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Poll: Speed first or range first?Speed! (68) 74% Range! (24) 26% 92 total votes Your vote: Speed first or range first? (Vote): Speed!
(Vote): Range!
So now that hydra speed is lair tech and we've had some time to play around with it, which upgrade do you guys think should be researched first? With the speed first, we gain the ability to move out on the map and get map control, as well as put on a little bit of pressure (timing attacks? :O ). Also, we get the ability to retreat if need be.
However, the range is needed to outrange certain units, prevent clumping with roaches/locusts, and to keep the squishy hydras safe.
What do you all think?
Personally, I get speed first for the map control, with the range following asap.
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Speed is best. With speed you can actually micro your Hydras and get them out of harms way... this is crucial.
The range is very important too though. I'm hoping they remove the range upgrade and give Hydras default 7 range.
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I also think it's better to get speed ASAP, but honestly, they need to just remove the range upgrade at this point and give them +1 default range. It's too many upgrades to make a unit usable.
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Mobility is more important for small, ranged units. (IE marine with stim and blink stalker).
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
On January 11 2013 04:25 sitromit wrote:
I also think it's better to get speed ASAP, but honestly, they need to just remove the range upgrade at this point and give them +1 default range. It's too many upgrades to make a unit usable.
Maybe it's because zerg mechanic allows to spam hydras easily?
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Range. If you want to attack with hydras without range it's silly. That means you're defending, and your creep should already be spread between your bases negating the upgrade.
This is under the assumption that you're investing in a lot of hydras. I've seen some builds where you go 5 hydras poke at a protoss forge then switch to muta.
btw this is also under the assumption they dont get a speed bonus when you upgrade speed. I don't know if it's actually like that right now. any confirmation?
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If you are defending some push on creep, get range. In every other situation speed first.
But they should get +1 range by default I think.
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Range upgrade before speed, as the DPS and damage they are doing is more important than the speed of the Hydra, you need them to be doing the most damage from the greatest range to live longer, you need them to be hitting units while they are behind the roaches not in front , or they will die. Therefor it is best to ALWAYS 100% go Range before Speed, I think the only situation where Speed would be better than Range, would be if in ZvP the Protoss is going mass air and you lost a hatchery, and need to able to defend against the mass air really well, or also in ZvT I guess if you were in a similar situation with banshees.
Range before speed always.
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Yes I guess it depends on whether you are using them initially to defend (range) or attack (speed).
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On January 11 2013 04:25 ElMeanYo wrote:
Speed is best. With speed you can actually micro your Hydras and get them out of harms way... this is crucial.
The range is very important too though. I'm hoping they remove the range upgrade and give Hydras default 7 range.
Actually, hydralisks start with 5. So, after the upgrade, they have 6 range. Same as stalkers.
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Range upgrades A LOT faster than speed.
Potentially, you have better defenses if you get range first.
It is unlikely that you will push before having both, so there's no point to getting speed first.
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On defense range first, otherwise speed first. Speed is only useful on offense anyway as it does nothing for hydra's on creep.
I agree with others though, it's silly the hydra has two upgrades after which is still quite a relatively poor unit.
They need to combine or remove one of it's upgrade. Give one for free, mix the upgrades or even let the speed upgrade be shared with the roach speed upgrade.
I still think hydra's are just a bit too weak in general by the way. Vipers are a good support unit for them making them indirectly better but by itself the unit is still quite a joke, it can't even beat oracles per cost. +5 or +10 hp, perhaps tacked on to the range upgrade, would definately not be bad. It would be better for the fun of the game too if hydra's were a viable option in ZvZ..
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Against zerg: Range first, since you will be fighting on creep most of the time anyway. Against T and P i'd get speed first so they can actually be kept alive.
But, as others have said multiple times, you pretty much need both upgrades for them to be good in army vs army. Before that you can maybe go where the opponents is not and snipe buildings or just defend. As long as they stay alive 
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Speed first when you want to play agressiv, range first when you want to play defensive,
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I always go range first, even if I'm being aggressive. I think the range makes a huge difference when trying to bust a Protoss with hydras, and I attack before the speed upgrade would finish anyway.
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On January 11 2013 04:25 ElMeanYo wrote:
Speed is best. With speed you can actually micro your Hydras and get them out of harms way... this is crucial.
The range is very important too though. I'm hoping they remove the range upgrade and give Hydras default 17 range.
Pretty please Blizzard :D
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I'd say range first... hope they just make the range base with the hydra. Why range first? You can shoot stalkers over forcefields. In zvz you want to shoot over your roaches and reach their roaches, extra range obviously helps a lot. If you want to go stephano style and go roach hydra zvt, probably would get speed first because range isn't as helpful as you will want to escape marines easily.
