When searching for a crusher guide, I’ve never really managed to find any that’s up to date.
So, I’m gonna fix that. I like to write things that I enjoy, and well, sadly I enjoy CM13.
Before I start, I should mention this is a guide for only the base crusher strain. The charger strain is a different strain entirely that I’m not as qualified to speak about.
Also check out this great guide if you are new to xenomorph!
The crusher wiki is solid, but the wiki is outdated so I figure I’d try to make a fresh crusher guide. I also got some of these numbers from the wiki, so shoutout to them.
You’re probably already aware but I should mention. Crusher is a tier 3 caste (there are three main tiers) that evolves from warrior. Warrior evolves from either a drone or defender.
Crushing Numbers
Here are base crusher’s stats from the get-go.
700 health is a lot of health, being only behind queen, king, and the charger strain in terms of highest amount of health.
You also have 30 armor, which is high for a xenomorph! Meaning non-AP bullets will hurt crusher much less then other xenomorphs. You have the ability to tank quite a lot of non-AP bullets.
Crusher has a lot of plasma to the point where plasma is basically not a problem for crusher.
You also have 40 slash damage, which is relatively high for a xenomorph. Just behind base and berserker ravager’s 45, but still you have high damage for a xenomorph.
That shield label is based on crusher’s shield ability, which I will mention below. Crusher gets 200 shield points when using the ability, but ALSO damage is reduced by 12.5 damage. Meaning crusher has an ability that essentially grants her 200 more health with stronger armor. It’s an incredibly good ability and will help you in a ton of situations.
But, there is one big downside to crusher, and that is her slow speed. Crusher is slower then all xenomorphs that aren’t king or queen, which is very important to keep in mind when fighting talls.
In short, crusher is meant to be a tank caste. Slow, but having high defense.
RIP AND TEAR! Crusher’s slash
Crusher has a nasty slash. Not only does her slashes deal 40 damage, but they also apply a slowdown effect and any marine that is adjacent to the marine being slashed will ALSO be slashed for 60% of the damage (24). If you keep on slashing a marine, the slowdown timer adds up. This video is a demonstration of crusher’s slashes.
As a result, if you slash a marine, it’s possible to trap that marine into becoming so slow that you land more slashes, killing them. Your slashes can ESPECIALLY come useful with queen screech, so if you see a clump of marines stunned, you can just slash all of them to apply a ton of slowdown and damage. I will mention the crusher and queen duo later on. So yeah, make sure to land some slashes in if you’re a crusher.
Edit: I forgot to mention that crusher’s slash reduces cooldown on abilities like charge (but not shield). Check out this great comment that explains crusher’s cooldown slash ability in further detail.
Here comes the A-Train! Crusher’s Charge
The ability works like this. When you activate the ability, crusher will wind-up, and move at the direction you point at. Think of a rhinoceros or buffalo. This ability has multiple uses, so I’ll go over them briefly.
Escape
A great way to use your charge ability is to escape to safety when you need to go back to safe resin and rest. You cover a pretty large amount of distance with charge, making it a solid escape tool. Do be warned though, the charge has wind-up time. So if you are near-crit, you will likely die before you are able to zip away from talls shooting at you. This is one of the best ways to use charge.
Ambush
This is a more dubious use of charge. You can use charge to reach a group of marines quickly and ambush them, as crusher doesn’t have any other fast-burst options. You can also stun a marine REALLY hard if the marine gets hit by the charge, flinging them into a state of stun. If you are skilled enough, you can even charge and switch to the help intent briefly behind a resin door to surprise a marine who is breaking a door. A less known fact about charge is if you miss the charge but are close to the marine, they will have a slowdown effect, which is nice for slashing. You can also charge people against a wall, similar to warrior’s fling, but this is a very tricky thing to pull off. Overall, a good ambushing charge can be quite solid for crusher, being a fast approach option for slashing marines. HOWEVER, using charge as an ambush option can be extremely risky. That means you have no fast-burst way of escape and instead have to walk, meaning it is much easier for marines to follow you with ap and shoot you down, given your slow speed. Worse yet, a demo spec could be there and the demo could aim right at you while you are far from any other of your hive to support you. If you want to use the charge as an ambush attack, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A RELIABLE METHOD OF ESCAPE. Make sure there is resin doors nearby or other hive members to support you. I’ve seen better players naysay against using charge as a way of attacking, so take that as you will.
