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[Plantissue]

Afflictor doesn't need QD to bypass shields. It's fast enough to simply fire at point that omni shield does not currently cover (and won't be able to during AM shot's flight time). 4x cloak skill makes it easier but is not strictly necessary. Accelerated shields hullmod on victim makes Afflictor's job harder, but doesn't really prevent bypass.

Lots of ships have 360 degree coverage or is fast and manoeuvrable enough to make shooting their rear difficult. In any case it's not really a problem that Harbinger is a better player ship than an Afflictor in many cases, because one is 8 Deployment points and the other is 20 Deployment points.

In any case the point of having an AM Blaster armed Harbinger over AM Blaster armed Afflictor is because you want to use a Harbinger, not because the Harbinger is better at using AM Blaster. (It is better, but that is beside the point).

[Megas]

Most of the targets I send Reaper Afflictor at do not use omni shields, but have tremendeous armor and hull to chew through, namely Onslaught, Legion, most cruisers, and especially battlestations.  Against targets that have small arc, omni shields (like that annoying pirate Venture) I wait until it is distracted by the rest of my fleet, then launch.  (But usually, I pass on those and pick off big, tough targets with fixed shields immediately - see above.)  In any case, I want them dead immediately, and I do not care if it has less steam than AM Blaster ship.  Reaper Afflictors are Ultima V-style glass swords in my fleet, which I bring out to assassinate big, annoying targets faster (or more cheaply) than my conventional fleet can deal with.

Afflictor is not a perfect substitute for Reaper Harbinger, but it can still do most of the cheese against a large chunk of available targets, including battlestations (where I really abused Reaper Harbinger last release, and currently abuse Reaper Afflictor today).

For small fry, I usually send conventional warships or carriers (or Doom) at them, although I occasionally use Harbinger instead (often to conserve CR of my big bad capital flagship).

[TaLaR]

Afflictor doesn't need QD to bypass shields. It's fast enough to simply fire at point that omni shield does not currently cover (and won't be able to during AM shot's flight time). 4x cloak skill makes it easier but is not strictly necessary. Accelerated shields hullmod on victim makes Afflictor's job harder, but doesn't really prevent bypass.

Lots of ships have 360 degree coverage or is fast and manoeuvrable enough to make shooting their rear difficult. In any case it's not really a problem that Harbinger is a better player ship than an Afflictor in many cases, because one is 8 Deployment points and the other is 20 Deployment points.

In any case the point of having an AM Blaster armed Harbinger over AM Blaster armed Afflictor is because you want to use a Harbinger, not because the Harbinger is better at using AM Blaster. (It is better, but that is beside the point).

AI (wrongly) does not consider Afflictor a sufficient threat to keep shields up all the time (well, forcing all AI ships to keep shields up all the time just by bringing a phase frigate or Hyperion would be quite powerful in it's own way). And trying to raise shield during Afflictor's approach is guaranteed to be too late even with Accelerated Shields. So you can just issue Avoid order on target to ensure that they don't raise shield due to your other ships around or go for them before fleets meet.
In fact you can even manipulate enemy shield (face the enemy ship with your charged guns - it raises shields, face away - shields drop). Rotating cloaked Afflictor is nearly instant in world-time, so this clearly shows AI too optimistic about it's shield raise/drop times.

8 DP vs 20 DP is exactly part of reason why Afflictor is better. It does more for less DP.