Focus does take the same amount of energy as non-focus... meaning it is like also getting adren for slot 1 attacks. But I'd rather get focus, having played with both, since it really is devestating when you place your attacks right. You need to see it to believe it, I think. Remember, 1 bite to kill vanilla, no armor upgrade marines. ONE BITE. I can usually get one bite in on anyone... it's the second that gets me into trouble (esspecially with knockback put back into the picture)
And in the hands of someone who is REALLY good with placing bites? A single focus skulk can clear a ROOM. I've seen it. Granted, these were vets playing... HAM really is rather good... but still. Clearing an entire room of 7 marines, every gun aimed at the skulk... amazing to watch through his eyes while respawning. One bite, one kill, rinse repeat.
People are saying that focus was too strong with xenocide. I remember Talesin saying that this was a big problem in NS:C because gaining levels also increased your health, so it was impossible to kill the skulk before xenocide went off. Would focused xenocide be a problem in regular NS?
Yes, double damage xeno is almost enough to kill a heavy armor. Bit unfair, don't you think? I mean, ONE 0 cost skulk throwing himself at the marine base over and over, is right now quite enough to kill the marines, but with double damage... oh boy.
ShockehIf a packet drops on the web and nobody's near to see it...Join Date: 2002-11-19Member: 9336NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
<!--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-->I agree that spit is a little useless, since almost every gorge ive ever seen, including myself, just uses healspray as an offensive and defensive.....spits not really used that much. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In 1.04, I would have wholeheartedly agreed. Since 2.x, spit has become the weapon of choice on most servers I've been on, as it's generally easy to kill a LMG/LA marine before he kills you with spit.
I think the fact that the attack takes the same amount of energy is very important.
I know that often as an onos my rof is slow anyway because after stomping and goring i have no energy left so am goring at about half speed anyway. In that case double damage would be ideal. Hive 2 skulking where I love leap I can get a similar problem.
The only question is: Is focus good enough to give up regen/adren?
<!--QuoteBegin--Kid-A+Nov 7 2003, 05:29 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kid-A @ Nov 7 2003, 05:29 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The only question is: Is focus good enough to give up regen/adren? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> That's up to you and your team. To me, focus is making SC a viable first hive chamber now. Now you can sit in it's AoA and be cloaked AND kill marines under level 2 armor in one hit. I have on trouble getting one bite in, two is a bit difficult cause of knockback. I"m going to love trying focus out when 2.1 comes out. Now I can base rush teh rines, get two or three kills in before dieing. People can form their opinoins of it before trying it, but please guys, don't totally bash something till you've tried it!
WIth lvl3 focus, a skulk now deals the damage of a nonfocused ONOS! Imagine 4 focus skulks rushing a HA train. There is now a truely viable solution to the HA train besides onos! And it only costs 32 res and some aim!
maveric... I don't know if you noticed but the 'downsides' of the rest of the upgrades are the same as not choosing an upgrade at all. What does that mean? They're not downsides brought about by the upgrades; they're downgrades brought about by a lack of a particular upgrade. If you don't take regen you're not going to be healing without DCs/Gorges/Hives whether you take carpace or not.
I'm not too bothered about half speed, double damage as I quite like double damage but if you're going to make a point about stuff having downsides make sure it's a genuine one ^^;
You do the same damage in the same time with or without focus, correct, but focus is not about numbers. The one bite kill OWNS marine in early game. I've seen it, I've done it.
This isn't really the place to discuss the benefits of this upgrade...
But anway, if what I hear is true than that mean that you don't lose any damage over time at all when attacking. Either you kill them in one hit or you kill them in 2 in the time it would normaly take to attack three times. But this would only occur in the instances where you would need 3-4 hits to kill them anyway. There is no down side at all. So don't look at it that way. You are attacking twice in one hit without any increase in recovery time at all. Picture it that way.
By the by, the reason for the delay would be that 150 damage skulk bite at normal rate would be a wee bit too strong, considering it's much higher than the onos unfocused damage.
<!--QuoteBegin--Align+Nov 7 2003, 08:32 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Align @ Nov 7 2003, 08:32 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> By the by, the reason for the delay would be that 150 damage skulk bite at normal rate would be a wee bit too strong, considering it's much higher than the onos unfocused damage. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> So are level 3 weapons. Man, I love watching a fade die in two shotgun blasts. Yet, wow, level 3 weapons doesn't negatively affect the marine team IN ANY WAY. The aliens are giving up 6 BETTER upgrades in favor of a set of three, one of which can be countered for FREE by the marines.
Furthermore, to get MORE upgrades, it'll cost them an additional 80 resources.
I can imagine there being a small penalty, but half RoF is just stupid. When I get a higher level of upgrade, I'd expect it to, you know, outperform lower levels. Instead, the lower levels suck SO DAMN MUCH (You're doing less damage then without focus at any level but 3), level 3's 'outperformace' barely equates to how wonderful regen / celerity / adreneline is.
Yeah, well, alien upgrades don't work that way. If extra armor helped the aliens like it helps the marines than everybody would pick Carapace all the time. Similarly, an alien damage upgrade would not work like the marine damage upgrade.
Besides, you aren't really doing less damage at level 1 and level 2 Focus. Maybe it takes a skulk a little longer to kill a level 0 armor marine with level 1 Focus, but you will still take down level 1 and level 2 armor marines in 2 hits. And level 2 Focus allows you to take down level 3 armor marines in 2 hits. In fact, I don't see any reason to get all 3 sensory chambers as far as upgrades go... Except to make level 0 marines go down in one hit. Maybe I'm missing something... It could be that they round down the percents making most of what I said previously false...
