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On October 10 2012 06:03 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2012 04:52 Bippzy wrote:
I think that the premise of the thread is wrong.
Premise:
Hydra in WOL=Hydra in HOTD: bad
The hydra has a position much like ravens and void rays and phoenixes where they are very niche units. And really, with the viper, they have gained some utility. But making them anything more than they are is quite a hard argument to make when there is no where for them to go besides "we love hydras"
The hydra shouldn't be niche. It shoots air and ground with equal damage and range, it's 2 supply - it's the Zerg Stalker. The problem with it is twofold: 1. It lacks retention value. No blink upgrade with which to escape, no shields to regenerate out of combat or healing from medivacs - they're fodder, and too expensive to be fodder. Better to use roaches, which have better burst damage and live a bit longer to boot. 2. Zerg lacks units like the Colossus (or, equivalently, Protoss HAS the collossus). You can make mostly stalkers, add a small number of colossus to make your army hugely more frightening, and then slowly transition into zealot/archon or whatever you like. But if you make a similar army of hydra, there's nothing equivalent to the colossus you can lean on during that vital "Shit, he's maxed with robo tech" period to keep you alive. So Hydra are a really all-in move. If you want a fair shake at the late game you need to be at hive tech earlier, and to be safe that means infestors, which means no hydra.
Blizzard has simply failed with the roach/hydra design. They split the BW hydralisk (or rather its roles) in two units, yet they failed to balance them together. It's a cool concept for a powerful role on larvatech, but they simply didn't go through with it properly. The roach is too strong on its own, the hydra doesn't provide enough extra/power to the roach. On top of that it overlaps with how the infestor got balanced.
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Colossi and Tanks never stop people from making Infestors in ZvP and ZvT.
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remove swarm host building (if there is one have not played hots yet) reduce cost and supply of hydras, Make hydras morph into Swarm hosts
i think with teh reduced costs and pre req for swarm hosts they could be worked into builds more
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On October 10 2012 07:51 ineversmile wrote:
Colossi and Tanks never stop people from making Infestors in ZvP and ZvT.
Why would it? Infestors don't need to engage those head-on to do their damage. They just dart in, cast their spells, and run away (they even have Burrow to help them escape).
In addition to the guaranteed damage to units in battles from Fungal, they also have Infested Terrans that can be used in covert missions to take out buildings and entire expansions.
Meanwhile Hydras need to go-to-toe vs. those AoE units to do any damage and they have no hope of running away from a losing fight.
On October 10 2012 08:01 MisterTea wrote:
remove swarm host building (if there is one have not played hots yet)
They require the Infestor Pit to be built.
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On October 10 2012 09:26 archon256 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2012 07:51 ineversmile wrote:
Colossi and Tanks never stop people from making Infestors in ZvP and ZvT. Why would it? Infestors don't need to engage those head-on to do their damage. They just dart in, cast their spells, and run away (they even have Burrow to help them escape). In addition to the guaranteed damage to units in battles from Fungal, they also have Infested Terrans that can be used in covert missions to take out buildings and entire expansions. Meanwhile Hydras need to go-to-toe vs. those AoE units to do any damage and they have no hope of running away from a losing fight.
Exactly. Why would you ever want to build a unit that actually costs money and has to fight in battles, when you could just use casters to spawn free units and then run away? And what are the counter units for Infestors? Tanks and Colossi? They cast spells from such a long range, they can cast spells and then run away. So what's the Zerg's motivation for actually making Hydras in either of those match-ups?
I think there's just something wrong with Infested Terran being a 25 energy spell to produce that caliber of summoned unit. Maybe a solution is to make Hydras cheaper on the whole, or to make something else (Swarm host or just downright Lurkers) come from their tech structure, just so there's actual incentive to build a Hydra Den instead of an Infestation Pit. Or maybe there just shouldn't be a 25 energy ability to spawn Infested Terrans.
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I'm sure Hydras would be used more if they only cost 50 mins, and could be built with only a spawning pool.
Just sayin.
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On October 08 2012 19:04 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 19:00 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On October 08 2012 18:22 Decendos wrote:On October 08 2012 18:20 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Viper/Infestor/ Hydra seems like a good unit composition.
