Lancer makes zero sense....

[subDii]

In Higby's demo of the new rocket launchers he showed the Lancer hitting a mosquito with a fully charged shot, and the mosquito was brought down to 1/2 health (or was it 1/3?)... any who... I use an NS Decimator on my HA, and a ESF has never survived a single shot from one of them monster rockets... so when I saw that mosquito survive a fully charged lancer shot... :huh: :eek: :huh: :eek:

edit: After pondering the demo some more I'm realising that the super fast projectile speed might make up for lower damage versus the decimator rocket. But still feel the time it takes to get maximum charge + reloading time might make it worst than the decimator... hmmm...

[robocpf1]

In Higby's demo of the new rocket launchers he showed the Lancer hitting a mosquito with a fully charged shot, and the mosquito was brought down to 1/2 health (or was it 1/3?)... any who... I use an NS Decimator on my HA, and a ESF has never survived a single shot from one of them monster rockets... so when I saw that mosquito survive a fully charged lancer shot... :huh: :eek: :huh: :eek:

A fully charged Lancer shot is still only 3 Lancer rounds, however, while a Decimator is a one-rocket-per-magazine hit or miss.

Imagine that the 6 Lancer shots are each roughly equivalent to 1/6 of that one Decimator rocket.

[subDii]

A fully charged Lancer shot is still only 3 Lancer rounds, however, while a Decimator is a one-rocket-per-magazine hit or miss.

Imagine that the 6 Lancer shots are each roughly equivalent to 1/6 of that one Decimator rocket.

Well I'll be the first to admit mathematics ain't ma strong suit...

But when I saw that puny ESF survive what I thought would be a behemoth lazer in the face... I cried on the inside. haha

[WSNeo]

In Higby's demo of the new rocket launchers he showed the Lancer hitting a mosquito with a fully charged shot, and the mosquito was brought down to 1/2 health (or was it 1/3?)... any who... I use an NS Decimator on my HA, and a ESF has never survived a single shot from one of them monster rockets... so when I saw that mosquito survive a fully charged lancer shot... :huh: :eek: :huh: :eek:

I'm unsure as to what point you're trying to get across. Are you saying that the Decimator is stronger than the Lancer and that that's a problem? If so I'd disagree as players that can actually hit an ESF with a Deci should be rewarded way more than a fully charged shot from a high speed projectile from the Lancer.

EDIT: That and the other Empires would whine their asses off even more than they will be once the Lancer goes live. >:D

[Rumblepit]

Well I'll be the first to admit mathematics ain't ma strong suit...

But when I saw that puny ESF survive what I thought would be a behemoth lazer in the face... I cried on the inside. haha


when i found out we were getting a lockon rocket launcher i cried inside.
4 ways to be countered, flares, smoke,stealth,and break line of sight . all of which are in game. id say 75% of the population will be able to counter the all mighty striker whenever they want. ill stick to my av turret and my dual bursters

[Hobnail]

So...near-hit scan velocity doesn't excite you? Find another spandex weirdo and you can instagib ESFs once more.

[WSNeo]

when i found out we were getting a lockon rocket launcher i cried inside.
4 ways to be countered, flares, smoke,stealth,and break line of sight . all of which are in game. id say 75% of the population will be able to counter the all mighty striker whenever they want. ill stick to my av turret and my dual bursters

You DO realize that TR will be dominating the skies with the Striker regardless, just like they did in PS1 right? All you need is more than one Striker and any ESF/Lib will be screwed. Keep in mind that there are no incoming missile warnings so you can bluff aircraft into bugging it without questioning what type of missile is headed their way. As it stands, I'm pretty sure TR will have the strongest anti vehicle ESL with that burst fire mode. The NC will have the most annoying, and without cloak bubbles on AMSes, you will never keep an AMS alive with Phoenix rockets scouting the area constantly. Keep in mind that the game is not supposed to be asymmetric, how you engage each empire if supposed to be vastly different.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

They've done a combo on the Lancer, making it both 'OP' (charged mode) and rubbish at the same time (original single shot mode).

