Ships & Modules

I remember the old generalisation of "Blasters for PvP and Rails for PvE" but I was wondering what is the prevailing opinion on the feasibility of using Blasters in solo PvE missions now they have been rebalanced?

I know that some missions with Stasis Towers will be a pain, as well as those with Web/Scram Frigates as the Triggers for spawns. Are there any other issues I will have to watch out for?

At the moment I am flying T1 Gallente hulls (I have the gun boat skills to level 4). My fitting skills are fair (most to level 4 with the key skills to 5) and my Gunnery skills are *just* under T2 as I have the last few level 5 skills to finish off. I can fit T2 armour tank.

I have been used to flying the drone boats up to Dominix (T2 light/medium drones, T1 heavy or sentry) but wonder if Blasters will be feasible now or are Rails still advised.

Thanks in advance.

So, despite the rebalance, is it still for the same old reasons?

Having to tank the entire group while you burn to closing distance, ships *still* getting under the tracking and wrecks all over the place because of attempting to herd cats who are only slightly slower than you and who insist on orbiting at range while you chase your selected victim?

Just to clarify, I am speaking about PvE Missions here, not Incursions or Ratting.

Their range is still abysmal, which means that while they might be fun for some missions (Damsel?), they're still no good for the vast majority.

1000 dps may sound nice, but if you spend 50% of your time not shooting (since your target is out of range), you're only doing 500 dps.

Oi, Fairhand!

The advice given on corp chat last night not good enough for you eh?

Problem with large blasters in PvE was and still is that beyond +30km you might as well use rails as far as damage projection is concerned even if you could hit further with lead which of c. makes blasters useless when you hit the same with rails and antimatter.
Only thing where blasters work is angels but that's because angels obviously have red army field manual from WW2 as tactical reading.

Blasters really suck cap too. Short range, high fitting requirements, cap hungry, so many drawbacks.

They suck less cap than equivalent railguns and are easier to fit than said railguns. :themoreyouknow:

Correct.

Amend to:
The short range of blasters requires high usage of MWD/AB to power into range.
The combined usage of MWD and blasters (which are still quite cap intensive) really nukes that capacitor far more than rails, where only occasional pulsing of the prop mod (or no prop mod) is required.

No argument whatsoever and that was a good clarification.
I like rails quite a bit now actually.

This really has a lot of factors.

There are missions where spawn ranges mean that large blasters can be more effective in regards to battleships but for most missions rails would still be preferred
.
Things change a little with medium guns, medium rails can still be lacking in range and blasters can be used effectively on a Proteus against Kin/Therm Enemies. In these missions not only is the enemy weak to the damage type but the natural resists of the proteus mean that the ship can be max gank min tank, plus it can travel at 1600m/s.

When I mission I normally have a few ships on standby a Sleip for angels (only trained T2 guns up to medium in minmatar), a Rail Hype for missions with stasis towers like Surprise Surprise and the Blaster Proteus for all Serpentis missions.

My Proteus is a cap boosting (Rarely needed), microwarpdrive fit with two tracking enhancers and a two slot tank, the rest is pretty standard.

If you want heavily tanked cap stable ships with as little change to fits between misisons as possible, then I would not advise using Blasters.