Official Striker Feedback Thread

I am a regular air defender, and the combination of the striker's cluster fire and the new full assist points has made ADA a lot more worthwhile for me. However, some things about the striker confuse me.

1) ESFs, even ones flying straight lines at low speeds in the open, are rarely struck with all five missiles. Libs and galaxies usually are. Why this difference?

2) The striker seems comparable in lethality to the other ESRLs to ground vehicles, except that it gives a warning where the others do not. Given that the Pheonix can be employed in literally every game context, and the lancer in most, why does the striker have the disadvantage that it's only useful for lock on situations?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AmUavphHXmIxdFhHUzJfN1VYalRnWS0xMnBUdTJpM1E&gid=25

This does tell the truth behind of all ESRL's. Why Striker performs so well?
It doesn't require any skills, just point and click. Even most newbies players will perform well with it. It is extremely powerful in groups. Completely Air control and after that you can easily get control of tanks and there you go.

Honestly, its not OP when single used but it is when used in groups, or in fact its very bad when single used. But you are heavy assault and heavy assaults are second best classes against infantries. So you don't lose anything as HA, like you would lose as AA Max. AA Max can't cap, its slow and not that well against infantries.
When this class can also wipe away vehicles in a group, its OP. So can Phoenix, Lancer and all those other rocket launchers? They aren't just as effective as Striker. Phoenix barely hit air, so doesn't Lancer. All other non-guided missiles can be evaded, rest Lock-on missiles do half damage what Striker does.

You get an advantage over Infantries, you get an advantage over vehicles. So how we could counter Striker users? Nohow.
How can we counter Phoenix users? Get air vehicles.
How can we counter Lancer users? Get air vehicles.

How it should be against Striker. Get tanks. Yes, it should do alot of less damage to tanks or not even able to lock-on them. Because at the moment, we cant counter Striker users but we can counter other. Thats why its OP.
Or simply change it to Laser Guided ESRL. Then it would be more fun to use and not so powerful against air.
I wouldn't nerf its damage, because it needs to hit 5th times while other needs to hit once. It just needs to be redesigned or something.

If this doesn't happen, they have to buff Lancer like a crazy. Would you want to see that? I doubt so....

Too easy to use, but very effective.. maybe too effective.

Make it fun to use and rewarding for mastery, like engi AV turret, or default launcher.

What that data actually says is that Phoenix is the most powerful of the 3 SRLs, Striker does between fair and well, and VS are unwilling to use the Lancer because the poisonous effect of the bad words poured by whiners in the forums is still present.

Realize:
- Phoenix users have the most high score followed by Striker users. But Phoenixes do far more kills than Strikers ( 76.76 vs 15.90 per person or 19.43 vs 7.26 kills/hour per person). That simply means the Striker is a machine to get assistances.

- Striker users destroy more vehicles (10.86 vs 7.70 from the Phoenix, only 3 vehicles more per hour), right. But don't get fooled, as already stated Phoenix users have by far more kills than Striker users. What does means? it confirms what we already knew, Phoenix users spend most of the time farming infantry than shooting at vehicles. And still they do fair against vehicles. Keep in mind Striker users can only shoot at vehicles and aircrafts. And still even focusing their efforts against that targets, unlike Phoenix users, they only get a 3 vehicle kill difference while Phoenix users pull a total of 60 kills more. Now imagine what would happen if those NC players stopped wasting time on farming infantry and dedicated that time to shoot at vehicles.

- 61% in accuracy on Strikers only means that they land 3 rockets of 5 most of the time. Therefore expected damage output per clip is 1500. It has the potential to deal 2500 but in pactice that won't happen as shown by the data.

- Also according to data Phoenix user are abusing the weapon. It's the most played with more hours of use per person and a respectable number of shots fired if we keep in mind despite Strikers users have fired more shots, they have no other choice, because they must fire 5 rockets for each Phoenix rocket. Still the number of Striker shots is barely 1.6 times thenumber of Phoenix rocket shots. On the other side, data about Lancer shows that the data is hardly representive of the Lancer performance because people doesn't play it enough. VS players must stop that boicot and start playing the weapon more frequenty.


To sum up, is the Striker very good as their detractos seem o claim? it depends, data shows the Striker is a rocket hoser that scares the crap out of any pilot/tanker, but in exchange gets very few kills.

Do you really think that Lancer is good compared to Striker or Phoenix? Its **** compared to them, its fine compared to other rocket launchers. Striker and Phoenix are both extremely OP vs Lancer.
Phoenix is also stupidly OP against infantry, but its another thread. Lets say that Phoenix is equal with Striker but Lancer is extremely UP. To me, all what matters is the damage. You don't have to kill to be effective.

