Also it's worth pointing out that Shade hive is significantly more useful than it used to be. In every build up to 249 the commander going shade first resulted in pretty much an instant loss. Crag was the best (only) option for a first hive, although Shift was necessary on big servers because the old egg system was silly.
At this point we have three tech paths that, while not necessarily perfectly balanced, are more or less all viable ways to win, so it's certainly an improvement over before.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Shade is highly situational.
* Illusions while useful react in such a brainless way it gets obvious quite fast.
* Ink has most use against arcs which simply dont happen early game. ( I said most, not only)
* cloak is slow, the silence aspect while better will marginally improve skulkplay as ok marines check there corners/backs.
* wallha uhm I mean aura, while powerful, brings to few to the party to bring any permanent strength.
* Cara is good for the aliens who expect to get nailed of guard.
* Regen allows better hit and run tactics.
* Overheal allows to quickly healup alien outposts and hives.
* celerity on ok to good aliens can speed them up to a 'how the hell am I gona shoot that' speed.
* adrenaline allows newb fades to blink more, gorges to bile more and sucky jump skulks to leap more. (although much more useless early game, but still not useless)
* echo can be near op.
So its not that shade hive brings few shinies to the party. Its just that, the other ones bring more. Better quality.
I go shift first as well for the speed bonus (Map control is critical)
It's not about getting there - it's about winning the engagement. But of course celerity helps with this as well.
That's something I've been trying to point out.
Celerity specifically helps to counter the strafe jump problem that is currently being expressed in a number of threads. When a marine jumps away, the celerity skulk is able to close that distance faster, hopefully before he has the chance to jump again. The result is that celerity is the strongest offensive upgrade the skulk can have early game, as it helps them land more bites in a shorter window of time.
It's not a 100% solution to the problem, but it is a significant help. The storm drifter cloud goes even further towards alleviating the symptoms.
Shade hive is only good against a weak commander. If he's any good and realizes the aliens went shade first prepare for scans before marines enter any room, there goes any advantage you may have had.
Every time I took a gamble on how skilled my team was going to be I've ended up crapping out on the dice roll. Crag/shift every time, all the time.
I'm selfish and usually go shift first because I like to echo, especially since drifters are so expensive now, I dont have to get as many goin, and I'm saved on the time and risk it takes for them to travel from pt to pt on the map. But anyways, as pretty much everyone here is sayin, in pubs you're gonna see shade far less, simply because of the fact that newer players sometimes arent able to fully utilize the benefits. Pluz, ink to me seems relatively useless. Not sure I've ever intentionally used it in a game, and half the reason I choose crag over shade for 2nd hive is for the heal wave, since I'm starting to get fades and onos before 3rd hive, it's more valuable for me to be able to heal them quick at forward bases than have them return to a hive and be off the field for longer. Ink? nah thanks.
Shade hive is only good against a weak commander. If he's any good and realizes the aliens went shade first prepare for scans before marines enter any room, there goes any advantage you may have had.
Every time I took a gamble on how skilled my team was going to be I've ended up crapping out on the dice roll. Crag/shift every time, all the time.
Isn't 220 or something anymore, shade also means aliens can have aura, so your scans can be utterly wasted. Also spending 3 tres to scan every room is crippling.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
Do you enjoy playing as marine versus shade first? I don't.
Why do it to other people all the time? I understand it has a place in the game, but I'm overjoyed that NS2 hasn't turned to shade first being the best and/or most common upgrade path.
Crag hive allows your team more time on the front lines, less time dead, and costs the Marines more ammo.
I think many people here overestimate the power of Crag.
Carapace let's you 2 (two) more bullets. Two. If you rely on those two bullets, the encounter was screwed anyway.
edit: As skulk, obviously. But we're talking about the first upgrade here.
I'd rather give my players a huge speed bonus.
It's 4 more (AR) bullets, armour absorbs 2 damage per point of armour. And the reason why you get shade last is that the most important thing in the game as aliens is being able to keep your higher lifeforms alive and shades don't let you do that. The only lifeform where I really want shade early is for lerks to get aura (which makes them into utterly amazing harassment machines) but having crag/shift for fades is basically required if the marines are at all competent.
On low skilled servers going shade is close to surrender at 10. Your team will camp all day long, so I would never use this on such servers. This is independent from the question what would be best. It's simply not possible to get that upgrade if you have campers in your team then.
And if we talk about the question what would be best. I still would take shade last, it does not make your costly lifeforms last longer. Anyway the shade is not weak at all, its just fine as a late game (3 hive) pick.
On low skilled servers going shade is close to surrender at 10. Your team will camp all day long, so I would never use this on such servers. This is independent from the question what would be best. It's simply not possible to get that upgrade if you have campers in your team then.
