Lerk Rulez!
Licho
Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 3858Members, NS1 Playtester
Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 3858Members, NS1 Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">Just learn it..</div> I tried lerk properly yesterday and found it excelent, more than worth it's 30 res for me! I had 16 kills with it in 3 minutes without dying (mostly spikes) during one game and my umbra/scream support was the thing that allowed onoses/fades to break marine defenses (turret farms/ha marines).
New lerks need new tactics:
- do not rush to battle
- ask team to build MC first (skulks have great celerity and you can get adrenaline)
- when attacking dont stand still, fly and shoot from air, change your direction, keep your distance
- do not use spores so often, spikes much more powerfull against 1-2 marines
- umbra and scream are excelent support for teammates, dont forget spores have no effect on HA/buildings, use umbra and scream once you get more hives
I recomend these upgrades:
- adrenaline (obviously lerk needs energy to be able to fly and shoot longer, once you loose mobility you die, lerk on ground is easy to target)
- regen or carapace (i personnaly prefer new regen)
- and scent of fear or cloaking (scent of fear if marines are unorganized/have many rambos, cloaking if they seem to follow orders strictly and cant surprise you so easy)
New lerks need new tactics:
- do not rush to battle
- ask team to build MC first (skulks have great celerity and you can get adrenaline)
- when attacking dont stand still, fly and shoot from air, change your direction, keep your distance
- do not use spores so often, spikes much more powerfull against 1-2 marines
- umbra and scream are excelent support for teammates, dont forget spores have no effect on HA/buildings, use umbra and scream once you get more hives
I recomend these upgrades:
- adrenaline (obviously lerk needs energy to be able to fly and shoot longer, once you loose mobility you die, lerk on ground is easy to target)
- regen or carapace (i personnaly prefer new regen)
- and scent of fear or cloaking (scent of fear if marines are unorganized/have many rambos, cloaking if they seem to follow orders strictly and cant surprise you so easy)
Comments
SoF is also good for skulks. Quite often I've used it to locate a marine hiding in a dark corner that I would've run straight past if I didn't have it.
Its support unit muhahaha
Hey Licho, go post some Marine Strategies... I think many of us need those <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Umbra might help, but it's not lasting long enough to even give good support to your team vs a squad of HAs.
(Especially if I do not have regen)
Since the aliens almost always get sensory first, I tend to start out with scent of fear - simply bait the marines.
When they chase you, fly around a corner, watch for them with SOF, then spore before they come around the corner. I have gotten tons of kills this way without having to expose myself like I would have to while spiking.
cloaking or s0f with a sense nearby
regen
silence
this is the superiour hit and run/ambush lerk.
it works best when there are high places to perch.
wait for them to enter the room and start shooting, they will usaly die before they figure out were you are if they start looking in your gen direction stay still and cloak. you are almost imposible to find, they have no audio cues to fallow, and if you not to use spores they wont even have that green smoke plume to fallow. annoys the **** out of the marines too. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Like per second, how long it lasts, etc.
Truely the new lerk is a masterpiece.It's just the low armor value that makes people shun the lerk.
Another very important tactic when lerking....is to make sure spores cover a large area,don't just spore one spot,spread your spores around and make the marines choke,then switch to spikes and you can be just about as solo lerk as you were in 1.0x without the bite,due to turret issues :/
Plus it's your only ranged offense until you get 3 hives.Gorges don't count because they don't always see the fray of battle,unless of course,you're either in a Gorge Gang,or you like fighting as a Gorge.
PS. Spores last for approx. 4 seconds,and cause 6 damage per second.And they are unstackable.
However where lerks really shine, is against early rush's (particularly shotgun rush's, as they cost more for comm), due to the lack of HA, you can simply spore the **** off them, if you have a DC, you got regen for better sustained combat, fi you got SC yougot SoF so you neevr need to get shot at, and if you got MC's you can simply spore spam enough to kill them anyway. Its when HA trains appears that lerks begin to struggle, however a single HA rine can be delt with usually if you have a good area to fight him in (large, open, dark).
they go thru walls. On hera, as well as other maps, you can wreak incredible havoc with spores without going near the marines.
coating the enemy with spores annoys the freak out of them, makes the commander waste resources healing them, and often lets them die to 1 skulk bite.
priceless. you may not get the direct payoff in kills (then again, you may), but your team is bolstered incredibly.
Proper use of spores can utterly shut down a lesser marine team.
i got a few kill like that the other day, also if they are light armour, spores own vents.
I dunno about being the ultimate against shotty rushes though as alot of the levels eg: mineshaft are close proximity and trying to spike a rine b4 he nails u with one shotgun blast is damn hard.