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On January 11 2013 04:25 sitromit wrote:
I also think it's better to get speed ASAP, but honestly, they need to just remove the range upgrade at this point and give them +1 default range. It's too many upgrades to make a unit usable.
this is the logic they used when they removed the speed upgrade in WoL.
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Allways Range first for me. I only need speed as soon as i want to be aggressive and because i commit to ling hydra (ZvP) defensivly to hold my 3 bases and take a easy 4th i need to get range first, speed dosnt help me and i get it in time anyway to get agressive
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Since you can get offensive Speed at any hatch. Range of course alongside with Overlord Speed. The speed upgrade is just for lazy people.
But about the discussion of multiple upgrades for a unit. With the Ultra not being a techswitch unit anymore, they can actually bring back the speed upgrade on them again.
But I guess Hydra speed can be interesting to surprise your opponent with a quick attack.
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Definitely speed first, at least the way i play. I never use hydras defensively unless it's surprise voids or drop defense, so I always upgrade speed first. It makes hydras so much more useful in all applications, since they're not such vulnerable little slow babies.
As mentioned, blizz should give hydras the +1 range by default and leave the speed upgrade as is. Either that or change the range upgrade to allow hydras to attack two units at once HAHA
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I always went for speed first but you guys make range first sound like a better idea... I think I'll still be tempted to go speed first vs. P though.
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On January 11 2013 07:58 FeyFey wrote:
Since you can get offensive Speed at any hatch. Range of course alongside with Overlord Speed. The speed upgrade is just for lazy people.
But about the discussion of multiple upgrades for a unit. With the Ultra not being a techswitch unit anymore, they can actually bring back the speed upgrade on them again.
But I guess Hydra speed can be interesting to surprise your opponent with a quick attack.
Not exactly fair.
Speed is most important for retreating, not attacking. It's easy enough to time attacks. its the "oh crap!" then need to retreat that speed is needed.
It makes it so that a Hydralisk attack is not automatically an all in.
It's not because Hydralisks are slow (they have standard speed), but all standard units have speed upgrades that allow them to run faster than normal speed.
Between Stim, tanks, Stalkers, Forcefields, etc... standard speed units just can't retreat.
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On January 11 2013 08:40 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2013 07:58 FeyFey wrote:
Since you can get offensive Speed at any hatch. Range of course alongside with Overlord Speed. The speed upgrade is just for lazy people.
But about the discussion of multiple upgrades for a unit. With the Ultra not being a techswitch unit anymore, they can actually bring back the speed upgrade on them again.
But I guess Hydra speed can be interesting to surprise your opponent with a quick attack. Not exactly fair. Speed is most important for retreating, not attacking. It's easy enough to time attacks. its the "oh crap!" then need to retreat that speed is needed. It makes it so that a Hydralisk attack is not automatically an all in. It's not because Hydralisks are slow (they have standard speed), but all standard units have speed upgrades that allow them to run faster than normal speed. Between Stim, tanks, Stalkers, Forcefields, etc... standard speed units just can't retreat.
This.
I don't see the logic of those who say range first. If range first, then why the hell aren't you using Hydras in WoL??? Hydras are almost an abandoned unit in WoL. If you say range first, that means hydras with upgraded range must be good for at least SOME parts of the game. But the fact is that 6 range Slowdras still completely suck against almost all SC2 army compos by the time you get them.
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For defense against air, it might actually be better to upgrade speed first so you can chase air units around much easier; that is, if the speed upgrade allows hydras to move faster than normally on creep. Can anyone verify?
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Seems to be quite a few different opinions on this which does not surprise me, they really should just give range free (because half the time I forget to upgrade the 2nd one without a long period inbetween  ).
I get speed first with ling hydra and range first with roach hydra.
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On January 11 2013 09:05 NeWnAr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2013 08:40 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 11 2013 07:58 FeyFey wrote:
Since you can get offensive Speed at any hatch. Range of course alongside with Overlord Speed. The speed upgrade is just for lazy people.
But about the discussion of multiple upgrades for a unit. With the Ultra not being a techswitch unit anymore, they can actually bring back the speed upgrade on them again.
But I guess Hydra speed can be interesting to surprise your opponent with a quick attack. Not exactly fair. Speed is most important for retreating, not attacking. It's easy enough to time attacks. its the "oh crap!" then need to retreat that speed is needed. It makes it so that a Hydralisk attack is not automatically an all in. It's not because Hydralisks are slow (they have standard speed), but all standard units have speed upgrades that allow them to run faster than normal speed. Between Stim, tanks, Stalkers, Forcefields, etc... standard speed units just can't retreat. This. I don't see the logic of those who say range first. If range first, then why the hell aren't you using Hydras in WoL??? Hydras are almost an abandoned unit in WoL. If you say range first, that means hydras with upgraded range must be good for at least SOME parts of the game. But the fact is that 6 range Slowdras still completely suck against almost all SC2 army compos by the time you get them.
range 5 can be a bit quirky in engagements with roaches because of the size of the roach and how fast front line enemy units melt, you end up having hydras running around your roach line trying to find a space to shoot from.
but more important at this stage in the game, you will not have near enough hydras to be effective, especially if you dump that gas into speed. so in this respect i always go for range first to give my limited hydra numbers that needed punch if you are caught against a timing.
