Make Crushers Less Devastating

[GGgobbleCC]

The marine tears in the thread are hilarious, also note that the round being refereed to was low-pop

Any retard can play a marine well, but the high skill cap on any of the aliens keeps most of them in line.

[Derpislav]

T3 caps? Aww hell no, thank you, goodbye.

[Yottawhat]

T3 caps? Aww hell no, thank you, goodbye.

Agreed. Xenos shouldn't be punished for surviving long enough to be become a Tier-3. Hell, the whole purpose of that mechanic is to punish marines for turtling and not attacking the aliens.

[Boltersam]

The marine tears in the thread are hilarious, also note that the round being refereed to was low-pop

Any retard can play a marine well, but the high skill cap on any of the aliens keeps most of them in line.

For the first time, it's them crying, not us...The power...so overwhelming...must find way...to exploit salt...

Seriously though, whenever I do play CM, I find that xenomorphs are way harder to play than Marines, but if you pull them off you can easily outskill several marines. Don't nerf the aliens, they're already skill based. Make Marines less cushy and harder to play, then you actually get to hone your skills instead of turtling and firing at things moving in the darkness.

All in all, I think marines view Aliens as strong because Marines don't get much of a taste of ACTIVE combat. essentially they RP and play the role of turrets inside the Nexus and Engineering dome.

[Tony Weather]

To be honest. I honestly think its more or less their stomp range. The mere fact that a crusher can down a entire herd of marines is... disturbing compared to what it used to be.

[MauroVega]

And keep in mind stomp+lag 6 tiles stomp

[MrJJJ]

Yeah, i am fine with queen having a stun, she is slow at least, but charger? just, seriously? this thing, can just run into the entire defence, STOMP, knock down ALL marines SHOOTING at it and other aliens, and they will have at least 6 seconds of free defense destroying or dragging people away or slashing them

[Wesmas]

Agreed. Xenos shouldn't be punished for surviving long enough to be become a Tier-3. Hell, the whole purpose of that mechanic is to punish marines for turtling and not attacking the aliens.

Yet its meta for the marines to move quickly enough to stop T3s from beccoming an issue. T2s are normal by the time marines arrive on planet, and the marines then need to either find a survivor who tells them where to go, or they have to be given the free reign to follow an alien back to the hive. Neither of these is garenteed to work, and command then needs to approve an assult, which is likely to fail, leading to many deaths and lost supplies.
I am not in favor of capping the numbers, because managing to survive long enough to evolve shows some skill, or cowardnice, but it does seem like any early assult is impossible, so I dont know.

[Jeser]

I guess, only 4 Specs with SADARs can somehow counter this:

Though if at least one of them missed with rocket, marines fucked.

What I really don't like about Crusher - his stomp. It's just, 1 Crusher with Queen can easily kill/infect up to 6-7 marines easily, using screen-wide screech and half-screen stomp. I really want nerf exactly of stomp, everything else is pretty balanced for Crusher, I think.

[forwardslashN]

What I really don't like about Crusher - his stomp. It's just, 1 Crusher with Queen can easily kill/infect up to 6-7 marines easily, using screen-wide screech and half-screen stomp.

I've been playing crusher a lot recently, and I'm starting to think a lot of the problems people have with crushers have nothing to do with crushers themselves. Crushers work well with other xenos, not individually, since they're essentially battering rams. So when people see a crusher coming and fail to kill it/die, they don't take into account that there may be other xenos about that are enabling the crusher to do what it does. Like a queen, for example. And even then, it takes a lot of robusting to keep 6-7 veteran marines down even if you are the best crusher on the server. I usually run away if I am facing three or more marines, just because I can easily be overwhelmed if I don't have them hugged or stunned. Not to mention you can't push people out of the way and you have to force your way through all airlocks. Discretion the best part of valor and all that.

[ZDashe]

Crushers in skilled hands can disable a large number of marines at once. I managed to disable 4 marines in a group on my own before, but I just got lucky I guess.

Crusher carrying huggers in both hands:
1. Charge at max momentum into a Marine (1 down on the floor in crit)
2. Stomp
3. Unload dual facehuggers (2nd one disabled)
4. Juggle tackle between another 2 marines who just got up from the stomp
5. Pray these 2 marines are not robust enough, so you can kill one at a time =P

However a surrounded Crusher is a dead crusher. I got rekted before when a brave spec body shielded and trapped me in a small area, and dual burst smartguns shredded me within 3 seconds. Getting fenced in after Stomp is on cooldown is the worst thing that can happen.

Moral of the story: Crushers are a great addition in a team, but choose where you fight wisely. They lose their effectiveness when they lose their fear factor.

[qsleepy]

Crushers have kept me from playing a bit recently. A good crusher is just insanely over-powered.

I've been playing CM on xbox recently, and the crusher is a mother fucker on that game, as well. However, you can run from him in that game. In our CM, a good crusher can charge/stop/charge and out maneuver a marine pretty easily.


I think a good think to do would be to have a cool-down on the stomp AFTER you charge. You shouldn't be able to charge and stomp. It's OP as fuck. One or the other.

[Jeser]

Crushers have kept me from playing a bit recently. A good crusher is just insanely over-powered.

I've been playing CM on xbox recently, and the crusher is a mother fucker on that game, as well. However, you can run from him in that game. In our CM, a good crusher can charge/stop/charge and out maneuver a marine pretty easily.


