Build Sensory Second, Not Movement! Please? :)
Go7
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2553Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2553Members
I much prefer Sensory over Movement for Second Hive chamber. The #1 killer of Fades, is massive Marine surprise attacks. That is, the Alien player (of average skill) is unaware of the overwhelming odds that are approaching him, and thus stumbles into a very risky situation that he may not get out of alive.
For example, a regen Fade is running around killing elec RTs. Without Scent of Fear, the Fade may stick around for too long, attacking the elec RT. A squad of Marines shows up and fills the Fade up with bullets, Fade dies.
But *with* Scent of Fear, Aliens can usually attack with great precision and efficiency, attacking lone marines, destroying RTs, and then leaving whenever enemies approach. Another great use of SOF is to scout out the Marine's base. If the base has no one guarding it, you can usually get in there, destroy the Armory, then get out. Another benefit of SOF is that you can match the Marines' Motion Tracking.
Finally, even one Sensory can be enough to make SOF effective, I believe. This means a Gorge only spends 10 res, instead of 30 res (for 3 movement chambers). This allows the Gorge to either build more RTs, OCs, or get the third hive.
Movement is very important for Onos, I know. Most Onos demand they have Celerity. However, I think if resources are tight, one should definately consider going for Sensory instead of Movement, and focus your efforts on SOF Fades, not Celerity Onos. Movement's upgrades are not really necessary for anyone except the Onos. Most teams don't effectively use the Lerk (although this may be different in beta 4), so Adrenaline is not necessary. Even if the team does use the Lerk, I have found the Lerk has plenty of energy to effectively umbra with anyway. Also, movement chambers are very important for teleporting between Hives. This is a major risk, I understand, but one I believe can be offset by good use of SOF Fades.
The Fade is a great killing machine with or without any movement upgrades. While many players do better with celerity or adrenaline, I believe the improvement of Fade effectiveness is small.
So please consider sometimes putting Sensory second, not movement. Try this out and see if you find it better. I know I do.
For example, a regen Fade is running around killing elec RTs. Without Scent of Fear, the Fade may stick around for too long, attacking the elec RT. A squad of Marines shows up and fills the Fade up with bullets, Fade dies.
But *with* Scent of Fear, Aliens can usually attack with great precision and efficiency, attacking lone marines, destroying RTs, and then leaving whenever enemies approach. Another great use of SOF is to scout out the Marine's base. If the base has no one guarding it, you can usually get in there, destroy the Armory, then get out. Another benefit of SOF is that you can match the Marines' Motion Tracking.
Finally, even one Sensory can be enough to make SOF effective, I believe. This means a Gorge only spends 10 res, instead of 30 res (for 3 movement chambers). This allows the Gorge to either build more RTs, OCs, or get the third hive.
Movement is very important for Onos, I know. Most Onos demand they have Celerity. However, I think if resources are tight, one should definately consider going for Sensory instead of Movement, and focus your efforts on SOF Fades, not Celerity Onos. Movement's upgrades are not really necessary for anyone except the Onos. Most teams don't effectively use the Lerk (although this may be different in beta 4), so Adrenaline is not necessary. Even if the team does use the Lerk, I have found the Lerk has plenty of energy to effectively umbra with anyway. Also, movement chambers are very important for teleporting between Hives. This is a major risk, I understand, but one I believe can be offset by good use of SOF Fades.
The Fade is a great killing machine with or without any movement upgrades. While many players do better with celerity or adrenaline, I believe the improvement of Fade effectiveness is small.
So please consider sometimes putting Sensory second, not movement. Try this out and see if you find it better. I know I do.
Comments
This was the only line i got up to, reason being it is your <b>OWN</b> opinion and everybody has different opinions for different reasons. Thank you for sharing yours.
(p.s. scent of fear does work on marines that havent been injured cos thatll be stpid with a name like that...)
i say aliens (especially skulks) should be able to use the 'inherited abiltys' thing everyone has been going on about... make games more alien friendly and make marines get off there fat arses and acctually assult a hive rather that seige it...
u really need SoF to kill elec rts?
try using a cel fade and u would see why mc is the best chamber even better than dc
i must remember to ignore stupid posts ^^
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SC can be a very effective first chamber, but eh, requires an excellent team of skulks and a not as excellent team of Marines IMO.
