For sure, it is a pain to try to get Wraith on lockdown. I've gotten a few with the help of support cloaking, but I guess since I play mostly Trapper my perspective is the Decoy is the main problem. Once they're in a dome, a Wraith can negate Daisy, tranqs, tracking darts, and dust tagging for the full stealth duration. Being able to decoy 5-6 times for one dome means even if you manage to find the monster, they're probably eating whatever's in the dome with you, and health damage is hard to come by.
Here's a quick vid of an awesome medic who pretty much won us the game vs. a T2 Wraith. I'm not normally a fan of Val for my own play, but this guy was putting her to great use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YgKBaE1t9k
So matchmaking in this game seems a bit odd. Is the monster wildly unpopular? It's weird how often I get it given that it's my last choice.
Really enjoying Medic and Trapper though. For all people bitch about it taking forever to unlock the other hunters, I have Lazarus and Griffin unlocked after like 3-4 games of Val and Maggie. That said, I think Hank is going to take me a bit longer because I suck at orbital strike.
Really I did almost all of my unlocking Solo - you can pause the game and everything which makes it really easy to drop if you need to take care of a kid. One evacuation campaign with one character will pretty much unlock the next character in that line.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited February 2015
So here is the stuff I think are the essential abilities and skills for a successful Hunter team:
1. Somebody who can track - not necessarily the Trapper, but you need somebody who can anticipate the Monster and predict its movements for early Domes and damage.
2. A Trapper that will reliably dome the Monster.
3. Somebody to control Monster movement - this pretty much rules out Griffin right here. Daisy is invaluable for getting right back on the trail of a Monster that jukes you and Maggie can spit out harpoon traps like crazy, and Abe's stasis grenades beat the total shit out of Griffin's paltry single-shot harpoon. So Maggie is better for making sure the Monster can't fully escape ever, and Abe is the best at directly keeping the Monster as stationary as possible. An accurate Val is also very good at keeping the Monster slowed with tranqs.
4. Someone who can protect the Medic or injured characters - all the Supports have the group cloak for this, Markov's mines are excellent for making a protective area against everything but the Kraken, and Hank's shield projector is the tops for protecting characters.
5. Someone who will buff damage reliably - Cabot is boss at this (ALL damage is boosted, not just damage to specific places), and Laz is good too; he just needs to stick his face out, fire off a magazine into the Monster, then get back into cover. Val is mediocre at it simply because she has only a single-shot rifle, but still useful.
6. Players who know to use their combat abilities instead of only shooting at the Monster.
Basically, nobody should ever taken Bucket or Griffin if they consider winning to be any kind of priority; Bucket's UAV is massively outclassed by other tracking abilities and player skill, and his frail turrets are entirely reliant on the Monster staying around to get shot (decent enough in a purely defensive position, but every Monster will steer clear of them the rest of the time). Griffin's harpoon is effectively worthless most of the time, and Daisy is way better at finding the Monster than the sound sensors. I know Parnell gets crap, but a Cabot boosting damage for a Parnell that has buffed his own damage and is spitting out autoshotty blasts at close range is a wrecking machine, to a crazy degree; Parnells shots can also be boosted by weakpoints, unlike the lightning cannon or flamethrower. Personally, I quite like Parnell, because he can deal shitloads of damage a lot faster than anything but a Monster stepping on a full Markov mine cluster, and his proximity rockets give him reliable ranged damage that the other Assaults don't really match. But Markov's mines can be vastly more useful, depending on the fight (the mines are nearly useless against Kraken), and all the Assaults are reliable for dealing damage.