And if we talk about the question what would be best. I still would take shade last, it does not make your costly lifeforms last longer. Anyway the shade is not weak at all, its just fine as a late game (3 hive) pick.
Shade is mostly useless late game, with the exception of hallucination which is awesome during big pushes. Phantom doesn't do much good when all the marine territory is covered in Obs and the marine com has free reign to spam scans on every push. Aura also doesn't do as much good during or against the kinds of big pushes going on both sides at that point in the game, mostly because you already know where everyone is and you don't have the luxury of culling the weak.
Early game is characterized by lots of smaller engagements away from established bases and with minimal if any scan support, which is where shade tech shines. Unfortunately it's a luxury you just can't really afford at that point. I'd also like to mention that phantom is nearly useless until you have all three veils, making it a very heavy early investment before you see any real use out of it.
@sotanaht
Well I do not agree on Shade being mostly useless in the late game. You still will encounter small fights where it is extremely useful to open with a silenced attack. Also moving around the map without having to worry that someone could hear you is still useful. And even in big fights, it's still useful if marines do not hear you moving or people engaging them. Also Aura gives you a nice tool to know if you can or better do not try to kill someone.
I think it's fine as it is. One ability has to be picked last and I for my part can make a lot of use of it.
I think if people actually played with shade first more they'd be surprised at how viable of a first hive option it is. Old habits and assumptions are hard to break sometimes.
Echo isn't useful for harvesters anymore, at 2 res each and without the ability to gorge them in base
2 tres is totally worth it, it frees up your gorges and negates the need for a drifter. a gorge, drifter, and shift in base can get harvesters up and out in about 10 seconds and get four harvesters out and working in 2 minutes. or even better, start a game with commander out of the hive so he can gorge and just buy the pres short player a gorge egg after biomass 2.
Wang TangJoin Date: 2004-08-18Member: 30699Members
edited September 2013
If I know some players on my team are good (and we don't play veil), I might go shade first. Otherwise, never. Few reasons:
If I don't know we can take and hold three hives, we have to battle for the third. Later in the game, that hopefully means Onoses if we have the res for them. Onos without celerity? Dead meat. Onos without regen or cara? On pubs? Haha.
So it's those two hives first, in order to secure the third hive. On veil it's not even a contest, because when you have all three hives secure, the game should be over. If not, you have to battle for the third -> see above.
Another problem with shade hive is that you need all 3 veils to make a difference, less so with shells and even less with spurs. That's 60 res you need to spend at once for the upgrade to be useful.
Also Phantom is not totally useless, but almost. Silence is really neat, but not worth sacrificing celerity or regen for skulks. A good marine comm will counter with scans, which achieves the opposite of what shade hive first should do. It helps marines with map awareness and finding alien hiding spots, where they wouldn't have been found were it not for the shade hive upgrades.
Oh, I also do shade first when I'm feeling adventurous, or when I (as so often) find no servers except green ones, and then just for the fun of it.
Edit: I forgot: echo, heal wave, storm, mucus vs ink and hallucination? ...
Shade usually is a bad choice in most situations unless you know you outclass the enemy team, more so when playing with rookies who think they can do some Solid Snake shit with it. To me it just encourages sedentary play, when it is important to expand and hold ground early on. I have seen too many games where this happens.
It is also the least useful (albeit still useful in certain situations) upgrade for higher lifeforms, I would much rather have increased regeneration or a larger energy pool as a fade/lerk/onos.
Isn't 220 or something anymore, shade also means aliens can have aura, so your scans can be utterly wasted. Also spending 3 tres to scan every room is crippling.
True, but it's just been my experience in pubs to have people complain that they die too fast or can't move fast enough. If people request it, I'll be happy to oblige, but nine times out of ten no one will respond when I ask so that's usually what I do instead. It also serves as a red flag that I'll have to ask specific people to go to specific locations.
Shade is nice, it's very nice and I'd like to use it earlier more often, but when half the team has issues with shade it clearly is no longer in the best interests of the team. If the few (under 3 people) can really put the team on their back and I have faith in them, fine. Again, this boils down to communication at the start.
Shade hive is only good against a weak commander. If he's any good and realizes the aliens went shade first prepare for scans before marines enter any room, there goes any advantage you may have had.
Every time I took a gamble on how skilled my team was going to be I've ended up crapping out on the dice roll. Crag/shift every time, all the time.
Aura is great, Silence is great, and making marines waste money on scans is great. Shade is perhaps situational but it's certainly a viable first upgrade path. The worst thing about it is bad aliens trying to be clever with cloak and just wasting a lot of time crawling around.
