Test Driving the Barghest

So the day before Kronos releases I give the new Mordu's Legion battleship a shake-down. I've already done the frigate and cruiser and had this to say about them:-

• Garmur - Going to be one of the most popular faction frigates out there. Looks a fun ship to fly.
• Orthrus - ZOMFG! Over-powered by a factor of over 9000! This must be nerfed before Kronos... OK, so may be not then!

As far as I can see the Orthrus hasn't been nerfed (yet) so some people will at least get to fly this ridiculously over powered crusier before the nerf hammer is swung... and it will be swung.

So onto todays test and the flying frying-pan of doom from the Legion. Before I looked at the Orthrus I posted the stats of a similar T1 cruiser to compare. That didn't go well as the Orthrus is so much better than a regular T1. So this time lets not go for a T1 cruiser, lets compare to a faction BS. I'll undock my Windicator!

Currently the Windicator is one of the best faction BS. Huge tank, amazing DPS and those 90% webs!

So how does the Barghest compare?

So with T2 torpedoes and Hammerhead II's we get a shade under 1400dps at 25km range. It can also fit a heavy neut in the utility slot which is useful if you need to neut out tackle.

Of course torpedoes are best for DPS against big stuff, but there are other options. The Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher knocks your DPS down to 1150 but puts the range up to 70km using high-damage T2 missiles. A cruise missile set-up knocks the DPS down even further to 1030. However, you have a whopping 160km range. With a standard 95km lock range with good skills you are going to need a sensor booster and range scripts to hit that far! Note these numbers are with 4 BCU's which is not optimal fitting but does give a bit extra damage. Seriously, its a shield tank, what else needs to go in the lows! 

The tank is substantially lower than that of the Windicator at 95k. If you drop the target painter you'll get a bit more tank if you swap for a shield hardener, but with a torp boat a TP is always useful given the large explosive radius or torps. If you did swap your TP for a Invuln field it pushes the tank up to 112k hp.

As with the previous Legion ships it is fast. 185m/sec compared to the Windicator's 145m/sec. Although I'd not try to kite anything, especially the Windicator!