PSA: Crushers aren’t in a good place.

[Toroic]

Understand that I love crushers as a caste, played several hundred hours as crusher exclusively over several iterations and gameplay changes to xenos. For a while I was pretty darn good at it, to the point that some marine players could recognize my crusher play. I’ve discovered and utilized advanced techniques on countless unprepared baldies and had fantastic duels with predators and marines alike.

I honestly do not think crushers have ever been as weak in an absolute or relative sense as they are now in the entire history of CM.

Before we get into what crushers are, and what they used to be, lets talk about what they are not.

Crushers are not an offensive caste. Their max speed while charging is barely if at all faster than a marine on weeds. The only way someone with even slow reflexes could possibly be rammed is if another marine pushes them in the way. It’s painfully slow. Their melee attacks are worse than hunters at the same time in the round and their tackle, while somewhat long, is not reliable enough to be an effective tool. Stomp requires a marine to allow a crusher to get in melee range, get lucky with a tackle, and has a very long cooldown (30+ seconds). I would give hunters, spitters, and runners better odds versus a marine 1v1 than a crusher assuming equal skill levels.

Crushers are not mechanically competitive with other t3 castes even disregarding blue fire counters. Praetorian provide essential pheromones that buff all nearby xenos while having a potent ranged attack. Boiler artillery is the backbone of the xeno offense. Ravagers are fireproof, more mobile, and far more effective at combat. They also have better tackles.

As it stands the only useful thing that a crusher can provide the hive is a meat shield boilers can shoot through. They’re too slow to keep up with runners and hunters, can’t gap close with marines, nor do they have any effective options if they did. Crushers are pretty effectively crippled by being on fire due to needing to get into melee range and poor disengagement due to almost no rear armor.

If you’ve read my advanced crusher guide almost all the crusher tricks and utility have been removed. Their speed and tackle has been nerfed, and there are more available counters in AP ammo and incendiary options. Stomp was a weak ability when crushers were faster and had great tackles, now they’ll need to follow up on another xeno knocking down a marine. Even vs a prone marine every other t3 is more effective.

For the record, I support crusher having been nerfed. Especially prior to the hugger rework they were disgustingly OP and stacking crusher stomp with queen screeches was broken. I’ve wanted fire to be a real counter to crushers for a long time, and I’m thrilled that it’s more common and viable.

What I don’t support is that while crushers lost the ability to initiate fights for xenos against marines, the queen was dramatically buffed being given all the old crusher perks of explosive resist, directional armor, a (faster) charge while retaining a superior screech and the ability to hold huggers. Xenos rely even more heavily on the queen to do the job crushers used to, and crushers are left without any useful role or unique utility.

If crushers are meant to be a tank then situational durability (not fire and not ap) is not enough to fufill that role. Compare with the cheap and expendible resin wall for a superior version. If they’re meant to fight their speed, tackle, and damage makes them subpar compared to not only t3, but most of the t2 xenos as well.

Some people might be thinking I got dunked in-game and am simply salty, and I would greatly prefer that to be the case. My testing demonstrated crushers as being durable but also too slow to attack and mostly useless on defense as they can’t build, attack at range, emit pheromones, or even transfer plasma to help other xenos. Queens are banning crushers entirely and experienced players avoid evolving them anyway. Marines find them unthreatening and the general consensus is that they’re in a bad place with buff suggestions already having been submitted.

For xeno players, my advice would be to avoid playing crusher until further notice. You’re more useful to your team as any other t3 and most of the t2.

For devs, my advice would be that before you make sweeping changes to a caste you consult with people who play it well about what makes them successful and fun to play.

Anyone who plays crusher would know that being slower than marines with unreliable tackles simply wouldn’t work. You gutted crushers, gave the queen all the useful perks they had (except the toxic charge stomp combo is now an even more effective charge screech combo), and made crushers pitiful fighters with a skill ceiling and skill floor in approximately the same place.

[NethIafins]

I... I am unsure...
In all times Crushers were only receiving buffs, yeah you can say "muh flame specialist" but that is just one marine that can do ZERO against ravager, while RPG and Gren spec can do almost nothing to crusher.

I mean the amount of times proper charge got my entire round ruined before I even shot my first clip is insane.

[Toroic]

I... I am unsure...
In all times Crushers were only receiving buffs, yeah you can say "muh flame specialist" but that is just one marine that can do ZERO against ravager, while RPG and Gren spec can do almost nothing to crusher.

I mean the amount of times proper charge got my entire round ruined before I even shot my first clip is insane.

