Unless the Liberator's retreating or at an extremely high altitude, I've found the Shrike is much more effective against Liberators. The Hawk's laughably low damage and lock-on time and indicator is really only good for finishing off critically damaged Liberators or scaring off the more timid of Liberator crews. The Shrike delivers massive damage in discrete instances and can land reliably on the large frame of moving or stationary Liberators easily, so that even a solo player can scare off all but the foolhardy and two or three can quickly wipe the entire thing out with only 3 rockets needed. Watching players get bombarded with Zephyr or Dalton fire as they try to lock on is pretty much "Hawk.txt" (which, by the way, isn't even a proper meme). You can hit a Liberator circling above a base by anticipating its movement without ever being physically spotted and, with Flak Armor, ever being in danger of being killed by the Liberator. I used to carry a Hawk since launch exclusively. But its pitiful damage due to the 0.5 multiplier against air made me switch a few months back to primarily the Shrike (although the Hawk has a valuable role in conjunction with the high-damage dumbfires in helping damage, deter, or finish aircraft). The higher velocity of the rocket is also a plus when using it against vehicles, although the Hawk can still hold its own in closer distances. And then, the Shrike's free. What's not to love? Huge skill cap, huge rewards. Even use it defensively against an ESF over using a Hawk and it's "go big or go home" with lethally debilitating a Scythe or Mosquito or merely frightening it out the door. Both have their place, but the Shrike's got more where it counts. Use whichever, but the Shrike will always be there for you when you need the raw damage of 1700 over 750 against air.
I failed to mention the half a squad of heavies tossing rockets at a target moving in three dimensions at ~100m away. They just press space bar and bam, it misses. Also, it's an option available to everybody. High skill cap high reward is all well and good, but if "high skill, high reward" is common pool (as the default launchers are basically) but we're the only ones without a "low skill cap, high reward" launcher like the Striker or, to a slightly lesser degree, the Lancer, then that's a really bad situation to be in. Seriously, pull a Striker sometime and see how wildly superior it is to the Hawk aka our best option for AA, then crumple at the realization that once the lockon changes go through, it will be the only launcher in the game balanced around maintaining a lock, dumping shot(s) and swiftly reloading. Everything else is just going to take forever to do paltry sum of damage, THEN you can hit your long *** reload. Enjoying insanely good guns like the TAR and MSR-W is so much more fun when I'm not doing it under constant assault by marauder harassers and libs and Saron sniping HEAT maggies. I just press "3" and they all run away or die horribly!
A niche role of completely annihilating enemy vehicles? You have to be absolutely horrible with the Phoenix to think the Hawk is better. Try standing, completely safe, behind a wall and wrecking everything with a Hawk. Try slaughtering enemy ESFs and Liberators that just flare or fly away at the sound of a lock-on warning with a Hawk. If you can't control a Phoenix, the Hawk is probably better, but user error doesn't make the Phoenix a bad weapon.
I've got mouse sensitivity settings and stategies that mean I can land 80% or so of my Phoenix shots. The problem I find with my Phoenix though is that I'd be better served in 100% of those cases by just driving up to the vehicle in a flash with my engie and tank mining it. Can they be useful if you're sitting in a spawn room? Sure, but I find the ability of the Hawk to clear the air to be much more valuable than anything the Phoenix can do. If you're ignoring the air, then you're Phoenixing from the spawn room, which means you've already lost.
Mouse sensitivity does nothing to affect how sharply the Phoenix missile can turn, so.... what? So you'd rather spend 150 infantry resources and 90 mechanized resources on an almost certainly suicidal mission that might take out a lone vehicle over using the Phoenix that would allow you to engage the same vehicle and his 5+ friends without even giving them LOS on you? I'm all for ignoring K/D ratios and doing what needs to be done to defend/take territory, but that's just idiotic. There's so much wrong with this paragraph.. I'm not sure where to begin. Unless I'm mistaken, you're suggesting that the Phoenix is only useful when fired from the safety of the spawn room, otherwise LIMITLESS HORDES OF ENEMY ESFS AND LIBERATORS WILL BOMBARD YOU FROM THE SKIES. Let's be real, guy. There aren't always swarms of mosquitoes pounding your platoon's *** to the point where you can't focus on ground vehicles. Hell, even if there are, the Phoenix 1-shots ESFS and takes a massive chunk out of those slow-moving barn doors we call "Liberators." I'm not sure where you get off talking about the Hawk like it's so big and bad. Do you think TR or VS air units give a crap when they're being locked? They know it's not a striker. Even if they're paranoid, they'll just pop a flare or break your LOS. You sure scared them off. You know what scares off air vehicles? Getting knocked into the red by the Phoenix missile they never saw coming. Obviously you've already decided for yourself that the Phoenix sucks, and nothing I can say will change your mind. I have my doubts that you've ever even used it outside of a 30-minute trial, but that's on you. Just don't come in here spewing nonsense about how you're better off trying to suicide bomb tanks than use the Phoenix.
