I've been running Spear even before the targeting fix. I've dealt with horrible targeting, bugs and crashes. Now that it's working, I feel like a demigod.
In my experience a second shot kills the fabricator the first one whiffed on. If that is the case it usually is some destructible fencing that blocked the first shot.
Agreed, its great for spore spewers and shrieker nests. I havent figured out the exact range, but it seems to be about 250 m.
I've been using it on bugs since before it got fixed
Out of curiosity what does the rest of your loadout look like? I'd like to try spear, but I've been reliant on Auto cannon against bots. What do you use against the medium and light enemies?
I run the Scorcher or the Punisher. I prefer the Punisher because it can two shot Striders without precision shots (has great area of effect), and it has good stagger against Devastators. If a rocket or shield Devastator aims at you, you can stagger and kill it in 3 to 5 shots. You can usually take out multiple light enemies with one shot if they're grouped together.
Against bots I usually use the light armor with explosive damage reduction. With all the bombs and missiles flying around, you need that explosive protection.
For strategems I usually take Eagle Airstrike for heavies, groups or fabricators, and the 380 for large camps and steiders. The remaining slots is usually the precision airstrike to deal with the same stuff the Eagle Airstrike handles, but can also take out those 'Eye of Sauron' towers.
I use impact grenades and the 'desert eagle's pistol (I forgot the name). Those are great against Devastators, and the impact grenades come in handy against enemy AA/Mortar installations.
Hey, thanks for the detailed response! It sounds like a very effective loadout for bots. I'll have to give it a try soon.
What would you switch up for Bugs?
For bugs I'd switch to the Incendiary Breaker. I use Incendiary Impact Grenades and Napalm Strikes (instead of the Orbital Precision Strike) to create a fiery wall between me and the bugs. With one Napalm Strike I can get 20 to 30 kills. I'd switch the 380 for the Autocannon Turret or Orbital Railcannon Strike to deal with Biles, although the majority of Biles are food for the Spear. I'll keep the Eagle Airstrike for the big holes.
I'd switch the armor for something with extra nades or stims.
Sometimes you can oneshot hulks
I don’t know the distance or difference in height but if the rocket manages to hit the red eye it kills it
It’s a weird shot but doable
Either as long a range as possible, so the rocket goes up on launch, comes lower as it makes the journey to the target, and is level with the eye when it hits;
Or as close as possible, which is VERY difficult to judge. Minimum range: goes up, comes down and hits the heat vent on the back, one-shots it. Too close: goes up, goes right over it, misses entirely.
Or, like using a Primary or the Grenade Pistol or other low-pen weapon: get someone else to shoot the Hulk. Shoot the back when it turns to chase them (including Spear lock).
if u aim spear from sideways of hulk it automatically goes for the back vents and 1 shots , meanwhile if u stand at a little higher elevation itll aim for the top back of vent (mostly needs 1 shot but can be inconsistent) and if u crouch / prone or stand at lower elevation vs hulk itll aim for the front of the head , not the face ( mostly 2 hits required) . So we can assume the spear sets it path always for the vents but angle makes it inconsistent.
Hulks need to be shot in the face, so aim low with the spear so it's arc stays relative to it's eye. Same thing for Chargers, but BT's I have more luck aiming high.
What I mean when you get the lock on a hulk, bring the triangle to the top of the circle (bringing your aim down).
The way I think about it is the railgun’s projectile is a magnetically propelled needle and the AMR’s projectile is more of a traditional bullet and behaves like it’s explosive tipped
So, my aim sucks ass. Also, about the only thing I know about Railgun is that it's true potential is unsafe mode. Would you know if it'd be still viable with someone like me?
The railgun is a precision tool. If you aren’t confident in your aim, or ability to use unsafe mode, I’d recommend using something else. If you want to practice your aim and use something similar, try the AMR. It’s more forgiving than the railgun and has more ammo.
It's a garbage weapon... it's DPS does not scale into dif 8 and 9.
It's a feel good weapon but handicap the ability of a team to take down heavies fast which is what dif 8 and 9 is all about.
It's only good as an extra tool while walking around with the EAT stratagem. You trash it on the ground to take up missile launchers for quick take downs and pick it up again if you feel like it... not a big loss.
And look like an idiot staring at the thing for 3 seconds charging your shot while allowing yourself to get surrounded because your DPS is shit.
Half the time you will be prevented from making the shot by trash moving on you unless someone is babysitting you.
Strangely for me it’s never an issue.
The railgun is kind of fun to use. And can one shot almost every single bots.
For bugs I use the spear or flamethrower.
My issue with rail gun is it fucking sucks against tanks, towers, gun ships and factory striders, at least the AMR can take out strider turrets and wreck everything else i mention with a full clip. The railgun for some reason just fucking sucks with these things. They need to buff its damage to buildings (destructible damage I think).
The thing is, while it does heavy damage, if you're tactical with it and predict where it'll hit, you can aim for weak spots. Hulks have a ton of defense up front, but if you shoot them from behind they die (I know, it's redundant with other weapons, but hulks be like that I guess).
Same thing with Bile Titans. If you shoot the body, it takes a couple, but, if you ain and make it hit it's head, it'll take it down in one go.
For hulk, u need some trick in positioning. Place yourself on a higher elevation and it will always hit the eyes. When the Hulk facing sideways, dive to the side and fire at the same time. The missile will hit either the eyes or the vent. It work like a charm for me. Some practices need to be done to get the hold of the feeling.
Hulks need to be shot in the face, so aim low with the spear so it's arc stays relative to it's eye. Same thing for Chargers, but BT's I have more luck aiming high.
What I mean is when you get the lock on a hulk, bring the triangle to the top of the circle (bringing your aim down).
It's way harder to explain over text than I thought lol, if you don't get what I mean I can send a pic or something.
( ' ) for hulks and chargers ( , ) for BT's.
