Incorrect, Marines need 3 tech positions to win. Note, not to compete but to win. If Aliens have 3 hives, the marines are LOSING if they don't also control more res to win.
Also, stomp and Umbra are vital? What game are you playing @_@. That's like saying Exos are vital to victory.
Just so that we're on the same page, when did you start playing NS2? Was it before Gorgeous or afterwards? Skulk nerf aside (which also has a bug that gives ground accelleration decrease and should be hotfixed soon odds are) marines were actually worse off pre-patch in every situation you mentioned. That "ball up and hit a hive" idea worked until the marines realized they lost their main base (with IPs, advanced armory, all their upgrades) because the power was focused down. It is a lot harder for marines to recover from a main base death than it is for aliens to lose 1/3 hives. Most of alien's most important abilities are tied to 2nd hive. Xeno, Stomp, Umbra, those are ALL luxuries. You can win without them and are expected to win without them (as in win a game, not bust down a turtle). As a bad example, they're like turrets. Your comm can build a farm in every base when things are going good, but don't expect that till very late game.
Stomp is fairly vital to knock down the welders and give you a chance to kill exo's. The umbra covers the onos running in to use stomp. I rarely see aliens win games on 2 hives unless the marines are bad. If the aliens have 2 hives and the marines have 2 tech points. Its just a matter of time, as I've been saying, until the aliens lose.
I used to play a LOT of NS1, 10 some years ago now. I liked it, thats why I'm here now.
I started with NS2 just before this last update. So I'm less keen to the adjustment to the skulk, but I've found my ability to kill them as a marine has more than doubled since the patch. Before I was struggling to hit them. Now I can take on multiple 1v1 encounters in a row and barely take a hit sometimes...I didn't suddenly remember how to shoot overnight. I'm old and slow now. The game changed.
No, losing a chair is not anywhere close to losing a hive. How long does it take to build a new hive? How long does it take to replace EVERY lost structure and therefore marine upgrade? Hint: Marines can get the power back, the chair up, and every lost building back in under 2 minutes. The hive is at like 30% by then, IF it was dropped at the exact same time, which won't happen. Also, beacon. Aliens have no beacon. Marines can beacon home if it looks like they'll lose to a sneak attack.
Remember I said marines have 2 chairs, well they will have new IPs as well. Unless the aliens hit and kill BOTH in the time it takes your team to sneak attack the alien hive in exo suits...your situation is incorrect. This isn't even taking into account that if that hive the marines killed was the CRAG hive, you're in a whole new sorta mess.
Power nodes aren't weak, they take a long time to take down. Compare that to 1 or 2 marines running around behind your lines killing random cysts, completely preventing you from expanding at all. I don't get the piss and moan about power nodes at all. The ONLY time I see marines loss is when power nodes go down in bases. They those nodes didn't exist, marines would almost certainly never lose a round.
Also, no, marines don't NEED 3 points to win. But it certainly does accelerate the process. Even if Aliens manage to get 3 living hives, the marines still have a very easy path to victory on just 2 chairs.
1st paragraph: I guess we just have different Anecdotal evidence then. More often than not, if it's 2 hives vs 2 CCs it's even in the games I play (assuming it's not Marines have locked down but not built a base in the 3rd point). If aliens go 3 hives (as in the 3rd hive gets up) it's game except for rare circumstances for me.
2nd Para: Yeah, SkulkvsMarine is in a slanted state. Hopefully they'll hotfix the bug soon.
3rd and 4th para: Well, you have to remember all situations are circumstancial. However, if it becomes 2 hives to 1 CC, marines lose. The loss of the marine's base is considerably more painful than losing a hive in every game I've played. If the power goes down, the base goes down if the marine team doesn't have a substantial force there. AA, 2 IPs, CC, Upgrades, Proto(maybe, it's rarer nowadays), all down. As it stands, the alien strategies pre-patch are still in effect and still work (if you're on equivalent skill levels) Exos still die when the comm beacons to save the base, Marines still lose when one of their base's power is knocked out and they weren't beaconed back, etc. Late game NS2 is still the same. It's the early game Skulk-Marine dynamic which has been knocked around that's causing so many problems.
As for the power node... Flamewars and battles have been fought about it. The fact they had to nerf Bile specifically because the Powernode (8 seconds with 2 gorges pre-patch) was dying faster than a zergling in attacks should tell you something. Maybe things have changed, but it's still known as the I-WIN button for a reason, and that's not because it's a fortress of constitution and armor.
