What is your ion cannon experience?

[Kuciwalker]

Most gunship regulars will sit through extended blaster fire but a missile lock will get them moving every time.

 

Only if they are a bad gunship.

 

Dude, it's really really easy to distinguish cluster missiles from other missiles, even interdiction. Furthermore there's no reason for me to burn 2 lock breaks on 1 missile. And if you are in cluster range it's not hard for me to LOS you at least once to break the lock. And on most maps that barrel roll will take me to excellent cover which I can use to thwart you until my DCDs are back up.

 

e.g. on Mesas TDM I have held off good scouts pretty much indefinitely via mesa-hugging, evasive flying, and using barrel roll to switch mesas.

[Verain]

Most gunship regulars will sit through extended blaster fire but a missile lock will get them moving every time.

 

Lets go over a couple things.

 

1- Everything Drako said is correct.

This means that by optimizing for what bad players do, you don't end up with a good strategy- you end up with a strategy that works versus bad players only. But, the thing is, a lot of stuff works versus bad players. Building a strategy around being able to farm harder isn't really GSF. It's its own interesting problem, but the goal is orthogonal.

2- Everything you have said is really slanted.

Specifically, you think that "gunship pilots are bad", in maybe not exactly those words. It is certainly true that most GSF pilots are not very good, but that's about as far as it goes. If I was to, knowing nothing but the ship type, have to guess the skill of the player, I would be playing an interesting game. I would, for instance, assume that a Starguard or Novadive pilot was worse than a Quarrel or Flashfire player. And, over enough guesses, I would DEFINITELY be correct. But notice the distinction here: I can say "On average, Starguard pilots are less skilled at everything than Flashfire pilots" and be correct, but when faced with an individual in a Starguard, that kind of statistical guess isn't helpful- the fact that I'm some percent more likely to be correct doesn't help me when the enemy Starguard is an ace, flying his Starguard (though the fact that the Starguard is kind of weakish does help me, that's not related). So when you have a set of slanted opinions and then make ADVICE based on that, it's unquestionably not helpful. As an example, if Drako were to take your advice regarding Gunships in here, he would perform much worse, on average, than he does now, because while he might be slightly better at killing bad gunships (not really, but pretend), he would end up much worse at killing good ones, and the average impact would be terrible.

 

You seem to be unable to open your mouth without crap talking gunships, however, so if your class hatred is so high there's probably nothing to be done to fix you. But others should not be listening to you for advice.

 

 

So yeah, you can throw some ion on beforehand but I'd rather not use up laser energy at this point.

 

An ion cannon isn't like a gunships worst nightmare, but it is unquestionably annoying. A gunship without a shield arc can't snipe, so you get what you stated you want (the gunship moving instead of killing your team, a good goal for sure). The ion cannon's high accuracy also means that you can often land hits through distortion and the ship maneuvering.

 

I'll also say this- if you are chasing a gunship on a Starguard in the first place, you are already running one of a handful of similar builds. If you have ion cannons, are in close range, and they have shields, you should be shooting at them with the ion cannons- unless they have a SMIDGE of health and a single heavy will kill or whatever.

 

Ion cannons have the weakness of not coming into range first, so you'll often be shooting with heavies for that reason.

 

 

(they apparently can't tell the difference between a potentially fatal Proton-Concussion-Thermite lock and a quick Cluster lock that'll barely hurt)

 

Drako called you on this already, but this is a really ludicrous piece of trivially wrong nonsense. Please discuss ion cannons in this thread, don't troll.

 

 

 

 

And now, on to Nemarus!

 

Nemarus speaks with authority in this thread, as he's spent quite a bit of time on the one ship with ion cannons. I do not, however, agree with his consensus that the build he is discussing is the only build.

 

I feel like there really is only one viable Rycer/StarGurad: Ions/Heavies/Clusters. Everything else is, at best gimp, and at worst a trap. And I think the original post spends a disproportionate amount of time discussing what primary weapon to pair with Ion Cannons. There is no good synergistic pairing--that's not the point of the Ion Cannon build.

 

I certainly discussed that particular build as being pretty effective at a decent majority of ship types. But I don't feel it's the only real option. The big thing is that many ships will refuse to be hit by clusters, ions, or clusters and ions, and will instead opt for close range maneuvers (that normally leave them more vulnerable to teammates, and less to you). In a fight with a decent number of those, being able to lock concussion, or fight concussion/heavy on different targets, is pretty great. Clusters are also ineffective against charged plating, their only main weakness.