Probably the most straightforward winning combo would be Laz, Cabot/Hank, Abe, and Markov. Even against the Kraken, a decent Laz is vastly more frustrating and difficult to fight than the other Medics, though the other Medics are still workable; Val is better for tracking and control, and Caira can endlessly swap between healing allies and burning the Monster while also giving that valuable speed boost for tracking. Hank's shield projector is incomparable for foiling the Monster trying to kill a weakened target and Orbital Barrage is VERY powerful in the right hands, and Cabot is excellent for both tracking the Monster and kicking the damage-dealing into high gear with his damage-buffing ray. Abe's ability to control the Monster is flat-out better than either other Trapper since his stasis grenades slow Goliaths and Wraiths enormously, and even knock Kraken's out of the sky; his fast-firing shotgun is also much better for dumping damage on the Monster quickly. Markov makes it dead simple to protect Laz against anything but the Kraken, and even if he is up against the Kraken, he's still an Assault with an auto-aiming lightning gun and a personal shield.
On the chase, ANTICIPATE. Cut the Monster off, and stay on its ass constantly unless you're heading another way to cut it off. AND DON'T ALWAYS SHOOT THE MONSTER THE MOMENT YOU SEE IT. A feeding Monster is vastly easier to trap, tag, control, or drop bombs on; it can be very, very worthwhile to let the Monster get a couple of food pips if it means forcing a fight very soon. This is a judgement call; it can also be very useful to harass the Monster so badly it can never feed properly until the Hunters are in a good position to fight. Monsters generally move in a straight line until they hit the edge of the map, then follow the edge of the map in an arc; if you can anticipate this pseudo-momentum, you can catch any Monster, even the S1 Wraith, or at the very least maximize the harassment.
When in combat, the Assault always gets max priority for attacking the Monster; do everything you can to support this. If you aren't directly supporting the Assault, you should be supporting another character so they can help the Assault. As soon as a fight starts, get the damage buffs on the Monster and get the control items like stasis grenades and harpoons out there; mobility is life for the Monster, so don't let it move. If Support cloaks the group, don't fire if you aren't able to take some damage! People waste the benefits of cloak CONSTANTLY, because they think it's better to fire off some lousy SMG damage with 10% health than get a breather and heal up or help another player. Players that aren't Assault should be using their abilities first, then swapping actual weaponry as the backup option when they get a chance or need to recharge something.
TL;DR: if your team can't track, control the Monster, protect the Medic, and/or buff damage, expect an uphill battle. Monster movement should be anticipated, not reacted to; if your whole team is doing nothing but trailing behind the Monster, then your team is bad at tracking and trapping.
Bucket was half the reason I was interested in this game ever since I first heard about him. If he's no good than I'll probably pass on this at any price.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The one thing you didn't cover was picking your terrain, aka don't fight the Stage 2 Goliath in a tunnel, silly hunters.
Haha, yeah, I forget something like that should be a pretty obvious no-no.
Less obvious is what kind of terrain is good for fighting in. Fighting against the Goliath works best, I feel, when there is enough terrain to let the Hunters climb out of Charge and Leap Smash, but not such high terrain that a knockback attack sends them a couple hundred feet. For the Kraken, the Hunters definitely want higher terrain with towers so they can get up as close as possible to it as it flies, then use the terrain to dodge attacks. With the Wraith, open terrain with no spires or anything to hide behind is optimal.
And everyone should stay spread out enough that Monster can only target one person at a time, but not so spread out that they can't be reached by Medic healing or shield projection. The biggest constant Hunter mistake I see is players piling up to chase the Monster inside the dome, which makes it super-easy for the Monster to deal shitloads of damage very quickly.
Bucket was half the reason I was interested in this game ever since I first heard about him. If he's no good than I'll probably pass on this at any price.
He's not awful - I still really like playing him but I do wish the turrets were more effective or harder to destroy.
So this video was posted on Reddit closer to when Evolve launched, and it compares pure DPS of assaults. I don't remember seeing it in this thread, so sorry if it's a repost. In terms of pure damage, Parnell obviously comes out above, unless you count a monster running through five of Markov's mines. Parnell's rocket launcher is absolutely terrible, though - use only for packs of wildlife, I guess. (Can Parnell's rocket launcher be used to rocket jump/rocket propel allies?)
