A year ago in October, I wrote a little post in which I listed what I thought were the “best in class” ships in each ship class. With Retribution coming up and a lot of ship changes in store for us at the T1 frigate and cruiser level, I thought it would be fun to update that post for the new year. This isn’t anything I’ll be doing often, but “once a year” feels about right for this kind of post.
Last year, I excluded faction ships of all kinds from the list. This year, I’m going to include them in their own categories. But I’ll still be excluding tournament ships this year. Without further ado…
- Assault Ship: Last year, I tentatively picked the Enyo. This year, I would be tempted to drop the “tentatively”. The thing has just become a monster thanks to the hybrid buff. That said, the Caldari/Hawk has become unbeatable in a 1v1 thanks to ASBs. So if you want a fleet of AFs, Enyos. But if you’re gonna bomb around low-sec looking for targets, the Hawk.
- Battle Cruiser: Last year, I chose the Hurricane but this year, it’s not even in the top three. The new tier 3 BCs are so much better than the previously existing types. Which one of the four is the best is a topic for lots of argument, but for my money, the best of them is the Gallente/Talos. It’s just so versatile and hard-hitting.
- Battleship: Last year, I chose the Tempest for versatility. With the changes to hybrid damage though, I’m gonna go with the Rokh this year. Its range, tank, and punch in the right fleet doctrines is tough to beat. It’s also become much more viable in PvE, displacing the Raven in a lot of applications.
- Black Ops: No change. Amarr/Redeemer, for the DPS. They all still stink, though.
- Carrier: The Amarr/Archon has supplanted the Thanny for this position with the increasing importance of triage and pantheon carrier tactics.
- Command Ship: Still a tough category. It’s definitely still an Amarr or Minmatar entry. Last year, I chose Minmatar/Sleipnir and it’s hard to change my mind about it this year. It’s a nasty little boat.
- Covert Ops: Remains Caldari/Buzzard for versatility. No change.
- Cruiser: Until December 4, Minmatar/Rupture holds this title. After December 4, I suspect it won’t even be in the top five, but which ones will supplant it remain to be seen. If I had to guess, I’d say the Thorax will be the best one.
- Destroyer: Again, Minmatar/Thrasher holds this position until December 4. It’s too early to say what it will be after, though.
- Dreadnought: Gallente/Moros. It isn’t even a contest.
- EAF: I continue to admire the Amarr/Sentinel quite a lot. It proved its worth during Alliance Tournament X.
- Frigate: With the hybrid weapon changes and its awesome versatility, the Gallente/Incursus wrested this position from the Rifter. It might not hold it long after December 4, though. We’ll see.
- HAC: This class of ship has been absolutely destroyed this year, so any choice I make is kind of irrelevant. Still, I think the Gallente/Ishtar has taken over this position thanks to the new Drone Damage mod.
- HIC: The Onyx won last year for versatility, but armor fleets have been so important this year that the Amarr/Devoter has slipped into the top spot.
- Interceptor: Most of them are damn good, but I remain a big fan of the Gallente/Taranis. The hybrid buff only made it better.
- Interdictor: The Minmatar/Sabre still holds this position, and by a wide margin.
- Logistics: All four ships in this class are now quite good, until they get supplanted in one way or another on December 4. Until then, the Minmatar/Scimitar remains the best of them.
- Marauder: With the introduction of XLASB tactics, the Minmatar/Vargur wrested this slot from the Amarr and doesn’t show any signs of giving it up any time soon, even with the gentle nerf that’s coming.
- Recon: This is always going to be the toughest choice for me. They’re almost all great ships in their own ways. Still, the Caldari/Falcon remains the best of the eight in my opinion.
- Rookie Ship: This was the Gallente/Velator before that ship got some nice buffs. Still, the Caldari/Ibis is now a close second thanks to its “LOL ewar noobfleet” upgrade.
- Stealth Bomber: Still a close call between the Caldari/Manticore and the Minmatar/Hound. I continue to favor the Manti for versatility. That extra mid-slot is so useful.
- Strat Cruiser: Again, this remains the Caldari/Tengu for versatility. The HML nerf isn’t going to hit them particularly hard, so it will probably keep the title after December 4.
- Super Carrier: I didn’t choose a winner of this category last year. This year, I’m going with the Amarr/Aeon. It loses a slight bit of versatility and DPS compared to the Nyx but that’s made up for by its enormous tank and supercap fleet role.
- Titan: I picked the Gallente/Erebus last year and I see no particular reason to change that opinion.
For faction ships:
- Faction Battleship: There are 13 faction battleships, and it’s hard to pick a bad one. Every single one of them has a lot of fans. For my money though, the best in class is the Serpentis/Vindicator. There are few roles it can’t be applied to, and it excels in most of them.
