Because alien strength is not actually in fighting marines, it is in strategic flexibility.
In essence, the ideal use for your skulks, especially your less combat-able skulks, is not fighting marines, it's killing marine structures.
Obviously fighting is an unfortunate necessity but it is not what you should be focussing on. It is only a means to an end, which is preventing marine expansion, destroying marine resource income and resource investments, and winning the advancement war. Essentially aliens need only hold out, or stifle marines sufficiently to win by tech. Marines technically have the same victory condition, but for aliens it is best accomplished by exploiting marine weaknesses.
The primary marine weakness is lack of mobility, marines rely on group tactics and numbers to win fights, aliens counter this by being distributed and not allowing marines to fight all their attacks at once. Carapace will help you to win fights, probably more than celerity will, though both are still preferable, but winning fights is a very... limited way to succeed. You can kill all the basic marines you want, but it won't do anything to stop their resource income and inevitable progression to armor and weapons upgrades (which carapace won't be enough to oppose) and even more unpleasant tech options.
The strongest alien tactic in general is a relentless and unpredictable stream of attacks, striking everywhere the marines have left exposed, and keeping them on constant fire brigade mode. This becomes easier and easier the more spread out marines are, and is helped massively by improved movement. If marines try to fight you while you're chewing an extractor, run or die and respawn. it doesn't matter if you lose the fight, you cost marines the time it took to get there, chase you off, maybe hang around to make sure you don't come back, and repair their extractor. Every marine doing that is a marine not expanding and not building and not being useful, not progressing.
Every alien on the other hand is an alien locking down marine expansion, contesting territory, and here's the key bit <i>not even remotely impeding alien tech progression, because alien tech progression is completely detached from alien players.</i>
The ONLY thing aliens as a team require to win is for marines to do nothing, so use movement to keep them doing nothing as long as possible, and you win.
Oh and fade movement is mentioned here: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=127577&view=findpost&p=2067704" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...t&p=2067704</a>
I wouldn't know either way, but everyone in that thread seems to be under the impression it's a thing.
IAMKING is correct in pretty much everything he's stated in this thread.
Going shift hive first is <b>definitively</b> worse than going crag hive first in just about every scenario. The only exception would be an extremely quick second hive strat in where <b>you still don't get celerity before carapace</b>, and only go shift for the actual shift structure (gorge energy).
Celerity is not even remotely as viable in combat as carapace is. Cara is the difference between 9 bullets to kill a skulk and 13. That 4 bullet difference is absolutely massive when scaled up to 3-4 skulks against a group of marines. Unfortunately, a vast majority of (terrible) pub commanders are stuck in the delusion that somehow celerity lets you dodge enough to make up for it - it doesn't.
It's really simple: If you're playing as alien commander and your team doesn't have carapace in the first 5 minutes, you are failing miserably. It's just sad how many awful pub commanders don't get cara until 8-9 minutes into the game.
QUOTE (|strofix| @ Jan 25 2013, 09:17 PM) »Immediately upgrade phase gates and lock down 2 additional tech rooms. Now the aliens have 2 potential hives, and one of them is a shade hive. That means GG.
Aliens still got a shot, if they manage to lock you in those 3 bases and get all the rt's around the map. They'll just mass up Onoses before you get high tech, and overrun a base for their third.
But yeah, I'd give the edge to the marines.
Onos are pretty bad without carapace AND celerity imo. Being stuck on 2 hives with one of them being shade is REALLY bad as ALL of your higher lifeforms will suffer from this. It's only skulks really that benefit heavily from camouflage, which makes shade-first a huge risk for later on in the game if you're facing competent marines.
It's amazing how much people underestimate the power of mobility.
mobility doesn't mean anything if you can't win engagements. First of all, celerity really doesn't improve mobility except for lerks (because the difference between a wall jumping skulk with and without celerity is negligible). Second of all, it doesn't help at all in actual combat. It's even worse for new players because they get shot almost immediately and lose any celerity bonus they had.
The most important upgrades are the ones that help you win discrete engagements, not get to those engagements so you can die faster.
