 2-port banshee, and even then you usually can just hold off with spores and queens.
It also seems like you NEED creep with Hydras, so maybe as the game progresses and people get amazing at spreading creep with tumors/overlords Hydras will see more play.
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?
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In my dying days of zerg I went roach hydra just for the lawlz, and it actually isnt too bad with upgrades and creep spread. If the players is any decent though he'll get enough tanks to destroy you, and the immobility is too exploitable by drops, mass raven play, banshees, etc. Muta ling bane, or Infestor ling is just much stronger.
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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.
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Uhh I guess they're good against marauders and banshees.. but mutas are better :D
I read somewhere that Thors 2-shot hydras, so I don't think hydras would be that great vs Thors?
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Hydras are only really good in ZvT when you need to get a quick squad of AA units out to deal with something. Also if the opponent is going really heavy Marauders, you could technically go Hydras and soft counter them. However mass lings or mutas would be better there, so Hydras really dont have a niche anywhere =[
They need more health and speed >_<
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Thors do 2 shot hydras but Hydras deal a lot of damage quickly, if you had a handful of lings to tank for them then hydras should be better at stopping thors than roaches IMO. However I never go hydras now that I am better so I haven't done it in a long time.
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hydra infestors would be so very gas heavy and trading army-wise, marine marauders are much more mobile and cheaper.
if you caught off creep, you will just have to win right there or you lose right away
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On June 21 2011 01:48 ETisME wrote:
hydra infestors would be so very gas heavy and trading army-wise, marine marauders are much more mobile and cheaper.
if you caught off creep, you will just have to win right there or you lose right away
This is how I feel. It would be impossible to have a mid game army big enough to be effective so let's think about late game, say 20 minutes.
Marine/tank. Infestor Hydra would do delicious work against marines if well micro'd. However that leaves the tanks untouched and you couldn't afford mutas with such a gas heavy comp. Lings could be used but it would be very cost ineffective to swarm tanks with lings.
MMM- You're army might be stronger but their army is much MUCH faster and you'll be unable to stop drops or just stimming and jogging around your army.
Marine tank thor-... I guess it'd be feasible. If you had amazing micro and found a solution to kill the tanks.
Hydras are not very good units at the moment, even against protoss (TO ME, I MAY BE WRONG THIS IS MY OPINION). The only time I find them useful is augmenting them into ZvZ for a roach infestor army.
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Strong against marine marauder, but that's about it. And infestors would be a better investment for that anyway
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Only using hydras in ZvP to stop any gateway pushes from 4gate to any slower gate push. Also for drops in the same matchup.
I have tried hydras in lots of situations against terran but I just think other units perform better in all the different cases which is really sad since hydra was my alltime favourite unit in sc1 
ps. wtb hydra speed upgrade (A)
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hydras would be pretty good at harass with drops, could drop 4-8 hydras during big battles and tear up the worker line and buildings... also against a banshee / heavy harasser I don't know why more zergs don't leave 3-4 hydras near there main and natural.
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what I would suggest while you try to find a role for them is a reminder that hydra tech shows up at the same time as either drop tech or nydus tech. perhaps use it to punish someone out of position? they melt buildings and are immune to missile turrets unlike mutas.
the units is simply too squishy/slow to see play regularly.
I make a motion of hydra speed at lair.
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I literally never use Hydralisks in ZvT... they're just that bad of a unit.
While they have extremely limited applications in ZvP and ZvZ, ZvT is all about efficient army trading and dealing with marine/tank pushes while fending off drops at the same time.
Hydras can do neither of those things in an efficient manner.
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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.
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hydras for drops seems like not a bad choice, but still i think people favor either a roach or an infestor instead of the hydra in any situation. If terran goes mass banshee, you might get a couple on hydras, but still in the long run would favor getting mutas out. To me the hydra is a mix of a couple units, having good dps, being an anti air unit, and not costing a ton of gas, but other units in the long run are just better. They also require lair tech, in which case you can get either a hydra den, or spire/infestation pit, which goes back to why muta/infestor is better
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Wow, good idea with hydras to defend bases.
Because of their very high DPS, they can take out marine drops easily (and marauders aren't as much of a threat to drones/hydras) since they can almost kill each one with 2 hydras, and with 3 you can kill each one as they drop. But that is if they drop where your hydras are or you saw them drop xD
I think for now, obvious roles are against Air (BC, Banshee) and sometimes Mech. And of course if the enemy decides to mass marauders some reason (perhaps if you mass roach and he switches to marauders, you can easily switch to an army of hydras)
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On June 21 2011 02:29 Exley wrote:
Roach/hydra is better vs. thor/hellion than pure roach.
I'm a bot surprised of this, I think you need to puts you hydras behind the roaches or they'll get demolished by the hellions.
Btw, for me Hydras are a useless unit in TvZ because they got crushed by stimmed marines and roaches, they are just way too light in HP.
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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.
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.
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I've experimented with hydras in ZvT at little bit. I think they actually have a tiny place in lategame *if you managed to get a map full of creep*. Roach/hydra/ling is fine against non-tank compositions, but against anything with tanks speed/mobility is too important to let hydras slow you down.
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The hydralisk for me is a real dissapointment. I loved hydralisks in sc1 but in sc2 their role overlaps with roach and queen. They lack mobility , to expensive, not durable as a stand alone unit, cost 2 supply, have sub average range , and just about frustrate the heck out of me in team games and in 1v1. If only they had better range or did less dmg and could be mobile off creep. Right now in terms of AA they are passable but i'd rather have Queens/spore. In terms of stand up ground fights roach is more durable and generally quicker. It really bugs me i can't micro the hydras like I can in sc1 and that all terran units can utterly wipe out my hydra groups so far. They do a decent job supporting brood lords but again Queens and Infestors Corrupters perform better and don't evaporate when u breath on them. I would imagine hydra/corrupter to hydra brood lord would be the combination designed for them but at this type roach/corrupter seems to do better due to colosus and basically any enemy unit just melting the hydras.
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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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Lol, back when i had low amp and couldn't fully utilize Mutalisks, i always tried roach hydra vs Terran.
As you might think it never really worked.
However in the beta, TLO + Show Spoiler +came back from behind vs CathonLuck on LT using purely Hydra, Infestor. It was the HDH tournament. Cathon was using opened reaper pressure in to marauder hellion. I remember that game so well, because i had just played about 1.5 months in the beta as Protoss and Zerg. That game was one of the ones that pushed me over the edge to commit to Zerg as a race.
Also i've herd myths that Ultra / Hydra is a good late game composition vs T.
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The best use I can think of for Hydras is as a late game massing unit.
The idea would be that you'd have a big army trade in the middle of the map and then zerg would remax with a whole bunch of hydras and cracklings. Especially if you just traded an infestor/broodlord army, terran is going to have ghosts and vikings and those are basically worthless against hydra ling.
Also, Hydras can do a lot of damage in small numbers, meaning you can throw 4 to 8 of them at each of the terran's expos at the same time. Even if they have planetaries, you just sit them behind the minerals or deny gas mining while your main assault hits the front. As the hydra wave dies, you slowly replenish with those nasty hive units again.
If you did get ranged upgrades, they also work very nicely with infestors and ultras. Mid game though, I think making hydras is terrible. You only really want to be using them in situations where you don't need to be cost effective.
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no point in getting hydra for defense, queens are far far more cost effective, and have better range.
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has anyone tried ling/hydra against terran?
i think you could max relatively quickly on this composition and just try to overwhelm the T. ling/hydra through the early and mid game and when you max start using your extra gas to turn the ling swarm into banelings.
im talking 1+ macro hatches and really going all out. 100% of your gas (minus ups) to hydras, and all excess minerals to lings.
massing hydras in bw is why i play zerg in sc2. never building them makes me sad.
even zvz if i see my opponent going roach hydra i just make pure roach and win =(
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I tried to think of ways to use the Hydra, until I realized that I can't afford to have any 80 hp, unarmored units taking up 2 supply in my army, mid/late game. You could use them for drops, but zerglings have the best dps/cost and dps/supply in the game, so why bother. The range of 6 (*after* the ridiculous upgrade), is pointless vT, unless you've got 20+ roaches in your front line. HP and armor are more important than dps, imho, which is why 80 supply of thors will destroy 120 supply of zerglings without losing a single unit.
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philibird queens cant snipe a medivac fast enough and cant get off creep which greatly reduces their effectiveness against drops.
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actually sometimes i use it on the big maps with drop. if you can manage to do that you can kill some core buildings or lots of workers, but you need to study a lot and that terran is supposed not to go all in  so scout it so hard. other than that, i dont think it would be viable as some commenters mentioned.
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For me you can sum it up this way:
What's the use of an expensive glass cannon in a game with banelings in it?
Hydras would be a viable alternative to banelings if they were re-usable - but they aren't. Typically they're consumed in the firefight just like banelings - and unlike banelings they don't sit around being lots and lots of useful zerglings helping you get the gas geysers you need to mass them.
Just as a mental exercise, imagine hydra were a morph of a roach, for 25/25 just like banelings. They'd probably see a lot more use because you'd be able to get them when you wanted them, without being desperately vulnerable in the meantime.
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Hydras are only useful in BW ZvT versus mech play, and I guess you will occasionally see them used defensively vs standard bio if terran catches zerg before lurker aspect is research or before the hydras have a chance to morph, but that won't happen in high level play.
As someone said earlier, they are just too slow off creep. All terrans are getting better at minimizing creep spread and there are faster, beefier units such as roaches that take the same damage from tanks while taking substantially less damage against marines, Hellions, and thors.
Honestly, I'd like to see Hydras use more too, but I don't think it will happen unless they get a speed upgrade or some other buff that makes them a better choice than others. Until then though, Hydras seem to have found their place in ZvZ and ZvP.
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The only time I could really see them being cost effective is with infestors vs a low tank/high marine count. Since with range and fungal they can wreck lots of marines with minimal losses if handled well. But there is rarely a Terran that doesn't get lots of tanks.
