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The Art of Melee: Melee with Aliens Where have all the Aliens vs. Predator 2 melee predators gone? It seems that, at least these days, the game is completely littered with plasma-spammers and, as I like to say, “disc-jockeys.” Granted, I’m an advocate of using all the weapons that have been put at one’s disposal, but the fighting I’ve seen in your average AvP2 server is full of players who don’t even touch the combistick or, God forbid, wristblades. I remember seeing far more melee predators in AvP2’s earlier days, and that includes games in unlocked, non-clan servers. As a matter of fact, the only places you can go these days to be sure of meeting a master of the combistick are clan-servers. Advertisement I urge all beginners to transition from un-moderated, spammy servers to well-respected clan servers. Not all of them are great places to play, but they’re a definite step up from where most players choose to play. Now that you’re starting to earnestly play with skilled people, it’s time to completely rearrange your arsenal. I assume most people prefer to use the following weapons most of all: the plasma pistol, remote bombs, plasma-caster and disc. Curious, isn’t it? That list includes the predator’s most unskillful weapons. It’s time to revamp your list to look a lot different. The new list of weapons that will replace the above list is as follows: the combistick, wristblades and netgun. Yes, I know the netgun is a projectile weapon, but since it’s used in conjunction with the combistick and the wristblades so often, I will include it in this guide. I’d also like to note that, as far as the speargun goes, that’s an entirely different weapon than the combistick and wristblades, and even though it’s still definitely not “cheap,” I am still omitting it from this article. You will use “the three,” as I will call them, exclusively from now on for training purposes. Using only the three for a substantial amount of time will help your overall proficiency with them considerably. You have to get to know these weapons if you want to master them. Apply them to all situations, and, with some time and effort, you will prevail with them like you never could with the disc or plasmacaster. If you have a problem straying away from the more untactful weapons, you might as well stop reading this article right now. (I do apologize to those of you who try to melee and are waiting for the real tactics to come in. Patience!) Before I get into the actual utilizations of the three, it’s absolutely imperative that I go over the basic movements that fundamentally go hand-in-hand with them. To be honest, melee is more about maneuvering yourself both swiftly and shrewdly rather than swinging a big spear around like an escapee from a mental institution. The aliens, even the praetorians and predaliens, are all fairly quick brutes, and most of the time they can rout you and tear your legs or head off before you can get a single swipe from the combistick in. To put it bluntly, you cannot blindly mash on your mouse in hopes of destroying them; just because you’re a bad-ass yautja who just-so-happens to melee doesn’t guarantee victory. Rather, you must use crafty, yet still simple strategies to outmaneuver them. This is no easy feat. Outmaneuvering a runner is next to impossible, but with plenty of practice and precision, it can be learned and eventually mastered. Note the following screenshot... Perfect timing, such as that demonstrated in the above picture, is a required ability when using melee. Make sure you keep your eyes on the enemies -- even keeping a mental note of their locations while you focus on something else can be the end of you. If you’re completely surrounded, or multiple aliens are coming at you from even one direction, retreat to a nearby area that may be more beneficial to you, like a bottleneck of boxes where only one alien can get through at a time. Do whatever you can to make the oncoming horde more manageable. If this means ducking into a ventilation shaft, or leaping in between two pillars, do it. It’s imperative to keep notice of when exactly you think your enemy is going to pounce; and prepare for it. If you’ve been playing this game for two years, like I have, this comes easy. I have, through constant hours of fighting aliens, memorized the approximate pounce-reload times of each class -- except for the praetorian, which does not pounce at all. Does this mean I count off after every pounce to give me an exact idea of when my foe is able to unleash yet another one? No, it means I automatically become aware, through some inherent memory in the back of my head, of approximately when my opponent’s pounce reload time is over, and he/she is able to pounce once again. The only way to gain this trait is to observe each class’s pounces and play AvP2 quite often. (Some aliens don’t pounce for two main reasons: either they prefer to get in close and tail-swipe you, or they’re trying to confuse your sense of when they’re going to pounce. To conquer this, you must know your opponent, and adjust the way you’re moving accordingly.) While many aliens like to circle their prey, that doesn’t mean you can’t do the same to them. Moving in circular paths around your adversaries can disorient them no matter what species they are, and