I firmly believe that hydralisks hold the same role in heart of the swarm as they did in WOL. They simply have not changed as a unit and the introduction of the new features in HOTS has not given them a new role either. The speed upgrade was implemented to intentionally give hydras the ability to harass however they still melt extremely easily. The maps, atleast in the current state of the beta as well as WOL, do not allow for the style of play intended in HOTS.[The ability to run in, pick off key units, and run out unscathed.] The best use for the hydra is to provide DPS, as that is what the unit is best at doing. The problem has always been that the hydralisk has no other aspects to it that compliment this.
Look at the ZvZ matchup, basically the only MU where the hydralisk has found a consistent role. The role of the hydra in this MU is to provide dps while the complimentary roaches alongside them will provide a line of armour. The reason this is possible in ZvZ, and so consistently seen, is because this MU involves the same units on both sides. That means you won't have situations where the hydralisk can't reach its target or simply gets melted before gaining vision of what is firing at it. The range of the hydra needs to be farther and the health/armour of it would need to be significantly buffed for the hydralisk to become a, "core", unit similar to a roach or a marine.
The role of the hydra has always been based around timings. In ZvZ, the hydra is best used before your opponent has banked a large number of infestors with energy. In matches like PvZ, you typically see the hydra used in 2 base all-ins involving drop-play or nydus-play. That is because the dps of the hydra can be severely strong if your opponent doe not have the sheer numbers of units to deal with such a detrimental force. If your opponent is going for a fast oracle play in HOTS (as an example), chances are there will be a timing where a 2 base hydra attack would hard-counter his build and straight up kill him due to the investment of the oracle and lack of units to coincide with it. This is one way the hydra is used in WOL against greedy protoss builds, however it is typically executed blindly due to the lack of scouting a zerg can depend on in this portion of the game.
Nothing in HOTS actually changes the hydralisk as a unit, the speed upgrade doesn't make it a form of harassment that you can depend on. Perhaps if it was available during lair tech, it would have a better purpose and create new timings, but this is not the case. The sole purpose of the hydralisk does not coincide with the fact that it needs a speed upgrade at hive tech, in fact this upgrade to me is actually quite irrelevant but may find a place in odd late game ZvZ situations.
Hydra s should have some form of armour upgrade like the ultra, love fighting them, love the lore, wish they were more viable so ppl would use them more
I actually use them alot in my HOTS ladder games. Roach hydra coupled with about 10 swarm hosts, i can put pressure on the toss's front door. then i get vipers to pull in colossi. its really good actually. hydras arent going to be used as harassment, but used to add dps and to knock back air. the only reason queens are used to heavily against air is because after making hydras, they are deadweights. they don't add anything else later into the game. once you get the speed upgrade tho, they can actually move around instead of being slow. so you can open hydras against a person who goes stargate now. its rather good imo. and in zvt, roach hydra swarmhost viper is really good against mech. even without the swarmhost, its really good. adds alot of dps and with abduct and the blinding cloud, it really makes hydras much more fun.
I think part of the problem is that they belong to their own building. Hydras are outdone by the Mutalisk in terms of harassment, although they have higher DPS. This is kind of a fair tradeoff, but Mutas come with Corruptors, which are a necessity for most Z games. Similarly, Infestors are useful for AA, although they rely on other units for DPS and are sitting ducks without energy. But Infestors require the same building that unlocks Hive tech, and now unlocks Swarm Hosts, so...
I think the tech should be switched around somehow.
On October 08 2012 07:57 TheLunatic wrote: Hydra s should have some form of armour upgrade like the ultra, love fighting them, love the lore, wish they were more viable so ppl would use them more
They already have 2 upgrades. They need a HP buff first and foremost. Hopefully that'll be in the first WOL-unit HOTS patch which is suppose to come within a few weeks.
On October 08 2012 08:01 Aurrora wrote: I actually use them alot in my HOTS ladder games. Roach hydra coupled with about 10 swarm hosts, i can put pressure on the toss's front door. then i get vipers to pull in colossi. its really good actually. hydras arent going to be used as harassment, but used to add dps and to knock back air. the only reason queens are used to heavily against air is because after making hydras, they are deadweights. they don't add anything else later into the game. once you get the speed upgrade tho, they can actually move around instead of being slow. so you can open hydras against a person who goes stargate now. its rather good imo. and in zvt, roach hydra swarmhost viper is really good against mech. even without the swarmhost, its really good. adds alot of dps and with abduct and the blinding cloud, it really makes hydras much more fun.
Perhaps the hydra gains some synergy with the new units/abilities, however I'm not sure if the metagame will allow for the unit to stay relevant. Early on in WOL we saw hydralisks all the time, but people found out they were just not practical due to cost and their lack of functionality outside specific situations. In hots, if the hydra stays as is, I think they may become irrelevant once again for basically the same reasons.
Imo they should move speed upgrade to lair tech and change Swarm host to require hydra tech, because speed upgrade at hive tech is pointless and infestation pit is allready good enough with giving access to infestors and hive tech
they should get a better animation (like in bw, where microing your hydra's didn't mean losing 50 percent of their dps). And perhaps bring the gas back to 25 or make them cost 1 food. If these last two don't change anything, you could do other changes.
What if the Hydra were given the ability to cliff-climb, a la the Reaper. Would that give it that added mobility + versatility that it needs? Either innate or as a result of upgrade.
On October 08 2012 08:29 MasterCynical wrote: Hydras are too big of a gas investment. maybe if they decreased that, we would see more hydras?
I think we would see more however I still don't think that gives the hydralisk a firm role as a unit. If the gas cost of the hydra was lowered to 75 it'd basically become a second tier roach. Or maybe the roach would stay dominant, due to the glass cannon nature of the hydra. I think the hydralisk would need a series of changes to give it a core role that stays dominant in the metagame. I'm not sure if blizzard would be able to do this however, it doesn't seem like an easy task.
For early 2 base pressure I've found it much better to invest 200 gas in a nydus worm and some queens rather than a hydra den and 3 hydras. Queens + transfuse just have so much more durability. A range upgrade or some extra hp would be nice.
I've found hydras to be a great late game transition, especially when focusing on the upgrades in midgame for roaches and swarm hosts. Yes, they're still glass cannons, but now at least with the speed upgrade you can get them out of fights and even do counter attacks with them in the late game.
Yeah, if we want hydras to behave as they did in BW that requires one supply, lower cost, lower dps, lower cost of the hydralisk den, speed upgrade from lair tech, and some sort of additional utility. In BW that additional utility was in the form of a lurker, which is an essential unit in most compositions. It's obvious as to why Hydras hardly fill any role: they weren't really designed to.
So before one thinks about what changes need to be made, a clear goal needs to be set on what the Hydralisk should achieve or accomplish. In BW it was a very Bread and Butter style staple unit that filled a generic ranged shooter, and also was a tech link to Lurkers, and the only ground to air unit.
In SC2 since Hydralisks have low speed, high dps, and low HP they are pretty much only used to kill an opponent before they have units that can trade cost-efficiently. In ZvP you can do a Hydra/Ling allin, which works well until a specific tech point is reached by the Toss. The low speed means hard to retreat, and lower HP and higher cost means any commitment to Hydra tech is highly dedicated as you cannot afford to lose them (and thus must trade cost-efficiently in specialized timings).
I'm still convinced that the best way to fix hydras would be to switch the hydra and roach, basically bringing back the BW hydra (tier 1, 75/25, 1 supply) and making the roach a more expensive, specialized tanking unit (tier 2, 100/50, 2 supply) with its old 2 armor and/or 5 hp/s automatic regeneration. The hydras would still obviously be weak to AoE, but it wouldn't be a big problem because you can now afford to throw them away, plus you just have more of them due to 1 supply.
I've played against a handful of people trying Viper/Hydra as a composition. It semi-works, but it's difficult to use. If the protoss goes double robo or robo/storm (which they should do against this composition) either the colossus melt enough hydralisks before the they're abducted and killed so that the rest of the protoss army can win the fight, or storm (and whatever colossus shots are possible) does a lot of damage to hydras and you can overwhelm them (retreating from storm could be an option, but then any abducted colossus get away). Feedback is also very useful.
I think that we won't ever see Hydras as the mainstay of the Zerg army. Rather it will only ever be a support unit. Back in the early days of SC2 there were a lot of Roach/Hydra/Corruptor builds. They could see a resurgence now that Hydras and Vipers get a buff at Hive tech and imo roach/hydra will work a lot better than pure hydra.
On October 08 2012 12:57 -NegativeZero- wrote: I'm still convinced that the best way to fix hydras would be to switch the hydra and roach, basically bringing back the BW hydra (tier 1, 75/25, 1 supply) and making the roach a more expensive, specialized tanking unit (tier 2, 100/50, 2 supply) with its old 2 armor and/or 5 hp/s automatic regeneration. The hydras would still obviously be weak to AoE, but it wouldn't be a big problem because you can now afford to throw them away, plus you just have more of them due to 1 supply.
Yes the hydra is an iconic unit, but does that mean it is 'broken' because it isn't like it was in BW? As I said above, the hydra is an excellent support unit that now has more staying power in ZvP because of Vipers/Speed.
Browder mentioned the entire game was going to be rebalanced later in the beta. I suspect many attributes about many units will change, including the hydra.
I strongly believe the best thing for hydras is to change their role. Make them an anti-armored unit; as they were in BW. (anti-large there, pretty similar overall)
If the Swarm Host came from the Hydralisk Den, you'd see more Hydra action. But, right now, it's the Hydralisk from Hydralisk Den vs. Infestor+Swarm Host+Hive from the Infestation Pit. Guess who wins?
On October 08 2012 15:57 Cloak wrote: If the Swarm Host came from the Hydralisk Den, you'd see more Hydra action. But, right now, it's the Hydralisk from Hydralisk Den vs. Infestor+Swarm Host+Hive from the Infestation Pit. Guess who wins?
This seems to be a common suggestion, one that I have also posed. Blizz recently said that the Swarm Host may require its own building, so why not move it to the Hydra Den instead, and see what happens?
On October 08 2012 15:57 Cloak wrote: If the Swarm Host came from the Hydralisk Den, you'd see more Hydra action. But, right now, it's the Hydralisk from Hydralisk Den vs. Infestor+Swarm Host+Hive from the Infestation Pit. Guess who wins?
I agree, the infestation pit route now offers so much more variety and it was already critical to getting higher tech before. The spire offers mutalisk and corruptor, and the infestation pit now offers swarm host and infestor. Both are a requirement for Broodlords. The hydralisk den feels like a dead end route.
I think it'd be a good idea to remove the range upgrade (just make the hydra's have the additional range by default) and then make their speed upgrade lair tech. Add an additional armor improvement (like the ultralisk one) to hive tech so that the lack of durability in the lategame, once the collosi and high tank counts come out, is fixed.
15damage on 1cooldown instead of 12 on 0.83 (14.5-->15 dps; damage has a better burst effect); this makes the hydralisk upgrade with +2 (so in 3-3 scenarios, hydralisks will have 18dps) Speed upgrade to lair Range upgrade to hive and +2 hydralisk cost 100/50 --> 125/50 (if needed)
Might be wrong and Protoss air strategies and Mine/hellion/Thor heavy mech enable hydralisk play against them, but to be quite honest, I don't see this. If you go for those strategies, you should build templar and tanks if you see hydras. Losing to them looks more like not using your tools right.
Btw: Hydra speed upgrade is stupid. An upgrade that does only work off creep... Why would I buy something I can have from good play for energy?
15damage on 1cooldown instead of 12 on 0.83 (14.5-->15 dps; damage has a better burst effect); this makes the hydralisk upgrade with +2 (so in 3-3 scenarios, hydralisks will have 18dps) Speed upgrade to lair Range upgrade to hive and +2 hydralisk cost 100/50 --> 125/50 (if needed)
Might be wrong and Protoss air strategies and Mine/hellion/Thor heavy mech enable hydralisk play against them, but to be quite honest, I don't see this. If you go for those strategies, you should build templar and tanks if you see hydras. Losing to them looks more like not using your tools right.
Btw: Hydra speed upgrade is stupid. An upgrade that does only work off creep... Why would I buy something I can have from good play for energy?
Because your good play will be mitigated by good play from your opponent, nothing you can do about it either.
The hydra is a good overall unit in WoL and has it perks but the main reason you don't use them is because they die too fast. To low hp and speed makes it hard to retreat with them, and you basically has to commit every time you attack, it could have more uses in zvt but ling/bane/muta and ling/infestor is more cost effective and nimble than hydra.
The speed upgrade makes hydra viable lategame though, and not because of harassment. Aggressive pokes and attacking flanks is better, they still die very easily, perhaps they deserve a little hp buff but speed upgrade to lair would be more awesome.
It would be nice if they added something else along with the speed upgrade from hive, like 20% chance to evade attacks/damage made against them. Just a pure armor or hp upgrade doesnt really seem to fit the style of the unit.
I think they buffed it's movement so that it would be used more frequently than it has been during in WoL. Off creep they were just really, really, really slow compared to lings and roaches (which most of the time they're paired with). In HoTS I think they were just trying to address that problem, not necessarily turn it into a "harassing" unit role. Just making it a more viable core unit, whether or not the player opts to get them.
