From Shell (Crag Hive):
Bonecrusher - Your attacks deal additional damage. (Designed for the assassin aliens who sacrifice defense for killing power.)
From Spur (Shift Hive):
Revival - Upon death, you are refunded a percentage of the cost of your current lifeform. You also respawn faster. (For the flashy cannon fodders.)
From Veil (Shade Hive):
Gremlin: You no longer trigger Mines, Grenades, Sentries. (A hyper aggressive Shade upgrade, unlike Phantom and Aura.)
I agree, these ideas sounds very interesting. Someone needs to reintroduce balance mod to test these
Since with phantom, skulk ability is useless, how about shift key, instead of just being a method to walk slowley for phantom skulk, would make the you go faster but still with some cloak, just a bit blurred. It wont be as fast as with running at normal speed, but it would allow you to sneak up on someone without the worry of them seeing your skulk.
Another idea: this one adds onto aura- the last marine that you dealt damage to in the last 30 seconds has kind of like a personal parasite, you can see his location at the map at all times and when you see him through walls he will have an outline according to his health, yellow being higher health and red being lower.
Revival was basically in ns1, right? now I remember, redemption
Shade hive was not so popular in ns1... I remember the gorge that'd drop a sensory chamber then leave. Rage ensued.
Also, bone crusher is a lot like focus.
Redemption randomly saved 100% of your lifeform cost by teleporting you back to a Hive.
Revival (need a better name) was my attempt at giving aliens a mean to be more flexible at changing roles, or to play more risky roles (somebody's gotta take a bullet for the team sometimes, rookie). I drew inspiration from Hypermutation (which refunded cost when you change lifeform).
Bonecrusher would be a simple way to provide aliens an offensive option, at the opportunity cost of survival. A general purpose damage upgrade would be useful for sniping tough marine structures, as well as aliens at the back of the pack for "cleaning up".
"Gremlin" could be a little overpowered, especially when combined with Celerity or Carapace. The anti-grenade element would probably the most useful. Initially I wanted to add Scan to the list of things it helps aliens evade, which might be rather too powerful.
I feel like the only way to make shift and shade hives viable first hives in competetive, is to give them abillities that allow them to stay on the field, like crag hive does. I think the best thing to do, is to abandon this idea that crag hive is exclusively "defensive", shade is "sneaky" and shift is "speed". It's ok that they specialize in these areas, but I think their roles need to be less exclusive and sort of blend a little bit. I understand this is a big shift in the games main concept, but I think it would be a better game for it. I feel like it has always been a problem that aliens had to commit to one tech path, while marines didn't - yeayea, it's supposed to be assymetrical I know - and it's ok to make aliens commit to one tech path, but if we must do that, I think they should be less "exclusive".
Lifesteal has been suggested before, I think that would be a great addition as a shift or shade trait, because it allows you to stay in a fight - Depending on the values chosen for lifesteal, you could potentially contest a medpacked marine, assuming you land your bites. Lifesteal would be a highly skillfull abillity, as it requires landing bites. It's a really good way to prolong battles without slowing down the game (raising hp or lowering dps i.e. fundamentally slows down the game).
Another idea could be corpse eating or fragging to restore health.
Both of these, like regen or carapace, allows you to stay on the field longer - however both, unlike regen or carapace, makes you have to commit harder on each fight, because retreating won't help you regenerate your health. Therefore it sort of blends the "roles" of the hives a little bit, but it doesn't make crag hive any less viable, because you still get the abillity to retreat and regenerate easily.
You could also consider making lifesteal a drifter abillity tied to the shade or shift hive instead.
I feel like the only way to make shift and shade hives viable first hives in competetive, is to give them abillities that allow them to stay on the field, like crag hive does. I think the best thing to do, is to abandon this idea that crag hive is exclusively "defensive", shade is "sneaky" and shift is "speed". It's ok that they specialize in these areas, but I think their roles need to be less exclusive and sort of blend a little bit. I understand this is a big shift in the games main concept, but I think it would be a better game for it. I feel like it has always been a problem that aliens had to commit to one tech path, while marines didn't - yeayea, it's supposed to be assymetrical I know - and it's ok to make aliens commit to one tech path, but if we must do that, I think they should be less "exclusive" then.