1) Bullets work just fine vs ravagers

2) SADAR had other ammo types which work against crushers just fine

3) Charge was never a reliable attack against semi-decent marines and is currently so slow that it doesn’t connect without marine help.

[Lokiki_01]

More useless crusher was only after stealth armor nerf like 4-5 months ago, but it was reverted at least. So, lets start with my whole support of Toroic, I played only crusher on sulaco, and learned a lot from Tor.

Untill recently crushers had pretty good defence(They could tank AP with front even), there wasn't a flamer spec and you could charge from 3 tiles. 3 Tile charge, speed and good defence - what made crushers good in fighting with groups of marines.

Now as crusher you can wait untill mature, because young crusher will be destroyed by intial marine charge even without APs. After that Queen probably already left her ovipositor and you can only charge with her screeches in hope of ramming 1-2 marines and stomping one more. You can't attack barricades because of flamers, M56 nests, AP ammo(Hell, even BC smartgunners can shoot you pretty badly). Welp, you lived through planet assault of xenos by sticking to Queen, you was needed 1 time - to smash DS1 airlocks and shutters to swarm it, maybe you will even hit elite(not really). So, now you're on almayer and whole gameplay is to play against turtle marines in CIC or SD. And guess what, there's not even place to charge really. And Boiler with Queen or Rav are MUCH better at tacking down barricades. Round ended, you feel like you was useless whole round. The End.

I can tell for sure they're weaker, as Queen I just started banning crushers to get more boilers or ravs just because they're much better combained with screech. Whole meta shifted to Queen being non-stop screech machine and there's no place for crusher anymore. Slow, weak, outclassed, he's now in the garbage bin of castes and this makes me sob.

[Lokiki_01]

1) Bullets work just fine vs ravagers

Ravagers have armor now, so Mature can take up to 12 normal bullets I think.

2) SADAR had other ammo types which work against crushers just fine

AT and WP rockets are now really weak, AT don't do direct damage anymore it seems and deal explosives damage instead. And crusher can tank all this damage.

3) Charge was never a reliable attack against semi-decent marines and is currently so slow that it doesn’t connect without marine help.

^^^ This

[NethIafins]

3) ouch, touché

[MrJJJ]

AT and WP rockets are now really weak, AT don't do direct damage anymore it seems and deal explosives damage instead. And crusher can tank all this damage.

AT is actually still preety strong, its much hilariously better at the stun than HE right now, so you got plenty of time to fill a xeno with bullets, although with crushers its a bit tricky, you are better off just using AP or a flamer and spam into it, which is...kinda sad. Can't say anything about WP, i only hit a ancient sentinel once with it and it critted almost instantly, but i have no idea if it was damaged before, or if it was full health, considering i wasn't even aiming at it.

[Reuben Owen]

only place I even attempt to use crusher anymore is prison map, because it has all those tight hallways, I paired with another crusher and we basically filled the hallway charging, there's lots of walls/cells/etc crusher can break apart with charge while you're young to give you something to do

fire makes you cry even at elite+

something like big red for a crusher is so bad ugh
I prefer rav now, even if they die easy at young they can attempt to hold a flanking attempt off and succeed while doing damage

mines aren't even as big of a thing now flame mine when

I liked when they could block bullets for days but it's understandable why it had to go, for the time.

[Heckenshutze]

Nerf the Queen and buff the other castes, that sums it up.

[Dumblike]

I'd rather say nerf the Queen and T3s and buff T1/T2s. The xenos rely too much on T3s, making they end up being 'starplayers'.

Also, having to rely on 7-12 players instead of the whole team isn't something good

[Infant Punter]

the T3’s are supposed to be relied on and they’re supposed to be a noticeable loss when they die

queen shouldn’t be the frontline attacker that she’s been roided up to be, #makecrushersokayagain


feels like they tried to fix something that wasn’t broken

[Simo94]

The Virgin Crusher vs The Chad Queen

But srsly, Crusher IMO is the weakest T3s nowadays even weaker than Praetorian, ever since Queen could do what Crusher does and even better and ever since Ravager gained explosion stun resistance Crushers became somewhat useless, add to that the new meta marines came up with and that is opening/closing barricades everytime a Crusher charges to trap them inside, dont forget the new pyromaniac spec and two kinds of snipers shooting incendiary rounds, did I mention AP? and even regular rounds are somewhat effective against Crushers ever since they removed the bullet missing chance against them and they could only deflect from the front. so yeah all you need is one Miss Perfect Organism to charge in and screech a full screen of marines so Ravagers with the rest of the hive come in and slash them, also said hive consisting of 30/40 xenos is USELESS without that ONE perfect organism.
Like you mentioned the only use a Crusher has nowadays is guarding a camping Boiler, gives you that Stalingrad vibe where one man has a rifle and the other has ammo and needs to follow him.