I think Hydra (and underused WoL units in general) should be given the Widow Mine treatment: buff them 'till it hurts and see how it pans out over a week or so.
For instance: make hydra plain bio (non-light), make them as fast as stalkers unupgraded and have 6(+1) range. Everyone spams them for a week and we see what happens, then dial 'em back (maybe DPS?) accordingly.
On October 08 2012 07:57 TheLunatic wrote: Hydra s should have some form of armour upgrade like the ultra, love fighting them, love the lore, wish they were more viable so ppl would use them more
They already have 2 upgrades. They need a HP buff first and foremost. Hopefully that'll be in the first WOL-unit HOTS patch which is suppose to come within a few weeks.
No. This sentiment is what is wrong with SC2. Things have too much health. Find a way to balance the unit and buff it without having to increase its health.
In BW, things didn't need to get HP buffs everytime they were deemed too weak. This results in more unpredictability (good) in fights, more variety in tactical choice, and in general, more spectator enjoyment. This isn't Warcraft 3.
On October 08 2012 17:02 Umpteen wrote: I think Hydra (and underused WoL units in general) should be given the Widow Mine treatment: buff them 'till it hurts and see how it pans out over a week or so.
For instance: make hydra plain bio (non-light), make them as fast as stalkers unupgraded and have 6(+1) range. Everyone spams them for a week and we see what happens, then dial 'em back (maybe DPS?) accordingly.
I still believe that this unit is too fragile compared to the tech / resources investment it represents. The speed / range buffs aren't adressing the main problem being that it just dies too quickly. Sure the speed buff makes it microable now, but being microable at hive tech timing means that the opposition has enough DPS to one shot it at that time anyway, micro or not.
On October 08 2012 15:57 Cloak wrote: If the Swarm Host came from the Hydralisk Den, you'd see more Hydra action. But, right now, it's the Hydralisk from Hydralisk Den vs. Infestor+Swarm Host+Hive from the Infestation Pit. Guess who wins?
This seems to be a common suggestion, one that I have also posed. Blizz recently said that the Swarm Host may require its own building, so why not move it to the Hydra Den instead, and see what happens?
Agreed, also hydra starting with range upgrade would be nice, or making Swarm host a evolution o hydralisk, just like Lurker.
On October 08 2012 17:13 killy666 wrote: I still believe that this unit is too fragile compared to the tech / resources investment it represents. The speed / range buffs aren't adressing the main problem being that it just dies too quickly. Sure the speed buff makes it microable now, but being microable at hive tech timing means that the opposition has enough DPS to one shot it at that time anyway, micro or not.
Nope, still can't kite with hydras, unless the speed buff changes more than just what creep does. You can't mirco hydras on creep (apart from some extremly small stutter steps, that don't change anything), due to the long fire animation that you cancel if you try to run.
And if you up their durability until it is viable, it is just going to be a boring a-move unit, that can attack ground and air. Basically just a roach 2.0. Well, even less. Roaches can kite and need to use their speed to outposition their opponent.
Imho the main problem is, that the Hydra <--> Roach relation does not work. The Roach just outshines it because it just delivers more for less cost. I mean, if not for the 2 supply cost... Why would you ever build another Zerg unit ^^.
Bring 1 food Hydras back, lower their cost, lower their DPS, lower their size.... Make them Hydras again...
On October 08 2012 17:28 Velr wrote: Imho the main problem is, that the Hydra <--> Roach relation does not work. The Roach just outshines it because it just delivers more for less cost. I mean, if not for the 2 supply cost... Why would you ever build another Zerg unit ^^.
Bring 1 food Hydras back, lower their cost, lower their DPS, lower their size.... Make them Hydras again...
The roach has too much damage/range for it's role, and the hydra not enough. You don't need to complement roaches with hydras, because you need too much buffer for hydras to shine and not enough dps support for the roach to do it's tanking job.
On top of that, the hydra does its damage fairly slowly. All the other glass canons in the game have either a burst/splash effect (Colossus, Siege Tank, Infestor, Templar) or are marines.
i like hydras being on lairtech. hydras on hatchtech would either shut down banshee/phoenix play completely or hydras would never be build against airplay (more likely since queens cost no gas and are better vs air anyway). 2fac helion play would be a problem without roaches etc.
best thing would really be to make them 1 supply, 75/25 and adjust their hp + dps so that its a buff overall.
lairtechspeed is definetly a must but like it has been said: even with the speedupgrade on lair hydras just suck as a unit. so either buff their dps (their dps/health/supply/cost ratio sucks incredibly) and range or make them 1 supply, less min/gas.
bump this thread in 2-4 weeks since bowder already said they will first adjust the new units.
I have faith in the new Hydra, but we need to give time for players to be innovative. They need a completely different appROACH, compared to the Infestor/Broodlord composition. We've already seen strong Hydra play in WoL, which means that it really does not require a lot of buff to change the fact that Hydras will be used. They might never be the unit that you get every game, but they do certainly have a role in the game. It's not just that Hydras have gotten a speed buff on Hive tech, there's also the Viper, which contributes the unit so well, there's also the Swarm Host, which shares the same attack upgrade and the fact that Protoss has only gotten Stargates units.
On October 08 2012 18:01 ejozl wrote: I have faith in the new Hydra, but we need to give time for players to be innovative. They need a completely different appROACH, compared to the Infestor/Broodlord composition. We've already seen strong Hydra play in WoL, which means that it really does not require a lot of buff to change the fact that Hydras will be used. They might never be the unit that you get every game, but they do certainly have a role in the game. It's not just that Hydras have gotten a speed buff on Hive tech, there's also the Viper, which contributes the unit so well, there's also the Swarm Host, which shares the same attack upgrade and the fact that Protoss has only gotten Stargates units.
just no. we havent seen strong hydra play in WoL. at least not since 1,5 years after roach hydra corruptor. hydra is only used in zvz to fill the last 20 supply. other than that hydras outright suck even with speedupgrade and lose to over 80% of units supplywise and trade with 10%. but hey they win vs the last 10% which includes workers ROFL.
hydras need a significant buff as a unit + lairtechspeed. then they could finally be useful in a macrobuild which would be awesome. if roach hydra all ins become too strong --> slightly nerf the roach.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It would be nice, but there's precious little opportunity for that kind of micro. It's just far too easy to keep your HT clumped up with the units you want to protect (or indeed standing under them).
The Hydra speed increase was mostly for ignorant people Imo, as the Hydra is one of the fastest units in WoL already, only on creep, but why would a zerg want to fight without it. Especially when spreading it everywhere takes almost no effort once you hit lair and have a 100 gas to spare. So yeah that this upgrade won't help in any way was pretty much a given. The Viper was actually the unit to look over too, as it works perfectly around the hydras weaknesses.
Anyway the Hydra is super fast out once you hit t2, unless a toss rushes for aoe the hydra is out before and has a timing. The Problem is getting to the opponent in time, but thats why nydus is t2 for example and why overlords can spread creep as soon as t2 hits. I have no problem with Hydra rushes on t2, they work well they are good to stop a timing push from toss. But apart from this, why would you want to go for hydras. There are a ton of different Hydras in the Zerg arsenal, the cheap but supply expensive Roach that is tanky and hit hard and its damn fast off creep and can heal itself etc. Then there is the slow Queen that is actually faster then most units on creep can make high hp units tank over 2k damage. Note its a high hp unit itself and has a way longer range then the Hydra against air. Last but not least there is the Infestor that can drop 8! almost Hydra like units and since the Infestor allows the Zerg to decide when to fight, it is not an issue that they are actually slow.
The Hydra falls right in the middle of these other 2 Hydras and the Hydra factory unit who are all 2 supply and have one or two advantages over the Hydra. Except for doing a strong t2 push, the Hydra isn't really desirable to get over those units. Buffing the Hydra is no option as it would make the t2 push to strong, t3 buffs are to late ... though i have to admit the Viper allows you to do a phase 2 Hydra push lol.
I personally like the Hydra push against toss FFE, and the Viper really helps alot protecting Hydras lategame, but they also help protecting the better Hydras Zerg has. So Imo there needs to be another t3 upgrade. They are microable like Marines on creep, but they really lack something that wants you to get them over the other units, especially the infested Terrans with their huge damage output for a short amount of time. But well some hp into damage or a unit piercing shot, thats everything on the terran side already. But if they buff their stats in anyway, they will need to put in another t2 upgrade to keep the rush the same strength.
Other then that yes getting Hydras seems a bit stupid right now. But as they have said, they work on HotS units first. And I have no doubt they will address the Hydra (might end up getting removed and hydra den becomes swarm host den ...)
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.
It would be nice, but there's precious little opportunity for that kind of micro. It's just far too easy to keep your HT clumped up with the units you want to protect (or indeed standing under them).
hopefully we will see more multipronged attacks possible with buffed hydras so there will be more and smaller battles which makes it harder to just clump to one deathball. but you are right that clumping will protect the units but also makes them more vulnerable to fungal. we´ll see but there is a lot of micro potential addet by abduct on both sides so i really hope they keep it a strong spell which is high risk high reward.
Mmm, just re-arranging the movement and ranged upgrades to Lair tech and Hive tech respectively, and reducing their attack animation and removing their turn animation would be a reasonable, first step towards re-balancing the unit. Then you can add Swarmhosts to the Hydralisk Den, Vipers to the Spire (+Hive) and then I think you have a more diversifed tech path with greater synergy from Lair tech upwards.
Or maybe you could just give Hydralisks the ranged and movement upgrades base, because even if you move the movement upgrade to Lair tech, you're still 40 seconds behind the movement upgrade for Roaches and that eliminates a window for earlier Roach/Hydralisk timing attacks
I guess there are a few problems which make the Hydralisk a not used unit in the game so far.
1. the Hydra Den gives you just one unit so the utility of this building is not that big. I think they should move the Swarm Host with its upgrade to the Hydra Den and maybe make the Swarm Host a morph from the Hydra (like the Lurker was). So there would be more than one reason to get the Hydra Den. This way the Hydralisk would be a stepstone to another tech and one would see it a lot more e.g. as AA in Swarm Host builds. On the other hand I do not get the fact why Blizzard made the Infestation Pit the requiring building to the Swarm Host. The Infestation Pit is already built in most the games becaus one would like to tech to Hive.
2. there are too many units which fit the role of the Hydra better. As already mentioned the Roach became a core unit in ZvZ as well as in ZvP because of a very good price-performance ratio. The Infestor in the other hand is the best support unit in the game which provides AA as well as a pretty strong AoE also being AA. So maybe a nerf of Infestors or Roaches could open up a bigger utility window for the Hydralisk.
3. the price-performance ratio of the Hydralisk is just too bad. It has (too) little HP, 2 food and maybe the size of the unit is also a problem. As one know Hydras truly suck vs AoE so Marines do. But Terran players are able to make the Marine work against AoE (splitting, dodging or with the Marodeur as a tank). So the third part of my post is about balancing the unit itself. One thing i still do not get is the range upgrade for the Hydralisk. Yes, you buy it when you go for Hydra but would it be such a big deal if the Hydralisk has 7 range without the upgrade and just remove it?
first off: in the beta hydras had their hp lowered by 10. I did not understand the change then and I still don't. IIRC people were just going mass hydra and because people played like crap they couldnt deal with the dps, which we now know is extremely easy. Revert that.
also it seems hydras would have a good use combined with viper: swarm the mean stuff, pull main targets into hydra range, and back off. avoid losses and constantly weaken the composition of the enemy. This is just theorycrafting though. it also seems z just has a lot of better options than this that does NOT involve the hydra.
but seriously, hydras have beastly dps. they are expensive, but as long as you can avoid deathballfights they are strong. the viper allows quite efficent shutdowns of deathball play, the hydra SHOULD be usable like this.
On October 08 2012 20:33 CYFAWS wrote: first off: in the beta hydras had their hp lowered by 10. I did not understand the change then and I still don't. IIRC people were just going mass hydra and because people played like crap they couldnt deal with the dps, which we now know is extremely easy. Revert that.
also it seems hydras would have a good use combined with viper: swarm the mean stuff, pull main targets into hydra range, and back off. avoid losses and constantly weaken the composition of the enemy. This is just theorycrafting though. it also seems z just has a lot of better options than this that does NOT involve the hydra.
but seriously, hydras have beastly dps. they are expensive, but as long as you can avoid deathballfights they are strong. the viper allows quite efficent shutdowns of deathball play, the hydra SHOULD be usable like this.
14.5; two stimmed marines do 21 one stimmed marauder does 20 to armored and 10 to nonarmored, so unmicroed/stimmed average ~15; (with more HP, more burst, less cost, slow effect);
similar supply for supply calulations can be done with immortals, unsieged tanks, thors, reapers, landed vikings So no, Hydra dps is not "beastly". Hydra dps is pretty average for a singlefire unit with medium range.