Stop 'em in their tracks, cut their range and then fill'em with spines. HT superrape this comp. ^^ Not if abduct fires off first. ;p feedback range 9 or even 10(?), abduct range 7 and not even insta. and 1 HT can kill 8 viper so you dont need many HT in your comp. T and P will learn how to use feedback/snipe which is very nice since it adds micro. Z will have to learn how to scout the position of the ghosts/HT and then abduct units that arent protected, which also adds micro. --> higher skill ceilling on both sides --> nice.
Micro? you know you can feedback through minimap right? You can't feedback your own units, or units without an energy bar, so if you hold F and spam click on the minimap near where the fight is, all the enemy casters within the area get feedbacked. It's not A-move, but its not impressive micro either.
Edit: sorry realised I was posting off-topic. Someone suggested this already, but I second the idea that swarm hosts should be unlocked by hydralisk den. As zerg, you're going to be building an infestor pit rather early anyway to get infestors. Compare this to the Queen's nest in BW. People hardly used queens so that meant that people would usually only build the queen's nest in order to unlock hive. Right now in SC2 HOTS, hydra den isn't much of an appealing choice given the two alternatives of spire and infestor pit.
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On October 09 2012 16:09 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2012 12:47 aRyuujin wrote:
Honestly, I'd really like for them to move the upgrade from hive tech to lair tech, and maybe make it a bit cheaper. Then, people will be able to split their hydras/micro em like marines, and they'll be a bit more multipurpose. Having more non roach units are always fun, the roach is the most boring thing ever right now :\ Impossible. Hydras have a long fire animation and a small turning animation. You can't kite hydras because of that, no matter how high their speed is.
you wouldn't want them to kite as marines do. I'm saying you can split them/flank with them easily in the midgame, allowing them to be viable even vs colossus/storm, etc. Think storm dodging in pvt, but with hydras
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On October 10 2012 10:39 aRyuujin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2012 16:09 Big J wrote:On October 09 2012 12:47 aRyuujin wrote:
Honestly, I'd really like for them to move the upgrade from hive tech to lair tech, and maybe make it a bit cheaper. Then, people will be able to split their hydras/micro em like marines, and they'll be a bit more multipurpose. Having more non roach units are always fun, the roach is the most boring thing ever right now :\ Impossible. Hydras have a long fire animation and a small turning animation. You can't kite hydras because of that, no matter how high their speed is. you wouldn't want them to kite as marines do. I'm saying you can split them/flank with them easily in the midgame, allowing them to be viable even vs colossus/storm, etc. Think storm dodging in pvt, but with hydras
Think about how impossible it would be to dodge storms if bio wasn't faster than roaches.
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i'm going to throw out an alternate perspective here, and throw out that hydras were always a bad unit
but here's the thing
it doesn't matter if a unit is a terrible, if it's invulnerable and kills all the enemy units in one hit
they were always really slow and clunky and terrible against basically every single unit but dragoons, but had the perfect spells to support them
abduct and blinding cloud are pretty clearly meant to support hydras, but like i said early, no support spells really compare to being invulnerable and killing everything in 1 hit
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By more standard design, things that are tanky do little damage but due to their sustain can live longer to do more damage. Fragile things need the burst to be useful else they melt away before any sustainable damage is noted.
Roaches are tanky and bursty. Hydras are fragile and a high-dps unit but not particularly bursty.
Anyway I'm surprised this thread took so long to come up as an issue. I don't know why people ever thought hydra speed would help do anything other than allow them to run away better. I know they're being made, but honestly fairly useless in everything except ZvZ (which is even then so-so). Hydra's need a re-design and/or an ability imo.
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On October 10 2012 12:05 bittman wrote:
By more standard design, things that are tanky do little damage but due to their sustain can live longer to do more damage. Fragile things need the burst to be useful else they melt away before any sustainable damage is noted.
Roaches are tanky and bursty. Hydras are fragile and a high-dps unit but not particularly bursty.
