Ask me anything / Training

[Greezt]

Thanks for flying a pike on your stream. I take it it's not a viable ship for serious games... Too bad, I really like flying it

[Drakkolich]

Thanks for flying a pike on your stream. I take it it's not a viable ship for serious games... Too bad, I really like flying it

 

Ya it's one of the worst ships in the game in my opinion. Sadly last night I didn't really get any games where I could play one, the one I did we almost got 3 capped so I had to swap.

 

I will get you a full game video of me playing a Pike sometime this week and put it on Youtube though. I'll post it here so you don't have to go keep watching every game of my stream hopping I'll play one.

[nyghtrunner]

Ya it's one of the worst ships in the game in my opinion. Sadly last night I didn't really get any games where I could play one, the one I did we almost got 3 capped so I had to swap.

 

I will get you a full game video of me playing a Pike sometime this week and put it on Youtube though. I'll post it here so you don't have to go keep watching every game of my stream hopping I'll play one.

I think "had to" is rather strong. We were messing around at the beginning a little too much, and totally got called on it and punished for it.

 

EDIT - Not trying to derail, just putting it out there.

Edited October 7, 2015 by nyghtrunner

[phalczen]

What are the differences between TDM Legions/Warcarriers and DOM Legions/Warcarriers, besides railgun sentry drone for TDM and interdiction drone for DOM?

[Drakkolich]

What are the differences between TDM Legions/Warcarriers and DOM Legions/Warcarriers, besides railgun sentry drone for TDM and interdiction drone for DOM?

 

Well as Siraka pointed out changing Heavy lasers to accuracy over armor penetration would probably be a good idea for Team Deathmatch, although I haven't tested it yet.

 

My current differences in my Legion/Warcarrier builds for both are:

 

TeamDeathMatch:

Railgun Drone

Seeker mine with 3 mines instead of AoE

 

Domination:

Interdiction Drone

Seeker mine with Aoe instead of 3 mines

 

 

That's about it, you could definitely argue for different co-pilot abilities for both game modes however the Legion/Warcarrier's co-pilot are already very player subjective I don't think I could suggest a perfect one for each game mode.

 

The extra mine in Deathmatch is just to cover more space as most of the time no one wants to enter your space and you can easily end up with the 3rd mine active. The AoE doesn't help very much in Death match as your teammates are usually flying through your mines with pursuers behind them to help relieve pressure.

[Greezt]

Question: on a Rampart, would Bowdaar (9% reduction, 5% evasion) be worth considering instead of M1-4X (9% reduction, 10% shield power pool)?

[RickDagles]

Question: on a Rampart, would Bowdaar (9% reduction, 5% evasion) be worth considering instead of M1-4X (9% reduction, 10% shield power pool)?

 

Yep. That's what I use. I think the 5% evasion is more useful than 150 shields.

[Verain]

On an overcharged rampart your choices are between regen reactor and large reactor.

Regen reactor is generally terrible, but its extra regen is not reduced in any way, and relatively it is a much larger difference than on other ships.

Large reactor is generally great, but its extra shielding is relatively smaller, but hey, more shields.

Similarly, you can make a case for the generally worst crew passive, shield regeneration, but the extra shielding crewmember remains very important.

 

On a charged plating rampart, the reactor is interestingly annoying. Because your shields have bleedthrough and often are destroyed with damage that you would have preferred went to hull (ex: if 1000 non armor pen hits your 500 hit point shield, you'll lose the shield and take 5 points of damage- you'd have preferred to take 10 points of damage and keep the shield to mitigate a partial charge slug or whatever), shields are not so obvious. This makes turbo reactor a possible choice, because you might lose all your shields deliberately (sweeping concussions and seekers), and getting back a little bit is better than not having any. But crewmembers are even more interesting, because while the damage reduction is absolutely mandatory, the extra shielding is less useful than normal. Evasion is probably your best choice on average, but remember that shields still DO matter, because they often will absorb armor piercing damage. Stasie's reasoning I'm pretty sure was, that often your target will have greater than 105% accuracy against you, and adding 5% evasion won't help in those cases. If you find that you are often dealing with 10k+ range gunships who aren't *quite* on point, then the 5% evasion will matter 1/20 times, which is a best case scenario. And it almost always is helpful against rocket pods.

 

I'm pretty sure I'm running the evasion on my current set of charged plating boy bombers.

Edited October 8, 2015 by Verain

[nyghtrunner]

Yep. That's what I use. I think the 5% evasion is more useful than 150 shields.

