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Options for an aspiring Gallente Fleet combat pilot.

Author
Lasciel Anduriel
Lasciel Anduriel Corporation
#1 - 2012-11-23 19:59:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Lasciel Anduriel
Hi, fairly new player here, started about a month ago.

I joined a PVP corp, and have been very happy with it, they're a fairly hardcore bunch and their focus is on fleet PVP, currently small-mid scale (10-30 ships) .

The corp has a great CEO that's been playing the game since launch and knows pretty much everything about the game. He knows I want to do fleet PVP, and he wants to move the corp in the direction of being more organized, and taking on bigger challenges. The rub is that I'm Gallente and drone specialized, currently flying Vexors (both vanilla and Navy), and he does not put much weight in the use of drones for large scale PVP.

He doesn't care that I'm using Vexors afaict, but he does want me to train for a Stabber Fleet Issue. He's told me that the skills he'd want me to have would take me about a week to get. I get the impression that in general he'd prefer if I moved away from drones, because he sees smartbombs as so powerful a counter to drones, that having the fleet rely on significant drone damage presents a significant weakness to our composition.

My long term goal is to be a Thanny pilot. The idea of using carriers just really appeals to me, and while I know its a fair ways off, I've been pretty dedicated in pursing it as a goal. I've got a trader alt, and am trying to really learn and understand the market such that I can make enough isk to one day not only buy a Thanny, but be able to support it financially (read, lose them from time to time). I spend my time split about 70/30 trading and PVPing. Trading to learn to earn the kind of isk needed to be an effective capital ships pilot, PVPing so that if I ever actually succeed as a trader, I'll be able to competently fly a multi-billion isk ship often enough to be valuable to the corp (being a Thanny pilot that can never field his carrier isn't that useful =\).

I don't mind training to fly a Stabber for a week for the good of the Corp's fleet composition. My worry is that it won't just be a week training for a stabber. I'm worried that if I start letting others dictate what I train (even well meaning, highly experienced others), when it comes time to switch to Battlecruisers Tornado's will start to look really nice, since the Myrmidon is a drone boat and the other Gallente BattleCruisers suffer on either range or alpha (also, I've already got Minmatar IV cruiser skills, it won't take that long). Then when it comes time for Battleships I'll be looking at training for a Geddon or Rohk. I feel like compromising my long term plan for a stabber or even for the corp is really a slippery slope, and what starts as a lost week's training will turn into a lost year as I grow and my corp needs me to fill new roles.

So I guess my quesitons are:

1. Is Vexor -> Myrm -> Dominix -> Thanatos really that bad for fleet ops before Thanatos? I think my corp leader knows what he's talking about, but at the same time I'm hoping that perhaps he's overlooked something, some obscure ewar build, some new R&K strategy, I'm hoping that there is some way to be fairly valuable to a fleet while taking this path. Are drones really completely gimped for organized professional fleet work?

2. Is the goal of being a Thanny pilot silly for a one month old player? I feel like due to the strong incentives in the game for specialization, I should start working towards this sooner rather than later if I'm serious about doing it.

3. Am I just being a stubborn sob that should just take advice from more experienced people?
baltec1
Bat Country
The Initiative.
#2 - 2012-11-23 20:08:37 UTC
I fly a megathron in every single fleet no matter the shiptypes so it is entirely possible for a gal pilot to do well.
Norm Tempesta
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-11-23 20:16:44 UTC
If the corp does mostly small gang warfare, I would suggest you listen to him. I don't know what your fleet doctrine is but versatility seems to rule in small gang pvp.

There are a few gallente ships that are popular in pvp but not as much as other races(Enyo, Arazu, Brutix comes to mind) and the thorax is supposed to be good soon.

So my suggestion would be to take a bit of direction at first and then as you get more experience, you will be more sure of what your goals are as far as training.
Marlona Sky
State War Academy
Caldari State
#4 - 2012-11-23 20:46:16 UTC
Currently the other three race ship lineups are far superior than the tiny niche situations Gallente do well. Do yourself a favor and train towards Winmitar as fast as possible.
Alara IonStorm
#5 - 2012-11-23 20:52:49 UTC
The Gallente Cruisers are being buffed so you could ask if a new Duel Prop (Armor) or Shield Vexor will fit in with the gang. New Vexor is faster, hardier, easier to fit and has more Dmg potential. Thorax is plain out faster then before, very fast with better tracking. You could also ask if the new Exequror is acceptable as a Logistics Cruiser for the gang, it is cheap to lose for your first times out, Navatas too if you want to practice first.

