A prediction of alien strategy: aka Shade first is generally best.
Happy Monk
Join Date: 2012-11-03 Member: 166313Members
Join Date: 2012-11-03 Member: 166313Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Opening strategy.</div>Hey guys. I'm making a prediction here about the strategy portion of NS2 as it currently is.
Before I start, I'd like to give everyone a history lesson of some of the optimal alien strategies used by competitive players of NS1. If you already know about alien strategy in NS1, skip the following paragraph.
Throughout all of Natural Selection, alien strategy has always revolved about getting that second hive up.
In NS 1, the most stable and most general build to do this, was defensive chamber (crag) -> movement chamber (shift) -> sensory chamber (shade). Originally, fades had blink and lerks had spore off 1 hive. The aliens would generally build 2-3 resource nodes, and then rely on 2 fades/1 lerk backed up by defensive upgrades to get the second hive up. This was the standard for a while. Somewhere along the way, pub players started going movement chamber first because using the hive teleport to protect the second hive was more noob friendly, less resource reliant, and aliens eventually got a small inherent hp regeneration, but generally among competitive players going defensive chamber first was the dominant strategy. The reason why defensive chamber was always used was because regeneration and carapace provided the best benefit for lerks and fades, while providing skulks with a decent upgrade.
Now in NS2, there have been several changes:
1.) There is now one less alien on the field, the commander
2.) Fade does not have blink until 2nd hive.
3.) Lerk does not have spore until 2nd hive.
4.) Skulks can't bunnyhop anymore.
The FIRST thing you should notice is that you must now rely on skulks to get to your second hive. It is for this reason, why a SHADE hive first is best. With the fade and lerk neutered, a crag chamber just isn't as beneficial. The camouflage upgrade is the best skulk upgrade, helping skulks out more than any other upgrade. Crag and Shift upgrades are great for a skulks, but ultimately, camouflage is the best one. In addition, the Shade chamber has the best early-mid game ability with phantom. If the game is going horribly wrong, and you absolutely have to clear out a room, spamming out a bunch of phantoms is going to be your most practical ability. Crag's healing ability isn't mobile and tied to the crag chamber, and the shift hive is worthless early on. Seriously, this is way harder for a marine than any crag or shift ability: <a href="http://imgur.com/vWnlZ" target="_blank">http://imgur.com/vWnlZ</a>
Now one might ask, wouldn't Hive First also be a great strategy. For now, the answer is yes. But as marines get better, the answer will soon become a no. If Natural Selection 1 was any indication among good players who can aim well, even with carapace and bunnyhopping, the starting marine dominated the starting skulk. That's why there was a reliance on fades and lerks in the first place. Because skulks couldn't hold ground or claim territory. Sure you could avoid the marines and attack res nodes from behind, but the alien team had to hold the second hive. In Natural Selection 2, with the heavier skulk reliance, the removal of bunny hopping, and one less alien on the field, taking a second hive is going to be impossible against any marine team smart enough to rush and camp the second hive. Especially without any upgrades. If the marine and the alien team are of equal skill, hive first will not work in the future.
Basically, this is what I think is going to be the best opening strategy:
1. Hop into alien commander.
2. Immediately get a shade hive. Get camouflage asap.
3. Get res nodes. Use cloaking skulks to hold ground as long as possible.
4. Get a shade chamber. Research phantom.
5. Get up second hive.
6. If marines are setup in the second hive. Spam out waves of phantom skulks for 1 res each. Attack with your team with phantoms leading the charge to clear out the second hive.
Ghost build ftw. Thoughts? Disagreements? I feel safe in saying that if the game stays at it is, this is going to be the optimal opener.
tl'dr version: getting 2nd hive is the best most important thing for aliens atm. since fades don't have blink, and lerks don't have spores off 1 hive, aliens must rely on skulks. shade hive is the best upgrade for skulks, so always go shade hive first.
On a side note: The Shift chamber is seriously worthless in the beginning. You can no longer teleport to another hive, and the spawn egg ability DOESN'T LOWER RESPAWN TIMES. If it did, it would definitely be a competitive opener compared to a shade chamber, but because it doesn't it provides virtually no practical combat help.
Before I start, I'd like to give everyone a history lesson of some of the optimal alien strategies used by competitive players of NS1. If you already know about alien strategy in NS1, skip the following paragraph.
Throughout all of Natural Selection, alien strategy has always revolved about getting that second hive up.
