The Striker actually does have pretty impressive range against Liberators and Galaxies if you remember to compensate for drop, because the seek range on it seems to be measured from their hull rather than the center of the model. For ESFs it's not so good at getting high flyers, mostly restricted instead to surprising people flying low and slow. However, there is one interesting trick you can do against ESFs: interrupting hover-duels from surprisingly long distance. Look for a friendly ESF that's getting into a hover-duel. Aim at the friendly, making sure to compensate for drop (don't worry, you won't hit him). Most of the rockets will manage to lock on to the enemy, netting you a kill if the friendly ESF got some hits in before your rockets arrived. I've interrupted duels from well outside the Grounder's lock-on range using that trick. Overall though, as much as people complained about it I did have a higher success rate with the previous version, where you had to maintain the lock until the rockets hit.
Right now is just for ESF taking cover behind terrain (I don't need to see you to hit), those hovering rather slowly and top ceiling static galaxies/libs.
Personally: I don't fly, and on my TR I don't have the striker unlocked. TBH, I don't consider it a priority either. I got the Phoenix and Lancer pretty quickly (in both cases my first 1000 cert unlocks... Annoying vehicles is a hobby) Now, as infantry I don't worry about the striker; rocket primarying with that thing if you kill me before I kill you, well.. congrats.. As Max I don't worry about the striker.. sure a full mag would deal a lot of damage, but typically friendlies seem to shoot at the meanie firing of red glow-balls. (and I really only AA max so far.. if you got in range to use the striker effectively, congrats I guess again) I'm more concerned of getting roadkilled, vehicle-sniped, air-attacked, rocketed with something else, C4'd, small-armsed by several people.. hell, I'd probably be more concerned about a heavy running & gunning with the minigun than the striker. (the minigun actually has a lot of bullets to bring a max down, and it doesn't matter if he misses one or ten shots) as a vehicle driver: I luurve the striker. Lots of people don't know how to aim (myself included, no worries), yet they're firing of red glowy balls from range at my moving lightning, landing behind me, over me, .. Guess what? Now I know where you are.. I can shoot glowy stuff too, mine travels a bit faster and does more damage Zig-zagging through a "nest" of striker users over open ground sure feels epic, mini-booms everywhere.. but let's not kid myself here: in such situation, 4 dudes with lockons would've annihilated me.. (get it? the annihilator is a lock-on.. nvm) I don't encounter the striker often. Striker in VR: haven't really used it since the "update". One major annoyance is how much the magazine? (the sicle -thing on top) can take up screen space. I like to try to see where enemies are, tyvm. I don't remember when it's most annoying, running, reloading, whatever, but it seemed more vision-obscuring than the other launchers. Maybe this was adjusted, don't know.
The Grounder is not superior in every way vs. air. It gives the pilot a warning signal before it locks on that can be countered. The stiker can start firing faster and you have more mobility while using it. The player using it doesn't get auto spotted as far as I know something that has helped me deal with lock on HA's many times. I might be wrong about the spotting part but the striker has more of a suprise attack effect.
The missile tracking effect on the mini is what you're talking about? No, they wouldn't show for the striker since they don't lock on until they get in lock range of the aircraft. They MIGHT show up then, but it's useless at that point. Surprise effect of striker is indeed powerful. 2 guys with strikers waiting on ESF's to make an attack run can cause all kinds of problems. IMO Strikers are much scarier as an A2G pilot than G2A lockons which just force me off a few times till I figure out where you are, then you're dead. I don't even use flares. I've got scout radar and composite or stealth depending on ESF (I haven't recerted into stealth on all of them yet). I'll see rough missile origin when you fire the first missile, which I'll make crash into a tree or something. Then when I come back I know what area to look for an inf dot. You might fire off another missile which I'll either take or ditch again. Either way you're getting a faceful of AI nosegun and I'll go merrily repair if I have to, or just return to murdering your friendlies. I'm SO glad as the other factions to not see many Strikers. When I play TR I'm always raging that there's never even 1 more striker user with me cause we'd wreck some shop. I need to get my buddy whom I know has one to play again.
