Crowd control: How to tame the Zerg in Planetside 2

[yadda]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

[*]Annihilate it
Yes, it is possible to defeat the Zerg head-on. The magic word here is the Annihilator. Outfits are just beginning to realize the insane power of this ultimate lock-on whore. A single squad equipped with these rockets can tear down a platoon of air and ground vehicles in just minutes. Players are reluctant to cert into this launcher because of its low damage output, not realizing that a couple of them teaming up can rip apart any vehicle apart in seconds from great distances. The trick is here to call out your targets.

Hate to be "that guy" but the reason the annihilator works isn't for any of the reasons you have stated. Infantry doesn't load for air/armor so we get slammed by invisible damage and have no idea where it's coming from and are completely unable to counter attack against it. That's the only reason it works. I have flanked and cleared entire packs of heavy assault and infantry that Iv managed to flank and gotten 8+ kills at once while tanking the pitiful damage from lock on launchers which I couldn't do if it was a standard rocket.

However, getting bombarded with consistent damage with no tracers of any sort and infantry blinking in/out of existence as I try to find it doesn't kill me but it does remove me from the fight as I back off to repair/look for a spot engage (which I can usually never find).

If they ever fix player culling and rendering issues that prevent us from engaging infantry that will be a very, very bad choice of weapons. Currently it works because of reasons I have stated and only because of those reasons.

[Rolfski]

Originally Posted by yadda

Hate to be "that guy" but the reason the annihilator works isn't for any of the reasons you have stated. Infantry doesn't load for air/armor so we get slammed by invisible damage and have no idea where it's coming from and are completely unable to counter attack against it. That's the only reason it works. I have flanked and cleared entire packs of heavy assault and infantry that Iv managed to flank and gotten 8+ kills at once while tanking the pitiful damage from lock on launchers which I couldn't do if it was a standard rocket.

However, getting bombarded with consistent damage with no tracers of any sort and infantry blinking in/out of existence as I try to find it doesn't kill me but it does remove me from the fight as I back off to repair/look for a spot engage (which I can usually never find).

If they ever fix player culling and rendering issues that prevent us from engaging infantry that will be a very, very bad choice of weapons. Currently it works because of reasons I have stated and only because of those reasons.

Interesting observation, some things to that however.

This article is about what we can do NOW against Zergs. We all now that PS2 patches can completely change the dynamics of this game overnight. Whether it is bug fixing, balance changes or new content. So yes, Annihilators like any weapon, can become instantly useless after a patch. There's almost no way to predict this with the radical changes SOE is constantly making.

Also, to a certain degree this goes the other way around as well because the distant render bug affects everybody: I have many times problems spotting air as an infantry.

And even without the bug, I'm daring to question your superiority as vehicle pilot against a good organized, well positioned squad of heavies with lock-ons that know what they are doing.