So... I have to credit Gretorp with giving me the inspiration with a mention in NASL a few weeks ago.
I am by no means the authority on this build, nor do I execute it well... but at the top of Master League, it seems to be scary effective. So I figured I'd share it here.
I personally like to do a 10 scout, this is by no means required for this build, scout when you want, but it's really helpful to be able to determine exactly what build Terran is going for.
I only continue down this path if I see Terran going for a gasless expand, which I typically determine around 15 supply with my natural hatchery and spawning pool building already.
-18 2 queens -27 ovie -28 2 queens -36 OV -44 OV -44 4 gasses and a roach warren, keep replenishing drones in between -@100 gas, Lair -52 2 evo chambers -Throw down a hatchery at your 3rd if its safe or at your natural if its not, don't worry, it will come in handy either way -Start massing OVs -Start +1 range and +1 carapace when the evos finish, and begin roach production. -Make your Hydra Den @ Lair pop, prioritize this over Roach Speed as you're not really leaving creep at this time anyway -@Hydra Den pop, research Hydra range and make as many hydras as your gas permits (8-12) -From here, you are making about 99% roaches, only making more Hydras when you feel you can get away with it. -Take your 3rd and saturate minerals only when you're feeling safe. Think like ZvP.
By far, the strangest part of the whole build is including Hydralisks in the ZvT MU. But as Gretorp put during his NASL cast, Hydralisks actually do REALLY good damage to Terran units, the biggest problem is that Siege Tanks kill them before they can really do any of that damage.
So... People are going mass bio these days with minimal or no siege tanks... Hydras are... viable then? ... Actually, they kick the shit out of everything T has as long as they're not getting targeted.
The biggest idea to keep in your head every time you engage the Terran army is to remember that there should be a wall of Roaches between your Hydras and the Terrans that want to shoot them.
You do not necessarily need to have all your Roaches in the immediate area, if you do, that's great, but you need to have SOME Roaches there to absorb shots while your Hydras do all the damage.
Along with this massive production power thanks to your 3 base + macro hatch, you also have 2 evo upgrades chugging along, and when you're feeling frisky, take that gas at your 3rd and research overlord drops/speed to give yourself access to Terran's main. The important thing is to continually trade army with the Terran (especially aim for siege tanks if he's making them) and deny him his 3rd.
These things utterly destroy your hydras and roaches with impunity. 13 range, massive splash on all your units that REALLY REALLY like clumping up, 13 range, the ability to abuse terrain like nobody's business, did I mention the range?
The problem with Siege Tanks is that they work exactly the same way your Hydras do. They sit in the back of the Terran army raining death down upon you and there's really nothing you can do about it without cutting through the wall of marines first. If Terran has more than 2-4 siege tanks in good position, that area has become a no hydra zone. Never ever attack into an area covered by multiple siege tanks unless you've already won the game.
My creep spread is not particularly tight, and Hydras are very dependent on creep for all of their mobility. Not keeping up on your creep spread severely inhibits your ability to move your Hydras around and considering Hydralisks are the sexiest part of your army, that's a bad thing. You don't want to be inhibiting your ability to move your sexy. If you're ever not having enough creep spread, don't hesitate to make an extra queen or two, throw it in with your army, and push that creep forward.
Drops should not be a particularly hard issue to deal with, but they can sometimes get you.
One of the major beauties of using large amounts of Roaches is the fact that they 3 shot marines. Meaning that leaving 4-5 Roaches at an expansion to defend against drops can usually kill the marines as they come out of the medivac, before it has a chance to heal them. Medivacs can't really heal marines through focused roach damage anyway. They die too fast.
This whole strategy is about being in Terrans face before he gets those large numbers of siege tanks and burning medivac energy so fast, their army doesn't ever have time to recover. If you're not attacking Terran by the 12 minute mark, you're doing it wrong.
So this build relies almost entirely on your opponent not scouting you and going heavier into tanks when he sees your army? The only reason terrans go heavy bio now is because they see ling/infestor.
i still feel leaving 4-5 roaches at my expansions and bases is a bit to much supply to give away. if you have lets say 4bases you need anywere from 32-40 supply of roaches to defend it.
How will you get to tanks that are positioned on highgrounds when you attack? Think of Antiga, Cloud Kingdom for example.. also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
I have done a very similar build to this. I think it's not bad, but you really have to trade a lot. And it's not just siege tanks that break your back (Marines and marauders are both very costefficient against hydras and roaches, so you can't fight on even terms with Terran), it's simply abusing the fact, that Terrans don't scout and then attack into this build, while they simply should turtle against it.
Hydralisks actually do REALLY good damage to Terran units
I never liked Hydras that much, because if you just put it down on numbers, they have a similar strength of 2 Marines, but don't have the Stimpacks and cost 50 Gas more AND their strength scale less with upgrades.
People are going mass bio these days with minimal or no siege tanks...Hydras are... viable then?
Why should Roach/Hydra win against Terran-Bio, when Roaches are not that good against Bio and Hydraliks cost too much for their strength? :D I want to be enlightend on this one ...
Hydralisks actually do REALLY good damage to Terran units
I never liked Hydras that much, because if you just put it down on numbers, they have a similar strength of 2 Marines, but don't have the Stimpacks and cost 50 Gas more AND their strength scale less with upgrades.
Don't forget they have more HP and are smaller (more dps in balls, faster formation), they are able to kite properly(no turn animation, shorter shoot animation), they are faster through stim (which adds to kiting) and they synergize better with other Terran units (due to more units being same range, same speed)
People are going mass bio these days with minimal or no siege tanks...Hydras are... viable then?
Why should Roach/Hydra win against Terran-Bio, when Roaches are not that good against Bio and Hydraliks cost too much for their strength? :D I want to be enlightend on this one ...
because roaches are OK in the lownumbers, against marinebased bio and for as long as you have enough of a roach wall to protect your hydras, the hydras add a bit to this. Then add on top of that, that you have a little bit of mobility advantage over unstimmed bio (roaches, creep), so you can create positional advantages --> you can fight bio up to the the midnumbers. It's just that upgrades scale better for Terran, stim and shield add quite a bit to their efficiency, and if T just turtles up more bio, he will wipe the floor with roach/hydra. It comes down to fighting it, for as long as the numbers aren't too big and it comes down to being able to clean up medivacs.
as a lowbie player hydras have won me the game more times than i can count, maybe as a pro you have the macro/micro to just take them out and negate the power they bring to the table but in low leagues the dps is just brilliant. You have to be agressive however is what i find in my league as they are so slow you have to make a timing attack when their range and carapace are 3/4 done then they arive at base and cause considerable damage, if you get them behind roaches, its a great offesive push. all this can be done off 2 base as well!
also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
Actually with the sick creep spread we see nowadays because of mass queens, it's not that bad, and this comp wrecks bio as I discovered some days ago :'( Then the guy transitionned into infestor ultras, but I played super bad and he shouldnt ever had come to this point.
Hydras addition to your army mid game seems and interesting idea to me, as the hydra den builds super fast and you can kill all the medivacs with them, while investing less gas than for mutas.. It maybe could be used as a defensive army until you get to hive? I'm not sure if it's better than infestors, but I noticed that the mass medivac style negates fungals quite a bit, and maybe hydras would be better in this case..
also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
Actually with the sick creep spread we see nowadays because of mass queens, it's not that bad
What? You have creep at the Terran's door, so that when you lose a fight your hydras can retreat from stimmed marines? Because that's the problem, you're trying to use hydras to batter down terran's front early on (quoting the guide: "If you're not attacking Terran by the 12 minute mark, you're doing it wrong."), where you will not have creep. Just as in ZvP, when you attack with hydras, you risk losing your expensive little glass cannons should the battle go wrong, because no matter your creep spread, it will not be far enough to use to retreat your hydras. Unless it's entombed valley or something.
I feel like every zerg thinks they have a cute new approach to ZvT now, but it's always just them getting units when the Terran is trying to be super greedy, so it seems more effective than it actually is. Yes, the hydras do well when siege tanks are not out, but so does roach-bane, and roach bane ling, all-in or not, will eat them alive, while hydra roach will merely chew at them, in addition to being much more fragile an attack.
I think the key here is banelings. Mid-High master Terran here.
Whenever I do face against roach/hydra, I win. With whatever units I choose to put out, I pretty much win.
However, if there are just a few banelings mixed in with the zerg army, then suddenly the match becomes much harder as I have to split against the imba kamikaze balls of deaths, while roach/hydra pick apart my non-balled up army.
Sure banelings will eat into hydra numbers, but I feel the tactical advantage they provide of forcing the terran to split more than makes up for it.
On July 08 2012 18:02 DarKFoRcE wrote: How will you get to tanks that are positioned on highgrounds when you attack? Think of Antiga, Cloud Kingdom for example.. also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
Quite simply... you don't...
I have Antiga banned because it's probably the worst ladder map out there (no forced cross pos), but Cloud Kingdom isn't terrible considering my main goal is to deny the 3rd and keep trading armies.
Not attacking into well-positioned siege tanks is one of the most important things to avoid in the whole build.
Drops and good creep spread should give you enough mobility to attack elsewhere though.
Hydralisks actually do REALLY good damage to Terran units
I never liked Hydras that much, because if you just put it down on numbers, they have a similar strength of 2 Marines, but don't have the Stimpacks and cost 50 Gas more AND their strength scale less with upgrades.
People are going mass bio these days with minimal or no siege tanks...Hydras are... viable then?
Why should Roach/Hydra win against Terran-Bio, when Roaches are not that good against Bio and Hydraliks cost too much for their strength? :D I want to be enlightend on this one ...
As was mentioned before, Roaches actually do well vs bio in small numbers. As the numbers grow, they tend to start getting slaughtered due to their low DPS, low range, and low speed. Oddly enough, having the 6 range hydras behind them somehow makes all these little things into non-issues. They have the range and the DPS, so your roaches just turn into this big wall of HP.
also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
Actually with the sick creep spread we see nowadays because of mass queens, it's not that bad, and this comp wrecks bio as I discovered some days ago :'( Then the guy transitionned into infestor ultras, but I played super bad and he shouldnt ever had come to this point.
Hydras addition to your army mid game seems and interesting idea to me, as the hydra den builds super fast and you can kill all the medivacs with them, while investing less gas than for mutas.. It maybe could be used as a defensive army until you get to hive? I'm not sure if it's better than infestors, but I noticed that the mass medivac style negates fungals quite a bit, and maybe hydras would be better in this case..
I kinda sorta do this if the Terran doesn't leave me an opening.
After I get 2/2 for my Roach/Hydra, I get my 4th, +1 melee, and an infestation pit.
Start focusing on upgrades for your lings, get some ultras and banes, and eventually brood lords, and you can quite easily transition into a very standard late-game.
If the terran has a tank contain you could research burrow and burrow movement for roaches and then burrow close to them, unburrow and then bring in your hydras, I love this idea of roach hydra against Terran, hydras are so underused, same with burrowed roaches. Burrowed roaches win me 90% of my vTs when they go mech
On July 08 2012 17:39 Glurkenspurk wrote: So this build relies almost entirely on your opponent not scouting you and going heavier into tanks when he sees your army? The only reason terrans go heavy bio now is because they see ling/infestor.
Actually, how the Terran reacts doesn't really matter if you handle your early engagements well.
Once you get a lead in army size, you're trading roaches for his whole army. If he goes into siege tanks just enough to be useless, that's great. But if he sticks with pure MMM, that's great too. The worst case scenario is if he goes into mass siege tanks turtle mode. Then you have no offense, and he can secure his 3rd np, ruining the whole point of the build. That's when you take it to late game.
Roach hydra is a very strong army composition early on when terrens marine upgrades are low and there army isn't too large or contains to many siege tanks, If you opt for the roach hydra you can effectively prevent the terren from doing any sort of 2 base push and if they do happen to skip on tanks you can break into there base but its really not worth it attacking off creep better to just play defensive I would suggest getting more lings than roaches to go with the army comp allowing you to save gas to get infestors take a 4th and tech up.
You can attack into siege tank positions you need to just split the army up so roaches only get hit in small numbers, always bring an overseer as well as this allows you to snipe tanks that sit on the high ground
The army drastically drops in strength though once terren gets 2/2 and starts to include more medivacs. I would put the main purpose of building this type of army is to force the terren to stay in his base longer and have to get more tanks giving you more time to get to brood lords, you can also use the hydras to snipe medivacs and eventually drop that roach hydra ball into there main and its a really difficult army to clean up they have to send a lot of units to deal with it.
I like the idea of the build, but ultimately I just feel like utilizing Hydras in the unit comp makes things harder on the zerg than they need to be. So much consideration of where not to attack, where are the tanks, etc.
also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
Actually with the sick creep spread we see nowadays because of mass queens, it's not that bad, and this comp wrecks bio as I discovered some days ago :'( Then the guy transitionned into infestor ultras, but I played super bad and he shouldnt ever had come to this point.
