Striker vs Lancer (single shot)

Striker: 5 rounds. 100 dmg per. 180m/s velocity.

Lancer: 6 rounds. 150 damage (out to 400m, after that starts deterioriating to 110, still higher), 600m/s velocity.

The lancer can fire faster, but has huge CoF bloom so can only use the higher RoF at close targets... but it's still worth mentioning since it does give Lancer even more DPS against close target tanks.

This is also not considering that at long range, most Lancer users charge up for better control and higher alpha damage.

The Striker on the other hand has 1 benefit of auto-locking onto ESF's if you get close enough with your round. Having used Coyotes in the air, I can tell you that it's not easy to use further than 50m reliably.

Now, I'm no Math major (I did make it to Calc though) but this just doesn't add up.

I LOOOOVE my Lancer. One of my favorite weapon systems in the game.

I have the Striker too. Never really loved it as it was always a boring lock-on mechanic, BUT it once, a long time ago, stupidly brokenly powerful. It got nerfed and became a niche lock-on weapon with occasional circumstances where it could do more alpha damage than the other lock-ons, in exchange for a slew of negatives.

I kinda like the concept of the Striker overhaul... but these numbers are jaw-droppingly underwhelming.

I don't even use the Lancer in single shot mode unless I can clip dump @ 10m into a tanks side or rear, and this is worse in every single way. C'mon SOE.... surely this thing can get some reasonable buffs here to make it actually useful.

As an aside, and relatively unimportant, I do have, and enjoy, the Phoenix as well. I think it itself could use a minor velocity and reload speed buff, but it's not broken/terrible.

ahhh the old days of my striker when i would get rage tells 20% of the time when i play cuz i killed a reaver.....great times

You DO know and recognize that it WAS indeed broken right? And not just in design, but with actual bugs too... flares not working, rounds flying through terrain. It was unavoidable guranteed, high damage, lockon.... for months.

I kinda wish they kept the active tracking and just tweeked that. (higher velocity, faster reload)

Or maybe they can add wire guidance to the new striker.

I dunno. I do know it's utter crap right now though.

meh i was like BR 20-30 when that happened i never really took it into consideration at the time all i cared about was the mass amount of flares that were denying me certs

I played both sides of the conflict (well, 3.. but in relation to striker both sides)

It was a pure upgrade to an Annihilator. Higher DPS, Higher Alpha. You could get someone to fire off flares without dumping an entire payload/reload. Even had longer lock-on ranges.

On top of that, as I said, often flares would only shrug off the first missile, any other striker rounds fired before they flared after that first round would stay on track. To compound that issue, they'd fly through terrain to hit their target.

So not only was it hands down the best lock-on in the game, but it also had game-breaking bugs making it ZOE levels of OP (but against vehicles, not infantry). Bases had 500m no-fly zones around them if TR were in the area. The number of times I'd fly over a base, get lock, flare, and still die was insane.

That is why it got nerfed into the active lock striker we all know up until this newest revamp. The problem with the active lock was it didn't get enough advantage over Annihilator which was Fire and immediately begin reloading. Sure, it had a higher initial payload if all 5 hit (or even 3-4) but as soon as you got into multiple reloads, it's sustained DPS tanked. So for a very minor up front damage load advantage (which can be overcome just by having an extra Heavy) it lost sustained damage AND had a plethora of negatices associated with active lock (time exposed to return fire, ability for striker target to break LoS).

I'd long been fighting for and asking for them to just increase velocity, which would make it harder to break lock for the target (though still possible) and reduce the exposure time a little, and, more importantly, reduce reload time so that it's sustained damage, having to stay scoped in until rounds hit, wasn't so poor. (FWIW: I also think the Phoenix needs both velocity and reload buffs as well for these very same reasons)

This new version... well, as stated is just statistically inferior to all other launchers in so many ways. It needs much higher velocity. I'd increase it to 300-400m/s This would make getting it into it's lock radius of a moving ESF actually possible, and give the TR a more skilled longer range AV weapon (I imagine that would be effective out to 300-400m) I'd also increase it's damage, HOWEVER, it's damage to ESF's might need special consideration if it becomes much much easier to hit with increased velocity.


PS: ^THIS is a wall o text

Ronin you forgot that the Striker also does 50 of indirect damage (explosive). That doesn't matter to armored targets but to ESF's it does. So to ESF's each rocket does 150 just like a Lancer. I did a test with a single mag on the test server and it did just as much damage as a charged Lancer shot. You can also hip fire the Striker with great proficiency, while the Lancer requires ADS. I gave it a shot, shooting at the Reaver from the weapons terminal at the balcony adjacent to it, and spraying as fast as I could, I was getting about 90% accuracies (1 rocket from every 2 mags would miss). I think people are already underestimating the Striker's potential for causing a LOT of trouble.

Also it can be utilized as a deterrence weapon as it is functionally similar to the Lasher (smaller mags, slower RoF, and lower max splash, but a much wider inner blast radius). If you guys don't think that's an actual effective deterrence then why do you say the Lasher is fine? It's about the same.

I gave the Striker a shot in the test server and I was hearing people whine "I won't ever get kills, just assists". Welcome to the VS, where we do LOTS of work but only one of us gets a kill. With just 5 rockets, it took a MAX down to ~30% health. I'd say that is VERY powerful (since you can dumbfire it point blank).