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On June 21 2011 01:26 TheSambassador wrote:
Now we have Hydras in SC2... and they seem so underused. Most people would say that there are good reasons for that... but I don't really want to have a balance discussion on them. I'm interested in viable uses of the Hydralisk. It doesn't seem "right" that one unit can have no practical role in an entire matchup.
It's perfectly fine that a certain unit isn't used in a particular matchup. This happened in brood war, and it's true in Starcraft II as well.Each race is so different that things that are good vs one race couldn't possibly be good against another race (think of irradiate from BW).
Hydras are only good against a terran who goes mass non-capital air i.e. mass viking/banshee. Any terran army with marines and/or tanks will shred hydras. And almost every TvZ involves tanks & marines. Igniter hellions are also very good against hydras, and thors are at the very least even with them.
Show me a TvZ where marines & tanks are not used, and you might have a case for a situation where hydras would be useful.
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On June 21 2011 01:40 archangel2 wrote:
Uhh I guess they're good against marauders and banshees.. but mutas are better :D
I read somewhere that Thors 2-shot hydras, so I don't think hydras would be that great vs Thors?
They used to one-shot them in Beta as long as they had 1 attack upgrade. Guess why they got changed to less damage per saliva :D
Hydras really lost their role in TvZ so badly, it's kinda sad But almost every single Terran unit seems to be just made to counter them. Even with the recent upcoming of researching drop almost every match, there still is no place for Hydra.
Maybe there will be some niche strategies that go with hydra drops one day, because in a very few situations they could actually do well. Dropped lings are easily defended in tight terran bases, but Hydras could deal a lot of damage there. But eventually Banelings can do almost the same, often even faster than hydras, and more safely.
Until a Hydra drop would all be timed out very precisely, there is no room for the unit. They just soak up the gas important units (Bling, Infestor, Muta) need.
On June 21 2011 06:23 Umpteen wrote:
Just as a mental exercise, imagine hydra were a morph of a roach, for 25/25 just like banelings. They'd probably see a lot more use because you'd be able to get them when you wanted them, without being desperately vulnerable in the meantime.
Nope, I don't see that beeing used very often. Maybe in a very few situational moments where one thinks "now a bit more range would be cool!" (you see, here this model is purely advantageous based on the fact taht they could be morphed everywhere), but apart from that, raaaarely.
Also, not even Roaches appear a lot in ZvT, and if they do, Zerg still wants gas for Bling/Muta/Infestor instead of spending it into a semi useful roach upgrade.
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On June 21 2011 01:43 Synystyr wrote:
Hydras are only really good in ZvT when you need to get a quick squad of AA units out to deal with something. Also if the opponent is going really heavy Marauders, you could technically go Hydras and soft counter them. However mass lings or mutas would be better there, so Hydras really dont have a niche anywhere =[
They need more health and speed >_<
Why not just muta if they are going marauders......... mutas HARD counter marauders :lol: >_>;;
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Don't use hydras in ZvT... they get destroyed by tanks, and aren't cost effective against either marines or thors. And they are somewhat of a gas heavy unit too - better to use that for upgrades and mutas / infestors that are useful for harassment or general army comp
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On June 21 2011 05:43 Vaporized wrote:
has anyone tried ling/hydra against terran?
i think you could max relatively quickly on this composition and just try to overwhelm the T. ling/hydra through the early and mid game and when you max start using your extra gas to turn the ling swarm into banelings.
im talking 1+ macro hatches and really going all out. 100% of your gas (minus ups) to hydras, and all excess minerals to lings.
massing hydras in bw is why i play zerg in sc2. never building them makes me sad.
even zvz if i see my opponent going roach hydra i just make pure roach and win =(
i just played 8ish games (custom and ladder, rank 1 plat so i suck) doing the strat i describe and i won all of them (against both T and P, zvz i do other things). i opened spanishiwa, got a macro hatch, and did triple evo upgrades asap (all the rest of my gas towards hydras). with so many lings taking a quick third is relatively ez.
some things i beat:
thor + tank - this was the first game i played and probably the closest (still wasnt that close). thors do massacre hydras, but hydras can dish out some pain too. i lost to a very similiar build yesterday going ling/roach. roaches just dont have the dps to kill thors in a timely manner. whereas target fire 15-20 hydras at a thor and it melts.
MM + tank - unless they have enough tanks to one shot clumps of hydras (maybe 6+?), hydras do all right. either the lings or the hydras will have a chance to do their thing. another HUGE plus was that with a few hydras in my mineral lines his drops were COMPLETELY nullified, down to losing the medivac also.
i played a few (2) protosses and they both did the same thing. zealot\sentry\VR. neither of the games featured very good FF's.
depending on timing i might lose MOST of my units during the first engagement but on 3 bases and macro hatch you can make enough to swarm them. in most of these games after crushing their push they saw how many units i had reinforced with and GG'd.
here are the replays. dont expect pro level play, just a look at how something like this works.
http://replayfu.com/r/H9P60q - zvp
http://replayfu.com/r/CGkGqm - zvt he makes a huge mistake with his tanks, but im not sure it would have mattered. basically he sends them towards my base by themselves and i kill them with lings. i dont think it would have mattered because he has to unsiege at some point to get to my base, and i had nice creep spread. if he turtled and tried to take the gold i was going to get drop.
http://replayfu.com/r/BmPGKn - zvt he goes fairly standard marine tank. like all these games the opponent wasnt good, but you can see how hydras can take on tanks. they take the same number of shots to kill as a roach, but do much more dps.
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It seems so inefficient to use hydras though. There's a chance that it would work in some scenarios in ZvT, but there's also a better, more efficient way to do it. Plus hydras limit your mobility so incredibly much. The terran could just drop at multiple locations and you would have to spread yourself very thin to try to cover all of your expansions, leaving yourself open for a big push. It's also very costly to use as a mass unit, and will eat up all of your gas, limiting your options and upgrades.
Versus bio: Lings, Banelings and Infestors handle them incredibly well. Not to mention the map control and ability to lock down drops with fungal growth. What you would need heavy food counts in hydralisks to accomplish, you could reach as well in way less food from infestors/lings.
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On June 21 2011 07:47 Vaporized wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 21 2011 05:43 Vaporized wrote:
has anyone tried ling/hydra against terran?
i think you could max relatively quickly on this composition and just try to overwhelm the T. ling/hydra through the early and mid game and when you max start using your extra gas to turn the ling swarm into banelings.
im talking 1+ macro hatches and really going all out. 100% of your gas (minus ups) to hydras, and all excess minerals to lings.
massing hydras in bw is why i play zerg in sc2. never building them makes me sad.
even zvz if i see my opponent going roach hydra i just make pure roach and win =( i just played 8ish games (custom and ladder, rank 1 plat so i suck) doing the strat i describe and i won all of them (against both T and P, zvz i do other things). i opened spanishiwa, got a macro hatch, and did triple evo upgrades asap (all the rest of my gas towards hydras). with so many lings taking a quick third is relatively ez. some things i beat: thor + tank - this was the first game i played and probably the closest (still wasnt that close). thors do massacre hydras, but hydras can dish out some pain too. i lost to a very similiar build yesterday going ling/roach. roaches just dont have the dps to kill thors in a timely manner. whereas target fire 15-20 hydras at a thor and it melts. MM + tank - unless they have enough tanks to one shot clumps of hydras (maybe 6+?), hydras do all right. either the lings or the hydras will have a chance to do their thing. another HUGE plus was that with a few hydras in my mineral lines his drops were COMPLETELY nullified, down to losing the medivac also. i played a few (2) protosses and they both did the same thing. zealot\sentry\VR. neither of the games featured very good FF's. depending on timing i might lose MOST of my units during the first engagement but on 3 bases and macro hatch you can make enough to swarm them. in most of these games after crushing their push they saw how many units i had reinforced with and GG'd. here are the replays. dont expect pro level play, just a look at how something like this works. http://replayfu.com/r/H9P60q - zvp http://replayfu.com/r/CGkGqm - zvt he makes a huge mistake with his tanks, but im not sure it would have mattered. basically he sends them towards my base by themselves and i kill them with lings. i dont think it would have mattered because he has to unsiege at some point to get to my base, and i had nice creep spread. if he turtled and tried to take the gold i was going to get drop. http://replayfu.com/r/BmPGKn - zvt he goes fairly standard marine tank. like all these games the opponent wasnt good, but you can see how hydras can take on tanks. they take the same number of shots to kill as a roach, but do much more dps.
While the effort is much appreciated, there's really no point in uploading platinum league replays since plenty of nonstandard builds work at that level.
On June 21 2011 03:01 -Zoda- wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 02:29 Exley wrote:
Roach/hydra is better vs. thor/hellion than pure roach. I'm a bot surprised of this, I think you need to puts you hydras behind the roaches or they'll get demolished by the hellions.
Obviously; you will always want hydras in the back line.
On June 21 2011 03:12 TheSubtleArt wrote: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.
I almost always go roach/infestor vs. thor/hellion but I've played 4 games on ladder winning with roach/hydra at 1k+ masters level. I don't think thor/hellion is good midgame composition since it can lose to roach/infestor, roach/hydra, and even muta/ling.
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im not going to say that ling hydra is viable in zvt at all. i dont know. i beat some scrubs today and need to play some more games.
about upgrades i had enough gas for triple evo chambers constantly upgrading, and also i got ol speed, and hydra range in every game.
infestors do completely own bio, even cost effectively which is a rare treat for a zerg but they are very expensive in their own right, and 1 misclick will cost you the game. not to mention with hydras that medivac will not escape if they drop. drives me nuts when medivacs make it out alive
whats wrong with heavy food investment in hydras, you gotta spend your food somewhere? my ideal scenario for a zvx is to outmacro my opponent, and unleash the swarm. i like to macro (micro is the worst part of my game, along with scouting :/ ).
none of the games went to t3, but 170 supply of ling/hydra with brood lords sounds like a nice composition to end games. the broods force the tanks to unseige and then you run in with ling hydra. you could even drop and completely avoid tanks.
