|
On March 08 2011 20:54 Worm Shoes wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2011 20:43 Mercury- wrote:On March 08 2011 17:01 Worm Shoes wrote: Hydras should be changed to an Armoured Unit to stop siege squish and colossi smash...
and maybe make the roach a light unit but increase the health and spawn with +X armour like in beta :D Making them armored would make them take more dmg from tanks and not change them vs colos. Are you stupid? yes very, But what i meant by that is that siege target roaches first in a battle so they can soak up the damage...and making hydra's armoured will give them a +1armour anyway which will effectively take less damage from a colossi no? Hence the suggestion switch between light and armoured for roach and hydra
Umm you can target the hydras Who just lets their Tanks fire at what ever crap.
|
On March 08 2011 22:39 Turbo.Tactics wrote: I don't think the Hydra is underused or will be useless after 1.3 goes through. I don't see him dead, only misused by certain players.
In ZvZ the Hydra/Roach play is the safest way to play and will be in the future. When Fungal becomes a projectile, Mutas will be reinvented in ZvZ so Hydras will still have pretty much the same role.
In ZvT Hydras are rarely seen due to Siegetanks but a Lategame Army can consist of roach Hydra Infestor or Broodlord Hydra. Also Hydras are one option to deal with these pesky Banshee Marauder or Hellion Marauder playstyles.
In ZvP the Hydralisk is one of the most important units in my opinion. I'm not a fan of Hydrapushes but the hydra fills the role of dps perfectly. Everything except vast numbers of Collossi or Voidrays can be shut down with hydras and again lategame Broodlord/Hydra is prolly the best unitcomposition toi have.
Hydras like roaches take 3 shots to die from Siege. The issue is not how much they take to die but whether they can reach the Tanks and how cost effectivly versus Terran.
|
On March 08 2011 22:37 Rabiator wrote: Dont you think that it is better to burrow your Hydras and Drones instead of having them lifted off by Phoenixes? That way you can actually get a sufficient number of Hydras to take down the Phoenixes instead of losing them in twos and threes ...
Oooh, that's a really nice trick. I'm always very hesitant to make hydras against phoenixes because until you outnumber the phoenixes 2-1, they just get picked up and slaughtered. Keeping them burrowed until you have enough is just brilliant.
With regards to the topic I do feel that the hydra needs some attention. The core problem, as stated by the OP, is that it is not filling any role, or that its role may not yet be defined. Very many people use it in a roach/hydra ball, but it doesn't have enough speed to keep up with the roaches, and it doesn't have enough speed to make flanks or retreat or storm dodging or anything really. What if you consider the hydra a on-creep only unit? I believe I've heard some pros (can't remember which one) saying something along these lines during the beta. What you can do is try and make an overlord creep highway whenever you need to attack the front, or even better, give them some speed boosting by overlords or nydus worms. Note that both overlord drops and nydus worms generate creep in its immediate vicinity making it possible to do storm-dodging or otherwise micro your hydras. If you throw up a nydus worm just as you start your attack (in the case that you're doing a frontal bust), then you also get both creep and an escape route for your hydras. I also think that hydras perform very well in small skirmishes, but terrible in large 200/200 clashes, mainly because of the amount of splash damage that often is the case in large battles.
In short, I believe that one should look for other ways of using the hydra than the traditional roach/hydra ball. If they are lacking speed, then give them speed by overlords, nydus worms and/or creep. Once people start using nydus worms more often, perhaps the hydra will finally have found its role.
|
its role is to deal damage obviously. it is a cheap unit with sick dps.
hydras are by far the Unit with most potential in PvZ if played well.
|
Another thing to note is that maps are getting bigger, and so creep will take more time to get to the central battlefield/enemy's base. It makes the hydra even more a defensive unit than an offensive one. As previously stated, the slow movement speed and low hp make the hydra's role too much restricted.
|
On March 08 2011 22:57 Bergys wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2011 22:41 frucisky wrote:On March 08 2011 22:37 Rabiator wrote:On March 08 2011 22:14 Jermstuddog wrote:On March 08 2011 21:59 Rabiator wrote: Personally I think that too few Zerg actually get the burrow upgrade, which could save a few Hydras from dying with good micro, but which would force an opponent into spending resources to kill them. Sure the Hydras arent as tough as Roaches and dont have their burrowed movement or regenerative skills, but that makes burrow even more important to keep your investment alive.