Regardless, how can you judge if the current Focus upgrade is worse than any chamber's upgrades without trying it first? According to the people who have tried it, it seems that it is in no way lacking.
This is very similar to Carapace and its former slowdown effect. Marines were never slowed down by extra armor, but aliens were. They found that this slowdown was unnecessary so they removed it. If they find that that is the case in this upgrade then I trust that they will change it here too.
Edit: Actually, it seems that some misconceptions still exist. Does level 1 Focus cut your RoF in half or is it only 1/3rd slower? I am under the impression that it is only a fraction slower. If I'm wrong about that then uranium is right about lower level focus actually harming your abilities, but it just wouldn't make sense for it to be that way.
Then you'd have to justify if completely GIMPING your fades and onii (No celerity or adren / regen or cara) is worth killing a marine in one bite as a SKULK. Furthermore, it only affects slot 1 abilities? What crap is that!
Sounds like this is the alien's version of a shotgun rush. All or nothing.
Anyway, annoncoward, my point is that in NO GAME does an UPGRADE negatively affect you in any way. That's like saying in Starcraft that upgrading your wraith's reactor causes them to lose about 50 hitpoints 'because they're more fragile'. Or upgrading metabolize for your hydralisks causes their attacks to only do 60% as much damage 'because they can run away now'.
This is an UPGRADE. UPGRADES NEVER SHOULD COME WITH A 'CON'. It was bad enough that cloaking is 100% useless because scans are free...
<!--QuoteBegin--Geminosity+Nov 7 2003, 05:38 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Geminosity @ Nov 7 2003, 05:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> maveric... I don't know if you noticed but the 'downsides' of the rest of the upgrades are the same as not choosing an upgrade at all. What does that mean? They're not downsides brought about by the upgrades; they're downgrades brought about by a lack of a particular upgrade. If you don't take regen you're not going to be healing without DCs/Gorges/Hives whether you take carpace or not. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> lol. true, true. but a "downgrade" and a upgrade are both disadvantages and advantages in their own sense.
With regeneration, sure, you'll get chopped up faster because you dont have better carapace, but since you have regeneration you can heal yourself without another person or thing to help you. You're self-reliant (advantage) but rely on your skill and the lack-there-of on the marine's behalf to not get shredded by the level 3 HMG (disadvantage)... but if you can dodge those bullets and possibly ambush the marine that disadvantage dissapears.
Same with carapace, except that now the advantage is that you can afford to have afew <i>small</i> mistakes in combat, meaning that you dont have to dodge too many bullets, but likewise you become dependant on others to repair your body.
The same is true with focus, just in different ways. At lower levels, you have to hope that you surprise the marine so that you can land those more devistating hits, but as the focus level rises, you dont have to hope anymore. at level 3 it'll kill a lvl 0 armor marine in one hit and hurt the stronger armored ones (advantage) however, because of the lowered attack time, knock back, and a possible higher marine armor level the marine could take just afew more tries to kill than before. You also have the possibility that the marine would side-step to the left/right and then avoid your "one-shot super-powerful but twice as slow" attack. (disadvantage)
<span style='color:tan'>-=-=-=-</span> Of course, you could just ignore what i said there and say that just choosing a upgrade gives you that one advantage and having that one advantage makes the inverse effect of the other upgrade's advantages the penalties. (Choose regen you dont get carapace; choose cloak you dont get focus) <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Hmm... i sense this is somehow going off-topic... <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--uranium - 235+Nov 7 2003, 11:30 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (uranium - 235 @ Nov 7 2003, 11:30 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> level 3 weapons doesn't negatively affect the marine team IN ANY WAY <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> level 3 weapons (30% damage increase) costs 130 resources and (i think) 6 minutes in research time
level 3 focus (100% damage increase) costs 32 res + gorges and can be done in the opening minute of the game
carapace, which once (1.0X) was the ONLY choice for aliens who wished to survive, slows you down because it was too good this is called balance
focus with no cooldown time or other penalty would be a mistake
<!--QuoteBegin--uranium - 235+Nov 7 2003, 08:01 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (uranium - 235 @ Nov 7 2003, 08:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Then you'd have to justify if completely GIMPING your fades and onii (No celerity or adren / regen or cara) is worth killing a marine in one bite as a SKULK. Furthermore, it only affects slot 1 abilities? What crap is that! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Explain to me how it would gimp fade and onos, they, just like the skulk, can't kill an undamaged level 0 marine in one hit without focus.
I think it only affects slot 1 abilities due to absolutely annihilating damage from, something like a 3 hive skulk... focused xeno would be like a nuke.
Let's say Flay&Max made it so cloak lets you run around silently while staying cloaked unless you attack, with only the cloak upgrade(no nearby sensories or Silence upgrades).... and that would be a bit overpowered, don't you think?
[EDIT] Special K, Carapace does NOT slow you down. It did one of the beta versions of 2.0(or 1.1), but it was removed as it was not necessary with the rounding up of marine damage.
[EDIT2] Actually I agree with uranium about "focus shouldnt have a downside", but I'm trying to show the reason that I'm not objecting to it...
<!--QuoteBegin--Maveric+Nov 7 2003, 12:02 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Maveric @ Nov 7 2003, 12:02 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Geminosity+Nov 7 2003, 05:38 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Geminosity @ Nov 7 2003, 05:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> maveric... I don't know if you noticed but the 'downsides' of the rest of the upgrades are the same as not choosing an upgrade at all. What does that mean? They're not downsides brought about by the upgrades; they're downgrades brought about by a lack of a particular upgrade. If you don't take regen you're not going to be healing without DCs/Gorges/Hives whether you take carpace or not. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> lol. true, true. but a "downgrade" and a upgrade are both disadvantages and advantages in their own sense.
