The Striker post-buff constructive feedback thread

So we had a long feedback thread about the useless Striker and now it got a buff. The old thread is full of old discussions that are not relevant any more and quite a bit of off topic stuff so I'm taking the liberty to create a new thread for the new version.

The increased the range for the lock on which is neat. Before I never managed to trigger the lock on mechanic but now it seems to work. The increased the damage against infantry so it can kill on one reload in theory. Rather pointless in practice though since it is completely useless against infantry and you are better off taking the time to switch to another weapon. Not that it's a problem either since I don't think rocket launchers are supposed to be a useful weapon against infantry. I just feel that the damage buff overall was pointless since it changes nothing. Mainly because the damage was not changed against vehicles. Full auto is fun.

Lets start with the good part. It is now usable against air at short range if they are flying slowly. A test in VR gave an upper limit of around 200 meters against a stationary target. After that, the COF took over and you was not sure to land the rockets. In real life, aircraft are rarely stationary at short range. Hitting a circling liberator bombing at altitude is out. Same with Galaxies. The only thing I could reliably hit was hovering ESF. If they are flying around, then it was just plain luck if you landed a rocket. They are still too slow to lead anything that is moving past hover speed. So we might have something that is dangerous to hovering ESF. I checked the TTK against ESF in VR. I got 17 seconds for the Striker and 18 seconds for the Grounder. Both need two reloads, 12 rockets from the Striker and three from the Grounder. Problem is, you can scare away hovering ESF rather effectively with a regular lock on as well and then have the range and the lock-on ability to actually keep aircraft away from a distance as well. For it to compete at range, the velocity would need to be buffed closer to flak cannon ranges.

The Striker is far from fixed. Here are the problems.

Accuracy - It has none. The other launchers have no COF for the first (and only) rocket. The Striker does. That means that it is impossible to reliably hit anything at range. I have tried it against an AV Phalanx at 150 meters and I did not even land half the rockets. I tried it in VR against the said/back of a Vanguard and got slightly higher but still not even close to landing all rockets. It does not matter how long you wait, the COF never resets completely. So the velocity is in fact pointless since it's so inaccurate. This was slow fire controlled shots. As for the full auto, things get worse. I tried shooting at a Vanguard from the front from 50 meters away, both in VR and in game and I got a sustained 80 % hit rate. That is, one rocket from every magazine would miss. This is aiming centre mass. But the COF is so large that one rocket will miss. Remember, there is no recoil, only COF and the bloom is still horrible. I did some tests against a Magrider in VR as well. You need to be at about 30 meters to be sure to land all rockets when going full auto when aiming at the side of a Magrider. Yes you read that right. The COF is so large that you basically need to be point blank to be sure to hit anything with it.

TTK - The higher fire rate decreased the TTK against vehicles somewhat. Before, it took the same amount of time to kill a Magrider from the side with both the Striker and the Grounder, 37 seconds. Both ML-7 and Decimator was way ahead with 30 and 27 seconds respectively. Now after the buff, it takes 33 seconds to kill a Magrider from the side going full auto. Remember, you need to be rather close to land those rockets. If you are too far away, TTK increases quite a lot for each rocket missed and this is nothing you can compensate for with skill since the COF is random.

Role? - What is it meant to do? It's clearly not an AV launcher since it's much worse than even the ML-7. It has longer TTK. much worse accuracy and horrible alpha damage. I tried taking on a Vanguard and was treated with an AP shell in the face after the third rocket. With an ML-7 or Decimator, I could have ducked back down again. I have yet to try it against a MAX but other people have told me it's not very effective and the same problems as going up against vehicles at close range apply. You don't want to hang around in the open. So it's an AA launcher then? Well not really since it can't really replace the Grounder. It has basically the same TTK during the ideal case but you are force to sacrifice range. Also, did we really need yet another infantry AA option? It seems to me like AA gets saturated rather quickly. As soon as someone pulls a burster or a lock on, few aircraft will get close enough for the Striker to be effective against air.

It has been said before that the Coyote mechanic was a bad idea and I agree. It does not work with a stationary shooter. It works in air versus air since then you can stay on top of your target while you unload the rockets, keeping it within range. That is not true for a stationary shooter against a mobile target. You will rarely get that close for that amount of time for it to be effective. Also, we really don't need more infantry based AA. The Coyote mechanic also brings another headache for balancing.

So what is the plan for the Striker? What is its role on the battlefield? Why would you spend 1000 certs on it instead of 250 certs on a Grounder if you want to kill air?

