Are fades under powered?
Solarity
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170515Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170515Members, Reinforced - Shadow
I remember in NS1 that a fade was a challange to use compared to many other classes. Though in the hands of a skilled player they were devistating.
Right now w/o blink as a given trait they seem easier to kill than skulks. It is easier to hit a slower moving large target and they seem a little squishery in general.
Right now it seems like the game is all/mostly onos or slulk. Then you might have your one george and one lerk
Right now w/o blink as a given trait they seem easier to kill than skulks. It is easier to hit a slower moving large target and they seem a little squishery in general.
Right now it seems like the game is all/mostly onos or slulk. Then you might have your one george and one lerk
Comments
Don't want to be "that guy" but i really believe it's because the new guys don't know how to use fades yet. I'm seeing too many fades getting "stuck in" when it's the worst thing for a fade to do. The rookies need to learn to properly judge when they can afford to take the risk of getting enough swipes in for a kill and retreating.
Yes, you are correct.
However, the problem with hit and run with fade in NS2 is that there is a large delay between coming out of blink and being able to swipe/attack a marine. By which point you may have already been SG'd and it's too late to run. All delay between blink and swiping needs to be eliminated for the fade as a first step.
As a Marine, I find Fades to be very annoying for the same reason. You have no chance of killing them before they reach melee range, and if you have three decent Fades versus three decent shotgun-armed Marines I'd wager the Fades will win every time. Considering the resource cost, that seems about right.
Without the focus upgrade of ns1, the fade dies faster to an Weapon/Armor 3 marine with a shotgun than a Fade can kill him.
No metabolism means the fade needs to run back to heal while the Marines can heal up to 100% armor faster with an Armory.
The adrenaline nerf means that the fade can't stay in motion for very long.
The health/armor nerf means that he is unable to approach a group of Marines.
He's a larger skulk that can't walk on walls.
The lack of acid rockets means the fade is unable to even damage a few shotgun marines.
Barely any practical uses for Vortex.
Shotguns OP.
/thread
however, the marine can't swipe then blink into the air, insta-swipe and blink again, repeat until you've lost too much hp/armor or energy and then successfully escape. this is how you have to play the fade.
now the issue which some ppl have mentioned in the other 'fade' threads, is that in the current build there's a bug which causes quite a delay between blink and attack. this bug means that the fade has to remain 'vulnerable' for almost a full second before he can make a single swipe... this means that you can be obliterated against any shotgunner if you stay in for even a single attack.
if this indeed is a bug, then fade will be noticeably better after it's fixed. i.e. where you can attack more or less instantly after your blink, ergo not having to remain a sitting duck for 0.5-1 second.
edit: i think it's intended to be used as a hit n run unit to draw marine focus and suck away their ammo for the skulks to be more effective. fade certainly doesn't appear designed to all-out win 1v2's etc, because versus upgraded marines you need many many swips to kill. i must admit it's pretty awesome fun to play as fade, just really needs that attack delay gone.
That said the NS1 fade needs probably 50 more HP, for starters.
And remove the stupid delay on swipeing after the blink animation please, 20+ patches to get swipe delay removed and then its re-added because of the blink animation being added.
Then you chase with the jetpack/shotgun combo. Kill the fade when he is low on health/energy and then the gorge who was trying to heal him.
Totally agree. No one wants to change their play style. I blame all the Rambo 1 man army games.
jetpack doesn't win a race with a fade... outsmart your opponents, give them a bit of respect and EXPECT them to chase you, instead of presuming they're all clueless noobs.
blink to your 'safest' hive or hide out somewhere unexpected until you're sure the jetpacker isn't chasing you. then go somewhere else.... no reason to go back and engage the same group when they could (or should) have used comms to call your fade position and have plans in motion to trap you if you go back there.
it's the gorge's responsibility to not over-extend... the gorge player should understand that a fade has to preserve his 50 pres more than he has to protect your fat 10 pres ass.
There isn't really an effective way to use a Fade. They flat out suck.
Not this increase-the-spread-crap again, please.
Good LMGs are just as dangerous as good shotguns, it's just easier to use shotguns. Nerfing shotguns won't fix the problem because as people get better the LMG will be just as bad. Let's fix the fade instead of "fixing" shotguns and then LMGs.