Stat changes can be found in Features and Idea's, see if he is fine with you still training Gallente if you can bring one of those.
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#6 - 2012-11-23 20:56:12 UTC
Lasciel Anduriel wrote:
I get the impression that in general he'd prefer if I moved away from drones, because he sees smartbombs as so powerful a counter to drones, that having the fleet rely on significant drone damage presents a significant weakness to our composition.


He's not wrong. Currently drone boats are very underused in PvP because they have tons of weaknesses. If you do a search on "drones" and "weakness" you'll see a ton of stuff explaining what the issues are.

Personally I'm more or less in the same boat as you - I like drones, and I'm almost exclusively trained Gallente, with single largest chunk of my SP currently in drone skills. And so far I see them as grossly inferior to all other weapon systems in every department except AFK mission running in hi-sec.

Having said that, a month or so ago, CCP Ytterbium in his blog acknowledged that drones are terribly outdated. This, by itself, is pretty earth-shattering as so far when it comes to drones CCP took the "stuff my fingers in my ears, close my eyes and pretend they're not there" approach. In other words, they might actually get off their hands and fix drones at some point in future. Could even be within a year. And depending on how it's fixed, drones could suddenly become viable once again, like in the good old days.

So, it's a bit of a gamble. Currently your FC wants to you train Winmatar. But will they still be Winmatar after the ship rebalance comes completely full circle and all hulls are rebalanced, which should happen within a year? You could spend time training for the Stabber, only to see it nerfed in under 6 months, or more likely other ships balanced in line with it.

Currently, there's a number of issues Gallente ships face. Last but not least, being armor tanked (slow) and blaster-wielding (short range). However, CCP Fozzie mentioned that armor tank will get looked at, at some indeterminate point in future. What does that mean? Who knows, but perhaps some of the shortcomings of armor tanks might be addressed and brought somewhat in line with shields. Who knows, we might even get an armor equivalent of ASB. All of these would affect Gallente (and Amarr, the secondary drone race, by the way!) more than Caldari or Minmatar. And if drone changes and armor tank changes happen almost simultaneously in next summer's expansion (not likely, but one can dream...), suddenly Winmatar might not even be Winmatar any more.

Bottom line - train what you feel like. Either it'll get fixed, or you'll quit the game, or cross-train. In fact, seeing as they're going to be splitting Destroyers and Battlecruisers, you should be crosstraining right now anyway, and getting those two skills to V if you haven't already.
Voi Lutois
Lux Mundi Exploration Company
Lux Collective
#7 - 2012-11-23 21:53:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Voi Lutois
Stick with Gallente and tell your great leader to lick your *******. Talos and Lach are great in nano gangs and for armor gangs you can bring a Thorax, Deimos, Arazu, Proteus, or Mega depending on ship sizes for fleet. Then you have ships like the Incursus, Enyo, Ishkur, Vexor, Ishtar, Brutix, Myrm, Astarte, Domi, and Hype that are fun to try and solo in or do small gang stuffs. Your ceo probably isn't fond of you using drone ships for fleet action because it takes time for your dps to get to the target and start chewing it up as opposed to say a talos doing sick instant damage out to 60km with null or something and like you said your drones could get blown up by smartbombs or something leaving you without most or all of your deeps. So vexor, myrm, and domi aren't bad at all or anything there are just some other gallente ships that might be a little better for what you are trying to do with them.
Tarvos Telesto
Blood Fanatics
#8 - 2012-11-23 22:15:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Tarvos Telesto
Lasciel Anduriel wrote:
Hi, fairly new player here, started about a month ago.

I joined a PVP corp, and have been very happy with it, they're a fairly hardcore bunch and their focus is on fleet PVP, currently small-mid scale (10-30 ships) .

