On March 09 2011 13:45 cHaNg-sTa wrote: It really just makes absolutely no sense to what they did to the Hydralisk the more you look at it. Almost everything in this game got some sort of damage boost and health boost. Yet..
Granted, it's not completely right to compare the two units, but still by just looking at it, SC2's hydra cost more, uses more supply, available later in the game, and doesn't have a speed upgrade option (not to mention same HP). Granted, their DPS is a bit better, but it doesn't even matter when so many core units just evaporate hydras. Even though SC1 hydra did half damage to small units, they still had the speed to allow them to retreat and to adjust later. So the DPS reduction wasn't a huge deal. Now you basically have to commit to early attacks since it's near impossible to retreat with hydras.
What game are you talking about here? Because it isn't SC2. Most units do less damage than their BW counterparts, marines do less dps, zerglings do less dps, stalkers do less dps than dragoons, tanks do half damage and cost more gas and supply. The list goes on. "Almost everything in this game got some sort of damage boost and health boost" is a completely false statement. The Hydra is one of the few units that actually did get a significant boost.
SC2 hydras are faster, do more dps (as much as 3x to small/light units) and have more range than their BW version. That is a pretty considerable buff. Note that I said FASTER. Hydras on creep are faster than BW hydras with the speed upgrade.
Then you have the roach as the lair tech replacement unit that is better in every single way to the BW hydra except it can't shoot air. Why would anyone ever make hydras if they had BW stats when you can make a roach with almost double the hp, armour, is faster, regenerates hp faster and can move while burrowed when upgraded? The only time is when you need a dedicated ground unit with anti-air, which the SC2 hydra is better at in every way to it's BW counterpart.
I have been saying this even when I was playing beta. Id much rather see a lower tier, lower cost (food and mineral), faster (with upgrade), and less damage hydra. Mobility is huge and when they are such a huge investment its hard to mass / resupply. I also like having the option of having some mobile AA while still on hatch tech. Terran have marines and toss don't expand early so can spend some extra minerals on tech to stalker.
Hydras will fall out of use because for gas, infest/muta/banes/roachs are typically a better gas investment. Really don't see a need for them except to perhaps defend some early gate tech, but id rather just roach/ling it any way.
On March 09 2011 13:45 cHaNg-sTa wrote: It really just makes absolutely no sense to what they did to the Hydralisk the more you look at it. Almost everything in this game got some sort of damage boost and health boost. Yet..
Granted, it's not completely right to compare the two units, but still by just looking at it, SC2's hydra cost more, uses more supply, available later in the game, and doesn't have a speed upgrade option (not to mention same HP). Granted, their DPS is a bit better, but it doesn't even matter when so many core units just evaporate hydras. Even though SC1 hydra did half damage to small units, they still had the speed to allow them to retreat and to adjust later. So the DPS reduction wasn't a huge deal. Now you basically have to commit to early attacks since it's near impossible to retreat with hydras.
What game are you talking about here? Because it isn't SC2. Most units do less damage than their BW counterparts, marines do less dps, zerglings do less dps, stalkers do less dps than dragoons, tanks do half damage and cost more gas and supply. The list goes on. "Almost everything in this game got some sort of damage boost and health boost" is a completely false statement. The Hydra is one of the few units that actually did get a significant boost.
SC2 hydras are faster, do more dps (as much as 3x to small/light units) and have more range than their BW version. That is a pretty considerable buff. Note that I said FASTER. Hydras on creep are faster than BW hydras with the speed upgrade.
Then you have the roach as the lair tech replacement unit that is better in every single way to the BW hydra except it can't shoot air. Why would anyone ever make hydras if they had BW stats when you can make a roach with almost double the hp, armour, is faster, regenerates hp faster and can move while burrowed when upgraded? The only time is when you need a dedicated ground unit with anti-air, which the SC2 hydra is better at in every way to it's BW counterpart.
I'm fairly certain marines/zealots got a dps buff from bw, not to mention new units such as marauders, banshee which out dps all terran bw units, thors/immortals which outdpsed EVERY UNIT in bw, turrets which got a huuuuuuuge dps increase. And that's only the terran units - the point is in sc2 all damages are inflated, so the hydra's dps increase isn't even that significant.
