Nerf elite/ancient hunters

[username123]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):

Title

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):

Balance to the game.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):

Elite and ancient hunters are really too op and it's very easy to become one, in a regular round, someone playing as that caste can become mature hunter at the same time marines are in the planet, meaning that they only have to wait 800 ticks to become elite (just explaining how easy is to become one). Now, Mature hunters can instakill you by using pouncing on you, using the hugger to remove your helmet and then using the tail attack, i've done this before a lot of times and this was done to me a lot of times, and it is something that is very easy to perform, Elite hunters have a lot of armor, they have the same or more armor than a young/mature ravager, they can stun lock you by using pounce all the time, they have a lot of evasion and they are stun reduction, which means that they can trigger a mine or being hit by the sadar while 1 or 2 marines are shooting them and it's possible for the hunter to escape by pouncing to a secure area. Ancient hunters are much more op, really, there are so op that there is no reason to pick become ravager when you can become an ancient hunter in and hour and a half, they are almost inmune to stuns, when they trigger a mine, they get stunned for a second, same for the sadar, they have a shit ton of armor and evasion, they run as fast as a runner, they have almost no cooldown for the pounce, and in top of that, they regenerate health without weeds, not adding that they can instakill you with the tail attack evne if you wear a helmet. My point is, why become ravager when hunter is way better in most important ways (they are faster than ravagers, virtually inmune to stuns, they are smaller than ravagers, they can hide, their pounce has almost no cooldown, while the charge of the ravager takes A LOT to recharge and they have as much armor as a ravager)

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

Value tweaks, should not be that hard

[TeknoKot]

-1

They can't pounce on shields anyways, have a shield or someone with one at your side.

[Feweh]

-1

They are useless when marines are together.
Only strong against solo marines.

[username123]

-1

They are useless when marines are together.
Only strong against solo marines.

Exactly how? they can hit and run all the time they want, you can't stop them with mines (which should be the natural counter against hunters, runners and ravagers) i've played as elite hunter a lot of times and they are so op that i've never losed a duel against a predator, i always pounce, drop two huggers to the floor in a heavily defended area with marines just to pounce back and i do this a lot of times without effort and without fear of being killed because of the armor the shit ton of armor and evasion that they have, like seriously, tell me one reason to pick ravager over hunter, you will probably tell me that ravagers have more damage, buut what else? elite and ancient runners kill as fast as mature/elite ravagers, and they have the adventage that they have almost no cooldown for the pounce, they are smaller (meaning that most people will not focus their fire on them) and they move faster than a ravager, the only unique thing that makes ravager "better" than a hunter is that they are not affected by fire, but what else? is not like if the fire is something too dangerous in this game, specially for a hunter can can pounce whenever he wants and get out of danger instantly

[Topwaza]

+-1 I guess, xenos obviously will need constant tweaking but this post just kind of tastes salty.

The fact that your post is just a rant about nerfing hunters with no actual solutions proposed is kind of telling that this is an angry reaction to things that happen to you ingame, not an impersonal look at balance as a whole.

I fucking LOVE hunter when I play xeno. Now, the thing is squishy as hell until you hit elite+ and start getting armor. Smart marines who don't fall for a hunter's tricks really don't have much to fear. All the hunters who got legendary kill counts against whole squads got it by fucking with large groups of marines until they start to loosen up, chase it around, or get distracted then going in for the marine that has the least cover. The only thing I would change would be the head decap chances across all xenos, to encourage aiming for arms/legs more. I would also make the argument to remove some hunter's armor, and buff the rav's armor so that there's a more clear guerilla/frontline fighter distinction between the two.

I would propose:
+make hunter cloak great again.
-head decap chances.
-armor at elite and ancient.

Getting mad about hunter pounces is silly. A pounce is an all-or-nothing maneuver that gets you killed if you pounce a guy who is covered by marines. Hunters exist to punish lone marines during the early and mid game, and work together as guerrillas with the bigger xenos in the late game assault/defense. They fill this role pretty well in their current form.

[RadiantFlash]

-1

They can't pounce on shields anyways, have a shield or someone with one at your side.

Just to clarify, Shields have a % chance to block. it's not garunteed, and I've seen pounces bypass it frequently enough.

And, two people won't be enough to kill a ancient hunter. it can pounce, and twohit paincrit a marine, and then pounce on the second.
Unless you have a quickfire-grip m4, that hunter will live, due to it's armor/health.

[Jroinc1]

-1. Salt based thread.
It DOES TAKE TIME AND SKILL to mature as xeno.

[username123]

-1. Salt based thread.
It DOES TAKE TIME AND SKILL to mature as xeno.

sure dude, salt based thread from somebody that have played the last week and this week 90% of the times as alien (hunter, spitter and crusher) and have killed predators with 100% win rate as elite hunter, have carried entire rounds by killing 15-30 marines each round as elite/ancient hunter and usually destroys clayromes when there are no crushers around because you get stunned by 1-2 seconds. If hunters don't get nerfed, then i will keep playing them and i will use and abuse all mechanics hunters have because that will be the only way for people to open their eyes and realize how broken they are.

[completelynewguy]

+1, It should be ravagers and T3s in general that the Marines should be afraid of. Not Ancient Hunters.

[RadiantFlash]

+1, It should be ravagers and T3s in general that the Marines should be afraid of. Not Ancient Hunters.

...It's funny, but Yeah, Actually. I'm far more scared of Hunters, then ravagers. I can reliably kill a ravager on my own if I have to, I can't do that whatsoever against a hunter, and if it's ancient, killing it with a partner is iffy at best.

