EVE New Citizens Q&A

As I look through all the different factions of ships, it is the Destroyers that I feel don't get a lot of love.

They are the only class of ship to have one T2 variation, with the exception of the Confessor.

I looked through the different stats of the ships, comparing the Eris to Catalyst, Heretic to Coercer, Cormorant to Flycatcher and Thrasher to Sabre. The T2 ships have less shield, less armor, but target farther and fly faster and have separate advantages when compared to their T1s. If skills are trained.

I saw that the main use of an Interdictor destroyer is to deploy a warp disruption sphere that prevents ships from warping while inside it, and from warping through it.

With that, here come the questions:

-Are Interdictors commonly used to destroy frigates or just for their bubbles?

-Let's say we have an Interdictor against a T1 Cruiser. Can the Interdictor be able to orbit fast enough to escape the tracking speed of medium sized blasters / beam lasers / auto cannon in general?

interdictors are for dropping bubbles and eating frigates for lunch.

Flycatcher can pretty much 2-3 volley any frigate.

They get pretty wrecked by anything bigger than them though, high sig and pretty slow and almost 0 tank.

This might seem weird, but I've never actually bothered to fit any guns on an Interdictor.

Mr Epeen

It's important to realize that the stuff Dictors, and their bigger cousins HICs do, is not something you can do at all in hisec. So you need to view these ships in the light of losec/WH/null operations.

The dictor is used to bubble...that is its main duty and also most people only use it for that.

They are okay against frigates but die to anything bigger easily.

Honestly if you are fitting guns on a Hic you are doing it horribly wrong. Dictors are pretty good at poping frigates but there are cheaper and better ways to kill frigates. The key reason to fly these ships is to deploy a warp bubble to prevent ships from warping or jumping.

CODE. did investigate the prospect of using an Eris fleet doctrine for highsec wars. We decided against it because we weren't happy with the range achieved, but the ship isn't total garbage as a combat ship.

It's basically an assault frigate with more damage potential and worse signature radius (i.e. squishier).

Battlecruisers also only have a single T2 variant- one that is incredibly niche and overlooked by most non-FC types.

Despite being the lone T2 Destroyer variant- Interdictors are some of the most important ships in null sec fleets, and some of the most fun boats to fly. While I can fly most any sub-cap, I still enjoy flying Dictors more than pretty much anything but Recons.
It would be nice to see an additional role for Destroyers. I'm unimpressed with the T3 concept of them so far. Focused ships tend to be more fun than jacks of all trades and masters of none.

Given the ease of getting into Dictors, and their critical role within a null sec fleet, they are the ship I most often suggest new PvP'ers to aim for.

Interdictors don't die nearly as fast as they once did. They are fairly effective at killing tacklers especially. More importantly tho- they need to be weak somewhere.
The Dictor is one of the most dangerous ships on the battlefield because of their bubble capability. That they are so feared is the reason they are usually the first ships to be called primary and killed. Before headshotting an FC, before chasing after logi...Dictors must die. That is a testament to just how dangerous they are to an enemy fleet.
Their relatively weak tank but high mobility is a perfect counter to the HIC, which sacrifices mobility but gains a huge tank. It's an excellent gameplay balance by CCP. Two ships that do essentially the same thing, but in different ways and tactics. In many cases an FC will prefer one or the other depending on the situation, which means each truly has a niche of it's own to fill. In contrast, logi is logi. There might be cap chain vs no...but it's all pretty much the same in practice. The role of tackle gets far more depth between Ceptor, Dictor, and Hictor. Which is why of all fleet roles, I personally find tackle to be the most fun and engaging.
A decent Dictor pilot will be zipping about without the FC needing to bark orders. He is a scout, an ambusher, as well as tackler/anti-tackle. A much more rounded fleet role than the ship-of-the-line DPS applicators.
If a Dictor had more survivability, it would be an OP ship class. Of all ship classes in Eve, I think the Dictors are among the best balanced for their role. Given that they are cheap to replace, they make excellent ships for newer PvP'ers to get into or small gangs to employ. Cheap, fun, deadly....working as intended, IMO.