With regeneration, sure, you'll get chopped up faster because you dont have better carapace, but since you have regeneration you can heal yourself without another person or thing to help you. You're self-reliant (advantage) but rely on your skill and the lack-there-of on the marine's behalf to not get shredded by the level 3 HMG (disadvantage)... but if you can dodge those bullets and possibly ambush the marine that disadvantage dissapears.
Same with carapace, except that now the advantage is that you can afford to have afew <i>small</i> mistakes in combat, meaning that you dont have to dodge too many bullets, but likewise you become dependant on others to repair your body.
The same is true with focus, just in different ways. At lower levels, you have to hope that you surprise the marine so that you can land those more devistating hits, but as the focus level rises, you dont have to hope anymore. at level 3 it'll kill a lvl 0 armor marine in one hit and hurt the stronger armored ones (advantage) however, because of the lowered attack time, knock back, and a possible higher marine armor level the marine could take just afew more tries to kill than before. You also have the possibility that the marine would side-step to the left/right and then avoid your "one-shot super-powerful but twice as slow" attack. (disadvantage)
<span style='color:tan'>-=-=-=-</span> Of course, you could just ignore what i said there and say that just choosing a upgrade gives you that one advantage and having that one advantage makes the inverse effect of the other upgrade's advantages the penalties. (Choose regen you dont get carapace; choose cloak you dont get focus) <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Hmm... i sense this is somehow going off-topic... <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually, you didn't really respond to him. People have said that having no sensory upgrade is better than having focus (which is debatable, of course), while your examples say that one upgrade is a disadvantage compared to the other. I think I can explain it more clearly, however.
Regen drawback: You make noise while healing, meaning you can't hide as easily. Negated by silence. Carapace drawback: At one point in testing, it slowed you down, but this was taken out (I believe), so currently none. Redemption drawback: Can take you out of the fight earlier than you want to leave. Note that it not working is not really a drawback, since that is the same as no upgrade at all.
Adrenaline drawback: None Silence drawback: None Celerity drawback: Can make it hard to figure out where you are, making it impossible to hit marines (at least as a skulk)
Cloaking drawback: With the uncloaking noise removed, none. Scent of fear drawback: None Pheromones drawback: I'm not sure. Can the marines see the yellow cloud that appears? If so, then they know they are being followed. I have never taken this upgrade, so I don't really know. Focus drawback: Reduced ROF.
Edit: My opinion on the issue? It should slow down ROF some, but the slowdown should be less than the damage gain per hit, so that when you attack a structure you do more damage in the same amount of time even before you run out of energy. I think it would be nicer if level 3 meant that you did double damage and wait time was 1.6 of normal wait time, or something along those lines.
HAMBoneProbably the best CommanderJoin Date: 2003-04-02Member: 15139Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
uranium, focus is a great skill, some might even say overpowered. If you dont want to use it, then don't. But considering you havent even tried it yet I really don't think its necessary for you to continue trolling this thread.
<!--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-->NO GAME does an UPGRADE negatively affect you in any way. That's like saying in Starcraft that upgrading your wraith's reactor causes them to lose about 50 hitpoints 'because they're more fragile'.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Just about every single RTS ever released has at least 2-3 upgrades or skills that have a negative effect, including Starcraft. Did you play Starcraft?
I've not palyed 2.1o yet (connection problems suck), but i have to say, in 2.1n, Focus was just fine as it was/is, altho was a "bit" over powered in combat with Xeno... which has been sorted now...
<!--QuoteBegin--HAMBONE+Nov 7 2003, 02:26 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (HAMBONE @ Nov 7 2003, 02:26 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--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-->NO GAME does an UPGRADE negatively affect you in any way. That's like saying in Starcraft that upgrading your wraith's reactor causes them to lose about 50 hitpoints 'because they're more fragile'.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Just about every single RTS ever released has at least 2-3 upgrades or skills that have a negative effect, including Starcraft. Did you play Starcraft? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Really? Do tell. I can only think of examples that involve the use of energy.
As for me not having used it yet, big deal. I remember every thread about 2.0 was locked because no one had ample time to make an opinion on it. Lo and behold, when they stopped getting locked, the issues still existed, and no one was 'wrong'.
A Fade can do in one swipe what it could before only do in two swipes. Which means they use less energy and can run away sooner after still doing serious damage.
Ok, that was easy, but now the Onos and Lerk... Well with the new Bite the Lerk becomes part Skulk and part Fade, so it would make sense for it.
With Focus the Onos does 180 damage, not much benefit except to counteract the knockback effect in part. Its Gore at least is never weakened against any type of armor, but the ability does helps against level 1 and level 2 LA and any level Heavies. It also helps in small hit and runs, where you may have only one whack at a structure. You can hit it for an easy 360 damage then haul **** and means that you only have to do 8 of these attacks against a turret instead of 16. So it's at least a little better for Onos then not having 2nd hive upgrades at all.
The benefit for the Onos has more to do with Sensory becoming more viable and allowing it to gain the SoF upgrade. Which may be just as good as any MC upgrade if you have two hives and Focused Skulks. Stomp right before they reach a corner and cause havoc. You won't have Celerity, which is a pain, but it should be possible to deal with that now if lower life forms are improved.
Maybe that's a little flimsy, I know, but it's the best you're going to get for a Sensory chamber upgrade with an Onos. And what you're doing right now is comparing the chambers instead of the upgrades. That is really a whole different discussion then just how good/bad this ability is with its current drawbacks. And I believe there is a 21 page thread already dedicated to that pursuit...
