Shade hive as 2nd / Commander specific binds
Mestaritonttu
Join Date: 2004-07-29 Member: 30229Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Join Date: 2004-07-29 Member: 30229Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
<div class="IPBDescription">two threads in one! awesome!</div>Crag -> Shade
How do you guys feel about this? I've seen Shift being IMMENSELY popular as first hive, and almost a standard as second if not first. Personally, I don't often have trouble closing gaps, and in close combat cele is useless. Adren is also useless for skulks without leap, so I almost always go cara 1st hive. 2nd hive I pick shade because of two things: I still think Feign for fades is just *awesome* and gives a ton more survivability, and shades are fun for sneaky infestation and cloaking the occasional player or two willing to take advantage of them.
This is talking about pub play, of course.
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Commander binds - still need 'em. Placing a spur I get map in my face because the keys overlap. Also, my NS2 sensitivity is already maxed, which is fine in 1st person, but in commander view it's WOEFULLY slow. I'm pretty much not using drifters as khamm because of this.
How do you guys feel about this? I've seen Shift being IMMENSELY popular as first hive, and almost a standard as second if not first. Personally, I don't often have trouble closing gaps, and in close combat cele is useless. Adren is also useless for skulks without leap, so I almost always go cara 1st hive. 2nd hive I pick shade because of two things: I still think Feign for fades is just *awesome* and gives a ton more survivability, and shades are fun for sneaky infestation and cloaking the occasional player or two willing to take advantage of them.
This is talking about pub play, of course.
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Commander binds - still need 'em. Placing a spur I get map in my face because the keys overlap. Also, my NS2 sensitivity is already maxed, which is fine in 1st person, but in commander view it's WOEFULLY slow. I'm pretty much not using drifters as khamm because of this.
Comments
I've seen silence devastate some early games, but its not a very reliable choice on pubs. Same with shades. They will save upgrades alot, but players often don't really use them on pubs and their ability to block scans was nerfed (no longer blocks currently active scan).
Feign death is also good for fades and lerks (not as something to actually actively use, but as a protection in case you get shot escaping just before you go around that corner).
Shades can also be situationally powerful, and make marines actively waste res scanning and rescanning areas.
A lot of people dislike shade for some reason though, and I've even gotten complaints and rage from going shade/silence first, which I like to do sometimes. I think it's because of the perception that skulks need to be run'n'gun (run'n'bite?) like COD or something. And yes, shade doesn't help run'n'bite skulks at all. It helps ambushes.
Edit: Also hypermutation is ###### awesome
you're right a skulk can do a decent job with leap, cara and silence or camouflage, but fades need the agility provided by cele, oni need them even more and
u can't keep a hive alive, cause the gorges missing the adren and shifts ...
u can try to go shade first and win the early game so badly, with camouflage first, that the marines can't recover, but everytime i tried this, it went terribly wrong.
Mostly, because noone knows, how to use camouflage as skulk (how to use the movementkey as skulk ;) )
The other tech branches offer more powerful upgrades for offense, for example: Carapace, Celerity, and Adrenaline. Feign Death is a somewhat effective offensive upgrade, but only for Skulks, and sometimes battle Gorges. Camouflage and Silence can be quite powerful, only as long as the Marines aren't travelling in groups, or until the Marine commander uses Scan.
Shades would become more powerful offensively, if Hallucinations (Mature Shade ability) become more useful, or if Ink Cloud has longer range.
You need the speed to outmaneuver marines, and regen to hit and run. only way to get top rank.
I actually think that a lot of people just need to open themselves to experimentation and new play styles and actually learning how to use the full array of alien abilities. I kind of used to think like that (e.g. "celerity+carapace+silence is ALWAYS the best combo for skulk") but I've been experimenting with regen, camo, and even adrenaline for leap lately, and I really wouldn't necessarily write them off as just as viable alternatives to skulking.
Of course, a camo/silent skulk with regen isn't going to be a "brawl" skulk, but it can harass RTs behind enemy lines, do hit and runs, and escape/heal very quickly, for example.
To say that "Shade first is pretty bad" is just short-sighted IMO. There are benefits to shades just as there are to shifts, as well as abilities, and I don't necessarily think one is better than the other.
If people on pubs don't know how to use shade upgrades or structures effectively, that's a different discussion altogether.