The corp has a great CEO that's been playing the game since launch and knows pretty much everything about the game. He knows I want to do fleet PVP, and he wants to move the corp in the direction of being more organized, and taking on bigger challenges. The rub is that I'm Gallente and drone specialized, currently flying Vexors (both vanilla and Navy), and he does not put much weight in the use of drones for large scale PVP.

He doesn't care that I'm using Vexors afaict, but he does want me to train for a Stabber Fleet Issue. He's told me that the skills he'd want me to have would take me about a week to get. I get the impression that in general he'd prefer if I moved away from drones, because he sees smartbombs as so powerful a counter to drones, that having the fleet rely on significant drone damage presents a significant weakness to our composition.



First of all, Stabber fleet issue is expensive (compared to other ships) faction ship, i dont know why your CEO want you to train it, espetialy you are new in EvE and i guess you are still on bulid own economy wallet.

Gallente as rase got very good pvp shpis, i dont see any reason to force or suggest you to train expensive minmatar ship while you like Gallente.

I got a lot mutiple rases ships but i play long time, meny of my decision were wrong, espetialy when i start play, focus on one group - rase dont mix!, its only my opinion.

You mention a lot about big ships so here my few cents.

Dominix awesome solo bs and cool in armor RR gank. For example got ability to fit, dual armor rep + two large cap inector, with heavy drones and neuts may stand solo to multiple enemy and even destory them, also good in small RR ganks.
Deimos- ishtars, stron recons, ishktur cool firigate, taranis good tacler, i wont mention about every Galente ships but in general they very good.

Personaly i got ablility to use Thanatos, Moros, and other capital ships form other rases, but after long time i realize i dont like them because of specyfic roles of these ships, in most cases, pos war, low usage etc, i prefer medium - big ships but max battleships.

Rememeber here a lot skills to train well capital, it looks optimistic at first look, but add sub capitals skill at lvl 4 at last, its take +1 year at last... and after one year you may be disapointed with it...

Focus on small med ships and maybe dominix at start.

Willl Adama & Garmon - DEIMOS 2.0 - incredible fight
Ten Gallente dominixs vs +30 man fleet in action.

EvE isn't game, its style of living.

Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#9 - 2012-11-23 22:18:05 UTC
A Vex can carry EC 600s and repair bots as well as combat drones.

IMO, drone boats are indispensable for small fleet warfare. Tell your corp leader to watch some Alliance Tournament footage and pull his head out of his ass.

Mr Epeen Cool
Luc Chastot
#10 - 2012-11-23 22:22:40 UTC
My gank Vexor in Buck goes up to 730dps against large targets. It's pretty cheap too (30-ish millions).

Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot.

SmilingVagrant
Doomheim
#11 - 2012-11-23 22:22:50 UTC  |  Edited by: SmilingVagrant
Marlona Sky wrote:
Currently the other three race ship lineups are far superior than the tiny niche situations Gallente do well. Do yourself a favor and train towards Winmitar as fast as possible.


Going to go ahead and situationally say this is true.

Situationally.

Some Gallente ships that shine:

Talos
Dominix (Sidenote it has to be in a gang that would support it well)
Ishkur/Enyo
Ares/Taranis
Thanatos
Moros

Ships that require gallente skills that really shine:

Dramiel (Even post nerf it's a good ship)
Daredevil
Cynabal
Mach

Some people are starting to get use out of Vindicators as PVP ships which is wild.

Crap how did I forget the Arazu? Honestly an Arazu paired with a buddy in a Daredevil or a rapier is a gate camp FC's wet dream.
YoYo NickyYo
Doomheim
#12 - 2012-11-23 22:23:47 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
I fly a megathron in every single fleet no matter the shiptypes so it is entirely possible for a gal pilot to do well.



Only in the Goons would you get away with that.
And since i have fought 100's of Goon fleets, and never once have I seen a Mega, I can only assume your a liar as well........Lol


I am not, nor will I ever be...Nicky Yo.... The question you should ask is.....When will they release the NICKY!

SmilingVagrant
Doomheim
#13 - 2012-11-23 22:26:00 UTC
YoYo NickyYo wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
I fly a megathron in every single fleet no matter the shiptypes so it is entirely possible for a gal pilot to do well.