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On June 21 2011 05:50 jdsowa wrote:
I tried to think of ways to use the Hydra, until I realized that I can't afford to have any 80 hp, unarmored units taking up 2 supply in my army, mid/late game. You could use them for drops, but zerglings have the best dps/cost and dps/supply in the game, so why bother. The range of 6 (*after* the ridiculous upgrade), is pointless vT, unless you've got 20+ roaches in your front line. HP and armor are more important than dps, imho, which is why 80 supply of thors will destroy 120 supply of zerglings without losing a single unit.
dps per supply? archon,.bl. thor, void ray and many more
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On June 21 2011 06:57 zhurai wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 01:43 Synystyr wrote:
Hydras are only really good in ZvT when you need to get a quick squad of AA units out to deal with something. Also if the opponent is going really heavy Marauders, you could technically go Hydras and soft counter them. However mass lings or mutas would be better there, so Hydras really dont have a niche anywhere =[
They need more health and speed >_< Why not just muta if they are going marauders......... mutas HARD counter marauders :lol: >_>;;
That's what I said....read the next sentence >_>
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unfortunately hydras dont have stim and thus die to every terran ground unit with the exception of the scv and mule.
vs marines - hydras get owned horribly here once you have stim, combat shields and medivac, which is basically all the time.
vs marauders - hydras do well, but with stim, medivacs and marine support hydras get melted.
vs tanks - trololol
vs thors - they do decently but thors are usually supported with either tanks which trololol hydras or bioball which beats hydras
vs ghosts - pew pew pew
vs hellions - hydras do really well against hellions but you're probably never gonna get mass hydra vs hellion on creep unless the enemy is metagaming you when you're going ling heavy and mass hellions. in this case you probably win but then the opponent has tanks so hydras go lulz
hydralisks basically suck because they don't do shit offcreep and have shit hp, making them take infinite damage vs most unit compositions that terrans typically make
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It's useful to get 1-2 hydras per roach army just for increased dps ala immortals in Protoss armies. The problem then is why the hell would you plop down a hydra den for just 1-2 hydras a deathball?
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I have an image in my head of many banelings and hydras vs marine tank medivac...
Banelings roll in, tanks fire the banes while the marines run back so they dont die to them...
While banes are being targetted by tanks, hydras kill the tanks and then a large hydra force with ling reinforcement against marines...
would it work?
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I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard modified the Hydra for HotS to make it more versatile seeing as it really has niche uses throughout all matchups.
It really feels like the only way Hydras would be viable against Terrans is if they decided to go mass air, although I would argue that going Spire with Muta Corruptor mix would be much more effective simply for mobility and their overall dominance over Terran air.
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I saw TLO (as Zerg) use the hydras (with range upgrade) and infestors to fight MMMs squads in TvZ late game. Because the marines and maurders are fungaled the hydras get free shots at the rines. Because the rines cant hit them the hydras r very cost effective. Although this was more effective before they changed fungal growth from 8 to 4 seconds. I could still see it as viable against bio style terran when they are attacking all over the map. A dozen hydras and a few infestors could wipe out the squads of MMMs.
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hydras are good as a fast air counter vs voids specifically...it gets flimsy under mass air...you'll need to switch to mass corruptors if your opponent sticks to air.. it really depends on how you scout... i scout pretty consistently almost to the second with my build at certain critical timings linked to my tech timing.
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Hydralisks simply aren't cost-efficient versus any realistic Terran composition. They're basically fat Marines that can't stim and cost gas. Why would you build them when your opponent has access to a unit that is very nearly the same only better and cheaper?
Seriously, compare one Hydralisk to a pair of Marines. They fullfill the same basic role; they are both fragile ranged units with an excellent damage output that can attack both land and air targets. They have the same mineral and supply costs, but the Marines have more health together (especially after combat shields), stim packs (meaning significantly more damage), will likely be supported by Medivacs, and get more of a boost out of upgrades. For an extra 50 gas, you get one extra range. To be completely fair, Hydras will also die a bit less quickly if they run into splash damage (which is to say that they won't die instantly like Marines), but the comparison is still pretty heavily weighted against them.
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On June 21 2011 08:20 Soulish wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 05:50 jdsowa wrote:
I tried to think of ways to use the Hydra, until I realized that I can't afford to have any 80 hp, unarmored units taking up 2 supply in my army, mid/late game. You could use them for drops, but zerglings have the best dps/cost and dps/supply in the game, so why bother. The range of 6 (*after* the ridiculous upgrade), is pointless vT, unless you've got 20+ roaches in your front line. HP and armor are more important than dps, imho, which is why 80 supply of thors will destroy 120 supply of zerglings without losing a single unit. dps per supply? archon,.bl. thor, void ray and many more
in terms of dps per supply, none of those units match zerglings. In fact none even come close.
With full upgrades:
Archon - 6.725 vs biological units (doesn't include splash obviously)
Thor - 10.17 vs ground
Void Ray - 11.45 when fully charged on a massive armored unit
Brood Lord - 5.275 including the broodling (this requires +3 air attack and +3 melee attack) + negligible amount since the first BL shot will fire 2 broodlings instead of 1.
meanwhile, zergling - 27.2
Keep in mind that armor will affect zerglings more than, say, archons, but in terms of raw numbers zerglings are miles ahead of everything else.
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On June 21 2011 12:06 LastLemming wrote:
I saw TLO (as Zerg) use the hydras (with range upgrade) and infestors to fight MMMs squads in TvZ late game. Because the marines and maurders are fungaled the hydras get free shots at the rines. Because the rines cant hit them the hydras r very cost effective. Although this was more effective before they changed fungal growth from 8 to 4 seconds. I could still see it as viable against bio style terran when they are attacking all over the map. A dozen hydras and a few infestors could wipe out the squads of MMMs.
love TLO, but that just seems silly. You can easily fungal them one more time, and invest the gas you would have spent on hydras onto more infestors.
Ive used hydra once agaist mass starport play, viking banshee,medivac marine, thats the only comp its real effective agiast. because muta get shredded by this composition.
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Why do Hydras remind me of marines lol, i think they're a powerful unit that, like marines, fail against seige tanks. So use roaches to tank and move in hydras to deal dps? idk, hopefully there's some buff to them as they are marginally used in zvp.
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As a terran I cant see hydra's being cost-effective versus any real terran combo, off creep they just wouldnt be match for a bio ball, and mech play will destroy them with siege tanks. Prehaps if there are buffs in future patches they can become viable, but currently they are sort of worthless.
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On June 21 2011 11:25 peidongyang wrote:
vs hellions - hydras do really well against hellions but you're probably never gonna get mass hydra vs hellion on creep unless the enemy is metagaming you when you're going ling heavy and mass hellions. in this case you probably win but then the opponent has tanks so hydras go lulz
blueflame hellions are one of the strongest hydralisk counters. Just get as close as possible to the hydras with the hellions and they will soooo insanely splash them...
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Never in any situation at all. Ever.
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Erm there were some really cute situations back in Season Two (?) of GSL with the old fungal. Fungal was 8 seconds and with Marines 5 range v Hydras 6 the Hydras would sit at max range and chew through the marines while they couldn't fire back.
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Hydras don't "stomp" gateway armies, btw, though they are good against them. They are relatively even 1 to 1 with stalkers with guardian shield up.
They are an effective harass unit (a couple hydras in the back of mineral line will melt probes)
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On June 21 2011 03:58 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +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.
But their terrible speed means the roaches will close the gap they need to shoot before the hydra does. Even on creep, speed-upgraded roach is at 3.75? speed and hydra is only 3.375 speed. And the roach is cheaper, and doesn't melt to ... every other form of damage T has (except marauders!)
Even with their range upgrade, Hydras only outrange Roaches by 2. That means you need to traverse 7 range vs 9 range before you can attack with either unit. Gives the hydra ON creep a 0.4 sec advantage - not very much. Off creep, the roach will close and start attacking the tank earlier.
Also, burst damage is a bit more useful for killing off tanks - a pack of roaches that can oneshot a tank is ostensibly more useful than a same-cost pack of hydras that might take an extra volley before the tank dies. So hydras still aren't viable for this task. (Ling-roach is a much better ground composition when there's tanks around, let alone mutas if you're sinking all that gas.)
And the range upgrade is really freaking expensive. 150/150 to have 6 range instead of 5. I hate researching it even when I am building hydras - hydra tech is EFFECTIVELY more expensive than a spire when you look at it this way!
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fast hydra drop against a teching or starport terran works. especially if you can drop on top of the tanks. of course you will want to drop lings with the hydras to tank a bit. other than that.......no I dont want to think about it anymore cuz they give me nightmares.
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On the Hydra vs Tank thing
A hydra takes 3 shots from a tank to die, the same ammount like roaches.
It would be cool to see effective use of the hydrasik in sc2 but it seems not wort it..
You could use the hydras to morph them to... argh wrong game
Maybe just play sc2bw? :D
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If you scout 2x starport and don't have time for spire and can't build spores due to religious reasons, then go for it. Otherwise forget about it.
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ling hydra is arguably better vs mech than ling roach. But that depends on how many thors/hellions are in the comps imho.
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On June 21 2011 01:43 Synystyr wrote:
Hydras are only really good in ZvT when you need to get a quick squad of AA units out to deal with something. Also if the opponent is going really heavy Marauders, you could technically go Hydras and soft counter them. However mass lings or mutas would be better there, so Hydras really dont have a niche anywhere =[
They need more health and speed >_<
health no, speed yes, the hydralisk was intended to be a glass cannon with "long" (long by zerg standards, 7 is almost siege range as far as zerg is concerned) range, much like the terran units. so in the same way the roach is a protoss unit in zerg skin, the hydralisk is a terran unit in zerg skin.
in my eyes the hydralisk is a more expensive, higher tech, lower dps/cost, lower hp/cost and slower marine that is available for zerg, have slightly more range and costs gas.
do the math, even on creep I'm right about it all (assuming stim).
conclusion: the marine is strictly better than the hydralisk in everything except 3 very minor things, namely.
