"A Striker rocket is stronger than a Decimator rocket."

- YNuke, New Conglomerate, Markov

I just thought I post this for those of you who wanted a good laugh. I was healing in the little alcove that the back door is in when I see a smoking Liberator slowly strafe to a complete stop at the opening and begin to fire on me. Already this guy did two things wrong: NEVER hover and NEVER engage an enemy when you're about to explode. I fired a single Striker rocket at him and his Liberator went down, almost taking me with it. Then came the "wtf u h4x0r n3rf striker!" tells as well as the quote in the subject. I'll give him the benifit of the doubt if he didn't know that a shot from the Phoenix does 50 more damage than one from the Striker. But c'mon, a DECIMATOR? I /ignored and then told him he should play around with all Empire-Specific weapons before he bitches. The sad part about it is, he was BR14+....I would think one should more or less know the different damage amounts by then.

ghost

[Ghost06]

I feel your pain.

When people's idiocy cause me grief, wouldn't it only be fair retaliation to defend against grief and kill the mud faced son of a whore? I think so. Next SONY advertisement campaign: "Wanna kill an asshat?"

[Arakiel]

Actually, for ease of use and sheer ability to dominate a battlefield without any use of skill whatsoever, a striker rocket probably is stronger than a decimator rocket.

[AtomicBanana]

'to dominate a battlefield without any use of skill whatsoever'

rubbish....

It's not *that* easy to kill stuff with the striker. It's not impossibly hard either, but in most combat situations it is certainly not fire and forget.

[Warborn]

Originally posted by AtomicBanana
'to dominate a battlefield without any use of skill whatsoever'

rubbish....

It's not *that* easy to kill stuff with the striker. It's not impossibly hard either, but in most combat situations it is certainly not fire and forget.

Quoted for truth. It's very easy to tell the difference between a newbie striker user and a seasoned striker user. Newbie striker users will generally end up forcing their target behind cover or out of range by locking on too early, making them waste some if not all of the rounds they fire. Not only that, but strikers can be a real pain when targetting ground vehicles, because it's so easy to lose the lock. I admit, strikers can be extremely good against air vehicles if you don't lock on until two or three rounds are live, but the weapon has its shortcomings, just like all Empire-specific AV weaponry.

Actually, in retrospect, I think it's the level of ignorance about strikers that makes them as successful as they are in some situations. People don't understand how to use the weapon, really, so they don't understand how to increase their survivability against it.

[Queensidecastle]

The striker is a bullshit weapon. It is actually most effective at killing the things that it shouldnt be getting locks on in the first place. Namely aircraft and MAXs. The Striker is not AA and will get nerfed when the AA changes go in. Lets just hope they nerf the insta lock onto MAXs, and... Yes, I had the striker Cert for quite some time, its friken bullshit how easy it is to drop MAXs and aircraft

[JetRaiden]

well, the decimator is excellent against MAXes, but everything else it just blows, because its so slow.

[Nixon]

Originally posted by Queensidecastle
The striker is a bullshit weapon. It is actually most effective at killing the things that it shouldnt be getting locks on in the first place. Namely aircraft and MAXs. The Striker is not AA and will get nerfed when the AA changes go in. Lets just hope they nerf the insta lock onto MAXs, and... Yes, I had the striker Cert for quite some time, its friken bullshit how easy it is to drop MAXs and aircraft

If you would, please tell me what AA weapon exists for infantry... Ok, now that you're speechless, let me remind you what PlanetSide strives for... diversity, so that each empire's weapons are effective in different manners.

Your Vanu Lancer fires in a straight line and any person with a steady hand can easily whip out stationary targets with little effort compared to a striker, which has a target lock range limit that isn't equal to your viewing distance and when fired in dumbfire mode is pretty inaccurate when aiming at wall turrets. Because you claim to have used the weapon, I won't remind you that you can't lock onto wall turrets because the rounds will just hit the base and do no damage unless you get creative with your firing. The Phoenix can be shot from the backside of a tower, over a base wall and right into an enemy AMS with no fear of getting shot back at anytime soon.

The Lancer and Phoenix are excellent distance AV weapons that can be fired with little risk to the user. Against moving targets, they rely on one's reflexs to keep the target in their curser while they fire. The Striker is capable of locking onto a target, which makes it great in up-close battles where nothing is blocking the user's view of a target, as well as against aircraft who are dumb enough to fly high and slow so as to place nothing between them and a Striker user.

From your distgruntled stance, I'm assuming you probably play as a Vanu MAX who has been killed by Strikers far too often. It's called balancing... just like infantry will run from a MAX they're aren't equipped to attack, a MAX should run or kill very quickly somebody who knows how to handle their AV weapon, no matter the faction. You need to accept that there is no single weapon in this game that makes you effective against everything (post-lasher nerf patch that is) and you need to pick your battles and run from something you can't handle.

The NC have a great up-close weapon called the Jackhammer that can chew through targets unfortunate to be close by, an AV weapon that can keep the user safe and fly over walls. The VS have a wonderful and devestating short to medium-range weapon called the Lasher that'll eat up anything with two legs, a hover tank that'll run over those that make it away, and an AV weapon that fires straight and doubles as a sniper rifle. The TR sports an AV weapon that'll follow a vehicle in the open, a great selection of MAXs when compared to other empires, and verstile vehicles that are a combination of speed and firepower, rather then leaning towards the extremes in any direction.

