[EXPERIMENTAL] Runners can now jump over flames; jumping over/above fire damages Runner.

[Venuska1117]

Feedback:

https://discord.com/channels/150315577943130112/1464087612796174501

Detached from #12601 and modified.

About the pull request

This PR make so, any subtype of pounce can jump over fire, but still take damage from crossing fire, for now this is limited to Default Runner.

Explain why it's good for the game

Runner was always the weakest "trap" caste next to sentinel (unless they will merge sentinel rework), where playing base counterpart required a way more skill than average to not die instantly to PB from shotgun, one hit and you are in critical, critical in 90% cases means death.

As for light, fast and agile caste it lacked "something" that would make it suck less without making it less "runner" like in backline or frontline combat (its mostly backline caste), allowing runners to avoid ignition from flames by jumping over them would make backline slightly better at obstructing marine support (picking off alone marines), making them more dangerous if not taken care of by scout or marine group, alone marine should not easy win 1v1 if they run "meta" choice of carrying flamer and shotgun combo (there should be some "tactical" advantages for runners in that scenario).

This PR makes so, runners are more lethal in specific combat scenarios, giving them tactical tool to use, this should also make it viable choice between using slightly more health acid runner that doesn't go critical from one PB shotgun shot or Squishy more agile normal runner that have tactical advantage (aka jumping over flames)

P.S. Jumping over flames doesn't make you immune to their damage, you can just die mid-flight if you calculate jump wrongly so, use on your own risk.

Testing Video

▶️ Jumping over flames

2026-07-03.21-45-50.mp4

Changelog

🆑 Venuska1117
balance: Base Runners can now jump over fire and don't get ignited, but they still take fire damage when jumping over them.
/:cl:

[Hates-The-Felinids]

I'm majorly against this for balance reasons. This is a major shift as it allows a lot of castes to straight up ignore almost the whole hives universal counter.
The one thing all xenos are weak to, and are supposed to avoid, is basically turning from a tactical mechanic into a useless obstacle as xenos can just jump over it without catching fire. "Bu-but they still take damage while jumping over it" This barely does nothing and xenos will just ignore that damage.

It makes pushing any choke with a flamer useless, marines rely on it as a defensive tool to repair cades, an area denial tool to create space while retreating or trying to push, giving medics time and room to heal wounded, or try to shoo that otherewise very hard to kill prime lurker.

This is also a major NERF to pyro specialist and incendiary OB.

Its also a major contributor to denying hive pushes, a queen wont go in and scree if she knows that the hive cannot capitalise on that scree due to the hive being blocked by flames. Now a lurker can just pounce you through the flame, frac you 2 times and drag you in the fire. Just 1 of many examples that will further make flames useless.

[Venuska1117]

I'm majorly against this for balance reasons. This is a major shift as it allows a lot of castes to straight up ignore almost the whole hives universal counter. The one thing all xenos are weak to, and are supposed to avoid, is basically turning from a tactical mechanic into a useless obstacle as xenos can just jump over it without catching fire. "Bu-but they still take damage while jumping over it" This barely does nothing and xenos will just ignore that damage.

It makes pushing any choke with a flamer useless, marines rely on it as a defensive tool to repair cades, an area denial tool to create space while retreating or trying to push, giving medics time and room to heal wounded, or try to shoo that otherewise very hard to kill prime lurker.

This is also a major NERF to pyro specialist and incendiary OB.

Its also a major contributor to denying hive pushes, a queen wont go in and scree if she knows that the hive cannot capitalise on that scree due to the hive being blocked by flames. Now a lurker can just pounce you through the flame, frac you 2 times and drag you in the fire. Just 1 of many examples that will further make flames useless.

Remember that game is not centered around marines gameplay but around xenos too, marines should not have counter to everything, same for xenomorphs, yes flames by lore are best way to "scare off" xenomorphs, because every living thing "fears flames" but it doesn't mean that there should be no way to avoid them (they can already do that by jumping diognally on diognall flames or jump on MultiZ roofs), xenos should have alternatives that should work against X thing with tradeoff.

Let me break down to you how flames work, flames are split to 2 parts, contact damage and DoT damage, when you step on fire you get contact damage followed by ignition that deal DoT, the biggest damage comes from contact damage after that is DoT (this depends on flame but most damage is from contact but on higher tier flames DoT can be stronger than contact, like OB flames or research flames), only thing this PR does is to negate ignition itself, you still take "contact" damage even when jumping over it.

This change does not nerf Flame OB or specialist as much as you expect, as for specialist it makes pyro way more lethal than you think, covering large areas with flames (with is pyro speciality) can actually damage xenos more, normally as xeno you avoid risk of approaching because of possibility of getting ignited, if jumping negates ignite, there is higher chance for xeno to "risk for it" meaning they jump over flames, damage themself to do that, only to have their pounce on cooldown and way back is blocked by flames they jumped through for, meaning you can bait xenos to jump on you and waste health. (double edge sword)

as for last part... you give too much credit to queens and fire, queens most of time forget that most xenos are not immune to flames and charge in anyways, xenos cannot pounce with cap and even if they do pounce through flames, as mentioned previously they cutting off their escape ability.

[Hates-The-Felinids]

"The game is not centered around marine gameplay... marines should not have a counter to everything."

Exactly, which is why asymmetric balance exists. Marines dont have a counter to everything, xeno's don't have a counter to everything. Marines are slower, squishier, have limited vision in the dark, and can easily be picked off in close quarters. Fire is the one reliable, hard counter marines have to control the pace of a match and stop a steamroller. Giving castes a direct bypass to this tool doesn't fix a balance issue, it strips marines of their primary defensive baseline.

Balancing a core game mechanic around players who play the queen poorly is bad design. A good queen coordinates pushes precisely around flame cooldowns and other factors. If a hive can just bypass the flames individually via pounces while a queen screes, it removes the tactical punishment for a poorly timed push and completely breaks the defensive hold, regardless of how bad or good the queen player is

Contact damage is a predictable health tax that xenos can easily heal off-screen on weeds. The entire point of fire as a deterrent is the ignition and DoT. When you catch on fire, you either tank the damage, or you retreat back to cover to extinguish yourself or have a xeno pat you. Removing the ignition factor completely removes the fear factor of the tool and gives xenos way too much freedom to bypass flames.

Multi-z or diagonal jumps are very situational.
Giving a universal, straight line bypass on flat ground completely invalidates pyro's ability to lock down a lane. Marines rely on asymmetric mechanics, fire is their only reliable hard area denial tool to create space. Bypassing it for a flat health cost breaks that balance completely.

If we are arguing that "every living thing fears flames," Ironically, giving them a free pass on the ignition mechanic entirely contradicts the idea that they are supposed to respect fire.

[fira]

Use PR feedback for balance concerns please

[Drulikar]

If you want to move forward with this, I'd stick to just for now keeping it to base runner (not acider). I think this isn't something we generally want xenos to do, but it can be a perk.