Effectiveness of Ink ability (Or lack of)
Yojimbo
England Join Date: 2009-03-19 Member: 66806Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
England Join Date: 2009-03-19 Member: 66806Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
What are peoples thoughts of the Shade ability Ink, apart from being used as a defensive measure against arcs (Which in my opinion the duration is too short and the cooldown timer alittle bit too long).
Anyone have much luck in using it offensively? For example having a Shade by the front lines and covering the area in Ink to hinder a marines visual effectiveness while skulks swarm en masse to cleanup?
Only ever seen this happen very rarely and its effectiveness is a mixed opinion to be honest.
What improvements would you suggest if any were needed at all?
Discuss.
Anyone have much luck in using it offensively? For example having a Shade by the front lines and covering the area in Ink to hinder a marines visual effectiveness while skulks swarm en masse to cleanup?
Only ever seen this happen very rarely and its effectiveness is a mixed opinion to be honest.
What improvements would you suggest if any were needed at all?
Discuss.
Comments
Back in the day where drifters used to cloak, you used them to get intel. Well, shades can move too and they give vision just like drifters. But the best thing about them imo, is that they can cloak the cysts. I like to use shades as a tool to expand my infestation in areas where marines otherwise would just cut the cyst chain.
People tend to use shades to cloak their tech, it's so easy to just fire a bullet to see if there's a harvester or listen for the crag sounds.
But cloaking the cysts is harder to see, outside the footsteps, and even then you need a scan to cut the cyst chain.
So while ink might not be very useful outside arc strats, I'm not convinced that the shade needs a more useful skill. I like where it is at now.
Its freaking wonderful that nowadays it actually pwns vs arcs when the comm is scanning for vision (not as effective when an obs is built nearby).
The vision obscuration of ink is kinda nice too, especially if you're an awful alien commander like me and you like to spam rupture for days
This. As well. Would be brilliant if Aura could have some kind of integration with it? Like the effectiveness of one veil chamber so it's not too overpowering?
Wait, ink stops arcs from targeting?
Yes.
1: The ink butt is also some toxic hallucinogenic substance and for a duration after leaving the butt the vision appears as if the power was off, regardless if it is or isn't. The flashlight would let the marine see in the darkness like it normally would however, but to plays unnefected he appears to be shining it in the brightness
2: Aliens who enter the cloud get temporary partial invisibility regardless of how fast they are moving for a short time. Would allow aliens to run in and out of the butt making it very chaotic and confusing for marines.
Shades to hide cysts can be powerful, but again this has been nerfed by the structure now costing 13 instead of 10. It's not THAT significant, but it does add up. Would I buy shades to cyst somewhere unexpected, or a faster lifeform upgrade? I tend to go for the latter.
As far as nostalgia goes, I want glancing bites back hm?
Give shades AOE aura?
I do know that lots of players love having their aura upgrade, just a thought though.
Also CDT plz buff rupture
It's fair, i think, that the "weakest" hive type, should also be the most versatile.
That'd work. Like the old hive sight!
I also think that the sounds and halucinations were useless. The fade sounds made me look back a few times, but since they were a passive effect, all it did was reveal a shade position and that is something you don't want. Adding halucinations to the ink effect would add to the ability on the other hand (I was never a friend of drifter abilites anyways).
Ink should cancel an ongoing scan. That way it was effective against sieges AND it had a chance of surviving the first seconds of an attack. All I see now is that as soon as a few arcs start firing, the shade takes damage and dies before it even had the chance to use ink in order to block a second scan. That is frustrating and makes the ability only useable during a normal fight in the hive room. In ns1 you could build a wall of defense chambers and heal them with gorges to sponge the damage and give the team time to fight off the enemy. It was also necessary to conquer a siege position and build up siege cannons. A process that tested both teams and that gave the people something to do. Now only the commander builds stuff and orders it around, it appears out of nowhere (I know, scout more blablabla) and the first volley destroys half the hive and all shades. That is boring and skillless and I still prefer the ns1 mechanics. If Ink blocks scans and forces the rines to actually go in and fight, I am for a change!
All my thoughts are based on how I think ink is working right now, but it changed so often, I am not even sure how it works now
I think thats correct, I just dont find INK viable for hive defense anymore as the cooldown timer is so long and the duration is too short, sure you'll block 1 or 2 salvos but you are just delaying the inevitable by literally seconds, even those precious seconds aren't enough for aliens to counter attack sometimes.
Not sure, I had games where I went for Shadehive just because ARC's came up to the freshly built hive. Ink is saving a lot of ress and give aliens much more time to defend against ARC's. This effects that rines come with even more ARC's and just in that moment when there are about 6-8 ARC's the Gorges were able to take them out (don't ask me why). Huge resswaste for the Marines and Hive is still up.
But I agree with the Shade itself (not Ink) is verry weak. I stoped to build Shades in early game for tunnels cause the Marines find the tunnel anyway (most of all times because the gorge is clogging the tunnel
I only have one problem: if I should choose between 2 Upgrades i would prefer Spur+Shell or Veil+Shell. Between 2 Hiveabilities I would choose Echo and Ink. Can't combine them with only 2 Hives
I never ever cloaked gorge tunnels for this reason. It's very easy to spot. I don't cloak any tech what so with the exception of tech that needs to be inked against arcs of course. The only things I care about cloaking are cysts and players (cloaking whips are fun too I have to admit). So I don't think shades are weak, they are just used wrong. Cloaking buildings is useless.
Its hilarious that a lot of comms still do that. Herp derp, 1 round of nades or arcs and 45 res gone up in smoke. Not to mention if a stray marine comes in they're all nice and easy to find.
If I EVER do that in cases where the techpoint is limited in decent seperate places to put them, I'll maybe put 2 together in a corner and build the shade in front of them so the marine has to gun that down before he can get to the goodies
I'll re-iterate though; I think shade hive is in a good place balance-wise at the moment. At MOST an aoe hive sight effect could be added to shades for a buff, but anything more would make them OP.
Heck, even hive sight would make them VERY powerful, khamms could pre-warn fades of marines hiding around corners and the marines wouldn't even know they're being watched. This has pretty hard consequences for mid and late game lifeform survivability.
You are talking about sight only if the comm has shade tech anyway, at which point those fades will, at least optionally, have Aura themselves. I don't think that giving the Comm an aura-analogue at the same time the lifeforms get the same ability sounds particularly balance changing.
Because:
1) It would add variety, because people would actually choose shade hive.
2) Shade hive would not become the most used hive type even if OP because of the pub cookie cutter strats.
3)Once shade hive being OP has spread into pub games, causing more even hive type usage, nerf it back to balance it. Pubs would still use shade hive because they use cookie cutter strats adding more variety.
Might be one of the few ways to make pubs use something other than shift hive.