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This is something i have been thinking a lot about in the last couple of days. Its sooo common to see even top master zerg players go roach/hydra/corruptor against gateway/colossus and then ragequit and complain about colossus OP when they lose. Two guys even made a 30 minute vlog complaining about it (no offense to idra and artosis, they are ballers of the highest level)
Disclaimer: Everything presented in this thread represents my personal and completley subjective opinion and i dont want to pretend that im some sort of all knowing guru of starcraft 2, because im not. i could very well be wrong on several occasions and you are free to disagree with anything i say. In fact, im much eager to hear you opinion. This is a thread for constructive debate and open discussion.
Disclaimer: I know some people out there are gonna say "dude hydras pwn gateway units" or something obvious and un-constructive along those lines without even reading what i have to say, but its a pretty widely acknowledged fact that you dont really NEED hydras to handle the protoss gateway units. Roaches, especially with speed, burrow and attack and armor upgrades are very good and cost-effective against any stalker/sentry/zealot composition and will always beat a gateway-only army of equal supply. Its not the zealot and stalkers that kills the zerg so effectivley in the mid game, so there is really no need to get hydras just to counter them. What you need to worry about is to respond to the protoss tech path wich will be colossus
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090407222210/starcraft/images/thumb/b/bf/Hydralisk_SC2_DevRend2.jpg/200px-Hydralisk_SC2_DevRend2.jpg)
To start off, i do think that hydralisk can be a nifty tech choice for the early mid game if you get the hydralisk den before your roach warren and rely on hydralisk/speedling, wich is a great opener and can put on a good amount of pressure with some decent nydus worm/drop play.
Hydras/ling however, becomes completley nullifed and humiliated once the protoss gets out AoE in the form of high templars or even worse, the colossus. thats why you need to make a well timed transition into Roach Warren and Spire, or some other techy build wich can handle the protoss tech units.
Roach/Corruptor or Roach/muta/Corruptor or even Roach/infestor/Corrupter is SOO much more effective against any colossus based build that doesnt include a lot of void rays. Again, people seem to think that you need a major amount of hydras to beat the gateway bulch of the protoss army, wich is just not true.
The deciding factor is that roaches can actually tank the colossus DPS while the corruptors kill them, wich hydras cant. The reason you lost against colossus that deathball despite having a good number of corruptors is because colossus simply kills hydras so fast that his remaining ground army is gonna be superior once the colossus go down and all you have left is 1/4 of your initial army. You overmade hydralisks in a situation where the protoss had devoted his entire tech-path and game plan to hard counter them. With Roaches you can also burrow-move under forcefields and snipe colossus and get into superior positions. Being able to get around and counter well-used forcefields is SUCH a game changing ability thats its almost ridicolous that its not being used to greater extent.
Some people will argue that roaches in big numbers are bad because of their low range tend du cluster up with many of your roaches not being able to get into the front, and therefor you need hydralisks because of their superior range, but getting your troops clumped up is merely a result of poor micro, wich can easily be avoided by
1, Attacking in the right positions, avoiding choke points and narrow enviroments
2, Splitting up your troops. There is absoloutley no reason to have all your roaches/units on one hotkey and zerg should always aim for mulipronged attacks at different locations simultaniously. Forcing the protoss player to split up his huge scary army is necessary in order to beat him
To wrap it up and summerize things, i would like to state that i am by no means trying to imply that the hydralisk is a bad or "Underpowered" unit, its just that some people tend to overmake them without realizing that even after losing continiously. In general it is always good to have a hydralisk den up in the mid-to-later phase of the game, because i do think they have a lot of strenghts and advantages:
*Having a pack of hydralisks at the back of your army provides a great boost in DPS
*Allows you to snipe observers prior to spire tech
*Great resonse to phoenix harrasment (but do not rely on them to counter void ray/corruptor
*Amazing for hit and run missions with nydus worm or overlord drops.
*Once you manage to kill a good amount of colossi, making a dozen of hydra is a GREAT response as most protoss players wont be able to reproduce them fast enough to match your hydra count, and it will prevent any sneaky-tech switches to mass air.
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Roaches in huge numbers are bad exactly because of the range, with no other unit to help in the 10 ish minute battles you will get plummed, the right forcefields will eliminate you quickly.
Also you need hydras because of the fact a protoss will get about 4 to 5 voids to aid the fight, and corruptors are their favorite food.
Hydras need a health buff, back to 90 would be nice.
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I think hydralisks need around 115 HP but that's just me.
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Health buff would basically make storm even more useless.
If hydras get a buff, then storm damage needs to be upped and colossi need a damage nerf.
The problem is obviously colossi, not hydras; hydras are fine as they are, if only a bit slow.
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The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers.
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On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers.
With blink micro you can.
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On February 26 2011 12:58 Valcio wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers. With blink micro you can.
No matter how good your blink micro is, a stalker force will never beat a marauder force of equal supply with stim pack and a couple of medievacs. You simply cant "blink micro" your stalkers when marauders kill them in one volley. it has never happened and probably never wil, but thats pretty off topic anyways.
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I think hydras need a speed buff, or colossus needs a speed nerf. I think it is silly that they are the same speed.
