I just tried the other 2 in the VR room and OMG the Lancer is under powered compare to the others. TR's is a beast = Nerf incoming, NC good damage but poor range = could use a tad more range. The damage compared to the other two is very disappointing. Accuracy is still bad even with the update, to land the 3 full charged shots 200 meters plus. Single fire is still a wide triangle if firing fast. Slow firing is pretty good single accuracy, but damage poor. Should be able to hold the charge as well? As Mefi said, a kill stealer.
It's weak and worse than the S1 in almost every situation, in my opinion. If you charge your shots, you're still doing what seems to be comparable or less damage than a blast from the S1, but you have to take the time to charge. The projectile speed is fast, but the projectile disappears at long range so you can't leverage it to hit targets at a range where it would be significantly harder to use the S1 anyway. The uncharged shots do minimal damage at best. I'd take the S1 against tanks. At close range, I do more damage and don't need to charge. At long range, I can at least *try* to land a rocket whereas the Lancer projectile just disappears and does nothing. I'd take the S1 against aircraft. The charged shot is useless against fast movers, and the uncharged shot does nothing but give away your position. At least with the S1, you can hit predictable pilots with practice and actually kill them. Against slower targets like the Gal and Lib, the S1 is almost as reliable at getting hits and does way more damage with those hits with less exposure time for you. A lot of Libs will hover outside the max range for the Lancer anyway, but because they're staying still they're easy pickings for an S1. I'd take the S1 against MAXes. The Lancer just doesn't have the needed accuracy at mid-long range, and at close range it doesn't have the damage. Maybe the accuracy part will change with this patch. I'd take the S1 against infantry, because it has splash and gibs on direct hits. I can't think of any situation where I'd want to use the Lancer, except because it looks and sounds slightly cooler. Maybe if you have trouble with prediction and aiming, in which case the faster projectile speed will be worth the huge drawbacks you pay for it.
Needs to be able to hold charge & move between scoped/unscoped while charging. Needs more damage. Needs better COF when aimed (even after the hotfix). Needs better range (i.e dropoff at around 250-300m on a 500m weapon is outright taking the piss). Half-second firing delay (the 'Saron effect') MUST GO. Higher projectile velocity. Add these things and the Lancer will be comparable to the others. Without these things, it's weak, inaccurate, and hard to coordinate effectively. The issue with the Lancer is that as soon as you apply the various rationales for it's multiple evident pre-nerfs to the other ESLs, they fall apart. It would be too OP for it to do serious infantry damage with little to no warning - but it's perfectly ok for the Pheonix to do so. It would be too OP for it to have significant alpha strike damage - but it's perfectly ok for the TR one to have titanic alpha potential, even with flares/smoke (still got 4 rockets if they pop the counter). Lancer needs the above additions/tweaks to even be close to as effective as the other two. As it stands now, the myriad pre-nerfs make it far worse than its NC & TR counterparts.
Done some testing just now. (25-3-2013) This is what I found: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ammo capacity: Decimator = 4 Shots Annihilator = 5 shots S1 = 6 shots Hades = 5 shots Nemesis = 5 shots Lancer = 24 shots ( c1 = 1 charge, c2 = 2 charges, c3 = fully charged. ) General stuff: > Except for Annihilator I used dumb fire exclusively. > All tests where conducted at close range. Bullet drop: - Lancer = no drop - Decimator = very little drop (hard to notice) - S1 = A little drop, gets worse the further it goes - Nemesis / Hades = Heavy drop, hard to hit anything past 30m S1 vs Lancer: S1 - Faster fire rate Lancer - Better accuracy Lancer - Faster travel time Lancer - no bullet drop Lancer - More ammo capacity (S1 = 6 shots, Lancer = 8 c3 shots) Lancer - Ability to "poke" enemy's eg: skirmish option S1 - one shots infantry (Lancer takes 7 c1's, 3 c2's and 2 c3's. Target: TR engineer) Lancer = better reload times. (S1 after every shot, Lancer has 6 shot clip.) Lancer: - Taker 3 seconds to get from c1 to c2 - Takes 1 seconds to get from c2 to c3 - At c3 it will fire automatically after 1 second! - Every charge level takes 1 ammo. (c3 takes 3 ammo to fire.) != Occasionally bugs out and get stuck on c1 while still consuming ammo for the charged level! (Visible as the hud indicator will not show more charges!) Prowler [side armor] S1 - 6 shots Decimator - 4 shots Annihilator - 7 shots Hades - 5 shots (4 take it to burning) Nemesis - 6 shots (5 take it to burning) Lancer - 6 c3 shots Lancer - 9 c2 shots Lancer - 27 c1 shots Prowler [rear armor] S1 - 2 shots Decimator - 2 shots Annihilator - 3 shots Hades - 2 shots (1 takes it to burning) Nemesis - 3 shots (2 take it to burning) Lancer - 3 c3 shots (2 take it to burning) Lancer - 5 c2 shots Lancer - 12 c1 shots TR MAX [Torso] S1 - 2 shots (about 6 c1 lancer shots of damage per shot.) Decimator - 2 shots Hades - 2 shots Nemesis - 2 shots Lancer - 2 c3 shots Lancer - 4 c2 shots Lancer - 10 c1 shots Mosquito Nemesis - 3 Missiles (2 takes it to burning) Annihilator - 4 shots (Will burn to death after 3 shots and a few seconds) Lancer - 3 c3 shots Lancer - 5 c2 shots Lancer - 13 c1 shots ------------------------------------------------------ My conclusion: This is not complete data! But based on this: Yes, lancer is worth it. (Though I have to say; it feel off when using it.)
