The Boiler

[Renomaki]

I myself don't like just how VITAL a boiler is to the hive. Without a boiler, xenos will struggle on defense due to the most effective tactic of the marine side: Blitzkrieg

If marines decide to push relentlessly in large numbers, it tends to make holding ground very difficult for xenos, because a swarm of hard pushing marines throwing CaS and Mortar fire at you in a rapid fashion often leads to causalities or routing. That is where boilers come in.

Boilers are what slows down marine advances. It buys xenos time and helps them hold ground while they skirmish and weaken the offensive, moreso if it was a sudden, poorly planned one with no fallback positions, resulting in a crushing defeat for cocky marines. The more boilers you have, the more hellish attacking xenos on their turf becomes.

A ravager is deadly at conducting constant rapid strikes from the shadows, crushers capable of turning halls into deathtraps, spitters can skirmish from darkness and lay down the acid... But they all cannot hold off a marine assault as effectively as a boiler. And that is the biggest problem: A hive without a boiler is a hive that struggles, or even loses, while a hive with a boiler that knows what it is doing is one that can turn around even the more dire of assaults.

The only other that can accomplish this is a queen, but a queen shouldn't have to do everything... That is what her minions are for. But at the same time, why is it that, out of all her children, the boiler is the most VITAL asset of hive defense?

Maybe drones/hivelords just do a bad job building defenses. Maybe they don't have enough options to make a GOOD defense... Maybe we need more options so that we don't have to rely on boilers so much, which honestly are frustrating and unfun to deal with. I know war isn't supposed to be fun, but still...

We shouldn't nerf/buff boilers, so much as we need to make it so that hive doesn't need to RELY on them just to hold ground. Give more power to drones/hivelords by allowing them more tools and assets so as to make the building of said defenses during the preparation phase of the round more worth while. At least then, you wouldn't have to put all your survival on a single boiler.

[MasterShakeEZ]

Griffith you gotta take a step back and see this from the marines perspective. Elder boilers with wide gas cover the entire fob and make it impossible to defend the barricades because they cant shoot without hitting the barricades from more than like 2 or 3 tiles. Boiler before wider gas did their job great and were essential to the hive. They don't need the wider gas. You also have to realize that boilers are basically artillery pieces. Look at any battle from the American civil war, every time one side routed the other the artillerymen dropped everything and ran and the other side captured their artillery pieces and used it in future battles. That's basically how the boiler is they should be a support weapon that if isn't properly supported gets fucked. They have a lot of power so they have to be counter balanced by needing support to protect them.

[Ttly]

While the gas is the elephant on the room, I would just like to talk about the spray.

It has 5-6 tile range, it instantly knocks people that steps on it, lasts long enough for the boiler to get into cover or run away with speed mutators and is basically a crutch button for them in cave/tunne/cramped space defense for when marines DO push out into them.

I won't talk about how defenders/crushers could also just bodyblock bullets for them which isn't hard with bullet falloff damage but hey, that's teamwork albeit too easy to do if you ask me.

[MasterShakeEZ]

While the gas is the elephant on the room, I would just like to talk about the spray.

It has 5-6 tile range, it instantly knocks people that steps on it, lasts long enough for the boiler to get into cover or run away with speed mutators and is basically a crutch button for them in cave/tunne/cramped space defense for when marines DO push out into them.

I won't talk about how defenders/crushers could also just bodyblock bullets for them which isn't hard with bullet falloff damage but hey, that's teamwork albeit too easy to do if you ask me.

Don't think bullet falloff damage is as bad as it was. You take away acid spray they are completely defenseless, aint gonna happen. They already nerfed it hard.

[Ttly]

I think the boiler deserves to get slapped if marines do push into them like that. They got long range vision, they should have seen it coming.

Even then a good boiler doesn't go out by itself, they would get other xenos to hang around with and hopefully blocks some bullets for them instead, using the spray as a support tool while getting away.

[CABAL]

These suggestions would cripple the boiler and make it useless. I don't see why everyone is complaining about one xeno mutator when the Marines have recieved several Stroger buffs.