I love being chased with sof with lerk u get away quick and still drop spores where he goes. If he turns around u go back it is so painful for them.
Pity the lerk gets nerfed when ha's and gl's become involved.
- RD
Stoopid Roger
- RD
Correction,they dont.I was playing marines the other day walking to Hera walkway and had to walk through the plastic tube of doom(when invisible OCs are there FYI) and a Lerk who was outside tried to spore us from the outside
It didn't work ^^
But it is true that a bad player will get himself creamed very bad,not to mention that he harms his res income by dying as a freshly evolved lerk.
To sum it up,use all your weapons,it will do you great good,especially Umbra(don't complain about the timer on it,it's too short I know!!)Not to mention that Primal Scream combined together with SPores and Spikes can kill a small squad of marines especially combined with Gorge and Skulk support.
Either vents or special areas of the map which are impossible, or at least in-efficient for the marines to reach.
And just because HA arrives doesn't mean that most of the team has it. There is two types of HA. 1)The pwnage HA, where the team is rich. 2)The gamble HA, where the comm is relying on a single HA train.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
MC first just for YOUR lerk is a bad bad bad idea. The team can be crippled by that on most servers. Besides, SC allows you to hide with impunity, sporing BEHIND the marines while the skulks rush the front.
I agree of course that lerks are seriously underused for their sheer deathdealing abilities, and with MC they become truly terrifying.
At endgame, adrenalised screaming can quickly overrun even the heaviest turret farm. Two lerks with synchronised screaming and Umbra can assist in the levelling of whole areas. Spore combined with OTs or ambushes are fantastic.
IMHO the lerk is a highly effective support unit but also capable of dishing out the pain.
At satcom hive a marine team had a PG, TF and RT all at the hive as a lockdown. One lerk, me, at the vent beside the RT spamming spores like a madman. They lost the lockdown, wasted a ton of res, and the push into their base was childs play.
Seriously folks - if you find yourself hiding outside the base as an onos because you're too scared/nub to rush it, consider going lerk and backing your team up <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Using their spine needles works well against vanilla marines you can take them out within 10 shots and you shoot really damn fast... i usually like going SoF and track down marines and killing them with my spores and pines... They are really good support beginning game and end game... Although HA own lerks.
I usually evolve to lerk and rack up the killls to go fade/onos.
Beginning usually i go out hunting for marines, usually spine gung ho marines and gas the gathered marines.
I usually like ruining the marines plans early game. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::lerk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/lerk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lerk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> Then if a gorge needs help i will aid him but usually i cant do defence to well because i usually am not stealthy when i do defence. I also help skulks out by gasing the marines as the skulks bite.
Mid game:I usually umbra the fades and skulks. I usually try to act stealth and try and take out the Turret Farms hopefully no apple marines spot me and attack.
End game: I will usually do no attacking only supportive. I usually do primal scream around my team mates, or umbra the fades and onos.
Umbra -> 3/4 bullets stopped
Endgame REQUIRES lerks. You MUST have primal and umbra if the marines got to any remotely reasonable tech level. Early game, well, people seem to have that covered.
Boosh boosh boosh. Play a few games as marines and learn how truly terrifying the lerk is.
Good lerks are rare, and most 'rines have no idea how terrifying a lerk is... That and poor lerks still get fried by pistols.
If you want to see terrifying lerks, though, go on a sens first team and fly around sporing 'rines early game. Makes 'em **** like nobody's business (hardly an endgame, though, more like a powerful delaying action).
A silenced lerk is wonderful on the second hive when you have sensory too. Its just pwning ninja style. I have gone for long ammounts of time as a silenced lerk. Spiking marines while silenced is funny, espeically if they are alone. They barely even realize I'm attacking untill they are dead.
A celerity lerk is also cool, but I have yet to find a good use for the added speed except for hit and run spores/umbra
and ya.. movement isn't often a great idea for first chamber, but can be played if used properly.
However personally for me more speed = bumping into every wall, where as with the lower speeds i can smoothly fly myself around. I need to try silence out, sounds like it'd be teh pwn
However personally for me more speed = bumping into every wall, where as with the lower speeds i can smoothly fly myself around. I need to try silence out, sounds like it'd be teh pwn <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I find it easier to fly with a higher speed cap. i use celerity on the occaison.
I use either Silence Lerks for picking off rambos or adrenaline for a base siege,either one works wonders for me <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
But Celerity....I don't really need the extra speed....unless I will know that I will have a whole army of JPs chasing after me with HMGs (still happens on the occasion)