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So... I have to credit Gretorp with giving me the inspiration with a mention in NASL a few weeks ago.
I am by no means the authority on this build, nor do I execute it well... but at the top of Master League, it seems to be scary effective. So I figured I'd share it here.
The Build Order
+ Show Spoiler +I personally like to do a 10 scout, this is by no means required for this build, scout when you want, but it's really helpful to be able to determine exactly what build Terran is going for.
I only continue down this path if I see Terran going for a gasless expand, which I typically determine around 15 supply with my natural hatchery and spawning pool building already.
-18 2 queens
-27 ovie
-28 2 queens
-36 OV
-44 OV
-44 4 gasses and a roach warren, keep replenishing drones in between
-@100 gas, Lair
-52 2 evo chambers
-Throw down a hatchery at your 3rd if its safe or at your natural if its not, don't worry, it will come in handy either way
-Start massing OVs
-Start +1 range and +1 carapace when the evos finish, and begin roach production.
-Make your Hydra Den @ Lair pop, prioritize this over Roach Speed as you're not really leaving creep at this time anyway
-@Hydra Den pop, research Hydra range and make as many hydras as your gas permits (8-12)
-From here, you are making about 99% roaches, only making more Hydras when you feel you can get away with it.
-Take your 3rd and saturate minerals only when you're feeling safe. Think like ZvP.
The Goal of the Build
+ Show Spoiler +By far, the strangest part of the whole build is including Hydralisks in the ZvT MU. But as Gretorp put during his NASL cast, Hydralisks actually do REALLY good damage to Terran units, the biggest problem is that Siege Tanks kill them before they can really do any of that damage.
So...
People are going mass bio these days with minimal or no siege tanks...
Hydras are... viable then?
...
Actually, they kick the shit out of everything T has as long as they're not getting targeted.
The biggest idea to keep in your head every time you engage the Terran army is to remember that there should be a wall of Roaches between your Hydras and the Terrans that want to shoot them.
You do not necessarily need to have all your Roaches in the immediate area, if you do, that's great, but you need to have SOME Roaches there to absorb shots while your Hydras do all the damage.
Along with this massive production power thanks to your 3 base + macro hatch, you also have 2 evo upgrades chugging along, and when you're feeling frisky, take that gas at your 3rd and research overlord drops/speed to give yourself access to Terran's main. The important thing is to continually trade army with the Terran (especially aim for siege tanks if he's making them) and deny him his 3rd.
What can go wrong
+ Show Spoiler +Siege Tanks + Show Spoiler +These things utterly destroy your hydras and roaches with impunity. 13 range, massive splash on all your units that REALLY REALLY like clumping up, 13 range, the ability to abuse terrain like nobody's business, did I mention the range?
The problem with Siege Tanks is that they work exactly the same way your Hydras do. They sit in the back of the Terran army raining death down upon you and there's really nothing you can do about it without cutting through the wall of marines first. If Terran has more than 2-4 siege tanks in good position, that area has become a no hydra zone. Never ever attack into an area covered by multiple siege tanks unless you've already won the game. Lack of Creep Spread + Show Spoiler +My creep spread is not particularly tight, and Hydras are very dependent on creep for all of their mobility. Not keeping up on your creep spread severely inhibits your ability to move your Hydras around and considering Hydralisks are the sexiest part of your army, that's a bad thing. You don't want to be inhibiting your ability to move your sexy. If you're ever not having enough creep spread, don't hesitate to make an extra queen or two, throw it in with your army, and push that creep forward. Drops + Show Spoiler +Drops should not be a particularly hard issue to deal with, but they can sometimes get you.
One of the major beauties of using large amounts of Roaches is the fact that they 3 shot marines. Meaning that leaving 4-5 Roaches at an expansion to defend against drops can usually kill the marines as they come out of the medivac, before it has a chance to heal them. Medivacs can't really heal marines through focused roach damage anyway. They die too fast. Being too passive + Show Spoiler +This whole strategy is about being in Terrans face before he gets those large numbers of siege tanks and burning medivac energy so fast, their army doesn't ever have time to recover. If you're not attacking Terran by the 12 minute mark, you're doing it wrong.
Replays
+ Show Spoiler +
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This looks very interesting. I'll definitely give this a go. Thanks! =)
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So this build relies almost entirely on your opponent not scouting you and going heavier into tanks when he sees your army? The only reason terrans go heavy bio now is because they see ling/infestor.
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i still feel leaving 4-5 roaches at my expansions and bases is a bit to much supply to give away. if you have lets say 4bases you need anywere from 32-40 supply of roaches to defend it.