The thing no one seems to have noticed, though, is that Markov's assault rifle is as damaging as his tesla gun - if it didn't have to reload, it would be more dps, and that's without mentioning that it benefits from weak points.
Huh. That's not what I expected. Maybe a reload speed perk would be good on Markov after all? Maybe clip capacity? I suppose it's highly dependent on how well the player aims, but higher-skill players shouldn't have a problem keeping a bead on the monster (especially if it's at a range close enough to use the lightning gun).
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited February 2015
So to underscore that Parnell damage, imagine that shotty damage coupled to Cabot's damage boost, which definitely lasts longer than it takes to fire off and reload two Parnell shotty mags. Armor just about evaporates off Monsters with a damage-buffed Parnell blasting the Monster, and you can keep jetting and moving around at normal speed while using the shotty.
And obviously the shotty is better than the rocket launcher if you are close enough, but the rockets are very good for distant and fleeing Monsters, especially for extra damage after a fight with their armor stripped. The rockets don't seem to have any damage dropoff and no effective range limit, are similar in accuracy to the assault rifle over long ranges. They also have splash damage, which neither the assault rifle or the minigun have.
So, I do it an awful lot when I'm a monster, but I think pounce needs to have some sort of required sneak time before you can do it or something. It's way too easy to pin a lone hunter even in a big fight.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I looooove pouncing in fights, especially when it's a gung-ho Assault who just threw up his shield; you can't hurt him until it drops, but neither can he hurt you.
But it's EXTREMELY easy to get knocked out of the pounce; even the guy you're pouncing can stop you from pulling it off, if the guy is shooting when you go for it. Assaults in particular do that a bunch.
It's pretty much only reliable as a finisher, though, as long as the Hunters stay even remotely near each other and aren't blindly sprinting after you. Otherwise, a passing bullet looks at you and breaks the pounce.
Cabot's damage amplifier is not on a timer. It will amplify ~1000 damage, and then it needs to recharge. If you're amping a minion running through a minefield, it'll be drained from full after two mines.
That lists the damage of everything and the amount of health things have. In short: hunters have 1600 hit points, armor pips are 500 hit points, health pips are 1600 hit points.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Interesting, that makes Cabot's damage buff even more useful, since it means you can just slap it on there until the Monster has had about 4 armor pips shredded off, instead of worrying about a timer. With Parnell running Super Soldier, that's about 40% of max Goliath armor down in just 2-3 seconds.
Any time spent using the damage amp is time you aren't spending loading the monster's face full of solid metal slugs. The rail cannon is so good because accuracy is almost never a concern, you should be landing 9 out of 10 shots, and even if there's a wall in the way you can still do half damage through it. Obviously, if you see the assault moving in for some good damage you should slap that damage amp on if you can, but I've always found that my rail cannon damage FAR exceeds what I get from the amp.
People realize that you can unlock playing Solo, right ?
I mean I guess you could? I only have time for 2-3 matches a night (if that), I'd rather spend that time learning to play the game properly than rushing to get every hunter. Though it doesn't really bother me personally to not have the others while I'm still learning. I still have no idea how to track the monster beyond following footsteps/Daisy or the occasional birdsign.
So here is the stuff I think are the essential abilities and skills for a successful Hunter team:
<Stuff>
I've found Griffins Harpoon to be excellent for grabbing a fleeing monster especially if you have the reload perk, you pretty much always want to be behind the monster in a dome fight when using it.
Maggies Harpoons take a little to long to get down and arm for me compared with how easy they are broken and of course the range on them isn't as good as Griffins. Abe has the advantage with the Stasis grenades over both harpoons though.
If your team isn't using Maggie to track then Buckets UAV is a good way to supplement tracking, his turrets are useful when spread out on different levels and are maintained.
I notice you didn't mention Caira, I like playing her but you really need Hank on your team, because if your speed boost is on cool down you are about to get hit in the face a bunch in a fight. The Speed boost is also very useful for catching up with the Monster, getting your tracker within doming range at critical moments is great.
