Ships & Modules

Seems like the Zealot can deal effective damage from anywhere on the battlefield while the Deimos would spend a huge amount of time ABing from one victim to the next?

-Liang

AHAC gangs require support to work. By that I mean the max range is realistically about 40km. You need well fit tech III lokis and proteuses to reel in targets from 70 km or so that the ab HACs can kill them. AHACs either need the tech III heavy tacklers, a gread prober to warp you right on top of the target, or an opposing fleet stupid or unlucky enough to jump right into you and aggress or actually choose for some reason to get up close. (to say nothing of the skirmish and armor links, skilled logis, and midslot ewar strategies).

Munnins with the 1600 and 650s require an acr or if they go 425 ac they need those targets reeled in further. The pulse Zealots can fit the requisite 1600 and heavy pulse with a single rig. Deimos either are 1600 and 200mm rails for 40km damage application, or blasters and thus the same necessity for closer capture to reliably start applying dps. If rails the damage at 40 km is anemic in comparison to the Zealot. Of course if point blank the blaster damage is better. But heavy neutron IIs would require more grid than just an ACR rig. Additionally, the resist profile is more tanky on the Zealot. The Zealot simpy presents more and easier options.

That being said, a mixed AHAC fleet means that an opposing gang/fleet cannot just load up em and therm resists. A deimos would have an advantage if you have a great prober that gets you warp ins right on top of your targets and you are fit with blasters. You would further need some skilled tackling to hold multiple targets within your 10km killzone.

AHAC gangs are quite fun to fly. Watching people get reeled in or trapped after warpin, and then shredded is fun. But they take some training and very good ship skills. Some folks with less skills use navy omens and fleet stabbers and such in them. But they don't have HAC in the name for nothing. And unfortunately the ships stats and weapon stats being what they are make the Zealot the easiest and best choice for them. I do however find the multi race AHAC fleets prettier and imo more deadly.

The Zealot simply does not have to be at near point blank to apply decent damage.

A blaster Deimos does (not sure on the viability of a rail Deimos...).

I don't think that article is as bad as Hatsumi make it out to be.

When discussing AHACs alot of people seem to forget that the trend first started as a response to the growing logi-buffer and projection profileration (Hi Lili, you are quite familiar with this topic now, aren't you? ). The article mention AHACs countering BS, but it should also definately include Drakes.

When RR and turtling moved over toward Logi and LR tackle support the NHAC (and SHAC) trends at the time had to adapt. The natural adaption was to blitz the lower buffered support (ie., kill the Huginn, because he is what will kill you, and even with Logi he can drop under pressure). To blitz that support the HAC gangs needed to increase staying power and firepower to do so, and the first resurgence of AHACs came about.

Beyond that, as everything else, i'd say it's a question of scale.


Deimos

The Deimos saw profiling in the small-medium scale, where spread tackle and utility have a higher value. The extra mids on the Deimos enable it to control snap-range (either through web-scram or dual-prop; at a smaller scale, scram-webbed BS do not dictate transversal, and do not coast apart), the extra highslot (stacked tank-breaking neuts, or nos as anti-neut measure) and the drones (burst damage or ECM on hostile Logi and Recon) provide utility. Last but not least, don't forget the KN-peak resist against Drakes, taking away their damage bonus (or having them shoot into a ridiculous 95% resist). Good groups running single prop would utilize "impulse speed" and simply turn off MWD to coast with high intial mitigation (and then picked up by Logi) when primaried. Dualprop offer better sustain, but results in less snap.

Compare the Deimos to Vagabond NHAC. Not as quick, but underestimated speed, twice the tank and 500-750 dps, compared to 250-500.


Ishtar

Well into the medium scale Ishtars were popular as they had the best potential projection. I've made some notes (recently as well) that it surprises me a bit that it hasn't become more popular again since Crucible with all the undertanked BS-snipers. The projection can be used in both directions. It enable you to setup position on opponents (think: Drakes or Baddons on a gate) and opening up outside their reach, while even if you stay on approach you are not helpless. Similarily you can attempt to box lighter targets in (on gates or such), and if they escape your grasp you can still push the grid. In that sense they are very similar to Drakes (flexible, and not helpless out of ideal positions), additionally really good against Drakes too.

