Time To Change Kharaa Strategy?
Harry_S_Truman
Join Date: 2002-11-21 Member: 9568Members
Join Date: 2002-11-21 Member: 9568Members
Ok, over the last two weeks I've noticed a dramatic increase in the number of TSA victories. These victories are by competent commanders and good players. It seems like there are a few strategies that have begun to excel against the Aliens that have difficult to counter.
The major one is the "slash and burn" strategy. The marines travel in small groups grabbing every resouce they can and killing every alien resource they come across. Since aliens don't pool their resources this makes it difficult to keep replacing RT's everytime they are killed. This is a constant barrage of attacking RT's on the alien team, even going into hives JUST to kill the RT's. Now I've played on Marine teams that follow this strategy and it works very well.
The tendancy for aliens to move about alone on the map only makes this even more effective, as one skulk/alien usually has a very difficult time with mulitiple marines.
I see the Marines developing a strategy that aliens used to adopt, but now have realized that this very strategy is more effective for the Marines!
Now, we need to counter this and I'm not sure how. The tendancy for all the aliens to drop early res towers may NOT be the best way to proceede and you don't want to get into the "defending" res tower mode. I've come to the conclusion that constant attacking and keeping the initiative is more important than holding res towers. This is not possible when all the aliens are dropping res at the beginning of the game and gives the marines TOO much breathing time.
I'm beginning to think that aliens should drop res more slowly and keep the pressure on marine base during the beginning. Spreading out dropping res all over the place has two drawbacks. First, it spreads the aliens all over the map making us weaker as a whole, when we KNOW that most good marines early game will travel in packs. Second, after spending the 27 res to drop one RT and evolve back to skulk, you know that the roving marine groups will soon find the lone RT and destroy it, therefore wasting 25 res. This is a lose-lose situation.
I'm thinking that one group of skulks should keep pressure on marine start until they are unable to do so any more (destroying anything at the base they can, espcially obs, armories and arms labs) and a second group should roam the map looking for marine groups that exit the base and keep eating marine RT's. Lastly, players should gorge "one at a time" and place res nodes as far from the marine base as possible and put a couple of OC's nearby. After the first couple of RT's are down and have a couple of OC's with them, then that gorge goes back to skulk while one of the other's, who's been getting RFK, then procedes to do the same thing.
I know that there are some marine strats on the pubs that are starting to destroy the "typical" alien play, and alien strats need to change. Any thoughts on this are highly welcomed.
The major one is the "slash and burn" strategy. The marines travel in small groups grabbing every resouce they can and killing every alien resource they come across. Since aliens don't pool their resources this makes it difficult to keep replacing RT's everytime they are killed. This is a constant barrage of attacking RT's on the alien team, even going into hives JUST to kill the RT's. Now I've played on Marine teams that follow this strategy and it works very well.
The tendancy for aliens to move about alone on the map only makes this even more effective, as one skulk/alien usually has a very difficult time with mulitiple marines.
I see the Marines developing a strategy that aliens used to adopt, but now have realized that this very strategy is more effective for the Marines!
Now, we need to counter this and I'm not sure how. The tendancy for all the aliens to drop early res towers may NOT be the best way to proceede and you don't want to get into the "defending" res tower mode. I've come to the conclusion that constant attacking and keeping the initiative is more important than holding res towers. This is not possible when all the aliens are dropping res at the beginning of the game and gives the marines TOO much breathing time.
I'm beginning to think that aliens should drop res more slowly and keep the pressure on marine base during the beginning. Spreading out dropping res all over the place has two drawbacks. First, it spreads the aliens all over the map making us weaker as a whole, when we KNOW that most good marines early game will travel in packs. Second, after spending the 27 res to drop one RT and evolve back to skulk, you know that the roving marine groups will soon find the lone RT and destroy it, therefore wasting 25 res. This is a lose-lose situation.
