having an argument countered does not mean it is invalid, nor is it an attempt to undermine someones credibility. please do not take it as such, i was merely mentioning current events.
LilPenpusher pretty nailed it on the head here. stun combat does lead to unhealthy styles of play which is why hell chokes, fob sieges and marines cade hugging is meme’d to infinity and back.
While there certainly are some marine players who are content with this and on the flip side some xeno players that love this part of the gameplay loop i believe its not too far of a stretch to say that its not the majority.
i will stick to my point from earlier, either both sides keep their stuns and we embrace the suck or both sides lose their stuns. Neither is perfect but we won’t know which is the lesser evil until someone actually goes and reworks/removes the stuns
If you don’t push in alone like a moron (something I have spent an absurd amount of time doing, and will keep doing) and instead work together with one other marine that has slugs or any stun whatsoever you’ll live getting lunged 75% of the time, marines would steamroll xenos every time if they could just work as a damn team for once.
I think a big part about lunge that makes it so strong is that not only are you able to stundrag marines, you are able to get free 3-4 slashes while dragging them to an unfavorable place (essentially a better pounce ability when compared to lurkers). This usually guarantees a fracture if aiming for hands or feet and then they are open to the other warrior abilities. This also works with tackling. With good rng you can tackle the marine before they get up and solo cap.
A tier 2 combat caste being able to solo a poorly positioned PVT (he has a backpack and MK2) that has so little support from his team that there’s literally only one other guy onscreen for a while shouldn’t be a controversial thing
T2 should honestly be able to 1v1 most marines just as a concept (at least the combat castes). So I don’t see a problem with a warrior being able to fuck up one marine in particular, as they already do it anyhow.
Also warrior is godtier at punishing out of position marines (maybe even more effective than a lurker). Again lunge is greatly versatile without the need to a long cooldown invis like pounce.
Literally just shoot the warrior lol everyone who complains about warrior is just mad that they can’t walk up to doors to melee them like a dunce with impunity because a caste exists that they can’t just run away from.
Also when are we gonna start admitting that we died not because of a game mechanic is OP but because we were out of position. Literally just stand out of range of lunge, marines have guns, mortars, CAS, OB, grenades, flames. There’s so many mechanics which can make a warrior’s life difficult it’s unreal - yet people still get caught out and then complain.
Whether you like it or not stuns are an essential part of creating an assymetric game like this - Marines have very high numbers and the best way to give xenos as the smaller faction a fighting chance, is by giving them crowd control.
You could of course remove all stuns and just make xenos into bullet sponges that kill you in two slashes but it wouldn’t be as engaging or satisfying like slugging that warrior who just lunged your friend or getting a good lunge combo.