Since the NSL team is making efforts to make gathers more fun again, I think there is a need to explain if and why the sentry strat is weak, and how exactly to beat it.

I have observed 4+ gather games now where the sentry strat was utilized, and it almost always resulted in a marine win, and the gathers usually died after those games, because people were frustrated and pissed off by it.

I have heard of many people that they dont play gathers anymore because of the sentry strat, that is very popular there.

For everyone who doesn't know what the sentry strat is:
Example for Veil
1. Power build robo in Operations
2. 4 man to nano, 1 man build sentries in base (against base rushes)
3. Crush nano because of 4 man
4. Build sentries in nano

Lets hear some counter-strats and effective ways to fight this, please

Counter strats are rush in main base, early pack play and a very good coordination (and of course not letting bubba com). It's easy to win against it with your team but no with random good players.

But it's not the point, sentry strat is an all-in strat with a full PvE game. We nerfed whip/crag for these reason so maybe we need to nerf sentry for comp mod (two turret max)? It looks like a lot of players like sentry, even premier div , because it has no impact on their marine accuracy.

And no need to ask why there is 1/2 gather a day

Edit : Or maybe we can put back whips and crag at 8 res and rebuff umbra. I know a lot of players whined about it but if marines want to turtle with sentry every single game alien can counter it with a lot of defensive structure. That way everyone can have a fun and interesting game.

The problem is even when you beat it its just so boring.
Shitty to play and boring to play against.
Like some other ppl im not going to sign up for gather when every game turn in a sentry fest, i play gather because its fun not to be bored to death.

Why not eject the com which is using this strat? Or Alien could make a troll game each time this strat is used.

I don't even understand why marines still agree to play this strat, it's so boring for both teams and specs.

Actually, the solution seems pretty simple for me, gather are dying cause of this strat, so forbid this strat.

In one hand, more players are gonna play again, they gonna be happy together, say hello, gg.

And in the other hand, the player using this strat (yes just one) gonna be upset and won't have any choice but to learn how to become a good com (yes I spec gathers and his alien commanding was so bad).

Finally it's a win/win idea. More players / new skills as a com.

Congratulations to Tinki (4th post), Shanks (1st post), Duivel (1st post too) & Keen (2nd post). That proves they're active enough on the forums.

2hrsLater & 3hrsLater do not like the sentries strat. As a 2hrsLater member, I can only say +1.

But more seriously, is it really interesting to see the same strategy everytime? Statistically, I can only admit gathers become empty after a team used this. Unfortunately, we cannot change that, if people agree to choose said people as Commander & follow his strat, what can we do?

And no Unique & Bubba, I won't add you as Admin on the NSL Teamspeak. Haha.

Thx Pelargir we love to help the community and make ns2 gather a better place :love:
Badge please ?

Pelargir says

And no Unique & Bubba, I won't add you as Admin on the NSL Teamspeak. Haha.

Goddammit bubba shall not stop these Sentry Strats until he gets his free admin rank and i want it too, just to have some payback due to your muting skillz.

Rush the battery with mucus and gorge support?

something like three skulks can take down a sentry battery.

unless NS completely changed the last weeks, it's fairly simple

mass expand & rush bile bomb, get ups later
ignore turret farms, focus on rest of the map

once bile is up, crush the turret locations together. should be quite easy to get rines out of position, they need to push against your mass expansions and won't have pgs at this point (because of turret invest they try to catch up w1/a1 at this point).

takes one guy to call "avoid the sentry farms" and 2:30 mins later another call to group up with a gorge. done.

blind says

unless NS completely changed the last weeks, it's fairly simple

mass expand & rush bile bomb, get ups later
ignore turret farms, focus on rest of the map

once bile is up, crush the turret locations together. should be quite easy to get rines out of position, they need to push against your mass expansions and won't have pgs at this point (because of turret invest they try to catch up w1/a1 at this point).

takes one guy to call "avoid the sentry farms" and 2:30 mins later another call to group up with a gorge. done.

That's the hard way. If no one is defending the turrets, you need 2 skulks who tag team the battery while the comm mucous' them. It's THAT easy. People just let their minds get so fucked when they hear sentries, no one works together.

If 2 guys are defending the turrets, just pack team everything OTHER than where sentries are. Or, since it's a gather, you can most likely get away with 5 manning the whole thing with mucous.

I heard a good strat from Slekan yesterday in a gather, rush with 4-5 skulks into nano against 3 marines and turrets and have one skulk biting the battery... seems legit? xD

No but as blind said, make them hurt on all the other sides, try to keep skylights/overlook and topo down all the time.

When the lerks come out, just kill the cappers all the time and have the marines stay in nano without doing anything important. And as soon they push out of nano, you just pick them off while the others are trying to retake sky or topo.

ban bubba, beat the strat

Not sure why people are whining about sentries. You can beat this strat in a few ways that are fairly easy to do.

1) You can either try to do an early baserush through the opposite side of the 4 marines. This is very risky, because the sentries in base will most likely be up when you reach the base and there will be a marine and the commander to defend it. You will likely need 4-5 skulks going in there at the same time, not one-by-one. If you fail this attack, which is probable depending on the aim of the marine in base and the commander, then you will have a very hard time getting back into the game. I much prefer the slow approach to counter it as described beneath.

2) This strat is a huge earlygame investment from the marines side, and basicly frees up the rest of the map for the aliens to cap early. It delays the marines upgrades alot and aliens will get better income if they utilize the opportunity to cap the southern part of the map, maybe including c12 or overlook or both.

