Alright this will be a long one. Had a chat with some friends in TR while running some squad ideas. Anyway we came on the topic of the T2 Striker and after going over some of the frustations with the current direction of the latest changes, I wanted to give you an abreviation of this talk as food for thought. Why does the Striker feels like in a bad place? I don't want to argue to much here. This is mostly a feeling shared among my outfit. Between the VS Lancer, which can down an ESF in two shots, the NC Masthead, with a similar TTK despite not even being a rocket launcher and the NS Swarm, that practically copied the original concept of the striker, TR lacks a solid infantry anti air option. And I am not salty about that specifically, I am NSO after all we don't even have any nice toys despite drone buddy. During any of our outfits ops we we usually assume 2 dedicated AA hunters. Be that with Skyguard during Amor Balls, Heavies during Infantry pushes or AA ESF for the rare air based squad. From this perspective we can paint these pictures: 2 Heavies with Lancer can provided they have the skill to hit burst an ESF with a coordinated strike without a chance to retreat. Compared to the Striker, which deals damage over time and requires both heavies to land all of their first shots and then half of the second salvo to beat an ESF that could also repair, that is more than enough time to bail after the first couple of hits. 2 Heavies with Swarm can also kill an ESF with their first salvo rather than having to reload. The lock-on means there is some time for the pilot to react and whatnot, but remember that the original striker concept was more or less what Swarm is today. 2 Engineers with Mastheads have a higher TTK (7.2) than 2 Striker Heavies (2,4) with both teams having one spare shot. Only the masthead is once again not a rocket launcher, doesn't have to bother with flares and I would argue the high damage per shots makes it much more intimidating for ESF pilots. In short TR's only choice for a dedicated empire specific infantry based AA weapon can be defeated by flares or bailing away and has a very limited uptime between salvos making for poor coverage. Solution 1 - Higher Lock-On Radius The idea is simple. Since the weapon already does piss poor damage at the moment, at least it should do so consistently. Lancer and Masthead have an incredible muzzle velocity, making hitting a moving target just easy as the proximity lock-on. Only because the shots fly so far an Aircraft can simply weave away from an incoming barrage. To level the playing field one could simply make the detection radius like 30-50 meters. This would of course make the weapon a no brainer. A larger dedicated group could just grief air game with auto clickers. Covering an entire base from Spawn Room with 2 heavies could also be a mess. So no good. Solution 2 - Better Lock-On Behaviour This comes down to the last patch on projectile life-time (August 15, 2018 Update) and the general issue with lock-ons and ESF being able to weave into cover. While the strikes beyond render distance are of course a nuisance a compromise would be to extend the life-time of projectile upon acquiring a lock by for example another 3 seconds. In addition reactivating the old predictive tracking (removed during Performance Update Number 2) or some other smarter rockets capable of avoiding terrain while locked could make the weapon stand out in terms of G2A. At the end of the day, while this might work, it neither feels balanced nor very TR (who are all about that dakka). Solution 3 - Higher Velocity Increasing velocity would solve the aforementioned problems to some degree. Even with just 300 m/s muzzle velocity, range would go from ~450 to 600. It would also make reacting to an incoming barrage much harder. Once again it might work, but at that point we end up with a strange half breed of Striker with Lancer pulling both down and also not being very TR. Solution 4 - Flak Explosions More an afterthought, but I don't want to take away from my/our preferred solution to much. Instead of proximity lock-on the projectiles explode if an aircraft is within range of lock-on. The explosion would be flak explosion damage. There wouldn't be any direct hits, so we can completely adjust the damage against armor and infantry. Adjust the flak damage to whatever amounts to a good shots to kill balance. Overall perhaps the most solid at least for Ground to Air TR game. It would fix the lack of dedicated lock-on free Anti-Air weapons. And if were talking about something like an NSO weapon, I would be all over this. But once again this is TR and just big boom doesn't say TR in our hearts. Solution 5 - DAKKA DAKKA Now what are the core tenets of TR? High RPM and or high Magazine size. The Striker already fulfils this to some extent. But with Swarm, Muramasa and Masamune also featuring salvo fire, it doesn't stand out and arguably even falls behind the Swarm. Then we have to consider the Air game. Nothing is more annoying than being clipped from the sky with little to no counter play especially from Infantry, extra so if you are just doing Air to Air. With that being said, me and my colleagues have come up with the following changes to the Striker: Remove Magazine and Reload. The Striker now pulls ammo like a seeker crossbow straight from its ammunition pool. A never ending barrage of missiles just screams TR. A chain gun rocket launcher so to speak. Remember since last patch only direct hits to tanks deal damage and splash has been significantly reduced in size. Slightly increase RPM. Just enough so that the TTK for ESF and other targets doesn't change to much with the reload now missing. Decrease ammunition pool to 36-30. This weapon will need an ammo pack or runs to resupply terminals (either Sunderers which can be taken out or facility terminals where heavies should have the defenders advantage especially against oppressive ground farming). Decrease Tick Rate for Ammo Replenishment until constant fire starves the weapon of ammunition. Even with an Ammo pack, this weapon should eventually run dry. Meaning at some point there will be fire breaks on an open field. Windows of opportunity for A2G to make their move. Optional changes might include: Make it worse against Infantry targets. Be that by reducing splash damage even more, increasing unequip time, handling or no headshot bonus damage. Sharpen the identity as an deterrence weapon for armor and air. Add proximity lock-on for armor. Should only be considered if the anti infantry play is made worse. Slightly Higher Muzzle velocity that falls off over projectile lifetime without lock-on. To give high flying A2A game even more breathing room, while doubling down on punishing close A2G crafts. I hope the overall picture is clear: A duo of T2 Striker can now create a curtain of explosives over an area that while not deadly, certainly will force Pilots to commit to either being quickly whittled down if they stay, deploy flares or stay out of the effective range (since hitting anything past a certain range with striker becomes impossible) Final words Personally while I like the spirit and my TR colleagues would welcome the 5th solution. It's somewhat shoots my own motivation for this talk in the foot. We were talking about reviving battle valk. Which for TR uses the T2 Striker and having to land more often to refill ammunition because of these changes kinda defeats that purpose. But this is for the good of the Striker overall and I and my peers will manage. Also yes this has been a lot of talk about the T2 Striker as an AA weapon, but argueably none of the changes would really affect its anti amor capability and the weapon screams AA to begin with. And this post was long enough as it is. So if you made it this far thank you and I see you planetside.
