Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Cross Training

As Kirith stares down the last 5 days of Jump Drive Operation V, the Carrier training plan is really entering the last phase.

Sure, there are a lot of 6 and 7 day skills left on the list, but only one skill more than that (Tactical Shield Manipulation V at 15 days, 15 hours) and it all should be done early in the new year. By the later part of January I'll be ready for a new objective.

Although there are plenty of Caldari ships I still need to train (Logistics, Command Ships, Black Ops, and Marauders) none of them are a pressing concern nor overly long to get except the command ships. I feel the need to further expand my arsenal and cross train into another faction's vessels. But which one?

Last year if you asked I would have answered unhesitatingly Gallente: blaster boats galore! From the Megathron and Dominix to the Ishkur, Deimos, and Astarte they all have a very large appeal to me. It would leverage my hybrid skills and allow me to field some nasty high damage ships.

But there is some attractiveness in the Amarr lineup too. I've come to love playing with Heavy Assault Missiles and the Khanid faction Sacrilege Heavy Assault ship has gained a fearsome reputation for missile fun, and the Recon ships Pilgrim and Curse are both feared for their energy neutralizing bonuses and the five medium drones they can employ. The Pilgrim would at least be a better sneak attack ship than the Falcon is. Not to mention I've got decent gunnery skills, training up Lasers would be a simple task and I hear they get great damage.

Finally there is Minmatar. I don't have a big desire for projectiles although they would be easy like lasers cross train, but I do like the idea of long ranged webbers and the Hyena EAS and Rapier / Huginn recon ships have the ability to push tech II webbers out to 20 km.

So there is a lot of options, and the training time for Tech II frigates and cruiser of the other races is trivial, less than 30 days each to Cruiser V. Hmmmm... maybe I'll cross train them all....

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:55 pm

    I've been playing with the Amarr ships for the past several weeks and have been really digging the Retribution Assault Frigate.

    I had trained up Small Laser Specialization a while back for laughs and flying one a frig that can carry three (technically four) weapons that can kick out 100+ points is pleasant.

    Your Medium Pulse Laser II perfectly strikes Sansha's Slavehunter, wrecking for 249.6 damage.

    Sure it's not PvP damage, but stuff like that just brings a smile to my face.

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  2. Cross training goodness....

    One of my two mains is cross trained for three of the races uo the T2 level, and it is something I have never regretted doing.

    One advantage of Minmatar is that they are also shield tankers (on some of their ships), so like the Gallente (with Hybrds) you will find you have a few transferable skills.

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