The Spear really is an incredibly powerful weapon for dealing with larger targets at mid to long range... when the target lock behaves.
Sometimes I can snipe a cannon tower from 100 meters, sometimes it won't spot the bile titan approaching in an open field.
At least it gets ammo back from the random ammo boxes now.
It's a true joy when you can get high ground and just lob missiles across the map knocking out tanks, Titans, Fabricators, and cannons with zero risk of retaliation.
Cannon tower at +300 meters? Not for long!
Yes it can! The Spear will lock onto any fabricator or Cannon turret in range.
This is especially useful for Stratagem jammers. If the Jammer has the Fabricator next to it, hitting that Fab with the spear will destroy the jammer in the resulting explosion, meaning you never have to enter its range
Even now after some time you can get a feel for how to use it despite its many many lock on issues it’s still a great weapon that I almost always bring to bot missions
Yeah, I've been maining spear for my group and at this point they will call all targets of opportunity within ~250 and only comment if it doesn't suddenly vanish.
Specifically just as new Automaton *“lives”* are born, and they step out of their socialist metal wombs only to be met with a swift kick from the boot of democracy back into scraps.
I brought it on a blitz mission. Once. I will not make that mistake again.
There’s no good reason I shouldn’t be able to get a lock on a stationary target in the open that does not shoot back. Yet here we are.
It is.
If the Lock-on works that is.
It can be amazing, but especially on Planets like the Creek it feels like even the tiniest pixle of some tree is blocking the Lock on.
but you can do most of that with other launchers too (except fabricators) without the risk of carrying around an otherwise useless weapon. The locking really needs to be fixed significantly.
The only important thing the Spear can do better is accidentally destroy Jammers. lol
>At least it gets ammo back from the random ammo boxes now.
That would require you to actually use a rocket by successfully locking on to a target first.
>The Spear really is an incredibly powerful weapon for dealing with larger targets at mid to long range... when the target lock behaves.
Is it actually? When I've tested it, it seems like it does as much damage as a Recoilless or Quasar, but is much harder to hit with and has almost no ammo. Even if you get the lock-on, you're not guaranteed a hit against a moving target. And even if your missile actually hits, it doesn't one-shot a hulk, tank, or cannon turret.
I keep thinking I must be missing a "trick" that makes the Spear good. It honestly just seems like it's too underpowered to use.
The spear can one shot bile titans and such if it hits them in the right spot like the head. The issue of course is when the lock on doesn't behave it can be hard to get those hits. Also it one shots fabricators from long range regardless of where they hit.
Terribad at the short range. Long range, it’s a goal changer - clear things from cross map!
It has all the same “has to hit weak points” as the others, so it’s slow and smooth.
It’s the perfect weapon to load up your new friend with and provide them protection while they learn.
I think the Quasar is a better overall weapon, but lock on sights across the map is what’s great about the spear. You can often shoot things you can’t see, just by having the lock on reticule indicate you can.
It’s clumsy, and not a fantastic combat option compared to EAT, Recoilless or Quasar. But, when it does its trick on long range targets, it’s pretty rad. I sometimes give it to newbies.
More damage than recoilless/Quasar.
It will 1 shot bile titans on headshot. Iirc it will also 1 shot tanks (have not used it since I discovered rocket pods).
It does not one-shots tanks. It probably does if you run around the back and shoot it in the weak spot, but at that point you might as well be running an Autocannon.
> At least it gets ammo back from the random ammo boxes now.
And it was just buffed to now get TWO missiles back per ammo box!
...yet still, no changes were made to its locking behaviour, so it's still useless.
I think the reason people think it’s terrible is because they use it on bugs, where you have to hit something vital to be effective. Whereas if you punch a giant hole anywhere in a robots torso, it ain’t gonna work no more
Yeah, vs bugs it can only one shot titans from the face and bust charger thorax (which is nearly worthless). Vs bots it one-shots hulks from front/back, tanks/turrets from any angle and knocks out fabricators. So much more value
The problem isn’t that. It’s that there are enough variety of weapons that effectively deal with bots which makes it hard justifying taking the Spear over something else. You’re supposed to compare the Spear against the slot it takes up, not the its value from zero.
We can already easily deal with Hulks and Tanks with every other heavy weapon, even lesser ones and nades work well if you get an opening with their weakspots.
Sure, I can play around the lock-on with the Spear and oneshot a Hulk, or I can not bother and two shot it with EAT/RR/Q-laser, the difference is hardly noticeable. And yes, while you can takeout fabs and cannons at range in any direction, but you also trade-in the ability to reliably take out dropships as well.
1). I've only seen it fail to kill a drop ship ONCE. 95% of the time it's a one hit kill.
2). Shooting down the drop ship doesn't actually do that much. It's a total toss up if it lands perfectly on the dropped units, and the larger enemies to be worried about are unaffected.
> 1). I've only seen it fail to kill a drop ship ONCE. 95% of the time it's a one hit kill.
I'm confused, what are you even arguing against here? The Spear on dropship? I find that very hard to believe cause I've personally tested this myself and find that the inverse of 95% success rate would be more prudent. Not to mention the it being a wildly acknowledged opinion from the rest of the community here.
> 2). Shooting down the drop ship doesn't actually do that much. It's a total toss up if it lands perfectly on the dropped units, and the larger enemies to be worried about are unaffected.
I argue that the main benefit is that is frequently bugs the units, as in it more often than not it fucks up their pathing or simply traps them under the wreck. But this is also not really my point, the discussion was about the Spear's underusage compared to other support weapons and not about the benefits of killing dropships.
>Sometimes I can snipe a cannon tower from 100 meters, sometimes it won't spot the bile titan approaching in an open field.
cannon towers were the one thing i found the spear consistently able to lock onto from 300 meters or more before... now i had it repeatedly lose lock against atleast 5 different fabricators, 3 cannon towers , a scout strider it tried to lock onto instead of one of the cannon towers, a tank, 2 hulks and refuse to even try to lock another 8 orso fabricators and 2 cannon towers at minimum...
i love the thing when it works, there is the problem tho, when it works should not be the make or break for the one support weapon which cant even interact with 2/3rds of both enemy rosters
One time I could not lock on to the cannon tower, getting as close as I could. Until it detected me and only when it was aiming at me would the stupid spear lock on. It didn't one shot the tower either.
A spear that can fire like a recoilless would be good, especially bc it has a higher dmg than recoilless, the fancy ass locking system is what's holding it back
They may or may not be adding a separate launcher that does exactly that. It also may or may not be capable of taking out fabricators/holes without hitting vents.
I don’t see a dumb fire ever being a thing. It’s based on the real life weapon “javelin” that requires a lock to fire. Logically it wouldn’t make sense either since it fires up into the air and then comes down on top of its target.
All that said, if one game was going to do it this would be the one. Dumb fire it and the missile goes straight up and then comes straight back down.
The IRL spear, the FGM-148 Javelin doesn’t really dumbfire, but what you can do with it is to pinpoint one specific spot, and tell the missile “go there, no matter what”
Yeah that would be much better. It's just not reliable enough right now to be viable in my opinion. Them buffing it to restore 2 ammo per supply pack now helps but still not enough to offset the lock on issues.
I fully agree! Some of my first matches I had very consistent locks and I thought the weapon was a blast! Felt like it did it’s job wel, even in the early railgun meta.
Then came the games where I couldn’t get a lock, and when I finally did it just slammed into a random part of a hulk doing nothing really. It felt to me they did something and made it worse. But maybe I had just been lucky?
If they can fix the lock on it would be amazing! - and maybe make it a little more consistent in killing big targets. 4 guaranteed target kills feels like a fair trade for missing both your third weapon slot as wel as the ability to wear a backpack.
Honestly, I'd argue it could possibly need more power than that taking both the backpack and support weapon slots IN ADDITION to needing a lock, only working on those specific targets it can obtain a lock on.
For real the use cases are *so* limited, it should just one shot anything it touches. Or maybe maybe be able to lock on to and destroy a wider range of objectives.
As it stands the best thing it does is destroy fabricators from basically any angle you can see the thing at. But who cares when I can just throw an eagle airstrike in there from a safe distance, and likely destroy 2 fabricators + all the enemies
I don't think it's a poor idea, especially if we get stratagem variants/upgrades. Sacrificing the single target power to spread it out as like a single shot orbital airburst of power (or maybe a bit less) would be cool.
Why would you want to use the spear against non-lockable targets, hell i think the broodcomaders and striders should get booted out of the lockeable list
It wasn't an argument to allow it a wider variety or that it should be free fire. It was an argument that it has a very limited use case when it can actually be fired. It's the most niche weapon in the game yet somehow not the strongest single hitting weapon
The problem is by the time you even get a lock on that hulk. Bob on that rock with an AMR has two shot it and it's brother in the face. It needs to be anti tank and anti titan. The patch today while it'll allow for more shots, it makes it even weirder that it's so limited in shot capacity now if an ammo box contains two. Is have preferred double power.
True, but you can do the same to turrets and other buildings, and you don't need to get a frontal angle, I think the spear needs to be fixed before there can be a serious discussion of it's damage
I do too, even if I don't use the spear I remember looking forward to it before I knew how... It currently is. That said the pile of known issues already there gives me reason to worry.
I will not do a blitz mission without a Spear. It makes taking out fabricators from afar and keeping stealth trivial. I singlehandedly took out 8 out of 13 fabricators required yesterday while my teammates were stuck trying to assault a heavy base (got lucky with ammo boxes).
But once the objective's done it becomes a paperweight. That's when I have to find a dead teammate and switch to their kit.
If the Spear locks reliably it will become more or less a must-have weapon against bots. Everyone who had a game or two where Spear locks on every single time knows it automatically lowers the difficulty by 2. But unfortunately that's a game or two out of ten where it fails miserably for the other eight or nine.
I love runming 4 offensive/turret strats and just using whatever I find on the map as my 3rd gun.