OP stuff: near enough hitscan (for those who thought PS1 Lancer was 'hitscan', this version killed you 5 minutes ago), apparently zero CoF (aka pinpoint accuracy) whilst ADS, only a 4 second time 'penalty' for using a full charge shot, no reduction in accuracy or velocity.

Rubbish stuff: horrendous ammo efficiency and vastly increased accuracy required in single shot mode to match charged mode damage per ammo.

Pet hate: Charged mode, the only thing worth using due to ammo efficiency/damage but has a clunky 4 second delay, in other words an artificial constraint in order to 'match' it with every other AV weapon out there, ie instant fire + travel time, now delayed fire + zero travel time. So they 'gave' us a rapid fire/highly accurate/'hitscan' weapon, but in order to make best use of it, you have to use a mode that mimics other launchers cycle times.

[DeltaGun]

The lancer damage is pretty underwhelming. You have to charge it for about 3 seconds, twice, to do the damage of a Decimator shot. It seems like it will be about 6-7 seconds to expend one magazine. That is... well we'll have to see how much the projectile speed really changes things.

[Timealude]

For the damage, cant you imagine having at least 6 people in your squad with those things? armor columns will melt to them.....

[ChipMHazard]

The Lancer's main thing seems to be its projectile speed.

[subDii]

The Lancer's main thing seems to be its projectile speed.

Yup, at first I didn't realise just how fast the projectile hit its mark. That quick-shot is pretty sweet now that I noticed it. :D:D:D

[Aaron]

The Lancer is supposed to be a group weapon. Just imagine having enough peeps to instagib an MBT. I'd think it also have some major KS abilities.

[Falcon_br]

ESF have 60% damage reduction to the lancer, they made it that way because it would be ridiculous to be one shot kill from longe range with a pin point fast hit no warning weapon.
But they also said that 2 combined lancers can do that.
Also, infantry got 80% damage reduction to it, so it is no longer a anti sniper weapon from ps-1.
Lancer is a Zerg weapon, a tank collum will not be able to advance on stack point if several lancers are waiting for them there.

[DeltaGun]

All weapons are better when 5 people are firing them at once. Lancer is not special in this regard. You'll have to try harder.

[WSNeo]

All weapons are better when 5 people are firing them at once. Lancer is not special in this regard. You'll have to try harder.

^This.

Have you ever come across The Enclave's Decimator defense? It's pretty ridiculous.

[Rumblepit]

You DO realize that TR will be dominating the skies with the Striker regardless, just like they did in PS1 right? All you need is more than one Striker and any ESF/Lib will be screwed. Keep in mind that there are no incoming missile warnings so you can bluff aircraft into bugging it without questioning what type of missile is headed their way. As it stands, I'm pretty sure TR will have the strongest anti vehicle ESL with that burst fire mode. The NC will have the most annoying, and without cloak bubbles on AMSes, you will never keep an AMS alive with Phoenix rockets scouting the area constantly. Keep in mind that the game is not supposed to be asymmetric, how you engage each empire if supposed to be vastly different.



lol nice try.... why dont you see more people using lockons? because EVERYONE and their ALT has either smoke, stealth , or flares. AV turret and burster are the top AV weapons tr have in their arsenal. this will not change with the arrival of the striker.atm lockons deter thats it, you got that part right.but i can deter anything i want with my anilator , but if i want to kill air or armor, ill use bruster and AV turret.

i guess i could be wrong, but with some many cons to using the weapon i just dont see it being viable.you have to maintain a lock first of all. this in itself creates many problems. someone walks in front of you, lock broken, someone drives or flies in front of your target, lock broken, if the air or armor breaks line of site, lock broken, flares lock broken,smoke lock broken. you see my point?

[DeltaGun]

Can we please stay on topic? This thread is about the Lancer... not the Striker.

[Rumblepit]

Can we please stay on topic? This thread is about the Lancer... not the Striker.


just saying...... grass is looking much greener over there atm. the way i see it, vs and nc got buffed to defend against armor and air. we got a different version of something already in game ,and it just so happens to have a boat load of counters.

[Aaron]

All weapons are better when 5 people are firing them at once. Lancer is not special in this regard. You'll have to try harder.

Well, the lancer is sort of like a sniper rifle. If you use it in a group, and generally hit the same target at the same time, you could kill it without giving it a one second thought to retreat. That's what I had in mind.

