Disclaimer- if there is someone else who has made a post like this, sorry if I'm just rehashing what you've said. So far since I've joined, I've seen a lot of people in game who are very quick to judge and point blame to new players such as myself for not knowing how to play. I'm not a complete gaming noob, as I have played quite a few third person shooters with a similar premise as this game. I've played this game three days and usually find myself in the top 10 in terms of points and kills, even bagging a few commendations along the way. I'm not the best player out there, but I think I know what I'm talking about to a degree. I've tried all eldar classes so far, and the one I seem to have excelled at the most is, surprisingly, the Striking Scorpion. This is just a guide for some basic tips for new players, my way of helping people who may not know what I've found out so far. Rule number 1- Know your race!! For anyone who is unfamiliar with warhammer 40000 lore on factions, here's a brief explanation. Space marines and chaos space marines are heavily armoured, have good HP and tend to be an all comers force. They excel in being able to do all things good, such as melee and ranged, and have staying power from their armour. Orks have higher HP than the other factions and tend to be a melee focused army, while their ranged, although decent, isn't as great as some of the other races. Example - focus shoot with a dark reapers shuriken cannon and a loota boyz deft gun and you'll see the difference. But YOU have chosen to be eldar. You're armour isn't too good, your HP is lower, and you can crumple under any factions fire, no matter how inaccurate it is (I'm looking at you orks). You will struggle alone, because eldar units are not all comers like space marines. They all excel in one chosen role, so eldar, more than any other force, needs to play as a team, big time. DONT EVER go charging into an encounter which isn't one on one (can be more if you are ranged, but even this is dangerous). You will most likely kill down one guy, his friends will kill you, they will bring him back from death and you've wasted your and your teams deployment. Rule number 2- know your Role!! A general overview of the Striking Scorpions would best describe them as an reasonably armoured rogue, which means you are more of a anti-support role (thanks infiniteneen) even though you can dish out good melee damage. If that sounds contradictory, it's because it is. Heavy armour? Rogue? Sneaking? Melee? How does it all come together? I'll tell you!! First things first is stealth. If you press C and crouch, you will go invisible, and it will slowly dissipate as you start running. This will be your first thing to master; stealth. How you approach enemies, when you approach, and how to escape if you're caught in the open and vulnerable. You're Main weapon is a chain sword. It is mainly good against lighter armour, but can still hold out good against heavy armour, especially if you have poison on it (you can find it later in the game). Your secondary weapon is a rapid fire pistol, which is good for melee when you dodge out of the way and can get some shots off before the enemy charges at you, or tries to run. It can also be used to shoot first to soften your target, but this is a bad idea because it will alert them to your presence and your high damage melee strike will be at risk of never coming to fruition. Best to hit first, shoot after. I'm not gonna get into advancement points too much, except to say the most important one you can grab is the Spirit stone which lets you cloak longer. It's under the striking scorpion tree, and it costs about 150 load out points to use, but darn is it worth it. This little gem (pun intended), will allow you to sneak right past enemy lines and they may not even see you, if you are patient and move from cover to cover. I highly recommend this AP purchase; your entire roll is enhanced by it. Rule number 3- How to Stealth with style! Ok, so you've played some games and followed my advice to get your stealth spirit stone with your Advancement points, which is located in your advancement menu. How to use it though?? Cover is your friend. If you're not moving, you are behind and object or a wall, something, anything really. The only exception to this rule is..well, none of it can be helped. You also wanna stop frequently even while running point to point. I stopping, I mean a full stop. You will notice as you run your invisibility field will start to show some colour and reflect light. If you can see this, the enemy can see this. So run, get to cover, and wait until your stealth field comes back!! I find crouching will make it come back faster, but as was pointed out by drunkbobnopants, you don't HAVE to crouch as your stealth shield will eventually recover from Keeing your back against a wall as well. When you are near enemies, best thing to do is find cover that obstructs their view, hunker down and wait for an enemy to be alone, or for backup to come and initiate combat so no one will be paying attention to a