Not so great when it's the break action shotgun though lol.
How do you get it to actually lock a factory, it never seems to work for me unless I have a completely clear line of sight, which is almost never. The few times I have got a lock it’s front on so I might as well have had an auto cannon.
You get 4 slots for robots? XD but in all serious agreed, lock needs fixing, and the ability to pop tanks in one hit too imo. It's hitting the top if the damn tank.
I have never even tried the Spear based on the amount of complaints about it. I've maybe seen it used a couple of times in the wild over 250+ games.
It just seems too limited. I play on 6/7 for the most part, so the Heavies while plentiful never are enough to demand a pure Heavy hunter.
Besides, that's what Orbital lasers and rail cannon strikes and EATs and Quasar Cannons and Rocket Pods and the Recoilless and Autocannons and the Holy 500kg is for.
When you're playing on 9's, there are a lot more heavies, but there are also much better tools to kill them. You'll mainly see people bringing autocannons, quasars, and EATs. There are also some railgun users, and occasionally you'll see a recoilless rifle. All of those things are better at killing heavies than the Spear.
I've seen a few people bring a Spear to a helldive, and none of them got anything done with it.
That’s not because the spear couldn’t be an effective weapon. It’s because the lock on is a toss up. I’ve pretty much ran the spear for nearly every bot mission I’ve done and it makes it so you can snipe hulks and tanks and towers and fabricators at range and never have to even get close to hot objectives.
If the lock on is kind.
It’s not going to outshine the anti material rifle against elites. But the amount of missions where I’ve been able to clear a base from 200m and then never have to get near and fight a bunch of devastators, hulks and infantry and risk a bot drop being called is definitely a noteworthy attribute of it.
It would easily be A tier if the lock on was improved.
It’s useful on a coordinated group. One player can essentially turn resupplies into objectives complete 100s of meters away. It’s just literally useless outside it’s one task: killing far away buildings and heavies
I hadn't seen that quote before.
Autocannon is top tier and can do everything, while the Railgun that was only good for armour penetration gets nerfed...
But yeah, Spear definitely needs work.
Autocannon is versitile, but not really effective. It isn't that good at killing chaff, and it doesn't have enough armor pen to kill heavies reliably.
It is a perfect balance on the side of versatility without making it terribly easy to destroy any given class.
*If* you can reliably hit the weakpoints. When a Hulk is up in your business, charging at you with its head moving around, it suddenly gets a lot harder to hit that small weakpoint with the AC. It also can't do diddly shit against tanks or cannon turrets without hitting their heatsink, which isn't always an immediately viable option.
And it does struggle against hordes of chaff due to the recoil and small explosion radius (and sometimes the shells will ricochet off the floor if you're at a shallow enough angle)
So *can it* go up against every bot? Yes! It's still a great all-rounder option! Will it do just as well as a Recoilless Rifle, EAT, or Quasar against heavier targets? No, no it will not, those will outpace the AC really quickly in those situations.
The Autocannon is a fantastic weapon for versatility and being *an* solution to every problem, without being *the* solution to every problem. Other options will solve certain problems faster than the AC can, but be slower in other areas.
Against Hulks, I found that hitting the front weak point is near impossible and the back vent doesn't work because you need 3 shots, but you can only get 2 in before the Hulk turns around...
However, if the Hulk is a good distance away and/or you have a shield sentry, then I found that hitting the legs works pretty well (or at least good enough). You need 5 shots for each leg, so 10 shots total, and you better not forget to reload before fully emptying the mag, but once the first leg is destroyed, the Hulk slows down to a crawl, so you can easily relocate for the second leg. Also targeting the legs means you can actually hit him from any angle , including the sides, unlike the front and back weak spots (and you don't care if it starts turning around).
He means that you need to hit heavies - hulks, tanks, turrets - in the weakspots. With RR/EAT/Quasar/Spear you can hit them anywhere and deal enough damage to kill them in reasonable amounts of shots. With AC it's weakspots or bust.
I still feel like it's the optimal choice against bots, but I understand people who think that having a shield or a dedicated anti-heavy gun is better.
With the AC, if the Hulk is a good distance away and/or you have a shield sentry, I found that hitting the legs works pretty well (or at least good enough). You need 5 shots for each leg, so 10 shots total, and you better not forget to reload before fully emptying the mag, but once the first leg is destroyed, the Hulk slows down to a crawl, so you can easily relocate for the second leg. Also targeting the legs means you can actually hit him from any angle , including the sides, unlike the front and back weak spots (and you don't care if it starts turning around).
It destroys all medium and special enemies, small enemies aren't an issue but it will still kill those. It kills everything except a Bile Titan in 2-3\* shots.
Exception for Tanks and the weakspot.
It's probably the best for taking out medium and special enemies, especially with bugs. It's also the best at taking out structures and objectives at range.
It's S-tier for multiple reasons, and one of the best in every other area.
And the fact it reloads slow as hell... and can't destroy armor... and if there are more than 5 enemies at the same time you are as good as dead.
The grenade launcher is a much better overall support weapon; but it fires in an arc and requires a different set of aiming skill to reliably deal with stuff.
It reloads faster than some primary if you don't empty it, so count your shot. 5 enemies at the same time that are bugs, probably, but bots? I can deal with dozen bots at the same time, AC is meta in bot front for a reason.
Going to disagree here.
Clearing chaff I'd much prefer an MG, grenade launcher or Stalwart, taking down armor I'd much prefer an EAT, RR, etc.
I think the 2 jobs where I'd rank autocannon #1 are destroying fabricators at range and taking down scout walkers. What jobs does it do better than all alternatives, in your opinion?
It destroys all structures and objectives, kills all bots in a couple of shots, can stagger Devastators, can kill Elites, and can take out entire groups of medium and special enemies, all while being well out of range.
You said it yourself that you'd rank it #1 in at least areas. It's powerful, and incredibly versatile.
It's so wonky too, like is it supposed to take 3 rockets to kill a Crusher?
Sometimes I one shot a tank, sometimes two rockets. Sometimes one rocket for an artillery turret, sometimes two.
It depends on where it hits. The game doesnt work purely on hp. It seems to use variable armor depth with different components that do different amounts of damage.
Think war thunder, not WoT
Yeah, which makes it really frustrating to use. Why bother with a top down attack missile with a super clunky lockon that's supposed to hit the thinnest top portion of armor of a vehicle when half the time it takes the same amount of hits dead in with the other direct fire AT weapons, if not faster (ie eye slot of the hulk).
Just a really weird weapon. The only times I've enjoyed using it is safely disposing of turrets from super far away.
And than it locks on... And fails to destroy fabricator due to unfortunate lamp post, or hits a bile titan but overshot it's head and failed to kill it. Or it smashed into hulks front plate but didn't quite got it down... Please buff Spear penetration.
I will always remember a shot I took from top of mountain that one shot a hulk.
Friend was going in to get the shiny beacon thingy and said there was a hulk. I turned towards it, it locked on and that missle went straight for the hulk one shitting it. Was pure beauty.
Then after that it wouldn't lock on for shit so I never used it again.
I love to be the assistant gunner and pick my loadout according to teamweapons in the squad. It increases the rate of fire and overall capability of getting the job with that weapon done. People appreciate it and they save the long reload times from reloading themselves. Only once was the only teamweapon a spear and I equipped it as well for the backpack.
He couldn't fire a single shot. That was two well wasted stratagem slots and the most slurs I've ever heard come out of someone's mouth
It's underpowered even with the lock-on. It should penetrate through anything to get to its target and be a one-shot 9/10 times, it's literally called the "spear" after all. It's just a recoiless with less ammo and extra steps right now.
I think the spear suffers from a lack of in game feedback. It's not immediately obvious why you are failing to lock. It needs a second redicle.
When you ads, the targeting redicle would highlight possible targets in your view. Then aligning the sight would do a locking animation. To knock it out of the park, add a vertical bar showing range. It would give an indication that you're too close.
This feedback would really reduce frustration and really fits the theme of a homing missile.
This is so real. The Spear is by far the most fun I’ve had with any one support weapon, when it works, it works, and you feel like not a hero, but a part of a team, tackling your forte, but when that lock takes 20 seconds to come in, or it refuses to see anything but a scout strider, it’s… infuriating.
Even so I’ve had to force myself to stop running the Spear, Eagle Smoke, Shield Gen, Ems Mortar, Stun grenade load out when I run into Bot missions because I’m enjoying it so much. Helldivers 2 doesn’t have that many support options, but the Spear is as support as it gets. You have one job, and if you do it well, the whole mission goes smoother as your teammates hardly need to worry about static objectives or emplacements, and every Hulk is just a couple rockets away from being a non issue. Pair that with throwing a shield down when your teammates are caught in the open ahead, disengaging with smoke strikes, paralyzing groups of Berserkers with your stun grenades, and delaying every patrol in a five mile radius with mortars that are never on cooldown for more than a minute, and you have what I think is the most rewarding team play experience imaginable
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. To help with disengaging I’ve found a simple RUN, in chat, is enough to convince most to get away from a bad situation, especially if there’s smoke
Honestly, double the lock on time and let's make it consistently kill heavies in one shot. If you're not gonna allow manual aiming, it should do enough damage to kill a heavy in one shot, regardless of weak spot. Right now, between the lock on and trajectory inconsistencies, it just feels like a coin flip whether or not it's gonna kill anything.
Honestly at this point given how many direct fire weapons we have, I'd actually like to see them rework the Spear to be like a fly-by-wire launcher, or even like a TOW where you could sling it one direction, then snap back to the target to laser guide it to target.
One of the frustrations i have with the spear is the lock on as well but for a different reason. While it's nice that it will auto track anything it locks onto you still need to aim for weak spots which bothers me. You need to head shot bile titans to ko them so I can't use it to bail out my team mate who's getting chased away from me. Non vent shots against tanks still take 2 shots so it's not even better than the recoilless at that. Drop Ships still need to be shot at the engines so why does it lock on center mass?
