First chamber, when to go Shift and when to go Crag?
realmenplaypingpong
Join Date: 2009-02-23 Member: 66520Members
Join Date: 2009-02-23 Member: 66520Members
Competitive games are completely different, however, in pubs, the general consensus would appear to prefer: First Chamber = Shift -> Celerity. It seems to me better players tend to favor Crag -> Carapace first. And lately, I've been pushing only Crag -> Carapace first. Even players with lesser skill seem to benefit greatly from it if only to soak damage for their team. And even on larger maps, it would appear to me that carapace still beats celerity as it is far better to win a fight, then to get there quickly. Am I wrong? At what point do you go crag over shift? What other factors are in play?
As of late, as khammader, I'll go shift only if we are able to hold 4-5 nodes effectively after the first three or so minutes, and winning appears to be highly likely.
As of late, as khammader, I'll go shift only if we are able to hold 4-5 nodes effectively after the first three or so minutes, and winning appears to be highly likely.
Comments
The main reason I go shift in big pub games is for the shift itself rather than the crag. In smaller games egglocks are less of a problem so I choose crag first because I find it to be the most beneficial to early game skulks. Walljump will suffice for movement until I get a shift hive.
Egglocks are a problem in 24 slot servers, but then again everything is a problem in 24 slot servers. If the aliens can't win any engagements you're going to lose regardless of your egg supply.
edit: And celerity doesn't work in combat. As soon as you take any damage you're back to default skulk.
It might not be very effective, but I really do like it. I research Silence as fast as possible and hope my team can use it well. If they don't, we're screwed.
For a more "conservative" approach I usually prefer Shift. On Veil I think it is pretty much needed to secure the second hive location or nanogrid.
I don't really care about celerity though, it's more about the shift. I don't usually put the shift in the main base though, but in a forward location to make it easier to secure locations on the map in early game.
Although, I'm starting to become a fan of a quick 2nd hive drop, dropping 2 rt's then hive.
On pubs, more people are using crags, which is great. But these alien spawns need something different not to get screwed, usually a fast second hive.
If we don't have Cara first, I'd rather have silence. Celerity lerk is fun but rather pointless when cara is so much more important.
Once the egg count problem is solved for larger servers I can't come up with a reason to go shift first. I think everyone is hoping for in-combat celerity to give it a bit of a boost.
If you take Crag and your guys die too much, the spawn penalty from minor egglock will secure your loss.
1. Being super-fast is cooler and more fun than having more armor (being fast is fun, but being alive is also fun).
2. A lot of players think celerity works in combat (If it did I think it would be a valid choice for first upgrade).
3. People hate getting stuck in the spawn que so they want shifts so the COM can buy them eggs (I made a long post about why this is not a good solution here ) My experience is the same. So far I have only encountered one really good skulk player who prefers celerity to carapace, so I would guesstimate that 90-95% of very good skulks prefer cara. Spot on. You don't need any skills to benefit from carapace. And players with less skill are probably the ones that benefit most, since they aren't very good at dodging/ambushing. As maps get larger I think the gap in usefulness between Crag and Shift hive gets smaller, not only due to celerity but to the shifts as well. The ability to create forward shifts becomes stronger the bigger tha map is. I still don't think any map is big enough to motivate going for a shift hive as "standard", but I think Shift first is a lot more valid on Descent than on Tram. In that scenario I'd probably spend the res on a second hive instead and get both celerity and carapace two minutes later.
Also, being able to use Crags, Shifts and Shades without their respective tech path will go a long way too, since it allows you to hide or heal your stuff then even when going for a different tech path. That means that the tech path choice matters only really for what traits and active strategies (active abilities of the chambers; active Drifter abilities) you want to go with rather than supplying your troops with a specific structure.
If you go crag first and drop anything more than the carapace upgrade, you've probably already screwed yourself.
If you go shift first and drop anything more than the celerity upgrade, you've probably already screwed yourself.
Both upgrades are roughly even in strength in a pub game, so honestly I would say it doesn't matter.
Really though, the main benefit of Shift hive isn't celerity, but the Shift itself.
A single gorge with infinite energy from a shift can block off a corridor from 2-3 marines unless those marines are coordinated (which in pubs, they generally won't be).
2 gorges with infinite energy can hold off most of the marine team until mid-late game.
And of course, being able to spawn eggs is a nice tactical option.
100s of forum goers just rolled in their figurative graves.
Anyway, I don't know if I made it clear or not, but doing those things before the second hive is at least building screws your team over.
The second hive is so important that any non essential res expenditure can lose you the game. Ideally, you want to drop the hive in a room which has absolutely no presence from either team, marine or alien. This is because any effort that you have to put into defending the room against marine incursion means less effort spent destroying the marines undoubtedly massive array of res nodes all over the rest of the map. Because of the rate of marine expansion, this means before the 6 minute mark, typically the 5 minute mark.
Any longer, and you will have to fight for it. A fight which aliens simply cannot afford, and a fight which marines only benefit from. A crag is a quarter the cost of a hive, a shift and 2 egg waves is half the cost. Against an equally skilled team, aliens simply cannot afford that cost.
Once the second hive is up, which upgrade came first becomes rather inconsequential, as both will be up shortly. As you and I said, the main difference is carapace and celerity. In my opinion, the difference between the two in pub play is minimal.
