How To Counter Hmgs?
Church
Meatshield grunt-fodder // Has pre-ordered NS2 Join Date: 2002-12-31 Member: 11646Members, Constellation
Meatshield grunt-fodder // Has pre-ordered NS2 Join Date: 2002-12-31 Member: 11646Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">cuz they are teh pwnage!</div> I've been comming more lately and I've been rushing Advanced Armory every time. By 3, 3 1/2 minutes I can hand out HMGs (and a few shotguns to round things out), and the aliens just kind of die. I see Fades getting owned completely by just 2 HMGers, and this is with w0. I've won almost every round I commed when I rush AA.
I used to think the shotgun is the best, given its economical cost and structure ownage, but now I just think HMGs can solve almost all of my problems. Maybe it's just because pub aliens don't know how to deal with early HMGs, but HMGs seems damned strong.
I want to know what aliens can do to counter HMGs. Once I get my team of HMGers out on the field, assuming I'm fast enough with my meds (I give most of them welders as well) nothing stops them. They just take down one node after another, and then cap them. I end up having more res than I can spend. It's ridiculous.
I used to think the shotgun is the best, given its economical cost and structure ownage, but now I just think HMGs can solve almost all of my problems. Maybe it's just because pub aliens don't know how to deal with early HMGs, but HMGs seems damned strong.
I want to know what aliens can do to counter HMGs. Once I get my team of HMGers out on the field, assuming I'm fast enough with my meds (I give most of them welders as well) nothing stops them. They just take down one node after another, and then cap them. I end up having more res than I can spend. It's ridiculous.
Comments
Lerk spores are great also to weaken the marines.
Lerk + skulk pack with a nice ambush can waste the whole lot of em.
If its 2 hives then umbra+spore+fade and skulks = dead HMGers.
Also I've seen a good team rush the base while the rest of marine team is out to lunch at res nodes and eat the advanced armory. Then they gradually mop up HMGers.
Also depends on what chamber aliens went with. If its DCs its gonna be HARD. Movements they got a better chance because they are harder to target with cele and MUCH better at ambush with silence (i don't care what people say MT does NOT negate silence as much as you'd think. Hide someplace sneaky and run up behind the marine..he'll never know what hitem) Sensory can be DEVASTATING to the HMG rush with focus and well placed cloaking sensory spots. A focus fade with some lerk support to spore marines as they move will destroy the HMG rushing marines..or even a gaggle of focus skulks camping cloaked waiting for the marines to run through.
- Harass the marine base constantly (ie have a skulk go chew on their armory/arms lab/ip). Try to get rid of structures.
- Kill res nodes to limit the number of heavy guns that rines can hand out.
- Send fades/lerks/skulks to deal with hmgers.
- Rush the second hive fast. Leaping skulks are harder to deal with and umbra is a nice shield for aliens
- Save nodes
- Don't suck
- Teamwork
Well, hive2 isn't exactly the environment I'm looking advice for right now cuz I can hand out HMGers before the second hive starts going up. During the first 3-4 minutes, my marines can usually expand and cap at least 5 nodes without too much trouble due to skulks being weak.
Sending Fades to deal with HMGers is really hard because HMGs really tear thru fades quickly.
ambushing sounds like a really good idea, and using silence is good too, but pubbers typically never want anything but DCs <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Harassing base sounds good, unless the comm leaves one man to base (with a HMG of course)
What you need to do is to be constantly on their RTs, so that every HMG killed hurts. Fades and a lerk to keep the marines at bay near hive while skulks take out RTs. If you play the res war well enough, and manage to break the HMGers once, you're often in a good position to win.
Res is the key though, stop them from being able to drop new HMGs as soon as their old go down. Delay that protolab by killing their RTs. Harass base to force them to keep a marine near their base/PG.
If you dont have a decent lerk, it will be very difficult though.
[Edit]A key point is have your skulks work *around* their HMGs. After fades are up, use your skulks to go after lone lmgs and RTs only.
That right there is the problem for the alien team. If your marines just have lmg's, aliens should be able to keep them from getting that many nodes. Even if the nodes go up, they should be taken down as soon as marines move on.
How many players are on the server? If it's 6v6 or 7v7, having a marine in base should slow down the team noticeably. If it's 10v10, then aliens are going to have a hard time no matter what.
I think the problem is getting the alien team organized enought o work together to take down the hmgers and also to take out their nodes.
However, what usually happens is that marines just build more IPs, and most of the aliens stay in the spawn queue, taking like a whole minute to spawn in. They just try to rush base at the beginning and get owned. I dunno what I can do to organize the alien oub team enough to win in a 12v12.
