Muiltiple Hydra Strains

Wouldnt it be awesome if the hydra could mutate into more than just a lurker? Say if you have 12 hydras attacking a base, but then they get ambushed by some Siege Tanks. You dont know where they are, so you flee. However, you mutate half of your remaining hydras to some sort of flying monster, and you find and destroy the tanks. Great idea?(I know that it is very cheap and unbalancing)

 

ye sure. bring on more 1337 mutations!
just make sure they arent crabs -.-

 

Interesting idea like the mutalisk!

 

I've thought of this myself and I think it would be a very cool Zerg ability. One good mutation would be to allow the Hydralisk to mutate into the Hunter Killer, like the one from the original Starcraft, except it would have legs and be a melee unit. The legs would allow it to "sprint," which would be similar to the Zealots charge, and it would also be able to jump up and down cliffs. It would have the same health as the normal hydralisk, but a stronger and faster melee attack. I would love if Blizzard added this exact mutation... it just seems so simple and right to add, and so awesome. What do you guys think?
-edit-
Another cool ability that would go along with the name Hunter Killer, would be that it would slowly lose health until it killed an enemy unit, and after killing so many units, say 5-10, the individual unit would permanently gain a slight damage increase.

 

Yes. i think that the zerg should only have 3 units(only with some casters). The zergling, the hydra, and the muta. However, each one gets maybe 3 or more mutations. It would add diversity to the zerg.

 

You don't know about the uber unit that can morph into like 9 different strains?

It's the 1337357 of the 1337

they're called larvae and they pwn

jk good idea KaZoN, they could condense the entire race into one base unit

 

Overdoing the evolution/mutation thing would be bad for Zerg, as Zerg will lose its ability to quickly replace lost units. It is a weak tech structure for Zerg in that you take out a pool/den/spire and 1/3 of the Zerg unit types are shut down.

But I agree with giving the hydralisk an additional mutation/evolution/aspect. Don't you just get the feeling that it's gonna happen anyway?

 

I do. And I'm praying for my Hunter Killer idea :good:. Although I decided that the slowly losing health part might not even be necessary for balance. Just imagine the Hunter Killers that we know and love, but with legs, rearing back, shaking their head violently in the air and coming down upon their enemies with full fury; relentlessly swinging with those huge scythe like arms of theirs. That'd be a glorious sight. And these bad boys would jump up and down cliffs and gain a primal rage upgrade (first name that came to my head) that would allow them to become much faster and to gain permanent damage increases for the number of units they killed. Perhaps after they killed 5, they'd gain 1 damage, kill another 10, another 1 damage to do 2 more total. Slow upgrades and maybe a max at 3 or 5, which would be highly improbable to reach anyhow, but so you couldn't just make them ridiculously powerful.

 

The Hunter Killer idea sounds really kick ass kehmdaddy.

From what we have seen, Hydralisk in all the cinematics all attacked with their claws. Blizzard should really think about making the Hydralisk with a melee attack as their attack. What great way for the Hydralisk to morph into Hunter Killers that actually use their claws to attack. That would then convince us that all the past Cinematics were infact, Hunter Killers and not Hydralisks.

 

yah hydra mutating into another unit than the lurker would be cool

 

