| #1 JSH (128.119.178.140)[10073] |
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| I'm curious as to why you bothered to load up your hydras into overlords all the time and fly them to wherever they needed to be instead of just letting them run there. Proving Grounds is a small land map. Unless he happens to be defending both of his bridges I'd rather just run the hydras instead of dropping them. |
| #2 [MrFurious] (207.45.221.157)[10075] |
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| Something has been nagging me a little, It was my first try on p-grounds and I found it looked a lot like rivalry. maybe I was mistaken when I read the map name... anyway it was a pretty big map, with res at all positions of the clock. |
| #3 Mr. Merf (209.100.248.200)[10082] |
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| Well, since my favorite race is Zerg, I'll have to try it sometime. I usually just pump hydras and small quantities of other things for support (like queens). Dropping sounds very, very fun. |
| #4 Mark4 (147.239.118.3)[10113] |
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| Dropping is loads of fun until the toss gets templar. I took a 12 overlord drop with 4 archons once...love that splash damage. Nothing escaped. |
| #5 <img "http://www.angelfire.com/sc2/SuperGeneral/images/SuperGeneral.jpg"></i[10143] |
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This is general if the pic does not work. Great report. And yes, its time to toot my own horn.
Ducky thought hydras rocked TOO much. He warned me that he was gonna drop my main with 100+ hydras on dire. i built 4 Dark Archons too cover my island. and built a few high temps and a dozen archons. the drop came at one of my corners in overlords. mealstorm on the overlords, positioned the archons under the overlords, let go of some storm and started popping overloads. Ducky goes mad and starts typing random letters. God damn I wish i had pic :]
Well, we had a rematch recently, same race/map, and he has improved. The combined forces almost took me, but after goons and storm I beat him back. Then i relized with observers he took the entire map and he was containing me. Oh well....
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| #6 The HydraDropper (dt018n7f.san.rr.com)[10170] |
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Hehe, nice report. Seriously tho the hydra drop is a good strat but it is one of many. For newer zerg players it isn't a bad place to start, gets you a decent attack at the beginning of mid game, a good chance to cripple toss or terran and prevent them from calling the shots into an advanced endgame which usually favors those species unless you have way out resourced and contained them.
When I started playing, I liked zerg best but didn't really have any strategies, which is a frustrating way to play. There are a number of websites with specific builds towards hydra drop so I tried it (I will try and find and post URL sometime). It rules bad players and especially rules those players who don't know how to do anything but make a lot of carriers or battlecruisers. You show up in their base and there's like 10 stargates and a fleet beacon and one dragoon.
The nice thing is that the hydras themselves are good defense for your base until you pick up for the drop. Then make some more while you are dropping. It is a common failing especially with newer players to spend way too much money on defensive structures, cannon etc. I have won many games making few or no colonies. Hydras are good all purpose unit against air and ground, with a bunch hanging around your base you are good. Like dragoons for protoss.
Solid players who don't neglect early units can defend it or beat it down solid. Hydra drop I think is least successful against good terrans (efficient defense, doesn't take more than a couple of well placed tanks and some marines, or a lot of marines and medics with or without bunkers), and is really good against protoss. With protoss the best counters are reavers and high templar. If you have built towards the drop with max efficiency, there's rarely a significant psi storm threat, other player doesn't have it yet or the first temps don't have enough energy. I don't sweat archons that much if you have hydra in sufficient number, they do fine against these unless he's got a bunch(it's the zerglings that really die).
Anyway, the key is it's nice to learn at least one good tactic and master it. It won't always work, but it will work sometime. And the hydra drop is the most fun for me, mixed drop with ultras and cracklings later in the game. I'm glad you enjoyed this tactic and saw that it could work from my reports. If I could cause one toss or terran to be squashed by my beloved swarm, all my work would have been worth it... |
| #7 The HydraDropper (dt018n7f.san.rr.com)[10171] |
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In answer to SuperGeneral and Mark4: The situations you describe, 12 overlord, 100 hydra drops and such (late game) it is not as strong because the opponent can have too many charged high temps etc. It is best for that transition from early to mid game. In those late game situations if the zerg isn't way ahead in economy and expansions, it's big trouble against either terran or protoss.