The thing is King, you're completely arguing from the point of view that you're playing with competent, competitive Marines and professional grade skulks. Ergo, of course Shift is less viable than crag if you're entire aliens team is made up of pro wall jumpers. Wall jumping renders Celerity mostly moot, so if your team are excellent players than sure crag wins. This also doesn't mean crag is always better, even in that circumstance, because there are maps that are simply not viable for wall jumping to get you anywhere. This depends on a ton of factors, that ultimately make very little difference for the majority of the match.
If there's even one skulk on your six man team that can't wall jump he might as well just gorge, thereby losing your team the game.
There are a ton of parts to the game that never even get used in competitive play because 'pro' players don't need the bonus, or do better with a strategy that no pub game could ever pull off.
So saying 'crag first always wins' is hyperbole unless you're limiting your sample size to pro's. Crag first would result in slow, easy to hit skulks in most pub matches.
I'll go crag first next time I'm playing a group of hardcore professional marines. Until then, I'll use shift first in the majority of most matches that occur here on planet Earth.
The most important upgrades are the ones that help you win discrete engagements, not get to those engagements so you can die faster.
And this is, where you are wrong. Engagements don't win games. Engagements are only necessary to stop the enemy that is (potentially) destroying your buildings. In fact, most games are won by avoiding engagements. You rush, where your enemy is not. Games are won by the team that can destroy more T-Res of the enemy team a.k.a destroying buildings. And you don't need cara to do this. Killing an LMG marine or Skulk does nothing. Sure, it is necessary to stop the enemy that is damaging you. But thats it.
The most important upgrades are the ones that help you win discrete engagements, not get to those engagements so you can die faster.
And this is, where you are wrong. Engagements don't win games. Engagements are only necessary to stop the enemy that is (potentially) destroying your buildings. In fact, most games are won by avoiding engagements. You rush, where your enemy is not. Games are won by the team that can destroy more T-Res of the enemy team a.k.a destroying buildings. And you don't need cara to do this. Killing an LMG marine or Skulk does nothing. Sure, it is necessary to stop the enemy that is damaging you. But thats it.
no. you win engagements, you establish areas that are safe to expand to and deny res at that location
as someone much better than you, my understanding of the game carries more weight and should be regarded more highly
The most important upgrades are the ones that help you win discrete engagements, not get to those engagements so you can die faster.
And this is, where you are wrong. Engagements don't win games. Engagements are only necessary to stop the enemy that is (potentially) destroying your buildings. In fact, most games are won by avoiding engagements. You rush, where your enemy is not. Games are won by the team that can destroy more T-Res of the enemy team a.k.a destroying buildings. And you don't need cara to do this. Killing an LMG marine or Skulk does nothing. Sure, it is necessary to stop the enemy that is damaging you. But thats it.
no. you win engagements, you establish areas that are safe to expand to and deny res at that location
as someone much better than you, my understanding of the game carries more weight and should be regarded more highly
Thats the theory the US put in place in vietnam, what necro is talking about is the guerilla style mentality the NVA and VC used.
The US won almost every battle...they killed more enemies, took lower losses and were constantly claiming ground. The problem was they lost key points and could never control certain parts (ie ho chi minh trail).
But your logic suggest they should have won.
The point of every battle is not to win. Thats the point of the war.
The most important upgrades are the ones that help you win discrete engagements, not get to those engagements so you can die faster.
And this is, where you are wrong. Engagements don't win games. Engagements are only necessary to stop the enemy that is (potentially) destroying your buildings. In fact, most games are won by avoiding engagements. You rush, where your enemy is not. Games are won by the team that can destroy more T-Res of the enemy team a.k.a destroying buildings. And you don't need cara to do this. Killing an LMG marine or Skulk does nothing. Sure, it is necessary to stop the enemy that is damaging you. But thats it.
no. you win engagements, you establish areas that are safe to expand to and deny res at that location
as someone much better than you, my understanding of the game carries more weight and should be regarded more highly
The disagrees indicate that successful troll is successful.
The build orders I've used successfully.