This would be a nice change to the Hydra except for the fact that a few things with Starcraft Lore would make this a mighty hard challenge as the Character/Cerebrate who created the Hunter Killer Strain of Hydralisk is dead (Daggoth) and I don't think Kerri could or would be able to replicate that process as the Hunter Killers were part of Daggoth's Brood, The Tiamat Brood and our thinned in numbers most likely now as his Brood is in disarray with his death.
This info provided by http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Slothien
Though, another form of the Hydra would be nice as I don't quite understand how an Acidic/Poisonous Spine Throwing creature could now evolve to a creature that shoots dense, non-acidic/poisonous spines from underground. (The Lurker, although its purpose was initially for defense.) I could see the Hydra morphing into another form that flies. The Hydralisk seems like a Play between a Naga of mythology/modern day fantasy and a Praying Mantis. Though, the Praying Mantis is theme widely used for the Zerg. Point being a Praying Mantis in it's adult life can grow wings.
I could see the Hydra Morphing into a Lurker and from the Lurker into a flying ground assault unit. I think the concept of its attack would be a mixture between the Guardian, Lurker, and Devour(Acid Spores of theres). It would fly down and grab a unit lift it into the air and attack with a spiked tail that injects poison needles that deal damage overtime into a biological opponent. Much like the Mutalisk with its glaive wurm attack. Except it would do larger damage and hit only one biological opponent at a time. This being said it would not be as effective against a mechanical unit such as a Siege Tank or Immortal and definitely would be null and void against a Thor. Though, the Hydralisk on its own can do a good amount of damage being that their attack remains explosive acid spines.
With the Lurker upgrade most likely staying,(What species devolves a strain of creatures that are effective at what they do, just isn't how the galaxy works, unless it is for adaption) This would give them more value than they have already as a support defender and increase their offensive value for late game. Just an interesting idea and like another post of mine from tonight.
*Note I will update this concept with an edit in the morning to address some issues that I will have before I fall asleep. ;D

 

I'm sorry ShdwyTemplar, I'm not a big fan of those ideas. I don't really want to see flying Lurkers, I'd much prefer if they would run amock underneath the ground than in the air. And I don't think it would be difficult at all to make the lore work out with the Hunter Killers. In fact, it would help make sense of earlier things because it, as Ych9 said, would make connections between the legged Hydralisks in the Starcraft cinematics and the Hunter Killer evolution of Starcraft 2. Trust me, Blizzard has stretched their storylines much further than what this would take.

 

Well, I was just saying the idea as an example of a possibility as I really did stretch that one a bit too far. Though as I said I would like this change to see the Hydra -> Hunter Killer work out as imo the HK were my fav unit save, Zeratul, in all of SC. I see your point in the Lore connection between the two. Though a short and simple to answer why Hunter Killer had legs in one portion and none in another( I think that was correct).

The Hydralisk that appear between the two Strains of Regular Strain and the Hunter Killer Strain that appears in cinematic have both different chains of evolution. The Hunter Killer in the cinematic had the same relative movement of Zerglings in cinematic form therefore we can conclude it was bred to be swifter than normal Hydralisk by the fact it was specialized in to be faster and silenter and had legs. The Hydralisk form we see in game and in the Hunter Killer In-game is one that is more serpent-like and was possibly a separate strain than the one in the cinematic combine with the fact that normal Hydralisk were still developing muscles through the Hydralisk Den and the Hunter Killers In-game didn't seem to have legs. The Zerg have been known to do multiple evolutionary lines between Broods I believe, Tiamat Brood being no different. So the Possibility of this does seemd more likely than I thought.
Well it wasn't so short, but shorter than most my post. So I guess it would be rather simple to explain this. I feel a little dumber and yet smarter from this post. :drunk: (Note* not actually drunk, but it represents my feelings there, so sue me.)

 

Kehmdaddy I like the hunter killer idea, I think hydras with huge scythe arms could be pretty sweet.

However, I don't like the primal rage idea, I don't think it fits into SC. It's similar to soul hunters but even worse because it's permanent damage boost. That is actually an RPG element if you think about it, and RPG elements need to stay the hell away from SC for the most part.

Permanent damage boost earned by racking kills is basically the same thing as an experience and level-up system, where you gain permanent stat boosts. Even if something similar(such as soul hunter mechanic) that isn't a permanent increase is introduced in SC, I still think Zerg should be the last race to have it. Zerg isn't at all about maintaining a few units to keep them stronger than the rest and using them for a long time.

