Ships & Modules

Question is in the title, are the changes to the rifter going live today enough for me to engage something other than another rifter?

Engage everything in your rifter mate! They are a lot better than most people realise you just need to know how to fly it.

Today it got a bit faster and a bit better damage projection. Whats not to like! It won't become FOTM though which is a good thing imo.

Tbh the argument that a slasher can kill anything a rifter can is pretty weak really. After the rebalances there are very few things that one frig can kill and it's brother from the attack or combat lines can't as well. And this is a good thing as it means you have much more variety in frig pvp circles.

The rifter v slasher argument has been done to death and imo kinda silly. It's like arguing a tormentor v executioner or incursus v atron. Pointless they are different ships with different (slightly) abilities. You learn how to fly to the strengths of your while exploiting the weaknesses of other simple.

Now the rifter has it's bonus changed I see it even more capable than a slasher. It now has the ability to out project it's damage and is still fast enough to handle manual piloting to assist when dealing with the niche TD armour slasher.

Gonna be fun trying the amarr concepts as well

Right up to the point where a Slasher can do stuff the Rifter can't, so they're not equally useful in that respect, the Rifter simply has less options. I guess it's more that I don't like the "slow" brawler frigs too much, right now they're not doing too well because they can't compete (strategy wise) with the kite frigates while getting in the way of AFs and those will, normally, eat them alive. The only reason why the Slasher isn't vastly outperforming the Rifter is because atm small projectiles suck at dps@20km and while the new bonus helps with that it's on the "wrong" ship.

It's very much forced into a scram kiting strategy which, while useful, is also very obvious and doesn't work against cruisers or kiting frigs. So this change doesn't solve the issue, mostly because it's not an issue with the Rifter itself.

Rifter has crazy fitting issues when it tries to use arties. I've some setups I want to try after this patch. Still waiting for it to download (1.2gb for a point release with not much change in graphics dpt....wtf)

It's not fast enough compared to other kiters (Condor, Atron, Executioner), that is exactly my point.

Right now projectile kiters have issues, rail/missile/laser kiters work much better than projectiles and it seems that CCP tries to fix 2 problems in one go; fix projectile kiting and fix the Rifter in the process. The problem is that this doesn't work because said Rifter isn't a kiter due to lack of speed (hence my "it's on the wrong ship" remark) and projectiles aren't good at kiting anyway.

Thus their Rifter solution doesn't work; it doesn't make it a better kiter and it doesn't solve Minnie's issues. The true solution would be to increase arty dps (while lowering alpha to not make it silly), THEN Minnie kiters can work, regardless of the Rifter and/or it's falloff bonus.

I can see why they're trying it though because there's no obvious way to boost the Rifter (within Minmatar "parameters") without making it silly OP.

As much as I love the Rifter, the changes in this patch won't really impact much on how it is flown or it's general strength.

You have always been able to take on other frigates, however it required a decent amount of knowledge of other ships and their meta and good range dictation skills.

With the speed boost and falloff bonus, it will just be overall better (compared to it's older self, obviously :P) since it's faster and does more DPS, because of better falloff. However, the ship is still rather slow (compared to for example the Breacher), and it's general DPS is also very low.

If one has rocket skills on the same level as ones AC skills, I cannot see a reason to pick the Rifter over the Breacher, since the Breacher does the same, just much better (At least in solo pvp).

Flying Rifters is still fun though, and I'll take a look at it. I just don't expect a huge power boost.

Odd, my Rifter seems to be doing 107 DPS at twenty point four kilometers....

Hmm... still goes over 3k a second. And over 5k EHP?

Yea, it will never be a FULL kiter.
No one will ever solo in a Rifter

The Slasher is faster then all of the ships you just listed. 150mm AC, small Neut, MWD, MASB, Web, and scram - you don't need to shoot farther then them because you can run them down and either tank their damage for the time needed to kill them or simply get under their guns. My Slasher fit will do 6.4 km/s without links overheated.

The Rifter makes a great armor brawler:

High:
200mm II x 3
Rocket Launcher II
Mid:
AB II
Web II
Scram II
Low:
SAAR
Adaptive Nano Ii
F85 DC
Rigs:
Armor Nano x 2
Projectile Burst

135 - 156 DPS depending on overheat. 129 DPS Tanked until the SAAR runs out of paste - but it will keep repairing past that. Small sig that can be further exploited via links or halo implants. This is good for very small FW plex combat. For small fleets you can go 200mm plate, MWD, CPU rig, and meta modules instead. The Rifter is the best bet if you want an armor frigate in the Minmatar lineup.

Vs. the Slasher:
50% extra falloff and higher DPS as well as the TD 'nerf' reduces the impact overall of the 200mm + TD Slasher. The Rifter's utility high does allow a launcher whereas the Slasher's does not. It's only ~ 20 DPS - but that pushes the Rifter's DPS from 'meh' to 'okay' all the same.

Vs. the Breacher:
The Breacher needs a BCU II and a Warhead Calefaction rig in addition to two hobs to match the DPS of the Rifter above. It does send that DPS all the way out to scram range. The Rifter is capable of much more DPS if it shield tanks. The Rifter is safe loading EMP to fight the Breacher. The Breacher has to guess if the Rifter is armor tanked or shield tanked.

I think one of the reasons the Breacher is loved is it's efficient. 3 launcher highs. 4 mids. 3 lows. Everything get's used. In the case of the Slasher and Rifter that utility high is a pita to fit.

Shield Rifter:
People will post fits all day long. A lot of fits need one, if not two fitting mods/rigs though. An AC Shield Rifter really needs a gyro, TE, and projectile rigs to work to the point of being justified. This is probably fine in a fleet setup.

Arty Rifter:
Poor cap. Poor fittings. No more tracking bonus. If you can make it work more power to you.

It's not realistic to compare a full snake fit T1 frigate and then state how it'll "pwn noobs", it doesn't help the balancing discussion in any way. Partly because it's slightly slilly and mostly because you're assuming the target doesn't do the same thing and isn't on the same page when it comes to pvp. We're talking kiting fits, Rifter and how Minnie has issues there atm, your snaked up brawl Slasher doesn't solve anything :)

Also, your rifter fit gets killed by the first Executioner, condor or atron it runs into, which goes back to my original statement; Scram kiters are in trouble since the frigate rebalancing.