Ships & Modules

Best bomber of the 4?


whats the over all top bomber and why?

Nemesis, because unlike with the purifier or hound people don't always fill that resist hole, you don't lose 50% effectiveness to armor or shield in every case, decent base damage to armor and shields, and tons of room for painters.

I love my Nemesis. CPU is a bit tight on occasion, but having Thermal damage is a godsend.

Hound....because I have one.....that I've never flown.....ok I lose.

torp or bomb bomber?

Top bomb bomber would be the one bonused for the bomb your corp/alliance have chosen as standard. Bomb of preference can vary between crews. There to bomb, may as well get the full boost if possible.

Torps bomber I like hounds personally. Bit more speed. And explosive a good general damage to use imo.



I am differentiating bombers because I happen to subsribe to the mindset you either spec to run bombs or torps well and not go for a jack of all trades setup.

To expand a bit on this, there are even more "roles" to consider for the bombers depending on what tactic you are using and the composition of your gang.

Damage types:

The racial damages determine ideal targets and wether to shoot in holes or to find a "balanced" damage type that few ships have peaks for. The Hound tend to win in that definition since there are alot of EX holes, few EX peaks and armor ships are more prone to immobility, in general. The Purifier is also strong with it's EM bonus into many shield ship's holes, but also faces more peaks and agile ships. Considering Minmatar dominance over shield support at the moment, those Tech II resists are not ideal for the Purifier either, whereas there are more EX-low priority targets.


Torps, bombs or a balance:

The second issue to examine is Zan Shiro's, do you aim to bomb or torp? do you aim to do both? do you aim to switch between the two? there's alot of options here. Running Bombers as apart of other fleets focus tend to be on bombing and (possible-) survival only. Running Bombers as a standalone concept tend to involve torping in some form but does not necessarily exclude bombing. Some setups include dual-wave tactics where you bomb, kite and torp similar to old Cavalry Ravens where you attempt to raise the alpha by staggering in both bomb and torp damage. Other ideas include running launchers offline and switching between torps and bombs, capacitor permitting. That was a popular approach among old roamers who would perhaps go torps first and then switch to bomb-runs if they found larger immobile camps or similar. There are also pure torp setups that utilize the last free highslots for other things, such as probes for a forward scout, which leads to the third issue...


Damage, tackling and utility:

That third issue is wether you intend to use the Bomber as a tackler or not. This can be down to wether you roam or drop, it can be down to amount of ships and wether you have access to Recon or not and it could be down to one important detail in the Bombers' bonuses: it is a frigate without decloaking delay. That last bit give the Bombers one narrow but unique and potentially important role in grabbing initial tackle to hand over the responsibility to more survivable ships. In such a role the Manticores (and Nemesis) are favoured with their additional midslots. The ability to get in cloaked and quickly snag a tackle make them ideal for forward scouting with probes, phasing scrams over to in order to cut MWD's on reluctant targets and so forth. There are also certain compositions (/w Infolinks) that focus on overwhelming EW by seeding it on Bombers too.

In the scope of things the only ship i'd argue falling behind a bit is the Nemesis, but that has more to do with it's fitting than any racial bonuses.


Competition for spots:

That can also be tied to a peripheral issue worth examining: off-class competition for slots and skillplans. Gallente pilots may have a weaker bomber option but they have very strong options for other ships usually involved in Cover gangs, so having Gallente pilots out of bombers is generally a good idea for the gang overall. The Arazu is perhaps the most important Recon, the Proteus the best Tech III (Infolinks may not be more important than Skirmish, but the Proteus is a better pointer than the Loki is a webber compared to their respective Recons) and the Sin a very flexible and capable Blops. It's going to be tough to find Bomber spots for Gallente pilots because they are already in such demand from a Covert gang. In the balance between Bomber potency and off-class demand the Purifier is a clear winner. Minmatar is in as much demand as Gallente whereas Caldari is split between some Bombers for tackling and ECM over Recon or Blop.

There is much more flexibility in the class than many players are aware of.

So none of them for me then?

sucha hate for the Manticore.

It's the ultimate Blockade Runner Trap Door Spider.

Search through the planets for player set ups. when one of those players enters system lay in wait untill that blockade runner decloacks at the Costum Office, decloak your self tackle -> Kill Mail -> Loot.

It's also very usefull in wolf packs because of it's E-War abillities

no my manticores.

The one that happens to have a bonus for bomb type your FC orders to use, I guess.

Or maybe the one which is bonused for damage type not matching the typical one of rats in this particular region.