In NS 1, the most stable and most general build to do this, was defensive chamber (crag) -> movement chamber (shift) -> sensory chamber (shade). Originally, fades had blink and lerks had spore off 1 hive. The aliens would generally build 2-3 resource nodes, and then rely on 2 fades/1 lerk backed up by defensive upgrades to get the second hive up. This was the standard for a while. Somewhere along the way, pub players started going movement chamber first because using the hive teleport to protect the second hive was more noob friendly, less resource reliant, and aliens eventually got a small inherent hp regeneration, but generally among competitive players going defensive chamber first was the dominant strategy. The reason why defensive chamber was always used was because regeneration and carapace provided the best benefit for lerks and fades, while providing skulks with a decent upgrade.
Now in NS2, there have been several changes:
1.) There is now one less alien on the field, the commander
2.) Fade does not have blink until 2nd hive.
3.) Lerk does not have spore until 2nd hive.
4.) Skulks can't bunnyhop anymore.
The FIRST thing you should notice is that you must now rely on skulks to get to your second hive. It is for this reason, why a SHADE hive first is best. With the fade and lerk neutered, a crag chamber just isn't as beneficial. The camouflage upgrade is the best skulk upgrade, helping skulks out more than any other upgrade. Crag and Shift upgrades are great for a skulks, but ultimately, camouflage is the best one. In addition, the Shade chamber has the best early-mid game ability with phantom. If the game is going horribly wrong, and you absolutely have to clear out a room, spamming out a bunch of phantoms is going to be your most practical ability. Crag's healing ability isn't mobile and tied to the crag chamber, and the shift hive is worthless early on. Seriously, this is way harder for a marine than any crag or shift ability: <a href="http://imgur.com/vWnlZ" target="_blank">http://imgur.com/vWnlZ</a>
Now one might ask, wouldn't Hive First also be a great strategy. For now, the answer is yes. But as marines get better, the answer will soon become a no. If Natural Selection 1 was any indication among good players who can aim well, even with carapace and bunnyhopping, the starting marine dominated the starting skulk. That's why there was a reliance on fades and lerks in the first place. Because skulks couldn't hold ground or claim territory. Sure you could avoid the marines and attack res nodes from behind, but the alien team had to hold the second hive. In Natural Selection 2, with the heavier skulk reliance, the removal of bunny hopping, and one less alien on the field, taking a second hive is going to be impossible against any marine team smart enough to rush and camp the second hive. Especially without any upgrades. If the marine and the alien team are of equal skill, hive first will not work in the future.
Basically, this is what I think is going to be the best opening strategy:
1. Hop into alien commander.
2. Immediately get a shade hive. Get camouflage asap.
3. Get res nodes. Use cloaking skulks to hold ground as long as possible.
4. Get a shade chamber. Research phantom.
5. Get up second hive.
6. If marines are setup in the second hive. Spam out waves of phantom skulks for 1 res each. Attack with your team with phantoms leading the charge to clear out the second hive.
Ghost build ftw. Thoughts? Disagreements? I feel safe in saying that if the game stays at it is, this is going to be the optimal opener.
tl'dr version: getting 2nd hive is the best most important thing for aliens atm. since fades don't have blink, and lerks don't have spores off 1 hive, aliens must rely on skulks. shade hive is the best upgrade for skulks, so always go shade hive first.
On a side note: The Shift chamber is seriously worthless in the beginning. You can no longer teleport to another hive, and the spawn egg ability DOESN'T LOWER RESPAWN TIMES. If it did, it would definitely be a competitive opener compared to a shade chamber, but because it doesn't it provides virtually no practical combat help.
Comments
By the endgame, I rarely even bother spending the time to click Shade abilities, because the second I go near an observatory they're obsolete anyway.
Indeed, I find shift hive a bit..is the second thing on my mind? I mean Celerity is good and all but Skulk is pretty fast, with camo, they're pretty formidable if players know how to use em.
Except if the commander starts being smart and use scan :/
Well, I doubt he's gonna use that on early game, unless the situation is dire
1. Lerks are good because of the spikes, it does high damage fast if you aim it well, not the spores
2. Shift helps you reach marines with wall jumping speed (celerity), and lots of players seem to like adrenaline for fade and lerk (i don't understand why people like it for lerk though, celerity way better)
3. I like to go shade first sometimes because my friend likes it, but i prefer celerity, but I always do shade or shift first
4. Yes shades are fun to cloak buildings with, i love ambushing ppl with invis whips in particular
5. Carapace is good for lerk so no matter what I usually get crag hive second, after going either shift or shade at the start
6. I usually drop an onos egg before 3rd hive because you can often win the game with it
I've only played pubs~
By the endgame, I rarely even bother spending the time to click Shade abilities, because the second I go near an observatory they're obsolete anyway.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're going to getting a crag hive as your second hive anyway.
