Amarr alphas have a complete lack of missile skills as I looked at them. completely reders the dragoon and arbitrator hurting as you can only do 2 of 4 high slots on the cruiser and 3 of 6 highs on the destroyer for more dps, while the other races are capable of running this alpha ships to full capability.
Before someone goes your using them wrong they’re drone ships, the gallente algos and vexor can be used to its full dps ability since they also have all gun slots for highs and not split like amarr.
I feel the amarr ship line was not taken into consideration when designing the skills, they could have atleast given small and medium missiles to make the ships more revelent instead of killing the alpha market of “you can fly those ships but you can use all the weapons it can fit.”
Yeah I realized too late as an Amarr alpha that I lack the skills to fit a missile launcher for an arbitrator. I wish they could fix this soon. While I haven’t trained skills for Amarr cruisers yet, this would clearly handicap my ability to rat which is one of the professions that I’d like to check out.
Alternatively they could fix them both to be full dual weapon options (i.e. 4 turret/4 launcher for arbi etc), and then alpha’s are limited in only having one choice, but they at least have a full fit of one weapon.
As the split weapons has always been bad, since combined with drones it actually means you have a ship with three weapon systems, which is just terrible.
Each alpha has 2 weapon types. Missiles/Hybrid for Caldari, Projectile/Missile for Minmatar, Drone/Hybrid for Gallente and Laser/Drone for Amarr.
These are the primary and secondary weapons for these factions.
Amarr missile boats are T2 (Khanid) and T3 ships that Alphas can’t fly anyway. The Dragoon and Arbitrator are primarily drone boats. Fit a couple of long range lasers to draw agro away from your drones and maybe a remote armor repair to heal them.
So why should the Arbi & Dragoon require three weapons systems (4 if you count the appropriate ewar) while every other ship in the game requires at most two weapon systems. It is fair to say that those two ships are at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to fitting weapon upgrades. And it could easily be solved by upping the number of turret/launcher slots while leaving everything else the same.
Dragoon doesn’t “need” missiles or guns. It is bonused for energy neutralization - if you fit turrets or launchers you won’t even scratch your opponents paint. You can use guns to annoy rats and get them to shoot at you instead of your drones.
Arbitrator is an EWAR platform. Unbonused guns or missiles will contribute very little to your damage output. Focus on your drones - they are the main weapon for these ships.
Neuts and disruptors aren’t a whole lot of use in PVE but those are the secondary capability these ships are intended to fit.
For Amarr PVE look at the Omen which has useful bonuses for capacitor use and rate of fire for lasers and a respectable drone bay.
So why does every single other Ewar platform not also have split weapons like the arbi & dragoon do then…
The answer is they don’t, they have a single weapon platform, or at least can be fitted with a single weapon even if they have the option of split weapons.
Saying they ‘don’t need’ to be able to be fitted like that is silly. We don’t ‘need’ anything. But it’s currently a badly nerfed ship with 3 weapon systems needed if you fit it for damage.
One point… The amarr ewar is the only one that uses a high slot. The amarr alpha can use energy neuts and vamps as the can train capacitor emission systems to 3.
The arbi and dragon are not designed to use high slots full of weapons. Rather they are designed to split the highs between weapons and neuts. This is not as helpful in pve(*) but for PvP it does work well. So perhaps those ships should focus more on capacitor warfare with drone damage instead of all guns as that is how they were designed.
(*) ok… Energy vamps can work in PvE… NPCs cannot be neuter out but the vamp can and will drain capacitor from the NPC to you. This lets you run your armor repper longer. So one valid PvE option is a vamp in the high slot and armor repper in the low where you drain cap off one NPC allowing you to rep longer while killing the other NPCs with your drones.
Also as missilea are capless weapons, giving amarr alphas a ship that could use missiles, drones, and neuts, saving the capacitor only for neuts, was a tad powerful.
Arbi’s have nothing to do with Neuts at all. They are a TD ship which is the actual Ewar.
And just because the Dragoon has an option for them doesn’t mean it should be forced to have a gimped fit.
Every other destroyer can fit a homogeneous weapon system.
The Dragoon has to fit THREE, not just two.
Changing the turret/launcher number to allow a full fit of either will still leave it as a two weapon ship, but it will let alpha’s fit it better, and omega’s can make more interesting uses of it as well.
Having flown some very effective combat arbis as an omegw, let me reasure you… There is no need to change the hardpoint configurations to add versatility. The arbi already has that, especially with the large number of mid and low slots available.
The Dragoon too would become unbalanced if you simply increased the hardpoint slots to allow for 4 turrets or launchers. A 4 autocannon and 2 neut dragoon with the added drones would be a scary beast.
It would be better to either improve the neut skills of the amarr alpha or balance the weapon skills between all 3. The latter would open up the mangate as an additional combat ship for amar alphas and not require balancing ships.
Ships in Eve are designed to do different jobs. They are not interchangeable and this is intentional. Prior to Alpha state this was a non-issue since any player could train any ship - you simply picked the right tool for the job.
Ships are not designed for PVE. They are designed for PVP and adapted by players for PVE. Some ships adapt better than others.
CCP did not rebalance any of the ships Alphas can fly. I don’t think any of them have been touched since Retribution. They now have a dedicated balance team and I suspect making sure that all races have interesting choices for both PVE and PVP in the T1 categories Alphas can fly will be a priority. The ships should be different reflecting the racial strengths and weaknesses.
yeah no, please how its fine that if a ship doesn’t have weapon bonuses I can be balanced using artillery? if you consider the dragon/arb powerful because of using a weapon system that doesn’t use cap
Look at the punisher please. One bonus is for cap reduction. If you equip autocannons instead of lasers, that bonus doesn’t matter, but you still have a ship with a very strong tank and you get a degree of selectable damage you do not normally see in lasers. This makes the punisher very strong. Add in the easier fitting requirements of ACs, and you get more PG and CPU to devote to tank.
Carry this up to the Arbi and dragoon. Either ship requires a huge amount of cap to run ewar modules be it weapon disrupt or neuts. Being able to use a capless weapon, especially when the hulls themselves provide no turret bonus, can be a huge advantage. You again gain selectable damage type, free up capacitor for ewar, and gain the benefit of easier fitting. Obviously it has to be balanced with this in mind or you will get an unbalanced ship.
The threads title is “Amarr alphas lack of missile skills” & autocannons are projectile weapons which an Amarr alpha can’t train… did I miss a twist in the convo somewhere up there?
Yes you did. The request was to balance the arbi and dragoon by adding turrets so they both could use a full rack of turrets. I was originally arguing that though this balance would help alphas, it would not be a valid balance as the result would be over powered when used by omega. People then tried to shoot this line of thought down, which I was arguing against.
saved me having to read the entire thread to understand your point 