getting the drop on them this way will help you win. Take a look at the picture below... Praetorians aren’t slow, cumbersome creatures, but I still find them the easiest to encircle of all the classes; because the players who choose them often tend to be slow and cumbersome themselves. Once you see a praetorian coming at you, sit there and wait -- wait until when the beast is almost right on top of you -- then move towards it to the left or right, and swiftly turn around to attack from the unguarded rear. Despite the heavy armor-plating on praetorians, the head is still highly vulnerable, and its large size makes it an easy target that simply cannot be passed over in favor of a torso-shot. Don’t be afraid of praetorians; just be prepared, 'cause they tend to be just bunny-hopping pushovers. Take the fight to them. Now, on the other hand, predaliens are an entirely different creature. It can be frustrating to melee against them, especially when they opt to just mash the ‘e’ key all of the time, without even considering any other type of attack. Predaliens have almost no pounce-reload time, so always be ready to leap out of the way, lest you be devastated by a hit. Just don't lose your head, and keep in mind that a predalien’s greatest advantage isn’t what little skill that can be employed with it... but its acid. I’ve found myself succumbing to the acid of predaliens more so than any other alien, so it’s important to remember to keep your distance from them, and extensively use nets (which I’ll cover later on in the guide). You'll want to exclusively aim for the heads, since a hit to any other location on a predalien won’t do enough damage for you to out-survive them in the long run of the fight (especially when the acid is a flyin’). This means you may have to aim higher than normal, and it also means you may miss quite more often; but, trust me, it’s worth it when you don’t get a baptizing by acid. Drones and runners are far quicker, but a lot easier to take out. Don’t be afraid to “go for the jugular,” when they’re around, since only the most experienced of them will be able to make it through your combistick alive to pose a threat equal to that of a predalien. If you’re stunned, your best option is to take out the netgun and fire nets rapidly, which can sometimes buy you enough time to start moving again. If you’re all out of nets, your best bet for survival is to swivel quickly, so you’re not flanked, while flailing the combistick. It may seem rather dumb to randomly swing your spear everywhere, and it does contradict what you want to do when you’re not stunned, but it has saved me many-a-time. To sum it up, always keep your eyes on your opponent, don’t panic-swing unless stunned, note pounce times and try to predict where the pounces will land, and retreat to advantageous terrain when outnumbered. Move cleverly and quickly, and you will survive. One of my favorite strategies when fighting aliens -- something that I’ve noticed can really help you if you’re having trouble -- is to back myself against a wall. I know, I know. From a rational point of view, it would be insanity to corner yourself, but it sure as heck works well enough for me to piss off nearly any alien I use it against. I usually find them screaming, “Stop hiding against the wall!” Anyhow, take a look at the following picture... Although you cannot see it, my back is most certainly facing the wall, thus forcing the alien to confront me head on. I don’t have to worry about my sides or back, which allows me to completely focus my attention in one direction. This is certainly a scenario in my favor; if the alien chooses to pounce at me, I can leap upwards or to the sides to avoid him, and then follow it up with a few combistick slashes when I meet the ground. This is exceptional against runners and drones, so long as they aren’t in large numbers, but it can be a death trap if a predalien or praetorian comes along. If ever one of the big boys come along, I can't stress it enough: escape immediately! This is because, as I said earlier, you don’t want to face the larger aliens head on; you want to get them from behind by circling behind, or, in the predalien’s case, get them caught in a net. When you corner yourself, you force the enemy into a frontal versus frontal battle, which isn’t what you want to do against a predalien or praetorian. Keep that in mind, and I’m sure you’ll be able to use this tactic quite well. On to nets. Take a very close look at the picture below... This is basically how you’re going to want to use nets when on the offensive. Most people think nets are worthless against aliens; that the lil’ bugs are just too quick to make the netgun a viable weapon. Well, I kindly disagree with them. Getting a net-shot in on an alien is only a matter of timing. The best time to net an alien is after they’ve pounced, because they won’t be able to pounce out of the way of the incoming projectile for a second or two due to the reload-time, and because they're probably close enough now to net. Assuming your first net, or string of nets (some people prefer to fire two or three nets at a time), trap your intended foe, immediately circle around the alien and fire yet another net right before you first one is about to be clawed apart. When your opponent is re-trapped, continue to move around in a