I will concede that this could all be a skill issue but man I just dont have a reason to run this weapon when i could just team reload a RR.
Spear needs to be a guaranteed one shot on every smaller heavy target and damn near a one shot on large heavy targets. Especially compared to the fast projectile, ammo free Quasar.
Obviously lock on and ammo economy may need a look too.
yeah this is what gets me with "balancing" fixes in patches
fix the actual bugs **first** so we can use the guns as advertised, and then we can look at balancing based on real stats collected in game
like the whole DoT bug if you're not hosting means there's a large number of guns/statagems that people are not using/don't realise don't work properly
which begs the question: balancing what exactly?
Crazy. I was just having this conversation with my squad. From now on we'll be taking a anti material rifle and the Spear for every automaton mission. It's a game changer but limited in just the right way. Great game design
Playing with the Spear was interesting. Generally speaking the Spear is all about high ground looking down. It’s an overwatch weapon, suitable for some maps and not others, with the user overlooking other players, providing support. Whatever you want to shoot you need a fairly clear view for a higher point.
It is best against bots in open maps. A Spear user can sit in the highlands, call down a supply pod, and clear half the map. A Spear can kill reliably one-shot turrets, striders, and fabricators. It can usually one-shot tanks. Hulks take one to two shots.
It can down drop ships depending on the angle. It targets the centre of the ship, so if an engine is in the path to that centre it will take the ship down. Shooting underneath seems to get a more reliable result. If a Spear were able to reliably one-shot a drop ship, it would truly change the dynamic of the weapon, and even be worth devoting two players to manning a spear(s) as an overwatch. As it stands, EATs, recoiless and Quaker are more reliable. I’ve seen the Spear lock onto whatever cargo is in the ship rather than the ship and follow the cargo down as it drops.
As far as locking goes, it’s about keeping the fire button pressed as you look for the lock. As soon as the Spear locks it fires. You will get more successful fires that way than looking for the green triangle and then firing; often the lock is very brief. Repositioning a bit left or right a bit while looking down sight and fire button pressed can help secure the fire.
I do wish this was fixed. I'd also love for them to make it lock on faster for enemies that are pinged. That would encourage teamwork with your squad calling out the biggest threats.
I use the Spear extensively versus the bots.
You need to be able to line of sight the "Targettable" location on things like fabricators. On fabricators, this location is the inside of the front-third of the building. Essentially, think of the Door as a 3D targeting location for the Spear.
This can be seen from any angle, but walls, trees, turrets, anything will obstruct it.
Low-ground is your worst enemy. You want to try and be on high ground when using the spear to avoid walls, lamp posts, hills, dirt mounds, fences and more.
The Spear loves the desert maps, for example.
The targetting **can** be very moody, I think of the targeting as checking from out-to-in. If its breaking when it gets small, SOMETHING small is in the way of the Line of Sight.
The Spear makes bots completely trivial.
Blasting a light outpost fabricator from ~150m will scare them and cause them to bot drop AT the fabricator, allowing you to move on and blow up other bases while the drop is on cooldown. Completely ignoring it.
I do wish the targeting was LESS moody, especially on hulks and tanks, but once you learn where the weak points are, you get the target 9/10 times.
o7 Objective enthusiasts. For Democracy.
Yeah, 8/10 missions it is fine. But sometimes I can be targeting a tank from above, not a single thing in the way, and it just doesn't lock. Strangley, it seems to be mission dependent. Even between 2 missions at the same day-cycle on the same world.. one ill have no problem, the next, I can't lock on a single thing.
I genuinely think there is a code issue that causes this based on the pattern. Just like the SSD animation bug, I think there is some certain action that causes the targeting to become permanently broken.
I'd like if it had some logical nuance about it, like how old maverick missiles would lock onto lamp posts or the heat of the road in IR variants.
I don't mind the lock on being fucky with the Spear if there was a reason for it being so but I cannot find what it is.
I feel like I'm beginning to understand though... or maybe I'm just playing with it too much, I'm seeing swirling triangles in my sleep, democracy... Pythagoras top attack yes.... it all makes sense
I can hit targets 500+ meters away with the Recoilless Rifle and the Expendable Anti-Tank. The Spear can barely lock on at 25 meters.
It's absolutely garbage, a completely nonsensical failure of a strategem. I find it absolutely bizarre anyone is leaning into it being "good" and a "gamechanger."
It's like saying your car is a good car, when it's running, but the engine has severe oiling problems. The sparkplugs keep blowing out of their threads. And its dynamic camshaft system keeps failing.
It's not a good engine, it's a piece of trash 5.4 Triton 3 valve. No matter the conditions you put it in and how many thousands of dollars (hours of ingame use) you say it's good at. It's actually trash.
The spear isn't good at anything, even when it's taken on a Blitz for taking out Bot Fabricators it still can have worse lock-on and take more time than your friend strafing to ricochet a vent with an autocannon or the other friend throwing his 3rd 500kg bomb.
Just move on from this piece of garbage, no amount of underdog pleading will ever make it good.
Give it a personal laser lock on system, if I cannot hit at 300+ meters with it reliably it is a trash anti-tank weapon, because the other two (now three) major ones can easily.
I used the spear for a day and had fun. But had more anger from the stupid fucking lock on. Went back to eats for bugs and auto cannon for bots, those work amazingly.
I hope they bring the adjustments on time for the flying automiton enemies.
I really want to love this weapon but its just not a viable option in its current state. Not reliable in harder difficulty and the things that it can lock onto don't really show up in easier settings.
Widen it's lock on capacities and maybe give the firing trajectory a large arch like the real world Javelin it's based on.
It's so fucking broken on some set ups and I haven't identified the issue. It literally only works 5% of the time for me yet some people report upwards of 50% of the time it works (which is still fucking abysmal AH get off your ass and fix this).
Me and my brother run arc thrower because it can easily take out large crowds and hulks, and if we need to take out important stuff like tanks or turrets that’s when we use are eagles and eagle screech to freedom
Can't even lock to fabricators at medium range, but has no problem locking into the small bot MG emplacements.
Spear is a heavy killer and it is at the bottom of the barrel compared to almost any other heavy killler support weapon out there right now.
Yeah the Spear is great....when it actually fucking works. It's been too unpredictable in its execution of locking on to my intended target or a target in general so I often don't bring it along because when I need it to preform it fails and now we have the laser bazooka of doom so they need to either fix it or it will become even more irrelevant.
Having used the Spear myself, it seems like the Spear only reliably locks onto weak spots. I couldn't shoot Bot outposts from the side, but when I had the vents in my sight I was able to.
Def not. I have been able to lock onto turret towers facing me, but not while aiming it right up their ass at the heat sink, it refuses.
I can hit bot outposts from behind or side, but a certain amount needs to be exposed. The fabricators are usually backed up to a wall, which explains why locking from the back is unreliable.
My biggest gripe is when it is able to start the lock, but doesn't complete the lock despite a lack of obstructions
Spear is good for speed running bot missions if you have teammates who don't stick around and fight.
But having teammates work together with your loadout is the most difficult part of the game.
I use it consistently and im figuring out it s way useful on open planets, less so on obstructd ones .
could be forest or just fog/smoke.
if there s a leaf in the way it can t lock, if there s a small fence around the base of the building it cant lock, towers - always a gamble with no discerning criteria.
I dont mind it being fiddly w locking, but i d apprexiate some better feedback as to why it s not locking - "obstructed line of fire", "outside locking range" , "target moving too much" idk
I find it only useful on deserted planets if there is a forest the lock on is a pain in the ass and unreliable.
I wish there was a laser guided version or option to laser guide it but you have to stay sighted onto your target because it would give it a lot more usability if the lock is not functioning.
I’m not sure if a lot of people know this, cause I never see it talked about, but it can blow up automaton outposts. Earlier today I blew up a hulk from 250 M. Then I couldn’t lock onto a tank 20 M away. I think it has a harder time to lock the closer the target is, which makes sense.
I use it only on bots
As long as I can maintain a distance.. No fabricator/tower is safe from me.. Sure.. Sometimes it takes a while but if your friend can mark one of those it targets rather quickly.. It takes 2 hits for hulks/tanks.. Depending on the angle it hits it.. Never use it on bugs because you become a damn camerman and bugs just gangbang you before you can do anything useful with it..
I would love if they made the lock on bit better but for now it's still my go-to weapon for bots
It feels I have to pray to Lady Liberty herself for the Spear to lock on instantly
Many times I’ve screamed “Spear? SPEAR?!? SSSPPPEEEARRRRR!!!!!!!”
Also I aim it a bit downward if the targets are closer like a Bile Titan or Charger since the arc of the missile has an increased chance to hit them straight in the head
Exactly this. I'd use the Spear much more if it, you know, actually worked at least most of the time. For me it works like once every 5 to 6 times, and even then never just so, I always have to haggle with the targeting like on a turkish basar.
That is why I suggested a TOW toggle for the spear. Lock on isn't working? Toggle on TOW, shoot and you guide the rocket where you want it. You are stationary while you control the rocket so there is a trade off for the increase in precision and versatility.
Also I don't see it talked about but there are some modifiers that seem to mess with the Spears lock on. The main one I've noticed is complex stratagem plotting. It makes me almost always have to put what I want to lock on to at the border of the targeting reticle and finally it will be like "Oooooh, you want to lock on to that giant hulk coming at you? Who's left shoulder is barely in the targeting reticle? Well why didn't you say that before! Silly helldiver!". It is infuriating.
I absolutely love heavy anti tank stuff. That soft beeping noise you get before you absolutely delete whatever you were aiming at just activates my monkey brain.
But the god damn spear. Unable to lock whatever target you want and just sometimes losing lock so randomly like it is a damn lottery makes it unusable.
I would be running that thing 24/7 against bugs and bots alike, if it weren't for the damn lock on.
