I'm pretty new to NS, and I'm normally a marine player, but I thought I would give aliens a try, as the marines get pretty boring after a while. When I'm playing as aliens, I nearly always stay as skulk because it's probably the most fun alien to play as. I was wondering whether anyone could suggest a few good skulk setups? This is what I currently get in order:

2) Cloaking
3) Scent of Fear
4) Silence
5) Leap
6) Celerity

I'm not exactly 100% sure what to invest in my next few points in, but usually I don't make it past level 8 due to my noobness with skulk. Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Carapace would be a good upgrade to get as a skulk. You don't start with a whole lot of health as a skulk, and getting carapace increases the damage needed to kill you from 90 points to 130 points.

Once you become comfortable with the skulk, try out the lerk and fade. Each of them has their own play styles. With a lerk, you will be sporing a lot to remove armor from marines, making it easier for your teammates to get kills. You don't usually get a lot of kills this way, but your team benefits a lot from this (especially focus skulks). Don't go in for bite kills unless it is a single marine or you already have teammates attacking the group (at least until you are comfortable with lerk movement). Other people can give you suggestions for playing as a fade (I have only used it for acid rocket spam, and that's not what it is meant for. It takes a lot of weapon switching, and I haven't bothered to learn to get used to it.)

If I intend to stay skulk, I will almost invariably get silence first. Maybe its because my ambushes are less than perfect, but I find that being able to run fast and silent behind a marine gets me kills very easiy. Instead of the first thing they hear being my feet, the first thing they hear is more than half their health geing bitten off. They then only have a very short time to react. Works for me.

SOF and xeno

I got 7 xeno kills at once on Angst.

If I'm going to remain a skulk I would get

• 1. carpace
• 2. focus
• 3. scent of fear

Silence is necessary IF you move around a lot. I prefer ambushing and therefore find it unnecessary.

All skulks have a free, crappy version of silence. It's called walking.

Glad we agree on something, meatshield.

Hmmm

for staying skulk...I always go like this...

1 - Carapace
2 - Celerity
3 - Leap or Adren
4 - Silence
5- None or Leap
6 - Xenocide or None
7 - Regeneration or Xeno
8 - SOF or Regen
9 - None or Regen
10 - Your Choice.

So that's what I follow and i'm sticking to it.

Work up to xenocide, usually the best thing to do. I go for it early on, that and cloaking. At which point all the Marines are still lightly armed and more importantly lightly armoured, so you can blow 'em up.

I generally save points when I'm a skulk though so I can have fun as some of the other classes when the Marines get too annoying for skulking.

it depends what you want to do....

if you want to run around and hunt stray rines I'd go something like this

1- Celerity
2- Silence
3- SOF
4- Cara
5- Regan
and so on....

if you want to become a bomber man and xeno it up... I'd recomend this

1- abillity 2
2-
3- Xeno
4- SOF
5- Celerity
6- Cara
and so on

if you want to be a 100% ambush then I'd go something like this

1-
2- Focus
3- cloaking
4- cara
5- regen

and so on and so forth.

so it really just depends on A- what your in the mood for and B- what you want to accomplish thats usually how I determin my orders if I'm going to perma-skulk

another importent thing is that each of theese starts gives diffrent possibillities for other life forms as well. the Xeno skulk allso makes one fun web-gorge and AR-fade both of which are fun and annoying to the marines just keep things like that in mind and explore all your options

Imo you should be getting focus fairly early every time unless you intend to go onos.

Without focus you will be at a disadvantage against marines who get resupply, which is basically all of them.

I kill plenty of rines without using focus

well if i'm staying as skulk i almost always take focus (except for when i get xeno, where i leave one extra point for war/webbing gorge).

if i'm staying as skulk i get silence first sometimes, but mostly celerity if i'm not in the mood for intense play, leap if i'm against more experienced players.

Unless you're going Xeno, then try getting Focus.

I always pick Leap as my first skill, simply because it helps out a lot on those long hallways. Then I go silence > celerity > sof or focus.

I never Xeno, since I'm horrible with it. Then again, I'm horrible at everything.

I dont stay skulk, so ill post what I normally get in any CO_ game..

