I’m wondering which is generally better (or at least more popular) to use for guard frigates. I’ve been climbing the Jeri GF tree, and am getting the Crus S soon. Up to this time I’ve almost exclusively used Coil Mortars but I’m really liking the times I’ve used the Heavy Blaster as well. I suppose I’m asking, more specifically, about the meta and theory of this comparison.
I prefer Heavy Blaster on my guards because without the LRFs extra 2 turrets, Coil’s ROF is underwhelming. Also works nicely for area suppression if paired with a Octopus or EM Torp.
Try equipping tons of spread reduction on the HB, and tell me what you think.
Heavy blaster is bad if you play Jericho Guard before Rank 10 (for Standard One) and even after reaching Rank 10, Heavy Blaster remains a “Meh” weapon for Jericho Guards.
For the Crusader S, don’t use weapons that are requiring CPU improvment like Beam Cannon or Heavy Blaster, you will have bad time compared to the Positron Cannon or the Coil Mortar.
my dps on my patriarch will be 4800+ with 15% crit chance and 125% crit bonus when i’m done with it. 
heavy blasters are awesome.
my dps on my patriarch will be 4800+ with 15% crit chance and 125% crit bonus when i’m done with it.
And you have 2.5° spread and around 3000m range. Everything will outrange / outspeed you
Heavy blaster is bad if you play Jericho Guard before Rank 10 (for Standard One) and even after reaching Rank 10, Heavy Blaster remains a “Meh” weapon for Jericho Guards.
For the Crusader S, don’t use weapons that are requiring CPU improvment like Beam Cannon or Heavy Blaster, you will have bad time compared to the Positron Cannon or the Coil Mortar.
Curved heavy balsters are really good on a addaptive feds guard 
It all depends on playstyle, ship faction, and game mode. Certain weapons are better for certain situations. So tell us more of what kind of pilot you are and what ships you enjoy (Fed guard or Jericho).
HWY blaster is much better at dealing with slower targets (and bigger hitbox), like frigates and hwy Fighters, good luck dealing with frigball with positrons, even with supernovas.
***Just going to say what I use on my guards personally***
I tend to use coil mortars on my Jerry guards with a slight crit chance from the ammo, since having to scare off a covert ops isn’t a rare occurence currently. I use mainly heavy blasters on my fed guards since I was trying adaptives on them (which I instantly disliked) but decided to keep them on for DPS reasons.
Just a quick overview of each weapon and how it works on guards…
Beam cannons - Not much to say about these. They’re lasers. You can hit interceptors really easily with them. Pretty even performance against each ship class. Harder to hit interceptors, easy to decloak tacklers.
Heavy blasters - High dps, okay projectile speed, high spread. Unless you’re using a troll build (triple adaptive curved heavy blaster Crusader, anyone?), you need to use electronic guidance for the spread reduction. As Kost has said above, don’t expect to hit interceptors with this gun a lot. A lot of the dps will be lost because of the spread, no matter what you do. Still, works wonders for suppressing fire and hitting slow targets. Good against fighters and frigates, mediocre against interceptors.
Coil mortars - Medium dps, low projectile speed, low rate of fire, short heat-up time. Bonus: They explode when they get near a target, so you don’t need to aim quite so much. It’s the weapon of choice both against and on a frigball, as the explosion damage prevents people from grouping up too much, and the ease of aiming and explosions make it easy to cower the enemy behind cover. Good against frigates and fighters, bad against interceptors.
Positron cannons - Low dps, high projectile speed, low rate of fire. It’s a bit easier to hit interceptors with this than with heavy blasters. This gun works best when equipped with infrared scanners and possibly a pulse discharger. It’s got a lot of alpha (all at once) damage, which makes popping in and out of cover more viable with this gun than any other. Works miracles on badly built ships. Especially guards and interceptors. Otherwise, does okay against interceptors and fighters, and badly against frigates.
Destructor - Low dps laser with area of effect. Ridiculously good in beacon games, makes it effectively impossible for the enemy to cap beacons unless the guard is dead. Great at decloaking tacklers, killing engineer drones and stations, and protecting the beacon. Otherwise pretty even performance.
For immobile bricks, use whatever you feel like. For more mobile guards, heavy blaster works better due to having higher firepower, spread not mattering quite so much when you can get close, and smallish dead zone combined with high rate of fire making people who are behind or under you less immune to your guns. However, beam cannon and destructor work just as well for people near your blind spot.
Out of curiosity, does the occasional ship-based synergy level bonus to a specific damage type play into weapon choice at all?
Out of curiosity, does the occasional ship-based synergy level bonus to a specific damage type play into weapon choice at all?
It depends. If a ship has a weapon bonus, you will be able to do more damage than your average counterparts with the same weapon. But this usually only pays off if you crank (maximize) your weapon stats at the cost of defensive abilities to truly exploit it. Otherwise it’s just a nice little bonus that you probably won’t notice too much if it’s missing.
