With Gallente Cruiser V finishing this week, I've been musing on what ships I want to buy and try out and which ones I'm going to give a pass. Here are my thoughts.
Oneiros - Logistics ship - Considered by many to be inferior to the Amarr Guardian due to the fact that it has bonuses to armour reppers and tracking links instead of armour reppers and energy transfer arrays. Plus the Guardian has the bigger armour tank. As its not in demand for alliance ops its not on my list to check out.
Arazu - Force Recon - This ship is on my list. I love flying my Falcon and the Arazu has some better qualities I like such as more DPS and a huge tackle range with warp disruptors and scramblers (at Recon IV you can get the former to 43km and latter to 16km). I see this more as a small gang/fleet ship though and not a good choice for larger battles.
Lachesis - Combat Recon - With less stealth than the Arazu but more potential DPS and better starting resistances (but one less low slot), the Lachesis is like the tougher older brother to the Arazu. Has some potential for use in AHAC fleets for me, but with Remote Sensor Dampeners being less than ideal I might be tempted to give this one a pass in lieu of other AHAC capable ships.
Deimos - Heavy Assault Ship - I have a spot for this class due to the fun time I had running around in a gank Thorax in low sec a few years back. This ship is essentially a tougher and harder hitting Thorax, ideal for blasters that can deal Battleship like damage. However, short range is often a death sentence in 0.0 and the inability to fit the Holy Trinity of Tackle along with a cap booster means its very situational in it use unless you go for a more unconventional rail setup at which point I think I'd use an Eagle for better range.
Ishtar - Heavy Assault Ship - Here we go! This is the ship I've been eyeing up for over a year since I saw its effective use in pre-fall Providence. With a huge drone bay that can fit a full flight of Heavy, Sentry, Medium, AND Light drones, you have the option of fitting the ship for survivability instead of worrying about DPS as the drones can take on virtually any target with effectiveness. You can fit for armour or shield tanking, solo or fleet, electronic warfare or more DPS, the world is your oyster.
I want this ship for two reasons: one, an option for AHAC gangs, and two, a small roaming gang of the more traditional gank and spank variety that m3 Corp used to run in Providence, i.e. an all purpose combat ship.
Phobos - Heavy Interdictor - I love my Onyx and I see no compelling reason to build up a Phobos. As far as I understand it, its one of the least desirable HICs.
Astarte - Field Command Ship - I'm of two minds on this ship. On one hand, I love the pure singlemindedness of the Brutix hull in terms of going for a heavier gank ship like the Thorax, and the Astarte does for the Brutix what the Deimos does for the Thorax. On the other hand, the ship feels a little schizophrenic with its armour repper bonus, wanting to both rush in and kill kill kill while still maintaining a good tank. Plus the seven weapon turrets makes it hard on power grid without downgrading weapons to make full use of the bonus, so you either end up with a ship that ignore repping to go for full gank or a ship that has smaller damage potential with hard ass tank (that is hard on cap one should note).
Add into that the Warfare link potential of the Gallente ships is sub-optimal due to the type (information warfare? Yuck, extremely situational) and it feels less than ideal as a purchase choice for the price. Still, if I can find one for cheap, I might pick it up.
Eos - Fleet Command Ship - Take all the issues the Astarte has and throw in less damage potential due to only 5 turret hardpoints, and you have the Eos. If Information Warfare links were more useful in the general case it might be a nice flexible ship with its 210m3 drone bay and 75 mb bandwidth, but as it is its not worth buying and fitting out.
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If you have differing opinions, I'd love to hear them!
Posts
What about the Proteus? I mean not for PVP probably but I would like to hear your take on that ship.
ReplyDeleteThink how awesome your sensor strength could be with an Eos though!
ReplyDeleteAstartes are basically glorified HACs... they cost about the same too! It's the perfect "we need DPS NOW!" ship. Forget about the tank and go for 1000 DPS :))
ReplyDeleteThe Oneiros is a great ship. For any character that has the time to be an ACTUAL logistics pilot (i.e. train Logistics V, which makes all logistics ships into COMPLETELY different animals), the Oneiros is a perfectly excellent alternative to the Guardian. You can fit and even run MWD while permarunning 4 large remote reps, and a point/eccm/tracking link, and a 27k EHP tank in either shields or armor. (The Oneiros' effective armor tank really isn't any different from the Guardian's.) Not to mention it has a great dronebay. And it doesn't become useless without a cap transfer buddy. Definitely worth a look-see.
ReplyDeleteThe Lachesis is also notable for being one of the only obvious Gallente shield tankers. There's LOTS of potential in there, with 7 midslots. If all you want to fit is a long point, MWD, and tank, you can easy get over 300 dps with almost 70k EHP buffer tank in shields.
the oneiros is better for small gangs but for any gang that needs more than 3-4 logis the guardian is superior to the oneiros. also your saying the oneiro's efhp isnt much different than the guardian is just plain wrong oneiros can barely manage 30k while the guardian pushes 50k. i'd say thats a sizable difference and why the guardian is prefered. as for smaller gangs of the 5-10 man size oneiros can be better due to its other abilities ie medium drones and specifically more eccm than a guardian could ever dream of fitting. both have their advantages.
ReplyDeleteas for lachesis vs arazu kir you've got the right idea lol. even though the lachesis can get a more efhp and ever so slightly more dps(435 vs 416) the arazu's ability to warp cloaked easily makes up for it.
as for the rest of the t2 gallente cruisers/bc the ishtar is really the only one worth bothering with.