Why is Carapace 1st still the standard in 217?
Sebenza
Join Date: 2012-08-03 Member: 154649Members
Join Date: 2012-08-03 Member: 154649Members
I've played quite a few rounds now, mostly as alien due to massive marine stackaroo (big surprise!). Now that carapace on skulks has been nerfed (again), what's the point of making this your first upgrade to research <u>every single time</u>, my alien commander friends? As if the skulk weren't slow enough with the broken walljumps and the lack of bunnyhopping, you keep insisting on turning him from slow to snail. I hate playing the crawling alien dog. Stuff like regen and celerity keep me going a LOT longer than carapace, because, you know, dodging helps...
Comments
I can't speak for everyone, but I do comm a lot for aliens so I can state my own opinions on the matter.
First things first, I view regeneration as 100% useless. In my opinion, no life form should ever use regeneration over carapace, no exception. You think this would be a negative point for crag hive, but it actually isn't. If I need to build one shell, and select one upgrade, in order to cover every alien lifeform, that is a big plus. Now consider shift upgrades. In my opinion, celerity is for skulks, early game gorges, and lerks who are so inclined. Adrenaline is for late game gorges, the vast majority of lerks, and all fades. That means that if I go that route, I'm looking at double the res expenditure to cover all the bases.
Now lets look at what each upgrade actually does. Carapace is not situational. More armour, live longer, regardless of the encounter, this is always true. Celerity is situational. You can be moving the speed of light, but if you're coming down a straight passage into marine fortifications, its not going to count for anything. The benefit of celerity also drops off quite quickly against upgraded weapons, and especially shotguns.
Does this mean crag is the preferred upgrade in all cases? No.
If the focus of my strategy is the acquisition of a second hive, celerity is always my first upgrade. Firstly because it obviously allows aliens to assist the hive faster if anything bad goes down, and secondly because celerity works just as well, if not better, than carapace in the early game, where marine fortifications are few and far between. If a swift second hive is not in my strategy, then carapace gives me the best chance of reclaiming a tech point if it gets taken. It also means the least risk in terms of making higher life forms happy. 90% of lerks and 70% of fades are probably more comfortable with carapace over adrenaline (when blink isn't in the picture).
First things first, I view regeneration as 100% useless. In my opinion, no life form should ever use regeneration over carapace, no exception. You think this would be a negative point for crag hive, but it actually isn't. If I need to build one shell, and select one upgrade, in order to cover every alien lifeform, that is a big plus. Now consider shift upgrades. In my opinion, celerity is for skulks, early game gorges, and lerks who are so inclined. Adrenaline is for late game gorges, the vast majority of lerks, and all fades. That means that if I go that route, I'm looking at double the res expenditure to cover all the bases.
Now lets look at what each upgrade actually does. Carapace is not situational. More armour, live longer, regardless of the encounter, this is always true. Celerity is situational. You can be moving the speed of light, but if you're coming down a straight passage into marine fortifications, its not going to count for anything. The benefit of celerity also drops off quite quickly against upgraded weapons, and especially shotguns.
Does this mean crag is the preferred upgrade in all cases? No.
If the focus of my strategy is the acquisition of a second hive, celerity is always my first upgrade. Firstly because it obviously allows aliens to assist the hive faster if anything bad goes down, and secondly because celerity works just as well, if not better, than carapace in the early game, where marine fortifications are few and far between. If a swift second hive is not in my strategy, then carapace gives me the best chance of reclaiming a tech point if it gets taken. It also means the least risk in terms of making higher life forms happy. 90% of lerks and 70% of fades are probably more comfortable with carapace over adrenaline (when blink isn't in the picture).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was very informative and insightful. Thanks a lot for your deliberations. What I don't get is your hate for regeneration, though. I find myself very often in the situation that I survived a fight and have to spend aeons to get back to a healing source and return to the frontlines. Regeneration, coupled with the (faster) base running speed of skulks and lerks can be extremely helpful by removing the necessity to fall back. Wait a couple of seconds and you're good to go again. This really helps defending areas for a near-infinite amount of time (at least against smaller groups of marines).
But I see the problem with later lifeforms, where carapace really shines. I just hate how the current carapace cripples you as a skulk. I usually survive longer without it, as I can dodge much more effectively, and the healing breaks between fights are shorter because I can travel the distance back to the hive significantly quicker. I usually end up just not upgrading the skulk until something more useful / less crippling is researched, which I'm doing rather fine with. But I still hate the feeling that the next (critical) minutes will have to be spent without upgrades because the only thing we got is something not really viable. As soon as leap is researched, the carapace-slowdown doesn't matter all that much any more and the boost you get having both at once is extremely satisfying.
I'd still love to see commanders experimenting more with their upgrades. Celerity-first is extremely viable, but judging from my experience in NS1, silence and cloak can be very effective as well.