Hydras addition to your army mid game seems and interesting idea to me, as the hydra den builds super fast and you can kill all the medivacs with them, while investing less gas than for mutas.. It maybe could be used as a defensive army until you get to hive? I'm not sure if it's better than infestors, but I noticed that the mass medivac style negates fungals quite a bit, and maybe hydras would be better in this case..
It doesn't wreck bio. It gets countered by it. However, it's really strong vs bio in small numbers relatively, but all Terran has to do is scout it and camp vs it to win.
I used to use Roach/Hydra exclusively on close positions ZvT back when they were still in the pool.
I watched the replays, and it seemed to work. but........... it still just doesnt seem like a good idea. If you lose that roach wall, and kinda need to retreat with the hydras, and thats not gonna happen with their speed and the fact that they are running from units with stim. If this style is scouted, your kinda screwed cause you cant do much if terran decides to sit back and get a 3rd/4th base going. Also if you accidently run into a seige line, it seems like it might be instant gg.
Roach hydra is a "stronger" composistion than ling heavy armies, however comes with less mobility and therefore makes mapcontrol and defending drops harder, which also makes mass expanding harder. Other problems with it is that it costs alot of gas to make hydras and roaches, which delays your hive tech alot, and terran can trade effeciently as soon as he has a big enough tank count. If the terran chooses to go pure bio against roach hydra he is just not reacting correctly at all. This playstyle does seem viable, but i think that it is underpowered as how the game is right now compared to standard ling infestor into fast hive. I hope things like the hydra speed buff in hots might change that up a bit and make this style more viable.
GM Zerg. I have done a lot of testing with Roach/Hydra vs Marine/Tank or Marine/Marauder/Medivac, and its true that Roach Hydra is not that bad in straight combat. But the big question that people have to ask before considering to use hydras in that matchup is what do hydras offer compared to either Muta/Ling/Bane or Infestor/Ling/Bane. Because if as a zerg you have 3 options, there's no reason to choose Roach/Hydra because its cool or whatever... The thing is Hydras don't offer anything unique in ZvT, that no other unit doesn't do better, cost for cost. Against Marine/Tank, either Muta tech or Infestor tech with Lings/Blings does equally well and it offers a much more natural transition to Hive, while its much faster, so it gives you tactical opportunities (Counter-Attacks, Defending Drops etc.etc.). The same goes for Marine/Marauder/Medivac. Against Banshees, yeah Hydras are good... But why make Hydras when you can go either Muta or Corrupter that are better vs that? (Or even Queens for defense.) Not to mention a lot of times vs Banshee you face Hellions as well. There are only 2 situations where i've figured Hydras are actually good in this matchup, but those are really really rare situations. The FIRST one is when ur getting all-ined from Terran who went Mech, with Mass Thors + a few hellions. In this situation actually Hydras pay for themselves, cause if you keep them behind you roaches they can deal sick damage to both thors and hellions, and also the problem vs these kind of pushes is that although your maxed on roaches ussualy, your army value is pretty low, so Hydras can make your 200/200 supply a lot stronger. The SECOND one is if you want to hit a timing with broodlords early on, (but only really really early on), so you can use them as a cheap support for broodlords vs vikings instead of infestors (which are a lot better however if you can afford them), and instead of queens in case your creep spread is not out on the map. So the Hydralisk doesn't offer anything unique in this matchup, that some other unit doesn't offer better cost for cost. As for the Build mentioned in the OP, this build is one of those builds that don't make any sense... For example it's mentioned in the "What can go wrong" - Being too passive... -.- That doesn't make any sense... Sometimes you can't choose to be aggressive or defensive. If the Terran is sitting behind Sieged Tanks, Bunkers, Marines and Turrets it's not an option to be aggressive before you reach Hive tech. You actually HAVE to sit back and be defensive. Ending my post i'd just like to say what's wrong with that unit, and why it's so bad in Wings of Liberty except ZvZ. The issues with this unit are: A) Extemely slow off-creep. The advantages of Zerg compared to the other races is the abilities to Retreat - Counter Attack - Reinforce. Hydralisks are not good in either of these. B) Really expensive for a glass cannon. I mean it costs 100/50, and it has 80 health... Zerglings cost 50 for 2 which is 70 Health in total. And it's not like it has better DPS per supply... C) Doesn't scale well. Generally speaking non-splash units don't scale well into the lategame, unless they're Air Siege Units like Broodlords/Carriers/Battlecruisers. D) The range upgrade is rediculously expensive. I just don't understand the cost... I mean it costs as much as Blink which is a Harrassive/Defensive/Aggressive upgrade, really versatile, while the +1 range makes hydralisks from bad to descent... Colossus High Tech +3 Upgrade - Thermal Lance costs 200/200. How does it make sense for +1 range to cost 150/150 for a unit that's not even supposed to stand alone and fight. E) Doesn't transition well into the late game. In other words the gas cost is too expensive for a unit that only has a role in the midgame, while it benefits from the range upgrade and not melee (which is more important for Hive Tech) and doens't unlock Hive tech like the Infestation Pit.
This seems like a good strategy in the midgame, as R/H beats most terran comps in mid-numbers, then falls off later. What would be your transition? Sounds like you'd be down on upgrades if you switch to melee/BL, or have at least wasted ranged ups. Or do you not intend to upgrade range?
Roach hydra works pretty well with fungals because of the hydra range etc.
The thing is... most players will go for siege tanks in response to this especially if it's more common and terran thinks "Oh, he's going roach hydra"
If bio really doesn't work against it, then they are dumb for thinking they have the power to stop it with pure bio, and any good terran will have learned this from a single loss to the strategy and be ready the next time.
I don't see this being viable or much of a guide at all. It's an old concept. And in fact, its not always true that hydra roach can win. I saw a game at MLG of DongRaeGue vs MMA or MVP (i forget which one) where he tried roach hydra and got raped by bio midgame.
Going to hive tech afterwards will be possible, but without maxing out on roach hydra (which is very gas intensive) or making infestors, you will probably end up dying trying to get the hive tech by a slow or aggressive terran push. Therefore, the hive tech will be much weaker and more delayed and since you spent so much gas on the units in midgame. Since time is always against you, it could end up meaning terran gets too big before you get enough hive tech units out to control the map and secure your outer expansions.
On July 09 2012 04:24 FabledIntegral wrote: To be fair, the only nice thing I've noticed in Roach/Hydra is that you can snipe down medivacs faster.
^ this
- In light of everything else... Hydralisks can be used against battlecruisers and banshee/air play if terran does something funky like that.. which probably wont happen in a serious match unless someone is a new boxer and totally redefines the matchup
I have a couple of comments after watching your games-
1) terran generally went for a fast 3 bases, and you made units for a midgame push. You punished T for being greedy, which is what Ts tend to do now. I also see hellions at the start, which you deal with with roaches, and which do not help T out if you don't go lings: you attack, he goes 'oh'. It's a good sort of 'metagame' response as you point out, but there's no general build here, just a blind counter to greedy T. That's bad if you're expecting to 'blind counter'. As others mentioned, if T just turtled and tanked up for his 3rd base you would likely have big problems.
2) The game where the T goes on 2 bases he almost kills you with his 12 minute push, which had no upgrades, while you were at 1/1. That's not a good example game as he should have crushed you, but he was just bad.
3) Typically Ts might go for a 0930 to 10 min push with like mass marine or marine tank, I didn't see this in your games so I suspect it could cause big problems as you don't have access to hydra yet (am I wrong?)
4) You have no lategame in any game here, in which your army will not fare well, esp. marine tank medivac standard play but also with mass bio plus medivacs. In order to keep your army effective you need infestors against medivacs, and some sort of transition play with drops or nydus, but if you're constantly trading (as you say), then you just can't do all that
5) Ultimately I feel that T getting marine tank medivac and playing turtley-normal is going to ruin your midgame plans.
As a platinum Zerg, I don't apologise for thinking I can criticise you, as I think each of my points sticks. I love love love hydras and want them to work zvt, which is why I read your post, but I feel you have the wrong end of the stick with them, just as people did in beta (which I did not play) and the first few months after release (which I did play).
I have developed my own way of using hydras zvt, which is in fact more extreme than your solution and also more effective. I hope to post it down soon, for the good of the swarm.
How about focusing on drops with this build? cause until you have creep close to his base you can't retreat, and also drops negate turtling a bit since you might have the option to snipe tanks here and there
I've actually faced this style on Antiga shipyard and have got crushed, he simply doom dropped in my main and killed me while i counter attacked. The problem with hydras is that they are so slow they can't respond to drops nicely. They take too long to get there. Also I don't know in what league people don't use Siege tanks in but i think all Terrans want to go tanks and eventually go to tanks. Lastly wouldn't mass mass 3/3 marines defeat this style more cost effectively?
It's a style that can be strong in low leagues as it is easier to spend your money on roaches/hydras than to do ling heavy strategies, as it is less larva intensive so you don't need to be as good at injecting. The style has trouble with drops whenever you move out as well as standard 2/2 marine/tank timings with ~10 tanks. Roach/Infestor is stronger and will get you to hive faster as well as defend drops better, but it too is weak to a mid game timing before hive, while ling/bling infestor is better against that.
for all the zergs badmouthing hydras i want to say they do have a strength believe it or not
imagine the perfect 200food zerg army, broodlords ultras infestors all that jazz
think of hydralisks as nothing more than the golden cherry topping off the diamond sprinkled cupcake
4 hydralisks (8food) sprinkled into your lategame army will deal tons of damage. they have 6range and while ultras/broodlings are tanking everything those 4 hydras will be dealing tons of damage for 8food
think about it you got 20 infestors throwing out fungal growths dealing huge damage. imagine the hydras as just another source of fungal growth, but it requires no micro and you only get 8food of them
hydra dps is very high and doesnt require you to keep pressing stim and they got 1 more range than marines. in comparison 4stalkers will be dealing pitiful dps compared to 4hydras in a 200food army.
the problem with hydralisks is they suck horribly as a unit. they are horrible weak in every category, their ONLY strength is "damage per food" and THATS IT. if you get hydras as a combat unit, say 30 of them, they all clump up and their damage is wasted as none of them are firing and collossi or tanks vaporize them all. Also if you get hydras midgame you probably are spending money very stupidly.
hydras imo only have 1 use but if you take advantage of that use, it basically makes your endgame army unbeatable with insane DPS of everything (fungals, broodlords, corrupters, queens, some hydras, everything). Adding a couple hydras to your army when your ALREADY at 200food can be compared to adding a couple voidrays to a protoss army when hes ALREADY at 200food. just a couple hydras and they will deal respectable damage. but you need upgrades (which hopefully you shoulda had if you were goin for some roaches) so this scenario is more likely to exist in PvZ because you get roaches in PvZ, most zergs only get 3-3 melee and ling/ultra/infestor/broodlord/corrupter/queen in ZvT
Seen this style done by DRG last year at MLG(Not sure which) against MMA. First time i saw a top Korean pro did this.
Got utterly crushed by Marine/Medivac/Tank push. Roaches and hydras straight up lose to stimmed marine with medivacs and a couple of tanks. You can't do flanking as easily as ling/banes(more mobility).Hydras also melt really fast to tanks. Maybe if you implement drop tech and drop roaches/hydra over their army??? But then marines can just gunned down the OLs.
You always need BANESSSSSSSSSSS to deal with marines/medivac.Period.
Hydras are terrible against banshees, to all the people saying they are somehow good against them. Banshees just do so much damage, that hydras are pretty bad against them. Queens have way more health, cost no gas, have the same range (that is, after the range upgrade too), transfuse. Their might be a small, small argument for hydra vs banshee because hydras have a little more dps against air, but this is sooo negated by the fact it's dps/cost is way lower than queens, and the stage of the game when you fight banshees. Try going hydras vs double starport banshee all-in, you'll get owned. Queens are just better against them, and we see there is definitely no problem securing a third vs expand-banshee play with just queens and spores.
And infestors are much better than hydras in ZvT. The only merit of hydras over infestors, in any match-up, is their timing (like in zvz, if you go infestors before hydras against someone going roach/hydra, you just straight up die at higher levels), but you don't need hydras (or infestors) at any particular timing, you are just getting infestors for the lategame for your bl or ultra army. They might have some merit if you needed hydras to survive some sort of all-in or timing, but there's no such timing in TvZ, and by the time you would need infestors or hydras, it's lategame, and you are more concerned about that 200/200 supply cap, than by cost. And while hydras are better than infestors in terms of cost efficiency, they aren't once the infestors pool energy, and they are not nearly as supply efficient. It would make no sense to add hydras to a lategame army when you can instead add queens, which have the same range and precious transfuse and aggressive creep spread for mass spine/spore complement, and infestors, which have aoe and scale much better lategame.
