Hydralisk (StarCraft II)

Tactics
Hydralisks counter mutalisks and banshees. Hydralisks in large numbers also counter phoenixes. They are, however, relatively fragile and are inefficient against large numbers of armored units.

A combination of roaches and hydralisks can defeat a combo of zerglings and mutalisks. Hydralisks can excel against void rays, given the starship's weakness to mass units. Burrowing for a short time to cause the void ray's attack to lose its charge, then resume attacking is the best idea against void rays.

Hydralisks work well paired with roaches, the hydralisks dealing damage while the roaches absorb it.

Hydralisks have a melee attack in addition to their normal ranged attack, but it does the same damage as the ranged attack. The melee attack is cosmetic, but has the advantage of not triggering point defense drone lasers.

Heart of the Swarm
In Heart of the Swarm, the hydralisk will have a speed upgrade available. It will increase their off-creep speed by 50% (so their speed on and off the creep match) and will cost 150 minerals and 150 vespene.


 * Increased Muscular Augments
 * Researched at hydralisk den
 * Cost: 150 min/150 gas/100 sec
 * Hydralisks move 50% faster off creep.
 * Its a hive-level upgrade.

Conception
It was intended that the hydralisk make a return in StarCraft II from the outset. Some visual upgrades had to be carried out however&mdash;the in-game artwork of the hydralisk from the original game did not match the cinematic version, so adjustments were made to the StarCraft II hydralisk such as the tail spikes and head-gills used during the attack animations. Another visual update was the scything talons being increased from one to three to make the design dissimilar from other popular alien designs such as the tyranids.

The hydralisk was also iterated on several times. Earlier renditions were very accurate to Samwise Didier's concept and worked very well in-game. The cinematic department created a high-resolution version of the hydralisk which featured many stylized differences which became a visual disconnect between the cinematic and in-game artwork of the hydralisk. The final iteration of the hydralisk was done with the intention of applying more cinematic-influenced designs to the low-resolution hydralisk while maintaining the bold Samwise proportions and style.

Game Unit
Hydralisks have constantly moved in tier from 1.5 to 2 and back over the development of StarCraft II. In April 2009 the hydralisk has been moved back to tier 1.5, as part of an effort to prevent zerg vs zerg matches devolving into roach vs roach battles. In May 2009 they were moved back up to tier 2. As of June 2009 they were moved back to tier 1.5.

Hydralisks used to give extra damage to air units.

Images

 * See: the image gallery.