 

Also, ion and rapids DO have synergy- a great amount, in fact- but rapids are, as you say, rapids. Ions and Quads have similar ranges, and Quads can out damage heavies versus a nonarmored target by a TON. Heavy lasers have an 8% damage to hull talent, and their tier 5 talent does nothing versus a shieldless opponent. Pre capicator, they have around 850 dps versus hull. Meanwhile, Quads can use their whole damage tree including a 16% bonus hull damage talent, with 1100+ dps at point blank to hull. I think it's generally agreed that heavies are more useful than quads, especially on the Starguard, but versus targets that do not have inherent armor and you can stay in range of, the quad laser is over 25% more damage- very much not trivial.

 

So when you say that this is not worth discussing, I disagree because that statement isn't entirely true, and the extent to which it IS true is heavily meta-based- I just feel that ships that would normally be relatively weak to ions/quads are weak enough in the meta that you don't really care. A type 2 gunship, other type 1 strike, and type 3 bomber all will always be taking more damage from ions and quads, etc. But these ships don't really define the meta- most of your burst damage comes from scouts that can outmaneuver or snipers that can outrange, so the ability to tear up a theoretical version of that if they were to hold still is much more theoretical.

 

As for primary weapon, there is no choice but Heavies. You need them for 4 reasons:

 

1) To pop turrets

2) To cut through Charged Plating

3) To rack up mid-range kills when you get damage overcharge

4) To snipe kills on badly wounded targets

 

I agree with all of this in practice- the value of the heavy laser is just generally very strong. Note that (4) requires the shield piercing T5, but that's normally a solid talent to take. There are simply too many targets in the current meta that heavy laser is "just good enough" for, while lacking it would buy you more of something you don't need at the cost of precious little of stuff that you do.

 

 

 

Also, paired with Turbo Reactor, Directional Shields can make you extremely hard to kill when hugging a sat to break LOS.

 

This is the only part of the post I disagree with for real- and only the turbo reactor part. If you run directionals, +magnitude crew member, and large reactor, you'll have 2520 shields base (F4). You'll have 2340 in F1 or F3. You'll begin regenerating at your full rate after 3 seconds of not taking damage.

If you instead run turbo, you'll have 1980 in F1 or F3 (2160 in base F4), but your shield regeneration delay will only be 1.2 seconds.

So, how long does it take to earn back the 360 shields you didn't start with?

 

Here's the perfect situation for directionals, where you are on F2 the moment you take damage or before:

Both shields are struck for X. Turbo is at N-X-360, Large is at N-X.

1.2 seconds later, both shields are still down by X, so N-X-360 versus N-X.

3 seconds later, turbo has healed 243, so it is at N-X-117, Large is at N-X.

Any seconds after that, both large and turbo are healing at the same rate.

So for turbo to win over large, you have to take damage, be in F2, and then immediately take damage again before you get back to where your shields should be. If this cycle happens twice in a row, turbo is able to pull ahead by 126 points.

 

And this is a PERFECT cycle. Do this in F3 mode, and you need four of these cycles (that is, getting hit just enough to hurt your shields but not enough to eliminate them, then going more than 1.2 seconds without taking damage but less than enough time to get in a solid shield heal).

 

If you don't get to regen, large is better (burst damage, constant damage)

If you get to regen a lot, large is better (los for a few seconds)

 

 

 

 

It is far better suited to Domination, where it use sats for cover. In Domination, its Ion/Cluster combo is great for clearing out ships sitting on a satellite (especially Bombers).

 

I think that this should be clarified to be non-charged plating bombers, but yea, definitely. This is a strength of the build, but I'm not sure how much of that is Starguard and how much of that is ion cannon- but it doesn't really matter.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Verain

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Being a T1 or T2 Strike in a TDM means you are simply food for Scouts and Gunships. You are powerless against an Ion Railgun and will be outmaneuvered by any Scout. The T3 Strike is only viable in TDM because it has Power Dive, which can be used with zero engine energy. And even if the T3 Strike cannot get many kills, its command ability at least aids allies. The T1 and T2 offer nothing in TDM--any exceptional TDM performance from them is due to very poor opposition, and could be duplicated in any ship.

 

Well, two things on that. One, that's a surefire argument for some reductions that need to happen to battlescouts, if it's 100% true. But two, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on those (more with the gunship than the battlescout). A good gunship pilot is always going to be a danger, and ion railgun is a pain. But it's only moderately more problematic for a Strike than for a Scout. Scouts do get regularly hit by railguns, even when they are piloted well and if they are using crazy levels of defense. You do the same things to combat a gunship in a scout or a strike... scouts just have their ample engine power and speed going for them, which is obviously really helpful there. At any rate, if you get hit by ion railgun in a strike, it's doubtful you were doing something drastically different than you would have been doing in a scout at the time.

