Balancing ZvZ: Hydralisk's corrosive spines

[RamiZ]

Would be a little bit stupid to prevent repairing, it would be pretty overpowered...

[RamiZ]

Erm... I think Norfindel's comments were aimed at your suggestions of giving the Hydralisk a bonus vs armored units and/or armored units itself; that such changes have far bigger consequences on overall balance and not just Roaches alone. Oddly, I find it weird that you're arguing against your own points/suggestions. :s

Also, regarding your comment on the Hydralisk's attack rate and that focus firing counters Roaches: This is not a specific counter to Roaches but a general one against all units. It's basically saying in order to kill something quicker, you attack it with more units. Pretty obvious, pretty basic a concept.

However, if the DPS/firepower is not sufficient, no amount of micromanagement can turn the tide against Roaches and kill them in a timely fashion. As a result, the outcome of that round is decided even before it begins regardless of skill, which in my opinion is not good. Compare to Zealot vs Stalker. Cost for cost, Zealots would normally kill Stalkers. But with Blink micro, Stalkers can take out those Zealots.

Exactly...That is my Point, if you give that bonuses the whole balance would be changed, and to the people who said that collision size make a difference, also range and movement speed...yes they do, but still Roaches with Organic Carapace is untouchable...I dont think Hydra has any chance to win against Roaches...

Edit: Sorry double post....my PC is a little bit fuked - up

[Norfindel]

Exactly...That is my Point, if you give that bonuses the whole balance would be changed, and to the people who said that collision size make a difference, also range and movement speed...yes they do, but still Roaches with Organic Carapace is untouchable...I dont think Hydra has any chance to win against Roaches...

Edit: Sorry double post....my PC is a little bit fuked - up

Ok, time to get some stats:

			Hydralisk	BW Hydra	Roach
			(prev build)
Hit points		90		80		100
Armor Type		Light		(medium)	Armored
Minerals		100		75		100
Gas			50		25		0
Control			2		1		1
Build time		33				23
Ground Attack		10		5+5 vs Armored	8+8 vs Bio
Armor			0		0		1
Range			6		4/5		3

We don't have the Hydralisks current stats, but we have the stats from the previous build and BW. In paper, the Roach beats the Hydralisk, but cooldown changes it all. How quickly can the Roach cause damage? The Hydralisk in BW had insane shooting speed. The same than a Marine without Stim, and 10 damage has the potential to ruin a Roach's day, specially with focus fire, and it's easier to focus fire with units with longer range. The Roach has a miserable range.
I'm not saying that no problem exists. If that were the case, the Hydralisk wouldn't be moved lower in the tech tree, but i think that this problem should be easy enough to fix. At most, decrease the Roach damage output if too high, i think that their main qualiy should be take the damage, not deal it.
But, there's another problem. It would be desirable that the Zerglings have something to say about all this, but i don't see them being particularily effective against the Roach, or the Hydralisk with their current stats. However, judging by how the Hydra was much more effective against large (Armored) units in BW, i think that they probably are going to take the same route now, as the Roach is Armored already, and the Zergling is not.

[Edfishy]

The trouble I see with saying, "you can just focus-fire the roaches with Hydralisks", is that requires some hefty micro every time you encounter Roaches in a ZvZ match up, and you can bet both players would be spamming the Roaches for this reason.

I'm wondering if the corrosive acid should just cut regeneration in half. Considering that it would be a passive ability(?), this would be enough to "even" the odds while not removing all of the micro component, while also giving the Hydralisk a unique ability that has so far gone unused in StarCraft 2.

Either way, I would like to give this idea a whirl once the Beta editor is available.

[RamiZ]

That "you will focus-fire and got longer range" just doesnt really work that way, as Edfishy said, yeah you can do that, but still Roaches got 23 sec Build time and cost no gas, no matter how bulky, slow or whatever they are, you will have more Roaches then he got Hydras...Especially like you said in other thread about Siege Tanks, that 2 population make big difference, especially early game where he would have 2 Roaches for every your Hydra, so if he Rush you with just 5 Roaches, and you maximum got by then 3 Hydra, you can Focus-Fire and even if he doesnt micro at all, you just cant kill him, you will have to make Spine Crawlers and waste drones on them, and waste gas on hydras, and he will have more gas and drones then you, so he will get faster higher tech units...and that would be gg...