[Allafif]

I'd encourage everyone commenting to try Crusher. Even in a Queenless vacuum, It's miserable. Without another charger to work with, you're easily dodged and enveloped. Against fortifications, hunters are better at creating openings, since they the mobility to scout and also retreat from a surprise underbarrel flamer; a lit match and two AP rounds put an elite crusher at half health, and then they have to slowly retreat while burning.

[Iatots]

I'l pretty sure spitter's acid damages walls faster than ancient crusher full momentum charge.

[TheMaskedMan2]

Any Marine with a brain can 1v1 a crusher. Which is silly. While i'm of the opinion no marine should be able to 1v1 any Xeno, let alone a T3. It's easy to kite the slow Xeno and just pepper them with bullets until they die. I saw an Ancient Crusher the other round, and while it certainly didn't die, it hardly did anything useful offensively. Marines would dodge it, flame it, chase it off, anything, and the only use that Crusher had the entire round was tanking bullets, which is almost entirely useless.

Basically,
Crushers die less than Ravagers because they are tanky, but are still worse than Ravagers because they don't contribute anything offensively and hog a T3 slot like a big brick.

[zoboomafoo]

I got ancient crusher the other day. It was pretty underwhelming. I got shot A LOT and tanked a bunch of bullets, sure, but anyone with a brain and their wits about them just casually strolled out of the way of the charge, even in narrow hallways. Pretty much the only people I could actually ram were either distracted, newbies, or physically weren't able to dodge (1 tile hallways or were body blocked). I didn't contribute a lot to the ending of the round even as an ancient t3. I remember one of the devs said once ancients are designed to end rounds. But I feel like it didn't make much of a difference.

[AverageSpitter]

Makes sense. Now i see why so many people just avoid going crusher now

[Surrealistik]

My proposed fix: https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/2666

[Sulaboy]

I gotta say though when a charge does hit it hits hard. I got rammed by a crusher a couple days ago, and the initial impact launched me back a tile where I got hit a second time. The ram broke every bone in my body killing me near instantly. I was not revivable. The crusher was young and only got a running start of like 4 tiles. I get that they are difficult to use, but when they hit they do some real damage.
Crushers do have a lot of problems though. I killed one with a welder when it broke through my cadeline. They're near useless without support. They need a boiler cloud or some other Xenos to help them work.

[AverageSpitter]

My proposed fix: https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/2666

Just read it and it seems good, but all of these abilities feel a bit too much when you put them all together. it would be good with the brace ability and making the crusher tankier.

[Surrealistik]

Just read it and it seems good, but all of these abilities feel a bit too much when you put them all together. it would be good with the brace ability and making the crusher tankier.

Mind that Stomp has a 30 second cooldown, and the CC duration is short at 1 second; not really queen screech tier, nor even nearly as good as the old 3 second stun it used to have.

The horn toss itself doesn't really do much damage so much as it's about CC + displacement, and it can never RNG crit with tail strikes/bites. Follow up attacks are also tricky unless you force your victim against a wall, since they'll recover from the stun before you can move into melee range.

The point of the CC + Displacement is to give the Crusher a role and value other than simply ramming into stuff and bodyblocking; it uses its momentum to physically bully and push marines around either to save friendly xenos, or jeopardize marines by moving them into bad situations.

[zoboomafoo]

Stomp knocking people down very shortly in a like 2 or 3 tile radius would be cool. Maybe people further get stunned less. The stun would give xenos a chance to move in, and would shock the marines potentially enough to break an offensive.

Also, at this point, if you are in a situation where you get hit by a crusher charge, you kinda deserve the damage you get from it.

[Toroic]

Stomp knocking people down very shortly in a like 2 or 3 tile radius would be cool. Maybe people further get stunned less. The stun would give xenos a chance to move in, and would shock the marines potentially enough to break an offensive.

Also, at this point, if you are in a situation where you get hit by a crusher charge, you kinda deserve the damage you get from it.

This was literally how it was before the slew of crusher nerfs.

[Surrealistik]

This was literally how it was before the slew of crusher nerfs.

The old stomp was OP ASF, I'm sorry; I refuse to entertain the return of a 3 second stun 5x5 mini screech; that's why I proposed the 1 second stun + knockback stomp + horn toss.

[SovietKitty]

Crushers are already among the most consistently safe, and game changing T3's available.