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The Hydralisk
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/5/55/Hydralisk.png) A long standing icon of the Zerg race, dating all the way back to the original Starcraft, the beloved Hydralisk hardly seems beloved in Wings of Liberty, why could that be?
Time and time again, from forum poster to big-time caster, I hear remarks of how slow the Hydralisk is off creep. I personally never really bought into the "hype" so to speak and thought Hydralisks were fine. After hearing that Hydralisks will be getting a speed boost in Heart of the Swarm, my mind was blown.
Here are a few statistics about the Hydralisk:
+ Show Spoiler [Hydralisk] +Speed 2.25
Speed Multiplier on Creep 1.5
Speed on Creep 3.375
Now, when we look at that compared to say, the Zergling:
+ Show Spoiler [Zergling] +Speed 2.9531 (+1.746)
Speed Multiplier on Creep 1.3
Speed on Creep 3.83903 (+2.2698)
The Hydralisk seems pretty slow right?
Now, what if we compare the Hydralisk to the Roach?
+ Show Spoiler [Roach] +Speed 2.25 (+0.75)
Speed Multiplier on Creep 1.3
Speed on Creep 2.92 (+0.975)
Well, now they move at the same speed before the Gilial Reconstitution upgrade don't they? In fact, Hydralisks get more of a speed bonus on creep than Roaches do!
I can see though, how to an army comprised of Metabolic-Boosted Zerglings, and Gilial Reconstituted Roaches, the Hydralisk at 2.25 speed might SEEM slow.
Lets compare our "slow" Hydralisk to some other units shall we?
I'll start with Terran, now, the Marine is a core unit in any Terran army (perhaps barring Mech play in TvT) and what speed does the Marine offer us?
+ Show Spoiler [Marine] +
The Marine doesn't seem like a slow unit does it? Even without Stimpack, the Marine is a very versatile and effective unit. It might not surprise you that the Marauder features the SAME speed of 2.25!
This "speedy and versatile" organic force of Terran offers a lot of mobility, and map control right? What about their mechanized units?
Of course, the speedy Hellion offers a speed of 4.25, greatly surpassing most units, I'm sure nobody would be surprised there. Looking further into the mechanized unit tree the Terran Factory can produce, one would find that the Siege Tank ALSO shares the Hydralisk's speed of 2.25. Recently, some players have even begun incorporating Mech play into TvZ to frightening effectiveness, and the core unit involved in Mechanized TvZ is the Thor:
+ Show Spoiler [Thor] +
If the Hydralisk is slow to the point of uselessness at 2.25 speed, what good will a Thor do at 1.875? Surely no amount of firepower or DPS could make up for that detrimental aspect of the unit.
Enough about Terran though, because we all know Terran is overpowered, and their units are all too good. Surely the underpowered Protoss will show us just how slow the Hydralisk is in comparison!
Lets look at the Zealot, the beefy core component of most Protoss armies.
+ Show Spoiler [Zealot] +
As you can see, before Charge is researched, the Zealot also shares the 2.25 speed that is so agonizingly slow. How about the most mobile ground unit the Protoss has to offer, the Stalker?
+ Show Spoiler [Stalker] + Quite a large jump there wouldn't you say? With such a speedy unit in their posession, Zealots must never be able to keep up and remain effective in engagements! Protoss however, has to suffer due to the speedy Stalker, keeping one of their most essential units, the Sentry, back at 2.25 speed!
As we move into the mid-game and on to the late-game, players move up the Tech Tree, and gain access to their crucial spellcasters.
Lets look at the Terran Ghost, arguably the most controversial unit at this time:
+ Show Spoiler [Ghost] +
How about Zerg's own Infestor?:
+ Show Spoiler [Infestor] +
Finally, what about the Protoss High Templar? Surely with Charge-Zealots and the speedy Stalker, they have a quick Spellcaster to keep up with their army?
+ Show Spoiler [High Templar] +
My conjecture was far from correct as you can see. (It should also be noted here for other discussions that the High Templar and Infestor only offer a sight range of 10, while the Ghost offers a sight range of 11)
Perhaps it's not that the Hydralisk is too slow to be useful, it's that the Hydralisk is a medium speed unit in a race that features some of the quickest core units?
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.
All Images and Unit statistics taken directly from TeamLiquid's Liquipedia
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HotS speed upgrade off creep = probably rebalanced, maybe less damage. It'd allow for / demand more micro. An HP nerf would probably be unreasonable considering how low it is already.
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That's a nice way of thinking but you're only comparing how "slow" the hydras is to other units. The problem with hydras being so slow is that zerg units are supposed to be fast. Zergs have weaker units and are supposed to be able to spread around the map and with every single zerg unit faster then hydras it just makes them completely none viable.
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The aoe damage is holding the hydralisk back.
Slow glass cannons are worthless in Deathballcraft. They are great as something to add 5-10 to a roach ball, but nothing more. Even with the HOTS speed upgrade, they just get ruined 1v1 vs every unit comp so you will never mass them.
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Unit clumping along with instant>missile attacks is holding the Hydra back
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I'm actually not sure why the Hydralisk isn't used very much. The only two things I can pin point down is the mediocre speed and how fragile they are. Yes, they are glass cannons with insanely high DPS, but they die quickly. You do not want to be trading hydras for marines and there's units that do exceptionally well against hydralisks for the Terrans (siege tanks, hellions). Against the Protoss they absolutely demolish gateway units but falter to the colossi and or storms.
If it did receive a speed buff I wonder if people will start using hydralisks more.
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I personally have several issues with the Hydralisk. First and foremost to me, this thing is made of paper. It has only 80 HP, with 0 armor, compared to the 145 HP of the Roach, which also comes with an extra armor for half the gas and three-fourths of the mineral cost. And even then, the Roach is considered an armored unit, making it a valuable unit in nearly any engagement.
In a maxed encounter against a Protoss army, going with 3/3 upgrades, a Colossus can two-shot a whole line of Hydralisks. Because of the likelihood that Protoss will both have a Colossi, and have more than one Colossi in the late game, Hydralisks lose all of their usefulness.
As for the speed issue: As you pointed out, it isn't actually that slow when compared to other races, but when compared to the units that it will be fighting side-by-side with, this thing is the the weakest link. A Zerg army, by necessity, needs to be quick and nimble, able to run circles around another army to counter attack or to defend some far-flung expansion. With the Hydralisk, this style of play becomes unusable, and because of how quickly Hydralisk tend to die, you can't use them to play cost -effectively.
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I don't think it's so much a matter of speed ( although that "can" be an issue ) the main problem is that they are squishy. Take a colossus for example. Colossi's melt hydras. End of story. They will never be used against Terran because marines will melt them. Simple. I do wish that my hyrda's were most useful though.
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Are these stats for Heart of the Swarm or Wings of Liberty? It is true I hardly see much hydralisk action in any level of play. Back in Broodwar, i loved using the hydralisk(i play terran in sc2T.T) mainly because it gives me a unit that can hit both air and ground(zergs has no anti air at all tier one and my micro is too crappy to efficiently use mutalisks). Those many D level games of 5 hatch hydra brings back nostalgic memories.
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You're pretty much beating a dead horse. This has been discussed to death.
The problem with the hydralisk is that it doesn't have a role to fill.
It's too slow too be a harassing unit. It doesn't have enough life to take part in battles especially after aoe is out and it does not have enough range to be an artillery unit.
Edit: They also scale terrible with upgrades.
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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
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-low move speed off creep
-collossi rape them
-storm rape them
-ineffective against mnm
-no upgrades to lurkers (pure hydras were only ever used against P)
-in current zvz meta, no time to techto them; infestors infinetly better
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The part of the problem is not just the speed. It's the fact that hydras don't have the extra mobility to increase speed on their own. Marines and marauders can stim and stalkers can blink, combine this with Hydra's expensive cost especially considering their health, it makes them a costly unit to have attack and attempt to retreat. In most cases, if you have to retreat with your hydra army, you are going to lose most of that army. And losing a hydra heavy army usually means you lose the game.
It's just an extremely fragile unit with a high cost that can't retreat very well.
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On October 26 2011 13:31 darkscream wrote:
The aoe damage is holding the hydralisk back.
Slow glass cannons are worthless in Deathballcraft. They are great as something to add 5-10 to a roach ball, but nothing more. Even with the HOTS speed upgrade, they just get ruined 1v1 vs every unit comp so you will never mass them.
On October 26 2011 13:30 DrBoo wrote:
That's a nice way of thinking but you're only comparing how "slow" the hydras is to other units. The problem with hydras being so slow is that zerg units are supposed to be fast. Zergs have weaker units and are supposed to be able to spread around the map and with every single zerg unit faster then hydras it just makes them completely none viable.
On October 26 2011 13:33 Fishgle wrote:
Unit clumping along with instant>missile attacks is holding the Hydra back
See? We already have three different answers for what might be holding the Hydralisk back!
The Stalker, Viking, Phoenix, Mutalisk, and Roach among other units seem to work just fine despite having missile-based attack animations!
Sure, the Hydralisk might not be as fast as other Zerg units, but it shares the same speed of Roaches and Infestors, two core units in the Zerg army! On top of that, the Hydralisk offers an unparalled 14.5 DPS against a single target!
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!
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Um... this is a misguided topic.
"What is holding the hydralisk back"? A lot of things. Its low HP, its inability to exist with colossi on the field, its terrible benefit from upgrades, and it's speed.
The OP is just 'compared to slow units from other races, the hydralisk isn't much different!' I know. It still sucks past the 12 minute mark.
The worst thing about them IMO is the upgrades.
With each +1 attack, Hydra goes from:
+0: 12
+1: 13
+2: 14
+3: 15
Meanwhile the Roach gets
+0: 16
+1: 18
+2: 20
+3: 22
The Zergling
+0: 5
+1: 6
+2: 7
+3: 8
It's awful. +3 hydra does 25% more damage than +0, compared to 37/60% more from these other two units respectively.
That and their role in the metagame is very dumb.
ZvT I've very rarely seen hydras used, but I have also never tried it very much so I can't say much about it. I've used hydras in a lategame army after I've economically won, but that isn't saying much
ZvP hydras have a very weird role. Hydras are good against every opening. Hydras are great against phoenix/voidray, immortal/warp prism, and blink stalkers. With a pure gateway build, hydras are great against every unit. Hydras are not bossed around well by forcefields.
However, robo and templar tech grow up to get colossi and psi storm, both of which completely nullify Hydralisks. Once air units get too numerous, hydras can't attack effectively since they bump into each other, so they don't work against late game starport play either.
Hydras can be the damage dealers when they first come out, but they cannot sustain their role in an army for long. I go hydras often just so I can tech switch to something else once they respond, and they can be good before they respond - but they're just too easy to nullify.
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On October 26 2011 13:40 fdsdfg wrote:
Um... this is a misguided topic.
"What is holding the hydralisk back"? A lot of things. Its low HP, its inability to exist with colossi on the field, its terrible benefit from upgrades, and it's speed.
The OP is just 'compared to slow units from other races, the hydralisk isn't much different!' I know. It still sucks past the 12 minute mark.
I have a gas theory in that it is simply not worth spending 50 gass per hydralisk without speed because they can`t be microed off creep but with micro you can see marines and marauders deal with the aoe of a low count collossii ball. Maybe then
But if the gas was reduced to 25 like the tier one roach you would see zerg buy them more often. Because they would be realtively inexpensive for their dps when compared with the roach.
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this has so many strawmen that you could be a farmer
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Let me add it costs 2 supply to the list.
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On October 26 2011 13:40 VirgilSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:31 darkscream wrote:
The aoe damage is holding the hydralisk back.
Slow glass cannons are worthless in Deathballcraft. They are great as something to add 5-10 to a roach ball, but nothing more. Even with the HOTS speed upgrade, they just get ruined 1v1 vs every unit comp so you will never mass them. Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:30 DrBoo wrote:
That's a nice way of thinking but you're only comparing how "slow" the hydras is to other units. The problem with hydras being so slow is that zerg units are supposed to be fast. Zergs have weaker units and are supposed to be able to spread around the map and with every single zerg unit faster then hydras it just makes them completely none viable.
Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:33 Fishgle wrote:
Unit clumping along with instant>missile attacks is holding the Hydra back See? We already have three different answers for what might be holding the Hydralisk back! The Stalker, Viking, Phoenix, Mutalisk, and Roach among other units seem to work just fine despite having missile-based attack animations! Sure, the Hydralisk might not be as fast as other Zerg units, but it shares the same speed of Roaches and Infestors, two core units in the Zerg army! On top of that, the Hydralisk offers an unprecedented 14.5 DPS against a single target! 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!
You say that it shares the same speed as Roaches and Infestors? Well, who actually would go a full game without getting Roach Speed? Sheth, maybe. As for the Infestors, they aren't combat units. They're support spell-casters with a spell that stops enemy movement. The Hydralisk is a expensive side-stop on the tech tree. In order to make them usable at all, you have to get the grooved spines upgrade, which means you have to spend 250 gas before even making the first Hydra. And even then, an Infestor has more HP than the Hydralisk, and is an armored unit, and can burrow while moved, and can spawn a bunch of Infested Terrans to soak damage/wall off while it runs.
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Being little is its main prob and cost nough said rly if either was fixed I'd like it.
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I dont use them because marines just rape them, in every number. I tested in unit tester, 40marines vs 20 hydras, marines had stim and hydras had range, 20 marines were left after the fight.
Marines do cost only minerals, and are way better than hydralisks, both in DPS and HP, if compared 2rines/1hydra. And the hydra is gas also!
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Support dps units' speed need to be faster than their tanking units, not the other way around. If zealots and colossus which are cost effective against hydras are at the same speed as them, it just means that hydras cant engage. And what happens when they retreat, they get slowly picked off by the faster stalkers. Just imagine toss' zealots and stalkers speed are reversed, would anyone even bother to build stalkers. Or marines without speed boost when they stim. If they continue to be viable units at such low speeds, it just means that their combat capabilities are 'op'. Thor deathball is different, because their effectiveness greatly increase when a critical mass is reached because of their high hp. Thors if produced sparingly and used as support dps unit suck, which prove my point.
In short, any low hp ranged dps units need to have the option to retreat when their tanking units die.
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The problem with the Hydra is its HPs in my opinion.
Great dps, movement speed sets it back off creep, but it doesn't live for too long.
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Blizzard is holding the Hydralisk back. Buff the damn unit already.
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Too much instant AoE damage kills them. In BW they could be used because protoss only had storms which could be dodged, or reavers that fire slowly as well as bug out. In SC2 the collosus does instant aoe and cannot be sniped easily like a templar. Against terran, hellions kill hydras way too well. In BW hydras could be used against mech because they countered vultures, but hellions own hydras too much for that to happen.
