So, do you like Lerk Poison bite?
Mestaritonttu
Join Date: 2004-07-29 Member: 30229Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Join Date: 2004-07-29 Member: 30229Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Marine: I got bit. Soon I'm going to be as good as dead, and I can't do anything about it. (ಠ_ಠ)p
Comm: It's like giving medpacks to parasited marines, except compulsory. (ಠ_ಠ)p
Lerk: I got him! But did he get a medpack? I can't tell! I wish he'd groan in agony or something! (ಠ_ಠ)p
Since I gave none thumbs up, I guess I oughta suggest something: Lerk bite - 1/3 skulk biting power, 80% movement snare for 5 seconds - bite a marine, fart gass around him, watch him choke to death. I know someone's M&M's are rolling on the keyboard because a snare was mentioned, but I just love combos and that's the only one I could come up with.
You?
Comm: It's like giving medpacks to parasited marines, except compulsory. (ಠ_ಠ)p
Lerk: I got him! But did he get a medpack? I can't tell! I wish he'd groan in agony or something! (ಠ_ಠ)p
Since I gave none thumbs up, I guess I oughta suggest something: Lerk bite - 1/3 skulk biting power, 80% movement snare for 5 seconds - bite a marine, fart gass around him, watch him choke to death. I know someone's M&M's are rolling on the keyboard because a snare was mentioned, but I just love combos and that's the only one I could come up with.
You?
Comments
I had more fun hiding in vents and on ceilings waiting for opportunities to swoop in and gas, or harass marine teams with spike.
Well, with medpacks being 'free', a twitchy comm can stay on the front lines medspamming nonstop as long as he has 2 command stations.
I can't see a Lerk surviving a group of Marines if it tried to Bite em (unless the exceptional few who know how to fly).
You guys make it seem like it's not counterable....unlike the Jetpacks vs. Fades.
That said, b209 lerk is very overpowered. In b210, hopefully the shotgun is fixed (so it's actually usable again) and the lerk bite is fixed. Lerk bite doing skulk damage is effectively double the damage it should be doing. Lerk bite fixed + shotgun fixed should result in a balanced lerk. Perhaps even underpowered.
I just end up biting a lot.
I just end up biting a lot.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you have alien vision on all the time the poison effects won't show up.
Actually it does still show up...but the rivers of blood on your screen are green...either that or I just randomly get that effect on my screen due to a gfx glitch (I use alien vision a lot to see through gas clouds when lerking).
The best would probably be to have some sound coming from the poisoned marine.
Personally I don't like poison bite, it just feels unnecessary and a bit cheesy, like in a cheap mmo.
i think its ok if you try not to think about it being a cheesy mechanic. It might be something we need to get used to... maybe.
Design wise however, theres a big problem that alot of people have pointed out already. It amplifies the <b>unfun</b> of playing under commanders who don't regularly med/ammo or drop armouries. Competitive games shouldn't see the issue, but its inherently not a 'fun adding' mechanic in pub games.
The lerks role as harasser is unique. (Not talking about the bug that it makes too much damage right now.) Most of the other alien classes haven't such a unique role. Most ideas I read, is giving him a weapon with which he can more easily kill a marine. This would take away his unique role and make him to one of the other aliens, beside that he is flying. I find that boring.
I think the best way to keep Lerk from being a flying skulk would be to make the initial bite damage very low and have the DOT be non-stackable (is it already? not sure). As is, I often just stay on the marine and keep biting him like a skulk would because they go down fast that way. I think what the dev's had in mind was for the lerk to do a bite and escape, which isn't really how a lot of people are using it right now.
The combination of the Bite DOT + Gas makes the Lerk just as much fun as he was when he had Bile Bomb.
Also, I'm really big on taking down Res Towers. So adding Bite to the Lerk has made it even easier for me to do so. No longer do I have to rely on my team to take down RTs.
The best would probably be to have some sound coming from the poisoned marine.
Personally I don't like poison bite, it just feels unnecessary and a bit cheesy, like in a cheap mmo.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Considering that medpacks are pretty much a hard counter to poison I dislike it also.
Persian the damage was broken - as stated so many times in this forum.
Well that's a problem because using alien vision is a no-brainer in combat.
The 210 poison bite is still very unintuitive because when you first go Lerk and try out your attack, it just looks like an ordinary bite. Nobody would think that it's poisonous. There should be a noticeable poison effect in your mouth even if you're not biting anything so that the player can deduce what it does. Just a placeholder mini spore cloud or something would do the trick.
Or maybe they could just stop wasting any more time on an obviously broken and unwanted feature.
While I still prefer bite, poison bite isn't intuitive.
Simply removing poison and turning lerk bite into a "focus" bite a la NS1 with a long delay between each bite will still force lerks into a harasser role.
Simply removing poison and turning lerk bite into a "focus" bite a la NS1 with a long delay between each bite will still force lerks into a harasser role.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds good to me, but I'm no good lerk so other might have better input if it would work. If they want to add an effect to make it different from bite, how about healing yourself with each successful hit (I think the devs talked about a vampiric effect before)?
As an alternative I still like the idea of the spike-shotgun, which I remember fana mentioned in the past in a simliar thread.
I would prefer a burst-fire model actually, but shotgun should work too. In either case it should have a wide cone of fire, slow rate of fire (similar to the b209 bite) and a damage output slightly lower than the b209 bite.
It would need significant testing to get the numbers right though -- but probably pointless to try to balance until client/server performance increases.
Hell, it hasn't even been tried properly, so who knows if it'll even work. With the bite model at least we know it's possible to make it work since we have NS1 experiences to build on. I think this is one of those areas where NS1 had some issues though. The bite model was absolutely terrifying for new players, and still is in NS2.
As an alternative I still like the idea of the spike-shotgun, which I remember fana mentioned in the past in a simliar thread.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Adding a vampiric effect to lerk bite will just give them a reason to make the bite damage garbage. Just like it is now with the poison effect making the bite do garage damage. And the poison completely useless with medpack spam now.
Like I said, turn lerk bite into a focus bite a la NS1. Turn the lmg spikes into a shotgun spikes (or burst fire). Add a blasted last weapon key for heavens sake. Allow lerks to combo bite -> shotgun spike (shotgun spike -> bite).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Persian the damage was broken - as stated so many times in this forum.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And what makes this hilarious is now the lerk is completely broken in 210. The marine tech explosion makes lerks outclassed quickly, then completely useless late game.
Like I said, turn lerk bite into a focus bite a la NS1. Turn the lmg spikes into a shotgun spikes (or burst fire). Add a blasted last weapon key for heavens sake. Allow lerks to combo bite -> shotgun spike (shotgun spike -> bite).
And what makes this hilarious is now the lerk is completely broken in 210. The marine tech explosion makes lerks outclassed quickly, then completely useless late game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bite, yes. Spikes, no. Since they're puncture damage (does more to Marines) I can still go 33-2 in an entire round using it as my main weapon. After 6 minutes into the game I stop using bite altogether.. which is bad.
it means that spikes are an upgrades, which means that spikes are fairly powerful (as a harrasment weapon).