Nitpicky, and probably irrelevant, but if you're running anything other than Shield Projecter, won't you have 2250 Shield/arc? If so, it's going to be ~223 additional shield/arc (Note, I'm getting the numbers from the Dulfy GSF calculator, since I don't have access to the in game numbers right now). Which is about 1 hit from an RFL. Or is there something I'm missing somewhere?

 

I'm the other way around on it, myself. Having 5% evasion total is going to be meaningless in almost all situations, especially if you take into consideration an active Wingman. Looking just at Railguns, if they're not taking poorly centered shots, they have to be pretty close to max range ( > ~13.7km) before you even start to see even a 1% chance the shot might miss, even without Wingman. And for it to have much effect on even high deflection BLC shots, they have to be > ~2km from you before you get any benefit at all. Add in Wingman, and your 5% evasion becomes even more meaningless.

 

It's not that I think you get some massive benefit from the extra shields, but 5% evasion on a bomber just seems utterly inconsequential... Even with the pods, won't the extra shields absorb roughly 1 mid range, non-crit pod hit?

 

EDIT - NM, I wasn't taking into account the starting crew on the dulfy calculator, and was looking at the Razorwire, and Hurley has the +10%, making the baseline Razorwire have precisely 150 shields more than the baseline Rampart. Personally, I think I'd still prefer the extra shields, but only because I don't see the evasion as being anything more than an extremely fringe case help.

Edited October 8, 2015 by nyghtrunner

[Greezt]

So it's 150 extra shields vs a chance to survive a (long range) shot? Then I think suppression might replace hydrospanner, since it eliminates most of the threat a scout has.

[tunewalker]

Honestly my personal preference is the extra shield, mostly for the reasons Verain said. 5% evasion is so small it might as well be 0, because that is honestly about what its normally going to feel like, and the shields themselves even on a Charged plating Bomber can save you some damage, even with 150 extra shields unless they have really high shield piercing they are still going to have to blow through your shields all the way to kill you on a charged plating bomber, so that is 150 more damage they are going to have to do to you then they already had to do, that is 1 extra shot, while the 5% they arent likely going to be missing that 1 shot unless they fire over 80 shots at you, which if they did they didnt kill you very quickly any way..... basically both try to allow you to tank extra shots, the 5% evasion with out any other evasion to add onto it, isnt really going to allow you to tank any more shots as they all hit for their full damage and you have no extra health at all, while the 10% shield can make them take an extra shot to kill you as that's now 150 MORE damage that they have to do to burst you down quickly, sure its only 1 extra shot, but that's better then the 0 the evasion would currently be providing with such low evasion levels.

 

If you are using running interference it swings a bit more in favor of Evasion, but if you are running charged plating and Hydro spanner then you are absolutely counting on your overall health, and shield strength can save you against those armor piercing weapons, ya charged lets it bleed through a little but 80% still hits the shield, you are only taking 20% to hull unless they have shield peircing to boot (slug railgun... be scared of slug rail gun). Did the math on that a while ago much to the amusement of some of the people here, since it showed how strong Charged plating really is, even in a less desirable situation.

Edited October 8, 2015 by tunewalker

[Drakkolich]

Question: on a Rampart, would Bowdaar (9% reduction, 5% evasion) be worth considering instead of M1-4X (9% reduction, 10% shield power pool)?

 

It's been talked about pretty well already above but in my opinion:

 

5% Evasion vs 10% Shield power pool on this ship is very close and comes down to personal preference.

 

I'm an all in kind of guy my ships are specialized for one mission, so on my Rampart/Razorwire I use everything that helps me vs other Bombers I completely disregard everything else. So I use the 10% Shield power pool as it does help vs mines on the node.

 

 

If you use Suppression or Running Interference instead of Hydrospanner you are now at a disadvantage vs the other Bombers on the node running the pure anti Bomber build, however you do shore up some weakness vs Burst Scouts and Gunships.

 

If you do use Suppression or Running Interference the 5% Evasion is absolutely better.

[Greezt]

Honestly my personal preference is the extra shield, mostly for the reasons Verain said. 5% evasion is so small it might as well be 0, because that is honestly about what its normally going to feel like, and the shields themselves even on a Charged plating Bomber can save you some damage, even with 150 extra shields unless they have really high shield piercing they are still going to have to blow through your shields all the way to kill you on a charged plating bomber, so that is 150 more damage they are going to have to do to you then they already had to do, that is 1 extra shot, while the 5% they arent likely going to be missing that 1 shot unless they fire over 80 shots at you, which if they did they didnt kill you very quickly any way..... basically both try to allow you to tank extra shots, the 5% evasion with out any other evasion to add onto it, isnt really going to allow you to tank any more shots as they all hit for their full damage and you have no extra health at all, while the 10% shield can make them take an extra shot to kill you as that's now 150 MORE damage that they have to do to burst you down quickly, sure its only 1 extra shot, but that's better then the 0 the evasion would currently be providing with such low evasion levels.