I do this as well, and I think it is the best way to approach the alien early game in pubs. Grab as many RTs as you can, all the while watching your team's performance.
If your team is wiping out in waves and you're getting egglocked, go early Shift. If your skulks aren't too bad, but seem to be struggling against solo/dual marines, go early Crag. If the game is going well in your favor, drop a second hive and go Crag on the first.
Observing the game and reacting to what's going on is usually the smarter way to go.
Going Shade first is an exception. In order to maximize the impact, you must go Shade and get Silence as soon as possible. If your team pulls it off right, you'll see a big decrease in Marine expansion early on, and force Marines to drop extra Observatories to hold bigger rooms. Unfortunately, Shade first always relies on your team having a modicum of cunning and never charging at Marines straight up, so it's usually not a good idea on pubs anyway.
I do however often drop crags with the second hive, if there is a chance it will be getting attacked. The difference in survivability between a newly dropped hive with two crags healing it and one without is simply huge, making it a very good investment if the hive is likely to be attacked. If I happen to have a shift hive evolved I will usually drop a shift with the second hive, which will shave ~20-30 seconds off the build time as well as allow it to be defended by spawning eggs.
Sure. But you always drop the hive first, then the supporting structure. I wasn't referring to getting other upgrades, I was referring to dropping anything other than a single shell/spur before the second hive (save, of course, a harvester, but even then I would be loathe to drop more than 3 before the second hive is dropped).
After that its simply a choice between a survivable hive or a quickly built hive. However, since a shift basically creates a "crag" if a gorge is nearby, that would seem to always be the superior choice in that situation, and I think you can expect to almost always have a gorge, even in pubs.
In fact, the main benefit of crag is that, if restricted to one hive for a prolonged period of time, carapace is better to have than celerity. However, since being restricted to a single hive for a prolonged period of time is almost a guaranteed loss, I would say that it doesn't even matter.
Shift first, every time.
Just so you guys know, I never play on 20-24 player servers, so egglocking doesn't ever become a problem for me. However, even in that case, I would argue that the best solution to egglocking is not buying more eggs, it's not dying as much. And you won't die as much if you have carapace.
Crag first is the best option 99% of the time. Carapace is far and away the best upgrade in the game. It makes skulks significantly more powerful in the early game and remains useful all the way to the end. the Crag is also the most useful of the three chambers. You can drop it in a contested room and tel your players to retreat and heal, and you can drop them next to a new Hive to help it heal up faster.
Shade first is pretty underrated. If your players know how to use silence, or the other team's players don't know how to counter silence, it can be extremely effective. Not as good as Crag, but can occasionally be effective. It is absolutely more viable than Shift first in my experience.
Shift is a good second hive option, though, mainly because adrenaline becomes needed pretty much as soon as you have bile bomb and blink.
My favorite tech paths are as follows:
Crag -> Shift -> Shade (this is the standard for me)
Crag -> Shade -> Shift (depending on what players you have, this can work really well)
Shade -> Crag -> Shift (this can be more effective than you think)
- Crag means carapace, means early strong gorge/skulk and about 2/3 minutes after that, some potent lerks. Fail to protect your lerks with carapace and you'll probably end up losing them, when they really are you bread and butter for winning new rooms.
- Crag means crag healing stations, means you can improvise early sieges on marines' second comm' and avoid your lerks having to fly half the map to heal at main base.
Alien gameplay as a khammander is about getting a second hive, absent that he'll be tech-locked. Crag allows to win fights and clear rooms MUCH easier than Shift.
So my alternative for Carapace, if the Lerk is good, go Regeneration in early game. Makes Lerk so much better as he can always do hit-and-run, heal very fast as good Lerks usually don't take much damage anyways and Regeneration keeps them in action anywhere on the map.
Doesn't mean that Carapace doesn't have its uses with Lerk, but I personally see more advantages in Regeneration for early Lerks.
Downside of course, Skulks with Regeneration are not as effective as with Carapace, but even good Skulks can make the best out of Regeneration.
Everybody knows that Regen > Carapace as a lerk. The problem is nobody gets regen, because it's 15+10 tres for one lifeform.
Regen is a very big commitment in comp games. If you go regen, you want to not get carapace until your second hive is put down (or else you should have probably just gotten cara and ignored regen). With the current meta of fast arms lab // shotgun welder push into your second hive, it makes it rarely worth it in comparison to carapace.
Against phase gates this is different of course. Phase gates yields slower upgrades and slower shotguns, which makes regen much better. However this is most commonly used on veil, in which you have to have cara because of the long hallways (You may have to flush marines out of a fortified area).
Well seems not everybody knows:
That is why I wrote that comment.
I know that so much TRes for one player is much, but one player can just make THAT much difference in public games. I don't know if this is also used in comp games, but sometimes comms get 30TRes Lerk egg for one player so there is not much ressource difference in waiting for a PRes Lerk and get him an upgrade for 25TRes. Only that it will take much longer for the Lerk to come out. Still, Regeneration still has its uses for Skulks, but as I said, not as effective as Carapace.
Each to his own. And its not about the lazyness of flying back, its about effectiveness.
And this is about early game, there will most likely not be many crag stations when the first Lerks pop out. The time You spend to fly back to any sort of healing can instead be used to relocate to another position or to continuously attack a position. Also, you can utilize Regeneration during combat, let poison do its 6 second damage while avoid line of sight to get some more HP regenerated if any lost.