Striker just needs redesign. Changing it from Heat-guided to Laser-guided would be a good step to better direction. At the moment it is very boring to use, very boring to avoid and needs 0% skills.
Tears tears tears! The Striker sucks, it's almost useless now. I pulled it, I used it earlier. First magazine, mountainside! Second magazine @ a tank, no damage, it's glitched it seems. It's only good in very small situations and against oblivious, near brain dead pilots on its own. Used as a group it's a little more powerful, but it's still garbage given you've got a whole group firing the things..and the missiles are still poorly programmed and will drive themselves into the ground leaving a user with maybe 1-2 hits out of 5 if they even get a hit. OP, if you and other forum warrior nerf nerds played the game a little bit, you'd probably find out that the Striker is actually quite trash after you learn how easy it is to avoid getting killed by them. Anything that comes between the target and the launcher restarts the lock on time.Use a flare, restarts lock on time and causes a delay. Use smoke, same issue. Some people use Lancers, they are hit scan instant hit unavoidable damage dealing machines that can harm both armor and infantry as well as aircraft. Other people have some magical weapon called a Phoenix. It harms infantry and vehicles and can be fired from beyond cover. There is no lock on notification from either the Lancer or the Phoenix. TR, they use the Striker. It has a forever and a day lock on period. 3 out of 5 rockets will usually bury themselves into dirt, if not all of them, with the simple flick of the wrist by a pilot, or by moving back into cover, causing the rockets to be wasted into whatever cover it is, saving a vehicles life. There's a tone when the Striker is used. If close, an ESF can kill whole squads of TR using Strikers given the time it takes to lock on, simply firing PPA or Mustang into the bunch and dipping back behind cover. Stop crying OP and those who support this crappy idea of nerfing a pretty much situation restricted, near garbage weapon. You forum warriors, go play the game!
I'm not really going to go and outright say "Blabla is too this, it should be reduced in 'X' ways" - but I would like to interject a few points: Both the Pheonix and the Striker have a 'hard counter' - flares and being shot down, respectively. Flares I imagine can fail if the rocket(s) are close enough to the target to still hit once the decoy is launched (don't quote me on this, it's the case for most lock-on's) - terrain is something I would consider to be a soft counter, and applies to all three ESRL. Things have to be considered 'balanced' when used in large numbers as well as small, this is a very hard thing to do, I imagine, seeing as an organized group can use something to it's fullest potential, whereas an individual might find it lacking - balancing it for the individual can make it imbalanced for the group. Having a nest of Strikers can effectively counteract all ground and air targets within a 400-500m range, this, coupled with render distances can be a very powerful thing. One by itself can be just a deterrence, and less than effective against appropriate countermeasures. Likewise, a group of (skilled) Lancer users can combat all forms of attacks, at far greater ranges (precision becomes much harder at longer ranges, burst damage can be high, especially against vehicles, but it requires user accuracy and timing. Likewise, Pheonix users can use terrain to their advantage, and can wipe out close-ranged vehicles and aircraft (this requires either a lot of skill, luck or a stupid/unaware opponent, I might add). Thus, these things have their effective ranges and strengths. Perhaps some are too strong in some areas? I guess it depends on if it fits within the 'balance' that was intended. (On a personal note, Strikers are a menace in the air, and Lancers do a tonne of damage against Sunderers. Those are my observations. 3+ Striker users can easily kill most/all aircraft and tanks in their lock-on range, same can be said for most of the other ESRL).
The striker is only good on one continent, Esamir. On Amerish the rockets will hit mountains, on Indar they hit canyon walls, and on Hossin they'll run into the trees. This is a very situational weapon, but in the very specific situation it was ment for it preforms well. That situation being 5+ striker users holding a base on Esamir when the enemies are 200-400 meters out and in clear line of sight.
These situations happen on other continents, too. Just because it's a circumstantial weapon (kind of) doesn't mean it's not effective in a lot of situations. Indar has a lot of areas without canyons, this does vary a lot in strength based on warp-gate rotations, I'd imagine, but it's not uncommon to see small groups (depending on your server, large groups) using elevated areas to lock-on spam anything that's in range. Amerish has a lot more terrain coverage, I do agree, it's also got a lot of high peaks that act as vantage points. Those very same points can be used effectively by other forms of AA too, I might add. As I said before, I'm not screaming nerf, just pointing out that all of the ESRL have strengths in some situations, they work very well in groups, I might add. Better than all the other launchers (situational*).
I think fumblewatt's post is really all that has to be seen to realize how powerful this weapon can be, especially in large mass, which this game is all about: MASSIVELY multiplayer online first person shooter... You guys are all making your arguments on small scales comparatively to that of weapons you choose for games like battlefield 3 or CoD... This is not the same game and must be balanced not for one person(or striker) verses one aircraft but 10 to 20 players verse one vehicle
And what happens when you get 30 Lancer's, annihilators, pheonix or any ES G2A G2G launchers? In mass they are all devistating.
reduce range to 250m vs ground, 350 vs air, signifigantly reduce lock on time (to 1s), let it relock a target after the missile has been launched (still no dumbfire). Make it something other than "an anihilator with 150% more damage per mag and ~30-60% more dps (based on range)"
I think the lock on should be removed and the weapon be revamped so it actually takes player skill to use just as the VS and NC specific launchers work
you know what makes me rage? coming out of my warpgate with a TR push nearby and instantly being locked on....
Wrong. 10-20 players versus 15 vehicles. Or are you suggesting a single tank or ESF should be more powerful than 30 AT/AA infantry? Personally, I'd love it if they changed the Striker from lockon to laser guided, provided the missiles behave exactly like the MANA turret ones do. I'd be blowing **** up all day long then instead of watching my rockets plow into everything but their target all day.
Enjoy what? Being chased around by duds? You realize literally 50% of striker rockets are bugged and do zero damage? Or that ESFs seem to be able to outrun them? Or that they have "predictive" tracking so that if the pilot so much as looks to the ground, they all try to plow their way to the other side of the planet in "anticipation". I'd take the Phoenix or Lancer over the Striker any day. As I said, I do hope they make it tougher to use by making rockets laser guided so they go where you point. That way I'd be able to blow up those Liberators hovering at 501m above spawn points lobbing shells at us. Or do a Javelin style top-attack on a side strafing Magrider hiding behind a rock. Oh yeah. Do make it require more skill, SOE. Can't wait. The tears will be delicious.
it doesn't matter that your second volley of rockets do no damage there are so many of you firing at once that 1 volley from 3 people is able to one shot anything without flares... so stop defending a brainless OP cert farming tool.
I would love a laser guided striker with a secondary dumbfire mode. The tears will flow if that ever happens.(You will die without any warning at all) Sounds like fun right?
VS and NC both have lock on faction specific weapons and access to those through certs and station cash. Lock on's are kind of the foot soldiers defense against highly maneuverable air power (when the rockets actually hit their targets -rarely-), are easily avoidable, have counters that the intended targets can invest in and do require a sacrifice in the case of the Striker or Anni, in that you give up the ability to gib other infantry with your rockets. Saying that they require less skill is like saying using the Air Hammer is a challenge against infantry/armor. Biased lies. You're mad.
This one time I was in an intense dogfight with a <fenix>REAVER!</fenix> and we were both down pretty low, then I lost him and he pooped on my radar... RIGHT BEHIND ME! so I bailed out, locked on with my striker, and got the kill. Then my striker let me change class to LA and I flew away to the top of a rainbow where I made out with a unicorn. PLEASE DON'T NERF THIS!!!
