Striker owners, your opinion please

I am a hardcore TR Heavy Assault player and I believe that the Striker has balance issues that need to be addressed. I agree with the NC and VS players that have complained about the Strikers Lock-on feature.

I would however like to get the opinion of those who have spent their money on the weapon.

It is my opinion that SoE made a mistake when they made the Striker a Lock-on launcher. The ONLY way to "Balance" a lock-on launcher is when it has comparable counterparts in all factions. This is not the case.
Nerfing the lock-on feature of the Striker is counter-productive to "Balancing" ESRL's since the other ESRL's have no lock-on feature to "Balance" against.

It is my opinion that the Striker needs be changed to a fly-by-wire guidance system that requires the user to keep his or her cross-hairs on the target until the rocket hits the target. The rocket would lose guidance after 300m (the length of the wire} and fall.

What is your opinion on this?
Again I want to hear from other owners of this weapon. It's not that non-owners opinions don't matter to me, however I have already acknowledged and agree with your complaints and the fact is, you haven't spent any money on this and I and they have.

I suggest we wait and see the upcoming lock-on changes in action, before we make more Striker threads.

Well it IS being changed to require a constant lock being maintained. SOE has already stated that all lock ons are getting this change.

IMO they should just change it so that the missile aren't so agile, and are easier to dodge. The striker is a hard weapon to change, without making is useless compared to the other launchers. If you decrease it's damage too much, it will have less sustained DPS than the other lock on launchers do. You also have to account for the fact that not every rocket hits, so it doesn't do the same amount of damage every reload.

Also considering a lot of the complaints people have about it, such as it going through terrain, are bugs, some of which they fail to notice other lock ons have as well. For example, the rocket visually being in a different place than it actually is, which is why the striker appears to go through terrain. I've seen other faction rockets do it as well. I consistantly get hit by pheonixes that appear to go 10 feet over my head, and I was hit multiple times today by a NC lock on that hit the ground 10 feet in front of my but still hurt me, since the rocket was in a different place for the enemy client than me.

All lock-ons are supposed to be getting a change requiring you to keep the cross hairs on the target. The Devs have also said they are changing the lock-ons to be a variable time based on range to target, the closer they are the faster you lock on.

I think that will severely **** all the G2A lock-ons by allowing ESFs to do quick passes with no chance to acquire a lock.

But that would require forumside to have actual patience. And that's just not something we can expect to ever happen.

People will whine just as much, because now they won't even be warned before losing a good bunch of their health, yet wire-guided missile won't be significantly harder to use.

In any case, SOE has already given this trait to NC with ravens.

Here I am.
My TR character has a Striker and yes, it's quite easy to hit and at least scare every kind of vehicle. Flares? No problem, just lock, shoot 1 rocket and if the enemy flares, wait some seconds keeping the aim on the target to shoot the other 4. I scared a libby of the MACS in this manner, all alone.

Harassers? No problem, lock on and shoot.

The most important use of the Striker is it's a powerful deterrent. If you are locked on and you are not destroyed you have to escape anyway.

Just speaking about removing its "lock-on" characteristic, I don't think the Striker would be viable in its current configuration.

First, you'd need to make it a single rocket weapon instead of spreading its damage across a 5 rocket magazine. Remember, when making the Striker, Lancer, and Phoenix, SOE measured damage (equally) by per magazine (or per reload), not by individual rocket.

Next, if you make the Striker a non-lock on weapon, you'd make it useless against aircraft. Is this what you intended?
You'd basically be left with another Phoenix.

The striker is strong, because it's our only option so we ALL have it.

Lock on weapons become very very strong in mass numbers. The TR have very few options for rocket launcher so we always have a ton of them.

We have a dumb fire or the striker. The other faction have more variety so they don't have a massive amount of lock users like the TR does

Personally I would love this instead what we have, by fall do you mean drop straight down or fly on with the standard dumb fire arc or simply disappear? I can see a tactic for both the first 2 but do not like the third. The only problem I really foresee is that this will actually get rid of most of the actual downsides of the weapon and add a couple of benefits with only the dropping of the lock on an ability that though it is much harped on by the strikers critics is actually a downside in many situations.

By this i mean it cannot be fired quickly or at infantry period, it warns any vehicle in the area that someone is about to attack it and with a simple cert air can render it useless for long enough to get out of range. I know people will argue but that is the reason that although I own one I do not use it often and that is not the point of this specific thread. So please if you have objections to what I have said please address the new thoughts not my opinion of dual lock on mechanics.

In conclusion these are interesting suggestions but probably would turn out to be as broken as the strikers worst critics think it is now.

And then?
Striker is all-inclusive lock-on. No other RL is needed. For NC and VS you need at least the AA one.

from my interpretation of his post it would act more like the engineers AV turret guided by your aim sight not directly controlling the rocket. This means it could be used with multiple rockets since it does not have the bullet camera of the phoenix. Also if the rockets were as manoeuvrable as they are now you could still potentially hit aircraft with practice though it would undoubtedly be more useful as a AV and infantry suppression weapon.

what he means is if you took all the phoenix or lancer users and gave them annihilators it would be just as dangerous over NC and VS territory as TR but because of the number of players who take the option of lancers or phoenixes rather then lock ons (an option that TR does not have) the aircraft above TR territory has that many more lock ons aiming at them. Just think about what it was like before the ESRL came out.

I don't believe it would be incredibly hard to hit a aircraft with a fly-by-wire rocket unless he was out of range. But even if it is hard to hit them at least we would be balanced again with regards to A/A capability.
And there would be other advantages. The target wouldn't get a lock-on signal so he wouldn't know you were targeting him, and you could fire your rockets at ANY target, infantry, gun emplacements, Max suits, engineer turrets, fellow TR.......

NS Annihilator locks on to ground and air

For a non-lock on to be able to hit an aircraft, I think it would need to be fast and agile.

You have to consider that if you make the Striker a wire guided rocket that it will become THE MAX killer weapon. TR biolabs with nothing but Striker rockets hammering a doorway.

Yeah...remember before it was nerf'd? Anni was king.

I don't think it matters what faction or AA weapon we're talking about. Pilots are going to complain about anything that disrupts their air superiority...and infantry are going to complain when vehicles can farm us unimpeded.

Make it Dumbfire weapon!

That can be done now with any dumbfire launcher

I get more kills with the striker than any other lock-on launcher.
That thing locks-on to any vehicle in matter of seconds. Which means 2/3 strikers are enough to contain a vehicle Zerg for very long. It's indeed, really op.