On July 09 2012 11:06 ajkayken wrote: for all the zergs badmouthing hydras i want to say they do have a strength believe it or not
imagine the perfect 200food zerg army, broodlords ultras infestors all that jazz
think of hydralisks as nothing more than the golden cherry topping off the diamond sprinkled cupcake
4 hydralisks (8food) sprinkled into your lategame army will deal tons of damage. they have 6range and while ultras/broodlings are tanking everything those 4 hydras will be dealing tons of damage for 8food
think about it you got 20 infestors throwing out fungal growths dealing huge damage. imagine the hydras as just another source of fungal growth, but it requires no micro and you only get 8food of them
hydra dps is very high and doesnt require you to keep pressing stim and they got 1 more range than marines. in comparison 4stalkers will be dealing pitiful dps compared to 4hydras in a 200food army.
the problem with hydralisks is they suck horribly as a unit. they are horrible weak in every category, their ONLY strength is "damage per food" and THATS IT. if you get hydras as a combat unit, say 30 of them, they all clump up and their damage is wasted as none of them are firing and collossi or tanks vaporize them all. Also if you get hydras midgame you probably are spending money very stupidly.
hydras imo only have 1 use but if you take advantage of that use, it basically makes your endgame army unbeatable with insane DPS of everything (fungals, broodlords, corrupters, queens, some hydras, everything). Adding a couple hydras to your army when your ALREADY at 200food can be compared to adding a couple voidrays to a protoss army when hes ALREADY at 200food. just a couple hydras and they will deal respectable damage. but you need upgrades (which hopefully you shoulda had if you were goin for some roaches) so this scenario is more likely to exist in PvZ because you get roaches in PvZ, most zergs only get 3-3 melee and ling/ultra/infestor/broodlord/corrupter/queen in ZvT
it's not about badmouthing hydras, it's about them simply not working like you try to make one believe. They are less costefficient than roaches and zerglings early, and less dps/versatility/supplyefficiency than infestors (or if you want them for AA, corruptors).
They don't have a place in "the perfect" Zerg composition. Only the most supplyefficient units get there: BL/Cor/Inf/baneling and to a certain extend Ultralisks. It is really as easy as this. Hydralisks are useful when you have enough of stuff in the front to tank, but you are too limited by money to go for Infestors. (or you have enough infestors to chainfungal everything already - the reason why we see hydras often in ZvZ) - but that's basically all midgame stuff.
So no, you are really wrong here: Hydralisks suck in "damage per food" compared to the other options zerg has. If you want an army that has a lot of damage per food, try BL/Inf/Cor, or Ultra/Bling/infestor.
So when are you getting the Nydus Networks to move your Hydras across the map in an instant, effectively removing one of their biggest weaknesses?
Guys, build Nydus Worms with your Hydra compostions. They cost so much less gas to build than either Mutalisks or Infestors, so use that excess to increase your mobility by absurd amounts.
I'm bringing this thread back from the depths to share my opinion on Hydras and why I can make them work in the current metagame.
http://drop.sc/242068 - I'm currently a 1300+ masters Zerg on NA (so if it works that high up, I still think we can make it work if we pushed it) and one day I decided "I'm going to make Hydralisks in ZvT."
I've posted this replay in a smaller forum community of mine and discussed it with some peeps, since I'm too lazy to type out an entire new essay about why I think Hydralisks should work in the current metagame, I'll just copy/pasta what I posted there into this post (Keep in mind, I was also arguing with some EU elitist, so if there's any unchecked anger/bashing in the paste, sorry):
-Initial thoughts
"What I'm trying to do is emulate the same kind of playstyle that they used in the HotS battle report. I haven't watched it in a while so I can't confirm, but I remember them having quite the number of tanks and hydralisks still worked (though I don't have abduct to my disposal). When playing against Terrans who can't contain creep spread at all, I feel this would work wonders so long as you don't get your third base denied. You can delay infestor tech and possibly even close out the game before hand if you can manage to kill his entire army with hydra/ling/bane because hydras will DPS down medivacs in an instant after the fight is over and with added reinforcement you can push out to his base immediately and just close out the match."
- In response to counters
"But marine+medivac only? Are you forgetting the banelings? If you try to go mass marine you're going to get swarmed by banelings and medivacs get shut down by hydras so it's hard to tech into seige tanks while also trying to maintain a medivac count + more infantry. His biggest mistake was not denying the third early enough. This build works in no way at all without a third because of how gas intensive it is. Players who turtle mass seige tank (and get scouted turtling) will just have the entire map overwhelmed by Zerg. He was right to go marauders because they can tank baneling hits but he had nothing to remove the banelings out of play except for hellions but they didn't have blue flame. Hydralisks deny drops like CRAZY. So dropping isn't that strong of an idea unless you can REALLY catch the Zerg off guard."
Thanks to the current metagame of scared Terrans being scared and Zergs pushing out their creep to infinity and beyond, the speed of the Hydralisk isn't really that hindered assuming a Zerg's creep spread is good. I've yet to play enough games on this build just yet (standard ZvT opening 6 queen and just going double ups) but I feel that it can be made possible.
Its also very difficult to transition out of this. I'd like to have an army that benefited from the upgrades earlier. Mobility is also a problem. I don't want to go back and forth from my base to defend drops. I think Quad Queen is sufficient enough to fulfill the hydralisk role and I'd still want to go mass lings.
Maybe this would work against a mech/banshee build, a perfect transition from pure roach/infestor.
On August 06 2012 13:33 Tiirin wrote: So when are you getting the Nydus Networks to move your Hydras across the map in an instant, effectively removing one of their biggest weaknesses?
Guys, build Nydus Worms with your Hydra compostions. They cost so much less gas to build than either Mutalisks or Infestors, so use that excess to increase your mobility by absurd amounts.
More gas efficient than mutas, yes..but may not necessarily be better. Hydras need creep to survive. Where-ever your Nydus worm pops out, there will be no creep for the hydras to move out and engage.
Terrans are taking advantage marines and their light switch strength when stim and combat shield are upgraded. Marines becomes so much more efficient and with the addition of medivacs, their survivability/mobility increases 10fold.
The reason why it's so powerful is that marine heavy compisitions only require minerals, and terrans have been able to stay off of high gas counts and allocate more scvs to minerals. In turn it gives Terran's the ability to get faster command centers, invest all their gas accurately into tech/upgrades/quality units.
Zergs have historically gone for zergling baneling roach infestor, or they have gone zergling baneling muta. There are two inherent problems with these that the medivac drops with marines still account for.
When you drop with small amounts of units, zergling baneling roach can't attack air and they are very inefficient travelling in a line to a location. It forces infestor energy out which leads to combination attacks, whether it be multiple drops, or just drop drop drop drop then 2-2 push.
Muta has been revisited because to deal with the drops and from here those styles were getting cleaned up... until people realized, oh mutas are god awful and i just max and win. With the huge economy that terrans have had, and the emphasis on upgrades and marine production, mutas have no harass potential. Meaning you're investing at least 500-700 gas on just clearing up something that might not even come(good terrans will not continue dropping in stupid locations if you're going muta). Also 500-700 gas is 4-5 infestors with no real end game value.
So when all of this combines, what you have is a terran that has upgrades on you and they have a starting medivac count(NOT GOOD). They have an advantage with their unit types going into that first 2-2 push.
You can be in shambles sometimes, you can be really far ahead if they mess up, but good terrans will pick you apart and make timings exist for some inevitable push off of a very fast 3 base.
Zerg's have started realizing that creep spread kills this style over a certain period of time, but then terrans realized that along with harassing economy, you also have to harass the creep. It's super important that you do that so you give way to a strong push. Hence we saw this spike in ZvT favoring zerg(in my opinion) when creep spread became so popular, and things narrowed out again since terrans realized they can't let creep enter their natural at 10 minutes into the game(herpderp)
I believe the go to has been Infestors. They are theoretically the optimal choice. People have tried to abuse the timing where theres no siege tanks out and a huge ling/bling attack will kill any amounts of units, but I think that's very unsafe. You're banking on there being no siege tanks, and Terrans will get the hang of it. Good terrans will switch over to tanks after going bio when they feel zergs are getting a grasp in their economy. That makes it so there's no hole.
Infestors are the go to right because they help out with the end game stages. Infestors are obviously very powerful as they support BLs so much, locking down vikings/marines.
So back to the OP, i was thinking on cast where hydras have a place. The opportunity cost 80% of the time is going to be the infestor tech. When do we get it, and in what order? hydra den first? infestation pit?
Where I see hydras: prerequisite: Against Bio as they are most effective and dealing the medivacs(zergling roach just can't reach it!) You as zerg are going roach hydra ling they are trying to get 3 bases with pressure
Note***** Infestor hydra broodlord against viking (^_^)!!!!! IE keep your hydras alive yo! They is good end game
They fit in right before infestors. Infestation tech really doesnt help with drop. It does help with pushes though. That's why if they're going 2 base push, you're better off with infestors as I think 4 gas isn't enough to get the essentials(tanks/medivacs/upgrades) The fungals will be a lot stronger in this case. That being said, hydras can snipe medivacs and wreck face.
Scouting bio exists. Get overseers. Scout terran, stop being lazy. I have the assumption you're going 3 base. However you defend it normally. I think this style will be super strong against the powerful banshee/hellion builds that we've been seeing. Can you honestly imaging 6 roaches/6 hydras up against 3 banshees and 10 hellions? good micro can smash face. It's a great game changer imo.
Scout for 3rd CC while scouting bio. A good way to do this is to look for dual engineering bays. That tells you they're going more long game than not. ebays are expensive and it's not like SCBW. There are no sick 1-1 timings imo thats gonna smash face due to the power of the baneling!
How many:
hmmmmmm. den is 50 gas, upgrade is 100 gas(not sure if we want to get this) that's 1 infestor already every 3 hydras are 1 infestor. Let's go with 9 hydras on the map. That's a good opportunity cost imo. The infestor count will be smaller and also it will have less energy, but they'll complete in time for any pushes imo.
Take with a grain of salt.
Theory crafting is all this is. also didn't check for grammar wahhhhhhhh don't be mad at me
Oh this is against the standard 1 rax expand itno some sort of 3rd cc. If they're going mech and getting a fast 3rd cc, plz punish. -Gretorp
While I can not vouch for this working at pro levels I am a NA masters zerg (No big deal I know), and I have tried this style in a few games and won them all handily.
Maybe its just that it suprised the terran and they don't scout it, but it is fairly strong and works suprising well. This combo will go toe to toe with a similarly sized bio army. Being able to pick off medivacs is very awsome as well.
Of course just roach hydra alone wont work in the late game, and as it has been said before if the terran is forced to turtle up the zerg will have free reign over the map and be able to get broodlords and infestors and all that good stuff.
This should be a transitional build that is designed to do damage and give you a way to slide into the late game. Its also a good thing if you're forcing the terran to make tanks, as they arn't that great vs brood lords. Roach/Hyrda/Infestors seems like it would be a pretty sturdy support system for your broods as well.
I guess everyone has their opinion but perhaps before telling the OP hes an idiot for even trying to think up something different and interesting they should maybe try it out for themselves.
Why do so many people think that Roach/Hydra works in in ZvT when the last time it was seen in pro play was like over a year ago when Guineapig lost with it against Thorzain on Taldarim....? Your aim is to trade armies with the terran all the time, but then you have hydras in your army, which is probably like the worst attacking unit zerg has because it is so immobile. Sorry for being so negative, but it just baffles me why people try to learn subpar gameplans.
On August 25 2012 17:17 DarKFoRcE wrote: Why do so many people think that Roach/Hydra works in in ZvT when the last time it was seen in pro play was like over a year ago when Guineapig lost with it against Thorzain on Taldarim....? Your aim is to trade armies with the terran all the time, but then you have hydras in your army, which is probably like the worst attacking unit zerg has because it is so immobile. Sorry for being so negative, but it just baffles me why people try to learn subpar gameplans.
Darkforce
I know you haven't reading every message but it's been said already that hydras are not meant to actually confront a main army. They're used for stopping drops and limiting medivacs/banshee for the most part which has been how Terrans have been so greedy lately.
The thing is if you shut those down when you're going infestor you are ahead. Terrans have not been committing to a huge 2 base attack anymore like they use to so you're dealing with finesse play, not brute force play. You know you've had trouble dealing with drops.
This is not a binary strategy like HEY GUYS LETS ONLY USE ROACH HYDRA THE WHOLE GAME WAHHHHHHHHHHHH or NEVER USE HYDRAS EVER obviously that's utterly stupid.
