Marine Commander Strats
RisingSun
RisingCalifornia Join Date: 2004-04-19 Member: 28015Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
RisingCalifornia Join Date: 2004-04-19 Member: 28015Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">B201</div>So i have been trying my hand at commanding. I seem to go about it completely different from other comms (i only play on Team156 server, best evar!).
My strat: Ip, Armory, Welder (usually a lot of base rushes), mines, shotties if i see the team struggling, but where i am different i go for the Arms Lab asap instead of the Obs. I get armor 1 and 2 first, then work on the obs and weapons 1. I tell my team to hold 3-4 nodes and basically sit on these to gain what i need (having my marines advance on alien positions to down RTs is a plus). Once i have an AA/GLs and phase gates i go take over a hive. At this point it is win or lose. If we are pushed back it is game over. By this time we see the OP onos already and maybe it is just my strat but with a good alien comm they are pushing the third hive already. With active skulks biting my nodes and the game winning onos hitting the power node in base when my whole team is down range i cant seem to win no matter what i do.
Any help? I like comming and think i do an OK job at it. I tend to space out microing marines with shield, med packs, and scan (which brings me to one idea, i would love the beacon to be either Pres or Tres. I hate managing the energy or it and like to scan liberally. 50 energy takes way too long to get back lol).
Are marines doomed in this patch or is my method flawed? I am usually very successful on Summit and horrible on mineshaft. I hate Central Drilling.
I also feel like marine upgrades cost too much but then again that may just be my res flow being munched on by those damn dirty skulks.
My strat: Ip, Armory, Welder (usually a lot of base rushes), mines, shotties if i see the team struggling, but where i am different i go for the Arms Lab asap instead of the Obs. I get armor 1 and 2 first, then work on the obs and weapons 1. I tell my team to hold 3-4 nodes and basically sit on these to gain what i need (having my marines advance on alien positions to down RTs is a plus). Once i have an AA/GLs and phase gates i go take over a hive. At this point it is win or lose. If we are pushed back it is game over. By this time we see the OP onos already and maybe it is just my strat but with a good alien comm they are pushing the third hive already. With active skulks biting my nodes and the game winning onos hitting the power node in base when my whole team is down range i cant seem to win no matter what i do.
Any help? I like comming and think i do an OK job at it. I tend to space out microing marines with shield, med packs, and scan (which brings me to one idea, i would love the beacon to be either Pres or Tres. I hate managing the energy or it and like to scan liberally. 50 energy takes way too long to get back lol).
Are marines doomed in this patch or is my method flawed? I am usually very successful on Summit and horrible on mineshaft. I hate Central Drilling.
I also feel like marine upgrades cost too much but then again that may just be my res flow being munched on by those damn dirty skulks.
Comments
With Mineshaft I'd say ignore central drilling until you secure crushing (you might actually want to rush phase tech on this map). The layout is just too alien favored and not controlling crushing allows the aliens easy access to the 2nd and 3rd hive.
When I am doing the arms lab prior to Obs on Summit I generally do it something like this:
IP, Armory, RT, Mines, RT, Arms Lab (this could be after more RTs depends on map control), RT, RT, a bit of waiting with heavy medpack and nanodiscofever focus (this is super important because I cannot have people dying without phase gates up) Armor 1, Obs, Armor 2, Phase Tech, Shotguns. As long as we aren't getting massacred this works decently well. I could be lucky with the level of players I have been getting when I comm though.
I've even had games where we marine com relocated to crushing room at the start of the game and we have won from there.
I don't like marine comming that much, but games where marines have won mineshaft seem to be phase tech to crushing + mines to defend it, then take down second hive in ore seems to work well.
Central drilling is really a strange place...I don't get along with it either (neither as alien nor as marine).
Maybe there'll be a re-work. Or some new tactics that make sense.
Edit: Maybe set a hive in Central and only a RT in Ore instead? That way you wouldn't have 2 Hives connected too strong..
Edit2: On-topic ;)
I usually go for Phase-Tech, hold as many RTs as possible, tech slowly up. If we survive long enough we rush a hive with GLs or 4 ARCs.
In mid-game I usually don't really know what to do. It's basically waiting for interesting stuff, watching RTs going down, telling players to get them back. Many commanders ask 'what was my fault' when they lost; but usually you can't tell. That's something that should be adressed, more feedback and more senseful actions, I think.
The games i am doing great with my upgrades have ended to one onos destroying my power node in base before i can beacon with my marines far off in the field owning stuff. Sad way to end it and it has ended that was often. I got to say i really enjoy comming but dont know enough about what i am trading off and res needed and such. Like "wow, im sitting on 4 untouched res nodes, this means i can splurge here..." or "Wow, nodes are going down fast, i cant keep more than 2 up at a time. Got to tighten up and go for the basics." Experience will teach me more than any one post but it would be nice to have 3 solid build orders like in most RTS games: Good marines (high risk, focus on offensive pushes), terrible marines (more armor and shoot for Arcs), and ok marines who listen (your average game, mild upgrades + weapons).
