Lerk tactics
internetexplorer
Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Step yo game up!</div>A lot of people are playing the lerk right now and it's a very exciting time. I want to share some cool ideas about how to play the class (all open to debate of course!). Post your own ideas too and we can all become scholars.
<ul><li><b>Bile bomb damages marines' armor, and spores/spikes damage their health. </b>Armories heal health fully <i>before </i>healing armor. Consider biling marines who are not near armories, then putting spores around armories to prevent proper healing while their armor is low. Of course, welding will work against this - but that's one less marine shooting for every one holding a welder. This is a great way to carry out a 'long term harassment' campaign and split the enemy team between defending and attacking.
</li><li><b>Bile bomb damage scales extremely well as the game progresses.</b> The more armor upgrades the marines buy, the more there is for you to negate with bile (returning marines to the 'naked' state where they die to 2 bites). There's nothing like the medpack to instantly restore armor, either.
</li><li><b>Bile bomb gets its speed from your speed.</b> Fly quickly to throw bile across large distances, and also have the ability to quickly swoop out of danger. Try not to use bile while perched, because you will have a limited targeting range, and very little free energy to make yourself an escape with spores.
</li><li><b>Use spores to 'zone' enemies</b>, rather than explicitly to damage them or get teammates into biting range. For example, if you are in Glass Hallway and you know marines are coming for you, lay spores at the base of the ramp (where the 3 paths through the room meet), and at the upper area above that. This gives total ambiguity about where you will choose to go (high toward data core, low toward data core, toward reactor core, toward maintenance access...).
</li><li><b>If you set spores in an area and want to hold that area,</b> consider laying more spores ahead/behind/within the existing ones for when they wear off. Use parasite and infestation vision to know when marines are backing off, and move your spores closer to them.
</li><li><b>Always use spores to create ambiguity </b>- if a marine player wants to, he can always shoot into the spores and hit you. For instance, if you flew underneath Ventilation or Crevice to heal up, don't simply fly up and out of the room while sporing. If you're still weak, the enemies will aim along the obvious path you are taking and hit you. Consider swooping in a quick half-circle to lay a wide set of spores and then strafe left/right to exit the room more safely (while dealing more damage). This one is really debatable, but the crux of it is that you often can't get up to full speed if you exit from "the bottom of ventilation/crevice" along the shortest path, so you're much easier to hit even if you're taking a shorter path. Not only can you create ambiguity about the path you're taking, but you can confuse peoples' prediction of your health (by making it clear that you're not afraid to stick around a bit more).
</li><li><b>Lerk is not solely about getting kills</b>. Often if you are performing well, you will be feeding teammates a lot of kills. Focus on staying alive and ensuring that you're always doing damage SOMEHOW (zoning/choking with spores, peppering with spikes, biling players/structures). Encourage team mates to work with you when your damage starts to stack up, so that the incapacitated enemies can be digested and fed back into the ecosystem!
</li><li><b>Use map awareness to manage your energy use</b>. If you're harassing the marines' base, but no team mates are nearby to help kill wounded players, focus on bile bombing structures, not players. The 'armory tactic' up above is no use if the enemy players don't die, because they will kill you. Swoop in, drop some spores/bile and get out to safety. If team mates are close by, focus on displacing and wounding marines. Structures can be killed when there is nobody left alive to defend them.
</li><li><b>When possible, cropdust with your spores from <i>behind enemies</i>. </b>When combined with strafing to the side (behind the area obscured by spores), this can confuse opponents and let you fly right past them without being turned to swiss cheese. It's also a no-brainer that flying head-on into people laying spores is likely to get you killed.</li></ul>
Some of that stuff was really basic, and some of it is a bit more advanced. Either way, I hope somebody learned something. Now teach me all your cool lerk stuff!
<ul><li><b>Bile bomb damages marines' armor, and spores/spikes damage their health. </b>Armories heal health fully <i>before </i>healing armor. Consider biling marines who are not near armories, then putting spores around armories to prevent proper healing while their armor is low. Of course, welding will work against this - but that's one less marine shooting for every one holding a welder. This is a great way to carry out a 'long term harassment' campaign and split the enemy team between defending and attacking.
</li><li><b>Bile bomb damage scales extremely well as the game progresses.</b> The more armor upgrades the marines buy, the more there is for you to negate with bile (returning marines to the 'naked' state where they die to 2 bites). There's nothing like the medpack to instantly restore armor, either.
