Lerk: The Guide
OWA
Join Date: 2002-12-22 Member: 11322Members
Join Date: 2002-12-22 Member: 11322Members
<div class="IPBDescription">A definitive guide to the flying fiend</div> So this is what you get with a bored and overactive imagination and a fascination with flying. I like the lerk. I like it a lot. However I recognize that the Lerk requires a very distinctly different style of play from the other evolutions in order to be used effectively. The lerk is not for everyone, however in the right hands the lerk is a power tool like no other.
<b>The Basics</b>
Getting Around: The first thing to notice while lerking is that your ground movement speed is pathetic. Lerks walk slow, around the rate of a gorge. Basically if you're on the ground you're not going anywhere fast. That being said, it doesn't matter, because, as we all know, you can fly! Flying as a Lerk takes patience and practice. Any time you press your jump key as a lerk while airborn, you will flap. What each flap amounts to is a push of momentum. If no key is held, that push will be straight up. If you hold a key while flapping, the push of momentum will be in that direction and up. The effects are cumultive. Three flaps in a forward direction wil send you forward at roughly the rate of a skulk leap, which is to say, fast. Each flap also takes a small amount of your energy. If you hold down the jump key in the air you will "glide" in the direction you are moving. On that note please realize that lerks DO take falling damage, unlike Skulks. If you have a large distance to land, it is important you use Glide or flap just before hitting the ground. I'll go over advanced flying later.
Attacking: Lerks have two basic attacks, Bite, and Spikes. Bite is as Skulk bite, with slightly less damage (50 as opposed to 75). Spikes are small, fast moving projectiles which fire rapidly and deal 16 damage per hit. *EDIT*Please note that while spikes appear to be projectiles, they are infact a hitscan weapon and do damage instantly.*EDIT* One of the most important things for a Lerk to learn is when to use which. You'll quickly realize that Bite does a lot more dps (damage per second) than spikes, and as such, should be your choice whenever possible.
Energy Usage: Always remember that your ability to move quickly depends on your having energy. A Lerk with no energy is a dead Lerk. Try your best to keep roughly 25 percent of your energy reserved for emergency manouvers. To this end remember that it takes a lot less energy to kill someone with Bite than it does to kill them with Spikes. Adrenaline makes this pretty much a moot issue.
When to Lerk: Evolving to Lerk takes 33 resources, which is an important number early in the game: The max resources for a Skulk. If you have 33 resources as a skulk you are helping your gorges a lot by letting them get all the resources intended for you, so carefully weigh whether to make this evolution. As a general rule don't evolve to Lerk before the first hive's construction is started.
<b>Upgrades</b>
Defense: 90 percent of the time your defense upgrade as a Lerk should be Carapace. With this upgrade the Lerk can hold a whopping 75 points of armor, more than 3 times as much armor as a carapaced Skulk. With 3 defense chambers you can take a deceptively large amount of punishment for such a small package. Regeneration is a specialized upgrade for the Lerk, and should mainly be used in a situation which you are whittling down a base with Spikes, and will not be seeing direct combat.
Movement: 99.9 percent of the time your Movement upgrade should be Adrenaline. Not only will it allow you to emit an almost endless stream of spikes while stationary, it will give you the ability to fly almost indefinately, even while attacking. Silence can be used well for sneaking up on unsuspecting marines, however it is greatly outmatched by Adrenaline. Celerity should never be taken as a Lerk, as Adrenaline allows you to move as fast as you want using Flying.
Sensory: This guide assumes that if you have Sensory, you do not have Movement. Cloaking is usually a good choice for the Lerk, allowing you to harass a base with spikes and then cloak in safety when re-enforcements arrive, best combined with Regeneration. Scent of Fear and Advanced Hive Sight are not perticularily appealing to me though they do have uses.
