Make The Gorge More Enjoyable

l3lessed

<div class="IPBDescription">Small tweaks.</div>I really love the gorge, but once the heat gets turned up in battle, they seem to lack a lot. It tends to always come down to heal spraying anything around you and poking a bile bomb here or there. I would like to see some more choices for a gorge to make in the midst of a firefight.

Gorge Spit: Right now the spit is extremely hard to aim at almost any distance, and the damage is overall unimpressive once you do make the hit, especially on armor three rines. I would suggest adding a little forgiveness by having the spit do a very small radius of splash damage, including a very minimal heal to alien units in the radius. Something like 5 health and 5 armor.

Hydras: Right now, Hydras fit no real role. They don't even work well as a speed bump the majority of the time. My understanding is Hydras are suppose to by front line support structures the Gorges can place in contested areas before the comm can get infestation and buildings there. With their weak damage, res cost, low health, and long build time, they don't make any real difference usually. I would like to see their damage increased, build time lowered, res cost removed since there is a three hydra cap, and their health lowered to compensate. To me, these changes would make them more applicable for both offense and defense, help them fit into their proper role, but still allow more than a single marine to easily deal with a gorgy and three hydras.

Hunter.S.T.

I love the current gorge lol

Spit is hard to land, multiple highly diverse incredibly useful attacks requireing the player to make somewhat difficult tactical choices about which attack to use, tactical placement of clogs and hydras. I think the skill ceiling is relativly high, and i enjoy it a lot :) I actually see gorgeing messed up more commonly than most other units in scrims and gathers.

I played a scrim yesterday where as comm gorge i got 7 kills, 5 with spit saving the base rt twice, took out a 4 arc push, destroyed an enemy stronghold in crevice and stopped a hive from being out dps'd ! and had almost as much fun doing it as blind had laughing about it on the stream lol

I know that there are complaints about gorge spit not registering from some pretty experienced players whose opinion i do trust, so you may have a point here, although i have to say i havent noticed this issue myself.

As for free hydras, i disagree with you. This was tried in the beta, if you turned your back on a gorge near your base for a second, the encampment would be moved forward every time, trying to defeat a gorge block with a gorge behind it was extreemly dificult as he could just spam more hydras without caring about the res cost. I think u misunderstand the purpose of hydras.

Hydras like turrets arent supposed to provide an impenetarable fortress, they are merely supposed to delay marines whilst they are attacking a target to give you more time to respond, so that a single marine cant just run into your base and knife down your upgrades or an rt before you can get there to protect it.

They are a delay, nothing more, and i prefer that they are effective enough to do this job well, and cost res.

reasa

I think you have hit a nerve here with a major issue with NS2. That is that neither side has proper defense mechanisms to hold costly gained ground as of now.

Aliens are slightly better off with whips, crags, and hydras, but still there is a problem. Hydras are basically a sad fill in for OC’s from NS1.

Meanwhile all marines have is the laughably pathetic Sentry guns, which do little damage, are severely restricted in range, and doubly vulnerable to both their “battery” and the power node gimmick.
Marines have no defense structure of merit and it is just pathetic. Meanwhile, the Gorges were given extremely wateredown OC’s in the form of Hydras and tumor walls that die from two feather gun shots to pretend they still matter.

I know Dev’s said they didn’t want NS2 to be about fighting structures, but I’m sorry, that is just idiotic in a game where fighting structures is the only way to win. Marines must kill Hives and Eggs (also Whips, Crags, Shades, Spurs etc…as a marine you spend much of the game shooting alien structures lets be honest) meanwhile aliens must destroy the CC and Ip’s except marines have nothing to protect areas with except the borked “sentry guns”

include

Building fortified areas was one of the most fun things about NS1. They really need to beef up sentries and Hydras. Both do come to a cost, but currently there is little to no reason to bother building them. Bilebomb is easy to get and immediately reduces any turrets to ashes (and as a skulk I can leap right to a group of sentries and take out a battery with little to no risk, as well) and marines can simply walk past hydras with little to no risk. That 9 res I just spent on 3 hydras would have been 9 res closer to a MUCH more effective onos. Tell me, what would you rather have? A gorge running around throwing down a measly 3 hydra combo that is just simply ignored or someone saving for Onos?

l3lessed

For me, the large issue with gorge is the Hydras. The spit is a smaller issue, but not as important; if you can get 5 kills with spit, the other team is pretty dumb. I have never, ever had a problem dealing with a gorge, who tries to spit me to death.

First off, Hydras shouldn't cost res anymore. It is an outdated left over from beta when there wasn't a cap on Hydras. Now we have a three hydra cap, so there is no reason to punish the gorge for using one of his central abilities; he already cost ten res, add in the 9 for three hydras, and an effective gorge cost close to 20 res, which could be used for an onos, like the above poster said. If you're going to make it cost res, at least give me extra hydras for extra hives.

I actually don't want to turn this into a tower defense sort of game, but if we upped the damage of defense buildings, even rines, and lowered their health some it would allow them to fit their role very nicely, that is to stop lower life form harassment. At the same time, the lower health would make them easily counterable by any higher life forms or techs keeping the game from becoming a structure war. I'm fine with bilebomb and arcs owning defenses too because that is their exact purpose and role. It is a res sink for both teams with the very specific reward of being able to quickly melt enemy buildings, especially defenses.

For me, this also extends to whips bombard ability, which like the hydra, is a complete joke. It has never, ever been a threat to me as a rine to see multiple bombard whips in an area, even if I'm a solo rine. Usually I just laugh at the waste of res which could of been used towards onos and fade eggs.

kespec

gorge and lerk is actually only 2 aliens i find enjoyable..

hydra fortress is my favourite which can hold up against 3 marines! LOL