Breaking down walls or cades
Crusher can use the charge to further damage any wall or cade. You can even click on the wall as you are winding up charge, which makes charge a very solid option to break down cades. If you see cades that need to be broken, charge em’ down to deal more damage against them.
Edit: There’s another use for charge you can utilize, as shown in this video. Basically hide behind a door, quickly shift intents, and then make sure your arrow is onto the marine afterwards.
You don’t want to be under a giant beast: Crusher’s Stomp
This ability is quite solid and has some nice uses. Basically, you apply a 5x5 area stomp. Anyone caught in the area will be slowed down, BUT anyone UNDER you who is stomped (lying down) will take some pretty big damage. Here is a demonstration of stomp.
Now let’s go over some of the uses.
Escape
Similarly to charge, stomp is also a great way of escaping marines. If marines are chasing you down with ap, using stomp will stun them and slow them down, letting you have more opportunity to escape to weed safety.
Stomping a stunned tall
If you see a tall lying down, stomp em’ (unless the hive want to cap them, don’t kill our cap). This will deal a pretty large amount of damage to them. You can even pair this up with queen screech, as queen screech makes marines lie down. You can also pair this up if you land a charge against a poor marine, though it does fling them far away and you have to give chase. Here’s a demonstration of that.
Combo into slash
You can also use stomp to slowdown talls to slash em’ with stomp. The 5x5 as mentioned before will apply a slowdown. The slowdown from the stomp and the slash slowdown really add up, making any poor tall slower then a snail. This is quite useful if a predator wants to hunt you, considering how fast they are, with slowing them down making it easier to slash them.
The Holy Grail of Crusher Abilities: The Shield
This. This right here is crusher’s best ability, in my opinion. This exemplifies the tankiness of crusher. Basically, when activating the ability, you gain a shield that is worth 200 health. This shield lasts for 7 seconds. There is more perks to this shield, with damage being reduced by 12.5 damage. For an even briefer amount of time you are immune to explosion damage, though crusher is already very good at resisting explosions. But, you CAN use this to resist more pressure from any explosive CAS, cluster OB, or HE OB right.
There is a common misconception that crusher’s shield ability also makes her immune to a demo ap rocket stun, this is false. Crusher will be stunned by an ap rocket even if she is early into her shield with the explosion immunity.
Now onto the main uses of this ability.
Offense
This ability is EXCELLENT for attacking marines with. When going for an attack where talls will see you and gun you down with ap, the ability really helps further crusher’s longevity to have more time to slash talls down before you are forced to retreat and rest. It’s simple to use, and it will help you greatly for slashing down talls. Just remember when your shield goes down, the cooldown until you can use it again is 26 seconds, so keep that in mind.
Tanking
You can also use this to tank damage in general. Do you just want marines to waste ammo? Did queen get hit by an ap rocket and you need to repel talls away from her as she is recoiling? Well you can sponge all of that a lot easier with the shield ability. I have saved tier 3s and queens who have been stunned by demo with this ability multiple times.
Escape
Believe it or not, this is an excellent escape option as well. If you’re being pushed back hard and need to escape to safety, this ability will help you sponge in more damage for you to better escape from talls chasing you to death. You could even use shield + charge to be able to get a safe charge escape in. It really really helps with going to safety, it’s saved my life like countless times.
Heads or Tails? Tailstab
All xenomorphs have this option. Basically a two tile long attack that does slightly more damage then your slashes and always targets the body part you are aiming for.
If you can’t reach a pesky tall who’s too fast for you, tailstab is always an option, considering the range is nice. You can even tailstab and followup with more slashes, thanks to crusher tailstab having the same passive effects as crusher’s slash. Meaning anyone hit by tailstab will feel slowdown and it will also hurt marines adjacent (as seen in the slashing video). Some people don’t like tailstabbing, but I personally really enjoy it. The range and damage is very nice.