Anyway I'm surprised this thread took so long to come up as an issue. I don't know why people ever thought hydra speed would help do anything other than allow them to run away better. I know they're being made, but honestly fairly useless in everything except ZvZ (which is even then so-so). Hydra's need a re-design and/or an ability imo.
1) I mentioned this problem as soon as they announced hydra speed.
2) Roaches aren't good because they're tanky, they're good because they're fast, cheap, and tanky
3) Hydras aren't bad because they're slow, they're bad because they're slow, expensive, and don't have anything to offer
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What about giving Hydras the roach upgrade for faster healing while burrowed? Except bring back that old OP version that healed like 50hp/sec. Would give them some survivability while creating some interesting and very rewarding micro.
Edit: Nvm, not even that sounds appealing enough to choose them over infestor + swarmhost. I would say that every other tech path at lair has better options. You only really need hydras for anti-air, and spire obviously works for that, and the fact that the infestor can fill the role as well makes hydras useless. I would always take the infestor over it because it is so versatile. If they changed fungal to only affect ground, and then buffed hydras, there would be new need and more incentive to get them.
The infestation pit seems to be the problem. It monopolizes the lair tech. It gives you the ability to get to hive, it gives you the most versatile spellcaster in the game, and now we add the swarmhost to that. Something needs to change if you ever want hydras to be used.
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
The speed upgrade was implemented to intentionally give hydras the ability to harass however they still melt extremely easily.
Well, the speed upgrade was nerfed. Previously it was a 2.25 > 3.375 speed upgrade, it got reduced to half the effect AFAIK. Nobody really noticed.
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Hydras a filling an interesting role as widow mine clearers.
I'm loving it because now the Zerg needs to more options than take 3/4 bases, defend with queens and spines and build unit composition vs build order and A1 move for the win at 15 min.
They now have the same problem that Terran has with WoL Protoss, make too many Hydras to clear mines and die.
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My feeling is that the roach and the hydra will be too similar if the buff the hydras HP and lower DPS. The roach hydra balancing act might never be overcome. Maybe buff hydras and make swarm hosts morph from roaches and give speed and burrow movement to hydras?
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On October 10 2012 09:51 ineversmile wrote:
Exactly. Why would you ever want to build a unit that actually costs money and has to fight in battles, when you could just use casters to spawn free units and then run away? And what are the counter units for Infestors? Tanks and Colossi? They cast spells from such a long range, they can cast spells and then run away. So what's the Zerg's motivation for actually making Hydras in either of those match-ups?
I think there's just something wrong with Infested Terran being a 25 energy spell to produce that caliber of summoned unit. Maybe a solution is to make Hydras cheaper on the whole, or to make something else (Swarm host or just downright Lurkers) come from their tech structure, just so there's actual incentive to build a Hydra Den instead of an Infestation Pit. Or maybe there just shouldn't be a 25 energy ability to spawn Infested Terrans.
Infestors are stupidly powerful, sure, but just nerfing them won't make people build Hydras instead. Hydras are utterly destroyed by those aforementioned units, and it's the fact that Infestors can cast spells and run away that lets them be used.
As for reducing Hydra cost, maybe.
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I think Hydras need an HP boost. Not a large one, but one that simply allows them more survivability. Sure, they are there to provide support for the army by being a ranged backbone, but frankly they aren't used enough to matter. All one needs is a couple of Colossus and it's lights out for the Hydras, especially once Zealots gain the Charge ability alongside Extended Thermal Lance.
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I think they should remove roaches and buff hydras. Roaches are a lame unit.
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On October 10 2012 14:42 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Hydras a filling an interesting role as widow mine clearers.
I'm loving it because now the Zerg needs to more options than take 3/4 bases, defend with queens and spines and build unit composition vs build order and A1 move for the win at 15 min.
They now have the same problem that Terran has with WoL Protoss, make too many Hydras to clear mines and die.
Protoss has mines? Marines lose to stalkers and their gas costs prevent you from building any other tech or tech unit?
For widow mine clearing. I'd say fungal, zergling, swarm host are all straight up better than hydras that need an upgrade to do so and all you have to do is unburrow and run away or unburrow, step in, burrow, collect hydra parts, depending on the amount of hydras you face.
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EPT