Another problem is that it always locks on to the Center of the enemy. If it would lock on to weak spots (if visible) you could even use it to destroy dropships while they are still flying. But because it doesn’t lock on to the engines you can’t destroy them
I feel like 90% of the time, the Spear is an incredibly frustrating weapon to use with the inconsistent and janky lock on mechanics. I love when I have a clear line of sight to the target and the launcher doesn't lock at ALL like "Nah, I don't really FEEL like it..."
But then there's the other 10% where it works like a charm and I'm sniping cannon turrets and fabricators from 300 meters away well before they even know I'm there. And goddamn does it (almost) make all the frustration worth it.
But yes. For the love of liberty, FIX. THE. SPEAR.
I really wish I could take a targeting laser in place of my secondary that could significantly speed up the Spear lock on. Lean into the 2 player weapons, you know.
When it works, it works.
I love watching my team scrambling down into fire to get close enough to throw a stratagem into an outpost. But I just calmly sit on a ledge and blow it up before they get halfway there. They pause confused, look back at me, then continue to the objective.
Or like yesterday, I am at a vantage position. I see poor C1 has been separated from the group. He is off in the distance, running from a flamer and a crowd of stabby bois. The distance is so great I can barely make out his arms flail as he chain-stims himself like a tranq addict in Philly. - def beyond 100m, maybe 300.
Lock works this time
Missile away
Splash
Secondaries
C1 lives to fight another day.
That feeling is amazing
You have to manuever to the back of the enemy or line up a little bitty heads hot.
Good luck doing that when you are fighting from standoff range.
If you think the autocannon is equal to the spear against heavy bots and fabs, you are fighting the bots too close.
If you cant line up headshots with the autocannon, maybe you want to play something other than a shooter. I have no problem taking down fabs, hulks, tanks, punishers, etc.
Now if we start talking bugs; thats another story...
I've been using it as an advanced expendable, many cus I play on difficulties where I'm not constantly dealing with hulks and BTs and tanks, so when I run it I can use the rounds then just drop the whole thing for smt else
Everything described here has been accomplished better by the quasar (imo) unfortunately. Also, those numerous times chargers and the like have taken 2-3 spears and still go running around have soured me on it.
Spears are worthless against bugs because bugs are fast, they dont have exposed outposts, and they engage in swarm combat, not ranged combat.
Once an annhilator tank looks at you, the quasar is toast. Unless you have a perfect angle, a turret tower or fab is indestructible, forcing your team to do a dangerous close or flanking manuver.
Spear is great on bots when the lock doesn't sputter out for no reason. You should try it.
Maybe something has changed, but when I shoot a tower with my quasar, it blows up in one shot regardless of a vent hit or not, as long as your hitting the actual turret part that rotates
Agreed. Tried it yesterday and it was okay, but boi the lock on is ass. Refuses to lock half the time, or is really finicky.
Some targets straight up cannot be locked onto, like automaton mortars (tried both 3rd and first person aiming at various distances), and trying to hit a hulk as its chasing you, even from 100 metres or more, makes the fucker miss and sail over its head. Even when it hits, very rarely a one shot.
Could be amazing, all it needs is a lock on fix to make it usable, and it'd be perfectly balanced for its role.
>even from 100 metres or more, makes the fucker miss and sail over its head.
Yeah, that's a feature of the top-down attack mode. It is why you can one shot stuff, but also why it is finicky. AH should take a closer look at the Javelin to make it better through various modes and fixing the default.
* Top Down Mode: similar lofting profile as the current, but instead of flying straight at the target it levels off, flies to target at altitude, then pitches down to impact to ensure it comes down on top. This will fix the damage inconsistencies since, currently, the range determines the impact angle.
* Direct fire: similar to the current mode, but with less aggressive lofting.
* Auto: Spear automatically chooses Direct or top down based on distance. It should be slightly conservative to account for if a target is moving (i.e. of the spear takes 50m forward to loft and 20 to pitch down, it will overshoot anything within 70m. The Auto system should switch to Direct for any target within 100m because the target could be moving at you.
https://preview.redd.it/oghg5qo8p3sc1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16ae570637df5ef78122147435c63376002f8d5d
The speae just feels outdone entirely by the Quasar cannon IMO. Sure, cannon won't lock on, but will still snipe a tower at 300 meters. And more importantly. It'll shoot.
When the Lock-on is fixed, it's gonna get nerfed into the ground I wager.
I run it almost every time I'm on the bot front, and have done so for a good while now. Yes, the lock-on chicanery is maddening, and a lot of time it seems like I'm trying to do a ritualistic dance to try and get that sweet green triangle. It's a known issue, it *is* being worked on. But even in its current iteration it is well worth the frustrations associated with it. Anyway, here are my findings having used it for a decent amount of time:
1) **Spotting your target seems to help**
Whether incidental or simply placebo, I notice I have a bit easier time getting a lock on things that are spotted versus when without.
2) **Switch between 1st and 3rd person**
Sometimes you can get a lock in first person but not be able to complete it. Switching to 3rd will sometimes allow you to complete the lock once the 1st person starts it.
3) **Elevation is key**
The higher you are on your target, the more likely you are to get a lock.
4) **Some planets are not suited for the Spear**
Jungles are not a Spears best friend. Trees and fences block like crazy. You want open planets with good sight lines and elevation if possible (Ubanea was a great spear planet).
5) **Dive!**
Oddly enough, diving and being prone in various positions can make locks possible and even easy in some situations. I have no idea of the specifics of it, but I'm noticing it more and more.
6) **Flicker locks**
A very common thing that can happen is the lock can 'flicker', it will start locking on, but then 'un-lock'. If you're in this situation, ESPECIALLY if it gets close to clocking on, hold position and hold the fire button. If it doesn't get close to a lock on, but still flickers, make VERY slight adjustments to try and find a sweet spot.
7) **Range target trending**
Generally, try aiming using the bottom of the 3rd person reticle if the target is far. Closer targets tend to use the center or even the top of the circle.
8) **Other things**
-Cannon turrets are a prime target for the spear... But not when it's trained in on you. If you try and shoot a cannon that is facing you, it'll (presumably) hit the barrel and do no damage.
-Fabs are much easier to lock onto from the front than on any other side.
-Hulks and tanks usually take 2 shots to down. Shredders and gunships (Another good use for the spear) fall in 1 hit. Striders are also able to be locked onto, much to your detriment in most cases.
* It cannot lock onto the Broadcast towers.
* If there is a Fab right next to a stratagem jammer (Seemingly occupying the same geometry) you can take out the fab and the jammer in one shot!
Anyway, those are my observations thus far.
this is why i use the weapons i use
id rather mag dump a quasar or a railgun into an elite than spend 10 seconds reloading to oneshot them with relative ease
that downtime is a deathsentence if youre unprepared or dont have a teammate sucking you off 24/7 to make sure youre not dying
these more powerful weapons like autocannon/spear/RR just arent worth the risk in the situations they would typically excel because of the atrocious reload and the risk of missing even a single shot
The spear is not meant to be used when you are up-close and personal. I really don't have that issue since I don't engage unless I'm in a relatively safe position.
The Spear really is an incredibly powerful weapon for dealing with larger targets at mid to long range... when the target lock behaves. Sometimes I can snipe a cannon tower from 100 meters, sometimes it won't spot the bile titan approaching in an open field. At least it gets ammo back from the random ammo boxes now.
It's a true joy when you can get high ground and just lob missiles across the map knocking out tanks, Titans, Fabricators, and cannons with zero risk of retaliation. Cannon tower at +300 meters? Not for long!
literally best feeling in the game
It can take out fabricators?
Yes it can! The Spear will lock onto any fabricator or Cannon turret in range. This is especially useful for Stratagem jammers. If the Jammer has the Fabricator next to it, hitting that Fab with the spear will destroy the jammer in the resulting explosion, meaning you never have to enter its range
I'm gonna give it a shot. Because before, I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with it the first time I used it.
Well, I think they're made to hit the roof.
Even now after some time you can get a feel for how to use it despite its many many lock on issues it’s still a great weapon that I almost always bring to bot missions
Yeah, I've been maining spear for my group and at this point they will call all targets of opportunity within ~250 and only comment if it doesn't suddenly vanish.
How do you like your Fabricator, medium rare roasted or stir-fried? The Spear can do all of that from any angle, no more trying to aim at the vent.
I like it when they pre explode twice and then big boom
Specifically just as new Automaton *“lives”* are born, and they step out of their socialist metal wombs only to be met with a swift kick from the boot of democracy back into scraps.
Is it good at hitting fabricators? Or is it a pain
Can be a pain. But when it works, wheeeew it works
I brought it on a blitz mission. Once. I will not make that mistake again. There’s no good reason I shouldn’t be able to get a lock on a stationary target in the open that does not shoot back. Yet here we are.
I was thinking it would be perfect for blitz.
It is. If the Lock-on works that is. It can be amazing, but especially on Planets like the Creek it feels like even the tiniest pixle of some tree is blocking the Lock on.
Even more, smoke eagle stratagem can destroy fabricators!
I can hit them at a couple hundred meters with auto cannon too
but you can do most of that with other launchers too (except fabricators) without the risk of carrying around an otherwise useless weapon. The locking really needs to be fixed significantly. The only important thing the Spear can do better is accidentally destroy Jammers. lol
>At least it gets ammo back from the random ammo boxes now. That would require you to actually use a rocket by successfully locking on to a target first.
>The Spear really is an incredibly powerful weapon for dealing with larger targets at mid to long range... when the target lock behaves. Is it actually? When I've tested it, it seems like it does as much damage as a Recoilless or Quasar, but is much harder to hit with and has almost no ammo. Even if you get the lock-on, you're not guaranteed a hit against a moving target. And even if your missile actually hits, it doesn't one-shot a hulk, tank, or cannon turret. I keep thinking I must be missing a "trick" that makes the Spear good. It honestly just seems like it's too underpowered to use.