1. supply cost: the hydralisk costs 2 supply, equal resources in marines cost 3 supply.
2. range: while the hydralisk have 2 more range (1 unupgraded) than the marine and this may seem like a relatively major thing, it is not enough to make the hydralisk efficient vs marines.
3. it is a zerg unit: zerg units have the advantage of being able to be produced in masses at a time.
so why would you go hydralisk vs terran when it is almost strictly worse than their tier 1 unit?
X being strictly worse than Y meaning: "in any situation where you have unit X, it would be better to have equal cost of unit Y instead."
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How about using them for harrass with drops?
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On June 21 2011 12:06 sagefreke wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard modified the Hydra for HotS to make it more versatile seeing as it really has niche uses throughout all matchups.
It really feels like the only way Hydras would be viable against Terrans is if they decided to go mass air, although I would argue that going Spire with Muta Corruptor mix would be much more effective simply for mobility and their overall dominance over Terran air.
They'll just add the lurker so people will make the hydra, even for just a short period of time. 
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Standard right now is Marine Tank Medivac and ghost to counter t3 so... i dont even know where You could fit hydra into that.
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People have used hydras vs. me to counter drops when they're going for infestor plays. It takes away from the overall army strength though, so I'm skeptical as to whether it's any good or not, especially after seeing some of the hydra balls just melt in instants to tanks.
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In my opinion, Hydras are often essential in any matchup. My reasoning behind it is quite simple.
Their range.
Going straight up hydra is never going to go well, they are weak units. But have a look at the other zerg units.
Zerglings - Range melee
Roach - Range 4?
Hydra - Range 6
When you're in an engagement, your lings will move to within melee range, your front line of roaches will move to range 4 and start attacking, and any roaches behind that line will try to break through to start attacking. You have to push further into the enemy army to allow all your roaches to fire. This is fine in small numbers, when you can simply move your entire army closer to the enemy's army, but when you are talking maxed armies, you're not getting all of your roaches into the fight unless you're completely surrounding them. This means most of the time, you have units that are dealing no dps.
If you mix in a line of hydras behind your roaches, you will have more units attacking during the battle as they will be attacking at their max range, instead of queuing up behind your other roaches waiting to get in range.
The downside of hydras other than their cost effectiveness, is that they are terrible at retreating.
In general, I don't think any zerg units are meant to be cost effective except for zerglings (and roaches). Roaches were added to the game to prevent zerg from being overrun in the early game, before they can get their economy up to produce the 'cost inneffective, game winning units'. The problem is, roaches are also way too good in the late game, so by default, they made the expensive hydralisk become a bit more of a specialist unit.
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On June 21 2011 01:43 Synystyr wrote:
They need more health and speed >_< Then they also require a damage nerf. I like hydras as they are now.
On June 21 2011 01:26 TheSambassador wrote:
Any other ideas? Has anybody seen Hydras used effectively in ZvT? I use hydras as an anti-air force on creep. I also like to add some hydras if I go roaches as hydras adds nice damage and share the upgrades.
Comparing to SC1, the new hydra is more a specialized unit. I am okay with that even though the hydralisk is now a snail off-creep, requires lair, and costs more. Hydras have sick dps and especially with the range upgrade they are very useful to snipe something quick.
But I don't think about the hydra as a single unit, I rather think how hydralisks can improve my army composition or how hydra tech can have an effect on the opponent's play. Sometimes I find it worth it to show just some hydralisks to discourage him going air.
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anti air.
double port banshee play being the most obvious, they can also be used in ling infestor play as drop deterrent (assuming your creep spread is good). and adding a few to clean up vikings when you hit the lategame infestor broodlord composition is also nice.
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We see way too little drop and aggro play right now, when that will come into sc2 scene we will see hydras easily fit in aswell.
In my personal opinion
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Maybe in big Nydus plays they can be good , but usually they are just not worth the cost, rather build infestors to get some ranged dps and slow the enemy army down, not my own.
[ I'd like to see some small buffs to Hydras, maybe with conditions
something like more attack-speed while they are off creep
or more damage for 5 seconds after unburrowing
something that would not only make them more viable but more fun to play. ]
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Marines: cheap and plentiful
It would be like saying you counter zerglings with Hydralisks. Why use Hydralisks when you can just use Ling/Bling for your ground army?
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with support units they are good vs thor+banshee. They are terrible against everything else. You may also be able to use them in close positions as they are more durable and cheaper on larva than ling/bane, but obviously they won't win you the game if you don't get a huge advantage somewhere else.
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they'd be good if you could turn them into lurkers.
User was warned for this post
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i wouldn't look for any hydra uses tvz...their bad vs everything terran has and you wont be able to harass at all and your mobility will be shot down. you say they do well against marauders but...the Marauders are getting healed and have marine and stim and if he gets any tanks its lights out.
if your looking for defense in your base mutalisks both dish out the pain and will defend you
a nice idea as a whole but unless hydralisks get a buff it aint happenings, and it won't because it would break zvp
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On June 21 2011 18:08 Roblin wrote:
2. range: while the hydralisk have 2 more range (1 unupgraded) than the marine and this may seem like a relatively major thing, it is not enough to make the hydralisk efficient vs marines.
u are wrong, hydras only have range 6 upgraded, marines are range 5, this isnt beta
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They're good for a brief timing if you are rushing hive and will have ultras or broods by 18:00ish. Otherwise ling infestor (hydras are almost useless without infestors) hydra is a very poor composition for attacking. It's only really good for turtling briefly, because you can spread out hydra infestor and stop drops and use ling infestor hydra to break pushes on creep in the mid game.
You actually do have enough gas to do all this provided you take your third quickly and drone while building your first 8 infestors.
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Hydras occupy an awkward niche in the current Zerg arsenal; as stated before, their cost plus lack of clearly defined role (except AA, but more on that later) makes people shy away from em in ZvT.
In BW, every race had a basic melee unit (Zealot/Zergling/Firebat) and a basic ranged unit (Dragoon/Hydra/Marine). Things have obviously changed with the new units in SC2, but Terrans have incorporated their new basic ranged unit (Marauders) into their play whereas Zerguuus tend to neglect hydras. Why? IMO there are two reasons:
1) Niche. Marines cover anti air/general purpose DPS glass cannons while marauders have the obvious tanky, anti armour, and slow effect. They work well with each other, with each unit's advantages covering the disadvantages of the other and vice versa. Now what about roach/hydra?
Hydras have the advantage of being able to shoot up and have marginally more range and DPS than a roach (the latter two traits of which come at a massive cost of resources and lack of mobility). The roach is a lot beefier (except vs tanks and marauders, but mutas are far more effective against those units than hydras), cheaper, and has a speed upgrade. If you're super gosu, you'll also note that roaches can use burrow shinanegans. Compared to marine/marauder, roaches and hydras have somewhat overlapping roles. In some early beta Q&A sessions, it was stated that hydras were originally intended to deal 12 (+3 vs air). That would be good for the hydra, but a soft nerf on the corruptor as both units would now have overlapping roles as the zerg's primary AA unit. What blizz needs to do is find a unique niche for the hydralisk.
2) Cost. The cost of a hydralisk is close to that of a protoss gateway unit, as opposed to BW where 2 hydras were about equal to 1 dragoon in terms of cost and supply. In SC2, the gas and supply cost of a hydra have doubled, while the hp (2 hydras in BW had 150 hp in total) and damage per shot (2 hydras in bw would do 2 * 10 dmg to a large unit) have decreased. Do note that upgrades scaled better in BW as well, as those two hydras would benifit more from the attack and carapace upgrades than a single hydra would in SC2. Basically, the SC2 hydra is slightly more effective against certain units (12 dmg per shot opposed to the BW hydra's 10 explo dmg) at the tradeoff of being more expensive, lacking a speed upgrade, and having worse upgrade scalability than their BW counterpart. Oh and did I mention the SC2 hydra is a lair tech unit?
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On June 21 2011 21:08 Trollhammer wrote:
Hydras occupy an awkward niche in the current Zerg arsenal; as stated before, their cost plus lack of clearly defined role (except AA, but more on that later) makes people shy away from em in ZvT.
[...]
1) Niche. I consider it curse and blessing at the same time. I like to get some hydras for inbase air defense. While I also build some spores if I expect air, I cannot use spores to push out. Hydras allow me to kill his air and if he is licking his wounds, use them for a counter push.
SC1 hydras are essentially – you mentioned it already – just better marines or half dragoons. I think it is a good design decision to restrict zerg to need lair tech for regular units who shoot up but balance this with the queen and relocatable spores. This makes the races more distinguishable.
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On June 21 2011 08:20 Soulish wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 05:50 jdsowa wrote:
I tried to think of ways to use the Hydra, until I realized that I can't afford to have any 80 hp, unarmored units taking up 2 supply in my army, mid/late game. You could use them for drops, but zerglings have the best dps/cost and dps/supply in the game, so why bother. The range of 6 (*after* the ridiculous upgrade), is pointless vT, unless you've got 20+ roaches in your front line. HP and armor are more important than dps, imho, which is why 80 supply of thors will destroy 120 supply of zerglings without losing a single unit. dps per supply? archon,.bl. thor, void ray and many more
DPS per supply:
zerglings do 7.2 dps per .5 supply (14.4 dps/supply)
hydras do 14.5 dps per 2 supply (7.25 dps/supply)
thors do 46.7 dps per 6 supply (only 7.8 dps/supply)
Zerglings have *twice* the dps/supply of the thor and hydra. Therefore, the only use for hydras is for their range and anti-air capability. As others have said, the range is not so much an issue vT (with no forcefields), and there are better AA options--mutas give you harassment options, ability to shut down drops, ability to contain your opponent, pick off tanks in a seige line, pick off reinforcements, etc.--hydras give you nothing).
