EVE General Discussion

Can someone enlighten me as to why lasers? Tons of people use lasers- and amarr ships are extremely popular. why? Basically- what do lasers have that set them apart from other guns, and make them so desirable?

Amarr have some of the best looking ships and Lasers are very good as well, along with ammo.

I guess it depends on a variety of factors: skill points, purpose of the ship, engagement range, intended target, personal style and/or preference, the list goes on. While lasers are certainly not my favourite kind of weapon in the game (that'd be blasters hands down), they certainly do serve a purpose in many circumstances and I'm well skilled for laser use, although not as well as blasters. Lasers in a ranged AHAC fleet, for example, along with missiles, light and heavy, can be an incredibly effective, and difficult to defend against, small PVP gang, and a few mercenary groups in high sec use just such fleets to exceptional effect with limited logi and ewar requirements, sometimes none.

Amarr is the blob favored race. Almost every ship they have works better in large groups.

Better tracking.
No ammo requirement.
Can swap ammo/range types instantly.
Work mostly in Optimal so are more consistent (as opposed to Projectiles which have most of their range in Falloff).
EM Damage rips though shields while Thermal is a good all round damage type.
Often have drones to supplement said damage types.
Fast Rate of Fire and can do a lot of damage as well.

Pulse lasers have inferior tracking to blasters and autocannons. Hardly what I'd call extreme.

"with amazing damage projection"

Take something like an abbadon that can have 8 guns. Fit one of each colour crystal into the guns. Shoot rainbows at... whatever you want. Yeah... taste MY rainbow!

the weapon system is not good, its full of problems. starting with scorch.

on medium energy guns scorch is so good it still outshines Beams even after a recent 25% percent damage buff.... that's not really a sign of Scorch being good, its a sign of how poorly thought through the whole weapon system is. it also brings some light on the T2 ammo problems, and the wall that they are to new players.

medium pulses are too easy to fit as expected, and deal a really nice damage, but with such a crap projection that you cant really use them unless you have the option of Scorch, so forget about meta guns, and forget about being competitive if you are new on the game. (and by crap projection im taking into account the speed of your average amarr ship along with their over reliance on overloading to keep point, keep webs, and keep range.)
medium beams are too hard to fit with too crappy of a projection on its medium and small sizes, turning things around on the tachs... so much in fact that people rarely care for pulses at the large size. -.-'

the whole weapon system is a mess... does it work? yeah... but there are no fitting choices really. "up until large make sure that whatever you are shooting with can load scorch." that's how far the thought process goes. the only people that care to switch crystals are incursion runners, and half the time, why bother? when the fleet alpha is so ******** you could be shooting T1 ammo.

as far as weapon system being desirable? its simple a matter of being able to keep tracking on the edge of optimal, something that rails have a problem doing, even at .5 falloff :/ not so much once you hit large rails/tachs.
that and great fleet hulls. that is, hulls that synergize well with Logis. high resists + low signatures. (Mallers, Zealots, Napocs) that's really all there is. ask anyone on PL or other null alliances (or npc null dwellers) that field amarr hulls and they will never talk about guns, they will always start with the resists and signature. the napoc is the smallest battleship outside of the minnie hulls (which on null doctrines CANNOT be used with anything but Artys... whose role on today's 2k+ fleet brawls is down to "we do explosive damage guyz!") that 370 sig paired with links, drugs and even LG halos is enough to screw up rails. add to that signature radius six lowslots for tank and you get a pretty nasty battleship. its pretty impressive, but really expensive.

lasers aren't really desirable, if we could fit rails and keep the bonusses on Zealots or Navy apocs, then people would ditch energy guns all together. because even when rails have terrible tracking, they aren't as reliant on cap, project the same, track the same (considering the ranges at which null engagements heppen), and once Neuting bombs land, rails wreck fleets with their therm/kin, while energy still hits the natural peak resist.

bleh, im ranting... i love lazors, i just wish the medium/small ones didn't suck as much.