Strikers and the numbers.

Good troll. Try 1v1 Vanguard with magrider or prowler you wont even get half his hp's b4 you die.

You do realize... People accuse Higby of being an NC biased player... and you just made him seem to be a TR biased person... Failure in logic here.

How many VS/NC actually use Lockon based weapons? Answer - Very Few.
There are very few Heavies on either NC or VS that will use lockon based weapons in general. The use of the Faction Lockons have been only convenient when you are near a terminal or sunderer to switch and only when armor presents itself. Even then, most infantry extend themselves or are loaded up for an inclose fight which lockon weapons short of the AV or AA ES weapon has the ability to be used in a pinch for in close fighting, but most of the time, the NS Decimator is preferred due to its hard hitting at close range and usable against tanks over the default Rocket Launcher. This is a known fact among a lot of the players. The only other group that worries about lockons are Air due to the fact that the A2A Missiles are the only other threat that everyone is on 'the same level', but then, this isn't about A2A...

How often have the NC/VS used the Annihilator, a common pool, striker equivalent? Answer - Very few.
Depending on how many people even bother buying it, only those who have bought it and stuck with it may use it. This is also a known fact among a lot of players.

How useful is smoke/flare against a Lancer? Answer - 0% useful.
The Lancer can potshot vehicles, smoke and flare rarely render to obscure or even mititgate damage of the Lancer, so for the TR, it is pointless.

How useful is smoke/flare against a Phoenix? Answer - 0% useful.
The Phoenix does not get mitigated by smoke, especially when you have sighted a target, the icon is there and still can home in on that using the Mk1 guidance system (IE HUMAN CONTROL). Flares do nothing against Phoenixes, only staying in motion to make it hard for the round to hit and being out of the 300m range of where it is coming from.

How useful is smoke/flare against an AV Turret? Answer - 0% useful.
AV turrets will hit you regardless, your only benefit is to find better cover. In the case of air, you just don't hover to make it easier for them to hit you with a round.

Do you see a common theme here to answer the question? So far, there is no A2G lockon weapons... The threats the TR get ground wise are from weapon systems that literally by passes the smoke issue because smoke does not mitigate and flares don't distract. At the same time, unless the VS and NC actually use the lockon weapons, most of the time, their loadouts will focus LESS on that, because they use the decimator or the default launcher more or the other weapon circumvents the need to lockon or be 'smoked' off. The Utility is better used for other options because there is no easier way to mitigate the NC/VS AV options they have. The ES G2G launchers are rarely used as well as the Annihilator because of damage not being that great in the expectation, the horrible tracking system which any smart tanker or pilot will make sure to shake off.

Actually, the Prowler, locked down, will out range most tanks. It will have the better accuracy and refire rate. If they park themselves right, it is a harder trade off unless the fight gets in close, but the prowler will win on a ranged fight a fair deal of the time with the right loadout and lockdown.

This I know. I can 1v1 any tank in the game in a Vanguard. I can 1v2 Maggies and win, 3 AP Lightnings at once are just a snack. A Prowler on its own is a mere appetizer before the real action begins. A Prowler backed up by a Strikers is just /facedesk scramble for cover. It is very, very, very rare to find a lone Prowler without the Strikers.

So yes, a Prowler cannot 1v1 a Vanguard. A Prowler that far away from Striker cover is dead. A Prowler without Striker cover is a rare beast. The Prowler still outperforms all the other tanks in regards to kills and score. How can a tank so weak against a Vanguard still be scoring exponentially higher than a Vanguard and the Maggie? What is the mysterious equalizer and force multiplier that is causing the Prowler to be leaps and bounds ahead of the Vanguard and Maggie in regards to score per hour and kill per user?

An engineer with a NS-AV-turret perhaps? (more damage, unlimited ammo)

You don't instantly do 2500 damage after 3 seconds, because, as you said you can use countermeasures. Yes they have a cooldown, but there is a difference between guaranteed hits and not. Once the bugs are fixed and the new changes kick in, it should also be possible to once again use terrain somewhat to you advantage. I agree the massed effects of the Striker vs air is a bit too much, perhaps a resist tweak. But ground vehicles really should be able to protect themselves from Strikers (again, once the bugs are fixed). The main problem with the Striker is mostly based on the bugs if you ask me.

And about you equation of the damage compared to a Decimator, you also forgot the Striker gives a warning quite a bit before being hit, and they can be countered by smoke/flares. With the new changes you also have to maintain the lock for the entire duration of the missiles flight. The lancer shares none of those traits.

TLDR: once the bugs are fixed, perhaps a slight Aircraft resist change is in order, but I would hold off with more drastic changes till we see how they pan out.

I got maxed smoke on my Prowler at least, and have used it extensively and to great effect over the times. Granted it's not everyone, but still

The Lancer does ignore flares, because they are not a valid countermeasure. That is a + compared to the Striker (with the bugs fixed) in my book. Also I'm pretty sure the Lancer does 1500 damage to vehicles, the raw number is the damage it does to infantry. And including bugged features in a balance discussion (as it is about the numbers) is weird, as that should be brought up as a separate bug instead. It certainly shouldn't be considered while balancing the weapon at least not until SoE has officially confirmed it as "working as intended".

Slight? a BR100 Lib pilot with crew is all but defenceless against a BR1 Striker user that's working as intended? nerf damage against air to 300 damage per missile...

Dude.. Really.. All that I've quoted comes straight from the descriptions of the official wiki, and the remark on the bugged pathing comes from a dev post about next patchnotes youre arguing with those not with me! The Striker has the shortest lockon time of 2.25 secs of any launcher ingame, so even if client side hit detection would be a factor the Striker suffers the least compared to any lockon ingame. Different weapons have different resist, however in the case if the Striker all the light veicles die in 2 salvos from it, and the heavy veicles are not much better if you consider that every TR heavy seems to have it and unless you flare( which buys you a few seconds of extra life till inevitable death) you're toast because of the "bugged" pathing.