I believe the official themes for the three alien tech branches are Outlast (Crag), Outmaneuver (Shift), and Outsmart/Deceive (Shade). An offensive upgrade like lifesteal or bonus damage would both fit the theme of Outlast, since killing your enemies before they kill you counts as outlasting them.
mmm lifesteal... so if you bite, lerk bite, swipe or gore a parasited marine (sorry gorgies, no love), you get a small packet of health back? Could make for interesting gameplay - more incentive for more offensive gameplay.
I don't really think lifesteal would change how you play much though, other than giving you a false sense of 'if i bite this marine, I'll survive and then I can bite more marines!' unlike, for instance, regen which encourages hit-run attacks or celerity that encourages building up some speed leading into an engagement.
I don't really think lifesteal would change how you play much though, other than giving you a false sense of 'if i bite this marine, I'll survive and then I can bite more marines!' unlike, for instance, regen which encourages hit-run attacks or celerity that encourages building up some speed leading into an engagement.
I don't understand how you can make this assessment, when we havn't even begun discussing the intricate values yet.
I.e. If you had 100% lifesteal - a skulk bite would give you 75hp which is 83% of its max health (on biomass 1 no carapace). Basically, every time the skulk lands a bite, the marine has to start over killing it.
I'm not suggesting the above by any means, I'm just illustrating that you can't really assess how useful the trait will be, or in what situation(s) it will be viable, before knowing even a rough range of what the values are going to be in.
I don't really think lifesteal would change how you play much though, other than giving you a false sense of 'if i bite this marine, I'll survive and then I can bite more marines!...
Lifesteal in theory, increase your effective health inside combat.
Lifesteal in practise, separate values for every lifeform, decide what is the acceptable gain for each lifeform, in general i feel it should be slightly better effective health than carapace/regeneration, as example for skulk with one bite you would gain health equal to 1-2 LMG bullets, for fade equal to 5-6 LMG bullets, etc.
The placement for the upgrade i feel would fit well with Shade hive since other hives have their +eHP upgrades, but i don't really know if it's a good fit for 3rd upgade for that hive, or should it replace something else. I'd be very happy if it would remove say cloaking, but i guess that's bit too much to ask in this community. -.-
Shade life steal would be good but hard to justify under the shade ideology
Then those ideologies are worthless. It offers nothing and, by your own admission, keeps us from adding something good to the game.
Edit: I'll take that back, it's OK to have themes with the different hives as I wrote earlier - but it's even better to have them not be completely exclusive in any specific theme and blend together a little bit.
I don't really think lifesteal would change how you play much though, other than giving you a false sense of 'if i bite this marine, I'll survive and then I can bite more marines!' unlike, for instance, regen which encourages hit-run attacks or celerity that encourages building up some speed leading into an engagement.
I don't understand how you can make this assessment, when we havn't even begun discussing the intricate values yet.
I.e. If you had 100% lifesteal - a skulk bite would give you 75hp which is 83% of its max health (on biomass 1 no carapace). Basically, every time the skulk lands a bite, the marine has to start over killing it.
I'm not suggesting the above by any means, I'm just illustrating that you can't really assess how useful the trait will be, or in what situation(s) it will be viable, before knowing even a rough range of what the values are going to be in.
Because you dont need to know the 'intricate (lol) values' to know that the playstyle that lifesteal melee abilities encourages is not what vanilla NS2 is about. Refer to my previous post (that you quoted but tellingly didnt address the points of) for examples of abilities that promote good playing habits.
