Focusing for the Future: the results

The votes:

Traditional set: 33 votes (34%)
Ewar set: 42 votes (44%)
Khanid set: 20 votes (21%)

I must admit, the results of the vote surprised me. I had expected the Traditional set to be leading, with the Ewar and Khanid sets trailing behind. Obviously, that's not what happened; the Ewar Set took the first three votes cast, and has maintained a strong lead throughout the voting.

It is worth noting that the Traditional set still did well, getting slightly more that it's fair share of the votes. The big loser was the Khanid set, which was unable to compete.

A strong incentive to go Ewar, although going Traditional could also be justified.


The comments:

While the raw votes are helpful, I never intended to look at them on their own - why people voted the way they did is often more important than their actual vote. Their choice might be reasonable, but based on considerations that simply do not apply to my circumstances or play style.

Here are some of the comments I found most useful:

Good blog I enjoyed reading it. I suggest, instead of going for one of your three sets of skill plans, to concentrate on T1-T2 frigates for Amarr and support skills. Interceptors and assault ships mean you can take on more ships and they will also allow you to go looking for (solo) fights in 0.0 without being that vulnerable to gangs increasing your stomping grounds. Frigates are in my view best suited for the solo pvp you are doing now, especially if you have low sp. - Kara'ina

I liked this comment, not just because it made sense, but someone had clearly put my choices into the context of what I was doing. Very helpful, even though it did not recommend a specific set. However, it does (by implication) weigh against the Ewar set, which has no interceptors or assault ships. Arguably, only the Khanid set fields both of these in pvp.

Although Amarr ships are generally thought of as slow. The curse (E-war Set) nano's up brilliantly.

If you are going to focus on a particular part of Amarr ships for a while I would focus on the laser ships as they are generally the most useful to the most gangs(By laser ships I mean Harbinger, Omen Navy Issue and Zealot).

The E-war set are very good but they are quite niche, the curse gets used a lot in nano gangs but the pilgrim is used more as scout/rat ganker but has terrible dps. The sentinel I haven't used and although its considered the best E-war Frigate by a lot of people its still an E-war frigate and they are generally pants. - Korg_Leaf

Another very helpful comment - it addresses on of my concerns about the Ewar set, but also takes a long term view and recommends the Traditional set.

I think the Khanid set would suit you very well. As you mentioned, it offers a good bit of zoom, great damage (via a different weapon system), and excellent tank. While it's true you'd have to train rockets to tech2, it offers something lasers don't, those being the ability to chose your damage type as well as guaranteed damage every hit. In addition, the extra midslots will allow for better combat dictation, either in the form of ECM, tackle, tracking disruptors, or maybe a cap booster with charges to run dual reps.  - Truen1ght

Another great comment, and one I particularly valued because the author has been following the blog for a while now, and is able to make the recommendation based on (his perception of) my personal characteristics.

FNG also made a very compelling case for battle cruisers on his blog (and by extension, the Traditional set). He was helped by a similar post from Double Threat (a well known frigate enthusiast who has just discovered the joys of battlecruisers), although I am not aware that he is a reader of this blog.

What stands out about the comments is that they paint a completely different picture from the actual votes. For whatever reason, people voting for Ewar simply did not leave supporting comments. That leaves me to guess at their reasoning, and I have the sneaking suspicion that many of them voted for the Curse/Pilgrim rather than the skill set. Understandable, but not terribly helpful to a noob that is a good six months away from either of those ships.


So where next?

I know, long term, that I am going to try each of these sets. However, in the short term, I think the Traditional set makes the most compelling case, and offers the most advantages. I am very keen to fly the Khanid ships, but the lack of a T1 training ship puts them beyond my immediate reach. A strong Traditional skill set covers much of the Khanid skills, though, leaving only the weapon skills to train when I decide to branch out.

So now I am going to focus on getting all my gunnery skills to IV (minimum), and then I am going to do the same for all of my support skills. This will take some time, as I do not have daily access to Eve, which means that my training will sometimes have to focus on level Vs so that I do not drop training time.

I'm also going to stick with the Punisher, even beyond the 20 hulls that I initially purchased. However, I might occasionally mess around with other hulls, just to keep things fresh. It depends on my finances, of course.

Everyone that contributed has my thanks, especially those that commented here or on the forum thread.

Good hunting, and fly dangerous.