Big gun love! Yaaaaay! From the patch notes... Empire specific Rocket Launchers VS - Lancer: an extremely precise, super-high-velocity, anti-vehicle energy weapon with a unique charge mechanic, the longer you charge the weapon the more damage it deals. TR - Striker: launches a series of mid-damage guided missiles at a single target, the Striker's user must maintain the lock by keeping the enemy in the crosshairs while the missiles are tracking. NC - Phoenix: A high damage, slow firing camera guided missile which must be guided by the Phoenix's user. The Phoenix is capable of dealing high damage with very little warning since there is no lock on. These weapons will be released in the patch the week following GU04 So VS get an anti-materiel rifle, TR a lock-on swarm launcher and NC? I think I'll call it a troll-guided-missile. Sounds awesome and horrible at the same time. I wonder if the Lancer's charge will be a big obvious wobbly blue glow. Or if TR can fire theirs without locking. Or if the NC one won't release hilariously overpowered (swarms of rockets launched from inside a spawn looping around a bio lab like a flock of demented seagulls before homing straight in on a Sundy...)
P*nixes. Woop woop. Not usually one to play HA, but easily getting it again. (I just wish we could loot and locker weapons, sniping down Mossies & Reavers was so much fun in PS1)
Currently i am inclined to say TR got shafted.. It is already hard to enough to stand with line of sight to a vehicle without dying... Add to this massive trials leading back to the player from the swarm rockets and everyone on the enemy side is going to see you probably killing you before the rockets connect with the target and breaking your lock resulting in 0 damage... Obviously this is speculation only time will tell! VS get a fast projectile that can be charged for more damage, If it requires no lock this is going to be incredibly powerful, Some cases i can see it been an effective ESF deterrent. NC, Doubt they can hit an ESF regularly unless the ESF is flying in straight line. I am also assuming it will have limited flight time or distance it can travel.
Ugh. The PS1 lancer was one of the most fun, versatile and strong gun outdoors that basically allowed you to snipe everything. And that phoenix will double as a scout drone and really annoy infantry & maxes if its too good at shooting around cover, just as in PS1 :/ But atleast you can enjoy knifing them in the back while they're busy directing that thing. If the striker is smart enough to allow the target to change mid flight, can also lock on aircraft/maxes and comes with enough dakka it might actually be pretty nice. Especially since you'll get a whole stream of missiles from a squad and dont waste as many shots on stuff that gets killed before your missile makes it there.
Everything will have a twisted sense of near balance, I expect. Vanu- Laster Pointer- Take big boom boom, point at last known spot of shiny light. Fire. With the average idiot, you will get a kill. With the slightly more intelligent idiot, the explosion will probably illuminate them running as fast as they can. TR- Haha, I have more rockets than you- Probably wind up being a TOW variant. If you fire these, they will most probably move fairly fast, and anyone capable of using medium to advanced aerial tricks or knowledge will be able to hopefully shake the locks at the last minute. NC- I see you- Good chance that it will be fireable from out of a spawn room, but good luck getting a decent shot. if you want to fire at air, you will have to be out on the top deck, to avoid the roof shield. If your firing a guided missle at semi close infantry out of a spawn room...well, dumb fasters certainly reload faster, because I imagine you can't reload while your guiding it. Also, if you wind up in the open, and someone kills you while using it, i imagine the rocket would explode. I would expect these to be about as agile as the TOW rocket. Due to sheer issues of distance firing, rendering, and protecting the firer, i would expect these missiles to have a fuse built in, probably to blow up at around 500 meters.
Aww **** the devs went and did it. They gave the NC the Phoenix. Great now most of them are just going to hide behind cover and use it to pick off infantry and armor.
high damage camera guided missile? The tears will never cease. It's a damned shame the TR got stuck with another garbage lock on mechanic that will be blocked by covering up a sliver of the center of the vehicle and hard countered by IR smoke. I would probably just skip this entirely and try to get the dumbfire launchers a velocity buff.
Yeah, so, scope permitting, Vanu are now the sniper faction. I mean... that's what's gonna happen, right? All snipe rifles are identical, all factions have identical weaponry.... except Vanu who have a sniper cannon (to go along with their sniper tank turret). And NC. I'm surprised this made it this far, tbh. A first person shooter where you can sit behind an invincible wall and launch infinite camera guided rockets. Laughable. Well. It would be if I wasn't rolling an NC toon right now... And TR? Poor ********. Another lock-on launcher, except with added fagging around. I think I'd rather have a launcher than allows me to take cover, even if it doesn't spray pretty patterns everywhere.
The TR launcher will be laser guided, so it will work differently than the previous launchers--the missiles track, but only if you're looking at the target, and probably won't have a lockon time to compensate. They will also likely be capable of putting out ludicrous DPS, so Vanguard or Magrider columns out in the open will be in serious trouble. All of these weapons have their own strengths and weaknesses, and if one is imbalanced, the devs can easily adjust various stats and mechanics to fix it.
I foresee the NC launcher being camera guided creating problems for the... - Devs - Tanks - ESFs - Liberators - Galaxies - Flashes - Sunderers - Light Assaults - Heavy Assaults - Infiltrators - Medics - Engineers - MAXs - Spawn Beacons - Turrets - Mines - The untold billions not yet born who are doomed to a dystopian nightmare future where the NC launcher has proven so OP it's actually developed sentience and taken over the world with invincible uncounterable rocket spam. Oh the humanity, think of the children, et cetera. At least I now have a weapon that I can prove effective with, from complete safety, playing one handed whilst smoking a ******.
Good. I like this. Why? Because NC's Heavy Special AI Weapon has been pretty much useless ever since it got released in Beta. Now, our AV Weapon will be (supposedly) OP. I think that's a pretty fair trade. No, I'm not trolling. Even if it breaks game balance - so did the Jackhammer. Though it's the other way around now.
I expect the NC missile to limited in time and range; Probably somewhere around 10 seconds. After all, they need to generate renders for that missile, or you won't hit anything in really large battles. For TR missiles, it depends if you can lock onto anything, or just targets. Because a swarm of laser guided missiles is scary. Especially against Infantry. I expect them all to be slow firing or low damage, or Dumbfire missiles will be pointless. I also expect the Lancer to end up somewhat like the Saron HRB when charged.
I agree, comrade! Long live the NC! Our enemies shall be crushed 'neath the weight of our hidden-guided-troll-rocket-spam! That's an enormous distance, even with modest flight speed. One good player could use this to keep the enemy platoon leader permanently under fire, or just permanently dead. Two good players could use it like an infinitely respawning, free, indestructible scout (that also explodes) for the second player to hunt down the Sundy and mine it... ...Yeeeeeeah... [goes back to rolling NC]
Since the devs stated that the Phoenix will be similar, but not functioning quite the same as the one in PS1, let's look at that list with past experience in mind: So that leaves us with slow and/or immobile targets, basically the same target environment as the AV MANA turret.