 

And as for a scrub gunship pilot giving a decent pilot a hard time in a strike... no, that just isn't happening. A decent gunship pilot should give a decent pilot in any other ship some challenge, which is as it should be. But there's nothing inherent to gunships that would make a scrub there do well against a decent strike pilot.

 

I do think it's a little stupid that battlescouts are still the premier dogfighters in the game... they basically have all the best offensive abilities and much of the defensive ability you want as a dogfighter. There's room for moderate tweaking there, still. But I fly strikes a lot of the time, and when I have issues with battlescouts it's when I foolishly ran into a pack of them, or if my teammates aren't doing enough to challenge them. Even then it's coming down more to teammates than it is to how the ships are built.

 

I'm sure you love scout piloting and have played the game a lot, but it might just be strikes aren't your cup of tea, or something. Because that comment about strikes not even being moderate competition in TDM doesn't match up my experience with piloting strikes in TDM, or the strikes I have seen in TDM. And if you're an Ace, some of your experience can come down to how good the pilots are that you are facing. The great pilots I've seen sometimes make me doublecheck to make sure of what ship they were flying, because they were doing things with it I didn't think it was capable of.

 

And Ion Cannon has a max range of 4600. It is terrible for mid range combat--not sure what comments you are referring to. Trust me, I have an alt who only flies an Ion/Heavy/Cluster Rycer in TDM. He performs far worse than my alt who only flies a Blackbolt in TDM. The opposite is true for Domination. The Rycer is far better than the Blackbolt at muscling control of nodes and prying off Bombers from sats.

 

I got my wording goofed up with match types (a little worn out when I posted the other). I meant to say that it seems like ion builds would be better for domination rounds, rather than deathmatch (for some reason my brain was thinking domination was deathmatch... yeah, I was tired). Most fights in deathmatch have more range to them, so ion doesn't seem as helpful there. Now if ion cannon could be on a battlescout... maybe. It'd be silly, but battlscouts have far too low of a difficulty level in keeping someone within 4k meters. They could do it if the pilot wanted to.

 

And as Ramalina said, the main reason I don't like ions is because I prefer those mid to long range fights. Which is why I use quads or lasers on my scouts, because I'd rather have a bit more range.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Pilgrim_Grey

[Verain]

Pretend you were on a strike, and you were in a 1v1 with a battlescout. Piloting the battlescout? An exact copy of you. How does that fight go?

 

But, lets not digress too much. There's plenty of gunship and scout cry crap across the forums. This is an ion cannon thread, after all, we don't need to state obvious things like "The Starguard isn't that great in the meta" or "The ships that are good in the meta are probably good because they are too good at being ships and also in the meta", which is what almost every post involving the word "scout" or "gunship" is gonna turn into.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Pretend you were on a strike, and you were in a 1v1 with a battlescout. Piloting the battlescout? An exact copy of you. How does that fight go?

 

Hence my saying it's lame that battlescouts are the premier dogfighters in the game, because they're scouts. But this isn't news.

 

But yes, let's not digress too much. I was just challenging the "have no place" stuff, since it is a team game and not just 1 vs 1 and you can do well in a strike in TDM.

 

Back on track, I'll have to try with the ions soon. I'm just taking a break with my main strike pilot because I had to play him a LOT last week for conquest points.

[Nemarus]

I'm sure you love scout piloting and have played the game a lot, but it might just be strikes aren't your cup of tea, or something. Because that comment about strikes not even being moderate competition in TDM doesn't match up my experience with piloting strikes in TDM, or the strikes I have seen in TDM. And if you're an Ace, some of your experience can come down to how good the pilots are that you are facing. The great pilots I've seen sometimes make me doublecheck to make sure of what ship they were flying, because they were doing things with it I didn't think it was capable of.

 

 

I'm actually one of the biggest proponents of Strikes on these forums. I have long lobbied, often overaggressively, for Strike buffs and/or catastrophic nerfs to Scouts and Gunships.

 

I think that, by default, playing Strikes should be the best and more reliable way to win for newbs and aces alike. Scouts, Gunships, and Bombers should be specialists with niche strengths that dedicated aces can exploit, but sufficient weaknesses such that they do not become dominant. It's a dream of mine, and many may not agree with it, or may not think it's possible, or may think such a drastic change would scare people away from the game. I don't want to argue about any of that right now--I'm just trying to prove that I love Strikes and I want them to be not only good, but the best.

