Hivelord Guide

[Toroic]

Hello everyone, I'm here to talk to you about a caste that 90% of the time is a useless waste of space, because they are not played properly.

However, the other 10% of the time they give the xeno team an incredible advantage in offense and defense. The caste I'm talking about of course, is the hivelord.


What are people doing wrong?

1) They are not building effective tunnels

2) They are not building an effective hive

3) They are not building defenses in combat or using pheremones correctly.

4) A hive does not need more than one hivelord who knows what they are doing. Every other drone is more effective evolved into a carrier.


Why is this a problem?

The other potential evolution from a drone is a carrier, a caste that is absolutely fantastic at all stages of the game. Good carriers give marines nightmares, and even bad carriers will destroy a few helmets and soften up a squad of marines.




Part 1: Tunnels and You

Building a good tunnel network is the primary purpose of a hivelord. Any drone can build the hive, and they have acid to melt walls and weapons too. A hivelord who does not tunnel is just a slow, fat drone with no acid.

Where is the best place to put a tunnel entrance?

The answer is deep in the hive, next to all the other tunnels, in an arrangement that makes sense. I like a 3x3 area with a tunnel on the south end leading to the south end of the map. A hivelord can and should pre-build an entrance before they leave the hive to place an exit, so they can use the newly built tunnel to travel back. There is no downside to this.

Where is the best place to put a tunnel exit?

South of the river, the most defensible areas allow weeds but are not on soil, so you cannot place a tunnel to a well-defended area. Instead, you should place it in an area with minimal marine foot traffic, at least a full screen away from where the fighting is. Along the edge of the map tends to be a good place, as there are plenty of areas that break line of sight. Coordinate with the offensive castes to see where the fighting is, and take an escort to drop a tunnel.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD A TUNNEL EXIT BE OUT IN THE OPEN!

This will just lead to xenos being killed.

Also, when you build a tunnel network, make sure all current and new xenos know where it is in the hive, where the tunnels lead, and suggest they use them whenever they can.





Part 2: Building a Hive and You

To understand what a good hive looks like, let us first discuss the properties of a bad hive.

1) Stacked doors.

These provide minimal cover from bullets, and slow down any xeno passing through. Any xeno under fire will almost certainly die if they need to pass through 2 or 3 doors. Don't ever do this.

2) Large open spaces.

Marines are faster on foot than xenos, and have the advantage of powerful ranged attacks. Large open spaces play heavily to their strengths and your weaknesses. My rule is that no room except for an egg storage room should be larger than a queen's screech.

3) Eggs and hosts close to the exit of the caves (or even worse, outside the caves)

The more walls and distance that marines need to cover, the more time you have to coordinate a defense/counterattack. Building your hive close to the cave exit/preplaced tunnel to the east jungle is a terrible idea unless you enjoy marines making a small push and killing all your eggs and freeing all your hosts.

Xenos never need anything resembling a "forward base" if they have good tunnels set up. Anything outside the caves can be hit with an orbital barrage, which is a good way to lose a lot of eggs, hosts, and your queen in a single attack.


Instead, build deep in the caves and use tunnels for mobility. This gives you the best of both worlds. You have a lot of space to build the hive out to frustrate any attacks, and your critical areas are immune to orbital barrage.




How do I build a defensible hive?

There are two general strategies when it comes to hive building, each with their pros and cons.

1) Make a maze like hive, that will have marines getting lost and struggling to find areas of value.

+Effective in misleading marines, sometimes all the way past the hive
+Can be very efficient with plasma use

-If robust marines are confused, dumb xeno players will also be confused, and even decent ones can struggle to drag a host to a nest quickly and easily.

2) Have a series of small rooms filled with sticky resin

+Easy to navigate for xenos
+Marines hate fighting through sticky resin

-Very expensive use of plasma, time consuming to set up.


Both are effective and which is better depends on the game and how good your xeno team is.





How should I use pheremones?

Let's start with what each pheromone does.

Recovery: Increases heath regen, plasma regen on weeds, reduces stun times of affected xenos.

Guard: Reduces damage taken

Frenzy: Improves movement speed, damage and tackle chance.


If a xeno is injured, use recovery.
If you're skirmishing, use recovery to keep pressure up. If you're making a big push, or fighting on grass, use guard.

I rarely use frenzy except for two situations.

1) Trying to contain an escaped host

2) Moving around the map with high plasma.


What about resin walker?

Resin walker is an amazing ability that should be toggled on and off frequently. For long distance travel, frenzy and resin walker will make you hunter speed. And mature hivelord can sustain frenzy and resin walker indefinitely.



How many hivelords does a hive need?

One. Maybe 2 if you have 30 xenos and don't know how to transfer plasma effectively. Once a tunnel network is up, the first hivelord's utility (compared to another carrier) goes down significantly. Second and beyond hivelords should only happen if the first hivelord doesn't know what to do.



This forms the basics of playing hivelord. I'll get into good tunnel locations and combat building strategies at a later time.

[Toroic]

Updated with resin walker.


Also, anyone planning on playing hivelord, understand that you are a force multiplier. You make the existing xenos say, twice as strong.

The problem is, 2x0 is still zero. If the xenos you're supporting are incompetent you won't be able to help the hive as much as if you play a more combat oriented caste well.

[Damarik]

Solid guide, Tor. Plans the benefits and drawbacks of the Hive Building, and showcases the Hivey's best attributes.

Only thing I'd add in would be suggestions for how to be an effective Combat Engineer, as when they're not fortifying the Hive, the Hivelord is usually on the front lines, helping to defend. (Because let's face facts: despite both of us knowing that building outside the caves is a waste of time, Queens still command it, and Xenos still ask for front-line eggs/walls/resin. It's a sad fact that isn't going away anytime soon.)

[Eenkogneeto]

Small nitpick I noticed early on reading.
Guard reduces stun times, Not recover. I'll edit this if I have further comments.