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There is tons of good information that has already be brought up regarding the hydralisk in this thread, but I'm going to throw in my 2 cents.
They hydralisk costs too much in terms of gas. As it has been said before it costs around 250 gas to get the building/grooved spines upgraded, then 50 gas for each hydra after that. When you could produce around 2 roaches per hydra, the costs/hp+armor+attack on roaches far outweighs the usefulness of the hydra. Furthermore the roach can regenerate health quickly underground allowing it's utility to potentially be infinite in theory. The hydra on the other hand might as well be a sack of gas that is liable to die at any second.
Hydras on creep, while nice, is a rare thing mid-late game. If the zerg player is amazing about spreading his creep(see stephano) then hyras utility goes up, but just as good zerg players spread the creep good toss/terran players remove it just the same. The likelihood of battling on creep in the mid-late game when decent hydra numbers have been achieved is pretty low unless you're fighting in your own zerg base. Therefore when marching across the map your lings/roaches/etc all get there first while the hydras lag behind slowing the assault down.
When running from a losing battle hydras tend to lag behind the rest of the zerg army due to the slow speed relative to its counterpart units. With the current cost of hydras it becomes incredibly costly to have them lag behind the rest of your army after a losing battle. A good player will pounce on the opportunity to destroy expensive, fragile hydras while the faster, more disposable part of the zerg army(ling/roach) retreat back to safety.
When you look at all the downsides to the hydra, barely any of which were touched on by my post, as a zerg player you tend to see that there are much better gas investments than the hydra. Why invest 500+ gas into hydras when you could sink half as much into roaches and have +1 upgrade as well as speed? Anti-air? That's laughable in most cases. Protoss effectively bate zerg players into going hydra so they can just come back and crush it with colossi and force field later on. Terran don't seem to have any strategies that make the hydra cost efficient in any manner over the versatile infestor or mutas and that isn't even touching on the cost effectiveness of marines. The hydra does have a place in ZvZ, but I think that place is limited dependent on your opp's build and how effectively you can employ the hydras.
Obviously all avenues of hydra strategies haven't been worked through, but in the current state of the game I really see very little use for the hydra. That being said I'm more than open to seeing it used. As a huge BW fan/player I am disheartened by the current state of my lovable hydralisk. Most of all I want my ****ing early anti-air back that isn't a queen!
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I take it the OP doesnt play zerg, otherwise he wouldnt have made such a long post that basically misses the point why it is such a problem that hydras are not faster.
The problem is that both Terran and Protoss (and also Zerg obviously) have very basic units that have ways of catching up to hydras, which means that you can only use hydras if you are sure to win a battle.
Terrans bio is ALWAYS stimmed in fights, bringing their normal speed up at all is kind of ignorant, so terran can catch up to retreating hydras.
Stalkers are faster than hydras off creep, and on top of that they have blink, so basically it is impossible to run from stalkers.
Zerg can catch up to hydras with every basic unit except the hydra itself.
If you move out with an army that has hydralisks in it, but then decide to retreat because the fight didnt go well or the positioning would have been bad, then your hydras are basically donated to the enemy.
Your other units are able to escape while your hydras can be chased by other basic units of all the other races including zerg itself, which either forces you to abandon all your hydras, or turn around and fight amd lose everything, of which both is a terrible choice to make.
There are plenty of games where exactly this happens and the zerg has to make the decision of attacking and losing everything, or retreating and losing all hydras, which basically means losing in both cases.
This often happens in scenarios where toss opened voidray/phoenix into gateway army with colossus.
If you want to attack the toss in order to deny his third, you will have to bring hydras with your roaches, otherwise you will just die to the voidray.
If you are unable to do anything because protoss already protected his third with cannons and army and stuff, and then you decide to retreat you will just lose your hydras.
So basically you are allin as soon as you move out of your base with hydras for a midgame timing.
If you have a choice to choose between roaches and hydras (for your timing attack, your midgame pressure, or your lategame army, doesnt really matter), then zerg will always choose roaches because they are guaranteed to be able to retreat in case they need to.