I'm thinking that one group of skulks should keep pressure on marine start until they are unable to do so any more (destroying anything at the base they can, espcially obs, armories and arms labs) and a second group should roam the map looking for marine groups that exit the base and keep eating marine RT's. Lastly, players should gorge "one at a time" and place res nodes as far from the marine base as possible and put a couple of OC's nearby. After the first couple of RT's are down and have a couple of OC's with them, then that gorge goes back to skulk while one of the other's, who's been getting RFK, then procedes to do the same thing.
I know that there are some marine strats on the pubs that are starting to destroy the "typical" alien play, and alien strats need to change. Any thoughts on this are highly welcomed.
Comments
I normally Fade, but sometimes I just get res so fast...
The lesson is: there is no reason to waste 12 resource just to be able to spend 15 to put up a RT that you can't reasonably defend.
A few unique , genius strategies that caused amazement on the servers where they've been designed , are now spreading everywhere (just like the original 2 hive lockdown and JP HMG tech rush) : I've witnessed an apparently average marine team pull out Stoneburg's chokepoints controll strat on Nothing , on a french server with usually lame teamwork. We aliens couldn't exit the lower levels at all , I fear this strat will grow more and more common.
There's also the more common and scary 'multi-marine' tactic where more than just 1 or 2 lone marines turn up to get a job done... this 'teamwork' thingy is pretty scary <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Seriously though... If the aliens split into 2 groups (1 on attack duty taking down enemy RTs and raiding the marine base, while the other goes building nuts with occasional swapping between the two as res changes) it's not too bad.
The builders run off to double and cap/defend it until it's reasonably fortified while the attack squad keeps them from attacking the hives or grabbing res nodes <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Correcto mundo!
The "slash and burn" or "Rambo strat" is the counter to <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->D first and early fades<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> . It works a lot less well against M chambers, especially if the aliens stick together in small clusters with a gorge for healing. Also dropping only "safe" nodes and defending them. So cap only 2 or 3 nodes, and defend them (with OC's or aliens or both), which will give you time to go after *their* nodes.
Such players have no idea of teamwork, and haven't learned how to employ it. They survived through 2.0 because they could hoard to onos and smash the marines weak expansion. Now, in 2.01 RC2, rines are better at expanding, and have LEARNED from their constant losses. It is now the turn of the selfish alien player to feel the bite of the nerf stick.
IMHO I'm quite happy with this state of affairs, as it forces the lamers to improve or die.
Or stack 'rines. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
I've been pretty surprised at how easily the aliens have been beaten down on my own fave server. The marines have had to train with groupwork since 2.0 took off, or they die ridiculously fast. Now, aliens have gotten lazy with teamplay, and each particular alien player has his own rambo strategy. Save for lerk + Regen, save for Fade, save for Onos, camp the same blind corner for hours on the other side of the map as the action, ignore res-tower under attack warnings in favor of getting RFK, spend all their time looking for un-electrified res as a skulk, trying to take down elec res as a lerk, repeatedly throwing themselves as a skulk into enemy gunfire with no hope of getting even a single bite off and feeding the marines res, etc etc etc etc... but NOBODY ever does anything COHERANT along with the rest of the team.
DMS is a very stupid plan to go with right now if you want wins, both because the tactics employed against it are beginning to be pulled off by even average marine teams, and the aliens have grown so used to it, they have huge problems trying to make use of EITHER of the other chambers. Movement lets a pair of gorges and a skulk take on even large marine groups with adren double-heal-spray + celerity skulk, as well as instantly relocate to a hive under attack. In tournament/friendlyfire mode, this is even better, since you can get someone to bite the hive under construction once, and everyone can tport to the unbuilt hive while the alarm is going off, in preparation for an upcoming marine push. Sensory has more risk associated with it, but can be just as nasty if you don't let the marines know you have sensory chambers right away. Resist the urge to put one down in the middle of a contested zone, and try not to pick cloaking for the first few times. Then, start the walk-cloaking along the hallways out of Marine Start, and wait for the com to toss resources, time, and energy on sensory sweeps, motion tracking, and obs at all the forward bases and marine start. Sensory relies on already having the res you need for the second hive, and ambushing.
