Vasari Enforcer (heavy combat) Cruiser -- best value?

Each ship counters and is countered by a different strategy.
Heavy cruisers are vulnerable to AoE effects, can suffer from crippled speed, and bombers deal extra damage to them. After they get in range though, they have the best weapon type in the game, capable of grinding up all armor types extremely well.

Ideally, your going to want a mix of ships. The Enforcer is great at many things, but other ships tend to help it out.

To take the TEC example (which I know far better), their Kodiaks work far better with Hoshiko and Cielo backups (Hull repair and shield regen, as well as disabling the enemy and increasing damage against targets). Adding in either flak frigates for anti-strikecraft operations, or a carrier wing to add fighters and bombers in, will extend your power even further. When dealing with enemy support units, Cobalts (especially with the anti-antimatter upgrade researched) can be quite helpful as well.

The Enforcers are a great unit, but you can't really say they're "best value", because even they don't excel at everything.

Definitely worth building, but as part of a balanced force.

Heavy cruisers are your best bet end game. Use them with support cruisers and caps, maybe some light frigates for their nice abilities when upgraded, and some flak if you're really worried about strike craft. You're set. Bombers doing extra damage to heavy doesn't mean much because a carrier is less cost efficient to a heavy cruiser, even when using bombers against things they are strong against, and fighters against things they are strong against.

They have an awesome base damage of 20 which is higher than any other ship you can build, this 20 is also all focused on the front, so you can focus fire that damage much easier. A bomber squad will do less damage to a heavy cruiser will compared to if you just got a heavy cruiser instead, plus they die to flak easily. They also get the awesome slow down ability, which makes everything much easier.

So yeah, in my opinion, Vasari's HC's are the way to go.

heavy cruisers (for all 3 factions) are one of two ships up to the task of anchoring fleet. the other ship type of course is the LRM frigate. cruisers are MUCH more durable and are particularly adept at destroying LRM frigates (though they deal good damage to just about everything really). if you have an end game economy and can support heavies they're probably a better bet to anchor your fleet than any other ship.

Just to note, to get the best value out of HC, you need some form of support cruisers in your fleet. They can increase there power or keep them in the fight for longer. It just like chasington said, but you must bring a support fleet with your HC, they make a big differnce.

I would like to second this. It's not just for Vasari, but for all races. Your first job should be to tech to the long range frigate, and your second job should be to tech to heavy cruiser. These two ships, one for early game, one for mid-game, will be the vanguard of your fleet. Your anchor as transitive puts it.

To me this means they will be 50% of your fleet, with other ships making up the rest to support them by making them either more powerful, or shoring up their weaknesses. Once you get heavy cruisers out, also realize that the long range frigate now becomes a support ship for taking out light frigates and adding damage against cap ships.

This is doubly true for the Advent since the Illuminator's unique damage profile leaves them without a true long range frigate.

Fortunately, as Advent, if you last that long, you're in good shape. The Destra Crusader, IMO, is the best of the three heavy cruisers in terms of bang for buck.