Yep, it's that simple. The aliens are screwed from the beginning because of the resource system.
Don't listen to Church. He's a nub.
it's good to pick off hmgers when they are away from ms so mostly the hmg gets lost instead of getting picked up again.
keep killing the marine rts.
ambushes works fine, remember to have some skulks walk on walls/ceilings so the skulks at ground level can chew marines up or skulks can drop from ceilings to chew them up. if all of u are at ground level the hmg spray just tears through the skulks _very_ easily even if u have a lot of skulks at the ambush.
when two hives come, UMBRA.
Too scared to lose their precious HMG, they'll avoid all confrontation that ensures they'll take damage. Even if there's a potent comm medspamming like crazy.
That would probably be the key. Stay ahead of the HMG train and spore their path. It'll take them ages to reach their goal, during which your skulkbuddies have hopefully got a second hive up, and taken down some of their RT's.
if they have 2 HMGs it means hardly anyone has one.
If they stick together it means the other team is weak.
If they split up it means you only have one target to hit.
If they camp base you can own the team.
if they are not inbase you own base.
Ambush, gas, blink. No ups will easily face them soon enought. Sure, if he dies another rine can pick up the gun. But he needs to either reload, or aim and fire the remainder of the clip. in both causes that won't cut it. If only 3 aliens gang a HMGer he is a goner. You are ganging him in a corner now aint ya? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
If they've got a bit of wit tho then you're probably screwed. Best case scenario is to pillage their res nodes so that the res spent on HMGs will be bled out, leaving them open for a counter. If you can break them up with hit'n'run attacks and spore spam, all the better.
Upgrade wise you want to be pushing second hive and going for silence or celerity. Adren spore spam lerk, silence/celer skulks/fades, then flank ambush them. You might get lucky. To split their team up, consider a quick blitz on MS - sometimes this sends 1-2 rines running back to defend, which puts the odds in your favour.
Remember, every time you kill a marine, and someone doesn't pick up his gun, that's a 16-18 res point swing.
Rushing HMGs means that the marines have to cut back on other things, like RTs, upgrades, phase gates, and/or motion tracking.
If marines can't win on 12 vs 12 someone is screwing up game. If teams are equal, aliens just don't have a chance.
The main thing though is to do what should have been done since the beginning: everyone has a <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=86674&st=60#' target='_blank'>job to do.</a> If everyone does their job, a fade will be on base constantly and skulks will be hitting RTs. People will ****, moan, complain, grumble, and say lots of petty retarded things, but the fade on base will win you the game, even if it looks like he's not doing much at any given time. The constant harassment slows marines down from leaving/phasing, and he can take out structures slowly over time. Harassment is the aliens best attribute, it should be used constantly to annoy marines. Once they get frustrated enough they'll do something rash, and that's when you can act.
But marines rely on the comm, and if you mess up the comm then he can't be medding his marines, and VV. I don't think I've seen any proper game won without a split attack designed to bleed the enemy of their res.
Try harassing an HMG marine constantly with parasite as a skulk. It should work because that HMG marine will now become a liability to his own team, not to mention it should tick him off quite a bit because an HMG can be less effective on a lone marine. If you have a lerk to help you, all the more better.
Also don't forget that RTs are higher priority. If you're chewing on an almost destroyed RT and an HMGer comes around the corner, you're better off continuing to destroy the RT. With no res, the marine team cannot crank out as many HMGs as they could.
It's all about harassment and attrition.
And don't forget to take random chances at taking out their armory. Those things take forever to upgrade and once they lose it, they're in a lot of trouble. Especially if nobody chooses to weld it.
It's also worth thinking laterally and hitting cashflow, rather than production facilities. The observatory is extremely weak and will die to two skulks quicker than marines can actually beacon. If they <b>do</b> manage a beacon, then they'll still have a dead obs, but they'll have also spent an additional 15 res to watch it die.
If you can kill it whilst MT or PG tech is being researched, then you are looking at depriving the marines of 35-55 resources and a couple of minutes worth of tech.
In the same way, although a much tougher target, the arms lab provides a most succulent dish when upgrading. Again, you need to weaken it to begin with, then rush it.
In order to be able to do this, it helps if the marine spawn isn't crawling with mines. Here's where the Fade comes in. If there are mines down, the fade should be detonating them, especially since each mine is a potential 1-3 rp boost for the marines. Worst case, try using gorge spit to clear them. Or a healing gorge near base and a skulk with carapace. The latter is rarely going to pay off in terms of invested effort though.