[DeltaGun]

Well, the lancer is sort of like a sniper rifle. If you use it in a group, and generally hit the same target at the same time, you could kill it without giving it a one second thought to retreat. That's what I had in mind.

That's true, the enemy will not have much of a warning as with some other launchers.

[CasualCat]

That's true, the enemy will not have much of a warning as with some other launchers.

They are thinking about giving it a warning though (I hope they don't), and in theory you could accomplish a similar effect with combined phoenixes.

[Rothnang]

When it comes to how much damage a weapon does to aircraft it seems to be the general idea that the harder something is to hit with the more damage it does.

That's why tank cannons and dumbfire launchers do insane amounts of damage to aircraft.

I really hate that because it makes flying a Liberator really suicidal if you want to do fun stuff with it. Unfortunately hitting a Liberator with a dumbfire rocket or tank gun is only hard when you use the Liberator for high altitude bombing.

[DeltaGun]

They are thinking about giving it a warning though (I hope they don't), and in theory you could accomplish a similar effect with combined phoenixes.

Plus they don't require line of sight. You theoretically could wipe out entire tank columns without being vulnerable to retribution.

Yeah the Lancer is looking more and more dissapointing, lol.

[Rbstr]

The phoenix has a very long TTK. And like you said, all guns are good in large groups. If you've got the dozens of people you'd need to kill a squad of tanks in 1 or 2 volleys of phoenixes from behind cover...more power too you.

The lancer might not do enough damage, or may have a bit too long charge time, IMO.
Characterizing it as disappointing makes no sense yet.
It's completely understandable why they'd want something with such high velocity to do less damage to aircraft (it was obvious that there's some kind of damage nerf when it hits aircraft vs. ground vehicles). We're going to be able to take real shots at more than just close/hovering aircraft with the gun. It can't just wreck an ESF's shit because he wasn't bobbing and weaving like a mad man all the time.
It looks like it does more damage to a tank/sundy per shot than an S1, nearly deci levels, and it carries 6 full-charges of that damage, unlike the deci with 4.

If you start the clock at the first hit on target, the lancer can do two full power hits in 1.7 seconds before the deci can much more reliably at much greater ranges.

[Rothnang]

All things considered, I'm glad that I'm a Vanu Liberator pilot, because the Lancer is the ESL I want to face the least in a Liberator. I don't think it's the most powerful of the three, but it's the one that gives the target the least counterplay.

The Striker is going to be the most OP I think in the meanwhile. While the phoenix is really powerful, when Higby showcased it he barely managed a 90° turn during its flight time, so it's not that bad really. The striker on the other hand is basically several Annihilators strapped together, and Annihilator squads were already one of the main things really tarding up the game.

Also "Everyone has smoke or flares so lockons are bad" is an idiotic argument. Everyone is FORCED to have smoke or flares because of lockons more like.

[Tenhi]

The thing about sniping is that the Lancer has this large glowy trail. If you look at the Vid that Higby posted yesterday you can see it a little bit. With that thing you cant hide at all. So setting up on some hill and sniping? Nope.

And they were/are thinking about adding a "here I am"-effect for the charging <_<

Edit: And an OT edit. With the Striker you can lock-on, wait for flares, reaquire and then shoot. Or you can shoot 1 Rocket and then the other 4. Basically it should be pretty easy to bait enemies into using their flares.

[Rothnang]

And then you go FUUUU when it leads to a spawnroom shield. ;)

[bpostal]

...Striker...can bluff aircraft into bugging it without questioning what type of missile is headed their way...The NC will have the most annoying, and without cloak bubbles on AMSes, you will never keep an AMS alive with Phoenix rockets scouting the area constantly. Keep in mind that the game is not supposed to be asymmetric, how you engage each empire if supposed to be vastly different.

That was my favorite part of the Striker. Faking out aircraft with zero ammo.

That said, I imagine I'll be too busy bitching about the Phoenix to complain about the lancer so if, for whatever reason, it turns out to be OP? I probably won't notice.

Right up until my vehicle explodes for absolutely no apparent reason.