</li><li><b>Bile bomb gets its speed from your speed.</b> Fly quickly to throw bile across large distances, and also have the ability to quickly swoop out of danger. Try not to use bile while perched, because you will have a limited targeting range, and very little free energy to make yourself an escape with spores.
</li><li><b>Use spores to 'zone' enemies</b>, rather than explicitly to damage them or get teammates into biting range. For example, if you are in Glass Hallway and you know marines are coming for you, lay spores at the base of the ramp (where the 3 paths through the room meet), and at the upper area above that. This gives total ambiguity about where you will choose to go (high toward data core, low toward data core, toward reactor core, toward maintenance access...).
</li><li><b>If you set spores in an area and want to hold that area,</b> consider laying more spores ahead/behind/within the existing ones for when they wear off. Use parasite and infestation vision to know when marines are backing off, and move your spores closer to them.
</li><li><b>Always use spores to create ambiguity </b>- if a marine player wants to, he can always shoot into the spores and hit you. For instance, if you flew underneath Ventilation or Crevice to heal up, don't simply fly up and out of the room while sporing. If you're still weak, the enemies will aim along the obvious path you are taking and hit you. Consider swooping in a quick half-circle to lay a wide set of spores and then strafe left/right to exit the room more safely (while dealing more damage). This one is really debatable, but the crux of it is that you often can't get up to full speed if you exit from "the bottom of ventilation/crevice" along the shortest path, so you're much easier to hit even if you're taking a shorter path. Not only can you create ambiguity about the path you're taking, but you can confuse peoples' prediction of your health (by making it clear that you're not afraid to stick around a bit more).
</li><li><b>Lerk is not solely about getting kills</b>. Often if you are performing well, you will be feeding teammates a lot of kills. Focus on staying alive and ensuring that you're always doing damage SOMEHOW (zoning/choking with spores, peppering with spikes, biling players/structures). Encourage team mates to work with you when your damage starts to stack up, so that the incapacitated enemies can be digested and fed back into the ecosystem!
</li><li><b>Use map awareness to manage your energy use</b>. If you're harassing the marines' base, but no team mates are nearby to help kill wounded players, focus on bile bombing structures, not players. The 'armory tactic' up above is no use if the enemy players don't die, because they will kill you. Swoop in, drop some spores/bile and get out to safety. If team mates are close by, focus on displacing and wounding marines. Structures can be killed when there is nobody left alive to defend them.
</li><li><b>When possible, cropdust with your spores from <i>behind enemies</i>. </b>When combined with strafing to the side (behind the area obscured by spores), this can confuse opponents and let you fly right past them without being turned to swiss cheese. It's also a no-brainer that flying head-on into people laying spores is likely to get you killed.</li></ul>
Some of that stuff was really basic, and some of it is a bit more advanced. Either way, I hope somebody learned something. Now teach me all your cool lerk stuff!
Comments
I've really enjoyed playing lerk since even before he got bile bomb, so I'm just enjoying it more and more now (though I do miss shotgun spikes just a tiny bit).
I think any tips I have to add will be fairly obvious, but for what it's worth:
- bile bomb splash is huge. You can hit both the power node and the extractor with one bomb in several places, such as ventilation and reactor core. in reactor core you can actually bile both at once from the vent
- go regen before carpace (opposite of skulk) unless there is a nearby gorge/crag/hive to where you're attacking. as a lerk i frequently find myself taking a few bullets and being very weak but not dead.
- mines go down with one bile bomb and each one is probably going to kill a skulk eventually, so kill the damn things (even with spikes, if it's hive 1). Don't waste time trying to hero lerk against a bunch of marines with spores and spikes if the map is covered in mines. Help your skulky friends by killing mines instead. Turrets go down pretty quick too.
I'm a huge fan of silence in general, but it really shines with the lerk. No wing flap sound, no spike noise for people to find you, not even the whoosh of releasing spores to clue someone in around a corner. Overall, it seems like crags do more for me as a lerk because I like to get in peoples' faces and be a jerk. Jerk lerk.
what i also like to do, is a hit&run style: travel from map-part to map-part throwing just 1-2 bile bombs at their extractors/bases/outposts then leave for a different area. the key to manage this is to remain unpredictable. as soon as marines notice a pattern, they can intercept you (or at least prepare to shoot as soon as you arrive). so sometimes you should change your route, or even stay at a certain location for a while if no marines are around.
this tactic is still more risky than it might sound as you can run into a lot of marines on your way. however, even if they have welders, they are less effective compared to you just damaging targets in a smaller area as marines travel a lot slower. this is, of course, unless you want to destroy specific buildings. but as mentioned you can still do that if you come across an area where no marines show up for a while.
regeneration and silence are indeed most useful for this tactic, maybe carapace if there is a healing opportunity rather close to a marine base.
edit: if there are other lerks on the team, you can take turns attacking the enemy base. if timed right, they cannot even weld their buildings because buildings cannot be repaired while under the effect of a bile bomb.