On October 08 2012 20:39 exog wrote: Just give Hydra +5 extra dmg vs armored.
since i think the entire +dmg system is stupid i dislike it.
also, what armored units would that help against? hydras wont deal with tanks or colossi anyway and the other armored units they already do well against
On October 08 2012 20:39 exog wrote: Just give Hydra +5 extra dmg vs armored.
since i think the entire +dmg system is stupid i dislike it.
also, what armored units would that help against? hydras wont deal with tanks or colossi anyway and the other armored units they already do well against
no they dont. test it. they lose to marauders, immortals, landed vikings, VRs, carrier, BC, thors, roaches supplywise. they trade with blink stalkers. so yeah...hydras suck incredibly and need some serious buffs to even make them okay. combined with a fungal nerf to a slow its also fine balancewise.
On October 08 2012 20:39 exog wrote: Just give Hydra +5 extra dmg vs armored.
since i think the entire +dmg system is stupid i dislike it.
also, what armored units would that help against? hydras wont deal with tanks or colossi anyway and the other armored units they already do well against
no they dont. test it. they lose to marauders, immortals, landed vikings, VRs, carrier, BC, thors, roaches supplywise. they trade with blink stalkers. so yeah...hydras suck incredibly and need some serious buffs to even make them okay. combined with a fungal nerf to a slow its also fine balancewise.
Single unit type on single unit type testing is pretty meaningless. Hydras lose to roaches, but roach/hydra beats equal supply pure roach (it takes pretty much the same time for him to kill X of your roaches as if you had pure roach, but over that time your hydras are doing more DPS so the battle swings in your favour).
Still, it's undeniable that Zergs have gone to extraordinary lengths over the past two years to avoid building hydra, a unit that ought to have been a staple of a mid-game army. Something must be making it suck pretty hard
well testing them 1v1 is pretty meaningless but if a unit loses basically to every other unit in the game supplywise and even is a unit you build aroung getting maxed (so supply matters) it just shows something sucks extremely with it.
no pro going for hydras in a macro game zvt or zvp also shows this and i think no decent player of any race will call hydra a good unit ^^
we´ll just have to wait until blizzard thinks HOTS units are fine and starts to rework/buff WoL units. think we´ll have to wait at least 2-3 weeks for that to happen.
On October 08 2012 20:33 CYFAWS wrote: first off: in the beta hydras had their hp lowered by 10. I did not understand the change then and I still don't. IIRC people were just going mass hydra and because people played like crap they couldnt deal with the dps, which we now know is extremely easy. Revert that.
also it seems hydras would have a good use combined with viper: swarm the mean stuff, pull main targets into hydra range, and back off. avoid losses and constantly weaken the composition of the enemy. This is just theorycrafting though. it also seems z just has a lot of better options than this that does NOT involve the hydra.
but seriously, hydras have beastly dps. they are expensive, but as long as you can avoid deathballfights they are strong. the viper allows quite efficient shutdowns of deathball play, the hydra SHOULD be usable like this.
Just watched State of the Game EP02 (from JP McDaniel aka itmejp) where they were talking about the balance update on patch 8 (2010). In that update Roach/Hydra was deemed too strong. Roach being 2 armor and hydras having 90 HP. They nerfed both Roaches and Hydras in the very same patch because this was a popular and strong composition. But what they didn't know was that it was only roaches that were the problem with their 2 armor. So they never even tried only nerfing one of those units. That is the main reason why the hydras is what it is today.
Anyway, the reason Hydras are not used is because Infestors and Roaches fill their role perfectly. I would suggest a slight nerf to both Infestor (fungal not snare, but slow) and roaches (DMG or health) while buffing hydras with 1. X more hp 2. Better burst damage but equal DPS, just like someone already mentioned before me. This would make them benefit more from ranged attack upgrades (as 15 damage being the threshold of whether you get +1 or +2 attack bonus from 1 upgrade). 3. Make hydras attributes "Biological" only, completely removing the "light" part. I mean it's just hilarious that hellions, banelings and reapers counter Hydras so hard. 4. Make the speed upgrade Lair tech. 5. Increase general range by 1 or 2. Actually having range 6 with an upgrade to range 7 would be splendid and a huge buff to hydras.
There suggestions needs to be tested of course. And if it turns out that hydras are a bit too strong with these changes, tone it back a little.
I also strongly agree that Swarm Hosts should have something to do with the Hydra. It makes a lot more sense than coming from the Infestation Pit. Even if swarm hosts are morphed from hydras would be a really nice dynamic like people have been suggesting.
Theres a lot of work to be done with the Hydra for sure, and I really hope that Blizzard realizes this,
On October 08 2012 20:39 exog wrote: Just give Hydra +5 extra dmg vs armored.
since i think the entire +dmg system is stupid i dislike it.
also, what armored units would that help against? hydras wont deal with tanks or colossi anyway and the other armored units they already do well against
On October 08 2012 17:02 Umpteen wrote: I think Hydra (and underused WoL units in general) should be given the Widow Mine treatment: buff them 'till it hurts and see how it pans out over a week or so.
For instance: make hydra plain bio (non-light), make them as fast as stalkers unupgraded and have 6(+1) range. Everyone spams them for a week and we see what happens, then dial 'em back (maybe DPS?) accordingly.
So... I play with Hydras a lot at the higher master level. If you've been hit with a Roach/Hydra attack in TvZ, it was probably done by me...
Anyway, I can safely say that damage is not a proper buff for Hydralisks. Quite simply, they don't need to do more damage. That is the LAST thing hydras are lacking.
The first major issue of the Hydralisk is their range. 5 range - 150/150 upgrade for +1 range.
The upgrade, right off the bat, doesn't make any sense to me. It seems to be a hold-over from Brood War where upgrades like this used to be standard. Other similar units got their range upgrade built-in from the get-go, but not Hydralisks.
Range is most obviously revealed to be a major problem for the Hydralisk in ZvP. Force fields teamed up with Stalkers absolutely destroy Hydralisks. This might not be as much of an issue if Hydras had burrow movement, or ANY way to deal with force fields, but they don't. Not that they are particularly good anyway, but force fields completely shutting them down makes them as useless as roaches, and far more costly in the resources department. Where as Roaches can be thrown away in an attempt to slow down Protoss tech/econ, throwing away even a handful of Hydras will likely cost Zerg the game.
Speed is the second major issue plaguing the unit. Inexplicably, Hydralisks are the ONLY standard range (6 or less) non-specialist unit that moves at 2.25 speed with no upgrade upgrade or special abilities available. Other comparable units would be the Immortal (50 dmg per shot vs armored), Sentry (caster unit), Terran bio (stim), Roach/ling (speed upgrades), Zealot/Stalker (Speed upgrade/blink). EVERY OTHER UNIT either has longer range, some specialty ability, or better cost-effectiveness than the Hydra. The unit simply lacks any reason to encourage players to invest in it.
The last major issue I will sum up as cost-effectiveness, because it can be dealt with in many different ways. The hydralisk could either have it's stats buffed (change armor type, increase hp, increase damage/range/speed) or have it's cost reduced (supply and/or mined resources). As mentioned in point 2, there is just no reason I WANT to make hydras. Their damage is 'good' at best and everything else they bring to the table is quite bad.
Personally, I think the BW hydra has no place in SC2. It's just not needed. I have mentioned before that I would like to see a siege-hydra. Change the 150/150 range upgrade to +3 range (vs ground only if needed) instead of +1, reduce their damage to 10, make them cost 1 supply, maybe even knock their cost down to 75/50, so they are more gas-heavy like other siege unit, and let them go nuts in the mid-game. This would give Zerg the option of actually attacking a fortified position in the mid-game. The hydra would still be bad at standard fighting, but wouldn't be nearly as worthless as it currently is.
Zerg would have to protect their hydras, and allow them a means of escape (they would still be awfully slow). Positioning would become important. Zerg would have a way and reason to fight for territory rather than just charging in with their whole army and crossing their fingers. Zerg wouldn't have to wait for Brood Lords in order to end a game that was over at the 10 minute mark. The hydra would have a meaningful role in the current game. Zerg would have meaningful anti-air in their standard army composition.
Alas, I am just one man ranting about a unit and offering my own, skewed opinions on how it should be fixed. It is up to Blizzard to decide if they really want this once-great unit to ever be useful in SC2.
The Hydra Speed Upgrade just doesn't address the real problem. Hydralisks are already one of the fastest units in the game, even offcreap. And the DPS is also very high already.
The problem is that they require support units which tank the damage (=Roach) or they just melt instantly. However, you cannot tank with Roaches against long range units with focus fire (Siege Tanks & Colossi) or air (Mutas, Phoenix, Carriers). This is why Hydras suck against all Air units except Void Rays. Hydras indeed need more HP so that they can function as an independent unit.
The speed research is a terrible idea anyway, it makes the roach and hydra fit even more similar spots. With the roach taking the role of effective ranged unit vs everything the hydra simply doesn;t fit well. One of them should have something unique, for example bonus vs light or bonus vs armored to create reasons where you want the roach or reasons where you want the hydra. If they are too similar it is just very hard to find situations where you want the one but not the other. Sure they differ in being able to hit air and their tech requirements but for the rest roach and hydra are too similar imo.
On October 08 2012 23:58 .syd. wrote: The Hydra Speed Upgrade just doesn't address the real problem. Hydralisks are already one of the fastest units in the game, even offcreap. And the DPS is also very high already.
The problem is that they require support units which tank the damage (=Roach) or they just melt instantly. However, you cannot tank with Roaches against long range units with focus fire (Siege Tanks & Colossi) or air (Mutas, Phoenix, Carriers). This is why Hydras suck against all Air units except Void Rays. Hydras indeed need more HP so that they can function as an independent unit.
No, they are not among the fastest units in the game. Don't post crap like this.
2.25 speed is considered standard speed, and generally reserved for specialist units that bring siege capabilities or caster abilities.
On October 08 2012 17:02 Umpteen wrote: I think Hydra (and underused WoL units in general) should be given the Widow Mine treatment: buff them 'till it hurts and see how it pans out over a week or so.
For instance: make hydra plain bio (non-light), make them as fast as stalkers unupgraded and have 6(+1) range. Everyone spams them for a week and we see what happens, then dial 'em back (maybe DPS?) accordingly.
First of all those stats are per unit. Second of all, the dps of most unit differ, depending on what they attack. Yes, one hydralisk has 14.5dps, and one marine "only" 7 and stimmed "only" 10.5. But one hydralisk costs 100/50/2 and one marine 50/0/1. So you have to compare at least 2marines to one hydralisk and then we have 14/21 dps for the marine.
Then there are units like the marauder with 6.7/10 dps vs nonarmored and 13.4/20 dps vs armored, that costs 100/25/2. There are roughly as many armored units as nonarmored units in the game, so a marauder fighting against a "random" unit has 10.05/15 dps. Similar for the immortal. "half"(because it costs 250/100/4, so to compare it with a hydralisk we have to assume half an immortal or 2hydralisks) an immortal does 12.075dps in combat against a random unit.
Hydralisks are average singlefire dps units, or maybe slightly over average, but surely not "good" dps. A marine has good dps. A zergling has even better dps. The hydralisk has (slightly over) average dps against everything.
i´d love to see them make roaches 2 armor again and less damage. so they could tank a lot more and the hydra could be the damage dealer (buff hydra dps + range + lairtechspeed). that way they would have more different roles and roaches alone would be worse since they would do a lot less damage. hydras would be much better at supporting and be better vs air.
@.syd: hydras lose terribly vs voidrays even supply.
so pls dont buff hp and make them even more like a superexpensive roach. make them better vs air and better as a support unit.
On October 09 2012 00:06 Big J wrote: Hydralisks are average singlefire dps units, or maybe slightly over average, but surely not "good" dps. A marine has good dps. A zergling has even better dps. A marauder/immortal fighting against an armored unit have amazing dps. The hydralisk has (slightly over) average dps against everything.
SO many fallacies in this statement, where to begin.
The first problem is that you are ignoring range in the DPS equation. You are falling victim to the idea of DPS in a vacuum. And well... it's not... ever...
The most evident area where you make this mistake is mentioning that marines have good DPS followed immediately by saying zergling dps is even better.
If we start the fight with 1 zergling in melee range of a marine and let them both auto-attack the whole time, sure zerglings have better DPS. But this is NEVER the case. Not only do Zerglings have to close the gap, they are ALSO limited by surface area. MOST of the time, not all Zerglings are participating in a given fight. It is safe to say that Marines generally have better or equal DPS to Zerglings. So much so that Blizzard feels comfortable giving 2 lings for the price of one marine.
Another perfect unit to point to is the Colossus. getting 50% bonus range from it's upgrade is what really makes it a worthwhile unit. Pre-upgrade it's DPS is decent. Post-upgrade, it's game-breaking.
Mostly I'm going to jump on your undervaluing of the Marine. You somehow think the Marine has "good" DPS vs everything, but Marauders have amazing dps vs armored units... You DO realize that Marines do more dps to armored units than Marauders do (per supply/cost)... right?
On October 09 2012 00:06 Big J wrote: Hydralisks are average singlefire dps units, or maybe slightly over average, but surely not "good" dps. A marine has good dps. A zergling has even better dps. A marauder/immortal fighting against an armored unit have amazing dps. The hydralisk has (slightly over) average dps against everything.
SO many fallacies in this statement, where to begin.
The first problem is that you are ignoring range in the DPS equation. You are falling victim to the idea of DPS in a vacuum. And well... it's not... ever...
