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I'm just a low diamond but been playing since beta. Only speaking from ZvP perspective.. I think we should let the game evolve more, it's been changing a lot. I remember reading about immortals being op during beta, and then for awhile they haven't been used used a lot. Now immortals are making somewhat of a comeback. I also remember brief times when hydra seemed op, then when they were simply used a lot. For a while they were a standard in ZvP. Now they are starting to become extincts as ya'll say, but you never know the use people will find for them in one month. I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong with the unit, maybe there is, but we need some time before we make em 75/25 as one poster suggested:o
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decrease splash area damage radius of colossi / tank and add another 10 HP.
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On March 22 2011 14:58 Sanasante wrote: The fact is: Units have 4 basic properties: Energy / HP / DPS / Speed
You're forgetting the most important property: when you can get them. Timing is everything.
If it were possible to force tanks - and I mean force them earlier and in greater numbers than Terran would like to be making them - by teching to hydra, that would be great. Zerg could threaten hydra and then go mutalisk to punish an overcommitment to tanks with insufficient bio support.
If it were possible to force a rush to Colossi / Templar with hydra, again making Protoss cut back on his gateway army, that too could be a strategic move: threaten hydra, make corruptors / roaches depending on tech choice, profit.
In other words, the high cost-effectiveness of tanks and colossi vs hydra isn't in itself a problem. What is a problem is that, partly because of Zerg's laborious tech tree, partly because of their cost, and partly because of the variety of early pressure T and P can use to make Zerg delay tech, hydra can't be out in time to force anything.
On paper, Hydra are a core unit: ranged units that shoot air and ground. Like the marine and zealot/stalker, they should be the backbone of a Zerg army, an all-purpose force you can accessorise with a selection of tech. But because they lag behind in the arms race (as opposed to the marine and the stalker, who start ahead of the curve and can stay there with blink, stim, shield, medivacs etc), Zerg ends up trying to play around the hole where that backbone should be. Hence all the QQ about Zerg needing to scout perfectly or guess right to avoid build-order losses. I think it's telling that, despite Zerg having the fewest fighting units to start with, there's a trend towards using even fewer of them, relying more and more on ling/bling/queens and trying to win with them before the window to do so closes.
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On March 21 2011 13:37 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2011 00:49 Nemireck wrote:On March 21 2011 00:45 Rabiator wrote:On March 19 2011 20:59 Subversion wrote:On March 19 2011 18:19 Alzadar wrote:On March 19 2011 17:26 cuppatea wrote:On March 19 2011 17:16 Beabs wrote:On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. Don't engage blink stalkers with hydra off creep? I'll never understand why Blizzard made them so ridiculously slow off creep. It's just impractical to cover the entire map in creep, especially with competitive maps becoming increasingly large. If you want to force an engagement with hydra it has to be off creep, otherwise you sit back and wait for the bulk of your army to be hard countered. It really bothers me how everyone talks about hydralisks being ridiculously slow off creep. They're not. They're the same speed as everything else. Hydra off-creep: 2.25 Zealot: 2.25 Sentry: 2.25 Marine: 2.25 Marauder: 2.25 Colossus: 2.25 Immortal: 2.25 Siege Tank: 2.25 Void Ray: 2.25 Ghost: 2.25 Hydralisks are not slow, they're regular speed units. They only appear slow in comparison to other zerg units, which are all very fast. Sigh when people make this argument I just facepalm. The units you're talking about, which make up the core army, like zealots and marines and marauders, have UPGRADES TO MAKE THEM FASTER. That is what we want for a Hydra - a speed upgrade. We don't just want speed for free. We want what every other races core units have available to them. You can't count spellcasters and siege units like tanks and colossi, thats just silly. Isnt that upgrade called "creep"? I just facepalm when people want everything without paying for it. Terran bio have to pay with health (and a click to activate from the player and some more control for Medivacs) and Protoss have their blink-micro. Why is it too much to ask the Zerg to position some creep spewing Overlords or plant creep tumors in time? No, that upgrade is not called creep. Zerg can't cancel out 10 minutes worth of your upgrades with a single overseer in 10 seconds or less. Toss and Terran can cancel out an entire game's worth of creep with a single scan, raven, or observer. If you'd bother to read the thread and not decide to troll it up herpaderp style. You would have already seen the creep argument dealt with multiple times. The Hydra needs an upgrade that increases it's speed off-creep, and it's light status should be removed in place of the hydra simply being "biological". That's the best and most intuitive choice that can be made to increase its usefulness. Oh so you want a bonus because you are too lazy to spread creep and too lazy to argue with the point that the other races need to micro as well? You are even ignoring the fact that you could also use a "mobile creep spreading unit" to give Hydras situational speed boosts just like bio units and stalkers? Just get a few extra Queens to spread your creep with more than one tumor per highway and it goes quick enough and will definetely not take 10 minutes. Instead you simply call me a troll because that is easier than arguing with the points I am making. Oh and the "remove the light status" (so it isnt vulnerable to any bonus damage anymore) argument tops off the argumentation.
