Slashing And Elecing Marines:
killswitch
Join Date: 2003-02-05 Member: 13141Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-02-05 Member: 13141Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Is this the only way?</div> 2.01 has been out long enough that most marine teams run out and cap and elec all the nozzles they can. Aliens cap some nozzles and do what they can to prevent this but marines generally make good headway.
This changes when 1 aliens gestates to a fade, blinks around the map, uses regen (VERY important), and kills the marine nozzles. The Fade blinks away at the sign of any trouble. From then the game continues on unpredictably, usually resulting in a 2nd hive at some point.
Is this the only way for aliens to solve that first rush? It is possible for a gorge and 2 skulks 2 take down towers but this requires a lot of man-power, is not as flexible, takes longer (due to energy), and a single marine can ruin the whole setup. Any other suggestions?
This changes when 1 aliens gestates to a fade, blinks around the map, uses regen (VERY important), and kills the marine nozzles. The Fade blinks away at the sign of any trouble. From then the game continues on unpredictably, usually resulting in a 2nd hive at some point.
Is this the only way for aliens to solve that first rush? It is possible for a gorge and 2 skulks 2 take down towers but this requires a lot of man-power, is not as flexible, takes longer (due to energy), and a single marine can ruin the whole setup. Any other suggestions?
Comments
or you could get a groge to oc each rt, but that takes ages.
fades best bet imo
or get skulks to kill rts before they elec
Game quickly becomes cat and mouse, with marines concentrating on wiping out alien res, and aliens getting more and more paniced because all the builders are starved and the hoarders won't put new structures up.
At an allotted time, the rines charge, cutting a swathe through the res-starved aliens and splatter the hives. GG.
Alien counters can be to aggressively purge the map of marine presence. This doesn't mean finding and killing their base (because their base will be bare) it means killing their rts, killing their men. If you get lucky, you nail their IPs and try and stop them building more. Careful spending will help the aliens, it really requires decent teamwork, and sadly at least half the average alien team will be screaming that its their res and they'll spend it how they like.
Or use a single electrified TF.
I mentioned the 2 skulks + 1 gorge as a counter, and the following problems exist:
- it puts 3 men out of the game, and this can be considerably lengthened when trying to organize the group to move toward a specific nozzle.
- Without adrenaline the gorge can not keep up. The nozzle takes a very long time to die.
- even one marine can ruin the whole setup. Skulks are essentially sitting ducks around the nozzle.
Killing marines before they actually get a nozzle up is difficult to say the least. You can stall them, (which I mentioned) but they will eventually get some up. Of course it is wise to find the unelec'd nozzles, but this can be tricky if they are deep in marine territory. Electricity is a faster upgrade now anyways.
So does this mean a regen+fade is still the best option? Is anything but DC virtually suicide for a decent marine team? If electricity research time was decreased that might help significantly I think; forcing marines to either gaurd nozzles or leave them unprotected and vulnerable. But as for the here and now I am at a loss.
Whenever regen fades have to waste time on killing more then a couple of electrified nodes, you know that your team has no coherent teamplay. This is why you won't see many electrified nodes in clan play, they'll simply call in a gorg to healspay the skulks that destroy the node, that's 45 res loss vs 15 res for vanilla rt. Even recycling electrified rt will give you the 30res hit, as upgrades aren't counted in recycle payback.
And how are they supposed to make that "pg network" or "turretfarm" if they don't have resourse nodes? This isn't 1.04 where resourse didn't matter all that much, in 2.0+ resourse are your life blood.
Sensory allows cloaking, which makes ambushes easier. It also brings our favourite wallhack, which means finding rines is a lot easier. You need a good team for this though, since it relies on spotters and seekers, as well as someone saving to drop second hive very very quickly (since if the rines switch from slashing to an outright attack, your sensory boys will get swisscheesed).
DC is always the one to choose because any noob can use it, though if you're on a team of noobs then you can expect to lose to a competent slashburn comm.