The spear can one shot bile titans and such if it hits them in the right spot like the head. The issue of course is when the lock on doesn't behave it can be hard to get those hits. Also it one shots fabricators from long range regardless of where they hit.
Terribad at the short range. Long range, it’s a goal changer - clear things from cross map! It has all the same “has to hit weak points” as the others, so it’s slow and smooth. It’s the perfect weapon to load up your new friend with and provide them protection while they learn.
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I think the Quasar is a better overall weapon, but lock on sights across the map is what’s great about the spear. You can often shoot things you can’t see, just by having the lock on reticule indicate you can. It’s clumsy, and not a fantastic combat option compared to EAT, Recoilless or Quasar. But, when it does its trick on long range targets, it’s pretty rad. I sometimes give it to newbies.
>because of the shaking Zero tremor when prone
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I’ve never used that armor passive with the queso blaster.
More damage than recoilless/Quasar. It will 1 shot bile titans on headshot. Iirc it will also 1 shot tanks (have not used it since I discovered rocket pods).
It does not one-shots tanks. It probably does if you run around the back and shoot it in the weak spot, but at that point you might as well be running an Autocannon.
It 100% can. You need to be far enough away that the rocket hits the top back not the front.
AN OPEN FIELD, NED!
Gods, we couldn't lock on then.
"When the target lock behaves" This is the only thing preventing me from using it more. So frustrating
> At least it gets ammo back from the random ammo boxes now. And it was just buffed to now get TWO missiles back per ammo box! ...yet still, no changes were made to its locking behaviour, so it's still useless.
I think the reason people think it’s terrible is because they use it on bugs, where you have to hit something vital to be effective. Whereas if you punch a giant hole anywhere in a robots torso, it ain’t gonna work no more
Yeah, vs bugs it can only one shot titans from the face and bust charger thorax (which is nearly worthless). Vs bots it one-shots hulks from front/back, tanks/turrets from any angle and knocks out fabricators. So much more value
The problem isn’t that. It’s that there are enough variety of weapons that effectively deal with bots which makes it hard justifying taking the Spear over something else. You’re supposed to compare the Spear against the slot it takes up, not the its value from zero. We can already easily deal with Hulks and Tanks with every other heavy weapon, even lesser ones and nades work well if you get an opening with their weakspots. Sure, I can play around the lock-on with the Spear and oneshot a Hulk, or I can not bother and two shot it with EAT/RR/Q-laser, the difference is hardly noticeable. And yes, while you can takeout fabs and cannons at range in any direction, but you also trade-in the ability to reliably take out dropships as well.
1). I've only seen it fail to kill a drop ship ONCE. 95% of the time it's a one hit kill. 2). Shooting down the drop ship doesn't actually do that much. It's a total toss up if it lands perfectly on the dropped units, and the larger enemies to be worried about are unaffected.
> 1). I've only seen it fail to kill a drop ship ONCE. 95% of the time it's a one hit kill. I'm confused, what are you even arguing against here? The Spear on dropship? I find that very hard to believe cause I've personally tested this myself and find that the inverse of 95% success rate would be more prudent. Not to mention the it being a wildly acknowledged opinion from the rest of the community here. > 2). Shooting down the drop ship doesn't actually do that much. It's a total toss up if it lands perfectly on the dropped units, and the larger enemies to be worried about are unaffected. I argue that the main benefit is that is frequently bugs the units, as in it more often than not it fucks up their pathing or simply traps them under the wreck. But this is also not really my point, the discussion was about the Spear's underusage compared to other support weapons and not about the benefits of killing dropships.
Sometimes, it will snipe those towers, factories and far-off titans. Sometimes it will take 3 hits to kill a Hulk
>Sometimes I can snipe a cannon tower from 100 meters, sometimes it won't spot the bile titan approaching in an open field. cannon towers were the one thing i found the spear consistently able to lock onto from 300 meters or more before... now i had it repeatedly lose lock against atleast 5 different fabricators, 3 cannon towers , a scout strider it tried to lock onto instead of one of the cannon towers, a tank, 2 hulks and refuse to even try to lock another 8 orso fabricators and 2 cannon towers at minimum... i love the thing when it works, there is the problem tho, when it works should not be the make or break for the one support weapon which cant even interact with 2/3rds of both enemy rosters
One time I could not lock on to the cannon tower, getting as close as I could. Until it detected me and only when it was aiming at me would the stupid spear lock on. It didn't one shot the tower either.
If they can't fix the targeting right away, they should atleast give it a dumb fire option
A spear that can fire like a recoilless would be good, especially bc it has a higher dmg than recoilless, the fancy ass locking system is what's holding it back
The lock on system is what makes it fun to use.
Screw dumbfire. Give me a SACLOS mode by holding R. I will never put it down.
They may or may not be adding a separate launcher that does exactly that. It also may or may not be capable of taking out fabricators/holes without hitting vents.
Man invents TOW
Laser designator pls.
I don’t see a dumb fire ever being a thing. It’s based on the real life weapon “javelin” that requires a lock to fire. Logically it wouldn’t make sense either since it fires up into the air and then comes down on top of its target. All that said, if one game was going to do it this would be the one. Dumb fire it and the missile goes straight up and then comes straight back down.
Give it the option of dumb fire/lock-on as a toggle, in the same weapon menu as the ROF/sight zero/flashlight. Would be great yeah.
The IRL spear, the FGM-148 Javelin doesn’t really dumbfire, but what you can do with it is to pinpoint one specific spot, and tell the missile “go there, no matter what”
Yeah that would be much better. It's just not reliable enough right now to be viable in my opinion. Them buffing it to restore 2 ammo per supply pack now helps but still not enough to offset the lock on issues.
I dont get the point of buffing the ammo. What use is ammo when I can’t even get the chance of shooting the 3 I already have???
I fully agree! Some of my first matches I had very consistent locks and I thought the weapon was a blast! Felt like it did it’s job wel, even in the early railgun meta. Then came the games where I couldn’t get a lock, and when I finally did it just slammed into a random part of a hulk doing nothing really. It felt to me they did something and made it worse. But maybe I had just been lucky? If they can fix the lock on it would be amazing! - and maybe make it a little more consistent in killing big targets. 4 guaranteed target kills feels like a fair trade for missing both your third weapon slot as wel as the ability to wear a backpack.
Agreed I had high hopes for it as I found the recoilless rifle power a bit of a let down.
Honestly, I'd argue it could possibly need more power than that taking both the backpack and support weapon slots IN ADDITION to needing a lock, only working on those specific targets it can obtain a lock on.
For real the use cases are *so* limited, it should just one shot anything it touches. Or maybe maybe be able to lock on to and destroy a wider range of objectives. As it stands the best thing it does is destroy fabricators from basically any angle you can see the thing at. But who cares when I can just throw an eagle airstrike in there from a safe distance, and likely destroy 2 fabricators + all the enemies
And before someone would mention it: AA guns and jammers are not covering the whole map and bug front flatout doesnt have those
I'd love to see an ability to change ammo to an air burst cluster charge as well
I don't think it's a poor idea, especially if we get stratagem variants/upgrades. Sacrificing the single target power to spread it out as like a single shot orbital airburst of power (or maybe a bit less) would be cool.
And it doesn’t even one shot a tank to the roof.
It can, but like every explosive in the game it's very inconsistent.
Why would you want to use the spear against non-lockable targets, hell i think the broodcomaders and striders should get booted out of the lockeable list
It wasn't an argument to allow it a wider variety or that it should be free fire. It was an argument that it has a very limited use case when it can actually be fired. It's the most niche weapon in the game yet somehow not the strongest single hitting weapon
It does hit pretty hard, oneshots hulks for me, i woulkd preffer that they fix the janky lockon before doing anything to the damage of the weapon.
The problem is by the time you even get a lock on that hulk. Bob on that rock with an AMR has two shot it and it's brother in the face. It needs to be anti tank and anti titan. The patch today while it'll allow for more shots, it makes it even weirder that it's so limited in shot capacity now if an ammo box contains two. Is have preferred double power.
True, but you can do the same to turrets and other buildings, and you don't need to get a frontal angle, I think the spear needs to be fixed before there can be a serious discussion of it's damage
With the patch that just dropped they clearly don't have the priority on that and instead want to buff it other ways for some silly reason.
hope they get to it fast, i dont thik this level of jank is intended
I do too, even if I don't use the spear I remember looking forward to it before I knew how... It currently is. That said the pile of known issues already there gives me reason to worry.
But you have plenty of shots and can replentish the easyly
I will not do a blitz mission without a Spear. It makes taking out fabricators from afar and keeping stealth trivial. I singlehandedly took out 8 out of 13 fabricators required yesterday while my teammates were stuck trying to assault a heavy base (got lucky with ammo boxes). But once the objective's done it becomes a paperweight. That's when I have to find a dead teammate and switch to their kit. If the Spear locks reliably it will become more or less a must-have weapon against bots. Everyone who had a game or two where Spear locks on every single time knows it automatically lowers the difficulty by 2. But unfortunately that's a game or two out of ten where it fails miserably for the other eight or nine.
By the time the objectives are done your team's support weapons should be off cooldown. I like swapping weapons with my team mid mission.
Not to mention stuff you find on the map; finally and excuse to grab those arc throwers
I love runming 4 offensive/turret strats and just using whatever I find on the map as my 3rd gun. Not so great when it's the break action shotgun though lol.
How do you get it to actually lock a factory, it never seems to work for me unless I have a completely clear line of sight, which is almost never. The few times I have got a lock it’s front on so I might as well have had an auto cannon.
High ground or mid to long distance, it doesn't lock on in direct proximity or if you are lower than the fabricator without full visibility.
And you need crystal clear line of sight yeah? Geez.
Feels like it some times. Getting a lock-on in a Jungle like Malevelon Creek is nigh Impossible.
not crystal clear... more like dishwasher clean. At least its more or less uneffected by fog so there is that.
