General Lerk Guide
Firewater
Balance Expert Join Date: 2002-12-12 Member: 10690Members, Constellation
Balance Expert Join Date: 2002-12-12 Member: 10690Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Appreciation for the unappreciated</div> the Lerk: The most under appreciated class in NS. Why? There are no statistics that give the lerk any notice. Gorges can build structures are get points for that. Skulks, Fades and Onos can munch on RTs and get kills as well. Lerks can kill, and take down RTs, but their role is more specialized. The lerk is the support class of the Kharaa, using spores and umbra to aid their teammates in combat. Unfortunately, there is no statistic for how many times umbra can save a fades life, or how much armor the lerk has taken off to give skulks/fades an easier time shutting down a rush.
This guide will attempt to explain how to use the lerk effectively as a support unit.
Even a 1 hive lerk can be a great help to his teammates by using the spores properly. Spores can take away the armor 1 advantage in the early game, if marines stay in spores for 4-5 seconds with armor 1, they lose that advantage, and make them a two bite/swipe kill. While using spores, since they use a lot of energy, its best to avoid direct combat, true the lerk bite makes it a better unit, but after a few volleys of spores, the energy left over is about enough to get you out of harms way, NOT to fly in and try to kill a marine. Lerks are supposed to be support units, and think killing second. Now this isn't set in stone, if you see an oppurtunity for a kill, by all means take it, just be cautious, marines usually setup ambushes for lerks and if you fly in, you might not fly out. Its best to spore and let skulks/fades finish them off. Assuming D chambers are placed, I recommend Carapace so the lerk can take those extra few bullets in case you are caught off guard.
2nd hive lerk is absolutely key. The key ability, Umbra, is VERY useful as it blocks 1/2 bullets for any teammate in the cloud. I would recommend getting adrenaline and alternating between spores and umbra while your teammates are in a fight. If you have to retreat, ALWAYS fire some umbra in front of you in case someone turns the corner. Be creative, you don't need to fire umbra at the wall, fire it at the ceiling if you are flying high, or on the floor if you are swooping down. If though you don't stay in it long, it can still block those few bullets (especially HMG and Pistol) to get you out alive. When you have umbra, it is also easier to become more an assault class, but thats secondary to your primary responsibilites of providing support.
Flying with the lerk is also very important. Alternating between flapping and gliding will help save your energy in case you get in a jam. Don't just hammer the jump key, the best method I've found is, flap until you get maximum speed, and then do a flap...........glide..........flap. If you turn corners you will lose speed, so obviously flap around them, but try to glide in the straightaways, so you can save your energy.
With flying comes another important role of the lerk. Recon. Recon is the lerk's next responsibility because of its speed and ability to go anywhere on the map. If you find yourself with a group to follow, or just come out of a major battle, fly around your main hive, or even more important, fly around a hive that is building if available. As a lerk you should be giving recon to your teammates, telling them where to attack from and when. Use your speed to fly past the enemy and do recon. Lerks can work well with skulks to provide a decoy so the skulks can get off a few parasites.
The two important roles of the lerk, support and recon can be done very simply by staying in the background. This unnappreciated unit is very vital to the alien team, and should be used for its specific roles for which it is specially suited. Use the speed and flying, and try to avoid direct combat. You will do your team a better service by supporting them rather than being a frag **** with it.
This guide will attempt to explain how to use the lerk effectively as a support unit.
Even a 1 hive lerk can be a great help to his teammates by using the spores properly. Spores can take away the armor 1 advantage in the early game, if marines stay in spores for 4-5 seconds with armor 1, they lose that advantage, and make them a two bite/swipe kill. While using spores, since they use a lot of energy, its best to avoid direct combat, true the lerk bite makes it a better unit, but after a few volleys of spores, the energy left over is about enough to get you out of harms way, NOT to fly in and try to kill a marine. Lerks are supposed to be support units, and think killing second. Now this isn't set in stone, if you see an oppurtunity for a kill, by all means take it, just be cautious, marines usually setup ambushes for lerks and if you fly in, you might not fly out. Its best to spore and let skulks/fades finish them off. Assuming D chambers are placed, I recommend Carapace so the lerk can take those extra few bullets in case you are caught off guard.