semi-visible blur running around. Also, your first strike while stealthed on an enemy will have a good damage boost, so use this to your advantage (Thanks Derelict Heretic!) That's the basics of stealth, but here's a simplified version; Don't get caught! Rule number 4- how to melee like a bad mamajama! This isn't an in depth melee guide, but more things you should know before you even start. This is the most crucial thing I, or anyone can ever tell you about succeeding in melee. Always, I means ALWAYS lock on with left control key. Always. If you don't, you have no focused melee target, and your attacks will be sending you wildly into a wall, off a ledge, past a corner where now all his buddies can see you and tear you up. So L ctrl key always, hold it down. Or change it to whatever u want, I changed mine to left alt key. Make sure you roll. A lot, especially if you have incoming fire in you. You are temporarily invulnerable as you dodge, so use it. You have a light attack, heavy attack and counter. Light attack being right mouse click, heavy being holding down right mouse click, and counter being pressing both left and right mouse buttons together. Light counters heavy, heavy will interrupt counter, and counter interrupts light attacks. As was pointed out by Choppah, your first strike should be a heavy strike always, especially since they probably won't see you. If your first strike connects and the enemy seems unresponsive, give em another big hit. A smart player will usually counter after they get hit unaware, expecting a fast attack right after, which makes sense! So keep them guessing always. Remember WHEN to melee. This is where the support class I mentioned earlier comes into play. Say this to yourself; I WILL wait for someone else to engage the target first, or I will wait until the target is alone. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to take on a target with his his buddy nearby, getting the first hit cause I stealthed like a bad ass through enemy lines, only to realize I don't one hit kill everything like a space marine with a power fist, and then being unsupported and alone get killed. If you are in a group defending a point, be cloaked and wait for a banshee to engage in melee. Even warlocks can melee good, so that's an opportunity as well. Once they are distracted, this is when you strike. When they never see it coming. They will think they are about to be victorious, or think they are going to run and make a clean get away, and that's when you hack them down and disappear again like you were never there. You can also provide support to your dark reapers and dire avengers by staying cloaked on the balcony they are on. Inevitably, a few assault units will jet pack or force their way up, and if there's no one there, they will probably eat your trashy armoured friends in 1 or two hits each. They will never see it coming, trust me. Last thing they will be thinking about is getting back stabbed while Doing the backstabbing. If you are assaulting a point with your group (remember, eldar are a group based force more than any other), your goal is either to protect your rear flanks where your heavy support is, or you can wade into melee (usually not the best idea, because their ranged support will be on balconies or some high point and gun you down). You Are heavy armoured melee, so you can go toe to toe with most enemies, and hold your own, just be careful about going In against two guys at once until you've gotten really good. However, there's a third option, which is personally my favourite. Track where the enemies ranged units are camping, and sneak your way to the balcony (using cover remember) and find the one guy who is alone and kill him. One heavy melee hit (hold tight mouse button down) will usually be enough to kill them or take most of the health away, and you can finish them with one more hit. Rule number 4- know when to run!! So you've snuck through enemies, found your one target alone or with your group and you decide to strike. And then things go wrong. VERY wrong. You start getting shot from a direction you don't know. He counters your melee strike and stuns you, and hits you for half your life!! You're in trouble, and when you are eldar, that means REAL trouble. When these things happens, RUN. Run and hide, crouch and go invisible and wait. If someone follows you, run and hide until they don't. Trust me, you can always come back and try again when they are too busy with other targets, or simply can't track you and give up. You are not there to one man army your way through 2 assault marines being supported by 3 heavy bolters. You Are there to make your hit, and back away, hide, and go to the text target. Rule number 5- Know your enemy! (Thanks Brinjolf for suggesting this) Since you are stealthed most of the time, you are in somewhat of a position of power over the enemy because ideally, they don't know you're about to sneak up and attack them. Before you do, there are some things to consider before chosing the right target! First, look at what weapons they are