The most evident area where you make this mistake is mentioning that marines have good DPS followed immediately by saying zergling dps is even better.
If we start the fight with 1 zergling in melee range of a marine and let them both auto-attack the whole time, sure zerglings have better DPS. But this is NEVER the case. Not only do Zerglings have to close the gap, they are ALSO limited by surface area. MOST of the time, not all Zerglings are participating in a given fight. It is safe to say that Marines generally have better or equal DPS to Zerglings. So much so that Blizzard feels comfortable giving 2 lings for the price of one marine.
Mostly I'm going to jump on your undervaluing of the Marine. You somehow think the Marine has "good" DPS vs everything, but Marauders have amazing dps vs armored units... You DO realize that Marines do more dps to armored units than Marauders do... right?
I think that's enough for now...
you talk about effective dps, which is hard to calculate or argue. I talk about stats, because that's what is easy to calculate. As I was responding to someone referring to stats, this approach makes sense.
Good catch about the marauder/marine(/immortal) vs armored thing though. Gotta change that, it's simply wrong.
I think a lot of people are missing what is truly wrong with the Hydralisks beyond being hugely nerfed when migrated to Starcraft 2.
When I think of their problems, two things immediately come to mind. The Roach. And Unit Design.
First off, the Roach has never really been what Blizzard intended, this fast, tank-ish, quick regeneration unit. Most units that came from Starcraft 1 and Brood War as well as the units that were created for Starcraft 2 all have special little niches or abilities. The Roach's burrow move and fast regeneration never really panned out and now it is just simply a little overpowered A-move unit. Dull, uninteresting, and poorly made. Now that it is still a simple A-move unit with better numbers in the wrong tech spot, it has forced the Hydralisk into it's tech spot where it also doesn't belong and making it useless and under-made.
Next, is Unit Design, which Hydralisk just doesn't have any. Simple as that, zero thought was put into this unit, as was with most Zerg units. There is no special ability for the Hydralisk. It doesn't have a passive like Immortals, or any +damage like most other units of other races. No Blink, no stim, no charge, etc. There is no special ability for players to utilize that add anything to this unit. All the Hydralisk is now is a severely nerfed version of Brood War's Hydralisk....with out the speed.
I think Blizzard should have never screwed with the tech positions of classic units in the first place if they were to keep units from Brood War. At this point I'm ready to say just get rid of Hydralisk!
On October 09 2012 00:29 Jermstuddog wrote: I guess I was being a little harsh. The vast majority of people in the Starcraft community tend to undervalue the Marine.
There is a reason why it makes up 50% of all Terran armies all the time. It's not because people think it's cool.
When a unit like the marine stands out like this, it tells me one of two things:
-That unit's potential when managed correctly is just too damn good
-All the other units in the game's potential when managed correctly doesn't give a comparable benefit for paying close attention to micro.
On October 09 2012 00:29 Jermstuddog wrote: I guess I was being a little harsh. The vast majority of people in the Starcraft community tend to undervalue the Marine.
There is a reason why it makes up 50% of all Terran armies all the time. It's not because people think it's cool.
When a unit like the marine stands out like this, it tells me one of two things:
-That unit's potential when managed correctly is just too damn good
-All the other units in the game's potential when managed correctly doesn't give a comparable benefit for paying close attention to micro.
I have never made it a secret that I think the Marine is the biggest offender in the balance game of SC2 and Blizzard has handled nerfing the Terran race all wrong.
Simply put, the Marine didn't need +15 HP coming over from Brood War., and that is largely where the problems stem.
Something as simple as a -5 HP nerf to the Marine would have been enough to set the Terran race on the path to proper balance oh so long ago, but Blizzard thought Marines were cool, and forced them upon the game. Now we have Colossus and Fungal to deal with them. Non-Brood Lord air units are largely useless, and the game seems stagnant in this death-ball death grip.
If Blizzard would have just toned down the Marine at release, the other OP bullshit wouldn't be necessary to live and could also be tuned down.
On October 09 2012 00:29 Jermstuddog wrote: I guess I was being a little harsh. The vast majority of people in the Starcraft community tend to undervalue the Marine.
There is a reason why it makes up 50% of all Terran armies all the time. It's not because people think it's cool.
When a unit like the marine stands out like this, it tells me one of two things:
-That unit's potential when managed correctly is just too damn good
-All the other units in the game's potential when managed correctly doesn't give a comparable benefit for paying close attention to micro.
Well, the marine has a lot of micro possibilities, but it could be dumbed down to and easier to handle while staying the same powerlevel, if there was any use in it. (which I'm strictly against)
But the marine must be a strong unit, if we want biotech as it has been designed to be viable. Terran can't switch fast into the "perfect counterunit", so the universal unit has to be a good choice against everything that the specialized marauder/reaper/ghost cannot deal with, while providing reasonable support in all scenarios in which the opponent switches quickly.
On October 09 2012 00:29 Jermstuddog wrote: I guess I was being a little harsh. The vast majority of people in the Starcraft community tend to undervalue the Marine.
There is a reason why it makes up 50% of all Terran armies all the time. It's not because people think it's cool.
When a unit like the marine stands out like this, it tells me one of two things:
-That unit's potential when managed correctly is just too damn good
-All the other units in the game's potential when managed correctly doesn't give a comparable benefit for paying close attention to micro.
Well, the marine has a lot of micro possibilities, but it could be dumbed down to and easier to handle while staying the same powerlevel, if there was any use in it. (which I'm strictly against)
But the marine must be a strong unit, if we want biotech as it has been designed to be viable. Terran can't switch fast into the "perfect counterunit", so the universal unit has to be a good choice against everything that the specialized marauder/reaper/ghost cannot deal with, while providing reasonable support in all scenarios in which the opponent switches quickly.
That is the exact kind of thinking that has made SC2 Terran so lame.
There was no "perfect counterunit" in BW. Marines weren't even usable in 2 out of 3 match-ups for the Terran player and eventually lose their purpose even vs Zerg as high-tier abilities hit the field.
Insisting that this one, low-tier unit be "a reasonable support in all scenarios" has lead to Marines countering their counters and being generally one of the strongest units in the game.
Both Thors and Ghosts could reasonably fill the same generalist role that Marines occupy, but rather than fix issues and tweak numbers as needed, Blizzard has nerfed both units into the ground and forced Terran back to heavy Marine play. This does not make for solid balance.
I think moving hydra speed to lair tech and giving them a small but important HP buff could work wonders. I also think hosts should require a hydra den rather than infestation pit, as currently the infestation pit is the overwhelmingly dominant tech choice at Lair -- spire and hydra den are in need of viability, and this would help.
On October 09 2012 01:28 IPA wrote: I think moving hydra speed to lair tech and giving them a small but important HP buff could work wonders. I also think hosts should require a hydra den rather than infestation pit, as currently the infestation pit is the overwhelmingly dominant tech choice at Lair -- spire and hydra den are in need of viability, and this would help.
On October 09 2012 00:29 Jermstuddog wrote: I guess I was being a little harsh. The vast majority of people in the Starcraft community tend to undervalue the Marine.
There is a reason why it makes up 50% of all Terran armies all the time. It's not because people think it's cool.
When a unit like the marine stands out like this, it tells me one of two things:
-That unit's potential when managed correctly is just too damn good
-All the other units in the game's potential when managed correctly doesn't give a comparable benefit for paying close attention to micro.
Well, the marine has a lot of micro possibilities, but it could be dumbed down to and easier to handle while staying the same powerlevel, if there was any use in it. (which I'm strictly against)
But the marine must be a strong unit, if we want biotech as it has been designed to be viable. Terran can't switch fast into the "perfect counterunit", so the universal unit has to be a good choice against everything that the specialized marauder/reaper/ghost cannot deal with, while providing reasonable support in all scenarios in which the opponent switches quickly.
That is the exact kind of thinking that has made SC2 Terran so lame.
There was no "perfect counterunit" in BW. Marines weren't even usable in 2 out of 3 match-ups for the Terran player and eventually lose their purpose even vs Zerg as high-tier abilities hit the field.
Insisting that this one, low-tier unit be "a reasonable support in all scenarios" has lead to Marines countering their counters and being generally one of the strongest units in the game.
Both Thors and Ghosts could reasonably fill the same generalist role that Marines occupy, but rather than fix issues and tweak as needed, Blizzard has nerfed both units into the ground and forced Terran back to heavy Marine play. This does not make for solid balance.
Of course there were perfect counterunits in BW. However due to the control/pathing/AI/whatever features, it didn't matter as much if you were strategically wrong, as long as you played tactically right. Or in other words, balance wasn't as tight in BW. However, the uselessness of the bio-path in 2/3 MUs was one of BWs biggest flaws and I really like that they try to overcome that in SC2.
In SC2 Thors do fill the marines role in Mech play. Only when you go for a biobased strategy, you need marines. (aka MMM, 5:1 bio:mech play) It's a pity that mechplay doesn't work besides bioplay in TvP (but they try to fix it).
But yeah, they could rebalance/design bio completly and make it so, that bio is viable on its own but without the marine as core unit, but I think that boat has sailed, since blizzard decided to keep the marine as a unit.
you can set up a very powerful siege attack in mid-game with roach ling swarm host, and if i ever get the money to do, i will trickle in hydras (in which ZvP i think it is necessary to counter 2-3 base turtle air builds). It is super strong, and it is useful in all three matchups nowadays (thanks Terran for going mech). It could also be because i am bad, or my opponents are bad, but lately I have been beating GM players as a plat account.
I definitely see hydras getting more used atm, and I do hope that they rebalance the game and switch hydras to tier 1 because I feel roach battles are annoying and boring right now. Lower the hydra cost and damage to get early anti-air for zerg is never a bad thing imo.
I say move the speed upgrade up and give them the extra hp as an upgrade, terran has several upgrades for bio, shield, stim, concussive.this would make it viable but hinder lightning fast powerful tech switches because it cost time and resources to use them effectively
On October 09 2012 00:29 Jermstuddog wrote: I guess I was being a little harsh. The vast majority of people in the Starcraft community tend to undervalue the Marine.
There is a reason why it makes up 50% of all Terran armies all the time. It's not because people think it's cool.
When a unit like the marine stands out like this, it tells me one of two things:
-That unit's potential when managed correctly is just too damn good
-All the other units in the game's potential when managed correctly doesn't give a comparable benefit for paying close attention to micro.
Well, the marine has a lot of micro possibilities, but it could be dumbed down to and easier to handle while staying the same powerlevel, if there was any use in it. (which I'm strictly against)
But the marine must be a strong unit, if we want biotech as it has been designed to be viable. Terran can't switch fast into the "perfect counterunit", so the universal unit has to be a good choice against everything that the specialized marauder/reaper/ghost cannot deal with, while providing reasonable support in all scenarios in which the opponent switches quickly.
That is the exact kind of thinking that has made SC2 Terran so lame.
There was no "perfect counterunit" in BW. Marines weren't even usable in 2 out of 3 match-ups for the Terran player and eventually lose their purpose even vs Zerg as high-tier abilities hit the field.
Insisting that this one, low-tier unit be "a reasonable support in all scenarios" has lead to Marines countering their counters and being generally one of the strongest units in the game.
Both Thors and Ghosts could reasonably fill the same generalist role that Marines occupy, but rather than fix issues and tweak as needed, Blizzard has nerfed both units into the ground and forced Terran back to heavy Marine play. This does not make for solid balance.
Of course there were perfect counterunits in BW. However due to the control/pathing/AI/whatever features, it didn't matter as much if you were strategically wrong, as long as you played tactically right. Or in other words, balance wasn't as tight in BW. However, the uselessness of the bio-path in 2/3 MUs was one of BWs biggest flaws and I really like that they try to overcome that in SC2.
In SC2 Thors do fill the marines role in Mech play. Only when you go for a biobased strategy, you need marines. (aka MMM, 5:1 bio:mech play) It's a pity that mechplay doesn't work besides bioplay in TvP (but they try to fix it).
But yeah, they could rebalance/design bio completly and make it so, that bio is viable on its own but without the marine as core unit, but I think that boat has sailed, since blizzard decided to keep the marine as a unit.
You're either ignoring the point or just don't get it.
Marines aren't A unit, they are THE unit. Back in BW, the unit every Terran wanted to make was the Siege Tank. It was fucking awesome and came with several major flaws that added depth and interest to any Terran Match up. Siege Tanks couldn't shoot up. Siege Tanks had a minimum range. Siege Tanks dealt huge amounts of friendly fire if the opponent could close the distance. Whether you supported Siege Tanks with Marines or Vultures really didn't matter. The major determining factor there was that Vultures were fucking awesome and Marines were just... there...
You're trying to turn my argument into a case where the Marine needs to be removed completely. No, that's not the case... The Marine just needs to be toned down to the levels of a standard T1 unit. As I've said, -5 HP would do the trick. It's so simple, I don't see how it hasn't been implemented yet. They would be just as good in bunkers and drops, but they wouldn't laugh in the face of Archons and Banelings. And once you move Terran away from Marines, you open up a whole world of possibilities. Colossus don't need to be so strong anymore because Protoss can deal with Marauders already. Once you reduce the power of the Colossus, you can also nerf fungal. The whole bullshit mountain falls down upon itself once the foundation of the untouchable Marine gets pulled out.
