9mm. Full auto. Low recoil. The military has it. The police have it. Now you have it. The STRYK is an easy to use fully automatic pistol, specifically designed to fight crime. Wait a minute...
The STRYK is a fully automatic machine pistol available in the Wolf Pack DLC.
Even when fully upgraded, the STRYK has the second-lowest damage per shot of all the pistols. Still, its main advantage and the factor that sets it apart from other weapons in its class is its unique, fully automatic firing mode. The STRYK has a very high rate of fire that compensates for its low damage per bullet. The STRYK has an advantage over most lower-level enemies, such as cops, FBI, and Blue SWAT, as it only takes two to three rounds from the firearm's 40-round magazine to kill them when fully upgraded. Dispatching Heavy SWAT is a bit trickier, as it requires far more ammunition, especially above Hard difficulty. Special units are by far the most difficult enemies to deal with, as multiple full magazines are often required to kill one on Overkill. It is recommended, as is with most pistols in PAYDAY, to switch to a more powerful weapon when dealing with these units.
By far, one of the greatest weaknesses of this weapon is its poor ammo efficiency. The weapon only stocks 56 rounds of ammunition, and with the 40 round magazine that means the player cannot even manage a single reload. If the player combines the STRYK with other firearms that consume ammo quickly this means the player must make repeated trips to ammo bags.
The best way to fix this is to use the extra start-out ammo upgrade, as it provides the player with a far higher ammunition cap for the weapon. With this upgrade, the player can pull off at least one reload without requiring any ammo pickups, meaning the player can use the STRYK for much longer without needing to restock. This also means the player has extra ammo for their other weapons as well, so the STRYK restocks on ammo far more reliably when not in use due to the longer down time.
The STRYK also suffers in its unupgraded form, with a high amount of recoil and a very small magazine, with only 17. Most of these issues are solved when the STRYK is fully upgraded, but the weapon's poor accuracy remains a constant issue. All of the other handguns available are very accurate at medium range, but the STRYK is almost exclusively a close range weapon. It is advised to fire in very short bursts when firing at distant enemies, or switching to another, longer-range, weapon, such as the AMCAR-4 or the M308.
Overall the STRYK can be a very effective weapon if used properly and if paired with the proper upgrades and bonuses. Although it is advised to wait until it has gained quite a few upgrades to use it, it can be very effective at decimating lower level enemies and merely efficient at dealing with the higher ones. This rapid firing machine is capable of doing a lot of damage fairly quickly, but only to the right targets, and not for very long.
Strategies
Focus your fire on one enemy at a time. Spraying an entire magazine at a crowd of enemies is not an effective strategy due to the STRYK's low damage, but if you take down one enemy, then move onto the next, you will be far more efficient with the STRYK.
Despite its great damage per second and rate-of-fire, the STRYK should not be used as a primary assault weapon due to its meager ammo capacity. Instead one should treat it as a "tenderizer", running up to a crowd of enemies and/or a slow-moving special and spray the entire magazine at them to soften them enough for the player to finish them off with a melee attack or two, or leave regular enemies weak enough to surrender should they survive.
Bulldozers, due to their large profile and slow lumbering movement, are juicy targets for a STRYK-equipped player, though closing up to one also means that it will be able to shoot you and thus it is often ill-advised to use this tactic. When it is absolutely necessary to use the STRYK against a Bulldozer, great caution must be exercised.
Cloakers will charge the player whenever given the chance, though this will also mean that one will be less likely to miss as the target is practically making a beeline for them. If aimed correctly and the correct upgrades have been unlocked, one extended magazine of the STRYK will often be able to gun down a charging Cloaker. Aim for the chest for the best result.
Fire in short, controlled bursts. Normally, no regular enemy short of Heavy SWAT units can withstand a single 3-5 round burst to the chest upwards and the ammo they drop is usually enough to "refund" you of the amount you've spent.
Be sure to get as many ammo pickups as possible. If you're empty on STRYK ammo, one pickup contains 5-8 rounds, so all it takes is about half a dozen ammo pickups to get a sizeable amount of ammunition for use.