There is more to it (as pointed out in this thread already), like the hydra costing too much gas and having way too low hp for such an investment etc, but if they were actually faster than the roach (on and offcreep) then i am sure we would see the hydra much more often.
The philosophy behind the hydra doesnt make any sense to me.
Glass cannons should have an advantage in other areas in order to make up for that weakness.
But instead they have several other weaknesses on top of having low hp.
They dont deal particularly more damage than other units (marines cost 50 mins and 2 of them already outdps a hydra, even though the hydra costs 100 minerals AND 50 gas).
They dont have more health than other units of same cost (again, 2 marines cost much less than 1 hydra, but combined they have more hp than the hydra).
They dont have more speed than other units (lets take the marine again, stim and go).
The only thing you could bring up is their range, but their range is actually worse than all other units, except marines.
If you upgrade the range they are on par with other units except marines, which they will have an advantage of 1 range over.
You know whats funny though? If you send hydralisks (with range upgrade) against marines, marines will shoot first, because their animation is so much better.
So basically their range is not an advantage either.
So what actually is the advantage of having a glass cannon? Exactly, there is none.
We only build hydras because thats the only anti air we have against mass phoenix, and ironically, mass phoenix is pretty good against hydras.
Hydras suck.
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On October 26 2011 13:37 Camlito wrote:
Marines can Stim, Stalkers can Blink, Hydras get a speed boost on creep. Stim/blink is good defensively or offensively, whereas you can't have the hydras abuse their bonus anywhere except defensively (unless you have insane creep spread and it't not stopped) and being a glass cannon, i wouldn't use a hydra for defence
Thing is marines require some micro with stim and stutter step, blink requires micro but hydralisk is just a move...
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I think the hydra is jsut too expensive to be massed. 100 50 is actually so much, you can't really afford that for a unit you cannot retreat with.
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Sure, Hydralisks might be fragile, and tough to protect in large engagements, but that doesn't rule them out all-together, Protoss is able to buffer their Sentries against damage by using Zealots!
wtf i dont even... like ... wtf.... of course i can protect my hydras if i throw some crazy forcefields around them, allowing only 1 or even no unit touching them :D:D:D:D
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Starcraft 2 pathing combined with the cost is holding the Hydra back
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On October 26 2011 19:12 eYeball wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:37 Camlito wrote:
Marines can Stim, Stalkers can Blink, Hydras get a speed boost on creep. Stim/blink is good defensively or offensively, whereas you can't have the hydras abuse their bonus anywhere except defensively (unless you have insane creep spread and it't not stopped) and being a glass cannon, i wouldn't use a hydra for defence Thing is marines require some micro with stim and stutter step, blink requires micro but hydralisk is just a move...
This post is so ignorant i cant even begin to grasp it.
Blink is just pressing b, stimming marines is pressing t, stutter stepping (doesnt matter which unit) is moving and pressing s (repeat all over).
Thats not some crazy micro, its basic army movement. Its the most basic army movement there is, akin to a move.
But alright, lets say you have a point and it would be unfair if hydras were faster by just a moving them.
I would gladly take a stimmable hydra that i have to stutter step, or a blinkable hydra that i have to blink, if in return they were as fast as marines or stalkers.
Unfortunately thats not the case, so we dont build them.
Your post has no point at all.
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I love the Hydralisk. Nothing pleases me more than seeing 20 of them chew through a protoss army and wall. But when using them there is always this thought in the back of your mind, I sure do hope a Collosus doesnt pop out right now. When you get any significant number of Hydras, you are are taking a massive risk.
In the current meta game I actually think Hydras are pretty good units, Protoss do not get quick colossus very often. I manage to find timing windows where I just go and kill the Protoss fairly often. They are good for air defense and (semi) all-ins, and I'm actually ok with that.
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+ Show Spoiler [Wall-of-text] +On October 26 2011 19:09 gh0un wrote:
I take it the OP doesnt play zerg, otherwise he wouldnt have made such a long post that basically misses the point why it is such a problem that hydras are not faster.
The problem is that both Terran and Protoss (and also Zerg obviously) have very basic units that have ways of catching up to hydras, which means that you can only use hydras if you are sure to win a battle.
