Focus ANYTHING is terrifying. Gore is more nightmarish than ever, absolutely great for base rapes where you need to take a tfac or armslab down in a jiffy.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Focus ANYTHING is terrifying. Gore is more nightmarish than ever<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Har, har, very funny. Onos with focus is just a joke, goring so slow that by the time he gets the second blow, the marines have probably emptied all their magazines. For fade it is okay, hit-and-run, same applies to lerk, even though SoF is better, and skulks benefit from it in the beginning, but otherwise it is just too specific to be a "all-around" upgrade like the rest of them are.
So, IMO, SC still has only 2 valid upgrades when the others have 3.
Someone mentioned before a "leeching" upgrade to replace it. I think it is a pretty interesting idea, and should work a lot better than focus, even if it would require re-arranging the upgrades a bit...
Well I tend to take down base structures a lot faster with focus gore. Its not much good for anything else, but as an Onos SoF is largely irrelevant as its endgame and you KNOW where the rines are.... and Cloaking just encourages devourcamping followed by spam lols.
Wirhe, focus gore does provide a benefit. You say that by the time the onos gets its second gore in, the marines will have emptied their clips. If that's true, then they would have emptied their clips in the time that a nonfocused onos got in three gores. Include the fact that two focus gores does more damage than 3 nonfocus gores, and focus wins. Also, when killing structures, an onos will generally run out of adrenaline using gore without focus (since the only use for the adrenaline upgrade is stomp spam, and even then you are giving up celerity). A focus onos won't run out of energy while killing the structure, so it will go down faster, and the onos will be ready to take on marines that come along since it has adrenaline still.
<!--QuoteBegin-Stung256+Jul 27 2004, 08:13 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Stung256 @ Jul 27 2004, 08:13 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Pandas managed to use it very well in a few of their matches. It just requires a rediculous amount of teamwork. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Sensory was a fad for a week or two after 3.0 came out. Then the novelty wore off, the best clans started getting stomped by mediocre clans, and no one goes sensory any more except for rushes or for fun.
The reason it's no good: unless you're rushing, you will still need 1 hive fades to defend your 2nd hive. Focus is cool yeah, and anti medspam, but it just doesn't quite make up for the lack of healing. The reason 1 hive fades get regen is because they have to hang around the second hive, which won't have good healing until it's finished (unless you can somehow afford to have 2 people on gorge alternating with healspray, which if so, you're probably going to win anyway).
So anyway, it's not actually teamwork that's a factor in why sens isn't used.
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Briefly, how to beat aliens with sensory a) get armor 1 (MANDATORY). b) get phase gates and lock down a hive with a tf, phase and elec node. c) get motion tracking (if you've got the res). d) drop shotguns. Lots and lots of shotguns (read: "focus <i>this</i> bizzarch") d) get a phase gate as close to a 2nd hive as possible, elec the rt next to it. e) siege said hive. Versus sens, it's complicated or difficult to take an area that the aliens want. It's easy to hold an area against them. f) finish the game. Get heavies if you need them and be aware that focus fades CAN clear a locked down hive if you're not paying attention.</span>
marines get MT first and run to lock down two hives and it is all over. obs in evey key area + scan alot = kharra lose every time. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> dont even gotta lock down 2
lock down the middle hive,and just put a pg at other
Yep, eRT+PG, and the Kharaa cannot break it for a long, long time without at least three fades slashing at it, going back to the hive for healing, and repeating. And the marines feel nice enough to let them do that.
The 2 major flaws with sensory first is the lacking of healing and thus, inability to take out electrified structures, notably RTs. The other is that focus skulks are lethal, but res is lost every death because of the 2 res upgrade cost.
If 3 sensories are placed inside vents, even if they are scanned, the marines simply have no way to reach them unless they stack, but then a single skulk should be able to win in such territory.
This makes the sensories untouchable, and forces the commander to scan no matter what. As rambos are important, and if the marines are spread out, he simply cannot scan everywhere for everyone.
Focus, as mentioned, is a deadly 2-hit killer. A focus fade is very very lethal, and if they have shotguns, fast killing of the marines or evasion will matter more than the healing you would have gotten in such a fight. Skulks with focus are good too.