Additional useful info:
DPS per total min & gas cost:
zerglings (.28)
hydras (.09)
thors (.09)
Again, zerglings are a much better value than a thor on paper. Yet, which would you rather have an army of? The point is that what you want most in SC2 is units that have a ton of HP so that they can stay alive long enough to do some damage. Now, it's also worth mentioning that roaches have the best hp/cost ratio (1.45 vs. 0.08 for the thor) in the game. But what good is that when you have a 200 supply cap?
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Did you weight vespene for the total cost? I propose to consider 1 vespene worth to 3 normalized minerals.
Dps is of course not everything. Hydras can kill a few lings before the lings were able to land at least a single hit. One could try to calculate a normalized dps value with considering the time for the enemy melee unit to close in. But the normalized value only works for a particular unit vs unit ratio, other ratios yield in other normalized dps values.
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I did not give any special weight to gas, but if I did, that would mean that zerglings are an even better value versus the hydra than I already stated.
As to your second point: yes, dps isn't everything--but in the case of drops, usually the drones/buildings aren't hitting back at you. Therefore, pure DPS is the primary factor.
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On June 21 2011 23:32 jdsowa wrote:
I did not give any special weight to gas, but if I did, that would mean that zerglings are an even better value versus the hydra than I already stated.
As to your second point: yes, dps isn't everything--but in the case of drops, usually the drones/buildings aren't hitting back at you. Therefore, pure DPS is the primary factor. Pure dps means little if the unit lasts only for a very short time. If I attack with early lings, the enemy workers do strike back. If I can attack buildings while he does not strike back, the game is probably won anyway so my dps is not important.
The dps value plays an important role in the consideration "how much damage can I deal in a given window of time" but hp-to-cost ratio and attack range also play a very large factor in this formula. Even unit speed – since it is often possible to surround units with zerglings, I can use them to actually deal damage. But only so many lings can attack at the same time, the rest gets no marine leg to bite but is under fire and can die before he bit a marine leg even once
In certain situations you are right, lets say the enemy army is away and you could drop some lings into his base, then you have a window of time were dps is the sole important factor. But generally I consider the usefulness of units and how conveniently I can tech it to decide if I use it as main attack force or not. For example lings are limited to attack ground units only. Hydras also can save you from air raids. However Mondragon can build roaches versus Protoss air and wins
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so it seams clearly established that hydras are not, and likely will not become, a 'backbone' unit in any ZvT composition. however, it seems they are in fact quite effective at dealing with harassment (drops, banshee). Thus we may see, as the game evolves, zerg players incorporate hydras as a lategame component of any potential composition (muta/ling/bling, ling/infestor, roach/infestor, etc.) for anti-harass defense. this would be especially effective with an infestor compostion, as you have less mobility and must rely on immobile defence regardless. and in theory, it is not too overwhelming an investment at the stage in the game when they would become most useful (once you have your third, looking for a fourth), before which low gas low tech options (queens, spine, spores,) can be used. with hydras added, these defenses would become nigh impenetrable.
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Hydralisk cost 100 minerals and 50 gas. They are inefficient to say the last vs practically every terran unit comp. Their only role would be vs very air play. While their dps is nice their range is so pathetic for their cost that they will just lose their 80hp too quick for them to be worth anything. Their starting range is the same as marines and hellions and upgraded is still less than the thor's 7 ground range. I recently used hydralisks for the first time in a while vs a protoss stargate opening. Hydralisks are pretty nice in a few situations but the reality is that any job a hydralisk could do would be better filled by more mobile and cost effective units.
Against a terran zergs already have plenty of uses for gas: infestors, banelings, and air. Hydralisks are just too expensive to be worth it.
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Masters zerg, I've actually tried substituting mutas for drop tech in a few practice games, and trying all sorts of weird stuff with it, hydras included.
Hydras were (obviously) the most efficient worker killers when you sneak some into the back of expansions, but were lackluster against everything else really.
Even in brood war, hydras really weren't the hottest stuff except against goliaths; against M&M they still didn't really hold their own that well, mutas were far more effective and you mainly got hydras for the lurkers.
There really isn't much of a place for hydras in the zvt matchup. They get chewed up by standard marine tank, they dont come early enough to stop early bio pushes, and overall just dont handle themselves very well.
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Suicide drop squad?
Honestly, even in ZvP Hydras rarely find any purpose.
At best, a Zerg could research drop tech, and pray their Hydras do econ damage as they get dropped in a mineral line.
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I'm starting to think of using like 8 Hydras as a counter to drop play or any other kind of harass-based Terran style. Hydras kill Hellions (I find that their DPS kills the Hellions before they get any significant damage in return), destroy Medivacs in seconds, Banshees are paper planes to them, and the rare but extremely potent Viking harass style gets shut down as well.
Certainly not as a mainstay unit, but I'd much rather have 8 Hydras to shut down Terran harass than 4 Mutas.
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There are some fast 2 base speed overlord creep highway busts you can do versus a terran, but in general the reason hydras are so underused in this matchup is every terran will get tanks pretty early for their 3 tank stim push, and seige tanks are the most effective unit versus the hydralisk (barring the colossus) in the game and the slow speed of they hydralisk doesn't allow for retreating off creep, which terrans will not let get near enough to their base to allow hydralisk armies to be any good at being aggressive. Versus heavy air play hydralisks are viable (multiple port banshee/viking) with infestors, but, yeah, very situational in a higher level of play.
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I've tried out some builds with Roach+Hydra VS heavy-mech, but Broodlords are still much better IMHO. Even against Heavy Air, like Vikings+Banshee/BC's, Corruptors, Infestors and or Mutas do much better.
It's maybe possible to get some Hydras just to be safe against Drops/Air, but again, it's much better to go sth. else - Mutas...
there really are no good reasons to use Hydras in ZvT anymore and in ZvP, there are some very Narrow timings where they're good, but if you've scouted/anticipated wrong and he goes Collossi or the timing-rush doesn't work out, they're crappy.
Hydras are IMHO just a terrible Unit and they get used less and less - too bad, I kinda like them too, just cuz they give a nice safe feeling in the stomach (being Anti-Air and not bad DMG-dealers).
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I played around with Roach/Hydra in ZvT for a while I normally dropped my hydras behind the tanks or on tanks in battles while my roaches cleaned up the BIO but it didnt work alot of the times
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I would have to try this out first; but at my level (gold/plat), I'm pretty confident that a creep push strategy would have more consistent victories than the current reliance on infestors or mutas.
Why? One small mistake, like getting caught not looking, when relying on Infestors or Mutas can usually end the game right there.
Here's the gist, and I invite anyone to post replays:
1. Spanishiwa type start - early map control is not your objective.
2. Spread creep aggressively; use crawlers to support your creep expansions and control the wide spaces you want to engage in
3. Upgrade and build ling/bling/hydra; continue to expand behind your contain.
4. Evolve into whatever the appropriate counter; use Nydus to block / take out their attempts at expanding.
Ling/bling/hydra/spine is economical on larvae and resources, and keeps you better prepared for timing pushes than more gas intensive builds would. By having spines out in a containing manner, instead of solely a defensive one, you are forcing the Terran to go air or slow their push as they use tanks to clear the way. Hydra's are pretty good againast air =p.
In the case that they try to seige you on the ground, the Zerg's objective is to force the Terran to push out into the open as they strategically retreat. Terran leapfrogs forwards, Zerg leapfrogs backwards with the ability to spring forward when they advance too far -- otherwise known as the "rope a dope".
The similar speed that hydras and banelings move at make them much easier to control than having to juggle the variances that come with mutas, lings, and speed roaches.
On Creep/Off creep:
- Baneling 3.25 (3.8) / 2.5 (2.9531)
- Hydra 3.375 / 2.25
- Zergling 3.83903 (6.10883) / 2.9531 (4.6991)
Zerglings are the flanking units. The banelings and Hydras will obliterate what comes their way but will most likely result in some sort of army trade. Now you should be free to reestablish your spine position with spare drones and literally mass whatever unit you want fully upgraded to keep them in their hole.
Well that's my theory anyway. I'll see how it goes, today.
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TLO used hydra infestor as zerg in a ZvT on Shakuras Plateau in, I want to say a video from the 12 Weeks with the Pros series VTMrBitter did. Rather than spire tech in this game, when he saw that the terran opponent was going heavy bio, he canceled his spire after a scan and opted for hydra den once the scan expired, leaving the terran in the dark for a moment. TLO claimed to Mr Bitter that hydra dps keeps up well with stimmed bio, which is an interesting assertion. I think if you're going to spend gas on blings, why not instead try spending it on hydras? At least you'll have a chance of your army, if it wins a fight, not being a bunch of dead blings that were simply traded. He did have good creep spread, and olord speed, making use of them for creep highways. I think hydra/ling/infestor has a chance of being more cost effective than ling/bling infestor, simply because of the non-suicide dps the hydra offers, which holds its own vs stim. Unless the opponent tech to bc's or heavy tanks, hydras are decent.
Myself, I have yet to truly incorporate them, but I think if you do, you need to be better at preventing drops without mutas, and give up mutas for hydras instead, something I'm still not comfortable with, as I prefer to medivac snipe via muta interception. But once bio unloads, my mutas become useless unless in crushingly larger numbers, and I have to retreat. Idk, hydras have potential, though realize your army will be slower, and you'll need to be better with olord mechanics, drops, tumors, and playing more defensively.
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On June 21 2011 11:25 peidongyang wrote:
unfortunately hydras dont have stim and thus die to every terran ground unit with the exception of the scv and mule.
vs marines - hydras get owned horribly here once you have stim, combat shields and medivac, which is basically all the time.
vs marauders - hydras do well, but with stim, medivacs and marine support hydras get melted.
vs tanks - trololol
vs thors - they do decently but thors are usually supported with either tanks which trololol hydras or bioball which beats hydras
vs ghosts - pew pew pew
vs hellions - hydras do really well against hellions but you're probably never gonna get mass hydra vs hellion on creep unless the enemy is metagaming you when you're going ling heavy and mass hellions. in this case you probably win but then the opponent has tanks so hydras go lulz
hydralisks basically suck because they don't do shit offcreep and have shit hp, making them take infinite damage vs most unit compositions that terrans typically make
TLO would argue with you that hydra dps matches stimmed bio dps.