I'm just illustrating that you can't really assess how useful the trait will be
But that's not what's relevant in this discussion. Lots of things can be useful, like flying onos or spawning fades every time you land a bite, but they're not needed in the game. There's not a niche to fill. There isn't some un-counterable upgrade or situation that begs that a solution be found. NS2 abilities are more or less a saturated market and if you're going to introduce new ones you need to find a good reason.
When it boils down to it, lifesteal isn't even a unique ability. It's just extra health under the stipulation you land attacks. Instantly it's less useful than regen by itself, and if chosen w/ regen or cara would give skulks insane amount of staying power in engagements. But I'm not posting to argue how good it would or wouldnt be, Im posting to re-state that it simply has no place in the game as it currently stands.
Shade life steal would be good but hard to justify under the shade ideology
Then those ideologies are worthless. It offers nothing and, by your own admission, keeps us from adding something good to the game.
Edit: I'll take that back, it's OK to have themes with the different hives as I wrote earlier - but it's even better to have them not be completely exclusive in any specific theme and blend together a little bit.
Why is it 'even better'?
If that's even better, surely it's even betterer to merge them all into one and just let the alien comm decide which of the 6 available upgrades to research first.
From everything that you've posted, it sounds like you're going to be first in line to buy NS2:Combat?
I don't really think lifesteal would change how you play much though, other than giving you a false sense of 'if i bite this marine, I'll survive and then I can bite more marines!' unlike, for instance, regen which encourages hit-run attacks or celerity that encourages building up some speed leading into an engagement.
I don't understand how you can make this assessment, when we havn't even begun discussing the intricate values yet.
I.e. If you had 100% lifesteal - a skulk bite would give you 75hp which is 83% of its max health (on biomass 1 no carapace). Basically, every time the skulk lands a bite, the marine has to start over killing it.
I'm not suggesting the above by any means, I'm just illustrating that you can't really assess how useful the trait will be, or in what situation(s) it will be viable, before knowing even a rough range of what the values are going to be in.
Because you dont need to know the 'intricate (lol) values' to know that the playstyle that lifesteal melee abilities encourages is not what vanilla NS2 is about. Refer to my previous post (that you quoted but tellingly didnt address the points of) for examples of abilities that promote good playing habits.
I'm just illustrating that you can't really assess how useful the trait will be
But that's not what's relevant in this discussion. Lots of things can be useful, like flying onos or spawning fades every time you land a bite, but they're not needed in the game. There's not a niche to fill. There isn't some un-counterable upgrade or situation that begs that a solution be found. NS2 abilities are more or less a saturated market and if you're going to introduce new ones you need to find a good reason.
But I'm not posting to argue how good it would or wouldnt be, Im posting to re-state that it simply has no place in the game as it currently stands.
Let me remind you what the OP is about. The first hive is pretty much static, both in pubs and competetive - it makes for stale gameplay. The solution I'm proposing are in respect to that. There is a demand for less stale gameplay, if that is not apparent by this entire thread; look at compmod, introducing new abillities and weapons - and making old ones more viable. That stuff is not for balance.
Currently, if you choose anything but crag hive as your first hive in competetive, that can lead to many interesting openings, but you will always run in to the same problems mid-game, your higher lifeforms and resbiters won't be able to stay on the field. I'm proposing traits that let you do this so that teams can try these other first hives out, without getting punished as hard in the mid- to lategame. If regen turns out to still the better upgrade objectively in mid- and lategame scenarios, that's fine, preferable even. There should be a consequence to picking hive tech, but the punishment is too severe atm for very little gain.
It doesn't need to be lifesteal, just anything that gives you survivabillity.
Instantly it's less useful than regen by itself, and if chosen w/ regen or cara would give skulks insane amount of staying power in engagements.
Again, to make this claim you are ascerting a lot of things that havn't been discussed yet. Wether regen is better or not we can't possibly tell before values have been decided - clearly a 100% lifesteal is better than a 7% regen in almost any situation. Moreover you address non-issues like stacking lifesteal and regen, when this is easily fixed by making a regeneration cap, that iirc is already in comp mod - or if it really becomes a big problem there are countless other tweaks you can do.