<b>Advanced Tactics</b>
Closing The Gap: Once again the Flight of a Lerk is it's biggest asset. One of the major fallbacks of the Skulk is it's inability to close on a Marine who has a clear line of sight, IE at the end of a long hallway or the opposite side of an open room. As a Lerk, use your ability to accellerate quickly forward in the general direction of the marine. From here two sceneros arise; if you hit the marine, simply begin biting, the force of the first bite will jar the marine's viewpoint, and likely throw off his aim as you fall to the floor at his feet, from there you can likely finish him off before he manages to adjust the angle of his weapon. Second scenero is that you zoom past the marine, in this case, turn around and apply force (jump) in the opposite direction you were traveling. You should end up roughly stationary behind the marine. Move in with your Bite and just walk around on the ground beside him. If you loose track of him from your sight take to the air again, you don't want to be on the ground if you don't know where your target is.
Swooping: An important skill as a lerk is the ability to "dive" in on a marine quickly to take advantage of an opening such as a reload and make the kill. This is a lot harder than it seems considering Lerks have no method to make a "downward" thrust. When you engage a marine while flying, always try to be working lower and lower rather than higher and higher, this way you have much less distance to fall for the kill, giving the marine less time to reload/switch weapons.
Human Shields: Whenever possible try to position yourself so that the marine your chomping is infront of his buddies. Fear is a powerful tool here and often marines will unload wildly in your general direction, bullets defelecting harmlessly off his buddy. Once the first target is down, quickly check your health and decide whether to try for number two or get out and heal up, there's no shame in running away for some health and coming back later to finish him off. This is especially applicable if resources are tight for your side (IE only one hive)
Umbra: This 2 hive ability is the true superpower of the Lerk. Umbra creates a medium sized cloud at your location which lasts for 10 seconds. Any bullet which is shot through an Umbra has about an 85ish percent chance of being null and void. This ability can allow a fade to attack even in the face of an HMG safely, and makes LMGs and shotguns all but useless. Be careful however, as grenades are unneffected by Umbra, and can make short work of a Lerk. If you hear the sound of grenades being launched it's usually best to get the hell out of dodge and attack on another front.
Offensive Umbra: Combining the two above points can prove especially effective, ram yourself into a marine and let off an Umbra. Switch to bite, generally the marine will be too frantic with having a lerk in his face that he won't think about the Umbra and will attempt to uselessly unload his LMG on you. Apply bite. Chuckle.
Breaking the 2 Hive Blockade: An increasingly popular style of marine command is the use of early phase gates to control 2 hives and then slowly tech and turret farm your way to victory. Skulks will usually be mowed down quickly, however the Lerk can often prove effective. By using Flight to get into a shadowed position out side of turret range (IE a vent or ledge overlooking the marine outpost) you can easily rain spikes on the outpost with impunity, however this often isn't good enough. Spikes take a long time to take out any building larger than a turret, and marines will often arrive fast enough to put an end to your fun. A little organization however can often make the diffetrence however. 2 or 3 lerks focusing spikes on a phase gate will deplete it's health very quickly. If marines arrive, halt your attack (so as to try to keep your position hidden). Wait until you see the sparks of the welder start. When you do, focus fire on the marine with the welder. Once he is down, resume fire on the phase. Once a phase falls an outpost is lost, as a turret can easily be taken out, creating a blind spot on a factory which you can then move into with Bite. Regeneration can allow you to heal up the LMG pot shots.
Sporecloud: Assuming the marines are somehow miraculously alive and kicking by the time you get 3 hives this can be a wonderful asset. Sporecloud fires an invisable bullet forward from you. Where it hits it forms an umbra sized green cloud, which will slowly kill any marine in it's radius. Light marines will fall in a matter of seconds, however Heavies are another matter. With the massive amount of damage negation Power Armor provides, sporecloud can't be expected to do much damage, however Marine Mentality is an important factor here. The main thought in the front of any HMG/HA marine is usually "don't die". They're walking around with 50 credits worth of gear, and you can bet thier commander is yelling for them not to die, and they don't intend to. What this translates into is that even if they have Heavy Armor, a marine isn't going to want to stand in a sporecloud. By dropping progressive sporeclouds you can very easily heard marines in ant desired direction. This usually isn't an issue though as most marines will be cowering in thier bases with bilebombs exploding around thier ears at this point.