If anyone wants to shoot me an invite to the steam group, I might be up for some games when my normal group can't get enough together. Which is somewhat often.
Any time spent using the damage amp is time you aren't spending loading the monster's face full of solid metal slugs. The rail cannon is so good because accuracy is almost never a concern, you should be landing 9 out of 10 shots, and even if there's a wall in the way you can still do half damage through it. Obviously, if you see the assault moving in for some good damage you should slap that damage amp on if you can, but I've always found that my rail cannon damage FAR exceeds what I get from the amp.
I find you want to chuck it on if the monster looks to be about to run a mine field, or has been heavily slowed so that everyone else can unload on him. All other times I stick to the rail gun.
There is no medic on my team I hate more than a shitty Laz.
Yay, everyone is letting Laz resurrect me... wait, no Laz... please use your device, don't do a normal res.
I just had a Lax that didn't resurrect blue-almost-dead-slightly-alive bodies.
I've had a Lazarus argue with me about not using his glove on my downed body because I 'wasn't dead yet'.
Thanks for the strike, Laz.
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+1
cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
edited February 2015
On assaults, Markov's mines really do put him on the top of the heap right now. The area control and damage is just so strong. Parnell's strength comes from his ability to hit weak spots with his primary weapon. Where Hyde's fire and Markov's lightning are strong consistant damage. Parnell really shines in a group with Lazarus covering the monster in weak points. But in a group with Caira or Val, I'd rather have Hyde or Markov.
Bucket was half the reason I was interested in this game ever since I first heard about him. If he's no good than I'll probably pass on this at any price.
For pugs, I think he's great. For the very reason that the UAV makes up for mediocre trappers or teams that have a really hard time finding the monster. And really good Buckets will find that monster so quickly it's rediculous. Bucket is also the bane of Wraiths cause they can't escape turret damage if you fight in a defensive position at stage 3.
I've played as Wraith more than I've fought against a Wraith -- do decoys have an HP bar so you can make them go away faster by shooting them more, or do they just last a certain duration no matter what?
Also: I had a Nest Mode match recently as Wraith. I hatched an egg and went after the hunters right away, and also managed to get one of the huge wildlife predators into the fight. The hunters had a Lvl 1 Goliath, a Lvl 1 Wraith, a Wraith decoy, and a giant predator animal to contend with all at once. I won before they killed a single egg.
In Nest mode as a Hunter we normally split up and take down two eggs at once.
And as a Trapper I'll occasionally dome a Monster while a support is off somewhere else on the map destroying eggs with Orbital.
A really cool thing a good bucket player did on Nest with our team was to surround one egg with all five turrets and then we'd immediately leave to the next egg. The 5 turrets will take down the egg on their own while you speed to the next one. It worked really well for the first 4 eggs especially.
I think I've settled on Hank as by far my favorite Hunter to play. I'm consistently doubling, tripling or even quadrupling the global averages for damage shielded and barrage damage. I'm getting pretty good at plotting my jump routes to conserve energy, and also pretty good at sneaking up on evolving monsters with my cloak. Nothing improves your match odds like blowing away 2-3 health bubbles with a barrage on a cocoon.
The damage/shielded/healed averages are extremely misleading and are pretty much useless as a metric.
You can see that you got high damage values and think that you are doing really good... But the best players are getting low damage values because they efficiently coup-de-grace their target without giving it an opportunity to heal, replenish armor, or pad their damage in fights with the mega-fauna.
Short victorious matches result in very low shielded and healed values as well.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
So here is the stuff I think are the essential abilities and skills for a successful Hunter team:
<Stuff>
I've found Griffins Harpoon to be excellent for grabbing a fleeing monster especially if you have the reload perk, you pretty much always want to be behind the monster in a dome fight when using it.
