You will here many of us NS1 players declare Shift -> Creg -> Shade
There is very good reason for this and it will be explained below.

Any good strategy should assume that both teams are of equal skill or that your team is at a slight disadvantage. Therefore you need to think about what you gain from each of these hive selections and what the real benefits are:

Shift
  • Speed
  • Energy
  • Ability to spawn outside of start hive
  • Ability to energize around dropped shift

Creg
  • Health
  • Regen
  • Ability to regen buildings around creg

Shade
  • Silence
  • Cloak
  • Cloak building around shade


In the early game map control is most important and given the size and layout of most maps having speed is key. In addition if you need higher lifeforms to get a 3rd hive what upgrades are most and least valuable. Will shade upgrades help you get a 3rd hive as much as Creg or Shift, NO. Creg is second most important b/c by the time this upgrade comes around marines have weapons 2 and we need the health as a counter.

The one thing to realize is that it is not that you must do Shade last or that shade is bad. It is more that you ALWAYS want shift. You can still get a great combo with speed and silence and subvert the enemy position and counter attack. They key is that you are going to need armor upgrades when weapons 3 is out.

The value of shade for cloak is quickly lost when they hard counter with obs which they should be placing down in key points regardless. Both Shift and Creg are more direct counters to what the marines do in every game. That being trying to take map control and getting weapon upgrades.

It is fine to play around with different hive orders but do so knowing that your team NEEDS to be better than your opponent to actually win in the end.