you will need one or two scans per hive and another scan on the way. After that Obs is up and camo has become 100% useless in this area. If you mess this up however alien will rape the poor marines.
My experiance with shade on pubs is that it either goes 100% right for alien getting to 3 hives uncontested OR Marines roflstomping the aliens with obses in every hive. Shade tends to produce games that are decided even quicker than "normal" ones, nearly all shade first games I played were practically decided within the first 5 minutes.
itt: clueless people
shift sucks, celerity is the worst upgrade in the game, but adren is solid reason to get it 2nd (for gorge/fade). Newbs love celerity for god knows what reason.
What? I can't be the only one who feels adrenaline is a crutch for bad fades up against even worse marines. Are people holding down the blink button or what?
Marines with any aim at all will be hitting the fade hard to make him withdraw so what exactly is that extra energy going to do? Between tapping blink to get the initial acceleration and proper double jump/shadowstep energy should be mostly spent on swipes and if you are staying in combat long enough to be able to spend all that extra energy adrenaline gives you... well bluntly put, those are some pretty bad marines. Celerity affords you increased acceleration on your blink as well as greater speed on the ground. Even with the fact you lose it when hit or attacking it is still damn strong and allows the fade to exert greater presence on the map with less of an energy footprint. That map control combined with easier combat initiates make it a very strong upgrade despite its deficiencies compared to it's NS1 counterpart.
As someone who is much better than the fades that play in comp...no
You shouldn't absolutely need adrenaline to play, but it has a lot of benefits. There are types of attacks as fade that drain energy faster, but also lower marine hitrate significantly. These are much harder to do without adrenaline. Also, the ability to blink to escape bad situations is something that any fade, no matter how good, will have to do at some point (for example, after a marine gets a body block on you).
Celerity with blink is not faster than shadowstep+jump, and is totally useless on fade.
This is code for the speed (velocity) at which you can blink. Notice the call to the function player:GetMovementSpeedModifier().
function Alien:GetMovementSpeedModifier()
return self:GetCelerityScalar() * self:GetSlowSpeedModifier() + (self.infestationSpeedScalar * self:GetInfestationBonus())
end
Notice the call to GetCelerityScalar(). Blink very much is affected by celerity. Blink should not be something you hold down the button to use. You tap it to gain the momentum and speed. The only energy cost you should be paying with regards to blink is the initial cost of 12. Shadowstep costs 10 energy and has a fixed velocity no matter what speed you are currently moving at. Short story here is that Blink scales velocity beyond that of shadowstep as it is fixed. Thus with in terms of travel and escapes blink is the better choice of abilities when celerity is your upgrade as the cost:speed ratio leans in its favor at that point.
You even say it yourself:
You shouldn't absolutely need adrenaline to play
And you most certainly don't, because it is a crutch to poor fade fundamentals and any marine worth a damn is going to punish poor fade play.
I also don't know why this was included in your argument as it is irrelevant and largely anecdotal:
As someone who is much better than the fades that play in comp...no
Irregardless, I remain skeptical until I see proof of you wiping the floor against competent marines in a competitive setting.
If you would like to discuss this further we can take it to PMs or better yet start another thread to get others to weigh in as at this point I have drifted away from the issue put forth by the OP. Also I hear silence is pretty cool and stuff. See totally still on topic.
I know that fades get a speed boost from celerity when they merely tap blink in the air while already running, but when they hold blink they get a much lower speed regardless of how they started. I figure it was a bug. I also know that shadowstep jumping speed is roughly equal to maximum blink jumping speed with celerity. A fades movement gains from celerity therefor depend largely on how well he can move through the terrain using only shadowstep jumping, the difference being compensated for by blink+celerity.
Either way I'd still rather have silence and carapace than carapace and celerity.
Maximum blink speed doesn't increase with celerity. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case someone thought it did. I couldn't really tell if someone was implying that it did.
Either way I'd still rather have silence and carapace than carapace and celerity.
I agree with this. I mostly was just on a tirade about adrenaline as it offers nothing beyond what you can already do. You can just do "more of it" which in practice in terms of how a fade plays means the marines can't aim.
shift sucks, celerity is the worst upgrade in the game, but adren is solid reason to get it 2nd (for gorge/fade).
I don't get why people think celerity is bad for gorges and fades.. it's far better than adrenaline in that you don't have to rely on shift outbuildings to get your energy back... and blink is far more affected by celerity than by adren, (spam blink, and you keep much more of the max speed with celerity than with adren), holding down blink is generally terrible.
Ok i've dealt with my gripe, sorry for stealing your thread gentlemen, carry on!
Shade does not suck, it just needs a little more effort use properly. Comparatively shade has a higher skill floor than a straight buff to life or speed. It may be harder to use, but is just as if not more so effective than crag or shift in the right hands.
