Lurker

ALIEN - TIER 2
Lurker	Evolves From: Runner Evolves To: Ravager Role: A highly mobile alien which packs a punch, good for ambushing and general harassment of the marines supply lines. Guides: No External Guides.

General Information

The Lurker is a large step up from the Runner that precedes it. What it loses in speed and agility is largely gained in becoming a fearsome and destructive force, capable of effortlessly slaughtering any single tallhost that it finds wandering alone, where a Runner might have needed to go for a long, sloppy brawl to secure a kill.

The Lurker is not as fast as the Runner and its Pounce is more cumbersome, having him pin down his target instead of simply flooring him, as well as the need to be cloaked, for the pounce to actually work. However, its attack quickly becomes devastating, capable of tearing a tallhost apart once subdued, meaning that they will usually stand no chance if caught with their pants down. Its health is nothing to laugh at, although it will still go down quickly if focus fired by a group.

The Lurker loses its ability to hide under objects, being a caste of much greater stature, but it gains a fascinating ability to Cloak on activation, for 30 seconds. While the Cloak is far from perfect and will easily be spotted when moving or hiding on a bright background, it will allow the Lurker to hide in far more spots, and to spring ambushes even in the open if it finds a good spot.

Lurker Stats

Maximum Health	450
Maximum Plasma	400
Plasma Regeneration	4.5
Armor	0
Evasion	0
Speed	2.4
Slash Damage	35–35
Claw Strength	2
Explosion Resistance	20

Playing as a Lurker

As a Lurker, you lose your ability to easily dodge attacks in exchange for more solid health and a greater attack. As such, you become more of an ambush caste, with an ability to skirmish and seriously wound tallhosts using hit and run attacks. Your Cloak helps you to set up ambushes, meaning you can wait for the perfect moment to strike instead of making a risky sprint into a potential target, which could reveal an off-screen group accompanying them, a turret, anything that could ruin your day.

While you keep your ability to Pounce, it is important to note that its purpose shifted from a disarming pounce that you and the tallhost will recover from quickly, to a disabling pin that will cause both you and your target to be floored for a significant duration, allowing you to tear them apart while they lay defenseless on the floor. This does mean however that pouncing on someone in the middle of a group will almost certainly get you killed, so avoid it at all costs.

Your Cloak is a fantastic tool. While it is not as reliable as the Runner's Hiding to conceal you for long periods of time, it can allow you to blend into the environment in a pinch to find and subdue a target. The fewer tallhosts expect you, the less they will think to carefully scan their surroundings for that one shimmer in the distance. And remember that cloaking will make you much faster, but it only lasts for 30 seconds. If tallhosts are tracking you down, they will probably see through your cloak unless you find an excellent spot.

Should you find yourself in direct combat, you are still a formidable foe, although you will not take as many shots as your bigger sisters to knock down. It is important that you try and run on the flanks as much as possible, using your Cloak wisely to close the distance without being sprayed down by gunfire from alert and ready Marines.

Abilities

Abilities:	Description:
Rest	Used to rest and get up. Aliens heal faster when resting on weeds.
Regurgitate	To devour, grab a host with Ctrl + Click or Grab intent (3 in hotkey mode) then click yourself, standstill. To stop the host from getting up and running away, you can switch to an empty hand (X in hotkey mode) and keep tackling them using Disarm intent (2 in hotkey mode) when you are devouring them. Xenos with devoured humans inside them can not vent crawl but Xenos with devoured monkeys can. Hosts with boot knives can injure the Xenomorph they are inside if they are conscious. Using this ability with a host devoured will regurgitate them back up, giving a moderate stun. (Edit this template)
Pounce	Pounce at target, pining the victim on the ground and causes them to drop their weapons, but only if you are invisible. Lasts longer than a Runner's pounce, but also makes you immobile for a short duration while you pin the target down. Costs 10 plasma, cooldown: 7 seconds.
Turn Invisible	Turns you partially invisible for 30 (thirty) seconds. While invisible, your movement speed is drastically increased. The further you are from friendly a alien, the faster you are. If you attack or pounce on a target, your invisibility will wear off. Costs 10 plasma, cooldown: 30 seconds.
Crippling Strike	The next target you slash will receive extra damage and be slowed down. This will only work on resting targets. If you attack a target standing while the ability is active, it will use up the strike and the target won't receive extra damage nor the slow down. Costs 50 plasma, cooldown: 12 seconds.
Tail Stab	Activating tail stab will begin a windup of one second, and upon conclusion, will enable you to launch a two tile attack that deals 1.2 times your maximum melee damage. It requires a direct click on the targets sprite, however, if it is missed, it only incurs a standard slash delay. Additionally, it will always hit the targeted limb. Unless otherwise stated, this is shared by all strains. Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Attainable Strains