 

And in Domination, very particular builds of The T1 and T3 can do well. The T2, unfortunately, is really only good at killing lesser pilots, even in Domination.

 

But in TDM, a Strike has no way to escape being suppressed via focus. In fact I'd go so far as to say that being an ace with a well-known name makes flying a Strike even harder in TDM. Even if just 2 or 3 pilots decide to focus you, there is no way to deal with them. You don't have the mobility or engine endurance to outrun pursuers. You only have one missile break. You have no means to burst-kill anyone, except perhaps with the Ion/Cluster build, but even then you're probably going to die before you kill a second person.

 

And again, the Ion Railgun is absolutely crippling. It can be a stock Gunship with a stock Ion Railgun piloted by a brand new pilot. All he has to do is hit you once, and you are dead in space.

 

Why is a Scout different? Because a Scout--all three variants--have tools.

 

1) Their boost is much more efficient, meaning they are likely to have in excess of 70 engine energy in reserve while dogfighting. This means that even if they get hit by an Ion Railgun, they still have enough juice to boost to cover or close in on / flank the Gunship. This is to say nothing of Booster Recharge, Shield-to-Engine Converter on the T1, Booster, or Tensor Field on the T3, all of which give on-demand boost energy.

 

2) They can all take Power Dive. I know that not many Battlescouts do, but T1 and T3 Scouts would be foolish to take anything else. Power Dive has zero energy cost and a 10 second cooldown. It is the ultimate get-me-out-of-here ability. Yes, it takes practice to use it without self-destructing, but it's worth it.

 

3) Rockets allow burst damage, and work even if laser energy has been drained.

 

4) Evasion. Even if we assume Evasion failed to protect the Scout from the first shot, it still may protect him from any follow-up shots, especially with Distortion Field.

 

All of these combine to mean that a Scout hit by Ion Railgun is in a far better position to run or counter-attack than a Strike hit by Ion Railgun. It's why most experienced Gunship pilots don't even bother to shoot Ion Railgun at Scouts--it's better to just hit them with a Slug to get some guaranteed damage before they run/counter.

 

All of these also combine to make an ace in a Scout far better at mitigating being focused than an ace in a Strike. My Scout of choice for carrying TDM's is a Blackbolt with Shield-to-Engine Converter, because I can basically outrun anyone who tries to focus me. And while outrunning them, I can pick up power-ups with ease and make rocket charges at Gunships and Strikes in front of me, picking up kills and assists as I lead my pursuers on a chase they can never win.

 

I cannot do anything like that in a Strike. If I'm being pursued, I can't escape. Nor can I do enough burst damage to kill anything while also flying evasively.

 

I have found that I do better with Strikes when I'm on a new alt with an unrecognized name. In that case I'm not focused, and I have breathing room to actually line up mid-range kills. But in truth, I've actually had more success doing this with a T3 Bomber than any Strike--even when I'm flying on my well-known mains. The T3 Bomber can use Concussion Mines or Interdiction Drone to frustrate pursuers. And the T3 Bomber gets Power Dive, vastly increasing its mobility and elusiveness, even if hit by Ion Railgun.

 

I love Strikes, but they are pretty much a Deathmatch deathtrap for any pilots with even the slightest bit of local server celebrity.

[Itkovian]

But in TDM, a Strike has no way to escape being suppressed via focus. In fact I'd go so far as to say that being an ace with a well-known name makes flying a Strike even harder in TDM. Even if just 2 or 3 pilots decide to focus you, there is no way to deal with them. You don't have the mobility or engine endurance to outrun pursuers. You only have one missile break. You have no means to burst-kill anyone, except perhaps with the Ion/Cluster build, but even then you're probably going to die before you kill a second person.

 

I'm going to have to second you on that. Few things are as unpleasant as being the only known name vs a pro team when pugging.

 

But this is not really a problem when my team has some other good pilots. If people STILL insist on focusing you (and, like you said, there's little you can do to evade at that point), then you get to play bait while your team secures the win. But this is pretty rare, usually with a decent team getting good results is not too difficult, even in a strike.

 

But I do agree that Strikes definitely have less of what I would call "extreme" options, which makes getting out of tight situations more difficult.