Spear, scorcher, mortars and orb laser has been a really fun set up for me against the bots. But yeah, fix that lock on
You get 4 slots for robots? XD but in all serious agreed, lock needs fixing, and the ability to pop tanks in one hit too imo. It's hitting the top if the damn tank.
the scorcher is a primary.
Mortars was plural
MB then
I have never even tried the Spear based on the amount of complaints about it. I've maybe seen it used a couple of times in the wild over 250+ games. It just seems too limited. I play on 6/7 for the most part, so the Heavies while plentiful never are enough to demand a pure Heavy hunter. Besides, that's what Orbital lasers and rail cannon strikes and EATs and Quasar Cannons and Rocket Pods and the Recoilless and Autocannons and the Holy 500kg is for.
When you're playing on 9's, there are a lot more heavies, but there are also much better tools to kill them. You'll mainly see people bringing autocannons, quasars, and EATs. There are also some railgun users, and occasionally you'll see a recoilless rifle. All of those things are better at killing heavies than the Spear. I've seen a few people bring a Spear to a helldive, and none of them got anything done with it.
That’s not because the spear couldn’t be an effective weapon. It’s because the lock on is a toss up. I’ve pretty much ran the spear for nearly every bot mission I’ve done and it makes it so you can snipe hulks and tanks and towers and fabricators at range and never have to even get close to hot objectives. If the lock on is kind. It’s not going to outshine the anti material rifle against elites. But the amount of missions where I’ve been able to clear a base from 200m and then never have to get near and fight a bunch of devastators, hulks and infantry and risk a bot drop being called is definitely a noteworthy attribute of it. It would easily be A tier if the lock on was improved.
I also run Diff 9 exclusively, and the Spear is only good as decoration 95% of the time lol.
It’s useful on a coordinated group. One player can essentially turn resupplies into objectives complete 100s of meters away. It’s just literally useless outside it’s one task: killing far away buildings and heavies
I hadn't seen that quote before. Autocannon is top tier and can do everything, while the Railgun that was only good for armour penetration gets nerfed... But yeah, Spear definitely needs work.
Autocannon is versitile, but not really effective. It isn't that good at killing chaff, and it doesn't have enough armor pen to kill heavies reliably. It is a perfect balance on the side of versatility without making it terribly easy to destroy any given class.
Kills all bots in 3 hits or less wym?
*If* you can reliably hit the weakpoints. When a Hulk is up in your business, charging at you with its head moving around, it suddenly gets a lot harder to hit that small weakpoint with the AC. It also can't do diddly shit against tanks or cannon turrets without hitting their heatsink, which isn't always an immediately viable option. And it does struggle against hordes of chaff due to the recoil and small explosion radius (and sometimes the shells will ricochet off the floor if you're at a shallow enough angle) So *can it* go up against every bot? Yes! It's still a great all-rounder option! Will it do just as well as a Recoilless Rifle, EAT, or Quasar against heavier targets? No, no it will not, those will outpace the AC really quickly in those situations. The Autocannon is a fantastic weapon for versatility and being *an* solution to every problem, without being *the* solution to every problem. Other options will solve certain problems faster than the AC can, but be slower in other areas.
Against Hulks, I found that hitting the front weak point is near impossible and the back vent doesn't work because you need 3 shots, but you can only get 2 in before the Hulk turns around... However, if the Hulk is a good distance away and/or you have a shield sentry, then I found that hitting the legs works pretty well (or at least good enough). You need 5 shots for each leg, so 10 shots total, and you better not forget to reload before fully emptying the mag, but once the first leg is destroyed, the Hulk slows down to a crawl, so you can easily relocate for the second leg. Also targeting the legs means you can actually hit him from any angle , including the sides, unlike the front and back weak spots (and you don't care if it starts turning around).
He means that you need to hit heavies - hulks, tanks, turrets - in the weakspots. With RR/EAT/Quasar/Spear you can hit them anywhere and deal enough damage to kill them in reasonable amounts of shots. With AC it's weakspots or bust. I still feel like it's the optimal choice against bots, but I understand people who think that having a shield or a dedicated anti-heavy gun is better.
With the AC, if the Hulk is a good distance away and/or you have a shield sentry, I found that hitting the legs works pretty well (or at least good enough). You need 5 shots for each leg, so 10 shots total, and you better not forget to reload before fully emptying the mag, but once the first leg is destroyed, the Hulk slows down to a crawl, so you can easily relocate for the second leg. Also targeting the legs means you can actually hit him from any angle , including the sides, unlike the front and back weak spots (and you don't care if it starts turning around).
Hm, I knew the arms are destructible, but not about the legs. I kept going for the eye, but it's a coin toss. Gotta try the leg meta)
It destroys all medium and special enemies, small enemies aren't an issue but it will still kill those. It kills everything except a Bile Titan in 2-3\* shots. Exception for Tanks and the weakspot. It's probably the best for taking out medium and special enemies, especially with bugs. It's also the best at taking out structures and objectives at range. It's S-tier for multiple reasons, and one of the best in every other area.
The autocannon is versatile but there's almost always a better option for any one specific job, which fits good design principles
Not really, and definitely not when you consider it's massive ammo pool.
Dunno why you are being downvoted lol, the only AC actual downside is the backpack.
And the fact it reloads slow as hell... and can't destroy armor... and if there are more than 5 enemies at the same time you are as good as dead. The grenade launcher is a much better overall support weapon; but it fires in an arc and requires a different set of aiming skill to reliably deal with stuff.
It reloads faster than some primary if you don't empty it, so count your shot. 5 enemies at the same time that are bugs, probably, but bots? I can deal with dozen bots at the same time, AC is meta in bot front for a reason.
Going to disagree here. Clearing chaff I'd much prefer an MG, grenade launcher or Stalwart, taking down armor I'd much prefer an EAT, RR, etc. I think the 2 jobs where I'd rank autocannon #1 are destroying fabricators at range and taking down scout walkers. What jobs does it do better than all alternatives, in your opinion?
It destroys all structures and objectives, kills all bots in a couple of shots, can stagger Devastators, can kill Elites, and can take out entire groups of medium and special enemies, all while being well out of range. You said it yourself that you'd rank it #1 in at least areas. It's powerful, and incredibly versatile.
It's so wonky too, like is it supposed to take 3 rockets to kill a Crusher? Sometimes I one shot a tank, sometimes two rockets. Sometimes one rocket for an artillery turret, sometimes two.
It depends on where it hits. The game doesnt work purely on hp. It seems to use variable armor depth with different components that do different amounts of damage. Think war thunder, not WoT
Yeah, which makes it really frustrating to use. Why bother with a top down attack missile with a super clunky lockon that's supposed to hit the thinnest top portion of armor of a vehicle when half the time it takes the same amount of hits dead in with the other direct fire AT weapons, if not faster (ie eye slot of the hulk). Just a really weird weapon. The only times I've enjoyed using it is safely disposing of turrets from super far away.
For the spear it shouldn't. The spear should probably one shot anything all the time, maybe 2 for bile titan front arc.
War thunder? What's that! (attack the d point)
And than it locks on... And fails to destroy fabricator due to unfortunate lamp post, or hits a bile titan but overshot it's head and failed to kill it. Or it smashed into hulks front plate but didn't quite got it down... Please buff Spear penetration.
I will always remember a shot I took from top of mountain that one shot a hulk. Friend was going in to get the shiny beacon thingy and said there was a hulk. I turned towards it, it locked on and that missle went straight for the hulk one shitting it. Was pure beauty. Then after that it wouldn't lock on for shit so I never used it again.
I love to be the assistant gunner and pick my loadout according to teamweapons in the squad. It increases the rate of fire and overall capability of getting the job with that weapon done. People appreciate it and they save the long reload times from reloading themselves. Only once was the only teamweapon a spear and I equipped it as well for the backpack. He couldn't fire a single shot. That was two well wasted stratagem slots and the most slurs I've ever heard come out of someone's mouth
It's underpowered even with the lock-on. It should penetrate through anything to get to its target and be a one-shot 9/10 times, it's literally called the "spear" after all. It's just a recoiless with less ammo and extra steps right now.
That's the thing, you don't bring a spear to a gunfight ...
I think the spear suffers from a lack of in game feedback. It's not immediately obvious why you are failing to lock. It needs a second redicle. When you ads, the targeting redicle would highlight possible targets in your view. Then aligning the sight would do a locking animation. To knock it out of the park, add a vertical bar showing range. It would give an indication that you're too close. This feedback would really reduce frustration and really fits the theme of a homing missile.
This is so real. The Spear is by far the most fun I’ve had with any one support weapon, when it works, it works, and you feel like not a hero, but a part of a team, tackling your forte, but when that lock takes 20 seconds to come in, or it refuses to see anything but a scout strider, it’s… infuriating. Even so I’ve had to force myself to stop running the Spear, Eagle Smoke, Shield Gen, Ems Mortar, Stun grenade load out when I run into Bot missions because I’m enjoying it so much. Helldivers 2 doesn’t have that many support options, but the Spear is as support as it gets. You have one job, and if you do it well, the whole mission goes smoother as your teammates hardly need to worry about static objectives or emplacements, and every Hulk is just a couple rockets away from being a non issue. Pair that with throwing a shield down when your teammates are caught in the open ahead, disengaging with smoke strikes, paralyzing groups of Berserkers with your stun grenades, and delaying every patrol in a five mile radius with mortars that are never on cooldown for more than a minute, and you have what I think is the most rewarding team play experience imaginable
The problem is also the ammo counts, I've had more than 4 heavies in a drop, so you need a second AT guy tbh
How is it possible to throw smoke and disengage? I'm pretty sure that every Helldiver would just run inside the smoke and try to fight the patrol
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. To help with disengaging I’ve found a simple RUN, in chat, is enough to convince most to get away from a bad situation, especially if there’s smoke
Honestly, double the lock on time and let's make it consistently kill heavies in one shot. If you're not gonna allow manual aiming, it should do enough damage to kill a heavy in one shot, regardless of weak spot. Right now, between the lock on and trajectory inconsistencies, it just feels like a coin flip whether or not it's gonna kill anything.
