Vampire Airstrike marker & Violator Beacon Tips

[Ragenowski]

The title says it all....

Before you call in that airstrike, think. The Vampire and Violator beacons are two of the most powerful offensive tools in the game due to their short "charge up" times. However, by doing just a few things it's possible to make them even more deadly than they already are.

How many times have you thrown your vampire strike marker and kill only one enemy? It happens way too often. Remember that when you toss out an airstrike marker the strike happens at a 90 degree angle to the direction you are facing, basically forming a "T". You're the downward facing part of the T, the airstrike is the crossing of the T. The strike also occurs ahead of, and behind where the marker sits so it would be a good idea to throw it a few yards to one side of what your primary target is. This gives you the best chance of doing damage to more than just your primary target.
I see a lot of people simply running toward their target and heaving an airstrike marker as far as they can, but remember that an airstrike marker will roll or bounce a pretty good distance once it's hit the ground unless it's thrown directly AT the ground so keep that in mind. But probably the single most important thing to remember is this......pay attention to where you throw an airstrike marker! You can see the location of pretty much every player on you team so don't lob a marker into the EMP enclosure when you know that it's full of team members who are trying to build or defend the EMP. You may kill a lot of enemy soldiers, but you're also going to earn the ire of your team for TK'ing half of them.

Any other thoughts or tips regarding airstrike markers? Feel free to post them...

[zweiosx]

The one thing I wish they would bring back from W:ET is allowing you to dictate the direction of the strike regardless of what direction you threw it. Say you are standing up by the tormenter and you want to send a violator down the path the GDF run into the building ...in W:ET all you would do is throw an airstrike canister and then turn 90deg until the airstrike hit. (i.e. look towards the strogg spawn point.) ..in ETQW you have to either throw it from way up on the side of the compound ..or over the cp building

I guess they are trying to be noob friendly and not have people striking themselves with arty any more than they have too ...but I really hate having to place myself perpendicular to my strikes every time. Sometimes it is quite hard to do.

Maybe they could have an option like they do with vehicles. "Enable Advanced Arty" :)

Once I got advanced arty in W:ET I always liked making X's with my arty strikes.

[Kesh]

The one thing I wish they would bring back from W:ET is allowing you to dictate the direction of the strike regardless of what direction you threw it. Say you are standing up by the tormenter and you want to send a violator down the path the GDF run into the building ...in W:ET all you would do is throw an airstrike canister and then turn 90deg until the airstrike hit. (i.e. look towards the strogg spawn point.) ..in ETQW you have to either throw it from way up on the side of the compound ..or over the cp building


Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure airstrikes in w:et actually function the way they do in QW, where your body has to be positioned perpendicular to the target path. You can toss the can from one direction, and run to a different position to change the target path, but the direction you are looking does not effect where the strike goes. Only your actual location does.

[V1s0r]

I find the marker to be good as it is now. It's much easier to do an airstrike.


Is it me or does the Orbital strike do less damage then the GDF airstrike?
This because when you get hit by the Orbital strike, you get knocked back and then you can outrun it. But for the Airstrike if you get hit, is instant dead.

I find it funny that it is much easier to destroy deployables with the airstrike, then the Orbital strike. Is it meant to be this way? :confused:

[Szakalot]

well, kind of, orbital strike is less powerfull but it prevents people from advancing for a longer time. Vampire is just one big boom and then strogg are good to go. While with the orbital GDF need to stay put and wait for it to go away. And orbital deals more damage to stationary targets.

[Ragenowski]

I'm not sure if this is being planned this way or not, but tonight I must have seen 4 or 5 different instances where people were timing their airstrikes perfectly enough to where one would hit and kill one or two strogg/GDF, then they'd try and advance and BOOM, the second would wipe out 8 or 10 of 'em. Nice tactic anyhow. I've also saw a lot of airstrikes being done in an X pattern like it were planned. I just know that to me the Vampire seems to be the more effective weapon of the two, mainly because the Violator has that gigantic orange laser.

Here's a few things I've noticed about each of the airstrikes. Note that these may or may not be 100% accurate...

Violator Beacon-
Extremely Potent at the center of it's beam, but seems to lose some of it's destructive power the further from it's center you get.
Pushes players in it's path away from it's center (which means stay out of it's direct path or it continually toasts you).
Gradually drains your life down the longer you are in it's radius.
Longer duration than the GDF equivalent, but is very obvious in both visibility and sound which allows GDF a short amount of time to flee.
Because it's a freeking "lazer", it's obvious where it's path will take it. This decreases it's effectiveness against players just entering the area that it's striking.
More effective(lethality-wise) against light armor(ie:husky, armadillo) than against heavy armor(titan) due to it's visibility and the heavier armor moving out of it's path. (This seems to be the case with me anyway, I find it quite simple to move out of it's path when I'm in a tank)
Again, because of it's visibility it seems to produce less TKs than the Vampire does.
Once it begins, it moves fairly slowly..(maybe a little faster than you can sprint?)
Is effective against airborne targets as well as ground targets. (Not 100% sure about this one, I remember being TKd when I was in an icarus by a violator but I'm not sure how it'll work against an anansi/bumblebee)
That's about all I can think of offhand for the Violator....

Vampire Airstrike Marker-
Once the strike starts, it moves VERY fast. There's really no way of getting out of it's way if you don't see the Plane swooping in.
More powerful than the violator, but it seems to have a narrower path of destruction than the violator does.
Doesn't gradually drain life, pretty much an instant kill regardless of armor if you're near the center of it's kill zone. But if you're on the edge of it's kill zone you may survive, but your cyclops will be pretty much done for.
Doesn't seem to affect airborne targets much that are flying higher than it's explosions go.
It's a lower visibility strike than the violator, which makes it easier to strike bunched up groups of strogg.
Very hard for a cyclops to get out of it's kill zone, and with it's strength is very effective against a cyclops.
Less effective against infantry (in lethality) than the Violator because of it's thinner kill zone, but this is partially made up for due to the vampire's lack of visibility compared to the violator.
Seems more effective against strogg armor (because it's not as obvious where it's going to strike) than against infantry(because of it's smaller/thinner kill zone).
And that's about all I've got for the Vampire..

End note: Both of these strikes are highly potent if you plan ahead and don't simply throw your marker and hope you get a kill. If you put a little forethought into when, where, and what you're throwing your marker at you're going to make it a hell of a lot more effective than it already is.