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You already have three different answers as to why the hydralisk sucks, and all three of them are correct
This means that the hydralisk has three major flaws not one of three different flaws.
Roaches can be slow because they are tanky. Infestors can be slow because they're amazing, and if they were fast they would be even better. As it is, hydras are mediocre at best, and slow to boot. Yes, they have really high DPS, but they share the light unit type with zerglings, meaning that colossi rape both of them, and if the terran has BFH the hydras and the zerglings are screwed. Marines can beat them in a fight weight for weight, and terran loves marines.
If the terran has ravens, then PDDs completely negate the hydras attack, making them useless as an anti air unit, which should be their main function.
Marines and marauders have the same "slow" speed, but zerglings are incredibly fast, and theyre the unit which the rest of zerg is compared to, making hydras seems even slower. Roaches are also terrible, I remember idra saying that a roach ball will lose vs a ball of anything and i beat a zerg going roaches with marine hellion because theyre that bad. Hydras are worse.
There is a reason zergs dont go roach hydra anymore.
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Thanks for the look at comparing the hydralisks speed to other races units, now we've seen your numbers we realise we've been wrong all this time, and the hydra is a wonderful unit. Almost every pro out there is simply not good enough to realise it....
A few reasons why your reasoning is flawed.
Firstly, you can't look at units in isolation. As you pointed out roaches and zerglings in their typical lair tech state are much faster than the hydras. This leads to very poor 'synergy' with the Zerg army which often requires fast response for both counter attacks, and for defending far flung bases in the typical Zerg sprawling macro style. This means that the hydra is often lagging behind the army and not proving as useful as it should. As you also pointed out things such as marines, tanks and maruders all share the same speed, there are examples of units working well together. In some ways, the speed of the unit is equally important as how that unit interacts with its fellow army units. In this way, hydras are bad.
You've also focused on speed, as if that's the only thing wrong with hydras, unfortunately there is more to it than that. Hydras have several counters than own them, and they happen to be core units in almost every matchup. Tanks for example are something we see in both mech and bio play, yet thier splash eats hydras alive. Storms and collosi, something you see in almost any ZvP matchup also destroy them. You end up with a unit that's fragile, expensive and almost always countered naturally by your opponents play.
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If the cost for hydra range came down to 100/100 and movement speed off creep was slightly buffed we would see them more. Otherwise, move the hydra down to tier 1 and it might be useful for early game aggression / defense. Getting hydras by tier 2 is pointless when terran has tanks and protoss has collossi and the hydra can't retreat.
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On October 26 2011 13:52 VillageBC wrote:
Blizzard is holding the Hydralisk back. Buff the damn unit already.
HotS is coming buddy
I can't wait to use fast hydras to pick off expos...they deal damage so fast and have such good range that even things like shredders just won't matter
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Its just a bad unit. Not only the slow movement speed makes you kind of deathball-esq. But the low HP and the investement into a couple of hydras is insane. Its not a costeffective unit.
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Trying to convince people that the hydra is not 'omg it soooo slow' is the most futile argument in SC2.
This isn't BW. The hydra does not have the same role as it did. I'm sorry you can't go 'lolhydras' in all matchups (except for zvz).
There's nothing holding the hydralisk back. GSL games every season prove this. They are a niche unit for sure, but they are very powerful in the right situation.
Maybe you should ask what's holding you back.
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For how fragile it is combined with its inability to escape a confrontation as well as its cost, makes the hydralisk a risky unit to produce. You compare it to marines and marauders but they have stim which greatly increases speed.
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So when do you suggest Zerg use Hydras where they're not already? (pre-collosus/storm/the rare hydra bust).
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On October 26 2011 13:40 VirgilSC2 wrote:
See? We already have three different answers for what might be holding the Hydralisk back!
"unit clumping" and "aoe damage" mean the same thing.
The Stalker, Viking, Phoenix, Mutalisk, and Roach among other units seem to work just fine despite having missile-based attack animations!
those units all have great micro you can do with them. Hydralisk micro is... just painful. Its not about the speed, you can't kite units with them, you can't position them in an arc or split them very easily, and they are small so they bunch up and take maximum damage from splash.
unprecedented 14.5 DPS against a single target!
Single target dps is pretty meaningless in this game. If Colossus did 80 damage in one hit with no splash, do you think people would use it? Probably not, at least not to the extent they do now. They use it because the AOE lets you wipe away a line of hydralisks in two seconds, and roaches in 4-5 seconds.
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They are really really bad late game. You only want them to defend major air from any race or for an allin timing attack
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See, the thing about Damage Per Second... it actually requires the unit to live longer than 1 second to deal it.
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cost
splash damage(spread mechanics in SC2)
low hp (higher dps of everything in this game)
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Hydralisks aren't bad because of their speed — virtually everyone knows that. OP just wasted their time in a huge manner (the post itself. The related discussion is somewhat fine albeit it's beating a dead horse), it's such a silly thing to write so much about, or even bring up at all.
Hydralisks are bad because they have overall poor stats (including no special abilities). Any buff would help them, including movement speed, but definitely not limited to it.
Mutalisks are terrible combat units, but they are good because of their reasonable speed. If mutalisks were 2.25 speed they'd be bad as well — people would probably also call them slow.
Zerg is a race that is designed to be able to frequently run away — Hydralisks cannot effectively run away from almost anything — colossus move over cliffs and have 3-4 extra range, siege tanks can siege (siege unit isn't supposed to be fast anyway), marines and marauders can stim, ghosts can snipe (4-5 extra range), stalkers can chase and/or blink, sentries can forcefield, zealots can charge (and are faster with upgrade); archons, hellions, vikings, banshees, reapers, phoenix, and most zerg units are faster.
It doesn't matter that some units are the same speed — it just takes a sufficient number 1 unit type (ie. stalkers, marines) in the opposing player's army to be faster to be able to kill most-of or all retreating hydralisks.
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I think the Hydra is weak in the same sense that the Carrier is weak
it's almost a 100% BW port, but there are so many more units/dynamics in SC2, it's as if the hydra/carrier missed the beta test with the NEW SC2 units because they were assumed "balanced from BW"
Carriers are still great dps, but with the introduction of the Viking/Corruptor, and no adaptation to the Carrier, it's rendered very cost in-efficient. As well as the strengths of the new roach and marauder, making Protoss in need of AoE tech. The Carrier is simply there for a role from BW that doesn't exist anymore in SC2
Same concept with the Hydra - a high (somewhat burst) dps, but with Marine balls protected by Marauders at the front, the higher attack speed of the Marine, smart tank-fire, and still having a high cost relative to BW, it's in a niche that rarely opens in SC2
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They cost way to much, theyre slow, and they get destroyed by splash.... BUT they do have a dance!
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The thing about 2.25 speed is that it's not a "useful combat unit" speed.
Generally, if a unit moves at 2.25 or slower, it has some sort of major benefit in combat.
siege tanks and colossi have 13 and 9 range.
casters cast spells.
The closest unit to the hydralisk in lack of overwhelming awesome is the Immortal, which I think could use another +1 range to make up for its slow speed, but others might cry over it...
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United States17042 Posts
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On October 26 2011 14:11 Exyia wrote:
I think the Hydra is weak in the same sense that the Carrier is weak
it's almost a 100% BW port, but there are so many more units/dynamics in SC2, it's as if the hydra/carrier missed the beta test with the NEW SC2 units because they were assumed "balanced from BW"
Carriers are still great dps, but with the introduction of the Viking/Corruptor, and no adaptation to the Carrier, it's rendered very cost in-efficient. As well as the strengths of the new roach and marauder, making Protoss in need of AoE tech. The Carrier is simply there for a role from BW that doesn't exist anymore in SC2
Same concept with the Hydra - a high (somewhat burst) dps, but with Marine balls protected by Marauders at the front, the higher attack speed of the Marine, smart tank-fire, and still having a high cost relative to BW, it's in a niche that rarely opens in SC2
NO. no just no..
The sc2 Hydra is COMPLETELY different to the bw hydras. The similarity ends with them being called 'hydra'.
+They evolved backwards when going over to sc2.
+Losing ability to morph to lurkers,
+Taking more effort for the overmind to control.
+Slower.
+Bigger target.
+Clumps too much.
+Takes more effort to produce
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On October 26 2011 14:07 foxmeep wrote:
See, the thing about Damage Per Second... it actually requires the unit to live longer than 1 second to deal it.
sums up the situation nicely
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On October 26 2011 14:15 me_viet wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 14:11 Exyia wrote:
I think the Hydra is weak in the same sense that the Carrier is weak
it's almost a 100% BW port, but there are so many more units/dynamics in SC2, it's as if the hydra/carrier missed the beta test with the NEW SC2 units because they were assumed "balanced from BW"
Carriers are still great dps, but with the introduction of the Viking/Corruptor, and no adaptation to the Carrier, it's rendered very cost in-efficient. As well as the strengths of the new roach and marauder, making Protoss in need of AoE tech. The Carrier is simply there for a role from BW that doesn't exist anymore in SC2
Same concept with the Hydra - a high (somewhat burst) dps, but with Marine balls protected by Marauders at the front, the higher attack speed of the Marine, smart tank-fire, and still having a high cost relative to BW, it's in a niche that rarely opens in SC2 NO. no just no.. The sc2 Hydra is COMPLETELY different to the bw hydras. The similarity ends with them being called 'hydra'. +They evolved backwards when going over to sc2. +Losing ability to morph to lurkers, +Taking more effort for the overmind to control. +Slower. +Bigger target. +Clumps too much. +Takes more effort to produce
This. Not only does it cost an additional 25/25 to create, they cost double supply, require lair tech to make, and move almost as fast as a snail on dry ground.
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They cant morph into lurkers anymore 
I have a weird feeling though if they weren't lair tech and had speed upgrade that it would break the game somehow.
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Your analogies are wrong and you are comparing apples with oranges.
Hydras need to be faster because during a battle, fast hydras are able to more quickly get into position to be able to deal damage. If you don't believe me on this, try a 20 hydra vs 20 hydra simulation - where 1 side has speed and the other side doesn't. Because of speed boosts, marines and zealots (who have charge later on, and are quite weak without) don't have this drawback.
Secondly, you don't understand how zergs fight during battles. Since their army is generally less cost effective (or more accurately, supply ineffective), zergs rely on a constant stream of reinforcements to be able to break a front. Terrans don't generally have this (they can entrench a position) or they can even stim to be able to reinforce quickly. Protoss have warp-ins to deal with this.
Lastly, there is a general consensus amongst pro-players that hydras are too slow off-creep. That alone would be enough evidence already. The hydra speed upgrade will go a long way of making them more viable.
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The Marine doesn't seem like a slow unit does it? Even without Stimpack, the Marine is a very versatile and effective unit
marines doesn't cost gas, and have insta-shot, thats the reason why they are so versatile.
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When Browder made Roaches 2 supply and zerg didn't have a 1 supply unit, it broke my heart. Zerg IS the race of numbers and no 1 supply tier 1 unit. Just zerglings and a bunch of 2 supply units. Meh. Either make roach 1 supply and balance accordingly, or make hydras 1 supply tier 1 and balance accordingly.
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Dustin Browder is holding the hydralisk back.
edit: and, yes, ^ agreed with 0neder completely. the lack of a 1 food unit for zerg is really silly, and even messes with how larva works.
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Well, it's very lackluster stats wise, but more than anything it simply lacks any useful well-defined role since the Roach kind is just far more cost efficient as a ranged unit. Its only real purpose is as an anti-air unit, and even then Zergs reluctantly make it because of its incredibly high gas cost and how if they over-make it, it can become a huge liability due to how easily countered it is. Giving it a speed upgrade at lair-ish level would help it somewhat (lol Hive level), but even then I don't think players would consider it worth the 50 gas. I think more than anything it needs a damage type change, so at least it can be used as a situational unit for countering something. Changing its location in the tech tree, lowering its cost (and tweaking its stats to match the new cost) would also all sort of help, but at the end of the day all it really offers over roaches is an attack that hits hair and very slightly more range.
tl,dr: It's a relic unit shoehorned into the game, and not even shoehorned very well at that. It has a very forced niche in the Zerg army, and doesn't even fulfill that niche well.
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Q: What is holding the Hydralisk back?
A: Creep Spread
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Faulty argument.
Zerg is based on engaging the army on your terms with easy re-positioning, being able to do hit and run attacks, and to counter attack the enemy.
The hydralisk does not keep up with any of the three just listed. Which is why you do NOT see the hydralisk being used.
If zerg was a deathball race, with A+click, then your comparisons to terran and protoss would be valid. However, that isn't the case.
The Hydralisk is slow with high dps, which already breaks the zerg principles. But lets put that to the side shall we? Fine, its a glass cannon, weak with high attack. However, glass cannons must have mechanisms or traits that prevent them from being killed too easily.
Example, colossus is a glass cannon. Its trait/mechanism is its 9 range to stay far from enemy units.
The Hydralisk, doesn't have speed, doesn't have range, doesn't have a spell or ability, doesn't have cloak, its not a flying unit, it frankly.. doesn't have any means of keeping itself alive.
/thread
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the fact that its hp to cost ratio is horrendous for a unit that's so slow.
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United States7483 Posts
On October 26 2011 13:40 fdsdfg wrote:
Um... this is a misguided topic.
"What is holding the hydralisk back"? A lot of things. Its low HP, its inability to exist with colossi on the field, its terrible benefit from upgrades, and it's speed.
The OP is just 'compared to slow units from other races, the hydralisk isn't much different!' I know. It still sucks past the 12 minute mark.
The worst thing about them IMO is the upgrades.
With each +1 attack, Hydra goes from:
+0: 12
+1: 13
+2: 14
+3: 15
Meanwhile the Roach gets
+0: 16
+1: 18
+2: 20
+3: 22
The Zergling
+0: 5
+1: 6
+2: 7
+3: 8
It's awful. +3 hydra does 25% more damage than +0, compared to 37/60% more from these other two units respectively.
That and their role in the metagame is very dumb.
ZvT I've very rarely seen hydras used, but I have also never tried it very much so I can't say much about it. I've used hydras in a lategame army after I've economically won, but that isn't saying much
ZvP hydras have a very weird role. Hydras are good against every opening. Hydras are great against phoenix/voidray, immortal/warp prism, and blink stalkers. With a pure gateway build, hydras are great against every unit. Hydras are not bossed around well by forcefields.