It’s all about what you intend to hunt with your ship. First, decide what your ideal ship for a given role would look like based on what you value (strong defense, overwhelming firepower, high mobility). Then, look for a ship with a slot configuration that works for your theoretical design. From there, modify your original idea based on what you have to work with.
(strong defense, overwhelming firepower, high mobility).
Or just play the T-Rex Mk2 to have all of this.
Or just play the T-Rex Mk2 to have all of this.
Until a freeze beam tackler strips you of your tank and speed
To OP, my personal recomendation is that you have to try both of them and see what it is better for your gameplay.
Heavy blaster is really good once you get one spread reduction, and you will melt frigates and fighters from medium and close range. With a good engi support, a HB guard is a great pusher.
Also, one tip: If you are facing interceptors at long ranges, fire pot shots at them. The spread for the first shot is zero, and you will hit for around 2000 hp. It is better than speeding up the gun and increase the spread.
Coils on the other way, are great for breaking frigballs, and to fight against beacons. You won’t have great dps in theory, but if you hit more than one ship each time, you will do a lot more of the paper DPS.
Until a freeze beam tackler strips you of your tank and speed
R8-2 Dude, R8-2 !
He clearly said that he was going for the Crusader S, which is a 1/2/3/1/0 Guard (without CPU). The Old Heavy Blaster with Slow barrel and less spread was extremly good on it, but the new one have too much spread and do not fit with the Crus S settup.
If you want a Pushing Guard, you go for Federation’s Ones because you can help Fighters Engage/Push/All-in.
The Jericho Guards are more reliable in Decoy/HoldPosition/TimedAll-In/Tempo than in YoloPush.
Indeed, you can put an HB on a Crus S bu the general optimization of the weapon will be inferior to other weapons. On a Crus S it’s better to go for a Standard Mortar, a StandardSitron or a BurstSitron.
Or just play the T-Rex Mk2 to have all of this.
I’m initially underwhelmed by Federation guards, though I’m up to Anaconda (used to play back in beta, but stopped. I remember when Fed had leadership fighters… and some sort of plasma superblaster for close range for the frigs, I had it on my Anaconda.)
In my mind guards are… tanky. Though I’m learning that’s not really their designated role, and that it’s a somewhat common misconception for less experienced cosmonauts. What really makes the Fed ones good though? On paper I’m looking at a T-Res Mk II having around 55-60K survivability at synergy 10, which should be about the same as a Tormentor S. That’s a huge difference in tank, but I’m guessing that the greater mobility makes up for it some? TEACH ME, MAN.
I’m initially underwhelmed by Federation guards, though I’m up to Anaconda (used to play back in beta, but stopped. I remember when Fed had leadership fighters… and some sort of plasma superblaster for close range for the frigs, I had it on my Anaconda.)
In my mind guards are… tanky. Though I’m learning that’s not really their designated role, and that it’s a somewhat common misconception for less experienced cosmonauts. What really makes the Fed ones good though? On paper I’m looking at a T-Res Mk II having around 55-60K survivability at synergy 10, which should be about the same as a Tormentor S. That’s a huge difference in tank, but I’m guessing that the greater mobility makes up for it some? TEACH ME, MAN.
Adaptive shields. They give a huge bonus to shield resists and also open up the ability to hull tank (!) on your guards.
Adaptive shields. They give a huge bonus to shield resists and also open up the ability to hull tank (!) on your guards.
See I’ve played EVE Online for like ten years, and the words “hull tank” make my manbits retract all the way up into my throat. I mean I know it’s different in this game (EVE tank is three layers–shield, armor, and hull. Anyone who tanks hull is either Leeroy Jenkins’ spirit guide, or has no idea what they’re doing.) But it’s just what I’ve been conditioned for.
Though, this brings to light another question from me, and I’m sorry for just hailstorming you guys with Q&A. But… what’s a good implant design for a Fed Guard? go for resists and hp? or speed? damage? Right now, my racial crews (have all 4, up to rank 9 on each) are straight down their faction. All Jericho implants are the bottom ones, all Federation implants are middle, and all Empire implants are top. But… well, is that a decent setup for a basic playstyle, learning, etc? Or do Federation guards and Empire Engineers (what I’m eventually going for as well, I prefer frigates just due to my playstyle) need more personalized implants?
At present, my goal is Jericho and Federation guards, and Empire LRF/Engineers.
See I’ve played EVE Online for like ten years, and the words “hull tank” make my manbits retract all the way up into my throat. I mean I know it’s different in this game (EVE tank is three layers–shield, armor, and hull. Anyone who tanks hull is either Leeroy Jenkins’ spirit guide, or has no idea what they’re doing.) But it’s just what I’ve been conditioned for.
