Roaches don't attack air. Mutalisks are expensive. Hydralisks.. hmm are cheaper in gas than mutas and attack air so *hint hint* Hydras pretty much destroy most Protoss units. Where as roaches get killed by immortals and have a slight disadvantage from stalkers. Roaches will die by marauaders, while hydra's can kill marauders. So the point is, Hydras have a LOT of uses, a lot more than what I've just said. Every unit has strengths and weaknesses, you just haven't explored them all yet + Hydras just look awesome.
Hydras are the swiss army knife in the zerg toolbox. They fare reasonably well against air, do excellent damage overall, have better range than their alternate options. All in all, they are a solid unit that takes away a lot of options from a protoss or terran player and sort of force them into a build that they may have not wanted to do
Just don't only mass Hydras, even though it seems like they're awesome at everything. You want some fast movers like Zerglings against big heavy units, and some air to break sieges on your base, or heavy defenses on those of others.
yeah, they are paper if used alone, due to low(ish) health and super slow, so put roaches in front of them and watch them go. They have beautiful range. I love the range. The sit nicely behind the roaches and bash the air
If you're no good at scouting or don't understand how to counter because you're completely new to rts, then you can play in two ways: 1. Mass produce the base unit and upgrade them to the max. 2. Get many types of units. Preferentially upgrade the damage of ranged units (damage dealers) and the armor of melee units (tanks). Strategy 1 has the simple advantages that you're not spending minerals on high tier buildings and all kinds of upgrades. Also this is a zero gas build, so no minerals are spent on refineries either. All your minerals are going into supply and masses of that base unit. Providing you expand at the same rate, you will out produce your opponent. It's disadvantage is that is that it won't get you very far against experienced players. The abilities of one unit are limited, and your opponent will exploit that. This is a nice starting point to experiment with and from here you can see how introducing one or two other types of unit into the mix helps you. Strategy 2 has the simple advantage that you have a counter prepared for everything. Variety is good. But if you go down this route you'll lose very quickly because you won't have have enough units if you've invested too much too soon into getting that variety. The same can be said for upgrades. Spend resources on research too soon and you have less resources to spend on units. You'll have too few units. Do research too late, and you'll run out of time. Somewhere inbetween strategy 1 and 2 is a very effective middle ground. Learning scouting and counters will help you to decide what kind of variety to introduce, and what kinds of units to mass produce.
Good advice. Hydras are a great all-purpose unit for the Zerg. However, I think they got nerfed too much. While they have decent damage, they have the same health as Hydras from Brood War (80) and are 2 supply instead of 1, taking up way more space in your army than before. They move very slow off the creep, they can't mutate to Lurkers, and don't have access to speed upgrades. Since there is no Dark Swarm in Sc2, I think they desperately need better health (or 1 supply) to survive against capital ships/massive units.
You don't need many speed upgrades, especially not on smaller maps. With the Overlords spreading creep, and the tumors from Queens, it's very easy to create a path of creep all the way to your enemies.
Yes, I use a lot of Hydras. My main complaints however is that they should have more than 80 health since they were 80 health in Brood War at 1 supply. I don't understand why they were already a glass cannon at 90 health, and got nerfed to 80. They appear to be a more "beefy" version of the Brood War Hydra, being at Tier 2, and doing more damage. I mean, even Ghosts have 100 health and Stalker have around 180 with their health + shields. I really don't mind the speed as the creep is easier to spread and you can re-locate your spine and spore crawlers. The extra damage sure does help against air units too.
What hydras lack in hp, they compensate for their wonderful offensive prowess. Hydras imo are the best ranged units in SC2 (easily massed, explosive damage, shoots faster than anyone on the ground save stimmed rines, can shoot air/ground). To me, roaches and hydras are almost on equal footing w/ hydras above a liitle since the roach's defense is balanced by their weak dps and 3 range. Both have different strengths and weaknesses.
I agree they are very useful, especially for defending against air units, but I think it's silly they have the same health as a Hydra in Brood War that was tier 1 and only 1 supply. You could mass twice as many as them, and cover them with Dark Swarm, and mutate some to Lurkers to protect them from ground units. Overall, they are much weaker and less economical than Brood War Hydras, but their damage output could be argued as their saving grace. My main concern is that with everything being bumped up to 2 supply or more, the Zerg are no longer a swarm and can't match a race with better firepower with extreme numbers.
I know this is cheese, but I often use mass hydras and win games, theyre just too powerful. I usually put roaches in front though so yeah.
Thats not cheese. If your opponent can't counter a mass of hydras (which come by mid game and should be scouted by then,) then they pretty much don't know what theyre doing. 6 Pool is cheese, not hydra mass.