I was recently thinking about why hydras are so weak and ways to improve them, and it got me thinking about how lings work, 6 slow lings vs 6 speedlings, the speed ones will win every time. So I was thinking how this would affect a ranged unit, obviously the speed will help give an advantage, being able to surround quicker is huge but i didn't think it would be so imbalanced. (not the game but speed vs non speed)
As you can see in small numbers the Hydra speed has very little effect, but in larger numbers the effect is so huge it almost doesn't seem fair. Now obviously a fast unit doesn't mean good and slow mean bad, but speed is a massive factor for how effect big armies are.
So decide for yourself should hydra get a speed boost? Should they get a DPS buff? Should they stay the same? What do you think of hydras in their current sta
there is a good point that speed allows units to get in position for that concave better/faster which is pretty huge, but your video doesnt really fairly demonstrate it. the hydras off of creep were never told to attack/attack-move/move, which isnt fair as the hydras on creep all were moved first into decent position then told to attack (at like 0:53) while the other hydras were just sitting there, some not even responding at all for a little bit.
One of my main problems with the unit itself, putting aside its strength/balance.. is just the overall design. If you're going to give an attack unit zero abilities/features, you should design the unit so there is some room for good control to improve the use of it, as well as the unit role itself should make some sense and fit with the game. But if you look at all of its stats, the slow move really limits possibilities for micro, but this in of itself is not a problem..look back at BW where some of the best unit designs came from immobile units that really enhanced gameplay and map features/control, like the lurker, siege tank, reaver (though obviously those are extremely immobile). but the frailty of the hydra, combined with a very fast attack plus bad animation/lack of instant missile (marines can be move-microed very well cus of their good attack animation/instant missile) also really limits the potential for good micro/hydra dancing. i dunno it's annoying and not fun to try to micro hydras effectively compared to most units in the game, tho there of course is a bit of improvement you can add by adding some control over just a-moving.
On March 09 2011 15:52 Zelniq wrote: there is a good point that speed allows units to get in position for that concave better/faster which is pretty huge, but your video doesnt really fairly demonstrate it. the hydras off of creep were never told to attack/attack-move/move, which isnt fair as the hydras on creep all were moved first into decent position then told to attack (at like 0:53) while the other hydras were just sitting there, some not even responding at all for a little bit.
I agree but I couldn't figure out how to control both sides in the map editor
The switch from hydras into a t2 unit (coming from a BW zerg) was completely baffling.
I disliked the roach as a unit (keep in mind this was the 1 food 2 armor stupid health regen beta roach) so much that I went terran.
I think the hydra needs to be worked back into a T1.5 unit and the roach switched to t2 (with obvious rebalancing) and the hydra needs a slow, 150/150 lair tech speed upgrade. Even as a terran player, I think zerg deserve that. I'm getting really sick of ling/bling/muta or roach/bling or roach/infestor. They just seem so uninspired as a gameplay mechanic, much like the protoss death ball. The roach was an interesting unit in beta. Now it's just a retarded version of a marauder.
As it is (since we'll never see the above happen) I think the hydra is just underappreciated. Sky terran/sky protoss builds haven't been thoroughly explored, and the hydra is the hard counter to both of those things. Right now, I'm not in favor of changing anything that doesn't blatantly break the game (the rax before depot change and reaper speed after factory still pisses me off, despite that I NEVER did either of them) because we simply don't know enough about the metagame to make these kinds of arguments. But gamers whine more loudly than any other force on the planet, so there's not much I can do about that.
I think hydra should get a skill called stimulation where they use it and they lose a bit of hp but they move and attack alot faster. Also to increase synergy I think the Overseer should get a variation of the Queen's Infusion where it constantly heals only a little bit of hp using its energy by shooting down overseer vomit (instead of overlord vomit) on a unit.
IMO, two things need to change for Hydra to be viable again.