Shift/Crag/Shade
Shade/Crag/Shift
Crag/Shift/Shade
I've yet to try Shade/Shift/Crag or Crag/Shade/Shift.
Quite frankly, celerity is pretty useless.
Once you've got your second hive, celerity is kinda bad.
Adrenaline + Leap Skulk
Adrenaline + Gorge/Fade/Onos/Lerk(Depending on how much you mash the spacebar/drop spores)
The only map that celerity really has a use on is Refinery, the rest of the maps are so small that you don't need the OUT OF COMBAT ONLY speed boost.
I think the reason people are always crying for Celerity first is because you usually went movement chambers first in NS1, but that was because the maps were HUGE and you needed to have the speed boost. Add in the fact that said speed boost was always on.
Shift is great because of the versatility it provides by giving you the OPTION of spawning more eggs in a more aggressive/beneficial location.
I honestly prefer shade first on smaller maps like Docking.
An oft overlooked, and highly valuable upgrade is silence.
Nothing really hard counters it, and in pubs, most marines don't notice you in their base(red dot on the map or not) until you bite them.
Crag first has become my "goto" as of late, simply because of carapace.
Usually by the time you're ready to drop the second hive, people have gone lerk, and are going to go fade soon.
A fade with Carapace is far more fearsome than a fade with just celerity, or adrenaline.
Silence on a skulk can allow them to brutalise marines.
I've ran around with Adrenaline, Silence, and Regeneration vs W3 marines, and done decently well.
They never knew I was coming, and I was so fast to escape(Adrenaline+Leap = Awesome) that they rarely got me.
Shift is great because of the versatility it provides by giving you the OPTION of spawning more eggs in a more aggressive/beneficial location.
I very rarely see a shift hive without the comm also making liberal use of egg spawning. It's the thing I miss the most as khamm when my team asks for crag or shade first. Especially on pubs where you have a team that doesn't listen well; shift eggs can force them into the area you need fought over. Even with a good team shift eggs can help hold a position, it's like the alien equivalent of phase gates. A crag/gorge and shift eggs outside a marine base can destroy that base just by attrition.
Comments
In essence, the ideal use for your skulks, especially your less combat-able skulks, is not fighting marines, it's killing marine structures.
Obviously fighting is an unfortunate necessity but it is not what you should be focussing on. It is only a means to an end, which is preventing marine expansion, destroying marine resource income and resource investments, and winning the advancement war. Essentially aliens need only hold out, or stifle marines sufficiently to win by tech. Marines technically have the same victory condition, but for aliens it is best accomplished by exploiting marine weaknesses.
The primary marine weakness is lack of mobility, marines rely on group tactics and numbers to win fights, aliens counter this by being distributed and not allowing marines to fight all their attacks at once. Carapace will help you to win fights, probably more than celerity will, though both are still preferable, but winning fights is a very... limited way to succeed. You can kill all the basic marines you want, but it won't do anything to stop their resource income and inevitable progression to armor and weapons upgrades (which carapace won't be enough to oppose) and even more unpleasant tech options.
The strongest alien tactic in general is a relentless and unpredictable stream of attacks, striking everywhere the marines have left exposed, and keeping them on constant fire brigade mode. This becomes easier and easier the more spread out marines are, and is helped massively by improved movement. If marines try to fight you while you're chewing an extractor, run or die and respawn. it doesn't matter if you lose the fight, you cost marines the time it took to get there, chase you off, maybe hang around to make sure you don't come back, and repair their extractor. Every marine doing that is a marine not expanding and not building and not being useful, not progressing.
Every alien on the other hand is an alien locking down marine expansion, contesting territory, and here's the key bit <i>not even remotely impeding alien tech progression, because alien tech progression is completely detached from alien players.</i>
The ONLY thing aliens as a team require to win is for marines to do nothing, so use movement to keep them doing nothing as long as possible, and you win.
Oh and fade movement is mentioned here: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=127577&view=findpost&p=2067704" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...t&p=2067704</a>
I wouldn't know either way, but everyone in that thread seems to be under the impression it's a thing.