Only in the Goons would you get away with that.
And since i have fought 100's of Goon fleets, and never once have I seen a Mega, I can only assume your a liar as well........Lol




In the big fleets there is generally a comedy Mega or two. Some joker has been bringing a comedy apoc lately too.
Tarvos Telesto
Blood Fanatics
#14 - 2012-11-23 22:27:20 UTC
Mr Epeen wrote:
A Vex can carry EC 600s and repair bots as well as combat drones.

IMO, drone boats are indispensable for small fleet warfare. Tell your corp leader to watch some Alliance Tournament footage and pull his head out of his ass.

Mr Epeen Cool


Hi Mr Epeen, welcome back o7

EvE isn't game, its style of living.

ACE McFACE
Dirt 'n' Glitter
Local Is Primary
#15 - 2012-11-23 22:31:04 UTC
Marlona Sky wrote:
Currently the other three race ship lineups are far superior than the tiny niche situations Gallente do well. Do yourself a favor and train towards Winmitar as fast as possible.

This person is stuck in 2010, do not listen to them. However your CEO is right about drones in large fleet fights, but in small roaming gangs they are fine and it would probably be best if you dont fly a Stabber Fleet Issue when you don't have enough skills to fly it well (unless he's willing to pay for them, in that case, go crazy). As for other Gallente ships, the Thorax is getting rebalanced on December 4th and for a small drone package the Tristan will be the only t1 frigate that can use 5 light drones at once.

Also don't forget the new Gallente and Amarr drone destoryers

Now, more than ever, we need a dislike button.

Alara IonStorm
#16 - 2012-11-23 22:31:45 UTC
YoYo NickyYo wrote:

And since i have fought 100's of Goon fleets, and never once have I seen a Mega, I can only assume your a liar as well........Lol

Since you can't type Baltec1 into Google I can only assume you do not know how too.

I will assist you.
Mire Stoude
Bird Law LLP
Bird Law LLP Alliance
#17 - 2012-11-23 23:00:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Mire Stoude
The first two years of playing I was focussed in drones. Take it from me when I say that unless your ultimate goal is to run missions, then you don't need drone skills past T2 lights. In fleets, the only thing drones are used for is for protection against tacklers (5 x warriors). They are a pain in the butt to manage, it takes time to actually apply damage, and they are lost easily. And if you lose your drones in a drone boat, you are useless to your gang.

You can still train drones and use them for carriers in the future, but get out of drone boats for gang warfare. They are ok for solo work, but that's about it.
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#18 - 2012-11-24 00:11:15 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Personally I'm more or less in the same boat as you - I like drones, and I'm almost exclusively trained Gallente, with single largest chunk of my SP currently in drone skills. And so far I see them as grossly inferior to all other weapon systems in every department except AFK mission running in hi-sec.

Having said that, a month or so ago, CCP Ytterbium in his blog acknowledged that drones are terribly outdated. This, by itself, is pretty earth-shattering as so far when it comes to drones CCP took the "stuff my fingers in my ears, close my eyes and pretend they're not there" approach. In other words, they might actually get off their hands and fix drones at some point in future. Could even be within a year. And depending on how it's fixed, drones could suddenly become viable once again, like in the good old days.

Congrats, I hear now the rats will also shoot your drones, so a bit less good for AFK mission running in highsec.

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?

YoYo NickyYo
Doomheim
#19 - 2012-11-24 00:12:26 UTC
Alara IonStorm wrote:
YoYo NickyYo wrote:

And since i have fought 100's of Goon fleets, and never once have I seen a Mega, I can only assume your a liar as well........Lol

Since you can't type Baltec1 into Google I can only assume you do not know how too.

I will assist you.



The problem is, you're foolishly thinking that I, as a troll, care? Lol


I am not, nor will I ever be...Nicky Yo.... The question you should ask is.....When will they release the NICKY!

MotherMoon
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#20 - 2012-11-24 00:14:46 UTC
You should wait 2 weeks for the new expansion. There is no reason to get a fleet stabber when the basic stabber is about to gain 2 slots, a speed boost and a new bonus.

More or less the next expansion should be giving you about 32 brand new ships to mess around with that weren't even worth looking at before

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1206/scimi.jpg

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