I'm not saying it's the most optimal, i'm not saying it is the goto, but I think it's worth testing out. You are being negative and I understand with your practice you probably shun this like crazy. Theoretically i think it has some merit, but maybe it doesn't. I think more tests need to be done as I do think there's a small 2-3 minute timing window where they are efficient.
But it's so stupid to quote one game and say ROACH HYDRA BAD THIS GAME HENCE HYDRA ALWAYS BAD. that logic is useless here.
I don't see how this will work vs any competent terran, simply because hydras are shit vs: tanks, marines, reapers, helions, ghosts and HSM. Hydras may kill stuff fast, but they are way too fragile/slow to use, and if they have tanks they can just target your hydras no problem.
On August 25 2012 17:17 DarKFoRcE wrote: Why do so many people think that Roach/Hydra works in in ZvT when the last time it was seen in pro play was like over a year ago when Guineapig lost with it against Thorzain on Taldarim....? Your aim is to trade armies with the terran all the time, but then you have hydras in your army, which is probably like the worst attacking unit zerg has because it is so immobile. Sorry for being so negative, but it just baffles me why people try to learn subpar gameplans.
Darkforce
I know you haven't reading every message but it's been said already that hydras are not meant to actually confront a main army. They're used for stopping drops and limiting medivacs/banshee for the most part which has been how Terrans have been so greedy lately.
The thing is if you shut those down when you're going infestor you are ahead. Terrans have not been committing to a huge 2 base attack anymore like they use to so you're dealing with finesse play, not brute force play. You know you've had trouble dealing with drops.
This is not a binary strategy like HEY GUYS LETS ONLY USE ROACH HYDRA THE WHOLE GAME WAHHHHHHHHHHHH or NEVER USE HYDRAS EVER obviously that's utterly stupid.
I'm not saying it's the most optimal, i'm not saying it is the goto, but I think it's worth testing out. You are being negative and I understand with your practice you probably shun this like crazy. Theoretically i think it has some merit, but maybe it doesn't. I think more tests need to be done as I do think there's a small 2-3 minute timing window where they are efficient.
But it's so stupid to quote one game and say ROACH HYDRA BAD THIS GAME HENCE HYDRA ALWAYS BAD. that logic is useless here.
It is not just one game though. Hydralisks just have this gas cost to them that makes them expensive to build for their utility.
Against drop defense, sporecrawlers are infinitely better because they are stronger, can take more damage, cost only minerals and a drone and most of all, cost no supply. In bruteforce army attacks, Hydralisks aren't useful because they clump up so easily and anything that stims with medivacs or shoots at them with AoE will kill them cost-effectively.
It is really just their gas cost because building hydralisks drains your gas bank really fast for basically a roach that can attack air but is slow as hell. You would rather have that gas to tech to hive units or infestors faster instead of having your death army delayed by a minute or two.
Basically they are only useful compared to queens is that they can be produced faster. Queens give amazing sinergy with any lategame army while Hydralisks really are good for one thing, a game ending timing attack.
On August 25 2012 17:17 DarKFoRcE wrote: Why do so many people think that Roach/Hydra works in in ZvT when the last time it was seen in pro play was like over a year ago when Guineapig lost with it against Thorzain on Taldarim....? Your aim is to trade armies with the terran all the time, but then you have hydras in your army, which is probably like the worst attacking unit zerg has because it is so immobile. Sorry for being so negative, but it just baffles me why people try to learn subpar gameplans.
Darkforce
I know you haven't reading every message but it's been said already that hydras are not meant to actually confront a main army. They're used for stopping drops and limiting medivacs/banshee for the most part which has been how Terrans have been so greedy lately.
The thing is if you shut those down when you're going infestor you are ahead. Terrans have not been committing to a huge 2 base attack anymore like they use to so you're dealing with finesse play, not brute force play. You know you've had trouble dealing with drops.
This is not a binary strategy like HEY GUYS LETS ONLY USE ROACH HYDRA THE WHOLE GAME WAHHHHHHHHHHHH or NEVER USE HYDRAS EVER obviously that's utterly stupid.
I'm not saying it's the most optimal, i'm not saying it is the goto, but I think it's worth testing out. You are being negative and I understand with your practice you probably shun this like crazy. Theoretically i think it has some merit, but maybe it doesn't. I think more tests need to be done as I do think there's a small 2-3 minute timing window where they are efficient.
But it's so stupid to quote one game and say ROACH HYDRA BAD THIS GAME HENCE HYDRA ALWAYS BAD. that logic is useless here.
I didnt mean to take that game as a proof that its bad, i just meant it in a way that it has been ages since i have even seen such a thing.
On August 25 2012 17:17 DarKFoRcE wrote: Why do so many people think that Roach/Hydra works in in ZvT when the last time it was seen in pro play was like over a year ago when Guineapig lost with it against Thorzain on Taldarim....? Your aim is to trade armies with the terran all the time, but then you have hydras in your army, which is probably like the worst attacking unit zerg has because it is so immobile. Sorry for being so negative, but it just baffles me why people try to learn subpar gameplans.
Talk about selective memory. Hydra/roach were always noted to be good against pure Bio since season 1. But hydra usage fell out favor because noone was really comfortable with their speed compared to mutalisks, Kyrix showing everyone how good banelings were and the final nail in the coffin for hydra against pure bio were the increasing size of maps.
If you can force an engagement with hydras and roaches against bio and medivacs it is a disadvantage for the Terran unless the positioning was really off for the zerg army.
- Terran went 1rax expo into early 3rd - Terran floated lots of mins as his buildings were late (this is what he told me after the game) - Hydras are really good
And.. that's basically it. Oh, and I'm a badass (!).
Conclusion
So, frankly guys, if a Plat can beat a Masters with this timing, given an early third etc. then frankly you need to spend time on it.
Waffle
It doesn't really matter that the guy had less units than he should have, didn't scout the attack and get bunkers up, or really be in a position to spend his money well, he was being a greedy high level Terran expecting a comfortable game. If I can bust that, anyone can. The fact that this is a Masters Terran and I am a Platinum Zerg is a massive disparity; we are not in our respective leagues by chance (before you simply discredit my opponent). Any strategy that allows a gulf like this to be bridged should be labelled a 'good' strategy imo.
(Additionally, the fact that I breezed through his entire base is neither here nor there. I can't imagine one minute more of time (that he told me he needed) would have allowed him to send any units out without a massacre or establish a third base. He would need a lot of tanks to do that. Sure, you can switch to mech and go very tank heavy but he doesn't have the time without a third base: surely a good zerg player simply gets infestors and two more bases (and drop, but that's just rubbing it in), then hive tech.)
I disagree with your point that spores are superior over hydras. I think you haven't tested it out enough to actually substantiate that claim. I've had a little bit of experimental data with both sides and it feels as if hydras are superior in that phase of the game. Of course there are a lot of prerequisites.
I want to vent a little bit of my frustration as well in this particular forum and explain why it's so hard to take part in any sort of strategy talk. It's because people don't read anything. I see things that go down all the time in this forum that people are just disregarding. It's like talking completely different conversations but then having very polar decisions about this. It's actually infuriating.
I think that's why it's really hard for newcomers/pros to come into this section and for it to spark debate/discussion.
As a terran if i go up against roach/hydra i just mass expand and get a regular bio/tank army, a MMMS army with good upgrades just don't lose from my experience.
I cant add anything substantial to the credibility of hydras but I too as a low master player often throw them into the mix verse some toss and Terran builds in the early mid game. I bind every overlord I build to 8 and then I research ovi speed as I drop the hydra den and make them all spread creep and build a creep highway. I will only do it on maps where I am relatively close to my opponent and using the creep highway I am able to reinforce with hydras. I can also retreat and use them with spines defensively or to stop drops but often if I don't do damage to the opponent with hydras I have already lost.
Really like the idea of hydras in ZvT, could be really useful for defending annoying drops while giving your army some real power once the marine to medivac ratio starts to get low (immortal marines T_T). One concern though, transitioning to hive seems very unnatural. If bio terran sees your hydras fairly quickly, and starts throwing down factories to switch to mech (probably with marauders from the previous rax) would you have enough time to get melee ups and hive tech? Seems like it could be a difficult situation. Canceling the ranged ups to get melee ups would also create a pretty big timing window where you're just completely behind on upgrades. Dunno, I'm probably overthinking this since terran would have to switch from bio ups to mech ups anyway.
On August 26 2012 09:54 Gretorp wrote: I disagree with your point that spores are superior over hydras. I think you haven't tested it out enough to actually substantiate that claim. I've had a little bit of experimental data with both sides and it feels as if hydras are superior in that phase of the game. Of course there are a lot of prerequisites.
I want to vent a little bit of my frustration as well in this particular forum and explain why it's so hard to take part in any sort of strategy talk. It's because people don't read anything. I see things that go down all the time in this forum that people are just disregarding. It's like talking completely different conversations but then having very polar decisions about this. It's actually infuriating.
I think that's why it's really hard for newcomers/pros to come into this section and for it to spark debate/discussion.
Some of us, like myself, have read all of it, and truly appreciate the input of people like you and Darkforce.
Seriously, just tell people to fuck off if they disagree. You guys are so much higher level that you not only could, but should, do that.
On August 26 2012 09:54 Gretorp wrote: I disagree with your point that spores are superior over hydras. I think you haven't tested it out enough to actually substantiate that claim. I've had a little bit of experimental data with both sides and it feels as if hydras are superior in that phase of the game. Of course there are a lot of prerequisites.
I honestly do not understand what specific advantage a Hydralisk has over a sporecrawler with an extra infestor though. They are mobile, sure. And they definitely take out medivac drops if you can catch them before they unload. But they are expensive and can hardly be used for counter attacks to take advantage of the fact that you just killed off a medivac early on. In the midgame they are only really useful against this drop play. Not to mention, if the terran sees your hydralisks and turns around, you just invested gas into something that will not help past a certain timing when tanks eventually come out, whereas infestors do help in your army.
On August 26 2012 09:54 Gretorp wrote: I want to vent a little bit of my frustration as well in this particular forum and explain why it's so hard to take part in any sort of strategy talk. It's because people don't read anything. I see things that go down all the time in this forum that people are just disregarding. It's like talking completely different conversations but then having very polar decisions about this. It's actually infuriating.
I think that's why it's really hard for newcomers/pros to come into this section and for it to spark debate/discussion.
It is generally hard for any discussion strategy wise to happen because most of the users on this board are in vastly different skill levels. Everyone wants to have the right answer while in most cases there are multiple shades to a question.
I understand your frustration, because it is something you will have a lot here if you actually want to discuss strategy rather than give advice. There are a lot of people that enjoy following the discussion from the sidelines that simply don't express themselves in comments, so I tend to give focus to them.
Anybody that doesn't have any credibility build up on them is generally held to rediculous standards content and proof wise. If any person that wasn't known around here gave that post that you did, he would probably get shot down immediately or ignored. Not to mention if he said he was anything below high masters/low GM, he would simply get told that that stuff only works in masters or below. The blue post thing that was supposed to help incentivize helpful posters to be rewarded for their effort hasn't been updated in ages, which shows considering belial still hasn't gotten his yet even though he went through nigh biblical proportions of advice.
On August 26 2012 09:54 Gretorp wrote: I disagree with your point that spores are superior over hydras. I think you haven't tested it out enough to actually substantiate that claim. I've had a little bit of experimental data with both sides and it feels as if hydras are superior in that phase of the game. Of course there are a lot of prerequisites.
I honestly do not understand what specific advantage a Hydralisk has over a sporecrawler with an extra infestor though. They are mobile, sure. And they definitely take out medivac drops if you can catch them before they unload. But they are expensive and can hardly be used for counter attacks to take advantage of the fact that you just killed off a medivac early on. In the midgame they are only really useful against this drop play. Not to mention, if the terran sees your hydralisks and turns around, you just invested gas into something that will not help past a certain timing when tanks eventually come out, whereas infestors do help in your army.
On August 26 2012 09:54 Gretorp wrote: I want to vent a little bit of my frustration as well in this particular forum and explain why it's so hard to take part in any sort of strategy talk. It's because people don't read anything. I see things that go down all the time in this forum that people are just disregarding. It's like talking completely different conversations but then having very polar decisions about this. It's actually infuriating.
I think that's why it's really hard for newcomers/pros to come into this section and for it to spark debate/discussion.
It is generally hard for any discussion strategy wise to happen because most of the users on this board are in vastly different skill levels. Everyone wants to have the right answer while in most cases there are multiple shades to a question.
I understand your frustration, because it is something you will have a lot here if you actually want to discuss strategy rather than give advice. There are a lot of people that enjoy following the discussion from the sidelines that simply don't express themselves in comments, so I tend to give focus to them.