The STRYK also shines as an effective bleedout weapon. Saving your ammunition for situations when you get knocked down can be crucial in your survival. The machine pistol is good for clearing rooms, even when you are on the floor, allowing teammates to perform a much smoother, less risky rescue attempt.
Under no circumstances should you allow a Taser to catch you unaware while you have the STRYK equipped. This will quickly drain the STRYK's 40 round magazine, completely deplete the player's ammo for this weapon, and due to the firearm's low accuracy and the convulsion from the Taser's attack it is likely that not a single round will hit the Taser. It is recommended to switch to a different weapon when the player encounters a Taser.
Granted, should contact with a Taser become unavoidable, it would be best to get as close to the officer as possible to make the most out of the STRYK's magazine. Depending on the amount of upgrades unlocked and how many shots have landed, the Taser might die straight away or be weakened to the point that just a few more shots will kill him.
Entering a heist mid-game is dangerous when using the STRYK, as it not only gives the player a dangerously low amount of STRYK ammo (less than one magazine when fully upgraded) but also a low amount of ammo for the player's other weapons. This is particularly dangerous if the player is using many fully-automatic weapons as it makes it difficult to sustain the player's ammo without an ammo bag.
Arguably, the STRYK's best use is when being incapacitated as it is the only fully automatic firearm that can be used in bleedout. It can be used to mow down several law enforcement or inflict decent damage on a special unit before being fully incapacitated.
Detective Gadget Beat any heist using the STRYK Pistol, AK Rifle, GL40 Grenade Launcher, Toolkit upgrade, Sentry Gun equipment and Big Game Hunters crew bonus. To complete this challenge, you will have to have played the heist from the start.
Trivia
The desert/olive drab frame of the STRYK. Note the equally visible STRYK logo at the bottom near the edge of the magazine well. Also, note how the selector switch is on semi-auto, yet the weapon still fires automatically.
Oddly enough, the STRYK fires exclusively in full-auto during gameplay despite the selector switch being set to semi-auto.
Despite the frames of the STRYK being depicted as matte black in the upgrades images and other media, it is actually olive drab/desert-colored, and can best be observed when the weapon is used during well-lit heists such as First World Bank or Panic Room, preferably without the use of graphic filters.
This might mean that the STRYK was illegally modified to fire in full-automatic with a selective-fire slide installed, as colored Glock frames are only marketed for semi-automatic civilian models. Any and all auto-Glock models have to be finished in either matte or anodized black.
A STRYK logo can be seen on the lower-most corner on the grip of the weapon, near the edge of the magazine well.
The STRYK is different from most other weapons in that it only has one cosmetic/part upgrade. The only other weapons that share this trait are the M308 and the B9-S.
Despite the description stating that the STRYK is a military/police sidearm, none of the enemies in the game ever wields one against the player crew, though the Shield unit uses a fully automatic B9-S pistol, which has similar properties.
Also misleading, despite the description stating that the STRYK has low recoil, the in-game kick up is rather monstrous. This, combined with its blazingly fast fire rate can make for a highly uncontrollable weapon when fired fully automatically.
"Stryk" is Swedish for "a beating".
The STRYK appears in the trailer for the heist No Mercy even though it was not available at that time.
The STRYK is the only pistol that causes one's perspective to zoom in when aiming down the sight.
The STRYK's cripplingly low total ammo count is due to a possible bug: originally, the weapon was scripted to stock 160 rounds in reserve (self.glock.NR_CLIPS_MAX = 8), though for some reason it was changed to using that of the B9-S instead (self.glock.AMMO_MAX = self.beretta92.CLIP_AMMO_MAX * self.beretta92.NR_CLIPS_MAX), giving it only approximately a third of the bullet count it should have. As this has not been patched, it is plausible that Overkill decided to leave it in as a method of balancing.
The upgrade tree image shows the STRYK in a left-handed configuration. Oddly, it is wielded right-handed by Wolf in the same image.