[Josue]

Improving the Hydralisk sounds cool, even the name sounds cool: "Corrosive spines".
However I think it should be implemented as a passive upgrade for the hydra, following the same logic of the old SC1 "Grooved spines" with some changes to make it balanced.
For example:

"Corrosive spines:
passively deal X damage per second for 3,5,7 seconds"

or something that works like that. So we don't depend on wheter the unit is regenerating or not. And we have two variables to work with(time and damage/time), so balancing is easier
I guess the ability could stack or not depending on balance. It may also differ the way it affects ground and air units.
That way hydralisks can be good in air to air at the beginning, but get some respect from ground units when they get the evolution. So if your foe goes roaches and you went hydras, just do the evolution, (which must have a reasonable ore,gas and time costs) and counter those roaches! I say this because (if wrong correct me) I remember in battle report 2, Hydralisks seemed OK against air units, but they had to retreat when the ground force came.
PD no vote yet.

[Norfindel]

From http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Roach#Strategies:

A roach's regeneration is quite powerful, and it can often regenerate faster than it takes damage.[13]

Roaches work well in small skirmishes rather than large encounters,[14] because they are vulnerable to focus fire.[8][14] A single roach can defeat a single stalker due to its high regeneration, for instance, but several stalkers can defeat several roaches with focus fire.[14] Groups of marines can counter roaches as well.[15]

Roaches are also vulnerable to sustained damage.[16] Roaches are strong against opponents that attack slowly and do low damage per attack, such as zealots.[14] Karune reports that "in theorycrafting, they seem stronger than they actually are, although specific units must be used to counter them, or additional micromanagement time be taken to defeat them. Siege tanks, stim packed marines, stalkers, immortals, dark templars, hydralisks, and any air to ground unit, are all effective at killing Roaches with a little micromanagement."[17]

A roach/baneling combo is very powerful against terrans, as the roaches will soak damage, enabling the banelings to get close to the enemy and deal their high damage attacks.[18]
[edit] Zerg vs Zerg

Roaches and zerglings are used early in zerg vs zerg matches. Compared to zerglings, roaches are a more defensive unit. Cost for cost, roaches win against zerglings in chokes but lose in open areas. Later in the game, numerous roaches can defeat numerous zerglings even in open areas.[19]

As a game progresses, a roach/hydralisk combo can defeat a zergling/mutalisk combo.[19]

Of all this, the only thing that bothers me is that the Roach forces the enemy to micro early game, when the unit numbers are low. And requiring extra skill from the enemy just because you built some unit doesn't sound right. It should require some additional effort from the Zerg player.
What do you think about this?: maybe the Roaches could have 2 regeneration speeds, a slower one when they were hit recently, and a faster one when they weren't (similar to the Protoss Shield mechanic). That would require as much micro from the Roach user as from the enemy, as the enemy must focus fire to get rid of them if the enemy rotates it's Roaches.
Seeing how Zerglings can beat Roaches early game in the open, it's probably not that much of a problem in that match-up, but the other races seem to require micro to beat them.

[Edfishy]

Halving the Roach regeneration when it's damaged also sounds like a plausible balance, but it still doesn't make the Hydralisk cooler.

I can see it happening though.

[PsiWarp]

It would be awesome if Corrosive Spines can become balanced, frightening really o0o...

What if Hydralisk spines adds a debuff on a target, that deals a small splash radius around the target after an initial build-up duration? Hydralisk shoots a Roach, debuff starts, after 2 - 3 seconds a cluster of needles bursts from the spine, dealing 5 - 7 damage to enemies around the Roach (plus Roach itself)?

Cluster Spines! Debuff probably doesn't stack :3


-Psi

[ManjiSanji]

Would be a little bit stupid to prevent repairing, it would be pretty overpowered...

We either go all or nothing with this. It has to work on all races, or it shouldn't be in. Having something that specifically only works on one race is just not right (or fun). So I'm postulating possible utilities against Terran and Protoss.

Any suggestions?