Those suggestions would balance boiler into something like catapult, instead of precise mobile gas mortar. No marine buff will counter gas+screech combo. No marine buff will counter gas and available "counters" are already countered by the hive/boiler. Gasmask? Useless shit, gas still reduce your vision even more and you got paincrit anyway, or even just die. Sniper? Only one per whole Almayer and with limited ammo, while benos regenerate health and plasma at very fast rate. Marines with scoped pulse-rifles? No IFF, no incendiary, no dmg and with dmg falloff.
Flanks by marines are super rare becouse they simply don't work. Benos have scouts all over the map and especially around frontlines, benos are faster, benos have instant communication with eachother and benos have multiple crowd control abilities. Try to flank boiler during FOB siege. Queen got you covered.
Try to flank boiler on prison, that has to work perfectly.
Boilers are too accurate, they don't have to worry that other beno will block their sight, they are fast, they nearly never run dry on plasma, even without drones pumping them which would be noce mechanic where it would require cooperation between drones and boilers as artilery crew.

Boilers have only one job and they are too good at it.

[MasterShakeEZ]

Those suggestions would balance boiler into something like catapult, instead of precise mobile gas mortar. No marine buff will counter gas+screech combo. No marine buff will counter gas and available "counters" are already countered by the hive/boiler. Gasmask? Useless shit, gas still reduce your vision even more and you got paincrit anyway, or even just die. Sniper? Only one per whole Almayer and with limited ammo, while benos regenerate health and plasma at very fast rate. Marines with scoped pulse-rifles? No IFF, no incendiary, no dmg and with dmg falloff.
Flanks by marines are super rare becouse they simply don't work. Benos have scouts all over the map and especially around frontlines, benos are faster, benos have instant communication with eachother and benos have multiple crowd control abilities. Try to flank boiler during FOB siege. Queen got you covered.
Try to flank boiler on prison, that has to work perfectly.
Boilers are too accurate, they don't have to worry that other beno will block their sight, they are fast, they nearly never run dry on plasma, even without drones pumping them which would be noce mechanic where it would require cooperation between drones and boilers as artilery crew.

Boilers have only one job and they are too good at it.

Nah boilers were fine a couple of months ago and nothing changed except mutators. You just want to make boilers useless like he said.

[CABAL]

Nah boilers were fine a couple of months ago and nothing changed except mutators. You just want to make boilers useless like he said.

Slower boiler that actually have to aim and time his shots will be useless? The same dmg, old gas range and firerate, old acid spray.
Programing boiler NPC wouldn't be even hard right now. Stand in one place with clear line and then click as fast as possible to shot gas. Brainless gameplay.
And nobody will mention offscreen kills that gas provide, but offscreen kills are only bad for benos, marines can eat shit and die.

Being able to shoot down fast gas projectile makes boiler useless? Makes its spam less usefull.
Slower boiler makes him useless? Right, I forgot that boiler is secretly a runner and speed is essential.

Couple of months ago there were no mutators at all. We won't get old boiler simply becouse of that.

Becouse it wasn't that much complained about back then, doesn't mean that it was fine. Bodydragging was a thing for years, but it was removed becouse it was always broken.

[MasterShakeEZ]

Slower boiler that actually have to aim and time his shots will be useless? The same dmg, old gas range and firerate, old acid spray.
Programing boiler NPC wouldn't be even hard right now. Stand in one place with clear line and then click as fast as possible to shot gas. Brainless gameplay.
And nobody will mention offscreen kills that gas provide, but offscreen kills are only bad for benos, marines can eat shit and die.

Being able to shoot down fast gas projectile makes boiler useless? Makes its spam less usefull.
Slower boiler makes him useless? Right, I forgot that boiler is secretly a runner and speed is essential.

Couple of months ago there were no mutators at all. We won't get old boiler simply becouse of that.

You don't even know how boilers work, surprise. Go play a boiler then tell me what needs to change.

[CABAL]

You don't even know how boilers work, surprise. Go play a boiler then tell me what needs to change.

Oh, I really don't know. Boiler is so versitale. They totally don't just "deploy" to extend view range, choose gas type and click on title they want gas to be.
Boiler works in a way that he can turn invisible and pounce on a marine, then charge at others, then screech, then delimb and finally they run around marines counting on them ff'ing eachother.
Boiler gameplay and how he works require atleast 1000 hours of gameplay to even grasp concept of good playstyle. I say that this is the caste that requires a lot of skill, being robust and taking risk as lone wolf. Totally not a safe gas cannon shooting offscreen.

Play as fob guarding marine during siege with boilers and say what needs to change.