This is the least fun I've had playing a faction's HA class. NC Phoenix is by far the most fun. Even 1 guy with it can be super obnoxious in defence of facility and the surrounding area. and it's great for fights when the enemy is spawn camping you with superior numbers. TR Striker is fantastic for its versatility. It's rare to find a fight where it's unhelpful and makes TR one of the best air superiority teams. VS Lancer is incredibly niche. You need to distance yourself a long way from the fight to experience any sort of "faction advantage" with it. It requires group work with several of them to get kills before the enemy can find cover for their vehicle, speaking of which it's more useless against infantry than the other ES launchers. IDK if the MAX version is any better because I'm only trying the HA one, but I suspect similar outcomes. The only time I saw great use of lancers was a group sitting up on the Crown firing at a NC-TR battle going on between Ceres and Galaxy Solar. It just sucks because the faction all my friends are now playing has this kind of boring launcher.
Mm, to be fair, all three require team work to be effective. Phoenixes are deadly in clusters. So are Strikers (particularly in a Valk). Same with the Lancer. You can do no-warning-instagib with it. It's definitely very niche but so are all the ES HA Launchers. That said when playing solo: The Striker is the most effective. The Phoenix has the uncontested fun factor win even if it's not all that effective. Lancer... it's just kinda meh I guess. It definitely hurts to be on the receiving end of it at least.
The Lancer was very effective in one specific scenario - get a group of them together and when co-ordinated, they would cause havoc to vehicles at long range (has to be focused fire though as one Lancer achieved very little). Although effective, this scenario was a rarity in my experience. So they nerfed the range and made it next to useless. They also increased the no-deploy zones so Sunderers have to park further away - which made the Phoenix incredibly useful, you can just sit in a spawn room and shower the (now further away) Sunderer with rockets. It was always the most fun but now it's very handy too. Striker was always very effective against air. (I'd love to see how many Lancers are used these days - i'm betting it's negligible) Long and short - it was a nerf that wan't really necessary. Get a group of Strikers or Phoenix together and they would be as equally devastating.
Truth here. I have seen the mythical pheonix squad behind a rock at the far end of a road phenomenon. When that happens, you can just kiss your ground vehicles goodbye.
The Lancer range nerf came around the same time as the range nerf on the AV Mana turret. Both need corrected. This means they'll have to tweak render ranges as well. It would be unfair to allow an AV weapon to fire past render range such that vehicles could not return fire.
It's not just AV turret and lancer. Most AA dedicated weapons are crap due to range as well. The constructed turrets basicly only lock onto air when it almost crashes into them(it feels like air can use their rockets on the turrets from like 3 times that distance). they just went over the top with those nerfs...
The only counter to this: Man the vehicle guns, Get suppressive fire LMGs going. Shoot down the incoming rockets to buy time. Get infiltrators down range (only takes one really) and pop the heads on those HAs. It will only take a few popped heads to disrupt the attack and should be pretty easy to do. HAs are ducks for a long time during that rocket flight.
Yeah, that is about it. Of course, I have also seen this tactics final form ( crewed double kobalt sundy right next to the HAs).
'Course one could always just keep shooting down all the rockets till the HAs get bored and use regular launchers.
Mmm, it only buys time. Once you shoot down a few the heavies are going to start getting evasive with them.
Not spectacularly, but yeah it can be done. Keep LOS broken until last moment, zig zag so they don't get a zero deflection shot, come from different directions each shot, etc.. You can get those shots through. They are tough to shoot down even when flying straight.
lancer is easily the best long range infantry AV in the game, there is no other AV tool that you can use for free that allows you to easily deal nice damage to enemy vehicles at such extreme ranges. when i'm on my VS i rarely use anything else, while it isn't good for close range max kills like other launchers it allows you to seriously punish vehicles in the open field between base fights. a side effect of it being almost hit-scan is that it is also awesome at damaging libs valks and gals (and esfs with practice) i also like sniping snipers with it! XD
I don't know what kind of lancer you use...but mine doesn't do much damage on its own. I mean if you are standing somewhere at the sideline of a big fight you can kill some vehicles...but that's just cause others shoot at them too. It's not being used for a reason..and that ain't because it's so great. Shooting down phoenix rockets is borderline impossible. I don't think I ever managed it with any handgun. They need quite a number of hits. Not really worth trying...
the damage of a fully charged lancer is quite respectable, obviously its not like decimator levels, but lancer is pinpoint accurate, borderline hitscan and has a range of about 400m. its extremely effective against harassers who think swift swerving will save them from AV, maybe other Av but not lancer! unless you want to spend resources nothing comes close to the range at which lancer can reliably deal pretty decent damage. it offers a huge advantage that TR and NC don't have, one example being on esamir when you hold mani-fortress and enemies are coming from northpoint station, you can hop over to the biolab airpad and easily take out their vehicles at ranges far beyond that of NC and TR AV. i love all 3 of the faction specific launchers, they each bring something unique that the other 2 don't have, TR have superior AA, NC have "safe" AV, VS have extreme range.
Just be clear, you can hit it down quite easily. Did it with a Beamer & hipfire. Not to mention, an Engineer out-repairs the phoenix. Actually the repair grenade even out-repairs it. Lancer Squads, the ability to miss essentially at extreme range with AV, pack an LMG, be mobile, and even be able to hit aircraft.. Compared to static single-shot missiles that can only kill an Infiltrator if it stands still, while the operator is completely blind, deaf, and stationary. The only perk, is that it randomly can fire from spawn-rooms. Those who don't, tend to easily die as easy targets, in their 270~ or less max range. Past the Striker, both of these weapons are only noticed truly in Groups. Original Lancer was hellish. Phoenix also has like the record for quickest nerf I think.
This is the worst version of the lancer I have played with since PS1 Beta. Like most VS weapons these days I find myself using the NS versions as they no longer work as intended. VS in PS1 was good, it was about having the ability to get where others couldnt. VS on PS2 is pants.
I see no reason to use the Lancer, charging it up just takes way too long for the damage it does. I'm better off using the Annihilator or the Archer for those long range AV actions. Now if they went ahead and gave the Lancer the option to switch between firing modes with one being the current charge mechanism and the other being... well something else to compensate for it's general weakness, then I might be inclined to equip it again.
Even one Striker is pretty OP against air. A single salvo makes any ESF do a 180, often to never return. A single Striker can keep a Lib from farming a small fight. It's easily the strongest launcher in the game, and the only effective defense infantry has against A2G regardless of how much cover air has to move in and out of.
