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People overestimate creep... Creep tumors are fragile especially when they are still unburrowed. + Show Spoiler +not to mention, when your opponent has his army parked right outside your creep line... how exactly do you plan on spreading it without getting the tumors picked off as soon as they are placed?
Overlord creep spread is ridiculous too. You have to invest in OL speed just to get them into position, and even then you now have a bunch of OLs in vulnerable areas just begging to get shot down.
Oh, and you can't escape from Blink Stalkers with hydras even if on creep. Stalkers move ridiculously fast, and blink stalkers have... blink.
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Have you tried dropping and then escaping out with your units before the opponent comes with his superior forces? Dropping is a technique which can be used for more than "killing the opponent", you can also force your opponent to move and at least against Terrans a drop should be great if he pulls all his troops away from hiw bases on one of the "reasonably sized" maps.
I may be misunderstanding your post, but why would i do hydra drops vs terran when for the tech cost and a few hydras I could get mutas instead, and have much more mobility and ability to shut down terran drops. Also given how poorly hydras perform vs terran if i get drop tech i would just drop banelings and lings. Protoss can warp in to deal with small drops, and hydralisks do much worse vs a few canons then marauders+medivac. I can't rely on a small drop forcing them back, and a large drop might just force a base trade (overlords are too slow to move they hydras back in time). I would love to use drops more, but other then exploiting timings like july did I don't feel they have much place.
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On March 19 2011 17:20 SilverJohnny wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. + Show Spoiler +he engaged off creep, and he didn't get the range upgrade, AND MC had better ups and more units. Its hard for me to believe that the Hydra is dead because of that.
Yeah, I was also trying to figure out why + Show Spoiler + he didn't get the freaking range upgrade... seriously boggled my mind.
Anyways, hydras I guess are supposed to have a role similar to siege tanks, except that they are not quite as good or cost effective?
I agree that hydras should be the counter to mass gateway units, but the problem is that with a lot of hydra, you simply can't be aggressive against a toss that is going to have a bigger army than you by the time you reach his base, not to mention the collosi that will be coming...
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On March 19 2011 17:20 SilverJohnny wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. + Show Spoiler +he engaged off creep, and he didn't get the range upgrade, AND MC had better ups and more units. Its hard for me to believe that the Hydra is dead because of that. + Show Spoiler +You also have to consider the fact that Zerg has to make drones, attacking units, and overlords with larva. July had to commit all his larva to hydra and he still got outproduced by MC who had the ability to simultaneously make probes and get upgrades. Even if he didnt engage off creep it was already over, MC's production was insane.
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On March 19 2011 17:16 Beabs wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. Don't engage blink stalkers with hydra off creep?
Well that's part of what makes them so fucking bad really, isn't it?
They're completely and utterly useless off creep and they're HARD countered by AoE, so if you make a shitload of them to survive a gateway push, you either all-in off creep and hope he can't micro, or you wait for him to get AoE so you can watch your army drop by 50 supply 2 seconds into the first major battle.
I'll never understand why Blizzard made them so ridiculously slow off creep. It's just impractical to cover the entire map in creep, especially with competitive maps becoming increasingly large. If you want to force an engagement with hydra it has to be off creep, otherwise you sit back and wait for the bulk of your army to be hard countered.
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On March 19 2011 17:25 R0YAL wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 17:20 SilverJohnny wrote:On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. + Show Spoiler +he engaged off creep, and he didn't get the range upgrade, AND MC had better ups and more units. Its hard for me to believe that the Hydra is dead because of that. + Show Spoiler +You also have to consider the fact that Zerg has to make drones, attacking units, and overlords with larva. July had to commit all his larva to hydra and he still got outproduced by MC who had the ability to simultaneously make probes and get upgrades. Even if he didnt engage off creep it was already over, MC's production was insane.
+ Show Spoiler +True, the only thing I can really see would be him just sticking to two base and massing hydras to hold off the attack, with several spines to back him up. It may be that with an MC style 6gate attack you have to be a bit more defensive and not take such a fast 3rd. Also, the DT's eating his drones probably didn't help either, nor did spending several hundred extra gas on overseers.