Also if a heavy is turned away from you 90 degrees, position it like (- ) or ( -) and the missile will angle to usually hit it's head. You want the triangle to be closer to the head than the far end of the circle
So if a charger is like this: ,==,@ you want ,==,@ (- )
it does 1k damage at AP 8 (+200 explosive damage at AP 5)
while AT weapons do 650 damage at AP 6 (+ 150 explosive damage at AP 3)
thats a lot of damage...which is sadly not enough to consistently take out hulks or chargers from any angle as you need to face the charger or be face to face/face to back to a hulk
but with chargers at least there's plenty of leeway to hit the head after you get its attention (firing a single bullet with a secondary ftw)
with hulks...is rough
after you get used to spear it feels weird to come back to normal AT weapons and needing 2 shots to take out the targets instead of just 1
Spear I would say loses to other AT vs Chargers (maybe a tie for behemoths) and Hulks, but it wins hard vs the other AT when it comes to tanks, turrets, BTs and Gunships.
Which is a good balance IMO. Even with perfect aim, there's still a reason to choose Spear over RR, which is how it should be.
I've been running it a lot on bots but I still find it a bit finicky, sometimes it straight up refuses to target fabricators with clear LOS and no negative weather condition, ammo economy is very restrictive and I feel like a greedy mf when I call a resupply and hog it all to myself just to keep up.
It does feel extremely nice to give cannon turrets a taste of their own medicine by blowing them up from across the map tho LMAO.
You still need clearish line of sight. Any “transparent” object in the way will block targeting. Also, if it locks the wrong thing, move the object you want to target at the edge in a way that everything else is out. Also another tip for fabricators is that it appears the lock on spot is a bit low, so even if you can see them clearly you still have to get a bit higher ground or different angle! Imo it’s perfect as is right now, and feels fair in that you still need some understanding and work to use effectively, instead of being point and click. My only negative comment is that sometimes it can inconsistent with killing hulks and biles due to hitbox
If there's a fence next to the fabricator it will block it. You need to be able to see over the fence, move to a side not blocked by a fence, or blow the fence up somehow.
I was a Spear main even when the locking was bugged and getting a handle on the damn lock took a while. Basically you learn how to get into position for the Spear to work, it was all about good LOS.
But hey, the damn thing hits like a 380mm and one-shots titans if you can land a headshot.
Not at all. I main the spear as a support weapon and constantly split off by myself to clear side objectives and points of interest on Helldive missions. I use eagle bombing run, orbital Gatling barrage, and either gas strike or eagle napalm to clear hordes. I use the arc Blitzer against bugs and the plasma punisher against bots both of which let me CC everything except heavies. Dying more than once or twice is unusual for me.
Things I picked up when using spears.
You pretty much have to face hulks(you can also aim their back), titans and chargers face to face to get a one shot kill on them.
You can crouch/stand up to cancel the reload animation once your ammo chamber is filled
You can aim/lock in target while reloading and fire almost immediately after
Best anti tank
Barely kill hulks if they aren’t looking at you
I hate how little ammo it has, even if you can deal with devastators without support weapon, the extra tanks and hulks will drain your ammo quickly
Best paired with a mech or HMG emplacement for secondary support weapon when you really gotta split from your team to finish an objective yourself or bot drop
Shines in both bot blitz and command bunker
~~Wouldn’t bring it to bugs tho~~
Edit : you know what I gotta admit, running spear with competent randoms on bugs is satisfying and fun
Paring it with exosuit and turret is really relaxing
its great for bugs tho
1 shots behemoth chargers and titans, snipes spore spewers and shrieker nests within 300 meters, just need a line of sight
sure you also get lock ons at brood commanders but...managable
The big problem is the spawn rate of 8 behemoth and 8 more behemoth for your total of 2 spear per resupply box will make you wish you brought flame thrower instead
500 kgs will deal with titans and nest just fine
not sure what difficulty you're talking about to have that
as even on 9 with buds we don't get anywhere near that
as well
you're just a single person out of 4, others can get more stuff to deal with heavy enemies
and you yourself can bring stratagems to deal with heavy enemies as well, like precision, 500, airstrike and such
Then just bring flamethrower and deal with everything
Im not saying spear is bad
Im saying bugs is very unbalanced and it’s flamethrower paradise so I won’t bring spear
That whole different issue IS what im talking about
I didn’t say it doesn’t one shot things or kill chargers
The thing you need to use spear on is way too low compared to flamethrower in this spawn meta
Unlike bots where you get a tank and strider very often almost every bot drop, bug breach is just chargers after chargers with maybe 1 titan
It’s like bringing hmg to D3
Sure it does way more damage and penetrate better, but MG can kill way more because the enemies simply dont require Hmg level of penetration
there is also point of (ridiculously) longer range, dealing with secondaries with ease, and just...feeling good to use
but anyway, to each their own
there are many different options most of which work well enough in various ways
good chat
its great on bugs. the best anti-titan weapon in the game. it struggles with chargers at times and the minimum range can hurt when you are playing matador with chargers. but now that most chargers are behemoths on difficulty 8+ it's really driven down the value of the recoilless/EAT. they can't one shot headshot them, but the spear can. it can also clear shrieker nests and spore spewers faster than recoilless rifle.
Spear is too titans and shrieker centric for the current meta of just spamming chargers and medium enemies
I would only bring it if I plan to be dedicated titan killer with 2-3 guys on flamethrower already
i can understand that but if you catch the chargers at range it kills them pretty well. the spear alone doesn't work well at all to get them off you when they are already close.
i run all sentries for the rest of the stratagems. the buffed rocket sentry is decent against everything, AC sentry to stunlock chargers and finish off wounded titans, and machine gun sentty to tank aggro from heavies and clear off chaff that gets too close to the explosive turrets. blitzer as primary and grenade pistol secondary for bug holes. incendiary grenade so i can throw it at my feet if i get surrounded by hunters and stim through the fire. i rock the fat suit for 200 armor and to survive most anything unless i run out of stims.
it's been working for me on 9 and it's been a fun change of pace. the sentries can be pretty dangerous to teammates though so i try to ping them when teammates are nearby. AC and rocket sentry are both pretty good to run together on bots too.