Thank you for the posts so far. I appreciate it and am learning. I unfortunately, as i said, only play on the Team156 London server. So i only have that group of players to get my commander basics with.
(plus i have the occasional Skie Skulk who is damn scary.)
TL;DR The ladies like it more when you are flexible and hands on.
WRT B201 and Mineshaft, this is quite difficult since aliens can quickly get 4-5 RTs (Cave, Cavern, North Tunnel, Ore Extraction, and Crushing). I still think relocating/getting a PG to crushing is a good strat because you can deny the crushing RT and put pressure on the North Tunnel and Ore Extraction RTs. I've also toyed with the idea of relocating to Ore Extraction so marines can assault all of the alien RTs better. In general, B201 is about denying aliens the 75 PRes for onos, so the general focus should be about killing off harvesters rather than hives.
WRT B201 and Mineshaft, this is quite difficult since aliens can quickly get 4-5 RTs (Cave, Cavern, North Tunnel, Ore Extraction, and Crushing). I still think relocating/getting a PG to crushing is a good strat because you can deny the crushing RT and put pressure on the North Tunnel and Ore Extraction RTs. I've also toyed with the idea of relocating to Ore Extraction so marines can assault all of the alien RTs better. In general, B201 is about denying aliens the 75 PRes for onos, so the general focus should be about killing off harvesters rather than hives.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I had a weird bug where i was a skulk, i killed a marine, then went back to comm. I lost all my Pres and couldnt build any cysts which killed my team in the end. Really sucked. So i hear what you are saying on denying the RTs. Killing the cyst chains early help to deny res also. It forced the comm to use that precious Pres and if you are killing RTs as well you have a double win.
I prefer marine comming since there is MANS Micro (Medpack, Ammo, Nano Shield), i mean it spells MANS, like a MANS team :P but anyways you are forced to be very aggressive early on but i dont think people understand (at least on my server) the importance of RTs. Only the comm can drop them and the cysts are Pres only. Both go hand in hand.
Lately I've been experimenting with quick turret factory, though it hasn't really convinced me as a viable early game strategy. (Certainly not when upgrade to ARC factory requires a second TF to be built if you want more sentires) I think I'll try quick arms lab sometime too.
Shotgun + Armor 1 & 2 before weapon 1.
If u wanna be pro as a marine u have to learn HOW TO HANDLE the shotgun ( best weapon in the game atm )
Just finished 1 match and my second "shotgun" i kited and killed 3 skulks. ( 1vs3 )
Sprint + Shotgun is the shizzle in my nizzle haha
Other than that i totally agree with Armor 1+2 and shotguns. Seems to be my strongest opener. Just sucks when the alien comm has onos out before you can research the AA since you need Phase Tech after the above. :( Love comming though.
Another strat I've seen work well on drilling is securing central and all the way up to refinery quickly, and bolstering central. With all the res income you can quickly tech up and arc the extraction hive completely safely.
Have never seen a one hive onos problem yet. If they ever have early onos, its probably because they dominated way too much of the map way too quickly. I can see it being a problem if you have their entire team save up for onos for a mass onos charge. That sounds hilarious, I want to try that now.
I am in no way obsessed with jetpacks.
It helps the "<b>bad aimer</b>" and the beginners to have more fun.
The Skulk and Fade cant "play" with the marines and people will not rage quit haha
Survival is always better then damage.
so another good reason for armor first is to make skulks waste more time chewing up those res nodes
just came back from some games as comm
alien comm:
Just realised 201 world, you can spend all your tres building and rebuilding res nodes, meanwhile each time they get res, your teams pres goes up... so strategy is just to expand all over the place, RES > hive. Its actually beneficial to get into a 'res' trading game with the marines side (yyou kill their extractors and they kill ur harvesters. You can use tres to keep rebuilding harvesters... true hive2 is slower but your team pres goes up. meanwhile marine tech is slowed down considerably. Similarly with cysts, just rebuild them at 2 res a pop. I bet you will drop less cyst than marine comm will drop med packs)
last game i pushed into all 3 hive areas and only dropped down a res node - rebuilding as needed, marines didn't know which way to push, a hive can be dropped anywhere any moment...... meanwhile the 75 pres mark keeps ticking . .
marine comm:
got nothing to say really.. i tech up weapons earlier these days cos its cheaper, and sometimes even a flamer has its uses to burn down energy of fades (shadowstep now uses energy)
if you can get JPs out in time for onos, great.
armor 1 is a must though for 3 swipe fades, and armor 2 is ideal for 4 bite skulks
if aliens decide to expand everywhere, your probably screwed as per what I mentioned above
Armor 2 is needed to make fades require 3 swipes for a kill.
I believe it was tweaked just slightly enough so it's 2 swipes to kill a marine with no armor points left but the 2 swipes still does enough "overkill" damage to be able to 2 swipe armor 0 and armor 1 marines. I could be wrong though as I haven't mathed it out.