Personally i think they feel very punitive with no real counter if the runner in question time is attack right.
i think it should be nerf or remove…(no specific on how nerfing them.
please comment on how it feel to play acid runner or how does it feel to play again’ts it bellow.
basically anything about acid runner …
to add onto it a big issue is the combo of screech and acid runner.
their is also an issue of acid being to easy to accumulate by slashing …
All acid runners do these days is run up and tailstab and realistically the only way to kill them is to slug them - but slugs currently suck because they got overnerfed.
It doesn’t necessarily need more of a counter. It has 300 or so hp, so staying in groups is the counter.
The caste itself has 0 ccs, and while its dps is high and its quite survivable, you can kill it or suppress it pretty easily if you shoot it with mk2 on burst mode - which almost every marine has.
Not to say you’ll kill it everytime ofcourse. but you’l still most of the time of the time suppress it doing that. Good positioning from acid rouny can help it get away faster, and if marines push and reduce the size of their killzones, it is easy to play acid rouny
An injured acid rouny can’t fight, so that’s how you play around it. Good positioning helps a lot too
Flamers are also a hard counter against it if you play right.
I think the caste is fine. It’s a good caste yes, but not needing of nerf.
I am pretty sure OP means the boom (because acid runner just wiped out marines’ hold during hijack). Although runner exploded with like 5% of HP and marines did a bad job shooting it.
Anyway, things about explosion I think should be changed:
runner charging his explosion can be heard from a mile away. nothing is stopping marines from taking a few steps back, especially considering the charging slows down the runner significantly.
simply a skill issue
Maybe it’s just me but I don’t even use the explosion as acid runner most of the time. Sure occasionally an acid runner wipes the front but most of the time you get bodyblocked by a teammate or marines fall back and dodge you or marines shoot and kill you or you just mistime it or you get slugged or they throw a grenade, or anything else that can go wrong.
Even if you hit a bunch of marines it usually accomplishes nothing because medics just revive everyone and acid damage does not leave fractures.
I would rather just melt cades or guns using the acid tbh.
Yeah I usually use all my acid melting holes in FOB/backline forts, the only time I actually use the bomb is when I end up getting to 1k anyway.
Wasn’t really marines doing a bad job of shooting it, considering the queen literally screeched and stunned everyone. The turrets were the only things doing considerable damage, and their targeting AI is dumb as rocks so the runner was able to blow.
1K acid + Queen screech = easy mass casualties
I don’t really see acid runners as that big a problem, considering the vast majority end up dying. Queen screech combos though, there isn’t really a good counterplay at all. You can say “run away” as much as you want, but that’s not gonna make the 20 PVT Stanley’s do anything- So yeah, I can see why that leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths.
Acid runner, while being one of my more enjoyed and played castes, is also one of the easiest castes in game to cause large impact with. You don’t even have to attack to get your acid OB, even just SSD’ing and running around the front for 16 minutes (literal 16 minutes) is enough to get you a potential frontwiping acid blast if you have teammates that can capitalize on it and know how to be aware enough to get a good acid OB.
Also unless you really fuck up and aren’t paying attention to marine weapons and get double juggled with shotguns, you aren’t going to be dying easily (par for running so fast you don’t get a mortar warning lol).
Overall for a T1 it’s wild how it just exists. Acid runner is extremely poor game design. Let’s not talk about how vamp is specially designed for killing marines that other xeno’s have capped, acid runners do this literally all the time while 3 other xeno’s are shoving a marine because “>:((( farming acid, stop saying don’t”
If you are aware of marines and your surroundings, practically the only thing that can kill you as acid runny is your own hubris or extremely bad luck, full stop, and all you need is at max 16 minutes to get your acid OB which is not that long at all in the span of a round.
Edit: also after reading the rest of this thread, yeah if you acid OB and don’t have your teammates follow up on it of course it’s not gonna have a massive round deciding impact. That’s why you are vocal and get your queen to make a plan. If you can hit 8-12 marines and have your xeno’s push too to perma the bodies and cap anyone trying to rescue them, that can end entire frontlines. Before you bomb you have to run in and out of the front a few times to get a good view on what you’re going to be going into and what not. I usually spectate a xeno that is frontline fighting while the first few seconds of my timer are ticking in order to get even more info.
The only thing that prevents more common acid explosions is xenos evolving to T2 and losing the acid.
One change I would like to see is the removal of the acid buildup overtime. I’ve seen acid runners afk in the hive for 1k acid and that just seems wrong. At the very least to get that amazing 1k explosion, you should have to work for it and put yourself in danger. I believe when you succeed you reincarnate yourself as another larva making it an infinite cycle.
I’d just cap it at 200 or something, to help the ones not using it for the explosion, but for melting things.