Pheromones doesn't show marines any yellow puff balls... Only the Defensive chamber seems to have any real downsides to its upgrades and yet it is still the best and most vital chamber. And Focus is different from any of those upgrades. Their downsides have nothing to do with their effects. You create noise where you might not want to or you get taken out of the battle before you can do all you could have done.
With Focus, there is no weakening of effectiveness on the field in any case. It either helps or it doesn't. Not like this is anything new: Silence may not help you if they have MT. And Cloaking won't help you in a lot of instances.
Maveric, talk about whatever you want. This thread went off-topic after the 3rd reply.
<!--QuoteBegin--Cereal_KillR+Nov 7 2003, 02:51 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cereal_KillR @ Nov 7 2003, 02:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> stim packs, for one... In Age of Empires (I) the ballista towers/trirems weren't as precise as guard towers/galleys <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You're confusing a research and an upgrade. Heavy armor is a research. I mean UPGRADES, like U-238 rounds in starcraft, heated shot in AoE: Expending some money for a positive affect, not expending some money for an affect that is treated like it's an integral part of the game.
HAMBoneProbably the best CommanderJoin Date: 2003-04-02Member: 15139Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<!--QuoteBegin--uranium - 235+Nov 7 2003, 02:45 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (uranium - 235 @ Nov 7 2003, 02:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Really? Do tell. I can only think of examples that involve the use of energy. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Just off the top of my head, You can upgrade stim, which will allow you to stim marines to give them an increased ROF but they lose health rapidly. You can upgrade siege, which lets you siege your tanks. This allows them to do much more damage(and splash), but they have a decreased RoF and cannot target units in close range. You can upgrade your mutalisks to guardians, which gives them increased damage and range, but they can no longer defend themselves against air units. You can use devour as a defiler, which gives you more energy but forces you to slaughter one of your own units.
And honestly, there is no real downside to focus. How often do you get two consecutive bites off on the same marine(when holding down mouse1)? More likely you get one bite, he gets knocked back, then you go bite him again. That is exactly how focus works, except now your bites do considerably more damage.
I'm sorry, but focus has no downside unless you hold down the bite button without aiming. Period. It is an advantage, and only an advantage, and it is currently one of the best advantages available to the Kharaa. As a lerk trying to dog fight with that JP flying around the hive, having the power of 2 bites packed into one makes it so that you have to make contact less times, assuming you actually save your bite for when you are in range. As a stealthy skulk, doing 2 bites before they know it rather than one is a crazy advantage. Fades spend most of their time blinking in and out of fights anyway, getting one swipe now and then. Now that that one swipe means death instead of injury.
As for gimping higher life forms, I have yet to see an alien team get sense first and then get locked down in one hive. Currently sense more or less guarantees ownership of every part of the map that has no obs, and even with an obs marines have to be very carefull. And of course cloaking onos really are good if used correctly. Regen helps more, but theres no reason why you can't also get a second hive and whichever other chamber you want by the time you get onos. And of course, I wouldn't call a focus fade "gimped". He's just more deadly rather than tougher.
<!--QuoteBegin--sloe+Nov 6 2003, 07:49 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (sloe @ Nov 6 2003, 07:49 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--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-->Note: In the current build (2.1o) focus only applies to the first slot weapons. The gorge's weapons have been rearranged (Slot1: Healing Spray, Slot2: Spit) to benefit from this. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
spit, now becoming another nearly useless piece of content in ns. if they throw spit to slot 2 so it doesn't benefit from focus, at least give it a boost (if it hasn't been). something like a minor slowdown to marines when they get hit by it (there already is some sort of bug/funky effect where spit acts as a collision surface and might "stun" marines for a few milliseconds, especially if they are jumping). <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I haven't noticed anything yet when ity comes to spit. but thats a good Idea. Don't make spit stronger, make it act like .5 of a web. Or maybe guck up the gun and prevent fireing from the current wep for 1 second. That way if a gorge is under attack, he can spit at you and make you have to switch to your back up. If theres a skulk around, the marine might turn tales and run for 1 second to get his gun back.
<!--QuoteBegin--HAMBONE+Nov 7 2003, 03:58 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (HAMBONE @ Nov 7 2003, 03:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--uranium - 235+Nov 7 2003, 02:45 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (uranium - 235 @ Nov 7 2003, 02:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Really? Do tell. I can only think of examples that involve the use of energy. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Just off the top of my head, You can upgrade stim, which will allow you to stim marines to give them an increased ROF but they lose health rapidly. You can upgrade siege, which lets you siege your tanks. This allows them to do much more damage(and splash), but they have a decreased RoF and cannot target units in close range. You can upgrade your mutalisks to guardians, which gives them increased damage and range, but they can no longer defend themselves against air units. You can use devour as a defiler, which gives you more energy but forces you to slaughter one of your own units.
And honestly, there is no real downside to focus. How often do you get two consecutive bites off on the same marine(when holding down mouse1)? More likely you get one bite, he gets knocked back, then you go bite him again. That is exactly how focus works, except now your bites do considerably more damage. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Those aren't really upgrades... more like abilities.
Then again, focus is an ability.
The only actually upgrades in a true sense of the word for aliens would be hoping the abilites the aliens have give upgrades.
I mean uranium, don't be so close minded dude. While I know it sounds odd, there is a downside to an alien ability (no other alien ability carries a downside), it does make the game a bit more diverse.
However, if I was Flay, I'd make the sensory chamber give an upgrade for +10%,+20%,+30% attack bonus with each level of sensory chamber, but that's just me. If Flay wants to achieve an attack bonus for the aliens but in a different method to make them more diverse than the marines, then I can only watch and see if he can do it.