Crusher Objectives
For a while, I was always confused about what crusher’s role was. Ravager is the fragging tier 3 caste, praetorian is versatile jack of all trades caste, and boiler is the ranged melter caste. So what does that make crusher? There’s three uses for crusher. One is tank, two is crowd control (aoe slashes), and three is support. No I don’t mean hivelord or drone support, but something to note is you’re a tier 3 xenomorphs can lean onto. You’re big and tough, you can do some heavy lifting for the xenomorphs.
Follow your queen when she deovis.
I cannot stress enough how important this is. if queen is out of her ovipositor, ALWAYS STAY ON HER. Queen in particular can really benefit from having a giant daughter sponge a ton of damage as she goes for screeches with her runners trying to drag caps and her ravagers trying to frag. It might not sound like it at first, but you being there as a big annoying sponge really helps the queen, cappers, and fragging ravagers all do their job a easier, as you’re this big annoying roadblock to marines that can soak up a ton of damage. You also do considerable damage yourself, and because queen can stun talls down, you can stomp a tall down and also keep on doing aoe slashing against poor talls caught be the queen screech stun. You combo VERY well with queen screech. Stick with your queen when she deovis, do NOT get tunnel visioned.
Provide cover for more vulnerable sisters.
I already mentioning how being a big roadblock is useful, but I should mention it again. If there’s a crit ravager or lurker or sentinel who can be dragged into resin, you should throw yourself at the front and stall marines for as long as possible so another sister can drag them to weeds. I’ve mentioned this before but crusher can be very helpful if queen got hit by an ap rocket and is stunned. Do keep in mind you shouldn’t be the one doing the dragging, unless there is no one else to drag fast enough. You are slow. But you CAN repel talls and give time for the faster xenos to drag the crit xenos to the safety of the weeds.
You are also a boiler’s friend, as you can shield them from damage like sniper shots as they charge up a mean gas attack. Stick with boilers. Their gas can also help you escape, as the gas reduces bullet accuracy and hides you. Their gas makes cade breaking easier as well, considering talls won’t be charging at gassed cades or sentries.
Really important, you can provide great cover for sisters trying to tackle a cap down. Are talls trying to rescue the cap that your sister caught? Well you can rush right in and stall the advance of the talls with your slowdown slashes and tank, giving your other sisters plenty of time to tackle and drag the cap to the hive. This is a really important part of providing cover as crusher, do that! Keep in mind however crusher’s tackle is garbage in comparison to other xenomorphs (tackling is a weird mechanic I’m not gonna get into here), and you are slow, so you should leave the others to do the tackling and carrying hosts to the hive.
Rage against the machine: Breaking sentries, cades, and walls.
Crusher excels at just breaking stuff. The shield plus your high health and armor lets you make light work of all sentries, with all but the plasma sentry doing pitiful damage against you (the plasma sentry friendly fires marines though). If you see a nearby sentry, go at it and break it. The rest of the hive will thank you for that.
You’re also solid at breaking cades. Are there annoying cadehugging marines you want to reach? Well, you can use your shield, high health, and armor to tank a lot and break down cades. You can also use stomp to briefly make marines pause to give you more time to slash a cade down.
You can also break walls, like all tier 3s. Your charge does some solid damage against walls and cades. Use your charge to break down walls and cades, as I have mentioned. Some walls the charge doesn’t work at all. Do remember if multiple sisters want to break a wall down, rest so they can stack on top of you. Also, your charge can insta-break doors.
I’m not sure if this was patched out or not, as I can’t seem to replicate it in a private server, but in the past any talls attempting to escape in a pod you could charge down the yellow doors and prevent their escape.
Slash em’.
I’ve already mentioned how good crusher’s slashes are, so do slash. Use your shield ability 24/7 when marines are harassing you, it’s an excellent ability that lets you slash for longer. Any kill is a good one. Crusher combat-wise is simple. If you see talls that are safe enough to approach and slash, do slash. You have a lot of area of effect crowd control abilities like slashing and the stomp, making you a solid crowd control caste.
I will mention that crusher benefits a LOT from being in cramped spaces much more then very open spaces, given how marines are a lot more likely to clump up, leading to big opportunities for some lethal slashes.
If marines are forced to push through a narrow, annoying choke to reach your hive, then that’s a good thing. An example of such a choke that is advantageous for crusher is this section in LV.
Unrelated to any section but one big boon of crusher is your immunity to almost all explosion stuns.
