Player Features and Ideas Discussion

With hope that incoming winter expansion will bring buffs to this ship class I am writing this post to highlight changes that I consider to be sensible for this ship class.

My character KB... http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/combat_record.php?type=player&name=Red+Countess#losses
I used to use Kitsune and Sentinels all the time, just don't lose Kitsunes, both ships are good for there roles, Sentinel being powerhouse 1on1 while Kitsune being best fleet support frigate. That being said we only used Keres effectively once as low sec gate camping ship which isn't his intended role and I personally never saw Hyena in active pvp. These changes are made with intention to bring all ships up to pair with there diverse and useful roles as well as making the whole ship class as such more popular.

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General changes for all ships:

-100% speed bonus to afterburner speed, Ab frigate that is doing 1000 M/S will do 2000 now (this is main buff)
-Ships have signature radius, targeting range and align time equal or better then there t1 variants.
-Possible additional buff to align time/agility of ships (with exception of sentinel that has armor tanking)


Individual ship changes:

HYENA
-Launcher hard-points changed to 3/3
-Added +1 drone
-SHIP BONUS: (1st) 5% to ship velocity and 3%-5% reduction in capacitor recharge rate per level
(2nd) 20% bonus to status webifier range and 15% CPU need reduction for webifiers per level

Reasoning for changes: Drone and launcher hard point change would help with its horrid dps and bring it to 67.7 total. Ship now has preferred fit that consists of 2 webbers so if target is tackled by Hyena it will be close to stationary and target painter bonus would therefore be obsolete. Cap recharge change and CPU one are there to make sure that ship can even make this fit and stay in combat with it rather then to be infective pony as it is now. Also with speed bonus this would be the fastest EAS with highest AB speed in whole game, but still MWD-ing frigates and interceptors should outrun it, that is to say Hyena could be interesting alternative to interceptors as tackle ship. Low EHP and DPS should counter balance its new speed boost, if it proves to be to much it should be reduced.

KERES
-Drone bay increase to 20 m3
-Drone bandwidth to 10 mbit/s

Reasoning for changes: Change was made with idea that this should be true Gallente ship and therefore have somewhat respectable drone bay, and having 2 drones attacking target at once would bring its dps to 66.9 total with long range ammo. Those that chose to risk getting close to target could increase DPS somewhat with short range variation of ammo.

KITSUNE
-Added one drone to mimic griffin
-Changes applied that would be applied to all frigates and were listed above (sig rad, align, target range)

Reasoning for changes: To make it more of a T2 griffin then it is now, ship is fine and as I mentioned earlier this is by far the best fleet support frigate in game. New drone would probably be used as extra jammer.

SENTINEL
- : )

Reasoning for changes: This ship is powerhouse 1on1 with added speed buff it could very likely become top 1-3 solo frigate. It lacks utility for fleets of bigger size where its EA becomes useless and that is why you possibly designed him as 1on1 ship in first the place and perhaps want to leave it as such. If ship becomes "new dramiel" and starts dominating frigate pvp to extreme then nerfs should be applied. One of possible options is to remove one of its low slots and swap it for high to lower its tanking capability. Testing needed.

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OUTCOME

These changes should allow EA frigates to apply there electronic attacks during battle with out being defenseless primary targets that they tend to be now. Some faction frigates can overheat anywhere from 2k-3k M/S with AB so a ship with far less armor and dps shouldn't get out of line if it can do the same/better but with different role in mind. There new role being annoying, speedy, agile ships that use speed coupled with electronic attack as both means of there protection as well as attack.



Red Countess - a very experianced EAS player

They dont need to be given OP status in order for people to play with them, if they are just made useful and fun with proposed changes they will be used a lot.

I do like these changes, most of them seem fairly solid. But one thing that wasn't addressed, that I think is the major issue EAFs have right now, is their tank. The AB/agil changes would definitely help, but there's still the fact that they have no tank at all (which is bad for solo ships and worse when you're going to be called primary in of your gang).

The other week I was trying to EFT a decent Hyena and the only way I could get it above 1500 EHP was to fit a MSE and loose a web (and that still only took it to <3500 EHP). For a 20M hull, it's just not worth the ISK when it'll only take one solid hit to pop. I think these ships should be able to get to atleast 4-5k EHP with no more than one MSE/plate if they're supposed to be at all viable.

The EAS is a nice little ship that fills the role of a Combat Recon in a frigate fleet. So they deserve some love too.

When used properly, they are a beautiful blend of speed and lethality.

:(

CovOps Cloaks will not fix the flaws that ship class has as a whole but would only give certain additional range of options for already useful fleet ships while leaving rest behind. Force recons have cloaks, combat ones have tank+some spank so rather then copycating what is already there (just on a smaller scale), doing something new would be much better option, since variety = more fun.

Turn EAS into speedy AB frigs, lower the price to that of other T2 frigs and I am certain that there popularity will "skyrocket".

Bump for sake of notice

hmm ew is a nono for matar thats why every ew class should be underused

I think this is a good suggestion... allow it to CovOps Cloak and it will be as useful as small force recons =D (Also more vulnerable)

How do I delete double post?