Marine arsenal vs Alien arsenal
pointypun
asdasd Join Date: 2014-02-18 Member: 194123Members
asdasd Join Date: 2014-02-18 Member: 194123Members
This thread is about the various options marines and aliens have tech-wise.
I feel currently marines have a very large choice to counter aliens of all sorts, whereas aliens got almost none.
For every alien strategy or life form there seems to be at least one hard counter on the marine side and aliens always have to use the same strategy (hint: bile).
When you are marine:
Are aliens harassing your RT's? - You can put down sentries or just place some mines, maybe a MAC to repair.
Are you out of ammo mid fight and could the skulk take advantage of this? - Just whip out your pistol or let the comm spam healthpacks.
Do you want to slowly push a base? - You can lob some grenades, or you could use GLs, or you could set up ARCs or even Exo's. And of course PG's
Do you want to defend? - You can use GL's, you can put down sentries, you can put down mines, you can keep one Exo permanently welded with either a MAC or a player.
Now when you are alien.
Marines in a large room? - don't even bother
Marines with shotguns? - don't even bother
Marines with GLs and JP? - be a fade or don't even bother
Wanna take a base? - bile and skulks
Wanna kill an exo? - bile and skulks
Wanna defend? - bile and skulks
Turrets holding down a hallway? - bile
Mines all over a base? - bile (or lerk)
Did marines rush ARC's before you could muster the 80 res to get bile? - lol gg
This might not be the best way to put it, but I feel that marines go so many options and hard counters (turrets vs skulks, mines vs skulks) and various ways to take a base (aggresive with exo or JP, or slow with ARCs). On the other side, aliens always have to resort to bile and some lifeforms ... and bile. Without bile barely can win a game, but without mines for example, you can still put down turrets to defend. There are just so little options for aliens to play around with. It seems every weapon for marines has a different function and every lifeform for aliens is just a bigger killing machine than the previous one.
Do you agree?
I feel currently marines have a very large choice to counter aliens of all sorts, whereas aliens got almost none.
For every alien strategy or life form there seems to be at least one hard counter on the marine side and aliens always have to use the same strategy (hint: bile).
When you are marine:
Are aliens harassing your RT's? - You can put down sentries or just place some mines, maybe a MAC to repair.
Are you out of ammo mid fight and could the skulk take advantage of this? - Just whip out your pistol or let the comm spam healthpacks.
Do you want to slowly push a base? - You can lob some grenades, or you could use GLs, or you could set up ARCs or even Exo's. And of course PG's
Do you want to defend? - You can use GL's, you can put down sentries, you can put down mines, you can keep one Exo permanently welded with either a MAC or a player.
Now when you are alien.
Marines in a large room? - don't even bother
Marines with shotguns? - don't even bother
Marines with GLs and JP? - be a fade or don't even bother
Wanna take a base? - bile and skulks
Wanna kill an exo? - bile and skulks
Wanna defend? - bile and skulks
Turrets holding down a hallway? - bile
Mines all over a base? - bile (or lerk)
Did marines rush ARC's before you could muster the 80 res to get bile? - lol gg
This might not be the best way to put it, but I feel that marines go so many options and hard counters (turrets vs skulks, mines vs skulks) and various ways to take a base (aggresive with exo or JP, or slow with ARCs). On the other side, aliens always have to resort to bile and some lifeforms ... and bile. Without bile barely can win a game, but without mines for example, you can still put down turrets to defend. There are just so little options for aliens to play around with. It seems every weapon for marines has a different function and every lifeform for aliens is just a bigger killing machine than the previous one.
Do you agree?
Comments
- marines in a large room?
* flank them or hit something else. Also many rooms have cover.
- marines with shotguns.
* spit, spike, ambush, flank. Parasite for lols. Hydra's also work.
* marine GL/JP
- leap skulk, lerk and fade. You should have this under normal circumstances by time they have jp/gl
* wanna take a base?
- Gorge bile, onos rush, whip spam, skulk rush, lerk rush. Bonus points for actual proper mixing of alien lifeforms.
* Wanna kill a exo?
- Skulks, whips, bile, spikes.
* wanna defend?
- force a beacon or destroy their base. Surely you didnt let them in your hive without a opening?
* Turrets in a hallway?
- lols at their lack of upgrades and go around, devastating marines.
* Mines in base.
- Bile, suicide skulk, spikes, onos, infestation.
* Arcs without 80 res?
* drop a cheaper 40 res hive and rush base or rush marines. Rushing arcs means no upgrades.
Standard counter in any case is kill of res.
That being said,I do agree that Bile is kind of the once stop shop for stopping most marine strategies (even by forcing a beacon). But hey, shouldn't gorges be important?
