The Lerk (our 30 Res Friend)
Cheese
Lork on the Clorf Join Date: 2003-12-15 Member: 24396Members, Constellation
Lork on the Clorf Join Date: 2003-12-15 Member: 24396Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">share your tactics and tricks</div> Ok...i hope noone else posted a similar topic during the last weeks. If someone did...then...well sorry.
The Lerk has become better since the release of beta4 (he hoverrrrrrs without energy!!!) so i would like to play as a Lerk more often BUT...i dont know the tricks. And I guess that many other people don´t know them too. So this thread is for pro-Lerks who want to share their tactics and for nub-Lerks who want to improve.
As said above Im not a very good Lerk so my usual tactic is to sit in a vent and to spore. But as soon as I have to fight against Rines it becomes really hard for me.
And there have to be tricks to kill Marines with ease cause i saw many really good Lerk Players before.
Plz help me (us) and post your tactics.
thx
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The Lerk has become better since the release of beta4 (he hoverrrrrrs without energy!!!) so i would like to play as a Lerk more often BUT...i dont know the tricks. And I guess that many other people don´t know them too. So this thread is for pro-Lerks who want to share their tactics and for nub-Lerks who want to improve.
As said above Im not a very good Lerk so my usual tactic is to sit in a vent and to spore. But as soon as I have to fight against Rines it becomes really hard for me.
And there have to be tricks to kill Marines with ease cause i saw many really good Lerk Players before.
Plz help me (us) and post your tactics.
thx
<!--emo&::lerk::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/lerk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lerk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::lerk::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/lerk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lerk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::lerk::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/lerk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lerk.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Comments
Maybe throw a spore cloud down on your escape to help prevent people chasing you down.
you shoot the umbra and fly to the marines (1-2 secs)
and then you fly around them biting (some seconds)
and then you fly away again (1-2 secs)
my problem: im attacking, umbra stops and then
a) i keep attacking and take a lot of damage
b) i shoot umbra again and waste my adrenaline so i have problems to bite the marines afterwards
i just read in another thread ( it was "skulks upgrades" or something like that) that Scent of Fear is very good for the Lerk. Ok i think so too.
So SoF would be the Sensory Upgrade.
DC-->regen?
MC-->Adren, silence or celerity?
("nub question alarm") what´s the role of the Lerk in the Game? Is he scout and sporespamer-only? Or are there other roles for Lerk Players too?
Good lerk can really change course of game.
Spores at 1 hive and umbra at 2 hives is the main reason why you are there..
You are mostly support, you should be where bigger groups of marines are, or where major fight is and you should spore them and umbra your friends.. Dont go head on bite unless you are 100% sure of the outcome, its really not neccesary and you are always risking your life. If you are trying to bite, never fly straight on marine but attack from other direction, if you attack head on - 19 bullets = you are dead.
Try flying up and down often, as it confuses marines more than simple horizontal movement.
shoot some spores at the marines
at the second wave of spores, you fly in the group of marines (after regaining a bit of energy), try to take 3-4 bites and fly back. repeat.
with umbra:
shoot a bit of spores, let your energy heal, shoot some umbra at a certain marine, fly at him, bite bite bite, umbra your escape route and fly there. done correctly, more than enough energy remains to spore your trail so you aren't followed
1.Celerity
2.Scent of fear
3.Carapace
This lerk is a homing missile.
I give it carapace so it can receive more damage.
Celerity gives it a near self-umbra. I have yet to see the day a marine has good enough reflexes and aim to take down a full-speed(celeritied edition) lerk. Celerity also makes him travel so fast that regenerating and healing at a distance gorge take the same time. Scent of fear lets you sort out your potential target.
Believe me, if you can fly quite good with lerk, you got the best combination to be a melee one.
The only weak spot is the fact that it gets easy killable when you block him.
If you go lerk, it pays to know how to fly around. You go in whatever direction you face, so you can fly straight up, or straight down, then shift sideways, then circle ninty degrees sideways and fly out of the room. If you're any good at flying, this will work fine. Tip: Hold the jump key to glide in your current direction. You cannot glide upward, but gliding while looking down will let you swoop without making flapping noises. With about five minutes of flying around in an empty server, you should be getting the hang of how to fly. This is KEY to lerks, so learn it first before you move on.
There are two strategies for the lerk.
The uber-elite strategy puts you in repeated danger and requires crazy skills to pull off. The idea is to use the lerk as a flying skulk, and be an attack unit with higher mobility. Unless you're lucky, extremely good, or suicidal, you will get blocked and shotdown in no time trying to do this, especially with no support or only one upgrade.
The more effective, cautious strategy is to spore groups of marines in small rooms where they can't avoid the spore and rapidly die, or to try and cover large rooms and groups of marines with spore to help skulks on the ground. You use your superior speed and movement ability to go to trouble spots doublequick, and keep the marines completely distracted until skulks show up on the scene to mop up. And of course, be a chicken, run away from fights, and learn where vents are so you have someplace to hide while you spore.
