Whips throw/return incoming grenades
Techercizer
7th Player Join Date: 2011-06-11 Member: 103832Members
7th Player Join Date: 2011-06-11 Member: 103832Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Discuss, comment, develop, critique.</div>Moving this out of the NS2 discussion thread: What would you think if Whips became more of a support building like Crags? The ability to return grenades (as a negative vector to their approach, though probably with less magnitude) would provide a useful GL counter and potentially make the whip worth building. The function could have an attack-animation based cooldown that would allow each Whip to effectively handle one marine's grenades, but be overwhelmed by that marine + 1.
Hopefully this will also give Kharaa the ability to entrench themselves in an area to the point that T2+ technology (like the ARC) is an essential tool for removing them, just as Marines can set up enough sentries and phase gates to lock down an area quite effectively at the moment, pending the development of the ONOS. Note that for a whip to effectively defend its supporting Hydras, it will need to be placed fairly close to them, leaving it and it surrounding vegetation unusually vulnerable to AoE ARC blasts (or just a rush of more GL marines that the whips can handle, if you want to brute-force it instead of counter it).
<i>Credit goes to elodea for the idea</i>
Hopefully this will also give Kharaa the ability to entrench themselves in an area to the point that T2+ technology (like the ARC) is an essential tool for removing them, just as Marines can set up enough sentries and phase gates to lock down an area quite effectively at the moment, pending the development of the ONOS. Note that for a whip to effectively defend its supporting Hydras, it will need to be placed fairly close to them, leaving it and it surrounding vegetation unusually vulnerable to AoE ARC blasts (or just a rush of more GL marines that the whips can handle, if you want to brute-force it instead of counter it).
<i>Credit goes to elodea for the idea</i>
Comments
Yes I like the idea, but 1 whip = 1 GL seems to me a little OP, especially as their will be crags around to heal everything. It would mean that 1 Marine could literally not kill anything in that 'base'
Cooldown of 5sec?
Yes I like the idea, but 1 whip = 1 GL seems to me a little OP, especially as their will be crags around to heal everything. It would mean that 1 Marine could literally not kill anything in that 'base'
Cooldown of 5sec?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Doesn't 1 turret in a hallways mean that 1 Skulk without leap can literally not kill anything? It's a counter; there's nothing stopping the Marine from just using a flamethrower or shotgun, from getting another Marine buddy and blowing the Whip to pieces, from bringing in an ARC, or from just edging around and shooting out the front-most Hydra with bullets then running back to resupply.
A 5+ Hydra farm with multiple Whip and Craig support WILL be extremely difficult for 1 Marine to take down, just like a base full of Sentries covering Sentries WILL be difficult for 1 Kharaa; it represents a significant Alien presence with a large time and resource investment tied to the area. In that case, the Marines can either brute-force it (like a Kharaa Fade Rush), cut the infestation to the base (like a Power Node attack), or bring in an ARC and blow the crap out of it (like an ONOS).
A 5+ Hydra farm with a Whip and Craig support WILL be extremely difficult for 1 Marine to take down, just like a base full of Sentries covering Sentries WILL be difficult for 1 Kharaa. In that case, the Marines can either brute-force it, cut the infestation to the base, or bring in an ARC and blow the crap out of it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) 1 sentry is useless (if you are not braindead)
2) flamethrowers do the least structure dmg, and shotgun will likly get you in melee range of the whips. (and dont forget there is still an alien team around too)
3) ARC in its current form is not usefull
4) you dont have the res to build so much useless whips. (and if, only very late game, and you'd win anyway)
If GLs are that much of a problem for your team, you made some big errors(marines with 3+ rts the whole time) in early game. (you wont have the res for whips anyways)
PS: The whip spam not only would prevent GL also AXE, and SHOTGUN.
2) flamethrowers do the least structure dmg
3) ARC in its current form is not usefull
4) you dont have the res to build so much useless whips. (and if only very late game, and you ll win anyway)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) "useless" is a hyperbole; it most certainly has "a use". I've died quite a few times to a sentry I didn't notice quickly enough.
2) So? I'm not saying a flamethrower will insta-burn the entire thing. It's just a possible tactic that doesn't involve grenades.
3) ARCs in their current form do in fact have "a use". You might not like them, but I've seen entire maps of alien presence obliterated by a well-defended ARC train.