Maggies Harpoons take a little to long to get down and arm for me compared with how easy they are broken and of course the range on them isn't as good as Griffins. Abe has the advantage with the Stasis grenades over both
harpoons though.
Yeah, that's the thing: Griffin's harpoon can be okay at one very, very specific application, but it's very limited and a crafty Monster that makes sure to use cover can neutralize it pretty easily (a bit of terrain will do it). Griffin has to actually be able to see the Monster for the thing to work, terrain breaks it, it only takes a single Monster swipe to break it, etc. And compared to the combat applications of what the other Trappers can do with their control items, that one-shot harpoon just doesn't cut it; stasis grenades are always a pain and Abe also carries a tracking dart gun, and a Maggie that knows where to stick loads of harpoon traps can be a huge pain on top of being able to always point out the Monster's direction.
If your team isn't using Maggie to track then Buckets UAV is a good way to supplement tracking, his turrets are useful when spread out on different levels and are maintained.
But it also plants him squarely in one spot, making him do two things Hunters should almost never do on on Hunt: be by himself and not be moving around. And he has neither the high-damage Orbital Barrage or the extremely-useful damage ray or the shield projector or radioactive dust. And if you have Val, Abe, Maggie, or even just one player who is reliably good at tracking, the UAV has very little use because somebody is on the Monster already and UAV will just slow Bucket down.
I notice you didn't mention Caira, I like playing her but you really need Hank on your team, because if your speed boost is on cool down you are about to get hit in the face a bunch in a fight. The Speed boost is also very useful for catching up with the Monster, getting your tracker within doming range at critical moments is great.
Yeah, I like Caira myself, but Laz makes it tough to suggest her over the other Medics. In fact, if Laz's rez wasn't so absurdly forgiving and useful, I'd actually say Caira is the best Medic; her speed boosts are awesome for both catching the Monster and avoiding damage in a fight, her napalm grenades can end up dealing out quite a lot damage, and her heal grenades gives her a range and versatility to healing that Val doesn't really match. She can even heal herself without needing burst heal, which is very valuable.
A Caira player who hustles and keeps switching grenade types is very useful, for sure. The problem is that Laz's bullshit-easy rez and personal cloak makes it hard to really beat him, not because the other Medics are bad, but because Laz is just so poorly-balanced.
I really like the idea of someone getting a Strike if they are completely dead when Laz revives them. Other than that the only thing I could think to tone him down would be to add more of a cool down on the ability or some other mechanic (maybe if it isn't fully "charged" which takes a minute or something it brings them back with a strike and otherwise it doesn't?)
Barring completely removing Laz's resurrection, would putting it on a 1minute or 1:15minute timer and slow his rifle rate of fire by half make him more of a toss up choice?
30seconds is too quick especially when he rezes to full health... Heck, maybe just only let him rez 10%health and the hunter can be glad to be alive... Now you have a choice of picking someone up off the ground in a fight or getting smashed down again by a monster... I'd rather resurrection just be gotten rid of, but that ain't happening...
I see some bucket hate in here. If you're playing bucket and your turrets are getting smashed super easily, two things are happening.
1. You're not spacing them out properly or putting them on high places
2. If you do number one and they are still dying, good. The monster is wasting time and eating damage smashing things you can produce infinitely. The turrets do a surprising amount of damage and have decent range.
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Here's a quick vid of an awesome medic who pretty much won us the game vs. a T2 Wraith. I'm not normally a fan of Val for my own play, but this guy was putting her to great use.
Ka-Chung!
Ka-Chung!
Really enjoying Medic and Trapper though. For all people bitch about it taking forever to unlock the other hunters, I have Lazarus and Griffin unlocked after like 3-4 games of Val and Maggie. That said, I think Hank is going to take me a bit longer because I suck at orbital strike.