P.S. If there's something that's so good in the game that it's ALWAYS done first (doesn't matter which side), that makes the game kind of broken IMO, and either should be nerfed or the other things/strats should be buffed. That's kind of the problem with phase gates too. Actually (used to be All-In?) Rusty has recently been experimenting builds for Marines without phase gates at all (not sure if he was trolling but I appreciate the experimentation), and guess what - I've won games on marines without phase gates at all. Maybe the teams were unbalanced... but it's kind of putting the question out there - are PGs REALLY that important that they're ALWAYS researched first? What if the 60 T-res you spend on 3 phase gates + the tech (75 if you don't make an obs) is put towards fast jetpacks instead?
You need the speed to outmaneuver marines, and regen to hit and run. only way to get top rank.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Please elaborate people. Hit and run? With a skulk? You can barely make it in alive, accelerating to get out after landing one bite sounds like a sure recipe for suicide. Regen? Not for skulks, atleast not after weapon level 1, and for Fades? Maybe - but if there's alot of shotguns circulating with the marines I would not go regen over cara. Especially if khamm is active with cysting and provides some in-the-field crags.
Shifts for spawning eggs? So your team is already dying too much, already losing, and you spend a ton of res for this last ditch effort of spawning more skulks? Ehh. No thanks! :D To me Shifts for eggs are like mines for marines - You shouldn't need them.
Edit: I'm not saying Shifts for eggs are useless, just not a high priority.
It's very possible to get out alive from a 1v1 with a marine too, especially if there's a corner nearby. I've been experimenting with getting out if I don't land a fast kill too (especially with regen when it actually matters), and it seems to be working OK.
Of course, if you have people who kill two skulks and damage a third with 1 AR mag, nothing you will ever do as alien will mean anything - upgrades or no upgrades :-) .
Also, I think in general most players neglect the alien speed. In RTS, the fast/low dps units aren't meant to go against the slow-moving/large dps units head to head. Doing that is a loss every time. They're meant to harass everwhere where the heavy units aren't, and escape when the heavy units move in, in a "kiting" fashion (but not actually kiting ranges, more like kiting map control). I feel like that's mostly not the way the game's played right now. Well, of course, when you have marines next to an RT or a hive, you should probably go in :-) ... but when there's a corridor, I don't see that many people waiting for the marines to pass by and hitting what they left behind. Some good structures to hit are observatories and IPs, due to really low health, as well as PGs and power nodes (higher health). Even as a single skulk you can easily do 15 tres-worth of damage in about 15 seconds by taking out an obs or IP.
So as a commander I always go for celerity then leap then cara. Not only because the majority of the players on your team only seem to know how to utilize those upgrades, but also because people complain and tend to be quite vocal about how not getting those first is bad.
EDIT: This was to heatsurge
So as a commander I always go for celerity then leap then cara. Not only because the majority of the players on your team only seem to know how to utilize those upgrades, but also because people complain and tend to be quite vocal about how not getting those first is bad.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd love to hear those vocal players, because so far nobody's been any vocal about exactly how is cele so much better than cara. >:( "because the majority of the players on your team only seem to know how to utilize those upgrades" holy sentence batman, don't need to know how to use cara either, just get it. :p
I'm getting grumpy! So much vagueness in mah thread!!11 >:EEFF
I'm getting grumpy! So much vagueness in mah thread!!11 >:EEFF<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry I guess I should have been more clear. I said as a comm I get cele then leap then cara. Then I went on to say people complain if you don't get Those first. As in any of those 3 in any order.
Opportunity hasn't come up yet though
Totally off-topic tho. -.-
I give up! My thread is ruined! Ruined I tell you!!! <img src="http://www.lolbrary.com/lolpics/509/doomsayer-kitty-says-all-is-lost-1509.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
I think the concept is really cool, but the cost for creating them is kinda high (especially the fact you have to evolve the shade into a "hallucination-creating-shade") whatever it's called, and that the hallucinations themselves cost money, and then you have to micro them through the not-so-good RTS interface, and by seeing the way they move (i.e. predictably) the marines should be able to tell they're not looking at the real thing. Also the reduced hallucination HP is another cost/benefit problem IMO. The point of hallucinations is to be seen, so they can distract. If they can be seen, they will be shot. If they go down in 1/10th of the time of the real life forms (which by themselves go down VERY fast even in the hands of real players), it just makes the hallucinations somewhat of a joke.
They should be a little more beefy or at least cheaper, though.