However, robo and templar tech grow up to get colossi and psi storm, both of which completely nullify Hydralisks. Once air units get too numerous, hydras can't attack effectively since they bump into each other, so they don't work against late game starport play either.
Hydras can be the damage dealers when they first come out, but they cannot sustain their role in an army for long. I go hydras often just so I can tech switch to something else once they respond, and they can be good before they respond - but they're just too easy to nullify.
Just to point out, the hydra attacks much faster than roaches, so the upgrade scaling isn't quite so easy to pin down. They attack more than twice as fast as a roach, so they scale BETTER with attack upgrades than the roach does (+1.2 dps per attack upgrade vs. +1 dps per attack upgrade of the roach).
Yeah, zerglings do scale better than hydras.
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The sheer paucity of hydralisks in almost all top-lvl tourneys for this whole year might not explicity show what their problem is, but even Helen Keller would be able to tell something is seriously wrong with the unit by now.
Speed? Cost? Durability? Or likely, a combination of some or all three of those?
Poor Hydra ;_;
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50 gas and not being an unit you will salvage if your push fails is holding the hydra back.
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To answer your question I think speed and health are holding hydralisk back, It's what is a defining factor. The reason hydras suck in ZvT is that Tanks even with only doing 35 damage shred hydras and they can't close in fast enough to deal with a good number or tanks/marines. I think hydras are very good in PvZ for certain situations the problem is they can't tank damage for shit against late game aoe damage. If Hydras had 120 life they would be very viable almost super scary even without increased speed.
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i believe the hydralisk would be a extremely good unit, almost overpowered, given zerg mechanics if the following things were true.
1) maps were TRULY wide open
2) hydras had their insane oncreep speed even off-creep
now when i say that, i really think hydras would be pretty much overpowered if all of that was true. thats right, overpowered.
now lets look at this objectively. I do believe the maps are terrible however there is one map out there in the pool that i believe is truly "open", and thats taldar arim. most terrans and protosses veto this map however i believe this map is actually how maps "should be". i believe terrans and protosses that hate this map against zerg really just are actually finally getting to fight zerg on even terms with a actual balanced map
taldar arim is very open. if the enemy is in the middle of the field you can easily flank his army with speedroach/speedling and hit his army from 2 or 3 sides. even if he is sieged or has forcefields normally theres enough room to win the battle if you are on equal terms
i honestly believe if speed hydras were thrown into that equation it would be even more ridiculously powerful for the zerg. but thats not how it is in reality because hydras are SLOW AS BALLS off creep.
currently in the game, if a zerg could magically have 10000000000000 apm and spread creep like a champ, realistically if you look at the math of it it would take a zerg maybe 4 minutes with 1 extra queen to actually spread creep across the ENTIRE MAP of taldar arim (or the entire center)
imagine that, if zerg could spread creep across the entire taldar arim map and have this done by 8-9 minutes (assuming you get 1 extra tumor queen at 5 minutes gametime)
that would be super overpowered, but it also would take 99999999 apm, which zergs just dont have. so creep spreading given human limitations can only happen so fast. if creep-spreading was somehow automated and tumors automatically casted themselves that would surely be overpowered and every game would see the zerg filling the entire map with creep in a couple minutes with 1 extra queen.
however my point here is this, hydras are being held back because they NEED TO BE SLOW off creep to stop this ridiculous overpowered scenario from happening which i explained above (about the speedroach/speedling/hydra flanks)
however also i will say that the overpowered scenario would only be true on taldar arim.
on a map like metalopalis or zelnaga caverns, even with fast speed hydras would be underpowered. but thats more to do with the fact that MOST MAPS in the map-pool are biased against zerg and make zerg a little underpowered
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They're slow as fuck off creep and have no speed upgrade...yet.
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There's a number of things wrong with hydras, speed is only one of them.
High cost and low HP compared to the broodwar hydra they cost 25m 25g more but have no added health.
High tech, they come out about the same time that terrans get tanks and not long after that protoss can have colossus out.
Light armor makes them vulnerable to early herass units like helions and pheonix not to mention banes in zvz. In broodwar hydras were a medium size unit not small which would make them armored in sc2 but the way armor works fundamentally changed( for the worst imo)
One thing to point out about speed is the fact that it takes a while to be able to use it in offense since creep spreads slow and can be denied or overlord creep spread needs ovie speed.
Edit: oh almost forgot hydra supply cost has also changed. Basically any change from broodwar to sc2 done to the hydra was a nerf except its attack, but it looks like that was a bad choice.
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On October 26 2011 13:34 Meteora.GB wrote:
I'm actually not sure why the Hydralisk isn't used very much. The only two things I can pin point down is the mediocre speed and how fragile they are. Yes, they are glass cannons with insanely high DPS, but they die quickly. You do not want to be trading hydras for marines and there's units that do exceptionally well against hydralisks for the Terrans (siege tanks, hellions). Against the Protoss they absolutely demolish gateway units but falter to the colossi and or storms.
If it did receive a speed buff I wonder if people will start using hydralisks more.
Actually unupgraded a stalker beats a hydra 1v1
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Colossi holds it very far back. Light units just die to every sort of AoE imaginable. Banelings do a ton, Tanks do a ton, Hellions do a ton, Colossi are Colossi, and Storm is punishing to anything that can't move fast.
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On October 26 2011 15:32 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Dustin Browder is holding the hydralisk back.
edit: and, yes, ^ agreed with 0neder completely. the lack of a 1 food unit for zerg is really silly, and even messes with how larva works.
Yes. It's not just about balance chaps. It's about numbers of units. If the Hydra was 1 supply and less hp but same DPS, it would be much better.
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Forcing a Zerg to go hydras = you win. The hydra has many glaring weaknesses, speed being but one of them.
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What i find "interesting":
Marine:
Better than in SC/BW.
Extra HP Upgrade (they basically come with the range upgrade by default).
Same cost.
Zergling:
Worse than in SC/BW.
Can evolve to Banelings.
Same cost.
Hydralisk:
More DPS than in SC/BW.
No speed Upgrade anymore.
No Lurker Upgrade anymore.
Double the Gascost, +35% Mineralcost, later in Tech and double the Supplycost.
SERIOUSLY BLIZZARD?
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Hydras actually don't beat any ground unit cost for cost. People have this misconception that they slaughter gateway units, but that's usually because the zerg simply outmacroed his opponent.
Hydras trade even with stalkers, immortals and marauders. Units that have massive bonus to armored. They get absolutely slaughtered by every other combat unit. By the time you get to hive tech, they get hard countered so bad you might want to destroy your own hydra den to make sure you don't spawn one by mistake.
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It's the attack animation, obviously. The roach took it :[
Acid > spines.
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I really don't think the up coming speed upgrade will let us see more hydra useage since its hive tech. Its almost like blizzard was pissed off that so many people bitched about slow hydras that they had to do something and there like "fine here's your stupid speed upgrade but you don't get it until its way too late".
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really? we're comparing marine and marauder move speeds to hydras? as if they were somehow similar? make the marine cost 100/50 and then we'll talk.
fortunately blizz decided that the current hydra isn't worth its cost and gave it what it needed all along.
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So in HoTS hydras will be able to chase down stalkers? Doesn't that seem a little ridiculous?
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the hydra is already good in ZvP until 3+ colossi come out, it's not viable in ZvT because of hellions in mech, and the lack of AoE/tankiness vs bio. ZvZ it's used pretty commonly to increase surface area in roach vs roach play. the speed increase will make it a VERY central unit
On October 26 2011 16:17 Pwere wrote:
Hydras actually don't beat any ground unit cost for cost. People have this misconception that they slaughter gateway units, but that's usually because the zerg simply outmacroed his opponent.
Hydras trade even with stalkers, immortals and marauders. Units that have massive bonus to armored. They get absolutely slaughtered by every other combat unit. By the time you get to hive tech, they get hard countered so bad you might want to destroy your own hydra den to make sure you don't spawn one by mistake.
lol this made me laugh
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Basically everything boils down to the fact that Blizzard won't axe the colossus, but it ruins the game in so many ways...
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It's not that the hydra is too slow, it's that it's too slow for how fragile it is.
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On October 26 2011 16:22 bovineblitz wrote:
So in HoTS hydras will be able to chase down stalkers? Doesn't that seem a little ridiculous?
A zerg unit chases down a protoss unit? Must be a glitch someone report it to blizz lol.
To be fair zerg has a protoss unit called roach and after hots terrans reaper will become a full fledged zerg unit o.O
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I am pretty sure it's that they're in a really weird tech section. They're no longer t1.5, they're t2+. That just doesn't work for a slow, un-massable unit.
The roach being the new hydra is the reason I don't play zerg. I liked the hydra, and the roach is a retarded unit that has no interesting features or mechanics.
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On October 26 2011 16:22 bovineblitz wrote:
So in HoTS hydras will be able to chase down stalkers? Doesn't that seem a little ridiculous?
No, the stalkers will just be recalled back to base.
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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
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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.
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The speed upgrade will help unbelievably with the hydra, but not if it is at hive. We need it for the lair tech so we can have those mid-game battles and being able to retreat as well. At hive, no one makes hydras anyway, so why have it in there?
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There really isn't anything more that can be added to this discussion.
However, there are 2 funny things that can be pointed out.
- This discussion was really just a 'All Zergs should L2P' thread in disguise.
- Also, it was quite amusing how just about everyone comes out and laughs at the OP.
My addition to the discussion is that even if Hydras are 'just as quick as etc, etc', when it's time to retreat your army and all you have left is Hydras, you might as well just leave them there to die. They're not getting away.
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Comparing it to slow lings and slow roaches, lol fail OP
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On October 26 2011 16:33 DARKHYDRA wrote:Show nested quote +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...
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Don't compare the hydra to slow units and units with special abilities (zealots before charge have FF from sentries to help them, Thors have splash, Ghosts have EMPs, Stalkers got blink and lower tech, marines have stim/are cheaper/have combat shields+medivac etc.)
Hydras are slow (relative, as the OP points out) but are also fragile as hell, Lair tech, expensive for being a core unit, have no special abilities, and die before they can do their DPS.
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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.
On October 26 2011 16:42 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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On October 26 2011 15:42 Whitewing wrote:
Just to point out, the hydra attacks much faster than roaches, so the upgrade scaling isn't quite so easy to pin down. They attack more than twice as fast as a roach, so they scale BETTER with attack upgrades than the roach does (+1.2 dps per attack upgrade vs. +1 dps per attack upgrade of the roach).
No your thinking incorrectly. Whether you have 100 attacks per second or 1 attack every 100 seconds, +1 damage on base 1 damage is a 100% boost in damage output.
Hydralisks simply get less DPS boost than almost all other units in the game. The only units that have worse benefits are stalkers vs armored (assuming 50% armored 50% non-armored they'd be tied) —which is understandable because it's bonus damage— , ground-mode vikings —which are hardly ever used and shouldn't even be strong— are also tied with hydras, and corruptors which I am particularly perplexed at them not getting more damage per upgrade (the fact they are bland and niche just like hydralisks doesn't help either).
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being slow means a lot to the zerg, the reinforcement comes a lot slower, you have to make sure hydras are there as they are one of the core units if you go roache hydra
they can't retreat, that means if you push out and the push failed, you can't save most of your hydras
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imo it's less the hydra and more the strength of p/t splash. the hydra is actually good mid-game.
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The OP has a different way of looking at the hydralisk, and it makes sense. It doesn't change the fact that the current hydralisk is useless in any battle of maneuver, though.
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As many people claim that Hydras have insane dps, here is a comparison to terran bio.
Hydra vs 3 Marines
cost: 100/50 vs 150/0
dps: 14.5 vs 21 ( 31.8 stimmed )
dps(+3): 18.1 vs 31.5 ( 43.8 stimmed)
hp: 80 vs 135 ( -30 stimmed, +30 combat shield )
Hydra vs 1 Marauder (non-armored or armored)
cost: 100/50 vs 100/25
dps: 14.5 vs 6.7 or 13.4 ( 10 or 20 stimmed )
dps(+3): 18.1 vs 8.8 or 17.6 ( 13 or 26 stimmed )
hp: 80 vs 125 ( -20 stimmed )
armor: 0 vs 1
So marines outperform hydras in every way. No surprise there. Interesting is the comparison to stimmed Marauders against non-armored targets: 14.5 dps and 80 hp vs 13.4 dps and 105 hp, plus 1 armor, concussive shells and 25 less gas.
However, as a direct comparison of unit stats is quite limited given all the differences in race mechanics, supporting units, timings and so on I will stop here. But I think those numbers give a good indication why zerg players complain about the hydra(and not just about its speed).
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Rubber bands! Or mabe the flying spaghetti monster is using some of its infinite spaghetti arms to hold them back in the same way he holds us to the ground...
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On October 26 2011 17:20 Sirion wrote:
Hydra vs 1 Marauder (non-armored or armored)
cost: 100/50 vs 125/25
Marauders cost 100/25, cheaper than hydras. But far more cost-effective.
Hydras are too expensive :-(
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OP is comparing apples to oranges. Hydralisks are infact too slow. It has nothing to do with comparing them to slow units. There is a reason why marines stim, why zealots research charge, why zerglings get metabolic boost, and why roaches get glial reconstitution. If any of these four units did not have a way to augment their mobility, I guarantee you they would be used even less.
When you run too slow to avoid AoE damage, i.e, Storm + Colossus fire, you generally are disfavorable in fights. These are the core reasons for why the Hydralisk is too slow, and too under-used in the standardized metagame.
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Hydras scale bad. They do not fit in in the late game vs protoss or terran. They might work in the midgame, but after that they become dead-supply. They die to fast and are very hard to attack with. Therefore getting hydras often just end up being a nice defense where you are stuck defending and cant attack.
They are just to expensive and not good enough to be a part of the swarm attack, where retreating always is an option (just not for the hydras).
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On October 26 2011 17:29 bokeevboke wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 17:20 Sirion wrote:
Hydra vs 1 Marauder (non-armored or armored)
cost: 100/50 vs 125/25
Marauders cost 100/25, cheaper than hydras. But far more cost-effective. Hydras are too expensive :-(
You are right, thanks. So the comparison is even worse for the hydra.
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37023 Posts
Speed's only a part of the issue. And a very small one at that. The main, biggest issue is that they are just too damn squishy. They die to anything and everything
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On October 26 2011 17:32 gulati wrote:
When you run too slow to avoid AoE damage, i.e, Storm + Colossus fire, you generally are disfavorable in fights. These are the core reasons for why the Hydralisk is too slow, and too under-used in the standardized metagame.
