Northstar - Missile - useless?

[ZanyScum]

Is Northstar's missile useless?

I love the Northstar, especially with piercing shot when the enemies come in a column and ran into an arc trap or one of my Tether traps.

But somehow I don't know how to use the missile(s).

I am shooting at someone and charging each shot and shoot as fast as I can and try to hit critical areas and then I think "I could use the missile(s)" and I use them and they do nothing and they cost me time where I could have 1/2 charged a shot.

So... is the above true or am I doing it wrong?

[nahirzaharenko]

If you mean the cluster missile it's actually pretty good AOE.
You can fire it into a room to kill pilots, behind a Tone shield, or near yourself if you're getting rodeo'ed.

The flight core can do good damage up close, and counters Ronin, but is dangerous to use because of how exposed you are.

[spooky]

FD:
errr ... you tether trap first, then shot until health bar gets stripey, then drop a cluster-missile on the area and move on. no need to wait for the *boom*.
definitely recommended to tether trap them first else they will quick-dodge the area effected by cluster missile.
the "banned-by-geneva-convention" cluster missiles do "more" damage when the health bar is stripey, methinks.
the grunts and mini-robots come in packs of four. you don't wanna use the *slow* northstar sniper cannon four times... enter the cluster missiles.
if you have "extra missiles" add-on selected you can first scan for a 2 pack of 4 grunts/mini-robots and then distribute the 2 shot salvo quickly over the two areas, since one missile is enough for 4 grunts but is ejected as two missile salvos only (sweep).
also the missiles cool-down rather fast?

[ZanyScum]

Thank you.
So I just used it often incorrectly, it is not that it is bad.

Against soft and very damaged hard targets, but not normally against titans.
I'll try that.

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

Originally posted by spooky:

the "banned-by-geneva-convention" cluster missiles do "more" damage when the health bar is stripey, methinks.

The term is doomed and they do not. I have seen no documentation they do and never noticed a difference in the time its taken to get ns to G90.13.

You are likely experiencing a "confirmation bias" because you are getting frags when people are "low" (and "stressed") not that its doing more dmg.

Originally posted by ZanyScum:

Against soft and very damaged hard targets, but not normally against titans.
I'll try that.

The ability is one of the best abilities in game for killing pilots, holding an area, punishing clumping/baries and generally "searching" for where people are/closing off flanks.

The only thing really to keep in mind with it is firing it stops your charging so if you fire it "on" someone you want to shoot rail first (and obviously not to waste it if possible). Also the kit for it is "bad" because it does the same amount of dmg/explosions but spreads it out so its less "dmg".

The ult is, outside of bugs, one of if not the highest dmg outputs in the game but as others have said makes you "vulnerable". Keep in mind you can change the height it comes out by using it during or after hover and that its speed is affected by Viper thrusters/air strafing just like hover.

Also people have to turn around with their mouse to track you if you are directly overhead so thats a way to decrease the amount of dmg you take with it (throwing out a charged rail shot/smoke/tethers/cluster missiles on someone if possible isnt a bad idea either, thought there is something to be said about fully surprising people with it).

Pretty much all tech that impacts hover impacts flight core:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psOymRvTHVY

Not comprehensive and some spots have been "fixed" since the "recent" mp fix patch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waXI2sTTeAg