Done this way, the kharaa can dominate the marines. But they just need to electrify a rt and expand this way, and you can't do anything to counter it. MT screws every upgrade path so it doesn't really matter, and armour is just 2 focus bites, which is easier really than 3-4 normal ones.
The real evil counter to sensory first is electricity, with scanning and obs a limited second.
The only way to win is to get the 2nd hive up before the marines can expand too much, and this requires teamwork...so yea...
Hmmmm, that reminds me of a game i played earlier on.
I have just rebound my keys as gorge to build chambers, and we had our second hive going up with no chambers. I went into a nice secure place as gorge, and hit the wrong bind (>.<) And we ended up getting MC! first!
As the second hive was nearing completion we didn't really mind, as we told ourselfs, we could get dc next, and lose very little. However, as soon as it was built, someone else built a SC. And the 3rd hive was quite a way off..
Anywayz, we acually managed to win... But that's pubs for ya.
as my point of view SCs are muchmore valueable than dc in the early start
But the only problem is where u put it
Here s is one of my exp about sc start
In a 12 vs 12 game, alien start with sc, a gorge cloack itself and sneak into
marine base in 1: 00 min and set up a sc and no one knew it was there
Did anyone of u play starcraft before ? when we set up our obs in 2:00
We found that our base was surrounded by 9 dogs and for sure we re dead.
Sc and Mc is valueable on how u use it.
If u use it for foucs but not for ambush, then it was just a JUNK
But if u put it near marine base with an average team, then ur team will have quick fade or quick onos and how u win is depends on how many res **** in ur team
Even the marine set of Mt, they wont have much res to upgrade armor [ unless alien got heavy lose]
And MC is the best partner with sc even facing HA train. Cloack and adrea onos is really aggressive . Remeber, Dc cant help u much. There maybe some of u dont support my idea but it s turth. Cloack with sliense, fantastic.
If u say a sc start will lose, then ur team must be really noob or newbi
Despite the almost universal distate for SC, good comms will ALWAYS have an obs up very quickly, partially because of phase tech and the almighty bacon, and partially because it means IF the aliens plan an SC crawl they'll be quickly spotted and rushed..... and its a lot easier for marines to recover from a SC base rush (usually by relocate if the situation is dire) than it is for aliens to recover from an Obs rush with an SC hive (no hope of relocation, no way to defend the hive).
Focus rush, as with any sensory first strat, requires Skills and Teamwork, two things you simply won't find together on any pub alien team. Not regularly, anyhow.
In response to earlier post
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The 2 major flaws with sensory first is the lacking of healing and thus, inability to take out electrified structures, notably RTs. The other is that focus skulks are lethal, but res is lost every death because of the 2 res upgrade cost. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Elec rts aren't too bad if you hit and run them en masse with a healing gorge. Considering you'll have to heal after every bite, a focus skulk army can nibble through elec rts if they've 2 gorges on permanent healspam detail. Its a setback but it'd be no different if you went MC first.
Second, focus skulks are lethal, but so are adren, celer, regen or cara skulks against lvl 1 rines. Nearly every skulk upgrades as soon as he spawns, so the 2 res cost is negligible. The real setback is that focus relies on skills, whereas adren, celer, regen and cara effectively give you skills since you either faster, tougher, or hit more.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> This makes the sensories untouchable, and forces the commander to scan no matter what. As rambos are important, and if the marines are spread out, he simply cannot scan everywhere for everyone. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Marines are very good at seeing cloaked units, mostly because said cloaked units are virtually all landbound, barring the skulk, and even then most skulks hide in the most obvious places. Second, 2 shots into any dark corner is just as good as scanning, but costs nothing.
If you can live long enough to get a focus fade, then you COULD claw back a stalemate, but the real problem is that marines have a hive close to locked down within 1-2 minutes of game start, fades usually come a little later, and will have NO support because focus skulks will die in droves before they get close enough for a nip.
SC is nice, but the teamwork and skill needed for it to work makes it an extremely irresponsible choice on pubs (from this pubbers viewpoint).
