Crusher Opinions

[HalfdeadKiller]

After a few rounds of the new CM, and lots of experience from alpha CM. I think crushers are a bit too safe of a xeno class to play. They can tank a bunch of damage and run away with little risk, and cause some serious damage from what I can see. I dunno. Any other opinons?

[Jroinc1]

SOMETHING needs to happen to nerf them.

Put in uncrushable things that STUN them
Make flame set their momentum to 0 (I've seen a crusher cross 6 tiles of flame and be MILDLY injured)
Reduce their health so that an AP sadar round hitting a young crusher will kill/crit it (Seen them walk it off)
Set the stomp damage to where it won't break the CHEST through armor (other limbs are fine)
Make it so they can't charge through a row of marines while barely slowing...

One of these.

EDIT- They're just too strong for how easy they are to acquire.

[Jaketeaking]

make it so they lose all momentum after destroying a wall, at the moment they can charge through and keep going, much to the dismay of the marine stood behind the wall

[Crab_Spider]

They're on the broken side. Right now, they need a reduction to slash damage and tackle chance along with a reduction to deflection chance (more along the lines as to being armor softeningh

[DrPng]

I've played crusher plenty of times, I guess the whole point of it is too be an ultra, mega death tank. The problem with them, however, is that they almost negate the need for a ravager. You can have 6-7 crushers destroy the entire marine force if they are extremely robust. It's insane. But They don't need to be changed to drastically, I think making AP rounds more hurt to them and making explosives stun them for a few seconds would be good. That's just my opinion, and I have played crushers quite a bit. A reduction of slash damage is stupid, it's already low enough and I think tackle chance could be reduced a bit on more armored marines.

[Challenger]

Cancer from a medic perspective, if they don't delimb outright they'll break at least two bones (one inevitably has organs), cause 125 brute damage, and lose 15% blood with their shitty crush stomp memes that even the most fortified FOB and most organized defence can't beat. Their ONLY counter is SADAR, flames don't do shit, other explosives don't do shit, gunfire doesn't do shit.

[Feweh]

probably add some buffs

[Renomaki]

I agree that crushers are currently a little too unbalanced as of now, to the point that it negates having much else in a swarm. Even hunters are put to shame by crushers...

Normally, a proper swarm should have a good balance of castes on hand, to ensure that they can handle whatever the marines throw at them... However, nowadays there is little need for it, since crushers can do pretty much anything now. They can break reinforced walls with ease, scatter defenses, slaughter marines, soak bullets, and laugh at most explosives (even OBs!). They have become the perfect killer, and that is a problem.

If xenos are going to win 70% of their games, I'd at least like them to do it in a way that feels fair and understandable, not because they spam crushers. If it keeps up, then being a spec would cease to be fun because then you'd HAVE to bring a sadar in order to stand a chance. Marines shouldn't have to have 4 Sadar specs to just barely hold off the gaggles of crushers that come their way.

This begs the question... How do you balance crushers to keep them viable, but also punish the xenos for having too much of a single thing? Too many ravagers means you have a lot of glass cannons that can die real easily, too many carriers strains your egg reserves, too many Praetorians weakens your offensive abilities in exchange for defense, and so on... Crushers? Well, as of current, you can never have too many crushers, and that is a problem.

[Mattmaster77]

In all seriousness, crushers should get a slight armor decrease, young crushers can currently deflect SMARTGUN bullets from the crest. I'm fine being able to deflect some at mature, but overall, I believe crushers need to be nerfed slightly with armor values, since they basically have two layers of armor from what I can gather while playing as them. There is the crest itself on the exoskeleton which can prevent flankers from actually damaging you. The new stomp is fine, just probably tweak it so that young crushers can only break 1 bone/do some serious brute damage, and obviously up the damage as it upgrades. AT rockets should be able to stun them still too, and of course, they need an accuracy increase if a SADAR can miss a crusher from 3 tiles away.

Also, the new sound system REALLY doesn't help marines when knowing where and when the crusher is going to charge into marines. You can hear gunshots from Lambda labs to the western door of Security. But you can't hear a crusher charging in until it's 7 tiles away, even when they are charging from 10+ tiles away.

The crusher stopping after destroying a wall is on the fence for me, I think if it worked for reinforced walls/Sulaco hull walls then fine, but regular walls/false ones are something I'm on the fence for. The tiles on fire stopping crusher momentum is a great idea, or just making them set themselves on fire if they charge into it. The tackle chance should be decreased as well since it's a quadrupedal with stubby feet (This is what I see in sprites.) trying to use one of it's legs to push a marine down.

[Simo94]

add incendiary slugs to prep vendors, that is all

[Monoo]

probably add some buffs

my man

[completelynewguy]

add incendiary slugs to prep vendors, that is all

So, make it an item accessible through hacking a prep vendor and a SL-Spec vendor?