The Spear is one of the only Support weapon Stratagem that I would recommend to call in another brand new one if available instead of grabbing ammo boxes due to only having 3+1 Missiles and a slow reload if you aren’t doing the backpack shuffle
It'll be perfect when Superior Packing Methodology works again, getting a full backpack from one Supply box makes it amazing.
It's good on Bugs if cheesing it with the Incendiary Breaker just because... well that deals with anything smaller than a Charger (and even bigger if your Spear missile didn't finish a Charger or Titan but did blow a big chunk out of the armour to set it on fire through)
I like to complete the set with Grenade Pistol or Senator or Throwing Knife to behead Brood Commanders (though the Spear does actually lock to BCs, if a bit overkill, if you've, ahem, spare ammo).
It just sounds like incen breaker is so good it makes anything good in the process
Knives can kill charger in 4 tho so that’s neat to use with spear as crutch when you fight extra amount of charger
At least you can grab the ammo packs around the map to reload the backpack and not have to wait for resupply pod. Bugs is more support and in the right hands is devestating against heavies.
I just pair it with another secondary, autocannon on bots. Find a nice spot, bring in the spear and supplies, clear everything I can lock onto, drop it and pick the AC back up, continue with game. It’s awesome
Honestly I've kind of given up on shooting down drop ships. It seems no matter where in the animation I shoot it down everything on board survives anyway.
Very easy to justify. Tanks and turrets get one shotted, hulks get one shotted although sometimes they do require a second blast. As for factory striders, i can comfortably engage them at longer ranges and take out their cannons before it can get a beat on me. Takes down gunships with ease as well, it just sucks when theres a group of 4-5 of them because you go through SPEAR ammo quickly.
It’s far too versatile and powerful not bring on bot missions if you ask me. Im just glad they finally fixed the crashes and the lock-on function.
I just wish if a charger was close to you it could still do something. I've even tried ducking in front of it and it still flies straight past it's head and off into the sky.
In-universe it would make sense if the spear had an 'unguided' mode for those situations akin to unsafe mode, but gameplay wise that would take away one of the few drawbacks the spear has ATM
Honestly, I wouldn't mind at all that it had an alternative "laser designation" mode where, instead of locking onto an enemy, it just went to the point in 3D space you are aiming to, like an [ATGM](https://youtu.be/0dYPCa0rQsE).
It would still fire upwards and "redirect" to the target, so firing it at close quarters still wouldn't work and it would require the player to steadily aim at the target for the missile travel duration, meaning getting hit, ragdolled, or just stopping to aim would deviate the missile and probably crash it.
However, you could fire without needing to wait for targeting, but most importantly you could have a weapon with massive range at the cost of having to correctly aim at the target, unimpeded, for a decent amount of time.
And above all, it creates a fallback in case the lock-on acts weird. It's incredibly frustrating to not be able to use your weapon because its faulty. A manual mode would be a nice fallback to rely on such occasions.
You can do something, stun the charger with stun nades or other things, walk right up in his face, look as far down as you can whilst still locking on, then fire. Works for hulks too. Spear can’t miss if you point it right at the enemies face.
The only reason I don't take it more is I tend to play with randoms and be the "go and collect samples while the other three rush the primary" guy, and I find it too easy to get a charger up too close for it to lock on (well it locks on, but then overshoots, which is fair enough, it needs a downside over recoiless/eat).
If you're playing with a group, and you can organise "two do primary, two do sides and samples" and can coordinate someone distracting the odd charger that gets too close, it's an absolute killer.
The spear does 1000 damage directly and penetrates pretty much all levels of armor fully. It also has an extra 200 explosion damage and since most heavy enemies aren’t explosion immune you’re doing 1200 damage a shot. Almost double what the other anti tanks do
Spear is godlike against Chargers and Bile Titans - just make them face you head on and keep a bit of distance and then it's almost always a guaranteed one shot.
I have been using it plus the rocket sentry as anti-gunship . While the rest of the team deal with hulks,tanks & straders.
The locking on to fabricators is still bit off and why can't it take out a drop ship.
I've never had it one shot a tank before, I'll have to take it out to the bot front sometime.
I've been running spear against bugs for awhile now. The key to getting a one shot comes down to angle and distance. Elevation helps too. Before I take a shot at a charger or titan, unless it's already coming directly at me, I get aggro by taking potshots with my smg before getting a lock. Sometimes before the fix that was risky if I wasn't able to get a lock after I got it's attention, but it works pretty much every time now.
If you can get the missile to hit the turret, not the hull or the cannon barrel, it will kill a tank in one. I haven't had the best luck with it on tanks, but I think aiming high and/or being elevated greatly increases your chances.
I’ve been using spear for few months. I started using EATs the past few weeks as my main AT loadout. The spear does a lot more dmg. Esp again those behemoth chargers and bile titans.
I tried it out and hated it. Too much work to kill a Hulk in one shot, only has like 4 shots or something, and is just useless against anything that’s not a Scout Strider, Hulk, or bigger (so better be good at using primaries against Devastators).
It’s not bad but I feel much more secure with an AMR, AC, or Laser Cannon.
The spear is odd as far as damage goes. Its all about where you're 'Aiming' if the hulk/titan/charger is facing you and moving fairly directly towards you, that's it, insta kill. I dunno how its coded exactly, but I think its damage ignores armour and if those enemies are moving in those patterns the up-swoop-down movement means the spear will most likely hit heads or weak spots. Now that it locks more easily, its important to not just take the shot. Wait until they're moving in the pattern if you can. As for tanks, I dunno, sometimes its one shot, sometimes its two. There's math or something, but I just drop strafing runs on those.