circle, this time positioning yourself closer to it; near the rear. If you circle well enough to get behind your opponent, the alien won’t be able to see where your nets are coming from, and you’ll be free to get in much closer (if another net is required when you’re closing the distance between yourself and the back of the alien, use it). You should be almost out of nets by this time, but also within striking distance. Immediately take out your combistick just as the critter is clawing out, and take the kill. It’s important to note that once you have the enemy trapped in a net, it is imperative that you keep a very close notice of the pounce reload time. If your enemy pounces away from the area after clawing out of a net, you probably won’t have enough ammo left to start the procedure over again. As far as the combistick and wristblades themselves go, the best advice I have to give to you is: do not panic-hit. Running around like a banshee with its head cut off, randomly slashing with your spear, isn’t going to help you in this game. You have to calculate your hits, estimating when exactly the perfect time to strike is, and deciding where you must aim. This is especially true for wristblades, which, although very quick, don’t give you the longer range of the combistick. With your blades, you’re forced to always move in extremely close for that crucial aim for the head. The wristblades are for the true elite of the yautja; those who don’t even find the combistick challenging enough to operate. Either that, or they’re a last-resort melee weapon for the assault and light predator classes, which don’t even have the combistick when class weapon sets are turned on. The spear is a more efficient alternative to the blades, especially when faced with aliens. The extra range is necessary due to acid blood, and how you can take the head off of a xenomorph or detach its legs fairly quickly, so long as you actually consider where you’re aiming. Chest shots with the stick work just fine, but it’ll take longer to bring an alien down, so you’ll end up drenching yourself in more acid than you may wish. That’s why I sometimes prefer to duck and aim for the legs, which, surprisingly, are the second best place to aim on an alien when using melee weapons. Limbs are also easier to hit in some cases, so don’t force yourself to aim high all of the time with the smaller alien classes; you can always take that trophy afterwards, right? Other than that, it’ll only take one well-aimed horizontal slice to take off a xenomorph’s head. I prefer to save the downwards strike against runners or aliens that hug the floor, since using that attack will yield more hits and does a heck of a lot of damage. Just beware: the horizontal-swipe, though quicker than the downwards-slice, produces acid that will hit you right in the face or chest; whereas the downwards-strike, though it has a long reload time, produces acid that will generally hit your feet and legs, so long as you’re not crouching. Sometimes acid becomes such an annoyance, that I opt to play as the vastly slow heavy predator class. The thing has health like a tank. Like a fortress. Like NORAD. This is particularly beneficial when facing the heavier classes, in which you will surely draw more blood from before they go down. One last thing needs to be covered: queens. Take a look at my last picture, which is located below... Above, we can see that our brave yautja warrior is competing against two queens with just his wristblades drawn. Dementedly insane? Psychotically maniacal? Nope - it’s fun! Out of all the alien classes, I enjoy using melee against queens the most. It’s a very rewarding experience to take a queen down with just your blades. I vividly remember my first queen-kill with wristblades: I shouted out with joy, and said, “Yeah! I killed a queen with just my wristblades, guys!” Unfortunately, no one in that server believed me. Queens have more health than anything else in the game -- except for maybe the exosuit -- and their tail has slain many predators. But if you’re quick with your leaps, and you constantly move in a circular path, you can dish out some serious pain, and take the big lady down. It's not easy, but it sure as heck is gratifying. Now that you’ve decided to pick up “the three,” and maybe give them a go, I have a few last words to say. First of all, only practicing with the above-mentioned tactics will yield victory. As a relative amateur to melee, you can’t just read a strategy guide, pick up a combistick, and “have at it” if you want to succeed. You have to gain experience and learn what works for you. No two melee predators play exactly alike. Well, maybe a few do, but, for the most part, people work best with what they’ve learned over a long period of time -- not with what they’ve read in some article. This essay just begins to touch on the schemes you can use, and is just meant as an elementary guide for beginners. But I can guarantee you that, so long as you try what I’ve recommended and give melee some time and effort, you can become the creme of the yautja crop. Now go out there and decapitate a predalien for me! A special thanks goes out to Izzy, resident literature specialist, and to Thei’de Amedha, forumer and Mailbag junkie, for their help with screenshots. By ::GenoDice:: Comments? Flames? Praise? Mail feedback!