Terrans bio is ALWAYS stimmed in fights, bringing their normal speed up at all is kind of ignorant, so terran can catch up to retreating hydras.
Stalkers are faster than hydras off creep, and on top of that they have blink, so basically it is impossible to run from stalkers.
Zerg can catch up to hydras with every basic unit except the hydra itself.
If you move out with an army that has hydralisks in it, but then decide to retreat because the fight didnt go well or the positioning would have been bad, then your hydras are basically donated to the enemy.
Your other units are able to escape while your hydras can be chased by other basic units of all the other races including zerg itself, which either forces you to abandon all your hydras, or turn around and fight amd lose everything, of which both is a terrible choice to make.
There are plenty of games where exactly this happens and the zerg has to make the decision of attacking and losing everything, or retreating and losing all hydras, which basically means losing in both cases.
This often happens in scenarios where toss opened voidray/phoenix into gateway army with colossus.
If you want to attack the toss in order to deny his third, you will have to bring hydras with your roaches, otherwise you will just die to the voidray.
If you are unable to do anything because protoss already protected his third with cannons and army and stuff, and then you decide to retreat you will just lose your hydras.
So basically you are allin as soon as you move out of your base with hydras for a midgame timing.
If you have a choice to choose between roaches and hydras (for your timing attack, your midgame pressure, or your lategame army, doesnt really matter), then zerg will always choose roaches because they are guaranteed to be able to retreat in case they need to.
There is more to it (as pointed out in this thread already), like the hydra costing too much gas and having way too low hp for such an investment etc, but if they were actually faster than the roach (on and offcreep) then i am sure we would see the hydra much more often.
The philosophy behind the hydra doesnt make any sense to me.
Glass cannons should have an advantage in other areas in order to make up for that weakness.
But instead they have several other weaknesses on top of having low hp.
They dont deal particularly more damage than other units (marines cost 50 mins and 2 of them already outdps a hydra, even though the hydra costs 100 minerals AND 50 gas).
They dont have more health than other units of same cost (again, 2 marines cost much less than 1 hydra, but combined they have more hp than the hydra).
They dont have more speed than other units (lets take the marine again, stim and go).
The only thing you could bring up is their range, but their range is actually worse than all other units, except marines.
If you upgrade the range they are on par with other units except marines, which they will have an advantage of 1 range over.
You know whats funny though? If you send hydralisks (with range upgrade) against marines, marines will shoot first, because their animation is so much better.
So basically their range is not an advantage either.
So what actually is the advantage of having a glass cannon? Exactly, there is none.
We only build hydras because thats the only anti air we have against mass phoenix, and ironically, mass phoenix is pretty good against hydras.
Hydras suck.
Ditto everything here, this guy said it all. No point in the Hydra when they have so many weaknesses.
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the greatest reason to use them is to taunt your opponent with thriller dance moves as you rape him with useful gas units like mutas, infestors and broodlords.
man, the ultralisk is pretty fuckin bad, but the hydralisk makes the ultralisk look as useful as a zergling
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For me an important part of fightin/engaging as zerg is running away. I can'T do that with the hydra. If i lose a battle, i lose them all. That together with colossi is the reason i seldomly use them.
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i like how your comparing speed to other units, well guess what... they are DIFFERENT units. Roaches have same speed before you upgrade wow, however you failed to mention that roaches dont only have 90 health and if you dont speed upgrade the roach your just bad. Your also comparing it to things like mauraders, mauraders are a completly diffrent unit that have stim, a good amount of health(not to mention it healing with medivac), and does good amount of dps to.
The Hydra is slow, ok some units are as slow as it but they all have above 90 health, speed boosts, and ways to regen health.
The Hydras speed is to slow for the Hydra, not just plainly to slow.
Your argument is invalid
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The Hydra is the glass cannon of the Zerg army, it's slow off creep compared to other units that are generally in the composition and don't fair too well without support. You can't compare the Hydra to tanks and Thors because thats like comparing an Ultralisk to a Zealot.