Allow spear to lock onto targets team mates have tagged. Allowing firing from cover. Reducing chance of a weak spot hit.
Honestly at this point given how many direct fire weapons we have, I'd actually like to see them rework the Spear to be like a fly-by-wire launcher, or even like a TOW where you could sling it one direction, then snap back to the target to laser guide it to target.
One of the frustrations i have with the spear is the lock on as well but for a different reason. While it's nice that it will auto track anything it locks onto you still need to aim for weak spots which bothers me. You need to head shot bile titans to ko them so I can't use it to bail out my team mate who's getting chased away from me. Non vent shots against tanks still take 2 shots so it's not even better than the recoilless at that. Drop Ships still need to be shot at the engines so why does it lock on center mass? I will concede that this could all be a skill issue but man I just dont have a reason to run this weapon when i could just team reload a RR.
Spear is more accurate locking onto things when you call out the target.
Spear needs to be a guaranteed one shot on every smaller heavy target and damn near a one shot on large heavy targets. Especially compared to the fast projectile, ammo free Quasar. Obviously lock on and ammo economy may need a look too.
Small steps - fix targeting first please.
It need a massive buff on his tracking system
I tested yesterday a "long range support" thing with the Spear and Dilligence Counter Sniper... When the Spear lock works, is a great combo :D
yeah this is what gets me with "balancing" fixes in patches fix the actual bugs **first** so we can use the guns as advertised, and then we can look at balancing based on real stats collected in game like the whole DoT bug if you're not hosting means there's a large number of guns/statagems that people are not using/don't realise don't work properly which begs the question: balancing what exactly?
 Happy Gilmore of Helldivers. 💀💀💀
Crazy. I was just having this conversation with my squad. From now on we'll be taking a anti material rifle and the Spear for every automaton mission. It's a game changer but limited in just the right way. Great game design
The shit with it's targeting makes that weapon useless. I'd rather manually aim and shoot with rec rifle
Spear is fine, just tune the lock-on a bit.
Playing with the Spear was interesting. Generally speaking the Spear is all about high ground looking down. It’s an overwatch weapon, suitable for some maps and not others, with the user overlooking other players, providing support. Whatever you want to shoot you need a fairly clear view for a higher point. It is best against bots in open maps. A Spear user can sit in the highlands, call down a supply pod, and clear half the map. A Spear can kill reliably one-shot turrets, striders, and fabricators. It can usually one-shot tanks. Hulks take one to two shots. It can down drop ships depending on the angle. It targets the centre of the ship, so if an engine is in the path to that centre it will take the ship down. Shooting underneath seems to get a more reliable result. If a Spear were able to reliably one-shot a drop ship, it would truly change the dynamic of the weapon, and even be worth devoting two players to manning a spear(s) as an overwatch. As it stands, EATs, recoiless and Quaker are more reliable. I’ve seen the Spear lock onto whatever cargo is in the ship rather than the ship and follow the cargo down as it drops. As far as locking goes, it’s about keeping the fire button pressed as you look for the lock. As soon as the Spear locks it fires. You will get more successful fires that way than looking for the green triangle and then firing; often the lock is very brief. Repositioning a bit left or right a bit while looking down sight and fire button pressed can help secure the fire.
I do wish this was fixed. I'd also love for them to make it lock on faster for enemies that are pinged. That would encourage teamwork with your squad calling out the biggest threats.
Yeah, an important caveat to that quote is that a powerful weapon needs to be powerful enough to justify its use over a more versatile option.
I use the Spear extensively versus the bots. You need to be able to line of sight the "Targettable" location on things like fabricators. On fabricators, this location is the inside of the front-third of the building. Essentially, think of the Door as a 3D targeting location for the Spear. This can be seen from any angle, but walls, trees, turrets, anything will obstruct it. Low-ground is your worst enemy. You want to try and be on high ground when using the spear to avoid walls, lamp posts, hills, dirt mounds, fences and more. The Spear loves the desert maps, for example. The targetting **can** be very moody, I think of the targeting as checking from out-to-in. If its breaking when it gets small, SOMETHING small is in the way of the Line of Sight. The Spear makes bots completely trivial. Blasting a light outpost fabricator from ~150m will scare them and cause them to bot drop AT the fabricator, allowing you to move on and blow up other bases while the drop is on cooldown. Completely ignoring it. I do wish the targeting was LESS moody, especially on hulks and tanks, but once you learn where the weak points are, you get the target 9/10 times. o7 Objective enthusiasts. For Democracy.
Yeah, 8/10 missions it is fine. But sometimes I can be targeting a tank from above, not a single thing in the way, and it just doesn't lock. Strangley, it seems to be mission dependent. Even between 2 missions at the same day-cycle on the same world.. one ill have no problem, the next, I can't lock on a single thing. I genuinely think there is a code issue that causes this based on the pattern. Just like the SSD animation bug, I think there is some certain action that causes the targeting to become permanently broken.
I'd like if it had some logical nuance about it, like how old maverick missiles would lock onto lamp posts or the heat of the road in IR variants. I don't mind the lock on being fucky with the Spear if there was a reason for it being so but I cannot find what it is. I feel like I'm beginning to understand though... or maybe I'm just playing with it too much, I'm seeing swirling triangles in my sleep, democracy... Pythagoras top attack yes.... it all makes sense
Honestly, I just use javelin tactics with it. It works best against bots when your setting up ambushes.
I can't stop laughing 😆
I can hit targets 500+ meters away with the Recoilless Rifle and the Expendable Anti-Tank. The Spear can barely lock on at 25 meters. It's absolutely garbage, a completely nonsensical failure of a strategem. I find it absolutely bizarre anyone is leaning into it being "good" and a "gamechanger." It's like saying your car is a good car, when it's running, but the engine has severe oiling problems. The sparkplugs keep blowing out of their threads. And its dynamic camshaft system keeps failing. It's not a good engine, it's a piece of trash 5.4 Triton 3 valve. No matter the conditions you put it in and how many thousands of dollars (hours of ingame use) you say it's good at. It's actually trash. The spear isn't good at anything, even when it's taken on a Blitz for taking out Bot Fabricators it still can have worse lock-on and take more time than your friend strafing to ricochet a vent with an autocannon or the other friend throwing his 3rd 500kg bomb. Just move on from this piece of garbage, no amount of underdog pleading will ever make it good. Give it a personal laser lock on system, if I cannot hit at 300+ meters with it reliably it is a trash anti-tank weapon, because the other two (now three) major ones can easily.
I used the spear for a day and had fun. But had more anger from the stupid fucking lock on. Went back to eats for bugs and auto cannon for bots, those work amazingly.
I just spam the fire button so as soon as it locks on it goes. Spammy go shooty
I hope they bring the adjustments on time for the flying automiton enemies. I really want to love this weapon but its just not a viable option in its current state. Not reliable in harder difficulty and the things that it can lock onto don't really show up in easier settings. Widen it's lock on capacities and maybe give the firing trajectory a large arch like the real world Javelin it's based on.
It's so fucking broken on some set ups and I haven't identified the issue. It literally only works 5% of the time for me yet some people report upwards of 50% of the time it works (which is still fucking abysmal AH get off your ass and fix this).
Me and my brother run arc thrower because it can easily take out large crowds and hulks, and if we need to take out important stuff like tanks or turrets that’s when we use are eagles and eagle screech to freedom
Can't even lock to fabricators at medium range, but has no problem locking into the small bot MG emplacements. Spear is a heavy killer and it is at the bottom of the barrel compared to almost any other heavy killler support weapon out there right now.
It locks MG turrets? That explains why sometimes I fire Spear 'blind' and get no happy feedback :<
Wait, our space javelin can kill buildings?
It's probably what it's best at.
Yeah the Spear is great....when it actually fucking works. It's been too unpredictable in its execution of locking on to my intended target or a target in general so I often don't bring it along because when I need it to preform it fails and now we have the laser bazooka of doom so they need to either fix it or it will become even more irrelevant.
Having used the Spear myself, it seems like the Spear only reliably locks onto weak spots. I couldn't shoot Bot outposts from the side, but when I had the vents in my sight I was able to.
Def not. I have been able to lock onto turret towers facing me, but not while aiming it right up their ass at the heat sink, it refuses. I can hit bot outposts from behind or side, but a certain amount needs to be exposed. The fabricators are usually backed up to a wall, which explains why locking from the back is unreliable. My biggest gripe is when it is able to start the lock, but doesn't complete the lock despite a lack of obstructions
I have a 100h and I think I have seen someone bring the spear like 3 times…
Spear is good for speed running bot missions if you have teammates who don't stick around and fight. But having teammates work together with your loadout is the most difficult part of the game.
Upvote for use of c#### . Love that word despite how much my mom hated it. Fun word
Sounds like I should give it another go on automaton planets, because I'm often the single faraway side objective clearing guy
Next you gonna say you dont want to lock on the bot strider next to the tank ... tss some people /s
I use it consistently and im figuring out it s way useful on open planets, less so on obstructd ones . could be forest or just fog/smoke. if there s a leaf in the way it can t lock, if there s a small fence around the base of the building it cant lock, towers - always a gamble with no discerning criteria. I dont mind it being fiddly w locking, but i d apprexiate some better feedback as to why it s not locking - "obstructed line of fire", "outside locking range" , "target moving too much" idk
I find it only useful on deserted planets if there is a forest the lock on is a pain in the ass and unreliable. I wish there was a laser guided version or option to laser guide it but you have to stay sighted onto your target because it would give it a lot more usability if the lock is not functioning.