Let me put it this way, why weren't you talking about this before the patch when powernodes were gorge/onos candy and marines had to have military communication, accuracy, dodging, and map awareness to win and the competitive win ratio was 65 aliens/35 marines?. (accuracy and dodging is the one thing we need less now due to skulk hitreg fix/accell bug)
Well, if the marines are fully teched, they can still win 1 CC vs 2 hives, assuming they have at least 3 nodes intact. 6 players with w3 shotguns can work magic sometimes, 2+1 comm left to defend. The only time the marines are completely out of the game is when they are completely surrounded.
I wasn't talking then because I hadn't been playing NS2 long enough to get a feel for how matches played out yet, I was spending the majority of my playtime learning the maps and getting my sense of direction so I didn't have to always look at the map, this took a few days to get all the maps in my brain RAM . I did notice Aliens winning most games, but NS1 was this way as well when it came to pubs. In competitive play, Marines won 70% of the time, Aliens won 70% on the pub servers...I assumed since so much of NS2 is the same as NS1 in terms of a lot of the mechanics, that this disparity would also likely be the same. (Health, armor, damage and kill speeds...all lifted)
Now however, marines win basically every game that goes "the distance" (2 living hives and beyond). A lot of that is the marine/skulk play for sure. Some of the rest of it is directly related to other nerfs and buffs.
BTW - Marines have won 55% of all games this weekend on NS2stats supported servers. For everyone pointing to NS2stats when I first jumped on here 2 days ago to mention that marines were winning all the time as evidence against that idea...I'm right and you're wrong. Suck it
55% is 'all the time' ? errrrrrr yeah dude.... you're right.... must be one of those mathematical savants.
i don't know about others, but i'd like to see some of your gameplay. you've told a lot of stories which don't accurately portray any pub match i've played nor comp game i've watched.
therefore i want to see what you experience. record some demo's.
Sorry. I'm talking every game that I consider a "real game", that is, aliens get at least 2nd hive and about 4-5 nodes and marines have phased a tech point and are upgrading.
If a game doesn't reach that point, its meaningless statistically, at least to me. I don't count a 9 man skulk rush to control as carrying much weight in the W/L ratio, likewise with marine hive rushes that work, but those are much less frequent.
In my gameplay experience (which I lack the HD space to record video off, sorry, no Mac OSX support for this game, small bootcamp partition), the marines win about 80-90% of the time the game is "real".
If the marines hold 2 points and the aliens hold 2 points, its nearly impossible for the aliens to win. The fact that statistically, the marines are now winning 55% of all matches is VERY telling and which includes games that end in 30 seconds due to concede and such. If the "difficult team to command" is winning the majority of games on public servers, there is a major balance problem. Why? Marines gain about 200% more combat effectiveness with 0 res marines by 100% tech. Skulks gain 20 armor (22% more combat effectiveness) and leap. Those two things do not balance.
Pubs should be majority alien wins and majority marine wins in the competitive environment. This adjusting balance based on marine player skill is bullocks.
As far as I know. I jumped on about 5 different servers yesterday. Unless the marine team was excessively bad, they won about 80% of the time. I only recall one alien win yesterday that involved the marines with 2 secure points, and I'm pretty sure they weren't very good, I know the alien team that round was very very good...and we finally pulled out a victory after 45 minutes and killing both their power nodes about 5 times in each base before they finally lost a point (and therefore their exos) and quickly conceded after that. That was the only alien win yesterday involving a "real game" for me.
Maybe you should find better marines to play against?
I don't know, are you? I have to say the scoreboard went from aliens usually having the K:D advantage by a little bit, to the majority of games the marines are just out of hand. I've tried to comm maybe 5 or so games on aliens, much more so on marines lately, but all of them were games where we were struggling holding a 2nd hive. That hardly ever happened prior to the patch, it's not just some anomaly because one side has all the rookies yada yada, it's straight up much easier to dominate skulks as LMG marines and control the map before the game gets anywhere.
As far as I know. I jumped on about 5 different servers yesterday. Unless the marine team was excessively bad, they won about 80% of the time. I only recall one alien win yesterday that involved the marines with 2 secure points, and I'm pretty sure they weren't very good, I know the alien team that round was very very good...and we finally pulled out a victory after 45 minutes and killing both their power nodes about 5 times in each base before they finally lost a point (and therefore their exos) and quickly conceded after that. That was the only alien win yesterday involving a "real game" for me.