 

If you are using running interference it swings a bit more in favor of Evasion, but if you are running charged plating and Hydro spanner then you are absolutely counting on your overall health, and shield strength can save you against those armor piercing weapons, ya charged lets it bleed through a little but 80% still hits the shield, you are only taking 20% to hull unless they have shield peircing to boot (slug railgun... be scared of slug rail gun). Did the math on that a while ago much to the amusement of some of the people here, since it showed how strong Charged plating really is, even in a less desirable situation.

 

5% is pretty much nothing except on the top range of a BLC scout, but that's exactly the point. A GS can be evaded with LoS, but a BLC scout with a range capacitor can effectively demolish a bomber while staying out of mine range. So here's my idea (probably not mine): the 5% evasion stacks with Suppression, to form 30% acc reduction against one specific scout. the gunships aren't a problem, unless they're a swarm, and your team isn't distracting them, and that scout now needs to close the distance (maybe under 3300m) to kill you, and you can mine him down.

 

Weapons without armor pen are obviously much less of a threat, which is why I thought the shield is pretty useless.

 

I've tried this a couple of times. It's worked, but mostly on players my level or less. I think in a well coordinated team it might work better, and (of course) if a better bomber than me tried it.

 

For me at least (and I don't know how it is in the higher levels of gameplay), the problem is generally one good scout harassing me under a node.

 

Thoughts? And maybe a more experienced pilot agree to try this out and update me?

[Greezt]

It's been talked about pretty well already above but in my opinion:

 

5% Evasion vs 10% Shield power pool on this ship is very close and comes down to personal preference.

 

I'm an all in kind of guy my ships are specialized for one mission, so on my Rampart/Razorwire I use everything that helps me vs other Bombers I completely disregard everything else. So I use the 10% Shield power pool as it does help vs mines on the node.

 

 

If you use Suppression or Running Interference instead of Hydrospanner you are now at a disadvantage vs the other Bombers on the node running the pure anti Bomber build, however you do shore up some weakness vs Burst Scouts and Gunships.

 

If you do use Suppression or Running Interference the 5% Evasion is absolutely better.

 

I understand shields are better for bomber fights, but I somehow always get killed by a scout. wouldn't the small shield sacrifice be worth it for much more survivability against scouts (or even only one)? Or do scouts get less annoying with skill?

[Drakkolich]

I understand shields are better for bomber fights, but I somehow always get killed by a scout. wouldn't the small shield sacrifice be worth it for much more survivability against scouts (or even only one)? Or do scouts get less annoying with skill?

 

Ya if the only thing you are ever dying to is 1 Scout absolutely swap to the 5% Evasion and slap Suppression on there.

 

 

So here is a few high end tactics to help you on nodes vs Scouts as a Charged plating Rampart/Razorwire.

 

1: Always remember where your Interdiction mine is, if a Scout gets on you, you have to take him straight to it. Once you land the Interdiction mine it's smooth sailing for 20 seconds because at that point you out maneuver him. In those 20 seconds setup your next Interdiction mine for him to hit.

 

Note: If the node is being Ioned you may have to put the mine a little further off the node then normal so it doesn't die to the AoE. You then have to kite the Scout off node usually using a girder or rock to line of sight to get him to hit the mine. (Obviously you can't do this if you are the only person on the node)

 

2: Alternate mine drops, one about every 7 seconds. When a Scout is chasing a Bomber they are really paranoid and watching for when the Bomber releases his mines so he can get out of the way. By alternating mines you make this happen more, therefor making him peel off of you more often these precious extra seconds give you time to kite him to your mines.

 

3: You can't out turn a Scout but what you can do is use Charged plating and then speed boost directly into a wall this often results in a really fast 180 turn. You can use this to turn around and go back to a mine you just released or just for a couple of extra seconds of not being shot at before the Scout can reaquire you.

 

4: If you have the engine power to spare do a bunch of quick on and off boosts this makes the targeting reticule bounce forwards and backwards. You can also bounce the reticule by shifting turning right and left or up and down really fast however the quick boosts let you get to your mines in a straight line faster.

