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On March 10 2011 03:38 Feefee wrote: Hate to use the term but I'd call it the metagame. Like you said, Hydra do great against gateway units and they have their role as anti-air as well, it's just that the more common styles don't call for Hydras. How often did Terrans build firebats in SC1? Only against heavy ling rushers, but that doesn't mean the firebat was underpowered or unnecessary. It fulfilled an absolutely necessary role and plugged a huge hole in the terran defense/offense. The reason we didn't see them much was just cause the metagame rarely called for more than a couple. I feel Hydra are the same. Situational but necessary, certainly not weak.
They are not at all situational. Before roaches got +1 range, hydras were all zerg players were spamming. At least on ladder. I agree, it is a shift in the metagame. Zerg got a new toy and forgot the hydra in the process. Plenty of zergs still make hydra/roach. Just because of the existent of a single counter unit or two does not justify them being "underpowered." "My unit destroys all your units except 1 or 2, therefore it's underpowered" is not a very sound argument. I don't whine that colossus are useless and weak because zerg makes corruptors. Before colossus, things are very very difficult for protoss if the zerg has hydras.
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On March 10 2011 03:58 Ownos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2011 03:38 Feefee wrote: Hate to use the term but I'd call it the metagame. Like you said, Hydra do great against gateway units and they have their role as anti-air as well, it's just that the more common styles don't call for Hydras. How often did Terrans build firebats in SC1? Only against heavy ling rushers, but that doesn't mean the firebat was underpowered or unnecessary. It fulfilled an absolutely necessary role and plugged a huge hole in the terran defense/offense. The reason we didn't see them much was just cause the metagame rarely called for more than a couple. I feel Hydra are the same. Situational but necessary, certainly not weak. They are not at all situational. Before roaches got +1 range, hydras were all zerg players were spamming. At least on ladder. I agree, it is a shift in the metagame. Zerg got a new toy and forgot the hydra in the process. Plenty of zergs still make hydra/roach. Just because of the existent of a single counter unit or two does not justify them being "underpowered." "My unit destroys all your units except 1 or 2, therefore it's underpowered" is not a very sound argument. I don't whine that colossus are useless and weak because zerg makes corruptors. Before colossus, things are very very difficult for protoss if the zerg has hydras.
Before the roach got +1 range, TvZ consisted of mass reaper (forcing roaches or death) into an expansion, and a mass maurauder stim push to finish the job, while PvZ consisted almost exclusively of one-base play (almost never one-base collosus, I hasten to add), most of which was so unrefined that hydras could be fielded in time to stop it. There's an old tutorial video of Artosis defending a four-gate using crawlers behind evolution chambers into hydras, for example.
I don't think you can attribute zerg's avoiding hydras because they have a 'new toy'; things were pretty different in a lot of ways before that patch.
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I never really liked hydras anyway, but if Infestors didn't have tunneling claws, then it would bring hydras back, we don't need more and more units with tunneling claws (pretty powerful upgrade imo) but if it was only the roach that had it, it would be more unique, etc.
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I still throw in a smattering of Hydras in ZvZ, more effective than pure roach... but we'll see how that changes once infestor damage changes in 1.3
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The argument about creep is silly. To spread creep offensively, i.e. right up to your opponent's defenses, will take the greater part of the match. Not to mention with an obs or a Raven, its very easy to annihilate 20 minutes of creep spreading work.
Takes about midgame, you see Nestea and Idra do it consistently in matches. It's not hard to do if you make more than 1 queen per hatch, you just do it same time as larva vomits. The point is not how stupid these guys are for making creep, or that Zerg is arguably the hardest race to play, the point is that you are seeing a very real metagame change - something that didn't happen in September, but now always happens.
Just watch a single professional game from beta, and look how different it's played, from both players. What seems 'standard' today is not done at all back then.
I am all for units getting a BENEFIT from creep, but they shouldn't be so shit off creep that they're actually DEPENDENT on it. Creep is supposed to be a reward, not a requirement.