And fades are certainly the evo of choice in most games, due to their flexibility.
Sensory allows cloaking, which makes ambushes easier. It also brings our favourite wallhack, which means finding rines is a lot easier. You need a good team for this though, since it relies on spotters and seekers, as well as someone saving to drop second hive very very quickly (since if the rines switch from slashing to an outright attack, your sensory boys will get swisscheesed).
DC is always the one to choose because any noob can use it, though if you're on a team of noobs then you can expect to lose to a competent slashburn comm.
And fades are certainly the evo of choice in most games, due to their flexibility. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Celerity does not speed up bite speed. It only raises base ground and air speed.
But one fade can't wipe out 5 Rts in time before the the Rts paid for themselves and also generate enough resources for heavy equipment. (Marines will rebuild Rts as well)
So I guess you'll have to use multiple fades =\
useing 2 gorges and 1 skulk in place of a fade alows you to take down and more importantly put up rts faster. the fade dose what a fade dose best, killing mariens.
the point is, regen heals constantly, to metabolize you have to hid yourself, unless you like to have holes scattered through your body. You can regenerate while moving (and blinking). You don't waste as nearly as much time as metabolize does.
the point is, regen heals constantly, to metabolize you have to hid yourself, unless you like to have holes scattered through your body. You can regenerate while moving (and blinking). You don't waste as nearly as much time as metabolize does. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
By the time two hives are around, marines will have upgrades sufficient to rip a fade apart without much effort. Carapace counters this to an extent. I can last far longer around marines than any regen fade. This is especially true vs heavy duty weapons, when all a fade can do is blink in, hope for a swipe or two, then blink out. In that situation, a regen fade will probably blink away before it can do anything. On top of that, there is a great risk of getting killed while blinking. When I have more armor that aborbs more damage, and lasts longer, I can do more before it's time to blink.
Once I'm far away, sure, it will take a little longer to get all the health and armor back. But once I have it back, I'm better off than a regen fade would be.
Second, I only said that I thought celerity speeded up the biting - to me it certainly *looks* like its faster, but I'm prepared to accept I'm wrong on it.
Third - the fade really is the best way to counter flexible marines, since its equally flexible itself.
Depends on the team size. In small games, where aliens make bank on res, you might as well grab a few RTs near the hive, and wait for fade.
In large games, where aliens get shafted on res, you can probably spare some skulks to actively guard RTs (or choke points; use the map view and common sense). As much as people bag on sensory, a few well-placed SCs can act as a significant defensive force multiplier for the aliens in the early game.
If they don't elec, they will most likely have armor 1 after a minute, and weapons 1 a minute later. Once you get your first fade they will either have wep level 2 or MT, if they're focusing on upgrades, which will mean that they are now probably quite dominant on the map. A 0/0 Marine is far more likely to get killed by a skulk then a 1/1+MT or 1/2 Marine, these upgraded Marines pose a more real threat to fades and will take on lerks better.
Anyway, the way to counter the slash tactic of course depends on your choice of first chamber.
<u><b>Defense</b></u>
This tends to be the easiest way to handle Marines that go elec, since taking down the nodes require no teamwork, just a fade. If they don't elec this becomes less effective, its real strength is that it allows one alien (that happens to be extremely fast and hard to kill) to clear out all nodes before they turn a profit. With D first, getting an early Fade (or two) is more important than an early hive.
If you go with D I suggest getting fewer nodes. Capping the two safest and easiest to defend ones and leaving the rest. Instead of having say 5 gorges cap nodes you can have 2 cap, and the rest build OC/DC setups at the nodes and hive. The Marines will now in order to use their strategy have to go into tactically bad territory, where aliens will have healing and support. Also, due to closeness and the low number of areas to defend, there should be little or no chance of a successful Marine attack. Since Aliens have few and easy to defend nodes, they can concentrate on taking down Marine nodes instead of defending their own. Ib RTS terms I guess you could call this Turtling beating Rushing.