<b>Hazards</b>
Shotguns: Up close, a shotgun means certain doom in most situations. With carapace you can take maybe 2 direct blasts, and it works extremely well vs airborn targets (IE, you!). What to do about it: keep your distance and use spikes, at a generous range you will annihilate the shotgunner with ease, unless he switches to:
Pistol: The pistol is another early game bane of the Lerk, mainly due to it's 100 percent accuracy at any range. Don't assume that just because you're sitting on a shadowed ledge whittling away at a turret with impunity that there isn't a marine lining up 10 rounds in your head from an equally far distance. What to do about it: don't sit still. Even just moving back and forth by a bodywidth is usually enough to prevent you from being sniped outright, and you can just regenerate the few shots you took and resume your attack.
HMG: Ouch! This bad boy can waste you in a matter of seconds! Treat HMGs as uber shotguns, engage only at extreme distance with spikes. Another solution is to use an Offensive Umbra, however the impressive fire rate of the HMG can often slip enough rounds through to put and end to you.
Grenade Launcher: These are a very unique kind of threat to the Lerk, first of all they ignore umbra as previously stated, and secondly they can be fired into vents and onto platforms in places which you would otherwise be safe from bullet weapons. What to do about it: A long grenade launcher can be easily taken out, even in heavy armor. When you hear the distinctive thunk of the grenades being fired, power by them and into the marine at about the 2nd or 3rd grenade, usually you'll hit him just as the 4th is fired harmlessly into your previous hiding place, at this point the marine will either attempt to reload or switch to his pistol. Either way you should be able to make short work of him with Bite. Watch out for welders though.
Flat Footed: Being caught Flat Footed means not moving and unable to respond to an immediate threat, aside from just being found standing still, this can also be a result of too much momentum. Be aware that if you power fly down that long hall and slam into the wall on the other side you're going to be stationary for a bit while you begin accelerating in another direction.
Mines: As funny as it sounds for something that can fly to be killed by a mine, keep in mind that your extreme acceleration and momentum can be hard to control, and can very easily throw you unintentionally into a wall of tripmines.
Getting into Vents: Be aware that it is deceptively hard to fly into a vent from an angle, dont' count on getting in on the first try, if you're retreating from a group of marines, a hall or doorway may be a better choice.
<b>Conclusion</b>
Well, there you have it. Certainly there is much I have not covered here, however I feel these are the most important points to get across. Please feel free to add questions/comments/critisisms/compliments. ^_^
*edits 12/22/02*
-Corrected carapace spelling (thanks SoulSkorpion)
-Corrected spikes from projectile to hitscan (Thanks Align)
<b>The Basics</b>
Getting Around: The first thing to notice while lerking is that your ground movement speed is pathetic. Lerks walk slow, around the rate of a gorge. Basically if you're on the ground you're not going anywhere fast. That being said, it doesn't matter, because, as we all know, you can fly! Flying as a Lerk takes patience and practice. Any time you press your jump key as a lerk while airborn, you will flap. What each flap amounts to is a push of momentum. If no key is held, that push will be straight up. If you hold a key while flapping, the push of momentum will be in that direction and up. The effects are cumultive. Three flaps in a forward direction wil send you forward at roughly the rate of a skulk leap, which is to say, fast. Each flap also takes a small amount of your energy. If you hold down the jump key in the air you will "glide" in the direction you are moving. On that note please realize that lerks DO take falling damage, unlike Skulks. If you have a large distance to land, it is important you use Glide or flap just before hitting the ground. I'll go over advanced flying later.