That's very arguable. I guess we can say spawn larva is a 'benefit', not a requirement. Same with mules, chrono boost, marines...
Hydras are a unit that takes skill to use properly, can't handle that? Just go play protoss, or just don't make Hydras as zerg, there are no situations where it's required to use mass Hydras. It's that simple. The game mechanics don't need to be dumbed down and made simpler just because not all players can take advantage of creep properly.
Exactly. Zerg was designed to be the hardest, most difficult, and arguably the weakest of the three races, but when you use them to their full potential, they are, arguably, the best race. If a buff were given to hydras, people who knew how to play them would simply be overpowered. Not everyone can handle playing Zerg, they are extremely unforgiving, but at the same time they can be very rewarding.
Then you come to Zerg and the speed of the hydra doesn't fit in with the race. That is really the problem. Quit saying "it is the same speed as the zealot!" The problem with hydra speed is relative to the speed of the rest of the zerg units, not the speed relative to the other units in the game.
The idea that hydras should be as fast as speedroach, zerglings, or mutalisks is just retarded. Zerg has many fast units, and the hydra is simply normal speed. That's like saying siege tanks are underpowered, they should be able to keep up with hellions.
Hydra wreck Marauder... ok good but so do ling so why hydra ? Hydra wreck thors... ok good but so do ling so why hydra ? Hydra wreck all air units... ok good but what units are you talking about ? Banshee ? Queen do better. Vikings ? Muta do better and have other uses. Battlecruisers ? lol. Phenix ? yeah right hydra are usefull in this case. Void Ray ? Queens are better to kill void ray early pushes and in end game void rays always goes with colossi so hydra are not a good choice.
So why don't we just get rid of colosi, as templars do aoe just fine (or vice versa if you want to argue templar useless against protoss/armored)? It's about timings - going templar leaves you vulnerable, although is the end goal against Terran bio.
What people fail to understand is this game is not rock-paper-scissors - units have their utility also in when they can come out (timings) and costs. If you see a Zerg going hydra and you are going banshee rush, spire won't be out in time. If you plan to expand, going for gas heavy units may be preferable to mineral heavy units.
the hydra has maybe a 3 minute timing window in ZvP where it is effective. in ZvT it has no use. even against mass marauder it's horrible. maybe vs 2port banshee, ok. >_< in ZvZ it`s viable.
EVERY other zerg unit has more to offer in all matchups than the hydra. that's sad.
In high level games, Dark Templar have no use but to simply be a build order win. Ghosts see no use in TvT (which, again, is changing in the metagame as evidenced by ZenexByun) or against Zerg. There are innumerable Terran upgrades that never see usage (Hunter missile, building armor, building range, bunker slots) but when used appropriately, can win the game (turtling Terran needs less Turrets, save money, expand and macro more, HS missile is awesome when needed). If you compare any unit to the marine, really, every unit is 'sad'. The point is that hydra has a situation where a Zerg will lose if going without them, and the game would be broken if the hydra didn't exist, as well as broken if buffed. Imagine if T goes banshees, zerg goes hydra to defend, and is simply able to a-move to victory afterwards will T cannot mass up enough siege to hold off a timing attack? Banshees would become useless if hydra opened. With the state now, hydras are a good response but not the only response.
They are in my opinion the very HEART - of the swarm. (just look at all the artwork/markeeting) And almost none of the GSL players use them. Or even Gold players.
oGsTheWind vs SanZenith, Leenock, Nestea, Fruitdealer... what are you watching?
Excellent idea !! I would go as far as saying keep the hydra the same BUT put it in tier 1 unit so I can defend the early void ray/ phoenix push or the early banshee rush, hell even the bunker rush with the higher DPS and range of the hydra, then when I get my lair I can upgrade the speed of my hydra to make it effective at offense.
