I am doing my personal secret project which requires watching old matches. While doing this I did get idea to show some great game play of past to you guys. I do believe this is one best ways to learn stuff and I don't really have to do much work for this kind of video guides. If you like this kind of guides I can make more in future.

The first clip is about what to do when marines hold strong PG position(s) as aliens. I do find that people tend to this wrong many times. Of course you should prevent marines to get strong PG positions but against equally skilled team that is really hard. When the PG is up what you should do as alien? Well, Archaea's solution was to destroy all the RTs around PG and force 1-2 marines to cap and then crush the PG position. In nutshell you want to use your mobility as alien to spread marines around the map before launching an attack to important location. This way you can make mismatch combat situations.

Here is the clip:

http://youtu.be/fkhT5fAnnvY?t=1h10m32s

It's important to notice the work skulks did in that clip. Skulks didn't go to fight against marines but straight to RTs and forced marines to come out. This when you take them out. Marines with PG don't afford to sent lots marines defend RTs or cap then because then you leave PG or base unprotected. What you saw was that other lifeforms defended these skulks against marine cappers. Fade is fastest unit in this game and can both defend skulks from cappers and put pressure on main marine force. Godar couldn't do good pressure because they were under four RTs all the time and when finally get enough res to siege the hive it's all in from their part. They are down to two RTs and can't even afford to med spam. Even if they would have destroyed that hive they would have lost.

Spread those marines out and take them one by one. That's it.

Nice :)

NS2 at its best :] great vid man...

This is common practice for high level play in my honest opinion. This situation is what i think a lot of teams struggle with. They know they should crush the phase gate before it goes up, and are in position to do so. But many times, the aliens have already lost a lerk or a fade by this point. And against strong marine teams, with good shots, this would be impossible.

Many times, marines could even advance to get a second phase gate for more offensive pressure. I've seen this many times too, the 3 phase gate triangle. Aliens are backed up even further. You have to keep up the res pressure as aliens and get your lifeforms back up to crush a gate.

So when a strong phase gate goes up, what should you do? Well first, look at what lifeforms you have up. If you don't have fades or lerks or an onos, you most likely aren't going to take that phase gate. Then ask yourself, what guns are on the field? How many marines have shotguns? If all the marines have lost their SG's , its so much easier to take the gate, even without fades.

I always like to add the counter perspective of what the marines did wrong and how to improve here or how to respond to the suggested alien play.

When that PG went up, lerks were the only lifeform available.
There was inappropriate marine pressure in observation and repair/logi.
Platform / mezz were lost (marine naturals).
Elevator RT was capped.

This is a relatively strong position for marines to consolidate and capitalise from. (1:10:55)

You want to be able to hold your important res which would be the warehouse/platform nodes, because losing those means any pressure from ore --> repair will result in an immediate rotation to defend PG (and also ez rotation 2 mezz RT and base harassment)
They have few effective lifeforms so marines are in a "golden age" period where they are most effective in pressure and can pull more lifeforms.

Marines should sure up the zones leading to RTs and recapping with a 2-2-1 split.
2 in ore holding pg (for now)
2 in north tunnels (1 zoning, 1 capping)
1 mezz (he sacks elevator, it's a good trade because if he leaks skulks through mezz/base/north tunnel vent, it's a fucking bitch for the north tunnel marines and decreases their chance of succeeding and getting the team back on their feet. He can also zone through hub to north tunnels if 1 of the north tunnels guys dies, and the spawner can retake mezz.

This sets up the situation where there is strong defence on PGs, relative strong north tunnels zoning, and mezz is quite weak (although short respawn run, strong position, and ability to back off and buy time).
Aliens have the choice of grouping up for pg, crushing it but giving marines all the res, so the marines can SLOWLY zone up the map, pick skulks, and rebuild PG.
Group up and crush north tunnels where they can then get trapped by the 2 ore, 1 mezz, respawners PHASE THROUGH AND PRESSURE.
Group up and crush mezzanine where the ore guys pressure ez pz hive repair, pull all lifeforms or lose hive and then marines can consolidate (quicker than aliens building a hive ((3mins)) ).

Now the most important marines in all these situations is the pressure. At the moment in tane's video we have split pressure repair/logi and observation. This is useless because then you're using 3 marines to zone RTs / cap RTs / defend PG and aliens are happy on 2 harvesters anyway. 4 harvesters is obviously 100% worse but fades are almost inevitable at this stage and you want to be absolutely prepared for the important lifeform picking fights.

So, really the most important marines here should be the ORE processing marines. These 2 marines need to pressure repair to pull lifeforms in the anticipation of a successful 2x SG hive push. A PG under attack for 5-6 seconds is no problem. PGs have health and can survive. As soon as the PG is under attack, the repair marines can zone back and frag the skulks. This bait on the PG means fewer skulks on the field biting RTs, meaning that when the RTs are up, it'll be easier to clean up the skulks that do leak through and zone the PG with res cappers.

The fewer marine RTs are alive, the more sensitive that marine pressure has to be to pressuring and defending the PG and the more successful they have to be. When there are more marine built RTs, the less important that pressure team because they can instantly be replaced, and then they can go res defend on the respawn (although when all marine RTs are up, it should be so easy to stop skulks getting through in the first place).

At 1:12:15 we see the important RTs are up and all Godar needs to do is zone out the skulks in north tunnels (who gives a shit about mezz at this point really) and base, whilst the ORE marines pressure. Then those ORE marines need to pull lifeforms to repair and stay alive whilst mezz recaps / ele recaps and tech goes. If they get cleared, ez pz rotate from north tunnels and spawners phase. BUUUUUUUUUT, valk pushes hub, duddi tries 2 hard to cap a SG and doesnt actually zone out the skulk who was biting mezz so he's trapped himself between the hub skulks/lerk and mezz skulk. The mezz skulk goes platform aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the chase restarts for the marines...


Summary: Learn your priorities on what is more important to defend, and don't be afraid to bait the skulks onto the structures because those structures take a fair bit of time to kill.

Very interresting video, this is very well played and this remind me of Reddog :O

btw nice pavé Wob that's very usefull !

Hyste says

Very interresting video, this is very well played and this remind me of Reddog :O

btw nice pavé Wob that's very usefull !

Reddog was best