Ships & Modules

The answer you're looking for OP is between the lines. The favored ships have nuets in the highs, tracking enhancers and damage mods in the lows, and is often shield tanked. That kind of fit is very dangerous to frigates. It is also very often Minmatar.

As ships are rebalanced though those cookie cutter fits will have to rethink. Caldari hybrid boats will do shield tanking better then anyone else and have sick damage projection. What happens if CCP gives the Ferox and Moa a damage bonus instead of an optimal ala Merlin?

New tanking mods that are immune to nuets have also entered the equation. Nuets will lose some of their power and fear factor. So in the future I see the Hurricane pilot really having to think about nuets vs. missile launchers to get moar DPS just to stay competitive. And no nuets means you probably want a web. Then you have to armour tank of course so no TE. And that kind of ship will be much more vulnerable to frigates... The rifter is nerfed! thread in warfare and tactics will be repeated all along the Minmatar line.

TL;DR
Minmatar isn't going away. But the age of Winmatar is coming to an end. And that will allow alot more variety.

Alright, fine, let's put it another way. What are the following classes of frigates good for: T1, EAF, and AF?

In terms of dps, destroyers, dictors, and many cruisers own frigates easily. In terms of raw dps, frigates do nothing to structures.
In terms of cap and speed, frigs are dead in the water against a cruiser's neuts.
In terms of low sec gate and station guns, frigs are nothing against them and cannot initiate hostilities and survive.
In terms of ewar, frigs have smaller bonuses and far fewer medium slots than a cruiser, thus making frigs terrible at ewar.
In terms of EHP, the fight is over with a few webs/TPs on them.

1v1, I easily took an inty down with an assault BB. Even against 5 inties moments later, with some shield damage, the BB held up quite well and almost took another intie out if it were not for all the webs from the other inties. Given 2 more BBs free of webs and able to keep each inty pinned down, the inties would have been quickly dispatched. Of course, my heroic stand bought the time needed for the alliance to close the net on all the system's gates and catch them in bubbles as they fled. The last part only proves that a blob can kill some frigs, but it justifies my cruiser loss. The point is that frigs can NOT manage against lesser numbers of properly fit and flown cruisers, though cruisers CAN manage against fewer numbers of well-fit and well-flown BS by effectively using ewar and RR.

Oh Please God No!

Back on topic: Frigates were already Pretty Viable, but are about to get a whole lot more Viable. I look forward to seeing what the results of Tiericide will be on How Frigs interact with and compare against other ship types.

Frigates are for null and FW

May not be intentional, but that's what they're good at these days.

they seems pretty damn good at taclking.

Your "joke" was trolling my thread, and I knew that was exactly what you were doing. I didn't appreciate your detraction from my thread and I called you on it. Your welcome for keeping this discussion meaningful and real.

That said, I am surprised by some of the feedback I am seeing in this thread and want to verify if I am seeing correctly. It seems that many of you are saying that between a frigate and a cruiser, both properly fit and flown, the frigate is the more natural choice. Between a cruiser and battleship, I can easily choose a cruiser in most situations, but between a cruiser and a frigate, the choice for a frigate seems unwise unless it is for the roles of SB, Cov Ops, or Inty, or for faction frigates.

I know that the AF seems pretty good now after the buff, but the raw dps on frigate-sized targets can be exceeded by an assault caracal while also being bested in EHP, engagement range, speed, and price, and almost in scan resolution as well (with 2 scripted sebo's). While various fits can trade off performance in one area for another with ample debate on the merits of each decision and even more mud slung about it, the point is that the other half of the frigates should also be a clear choice in many situations, and not just in a few niche situations (while I don't even see the merits of those, I am listening and ready to learn).

And for all those kms which make frigates look so great, let's remember that gate camps on unlucky travelers, ganks on pve-fitted mission/site ships, and 10:1 ratio battles in favor of the frigates do not make any kind of case for the merits of the frigate.

Why not?

Don't forget the important factor that frigates are far harder to hit than cruisers, and due to this are far more survivable in certain situations. While it is true that most frigate hulls don't shine as the "main combat ships" of fleets, there are a ton of reasons for non-newbies to fly frigates:

• T1 frigates - easily replaceable, which opens the way to far more recklessness, which can pay off in getting tackle. If my gang is a long way out, I'd rather charge and tackle a Drake in a Merlin than in a Claw.
• AFs - They vary in role a lot, but they are very well suited for any kind of brawl, and can also serve as heavy tackle, especially where their awesome resists come into play. If I had the choice of attacking a Zealot with a Rupture or a Jaguar, I'd opt for the Jaguar every time.
• Interceptors - Instant range-bonused point. 'Nuff said. Combat interceptors: deceptively survivable, and very very mobile.
• EAFs - Keres and Hyena sort of suck, but Kitsune and Sentinel get better bonuses than their cruiser counterparts while retaining the nimbleness of frigate hulls. The extra slot the cruisers get is their boon, but having tons of EHP is not the only way to stay alive.
• Bombers - BC-caliber DPS in a covert frigate hull, plus bombs. 'Nuff said.
• Covops - Best scanning ships.

It all boils down to: don't discount mobility as a ship attribute. Being fast and hard to hit is pretty cool.

And yes, in equal numbers frigates can't normally take on cruisers, and cruisers can't take on BCs, and BCs can't take on BSs, and BSes can't take on capitals. How is that a problem?


Chill pill. Take one.

It seems like you are saying that capitals are the best and that everyone should fly capital ships. So why is it that few people fly capitals. Why is it that even fewer pilots fly EAF, AF, and T1 frigates? There must be a good reason. Is it possible that those frigates lack relevance? Even an inty seems kind of "pointless" (pun intended) when a Remote Sebo'ed Arazu can point and scram far more ships for far longer time at far greater ranges. Why fly to them when you can just point them from where you are?

Price and speed.

There's a lot of psych around why people use or don't use many ships.

For example, target painting is great, and very effective, but since signature radius is a sort of nebulous attribute, most people disregard TP ships.

Another example would be ships that are far more effective when not solo, or when complementing other ships. The Coercer is amazing at its job (tearing small ships apart), but it is viewed as "pointless" because it, well, has no point. When it has a frigate or interceptor tackling for it, that doesn't matter, and it becomes awesome.

People fly EAFs less than they do capitals because EAFs are perceived as "weak" and "no damage" or other things by the masses. Support roles are not very popular, but the force multiplication they give can make or break a fleet. T1 frigates and AFs are more popular than carriers.

There are a lot more factors to why people fly or do not fly particular ships beyond "which one wins in a slugfest". If you fail to understand that, then please drop the subject until you have enough experience to tackle it properly.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Landen