You won't be landing the S1 against moving vehicles past 200m. Nor aircraft. The Lancer will hit targets several times more often any dumbfire weapon simply because you don't need to lead as much and they have less time to react to it. Landing your Lancer shots 7/10 times will deal more damage than hitting 3/10 shots with your S1, and that's assuming you take shots with one as often as the other. The Lancer opens up many more opportunities for you to actually land hits on moving vehicles with its innate traits, and that's worth as much as raw damage as far as I'm concerned. Reliability trumps raw numbers. More importantly, this weapon is the best rocket to use in a squad if you don't want to deal with Flares/Smoke ********. It takes practice, but you are fully capable of hitting moving aircraft, and moving vehicles aren't hard even without practice. A squad can take out any vehicle with charged shots if you have enough people. It happens instantly and almost impossible to evade. The same cannot be said for any other launcher except the Phoenix, and it is still second to the Lancer in this regard.
This data can be misleading, though. It might be the case that a fully charged Lancer kills with the same number of shots as a 'standard' launcher. Important is the following difference: whereas a standard launcher hits instantly (or after a few seconds in case of lock-ons), the user of a Lancer stands still, being vulnerable to everything. This disadvantage makes it inferior in any situation, given the current features of this weapon. It requires definitely either much better zoom (2x to 3x, maybe optional via certs), or any other sort of compensation to its weaknesses.
I don't think it needs a zoom tbh... it needs increased range, no damage falloff and 0 COF... then the Lancer would have its place
I got my Copper Medal for it today, and I'm happy with it. I thought I made a mistake buying it, (I thought it was cool in the training area) but I bought so I might as well use it. I don't charge though 'cause I know I'll make myself obvious and it takes too long. People complain about it being innacurate, but I think it's because they don't know you can shoot just one round while zoomed in. Today I took down a TR liberator and I sniped an NC Max in the 2nd floor of the spawn room. What I don't like is dot in the iron sight, it needs to be bigger. I would also like more ammo with it, I find myself without ammo very quickly.
I agree , the design , sound and animations are cool but its useless ? how could you give us such a piece of garbage =( Increase the damage against armor , make it as powerful as it should be . At the moment its not good for anything , sorry .
What did the update do, anyways? The charge stuff I can get, but it made the 'animation more accurate'? What does that mean?
The reticle display for the charge levels, the bars in a triangle pattern, used to fade in. Looks slick, but isn't exactly responsive feedback. Now they snap in the instant the charge level is reached.
Current impressions - still not worth it. The damage is just too low. I can understand Sony's reluctance to make this a high-damage weapon, since it has no counter - you can't use flares/smoke and it's a lot harder to dodge than an unguided rocket. But as-is, it just doesn't hit hard enough to be worth it. I was defending an AMP station yesterday, and there was a literal hail of Phoenix missiles raining in at all times. Was flying ESF a little later, and saw plenty of Striker missiles. That whole time, I saw a single lancer user plinking away at a turret, and he didn't even get the kill - a tank came by and blew the turret to pieces. It's a little depressing - back in PS1, the Lancer is the reason I rolled VS. I'm not going to re-roll or anything, but I do envy the TR and NC right now.
DUDE!!! I still get the damn charge bug!!!!! WTH??? I thought they were going to fix it? It isn't? I'll hold charge and it will stay at level 1. They still don't let you switch between hip fire and aim while charging and the ammo counter is still missing. I think the damage is ok, but accuracy of both hip fire and scoped is dismal.
I was feeling it more after the last patch , todays patch with 0 cof while ADS should be the golden ticket .
If you fire off all your ammo, and then resupply or respawn, your first shot will be stuck at level 1. Just fire off a shot at the floor and resupply again, and it'll be fixed. Got my Lancer gold medal last night. My stats say I average about 60 points per shot with it. Not hit...shot...despite the fact that I fire it off at basically anything and everything I see
so guys I have it now for 2 hours and must say ist was fun! I killed several tanks, hitted maxes, sniped infiltrators and made a lot of certs and all was stuff not possible with s1 I give it a big like! uhhhh yeah and I run it with my lasher
don't forget - charged lancer gives you more damage, but firing multiple uncharged shots blinds the target.