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->major flaws with sensory first is the lacking of healing<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> IMO, *every* chamber should have a healing upgrade to make them all truly "equal" -DC has a passive upgrade, someone mentioned that SC could have a offencive healing upgrade, and I guess coming up with somekind of healing for MC wouldn't be too hard.
That'd be pretty poor, removing the only real differences between the chamber choices.
Remember that true balance means that any win is down to luck alone, which in turn makes for a poor and unenjoyable game. SC means you rely on gorges for healing, you sacrifice defence in favour of a strongly aggressive response. DC means you sacrifice raw killing power for survivability, and MC is an even handed mix.
<!--QuoteBegin-Necrosis+Aug 2 2004, 03:08 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Necrosis @ Aug 2 2004, 03:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> SC means you rely on gorges for healing, you sacrifice defence in favour of a strongly aggressive response. DC means you sacrifice raw killing power for survivability, and MC is an even handed mix. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Many people say the alien team must be extremely agressive to win large games.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And MC is the best partner with sc even facing HA train. Cloack and adrea onos is really aggressive . Remeber, Dc cant help u much. There maybe some of u dont support my idea but it s turth.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats funny...isn't it sof and celerity?
Anyway, scs sucks when the com knows what to do...
You must be extremely aggressive, yes, but you WILL have to defend at some point, and half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. SC gives no defense bonus, so if the marines counter then you ARE screwed. MC turns gorges into effective DCs because of healspam, and DC helps all round, because although you might need an extra bite, you'll have a bit of regen or extra armour to help you live long enough to land it.
Its pretty poor to think that because SC allows no defensive strat it should therefore be the best chamber. Many people say aliens are the rambo team, but that doesn't make it true nor viable to do in a game.
Electrifying is pricey if the aliens get second hive up and drop DCs. Then marines will have some serious trouble with focus/regen aliens who will cheerfully munch through the elec rts.
On an average alien team tho you're absolutely right, because they won't last long enough to get second hive. Also, they'll never attack an elec rt, even IF they have regen. GG smacktards eh?
its true that electrifying takes a great deal of time and res. However, that time and res spent is well worth it against an alien team that does sensory chambers first.
even with the second hive up and 3 dcs its still pretty hard.
there was this one time I was in a pug on ns_origin. My team was khaara and we dropped 3 sensory chambers about 1 minute into the game. The comm figured our plan out, began electrifying every node he dropped, dropped obs almost everywhere and teh game went down from there after we got the second hive up +3 dcs. Our fades, who were pretty decent//experienced ns players, had such a difficult time taking out their nodes. Eventually the marine team managed to get into our hives and siege us out to death.
Surely the skulks could have gangraped the nodes while the fades worked on shutting down the marine base? Or vice versa.
On a team thats going SC first, especially if they have PLANNED for it, there should be no reason why they wouldn't have second hive up very early in the game. Of course it all depends how you play. If a few rts are capped, and someone permagorges 3 sc in the first few minutes, and the rest of the team go fade, then they'll never have second hive up fast enough, let alone 3 more dc.
Its not easy by any means but really if a team tries SC first then they all need to be singing from the same sheet. SC first does not favour people who are stingy when it comes to chambers/hives/nodes.
yah we tried that too..i dunno its pretty dependent on a lot of factors such as how good the marine team is. In pubs this strat might work well if the comm doesn't know what the f*** he's doin. On dark maps like ns_nancy it'll work super well. And then again if your alien team is just getting like really weird sens chamber upgrades... <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Comments
Har, har, very funny. Onos with focus is just a joke, goring so slow that by the time he gets the second blow, the marines have probably emptied all their magazines. For fade it is okay, hit-and-run, same applies to lerk, even though SoF is better, and skulks benefit from it in the beginning, but otherwise it is just too specific to be a "all-around" upgrade like the rest of them are.
So, IMO, SC still has only 2 valid upgrades when the others have 3.
Someone mentioned before a "leeching" upgrade to replace it. I think it is a pretty interesting idea, and should work a lot better than focus, even if it would require re-arranging the upgrades a bit...
Sensory was a fad for a week or two after 3.0 came out. Then the novelty wore off, the best clans started getting stomped by mediocre clans, and no one goes sensory any more except for rushes or for fun.