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One of the zergs I regularly practice with was determined to make hydras work in TvZ. He tried using them against me for like 20 games and they were just never effective. Everything terran has can kill them pretty effectively. Further more any current standard terran composition is just going to obliterate any hydra centric play. Your much better off putting the resources into banes/mutas/infestors than hydras.
The only potential place I could see them would be 4-6 to drop in mineral lines but even then your investing time, and money that could be better used on something else. Bane drops would be cheaper and more effective anyways in my opinion.
So unless their is some weird crazy meta game shift I don't think hydras will see a place in zvt. Even if the meta game were to shift, I am still having trouble thinking of a unit composition from terran that would make me want to have hydras.
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On June 23 2011 01:21 DuncanIdaho wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 11:25 peidongyang wrote:
unfortunately hydras dont have stim and thus die to every terran ground unit with the exception of the scv and mule.
vs marines - hydras get owned horribly here once you have stim, combat shields and medivac, which is basically all the time.
vs marauders - hydras do well, but with stim, medivacs and marine support hydras get melted.
vs tanks - trololol
vs thors - they do decently but thors are usually supported with either tanks which trololol hydras or bioball which beats hydras
vs ghosts - pew pew pew
vs hellions - hydras do really well against hellions but you're probably never gonna get mass hydra vs hellion on creep unless the enemy is metagaming you when you're going ling heavy and mass hellions. in this case you probably win but then the opponent has tanks so hydras go lulz
hydralisks basically suck because they don't do shit offcreep and have shit hp, making them take infinite damage vs most unit compositions that terrans typically make TLO would argue with you that hydra dps matches stimmed bio dps.
Does anyone above silver league only make pure bio as Terran in TvZ?
The problem with using hydras is that Terran always gets tanks, and we all know how that goes for the hydras.
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I've seen them used against mech, to no real avail. I'd really like to have some sort of hydra usage in ZvT as well...maybe dropping behind min line? they have crazy DPS so it just might be effective
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One possible use is to use them like protoss can use DT's in late game: a harass unit.
What you can do on some maps is:
- Drop down or just move 2-4 hydras behind in the mineral line (like some protoss do with stalkers). It will kill off SCV's, turrets, and be out of range of the planetary, and can attack / kill off an orbital if it's way out of position.
It does however mean that you pretty much:
- Aren't going mutas.
- Allready researched drop.
Otherwise I think it costs too much to get the tech, or you could instead just harass with mutas.
Also, I guess, if you go the superfast lair / ultra build:
- Ling
- Infestors
- Ultras
With just melee and armor for ground upgrades, and neural parasite / fungal growth, a few hydras can be okay to kill medivacs and banshees, while still keeping your ground focus, so you don't end up facing 10+ medivacs late game because you always killed off the ground army but never the medivacs.
... but even then, I think going corruptors and just have 3-4 in your army following it around, until you have too much resources and can go for broods, is better.
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hydralisks have insane dps, but lack mobility and high health. i think they are very weak vs mech in general which is why you don't see them used much. to exploit this i would say nydus or drops to avoid fighting the mech army straight up. just load up when the terran comes back to save his base. the only thing is you have to stay alive long enough to mass up hydras and tech drops with speed. not really worth that kind of investment until late game
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I think what's not mentioned enough in comparing hydralisk is the food cost.
While they may not be as mineral/gas efficient at taking down bio as roaches, they are better in terms of food cost. If you mix half-roach half-hydra, your army will be much stronger vs most terran compositions for the same food cost. This can be important mid and late game when you max your army. It can be better to top yourself off with hydras rather than roaches.
Even vs mutas, if a terran has turrets and thors all over and are turtled tight, it may be better to get hydras for fighting or dropping.
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I watched ViBe's stream the other day and he went mass hydra versus mass Thor. It was a strange game where they both lost their bases, but he won.
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On June 23 2011 01:21 DuncanIdaho wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 11:25 peidongyang wrote:
unfortunately hydras dont have stim and thus die to every terran ground unit with the exception of the scv and mule.
vs marines - hydras get owned horribly here once you have stim, combat shields and medivac, which is basically all the time.
vs marauders - hydras do well, but with stim, medivacs and marine support hydras get melted.
vs tanks - trololol
vs thors - they do decently but thors are usually supported with either tanks which trololol hydras or bioball which beats hydras
vs ghosts - pew pew pew
vs hellions - hydras do really well against hellions but you're probably never gonna get mass hydra vs hellion on creep unless the enemy is metagaming you when you're going ling heavy and mass hellions. in this case you probably win but then the opponent has tanks so hydras go lulz
hydralisks basically suck because they don't do shit offcreep and have shit hp, making them take infinite damage vs most unit compositions that terrans typically make TLO would argue with you that hydra dps matches stimmed bio dps.
and that is simply not true, you can simply calculate it...
hydras lose in any comparison vs stimmed marines (costwise-dps, supplywise-dps, costwise-battle, supplywise-battle), not to mention offcreep speed.
btw. I have been working on a formula to calculate "High Supply Strenght" a number that should represent a units strenght when massed.
It doesn't include a way to measure splash yet, but I do work with dps/supply, armor, life/supply, size, range and supply and the numbers have been tested for some of the calculated units in 200vs200supply monobattles and I think if you put the numbers in order, they are pretty precise in fortelling a monobattles outcome. (assuming the units can hit each other)
so if anyone is interested, I can post some stuff...
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Hydra has the same attack speed as a marine for double the damage. Which means a stimmed marine deals 75% of a hydras damage.
Cost wise a hydra is about 2-4 marines.
Supply wise hydra is 2 marines.
But numbers wise--hydra deals more damage than marines.
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If i were to suggest somethign it would be to use small groups of them at home,
(this is clearly intended by their speed on and off creep)
so with it's speed increase on creep, what units can Hydra's Kite?
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On June 23 2011 04:43 lorkac wrote:
Hydra has the same attack speed as a marine for double the damage. Which means a stimmed marine deals 75% of a hydras damage.
Cost wise a hydra is about 2-4 marines.
Supply wise hydra is 2 marines.
But numbers wise--hydra deals more damage than marines.
you can look up any numbers in Liquipedia (DPS in not everything):
Marine:
DPS: 7
DPS stimmed: 10.5
DPS per simplified costs: 0,14
DPS per simplified costs stimmed: 0,21
Hydralisk:
DPS: 14.5
DPS per supply: 7.25
DPS per simplified costs: 0,096666667
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I dont even remember any time after the Beta that it was build by me, but what I saw, that was actually pretty neat...Only a few Hydras with your standard bling/sling army, charge in chase mutas with blings/slings and focus down the tanks.
That does only work on creep, but u will attack on creep anyway.... not that this strategy is pretty strong or what, but it might be handy
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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,
I disagree. If you want I can explain to you WHY hydras do not crush gateway armies, but in my opinion that's your burden of proof, s I won't jump to it unless you ask.
On June 21 2011 01:26 TheSambassador wrote:
I'm mainly interested in Hydras in ZvT.
So far, in my play, the only time that I get hydras is against 2-port banshee, and even then you usually can just hold off with spores and queens.
...
Any other ideas? Has anybody seen Hydras used effectively in ZvT?
No. Hydras are junk ZvT. Marines and hellions and siege tanks dominate hydras, and thors and banshees can even do decent against them with micro/repair/cloak/etc.
One of the 2 only uses I see for hydralisks is an optional route to go vs protoss if they FFE stargate (or possibly any other stargate play), and even then it's not necessary.
The other is an option in late game ZvP, adding a few hydralisks works well, since it maximizes potential damage dealing, since they have the longest ground to ground range for zerg. Storm is a bit of a problem, but not much because this is at a point where you'll have broodlords and ultralisks as well, and the majority of the army would be units like those, along with roaches and zerglings and corruptors and infestors. The storms could hurt the hydras, but because there's so many different units at different ranges, and because there's not a lot of hydras, and because the hydras can be microed, it's not a big deal.
And with regards to this IMO somewhat off-topic discussion about hydralisk's stats, one of the big things about hydralisks are their poor attack upgrade.
Some of you are comparing marines with hydralisks— marines have +1 upgrade to their 6 damage, making for a 17% DPS increase per upgrade. Hydras have HALF that 17% per upgrade, because their base damage is 12, but they still get only +1 damage per upgrade.
Another pretty big thing is that hydralisks attacks are projectiles that take time to hit, marines' are instant.
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the only time i have ( 1400 Dia Zerg) ever used hydra's against Terran was against a sky terran late game (banshee, viking , BC) and they just wrecked other than that i think that they are pretty much useless because of how fragile they are
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I think I saw Spanishiwa do Mass Hydra, Mass Queen before.
Queens-Spread screep/tank damage
Hydras-deal damage, creep spread grant mobility
It was pretty effective in close positions. Tanks = gg though X_X
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As long as T are doing the Tank Marine Style I don´t think Hydras are useful in the matchup.
They have their place, like against Mass Air and maybe BioMarauder and ThorMech but other than that I don´t think they have a place here. They are still good units and you can use them but its not really optimal IMO.
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Whats a hydralisk?
In all seriousness I havn't found a use for them thats better than mutas or roaches. I think it may be good to try to counter lots of air based play like 2port banshee but queens do better and are cheaper. I dont really see a use for them in zvt tbh.
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Infestors are the better gas sink not just vs every unit comp in zvt, but in every matchup. i can't remember the last time i built a hydra den, but it was definitely before the fungal growth buff.
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On June 23 2011 02:27 aclockworkballer wrote:
I watched ViBe's stream the other day and he went mass hydra versus mass Thor. It was a strange game where they both lost their bases, but he won.
neural parasite would be nice...
