Source
r/echoes•
Redmoons

Opinions on Amarr laser boats?

Discussion

I was deep into amarr craft in EO and want to enjoy them in EE, but it seems to me that without frequency crystals, the viability of lasers as a damage source is in severe question. I cannot imagine trying to pilot a slow laser boat that cannot modulate its laser ranges to deal with different threats.

In fact I would say anything except kiting or speed tanking looks basically non-viable, at a glance, in the current state of the game.

Am I wrong? Even in pvp, it looks like without crystals a pulse laser boat is simply a worse cannon or blaster user.

Youtube video browsing reveals a real lack of info or guides or anything about amarr ships, since the focus appears to be mostly on cheesing content with missiles initially (who can blame someone for that).

update: a day later I invested in a trainer omen and am currently sustained grinding tier 6 smalls for about 2.5 mil an hour.

4x med pulse, 1 t5 acolyte, 2x armor rep, 1x AB, 2x NOS and a single laser damage rig is what I ventured out into sansha .1 space with and it was totally comfortable up to T6 large, which required a bit of careful flying and an occasional warp. Doing smalls is more consistent money, and the variety of sansha rats makes them an easy farm. I didn't bother with a web because the sansa rat frigates are essentially harmless, and don't web or do anything nasty.

My highest damage shot with 4 linked rank 5 medium pulses was 1001 damage (against fresh shields of course). Pulse lasers range and tracking ability feels fine. I tested out beams a little bit first, but they seemed like hot garbage unless you want to kite forever and then spend 5 minutes going back to loot. Maybe they are better as a support weapon for a craft that isn't also tanking everything.

Overall I am happy that I decided to stick with it. The omen trainer was a great feeling after flying a crappy little coercer for a couple days.

Edit 2 for the curious: a few days later I am doing 280 dps in a regular omen, farming t6 mediums for about 15m an hour total after bounties and loot (shield boosters/extenders/hardeners). I don't want to move into a ONI or Maller yet because I've already lost one omen to a random game crash, and am waiting till I have a larger isk pool to risk losing a ship like that to a disconnect. T7's are fine, even larges if I kite them out a little bit, but they take pretty long and its more money for better and sellable drops in t6's. Largets single hit vs shields was 1639 damage. The same setup in an omen navy issue would push 350dps on paper, which would be absolutely brutal against guristas. With my same skills and the best lasers and drones available instead of navy mediums and a mk5 small, it would be about 380dps.

Thoughts: the ship bonuses for amarr suck ass. While most other faction cruisers have 2 damage bonuses, (damage and tracking), amarr cruisers have 1 damage, and 1 for CAPACITOR USAGE, which for lasers is high. I do not know what the balance decision behind this is, or if there even was one. Having a statistic specifically to reduce the inherent bad quality of a weapon which does not seem especially powerful when compared to its counterparts, seems like a poor balance decision to me. Laser tracking is not significantly better than other weapons, so no tracking bonuses is pretty bad. Additionally, a bonus reserved for capacitor usage only is pure garbage from a pvp standpoint, since the 40 or 50% reduction in cap usage for your fucking weapon is unlikely to be the deciding factor in a matchup. I like amarr, I will continue to fly amarr, but amarr ship bonuses are shit, and several vessels are straight up worthless like the amarr drone boats, when compared to gallante.

Posted Aug 23, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC · edited

1535
1eejit•

Current state of the game maybe. But tanky brawlers will shine more once there are structures to fight over

Also ammo seems to be in the roadmap, hard to be certain from the translation I've seen though.

I've been using Coercer I for t5 and t6 missions and anoms, lots of memes going about how non missiles are useless for pve but it's a big exaggeration.

7
saltiestmanindaworld•

Also once more specialization and fleet setups happen. Putting a tank brawler in first to absorb all the rat fire, then warping in with reppers and the guns will happen at some point, but there’s not anyone focusing on reppers yet (basic skills are important) and there’s not really a lot of tier 9/10 rating going on.