Then those ideologies are worthless. It offers nothing and, by your own admission, keeps us from adding something good to the game.
Edit: I'll take that back, it's OK to have themes with the different hives as I wrote earlier - but it's even better to have them not be completely exclusive in any specific theme and blend together a little bit.
Why is it 'even better'?
If that's even better, surely it's even betterer to merge them all into one and just let the alien comm decide which of the 6 available upgrades to research first.
Better in the context of the OP. That is; how to make the other first hives viable and more widely used - in this case specifically in competetive play however.
What vanilla is about? huh? An ability that would give a selfcontrolled heal upon melee hits, to a race that's primaly melee oriented. How is that not exactly what the game is about?
Your example of a "hit and run" basis is silly in that you could completely use a lifesteal ability the exact same way to be effecient, you never ever are able to just go in and out with out taking damage, a lifesteal mechanic would give you a reward in health while you dip in and back. And more or so, if you do land your hits you will kill the target, how is that a bad behaviour? You seem to be basing lifesteal in the way it is in Diablo3 or the like, we're not increasing health of marines, you still need 2-4 bites to kill a marine, there is no "OMG JUST BITE AND STAY ALIVE" feature here.
And what Santa claws refers to is, why not apply a feature that fits and balances the game, in this case the hives, just disregarding it because it doesn't fit someones nostalgia image of what the "game has been" is outright retarded.
Fade with regen/lifesteal/adv.metabolize ....yes please.
Again, keep in mind a regeneration cap can be implemented to avoid ridiculous stacking in regeneration powers - or you can simply give the traits diminishing returns depending on the number of regneration factors.
Lifesteal sounds like a interesting concept. If we look at all the other chambers though, they all (excluding aura which is wallhacks) help aliens close the distance to engage marines. For good reason.
Lifesteal as I'm reading these posts, only allow staying power when already engaged in melee range. So it would be extremely difficult as a first hive upgrade and Tbh I would only see it as a mid/late game upgrade.
Maybe we could combine it with another upgrade and have it as a minor bonus effect?
Or have it lifeform specific. Not sure, just spitballing
Lifesteal sounds like a interesting concept. If we look at all the other chambers though, they all (excluding aura which is wallhacks) help aliens close the distance to engage marines. For good reason.
Lifesteal as I'm reading these posts, only allow staying power when already engaged in melee range. So it would be extremely difficult as a first hive upgrade and Tbh I would only see it as a mid/late game upgrade.
Maybe we could combine it with another upgrade and have it as a minor bonus effect?
Or have it lifeform specific. Not sure, just spitballing
If it becomes a lategame trait, then it serves the exact purpose that it should imo. Shade hive is a great early hive, but very poor lategame. Lifesteal, in my view at least, doesn't need to be a great upgrade in the early game - because phantom especially but also aura serve that role just fine.
Lifesteal sounds like a interesting concept. If we look at all the other chambers though, they all (excluding aura which is wallhacks) help aliens close the distance to engage marines. For good reason.
Lifesteal as I'm reading these posts, only allow staying power when already engaged in melee range. So it would be extremely difficult as a first hive upgrade and Tbh I would only see it as a mid/late game upgrade.
Maybe we could combine it with another upgrade and have it as a minor bonus effect?
Or have it lifeform specific. Not sure, just spitballing
If it becomes a lategame trait, then it serves the exact purpose that it should imo. Shade hive is a great early hive, but very poor lategame. Lifesteal, in my view at least, doesn't need to be a great upgrade in the early game - because phantom especially but also aura serve that role just fine.
I was just going to say something similar. Phantom if used properly is great early game, aura is good too but fantastic when lerks come out mid game. Lifesteal would be serviceable in mid-late game just fine.
Lifesteal might actually be a pretty good upgrade but it wouldn't solve the first hive being a static choice in pubs (apparently comp too).
