EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

Every race in EVE Online has high points. Of the lot, Amarr are the least popular amongst players, mostly because of how EVE was in the early days. The distastefulness that players presumably feel for slavery and religious extremism may also have something to do with it. Despite these peccadilloes, Amarr have a bevy of interesting options and there is ample reason to play them. I provide ten such reasons below.

10. Lasers

Laser turrets are one of the best weapon systems in EVE Online, right now, generally eclipsing hybrid turrets and missiles except against particular types of NPC ships. For PvE, they excel at hitting out to great distances, even with their nominally short-ranged pulse laser versions. This is especially apparent with tech two ammunition like Scorch, that allows pulse lasers to blur the line between close and long range weaponry.

Lasers have great tracking, and can put the hurt on small ships even when they get relatively close. They also deal great damage, though the variety is limited to various combinations of EM and Thermal damage, so getting through armor-tanked ships (or many tech two Minmatar ships) in PvP can be tough without help. On the plus side, they generally chew through Caldari ship shields darn fast, and EM damage can actually end up being the least tanked resistance in a surprising number of cases.

Instead of consuming ammunition with each shot, lasers use crystals that are not expended. At least, tech one crystals are not. More advanced ammunition like tech two or faction ammo will have a random chance of breaking after being fired a couple hundred times. Still, most players use tech one ammo, and those never run out. As you can imagine, this is a godsend when running missions or hunting NPCs. Nobody enjoys ammo runs. The other great thing about them is that they instantly switch, rather than taking a few seconds to reload. This lets you always use your best ammunition type based on the range at which you are fighting.

9. The Capacitor Race

The Amarr rely on their thick armor and deadly lasers to compensate for their lack of agility.

Amarr ships have the best capacitors in the game. On average, they store much more and regenerate accordingly faster than their counterparts of the same ship classes amongst the other races. This is good, because even though Amarr laser turrets guzzle capacitor, Amarr still tend to come out ahead of the game.

Interestingly, the supposedly inflexible Amarr can come up with some pretty interesting ship fittings if they forgo lasers for projectiles or a non-primary weapon system like energy neutralizers or smartbombs. All that capacitor comes in handy.

The Amarr ship roster includes the Curse, Pilgrim, and Sentinel, all boasting bonuses to energy neutralizer and energy vampire use. Instead of turning off a ship's weaponry, like an ECM ship, they turn off everything. This makes them some of the most effective non-damage ships in the game. Well, maybe not the Sentinel.

8. Great At Drones

The Amarr are second only to Gallente in the drone department. They are the only race other than Gallente to have sub-capital ships with bonuses to drone use, which is nice. Their ships also tend to have much larger drone bays than usual, though not always more bandwidth. The extra drone bay space allows them greater freedom to choose what drones to bring, and allowing them to keep an extra flight of ECM drones for when they need to make a quick escape.

7. Thick Armor

Amarr are the passive armor tank race, meaning that they specialize in having a lot of armor hit points and using armor plating, rather than having a fast armor repair rate. Nevertheless, their high capacitor still leaves active armor repairing open as an eminently acceptable option, especially in missions or if they are using projectile turrets instead of lasers. Amarr ships tend to have a lot of power grid for fitting armor plates and repairers, and can usually do this wile still using oversized laser turrets or energy weapon grid rigs.

Amarr have some fantastic ships when it comes to armor tanking. The Punisher, Maller, Prophecy, Abaddon, Damnation, Absolution, and Devoter all have bonuses to armor resistance, making them an excellent option for when remote repairing might be used. Since remote repairing is much in vogue, some of these ships are seeing a bit of a renaissance.

6. Fantastic Tech Two Cruisers

While some other races have tech two cruisers that are kind of blase (Caldari heavy assault cruisers) or overspecialized (Gallente recons), the Amarr tech two cruisers are all excellent. They boast useful bonuses, forgiving fitting specs, and get better the more skillpoints one invests into them.

The Pilgrim and Curse are both splendid, and can be fit in a variety of ways depending on what you want to emphasize. The Sacrilege is a solid mission-runner with a roaring missile damage output. The Devoter is one of the better heavy interdictors because it is nearly un-killable. Finally, the Zealot is absolutely fantastic, and gives the Minmatar Vagabond a run for its money as the best heavy assault cruiser.