[Balance] The Striker - How to un-nerf it without going overboard again

The striker sucks badly right now, It's basically the worst lock on launcher.

Because it takes so long to lock on then guide your missle to your target with a huge stream of I am over here kill me. Odds are you don't live long.

People want it to at least be = to the anihalator

Someone is still bitter.

And has selective memory. I see VS use the Lancer all the time. 2-4 of them will melt a tank in short order. Only one is a deterrent - there is NO WARNING WHATSOEVER that you will be hit, not even a screeching sound from a missile propulsion system.

I see NC use the Phoenix all the time, and so do I when I play NC. Any armor inside 300 meters (or 295 to be exact) can be hit with this REGARDLESS OF COVER OR POSITIONING and that is a terribly strong ability. 1-3 NC with this can easily harass and kill enemy armor like there was no tomorrow. I recall the last time I used this weapon - me and 3 others had the same idea to bully the VS tanks away from our base with ease by standing at an angel near the spawn room and sending missiles over the walls and raining them down on the approaching magriders, lightnings and the sunderers. We had several enemies busy always fixing their tanks, the time the magriders got to spend shelling the base was minimal - they kept trying to repair their armor out of line of sight of the base. It helped them none and we popped several of their tanks before we pushed out and popped the rest.

I've been in VS Lancer squads surgically removing one offending piece of enemy armor after the other by simply calling out a target, aiming, charging and firing. Que explosion from enemy tanker who never knew what hit him until he saw the death screen.

I have not been in an organized Striker Squad in several months. The weapon is completely unreliable and even when it was reliable it DID THE EXACT SAME THING THE ANNIHILATOR DID ONLY A BIT BETTER. The NC and VS could easily do exactly what we did only their overall DPS would be lower than ours.

The Striker was a boring and unoriginal but very effective weapon, thus why so many used it - it worked, in spite of it's conventional nature and lame mechanics. Everyone has seen a lock-on before, the Striker was nothing new.

Now it's not only boring, it's unreliable in the extreme and frankly, next to useless. It offers nothing that the Annie don't, save for damage, but that damage is so unreliable it fails to be applied most of the time.

But I guess you don't care about that Mr. I'm-still-Butt-hurt, the TR has Annie squads, the NC and VS has Annie squads and their own unique flavor to pick from. That's not even remotely fair or balanced. Add to that nerfed weapon COF, a sub-par AI turret, a sub-par AI-mine and you have some of the reasons for the current TR underpop.

But again I guess you don't care about that. Because game balance is only a good thing when it's in your favor, yeah?

Now this is a constructive idea.

I've been in favor of a dumb-fire Striker for a long time, but I'm more in favor of making it a 5-round per mag version of the Fracture - damage per second is comparable to the ML-7, likely a bit lower overall, but the rockets fly faster and has slightly less drop. This way, TR Heavies can use it in a spammy-way. It would also be balanced by the fact that to launch all 5 missiles you have to be exposed for longer, with the ML-7 you just peek out and shoot then get into cover again, so it would be slightly less damage over time, and more risky to use but reward you with being easier to aim with. It also lessens the alpha-damage a little bit as opposed to the ML-7, so you have to chose you flavor - accurate but lower damage or higher damage for less accuracy.

This would also keep it "in theme" with the fractures. The VS has their MAX and infantry version of the charge-up plasma cannon, and the NC has camera-guided and wire-guided missiles for their anti-tank use. Give TR an infantry and MAX version of a 'spammy' rocket-launcher system. VS get's consentrated, accurate fire, (Accuracy) NC get's guided warheads, (high damage) TR get's rain of missiles. (Lower damage but more munitions) It would fit right in.

NO.

It won't be fixed, it will still be unreliable. It will merely leave the TR with no alternative to a sucky weapon and deprive the NC and VS of alternatives they don't need thus don't use much. All this will do, is remove the TR's current crutch and make the faction balance even worse.

Just increase the velocity of the missiles to the point were locking on does not take too long and you have a fitting weapon. The striker is decent enough against Air, and negating it with terrain does not always work. Increasing the missile velocity would reduce the time you could spend running from them and not massively break the weapon once more.

It still does 1.5 the damage of the annihilator after all. We wouldn't want to encourage its use.

Elaboration required - available evidence disagrees with your assessment.

Can the hyperbole, no-one has been saying that. Stop projecting your lingering resentment onto others, it's not nice.

The 2-shot dumbfire sounds like the best idea, in keeping with faction norms and a clear advantage over the non-ES decimator. Sounds good for AV.
In a biolab, the rocket spam might get annoying.