Colossus is an obvious counter to hydras, which is totally fine. What's not fine is that there really isn't any micro or whatever possibility for the hydras to do anything against the colossus. Colossus is way more powerful than hydra. So why does it get to be so fast?
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Why would you even compare hydras and colossus like that?
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On February 26 2011 13:00 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 12:58 Valcio wrote:On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers. With blink micro you can. No matter how good your blink micro is, a stalker force will never beat a marauder force of equal supply with stim pack and a couple of medievacs. You simply cant "blink micro" your stalkers when marauders kill them in one volley. it has never happened and probably never wil, but thats pretty off topic anyways.
I believe this was recently proven by Stephen Hawking, and is an undeniable fact of life. He actually was put up for the Noble Prize for his work in the field of Marauderology.
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On February 26 2011 13:03 dark fury wrote:
Why would you even compare hydras and colossus like that?
Both are glass cannon units. Fragile, extreme damage, and slow. When you grab hydras you are sacrificing mobility for power, much like the colossus.
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On February 26 2011 13:04 Logarythm wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:00 dark fury wrote:On February 26 2011 12:58 Valcio wrote:On February 26 2011 12:56 dark fury wrote:
The only problem with the colossus is that it counters Hydralisks. That doesnt mean its overpowered or anything like that. You are not supposed to be able to kill a colossus based army with a hydralisk based army, just like you dont beat a marauder based army with stalkers. With blink micro you can. No matter how good your blink micro is, a stalker force will never beat a marauder force of equal supply with stim pack and a couple of medievacs. You simply cant "blink micro" your stalkers when marauders kill them in one volley. it has never happened and probably never wil, but thats pretty off topic anyways. I believe this was recently proven by Stephen Hawking, and is an undeniable fact of life. He actual was put up for the Noble Prize for his work in the field of Marauderology.
this in combination with your username made me lol :D
On February 26 2011 13:05 DoubleReed wrote:
Both are glass cannon units. Fragile, extreme damage, and slow. When you grab hydras you are sacrificing mobility for power, much like the colossus.
Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep.
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Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep.
Except Colossi are way more powerful. So Hydralisk should be more mobile to compensate. I'm not saying hydra should be fast, just faster.
Don't you think it's a little dull to have in a game "Well derp I made the wrong unit!" There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. Right now it's just "If they have colossus, don't make hydra."
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On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:
There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus.
You mean like being able to shoot up?^^
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On February 26 2011 13:11 dark fury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:
There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. You mean like being able to shoot up?^^
lol, fair enough. But I meant strategy-wise. If one army is weaker than another, its usually compensated for mobility in this game. But roach/hydra is weaker than stalker/colossus (or whatever toss army with colossus), so I think it should be more mobiile. That's all I'm saying.
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In the days with Roaches with 3 range, the Roach + Hydra system makes a lot of sense, as upgraded Hydras were double the range of Roaches. This had a Tank + DPS behind setup (think Calvary + Archers), but with Roaches now having 4 range, that isn't quite what it used to be. And while Hydras are solid in the early-mid game, Colossus & HTs destroy them.
In the later game, 2-4 Ultras then Roaches + Corruptors might be the thing. Ultras to plow through the FFs and eat the first damage, Roaches to really deal the damage and some spare Hydras to help in the back.
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On February 26 2011 13:10 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +Yeah, so it pretty much makes sense that they have the same speed, dont you think? also, hydras are faster on creep. Except Colossi are way more powerful. So Hydralisk should be more mobile to compensate. I'm not saying hydra should be fast, just fast er. Don't you think it's a little dull to have in a game "Well derp I made the wrong unit!" There should be some advantage the hydralisk has over colossus. Right now it's just "If they have colossus, don't make hydra."
I think the issue is more finding that time when there is *is* an advantage to Hydras, at least at the upper ranks of play. Hydras are pretty close to being for a timing attack... of which they are so slow compared to the rest of the Zerg army that the concept of "timing attack" with Hydras is a bit of a joke.
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United States7483 Posts
Hydralisks demolish gateway units: protoss HAS to get aoe to deal with them, they're too strong vs. everything else protoss has.
Problem is, once that AoE is out, it's too strong vs. the hydralisks.
Hydras should go back to being a cheaper, tier 1 unit, and be a bit weaker than they are now so that zerg has an early game AA unit (other than the queen), and so they can play a support role throughout the game. Roaches should go up to tier 2, and have their 2 armor back.
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hydras need +1 range, fixed the roach, and basically would fix any thing
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A health buff to Hydralisks seems a reasonable idea, but why not just reduce the supply cost to 1?
By doing that you can effectively have a bigger army to deal with that massive 200/200 Protoss Deathball, when going roach, hydra at least. And since Roaches used to have 1 supply cost but were still considered to good, why not just give that to Hydras, I cannot see how this would make them op like the roaches used to be.
It will not just help the Speedling+Hydra opening build the OP was talking about, but will also help the zerg in general feel more "swarmish". I'm pretty sure many people have noticed how small the zerg army looks or feels when compared to a Protoss or Terran maxed army.
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EPT
