Instacyst + whip echo
Solarity
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170515Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170515Members, Reinforced - Shadow
There is one khamm I know who uses this tactic a lot. He builds a small army of whips, then drops that insta cyst and echos the whips into place. This tactic is annoying esp in an area where the power node isn't in line of sight of marine structures. While I use to echo whips into bases, it took a lot more skill in placement of cysts and shades to be able to echo them in. I do feel this is a bit broken and hard to combat in certain bases
Comments
As said by @CCTEE, you lost the game quite a while ago, this is just the end of it. You gave the aliens too much res (this is key), and didn't deny them a third hive.
Three hives, all researched to biomass 3. A shift. Ten res per whip. 5 res per contamination. 2 res for each whip to echo. That's not even counting all the res spent on upgrades and researches to get the alien team teched up, forward healing stations, drifters, rebuilding things the Marines destroyed, mists, cysts and the like. That is a LOT of res nodes and time that the Marine team allowed them to have.
Marine teams have a lot of new things to get used to. They need to learn that ARC's are also a defensive tool and not just an optional way of ending a game. That flamers and GLs are necessary to defend the base, not just attack the hive. They need to learn to beacon as soon as they notice it even beginning to spread into their bases. They need to learn that they can't just sit on one base and tech up. They need to deny the enemy resources even if they themselves are not in position to put an extractor down. They need to have one or two man teams getting behind the line to disrupt the Alien's and cause them to replace structures. They need to learn to scan the enemy's rear and look for signs of a large whip build up. I could go on for quite a while, but it pretty much boils down to the Marine teams realizing they have to change their tactics. Contamination forces them to become an offensive force at all stages of the game, not just after W3A3Exo.
Is it totally balanced? Far too early to tell. We need a few weeks more for people to adjust their strategies before we can really give an assessment.
Been there, done that, but you really shouldn't be ABLE to do that. When the enemy has a 3 to 1 advantage on you for nearly 30 minutes you don't deserve it.
Epic come backs occur all the time on our server. As the khamm can easily move things he can just build whips through out the game. Those games tend to last long and it is nice to beat a team that got over cocky and got their onos and fades killed while we counter with arcs and heavies.
Played a game, where rines were making a big comeback, arcs outside deposite, half my team gorge trying to keep it alive the other half dies trying to push them back. Meanwhile JP in cave kills all but one shell, and takes the hive to 75%... We're done or should be....
I pull my remaking 3 whips up to sorting drop 9 more.... After some misting I echo 4 whips to repair powernode and 4 whips to operations powernode.... Power goes down in both... They kill the 4 in operation, but my 4 in repair bile everything as I cyst in and spread them out... I wait a few seconds and echo my last 4 whips to operations powernode which kill the rines welding and keeps them from repairing the node long enough for my team to sweep through and finish them off.....
Comebacks are supposed to be high risk with a lower chance of success, mind you. That's why it's a comeback - you're trying to come back from a position where the other team had been winning the game. Winning fights earlier on has to be meaningful later on or the game is just a turtle to high tier tech.
It's also worth noting that it's not actually that hard to turtle against this strat and try to buy additional time. All you need is a flamethrower - literally, that is all you need. A whip an immature whip that is on fire can't do anything. Sure, if they back it up with an actual push it's not quite that simple, but then we're not really talking about winning the game with whips alone, either.
Prrrrretty sure they do. Apparently doesn't affect mature whips; reported as bug.
They should, but they don't, maybe it's a bug but when I see whips being flamed they still whack me.
Frankly, the way I see it, if the marines have allowed the aliens to hold three tech points and haven't pushed/destroyed a hive in the five minutes or so it takes to get to biomass 9, they've already lost. Maybe some will disagree with me on that, but that's the way I see it.
Thus forcing the making the Marine commander make a choice between spending the res on ARCs, or using that same res to outfit and support a push or ninja phase to destroy a hive. To me that's added command depth, and the game is better for it. One of the big complaints many folks have is the perceived linear tech tree, and this is one more branch being added to it.
NS2 from a strategic perspective is about denying the enemy assets while exploiting ones you've held, containing the enemy, then defeating him. The beginning to mid game is the battle for map control, and the victor of that battle gets a large advantage, while the loser is still able to tech up but much more slowly. And that's what they deserve- they were out played and have to pay the price. If you've been losing and the enemy makes a mistake, that's your opportunity for a comeback (assuming you and your team are good enough to recognize and capitalize on that mistake).
And yet clearly they did. For months the aliens would have the res needed to win the game and it still took 20+ minutes. There's no question something needed to be done.
As for turtles, that is precisely when this does not work. With the whole marine team in their base the whips wont be able to do much. Contaminate is just a cheap auto kill one a single marine base when they are busy elsewhere. Like arcs, except it takes less planning or strategy and is best countered exclusively by the commander (this isnt a damn rts! Comms should not be winning the game but supporting their players as those win the game).
P.S. can you even kill the damn cysts? I remember emptying like 3 rifle clips at it and the hit reg indicators did not even light up once.
P.P.S. I have not seen a protracted marine turtle for a really long time now, if the aliens have the slightest bit of coordination turtles are not so hard to break. Besides marines are meant to be hard to finish, that is why they have things like beacon, sentries and no limit on IPs. If the devs really wanted to cure turtles they would limit the # of ips allowed per comm chair.
Any time it takes and Alien more then a second to kill a marine, it seems like they are on the forums complaining.
I have also noticed a rash of commanders who try and call the game long before it is over (everyone press f4, or this game is gg) while we are still in the middle of the fight with 2 bases, Or they constantly berate their fellow teammates on everything they are doing wrong, but refuse to support anyone.
Mainly Marines, but I have also noticed this with aliens too.
So it usually isn't hard for an alien commander of any ability to out command most of the people who insist on jumping into the command chair for Marines game after game.
Free weekend nobody wanted to command, now I can never get into the chair as the same clueless people keep jumping in.
I have seen some REALLY long marine turtles if exos are present, especially dual exos. Also, none of that means marines are SUPPOSED to be hard to "finish".