I think it would be kind of lame if it only affects 3 people. Queen screech is nice because it enables EVERYONE to go in on the screech. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Runner, a Warrior, a Ravager, a Drone, or whatever. Everyone is encouraged to follow Queen around so that you can fuck marines up during screeches, either by dragging people away and capping or just slashing people to death. I feel like replacing screech with something that is only going to be used on the Queen’s favourite T3s is kind of lame for everyone else in the hive. There’s already kind of an issue in my eyes where it can be hard to actually do anything in the front as a non-T3 during certain situations because you are just not tanky enough to go in outside of screech.
I think any Screech replacement ability should similarly help all xenos fight instead of just even more T3 favouritism.
I’m gonna toss out my dogshit opinion for this while offering my thoughts on this, if Queens is changed up – IE, remove her AOE stun which tends to guarantee caps, or turn around a game from a 10 v 60 to a 20 v 40 (similar to the good ol point made by everyone else of CAS, OB, OT, Research) then something equal measure should be given. Make damage for xenos all around buffed, how much? Dunno, however it would need to be extra killing power to counter the amount marines already have(HPR, M30s, SGs with frontline/without), with the exception of making boilers cloud of fun stay longer – or have even more range for the gas (this would remove the scree - gas strat).
To add onto this, if the goal is to move Queen from her pivotal role of being the main character to support, there is always the choice of reworking her scree from offense to support like Valks scree. Maybe it could give xenos an overall speed and damage boost while removing marines chems who are also in range of it. Just an idea either way, theres probably a better way to implement this or try it out with a Queen strain as a test. Marines main issue with scree tends to always be ‘I CANT FIGHT’ if they can fight and still get fucked up, it at least makes it feel less bullshit.
The reserve slot things can be added now if I’m being honest, I imagine boiler would always INSTANTLY be reserved for just how powerful (if boring) it can be. Anyways, that’s my two cents, if stuns are to be removed, don’t nerf the queen into the floor of being ‘she’s now slowed, armor down, can’t regen, good luck’(this is satire), just make everything else still effective while she maintains that leadership role.
you can literally just dodge a SADAR rocket while the queen screech is something you can only run away from - as for scout maybe you would have a point if scout actually had killing power and xeno players couldnt see his ass glowing from behind walls
EDIT: Imo most t3 xenos should be buffed (aside from rav which i think should be nerfed) to compensate for scree removal/nerf - just have the xenos be able to fight harder without an all-rav hive that pushes to turn marines into mince meat as the queen screes
I don’t think that damage buff would be a good replacement to unnerfed queen screech, what (from what i have seen) xenos struggle with the most is actually capping, it’s really hard to capture someone who isn’t lagging or isn’t bald and you can’t reliably sustain captures with lone marines in the backline - so instead of damage i think xenos need better and more consistent ways of capturing marines.
Additionaly - if queen screech gets removed it will very likely force xenos to hold caves and hellchokes (which is widely hated apparently) since damage or capping buff still means that on frontline you get gunned down in 5 seconds if you step out and try to fight marines.
And my third point, queen would probably need a buff (maybe speed, maybe a bit of armor) because she can be easily rushed down if she doesn’t have screech.
tell me you’ve never played xeno without saying youve never played xeno
Actually have you even played marine? Have you seen how many marines get gibbed by sadar? Why don’t they just “dodge” if it’s so easy?
Also you can shake people up from a screech, unlike an AP rocket
Also scout does have killing power, it can literally permastun most t1s and 2s to death, and not everyone can see them through walls. That’s not a game feature, that just depends on people’s computers.
I mean yeah but that’s like having a spec dedicated to lifting stuns, as opposed to any knuckledragger that can shake you as human. You don’t always have a valk around, you do always (or you should) have literally any marine with at least one hand
I think screech is also great for its ability to SLOW DOWN multiple marines. Really when it comes to crowd control, your ability to slow down the enemy is what will allow you to get caps, because if marines just rush at full speed anyone who tries to pull a cap back, capping becomes sisyphean. More abilities to mass slow/stop marines without neccesarily stunning them could work. Forcing a push to halt the breaks is one of the main reasons boiler bombard is so strong.
So uh…give xenos a T3 that can spew fire to slow down marine pushes…