Here goes another half-decent idea:

Buff damage and-- Wait.

Go and see the few CONSTRUCTIVE Striker threads: They're actually really good.

Why don't they move the 50 indirect damage to direct damage then so it's better against armor at least?

And it could still use a velocity buff IMO.

50 splash damage, with 5 round slower firing magazine is NO comparrison to Lasher and I'd never use as a poor mans lasher that way. Yay, at best I can hope to splash someone with 250 damage if they stay still right around a corner.

I haven't had a chance at it yet, but I have used the Lancer considerably, and I'm just imagining using it in only single shot mode, with slower rounds, and 1 less shot even. That doesn't seem particularly useful.

For air deterrence, it's range would be so short that I can't imagine it ever being better than the SKEP (A2G lockon) with the sole potential exception of Hossin because of how close it forces air/ground battles with the canopy, and how it blocks LoS outside that short range.

That's basically it. I could see using the new Striker as AA on Hossin. That's one hell of a small niche for a 1k cert weapon system.

DPS is still lower than default launcher against Armor which hits for 1k damage per reload compared to 750, doesn't have to sit there for 5 seconds to unload it's payload, and probably still has faster reload too. Whoopy, a small velocity increase over default. SO WORTH IT!

I'm just looking at the numbers here... on paper this thing is just terrible.

What's unconstructive about this?

It seems a reasonable comparrison to compare the AV capability of Striker vs Lancer in single shot mode.

Don't just look at the numbers. Go test it out some THEN come back and talk. It's a WHOLE lot better than the Lancer is from the hip. They have to balance the stats right or people will run around with them using them just like they did the Fractures, more on Infantry and MAX's than actual vehicles (which they were made for).

moving from splash to direct damage would be a nerf against infantry, as you'd no longer hit 1 guy for full dmage + his friends for splash, but ONLY direct hits for the full damage.

Seeing as a full mag doesn't seem to do enough damage to kill an enemy soldier, that'd make it pretty terrible for using it for AI then, so I don't think a velocity buff would suddenly make it an infantry destroyer either... but would make it more viable against it's intended targets.

Default launcher would still hit harder, and have higher DPS in it's shorter effective range, SKEP would still be better against air at longer ranges. But Velocity increase would improve effective AA range out to maybe 100m instead of only like 50m coming straight at you, and enough more range against armor to make it worth while to take over default (or G2G) for longer range encounters. (though still NOTHING compared to the Strikers ranged capabilities)

Just saying that there are some really, really good ideas that eclipse mine, but I don't want people messing them up just saying things like "utter crap". Obviously, carry on wit this thread.


I am genuinely sorry, I am very tired. My apologies.
Mods, please remove my earlier message, or something.

They're rockets. They're NOT going to take the splash damage away. They have splash on ALL the AV weapons EXCEPT the Lancer/Vortex. There is NO reason for it as they're SUPPOSE to be for AV (especially the MAX AV's) but they give them splash all the same which makes them a LOT more effective against infantry than they should be. There is a reason the Vortex/Lancers are in last place EVERYTIME for AI.

I don't understand how my proposal would make the Striker worse is what I'm saying.

Heavy Armor takes reduced damage from splash compared to direct AV damage, so moving that 50 damage from splash to direct would make it more effective against armor, unchanged (i believe) against ESF, and worse against Infantry (which it's already not great, but w/e)

I'm just trying to appease all sides while figuring out a functional buff to the new Striker design to give it a place in the TR Aresenal.

Velocity seems important, and my suggest velocity is still HALF the Lancers UNCHARGED velocity, and would still have drop. So Lancer would retain it's range advantage, but would at least give the Striker some AV range over their default.

The increased velocity would also make hitting ESF's that aren't hovering or coming right at you possible. (This is more to why only half the Lancers velocity, can't be too easy)

Honestly I don't know why they even went with Coyote mechanic. Wire-Guided would have been much better IMO. It seems to me this weapon system is going to be harder to balance than even the active lock mechanism.

You forgot about the negative resist values. Everything you said in the OP is irrelevant drivel without them.

SOE:

- Striker called bad
- Lancer called bad
- Phoenix called good
- buff Striker and Lancer
- nerf Phoenix

I'll get some straight up TTK data from VR later

Unless someone wants to do that for me sooner of course

Compare @ 100m:
Default RPG TTK
Lancer single shot
Lancer charged shots
Striker

against vanguard side armor.

I don't have the disk space for recording (Yes, I'm THAT short on disk space right now) so I'm going to have to just time it and do it 3 times to ensure accuracy.

The real problem is that the Striker doesn't allow you to destroy vehicles in situations other launchers realistically won't be effective at. Both the Lancer and Phoenix do - at long range and around cover.

Until Striker gets a unique advantage it'll always suffer from being an up, side, or down-grade to the common pool launchers essentially. And when it was an upgrade they nerfed the phish out of it so...

I don't consider the Coyote pseudo-lock-on trait significant enough, personally.

I had a guy with a striker steal a kill from me today. It felt like as if a light assault would fly up and kill steal an ESF with his knife in front of my skyguard <.< I feel more efficient with the crossbow and explosive bolts than that thing right now

m'kay

Explain, please.