Ships & Modules

So, I'm trying to find a scenario in which lasers are the best option outside of shooting at a pos.

Possibly the hellcat fleet, but I think that is more the Abaddon's resist bonus over the Maelstrom's active tank bonus.

Comments?

Lasers excell at firing at anything that doesn't have high transversal. Because they have a higher optimal range than most weapons, they tend to do more DPS when shots connect. This still puts them as good, solid hitters for sniper fleets, because over time their beam weapon shots will do more damage than the Maelstrom's arties over a period of time*.

Pulse lasers also do a high amount of damage (remember: Scorch) and do excellent DPS, particularly against shields. While they do still have worse tracking than other short range weapon systems, they still track better than long range weapons. The only problem with that is they do use a lot of cap to operate.

I think it is better to understand that Amarr ships are good in every generic situation that can come up. It's only in fleets that have very specific requirements that you may need to look elsewhere.

(*if I remember correctly, someone actually researched this as the DPS from the Abaddon caught up to the Maelstrom after either three or five rounds. I think it was Liane.)

You have a lot of knowledgable people in Noir. too, so you might do good to talk with them about it.

Ah, my bad then. In that respect then, no I personally don't think they need a buff because they are pretty good general situation weapons. However, perhaps you have something in mind?

Killing structures. Its really nice not to waste ammo.

Killing shield ships that forget to fill their EM hole.


And great in general in Amarr space for missioning.

It seems more to me that you are more upset about ship bonuses rather than lasers themselves. I can understand that, I think the Prophecy should have a damage bonus instead of a cap usage bonus. But, the scenario you keep describing tends to be easily remedied by changing ships. The Harbinger, for example, can be very effective, especially against Drakes, solo. The Zealot has been a favorite HAC for years with entire fleets of Zealots wrecking havoc in southern and northern 0.0. The Battleships have always been the core of any serious battleship fleet since the Amarr got fixed years ago, with the Apoc being the standard to most Sniper fleets and the Armageddon being the top Tier 1 PVP battleship in general use. That also doesn't count the capital and supercapital ships.

So, I am at a bit of a loss. Because I haven't found a scenario where an Amarrian ship didn't fit (except maybe in Vagabond Fast Attack fleet). Considering that your killboard indicates you've flown Prophecies and Oracles.. my guess is that perhaps you aren't happy with the Oracle's performance in comparison to, say, the Tornadoes or Nagas?

Lasers only need their cap drain addressed IMO. They excell at optimizing their damage to fit a given range. This makes them a natrual pair with neuts, or bonused webs. Unfortunately Amarr don't get web bonuses (BR do, but they are expensive), and the cap drain of lasers+neut is huge. All in all though, they are great for small gang work and get progressively worse the bigger the engagement gets. I love my lazors and I hate fleet fights, so I'm actually ok with that.

Lasers are required whenever Pink Floyd is played.

I actually think the oracle is one of the few boats that performs the role well. Its the other ships that I think get a bit underwhelming.





This, for a weapon system that absorbs one of the bonuses of a ship, lasers are a bit underwhelming. Take, for example of the Tempest had a bonus replaced with 5% decrease in powergrid needs for projectile turrets, and then CCP jacked up the powergrid costs on them. You would expect those turrets to be pretty damn awesome, yet lasers are often a bit lack luster in that department. They are easy to mitigate against, T2 Minmatar ships basically laugh them off due to their innate EM resist, and most shield ships will fill the em whole in pvp.

This is perhaps most egregiously obvious when you bring the Tachyons into the debate. Not only do you need the cap bonus to make them work, but you can't even fit an entire rack of them without a powergrid mod/rig. Those are substantial drawbacks, for a turret, that is...by and large meh in a vast majority of scenarios.

How is the resist argument any different than Minmatar barrage/hail vs Amarr t2 resists, hybrids against Gallente/Caldari t2 resists, kin-bonused missiles vs Gallente/Caldari t2 resists...?

Even if you fill the EM hole, EM and therm are still going to be the weak resist on most shield tanked ships.


Additionally, no other weapon system has the same combination of range and damage that lasers provide. Projectiles have mediocre paper DPS that gets less when you go into falloff, and hybrids either have long range and bad damage or bad range and good damage.

Lasers are great. It's just that many Amarr ships suffer from old balance issues (Omen, Maller are bad; Harbinger is good but underwhelming compared to the Drake).




All weapon systems do this. The DPS offered by projectiles is laughable without the damage bonus that pretty much all Matari ships get. It's an incentive to use weapons on their racial platforms...You don't put lasers on a Minmatar ship largely because the cap cost would eat you alive, just like you don't put projectiles on Amarr ships because they would do awful damage.

Also, Amarr ships have vastly superior capacitors compared to factions that have capless weapons...like Minmatar.

I don't get this kind of question. Lasers are good, use them to shoot stuff...
To answer the question correctly: lasers are ideal when the ship you are flying has laser turret bonuses.
Would have thought that was obvious.