I have been playing zerg and after a long time being on the losing end in PvZ and now playing Zerg, Hydras just seem redundant.
Ravagers solve the issue of range since mixing them in not only gets you a 6 range unit, it gets you biles too. With no extra tech required. With good health and no pesky light or armored tags. Roach ravager is so cost efficient and in most situations it doesn’t matter if you cant hit air. If you are doing a timing attack with Roach/rav you can literally do damage so fast, you can lose your whole army and be ahead. Like mass roach vs mutas or even vs banshees in some cases. Or you can mostly ignore his early air (phoenix, oracle to an extent, Liberator to an extent). Or you can just outrun it (BC, VR). Damage at home? You can build queens and spores which are superior in many ways to hydra and cost no gas.
Once you do get hydra out, they are just convenient anti air that comes with you. Except Corrupters do the job better against almost any threat except VR and maybe Vikings. And Corrupters do pretty well against those two as well. Only real “advantage” is if you screw up and overbuild anti air, the hydras can attack ground and can be morphed into lurkers faster than you can get a greater spire.
This is not to mention that hydras are fairly expensive and made of glass. Im pretty sure mass roach cost for cost beats hydra. Especially with speed upgrade. Roach Ravager well microed certainly does. Roach and ravager are like infinitely better against splash damage due to higher health, speed, and Rav having no light or armored tag. Hydras just absolutely melt to colossus, storm, tanks, disruptors (slower than roaches), and hell, even banelings.
TL;DR: Hydras are a complete stopgap unit whos best contribution is providing lurkers and mediocre/versatile anti air while often being a fragile liability.
You play roach/ravager not to die on 2-3 bases push, that’s all.
Hydras are better but it takes too long to unlock the tech if the other is agressive.
It depends on the opener.
Robot first=> roach/ravagers into baneling.
Stagate first=> you can skip roach and go hydras/banelings, but it is still risky, you have to scout well, so you may want to stay on roach if you’re not experienced.
Give back attack speed to Hydralisk as before patch, but make them so they came out with 80HP and each from 2 upgrades will give them +5 HP. What does it means, Hydralisk will be much weaker early, but will be more potent with upgrades! Is an only good GtA attacker Zerg has!
Well this thread is a refreshing change of pace. Honestly, I think its a little more complicated than one being too strong and the other too weak. And theres been a lot changed over the years that can give clues as to whats going on.
First off, hydras have changed many times but they always were much more expensive which delays when they are available as your ‘core’ unit. You pretty much need 5 gasses and 70-80 drones to go for a hydra based army. Roach ravager on the other hand is literally the perfect ratio of gas to minerals for zerg, which means you can spend 100% of your larvae on roaches and overlords and youd have a little minerals left over for bases and queens still so youre still progressing your eco forward. This is huuuge for zerg to be able to do, and makes roach ravager very powerful when youre on 2-3 bases. Its also more powerful the lower your league is because managing gas timings and your mineral/gas ratio is one of the hardest things for new players to learn. Once you get higher in league, roach ravager isnt as good anymore because the advantage of easier macro doesnt matter when your opponent can macro well with any composition.
But where things get real interesting is the changes around roaches and hydras. For example at the start of lotv hydras had less hp and libs did way more damage, so they would 1 shot hydras. As a result, hydras were considered useless vs terran. And tanks did muuuuch less damage so roach ravager was really strong. As a result, roach ravager into infestor or corruptor was the zvt meta during the midgame. But because roaches are so bad once 3-3 bio upgrades finish, the meta was to tech switch hard into ling bane ultra with a fast hive.
Then tanks got buffed through the roof and sudenly roaches were garbage. The solution was a lot more ravager and infestors for fungal or lings for surrounds.
Then mech became popular and hydras and swarm hosts were buffed a lot and libs were nerfed a few times and eventually hydras became the ‘standard’. And since ultras were nerfed and libs didnt one shot hydras anymore, the new lategame became hydra infestor brood.
But the most interesting thing to me is what happened to the 3 base roach ravager timings. Because hydras and roaches never really overlapped --roaches always came before hydras. And we still have 2 base roach timings but the 3 base timings have been gone for years. It seems like the defensive power of the tank is so strong that roach ravager just doesnt stand a chance of working as a 3 base timing anymore unless the terran stays on hellions too long or something like that. It seems like the economic style with swarm hosts has totally replaced this timing.
Pre split may be your friend. They are actually ranged, like hellbats. Play Zerg for a bit and youll see that Zergs use “clunky” ultra way too much. Sure, it wont always fight, but it can 1v1 Thor. Except Ultra is much faster and AOE. They are not to be massed, but ling-bane-ultra can a-move even the most entranched army and trade well.
Ok so I go ultra in zvt when facing bio because ultras are actually still pretty good against bio if you have solid macro and creep spread and enough larvae to really keep that ling bane train a rollin. But thats like the only time theyre good basically. So… Idk I mean the ultras one job is to kill bio and it does that pretty good but its not great by any means lol. A solid mix of marauders and mines or libs and those ultras pop real quick. But once you get fungals off they become pretty good again. Then your infestors get emp’d and its back to garbage. So yeah… Kind of a mixed review of ultras there xD
What do you mean 3 base timings are gone? It depends on what you define as “3-base”. I use Serrals 38 drone, 3 base Roach Rav with lings behind it timing attack in ZvT it works wonders. I suppose you couldn’t call it 3 base since the 3rd base has maybe a drone or 2 at it. But its not really an all in. You can still macro up hard behind it.
Roaches are stronger than hydras in a straight up fight actually. And Ravagers are useful all game long, especially vs Terran. Look at Serral and how he uses them in end game comps. At least in ZvT, Hydras only decent if supported by a lot of ling and especially baneling. Tank Marine alone will smash the **** out of hydra, that’s why you need ling bane. Hydra is a decent versatile choice to go with ling bane. Especially if they aren’t tank heavy. Against Protoss, they are awful because of Collossus and storm. They are only good if you know he is going heavy (aka double) stargate.