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So much good logic in this thread already. I'm still on the fence, but this is what I was hoping for, as I honestly had no idea which is actually better to get first. Under certain circumstances one is better than the other, and vice versa for other situations. I still just have a gut feeling like there is a 'correct' one to get first however (matchup-dependant ofc), so let the debate continue.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
I think the answer is there is no right answer. It's situational. Just to clear it up now, the upgrade doesn't make Hydras as fast as they are on creep (or faster on creep than they already are). The tooltip reads: "Hydralisks move 25% faster off creep.".
So really the answer is: Are you going to be defending with your Hydralisks, wherein the speed upgrade is going to do literally nothing for you? Then range first.
Or do you need the ability to attack with them as soon as possible? Then speed first.
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If it's for defense i get range first. But if i am planning to attack, i get speed.
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I'm not sure. But one thing we wshould want to consider, when it's late game and you have 90+ drones and want to add some hydras to your army, go double den, since the building is cheap and you don't want to wait 80 or 110 seconds for another upgrade to have stronger hydras.
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I prefer to get speed because even when used defensively, the speed would speed up the reinforcement rate and able to do a counter attack while range upgrade can be gotten on the way to counter attack.
I am not sure though, +1 range makes it better against protoss FFs
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Anyone who says range before speed is either just being passive with their hydras or haven't played the beta yet. Speed Hydras are waaaay better than the slow ones. They actually feel like you can micro them.
If you only have WOL, try stutter stepping with hydras on, then off creep, you will see how it feels.
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Why would you want to switch back to tier 2 units when you are ready making tier 3 units? In some of the ultra long games, switching from tier 3 units to hydra (tier 2) makes sense. But those are few in between.
On January 11 2013 13:59 Lemminkainen wrote:
I'm not sure. But one thing we wshould want to consider, when it's late game and you have 90+ drones and want to add some hydras to your army, go double den, since the building is cheap and you don't want to wait 80 or 110 seconds for another upgrade to have stronger hydras.
The other option of going double den is when Leenock or other zerg players get double roach warren to get the tech early and hit with a timing attack.
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Speed first. Making defensive hydras are too...defensive. You can't counter. You can't push. You pretty much gives a third (or even a fourth) to your opponent.
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The problem with using range first is every problem Hydras face in WoL. I wouldn't say it's situational. There may be almost no realistic situation in WoL where Hydras are any good at all, cause the only thing they are remotely good against is air but mutas/queens/corrupters are always a much better choice at dealing with any race heavy air compo.
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depends on how your gonna use them if you need to immediately pur on agression then speed so you can if your defensive range since ythey on creep
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Range is far more important. That is what makes the units really cost efficient. On Creep you dont need the speedupgrade anyways, and by the time hydras are out, you should have had more than enough time to cover your half of the map in creep.
If you scout some greedyness/weakness of your opponent you can go for dbl hydra and dbl upgrades and go for the kill. Its only worth to do it if you can say for sure it works. I dont like the idea to put on pressure with speed but without the rangeupgrade. Speed only helps you when you want to go on the opponents side of the map, and even for that, range is a must have!
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On January 11 2013 18:47 doggy wrote:
Range is far more important. That is what makes the units really cost efficient. On Creep you dont need the speedupgrade anyways, and by the time hydras are out, you should have had more than enough time to cover your half of the map in creep.
If you scout some greedyness/weakness of your opponent you can go for dbl hydra and dbl upgrades and go for the kill. Its only worth to do it if you can say for sure it works. I dont like the idea to put on pressure with speed but without the rangeupgrade. Speed only helps you when you want to go on the opponents side of the map, and even for that, range is a must have!
Sorry, but this is just false. Range is not more important, and how do you know that he can cover half of the map with the creep? That, after all, depends on the skill level. In some situations speed is superior, and range is in other.
If your pressure fail with the speed upgrade, you can retreat, if it fails with the range upgrade, your army of Hydras is good as dead.
I have the feeling that people that say "Range is always better" haven't played enough with the speed first. Also, I agree with people that think you shouldn't push without both upgrades anyway, except in some rare timings.