Maybe you should find better marines to play against?
i will agree that with evenly skilled teams it's marines game to lose. but an 80% landslide is NOT what i experience in pub servers, and i'm talking about good (for pub) marine teams.
i'm experiencing more like a 50% win rate since the update, and they were all enjoyable and good matches (if the teams are imbalanced and noone will concede i usually just disconnect and find another server, therefore i'm not tainted with bogus 'skill imbalance' results).
i've found that there's a good window for aliens to strike between the marine's taking their second tech point and jetpacks. if you can't capitalize with lerk/fade/bilebomb before jetpacks, it becomes insanely hard - probable that this is fallout from the change moving tres onos to 3 hives.
being someone who plays both marine and alien equally; the game has become far more balanced and FUN since the update.
Metal ManJoin Date: 2011-11-13Member: 132717Members
I mentioned this a couple posts back but nobody commented on it (maybe it was a trash idea) so here is one little bump.
What about bring Focus (increase damage but slower attack rate) or some variation of it into NS2? It would give more hive starting options for aliens and will really help skulks combat scaling later in the game. If a skulk somehow manages to avoid the late game insta-kill and gets into biting range it will actually do some damage. A mid-late swarm of skulks could be very effective against a careless or unsuspecting group of marines. It would also help out the Fade's woes.
In my personal opinion this game absolutely NEEEEEEEEEDs better skulk combat and that is the reason for the declining fun factor. The marines honestly feel pretty good for me where they are now, but the skulks feel like these floaty, bulky and weak ankle biters. I feel like a fucking babbler really. And these sentiments are extremely escalated at mid to late game. Give the skulks their fight back!
I mentioned this a couple posts back but nobody commented on it (maybe it was a trash idea) so here is one little bump.
What about bring Focus (increase damage but slower attack rate) or some variation of it into NS2? It would give more hive starting options for aliens and will really help skulks combat scaling later in the game. If a skulk somehow manages to avoid the late game insta-kill and gets into biting range it will actually do some damage. A mid-late swarm of skulks could be very effective against a careless or unsuspecting group of marines. It would also help out the Fade's woes.
In my personal opinion this game absolutely NEEEEEEEEEDs better skulk combat and that is the reason for the declining fun factor. The marines honestly feel pretty good for me where they are now, but the skulks feel like these floaty, bulky and weak ankle biters. I feel like a fucking babbler really. And these sentiments are extremely escalated at mid to late game. Give the skulks their fight back!
I think aliens need a damage upgrade somewhere on their tree.
Maybe a 3rd hive upgrade that increases skulk and lerk bite damage? How about "Corrosive Saliva" as the name? Maybe replace the incredibly bad xenocide ability?
Alien upgrades are in such a bad place right now that ANY bone would be most welcome.
I think aliens need a damage upgrade somewhere on their tree.
Maybe a 3rd hive upgrade that increases skulk and lerk bite damage? How about "Corrosive Saliva" as the name? Maybe replace the incredibly bad xenocide ability?
Alien upgrades are in such a bad place right now that ANY bone would be most welcome.
xenocide isn't bad... i just think it comes too late because 3 hive alien is usually dominating, therefore it's just silly to kamikaze - not to mention you should be a higher lifeform.
i think i'd be okay with moving leap to 1 hive and have a weaker xenocide on 2 hive (imo leap is ESSENTIAL and full blown xeno would be way too OP for defending a marine push).
I think aliens need a damage upgrade somewhere on their tree.
Maybe a 3rd hive upgrade that increases skulk and lerk bite damage? How about "Corrosive Saliva" as the name? Maybe replace the incredibly bad xenocide ability?
Alien upgrades are in such a bad place right now that ANY bone would be most welcome.
xenocide isn't bad... i just think it comes too late because 3 hive alien is usually dominating, therefore it's just silly to kamikaze - not to mention you should be a higher lifeform.
i think i'd be okay with moving leap to 1 hive and have a weaker xenocide on 2 hive (imo leap is ESSENTIAL and full blown xeno would be way too OP for defending a marine push).
Except that its an ability that doesn't get a single kill by the time its there. Not unless you have multiple skulks all xeno together...otherwise, the damage is laughed off by A3 marines with welders.
