Hunter ambush tactics

[Jackie Estegado]

Hunter ambush tactics a.k.a how to have 2 full squad of marines pass you by then assassinate their medics.

First things first: Getting around.
A big advantage of being a hunter is that you can go through tunnels while staying hidden, simply use your cloack and you will be near impossible as you come out.
It's also highly advised to use a tunnel thats some ways from any regular marine spot.
Once you are across you will be wanting to move across the area while toggling your darkvision to spot any marines before they do you.
If you have to sneak by marines do it cloacked in the grass, preferably in the dark. If anyone comes near you inmidietly stop and position your mouse for a quick getaway pounce if they spot you (most marines will loose sight of you inmidietly if you pounce into a shadowy grass tile, so just stay still there unless you get damaged.) This brings me to another thing: DO NOT hunt while under 90% health, ask a drone to get the colony weeded before the marines arrive so you don't need to run all the way back to heal.
When you come across a road always pounce over it if there are marines nearby or if you dont know if there are, even if the road is weeded.
Using this technique you should prettymuch always be able to reach your desired spot without getting killed, unless there is a *cough 'eagle-eyed' *cough marine that always seems to be able to spot you.

Next topic: Choosing your ambush spot.
Firstly let's have a talk about what tiles its good to hide on.

https://prntscr.com/g24hcd (image wouldn't work)

A area: Don't even try, though you probably figured this by yourself.
B: Very unlikely its gonna help you at all.
C: Does meh in a pinch but any regular player will spot you in a few seconds.
D: Hiding on resin isn't too good either, however having objects like here can do a lot to help you.
E: Very reliable and the most abundant tile to hide on.
F: You will be basicaly invisible, especialy if there is grass or resin under it. Plus people don't tend to walk into them.
G: Again, you are nearly invisible, whats more once you get a victim you can quickly drag them behind it.
H: Hiding on corpses on gibs is the best, just like noone expects a mine to be under a body, noone expects a hunter.

Now that we are clear on this we can choose an actual area to hide in. Depending on the state of the fight the spots will change in valuability. Two of the best spots are the road east of hydro, which even has a little jungle for any devlish deeds and since there are almost no marine presence north of it you always have a quick and safe escape route. Then there is the road south of fitness many marines travel by themselves here thinking that the marine fortifications all around the colony will stop aliens from getting in that deep (except that not even double the amount of guard posts wouldnt be enough).
You can also pick the area around robotics, west of medical or south of lz1, but you have to be careful around these areas not to be cut off from an escape route by travelling squads of marines especialy until the fog is lifted.


The meat of the ambush a.k.a wether the pounce fucks you or the marine.
The key element to a succesful ambush is a LOT of patience, never ever pounce more healthy marines than there are aliens participating in your ambush, even if others go in to attack just stay hidden unless it looks like you can snag a marine and drag them away. However if you are feeling like a meme you can always go and do a dab dance in the middle of a larger marine group as they pass by to hopefuly make them FF eachother, just make sure you don't get too close to a shotgun.

Once you have spotted the target (of which's arrival you already knew in advance since you were toggling your darkvision) you need to get in position. You want to be no more than 4 tiles away and a 90 degree angle to the marine the moment pounce, idealy. The pounce should always be aimed by hovering your mouse on the lower middle area of the tile the marine is gonna step on, and do the pounce when they cross your cursor. This ensures that even if the marine would somehow dodge your straight pounce you will home in on them and will always be within range. If your pounce still somehow misses, by totaly not your fault you still have a chance because you have disarm intent on, yes? Try to shove them onto the ground, if you are talented you can keep toggling darkvision while you are doing this to make sure that no other marines are coming up. However the moment the person pulls a gun, run. Check if no other marines are nearby, then you can now attempt another pounce from the shadows this time either from the way he come, or where he is going to, the latter is preferable. You can keep doing this untill the marine gets close to a marine controlled building, others come, or your health goes below 2/3.

Upon a succesfull pounce you have to check something inmidietly, did the marine drop his weapon? If yes move opposite the side of where the closest assumed position of marines are and as soon as they get up try to pounce them again, if this fails get on the side again and start pushing him, the highest priority is to keep them away from their weapon (you don't have to worry about smaller weapons they might have as a backup since as a hunter it will take way too many shots to down you with them). You do all that while ofcourse slashing the everliving crap out of their HEAD, why the head you ask? Because when one is grounded hits to the head can cause the stun time to lengthen (also you can easily switch from your disarm intent to harm by using the macro ".click intent").

If he didn't drop his gun you have a decision to make. Either keep slashing them then pounce them if they manage to pull it out (which is favorable once you are elite or ancient) or move a few tiles away from them to wait till they get up and pull their weapons out to pounce them. Either way they lose their weapon follow the steps from before.

