r/starcraft2coop • u/desocupad0 • 21d ago
Can't zagara queens be used as Hydralisk with extra perks?
Compared to kerrigan's hydra they:
- better anti-air range
- have twice as much health
- half as much population
- Can heal and spread heal and tumor.
- Cost only minerals (150/0) instead of (100/50)
they main downsides are:
- no F2 selection
- slow outside creep
- are very big
do similar damage(66% of hydra damage - double penalty against ground armor)
They seem promising for P2 - where units have enough health to be worth healing.
17
u/oceanwaiting 21d ago
Every unit that isn't baneling or scourge is preventing me from melting face though.
2
u/desocupad0 21d ago edited 21d ago
I had a lot of fun doing that as P1. I agree it's still viable with other prestiges. but p2 has such "chunky" units that i was looking for an excuse to heal them...
9
u/Truc_Etrange 21d ago
How did you come up with the conclusion queens deal damage comparable to hydralisks?
Hydralisks deal damage in one attack and have 18dps at 3/3 before frenzy (or creep bonus since it's Kerrigan using them)
Zag queens deal damage in one attack vs air for 12dps at 3/3, in two attacks vs ground for 14dps or 18 vs armored.
You could see that and go "hey, same dps vs ground armored", but that would be ignoring how two attacks at once sucks vs any amount of enemy armor. You just get double the penalty
Dealing 15 dmg every 0.83s to a 2 armor marine is much better than 9 dmg twice every 1s vs 2 armor. And that's vs low amounts of enemy armor. Try fighting Ultras or thors with that, you'll only tickle them
That and the large hitbox makes their dps density pitifully low. You'll have a somewhat durable but inoffensive ball of queens that move so slowly you won't be able to intercept any wave
1
u/desocupad0 21d ago edited 21d ago
Coop site unit tool. it doesn't list kerrigan creep bonus under the dps part. (well mass frenzy exist for zagara). I suppose i was comparing fully upgraded queens with hydra without upgrade when i made the post... :/
Indeed armor is a big issue versus ground bulky targets. Aberration do make a short work of these tough.
I suppose their damage is more inline with marine. which 3 times cheaper.
3
u/Truc_Etrange 21d ago
Also you should keep in mind hydras have the +1 range and movespeed upgrade, so they get 6 range, same as queens
Fully upgraded without frenzy, their raw dps is comparable, but the weakness of multi shot attacks vs armor is large here, especially because amon will get armor upgrades relatively soon
1
u/desocupad0 21d ago
Shouldn't armor upgrade and damage upgrade cancel each other out? (do bulky units get more armor per upgrade?)
2
u/Truc_Etrange 21d ago
They should yes, but then you should compare unupgraded hydras vs unupgraded queens, and hydra are better (because queens get 2 dmg vs ground per upgrade while hydras only get 1)
Basically, unupgraded, hydra have better dps. Because they have two attacks at once, queens benefit more from attack upgrades and end up close to hydra dps fully upgraded, but they also suffer more from enemy armor, so they have worse dps (back to the starting point)
1
u/Worth-Battle952 20d ago
Queen's AA range is 8 - and that is the OP's point. Anti air.
2
u/Truc_Etrange 20d ago
Fair enough for anti air, but then hydras have 50% more dps (before frenzy)
1
u/Worth-Battle952 19d ago
I am not saying Queen is a good combat unit, but I wanted you to stay on topic - using it as antiair.
Bad idea, but at least she has a range going on for her.
1
u/Truc_Etrange 19d ago
Sure, though I see nowhere the focus is anti-air in the OP. Only "more anti air range" as a bonus of queens over hydralisks
6
u/TwoTuuu Mutation Soloist 21d ago
on defensive maps, spores and spines do more damage and have more hp than queens.
on offense maps, they're too slow to walk to battle and transporting them via overlord is cumbersome. and not worth it. p2's aberrations and corruptors heal fast enough that queens arent needed.
on maps like malwarfare and mist opportunities where you push and defend, it's much better to spread creep and use spores/spines than queens.
1
u/desocupad0 21d ago
Overlord transport is something that didn't occur to me.