Really though the fact is that most commanders don't like to innovate builds. They like to know an accepted build order and follow it. This is why there has been a canonical "one upgrade path" for every single build of NS1 and NS2 since launch.
Echo isn't useful for harvesters anymore, at 2 res each and without the ability to gorge them in base
2 tres is totally worth it, it frees up your gorges and negates the need for a drifter. a gorge, drifter, and shift in base can get harvesters up and out in about 10 seconds and get four harvesters out and working in 2 minutes. or even better, start a game with commander out of the hive so he can gorge and just buy the pres short player a gorge egg after biomass 2.
For your 4 harvesters, you've spent 8 res which is the same as that drifter you "saved" and now don't have for enzymes and scouting, 2 drifters on opposite ends of the map work wonders. Com switching isn't an option in pub games and if it becomes a prevalent strat you can expect that to be nerfed somehow too. You're lucky if you have any gorges on any of your harvesters, and I would much rather them moving out towards the front lines and setting up forward positions and the harvesters that go with them than sitting around in base. Don't forget the gorge can speed build the cyst out of order which for distant positions makes a bigger difference in how fast the RTs go up than having him build just the RT, and he can still do that too.
Shade hive is only good against a weak commander. If he's any good and realizes the aliens went shade first prepare for scans before marines enter any room, there goes any advantage you may have had.
Every time I took a gamble on how skilled my team was going to be I've ended up crapping out on the dice roll. Crag/shift every time, all the time.
Aura is great, Silence is great, and making marines waste money on scans is great. Shade is perhaps situational but it's certainly a viable first upgrade path. The worst thing about it is bad aliens trying to be clever with cloak and just wasting a lot of time crawling around.
Really though the fact is that most commanders don't like to innovate builds. They like to know an accepted build order and follow it. This is why there has been a canonical "one upgrade path" for every single build of NS1 and NS2 since launch.
I've tried every possible build, most multiple times, I stick with what works after that, and it's shift/crag/shade.
It's a nearly religious question. Lets settle with: Every upgrade has advantages and disadvantages. But they are not that different in power, that it would really influence the outcome in a big way. If your team is good, they can win with every upgrade first. If it is bad, you can also lose with every upgrade.
And I think this is exactly how it should be.
Let the map and team decide what upgrade does fit in what situation. Not some boring "sacred path".
I think if people actually played with shade first more they'd be surprised at how viable of a first hive option it is. Old habits and assumptions are hard to break sometimes.
Few days before b250 was released, I played with a comm who went shade first so we could use silence. It was surprisingly effective.
The team was pretty skilled, though (but not stacked).
Maybe if cloak was an active ability that used energy , and was instant. Silently attack a rine, leap up engage cloak, fall back down and finish him off while he's disoriented...
If it used energy people wouldn't be able to camp. But then it would be unlike every other upgrade (crag/shift) so this doubt work... Oh well
Comments
At this point we have three tech paths that, while not necessarily perfectly balanced, are more or less all viable ways to win, so it's certainly an improvement over before.
* Illusions while useful react in such a brainless way it gets obvious quite fast.
* Ink has most use against arcs which simply dont happen early game. ( I said most, not only)
* cloak is slow, the silence aspect while better will marginally improve skulkplay as ok marines check there corners/backs.
* wallha uhm I mean aura, while powerful, brings to few to the party to bring any permanent strength.
* Cara is good for the aliens who expect to get nailed of guard.
* Regen allows better hit and run tactics.
* Overheal allows to quickly healup alien outposts and hives.
* celerity on ok to good aliens can speed them up to a 'how the hell am I gona shoot that' speed.
* adrenaline allows newb fades to blink more, gorges to bile more and sucky jump skulks to leap more. (although much more useless early game, but still not useless)
* echo can be near op.
So its not that shade hive brings few shinies to the party. Its just that, the other ones bring more. Better quality.
That's something I've been trying to point out.
Celerity specifically helps to counter the strafe jump problem that is currently being expressed in a number of threads. When a marine jumps away, the celerity skulk is able to close that distance faster, hopefully before he has the chance to jump again. The result is that celerity is the strongest offensive upgrade the skulk can have early game, as it helps them land more bites in a shorter window of time.
It's not a 100% solution to the problem, but it is a significant help. The storm drifter cloud goes even further towards alleviating the symptoms.
Every time I took a gamble on how skilled my team was going to be I've ended up crapping out on the dice roll. Crag/shift every time, all the time.
Isn't 220 or something anymore, shade also means aliens can have aura, so your scans can be utterly wasted. Also spending 3 tres to scan every room is crippling.