In answer to JSH: At least in maps with choke defense like Lost Temple the drop is good to circumvent choke defense and avoid using up hydras taking these down. The full power of the hydras is if they can be spread out all at once in their executioner's row, all firing, and drops sometime help achieve this best when there are chokes. If terran has a bunker, 2scvs repairing, and a tank or two behind it, you can throw zillions of hydras at the choke, 4 or five will fire at a time and be killed and lose your whole force. If you drop at a mineral line where there's like one cannon or two, you can smoke all the workers and maybe the cc/nexus before the troops get there if they are at the choke/ramp. |
| #8 -=DarkHawke=- (stj205.nf.sympatico.ca)[10211] |
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1) That wasn't x'ds~grrrr...
2) He owns you, no matter what, you lose.
3) OL drops really arent good.
4) YOU KNOW WHY?
5) Cause, on dire once, I don't know who it was maybe TheHydraDropper but I stopped 12 ols of pure ground, with 14 corsairs with 3 weapons.
" Unknown Has left the game."
yay! :P
6) THD ( TheHydraDropper)
Whats your name? you always delete it or something 8 |
| #9 The HydraDropper (snd-fw.med.navy.mil)[10226] |
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DarkHawke: You are missing the point. The main strat has to be used as EARLY AS POSSIBLE. It's better to drop 16 hydras when you first have them, and the transport upgrade, than to drop 40 when there's all kinds of corsairs to shoot you out of the sky, reavers to blow you out of the ground, tanks, templars etc. The key is building with max efficiency to an initial drop, where if the opponent is rushing to air like on dire, you will slaughter them because they won't have that much air, and they will have a puny ground force because they were going air. Bye bye base. It is a major gamble for the opponent to rush to air before making some ground defense first. If they catch you, and can interdict anything coming out of your base, and keep adding more and more corsairs/scouts/wraiths, then they win. Period. But if they don't, and you get your drop off, it's probably game over for them unless they are really good.
So the situation where you have 14 corsairs, is way past the best window to pull a hydra drop.
I don't claim to be some godly player, just an average newbish SC player who has fun and posts games where I got cool screenshots or its fun to tell the story. |
| #10 [MrFurious] (ts1-22.f3201.quebectel.com)[10230] |
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I have to agree with Hydradropper here. The goal is for the drop to be crippling to him. I have tried this strat several times now and if that first drop really works then the game is yours to lose. If it fails in any way you are up shits creek.
Good example: I played a toss yesterday on Temple. I had the 3:00 start he had the 9:00. I teched up to drop while fending off his first attacks. Smiling evilly, I load up the hydras and head for his main. However I made the mistake of going from the right side. The 9:00 on temple has its choke facing the right side and my ovies were blasted and the element of surprise lost. The game went on for another 30-45 min, but he basically wore me down with sairs, temps and scouts.
If Hydradropper says he is newbish then I am the God of newbishness nevertheless its still cool to post experiences... |
| #11 -MrCow- (tsmia1-74.gate.net)[10235] |
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| do i kno u? |
| #12 Dev (208-25-57-106.stk.jps.net)[10263] |
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| That's the problem in a nutshell, Mark. I took out an 8-overlord drop on Dire Straits with nothing more than three well-placed psionic storms. Good thing they all tried to pile out on top of each other. |
| #13 Baxter-O'Bixby[33648] |
| adsl-63-195-119-107.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net |
I played a FFA the other night in which I used late game hydra drops very effectively. My strategy, generally, was to send guardians in as a diversion. Upon seeing guardians, Toss will generally focus on them with either corsairs or (more likely) templar. While they're doing that, you bring in your 12 overlord drop from the other side of their base. Once your payload starts dropping, it's all over.
(Lesson learned from that game... any newbie, even me, can whup ass in a FFA against genuinely good people if the other players forget about him long enough for him to build up a strong force.) |
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