You mean hydras are underused because they are slow and can't run away from AoE damage? I don't think this is the only reason. They still lose badly to roaches, MM, helions. Somewhat ok against gateway units, if in large numbers. Hydras are bad in low numbers, that means they should be massable. But how are you gonna mass a unit that costs 100/50. I just think there is no place for them in multiplayer. No buff will help to solve this issue.
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On October 26 2011 13:40 fdsdfg wrote:
Um... this is a misguided topic.
"What is holding the hydralisk back"? A lot of things. Its low HP, its inability to exist with colossi on the field, its terrible benefit from upgrades, and it's speed.
The OP is just 'compared to slow units from other races, the hydralisk isn't much different!' I know. It still sucks past the 12 minute mark.
The worst thing about them IMO is the upgrades.
With each +1 attack, Hydra goes from:
+0: 12
+1: 13
+2: 14
+3: 15
Meanwhile the Roach gets
+0: 16
+1: 18
+2: 20
+3: 22
The Zergling
+0: 5
+1: 6
+2: 7
+3: 8
It's awful. +3 hydra does 25% more damage than +0, compared to 37/60% more from these other two units respectively.
That and their role in the metagame is very dumb.
ZvT I've very rarely seen hydras used, but I have also never tried it very much so I can't say much about it. I've used hydras in a lategame army after I've economically won, but that isn't saying much
ZvP hydras have a very weird role. Hydras are good against every opening. Hydras are great against phoenix/voidray, immortal/warp prism, and blink stalkers. With a pure gateway build, hydras are great against every unit. Hydras are not bossed around well by forcefields.
However, robo and templar tech grow up to get colossi and psi storm, both of which completely nullify Hydralisks. Once air units get too numerous, hydras can't attack effectively since they bump into each other, so they don't work against late game starport play either.
Hydras can be the damage dealers when they first come out, but they cannot sustain their role in an army for long. I go hydras often just so I can tech switch to something else once they respond, and they can be good before they respond - but they're just too easy to nullify.
Did it ever occur to you the hydra only gets +1 attack per upgrade due to it's attack speed? I'm sorry but if hydras got +2 per upgrade you'd have yourself a unit which could do over 20 dps.
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Nothing is holding the hydra back, it's just a shitty unit that serves no purpose except earliER anti-air than mutas.
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Why wouldn't the OP provide us nice replays where he uses hydras all along if they are such great units ?
I really would love him to show us how to use the unit, I love them from my SC 1 days.
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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!
+
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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VirgilSC2, you actually just proved that Hydralisk is indeed slow. By comparing hydralisk's speed to other units, you showed that hydra is one of the slowest zerg units, and average compared to other races.
What you failed to account is that while T and P have other values to bring in addition to that average speed, be it splash, space control, high defense, or spells, zerg relies mainly on speed, damage and numbers. In retreats there's no forcefields, blink, stim or some sieged tanks behind to run away, there's only speed, and if a unit doesn't have it means it's gonna die, and in the case of hydras, rather quickly. That's why hydras despite being average speed compared to other races, are considered slow (+ fragile + you can't mass them as well as lings or roaches due to their gas cost and low HP) in respect to how zerg works.
/end thread
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They fill a niche roll that is being good anti-air. But it pretty much stops right there because if the opponent doesn't go air, he probably goes colossi (P) or siege tanks, marines (T) against which the hydra is utterly useless. The slow movement and the general fragility of the unit makes it useless when the opponent has units that attack from far (tanks, lance colossi) and it's dps just isn't good enough to deal with marine balls to make it cost efficient.
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On October 26 2011 20:45 justinpal wrote:... Edit: Someone should seriously do a health to speed ratio to dps of these units. Show nested quote +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.
LOL 1 HT vs 100 Hydras. WE CANNOT HOLD!
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On October 26 2011 13:26 rift wrote:
HotS speed upgrade off creep = probably rebalanced, maybe less damage. It'd allow for / demand more micro. An HP nerf would probably be unreasonable considering how low it is already.
then you will basically have a roach that shoots air as well..
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You're asking the wrong question. Why would anyone use Hydras?
What are hydras supposed to be? A high DPS unit that complements roaches or sometimes zerglings. They are also an anti-air.
What did the infestor become after the patch? Exactly the same thing, except it's 10 times better at it and doesn't have the glaring flaws of the hydra.
The thing you need to understand is that hydras are not only hard countered by collossi (among other things), they are rendered completely useless. It's as far as I can tell the only unit that is hard countered this way. The other units can be countered, but they can still be microed, or used in compositions that make them strong regardeless.
If vipers rape collossi as much as they look, hydras could become more viable late game ZvP, giving a faster alternative to the infestor. But other than that I don't see it being used so much.
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My main issue is that you can't retreat with them - offcreep - ever. If you have a mixed army of roach hydra, you either win or all hydras die. This will change in HotS with the speed upgrade. I think they will be fine as high damge, low survivability alternative to the roach then.
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ZvZ:
+ Show Spoiler +
hydralisks are a good supplement to a big roach army, but a roach-infestor composition is more versatile, stronger in combat, and can force engagements, roach hydra cannot.
hence hydralisks are rarely used in ZvZ.
ZvT:
+ Show Spoiler +
hydralisk are worse or equal to marines in every stat (by cost) except for range, but the range requires an upgrade to be greater, and marines are built by every terran every day and it is not difficult for them to build some more if they see the zerg building hydralisks, so regardless of what composition you use together with hydralisks, the terran will simply use a composition of <whatever they would use to fight the rest of your army> + marines.
hence hydralisks are rarely used in ZvT
ZvP:
+ Show Spoiler +
storm or colossus or archons slaughters hydralisks
but oh wait, why isnt it the same with terran bio? terran bio have the same attributes as hydralisks: glasscannons with movement speed 2.25, yet terran bio handles storm and AoE better than hydralisks do.
oh right, by the time storm is finished terran bio won't be 2.25, as soon as the engagement begins they will be 3.375, giving them 3 things:
1. ability to retreat
2. ability to force engagement
3. ability to minimize storm damage
the hydralisk, with its 2.25, cannot minimize storm damage, a group of them will almost always die to 2 storms.
the hydralisk, with its 2.25, cannot retreat from the protoss stalkers and speedlots (if there are any)
the hydralisk, with its 2.25, cannot force engagements, however, they can if they are accompanied by something faster, where we have 2 options: either roaches or zerglings, but zerglings will die to AOE just as much as the hydralisk will, so that leaves roaches, and everyone knows roaches suck once you are past early-game.
hence hydralisks are rarely used in ZvP
hence hydralisks are rarely used.
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Just look at the stats : the hydra is a unit with low hp and high dps. What units share this ?
-The marine. But marines are cheap, easy to mass and BEAT HYDRAS FOR MINERAL-ONLY COST. Overall they're just better, cheaper and less techy.
-Dts/Banshees. But they are harass units, mobile (2.81 speed/flying respectively) and cloaked.
-Hellions (versus light). But this is another harass unit, and how often do you see them used in straight-up fights ?
-Zerglings : Same as rines, but with the possibility of harass too.
To put it in a nutshell : Hydras are not massable due to their cost, and like every low hp high dps unit, is good mostly against buildings and workers, because they can't shoot back. But zerglings are just better in drops and runbys. (ever tried to make a hydra runby ? lol) They fill only one niche : anti-air defense, where queens are, in my opinion, just better, for the same reson as the marine.
They have no role. Either they :
-Become cost effective (marine, ling)
-Become a harass unit (Dt, banshee), but zerg has already the most harass options (infestor, lings, burrow banes in HoTS, mutas, burrow roaches)
Or disappear.
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The Man is holding it back!
On a more serious note, it is the mobility, the unit is simply so slow that there is no retreat, fight-another-day type thing, you either win the battle or lose every single one of them. Roaches, Stalkers, Lings, Marines, Marauders and even Zealots can all run away.
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You have flooded OP with nonsence... Those number of yours have been put there randomly without any particular reason.
You only take to account the speed of a unit.
You also have to count the firing range, reaction time of a player and those two with speed combined create so much math that your head would explode.
All in all, thanks for the hard work you've put on writing this, but you failed. Hydras ssux because they're slow.
Imagine this:
if you surround a group of marines with zerglings, and you realize you can't win the fight, what do you do? You run and save the zerglings.
If you have roach vs stalker fight and you see your roaches losing slightly, whad do you do? You burrow roaches or escape the fight with minimal losses.
But what do you do in those situations with hydras? YOU LOSE THEM ALL BECAUSE THEY ARE SLOW OFF CREEP!
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You compare marines to hydras and claim marines are a very mobile unit at 2.25?
No they are not. Stimmed marines are.
Zerg is all about speed. Look how much more effective they are on creep.
A 2.25 hydra is a slow unit to the zerg because the whole army cant move in synergy to flank, etc.
They say that speed upgrade for hydra will be T3 in HoTS. Why? That is actually terrible. Late game switch to hydra? I don't know, sounds awful to me but I'll take it. What choice do I have.
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Sorry but this thread is one large logical fallacy. Also, there are plenty of other factors contributing to why hydras suck. One member of TL performed a test on hydras -- he pit 20 marines against 20 hydras, where all hydras were given exactly the same stats and unit size as marines. Essentially, it was marines vs. marines, with one set of marines shooting projectiles, while the other set (actual marines) fired their normal "instant impact" bullets. Needless to say, the true marines raped the shit out of the modified marine-hydras, thus proving that projectile fire confers a severe disadvantage when it is the ONLY variable at play. So, one might say hydra projectile fire contributes to the problem, along with unit size, along with other issues...and perhaps speed is ONE of these issues. Now, when the balance man comes along, he isn't going to address ALL of these complaints! He can't do that. What he can do is take ONE complaint and address it. Or, he can at least take one at a time before doing anything too drastic to a unit. In this case, perhaps unit speed was considered to be a less severe alteration than unit size, projectile/non-projectile fire, etc.
Think outside the box -- and definitely do not make simple comparisons such as "hydras are same speed as marines, marines are fine, thus hydras are fine". That is a terribleeeeee logical fallacy. It's just like the good ol' "2 lings beats 1 rine omg wtfbbq ling imba" fallacy. You can't compare apples to oranges using one variable as your metric! It's utterly nonsensical! Terran marines work at their speed (as do thors) because it works for the overall dynamic of TERRAN! But guess what? In no logical way shape or form does that necessitate that hydras are fine simple because they share a terran unit's speed. The hydra has been EMPIRICALLY deemed "not fine", and as I've said speed has in fact been one of the most obvious issues among users of hydras.
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Hydra's are quite expensive tbh with their range upgrade 150/150 and the 100/50 cost. Sinking larva and lots of minerals into them leaves you with a immobile, fragile and extremely difficult to micro [off of creep, ever tried splitting hydra's v tanks, collosi, storm or fungal? They move too fucking slow to spread them, kite or get a nice concave.] This leaves Hydra's as almost exclusively defensive options without a) creep highway with preferably close spawns or b) ovie speed and drop c) nydus. All of these except creep highway uses a lot of gas, making all transitions out of the mid-game considerably later.
The speed issue off of creep in WoL has perhaps been the biggest reason hydras are considered useless as an attacking force besides ZvZ. Hydra's off of creep cannot retreat from the battle. Roaches, infestors, mutas, banelings and lingcan all retreat from an engagement should it initially fare poorly. Roach infestor can cloak and retreat with burrow move, muta, lings and banelings have sufficient speed to retreat. Hydra's do not have that luxury. When you engage with Hydras, you must be sure to win the engagement or else you just lose everything. All other zerg units can retreat away while the sad hydra gets chased down by blink stalker, stim bio, etc.
Hydras are also not the best for transitioning in the mid-game to the late game. Besides being mineral heavy, gas heavy and larva heavy, they take precious gas away from the Spire, Infestor or hive transitions.
tldr: With the exception of ZvZ, or vT vP late game (ultra hydra ling/bling, infestor, hydra BL infestor) they are took fragile in their current WoL state. Weak hp to min/gas cost, low speed [no retreating, no ability to spread to mitigate AoE off of creep while off creep] a high min/gas cost [especially in comparison to roach] and a high larva use. Really only support units, where 10-18 of them vP or vZ is useful to out-dps the other ranged ball behind some sort of tanking unit (ultra, roach, broodlings from BL, etc).
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The OP clearly doesn't play zerg and have little to no understanding of the zerg race. I won't add anything as so many others have proven you wrong in all accords.
That aside, In my opinion hydra is a badly designed unit that will never be used even with the speed buff. After all, other units will be added/buffed and the only hope for the hydra is a nerf to roach. That will never happen. I just can't see any use for the hydra (aside from it's anti-stargate function, only because it's the only anti-air we have....) as it's fundamentally under powered.
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On October 26 2011 19:31 gh0un wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 19:12 eYeball wrote: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.
I was just stating the way it is now in the game, no need to be offended or confused. I wouldn't mind if Hydra got something so they could require a bit more micro and multitask, however this has nothing to do with any of this. Hydras are what they are.
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The problem with the Hydra is that it's basically a Zerg Stalker. Similar cost, similar effectiveness. Both units are pretty bad for their cost in direct engagements (Hydra only beats a Stalker or marauder for cost on the ground, Stalker beats nothing), but are flexible, tough and mobile...wait a minute...
You see the Stalker is used because there's no other ranged units available to Protoss (their equivalent to the roach or marauder is the duper-expensive, specific tech Immortal). It's tough and quick too, so it can retreat. The Hydra is very quick defensively, aka on creep (much faster than a Stalker), but it can't retreat from an offensive and can't be used to poke about the map like a stalker (especially with blink) can.
If Zerg had to slowly build up units while fending of drops instead of using their uber-fast units to pressure their opponent, secure map control and expand everywhere, then Hydras would be built. Because they seemed designed to be extremely good defensive units that are too slow to be used on the offence.
The other big problem is that they lose a TON of DPS if they are dragoon-danced because they move slowly off creep and fire very quickly. They are the ultimate a-move unit, that unfortunately loses to just about any other unit you'd care to name  .
EDIT: Zerg doesn't build Hydras because all of their other units are better, 99% of the time .
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I find the biggest problem with the hydralisk is the fact that it is the only vanilla unit in starcraft 2. What role does the hydralisk fill in the zerg army. Its a ranged ground/air attacker. What upgrade does it have? +1 range +damage +armor. The Hydralisk needs something to make it special. I propose a addition to the +1 ranged upgrade. Make the upgrade give hydralisk an auto attack that causes enemy units behind its target (like 1.5 additional range) to take the same amount of damage.
Just an idea to make hydra viable and I think it would be a flavorful upgrade.