If anything, that should be Protoss, but for now I think the warpray mechanic is enough. We don't really need much more than that, people didn't even like the soul hunter idea. If Blizzard wanted a variable damage mechanic for a Toss unit, I really think they should've went with a unit that deal more damage the less HP it has, a proud Protoss warrior that becomes increasingly fervent the closer it is to death. It could be multiple increments or just a single large boost whenever it is without shield. The latter would work nicely with EMP to create an interesting gameplay mechanic and some fun Toss strategies. But anyway, that's stuff for some other thread.

I have some suggestions get around the damage boost but still keep the hunter killer highly unique. I think hunter killers should gain speed boosts after kills, and I mean every kill. Blood frenzy, every time a hunter killer makes a kill it gets worked up from the blood and thrill, it's driven into a hyper frenzied state to hunt down the next victim.

The exact effect would be an attack rate increase but also greatly increased movement speed, it should only last a very short time, around 10 to 15 seconds. The idea is that if you continously kill fast enough, you can constantly be in the blood frenzied state. The large incease in movement speed is to help hunter killers quickly engage the next target as well as hunt down weak or fleeing near-death units for the next kill. The attack rate increase should equal to 25~50% increase in damage output. Crackling upgrade was a 25% increase in damage output and marine stimpack was 50%. Since the attack rate increase by blood frenzy is conditional similar to the stimpack and not a permanent upgrade like cracklings, a 50% boost should be reasonable.

The hunter killer should deal decent damage per hit, but not remarkable in total damage output normally. But then have excellent damage output once they get a kill and double their attack rate. The attack damage in a single hit should be somewhat high for a mid-tier Zerg ground unit, and the attack rate not as fast as a Zergling even when doubled. If hunter killers dealt damage by having extremely fast but weak hits, then they would overlap with zerglings/cracklings and become redudant. If they attack fast AND deal high damage perhit, then they would just be OP.

Staying far away from OP-ness is the most important thing to any idea, the other races need to have fairly easy ways of countering it. You should think out how the other races could counter and punish any idea, and what are its downsides, if you can't think of some then it's likely imbalanced.

 

I don't think the hydras should evolve into Hunter Killers. I mean, Starcraft 2 should include more unique units. Isn't the Hunter Killer just an improved hydra? I don't think giving it legs would change much. The lurker is so much different from the hydra. The guardians and the devourers are different from the mutalisk too. So i think the second evolution for the hydra should be something totally different too.

 

I suppose you're right, Remy. That is more of an RPG mechanic. I was just thinking of it working like your blood frenzy, but instead of attack and movement speed I was thinking damage. The thing that would avoid it from overlapping is its cliff jumping ability. With its quick speed, especially if it recently got a kill, it could be a very useful base raider.
And to timedragon, I was always a fan of the Hunter Killer in the first place. I think it's a cool unit that should stay in the game but gain some unique qualities of its own. If you read my ideas, you would see it's not just an improved Hydralisk. And the legs deal was for some visual uniqueness as well, plus it wouldn't make a lick of sense to see a cliff jumping creature that slithers on the ground. Also, the legs would be a valid explanation of what the hell all the creatures in the cinematics of the original game were.

 

I think hunter killers can be unique enough to be very different from the hydralisk, even visually.

Based on Kehmdaddy's descriptions, I was personally envisioning a Zerg with huge scythe arms and multiple(8 or more) spider-like legs. Kind of like the special spider mount in WoW, or Duriel(Act2 boss in Diablo 2) except slimmer.

 

But if you change the looks of a Hunter Killer to look more unique, then it wouldn't be called a Hunter Killer, would it? A Hunter Killer is just a hero hydralisk that has higher HP and attack power than a normal hydralisk. If you change its look, you might as well give it a new name.

 

they are talking about changing it from being a hero to an evolution.

 

yea! the nuriban tank spider thing? dude that would be awesome. The top part of it would look like a hydra, so it could attack air, and the bottom would be like a lurker, so it could burrow and lurk and what say you. however, the air attack and the ground lurker attack would be less than a hydra and a lurker, to balance it out i guess. or it could be the same and just cost a heck of a lotta recourses.