1) Give them a speed upgrade (150/150), hell even replace the range upgrade if needed 2) Weaken their regular attack, but add +armored damage
Currently Z have strong anti-light units (baneling) and strong tanking units (roach), but NO anti-armored specialized units (before Tier3). Hydras could perhaps fill the role of flanking a stalker ball or sniping off tanks if only they moved faster and had +damage against them, or even be more worthwhile for drops.
I think they'll continue to have a role in ZvP. Roach/Hydra/Corruptor is a very powerful unit composition. If anything, I think a +1 range buff to Corruptors is the only help Hydras need; this would make corrs better at shutting down Colossus play, and Hydras are great anytime Protoss doesn't have a big Colossus count.
On March 09 2011 16:19 Honeybadger wrote: The switch from hydras into a t2 unit (coming from a BW zerg) was completely baffling.
I disliked the roach as a unit (keep in mind this was the 1 food 2 armor stupid health regen beta roach) so much that I went terran.
I think the hydra needs to be worked back into a T1.5 unit and the roach switched to t2 (with obvious rebalancing) and the hydra needs a slow, 150/150 lair tech speed upgrade. Even as a terran player, I think zerg deserve that. I'm getting really sick of ling/bling/muta or roach/bling or roach/infestor. They just seem so uninspired as a gameplay mechanic, much like the protoss death ball. The roach was an interesting unit in beta. Now it's just a retarded version of a marauder.
As it is (since we'll never see the above happen) I think the hydra is just underappreciated. Sky terran/sky protoss builds haven't been thoroughly explored, and the hydra is the hard counter to both of those things. Right now, I'm not in favor of changing anything that doesn't blatantly break the game (the rax before depot change and reaper speed after factory still pisses me off, despite that I NEVER did either of them) because we simply don't know enough about the metagame to make these kinds of arguments. But gamers whine more loudly than any other force on the planet, so there's not much I can do about that.
unfortunately blizzard has a problem with listening to the wrong whiners.
i remember back in the 5 rax reaper days i posted somewhere that all blizzard needed to do was increase the range of the roach.... but no they completely removed reaper speed (effectively) and THEN increased roach range....
and unfortunately i fear that in the case of the hydra. they will listen to the wrong whiners and then tip the scale of the hydra so far in the other way that it becomes obsolete, but in a different way.
but knowing blizzard from past patches. they are more likely to just nerf or remove stuff instead of buffing it or changing it....
but then again with the new infestor idea, they turned the infestor a unit that controls space through stun (lack of a better word) into a dps caster..... leaving us with only one unit for controling space the muta.
but nothing will ever reach as low as the supply barracks change.
seems like blizzard just doesnt know what to do with the game right now. the changes to some units and the lack of changes to some units are just baffling.
back on topic though. the hydra as i have posted in the thread earlier. just doesnt fit zerg. only time they are built is for fancy offtiming attacks, wierd all ins, funky stuff and the such.
the hydra for zerg is like the reaper atm for terran. gimmicky and there is always a better unit to replace it
I have been finding the Hydra a little more useless as people have been figuring out how to stop it. This is quite unfortunate because the Hydralisk was a great unit in concept. High range, aerial and ground attack with high ROF. It worked well. A group of hydras can down almost ANY air based unit with ease in appropriate scale, and suffer minimal loss. They are also very good against a Colossus IF there's something to tank the damage, and hoping the Protoss is doing a 1a attack pattern. In any event, I noticed more wins with less hydra, replacing Hydralisks for Mustalisks in many cases seemed to perform the task to my desire. If they cost 100 gas a piece, it would be a little more viable a solution. Right now, Baneling landmine on Protoss helps a lot versus colossi. Against a Terran player who's using Vikings, I still find Hydralisk a viable unit, but not in the same volume as I used to. Hydra's are nice, but they're weak. They have great DPS, and could stand a small upgrade in the health or defence department. At +3 armour to ground level units, they become a little more useful, but ideally you don't want a match played as Zerg to go on that long anyway, it's just setting yourself up for a VERY difficult win, or a very simple loss.
unfortunately blizzard has a problem with listening to the wrong whiners.
