Whither the Rifter - Part 2 - The Tormentor

We already looked more in depth at the problems facing the Rifter, now let's look at the first of the two Amarrian candidates for tweaking, the Tormentor.

Bonuses:
10% bonus to Small Energy Turret capacitor use
5% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage

Slots: 4/3/3 with 3 turret hardpoints

Defensively, its more inclined to Armour Tanking:

The basic brawler weapon profile of the Tormentor is impressive. Three Small Focused Pulse Laser IIs with Imperial Multifrequency crystals has a 3.75 km optimal range and 2.5 km falloff and sports a theoretical damage per second of 144. This is lower damage than our Merlin and Incursus exemplars from yesterday but with longer range, plus the Tormentor can fit two small Hobgoblin II drones which add add almost another 40 DPS to push the overall to 183, which is actually higher than my two yardstick combat ships. Very nice! I can see why it has some fans.

We didn't discuss yesterday with the Rifter what the Tech II long range ammo does for our ships, but we will definitely look at it for the Tomrentor as Scorch is infamous for being awesome. The Tormentor with those big small lasers drops to 115 DPS (plus ~40 more for Drones) with 11.3 km optimal and 2.5 km falloff. The Merlin with its Light Ion Blaster IIs and Null ammo drops to 132 DPS but only 2.6 km optional and 3.5 km falloff. The Incursus suffers a similar DPS drop (to 126, 145 with drone) and same range except an extra km on the falloff due to using Light Neutrons. So the Tormentor has no issues with amount of damage or applying it, outside some slower tracking.

The downside to the Tormentor is that it lacks a tanking bonus compared to the Merlin and Incursus and it has a slower top speed meaning it has to work more  to avoid having the enemy ships slip under the tracking of its guns.

For longer range kiting using three Small Focused Beam Laser IIs with Imperial Navy Multifrequency gives a DPS of 102 at 7.5 km optimal range and 5 km falloff, plus another 39 Damage per second from the drones. That's not too shabby for fighting out of scram range, and switching to long range tech II ammo Aurora crystals gives about 60 DPS plus 39 from the drones, and 27 km optimal range. Again, the issue becomes the slower base speed of the Tormentor; what sacrifices it will have to make to ensure it can maintain the range it wants to fight at?

My Suggestions:

The Tormentor is not bad overall, but its slow base speed hinders it in the two main roles of frigate combat: 

its slow and not enough tank for brawling out of the box, and slow for keeping range in a kiting role. But I think the slowness can be overcome with fitting choices and not every ship needs a tanking bonus. SO what would I suggest? Perhaps a ship without a tanking bonus could ask for a bit more in the base speed to compensate so pilots don't have to sacrifice as much to be competitive. 

Tomorrow, the Punisher.

Whither The Rifter?

(... and the Punisher and the Tormentor.)

One of the nice things about faction warfare is the healthy spread of ships you see in a typical week, or even an average night. The nature of the plexes we fight over means that you and your opponents need to fly everything from cruisers to destroyers to tech I frigates, and then have some heavier ships on hand for bunker busting or POS/POCO bashes.

As a result you get to see a wide variety of ships flown by a wide variety and skill level of pilot, and over time you notice certain trends. I want to talk about the Tech I combat ships and the need for another pass of the balancing wand.

Each faction sport two combat frigates in which each one highlights the different weapon systems (except for the Amarr). For the Caldari and Gallente everything seems to be working as intended. For the former, the Merlin is a hard tanked brawler with blasters with the option of kiting with railguns while the Kestrel is a natural kiter with light missles and has the option of going in your face with rockets. For the latter, the Incursus is a personal favourite with blasters and an awesome active armour tank, and the Tristan has excellent engagement range with its bonused drones.

Things start to go downhill though as we get to the Minmatar. The Breacher has some followers due to its high speed and agility and missile weaponry; its very commonly seen with an Ancillary Shield Booster and a tough nut to catch and crack as a result. But the Rifter has gone from ubiquitous to mythical, its rare sightings being the cause, I suspect, of newbs who don't know better or veterans who hang on to nostalgia.

Things get worse as you go to Amarr. Already hamstrung with two combat ships that have extremely similar profiles in being 3-turret laser ships (the differentiating factor being the Punisher having bigger tank and the Tormentor doing more damage due to the extra small drones), they are further hampered by lacking a distinguishing feature to make them attractive in a frigate fight, i.e. not a lot of speed, not a lot of range, and not an overwhelming amount of tank. I can't even remember the last time I saw a Punisher in space, to be honest, and haven't seen a Tormentor in ages.

Next week I'm going to look at each of these three ships in detail and discuss some ideas of what needs to be done to bring them in line with the rest of the tech I frigates.