2. A Trapper that will reliably dome the Monster.
3. Somebody to control Monster movement - this pretty much rules out Griffin right here. Daisy is invaluable for getting right back on the trail of a Monster that jukes you and Maggie can spit out harpoon traps like crazy, and Abe's stasis grenades beat the total shit out of Griffin's paltry single-shot harpoon. So Maggie is better for making sure the Monster can't fully escape ever, and Abe is the best at directly keeping the Monster as stationary as possible. An accurate Val is also very good at keeping the Monster slowed with tranqs.
4. Someone who can protect the Medic or injured characters - all the Supports have the group cloak for this, Markov's mines are excellent for making a protective area against everything but the Kraken, and Hank's shield projector is the tops for protecting characters.
5. Someone who will buff damage reliably - Cabot is boss at this (ALL damage is boosted, not just damage to specific places), and Laz is good too; he just needs to stick his face out, fire off a magazine into the Monster, then get back into cover. Val is mediocre at it simply because she has only a single-shot rifle, but still useful.
6. Players who know to use their combat abilities instead of only shooting at the Monster.
Basically, nobody should ever taken Bucket or Griffin if they consider winning to be any kind of priority; Bucket's UAV is massively outclassed by other tracking abilities and player skill, and his frail turrets are entirely reliant on the Monster staying around to get shot (decent enough in a purely defensive position, but every Monster will steer clear of them the rest of the time). Griffin's harpoon is effectively worthless most of the time, and Daisy is way better at finding the Monster than the sound sensors. I know Parnell gets crap, but a Cabot boosting damage for a Parnell that has buffed his own damage and is spitting out autoshotty blasts at close range is a wrecking machine, to a crazy degree; Parnells shots can also be boosted by weakpoints, unlike the lightning cannon or flamethrower. Personally, I quite like Parnell, because he can deal shitloads of damage a lot faster than anything but a Monster stepping on a full Markov mine cluster, and his proximity rockets give him reliable ranged damage that the other Assaults don't really match. But Markov's mines can be vastly more useful, depending on the fight (the mines are nearly useless against Kraken), and all the Assaults are reliable for dealing damage.
Probably the most straightforward winning combo would be Laz, Cabot/Hank, Abe, and Markov. Even against the Kraken, a decent Laz is vastly more frustrating and difficult to fight than the other Medics, though the other Medics are still workable; Val is better for tracking and control, and Caira can endlessly swap between healing allies and burning the Monster while also giving that valuable speed boost for tracking. Hank's shield projector is incomparable for foiling the Monster trying to kill a weakened target and Orbital Barrage is VERY powerful in the right hands, and Cabot is excellent for both tracking the Monster and kicking the damage-dealing into high gear with his damage-buffing ray. Abe's ability to control the Monster is flat-out better than either other Trapper since his stasis grenades slow Goliaths and Wraiths enormously, and even knock Kraken's out of the sky; his fast-firing shotgun is also much better for dumping damage on the Monster quickly. Markov makes it dead simple to protect Laz against anything but the Kraken, and even if he is up against the Kraken, he's still an Assault with an auto-aiming lightning gun and a personal shield.
On the chase, ANTICIPATE. Cut the Monster off, and stay on its ass constantly unless you're heading another way to cut it off. AND DON'T ALWAYS SHOOT THE MONSTER THE MOMENT YOU SEE IT. A feeding Monster is vastly easier to trap, tag, control, or drop bombs on; it can be very, very worthwhile to let the Monster get a couple of food pips if it means forcing a fight very soon. This is a judgement call; it can also be very useful to harass the Monster so badly it can never feed properly until the Hunters are in a good position to fight. Monsters generally move in a straight line until they hit the edge of the map, then follow the edge of the map in an arc; if you can anticipate this pseudo-momentum, you can catch any Monster, even the S1 Wraith, or at the very least maximize the harassment.