2
Alastor3•

sure, but when is it going to change, in 6 months? in a year?? Im not waiting all that time before deciding which road i want to specialise in weaponry

1
1eejit•

I don't care to chase the latest meme because there's a guide out describing it for newbies. Other race ships and weapons get the job done in pve too. While many of them having better pvp options.

1
ZemtexTrader•

It seems like most people I see use Caldari ships. But how is it with Minmatar? I would like to play a speedkiting sniper boat. I wanna start playing but don't know which ships I should skill up first.

3
Project-IX•

The longer you wait to start, the longer it’ll take to use any ship you want when the time comes

8
1eejit•

Yeah and you can start with general skills like frigate command, afterburner etc

4
RedSnow10•

True. Tons of people using missile boats. But I fly drone boats. I love looking at my mini little frigates chewing up their targets.

I just prefer drones more than missiles.

6
NovaAurora504•

Any tips for a newbie gallente looking to drone on?

2
krovasteel•

Start with Algos until you can fit a Vexor. I could do T6 in a decent skilled/ fitted Algos

2
Noritzu•

As a full matar user it’s fine. I can run t7 sites with ease in a stabber. I can also handle any of the lower grade story missions.

2
Yveradras•

How do you do t7 with a stabber sólo? What build do you use?

2
Noritzu•

4x strike cannons. Republic fleet preferred

Web x2 Small drone of choice

Tracking computer Medium shield booster Mwd Gyro

Collision rig x2

Ancillary powergrid rig x2

Just kite everything. The only danger are the elites that spawn and most of them go down easy. The only ones that are dangerous are specific mwd cruisers that zoom in and do tons of damage while your strikes struggle to hit and don’t keep up. I recommend keeping a secondary fit of auto cannons for these guys

3
HaveCamera_WillShoot•

As always, Minmatar are the kings of hit-and-run. Great speed and DPS, but shitty tank. They can often choose to disengage if the fight isn’t going their way. But also requires more pilot skill. Cal Dari is easiest PvE and surprisingly effective PvP currently with how broken missiles are. That’ll probably change up in the future, but for now the two easy choices for PvP & PvP both seem like Caldari/Minmatar. If you’re newer or less trusting of your skills, hard to beat a Caracal. You can almost certainly defend yourself against any solo opponent until BCs are released and missions/ratting is easier. But it’s harder for Caldari to pin down opponents like kiting drone boats or speedy Minmatar ships.

Caldari = easy and good Minmatar = hard and good

1
noneuklid•

fwiw, the high emphasis on shield-tanked caldari boats with missiles right now means that the most valuable encounters to run on average are caldari ones. t5 medium shield boosters have hovered close to a million each for several days in a row

and guess which boats are absolutely great at clearing guristas

3
1eejit•

Swings and roundabouts, it also makes them the most expensive to fit.

1
DeathmetalCheesecake•

Running amarr myself, did only caldari in EO.

So tanking sites are easy as can be, and compared to my corpmates who use caldari, I run them faster. Since I'm brawling, I don't have to worry about being shot as much, I'll eat those hits.

When I flew my coercer, I was running t5s larges and t6 smalls. Still tanky pulse user, and the larges went a little over 20min.

Now in an omen. Run all 6s and any paying encounter.

My advice, focus on ship skills. Cap, reps, damage all of it. That's how amarr gets better.

Omen rn is dual rep with a cap battery. I run 1 rep the entire time, the 2nd at beginning of waves if I'm below 50% armoror if I'm webbed. Throw the isk towards the green pulse lasers, 45dam each, big plus. Dual webs for when you're webbed to knock them out fast.

Amarr you definitely have to pay attention to what you are doing, instead of orbit and forget. But you won't have to worry about long drawn out fights, unless you start hitting 7s, but I recommend waiting till you get a t6 ship for those. Either for tank or more damage. Those BCS are a pain, personally going with more damage to knock them out faster and since the oni has an extra low I can throw in a hardener to make it better.

