What upgrades do you use in alien?
Freeker
France Join Date: 2013-10-28 Member: 188858Members, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
France Join Date: 2013-10-28 Member: 188858Members, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
Hi guys,
I wanted to discuss your upgrade preference for alien lifeforms. Let share some of your vets knowledge !
So I start with my personal preference. Don’t forget it’s from a pub perspective. I’m just talking here about the most popular hive in pub: shift and crag which gives celerity/adrenaline and carapace/regeneration upgrades.
Skulk : celerity/carapace is almost a no-brainer in every situation. Skulk could use regeneration for RT-biting mission or adrenaline for leap-combo but that’s very situational.
Gorge : adrenaline/carapace for the bile bomb/healing station gorge. Celerity could be used early game to be a battle gorge with better mobility.
Lerk: celerity/regeneration early-game, celerity allows great mobility and regeneration helps you to stay on the field longer. Late-game, I think adre/cara is better for supporting: adre for never-ending spores/umbra your teammate and cara to avoid being one-shot by a shotgun.
Fade: this one is a hard one. 1st, don’t go fade if you’re a complete beginner ^^. Every combinaison are possible. I usually go adre/cara: adre to be able to blink like crazy without running out of energy, and cara to avoid being 2-shots by w3-shotguns. With a comm using the drifter ability “mucous membrane”, you can easily go regen and if you know how to manage energy, celerity is also a pretty powerful choice.
Onos: I’m not playing onos that much so I may lack of knowledge here. But after all, that’s just a big skulk
so cele/cara. Celerity to be able to escape these chasing marines and carapace because, you know, you’re a big tank after all. If you have onos upgrade (charge/bone shield) adrenaline is also a viable choice because those ability cost a lot of energy.
Of course, remind that almost every combo of upgrade is viable and depends on your playstyle ( hit’n’run / run’n’die / troll’n’F4)
/Discuss !
I wanted to discuss your upgrade preference for alien lifeforms. Let share some of your vets knowledge !
So I start with my personal preference. Don’t forget it’s from a pub perspective. I’m just talking here about the most popular hive in pub: shift and crag which gives celerity/adrenaline and carapace/regeneration upgrades.
Skulk : celerity/carapace is almost a no-brainer in every situation. Skulk could use regeneration for RT-biting mission or adrenaline for leap-combo but that’s very situational.
Gorge : adrenaline/carapace for the bile bomb/healing station gorge. Celerity could be used early game to be a battle gorge with better mobility.
Lerk: celerity/regeneration early-game, celerity allows great mobility and regeneration helps you to stay on the field longer. Late-game, I think adre/cara is better for supporting: adre for never-ending spores/umbra your teammate and cara to avoid being one-shot by a shotgun.
Fade: this one is a hard one. 1st, don’t go fade if you’re a complete beginner ^^. Every combinaison are possible. I usually go adre/cara: adre to be able to blink like crazy without running out of energy, and cara to avoid being 2-shots by w3-shotguns. With a comm using the drifter ability “mucous membrane”, you can easily go regen and if you know how to manage energy, celerity is also a pretty powerful choice.
Onos: I’m not playing onos that much so I may lack of knowledge here. But after all, that’s just a big skulk
so cele/cara. Celerity to be able to escape these chasing marines and carapace because, you know, you’re a big tank after all. If you have onos upgrade (charge/bone shield) adrenaline is also a viable choice because those ability cost a lot of energy.Of course, remind that almost every combo of upgrade is viable and depends on your playstyle ( hit’n’run / run’n’die / troll’n’F4
)/Discuss !
Comments
Gorge: Cele/Cara <-- Put some babblers and battle gorgie go
Lerk: Cele/Cara <-- Since you have a large hit box it helps to have a larger health pool
Fade: Adren/Cara <-- I will switch it with Cele instead if marines don't have armor 2 or shotguns but will switch back to Adren as soon as either of the above happen
Onos: Adren/Cara <-- Can be healed easily by gorgies and adren for charging forward and away
All personal preferences of course.