Learn what to run from and when it's time to run... you won't win every fight, and nobody will care about your whining when you're dead.

[00AgentDuck]

The decimator is awesome if you know how to use it. Your story reminds me of the time that my reaver was almost dead. I was flying to a base because I didn't have engneering yet so someone could repair it for me or I could get a new one and this vs guy below me shoots me with a beamer. I thought that he possibly couldn't kill me with that so I started to unload rockets and bullets at him but he takes cover. Then he runs after me and shoots me a last time and I start droping like a rock. I clicked the bail button and I bailed and somehow bounced alot higher then my falling reaver. Then when I land I discovered that whent that guy shot my reaver down he kept running towards it like a moth to a light and he got underneth it and it crushed him. Very fun .

[Arakiel]

Fly against the VS for a day, then fly against the TR for a day. Still convinced?

[Queensidecastle]

You sure do assume a lot Nixon. I noticed you want to Focus only on my Vanu character and ignor my TR character. I cant fit all my characters into my Sig but I have 5 characters over BR10, one in each empire. 2 TR, 2 NC, and 1 VS. I have played extensivly with every cert that you can have in planetside and my ruling on the Striker is that it is bullshit. I am sorry if that bothers you, and certainly a nerf will indirectly cause my TR character some blight as there could be low populations....etc, but weapons like this need to be properly balanced. Would it make you feel better for me to admit that Yes, the lasher is a bit too beefy at the moment? Yep it sure is and I have sent my feedback. I dont particularly like the proposed changes as I feel the main problem with the Lasher is the ammout of damage it does to MAXs and armored targets without the hassle of AP ammo.

The Devs have made the statement that AV weapons will be pointed back to the ground where they should be, and the proper AA will be buffed accordingly. We know the Skyguard will get double the range, so I suggest starting there, or perhaps try a Burster. An anchored Burster takes out reavers and skeets in seconds and while they cant hit a Lib at 400m, everyone is having that issue at the moment. No one uses a Burster and you hardly ever see them on the battlefield. The reason is obvious and that is because the TR have thier cake and can eat it too. Why have the limitations of a vehicle of MAX suit when you can do AA as a grunt?

I am just calling a ***** a *****. Sometimes you realize that you have to give something up, even if it is your OWN empire, so that the game doesnt suffer as a whole.

[Spider]

ontop of a tower with a lancer you can't hit a lib thats flying max height

No range...

[Nixon]

Well, you have to admit that your first post comes off as being more of an emotional rant rather then a balanced arguement. Most of the time, that tends to come from people on the recieving end of something they find unbalanced... stuff like the JH, Lancer, Striker, and Magrider.

Don't get me wrong, I supported the nerfing of TR MAXs long ago because every confrontation with one usually ended with a lot of pissed off people. The Striker, however, is one of the advantages that the TR has up there along with their MAXs. At first, I too believed that the weapon was simply too much bang for your buck, but as I used it I quickly became aware of its disadvantages. For one, to kill a MAX you need to fire off four shots... which requires a reload that can damn near take forever, and most vehicles also require more then one clip's worth of ammo. An added benefit of the Striker is that it can easily be used indoors as well, while the VS and NC weapons are more suited for outdoors and over distances.

But there's one thing all AV weapons have in common, and that's that they only work against aircraft when they hang around too long. Unless on a tower or mountain, infantry rarely have an unobstructed view of the surrounding horizon. Aircraft that fly high up in the air with little cover are vunerable to all AV weapons, while those flying close to the ground can usually duck behind trees, hills, and buildings to avoid staying on a missile lock for both the Striker and NC/VS AA MAXs. It's those Reavers who'll sit there and hover while firing full salvos at ground vehicles that end up crashing and burning while those that afterburner behind the hill making multiple passes on a target that fly long enough to actually need to reload thier craft.

I see no problem with the Striker as it is, and while playing non-TR characters I usually find myself blown up when you get at least four or five of them shooting and their first shots hit you right as you duck behind something. Striker - fine. Jackhammer - fine. Lasher - still just a tad bit too fast or powerful (but not both). Magrider - unless they can find a way to keep those dialup users from lagging over me, I think it's fine too. Then again, that's true with any vehicle so I've made my peace with it.

Granted, I have only enough time to invest mostly in my TR character, I've made efforts to try out all the weapons to learn their strengths and weaknesses and play appropriately.

[Indecisive]

Your Vanu Lancer fires in a straight line and any person with a steady hand can easily whip out stationary targets

First of all. STATIONARY! how many reavers stay stationary after getting hit once? Flying at 200kmh how the fuck do you expect us to hit it?

And the second of all, the lancer cannot hit libs or anything else at the flight ceiling. We are forced to get and EXTREMLY skilled deci opererator or ram the bitch with our own air vehicles.

I mean for the love of god the same lib did like 5 bombing runs on us. On the 4th i activated avd targeting, life is 90% full, and i started using decis. Bah. And yeah the striker is bullshit.

[Queensidecastle]

"For one, to kill a MAX you need to fire off four shots... which requires a reload that can damn near take forever"

Incorrect. 3 shots, then switch to any other weapon including a pistol for the kill because the MAX will have 0 armor left and that is ONLY if the MAX is a fresh MAX with no damage take which in my experience was almost never.

When I had the Striker 3 shots killed a MAX 9 times out of 10 and very often 2 shots did as well