Upgrades
Nordic
Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
So we have shift hive, crag hive, and shade hive. Everyone has their preferences, but almost every game I play is a shift hive where everyone chooses celerity. I personally do not understand why this is so popular. People have said it is because the commander can echo out harvesters, but at least half of the games I play commanders don't do that. Why is celerity so popular? So you can close the gap quicker? So you can dodge better? Personally I find carapace regen incredibly more useful on all life forms.
Why is celerity the defacto choice on pub games?
Why is celerity the defacto choice on pub games?
Comments
Effin hax is what it is
The hell? Who thinks seriously that shade is a rookie hive?
Personally, I like shift and shade best, because they give me mobility and new abilities, while crag only enhances "tankability" of aliens, which is a playstyle I don't really prefer in any game.
I think it's a matter of punctuation. I read it as "Don't take me wrong. It's not a rookie hive like most players think."
I guess your right. I have heard from some players they can't get kills without celerity. I feel like I can get double kills with regen though.
On a side note, I do love how almost all hive paths are currently viable. I don't remember ever before in ns2 history a time when realistically any upgrade is viable first. On pubs or on comp play (though shift is kind of weak in comp play)
-The Hallucinate ability of the drifter is amazing, and probably the only reason I'd like to move shade higher in my order, but only useful if your players are on the front line (which IMO shade discourages).
-The Ink ability is only useful when your hive is being assaulted, especially with ARCs. But usually those sort of things only happen later in the game anyway.
With shift, as mentioned earlier, you get a large increase in speed that in turn becomes faster reinforcement and increased patrolling. Your skulks are more likely to organically patrol your back areas because they won't be out of the fight as long. You'll have more skulks on the front line more often. And of course a good player can turn that bit of extra speed into a tornado of teeth and claws.
-The drifter's enzyme is also incredibly useful for helping your team win an engagement or bite down an RT, getting them back on patrol faster.
-Echoing structures is damn useful for rescuing upgrades from a Marine push, or saving a little bit of rez by echoing a shift to your newly dropped hive instead of building a new one.
I generally go crag second, but if my skulks are less skilled or the Marines have good shooters, I'll bump it to first. The extra time to kill give your aliens a chance to get in one more bite, which could sway an engagement markedly. It also makes life a little more forgiving for your early game lerks and higher lifeforms should they find themselves in a bind.
-The difter's crag ability (can't remember the name) is much more useful when higher lifeforms start coming out because it only regenerates armor. Skulks have negligible armor armor to regenerate, while an Onos has tons.
-Healing wave is also wasted on Skulks, since they have so little health the time saved is marginal. It only becomes useful when you have lifeforms with much more HP and armor.
So, my personal order is Shift->Crag->Shade, unless my team is bad (or the other team really good), in which case it's Crag->Shift->Shade.
Crags usually benefit gorge and lerk more (so wait a bit for its full usefulness). Shift hive benefits skulks more with celerity and so its full usefulness is immediate as skulks benefit a lot from celerity (another reason it has become sort of default in pubs because it used to be the only hive that could spawn eggs)
Shade is a bit of it's own thing and the reason is that it not all pub players are able to use it effectively, but IMO i love shade start. You should always check with your team first when considering a shade start.
I'm at a strange position for crag in regards to when to use it. So I'm wondering if any vet would know this. Is crag better than shift vs good pub players? Good players mainly mean good pub players who are capable of pubstomping an average server and who can compete individually with divisions 3-4, maybe 2 if they're really good. HBZ, YO and KKG servers come to mind.
Overall: shift >= crag (depends on maps and players but either one is generally equal if you use crag correctly) >>>>>>>>>> shade.
Playing yesterday and someone defined shade quite poignantly "Shade is both annoying to play and annoying to play against". It has power but that power is countered too easily and if your team didn't cripple marine res early on and didn't get a second hive earlier for upgrades then you're pretty much dead. As a marine and if I know my team knows how to counter it, I can sum it up quickly "GG guys, they went shade, we win".
Shade just requires too much of a departure from standard shift/crag NS2 that most people don't know how to play and still many don't know how to beat it which puts it at a position where, can you win the res game in the first 5 minutes? If not, GG.
I'm curious. I prefer focusing on shift with early metabolize to put some serious speed on the fades and without them messing up on energy (saw a lot of fades doing this in competitive NS2 before metabolize). I know that regen is buffed on compmod but not in vanilla yet, would be nice to see it brought in to see some varying hive play.
I'd be interested to see how much difference the buffed regen would make in more people favoring crag hive.
not a small server person
I'm talking about map control, if you read that. Carapace doesn't help skulks that much in the beginning (or really after marines get w1). Sure, they may hold a spot for a few seconds longer, but then they die and have to traverse the map to get back there. By then, marines probably own it.
Your "logic" has nothing to do with aliens gaining more map-control.
How many extra bullets to kill a carapace skulk with one shell? Two? Three? Honestly asking, I don't remember.
By two and three - I mean shells.
I should of used regen, because I specifically really like regen. I feel like in most cases I can do a lot better with it in an engagement.
In a pub game I played a while ago someone insited on shifthive first instead of crag hive. I tried to tell that one that crag is far more useful, but the answer was that shift is better because gorges can escape more easy and gorges are more importand than lerks
Funny how hallucination is probably the best combat support drifter ability now (extra targets + meatshieldz).
I never did hear the reasoning behind changing the shift/crag drifter abilities so much. I guess they were considered OP or too hard to balance?
That is NOT map control. That is map presence. This is the same logic for fast PGs. Fast PGs do NOT give map control, just map presence.
What gives you map control is the ability to win engagements, whether that is having good marines phase through and being able to kill waves of skulks with 0-0 or having good marines with 1-1 zoning out skulks. Personally I find upgrades makes me win engagements more than a marines coming through a grind gate, but what ever floats your boat as long as you're thinking correctly.
A decent number of pub games can be ended with bile + skulk rushes, and many happen because Aliens get locked to 1 hive with no other options. Shift hive is simply the best for base rushing.
Is the drifter Crag ability even good anymore? It used to heal armor at an insane rate, but it's still 2 res for a small armor boost and the cost adds up quickly. There's also no guarantee that you are even going to see people evolving Lerks in pub games, let alone good Lerks.
If Anzestral is saying go crag to help lerks, he'll lerk, and he'll win.