Fades without carapace and adrenaline may seem useless to you.
But a fade without a second hive is even more useless.
1. Hop into alien commander
2. Creep to Resource point, get Harvester.
3. By now the team should of told you where the marines are. Drop second hive on place furtherest from.
4. Jump out, go to new hive, become gorge, speed up its growth, go back to skulk for defence.
5. Get more Harvesters if possible.
5. leap
6. Shift hive, celerity
7. Crag hive, carapace
8. Send out Drifters to parts of the map
9. ?
If you go shade then you'll get issues once they start matching around with high level weapons and shotguns, so you'll need speed or armour to negate it. Silence is great but only to a degree. Cloaked aliens decloak if they run, hidden structures will show up on a scan. I'd also never consider going fade without both adrenaline and carapace.
That's my opinion anyway.
Fades without carapace and adrenaline may seem useless to you.
But a fade without a second hive is even more useless.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not seeing where with two hives, and Shade first, you end up with Carapace and Adrenalin. Shade first effectively makes Fade a 3-hive unit.
Alien strategy REVOLVES around getting up your second hive. If you don't get up that second hive, you lose, plain and simple.
The basic marine beats out the basic skulk. Once marines realize this, like they did in the original Natural Selection, the strategy is going to be rush to the second hive and setup. In the old days, you could rely on a fade who had blink to prevent this from happening. Since you don't have blink anymore off 1 hive in NS2, you HAVE to rely on skulks to get that second hive up. And the best chamber to help skulks out is the shade chamber because camouflage is the best upgrade, and phantom is the best chamber ability.
If you don't have Carapace, you get instagibbed by shotguns the second you blink in to attack.
If you don't have Adrenalin, you get gunned down by LMGs as you try to blink away but fail after going 5 feet.
It's unfeasible to play a Fade without both of them. Your 2-hive Shade first hive leaves the Fade either impotent or dead.
My opinion is that its best to go shift or crag, and aim for harassment to keep marines too busy to look for your hive. Leave 1 skulk and a gorge to get that second hive up quick, everyone else is distraction.
If you don't have Carapace, you get instagibbed by shotguns the second you blink in to attack.
If you don't have Adrenalin, you get gunned down by LMGs as you try to blink away but fail after going 5 feet.
It's unfeasible to play a Fade without both of them. Your 2-hive Shade first hive leaves the Fade either impotent or dead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can get around the lack of adrenaline by getting better at blinking. You cannot overcome the advantage a marine has over a skulk early on. Perhaps you're underestimating how good players can aim, but surely you must realize that even multiple skulks have extreme difficulty displacing camping marines from a room.
Is much more useful then a chamber that requires the commander to scan once, not to mention when he scans he will be inadvertently giving all of his marines wall hacks as to where your hiding skulks are waiting to ambush the marines.
Shade hive spoils games because: Focus + Scent of fear (the useful SC upgrades from NS1) were removed.
Not to mention as soon as the Marine Comm realizes you went shade first he will put an obs in every room and rofl whilst his marines stomp you.
Silence and camo are both situational upgrades whilst Carapace + Celerity + Adrenaline (gorges and lerks) are always useful.
You take shade first and you have two options:
A: Onos with 800 and fades with 100 less hp than they should have, skulks that can be one shotted with a shotgun even at really early game.
B: In-ability to break egglock, no energy regen chamber, bad gorges, slow skulks, slow fades and slow onos.
But I love cloaking the whole map on pub servers, as it really upsets marines understanding of what you occupy, especially with rookie commanders rarely scanning :P
I think a shade should really do more to stop scanning, or at least show nothing that is in the shades cloak.
A few minor changes need to occur to make it more effective, esp competitive wise.
Alien strategy REVOLVES around getting up your second hive. If you don't get up that second hive, you lose, plain and simple.