Defense heals you and keeps you safe and secure. : P Yippee-doodle. Take a risk. Be bold. Explain how to play with Movement or Sense to the nubs. Outsmart the marines, and try to figure out how to beat the new marine power-strats.
Such players have no idea of teamwork, and haven't learned how to employ it. They survived through 2.0 because they could hoard to onos and smash the marines weak expansion. Now, in 2.01 RC2, rines are better at expanding, and have LEARNED from their constant losses. It is now the turn of the selfish alien player to feel the bite of the nerf stick.
IMHO I'm quite happy with this state of affairs, as it forces the lamers to improve or die. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Most people on the server I play on, including myself, go random. I have yet to meet a person who plays only one side.
one side, as in marines or aliens, but the stoneburg side.
Really though, I see that tactic on the CoFR server alot, and I don't really think we lose much when we carry it out. Though I don't know HOW the aliens seem to forget about the marine base... It's usually COMPLETELY undefended when we do this "slash and burn" tactic, or "Rambo tactic". Even if there is one marine, and mines placed everywhere, you could probably easily ream the marine base while they are out stomping the alien nodes. I think eventually some sort of strat will surface, and take over the "drop a node and skulk" train of thought everyone has.
ANYWAYS, that "Slash and Burn" Tactic as you put it is nasty. But on the server i play on we sorta developed a counter, but mroe just cause we got lazy. Since our RTs kept dying (cause no selfrespecting reshoarder would EVER go defend an RT <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo--> ) we stopped planting them right away. Basically instead we either dont gorge at all until the marines have 4+ RTs (in which case we then all go meet at an RT and attack it and kill it, then cap the node and place rts on it then move on gettin res off those same rambos that try to kill the RTs or the decent players that actually LISTEN to the comm and go defend an RT thats underattack). This way we make the marines waste 15-45 res (depending if the RT is fried) and we still get 6-8 RTs (yay!).
Another tactic thats growing on me is that 4 players and any perma-gorges palce Sensory Chambers (yes, Sensory Chambers) all over the map in key locations or just covering it. Then we all get Cloaking. Makes it SO much easier to find marines buildign an RT, kill them all, bite the RT twice and if the comm doesnt recycle just sit there. The marines come back in a group of about 4 usually and 1 skulk with cloaking can just kill em all with ease gettin 4-12 res and denying them an RT. You'd be surprised how much this works.
And finally my favorite counter to ANY marine tactic is to just get as many SCs as possible, get Cloaking, and then find a key location (such as power sub junction 3 on ns_eclipse) and just NOT move. And tackle any group of 4 or less marines you find, or if it is more, wait till they go by then attack from behind. This works for stoping hive rushes, them capping RTs, and if they farm you can walk around the farms making them a waste of res. Fun to do as a Regen Onos (cause i dont care what you say, DCs should always be 2nd IMO) and just get right by the TF then kill it.
Anyways with the Slash and Burn Sensory works well cause unless you got a REALLY good commander he probably wont ping for their mariens (I know some of the best comms forget to) and Motion doesnt help THAT much when you arent moving.
Sensory not workign for you? Try Movement and get silence/celerity. All you need is 3 skulks to pay attention and when an RT gets under attack they rush it. Chances are they can take on the 4 marines that are usually there. If more than 4 are then rush their base. While their killing your 15 res RT and placing their own, possibly electrifing it for 30 if you be smart about it and wait till they have built it to rush their base, you can kill at LEAST 20+ res worth of stuff in their base. The average commander farms it up and if you all have celerity/regen/carapace/silence/redmeption/cloak yoru skulks should be able to gain up on the TF or IPs or something.
Basically if you lose an RT just make sure the marines cant have it. As long as they dont have any nodes YOU only need 1 if you have no perma-gorges.
Well there's my two cents, though it may seem "noobish" give it a try. We have only had that slash and burn tactic interfere with our victory 3 or 4 times. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
-Red
@ Stoneburg: Cofr is too good. try some other servers =P all the idiots on the Cofr server get kicked pretty quickly. unless it's that slow time in the early afternoon... I go there if I want a good com to play with/against and games that almost always end up as a good game.
