Scope on condition said options become available for all rocket launchers.That should have been a day-zero option. Higher velocity? No. The lancer already does almost as much damage per shot on a full charge as the Phoenix (hello NC trait anyone?), travels faster, can't be shot down, and isn't a death sentence outside of a spawn room. To say nothing of being able to use the Lancer indoors. Now make the Phoenix actually useful (ie. up the maximum flight distance to 400 meters, remove the glowing "here I come" effect, and give it a dumbfire mode) and we can talk.
The damage fall off on lancer is terrible. While not as bad as Phoenix it very much can be death using lancer outside of spawn as it requires a charge up on target. A single charge isn't work the damage. While I agree it dont need a velocity boost I would like to point out your biased statement. Also because one RL is bad isn't a justified reason another needs to bad or cant recieve buffs.
The damage falloff on the Lancer is terrible but only after 150m. Before that there is no damage falloff. While the Phoenis has no damage falloff at that range it does suffer from a ROF issue with the longer you fly the missile the lower your ROF becomes. Even at 150m the Phoenix already has lost more than half its DPS (at 42m/s it takes a tiny bit more than the reload speed to reach that distance) and a full 300m sees the DPS drop to 1/3rd of the DPS it would have if it could dumbfire. So the Lancer is a superior weapon at all ranges. In that respect the Phoenix has laid the groundwork for current NC doctrine during updates: its a cool and nifty mechanic but the downsides make it largely useless unless you are in a literal invulnerable spawnroom. The Phoenix needs an update more than the Lancer. You need to be able to move while in TV guidance, the WASD keys dont control the missile anyway. You need to be able to dumbfire it, maybe the missile is allowed to travel in a straight line since rhe 42m/s mean it cant really be that dangerous and it would still be an inferior weapon to the Lancer (I mean holy crap! An upgrade like that and still it would basically be a low grade Lancer?). The ability to detonate it mid-air would be nice. I would love the ability to spray a shotgun pattern of shrapnel from the detonation point so you have a chance to heavily damage or kill infantry with the right detonation range. What about the ability for the missile to simply fly in a straight line after you exit? Currently if you press E it drops like a stone. If you could set it's path and then exit to reload it would helo the weapon become more viable.
Again because X is bad Y needs to be bad is a heavily flawed argument. The forum post is on lancer, make a post about Phoenix, I wouldn't argue with it. I just dont like the points being driven to discredit a buff request.
Even the 'old' Lancer was never great except in one specific circumstance - a Lancer Squad with support and a dedicated leader who knew what he was doing could essentially delete any vehicle with coordinated fire. The nerf was too hard - making it now rarely used (it's pulled half as often as either Phoenix or Striker) https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...35002&startDate=2019-07-11&endDate=2019-08-11 As well as being pulled about twice as often, Phoenix is also considerably more effective than Striker or Lancer (KPU) - https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...35002&startDate=2019-07-11&endDate=2019-08-11 The one stat where the Lancer did historically outgun the Phoenix was vehicle kills - but even that is now rarely the case - https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...35002&startDate=2019-07-11&endDate=2019-08-11 So - on the basis that the Phoenix beats the other ESRLs in just about every stat - I see little justification for a buff. The same cannot be said of Striker and Lancer - both appear to deserve some attention. (The one thing that Phoenix ALWAYS had over Striker and Lancer - is simply the fun factor; flight camera is excellent)
My argument wasnt about "there's another flawed thing so dont make the Lancer better", it was "the Phoenix is much much worse than the Lancer and the damage falloff is only a problem after 150m, which is a pretty big range for G2G AV". Sorry if I made you think otherwise. The Lancer then. I think that you should be able to hold the charge, but the moment you reach maximum charge your movement is reduced by say 10%. This allows the Lancer user to charge up and release when he thinks he has a shot rather than have to predict when in the future the weapon discharges and line up the shot in that future. The movement penalty is to encourage some more interesting gameplay than a player just running around with a charged Lancer.
It would be great to see it as a ammoless with recharging like many of the Vanu weapons like the Betelgeuse or Obelisk.
Anti-armor weapons are one of the rare types, that VS doesn't have infinite ammunition making engineers less important for VS assaults & defensive positions. VS already has an advantage in regards to sustaining forces, and upper end units have a decidedly lack of need for Engineers, From the sheer volume of self-regenerating weapons, that can't be exhausted, allowing full usage for countless repeated battles, far from any actual allies or support. It doesn't seem like much, but a Heavy-Assault able to essentially constantly fire Full-charged Lancer shots at long range, against vehicles without ever needing an Engineer, with the shortest recovery period & full implant slots free... Would give VS, literally a Class with every single weapon slot self-regenerating. So adjust it sure, but ensure to not make VS further immune to needing engineers.. No one else has such a constant viable buff as Self-regenerating ammunition for free.
Ammo Printer Implant is available to everybody. Engineers are far less useful and needed from that perspective: they are still invaluable as Max companions and to fix vehicles, plus placing a Spitfire acting as sentry but nothing more. So it make the Lancer ammo-less wouldn't be a big deal at the end. That weapon is ill-conceived anyway due to the poor damage model (100 dmg for a single shot? You got to be kidding, a single rocklet does MORE damage) and if you want to charge it you are a sitting duck. In terms of ES launchers it is clearly the worst, with the Striker being the best in terms of effectiveness and flexibility and the Phoenix being the most fun weapon of the game, albeit usable only in the spawnroom. My suggestion for the Lancer is to keep the same damage and charge model but drastically increase the fire rate (Striker-like or even a tad more).