Does celerity or carapace make marine comms waste res on scans & obs?
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that, if a skulk has silence, or a skulk has camouflage, both are rendered redundant when in range of a shade?
I think this is a questionable design element that was adressed for shifts, and never existed for crags, but still exists for shades. I would really like some sort of solution to this.
In fact, in most games where I go shade first, I don't get silence or camo upgrades till at least the 5th minute, simply because my RTS mind is saying "no redundancy".
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that, if a skulk has silence, or a skulk has camouflage, both are rendered redundant when in range of a shade?
I think this is a questionable design element that was adressed for shifts, and never existed for crags, but still exists for shades. I would really like some sort of solution to this.
In fact, in most games where I go shade first, I don't get silence or camo upgrades till at least the 5th minute, simply because my RTS mind is saying "no redundancy".
Only camo is rendered redundant. Silence still does what it's supposed to do any time you aren't completely cloaked. It's another reason why camo is less useful later in the game, most of the areas that aren't covered by Obs often get covered by shades.
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that, if a skulk has silence, or a skulk has camouflage, both are rendered redundant when in range of a shade?
I think this is a questionable design element that was adressed for shifts, and never existed for crags, but still exists for shades. I would really like some sort of solution to this.
In fact, in most games where I go shade first, I don't get silence or camo upgrades till at least the 5th minute, simply because my RTS mind is saying "no redundancy".
While you are right, that there is this redundancy (also with Regen and Crags), you use the wrong ones of the redundant. Shades are an investment in t-res that can easily be destroyed. They have a small radius. And what are you trying to hide? A hive? A RT? Those things have fixed positions you nearly never fool marines with cloaking them. So instead wasting t-res for every position you drop a shade, just get the upgrade. It is free for every player and works in the whole map. You only lose it, when they snipe your upgrade and you should not allow that, when you are in the hive 2 meters away.
Shade does not suck, it just needs a little more effort use properly. Comparatively shade has a higher skill floor than a straight buff to life or speed. It may be harder to use, but is just as if not more so effective than crag or shift in the right hands.
Does celerity or carapace make marine comms waste res on scans & obs?
Wat?
Shade first is just cheesy and requires no skill.
Marines might lose early game, but if the aliens aren't pressuring main base hard, game is probably over.
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that, if a skulk has silence, or a skulk has camouflage, both are rendered redundant when in range of a shade?
I think this is a questionable design element that was adressed for shifts, and never existed for crags, but still exists for shades. I would really like some sort of solution to this.
In fact, in most games where I go shade first, I don't get silence or camo upgrades till at least the 5th minute, simply because my RTS mind is saying "no redundancy".
While you are right, that there is this redundancy (also with Regen and Crags), you use the wrong ones of the redundant. Shades are an investment in t-res that can easily be destroyed. They have a small radius. And what are you trying to hide? A hive? A RT? Those things have fixed positions you nearly never fool marines with cloaking them. So instead wasting t-res for every position you drop a shade, just get the upgrade. It is free for every player and works in the whole map. You only lose it, when they snipe your upgrade and you should not allow that, when you are in the hive 2 meters away.
Shades are good for hiding crags, shifts, whips, and upgrades. They also do occasionally fool a marine into thinking there is no RT or hive in a room (usually not if they are any good). And of course the strongest argument for Shade is vs Arcs. A shade or two with well-used ink clouds and a couple crags to cover whatever damage does get through will hold off a siege indefinitely.
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that, if a skulk has silence, or a skulk has camouflage, both are rendered redundant when in range of a shade?
Strongly disagree with this. Silence allows you to bomb around the map at full wall jumping speed without alerting marines. The ability to crawl silently at a snail's pace within a tiny area covered by a shade is not in any way comparable. Also the ability to disorient marines in combat by not making a sound is massively underrated. The com went shade hive first on a map earlier today... On veil lol... The team asked for silence so we could try it out (now we had a shade hive ho hum). At least we managed to get a crag hive up fairly quickly but it was a fun game. Something a bit different. And yes, we won, largely because the marines couldn't keep track of the skulks either in or out of combat.
It's not something I'd want to do too often, and definitely not against great marines though!
Aliens can win a game stuck on two hives with cele and cara.
Aliens cannot win a game stuck on two hives with shade + anything else.
It's an all-in upgrade that basically requires you to get 3 bases or you lose.
Personally I'd take the safer option. Just don't let the denialists know about it.
"Why? U want to come close to meelerange as a skulk, right? Camo do that and you'll not lost any HP ..."
Well this was kind of covered in the OP, but with a decent reaction time on the marine, you'll get *a* free bite.
As long as you are skulking (the verb, not the noun) effectivley, the marine can't see you. With silence, they can't hear you, even once you have initiated combat. It astounds me the amount of people that attack marines from behind with camo. I mean, didn't you just admit you didn't need it, they can't see out their ass.