But I think I'll always advocate the +10,+20,+30% attack upgrades, because it seems to me that focus is overpowered if anything... you could cloak, OR KILL THEM IN ONE HIT..! Hmm.... which upgrade should I take? Still, I haven't played the game yet, so who knows. Focus is still very much a situational ability, and can't be compared in terms of numbers like you can do with the defensive upgrades.
For example, I could tell you that regen is better than carapace in just about every situation for the onos, as he only gets a 30% boost to his total hp with carapace vs. 10% of his life regenerated every 2 seconds. The skulk, on the other hand, gets a massive 50% boost to their total hp... making it just as useful as regen.
However, I can't really compare foucs to cloak in such a way, as groups of cloaked skulks are pretty good at setting up large scale ambushes working in tandem with other skulks. Sensory chambers are much more situational than D chambers. Before 2.0 came out, I honestly thought that sensory chambers had a chance to be good. However, after testing it out in a situational enviroment, I quickly confirmed that they sucked. D chambers I knew would still be useful, but movement chambers I couldn't really tell. I thought silence would have been a cheap gimmick, but boy was a I wrong. Silence right now is easily the most powerful ability for skulks. I didn't quite realize the power of an situation silence could give to your average skulk. Of course, I wouldn't say M chambers are good as D chambers, but that's another argument for another day.
Anyhow, from what I hear the new focus ability is much like the shotty. Sure, the shotgun has *some* downsides, such as limited range, slow reload (the reload problems were fixed, so now it shoudln't reload 8 shells in 5 shells animation), limited firespeed, but would anyone in their right mind call the shotgun a weapon that is crap because it carries downsides? <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Also, I wouldn't say the focus ability would gimp the fade...
Hitting and running is their specialty, right? Blink in, WHACK, blink out. If they don't die, they will probably take 4 res to heal. That's pretty nice if you ask me.
Onos dealing doulbe damage? I think it would take lv. 3 armor to prevent you from dying in one hit, and even then I'm not sure. This would make killing JP'ers a breaze (remember, devour was fixed, so don't expect anymore eating them in the air stunts I would imagine). Just jump up, hit them once, if they don't have lv. 3 armor they are gone(!).
Anyhow, calm down and look at the entire situation.
<!--QuoteBegin--Quantum_Duck+Nov 7 2003, 03:54 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Quantum_Duck @ Nov 7 2003, 03:54 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I'm sorry, but focus has no downside unless you hold down the bite button without aiming. Period. It is an advantage, and only an advantage, and it is currently one of the best advantages available to the Kharaa <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Focus is something that everyone will want to try and only half will stick with. Don't get me wrong, its hard to use at times, but if you are cloaked by a SC, man its good.
Let me give you an example.
Was playing Bast. The marines came out in force with a HA/HMG/SG/GL/welder train (4 of them). They entered processing and 4 skulks and a fade were waiting for the SC cloaked ambush. They attacked the RT and we uncloaked, the focus bites killed 2 in no time. The fight was bloody!
In the end the focus upgrade let us win. Only the fade lived but we won! If we didn't have focus and be cloaked, we would have never had a shot in hell.
Its an awesome upgrade, but best used in a cloaked area. @Unrainium 235 your too head strong, i'm going to have to own you on the lunixmonster tonight! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
And in the hands of someone who is REALLY good with placing bites? A single focus skulk can clear a ROOM. I've seen it. Granted, these were vets playing... HAM really is rather good... but still. Clearing an entire room of 7 marines, every gun aimed at the skulk... amazing to watch through his eyes while respawning. One bite, one kill, rinse repeat.
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In 1.04, I would have wholeheartedly agreed. Since 2.x, spit has become the weapon of choice on most servers I've been on, as it's generally easy to kill a LMG/LA marine before he kills you with spit.
This is spoken from personal experience. ^^
I know that often as an onos my rof is slow anyway because after stomping and goring i have no energy left so am goring at about half speed anyway. In that case double damage would be ideal. Hive 2 skulking where I love leap I can get a similar problem.
The only question is: Is focus good enough to give up regen/adren?
That's up to you and your team. To me, focus is making SC a viable first hive chamber now. Now you can sit in it's AoA and be cloaked AND kill marines under level 2 armor in one hit. I have on trouble getting one bite in, two is a bit difficult cause of knockback. I"m going to love trying focus out when 2.1 comes out. Now I can base rush teh rines, get two or three kills in before dieing. People can form their opinoins of it before trying it, but please guys, don't totally bash something till you've tried it!
WIth lvl3 focus, a skulk now deals the damage of a nonfocused ONOS! Imagine 4 focus skulks rushing a HA train. There is now a truely viable solution to the HA train besides onos! And it only costs 32 res and some aim!
What does that mean? They're not downsides brought about by the upgrades; they're downgrades brought about by a lack of a particular upgrade.
If you don't take regen you're not going to be healing without DCs/Gorges/Hives whether you take carpace or not.
I'm not too bothered about half speed, double damage as I quite like double damage but if you're going to make a point about stuff having downsides make sure it's a genuine one ^^;
But anway, if what I hear is true than that mean that you don't lose any damage over time at all when attacking. Either you kill them in one hit or you kill them in 2 in the time it would normaly take to attack three times. But this would only occur in the instances where you would need 3-4 hits to kill them anyway. There is no down side at all. So don't look at it that way. You are attacking twice in one hit without any increase in recovery time at all. Picture it that way.
So are level 3 weapons. Man, I love watching a fade die in two shotgun blasts. Yet, wow, level 3 weapons doesn't negatively affect the marine team IN ANY WAY. The aliens are giving up 6 BETTER upgrades in favor of a set of three, one of which can be countered for FREE by the marines.