So, you deal ~53% more damage than Lancer per hour. You get ~65% more vehicle kills than Lancer per hour. You get ~94% more kills per hour (this just shows how often you kill liberators/main battle tanks). Your hit ratio is 60%, which shows that you land 3 of 5 an average. You get 96% more score per hour than Lancer. There is ~77% more Striker users than Lancer.
You are saying that all those 900 +BR40 players are utterly **** compared to your 1600 +BR40 players? I. Don't. Think. So. Lancer is just very bad, not its users.

So either nerf Striker and Phoenix or buff Lancer. You have to buff Lancer alot to be equal. You cannot deny the fact that Striker is OP against vehicles in masses, to ground and air. Phoenix is OP against infantries and tanks.

It still have more vehicles kills than others ESRL while all ESRL must be AV weapons.
It's the most balanced, but in fact slightly overperforming compared what it must be: a sidegrade to all rocket launchers.

Again, I just died from a single volley of Striker rockets from a full HP scythe. I think something's very wrong with the calculations. Either that, or the stats they give is wrong. This is becoming ridiculous.

This is what's happening in Ceres now: a few scythes can hold back the tides of mosquito zerg TR fields all the time. At least for a while. When each mosquito isolated, they're usually very easy to take down. Then Strikers start appearing, and what was once a more or less even battle becomes a free for all for the TR as our air is obliterated. With our air gone, our vehicles follow. With our vehicles gone, it's lost. Whoever thought this was fun and balanced ought to play the losing side more often. That means Higby.

Are you sure that it was only one Striker? I have to imagine that if this was possible we'd have a video of it by now.

Edit:

Again, the Striker is at best mildly stronger than the annihilator. The only reason that you see so many Strikers is that people want to try out the new ESRLs.

Yes. I counted the hits and the kill screen shows one guy. It should be noted that I'm not using any armor whatsoever, I use nanorepair and flares.

A "mildly stronger" annihilator is already too strong. Again, did no one realize that a week or so ago, people were complaining about annihilators being OP? And yes, that included TR. And now, they suddenly became amnesiacs because they got handed another even stronger and more importantly, exclusive, version.

Our air starts to disappear one by one every time it goes against even a single TR squad. NC and VS pilots are preferring to engage each other rather than fly over TR frontlines (especially in Esamir). Meanwhile mosquitos and TR libs are running rampant over everything given that we have nothing that can kill them that easily from the ground that doesn't cost resources and have very obvious drawbacks (maxes). Every single battle against a TR force large enough ends up with us being spawncamped by dozens of mosquitos and several libs. Don't tell me that's just coincidence.

My point is, why would you want to engage the NC when they already have the annihilator, which in the hands of one person is comparably deadly? Heck, they also have whatever the equivalent to our Grounder is, and that's straight up better than the Striker at G2A. The only reason that these aren't a problem for you is that people are choosing not to use them. If the Striker needs to be nerfed then all lockons need to be nerfed.

Annihilators? Comparably deadly over strikers? LOL. Even a noob pilot has enough sense to run away when he gets hit by one annihilator rocket. It's deadly for the distracted or the real idiots who think they can tank 2 or more hits from it. It's effective not because it one-shots planes and libs, but because it damages them enough to force them to withdraw. I've been killed about ten times more with dumbfire launchers in all my flight time than I've been with any standard G2As.

With strikers, you don't need to be damaged. You run out of flares, you HAVE to run away or die, if not from the rockets themselves, then from having low enough HP that follow up small arms fire from infantry or a stray shot from that ESF you were chasing would be enough to explode you.

Two shots from the annihilator does about as much as one clip from the Striker, and you have to have the target in your sights until all of the rockets hit. The annihilator starts reloading as soon as he's fired the missile, and is probably going to start locking again shortly after the first one hits. Neither is able to kill you in one clip (I'm sticking with this until I see definitive proof otherwise). While the striker has more maximum DPS from mid range, it is uncommon for all 5 rockets to hit unless the target is using no evasive maneuvers. Either gun, when used by only one person, gives you an opportunity to run off and repair.

Even medium pilots has enouth sense to run away before bein hitten by one Stiker rocker.

Now they will go off at the first slavo wich takes more time to fire than a fire and forget rocket.

It one shot them if there is enouth strikers to instakill them, then maybe 1 aircraft isn't enouth, maybe should they come with more aircrafts?
Please, post on my sign thread good sugestions

it needs 2 strikers with a bad guidance system to kill in 3 sec (time for all the rockets hits) an ESF
It needs 3 G2A with a good guidance to instakill an ESF.
G2A have also a better DPS at long range (something around 400m) and its missiles follow you until 920m while the striker's missiles are fire and forget 3 sec after 500m (that must be nerfed to 1.5 sec imo)
It's balanced.

