T2 Siege Caste.

Development Ideaguys
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I am tired of slop rounds where marines infinitely stall for time, hiding behind cades until they get Nuke, Stims, OT, or whatever the fuck they need to push out of their meme cades as they bitch and moan about how stims are balanced “because xenos are supposed to win quick”. Well, I suppose it is time to offer a way to rectify the “marines hide behind cades for two hours” ages old problem of the hive.

The only real feasible way to break FOB is either getting a King (1:50 btw) or trapper boiler spam. All other options usually suck ass because cadehugging is a braindead strat that simply relies upon attrition warfare in which Marines excel at. Xenos will never get caps, while Marines revive all their fallen as enemy numbers dwindle from funny CAS and Mortar.

I don’t want to play Trapper just to end the round so I don’t have to experience xeno gameplay when marines get up instantly after lunge or pounce and outheal your damage. It’s been stated a billion times that any stim nerf won’t be merged.

Therefore I have to propose a T2 Defender evolution, that I will coin the Sunderer. It will primarily deal brute damage (and not acid), and excel in demolishing structures. Available from 00:50. Warriors may choose to evolve into one and vice versa at will after 01:10.

Stats: 450 HP, 15 Armor. 25 damage slash. Warrior speed. Deals double damage to non-plasteel/reinforced cades. Much slower off weeds.

Ability 1: Quake - 0.5s windup, Shatters the ground in front of him, with a 1x3 hitbox, dealing heavy damage to all structures - including RWalls. Knocks back marines 4 tiles.

Ability 2: Sunder - After 3 seconds, violently rips out barbed wire from a non-reinforced barricade, while taking heavy damage. Usage on a Marine begins the Warrior Delimbing process - but the Sundrerer loses the ability to tackle, or slash while doing it.
Can be applied to APCs, ripping out the frame. Does this instantly, with no damage taken in the process.

Ability 3: Shatter - Destroys the non-reinforced barricade that was “crumbling” when the ability was used. Fixing the barricade with nailgun after this ability was applied will not prevent the destruction of the barricade.
Using this ability on an R-Wall prevents repairs to it. Destroys a sentry from full health.

This caste would be pretty good as a dedicated siege engine for the Hive, while being extremely vulnerable to being chased down by Marines, or marine focus fire. It would hard counter dogshit R-Wall hold strategies and force Marines to use barricade upgrades as opposed to spamming out defences.

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  • Much slower off weeds.

Wdym much slower off weeds? is this going from regular warrior speed to steelcrest crest down defender?
also 450 HP with 15 armor is vamp level except vamp lurker moves quick and has a dash. an AP mag will kill one of these in like 2 seconds (and marines are in FOB so there’s probably AP mags lying around).

FOB sieges suck for melee xenos because you need to:

  • Run through open killzone (probably unweedable terrain, multiple tiles where theres a lot of sightlines that shoot you)
  • slash a cade (singular)
  • run back and hope that someone didn’t fire a mortar shell or cas in your line of retreat

the 1st ability seems like it’d do decent at this, similar to opressor prae’s toss but doing good damage to cades.
2nd ability seems useless. If you have 3 seconds to remove wire from a cade, a spitter has the time to apply acid to 3 cades
3rd ability seems meh.

Reading this has gotten my brain thinking on how to nerf marines in FOB siege at least, so I’m gonna make my own post.

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Just spam defender fortify lol

On a more serious note a new t2 would be epic to have for siege warfare

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Isn’t the caste you are looking for a Hivelord? Plop weeds close to the cade, make some reflective walls fairly close to them (ask defender to help you out), then use this point as a staging ground for fellow defenders, spitters and praes to jump out, slash, spit, vomit acid and retreat?

Why xenos need a caste to basically singlehandely break the siege (besides king)? It should be a group effort just as it is a group effort to defend said FoB.