=silence -they DONT hear you!!=
=celerity -you thought Kharaa were fast? hah, now you can be fast!!-
=adrenaline -do more with the extra energy!-
AND the mc lets kharaa teleport to hives to defend/heal!
though cloak is fun, and focus does a lot of damage, and Scent of Fear gives the Kharaa a legal "wallhack"
hmm difficult too choose, but I find dc/mc/sc still working fine.. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I think the SMD order is viable to a degree , if you have a competent team... it needs much teamwork (relentless healspraying and umbraing) but works nicely if the marines don't have enough upgrades. You need to be confident , and drop hives quickly.
With mc, everyone can teleport to a hive under attack, and continually do this even if they die and respawn. But this can also be changed for sc, which in level 3, you can expect when the rines are coming for your hive anyway. Then u can gather up and assualt them on their way, knowing exactly (or most of them)
where they are.
The mc is also a good ugrade for gorges who want to get a bit suicidal and bile marine spawns or hives under controll by them. If they ugrade adrenaline, they can bile till the cows come home (or 'till the rines come and own them). This can become a big rash to the rines (as i have found out for a gorge myself), even if you take celerity. You can run as fast as a rine, and if one comes for you while doing your business, you can run away, wait a while, then come rash them again. Rine comms get very annoyed with *our base is under attack* comments. COuntless times have a team of biling gorges heard the victorious sounds of the comm recycling everything getting owned.
SO mc and sc are debatable, but my personal favourite (specially when rashing rines) is mc.
i personally prefer sc because it helps me much more than mc
Celerity is definately not needed for the Lerk. Adrenaline was touched upon in the first post, it's not necessary at all. The average Fade can do just fine without it.
I think the biggest advantage of MC is simply the hive teleportation. But even this can be an iffy advantage. Half the time the MC is used to teleport to an endangered Hive, the guy who teleports is dead within a few seconds. Afterall, when a hive is in trouble, it's either being shotgunned rushed, HA trained, or there's a turret farm being built. All three of these situations usually make a lone Skulk attack futile. And most MC teleports are lone Skulks who then rush into battle with the odds stacked against them. Dead skulk. Finally, Lerks and Fades are fast enough to get to the Hive within 20 seconds, and while 20 seconds can be vital.. it usually isn't.
I think the biggest reason people haven't liked Sensory for 2nd hive is because they constantly go for Focus instead of SOF. Focus just isn't that great, especially in the average player's hands. The average player needs the high-attack rate of Skulk bite or what-not. The average player has low accuracy. SOF, on the other hand, is very simple to use. Red blob getting bigger? Kill it. 3 red blobs coming for you? Run away.
Bottom line here is that the most vital unit, the Fade, doesn't need Movement to win the game. But that Fade's survival is very much needed to take out elec RTs. And the #1 Fade killer are mass groups of Marines. To counter this, the Fade should get SOF to evade mass groups of Marines. So if you ever play in a game with me in it ("Guardian Legend"), and you see Sensory coming at 2nd hive.... go with SOF, not Focus, and see how you like it. (What sucks is that going Gorge and putting up 3 Sensories costs 40 res.... which usually means I won't be Fading anytime soon to show the team how effective things could've been. This results in every other Fade going the Focus route, and then getting killed by mass Marines.)
If you've even faded for any length of time, you will notice that you can spend 1-2 seconds closing with a marine, despite blink. That's 1-2 seconds more damage you take that could kill you. Celerity lets you close in, kill marines faster and take less damage.
Adrenaline is not as good now since hive2 = meta, but it's still a boon to newer fades who can't manage blink properly, and makes killing eRTs a speedier process.
A lerk with celerity moves and flies faster. A grounded lerk is rather slow, and even though fast flapping makes it go fast, celerity flapping makes it even faster. And when you're too busy to keep flapping (i.e. combat where you could DIE) the speed celerity gives aids a lot.
Adrenaline for the lerk allows it to give spore/umbra/bite combos. Even though no energy flapping is now available, the lerk's output is still rather low. Adrenaline lets it be a true nuisance and the ability to spray copious amounts of gas.
Silence for lerk is quite a popular upgrade now and lets it survive encounters with shotguns due to stealth.
A biling gorge WITHOUT adrenaline takes a ridiculously long time to kill a PG, let alone a RT. While fades could do it, they have to divide their time between structures and marines. A gorge kills a PG with 2 regenerating energy bars, and about 4 for a RT. With adrenaline it kills these vital structures in half the time.