I think a good think to do would be to have a cool-down on the stomp AFTER you charge. You shouldn't be able to charge and stomp. It's OP as fuck. One or the other.

Actually, 5-10 seconds pause between charge and stomp would be good enough.

[monkeysfist101]

Actually, 5-10 seconds pause between charge and stomp would be good enough.

10 seconds is a long time when you're being shot at from all angles, 5 would be good, though.

[ItsTheSleepy]

Nah, I love current crushers, especially when you get charged one and go flying, I would think it would do a lot more damage then it currently does. All it really does is fracture 1 or 2 bones and may even cause internal bleeding.

[qsleepy]

I dont want to gimp them, I just think the charge/stomp deal is OP. A 3-5 second cool down would help make them a bit easier to face with lower pop numbers.

[Wickedtemp]

Xenos are SUPPOSED to be a threat. The crusher is literally a biological tank, so OF COURSE they're dangerous during low pop.

Granted, I haven't played recently, but I knew that for a while (maybe this is still true, I wouldn't know) xenos mainly only won during low pop, because high-pop hours meant they were outnumbered 6 to 1.

So, saying that xenos were wrecking shop during low pop rounds and using that as a justification for a nerf is...kinda dumb.

[Boltersam]

Xenos are SUPPOSED to be a threat. The crusher is literally a biological tank, so OF COURSE they're dangerous during low pop.

Granted, I haven't played recently, but I knew that for a while (maybe this is still true, I wouldn't know) xenos mainly only won during low pop, because high-pop hours meant they were outnumbered 6 to 1.

So, saying that xenos were wrecking shop during low pop rounds and using that as a justification for a nerf is...kinda dumb.

THANK YOU for saying what many others (including me) haven't. Give this person a fucking MEDAL!
All of the above is the preaching of a saint for this thread.

[forwardslashN]

+1
I've changed my mind on this topic. Crushers are a little on the powerful side now and can clutch rounds. Their tackle has a really long duration and procs almost all the time--that can possibly be toned down a bit. It is entirely possible to stun lock marines as it is now, making them unable to fight at all. That also means crushers are far better at watching hosts than anyone else really. They are also the only caste outside of queen that has an AOE stun, which is something of anomaly. I think nerfing the range on it to 1 tile would work, though changing it to something else would be possible as well. For example, something like a berserk mode where you can increase their slash damage for a few seconds. Everything else is fine.

[Zilenan91]

+1 their stomp is ridiculously spammable and basically has zero downtime. Combined with their charge, crushers can stomp people and run away forever because the CDs on them are too low, with their ridiculous health pool meaning they can never die.

[Infernus]

I have been playing as a crushed for few rounds now. They are pretty much balanced except the stump verb which lasts too long for it's range. You can effectively smash one marine in the group, stomp to stun them all, and back away without getting any serious damage. I even went trough their lines where 5 marines were behind me. I simply stomped when backing away and got away. I almost died due to them not being able to automatically open resin doors tho :I

Their stomp recharge time is good, their health matches their use (They are dead if they have no where to run. Me and one other merc managed to kill it with shotguns in cargo.), plasma usage is good when using charges (They drain pretty quickly when running off weeds)...

It's just their damn stomp that is making them too strong.

[Inspiregona]

+1 On the damage and tackle aspect. Any aliens can easily be countered if you know what to do, crushers being no exception. If bullets don't work, think about what else does, then wait for an opportunity. The knife bypasses its armor, as well as most shot-gun shots. Now actually getting to use these and if they work or not are completely different things, but they're there. Also, to keep your whole squad from getting stomped, spread out a little. Being in everyone's bung hole probably doesn't help when an alien has an AOE move... and it probably doesn't keep the friendly fire down either.

[Zilenan91]

Their stomp CD needs to be raised tremendously. It has almost zero downtime. Like 15 or 20 seconds or something fluffed as the alien might take brain damage if it spams it too much.

[Kilm]

I've taken quite a shine to playing Crusher, but it has its issues and any decent Marine setup can take down a Crusher.

1 - I am vulnerable alone

2 - I am a huge target

3 - I don't move fast unless I'm charging, and if there are weeds for me to run on at the Nexus, that's your bad Marines for not doing house keeping

4 - My stomp is powerful, but with a huge cooldown and I am too slow to drag someone off

5 - My success depends on me getting some sisters organised to storm the position with me, not always easy to do

6 - I've tried slashing, in my opinion, I appear to be doing bugger all compared to a Ravager

7 - It takes me -so- long to evolve to Crusher level

On the other hand, just as an organised Marine team can take down Crushers, so an organised Alien team of Crushers, can destroy Marine defences. It's the escaping afterwards bit that's hard for us.
I played one game where we had three of us charge into the Nexus at the same time. Let's be fair - you've been hit by three T3 Aliens. Of course it's going to be horrific for the Marines if they've bottled themselves up in a tiny space in the middle of the Nexus.

Alot of Marine issues from Crushers stem from the fact that they base themselves around the central Nexus point, making our stomps very effective, and our charges more so. Chris Marines, use some tactics and pick a different location for once!

[Derpislav]

tl;dr instead of one autism fort invest in some fallback points and defences just for the sake of slowing an assault down and giving you breathing space.

Blame engineers for crushers being strong.