Learn to scout? It's pretty simple to realize when you need hydras - if the T is 1 base walling in, get hydras. If he is fast expanding or you see lots of t1 at his ramp, then don't get them. If you are unable to hold a banshee rush at all then maybe it's not the game that's at fault. I think it was a brilliant decision by Blizzard to make it so a race has no anti-air in T1, it makes it much more original, nervewrecking, adrenaline-pumping, and dynamic. If every race simply had A and B, and B counters A and A is equal to A, that would be so boring. It's not hard to hold a banshee rush, and not hard to figure out if one is going on.
If hydras were T1, that would be so broken - Zerg would pump them out, and win crucial timings while not being vulnerable to any that they should be. If it was further nerfed to stay in T1, Zerg would just go pure roaches or have no way to deal high damage considering the low DPS of other units.
So, I think everyone has outlined the Major problems of the hydralisk so far, being generally: 1. Slow Speed 2. Lack of range (although with their upgrade this is somewhat fixed) 3. Extreme fragility.
Regardless of DPS output, the hydralisk just can't be put Into most zerg compositions and play well with others because of ONE or more of the issues outlined above.
I, personally, was trying to think about unit compositions and synergy within zerg.
Does anyone think a decrease in Gas cost might see the Hydra fielded more often? I'd like to be able to go Hydra, ling, infestor with probably some roaches thrown in. That's prohibitively Gas expensive, regardless of how good the hydralisk is. just an idea to toss out there.
1. Hydra isn't slow off creep, and people are beginning to realize that creep is extremely important. Essentially, Zerg is just starting to figure out how to play the race. 2. Not everything needs to be a siege tank. Hydras only need enough range to shoot past the roaches/lings. 3. Countered by the extreme hardiness of roaches or sheer mass of lings. Zerg units, more than other races, need to be put together. That's the idea of the swarm, not the monotony.
ling/hydra owns everything so hard if siege tanks, colosi, or templar aren't around - a t2 unit that's immobile, and the other 2 are t3. Zerg can push great timing attacks with hydralisks. Roach/Hydra is amazing, hydra/ultra, hydra/broodlord, hydra infestor (TLO)...
Zerg needs gas more than other races, that is well known. It's a way to ensure that Zerg needs to have more bases. That is also why Zerg bases are cheaper (you can argue what the 'true' cost may be, but the merit is that Zerg can throw a 300 mineral base faster than a 400 mineral base simply because you get 300 minerals before 400.). Now if you want to argue that Zerg is broken because they need more bases, and Zerg macro doesn't work, that is a totally different issue.
People tend to confuse macro mechanics and unit imbalance - Marines may be overpowered, or maybe it's MULEs that are overpowered. Or maybe the game is balanced. Who knows? Not you or I, that's for sure.
We're not talking about straight-up battles. If blink stalkers run into a superior hydra force they can blink away and find better positioning; hydras can't. Blink stalkers can constantly harass and retreat; hydras can't. Whether they can win in a straight-up fight is debatable and dependent on micro, but blink stalkers don't need to get into the fight in the first place.
idra vs nazgul. If you don't know that hydras are the 'rock paper scissors' solution to blink stalkers, than maybe you should worry about something other than hydra unit balance.
Hate to use the term but I'd call it the metagame. Like you said, Hydra do great against gateway units and they have their role as anti-air as well, it's just that the more common styles don't call for Hydras. How often did Terrans build firebats in SC1? Only against heavy ling rushers, but that doesn't mean the firebat was underpowered or unnecessary. It fulfilled an absolutely necessary role and plugged a huge hole in the terran defense/offense. The reason we didn't see them much was just cause the metagame rarely called for more than a couple. I feel Hydra are the same. Situational but necessary, certainly not weak.
QFT
They are so powerful that any strat that is countered by them becomes bad, so you never see either side.
And as the metagame changes, this will inevitably change as well. And then maybe it will go back again. There are many things Zerg is either just beginning to do, or hasn't learned yet - effective Nydus play, creep spread with multiple queens, overlords with the army, not to mention 'forcing' an opponent to go for a unit composition than going to hydra and owning it (going mass roach to force immortal/zealot or marauders, then switching to hydra very quickly).