1) Leap
2)Carapace
3) Regen
4) Save
5) Save OR Lerk
6) Fade or cloaking
Etc etc
I dont like silence really, I like hearin myself

i always think getting regen is a waste for a skulk, especially in co. in co maps, if you are very hurt by the time u wait for regen to heal u u could've made your way to the hive and back with leap. i always get the higher lifeform before regen.

if you lerk, i really don't see the point of getting cloak. it's the least beneficial among all the other lifeforms imo.

if i'm not going to stay as skulk i usually just save up three points from the start and get a fade at level 4. it really helps ur fade at ns that way too. only if i'm having a bad time then i get celerity or cara first before i go fade.

i get: leap, silence, celerity, adren. after that, anything. xeno usually if i stay skulk.

leap, silence, celerity, sof, adren. this comes from only 1 day of playing combat last weekend though

silence, celerity, cara

if i stay as a skulk it would usually be

celerity
carapace
silence
regeneration
adrenline
leap
scent of fear
don't use the last two points (unless i feel like xenoing)

try to be a good fade if u want 1943234243-1 score

dont get clocking unless u are desperate for kills, build up ur skills on bhopping and leap

1.leap
2.1pt
3.2pts
4.fade
5.adren/celeb/regen
6.-
7.focus
8.adren/celeb/regn
9...

1. Leap
2. Celerity
3. Carapace
4. ----
5. ----
6. Fade
7. Regeneration
8. Scent Of Fear
9. Silence
10. Adrenaline

>

If I want to stay skulk I usually get

1.Leap
2.celerity
3.adren
4.silence
5.regen
6.carapace
7.SoF
8.Cloaking/leave depends on weather rines have scanner
9.focus or leave/depend on what i did last lvl
10.I just leave it for the rest of the game

1) SOF
2) Silence
3) Cele
4) Redemption
5) Cara

usually after that, u get kills galor...

but, if u really like cloaking, then u can do this;

1) Cloaking/Leap
2) Cloaking/Leap
3) Silence
4) Xeno

the evil thing bout above strat, is if u have the highest level in the game, then ur the marines r gona be screwed as hell... not only r they still lightly armoured, but u can sneak behind, kill one and detonate, or do what i LUV doing, run along roof while cloaked, xeno ova the group, it helps ur teammates aswell, cos it takes away the anti-focus armour... can u say 'easy frag'?


edit; msg to the post above, cara and redemp skulks r mine sweepers. u can run ova a single mine, and get sent bak 2 hive, heal, repeat and clear the way 4 ur buddies.... teamwork ftw

My focus fade build (which is what I'm best as) is as follows:

1- Leap
2- Scent of Fear
3- Save
4- Focus
5- Save
6- Save
7- Fade
8- Regen
9- Carapace/Celerity
10- Celerity/Carapace

If I'm doing crappy as Fade, I get Regen and/or Carapace and then save up 2 more points to Fade again.

On smaller maps, when I stay skulk, I do this build:

1- Leap
2- Scent of Fear
3- Save
4- Focus
5- Celerity
6- Silence
7- Regen
8- Adrenaline
9- Redemption
10- Carapace

i don't care what map it is, but i always do this:
1 silence
2 SoF
3 Celerity
4 Carapace
5 Regen
6 Adren
7 --- (gorge if needed)
8 --- (lerk if i can be bothered)
9 FADE!

This is a good alround setup, as you have adren, for gorge and lerk, Silence for skulk and fade, Carapace for all of them, Celerity so the fade isn't slow, and regen so you last that bit longer, when you are cut off from the hive.

I never play with cloak(in co)

My uprade step:

1.celeb
2. Silence
3.focus
4.adren
5.leap(I get first adren because leap use many energy)
6.cara
7.regen
8.redeem/sof
9.gorge when hive needs heal
10.lerk

If you want to do some funny and usefull stuff go:

leap
xeno
xeno
silence
adren
cele
save
save
save

This allows you to bomb rines or web/heal the hive or even go AR fade and strip their armor from afar

One of the better levels for this setup is daimos

Celerity, Carapace, Silence. Get those three by starting carapace and ending silence. why? carapace is best upgrade in start w0 marines are having hard time sptting bullets on you while you bite them because you didnt die after that 90 points of damage. Carapace after that because you want to get closer while they have gotten those nasty w1. After that you just cant handle good players with headpads and sg`s so to avoid confortation with wrong end of pellet-shooter silence. After that take a look at the game, if there is yet no intensions of going xeno from anyone have fun!! (luv to blow 5 marines with silence xeno)

SoF. Know thy enemy.
Leap. Reach thy enemy.
Carapace. Outlast thy enemy.
Silence. Surprise thy enemy.
Xeno. 'Splode thy enemy.
Save the rest in case your team needs a fade, lerk, or quick adren gorge.

Am i the only one who never plays combat, and if i did i would never use such a lame/unbalanced "build" ?

Maybe i shouldn't have posted, yeah i shouldn't.

I rarely ever play combat at all anymore. Only with marine vs marine customs really.

BOOOOORING

try the search function?

i play co all the time, in fact, i get bored by NS_ maps unless its siege.

And my choice of ups isn't unbalenced or lame, its very good. Means you can't onos, but who cares, onos are too slow and big.

ive always take cloak first coz its damn fun

Things i see as lame in combat:
Onos (esp. with redempt)
Focus
Xeno skulks