Also I would recommend attacking my argument instead of me, that way you would actually help to bring your point across.

Phoenix range: 295m with 5,2s reload for 750damage, 42m/s velocity.

Striker: 500m lockon range and tracks up to 800m range locked on, goes through geometry, 5 sec reload and 2500damage, 100m/s velocity.

The Phoenix is not in any shape or form should be a threat for any vehicle who is actually moving above 10kmh, or is manned by a driver with ears that register the whistling sound getting closer.

The Lancer is fine once you got 3 guys using it, if thenumber is any less then the target has more than enough time to reach cover before the next charged shot comes.

I think all factions should get an ESRL that is as effective against air-campers as the Striker.
However, I'm rational enough to understand that SOE swings the nerf hammer based on the amount of complaints they're receiving, justified or not. There's no way in heck they'll spread this love to the other empires.

I attack your arguments by saying that you are wrong to put them forward. It would be nonsense for me to say that you are some sort of infallible person but your arguments were wrong. If you don't like being told that you personally are wrong and badly informed then educate yourself before you post.

What does striker having a slightly shorter lock time to other lockons have to do with Lancer being a "trash" weapon? You think I'm distracted by you just cherry picking numbers that make it sound like Striker is some crazy unique vehicle killing weapon?

You claim that lancer cannot hit people who think they are behind cover? You are wrong due to client side hit detection and even rendering issues since it works at such extreme range.

And what do you think about the resist values for lancer compared to striker? You ignored that point for some reason. And how would you go about calculating figures like a rough dps calculation for these weapons against different targets? Have you tested them all in VR?

Yeah well AV MANA turrets would be better damage for TR as well. But in practice VS outfits use a mix of? And TR use a mix of?

My most embarassing death against a Prowler was in a Harasser, we chased it down stayed outside the Vulcans high damage range and plinked away. At 50% of its HP we closed in when 2 heavys jumped out pulled Strikers and blow us up inside 4 seconds and we couldnt do anything against it.

Holy **** you died to a striker at close range in a harasser? How ******* bad are you?

I got an idea, leave the Striker alone but buff the DEDICATED g2a and g2g launchers to Striker level (2500 damage) in a few weeks after the TR gotten their precious planes and tanks shot to ***** by total noobs, they will have a totally different perspective on lock-on nerfs...

TR Harassers and Prowlers outperform the other factions because of their weapons, the Vulcan is by far the best weapon to put on a harasser, like its not even close, and the prowler is the only MBT thats effective against infantry with its ability to kill with AOE without reloading, which is why its stats get inflated but gets dominated by good vangaurd drivers.

Striker is definitely why TR Air outperforms the rest though, every TR Heavy uses a striker because its without a doubt the best launcher to have, while the NC and VS often times will carry a dumbfire over their ES launchers or the annihilator because its actually more useful.

Hi
I stopped reading there cause I'm not seriously going to discuss this - have plenty of times.
This is 50% a learn-to-play issue and 50% a learn-to-deal-with-it issue.
It comes down to most players being too bad to get anything done against strikers, and most of those who can rather choose the easy way than challenge and avoid tr, handing air superiority to tr.
I personally don't care, I'm having fun hunting strikerusers who think they're gods. Well, at least when I used to play this game more.
And just wait for my evil grin when the huge lockon nerf hits live. I'll go on a rampage in tr territory. Then the true weakness of the striker will be revealed - its super long time to fire enough missiles to at least deal as much damage as an annihilator (did some calculations on that somewhere on this forum). When you can choose to spend 4 seconds to get enough shots out to deal as much damage as an annihilator missile just to see the enemy line-of-sight block rendering them all useless, or actually firing them much faster with an annihilator, dealing less damage than 1250 but at least hitting before the enemy could escape, I'd usually choose the latter.
Just the liberators. Yeah, the liberators will still be screwed. Unless lots of tr decide to put the striker down.

Could you please tell me what I was wrong in, as apparently you're ************ your way out of the numbers I'm quoting from the wiki and the dev post. Telling me that I'm "wrong" without backing it up is not exactly authentic to say the least. As for client side hit detection and movement interpolation being your argument, all I would say is that even IF the Lancer hits a vehicle behind cover due to lag it will hit it for 750 damage, while a Striker volley does 2500...

As for "extreme Lancer range" it is 700m max as I'm sure you know that, the Striker locks on at 500m and keeps lock till 800m and travels to locked targets more than 1000m.

Resist rates doesnt really concern anyone when every light vehicle dies to a single heavy in 2 salvos regardless of armor, while heavy vehicles pop around 4. I suggest you roll NC or VS get into a scythe or any ground vehicle and get closer than 500m to any TR territory just to get immediately locked from multiple sources and destroyed in seconds. Then I suggest you get the Lancer and try to use it on armor and tell us how it was at least comparable to the Striker.

Alternatively you could go and lay out your argument based on resist rates with numbers and links to sources where you got em from. Throwing around words like "wrong" and "resist values" without numbers are not really credible I'm afraid.

Oh, when did they remove rocket pods from Mosi's? If your argument is going to be that the TR need the striker to defend against Rocket Pod's then where is the NC & VS equivalent so that we can deal with TR rocket pods. You see that is the problem, Thank You for agreeing with us, that the striker give the TR a distinct AA capability not available to the other two empires.

Just tried them both in the VR against front armor of a vanguard, I get a TTK of 52s with the striker, and 59s with the lancer, with third level charging.