The Hydra has awesome dps, but only very few Zerg ever bother with any drop play. Suuure the old "oh its so expensive to research" argument will be thrown at me, but Zerg has the fastest growing economy past the early game and resources should not matter that much. Its not like your opponents arent researching useful stuff. Drops are powerful and underused by Zerg players. Change that before whining about how useless your units are. Play Zerg, research burrow, tell me how useful it is for your hydras... Dont you think that it is better to burrow your Hydras and Drones instead of having them lifted off by Phoenixes? That way you can actually get a sufficient number of Hydras to take down the Phoenixes instead of losing them in twos and threes ... And what do you expect Hydras to do underground? Take a siesta and regen health while the rest of the army dies? Burrowing drones of course is awesome against all forms of harass but you just don't have the gas to get burrow that fast. Gas is very important for a lot of lair tech upgrades like roach speed and hydra range. I guess what he means is that you can do some pretty nice burrow-micro. You only need to save 1 hydra to be nearly cost-effecient. You dont need to burrow all of your hydras, just burrow one of them and it wont die unless your enemy has detection. I dont agree with you not having the gas. Most good zerg players go roaches with burrow immediately after lair vs protoss to defend against 5-gate/6-gate attacks.
There is a significant delay when unburrowing hydras and ultralisks. It is significant enough to make burrow-surprise amazingly ineffective with hydras. It's just too much lost DPS. Burrow-micro might save the hydralisks, but it doesn't do much else. And when you're dealing with harassment, you actually want to like... do something.
Besides, Queens are fantastic AA and also work well with burrow and cost no gas or larva.
|
On March 08 2011 22:39 Turbo.Tactics wrote: I don't think the Hydra is underused or will be useless after 1.3 goes through. I don't see him dead, only misused by certain players.
In ZvZ the Hydra/Roach play is the safest way to play and will be in the future. When Fungal becomes a projectile, Mutas will be reinvented in ZvZ so Hydras will still have pretty much the same role.
In ZvT Hydras are rarely seen due to Siegetanks but a Lategame Army can consist of roach Hydra Infestor or Broodlord Hydra. Also Hydras are one option to deal with these pesky Banshee Marauder or Hellion Marauder playstyles.
In ZvP the Hydralisk is one of the most important units in my opinion. I'm not a fan of Hydrapushes but the hydra fills the role of dps perfectly. Everything except vast numbers of Collossi or Voidrays can be shut down with hydras and again lategame Broodlord/Hydra is prolly the best unitcomposition toi have.
Such a lack of understanding...
Hydras already take a backseat to infestors in ZvZ in CURRENT play, when infestors do 30% more damage to roaches, hydras will be even further behind.
Hydras are utterly useless in ZvT not just because of siege tanks, but due to the fact that you don't really gain anything from massing them. They lose to Marines, Hellions, and Thors while breaking even with Banshees and Marauders. Oddly enough, the only one of those units I mentioned that hydras are FASTER than is the Thor...
as far as ZvP, Hydras are almost usable. You can get away with a hydra/ling push early game and you can reinforce your army with hydras after you've cleared all the colossi from the death-ball if you're in the right situation, but the fact still remains that going hydra at all is a huge risk and the stars need to align perfectly or you just cost yourself the game, going roach is ALWAYS safer, the one exception to this being phoenix play, where hydras aren't necessarily good, but its our only option.
