The Confessor

Confessor Signature Wallpaper
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I was fortunate enough to receive a Confessor earlier this week and I've been tinkering with a fit for it during those precious few times I've been able to get on-line this week. I usually don't talk about fits until I've had a chance to try them out in combat first, but due to my limited play-time (and the fact that if I undock in this thing right now everyone will blob me to death) I thought I would share my initial thoughts.

Right off the top I really love the concept behind this new Ship Class. I'm anxiously awaiting the rest of the line-up. From a design standpoint the ship is remarkable, unique, and yet well within the design standards of Eve. New yet familiar, which is a great accomplishment considering how many ships Eve has. So well done art team! But beyond design, the rather dubious concept of transformation is something brand new in space. The Confessor not only has three distinct modes of operation, those modes can be selected ON THE FLY! Three new buttons appear next to your module cluster and selecting one immediately transforms the ship - Defensive, Sniper and Propulsion Modes. Each making the Confessor into a slightly different ship with slightly different bonuses.

Not only that, but each transformation can be heard. (Eve has sound?) Turn up the world sound and listen as plates and whatnots move into place. It is subtle, but an awesome addition to an already awesome ship. Awesome from a design standpoint.

The Confessor is certainly intended as a Sniper. There can be no doubt about that. And so initially I tried fitting it with Beam Lasers! (I can't believe I just wrote that.) And while it does extremely well in that role... beams? With Aurora loaded it can hit targets well beyond its range (pointless) and deliver decent damage in the mid-100s. (I had to actually look up the long range ammo for Beams!) When the Naga was first released I had four of them the first week, I still have one of those! Snipers in low sec are not all that useful frankly. Oh sure, I could easily see a fleet of these things being nasty, especially in Null. All linked to the max with targeting range and whatnots. Sniping people in bubbles maybe. But this is low sec baby.

So back to pulse lazors. Now we are talking. Better dps, decent range, better tracking and decent tank. Still fully capable of kiting from outside scram range, the Confessor gets about 2,400m/s cold in prop mode with a 1mn Limited MWD fitted. Like all Amarr ships cap is an issue so I've popped a Cap Booster in one of the mid-slots. Long range point, cap and mwd in the three mids. DC, resist mods, and dual armor reps (one Ancillary) in the lows. With the rigs fitted it gets about 150hp/s armor rep tank. Which is not shabby. Everything turned on in defensive mode the ehp hovers around the 10k mark cold. In defensive mode the speed drops to 1,400 or so.

For now this remains un-tested. With the Holidays coming up my play-time is rather limited, but as soon as possible I will be undocking the darn thing and testing it out against other players. The fit may need to be tweaked and re-worked a bit based on how that goes. As you know, I'm a big believer in combat tested fits.

I don't believe the Confessor is positioned to become an extremely popular ship. I suspect there will be fleet and small gang comps seen with them in a core role, surrounded by support and tackle. In that role they could be extremely useful. Again, much of the success of the ship remains in where the price settles. Which remains to be seen. Personally I think high 100's is probably where it will be in a few weeks.

I love the Confessor and look forward to the next three. Just not sure how often I'll be flying it. Other than to watch it transform. Which is very cool, I must confess.

Apologies, had to do it.