Correcto mundo!
The "slash and burn" or "Rambo strat" is the counter to <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->D first and early fades<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> . It works a lot less well against M chambers, especially if the aliens stick together in small clusters with a gorge for healing. Also dropping only "safe" nodes and defending them. So cap only 2 or 3 nodes, and defend them (with OC's or aliens or both), which will give you time to go after *their* nodes. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Argh, I had "slash and burn" absolutely crushed by movements first today, ugh, back to the drawing board for my strats.
Now, for those who play with me on a regular basis, yes I do prefer aliens but you'll also see me switch teams to keep balance. Smacktards hog the "winning" side endlessly.
If lamers do start to jump into rine teams, all the better still. Rine teams have a much lower tolerance for slack players - especially when they can ill afford them.
Incorrect. In clan games, slash and burn has been around for awhile now (like... for weeks) and I'll tell you right now, the only way to stop the force of good marine that are advancing is with bigger evolutions, esp. the fade and an occasional lerk.
D chambers are the best way to make your evolutions more effective, so D chambers again have become prevalent chamber simply to ultilize the power of the fade, esp. in response to the 'slash and burn' techique you have dubbed it, fades are the only way to protect your investments against super good players.
Norm L High: I've been eaten/shot by Zues a lot of times so that can't be true.
Sensory chambers ARE a *great* counter to this strategy. But a good COM will just switch strat as soon as he finds out and you will get horribly owned since sensory is so easily beaten in any OTHER way.
M chambers is the easiest way to level the playing field, I'm working on another counter that I will try today.
True the rines might move up but an early gorge rush can still b very effective, if you coordinate ur actions and work in grp as gorge. 1 oc + 1 gorge might b easy to take out but 2 ocs and 3 gorges can kill tons of rines. Then Im talking about the defence, but I really mean 3/4 gorges going from spot to spot building ocs/dcs depending of the strategic importance of the spot, cource only places where the marines havent build yet until you have 2 hives at least so you can bilebomb.
Especially on public servers this strategy owns and the rines simply get crushed when used correctly.
Incorrect. In clan games, slash and burn has been around for awhile now (like... for weeks) and I'll tell you right now, the only way to stop the force of good marine that are advancing is with bigger evolutions, esp. the fade and an occasional lerk.
D chambers are the best way to make your evolutions more effective, so D chambers again have become prevalent chamber simply to ultilize the power of the fade, esp. in response to the 'slash and burn' techique you have dubbed it, fades are the only way to protect your investments against super good players. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, I've been doing Slash and Burn for a while, didn't even know others used it until I ran across it here on the forums, but I've seen an increase in other comms doing it.
Oh well, it was a thought.
True the rines might move up but an early gorge rush can still b very effective, if you coordinate ur actions and work in grp as gorge. 1 oc + 1 gorge might b easy to take out but 2 ocs and 3 gorges can kill tons of rines. Then Im talking about the defence, but I really mean 3/4 gorges going from spot to spot building ocs/dcs depending of the strategic importance of the spot, cource only places where the marines havent build yet until you have 2 hives at least so you can bilebomb.
Especially on public servers this strategy owns and the rines simply get crushed when used correctly. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
huh?
Anyways, you have to understand that some servers lack any sort of teamplay (They all save for themselves) and and some servers kill themselves on teamplay (Everyone does the drop res thing) Thankfully, at the place I play at, everyone drops stuff, to the point that there are no more free reasonable res nodes. At that point, I save for stuff to build, as I can't seem to handle anything bigger then a lerk.
Additionally, he is also talking about how gorges who work together can take out marines, or fighting fire with fire. 3 or 4 gorges can act as a cheap (Err.. well, expensive) bilebomb.
Bilebomb is the key issue here. It makes mincemeat of those electrified res towers, which is why someone must save for a hive, and the others must defend until you get it up.