Attacking: Lerks have two basic attacks, Bite, and Spikes. Bite is as Skulk bite, with slightly less damage (50 as opposed to 75). Spikes are small, fast moving projectiles which fire rapidly and deal 16 damage per hit. *EDIT*Please note that while spikes appear to be projectiles, they are infact a hitscan weapon and do damage instantly.*EDIT* One of the most important things for a Lerk to learn is when to use which. You'll quickly realize that Bite does a lot more dps (damage per second) than spikes, and as such, should be your choice whenever possible.
Energy Usage: Always remember that your ability to move quickly depends on your having energy. A Lerk with no energy is a dead Lerk. Try your best to keep roughly 25 percent of your energy reserved for emergency manouvers. To this end remember that it takes a lot less energy to kill someone with Bite than it does to kill them with Spikes. Adrenaline makes this pretty much a moot issue.
When to Lerk: Evolving to Lerk takes 33 resources, which is an important number early in the game: The max resources for a Skulk. If you have 33 resources as a skulk you are helping your gorges a lot by letting them get all the resources intended for you, so carefully weigh whether to make this evolution. As a general rule don't evolve to Lerk before the first hive's construction is started.
<b>Upgrades</b>
Defense: 90 percent of the time your defense upgrade as a Lerk should be Carapace. With this upgrade the Lerk can hold a whopping 75 points of armor, more than 3 times as much armor as a carapaced Skulk. With 3 defense chambers you can take a deceptively large amount of punishment for such a small package. Regeneration is a specialized upgrade for the Lerk, and should mainly be used in a situation which you are whittling down a base with Spikes, and will not be seeing direct combat.
Movement: 99.9 percent of the time your Movement upgrade should be Adrenaline. Not only will it allow you to emit an almost endless stream of spikes while stationary, it will give you the ability to fly almost indefinately, even while attacking. Silence can be used well for sneaking up on unsuspecting marines, however it is greatly outmatched by Adrenaline. Celerity should never be taken as a Lerk, as Adrenaline allows you to move as fast as you want using Flying.
Sensory: This guide assumes that if you have Sensory, you do not have Movement. Cloaking is usually a good choice for the Lerk, allowing you to harass a base with spikes and then cloak in safety when re-enforcements arrive, best combined with Regeneration. Scent of Fear and Advanced Hive Sight are not perticularily appealing to me though they do have uses.
<b>Advanced Tactics</b>
Closing The Gap: Once again the Flight of a Lerk is it's biggest asset. One of the major fallbacks of the Skulk is it's inability to close on a Marine who has a clear line of sight, IE at the end of a long hallway or the opposite side of an open room. As a Lerk, use your ability to accellerate quickly forward in the general direction of the marine. From here two sceneros arise; if you hit the marine, simply begin biting, the force of the first bite will jar the marine's viewpoint, and likely throw off his aim as you fall to the floor at his feet, from there you can likely finish him off before he manages to adjust the angle of his weapon. Second scenero is that you zoom past the marine, in this case, turn around and apply force (jump) in the opposite direction you were traveling. You should end up roughly stationary behind the marine. Move in with your Bite and just walk around on the ground beside him. If you loose track of him from your sight take to the air again, you don't want to be on the ground if you don't know where your target is.
Swooping: An important skill as a lerk is the ability to "dive" in on a marine quickly to take advantage of an opening such as a reload and make the kill. This is a lot harder than it seems considering Lerks have no method to make a "downward" thrust. When you engage a marine while flying, always try to be working lower and lower rather than higher and higher, this way you have much less distance to fall for the kill, giving the marine less time to reload/switch weapons.