Am I the only one who thinks that having the first unit Terran makes being the best unit Terran makes might be an issue? That maybe one should be trying to climb their tech tree to get better units, not just support their base units? That races should get stronger, not weaker as the game goes on?
I really don't understand why they can't just try out the upgrade at lair tech for a patch or two and verify that it breaks or doesn't break balance. Also, I think I like the idea of swarm hosts being tied to hydra den, IF they buff the hydra a bit (by moving speed to lair, or something else like increasing survivability), otherwise we might not ever see hydras OR swarm hosts.
I read a few comments and the OP and was thinking about it while working today.
There are 2 ways the Hydra could be changed. In both ways the Speed Upgrade should be moved to Lair and the Swarm Host should be moved to the Den. My thought behind this is, the Speed Upgrade is just to late to make the Hydra as usefull as it should be to be a viable option and if the Swarm Host is moved to the Den it just makes the Hydra Den way more attractive because the Infestation Pit is important enough without the Host anyways.
So the first solution would be to just buff it's health, so it doesn't die when an enemy unit glances at it. And well that seemd like the obvious solution at first thought. But it will just turn it into another 1a unit, so i think buffing the health is not ideal. It would probably work, but it would be boring. Just like another design for the roach.
The second solution is the one i would like to see. Give the Hydra more Range (maybe turn the Speed upgrade into a Speed and Range upgrade), and more Damage. Then fix it's attack animation so it is possible to micro the Hydra and it would be possible to kite and micro the Hydra. If more Dmg would be OP change it so one shoot does more Dmg but it shoots slower (like someone else mentiones too). If you can catch units that are out of postition (with the higher Range, Speed, maybe dmg and ofc a proper attack animation) and get out before you lose all of them, the Hydra would be usefull again. And the additional Range would improve it's usefullness in big battles. Someone else can work out the numbers, but the idea behind it seems reasonable imho.
On October 09 2012 00:29 Jermstuddog wrote: I guess I was being a little harsh. The vast majority of people in the Starcraft community tend to undervalue the Marine.
There is a reason why it makes up 50% of all Terran armies all the time. It's not because people think it's cool.
When a unit like the marine stands out like this, it tells me one of two things:
-That unit's potential when managed correctly is just too damn good
-All the other units in the game's potential when managed correctly doesn't give a comparable benefit for paying close attention to micro.
Well, the marine has a lot of micro possibilities, but it could be dumbed down to and easier to handle while staying the same powerlevel, if there was any use in it. (which I'm strictly against)
But the marine must be a strong unit, if we want biotech as it has been designed to be viable. Terran can't switch fast into the "perfect counterunit", so the universal unit has to be a good choice against everything that the specialized marauder/reaper/ghost cannot deal with, while providing reasonable support in all scenarios in which the opponent switches quickly.
That is the exact kind of thinking that has made SC2 Terran so lame.
There was no "perfect counterunit" in BW. Marines weren't even usable in 2 out of 3 match-ups for the Terran player and eventually lose their purpose even vs Zerg as high-tier abilities hit the field.
Insisting that this one, low-tier unit be "a reasonable support in all scenarios" has lead to Marines countering their counters and being generally one of the strongest units in the game.
Both Thors and Ghosts could reasonably fill the same generalist role that Marines occupy, but rather than fix issues and tweak as needed, Blizzard has nerfed both units into the ground and forced Terran back to heavy Marine play. This does not make for solid balance.
Of course there were perfect counterunits in BW. However due to the control/pathing/AI/whatever features, it didn't matter as much if you were strategically wrong, as long as you played tactically right. Or in other words, balance wasn't as tight in BW. However, the uselessness of the bio-path in 2/3 MUs was one of BWs biggest flaws and I really like that they try to overcome that in SC2.
In SC2 Thors do fill the marines role in Mech play. Only when you go for a biobased strategy, you need marines. (aka MMM, 5:1 bio:mech play) It's a pity that mechplay doesn't work besides bioplay in TvP (but they try to fix it).
But yeah, they could rebalance/design bio completly and make it so, that bio is viable on its own but without the marine as core unit, but I think that boat has sailed, since blizzard decided to keep the marine as a unit.
You're either ignoring the point or just don't get it.
Marines aren't A unit, they are THE unit. Back in BW, the unit every Terran wanted to make was the Siege Tank. It was fucking awesome and came with several major flaws that added depth and interest to any Terran Match up. Siege Tanks couldn't shoot up. Siege Tanks had a minimum range. Siege Tanks dealt huge amounts of friendly fire if the opponent could close the distance. Whether you supported Siege Tanks with Marines or really didn't matter. The major determining factor there was that Vultures were fucking awesome and Marines were just... there...
You're trying to turn my argument into a case where the Marine needs to be removed completely. No, that's not the case... The Marine just needs to be toned down to the levels of a standard T1 unit. As I've said, -5 HP would do the trick. It's so simple, I don't see how it hasn't been implemented yet. They would be just as good in bunkers and drops, but they wouldn't laugh in the face of Archons and Banelings. And once you move Terran away from Marines, you open up a whole world of possibilities. Colossus don't need to be so strong anymore because Protoss can deal with Marauders already. Once you reduce the power of the Colossus, you can also nerf fungal. The whole bullshit mountain falls down upon itself once the foundation of the untouchable Marine gets pulled out.
Am I the only one who has a problem with the thought of having the first unit Terran makes being the best unit Terran makes?
Marines aren't the unit. Marines are the unit if you go bio and siege tanks are the unit if you go mech.
And no, the marine would not have to be removed completly. But if it's roles were to be cut, bio wouldn't be playable. If its roles were to be given to other biounits, at some point in a game it would just be stupid to make marines, which is just bad design. Units are there to fill strategic roles throughout a game, not to let you survive until you have the "awesome" techs. Especially if the unit needs a lot of specialized costs/time (barracks, stim, shields, addons, bio upgrades) to shine, like the marine. Also, I think you overvalue the arbitrary "Tier" terms/roles. A unit should be allowed to be a core unit, even if it is said to be "T1". The reverse being the case for a lot of early game units in SC2 is one of the reasons why we see those deathballs. That's also the whole point of the hydralisk discussion. Hydras (or better roach/hydra) should be allowed to be a core unit (composition), that you don't need to switch out of at some point, just because they are not burrowed in the deepest corner of the techtree.
Whether -5HP would be reasonable or not and what would change, I don't know. Right now I don't see why there is the need to nerf bioplay, apart from "marines perform too good on their own", which I don't think is a good reason.
And yes, I also think that the marine is one of the 2 best units in the game (Infestor being the other one). Yet the last thing this game needs is another unit that you cannot use past X minutes (that's not what you're saying. That's just what I fear, when nerfs are applied to freely everytime a unit performs well).
The problem is that the Hydra is a T2 unit that is extremely powerful vs. T1-T2 units and dies horribly against T3 or siege.
The reason hydras are frequently used in ZvZ is that it's a highly aggressive matchup where it's difficult to get all the way to BLs. Once BLs are out, Hydras get eaten.
On the other hand, ZvT and ZvP have relatively short windows of T2 vs T2 and quickly transition into T3 play. For example, early Hydras are great at countering 8-minute protoss timings, but the moment either Storm or extended-range Colossi enter play Hydras become 100% useless. Hydras are even worse off in ZvT because they require Roaches to succeed and roaches are fairly bad in ZvT.
It would be hard to remedy these problems without drastically changing the role of a Hydra. The Brood War hydra was really only a "core unit" against Protoss, against terrans they mainly existed to morph into Lurkers, and ZvZ was largely lings and mutas. Changing the Hydra to be less overpowered against gateway units and more useful in a tier-3 deathball would require making it a totally different unit.
As far as speed goes: at 2.81 speed, the current speedhydra cannot out-run stimmed marine/rauder or even stalkers. Therefore they remain a poor hit-and-run unit. Back in last year's blizzcon build speedhydras had 3.375 speed which is the same speed as stimmed bio, and capable of outrunning stalkers easily. Problem is, even with 3.375 speed Zergs already have overwhelmingly superior forms of harassment: Speedlings, Mutas, Baneling drops, burrowed infestors are all overwhelmingly more cost-effective than Hydras. At 50 gas per hydra they cost almost as much as harassing with Infestors or Mutas, but are much less mobile than Mutas and much less lethal than Infestors.
Hydra is never going to be a proper option in non ZvZ.
The role of the hydra is supposed to be DPS / anti air. But roaches are better for cost, and queendralisks are good enough anti air until mutas or corruptors or infestors come out.
So there is no need for them and likely never will be.
If hydras ever receive a buff that makes them viable, it will mean that they have become more powerful than the alternatives..(which is a very scary thought)
It's too bad the hydras don't have a special ability or spell of some sort -- maybe a poison dart that drains HP or a spider web to entangle enemy units.
On October 09 2012 05:41 Piousflea wrote: The problem is that the Hydra is a T2 unit that is extremely powerful vs. T1-T2 units and dies horribly against T3 or siege.
Hydralisks are only powerful vs. Protoss T1-T2 units. They get utterly crushed by low-mid tier units of both Terran and Zerg.
You're either ignoring the point or just don't get it.
Marines aren't A unit, they are THE unit. Back in BW, the unit every Terran wanted to make was the Siege Tank. It was fucking awesome and came with several major flaws that added depth and interest to any Terran Match up. Siege Tanks couldn't shoot up. Siege Tanks had a minimum range. Siege Tanks dealt huge amounts of friendly fire if the opponent could close the distance. Whether you supported Siege Tanks with Marines or Vultures really didn't matter. The major determining factor there was that Vultures were fucking awesome and Marines were just... there...
You're trying to turn my argument into a case where the Marine needs to be removed completely. No, that's not the case... The Marine just needs to be toned down to the levels of a standard T1 unit. As I've said, -5 HP would do the trick. It's so simple, I don't see how it hasn't been implemented yet. They would be just as good in bunkers and drops, but they wouldn't laugh in the face of Archons and Banelings. And once you move Terran away from Marines, you open up a whole world of possibilities. Colossus don't need to be so strong anymore because Protoss can deal with Marauders already. Once you reduce the power of the Colossus, you can also nerf fungal. The whole bullshit mountain falls down upon itself once the foundation of the untouchable Marine gets pulled out.
Am I the only one who thinks that having the first unit Terran makes being the best unit Terran makes might be an issue? That maybe one should be trying to climb their tech tree to get better units, not just support their base units? That races should get stronger, not weaker as the game goes on?
No, you are not the only one. I can hypothesize so many different scenarios how this game could have developed had Blizzard been more flexible when it comes to marines. Marines are THE balance breaker of SC2 since its release and the unit that stifled the Terran race. Blizzard's obsession with marines is perplexing and a little tweak in the early stage of SC2 would have changed the dynamics of the game so much (in the direction of more variety)
I differ with the fix you've suggested though. It doesn't seem like -5 HP would have solved marine problem because that doesn't change how marines are played. (+5 HP, for that matter) I would have made marine shots as missiles instead of instant. (add bonus damages per shot if it turns out necessary)
On October 08 2012 08:11 DrunkenHomer wrote: Imo they should move speed upgrade to lair tech and change Swarm host to require hydra tech, because speed upgrade at hive tech is pointless and infestation pit is allready good enough with giving access to infestors and hive tech
I agree with this. I'd even say make the swarm host evolve from the hydra like the Lurker used to and it would be even better.
I think that's something that zerg could really do better. Having more units evolve from other units. It would increase the viability of nearly everything. If you start off with an army of hydras and then the enemy starts making collossi, why not morph some of the leftover hydras into swarm hosts to slow the coll's down a bit. By making them relatively time consuming and expensive you create the need to make hydras in general, and force more interesting play to evolve.
I worry hydras are going to be used even less after the xpak. They're still only viable extremely situationally, and for each of those situations you'd almost always prefer infestors.
It also has a lot to do with the current meta. Hydras are supposed to be the good GtA of Zerg and supplementary ground DPS.
For GtA, there aren't many air threats that Spore/Queen can't handle in the midgame. Then, once lategame rolls around, Broodlord/Corruptor/Infestor is already full in gear. Corruptors are too attractive of an option right now because they're Pre-BL and don't really ever lose air fights when supported by Infestors. So aside from nerfing Infestors, how do you get a race to rely on GtA for air control? Well, you have to make them weak to the opponent's AtA. That's how it works with Stalker/Colossus; Protoss relies on Stalkers for air control because they can't fight Corruptors directly. Corruptors need a unit they can't fight directly. Only issue, of course, is that air dominance is how you counter Colossi/Broodlords and defend your own Broodlords. If Hydras got a range buff they would be able to snipe Colossi, Broodlords, and Vikings more easily.
For supp DPS, the issues have already been outlined that they're still negated by Forcefields. They also don't contribute as well as they should synergistically to the army, but if they're buffed with too much DPS, they would just be spammed. This reminds me of the old Immortal, back when it couldn't reach anything behind the army, so they buffed the range slightly and now it has a considerable DPS contribution to most fights because it can be the supplemtnary DPS it's supposed to be.