Have you even used it? Boost your mouse sensitivity to something crazy and try guiding the Phoenix missile again - it doesn't go up to infinity but it means you can max out of the turn rate without having to destroy your mouse. Also: https://players.planetside2.com/#!/5428066778527947521/weapons Assuming this is you, I've got 10x the kills with the Phoenix than you do. So yeah, I know what I'm talking about when I talk about these things. Suicide engie is just what you do when you want an enemy sundy dead within 30 seconds - shorter if they're using a spawn beacon. Phoenx isn't going to do that, you'd be lucky to have them organized in that timeframe.Enemy vehicles do exist at 301m+ and behind obstacles that you can't guide a missile behind, which is not a concern for the engie. Use the Hawk people! It's cheaper, fills a niche that the NC is sorely lacking in (AA), can one shot infantry, and has a much shorter time between shots. As I'm sure everybody has noticed, we've got a lot of air to deter because the VS prefer to fly against us to avoid the Striker, and the TR prefer to fly against us to avoid supercharged VS bursters and unavoidable Lancer spam. Whereas the NC have...mildly effective sometimes common pool items, and even our bursters are the worst. Our HAs need to fill the gap
In fact, I tried that just before submitting my previous post just to be sure, and there was no difference. So, you're saying I haven't gotten enough kills with it to realize how bad it is? Lol. So now you're rewording your argument from "Suicide engineers are more useful than a Phoenix 100% of the time" to "Suicide engineers are more useful than a Phoenix for quickly taking out enemy sunderers before engineers can repair them" to which I will reply: OF COURSE suicide engineers are better for instagibbing sunderers. I never even tried to ****ing argue that. By that logic, the Hawk sucks massive dick, too, so what are you even talking about? Why are you trying to kill infantry with a launcher? /sigh
Because it's really, really good at it and there's not always heavier targets around? I mean, why use AP rounds on infantry targets huh? Worst case scenario, you just enter the scene surrounded by a blaze of glory. Anyway, like it or not, my larger pool of experience with the Phoenix DOES make me more qualified to yammer on about it. Shrike is really good - better overall than the Decimator I'd say except in towers/biolabs. The reason to trade to the Hawk is because for a low investment (250 certs) you can trade 200 damage off the top (not much of a big deal in this case) for the ability to nail high value targets reliably.
Tanks use AP rounds on infantry because they can't hit 1 and switch to an LMG. Are you seriously making that comparison? I think I'm being trolled.
So wait, if I've got a rocket launcher all set up on my shoulder and with no heavy targets in sight, I'm supposed to waste time gingerly putting it away so I can slowly bring out my adv grip LMG and maybe hose him down before he makes a break for it instead of, say, I dunno...maybe blasting him from full to zero with a single rocket? Also this is hilariously good fun and makes people really angry, which is even funnier because those same people are guilty of it (or so I once thought...)? Is it like an e-honor thing or are you just used to the Phoenix and the other ESRLs being terrible against infantry? Because rocket launchers are seriously great at instagibbing infantry. And anyway, tankers are more than able to jump out of their tank and machine gun people down. It's not optimal, sure, but it's more or less directly comparable to the idea of switching from a rocket launcher to a gun to kill a solider.
I'm pretty good with the Pheonix (been using it since PS1), but I rarely hit ESFs (because even in hover and lolpod mode they tend to move to fast with tiny hitboxs) and Libs (because the generally tend to be more than 300m away). Hitting infantry is no problem, but hitting air is just plain hard (same with Harrasser, they simply move too fast). Now that's not to say it's a bad weapon, its arguable the best defensive support weapon in the game (so long as you have air cover and direct fire along with it), but it is NOT an AA weapon. The only ESFs you'll ever likely hit are those that have landed for repair or those that have has their game crash and a static in the air.
If there isn't a vehicle target around, what are you doing with your RL out? You just prance around with it in case you happen to come face to face with a prowler?
Damn I thought for a second the brought back the dumb fire alternate fire mode, wish they would give that to the Phoenix, I'd actually use it then.
What? The Phoenix is easily dumb-fired. Hold left click, then right click when ready to fire and hit "e" or whatever your exit key is bound to. Not quite as simple as a shrike, but it works fine.
IT'S OUT BECAUSE IT'S LOADED AND ONE SHOTS INFANTRY! If you do this the rocket will still disappear after 300 meter and drop like a rock to boot.
Great, so you might one-shot someone only to be killed by the guy standing next to him. ****ing fantastic strategy. Holy ****ing **** are you people serious? Of course it ****ing drops like a rock when you dumb-fire it, that's why you only do it in close range. Why the **** else would you dumb-fire a Phoenix?
Oh yes, let's use a launcher that is terrible against infantry and air in close quarters instead of the faster, harder hitter, infantry blasting default launcher! Anybody who listens to this and pulls a Phoenix for close range work will immediately agree with me. Please do this, come to my side and stop using the Phoenix. The best way to run as a heavy is to open with a launcher shot, immediately switch to your LMG, and start firing away. It's as good as an EMP grenade for stripping shields and you may get a kill or two. If you're getting killed in the half second before you pull your LMG out despite NW5+resist+strafing then the odds were impossible anyway. Also, nothing is more fun than rounding a corner to find a cloaked infiltrator and just wrecking him with a rocket headshot.
I'm done arguing with you. The fact that you base your choice of anti-vehicle rocket launcher on its effectiveness against infantry is idiotic, and this argument is going nowhere because you refuse to see logic. Bye.