I think xenocide just needs to go completely in favor of more bite damage. More bite damage is actually useful, xenocide is not.
that's great, but you didn't say that before... we could all have fun fabricating our own anecdotes to support our argument.
btw i never feel 'one-shotted' as a lerk, because if i have <80% hp i just don't mess around with shotgun/railgun. on the other hand you seem to be one of those guys who takes a big hit and stays in, because if you die it will provide you with more ammunition and determination to whine about non-balance issues which are actually non-skill issues..
So we're moving on to personal attacks, are we?
Just because I have a differing opinion to you doesn't mean that I'm an idiot or bad at the game.
And I suppose you've never been flying around as a Lerk and died instantly to a pistol magically emptied instantly. Or you've never had a frantic moment where you're escaping and run into two more people with shotguns. Or clearly, you've never had a random grenade land at your feet. Obviously you've never had some AR shots land on you, feel confident, then have a railgun exo turn the corner and make Lerk stew out of you.
Clearly, you are perfect and you never die in NS2, ever.
That was all sarcasm, by the way.
As for the recent topic of Xeno, it's a very terrible ability in NS2. No res while you're dead, long respawn, and it doesn't even do enough damage to put the hurt on the marines at the end of the game (when it shows up) unless you're dominating them so hard that they don't even have an arms lab.
As far as Xeno goes, I will say what I've always said about it. Drop its range, increase its damage to 280 normal. Then it will be useful. Very useful.
Just because I have a differing opinion to you doesn't mean that I'm an idiot or bad at the game.
And I suppose you've never been flying around as a Lerk and died instantly to a pistol magically emptied instantly. Or you've never had a frantic moment where you're escaping and run into two more people with shotguns. Or clearly, you've never had a random grenade land at your feet. Obviously you've never had some AR shots land on you, feel confident, then have a railgun exo turn the corner and make Lerk stew out of you.
Clearly, you are perfect and you never die in NS2, ever.
That was all sarcasm, by the way.
As for the recent topic of Xeno, it's a very terrible ability in NS2. No res while you're dead, long respawn, and it doesn't even do enough damage to put the hurt on the marines at the end of the game (when it shows up) unless you're dominating them so hard that they don't even have an arms lab.
As far as Xeno goes, I will say what I've always said about it. Drop its range, increase its damage to 280 normal. Then it will be useful. Very useful.
i didn't suggest you were bad at the game per se. i merely implied that you seemed to be lacking the required skill to distinguish an instant kill from a non-instant kill. you said as much, so i was able to deduce that you either lied or misread the in-game situation.
as for xenocide, if aliens are on 3 hives - why would you want to kill yourself to instagib a marine? like i said, xenocide is 'bad' because it's only accessible when alien are in an almost unstoppable position of 3 hives. if it was usable in the more contestable scenario of 2 hives, it would be AMAZING (absurdly broken) - marine group in your hive - you can blow up and take the whole bunch down to 10-20% hp.
i didn't suggest you were bad at the game per se. i merely implied that you seemed to be lacking the required skill to distinguish an instant kill from a non-instant kill. you said as much, so i was able to deduce that you either lied or misread the in-game situation.
as for xenocide, if aliens are on 3 hives - why would you want to kill yourself to instagib a marine? like i said, xenocide is 'bad' because it's only accessible when alien are in an almost unstoppable position of 3 hives. if it was usable in the more contestable scenario of 2 hives, it would be AMAZING (absurdly broken) - marine group in your hive - you can blow up and take the whole bunch down to 10-20% hp.
Each of the attacks I mentioned has the potential to kill a Lerk in one hit. Sure, not all of them from full health, but the potential is there to feel cheated because you had no way to counter the situation.
And Xenocide would be worthwhile if it could kill marines in one go because it could break a turtle (which is what is needed for Aliens right now).
i didn't suggest you were bad at the game per se. i merely implied that you seemed to be lacking the required skill to distinguish an instant kill from a non-instant kill. you said as much, so i was able to deduce that you either lied or misread the in-game situation.
as for xenocide, if aliens are on 3 hives - why would you want to kill yourself to instagib a marine? like i said, xenocide is 'bad' because it's only accessible when alien are in an almost unstoppable position of 3 hives. if it was usable in the more contestable scenario of 2 hives, it would be AMAZING (absurdly broken) - marine group in your hive - you can blow up and take the whole bunch down to 10-20% hp.
Each of the attacks I mentioned has the potential to kill a Lerk in one hit. Sure, not all of them from full health, but the potential is there to feel cheated because you had no way to counter the situation.
