Lets face it, no one likes it when there are big shakeups on the frontline. But at the same time there isn’t enough t3 slots open to get boilers up. Or alot of people go Prae just to avoid the normal non-strain prae. A while back I did up some sprites that can still be seen in the discord, and could be asked to resprite some of the ones I Was working on again on my new hardrive. But my main ideas go like this:
Spitter Strains: Bleeder, ballista
lets start with the Ballista: Sacrificing it’s spit abilities, it gets the Praetoreans acid grenade, and the ability to lob it a bit further than the prae. Making it fall into a grenadier style gameplay, or incredibly light weight boiler offshoot. Giving the Xenos an alternate route to a bit of crowd control effect. People who know how to avoid the Prae’s acid ball already know how to deal with this.
Bleeder: A less contentious way of doing the Despoiler, instead of a chonky t3, it could be a t2 side grade to the spitterr. Instead of just being a gigantic vomitorium. It could have the same acid claw ability, but this time a passive that triggers small bursts of acid spray off it when it takes damage. Low armor, but the highest health of any t2 to compensate. With the overall goal of being a ‘spitter up close’ in the same way the sentinels are up close support.
Additionally- I still feel like we owe a certain nasty an homage,
Warrior Strain - Chrysalis:
Retaining the head shield ability of a defender. A flared plate of lighter color to differentiate it lines it’s head. Trading out it’s fling ability and lunge for a ‘lower head crest’ stance, and a hardening ability that takes plasma to give it a stacking armor shield. a means of bringing defender style play to the T2 slot. Giving them both the ability to swing with other warriors, and be a lifeline to protect the injured of their hive from finishing blows.
Alt idea: Spitter strain that fires spines which do brute, but mainly bleed damage. Akin to runners shard fling. 1 reduced range, no powershot, or spray, nor melting acid, but maybe 5 more armor, stronger slashes, and something like Berserker Ravs shed ability.
Say 1% bloodloss per hit + starting a bleed if enough damage is done. Heavy armors should absorb enough to ignore bleeds unless hit many times in quick succession and without any medical intervention. Not nearly as easy to walk off in groups as the main spitters combo nor simple as extinguishing.
everyone has gauze, bleed is a non issue, you would have to drain a large amount of it to matter in the course of a frontline fight, and backliners will just kill you or leave in the time it takes for oxy to build up
Koo is right on that, the issue with bleed is it’s the most mitigatable damage type. Shard I Feel works better, because shards are annoying and need to be delt with before they build up more damage. One of the reasons base runners don’t rely on just sharding someone up and harassing them though is that the other tools in their kit have a bit more effect than the shards do. For a shard spitter I actually wouldn’t reduce the range, I’d make it longer range, give the bugs a ‘marskman’ type besides the boiler. Not high damage, but enough to pressure marines from certain directions. And that is what the spitter is really good at in general, creating pressure and harassing marines at cade lines.
Some interesting Spitter ideas here. I like the shard concept. Shrapnel is easy to fix but deadly if left.
Alternatively; I love the marksman idea of a spitter strain. What if instead of just shrapnel the Spitter launches a large shard of….bone? chitin? resin? which, if it hits a marine impales them? Kinda like a ballista! I reckon the impalement causes bleeding and brute like you’d expect but, would also force a marine to resist to get free. Something akin to getting free from a Preds trap. Maybe a fellow marine could “remove object” to free the trapped marine. I’m picturing this done from a stationary position kind of like a boiler but as a sniper instead of artillery.