Anybody that doesn't have any credibility build up on them is generally held to rediculous standards content and proof wise. If any person that wasn't known around here gave that post that you did, he would probably get shot down immediately or ignored. Not to mention if he said he was anything below high masters/low GM, he would simply get told that that stuff only works in masters or below. The blue post thing that was supposed to help incentivize helpful posters to be rewarded for their effort hasn't been updated in ages, which shows considering belial still hasn't gotten his yet even though he went through nigh biblical proportions of advice.
I just want to make it clear I wasn't referring to you. I'm sorry i didn't specify that earlier
High masters EU here(GM level NA, but lost my account lol)
I've been going a roach hydra build in ZvT alot nowadays, and have taken alot of games off of NA grandmasters and now EU players using a drop style of hydra roach, and as such have a pretty good understanding of the role of hydralisks.
First of all I have to vehemently disagree with the notion that hydralisks are "better" than spores at dealing with drops. Yea, they deal with drops amazingly and kill medivacs like they're nothing, but the fact of the matter is spores have many better attributes which makes them more suited for the job. They don't cost supply(VERY IMPORTANT, especially when in ZvT Hydra roach style you need all hydras you can get fighting), and they don't cost gas.
For hydralisks to be truly effective as a drop defense would require you having 2-4 hydralisks at key areas of the map. Thats 4-8 supply (x the number of spots) that is used there, when 0 supply and X minerals would suffice. It's not really a matter of effectiveness, as hydras are efficient. It's that its not optimal.
I also don't actually have a problem with tanks, as I just spread all my shit out, and also am dropping with hydralisks/roaches all over the place, which gradually eliminates/get to pick off stray tanks. Leading with roaches, dropping a good amount of hydras on the other side to flank, is ideal enough to deal with tanks. And you should be fighting usually on creep anyway, depending on how good your creep spread is.
The reason I incorporate drops is that hydralisk drops are AMAZING AMAZING good, even better than marine drops (although more fragile). With good pick-up and repositioning micro (like how a terran controls his drops), you can pick off tons of SCVs. Ironically, terran players are probably the worst at dealing with drops, at least ZvT. I personally believe its because they are just not used to the severe damage hydralisk drops can do.
Going drops does several things:
Adds more mobility to your hydra roach army, and you can quickly reposition and strike at vulneralble areas of the Terran base.
Forces them eventually to make turrets, and who wants to make turrets vs a hydra roach army?
Keeps them in their base while you get a fourth/transition out.
Because your spreading terran out, his units move out of position. Many times you can pick off stray units/make a run for the third than load and leave
I cannot stress how good hydralisk drops are. The DPS of hydras allows them to kill(i think 2 shot) scvs and with 4 hydras thats like 7 scvs gone in 5 seconds. Dropping several places just crushes most terrans.
ITS SO FUN
As a final note, I agree with Darkforce that there are other good alternatives to hydra roach. While hydra roach is unique, fun, and can be very very effective, its not as safe or standard as other builds, which if we start using hydras more, than terrans will learn how to deal with hydra roach. You cannot stay hydra roach, so you always transition out. Most you can do is go to 200-200 and make a push, but by that time they usually have 4-6 tanks, which is good enough to last until they max out and kill your inefficient supply army.
Sorry if I am confusing, just thought I would share my thoughts.
On August 27 2012 01:14 Pandain wrote: The reason I incorporate drops is that hydralisk drops are AMAZING AMAZING good, even better than marine drops (although more fragile). With good pick-up and repositioning micro (like how a terran controls his drops), you can pick off tons of SCVs. Ironically, terran players are probably the worst at dealing with drops, at least ZvT. I personally believe its because they are just not used to the severe damage hydralisk drops can do.
Going drops does several things:
Adds more mobility to your hydra roach army, and you can quickly reposition and strike at vulneralble areas of the Terran base.
Forces them eventually to make turrets, and who wants to make turrets vs a hydra roach army?
Keeps them in their base while you get a fourth/transition out.
Because your spreading terran out, his units move out of position. Many times you can pick off stray units/make a run for the third than load and leave
I cannot stress how good hydralisk drops are. The DPS of hydras allows them to kill(i think 2 shot) scvs and with 4 hydras thats like 7 scvs gone in 5 seconds. Dropping several places just crushes most terrans.
ITS SO FUN
As a final note, I agree with Darkforce that there are other good alternatives to hydra roach. While hydra roach is unique, fun, and can be very very effective, its not as safe or standard as other builds, which if we start using hydras more, than terrans will learn how to deal with hydra roach. You cannot stay hydra roach, so you always transition out. Most you can do is go to 200-200 and make a push, but by that time they usually have 4-6 tanks, which is good enough to last until they max out and kill your inefficient supply army.
Sorry if I am confusing, just thought I would share my thoughts.
I'm intrigued by this part. I've always felt that Hydra's were good at raiding bases because they do damage fast, but I don't go for any hydra based play anymore in ZvT or ZvP so I don't have any experience with that. I have played around with drops in ZvP, and did some much earlier in ZvZ before I decided to perfect my mutalisk play, but never in ZvT.
I'm wondering if I can incorporate them into my lategame army. I don't tend to go for heavy infestor-broodlord play so I'm sure I can find a spot for the gas requirement. They can be placed out of planetary range so dropping them behind the mineral line can be a real pain for far away bases once it gets to the real late lategame, especially on maps like antiga.
A few questions, do you think the hydra range upgrade is neccesary if you're just using it for dropping? Because it is kind of an expensive upgrade for just an extra 1 range. I'll try and fiddle around with hydra drops, you inspired me enough to spike my interest.
Hydras are painfully weak. Like the one terran mentioned, when he faces roach-hydra it doesn't matter what units he makes he just wins. Hydras die to everything. Easily. Their DPS is not that great when you consider they are only effective at killing things that aren't attacking them. If they are not being attacked they can put out some pretty heavy power, but that power is so quickly negated by anything that attacks it...because it just dies. Instantly. No more dps.
Note on drop play: The investment of hydralisks drops COULD be very effective but take into consideration how heavy of an investment you are making. Cost: Hydra Den, Range upgrade (presumably), OL speed, OL transportation, and the cost of each hydra.
Potential reward: Death and destruction in mineral lines / possibly sniping tech buildings. The risk: The terran defends and your hydras just die and you pretty much lose because you can't really transition out of this as you already committed too much gas that could have gone into spire tech, infestor tech, banelings, etc.. already invested too much in something too gimmicky it is pretty much GG if it doesn't work.
On August 27 2012 03:39 kmillz wrote: Hydras are painfully weak. Like the one terran mentioned, when he faces roach-hydra it doesn't matter what units he makes he just wins. Hydras die to everything. Easily. Their DPS is not that great when you consider they are only effective at killing things that aren't attacking them. If they are not being attacked they can put out some pretty heavy power, but that power is so quickly negated by anything that attacks it...because it just dies. Instantly. No more dps.
The reason why hydras are so effective at the moment is because of the terran metagame. Terrans go one of these things:
Hellion Banshee into third. Roach Hydra can hit a good timing to deny third while securing own.
Hellion Banshee into mech. Roach hydra drop can outposition mech, or at least force a later game
The common theme being Hellion banshee. Going 2 base hydra (I get a macro hatch early on, wall off to defend vs mass hellions), negates banshee tech, so terran has effectively done no damage and wasted a whole bunch of resources in useless starport tech.
Getting like 5-7 hydras, securing third, then making roaches and hitting a good timing is an effective ZvT strat.
And as for drop tech, I don't think you understand the unexplored potential of them. Have you ever dealt with a hydra drop? With pick-up micro you can't just send like 5 marines and a maruder. You have to send like 10, and even then I can half kite them with overlord dropping, and hydras rip apart marines.
Now imagine I'm dropping with both of them. Saying that I can lose them(and always am I careful) is bad reason because you could say that for any harrasment, terran medivacs, protoss warp prisms, even ling runbys. Since I'm already going hydra I have the hydra tech, its just spending 300-300 for OL speed + drop to make my army so much more effective.
On August 27 2012 04:21 Stardroid wrote: Pandain I would really love some replays to learn from, do you have any you're willing to post here?
I'll post them for you, finding replays and watching Taeja Hero :p Unfortunatetely don't have any vs well known players, usually I like to try to play standard vs them to learn from them. If I face a well known terran, I'll go hydra next time.
Just a couple notes about my play:
I don't believe you can take a fast third and go hydra without dying to any push, so what I do instead is play the game out BW style. That is, I make a really quick macro hatch(if I'm playing vs CC first or 1 rax FE), and delay queens and instead pump drones from 3 hatches. It gets my production going and helps to wall off.
I think its the only way you can go hydra, and get +1 ranged and drops and stuff, then aim for a timing while taking a third. http://drop.sc/243564 http://drop.sc/243563
The first one is a weird game, as I accidently 14 pooled so I put on some agression vs a CC first. But it stabilized into a normal game, at least relatively, and is the best example of the strength of drops. Well hydra drops.
Because the second game is verses blue flame hellion into mech, so I stuck roaches for a long time.
Quick thing - when you mention dying to any push, wouldn't zerglings sort out anything around 10 mins? (I macro hatch the same time as my third and make lings around 8.30), or do you mean when hydras have come out?
On August 27 2012 03:39 kmillz wrote: Hydras are painfully weak. Like the one terran mentioned, when he faces roach-hydra it doesn't matter what units he makes he just wins. Hydras die to everything. Easily. Their DPS is not that great when you consider they are only effective at killing things that aren't attacking them. If they are not being attacked they can put out some pretty heavy power, but that power is so quickly negated by anything that attacks it...because it just dies. Instantly. No more dps.
The reason why hydras are so effective at the moment is because of the terran metagame. Terrans go one of these things:
Hellion Banshee into third. Roach Hydra can hit a good timing to deny third while securing own.
Hellion Banshee into mech. Roach hydra drop can outposition mech, or at least force a later game
The common theme being Hellion banshee. Going 2 base hydra (I get a macro hatch early on, wall off to defend vs mass hellions), negates banshee tech, so terran has effectively done no damage and wasted a whole bunch of resources in useless starport tech.
Getting like 5-7 hydras, securing third, then making roaches and hitting a good timing is an effective ZvT strat.
And as for drop tech, I don't think you understand the unexplored potential of them. Have you ever dealt with a hydra drop? With pick-up micro you can't just send like 5 marines and a maruder. You have to send like 10, and even then I can half kite them with overlord dropping, and hydras rip apart marines.
Now imagine I'm dropping with both of them. Saying that I can lose them(and always am I careful) is bad reason because you could say that for any harrasment, terran medivacs, protoss warp prisms, even ling runbys. Since I'm already going hydra I have the hydra tech, its just spending 300-300 for OL speed + drop to make my army so much more effective.
The problem still lies in the hydra's mobility. If caught with their pants down they just die and spit out 1 or 2 last times before evaporating. You are suggesting that the hydras are not just part of your drop but also your unit composition? I have never seen a straight up fight go favorably for the person who has $ invested in hydras in an even cost battle vs Toss or Terran. Toss just get collosus and they are wiped out. Terran get tanks or bio and handle them quite well too. I am open-minded too new ideas but I think the hydra's just lack a place in the core of a good Zerg army
Roach Hydra can work if you are using it in a timing against Terren going fast third with mech but until HOTS and Vypers I think otherwise its pretty meh and tanks eat it alive.
Wow, surprised to see my old post still has some decent discussion going on.
I gave up around page 3, wrote off the TL community and just continued on my way, happy to keep my secrets rather than share with a world that isn't interested.
My roach/hydra play has evolved to the point where it is basically my standard build for mid-game ZvT. Roach/hydra offers many options through drop tech, burrow tech, and the massive creep spread that being offensive allows for. I have the freedom to integrate infestors or banelings as desired, and can take as much of the map as I want, generally uncontested.
I feel comfortable saying it is an absolute build-order win vs hellion/banshee. To the point where I can usually outright kill a Terran if he so much as gets cloak for his banshees, and even if I somehow botch my attack, I am usually massively ahead in econ anyway, upgrading to hive on 4 base by the 20 minute mark.
By far, the best thing Terran can do in response to the build is to pump out siege tanks like crazy off 2 base and use their range to take their 3rd. Getting medivacs too early is usually death. Taking the 3rd too early is usually death. Going mech is usually death.
Roach hydra is definitely kicking lots of ass in ZvT right now for me. I will share more if people want, but I am not really interested in debating the viability of the build. I couldn't care less what you think, I KNOW it works, at least against top-level Masters Terrans.
On October 12 2012 01:20 Jermstuddog wrote: Wow, surprised to see my old post still has some decent discussion going on.
I gave up around page 3, wrote off the TL community and just continued on my way, happy to keep my secrets rather than share with a world that isn't interested.
