Xol'tan wrote:Theres no reason in a fleet to fly anything other than a maelstrom the exception being support and infact its at the piont now where its expected you fly a Alpha setup even if you can only fit t1 1400's.
Rails have poor alpha and perform very badly in lag where they cannot leverage there slightly higher dps, latency demands you fit for the highest Alpha you can to be effective.
Something needs to change or the only ships we are going to see in pvp are Minmitar, atm they hold the best title in far to many catagories Canes and Tornado's Being best BC, Scimitars best Logi and Mealstroms best Fleet BS thats not even looking at HAC's, Dictors and Hictors.
I dont want this to seem a rant against Winmatar but rather a plea to ccp to do something new with hybrids to make them desireable again and ensure some variaty in fleet compositions.
This is not reality.
Abbaddon is pretty much the gold standard for large scale fleet engagements, alpha maels reach a point of diminishing returns once you fleet crests a certain number. Alpha isn't that important unless you are over 850 in system, and 250 pulse lasers will ******* wreck things just as well. Maels are so damned slow that they are relatively easy to out maneuver. Drop a Geddon fleet in the middle of a pack of maels and watch what happens.
Oracle, Naga and Tornado are relatively close depending on application. The guys flying them LOVE their Nagas surprisingly. The Oracle is facefucking DPS from a decent range....easily the best anti-support of the three, and the Tornado....well Tornado is as fast as a Fleet Stabber with a Maelstrom's guns.....whats not to like?
In BC's Drake has 85% more kills than Hurricane this month on eve-kill. Hurricane is a better hack and slash platform, but once you have more than 10 or so to a side the Drake is a better because it can actually survive an alpha or two. This becomes more important when you are stuck on a **** caged gate.
Dictors.....yeah all Sabre all day, this is unsurprising, the fastest ship fits the roll best.
Scimi is only situationally the best shield logi, mainly because the Basi is so bloody slow. The logis all have their uses now, Oneiros is no longer reviled.
Frigate...welp Dram is still the king of frigs, but holy hell the entire Gallente line + Dare Devil are just NASTY now, I mean nasty. I mean really they made my Ares faster....yes please.
T3 Tengu...need I say more
Recons are a closer race between Rapiers and Lachesis....again situational...but you rarely see either turned from fleet.