The worst part about all of this is non-Zerg players think its ok that the hydralisk is garbage. Try making the Marine or Stalker garbage and see where T and P end up, they'd probably be right around where Z is right now...
|
State of hydras make me say "Is there even such a unit in SC2? I've never seen 'em since BW.". Hydras were equally fragile in BW but at least their cost was better and they were equally mobile off creep, which made them viable there. Other than that, they were still weak against zealots-templars-archons-marine&medic-firebats-tanks-all that good jazz. But, they were good against protoss ranged units and they formed lurkers. That was what made them viable in zvp.
|
yes, completely. as i random player i would feel a lot easier when i see my zerg opponent start massing hydras
|
On March 08 2011 23:22 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2011 22:39 Turbo.Tactics wrote: I don't think the Hydra is underused or will be useless after 1.3 goes through. I don't see him dead, only misused by certain players.
In ZvZ the Hydra/Roach play is the safest way to play and will be in the future. When Fungal becomes a projectile, Mutas will be reinvented in ZvZ so Hydras will still have pretty much the same role.
In ZvT Hydras are rarely seen due to Siegetanks but a Lategame Army can consist of roach Hydra Infestor or Broodlord Hydra. Also Hydras are one option to deal with these pesky Banshee Marauder or Hellion Marauder playstyles.
In ZvP the Hydralisk is one of the most important units in my opinion. I'm not a fan of Hydrapushes but the hydra fills the role of dps perfectly. Everything except vast numbers of Collossi or Voidrays can be shut down with hydras and again lategame Broodlord/Hydra is prolly the best unitcomposition toi have.
Such a lack of understanding... Hydras already take a backseat to infestors in ZvZ in CURRENT play, when infestors do 30% more damage to roaches, hydras will be even further behind. Hydras are utterly useless in ZvT not just because of siege tanks, but due to the fact that you don't really gain anything from massing them. They lose to Marines, Hellions, and Thors while breaking even with Banshees and Marauders. Oddly enough, the only one of those units I mentioned that hydras are FASTER than is the Thor... as far as ZvP, Hydras are almost usable. You can get away with a hydra/ling push early game and you can reinforce your army with hydras after you've cleared all the colossi from the death-ball if you're in the right situation, but the fact still remains that going hydra at all is a huge risk and the stars need to align perfectly or you just cost yourself the game, going roach is ALWAYS safer, the one exception to this being phoenix play, where hydras aren't necessarily good, but its our only option. The worst part about all of this is non-Zerg players think its ok that the hydralisk is garbage. Try making the Marine or Stalker garbage and see where T and P end up, they'd probably be right around where Z is right now...
I can only argue regarding my own observations. Calling it lack of insight might be an egoboost for you but instead of degrading my post, try to cut the crap and stop posting as if every word out of your mouth/keyboard is a dogma.
Every ZvZ I played vs Roach Infestor with Roach/Hydra I won decidingly. Ideally you want 'em both anyways... As for 1.3 I already explained that my theory is that Mutaplays will be more viable with fungal beeing a missle. Therefore Hydralisk can become more viable as dps and defense unit against the more popular Mutaplays. One can even argue that pure Hydra or Hydra Infestor may become the best combo because they take the same dmg from fungal (in shorter time though) and can deal with pure roach or roach/infestor playstyles. That is what we call theorycrafting not lack of insight.
Hydras are not useless in ZvTas far as I am concerned. Again I can only take my own observations into account. Only Problem is that Ling/bling/Muta and Ling Infestor into Ultra are so popular that they overshadow the use of hydras. Against Thor/Banshee playstyles Hydra/infestor or Roach/Hydra is your best option imo.
ZvP I don't see going Hydras as a risk but an opportunity for huge pressure as well as a nice defense. You will have to transition into Corrupters but as long as no Collossi are on the field, Hydras are King. It's a reactive play not a risky alllin as long as you don't play it that way. Also the Hydralisk will benefit from the amulet removal since psystorm is prolly the most effective spell against hydras.
|
I'm not suggesting that this would fix the problem entirely but it might be a start. What if Hydras did bonus damage to bio? I haven't done the math but I'm assuming that two marines with stim > one hydra. Considering that hydras are tier two units and cost an extra 50 gas this doesn't seem right. With a bonus against bio hydras would have an even higher dps against certain units but they would still have the same weaknesses that they already have, meaning that they would be more viable in certain situations and more important to counter. They would definitely be more viable in ZvZ all round and against terran with marine marauders. Though PvZ would not be affected too much, but in PvZ in order to beat hydras you really do need colossi or high templar in order to beat hydras effectively (or just a generally larger army with chargelots).