Well you would need to balance a lifesteal mechanic properly and it will take a lot of consideration because the way I see it, its either totally useless or necessary/OP in most games without some sort of adequate countermeasures in place. I don't think it would fulfill a decent role either, it basically becomes "more hp" of which we already have an entire tech tree dedicated to.
it basically becomes "more hp" of which we already have an entire tech tree dedicated to.
Idk why people keep repeating this - that is exactly the point. IF you choose shade or shift hive as your first hive, you do not have access to this tech tree you speak of. The whole problem is that the tech trees are dedicated exclusively in these fixed roles.
I can understand if people don't want something like lifesteal because it would break/bend the design concept - but then I'd prefere people said that instead of implying that the suggestion is redundant. Lifesteal (or corpse eating etc.) would serve a very specific purpose that regen and cara can not imo.
its either totally useless or necessary/OP in most games without some sort of adequate countermeasures in place
I see what you're saying here. Personally I still think it's too early to say. NS2 is a very complex game. You cannot look at one trait isolated and compare it to another - you have to look at the entire tech tree. Because, if lifesteal or some other trait is added to the shade hive lets say - and lifesteal is a little bit inferior to regen i.e. you still have to account for the fact that you have phantom on the team as well. So the way I'd use shade hive in this scenario, is that I'd go phantom early game and then slowly progress to lifesteal later in the game or in big group fights. Keep in mind, I'd still prefere having regen or cara at that point - but the fact that you opened with phantom does add value indirectly to the lifesteal trait in this sort of scenario.
And I think that the counter-measure to lifesteal is pretty damn basic. Proper positioning and well-adjusted aim. Don't let the alien near you and you shouldn't have to worry about it.
As for 100% lifesteal being better than 7% regen in all situations? Disagree massively.
Like, you play the game. I shouldnt need to explain why regenerating health no matter what you're doing is better than regenerating health only when you're able to land a bite, considering common tactics of the khaara are stalling, hit-and-run, biting RTs and not marines, etc etc
Shade life steal would be good but hard to justify under the shade ideology
Then those ideologies are worthless. It offers nothing and, by your own admission, keeps us from adding something good to the game.
Edit: I'll take that back, it's OK to have themes with the different hives as I wrote earlier - but it's even better to have them not be completely exclusive in any specific theme and blend together a little bit.
...we could always just put it in the new secret hive being developed?
Anyway, having Regen is almost always going to be 100x better than having lifesteal. why? You are melee, the enemy is ranged (unless say, lerk)
They have advantage Regen or carapace can save you in situations where getting close to your enemy will take a few hits, lifesteal will only help you in situations where you can land a hit.
Comments
Shade hive was not so popular in ns1... I remember the gorge that'd drop a sensory chamber then leave. Rage ensued.
Also, bone crusher is a lot like focus.
Since with phantom, skulk ability is useless, how about shift key, instead of just being a method to walk slowley for phantom skulk, would make the you go faster but still with some cloak, just a bit blurred. It wont be as fast as with running at normal speed, but it would allow you to sneak up on someone without the worry of them seeing your skulk.
Another idea: this one adds onto aura- the last marine that you dealt damage to in the last 30 seconds has kind of like a personal parasite, you can see his location at the map at all times and when you see him through walls he will have an outline according to his health, yellow being higher health and red being lower.
Redemption randomly saved 100% of your lifeform cost by teleporting you back to a Hive.
Revival (need a better name) was my attempt at giving aliens a mean to be more flexible at changing roles, or to play more risky roles (somebody's gotta take a bullet for the team sometimes, rookie). I drew inspiration from Hypermutation (which refunded cost when you change lifeform).
Bonecrusher would be a simple way to provide aliens an offensive option, at the opportunity cost of survival. A general purpose damage upgrade would be useful for sniping tough marine structures, as well as aliens at the back of the pack for "cleaning up".
"Gremlin" could be a little overpowered, especially when combined with Celerity or Carapace. The anti-grenade element would probably the most useful. Initially I wanted to add Scan to the list of things it helps aliens evade, which might be rather too powerful.
