As you may already know, I main crusher. The base strain, specifically. I respect charger players as well though.
Regardless, I main base for many reasons. One, it’s a very easy caste to pick up and be solid with. The abilities are much easier to use then ravager or praetorian for example, where the timing can be a lot more strict. Crusher may be slow, but has high damage, high health, and high armor. Especially with slowdown on slashes or stomp, crusher can be very fun when you’re able to catch up with marines and deal some big damage.
You can list multiple xenos if you have more then one you main.
I appreciate both due to the dedicated supporting features. Being able to keep a push healthy enough to overwhelm the marines with drone healing, or getting a full health sacrifice to keep that one sister alive long enough to escape. Valkyries are especially fun too thanks to their AP nullifying screech and incredible survivability from healing. It can also be very fun to knock grenades back into a marines face, especially given that diagonal launches go farther. It’s just nice to be nice, and I’m always happy to play a supporting caste!
now, of course, there’s always… the Acid Runner…. My personal favorite for backlining and killing thanks to its massively increased health and armor while retaining a majority of the runner’s speed. That and the fact that a good explosion can annihilate the front or a FOB hold makes it all the more satisfying.
base runner, nothing beats running around at mach 5, pouncing 6 marines per minute and dying instantly after being hit by buckshot, a slug or flamer. i dont like acid runner because it just makes runner less like a runner, you loose pounce and speed for hp which, at least for me, is “toning down” the potential of a base runner
acid rouny is not base rouny. Acid rouny is better in groupfights and has higher dps, as well as survives a PB - it’s more about going directly in to slash slash slash slash hit and run instead of stun slash slash and never get hit. You are much less easily pressured and survive encounters much easier, as well as guarantee kills much easier in groupfights.
It doesn’t tone down the potential of base rouny, in a lot of ways acid rouny is more powerful than base rouny.
The playstyle is different because as acid rouny you want to act as a DPS in a groupfight - following up on stuns and opportunity, falling back when there is too much opposite pressure, and playing your terrain carefully, using your speed to optimize your positioning to maximize your output and dodging in order to leverage your high dps in order to make it an undeniable victory for you (Because at some point, no matter the amount of dmg a marine can do, they just can’t defend themself from you, and this point of victory is very quickly applied by acid rouny). Base rouny is better in 1v1 and sometimes 1 vs small group, but should still work with castes like acid rouny to get higher dps off of stuns, as the positions base rouny can safely take are much more limited then acid rouny, and since they rely on stuns to get dmg off due to abysmal sustain, they effectively cant apply their dps as well as acid rouny and take much longer to do many things that acid rouny can do easily.
the risk of death or instant disengage from stray bullets is an incredibly annoying part of base rouny which acid rouny has to worry a lot less about - as said, it’s significantly, SIGNIFICANTLY easier to pressure a base rouny out of a position then an acid rouny as base rouny’s sustain is mostly reliant on enemy not being able to respond at all while acid rouny has much more leeway, and thus acid rouny has a much greater uptime (which is also aided because armor reduces dmg taken and thus reduces time needed to heal).
Acid rouny playstyle reduces the risk of death from direct combat and thus provides tools which can be utilized in many situations. But like base rouny, the sword of accumulative risk hangs over your head, you are most likely going to randomly die to a counterplay you did not predict at some point (because a 1% chance 1000 times is very difficult to avoid), thus you must make the best use of your lives and take the risks you think are most ideal within the time you have (But because of your control over position due to speed - your output can be very very great depending on your skill and teamwork). Or in other words, theres a lot of situations offered to you where the more you risk (even considering your layers of counterplay being set up), the greater the reward - that is what is fun about acid rouny, not considering the freedom of movement which acid rouny gives you.
It is super funny to fortify in front of some PVTs shooting their entire supply of regular 10x24.
Cooperating with Boiler for her to point at a tile she needs you to fortify is also nice.
Abusing single flippable cade on a flank few marines pushed out, by blocking it with fortify and letting other xenos finish them off is so satisfying.
Stoping a tank/ARC with fortify is like a dopamine overload.
I will almost always be a healer drone. I am far too bald in combat to get anything done, but I will readily give my life so a rav can continue their rampage. Hivelord probably comes in second since I tend to feel like it’s just drone+. I do enjoy gardener drone if only for the unorthodoxy of it.
Lurker, 100%. You don’t need backup, you don’t wait on anyone, and you can wipe out marines solo if you play smart. You control the pace, hit, vanish, repeat. Plus, nothing beats the salt when you pounce someone out of nowhere, delete them, and disappear before they can even radio.
4 Likes
DangerRevolution
(Rear Admiral Salazar "Cyclops" Petrovich Druzhinnin of the Outer Rim Defense Fleet)
11
Carrier !!!
I giggle with joy as a Marine steps on my traps, knowing they have to AFK for 15 minute shipside and not play the game. It fills me with a primal joy I don’t get elsewhere.
Eggsac !!
When @Schwimmbadpommes (ELI) is playing Oppressor then Eggsac is also fun, as you can make soulful lore-like eggrooms for forward capping (helped by higher plasma regen) and Oppressor will just instacap Marines with eggs. It’s double evil, makes me double happy.
Ive really enjoyed playing hedgehog Ravager as bald marines will still shoot you while shielded and see them dropping like flies or cade health dropping hard
Second choice is base Boiler. I like being longish range artillery of sorts and a pain in the side for all pushesh and comtechs.
Last but not least healer drone. As im a big fan of medical (Gold service cmo, doc and medic) i can keep xenos in tip top shape.
I for one like it because its rather EZ and doesn’t require being good at hitting your slashes. ( Which i am very bad at.) But more then that the Hog is a great all rounder you can still get in to melee and do good bit of damage on a assault but you are also great at stalling out the marines.
also i am pretty sure Hogs have the highest EXP Resistance, like no joke when i play hog and OB or CAS gets called i just rest and let it hit me. its hilarious how little even a HE OB will do to me when i am resting.
The former provides ravager-like experience without the need to grind runner and lurker (my ping is too sucky for those glass cannons)
And the latter is just a cool support caste. Antistun, meme hook and AoE knockdown on top of it all. Plus valk has crusher’s levels of armor for some reason, which makes it pretty tanky
or cade health dropping hard