2nd hive lerk is absolutely key. The key ability, Umbra, is VERY useful as it blocks 1/2 bullets for any teammate in the cloud. I would recommend getting adrenaline and alternating between spores and umbra while your teammates are in a fight. If you have to retreat, ALWAYS fire some umbra in front of you in case someone turns the corner. Be creative, you don't need to fire umbra at the wall, fire it at the ceiling if you are flying high, or on the floor if you are swooping down. If though you don't stay in it long, it can still block those few bullets (especially HMG and Pistol) to get you out alive. When you have umbra, it is also easier to become more an assault class, but thats secondary to your primary responsibilites of providing support.
Flying with the lerk is also very important. Alternating between flapping and gliding will help save your energy in case you get in a jam. Don't just hammer the jump key, the best method I've found is, flap until you get maximum speed, and then do a flap...........glide..........flap. If you turn corners you will lose speed, so obviously flap around them, but try to glide in the straightaways, so you can save your energy.
With flying comes another important role of the lerk. Recon. Recon is the lerk's next responsibility because of its speed and ability to go anywhere on the map. If you find yourself with a group to follow, or just come out of a major battle, fly around your main hive, or even more important, fly around a hive that is building if available. As a lerk you should be giving recon to your teammates, telling them where to attack from and when. Use your speed to fly past the enemy and do recon. Lerks can work well with skulks to provide a decoy so the skulks can get off a few parasites.
The two important roles of the lerk, support and recon can be done very simply by staying in the background. This unnappreciated unit is very vital to the alien team, and should be used for its specific roles for which it is specially suited. Use the speed and flying, and try to avoid direct combat. You will do your team a better service by supporting them rather than being a frag **** with it.
Comments
Onos withOUT umbra is target practice
Onos WITH umbra is the nightmarish cow
regardless, lerk is my favorite lifeform
and i agree, staying in the shadows, shooting spores and getting information is much more valuable than just biting, like any skulk can
a lerk who only slightly damages marines with spores is enough to set up a nice trap and get a few marines at a time, with some team play, is much better than risking death in exchange to killing two marines at most
in addition to the advice above regarding the "creativity" lerks should have using umbra, i'd like to mention it's better to umbra the place you'll be in a second than to umbra your current position
btw, i'm not completely sure it's true, but for some reason it seems as though gliding down, and gliding back up to the original height slightly increases your original speed (before gliding down)
This is also why sensory or move chambers still make a great first chamber, since they benefit the best class available in the first 5 minutes. No Lerk with scent of fear should ever die.
Should the team be going DC or MC, then it is of paramount importance that skulks parasite all marines.
TBH, they should be anyway. A parasited marine is not just an easy target, he is usually also demoralised and unless carrying a heavy weapon, fairly careless with his life since his goal is to respawn without a large <b>*Bite Me*</b> sign above his head.
So to summarise...
Use parasite if you want to win. Biting wins frags, but parasite wins games.
learning how to spore and bite together is the key,and knowing when to run so they you dont die while flying away,let spores finish the job
just got done with a game were i was 26-1 as a lerk,then i went to 34-12 at
endgame because i just cept xenoing
Any server with decent teamwork will set ambushes for the lerks, because its the most effective way to neutralize them.
Never look at your score and think "awww sheesh. I'm doing so poor I have 1 Kill and 1 score and everyone else has 30". You'll only try to bite people getting yourself killed in the process. And even if your work doesn't get noticed, just rest safe in the knowledge that you were probably the most vital member of your team.
Any server with decent teamwork will set ambushes for the lerks, because its the most effective way to neutralize them. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Right, until you have Celerity, you'll have to be superbly careful - although smelling ambushes becomes second nature in no time, and baiting them into wasting more time is half your job. Once you do have Celerity though, you have alot of room to play with - and you can be a tons better support Lerk with the ability to swoop in on damaged or reloading marines. Spores don't stack anyway.
Not to mention, at some point you'll have enough res that your Lerk is expendable anyway.
if you score is tied with the fades score after the fade has been there for 5 min,your a good lerk
lerks shouldnt ever ever ever go in to bite, you just die way too fast.