I hate to tell everyone this, but the lerk is not for people who want to be individual players like fades. You really need to move with skulks and gorges and be their air support. You regen health slowly, so if you drop below 80HP 0AR, you need to back off and find a quiet spot to regenerate, or a nearby gorge to heal. And while the lerk is buffed up thanks to the zero-energy cost flapping, you're still not a fade or onos, and you can't do very much by yourself. You need skulk support, but skulks and lerks work very well together, along with gorges in the background with healspray.
Only focus allows lerks to be actual killing machines, since they can swoop and destroy light armors without armor or with low health. Generally, spore will be 90% of your attack. Spore is fast acting, strips light armor marines of armor and then rapidly of health. Marines stuck in vents or marines in tight spots moving slowly and in groups are prime targets for lerks. The one way you'll get massive kills and RFK by yourself is by finding situations like this and ruthlessly taking advantage of them.
In order to fill a room with spore, you need to spore different locations of the room. Don't just spore the same spot. Spore damage doesn't stack, and spore lasts longer than it takes to fire it, even at minimum energy. So spray different parts of the room each time. Second, if it's a big room, aim your spore at the marines. It's the only way you're going to kill them. It's going to take about thirty seconds, but you can still do it. Lerks don't have spike, so spore is the only hope for long range attack. It works over time however, and forces the commander to medpack his soldiers. Medpacks bleed the commander's res pool dry over time.
Celerity allows the lerk to be anywhere on the map in under twenty seconds. You pick that upgrade if you want to be first on the scene with support clouds of umbra, or spore. Adrenaline is still a perfect upgrade for lerks too, since it allows them to fire much larger clouds of spore and umbra.
Celerity: Fast response time
Adren: Superior support ability
Generally, if it's the second hive, I still go with adren most often, because my teammates do a lot better with multiple umbra clouds than just one. Also, if I need to spore, I don't have to keep re-aiming at marines who only have to dodge two clouds. Adren lets me put four different clouds of spore in a room, which marines have an impossible time getting away from.
Celerity lerks get the most benefits however. At celerity speed, you are almost impossible to hit as long as you're not flying straight forward. You get silence from gliding, which is holding down the jump button, and now that flying costs no energy, you don't need adrenaline to make speedy flying tricks just to get away from a bad situation alive. If you can master the lerk enough, try celerity.
<span style='color:yellow'>I know you're probably just skimming by now. :p</span>
Umbra is the most powerful support ability in the game however. It lets anything standing inside it's radius live almost three times as long against gunfire. Umbra is the super-carapace. The only way to counter heavy machineguns is umbra, since every lifeform including onos die in no time under multiple HMGs. You have to look out for grenade rounds, which will kill your tiny lerk self, but as long as you keep the yellow clouds where the fades are trying to attack, everyone will stay alive till the marines are dead. Umbra cuts the number of incoming bullets by two thirds, meaning that only one shot out of three does damage when it hits you. The only way to take out marines solo as a lerk is to spray umbra at their feet, and switch to bite while the umbra lasts. Again, adrenaline helps in this situation, because you can always re-spray umbra to cover your escape.
The key as a lerk is not to get ballsy. You're still just a weak, flying version of a skulk with smelly gas. You better have an escape planned out, and be on top of any situation that comes up. Lerks will find themselves flying from one end of the map to the other so they can be the first line of defense against marine pushes. Weaken the marines with spore, so by the time they get where they are going, they have no armor and the skulks can kill them.
Also here's something funny. Parasite does 10 damage to marines with 0armor, I think. So if you are a lerk and you're sporing marines so badly, the commander can't medpack them all back to full health, tell your skulks to start trying to parasite-kill the marines. I'm not kidding, this works like a charm. With spore support, parasite is almost useful as an attack.
Lerks can be bought at 30 res, meaning that you can lerk almost as soon as the game starts. A team with four or five res towers and one lerk to scout for incoming marines can do very well, provided skulks are busy responding to the marines the lerk has located and is sporing. Lerks are the most powerful things in the alien early game, with good gorge and skulk support. Once the marines get GLs or hand grenades or HMGs, lerks become very vulnerable, and only become useful again once the second hive is up, and they can get a second upgrade, and umbra. Grenades are still the fastest counter to lerks though, which is something marines should keep in mind. Every early-game lerk is one player who DIDN'T put up a res node, so if the entire alien team is a bunch of lerks, KILL THEM AND YOU COST THE ALIENS ALL THEIR RES, end of story.