i remember back in the 5 rax reaper days i posted somewhere that all blizzard needed to do was increase the range of the roach.... but no they completely removed reaper speed (effectively) and THEN increased roach range....
and unfortunately i fear that in the case of the hydra. they will listen to the wrong whiners and then tip the scale of the hydra so far in the other way that it becomes obsolete, but in a different way.
but knowing blizzard from past patches. they are more likely to just nerf or remove stuff instead of buffing it or changing it....
but then again with the new infestor idea, they turned the infestor a unit that controls space through stun (lack of a better word) into a dps caster..... leaving us with only one unit for controling space the muta.
but nothing will ever reach as low as the supply barracks change.
seems like blizzard just doesnt know what to do with the game right now. the changes to some units and the lack of changes to some units are just baffling.
back on topic though. the hydra as i have posted in the thread earlier. just doesnt fit zerg. only time they are built is for fancy offtiming attacks, wierd all ins, funky stuff and the such.
the hydra for zerg is like the reaper atm for terran. gimmicky and there is always a better unit to replace it
Agreed. Squeakiest wheels get the kick. I remember when Tseric (a WoW forum admin) went insane and quit his job because of all the insane nerdrage directed at him from shamans.
Funnily enough, The reaper is so unexpected in tvz that I actually still win games with the odd rushed factory 4RR speed. zergs that don't expect 12 reapers in their main can suddenly be having a very, very bad day. It's so gimmicky that it can win games because of how retarded it is as a standard opener. Which makes me sad. I LOVED the reaper. But I'm not giving up on it (like I don't think zergs should give up on hydras) and am working in reaper timings in mid/lategame to build a quick deathball that hunts expos. 5 3/3 reapers wrecks a mineral line so fast it isn't even funny.
As it is, the hydra is still the king of ground based anti-air next to the marine.
And I really hope the hydra starts to take some prevalence in the whole "build 41 mutalisks, win game" notion. My one major squeak is that hunter seeker missile, our primary muta counter in beta, is completely useless in that role. when 30 mutas are rolling around your bases, one thor, two turrets and six marines in each mineral line just can't do it. Right now I'm somewhat pidgeonholed into hardcore mech (thor/hellion) vs zerg, and the hydra is the only thing that gives zerg a chance of defending.
i get the feeling that hydras are taking on the same role as the carrier is in SC2 its a great unit but doesn't have its place in the race right now. horrible comparison i know but god knows i'll support any hydra support thread such a cool unit that doesn't have a place in the game right now
id really like to see something done with the unit, its so hard countered by colossi yet so useful in zvp right now it makes it a very stressful matchup for me. The unit obviously should be shit to the colossi but not to the extent as it is, id like to see something done with either the colossi or the hydra.
I have a small theory, and it comes from the business perspective of Blizzard: They hear the community, but they have their hands tied.
They're expected to come out with this huge 'zerg-centric' expansion, so they need content; they need something big so their consumers have a reason to buy their product. (because, let's face it: Their story-line's not going to be bringing in any fresh new faces above the age of 12)
They have a plan and a general mindset to re-balance and re-design the zerg race and playstyle, but they can't release it. Assuming they did release this big zerg re-design, what does that leave them as far as content for the expansion? From a business perspective, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot.
So... that's all hypothetical, but something to think about. Even if Blizzard plans to make these changes proposed in this thread, they probably won't be too inclined to, and may have to wait til the next expansion to take any serious action.
As it stands now, the game works; the mechanics and playstyles are being figured out, so the game's starting to stagnate a little, but I feel that myself, and the rest of the zerg community have a lot to look forward to with the next coming expansion.
My main objection is how slow hydras are off creep. I don't even mind so much how little hp they have I just want them to be viable units to attack with on the larger four player maps.
I still use them for my ZvP but agree they are crappy in ZvT and ZvZ. I like to get an early expansion up with two queens, start my lair then at around 36 I crank out a lot of speedlings. I use those to slow down warp gates or on maps with rocks use them to take those out. After my lair is done I get my hydra den ASAP, and if I have enough drones I build evolution chambers (for upgrades obviously, 2 or most of the time 3) and my 3rd and 4th gas. I get some hydras out and take my third unless I'm under pressure. Once my third is up I usually start my spire to make mutalisks to snipe the colossus.
