A casual player here. Even though I’ve played for over a year, I’m still pretty newbish.
I’m trying to prioritize my skill queue and I’d like some input on Heavy Assault Missiles.
Are they worth the time to get to Lvl 5?
I have Light, Heavy and Cruise Missiles all at 5 and their Specializations are all at 4.
All the rest of my missile support skills are at either 4 or 5.
I’m just wondering what ship or application would make HAMs worth the (almost) two weeks of training that I’d need, to get them to 5.
Looking at builds and just changing missile types, I don’t really see a niche in which HAMs have a marked advantage over the other missile options. The range really sucks unless you want to get in and brawl.
I guess I’ve developed a preference for hanging out a little farther and using the distance to kite or snipe. When the time comes to “get out of Dodge”, …I prefer to be closer to “out”, than “Dodge.”
So, is brawling the major application for the HAM? …or is there a ship that just really isn’t complete unless you put in HAM launchers.?
Thanks.
Hmm Iv seen a 100mn ham legion wreck havok in solo pvp but its pretty niche, sac does well with them as well but they dont project well at all.
I’d get all support missile skill’s to 5 as they make a massive difference but not the spec 5 :P, but tbh ID prioritize neorotoxin control/recovery 5 before support skills 5 as crash booster is insanely good for missiles.
The main point of HAMs is that you can get a couple hundred extra DPS out of them with rages. This can really speed up completion times for PVE content where chewing through a dozen or several dozen BS rats or a structure is important. Downsides are application, range, and extra fitting, and require you to position differently than a HML fit ship. They worth fitting in certain situations. On my tengu pilot I use HMLs for versatility and so that I can safely run away and kill from 100km if it’s a particularly scary deadspace pocket, but there are absolutely times and plexes where HAMs would perform much better because instead of capping out at 700dps I could go notably higher and clear ■■■■ faster. If I wanted to chain run nullsec anomalies with a cruiser I would exclusively use hams. Actually a HAM tengu would be a superb ninja ratter if you could find some way to resupply on ammo.
Thats why I prefer laser ships. The t1 crystals let you stay in space until the end of time.
HAMs need a ton of ammo and restocking becomes a pain.
But thats up to you.
I would not train any weapon spec to 5 until I have nothing left that is useful to train.
That being said, my first real PvE ship was a HAM Drake with a passive shield tank. Works great for belt ratting and mid-level anoms. Hell, before the great Drake nerf I used to run Havens and even Sanctums with it.
Missiles apply full damage (minus resists) virtually all the time. Speed/sig are almost irrelevant with those missile skills at even mid level. The T2 javelins are designed to take out smaller ships and the furies melt anything larger than a destroyer. They are small/fast enough to take on smaller targets but also hit hard enough to quickly take down a BS.
Come play with my tengu and you’ll see what poking feels like… it will be more like taking a full-speed freight train with rusty steel spikes on the front of it to your face.
You can hit out to 50k with javelins.
More damage in less time. If you want to melt something HAMS are the only missile option.
Of course, as with ANY weapon in Eve you have to take into account your skills and the ship with bonuses.
IMHO HAMs are very very much worth it for PVE. Tengu, Loki, even ships like Sacrilege, Cerberus, Caracals are good with HAMs. They enable you to run much tougher and higher content that would normally require battleships, but without the headaches of having to deal with drone management.
Also depending on the rest of your missle support skills, they do not require that much precision. If your skills for explosion radius, explosion velocity and missle velocity are at 5s, then you can pretty much hit all size targets with them fairly comfortably, but it will take you around 3 volleys to take out a fast moving elite frig. With 5% explosion radius, velocity implant and either 1 enhancer or computer (no need for both), you can pretty much 1 or 2 shot them. The regular frigs will be all 1 shots.
The reload time is relatively small as well, so you have an additional option of switching between high damage and precision ammo mid combat instead of fitting any precision modules at all. Precision ammo does less damage but the targets which you use it against have vastly less HP so it works out about the same on average, you will still 1-2 shot everything small just fine, then switch to high damage for anything destroyer size +.
Only thing about HAMs is that you may still want to use a missle flight time implant + computer with range script if your ship hull does not give you missle flight time or velocity bonusses. For me, to be comfortable, I need at least 30km range.
Don’t forget you can have different jump clones with different implant sets, so you can have 1 specifically for missles.
Last but not least, the upcoming Trig content appears to be turret centric, it still remains to be seen how missles and drones will be impacted, it may turn out that things will be perfectly functional, but may turn out otherwise. This is something to consider if you intend to do a lot of it.
HAM ranges are pretty on par with multifreq pulse lasers. So they’re not as horribly gimped as people tend to say. Tech 2 opens up an entire new world with javelin missiles, letting you comfortably hit out to point range at Max skills. Application leaves room to be desired, but if you don’t want to get in scram range you still have the option of a target painter as well as mods to increase your application, which you honestly need to fit on most missile cruisers.
For most pve I don’t really like hams, but for the new abyssal deadspaces they might work very well. everything comes in close so range or volley counting isn’t much of an issue, and you can swap ammo to hit the resist holes. That said I have no idea how well they will apply.
For pve a ham cerb is a pretty decent ship. 800+ dps and around 45km with MGC and range script. Slap on a 50mn mwd and you have no range issues. Fairly cheap too.
in a tier 2 and I’m 2 tapping the weak damage drones with double webs and two t2 rigors, looks like it works in t3 vs the strong small drones, although a few are getting 3 taps.
, big shot pve guys using their carebear ships as threat mobile’s they must bring them out of high sec 