<u><b>Movement</b></u>
This is in my opinion the strongest counter to the non-elec slash strategy. Without electricity, Marines rely on keeping pressure on aliens on the map to keep them off their nodes. Movement gives the biggest combat advantages to skulks, and more specifically allows to attack nodes or ambush building Marines silently, or get around to attack/defend nodes quickly.
If Marines chose to go elec when you have M, you will have to use some basic teamwork to take them down. The minimum required is gorge+skulks, where the gorge has adrenaline. This means it is somewhat weaker against the elec strat since you will basically have to use at least two aliens to do a job that one could do with D chambers, and you're a bit more vulnerable doing it.
With M first you can and should get more res nodes then with D. M won't help defend the nodes statically as D does, but it will make your skulks more effective node defenders. Cap 4-5 nodes and use skulks to defend them. You will need to cap more nodes for another reason too, you really need that second hive as quick as possible. M <b>will</b> give you a very good starting position, but the Marine upgrades will reduce that effectivly, especially with MT. But with more nodes, higher RFK and no need for early Fade, M allows for an extremely quick second hive as well as the ability to defend it by teleporting to it.
<u><b>Sensory</u></b>
This is really the <b>ultimate</b> anti-slash chamber. With a sensory network, or just the upgraded cloaking, it becomes extremely easy to defend areas early in the game (pre-obs). SoF makes it impossible for Marines to move anywhere unnoticed and that combined with a sensory chamber near every node you cap, basically renders the whole slash strategy useless. If you go S first, you want to spend as much res as possible immediatly, on nodes and chambers. At <b>most</b> two persons should be saving (one for hive, one for evolution/backup). You should cap as many nodes as possible and put up as many sensory chambers as you can afford, feel free to spend any remaining res on OC's.
If the Marines don't switch strategy, they're toast. The problem is that unlike Aliens, for Marines it is easy to switch strategy. A competent Com will as soon as he realises you went S (which will be very early), completely change his strategy. The two basic ways to handle sensory is to either build a load of observatories and simply keep attacking, under scanner sweep protection, or to secure areas slowly and strategically. The first option takes a very active Com, but will be devastating if he is competent. Uncloaked skulks are no match for Marines with medspam. The second approach is easier, in its laziest form, the Com will simply chose to relocate to a Hive and the game will be almost won. It is usually impossible to stop Marines taking a hive in this scenario, so your only chances are to either go M second and try a Teleport rush inot the third hive (alternatively GorgeGang+Onos), or go D first and get big evolutions (Fade/Onos) quickly, before the Marines get HA or turtle the Hive too much. Or the Com can just start electrifying every res he takes, while advancing slowly, which will be almost impossible for you to take down/stop.
Without either D or M, it is close to impossible to take the last hive against a competent and upgraded Marine team. Bigger evolutions will either be too vulnerable (no D) or to ineffective (no M). If you know, or have a good reason to suspect, that the Com will try a slash strategy, feel free to go S, but be prepared to lose painfully if he pulls off a successful strategy switch. With S you will have to make sure you drive your advantage home as fast and hard as you can. With a bit of luck you will catch the Com off guard and get a fun and easy win.
This turned out to be a pretty long post, off to bed now.
I've been on both sides of the "non-elec rush to HA" strategy, and it's quite effective. And frustrating for the aliens.
Without electricity, it's very easy for the aliens to eventually regain control of the map. However, by then, a competent commander has enough res to fuel a killer HA train. And the aliens have no res to mount a defense, because they've been building infrastructure (hives, RTs, chambers).
Hopefully 1 or 2 people will get a glut of res, combined with the man hoarding for hive, which means you can very quickly drop hive 2 and its associated DC/MC.
If however you go sensory, then sort of wander about picking off lone rines, you can expect a concerted retaliation from the marines which will cut through your defence like a knife through butter, especially if they have shotties.
If you go sensory, hit the enemy as quickly as possible and rack up as much res as you can in the short time you have before the comm switches strats.