Many games I run into the issue of not pressuring the protoss once I have a large enough hydra force. They are way to slow off creep to attack head on especially once colossus are out. I find myself relying on drops and zergling/mutaslisk harass, but find drops very difficult to perform.
If all works out I'm applying harassment to all sides of the protoss base while they are on two bases still. I have trouble with 4 warpgates at times, but I think that is mainly when I don't get my lair or hydra den up when i should. Most of my losses from this build are when I get too passive with my hydras due to how slow they are without creep. I think maybe the best thing I could do is try more nydus or get a queen & overlord dedicated to just spreading creep.
The key use of hydras I found is for a stepping stone to get your third base up really fast. A bunch of 10+ hydras can destroy some huge pushes until Colossus start showing up. Plus you should have some speedlings around to counter attack the Protoss mineral line. I hope that helps you feel a little better about the hydra.
On March 09 2011 16:31 teamsolid wrote: IMO, two things need to change for Hydra to be viable again.
1) Give them a speed upgrade (150/150), hell even replace the range upgrade if needed
In honesty I don't think actually giving the unit a speed upgrade will make THAT much of a difference. Yeah I know they are frustrating as hell off creep BUT...
...I think instead of buffing the speed of Hydras, Blizzard should actually buff the speed of creep spread.
If they made creep spread faster but also disappear faster to keep balance i suppose then that would help zerg MORE then just an individual unit buff.
But yeah keep the creep tumor time the same but increase the spread time.
1 - Hydra is slow as shit off-creep, and only barely respectable on-creep. It's slower than a slow-roach off creep!
2 - Hydra has 80 HP for a 2 supply, 150 resource unit. As far as units without spells go, only Dark Templar have a worse resource-HP ratio. EVEN WORKERS ARE BETTER. As such, once hydras are starting to take serious damage, the zerg starts being incredibly cost inefficient, even though the hydras have good dps.
3 - For being relatively "immobile" Hydralisks lack the range that makes it worthwhile to suffer immobility. 5 range, 6 with a somewhat expensive upgrade. And yet, it's the longest range unit zerg except for Brood Lords.
4 - Because of this immobility, hydralisks struggle to fulfill even the most basic function of an "Anti-Air unit." Example - in ZVZ the most effective response to mutalisks isn't hydralisks, but infestor queen. Hydralisks don't actually KILL the mutalisks (the mutas just run) and they don't really let you push out of your base, either, because of their slowness. Phoenix showcase this even worse - you have to have large packs of hydras to stop phoenix harass because otherwise they all get picked up and they die quite fast to phoenix's anti-light fire.
5 - "But their DPS is so good!" Yeah. It's good. But then you look at marines, and you wonder why Zerg has marines that cost gas, are tier 2, don't have stimpacks or combat shield, have less movement speed, and have less HP per resource and per DPS. But +1 range! Which costs more than stimpack or combat shield to research! Oh, hydras benefit less from attack upgrades than marines, too.
Hydralisks need a redesign or they'll fall into total disuse. Currently they're only used in ZVP SOMETIMES, though I think we're going to see more and more sticking to roaches, and looking to queens and spire units to fill the need to shoot up, even in ZVP.
I was recently thinking about why hydras are so weak and ways to improve them, and it got me thinking about how lings work, 6 slow lings vs 6 speedlings, the speed ones will win every time. So I was thinking how this would affect a ranged unit, obviously the speed will help give an advantage, being able to surround quicker is huge but i didn't think it would be so imbalanced. (not the game but speed vs non speed)
As you can see in small numbers the Hydra speed has very little effect, but in larger numbers the effect is so huge it almost doesn't seem fair. Now obviously a fast unit doesn't mean good and slow mean bad, but speed is a massive factor for how effect big armies are.
So decide for yourself should hydra get a speed boost? Should they get a DPS buff? Should they stay the same? What do you think of hydras in their current state?
Holy cow. I knew their awful speed was a problem, but that's a bigger problem than I imagined.