Gorge - Early game combat gorge cele/cara . Late game Adren/cara
Lerk - Early game cele/cara (maybe regen if there is no weapon upgrades, or bad aim on marines) Late game Adren/Regen
Fade - I never really play fade that often, but when i do, i like to go Adren/cara. (regen if hardly any marine upgrades)
Onos - Now the onos is alot more fun to play, if there is onos upgrades, ill take Adren/cara, if there is no onos upgrades depending on the time of the game and marine upgrades, i would take cele/cara. And hope i dont get chased down haha
Skulk: Celery, Camo, Regen. (if no leap) and swapping out for adren when we get leap, unless theres shifts everywhere, ofc ofc. no point in cara, 20 armor is 40 hp and you regen fast enough to heal that back before you engage the next ramborine. and if you are in a pack its not likely you'll take all the bullets any way, and if you do, you'll die regardless.
Speed and unpredictability are your protection, NOT raw armor. Same with lerk.
Lerk: Celery, Camo, regen (if no umbra/spores) Adren, Aura, regen (if upgrades, note, never cara on lerk, its pointless)
gorge: Celery, regen, aura 90% of time, regardless upgrades. Only swapping out camo if wanna sneaky tunnel, and celery for adren if comm wont giff shift, and you need to hold the fort.
Fade: Celery Regen Silence, stuff camo, in comp play im always backend initiating as a fade, (when im not comm, so alot recently) So my team can come in without being shot at. "ENEMY BEHIND US SILENT" "ENEMY BEHIND US AGAIN OH WE DEAD" plan always works.
Only grabbing adren for vorteks crazy or if fighting flamethrowers (energy is more important than speed!!!!, if you have no energy as a fade you can't even get any speed) And aura is useless to me as a fade cos im very good wiff my ears and i dont go for lasthits unless im 1v1ing people.
support fade pro.
Onos is peculiar. If it's a pub game i always go cara celery aura (camonos? Silentnos? EH?!) If i have a lerk with umbra i will swap out with regen, umbra being my free carapess. if i'm Liquidated and have stomp, adren, stomping grounds START!
But that's just me.
edit: Spacing.
thanks for the insight guys
Gorge: Cara/Cele
Lerk: Regen/Cele
Fade: Cara/Cele
Onos: Cara/Adren
I find it really depends on as some people have said what upgrades the marines have, but also how accurate they are. Certainly early game if the marines are missing a fair amount of their shots playing with regen cuts out a great deal of time otherwise spent retreating to heal.
In general I dont think there are too many upgrade choices at the moment which are complete no brainers in all situations, certainly not in pub play. I tend to make most of my decisions based on how good I am at the lifeform I'm playing. Fade for example can be pretty devastating with celerity, my Fade energy management however is completely dire so I tend to have to rely on Adrenaline to not end up dying (something which irks me massively
This^
Unless its a pub. Then you can get away with regen for everything but skulk and onos. Once wep upgrades come out, regen skulks are made of paper.
I use celerity and regen on the fade. The celerity allows me enough speed to get in and out nice and fast. The problem with not having adrenaline is that you'll have quite a limited pool of energy. So instead of staying in for a long time, I do little hit and runs, with regen augmenting the healing process. Because I am not in for long, I don't usually need cara.
I also usually use regen on my Onos, but that is usually because getting any healing on a public server can be excruciatingly difficult. Also, you should usually pick celerity for the Onos.
Gorge - Adren, Cara, camo for support gorge. Celer, Cara, aura for aggressive front line gorging.
Lerk - Celer, regen, aura for early game. Mid to late game I'll switch to adren, cara, aura and play support lerk (umbra, spores, spikes only)
Fade - Celer, cara, aura. Mid to late game after armor upgrades, I'll switch to adren, cara, aura.
Onos - Celer, regen, aura. I'll get cara if marines are pushing hives aggressively and need to play hive defense often.
Cele/Adren are both good for Skulk after u got leap. Being able to spam leap is pretty awesome. I guess cele is still better tho.
Latelate game adren for skulk, so u can always pull off xeno :P
Everyone says to take adren for fade, but I just don't find myself running out of energy dat much.
Really? i always feel very squishy late-game as a lerk. And without cara, i find myself diying so easily to those w3 marines.
@BestProfileName i see your point with the cele/regen combo. Hit'n'regen playstyle against hit'n'hit'n'hit'n'run-to-the-hive playstyle
As cele fade, i often find myself having to get out of room before that last swipe because i don't have enough energy.
