Death of the GL rush
.ADHd
Join Date: 2012-02-18 Member: 146565Members
Join Date: 2012-02-18 Member: 146565Members
Yep... just letting everybody know that if you ever try this tactic against a knowledgeable good alien commander you will be pretty regretful. Just put 1 or 2 drifters on either room next to the hive. It will spot your GL rush and prepare an ambush.
Kinda sucks to be honest because GL rushing was an awesome tactic before. I mean it will still work if the alien commander doesn't buy drifters (or fails to pay attention to them)... which is actually pretty status quo at the moment.
Kinda sucks to be honest because GL rushing was an awesome tactic before. I mean it will still work if the alien commander doesn't buy drifters (or fails to pay attention to them)... which is actually pretty status quo at the moment.
Comments
That is a viable counter... but one that I already have planned for. It's usually pretty obvious which side the marines will GL rush from. Let's say rines are in data and aliens are in sub. You put a drifter in maintenence.... one in vent... and one in pipe junction. I like to have a drifter in every room by the time end game rolls around. It's amazing for sending out enzymes to your teammates and you have total map sight.
But like I was saying those 3 redundant drifters will assure that you catch the gl push somewhere along the line. Less the push through crossroads door and scan maintenece. I usually will scan the room before the hive and the hive itself. The problem is no energy for beacon in most cases since I like to scan when I know there are skulks around.
So the GL push is going to be a huge investment of PRES, energy and manpower if it fails. Which it surely will against an aware alien team. It's a shame really.
They should beef the energy that the OBS can hold. It seems extremely low... considering they are essential for arcs. 1 obs will never be enough to use for an arc push if you are a good comm who uses scan. I almost mandatorily drop a 2nd obs by midgame. Is this redundancy really necessary when the energy of the obs can simply be increased?
With all this nonsense of drifters spotting things and being cloaked the obs needs a buff. Think long and hard about it.
Works good if you have team organisation :p
But I admit, it's harder than it was before, which is good because before as soon as you saw a bunch of marines with GLs you knew it was over.
If they are a little slow the marines will still easily get the drop on them. Clearing a GL rush thats in a hive is harder than holding them off in a room adjacent to your hive.
Whee has suggested a good counter to the counter you have pit forward but still reckon that GL rush (even if not succesful) will do some serious damage in the process. If you have a phase gate you can minimise the Pres loss/cost for a prolonged push.
I hope lots of people do read this however as it might encourage them to build drifters and bring them more into the game than they seem to be used in pubs currently.
I think the obs is fine currently given the change to hive sight (ie only from drifters), having a second obs was always a good idea...means you have a back up should the aliens take down your primary.
Same way aliens are smart to built multiple chambers for their upgrades.
The issue for me is that it actually makes the drifters useful now, which is good to see. All you need to do as comm is scan an area, and it will reveal them prior to a rush. Usually a lot of your drifters have been taken down by the time you have teched up to GLs anyway.
They use a reasonable amount of energy, and if you do spawn 3 at the beginning of a round you sacrifice expansion.
You either get 2 extractors really quickly, or get 1.
I think the issue is more how standard GL pushes have become, so it is always somewhat expected (along with jp rushes now since they are quite useful and a touch too cheap).
When the marine commander scans it shows up on the minimap and on the alien commanders screen. So, if they are scanning outside my hive it's also safe to assume they are about to push.
Drifters are more powerful than the hivesight on infestation was. It adds a whole new dimension with the cloakable units. At least you could kill the cysts before... haha or avoid walking on areas with infestation.
Drifter usage is going to explode soon, I think there needs to be a little better way to counter them and how useful they are. I don't want the drifters nerfed but perhaps let the obs start with the same energy but allow the maximum energy stored to be higher. So, this promotes the idea that if a commander saves his energy he will be able to scan more to find the alien commanders drifters by midgame when there will be tons of them (Which is profoundly important to anyone playing to win).
And it also goes along with the idea that by midgame you will start seeing drifter usage go way up with the energy received from the 2nd hive. Right now having to buy 2 obs is mandatory in any game progressing past 10-15 mins. Sometimes sooner if you have arc play in mid game.
The aliens got a buff to energy (Or rather just start out with a lot to begin with). I think the marines need a little buff now to counter the amount of energy available for drifters. If you give the obs a little more energy then spamming drifters will be much less viable for the alien commander. Please read and consider this UWE.