Your outfit's feeling about the Striker seems to be heavily influenced by the fact that it's a TR outfit. Maybe you never even tried to kill or damage air with a Lancer or Masthead. And most important: Maybe you never had to fight Strikers, especially not the ones shooting from a Valkyrie. (Spoiler: Maybe the most OP thing in the whole game.) Your comparisons are wild. Striker is one of the best AA options for infantry overall already. In some situations THE BEST option by far. Plus: It's like 10x more user friendly than a Lancer (or Decimator), it has no long "lock G" warning like Swarm or other Lock-Ons, and does not block your primary slot (like the Masthead and the other AMRs).
Striker when it works is amazing, best infantry AA in the game. But it's just so unreliable now. When oshur released Wrel somehow broke the velocity and homing of missiles, It was 'fixed' for the most part, but ever since then striker missiles are far slower and seem to not home in on the target more than they do. Instead the missiles just shoot right past the filthy groundpounders. For the majority of the game Striker was the permanent resident of my TR Heavy's RL slot, The ability to 2-clip ESFs, the ease of use, the lack of lock-on warning, all of it made striker incredible, Every time I'd fire it, all of the missiles would hit, EVERY TIME, good ole' reliable striker! But it's been pushed out of the slot 'recently' because the dodgy homing just makes it so unreliable. If it was working, Striker would be amazing once again, so we don't need buffs, we need bugfixes.
The biggest issue with Striker is the RPM and the overall slow fly time of the rockets making it a non-threat outside relatively close range, and the exposure time for needing to get all the shots out. A slight boost to RPM and/or the actual velocity of the shots would go a LONG way given you need to get multiple of them close enough to lock on, either that or fixing the lock on range to work better and leaving the rest as is. It really only needs one thing tweaked to bring it back into good graces. Still miss the days where it could lockon to ground though >.>
My opinion is the Devs should extend lock ranges and increase velocities on all man portable anti-air rockets for all factions.
funny you said that, was messing around with the swarm today and noticed how it just doesn't really expire. now here is the thing: the striker assumes that by the time the lockon triggers, but as we know that isn't always the case, which is one of the many contributers for the striker feeling well not underpowererd but just also not standing out as a faction weaon. well there are a few points here. my outfit has quite a few vets who do play on all factions, even I do on occasion hop into actual NC to squadlead there. so we all would like to say we have a pretty good understanding of the various weapons avaialbe to all factions. it is also not a matter of power for the most part. sure I made a case to showcase the current state of main AA game, but the main focus should probably be just the comparison to the NS Swarm. deals more damage and is way more reliable. because yeah flares are easier against lock-ons, but if you are ground farming, you should see the striker coming at you and be able to pop flares. And if you are not using flares, because you are A2A then you are out of luck anyway. it also does what the striker did originally. The main point for the talk was how to make Striker standout again against Swarm. And continious fire at an adjusted fireing rate was just that felt the most TR. As some other people pointed out, the projectile tracking behaviour also has been broken a while back, but asking once more for a bugfix after all this time feels kinda a mute point. Now to adress you other points: On the note of the masthead being a primary weapon, sure. Only that a) engineer can pickup shotgut secondary via ASP, b) AMR are often picked by tank drivers, meaning an AP ligthning can still fire at air rather effectively. c) sniping aircrafts for me is easier than actually landing headshots, d) masthead never runs out of ammo due to ammo pack, meanwhile striker and lancer cannot just go into the field. d) I've just had a fun weekend of getting clipped from the sky by a line of masthead engineers covering the sky, while having enemy A2G farmers being free to rain death. so I know I am neither the only one capable of doing this nor is it a nieche strategy/loadout choice for NC. And on the topic of battlevalk using strikers. Sure it was a playstyle which slightly favoured TR. Then again Rumble Seat repairs got removed, the wyvern got balanced against the helios, leaving the current battle valk as something still possible, but involving a lot of work/luck by the heavies to provide adequat A2A firepower. not to say it isn't possible, but it is a very top of the skill floor stuff these days. which is a shame. Not to mention killing stuff like Valk as a mobile Sniper Platform or low ground air support, which is argueably stuff other factions would be just as good with. and if you didn't notice, we even suggested making the Striker more reliant on being refilled, meaning a battle valk would have more downtime, so no idea why you would bring it up in the first place.