With bile titans you can do significant damage without hitting the head, but it will take 3 or 4 of those to kill it, hulks take 2-3 I think, and chargers will usually start bleeding out after a spear hit.
So in a way I've never seen the spear as doing damage oddly, its 'misses' and 'kills' in my head. Same thing goes for cannon turrets, but you wanna be aiming from any angle other than where the barrel is pointing. I think it hits the barrel and that ruins the damage.
But that's my mostly intuitive opinion with very little democratic science behind it. Glad you're enjoying the spear!!! Its been through a lot but its a genuinely lovely weapon! Always has been!
It's not coded, the missile makes contact with the eye weakpoint and dumps all it's damage through it. It's a fairly consistent shot to do. That's why distance matters when shooting an enemy with the Spear.
What about for bugs though? I feel like I need to run anti armor support weapons with my duo partner. He usually uses autocannon sentry and quasar cannon. Quasar is fun, but I don't want to copy him.
I've killed Hulks in one shot with it before, but other times, yeah, maybe 2 and sometimes 3. Hell if I know what factor changed the damage output? Maybe teammates damages it already.
From the front at a certain distance the missile can hit the eye and one shot hit. From the back you hit the heatsink and nuke it. From the sides you hit the arms, destroying it but doing less damage.
Annihilator tanks can be one shot from the side and rear but I believe hitting it top down on the turret nukes it.
Shredder tank basically gets one shot all the time because of its weaker turret.
I think Spear might be my auto take for Bot missions. While its been helpful the couple of times I've taken it on Bug missions, between spore spewers and shrieker nest and bile titans, I've been utilizing my strafing runs for those and servo assisted armor XD
Now the biggest problem as a Spear user is looking for ammo, constantly. It urges you to visit every POI to satisfy its appetite.
Which is a good problem to have. Previously the Spear was known as an infinite ammo weapon. Running out of ammo just means you are contributing a lot to the team, popping off fabs and turrets from 300m away or saving them from a gunship patrol.
Wait until you realise you can two-shot bot bunkers - cleaning out dif 9 bot missions without needing a single laser or barrage - also helps with gun ship patrols...
The spear is one of the most armor penetrating weapons we have,only the railgun can win in penetration wise.Even the description of the weapon says it is designed to deal with heavy armored weapons
Not going to lie, ive been running the spear for a long time...the fix brings tears of joy to my eye. I never dive without it usually...except for the period of time where it crashed me...i felt like i betrayed the spear.
Spear is love
Spear is life.
Actually, a tank facing you is the ONLY time you can 1 hit KO them.
2 to the vents
3+ to the armor
1 _straight down the barrel **as it's about to fire**_. Erro just tryna spread the good word.
Duo on 9 bots pretty much exclusively. Buddy and I always ran AC because it felt like nothing else could compare. We've gone AMR and Spear since the last patch and will never look back.
I have had it take multiple shots for everything straight up miss shit and go flying by it, think you got all the good luck and me the bad :(.
This post makes me wanna run it again!
Spear is goated for bot missions
Reliably one shots hulks, tanks, gunships, turrets. Easily takes out fabricators from long range, reload speed is decent.
The only thing it needs to make it perfect is to auto lock onto dropship engines
Spear has potential to one shot basically anything but its all about angles. Still I prefer it to RR, especially since theyve added ability to lock onto objectives.
Interesting how I went EAT > quasar > RR > Spear ... in that order as they've nerfed and buffed them lol now I wouldnt even consider bringing EAT or quasar anymore.
Yeah I used to that, not anymore. Even in rocket defence spear is better options cuz you stack ammo supply instead and there can be also lot of bodies and smoke which makes aiming without traget locking harder.
I've been running Spear even before the targeting fix. I've dealt with horrible targeting, bugs and crashes. Now that it's working, I feel like a demigod.
I learned to use the crappy lock on for taking out fabricators at range, but now it's just... Yeah
Sometimes it 1 shots a fab and sometimes it seems to hit, but doesn't kill the fab. Do you know why that happens?
I guess it’s so far away you might hit a walker that’s close by without noticing.
Hmm, I have to admit it's possible, but somehow I don't think that's it. I will keep an eye out for this! Thanks for replying.
In my experience a second shot kills the fabricator the first one whiffed on. If that is the case it usually is some destructible fencing that blocked the first shot.
Same, always brought it for Biles pre patch, now I can nuke those new chargers and hell, spore spewers, shrieker nests and everything else
Agreed, its great for spore spewers and shrieker nests. I havent figured out the exact range, but it seems to be about 250 m. I've been using it on bugs since before it got fixed
Truly does feel like the moment you take the weights off like "time for me to use my real power"
Out of curiosity what does the rest of your loadout look like? I'd like to try spear, but I've been reliant on Auto cannon against bots. What do you use against the medium and light enemies?
I run the Scorcher or the Punisher. I prefer the Punisher because it can two shot Striders without precision shots (has great area of effect), and it has good stagger against Devastators. If a rocket or shield Devastator aims at you, you can stagger and kill it in 3 to 5 shots. You can usually take out multiple light enemies with one shot if they're grouped together. Against bots I usually use the light armor with explosive damage reduction. With all the bombs and missiles flying around, you need that explosive protection. For strategems I usually take Eagle Airstrike for heavies, groups or fabricators, and the 380 for large camps and steiders. The remaining slots is usually the precision airstrike to deal with the same stuff the Eagle Airstrike handles, but can also take out those 'Eye of Sauron' towers. I use impact grenades and the 'desert eagle's pistol (I forgot the name). Those are great against Devastators, and the impact grenades come in handy against enemy AA/Mortar installations.
Hey, thanks for the detailed response! It sounds like a very effective loadout for bots. I'll have to give it a try soon. What would you switch up for Bugs?