"And of course the strongest argument for Shade is vs Arcs"
I have to agree, I have seen an Alien comm *completely* nullify a rather expensive looking arc attempt from Onos Bar to Lockers with one well placed Shade. They were a truly competent Khamm.
"And of course the strongest argument for Shade is vs Arcs"
I have to agree, I have seen an Alien comm *completely* nullify a rather expensive looking arc attempt from Onos Bar to Lockers with one well placed Shade. They were a truly competent Khamm.
Sounds more like a truly incompetent marine commander, or a bug of some sort.
The radius of a shade's ink cloud is about half the radius of an ARCs AOE. It really needs to be right next to an object in order to block it. Ink will also always allow at least one ARC volley through. So its basically ping, ping, ping, and then one volley goes through and every single shade is instantly destroyed.
Aliens can win a game stuck on two hives with cele and cara.
Aliens cannot win a game stuck on two hives with shade + anything else.
It's an all-in upgrade that basically requires you to get 3 bases or you lose.
Personally I'd take the safer option. Just don't let the denialists know about it.
Shade+Crag is as good as Shift+Crag, possibly better.
You really don't need shift much once you get a second hive up. Shift first lets you prevent egglocks, it lets you get skulks to the frontline faster when skulks are all you have, and it lets you build your second hive faster (shift+gorge).
Once you have a second hive, skulks are no longer all you have, your important players need to evolve higher lifeforms and can't do that on the front line anyway. You no longer are at risk of egglocks becuase 2 hives provide more eggs then you ever need, and fast building the third hive is a complete non-issue. The only real loss is adrenaline bile bomb, but you can easily get by without that unlike say non-carapace onos and stealth gorge is very valuable.
"And of course the strongest argument for Shade is vs Arcs"
I have to agree, I have seen an Alien comm *completely* nullify a rather expensive looking arc attempt from Onos Bar to Lockers with one well placed Shade. They were a truly competent Khamm.
Sounds more like a truly incompetent marine commander, or a bug of some sort.
The radius of a shade's ink cloud is about half the radius of an ARCs AOE. It really needs to be right next to an object in order to block it. Ink will also always allow at least one ARC volley through. So its basically ping, ping, ping, and then one volley goes through and every single shade is instantly destroyed.
No it's not. The radius of the ink cloud is the same as the shades invisibility radius, which is about three times that of the arc's AoE. You can easily put a shade on the far side of a hive so that the arcs cant attack the shade directly and the hive is still in the ink cloud and the shade wont even take damage from the splash.
No it's not. The radius of the ink cloud is the same as the shades invisibility radius, which is about three times that of the arc's AoE. You can easily put a shade on the far side of a hive so that the arcs cant attack the shade directly and the hive is still in the ink cloud and the shade wont even take damage from the splash.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeehhhhhhh
I'll try it, but in my experience if the shade isn't touching the hive, it doesn't recloak anything.
silence is awesome for taking down exos who arent paying attention and are alone. Makes no sound when you bite them - the only indication is the armor dropping lol
Comments
My experiance with shade on pubs is that it either goes 100% right for alien getting to 3 hives uncontested OR Marines roflstomping the aliens with obses in every hive. Shade tends to produce games that are decided even quicker than "normal" ones, nearly all shade first games I played were practically decided within the first 5 minutes.
This is code for the speed (velocity) at which you can blink. Notice the call to the function player:GetMovementSpeedModifier().
function Alien:GetMovementSpeedModifier() return self:GetCelerityScalar() * self:GetSlowSpeedModifier() + (self.infestationSpeedScalar * self:GetInfestationBonus()) endNotice the call to GetCelerityScalar(). Blink very much is affected by celerity. Blink should not be something you hold down the button to use. You tap it to gain the momentum and speed. The only energy cost you should be paying with regards to blink is the initial cost of 12. Shadowstep costs 10 energy and has a fixed velocity no matter what speed you are currently moving at. Short story here is that Blink scales velocity beyond that of shadowstep as it is fixed. Thus with in terms of travel and escapes blink is the better choice of abilities when celerity is your upgrade as the cost:speed ratio leans in its favor at that point.
You even say it yourself: And you most certainly don't, because it is a crutch to poor fade fundamentals and any marine worth a damn is going to punish poor fade play.
I also don't know why this was included in your argument as it is irrelevant and largely anecdotal: Irregardless, I remain skeptical until I see proof of you wiping the floor against competent marines in a competitive setting.
If you would like to discuss this further we can take it to PMs or better yet start another thread to get others to weigh in as at this point I have drifted away from the issue put forth by the OP. Also I hear silence is pretty cool and stuff. See totally still on topic.
Either way I'd still rather have silence and carapace than carapace and celerity.
I agree with this. I mostly was just on a tirade about adrenaline as it offers nothing beyond what you can already do. You can just do "more of it" which in practice in terms of how a fade plays means the marines can't aim.
