Im a complete noob fade and usually die before i can do anything useful. Ive tried to improve myself in co but its hard to find a non-50lvl server. Does anyone have any tips/tricks? What upgrades do you take for fade?

I've asked some really good fades and they say celerity then focus. It is also wise not to treat the fade as an onos. One swipe then run away and heal! But I really suck at fade so there are pros that can answer better.

You should be able to get in two swipes (if the room is full with Marines). If it's a single Marine, you should be able to kill him.

Metabolize is your friend (2nd Hive ability). Use after blinking, it's awesome. If you want good practice, go Fade in a public ns_ game. You'll only have MC's with one hive, so get celerity, hope another Hive is going up, and get regeneration. Then you'll be unstoppable (especially because you have metabolize). Fading is harder with one Hive, but still very useful...

The fade upgrades are usually celerity for MC, focus for SC and regen/carapace for DC. The DC upgrade is mostly a matter of preference, but focus and celerity have signficant advantages over the other options.

Why celerity? Easy. Celerity fades are harder to hit than adren/silence fades. The HL engine isn't the hottest thing since the big bang and at extreme speeds, like a celerity fade blinking, the hitbox and graphic don't always synch up. You get the same effect with celerity lerks. The counter argument is that adren fades can blink longer and more often, but when you learn to manage energy with a celerity fade, it's rarely a problem.

Why focus? Easy. The other two are far less useful and focus with fades makes armor upgrades irrelevant. Without focus, the progression in swipes is 2, 3, 3, 4. With focus it's 1, 2, 2, 2. Focus also plays into the fade strength of hit and run. You're not going to stick around for a long time, so you want to make each hit count and as powerful as you can get it.

Regen and carapace are largely a matter of taste and what the marines are doing. I personally like regen if I'm not facing w3 shotguns/HMGs. If they have those weapons, I use carapace for the extra survivability.

Tips I've found helpful:
-Use the Z-axis. Blinking straight up gives you a new dimension to work with and can confuse the heck out of marines. Blink up, blink down behind them and slash again.

-Learn to manage your energy. You should be able to blink around maps almost non-stop; with meta, dump the "almost." Make a server and just practice blinking around.

-Know how you're getting out of a room. Ideally, you should have at least two ways out of any room you go in.

-Don't shirk teamwork. Fades can operate alone, but they're far better off working with skulks and lerks. Lerks can strip armor like nobody's business, making it easier to drop those marines. Soft targets are good targets.

-It's better to blink out early and with plenty of health. 90% of the time I die as a fade, I can tell that it's because I got greedy and went for the kill rather than watch my own butt. Losing a fade is a potential game breaker.

-Get on a pub and practice attacking. Blink in, swipe once and blink out. Many times you won't even take damage, but that just means you're good to go that much sooner. The classic newbie mistake is thinking that because they're a fade, they can tank a group of marines.

-Take down RTs. Just because you specialize in tearing marines several new orafices doesn't mean you're too good to cripple the marine war chest. In fact, you're a requirement if those RTs are electrified.

-Harass the marine start. I don't know how many times I've seen fades harass MS into oblivion. Taking out a structure can be key. Drop that arms lab or obs or the gold trophy, the advanced armory.

-Get a microphone. I know, it's not a fade tip. That doesn't change the fact that good communication is vital to winning. Remember, there's no "I" in "aliens."

- Blink, then bhop a few times. Saves large amounts of energy while losing minimal speed
- Crouch when blinking, but not while turning. Crouching makes your hitbox smaller, making it easier to fit in places. However, when you're crouched, you have less air control - making it harder to bhop and turn in general.
- Keep in mind the stuck spots on maps, and avoid them. Getting stuck is a sure way of dying.

Don't get regen when you have two hives. The extra armor from carapace > the extra few ticks it'll take you to heal between innate regen + meta. And, with blink, it's easy enough to run to a hive/gorge for a quick heal anyway. But oh boy, when assaulting a room full of marines with upgraded weps, you'll be glad you had that extra armor.

And speaking of armor, keep an eye on it when you're fighting. It's really more important to watch your armor than your hp, because when you hit 0-50 armor, it's time to get the heck out of wherever you are.

Fanty and Duogod are damn good. Try to find demos of them playing (try amped news, and look for matches featuring obs. or refect).

