Going shift hive before crag hive is terrible alien commanding.
JAMESEARLJONOS
Join Date: 2012-12-15 Member: 175155Members
Join Date: 2012-12-15 Member: 175155Members
Fact #1: Carapace is the single biggest boost in combat effectiveness.
- Carapace is the single most important upgrade in the game. It's chosen first in nearly every comp match, and provides the incredible benefit of changing TTK on a Skulk from 9 bullets to 13. Nothing else in the game comes close to providing that level of combat effectiveness.
Fact #2: Celerity's benefits against good marines are minimal.
-Good marines are going to be accurate at shooting skulks regardless of how fast they're moving. Moreover, the speed increase from celerity disappears after getting hit once. Celerity simply doesn't come close to the 30%+ effective HP boost that carapace provides.
Fact #3: Being egg locked isn't actually a thing with a competent commander and a few gorges.
-Alien teams only get egg locked in the following situations:
1.) Marines inside the base actively shooting eggs.
2.) Skulks suiciding at an insane rate.
Asking someone to go gorge (and someone will always go gorge) will prevent problem #1 in the vast majority of games. If marines still get into your base and stay there despite being gorged up, your team was going to lose regardless of what you did. Problem #2 is prevented by having carapace (less deaths/lost engagements), and by telling your skulks to hold points instead mindlessly rushing the marine main base. It takes a serious amount of (useless) main base suiciding to deplete eggs - even on a 24 player server. So long as your skulks are suiciding in useless positions, you won't suffer any serious egg lock problems.
Now please, stop perpetuating the cycle of suck. Go crag/carapace first. Thanks.
- Carapace is the single most important upgrade in the game. It's chosen first in nearly every comp match, and provides the incredible benefit of changing TTK on a Skulk from 9 bullets to 13. Nothing else in the game comes close to providing that level of combat effectiveness.
Fact #2: Celerity's benefits against good marines are minimal.
-Good marines are going to be accurate at shooting skulks regardless of how fast they're moving. Moreover, the speed increase from celerity disappears after getting hit once. Celerity simply doesn't come close to the 30%+ effective HP boost that carapace provides.
Fact #3: Being egg locked isn't actually a thing with a competent commander and a few gorges.
-Alien teams only get egg locked in the following situations:
1.) Marines inside the base actively shooting eggs.
2.) Skulks suiciding at an insane rate.
Asking someone to go gorge (and someone will always go gorge) will prevent problem #1 in the vast majority of games. If marines still get into your base and stay there despite being gorged up, your team was going to lose regardless of what you did. Problem #2 is prevented by having carapace (less deaths/lost engagements), and by telling your skulks to hold points instead mindlessly rushing the marine main base. It takes a serious amount of (useless) main base suiciding to deplete eggs - even on a 24 player server. So long as your skulks are suiciding in useless positions, you won't suffer any serious egg lock problems.
Now please, stop perpetuating the cycle of suck. Go crag/carapace first. Thanks.
Comments
You won't get better with other tech paths if you never try them.
Basically crag/carapace is good, but not really what the aliens need at the start. Skulks still kinda suck in combat even with a bit of extra health, but they become amazingly annoying harassers with a speed boost. Play to your strengths. When the game gives you ehhhh combat units, why waste money making them better? Make them godlike at what they're actually really good at, and watch the marines try to fight them.
Marines can beat good cara skulks in combat, because that's what they're designed to do with their shooty guns and stuff. But marines cannot hope to defend against four or five skulks hitting everywhere at once, and who can reposition in like, half the time they can.
Also that.
this kind of post comes from experience of other tech options. crag first is generally the best
There is no "generally the best". It depends on map and opponent. A commander that can only execute 1 strategy (because he thinks thats the only valid one) is a terrible commander. The proper use of forward shifts or camo or silence are NOT inherently worse than carapace.
But I don't bother anymore explaining why. Because (A) it has been explained in the other threads already and (B) the discussion about this topic has degenerated to a: "But look! My penis is the biggest! All other penis suck!"
Crag first is amazing and, best. Healing at a new hive location, carapace provides an effective 30% health boost, and when compared to early game adrenaline(useless 99% of the time) and celerity (mediocre at best) its an obvious no brainer. Regen is extremely effective on a good lerk, and regen skulks are viable for distraction and hit and run.
Shift? LOLMEGOFAST, except, not if you're: In combat, taking damage, biting anything, getting shot anyway by accurate marines.
lol
See the problem is, the game isn't balanced around 24 person clusterfucks. Nobody in this thread is probably interested in a laggy 24 person game. 5 tickrates erryday
- celerity for skulks and lerks
- adren for gorges
- forward shift location to spawn your team closer to the action as needed, useful for areas where there isn't a hive and your starting hive is on the other side of the map (Atrium on summit, Cave on mineshaft), and of course useful for breaking egg lock (tradeoff is that it's expensive to do this - 5 res for 2 eggs)
- shift at your next hive location for the gorges, and to emergency spawn eggs if marines decide to rush it
I'm much better than you at this game on either side of it. Crag first is definitively better than the other options available in game right now, especially when up against competent players. A speed boost which goes away in combat (that doesn't mitigate damage vs competent marines), is dramatically inferior to the massive HP boost that carapace provides.