Human Shields: Whenever possible try to position yourself so that the marine your chomping is infront of his buddies. Fear is a powerful tool here and often marines will unload wildly in your general direction, bullets defelecting harmlessly off his buddy. Once the first target is down, quickly check your health and decide whether to try for number two or get out and heal up, there's no shame in running away for some health and coming back later to finish him off. This is especially applicable if resources are tight for your side (IE only one hive)
Umbra: This 2 hive ability is the true superpower of the Lerk. Umbra creates a medium sized cloud at your location which lasts for 10 seconds. Any bullet which is shot through an Umbra has about an 85ish percent chance of being null and void. This ability can allow a fade to attack even in the face of an HMG safely, and makes LMGs and shotguns all but useless. Be careful however, as grenades are unneffected by Umbra, and can make short work of a Lerk. If you hear the sound of grenades being launched it's usually best to get the hell out of dodge and attack on another front.
Offensive Umbra: Combining the two above points can prove especially effective, ram yourself into a marine and let off an Umbra. Switch to bite, generally the marine will be too frantic with having a lerk in his face that he won't think about the Umbra and will attempt to uselessly unload his LMG on you. Apply bite. Chuckle.
Breaking the 2 Hive Blockade: An increasingly popular style of marine command is the use of early phase gates to control 2 hives and then slowly tech and turret farm your way to victory. Skulks will usually be mowed down quickly, however the Lerk can often prove effective. By using Flight to get into a shadowed position out side of turret range (IE a vent or ledge overlooking the marine outpost) you can easily rain spikes on the outpost with impunity, however this often isn't good enough. Spikes take a long time to take out any building larger than a turret, and marines will often arrive fast enough to put an end to your fun. A little organization however can often make the diffetrence however. 2 or 3 lerks focusing spikes on a phase gate will deplete it's health very quickly. If marines arrive, halt your attack (so as to try to keep your position hidden). Wait until you see the sparks of the welder start. When you do, focus fire on the marine with the welder. Once he is down, resume fire on the phase. Once a phase falls an outpost is lost, as a turret can easily be taken out, creating a blind spot on a factory which you can then move into with Bite. Regeneration can allow you to heal up the LMG pot shots.
Sporecloud: Assuming the marines are somehow miraculously alive and kicking by the time you get 3 hives this can be a wonderful asset. Sporecloud fires an invisable bullet forward from you. Where it hits it forms an umbra sized green cloud, which will slowly kill any marine in it's radius. Light marines will fall in a matter of seconds, however Heavies are another matter. With the massive amount of damage negation Power Armor provides, sporecloud can't be expected to do much damage, however Marine Mentality is an important factor here. The main thought in the front of any HMG/HA marine is usually "don't die". They're walking around with 50 credits worth of gear, and you can bet thier commander is yelling for them not to die, and they don't intend to. What this translates into is that even if they have Heavy Armor, a marine isn't going to want to stand in a sporecloud. By dropping progressive sporeclouds you can very easily heard marines in ant desired direction. This usually isn't an issue though as most marines will be cowering in thier bases with bilebombs exploding around thier ears at this point.
<b>Hazards</b>
Shotguns: Up close, a shotgun means certain doom in most situations. With carapace you can take maybe 2 direct blasts, and it works extremely well vs airborn targets (IE, you!). What to do about it: keep your distance and use spikes, at a generous range you will annihilate the shotgunner with ease, unless he switches to:
Pistol: The pistol is another early game bane of the Lerk, mainly due to it's 100 percent accuracy at any range. Don't assume that just because you're sitting on a shadowed ledge whittling away at a turret with impunity that there isn't a marine lining up 10 rounds in your head from an equally far distance. What to do about it: don't sit still. Even just moving back and forth by a bodywidth is usually enough to prevent you from being sniped outright, and you can just regenerate the few shots you took and resume your attack.
HMG: Ouch! This bad boy can waste you in a matter of seconds! Treat HMGs as uber shotguns, engage only at extreme distance with spikes. Another solution is to use an Offensive Umbra, however the impressive fire rate of the HMG can often slip enough rounds through to put and end to you.
