New Rocket Launchers - The Good, The Bad & The griefer

3 striker units? so 3 infantry need to flank or break through the opposing infantry and vehicle force to stand somewhere for 8 seconds in the open?

tell me what server you're on.. my opposition is never so nice to park sunderer's in the open (therefore no lockon) and in front of their forces.

imho.. things are balanced but could be better.

NC - imo they need a 3stage guidance system. 1st stage is the fast takeoff, 2nd stage is a pretty mobile steering phase more mobile than currently, 3rd stage again another limited steering phase. Also increase range by about 75m since distance isn't measured in a straight line in practice. But since it's an efficient infantry farmer.. it definitely shouldn't get range to enable contact at or directly behind the main lines of initial combat.

1st/3rd against vehicles require both shooter and target to not be directly behind cover but at least you can be closer than currently. Also gives more challenge to actually OHK infantry.
2nd stage allows for flexibility of movement over obstacles. enough to raise the initial shooting angle over a wall from 30degs to about 60-70 degs

also i'd hope the rounds provide a small amount of xp for getting shot down so AA maxes are rewarded for covering fire. or give infantry a counter (primary weapon can shoot it down?).

VS - Allow them to charge without ADS.. but keep the shoot immediately on 3rd charge. This thing has no warning, and a controllable peek-shoot would be more effective than phoenix currently. so shooting immediately will at least increase exposure time to aim depending on shooter's skill.

Damage should not be buffed if the accuracy is dead on and immediate without warning. Let's be real.. they can have lancer squads now if they wanted. There's no hard or soft counter for the lancer. More damage is just for lolz.

Since getting hit will be the only warning you have.. the charge time is also flee time; considering the 2 other esrl's, charge time seems fine as a balance to ambushing ability.

If you buff anything to make it stronger/faster - add a pre-fire aiming laser that's viewable at least.

TR - 2.8 seconds between first/last rockets is too much considering the main point here is damage and on a moving target 2/5 missed rockets is very usual. shorten that by about half and allow for auto fire just to get rid of button mashing.

Add a dumbfire mode and allow damage versus maxes and infantry BUT to balance infantry damage with the other 2 esrls... limit infantry damage to LESS than the lancer per target but give it splash damage ONLY, no direct hit damage bonus's.

this, remove OHK and Phoenix needs a major buff against armor/maxes. Its the only reason to buy one imo

The Striker should have the option to cert into targeting Max units and having the ability to dumb fire

The Lancer also should have the ability to do heavy damage to infantry, if charged to max.

That said I also thing the Phoenix should have a longer range. Which again should have cert requirements

oh look the NC ESAV is an instagib AI weapon.... go figure

Nobody TKs BigDaddyCoolDestroyer and gets away with it.

Nobody.

Love the video ending with a revenge TK for the stupidity of walking infront of someone with a OHK launcher. Only in the NC.


Completely agreed though. The Striker needs its dps dropped a little bit so it's not a flat upgrade over the G2A, G2G and Anni lock-ons. The Phoenix needs a complete rebuild so it's good against vehicles and bad against infantry. NOT just a nerf to AI damage as everyone non-NC is calling for. These are people who haven't used the weapon and have yet to realise it's trumped by the Decimator+Skill or even Shrike+Skill combo in -every- AV situation currently. The Lancer is just bugged in its current implementation. It's not behaving how it did in the demo. If this gets rectified, it's just right.

I pretty much agree with you, though they should raise the max range a bit and remove damage degradation.
We held rust mesa yesterday and the lancer prevents all tank based attacks and is decent against aircraft. Whether or not it's better for this than the engi AV-turret is debatable but it's definitely effective.
Killing stuff at max range depends on the target obliviously sitting there while huge white beams hammer the vehicle.

No im defending the OHK we only have 1 round per big reload and a direct hit should kill an infantry.

So every weapon with a long reload should be OHK?

Yes

The balance of power between vehicles and infantry was at a reasonable level before this release of the three faction specific rocket launchers.

The real question (behind the immediate one about why they were designed and implemented soo poorly - as if play testing had been done by ponies high on meth) is if it's a good idea to increase the power of infantry to this level to begin with.

There were already both lock on and dumb fire rocket launchers in this game - in several variations. The recently AV turret also has massive utility against vehicles. Was there really any particularly good reason to go even further?

1) They could have used their time on something else that might have been better for game play, while still going for something relatively faction unique. How about something that has utility but isn't a weapon? Maybe a temporary destructive shield for the engineers? Maybe a "vaccine-gun" for medics with slow-healing darts that can hit team mates at greater distance? How about spike mats for wheeled vehicles that will make steering erratic for a while until the self-inflating tires kick in (i.e. a concussion-mine for vehicles essentially). Seems to me that there are many alternatives to add to an already varied arsenal of rocket/missile launchers.
2) They could have introduced some class-perks such as better traction when engineer is the driver or slight turning radius bonus when pilot is engineer. A modest additional vehicle shield if the driver/pilot is HA, some vehicle repair if medic etc. you get the point.

SOE is beginning to establish a track-record for making updates to this game that are simply more and more exotic weapons with seemingly less and less game play testing, instead of giving us something that is a little creative and actually tested. There is already a crapton of weapons in this game. How about easing off on the weapons-race, play test them a little first or consider something creative that offers something other than more death-machines.

The lancer should charge to max in 3 seconds at most other wise its needs more damage at max charge it should all so be given a higher zoom scope since it is a AV sniper rifle x1 is just not enough at longer range.

The Pnix is good and fun to use might need a tad more range.

The Stalker well its great and the 4 second lock time is needed any less and it would be OP.

yeah.

So this thread good or done?

Was strange when you used the striker from that distance on the stationary turret. You could have easily killed it with the default launcher and lived to tell the tale.

At all the ranges and situations you documented, dumbfire would be superior.