I'm a veteran of AvP2. So when a game starts up, I can do some real damage. Shotgun meets Skulk, all is well. But then we get to midgame. Simply put, I can't deal with enemies that take 2.5 solid seconds of HMG fire (assuming all rounds hit) to kill. Unlike the Onos, Fades are fast. They can use Blink to get in and stab you to death. I've searched, and the only tip I can find is 'use teamwork'. Well, that would be fine if it weren't for the fact that they can use teamwork too. If I have an ally with me, then someone else is getting double-teamed- and it works both ways. So I ask the pros: How do I kill Fades?

One of the most beautiful questions of NS.


lets see...

1) Blocking. Hide beside a door somewhere. When the fade blinks in, move so you're standing in the doorway. Retreating fades tend to go the same way they came, so he'll likely be coming back at you. Depending on his health, he might even attack you. But if you get in his way, your body will completely stop his blink, and he'll either have to spend the extra time to kill you, or to get around you, or to turn away. That extra time means extra damage into him, when he's already hurt (retreating). A good method.

2) Catching a fade on a retreat. Similar to blocking. Hide somewhere, but when the fade passes you by, just wait. Let other marines do damage to him. Find a nice corner, so you can see down two hallways. Start shooting him as soon as you see him (having Motion Tracking helps you track him on the map and be ready). Since a fade would only be coming back like this (well, not always, but usually) when he's hurt, you already have a much better chance at winning the battle. Shoot right away; often the fade will panic, and run past you. This is where the corner bit comes in; you shoot at him while he comes down the hall, but you can keep shooting him while he runs down the next one. A good tactic, and be sure to whip out the pistol for that last quick barrage.

3) Tightly packed mines. Mines do need to be spaced out a certain amount, but nothing's stopping you from putting them exactly that distance away from each other. Try putting them on the walls that fades might blink into, perhaps one of the exits from Marine Start. Then, camp the other exit; when he comes in, block him, so he hopefully goes out the other exit. Bam bam bam bam, 500 damage in mines. Hopefully.

4) Shotguns tend to be better than HMGs against fades, whereas HMGs are better at killing everything else. Reason being, is that hmgs are LOUD, and do their damage over time. A good fade will hear the HMG and immediately play a bit more defensively. Shotguns on the other hand, are not heard until the fade is right up against it, and his health drops instantly. This is just my opinion though.

5) Aim for the exit. Fades and lerks are so fast that once they decide to retreat, they tend to make it out quickly. As soon as you see a fade turn, aim at his most likely exit and just rip it. This will have a much higher chance of actually hitting the fade then trying to track him when he's blinking at full speed.

6) Shoot him some mo'. Remember that damage 3 is pretty and all, but its only +30%; another LMG is + 100%. An HMG deals twice the damage of the LMG for 2.5* as long (which will never all be spent on a fade), but two LMGs together can do just as much. More marines, more bullets. And good fades play differently depending on how many bullets they're up against, so if you have 4 marines but 3 of you hide, the fade will see the loner marine and be way off guard. Let him come in, try to block his exits, and unload.

you can try all of the above, but it basically comes down to how well you can track/snap.


that's ridiculous. nothing is scarier than a level 3 hmg that can tear you apart before you can get off a second swipe.

Exactly. When a fade hears an hmg, usually he starts planning to do one swipe at a time and being very cautious of his HP. Shotties on the other hand... if there are two SGers and an LMG, any of them hidden, a fade can fly in and not even make it to the marine, and WITHOUT WARNING.

I think dodging the swipes has not been mentioned yet...
And when the fade attacks a certain building (Obs, PG, AA, AL, Proto) thats were I would place some mines too. Especially with the PG it is possible to place the mines inside the building so that you cannot see them on first glance.

Well answered

Use terrain. Don't stand out in the open. Put obstacles and space in between you and the fade.

Teamwork. Have other marines nearby as suggested above shooting and all, but before the fade comes back try and be welded.

Next time you're fighting a fade, instead of zoning out and shooting, block it. Block it so hard--especially if you don't have a weapon or you do and someone else is nearby and can grab it. Any decent fade can get in and out without dying no matter what they're up against if the exit is free. Put a few angry marines with LMGs or pistols directly in the way and things get dicey...

Good answers above, too.

Just remember, a w0 marine can kill a fade WITHOUT RELOADING. Stop wasting bullets and kill him yourself.


Your pistol is your friend, especially during retreat. Pistol at the corner of the doorway, due to the way hitboxes lag when you blink, you can often get some extra damage (and potentially a kill) by shooting where the corner of the doorway (where the fade just was) and getting him while he's around the corner.

Many people don't even bother using their pistol against a fade, but consider your w0 pistol does 200 dmg, 2 marines pistoling a fade as he retreats will do significant damage (even if they miss a couple shots). Add that onto the lmg shooting.

2 marines with w0 deal a total of 1400 damage. Fade can't even handle half of that before death. You'll probably have at least w1 as well by the time you need to kill a fade.

An erratically jumping/ducking/strafing marine can end up surviving for an extra swipe or 2 (fade misses). I've seen many fades who would normally retreat after 2-3 swipes (and getting the kill) hanging around for 5-6 swipes if I can manage to dodge them. Even if I don't kill them someone else may.

If you can manage to survive 4 swipes and you have an sg, you can probably kill them. This of course the fade doesn't aim well and doesn't retreat on you.

Thanks for all the replies. I never tried blocking, but it seems very good- as a frequent Fade player, I find that Regeneration makes hit and run laughably easy. I'll certainly try that.