Then you have no idea how to play Fade. Do you know how to properly combo shadow step, blink and jump all together?
The funny thing is you're not supposed to jump. That is, unless you like banging your super tall phantom head against ceilings.
I hit the ceilings all the time, and I still glide past the ceilings even though I should've stopped dead. When you properly combo shadow step, jump and blink differently at different situations, you will gain an immense speed and still have some air control; and use almost no energy at all. I almost never go empty of adrenaline with the adrenaline upgrade.
You're right, you're supposed to jump and crouch.
Fade is underpowered, but that's just because it doesn't have a third-hive ability that does anything for you.
The Fade doesn't have anything to do with being a counter for Jet Pack, although a darn good Fade can certainly do just that. A lerk is far more of a jet pack counter than fade can hope to be.
Fade is fast assault, and cleans house against groups of two or three marines that are attacking resource nodes or sneaking into a hive looking to kill some upgrades.
I agree that they're over priced at 50 P.Res at the moment, simply because they are underwhelming in the late game when you would have the P.Res to actually buy one. In that same vein, the single-gun Exo is also over-priced at 50 P.Res.
As to everyone saving for Onos? Well, it's not really any different than a Marine team all saving for Dual-Exo. It's something that new players do, and fails as a strategy versus a team that kind of knows what they're doing. It goes both ways.
Pretty much, I stopped liking fade very much when they became so easy to kill. Maybe it was just cause I was used to being able to take some damage before exiting, but now a lot of the time I have to retreat without getting a kill which kind of sucks.
<!--quoteo(post=2022327:date=Nov 13 2012, 01:37 PM:name=IeptBarakat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (IeptBarakat @ Nov 13 2012, 01:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022327"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Barely any practical uses for Vortex.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
lil OT.
Vortex, while not the most intuitive thing, has its place and can be a great help to your team. Try vortexing....
.....an armory during an attack. (TEAM)
.....an exo, then pick off the welders. (SOLO/TEAM)
.....welders, then gang up on the exo. (TEAM)
.....around a corner / as a shield. Bullets/grenades that pass through the vortex (admittedly, must be damn close to center) deal no damage. (SOLO/TEAM)
.....an IP (I think it resets the spawn timer for that IP, dunno for certain). (SOLO/TEAM)
.....ARCs. (TEAM)
If nothing else, it can make engagements easier. Many marines don't realize they are vortexed or simply panic and shoot out all their ammo. By the time the vortesx wears off, their gun is empty. Procced to kill them.
Know what Vortex does to a good player? It lets them reload without any danger what-so-ever or allows the Exo's guns to cool for another volley.
You are right about a lot of those things though, it has it's uses. It's just that the duration isn't long enough to be of any real benefit. If you could Vortex a power node, even with the current useless duration, it would at least be something. Four seconds of complete darkness would be more than enough time for your team to get into the room with at least <i>some</i> cover, especially the lower life forms. As it stands now, a four second reduction in time on an infantry portal or a four second delay on a beacon isn't really <i>useful</i>, even if done perfectly by the fade. You can't perma-vortex anything, which you would think you could do as things stand now considering it's a third-hive ability. This ability needs a lot of work before it's even remotely useful. I never research Vortex, it's simply not worth the research cost in any realistic situation other than a pub stomp where it doesn't matter what you do, you've already won.
This should not be construed as me thinking that Fades are utterly useless. They are actually quite useful when a good player is behind the wheel. It's just that they have no current use at end-game, which unfairly punishes the aforementioned good fade as they <i>must</i> die before being useful in an end-game assault. The limited window of usefulness is by far the biggest hindrance to good players using Fade.
Not to nitpick, but vortex has a radius, if the marines are standing near the armory as usual or if they're already welding the exosuits, who are you going to pick off?
Amusingly, the only reason why people panic from vortex is because Fade's hardly ever use them. A calm approach would be to walk out of the vortex and shoot the fade, or say thanks to the fade that just let you live while you run back to your buddies. The only practical offensive use is to help other aliens close the distance, but usually the marine would sprint away.
The only real defensive use of Vortex I can think of is to try to stop gl spam, if vortex affects grenades.