Echo is AMAZING fun...
maD maX
Join Date: 2010-01-28 Member: 70347Members
Join Date: 2010-01-28 Member: 70347Members
So just finished a game on the GG server and well I wasnt sure if my plan would work in a server with so many people that wernt all new....
Long story short I slowly crept cloaked infestation into the far side of terminal having my team attack when i was droping a shade (inside the range of a different shade) so they wouldnt notice.... after a few minutes of careful timing I got infestation in front of the powernode... at this point i Echoed in 5 Whips that were upgraded to bombard, and all hell was unleashed, Exos fell power went out and when the skulks came in to clean it up it was a mess....
A few other times I have placed an evolved shift somewhat central and put whips around it, If someone attacks an RT poof 2 whips appear right next to them... once he is dead, i unroot the whips and send them back to the shift for there next secret mission...
Basicly the fact that echod whips dont need to be uprooted and rerooted makes them very useful if you have an echo... And for the first time in months I am using whips again...
Long story short I slowly crept cloaked infestation into the far side of terminal having my team attack when i was droping a shade (inside the range of a different shade) so they wouldnt notice.... after a few minutes of careful timing I got infestation in front of the powernode... at this point i Echoed in 5 Whips that were upgraded to bombard, and all hell was unleashed, Exos fell power went out and when the skulks came in to clean it up it was a mess....
A few other times I have placed an evolved shift somewhat central and put whips around it, If someone attacks an RT poof 2 whips appear right next to them... once he is dead, i unroot the whips and send them back to the shift for there next secret mission...
Basicly the fact that echod whips dont need to be uprooted and rerooted makes them very useful if you have an echo... And for the first time in months I am using whips again...
Comments
Echoing whips onto marines would be very useful as a defensive maneuver too. I think the main issue with it is the same issue as with all structure-oriented strategies: res cost. The alien comm has a bunch of tech to buy that's more important than stuff this, and after that's done he's better off saving for Onos eggs.
My thoughts stays the same. Whips are incredibly useless and wasting res on them is either due to boredom or stupidity. Since aliens need the res and abilities to be able to do anything, I would even go so far as to put the whips under gorge control instead.
Yeah, that's quite a lot of Onoses. :P
But that wasn't OP's point tho - on which I agree - echo IS fun. Now if only it'd be a viable strat on its own.
EDIT: For discussions sake: I think marines shouldn't be able to notice cloaked creep. It's way too easy to spot a creeping attempt like this, you should only be able to spot it by bumping into a shade or scanning.
If the shift allowed for echoing off infestation, and gave other merits (whips generating small amounts of infestation) then it could probably work.
Also cost and maturity are an issue. Often you don't find a need for echo/bombard because it tends to be defensive, and research comes too late when you react.
Why not just tie these things to maturity instead of researching it OR when a structure is mature, research time = 0
I also agree about CLOAKED CREEP and passive cloaking in general. As a marine you can tell when you are on it far too easily!
it's a relatively small cost when it could end up saving your tech if you lose the hive, or if they skip the hive and focus on carapace etc instead.
yes, it was their last base, yes, we already won that but it was taking too long i decided i had to help my team to finish it lol... =D
Imo echo upgrade should stay 15 res, but using the ability should be free, or almost free. Its far too expensive atm.
Its reason I prefer alien commander to marine alot of the time. Marine comm is all about ARC spam and medpack spam. Alien commander I can do funny stuff with echo, hallucinations and whip armies.
A few times I've managed to sneak infestation into a marine base, under the cover of shades, then echo'ed and built 10 whips in the base before they could stop me. My team was attacking the other base, so took out 2 bases while they tried to hold both.
Forcing beacons and covering assaults using hallucinations is great fun to watch. Marine commanders often don't just scan to remove them, and instead panic with the beacon.
it's a relatively small cost when it could end up saving your tech if you lose the hive, or if they skip the hive and focus on carapace etc instead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like this tip.
They don't actually attack if they are stack. I tried this before on a private server. I stacked over 50 whips in one place to see how effective whips are at denying an area if they are stacked. Sadly when i did "switch", they didn't even attack. I was messing around as if NS2 was a tower defense game and i rolled about 30 arcs past them. Sadly, it didnt work! Not one attacked. I was depressed. :(
Not true, after extensive testing 2 stacked will still attack. However if you stack more than that they won't, so if you put 3 or more in one spot you can just uproot move them slightly and root again.
Whips are awesome, as long as there's a gorge nearby that knows what they're doing. And as long as they aren't placed horribly, that is. They also allow for some hilarious Marines trolling.