A single striker magazine deals 1250/1750 damages on an ESF. It require many infantry shots to deal 500 damages to an ESF...
Maybe should you cert composite armor is small arms/flak are your issue, stealth if Striker is your issue.
You still have utility slot for nanorepair, flares or radar.
ESF can be improved, not the rocket launchers (for the moment)

I'm a pilot, jeez. I deal with annihilators all the time. Don't tell me how deadly it is. Ask your own pilots how many times they've died to our Nemesis or our Annihilators. Go on.

Then what, pray tell, is your point? If you're aware how strong those are why are you complaining about the Striker?

You do realize I meant AFTER he got hit, don't you? Because unlike annis, by the time strikers hit you, running away won't matter ****. You will die.

I really really wish we had something similar, just so you'd truly realize just how powerful Striker is against aircraft when compared to annihilators. I'm kinda hoping the devs will be stupid enough again to make the Lancer too powerful in their next "hotfix", just so you'd know how it feels (and I don't, I wouldn't want anyone to be on the receiving end of a Striker-level weapon). Numerous pilots have explained it many times in this thread, so you can read back on their explanations as well. But for what it's worth, here:

Annihilators (and every other AA) deal just enough damage to make a pilot disengage. Strikers deal enough damage to kill them instantly. And if you don't believe my experiences, then at least you'd agree that it deals enough to put them at a vastly higher chance of getting killed a few seconds later, anything less than half HP is already danger level to fragile ESFs. No other faction's ESRL can do this, not even the annihilator. And I don't want them to either.

TR currently have the ability to clear the air like no other faction. You might think this is negligible especially if you play solely on the ground, but pilots have a very important role to fill in combat, especially given the fact that liberators are very difficult to kill with anything from the ground (again, excepting strikers apparently). A single lib can decimate a squad without air support. A single ESF can halt then advance of a heavy armor convoy if they're skilled enough to avoid tank fire. Without air, not only are your own ground units safe, but your own air can harass our own ground units with impunity. So even just one slight advantage of one faction over another in terms of air superiority, will already unbalance the game horribly. And Striker does that, at the low low price of 1000 certs and zero skill.

I don't understand how devs could think that giving TR the only ESRL which can lock air was a good idea. Sure, Phoenix and Lancers can kill infantry in addition to vehicles, unlike Strikers. But infantry don't cost resources. One air unit is worth about 5 to 10 infantry by kill ratio alone. You get to kill something valuable. We get to kill something which is better off being killed by... y'know... GUNS which are already freely available to us anyway.

And for those saying that standard G2As have higher ranges and are fire and forget, have you ever tried shooting anything on the ground from more than 300m away? Yeah. Not as easy as it sounds, doesn't it? Or saying that it has "bad pathing", when fact is, any lockons are almost impossible to dodge unless there's a mountain nearby. Flares at level 5 (that's about 2000+ certs spent) take 25 seconds to recharge, during which you can be locked on again multiple times.

P.S. And if you're wondering what my stance was on the earlier "annis are OP" threads, I disagreed. They were balanced by the fact that they can't be dumbfired (which infuriatingly is what TR are asking now for their Annihilator 2000, and the ability to lock more things).

Anyway F this ****. Game has ceased to be fun when the server merges resulted in extremely lopsided populations anyway.

Striker accuracy: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AmUavphHXmIxdFhHUzJfN1VYalRnWS0xMnBUdTJpM1E&gid=25
61%.
Think that most of them shots are against slow ground vehicles, accuracy agaist ESF shoul be clost to 30-40% Considering its magazine site, it means 2-3 rockets max/slavo, same as G2A launcher that are harder to dodge!
Phoenix have the potential to OHK an ESF if it come close without warning.
Lancer can deal 1500/1750 damages to ans ESF and put in in fire by charging, point and release (because of the speed 7X quicker than others launchers and no bullet drop) in 2 shots without warning.

Eh? What kind of math is that? 61% could be just as easily 90% air hit accuracy, 32% ground hit accuracy. Far more likely even, given that as you've all admitted yourselves, Strikers are quite bad at hitting ground vehicles with even the slightest rock blocking them. Look at what the other stats show. 699 fired, 430 hits for the Striker, compared to 417/168 for the Phoenix, 380/171 for the Lancer. 9.78 vehicles per hour killed for the Striker, vs. 6.92 for Phoenix, and 5.79 for Lancers. Given that both of the vehicle kills of Phoenix and Lancers are certainly almost all ground vehicles (and if we suppose that all 3 ESRLs are on the same footing when it comes to killing ground vehicles), where do you think the extra 3.99 to 2.86 vehicles killed per hour comes from for the Striker? Submarines?