Furthermore, to get MORE upgrades, it'll cost them an additional 80 resources.
I can imagine there being a small penalty, but half RoF is just stupid. When I get a higher level of upgrade, I'd expect it to, you know, outperform lower levels. Instead, the lower levels suck SO DAMN MUCH (You're doing less damage then without focus at any level but 3), level 3's 'outperformace' barely equates to how wonderful regen / celerity / adreneline is.
Besides, you aren't really doing less damage at level 1 and level 2 Focus. Maybe it takes a skulk a little longer to kill a level 0 armor marine with level 1 Focus, but you will still take down level 1 and level 2 armor marines in 2 hits. And level 2 Focus allows you to take down level 3 armor marines in 2 hits. In fact, I don't see any reason to get all 3 sensory chambers as far as upgrades go... Except to make level 0 marines go down in one hit. Maybe I'm missing something... It could be that they round down the percents making most of what I said previously false...
Regardless, how can you judge if the current Focus upgrade is worse than any chamber's upgrades without trying it first? According to the people who have tried it, it seems that it is in no way lacking.
This is very similar to Carapace and its former slowdown effect. Marines were never slowed down by extra armor, but aliens were. They found that this slowdown was unnecessary so they removed it. If they find that that is the case in this upgrade then I trust that they will change it here too.
Edit: Actually, it seems that some misconceptions still exist. Does level 1 Focus cut your RoF in half or is it only 1/3rd slower? I am under the impression that it is only a fraction slower. If I'm wrong about that then uranium is right about lower level focus actually harming your abilities, but it just wouldn't make sense for it to be that way.
Sounds like this is the alien's version of a shotgun rush. All or nothing.
Anyway, annoncoward, my point is that in NO GAME does an UPGRADE negatively affect you in any way. That's like saying in Starcraft that upgrading your wraith's reactor causes them to lose about 50 hitpoints 'because they're more fragile'. Or upgrading metabolize for your hydralisks causes their attacks to only do 60% as much damage 'because they can run away now'.
This is an UPGRADE. UPGRADES NEVER SHOULD COME WITH A 'CON'. It was bad enough that cloaking is 100% useless because scans are free...
What does that mean? They're not downsides brought about by the upgrades; they're downgrades brought about by a lack of a particular upgrade.
If you don't take regen you're not going to be healing without DCs/Gorges/Hives whether you take carpace or not. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
lol. true, true. but a "downgrade" and a upgrade are both disadvantages and advantages in their own sense.
With regeneration, sure, you'll get chopped up faster because you dont have better carapace, but since you have regeneration you can heal yourself without another person or thing to help you. You're self-reliant (advantage) but rely on your skill and the lack-there-of on the marine's behalf to not get shredded by the level 3 HMG (disadvantage)... but if you can dodge those bullets and possibly ambush the marine that disadvantage dissapears.
Same with carapace, except that now the advantage is that you can afford to have afew <i>small</i> mistakes in combat, meaning that you dont have to dodge too many bullets, but likewise you become dependant on others to repair your body.
The same is true with focus, just in different ways. At lower levels, you have to hope that you surprise the marine so that you can land those more devistating hits, but as the focus level rises, you dont have to hope anymore. at level 3 it'll kill a lvl 0 armor marine in one hit and hurt the stronger armored ones (advantage) however, because of the lowered attack time, knock back, and a possible higher marine armor level the marine could take just afew more tries to kill than before. You also have the possibility that the marine would side-step to the left/right and then avoid your "one-shot super-powerful but twice as slow" attack. (disadvantage)
<span style='color:tan'>-=-=-=-</span>
Of course, you could just ignore what i said there and say that just choosing a upgrade gives you that one advantage and having that one advantage makes the inverse effect of the other upgrade's advantages the penalties. (Choose regen you dont get carapace; choose cloak you dont get focus) <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Hmm... i sense this is somehow going off-topic... <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
level 3 weapons (30% damage increase) costs 130 resources and (i think) 6 minutes in research time
level 3 focus (100% damage increase) costs 32 res + gorges and can be done in the opening minute of the game
carapace, which once (1.0X) was the ONLY choice for aliens who wished to survive, slows you down because it was too good
this is called balance
focus with no cooldown time or other penalty would be a mistake
Explain to me how it would gimp fade and onos, they, just like the skulk, can't kill an undamaged level 0 marine in one hit without focus.
I think it only affects slot 1 abilities due to absolutely annihilating damage from, something like a 3 hive skulk... focused xeno would be like a nuke.
Let's say Flay&Max made it so cloak lets you run around silently while staying cloaked unless you attack, with only the cloak upgrade(no nearby sensories or Silence upgrades).... and that would be a bit overpowered, don't you think?
[EDIT] Special K, Carapace does NOT slow you down. It did one of the beta versions of 2.0(or 1.1), but it was removed as it was not necessary with the rounding up of marine damage.
[EDIT2] Actually I agree with uranium about "focus shouldnt have a downside", but I'm trying to show the reason that I'm not objecting to it...
What does that mean? They're not downsides brought about by the upgrades; they're downgrades brought about by a lack of a particular upgrade.
If you don't take regen you're not going to be healing without DCs/Gorges/Hives whether you take carpace or not. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
lol. true, true. but a "downgrade" and a upgrade are both disadvantages and advantages in their own sense.
With regeneration, sure, you'll get chopped up faster because you dont have better carapace, but since you have regeneration you can heal yourself without another person or thing to help you. You're self-reliant (advantage) but rely on your skill and the lack-there-of on the marine's behalf to not get shredded by the level 3 HMG (disadvantage)... but if you can dodge those bullets and possibly ambush the marine that disadvantage dissapears.