Strain:
Vampire

Strain Abilities

Vampire

• Health: 390
• Armor: 20
• Slightly faster movement speed - just under that of a cloaked lurker, but always active.

Abilities:	Description:
Rush	A four-tile pounce that causes your targets screen to shake. This ability does not stun them. Cooldown: 6 seconds.
Flurry	An attack that has a range of 1x3 tiles, dealing 30 damage per target and healing you for 30 HP. A short slow is also applied to you upon landing it. This will hit a random limb. Cooldown: 3 seconds.
Tail Jab	An attack dealing 30 damage to the chest, alongside pushing the target back. If you click on the sprite of your target with it, it will deal an extra 15, for a total of 45 damage to the chest, alongside throwing them back. If they impact an obstacle such as a wall, window, door or barricade, they will take more damage and will temporarily be stunned. (Note: for utility can instantly break windows). Cooldown: 7 seconds.
Headbite	A high-damage attack that bypasses all armor, instantly killing your target and healing you for 150 HP. Requires your target to be unconscious and adjacent to you, and has a 0.8 second windup before it will hit them.

Vampire Lurker Stats

Maximum Health	390
Maximum Plasma	0
Plasma Regeneration	4.5
Armor	20
Evasion	0
Speed	2.45
Slash Damage	30–30
Claw Strength	2
Explosion Resistance	20

Lurker Tactics

• Your Cloak is best used when stationary and on a dark background. Moving will not make you any more visible, but humans will have a far easier time spotting your shimmer if it's moving across tiles. Darkness also works fairly well in concealing you, although it is not necessary. Since the tiling used in colonies is often bright outside of bathrooms, maintenance areas, and high-security areas, you might have trouble finding spots to hide in buildings.

• Isolated targets are in essence free kills for you. A single Pounce will disarm them and floor them for long enough for you to start the fight with a handful of slashes. At this point, they might have a window to fight back, but they will undoubtedly be wounded. Make a simple evasive maneuver to avoid CQC weapons like buckshot shotguns and pounce again, and you should have them in the bag.

• If you do need to brawl against a group, or partake in a massive fight, only use your Pounce for evasive maneuvers, and use your regular speed to get close to Marines and slash them. Of course, it is heavily recommended to approach from the rear or sides.

• Your pounce can be used to quickly cover distance, and will let you leap into windows immediately instead of having to climb on top of them. While still not as smooth as a runner simply running over it, this will allow you to travel faster. Be careful though, pouncing into a window frame will stop your movement, so if you do it to attack a host behind it will cause you to stop on the frame. If your target has a shotgun this can end very poorly for you.

Lurker Evolution

Lurkers can only Evolve into one possible caste, being the Ravager:

• The Ravager is the ultimate combat form of the Runner's evolution tree. While it loses some more speed, it grows into a large and powerful Alien, capable of utterly destroying humans even under fire. Your Pounce will no longer pin tallhosts, instead of knocking them off their feet, allowing you to come in for a devastating blow immediately. Your attacks also gain an increased damage, allowing you to unleash devastating blows. You also gain some resistance to explosive stuns (depending on the strain) and immunity to damage from fire, allowing you to engage into fights that would be ill-advised to even the most seasoned Lurkers.

Lurker Stats

Tier 16 Tier 15 Tier 14 Tier 13 Tier 12 Tier 11 Tier 10 Tier 9 Tier 8 Tier 7 Tier 6 Tier 5 Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1 Health Lower Melee Upper Melee Plasma Plasma Regeneration Armor Explosive Resistance Speed Evasion

You can learn more about alien stats here.