Starting location / Catpacks : tips plz?
Freeker
France Join Date: 2013-10-28 Member: 188858Members, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
France Join Date: 2013-10-28 Member: 188858Members, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
Hello, I watched some comp stream recently and I was asking myself 2 questions:
1/ As Kham/comm, how do you guys know what’s the starting location of the other team?
2/ Catpacks: I saw them researched quite a lot in those streams whereas I almost never see them used in pubs. What are they used for? I understand they increase speed and rate of fire/reload but what are the situation where they’re useful?
Thx for the tips.
1/ As Kham/comm, how do you guys know what’s the starting location of the other team?
2/ Catpacks: I saw them researched quite a lot in those streams whereas I almost never see them used in pubs. What are they used for? I understand they increase speed and rate of fire/reload but what are the situation where they’re useful?
Thx for the tips.
Comments
2) they are never really researched in pubs because no one knows how useful they are/are too poor to afford them. Just like drifter abilities are rarely used in pubs because most coms are generally not as good at micromanaging as pro comp coms.
1a) As (marine)-comm you can drop a medpack on the tech point. The hive is there, if the medpack "falls down".
2) chasing onos (/ life forms) without jps mostly. They are also pretty good for rushing a hive, because of the fast reloading.
And for catpacks, it's to improve a "focus-fire" efficiency?
Cat packs give a huge boost to movement and reload speed (also increased attack speed with the axe), so I'd say it's more like improving chasing and intercepting efficiency. The Onos (/ life form) might think he's safe looking at the map, but a sudden cat pack rush can easily get him in a situation he could hardly anticipate.
You rarely see this in public games, because it requires communication and team play.
This one makes me rage so hard! Micro drifters take up like 80% of my time as an alien commander and 9 and half pub scrub aliens comms don't use drifter buffs. /cringe
Really makes me wonder what exactly these guys are doing in the hive, probably having a F**
• Agility: it’s much easier to dodge fade swipes and skulks.
• Distance over time: when chasing a low Onos, or trying to save a Phase gate, covering the same distance in less time can be incredibly valuable (the difference between success and failure).
• Reload speed: again this can be the difference between success and failure.
The overall idea is that spending 3 tres on a catpack is less expensive than a marine dying, and then an extractor being killed, or 3 tres is a justifiable expense if you tag an Onos kill.
To my understanding, the commanders drop the catpacks when they feel that a situation justifies the cost, like in the above examples.
Catpacks cost err, 15 to researc? And 3 per each pack dropped? That's pretty salty. 30 res total to catpack 5 marines. Especially since most marines don't have a clue when catpack happens, since it's so rare. I got my first ever catpack a few days ago. "Why am I all white? Ooh this must be the catpack effect."
I always research catpacks instantly when winning the game though. Not only is it fun, it's also a good time to explore things, and to finish off alienoids faster.
3 res on a single marine. That's an investment. That dude should be really good.
Currently, you can use catpacks in three situations: 1. Swimming in res 2. All-in early game rush 3. Pro team
I don't think it's the commander. It's easy to research catpacks and make a plan how to use them. It's easy to relay that plan to your team. Now will pub marines execute that plan? Now THAT is a leap of faith.
I think i'll try catpack in the following situation next time:
- Hive rush with 4-5 rines to blow the hive in seconds
- Chasing Onos (after a beacon for instance... otherwise, like bicsum said, no enough teamplay in pubs to justify the expense)
I just try putting an extractor on each techpoint resource node while my marines are running to the first RTs. If I cant drop an RT, they spawned there.
But if you cancel the rts you Can build you lose res right?
If they are smart, they wont.
1. In comp games spawns are setup for cross spawns always. In some maps you know exactly where but others you still have to find out, so you drop a med or ammo pack on the hive and if it falls slowly, thats your hive.
2. Catpacks are instant repellent for onos. Normally comp teams tech to jet packs but that takes a ton of res (AA is 30, proto is 40, jets is 25 more). If things dont go your way to get that before onos come up, you get catpacks to give marines the instant chase and extra firepower to push them out of the room or kill them. They work really well because when onos first come up in comp games they usually dont have any upgrades like celerity or carapace.