The new striker takes quite a bit of practice to use it effectively, and it's only really effective to ambush experienced ESFs or liberators that consistently position themselves to avoid lock-ons and dumbfires. For that capability you get a less accurate and overall much less useful dumbfire. This is a big compromise considering how common MAX suits and tanks are compared to the handful of situations where an attacking aircraft can't be killed by lockon/dumbfire or small arms.
Hmm, well I'd still prefer to use a Grounder which has G2A Lock-on and Dumb fire which has the same damage as the ML7.
The stirker is bad.....because their is no good trade off for the extra time you have to stand in the open firing the weapon. You are in real danger when your red glowing balls show everyone their is a easy target for snipers and tank rounds. At good tank driver will blow you to piece while you are shooting at him Your DPS goes way down when you are dead
It needs some slight buffs or just redesigned all together (again), its okay but not where it should be. Along with PPA, ZOE, etc. it needs something to make it decent.
For once I'm agreeing with Matti. Getting a grounder lock on one of the good ESF pilots can be almost impossible in a lot of situations. And the striker has better "dumb fire" range than the Desci and ML-7.
Unless they changed it since three weeks ago (when I tested that) the Striker has exactly the same velocity as the ML-7. Also the same drop. I think the weapon description of the Striker said it had more velocity, but a couple test firings simultaneously with Striker and ML-7 quickly proved it to be not true. Either that or the MUZZLE velocity is indeed higher, but the ML-7 speeds up after firing and makes the difference so small it is not perceptible without specialized tools. So no, it has not NICE velocity compared to dumbfire and it has no better dumbfire range than the ML-7 since unlike the ML-7 it has a CoF and takes 1.2 seconds to unload its magazine. (It has a better one than Decimator of course....)
Speaking for what the weapon actually does, rather then comparing it to what it did, its the best G2A infantry launcher in the game. You can't protect against them (flares don't work and the situations it creates make it impossible to dodge/hide from), you can't prepare for it (nothing informs the pilot that they are coming until its too late), allow a squad to drop the annoying burster max guard duty and take 2-3 of those instead (no resources required, no idle and useless max most of the time, and your HA can still contribute a rain of rockets to your AI and AV efforts). Not to mention that anyone regardless of aim can successfully deter aim with little effort. The problem #1 with the striker which hinders its usability is that it's not a decimator (but this applies to all launchers, besides the... surprise, surprise...decimator), #2 people are too 'buthurt' over the old one to appreciate the new one, the same like with every other weapon that got nerfed in the history of nerfs, #3 similarily to phoenix its too situational to be carried as part of your main loadouts, unless you actually use it as part of coordinated squad (team work vs rocket primary... hard choice of course ^^).
The muzzle velocity is 180, as you can see in the early part of the video. Good enough against any aircraft close enough to actually be a threat to you.
Striker is meant to have 180 m/s velocity, ML-7 should have 115 m/s. Striker also does more potential damage (direct to vehicles - it's an AV launcher) than the ML-7 can, although it's divided into 6 shots. + there's the homing mechanic for air. If it doesn't behave this way (which it does in my experience) it would qualify as a bug. The ML-7 shouldn't have higher velocity than this, while the striker should. In fact, me and a mate checked it in VR, and we conclude that the Striker is in fact faster, as it should be. So you may want to give that another test.
If they granted a 10m coyote lock-on against ground vehicles (ratger than the current 20m against air) and 5m against MAXes and turrets, the striker would be just about right...
I'd like to see some current data sheets concerning the Striker's overall performance. We've had plenty of time to gather data.
I can't do a long effort post about this, but from the stats the Striker is crushing the Pheonix and Lancer at air kills (which it should) while falling behind on armor kills but still behind the grounder in air kills. Personally I think the Striker could use another 50m/s velocity to give it a bit more range against ground vehicles, but any more than that and it will probably pull ahead of the grounder which it really shouldn't.