Multiple tumors will not solve the problem of Terran or Protoss killing them in 3 seconds or less with a single detector, a group of 4 marines can clear 10 creep tumors in under 10 seconds. Do you think I don't already use multiple queens to lay lines of creep tumors all over the place? Some games I even have multiple groups of 6 or 7 tumors spreading the creep all over the map. The fact remains that creep is incredibly easy to not only stop, but also remove from the game. Zerg can't throw 5 banelings into a tech lab late in the game and force terran to re-research stim, we can't kill a templar archives and force a Toss player to re-research Blink or Charge. But either race can kill off an entire GAME worth of creep in a single push that takes less than a minute, and make zerg start spreading creep all over again.
If you'd bothered to read the thread, instead of trolling it up herpaderp-style, you'd have seen that I already think the idea of using OLs to spread creep behind my army is a great idea, and I'm starting to experiment with it in games where I use Hydras. So far the idea is proving ineffective, I feel that my Hydras are dying too fast anyway and that spreading that creep behind my army with a group of OLs is mostly a waste of time, but I'm not giving up on the idea just yet, because Hydras have good DPS, and if it's POSSIBLE to use them effectively, I want to.
And yes, removing the light status would be a great way to make the Hydralisk more viable in the game, because it's a counter-intuitive unit due to it's slow speed and fragile nature (And still, not a single person has taken me up on my request to point out a unit that is fragile AND slow, not a spell-caster or long-range unit, and still effective in a game). Instead of raising it's Hp (it's only 90 you know), I'm proposing a simple change to it's unit-type.
In the meantime another option has occurred to me. Remove burrow movement from roaches, and give it to Hydralisks instead. It's just a thought, maybe someone wants to chew on that one for a while. But it might actually go a long way towards making Hydras viable, without changing their stats, giving them an extra ability instead. I haven't given it much thought, the idea just popped into my head, but so far I like the thought of it.
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With the new infestor change I think roaches simply being superior to hydras might be proven wrong. You need a few roaches to tank yes, but too many will vulnerable to fungals.
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On March 24 2011 16:00 Advocado wrote: With the new infestor change I think roaches simply being superior to hydras might be proven wrong. You need a few roaches to tank yes, but too many will vulnerable to fungals.
Hydras will be just as weak against fungal. With only 90 HP to work with, it will take one less fungal growth to kill a hydra as it will to kill a roach. It comes down to effective use of resources at that point, and then I don't think Hydras meet the requirement.
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hydras will always have their place. just thinking about ZvP b/c i actually play that matchup on both sides, hydras are great units to have if they're rushing you w/ a few void rays or phoenix. you don't have to go crazy w/ them. i haven't played too much w/ the infestors yet but def played a lot against them with P. they're crazy good lol makes the matchup really fun b/c i don't feel invincible anymore. before it was derp derp get 200/200 on 2 maybe three bases, but now it's ok i'm maxed let's go. wow that really put a dent in me, time to go macro/harass. battles are also lasting longer b/c of the stun. a lot of push and pull back. love the new change and PvZ on the GSL map is hella fun. safe forge FE? yes plz
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