Grenade Launcher: These are a very unique kind of threat to the Lerk, first of all they ignore umbra as previously stated, and secondly they can be fired into vents and onto platforms in places which you would otherwise be safe from bullet weapons. What to do about it: A long grenade launcher can be easily taken out, even in heavy armor. When you hear the distinctive thunk of the grenades being fired, power by them and into the marine at about the 2nd or 3rd grenade, usually you'll hit him just as the 4th is fired harmlessly into your previous hiding place, at this point the marine will either attempt to reload or switch to his pistol. Either way you should be able to make short work of him with Bite. Watch out for welders though.
Flat Footed: Being caught Flat Footed means not moving and unable to respond to an immediate threat, aside from just being found standing still, this can also be a result of too much momentum. Be aware that if you power fly down that long hall and slam into the wall on the other side you're going to be stationary for a bit while you begin accelerating in another direction.
Mines: As funny as it sounds for something that can fly to be killed by a mine, keep in mind that your extreme acceleration and momentum can be hard to control, and can very easily throw you unintentionally into a wall of tripmines.
Getting into Vents: Be aware that it is deceptively hard to fly into a vent from an angle, dont' count on getting in on the first try, if you're retreating from a group of marines, a hall or doorway may be a better choice.
<b>Conclusion</b>
Well, there you have it. Certainly there is much I have not covered here, however I feel these are the most important points to get across. Please feel free to add questions/comments/critisisms/compliments. ^_^
*edits 12/22/02*
-Corrected carapace spelling (thanks SoulSkorpion)
-Corrected spikes from projectile to hitscan (Thanks Align)
Comments
Ah here's an error. The spike attack really IS hitscan, the spikes are really just tracers. So the tooltip that says they're hitscan is actually right. Oh and note that the spikes fire so fast, that if you have good aim, you can easily take out a light armor marine.
btw, it's "Carapace," not "Caraprice" <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
<b>Heres a few more I'd like to add from my own experience</b>
<u>Movement</u>
Moving along corridors can be quite tricky as a Lerk at first, if you're a beginner, its best to think of movement not as flying, but more like hopping. Press forward and flap once, to perform a hop. Moving around a map can best be thought of as performing a series of hops. As you get better at 'hopping' you can then begin to do it without touching the ground, so you're hopping in mid air. Soon you'll be flying fluently!
On some maps, the corridors don't have flat ceilings, and have lots of overhead girders, you'll no doubt keep bumping into these if you aren't careful. On maps with corridors with flat, level ceilings, you can build up lots of speed without bumping into these, therefore useful to consider if you want to get away quickly.
<u>Hovering</u>
Hovering is the most useful skill as a Lerk, because it allows you to get onto small ledges and enter tricky vents. To practice hovering, all you have to do is start on the ground, and just press the flap key without using the direction keys at all. Keep flapping until you reach a decent height, let yourself fall, and flap again to maintain your level. With an Adrenaline upgrade, its possible to stay suspended in mid-air almost infinitely while firing spikes at the same time. When you want to land, let go of the flap key and let yourself fall, just before you hit the ground flap once to cushion your fall.
<u>Flying into Vents: UP FIRST, THEN FORWARDS</u>
<b>The Wall Vent</b>
It took me at least 20 tries to get this right the first time I tried this!! So heres my guide to help you guys do it successfully.
The best way to enter a wall vent is to stand directly underneath it, you don't have to be close to the wall but the closer the better if you are a beginner. Keep flapping without the direction keys, and you'll find that you go straight up. When you reach a little above eye level with the vent you want to enter press forward while flapping quickly, and you will shoot straight into the vent.
<b>The Ceiling Vent</b>
You'll see vents in the ceiling on most NS maps, and are a great way of escaping if all your exits are sealed off, and you hear marine footsteps coming your way. The way to get inside the ceiling vent, is to stand directly beneath the vent, point your crosshairs upwards so they are centred on the vent, and begin to flap upwards. You will eventually hit the top of the vent and won't get any higher, usually at this point if you stop flapping you will fall back down and out of the vent. So keep flapping, and rotate your view to see which direction the vent goes, and then flap in that direction to find some footing inside the vent.