Same with carapace, except that now the advantage is that you can afford to have afew <i>small</i> mistakes in combat, meaning that you dont have to dodge too many bullets, but likewise you become dependant on others to repair your body.
The same is true with focus, just in different ways. At lower levels, you have to hope that you surprise the marine so that you can land those more devistating hits, but as the focus level rises, you dont have to hope anymore. at level 3 it'll kill a lvl 0 armor marine in one hit and hurt the stronger armored ones (advantage) however, because of the lowered attack time, knock back, and a possible higher marine armor level the marine could take just afew more tries to kill than before. You also have the possibility that the marine would side-step to the left/right and then avoid your "one-shot super-powerful but twice as slow" attack. (disadvantage)
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Of course, you could just ignore what i said there and say that just choosing a upgrade gives you that one advantage and having that one advantage makes the inverse effect of the other upgrade's advantages the penalties. (Choose regen you dont get carapace; choose cloak you dont get focus) <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Hmm... i sense this is somehow going off-topic... <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, you didn't really respond to him. People have said that having no sensory upgrade is better than having focus (which is debatable, of course), while your examples say that one upgrade is a disadvantage compared to the other. I think I can explain it more clearly, however.
Regen drawback: You make noise while healing, meaning you can't hide as easily. Negated by silence.
Carapace drawback: At one point in testing, it slowed you down, but this was taken out (I believe), so currently none.
Redemption drawback: Can take you out of the fight earlier than you want to leave. Note that it not working is not really a drawback, since that is the same as no upgrade at all.
Adrenaline drawback: None
Silence drawback: None
Celerity drawback: Can make it hard to figure out where you are, making it impossible to hit marines (at least as a skulk)
Cloaking drawback: With the uncloaking noise removed, none.
Scent of fear drawback: None
Pheromones drawback: I'm not sure. Can the marines see the yellow cloud that appears? If so, then they know they are being followed. I have never taken this upgrade, so I don't really know.
Focus drawback: Reduced ROF.
Edit: My opinion on the issue? It should slow down ROF some, but the slowdown should be less than the damage gain per hit, so that when you attack a structure you do more damage in the same amount of time even before you run out of energy. I think it would be nicer if level 3 meant that you did double damage and wait time was 1.6 of normal wait time, or something along those lines.
<!--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-->NO GAME does an UPGRADE negatively affect you in any way. That's like saying in Starcraft that upgrading your wraith's reactor causes them to lose about 50 hitpoints 'because they're more fragile'.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just about every single RTS ever released has at least 2-3 upgrades or skills that have a negative effect, including Starcraft. Did you play Starcraft?
Just about every single RTS ever released has at least 2-3 upgrades or skills that have a negative effect, including Starcraft. Did you play Starcraft? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really? Do tell. I can only think of examples that involve the use of energy.
As for me not having used it yet, big deal. I remember every thread about 2.0 was locked because no one had ample time to make an opinion on it. Lo and behold, when they stopped getting locked, the issues still existed, and no one was 'wrong'.
Ok, that was easy, but now the Onos and Lerk... Well with the new Bite the Lerk becomes part Skulk and part Fade, so it would make sense for it.
With Focus the Onos does 180 damage, not much benefit except to counteract the knockback effect in part. Its Gore at least is never weakened against any type of armor, but the ability does helps against level 1 and level 2 LA and any level Heavies. It also helps in small hit and runs, where you may have only one whack at a structure. You can hit it for an easy 360 damage then haul **** and means that you only have to do 8 of these attacks against a turret instead of 16. So it's at least a little better for Onos then not having 2nd hive upgrades at all.
The benefit for the Onos has more to do with Sensory becoming more viable and allowing it to gain the SoF upgrade. Which may be just as good as any MC upgrade if you have two hives and Focused Skulks. Stomp right before they reach a corner and cause havoc. You won't have Celerity, which is a pain, but it should be possible to deal with that now if lower life forms are improved.
Maybe that's a little flimsy, I know, but it's the best you're going to get for a Sensory chamber upgrade with an Onos. And what you're doing right now is comparing the chambers instead of the upgrades. That is really a whole different discussion then just how good/bad this ability is with its current drawbacks. And I believe there is a 21 page thread already dedicated to that pursuit...
Pheromones doesn't show marines any yellow puff balls... Only the Defensive chamber seems to have any real downsides to its upgrades and yet it is still the best and most vital chamber. And Focus is different from any of those upgrades. Their downsides have nothing to do with their effects. You create noise where you might not want to or you get taken out of the battle before you can do all you could have done.
With Focus, there is no weakening of effectiveness on the field in any case. It either helps or it doesn't. Not like this is anything new: Silence may not help you if they have MT. And Cloaking won't help you in a lot of instances.
Maveric, talk about whatever you want. This thread went off-topic after the 3rd reply.
You're confusing a research and an upgrade. Heavy armor is a research. I mean UPGRADES, like U-238 rounds in starcraft, heated shot in AoE: Expending some money for a positive affect, not expending some money for an affect that is treated like it's an integral part of the game.
Just off the top of my head,
You can upgrade stim, which will allow you to stim marines to give them an increased ROF but they lose health rapidly.
You can upgrade siege, which lets you siege your tanks. This allows them to do much more damage(and splash), but they have a decreased RoF and cannot target units in close range.
You can upgrade your mutalisks to guardians, which gives them increased damage and range, but they can no longer defend themselves against air units.
You can use devour as a defiler, which gives you more energy but forces you to slaughter one of your own units.
