The Annihilator has officially become useless

[Rolfski]

After doing some testing I have no idea what role there is for this weapon and to a lesser extend for the other lock-on launchers for the TR, now that they have the Striker.

Can someone explain to me please? Does the single fire-and-forget makes up for the less damage these rockets do compared to a clip of a Striker? Don't think so. You can spray a Striker clip pretty fast and the damage output compared to the Annihilator makes the latter one pathetic.
Is it the range? Nope, they all lock-on within 400m.

So they nerfed the Annihilator into borderline useless and introduced the Striker, giving it and the other lock-ons a death blow, making me wonder what the heck the devs were thinking.

People have spend money on these weapons you know. You can't just introduce new flavor of the month weapons and make older ones instantly obsolete. I feel ripped having spend any money on these other lock-ons.

[zulu]

It does pretty much look like the Striker is a straight upgrade. I don't own the Annihilator, but some of my friends do, and they're not too happy about it.

Of course, this is basically what happened with the SMGs -- the second generation of SMGs are all basically upgraded versions of the earlier ones.

[Corvo]

For starters, non-TR players will still find old lock-on launchers useful, and that's roughly 2/3 of the people playing this game. And no, it's not what happened with the SMGs.

[Rolfski]

Originally Posted by Corvo

For starters, non-TR players will still find old lock-on launchers useful, and that's roughly 2/3 of the people playing this game.

Does that allow them to rip off the other 1/3 of their player base?

[Assist]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

After doing some testing I have no idea what role there is for this weapon and to a lesser extend for the other lock-on launchers for the TR, now that they have the Striker.

Can someone explain to me please? Does the single fire-and-forget makes up for the less damage these rockets do compared to a clip of a Striker? Don't think so. You can spray a Striker clip pretty fast and the damage output compared to the Annihilator makes the latter one pathetic.
Is it the range? Nope, they all lock-on within 400m.

So they nerfed the Annihilator into borderline useless and introduced the Striker, giving it and the other lock-ons a death blow, making me wonder what the heck the devs were thinking.

People have spend money on these weapons you know. You can't just introduce new flavor of the month weapons and make older ones instantly useless. I feel ripped having spend any money on these other lock-ons.

They were thinking it's an NS weapon, which doesn't mean it has the same value for all three factions.

This is going to happen over and over in this game as new weapons come along. I see what you're saying though, the Annihilator -> Striker is not a side-grade at all, it's a straight upgrade.
Personally I'd say give the Annihilator the ability to lock-on to MAX's and it'd solve the issue!

[Rahabib]

Originally Posted by Assist

They were thinking it's an NS weapon, which doesn't mean it has the same value for all three factions.

This is going to happen over and over in this game as new weapons come along. I see what you're saying though, the Annihilator -> Striker is not a side-grade at all, it's a straight upgrade.
Personally I'd say give the Annihilator the ability to lock-on to MAX's and it'd solve the issue!

amen.

[fierce deity]

Originally Posted by Assist

They were thinking it's an NS weapon, which doesn't mean it has the same value for all three factions.

This is going to happen over and over in this game as new weapons come along. I see what you're saying though, the Annihilator -> Striker is not a side-grade at all, it's a straight upgrade.
Personally I'd say give the Annihilator the ability to lock-on to MAX's and it'd solve the issue!

Either that or letting you dumb-fire the annihilator would work to improve its role for the TR. It is still the lock-on of choice for the VS and NC, so it's not like it has been rendered utterly worthless.

[Rolfski]

Of course this topic relates to TR only, I assume people understand this. Giving the Annihilator some edge over the Striker, like dumbfire, is absolutely necessary. The problem is that this doesn't solve the issues the Skep and the Grounder have against the Striker. These have become obsolete as well for TR.

[Shamrock]

As an NS common pool weapon I was happy id bought an Annihilator as I can now use it across all 3 factions.

[Neutral Calypso]

In a manner similar to how there are still some perks to using the default rocket launcher over the decimator, there are some perks to using the annihilator over the striker.

Let's see, there is the fact you don't need to keep your targetting reticle over your target for all the rockets to fire for instance. :P

[DeltaGun]

Originally Posted by Assist

Personally I'd say give the Annihilator the ability to lock-on to MAX's and it'd solve the issue!

That's a REALLY good idea.

[Rolfski]

Originally Posted by Neutral Calypso

In a manner similar to how there are still some perks to using the default rocket launcher over the decimator, there are some perks to using the annihilator over the striker.

Let's see, there is the fact you don't need to keep your targetting reticle over your target for all the rockets to fire for instance. :P

You DON'T need to keep the Striker on target. As long as you keep your scope up you can pretty much walk/look away in the other direction while firing and your rockets will make magical sharp angle turns to land on target.
Besides that, as said this is not really a perk over the Striker as you can fire that whole clip very fast and even worse, you can use the first rocket to make the enemy use their flares before shooting the rest. It's just another reason why the Annihilator has become obsolete for TR.

[Baneblade]

I haven't used the Anni in a long time.

[Hamma]

It was hard core at first, now it doesn't really have a role.

[NUKABAZOOKA]

Originally Posted by Hamma

It was hard core at first, now it doesn't really have a role.

After the disappointment that is the Lancer, I'll be using it again.