Ships & Modules

So finally I decided to fly Marauder! This is a bit distant goal because I must train about 80 days to be able to fly one. However now it's good time to choose the best Marauder for me. I definitely reject Paladin because I do not fly missions in Amarr space but remaining three Marauders are worth considering. Namely I run missions against Guristas and Serpentis. Thus which of those three beasts would be the best here?

Here you are my relevant skills:

Engineering

Power Grid Management, Weapon Upgrades, CPU Management - V
Capacitor Management, Capacitor Systems Operation, Electronic Upgrades, Power Grid Upgrades - IV
Capacitor Emission Systems - III

Turrets

Gunnery, Rapid Firing - V
Controlled Burst, Motion Prediction, Sharpshooter, Trajectory Analysis, Surgical Strike - IV
Large Projectile / Laser / Hybrid Turret - IV

Missiles

Missile Launcher Operation - V
Cruise Missiles, Torpedoes - IV
Guided Missile Precision, Missile Bombardment, Missile Projection, Rapid Launch, Target Navigation Prediction, Warhead Upgrades - IV

Drones

Drones, Drone Avionics, Light / Medium Drones Operation - V
Advanced Drone Avionics, Heavy Drone Operation, Sentry Drone Interfacing - IV
Drone Navigation / Sharpshooting / Interfacing - IV
All Racial Drone Specializations - III
Drone Durability - III


Shields

Shield Operation - V
Shield Upgrades, Shield Compensation, Shield Management, Tactical Shield Manipulation - IV
EM / Thermic / Explosive / Kinetic Shield Compensation - IV
Shield Emission Systems - III

Paladin. No I'm not kidding.

I fly two, currently. Kronos and Paladin. Paladin was my first Marauder. Did every mission with it that did not involve going against empires. Nothing wrong with it in any way, shape, or form. It performs marvelously and is quite versatile. I highly, highly recommend it.

The Kronos, well, oddly does not perform nearly as well as you think. Even shooting directly into the resist holes of Guristas and Serps, I find that my mission clearance times are about the same against those enemies when I'm using my Paladin. Same goes for Angels, my time spent smashing red crosses to pieces is about the same for both ships. And anything with EM or thermal vulnerabilities, the Paladin rips apart with holy thunder. So again, my recommendation is for the Paladin.

If you really, really are keen on damage selection, the Vargur works quite well from what I hear. But damage selection is largely unnecessary in this day and age. You put enough DPS down the field, the enemy will collapse. Their resistances, other than "elite" ships, are trivial at best. And with all of your weapons dealing double damage thanks to the marauder role bonus, renders any pittance of resistance irrelevant.

Golem is what everyone talks about, but missiles can be a big pain in the rear. Delayed damage, you have to severely gimp your setup to be able to hit smaller targets, counting volleys to make sure you don't waste time and ammo on targets, it's all for the birds as far as I'm concerned (hey did I just inadvertently make a Caldari pun?). I did that with my Raven, once I left it behind I felt immediate relief. Turrets are much, much better for my money.

I often hear the Vargur referred to as the "Unrivaled king of PvE", so if you really don't want the ease of use and flexibility of the Paladin, go Vargur.

Is Vargur armed with autocannons or howitzers?
Similarly is Kronos armed with blasters or railguns?

Either - and Khan is quite right in saying this! - but ACs are the best imo. Fantastic damage and range. Additionally, once you get those skills down, a Mach is just a skip away should you decide later to blitz missions.


e: A thousand times 'yarp', the RoF of ACs vs. artillery is simply the best. Like torps, you'll be waiting around a lot and having to count shots and all that unnecessary nonsense. Much better to have a sub-3 second RoF and just hammer away at F1 and be done with it :)

I agree wholeheartedly with Khan on the whole Kronos issue - I was psyched when I first got one, after the hybrid rebalance years ago, but really disappointed putting it use. Of course, blasters negate most of this issue when you consider the sheer DPS output, but...meh. Paladin or Vargur are much better - I have no patience for the Golem or salvo counting :)

I'll echo Khan here , the paladin is a fantastic ship regardless of which race you are shooting.

The reason being it projects out so well that you can just power through the resists even if you are shooting straight into their max resists.

You can get over 1000 gun dps out to something silly like 40k and then switch to scotch (mistyped that but I kinda like it) and hit out to 109k instantly and melt face out there too and that's with short range guns.

Put tachs an there and you can hit 280k falloff...Yeah I know.

It's also by far and away the sexiest looking of the bunch.

Well, I'm going to chime in for the Golem. Yes, it's delayed damage - but with the +25% missile velocity boost from Bastion you're only looking at 3-5 seconds for the most part. Even though you can fit them, I don't recommend torpedoes or rapid heavy missile launchers (you'll end up using Javelin torpedoes and Fury cruise both out-DPS and out-range them; you lose too much DPS to the lengthy reload for rapids).

4x Cruise Missile Launcher II, Fury ammunition
1x Bastion Module I
2x Small Tractor Beam II
1x Salvager II
5x Warrior II

1x Shadow Serpentis 500MN Microwarpdrive
2x Missile Guidance Computer II, precision-scripted
2x Phased Navigation Array
1x Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invulnerability
1x Pithum C-Type X-Large Shield Booster

4x Dread Guristas Ballistic Control Unit
2x Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst II

This will kill absolutely anything at ranges out to 115km. With +5 missile implants you'll smite all battleships in 2-3 volleys (occasionally one more if they get a repair cycle in), elite cruisers in 2 volleys and everything else (including frigates) in a single volley. Bring along some Precision ammo to deal with missions that have a lot of pesky frigates. Mid-grade Ascendancy implants will boost your warp speed to almost 3 AU/s. With max skills and implants I think it puts out close to 1200 applied DPS (not paper).

No argument there - the 8-second cycle time is a real PITA. Most of the players that run Golems split the launchers in two pairs, switch to Precision ammo and designate a TP to each cruiser or frigate. A bit more micromanagement to be sure, but still effective. You can switch to hydraulic rigs for a +40% missile velocity boost but then you need to run Faction ammunition to make up for the lost damage application against anything smaller than battlecruisers.

You can actually use medium reppers on Marauders .. they are cheap and still get a 500-600 dps tank, more than enough for missions. It also allows to be lazy: auto-run and done. That can also save your ship in disconnects

btw, I agree that the Paladin works against all enemys, but so does every Marauder. Fighting Angel Cartel in a Paladin isnt that great

regarding the Vargur, I mostly use Autocannons, they have sufficient range and the ammo consumption is manageable. Arty works too but I only use them when a onehitkill is required (Scarlet..)

the Kronos .. you want to use Blasters, but the problem is that the preferred enemy (Serpentis/Guristas) mostly stays out of effective range. Its quite annoying

Polarized AC Vargur. XL pith + cap booster for tank, rest all damage and application, warp speed rigs.