When in combat, the Assault always gets max priority for attacking the Monster; do everything you can to support this. If you aren't directly supporting the Assault, you should be supporting another character so they can help the Assault. As soon as a fight starts, get the damage buffs on the Monster and get the control items like stasis grenades and harpoons out there; mobility is life for the Monster, so don't let it move. If Support cloaks the group, don't fire if you aren't able to take some damage! People waste the benefits of cloak CONSTANTLY, because they think it's better to fire off some lousy SMG damage with 10% health than get a breather and heal up or help another player. Players that aren't Assault should be using their abilities first, then swapping actual weaponry as the backup option when they get a chance or need to recharge something.
TL;DR: if your team can't track, control the Monster, protect the Medic, and/or buff damage, expect an uphill battle. Monster movement should be anticipated, not reacted to; if your whole team is doing nothing but trailing behind the Monster, then your team is bad at tracking and trapping.
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Haha, yeah, I forget something like that should be a pretty obvious no-no.
Less obvious is what kind of terrain is good for fighting in. Fighting against the Goliath works best, I feel, when there is enough terrain to let the Hunters climb out of Charge and Leap Smash, but not such high terrain that a knockback attack sends them a couple hundred feet. For the Kraken, the Hunters definitely want higher terrain with towers so they can get up as close as possible to it as it flies, then use the terrain to dodge attacks. With the Wraith, open terrain with no spires or anything to hide behind is optimal.
And everyone should stay spread out enough that Monster can only target one person at a time, but not so spread out that they can't be reached by Medic healing or shield projection. The biggest constant Hunter mistake I see is players piling up to chase the Monster inside the dome, which makes it super-easy for the Monster to deal shitloads of damage very quickly.
He's not awful - I still really like playing him but I do wish the turrets were more effective or harder to destroy.
So this video was posted on Reddit closer to when Evolve launched, and it compares pure DPS of assaults. I don't remember seeing it in this thread, so sorry if it's a repost. In terms of pure damage, Parnell obviously comes out above, unless you count a monster running through five of Markov's mines. Parnell's rocket launcher is absolutely terrible, though - use only for packs of wildlife, I guess. (Can Parnell's rocket launcher be used to rocket jump/rocket propel allies?)
The thing no one seems to have noticed, though, is that Markov's assault rifle is as damaging as his tesla gun - if it didn't have to reload, it would be more dps, and that's without mentioning that it benefits from weak points.
Huh. That's not what I expected. Maybe a reload speed perk would be good on Markov after all? Maybe clip capacity? I suppose it's highly dependent on how well the player aims, but higher-skill players shouldn't have a problem keeping a bead on the monster (especially if it's at a range close enough to use the lightning gun).
And obviously the shotty is better than the rocket launcher if you are close enough, but the rockets are very good for distant and fleeing Monsters, especially for extra damage after a fight with their armor stripped. The rockets don't seem to have any damage dropoff and no effective range limit, are similar in accuracy to the assault rifle over long ranges. They also have splash damage, which neither the assault rifle or the minigun have.
But it's EXTREMELY easy to get knocked out of the pounce; even the guy you're pouncing can stop you from pulling it off, if the guy is shooting when you go for it. Assaults in particular do that a bunch.
It's pretty much only reliable as a finisher, though, as long as the Hunters stay even remotely near each other and aren't blindly sprinting after you. Otherwise, a passing bullet looks at you and breaks the pounce.
Also, helpful link: https://talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/evolve-number-statstics/36149
That lists the damage of everything and the amount of health things have. In short: hunters have 1600 hit points, armor pips are 500 hit points, health pips are 1600 hit points.
I mean I guess you could? I only have time for 2-3 matches a night (if that), I'd rather spend that time learning to play the game properly than rushing to get every hunter. Though it doesn't really bother me personally to not have the others while I'm still learning. I still have no idea how to track the monster beyond following footsteps/Daisy or the occasional birdsign.
I've found Griffins Harpoon to be excellent for grabbing a fleeing monster especially if you have the reload perk, you pretty much always want to be behind the monster in a dome fight when using it.