Splash damage radius may be large, but it decreases in damage the further you go out. The only way to get the full damage effect is if your Bile Bomb hits the structure within 2 meters (correct me if I'm wrong). This Bile Bomb no longer stacks as well due to the confusion about that damage type. The damage was doubled over the same amount of time.
is the same true for players' armor?
2) Don't flap to turn 180 deg. It's a common mistake I make, you enter a room and see too much marines and start flapping in panic to go back. Unfortunately you don't move much by flapping and die as a result. Instead just continue gliding and do a 180 turn with the mouse.
3) Feint retreat / counter timing. One thing you can do after a short fight in which you didn't lost too much health is do 1)+2) and go back into the fight right away. You can catch the marine reloading or not paying attention. The timing as to be right.
4) Stay low. You want to use a much as possible the map to break fire line of the marine. It means you often need to flight close to the ground instead of in the middle of the room. For example in crevice you don't want to cut though the open area but instead to follow the wall.
5) In 1v1, if the marine starts to get medpacks or nano-shield, get out asap. Depends if the marine can aim of course, but a constantly medpacked marine is very hard to kill.
I used to be a pretty good lerk and was able to play like saba lerk.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOl26CAhlXQ&feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOl26CAhlXQ...player_embedded</a>
I haven't been to good at lerk since shotgun spikes.
I used to be a pretty good lerk and was able to play like saba lerk.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOl26CAhlXQ&feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOl26CAhlXQ...player_embedded</a>
I haven't been to good at lerk since shotgun spikes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, it's best to not bump the thread and instead make a new one. I'm not the guy to do it since I don't play the game more than half an hour in a month, and I don't even know what weapons the lerk uses anymore.
Most of the OP still applies. Just remove the bile bomb stuff.
Lerk has umbra and poison bite now. The spike has changed so it is less accurate and has like 20 ft range.
Umbra is like the spore cloud except you want to crop dust your team mates. Umbra makes them do more damage. The best time to use umbra is best used to support the aliens in major confrontations with marines.
Poison bite slowly damages a marine over time, and brings them down to 5 health. It is best to bite them and then spike/crop dust them, or just run away.
Maybe I will start another thread for the lerk.
Using your gas a smoke screen can on occasions be an effective way to provide you with cover for spikes, but this wont always work since gas is fairly see through.
Also bite no longer damages down to 5 health but does like 30 dmg (and cant bring them below 5 health)
If you want to escape elsewhere, you can do a "strafe bite", you want to stay far from the marine to avoid to collide and loose you speed but close enough for the bite to register, you need to strafe flight or even flight backward as you turn around and bite the marine.
The current "ram into marine's chest and bite like a skulk" that is typical for new lerk players can be frustrating, often ending in a quick death without realizing how they were supposed to approach the situation. (how are they supposed to know how far to be to bite without losing momentum?)
Shouldn't effect skill ceiling too much, as those that are really good at lerk dont need this, so just the entrance level. Jusssttt an idea..
This is perhaps the best Lerk tactic anyone can use.
This is perhaps the best Lerk tactic anyone can use.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is seriously not helpful
When attacking marines as a non-spike lerk, it's fairly straightforward: bite them once, put some distance between you and them as the poison drops their hit points, and then either come back in for another bite to finish them off, or my favorite, drop a trail of spores between them and the base they came from, so they have to run through them to get healed.
In. Bite. Out. Gas. In, Chomp Chomp. Out.
Really? I watched a video of what I think was you lerking, it was a saba. I copied those tactics and was a pretty good lerk. Shotgun spikes lack of accuracy really hurt my lerking. Since then, lerk is the last alien I have yet to master.
I usually don't stay out in the open too long with Spikes. I tend to have a variation on how I approach the marine(s), whether its taking a few pot shots then hiding until he gets closer for a Bite, or taking the time to actually go around some how to flank him for another Spike run.
When attacking marines as a non-spike lerk, it's fairly straightforward: bite them once, put some distance between you and them as the poison drops their hit points, and then either come back in for another bite to finish them off, or my favorite, drop a trail of spores between them and the base they came from, so they have to run through them to get healed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a great tactic if you want to get killed by the first decent shotgunner you find.