My roach/hydra play has evolved to the point where it is basically my standard build for mid-game ZvT. Roach/hydra offers many options through drop tech, burrow tech, and the massive creep spread that being offensive allows for. I have the freedom to integrate infestors or banelings as desired, and can take as much of the map as I want, generally uncontested.
I feel comfortable saying it is an absolute build-order win vs hellion/banshee. To the point where I can usually outright kill a Terran if he so much as gets cloak for his banshees, and even if I somehow botch my attack, I am usually massively ahead in econ anyway, upgrading to hive on 4 base by the 20 minute mark.
By far, the best thing Terran can do in response to the build is to pump out siege tanks like crazy off 2 base and use their range to take their 3rd. Getting medivacs too early is usually death. Taking the 3rd too early is usually death. Going mech is usually death.
Roach hydra is definitely kicking lots of ass in ZvT right now for me. I will share more if people want, but I am not really interested in debating the viability of the build. I couldn't care less what you think, I KNOW it works, at least against top-level Masters Terrans.
Interesting strat. It's always frustrating to me that anyone who brings up an idea outside the current meta is immediately shot down because "pros don't do it." Pros didn't really play BL/infestor 6-8 months ago either, yet that's the current meta now, and it's considered OP by many. Also, how many of us are aiming to be pro to think that only playing pro strats is the way to improve in this game and have fun?
Instead, players should be focused on exploring the +/- of alternative strategies and playing them WELL, if it has some fundamental advantages. As you said this strat seems risky vs heavy siege-tank play but is good for aggressive play and drops (same as in ZvP; you HAVE to be super-aggressive with roach/hydra and prevent an uber-toss deathball critical mass).
Do you think hydra speed in HOTS will have a big effect on this style of play? I am experimenting with some roach/ling/hydra play with triple evo into ultra/festor/hydra/ling in ZvP, but may be worth toying with in ZvT as well. Hydras and ultras compliment each other pretty well because ultras are so beefy and have a lot higher DPS than roaches, but hydras don't really have the speed to keep up with ultra/ling as of now without insane creep spread.
On October 12 2012 01:20 Jermstuddog wrote: Wow, surprised to see my old post still has some decent discussion going on.
I gave up around page 3, wrote off the TL community and just continued on my way, happy to keep my secrets rather than share with a world that isn't interested.
My roach/hydra play has evolved to the point where it is basically my standard build for mid-game ZvT. Roach/hydra offers many options through drop tech, burrow tech, and the massive creep spread that being offensive allows for. I have the freedom to integrate infestors or banelings as desired, and can take as much of the map as I want, generally uncontested.
I feel comfortable saying it is an absolute build-order win vs hellion/banshee. To the point where I can usually outright kill a Terran if he so much as gets cloak for his banshees, and even if I somehow botch my attack, I am usually massively ahead in econ anyway, upgrading to hive on 4 base by the 20 minute mark.
By far, the best thing Terran can do in response to the build is to pump out siege tanks like crazy off 2 base and use their range to take their 3rd. Getting medivacs too early is usually death. Taking the 3rd too early is usually death. Going mech is usually death.
Roach hydra is definitely kicking lots of ass in ZvT right now for me. I will share more if people want, but I am not really interested in debating the viability of the build. I couldn't care less what you think, I KNOW it works, at least against top-level Masters Terrans.
Interesting strat. It's always frustrating to me that anyone who brings up an idea outside the current meta is immediately shot down because "pros don't do it." Pros didn't really play BL/infestor 6-8 months ago either, yet that's the current meta now, and it's considered OP by many. Also, how many of us are aiming to be pro to think that only playing pro strats is the way to improve in this game and have fun?
Instead, players should be focused on exploring the +/- of alternative strategies and playing them WELL, if it has some fundamental advantages. As you said this strat seems risky vs heavy siege-tank play but is good for aggressive play and drops (same as in ZvP; you HAVE to be super-aggressive with roach/hydra and prevent an uber-toss deathball critical mass).
Do you think hydra speed in HOTS will have a big effect on this style of play? I am experimenting with some roach/ling/hydra play with triple evo into ultra/festor/hydra/ling in ZvP, but may be worth toying with in ZvT as well. Hydras and ultras compliment each other pretty well because ultras are so beefy and have a lot higher DPS than roaches, but hydras don't really have the speed to keep up with ultra/ling as of now without insane creep spread.
I am not a fan of hydras in ZvP specifically due to the Colossus and Force Fields. There just doesn't seem to be any room for Hydras to function in that MU. I don't see speed fixing this.
Early game, Force Fields chop hydras up too badly for them to really topple over anything Protoss has. Add that up with Hydras being rather mediocre vs basic gateway units and getting utterly crushed by even 2 or 3 Colossus, and going Hydra kind of puts you on a clock with no way to beat it. There are just too many obstacles in the MU.
ZvT is very different because the only major Hydra-deterrent is the Siege Tank, and, currently, going for fast Siege Tanks is not in vogue. People are specifically staying away from Siege Tanks to give themselves more mobility, faster expansions, and raw army strength. Better yet, the standard TvZ play has become FE into hellion/banshee, which, as I've said, becomes a huge BO win for the Zerg.
I will say that hydras are still on a clock in ZvT. They are only good until Terran gets 2/2 bio with siege tanks. At that point, they become basically worthless. Still, there is a LOT of breathing room before that becomes the case. Plenty of time to play scrappy styles, take multiple expansions, and tech up to T3. The hardest part of the entire style is managing that transition from Roach/Hydra to ling/infestor/ultra or broods. If you trade your army too early, you get caught with just a bunch of lings and infestors vs a massive terran army. If you trade away too late, T pushes in with 3/3 while your Ultras are still building and there's nothing you can do about it.
Luckily, games tend not to make it that far, I usually win in the mid-game
On October 12 2012 01:20 Jermstuddog wrote: Wow, surprised to see my old post still has some decent discussion going on.
I gave up around page 3, wrote off the TL community and just continued on my way, happy to keep my secrets rather than share with a world that isn't interested.
My roach/hydra play has evolved to the point where it is basically my standard build for mid-game ZvT. Roach/hydra offers many options through drop tech, burrow tech, and the massive creep spread that being offensive allows for. I have the freedom to integrate infestors or banelings as desired, and can take as much of the map as I want, generally uncontested.
I feel comfortable saying it is an absolute build-order win vs hellion/banshee. To the point where I can usually outright kill a Terran if he so much as gets cloak for his banshees, and even if I somehow botch my attack, I am usually massively ahead in econ anyway, upgrading to hive on 4 base by the 20 minute mark.
By far, the best thing Terran can do in response to the build is to pump out siege tanks like crazy off 2 base and use their range to take their 3rd. Getting medivacs too early is usually death. Taking the 3rd too early is usually death. Going mech is usually death.
Roach hydra is definitely kicking lots of ass in ZvT right now for me. I will share more if people want, but I am not really interested in debating the viability of the build. I couldn't care less what you think, I KNOW it works, at least against top-level Masters Terrans.
Can you post some replays. I feel like this would be really strong vs hellion banshee opener and am looking for ways to punish terrans before they transition.
This is really interesting...I remember reading this strategy before but it has been awhile. It's funny how the meta dictates what strategies are viable in an almost cyclical manner. I wonder if some of the older build concepts might work again if they were adapted for a modern macro game.
My phone died, and I use it for my Blizzard authenticator, so I can't log in right now.
That being said, I will just have a little more work looking through recent replays. I should have plenty of good examples. I will post a few reps by the end of the night.
edit:
Here's a few replays, I can't give much depth because I can't view them right now, but they all involve Roach/Hydra, I know that much.
This one ends around 12 minutes. Looks like the first attack doesn't quite kill him, so I reload and go back in with a 2/2 attack to finish the job. http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=21028
Give me a few days and I'll be happy to get more detailed, specific replays if needed.
Some interesting facts from SC2gears:
Since the beginning of September, I have played 61 ZvTs with a 63% win rate. Average game length is 12:29 3 games with a 33% win rate <5 minutes 18 games with 100% win rate in the 5-10 range 26 games with a 53% win rate in the 10-15 min range 9 games with a 33% win rate in the 15-20 min range 5 games with a 60% win rate at 20+
As I have said in above posts, I am still working on my transition to T3 (why the 15-20 range is notably bad), but as it gets better, so too will my win rate.
i actually had so much success with this build thanks, its because terrans are marine heavy and they dont know that you need a lot of tanks, i can upload reps if anyone interested.
On December 22 2012 07:40 Jermstuddog wrote: Is it cool to be a hipster yet?
Has Stephano made this viable now? Or am I still a scrub who doesn't know wtf I'm talking about?
People don't always give credits to whom credit is due, especially on Starcraft II metagame.
It reminds me of Destiny & CatZ heavy infestor use back then... It tooks months for Dimaga to copy this style, then Stephano used it perfectly (mastered it) because he was a better player, but credit to those ROOT players. When I heard people talking about "Stephano's Infestor strategy" or "Dimaga's Infestor Ultralisks 3-3" it makes me feel bad for Destiny/CatZ.
Another example is the famous "Morrow's 5 rax reapers" in the beta, Morrow didn't created this strat, but he won a major tournament back then using this strategy, that's why people remember it as Morrow's 5rax reapers.
People often thinks you have to be a pro to create strategies, timing, cheeses, but it's wrong. Of course it will be perfect and efficient in Stephano or Taeja's hands, but those players are not the most creative players..
There are still things yet to be discovered in SC2, but most people thinks pro players already know everything. Wrong.
On December 22 2012 07:40 Jermstuddog wrote: Is it cool to be a hipster yet?
Has Stephano made this viable now? Or am I still a scrub who doesn't know wtf I'm talking about?
Yeah it's sad to see people shoot down strats because they're not part of the current meta =/ Leads to staleness in the strats you see in various matchups. Current meta strats are obviously strong, but SC2 is a diverse game that has some strengths and weaknesses with various strats.
I almost thought this was a joke, but Stephano just trashed MKP with Roach-Hydra vs Bio. Have there been any games that show this style working vs Tank compositions (Marine-tank, classic mech, etc.)?
I don't even know if adding tanks would have changed the issue of the game. Doubling mkp's army supply after sacrifying a lot to take down his 3rd.. Stephano getting favorable trades against pure bio when marauders are supposed to own roaches, despite of the good number of medivacs mkp had.. I always felt like inject is the real thing that makes zerg that strong when played properly, the ability to get such high income+production super early in the game, and this build totally exploits that, the remaxing speed is ridiculous. I'd like to see a game played with this style against MMM/tanks though.
On December 22 2012 07:40 Jermstuddog wrote: Is it cool to be a hipster yet?
Has Stephano made this viable now? Or am I still a scrub who doesn't know wtf I'm talking about?
People don't always give credits to whom credit is due, especially on Starcraft II metagame.
It reminds me of Destiny & CatZ heavy infestor use back then... It tooks months for Dimaga to copy this style, then Stephano used it perfectly (mastered it) because he was a better player, but credit to those ROOT players. When I heard people talking about "Stephano's Infestor strategy" or "Dimaga's Infestor Ultralisks 3-3" it makes me feel bad for Destiny/CatZ.
Another example is the famous "Morrow's 5 rax reapers" in the beta, Morrow didn't created this strat, but he won a major tournament back then using this strategy, that's why people remember it as Morrow's 5rax reapers.
People often thinks you have to be a pro to create strategies, timing, cheeses, but it's wrong. Of course it will be perfect and efficient in Stephano or Taeja's hands, but those players are not the most creative players..
There are still things yet to be discovered in SC2, but most people thinks pro players already know everything. Wrong.
dimaga used infestors before destiny, going all the way back before the infestors were buff'd.
Roach Hydra has been used in the early days of Sc2 to counter Bio. The reason this can work is because there are situations in which Terrans don't want to go for tanks to focus on getting a good economy and upgrades. This is not supposed to work against a terran who is transitioning into tanks before you can hit with your first roach attack. Against Bio without a huge medivac count Roach Hydra can do very well if you kill off the medivacs and the marauders. Stephano is very smart about using this strategy doing a roach attack before going into roach hydra to confirm there are no tanks and reduce the bio count to keep the terran on the defensive. I always thought that a strategy like this could pop up again.
It's been known for a long time that mass roach vT, with or without hydra support, will rape a terran that doesn't have significant tanks out yet. Nothing new.
On December 22 2012 07:40 Jermstuddog wrote: Is it cool to be a hipster yet?
Has Stephano made this viable now? Or am I still a scrub who doesn't know wtf I'm talking about?
People don't always give credits to whom credit is due, especially on Starcraft II metagame.