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I feel like it depends and you can't say either way in general. If you're planning on being defensive for a while, having range first will help a lot more as speed doesn't benefit you much when you're on creep anyway - which you will be if you're defending. If you want to attack soon you'll want speed because you'll get there faster and you'll actually be able to micro. That said, if you're wanting to attack you probably want to have both upgrades so you'll want range first so you're better defended until you're ready to attack.
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Definitely Range. It makes defending easier. Since normally you're on 3 bases, and your bases are connected with creep, the speed upgrade doesn't do anything anyway. Upgrade range, then you're a bit safer defensively and then upgrade speed, and after that you can push out.
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On January 11 2013 04:25 sitromit wrote:
I also think it's better to get speed ASAP, but honestly, they need to just remove the range upgrade at this point and give them +1 default range. It's too many upgrades to make a unit usable.
Not really... The Broodwar Hydra had a lot of upgrades too.
Even one more for the Lurkers and the default range back in bw was 4.
But your right speed is more important but they dont need to give them the range ugprade automatically thats stupidity.
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On January 12 2013 00:23 Mantaza wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2013 04:25 sitromit wrote:
I also think it's better to get speed ASAP, but honestly, they need to just remove the range upgrade at this point and give them +1 default range. It's too many upgrades to make a unit usable. Not really... The Broodwar Hydra had a lot of upgrades too. Even one more for the Lurkers and the default range back in bw was 4. But your right speed is more important but they dont need to give them the range ugprade automatically thats stupidity.
I don't see how comparison to the BW is relevant to what he is saying? Yes, Ultras were also having speed upgrade in BW and they don't in SC2. Marines had range upgrade, they don't now and many more things are different. BW Hydras are completely different from SC2 Hydras, and have different purpose.
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The thing is that IMO, the reason for going range before Speed is because of the efficiency of the timings, When you go range first, you are setting yourself up to be safe vs any aggression whether it be ground or air, And by the time you have range and speed, if you are macroing properly, then you will have set yourself up for a way better timing attack and it will be way less all in, than if you try to attack with only speed hydras, the range upgrade on Hydralisks is what makes them so much more useful, defensively and offensively.
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Range first I think is the best, creep fills the role of the speed boost, when you get the speed upgrade then you can use your hydras off creep and stuff.
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On January 12 2013 03:26 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2013 00:23 Mantaza wrote:On January 11 2013 04:25 sitromit wrote:
I also think it's better to get speed ASAP, but honestly, they need to just remove the range upgrade at this point and give them +1 default range. It's too many upgrades to make a unit usable. Not really... The Broodwar Hydra had a lot of upgrades too. Even one more for the Lurkers and the default range back in bw was 4. But your right speed is more important but they dont need to give them the range ugprade automatically thats stupidity. I don't see how comparison to the BW is relevant to what he is saying? Yes, Ultras were also having speed upgrade in BW and they don't in SC2. Marines had range upgrade, they don't now and many more things are different. BW Hydras are completely different from SC2 Hydras, and have different purpose.
He's responding to the guy talking about how having so many upgrades results in getting the unit out too late to be useful. His counter-point is that hydras in BW had more than 1 upgrade, but were still considered a core unit for Zerg.
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United States4883 Posts
On January 12 2013 03:31 GGzerG wrote:
The thing is that IMO, the reason for going range before Speed is because of the efficiency of the timings, When you go range first, you are setting yourself up to be safe vs any aggression whether it be ground or air, And by the time you have range and speed, if you are macroing properly, then you will have set yourself up for a way better timing attack and it will be way less all in, than if you try to attack with only speed hydras, the range upgrade on Hydralisks is what makes them so much more useful, defensively and offensively.
I feel like 90% of people in here are promoting range first. Why doesn't the poll suggest this...?
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On January 11 2013 23:52 Grendel wrote:
Definitely Range. It makes defending easier. Since normally you're on 3 bases, and your bases are connected with creep, the speed upgrade doesn't do anything anyway. Upgrade range, then you're a bit safer defensively and then upgrade speed, and after that you can push out.
This. Range unless you're doing a timing attack. Creep gives you the speed bonus. Range is nice against banshee's, drops, helions, mines, etc.
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Speed is way more useful for dealing with harass and countering quickly. If P takes a fast third you can get there faster to put pressure on and get range in the meantime.
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On January 12 2013 11:36 Daitro wrote:
Speed is way more useful for dealing with harass and countering quickly. If P takes a fast third you can get there faster to put pressure on and get range in the meantime.
That's why roaches and lings exist. I still don't think hydras should be used as "harass." They are more of a core army type unit.
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Range for timing attacks.
For example, If one ques up 10 hydra, and moves out with them right at pop, then gets the upgrade right after with the next 150/150. The hydra's get the upgrade right when they reach the enemy base.
Food for thought ^_^
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