Onos for Dummies

Sasuke · 08-18-2003, 11:32 AM

I) Why go onos? It’s..
- the fastest and most reliable killer of outposts
- a large meat shield so your teammates can attack in relative safety
- the only thing that stands a chance against HA’s

II) Onos Behavior
Since you are so huge, it’s fairly useless to dodge, and with no ranged attacks, you’d best be running as straight as you can directly towards the enemy. Make sure you don’t get stuck anywhere, as many maps have tricky ramps and entrances. Crouch when in doubt. From my experience, the top of ramps are buggy for onos, so you need to jump over it. Just be wary of your large size, and the fact that your teammates will frequently be in your way.

III) Attack Patterns
- Gore (or claws, as the console calls it) is the main attack of onos. It deals heavy damage, and is pretty easy to aim. Most people have very little trouble using this attack, so I’ll just move on.

- Devour is badly abused by many people, since it’s a one-hit KO as long as you stay alive. It used to be used with redemption a lot, but that had already changed with 2.01b, and for the better. The best use of devour is to instantly remove an HA from the game. Most other times that you use it will only hurt you more than it hurts the marines, as a full tummy slows down our favorite elephant-thing. You should aim at the marine so that your horn is approximately pointed at his chest or stomach, and you should also always try to devour. The range on that thing is just plain wrong, as you can simply just suck people out of vents and while they’re jetpacking. One last note: Please don’t try to devour the FIRST marine in a group, kill them with gore and devour the last if you REALLY want to. Trying to devour the first will only result in your death/redeem, and you will have been useless.

- Stomp is definitely essential for a good onos, which means you better get those 2 hives up before you start running around. What does it do? It freezes people in their tracks, making them unable to shoot or move for about 2 seconds. This is huge for the onos. It only needs a second to kill a single LA, so with a well-placed stomp followed by some tasteful goring will result in marine massacre. Stomp doesn’t work up ramps, nor does it go through walls (even though it looks like it does). You can wait a little bit away from the corner, and when groups of marines come by, you stomp ‘em, gore gore, stomp again, and keep at it. Only really smart HA teams with grenade launchers can really stop a good user of stomp. It’s that good.

- Charge simply allows you to deal a LOT of damage just by holding forward. It also makes you move at incredible speeds, therefore making charge the preferred method of getting in and out of battle. With charge, you don’t really have the time nor energy to stomp, so you want to start the charge, switch to gore, and slam away at the marines. It’s really not that hard to use charge, so long as you remember that you have it at 3 hives. With enough movement chambers and adren, you can keep up an infinite charge, scary stuff.

IV) Let’s see, which upgrades should I get?

- Redemption: This is easy. Get this if you’re new to onos and don’t want to just die instantly. This functions best at low upgrades, and will help you get the hang of your large incarnation without fear of insta-gib. Just be warned that redeem may impale you with a chamber or hive, and liberal use of /stuck is recommended. Ditch this upgrade once you’re familiar with the critter.

- Regeneration: The most popular upgrade amongst good onos, regeneration pretty much is invincibility against everything but shotguns and grenade launchers. Basically you won’t get taken down unless you run stupidly into groups of marines with shotties and fail to realize that a retreat is in order. This upgrade totally rocks at low upgrades, and still holds it’s own when the going gets tough. Combined with the stomp strategy, this onos is literally invulnerable to any and all marine patrols. It’s also probably the best for finishing off marine’s main base, as you can simply heal back to full during the time it takes for marines to reinforce.

- Carapace: Get this only if you REALLY know what you’re doing, and even then, most of the time regen is better. This won’t save your hide like redemption, and won’t let you recover automatically after each battle. This is by far the onos who requires the most teamwork. Set up a healing station near wherever you’re about to attack, be it marine start or an outpost, and watch the damage flow. The sheer amount of extra damage you can absorb with carapace makes it that much more useful going up against teams of HA, as well as defending the hive. So really, as long as you’re well supported by gorges and defense chambers, you’re even more powerful than the regen onos. Good for dealing and absorbing damage, not so good for long battles.

- Adrenaline: Quite useful, as onos tend to run out of energy faster than they die. Adren will let you make a quick getaway with charge, or just gore that much faster. Basically, the onos simply increases it’s damage output. Oh yeah, and more stomps. Those are always fun

- Celerity: Makes the difference between an onos that took out 2 turrets and lived to fight another day and one that died after killing 1. This enhances the onos’ fleeing capacity, although at hive3, charge + adren is clearly better. It’s really up to you whether to get adren or celerity, both are equally good in my opinion at hives 1 and 2.

- Silence: While this is fun, it’s not really USEFUL for the onos. It lets you get a surprise first attack, but that’s less essential for the onos than for other classes that would die if spotted first. Adrenaline and celerity are almost always a better choice.

V) Final note:
Teamwork with onos is different than teamwork with everything else. Don’t always try to force the onos to “do or die,” he will occasionally need to flee even with support. With that said, it is very important that you DON’T get in his way when he flees. Make sure the path is clear, heck, support the onos from a different direction. Throw umbra from across the room, attack from behind while the turrets are still shooting at your big fat buddy, things like that. And as onos, you have to remember that you’re not invulnerable just because you have 500 hp and a buttload of armor. You have to MAKE yourself invulnerable by using everything that’s available to you.

**Tempus** · 08-18-2003, 11:43 AM

Wow Sasuke! Excellent write-up!!

Sasuke · 08-18-2003, 11:49 AM

doesn't it just scream "STICKY ME"? :P

NothingMore. · 08-18-2003, 12:33 PM

Nice

Begbie · 08-18-2003, 01:03 PM

/stuck

BATMAN. · 08-23-2003, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sasuke

I)
- Devour is badly abused by many people.

WHO whO!?!

Polska · 02-29-2004, 12:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BATMAN.

WHO whO!?!

Batman is alive?

**Tempus** · 02-29-2004, 01:59 AM

He was 6 months ago, when he wrote that...

Emanon · 02-29-2004, 10:48 AM

Also remember that onos and fades draw a great amount of attention so use it to allow your friends the skulks to go crazy.

Some times doing nothing is your greatest ability.

**Wyzcrak** · 02-29-2004, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emanon

Some times doing nothing is your greatest ability.

True in life, love, and Natural Selection.

Wyzcrak

**Wyzcrak** · 09-07-2006, 02:20 PM

Trying to clean up the sticky threads in this forum. This is in the wiki, and so I'm "unsticking" it.

http://www.tacticalwiki.com/index.php/Onos_for_Dummies

Yer Mom · 09-08-2006, 02:09 PM

I'd like to point out that Adrenaline and Regeneration combinations almost cancel the speed loss from not getting Celerity. Note that I said almost. It always helps to have Celerity when 6 marines are grouped up together, but most good Adrenaline Oni will be able to Stomp his way out of the group.

-Mom

Kerostasis · 09-08-2006, 02:42 PM

So long as you're offering comments on the actual data, I think this Onos guide was written back in 2.01, and is mostly obsolete. Notice how they don't even consider the possibility that your team might have Sensory chambers?

**Wyzcrak** · 09-08-2006, 03:03 PM

Someone should revise it.

Yes. You (whoever's reading this).

I'd do it, but, you know, I've kinda got my hands full with plugins, admin stuff, etc.

Yer Mom · 09-08-2006, 07:18 PM

Babies... etc..

Had to.

-Mom