One tip I thought I'd share: only attack marines. Don't hit rts. That sounds like an odd thing to bring up but you'd be surprised how much it matters.

first learn how to bunnyhop.. then, learn to blink by using lastinv, switching to swipe and back after every blink. its incredibly hard to master but youll propably be able to blink perfectly then.

edit:

plugins are the biggest evil indeed.

skulks kill rts, fades kill rines.
blink, alot. don't hold, tap.

50lvl or not.. combat is good for one reason.. practise against insane odds.

If you are a fade with only one DC up, one MC up and one SC up (or even less) and you fight rines who have more ups then the game original holds (plugins bah) you know youre good if you live it.

Holding blink will cause you to spam blink, wasting precious energy and making you stick on walls.

Practice short blinks.

Fades can withstand punishment but remember that you got to make a clean getaway, especially when you need to put up with more than two rines.

I'd say go for Adrenaline, Focus and Carapace or Redemption.

With focus, it is possible for fades to crack HAs (but you still need Skulkbuddies!)


When Fade, try to have a gorge nearby, too.

Remember too, that when you are a Fade, you are responsible for the pure rine killing. When your team says big inc somewhere, then it is you who has to get there and at least cause a killspam:D

I personally don't like going Fade because they are so bigand eeewwwwww they cant stick or climb walls :/
But as soon as somebody does /res, then they immediately flame me for being a res**** gaaah

(me is gorge/skulk player y'know)
Though Fades are needed for major offensive stuff, I don't think its a shame to be a defensive Fade. Staying alive and protecting gorges is likely honorable!


$parki

Definately use Celerity and not Adrenaline, sure at the begginning you may get more kills with adren, it even becomes a crutch that severtly limits your potential.

Personally, as a Fade, I find that teamwork is a requirement. Two fades working in tandem (microphone required) are nigh unstoppable. I don't know what the heck nigh means, but it sounds right for that sentence, by the way. Generally speaking, having skulks distract marines and then rushing in for the choppy choppy works.

true. I have seen a hive1 fade combo just tear through HMG/Shotty/GL lvl3 armor3 HA train as if they were nothing. Really impressive. Especially since I was med/catspamming.

<3 pubs

Even better than practice on Combat, try finding a Custom map server that runs alot of Siege maps. Nothing's better for improving your alien game. -EVERY- Marine is going to end up with L3 upgrades, a Heavy or Jetpack, big guns.. you don't have Cara+Regen+Redemp to rely on like in Combat, either, and (speaking from experience) the rest of your team is going to be no help.

Regen on a Fade is no good in games like this, so practice with Carapace. It doubles your longevity, as that +100 armor translates to 3 health. In situations where using Regen would get you killed just as you fled around the corner, Carapace will keep you alive. I recommend Adrenaline until you get the hang of Metabolizing and energy management (don't hold the Blink key, as others have said) and then switching over to Celerity when you are more confident. Fades are hit-and-run, not stay-and-fight. Regen isn't going to help you out in the short times you're in there and Celerity gets you to and from the action better.


Blink into the room, go up high. Most Marines are looking at the ground for Skulks. Once you're at the apex of your blink, look down, find a nice target who's reloading or running away.. Blink straight down at him and swipe. Wigglewalking to catch up to fleeing Marines who are just a few steps infront of you is also better than blinking over (if you're not getting shot at.) Another good tactic you should definately try is hopping over the Marine's head. It's frustrating as a Skulk when you have Marines doing this to you, and doubly so when you do it to them. You run in, get up close, hit them once.. then blink straight up, then straight down behind them. It works well because they're tracking you laterally, have to look up as you blink above them, then turn around as you fly over, then look down again as you land. It can really throw off their aim, especially when you do this a few times and they end up with no idea where you are.

This works AWESOME on open maps.. Examples:Volcanodrop, Freefall, Spacefall, etc, etc, etc..

Regen works good if you're going to camp a JP room with 3 guys on your tail, especially if you're going to wait for a siege door to open. How to evade:
1.blink randomly, don't be on the same level as the jetpackers are, or they will get a clearer shot.
2.Use metabolize to get your energy back and heal yourself in-between assaults.
3.Don't try to hit the jetpackers in mid-air. Most likely you'll miss. Instead hit them when they're running out of energy and are forced to hover down.
4.Hide as often as possible, and don't ever come out the way you went in.
5.TAP the blink, NEVER EVER hold it, or you will be sitting fade.