[SpaceFarer]

maybe you could make the evolve and upgrading times for crushers longer

[dsezg]

my man

I'm reporting this for heresy

[Toroic]

In all seriousness, crushers should get a slight armor decrease, young crushers can currently deflect SMARTGUN bullets from the crest. I'm fine being able to deflect some at mature, but overall, I believe crushers need to be nerfed slightly with armor values, since they basically have two layers of armor from what I can gather while playing as them. There is the crest itself on the exoskeleton which can prevent flankers from actually damaging you. The new stomp is fine, just probably tweak it so that young crushers can only break 1 bone/do some serious brute damage, and obviously up the damage as it upgrades. AT rockets should be able to stun them still too, and of course, they need an accuracy increase if a SADAR can miss a crusher from 3 tiles away.

Also, the new sound system REALLY doesn't help marines when knowing where and when the crusher is going to charge into marines. You can hear gunshots from Lambda labs to the western door of Security. But you can't hear a crusher charging in until it's 7 tiles away, even when they are charging from 10+ tiles away.

The crusher stopping after destroying a wall is on the fence for me, I think if it worked for reinforced walls/Sulaco hull walls then fine, but regular walls/false ones are something I'm on the fence for. The tiles on fire stopping crusher momentum is a great idea, or just making them set themselves on fire if they charge into it. The tackle chance should be decreased as well since it's a quadrupedal with stubby feet (This is what I see in sprites.) trying to use one of it's legs to push a marine down.

Smartgun ammo has always deflected at about the same rate as SMG ammo. That is to say, all the time. It's more dramatic now because other castes don't deflect to my knowledge. The stomp change was overall a significant nerf to crusher power but they've gained durability and are much better against single targets. Much faster at ram-digging through rock as well, which opens up tactical advantages.

They still have noisy charging and roar at max momentum, though there are ways to adjust the timing so you know little more than the direction a crusher is coming from.

Overall I'd rate post xeno update crushers with huggers as the most powerful, followed by the current crushers, followed by the pre-update crushers. AT rockets stunning is a good idea though I'm not sure of the feasibility while remaining immune to HE and mines. I'd prefer if crushers continued to have a good tackle because their melee damage is pretty weak (though inevitable 1v1 because of tackle stunlocking) and unlike other offensive castes they don't have a true mobility skill while boxing a marine. I also like fire stopping their momentum, as flamers have historically been a soft-counter to crushers as they are poor at quickly disengaging from a fight to find weeds and roll to put the fire out.

[Nick123q23]

Stomps should really not do as much damage as it does now.

Crushers are fun to play spanish bull fights with, and if you're good at dodging you can evade them for awhile.
That is, until one of her buddies pounces on you and you die horribly.

[Szunti]

I think they should be bad at tackling. It's one thing that you are not safe in open place, because they run over you. But it's even worse in chokepoints, they come out, tackle a marine, who could not know the crusher is hiding, and there is no escape, even if 3 marines are covering you. Crusher deflects every shot, and the marine can't escape because tacklelock, not even Queen can rob a marine like that.

[Winter]

I think they just need a little less HP and damage. They just kinda roflstomp now, and a lot of queens are asking for more crushin'.

[slc97]

I believe the correct answer is to add a Matador class for Marines to combat crushers

Ole, bitches.

[Jroinc1]

I believe the correct answer is to add a Matador class for Marines to combat crushers

Ole, bitches.

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+1

I can get behind this.

[Nick123q23]

The ravager and praetorian need to be acceptable alternates to the Crusher, because for the moment the crusher is fulfilling all of the combat T3 roles plus it's own siege ram role.

[Trench007]

Perhaps, the marines should be able to order some steel anti tank-barricades from RO. Of course, only after they have seen the crusher ram and decimate fellow marines. Just to give people an idea of what I'm talking about, here is a picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_hed ... sochac.JPG

[Edgelord]

I honestly think giving them a harder weakness to flame would solve the issue.

[MrJJJ]

The flame really needs to fuck them up a lot more badly than it does right now, they currently seem to extinguish on their own for little to no reason and the damage from tile burning is too damn low for a crusher somehow.

[caleeb101]

in my opinion:
-tackle rate is wayyyyy too good. cut it down just a lil bit.
-kill momentum when they hit walls and they should lose 1 momentum for every human they plough through
-stomp is fair enough tbh. a massive alien rhino that weighs at least more than a truck jumping up into the air and stomping on us measly humans.. we're lucky there isn't more damage. even with armor, that would barely do jack.
-i've blocked a crusher after their charge many times. if you do this well enough, they end up looking like a stray dog as you and your marines fill each other and the crusher full of bullets and are satisfied with the result, even if you get FF'd.

and I think this crusher is the most powerful crusher we've had, forget the hugger combat ones.. these are beasts. just a little tweaking and only truly salty players will complain.

oh and free my man mr.flamer, he's too damn weak right now