So something sort of like this:


Without the one shot kills.

LMFAO, it was underperforming compared to the other two before it got nerfed. I would hate to see what the stats were for it now.

According to how Striker works it has radar guidance system. Therefore should not be affected by flares.



Also with current A2A missile mechanics they are radar guided too.

Not at release, back then the Striker used the intercept mode only, meaning it was easy for anyone with a brain to drive the rockets into the ground without even using flares. Then SOE messed with the pathing for god knows why (and made it fire blanks for a whole month in the process, but hardly anyone seems to remember).

The player has to deal with the time it takes to fire all five missiles as well as the travel time of the missiles to the target—all while keeping himself ADS'd on that target to deal that small increase in damage, and by the time the fifth missile hits (or if any of them hit), an annihilator guy would be getting ready to fire out his next shot. That usually means the striker is mostly only good against libs and galaxies, and maybe new tankers. Fire-and-forget is pretty nice huh?

One of the main flaws about the striker is that it's not fun to use. In fact, it's often frustrating. People want to see hitmarkers (ie: they are actually killing something/doing something useful) on their targets or eventually that assist or kill, and the striker in its state rarely allows that.
Currently, I'd say the lancer is the best ESRL to use, followed by the phoenix then the striker.

I do feel like at least a significant velocity buff to ensure that the missile reaches the target would help, as well as a reduction in lock-on target acquirement, or even a shorter chambering time between each rocket. That way, at least some of the damage of the 5 rockets is dished out instead of none (it is currently the only lock-on that requires you to trace the target the entire way after all), although I'm not sure if many players would favor keeping the lock-on mechanic. But right now, having to maintain lock alone makes it one of the worst launchers you can use all-around.

When I think of TR's traits, I think of overwhelming and saturating a target with missiles, bullets, explosions, and hurt. Right now it feels like only a few TR weapons fit that description, and the striker is not one of them.

How about making it similar to Coyotes? Dumbfire, will immediately lock-on to any nearby vehicles the projectile gets close to.

Holding down left click loads and arms all 5 rockets and fires them simultaneously after 3 sec.

I dunno. I want you guys to have a good (interesting) ESRL. A buffed up Annihilator that fires 5 rockets instead of 1 is just bad.

How would it be worse? Everyone has the same ground and air lockon. Its not like the Striker is worse than a Phoenix (though not the Lancer so both would need to be buffed to be inline with the Lancer... Lancer doesn't need a nerf IMO) in its current state. But it is totally outclassed by the Annihilator. And you can't buff it to be inline with the Annihilator because it will replace it.

Annihilator needs to go. It can't be nerfed, it will be useless. The only alternative would be to buff the specialty lockons a little bit and then you're stirring the pot of lockons so much that it will change general game play. That could be done, but its not a simple solution. If you take out the Annihilator, you leave room for the Striker to fill a niche for the TR. Yeah.. the NC and VS lose a nich, but we've still got those other launchers. But at least the Striker gets some wiggle room to be buffed and then the Phoenix and Lancer can be based around that.

The Phoenix is very situational but is very strong in those situations, in all honesty it probably need a small buff in maneuverability

The Lancer is pretty decent but only for long range tank or ESF sniping. The S1 is better overall because it gives you more impact against MAX and infantry groups whilst still keeping it's AV abilities. I will admit though that the Lancer is at the moment probably the most useful ESRL

More importantly though your sig needs a nerf, too funny for words

nope launcher is bad to but stile it can hit very fast so you have more success to hit something if your good in aiming to
but for what i see the phoenix is atm the best launcher ok his damage is lower then the other 2

but stile you can stay out of the radar and stile hit something with out they see you very fun weapon

and about the MCG ever try it ??
if not then you don't no how weak it is

buy it and test it your self am 100% sure the enemy's kill faster
almost nobody use that gun on TR connery

I would just make the thing dumbfire, get rid of the lock on totally. Give it the velocity that the old grounder had with no lock on. It would be very distinct and would require some skill to use. You could actually hit fairly distant targets, but due to it firing multiple lower damage missiles, it would never feel like it can one shot things.

Aye. Just make it a dumbfire launcher; keep all stats the same, incl 5 shot mag and 15 ammo reserve. The players will figure out a use for it.

Indeed, a straight upgrade to annihilator, who where severly nerfed because it was overpowered... give Lancer 4500 damage then and make it a straight upgrade to all anti armor launchers instead of a SIDEGRADE... and give NC and TR a Lancer that do 2000 damage and call it fair...