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I've done this style before, it loses quite handedly on maps where Terrans can take easy thirds and defend, such as Antiga.
Also, it's quite the bitch to defend drops.
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How will you get to tanks that are positioned on highgrounds when you attack? Think of Antiga, Cloud Kingdom for example.. also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
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I have done a very similar build to this. I think it's not bad, but you really have to trade a lot. And it's not just siege tanks that break your back (Marines and marauders are both very costefficient against hydras and roaches, so you can't fight on even terms with Terran), it's simply abusing the fact, that Terrans don't scout and then attack into this build, while they simply should turtle against it.
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Hydralisks actually do REALLY good damage to Terran units
I never liked Hydras that much, because if you just put it down on numbers, they have a similar strength of 2 Marines, but don't have the Stimpacks and cost 50 Gas more AND their strength scale less with upgrades.
People are going mass bio these days with minimal or no siege tanks...Hydras are... viable then?
Why should Roach/Hydra win against Terran-Bio, when Roaches are not that good against Bio and Hydraliks cost too much for their strength? :D I want to be enlightend on this one ...
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On July 08 2012 19:02 UeberFuerst wrote:I never liked Hydras that much, because if you just put it down on numbers, they have a similar strength of 2 Marines, but don't have the Stimpacks and cost 50 Gas more AND their strength scale less with upgrades.
Don't forget they have more HP and are smaller (more dps in balls, faster formation), they are able to kite properly(no turn animation, shorter shoot animation), they are faster through stim (which adds to kiting) and they synergize better with other Terran units (due to more units being same range, same speed)
On July 08 2012 19:02 UeberFuerst wrote:Show nested quote +People are going mass bio these days with minimal or no siege tanks...Hydras are... viable then? Why should Roach/Hydra win against Terran-Bio, when Roaches are not that good against Bio and Hydraliks cost too much for their strength? :D I want to be enlightend on this one ...
because roaches are OK in the lownumbers, against marinebased bio and for as long as you have enough of a roach wall to protect your hydras, the hydras add a bit to this. Then add on top of that, that you have a little bit of mobility advantage over unstimmed bio (roaches, creep), so you can create positional advantages --> you can fight bio up to the the midnumbers. It's just that upgrades scale better for Terran, stim and shield add quite a bit to their efficiency, and if T just turtles up more bio, he will wipe the floor with roach/hydra.
It comes down to fighting it, for as long as the numbers aren't too big and it comes down to being able to clean up medivacs.
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as a lowbie player hydras have won me the game more times than i can count, maybe as a pro you have the macro/micro to just take them out and negate the power they bring to the table but in low leagues the dps is just brilliant. You have to be agressive however is what i find in my league as they are so slow you have to make a timing attack when their range and carapace are 3/4 done then they arive at base and cause considerable damage, if you get them behind roaches, its a great offesive push. all this can be done off 2 base as well!
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also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
Actually with the sick creep spread we see nowadays because of mass queens, it's not that bad, and this comp wrecks bio as I discovered some days ago :'(
Then the guy transitionned into infestor ultras, but I played super bad and he shouldnt ever had come to this point.
Hydras addition to your army mid game seems and interesting idea to me, as the hydra den builds super fast and you can kill all the medivacs with them, while investing less gas than for mutas.. It maybe could be used as a defensive army until you get to hive? I'm not sure if it's better than infestors, but I noticed that the mass medivac style negates fungals quite a bit, and maybe hydras would be better in this case..
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On July 08 2012 21:16 Nimix wrote:Show nested quote +also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p Actually with the sick creep spread we see nowadays because of mass queens, it's not that bad
What? You have creep at the Terran's door, so that when you lose a fight your hydras can retreat from stimmed marines? Because that's the problem, you're trying to use hydras to batter down terran's front early on (quoting the guide: "If you're not attacking Terran by the 12 minute mark, you're doing it wrong."), where you will not have creep. Just as in ZvP, when you attack with hydras, you risk losing your expensive little glass cannons should the battle go wrong, because no matter your creep spread, it will not be far enough to use to retreat your hydras. Unless it's entombed valley or something.
I feel like every zerg thinks they have a cute new approach to ZvT now, but it's always just them getting units when the Terran is trying to be super greedy, so it seems more effective than it actually is. Yes, the hydras do well when siege tanks are not out, but so does roach-bane, and roach bane ling, all-in or not, will eat them alive, while hydra roach will merely chew at them, in addition to being much more fragile an attack.
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I think the key here is banelings. Mid-High master Terran here.
Whenever I do face against roach/hydra, I win. With whatever units I choose to put out, I pretty much win.