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The Hydralisk is as "fast" as a zealot >.>
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despite what everyone said in the first page , you're still pretty ignorant abt it huh.
i'm not willing to spend 100 minerals 50 gas for a fragile unit, yes they have high dps, but they die almost instantly. roaches are better investment because they have a higher survival rate, and they deal more dmg when micro'ed. hydras back in bw were awesome becoz the speed makes them being' micro'able, and also not forgetting the +1 supply, which also means they're massable and very good vs terran mech builds. having sc2 hydras vs mech is simply not worth it.
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Part of the problem is that hydras is that they are relatively weak and expensive. They are more expensive that roaches, yet have only slightly more than half the HP. Ultimately they are a support unit that adds dps to the zerg ball, but very vulnerable. The fact that they are much slower than their counterparts the zergling and the roach means that while moving off-creep, hydras become separated from the pack and can be easily picked off. What might make the hydra more viable might be a hive-tech research that could increase their HP, at least to over 100, similar to the marine's combat shield.
Another possibility is in 2v2s. The hydra generally suffers from a lack of mobility and health, yet enjoys high dps. Could the hydra enjoy a strong synergy with the medivac? The medivac would provide the hydra with mobility and healing. Any thoughts?
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Aside from the obvious "hydras are slower than the rest of the army", you also have to remember that back in BW hydras were 1 supply with 80 HP. They now have half the HP/supply that they used to.
Another thing that I think is pretty dumb is that Hydras are light, which makes them susceptible to blue flame hellions, banelings, and even phoenixes. I really think that Hydras need their light classification removed and be just biological.
A third issue with Hydras is that they are a dead end tech tree. Infestation pit opens up hive, spire is useful for mutas, corruptors, and BL's.
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While playing the game you just NEED to get roach/ling/baneling speed to make them viable attacking units. Roaches and banes are quite good @ defending but NEED the speed unpgrade to make them viable attacking units. Can u imagine ZvP without the roach speed? ZvT without ling speed? If you attack with hydras you can't go back. Stimmed marines will own hydras, so will speedlots and stalkers.
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thre problem of the hydra is that it is an expensive glass cannon that is also slow. those things just dont work except in extreme examples like the Reaver, which has to be used in combination with a shuttle to be useful offensively.
Edit: agree with the dead end tech tree. The hydra just has no place as a T2 unit without lurkers or anything.
(Random: I also hate that zerg is no swarm army. where are my 1supply roaches and hydras? I want them!)
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United States7483 Posts
On October 26 2011 17:10 Xapti wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 15:42 Whitewing wrote:
Just to point out, the hydra attacks much faster than roaches, so the upgrade scaling isn't quite so easy to pin down. They attack more than twice as fast as a roach, so they scale BETTER with attack upgrades than the roach does (+1.2 dps per attack upgrade vs. +1 dps per attack upgrade of the roach).
No your thinking incorrectly. Whether you have 100 attacks per second or 1 attack every 100 seconds, +1 damage on base 1 damage is a 100% boost in damage output. Hydralisks simply get less DPS boost than almost all other units in the game. The only units that have worse benefits are stalkers vs armored (assuming 50% armored 50% non-armored they'd be tied) —which is understandable because it's bonus damage— , ground-mode vikings —which are hardly ever used and shouldn't even be strong— are also tied with hydras, and corruptors which I am particularly perplexed at them not getting more damage per upgrade (the fact they are bland and niche just like hydralisks doesn't help either).
I would argue that you're thinking incorrectly here. Yes, you're right that the upgrade increases the strength of the hydralisk less than that of other units as a % of damage done, but that's in a vacuum comparison ignoring that the hydralisk is actually just flat out better in almost all regards stats wise, and deals way more damage. Yes the upgrades matter a little bit less as a %, but they're still better as a flat dps comparison. What matters in a game like this isn't the % increase in dps from an upgrade, but the actual flat increase in dps.
The hydra just does so much damage compared to the roach that having their upgrades scale worse still makes upgrades more powerful for them.
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people ignore that the hydra is pretty damn fast on creep and only see them off creep x3. I like to get them for timinig pushes. And if you see them used along with creep mechanics they are pretty good. (even in pro games) Without they are pretty awful (also pro games). So i like the decision to give them an hive upgrade that enables hydra use if you are a noob.
The light unit is no issue, as they rip apart light unit counters with ease. Their weakness long range aoes, as they line up really nicely for colossi for example or clump before reaching their combat range, so aoes do some nice damage. They are also smaller then roaches, so more get hit. So basically you need to split them manually like marines, which is easily possible on creep.
Basically people fail with hydras like they fail with banelings against siege tanks (clumped up so two shots is enough to clean up 12 banelings).
I like the argument of hydras are a dead end tech, but thats why hydra den and infestation pit only cost you an apple and an egg.
So for me hydras work, but i guess people want to be bwish, only using hydras all day long from early till lategame.
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United States7483 Posts
On October 27 2011 00:08 KULA_u wrote:
thre problem of the hydra is that it is an expensive glass cannon that is also slow. those things just dont work except in extreme examples like the Reaver, which has to be used in combination with a shuttle to be useful offensively.
Edit: agree with the dead end tech tree. The hydra just has no place as a T2 unit without lurkers or anything.
(Random: I also hate that zerg is no swarm army. where are my 1supply roaches and hydras? I want them!)
You had 1 supply roaches in the beta, they were absurdly overpowered. You still see a lot of games today where the zerg just masses pure roach for a long time and does pretty well, if they had double the roaches it'd be game over.
The swarm host looks like it'll add some of that flavor back, and you'll be able to use hydras on hive tech effectively, those things are bloody fast with the speed upgrade.
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On October 26 2011 20:46 Callynn wrote:Show nested quote +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! + Show nested quote +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.
In combat has little to do with speed. Sure, you want your units not to slug around the back finding a hole to fire through, but IN combat isn't the issue. The problem is entirely out of combat, occasions where you're trying to get to point A from point B, or escape from a poke at the army/base. Every army loses stuff while retreating, and hydras are that unit for the zerg.
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On October 26 2011 17:54 Ventor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:40 fdsdfg wrote:
Um... this is a misguided topic.
"What is holding the hydralisk back"? A lot of things. Its low HP, its inability to exist with colossi on the field, its terrible benefit from upgrades, and it's speed.
The OP is just 'compared to slow units from other races, the hydralisk isn't much different!' I know. It still sucks past the 12 minute mark.
The worst thing about them IMO is the upgrades.
With each +1 attack, Hydra goes from:
+0: 12
+1: 13
+2: 14
+3: 15
Meanwhile the Roach gets
+0: 16
+1: 18
+2: 20
+3: 22
The Zergling
+0: 5
+1: 6
+2: 7
+3: 8
It's awful. +3 hydra does 25% more damage than +0, compared to 37/60% more from these other two units respectively.
That and their role in the metagame is very dumb.
ZvT I've very rarely seen hydras used, but I have also never tried it very much so I can't say much about it. I've used hydras in a lategame army after I've economically won, but that isn't saying much
ZvP hydras have a very weird role. Hydras are good against every opening. Hydras are great against phoenix/voidray, immortal/warp prism, and blink stalkers. With a pure gateway build, hydras are great against every unit. Hydras are not bossed around well by forcefields.
However, robo and templar tech grow up to get colossi and psi storm, both of which completely nullify Hydralisks. Once air units get too numerous, hydras can't attack effectively since they bump into each other, so they don't work against late game starport play either.
Hydras can be the damage dealers when they first come out, but they cannot sustain their role in an army for long. I go hydras often just so I can tech switch to something else once they respond, and they can be good before they respond - but they're just too easy to nullify. Did it ever occur to you the hydra only gets +1 attack per upgrade due to it's attack speed? I'm sorry but if hydras got +2 per upgrade you'd have yourself a unit which could do over 20 dps.
Doesn't matter. Attack speed doesn't change, so DPS goes up by the same % that Damage does. You pay X amount for each hydralisk, and for its DPS. The difference between an endgame Hydra army and an early Hydra army is that % DPS change. The hydralisk has the smallest improvement in the game from early-game DPS to end-game DPS.
To put it another way, a stimmed marine goes from 10.5 DPS to 15.6 with +3, while a Hydralisk goes from 14.5 to 18.1.
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The point is not that it is just slow. It's that it is expensive, its got no health AND it is slow. You can't run with it since it will be hunted down. If you run with an army, the hydra is going to be the last unit in the line of units, and get picked off. In other words you cannot retreat from an engagement with them, so you have to engage exactly perfectly and win a battle with hydralisks, or you lose them.
They are also expensive. A group of hydras is massive gas cost. the fact you can't retreat with them, means you have to replace them, and that is a massive financial investment.
In the end, being slow mixed with how bad they are in other aspects is why the Hydralisk is no good. Good DPs is not enough justification for building them.
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United States7483 Posts
On October 27 2011 00:15 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 20:46 Callynn wrote: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! + 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. In combat has little to do with speed. Sure, you want your units not to slug around the back finding a hole to fire through, but IN combat isn't the issue. The problem is entirely out of combat, occasions where you're trying to get to point A from point B, or escape from a poke at the army/base. Every army loses stuff while retreating, and hydras are that unit for the zerg.
Speed is an in combat issue though, you can't kite with slow units and you can't storm dodge with slow units.
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80 health for a unit that costs 100/50 that is also light is pretty insane. Considering marines which cost 50 minerals have 55 health when upgraded and are quicker off creep. Although I understand there is a dps difference I don't see the justification for having a unit that is simply not very good other than AA vs protoss and taking gateway all ins early.
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The problem with the hydra is the timing at which it is available. By the time it comes out, it has no role to fill. As a vanilla unit, it is useful against unupgraded, unsupported T1, but it comes out about 2 minutes before those compositions are reinforced or upgraded into deal-breakers. This is why you almost exclusively see the unit used in PvZ as a counter to a mass gate push or stargate, but not much else. Let's pit the hydralisk vs. most standard game compositions that are available on the same timing window:
Hydralisk vs MMM with stim and combat shield: Curbstomp.
Hydralisk vs marine-tank: Curbstomp.
Hydralisk vs Mech: Curbstomp.
Hydralisk vs Colossi/gateway: Curbstomp.
Hydralisk vs Speedlot/Archon: Curbstomp.
Hydralisk vs Stargate tech: Useful, but Stargate usually hits before lair.
Hydralisk vs mass warpgates: Useful, but warpgate usually hits before lair.
Hydralisk vs unupgraded Bio: Useful, bu- ...you get the point.
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poor creep spread is what's holding it back, the unit itself is very good, one of the highest dps and on creep completely destroys many unit compositions.
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Calgary25980 Posts
This is a pretty shallow comparison. The way Zerg plays requires them to be faster than the other races to defend their spread out bases.
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It's the speed upgrade dude end of story. If you look at all the other units which have similar speeds, they all have some sort of escape tactic or are ridiculously cost effective. Terran mech is built to siege up and engage only in favorable positions. Terran bio can stim and run away pretty easily or lift off into medivacs. Stalkers have their blink, colossus have cliff walk, and the death ball is designed to be hard to kill and you never want to engage a protoss deathball upfront. The zerg race is not designed to participate in up front engagements. Zergs almost never win upfront fights, so you have to chip away at the army until you have an overwhelming force. Hydras are not good for this because the instant you get into an unfavorable engagement (off creep), all of your hydras die. At 100/50 a hydra loosing 10 of them just because you tried to attack is not an acceptable thing for most zergs. This is why hydras are only used for all in timing attacks (because they can't retreat).
Great analysis, but you're completely ignoring the race is supposed to be played.
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I can see in the balance phase of HotS that Speed will be moved from Hive to Lair. Late game hydras arent very good and they wont get better.
Its kinda like the roach, both upgrades burrow move and speed at lair.
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From reading that, I feel like the OP has no idea what hydras look like in combat, or a typical zerg playstyle.
If you try and retreat with hydras, EVERYTHING the other races will be using (as their core units) will be faster basically. Retreat and marines eat them. Retreat and stalkers eat them. Retreat and roaches eat them. Stand and fight and colossus/storms eat them. As well as marines/hellions/tanks/everything else terran has.
So a really expensive, fragile unit that can't retreat. Make one mistake and you auto lose the game because you lose your entire hydra army. Even if you make no mistakes other races can counter them too easily anyways.
I have no idea why you decided to compare speeds with spellcasters, they have nowhere near the same role/application.
On October 27 2011 03:48 NotSorry wrote:
poor creep spread is what's holding it back, the unit itself is very good, one of the highest dps and on creep completely destroys many unit compositions.
Lol... good luck keeping a reasonable amount of creep out when one observer/scan can set you back 5 min of spread.
And even assuming you can keep decent creep, hydras can't be used to attack then because you can't have creep in their base...
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Did it ever occur to you that the reason why hydras cost 1 increment above a trivial amount of gas is that you're not supposed to have a ton of mutas, infestors, banelings and hydras all at once?
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Speed off creep is seriously holding it back. But in HotS that will change, and we will see a lot more hydralisk play hopefully. Should be awesome!!!
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I finally get it!
The stalker is only supposed to be fast compared to every other slow as mud Protoss unit!!!
Just like the hydra is only slow compared to all the other ridiculously fast zerg units!
And here I thought this was some cruel joke.
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On October 27 2011 04:08 Jerubaal wrote:
Did it ever occur to you that the reason why hydras cost 1 increment above a trivial amount of gas is that you're not supposed to have a ton of mutas, infestors, banelings and hydras all at once?
which brings up another point. Why should we get hydras when we can get those other *better* units.
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I can't believe I'm the first to mention this:
Overkill
For Hydras to truly be the DPS-Marine equivalent of Zerg, they need to not have overkill just like the Marine. Every single Marine shot ever fired in retail SC2 has been a guaranteed hit. Hydras, in large packs, will sometimes use 8 shots to kill something that dies in 5. Marines never do this. Marines will use 5 shots to kill something that needs 5 shots - period. The other Marines will attack something else, while the extra Hydras will have to wait for cooldown since they wasted their shots.
Even if Hydras had Overkill removed and Marines had it added (boy, that would seem strange), Marines would still probably win per cost, but that's not what I'm trying to do. For being Tier 2.5 DPS Glass Cannons, it is disappointing that a Tier 1 Marine has no overkill but a Hydra does. Weird. The Roach currently has a ton of overkill, but seeing as its role is cheap Tank, this is acceptable. The role of Hydra is DPS Glass Cannon, and Overkill severely limits its actual DPS.
Overkill / No Smart fire, in case you are not clear, means that the Hydra has a delay between the start of the attack animation and the actual damage (movable projectile). So while one Hydra spine is one frame away from hitting and killing a target, 6 other Hydras can begin firing and completely waste their shots. Marines are all instant and do not waste shots - ever.
