Eternal Montage
Frontier Explorer's League
Sadistica Alliance
61
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Posted - 2013.01.02 16:44:00 -
[1] - Quote
Jeesh people, there's no reason for you to be rude.
To the OP: The whole point of Retribution was to make it so all the t1 frigs/cruisers are equal and now have roles. I don't fly frigates so I can't say much about them, but in my opinion, it was almost pointless to fly a t1 cruiser before the expansion. I flew a rupture quite often in solo engagements but that was one of the few cruisers that was actually worth something. Now post patch the Rupture doesn't accomplish the same role, it's no longer an effective kiter because every other cruiser is faster now, but with that, every cruiser is pretty much in line as far as I can see so far.
So here's what I've observed; with a shield tanked Vexor you can get almost 800dps, an ok tank and a decent 1800m/s. The Stabber is actually worth something now as it goes almost 3km/s and does 300dps and has a decent tank and has a couple small neuts, so you can kite with it and do some okay damage, the fit i use hits out to 22km with hail in Vulcan 220s. The Rupture is slightly different now, you can fit a bigger shield tank on it or armor fit it and have some extra utility because of the extra mid, but it has one less high slot so one less neut and it's speed is less impressive as now pretty much everything is faster. You can fit a really nice kiting Thorax fit that will do 400 dps with null out to 24ish km (600dps with void) or armor fit it and give it a massive tank. Its incredibly fast with a shield tank going around 2200m/s or incredibly durable with an armor tank (35k ehp) but a lot less damage. Now, these are the ships that I've flown personally and I can say they're great, and all about equal as they have completely different strengths and weaknesses, but there is a lot of ships that are completely revitalized.
I've played around with fits for the Omen, Maller, Caracal and Moa and though I haven't flown them I do believe they are in line with the ships I've just described. All of them go between 1200 and 3kms (usually right around 1800ms for a shield fit and 1300/1400 for an armor fit). All of them do between 300-800dps (typically around 400 with a good fit), and generally, the more damage output the less damage projection (as with everything)... so for instance the Stabber can do 200dps with barrage out to 45km or something ridiculous like that or about 300dps with hail within 22km [my fit]. The Vexor can do 800 dps with a shield fit which sounds crazy but it has a somewhat small tank at around 15k ehp and a lasb [my fit] and it doesn't project its damage as well. I've also noticed they've made gellente cruisers significantly more agile. It actually feels as though gellente cruisers are more agile than minmatar cruisers yet not as fast.
So I apologize if I'm babbling but I'm merely trying to offer anecdotal/experiential observations. From EFT it looks like the caracal or omen might be the strongest cruisers now but again, they all seem to be relatively in line with each other and I've never flown those ships. Everything has a role now though. So for instance, when a neutral/enemy ship comes into my home system and someone catches him on d scan, I will undock in the best ship I have to counter that... whereas before I would undock in the best and most universally formidable ship I had available (hurricane).
I think cruisers actually have their place now. I'm going to make some really general statements now, please don't stab me. It would seem cruisers are better for combating frigates and destroyers than a battlecruisers but frigates are better for combatting battlecruisers than cruisers are. Yet cruisers have enough speed to avoid getting eaten by battlecruisers now. Frigates have enough speed to avoid cruisers. It's kind of like Stratego. Every ship has its strengths and weaknesses. Before I could beat any cruiser with a rupture, that's no longer possible.
After typing all this I forgot what the question is... but anyways, these are my ruminations on the new ship balance, I think for the most part it worked, I'm pleased with it. I really miss my old rupture but now all the other ships are good sooo... I dunno. If you're trying to figure out which one is actually the best, don't ask me. I personally would never fly any cruiser that can't project its damage out to at least 20km, and I'd never fly one that goes less than 1400m/s, and I'd never fly one with less than 15k ehp (preferably 25k). As a rule of thumb, if you want to kite make sure you have the speed, if you want to brawl make sure you have the tank and/or dps to stay alive. I find the real potential in cruisers to be their ability to kite AND neutralize frigates that get in close, giving them the ability to engage or at least harass big targets but also handle small targets.
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