My favorite is to gorge near a few whips, put up a clog with an easy jump-over spot for marines, and taunt constantly while heal-spamming. A lot of times, even if there are three Marines, one takes the bait and jumps over the clog only to get beat down in seconds. Then I chuckle, and start up my taunting/heal spray. It's almost more effective if the Marines are halfway decent, since they 'know' that there's nothing a gorge can do to them. Right?
Wrong. ^_^
Think about it. For the price of the dropped shift, the upgrade to echo, the dropped whip(s), and the echo itself, you could've had a fade or almost an onos. Was it really "worth it" or was it actually a stupid waste of t.res?
Sure, I prefer to ONOS and destroyed them, but using whips occasionally is a lot of fun. Makes it more enjoyable than being on the receiving end of a rinse and repeat tactic.
Agree though, cost for echo / whips is not ideal. Considering Marines can have a sentry in an un-powered area where aliens have to have infestation to have a whip.
Think about it. For the price of the dropped shift, the upgrade to echo, the dropped whip(s), and the echo itself, you could've had a fade or almost an onos. Was it really "worth it" or was it actually a stupid waste of t.res?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That depends, is your team too lazy or miserly to spend their own P.Res on the life form? Or are they dying every few seconds even with a highly priced alien life form? In either of those situations, I'd say the whips are probably the better choice than a constantly dying newb fade or crappy lerk. An Onos, well, that could definitely shift some game balance, but even then I've seen <i>so many</i> idiot Onos single-handedly charge into a base and die while attacking an infantry portal. This is not the way to win, and is a waste of <i>even more</i> T.Res feeding such stupidity.
The whips, crags, and shifts? They'll hold off some Marines a lot longer than a crappy player behind the wheel of an Onos. Especially with one Gorge, that costs 10 P.Res and is an anti-structure demigod.
Oh, and a good player is totally worth an Egg drop of course, but in that situation you probably still have the T.Res for other things like a crag to support your awesome player. They also keep that life form long enough to validate it's cost as a commander.
Being alien commander means a lot of nickle and dime resource costs. Cysts are cheap, and so are pretty much all the alien structures. The 'added' cost comes with the active ability of each but gives such a huge bonus that it's well worth it in my mind. A crag that's active heals five times as much as just a crag, and costs like 3 T.Res. A shift can pop out eggs like there's no tomorrow (AND be upgraded into a structure teleport.), and a shade makes whips a lot more deadly to an unsuspecting marine. Not to mention a drifter will be a huge bonus for skulks that aren't as skilled as they could be. (Also costs 3 T.Res for the red mist.)
A good commander listens to their team, and I love players that ask for structures to be placed nearby. It means they're smart enough to use them.
Wrong. ^_^<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wish we had lerk lift, I'd buy a JP just to grab gorges and fly them off the cliff in Cave.
LOL, glad that's not in the game since I like to gorge a lot! Not that the 10 P.Res matters, you can suicide on a marines base as gorge quite a few times while throwing bile bomb all the while without going broke. (Often times don't even need to suicide to do it. Love that arc!) At least, you should be able to as long as your team isn't losing res nodes left and right.
God! I keep forgetting about drifters and mist! I mostly use them for placing in hallways I don't really expand into for early visibility.
<!--quoteo(post=2022518:date=Nov 14 2012, 08:45 AM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Nov 14 2012, 08:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022518"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A good commander listens to their team, and I love players that ask for structures to be placed nearby. It means they're smart enough to use them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the Kharra comm is a lot more difficult to master than the Marine Comm. Esp as you have to actively maintain your upgrade shells etc.
For this reason I make 3 shifts, make 9 wips + bombard, then when I call the final rush of my team, I start spamming cysts, and use that little, tiny space of infestation to teleport my wips while my aliens are combating. All of a sudden I start seeing "+5" everywhere in the room, it's my wips killing stuff. Believe me or not, those 9 wips pretty much ended the game, since my assault would have probably required another go for it to succeed
The problem isn't that strategy X or upgrade Y isn't fun or different. The problem is there are very few different things that actually work, especially early-mid game.
When you've already won the game, it doesn't matter what you'll do to kill the last hive/com chair. Most reasonable teams would've already F4d out anyway.
Why don't you try dropping whips and echoing them all over the map before 5:00? See how fun that would be (and how much your team will like you lol).
In an evenly-matched team there are some things which are just a terrible, terrible waste on both marine and alien side. Aliens definitely have much more "useless" tech than marines though.
Drifters and mist are the bread and butter of alien commanding.
Set rally points then build drifter instead of waiting for it to build and fumbling around for a cloaked unit in your base.
Also when aliens push forward and take a room, rapidly drop 2-3 crags, 2 whips and shade then drop mist in room to build it up extremely quickly. I've done this in onos bar alot, marines are surprised to see everything built up so quick.