[Suggestion] VS Lancer Balancing & Changes

You should try using your LMG to kill infantry, perhaps.

This guy is spot on, I'm quoting him for emphasis because I can't like his post 20 times.

He just nails it. I agree the Lancer is going to get nerfed, I fully expect it to be projectile velocity (I'm not sure what else they can do without a full rework), and I'm guessing it'll get a small damage bump to offset that.

The Lancer is a beautiful weapon and it's my RL of choice pretty much 100% of the time when outdoors. I really wish more VS would use it.

Mongychops hit most of the main points quite nicely. I can only really add that it can be useful at close range as well if you have some cover to hide behind. If you charge up a level3 shot while behind cover and then pop up when it's charged, shoot, and immediately follow it with three level1 shots you can dump up to 2400 damage (after damage multipliers) into a target in <1 second.

The only issue I have w/ the Lancer is that it could use a tiny damage buff vs ESFs. Right now two level3 shots only cause an ESF to start smoking, so they can still fly away to safety with impunity.

IMO two level3 shots should catch an ESF on fire. It can be tough to land Lancer hits on an ESF that's moving at all erratically, so you should be better rewarded if you can land both shots. Plus it takes 6-7 seconds to fire both shots which should be plenty of time for the ESF to retreat in most situations.

The Lancer doesn't need any buffs. It is straight up better than any rocket launcher if you're using it at a range where you'll be relying on lock-on. Obviously, at close range you might prefer a different RL so you can dumbfire, but at any range that you're going to want to lock-on to a target, the Lancer is hands down better.

This sounds pretty fair. I would however adjust the velocities:
Charge Level 1 = Decreased to 400 m/s from 600 m/s
Charge Level 2 = Decreased to 500 m/s from 700 m/s
Charge Level 3 = Decreased to 600 m/s from 800 m/s

These would be a tad less drastic on the velocity nerfs as it is already hard enough for most to hit anything at those ranges with the Lancer.

Well I don't actually know where to spend the 1000 certs on >.< I primary Infiltrator and HA. The thing is the patch just came out and I realized that vehicles are now more resistant to the Lancer and Vortex then it used to be. It is no longer two hit kill full charge on ESFs.

I'll try out the Terminus too though, I heard a lot of good things about it.

PS: I would've got more certs if my computer didn't became unstable for 8 whole months! At least now I have a newly built computer and I can play Planetside 2 without any issues...

Phaseshift wasn't a mistake, I love this thing and it upped my K/D ratio quite a bit actually. But since I have been using this weapon for a while I'm sticking to the Vandal.

Maybe nanoweave should be the next thing I cert in. And in terms of recon darts I'm staying with the motion sensor I find it better than the recon dart as I use my Hunter QCX to replace my dart.

I'm just wondering though even though I want the Kraken whats the benefit of it? Does it have any attachments, extra ammo, damage?

The wiki states its the same but I think the wiki is wrong.

The Kraken is a reskinned Decimator, that's all. It's pretty much for "endgame" players.

Oh... Well I guess I should focus on the Battlegoose

To be honest, the Lancer isn't too bad, but a buff sounds nice. However, the damage values you suggested are a TEENSY WEENSY too high. Instead, I'd do this:

Tier 1 Charge: 175 damage, can headshot infantry for thrice the damage (taking resistance into effect). This mode will actually have 50% splash, meaning it'll deal 75 splash damage.
!!!: Can still damage vehicles.

Tier 2 Charge: 435 damage, can penetrate vehicles. With each vehicle it penetrates, the projectile becomes stronger (one non-Flash vehicle= 75 more damage).

Tier 3 Charge: 850 damage, turns into a PPA ball and deals devastating damage (just a cosmetic thing). Using this charge automatically adds another three rounds to your magazine (used up three rounds? Well, you automatically get three more), and if next to a shield bubble, damage is multiplied by 2, resulting in it dealing 1700 damage taking resistance into effect.


Semi-balancing nerf?
The Lancer TAKES OUT health when you double/triple charge it, but it can never kill you. For example:
Double Charge: 1/2 of your shield, another 1/2, then another half of your health, and if you fire it again, you receive only 1% of your actual health, use it again, you only get 1% of of your previous health... etc.

Triple Charge: 3/4 of your shield, then another 3/4 of shields+health, and so on. Like I said, using double/triple charge won't kill you if you have less health, it just keeps making you have less and less and less, you know? Otherwise, my changes just made the weapon a little more special, instead of directly buffing the whole thing.

here's feedback...

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

It's already "OP".

It can have a damage increase if it's RANGE gets brought in....

WHICH, as it so happens, it seems likely. They're reducing ranged effectiveness on pretty much all AV

Couple of points:

a lockon hits an mbt:
1000 dmg, +50%= 1500 dmg, into tank resistance.

A charge 3 lancer hits an mbt:
750 dmg.
Oh, but it has it's own resistance multipliers.
750 dmg +100%= 1500 dmg, into tank resistance. Hey, that number seems familiar!

Starting dumbfire hits a sundy:
1135 dmg, + 12.5%. -> 1277 dmg. Sundy has 45% resistance, so multiply by 0.55= 702 dmg.

3-charge lancer hits a sundy:
750 +100%= 1500. Multiply by 0.55 -> 825 dmg.
825/702= 1.175.
3-charge lancer does an extra 17.5% dmg to a sundy than default dumbfire.

In addition, you get a big amount of ammo. (after all, each mag is 2 such shots)

Yes, let's do this. Let's have another weapon that is insanely OP for 1 week, and then nerfed for a few years.
"if next to a shield bubble, 3-charge deals double damage" harhar!.

I could see a more continuous charge-up (so not "3 steps", but say.. 12 steps, step 12 is the current charge 3, and is reached as quickly as currently)
Otherwise, I'm also fine with buffing charge 1 a bit (175-200 dmg?), and charge 2 (400 dmg- 450 dmg)

All weapons in this game state their damage VS Infantry so seeing a weapon that says 750 damage it doesn't do 750 damage to vehicles. All Vehicles types have different damage multipliers vs various weapons.

The Starting Dumb Fires deal 1800 points worth of damage to vehicles before Armor mitigation. (The one thing Auzor got wrong due to out of date wiki info). And the Decimator deals 2000 Points before armor mitigation.

The Lancer on the other hand has always had its damage value vs armor types boosting it to 1500 at max charge.

Now the reason that the Range and velocity are so tied together is this game uses TTL (Time to Live) on all projectiles and the Lancer projectile type is 1 second TTL which is why at level 1 its range is 600m, level 2 700 and level 3 800, which is the projectile speed at those levels.