Replaceing Focus with Existing movement mechanichs

Benson

<div class="IPBDescription">More creative twist on increasing alien damage</div>For a long time now the community has been yelling for a way for aliens to scale with the A3/W3 marinesm and for many people the simple answer has been "bring back focus". (Focus = Double the damage on every attack at the cost of 1/2 attack speed)

Personally, I find focus to be a bland upgrade as it changes nothing about the alien lifeform except giving them the ability to 1-shot a damaged marine, and limits the other options as this would be the ONLY upgrade taken from whatever tree it is in during late game scenarios.

While it could be argued that focus DOES change the playstyle as it slows down attack speed, however, since it is ALWAYS more efficient to time the attacks and not spam them, this really doesn't do anything, as most players will attack slower then they are able to anyway.

What I suggest is using the movement mechanics already in game as a way to deal bonus damage.

[Skulk]:

When using leap, landing a bite mid-air will deal 130% damage (100 normal damage total)
- Allows skulks to 1 shot unarmored marines at the cost of a large portion of their energy pool
- Makes skulks more vulnerable due to the predictable movement of leap (once started)
- "Scales" damage with alien upgrades as this would not be available without a second hive


[Gorge/Lerk]: Do not need any increased damage for their purpose, but could be implemented for lerk bite via speed while gliding.


[Fade]:

When using Shadowstep, Swiping during the animation or close to the end deals 150% damage (120 piercing damage i think)
- Allows fade to deal significant damage and 1 shot marines with low armor
- Energy cost on shadowstep, as well as cooldown would prevent it from being sapmmed and encourage use of shadowstep
- Vulnerable due to predictable movement of shadowstep
- Makes fades more viable on 1 hive since shadowstep is always available

When using Blink, Swiping right after blinking deals 120% damage (100 piercing damage i think)
- Allows fade to 1 shot unarmored marines
- Allows more effective hit and run tactics against late game (A3/W3) marines
- Deals less damage than shadowstep due to the added mobility
- Allows fades to better fill their role as assassins
- Allows fades to help in base pushes since they would no longer need to stay and attack for a few seconds to kill
- Would need to add some kind of soft cooldown on the damage so fades cant continually blink/attack every second


[Onos]:

Already has this ability as goring a marine while charging seems to do extra damage


I dont feel that this would be too unbalances as by the time leap or fades come out, marines genrally have at least a1 or a2 and this would avoid any early game leap-2-shot domination (skulks would be able to 2shot a0 marines).

For those of you who are going to respond "Nah, just bring back focus." Please give a bit more info on why you think focus would be better than the above suggestion.

l3lessed

I had already mentioned this idea, but as one of three damage ability evolutions you could research at a whip. It would be a fourth, completely hive independent, evolution slot for aliens based solely on damage centered abilities. So I'm for this, but I still would prefer to see it added through a whip damage ability path.

Benson

I don't see a need to research the ability to deal more damage from abilities that already had to be researched, it seems kind of redundant.

l3lessed

I guess I should of clarified a little further. My idea would turn any forward movement, even running, into damage bonus. Leap, blink, and shadow step would just deal greater damage because of the even higher forward movement of those abilities.

Not sure if that changes your opinion at all.

Benson

Increasing damage for ALL forward movement seems a bit too dramatic....it would make celerity basically a damage buff that just got bigger when using things like walljump + leap and shadowtep + blink. It would also make the damage numbers kind of inconistant.

On the other hand, it makes a lot more sense to have a faster moving object deal more damage under any circumstances. It could work, but would be very complicated to balance or communicate properly to players.

By only using movement abilities, its clear that the act of using the ability (and the cost to balance it out) are giving the damage increase.

Off topic:
Any chance i could get a link to your thread?