Lifesteal has been suggested before, I think that would be a great addition as a shift or shade trait, because it allows you to stay in a fight - Depending on the values chosen for lifesteal, you could potentially contest a medpacked marine, assuming you land your bites. Lifesteal would be a highly skillfull abillity, as it requires landing bites. It's a really good way to prolong battles without slowing down the game (raising hp or lowering dps i.e. fundamentally slows down the game).
Another idea could be corpse eating or fragging to restore health.
Both of these, like regen or carapace, allows you to stay on the field longer - however both, unlike regen or carapace, makes you have to commit harder on each fight, because retreating won't help you regenerate your health. Therefore it sort of blends the "roles" of the hives a little bit, but it doesn't make crag hive any less viable, because you still get the abillity to retreat and regenerate easily.
You could also consider making lifesteal a drifter abillity tied to the shade or shift hive instead.
I believe the official themes for the three alien tech branches are Outlast (Crag), Outmaneuver (Shift), and Outsmart/Deceive (Shade). An offensive upgrade like lifesteal or bonus damage would both fit the theme of Outlast, since killing your enemies before they kill you counts as outlasting them.
Like, every time you get to half health a hallucination spawns in?
..you could call it LCD.
I don't understand how you can make this assessment, when we havn't even begun discussing the intricate values yet.
I.e. If you had 100% lifesteal - a skulk bite would give you 75hp which is 83% of its max health (on biomass 1 no carapace). Basically, every time the skulk lands a bite, the marine has to start over killing it.
I'm not suggesting the above by any means, I'm just illustrating that you can't really assess how useful the trait will be, or in what situation(s) it will be viable, before knowing even a rough range of what the values are going to be in.
Space Marine anyone?
Lifesteal in practise, separate values for every lifeform, decide what is the acceptable gain for each lifeform, in general i feel it should be slightly better effective health than carapace/regeneration, as example for skulk with one bite you would gain health equal to 1-2 LMG bullets, for fade equal to 5-6 LMG bullets, etc.
The placement for the upgrade i feel would fit well with Shade hive since other hives have their +eHP upgrades, but i don't really know if it's a good fit for 3rd upgade for that hive, or should it replace something else. I'd be very happy if it would remove say cloaking, but i guess that's bit too much to ask in this community. -.-
Edit: I'll take that back, it's OK to have themes with the different hives as I wrote earlier - but it's even better to have them not be completely exclusive in any specific theme and blend together a little bit.
Because you dont need to know the 'intricate (lol) values' to know that the playstyle that lifesteal melee abilities encourages is not what vanilla NS2 is about. Refer to my previous post (that you quoted but tellingly didnt address the points of) for examples of abilities that promote good playing habits.
But that's not what's relevant in this discussion. Lots of things can be useful, like flying onos or spawning fades every time you land a bite, but they're not needed in the game. There's not a niche to fill. There isn't some un-counterable upgrade or situation that begs that a solution be found. NS2 abilities are more or less a saturated market and if you're going to introduce new ones you need to find a good reason.
When it boils down to it, lifesteal isn't even a unique ability. It's just extra health under the stipulation you land attacks. Instantly it's less useful than regen by itself, and if chosen w/ regen or cara would give skulks insane amount of staying power in engagements. But I'm not posting to argue how good it would or wouldnt be, Im posting to re-state that it simply has no place in the game as it currently stands.
Why is it 'even better'?
If that's even better, surely it's even betterer to merge them all into one and just let the alien comm decide which of the 6 available upgrades to research first.
From everything that you've posted, it sounds like you're going to be first in line to buy NS2:Combat?
Let me remind you what the OP is about. The first hive is pretty much static, both in pubs and competetive - it makes for stale gameplay. The solution I'm proposing are in respect to that. There is a demand for less stale gameplay, if that is not apparent by this entire thread; look at compmod, introducing new abillities and weapons - and making old ones more viable. That stuff is not for balance.
