I really wonder why people don't use these weapons more. Is it the price, the inability to kill infantry or are people being fooled by the low damage listed? Btw today I had the very rare occurrence of seeing multiple phoenix users in a battle. There were 3 or 4 other guys besides me and it was awesome. Seeing 3+ blue rockets in the air is screenshot worthy.
For the Phoenix anyway; Hard to aim, since movement is clunky The poor damage to armor is not worth the potential risk Rocket doesn't carry on past the control point (Maybe it does but the amount of time I've lost control just before hitting a Tank and not having damage flash up is outstanding) Rocket is ridiculously easy to dodge by just moving backward and forwards Can imagine the drawback for the Lancer being that it has a charge up time to do less damage than the default rocket, even if the damage is near instant.
I die to the lancer enough times to know it's well used, at least on Emerald. The Phoenix; I try to use it, you just die mid flight half the time, and when you don't, you don't reach your target, or simply cannot do enough damage, even in groups, to destroy something, all you do is deter 1 vehicle for a couple seconds. I do love shooting ESFs with it though, especially when I hit them a full second after they've killed me, because they tried to let the rocket pass above them, and killing me makes it drop down on them like a rock.
Phoenix is also a death sentence if you aren't in a zerg or in a spawn room. Lancer should be used by everyone. But it is 1000 certs.
My auto-win shield lets me run up to tanks and drop some C4 and finish em off with a deci round . Seriously though, i'd get the phoenix if it didnt make me a target for the RAMS or the Parallax.
Personally I use both, though I don't play VS very often. The Phoenix is great, it basically makes Mana turrets unusable against the NC, it is about to be my first Auraxium on my NC. The other day I found out the Lancer is a surprisingly good anti-Lib weapon. The enhanced target implant goes along so well with the Lancer as well, it helps you prioritize your targets and helps in deciding to go for a full charge or to just shoot a lower charge shot.
I'd be using the living crap out of the phoenix if I had one. As for the lancer, I basically only stopped using it because after many months of using it exclusively and thinking I'd never want another heavy weapon, I switched back to a regular for a change, then bought the anti air lockon... now I'm just trying not to switch back to it for a bit so I can get some more experience with the regulars haha But yeah the lancer is a phenomenal weapon, and I thought that even before I knew it 2 shotted maxes =p
Phoenix is nice but it doesnt have enough range, one thing I would love to see changed is that if you press fire again when guiding the rocket you would lose control over it but it would turn into a "normal" rocket, gain speed and carry on much longer than 300m. That way you could guide the rocket and aim it, click fire again to give it a speed boost. It would give it more range and slightly higher DPS since you wouldnt have to guide it all the way and you are reloading another shot earlier than if you would have guided the shot. Lancer is just awesome tho.. the only change I would want for it is slightly higher damage against ESF so you killed them with 2 fully charged shots, tired of pegging them twice in a row and see them just fly off with fire suppression. Even if they dont have that they have more than enough time to land and repair forcing me to switch to my main weapon and spray some bullets in them(skews the weapon stats)
You can already do that. Press the key you use to exit a vehicle and the rocket keeps going. Even past 300 meters. If you press the exit key as soon as you fire the rocket it acts like a dumbfire anyway
I am 99% sure it doesnt work that way though. First of all when you "exit" the rocket it slows down even more, try shooting one up into the air and exit it... it will slooooowly fly up a bit before sloooooowly falling down. I do this(exit the rocket) when I fire at tanks and things like that wich are stationary but you have to compensate fairly heavily by aiming above them otherwise the rocket will just.. drop to the ground even if its just 15-20m away from the tank when you exit it. I have also tried to shoot at a tank that was stationary but just beyond 300m so the rocket went *poff* before it hit when I guided and I could not hit it even when I exited the rocket. Done that a few times to test it but it could also be that I didnt compensate enough for the insane slowdown and "bullet drop" to get the hit. *Edit* For some fun you can fire the rocket up at an angle and exit it, pull out your SAW and use the rocket as a target. If you hit it the rocket will fly off in a random arc, its kinda fun.
When I used to own accounts on Mattherson and an old one on Waterson, the Lancer was why I existed as an AV class. My vehicle kill number multiplied by 7 when I purchased the thing. Just wish I could equip extended magazines on it, or even make it have a faster charge-time.
Not if the AV turret user knows what he's doing. The most fun I've ever had in PS2 is when I was playing Missile Command with my turret against some NC's Phoenix.
I am a Jester, I use my Pheonix religiously. And every Coboltian knows that Cobalt VS have all convinced themselves that Lancer sucks. With the merge with Ceres and DORAs apparent fondness of Lancer and Vortex though, Cobalt VS attitude might change.
Phoenix is great in the right situations and terrible in the wrong situations, dumbfire mode is almost always useful to some degree. If I find a situation where I can make use of the Phoenix and easily change out my loadout I will pull it, otherwise I stick to dumbfires. Lancer is a bit better at being more good to use most of the time, but sometimes you just need that on demand burst.
The Phoenix & Lancer are both situation specific weapons. You sacrifice versatility to pull them (mostly because of dumb fire & infantry 1 shot kills.) Coordinated Lancer or Phoenix groups of 3+ are devastating. Focus firing w the assistance of Colored smoke (mostly for phoenix) are awesome.
Ever since I got the Deci & Annihilator, I've had little reason to use the other RL's. I still pull out the Phoenix if (and only if) my squad/platoon is trying to heavily focus on AV duty, and if I see vehicles are hidden behind cover that I can position myself to hit from a certain angle. The Phoenix really needs coordinated effort to work because this RL's main selling point is hitting vehicles in spots you don't have direct LoS with. This tends to mean the vehicles aren't taking other sources of damage. I consider the Lancer slightly better in that the targets are in LoS, so the Lancer won't be the only weapon pinging them. Its damage isn't amazing either, of course, but that's a difference in RL's made for targets in LoS and not in LoS.
I lead GOON ops pretty regularly and I'm ALWAYS calling for Phoenix nests, and we have zero problems with armor except for what to do with all these certs we're earning off of it. As a platoon lead, here's what you need to do: 1) Stick a personal waypoint on where you know the armor is 2) Stick the platoon waypoint on any old low rise or hill or wall within 100-300m of the armor. 3) Is the distance to the personal waypoint - the distance to the platoon waypoint <250m or so? If so, /platoonsay ALRIGHT YOU SONS OF ******* GET TO THE PLATOON WAYPOINT AND WHIP OUT YOUR FREEDOM INJECTORS!!!!!!!! FIRE AT THE SMOKE WHEN YOU SEE IT! 4) Using the minimap, drop colored smoke on the armor as you see it pop up Doing this, armor will absolutely melt. Assign one person to call targets for the added hilarity of a Magrider popping out of cover only to be annihlated by 8 Phoenix missiles. #1 priority is always any vehicle that's smoking or on fire. Terrify air into bailing because what you have is a guided, no-warning Decimator. Non-Phoenix havers are AV turret engies or medics. For some reason we never have trouble with PPA Magrider spam, weird!
You do realize that the Phoenix does 100-167% more damage to ground armor than it's base 750 and ignores composite, right?
