I am being preemptive. Its AM I am sipping my coffee (and working hard, lol) and since I am playing primarily as a VS MAX these days I am a bit worried that life for MAX's just got harder. I see all this talk of MAX's not being useful outdoors and yet I manage to keep up a great spm and k/d (not that it really matters unless your being helpful to the team effort) both indoors and outdoors, and I have no issues avoiding tanks and rockets outdoors for the most part. Now with the NC having guided rockets, I am pretty sure my sidestepping is not going to be as effective as it is now with dumbfire rockets which are easy to avoid, and I will be reduced to having to use full cover more often, which allows for less kills. I think part of my outdoor game just got harder but only time will tell. The AV Turret definitely caused me a few more surprise deaths that I would not have had without it being in game. Overall I expect to take a little more avg damage from these things but time will tell. For indoors which most people think MAX's are only good at for AI, I am not so bothered by the new NC guided rocket launchers, AMP station will not be the same walk in the park. (though the VS higher velocity will give TR and NC a little more bother.) How do you think it will play out? Edit: So really it will be the NC guided and the possible VS higher velocity and charged damage that will be additional worries for TR/NC MAX to avoid.
Well they said the Phoenix missles can be shot down effectively with Max weapons and I'm fairly sure the Striker can't lock on to max units yet, so I'm not too bothered about playing Max
Yeah I should have been more specific on the TR Guided vs TR/VS MAX, and the fully charged VS higher velocity vs TR/NC MAX. I was under the assumption the Striker had MAX lock-on and dumbfire ability as in PS1 I thought? Thankfully it does not. What is the velocity and fully charged direct damage of the VS launcher? The AV turret outdoors has gotten me a few times when I couldnt even see it, and I am not crazy about its range.
They are getting added as I post this, servers are down to add the new rocket launchers. 2 min into the PS2 Roadmap Video I am so glad they did not allow the Striker MAX lockon or dumbfire. I thought PS1 did? I imagine this could change? Which would really suck.
For those that haven't seen it this is Higby's preview of the new ESRL's on twitch: Based on that video I don't think MAX's have anything to worry about when it comes to the Phoenix or Striker. The Striker can only be fired with a lock and can't lock onto MAX's (at least at the moment) where as the Phoenix's turning circle will make hitting anything smaller than a tank difficult especially if the target doesn't stand still. As far as I can see the Lancer is the only one MAX's will fear. Its pinpoint accuracy and very high velocity will make snipping MAX's more than possible.
I don't play TR, but I do think their rocket launcher should be MAX useable. Overall people don't seem too happy with the Striker. One thought I had was to maybe give it a dumbfire option and reduce its blast radius to pretty much nothing. Since it can only lock onto vehicles currently, blast radius doesn't mean much, so if the blast radius was reduced even more but it could be dumbfired (especially at maxes) it seems like it would give the TR a little more usefulness out of the weapon.
Meh. Nobody is ever happy with anything. TR says the Striker is bad. The VS in the VR was whining about how the Lancer was **** and the Striker was awesome. The NC was just drooling over their Freedom as usual.
The Striker is out of it for now. But they could add dumbfire or Max lockon down the road, but its doubtful. Many people in the VS VR Training thought the Lancer with its quick fire could be useful vs a MAX in some occasions, but luckily the quick fire is low damage, probably on par with full auto ammo. Full charge seems to be the equivalent of 1 S1 or a hair short, so getting out of the way if you are not moving is no different than not moving in open vs S1 or annihilator. The current NC Phoenix, which was my greatest worry is going through infantry and MAX's in the VR at the moment and not hitting, I believe its a bug. So I cant tell what kind of MAX damage it will be from a direct hit, splash damage is low. So for me, I am just waiting to see what the Phoenix is like in game, I imagine its meant to hit infantry and MAX's. Just cant tell in VR yet. As a bonus, maybe many existing TR Heavies, will be tempted by the Striker and stop using dumbire.
I have chased a burster MAX inside buildings with the Phoenix. He probably could have shot the missile down easily, but instead chose to run after the first hit. I was actually on the ground outside Scarred Mesa Skydock and he was up on that balcony facing north. Was pretty good for a laugh and allowed the liberator farm machine to roll in unopposed and start killing 10 infantry a second as usual. That's what happened during the initial annihilator craze, heavies just carried it everywhere and got wrecked by MAXes.
From what I can see it is hard to see the projectile, though I was trashed this evening so I will see more tomorrow. I was not taking many hits from these outdoors today, but it will take time for peeps to master the Phoenix, tankers were not happy though.
It looks like an extremely bright blue orb, you will notice it when sober. ESFs can see it coming through the rocket pod smoke and take off pretty much immediately.
Haven't run into one yet, but having toyed with the new launchers, they won't be much more of a threat than current dumbfire rockets are. Explosive direct hit -> headshots still clean up MAXes pretty reliably. There are just some new gimmicks for the explosive part now.
I think I killed about 3 VS MAX tonight with the Phoenix - took 2 hits each, nearly got a 4th kill but missed as the MAX ran perpendicular to the missile which makes survivability much greater against the Phoenix. I was noticing as the night went on that infantry were able to spot the Phoenix coming and actively dodged it - well, more like scattered either direction when they saw it coming. Might be harder in a MAX but if you know you've been hit by one of them, don't wait for a second because it will be coming. At less than 100m, they're pretty much a dumbfire weapon. You're not going to be able to guide it with any sort of accuracy and is essentially a Decimator - just with a better sight.
