Pilot Archive
Thread: WO3, Adv Blasters, & Optimal PvP Weapon Selection (discussion)
I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I have a newish pilot on Starstrider, newish meaning he doesn't have months of stocked up equipment to RE. Or a guild with a nice shipwright to help do the RE work. So I'm left with a few other options.
On my A-Wing I tried a quickshot Advanced blaster, and found it just doesn't hack it in space. I got a few kills, but against a good agile opponent like an Actis or B22 who are packing an RE'd reward shield, I just don't have any punch. The occasional landed shot just didn't do enough damage. I'm switching for now to Advanced blaster designed for damage until I can get a good RE done.
I don't agree with getting two guns and putting as many shots in space as possible. That seems sloppy, and honestly against really small targets I don't think it makes a very effective approach. On my two gun ships I like two beams with the same refire for one solid hit.
A single high refire lvl 7 blaster hit in pvp, most of the time isn't adequate I find. In fact, most of the time armour damage is rarely scored. As a pilot with a single weapon slot ship (A-wing), I find that accuracy is the key. Spraying and praying may work for a two weapon slot ship, but not with a single slot. My reasoning is this. Since I have one weapon slot,when I do score a hit,I need to be making as much of an impression as possible. My weapon is a lvl 8 re'd rewardweapon, has a refire rate of .390 and a max damage of 3.8k. Since on Starsider I am flying against a variety of targets, the max damage is essential as some of the pilots flying more massive ships not only have great lvl 8/10 shields installed, but much armour to boot as well along with shield shunting so a lvl 7 weapon, even if I score a hit will get shunted, then by the time another hit is scored it might even get shunted again.
I'm happy with the slower refire of my lvl 8 weapon since, I am fairly accurate with my shots and fly in a manner as to open up small windows of opportunity for me to take shots, then evade rather than flying aggressively all the time and holding down the fire button. I don't have room for ordnance out of choice since with a single launcher it is easier for my oppnent to chaff oncoming missiles and eventually you run out of them. Ordnance in my view is most effective in large scale pvp when there is the chance of catching an opponent off guard.
I tried out a lvl 7 crafted gun the other day out of curiosity then tried my lvl 8 re'd part and found I was shooting people down sooner with the lvl 8. I think I've just gotten used to the timing of it's refire rate to be honest.
I know this is all a matter of oppinion so I'm not saying either way is right or wrng, but personally I'll never give up a good re'd lvl 8 blaster while I'm flying a single weapon slot 66k mass A-wing. Having ordnance and a lvl 7 blaster wouldn't be a good enough trade off unless I could get a significant refire rate and max damage out of a re'd lvl 7 such as 3.1k max damage and a refire of .300 (which I'm working on currently) but I still feel, since ordnance isn't 100% reliable and can be depleted it isn't a very efficient choice for an A-wing.
As for a crafted lvl 7 -really- high refire rate blaster, I think it'd be ok for newer pilots and in fact fine vs. a pilot who wasn't packing very good protection and I guess on a two weapon slot ship they might be fine. I mean, two times the damage plus the refire rate I can see the advantage.
Ok then, in conclusion I guess my oppinion is, one slot ship, go for a re'd part for pvp. Two weapon slot ship in pvp, go for a high refire crafted part. In the end though, use what works best for you 
I agree with the comments in the post above - I guess I'm specifically talking about a situation in which you meet another PvP experienced player who has an exceptionally good engine. In my practice duels with Malefic on Chimaera, the pair of us were able to turn so quickly that more often than not we were scoring hits with the opponent's ship completely off-screen. That is, the sharpness of turning in my JSF with 1.3s and 1.4 YPR ratings, and he in his Belbullab with 1.5s on his YPR (eek!), meant that the shots that scored needed to be lead almost on a wing and a prayer to be successful.
In this situation, accuracy goes right out the window, and it comes down to a bit of skill and a lot of luck as to who lands the killing shot. The situation described in the post above mine is one in which you can actually manage to get a bead on your opponent and intentionally fire shots that you expect to land. In this circumstance, yes a high powered level 8 would probably be better as its more likely end the confrontation in a single shot than a level 7 advanced. In regard to some of the pilots flying 'massive ships' - if they're massive they're also not nearly as manouverable, meaning that I can probably score multiple hits on that ship with the fast refire blasters in the same time it'd take me to score a single hit against an exceptionally fast and zippy JSF or belbullab.
I guess what I'm saying is this: in a situation where you're facing massive shields, or where accuraccy is important, either of our loadouts would work.. but in my experience, having a lot of shots in the air to increase your chances of landing a hit comes out on top in a face-off between two exceptionally manouverable opponents in JSF or similar craft.
how would that theory change if say, WO3 was fixed?
if i were me, and i am, i would plan for that first. nice to be prepared and all just in case.
quadpers0n wrote:
how would that theory change if say, WO3 was fixed?
if i were me, and i am, i would plan for that first. nice to be prepared and all just in case.
it would change in that without WO3, a single advanced blaster would not be enough to strip the shield and do component damage - in fact even at the top end of the adv blaster damage range (2500ish), with the 0.500 vs shields damage modifier it would only be doing 1250, which is not enough to strip most fast fighter shields, never mind do any damage to the armour or subcomponents.
My knowledge and experience of crafted weapons is rather limited, so if I say something stupid here, please feel free to smack me in the face.
From my personal experience:
I got my hands on a Firespray, finally. I don't have any weapon RE's higher than level 6 yet, and I know that in a ship with the mass of a Firespray, a pair of level 6 RE's really just don't cut it. So, I went out and bought a couple of level 9 quickfires, and took her out. I was reasonably pleased with the outcome, but I felt something was lacking, so I changed her loadout a bit. As I said, my high level weapon RE situation is absolute 0, however I do have 2 Borstels, and 1 Tri-Cannon. I put one Borstel, and the Tri-cannon (mostly to see the weapon effect), and I immediately noticed that I kill things much, much quicker. In fact, even without being RE'd, I can put the hurt on a tier 4 ship in one volley, if both hit...not so with the quickfires.
Can a shipwright push the vs on crafted weapons to something around .65 or higher? If this is the case, what sacrifice(s) are being made to achieve this? I confess that I do not know the answer to this question.
You are asking your questionin terms of PvP...I would venture to say that you can do well with a pair of crafted guns (a pair at least is a must, imo...I agree with Leaph on single gun ships), but I think you would be better off using a pair of good RE's. Good vs on both, good damage...refire is the only real downside to the level 8 and 10 weapons, however this really does not affect me much with my style of flying, and shooting. Even if you spray and pray, I still think that ultimately, a pair of good RE's is the better option all the way around.