 

That said, I'm not sure I agree with Domination and T2 strikes. I generally do pretty well in my Pike, and the introduction of Bombers made the T2 even more useful, as it's an excellent bomber hunter. Likewise, it's definitely possible to pull off great numbers in Deathmatch in a Strike.

 

All that being said, I certainly would not object to Strikes getting some sort of buff. Because Strikes are FUN, and people should feel a greater incentive to play them (that, and anything that remotely looks like an X-wing deserves to be awesome *grin*).

Edited October 2, 2014 by Itkovian

[Pilgrim_Grey]

I'm going to have to second you on that. Few things are as unpleasant as being the only known name vs a pro team when pugging.

 

But this is not really a problem when my team has some other good pilots. If people STILL insist on focusing you (and, like you said, there's little you can do to evade at that point), then you get to play bait while your team secures the win. But this is pretty rare, usually with a decent team getting good results is not too difficult, even in a strike.

 

But I do agree that Strikes definitely have less of what I would call "extreme" options, which makes getting out of tight situations more difficult.

 

That said, I'm not sure I agree with Domination and T2 strikes. I generally do pretty well in my Pike, and the introduction of Bombers made the T2 even more useful, as it's an excellent bomber hunter. Likewise, it's definitely possible to pull off great numbers in Deathmatch in a Strike.

 

All that being said, I certainly would not object to Strikes getting some sort of buff. Because Strikes are FUN, and people should feel a greater incentive to play them (that, and anything that remotely looks like an X-wing deserves to be awesome *grin*).

 

Hehe on the last part. I also hate that multiple Star Wars books talk about how fast the X-wings are, but then strikes have a fairly severe speed/boost penalty for how they're supposed to play. No matter what, though, I love Strikes. I can actually have more issues with scouts' speed and maneuverability (I, um, crash more in them), and they often feel too fragile for me. Yes, you can dodge a lot of stuff, but when you do get hit, it hurts a lot more.

 

I agree with a lot of what else you said, too. I'm hardly arguing that any of the Strikes are better dogfighters than the battlescout (or the type 1, really). They're favored too much in the defense, speed, turning, and boosting department. Obviously they need some kind of benefits to outweigh strikes, but they're too far on that line at the moment.

 

Anyway, I was just trying to say that Strikes can compete (and as you noted, Type 2 strikes can do great in domination... and depending on the team makeup, I've done quite well with them in deathmatch). And some of the things Nemarus is citing are due to team play. Anyone is going to be hurting if they're focused as he described, it's just that battlescouts are given a ridiculous number of ways to deal with that kind of situation. So again, they are in a better spot, but not so much that a decent strike pilot can't do well in a deathmatch round.

[zvbm]

Ion cannon(range/shield) + heavies(armor pen/piercing) + concussion(ammo/armor pen) + directional shields + retro thrusters + wingman is my build of choice.

 

The playstyle I use is to charge with ions blazing (don't open with heavies) and try to get a point blank concussion. If it lands, scouts WILL die. It's especially fun to go head to head against scouts with shields to front. Unless you suffer really bad RNG and get crit by everything they throw at you, your shields usually hold up. In my experience ions tend to force an early distortion field and if they run, you can usually chase them around locking concussion missiles again. Against strikes, I use retros offensively to get in a shot or two of heavies to finish them off.

 

Another advantage of concussions is the t5 armor penetration. Works great paired with heavies at range when you need to clear pesky charged plating bombers off nodes.

 

Also, fortress shields, what fortress shields? lol

 

Getting hit by an ion rail still leaves you dead in the water but then again, that's true of any strike no matter the build.

 

~Zen

[Verain]

Hehe on the last part. I also hate that multiple Star Wars books talk about how fast the X-wings are, but then strikes have a fairly severe speed/boost penalty for how they're supposed to play.

 

Well, A-Wings are unquestionably faster than X-Wings, and the strikes are unquestionably the second fastest. Granted, they FEEL slow compared to scouts, but I think there's a lot of elements involved in balance.

 

Anyway, I was just trying to say that Strikes can compete (and as you noted, Type 2 strikes can do great in domination... and depending on the team makeup, I've done quite well with them in deathmatch).

 

This is an ion cannon thread, and we are definitely drifting off topic. I'll say this though: your ability to do ok with a ship at a time doesn't mean very much. How would you do compared to you in (another ship) is always the question you need to ask. No one thinks strikes are so terrible that they are unplayable, but that doesn't mean that balance is ok.

 

Ion cannon(range/shield) + heavies(armor pen/piercing) + concussion(ammo/armor pen) + directional shields + retro thrusters + wingman is my build of choice.

