Can we just buff praes already?

[Crab_Spider]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): Give praetorians a boost in speed and higher plasma regen even while wounded so the Queen's elite Guard can do its job of protecting her and the Brood.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Like all T3s,Praetorians are supposed to strike fear in your heart, but the fact they're so damn slow and have no way of fighting fact makes everyone question why they didn't get worked on in the first place. No one can proficiently play a praetorian because of that painfully slow speed and no one can utilize their spit because let's be honest, it loses accuracy after 4 tiles. The Queensguard is literally slower than the Queen herself and is a literal sitting duck, but, it's more successful and much faster variant, the Ravager, can keep up with a Hunter. Praes also die more often thanks to running out of plasma quickly when they're actually doing their jobs, and because of the agonizingly slow speed, there's nothing much you can do.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Raise praetorians' natural speed and plasma regen stats as stated in the summary.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): Coding.

[Feweh]

Clearly you've never seen an elite or ancient Prae before.

[Crab_Spider]

Clearly you've never seen an elite or ancient Prae before.

I have and that's only for neuro spit, and they're still slow

[Boltersam]

They're scary. Just underused.

[coroneljones]

The prae is underrated, its deadly with the quick spit rate at just mature, even more with acid, and its unlimited, compared to the spitter, spit range

[Abbysynth]

I play prae a fair amount and I think it's a tiny bit underpowered myself. It could probably do with a minor speed buff, it's very slow and not able to reach critical parts in a battle effectively even with frenzy pheromone up.

[Swagile]

I still think its pretty dumb that the Queens Guard is SLOWER than the Queen itself.

How are you meant to protect your queen if you can't even catch up to her?

[Eenkogneeto]

Probably a broken record by now, But as above, Prae doesn't need a buff really. The only thing I could see needing changed is a speed buff to be on par with unupgraded queen, and even that's not needed. I can and have held off 30-40 marines as a prae almost alone multiple times. If played right it's a force to be reckoned with, Paincrit in a single hit is insane on defense. The main reason Praes seem so weak is due to relatively few people playing them, and rarely anyone playing them long enough to actually figure out how they work.

[Toroic]

I strongly feel prae aren't worth evolving. I have never seen a round won by a prae, and they have easily exploitable weaknesses.

Boiler are better in every context.

[Crab_Spider]

I strongly feel prae aren't worth evolving. I have never seen a round won by a prae, and they have easily exploitable weaknesses.

Boiler are better in every context.

It'd help to provide your stance on the suggestion so I can relive my dream of taking on entire squads of Marines.

[Karmac]

All I see Prae's do is spit. And it only hits you if you're within five tiles because the accuracy seems horrible. Sure they melt walls real good, but that's about it. They're a glorified Spitter. With a few utility abilities thrown in to confuse you.

[Rocco Ward]

I play xeno a lot, and I almost NEVER go prae. Bulky, slow, and worthless spit that an ancient spitter could do easily. HUGE WASTE OF A T3! As a queen, many times I forbid prae's when we have a critical shortage of T3 slots. And when I do play a hive that has a prae in it, they never seem to last as long as the other T3's. Death comes quickly for em.

[Toroic]

I play xeno a lot, and I almost NEVER go prae. Bulky, slow, and worthless spit that an ancient spitter could do easily. HUGE WASTE OF A T3! As a queen, many times I forbid prae's when we have a critical shortage of T3 slots. And when I do play a hive that has a prae in it, they never seem to last as long as the other T3's. Death comes quickly for em.

Usually they either die early or cripple the hive by wasting a crucial slot and it falls down to the queen and a prae.

[Crab_Spider]

The prae is underrated, its deadly with the quick spit rate at just mature, even more with acid, and its unlimited, compared to the spitter, spit range

Yes but the problem is they're too slow as though no one looked into its code. Even with frenzy they're useless. The spit recharge is enough time to get riddled with bullets, and trying to get into CQC range is impossible. Underrated isn't the word we should use here, the term might as well be "lost cause".

