EVE New Citizens Q&A

Lasers do EM/Thermal damage, which are often the weakest resists on t1 shield tanked ships.... This is highly dependent on fits though...

Scorch is viewed as awesome, because it has a very long optimal range (& short falloff), whereas null & barrage blasters & autocannon long range ammo utilitze longer "falloffs" to hit targets at range rather than the huge increase to optimal range.

A quick explanation as to why that is good:
If a target is within Optimal range, assuming you can track it, you deal moreless full damage... As a target moves farther out into the Optimal to Optimal+Falloff range, your damage becomes more and more reduced. At an Optimal + Falloff distance, you deal about 50% of your max damage. At Optimal + 2x falloff, you deal moreless no damage...

To compare numbers:
Using close range ammo:
Light Neutron blaster II: 37 dps at 1.1 + 3.1 km
Small Focused Pulse laser II: 31 dps at 3.8 + 2.5 km
200mm Autocannon II: 27 dps at 0.8 + 6 km's

Using long range ammo:
Light Neutron blaster II: 30 dps at 3.2 + 4.4 km
Small Focused Pulse laser II: 24 dps at 9.9 + 2.5 km
200mm Autocannon II: 22 dps at 1.5 + 9 km's

Here, Blasters do the most EFT dps, but need the target to be close in order to apply it, whereas pulse laser's do the most "ranged" dps because of scorch... but, due to poor tracking, almost need the target to be at range in order to truly apply that dps...

Lasers are very good, but so are blasters.... It really comes down to your flying/fighting preferences... I'm an face-melting blaster type of guy that likes to orbit my enemies at 500m, which is a sweet spot that often allows me to negate the enemies dps because they can't track me. However, it also commits me to a fight, meaning if things go south, I lose my ship.... many laser users engage from range, which means they do less dps, but have a GTFO ability...

Scorch is t2 long range ammo for short range lasers. The t2 long range ammo for any of the short range weapons is really important as it allows you have the high potential damage output of close range weapons while being able to hit at long range if you need to. Scorch for lasers is particularly good as it extends optimal while the others (barrage for autocannons and null for blasters) do it more through fall-off. As it is if you intend to do any pvp this t2 ammo is absolutely key to your arsenal and the main reason people skill for t2 weapons asap.

Pulse lasers do not do as much damage as blasters nor do they have as good tracking, their range is fantastic however. Both are damage type limited though this hurts lasers more than blasters in most cases.

As it is several of the main null sec fleet types are based off pulse lasers despite poor damage choice simply because of the range when using scorch. In smaller gang combat engagement envelopes become less key and autocannons and blasters become more useful.