[Wahooo]

I really need to use these some and see, but at first glance they seem to have emulated the elements these had in PS1 pretty well.

Striker = easy mode to use, feels cheap to get killed by it... BUT you shoot a LOT without getting kills... as was pointed out scares vehicles away. Seems it will have the same roll in PS2.

Peenix? Annoying as fuck. HATE getting killed while using it, HATE getting killed by it. Not OP but in PS1 was definitely one of the most annoying things in game. In PS2 with increased damage to infantry from AV weapons? It might even be more annoying... still not OP though, I hope to snipe many many peenix users.

Lancer? The AV sniper. How is that not awesome? It takes a bit of practice, i'm not sold on the big AV trail but at the same time a big issue I have in the game is not knowing where the fuck rockets are coming from a lot of the time. If this thing could 1 shot air with the charge up? Are you serious? How OP that would be? And I'm someone that is pro AA and anti-air in general. Use them, it seems in use they will operate a lot like the PS1 lancer. One of the most fun and satisfying weapons to use in the game. It will kill just fine, and of all three I expect more complaints about the Lancer being OP than either of the other two.

[Badjuju]

Well have to see it in action. The Lancer was my favorite weapon in PS1. Hopefully it doesn't let us down.

[snafus]

You can't always compare weapons just from a individual standpoint. Just as AA was buffed to the point that now it scales out of control becoming far beyond OP when in any kind of real numbers. The same will apply for your Lancer, which with team work will be insta gibbing all the ESF you could want.

[OmegaPREDATOR]

Lancer seems to be the best launcher of the 3.
- 6 ammos,
- fast shoot (sommething like 1/s),
- neer instantanly touching target (nobody will avoid them exepte really fast targets).

The only trouble is the loading system who eems to be useless (it's faster to shoot 3 times than load and shoot).
You will also have possibility to snipe soldiers quite easily (max will have trouble).
So don't :cry: yet please.

EDIT : OK, I try it and it sucks so much... 6 shoot on a soldier and still in life :vssucks:

The NC will have the most annoying, and without cloak bubbles on AMSes, you will never keep an AMS alive with Phoenix rockets scouting the area constantly. Keep in mind that the game is not supposed to be asymmetric, how you engage each empire if supposed to be vastly different.

The Phoenix seems to have a small range (I don't know exactly how many) and only stationnary objects will be easy to shoot (but with rockets comming by the top, magrider will not straf to avoid them!). Still interesting rocket-launcher but not that good.

You DO realize that TR will be dominating the skies with the Striker regardless, just like they did in PS1 right? All you need is more than one Striker and any ESF/Lib will be screwed. Keep in mind that there are no incoming missile warnings so you can bluff aircraft into bugging it without questioning what type of missile is headed their way. As it stands, I'm pretty sure TR will have the strongest anti vehicle ESL with that burst fire mode.

And ESF have alredy to deal with AA MAXs, Phalanx turrels, Lock-on rocket_launchers (and futur engineer AA mana turrel and future Phalanx turrels), and missiles of others ESF. Flares are not enought good for survive more than 5s more aganst lock_on launchers and wait 60s for next one ...
With the Striker we will need to pass near the ground to evoid lock (by the way does lunch rockets still follow they targer if the Striker is no more on it ?)
-> why don't they increase to 2000m the max altitude :cry:

Just wait and see but vehicules will suffer the most with these new launchers

[Rumblepit]

All things considered, I'm glad that I'm a Vanu Liberator pilot, because the Lancer is the ESL I want to face the least in a Liberator. I don't think it's the most powerful of the three, but it's the one that gives the target the least counterplay.

The Striker is going to be the most OP I think in the meanwhile. While the phoenix is really powerful, when Higby showcased it he barely managed a 90° turn during its flight time, so it's not that bad really. The striker on the other hand is basically several Annihilators strapped together, and Annihilator squads were already one of the main things really tarding up the game.

Also "Everyone has smoke or flares so lockons are bad" is an idiotic argument. Everyone is FORCED to have smoke or flares because of lockons more like.

Annihilators are fire and forget, striker is not, you have to maintain lock..... and yes everyone is forced to have counter measures in game because of all the lockons. so i ask how will the striker be op???? ill tell ya i think it will deter,and do it well.this is why you dont see as many lockons anymore, because everyone already has the counter measures.

