This guide is mainly focused on the spreading of information, particularly the education of new and older players of certain tactics, hive locations, hiveing tips and tips for leading your Hive. The majority of information in this guide could potentially be considered subjective, as they mostly involve my personal preferences as Queen and tactics that I use in combat and peace.
If you would like your tactics added to this guide, please contact me however you wish.
General Information
As stated on the wiki page, a Queen is spawned from a Drone, or at the start of the round. A Queen is required for evolutionary progress to occur in xenos, meaning that a xeno cannot pass tier one without a Queen present on the map. Additionally, if a Queen hasn't been created in at most, twenty minutes of the last queen's death, the Aliens will be defeated and the round will end as a Marine Minor victory. It is imperative that at least one Drone that is willing to become an Inheritor exists, or the Hive will not be able to recover from the Queen's death, and have a very limited amount of time to kill the remaining marines.
Queens have four upgrades. Queen (800), Elite Queen (1600) , Elite Empress (3600), and Ancient Empress. Each one boosting health, damage, maximum stored plasma (from 600 to 700, then 800, then 900) and regeneration speed, movement speed, pheromone strength and deflection value.
Queens have the most powerful pheromones on the Xeno team. The only creatures that can even have remotely similar pheromone strength are Praetorians. A Queen's recovery pheromone doubles the healing, stun recovery and plasma regen of all nearby xenos, and can even augment it further when the Queen upgrades. Frenzy will double any nearby xeno's speed, making the Queen move at the speed of ravager or spitter. Warding will greatly enhance damage resistance and slightly increase deflection chance, meaning xenos like Crushers and Queens can deflect more firepower, and all xenos take less damage from fire, brute and can even survive orbital bombardments.
A Queen is required for the propagation of a hive. If the Queen fails to produce eggs, the Hive cannot reproduce, there cannot be more Xenos, and the number of higher tier xenos is reduced. (On a side note, only tier ones contribute to the increase of T2 and T3 slots in a hive. Larvae that are SSD or even awake cannot count to this number.) It is absolutely imperative that the Queen focuses time on laying eggs, or spends her downtime between fights producing eggs in a secure position. Eggs are fragile and cannot defend themselves.
Basic Tips
These are a few simple, but vital tips that you need to understand in order to have a remote chance of surviving:
- Communication
Queens are the Central Command on the Xenos, they need to be constantly receiving information and deferring orders to allow the hive to continue. The best Queens will be constantly speaking on the Hivemind, making use of Word Of The Queen and using the Hive Orders system to give general 'You need to know' orders. It is ideal to lead by example when it comes to promoting roleplay or promoting teamplay, as both can be one in the same.
- Combat
Despite your importance to the hive as a lifeline and a respawn, you are also the hive's greatest weapon. Your have the highest healthpool, a respectable deflect chance, a terrifying slash damage, and the most powerful ability in the game, the Screech.
Xenos will almost always demand that you come to the frontlines and help with the battle with your screeching and your eggs. In the current state of Colonial Marines, it is near impossible for a Queen to remain immobile for long. A Queen must always be near the frontline, she must always be either fighting or laying eggs or building structures to protect the eggs. She is simply too good at combat to just let her stay behind.
As a Queen, it is imperative that you play as safely as you can, but you also need to take the occasional risk to deal damage to the marines and to help your children win the battles. Some of the most important things to look out for while on the frontline is:- The presence of a Grenadier Specialist or SADAR Specialist
Grenadiers are Queen-Killers in every sense of the word. If you push forward and attempt to screech a horde of marines hiding in a FOB, you may successfully get your screech out, but if the Grenadier waits behind them for just long enough, they can guarantee your death with the flurry of grenades. One single grenade is all it takes to stun a Queen, and that stun can be long enough for more grenades to be fired, which then leads to of the marines to recovering and gunning her down.
SADARs work in a similar way, but instead they focus more on dealing damage to the Queen. A single AT rocket can instantly kill a Queen if she was partially damaged from a sentry or a few M4 shots. You must always watch for these specialists and avoid them if possible. If they are unavoidable, then do not screech.
- Sentries
A single sentry is relatively ineffective against a Queen. The damage can stack up, yes, but it is usually not enough to kill or deal significant damage, especially if you back off before it can do anything major. The real issue of a sentry comes in if the Marines have deployed several. More than one sentry can stack it's armour-piercing damage, and too many can be the cause of instant death for any xeno. They are almost unavoidable in a siege and must eventually be broken through. The best ways to counter them are with Boiler clouds which block vision, Crusher charges which can instantly disable them, and with a flank or removal of the barricades protecting it,
as you can run up and slash it to death.
- Orbital Bombardment and Close Air Support
In most cases, CAS and OBs are really a minor threat if treated carefully. They are extremely obvious and always metagamed into avoidance. You are usually safe to do this as well so long as you roleplay it as caution. Simply avoid laser dots and the red beacons by a major margin and you are usually safe. If you see an OB drop and there's a large plume of fire, it's ideal to see if there are any xenos inside of it. You're fire retardant, which means you take zero damage from flames. Simply walk in,
grab a burning xeno, and drag them out.
- Snipers
Snipers are usually ineffective against a Queen, their damage is too low to successfully kill her in a single magazine and Incendiary or Flak rounds do almost nothing to her other than base damage. However, this makes Queens an effective means of tanking sniper rounds for boilers or crushers. Simply stand in front of a xeno ally and take the hits, you can usually ignore the damage if you are far enough back. You must be conscious of your health, however, or you may go into crit and die.
- The presence of a Grenadier Specialist or SADAR Specialist
Get up a map from the wiki, start looking at that map like an RTS screen. Remember, you are a LEADER. That means you and your children need to strategize. Coordinate your team's composition to appeal to your strategy. For example, if you plan on being hyper-offensive, go for carriers, ravagers, and crushers. If you plan on turtling hard, go for boilers, hivelords, and praetorians. Get creative! Learn what each caste can do and use that to your advantage by ordering your children to become that caste.
That reminds me: One of your first orders of buisness should be to make an order that says 'DO NOT SILENT EVOLVE. INFORM ME WHEN YOUR EVOLVE.' Or something like that. I've seen far too many lax queens that end up having 3 ravagers, no boilers or crushers in the first hour. Always compose your hive. When a larva is born, tell them which caste you want (if your comp is good for now, just let them pick whatever they want.)
Use this ability. Use it often, and never miss.
You are really, really important. DON'T DIE.
It's perfectly fine that you can get overwhelmed and die, it makes sense
Hive Management Tips
Roleplaying Tips
Queen's are the rolemodels of the Hive. If you focus on role playing, you will promote others to roleplay as well. If you focus on working with the team, others will focus on working with the team as well. Don't feel bad about setting restrictions in this sense, ban stupid phrases or memes, orders your hunter-caste to hunt with a carrier if one exists, or hunt in packs, they are to obey you. This doesn't mean be the fun police, however. You can push an agenda of Medium RP to the xenos, you can push an agenda of hunting in packs or disabling slashing so the newer xenos don't maul potential captures (monkeys, survivors, etc.) early in a round, but you must learn when to stop pushing this agenda if the situation demands you to stop.