And Xenocide would be worthwhile if it could kill marines in one go because it could break a turtle (which is what is needed for Aliens right now).
i fear we're going drastically off topic atm, but your 'small radius but insta-kills a3 marine' xenocide would be dire at breaking turtles. i can envision 3 skulks dying before entering the room, another 3 explode and each take a singular marine with them, now you're 3 players light with an additional 3 players light after 7 seconds have elapsed (marine respawn).
i've yet to see a marine turtle defend against umbra + bile bomb + multiple onos. add infestation spread and drifter enzyme for good measure. this requires about the same level of coordination as exo + mac/welders + med/ammo drops + arc push. imo alien's were just spoiled by the post release noob tide where you could take out the main base powernode as a lone skulk.
i fear we're going drastically off topic atm, but your 'small radius but insta-kills a3 marine' xenocide would be dire at breaking turtles. i can envision 3 skulks dying before entering the room, another 3 explode and each take a singular marine with them, now you're 3 players light with an additional 3 players light after 7 seconds have elapsed (marine respawn).
i've yet to see a marine turtle defend against umbra + bile bomb + multiple onos. add infestation spread and drifter enzyme for good measure. this requires about the same level of coordination as exo + mac/welders + med/ammo drops + arc push. imo alien's were just spoiled by the post release noob tide where you could take out the main base powernode as a lone skulk.
And a marine turtle could NOT withstand one or two skulks exploding, taking out all of the marines while the rest of the team runs in and kills the IPs. As far as your cry of "noob"... I'm not even going to start with you.
EDIT: And the current Xenocide range is ENORMOUS. Far larger than it should be.
Comments
Sorry. I'm talking every game that I consider a "real game", that is, aliens get at least 2nd hive and about 4-5 nodes and marines have phased a tech point and are upgrading.
If a game doesn't reach that point, its meaningless statistically, at least to me. I don't count a 9 man skulk rush to control as carrying much weight in the W/L ratio, likewise with marine hive rushes that work, but those are much less frequent.
In my gameplay experience (which I lack the HD space to record video off, sorry, no Mac OSX support for this game, small bootcamp partition), the marines win about 80-90% of the time the game is "real".
If the marines hold 2 points and the aliens hold 2 points, its nearly impossible for the aliens to win. The fact that statistically, the marines are now winning 55% of all matches is VERY telling and which includes games that end in 30 seconds due to concede and such. If the "difficult team to command" is winning the majority of games on public servers, there is a major balance problem. Why? Marines gain about 200% more combat effectiveness with 0 res marines by 100% tech. Skulks gain 20 armor (22% more combat effectiveness) and leap. Those two things do not balance.
Pubs should be majority alien wins and majority marine wins in the competitive environment. This adjusting balance based on marine player skill is bullocks.
As far as I know. I jumped on about 5 different servers yesterday. Unless the marine team was excessively bad, they won about 80% of the time. I only recall one alien win yesterday that involved the marines with 2 secure points, and I'm pretty sure they weren't very good, I know the alien team that round was very very good...and we finally pulled out a victory after 45 minutes and killing both their power nodes about 5 times in each base before they finally lost a point (and therefore their exos) and quickly conceded after that. That was the only alien win yesterday involving a "real game" for me.
Maybe you should find better marines to play against?
I don't know, are you? I have to say the scoreboard went from aliens usually having the K:D advantage by a little bit, to the majority of games the marines are just out of hand. I've tried to comm maybe 5 or so games on aliens, much more so on marines lately, but all of them were games where we were struggling holding a 2nd hive. That hardly ever happened prior to the patch, it's not just some anomaly because one side has all the rookies yada yada, it's straight up much easier to dominate skulks as LMG marines and control the map before the game gets anywhere.
i will agree that with evenly skilled teams it's marines game to lose. but an 80% landslide is NOT what i experience in pub servers, and i'm talking about good (for pub) marine teams.
i'm experiencing more like a 50% win rate since the update, and they were all enjoyable and good matches (if the teams are imbalanced and noone will concede i usually just disconnect and find another server, therefore i'm not tainted with bogus 'skill imbalance' results).
i've found that there's a good window for aliens to strike between the marine's taking their second tech point and jetpacks. if you can't capitalize with lerk/fade/bilebomb before jetpacks, it becomes insanely hard - probable that this is fallout from the change moving tres onos to 3 hives.
being someone who plays both marine and alien equally; the game has become far more balanced and FUN since the update.