4) So you're saying that the fact that Whips are expensive is a reason not to give them a new (and arguably more useful than current) ability? Wouldn't the expense of Whips help balance out their ability to hinder a relatively expensive marine weapon?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If GLs are that much of a problem for your team, you made some big errors(marines with 3+ rts the whole time) in early game. (you wont have the res for whips anyways)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All it takes is enough Pres for 1 grenade launcher. Just one launcher, that marine can roll through defenses like they're going out of style. Have the whole team save up enough for 1 (just one!) launcher, and you can't even fade them effectively without getting caught in the massive splash clusterbomb. Every time a marine dies, he can just pick up his weapon as long as he wasn't making some sort of deep strike into kharaa territory. Meanwhile, the closest AoE counterparts the Kharaa have are the spore cloud (which has taken a bit of a nerf recently, though I'm not complaining) and the bile bomb, neither of which can handle crowds or structures anywhere as well as massed grenade spam. Short of an ONOS, there's nothing to effectively counter grenades. That's what this idea addresses.
I don't think it's possible to have a grenade <i>not</i> explode.
Although, it could just whip out and make grenades explode prematurely? They'd still deal damage, but the whip and anything near it would take significantly less.
Although, it could just whip out and make grenades explode prematurely? They'd still deal damage, but the whip and anything near it would take significantly less.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You could flavor/lore it that the spongy substance that composes whips has developed/evolved/conveniently been perfect/etc to cushion the grenade as it catches it, and that the return attack animation allows it to slow down the grenade, loop it around, and speed it back up without exerting enough immediate force for the grenade to register that it's been hit.
Basically, it would mean the Whip has, however the Kharaa develop their biotech, been developed to counter marine grenades. Which, in a way, it has.
Either way, it would be nice to have the whip less of just an upgrade structure so you have more creative building possibilities. So far it really is kind of useless mid game onwards.
Whips are the sort of fast, flexible thing I'd expect to be able to interact with a grenade in mid-flight; they're under-utilized as I see them, and grenades seem over utilized. Any Whip-based idea that limits grenades to some degree is going in the right direction in my opinion.
edit: wrong section
edit: wrong section<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just have them use the default attack animation, a quick strike lashing out at the target, to reflect or detonate it.
Also, this is the right section. This isn't a complete idea I'm submitting, it's an open concept that I think people will want to expand and develop off of. If this thread comes to a reasonable consensus as to what the best approach(es) would be, and there seems to be decent support for the idea, then I'd advocate making a formal suggestion thread.
The sticky makes me sort of cautious about throwing random concepts out there for people to develop, and I haven't had much experience around that section of the forums. 3.3
<!--coloro:#696969--><span style="color:#696969"><!--/coloro-->paranoia ftw<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Perhaps it's built specifically tough around the catching area to either greatly reduce any damage and localize it (only damaging said whip), or even completely nullifying any damage done.
It sounds more convincing to me anyways.
Edit: a Quote from a portion of some lore describing the way the grenades work a bit:
"They can detect the heat and bacterial signature of a Kharaa lifeform (including chambers and hives), and will explode instead of bouncing off."
And a Link to the page of the old "Primer" I ran into which I've quoted (fun read):
<a href="http://3-pg.com/urd/manual/weapons_grenadelauncher.html" target="_blank">http://3-pg.com/urd/manual/weapons_grenadelauncher.html</a>
Perhaps it's built specifically tough around the catching area to either greatly reduce any damage and localize it (only damaging said whip), or even completely nullifying any damage done.
It sounds more convincing to me anyways.
Edit: a Quote from a portion of some lore describing the way the grenades work a bit:
"They can detect the heat and bacterial signature of a Kharaa lifeform (including chambers and hives), and will explode instead of bouncing off."
And a Link to the page of the old "Primer" I ran into which I've quoted (fun read):
<a href="http://3-pg.com/urd/manual/weapons_grenadelauncher.html" target="_blank">http://3-pg.com/urd/manual/weapons_grenadelauncher.html</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The gooey muscular surface of the Whip could be surrounded by a dense insulating shell of flexible material. The material needn't be alien in origin; it could just as easily be solidified glucose or a collection of dust/particles in the local atmosphere. That would make it tough enough to hurt marines, and would also conveniently be devoid of heat or bacterial signatures, since all the Kharaa biotech would be safely contained inside the whip's core.
Alternatively, just do what other posters have suggested and have them detonate grenades the second they enter the Whip's attack radius.