<i>Quick Note: As a Lerk, you'll probably spend alot of time flying around vents. As a golden rule you should always remember, 'UP FIRST, THEN FORWARDS'</i>
<u>Attacking Marines</u>
There are many different styles to attacking marines for a lerk as the author OWA of this thread mentioned, you can swoop a marine or spike them. It doesn't take many spikes to take out a light armored marine.
The swoop and bite manouvre is a very difficult attack. Like OWA mentioned, you don't actually dive, but glide slowly downwards. For this reason I don't like to use this attack unless I have umbra.
Instead, many lerks can be successful just by using spikes. The trick is to remain at distance from the marine, and not to move towards them while you attack. Hop left and right by flapping, and keep firing spikes at the marine, try not to make your movement too predictable by altering your levels and direction randomly. If you're sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes left or right, it makes you a hard target.
<u>Using Umbra to Get Away</u>
Say that you're outside the marine base, and you're not being supported by anyone. You've been using Umbra to protect yourself while you've been harassing the marines and their structures with your spikes. Suddenly, you get about 3 marines charging at you, what do you do? Most people just fly away, but sometimes its helpful to spray some umbra while you're doing just that to cover your back.
<u>Finally</u>
As OWA say in the first post, playing Lerk is definitely different. Learning to fly well is the difference between a bad lerk and a good lerk, and flying skillfully comes down to experience. A bad lerk will not be able to get away from rushing marines, a good lerk will always manage to evade.
Also flying around a map is somewhat therapeutic, and addictive. Theres something really satisfying about mastering flying and doing it well.
Lerks "roxor" Spore is only visible if you are aiming DOWN (Look below you while your hovering some time and shoot, you see a little green fart fall and hit the floor <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> )
I am always a lerk, but the way i play im like a hyperactive mutated hummingbird, so for me, since i have the attacking but not the flying down, all i can do is escape flying... once you fly around the corner of a corrider they dont normally follow you...
watch out for turrets in base attacks, they are not super accurate at hitting the fast flying lerk, but dont try to charge a firebase head on, youll get get a mouth full of depleted uranium shells
last but not least, the "Anti-air marine" (Heavy armor and a shoty/pistol combo) these guys are normally good shots, and are a danger unless you can get out quickly through a vent or underpass (As a good general upgrade for a lerk, always take adren, and cloaking, unless you are hunting for marines in dark areas, regen or carapace dependant on the situation)
Also, marines have a habit of stacking to take out a lone lerk (One crouched on standing right behind eachother) and spikes can make quick work of them, giving you two spike kills and possible praise from anyone who sees it (Or freak out the marines)
Lastly, just to be evil, i like to get right up and stand on the dead bodies and chuckle at them (And pray thier friends didnt hear the bodies fall)
A lot of the purpose I was trying to get across was the ability to use Bite to attack rather than Spikes, mainly to help people use the Lerk more effectively in a 1 hive situation (IE, only having Defensive chambers). As I find using Spikes while flying rapidly depletes energy, often leaving you flat footed on the ground desperately tryingto get enough energy back to take off again.
Edit your stuff up top, add what needs to be added, then maybe the NS team will put out an advance players guide or something, with stuff like this in it
If what I wrote down when I was doing damage tests is correct, the manual is dated. The Lerk bite now does 75.
As for spikes having an arced path, this is somewhat puzzling, if they are a hitscan weapon then I don't believe it's possible for them to have an arc, and therefore must be projectile weapons.
I'm probable goin to write an addition around advanced hive sight when I get home from work, just had a very challeneging 2 hives vs a very well co-ordinated marine team with full upgrades/equipment, and I will say Advanced Hive Sight was a great asset for picking out where the marines and key structures were.
