I fail to see why the laser subsystem for the legion, and not the missile one, is not the one to absorb the remains of the old drone subsystem (RIP). At the very least, the laser subsystem deserves a 50/25mbit drone bay that lets them carry a couple flights of warriors.
Missiles don’t track and don’t require cap usage, which 1. Allows them to free up the only spare midslot that on the laser variant is required to be a cap battery/booster, meaning they can fit a web that laser legions can’t. This, coupled with the fact that missiles don’t need to track, means that the HAM legion has some recourse against scram/webbing frigates without a flight of warriors. If a missile legion gets neuted out, it can still fire its missiles anyways, making a HAM legion with a flight of hammerheads a dangerous animal to corner even if you have a pilgrim to gimp its tank.
Laser legions, on the other hand, have no such luxuries. They need the one spare midslot they have for a cap battery or cap booster. Even with a web, beam lasers can’t track frigates that are within that web range. Neut a laser legion out with a curse or pilgrim, its going to do 0 dps.
Give the drone-related attributes from the missile subsystem to the laser subsystem, and give the missile subsystem a 6th launcher slot. This will make missile legions able to compete DPS-wise with laser boats, and allow laser legions to do more than 0 DPS to anything thats within 9km.
It seems someone at CCP has been working hard to ensure we get as little value as possible for our skill training. For example Curse and Pilgrim are the only recon cruisers that get bonus to drone damage and they requires Amarr cruiser level 5, but the Ishtar is the best PVE drone cruiser and requires Gallente cruiser 5. So there is no theme to the ships other than making it take as long as possible to train for each one.
The great idea seems to be that it sells more subscriptions but its the equivalent of a store forcing people to stay for a minimum amount of time because the longer people are forced to stay the more money they will spend! But of course most people will just avoid such a store. Rant over.
Either their ships specialize in their unique laser weapons, or they use missiles and use (stronger) drones.
Take the Heavy Assault Cruisers:
Zealot. Lasers and little drone strength (25 mbit/s, 50 m3 drone bay)
Sacrilege. Missiles and more drone strength (50 mbit/s, 100 m3 drone bay)
Or take the Command Ships:
Absolution. Lasers and little drone strength (25 mbit/s, 25 m3)
Damnation. Missiles and more drone strength (50 mbit/s, 100 m3)
I’m not surprised the Amarr follow the same pattern for their Legion subsystems and have drone strength on their missile subsystem rather than the laser subsystem. The laser subsystem however has an additional laser.
One nice thing of combining drones with missiles is that this combination of drones and missiles happen often in EVE, most notably for Guristas ships. As result this combination even has it’s own damage amplifier low slot!
Yeah I mean honestly I see why they did it thematically, but at least give the laser legions flight or two of small drones. I mean, the Omen has 40mbit of drone bay, at least let the legion have 25 ._.
I’m not against a small drone bay on the legion laser subsystem…, but is it really in need of a buff?
Now the Legion is the T3C I use the least, but the one time I did use it I was using the laser subsystem with good success to do some PvE event sites.
It didn’t feel like it needed any buffs and I could easily deal with small ships due to the laser’s unique ability to instantly swap ranges to always fight at optimal.
It could definitely use a 50m³ bay / 25MBit Bandwith like the Zealot and wouldn’t be OP.
Laser Legions have multiple problems (except when sniping), because the combination of high PG-requirements for the guns, high Capacitor use of the guns and the low base tracking of lasers in general (and also no tracking bonus on the laser subsystem) make them usually inferior to a simple HAM setup (free damage choice, capless weapon system, good drone support, enough PG for a 1600er plate)… Thats why you find almost no brawling Pulse Laser Legions around. If you want to use HeavyPulse + MWD + MediumCapBooster or Battery (which you absolutely need or you are dead meat against any Neutralizer), you can’t fit a 1600er plate, wich gives you a huge disadvantage in close range combat against other brawlers.
And the idea to sneak in at least a Webber or a Tracking Computer for application while also have at least one tackle module (aka needing 4 Medslots) makes it even worse. All other ships have it far easier to create a HighDPS Brawling Setup with Turrets. Lokis for example can easily fit a 1600er plate, 425er ACs, Tackle, Application. And also have a Set of Drones available.