[Rain7x]

I strongly feel prae aren't worth evolving. I have never seen a round won by a prae, and they have easily exploitable weaknesses.

Boiler are better in every context.

I agree. I feel the same way with ravagers, as a queen I allow 0 praes and 1 ravager, the rest boilers and crushers. They just aren't that useful.

[Simo94]

sure prae is nice and better than spitter and all that pretty stuff, but if you consider the price, a T3 slot, its not worth it, ancient spitter can get the job done

[Crab_Spider]

I agree. I feel the same way with ravagers, as a queen I allow 0 praes and 1 ravager, the rest boilers and crushers. They just aren't that useful.

Might it work to eliminate that problem by increasing their speed to be faster than the Queen's but regardless slower than a Ravager? They have the pheromone thing going on, and melee is pretty exceptional, though these can only do so much or won't get used at all. I'll also mention how they're the closest step to a Queen, but literally can't evolve into one, something that would be most useful in the event the Hive is in danger and there are no drones, opening up a T3 slot. The only thing that makes them useless/not worthy to have around, is their detrimentally slow speed, as though we used them as a model for coding to make our T3s which ALSO are slow but regardless faster than the Hive Guardian.

I only bring this up and suggest it because of lore, and the Praetorian is a representation as to what the xenomorphs are made of. It's the result of a warrior outliving the rest of its kin in a battle to the death, spending time in solitude in a cacoon state until it awakens and becomes the Guardian.

[Nightcaper]

Neutral, I think praes need a look at how to make them viable for Xeno, since as mentioned by Rain, they are rarely used because the meta makes them not very viable. I don't think "buffing" is necessarily the answer, but I'm also not against it; A change has to be made to make it viable but I don't know what change would be best with the least damage to other systems.

[Crab_Spider]

Neutral, I think praes need a look at how to make them viable for Xeno, since as mentioned by Rain, they are rarely used because the meta makes them not very viable. I don't think "buffing" is necessarily the answer, but I'm also not against it; A change has to be made to make it viable but I don't know what change would be best with the least damage to other systems.

Increasing speed would might as well be the greatest way of making it have a special niche. Very few castes can lead an assault with the ability to use pheromones, and even then, they're either not good in combat, too fragile, or y'know, too crucial for the xenos to lose. When you actually act like a second-in-command of the Hive, you can get rather far than the typical round. The Praetorian is a Guardian caste, true, and it shouldn't be on the frontlines during an assault, but keep in mind, neither should the Queen or Hivelords

TBC....

[Karmac]

Except the hivelord goes fast and has pheromones. And isn't as worthless as the Prae. Making the Prae go fass doesn't make sense gameplay wise, and presuming it will lead to more aggressive gameplay is like telling me Ravagers constantly 1v5 marines.

[Crab_Spider]

Except the hivelord goes fast and has pheromones. And isn't as worthless as the Prae. Making the Prae go fass doesn't make sense gameplay wise, and presuming it will lead to more aggressive gameplay is like telling me Ravagers constantly 1v5 marines.

Can you expand?

[Karmac]

[Boltersam]

I suggest replacing their pheromones with buff screeches.
No, don't make it a mini-queen. I suggest a screech ability like it has in the lore, but instead of calling Xenos to it, giving enhanced versions of a selected pheremone to all Xenos in an AOE temporarily. That means, they all get a pheremone buff that ticks down, and don't need to remain near the prae for the benefits.

Thoughts?

[YungCuz]

I suggest replacing their pheromones with buff screeches.
No, don't make it a mini-queen. I suggest a screech ability like it has in the lore, but instead of calling Xenos to it, giving enhanced versions of a selected pheremone to all Xenos in an AOE temporarily. That means, they all get a pheremone buff that ticks down, and don't need to remain near the prae for the benefits.

Thoughts?

Sounds neat. Although i wonder, Can the buffs be stacked if you have multiple praes either doing all types of mini-screeches or the same kind all at once?

[Crab_Spider]

Looks like I fucked up in this post as its a duplicate and essentially a discussion post. Asking this to be locked (Snype).