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Cons
1. Low HP
2. Slow off creep, cannot retreat
Pros
1. high dps
2. cheap as hell to make
But seriously, why would you mass/make a unit that has no HP?
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The only thing that has ever held the Hydralisk back is great creep spread.
The difference in speed from ling/roach to hydralisk makes it somewhat more difficult to control your army, thus makign it less popular as well.
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It's too fragile a unit for its gas cost, and too slow off creep to micro at all. I like the idea that Blizz wants a speed upgrade for it in HOTS, but we still wont see the hydra really made much until hive tech, which effectively makes it a tier 3 unit...if a player is bold enough to make them. Sure, we'll see nydus usage with it before hive and also for some defensive pushes, but you get the point.
Now, you give the hydra the speed upgrade at lair, we'll see a lot more of it....like, ALOT.
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On October 26 2011 16:17 Pwere wrote:
By the time you get to hive tech, they get hard countered so bad you might want to destroy your own hydra den to make sure you don't spawn one by mistake.
That pretty much made my day.
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i have a question a bout the hydra.
i never played Bw mp
but I've seen a few games and i never saw hydras except in zvp
and in zvt but only for lurker
and zvz was always ling muta or just lings
was that a coincidence?
so from what i saw hydra was used only in zvp offensive
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On October 27 2011 04:22 LanTAs wrote:
Cons
1. Low HP
2. Slow off creep, cannot retreat
Pros
1. high dps
2. cheap as hell to make
But seriously, why would you mass/make a unit that has no HP?
Hydras are not cheap
50 gas is asking for alot for what the do. which isn't much
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On October 26 2011 13:46 Soulish wrote:
this has so many strawmen that you could be a farmer
I laughed for about 30 seconds after reading this
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why make hydras when you can make roaches?
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On October 27 2011 04:30 Cuiu wrote:
i have a question a bout the hydra.
i never played Bw mp
but I've seen a few games and i never saw hydras except in zvp
and in zvt but only for lurker
and zvz was always ling muta or just lings
was that a coincidence?
so from what i saw hydra was used only in zvp offensive
TvZ in BW had two major styles - Bio and Mech. Pure Mech (no Marines) meant the Zerg would mass Hydras. Bio often transitions into Mech after long games that use the whole map, but otherwise starting pure Mech is rare (unless you are iloveoov or Fantasy) and so Hydras aren't always seen in TvZ.
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On October 27 2011 04:23 PhiliBiRD wrote:
The only thing that has ever held the Hydralisk back is great creep spread.
The difference in speed from ling/roach to hydralisk makes it somewhat more difficult to control your army, thus makign it less popular as well.
Well that's easy to say isn't it?
1) No matter how well you spread, there is a boundary you can't pass
2) Even great creep spread takes a while
3) Decent opponents kill creep
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The issue with the hydra is that when it is good (vs. gateway units for example) it is game ending good and when it is bad (15 hydras vs 4 colossus) it is game ending awful. This makes the unit near impossible to balance. A slight improvement to the hydra right now would destroy PvZ and any nerf at all would make them near useless. Pulling them out of their small niche role would require a complete rework.
This is actually a pretty common design flaw in SC2.
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On October 27 2011 04:30 Cuiu wrote:
i have a question a bout the hydra.
i never played Bw mp
but I've seen a few games and i never saw hydras except in zvp
and in zvt but only for lurker
and zvz was always ling muta or just lings
was that a coincidence?
so from what i saw hydra was used only in zvp offensive
Pretty much right. The hydra was rarely used then, but because of other reasons. The did explosive damage, which was fine against protoss with the shields of Zealots taking full damage from explosive, but explosive damage meant their damage against zerglings, mutalisks and marines were halved, this was especially bad against marines, even a group of hydras can´t kill a marine if it has medic support. They were fast, though, before zealot speed you could stutter-step hydras to kill zealots.
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On October 27 2011 04:33 Cyber_Cheese wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 04:23 PhiliBiRD wrote:
The only thing that has ever held the Hydralisk back is great creep spread.
The difference in speed from ling/roach to hydralisk makes it somewhat more difficult to control your army, thus makign it less popular as well. Well that's easy to say isn't it? 1) No matter how well you spread, there is a boundary you can't pass 2) Even great creep spread takes a while 3) Decent opponents kill creep
Yes.
And also every single terran unit counters the hydra.
Protoss counters hydra so bad with collosus. I mean it's disgustingly bad. You can't even overcome it with micro as hydras are too clunky and slow.
hydras are just bad in this game
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Hydras are not usable for many of the reasons iterated in this thread. I hope HotS redesigns it, because I actually really like the unit
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Hydralisks are too late in tech to be useful.
Because of their weakness to colossi and storm and such the unit just doesn't have a real place in zvp anymore. In ZvT they are like the retarded cousin of the marine, the marine just annihilates them, same with hellions, and tanks. I suggest channging the hydralisk back to bw status:
1f
75/25
7 damage
.86 atk
70 health
requires spawning pool
lair upgrade for speed and range
30% movement increase on creep.
and switch the roach to lair tech and have it be a defense oriented unit with low normal attack (like 8) and + damage to light (+4) with higher health and high armor. I would be blizz's biggest fan if they did anything close to this.
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On October 27 2011 04:33 Cyber_Cheese wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 04:23 PhiliBiRD wrote:
The only thing that has ever held the Hydralisk back is great creep spread.
The difference in speed from ling/roach to hydralisk makes it somewhat more difficult to control your army, thus makign it less popular as well. Well that's easy to say isn't it? 1) No matter how well you spread, there is a boundary you can't pass 2) Even great creep spread takes a while 3) Decent opponents kill creep
T.T All my hard work.... is what I keep on thinking when people kill the creep =_=
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On October 27 2011 04:22 LanTAs wrote:
Cons
1. Low HP
2. Slow off creep, cannot retreat
Pros
1. high dps
2. cheap as hell to make
But seriously, why would you mass/make a unit that has no HP?
hydra at 100minerals 50 gas 2supply is cheap as hell to mass produce? what? what?? this is a zerg unit not a protoss unit.
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The hydra will get slightly better when pros get better at creep spread. Even pros almost always have a ton of idle overlords when past lair tech that could be making creep.
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On October 27 2011 04:33 Crisium wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 04:30 Cuiu wrote:
i have a question a bout the hydra.
i never played Bw mp
but I've seen a few games and i never saw hydras except in zvp
and in zvt but only for lurker
and zvz was always ling muta or just lings
was that a coincidence?
so from what i saw hydra was used only in zvp offensive TvZ in BW had two major styles - Bio and Mech. Pure Mech (no Marines) meant the Zerg would mass Hydras. Bio often transitions into Mech after long games that use the whole map, but otherwise starting pure Mech is rare (unless you are iloveoov or Fantasy) and so Hydras aren't always seen in TvZ.
so it was in bw less used then in sc2
but why do people complain about the hydra then?
because i see it in zvp and zvz.
i dont rly care im just curious...
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On October 26 2011 23:07 Jack.D.Ripper wrote:
I find the biggest problem with the hydralisk is the fact that it is the only vanilla unit in starcraft 2. What role does the hydralisk fill in the zerg army. Its a ranged ground/air attacker. What upgrade does it have? +1 range +damage +armor. The Hydralisk needs something to make it special. I propose a addition to the +1 ranged upgrade. Make the upgrade give hydralisk an auto attack that causes enemy units behind its target (like 1.5 additional range) to take the same amount of damage.
Just an idea to make hydra viable and I think it would be a flavorful upgrade.
Oh my god, a "Piercing Spines" upgrade would be absolutely amazing, I wouldn't even want it on the same upgrade, I'd take it at hive tech. Put 3 upgrades on the hydra den: range, "reinforced carapace" (+10 hp and remove armor typing; armor strong enough to not be light but also not armored) both at lair tech and "Piercing Spines" at hive tech (linear splash damage vs. light). It would be awesome (clearly I haven't considered balance but hey).
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Your argument is mostly invalid as you are arguing mathemathics and at no point are you actually looking at the unit compositions that people use in the game. You will never see a protoss without stalkers against zerg. It is actually completely irrelevant that the sentry or zealot can't catch up to a hydralisk when the stalker does. Because the second you stop and try to attack the stalkers then the zealots will gain on you (because the hydras are not faster than zealots). A terran will very rarely not have marines with stim in his army. The second a hydralisk tries to run from marines or marauders he is stimmed after and destroyed.
The whole point of the hydralisk being to slow is not to compare it's speeds to other races units. It is to understand what its purpose needs to be for it to be a worthwhile expense (because it is very expensive to the race that relies so much on gas).
Protoss and terran have deathballs. Protoss is more mobile than terran and terran in turn has a better damage output when stationary (this is purely vs zerg). Zerg however does not have a deathball type army until they are on 4-5 base with 10+ broods and 10+ infestors (which is often about 18+ min into a game). Hence the only way a zerg can play up until that point is by counter attacking and dropping. Any unit that can no run faster than the opposing core units (such as colossus, zealot, unstimmedf bio etc) can really not partake in counter attack play. Especially if making that unit will set you back an additional 500 gas or more just to be useful.
The hydralisk does not have a way of harassing the opponent. Zerg can't afford to spend money early/mid game on a unit that potentially just sits around in ones base and waits for an attack that may or may not come from the opponent. People want to make hydralisks to counter such things as mass phoenix and a 6gate stalker or soemthing similar. But it's extremely volatile to try to do so because if you don't crush your opponent and stop him from expanding or actually kill him with a counter, the hydras will grow less and less useful. Simply because they are close to useless vs a colossus or tank based army.
With the new hydra speed they will be able to dodge colossus beams and tank shots by spreading out or "kiting" in certain circumstances. They will be usable for sniping poorly defended expansions and running away. Drops will even be more useful as you can probably do even more damage before you have to move out.
Hydra speed is needed to bridge that huge gap zerg currently has between zergling/roach and the infestor / broodlord tech. Hydras worked this way in sc1. They cost less, did less damage and took less food but the principle and balance remains the same.
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If hydras got a health buff, then they might actually have some use. But hydras are a unit that terran stims INTO, and their damage potential is terrible. High DPS my ass, nothing is going to make them effective against marines or DBs.
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I've lost so many games to hydras it pisses me off. Especially if it's an allin because if you go either blink, air, DTs etc it all just dies and its so hard to fight off. The only good unit against them is the collosus but it's so hard to have even 1 out by the time hydras are at your door step. Storm can apparently be used as well but I've never had success with HT without amulet.
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For me, cost always seems to be the limited factor with hydras. If they cost fewer minerals I could afford more of them to support my roach army and be less punished by the fact that they die so easily.
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I feel like SC2 is pretty much a game of DPS vs AoE - or to put it bluntly, Marines vs anti-Marine units. Mass Marines will beat you unless you get AoE to take them out. Hydras are simply less effective Marines (and cost gas to boot) who suffer just as much against the same AoE. So, by balancing the game around keeping Marines fair, the game designers have unwittingly made Hydras bad.
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I disagree with what some people are saying about zerg being a mobility race.
I think zerg can be just as much turtle-like, with spines/hydras/burrowed banes/broods/queens/infestors.
The niche that hydras have atm are that they're driven by creep. They are useless without creep.
So if u want to go hydras, u need a sick creep spread, that is if you want to be aggressive.
Hydras own at defending, own in late game with creep all over, they own in nydus/overlord drop attacks, cuz there will be creep.
With faster off creep speed, they will just be a less tanky roach.
If a hydra speed upgrade is pending, i hope for the love of god, it's hive tech.
Not for balance reasons, but for the unit role's reason.
Another thing is, i can't believe we're in the year 2011 and games still have units without spells/special abilities..
Hydra, Muta, Hellion, Ultralisk.
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On October 26 2011 20:36 foxmeep wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 16:48 DARKHYDRA wrote: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. 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.
well maybe im wrong there but all I remember is losing groups of hydras to scarabs.
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i am confused by the fact that blizz is gonna give back the speed upgrade to hydra in HotS while they can make it happen in WoL now (like, RIGHT NOW).
hydra is too gas intensive imo, i'd rather get get roach or muta or infestor rather than invest the gas on this unreliable (fragile+slowass) unit. sad i know.
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On October 26 2011 13:37 Shorty90 wrote:
You're pretty much beating a dead horse. This has been discussed to death.
The problem with the hydralisk is that it doesn't have a role to fill.
It's too slow too be a harassing unit. It doesn't have enough life to take part in battles especially after aoe is out and it does not have enough range to be an artillery unit.
Edit: They also scale terrible with upgrades.
It doesn't even have enough HP to be an anti air at this point. That "Light" tag gets it killed ina hearbeat to Phoenix too, lol.
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You can't just look at speed numbers and say "it's not that slow as a unit". You aren't examining the synergy of the armies or the nature of the matchup, you're just saying "oh look 2.25 is slightly less than 3, it's not so bad".
Hydras are generally accepted as being useless vs. Terran, so I'll only examine ZvP.
In ZvP, roaches with upgrade have essentially the same speed as Stalkers - the primary unit for Protoss - meaning they can both chase and retreat as a unit. They are cheap and beefy. On the offensive, a hydra cannot chase, and if you lose the battle, all your hydras are automatically forfeit because they can't retreat. The only time your hydras will see use is if you force the issue in their base, or they willingly engage you in head-to-head battle, which means they probably have colossi. Let's examine that.
Hydralisks are supposed to fill a glass cannon role, but because 1) they are so slow and 2) they are outranged by and melted by the colossus, they cannot form a halfway decent concave, instead being burnt to crisps in small groups by colossi as they try to slither their way into firing range.
They cannot chase down a voidray off creep.
It's not a matter of "we don't use them because they aren't swarmy or zerg-esque". Give me the Colossus and remodel the model as some zerg-looking thing. Do you think we wouldn't use it because it doesn't feel "zergy"? People use / disuse units because of how good they are, not because how much they "belong" in a race.
If the colossus did not exist, then yes Hydras would not be terrible or slow, because they might get there slowly, but once they're at the battle they are formidable. But because the colossus DOES exist, and in a big way, this unit is pretty damned useless if you'll excuse my French.
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On October 27 2011 05:01 Alejandrisha wrote:
wind resistance
lol maybe this is the truth. hydras are bigger now in sc2 >_>
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Netherlands45349 Posts
On October 27 2011 05:16 DARKHYDRA wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 20:36 foxmeep wrote:On October 26 2011 16:48 DARKHYDRA wrote: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. 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. well maybe im wrong there but all I remember is losing groups of hydras to scarabs.