Why do it to other people all the time? I understand it has a place in the game, but I'm overjoyed that NS2 hasn't turned to shade first being the best and/or most common upgrade path.
And if we talk about the question what would be best. I still would take shade last, it does not make your costly lifeforms last longer. Anyway the shade is not weak at all, its just fine as a late game (3 hive) pick.
Shade is mostly useless late game, with the exception of hallucination which is awesome during big pushes. Phantom doesn't do much good when all the marine territory is covered in Obs and the marine com has free reign to spam scans on every push. Aura also doesn't do as much good during or against the kinds of big pushes going on both sides at that point in the game, mostly because you already know where everyone is and you don't have the luxury of culling the weak.
Early game is characterized by lots of smaller engagements away from established bases and with minimal if any scan support, which is where shade tech shines. Unfortunately it's a luxury you just can't really afford at that point. I'd also like to mention that phantom is nearly useless until you have all three veils, making it a very heavy early investment before you see any real use out of it.
Well I do not agree on Shade being mostly useless in the late game. You still will encounter small fights where it is extremely useful to open with a silenced attack. Also moving around the map without having to worry that someone could hear you is still useful. And even in big fights, it's still useful if marines do not hear you moving or people engaging them. Also Aura gives you a nice tool to know if you can or better do not try to kill someone.
I think it's fine as it is. One ability has to be picked last and I for my part can make a lot of use of it.
If I don't know we can take and hold three hives, we have to battle for the third. Later in the game, that hopefully means Onoses if we have the res for them. Onos without celerity? Dead meat. Onos without regen or cara? On pubs? Haha.
So it's those two hives first, in order to secure the third hive. On veil it's not even a contest, because when you have all three hives secure, the game should be over. If not, you have to battle for the third -> see above.
Another problem with shade hive is that you need all 3 veils to make a difference, less so with shells and even less with spurs. That's 60 res you need to spend at once for the upgrade to be useful.
Also Phantom is not totally useless, but almost. Silence is really neat, but not worth sacrificing celerity or regen for skulks. A good marine comm will counter with scans, which achieves the opposite of what shade hive first should do. It helps marines with map awareness and finding alien hiding spots, where they wouldn't have been found were it not for the shade hive upgrades.
Oh, I also do shade first when I'm feeling adventurous, or when I (as so often) find no servers except green ones, and then just for the fun of it.
Edit: I forgot: echo, heal wave, storm, mucus vs ink and hallucination? ...
It is also the least useful (albeit still useful in certain situations) upgrade for higher lifeforms, I would much rather have increased regeneration or a larger energy pool as a fade/lerk/onos.
But you see enough people have said this.
True, but it's just been my experience in pubs to have people complain that they die too fast or can't move fast enough. If people request it, I'll be happy to oblige, but nine times out of ten no one will respond when I ask so that's usually what I do instead. It also serves as a red flag that I'll have to ask specific people to go to specific locations.
Shade is nice, it's very nice and I'd like to use it earlier more often, but when half the team has issues with shade it clearly is no longer in the best interests of the team. If the few (under 3 people) can really put the team on their back and I have faith in them, fine. Again, this boils down to communication at the start.
Aura is great, Silence is great, and making marines waste money on scans is great. Shade is perhaps situational but it's certainly a viable first upgrade path. The worst thing about it is bad aliens trying to be clever with cloak and just wasting a lot of time crawling around.
Really though the fact is that most commanders don't like to innovate builds. They like to know an accepted build order and follow it. This is why there has been a canonical "one upgrade path" for every single build of NS1 and NS2 since launch.
For your 4 harvesters, you've spent 8 res which is the same as that drifter you "saved" and now don't have for enzymes and scouting, 2 drifters on opposite ends of the map work wonders. Com switching isn't an option in pub games and if it becomes a prevalent strat you can expect that to be nerfed somehow too. You're lucky if you have any gorges on any of your harvesters, and I would much rather them moving out towards the front lines and setting up forward positions and the harvesters that go with them than sitting around in base. Don't forget the gorge can speed build the cyst out of order which for distant positions makes a bigger difference in how fast the RTs go up than having him build just the RT, and he can still do that too.
I've tried every possible build, most multiple times, I stick with what works after that, and it's shift/crag/shade.
And I think this is exactly how it should be.
Let the map and team decide what upgrade does fit in what situation. Not some boring "sacred path".
Yes. Sorry, I got that wrong.
Few days before b250 was released, I played with a comm who went shade first so we could use silence. It was surprisingly effective.
The team was pretty skilled, though (but not stacked).
If it used energy people wouldn't be able to camp. But then it would be unlike every other upgrade (crag/shift) so this doubt work... Oh well