
An oldie but goodie
Please share your recommendations here.
Organised into:
1: PLAYSTYLE/TACTICS
2: SHIP SIZE
3: LOADOUT
for clarity.
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I've recently gotten an FDL meta ship but honestly, I prefer my Cutter's loadout that best deals with medium ships. I prefer to pit my opponent against unwinnable odds.
Why don't more people use short-range PA? They offer more DPE than any other plasma options, and the loss of range isn't really much of a concern in most situations. They generate a lot of heat, but thermal vent can dump heat so fast and the typical jousting fighting style provides simple time to cool anyway.
I have a x5 legacy efficient PA FdL that is a lot of fun to use, heat is not an issue as it cools for the next salvo. Are new PA effects any better?
The current meta ship i see all over the place is:
FDL with 1 or 2 rails and the rest plasma some times there is a corosive multi thrown in the mix. The fly faoff alot of the time and zoom and boom you. If you use scbs the rails come out. They usualy are stuffed full with shield boosters and scbs and run the second the shields drop, or if they have true grit they stay and fight to the bitter end.
Basically the meta dejour is plasma and rails zoom and boom faoff. In eather a chieftan fdl or fas. At least in my experiance...
I'm very new to PvP (...)
My tactics are normally close the gap as much as possible (...)
The thing that annoys me is that the FdL is fragile, close up fast duels involve a lot of collisions that really spank the armour and shields if I can't set 4 pips in time. My FAS shrugs off collisions while my FdL goes down like a diving footballer, and I don't want to change pledges for the Prismatics.
This is indeed correct but it's hardly 'meta', merely popular.
The so-called meta FdL is an earnest attempt by skilled players to overcome the limitations of the game's current mechanics by encouraging a fun and skilled full-fixed high-alpha build. The success of the initiative is to be applauded.
However, the so-called meta FdL dies hard 1v1 to fixed or gimballed phasing lasers, or to gimballed multi-cannons.
Meanwhile the FAS and Chieftain equivalents are overwhelmingly outclassed by high hit-point base shield FdL's, basically almost regardless of loadout, because they have so few hp in comparison and most of their hp comes with module exposure.
The above is masked to a considerable extent by the fact that meta-FdL pilots and many FAS/Chieftain pilots are typically better at the game than, for example, a typical high base-shield gimballed FdL pilot. Hence the former make their builds look better than in truth they actually are.
Winged combat brings in different considerations.
If the masking is torn away:
The true medium ship metas, in the sense of Most Effective Tactive Available, assuming all combatants are experienced PvP-ers with hard-ceilinged ships, are:
1v1: FdL shield-tanked to the max and equipped mostly or wholly with gimballed weapons
Winged: FdL's shield-tanked to the max and equipped mostly or wholly with long range fixed hit scan weapons
I guarantee - positively, personally, guarantee - that absent the considerations of PvP etiquette - pure, bare knuckle Open - a sequential round of fights conducted by serious apex PvP-ers using the builds above would demonstrate the objective supremacy of what I have said by a Win-Loss ratio of 5 times to 1 in favour of the builds I have said, if not 10 or 20 times to 1, with the meta-FdL's (/FAS / Chieftain) exposed as noble failures.
In the winged example I give above there is no answer. In the 1v1 example, the only answer would be to bring ludicrous amounts of chaff. But that's counter-building and we can all counter-build to beat anything if we know what we're going to fight. In Open, one never knows.
To say that I consider the situation I have tried truly to describe above as undesirable is something of an understatement. Don't shoot the messenger! But, it's been more or less as above for approaching two years now and shows no sign of changing.
Fear not, Mr Rubbernuke - with time, no matter how close you get in your FdL, you'll become adept at avoiding all or almost all collisions. You might get unlucky once every few duels, particularly if suffering desync, but nothing major.
I've recently gotten an FDL meta ship but honestly, I prefer my Cutter's loadout that best deals with medium ships. I prefer to pit my opponent against unwinnable odds.
Ah yes, the reverse, gimballed, MJ stacked cutter, the crutch for all occasions.
This is indeed correct but it's hardly 'meta', merely popular.
The so-called meta FdL is an earnest attempt by skilled players to overcome the limitations of the game's current mechanics by encouraging a fun and skilled full-fixed high-alpha build. The success of the initiative is to be applauded.
However, the so-called meta FdL dies hard 1v1 to fixed or gimballed phasing lasers, or to gimballed multi-cannons.
Meanwhile the FAS and Chieftain equivalents are overwhelmingly outclassed by high hit-point base shield FdL's, basically almost regardless of loadout, because they have so few hp in comparison and most of their hp comes with module exposure.
The above is masked to a considerable extent by the fact that meta-FdL pilots and many FAS/Chieftain pilots are typically better at the game than, for example, a typical high base-shield gimballed FdL pilot. Hence the former make their builds look better than in truth they actually are.
Winged combat brings in different considerations.
If the masking is torn away:
The true medium ship metas, in the sense of Most Effective Tactive Available, assuming all combatants are experienced PvP-ers with hard-ceilinged ships, are:
1v1: FdL shield-tanked to the max and equipped mostly or wholly with gimballed weapons
Winged: FdL's shield-tanked to the max and equipped mostly or wholly with long range fixed hit scan weapons
I guarantee - positively, personally, guarantee - that absent the considerations of PvP etiquette - pure, bare knuckle Open - a sequential round of fights conducted by serious apex PvP-ers using the builds above would demonstrate the objective supremacy of what I have said by a Win-Loss ratio of 5 times to 1 in favour of the builds I have said, if not 10 or 20 times to 1, with the meta-FdL's (/FAS / Chieftain) exposed as noble failures.
In the winged example I give above there is no answer. In the 1v1 example, the only answer would be to bring ludicrous amounts of chaff. But that's counter-building and we can all counter-build to beat anything if we know what we're going to fight. In Open, one never knows.
To say that I consider the situation I have tried truly to describe above as undesirable is something of an understatement. Don't shoot the messenger! But, it's been more or less as above for approaching two years now and shows no sign of changing.
Fear not, Mr Rubbernuke - with time, no matter how close you get in your FdL, you'll become adept at avoiding all or almost all collisions. You might get unlucky once every few duels, particularly if suffering desync, but nothing major.
Dont forget at least 2 packhounds for the big "I win button"
Is this something that works against hulltank/hybrids? Because every time people used packhounds against my shieldtank I couldn't help but wondering why they even bothered carrying it around.
Is this something that works against hulltank/hybrids? Because every time people used packhounds against my shieldtank I couldn't help but wondering why they even bothered carrying it around.
Is this something that works against hulltank/hybrids? Because every time people used packhounds against my shieldtank I couldn't help but wondering why they even bothered carrying it around.