Oh, and Lerks/fades/onos supporting those skulks and gorges with umbra/spores/killing/stomp/meatstacksofhealth, makes that attack much more likely to succede, especially against fully upgraded marines
I normally don't say this, but you really need to watch more games and see the diversity of of play used in games. Its all about res management. If the strategies you are suggesting isn't res starving the marines, I would suggest that the marine team as most of the map and res nodes, so you aren't exactly going to win easily from that point. But as a early / mid game strategy...
Are aliens harassing your RT's? - You can put down sentries or just place some mines, maybe a MAC to repair.
**Sentry = cost lots of tRes (Robo, battery + sentry guns). Mines are great, but they cost 15 pRes each back of 3, and once lerks are out they aren't as useful. And Macs are just floating res sinks without backup (ie. as a comm, I would never send a lone MAC out to repair stuff (it will get eaten). So the marines won't be getting upgrades, phase gates, ammo drops in a hurry if they do this (sentry), or if they are mining up places, you won't see the shotgun til later so your lerks and fades are safe for longer.
Are you out of ammo mid fight and could the skulk take advantage of this? - Just whip out your pistol or let the comm spam healthpacks.
**You need to learn when to run head on to a marine. When you dodge, and hide behind things marines tend to spray ammo (you did parasite him didn't you as you come in?). When you see the reload, jump him. Sometime you don't have to take on a marine one on one, you can wait for backup, just delay him/her long enough. And don't forget, medpacks cost res (a skulk costs nothing).
Do you want to slowly push a base? - You can lob some grenades, or you could use GLs, or you could set up ARCs or even Exo's. And of course PG's
Do you want to defend? - You can use GL's, you can put down sentries, you can put down mines, you can keep one Exo permanently welded with either a MAC or a player.
**The DPS you can do with 3 skulks that swarm an Exo exceeds the weld rate of a MAC or marine. Everything above isn't end game, yes, they are pushing, but so should you. It is all about team work. That pain training coming to make your hive in to mash? have 2 gorges bile the pain train while an onos use bone shield to protect them.
All the scenarios you put forward are not helpless situations where the alien player can do nothing about. Like others have said, if marines have all the toys, and you are on one hive with 1 harvester most of the game, you have lost.
Now when you are alien.
Marines in a large room? - don't even bother
**I parasite them so we are aware of the numbers in a room and their movements. Most rooms have some form of cover, even those that don't have a lot of cover (with a large central area, there are always multiple routes of entry (eg. Cargo in Veil, Locker in Docking). Gather a large pack and swarm them. You can also hit somewhere else to draw them out (if half the team is in the said large room, then it means only half of that team is defending the territory they hold).
Marines with shotguns? - don't even bother
**as skulk, don't engage head on - that is suicide. Parasite, and draw their fire, and count the shots, if they are reloading, jump in. You can also team up with someone else sneaking behind when they are focused on you (team work). Remember that shotgun cost 20 res.
Marines with GLs and JP? - be a fade or don't even bother
**xenocide? lerks spike? lerks gas? leap?
Wanna take a base? - bile and skulks
**yes and the problem is? if marines have flamers and gl, this combo won't work as well, so you will need to mix in some fades and oni if you can.
Wanna kill an exo? - bile and skulks
**see point above, have you ever had a comm that actually bonewall an exo so it can't retreat, and you wreck it as an onos?
Wanna defend? - bile and skulks
**see point above. And these are the cheapest lifeforms, so what is the problem with that?
Turrets holding down a hallway? - bile
**how about an onos or whips?
Mines all over a base? - bile (or lerk)
** did you know you can use infestation to blow up mines? if it is a marine turtle, you can get contaminate and take out all mines.
Did marines rush ARC's before you could muster the 80 res to get bile? - lol gg
**please consider how much res ARCs cost: Robo(10), ARC factory upgrade(5), then Arc (20). And the travel time it takes and the amount of baby sitting you need to not have it all chewed to bits by skulks.
Pretty much this.
You may also consider trying other servers. If you play on an alien team that lets marine comms get away with popping down turret farms for res defending then they're doing something very, very wrong.
Your problem is you do the same as a lot of players (not forcibly new player), you just go front. probably dying one by one.
If your team can t coordinate, which is often seen in public server, try something else. It's supposed to be a RTS. S is for strategy. Avoid ennemy, destroy RTs. Or go to marine start and destroy upgrades or something.
For you information:
Gorge are support units (tunel also) and wih bile can be pretty powerful. 3 gorges with bile is a death note for any marine base. If you see one gorge and one onos: kill the gorge first!!!
Lerks are harasing unit and/or whistle blowers. Thay can sentry the entire map in seconds. They also can assist with umbra or spore (late game).
Fades are interceptors. The proper response to marines pushes.
Onos are good for base crushing. They destroy faster the structure. Assisted by gorge they are really powerful.
if comp scene isn't going 9:1 marines vs aliens, your argument fails. aliens I think are still up actually in terms of win percentage. now speaking of fun, yeah, the only life form that really still gives me enjoyment consistently is skulk.