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Hydras are quite underused for their DPS. Unlike BW, they are strong glass cannons. They have great DPS/Cost ratio, and they move quite fast on creep, but because they get fried so easily, people don't use them, which I feel is a mistake. Hydras eat bare gateway armies alive, and if you can keep a hydra/muta ball alive vs toss, and continuously harass his geysers and tech, he will be unable to go into templar. I have had quite a bit of success with this.
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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.
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hydras are too gas heavy and ineffective against terran. 1 larvae can either be 2 banelings or 1 hydra (same resource count) and 2 banelings is way more effeective for a zerg army and they're lower on the tech tree. but the fact you're suggesting them for drops seems pretty good. problem is they're just so gas heavy...
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+ Show Spoiler +On June 23 2011 00:40 _Major wrote:
I would have to try this out first; but at my level (gold/plat), I'm pretty confident that a creep push strategy would have more consistent victories than the current reliance on infestors or mutas.
Why? One small mistake, like getting caught not looking, when relying on Infestors or Mutas can usually end the game right there.
Here's the gist, and I invite anyone to post replays:
1. Spanishiwa type start - early map control is not your objective.
2. Spread creep aggressively; use crawlers to support your creep expansions and control the wide spaces you want to engage in
3. Upgrade and build ling/bling/hydra; continue to expand behind your contain.
4. Evolve into whatever the appropriate counter; use Nydus to block / take out their attempts at expanding.
Ling/bling/hydra/spine is economical on larvae and resources, and keeps you better prepared for timing pushes than more gas intensive builds would. By having spines out in a containing manner, instead of solely a defensive one, you are forcing the Terran to go air or slow their push as they use tanks to clear the way. Hydra's are pretty good againast air =p.
In the case that they try to seige you on the ground, the Zerg's objective is to force the Terran to push out into the open as they strategically retreat. Terran leapfrogs forwards, Zerg leapfrogs backwards with the ability to spring forward when they advance too far -- otherwise known as the "rope a dope".
The similar speed that hydras and banelings move at make them much easier to control than having to juggle the variances that come with mutas, lings, and speed roaches.
On Creep/Off creep:
- Baneling 3.25 (3.8) / 2.5 (2.9531)
- Hydra 3.375 / 2.25
- Zergling 3.83903 (6.10883) / 2.9531 (4.6991)
Zerglings are the flanking units. The banelings and Hydras will obliterate what comes their way but will most likely result in some sort of army trade. Now you should be free to reestablish your spine position with spare drones and literally mass whatever unit you want fully upgraded to keep them in their hole.
Well that's my theory anyway. I'll see how it goes, today.
Well one thing is for sure, Xel'Naga Caverns is not the map to try this on. I found Hydras to be ridiculously ineffective when trying to get my 3rd up. Also, once Terran has a saturated 2nd base,if they stick to bio you NEED infestors to stay off your heels. Hydras can't keep up with the sheer number of units that can be pumped out, and Marauders actually become more effective believe it or not. They soak up the Hydra DPS while marines come into range to pop hydras.
If Queens only lost energy based on the amount healed, this combo might actually work...c'mon Blizz.
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i have been tooling around a little bit with hydra drops in ZvT. it can be good because hydras are good for raping mineral lines but your drops can be sniped very easily by rines
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I was a Terran that switched to Zerg for season two on the ladder, and the one thing that I remember the most is that as a Terran I used to get so happy when I saw a Zerg going Hydras because I knew my three tanks would kill about twenty of them in about two rounds of shots, its how I got my meat grinder achievement.
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Here is what they should do, they should replace roaches with sc1 hydras, make them typeless 80 health 5 damage +5 armored 1 supply 4 range, with a range and speed upgrade. Then buff roaches make them 3 supply and give them a micro ability or something.
Mod Edit: Here is what you should do, you should replace your posts with something constructive.
User was temp banned from Strategy Forum for this post.
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They have their place, like against Mass Air and maybe BioMarauder and ThorMech but other than that I don´t think they have a place here. They are still good units and you can use them but its not really optimal IMO.
Mass Air (apart from that this strategy is retarted): so he either has Mass BCs or Mass Cloak Banshee vs ground.
cloak based: vikings snipe your overseer from 9range while your hydras chill on 6, cloaked banshees clean up...
BC based: BCs in bigger numbers rape hydralisks, costwise, supplywise
BioMarauder: Marauders are only a reaction to roaches or ultras, but hey, if you somehow where unable to beat him with zerglings early and refuse to take the free win with mutalisks, I guess Hydralisks are your 3rd choice to still be fine.
ThorMech: Thors are OK vs hydras, any other mech unit rapes it. I think even pure Thor beats hydralisks cost/supply wise, yet I would have to test it.
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hydras are good units but not on their own. yes hydras will lose to any other unit, but in a mix they are helpful. ling roach hydra is good, hydras and broodlords is good. any attack is slightly better with hydras mixed in and with units to tank for them. surrounding/hitting from 2 or more angles with X unit + hydra is deadly.
the only problem is damage upgrades dont sync up, but i dont see that as a big problem.
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At the moment Hydras just don't fit the ZvT matchup style. A max supply Terran army will rape any max supply army a Zerg can field. The point of the matchup from Zerg's perspective is not to reach max supply first and crush them in one big push, but rather to take a large economic lead, and use harass and map control (via speedlings and mutalisks) to keep Terran from being able to amass a 200/200 supply army. Hydras, apart from drops or nydus (which become increasingly less effective as the game goes on), fill neither of these roles. The only time you'd want to be taking a Terran army on head-on is after you've already picked it apart with mutalisks, and are using cost effective, burst damage units such as banelings and speedlings. You want to kill everything in the shortest time possible to minimize tank damage.
Unfortunately, with the current meta-game, Hydra's just don't have any practical role to fill. Successful ZvT is a choke out, not a knock out.
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On June 23 2011 23:08 naggerNZ wrote:
At the moment Hydras just don't fit the ZvT matchup style. A max supply Terran army will rape any max supply army a Zerg can field. The point of the matchup from Zerg's perspective is not to reach max supply first and crush them in one big push, but rather to take a large economic lead, and use harass and map control (via speedlings and mutalisks) to keep Terran from being able to amass a 200/200 supply army. Hydras, apart from drops or nydus (which become increasingly less effective as the game goes on), fill neither of these roles. The only time you'd want to be taking a Terran army on head-on is after you've already picked it apart with mutalisks, and are using cost effective, burst damage units such as banelings and speedlings. You want to kill everything in the shortest time possible to minimize tank damage.
Unfortunately, with the current meta-game, Hydra's just don't have any practical role to fill. Successful ZvT is a choke out, not a knock out.
Broodlords, Infestors, Banelings, Corruptors are all on a level with terran units in terms of supplyefficiency.
So if you pick the right units f.e. Infestor/baneling vs Marine/Hellions, Broodlords vs Tanks/Thor, corruptor/infestor vs air units you are extremly fine with going 200 vs 200 (or even 220 vs 200 with overmaxtrick).
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On June 23 2011 12:13 GypsyBeast wrote:
i have been tooling around a little bit with hydra drops in ZvT. it can be good because hydras are good for raping mineral lines but your drops can be sniped very easily by rines
Hydralisks are so slow they cannot chase down workers. Their DPS is not as fast as banelings or zerglings, so can't even suprise them. Hydralisks are terrible for eco harass... you can drop twice as many banelings as hydras for the same price, and deal a ton more damage.
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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.
As far as I know, pure roach is the still the proper counter to toss gateway units. Use burrow/tunneling claws to go under force fields.
A hydralisks DPS/cost ratio is only about 20% higher than the roach early game and drops to about 5% higher than roach DPS/cost ratio once 3/3 upgrades kick in. On the other hand, roaches have 270% higher hp/cost ratio and a native armor point.
Also, hydralisks are super slow for a zerg unit which makes them poor harrassment units. The rest of your army ends up waiting for the hydralisks to catch up before engaging.
Basically, hydralisks should only be on your mind if you have COMPLETELY run out of other options.
In fact, hydralisks are so bad, I believe standard PvZ right now includes getting an early stargate to force hydralisks and potentially stop a third zerg base.
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hydras best use IMO against T is the following
ONLY get 5 hydras. ONLY keep them on creep. i guess that means you could only use them for defense but whatever. maybe it could be lategame defense when most of the map is creeped up
the idea here is you let your hydras deal their insane DPS and you protect them and make sure they dont die
you cant deny that cost-for-cost, and food-for-food, 5 hydras deal very high amounts of DPS. pretty much as much as 3 charged voidrays, but it doesnt need to be charged they are charged instantly
is that high dps worth the apm-micro investment of actually micro'ing your 5 hydras to keep them in the back and alive?? thats another question. and this use is only applicable late game where you can afford to spend 500/250 on 5 hydras to output some insane extra DPS for your army
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Hydras vs T are too fragile to produce any good results.
I vote that roach speed is left behind, metabolic boost is shot up to 150/150 and it affects all zerg ground.
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On June 24 2011 15:23 UberOverlord wrote:Show nested quote +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.
As far as I know, pure roach is the still the proper counter to toss gateway units. Use burrow/tunneling claws to go under force fields. A hydralisks DPS/cost ratio is only about 20% higher than the roach early game and drops to about 5% higher than roach DPS/cost ratio once 3/3 upgrades kick in. On the other hand, roaches have 270% higher hp/cost ratio and a native armor point. Also, hydralisks are super slow for a zerg unit which makes them poor harrassment units. The rest of your army ends up waiting for the hydralisks to catch up before engaging. Basically, hydralisks should only be on your mind if you have COMPLETELY run out of other options. In fact, hydralisks are so bad, I believe standard PvZ right now includes getting an early stargate to force hydralisks and potentially stop a third zerg base.
This is incorrect. While mass roaches can hold some gateway pushes, hydras are more or less essential if you're faced with massive 6+ gate/immo timings. There have been countless examples at recent tourneys (DreamHack, Columbus, etc). Hydras eat gateways compositions and open up strong pre-colossi timings (see many of Ret's games for baller examples).
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A thought: Could you use Hydras in a Hydra/Ling/Baneling opener with an analogy to Muta/Ling/Baneling?