Ok i've dealt with my gripe, sorry for stealing your thread gentlemen, carry on!
Does celerity or carapace make marine comms waste res on scans & obs?
I think this is a questionable design element that was adressed for shifts, and never existed for crags, but still exists for shades. I would really like some sort of solution to this.
In fact, in most games where I go shade first, I don't get silence or camo upgrades till at least the 5th minute, simply because my RTS mind is saying "no redundancy".
Once, yes, but I don't know how that turned out because I got the kicked for someone's reserved slot moments later.
Only camo is rendered redundant. Silence still does what it's supposed to do any time you aren't completely cloaked. It's another reason why camo is less useful later in the game, most of the areas that aren't covered by Obs often get covered by shades.
While you are right, that there is this redundancy (also with Regen and Crags), you use the wrong ones of the redundant. Shades are an investment in t-res that can easily be destroyed. They have a small radius. And what are you trying to hide? A hive? A RT? Those things have fixed positions you nearly never fool marines with cloaking them. So instead wasting t-res for every position you drop a shade, just get the upgrade. It is free for every player and works in the whole map. You only lose it, when they snipe your upgrade and you should not allow that, when you are in the hive 2 meters away.
Wat?
Shade first is just cheesy and requires no skill.
Marines might lose early game, but if the aliens aren't pressuring main base hard, game is probably over.
Shades are good for hiding crags, shifts, whips, and upgrades. They also do occasionally fool a marine into thinking there is no RT or hive in a room (usually not if they are any good). And of course the strongest argument for Shade is vs Arcs. A shade or two with well-used ink clouds and a couple crags to cover whatever damage does get through will hold off a siege indefinitely.
protip: Good marine team will have obs everywhere and regular scans anyway.
Strongly disagree with this. Silence allows you to bomb around the map at full wall jumping speed without alerting marines. The ability to crawl silently at a snail's pace within a tiny area covered by a shade is not in any way comparable. Also the ability to disorient marines in combat by not making a sound is massively underrated. The com went shade hive first on a map earlier today... On veil lol... The team asked for silence so we could try it out (now we had a shade hive ho hum). At least we managed to get a crag hive up fairly quickly but it was a fun game. Something a bit different. And yes, we won, largely because the marines couldn't keep track of the skulks either in or out of combat.
It's not something I'd want to do too often, and definitely not against great marines though!
Aliens cannot win a game stuck on two hives with shade + anything else.
It's an all-in upgrade that basically requires you to get 3 bases or you lose.
Personally I'd take the safer option. Just don't let the denialists know about it.
Must be some of the more enlightened, less antipodeon parts of the world where this happens. I literally have *never* seen it happen.
Well this was kind of covered in the OP, but with a decent reaction time on the marine, you'll get *a* free bite.
As long as you are skulking (the verb, not the noun) effectivley, the marine can't see you. With silence, they can't hear you, even once you have initiated combat. It astounds me the amount of people that attack marines from behind with camo. I mean, didn't you just admit you didn't need it, they can't see out their ass.
I have to agree, I have seen an Alien comm *completely* nullify a rather expensive looking arc attempt from Onos Bar to Lockers with one well placed Shade. They were a truly competent Khamm.
Sounds more like a truly incompetent marine commander, or a bug of some sort.
The radius of a shade's ink cloud is about half the radius of an ARCs AOE. It really needs to be right next to an object in order to block it. Ink will also always allow at least one ARC volley through. So its basically ping, ping, ping, and then one volley goes through and every single shade is instantly destroyed.
Shade+Crag is as good as Shift+Crag, possibly better.
You really don't need shift much once you get a second hive up. Shift first lets you prevent egglocks, it lets you get skulks to the frontline faster when skulks are all you have, and it lets you build your second hive faster (shift+gorge).
Once you have a second hive, skulks are no longer all you have, your important players need to evolve higher lifeforms and can't do that on the front line anyway. You no longer are at risk of egglocks becuase 2 hives provide more eggs then you ever need, and fast building the third hive is a complete non-issue. The only real loss is adrenaline bile bomb, but you can easily get by without that unlike say non-carapace onos and stealth gorge is very valuable.
No it's not. The radius of the ink cloud is the same as the shades invisibility radius, which is about three times that of the arc's AoE. You can easily put a shade on the far side of a hive so that the arcs cant attack the shade directly and the hive is still in the ink cloud and the shade wont even take damage from the splash.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeehhhhhhh
I'll try it, but in my experience if the shade isn't touching the hive, it doesn't recloak anything.
Nuff said by the man himself.
If you don't realise *every* Alien building with an effect has a view radius affect, then, well, do more Alien Khamming.
Because a shifts egg spawning radius is the same as its regen energy radius.
Big learning point: Passive vs non Passive.