Though, this brings to light another question from me, and I’m sorry for just hailstorming you guys with Q&A. But… what’s a good implant design for a Fed Guard? go for resists and hp? or speed? damage? Right now, my racial crews (have all 4, up to rank 9 on each) are straight down their faction. All Jericho implants are the bottom ones, all Federation implants are middle, and all Empire implants are top. But… well, is that a decent setup for a basic playstyle, learning, etc? Or do Federation guards and Empire Engineers (what I’m eventually going for as well, I prefer frigates just due to my playstyle) need more personalized implants?
At present, my goal is Jericho and Federation guards, and Empire LRF/Engineers.
Straight down is a pretty bad implant setup. If you have four, you have enough room to customize your crews for whatever ships you have in hangar. Typically, I have interceptors at the top, fighters in the middle, and frigates at the bottom, so I don’t need to change mine around much, even when I switch ships out.
Since I’m too lazy to go fully over each implant, have a quick (ish) overview of which ones are good.
Rank 1 - Hull resists. Volume or explosion + crit resistance can be nice, but resists are typically a good go-to implant.
Rank 2 - Your choice. Crit chance helps on weapons that do well with crit chance (positron, gauss, coils, lasers…). Range helps on weapons that do well with range (lasers, plasma cannon…). Spread reduction helps on weapons that need spread reduction (heavy blaster, rf blaster…), as well as dealing with white noise jammer, IR pulsar, ion diffuser, and stasis generator.
Rank 3 - Shield resists. Shield regen is next to useless, shield volume is also next to useless. Nothing else is going to give you 30 resists on your shields.
Rank 4 - Missile speed and rotation. If your missiles don’t hit, it doesn’t matter how much damage they do. Then again, it kind of depends on the missiles you’re using. Small missiles and the guided EM missiles don’t really need the extra speed and rotation, and extra damage on them can help a bit. Anomaly generator does better with 50% more range than it does with .2 seconds less warning. Up to you, in the end.
Rank 5 - Your choice. I like rotation on almost everything. I know folks who like strafe on almost everything. Just don’t go for the forward speed, since you’ll be getting less than 20 m/s no matter how much you push it.
Rank 6 - Your choice. Straight extra weapon damage can be really nice. Extra crit damage helps a lot, if you’re using a crit build. And the last implant helps if you’re using positrons, coils, singularities, shrapnel, or RF, and can’t lead your target quite as well as you need, or if you want longer heatup time on your lasers or heavy blasters.
Rank 7 - Adaptive energy cost reduction. It helps acceleration and speed a lot, and typically pushes the energy cost to the point where you don’t need to worry about energy during normal flying. Capacitor volume is generally only ever useful for commands that like to stay in one place. Energy recuperation is terrible unless you like not having energy stability unless shot at.
Rank 8 - Depends on the ship. If you use adaptive shields, use the slow invulnerability, to prevent your adaptives from failing. If you use a command with a decent diffusion shield, use the energy drain invulnerability, to prevent having your diffusion shield shut down prematurely. If you use neither, you’ll want either slow invulnerability (so you can reposition if a tackler is on you), or reload speed (so you can heal more often).
Rank 9 - Resists on lock on. More often than not, people will lock on to you when they shoot. That gives you 2 more resists on shields and 12 more on hull if one person is locked on to you than the bottom implant. The difference only grows when more people are locked on. If you hit asteroids a lot, then take the bottom implant. If you really, really like going fast, take the middle.
Rank 10 - Module effect bonus. This basically means your modules do more every time you use them. Unfortunately, if you use a guard, this means that you lose more when and ECM shuts you off. Module reload speed is similar, but spread out over time. Module energy cost helps a lot if you’re having difficulty using all the modules you want at the same time - a life saver on adaptive tacklers.
Rank 11 - Your choice. I like missile reload times. Some folks like rate of fire, even though that reduces time to heat up. Some other folks like resist reduction.
Rank 12 - Extra damage. You can’t go wrong with extra damage. If you use a command with diffusion tank, the energy regeneration helps a lot, though. Shield regen is less impressive, but there’s builds out there that can use it.
Rank 13 - Module reload. Support, heal, and damage more, more of the time. Of course, some folks will go with the temporary damage boost, which is great if you can carry a team by yourself. Others will go with the permanent damage boost, which is great if you dive in and out of the enemy team.
Rank 14 - Negative effect immunity. Once you get to T5, ECMs will have the ability to unplug your keyboard and mouse for 5 seconds with stasis, then shut off your modules and guns for 10 with ion diffuser, and then shut off your modules and afterburners (but not guns) for another 10 with energy drain. It’s really nice to get out of that before the 10 second mark hits, even though it takes forever for the implant to reload.
Rank 15 - Up to you. I use the fed implant, since I like the extra credit income.
Note: Implants only work on ships of that rank and above. Except for the income bonus part of the rank 15 implants.