Going shift hive first is <b>definitively</b> worse than going crag hive first in just about every scenario. The only exception would be an extremely quick second hive strat in where <b>you still don't get celerity before carapace</b>, and only go shift for the actual shift structure (gorge energy).
Celerity is not even remotely as viable in combat as carapace is. Cara is the difference between 9 bullets to kill a skulk and 13. That 4 bullet difference is absolutely massive when scaled up to 3-4 skulks against a group of marines. Unfortunately, a vast majority of (terrible) pub commanders are stuck in the delusion that somehow celerity lets you dodge enough to make up for it - it doesn't.
It's really simple: If you're playing as alien commander and your team doesn't have carapace in the first 5 minutes, you are failing miserably. It's just sad how many awful pub commanders don't get cara until 8-9 minutes into the game.
Onos are pretty bad without carapace AND celerity imo. Being stuck on 2 hives with one of them being shade is REALLY bad as ALL of your higher lifeforms will suffer from this. It's only skulks really that benefit heavily from camouflage, which makes shade-first a huge risk for later on in the game if you're facing competent marines.
The most important upgrades are the ones that help you win discrete engagements, not get to those engagements so you can die faster.
If there's even one skulk on your six man team that can't wall jump he might as well just gorge, thereby losing your team the game.
There are a ton of parts to the game that never even get used in competitive play because 'pro' players don't need the bonus, or do better with a strategy that no pub game could ever pull off.
So saying 'crag first always wins' is hyperbole unless you're limiting your sample size to pro's. Crag first would result in slow, easy to hit skulks in most pub matches.
I'll go crag first next time I'm playing a group of hardcore professional marines. Until then, I'll use shift first in the majority of most matches that occur here on planet Earth.
no. you win engagements, you establish areas that are safe to expand to and deny res at that location
as someone much better than you, my understanding of the game carries more weight and should be regarded more highly
The US won almost every battle...they killed more enemies, took lower losses and were constantly claiming ground. The problem was they lost key points and could never control certain parts (ie ho chi minh trail).
But your logic suggest they should have won.
The point of every battle is not to win. Thats the point of the war.
The disagrees indicate that successful troll is successful.
Shift/Crag/Shade
Shade/Crag/Shift
Crag/Shift/Shade
I've yet to try Shade/Shift/Crag or Crag/Shade/Shift.
Quite frankly, celerity is pretty useless.
Once you've got your second hive, celerity is kinda bad.
Adrenaline + Leap Skulk
Adrenaline + Gorge/Fade/Onos/Lerk(Depending on how much you mash the spacebar/drop spores)
The only map that celerity really has a use on is Refinery, the rest of the maps are so small that you don't need the OUT OF COMBAT ONLY speed boost.
I think the reason people are always crying for Celerity first is because you usually went movement chambers first in NS1, but that was because the maps were HUGE and you needed to have the speed boost. Add in the fact that said speed boost was always on.
Shift is great because of the versatility it provides by giving you the OPTION of spawning more eggs in a more aggressive/beneficial location.
I honestly prefer shade first on smaller maps like Docking.
An oft overlooked, and highly valuable upgrade is silence.
Nothing really hard counters it, and in pubs, most marines don't notice you in their base(red dot on the map or not) until you bite them.
Crag first has become my "goto" as of late, simply because of carapace.
Usually by the time you're ready to drop the second hive, people have gone lerk, and are going to go fade soon.
A fade with Carapace is far more fearsome than a fade with just celerity, or adrenaline.
Silence on a skulk can allow them to brutalise marines.
I've ran around with Adrenaline, Silence, and Regeneration vs W3 marines, and done decently well.
They never knew I was coming, and I was so fast to escape(Adrenaline+Leap = Awesome) that they rarely got me.
I very rarely see a shift hive without the comm also making liberal use of egg spawning. It's the thing I miss the most as khamm when my team asks for crag or shade first. Especially on pubs where you have a team that doesn't listen well; shift eggs can force them into the area you need fought over. Even with a good team shift eggs can help hold a position, it's like the alien equivalent of phase gates. A crag/gorge and shift eggs outside a marine base can destroy that base just by attrition.