Tha fact that the statement contains <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->waiting another 50 res for onos<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> shows that he is not on topic. In the game we are talking about you will never see an onos because Marines just killed the node in your hive, you have 0 RT's and the fully upgraded rines with Motion Tracking makes RFK a pipedream.
You have to agree with your team to have a slow start to do this. You only get one RT at a time, and instead of going offense, you set up ambushes for marine pushes, while getting the res to drop a well placed OC or two around each new RT. You want to slowly advance forward, and nevermind about the possibility of electrified RTs. If you can bite an RT before it electrifies, so much the better, but when it starts zapping, ignore it. By now, two people should have 30 res, and hopefully, someone else has put up some DCs. Those two people need to go lerk, and they need to be VERY good about what they do. One person will be the harasser, and the other one will be the mobile RT destroyer, with help from your usual gorge-gorge-skulk team. One lerk is a pain to deal with, especially if he doesn't do anything outrageously stupid such as take on a marine one on one in an area with a broken-up roof. Ideally, the harasser lerk will be close enough to the alien portions of the map to benefit from nearby gorges and DCs, as well as being able to call backup, or fall behind an OC or two while regen does it's business. The mobile Res destroyer needs to pick res that he can attack from a very escapable position, as from vents, or nice little obstructions in the roof. When the marines show up, spike them if you can, instead of running. Don't retreat fully from any place, but don't expose yourself to much fire either. Just spore, pop, spore, pop, and so forth. Call in the skulkies if you think you have them distracted.
All this lerking does two very important things: One, it fights the marines with their own greatest strength, that of being able to shoot guns and attack from way out of range of a skulk bite, and two, it plays on the marine's already ingrained urge to form teams. Let's face it, good marines move in packs. If you can lerk from a vent, you present a very tempting target, but also a very hard one to take down. A lerk baiting the marines can hold a team of three or four down for long enough to call in skulks, or simply to keep them from really DOING anything. While the marines are busy attempting to kill regen lerks and occasionally getting a whiff of spore, the rest of the alien team should be battering at the marine res with impunity from roving bands of LA LMGs.
Having two lerks on the team provides a buffer in case one lerk accidentally over-extends himself and gets waxed. The other lerk can keep the marines busy until someone else has enough res to go lerk, or until they have enough to get that second hive.
Since lerks go down like a ton of bricks when the LMGs and GLs roll up, you pretty much HAVE to have higher evolutions to support around the midgame. However, a really good lerk can RFK himself all the way to 100 res if he really knows his art. I've done this a few times, but I don't really capitalize on it since I play a really lousy cow. Usually I plonk it down in an advanced forward base of several DC and an OC or two. The point remains though that assuming you have at least two people who are above-average lerkers on your alien team, you can stand a good chance of winning with the old DMS method. Just make sure your skulks aren't blindly jumping in front of marine machineguns and feeding them 1-3 res at a time, and you should be fine.
Word of caution: NEVER STAND STILL. I know this isn't really part of the strategy, but for the love of god, don't just let a single marine with a full pistol clip empty ten rounds into you in one second and flush your 30 res down the toilet. BE AWARE OF EVERYTHING.
Comments? Counterarguments?
While this *might* work in a pub game with some slack players on both teams, it'd be pretty doomed on clan or high level matches because rines will react an awful lot quicker.
Forgot to add this..if they have 2 hives by now, i start pumping out the rest of the upgrades. Even if they have 2 hives, its no problem unless they have some decent fades + Defense chambers to **** my JPers out of the air.
I play on pubs a lot. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> Sorry if anything I suggest isn't L33tyMcCool enough for clan play.
Second, while I agree that it takes some time to tech to HA/GLs, it can happen very quickly if thats what the comm focuses on....... and if he plays defensively then you don't get rfk.
So by the time his 2-3 HA or GLs start rolling out of base, you'll need to have onos in numbers in order to withstand his coordinated push (assuming a competent comm).
perfect example of a sensory nut... stop making us lose games fool!