As soon as marines leave nano to pressure the many resnodes that are free for aliens to take, then you can take out nano with 1-2 skulks and maybe a gorge if the skulk(s) are terrible or if there is a marine left behind to defend it. While the rest of the skulks are free to scout the other marines and defend the harvesters or attack extractors.

IMO it's a really bad strategy for marines, as they can't afford to leave nano open because they put a significant investment into it. And I figure that the alien teams that lose to it, simply doens't know how to counter it, because it's extremely rare in regular team matches. Probably because it's a bad strategy to utilize in the first place. All the strat does is give temporary map control at nano.

Those are the ways I can think of countering it. The latter is pretty easy to do, even for gather teams if they have a somewhat decent comm that know how to counter it and doesn't just give up when he loses his cysts in nano.

Nano strat is robo (10 tres), [battery + 2 turrets] (15 tres), (battery + 3 turrets). (20 res).

If i math right, that's 45 res, which puts it only 2nd to pgs first which is at 60 res. Both these tactics delay the upgrades for so fucking long.


Right now the gorgeupgrade is bio up 1 (15 tres) + bio up 2 (20 tres) + bile upgrade (15) = 50.

That makes bile more expensive than the turret and gonna put them even further behind than the lack of nano already is doing - thats really a no go in the short run.

The resturrets are still biteable, since the turrets will be placed between the power and the rts. Since the marines would only have the res for 1 tower, assuming meds were spendt, they are gonna have a bad time. Their economy will be crawling up from absolutely nothing to next to nothing. This is the fact that the aliens have to use, AFTER they went strait for the base to try and win the game strait away. the aliens really only need to hold main and a natural RT to get lerks up at a reasonable time - This should give the aliens the upper hand, if the skulks have been resbiting. Commander can easily get 1 RT up with PVE, which should allow his 5 players (and maybe himself) to bite tasty res.

On my own end, I am actually gonna check out how long it would take a whip (maybe with healing from a crag) to clear the turrets in nano. (build in dome?)

TL:DR - What swalk said

@tinki - maybe just lower the HP of turrets and/or battery. having 5 skulk group up to clear nano is damaging enough as it is.

TBH - I do not see this as a viable strategy, Its an all in, not to kill a hive, not to close the aliens in, but to force aliens to get their naturals instead, and you get nothing. SG rush is more viaable than this. And if you want to go for nano "viably" as a strategy (not as a reaction), mines IMO is the way to go.

Can you sign my mousepad?

Ixian says

TL:DR - What swalk said

I don't really care if you read it or not. It was a reply to the OP.
Funny thing is, you made a post that was just as long.

SammyG says

Can you sign my mousepad?

Sure, just ask for my adress on steam. That's fan service.

Swalk please, I don't want my mousepad signed by you.

I replied to Ixian for a very specific reason that is in no way related to what anyone has posted about the topic.

Sentries are easy to beat and you have a variety of ways to beat them. Stop being noobs :)

SammyG says

Swalk please, I don't want my mousepad signed by you.

Ouch... someone please call the fire department! We have a 3rd degree burn here :)

Ryssk says

SammyG says

Swalk please, I don't want my mousepad signed by you.

Ouch... someone please call the fire department! We have a 3rd degree burn here :)

Everybody wants their mousepad signed by me. Most just don't want to admit it ;)

If i just wrote, TL:DR - What swalk said without any of the above, It would not have mattered. The point is, that our analisys is almost alike, which should contribute the a general consensus to the frequent "noobs", whom inhabit some profiles here and there, that this strategy is 'baaaaad', and if the enemy team cannot respond in a exploiting way, they do no deserve that game anyhow. The strategy, requires one marine in nano at all times, to deny resbiting (the room is filled with blind spots) or rushes from the aliens. Since the aliens will go for a bare minimum the commander and log out and be on the field, which will make it 4v6 - the marines will (unless fulgo is haunting all mousearms), loose all engagements from this point on. (DATA out!)

And yes, I will sign your mousepad. Send me the money to buy one, and i will ship a signed copy to you! x)
(I guess the reason is the whip (+crag) idea or????)

EDIT: i get it now... i get it...

How do you feel now Ixian? :D

Pelargir says

How do you feel now Ixian? :D

Shamefully ashamed of myself >x(

Can beat this strat, use your brain, figure this out, thank me later.

PS: we found an easy way to do it with Ixian, you guys have also good ideas, stop moaning.
PS2: and this strat isn't even THAT OP.

Ixian says

Pelargir says

How do you feel now Ixian? :D

Shamefully ashamed of myself >x(

Was wondering how long it would take you to notice :P

i stopped playing gathers cause of the mines strag.
they are so much op and ruining almost every gather.
and now give me the next thread about arcs are op, noobs

F4.

Aliens now almost always organize at least 4 skulks to para and guard nano, but since shade hive buffs it's way more common on veil to counter arc at nano and to crush the push.

>go shade hive
>get parasites up on rines
>hullicination crush their first push(you get 3-4 hullincated skulks for 3 tres, hallucinations are basically a free won first engagement with the full team)
>get shade for ink in case they ark

unfortunately that means other hive types are no longer viable on veil. Not a big deal though, veil has always been one of the quirkiest competitive maps,

Even if you go shift hive and enzyme a gorge to put down a tunnel and build pve, it's not physically possible to get pve up before the 4 marines are able to get into nano(around 50 seconds)

duster says

unfortunately that means other hive types are no longer viable on veil.

What?

Simba says

duster says

unfortunately that means other hive types are no longer viable on veil.

What?

less viable*