 

Note: Don't just tap boost in rhythm, make sure you try to vary it so they can't start timing burst shots when they know you're going to let go of boost.

[Greezt]

Ya if the only thing you are ever dying to is 1 Scout absolutely swap to the 5% Evasion and slap Suppression on there.

 

 

So here is a few high end tactics to help you on nodes vs Scouts as a Charged plating Rampart/Razorwire.

 

1: Always remember where your Interdiction mine is, if a Scout gets on you, you have to take him straight to it. Once you land the Interdiction mine it's smooth sailing for 20 seconds because at that point you out maneuver him. In those 20 seconds setup your next Interdiction mine for him to hit.

 

Note: If the node is being Ioned you may have to put the mine a little further off the node then normal so it doesn't die to the AoE. You then have to kite the Scout off node usually using a girder or rock to line of sight to get him to hit the mine. (Obviously you can't do this if you are the only person on the node)

 

2: Alternate mine drops, one about every 7 seconds. When a Scout is chasing a Bomber they are really paranoid and watching for when the Bomber releases his mines so he can get out of the way. By alternating mines you make this happen more, therefor making him peel off of you more often these precious extra seconds give you time to kite him to your mines.

 

3: You can't out turn a Scout but what you can do is use Charged plating and then speed boost directly into a wall this often results in a really fast 180 turn. You can use this to turn around and go back to a mine you just released or just for a couple of extra seconds of not being shot at before the Scout can reaquire you.

 

4: If you have the engine power to spare do a bunch of quick on and off boosts this makes the targeting reticule bounce forwards and backwards. You can also bounce the reticule by shifting turning right and left or up and down really fast however the quick boosts let you get to your mines in a straight line faster.

 

Note: Don't just tap boost in rhythm, make sure you try to vary it so they can't start timing burst shots when they know you're going to let go of boost.

 

I'll try them out. Thanks

[nyghtrunner]

but a BLC scout with a range capacitor can effectively demolish a bomber while staying out of mine range.

Maybe I've been doing it wrong all my life, but why would a BLC scout be engaging anything at range other than your mines themselves? The only reason I could see to do that in a BLC scout would be if the bomber is doing something akin to the tick thing, but otherwise, I always tried to clear the adds, then get right on top of the bomber to utilize the much greater damage at close range. Engaging at range is largely antithetical to the power of BLCs, which are amazing at close range, but largely mediocre past 3500m even with Ranged Capacitor.

 

I mean, if you're able to LOS gunships with no real problems are you not able to do the same to a BLC Scout that parks 4km away from you and sits there shooting at you and ignoring your mines?

[rjohns]

Thanks for doing this Drak. Awesome to hear you were missiles. enjoyed flying with you and against you on Harb. My question is in your build thread you use deflection armor on your razorwire, but reinforced armor on your warcarrier build. Why the difference and what are the advantages to each?

 

thank you

 

Xmar

[ShallowHal]

Just wanted to say what a great thread this is. I'll probably have my own questions at some point, but I figured I'd read the whole thread first cause the answer is probably in there already. If I find anybody looking for advice, this will definitely be one of the places I send them.

 

Also, just a small LOL.

 

my left hand is completly free to do w/e it needs to while flying

 

Heh.

Edited October 8, 2015 by ShallowHal

[Drakkolich]

Thanks for doing this Drak. Awesome to hear you were missiles. enjoyed flying with you and against you on Harb. My question is in your build thread you use deflection armor on your razorwire, but reinforced armor on your warcarrier build. Why the difference and what are the advantages to each?

 

thank you

 

Xmar

 

I use Deflection armor on my Razorwire/Rampart because with Charged plating active and the crew damage reduction passive you can get up to 99% damage reduction. This means when fighting other Bombers on the node for 19 out of 30 seconds you only take 1% damage from their mines.

 

 

I use Reinforced armor on my Legion/Warrior build because often I'm just a damage sponge for my teammates I hold a specific area so that my teammates have somewhere to retreat too. While there I try to poke my head out and get shot on purpose and then poke my head back in and use the Repair drone to heal myself up. Enemies shooting at me means they are playing less attention to everything else. (that's the theory anyways)

 

With the constant healing of the Repair drone extra hull actually helps, because at that point just like bigger shields that keep recharging back to full it helps deal with high burst damage situations. With the Legion/Warcarrier being such linchpin in our Team Deathmatch strategies it's important for it to never die.

