Hunter Playstyle Guide: Oh Boy, Here I Go Killing Again!

[Symbiosis]

Have you ever wanted to be like Krombopulos Michael? Look no further - here's how you too can illicit fear and loathing from your fellow community members.

When: You're strongest at Elite+, which is what this playstyle guide will be written for. Since you don't have an upgrade timer for Mature+, you can safely assume if you evolve from T1>T2 immediately upon maturing a wait time of 53 minutes. Until then,

Where: You want to avoid the front lines and the FOB. Front Lines are full of your worst enemies... Young T1's (or any other Xeno for that matter) and Explosives. Both will spell your doom.

That leaves supply lines, vent and pipe openings, and the exposed back lines. You're going to need to learn your hunting ground very well. Know avenues of escape, break windows to pounce through for escapes, and learn to toggle nightvision when resting on weeds to see approaching Marines.

What: Being a terror-inducing Monster that pounces from the darkness at a moments notice. Also a salt-inducing Monster.

How: By targeting and focusing on lone and small groups of Marines. The most you'll generally and safely want to attempt to fight is 2 healthy Marines. As you become more familiar with the mechanics of tackles, pounces, and using the bodies of standing Marines (or other objects) as bullet sponges you can increase the number of Marines to face alone at once to 4 under ideal circumstances. (Cover, no more than 1 shotgun or flamer, for example!)

The "How" section for a gameplay guide can't possibly be explained by a single paragraph. I intend to provide screenshots and even small videos showing examples of when/where to strike. That will be a second post (below) - if you know of a video/screen capture software that would be free, let me know!

Why: By denying the Marines reinforcements and weakening their supply lines you allow the front line (T3's) to do their job better. Remember to destroy floodlights, lights, and move dead light sources away from your hunting grounds.

[Symbiosis]

Reserved.

[Ghostdex]

A pretty helpful guide in all honesty, maybe I can git gud now

[Dumblike]

Where: You want to avoid the front lines and the FOB. Front Lines are full of your worst enemies... the bodyblockers (any other Xeno for that matter) and queen orders, cause you gotta go solohunting. Both will spell your doom.

[AverageSpitter]

Also, When playing hunter, ALWAYS target the groin. That's... Actually pretty effective. Can confirm.

[Reuben Owen]

the marine cannot ERP if you disable his groin

[edda]

Symb, I've watched your hunter wreck the marines hard several times, and you don't even mention one of your most-used techniques that not so many hunters understand.

1) Disarm/harm intent switching quickly. Tackle a marine. Switch to harm.
2) Continuously strafe left and right while you attack the downed marine. You will dodge fire even if you strafe in a predictable pattern because most marines point and click following the sprites. You don't have to stand still while attacking a marine. In fact, you shouldn't.

[Anoonki]

Symb, I've watched your hunter wreck the marines hard several times, and you don't even mention one of your most-used techniques that not so many hunters understand.

1) Disarm/harm intent switching quickly. Tackle a marine. Switch to harm.
2) Continuously strafe left and right while you attack the downed marine. You will dodge fire even if you strafe in a predictable pattern because most marines point and click following the sprites. You don't have to stand still while attacking a marine. In fact, you shouldn't.

Additionally, if the situation permits it, and you *really* want to be a dick, you can refrain from tackling the guy you land on at all, and just get slashing. Assuming he stands back up, juke side to side on the tile that puts him between you and his allies, so when he pops up, he takes a shit load of bonus FF damage.

[misto]

hunter playstyle guide is lot like runner playstyle guide only youre better than runner at most things and have more hp

[Shuffl3]

I think one of the biggest things to learn as a hunter is to not lean on your pounce ability to initiate conflicts. Id like to attribute most of my deaths early on to the pounce stun that leaves you open to attack when those other marines you didn't see off screen all turn and open up on you as one. This gets especially bad during laggier rounds as they get extra frame time to mouse over to you. My combat endurance increased a lot when I reserved my pounce as a tool to aid in escapes.

Also, removing a leg is almost the same as getting a tackle.

[caleeb101]

I want to throw my two pence in. If there's a group of two people and one guy has a flamethrower, you can pounce on the guy without the flamer. You've now put the other guy in a position where he either kills you both or watches as his squadmate gets slashed up.

Also, if you want to engage multiple people don't use pounce offensively. Attempt to run by them and tackle/slash them and then use pounce to get away if you're in danger.

[AverageSpitter]

You know. It was thanks to this guide that my interest in playing hunter caste was born, and i'm doing decently so far. Gotta git gud :^)

[OatzAndHoes]

New hunter playstyle: Go warrior

[Bancrose]

I have been playing alot of Lurker and Chubs is my inspiration for sitting at the Hydro road on LV and picking off the wounded and fresh marines coming to the front.

it says you should be a frontline combatant but you are just so good at ambushing marines, wounded people getting off the front or medics taking those wounded that you should pick a spot and wait patiently.

Chubs I hope you update this guide for Lurker. Even though its no different from Hunter, its just a reskinned hunter. What do we do with such a large sprite now? Hiding is a bit more difficult I'd say. Any tips for us casual xeno players?

[caleeb101]

I have been playing alot of Lurker and Chubs is my inspiration for sitting at the Hydro road on LV and picking off the wounded and fresh marines coming to the front.

it says you should be a frontline combatant but you are just so good at ambushing marines, wounded people getting off the front or medics taking those wounded that you should pick a spot and wait patiently.

Chubs I hope you update this guide for Lurker. Even though its no different from Hunter, its just a reskinned hunter. What do we do with such a large sprite now? Hiding is a bit more difficult I'd say. Any tips for us casual xeno players?

I know I'm not chubs but it's the same shit to be honest. Cloak was never relevant.

[cre77]

It always did because marines never really EXPECTED it, tbh. Only place it was truly applicable to as invis was LV, and BOY, was it a field day for ambushers. And now you can't do any of that because of how huge the sprite got, with both head and tail sticking out.

You know that one tile of grass outside south hydro exit right across the sandy road in LV, with fence to the right? You could hide there in plain sight, whole squads passed right through me as my body blended perfectly into the grass and brighter edges of my head into the grass-road transition. You could easily ambush any non-suspecting marine and drag him right off hydro, relying on the combination of both near-perfect camo and sheer unsuspectedness of that one spot.

Now? You can't even hide properly on grass tiles. Maybe the Warriors are the ones who made lurkers obsolete, but it was the sprite update that killed camo. Probably should be posting this to some update discussion, but for now it's a tip - either prepare to play even harder than you did before, or switch to something else.

[ThePiachu]

I guess this sort of playstyle would rely a bit on early game drones doing their job and leaving plenty of weed patches to retreat to. If the colony is only halfway weeded you might have a harder time being effective...

[Symbiosis]

The reason this guide was so useful in the past was due to the meta at the time. We had a lot of very bad Queens coupled with strong Marines a few months ago.

Rounds would often end up with 70-80 marines hunting 10 Xenos.

I don’t want to say the guide is irrelevant, but the current meta is better suited to T3’s or Defender/Warrior at the moment.

Lurker is still incredibly strong, just not relevant.

[caleeb101]

The reason this guide was so useful in the past was due to the meta at the time. We had a lot of very bad Queens coupled with strong Marines a few months ago.

Rounds would often end up with 70-80 marines hunting 10 Xenos.

I don’t want to say the guide is irrelevant, but the current meta is better suited to T3’s or Defender/Warrior at the moment.

Lurker is still incredibly strong, just not relevant.

I wanna play a round with you where we're both Lurkers to see who gets the most kills kek. I don't consider myself the best but I get quite a lot of kills as well.