A 90-second review of the new, updated spiker. The weapon's substantially more useful than the old version was, awarding a proper burst pistol to VS (both normal infantry and stalker cloakers) in the form of its prime fire ability which is a sidegrade to the desperado with some minor stat changes. While the secondary burst mode still does less dps than the prime mode in a direct comparison, now that the normal mode fires at an actually reasonable rate, you can (if you have a moment to duck behind cover / are peaking around a corner) charge a 500ish damage frontload shot, followed by insta-switching to burst to create a massive TTK shrink. This is a situational benefit, and the charge can still not be used while sprinting or cloaking (Though it can knife-combo now, if the knife hit detection decides to work... and can be suppressed without removing a stalker's burst pistol option), so the weapon does have some drawbacks to use, but also some large benefits. Ultimately, some people will goof the mode switch too often and kill themselves, some people will simply not like having to decloak or avoid sprinting to charge, or will take some other misc. issue with it that makes it undesirable to them, but it's now quite a useful weapon to those whom it will sync well with.
For some off reason, I feel like I would love using the Desperado more if it was textured and modeled exactly like your illustration...
If you turn down your graphics settings any further, PS2 is going to start looking like your illustrations. Also, nice to see that the Spiker was reworked into a viable sidearm. See, people? SOE can fix things!
Burst mode is fine, it actually feels like I'm using a TR sidearm, although it's supposed to be similar to the NC Desperado. Charge up however is useless. You can get away with it if you shoot oblivious people, but then again, you can get away with any gun doing the same.
I <3 your reviews big time man, but I wish you'd find some sort of gimmick for my vanus similar to the fascist corporate oligarchy gimmick you do with NC. Maybe a spooky/mocking sing-sang voice about what papa vanu wants?
Is it good at what OP says it can be used for ? yes. Would a commissioner\xbow be better in those situations and the commissioner better as a fallback? yes The problem with Spiker is not really its lack of DPS or anything, just that its role sucks. Its gimmicky offensive playstlye is way worse than any primary you should have loaded, and its terrible as a fallback due to how controlled you have to be to get the most out of it, rather than the panicked spam that can get you by with other pistols. Spiker simply has no role, and statistical buffs won't really change that.
Welcome everyone, to the church of Vanu, I am your priest, Mr.Archbishop... now, send all the altar boys to the basement, I have to anoint them with the sacred oils of vanu.... you know, for the machine spirits... What do you mean the basement shouldn't have cages for little boys in it? Psh, speak not of heresies ye do not understand. I am a priest. You can trust me. ...now put the little boys in the basement.
I wonder how much money would be made off of that if they sold it as a weapon skin in the marketplace...