I'm a pretty good fade (nowhere near Duo's league) and I like adrenaline. Celerity and adrenaline pander to different playstyles. With adrenaline, I can blink all around a large room, causing most marines to waste bullets (some clanners will usually wait until they can get a good shot, though) and then go in for the kill.

Adrenaline also makes a fade great as a support unit. Skulks can kill marines just as well as fades if they can get to the marines and have the time to bite them. If the marines are concentrating on me, then my skulk buddies can come and share the feast.

Adrenaline and celerity have their advantages, don't knock adrenaline.

Oh, and the most important piece of advice:

The fade that fights and runs away lives to fight another day. (Or in this case, second)

adren just doesnt cut it when youre facing 4-5 shotgunners and/or hmg'ers with w2. better to just learn some adren management.

my grandma is faster than a adrenalin fade, and she be dead.

good point. If you can't manage your energy then you're screwed. Silence actually helps alot too in classic maps. It's better not knowing you're there than knowing you're coming faster.

Comparisn:
No MT: Not prepared>semi-prepared marine
MT:Prepared for a lerk/skulk>prepared for a fade

Use mwheel to blink, get celerity

Personally, I think you need to have a good bit of air control to celerity fade, because if you don't then you might get stuck on every turn/object. Don't fade like you're an onos, just hit and run. Try to waste people's ammo and get them when they're reloading.

You'd be surprised how many marines you can kill by surprise with a silence fade. We all know that fades are coming by the characteristic blinking sound - but if it's absent, we won't be looking for a fade behind us. Yes, it doesn't work all the time - but sometimes, you can get in and swipe before the marines even start shooting.

Silence fade would work wonders if you know the marines don't have/aren't getting motion tracking.

One of the best tips I have for fading is this:

1) set hud_fastswitch to 1. Just add it to your userconfig.cfg file.

2) Bind all the weapons/slots to a key. For example (before I got a 5-button mouse) I used:

Mwheelup: slot 1
mwheeldown: slot 2
q: slot 3
z: slot 4


This gives you access to all of your attacks in one keystroke - something I find essential for good fading.

bind "mwheelup" "+attack"
bind "mwheeldown" "+attack"
flick the mousewheel once every time you land tbh
I don't recommend it for using this method to engage marines; I view this like bunnyhopping. It's good for getting around the map, but as far as attacking marines head-on, it's pretty sucktastic.

One of the best fades in Australia (I'd say hes better than the top fades in EU/US) uses Adrenaline. With adrenaline you dont blink straight, you blink up on a 75 degree angle to the roof, this will increase your airspeed by alot, you will keep this airspeed up until you touch the ground again.

This fade though gets raped when ambushed because he may be slow to react and not quick enough to escape, but this usually never happens because he's so good.

#1 ns player in world yo

Lets see some demos. No offence, but I'm pretty sure every decent fade in the world know's how to arc. Energy control is a different story, however, and rasing the cap speed at which one can blink is far more deadly/useful in most situations than being able to blink for extended periods of time.

Nobody uses silence?
Silence Fades are absolute deadly. It's really easy to get behind a Marine with Blink+Silence. And many Marines tend to lose track of you if you blink around with silence.

Used it on pup, used it in a cw.


Btw. Chuckle rocks

It always amuses me when one of those ppl who whine when they die blinks straight at 3 marines with shotguns. The omg hax!!11 and bs!!!11 makes me smile. You haven't been against good rines till you get killed while blinking in.

Just play against crazy odds in CO if you dont want to get yelled at in NS. Let the marines get whatwever they want and for upgrades and abilities you get... nothing.

In NS maps, manage your energy and know thy territory.

the truth is fades can't really take that much when they are standing still

and there is no need for adreneline expecially if you have focus since focus gives you 2 swipes at once for the power of one

I think Focus on Fades is overpowered -_-

I wonder if the balance of wins would edge back closer to 50% if fades can't take focus.

I think... if i were to tell someone new to fading one word to sum up good fading... it would be "survive".

play smart:

land all of your swipes (very important)

have high situational awareness (both locally and of the whole map)

always have a second escape route

the commander will always comm chair block you, therefore, always use crouch in doorways when blinking out

work on your adren usage until it barely goes down at all for every blink

use celerity

always try to retreat the way you came from if possible