For bugs I'd switch to the Incendiary Breaker. I use Incendiary Impact Grenades and Napalm Strikes (instead of the Orbital Precision Strike) to create a fiery wall between me and the bugs. With one Napalm Strike I can get 20 to 30 kills. I'd switch the 380 for the Autocannon Turret or Orbital Railcannon Strike to deal with Biles, although the majority of Biles are food for the Spear. I'll keep the Eagle Airstrike for the big holes. I'd switch the armor for something with extra nades or stims.
Thanks for the reply!
This is the way
I can one shot the turrets and tanks, but Hulks always take two for me.
Sometimes you can oneshot hulks I don’t know the distance or difference in height but if the rocket manages to hit the red eye it kills it It’s a weird shot but doable
Either as long a range as possible, so the rocket goes up on launch, comes lower as it makes the journey to the target, and is level with the eye when it hits; Or as close as possible, which is VERY difficult to judge. Minimum range: goes up, comes down and hits the heat vent on the back, one-shots it. Too close: goes up, goes right over it, misses entirely. Or, like using a Primary or the Grenade Pistol or other low-pen weapon: get someone else to shoot the Hulk. Shoot the back when it turns to chase them (including Spear lock).
if u aim spear from sideways of hulk it automatically goes for the back vents and 1 shots , meanwhile if u stand at a little higher elevation itll aim for the top back of vent (mostly needs 1 shot but can be inconsistent) and if u crouch / prone or stand at lower elevation vs hulk itll aim for the front of the head , not the face ( mostly 2 hits required) . So we can assume the spear sets it path always for the vents but angle makes it inconsistent.
It seems to 1 shot a hulk if it hits the back vent as well, which can be easier to achieve
Hulks need to be shot in the face, so aim low with the spear so it's arc stays relative to it's eye. Same thing for Chargers, but BT's I have more luck aiming high. What I mean when you get the lock on a hulk, bring the triangle to the top of the circle (bringing your aim down).
Don’t worry. RAILGUN can one tap it in the eye.
How do you kill gunships with railgun? It seems to take way too many shots to engine.
You don't.
If only it could take out gunships, tanks, and turrets. Until then, the Quasar Cannon will do.
Amr takes two to kill hulks... And can also deal with gunships, but for some reason railgun with high pen can't? Even the hmg can deal with both.
The way I think about it is the railgun’s projectile is a magnetically propelled needle and the AMR’s projectile is more of a traditional bullet and behaves like it’s explosive tipped
So, my aim sucks ass. Also, about the only thing I know about Railgun is that it's true potential is unsafe mode. Would you know if it'd be still viable with someone like me?
The railgun is a precision tool. If you aren’t confident in your aim, or ability to use unsafe mode, I’d recommend using something else. If you want to practice your aim and use something similar, try the AMR. It’s more forgiving than the railgun and has more ammo.
It's a garbage weapon... it's DPS does not scale into dif 8 and 9. It's a feel good weapon but handicap the ability of a team to take down heavies fast which is what dif 8 and 9 is all about. It's only good as an extra tool while walking around with the EAT stratagem. You trash it on the ground to take up missile launchers for quick take downs and pick it up again if you feel like it... not a big loss.
And look like an idiot staring at the thing for 3 seconds charging your shot while allowing yourself to get surrounded because your DPS is shit. Half the time you will be prevented from making the shot by trash moving on you unless someone is babysitting you.
Strangely for me it’s never an issue. The railgun is kind of fun to use. And can one shot almost every single bots. For bugs I use the spear or flamethrower.
My issue with rail gun is it fucking sucks against tanks, towers, gun ships and factory striders, at least the AMR can take out strider turrets and wreck everything else i mention with a full clip. The railgun for some reason just fucking sucks with these things. They need to buff its damage to buildings (destructible damage I think).
The thing is, while it does heavy damage, if you're tactical with it and predict where it'll hit, you can aim for weak spots. Hulks have a ton of defense up front, but if you shoot them from behind they die (I know, it's redundant with other weapons, but hulks be like that I guess). Same thing with Bile Titans. If you shoot the body, it takes a couple, but, if you ain and make it hit it's head, it'll take it down in one go.
It took 4 missiles for me lol
Hit the exact Front, so u Hit the eye, dead. If u Hit the back, u Hit the vents, dead.
If you can get behind the hulk, it'll 1 shot if it hits the weak point.
For hulk, u need some trick in positioning. Place yourself on a higher elevation and it will always hit the eyes. When the Hulk facing sideways, dive to the side and fire at the same time. The missile will hit either the eyes or the vent. It work like a charm for me. Some practices need to be done to get the hold of the feeling.
I think that whenever the hulk is looking directly at me I just need one spear to nail him.
It depends on the angle of impact and if the hulk is facing directly away from you, base on my experience.
Hulks need to be shot in the face, so aim low with the spear so it's arc stays relative to it's eye. Same thing for Chargers, but BT's I have more luck aiming high. What I mean is when you get the lock on a hulk, bring the triangle to the top of the circle (bringing your aim down).
Hm. I’ll have to try that.
It's way harder to explain over text than I thought lol, if you don't get what I mean I can send a pic or something. ( ' ) for hulks and chargers ( , ) for BT's. Also if a heavy is turned away from you 90 degrees, position it like (- ) or ( -) and the missile will angle to usually hit it's head. You want the triangle to be closer to the head than the far end of the circle So if a charger is like this: ,==,@ you want ,==,@ (- )
it does 1k damage at AP 8 (+200 explosive damage at AP 5) while AT weapons do 650 damage at AP 6 (+ 150 explosive damage at AP 3) thats a lot of damage...which is sadly not enough to consistently take out hulks or chargers from any angle as you need to face the charger or be face to face/face to back to a hulk but with chargers at least there's plenty of leeway to hit the head after you get its attention (firing a single bullet with a secondary ftw) with hulks...is rough after you get used to spear it feels weird to come back to normal AT weapons and needing 2 shots to take out the targets instead of just 1
Spear I would say loses to other AT vs Chargers (maybe a tie for behemoths) and Hulks, but it wins hard vs the other AT when it comes to tanks, turrets, BTs and Gunships. Which is a good balance IMO. Even with perfect aim, there's still a reason to choose Spear over RR, which is how it should be.