How it feels to watch a T1 caste wipe out the front in under a minute.
personally I dont think acid runners are all too bad, just like base runner they are easily killable, and 90% of the time, only reason the acid runner can go off is because a group of marines stare it down or runs away instead of shooting it, I think they are fine for what they are
yeah I didnt realize this was possible, and would be only thing I can agree to needing change
Now, first off. That migth just be my opinion, but i just pretend its the word of god:
I think accid runner is worse then normal runner if you take away the big boom. I jokingly say “accid runner is a crutch” for a reason. It is easy to play, but it has not the same potential as normal runny. That is more a burn toward accid runner mains then anything but ehh. If your such a main you go acid runner as greeno, you dont get my pitty.
Real talk now:
Acid runner is for what it is fairly strong, i agree. The Giant boom cloud is way too often unearned. Something like that should be a reward for players that do well, not something the ssd runner in the hive can achive.
Basic rule of game design is always: “Reward players for doing well”
That is often one ciritcal point to make something fun to figth gainst, and more importantly fun to do. A reward that is earnd, always feels better then something you are gifted.
So, how would one make this more fun and fair?
Basicly the two suggestions of @ihatethisengine are perfect. But i would not say to fully remove passive generation. Rather give it a cap, so that you can generate up to 300 accid over time. If you reach that ammount regeneration wont give you more.
That for 1) prevents acid runners to afk in hive until they get a 1k boom. 2) Still allow not good players to get some accid for melting stuff and little boom.
Basicly every player can get some form of explosion, but only good ones get the big one that can wipe the front. Giving everyone a chance to try and blew yourself up, and rewarding good players. Also that way you can get accid to melt stuff without needing to be good, wich is like the ultimate thing for bad combat players. Supporting. Like i always do 
But jokes aside, it is very important to leave a way for players that arent that good yet to gain it somewhat. You want players to go “Wow, that can go even larger? I want to try and do that” not “I cant even manage to get it in small, why should i try for the big one”. And you cant get the first one, if you dont give them a taste of whats to come. And no, seeing others do it doesnt count. You need to feel it, do it yourself.
Easiest way that could be fixed is remove accid gain from marines that already have accid on them.
This would also encourage players to play more like this strain feels like its supposed to be. A hit and run role. Where you dont try to attack one target a lot, but a lot of targets often. Basicly more atrition focused, being that one good acid runner can easily make sure a small group of marines runs out of medicin really fast. So why slash more the same guy that aleady has KD in them. Slash the other guys so the medic has to use up more.
Big problem i see there would be how it would interact with spitter accid. Like, would you get a gain from people coverd in spitter acid? Would it be overridden with runney acid? If not, could that be a loop hole to farm accid again? But thats mainly because i dont know how they both interact.
Only one slash is too little, but i cant imagine if there is an easy way to code it otherwise. Like, only gaining accid the first three slash to a marine. And resetting that somehow. Maybe it is easy though, i dont know coding in beyond very well.
There is already the pro strat of going far away when you go boom so most marines dont hear you and then hiding behind a corner and jumping out just before you go boom.
Two problems
1 Its a good reward for players that are abel to time the explosion rigth and are good at positioning. So cant make doing that too hard.
2 People often dont realize the acid runner is still… on? So consident warning its going of would be better then just a warning once it starts. Yes the brigth green helps, but marines are often to dumb. It should be loud and proud telling the world its about to blow itself the fuck up.
1 means you cant make its signal too obvious. 2 means it needs to be somewhat obvious still. So either a consitend beeping like a bomb thats about to go off thats getting faster. Or the runner just fucking blinks green.
Now, the last point migth already be in the game, with the beeping sound. But i am already senile despite my jung age. So forgive me that fauxpas.
TL;DR
Accid runner aint that OP.
Maybe need some tweeking.
Normal runner gang FORLIFE!!!
mumbel mumbel game design
A simple solution: Reduce acid rouny survivability, currently if you just wanted to play runner you should go acid runner for the extra survivability and damage at the cost of an often suicidal pounce. Prevent the nonsense screech/Bomb by making runner only able to activate it while queen is on ovi (requires intense channeling from the QM?).
Complex plan, scrap acid rouny altogether, it’s much too efficient as a T1 fighter strain that also gets really good acid utility and also does burn damage and also can suicide bomb. Put the suicide bomb as a T2 spitter strain that refunds the T2 slot so that bugs have to use the acid bomb carefull and also so spitter gets a strain that makes sense (like the boiler suicide bombers from alien colonial marines). If rouny mains complain about a acider being taken away, give them a strain that’s about running into crowds of marines and bowling them over/ankle biting them as a pseudo crusher.
I love every part of your complex solution.
Sounds like somebody fucked up their pounce and is still salty about it, pounces are absurdly good against small groups and against solos it basically forces them to fuck off or die (as it should)
This would fuck over people who aren’t going for the screech/bomb combo too, though. My suggestion to fix this would be to make the bomb not affect anybody who’s been stunned by queen screech (if that’s possible)
As somebody who’s been on both sides of acid runner slash acid, it does fucking laughable damage and the only use for it is tricking marines into rolling because they think you left.
So replace it with an entirely different to play strain that’ll have absolutely zero of the qualities acid runner had? You do realize how stupid of a trade that is, right?
This would kill acid gain and also incentivize not helping at all once you’ve gotten one slash in against each enemy (one slash does fuck all damage)