[Blinklys]

I think all three ESRL look very interesting and unique. They each have their strengths and weaknesses without looking clearly OP in any regards. Can't wait to try out the Lancer and see how much havoc it can create. The relatively low damage pr. shot seems like a needed trade off for the high accuracy and projectile speed.

[Dragonskin]

Lancer is pretty freaking awesome. At first I was underwhelmed by the damage output of a charged shot, but you can make 2 charged shots per mag. The travel time is almost instant and did you see the range of that thing? That's nuts. It's like the engie AV turrets with near instant travel time. I was also slightly dissappointed in the animation of the shots... the single shot looks like the Lasher animation and it's not very laser looking to me.

The the only issue I really had with the Pheonix is I think range is slightly too limited. Otherwise it could be a pretty awesome rocket launcher.

The Striker looks awesome, but like others have said their are counters already in the game for it. It also requires you maintain lock instead of lock, fire and forget. At least the other 2 ESRLs have a dumbfire option. So I feel the Striker is balanced in that you can't dumbfire, you have to maintain lock.. so if something moves behind cover your lose lock and if something deploys a lock counter while your missiles are in the air then you are boned because none will hit.

[Thunderhawk]

I have a feeling we are going to have squads of Lancer users all lined up in Scarred Mesa Skydock, Crossroads, The Crown, and all sorts of other locations (Regent Rock for example) just sitting there and Spamming the living F*** out of all vehicles....(Air and Land)

Its going to be a Massacre, dont think of Lancer as 1v1, think of what it will do with a group and it will be played in groups I kid you not.

(yes I am buying one tonight)

[Dragonskin]

I have a feeling we are going to have squads of Lancer users all lined up in Scarred Mesa Skydock, Crossroads, The Crown, and all sorts of other locations (Regent Rock for example) just sitting there and Spamming the living F*** out of all vehicles....(Air and Land)

Its going to be a Massacre, dont think of Lancer as 1v1, think of what it will do with a group and it will be played in groups I kid you not.

(yes I am buying one tonight)

This is my fear. Due to their insane range you will be able to sit at the crown and do massive area denial for both enemy gound and air.

Oh well, I'm all for it. PS2 needed something to spice it up. A reason to loathe the enemy factions!

[Hamma]

Personally I believe out of all the new ESRL's the Lancer will be the most deadly. It's instant hit, long range and quiet. It will be the silent killer.

[Shamrock]

I'm going to withhold judgement until live and actually in use, I fully expect all 3 of them to be critiqued by each set of faction players, hell its already begun!

[subDii]

For AV and possibly AA purposes the lancer seems to be the best choice, but for CQC I'm about 110% sure that the decimator is the better option.

When I bump into a MAX I want to quickly end his ass - with the lancer you can forget taking down a max with anything but fully charged shots, but the major, *major* weakness is the charge up time... and that critical few seconds isn't something a good MAX will give you. I'm sticking with the decimator for CQC, I just love the quick n ez badass punch it packs.

If the lancer maximum charge could be held and released on the user's accord that would change things up a bit in terms of its CQC potential, but fact that the shot is released as soon as max charge is attained kills it for me.

[hashish]

Just gave the lancer a go and i gotta say i hate it !! :( I loved it back in ps1 but they seem to make everything reallly shit in this game :( :(

Its too slow to shoot if you are charging, you cant charge with ADS and then ADS when you want to shoot (something higby said was possible but its obviously not). When it reaches maximum charge it just shoots randomly :S and also the projectile speed is NOT near instantanious at ALL ! I used rinse up aircrafts back in the day with my lancer.. Now its just a useless pea shooter than does literally NO damage.. If u shoot someone with the lancer, your position is given away straight away and you will 100% get killed as you cannot react quick enough to dish out any decent amount of damage..

Also there is 0 chance of you hitting ESF's with it.. Worst of all its not even very accurate so hitting max units in the distance is also not a choice...