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hydras are awful.
it's not even just that hydras are awful, it's that zerg anti air is awful.
Here's a situation every zerg in the world has been in.
Protoss does a phoenix expand while denying scouting. Zergs lair will finish as 4 phoenixs enter your base assuming you hatched first, 14'd/16'd, or pulled gas after 100 in a 14 14 speedling opening. All of which, are standard macro openings.
All of a sudden there's no AA besides two queens to defend 4 phoenixs, both with no energy because you've been injecting. Queen 1 dies as queen 2 tries to run up, then that dies. All the while phoenixs are being rallied in, and when they build insanely fast and are capable of crossing a map nearly instantly, it's very fast reinforcements. This leads to overlords and drones dying. If a replacement queen spawns too soon, then it will die.
Now your hydra den is finished, and your first hydras pop out..... then they get lifted up by phoenixs and killed instantly because they do bonus damage to those as well. IT's not till spores finish and hydras are out that phoenixs are finally chased off. Now you -almost- have to end the game in the near future, because the protoss has been trying to setup his second tech unit. Which will be a designated hydra killer (aka collossi/storm) because once those 0 hp units are dead, >>>nothing<<< else will be good at killing the protosses original phoenixs + void ray air.
the other forms of AA include spire, which takes too long to build (phoenixs are often in your base when your lair finishes, or just after.) and mutas have already been hard countered, so that leaves corruptors that will act as 3 range roaches vs the old reapers, aka a counter... but you'll never actually be able to do damage to the unit you're countering because they're so much faster. Meanwhile they start up voids to kill those... and etc.
point is, zerg anti air is terrible and easily hard countered. Hydras are best at all inning in close positions, they do well there. I used to practice a Hydra all in build vs toss to break out in air situations that involved pushing with a bunch of hydra ling and +1 attack, with range. It's very effective. If hydras were buffed with anything besides speed, it would be that much more stronger.
I don't really want hydras to be buffed in that way, I want them changed. I want to be building a unit capable of shooting up in tier 1 as part of my main army. I don't want to lose because my opponent did some joke air rush build while denying my scouting. (leaving me with nothing but queens that lose in a 1v1 fight to every air unit capable of shooting down.)
as it is, hydras are good to mix in vs toss that doesn't have collossi/storm, kind of ok vs a few collossi with corruptor support, but COMPLETELY useless vs storms/a bunch of collossi.
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Raine... of course if you poorly defend an air rush you will get bent over a table. Why do you only have two Queens against a one-base Protoss?
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yo could say the same thing about the reaper. now its a unit that is almost never used.
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Hm? I see hydra in practically every PvZ, and even in ZvZ from time to time if the game goes on for long enough.
On March 10 2011 06:49 Let it Raine wrote: text Why would you expect Z to be able to fend off air if they failed to scout it and didn't invest in AA early enough? How is that not the case for every race in every matchup? What has it got to do with hydras anyway, surely you're not suggesting that lone hydras should be able to combat phoenix in much larger numbers?
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lool hydras are fine. They do rediculous damage and have retarded range. They are immobile but thats because if they moved as fast as a roach then creep would be completely useless to spread outside your small area of bases
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On March 10 2011 07:16 HKarmY wrote: lool hydras are fine. They do rediculous damage and have retarded range. They are immobile but thats because if they moved as fast as a roach then creep would be completely useless to spread outside your small area of bases I will agree that they do nice damage, but a range of 6 is not retarded at all it's what a Stalker has. What you say about spreading creep is just so wrong it hurts though. Hydra speed upgrade! No need for creep then right?! Aside from the additional speed it would give anyway... and the vision.. It's like saying getting speed on lings is reason enough to not spread creep.
If you want to say that Hydra's would be way to good with speed, then just say so.
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yo could say the same thing about the reaper. now its a unit that is almost never used.