 

I've played this build quite a bit, and while this is true, it's a rather bad scout that lets himself be point blank concussioned with any measure of reliability. There's plenty of bad pilots, of course, but a lot of tricks work on them. Clusters are generally far superior to concussions versus scouts- about the same damage, but much easier to lock on and can actually work through cooldowns with a very low reload time.

 

When I play the Ion/Heavy/Concussion ship, it's really a heavy/concussion strike fighter who has a super great trick if he's in a big ball or close to enemies with shields. It's definitely different than what Nemarus is talking about, where the missile begins to lock and by the time it is released and hits the target the shields are dust because of the ion cannons.

 

 

I think the real take home is this:

 

> Ion cannons are pretty amazing at stripping shields on ANY target that gets in a tussle. The ones that it isn't that effective on are the ones with really low shields combined with superior mobility, more of a limit of the type 1 strike than the cannon.

> The builds being discussed all try to play to the strengths of the ion cannon (can remove shields) while trying to shore up the short range and inability to deal close hull damage.

> The most synergistic builds don't have any ripe targets (quads/ions) that show up very often (ex: that build is pretty solid versus other strikes), while the ones that just pick components that are strong in their role and play to that seem to be the favored ones (ions, heavies, concussions or clusters).

> The build that seems to be most frequently referenced, and argued for very strongly by Nemarus, is heavies/ions/clusters. Directional and Quick Charge, and Retros or Barrel Roll, all seem to work on that frame, with the expected results (Quick Charge is more mobile and less tanky, Directional can joust many targets, Barrel Roll gets you around the map effectively, Retros are the best at landing extra ions, clusters, and concussions in a dogfight, while also not resetting that dogfight).

> Anyone who mentions capacitor recommends ranged capacitor.

 

 

 

 

 

For the record, I really like how this thread has gone, and I really like the discussions it has spawned. Ramalina and Nemarus in particular brought up stuff I hadn't seen said.

 

 

 

Here's some other questions:

 

1)- The "drain 40 shield power" thing always made me wonder. Does it actually drain 40 from the arc struck, or 20 from each? Note that 20 from the other arc would be super hard to see visually, so I can't easily confirm this.

2)- Has anyone had any success with the blaster drain talent? It really seems terrible, a non-choice.

3)- One thing that is discussed whenever the effective use of a ship is brought up is the role intended when you pick it. Strike fighters get described as "multi role", but I argue that's not really a thing. What are you most likely to do with an ion cannon strike fighter on each map? And when you answer this, assume you are playing the type 1 strike- "I get on my bomber" might be true and fine, but not really relevant to this discussion.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Verain

[zvbm]

I've played this build quite a bit, and while this is true, it's a rather bad scout that lets himself be point blank concussioned with any measure of reliability.

Valid point, but I wouldn't be on a strike if the opposition was good.

 

3)- One thing that is discussed whenever the effective use of a ship is brought up is the role intended when you pick it.

 

I mostly use this to kill other strikes and shred bombers, both of which it seems to be pretty good at. Also great for taking out newbie gunships who pop fortress shields and don't bother moving.

 

~Zen

[caederon]

The Blaster Drain talent seems really poor any way you look at it. If it laid a serious debuff on the enemy, like kept their blasters from regenerating for 10 seconds or something like that, it might be worth looking at. Even then, it doesn't eliminate the enemy ship's offensive capabilities. They can still fire secondary weapons.

 

- Despon

Edited October 4, 2014 by caederon

[Fractalsponge]

The Blaster Drain talent seems really poor any way you look at it. If it laid a serious debuff on the enemy, like kept their blasters from regenerating for 10 seconds or something like that, it might be worth looking at. Even then, it doesn't eliminate the enemy ship's offensive capabilities. They can still fire secondary weapons.

 

- Despon

 

That would be insanely OP for a spammable high ROF, high accuracy weapon. If it drained *more* blaster pool, then that'd be one thing. Having a single weapon be able to continuously and completely shut down a ship's offensive power would be insane.

 

I think a range bump and/or a boost to hull damage would be enough of a buff for ion. It's a very powerful weapon as is.

[Ramalina]

Pretend you were on a strike, and you were in a 1v1 with a battlescout. Piloting the battlescout? An exact copy of you. How does that fight go?

You know what, screw this $#!^, I'm gonna go farm some newb instead, this is taking too long. Or in other words, unless caught unawares TTK would be annoyingly high.

