Nerf Carriers

[Mr.Smooooth]

Suggestion Title: Nerfing Carriers

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): Carriers are a tier two xeno that evolves from the drone. They have a rapid fire ranged stun and are quick to evolve. This stun also implants the target, because they have a hugger on them now. This is incredibly powerful at any stage, but is extremely so early game and I've noticed an extreme amout of carrier rushing.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Carriers are extremely powerful, and in the early game especially give the xenos a massive edge. One carrier can take on four marines and there is little to nothing those marines can do about it. By either increasing the cooldown for their throw ability, increasing their required hivemind strength, or by increasing the time they need to wait to evolve after eating jelly, you can prevent these early game rushes.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):There's three main ways we could nerf the carrier. We could increase its throw ability's cooldown so it can't just spam it into a group of marines for instant stuns, which is its biggest issue. We could also increase its jelly cost, making drones wait longer to become carriers. Finally, we can increase the hivemind strength requirement of the carrier, locking it out of early game use in favor of it becoming available late game.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): Moslty just Var-editing, shoulden't be too tough.

[mdom]

I think the carrier is fine as is.

If the marines end up getting bio hoods or hardsuit helmets later in the round (as long as it is RP) the carriers are practically useless.

[coroneljones]

Carriers are hard to get sometimes,speaking on personal experience as a Starting drone,had to wait half of the round until we had enough hivemind strenght to evolve into a hivelord or carrier,since most of the time the xenos get more larvas at round start in a few minutes

[apophis775]

Rapid Fire Stun?

[Raikyh]

No need for a nerf, the carrier might be able to KO those marines easily but it can't pull them all to the hive afterwards. And if you're careful and avoid the huggers you can easily kill it, since it has very low health.

[TopHatPenguin]

In the hands of a experienced xeno player(when I mean experienced xeno player I mean that they know the hotkey for chucking the face huggers and spitting) a carrier can bring down a squad by itself but mostly that never happens due to many players not liking to play the carrier. I also find the current carrier system is fine.

[Mycroft Macarthur]

even if we assume carrier truly IS OP, we have to give aliens something, i mean, praetorian and ravager are pretty crap, given that they cant exactly acquire or craft new equipment we need to give them some classes that are decent.

carrier is also helpful for those starting drones who want to have fun and not build shit all day, i dont mind being hivelord so much now that im more used to it but unless your queen constantly orders your evolves later aliens can have fun with whatevs, drones however are kind of fucked, at least carrier lets them try to fight back against marines abit.

[Davidchan]

The only applicable nerf I could stand behind is lowering the Carrier's facehugger storage from 6 to 4. Other than that, Carriers have lots of problems that skilled players find ways around, if you see a Xeno coming at you with 4+ huggers on his back, these same huggers that knock your squad down a peg when they leap out of lockers or vents, you should back off and reconsider chasing him down into those tight cornered tunnels and force him to face you in the open where you rifles are most effective..

Carriers have pitiful health, they can't vent crawl, and their only 2 abilities are to plant weeds and throw a facehugger. They are weaker than Warriors in terms of disarming and their throw range is pretty limited. Without a steady supply of eggs, Carriers can't do much, and when the Marines start wearing hardsuits (or just metagaming and wearing hoods), the Carriers lose a bunch of their threat. Any squad working together and not blinding charging into the Maint tunnels can handle a Carrier, if you lose your helmet don't rush forward.

Carriers can't pounce or spit and infinite number of times, using/losing their huggers forces them to retreat to the hive to gather more eggs (since their vent crawling brethren refuse to take 20 seconds and restock them.) If a squad of 4+ marines gets robusted by a single carrier, and he didn't leap out of a locker with a pile of huggers underneath him, you should feel pretty bad about self.

[Infernus]

I'd have to agree with David.
Also, they can't even plant weeds, meaning that they need constant support from other casts or else he is fooked.

The only thing I can agree to is the cool down timer.

[Davidchan]

Also, they can't even plant weeds.

Are... you sure about that? Last I played, 3-4 days ago albiet, Carriers DID have Weeds still. It's easy to miss since it's like the 2nd option on the carrier menu when I played, I got 3/4 through a round as a carrier before realizing I could do that, and it's the only ability Carriers have that uses Plasma aside from Transfer.

[coroneljones]

Carrier can plant weeds,they do have a big problem..
Their tackle sucks,,so...you will die to infected humans with guns

[tristan1333]

Hmm... I see where you are coming from... They kinda feel like this at the moment:
[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u85yFEKBH0I[/video]

But, they do have their downfalls. They can't target someone who is hugged and they are lacking in most other areas. They lose HEAPS of power end game, they're really good at getting new hosts at the start.

[Raikyh]

I'm 100% for keeping them as they are.

[apophis775]

Yea. Denied.

Carriers are already a bit useless, unless your breaking a seige.