The speed buff is needed and since it's a Hive tech upgrade i think Blizzard have made the right decision with it. The are not only helping out Zerg by putting the upgrade in the game, they are also making the Hydra more viable in the late game as well as providing more incentive for Zergs to get Hive tech when doing the standard Roach Hydra comp. THis is the same with the baneling burrow movement, getting ling bling muta players to go Hive
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On October 26 2011 19:12 eYeball wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:37 Camlito wrote:
Marines can Stim, Stalkers can Blink, Hydras get a speed boost on creep. Stim/blink is good defensively or offensively, whereas you can't have the hydras abuse their bonus anywhere except defensively (unless you have insane creep spread and it't not stopped) and being a glass cannon, i wouldn't use a hydra for defence Thing is marines require some micro with stim and stutter step, blink requires micro but hydralisk is just a move...
Stim and stutter-step micro makes the Marine extremely powerfull in the hands of a great player, Blink is great for attacking, retreating, and keeping units alive if the player is good enough. The Hydra doesn´t have abilities like this, there is nothing the player can do to make his units more effective. Only being able to a-move is a disadvantage to pro-players, it´s only a good thing for the lower leagues. Abilities, while taking micro, makes the units more powerfull, and the fact that there´s no room for microing the Hydra to make it more powerfull is part of the problem. If the Hydra was fast enough to stutter-step with, then we would see it used much more.
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On October 26 2011 16:48 DARKHYDRA wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 16:32 BrosephBrostar wrote:
Q: What is holding the Hydralisk back?
A: Blizzard gave its role away to the roach and now they have no idea what to do with it
at least they're trying to fix it instead of trashing it like the carrier Or maybe they should trash the hydralisk and let the roach shoot air, it seems they want the roach to be this core unit in the zerg army so make it fully functional. As a broodwar player it makes me sad to see those iconic units go but the roach really has replaced the hydra with anti air being the exception. Its kinda weird but if you look at the stats the hydra is essentially an early game unit stuck in the mid game, just the fact that its compareable to marines and stalkers tells you that this unit is out of place tech-wise. Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 16:42 Velr wrote:On October 26 2011 16:33 DARKHYDRA wrote:On October 26 2011 16:23 0neder wrote:
Basically everything boils down to the fact that Blizzard won't axe the colossus, but it ruins the game in so many ways... I personally don't like the colossus for many reasons but the reaver countered hydras just as bad really. So o don't think its entirely a colossus problem. Well... I don't remember seeing reaver doing any good when "A'd" into Hydras... I also did not see them just walking over Cliffs... ... To use the Reaver (really efficient) was actually pretty hard. To use the Colossus is easyer than using a fucking Stalker... True and that's what I'm talking about when I say I dislike the unit. But the end result was the same, you could not fight a protoss that had reaver with hydras unless you wanted to base your success on the opponents control.
Hydras were the only unit that was ever used to combat reavers, actually. You simply had to flank and micro. That was possibly due to the cost and speed of the BW hydralisk, both of which are gone in SC2. That's basically why it is utterly useless late game now.
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Excusez moi, but have u not realized that every single one of those units u say are as slow as if not slower than Hydras can completely rape them equal-cost, with all unit-specific upgrades. Hydras are 100mins 50gas.
3 roaches vs 2 hydras. GG.
2 marines vs 1 hydra. GG?
1 marauder vs 1 hydra. GG?
2 Siege tanks vs 3 hydras. GG.
1 Thor vs 3 hydras. GG.
2 zealots vs 1 hydra. GG.
1 HT vs 2 hydras. Storm. GG.
1 ghost vs 2 hydras. Snipe. GG.
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This thread has convinced me that Hydras are fine. I mean...now that I think about it Siege Tanks in Siege Mode are fairly slow and surely Terran can make those.
+ Show Spoiler [Siege Tank (Siege)] +
Hydras are so much faster than these silly immobile units surely we can make Hydras and laugh as they outrun tanks and thors. Hohoho! ♥
Edit: Someone should seriously do a health to speed ratio to dps of these units.