You resist HE sadar, all grenade stuns, SHARP mines, etc. The grenadier spec can barely do ANYTHING to you, it’s great. Most other xenomorphs are victim to grenade stuns however. If you see a grenadier spec going ham, you can be the cover if your other sisters are trapped being stunned by the grenadier, giving time for your sisters to retreat and readjust. You can also just walk on stuff like claymore mines so your other sisters can walk safely. Cool, right? Keep in mind as I’ve said before, crusher is NOT immune to demo ap rockets, not even shield can save her.
The body part you should be targeting is the feet.
A rifleman with a helmet and armor have less armor on their feet and hands, BUT attacking their feet can slow them down, especially if you fracture their feet. Considering crusher is a slow caste, you really could use the benefit that comes with the slowdown from attacking the feet.
One final unrelated note. Because you have a lot of plasma and almost always never run out, you are solid for filling in clusters or egg morphers or other structures with plasma. So do that.
Edit: This convo was great in me learning another objective for crusher, and that is to initiate. Aka start the charge. If you are with a queen and queen wants to begin a screech, you can run in or use a charge to attack first, letting the queen and others get to the talls more safely.
Threats to consider
Crusher is slow and has some notable counters. Keep these dangers in mind as you go in and slash, or provide cover. If you don’t consider the danger of what I am about to mention, you’ll be more likely to meet the sky hive early into the operation.
Demolitonist/“SADAR”
Demo is one of the scarier threats you will encounter, having a silver long tube of doom. One hit from an ap rocket, and you will be stunned for a significant period of time, letting marines get a ton of ap shots right at you. Crusher also suffers from being slow, so even if you wake up, marines can keep on firing and chasing you down. Also because you are a big and slow behemoth, you are a prime target for the demo spec. Demo is the spec’s official name, but everyone calls it “sadar”, including me. Haha.
To counter sadar, make sure to stick with your hive. If you see sadar, make sure there is resin you can quickly be dragged from. Valkyrie can scream to wake you up quicker, and Oppressor can hook you back into safety. Some other bulky tier 3s like ravager can dive in to cover for you as you are stunned. So basically, make sure you are huddling with your hive even more if you see sadar.
When sadar is wielding, that is when they can fire. They will be carrying the rpg on their shoulder pointed at you. Look at the video.
If a sadar fires and whiffs, now is your chance to punish them. Try to target them in particular, they are a threat to tier 3s and queen in particular, and queen would be greatly appreciative if the sadar died.
Good sadars will sit further in the back, and use binoculars to spot tier 3s and then rush at them with ap rockets. Good sadars also mainly use ap rockets. Keep this in mind. HE rockets and other rockets like OT rockets aren’t a threat to you.
Once when sadar is dead and unrevivable, you no longer have to worry about any other stun, which is really nice.
Meet the Pyro
Pyro, although not as dramatic as sadar, is just as much of a threat, if not worse. Pyro can utilize both green and blue fire with a strong flamethrower. Crusher, like most xenomorphs, is vulnerable to fire damage. Green fire is an evil, accursed fire that halves your armor if you are caught on it as well as slowing you down. Luckily green fire is easy to pat/resist from, taking one pat.
Blue fire just does a large amount of damage in general. Even crusher takes a heavy hit from blue fire. Blue fire is harder to pat/resist out of, taking more pats and resists to have the fire removed then regular fire.
Some pyros opt to avoid the pyro armor, but you can still identify them with the large amount of fire they spew.
Pro tip, resisting against fire is something that should only be used as an emergency. If you have other xenomorphs nearby who can pat, then go near them, and they will likely pat out the fire for you. Resist puts you in a LONG stun that talls can take advantage of, or you could be missing opportunities like talls clumping for a slash or more time to rest.
Another tip is if you are on green or blue fire, RUN TO SAFETY. NEVER FIGHT WHEN ON GREEN OR BLUE FIRE. THEY ARE LETHAL.
Pyros will either try to light you on fire, or block a path that you may want to cross. Good pyros are monsters and will ensure you don’t push talls but also ensure you suffer from green and blue fire a lot.
You may encounter talls flaming with white fire after a long round, which is the final boss of all fires. That’s all I will say.