 

X-wing vs A wing wise, this is sort of how it's supposed to work, the thing is that a head to head joust should be suicidal for the A-wing, and dps (both burst and sustained) should be lower for the A-wing. Get an interceptor on your tail and you're toast because they can sit there and blast away, you just can't shake the bastards. They're not supposed to have a B-wing/Assault Boat worth of firepower though. That's where the devs really screwed up strike/scout balance compared to preceding games IMO.

 

And again, the Ion Railgun is absolutely crippling. It can be a stock Gunship with a stock Ion Railgun piloted by a brand new pilot. All he has to do is hit you once, and you are dead in space. [/Quote]

 

Poppycock. You can take one hit, maybe two. You do have to fly with Ion Railguns in mind though (so you can't throw engine power pool away like a scout does). Ion railguns are fixed in regards to excessive energy drain and energy drain spam. (Disclosure: I have to say this because they implemented the exact set of Ion Railgun drain changes that I was lobbying for over the two patches that ended GS Ion spam-fests.)

 

What does ruin a strike's day is the T5 12 second snare. Get hit by that more than a couple hundred meters away from good cover and you're done for. (The snare I did not lobby for, and am not really a fan of. I liked 6 seconds better).

 

 

For the record, I really like how this thread has gone, and I really like the discussions it has spawned. Ramalina and Nemarus in particular brought up stuff I hadn't seen said.

 

Here's some other questions:

 

1)- The "drain 40 shield power" thing always made me wonder. Does it actually drain 40 from the arc struck, or 20 from each? Note that 20 from the other arc would be super hard to see visually, so I can't easily confirm this.

2)- Has anyone had any success with the blaster drain talent? It really seems terrible, a non-choice.

3)- One thing that is discussed whenever the effective use of a ship is brought up is the role intended when you pick it. Strike fighters get described as "multi role", but I argue that's not really a thing. What are you most likely to do with an ion cannon strike fighter on each map? And when you answer this, assume you are playing the type 1 strike- "I get on my bomber" might be true and fine, but not really relevant to this discussion.

 

Gee, thanks.

 

1. No idea, and crazy hard to test without any sort of combat log. I figure it's just bonus DPS and light years ahead of the weapon energy drain option. At close range the bonus damage is incidental, at long range it mitigates damage fall off nicely because as a per hit effect it isn't affected by range. Works out to roughly 90 dps, though as you hint, only 45 of that may really be useful.

 

2. A full drain would take about 10 seconds of sustained fire, 5 for a half drain, and I figure most of my ion bursts are 2-3 seconds at most. There's also a significant chance that the target isn't shooting at me, and if they put power to weapons the blaster power pool recharges very quickly. If a Death Star is ever introduced and we can use the weapon power drain to keep it from firing its superlaser then maybe I'll be interested.

 

3. I mentioned opportunism before, and that's what I find really key, at least for the HLC-Ion-Concussion build. As an example: coming in from above at an enemy sat with a bomber orbiting below, I'll nail a turret with HLCs, angle the approach so that I can swap to Ions and tag the bomber with them as I clear the sat's LOS on the way down, then boost a few km for a U-Turn and try to do some serious damage to the bomber with heavies and concussion before it flies to the top of the sat. Or if it managed to get it's shields back up make another pass with the Ions.

 

If I'm within 6.9 km of a target I can do unpleasant things to them with at least one of my weapons, it's just a matter of selecting the maximally unpleasant one for this moment, or possibly for the near term future (so I might pass up a nice HLC shot and boost in for an Ion burst if there are a bunch of friendlies near a high value target like a bomber or a gunship ace).

 

Aside from the difficulty of follow up shots with HLCs and Concussions, that rapid tactical flexibility is what makes getting the most out of Ion Cannons a real challenge. I have less fun with the build when I'm really tired because I make more mistakes and respond more slowly, and over a GSF match those little errors have a pretty big cumulative impact on a strike using Ions.

[caederon]

That would be insanely OP for a spammable high ROF, high accuracy weapon. If it drained *more* blaster pool, then that'd be one thing. Having a single weapon be able to continuously and completely shut down a ship's offensive power would be insane.

Yeah, you're right... though what if it was more like ion railgun's top tier talent choices, slowing blaster pool regeneration by 55% for a time? It could even lose the direct drain and have just the debuff. That might make it a more interesting choice.

 

Unless the per/hit weapon power pool drain was increased by a whole lot, I don't think it's a strong enough talent to choose over draining shield power, which leaves the affected ship much more vulnerable. With a weapon power pool of 110, as it is now, the ion hits drain 3.6% of the total pool each. If you're in range to keep blasting something with ion cannon long enough to significantly drain its weapon power, you probably could have killed it with missiles and/or swapping to your other gun instead of messing around.