What about bring Focus (increase damage but slower attack rate) or some variation of it into NS2? It would give more hive starting options for aliens and will really help skulks combat scaling later in the game. If a skulk somehow manages to avoid the late game insta-kill and gets into biting range it will actually do some damage. A mid-late swarm of skulks could be very effective against a careless or unsuspecting group of marines. It would also help out the Fade's woes.
In my personal opinion this game absolutely NEEEEEEEEEDs better skulk combat and that is the reason for the declining fun factor. The marines honestly feel pretty good for me where they are now, but the skulks feel like these floaty, bulky and weak ankle biters. I feel like a fucking babbler really. And these sentiments are extremely escalated at mid to late game. Give the skulks their fight back!
I think aliens need a damage upgrade somewhere on their tree.
Maybe a 3rd hive upgrade that increases skulk and lerk bite damage? How about "Corrosive Saliva" as the name? Maybe replace the incredibly bad xenocide ability?
Alien upgrades are in such a bad place right now that ANY bone would be most welcome.
xenocide isn't bad... i just think it comes too late because 3 hive alien is usually dominating, therefore it's just silly to kamikaze - not to mention you should be a higher lifeform.
i think i'd be okay with moving leap to 1 hive and have a weaker xenocide on 2 hive (imo leap is ESSENTIAL and full blown xeno would be way too OP for defending a marine push).
Except that its an ability that doesn't get a single kill by the time its there. Not unless you have multiple skulks all xeno together...otherwise, the damage is laughed off by A3 marines with welders.
I think xenocide just needs to go completely in favor of more bite damage. More bite damage is actually useful, xenocide is not.
So we're moving on to personal attacks, are we?
Just because I have a differing opinion to you doesn't mean that I'm an idiot or bad at the game.
And I suppose you've never been flying around as a Lerk and died instantly to a pistol magically emptied instantly. Or you've never had a frantic moment where you're escaping and run into two more people with shotguns. Or clearly, you've never had a random grenade land at your feet. Obviously you've never had some AR shots land on you, feel confident, then have a railgun exo turn the corner and make Lerk stew out of you.
Clearly, you are perfect and you never die in NS2, ever.
That was all sarcasm, by the way.
As for the recent topic of Xeno, it's a very terrible ability in NS2. No res while you're dead, long respawn, and it doesn't even do enough damage to put the hurt on the marines at the end of the game (when it shows up) unless you're dominating them so hard that they don't even have an arms lab.
As far as Xeno goes, I will say what I've always said about it. Drop its range, increase its damage to 280 normal. Then it will be useful. Very useful.
i didn't suggest you were bad at the game per se. i merely implied that you seemed to be lacking the required skill to distinguish an instant kill from a non-instant kill. you said as much, so i was able to deduce that you either lied or misread the in-game situation.
as for xenocide, if aliens are on 3 hives - why would you want to kill yourself to instagib a marine? like i said, xenocide is 'bad' because it's only accessible when alien are in an almost unstoppable position of 3 hives. if it was usable in the more contestable scenario of 2 hives, it would be AMAZING (absurdly broken) - marine group in your hive - you can blow up and take the whole bunch down to 10-20% hp.
Each of the attacks I mentioned has the potential to kill a Lerk in one hit. Sure, not all of them from full health, but the potential is there to feel cheated because you had no way to counter the situation.
And Xenocide would be worthwhile if it could kill marines in one go because it could break a turtle (which is what is needed for Aliens right now).
i fear we're going drastically off topic atm, but your 'small radius but insta-kills a3 marine' xenocide would be dire at breaking turtles. i can envision 3 skulks dying before entering the room, another 3 explode and each take a singular marine with them, now you're 3 players light with an additional 3 players light after 7 seconds have elapsed (marine respawn).
i've yet to see a marine turtle defend against umbra + bile bomb + multiple onos. add infestation spread and drifter enzyme for good measure. this requires about the same level of coordination as exo + mac/welders + med/ammo drops + arc push. imo alien's were just spoiled by the post release noob tide where you could take out the main base powernode as a lone skulk.
First off, this.
And a marine turtle could NOT withstand one or two skulks exploding, taking out all of the marines while the rest of the team runs in and kills the IPs. As far as your cry of "noob"... I'm not even going to start with you.
EDIT: And the current Xenocide range is ENORMOUS. Far larger than it should be.