Here's a diagram of what seems to be happening
--------------------------------------Lerk
-------------------------
-------------
If the weapon truely is hitscan, then the spikes should contiue moving straight on the first line, however they can be observed slowly decending as in the diagram (This is only apparent at extreme distances, IE the length of Refinery on that level...). Either that or the hits do go straight but the tracer spikes fall lower. My personal opinion is that the weapon is not hitscan, but I could be wrong here.
Can we possibly get a clarification from the Devs on this?
-=HyPeR=-
Here's the tips for the aspiring Lerk.
Learn how to fly, and shoot, and conserve energy. Play with it a lot til you get it down. You should never die as a Lerk, ecspecially if you take it into your own plan that you should go Lerk while still having a single hive with out the 2nd one underway, since you just robbed your team of it's resources due to your idiocy of taking away the 33 cap from the Gorge.
Learn to fly buddy, learn to shoot. Spikes are awesome for slowly wittling away at a Turret and it's Factory, get a Skulk to run circles around it and you can make sure those spikes are hitting.
You can do more then umbra **obscenity**. Umbra, much like evolving into a Fade, is the easiest way to rip marines ot peices. I'm very glad you take the biggest powers of the games current status and pawn them off as being related to skill. Ok, so you can drop an umbra, take down 3+ marines, and fly away to safety. You didn't do too much, same with Fade's who acid rocket from afar and consider them selves "m@d 1337" cause they can pull their chicken **obscenity** camp tactics and think it'll actually get them anywhere in any real time frame.
All in all, I repeat, learn to fly. If you can't fly with out Adrenaline while shooting spikes, closing in for a bite, and then get the hell out of there, then you are just another Lerk waiting for Umbra and Spore Cloud.
Lerk's are hit-and-run masters, with nearby D chambers, they can get in there, take down a marine or two, fly out jsut as quick, heal up in no time, do it again, slowly dwindling any sort of attack the idiot marines were hoping to pull off, even with out Umbra.
Oh, and if you are still playing on pubs where the Marine's see the Umbra and go "let me keep shooting you while you bite me like it'll really do any damage" then you need to find a better pub, cause I'll tell you from personal experience, we got 50/75 for Health and Armor. It don't take many slashes with a knife or too much contact from the hot end of a welder to put us down for good.
Anyway, I'll think of something else later and add it.
Meanwhile get your folded self in game and learn to be a Lerk with out Adrenaline
*FIRST EDIT* Spikes are hitscan, don't pay any attention to anything except the dead marines with spikes next to their name as you reign down death from above **
*SECOND EDIT* I remember what I wnated to say that I forgot. The current state of the Lerk's flying is fine. Giving him some sort of dive, or leap move, when becoming airborn, would just make it easier to be good at flying. Just cause you can hit the space bar repetitively doesn't mean you can fly in the manner that is required to be a good Lerk. We don't need a dive, we don't need a leap from the ground, the way it works is beautiful and you just need to spend more time flying, cause the Skies are <b>ours</b> not some god damn Jetpacker who thinks he is 1337-0, so learn to Fly, antipate when you drop, this "Glide" is not permanet, it slowly makes you drop a lot faster as though you never had wings to glide, so find out just when this drop will happen and use it to your advantage.
For that guy who started his post with 'I didn't read all your post but here's my reply'.
I didn't read your post attal, afterall it was obviously just going to be a repeat of the first one if you post on the same topic without reading the post what on EARTH is the point of posting?
BlueGhost
They are simply very, VERY fast. Think the speed of an arrow versus the speed of a bullet.
Also a lerk who does not take advantage of Umbra and Sporecloud is a sub-par lerk. Play to win. Use the tools which are given to you. To tell a lerk not to use his cloud abilities is to tell a marine not to use a grenade launcher: stupid.
Also note that marines are aware that some bullets will always slip thorugh umbra and count on that when they are firing at you through your umbra. Even if the lerk has half the hitpoints a marine does generally they dont' wanna risk the bite of doom.