[Eenkogneeto]

+1
As is, an ancient hunter is significantly bigger threat than an /ancient ravager/ would be. Due to the fact that a hunter can reliably kill any 3 marines on their own, The ravager can only charge one and then he's on cooldown for a while and probably eating a lot of lead while killing the others. This isn't even including what happens if an ancient hunter teams up with any other runner caste t1 or t2, which effectively means they can wipe an entire squad of marines now.
This isn't even including the meme where they hug off your helmet then decapitate you in one slash, Meaning they can wipe an entire squad in seconds if nobody is packing buckshot to stun them.
In short: Ancient hunter is lore friendly Xeno, not gameplay friendly, One could reliably antagonize the entire sulaco in a lowpop event and stand a chance of actually killing everyone.

People say ravager should be buffed because its worse than hunter, I say hunter should be nerfed. Especially since Spitters got a hefty nerf, meaning that t2s are now really oddly balanced. Hunters are way better than Spitters

[Casany]

today, i was a marine, and with a squad of 5 at my back, an ancient hunter managed to cut my arm off, kill 3, and hug another one. so, ya, +1

[Toroic]

I don't play hunter, but I've seen some players do some impressive things with them.

I've also seen a lot of players die as hunter accomplishing nothing.

Hunters, like runners, have a low skill floor, and a high skill ceiling. Good hunters terrorize squads, bad hunters die immediately. Any changes should be to rein in the skill ceiling without crippling the caste.

One of the great things about the upgrade system is that it made staying t1 or t2 viable, and not just a stopping point to something better. Obviously username123 has mastered the caste, and a robust xeno /needs/ to be able to take on multiple robust marines for xenos not to get steamrolled.

If changes are made, it should be to durability and stun times. Skilled players don't make many punishable mistakes, and bad players don't know how to recover from a mistake. Reducing their damage or decap chance is nonsensical.

Helmets have brute resist. If a hugger is used to remove a helmet, slashing at the vulnerable area exposed is just good strategy. Hunters are melee only, and should be a buzzsaw in that arena.

But as username123 points out, durability and being able to soak damage even at ancient is high, and given that elite hunters emerge when ravagers hit mature, and ancient when ravs hit elite, gives hunters a perfect power curve for most games, which end shortly after a round-start xeno can hit t3 elite. (Or t2 ancient).

I honestly love having hunter be a viable and strong caste, and don't think it's that out of line power-wise, but again, I don't play hunter past young. Ravs need help, but that's for a different topic.

[coroneljones]

-1
Ancients are ment to be death incarnate at times, even apop has said that an ancient hunter would end up being better than a mature or elite rav in the original upgrade system thread

Elites and Ancients are what you reserve your SADAR shots for, not runners or drones.

[Eenkogneeto]

The problem is that Ancient Hunter is better than Ancient Rav

[Jay Burns]

I'm giving this a -1

[Warnipple]

-1

Don't kill the last thing that gives me enjoyment

[SPACEpotato1]

-1.

This is a terrible nerf in general.

[Fritigern]

+1 for the sentiment, if not the implementation. The one hit kills are ridiculous. The near-zero cooldown on pouncing is retarded, especially when it can be used to escape and to kill a marine pretty much instantly. Their durability once they reach ancient is dumb.

In general I find the practice of balancing around stupid and inexperienced players, instead of around veterans who are death machines with these mechanics, to be a fundamental flaw in the overall health of the game.

[Toroic]

+1 for the sentiment, if not the implementation. The one hit kills are ridiculous. The near-zero cooldown on pouncing is retarded, especially when it can be used to escape and to kill a marine pretty much instantly. Their durability once they reach ancient is dumb.

In general I find the practice of balancing around stupid and inexperienced players, instead of around veterans who are death machines with these mechanics, to be a fundamental flaw in the overall health of the game.

The problem is that this game is 80% newbies and
unrobust. It's hard to balance things when there's such a huge difference between a skilled player and the average player.

[Fritigern]

The problem is that this game is 80% newbies and
unrobust. It's hard to balance things when there's such a huge difference between a skilled player and the average player.

I disagree with that. I can log on at any time in the week and pick out 20-30 regular marine players. I imagine the alien side is no different. It can't be 100+ pop for 5+ hours a day if they're all new people, SS13 doesn't have that kind of player turnover. With instant-perma-stuns being so integral to alien combat, I find it really dumb that they are balanced around the worst case scenario as opposed to the best.

[Toroic]

I disagree with that. I can log on at any time in the week and pick out 20-30 regular marine players. I imagine the alien side is no different. It can't be 100+ pop for 5+ hours a day if they're all new people, SS13 doesn't have that kind of player turnover. With instant-perma-stuns being so integral to alien combat, I find it really dumb that they are balanced around the worst case scenario as opposed to the best.

I recognize marine names, but I only worry about half a dozen of the most robust ones. The rest I can generally trick, bait, and outplay.

[kastion]

-1 marines being salty like usual. Heres an idea just shoot the hunter when he jumps on your friend.

[Eenkogneeto]

-1 marines being salty like usual. Heres an idea just shoot the hunter when he jumps on your friend.

And then he pounces you, your friend is decapitated, you're decapitated.
The only counter to hunters is having no less than 4 marines in a group, And even that only works vs one. If there are more than one they can take up to 10 easily.

[Biolock]

And then he pounces you, your friend is decapitated, you're decapitated.
The only counter to hunters is having no less than 4 marines in a group.

Good, and that's how it needs to stay. An average marine should be outclassed by an average young hunter, and then the scale picks up as they upgrade. That's my opinion anyway.