So I decided to take another look in light of the patch and see what it was that bothered me so much about the possibility of a dual rep Ishkur...
Oh right. I remember now.
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| Incursus |
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| Ishkur |
The Ishkur has less powergrid than the Incursus (52.5 to 56.25) which means at the very least I'm downgrading to Light Ion blasters from Light Neutron blasters. That's not a huge deal as the extra drones make up the raw DPS lost (Ishkur 249 DPS to Incursus 197 DPS), and the extra CPU (193.8 to 168.8) means I don't need to use meta damage control and warp scrambler for better resistances and range respectively. The tank with the improved resistances means the Ishkur is better at taking damage than the Incursus (238 points/sec to 223), and the Ishkur has superior targeting range (59.4 km to 37.5km),, sensor strength (14.4 to 10.8 ), and a slightly smaller signature radius (39m to 42m).
So far, so good: in almost every aspect the Ishkur comes out on top even with a lower power grid.
Then I look at mobility. Incursus has base afterburner speed of 1082 m/s with 4.5 sec align time. Inshkur move max 853 m/s and 6.2 sec align time.
I'm an addict to speed. I fly with low grade snakes and even my afterburner frigates move with a bit of pep. The thought of giving up a 150 m/s and almost 2 seconds of align time makes me cringe. Overreaction? Perhaps, but its enough downside combined with the prices (fully fit Ishkur is about 4 times the cost of a fully fit Incursus) and the rate I throw my Incursus into any fight with willingness to lose it, I'm not sure I'm ready to risk Ishkurs at the same rate.
Still, I might give it a try and see after my next paycheque.
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Recently, I've wanted to fly assault ships more frequently in my solo roaming. It's just that they're not really as viable as they have been in the past. I'll attribute that mostly to the increase in overall power level among T1 frigs, destroyers, and cruisers. The speed issue is very real. When assault frigs are often outrun by T1 cruisers, we've got a problem. The only one I'm really satisfied with flying right now is the jaguar.
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me - I just listened to your last podcast and in your patch notes one change you didn't mention was the medium long-rang guns (i.e. railguns). So when you said "in light of the patch" I wondered if you were going there. Do you tend to not see so much of the cruiser hulls in FW for that to be an impact? I'm curious if it changes the cruiser/AF dynamic.
ReplyDeleteFaction warfare sees a fair number of cruisers, but they tend to be close range and not a lot of skirmishing fleets where rails / medium guns come into play. Part of this is the nature of plexes where there is a hard set warp in and it easiest to engage the incoming enemy close there.
ReplyDeleteAssault frigates generally suffer from crippling mobility problems. The handful that don't (e.g. the Jag) trade in most of the advantages of flying an AF over a navy or t1 frigate.
ReplyDeleteAs a class, they're basically expensive toys for people who like frigate brawling.
I don't think the mobility problems of AFs really matters on say the inside of a plex
ReplyDeleteAlso I tend to mwd fit mine but I mostly do null
I usually MWD fit my Assault frigs as well which mitigates some mobility issues, but it has its own set of problems (warp scram turn off, higher fitting requirements, more cap burn) that makes the AB attractive for my use.
DeleteI have been struggling with the same issue. Here is one if my many recent Ishkur losses... http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=19493981. The problem is that you are completely handing off range control to the enemy. If they can deal with your drones, they can easily keep you at range and you are dead. Too slow to slingshot and actually catch a kiting ship, to slow to get within blaster range is scrambled. Keeping the drones alive, and managing the active tank is very intense and easy to make lots of mistakes.
ReplyDelete