Orbital Precision Strike is bonkers now.

[gachi is manly]

Seriously. This thing was already pretty good with a 4 second call-in time. Another tool other than 500kg to deal with bile titans.

Now? 2 second call-in time makes it good for pretty much anything you want gone. Chuck it at a charger as it finishes the charge, it's gone. 90 second cooldown is really fair.

It's kinda invalidated orbital railcannon strike now. There's really not much redeeming qualities to it over precision strike anymore. Railcannon has got better accuracy and you don't have to worry about it bouncing off and landing in an awkward spot. Otherwise? Precision dunks on it so hard. Half the cooldown, deals with bile titans much better, deal with chargers pretty much just as well.

Yea, it's great. Give it a try if haven't yet and you're still using railcannon.

[Katmorphous333]

Cool Ill try it I always run 500 with railcannon. Since 500 is still kinda weak specialy the range, maybe Ill use both precision and railcannon instead.

Iv noticed since the update the railcannon has a shorter range when it deploys to find a target, really annoying. Maybe they did it so it doesnt go target a bigger target like a dropship instead of the tank it dropped? But then again that was the whole gimmick of the stratagem to target the biggest target, you only needed to wait for the dropship to leave, gotta do more testing to see if thats what they had in mind?

[Forblaze]

I don't agree that it's invalidated orbital railcannon. People use orbital railcannon in a lot of situations it's less than good at, but it does have some key advantages. Orbital Precision still struggles to hit cannon turrets consistently, can't hit targets further than you can throw the ball, and as quick as the OPS is now it's still not instant so the tracking from railcannon is situationally good.

The main problem with OPS is the orbital scatter mission modifier, which really just ruins it. 500kg still remains king of the heavily armored enemy killing stratagems mainly because of that.

Not to say OPS is bad though. It's A tier for sure.

[gachi is manly]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Orbital Precision still struggles to hit cannon turrets consistently, can't hit targets further than you can throw the ball, and as quick as the OPS is now it's still not instant so the tracking from railcannon is situationally good.

The main problem with OPS is the orbital scatter mission modifier, which really just ruins it. 500kg still remains king of the heavily armored enemy killing stratagems mainly because of that.

Not to say OPS is bad though. It's A tier for sure.

Those are fair points for sure. Can't argue with that.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Yes, it's very good now.

Another amazing thing about it is it can break detector towers without using the hellbomb. If you can throw it right, you can just chuck it at the detector without even going inside the bot base. Extremely valuable.

The low cooldown also makes it a great fabricator buster from range. Don't have to use up airstrikes on fabricators if you don't want to.

I would have settled for the ability for the precision strike to land exactly where the red beacon is, which is a bug they've yet to fix since release. If you could stick it to the top of chargers like the resupply pod and instantly kill them no matter what, it'd be just about meta in my opinion. If no, it would be too sick not to take.

[Wingnut Mcmoomoo]

i like that its pretty good now, I like the smaller and weaker orbitals being up every minute it just makes them feel fun because you don't feel bad for just throwing them anymore.

And yeah I don't think it invalidates orbital rail, sometimes i bring both tbh, the rail cannon strike is really good for when things get super messy and you can't aim better than "over there somewhere", and it also won't nuke a teammate if you're trying to save them.

[Forblaze]

I think the main advantage of the Orbital Precision is really that it just doesn't share a cooldown with your other Eagle stratagems. I feel like this is something that doesn't get talked about as much as it should.

IMO, taking multiple Eagle stratagems sucks. If I have no 500kgs left and 3 cluster bombs left, I just wasted 3 cluster bombs because I need those 500kgs. Eagles are all fantastic but having all of your important stratagems on cooldown at the same time is a *huge* problem. OPS is a 500kg on its own dedicated cooldown.

Also, having your Eagle go on cooldown automatically is a huge advantage. I complain about this every time they give us a free stratagem and it's an eagle I don't want, but realizing you threw your last good Eagle two minutes ago but it didn't start recharging because you have some strafing runs left in your pocket just sucks. I get hit with "Skill issue, just use the rearm stratagem" every time, but it's not always that simple in reality. Either you don't have a chance because things are hectic or it just slips your mind or whatever, things happen. And if you die, you lose all of the time you spend dead without your eagle coming back. Only having one Eagle (and the OPS free from this problem completely regardless) makes for a much smoother experience.

[Wingnut Mcmoomoo]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

Yes, it's very good now.

Another amazing thing about it is it can break detector towers without using the hellbomb. If you can throw it right, you can just chuck it at the detector without even going inside the bot base. Extremely valuable.

The low cooldown also makes it a great fabricator buster from range. Don't have to use up airstrikes on fabricators if you don't want to.

I would have settled for the ability for the precision strike to land exactly where the red beacon is, which is a bug they've yet to fix since release. If you could stick it to the top of chargers like the resupply pod and instantly kill them no matter what, it'd be just about meta in my opinion. If no, it would be too sick not to take.

don't think its a bug tbh, they try to make it come from the ship so sometimes the angle will make it land a bit off, but also i get you.

They can def try to tweak it to get it to land closer more often

[Ravnin]

Always liked it before buff. Although I've mainly been playing bots so... when I went over to bugs the atmospheric disruptions made it unusable thus making me rather miserable since bile titans are stupid outside of stratagems and anti tank, behemoth chargers too.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Originally posted by Wingnut Mcmoomoo:

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

Yes, it's very good now.

Another amazing thing about it is it can break detector towers without using the hellbomb. If you can throw it right, you can just chuck it at the detector without even going inside the bot base. Extremely valuable.