1
RedmoonsOP•

thanks for the feedback

was the coercer fun to fly? I've been using the welfare missile boat while I skill up lasers

2
hmmhmmhmm123•

I like the Coercer, been flying the navy varient, am able to afk tank T6 encounters no problem. Haven't tried pvp with it yet with scrams being so expensive, but with an activated heat sink I was getting about 250 dps currently

2
RedmoonsOP•

that sounds pretty sweet, I think I'll begin switching over today and get used to flying it

1
onefuncman•

Coercer navy with mwd and two disruptor is godlike in pvp atm

1
saltiestmanindaworld•

I’m running an omniarmor tank maller with pulses (up to 70%+ resists, and my armor skills aren’t up to snuff or it would be higher) (and I was running a less efficient version in both a coercer guardian, which could do 7s but was slow due to 3 guns, and an omen setup with the same setup, but not quite as tanky due to one less low and no armor resist bonuses). I’m practically invincible to rats, especially guristas. I can kill basically everything fairly quickly inside of 20km. If there’s annoying runners, I can kill all the small stuff and up close stuff, dock, swap to a mwd/ab and circle the long range boats to death.

1
Boxofcookies1001•

Do you think you could get high range with beams?

1
saltiestmanindaworld•

I could, but 19k opti+fallout1 is plenty for me. Beams don’t have as good tracking.

1
Boxofcookies1001•

What kind of DPS are you getting with pulses? I'm trying to decide on pulses or a beam boat

1
saltiestmanindaworld•

A stock mk5 is 40+. I was using factions (since lasers were very affordable when I bought them) which gave me 55 each.

1
Dach_AkrostPirate•

Minmitar run into that issue with lack of ammo. I've never flown Amar so I'm not sure if its as drastic

1
YorkMoresby•

I live and breathe Amarr and exterminating heretics. So I use only the purest Amarr stuff. So I'm biased. Anyway when I played EO I was also Amarr so I'm repeating familiar territory for nostalgia.

1
RedmoonsOP•

updated my post

overall pleased with my initial foray into amarr cruiser pve

1
watchcrySolo•

How/where do you find T6 smalls?

1
RedmoonsOP•

in .1 space

2
watchcrySolo•

Thx

2
RedmoonsOP•

updated

1
scott28574•

Honestly lasers seem like they're in a much better place than railguns atm. Medium rails seem like hot trash compared to either laser. Beams get way more range with better tracking. Pulses get slightly less range with way better tracking.

For reference, I'm running a Moa with a single tracking computer and getting 21.7km optimal and 15km falloff with tracking at 12.5.

That range is just way too low to justify the slow ass tracking. If anything gets inside 20km that isn't webbed, you just can't track fast enough.

Snubs are hilariously bad with maybe 60 tracking but 3km optimal and 4km falloff.

Maybe things will get better with the ferrox since it gets 2 optimal range buffs, but I'm just not seeing how medium+ railguns will ever be useful in their current state. Pvp especially since everything is so fast atm.

1
Quarrel47•

For the longest time I was running a pretty fit Maller. I was able to easily do T7 without issues and small T8 if I was careful. I did run a few T8 med but you have to kite hard. I use to run pulse but I switched out to beam for the distance and put on a tracker to extend that. I would sit out at about 30-40 km and just beam them to death while they couldn't hit me.
Other slots I used a heat sink and WS cause I was paranoid.

I'm currently looking at building an Omen Navy just to test it out see how the difference is. I'm not sure why it has the mods it does (like inertia? am I supposed to be speed tanking?)

I went heavy into lasers and cruisers. I can't say how it is PVP solo, I usually fly in a fleet for that, but most ppl are shield tanks so lasers really help melt those in a fleet.

My end goal is a Phantasm. That's the ship I have my eye on.

1