My opinion - Lose the air lock on gimmick. Then we can start to find a niche. TR are supposed to have bullet hoses with limited accuracy. So if we say that we keep the current COF and fire rate, then it needs either a damage buff or a larger magazine. I guess a larger magazine would be more interesting. That would give us something to compensate for the lack of alpha damage. Right now there is no reason to use it against armour since it basically does the same damage as a Decimator but it takes longer to unload leaving you exposed. Remember that we are talking ranges of 50 meters here so any decent tanker has a good chance of just shooting you. Increasing the magazine mean that we trade the alpha damage for a higher potential sustained damage. It's higher risk but the reward is more damage. The alternative is bumping the damage and keeping the same amount of rockets. I'm only talking vehicle damage here, infantry damage really isn't interesting. Some people have said they want much higher velocity and better accuracy. Problem is that you don't get an interesting niche then, you get a much worse Lancer. Also, we already have the engineer's AV MANA turret for long range AV duty. I don't think anybody really wants to have more long range AV battles where tanks gets hit by stuff beyond render range. We have enough of that.

So I think it would be unique and more interesting to have a large damage pool. close range full auto rocket launcher. It rewards positioning for the HA since you cannot just pop in and out of cover and the limited range should be less frustrating for the tankers since they actually not only see, but have a real change to kill, whoever is shooting at them.

They need to remove the lockon\tracker and make the missiles about 2x as fast. Its just impossible to hit anything like it is now. If you are lucky you might hit that tank 10m away... or even more lucky... hit the esf thats landed 5m away.

edit: I forgot... God forbid, to hit anything that actually moves *shocked face*

JUST GIVE ME A REFUND!

It's a close-range launcher, why do you keep insisting on giving it some sort of massive range aswell?

What is it with the TR and wanting their ES weapons to do literally everything with no tradeoffs? You want a spammable launcher with pinpoint accuracy? Even the Lancer have horrible accuracy when spammed.

And no, having to expose yourself for 1 second longer than a dumbfire does not justify being better than all other launchers at literally everything.

You can't get a long-range launcher with the DPS of a dumbfire, high accuracy, automatic lockon functions AND high range.

Somewhere you need to squeeze in a drawback. You can't just get everything for free. The Phoenix and Lancer both have very distinct weaknesses. The only weakness of the Striker now is the CoF.

Let's imagine that we give the Striker a 0.1 CoF

You now have a dumbfire with:

DPS of a ML-7
2x the Velocity of a ML-7
Lockon function against air

And literally the only tradeoff is that instead of exposing yourself for 0.5 seconds, you expose yourself for 1.5 seconds. That is not balanced.

Put it back and never use again. It will stay useless.

To be honest there actually is one way of using striker. It's a squad gun. Wanna have TONNS of fun? Suqad-up your galaxy with striker-heavies, then fly somewhere. Find a lonely liberator farming spawnroom, say hello nicely, maybe do a bit pew pew. And then run away pretending you are scared. Next he will start chasing you, thinking about sweet gal exp. Meanwhile when he is close enough 10 HA's jump out from the gal and start strike that liberator, enjoy your 20 rockets per sec with autolock. This is the only way i see to have fun with this weapon.

Stop speaking about lancer in every striker thread. You have portable halberd with sniper accuracy, range and speed.

Eh. I actually like using it now. It's kind of a high ammo split up rocket launcher now. Sure it may stand for a couple more rockets per magazine to make the total damage per mag at least 1000 but other than that it's not crap anymore.

But the accuracy of a dead rat. Please try it out before looking at the stats. You miss most of the rockets even when a ESF is 10m away from you.

You obviously did not read what I wrote because I specifically made a point of making it a short range launcher and that giving it range would be a bad idea. Go read through the post again.

Here we go again, I said that it was ok to have horrible accuracy but currently, he have neither damage potential nor accuracy. Why do you even comment when you have completely misunderstood everything I wrote?

Where did you get 1 second from? The TTK for a Magrider is three seconds longer compared to a ML-7 and 6 seconds longer compared to the Decimator. You spend far more than 1 second exposed compared to a dumb fire. Why are you making up numbers? You can't seriously try to build an argument on numbers you took from thin air?

Read through the last part of my post that you completely ignored.

Wow, you really did ignore all of what I wrote. Are you trying to troll? I wrote an entire paragraph about how giving it lock on against air was a bad idea.

It's not crap, it's just worse than all the other launchers. It might be interesting, but it's never a good option. Full auto is fun to use but performs worse than the other launchers. So what happens when the novelty of a automatic launcher wears off?

I said IF you give it a 0.1 CoF that would happen.

You could literally fire the opposite direction and hit an ESF 10m away from you.

I read you complain about how bad the CoF was. I assumed that you complaining about something actually mean it was a problem to you.

Except that it does have damage. It have the damage of a regular dumbfire. 10% higher TTK against ground targets is barelyeven relevant in the big picture.

It takes 1.6s to empty the Strikers mag. That's where i got that second from. My numbers are based on math, as always. Yours are based on personal opinion and subjective views.

I read your last paragraph now. I get it. You're trying to use a Anti-Air launcher agaisnt air, and thanks it's performing badly. That explains a lot. The TR JUST got a rework that they have been asking for for a long time, and less than a week later you want to completely change it again.

Not going to happen. I'm wasting my time.

Even though the striker has a high rocket velocity, it is disappointing that it winds up being virtually irrelevant when accuracy comes into play. The striker simply doesn't have the range nor the accuracy for the velocity to really matter.