carrying. Heavy bolters are a good first target because heavy bolters cause suppression, which makes all nearby allies and enemies aiming become much less accurate and their vision blurred as well. They don't even need to be hitting a unit for this effect to happen, often then just need to shoot into a group of People and the effect happens. If you've ever noticed people running around with little red or yellow triangles above their heads that means they're suppressed. After heavy bolters targets you can go for things like lascannons, plasma cannons etc. As Brinjolf mentioned, be wary of armour upgrades of each unit as well. If you know someone has a much higher armour rating than the next guy, take out the squishy guy first because you know your stealth attack will probably kill them outright, as opposed to only take some off health and now you have two people to deal with instead of one, who hopefully doesn't know you are there yet!! I don't wanna drag this out too long, but the last thing I will say is the following. BE PATIENT. Wait if you have too. If you can't find a good target, move a bit and find another. If you still can't find one, wait for your team to start a commotion and strike when everyone is distracted. You will do well to remember you are like a predator watching its prey, rather than a bull in a china shop. If there's anything that sounds outright wrong or bad advice, or anyone wants to add onto it, feel free to. If you think My advice is useless and stupid, feel free to ignore it and do whatever you want. I'm just telling what's worked great for me, changing me from a ranged support class too afraid to get into melee, into a somewhat competent player who usually has 15 -20 kills and I've ended up first place or third a few times out of 20 matches or so. Good luck!
I agree with most of what you say, but front-lining is a bit easier than you make it out to be. given the fact that Scorpions are one of the more heavily armored classes of our faction, and that Banshees and Warlocks aren't, I do feel an obligation to wade into the point cap slaughter sometimes. Also I believe a better classification of our role is Anti-Support, be that heavy or actual healing, though we are often needed on guard duty.
That's true I can change the anti support thing. And you're totally right, I can get in there with everyone else doing melee and hold my own! But i made this as more of a starters guide to get used to it. Once someone has the knack of it, they can get familiar with melee more
Does the Obscuring Spirit Stone even work? Description says it affects cloaking, stat line says it boosts Armor Regen 15%. Edit: Looks like there's some kind of UI display bug. I didn't notice you mention you get a damage bonus on your first strike from stealth.
I would add rule 5: Know your enemy. It helps a lot to disturb enemy line, if you know who to attack first. For example if i manage to sneak behind two enemy Devastors, i first check their weapons and then armors. For example a Devastor with LC and the other with HBolter. In this case i would attack the one with the Hbolter first. But if the one with the Heavy Bolter has for example the first armor upgrade (silver linings) i tend to go for the LC first, because i know that i can kill him fast enough to deal with the Hbolter afterwards. (And i dont have to fear a random dbash in my back)
Let me add on to the melee. 99.99% of the time, you should be heavy attacking, because people will spam Dbashes, and heavy attacks from stealth do MASSIVE DAMAGE. You do want that DPS, don't you? Gotta get that DPS.
Added the section about damage bonus when you strike from stealth and tagged you in there. Thanks! TBH I didn't even know that. The obscuring stone seems to work for me, without it I come out of stealth about 3 seconds sooner. Example- with the stone, if I'm outside a building by a ground level door, I can usually run in, go up a balcony and crouch and be unseen as I move around. Sometime I've literally had people walk right pass me and fight Around me and never spot me. Without the stone I've been spotted as I try to get to the balcony, as it seems I stay in max stealth mode longer. Just what I've noticed, but maybe you are right that the description has nothing there. Maybe it's all in my head and the stone provides some other bonus! Hopefully they patch that with an official description. Section added, thanks Brinjolf! I won't lie, I didn't even think about that, especially the different armour types.
You don't always have to crouch to get the Stealth back. Sometimes, moving from cover to cover, you can get your back to the wall and go invisible. This gives a small time bonus to get yourself moving again. I find this can be very helpful on Agathios getting across the bridges.
Also FORUM MOD!! I don't know why, but when I made this post and tried to edit it, somehow it created two posts called Razmirths striking scorpion starters guide. Since this one is the amended post, is it possible to merge the two into on or just delete the other one? Sorry for the hassle. Thank you!
