I need to explain that I want to give a logical and justified view on why I personally (and many other people) think the Striker need changing. This isn't intended to be a hate post fuelled by frustration; I just want to give my view on things. First of all we have a minor issue, the lock on time. The Striker locks on to aircraft 0.25s faster than all other G2A launchers. It's not really an issue but it is one contributor to the Striker's ridiculous power. Another minor issue is the reload time. There isn't really much reason for the game's most powerful G2A launcher to have the shortest reload time. Many people consider this as a bug but are unaware that this is actually a feature on the Striker. The Striker has the best missile targeting out of all of the G2A launchers. It's extremely difficult to dodge a Striker missile and many people complain that Striker missiles can go through terrain but the reality is that it actually dodges terrain to make sure it hits you. This is made worse by the fact that the Striker launches 5 missiles. For example's sake, if you managed to dodge a Nemesis missile (The Nemesis is the VS G2A launcher) you successfully avoid 1500 damage. Whereas with the Striker, if you manage to dodge a missile (which is harder than dodging missiles from other faction's G2A launchers) you successfully avoid 500 damage but there are still 4 other missiles still targeting you. Many Terrans will say, "Oh, you're not being a good pilot because you're not using flares properly, that’s why the Striker is taking you down." but these TR players have no idea what it actually feels like to be up against the Striker. If a Mosquito is in the skies and gets locked onto by either the Nemesis or Hawk, it can simply fly away and shrug of the missile by hiding behind cover. As Vanu, I do this do NC Hawk missiles in my Scythe all the time. I often dodge around 50-60% of Hawks. If I do get hit by a Hawk, it's not that much of a problem. I often land and repair or I let auto-repair kick in and within a few dozen seconds, I'm back to full health. At 50% damage I'm not too worried about dying, small arms fire won't make any noticeable damage and if the odd ESF decides to take a shot at me while I'm at 50% health I can quickly take them out an repair nearby because the damage done to me likely won't be fatal. The TR think this principle can be applied to the Striker just as easily because they don't have any idea what it is like to be up against the Striker. You can't simply take cover due to the advanced targeting. The damage cannot be ignored because 5/6 of your health is a lot to lose. If the odd ESF shows up after being shot with a Striker you are well and truly screwed. You only have 500 health left and the M18 Rotary from a nearby Mosquito will rip you apart you in the blink of an eye, heck even small arms fire can take you out or at least put you in flames. I think a future game update is going to make it so that lock-ons must remain locked on at all times which should make the Striker more reasonable but the problem is that the Grounder, Hawk and Nemesis don't need this change because they are fine as they are. TR players will often tell you that the Striker is utterly useless against infantry, turrets and enemy bases in general. The problem there is that all of the factions are entitled to make the same claim about their ESRLs. The VS Lancer is atrocious against infantry, requiring too long a charge to adequately damage an enemy and even at full charge it won’t even do enough damage to kill anyone. The NC Phoenix does VERY little damage to infantry too, requiring multiple shots to take someone out. The ESRLs are designed to give unique opportunities to the player but with a small compromise. The Phoenix’s camera guiding can efficiently clear out rooms and hiding tanks unlike any other weapon in the game. The Phoenix’s compromise is the low damage. The Phoenix requires skill to use in order to take advantage of the camera-controls. The VS Lancer is unique in the way the it has blistering projectile velocity making it easy to ‘tank-snipe’. The Lancer does 900 damage at maximum charge, which is a lot of damage to take no matter what vehicle you are in, but will not kill infantry. The Lancer’s insane projectile velocity dramatically increases accuracy and the compromise is made on the lack of usability against infantry. The Lancer skill to use as well, the user needs to be able to lead targets well in order to be able to use the high muzzle velocity effectively. The Striker can shred ESF and destroy Tanks. The crazy damage numbers are unforgiving and the lack of dumbfire to use against infantry is no reasonable compromise. The Lancer essentially has the same downfall as the Striker, that being the ineffectiveness against infantry. The Phoenix also has this problem because it deals minimal damage. The Striker is a no compromise super high, unavoidable version of a G2A or G2G launcher. It requires zero skill to use and work in the exact same, super easy-to-use, noob friendly way as the other lock-on launchers. Many TR will say that the Striker’s lack of dumbfire is a problem because everyone else is carrying an S1, Shrike, Nemesis or Hawk. The problem with this is that the TR have access to their own dumbfire launcher and they can also use the Grounder which is the TR equivalent to the Hawk and Nemesis and…it can dumbfire! So the TR really have no excuse. Why on earth would you carry the Striker to an infantry battle when you get the ML-7 for free? I’m not making the accusation that all TR players do this. It’s just that the ones that complain about this do. Overall these are my views on the Striker and these are my honest views which are justified by numbers and experience. I'm sure many people may disagree with some of my points and feel free to make a post if you do. I hope someone from SOE sees this so that they know how severely unbalanced the skies are becoming.
This just in, we know the Striker has been broken since GU14 and needs to keep tracking. It was not stated in patchnotes afaik so this status is not yet "official"
Please SOE add in your forum guidelines this "Allowed only 1 thread asking for Nerf/Buff for a weapon, if the thread already exist you can't create another one" Thank you.
Fyi OP keep your complaints short and sweet. That is a wall of pure text and this topic is old and known.
What rock have you been living under? If anything gets between you and the Striker all the rockets will veer upwards to kiss the sky. Cover works. Use it.
That huge wall of text may have had a valid point or two a few patches ago, but nowadays it's clearly better DPS to use a non-striker launcher, at least where aircraft or distant vehicles are considered. Right now if you do anything but keep on target the whole time, the missles all fly up towards the moon and detonate
Right now the TR don't really have an ESRL. Then again we never really ever had one, we just had the option to spend 1k certs/700 SC on an upgraded Annihilator that only TR can use.
The Striker may do less damage over time than the Annihilator, but in terms of Tears per Second it dominates the Annihilator on Forum Side.