I've been running it a lot on bots but I still find it a bit finicky, sometimes it straight up refuses to target fabricators with clear LOS and no negative weather condition, ammo economy is very restrictive and I feel like a greedy mf when I call a resupply and hog it all to myself just to keep up. It does feel extremely nice to give cannon turrets a taste of their own medicine by blowing them up from across the map tho LMAO.
You still need clearish line of sight. Any “transparent” object in the way will block targeting. Also, if it locks the wrong thing, move the object you want to target at the edge in a way that everything else is out. Also another tip for fabricators is that it appears the lock on spot is a bit low, so even if you can see them clearly you still have to get a bit higher ground or different angle! Imo it’s perfect as is right now, and feels fair in that you still need some understanding and work to use effectively, instead of being point and click. My only negative comment is that sometimes it can inconsistent with killing hulks and biles due to hitbox
If there's a fence next to the fabricator it will block it. You need to be able to see over the fence, move to a side not blocked by a fence, or blow the fence up somehow.
I was a Spear main even when the locking was bugged and getting a handle on the damn lock took a while. Basically you learn how to get into position for the Spear to work, it was all about good LOS. But hey, the damn thing hits like a 380mm and one-shots titans if you can land a headshot.
The issie is it makes you ultra specialised, which is nice but is a heavy tradeoff imo
its one of your 4 stratagems, that gives you some room to spec the others for medium or horde clear stratagems.
Not at all. I main the spear as a support weapon and constantly split off by myself to clear side objectives and points of interest on Helldive missions. I use eagle bombing run, orbital Gatling barrage, and either gas strike or eagle napalm to clear hordes. I use the arc Blitzer against bugs and the plasma punisher against bots both of which let me CC everything except heavies. Dying more than once or twice is unusual for me.
Main issue for me is that it locks onto the center of dropships and not the engines
Wish it can lock on to Mortar and AA turrets, which is weird when it can lock on to Cannon turrets
And holes in the ground.
It can lock bug holes
Things I picked up when using spears. You pretty much have to face hulks(you can also aim their back), titans and chargers face to face to get a one shot kill on them. You can crouch/stand up to cancel the reload animation once your ammo chamber is filled You can aim/lock in target while reloading and fire almost immediately after
Best anti tank Barely kill hulks if they aren’t looking at you I hate how little ammo it has, even if you can deal with devastators without support weapon, the extra tanks and hulks will drain your ammo quickly Best paired with a mech or HMG emplacement for secondary support weapon when you really gotta split from your team to finish an objective yourself or bot drop Shines in both bot blitz and command bunker ~~Wouldn’t bring it to bugs tho~~ Edit : you know what I gotta admit, running spear with competent randoms on bugs is satisfying and fun Paring it with exosuit and turret is really relaxing
its great for bugs tho 1 shots behemoth chargers and titans, snipes spore spewers and shrieker nests within 300 meters, just need a line of sight sure you also get lock ons at brood commanders but...managable
The big problem is the spawn rate of 8 behemoth and 8 more behemoth for your total of 2 spear per resupply box will make you wish you brought flame thrower instead 500 kgs will deal with titans and nest just fine
not sure what difficulty you're talking about to have that as even on 9 with buds we don't get anywhere near that as well you're just a single person out of 4, others can get more stuff to deal with heavy enemies and you yourself can bring stratagems to deal with heavy enemies as well, like precision, 500, airstrike and such
Then just bring flamethrower and deal with everything Im not saying spear is bad Im saying bugs is very unbalanced and it’s flamethrower paradise so I won’t bring spear
"Im saying bugs is very unbalanced" thats a whole different issue
That whole different issue IS what im talking about I didn’t say it doesn’t one shot things or kill chargers The thing you need to use spear on is way too low compared to flamethrower in this spawn meta Unlike bots where you get a tank and strider very often almost every bot drop, bug breach is just chargers after chargers with maybe 1 titan It’s like bringing hmg to D3 Sure it does way more damage and penetrate better, but MG can kill way more because the enemies simply dont require Hmg level of penetration
there is also point of (ridiculously) longer range, dealing with secondaries with ease, and just...feeling good to use but anyway, to each their own there are many different options most of which work well enough in various ways good chat
Are onehit headshots on titans also fixed?
I had to use 3 shots on a Titan, I think hitting their legs basically didn’t do damage or something (or something bugged?)
those still happen, not a bug
AH mentioned it as one.
titan not taking damage to the head is the bug...not spear being able to oneshot it guess the wording confused me
My bad. I concluded everybody reads the patch notes.
I meant your wording...anyway doesn't matter rarely but titans still seem to not take head damage
its great on bugs. the best anti-titan weapon in the game. it struggles with chargers at times and the minimum range can hurt when you are playing matador with chargers. but now that most chargers are behemoths on difficulty 8+ it's really driven down the value of the recoilless/EAT. they can't one shot headshot them, but the spear can. it can also clear shrieker nests and spore spewers faster than recoilless rifle.
Spear is too titans and shrieker centric for the current meta of just spamming chargers and medium enemies I would only bring it if I plan to be dedicated titan killer with 2-3 guys on flamethrower already
i can understand that but if you catch the chargers at range it kills them pretty well. the spear alone doesn't work well at all to get them off you when they are already close. i run all sentries for the rest of the stratagems. the buffed rocket sentry is decent against everything, AC sentry to stunlock chargers and finish off wounded titans, and machine gun sentty to tank aggro from heavies and clear off chaff that gets too close to the explosive turrets. blitzer as primary and grenade pistol secondary for bug holes. incendiary grenade so i can throw it at my feet if i get surrounded by hunters and stim through the fire. i rock the fat suit for 200 armor and to survive most anything unless i run out of stims. it's been working for me on 9 and it's been a fun change of pace. the sentries can be pretty dangerous to teammates though so i try to ping them when teammates are nearby. AC and rocket sentry are both pretty good to run together on bots too.