I would undoubtedly still drop the 2 obs in midgame because it could be balanced well enough so that the marines DO have to spend a little more of their tres for more map vision. But the aliens do get their map vision for free on the other hand... well since energy is a replenished resource over time.
I know it may raise the issue of people having too much energy to constantly beacon back their team but there has to be a smart way to balance it out. Perhaps beacons cost a different type of energy on the observatory? Just an idea... I'm sure someone in UWE can come up with a much better one.
Why do people think this is a good change?
Because as the current GL is there is very little downside to it and was directly against a stated design principle?
Because it is?
-potential of a "better" GL
-encourage use of teamwork, "squad-ing" if you will. A couple marines defending the (devastating) GL-carrier
-creates a strategical choice, GL <b>or</b> 'anotherweapon', instead of GL+LMG being purely an upgrade and superior in every way to just an LMG. More strategical choices are better :)
If I have two drifters in the rooms next to the hive room and I see a rush, that means I have approximately between 8 - 10 seconds to build 4 whips, get everyone back to base and prepare an ambush.
Early game it is easy to place drifters, but it gets more difficult as you go on. Especially if marines keep pushing.
I like drifters, you could drop the FOV perhaps if it is really causing issues. But at the moment, the unit is outweighed by its weakness and balanced by the fact it cloaks.
If you pop out 3 early game (I tend to do this on summit, and then send them to several choke/tech points) it means you can only really get 1 extractor in the first few minutes. Rather than 2 pretty instantly otherwise.
No more grenade spam.
Why did people think making the GL an attachment was a good idea in the first place?
With all this nonsense of drifters spotting things and being cloaked the obs needs a buff. Think long and hard about it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Can't another OBS be built?
Or a tech point?
Also, I don't see the change from attachment to standalone GL having much of an effect, because most GL rushes killed aliens via walls of nade explosions rather than rifle bullets.
If I have two drifters in the rooms next to the hive room and I see a rush, that means I have approximately between 8 - 10 seconds to build 4 whips, get everyone back to base and prepare an ambush.
Early game it is easy to place drifters, but it gets more difficult as you go on. Especially if marines keep pushing.
I like drifters, you could drop the FOV perhaps if it is really causing issues. But at the moment, the unit is outweighed by its weakness and balanced by the fact it cloaks.
If you pop out 3 early game (I tend to do this on summit, and then send them to several choke/tech points) it means you can only really get 1 extractor in the first few minutes. Rather than 2 pretty instantly otherwise.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Eh, not really. Drifters don't cost tres so dropping more RT's has nothing to do with anything concerning drifters (Unless you waste all your energy on misting right away... not recommended). Just don't spend your mist on your hive right off the bat and save it for augmentation or your carapace shell or just save it for maturing your first hive after you get your initial map control. You'll have more energy in the bank for early game drifters (If you are intelligent and place them well).
Misting stuff only slightly speeds up evolve times / research compared to before... I'd say mist is so weak now that it's pretty much useless other than making peoples fades and onos spawn faster.
GL pushes will still work guys... it just won't against a really good coordinated team. I mean even then it CAN work if the marine team gets some amazing frags on the way and then pressure the hive before whips are up. GL push will happen anywhere from 1:30 to 5:00 into the game. Any time after that and the map will be nice and lamed up.
You used to see lots of GL pushes back when hivesight was still in. It worked great in scrims and gathers... now I have yet to see a GL push after so many have tried and failed in this build. I have done gl pushes to atrium and they have worked great it's all about finding the way to the hive that the alien comm forgot to drifter up / whips.
One of my favorite things to do in pubs is go for advanced armory and gl's straight away. Then tell all my team to regroup on death buy gl's and walk a ninja way to their hive. Worked much better with hivesight on infestation because they won't be able to see the middle of the map straight away like they can now with drifters. You used to have to wait for your map sight now you can spy on marine spawn 20 seconds or less into the game. If you think about it GL pushes are really going to be a dead tactic and the GL is going to have a different role now which I hope makes the GL better than it was before. Even 1 whip could negate an entire gl push if the aliens ambushed at the same time.
EDIT: I noticed the GL is now a standalone attachment so let's see how all of this balance has been changed in the new build. Perhaps this old strat will be viable again.