TL:DR: Range buff, but the the unit would only see use in PvZ if Protoss got a real air unit for once.
Also going to reiterate that Hydralisk Den needs to be less of a dead tech route. And Dark Shrine too, especially given the cheapening of cloaked units in HotS.
I personally think the problem lies with the Infestor. Infestors can shut down air play just like the hydra can, but can also provide a lot, making the Hydra pretty much pointless, when going Infestors is just a more natural tech path for getting to hive. Maybe if the infestors anti-air capabilities were taken away, i.e Fungal couldn't root, or hit air units, then I think the Hydra would have a better place in the army.
Putting the viper on the hydra den would give you an interesting choice between casters, and if the Hive required either infestation pit or den, it would give you a two choice route to endgame, mobility or siege.
On October 08 2012 23:54 Jermstuddog wrote: Personally, I think the BW hydra has no place in SC2. It's just not needed. I have mentioned before that I would like to see a siege-hydra. Change the 150/150 range upgrade to +3 range (vs ground only if needed) instead of +1, reduce their damage to 10, make them cost 1 supply, maybe even knock their cost down to 75/50, so they are more gas-heavy like other siege unit, and let them go nuts in the mid-game. This would give Zerg the option of actually attacking a fortified position in the mid-game. The hydra would still be bad at standard fighting, but wouldn't be nearly as worthless as it currently is.
Zerg would have to protect their hydras, and allow them a means of escape (they would still be awfully slow). Positioning would become important. Zerg would have a way and reason to fight for territory rather than just charging in with their whole army and crossing their fingers. Zerg wouldn't have to wait for Brood Lords in order to end a game that was over at the 10 minute mark. The hydra would have a meaningful role in the current game. Zerg would have meaningful anti-air in their standard army composition.
Alas, I am just one man ranting about a unit and offering my own, skewed opinions on how it should be fixed. It is up to Blizzard to decide if they really want this once-great unit to ever be useful in SC2.
I agree with this guy. Hydras as "standard ranged ground unit" have already been overshadowed by the Roach, trying to correct this would be too much balancing work at this stage. If they became a specialized siege unit at least there would be some fun in building them.
You now have blinding cloud and abduct - so you can feasably deal with colossus and tanks. There's nothing added in the expansion that has made hydras die any harder; none of the Terran units or Protoss units. Looks to me like the door is wide open for using hydras. Hydras having range would just overlap with the swarm host though. You can already siege so well with swarm hosts, I don't know why you'd want hydras stats changed in order to siege someone.
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 :\
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 :\
As much as that is quite intriguing, I can't help but point out that your multi-pronged attacks were literally only possible on that map. Most WOL maps prevent that style of play with as few points of entry as possible and that map truly stands out as one of the few where the speed of hydras could actually act as a form of harassment. This was also the map used in the battle report, showing that Blizzard probably thought something of a similar stature.
As much as that is quite intriguing, I can't help but point out that your multi-pronged attacks were literally only possible on that map. Most WOL maps prevent that style of play with as few points of entry as possible and that map truly stands out as one of the few where the speed of hydras could actually act as a form of harassment. This was also the map used in the battle report, showing that Blizzard probably thought something of a similar stature.
I believe next patch we are getting some WoL maps added to the pool.
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.
The weakness of Hydras in WoL that every Zerg made sure to pinpoint, was that it was too slow. Well Blizzard answered to that the best way they could, obviously they couldn't make Hydralisks even stronger midgame, as that would be broken. I think they will be just fine in HotS, when you consider the amount of cost effectiveness Zerg has gotten, since WoL. It might not be a composition that Zergs who only derp around with Roach, Infestor can use, but the top tier Zergs will be able to make it work, for sure.
The problem with Hydras is that Infestors make similar ranged units for minimal energy. For the same food as one hydra, you can have an infestor that makes multiple ranged units which, combined, do more DPS than Hydras. On top of this, when you trade them, you're just trading energy for actual units. If I have a choice between trading 100 minerals and 50 gas in a fight, or just trading energy and keeping an infestor around...that's not even a choice. So because of this, the limiting factor with the Infestors is that they're 100 more gas than a Hydra and they take a little longer to tech. That makes Hydras timing-based, in nature, because there's essentially a superior unit at the same tier of tech. Eventually, if the game goes longer, you get more gas and you can afford Infestors, so there's really no more point to making Hydras.
Think about it: Hydras in WoL are basically just Infested Terrans that cost money. Infestors and Infested Terrans have exactly the same weaknesses as Hydras: Colossi and HTs. But, Infestors themselves have so many more strengths than Hydras because they cast 3 different valuable spells and move while burrowed. Then, on top of that, building a Hydra den basically doesn't help your tech path at all...but building an Infestation Pit? That's the key to Hive.
Regardless of whether the Hydralisk is balanced or the Infestor is balanced, in WoL you would only ever build Hydras as part of a timing attack, or to quickly mount a defense for some sort of opposing timing. After that narrow window, Infestors are just a superior unit. So what's the motivation for a Zerg to put Hydras in their army composition?
Maybe the speed helps to make Hydras more apt at hit-and-run and positioning, but I still don't see why you would want them over Infested Terrans, which have higher DPS per food and take up way lower of a collision space...oh, and by the way, they don't actually cost money....
On October 09 2012 07:55 Horizon.Infinite wrote: I personally think the problem lies with the Infestor. Infestors can shut down air play just like the hydra can, but can also provide a lot, making the Hydra pretty much pointless, when going Infestors is just a more natural tech path for getting to hive. Maybe if the infestors anti-air capabilities were taken away, i.e Fungal couldn't root, or hit air units, then I think the Hydra would have a better place in the army.
no. preinfestor age hydras werent used either. cause they are terribly expensive for such a flimsy simple and slow unit.
My experience has been that toss has too much autosplash killeverything deathball for hydra to work. However terran is much weaker so I have been able to use it effectively some. Still figuring out it's exact role in the matchup.
As much as that is quite intriguing, I can't help but point out that your multi-pronged attacks were literally only possible on that map. Most WOL maps prevent that style of play with as few points of entry as possible and that map truly stands out as one of the few where the speed of hydras could actually act as a form of harassment. This was also the map used in the battle report, showing that Blizzard probably thought something of a similar stature.
That's not true. The strategy works across any map as long as there's multiple points to attack: use hosts to force their army into one location (either by positioning or by physically forcing them back) and then poke with the rest of your army in another location. All reasonable maps have multiple points of attack once a player claims their 3rd and 4th bases, so at that point in the game, you always have the opportunity to push your opponent around assuming they can't straight up run over your siege line.
On October 09 2012 17:02 ejozl wrote: The weakness of Hydras in WoL that every Zerg made sure to pinpoint, was that it was too slow. Well Blizzard answered to that the best way they could, obviously they couldn't make Hydralisks even stronger midgame, as that would be broken. I think they will be just fine in HotS, when you consider the amount of cost effectiveness Zerg has gotten, since WoL. It might not be a composition that Zergs who only derp around with Roach, Infestor can use, but the top tier Zergs will be able to make it work, for sure.
Speed is not THE problem with Hydras, it is one of many.
Cost is another one. Outdated +1 range upgrade is another. lack of any major purpose or place in a given army yet another.
The Hydra is a very problematic unit, and I don't think hive-tech speed will fix that. Not by any means.
I miss hydras from beta that would slaughter stimmed marines in a straight up battle. Hydras were one of my fav units in bw, and I get sad because I can hardly use them in sc2.
On October 09 2012 23:22 guitarizt wrote: I miss hydras from beta that would slaughter stimmed marines in a straight up battle. Hydras were one of my fav units in bw, and I get sad because I can hardly use them in sc2.
On October 09 2012 17:02 ejozl wrote: The weakness of Hydras in WoL that every Zerg made sure to pinpoint, was that it was too slow. Well Blizzard answered to that the best way they could, obviously they couldn't make Hydralisks even stronger midgame, as that would be broken.
I think the problems with hydra go far deeper than the speed, it's just that in the narrow window of time where they're viable (after lair, before colossi/siege tanks) they're still too risky to use because of the speed. The low speed makes it so that you absolutely must commit with them every fight you use them in, something that's true for very few other Zerg units (Pretty much only Broodlords. Infestors are slow too, but you can still hope to Fungal and escape with burrow).
I would have preferred a speed buff midgame together with buffs and nerfs to everything else. As it is I don't know if we're going to see much of them in HotS.
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"
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh i didn't know that, it's possibly gets to 3.0, having same speed as Roach of creep.
I'd like Blizzard to try buffing the Hydras speed upgrade, try making them truly insane fast, that would be really cool, and I don't think anyone would actually be afraid that it would make them overpowered.
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.
Oh i didn't know that, it's possibly gets to 3.0, having same speed as Roach of creep.
Nope, they get 2.81, same speed that Warhound got. The speed upgrade was 50% in the Alpha, now it is 25%, it is solid speed even with 25%, but not quite enough to make them viable.
On October 08 2012 12:58 Plexa wrote: Yes the hydra is an iconic unit, but does that mean it is 'broken' because it isn't like it was in BW? As I said above, the hydra is an excellent support unit that now has more staying power in ZvP because of Vipers/Speed.
I don't know if I would say broken... but I do think that it as a 1f hatch tech unit would fill a gap in the zerg arsenal. I think it would appease a lot more ppl than it would irritate and it would be good for the race, even if you have to change balance quite a bit.
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.
It would be a start, though. No matter how good you make Hydras, they're never going to be as practical as units which cost 0 supply, 0 minerals, and 0 gas. Something has to be done about Infested Terrans before Hydras become a core unit to Zerg armies, on a regular basis.
There's certainly a question of whether or not a Hydra should be able to stand up to tanks and Colossi, because if they can do that--what counters them? I think if the speed upgrade is strong enough, then they could quickly move forward and snipe off Tanks after taking just one volley, or against Colossi they could be more spread-able due to being quicker. I don't think that's enough, though. Maybe you're right; maybe they should just be cheaper. Or having Dark Swarm would help. But even if the Viper (or any caster Zerg eventually has access to) has Dark Swarm/an equivalent to Dark Swarm, does that still make the Hydralisk worth using over Infested Terrans? Maybe if each Dark Swarm costed you 250 gas and Hydras went to 100/25, or something.
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.
It would be a start, though. No matter how good you make Hydras, they're never going to be as practical as units which cost 0 supply, 0 minerals, and 0 gas. Something has to be done about Infested Terrans before Hydras become a core unit to Zerg armies, on a regular basis.
ITs costs are included in the Infestors costs. It's like saying that a marine shoots for free and therefore is overpowered. Yes, onve the Infestor has paid off and still lives, it generates "free" units. Just like a marine that has killed 2zerglings and still continues to shoot and tank damage and is a threat "for free".
And it's not a start. Roaches, Corruptors, Queens and Mutas still fill like 80% of their roles, the other 20% (higher supplyefficiency vs ground than Muta/Queen/Roach; longer range) are filled by the broodlord. That's why preinfestor, people went for things like roach/corruptor. That's why the Hydralisk never returned with a stable role to the metagame. Other units like the mutalisks, the baneling, the roach, the ultralisk all went in and out of MUs metagames, because they either offer something unique or they are the best way to deal with something. Hydralisk are not. They are merely the easiest way to deal with air attacks, and even that isn't really true anymore since zergs go for 3bases, more queens and later lairs and a lot of standard builds include spores. I agree, shifting power from the infestor to the hydra is something that is needed, but just nerfing infestors just produces more noninfestor, nonhydra units.
On October 10 2012 18:38 ineversmile wrote: There's certainly a question of whether or not a Hydra should be able to stand up to tanks and Colossi, because if they can do that--what counters them?
That depends on the way they get changed. Right now the list of units that beat hydras cost for cost and supply for supply is too long to write down. That could even stay that way, if hydra+buffer was redesigned in a way that they work if used correctly/in the right amounts. If they would just get buffed that tanks and colossi are not superduperamazing vs them anymore, I could still give you a bunch of standard ways to beat them: Marines and Storms as hardcounters; good blink micro, good hellion buffer, HSM, FF, Marauders, Archons are all softcounters. And Tanks and Colossi would most likely still be some form of softcounter. Just not in a way that (especially) colossi work right now, where you have 2 colossus and you are safe, 3colossus and you get a bananagrin, 4-5 colossi and can let the rest of your army dance when you face something Hydrabased.
Also, generally there are way too many counterrelations in the game. It's why we have those deathballs. "You wanna poke or trade? Nope I have colossi/sentries, thanks for the donation!" "You wanna move out with so little? HAHAHAHAHAAHAHA speeedlings, roaches everywhere!!!!!!" "Really, you wanna build that unit? But you know, then I can just build moooooore marines!"
On October 10 2012 18:38 ineversmile wrote: I think if the speed upgrade is strong enough, then they could quickly move forward and snipe off Tanks after taking just one volley, or against Colossi they could be more spread-able due to being quicker. I don't think that's enough, though. Maybe you're right; maybe they should just be cheaper. Or having Dark Swarm would help. But even if the Viper (or any caster Zerg eventually has access to) has Dark Swarm/an equivalent to Dark Swarm, does that still make the Hydralisk worth using over Infested Terrans? Maybe if each Dark Swarm costed you 250 gas and Hydras went to 100/25, or something.