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On March 10 2011 07:16 HKarmY wrote: lool hydras are fine. They do rediculous damage and have retarded range. They are immobile but thats because if they moved as fast as a roach then creep would be completely useless to spread outside your small area of bases It wouldn't make creep useless because you still need it to surround hellions, keep stimmed marines away, and speed up reinforcements.
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If you buff hydras then you need to weaken corruptors and give toss storm. I don't find it easy to deal with as it right now but maybe I'm just bad
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It's like saying getting speed on lings is reason enough to not spread creep.
Early game creep isn't that far, and lings are melee. Although we've seen that speed does impact ranged, it's not as big as melee.
If you want to say that Hydra's would be way to good with speed, then just say so.
Hydras would be way too good with speed.
yo could say the same thing about the reaper. now its a unit that is almost never used.
Just because it's not used doesn't mean it's not important. The threat of reaper rush, and 1 rax reaper expand are important. We are also finding many people use reapers the same way protoss use late game dark templar. I would say the idea behind the reaper was more broken than the unit itself though. They were actually intended as a fighting unit at first.
It wouldn't make creep useless because you still need it to surround hellions, keep stimmed marines away, and speed up reinforcements.
buffing speed would make hydras too powerful on creep. Only increasing their off creep speed would make them impossible to stop. Hydras are just insanely powerful - try a unit tester where hydras are faster, and do a roach/hyda rush all-in. It would be impossible to stop. Only way to prevent this is to either have them slow off creep, make hydra den take longer (which would make Z defenseless against all-in 1 base air rush, blink stalker, general 1 base play), or make lair longer (lots of problems for that in itself, would require buffing t1 and make spire/infestation/nydus take less time, which would make it impossible to scout Z's lair tech choice)
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I've started playing around with ling/roach/infestors, maybe with some blings. I find that it can do what I need it to, especially when I have spore crawlers in base and queens in case of muta play.
Ironically, Roach/hydra is a huge thorn in the side of me adapting this build! I guess it just needs more work!
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Show nested quote + Hydras are a unit that takes skill to use properly, can't handle that? Just go play protoss, or just don't make Hydras as zerg, there are no situations where it's required to use mass Hydras. It's that simple. The game mechanics don't need to be dumbed down and made simpler just because not all players can take advantage of creep properly.
Exactly. Zerg was designed to be the hardest, most difficult, and arguably the weakest of the three races, but when you use them to their full potential, they are, arguably, the best race. If a buff were given to hydras, people who knew how to play them would simply be overpowered. Not everyone can handle playing Zerg, they are extremely unforgiving, but at the same time they can be very rewarding.
Uhm. How are Hydras hard to use at all? They are the only zerg unit that can actually A-Move and win (I suppose roaches can, but they perform way way way better if they don't). They benefit the least from micro and flanking. Burrow is useless with them as far as I've seen due to the unburrow lag and fragility and range. They can't properly kite. They can't properly run away. They are the easiest to position due to their high range.
Hell, even the timing is easy because the Hydra Den takes so little time to build. It doesn't take high skill to use hydras, and they have probably the least interesting micro opportunities of the zerg units. Zerglings, Roaches, Mutalisks, hell even Corruptors are more skillful to use.
I have yet to hear anyone comment about anyone's "Hydra-micro."
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not every unit needs a fancy ability, Hydra mainly is a dps dealer and anti air, and it is one of the best units in the game for that.
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No certainly not. But you're defining a unit by its role, rather than what makes it awesome. I think there's a design issue there.
The only unit more boring than the hydralisk and that is the corruptor. I'm not saying they are bad units. I'm saying they are BORING units. Seriously, corruption? There's not a single ability in the game that has zero affect on game strategy, but corruption is it.
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i think hydra are kinda cool, just the insane damage they do, but yea corrupters are horribly uninspiring. Just a blob. I get the whole matrix-machine look they were going for, but the thorns on the side are kinda weird, they move to slow to be like them, and they are just so horrible.
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