The low cooldown also makes it a great fabricator buster from range. Don't have to use up airstrikes on fabricators if you don't want to.

I would have settled for the ability for the precision strike to land exactly where the red beacon is, which is a bug they've yet to fix since release. If you could stick it to the top of chargers like the resupply pod and instantly kill them no matter what, it'd be just about meta in my opinion. If no, it would be too sick not to take.

don't think its a bug tbh, they try to make it come from the ship so sometimes the angle will make it land a bit off, but also i get you.

They can def try to tweak it to get it to land closer more often

Nah, it's a bug that's been listed as "known bugs" in every patch since release. Red beam stratagems don't deploy where the beam is, it deploys where the beam landed.

You can see it work the way it's supposed to if you throw a support weapon or resupply on top of an enemy. The pod will actually land on the enemy and crush it or deal heavy damage. Reds don't do this. You're supposed to be able to throw a precision onto an enemy and obliterate it, or even have the 380/gatling barrage follow the target until it's dead. But they just haven't gotten it to work yet.

[Wutever]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

I don't agree that it's invalidated orbital railcannon. People use orbital railcannon in a lot of situations it's less than good at, but it does have some key advantages. Orbital Precision still struggles to hit cannon turrets consistently, can't hit targets further than you can throw the ball, and as quick as the OPS is now it's still not instant so the tracking from railcannon is situationally good.

The main problem with OPS is the orbital scatter mission modifier, which really just ruins it. 500kg still remains king of the heavily armored enemy killing stratagems mainly because of that.

Not to say OPS is bad though. It's A tier for sure.

None of what you mentioned justifies the CD on Orbital Railcannon. It's 210 seconds vs. 90 seconds, for Liberty's sake.

OPS is now a viable, more consistent alternative to 500kg as long as there's no Orbital Scatter. It has always been good against bots because of Anti-Air emplacements blocking 500kg.

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by Wutever:

None of what you mentioned justifies the CD on Orbital Railcannon. It's 210 seconds vs. 90 seconds, for Liberty's sake..

I agree the cooldown is painfully long, but at the same time it's the only thing that does what it does. I only take it on bot missions and mainly an answer to a cannon turret that's looking directly at me. I guess the orbital laser also solves that problem, but I don't like the limited uses.

I don't know if I just uniquely suck at dealing with cannon turrets, but I will whiff an OPS or airstrike against a turret like 90% of the time. Airstrike bombs do not reach it and orbital precisions find themselves tucked neatly into the base of the tower, leaving the turret itself unharmed.

Still, it comes in handy in other situations as well and I've never regretted taking it, even if I don't put that much weight on it.

Against bugs it's just bad. No argument from me there.

[*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆Prinny☆]

The two second call-in time makes it feel like a grenade. A grenade that can kill anything that moves if it hits. Maybe keeping it somewhat imprecise is the only way to balance it. Though yes, rail cannon feels a bit weak by comparison. Though it is very precise unlike the Orbital "Precision" Strike.
Still. That call-in time. What a great time to be a new player. It would actually feel less like you're just throwing wiffs around for them now.

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Originally posted by Wutever:

None of what you mentioned justifies the CD on Orbital Railcannon. It's 210 seconds vs. 90 seconds, for Liberty's sake..

I agree the cooldown is painfully long, but at the same time it's the only thing that does what it does. I only take it on bot missions and mainly an answer to a cannon turret that's looking directly at me. I guess the orbital laser also solves that problem, but I don't like the limited uses.

I don't know if I just uniquely suck at dealing with cannon turrets, but I will whiff an OPS or airstrike against a turret like 90% of the time. Airstrike bombs do not reach it and orbital precisions find themselves tucked neatly into the base of the tower, leaving the turret itself unharmed.

Still, it comes in handy in other situations as well and I've never regretted taking it, even if I don't put that much weight on it.

Against bugs it's just bad. No argument from me there.

For that reason was why I took rocket pods, even when they sucked and were useless. They deleted tanks, and turrets for me. Not all the time, but just enough for it to be worth it.

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by Pronnu:

For that reason was why I took rocket pods, even when they sucked and were useless. They deleted tanks, and turrets for me. Not all the time, but just enough for it to be worth it.

Alright yeah, rocket pods also do the job. They do share the eagle CD though, which I complained about above.

Honestly though the role the railcannon is filling for me may be so transitory that rocket pods are still better. I think I'll try swapping them in and seeing how it goes.

[Wutever]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Originally posted by Wutever:

None of what you mentioned justifies the CD on Orbital Railcannon. It's 210 seconds vs. 90 seconds, for Liberty's sake..

I agree the cooldown is painfully long, but at the same time it's the only thing that does what it does. I only take it on bot missions and mainly an answer to a cannon turret that's looking directly at me. I guess the orbital laser also solves that problem, but I don't like the limited uses.

I don't know if I just uniquely suck at dealing with cannon turrets, but I will whiff an OPS or airstrike against a turret like 90% of the time. Airstrike bombs do not reach it and orbital precisions find themselves tucked neatly into the base of the tower, leaving the turret itself unharmed.

Still, it comes in handy in other situations as well and I've never regretted taking it, even if I don't put that much weight on it.

Against bugs it's just bad. No argument from me there.

Yeah, OPS and Airstrike aren't great against turrets, but I don't find them to be a big enough threat to justify running a strat that does less on average while having more than double the CD.

The price I pay for that is that sometimes I have to dodge laser beams for a while, which I think is acceptable.