But if they do need a xeno like that then I have a better idea. A burrower strain, or just additional ability also unlocked after a timer.
Did anyone of you played Stronghold Crusader? There is one unit there, a digger, who is just a dude with a pickaxe. If you put him fairly close to the castle walls and towers and order him to dig, he will have a fairly long windup where he digs a tunnel, after this windup he is under the ground and then fairly slowly goes trough to the nearest walls/towers and after he reaches it, he demolishes them, but in that state can’t be stoped.

Apply that to burrower strain, or additional ability and add one more thing. Terrain trough which burrower dig deep (and uses 3x3 ability underground) becomes impossible to build on anything, but also you can’t have weeds on it. The only way to fix it is either burrower himself, or marine with shovel to stand around and try to make it solid.
Thus in prolonged sieges xenos get the ability to deny ground to make new cades if they apply pressure, to fix even one tile break in a cadeline that no longer can be build on requires 3 new cades.

There is however problem with xenos not using those dedicated castes to siege FoB, but also siege forward bases.
Any buff to FOB siege is also a buff against any cadeline. Do xenos need a buff in dealing with cades in caves? I don’t think so.

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While a T2 for siege battles would be very cool, having everything it can do be focused around destroying cades isnt that fun.
Because then you very quickly have most rounds have players with this cast only sitaround, because cant do much when they arent figthing cades.
Yes, their anti-cade ability do also stuff against marines. But you optimally want to have the ability first against marines, and then add something so its also good against cades.

Better be a role T2 is already missing that T1 and 3 have, the tank.
Tank cast already excelle at breaking sieges. Steel crest defender is THE cast you use to break WO defences after all.
To be able to break cades, you need to be able to stay n the cades long enough. And the stats you came up with, would mean its dead VERY fast.
For persepctive.
grafik
These are the xeno armor levels.
All xenos (excpet spitter) use them.
Highest armor value we have on any xeno cast, is Defender with 35 Armor.
Crusher is only more tanky is because crusher has the highest health pool of any Non queen cast.
Effective health and all. Fun fact: Carrier has only 50 health less then crusher, but no armor at all.

And lastly, having so many abilitys that just totally ruin cades aint fun. At all.
Cades are the main way for marines to defend themself against xenos.
A cast that can just say “no” even just to un-reinforced, is a big middle finger against marine gameplay.
Stuff needs to be fun to figth against, not just to figth with.
If the enemy cant figth it and have fun, its not done cooking.

Now, its still A-ok to give the cast abilitys to fuck over cades.
Specificly the ability to rip up barbed wire at the cost of its own health seems very good.
Great risk and reward.
Just it needs something else. Tanks are already great at breaking sieges, so giving a tank siege breaking stuff, would be the best fit.

It needs more combat stuff though. Or go full support, but that needs more support then high dmg against cades.

Now, to make it a tank there are two ways. 1. Normal tank with high armor. or 2. Health tank. Very high health, no armor. Effective health of defender is around 675 and crusher around 910, so for a T2 it should be between that.

Thats all i have to say. But overall, cool idea.

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I feel like xenos have plenty of solutions for sieges but theyre mostly t3s

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we could fix so much fob sieging hate by just removing mortar btw

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If you wanted to be cruel you could add a minimum firing distance to the mortar so it can’t really be used in a FOB siege.

@Hellware If there’s a Trapper Boiler you may as well be adding a stack of acid on to every ComTechs metal supply for how quickly Trapper will melt cades.

Personally, I’d welcome some mad-lad adding a Railgun Spitter. For personal reasons.

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Doesnt the mortar already have a minimum distance?
I vaugly remember that being a thing to prevend you from bombing yourself.

Although the kill feed message “John Doe died though to a 90 degree angle” would be kinda worth it to not have such a safty in place.

Also fun fact, did you know we alredy have electricale resitance build into every armor and clothing?
Even though its not really used at all, besides APC wiring. Nice leftovers from normal SS13.
Almost like there is already armor values inplace for electrical damage.
Also no, tesla tower is to funky to work with this. The shock from it aint real a projectile but uniqe shit. Like i said, Telsa Tower is funky.

Anywho, thats all. Imma go then.

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