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july lost because of force fields. he had the units to hold of both 6 gates and the 4 gate but force fields make it unwinnable for july
User was temp banned for this post.
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+ Show Spoiler +MC's force field use was brutal, and won those games. In the last game I didn't realize he skipped range. It would have helped alot vs the forcefields and then later vs blink stalkers. Did he skip range in the 3rd game too?
Hydralisks don't even beat blink stalkers with their range upgrade if numbers are equal off creep. On creep they do pretty well, but not as well as people say (if there is a way to make them outrageously cost effective let me know :D)
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On March 19 2011 17:23 AquaBadger wrote:Show nested quote + Have you tried dropping and then escaping out with your units before the opponent comes with his superior forces? Dropping is a technique which can be used for more than "killing the opponent", you can also force your opponent to move and at least against Terrans a drop should be great if he pulls all his troops away from hiw bases on one of the "reasonably sized" maps.
I may be misunderstanding your post, but why would i do hydra drops vs terran when for the tech cost and a few hydras I could get mutas instead, and have much more mobility and ability to shut down terran drops. Also given how poorly hydras perform vs terran if i get drop tech i would just drop banelings and lings. Protoss can warp in to deal with small drops, and hydralisks do much worse vs a few canons then marauders+medivac. I can't rely on a small drop forcing them back, and a large drop might just force a base trade (overlords are too slow to move they hydras back in time). I would love to use drops more, but other then exploiting timings like july did I don't feel they have much place. That and marines are insanely cost effective vs hydras. at a 2:1 marine:hydra ratio (hydras arguably cost more than 3 marines) marines will beat out the hydras in a landslide. If terran is guaranteed to make a bunch of any one unit, that unit would be the marine.
That being said, drops are actually really powerful vs 3-gate expands right now. Doesn't matter what you drop really, roaches/hydras/lings/banes are all super effective. The idea is to cut down as many gateway units as you can (sentries pref) and keep the protoss in his base while you get your third saturated. I suppose it does fall under exploiting timings, (gotta hit before first colossus) and if you don't do good damage you will be substantially behind... but drops are still a strong choice.
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On March 08 2011 09:10 Buddhalol wrote: as it stands in my opinion is that, Hydra dps in large numbers is great, survivability on the other hand not so much, well positioned hydras flanking can deal massive dmg when maneuvered correctly (think shattered temple, engaging a toss ball in the middle of the map from 2-3 angles. The problem i personally find is that it is too hard to get them into position quick enough so the fact of the matter is, glass cannon unit's always seem underpowered in a straight up fights but i think in the future ( im thinking Moon's drop play in gsl) zergs will find that hydras can be of great use in different ways, a buff may be needed because off creep they are basically useless, so i'd only suggest movement speed increase off creep OR an hp increase but both seem overkill
im just spit-ballin my ideas here so dont take too much offense if you do not agree :D
i agree 100%. i think a lot of people dismiss them as useful because they look at the hydra and they look at the roach, and they see that a roach is cheaper, and much better in a straight up giant army vs giant army confrontation, but hydras are amazing in certain situations. they're awesome for drops because of their high dps, and a few hydras + a few infestors kill approximately infinity mutas. it's obvious that they can't be the real meat and potatoes of your army, but i'm positive they have a place. they kind of remind me of mutas. when i first tried going mutaling, i thought it was the most awful strategy on the planet! but that's because i'd build up an army of lings and mutas, and 1a, and i'd lose crazy hard. but then i found out that mutas are good not because they can kill big armies (because they sure as hell can't), they're good because they are amazing for harassment, and they're so good for maintaining map control. the muta is good because you have to keep them alive while doing as much damage as possible with them. similarly, we zergs just need to find better ways of protecting our hydras while they do their terrible, terrible damage
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On March 19 2011 17:29 SilverJohnny wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 17:25 R0YAL wrote:On March 19 2011 17:20 SilverJohnny wrote:On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. + Show Spoiler +he engaged off creep, and he didn't get the range upgrade, AND MC had better ups and more units. Its hard for me to believe that the Hydra is dead because of that. + Show Spoiler +You also have to consider the fact that Zerg has to make drones, attacking units, and overlords with larva. July had to commit all his larva to hydra and he still got outproduced by MC who had the ability to simultaneously make probes and get upgrades. Even if he didnt engage off creep it was already over, MC's production was insane. + Show Spoiler +True, the only thing I can really see would be him just sticking to two base and massing hydras to hold off the attack, with several spines to back him up. It may be that with an MC style 6gate attack you have to be a bit more defensive and not take such a fast 3rd. Also, the DT's eating his drones probably didn't help either, nor did spending several hundred extra gas on overseers. + Show Spoiler +Yeah I agree, spines seem very necessary vs MCs super aggression. It makes me miss creep colonies from bw It made Zerg so much more adaptable, which is exactly what they are supposed to be but it seems T & P are given more tools for adaptation than Zerg.