Maggies Harpoons take a little to long to get down and arm for me compared with how easy they are broken and of course the range on them isn't as good as Griffins. Abe has the advantage with the Stasis grenades over both harpoons though.
If your team isn't using Maggie to track then Buckets UAV is a good way to supplement tracking, his turrets are useful when spread out on different levels and are maintained.
I notice you didn't mention Caira, I like playing her but you really need Hank on your team, because if your speed boost is on cool down you are about to get hit in the face a bunch in a fight. The Speed boost is also very useful for catching up with the Monster, getting your tracker within doming range at critical moments is great.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Yay, everyone is letting Laz resurrect me... wait, no Laz... please use your device, don't do a normal res.
I just had a Lax that didn't resurrect blue-almost-dead-slightly-alive bodies.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
I find you want to chuck it on if the monster looks to be about to run a mine field, or has been heavily slowed so that everyone else can unload on him. All other times I stick to the rail gun.
I've had a Lazarus argue with me about not using his glove on my downed body because I 'wasn't dead yet'.
Thanks for the strike, Laz.
Please shoot me a PM if you add me so I know to add you back.
For pugs, I think he's great. For the very reason that the UAV makes up for mediocre trappers or teams that have a really hard time finding the monster. And really good Buckets will find that monster so quickly it's rediculous. Bucket is also the bane of Wraiths cause they can't escape turret damage if you fight in a defensive position at stage 3.
Markov, Bucket, & Abe make such a damn good Defend team.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Also: I had a Nest Mode match recently as Wraith. I hatched an egg and went after the hunters right away, and also managed to get one of the huge wildlife predators into the fight. The hunters had a Lvl 1 Goliath, a Lvl 1 Wraith, a Wraith decoy, and a giant predator animal to contend with all at once. I won before they killed a single egg.
And as a Trapper I'll occasionally dome a Monster while a support is off somewhere else on the map destroying eggs with Orbital.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
A really cool thing a good bucket player did on Nest with our team was to surround one egg with all five turrets and then we'd immediately leave to the next egg. The 5 turrets will take down the egg on their own while you speed to the next one. It worked really well for the first 4 eggs especially.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
You can see that you got high damage values and think that you are doing really good... But the best players are getting low damage values because they efficiently coup-de-grace their target without giving it an opportunity to heal, replenish armor, or pad their damage in fights with the mega-fauna.
Short victorious matches result in very low shielded and healed values as well.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
But it also plants him squarely in one spot, making him do two things Hunters should almost never do on on Hunt: be by himself and not be moving around. And he has neither the high-damage Orbital Barrage or the extremely-useful damage ray or the shield projector or radioactive dust. And if you have Val, Abe, Maggie, or even just one player who is reliably good at tracking, the UAV has very little use because somebody is on the Monster already and UAV will just slow Bucket down.
Yeah, I like Caira myself, but Laz makes it tough to suggest her over the other Medics. In fact, if Laz's rez wasn't so absurdly forgiving and useful, I'd actually say Caira is the best Medic; her speed boosts are awesome for both catching the Monster and avoiding damage in a fight, her napalm grenades can end up dealing out quite a lot damage, and her heal grenades gives her a range and versatility to healing that Val doesn't really match. She can even heal herself without needing burst heal, which is very valuable.
A Caira player who hustles and keeps switching grenade types is very useful, for sure. The problem is that Laz's bullshit-easy rez and personal cloak makes it hard to really beat him, not because the other Medics are bad, but because Laz is just so poorly-balanced.
30seconds is too quick especially when he rezes to full health... Heck, maybe just only let him rez 10%health and the hunter can be glad to be alive... Now you have a choice of picking someone up off the ground in a fight or getting smashed down again by a monster... I'd rather resurrection just be gotten rid of, but that ain't happening...
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Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
1. You're not spacing them out properly or putting them on high places
2. If you do number one and they are still dying, good. The monster is wasting time and eating damage smashing things you can produce infinitely. The turrets do a surprising amount of damage and have decent range.