If we look at what's been done to the Amarr ship list over the last few patches a trend quickly emerges:

Dragoon = drones, half turrets, half missiles.
Arbitrator = drones, half turrets, half missiles.
Prophecy = drones, half turrets, half missiles.

Now the question is: Why is this being done? Didn't Amarr ships always revolve around lasers and nothing else? Well, yes they did - and it sucked! Weak tracking, weak damage, massive capacitor drain (and on active armor tank ships, no less), and confined to only EM & Thermal damage. If you saw an Amarr ship coming you knew that you could totally ignore all Kinetic & Explosive resists and just pack in the EM & Thermal and call it done.

Aha... but not any more! Now yes you could always put cannons on your Arbitrator (a recommended tactic, btw) and you can still do the same with the same with the Dragoon and new model Prophecy (again, a recommended tactic - save your cap for armor reps), until recently your non-laser options as Amarr were very, very limited.

But now we see three dedicated drone boats, all split between turrets and missiles, and each without any gun bonuses so there is nothing stopping you from sticking artillery or blasters on them. What does the Amarr gain from this? Variety. You can load down any of these ships with Thermal drones, then stick some rail guns in set to do Kinetic damage and top it off with some Explosive missiles.

Meaning they are in no way confined to that limited EM & Thermal Only prison that all the classic Amarr laser boats have been locked into so far. And you'll notice that a number of other Amarr ships have been getting the missile launcher refits over time as well; even the Apocalypse now has the option to stick a couple of missile batteries on there if the pilot wants to.

All very refreshing changes indeed!

Now, if only they would implement scorch for the rest of us...

it's going to be the Geddon. At least you'll have 5 heavy drones.

According to CCP Fozzie's last statements, the Amarr Battleship lineup will get minimal balancing changes as they are all in pretty good shape.

http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73530

Armageddon: this ship is performing well at the time being, and thus we have little reason to alter it.
Apocalypse: is behaving well at the moment, so there is little point in changing it.
Abbadon: a nice ship with fine purpose in fleets and large gangs.

Hmmm. I wonder why all the races are using each others weapon systems more and more with each patch?

I'm all for giving amarr more variety.. but something about gallente not being the "drone race" and caldari not being the "missile race" anymore kinda bothers me.

Makes ya wonder what the game is going to look like in a year or two.

Hello there, that blog ain't from Fozzie though

But yes, Amarr Battleships are fine at the moment, so there is no reason to change one of them to fit this drone line-up. If / when we introduce the line on the Battleship level, it'll likely be on a new hull. The Battleship that'll change the most with the Tiericide will be the Typhoon, as it will most likely move over to the Breacher / Bellicose / Cyclone philosophy by focusing its weapon system on missiles. Of course, large missiles need to be looked at for this to work (the Raven needs it as well).

Hmmm. I wonder why all the races are using each others weapon systems more and more with each patch?

I'm all for giving amarr more variety.. but something about gallente not being the "drone race" and caldari not being the "missile race" anymore kinda bothers me.

But yes, Amarr Battleships are fine at the moment, so there is no reason to change one of them to fit this drone line-up. If / when we introduce the line on the Battleship level, it'll likely be on a new hull. The Battleship that'll change the most with the Tiericide will be the Typhoon, as it will most likely move over to the Breacher / Bellicose / Cyclone philosophy by focusing its weapon system on missiles. Of course, large missiles need to be looked at for this to work (the Raven needs it as well).

But yes, Amarr Battleships are fine at the moment, so there is no reason to change one of them to fit this drone line-up. If / when we introduce the line on the Battleship level, it'll likely be on a new hull. The Battleship that'll change the most with the Tiericide will be the Typhoon, as it will most likely move over to the Breacher / Bellicose / Cyclone philosophy by focusing its weapon system on missiles. Of course, large missiles need to be looked at for this to work (the Raven needs it as well).

Now the question is: Why is this being done? Didn't Amarr ships always revolve around lasers and nothing else? Well, yes they did - and it sucked! Weak tracking, weak damage, massive capacitor drain (and on active armor tank ships, no less), and confined to only EM & Thermal damage.

Hey Ytterbium, does that mean there will be no attempt to preserve the iconic Minmatar split weapon ships?

Whether by merging the missile/projectile bonuses into a single one (so as not 'waste' one compared to other hulls), or by....well....you are the Dev.

But yes, Amarr Battleships are fine at the moment, so there is no reason to change one of them to fit this drone line-up. If / when we introduce the line on the Battleship level, it'll likely be on a new hull. The Battleship that'll change the most with the Tiericide will be the Typhoon, as it will most likely move over to the Breacher / Bellicose / Cyclone philosophy by focusing its weapon system on missiles. Of course, large missiles need to be looked at for this to work (the Raven needs it as well).

Its going to look like a bunch of the same ships on diffrent hulls with the only racial trait being their tank type. That balances the game right?

It does seem to be slightly tipping this way, so many people whining about there races ships and how they cant compete that CCP seems to be slowly turning a lot of ships to be exactly the same just with different hulls.

Hello there, that blog ain't from Fozzie though

But yes, Amarr Battleships are fine at the moment, so there is no reason to change one of them to fit this drone line-up. If / when we introduce the line on the Battleship level, it'll likely be on a new hull. The Battleship that'll change the most with the Tiericide will be the Typhoon, as it will most likely move over to the Breacher / Bellicose / Cyclone philosophy by focusing its weapon system on missiles. Of course, large missiles need to be looked at for this to work (the Raven needs it as well).

Drones need a buff, particularly with their AI.

Hmmm. I wonder why all the races are using each others weapon systems more and more with each patch?

I'm all for giving amarr more variety.. but something about gallente not being the "drone race" and caldari not being the "missile race" anymore kinda bothers me.

Makes ya wonder what the game is going to look like in a year or two.

Like in any war, different empires see what weapons their enemies are using and adapt similar systems to counter it...

Great, now you got me worried. You do have a point though, it seems there slow trend of homogenization between races going on.