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That being said, drops are actually really powerful vs 3-gate expands right now. Doesn't matter what you drop really, roaches/hydras/lings/banes are all super effective. The idea is to cut down as many gateway units as you can (sentries pref) and keep the protoss in his base while you get your third saturated. I suppose it does fall under exploiting timings, (gotta hit before first colossus) and if you don't do good damage you will be substantially behind... but drops are still a strong choice.
I agree that roach/ling bling drops are much better vs 3 gate expo. The tech cost is much lower, especially for roach/ling. You can also have 2x more roaches then hydra, and saved 250 gas for the tech+range (upgrades/start a spire, or more roaches).
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I think July was on the right track in that last game just didn't execute it very well.
Constantly engaging hydra vs gateway army. Force him to use forcefields, if July didn't lose every drone at his third, didn't forget to creep spread (NO OBS EVER), forgot hydra range. Didn't pull back when he needed to. Have such poor army control (lost like 5 overseers, butting heads on forcefields).
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On March 19 2011 17:33 R0YAL wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 17:29 SilverJohnny wrote:On March 19 2011 17:25 R0YAL wrote:On March 19 2011 17:20 SilverJohnny wrote:On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. + Show Spoiler +he engaged off creep, and he didn't get the range upgrade, AND MC had better ups and more units. Its hard for me to believe that the Hydra is dead because of that. + Show Spoiler +You also have to consider the fact that Zerg has to make drones, attacking units, and overlords with larva. July had to commit all his larva to hydra and he still got outproduced by MC who had the ability to simultaneously make probes and get upgrades. Even if he didnt engage off creep it was already over, MC's production was insane. + Show Spoiler +True, the only thing I can really see would be him just sticking to two base and massing hydras to hold off the attack, with several spines to back him up. It may be that with an MC style 6gate attack you have to be a bit more defensive and not take such a fast 3rd. Also, the DT's eating his drones probably didn't help either, nor did spending several hundred extra gas on overseers. + Show Spoiler +Yeah I agree, spines seem very necessary vs MCs super aggression. It makes me miss creep colonies from bw It made Zerg so much more adaptable, which is exactly what they are supposed to be but it seems T & P are given more tools for adaptation than Zerg.
Why creep colonies? They make no difference. If you have a sunken you can't turn it into a spore
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On March 19 2011 17:45 hugman wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 17:33 R0YAL wrote:On March 19 2011 17:29 SilverJohnny wrote:On March 19 2011 17:25 R0YAL wrote:On March 19 2011 17:20 SilverJohnny wrote:On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. + Show Spoiler +he engaged off creep, and he didn't get the range upgrade, AND MC had better ups and more units. Its hard for me to believe that the Hydra is dead because of that. + Show Spoiler +You also have to consider the fact that Zerg has to make drones, attacking units, and overlords with larva. July had to commit all his larva to hydra and he still got outproduced by MC who had the ability to simultaneously make probes and get upgrades. Even if he didnt engage off creep it was already over, MC's production was insane. + Show Spoiler +True, the only thing I can really see would be him just sticking to two base and massing hydras to hold off the attack, with several spines to back him up. It may be that with an MC style 6gate attack you have to be a bit more defensive and not take such a fast 3rd. Also, the DT's eating his drones probably didn't help either, nor did spending several hundred extra gas on overseers. + Show Spoiler +Yeah I agree, spines seem very necessary vs MCs super aggression. It makes me miss creep colonies from bw It made Zerg so much more adaptable, which is exactly what they are supposed to be but it seems T & P are given more tools for adaptation than Zerg. Why creep colonies? They make no difference. If you have a sunken you can't turn it into a spore You can build cheap creep colonies. When you see them move out to attack then you can morph them into sunkens very quickly. Spines take a long ass time to make and its the full investment on the spot.