Hydras 4 shot SCVs, 5 shot MULES, and cost less gas than Mutalisks.
A two pronged 5 Hydra drop could hit MUCH faster (It's only 3 seconds difference for Spire/Muta as opposed to Ventral Sacs, but the decreased gas cost must be taken into account.) than Mutas for mineral harass on a 2 basing Terran, and can be continued the entire game, while the lower gas investment (10xHydra + Drops + Speed + Den = 900, whereas 10xMuta + Spire = 1200) means you have an easier time transitioning to Roach/Infestor or a safer time following up with Mutaling into BL once you've secured that economic advantage.
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On June 24 2011 16:45 Syphon8 wrote:
A thought: Could you use Hydras in a Hydra/Ling/Baneling opener with an analogy to Muta/Ling/Baneling?
Hydras 4 shot SCVs, 5 shot MULES, and cost less gas than Mutalisks.
A two pronged 5 Hydra drop could hit MUCH faster (It's only 3 seconds difference for Spire/Muta as opposed to Ventral Sacs, but the decreased gas cost must be taken into account.) than Mutas for mineral harass on a 2 basing Terran, and can be continued the entire game, while the lower gas investment (10xHydra + Drops + Speed + Den = 900, whereas 10xMuta + Spire = 1200) means you have an easier time transitioning to Roach/Infestor or a safer time following up with Mutaling into BL once you've secured that economic advantage.
Mutas have other advantages like cleaning up the remains of a push of tanks and medivacs, stopping and chasing down drops, map control, forcing terran to stim and waste medivac energy easily picking off addons and other stuff im probably forgetting to mention.
I don't really see any reason to go hydra drops over muta since the hydras will be pretty useless aside from harassing mineral lines
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On June 24 2011 16:37 IPA wrote:
This is incorrect. While mass roaches can hold some gateway pushes, hydras are more or less essential if you're faced with massive 6+ gate/immo timings. There have been countless examples at recent tourneys (DreamHack, Columbus, etc). Hydras eat gateways compositions and open up strong pre-colossi timings (see many of Ret's games for baller examples).
For one thing, gate/immo timings are rare and only come when a protoss spots pure roach compositions. I was also talking about gateway pushes, not gateway + robo pushes. Also MC v Idra MLG, there was a blink stalker+imm timing push and Idra chose to use pure roach and infestors, no hydras. If it's not too much trouble, please link me to some of Ret's games where he got hydras against pure gateway compositions, I've looked through several and he seems to favor mutalisks.
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hydra are only good if they went banshee.. I can't think what they can be cost effective other than that.
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Sen uses hydras in his ZvT at times, go look some replays up.
If u manage to lower his siege tank count significantly, try experimenting with hydra switches.
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On June 24 2011 16:05 rancidmeat wrote:
Hydras vs T are too fragile to produce any good results.
It takes 3 shots from a tank to kill a roach it also takes 3 tank shots to kill a hyrda. Ive had nothing but excellent results using roach hydra with baneling drops vs terran. The only time I dont like that unit comp is when terran is going pure bio.
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On June 24 2011 15:20 Xapti wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 12:13 GypsyBeast wrote:
i have been tooling around a little bit with hydra drops in ZvT. it can be good because hydras are good for raping mineral lines but your drops can be sniped very easily by rines Hydralisks are so slow they cannot chase down workers. Their DPS is not as fast as banelings or zerglings, so can't even suprise them. Hydralisks are terrible for eco harass... you can drop twice as many banelings as hydras for the same price, and deal a ton more damage.
Hydras are better at econ harass in certain instances because of their range. Lalush showed this in a recent game on Xel Naga caverns, where 1 hydra on the cliff above the sunken 3rd base got about 12 worker kills. Hydras are better at sniping workers protected by Planetary fortresses as well, because they can hold position out of range of the PF, yet still snipe the workers and the refineries. Roaches can do the same, but they kill workers far slower, and must get closer.
Hydras also excel when used as part of a nydus worm harassment attack due to the fact that 1 hydra unloads as fast as 1 zergling/ 1 roach, yet the hydra has more DPS. Once unloaded due to their range Hydra can snipe buildings that are just out of tank/bunker/PF range more effectively than roach/zergling. For these same reasons hydra are good in overlord drop harass.
Consider this.. You are playing on Tal Darim altar, and the terran has a remote base protected by turrets and a planetary fortress. That's a pretty strong defense against muta/ling/bane, but dropping (or nydusing) just 4 hydra can shut the whole base without incurring any losses.
Another use for Hydra in ZvT would be unburrowing to intercept drops. Six +2 Hydra can take out a medivac in two volleys. Two volleys takes 1.66 game seconds. A medivac can only move range 4.15 in 1.66 game seconds. Unburrowing takes 1 - 1.5 seconds (variable) for a hydra. What this means is it is impossible for a medivac to escape if the hydras unburrow immediately underneath it, even if there is a cliff nearby (medivac can't get out of range before 2 volleys occur).
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I am a user of Speedling/Roach/Infestor in ZvT. So actually i am thinking about bringing a handful of hydras into my mix for defensive purposes against medivac drops. I think that's the only good situation for Hydras in ZvT
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On June 24 2011 18:27 UberOverlord wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2011 16:37 IPA wrote:
This is incorrect. While mass roaches can hold some gateway pushes, hydras are more or less essential if you're faced with massive 6+ gate/immo timings. There have been countless examples at recent tourneys (DreamHack, Columbus, etc). Hydras eat gateways compositions and open up strong pre-colossi timings (see many of Ret's games for baller examples). For one thing, gate/immo timings are rare and only come when a protoss spots pure roach compositions. I was also talking about gateway pushes, not gateway + robo pushes. Also MC v Idra MLG, there was a blink stalker+imm timing push and Idra chose to use pure roach and infestors, no hydras. If it's not too much trouble, please link me to some of Ret's games where he got hydras against pure gateway compositions, I've looked through several and he seems to favor mutalisks.
Ret v Tyler @ MLG
Moon v MC game 1 @ MLG
Others I am forgetting..
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On June 23 2011 12:13 GypsyBeast wrote:
i have been tooling around a little bit with hydra drops in ZvT. it can be good because hydras are good for raping mineral lines but your drops can be sniped very easily by rines
Again, it comes down to that fact that there's always a better alternative for Hydras. Baneling drops are betterbecause banelings are more readily available, the drop is way cheaper, has the potential to do far more damage, and gives your opponent less time to react.
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On June 24 2011 16:45 Syphon8 wrote:
A thought: Could you use Hydras in a Hydra/Ling/Baneling opener with an analogy to Muta/Ling/Baneling?
Hydras 4 shot SCVs, 5 shot MULES, and cost less gas than Mutalisks.
A two pronged 5 Hydra drop could hit MUCH faster (It's only 3 seconds difference for Spire/Muta as opposed to Ventral Sacs, but the decreased gas cost must be taken into account.) than Mutas for mineral harass on a 2 basing Terran, and can be continued the entire game, while the lower gas investment (10xHydra + Drops + Speed + Den = 900, whereas 10xMuta + Spire = 1200) means you have an easier time transitioning to Roach/Infestor or a safer time following up with Mutaling into BL once you've secured that economic advantage.
No, hold on. A hydralisk drop is suicidal - or rather, if you want your hydras to be able to escape you need to invest in nydus tech.
Also, starting numbers are smaller - we're talking about 5 mutalisks to one-shot workers and marines (and 4 hydras for the same result, which also fits better inside of a single overlord).
So... 5 mutas + spire=700 gas, 4 hydras + den + drop tech + nydus tech + 1 worm = 900 gas, of which 100 are spent after the drop has started. The hydra version seems slightly slower, though you have the option of reinforcing with other units if you catch him out of his base (zerglings, queens, you name it). It seems easier to stop, though, as overlords are significantly slower than mutas. Might be worth a try, though. Anybody up to experiment it and then post some replays?
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Just include SMALL amounts of hydras in ANY zerg army. Hydras are no longer a backbone, they're a support unit in sc2.
If you want to go ling/bane/muta, awesome-- if you throw in 5-7 hydras in that mix your dps increases dramatically, and the hydras will most likely survive the encounter.
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On June 25 2011 07:28 .Mthex- wrote:
Just include SMALL amounts of hydras in ANY zerg army. Hydras are no longer a backbone, they're a support unit in sc2.
If you want to go ling/bane/muta, awesome-- if you throw in 5-7 hydras in that mix your dps increases dramatically, and the hydras will most likely survive the encounter.
I couldn't agree more, except mass hydra can have a decent timing pre-collosi in ZvP. I feel that hydras should be a late game unit in ZvT, mixed in only as a support unit, for the boost in dps. For example, 4-5 hydras are always useful extra dps in a 200 food army, and even in a mass roach composition, having some hydras fill the last bit of supply rather than 4-5 more roaches is useful. Yes, hydras melt to mech, but with their range and dps, and with sufficient numbers of tanking units in front, they can be useful. In the interim, unless your army is positioned away from you base and you want your hydras to be with them, they can also be nice mineral line baby sitters for any drop harrass, and I think they are also a viable drop harrass unit to use offensively as well. One poster in a previous comment argues that banes are better drop harrass, and yes bling drops are nice against min lines, albeit faster than hydras if scvs are clumped well, but unfortunately they do their damage and poof, they're dead. Hydras however, force a reponse from the terran, either via base-trade or making him send units back to end their drop harrass terror, rather than just absorbing bling damage and licking wounds afterwards. Perhaps a combo of bling and hydra (obviously with multiple olords) can be useful for not only scv harrass, but taking down structures afterwards.
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Hydras do amazing well against a 1 Base Thor build simply because they're DPS machines and the Thors overkill them so much, but how often do we see 1 Base Thor in ZvT? Other than that I cannot think of a single use for them. Any composition with Tanks or Blue Flame Hellions completely shuts them down, and they're no where near cost efficient against MMM.
I understand that in SC2 they're meant to be more of a supporting unit, but in ZvT they're not even that.
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EPT