- Faction Cruiser: Last year, had I chosen one, I would have gone with the Angel/Cynabal. On reflection, I still think it’s the best of them, though the Blood/Ashimmu and the Minmatar/Stabber Fleet Issue are both tied for a close second. The latter two ships do damn good jobs of supplanting a Recon and a HAC, respectively, for a fraction of the cost.
- Faction Frigate: Again, there’s lots of good choices in this category, but the only one of them that actively scares me is the Serpentis/Daredevil. The hybrid buffs really helped this ship and the massive nerf the Dramiel got finished the job of putting the “devil” on top.
For non-combatants:
- Exhumer: No contest: the ORE/Mackinaw easily wrested this title from the Hulk this year.
- Freighter: Last year, I chose the Charon. This year though, the Fenrir gets the nod thanks to the increasing importance of Nomad implants.
- Industrial: Gallente/Iteron Mark V. No change. More space = better, or if you don’t need the space, you can make the flying stick align and warp like a blockade runner.
- Transport: Gallente/Viator. Again, no change from last year. It holds up to 10000m3, aligns just as quick as the competition, and looks great. I understand the argument for the Prowler thanks to its class-leading second high slot. If you live in a wormhole, it’s the best in class for your use. But if you don’t, how often do you actually need that high?
Those are my choices for this year, though of course the frigate, destroyer, and cruiser categories are subject to change in about five weeks. But that’ll be in next year’s update. Most improved in 2012? Definitely the Gallente. That hybrid buff allowed them to take over three very competitive categories.
Dissenting opinions?
Jester if i ever see ingame i pod you, for this sensless waste of my time
Yea, it's a shame he forced you to read this…wait…
All matters of opinion and situation…..but wtf to say the Faclon is the best recon? GTFO
A falcon alt paired up with any ship (like a sabre) can kill nearly any ship in the game.
I always fit ECCM on my ships when doing solo PVP. I have killed more than my share of Sabre / Falcon gate camps.
People just seem to have an aversion to fitting ECCM like its some sort of plague.
problem with eccm is it does not work reliably. sure, your chance to get locks is higher, you can still be permajammed over minutes though even with multiple pilots by one falcon. to be honest the whole idea of ecm being chance-based is broken and it has been since its introduction and i honestly do not understand why ccp doesn´t work out something different. all it does is to reduce the chance of getting good fights on a small scale level. specialized ecm (falcons, rooks, scropions) is useless in huge scale fights anyway. the only situation where i actually think fights benefit from it is midscale pvp (20-40 peeps in fleet). The only real counter to ecm is bringing your own, i rarely fly without my alt in an anti ecm falcon anymore, just to switch of other falcons which are sure to show up in 50% of small scale or even solo engagements.
so best recon? maybe, but a badly designed one.
Sensor damps, your own ecm, One arty nado lol. There are many ways to counter ecm, ppl just dont go out prepared. N ecm works in large scale fights, just need enough ppl so you dont sacrifice from the main gang. So really only cfc/hbc can do it effectively cuz they have the numbers
Falcon is pretty badass, but I have to say Arazu is my beast of choice, nothing more irritating then being damped down and held in place at 90km
I agree with most of it, disagree on some, but the HAC choice is unacceptable. (A)HAC of the year = Zealot.
Lol Ahac of all time [since Scorch] has been Zealots.
I disagee with the transport choice. The Amarr Protrator actually beats it for cargo space quite handily due to the extra low slot.
agreed I have flown and lost many prorators you can fit just over 10km3 and who doesn't want to fly a golden slug?
Supercarrier
Nyx > Aeon
This is because the #1 use of supers is shooting structures (where the extra 2000 DPS is important) and blobbing smaller supercap fleets.
HAC
Zealot > Ishtar
Mainly because few people fly Ishtars solo, and as a fleet concept they fall victim to their drone bays capacity.
BLOPs
Sin (Yes, I said the Sin) > Redeemer
Fit with blasters, DDAs, and Magstabs the DPS will outdo the Redeemer/Panther by 400 DPS
BLOPs:
Widow. Because with BLOPs DPS is irrelevant. You bridge the fleet in, you jump in, gtfo, cloak up and wait for bridging out. Widow's ECM helps the gtfo part. BLOPs aren't support ships, and if they are, then Widow is still the best with its wtfecm.
Widow is great, no argument there, and perhaps it does deserve to be #1 due to its engagement-changing power; however, I get the impression you're thinking of a BLOPs hotdrop in the 'traditional' sense, i.e. one Black Ops, a few Recons and the rest bombers. In those situations, the Black Ops ship itself rarely engages, if at all. Recons and bombers do the work; BLOPs ship is there like a mini-titan, for support only (MAYBE to whore a little at the end). In that instance, all 4 BLOPs are basically equal.