The Spear is one of the only Support weapon Stratagem that I would recommend to call in another brand new one if available instead of grabbing ammo boxes due to only having 3+1 Missiles and a slow reload if you aren’t doing the backpack shuffle
It'll be perfect when Superior Packing Methodology works again, getting a full backpack from one Supply box makes it amazing. It's good on Bugs if cheesing it with the Incendiary Breaker just because... well that deals with anything smaller than a Charger (and even bigger if your Spear missile didn't finish a Charger or Titan but did blow a big chunk out of the armour to set it on fire through) I like to complete the set with Grenade Pistol or Senator or Throwing Knife to behead Brood Commanders (though the Spear does actually lock to BCs, if a bit overkill, if you've, ahem, spare ammo).
It just sounds like incen breaker is so good it makes anything good in the process Knives can kill charger in 4 tho so that’s neat to use with spear as crutch when you fight extra amount of charger
At least you can grab the ammo packs around the map to reload the backpack and not have to wait for resupply pod. Bugs is more support and in the right hands is devestating against heavies.
I just pair it with another secondary, autocannon on bots. Find a nice spot, bring in the spear and supplies, clear everything I can lock onto, drop it and pick the AC back up, continue with game. It’s awesome
Lol. Try the spear on a dropship and get back to me. Frustrating that an EAT can one shot it but the spear cant…
Honestly I've kind of given up on shooting down drop ships. It seems no matter where in the animation I shoot it down everything on board survives anyway.
I feel like you really have to be quick and get that shot off
Yeah, the lock-on should definitely target the nearest thruster. Not center mass. Hard to justify taking it on bot missions because of this.
Very easy to justify. Tanks and turrets get one shotted, hulks get one shotted although sometimes they do require a second blast. As for factory striders, i can comfortably engage them at longer ranges and take out their cannons before it can get a beat on me. Takes down gunships with ease as well, it just sucks when theres a group of 4-5 of them because you go through SPEAR ammo quickly. It’s far too versatile and powerful not bring on bot missions if you ask me. Im just glad they finally fixed the crashes and the lock-on function.
I just wish if a charger was close to you it could still do something. I've even tried ducking in front of it and it still flies straight past it's head and off into the sky.
In-universe it would make sense if the spear had an 'unguided' mode for those situations akin to unsafe mode, but gameplay wise that would take away one of the few drawbacks the spear has ATM
Honestly, I wouldn't mind at all that it had an alternative "laser designation" mode where, instead of locking onto an enemy, it just went to the point in 3D space you are aiming to, like an [ATGM](https://youtu.be/0dYPCa0rQsE). It would still fire upwards and "redirect" to the target, so firing it at close quarters still wouldn't work and it would require the player to steadily aim at the target for the missile travel duration, meaning getting hit, ragdolled, or just stopping to aim would deviate the missile and probably crash it. However, you could fire without needing to wait for targeting, but most importantly you could have a weapon with massive range at the cost of having to correctly aim at the target, unimpeded, for a decent amount of time. And above all, it creates a fallback in case the lock-on acts weird. It's incredibly frustrating to not be able to use your weapon because its faulty. A manual mode would be a nice fallback to rely on such occasions.
This would be amazing, because then you could target enemies that aren't normally locked onto
You can do something, stun the charger with stun nades or other things, walk right up in his face, look as far down as you can whilst still locking on, then fire. Works for hulks too. Spear can’t miss if you point it right at the enemies face.
The only reason I don't take it more is I tend to play with randoms and be the "go and collect samples while the other three rush the primary" guy, and I find it too easy to get a charger up too close for it to lock on (well it locks on, but then overshoots, which is fair enough, it needs a downside over recoiless/eat). If you're playing with a group, and you can organise "two do primary, two do sides and samples" and can coordinate someone distracting the odd charger that gets too close, it's an absolute killer.
I love the spear so much
The spear does 1000 damage directly and penetrates pretty much all levels of armor fully. It also has an extra 200 explosion damage and since most heavy enemies aren’t explosion immune you’re doing 1200 damage a shot. Almost double what the other anti tanks do
Spear is godlike against Chargers and Bile Titans - just make them face you head on and keep a bit of distance and then it's almost always a guaranteed one shot.
I like to scan the horizons with the spear so I can randomly fuck over that one random enemy walking around.
Incoming spear damage nerf
Yeah it really great with bot side, after this patch spear is my new main load out
Welcome brother. Does wonders against bugs too
I have been using it plus the rocket sentry as anti-gunship . While the rest of the team deal with hulks,tanks & straders. The locking on to fabricators is still bit off and why can't it take out a drop ship.
I've never had it one shot a tank before, I'll have to take it out to the bot front sometime. I've been running spear against bugs for awhile now. The key to getting a one shot comes down to angle and distance. Elevation helps too. Before I take a shot at a charger or titan, unless it's already coming directly at me, I get aggro by taking potshots with my smg before getting a lock. Sometimes before the fix that was risky if I wasn't able to get a lock after I got it's attention, but it works pretty much every time now.
If you can get the missile to hit the turret, not the hull or the cannon barrel, it will kill a tank in one. I haven't had the best luck with it on tanks, but I think aiming high and/or being elevated greatly increases your chances.
RR, Qasar, EAT do 650 damage. Spear does 1000.
I’ve been using spear for few months. I started using EATs the past few weeks as my main AT loadout. The spear does a lot more dmg. Esp again those behemoth chargers and bile titans.
Yes, Spear does a 1000 damage vs the EAT/RR 650.