I always love it how you ignore the fact that the damage is spread out across 5 rockets (a disadvantage for AV work).

copypasting my comment from the other thread:

SOE guys, this striker/coyote concept just doesn't work.
the striker is now trying to fill a niche that is already filled by the grounder, we dont need a weaker nor stronger version of what we already have! what every faction already has!
this striker is made for AA, but a grounder is just better at that, and it's waaaaay better vs infantry and ground vehicles too! the striker will be useless untill it will become, after many patches, a better grounder, and then no1 will use the grounder anymore! why should you do this?


SOE, just take the easy way! take our TR MAX weapons as starting point, decide what role the striker should fill, do some basic balance work and give us a fracture (maybe with a bit more splash) to have a good AV launcher, a flak gun (a little more ES lol) if you wanna stick with the AA role or a pounder to have a solid all-round grenade launcher.

I have been hoping for something like the Fracture ever since they first said our ESRL would have a magazine. It's a simple and elegant design. It does not need any extra features to make it unique. I was highly disappointed when they released it as a lock-on. I only bought it when news first spread that they were changing it.

I don't think the striker accuracy is bad at all. Sure if your hip firing it, it's dreadful but then why is that an issue? Shouldn't that be the trade off higher accuracy for lower movement speed?

I've said this is other threads and as it stands now the striker needs only two more changes:

1. ROF increased by something like 50-75% heck maybe even 100% increased.

2. It's velocity increased by...A LOT. ok maybe not a lot I don't have the stats in front of me right now. However if it's designed to lock on to moving air targets then it needs to be a pretty damn quick rocket. Someone said it was like 160m/s now? (Need clarification) if so then I'd suggest increasing the projectile speed to something like 300m/s.

In fact I'm going to add a third and fourth but these will be in an OR function

3. Damage increase to 225

OR

4. Magazine size increased to 8

Try the accuracy in VR. It is not like the other launchers. They have a perfect first shot accuracy in ADS. So it goes where you aim and every rocket will land at the exact same spot. This is not true for the Striker which has a first shot random COF so two rockets will never land on the same place, even when aiming. As I said, you cannot reliably hit anything at 150 meters. It is beyond the size of the first shot COF. It's impossible to compensate for. Next test when you are in VR is to stand 50 meters in front of a MBT and try full auto fire. Count how many rockets hit their mark. I consistently missed one rocket per magazine against a Vanguard at this range. I think I tried five magazines in total and same thing each time. One of the rockets would fly of. At this range, you can hit reliably if you wait for the COF to reset but then what's the point of making it fully automatic? The damage buff against vehicles was tied to an increase in fire rate but you cannot really use the increased fire rate since it's completely negated by the COF bloom.

Increasing the ROF even more will not help much.

Increasing velocity will do nothing against vehicles since it's the accuracy that's limiting the effective range, not the velocity.

It would be better to just change the damage modifiers against vehicles rather than changing the damage. It will only make people complain about it being too good without checking the actual damage output.

A straight up increase in magazine size might work. Would be interesting to see how it played but they would have to change the way it interacts with air if they are going to put 8 rockets in it.

I don't understand why they didn't simply give us the Striker from PS1 instead of the abomination they're trying to pass off to us.

I like how the new striker works. The speed and damage is perfect.
I can only tickle tanks and infantry but it's decent against esfs. Perhaps a range increase for locking and include the ability to lock onto armor near a 2 m range. COF sucks when holding down the trigger.

I have tested it in VR last night. I found that ok not all rockets hit the same spot but the first 3 have minute differences. The last two tend to go off course a little bit but simply lifting my finger and putting it back down instantly fixed that problem. On second thought 8 rockets is like 1600 damage(?) maybe 6 rockets would be enough.

Once again, lifting the finger does not help. There is a first shot random COF that limits it's use at about 150 meters. It does not matter if you wait a second or a minute between shots. At 150 meters, you will not be able to land all rockets due to the COF.

I've actually been using the Striker since the patch, and my squad has been using it effectively.

Got an ESFs hiding behind a mountain to let their auto-repair take action? No problem; fire along side the mountain, and the Striker missiles lock on and ZIP ZIp ZIP Zip Zip Zip dead ESF behind the mountain. I've done this a number of times now, and it's the only ES launcher that is capable of handling ESFs hiding around buildings, corners, and trees that like to repair just out of sight; in this respect, the Striker is absolutely amazing at what it does against air. Best infantry AA weapon in the game as it stands now; I would pick the Striker over the Ground for AA at the point its at now; something I would have been loath to do even when it first came out (read about my Striker hate from Day 1 if you dare).

However, I will concede, the Striker needs either (a serious CoF reduction and velocity buff) OR (a damage buff), but not both. One or the other would do the Striker well. Make it a brutal damage weapon up close, or give it some accuracy at short medium range. The Striker simply tickles vehicles; I put 5 rounds in the rear end of a Magrider and I might as well have flipped the Magrider the middle finger for all the damage it did against ground vehicles.