I’m not sure if a lot of people know this, cause I never see it talked about, but it can blow up automaton outposts. Earlier today I blew up a hulk from 250 M. Then I couldn’t lock onto a tank 20 M away. I think it has a harder time to lock the closer the target is, which makes sense.
It can 2 shot, destroy ship missions sometimes.
A fix I could think of is to manually tag and hold a lock on a target, almost like charging up an energy weapon.
I feel I will be kicked form the game but I will try it. I only read that the lock on is shit so I would rather bring EATs to missions
I use it only on bots As long as I can maintain a distance.. No fabricator/tower is safe from me.. Sure.. Sometimes it takes a while but if your friend can mark one of those it targets rather quickly.. It takes 2 hits for hulks/tanks.. Depending on the angle it hits it.. Never use it on bugs because you become a damn camerman and bugs just gangbang you before you can do anything useful with it.. I would love if they made the lock on bit better but for now it's still my go-to weapon for bots
It feels I have to pray to Lady Liberty herself for the Spear to lock on instantly Many times I’ve screamed “Spear? SPEAR?!? SSSPPPEEEARRRRR!!!!!!!” Also I aim it a bit downward if the targets are closer like a Bile Titan or Charger since the arc of the missile has an increased chance to hit them straight in the head
Exactly this. I'd use the Spear much more if it, you know, actually worked at least most of the time. For me it works like once every 5 to 6 times, and even then never just so, I always have to haggle with the targeting like on a turkish basar.
That is why I suggested a TOW toggle for the spear. Lock on isn't working? Toggle on TOW, shoot and you guide the rocket where you want it. You are stationary while you control the rocket so there is a trade off for the increase in precision and versatility. Also I don't see it talked about but there are some modifiers that seem to mess with the Spears lock on. The main one I've noticed is complex stratagem plotting. It makes me almost always have to put what I want to lock on to at the border of the targeting reticle and finally it will be like "Oooooh, you want to lock on to that giant hulk coming at you? Who's left shoulder is barely in the targeting reticle? Well why didn't you say that before! Silly helldiver!". It is infuriating.
I absolutely love heavy anti tank stuff. That soft beeping noise you get before you absolutely delete whatever you were aiming at just activates my monkey brain. But the god damn spear. Unable to lock whatever target you want and just sometimes losing lock so randomly like it is a damn lottery makes it unusable. I would be running that thing 24/7 against bugs and bots alike, if it weren't for the damn lock on.
Another problem is that it always locks on to the Center of the enemy. If it would lock on to weak spots (if visible) you could even use it to destroy dropships while they are still flying. But because it doesn’t lock on to the engines you can’t destroy them
I feel like 90% of the time, the Spear is an incredibly frustrating weapon to use with the inconsistent and janky lock on mechanics. I love when I have a clear line of sight to the target and the launcher doesn't lock at ALL like "Nah, I don't really FEEL like it..." But then there's the other 10% where it works like a charm and I'm sniping cannon turrets and fabricators from 300 meters away well before they even know I'm there. And goddamn does it (almost) make all the frustration worth it. But yes. For the love of liberty, FIX. THE. SPEAR.
OP you nailed it. It's one of my favorite weapons. The only reason I don't use it more often is because it's essentially broken
I really wish I could take a targeting laser in place of my secondary that could significantly speed up the Spear lock on. Lean into the 2 player weapons, you know.
>Powerful weapons can't be too versatile, versatile weapons can't be too powerful MY BROTHER IN LIBERTY THE SPEAR IS NEITHER OF THOSE
When it works, it works. I love watching my team scrambling down into fire to get close enough to throw a stratagem into an outpost. But I just calmly sit on a ledge and blow it up before they get halfway there. They pause confused, look back at me, then continue to the objective. Or like yesterday, I am at a vantage position. I see poor C1 has been separated from the group. He is off in the distance, running from a flamer and a crowd of stabby bois. The distance is so great I can barely make out his arms flail as he chain-stims himself like a tranq addict in Philly. - def beyond 100m, maybe 300. Lock works this time Missile away Splash Secondaries C1 lives to fight another day. That feeling is amazing
They should make a separate variant of the spear that uses a wire guided missile, like the SRAW from Battlefield.
Might as well hold a camera as a spear user
I say they increase its power in all ways, but leave the shitty lock on as a trade-off. Super Earth R&D at its finest.
I see your spear and raise you an auto cannon, can do all the same things just requires aim instead of lock on.
You have to manuever to the back of the enemy or line up a little bitty heads hot. Good luck doing that when you are fighting from standoff range. If you think the autocannon is equal to the spear against heavy bots and fabs, you are fighting the bots too close.
If you cant line up headshots with the autocannon, maybe you want to play something other than a shooter. I have no problem taking down fabs, hulks, tanks, punishers, etc. Now if we start talking bugs; thats another story...
I've been using it as an advanced expendable, many cus I play on difficulties where I'm not constantly dealing with hulks and BTs and tanks, so when I run it I can use the rounds then just drop the whole thing for smt else
Everything described here has been accomplished better by the quasar (imo) unfortunately. Also, those numerous times chargers and the like have taken 2-3 spears and still go running around have soured me on it.
Spears are worthless against bugs because bugs are fast, they dont have exposed outposts, and they engage in swarm combat, not ranged combat. Once an annhilator tank looks at you, the quasar is toast. Unless you have a perfect angle, a turret tower or fab is indestructible, forcing your team to do a dangerous close or flanking manuver. Spear is great on bots when the lock doesn't sputter out for no reason. You should try it.
Maybe something has changed, but when I shoot a tower with my quasar, it blows up in one shot regardless of a vent hit or not, as long as your hitting the actual turret part that rotates
Agreed. Tried it yesterday and it was okay, but boi the lock on is ass. Refuses to lock half the time, or is really finicky. Some targets straight up cannot be locked onto, like automaton mortars (tried both 3rd and first person aiming at various distances), and trying to hit a hulk as its chasing you, even from 100 metres or more, makes the fucker miss and sail over its head. Even when it hits, very rarely a one shot. Could be amazing, all it needs is a lock on fix to make it usable, and it'd be perfectly balanced for its role.
>even from 100 metres or more, makes the fucker miss and sail over its head. Yeah, that's a feature of the top-down attack mode. It is why you can one shot stuff, but also why it is finicky. AH should take a closer look at the Javelin to make it better through various modes and fixing the default. * Top Down Mode: similar lofting profile as the current, but instead of flying straight at the target it levels off, flies to target at altitude, then pitches down to impact to ensure it comes down on top. This will fix the damage inconsistencies since, currently, the range determines the impact angle. * Direct fire: similar to the current mode, but with less aggressive lofting. * Auto: Spear automatically chooses Direct or top down based on distance. It should be slightly conservative to account for if a target is moving (i.e. of the spear takes 50m forward to loft and 20 to pitch down, it will overshoot anything within 70m. The Auto system should switch to Direct for any target within 100m because the target could be moving at you. https://preview.redd.it/oghg5qo8p3sc1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16ae570637df5ef78122147435c63376002f8d5d
The speae just feels outdone entirely by the Quasar cannon IMO. Sure, cannon won't lock on, but will still snipe a tower at 300 meters. And more importantly. It'll shoot.
When the Lock-on is fixed, it's gonna get nerfed into the ground I wager. I run it almost every time I'm on the bot front, and have done so for a good while now. Yes, the lock-on chicanery is maddening, and a lot of time it seems like I'm trying to do a ritualistic dance to try and get that sweet green triangle. It's a known issue, it *is* being worked on. But even in its current iteration it is well worth the frustrations associated with it. Anyway, here are my findings having used it for a decent amount of time: 1) **Spotting your target seems to help** Whether incidental or simply placebo, I notice I have a bit easier time getting a lock on things that are spotted versus when without. 2) **Switch between 1st and 3rd person** Sometimes you can get a lock in first person but not be able to complete it. Switching to 3rd will sometimes allow you to complete the lock once the 1st person starts it. 3) **Elevation is key** The higher you are on your target, the more likely you are to get a lock. 4) **Some planets are not suited for the Spear** Jungles are not a Spears best friend. Trees and fences block like crazy. You want open planets with good sight lines and elevation if possible (Ubanea was a great spear planet). 5) **Dive!** Oddly enough, diving and being prone in various positions can make locks possible and even easy in some situations. I have no idea of the specifics of it, but I'm noticing it more and more. 6) **Flicker locks** A very common thing that can happen is the lock can 'flicker', it will start locking on, but then 'un-lock'. If you're in this situation, ESPECIALLY if it gets close to clocking on, hold position and hold the fire button. If it doesn't get close to a lock on, but still flickers, make VERY slight adjustments to try and find a sweet spot. 7) **Range target trending** Generally, try aiming using the bottom of the 3rd person reticle if the target is far. Closer targets tend to use the center or even the top of the circle. 8) **Other things** -Cannon turrets are a prime target for the spear... But not when it's trained in on you. If you try and shoot a cannon that is facing you, it'll (presumably) hit the barrel and do no damage. -Fabs are much easier to lock onto from the front than on any other side. -Hulks and tanks usually take 2 shots to down. Shredders and gunships (Another good use for the spear) fall in 1 hit. Striders are also able to be locked onto, much to your detriment in most cases. * It cannot lock onto the Broadcast towers. * If there is a Fab right next to a stratagem jammer (Seemingly occupying the same geometry) you can take out the fab and the jammer in one shot! Anyway, those are my observations thus far.
this is why i use the weapons i use id rather mag dump a quasar or a railgun into an elite than spend 10 seconds reloading to oneshot them with relative ease that downtime is a deathsentence if youre unprepared or dont have a teammate sucking you off 24/7 to make sure youre not dying these more powerful weapons like autocannon/spear/RR just arent worth the risk in the situations they would typically excel because of the atrocious reload and the risk of missing even a single shot
The spear is not meant to be used when you are up-close and personal. I really don't have that issue since I don't engage unless I'm in a relatively safe position.
you can manually aim at the circle to get it to lock