The basic marine beats out the basic skulk. Once marines realize this, like they did in the original Natural Selection, the strategy is going to be rush to the second hive and setup. In the old days, you could rely on a fade who had blink to prevent this from happening. Since you don't have blink anymore off 1 hive in NS2, you HAVE to rely on skulks to get that second hive up. And the best chamber to help skulks out is the shade chamber because camouflage is the best upgrade, and phantom is the best chamber ability.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
the strategy IS to rush second hive. it's not now because there are newbies, but the strategy IS to go second as first. then chose any upgrade, not before.
You need res and hive, when you have second up and running you will see all the upgrades coming toghether (leap + bile, adren and velocity + cara).
for sulks, it's silence the best upgrade, not cloak (that can be better for gorge or other costly units
Can anyone confirm that the ink cancels a scan tho?
I feel like agressive use of the shade chambers is pretty potentially good in pubs, obviously not so much in competitive games. Ink is really good. From a pub perspective I think that the vets should be a bit more open to this idea. We are all just really set in our ways of not accepting anythign new and I think that maybe the nubs who all love camo may be on to something. When your in a 12v12 and 10 of your players are new or even just average....camo first may very well be the best thing.
The problem is entirely the opposite.
The more players the less use Shade becomes.
There is no point being silent if there are 100000 marines.... xD
There is no point being camouflaged if you are ambushing 10000 marines... xD
One of my fav things to do when I have enough res is drop 4 whips in a corridor with a shade. Every time a marine runs into 4 invis whips and dies I laugh so hard.
Poor little rookies :P
Shade first is fine, although I'd use Silence as skulk more the camo. Aliens are by nature very defensive. They are designed for ambushes and hit & run tactics. They typically only rush with higher lifeforms and overwhelming numbers. So the point made about camoflauge forcing you to be too defensive, I find, to be silly. You're not forced to stay hidden all the time, only when you engage the enemy. Which is typically how you should play anyways. However with camo you can take more direct routes to close the distance without being seen... so it's actually giving you the ability to be more offensive when necessary.
Shift first is fine, Adrenaline might be good for gorges, but celerity is great for skulks to get to positions far away and keep marines out of them.
I would like to see more crag hives first though. More than once have I wished I had regen so I would not have to run all the way back to the hive, simply to run back to the opposite side of the map to engage the marines who, in the mean time, have already setup a resource tower and phase gate. Sure you could just die to the marines and run back, but you lose all the resources of being dead.
But, in NS1, I remember playing in competetive matches where the other teams would use sensory first. We always hard countered focus with armor upgrades and scans, and it really did not seen any better or worse than getting movement chamber upgrades or defense chamber upgrades.
Shift > Crag > Shade
Carapace = Essential
Celerety+Adrenaline = Always useful.
Regen+Silence+Camo = Situationally useful.
... There is definitely an order.
Only reason anyone ever got SC first in NS1 was for Focus.
NS1 had 3 upgrades that were all useful (Cele,Cara,Focus) and thus
it was almost viable to go either first. (although chambers were still MC>DC>SC)
So they removed it completely for NS2.
Bold strategy, Cotton.
So they removed it completely for NS2.
Bold strategy, Cotton.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They should put focus back in. Since we can only have 1 upgrade per hive, we won't have silence-focus combo that was so irritating in NS1.
This is rubbish, and your NS2 tactic is no good. To correct the misinformation presented in this post:
1. MC first was the default build order, both in public and competitive play, since 3.0 (may 2005).
2. MC being a great first chamber has nothing to do with hive teleportation being "noob friendly", or any of the other reasons mentioned. In fact, MC even retained its status as the most common starting chamber after hive teleportation was added to the hives themselves in version 3.2.
3. Celerity or adrenaline were vastly superior upgrades for the Lerk, compared to carapace or regeneration.
<!--quoteo(post=2008145:date=Nov 3 2012, 03:33 PM:name=Runteh)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Runteh @ Nov 3 2012, 03:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008145"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One of my fav things to do when I have enough res is drop 4 whips in a corridor with a shade. Every time a marine runs into 4 invis whips and dies I laugh so hard.
Poor little rookies :P<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When I play marine, I love it when alien comms do this. Instead of dropping a fade or onos egg, you have a bunch of useless whips standing around somewhere doing nothing. Good job.
btw celerity is better on a fade than adren now ,, don't believe me try it out ! made even better with silence :P
One of the most useful perks of the Shift is spawning eggs around it. Having your assault waves concentrated due to proximity and not suffering from the delay of walking across half the map is very useful.
I did too, until I learned that holding Space puts you in a frictionless gravity-defying glide. I just smash space to get up to top speed and you can freely glide through the level seemingly forever.