The reason it's no good: unless you're rushing, you will still need 1 hive fades to defend your 2nd hive. Focus is cool yeah, and anti medspam, but it just doesn't quite make up for the lack of healing. The reason 1 hive fades get regen is because they have to hang around the second hive, which won't have good healing until it's finished (unless you can somehow afford to have 2 people on gorge alternating with healspray, which if so, you're probably going to win anyway).
So anyway, it's not actually teamwork that's a factor in why sens isn't used.
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Briefly, how to beat aliens with sensory
a) get armor 1 (MANDATORY).
b) get phase gates and lock down a hive with a tf, phase and elec node.
c) get motion tracking (if you've got the res).
d) drop shotguns. Lots and lots of shotguns (read: "focus <i>this</i> bizzarch")
d) get a phase gate as close to a 2nd hive as possible, elec the rt next to it.
e) siege said hive. Versus sens, it's complicated or difficult to take an area that the aliens want. It's easy to hold an area against them.
f) finish the game. Get heavies if you need them and be aware that focus fades CAN clear a locked down hive if you're not paying attention.</span>
marines get MT first and run to lock down two hives and it is all over. obs in evey key area + scan alot = kharra lose every time. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
dont even gotta lock down 2
lock down the middle hive,and just put a pg at other
-well,i guess that pretty much is lockdown
<!--emo&::lerk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/lerk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lerk.gif' /><!--endemo-->
caw caw
How about changing focus so it doesn't have a ROF penalty? A focus alien and a non-focus alien will both attack at the same speed?
If 3 sensories are placed inside vents, even if they are scanned, the marines simply have no way to reach them unless they stack, but then a single skulk should be able to win in such territory.
This makes the sensories untouchable, and forces the commander to scan no matter what. As rambos are important, and if the marines are spread out, he simply cannot scan everywhere for everyone.
Focus, as mentioned, is a deadly 2-hit killer. A focus fade is very very lethal, and if they have shotguns, fast killing of the marines or evasion will matter more than the healing you would have gotten in such a fight. Skulks with focus are good too.
Done this way, the kharaa can dominate the marines. But they just need to electrify a rt and expand this way, and you can't do anything to counter it. MT screws every upgrade path so it doesn't really matter, and armour is just 2 focus bites, which is easier really than 3-4 normal ones.
The real evil counter to sensory first is electricity, with scanning and obs a limited second.
The only way to win is to get the 2nd hive up before the marines can expand too much, and this requires teamwork...so yea...
I have just rebound my keys as gorge to build chambers, and we had our second hive going up with no chambers.
I went into a nice secure place as gorge, and hit the wrong bind (>.<) And we ended up getting MC! first!
As the second hive was nearing completion we didn't really mind, as we told ourselfs, we could get dc next, and lose very little. However, as soon as it was built, someone else built a SC.
And the 3rd hive was quite a way off..
Anywayz, we acually managed to win...
But that's pubs for ya.
**Leap/Focus/Silence--Ahhhhh**
All you need is chokepoints, works great on ns_nancy with the two ladder chokepoints.
If the map has no chokepoints, then sensory first sucks hard.
But focus + cloak + chokepoint = unstoppable, throw in a lerk for good measure and you can't go wrong.
But the only problem is where u put it
Here s is one of my exp about sc start
In a 12 vs 12 game, alien start with sc, a gorge cloack itself and sneak into
marine base in 1: 00 min and set up a sc and no one knew it was there
Did anyone of u play starcraft before ? when we set up our obs in 2:00
We found that our base was surrounded by 9 dogs and for sure we re dead.
Sc and Mc is valueable on how u use it.
If u use it for foucs but not for ambush, then it was just a JUNK
But if u put it near marine base with an average team, then ur team will have quick fade or quick onos and how u win is depends on how many res **** in ur team
Even the marine set of Mt, they wont have much res to upgrade armor [ unless alien got heavy lose]
And MC is the best partner with sc even facing HA train. Cloack and adrea onos is really aggressive . Remeber, Dc cant help u much. There maybe some of u dont
support my idea but it s turth. Cloack with sliense, fantastic.