Where things change is in true Black Ops (battleships only) hotdrops. A solo Widow, like a solo Falcon, becomes pretty much useless. If you have a Widow to help out, that's great, but in the end (again like a Falcon) it's not all that necessary. Redeemer and Sin are the dps boats, and they both have enough versatility (neuting, etc) to make up for not having a Widow on hand. Just my $.02.
That's right, I referred to those "trad blops ops". I haven't done those blops-only ops.
Could always bring in a falcon rather than the Widow, more jammer strength and much cheaper if it goes wrong.
BLOPs fleets I go on these days see one BLOPs battleship fit with cargo expanders that bridges the fleet then cloaks up.
The amount of fuel burned in one bridge is insane… I really hope CCP changes that when they rebalance them.
Though they did hint at wanting to split the BLOPs into two lines, an EWar BLOPs and a DPS BLOPs, so that could be interesting.
I would have thought the widow was not a good jump portal platform due to the small cargo hold, if jumping alot of bombers/recon i would use a sin or redeemer due to not having to bring a fuel truck with me as often.
dramiel will always be best for me personally, devil for solo, dram for everything else o/
I'm trying to fly the DD and just can't figure out what to engage – its tank is a joke and makes engaging most ship classes aside T1 frigs a PITA. Especially with Medium-ASBs tacked on to everything nowadays.
Dd fit w/ blasters kills just about everything bigger than it. W/ rails it kills almost everything its size. Aside from af's. N its am agility tank. U aren't goin to get good ehp out of it. Gg
I completely disagree with HACs being irrelevant. While no where near as popular as they used to be pre T3's, they are still a very effective ship. I'd personally go Zealot as the best, a proper fleet of Ahacs can dominate as you can see from the Dotbros fights at the start of the tribute war. X-large ASB vaga is an extremely good solo ship, better then a cynabal IMO due to the great minny base shield resists.
I agree with most of the other choices though, I'm glad you picked Archon as the best carrier. I always found the thanny the worst for pvp, and it only excelled in a pve environment.
Slowcats…
Tank is way more important using SLowcats than the extra tiny DPS thanny pulls.
Also Slowcatting maybe 2-3 Carriers DPS matters but true Slowcat Fleet anyone in the world will take 25% more resist meaning 37% more effec reps on it when pantheon tanking.
Resist resist resist when it comes to getting repped unless its like a full 4k Raw EHP for 1% in each Dmg type.
Archon is mounds better at fleet anything, Now Nyx on the other hand the extra 2k DPS acts as a speed tank by GTFO ability in fleets that extra 15x2k DPS killing an SBU is like 5 minutes faster and that 5 mins means guys like NCDOT using SC`s or not in some cases depending on what or spies tell us there Blob ETA is.
Well, tbh carriers excel at different PVP roles, some people use them in offgrid safes for fighter assignment, others use pantheon setups like RnK and others use triage, while the slowcat is a viable option.
But in my opinion Archon is the best, regardless of the tactics if your carrier blob gets tackled, what do you primary first? The archon? Hell no!
Black Ops: No change. Amarr/Redeemer, for the DPS. They all still stink, though.
I think for the price, you are right there… It seems the black ops are used just like a titan these days. Log on, bridge and dock up.
Only awesome people actually jump the Black Ops through as well.
(if you are one of those people, much respect)
ateron>incursus and slasher>rifter
I love that they are also killing the nighthawk more. It already is the hardest to fit fleet command ship and they are dropping the dps even more (and one of the ship bonus' in to HML only).
And so now they will fit HAMs, still hit out to 30km, and have more DPS.
Tengu remains the most LOLOP T3, with the exception of the boosting cloaky/nulli Loki, but thats a T3 booster in general.
Don't forget that the ability to extend the range of HAM's is coming in a future patch. When that hits and HAMs get out bast 50km then Tengu's will be just as loved as they are today without question.
If the HML nerf was meant to nerf tengu's it failed but my guess was it was going after drakes.
even drakes get some love. hammy drakes yum!
I love that they are also killing the nighthawk more. It already is the hardest to fit fleet command ship and they are dropping the dps even more (and one of the ship bonus' in to HML only).
Yea drakes will be able to fit full 4 mid tank & HAMs this winter, those will be insane…
Never the less against smaller targets such as HACs HAMs (that don't get the benefit of some missile support skills) won't hit or have sufficent ( trade off) the DPS. However keep in mind he's only comparing T3s right, untill the links nerf the Tengu will remain on top.