Some maps just suck for lerks. I can't think of any right now, but lerks don't do well in maps with complicated structures that the lerk can "bump" into. This will get lerks killed. I think ns_mineshaft might be the one I'm thinking of. Also, maps without very built-up vent systems aren't great for lerks either, since lerks get places the fastest using vents. However, maps with small rooms about the size of two spore clouds or smaller are great for lerks, since anything except heavy armor dies super-quick against spore attack. Also, maps with vents that lead to marine start mean a lerk can be the hugest annoyance ever, sporing the IPs and never stopping. Large maps are good for lerks too, since they can get places faster than skulks usually, and soften the marines up so that the aliens that get there have a better chance to make a kill. It sucks when you have a big map, and the skulks have to respawn, and run ALL THE WAY BACK to the RT under attack or whatever for the second time, which by then is already dead. I'm thinking specifically of ns_agora and ns_metal. You practically need lerks for rapid response on maps like that, since skulks take forever to get anywhere even if they use all the vents. They HAVE to kill the marines the first time, or else you lose that part of the map. The closest thing aliens have to a phasegate is movement chaimbers, and they don't show up usually until hive 2. Lerks are the only fast response aliens have in this case.
BTW: If you ever see heavy armor, forget lerking for anything except giving umbra to fades and onos. Heavy armor is not affected by spore at all. Unless there are light armor guys helping the heavys, don't even bother with spore. Heavy armor, along with grenades, are the two things you want to never run into. Back off that isht and hope you have some buddies to help back you up, you don't have a snowflake's chance.</span>
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>K THATS ALL I CAN THINK OF FOR NOW THX FOR ASKING.</span>
You could try binding jump to mousewheel too, dont know if its good or not tho.
Most good lerk players know how to shoot at lerks when they play on the marine team. I'm a lerk killing machine on most pubs, because I'm better than your average newb lerk who might be lerking for maybe his third time ever. I know how to tell when a lerk is going to do something stupid and overextend himself, and when I see it, I jump on it like a trampoline. "Lerk down, med please."
Blocking lerks is trick number one. Get in front of the doorway the lerk has to escape from if he's not in a room with vents. He will bump into you and even if you die, you slow him down in the hundredths of a second it takes for your teammates to get the extra shots on him that kill him.
Learning the routes lerks use to get from one place to another is trick number two. Find where they come from, know where they hide, camp, kill yourself a lerk when he thinks he's alone or out of the line of fire.
Quickdraw pistol techniques to deadeye stationary lerks at long range is trick number three. When you see lerks stop and just stand still while aiming umbra or spore clouds down a long hallway, aim your crosshair at them and switch to pistol. The pistol is almost automatically ready to fire the second you switch to it, meaning you can pop off the seven to ten rounds needed to kill a fully healthy lerk before he sees danger coming. Your reflexes will usually be faster, and pistol shots do 20 dmg a piece, as well as all being at the same spot. If you line it up correctly, you have a high chance of simply pistol-killing the lerk from long distance.
Learning to just ignore lerks is trick number four. If you can bypass a lerk who is not putting himself in danger when he spores you from a vent, do it. If you can't hold a position because the lerk is making it impossible, <b>don't waste time in a useless situation</b>. Take as many people as you can and move to the next point on the map. The lerk won't be there, and if he does try to follow, he will probably have to get out of his vent and find a new one. Also, the next room on the map might be harder to fill with spore. Lerks are designed to slow marines down, which they do well, and to spore marines trying to build structures, which kills any marine dumb enough to try it. If the room is full of green gas, just avoid it, because you can't do anything with it anyway. Time is money.</span>
Spore cloud a long area if marines are coming. Maximize their damage taken by making them walk through 10 seconds of spore down a long hallway. Don't just simply spam spore on top of the same spot.
They just move and you waste Adrenaline. Fire them in succession one after the next so they are not continiously walking through a cloud of toxic gas.
Also, scent of fear is quite good, but I do enjoy using focus myself. It makes for quick fly by's and gives you the ability to fly across rooms at full speed, turn quick, bite, and keep going but still doing good damage.
Basically, if the marines are standing around in a room, spore them. If they're only using the room or hallway to walk somewhere else, put the next spore burst ahead of them. That way they have to either wait the spore out, walk through it and take maximum damage, or shoot at you.
It's like herding sheep. You stick the spore anywhere you don't want them to go, and they'll either stop, take damage, or go another way.
Sometimes you'll get marines that won't even shoot at you when you're being careful and hanging in vents. This makes your life a lot easier.</span>
sigh
thx for all these posts. They help me a lot.
we're saving the secrets of the lerks for ourselves, like casting chain lightning upon marines or a globe of invulnerability on ourselves. don't want any lerk competition, do we? >_<
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In that case you will only kill 1 or 2 marines TOP. It's better to have a skulk with you to kill the marines. Remember: lerking in early game is very expensive and if you die it will be a waste of valuable res. Besides the lerk is very weak even with reg o carpace.