I hope that the viper+speed is a good way for the hydralisk to become useful. I really do. I don't really see it right now, as anytime I come up with a new strategy in my head for those units, I feel like I can accomplish the same for less with something else. But I don't have beta access, so I can't test whether I'm right or wrong.
It is funny that people are complaining about the Infestor just every time. Sure it is pretty strong but the Infestor is not the only unit which is pretty strong in the game. One day Fungal Growth is too strong (what may be) the other day the Infested Terrans are the problem. Why not just remove the Infestor? I do not get it. Yes, in my opinion Fungal should not negate micro like it does now but the last thing Zerg needs is another unit that gets nerfed until it will never be used like the Hydra.
Maybe the IT has the same role like the Hydra but in this case to nerf/remove the IT the Hydra has to be comparable to the IT in case of damage, lief, size and heavily decreased cost, supply.
On October 08 2012 08:11 DrunkenHomer wrote: Imo they should move speed upgrade to lair tech and change Swarm host to require hydra tech, because speed upgrade at hive tech is pointless and infestation pit is allready good enough with giving access to infestors and hive tech
Yeah and maybe make the hydras morph into the swarm hosts. And give them a direct attack instead of spawning units. Maybe AOE damage? Or in a silly shape, like... a line?
Also:
On October 08 2012 17:28 Velr wrote: Bring 1 food Hydras back, lower their cost, lower their DPS, lower their size.... Make them Hydras again...
This. In Starcraft 2 Hydralisks don't exist, we only have Hunterkillers.
On October 08 2012 08:11 DrunkenHomer wrote: Imo they should move speed upgrade to lair tech and change Swarm host to require hydra tech, because speed upgrade at hive tech is pointless and infestation pit is allready good enough with giving access to infestors and hive tech
Yeah and maybe make the hydras morph into the swarm hosts. And give them a direct attack instead of spawning units. Maybe AOE damage? Or in a silly shape, like... a line?
Nonsense, nobody would ever make a unit that stupid.
Since the roach seems to be the new tier 1.5 core unit, the hydralisk is pushed to a niche role.
Zerg is the best of the three races to waste units and rebuild new ones. So it could be okay to have hydras in a dead-end tech tree: Once their time is over, they can be thrown away to free the supply for the swarm host or whatever other unit.
On October 10 2012 22:21 [F_]aths wrote: Since the roach seems to be the new tier 1.5 core unit, the hydralisk is pushed to a niche role.
Zerg is the best of the three races to waste units and rebuild new ones. So it could be okay to have hydras in a dead-end tech tree: Once their time is over, they can be thrown away to free the supply for the swarm host or whatever other unit.
well, if you design the game like that for zerg, zerg is only going to be about massing the best possible army as fast as possible or allinning as long as it is possible with the tech you have. Imo all units should have some decent use in the lategame. Most zerg units have to a certain degree, the problem is that neither of the ranged units has it and most of the lategame uses come down to (ab)using speed to avoid combating, which leaves very few combat unit choices (Broodlord, Corruptor, Infestor, Ultra) in WoL. We'll see how the swarm host does in the lategame and whether the viper and the metagame can shake up some "truths" about unit compositions.
On October 10 2012 22:21 [F_]aths wrote: Since the roach seems to be the new tier 1.5 core unit, the hydralisk is pushed to a niche role.
Zerg is the best of the three races to waste units and rebuild new ones. So it could be okay to have hydras in a dead-end tech tree: Once their time is over, they can be thrown away to free the supply for the swarm host or whatever other unit.
well, if you design the game like that for zerg, zerg is only going to be about massing the best possible army as fast as possible or allinning as long as it is possible with the tech you have. Imo all units should have some decent use in the lategame. Most zerg units have to a certain degree, the problem is that neither of the ranged units has it and most of the lategame uses come down to (ab)using speed to avoid combating, which leaves very few combat unit choices (Broodlord, Corruptor, Infestor, Ultra) in WoL. We'll see how the swarm host does in the lategame and whether the viper and the metagame can shake up some "truths" about unit compositions.
In general, I agree, but there can be room for some exceptions. Starcraft does a great job to make even tier 1.0 units viable in many end game scenarios which I consider an advantage over other RTS games. But there could be a unit which has (except for some rare exceptions) only a time window of usefulness. So you have to make a decision if you build that unit but have to dump it later or if you skip that unit. The hydralisk could possibly be balanced that you don't completely all-in if you choose the hydra tech, you are just investing some resources for hitting an ee han.
I could also imagine a role that hydras after that timing window the hydra just adds some dps to a roach-centered composition or light anti-air support versus phoenix harrass.
On October 09 2012 01:36 Big J wrote: However, the uselessness of the bio-path in 2/3 MUs was one of BWs biggest flaws and I really like that they try to overcome that in SC2.
That's why BW could be so balanced:
Because of that dichotomy all they had to do to balance the game was balance toss against zerg, then balance mech vs. toss and bio vs. zerg.
They could do things like add charon boosters for TvP without worrying about TvZ and medics for TvZ without worrying about TvP.
On October 09 2012 01:36 Big J wrote: However, the uselessness of the bio-path in 2/3 MUs was one of BWs biggest flaws and I really like that they try to overcome that in SC2.
That's why BW could be so balanced:
Because of that dichotomy all they had to do to balance the game was balance toss against zerg, then balance mech vs. toss and bio vs. zerg.
They could do things like add charon boosters for TvP without worrying about TvZ and medics for TvZ without worrying about TvP.
Even if you would be right - which you are not, because BW came out and was patched before anyone had a clue about how the game would be played these days - it would still be bad. I mean, if you balance this way, then you can as well just alter units stats (or which units you can build) matchup specificly (f.e. in TvZ, marine has X damage, and if you play TvP, marine has Y damage; or the barracks is simply replaced with the factory in a certain MU etc).
hydras are alot better with their superlegs, however i really think its a joke that they have so little hp when the roach has more and costs half. EDIT: they cost double a roach right ? i am not sure about mins, but gas is double a roach.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this is why the hydra in its current form doesn't work:
Hydras don't heal up.
Wait! Hold onto that 'wtf?' and let me explain.
Obviously all zerg units DO heal themselves, constantly. But at the kind of pace an aggressive mid-game plays out at (the kind where you'd want hydra instead of turtling behind ling/infestor) that healing isn't terribly significant. It is on lings because they have very little HP to start with. It can be on roaches, provided you get the upgrades. But when hydra take damage, they're kinda stuck with it. And non-spellcasters that are stuck with the damage done to them in the mid-game fall into one of three categories:
1. Mobile harassing units (exemplified by the Mutalisk, which you never want to use in a straight fight because once they're on low health they're effectively out of the game)
2. Disposable fodder (exemplified by the Zergling and Baneling, and to an extent the 'sturdy-but-disposable' unupgraded roach)
3. Useless.
Imagine Terran bio without medivac healing or Protoss without shield regeneration. They would lack the resilience that allows them to take a fight, heal up in less time than it takes their opponent to replace losses, and push forward. That's where the Hydra is in WoL. It's too expensive and brittle to be disposable fodder, and it isn't a mobile harassment unit (and isn't intended to be - Zerg has enough of those elsewhere). Which only leaves option 3.
That's why the hydra stopped working properly when it was made into a 100/50/2 glass cannon. It alone of all units of all races is an expensive non-spellcaster which cannot quickly regain its strength after being used in battle.
Solutions?
1. Either take the roach healing upgrade off the roach and give it to the Hydra, or put it on (say) hive and make it apply to more (all?) zerg units to some extent when burrowed.
2. Halve the hydra. 1 food, cheaper, smaller, quicker (or upgrade at lair not hive), lower health, lower DPS, more expendable. Maybe nerf roach damage.
On October 12 2012 00:41 Umpteen wrote: The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this is why the hydra in its current form doesn't work:
Hydras don't heal up.
Wait! Hold onto that 'wtf?' and let me explain.
Obviously all zerg units DO heal themselves, constantly. But at the kind of pace an aggressive mid-game plays out at (the kind where you'd want hydra instead of turtling behind ling/infestor) that healing isn't terribly significant. It is on lings because they have very little HP to start with. It can be on roaches, provided you get the upgrades. But when hydra take damage, they're kinda stuck with it. And non-spellcasters that are stuck with the damage done to them in the mid-game fall into one of three categories:
1. Mobile harassing units (exemplified by the Mutalisk, which you never want to use in a straight fight because once they're on low health they're effectively out of the game)
2. Disposable fodder (exemplified by the Zergling and Baneling, and to an extent the 'sturdy-but-disposable' unupgraded roach)
3. Useless.
Imagine Terran bio without medivac healing or Protoss without shield regeneration. They would lack the resilience that allows them to take a fight, heal up in less time than it takes their opponent to replace losses, and push forward. That's where the Hydra is in WoL. It's too expensive and brittle to be disposable fodder, and it isn't a mobile harassment unit (and isn't intended to be - Zerg has enough of those elsewhere). Which only leaves option 3.
That's why the hydra stopped working properly when it was made into a 100/50/2 glass cannon. It alone of all units of all races is an expensive non-spellcaster which cannot quickly regain its strength after being used in battle.
Solutions?
1. Either take the roach healing upgrade off the roach and give it to the Hydra, or put it on (say) hive and make it apply to more (all?) zerg units to some extent when burrowed.
2. Halve the hydra. 1 food, cheaper, smaller, quicker (or upgrade at lair not hive), lower health, lower DPS, more expendable. Maybe nerf roach damage.
Your point is fishing in the right area, but then you suggest moving roach regen to hive and apply to all units. As soon as you start talking Hive tech, you're not really talking mid-game armies anymore.
Well if you have a look at Destiny lately I firmly believe that the Hydra may be an option acompanied with roaches viper and Swarmhosts in ZvT. It looked dynamic and strong, I believe there is a place for the Hydra in that build!
I think hive would be fine though: a fast hive in itself isn't all that expensive; it's only the hive unit cost that makes it prohibitive. Might function as a nice lair army to hive bridge in place of the infestor.
Host/hydra vs. mech in zvt is particularly good, especially as a stepping stone into broods if your opponent does the reasonable thing and masses tanks (which is the only way to cost-effectively combat the mixture).
Hydras just feel good when combined with swarm hosts. It's something you have to try to really appreciate (which is what I've been doing in the beta the last few weeks). The style is very different from traditional zerg where you throw away resources constantly. You can really be cost effective thanks to locusts, hydra range, and good micro which lets you bank large amounts of resources in the late game to tune your composition to whatever your opponent throws at you.
Hi guys, didn't want to create a new thread, so I'm posting it here.
What if hydralisk had an anti-armored attack?
There are many reasons for it: -hydralisk still doesn't feel as a round up unit with a clear niche -Zerg don't have any anti-armored attack right now -Zerg have a lot of ranged fighting units with flat attack (queen, swarm host, roach, infested terrans, hydralisks) which honestly seem to overlap
So what do you think, would it be better to have an anti-armored attack with hydralisks? It could be both a soft AA version (like 10+1 + 4+0 vs. armored) and hard AA version (like 8+1 + 8+1 vs armored). I'd say both is worth testing to say the least.
I would really like to see the Hydralisk as a fragile dps-backbone of the zerg army.
-Change cost to 50/50. -Increase base range by 1, keep the range upgrade, maybe move it to hive tech -Add borrow healing similar to the roach
To balance the stronger Hydra the spellcasters should be nerfed -Remove DPS from fungal, maybe give it a similar effect like corruption -Nerf the Viper in some way
If these changes were implemented hydras would be strong units all game long. Zergs would have to use other units to protect the fragile yet very strong hydras. Spellcasters would no longer be the core, they would support the army units. Hydras especially in combination with a few infestors would be viable against mutalisks in zvz. Hydras would be far better against air units. Zerg right now has so many tanks and not one clear dps dealer that can use these tank units to do the real damage. I would really like to fill that hole with the hydra. IMHO speed alone is not enough, but i do not want to take away their defining weaknesses. It would be far more interesting to give this unit real strengths instead of fewer weaknesses. Zerg already has the tools to compensate the weaknesses of the hydras, it is just not worth it far to often because hydras are not really good at their core task.
Edit: I would even go so far and remove the speed upgrade. Zerg already has enough fast units and creep to make even hydras very fast. The speed upgrade was the wrong idea in the first place. As i said earlier: A better idea would be to make them better at their core task: dealing dps while not getting shot!
On January 31 2013 19:48 Ganseng wrote: Hi guys, didn't want to create a new thread, so I'm posting it here.
What if hydralisk had an anti-armored attack?
There are many reasons for it: -hydralisk still doesn't feel as a round up unit with a clear niche -Zerg don't have any anti-armored attack right now -Zerg have a lot of ranged fighting units with flat attack (queen, swarm host, roach, infested terrans, hydralisks) which honestly seem to overlap
So what do you think, would it be better to have an anti-armored attack with hydralisks? It could be both a soft AA version (like 10+1 + 4+0 vs. armored) and hard AA version (like 8+1 + 8+1 vs armored). I'd say both is worth testing to say the least.