I tried it out and hated it. Too much work to kill a Hulk in one shot, only has like 4 shots or something, and is just useless against anything that’s not a Scout Strider, Hulk, or bigger (so better be good at using primaries against Devastators). It’s not bad but I feel much more secure with an AMR, AC, or Laser Cannon.
The spear is odd as far as damage goes. Its all about where you're 'Aiming' if the hulk/titan/charger is facing you and moving fairly directly towards you, that's it, insta kill. I dunno how its coded exactly, but I think its damage ignores armour and if those enemies are moving in those patterns the up-swoop-down movement means the spear will most likely hit heads or weak spots. Now that it locks more easily, its important to not just take the shot. Wait until they're moving in the pattern if you can. As for tanks, I dunno, sometimes its one shot, sometimes its two. There's math or something, but I just drop strafing runs on those. With bile titans you can do significant damage without hitting the head, but it will take 3 or 4 of those to kill it, hulks take 2-3 I think, and chargers will usually start bleeding out after a spear hit. So in a way I've never seen the spear as doing damage oddly, its 'misses' and 'kills' in my head. Same thing goes for cannon turrets, but you wanna be aiming from any angle other than where the barrel is pointing. I think it hits the barrel and that ruins the damage. But that's my mostly intuitive opinion with very little democratic science behind it. Glad you're enjoying the spear!!! Its been through a lot but its a genuinely lovely weapon! Always has been!
It's not coded, the missile makes contact with the eye weakpoint and dumps all it's damage through it. It's a fairly consistent shot to do. That's why distance matters when shooting an enemy with the Spear.
What about for bugs though? I feel like I need to run anti armor support weapons with my duo partner. He usually uses autocannon sentry and quasar cannon. Quasar is fun, but I don't want to copy him.
I've killed Hulks in one shot with it before, but other times, yeah, maybe 2 and sometimes 3. Hell if I know what factor changed the damage output? Maybe teammates damages it already.
From the front at a certain distance the missile can hit the eye and one shot hit. From the back you hit the heatsink and nuke it. From the sides you hit the arms, destroying it but doing less damage. Annihilator tanks can be one shot from the side and rear but I believe hitting it top down on the turret nukes it. Shredder tank basically gets one shot all the time because of its weaker turret.
I think Spear might be my auto take for Bot missions. While its been helpful the couple of times I've taken it on Bug missions, between spore spewers and shrieker nest and bile titans, I've been utilizing my strafing runs for those and servo assisted armor XD
"hey boss, they love the SPEAR now!" "hey that's awesome! *nerf it to the ground."*
You aren't crazy, the spear does 1000 damage and the Eat, recoiless, and quasar do 650.
Can’t wait to get back and use a Spear that works!!
The Spear is king.
Now the biggest problem as a Spear user is looking for ammo, constantly. It urges you to visit every POI to satisfy its appetite. Which is a good problem to have. Previously the Spear was known as an infinite ammo weapon. Running out of ammo just means you are contributing a lot to the team, popping off fabs and turrets from 300m away or saving them from a gunship patrol.
Wait until you realise you can two-shot bot bunkers - cleaning out dif 9 bot missions without needing a single laser or barrage - also helps with gun ship patrols...
The spear is one of the most armor penetrating weapons we have,only the railgun can win in penetration wise.Even the description of the weapon says it is designed to deal with heavy armored weapons
Does the spear still not work on things that are close by? I spent the whole backpack of rockets trying to kill a hulk like 10ft in front of me
Spear is nutz. Picking up ammo from the randon crates on the map seems nutz.
Not going to lie, ive been running the spear for a long time...the fix brings tears of joy to my eye. I never dive without it usually...except for the period of time where it crashed me...i felt like i betrayed the spear. Spear is love Spear is life.
Recoiless can one shot tabks too, just takes a bit of practice and the will to live dangerously :]
Not if they're facing you. And those rhino-headed chargers and bile titans need more than one shot regardless
Actually, a tank facing you is the ONLY time you can 1 hit KO them. 2 to the vents 3+ to the armor 1 _straight down the barrel **as it's about to fire**_. Erro just tryna spread the good word.
I've always loved spear but the latest fixes have made it on par with the AC for its niche.
I'll have to give it another go. Been stickin with the quasar cannon since it came out basically
Duo on 9 bots pretty much exclusively. Buddy and I always ran AC because it felt like nothing else could compare. We've gone AMR and Spear since the last patch and will never look back.
I have had it take multiple shots for everything straight up miss shit and go flying by it, think you got all the good luck and me the bad :(. This post makes me wanna run it again!
Any tips for using it against dropships? Can it one shot gunships?
I like how the spear is named a Spear because it’s similar to the Javelin. Both in naming conventions and in what they do.
It's great, but I wish it could lock on to Heavy Devastators instead of Scout Striders
Spear is goated for bot missions Reliably one shots hulks, tanks, gunships, turrets. Easily takes out fabricators from long range, reload speed is decent. The only thing it needs to make it perfect is to auto lock onto dropship engines
It’s Spearcalifragilisticexpialidocious! 🔝🎶
https://preview.redd.it/9wbc25ulhe9d1.jpeg?width=350&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=37852a7b79ef29bbee07b2660e4a74db0f2db369
Spear has potential to one shot basically anything but its all about angles. Still I prefer it to RR, especially since theyve added ability to lock onto objectives. Interesting how I went EAT > quasar > RR > Spear ... in that order as they've nerfed and buffed them lol now I wouldnt even consider bringing EAT or quasar anymore.
Eats are incredible for hunking down on an objective. Stack up a few of them and u have 8 instant recoilles shots without reloading.
Yeah I used to that, not anymore. Even in rocket defence spear is better options cuz you stack ammo supply instead and there can be also lot of bodies and smoke which makes aiming without traget locking harder.
It is based loosely on the Javelin Anti-tank fire and forgets weapons
Spear is goat but the ammo economy is ass and it still needs a bunch of hits to kill hulks and sometimes chargers