Xeno Difficulty

[Liran343]

I think the drone should be reclassified as easy in their difficulty instead of medium. Because drones are the easiest xeno type to play. You only build small hives and plant weeds... on occasion you use your pheromones. Those are all easy tasks to do compared to the other tier one castes.

LINK TO PAGE: wiki/Aliens

[KEY]

An easy drone is a lazy drone.
If you aren't about to pass out at mile 20 as you regurgitate even MORE weeds after building your own black resin jungel, you's a lazy drone.

[Toroic]

What makes drone medium imo is that you need to understand how to build, how to use pheromones/acid and how to play as xeno.

Without macros it's not easy, particularly if you haven't played xeno before.

[Liran343]

But the drone is the recommended xeno to first play with for new players :P. Now handling pheromones and plasma management is difficult but not as for example guarding marines (sentinel) or bringing said marines to the hive (runners). Look at this in a new player perspective who just discovered the wiki and sees that the drone and the sentinel are on the same difficulty level... And of course he picks sentinel because building hives requires patience and imagination which the new player doesn't have (yet). So he picks the sentinel and gets killed by an escaping marine.

[Casgair]

To be honest the only castes that really deserve "Hard" are maybe Ravager (can't tank hits like a Crusher, generally a priority target), Runner (due to frailty) and possibly Queen (for the responsibility, although some rounds with a good team you can literally just lay eggs and call it a day) / Prae (being as slow as it is). It's not that hard to play a semi-competent xeno. Grading relative to themselves I'd put Boiler at Easy and every other caste at Medium aside from those listed above.

[Rocco Ward]

What makes drone medium imo is that you need to understand how to build, how to use pheromones/acid and how to play as xeno.

Without macros it's not easy, particularly if you haven't played xeno before.

This x100. Not to mention being a support unit at the front lines requires you to be fast, swapping pheromones back and forth, and handing out plasma like it's candy on Halloween.

[Liran343]

This x100. Not to mention being a support unit at the front lines requires you to be fast, swapping pheromones back and forth, and handing out plasma like it's candy on Halloween.

I wish... Now lets snap back to reality, the most basic thing a drone is suppose to do is to build. The argument of "knowing how to build requires skill" is quite frankly bs. It takes a no brainer to understand how to build proper nests just by seeing how others drones built theirs (it's not like we have other styles anyway), queen usually tells the drones, in some point, to smear sticky resin all over... again it can't get more simple.
About "pheromone management", just keep recovery or guard and you'll be fine. Also I've never seen (that's a lie I've seen it once) a drone who willingly gave plasma to another xeno without said xeno asking for it.

All in all drone is and easy supportive caste to play. But not as easy as the carrier

[Hulkamania]

To be honest the only castes that really deserve "Hard" are maybe Ravager (can't tank hits like a Crusher, generally a priority target), Runner (due to frailty) and possibly Queen (for the responsibility, although some rounds with a good team you can literally just lay eggs and call it a day) / Prae (being as slow as it is). It's not that hard to play a semi-competent xeno. Grading relative to themselves I'd put Boiler at Easy and every other caste at Medium aside from those listed above.

I wouldn't put boiler at easy ever, you're far too noticeable (due to natural light) and fragile for that. It's heavily reliant on positioning and you have to be completely stationary to get a good glob off. It's not HARD, but someone who thinks it's simple will just end up wasting a t3

[Casgair]

If things are going right you'll almost never be right in the thick of it. Yes, you aren't unstoppable, are a big target for snipers and CAS, and having boiler actions and transfer-plasma hotkeyed will go a long way in making you a better boiler. But in terms of being successful engaging the enemy Boiler is easily the least demanding caste there is.

[Dumblike]

To be honest the only castes that really deserve "Hard" are maybe Ravager (can't tank hits like a Crusher, generally a priority target), Runner (due to frailty) and possibly Queen (for the responsibility, although some rounds with a good team you can literally just lay eggs and call it a day) / Prae (being as slow as it is). It's not that hard to play a semi-competent xeno. Grading relative to themselves I'd put Boiler at Easy and every other caste at Medium aside from those listed above.

Hunters too, they aren't tanky like crushers, same as ravs.

[Gnorse]

The reason drone is medium is because of it being the one to evolve to a queen.
We should stop telling new xeno players to go drone, because that USUALLY leads to bald queens.
I'd say the defender is the best caste for a new lad.

[DankAnimemes]

The reason drone is medium is because of it being the one to evolve to a queen.
We should stop telling new xeno players to go drone, because that USUALLY leads to bald queens.
I'd say the defender is the best caste for a new lad.

I agree with almost everything you said except the defender part. I would say that runner or sentinel are the best for a new beno player. My reason for this is that since defenders armor is so OP right now new players would get used to it and struggle with squishier (read: any non crusher) xenos

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

I'd say that Sentinel is the best caste for a new lad. It has an easy to learn spammable stun, reasonable tankiness where they won't die from one shot but they won't live from much punishment, and its speed is moderate, so you don't feel frantic with runner's massive speed with age. Spitter and Boiler are also relatively easy to learn, so that's neat too.