Age-old question: Crag, Shade or Shift first?
SolidSpider
Join Date: 2013-04-14 Member: 184805Members
Join Date: 2013-04-14 Member: 184805Members
Comments
I like shift because you can echo harvesters and it's a pretty huge help
Build 250 - Shade
And why is shift horrible? Celerity is very good for skulks both in and out of combat and adrenaline should help the early gorges immensely, Shift also gives you the ability to echo harvesters, and anything else you want, which means you are less vulnerable setting up and you save money on drifters. The echo shift also lends itself to early gorge tunnels, no reason not to really. If you get stuck on one hive for whatever reason, you have both adrenaline and bile bomb, which gives you the best possible chance of fighting back in a bad situation.
I'll admit that echoing harvesters is awesome, the rest is unnecessary though. Gorges really shouldn't need adren that early also, and celerity just isn't as good for skulks as cara.
You have the best possible upgrades for them. that's what happens. Cara is shit (20 armor for fade), regen is situational at best. Arguably aura might be better for them than celerity or adren without shadowstep, but shade-first isn't really on the table.
Adren for building the second hive or bileing early (remember bile is only 2 biomass) or just defending their forts with nigh unlimited healspray. Cara is pretty good for skulks I'll admit (about the only thing it's good for anymore), but celerity is still very good if not as good.
Actually no. Adren increases energy regeneration speed now. Healspray uses relatively little energy, so with full adrenaline (3 spurs) you can healspray about 3x as long. Without adren you get 21 sprays before you are out of energy (22nd spray is delayed). With full adren that number is 62. The speed you can healspray at when out of energy is significantly increased as well.
Depends on how you use it. Just like every iteration of the shade upgrades it has little if any use once you are in combat.
Besides showing you which marines are lowest on health so you can focus them down first. Or showing you where marines are in your escape route so you don't get trapped.
I forgot about the energy regen increase. Even still, if you want your hive up that bad, no need to go hive type, drop a shift. It's 10 res.
So its NOT a one time thing.
Oopsies didnt scroll down
And, ghostthree, dropping a shift in a location where you can only drop a hive and access with a gorge tunnel?
No, it doesn't work like that.
and here i thought snx was the best clan in aust because of its strategums *shakehead*
It's not just the one thing though, it's everything the gorge does. The early game is won by gorges, more so now than ever with the way structures and cysts build. Adren is their best upgrade by miles.
Except that infestation spreads at the end of a gorge tunnel...
You are aware infestation comes out of tunnels?
EDIT: Also if you're stuck on 1 hive that's not shift and can't get access to another one, you have to be joking if you think having adrenalin would let you get it up.
I agree it's probably the best upgrade for gorge now (how effective is cara?) but I still don't think it's worth going shift just for gorges. Big picture.
+ 25 Armor.
Crag is still good in 250 for skulks but sucks hard for higher lifeforms. I am preferring shade first, shift second.
Yes, big picture. It's best for gorges, celerity is good for everything else and echo is great early. Compare crag hive. Carapace is pretty good for skulks but both cara and regen are mediocre at best for everything else. I can see a point for shade hive based off of aura alone, but that's all it would be. I'm about ready to call crag a distant third.
if your team lacks skulking skill then getting to pick and choose every engagement of having extra armor. then crag or shade would be better.
This is just for pubs though, and I have no idea what's actually the best build order. Lord knows.
I've saved many structures the marines were intent on killing that way either by echoing in a crag or echoing out the structure (even if I have to bring in a shift to do it). At one res per move I don't even have to think about cost. I've also managed to minimize the cost of new structures by only keeping one or two shifts and crags that I move as needed rather than a new one at every juncture.
Crag hives get you carapace and regen... and thats it. There's heal wave, but that's rarely useful and fairly expensive (3 res to use and the crag has to already be there, and it aint teleporting in). Even if the upgrades are strictly better than shift upgrades (they're not), the difference in what you can do as khammander is too huge to ignore.
It's kinda iffy for skulk long range movement. If you can get some really good wall jumps you can get fast enough the celerity doesn't matter too much. Skulk in combat though is helped a ton by the new celerity, and it brings you up to the level you would get from decent walljumps just bouncing on the floor.
Of course, for anyone elses movement it's great. Onos in particular benefit because it keeps working while they are being shot running away or at the enemy for that matter.