So yeah let me know what you think.
Also, sorry if anyone has already suggested this as I have not ready through all 15 pages this is just the first possibility that came to mind.
|
On March 08 2011 23:57 Turbo.Tactics wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2011 23:22 Jermstuddog wrote:On March 08 2011 22:39 Turbo.Tactics wrote: I don't think the Hydra is underused or will be useless after 1.3 goes through. I don't see him dead, only misused by certain players.
In ZvZ the Hydra/Roach play is the safest way to play and will be in the future. When Fungal becomes a projectile, Mutas will be reinvented in ZvZ so Hydras will still have pretty much the same role.
In ZvT Hydras are rarely seen due to Siegetanks but a Lategame Army can consist of roach Hydra Infestor or Broodlord Hydra. Also Hydras are one option to deal with these pesky Banshee Marauder or Hellion Marauder playstyles.
In ZvP the Hydralisk is one of the most important units in my opinion. I'm not a fan of Hydrapushes but the hydra fills the role of dps perfectly. Everything except vast numbers of Collossi or Voidrays can be shut down with hydras and again lategame Broodlord/Hydra is prolly the best unitcomposition toi have.
Such a lack of understanding... Hydras already take a backseat to infestors in ZvZ in CURRENT play, when infestors do 30% more damage to roaches, hydras will be even further behind. Hydras are utterly useless in ZvT not just because of siege tanks, but due to the fact that you don't really gain anything from massing them. They lose to Marines, Hellions, and Thors while breaking even with Banshees and Marauders. Oddly enough, the only one of those units I mentioned that hydras are FASTER than is the Thor... as far as ZvP, Hydras are almost usable. You can get away with a hydra/ling push early game and you can reinforce your army with hydras after you've cleared all the colossi from the death-ball if you're in the right situation, but the fact still remains that going hydra at all is a huge risk and the stars need to align perfectly or you just cost yourself the game, going roach is ALWAYS safer, the one exception to this being phoenix play, where hydras aren't necessarily good, but its our only option. The worst part about all of this is non-Zerg players think its ok that the hydralisk is garbage. Try making the Marine or Stalker garbage and see where T and P end up, they'd probably be right around where Z is right now... You will have to transition into Corrupters but as long as no Collossi are on the field, Hydras are King.
King? Man they are just decent and nothing more. I think you didn't see really good forcefield or phoenix usage.
Btw if toss is aiming for collosi, then collosi will be on the field few minutes after hydra is on the field.
|
The hydra definatly needs a change. It doesn't have to be better, but it just needs a change.
Currently the only place where we see hydra's is ZvZ towards the mid/lategame, and then in ZvP against very certain builds, but even then most people probably feel like if they go hydra in ZvP they are screwed in the long term because that protoss most likely wanted to force you to go hydra for his switch to colossi/HT.
And zerg already has the least amount of units and unit compositions it can go for, the hydra just not being usable is another thing on top of that.
The hydra also isn't like some random unit they added for zerg in sc2, together with the zergling (and the muta to a certain extent) it's one of those very iconic units for zerg.
Problems: - Very slow off creep, and can't keep up with the rest of your units, if you ever want to be agressive with them you need a very long creep highway wich is easily countered at higher levels, then keep in mind that in general maps are getting better, and people are getting better at sniping creep tumors all over the place, and in the end the hydra is almost purely defensive
-Low HP to counteract it's high dmg, but the dmg has it's problems, the missile animation being inferior, the range not being able to actually reach the splash units that counter it, especially not with roaches tanking
-High cost and 2 food
-Lair-tech, wich means by the time you can start massing up some hydra's the other person already is getting the counters out
There are many solutions to it, from changing it's place in the tech-tree, to altering it's speed/upgrades, and changing it's stats and cost, all together to give it a new role and spot in the techtree where it can maybe become a staple unit, or atleast something better then it's current state.
