The Art of BasiHattery (Based on 1.2 changes, but most applies regardless)
(first draft, haven’t reviewed, was a stream of thought, I will probably revise later)
In light of the recent post asking for single key, to allow a basi to rotate around a player, or the
*basi is weak compared..* I figured, I would post my personal basi guide.
Most guides I have seen, approach the basi from a general tactics guide, mine, however
is the direct mechanics of the basilisk fight.
I’ll affectionally call it, Basi-ju-jitsu
All basi attacks can be broken down into 5 stages, the stages are:
- The Gap
- The Grab
- The Spin
- The Mount
- The Escape
The GapThis is the effort to close the distance between the basilisk and the target, the target being
a tasty tasty human. There are two ways to approach and its based on initiative. The best
way to gain this is to be stealthy, minimal jumping (jump sound), and climb the walls, use
the edges of doors and hall turns, to gain surprise. However, since stage two humans have
a perfect always on radar, this becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible. So, most
encounter you will have are against an aware or keenly alert human.
The trick or tactic to gaining a safe grab, on an aware human is through movement feinting.
This is done by allowing the human to see where you are going to force him to commit to facing
one direction. (I personally use doorways, I allow the players to just enter the room, and I run
into the hall or room the came from, many times they will scan the room, not aware I left to
grab them from behind.) This is the moment, you or I may fail and die, its difficult against
experienced players. The spilt second you see him commit, thats when you move to stage two, The Grab.
The GrabThe Grab is just that, you face the human to trigger the grab, its like the dretch bite, always
firing, and will hit if in range and you are facing the target. At this point, don’t worry about
grabbing the *right spot*, grab anywhere, at any angle. You will find grabbing at the foot level
to be easier since it uses the max range of the grab. (Imagine as you look up, the range shortens
due to it forming an arc). It is also possible to grab, two players, if they are close enough to
each other. This needs to be done as quickly as possible, basis, despite their regen, are quite
frail, and everything will kill you rather fast. Once you have any sort of grab on, its time to
move unto, The Spin.
The SpinThe Spin is basically what we referred to in the olden days of FPS play as circle strafing, Its
something that must be practiced by itself. Personally I load a local server and spin some
time circle a barricade, until I reach a state that I can make two 360 passes in opposite directions.
There are many guides and old guides on the net regarding this topic, and it applies to many
games as well. Basically you rotate your mouse aiming view while strafing, in order to keep
the target in front of you, whilst circling it. However in Tremulous, the basilisk goal is to reach
a position behind the human, directly or somewhere no greater then 65 degrees from left or
right of directly behind. Many times you will lose grab, jet using humans, high sens spinning
maniacs, panicking in your grab. Lucifer cannons shooting their feet. When this happens,
forget about spinning, return back to stage two, The Grab. Sometimes and once you are comfortable,
The Grab and Spin will be one motion, but until then, trying to think of both at the same time will
lead to lots of dying.
Another thing unique to tremulous is spinning in or with a wall climb.
Its good for tight halls (atcs), doorways, vent with narrow openings. It is probably the toughest
thing to master, since the grab, and wallwalk oddly affect your view. I seen others state this
is “how you play the basi” while it may in fact be someone’s style, you will rarely find a map
that allows this with any consistency.
However one tactic is worth mentioning here, using the wall to kill a battlesuit. Since the
battle suit is able to turn in your grab, but cannot move, you can grab one near a wall, and
circle on the wall, in an arc, while bitting the battlesuits head. Rarely with this kill a player
with any experience fighting basilisk, but sometimes you do, and noobsuits nearly every time.
This is just the same tactic you use all the time on a successful dretch. And now its time for...
The MountThis is where you make sweet sweet love to the humans skull or take measurements for the hat:P
This is jumping up so your basilisk is sitting on top of the humans head. While its not 100%
required to kill a human (its is however to kill a Lucifer cannon, more on that later) it ensures
all of your swipes hit the head (head does more damage) and helps prevent the human from
wriggling free. You can only hop up to the head if you are on level ground, or on the high
ground portion of an incline. Also, there cannot be low hanging map structures like pipes or
other confining elements. Sometimes, you are facing a very experienced player, and a loss
of grab during a mount, can just be instant death. So I advise in those situations, to just kill
from the ground looking up.
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A few points to make here in regard to special situations:If you are fighting 2 players at once, mount or spin, into a position that places the current
target between you and the second human. It will help him wait, since he will bleed the human,
either helping you kill or just waiting for fear of teamkilling. Many times, players will let you
kill the other player, since they are more concerned about tking, than rescue.
Against Lufcifer Cannons:Always mount first, most will aim for there feet, charge and fire, assuming you are on the
ground. When they are about to fire,hop up in the air while keeping the grab aim on the head.
Most of the time you will be completely unharmed by the Lucifer cannon splash. If your
target has learned your tactic, they will just overcharge the cannon to kill you, this is when
you return to the floor, behind the target, to use it as a shield against the overcharge.
Against Battlesuits:Batllesuits, of any version are almost always certain death, if delaying them is needed, harass
them until they kill you. Reasonable trade of 1 evo to poison, delay and deplete ammo of a
battlesuit. (Lucisuits, you can nearly run them out of ammo, making them return to base)
Advanced Basilisk Gas:While the using it for the view meddling is worthless, since many players it does not seem
to affect for whatever reason, the movement run debuff is valuable. It great to use to slow a
fleeing human, a dodge spammer, or for The Escape.
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The EscapeWhile not always needed, if facing lone humans, but its something to practice and do on a
regular basis to take advantage of the basilisks regen ability. Two types of escapes, one is
after a fight to fight a ceiling, safe location to quickly regen, the other is when you are faced
with 2+ players, or battlesuits. When stage two, I use basi gas prior to attempting to escape.
It will at the very least slow them so you can beat unlagged death rounding a corner. Being
able to escape is based on pre planning the route, with prior map knowledge. You don’t have
enough health to decide this during a fight, so you need a planned escape route for various
map locations. The locations will change based on human building locations. The best way
to practice this is, find a human(s), poison swipe some and then attempt to get away cleanly,
regen and return, without the goal of killing. This can be just as effective, and is a de-facto mara
tactic.
As you see, playing a basilisk as if it was a dragoon or other alien will just fail. The Basilisk
is the Tremulous version of a rogue(thief/assassin class) and it played much like you would, in an
mmo. Wait, stalk, pounce, kill, hide =D
(eof)