On October 26 2011 20:39 NeWnAr wrote:
Excusez moi, but have u not realized that every single one of those units u say are as slow as if not slower than Hydras can completely rape them equal-cost, with all unit-specific upgrades. Hydras are 100mins 50gas.
3 roaches vs 4 hydras. GG.
2 marines vs 1 hydra. GG?
1 marauder vs 2 hydra. GG!!!!!!!!!!!!111!
2 Siege tanks vs 300 hydras. GG.
1 Thor vs 8 hydras. GG.
2 zealots vs 4 hydra. GG.
1 HT vs 100 hydras. Storm. GG.
1 ghost vs 15 hydras. Snipe. GG.
Fixed that for you.
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On October 26 2011 18:19 onemanlan wrote:
There is tons of good information that has already be brought up regarding the hydralisk in this thread, but I'm going to throw in my 2 cents.
They hydralisk costs too much in terms of gas. As it has been said before it costs around 250 gas to get the building/grooved spines upgraded, then 50 gas for each hydra after that. When you could produce around 2 roaches per hydra, the costs/hp+armor+attack on roaches far outweighs the usefulness of the hydra. Furthermore the roach can regenerate health quickly underground allowing it's utility to potentially be infinite in theory. The hydra on the other hand might as well be a sack of gas that is liable to die at any second.
Hydras on creep, while nice, is a rare thing mid-late game. If the zerg player is amazing about spreading his creep(see stephano) then hyras utility goes up, but just as good zerg players spread the creep good toss/terran players remove it just the same. The likelihood of battling on creep in the mid-late game when decent hydra numbers have been achieved is pretty low unless you're fighting in your own zerg base. Therefore when marching across the map your lings/roaches/etc all get there first while the hydras lag behind slowing the assault down.
When running from a losing battle hydras tend to lag behind the rest of the zerg army due to the slow speed relative to its counterpart units. With the current cost of hydras it becomes incredibly costly to have them lag behind the rest of your army after a losing battle. A good player will pounce on the opportunity to destroy expensive, fragile hydras while the faster, more disposable part of the zerg army(ling/roach) retreat back to safety.
When you look at all the downsides to the hydra, barely any of which were touched on by my post, as a zerg player you tend to see that there are much better gas investments than the hydra. Why invest 500+ gas into hydras when you could sink half as much into roaches and have +1 upgrade as well as speed? Anti-air? That's laughable in most cases. Protoss effectively bate zerg players into going hydra so they can just come back and crush it with colossi and force field later on. Terran don't seem to have any strategies that make the hydra cost efficient in any manner over the versatile infestor or mutas and that isn't even touching on the cost effectiveness of marines. The hydra does have a place in ZvZ, but I think that place is limited dependent on your opp's build and how effectively you can employ the hydras.
Obviously all avenues of hydra strategies haven't been worked through, but in the current state of the game I really see very little use for the hydra. That being said I'm more than open to seeing it used. As a huge BW fan/player I am disheartened by the current state of my lovable hydralisk. Most of all I want my ****ing early anti-air back that isn't a queen!
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I wrote this hoping to open the eyes of some less-studious players, as well as perhaps dispell some of the "hype" around the Hydralisk being too slow to be useful. I hardly think the 2.25 speed the Hydralisk sports is a single crippling weakness holding back a very potent damage dealing unit.
You say you want to teach people who are less 'studious' about knowing the Hydralisk, but forget the core reasons of them being underused and slightly underpowered:
1) Too high gas cost, as explained in the quote above.
2) Only pro creepspreaders have a hydralisk that is viable in combat.
The small buff in HotS for increasing off-creep speed is fine considering the cost of the hydra, since there are tons of counters to these light-armored, expensive tier 2.5 units.
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I think its the pathing that is holding back and hydralisk and a lot of the other units as well. With the way SC2 is with the unit clumping up tightly together they are too vulnerable to colossus splash damage and storm. As far as against the terran goes they are pretty worthless because of the siege tank, but I think this is also for the best as having too many options may confuse everyone and create for a more volatile game.
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When you have to run away from marines/marauders/colossus/stalker they're are pretty slow. I don't want to lose half of my army when i retreat.
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EPT