<!--quoteo(post=1968873:date=Aug 30 2012, 05:21 PM:name=VeNeM)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (VeNeM @ Aug 30 2012, 05:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1968873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i will almost always go cara first, its a basic toughness perk. why would you not go cara first when marines will be spamming shotguns/mines shortly (wouldnt be a problem if hitreg were better but thats a whole other bag of beans). ok yea you can move fast with cele but if your team isnt pushing out (or pushes out but fails to cap a hive) youre screwed and its gg. regen is useful for other classes and certain skulk players. if you like to hit and run on the other end of the map in an attempt to stop marine advancement then regen is fine. it saves you the time it takes to run all the way back to the hive and wait for the slow hive heal. cara gives even the newest player the best chance to contribute to the team. cele will most likely disorientate a new player.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I find the argument "cara = always good" debatable at least. It doesn't add THAT much survivability and it certainly makes you a lot easier to hit, even for bad marine players with not-that-good aiming... So it kinda balances itself out, possibly resulting in no positive effect at all. And its cons are quite obvious: not only your dodging gets a lot more ineffective, you also need more time to get where you're needed...
First things first, I view regeneration as 100% useless. In my opinion, no life form should ever use regeneration over carapace, no exception. You think this would be a negative point for crag hive, but it actually isn't. If I need to build one shell, and select one upgrade, in order to cover every alien lifeform, that is a big plus. Now consider shift upgrades. In my opinion, celerity is for skulks, early game gorges, and lerks who are so inclined. Adrenaline is for late game gorges, the vast majority of lerks, and all fades. That means that if I go that route, I'm looking at double the res expenditure to cover all the bases.
Now lets look at what each upgrade actually does. Carapace is not situational. More armour, live longer, regardless of the encounter, this is always true. Celerity is situational. You can be moving the speed of light, but if you're coming down a straight passage into marine fortifications, its not going to count for anything. The benefit of celerity also drops off quite quickly against upgraded weapons, and especially shotguns.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I prefer both celerity and regen as over cara as just about any lifeform except fade or onos. They allow for unparalleled harassment and gorilla warfare (you dont have to fight to the death you know) with celerity allowing an easy escape. Celerity is great for map control on the larger maps as well as very useful (more useful for me) in combat than cara. Concerning your example, the usefulness of celerity is that since your so fast you dont have to run down the fortified hallway, you can take like 3 seconds to sneak around through a vent and attack somewhere completely defenceless the game is after all won by killing rts. Besides
even in the fortified hallway 30 extra armour is not going to save you, moving very fast might.
I have also seen shade hive first occasion some serious rapage of marines but that tends to be harder to pull off (but if you do pull it off it is hilarious for you and nightmarish for the marines).
Does cara still slow you? I know the armour got nerfed but maybe they removed the slow?
I comm aliens quite a bit and it goes like this, shift hive first celerity then 2nd hive when thats up research leap on first hive and upgrade 2nd to crag get cara ,, I don't listen to any1 and get anything else until I got that ,no adren nothing coz its a gd way to lose res is to go on lerk or fade without cara and they will not go lerk or fade if you don't get them adren,, problem is comm need to learn to say no u can't get that just now but ull get it soon :P
In that regard, Imbalanxd is absolutely right - carapace is the most useful upgrade for those players. Regeneration is useless because they won't retreat if they are losing, in order to regenerate and fight again. Celerity is useful for map control, but only if you know where you're going, and again, most new or casual players don't.
That's how I see it, anyway.
Again, I'm going to say you're absolutely right in public servers. However - I am playing lately with people I have gotten to know through this game, and I find playing with them, I have gotten to know their play styles, and ambushes still work fabulously. It's much more satisfying than CoD style game play, as you call it.
Yes, that is probably true. Even something as simple as COD or CS becomes much more complicated when two organised teams are facing off.
However, in NS1, even unorganised random play was complicated. Then again, I did play in a very small, very organised community, so even the pubs were quite good.
That's how I see it, anyway.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Woah, no, I strongly disagree. This game is still about resources, and 1-2 roaming skulks that destroy extractors away from the frontlines make a huge difference, either keeping marine res-flow very low or forcing them to scatter accross the map in order to defend their valuable extractors.
That's how I see it, anyway.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is not very convincing. I think you have been playing too much summit.
People like you are the reason we see most of the alien team suicide rushing the marine main or fortification of choice while a half-score marine RTs tick away around the map.
That's how I see it, anyway.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1968898:date=Aug 30 2012, 08:58 AM:name=Cee Colon Slash)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cee Colon Slash @ Aug 30 2012, 08:58 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1968898"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Again, I'm going to say you're absolutely right in public servers. However - I am playing lately with people I have gotten to know through this game, and I find playing with them, I have gotten to know their play styles, and ambushes still work fabulously. It's much more satisfying than CoD style game play, as you call it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Eh, even public server players can learn. And as players realize when to just disengage in a fight you can't win as a Skulk Regen will help.
