Ships & Modules

Not as much for the Sensor Damps, as for the really, REALLY long range points.

Eeh, I dunno. Depends on what you're doing. Gatecamping? Both can be good. Falcon is versatile, as it's good for camping, fighting, etc. There's hardly any time when an enemy not shooting you is bad. On the other hand, it's somewhat situational that a 100km point is good, but as a heavy tackle, it is also good.

And in any fights where you have range control, and want to fight at range, those Gallente recons can work quite well. SeBo's aren't bad, with range in mind. They just have no effect once they've locked, and are in point blank range.

Damps also allow you to remove Falcon and RR from the equation as you can damp them to fck, so in that role it plays a more defensive part.

Gang/fleet fit lots of tank and faction points. Nothing to add

Solo/small gang faction long point+damps, pick an alt with a decent dps ship and pop it while he's raging he can't target whatever.

Also: HOT DROP !

Damps are situational, but a fully Loki-bonused Arazu with a faction disruptor and Recon ships V can keep a point at something like 117 Km (could not be accurate, haven't used it for a while).

Awesomesauce long range tackle.

No it cant, recons have insane lock range so you would need at least 3 damps with max skills and recon 5 to even remotely effect the falcon. Falcons work best at 30-70km, damps would only take it to around 60km lock range which is still well within optimal.

Logi however yes, can be damped.

Arazu/Lachesis is one of the most useful ships in the game along side a Rapier/Huginn when it comes to <10 gang size, with a proper fit and off grid links an gallente recon can point over 100km and a minnie recon can web to nearly 100, if not more.

Until CCP nerfs ECM you may as well just go with it, for every falcon in your gang you can perma shut down 2 targets, 3 with good skills. Its not even chance based when numbers are so small, its a guranteed jam.

No other recon can do that and no other module in the game has such a massive impact on the outcome of a fight.

There is a perfectly good reason why people fly around with scram fit vagas with 3 gyros and no neut, no need to kite when you can brawl and have the ECM boat jam whatever comes in. Same goes for this craze involving cloaky sabres and falcons camping gates, any solo target is pretty much dead and anything in a gang wont even be entertained.

This, however damp logistics is quite situational, you might increase he's lock time about "decently" but you need recon 5 and 3 damps on it witch is a waste of mid slots for tank/point. Can work but imho it's situational and very small gangs.
Out of the solo or exceptional situation, imho, damps are total garbage.

They have the same ranges (both best Faction and Tech II), afaik.


As for the thread in general...

It's nice to see that oppinion is beginning to shift. Only a couple of months ago some people wouldn't understand me outlining the appeal of Gallente Recons and how to use them (around the same time they did the same regarding the use of droneships and sentries, look at trends now), at all.

However, while people seem a tad more openminded these days, this discussion is still missing what they do that stand out and how you can apply that. I mean, we have several fair comments about point range and now even hotdrop that outline appeal and general use but we don't really have anyone who break that down and look at each/collective appeal.

For example, one thing that is quite unique with both Gallente Recons is that that they can fullfill either a nominal- or full role while maintaining other aspects of the ship: They can carry out their "role" and still maintain a tank. The Arazu in particular can carry out all roles and maintain a tank equivalent of a HAC. We're looking at 70k EHP platforms (also, don't look only at the EHP, consider the resist-stacking) where one provide highly specialized point range and the other can do both that and then look at a variety of powerful supplements.

At one end we complain about the percieved power of ECM drones, and at the other end we don't consider how an Arazu can field 5 of the medium sized ones, giving it that dimension ontop of everything else. That's quite alot for a specialized ship like a Recon and it's obviously something more than "just point".

That means the ships are also quite useful out-of-ideal. Compare it to the comment about the 30-70km Falcon and that comment becomes quite laughable. It somehow assumes the Falcon is in such an advantageous situation he doesn't have to concern himself with even any form of limited risk. That Falcon is completely splattered in any situation that involve risk. I'm not talking about flying it against odds or even with equal odds - i'm talking about 30km Falcons being splattered even if your gang is twice the size of your opponent - unless there are very specific conditions (twice the size and extremely small scale). Anyone who fly a Falcon in that appeal during a prolonged fight, range at anything from a complete idiot to an inexperienced Falcon pilot.

Any decent Falcon pilot fly their ships in either of two concepts today: a low-buffer shield variant that rely on out-ranging opponents (most notably, other Recons) or a plated variant that aim to withstand a couple of volleys as a blitzing gang extract. Almost any other use of that ship have much less to do with the ship or it's role than it has to do with other advantages (ie., you use it to "blob", as in, you didn't really utilize it you used it to pile on and it's effect on the outcome was minimal). This means that any type of decent Falcon pilot supplement their offensive power by covering their most appearant weakness: staying power. Even if you plate your Falcon, get RR upon it and have a superior force, dropping it at 30km against a competent foe involve a fair amount of risk or limit your staying power.

Compare that to the Gallente Recons, or the other races. Then compare the other races to Gallente.

You will notice that they stand out in several angles of "total pakage", wether that is primary role to tank, or primary-secondary to tank. An Arazu with a HAC-level tank, an LR point and a supplement of either scrams or damps can be quite a powerful tool when used correctly. "Correctly" can be many things but a good place to start looking from is other use of the race or it's racial traits.

Yes they perform well in two niches.

Arazu - Good Black-Ops cyno ship
Lach - Boosted can point from 100km so ideal for sniper gangs

I'll leave you to your own devices about this. Fire up EFT/Pyfa or whatnot and build yourself a Brawling gal recon sometime. I think you'd be surprised just how damn good they can be.