It reminds me of Destiny & CatZ heavy infestor use back then... It tooks months for Dimaga to copy this style, then Stephano used it perfectly (mastered it) because he was a better player, but credit to those ROOT players. When I heard people talking about "Stephano's Infestor strategy" or "Dimaga's Infestor Ultralisks 3-3" it makes me feel bad for Destiny/CatZ.
Another example is the famous "Morrow's 5 rax reapers" in the beta, Morrow didn't created this strat, but he won a major tournament back then using this strategy, that's why people remember it as Morrow's 5rax reapers.
People often thinks you have to be a pro to create strategies, timing, cheeses, but it's wrong. Of course it will be perfect and efficient in Stephano or Taeja's hands, but those players are not the most creative players..
There are still things yet to be discovered in SC2, but most people thinks pro players already know everything. Wrong.
At the end of the day it isn't about who made it, it's about who popularized it. That's what the history books will remember...
On December 22 2012 07:40 Jermstuddog wrote: Is it cool to be a hipster yet?
Has Stephano made this viable now? Or am I still a scrub who doesn't know wtf I'm talking about?
People don't always give credits to whom credit is due, especially on Starcraft II metagame.
It reminds me of Destiny & CatZ heavy infestor use back then... It tooks months for Dimaga to copy this style, then Stephano used it perfectly (mastered it) because he was a better player, but credit to those ROOT players. When I heard people talking about "Stephano's Infestor strategy" or "Dimaga's Infestor Ultralisks 3-3" it makes me feel bad for Destiny/CatZ.
Another example is the famous "Morrow's 5 rax reapers" in the beta, Morrow didn't created this strat, but he won a major tournament back then using this strategy, that's why people remember it as Morrow's 5rax reapers.
People often thinks you have to be a pro to create strategies, timing, cheeses, but it's wrong. Of course it will be perfect and efficient in Stephano or Taeja's hands, but those players are not the most creative players..
There are still things yet to be discovered in SC2, but most people thinks pro players already know everything. Wrong.
Stephano didn't come up with the heavy infestor strategy. He came up with the fast upgraded lings instead of banes into infestor-ultralisk. He also came up with the 12 minute max-out roach strategy against protoss.
Considering he also came up with his own hydra build against Terran, i think it's fair to say that he is creative.
On December 23 2012 01:09 iKill wrote: It's been known for a long time that mass roach vT, with or without hydra support, will rape a terran that doesn't have significant tanks out yet. Nothing new.
On December 23 2012 01:09 iKill wrote: It's been known for a long time that mass roach vT, with or without hydra support, will rape a terran that doesn't have significant tanks out yet. Nothing new.
Mass roach will rape MMM? wat
Same thing with immortal sentry really. At equal supply, maxed armies, immortal sentry will beat pure roach/ling - but in the 10-12 min stages of the game, the zerg is often 50-60 supply up, so the toss doesn't freewin. Same thing here - if Z can consistently stay 50 food up, MMM just dies.
On December 22 2012 07:40 Jermstuddog wrote: Is it cool to be a hipster yet?
Has Stephano made this viable now? Or am I still a scrub who doesn't know wtf I'm talking about?
People don't always give credits to whom credit is due, especially on Starcraft II metagame.
It reminds me of Destiny & CatZ heavy infestor use back then... It tooks months for Dimaga to copy this style, then Stephano used it perfectly (mastered it) because he was a better player, but credit to those ROOT players. When I heard people talking about "Stephano's Infestor strategy" or "Dimaga's Infestor Ultralisks 3-3" it makes me feel bad for Destiny/CatZ.
Another example is the famous "Morrow's 5 rax reapers" in the beta, Morrow didn't created this strat, but he won a major tournament back then using this strategy, that's why people remember it as Morrow's 5rax reapers.
People often thinks you have to be a pro to create strategies, timing, cheeses, but it's wrong. Of course it will be perfect and efficient in Stephano or Taeja's hands, but those players are not the most creative players..
There are still things yet to be discovered in SC2, but most people thinks pro players already know everything. Wrong.
You aren't being creative if you don't master your "creation". Because it's the perfected enough creation to be used in pro settings that is important. Stephano ling/infestor was different from ROOT zergs one. Plus Stephano already used the power of infestor/broodlord when it wasn't that well known : .
On December 22 2012 07:40 Jermstuddog wrote: Is it cool to be a hipster yet?
Has Stephano made this viable now? Or am I still a scrub who doesn't know wtf I'm talking about?
People don't always give credits to whom credit is due, especially on Starcraft II metagame.
It reminds me of Destiny & CatZ heavy infestor use back then... It tooks months for Dimaga to copy this style, then Stephano used it perfectly (mastered it) because he was a better player, but credit to those ROOT players. When I heard people talking about "Stephano's Infestor strategy" or "Dimaga's Infestor Ultralisks 3-3" it makes me feel bad for Destiny/CatZ.
Another example is the famous "Morrow's 5 rax reapers" in the beta, Morrow didn't created this strat, but he won a major tournament back then using this strategy, that's why people remember it as Morrow's 5rax reapers.
People often thinks you have to be a pro to create strategies, timing, cheeses, but it's wrong. Of course it will be perfect and efficient in Stephano or Taeja's hands, but those players are not the most creative players..
There are still things yet to be discovered in SC2, but most people thinks pro players already know everything. Wrong.
Stephano didn't come up with the heavy infestor strategy. He came up with the fast upgraded lings instead of banes into infestor-ultralisk. He also came up with the 12 minute max-out roach strategy against protoss.
Considering he also came up with his own hydra build against Terran, i think it's fair to say that he is creative.
Dimaga went double upgrade ling infestor ultralisk long before stephano made it famous. He was doing it before the fungal buff. but stephano won IPL3 with it, so it got his name.
Zergs everywhere were going mass roach against protoss and just using their economic lead to pummel them into the ground with pure roaches. hell, even I was doing this on ladder. kyrix vs hongun, min vs genius, min vs genius, stufff like that. Those were some of the first games were zerg was permitted to drone to 60 unattended and then just piled on pure roaches. "Stephano style" was more about refining the gas timings and roach warren timing so that you would be safe against 4 gate zealot, 7 gate, and +2 blink, and still be capable of outmuscling the toss with pure roach/ling.
anyway, about roach/hydra. I've seen stephano do it twice, and both times it was Ohana. coincidence? probably not.
On December 22 2012 07:40 Jermstuddog wrote: Is it cool to be a hipster yet?
Has Stephano made this viable now? Or am I still a scrub who doesn't know wtf I'm talking about?
People don't always give credits to whom credit is due, especially on Starcraft II metagame.
It reminds me of Destiny & CatZ heavy infestor use back then... It tooks months for Dimaga to copy this style, then Stephano used it perfectly (mastered it) because he was a better player, but credit to those ROOT players. When I heard people talking about "Stephano's Infestor strategy" or "Dimaga's Infestor Ultralisks 3-3" it makes me feel bad for Destiny/CatZ.
Another example is the famous "Morrow's 5 rax reapers" in the beta, Morrow didn't created this strat, but he won a major tournament back then using this strategy, that's why people remember it as Morrow's 5rax reapers.
People often thinks you have to be a pro to create strategies, timing, cheeses, but it's wrong. Of course it will be perfect and efficient in Stephano or Taeja's hands, but those players are not the most creative players..
There are still things yet to be discovered in SC2, but most people thinks pro players already know everything. Wrong.
Stephano didn't come up with the heavy infestor strategy. He came up with the fast upgraded lings instead of banes into infestor-ultralisk. He also came up with the 12 minute max-out roach strategy against protoss.
Considering he also came up with his own hydra build against Terran, i think it's fair to say that he is creative.
Dimaga went double upgrade ling infestor ultralisk long before stephano made it famous. He was doing it before the fungal buff. but stephano won IPL3 with it, so it got his name.
Zergs everywhere were going mass roach against protoss and just using their economic lead to pummel them into the ground with pure roaches. hell, even I was doing this on ladder. kyrix vs hongun, min vs genius, min vs genius, stufff like that. Those were some of the first games were zerg was permitted to drone to 60 unattended and then just piled on pure roaches. "Stephano style" was more about refining the gas timings and roach warren timing so that you would be safe against 4 gate zealot, 7 gate, and +2 blink, and still be capable of outmuscling the toss with pure roach/ling.
anyway, about roach/hydra. I've seen stephano do it twice, and both times it was Ohana. coincidence? probably not.
He is also doing it on cloud kingdom. Casters at HSC said he is serious with it, practicing / refining it and such. ToD also said in what I believe was Mille cup cast, or Ritmix RSL cast, that he was serious with it, something along the lines of : "it has a good potential but I haven't found the right timings yet".
It's this refinement that is very hard with weird builds, so it's perfectly normal to give credit to the ones who won something with it instead of some who started to use it but not successfully enough.
For people claiming that Stephano isn't creative, lol... in some old EggOne interview of Stephano, (he had not win IPL and stuff yet back then) they asked him about how he trained in order to catch up to beta/ex BW players so fast, and he said that he didn't watch pro zergs or anything, he just played a lot testing stuff to see if they worked.
very probable that hes getting ready for hots as he said that swarm hosts are not good and infestors is getting nerfed. Only unit that remains is the ultra and muta but he doesnt like mutas. I mean, if he can master hydra play in wol he will have an advantage in hots i think.
On December 24 2012 01:53 Stardroid wrote: Erm so does anyone have a link to any of this content, such as the game vs marineking (is he boxer) etc? it's exciting!
His build is : gasless 4 queens, 2 gas, roach warren (dont make roaches at the moment unless you're forced to) lair double evo 2 more gas, start 1 missile attack 1 carapace, take the third, keep droning untill you have a full 50 drones on 2 base Roach speed should line up with 1-1, start pumping roaches once you have full saturation on 2 base, go for 1-1-speed timing, as your push go through the middle of the map, drone your third like a madman, add hydra den and 2-2
Pump a mix of roach/hydra according to your gas and mineral income, go for another timing on 2-2
Been doing this all day today. It's kind of vulnerable (or at least uncomfortable) dealing with hellion runbys as you skip speedlings, but once you get that down it's pretty good. It's worth noting that this style definitely doesn't work to make comebacks when you're behind - for that I think you'd have to go infestor. This style is extremely strong whenever you have an advantage, which is why Stephano seems to do it after an initial timing attack. It's really fun being so aggressive.
Just to give some of my impressions on the recent Stephano roach +1+1 speed timing into hydra 2-2 : :IT IS AMAZING LOL
Basically i am 8-0 with it in various situations as different as failed 11-11 or 3 OC double ups super greedy builds. I will just give a few thoughts about it. I'm thinking about making a guide.
- First of all, it seems like it requires a very specific answer from the terran to not outright die to it. I can think of only two builds that would hold the attack without taking game ending damage :
- it would be 1 rax expo double gas factory CC then 4 helions and straight into siege tank - or the same build but with multiple rax with marauder production and many bunkers after the helions.
Which means that it does not look like any build including banshee and 3 cc would hold the first push without taking game ending damage basically. By game ending damage i mean the death of every scv at the natural (20+) and possibly huge damage taken in the main aswell.
I think it's also pretty easy to hide the build to the terran. The only things he can see is 3-4 roaches to push back helions and a not so fast third. He wont see any speedlings but it makes sens after a gasless opening, he will see double evo but could be lingfestor. If a banshee enters your base or if he scan, he will still see nothing that could be really telling, only the absence of infestor or spire but he could've missed it with his banshee/scan. And since he needs to clearly prepares for the push it makes it really hard to hold for him. He basically has to guess.
Depending on the map, the terran can or can not take his third after the first push and before the second (with hydras and roaches 2-2). It has to be a third defendable with tanks that will defend the natural as well, like in cloud kingdom or ohana.
What happened in every game was that i ended up ahead with like 70 drones on 3-4 bases against 35ish drones on two bases for the terran.
Most of the time I couldnt end up the game right there with the second push but I had to transition to broodfestor because the terran was turtling on 3 base with too many tanks, even if he had obviously lost the game (50-70 supply behind me, 3 base vs 5).
On December 25 2012 11:16 PinheadXXXXXX wrote: Stephano also beat Mvp 2-0 in Iron Squid using this style. Check Day9's youtube for most recent Iron Squid replays.
On December 25 2012 11:16 PinheadXXXXXX wrote: Stephano also beat Mvp 2-0 in Iron Squid using this style. Check Day9's youtube for most recent Iron Squid replays.
link? didnt find it
Couldn't find it either, maybe not uploaded yet. Replay pack is up though, should be in it
On December 25 2012 11:16 PinheadXXXXXX wrote: Stephano also beat Mvp 2-0 in Iron Squid using this style. Check Day9's youtube for most recent Iron Squid replays.
link? didnt find it
Oh, sorry, it's not up yet, but you can find the VODs at the Iron Squid channel on Twitch (http://www.twitch.tv/ironsquid
I said 3 OC builds with banshee could'nt hold according to me. here is a replay of a rank 12 master EU terran that didnt slip in macro (95% of the time scv production and his money was not high by the time i attacked, etc.) He went 1 rax expo double gas factory CC starport then added rax, 1-1 and siege tank. His infrastructure was simply not ready in time to hold the roaches.