However, if there are just a few banelings mixed in with the zerg army, then suddenly the match becomes much harder as I have to split against the imba kamikaze balls of deaths, while roach/hydra pick apart my non-balled up army.
Sure banelings will eat into hydra numbers, but I feel the tactical advantage they provide of forcing the terran to split more than makes up for it.
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On July 08 2012 18:02 DarKFoRcE wrote:
How will you get to tanks that are positioned on highgrounds when you attack? Think of Antiga, Cloud Kingdom for example.. also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p
Quite simply... you don't...
I have Antiga banned because it's probably the worst ladder map out there (no forced cross pos), but Cloud Kingdom isn't terrible considering my main goal is to deny the 3rd and keep trading armies.
Not attacking into well-positioned siege tanks is one of the most important things to avoid in the whole build.
Drops and good creep spread should give you enough mobility to attack elsewhere though.
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On July 08 2012 19:02 UeberFuerst wrote:I never liked Hydras that much, because if you just put it down on numbers, they have a similar strength of 2 Marines, but don't have the Stimpacks and cost 50 Gas more AND their strength scale less with upgrades. Show nested quote +People are going mass bio these days with minimal or no siege tanks...Hydras are... viable then? Why should Roach/Hydra win against Terran-Bio, when Roaches are not that good against Bio and Hydraliks cost too much for their strength? :D I want to be enlightend on this one ...
As was mentioned before, Roaches actually do well vs bio in small numbers. As the numbers grow, they tend to start getting slaughtered due to their low DPS, low range, and low speed. Oddly enough, having the 6 range hydras behind them somehow makes all these little things into non-issues. They have the range and the DPS, so your roaches just turn into this big wall of HP.
It's rather cute.
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On July 08 2012 21:16 Nimix wrote:Show nested quote +also attacking with an army that includes hydras seems highly questionable to me in general ;p Actually with the sick creep spread we see nowadays because of mass queens, it's not that bad, and this comp wrecks bio as I discovered some days ago :'( Then the guy transitionned into infestor ultras, but I played super bad and he shouldnt ever had come to this point. Hydras addition to your army mid game seems and interesting idea to me, as the hydra den builds super fast and you can kill all the medivacs with them, while investing less gas than for mutas.. It maybe could be used as a defensive army until you get to hive? I'm not sure if it's better than infestors, but I noticed that the mass medivac style negates fungals quite a bit, and maybe hydras would be better in this case..
I kinda sorta do this if the Terran doesn't leave me an opening.
After I get 2/2 for my Roach/Hydra, I get my 4th, +1 melee, and an infestation pit.
Start focusing on upgrades for your lings, get some ultras and banes, and eventually brood lords, and you can quite easily transition into a very standard late-game.
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If the terran has a tank contain you could research burrow and burrow movement for roaches and then burrow close to them, unburrow and then bring in your hydras, I love this idea of roach hydra against Terran, hydras are so underused, same with burrowed roaches. Burrowed roaches win me 90% of my vTs when they go mech
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On July 08 2012 17:39 Glurkenspurk wrote:
So this build relies almost entirely on your opponent not scouting you and going heavier into tanks when he sees your army? The only reason terrans go heavy bio now is because they see ling/infestor.
Actually, how the Terran reacts doesn't really matter if you handle your early engagements well.
Once you get a lead in army size, you're trading roaches for his whole army. If he goes into siege tanks just enough to be useless, that's great. But if he sticks with pure MMM, that's great too. The worst case scenario is if he goes into mass siege tanks turtle mode. Then you have no offense, and he can secure his 3rd np, ruining the whole point of the build. That's when you take it to late game.
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Roach hydra is a very strong army composition early on when terrens marine upgrades are low and there army isn't too large or contains to many siege tanks,
If you opt for the roach hydra you can effectively prevent the terren from doing any sort of 2 base push and if they do happen to skip on tanks you can break into there base but its really not worth it attacking off creep better to just play defensive
I would suggest getting more lings than roaches to go with the army comp allowing you to save gas to get infestors take a 4th and tech up.
You can attack into siege tank positions you need to just split the army up so roaches only get hit in small numbers, always bring an overseer as well as this allows you to snipe tanks that sit on the high ground
The army drastically drops in strength though once terren gets 2/2 and starts to include more medivacs. I would put the main purpose of building this type of army is to force the terren to stay in his base longer and have to get more tanks giving you more time to get to brood lords, you can also use the hydras to snipe medivacs and eventually drop that roach hydra ball into there main and its a really difficult army to clean up they have to send a lot of units to deal with it.
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EPT
