Warfare & Tactics

There are missile doctrines out there and some blocks use them. Talwars and Caracals, for example. The main point of these is quite large alpha damage which they can do.

This is mostly true regarding incursion fleets. Plus, the mechanics of applying large turret DPS are common enough that you'll get most, if not all, of your possible damage output. At close range, there's no missile comparison to Vindicator DPS. You'll see missile platforms balance out with turrets at farther ranges -- at which the delay is more noticeable. When you have to compete with another fleet and the target dies before your missiles get there, you're playing a man down.

There was a time when Drake fleets roamed the lands and kitchen sinks ran in terror, but those days are no more. It's been less of a delayed damage thing as it has been changes to the damage and application of the missile launchers themselves as well as some pretty stout swings of the nerf bat to the platforms that use them.

I'm lucky enough to be able to use turrets and missiles equally well, and I think each have their own ups and downs depending on different scenarios and your role and playstyle.

Just go with what you think is most fun to you and make it work for you.

the larger your fleet, the less viable missiles become. unless of course you are all shooting missiles

Yeah, light missiles are better in a few roles, but mostly Drones and Turrets everywhere else, it's definitely too skill intensive for a new player to specialize in missiles straight away: it seriously limits options later on. After light missiles it's Drones and Turrets all the way. Same goes for training a new char, unless you specifically want to solo kite in frigates and interceptors drones/turrets are a much better option, they are also more forgiving for starting out in solo pvp since kiting takes a lot of manual piloting, and you really need skills at 4/5 across the board to kite with missiles. lower skills and you're looking at doing 40-50 dps, slow missiles that don't have much range and can be outrun, poor damage application of your already poor dps. The fits are tight so you need good fitting skills, also cap and navigation skills, and after all that you still have to spend a lot of isk on the fits because the meta4 launchers are nearly 5mil ISK each and the tech 2 launchers are usually too hard to fit.

Maybe good for experienced players with lots of skill points but I wouldn't go for missiles again, any new players reading don't train missiles straight away! if I got all my skill points back to spend again I'd put all into Gallente and Caldari, Hybrids and Drones, they compliment each other well because both races use Hybrids so you have options in every class and every role. Then you can either switch into Lasers or Projectiles, or you can go into missiles and all your skills will still be useful.