EVE General Discussion

Alright so I'm a new player....thinking about scrapping this Caldari guy for what may SEEM like a weird reason:

Caldari ships look hideous to me.

Tried Gallente, but I don't like their heavy reliance on Drones, and many of their ships are ugly too.

...Don't even get me started on Minmatar...holy crap...

I Love the look of Amarr ships as well as their lore...but in my research I've seen that not many people fly Amarr ships.

I do not see the use in flying a pretty ship that can't fight worth a damn.

I plan on investing a good (unhealthy?) amount of time into this game...I can't do that with ugly ships...I tried.

Would be appreciative of some established PvPers giving me their take on Amarr ships.

Good for new Players?
Effective in Fleets?
Pros and Cons in your opinion?
Do you fly them regularly? How successful have you been?

TYVM for your time and advice,

KP

Amarr ships will be a great deal more viable this winter onwards but you will need to train those cap skills.

Amarr ships are very common in PVP at the Battlecruiser and Battleship level. You see tons of Legions, Abaddons, Apocs, and Armageddons in big fleets. And the faction battleships like the Blood Raider Bhaalgorn are quite common as well. And the Guardian is ever-present in armor-tanked fleets. In smaller-scale PVP and PVE, you see a lot of Harbingers out there. Smaller Amarr ships can have trouble because energy weapons are capacitor-intensive, and this makes Amarr ships terribly weak to neut/nos tactics. (Hence the popularity of the Bhaalgorn in large fleeet engagements.)

If most of your experience has been in the smaller ships, Minmatar ships tend to be more popular due to their higher speed and DPS. But their advantage fades as the ships get bigger. Amarr ships do very well at the level of battlecruiser and above.

That being said, even smaller Amarr ships are fun to fly. The Punisher is a great frigate, and I like the Omen Navy Issue quite a lot for plexing and exploration. (The base Omen isn't as good as the Navy version, but it's also a lot cheaper.)

EDIT: Another reason that smaller Amarr ships tend to be less popular than other ships is that energy weapons only do two kinds of damage: EM and Thermal. Thus it makes certain ships and enemies hard to beat (like Angels). Minmatar ships (projectile weapons) and Caldari ships (missiles) can "dial a damage" and thus have better options for offense. But even at that, a ship like the Harbinger is the equal of nearly any other equivalent ship in the game if the player has good skills.

That's a good point. Any race can fly any ship -- you're not limited to Caldari ships just because you spun up a Caldari toon. You're "born" knowing how to fly Caldari frigates, but you can train up on the other racial ships any time you want just by buying the skill books.

We have considered accepting you into our order OP.
You must biomass your current self as to prove your loyalty by purging the wicked.

You just saved me 2 weeks of skilling from going down the drain. I completely forgot we could cross-train. I dub thee a Demi-God.

If you like Siege fights, Amarr is the way to go.
They never really shine with DPS but an Amarr hull is one of the most versatile and rugged in the game. Due to their slow nature they are also a do or die choice. No skinning out when the hull starts to cook like other races.

Just discussing the bad Amarr ships, regardless of role.

And the Coercer is still the worst dessie. Yes, you can make it work in certain scenarios, but any other dessie would work better in that same role. The Thrasher is a better choice in almost every case where you'd need to put a dessie in the field, with the Catalyst running a close second.