Compare the Ishtars to Muninn/Zealot SHACs, and you're looking at three times the tank plus the sigtank and 400-500 dps compared to 200-300 dps at distance.


Zealot (and incarnations, Legions etc.)

Drones wether they are utility on Deimos or primary weapon system on an Ishtar are not very reliable when you begin to hit laggy grids though. Hatsumi should remember that from the PL-discussions in 2010, when abadoned drones kept PL ships in combat due to bugs in lag, leaving them stuck on gates. There are other issues as well, such as bomber-wings being more common supplements, and your own reaction time to events not being as good in lag, or on cleared overview settings and cluttered grids. It's difficult spotting that bomb being dropped. Those reasons were equally important to the Zealot being the pick for the largest scale as the seven lows. Zealots were just more reliable on heavy grids.

Ishtars remained the superior pick as long as you could maintain the micromanagement (in my eyes), and Deimos as long as you could snap, overpower and control the grid (ie., catch hostile lynchpins, force them to congregate, have them continue the fight without the control provided by the lynchpins or see them warp off the cheap rabble and declare victory).

There's the answer to the OP as well: When the Deimos would be used.

Hatsumi is right about one thing though, any use of SFI, Muninn or Omen is mainly rabble as blobs picked up the AHAC concept (blobs as in, when the extra number matter more to you than the composition or integrity of your gang). SFI were used briefly as tackle by some of the early better AHAC groups, before Tech III prices came down, but once they did - SFI were quickly supplanted by better options (Proteus etc.), and only kept around as second- or third rate options (in some cases even Recons are better than faction Cruisers).

Since Drakes were brought up -

Drakes v AHACs is a numbers game. As Hatsumi says it is the volley potential of the Drakes that matter. There is a tipping point where up to that point AHACs will beat Drakes, but over that point Drakes will beat AHACs, numbers being equal for each. So if you have a 100 ship AHAC fleet v a 100 ship Drake fleet with roughly equal logi for each the AHACs should win. But make that a full 256 fleet of each and the AHACs will lose. The tipping point is somewhere in the 150 to 200 ship range depending on various factors of fleet makeup (tackle ability range, logi numbers, FC/prober skills, etc).

Of all fleet types I loved AHACs the most. Maybe because I was flying a damnation (and logi) in them. But there was just something so ******* cool about a rolling ball of not cheap or noob skilled kickass bowling into some other fleet, or reeling in kiters to their doom. The old sniper BS fleets, old rr BS fleets, sniper shield HACs, Drake fleets (barf), Alpha Maels, Abaddons, or geddons none of these is as much fun as an AHAC fleet imo. I'd love a HAC buff but really CCP would have to be careful lest they would totally dominate the battlefield again as they did at their peak.

It will be interesting to see what happens after CCP finishes with the BC nerf (yay it's coming . . in a rather long time) and reaches tech II and III cruisers and BSs. Not sure what they will do regarding ship rebalancing then. Until then I am most looking forward to tech I cruiser buffs. Newer characters should have worthwhile cruisers to roll in. The greatest feeling for me in reading dev comments in the last couple years was when one of the devs finally vocalized their dismay with the rush to tier 2 BC and plan to make cruisers desirable again.

Anyway, HACs do need something now that we have tier 3 BCs having pounded the last nail into the coffin of the old sniper HAC doctrine and AHACs being somewhat disadvantageous. Shield fleets seem to predominate atm. It would be nice to have AHACs (of all kinds and not just Zealots) become a pinacle again. Just it has to be done with a delicate touch so as not to kill BS utility as well.

Actually just slap 250's in and see what happens, it's quite hilarious and probably the main reason why Deimos is still a bad choice.

The vigilant however...

One question I ask of all you AHAC folks out there: have you considered full-brawl armor T3 gangs as adversaries yet? It seems like nobody has ever bothered to consider how an AHAC gang (optimized for sigtanking of larger guns at intermediate range) would do when faced with a gang with similar tackle properties and base sig, but much more applied DPS when in range and much larger buffers (so alpha is less effective).

No there isnt, anything with guardians in them is to slow and to big a target, tier3s with oneiros are to fragile!

FYI, the deimos can do almost as much damage as the zealot, at all ranges with the added bonus of being able to go further, and use a flight of drones for utility.