Edited October 5, 2014 by caederon

[Kaisernick]

love them.

my enforcer had rapid cannons as a main and iron as second that and a torpedo that has a very fast lock on (dont know the name) i can strip shields and normally fire a torpedo very quickly.

[Hanak]

Here's some other questions:

 

1)- The "drain 40 shield power" thing always made me wonder. Does it actually drain 40 from the arc struck, or 20 from each? Note that 20 from the other arc would be super hard to see visually, so I can't easily confirm this.

2)- Has anyone had any success with the blaster drain talent? It really seems terrible, a non-choice.

3)- One thing that is discussed whenever the effective use of a ship is brought up is the role intended when you pick it. Strike fighters get described as "multi role", but I argue that's not really a thing. What are you most likely to do with an ion cannon strike fighter on each map? And when you answer this, assume you are playing the type 1 strike- "I get on my bomber" might be true and fine, but not really relevant to this discussion.

 

1] I'll double check this but I was confident it was the ship as a whole. It's hard to see when another friendly is on the target but it slowly chips away at both shield arcs.

2] The reason I have to check 1] is because I run with this talent of blaster drain. It seems terrible until you suffer from it's effects. Also consider how much shield damage you are already doing - a small drain isn't going to change it much. With that consideration, it makes the shield power drain seem the "terrible, a non-choice." The weapon power and engine power drains work better in a dueling capacity. It's the difference between you killing that T2 scout and you dying to it or even Renegade-One in a gunship.

3] Saberwing has enjoyed using the Starguard as an anti-battlescout ship. Like Nemarus said, it is almost an instant kill after shields are stripped. Land that cluster and one heavy hit and they are space dust. I think he's experienced this build from us often. Of course this require retro-thrusters. The build is effective at taking out gunships as well but barrel roll may be better suited in closing distances. Again, it depends on how the other team is reacting and backing up their gunships. It's very hard to fully utilized directional against a gunship when there is a scout on your 6. Largely used by us as a 1v1 dueling ship that takes the cake; ultimately, I have to agree with other folks in that this ship is a strong addition to a concert effort but against one [a concert effort] it lacks survivability in comparison.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Hanak

[Drakkolich]

Well tonight we ended up in a 12v12 and got almost everyone to play Starguard only I was told to put this here for everyone's enjoyment. ^^

 

Link to Starguard's only video.

 

I should mention most of us have the giggles because we just came off a all scouts no spacebar match and then all warcarrier drone spam one.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Drakkolich

[Verain]

In fairness, I was on a Clarion, because I wanted to play Clarion, and someone has to have the repair probes!

 

But yea, I think it was all strikes except that one pug who wanted to req his fresh Condor, and one two shipper who ran that scout at first.

 

That was a pretty fun game. And I love that almost ALL of you were running the Whiskey Gladiator build!

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729222

 

"They just don't spawn with shields"

 

Also if you are gonna run black/yellow, we need to get you into the bumblebee paint job.

[tommmsunb]

I find with ion cannons I can kill most ships faster than in my scout. Hands down.

[Verain]

Well, I mean, you won't be scoring kills faster than a quads and pods scout, but I bet that's not the comparison, right?

 

Still, there's no question that the general dps of the ion cannon is totally wild, so I don't bout that conclusion one bit.

[tommmsunb]

Well, I mean, you won't be scoring kills faster than a quads and pods scout, but I bet that's not the comparison, right?

 

Still, there's no question that the general dps of the ion cannon is totally wild, so I don't bout that conclusion one bit.

 

This is it basically. You will kill faster than a scout but you won't score kills faster. If everybody lined up in front of you and asked for more then you definitely will though.

[Ryuku-sama]

This is it basically. You will kill faster than a scout but you won't score kills faster. If everybody lined up in front of you and asked for more then you definitely will though.

 

Because there is that many pilots asking you to kill them???

[Verain]

Because there is that many pilots asking you to kill them???

 

There can be, in fact. Food ships be like, what r gee ess eff?

 

I don't think you would want to optimize for that situation, but it absolutely can occur.

[Ryuku-sama]

There can be, in fact. Food ships be like, what r gee ess eff?

 

I don't think you would want to optimize for that situation, but it absolutely can occur.

 

Verain... I thought I talked about pilots. Not food. Please learn the difference between them