SOE u failed at this :( Hope we get some improvements/buffs to the lancer soon :/

[ChipMHazard]

Uhm... Yeah... Sure you're not just exaggerating a wee bit there, hashish?
It fires when fully charged, yes? How is that random?
Certainly the handheld AV weapon with the fastest projectile speed.
And 0 damage? Really?
I'm rather certain that with enough practice and good enough aim you will be able to hit ESFs... Not even taking into account those that are hovering or otherwise not moving.

[LoliLoveFart]

Yeah i gotta concur it is not waht i was expecting, the speed of the projectile isnt near instant, its the fastest projectile currently in game but no where near as fast as we were led to beleive, it also has a range limit, for reference shooting at stuff from the ceres hydroponics v pad up to the crown, no one could seem to hit the phalanx turrets the projecticles just despawned in mid air. However the biggest let down, is the fact the projectiles dont fly straight, short range this isnt an issue but mid long range your projectiles will fly metres to either side of what you were aiming at.

You can hit ESFs they just have to be hovering or moving in a predictable way either directly towards you or away. I am happy for it to have low damage but by christ make its projectiles fly straight.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

Lancer is rubbish, don't bother.

You HAVE to ADS to hit anything but all you get is 1x zoom, you aren't going to be full charge sniping airchavs out the sky, rubbish visual feedback on projectile velocity, it's like someone else said, it looks like some 1970s SciFi visual (d)effect.

Having a whole zerg using the Lancer doesn't make it any good.

[Koadster]

The lancer damage is pretty underwhelming. You have to charge it for about 3 seconds, twice, to do the damage of a Decimator shot. It seems like it will be about 6-7 seconds to expend one magazine. That is... well we'll have to see how much the projectile speed really changes things.

The huge difference between the Lancer and Decimator.. Lancer has near instant travel time... So 2 shotting ESFs is very easy

[Dodgy Commando]

I hope you weren't expecting the super-duper-death-ray that can fire kilometres away.

How does it fair in normal AV engagement scenarios? That would be a more useful comparison.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

I hope you weren't expecting the super-duper-death-ray that can fire kilometres away.

How does it fair in normal AV engagement scenarios? That would be a more useful comparison.
Shit, meanwhile NC spam Phoenixs killing Infantry, what a (non)surprise.

[Gatekeeper]

Having tried it both in VR and with a 30 min in-game trial, I have to agree that the Lancer seems pretty underwhelming so far.

Projectile speed and accuracy are ok, but not great - not good enough for accurate long-range shooting against MAX or for tracking fast-moving targets. At short-mid range it's reasonable against ground vehicles, easier to hit with than the default launcher and you can snipe stationary vehicles at long range.

Whether that's worth the trade-off of the slow firing time and being useless against infantry, I'm not sure. ATM it feels pretty balanced against the regular launcher in terms of AV strength, and effectively trades away strong AI performance in order to gain weak AA.

And yes, the scope is crap. Either give it a 3-4x scope as standard, or allow us to unlock scopes for it like a regular gun.

[ChipMHazard]

Shit, meanwhile NC spam Phoenixs killing Infantry, what a (non)surprise.

That's going to be a bit hard to do seeing as people are reporting it passing through infantry:p

[Bobby Shaftoe]

That's going to be a bit hard to do seeing as people are reporting it passing through infantry:p

Well I got killed by an invisible Phoenix after watching about a dozen other VS dying to them, so I'll take what I saw and experienced over your 2nd hand accounts.

[ChipMHazard]

Well I got killed by an invisible Phoenix after watching about a dozen other VS dying to them, so I'll take what I saw and experienced over your 2nd hand accounts.

Oh? So it's not only buggy, it's inconsistent in its buggyness. Nice. The test server is sounding better and better.

[Rbstr]

It seems like they've released the guns from a built other than the one Higby demoed.

The Lancer is quite a bit different from the demonstration.

[Shamrock]

It seems like they've released the guns from a built other than the one Higby demoed.

The Lancer is quite a bit different from the demonstration.

I agree, the beam seems a lot brighter/longer which equates to a "look here I am shoot me, neon sign" pointing to where the VS fired from. The damage even at level 3 is like being hit in the face with a wet towel, and just as effective. Feels like the lasher all over again except this time I had the VR to test it and so wont be buying, as VS you'd be better off getting a Decimator. Its a great pity because the weapon graphic and load animation look great.