And honestly, there is no real downside to focus. How often do you get two consecutive bites off on the same marine(when holding down mouse1)? More likely you get one bite, he gets knocked back, then you go bite him again. That is exactly how focus works, except now your bites do considerably more damage.
As for gimping higher life forms, I have yet to see an alien team get sense first and then get locked down in one hive. Currently sense more or less guarantees ownership of every part of the map that has no obs, and even with an obs marines have to be very carefull. And of course cloaking onos really are good if used correctly. Regen helps more, but theres no reason why you can't also get a second hive and whichever other chamber you want by the time you get onos. And of course, I wouldn't call a focus fade "gimped". He's just more deadly rather than tougher.
spit, now becoming another nearly useless piece of content in ns. if they throw spit to slot 2 so it doesn't benefit from focus, at least give it a boost (if it hasn't been). something like a minor slowdown to marines when they get hit by it (there already is some sort of bug/funky effect where spit acts as a collision surface and might "stun" marines for a few milliseconds, especially if they are jumping). <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't noticed anything yet when ity comes to spit.
but thats a good Idea. Don't make spit stronger, make it act like .5 of a web.
Or maybe guck up the gun and prevent fireing from the current wep for 1 second.
That way if a gorge is under attack, he can spit at you and make you have to switch to your back up. If theres a skulk around, the marine might turn tales and run for 1 second to get his gun back.
Just off the top of my head,
You can upgrade stim, which will allow you to stim marines to give them an increased ROF but they lose health rapidly.
You can upgrade siege, which lets you siege your tanks. This allows them to do much more damage(and splash), but they have a decreased RoF and cannot target units in close range.
You can upgrade your mutalisks to guardians, which gives them increased damage and range, but they can no longer defend themselves against air units.
You can use devour as a defiler, which gives you more energy but forces you to slaughter one of your own units.
And honestly, there is no real downside to focus. How often do you get two consecutive bites off on the same marine(when holding down mouse1)? More likely you get one bite, he gets knocked back, then you go bite him again. That is exactly how focus works, except now your bites do considerably more damage. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those aren't really upgrades... more like abilities.
Then again, focus is an ability.
The only actually upgrades in a true sense of the word for aliens would be hoping the abilites the aliens have give upgrades.
I mean uranium, don't be so close minded dude. While I know it sounds odd, there is a downside to an alien ability (no other alien ability carries a downside), it does make the game a bit more diverse.
However, if I was Flay, I'd make the sensory chamber give an upgrade for +10%,+20%,+30% attack bonus with each level of sensory chamber, but that's just me. If Flay wants to achieve an attack bonus for the aliens but in a different method to make them more diverse than the marines, then I can only watch and see if he can do it.
But I think I'll always advocate the +10,+20,+30% attack upgrades, because it seems to me that focus is overpowered if anything... you could cloak, OR KILL THEM IN ONE HIT..! Hmm.... which upgrade should I take? Still, I haven't played the game yet, so who knows. Focus is still very much a situational ability, and can't be compared in terms of numbers like you can do with the defensive upgrades.
For example, I could tell you that regen is better than carapace in just about every situation for the onos, as he only gets a 30% boost to his total hp with carapace vs. 10% of his life regenerated every 2 seconds. The skulk, on the other hand, gets a massive 50% boost to their total hp... making it just as useful as regen.
However, I can't really compare foucs to cloak in such a way, as groups of cloaked skulks are pretty good at setting up large scale ambushes working in tandem with other skulks. Sensory chambers are much more situational than D chambers. Before 2.0 came out, I honestly thought that sensory chambers had a chance to be good. However, after testing it out in a situational enviroment, I quickly confirmed that they sucked. D chambers I knew would still be useful, but movement chambers I couldn't really tell.
I thought silence would have been a cheap gimmick, but boy was a I wrong. Silence right now is easily the most powerful ability for skulks. I didn't quite realize the power of an situation silence could give to your average skulk. Of course, I wouldn't say M chambers are good as D chambers, but that's another argument for another day.
Anyhow, from what I hear the new focus ability is much like the shotty. Sure, the shotgun has *some* downsides, such as limited range, slow reload (the reload problems were fixed, so now it shoudln't reload 8 shells in 5 shells animation), limited firespeed, but would anyone in their right mind call the shotgun a weapon that is crap because it carries downsides? <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Also, I wouldn't say the focus ability would gimp the fade...
Hitting and running is their specialty, right? Blink in, WHACK, blink out. If they don't die, they will probably take 4 res to heal. That's pretty nice if you ask me.
Onos dealing doulbe damage? I think it would take lv. 3 armor to prevent you from dying in one hit, and even then I'm not sure. This would make killing JP'ers a breaze (remember, devour was fixed, so don't expect anymore eating them in the air stunts I would imagine). Just jump up, hit them once, if they don't have lv. 3 armor they are gone(!).
Anyhow, calm down and look at the entire situation.
Focus is something that everyone will want to try and only half will stick with.
Don't get me wrong, its hard to use at times, but if you are cloaked by a SC, man its good.
Let me give you an example.
Was playing Bast. The marines came out in force with a HA/HMG/SG/GL/welder train (4 of them).
They entered processing and 4 skulks and a fade were waiting for the SC cloaked ambush. They attacked the RT and we uncloaked, the focus bites killed 2 in no time. The fight was bloody!
In the end the focus upgrade let us win.
Only the fade lived but we won!
If we didn't have focus and be cloaked, we would have never had a shot in hell.
Its an awesome upgrade, but best used in a cloaked area.
@Unrainium 235 your too head strong, i'm going to have to own you on the lunixmonster tonight! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->