You could scourge the shuttle and spread hydras(hydras did explosive damage and reavers were large so they did full damage) to quickly kill reavers, reavers fire very slowly.
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Really I just miss their cool acid spitting attack animation/sound effect. Now they're blowing barely visible darts at the enemy and hissing like a grouchy cat -_-. Also, they just remind me a lot more of the Naga from WC3 than the oldschool Hydra. But I find them pretty useful for defense, (especially when my macro slips) so they're not entirely useless. I am eagerly looking forward to the speed upgrade in HotS.
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On October 27 2011 05:20 BurningSera wrote:
i am confused by the fact that blizz is gonna give back the speed upgrade to hydra in HotS while they can make it happen in WoL now (like, RIGHT NOW).
hydra is too gas intensive imo, i'd rather get get roach or muta or infestor rather than invest the gas on this unreliable (fragile+slowass) unit. sad i know.
Two very good points.
It's extremely strange in general how the Hydra has been left as is for so long, and then when they wanna make a simple change to it, it only happens with an expansion?
We could easily have that upgrade added in now, in WoL, and test it out to see if it's gonna help or not. I see no reason to make us wait.
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HP is a big one and I'm sure it has been mentioned, but I feel like I would be okay using Hydra if AOE units were not such staples for other races. I don't think I've played a Terran or Protoss player that didn't get Siege Tanks, Colossi, or High Templar. And moreover I feel that if I made Hydra's it would just be more of a reason for Terran or Protoss to make more of those units. I mean thinking about it, Zerg made Hydra's in a lot of ZvZ before the Infestor became so popular.
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They suck too much (die too fast) against AoE units: Colossus, High Templar and Siege Tanks for the most part.
Cost for cost, they will also always lose to Terran Bio due to Stim and Medivacs assuming that there are no Siege Tanks. If there are Siege Tanks, then it's beyond hopeless. This is why you pretty much never see Hydras in ZvT.
Cost for cost, Hydralisks are generally okay against Protoss Gateway units (and Immortals) but will still get wrecked by good Force Fields and Blink Stalkers. Once Colossus or High Templar hit the field, Hydralisks are pretty much entirely worthless unless you have a lot of Roaches to tank for them (for a while). It's kind of sick to see how quickly Colossus will tear apart a group of Hydras. This is why most Zerg players try their best not to have to make them even when the opponent opens with Stargate.
Personally, I think they need to have more life (be more sturdy) more than they need more speed. Maybe they could try taking off its 'light' classification and adding another 10 or 20 hp.
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On October 27 2011 05:20 BurningSera wrote:
i am confused by the fact that blizz is gonna give back the speed upgrade to hydra in HotS while they can make it happen in WoL now (like, RIGHT NOW).
hydra is too gas intensive imo, i'd rather get get roach or muta or infestor rather than invest the gas on this unreliable (fragile+slowass) unit. sad i know.
Everyone here is forgetting that this Speed upgrade for the Hydra is HIVE TECH. Who the hell uses Hydras at Hive tech? I think this is one of the biggest issues. The initial thought to the speed upgrade was, "Wow, Hydras can now be microed/more efficient/and may survive battles with retreating"; but when you learn that the upgrade is at Hive tech, doesn't it just destroy its purpose all together? I don't even care about the upgrade now because the death balls and compositions I'd expect to play against at Hive tech will completely destroy my Hydralisks, continuing to make them a worthless unit.
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Clearly the problem is the sound effect. Bring back the sound effects from BW. They sound more aggresive and scary.
Hydra fixed.
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what is holding them back? tanks and colossus
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Do Hydras NEED to be a core unit, used in every game? We're not talking about the BW Scout or SC2 Carrier here in terms of representation, Hydras turn up pretty frequently as a situational unit in ZvP.
I get that they were well-liked and iconic in BW, but I don't think that needs to drive game design decisions for SC2.
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On October 27 2011 05:46 reptile wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 05:20 BurningSera wrote:
i am confused by the fact that blizz is gonna give back the speed upgrade to hydra in HotS while they can make it happen in WoL now (like, RIGHT NOW).
hydra is too gas intensive imo, i'd rather get get roach or muta or infestor rather than invest the gas on this unreliable (fragile+slowass) unit. sad i know. Everyone here is forgetting that this Speed upgrade for the Hydra is HIVE TECH. Who the hell uses Hydras at Hive tech? I think this is one of the biggest issues. The initial thought to the speed upgrade was, "Wow, Hydras can now be microed/more efficient/and may survive battles with retreating"; but when you learn that the upgrade is at Hive tech, doesn't it just destroy its purpose all together? I don't even care about the upgrade now because the death balls and compositions I'd expect to play against at Hive tech will completely destroy my Hydralisks, continuing to make them a worthless unit.
I'm with you man. I wish they would just take out hydra and corrupter and give us some better t1/1.5 stuff
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I don't know who mentioned it but I remember someone saying that hydra/ultra in HotS will be very powerful against toss since the ultras can tank so well and now the hydras will be fast enough for you to stutter step and micro around off creep resulting in less of an all in type attack
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The problem is that it is incredibly slow for its power. I mean what purpose does it serve in ZvT? There is literally no advantage to hydras over mutas at the moment.
Anything that you would want hydras to do, mutas do better. (in zvt)
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Vs T: 2 marines beat 1 hydra whilst costing no gas. Tanks beat hydras harder than marines beat hydras. Hydras melt to Terran.
Vs P: blink stalkers beat Hydras really badly. Chargelots eat hydras, Phoenix builds destroy small amount of hydras, and colossus lololololololroflstomps hydras. Wait, HT eat hydras, and archon immortal go even vs hydras. Hydras are only good vs void ray, carriers and probes. They also have great all inning potential. They have no place in standard macro play unless Protoss has managed to force them.
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Hydras also melted to terran in BW. And were quite useless in ZvZ too.
Ninja edit: Oh and they melted against speedlots way more than in SC2. Like not even close.
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Zerg are supposed to be faster than Terran/Toss. Infestors do not engage with direct attacks and are support so they don't have to be as quick. All they do is move forward to fungal one at a time. Hydras need to get a good arc and need to be able to retreat.
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I think the reason that them being slowER than the other core army units of the Swarm is such a problem is that since they're fucking terrible as soon as anything starts shooting at them, they need to be able to reposition or retreat to gain any real usability (since losing them isn't a good option -- they're too expensive.) The reason this isn't a problem for roaches is because, besides the easily available speed upgrade and burrow synergy, roaches have so much health that them being shot twice with a colossus doesn't mean you lose the game.
If hydralisks were even slower than they are now, but had as much health and survivability as a roach, we'd see a LOT of them on the field. As they stand in WoL, they have trouble living long enough to pay for themselves, even with their high DPS.
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The problem has never been the speed....
Hydralisk - 100 minerals, 50 gas, 2 supply
14.5 DPS, 80 health
Marine - 50 minerals, 0 gas, 1 supply
10.5 DPS (stimmed), 55 health (combat shields)
100min + 50 gas for one hydralisk is more valuable than 150 minerals (3 marines)
3 marines = 31.5 dps, 165 health
SIGNIFICANTLY better than the Hydra's 14.5 DPS and 80 health.
What is more? We Terrans have the medivac, the perfect synergy with the marine.
Hydras just aren't worth the cost. Yes, they have good damage compared to other zerg units but the problem is by the time they come out collossus / tanks / banelings are already out or very close to being, which obliterate Hydras.
Speed will help, but it isn't the only problem of the hydra....
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On October 27 2011 04:51 Saraf wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 23:07 Jack.D.Ripper wrote:
I find the biggest problem with the hydralisk is the fact that it is the only vanilla unit in starcraft 2. What role does the hydralisk fill in the zerg army. Its a ranged ground/air attacker. What upgrade does it have? +1 range +damage +armor. The Hydralisk needs something to make it special. I propose a addition to the +1 ranged upgrade. Make the upgrade give hydralisk an auto attack that causes enemy units behind its target (like 1.5 additional range) to take the same amount of damage.
Just an idea to make hydra viable and I think it would be a flavorful upgrade. Oh my god, a "Piercing Spines" upgrade would be absolutely amazing, I wouldn't even want it on the same upgrade, I'd take it at hive tech. Put 3 upgrades on the hydra den: range, "reinforced carapace" (+10 hp and remove armor typing; armor strong enough to not be light but also not armored) both at lair tech and "Piercing Spines" at hive tech (linear splash damage vs. light). It would be awesome (clearly I haven't considered balance but hey).
I really like the idea that the Hydra be a unit that gets way better over the course of a long macro game.
Here's what I would do:
~Hydralisk and Roach swap positions on the tech tree (roach to lair, hydra to hatch). My initial thoughts are that it makes early game, especially ZvT, more stable. Queens and spines are good defense against hellions, and light-armor hydras can't attack into hellions like roaches can. Zerg also gets a mobile low-tech anti-air, so banshee/void ray is far less likely to simply end the game.
~A series of buffs or added upgrades to make it more viable in combat. Balance team has to figure out where they fit, but the list could include: loss of light-armor designation (lair tech), combat shield-esque extra HP, range boost (currently in the game), innovative boost to attack power (I really like the notion of limited splash at Hive tech). Can also add a morph to the game, which at least would get the hydra into the game for a little while.
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If they really want to keep their low stats in comparison to their high cost, then they should atleast reduce their supply cost to 1.
Right now, even if you amass a 200/200 consisting of an hydra army (or any composition involving hydras), it still feels pretty weak.and small compared to other compositions because hydras are just that weak.
If they were 1 supply, you could atleast get a really big army in size at the cost of paying a lot for it.
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2 Problems the Hydralisk has:
Yes, Hydralisks are just as fast as gateway / mm without stimp.
The difference: The Protoss race is made so once you attack, you have to commit to it more or less. You have to be careful everytime you move out.
The Zerg race is completly different. Your army has to be mobile and it is needed that you can poke in and out and not commit heavily to your attack.
--> Concerning movement, a Hydralisk army feels like a Protoss-Army without having forcefields and a reinforcement proxy-pylon.
You decide to attack, you can never move back.
2nd problem is: The Protoss army has 1 advantage to overcome the movement and commitment issues: It is actually not too fragile and pretty strong. The Hydralisk on the other hand is countered by every single AOE unit in game (storm, tanks, colossi, even hellions) and even a standard bio / biomech army does very well against the hydralisk in combat.
Putting both things together, the Hydralisk has only 2 purposes right now: Defending vs Protoss air and fight against pure gateway armys, since thats the only non-zerg army the hydralisk is decent against.
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On October 27 2011 07:52 gh0un wrote:
If they really want to keep their low stats in comparison to their high cost, then they should atleast reduce their supply cost to 1.
Right now, even if you amass a 200/200 consisting of an hydra army (or any composition involving hydras), it still feels pretty weak.and small compared to other compositions because hydras are just that weak.
If they were 1 supply, you could atleast get a really big army in size at the cost of paying a lot for it.
you could never make Hydralisks 1 supply while zealots and roaches are 2 supply.
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On October 27 2011 06:51 sagefreke wrote:
I don't know who mentioned it but I remember someone saying that hydra/ultra in HotS will be very powerful against toss since the ultras can tank so well and now the hydras will be fast enough for you to stutter step and micro around off creep resulting in less of an all in type attack
hydras still basically get 1 shotted by collosus
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On October 27 2011 08:03 ToguRo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 06:51 sagefreke wrote:
I don't know who mentioned it but I remember someone saying that hydra/ultra in HotS will be very powerful against toss since the ultras can tank so well and now the hydras will be fast enough for you to stutter step and micro around off creep resulting in less of an all in type attack hydras still basically get 1 shotted by collosus
well... Viper + new Ultra + new Hydra... i dont wanna fight that as WoL Protoss :D 1 range colossus or coloss poked into the zerg-army, the hydralisk in the back as heavy dps, ultras that tank and stomp into your ball... woot?^^
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little life, very slow.
Give a lair tier speed upgrade with maybe 100 starting life and it'd be nice.
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On October 27 2011 09:45 Lucid90 wrote:
little life, very slow.
Give a lair tier speed upgrade with maybe 100 starting life and it'd be nice.
Lair tier speed upgrade is too powerful in my opinion. In HotS, it gets one at Hive tech, which is a good idea.
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I see the speed upgrade doing little. Unless you rush to hive and hit before a decent number of colossi (or storm) or tanks they will still die... and die fast. If the upgrade was lair tech they would be unbelievably scary in the mid game, but that's not the case.
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On October 27 2011 06:22 Harrow wrote:
Do Hydras NEED to be a core unit, used in every game? We're not talking about the BW Scout or SC2 Carrier here in terms of representation, Hydras turn up pretty frequently as a situational unit in ZvP.
I get that they were well-liked and iconic in BW, but I don't think that needs to drive game design decisions for SC2.
Well they are still kinda Iconic.
Have we ever seen a trailer with zerg without a hydra at least popping up somewhere?
They look so menacing in those and ingame they simply have to much flaws.
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On October 26 2011 13:40 VirgilSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:31 darkscream wrote:
The aoe damage is holding the hydralisk back.
Slow glass cannons are worthless in Deathballcraft. They are great as something to add 5-10 to a roach ball, but nothing more. Even with the HOTS speed upgrade, they just get ruined 1v1 vs every unit comp so you will never mass them. Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:30 DrBoo wrote:
That's a nice way of thinking but you're only comparing how "slow" the hydras is to other units. The problem with hydras being so slow is that zerg units are supposed to be fast. Zergs have weaker units and are supposed to be able to spread around the map and with every single zerg unit faster then hydras it just makes them completely none viable.
Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 13:33 Fishgle wrote:
Unit clumping along with instant>missile attacks is holding the Hydra back See? We already have three different answers for what might be holding the Hydralisk back! The Stalker, Viking, Phoenix, Mutalisk, and Roach among other units seem to work just fine despite having missile-based attack animations! Sure, the Hydralisk might not be as fast as other Zerg units, but it shares the same speed of Roaches and Infestors, two core units in the Zerg army! On top of that, the Hydralisk offers an unparalled 14.5 DPS against a single target! 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!
The only time you attack with roaches is after you have roach speed almost exclusively unless you are all inning. The same is true of lings. So it's not really accurate to say that they have the same speed roaches, because roaches themselves are considered a liability to attack with unless you have that speed upgrade. It's not like it's optional. If you have roaches, you research speed. If you don't, you're either all inning or making a huge mistake.
There is no hydra all in*, and they don't have a speed upgrade, so please stop saying that they have the same speed as roaches.
*Aside from maybe, maybe, some kind of drop all in play against protoss, but I've never seen that as an all-in move.
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I find Hydralisks to be pretty useful at defending drop harass.