Anyway, I don't expect them to change the hydra untill HoTs, since this would be a really big change to make them "viable" again as part of a army composition troughout the game
And they also have to make sure that the hydra doesnt become a roach with -1 armor and longer range.
|
Hydra is fine, its the Roach rangebuff that made the Hydra less needed.
|
a maxed hydra army in bw consisted of like 130 hydras, in sc2 is only about 35-40.. considering z gets about 70-100 drones in sc2 thats the real difference that makes hydras so useless now, if u recall hydras were good vrs protoss gateway units in bw but also weak vrs storm, the only thing that made them useable was the massive number and mutas to snipe templars t.t
|
On March 09 2011 00:26 sLiMpoweR wrote: a maxed hydra army in bw consisted of like 130 hydras, in sc2 is only about 35-40.. considering z gets about 70-100 drones in sc2 thats the real difference that makes hydras so useless now, if u recall hydras were good vrs protoss gateway units in bw but also weak vrs storm, the only thing that made them useable was the massive number and mutas to snipe templars t.t
130 Hydras can be chewed up and spit out just easily as 35-40 when there are Colossi on the field.
|
On March 08 2011 23:08 Genesis128 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2011 22:37 Rabiator wrote: Dont you think that it is better to burrow your Hydras and Drones instead of having them lifted off by Phoenixes? That way you can actually get a sufficient number of Hydras to take down the Phoenixes instead of losing them in twos and threes ... Oooh, that's a really nice trick. I'm always very hesitant to make hydras against phoenixes because until you outnumber the phoenixes 2-1, they just get picked up and slaughtered. Keeping them burrowed until you have enough is just brilliant. The same trick applies to your Queens if you know you dont have enough of them to kill the Phoenixes ... just lose one Queen at a hatchery and burrow the other one. Drones are easier to replace than Queens and Phoenixes eventually run out of energy. Just unburrow the Queen for Spawn Larva and then reburrow. In the case of Banshee harrass burrow can be used to force a scan and slow down the Terran economy ...
|
On March 09 2011 00:26 sLiMpoweR wrote: a maxed hydra army in bw consisted of like 130 hydras, in sc2 is only about 35-40.. considering z gets about 70-100 drones in sc2 thats the real difference that makes hydras so useless now, if u recall hydras were good vrs protoss gateway units in bw but also weak vrs storm, the only thing that made them useable was the massive number and mutas to snipe templars t.t
thats the point - they were cheap, massable and weak. that is zerg in a nutshell. the new hydra does not fit that description at all, it seems more like a protoss unit (with terran hp)
|
If they would cost 125 mins and 25 gaz I'd make them. If they had a speed upgrade I'd make them.
Right now they're a situational unit.
The heavy gaz investment they require is too much. At 25 gaz, I wouldn't care if they got demolished by Colossi. If they had more speed and could be saved from a losing battle to die another day, they would be fine. I wouldn't have to cross my fingers every time they venture off creep.
|
On March 09 2011 00:32 holycrapitsTony wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 00:26 sLiMpoweR wrote: a maxed hydra army in bw consisted of like 130 hydras, in sc2 is only about 35-40.. considering z gets about 70-100 drones in sc2 thats the real difference that makes hydras so useless now, if u recall hydras were good vrs protoss gateway units in bw but also weak vrs storm, the only thing that made them useable was the massive number and mutas to snipe templars t.t 130 Hydras can be chewed up and spit out just easily as 35-40 when there are Colossi on the field.
thats just not true. with 130 hydras u can easily hit from 3 or even 4 sides makin the colossus much less effective.
|
|
|
|