When I first started pirating I was very much set on becoming a monster with projectile weapons. At the time the Rifter and it's two fearsome cousins were more than a match for the vast majority of combat ships out there so it was a logical choice to specialise in autocannons and artillery. Every other weapon system was put to the side with a note to train up in the future.
About a year ago I realised I'd hamstrung myself by sticking only to projectile weapons. Sure, all my gunnery supports are at V and all of my projectile specs are at IV or V but I'd neglected to bother with hybrids, lasers and missiles. That soon changed when I set my sights on flying Slicers and before long I had small pulse spec to IV and was thoroughly enjoying the little Amarr ship.
Around this time I also faced up to the fact my missile skills were virtually non-existent and set about rectifying the problem. Now I can quite happily jump into a Vengeance (<3) or a Drake with confidence that my skills (or lack of) aren't hindering my performance in fights.
These days my small turret and missile skills are pretty much perfect, apart from the odd Specialisation skill which is at IV but now I'm finding I want to branch out to bigger stuff. I already have T2 medium autocannon s and artillery for my love of the Hurricane and T2 heavies for the Drake but there are more ships I want to fly now that I'd be daft to jump into without more training.
For example, I really want to start haunting the space lanes in a Vexor but I don't have T2 medium blasters (or rails for that matter), and my drone skills suck. Like really suck. I skilled into them enough to be able to use Warrior IIs and that's it. I also want to start flying double-rep Myrms but again I need some pretty decent drone skills. I should probably get medium lasers as well for something. Right now I can't think of any big laser ships I want to fly but in twelve months time that might have changed.
So for now, drone skills!
Oh, and I need to get T2 large autocannons and arty so I can prat around in Tornados. So many skills, so little time!
I started the same way. I trained up drones first, then projectiles and hybrids, focusing on gallente and minmatar hulls. For quite a while I couldn't even use large guns yet flew the dominix all the same. After branching off into Caldari just so I could use the Gila (I love drones, what can I say), I decided to put those ship hull skills to use and train up missiles. Only recently have I been training up laser skills. I just completed large energy weapons V, and medium pulse laser spec in the last few days. I've never flown a laser boat. But just knowing that the option's available makes it worth it. Maybe after 2+ years I'm in the first stages of bittervet syndome, training skills just for the sake of training them.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll look forward to the day when I train skills just for the sake of it! For me there is still a lot to skill into, despite having 30-odd mil SP invested into combat-related stuff.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, ever since Retribution 1.1 we seem to be seeing a bit of a hybrids ship renaissance - the Thorax, Vexor and revamped Brutix come to mind, of course, but the blaster Prophecy also looks like it's making rounds. The only thing that makes me twitch about training drone skills is that they have that weird attribute set all their own (Memory/Perception, I think?). If you're already mapped toward Per/Wil it MIGHT be worth it to do more gunnery first; honestly, I might not bother remapping for drones at all, just because it sucks to spend six months training nothing but drone skills while you wait for a remap.
ReplyDeleteYeah my attributes are currently in per/will and don't think I can be arsed to remap /just/ for drones. I'm not planning on having perfect skills anyway, mostly a myriad of IVs and some Vs sprinkled throughout.
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