And i complete with shade upgrade:
skulk: camo (to run silent)
lerk: aura (to steal your kill
gorge: camo
fade: mmmmm.... aura
Onos: camo for the lulz :d
I recommend it if you have charge. The reason is while celerity lets you run pretty fast. The bigger issue I find for onos is running out of energy from attacking/charging and then being defenceless with no charge left. You are truly screwed if you run out of energy in the middle of a room as an onos. Should you manage energy better as onos and use celerity? Maybe, but often you need to charge into a room using a lot of energy to minimise the amount of damage you take. Walking slowly into a room of even 2 marines can really mess you up.
I'd probably use celerity if no charge though. Actually, both are probably just fine.
skulk: cele/cara/silence
gorge: cele/regen/aura
lerk: cele/regen/aura
fade: cele/regen/silence
onos: cele/regen/aura
I never cara on onos though, you will prolly regen much more than 50 armours worth over the course of any fight.
I pretty much go cele for all lifeforms before they're upgraded (except for gorge which is always adren for obvious reasons). After the lifeform is upgraded I might switch to adren so I can use the unlocked abilities more easily.
I like phantom for skulk, aura for lerk and fade. For gorge it doesn't really matter, I guess I would do aura. And for onos I could also do either, but phantom is always fun for abusing the camo feature.
Generally speaking regen is stronger in the early game when marines are dealing less damage as it allows you to survive chip damage, but by late game cara grows more effective since you become more likely to survive a single shot.
Same thing applies to celerity, it's stonger in the early game before lifeforms are upgraded but once advanced abilities are available adren becomes more valuable since you can utilize the new abilities.
Regeneration, is by personal favourite with gorge, lerk and onos. With the fix to carapace, there's more reason to use it with fade again. Keeping in mind how the fights that really matter you had mucus spam to repair your armor, and carapace simply gave you a larger threshold. While Regeneration made you able to get back into a fight faster. After said that, i'd prolly choose Carapace for fade nowadays, simply to not get gibbed by random meatshots/ambushes.
Aura, even with the weaker range that ns2 has, the ability to see which target has lowest health gives you good chance to pick those targets from a 'crowd'. You can so easily pick your fights, know 100% before entering a room if there is someone, be able to circumvent your route to RT biting, or that magical bile rush you are tasked with. Phantom has its moments when you want to be even more sneaky, but missing out on the wallhack is just too good to pass on.
Also, Celerity is a must for onos. The speed increase is almost equivalent to using the charge ability at all times instead of for the extra 1 second you can get from adren, and it stacks with the charge itself for lightning quick escapes. The only times I find myself wishing I had Adren are when I'm taking down a phasegate all by myself and I run out of energy for attacking, but that shouldn't actually happen anyway and only does because of really bad marines. Not to mention celerity will help you travel from hotspot to hotspot quicker and allow you to support your team in more places more often.
Phantom onos is just dumb, they hear you anyway and it's kind of hard NOT to spot an onos even when he's cloaked, and there's little reason for you to ever be cloaked as an onos anyway.
wouldn't say that for lerks since I often encoutered situations, where I had to spore, umbra, bite and spike at the same time (base rush with onos, fades and gorge or fight versus jetpack marines)
when you run out of energy during a fight you are ineffective and an easy target
Lerk and gorge are the obvious cases for adren. Generally it's best to switch to adren after lerk upgrades are researched, but I've occasionally found cause to use it even without, generally depends on how much spiking I'm doing. Gorge is obvious with bile or even just healspray but don't underestimate the celerity battle gorge.
Oh and cara and Phantom
Skulk: celerity/phantom/regeneration for early game, phantom skulk is really fun to play. adrenaline/phantom/carapace later in the game
Gorge: celerity/aura/regeneration for early game harvester growing and battlegorging, also for onos support later on (the regen is so I don't have to blow all my energy healing myself) adrenaline/aura/carapace once I have a proper base established.
Lerk: celerity/aura/carapace
Fade: celerity/aura/carapace I might go regen if sources of healing are sparse
Onos: celerity/aura/regeneration
Everything else: Adrenaline/Phantom/Carapace
Regeneration doesn't kick in until it's too late anyways, plus it's noisy.
Gorge: Adre/Cara/Aura
Lerk: Cele/Regen/Aura
Fade: Adre/Cara/Aura
Onos: Cele/Regen/Aura
Later game I'll switch to carapace. I do try to stay with celerity if I can, usually by begging the commander for shifts everywhere. Drive-by bile bombing runs are pretty great.
carapace is a hugely overated upgrade, it's a one-time bonus, wheras regen is effective if you take a single bullet.