If their gun dropped for a sec but then disapeared, we have a problem. You hopefuly caught a glimpse wether it was a rifle or a shotgun. If it was the first then you will just have to keep slashing and pouncing them. If it was the latter, then I advise you to just abort. They probably have a quick equip macro for it and can take it out and pointblank you under a second, even I from time to time die from this. If you choose to stand and fight you are either a retard or know enough not to really need this guide.


Once they are dead you have to make an evaluation, are you above 90% health? If yes continue, if not retreat and heal.

After that our job gets easier, we setup a bait with the body.
The best is to drag them a few tiles off from the road, preferably so you can also grab a better tile to hide on.

Ambushing using bait is the same as without, so just follow those steps.


After a while of ambushing marines might start to pay special attention to moving in group in the area or just avoiding it entirely, so you will have to get a new spot.
After an even more while you will either have the marines moving smartly so you can't pick them off or they will have all stopped moving too much in areas you can hunt. If this happens we have a thing we can do: Ambushing inside the Nexus.

There are two good ways to do this. Either by aproaching from the south or from cargo. Both of them are highly advised to be used with bait (don't forget that you can just use a random corpse as bait too, just drag it there). If you go at it from the south you have two choices, Nexus center or lz1. Both of them are pretty great since they have wooden barricades you can become invisible with but I advise using the one with less marines, but note that if you use lz1 put the bait south of the barricades as to not attract to many marines at once and give you ample time to prepare. Just waiting around the bait tends to work but if the marines are scared or too idiotic/smart to patrol they will need to be attracted by you showing yourself for a second then hiding again.

Thus ends our guide of a massive wall of text.

[Crab_Spider]

10/10 guide

By the way dancing got a heavy handed, Catholic priest style nerf Youcant move while dancing and the animation is extended.

[Jeser]

I think I will become paranoid now after reading this guide...

Still, quite good guide fo those, who don't know how to play warrior caste (like me).

[Swagile]

I learned this all by being part of Jackie's hunter pack; we meme'd two entire squads before Elite, and as Elite's we solo meme'd another squad South of Nexus before Delta finally UGL and shotgun meme'd us all.

Great guide for newbies.

[Ranged66]

Great guide. I ran across a few people who called the hunter's cloak bad, and a few hunters who said they didn't use it because it was bad. Tried to show them every time and I think one or two got the idea behind it.
Something to keep in mind: Know your corpses.

A runner corpse will hide you near perfectly pretty much anywhere because of its size.
Sentinel/drone/hunter/spitter corpses won't hide you as well, your head will be visible. Useful in a pinch though.
T3 corpses are massive and some of them even create multiple tiles worth of perfect hiding place, even on dirt (not grass).
Gibs create near perfect hiding places pretty much everywhere.

I often just try to drag T3 and Runner corpses to places I want to ambush, the marines think it's just another dead hunter because you are so damn invisible on top of them. They even work perfectly on plain dirt or floor tiles.
Do tail-attacks to the legs still have a chance to stun for a long time, swiping their feet or something like that? They used to but I tried a few times recently and most of the time it was just a shitty stab. Also don't do tailattacks unless you let them charge up, I was playing a medic earlier and a mature hunter pounced, tail-attacked and ran. 2.7 brute damage. 1/10

[Jackie Estegado]

10/10 guide

By the way dancing got a heavy handed, Catholic priest style nerf Youcant move while dancing and the animation is extended.

Dancing I mean just running around inbetween them, plus points for help intent.

Great guide. I ran across a few people who called the hunter's cloak bad, and a few hunters who said they didn't use it because it was bad. Tried to show them every time and I think one or two got the idea behind it.
Something to keep in mind: Know your corpses.

The old hunter sprite's cloak was way better, thats why they are saying that.

[Sailor Dave]

Do tail-attacks to the legs still have a chance to stun for a long time, swiping their feet or something like that? They used to but I tried a few times recently and most of the time it was just a shitty stab. Also don't do tailattacks unless you let them charge up, I was playing a medic earlier and a mature hunter pounced, tail-attacked and ran. 2.7 brute damage. 1/10

The foot-targeting tail attacks definitely still have a chance of dropping them, though it's inconsistent. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't know if it's just RNG, or if there's some other factor. Maybe it depends on how long you charge it? I haven't tested it extensively.

[nerocavalier]

The foot-targeting tail attacks definitely still have a chance of dropping them, though it's inconsistent. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't know if it's just RNG, or if there's some other factor. Maybe it depends on how long you charge it? I haven't tested it extensively.

Waiting until it says it's fully charged to impale some hapless foe makes it a usual guarantee unless it RNG misses.

[Swagile]

> RNG missing a tail attack

that is why i hate tail attacks...

all of that good plasma down the drain because lmao haha RNG

[Mook476]

Nice guide.