Currently, if you choose anything but crag hive as your first hive in competetive, that can lead to many interesting openings, but you will always run in to the same problems mid-game, your higher lifeforms and resbiters won't be able to stay on the field. I'm proposing traits that let you do this so that teams can try these other first hives out, without getting punished as hard in the mid- to lategame. If regen turns out to still the better upgrade objectively in mid- and lategame scenarios, that's fine, preferable even. There should be a consequence to picking hive tech, but the punishment is too severe atm for very little gain.
It doesn't need to be lifesteal, just anything that gives you survivabillity.
In a nutshell that is the point yes.
Again, to make this claim you are ascerting a lot of things that havn't been discussed yet. Wether regen is better or not we can't possibly tell before values have been decided - clearly a 100% lifesteal is better than a 7% regen in almost any situation. Moreover you address non-issues like stacking lifesteal and regen, when this is easily fixed by making a regeneration cap, that iirc is already in comp mod - or if it really becomes a big problem there are countless other tweaks you can do.
Better in the context of the OP. That is; how to make the other first hives viable and more widely used - in this case specifically in competetive play however.
Your example of a "hit and run" basis is silly in that you could completely use a lifesteal ability the exact same way to be effecient, you never ever are able to just go in and out with out taking damage, a lifesteal mechanic would give you a reward in health while you dip in and back. And more or so, if you do land your hits you will kill the target, how is that a bad behaviour? You seem to be basing lifesteal in the way it is in Diablo3 or the like, we're not increasing health of marines, you still need 2-4 bites to kill a marine, there is no "OMG JUST BITE AND STAY ALIVE" feature here.
And what Santa claws refers to is, why not apply a feature that fits and balances the game, in this case the hives, just disregarding it because it doesn't fit someones nostalgia image of what the "game has been" is outright retarded.
Lifesteal as I'm reading these posts, only allow staying power when already engaged in melee range. So it would be extremely difficult as a first hive upgrade and Tbh I would only see it as a mid/late game upgrade.
Maybe we could combine it with another upgrade and have it as a minor bonus effect?
Or have it lifeform specific. Not sure, just spitballing
Lifesteal might actually be a pretty good upgrade but it wouldn't solve the first hive being a static choice in pubs (apparently comp too).
I can understand if people don't want something like lifesteal because it would break/bend the design concept - but then I'd prefere people said that instead of implying that the suggestion is redundant. Lifesteal (or corpse eating etc.) would serve a very specific purpose that regen and cara can not imo.
I believe that goes without saying.
I see what you're saying here. Personally I still think it's too early to say. NS2 is a very complex game. You cannot look at one trait isolated and compare it to another - you have to look at the entire tech tree. Because, if lifesteal or some other trait is added to the shade hive lets say - and lifesteal is a little bit inferior to regen i.e. you still have to account for the fact that you have phantom on the team as well. So the way I'd use shade hive in this scenario, is that I'd go phantom early game and then slowly progress to lifesteal later in the game or in big group fights. Keep in mind, I'd still prefere having regen or cara at that point - but the fact that you opened with phantom does add value indirectly to the lifesteal trait in this sort of scenario.
And I think that the counter-measure to lifesteal is pretty damn basic. Proper positioning and well-adjusted aim. Don't let the alien near you and you shouldn't have to worry about it.
As for 100% lifesteal being better than 7% regen in all situations? Disagree massively.
Like, you play the game. I shouldnt need to explain why regenerating health no matter what you're doing is better than regenerating health only when you're able to land a bite, considering common tactics of the khaara are stalling, hit-and-run, biting RTs and not marines, etc etc
Anyway, having Regen is almost always going to be 100x better than having lifesteal. why? You are melee, the enemy is ranged (unless say, lerk)
They have advantage Regen or carapace can save you in situations where getting close to your enemy will take a few hits, lifesteal will only help you in situations where you can land a hit.