Had he skipped the banshee in favor of earlier siege tank he would've hold I think. My execution was far from optimal (especially when i lose time targetting the OC and the starport). I wonder if, with proper execution, I could not have outright killed him with the first push.
Some thought on terran builds : I think those 3 oc helion banshee double ups builds are ultimately greedy, they are trying to do everything at the same time, greedy eco, greedy tech, greedy ups. They could get away with it before because zergs used to go for slowroaches/ling/bane attack with different variations, and those attack hitted right as the banshee and helions were ready but the upgrades and extra barracks or factory didnt start yet. That 1-1 speedroach timing come later, is more powerfull, but the terran is still stuck with mostly helion banshee, his upgrades and extra production has not kicked in yet. Oh, and +1 carapace speedroaches do not really care about banshees. I also like it more because the upgrades, compared to hatchery tech agression, means you have an easier transition. It still has to do damage, though, or the terran will get too far ahead in eco.
Yeah basically if they rush 3cc with tanks they can hold a 1-1 roach timing, but there are many reasons most terrans don't do that and you can still delay their 3rd for quite a while if they do it anyway, then attack with roach/hydra.
After 2 years of calling hydra utterly useless in TvZ it is now suddenly kicking ass. I remember getting owned hard by this like a year ago while playing with MMM. Makes me wonder how this had worked pre-queenbuff because with this you would have a good reason to go roaches and make those hellions meaningless. Then again zerg was totally fine droning on 2 bases so I guess there was no real need to even think about smth like this.
On December 28 2012 12:04 Entteri wrote: After 2 years of calling hydra utterly useless in TvZ it is now suddenly kicking ass. I remember getting owned hard by this like a year ago while playing with MMM. Makes me wonder how this had worked pre-queenbuff because with this you would have a good reason to go roaches and make those hellions meaningless. Then again zerg was totally fine droning on 2 bases so I guess there was no real need to even think about smth like this.
There's been no Hydra buff which makes me wonder if this Hydra hype will once again disappear when Terran's cotton on and start building more marauders into their compositions. I know personally I have a very large ratio of Marines to Marauders (8:1 or higher).
The Hydralisk still has the same fundamental flaws it always did, this may well just be a fleeting change in the meta.
On December 28 2012 11:47 Thalandros wrote: Definately going to try this although it'll be not a reliable build, since it requires a gasless expand. But will see if it works! Thanks! :D
What are you talking about? why would a gasless expo not be reliable? You have raoches in time for helions, queens and overseers in time for cloacked shee, what else? I'd say it's even one of his strength to be gasless because the terran will be greedier, as in triple OC etc.
From what I've seen, it definately appears somewhat map sensitive because it's so much slower than a ling based army, and terrans seem to then be able to drop alot and deny a 5th pretty easily.
The other major weakness I see to this composition is the upgrades. When it comes time for zergs to make their tier 3 tech switch, they don't have any mêlée upgrades, which both broodlings and ultras greatly benefit from.
On December 28 2012 12:04 Entteri wrote: After 2 years of calling hydra utterly useless in TvZ it is now suddenly kicking ass. I remember getting owned hard by this like a year ago while playing with MMM. Makes me wonder how this had worked pre-queenbuff because with this you would have a good reason to go roaches and make those hellions meaningless. Then again zerg was totally fine droning on 2 bases so I guess there was no real need to even think about smth like this.
There's been no Hydra buff which makes me wonder if this Hydra hype will once again disappear when Terran's cotton on and start building more marauders into their compositions. I know personally I have a very large ratio of Marines to Marauders (8:1 or higher).
The Hydralisk still has the same fundamental flaws it always did, this may well just be a fleeting change in the meta.
Wouldn't marines be better then rauders vs hydras?
The real solution is just to add more tanks imo
It depends on the ratio I guess, marines and hydras both do high dps and a hydra roach composition would be more deadly to pure marine than marine marauder. If it was just Hydra's I'd just build marines and a click to victory!
Hydraling baneling is pretty great too -there was a recent thread on this but I forgot the guy's name. Love the Stephano games, as an aggressive player I think it really suits him to go mental with hydras (which you should, I think). I think I'll try out the roach 1-1 into roach hydra 2-2 for a bit of fun - the weakness to hellions is worrying though, people in diamond still seem to want to chuck 10-12 hellions at your mineral line no matter what.
And what happened to all the terrans anyway? a bit off topic but all I see online is protoss and zerg? Is it because they're no longer 'OP' (lol?). I'd love to play this out more but I don't get any terrans to play against!
A question - do you think, with a hydra based composition, drops followed by nydus would be a good choice once you reach 200 supply and T is on 3 bases? (i.e. drop in the main and make a nydus exit in the main and out to the third?)
On December 28 2012 12:04 Entteri wrote: After 2 years of calling hydra utterly useless in TvZ it is now suddenly kicking ass. I remember getting owned hard by this like a year ago while playing with MMM. Makes me wonder how this had worked pre-queenbuff because with this you would have a good reason to go roaches and make those hellions meaningless. Then again zerg was totally fine droning on 2 bases so I guess there was no real need to even think about smth like this.
There's been no Hydra buff which makes me wonder if this Hydra hype will once again disappear when Terran's cotton on and start building more marauders into their compositions. I know personally I have a very large ratio of Marines to Marauders (8:1 or higher).
The Hydralisk still has the same fundamental flaws it always did, this may well just be a fleeting change in the meta.
Wouldn't marines be better then rauders vs hydras?
The real solution is just to add more tanks imo
It depends on the ratio I guess, marines and hydras both do high dps and a hydra roach composition would be more deadly to pure marine than marine marauder. If it was just Hydra's I'd just build marines and a click to victory!
In my experience, there are two major things that shit on hydra/roach play from the Terran side.
1) Tanks. The obvious solution that nobody wants to build. They slaughter hydras and roaches with impunity, but their static nature does not allow for Terran to push out onto a creep-covered map all that quickly and thus allows Zerg plenty of time to transition over to a T3 army while under basically no pressure.
2) 2/2 bio. Once Terran infantry hits 2/2, the advantage given by the Zerg upgrades ceases to exist and Hydras, therefore, cease to be viable.
Simply making more marines doesn't cut it as 1) they are pretty bad vs roaches when behind on upgrades, and 2) if you don't have a lot of tanks, I can make like 6 banelings and throw the fight hugely in my favor regardless of ups.
The big point of this build is that Terran cannot comfortably secure their natural, make a 3rd OC to compete on econ, produce enough army to be a serious threat, rush upgrades to beat Zerg timings, AND attack all at the same time. So there is this natural window, both at the 1/1 and 2/2 timings, where Zerg has a sizable advantage in raw fighting power.
Unfortunately, I quit playing (about 95% less ladder now) before I finished smoothing out my transitions to T3, so that is still a rough spot for me when I was using the build.
On December 28 2012 12:04 Entteri wrote: After 2 years of calling hydra utterly useless in TvZ it is now suddenly kicking ass. I remember getting owned hard by this like a year ago while playing with MMM. Makes me wonder how this had worked pre-queenbuff because with this you would have a good reason to go roaches and make those hellions meaningless. Then again zerg was totally fine droning on 2 bases so I guess there was no real need to even think about smth like this.
There's been no Hydra buff which makes me wonder if this Hydra hype will once again disappear when Terran's cotton on and start building more marauders into their compositions. I know personally I have a very large ratio of Marines to Marauders (8:1 or higher).
The Hydralisk still has the same fundamental flaws it always did, this may well just be a fleeting change in the meta.
Wouldn't marines be better then rauders vs hydras?
The real solution is just to add more tanks imo
It depends on the ratio I guess, marines and hydras both do high dps and a hydra roach composition would be more deadly to pure marine than marine marauder. If it was just Hydra's I'd just build marines and a click to victory!
In my experience, there are two major things that shit on hydra/roach play from the Terran side.
1) Tanks. The obvious solution that nobody wants to build. They slaughter hydras and roaches with impunity, but their static nature does not allow for Terran to push out onto a creep-covered map all that quickly and thus allows Zerg plenty of time to transition over to a T3 army while under basically no pressure.
2) 2/2 bio. Once Terran infantry hits 2/2, the advantage given by the Zerg upgrades ceases to exist and Hydras, therefore, cease to be viable.
Simply making more marines doesn't cut it as 1) they are pretty bad vs roaches when behind on upgrades, and 2) if you don't have a lot of tanks, I can make like 6 banelings and throw the fight hugely in my favor regardless of ups.
The big point of this build is that Terran cannot comfortably secure their natural, make a 3rd OC to compete on econ, produce enough army to be a serious threat, rush upgrades to beat Zerg timings, AND attack all at the same time. So there is this natural window, both at the 1/1 and 2/2 timings, where Zerg has a sizable advantage in raw fighting power.
Unfortunately, I quit playing (about 95% less ladder now) before I finished smoothing out my transitions to T3, so that is still a rough spot for me when I was using the build.
Hey Bro, When I get back home from my family's place, we should trade notes. (See my recent post of the hydra pilgrimage)
I am top 8 masters on two accounts, and have been going roach hydra or roach ect for some time in zvt. I am also currently working on my mid to late game transitions, with some really cool results. I think I have it figured out ^_^ But I am testing alot of new builds now that I have a mid game goal in mind, and not just mindlessly going roach hydra
So I just picked up HotS on Saturday and, while my mechanics are quite rusty from my extended break I took, this build still seems to work perfectly in general.
Some of the modern adjustments I've made so far:
If my opponent opens with a reaper rush, I will general counter with 5-7 roaches to his natural while defending his reaper harass with my queens. This heavily delays the taking of the Terran expansion until they get banshees, siege tanks, or a mass of bio big enough to root out the roaches.
The new mutalisk and ultralisk allow for much stronger transitions out of the roach/hydra style and seems to have fixed the issues I was having moving into mid/late game armies. I can switch to melee upgrades after +1 range is done as +2 range is mostly worthless in ZvT. This allows me to make a quite considerable ling/bling/muta army around the 15-20 min mark as needed. There still seems to be some rough spots, but it generally feels a lot better than it did in WoL.
Widow mines are surprisingly a non-issue, I much prefer them to siege tanks. The thing about Siege tanks is they do consistent damage through the course of a fight, generally turning any engagement vs a terran army with tanks into a losing battle. Widow mines are a 1-shot type deal, and almost always target my roaches. Considering my roaches are mostly bullet-sponges anyway, this is fine. Also, they are much shorter range than siege tanks and I can often target a good number of them down before they activate.
So far, it seems that using this style and adjusting for the new mechanics of HotS, ZvT has easily become my best MU. Once I have a little more than 2-days of experience playing with it in HotS, I will write a new guide updating this style.
On April 15 2013 22:57 Jermstuddog wrote: So I just picked up HotS on Saturday and, while my mechanics are quite rusty from my extended break I took, this build still seems to work perfectly in general.
Some of the modern adjustments I've made so far:
If my opponent opens with a reaper rush, I will general counter with 5-7 roaches to his natural while defending his reaper harass with my queens. This heavily delays the taking of the Terran expansion until they get banshees, siege tanks, or a mass of bio big enough to root out the roaches.
The new mutalisk and ultralisk allow for much stronger transitions out of the roach/hydra style and seems to have fixed the issues I was having moving into mid/late game armies. I can switch to melee upgrades after +1 range is done as +2 range is mostly worthless in ZvT. This allows me to make a quite considerable ling/bling/muta army around the 15-20 min mark as needed. There still seems to be some rough spots, but it generally feels a lot better than it did in WoL.
Widow mines are surprisingly a non-issue, I much prefer them to siege tanks. The thing about Siege tanks is they do consistent damage through the course of a fight, generally turning any engagement vs a terran army with tanks into a losing battle. Widow mines are a 1-shot type deal, and almost always target my roaches. Considering my roaches are mostly bullet-sponges anyway, this is fine. Also, they are much shorter range than siege tanks and I can often target a good number of them down before they activate.
So far, it seems that using this style and adjusting for the new mechanics of HotS, ZvT has easily become my best MU. Once I have a little more than 2-days of experience playing with it in HotS, I will write a new guide updating this style.
welcome back mate! <3<3 As one of your roach hydra peers. Let me suggest you try around with them vipers! Binding cloud on tanks, or bio really makes roach hydra VERY effective, and allows up to hit a turtle player.
EPT
