This is a continuation on a conversation I had in discord last night somewhere
Ravs are consistently the best frontline t3 for the most amount of situations by a long shot. I’m talking about a greater team wise perspective here. I know theres players that can pop off with dancer and vanguard arguably more than ravs can, but I’m talking from a team perspective here.
So what do I mean by team perspective. Well I mean that with a given amount of t3 slots, how can the hive best keep the aggression or fend off the marine push, without assuming what equipment the marines have, and assuming any skill level in xenos.
So what about the rav makes it consistently better than all other t3s? Well I think one of the biggest niches it fills is its fireproofness. Fire these days is very available to marines, with incend kits, UBF, and of course the pyro. Yes, most good xeno players have the game sense to be able to safely cross fire, go in, and go out. But generally speaking fire is a serious source of fearrp for xenos. And there are good pyro players who know how to use blueflame which can easily kill even t3s if they dont expect it. A rav, even in the hands of a new player wont fearrp and they are a lot more combat effective while on fire than other t3s.
Additionally they have two strains which are a lot more effective for new players than crusher or praetorian. Again, we have to assume any possible skill level here. Base rav is easy to dish out damage and tanky enough that they can afford to make mistakes. Hedgehog is really easy, you dont even need to slash to do well as a new t3 player. Just run in, shield, run out and you’ve probably got a bunch of crit marines most of the time. Stacking all your t3s with ravs is very very strong for the hive, something you don’t see with the other t3s. The only downside there is, is that rav is stuck behind an evo line where they are fairly difficult to grasp and/or die often.
Praetorians are either not very strong, difficult to grasp, or glass cannons. Base strain, im going to be real, could be replaced with a spitter and have the same effect. Yeah, its a lot less skill to spit then acid spray, and it has more health and slash damage overrall, but again, from a overrall team perspective its slot could be so much more. Vanguard and dancer (especially) have an effective skill requirement which you wont find easily in most hives. Oppressor is niche, it can help get a lot of captures for the hive if they’re good, but its abilities are most effective picking off marines one by one, or at the very least making a group fuck off away from you defensively.
Crushers are just, weak. they’re the tankiest t3 for sure, they can bodyblock for the hive like a defender would. But on the offensive theres better choices. Often times the map is too open, and their wide slashes from what I’ve observed rarely catch more than 2 at a time, and in most situations you want to focus on having one person dead rather than damaging multiple people. 3 injured marines can still kill you and rush you down fairly easily, but 1 dead marine and 2 healthy marines is a lot more different, as now 1 of them is probably dragging the body, and theres less bullets being shot into you.
So whats my point? I’d like all the frontline t3s to be equally good choices for any given xeno player. Crusher could use some love. And I think some general fire resistance buff in some sorts (multiple ways to approach this) for the other two frontline t3s would go a long way in reducing the reliance on ravs. Hell this could even lead with a individual t3 caste limit, to stop rav stacking, or even stop times where you have 4 boilers which is hamstringing the effectiveness of the hives t3 slots.