I agree, Carapace is the single more universal upgrade. I posted elsewhere about this phenomenon and how this differed from the chamber choices in NS1 where you picked a suite of upgrades instead of the single upgrade in NS2. However, my personal opinion is as people get used to the game, Shift Hives with Celerity and Adren will become more viable. And Shade Hives for early Invis for fun, niche games.
Thankfully Carapace is no longer the obvious super dominate choice. It's still a very strong, safe choice, but not purely clear cut imo.
Wish more Khamms took that risk. Silence is brutal, especially since there's no grunt or screen shake to alert the marines that they are taking damage.
The only problem is that Shade hives don't synergise at all with higher lifeforms, so if your team doesn't perform well in the first 5 minutes you'll have no hope of pushing the marines back.
The only problem is that Shade hives don't synergise at all with higher lifeforms, so if your team doesn't perform well in the first 5 minutes you'll have no hope of pushing the marines back.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its not a risk, it actually makes the game really bad. Why? When you take crag or shift first, win or lose, eh maybe it was a good game, maybe it wasn't some stuff went down, ###### ended up how it was going to, c'est la vie. When you take shade hive first, if you win its because the teams werent balanced and the marine team was really bad, and if you lose its because you went shade first.
Mark my words, in a completely balanced game, aliens will never win with shade hive first. Never.
Crag is a bad choice of first hive (shade still the worst, even for second hive). Carapace is now a "fake" upgrade. While you gain more armor, you're actually slower and easier to hit which completely negates the "extra" armor you gain.
Shift hive is the new first hive and celerity upgrade is taken first (back to NS1 model).
Depending on how good the marines are, there are two build orders for kham.
If marines don't push (or map is large enough): Rush second hive > resource node > shift hive > celerity > resource node > Leap/adren > crag > carapace
If marines are decent shooters/can ninja structures: Shift hive/resource node > celerity > resource node (2) > second hive > leap > crag > adren/carapace
Each patch aliens get more and more boring and less fun to play.
In games where the Khamm researches Carapace first, I don't usually take it unless I evolve to a higher life form. Mobility is (for me at least) the primary advantage a skulk has, and while that carapace will let me take a few more bullets, I don't think I'm as likely to take those bullets if I'm not dragging around an armored carapace. YMMV, of course. Regeneration is a mixed bag for all of the tougher lifeforms (takes too long for onos, gorge can heal self anyway, lerk and fade can relocate to a hive/crag node really fast) but a skulk really benefits from it IF he can survive an encounter with a marine (which I personally don't find carapace very helpful for) because it means that when that same skulk engages that marine's buddy 10-15 seconds later, he does so with full health. When I *do* take Carapace as a skulk, it's when I'm engaged in mass combat with several marines and lifeforms involved, and it's the stray bullets and grenades that eventually kill me. Later life forms benefit significantly more from Carapace, partially because they all have ways of travelling quickly (flight/shadowstep-blink/slide/CHARRRRGE) which really removes the "penalty" for going Carapace in most situations, whereas the skulk's mobility and combat is so keyed into "basic" movement that the penalty is steep.
Adrenaline and Celerity both benefit the skulk noticeably; Celeskulks get where they're going faster and so spend more time doing damage, and Adrenaskulks are better at chewing up res nodes and really don't worry too much about using Leap once it's evolved. The benefits of Cele and Adrenaline for later life forms are significant. Hypermutation has a niche use (primarily getting gorges into weird spots) but is basically not worth picking unless you have an organized strat revolving around this. You've also got access to Hatch, which while I haven't experimented with it, seems like a great way to make a forward operating base and crush a marine base, much akin to having a phase gate near their base.
The main issue with Shade is that the parts of the game it really enhances aren't really that effective yet, and it's too expensive to effectively deploy. Silence and Feign can be situationally useful, Cloak is mostly good for low player count games (not my usual cup of tea), but where the shade really should shine is when you deploy one to the front... and that's where the flaws in the rest of the game come into play. An invisible whip is nasty until the enemy knows where it is, at which point they back off and shoot it to pieces. Invisible hydras (akin to invisible offense towers from NS1, one of my favorite stunts) are a waste of time, since they almost never kill anything and are pretty easy to kill without a gorge sitting there healspraying them (and thereby removing his own invisibility). Invisible Harvesters and Hives? They only go in one spot, players with any skill on a Shade game get into the habit of putting a shot or two in the direction of "empty" nodes/tech points when they travel through a room, and uncapped res nodes also have this little problem of the enemy trying to drop Extractors on them, then problem-solving the failed placement with switchaxes. Invisible crags/shifts? Well, now we're into the mid/late game, and have other upgrades online, right? At 15 tres apiece, it's really hard to justify placing a Shade, especially if you are trying to cloak more than just your front lines, and the shade doesn't help much on offense, because current map layouts make it difficult to place offensively.
Now, if Shade also came with Focus, then we'd be in business.
That's so wrong that I couldn't get past it to read the rest of your post. :/
I'm sure you view that as my loss.
Not at all. I generally like reading detailed and insightful posts.