Gas/Umbra *always*
It hurts to think how much spore would own pubs since commanders don't drop medpacks.
What I'm trying to say is, no matter how many green clouds you can put in one corner, it's still doing the same damage. So spread them out a bit.
Also, spore is the best way to stop marines from building structures. If they start building, spore is the answer. Spore the stuff they are trying to build, and there are several possible outcomes, most of which result in the marines not resuming construction until the spore is gone. Spore is the answer to siege attempts, phasegate rushes, and even delays marines from building RTs.
Spore can totally crush marines without medpack support all on it's own, and even with medpacks, it strips armor off the marine superfast. Arguably, armor is more important to a marine than health once the marines have a few upgrades. As long as there are still light marines running around the map, spore is effective.
or the fades score is 36-1
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called carapace
Heavy weapons you can argue that since all they need is a tiny amount of saved up ammo and an instant of predictable approaching on your side, going in for the kill against good players can end you up dead fast. Thats true. But the margin for error against light weapons is pretty big. So big even that most pub Lerks with an impressive score don't evade much/at all, and so big that you barely have to worry about competitive LMGers at Hive1 either.
Also, the lerk is, IMO, the most maneuverable specie, even more so than blinking fades. Several times I have been engaged in a cat an mouse game with some rines one one side of the map. My teamates report an assault on a hive on the other side of the map. Some quick gliding, and I can flank the enemy in record time. A quick umbra to cover the area, and it's time to kill. Even if I die, I often give the skulks and fades a chance to get in and finish the job. My life is a small price to pay to stop a phase gate/seige push
Finally, a lerk with umbra can finish off a weakened structure. Umbra that TF that is in the red, fly in and kill it.
EDIT: I really don't think a support lerk should be trying this though...
no
unless your a moron who flaps twice,and glides in a strait line to bite the rine,even against people withh good aim you can stay alive
and last time i checked,rines dont say "i hear a lerk" lets wait here and throw a net on it
im tired of people just replying to lerk posts by saying "well a good rine can own a lerk" because in most pubs the lerks fly to a vent,sit there and spore
oh yeah,leave your ip of the server you play on
i play on lunixmonster, (you should probobly be able to find it)
Trying playing in my server, I think voogru played there for about 5 mins and had went like 0/6 or something, he obviously had enough.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and last time i checked,rines dont say "i hear a lerk" lets wait here and throw a net on it
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Considering where you play, that does not suprise me at all.
I'd demo a game recently on origin, it was really beautiful, but my HL crashes whenever I attempt to demo. Point being, the Lerkbite is not un-viable. I do agree though with what FireWater that there are alot of kill-hungry Lerks on pubs that get a ton of kills but suck major ****. You can't dispute that. Getting kills on a pub does not mean you can survive pinpoint aims as well.
im speaking CO here ( i dont like lerk on ns_ cause i generally loose the ress <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
In "focus 1 point" times the full developed lerk owned. I prefered it to the super-skulk by far.
A silenced celerity lerk is a hell of a stealth biter <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->. Even without silence u can glide without makin noises for some time.
Spores are a VERY effectiv weapon. Available at 2 points they can only be countered at 4 points by the marines (HA). And lerks can only be shot out of the vents at 3 points as well (GL).
It does not only remove the amor, it also splits most groups when placed right, as the marines in the front tend to rush through the cloud and the ones in the rear draw back instead. Very easy praythey are the lone marines in front of a cloud blockin their way back <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->.
Another way for spores it to completely block one way (most rines hesitate to move in a cloud) and force the rine team to use the harder way (as like havin far more vents for ambushes on the other way).
The use of Umbra is kinda seldom in CO maps i think.
Regards
Deagle
im so bored of CO i try and battle gorge every time it switches to co
Trying playing in my server, I think voogru played there for about 5 mins and had went like 0/6 or something, he obviously had enough.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and last time i checked,rines dont say "i hear a lerk" lets wait here and throw a net on it
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Considering where you play, that does not suprise me at all. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you didnt say where you played,lol
-edited-
nevermind,got it from you profile
69.93.141.86:27055 right?