Know Your Enemy - Disruption Cruisers

Commonly referred to as Electronic Warfare or EWAR cruisers, Disruption Cruisers specialise in the suppression and - you guessed it - disruption of opposing ships. Like the smaller Disruption Frigates, each race's platform favours a different form of electronic warfare - ECM for Caldari, remote sensor dampening for Gallente, tracking disruption for Amarr, and target painting for Minmatar.

They may not offer the raw power of Combat Cruisers, but make no mistake - Disruption Cruisers
exist to ruin your day.

The disruption cruisers range from pseudo combat ships like Arbitrator and Bellicose, through to dedicated electronic warfare platforms such as the Blackbird. While they do see varying levels of use as solo platforms, these ships are most at home in a gang environment where they fill a crucial supporting role. In the right hands, against the right opponent, the disruption cruisers can easily be some of the most powerful in their class.

Know Your Enemy - Attack Cruisers

Combat Cruisers may top the chart in terms of raw strength, but Attack Cruisers are the masters of speed and damage application. These ships offer greater mobility than any other cruiser, with bonuses to range or tracking giving them a more flexible engagement envelope than their slower counterparts.

If Sigmund Freud played Eve, he would definitely have flown an Attack Cruiser.

While some Attack Cruisers (particularly the Thorax) make excellent brawlers, the main strength of this class is in kiting. The combination of flexible range and great mobility allows Attack Cruiser pilots to dictate the terms of an engagement on the fly, and makes them particularly dangerous to any smaller ships which might attempt to pin them down.

Know Your Enemy - Combat Cruisers

When strength and firepower are your requirements, look no further than the combat cruisers. These four ships represent the heavyweights of the T1 cruiser lineup, with stronger tanks and (for the most part) higher damage outputs than their attack cruiser counterparts.

Combat cruisers make excellent brawlers, with strong tanks and plenty of firepower.

While the class offers plenty of variation, combat cruisers generally excel when fighting at close to medium range. Thanks to their strong tanks and offensive abilities, these are difficult ships to take on toe to toe, and are typically capable of out-brawling most of the competition. With lower speed however, they have a harder time chasing down or evading targets than their attack brethren.

Retribution Ship Balancing Review - Part 2

Retribution has arrived, and with it a fairly large chunk of my Know Your Enemy articles have become outdated. It's going to be a while before I can write the updated versions - while I can EFT warrior to my heart's content, until the meta has stabilized a little bit I can't really say for sure how they're all going to be fit (I can have a reasonable guess, but I've never been a fan of going off theory alone).

However, I can give you a quick run-down based on my initial observations. This post follows on from part 1, which covered the new frigates and destroyers, and will instead be focusing on the newly balanced cruisers as well as the (technically) non-combat ships that I missed out before - the exploration and mining frigates.

Know Your Enemy - Pirate Cruisers

Unlike the navy faction cruisers which lie somewhere between their t1 and t2 counterparts, the pirate faction cruisers are the true alpha males of the cruiser line. Pirate cruisers tend to be fairly front-loaded, with high damage outputs, good range dictation abilities and moderate tanks. Like the pirate frigates their abilities vary quite significantly, incorporating features of both of their chosen races (for the most part, they have the same bonuses and general characterstics as their frigate and battleship counterparts). While navy cruisers tended to be simply powered up versions of existing ships, some of the pirate cruisers offer unusual bonuses and exotic combinations of tank and weaponry that aren't really found elsewhere.

At the time of writing, most of these ships are quite rare in PVP (and in PVE for that matter), with the exception of the cynabal which tends to be very popular.

Know Your Enemy - Navy Cruisers

Faction cruisers may be t1 in name and skill requirements, but they are far stronger than their t1 counterparts in terms of performance. As with the faction frigates, there is a clear divide between the navy cruisers (belonging to the four empire factions) and pirate cruisers (belonging to the npc pirate factions). To begin with, we're going to look at the navy cruisers.

Know Your Enemy - Logistics

The Logistics ships are the ultimate force multipliers; there is no other cruiser (except for perhaps the falcon) which provides a greater boost to a gang's effectiveness. These ships are the healers of eve, providing your active tank so that you don't have to and doing it well. While a local active tank might tank a solo opponent or with a bit of bling maybe even a small gang, a pair of logistics ships can keep you alive indefinitely in the face of otherwise overwhelming firepower.

Know Your Enemy - HICs

As their name suggests, Heavy Interdictors (also known as HICs) are the larger cousins of the Interdictor class. Where the light interdictors were fast and fragile, the HICs are slow and tough. Where dictors typically had bonuses providing additional damage output (although they weren't always fit to use it), HICs are designed far more with tanking on mind, with offensive power usually being an afterthought. However, it isn't simply the hulls which have changed - the way in which each class provides its interdiction capability is also very different.

Know Your Enemy - Recon Ships

Recon ships serve as both the t2 variant of the t1 electronic warfare cruisers, but also as the natural progression from both Covert Ops frigates and Electronic Attack frigates. In addition to the electronic warfare bonuses of their t1 counterparts, recon ships also receive bonuses to their secondary racial EWAR type in the same way as the EAFs. Recon ships are quite clearly divided into two sub-classes; Force Recon ships (rapier, arazu, falcon and pilgrim) and Combat Recon ships (huginn, lachesis, rook and curse).

Know Your Enemy - Heavy Assault Ships

Commonly known as HACs (short for Heavy Assault Cruisers, their more common if unofficial name), Heavy Assault Ships are the primary damage dealers of the t2 cruiser lineup. Despite their reputation as the warhorses of elite PVP, HACs are actually outperformed by their cheaper rivals the t1 battlecruisers in terms of damage output and tank. What HACs do offer is significantly better speed and range, and it is these properties they are generally used for (it's interesting to note that HACs are generally slightly faster than their t1 equivalent, unlike AFs which are usually slower than their t1 counterpart). HACs also offer increased resists, which makes them very effective in gangs employing t2 logistics ships.

Know Your Enemy - T1 Cruisers (Part 2)

Note: This article is now out of date. Head over to the Article Index page to see the updated list.

In the last article we began looking at t1 cruisers, covering both the minmatar and gallente lines. This post will continue where that one left off, by looking at the caldari and amarr equivalents.

Know Your Enemy - T1 Cruisers (Part 1)

Note: This article is now out of date. Head over to the Article Index page to see the updated list.

T1 cruisers are then next true 'all rounder' class after t1 frigates, and thanks to their very reasonable price tag they offer a good next step for those looking to move towards larger-ship PVP. As with t1 frigates, some of these ships are obviously designed for combat, while others are not - that isn't to say they can't be used for it of course! In fact, you can often get a real advantage by PVPing in one of the less popular t1 cruisers, since PVPers typically associate them with newbies who don't know what they're doing. With a decent fit and a bit of common sense, you can prove them oh so wrong!

Due to the number of ships within the cruiser class, this article will be published in two halves. This first half will cover both minmatar and gallente ships, while caldari and amarr cruisers will follow.