Carapace skulks who are winning fights secure locations far better than shift egg spam. And they do so without wasting an ungodly amount of pres spawning eggs. That money can be funneled into getting a second hive up (as in, done building) before 5 minutes, and into having carapace/adrenaline/leap early in the game.
If we're talking about marines who are competent enough to hit you easily at celerity speed and remove it, we are surely talking about marines who are competent enough to hit you lots at carapace speed and kill you anyway?
I mean, bottom line is, skulks still die to a small amount of rifle fire, regardless of whether they have carapace or not. Dying to a less small amount of rifle fire is nice, and even noticeable, but it won't save you vs competent marines either.
This isn't remotely true. Carapace is easily the difference between a good marine killing 3 skulks and killing 1 and dying to 2. It's the difference between a good skulk getting in 2 bites on a marine (forcing him to retreat) or getting just one. The actual difference it has on the game is massive.
You're playing on pub. Nobody gives one goddamn cent about how you're 20% less optimized because of a tech choice. There's 100.000 things that'll affect the outcome more. Starting on Jimmy there, look, he's afk, while his buddy Tom is playing for the first time. But it dun matter, you're still going to go apesh*t crazy if your chances of success are suboptimal because of the "wrong tech choice".
Just PLEASE. >_>
P.S. As long as "terrible commanding" is enough to win most of your games, well, I'm bloody fine with that.
edit: if you really want to understand why shift is better, play an RTS.
I'm not saying that isn't a logical and potentially effective way to go, but the crag structure also provides the least benefit of all the upgrade structures in the early game. If you have no intention of using your structures in any meaningful way, then crag probably is the best first choice.
Arc and Hg have been going Crag -> Shade, for Carapace -> Silence.
Nexzil goes Crag -> Shift for Carapace -> Adrenaline (Completely foregoing Celerity)
And ^ are the best three teams in NS2 thusfar.
Shift is good for
1) Regenerating all of your energy really quickly (Completely useless on one hive)
2) Spawning Eggs for 5 res / 2 eggs (Completely draining your res flow unless you're on more than 3 harvesters, in which case you have already won)
Crag is good for
1) Forward healing station, commonly not used until you have 3-4 harvesters
2) Securing your second hive location by planting crags before the hive
Shade is good for
1) Forward cloaking station, which I've personally never seen done and has negative synergy with cloaking
2) Natural Immersion 2 with Ink
See the post above mine. Top competition teams go crag first because it wins fights. Winning a fight straight up is far more valuable than losing a fight and trying to rush back marginally faster. Marginally faster noted on the sense that proper wall jumping skulks aren't that much slower than celerity skulks to begin with.
And again, was referenced in many posts above: spawning eggs early in the game should probably be avoided at all costs. Spending 5 res for 2 spawn eggs before dropping your second hive is awful. That's res that could have gone to useful things, like carapace, leap, adrenaline, and extra fade eggs in the crucial 6-10 minute timing window.
I always like to plan around everyone on my team being a pro wall jumper. I mean, that will never bite me in the butt right?
Oh...wait...did you mean only in competitive games? Shouldn't you be on the competitive boards then?
I just assume you mean pub play since it's on the general board. Either that, or you...you wouldn't be trolling would you?
have you ever taken a formal logic class? the reasoning people like you have is embarassing
the thread is getting hot! ... anyway, pretty much any upgrade for the first hive is beneficial in one way or another... by the second hive, though, you'll want carapace; otherwise you won't be able to counter their weapon upgrades or armor upgrades (skulk cara doesnt do a TON but other lifeforms benefit a lot from this).
I can't explain why, and I *still* prefer crag first, but that is my experience.
I think it's pretty poor choice of language to state that your way is always best for everyone in every situation. You should also remember that there are a lot of players out there who expect shift first, rightly or wrongly, and there is a human element of disappointment when they see that crag went first...!
For the record, I've mainly been doing a 60-65s carapace/first RT build lately as alien comm. My main issue with this is that I'm comming, and therefore not skulking, and usually that means that (in a random pub), someone less competent at skulking is losing their egg while I'm getting the upgrades and building on the way. That could be adding to my personal anecdotal stats, of course. No way to tell.
One thing I know for sure, I have 2 mates who often go khamm and they almost always do shift first, and their win rates as aliens are staggering. It's possible that their win rates would be even better with a crag hive first strat - this I cannot deny - but they way you guys go on makes it sound as though every time a shift hive goes up first, the aliens lose. This is simply not true.
Roo