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On March 19 2011 17:45 hugman wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 17:33 R0YAL wrote:On March 19 2011 17:29 SilverJohnny wrote:On March 19 2011 17:25 R0YAL wrote:On March 19 2011 17:20 SilverJohnny wrote:On March 19 2011 17:13 Fingulfin wrote:GSL spoiler: + Show Spoiler +July loses game 5 because of the overall fragility and speed of the hydralisk. I think this game represents quite well the problem with the hydra and the role it is (supposedly) intended to fill in the zerg army. It is supposed to counter gateway units, but its insane cost and low speed make it a serious liability. Even if you could somehow afford roach+hydra vs 6 gate, that doesn't help the retreating problem. Hydras are the "best" unit the zerg has to deal with blink stalkers, except that stalkers are ridiculously fast and hydras are ridiculously slow.
Thats not to say that 6 gate blink stalker is OP or that zerg is UP or whatever, just that the hydra as a tech choice leaves a lot to be desired. + Show Spoiler +he engaged off creep, and he didn't get the range upgrade, AND MC had better ups and more units. Its hard for me to believe that the Hydra is dead because of that. + Show Spoiler +You also have to consider the fact that Zerg has to make drones, attacking units, and overlords with larva. July had to commit all his larva to hydra and he still got outproduced by MC who had the ability to simultaneously make probes and get upgrades. Even if he didnt engage off creep it was already over, MC's production was insane. + Show Spoiler +True, the only thing I can really see would be him just sticking to two base and massing hydras to hold off the attack, with several spines to back him up. It may be that with an MC style 6gate attack you have to be a bit more defensive and not take such a fast 3rd. Also, the DT's eating his drones probably didn't help either, nor did spending several hundred extra gas on overseers. + Show Spoiler +Yeah I agree, spines seem very necessary vs MCs super aggression. It makes me miss creep colonies from bw It made Zerg so much more adaptable, which is exactly what they are supposed to be but it seems T & P are given more tools for adaptation than Zerg. Why creep colonies? They make no difference. If you have a sunken you can't turn it into a spore
because a creep colony would serve the dual purpose of a spine and a tumor, I think is what he's trying to say. I think spines are fine as is, just most zergs are afraid of putting lots of them up for some reason. In BW it wasn't uncommon to see 3-5 sunks at the front if a big attack was coming, in sc2 we rarely see more than 2.
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Build time wise I'm with you, but having the full investment on the spot is better Having a creep colony not doing anything is tons of potential mining time wasted. If you can build it later that's better
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On March 19 2011 17:51 hugman wrote: Build time wise I'm with you, but having the full investment on the spot is better Having a creep colony not doing anything is tons of potential mining time wasted. If you can build it later that's better Yeah but if your expecting aggression you drop a few colonies then you can make lots of drones. The enemy moves out and you make all units and morph into sunkens. Having the option to easily have defense out in time gives you the breathing room to confidently drone up.
Totally off topic from the thread tho so I say no more
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Maybe little off topic but what I don't like about FFs is that they 100% depends on protoss players - zerg cannot do anything. After some time when people will be much better at sc2 then protoss players will be very good at dropping forcefields, terran players will be very good at spliting their stimmed marines and what about zerg? Zerg players can't really do anything because it's not on their hands. Yeah, they can make a flank or better concave but that's so minor. Those two races has so much more where to improve imo, while zerg just can improve his macro and hope that toss misses his FFs.
On topic: hydras are decent on creep but on those new huge maps creep spread becomes so much harder to do. That's not stepes of war where you put 2 tumors and take few ovies and you already at his natural killing stuff with hydras.
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make it faster 1 supply and tire 1 tec then it will be good. hydras should be the backbone of the zergs army!
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