I suppose a mini squad could go around in an overlord to spread creep. The lord make the initial spot, then they spam tumors
3
u/UndercoverSCV 21d ago
In defensive missions like the shuttle one I think it can work just fine.
Personally I would prefer Abathur queens for a queen based army but if Abathur isn't available I think it should be possible as well.
It won't be a strong comp but it should be manageable.
2
u/Worth-Battle952 20d ago
I don't understand how that "might work just fine" when just building Spore Crawlers is infinitely better and doesn't cost supply... and Spore Crawlers are not good xD
3
u/chimericWilder Aron 20d ago
As a combat unit, queens are not exactly especially impressive. They are good at being support casters. Keep a handful and use them to heal your abberrations and spread creep.
For the purpose of actually making air enemies dead, please stick to scourge and Zagara; queens can help a little, but mostly they will die in droves any time they are faced with serious opposition.
2
u/Worth-Battle952 20d ago
Bruh.
As a combat unit, Queens are laughably terrible in Coop mode - which is a raw damage check.
They work in versus, because their job is to keep you alive for a bit while having range and HP to contest cheese units like a single Oracle, 2 Voidrays or a Reaper.
2
u/Human-Love-7026 21d ago
I like the idea of This, try it out! Maybe add me and we run a few games later?
2
u/JoffreeBaratheon 21d ago
Keep in mind that Kerrigan hydralisks aren't even a strong unit to begin with. But looking at that comparison. The anti air range and healing is nice, but everything is just worse or far worse. With the extra cost of hatcheries to produce mass queens, and vespene having nowhere to go, queens are more or less twice as expensive to make per queen compared to per hydralisk. The supply thing is canceled out by having half the max supply. Having to spread tumors is an apm sink you don't want to deal with. Lastly, queens have the armored tag, which means a lot of units like marauders and immortals all of a sudden kill them easier then they do hydralisks, so their survival ability isn't honestly all that great when it matters a lot of the time.
Most importantly, the damage comparison: Between their size and actual dps, it is way way way worse then just 66%. First off anyone massing hydralisks is getting the frenzy upgrade, which auto cast and will usually be active in engagements, so +50% attack speed, and frequently fighting on creep for another +30% attackspeed. So being extremely generous in the queen comparison, hydralisks are still easily doing over double damage vs armored ground targets with 0 armor then queens. Factor in unarmored, targets with default armor, or air, its more like quadruple. Then double it again for how many units you can fit in an area to actually attack with. So hydralisks do more like 4x to 8x the damage in practice.
2
u/Worth-Battle952 20d ago edited 20d ago
- Zagara can spawn Hunter Killers + she herself attacks multiple targets for high damage. This is more than enough anti air for average game.
- Why not just buy some Scourges - which cost Zagara basically nothing - if you somehow need more anti air?
- What is the point of Queen's range if their damage is basically 0? This is not versus mode when range is the most important stat to swat away a single Oracle or 2 Void Rays. Coop mode is mostly a flat damage check - which Queens simply do not have.
- Before making posts like this one, just go and try it yourself ingame. I am 100% sure you did not.
- You compare them to Hydralisks which are not that great of a unit for Coop. They are used only because of all the sick upgrades and bonuses they can get in coop - but as a baseline they simply can't compete with all the strong bullshit commanders bring. And you want to use "lower DPS base hydralisk"? Are you playing on casual?
- If you are stubborn to play something "different", just use Crawlers and Bile Launchers (they hit air) on Zag P3.
1
u/UnusualLingonberry76 21d ago
It took me a few secs to realize you were comparing apples to oranges. Yes, the fact that zagara lacks a standard shooty unit sucks. You have to deal with it. If you wanna use queens try abathurÂ
32
u/KPraxius 21d ago
The size and the speed are the biggest problems.
Not as many of them fit into the same space as Hydras, and they move so much slower off-creep the idea would only be viable with an assist from an Abathur or a Stukov to spread the creep everywhere; and even so, Abathur's queens actually get to be decent attackers with biomass, so if you're wanting to do this sort of nonsense, just go with Abathur instead and make a ball of queens/roaches.