A 10% hp PG or RT still functions, and adrenaline lets a gorge deal fast damage before marines respond. By going SC, even at hive2, you are placing too much pressure on the fade to win the game, and it can fail. With MC, the gorge can share the burden, and onos can help out against heavy weapons with stomp spam or cowardice.
Of course, if you still like sensory 2nd, that's your choice. But if you're the only one in your team who benefits for SC 2nd and not MC 2nd, then you might want to re-consider.
yes. But i dont think in cal matchs due to the high risk factor.
But some top clans one in particular being pandas do go sensory as their 2nd chamber.
Celerity is definately not needed for the Lerk. Adrenaline was touched upon in the first post, it's not necessary at all. The average Fade can do just fine without it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Celerity is the single best Lerk upgrade ever. Its suddenly a 500% better melee Lerk in one fell swoop.
Onos are heavily reliant on Celerity too once they attempt to fight marines and not just structures, so without it you're basicly Heavy Train bait.
Fades again, against heavy weaponry, benefit alot from Celerity. It allows them to attack more easily, be in less danger, have less downtime and even get their swipes in easier.
The big thing about sensory is, barely any of its abilitys except Focus are very worthwhile. SoF is nifty, but every time a Skulk encounters a marine he should be paraing him anyway before risking his life - and the only people heavily reliant on the parasite network are again the Onoses.
What is actually very worthwhile is the combination of its inherent cloaking fields, Focus and one person on the team to patrol with the aid of SoF - but people are right, it involves a high level of coordination, and I can't spontaneously see a situation where the benefits of SC outweigh those of MCs.
You could of course go SC/MC or MC/SC, which simply involves alot of map control and very little lifeforming - but its a very powerful setup. Basicly the alien version of upgrade rushing - you attempt to get 3 MC or 3 SC Skulks under a minute into the game.
Another point is that Fades can use focus, one of the more effective tactics. A talented Fade will shoot into a room, swipe once at a guy, and fly off. Armor damage to rine is high and intaken damage to Fade is low. The one weakness with this particular strategy is that the fade then becomes much less able to take out structures; but thats what SoF skulks are for.
EDIT: SC as a primary chamber is only effective on one or two maps, and requires a deal of luck, because those begining res are so important, and when used on items that are static, and no less beneficial later on than earlier, it takes a toll.
skulk: if they have mt: celerity
if they dont have mt: silence
if you can use leap properly: adrenaline
gorge: if you need to bilespam: adren
if you need to get into places quicker: celerity (this is VERY useful, i always take celerity as gorge)
lerk: if you have an onos, take adren. and spam umbra
if not, take celerity. it's very useful for a lerk
fade: celerity, or adren. i prefer celerity, but it's pretty much a question of style of play. both make the fade two times more effective.
onos: well, celerity... 99% of the time, celerity over adren. did i mention onos is a walking target just the size of the hmg spread, without celerity?
now, SoF and focus MAY be useful for someone's style of play, but usually you should think of the team... movement upgrades are equally useful for everyone.
Oh, well; each to their own.
Yes, Fades are the only defense against the feared and deadly mass electrification plan, especially at two hives. If it wasn't for multiple Fades spending all their time alone on the other side of the map slowly taking down the marine team's vital electrified RTs, the aliens would have no chance.
SOF is useful. Focus is useful only in the time it takes to get an arms lab and armor 1. Cloaking is redundant when you have SCs where the action is, which you should. SCs work great if you can use them to put a cap on every marine group trying to leave base for the first few minutes. But by the time the second hive is up, I'd rather have MC. It allows me to use teleportation to get across the entire map, and when someone tells me there are marines headed in, the first thing I do is leap to the MC and use it to get there ASAP. If I'm a gorge, I'll build an MC anywhere there's an electrified node and no marines around, and use the adrenaline boost from the MC to bilebomb the elec RT to death. If I see an incoming marine group protecting the res, I simply use the movement chaimber and escape to try it again. If any alien buddies of mine kill the marine group before the MC goes down, I get back there and bilebomb it the rest of the way. It only costs me 20 res. Plus I can heal endlessly with an MC nearby, making me a better support gorge. The fact that you can use MC to instantly escape the worst situation is a great plus for frontline gorging. As an onos, I love it when my team builds MC outside the hive. Two or three MC in a cluster turn an onos into a stomp-gun with infinite ammo.
MC seem better than SC. SC is the best for preventing marine expansion in the early game, but it has massive defects which the marines can ruthlessly use against it, making it possibly the weakest of the three chaimber upgrades. I prefer DMS because it tends to be safer. </span>