Ships & Modules

The dps burst is nice, less nice since ASB but still decent.

Usually twice the dps from the normal hull class.

Oh god, ASBs. They went a bit overboard there. Perhaps this will help bring more DPS into the limelight, but lately all I see is it enabling ships to take on ships they would have had no business tackling before.

Rails still need looked at, as do many of the ships such as the astarte and diemost.


That's because you're not supposed to orbit.

Blaster boats do ok in solo and small gang pvp, they're fairly useless in fleets. Some rail ships/fits ARE used in fleets though but generally if you prefer fleet pvp go laser or projectiles.

Also Deimos is fine in a shield fit.

p.s. more tracking on blasters is silly, stop trying to orbit stuff that's smaller than you.

I'm going to try to keep myself short for once, though this topic can definately be debated more indepth...

This is the best summary i can give you:

All Hybrid ships and turrets fare better, per actual mechanics, after Crucible.

Most of the glaring holes were plugged (fitting, tracking, slight damage touch-up).


If we look at the meta: Rails are doing way better and Blasters are doing considerably worse.

The reason is not that Rails would have been given a better actual buff (or that they somehow counter or obscure Blasters by themselves) but rather that Crucible was coupled with a reinforcement of mobile sniping which is the direct tactical opposite to blaster rush.

Blasters in a more traditional static form (blaster drops, gate-games etc.) do slightly better, but not to any eye opening degree - which is fair - it's more or less the same.

The Rail platforms either are mobile sniping (Talos, et. al.) or fare better in a mobile sniping leaned environment (Rokh et. al.), as they can grid-push mobile snipers with buffer-projection.


Those two ships are also the big "winners" of the Hybrid changes:

The Talos as a nano Blaster platform for small gangs running old school kiting tactics, or as a fast mobile sniper.

The Rokh as a range-adaptive, buffer-projection fleet ship offering a good alternative in the Tier3-Mael-Baddon-Drake meta.

You can say the Rokh have ended up inbetween the Mael and Baddon, able to mimic traits of each to deal with the other.

Just fly that Dual ASB Rokh with Crystal's in your head.... Currently my favorite ship. We ran into a Dual ASB Scorpion last night and took 9 of us to break him. God that was fun.

Oh and nano blaster fit Talos has been my bread and butter for 4 months now. Just an amazing ship all around especially with Loki boosts and being able to hit out to 50-60km with Null.

soooooooooo close to mentioning that, but maybe that's a good thing to bring up. It's the newest blaster ship in the Gallente arsenal and it isn't much like the other ones (certainly in terms of bonuses/tanking style). I think the fact that all the ships Liang listed were fast sort of emphasizes the need for a blaster ship to be very mobile, which most frankly aren't. And who wants that in a roam?
(Now, WH space is another story, but I digress).

I think armor tanking's effect on blaster ships is kind of the culprit for them still being scorned for certain things. Nothing like making a ship that needs to get in range quickly into a slow space-turd. I am all for active tanking, but the rig penalties really don't fit with the ship philosophies IMHO.

Frigate sized ships have always been good with blasters, but that's because they won't spend the entire time chasing the other ship, hoping to hit it. I wish the Deimos was more like the Vigilant or that it didn't feel like a waste of isk. Or that you didn't have to sacrifice so much to make it serviceable. Obviously, there are exceptions.
At the same time, I think Noiserevbus brings up a pertinent point - blasters/rails as a whole have a giant cluster of underlying issues (fleet meta, gangs, etc) and at the end of the day, it's not horrible if Gallente don't fit into fleets, as long as they're good at SOMETHING.

Also, thoughts on the Astarte, anyone?

Thanks for your input so far everyone; keep it up!

Guess I'm still not getting it then. Blaster Thorax vs a Blaster Talos or Brutix or Mega or Domi I just hit approach and keep at range then? Or is there some leet manual piloting maneuver you guys aren't sharing?

No offense, but neither one of you has a single kill with a ship that uses medium blasters. Not one. At least that I have been able to find. Its certainly possible you are alts with massive experience, so teach me. You both seem to fly ships with small blasters, but small blasters have no issues. So, with your hookbills, canes, missile ships, projectile ships and laser ships, I am aware there are many other options than orbit at close range if you are faced with a tankier ship with larger guns. Such is not the case with medium blasters. You either run, get right up on them and keep your transversal up, or die. Transversal inside medium blaster optimal range (and even into falloff) = an unreasonable amount of misses, even against larger ships.

Again, I am willing to admit that I can always learn something new. So enlighten me. L2P noob is not constructive.

Shield Myrmidon is 1000 DPS now that the drone damage mods have come out.

-Liang

Trading range for DPS. Good solo if you can dictate or pick the initial engagement range. Good in gangs. Did I mention great DPS? Better tracking since the buff, so you can use most/all of your lows for Mag Stabs. More reasonable fitting requirements.

All in all, very good. And, right now, blaster boats seem to have the best DPS potential among small craft.