 

 

I really think using Reinforced armor on anything with significant healing power is always useful. For example I go back and forth on it for my Clarion/Imperium, I'm still not sure if I like it better then Lightweight armor.

[Drakkolich]

Just wanted to say what a great thread this is. I'll probably have my own questions at some point, but I figured I'd read the whole thread first cause the answer is probably in there already. If I find anybody looking for advice, this will definitely be one of the places I send them.

 

Also, just a small LOL.

 

Heh.

 

I'm glad you like the thread, I can't believe it's been up for a Year and 5 months already. There is some great information in there for anyone looking for something to read, but there also a few trolls ones as usual.

 

As for the quote I thought some context might be more appropriate although just taking that small part out is really funny.

 

Which key do you use for your voice chat, while flying?

 

-I use my thumb button on my razer mamba for push to talk that way my left hand is completly free to do w/e it needs to while flying (which is usually alot with all the power cycling)

[RickDagles]

It's been talked about pretty well already above but in my opinion:

 

5% Evasion vs 10% Shield power pool on this ship is very close and comes down to personal preference.

 

I'm an all in kind of guy my ships are specialized for one mission, so on my Rampart/Razorwire I use everything that helps me vs other Bombers I completely disregard everything else. So I use the 10% Shield power pool as it does help vs mines on the node.

 

 

If you use Suppression or Running Interference instead of Hydrospanner you are now at a disadvantage vs the other Bombers on the node running the pure anti Bomber build, however you do shore up some weakness vs Burst Scouts and Gunships.

 

If you do use Suppression or Running Interference the 5% Evasion is absolutely better.

 

 

I think the 5% evasion is immensely useful at avoiding high deflection HLC shots in bomber wars. It basically forces your bomber enemy to center his shots an entire 2.5 degrees more than you. I'm positive it has saved my poor interdicted bomber a lot more than an extra 150 damage has...that's like 1/3 of a HLC shot.

 

The 5% helps quite a lot against rocket pods and high deflection railgun shots too. Frankly I think Stasie's arguement about 105% accuracy making 5% evasion useless is quite flawed because it doesn't take into account tracking penalty. As Drak and any good bomber pilot knows, boost is your friend and you can force rocket pod and railgun users to shoot at huge tracking penalty. If you're hitting tab a lot then you'll know who's targetting you and when you should be boosting/LoS.

 

Also, lots of friendly scouts use running interference and you can really benefit from the 20% evasion.

 

 

@Close shave - I used suppression for a long time on my Rampart/Razorwire. But after getting better with interdiction mines I really didn't need it. Once you get used to the build, scouts are honestly the least of your worries. You'll know you're getting good when you see top scout aces switch to manglers/quarrels after your mines kills them a few times (Hi Keenz ). The big reason you will end up dieing is when multiple gunships pincer you from different angles, robbing you from LoS opportunity. It certainly puts the nail in the coffin if their ion splash also robs you of engines. Running Interference is likely a better choice because it helps you against off-node gunships sniping you as well as on-node bombers trying to hit you with HLC. However, I really do think the 245 health from hydrospanner is overall the best. Sometimes after you narrowly defend a node, it's important for you to stay and guard that node. Often that means you may be sitting there for a minute or so. IMO this is where hydrospanner really shines because it can allow you to get back into fighting shape without relying on teammates for heals. Meanwhile your teammates can spawn at your hyperspace beacon and keep the fight going at the other node that you're not sitting on. If I'm in such a situation without hydrospanner I start pondering about whether or not I should just suicide and come back with full health. But that kills my beacon. And that could be a huge loss for the team, especially if it's the only beacon in the game.

Edited October 9, 2015 by RickDagles

[Greezt]

I mean, if you're able to LOS gunships with no real problems are you not able to do the same to a BLC Scout that parks 4km away from you and sits there shooting at you and ignoring your mines?

 

Nope. Must be my skill level, but a scout who follows me around a node at 3-4k I find very hard to shake or evade.

[Greezt]

Regarding mine mechanics: is mine damage directional, or does it come from every direction? for example, could I charge into a seismic mine with directional shields forward and take no damage?

[Crazy-Wolf]

for example, could I charge into a seismic mine with directional shields forward and take no damage?

 

In case of seismics, no, cause they ignore shields

 

Edit: I'd like to add: For me as a scout pilot, those mines are the nemesis. They not only ignore sields, but they also do damage when you destroy them and considering your dialogue with Nyghtrunner, it is nearly impossible for me to chase a Rampart and not run into one of those little beasts^^

Edited October 9, 2015 by Crazy-Wolf