I'm also thinking that on combat maps at least, by the time I fight Fades I already have damage Lv2 and Shotgun. Not bad.

So, I'm now off to try these suggestions out. Thanks for the help!

Oh, by the way: Why do Oni look like cows that have been chestbursted?

Regeneration is great when the players can't aim at all.

If the players can aim, your best bet is to move in and out quickly, and to do that you get celerity.

After that you get carapace to increase staying power. Regeneration is too slow.

I would agree for an NS game but in CO just play what you like. I often go silence-cara-focus or silence-cara-scent as fade. Wonderful fun.

I disagree with that. I use regen in almost every situation, except when there's a TON of guns or HA out and I know i'll be hive defending a lot.

In almost any other situation, i find its a lot better to get in a few hits, blink out with still ~100 armor, heal up in a second, blink back. You wear down any group of marines, big or small, and they just dont have time to reload. Carapace gives you one solid run, but then takes FOREVER to heal up with just meta.

Of course this is absolutely not suggested for anyone but veteran fades. Start with carapace for sure. Keep it if you want (as we see, some good fades do), but definitely try the different fading style of Regen. Its very, very powerful.

That's right. Most fades are weak against even two marines who are good shots - that's without even considering their weaponry. Regen is pretty much suicide unless you are competing against a fairy marine team. The idea is to have two hives and gorge support in addition to meta with carapace.

Aim and discipline is what kills fades - and unfortunately most pub marine teams don't have that. Actually, most competitive marine teams didn't even have that back when there was a competitive scene.

It seems strange how everyone is claiming to only use carapace. The only fades I ever see that are on top (including myself when I am), are regen + cel 2 hive fades.

I always go regen. You can deal more damage in a shorter period of time with regen than with cara, you just need to be more careful, but it's so worth it. Especially when you have 2nd hive.

Regen is useful if you (don't plan on having gorges or your gorges suck) and the fight is far away from a hive.



Perhaps good support gorges are rare so people underestimate their usefulness. I have seen many games won because of a single gorge and possibly an MC in the right place at the right time. I see a lot of games lost because the gorge is wandering around aimlessly.

Gorges should be where their healing powarz will be needed most. If the game is even then it will probably be at the second hive before it goes up, but if the aliens are dominating then the gorge could opt to move about 1 room away from wherever the fades are. This translates to the benefits of regeneration to all nearby aliens.


BY THE WAY: I'm not talking about pubs. On pubs regen may be awesome because you may be fighting a 12-man marine team and they're everywhere. Gorges almost always suck, so you can't count on them, and there's no skulk support. In comp games skulks should be doing most of the cleaning while fades distract, almost the opposite of a pub.

You don't? You just die... or that's how it used to be <3

Back on topic: it still comes down to how well you can aim.

how2aim:
- make sure you're getting a constant 100 fps
- max out your monitor's refresh rate at your in-game resolution if using a CRT (reforce)
- use a reasonable sensitivity (20-45 deg/inch) and invest in a larger mousepad if necessary. A low sensitivity really helps improve consistency and accuracy.
- turn off mouse acceleration or experiment with different levels of it via registry tweaking
- try out some minimalistic custom crosshairs and HUD. I prefer a small green dot or cross and use the streamlined HUD from fana's nL hackpack.

I have a laptop, and the FPS caps at 60. How would I go about changing this with ATI Catalyst?

Reforce is a program that will 'fix' the refresh rates, but since you have an LCD it may very well be limited to 60Hz anyway.

In any case you want to find "v-sync" or "vertical sync" in your advanced display settings and turn it off.

Then your fps will increase to I believe 72 by default. Typing fps_max 101 in console will then get it up to 100 if your video card/cpu can handle it.

It will get it up to 100.x, which is registered by goldsrc as 101 fps.

The optimal FPS setting is 111fps, this is the 3rd fastest lmg fire rate. It goes: 20fps, 76fps, 111fps. If you want to know what I'm talking about, get a friend together and do the following:

1) Set your fps to 20
2) Make friend set his fps to 21
3) Start firing in unison
4) Finish firing 1/2 clip faster than your friend.
5) Blame valve!

Theres always one thing you can rely on to kill a fade!
Chuck.

Chucker fades by hiding right outside of their hives and lmg them while they are retreating to heal.

lol, this reminds me of that time jmmsbnd007 tried to aimbot my fade with a0/w0 lmg. I, being a terrible fade that I am, killed him before he killed me with like 30 hp left.

The rof increase at 111 fps isn't significant enough to warrant the decreased acceleration due to gravity. It's more important to note that you would stay in the air longer at 111 fps than you would at 100 fps, giving sort of a floating effect, which you don't want. Of course, if you haven't mastered air control and don't do a lot of jumping then go for it.

But it improves jetpack horizontal accel, if you aren't hardcore enough to switch FPS every time you get a jetpack, I think you could balance gain and loss at around 111.

Everything already mentioned + the pressure.

Fade has advantage pretty much as long as it doesn't have to go on offensive, but for example when the sieges are going up, fades often start dropping like flies. Pick some 3 marines, enough to fend off a fade before it gets 3 swipes in, act quickly and get a pg at desired position. Add some mines and fades are hurting quite bad. Or if they aren't hurting bad, the hive and/or alien res control should be hurting even worse.

Cara for fighting fades, regen for some 3rd-fade-in-the-team rt controlling maybe. Generally regen works nice until a) you make a mistake b) marines start sieging. At that point I'd hate to waste the 50 res on a dead or zero dmg output fade.