Loneliness
Crusher in particular suffers if she is alone. Crusher is big AND slow, meaning it’s very easy for talls to land bullets on you. If there is no other sisters where you are, then you are very likely doing something wrong. If marines know you are alone, they will charge at you with zero mercy and the indomitable human spirit on their side. And you being a big, slow target with no xenomorphs to help you incase you are crit or need heals or backup means you will be easier to kill in general. Always stick with a group.
The scout specialist hard counters nearly any xenomorph alone, especially crusher due to her low speed. The scout’s gun can stunlock tier 1s and 2s and also hit like a truck at the same time from a far range, it’s nasty.
To avoid a scout catching you alone, chasing and shooting you with its powerful gun, just… don’t be alone. Make sure you are sticking in a group.
Being far from a safe place to rest in
STAY CLOSE TO WEEDS AND RESIN BUILDINGS. Even if you are attacking talls from a weedless area, make sure you can quickly retreat back to the safety of weeds. If you can’t find a place to rest from advancing talls, well, you’re dead. You NEED to ensure there is a safe spot for you to retreat to at basically all times.
Crusher in particular gets omega screwed if she is alone in a big, weedless area. Think of the LV beach without weeds.
If you are in the situation I mentioned above, it is comically easy for marines to rush you down to death. No weeds slow you down and you don’t heal from resting on weedless areas, so you’re way more vulnerable to death in this type of situation. As you try to repel talls from the hive, ensure you don’t find yourself in a giant open area without weeds where talls can go ham on you. It’s happened to me quite a few times in the past.
Relevant to this topic, hivelords and drones are your best friend. Not only do they build lots of walls so you can find a place of shelter from bullets easier, but drones can go the healer strain to heal you up, letting you get back into battle quicker. The gardener strain also exists, having two amazing fruits being the big green fruit (greater resin fruit) that heals you, and the teal fruit that gives you a bit of shield (unstable resin fruit). All the other fruits are meh. Be sure to show your builders, healers, and gardeners some love and appreciation.
In short, make sure you have an escape plan.
CAS lasers (the CAS attack that spews fire all over the place)
CAS attacks that shoot bullets or bombs aren’t really a threat to you, given your tankiness and explosion immunity. HOWEVER, CAS has a trick up its sleeve against crushers and that is lasers, the attack that covers a large area in a trail of painful bright orange fire. if you are HIT by these lasers, they HURT. CAS attacks will often try to block your method of escape, so keep that in mind. The best way to prevent dying to CAS lasers is to just watch where the dropship is going and to move at a far direction that is also the safest from talls as well. Be careful to not walk into lasers as talls are chasing you down. Crusher in general has weakness to fire, and CAS lasers can penetrate through crusher’s thick armor just fine. So keep your eyes and ears out for CAS.
Talls Bodyblocking You
Strange to think that a behemoth like crusher can’t simply trample a single tall in front of her as she treads? Well, that’s just how it works.
Braver talls will try to block your retreat by just going in front of you and attacking you from there. The best way to avoid this situation is to not have a one tile gap as your method of retreat, as that is prone to lots of bodyblocking. Breaking a wall with lots of talls behind and then rushing from that gap is risky as brave talls can block the gap to prevent your escape, though this issue can be mitigated with more sisters on your side. Again, because crusher is slow, it is easier for talls to be able to bodyblock you and for you to struggle to escape.
To prevent being bodyblocked by John Marine, having sisters closeby definitely helps as I have mentioned before. If you are already blodyblocked best you can do is either slash or ram the tall to try to escape. But yeah, keep an eye out on any brave tall who tries to take one for the team and block you to death. Make sure your escape plan is robust and not just a one tile gap far from the support of your sisters. Bodyblocking talls will also try to be in front of you to slowdown your escape even further, so as you are falling back and dealing with a bodyblocking tall, make sure you can at least twist and turn and outmaneuver them and quickly make it into resin walls and weeds.
I think that wraps it up for my crusher guide, this is… quite long. In short, crusher is solid at three things. Slashing, tanking, and being a good support tier 3 to help keep the hive functioning by either being the big bodyguard. Keep an eye out for threats like sadar stun, pyro, weedless open areas, etc..
I’m not gonna make a long guide like this again, as there are lots of good guides out there already covering the many marine roles and stuff.
The end. I need a life again.