[zirakaji]

Yeap, the lancer from Higbys demonstration must be in other universe.

[Blinklys]

Well after testing the lancer in practice, it's quite useless. A waste of money in its current shape. Cannot charge unless zoomed, fires automatically once it's fully charged, the charge up takes too long, the damage is quite low. It fires three rounds fully charged, meaning you need to reload after two shots.

The upside - the projectile speed - does not make up for all the negatives.

[Dodgy Commando]

Being able to hit more reliably sounds like a pretty decent upside to me. Perfectly understandable that you have to reduce damage to compensate.

I'm going to give it a go in VR, try and understand what all this negativity is about.

[Shamrock]

Wristy's Lancer review starts at 0.52

New Rocket Launchers - The Good, The Bad & The Griefer - Planetside 2 - YouTube

[DeltaGun]

Being able to hit more reliably sounds like a pretty decent upside to me. Perfectly understandable that you have to reduce damage to compensate.

I'm going to give it a go in VR, try and understand what all this negativity is about.

Reduce damage? Like doing less than half damage versus aircraft and infantry?

The fact that you have to charge it up first more than makes up for the increased velocity.

[Blinklys]

Being able to hit more reliably sounds like a pretty decent upside to me. Perfectly understandable that you have to reduce damage to compensate.


Reduced damage compared to what? Being able to hit more reliable is an obvious upside of course, and I'm not saying it should hit like a decimator.

[Dodgy Commando]

I've still got to give it a go, but I get the impression people were expecting a bit too much from the Lancer. I don't think its supposed to be a sniper, even if it can presumably play such a role (clearly not ideal according to first reports).

Compared to a decimator or the default HA launchers, on the same distance to target, have you compared TTK?

I personally don't enjoy trying to hit tanks with those at anywhere beyond close range (l2p or whatever is not the point, so don't bother). I'd be willing to take damage loss to hit on similar distances more reliably.

Now how much of a damage loss is another question which I cannot comment atm.

[Neurotoxin]

Oh sweet, I snuck up behind a tank!
*charge to 3 and fire*
*hide*
*charge to 3, try not to get blasted with HE rounds and fire*
*hide, reload*
*charge to 2, try to get the last damage in*

Two full charges, a reload, and another 2-charge or 2 shots, to kill a MBT from behind, is an unreasonable slow TTK. The damage output is fine at the end of the Lancer's range, but a 3x at point blank needs to hit at least as hard as the S1.

[Dodgy Commando]

That's one-on-one, as in armour vs infantry. You're not supposed to take it on alone...

At least in any reasonable engagement the tank will have a harder time bugging out when he is close to death with your greater accuracy.

[Rbstr]

That's one-on-one, as in armour vs infantry. You're not supposed to take it on alone...

This applies to all rockets. If the Lancer is passable in groups, why not just take one of the others and be even better in a group?

The difference between being able to instantly fire and having to charge then fire is immense. Combine that with less damage and the range alone doesn't make up for it. The tank gets to kill you before you get the shot off, rather than after.

It'd be one thing if a non-charged shot would do more than tickle things, but you're facing a double penalty of low max damage and the non-linear charge scale.

[Maarvy]

That's one-on-one, as in armour vs infantry. You're not supposed to take it on alone...

At least in any reasonable engagement the tank will have a harder time bugging out when he is close to death with your greater accuracy.

Maybe no but we do , we all do .

And the fact is every launcher is better than the lancer , simply put you wouldnt have a better time of bugging out vs a s1 /hades or decimator because they would have done enough damage that you would be a smoking pile of debris already .

[Cromation]

i actually enjoy the lancer. just wish it did more damage against MAX suits.

[hashish]

Been using the lancer for a while now and im gettings used to it.. However i really think it has some serious disadvantages when in a real combat situation.

You usually end up getting spotted and subsequently killed before you can take down any tanks unless you are in a group ofcorse..

Although im not in favour of making this a one man laser tank killer, i think they should either give it a small damage buff or reduce the charging time so you can actually use it more often.

Also they should make the sound better like the old one !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ3ZwaWmSss