In small skirmishes they are dominant, can destroy the Medivac/Prism, and are usually needed to beat Thors/Immortals cost efficiently anyway. They aren't a bad unit, everyone just wants them to be the strongest unit in the Zerg arsenal.
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Wait til beta when no one even bothers with the gas investment of making the horrible Hydralisk. Everyone keeps talking about Viper/Fest/Hydra to finally make the Hydra useful, but the gas investment is WAYYYY too much. Then to boot you need Hive for speed upgrade.
Sorry my fellow Zerg but I would expect the Hydra to follow the Carrier in terms of "placement" by HoTS launch. Unless of course Blizzard continues their current course of doing just plain ridiculous changes and attempts at "fixes."
Too be honest I would love to see the Roach and Hydra swap positions and EVEN SEE THE ROACH GO! It sucks really. Not for the sake of it being "back to the way things were" but just because it makes sense and fills crucial holes in need of patching.
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While I think the hydra is underrated by a fair amount of people. It is, at least as far as I can tell, the only unit in SC2 without an ability/morph/skill that makes it truly unique. It has no aoe, super range, extra damage modifiers, or useable or passive ability. I cannot think of another unit in the game that this is true for. This maybe why so many people have trouble finding a real role for it besides anti-air and crushing gate way units.
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its slow off creep, its expensive, it has no health, it dies to everything really fast unless it has a meat shield.
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Sorry just had to laugh when you said marines and marauders granted map control... let me explain myself, what units grant map control? zerlings, mutalisks, hellions, sieged tanks, dark templars, phoenix. why they grant map control?
-Zerlings, are fast and numerous, you can pretty much run from one side of the map to the other in few seconds, if you leave your base with few units and lings are on the field you are pretty much asking those units to be killed, you also need to prepare for any kind of runby that could end your economy right there.
-The mutalisk, it grants map control because of its speed, it also forces an entire army composition and a considerable investment on defense, forcing the player to play defensively
-Hellions are somewhat similar to the zerlings, but they dont do really well against buildings, and only against light units, yet you can scout the entire map quite easily with them and with minimal loses.
-Sieged tanks, they deny access to areas unless you are willing to take fire. if not sieged they arent really good and dont provide any decent kind of map control.
-DT's, forces the players to get detection to defend, then forces mobile detection to move out, it doesnt provide much map awareness but its a strong enough threat to avoid undefended expanding.
-Phoenix, they are fast, they grant map vision, but they are only really strong in numbers, and protoss unlike zerg cant train 6 of them at a time unless they invest a huge amount of minerals on buildings.
Marines and marauders... they need to be in large numbers (10+), cumpled and properly supported by tanks or medivacs and with stim, if not they are not really dangerous, unless your opponent doesnt know a thing about how to counter units. For them to grant "map control" you need to spread them on different parts of the map, and that way they are not strong and can be easily taken out. They are not really slow, but they arent fast enough to be able to scout properly without having significant loses. Thats why marines and marauders dont "give map control". is actually a mix of different abilities, numbers and proper support.
Now on the topic. the issue with the hydra is the speed, and maybe the cost, but if the cost is lowered so should be the dps of the unit.
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The problem with the Hydra is it is too generic and difficult to micro. With the speed upgrade in HotS this might change, but I'm not convinced. We'll see in the Beta.
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On October 27 2011 11:06 David451 wrote:
The problem with the Hydra is it is too generic and difficult to micro. With the speed upgrade in HotS this might change, but I'm not convinced. We'll see in the Beta.
actually its bad because its slow as hell off creep so you cant reinforce with it, it dies to fucking everything, and its not cost efficient. you micro them the same way you would micro roaches w/o burrow move. are roaches bad then?
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On October 27 2011 04:41 zhurai wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 04:33 Cyber_Cheese wrote:On October 27 2011 04:23 PhiliBiRD wrote:
The only thing that has ever held the Hydralisk back is great creep spread.
The difference in speed from ling/roach to hydralisk makes it somewhat more difficult to control your army, thus makign it less popular as well. Well that's easy to say isn't it? 1) No matter how well you spread, there is a boundary you can't pass 2) Even great creep spread takes a while 3) Decent opponents kill creep T.T All my hard work.... is what I keep on thinking when people kill the creep =_=
I will usually build an extra queen or two for creep spread, but as I expand I put my extra queens back on larva duty and let the boatload of tumors spread themselves out. When they get destroyed, I never know what to do. It seems silly ot build more queens, and I don't want to gut my larvae count for them.
So I usually just end up going 'oh... i guess creep is over'.
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On October 27 2011 11:48 Soulriser wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 11:06 David451 wrote:
The problem with the Hydra is it is too generic and difficult to micro. With the speed upgrade in HotS this might change, but I'm not convinced. We'll see in the Beta. actually its bad because its slow as hell off creep so you cant reinforce with it, it dies to fucking everything, and its not cost efficient. you micro them the same way you would micro roaches w/o burrow move. are roaches bad then?
Slow as hell = same speed as a marine? Yet somehow marines manage to reinforce. It doesn't die to everything: it slaughters protoss gateway units, protoss air units, and the immortal.
Roaches have a speed upgrade.
Why am I even responding.
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They don't scale very well. If you changed their damage to be something like 12+1 versus X and then upgrades gave +1 to both normal and bonus damage, they would find a point very quickly. The fact is, as others have said, just Roaches does well enough. It's hard to justify spending DOUBLE the gas for a unit with perhaps half the lifespan(and, ultimately, barely higher damage).
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Honestly, the problem with the hydra isn't its off-creep speed or upgrade scaling or gas cost or supply cost or armor-type or PDDs. The problem is that there isn't any zerg strategy that requires hydras in order to succeed. Anything you can get done with hydras, you can get done with roaches, given either more time or more roaches.
It's not a bad unit. (I love the little buggers, myself). But until someone creates a hydra-dependent strategy, there isn't really an obvious way to fix it.
Fun Fact: Did you know that an unupgraded hydra has higher DPS than a fully upgraded zergling with adrenal glands? It's true. (14.45 vs 13.62)
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On October 26 2011 13:46 Soulish wrote:
this has so many strawmen that you could be a farmer
hahahahahaahah.
excellent post.
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having slow move speed when you are trying to attack 13 range tanks and 9 range colossi that kill you in 2-3 hits is what makes them useless.
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On October 27 2011 16:12 Scarmath wrote:
Honestly, the problem with the hydra isn't its off-creep speed or upgrade scaling or gas cost or supply cost or armor-type or PDDs. The problem is that there isn't any zerg strategy that requires hydras in order to succeed. Anything you can get done with hydras, you can get done with roaches, given either more time or more roaches.
It's not a bad unit. (I love the little buggers, myself). But until someone creates a hydra-dependent strategy, there isn't really an obvious way to fix it.
Fun Fact: Did you know that an unupgraded hydra has higher DPS than a fully upgraded zergling with adrenal glands? It's true. (14.45 vs 13.62)
it is a bad unit because it gets HARD countered by colossi and tanks, units T and P will almost always get against a zerg.
and the DPS sucks just compare it to marines that cost no gas at all.
your fun fact is retarded: comparing an upgraded 0.5 supply unit against 2 supply proves what exactly? nothing at all.
you would have 4 zerglings for the same supply (without gas cost) meaning 13.62 *4 = 54.48 dps against 14.45 dps (18.1 fully upgraded).
are you joking or what? where is that a high DPS?
did you know upgraded stimmed marines do 15.6 DPS for half the supply and also without gas?
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i think hydras would have been buffed by now (speed, dps, cost, etc) if the game was only ZvT and ZvZ. however hydra compositions are very cost effective vs. protoss compositions that don't have splash dmg, so much so that protoss needs the splash dmg units to win, which means the splash dmg units better "do work" vs hydras.
*it's the same idea with marines vs splash. the hydra is much weaker but the balancing is just the same. i dunno if terran would ever lose if Z and P couldn't faceroll marines with banelings, storm, and colo. imo it's not the best or only way they could balance these units out but it seems to be how they did it
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On October 27 2011 17:25 taintmachine wrote:
i think hydras would have been buffed by now (speed, dps, cost, etc) if the game was only ZvT and ZvZ. however hydra compositions are very cost effective vs. protoss compositions that don't have splash dmg, so much so that protoss needs the splash dmg units to win, which means the splash dmg units better "do work" vs hydras.
*it's the same idea with marines vs splash. the hydra is much weaker but the balancing is just the same. i dunno if terran would ever lose if Z and P couldn't faceroll marines with banelings, storm, and colo. imo it's not the best or only way they could balance these units out but it seems to be how they did it
Phoenix/Zealot isn't aoe and it destroys Hydras like they're nothing.
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One thing holding the Hydralisk back is that 9/10 pro level games where a zerg player builds Hydralisks, they lose. Seriously, most games at a high level that involve hydras end in a loss for the zerg player.
Until some good Zerg (Nestea, DRG, ect) manages to find a solid strong build that incorperates Hydralisks and this builds sees success, the Hydra will probably be shunned
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On October 27 2011 16:12 Scarmath wrote:
Fun Fact: Did you know that an unupgraded hydra has higher DPS than a fully upgraded zergling with adrenal glands? It's true. (14.45 vs 13.62)
You mean a 2 food, 50 gas, 100 mineral Unit does more damage than a 0.5 food, 25 mineral unit?
OUTSTANDING!.
Hydra in SC/BW:
Cheap, Fast, good Damage but low HP. Mainly/Only used in ZvP (and ZvT for Lurkers).
Hydra in SC2:
Expensive, slow, good Damage but low HP. Used in some timing pushes/all ins and to defend against AIr.
Where do you think Blizzard went wrong? "Everywhere" doesn't count as an answer...
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On October 27 2011 17:34 Treble557 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 17:25 taintmachine wrote:
i think hydras would have been buffed by now (speed, dps, cost, etc) if the game was only ZvT and ZvZ. however hydra compositions are very cost effective vs. protoss compositions that don't have splash dmg, so much so that protoss needs the splash dmg units to win, which means the splash dmg units better "do work" vs hydras.
*it's the same idea with marines vs splash. the hydra is much weaker but the balancing is just the same. i dunno if terran would ever lose if Z and P couldn't faceroll marines with banelings, storm, and colo. imo it's not the best or only way they could balance these units out but it seems to be how they did it Phoenix/Zealot isn't aoe and it destroys Hydras like they're nothing.
i personally haven't seen enough of it and also said hydra compositions, not pure hydras, so i don't know if you were implying that a Z is going to lose vs. this with pure hydras or also having other tech.
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On October 27 2011 17:41 taintmachine wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 17:34 Treble557 wrote:On October 27 2011 17:25 taintmachine wrote:
i think hydras would have been buffed by now (speed, dps, cost, etc) if the game was only ZvT and ZvZ. however hydra compositions are very cost effective vs. protoss compositions that don't have splash dmg, so much so that protoss needs the splash dmg units to win, which means the splash dmg units better "do work" vs hydras.
*it's the same idea with marines vs splash. the hydra is much weaker but the balancing is just the same. i dunno if terran would ever lose if Z and P couldn't faceroll marines with banelings, storm, and colo. imo it's not the best or only way they could balance these units out but it seems to be how they did it Phoenix/Zealot isn't aoe and it destroys Hydras like they're nothing. i personally haven't seen enough of it and also said hydra compositions, not pure hydras, so i don't know if you were implying that a Z is going to lose vs. this with pure hydras or also having other tech.
Z loses with Hydra + anything and with pure hydras to this combo due to the nature of the strat in general, lol. I actually see it fairly often too btw up in masters.
Pretty baller build.
You pretty much need Roach Corruptor to beat it.
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I dont think the Speed is holding the Hydra back ... Its only one Factor ... If we go along that road and compare the units than why does a Hydra cost 100/50 and a Marine only 50/0 and they both have the same speed (and marines even got Stim)? ... this is why the comparison between the units dont work and shouldnt be done.
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Their waaay too squishy, and they're even considered light units therefore the reason why you don't go Hydra on mechplay as mentioned. For their cost, they're not worth it.
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hydra is a bad unit cause it does extremely high damage but has the drawback of having only 80 hp and moderately costy.
SC1 hydras were 75/25/1 and did 10 to large and 5 to small
SC2 hydras are 100/50/2 and do 13 damage to all
They got a very powerful buff (especially against zealots who would take 4 damage previously) in damage but their hp remained the same.
Giving them more hp just makes them a brainless OP unit. Making em cheaper and weaker to light makes them swarmy like the old unit, admittedly still rather brainless and spammy.
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I didn't read too much of this but, what would happen if Hydra's had a non-projectile attack? Like the instantaneous attack marines and siege tanks have? I guess it would increase damage and effectiveness for that specific role (no overkill) but doesn't massively alter their function or lack of =[
I realize I am discussing a significantly different point to the OP but I don't think the speed is a non issue...
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Well I think they should decrease the damage and make the hydra faster and cheaper so it feels more like a zerg unit. Problem is it costs so much and gets absolutely smashed by tanks and colossus. Tanks and marines make them very bad in ZvT but they are great in ZvP . . . untill colossus or HT come out.
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You compare it to the roach, but by the time you have hydras you probably also have roach speed if you use roaches, making them much faster, tankier, more micro-able and cheaper unit, with more utility due to burrow regen and movement.
The speed isn't the sole reason for them being unused - Something like a thor can justify its speed due to its long range against air, among other slow units such as siege tanks and unstimmed MMM. High templar destroy armies and then morph to powerful and more mobile archons. Hydras? They are just marines that cost gas, in a race that needs to save every last scrap of gas in the mid game. They don't pack enough punch to justify the fact they have no escape mechanism to get away from stalkers blinking on them or marines stimming forward and taking them out.
And then there is the whole AoE attacks (cough collosi) are already pretty strong without taking a low hp, low mobility, small sized unit to the field.
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The hydra is immobile, cannot tank damage, and has a high supply cost relative to its usefulness.
I did some tests of the hydra vs. the stalker (best analog) about a year ago and posted them here:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/628078733
Basically the hydralisk is terrible unless it is both on creep and you have the range upgrade. It wont be a go-to unit until the speed buff in HOTS.
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No, it's not slow when you compare it to units with completely different roles in different races. In the context of the zerg race as a whole, it is rather slow. This only becomes a problem when it is also expensive and very low hp compared to its nearest vs-ground substitute (the roach). Yes, it has good dps, but it just isn't good enough to make up for its shortcomings in most situations.
I think a straight up stat boost could easily make it overpowered as a timing attack unit, though. I've always thought a hive tech upgrade that gives it increased range or speed would be best.
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EPT