Adressing AA is nice, but i never saw Zerg not having an AA attack as a problem or something they would need. I'd like to ask: What units from Protoss or Terran that are armored need to be by AA?
Other than that, having a lot of ranged units with flat attack isn't really what is the "issue" here. It is that all these units have different uses and roles.
- Queen > Macro unit. - Swarm Host > Siege unit, no air attack, spawns "free" units with barely any range. - Roach > more beefy but less DPS and no air attack. - Infested Terran > From a spell caster. If you made this from a hatchery it would be a different story.
The Hydralisk is very unique on its own because of the fact that it has very high DPS range 6 with Air attack. I do not see a unit that collides with the Hydralisk making it absolete. I also do not see a reason for Zerg to get an Anti Armor unit. Why would it be helpful? Against what unit?
It was a pretty bad move they gave health regen to mutas, while they only gave hydras a needless speed upgrade (creep is free and has the same effect alongside boosting the speed of the rest of your army). Makes the hydra easier to use, but also way less interesting at the same time. Personally all this upgrade does for me is that it is not necessary to spread creep in battle anymore and just a Bonus. Or the need to get Overlord speed when going Hydras.
I always liked that you have to weaken the Mutas, while the Zerg tries to avoid damage. Now the Zerg just has to avoid kills and that means the other races need units that can kill the Mutas. And that forces you to get those units against Mutas, because everything else just doesn't work. So no more reason to build missile towers against Mutas basically, unless you want to cover something with 5 turrets. It is not that bad, but I really dislike the direction they went with the WoL units in making them easier to use. (Voidray included) I mean the Immortal showed success in this regard (range 6 so anyone can use it right) and it got used more and more but it also created a ton of problems. For example shutting down mech pretty hard, because it became so easy to snipe siege tanks. I wish they wouldn't ruin the WoL units that were atleast a bit complicated to use so a-move didn't worked and make them stronger in the lategame with an t3,5 upgrade. (Voidrays could have gotten an upgrade at fleetbeacon that makes it easier to charge if they are massed for example, so they don't become overpowered midgame/low numbers) But right now they are refocusing Sc2 into a more macro heavy game and are adapting the units to it. I wish they would have just slowed down the game a bit, so micro becomes more rewarding.
Most people want more focus on macro though so its fine. But I will just play more BW then because I prefer positional play when only macro is the way to go.
As for the Hydra, the same rules apply that did in WoL with the exception of Infested Terrans not working anymore. Roach is the better Ground Hydra and Queen the better Air Hydra, so no reason to get the Hydra itself, because those 2 "hydras" are so effective in their roles that there is no reason to get hydras, except if you want to burn some gas. They are not useless, but you never want to build enough, that the opponent feels the need to deal with them.
I also kinda feel the hydra got replaced by the roach and the queen. Maybe design the hydra like it was in bw? Make it hatch units again and also let swarmhosts morph out of hydras, so you getting the hydra tech will actully make sense. But i guess this gets ruined by the fact that collossi+forcefields are way to good vs all ground armys.
On January 31 2013 19:48 Ganseng wrote: Hi guys, didn't want to create a new thread, so I'm posting it here.
What if hydralisk had an anti-armored attack?
There are many reasons for it: -hydralisk still doesn't feel as a round up unit with a clear niche -Zerg don't have any anti-armored attack right now -Zerg have a lot of ranged fighting units with flat attack (queen, swarm host, roach, infested terrans, hydralisks) which honestly seem to overlap
So what do you think, would it be better to have an anti-armored attack with hydralisks? It could be both a soft AA version (like 10+1 + 4+0 vs. armored) and hard AA version (like 8+1 + 8+1 vs armored). I'd say both is worth testing to say the least.
Adressing AA is nice, but i never saw Zerg not having an AA attack as a problem or something they would need. I'd like to ask: What units from Protoss or Terran that are armored need to be by AA?
Other than that, having a lot of ranged units with flat attack isn't really what is the "issue" here. It is that all these units have different uses and roles.
- Queen > Macro unit. - Swarm Host > Siege unit, no air attack, spawns "free" units with barely any range. - Roach > more beefy but less DPS and no air attack. - Infested Terran > From a spell caster. If you made this from a hatchery it would be a different story.
The Hydralisk is very unique on its own because of the fact that it has very high DPS range 6 with Air attack. I do not see a unit that collides with the Hydralisk making it absolete. I also do not see a reason for Zerg to get an Anti Armor unit. Why would it be helpful? Against what unit?
well of course all the units (roach, hydra, queen, locust, infested terran) are special, but still all of them do flat ranged damage If one of them had some special attack, it wouldn't hurt in my opinion. and hydralisk is obviously the most suitable candidate for some tweaks. as for the advantage that AA attack could give Zerg, I can think of following situations: -harass - hydra harass against buildings will be much more dangerous -firepower addition to roach/hydra combination - it will be much more powerful compared to more popular pure roach or roach/infestor combinations -kill off dropships, warp prisms, nydus warms and overlords quicker - better unit to defend against drop play -beat mass stalker/marauder groups -snipe colossus easier -beat mechanised terran force (with good concave) -beat voidrays easier (especially now when they are much more powerful, and infestors are much less powerful) -beat battlecruisers easier (especially now when they are much stronger against corruptors, and infestors are weaker)
I'm not saying Zerg really need these options as a race or can't solve these tasks with other units, but it would definitely promote hydralisk play in my opinion. Which we all want don't we?
On January 31 2013 20:57 submarine wrote: I would really like to see the Hydralisk as a fragile dps-backbone of the zerg army.
-Change cost to 50/50. -Increase base range by 1, keep the range upgrade, maybe move it to hive tech -Add borrow healing similar to the roach
To balance the stronger Hydra the spellcasters should be nerfed -Remove DPS from fungal, maybe give it a similar effect like corruption -Nerf the Viper in some way
If these changes were implemented hydras would be strong units all game long. Zergs would have to use other units to protect the fragile yet very strong hydras. Spellcasters would no longer be the core, they would support the army units. Hydras especially in combination with a few infestors would be viable against mutalisks in zvz. Hydras would be far better against air units. Zerg right now has so many tanks and not one clear dps dealer that can use these tank units to do the real damage. I would really like to fill that hole with the hydra. IMHO speed alone is not enough, but i do not want to take away their defining weaknesses. It would be far more interesting to give this unit real strengths instead of fewer weaknesses. Zerg already has the tools to compensate the weaknesses of the hydras, it is just not worth it far to often because hydras are not really good at their core task.
Edit: I would even go so far and remove the speed upgrade. Zerg already has enough fast units and creep to make even hydras very fast. The speed upgrade was the wrong idea in the first place. As i said earlier: A better idea would be to make them better at their core task: dealing dps while not getting shot!
Zerg's Anti-armoured unit is the Zergling. Yes, it doesn't have "+x vs. Armoured", but it's its job quite well.
On January 31 2013 20:57 submarine wrote: I would really like to see the Hydralisk as a fragile dps-backbone of the zerg army.
-Change cost to 50/50. -Increase base range by 1, keep the range upgrade, maybe move it to hive tech -Add borrow healing similar to the roach
To balance the stronger Hydra the spellcasters should be nerfed -Remove DPS from fungal, maybe give it a similar effect like corruption -Nerf the Viper in some way
If these changes were implemented hydras would be strong units all game long. Zergs would have to use other units to protect the fragile yet very strong hydras. Spellcasters would no longer be the core, they would support the army units. Hydras especially in combination with a few infestors would be viable against mutalisks in zvz. Hydras would be far better against air units. Zerg right now has so many tanks and not one clear dps dealer that can use these tank units to do the real damage. I would really like to fill that hole with the hydra. IMHO speed alone is not enough, but i do not want to take away their defining weaknesses. It would be far more interesting to give this unit real strengths instead of fewer weaknesses. Zerg already has the tools to compensate the weaknesses of the hydras, it is just not worth it far to often because hydras are not really good at their core task.
Edit: I would even go so far and remove the speed upgrade. Zerg already has enough fast units and creep to make even hydras very fast. The speed upgrade was the wrong idea in the first place. As i said earlier: A better idea would be to make them better at their core task: dealing dps while not getting shot!
Zerg's Anti-armoured unit is the Zergling. Yes, it doesn't have "+x vs. Armoured", but it's its job quite well.
i have to disagree here! most armored units have some initial points of armor, which dramatically decreases zergling's fast but weak attack. and in large numbers virtually all armored units defeat zerglings as they simly die too fast and don't punch through thick armor fast enough. you can try large numbers of marauders, stalkers, tanks, colossi, roaches, ultralisks, even thors or immortals against zerglings, and you'll see zerglings are not anti-armored whatsoever. they only beat other units if they manage to surround and overrun small groups of them, but they are equally effective against both armored and not-armored units in this position. not to speak against anti-air function of course.
On January 31 2013 20:57 submarine wrote: I would really like to see the Hydralisk as a fragile dps-backbone of the zerg army.
-Change cost to 50/50. -Increase base range by 1, keep the range upgrade, maybe move it to hive tech -Add borrow healing similar to the roach
To balance the stronger Hydra the spellcasters should be nerfed -Remove DPS from fungal, maybe give it a similar effect like corruption -Nerf the Viper in some way
If these changes were implemented hydras would be strong units all game long. Zergs would have to use other units to protect the fragile yet very strong hydras. Spellcasters would no longer be the core, they would support the army units. Hydras especially in combination with a few infestors would be viable against mutalisks in zvz. Hydras would be far better against air units. Zerg right now has so many tanks and not one clear dps dealer that can use these tank units to do the real damage. I would really like to fill that hole with the hydra. IMHO speed alone is not enough, but i do not want to take away their defining weaknesses. It would be far more interesting to give this unit real strengths instead of fewer weaknesses. Zerg already has the tools to compensate the weaknesses of the hydras, it is just not worth it far to often because hydras are not really good at their core task.
Edit: I would even go so far and remove the speed upgrade. Zerg already has enough fast units and creep to make even hydras very fast. The speed upgrade was the wrong idea in the first place. As i said earlier: A better idea would be to make them better at their core task: dealing dps while not getting shot!
Zerg's Anti-armoured unit is the Zergling. Yes, it doesn't have "+x vs. Armoured", but it's its job quite well.
i have to disagree here! most armored units have some initial points of armor, which dramatically decreases zergling's fast but weak attack. and in large numbers virtually all armored units defeat zerglings as they simly die too fast and don't punch through thick armor fast enough. you can try large numbers of marauders, stalkers, tanks, colossi, roaches, ultralisks, even thors or immortals against zerglings, and you'll see zerglings are not anti-armored whatsoever. they only beat other units if they manage to surround and overrun small groups of them, but they are equally effective against both armored and not-armored units in this position. not to speak against anti-air function of course.
It takes insanely large amounts of these armored units and/or great positioning to beat the cost efficiency of zerglings. I think for both marauders and stalkers, you have to get to about 80 supply in open engagements. For Zerg, the issue is more likely that they can't afford the larva for 160 lings or find a suitable location to engage. Otherwise, in a straight up battle, both zealots and marines do far better against zerglings than their armored brethren.
its so sad blizzard doesnt realize how much hydras suck. best thing would be to make them 1 supply 75/25 and adjust stats but its too late for that in HOTS.
so they should just make them 6 baserange and add a hivetech upgrade that gives them +30hp or +2 range or regen or whatever to help fight air T/P and all the AoE thats out then.
On February 01 2013 02:54 Decendos wrote: its so sad blizzard doesnt realize how much hydras suck. best thing would be to make them 1 supply 75/25 and adjust stats but its too late for that in HOTS.
so they should just make them 6 baserange and add a hivetech upgrade that gives them +30hp or +2 range or regen or whatever to help fight air T/P and all the AoE thats out then.
I don't think that the hydra sucks. Of course the hydra is no massable 1-A-unit. But the hydra can be used for very efficient sniping. Of course the hydra is weak versus AoE damage, but every unit has a disadvantage somewhere.
I really like the new version of the hydralisk. It really helps zerg in the midgame and there is no need to rush to expensive broodlord/infestor anymore. You can add blinding clouds to your roach/hydra army to neglect tanks/colossi.
On February 01 2013 02:54 Decendos wrote: its so sad blizzard doesnt realize how much hydras suck. best thing would be to make them 1 supply 75/25 and adjust stats but its too late for that in HOTS.
so they should just make them 6 baserange and add a hivetech upgrade that gives them +30hp or +2 range or regen or whatever to help fight air T/P and all the AoE thats out then.
I don't think that the hydra sucks. Of course the hydra is no massable 1-A-unit. But the hydra can be used for very efficient sniping. Of course the hydra is weak versus AoE damage, but every unit has a disadvantage somewhere.
so hydras lose to literally (this is actually true!!) to over 80 or 85% of ALL units in the whole game supplywise and are insanely bad supply and cost efficient wise and need 2 expensive and long upgrades to be viable and then AoE is out they become useless again after having a 2-4 min window...well now THATS not just "every unit has a disadvantage somewhere".
i had so many OPPONENTS laugh about hydras and be sorry for them being so bad. its not like zerg players say they are weak, they suck objectively :D
EPT