If u say a sc start will lose, then ur team must be really noob or newbi
But i'm still all for DMS..
In response to earlier post
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
The 2 major flaws with sensory first is the lacking of healing and thus, inability to take out electrified structures, notably RTs. The other is that focus skulks are lethal, but res is lost every death because of the 2 res upgrade cost.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Elec rts aren't too bad if you hit and run them en masse with a healing gorge. Considering you'll have to heal after every bite, a focus skulk army can nibble through elec rts if they've 2 gorges on permanent healspam detail. Its a setback but it'd be no different if you went MC first.
Second, focus skulks are lethal, but so are adren, celer, regen or cara skulks against lvl 1 rines. Nearly every skulk upgrades as soon as he spawns, so the 2 res cost is negligible. The real setback is that focus relies on skills, whereas adren, celer, regen and cara effectively give you skills since you either faster, tougher, or hit more.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
This makes the sensories untouchable, and forces the commander to scan no matter what. As rambos are important, and if the marines are spread out, he simply cannot scan everywhere for everyone.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Marines are very good at seeing cloaked units, mostly because said cloaked units are virtually all landbound, barring the skulk, and even then most skulks hide in the most obvious places. Second, 2 shots into any dark corner is just as good as scanning, but costs nothing.
If you can live long enough to get a focus fade, then you COULD claw back a stalemate, but the real problem is that marines have a hive close to locked down within 1-2 minutes of game start, fades usually come a little later, and will have NO support because focus skulks will die in droves before they get close enough for a nip.
SC is nice, but the teamwork and skill needed for it to work makes it an extremely irresponsible choice on pubs (from this pubbers viewpoint).
IMO, *every* chamber should have a healing upgrade to make them all truly "equal" -DC has a passive upgrade, someone mentioned that SC could have a offencive healing upgrade, and I guess coming up with somekind of healing for MC wouldn't be too hard.
More HP > Anything. Always.
Remember that true balance means that any win is down to luck alone, which in turn makes for a poor and unenjoyable game. SC means you rely on gorges for healing, you sacrifice defence in favour of a strongly aggressive response. DC means you sacrifice raw killing power for survivability, and MC is an even handed mix.
Many people say the alien team must be extremely agressive to win large games.
support my idea but it s turth.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats funny...isn't it sof and celerity?
Anyway, scs sucks when the com knows what to do...
Its pretty poor to think that because SC allows no defensive strat it should therefore be the best chamber. Many people say aliens are the rambo team, but that doesn't make it true nor viable to do in a game.
once the marines figure out you have cloaking or focus they might as well start electrifying everthing and building obs everywhere. gg
On an average alien team tho you're absolutely right, because they won't last long enough to get second hive. Also, they'll never attack an elec rt, even IF they have regen. GG smacktards eh?
even with the second hive up and 3 dcs its still pretty hard.
there was this one time I was in a pug on ns_origin. My team was khaara and we dropped 3 sensory chambers about 1 minute into the game. The comm figured our plan out, began electrifying every node he dropped, dropped obs almost everywhere and teh game went down from there after we got the second hive up +3 dcs. Our fades, who were pretty decent//experienced ns players, had such a difficult time taking out their nodes. Eventually the marine team managed to get into our hives and siege us out to death.
On a team thats going SC first, especially if they have PLANNED for it, there should be no reason why they wouldn't have second hive up very early in the game. Of course it all depends how you play. If a few rts are capped, and someone permagorges 3 sc in the first few minutes, and the rest of the team go fade, then they'll never have second hive up fast enough, let alone 3 more dc.
Its not easy by any means but really if a team tries SC first then they all need to be singing from the same sheet. SC first does not favour people who are stingy when it comes to chambers/hives/nodes.
1)Save for hive
2)Gorge and drop an SC at a chokepoint. Then skulk and hold it.
For me SC is all about territory control and holding marines at bay till that 2nd hive or finishing them in a rush
Bite bite bite. Healspray heal spray heal spray. Rinse. Repeat. Always Repeat.
And then again if your alien team is just getting like really weird sens chamber upgrades... <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo-->