Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As many of you are aware, the Amarr T2 lineup is very healthy right now, with the whole Kanid line being pretty good at what they do, as well as the Pilgrim and Redeemer. Zealots aren't seen much, but when they are, they do quite well. Sentinel and malediction being the best in class (in my opinion). However, the T1 lineup is in dire need. in comparison to their counterparts in other racial lineups, they are quite lacking. Suffering from the Amarr "non-bonus" of cap use reduction ( outside max "capless" roles like executioner tackle).

In addition to a generally weak lineup, the T1 ships on the Amarr line do not transition to their T2 counterparts very well. Gallente and Caldari Ship lines transition almost perfectly from T1 to T2 of the same ship... Thorax becomes Diemos, Drake becomes Nighthawk, Tristan becomes Ishkur, merlin becomes Harpy, Megathron becomes Kronos... etc
The Amarr lineup has some serious transition issues Though.

Half of all T2 amarr are Khanid missile ships with literally 0 missile bonused T1 ships, and only 3 ships on the whole T1 line that can use a "set" of them at all! With no ships on the T1 line to get newbs to train missile skills at all, and most secondary being put into drones, for the few drone ships that exist, leaves the transition to T2 for amarr ships very heavily gimped. With the hard brawl T1 laser boats not having T2 counterparts.

I suggest a rebalance and re-work of the T1 Amarr lineup to better reflect the transition to T2. This will consolidate and create uniformity between the SP valued by older T2 and newer Amarr players. And at least allow newbros to fly some laser, some drone, and some missile ships before deciding where to dump their T2 training into.

Here is a list of balance issues and suggestions along the Amarr lineup:

Punisher : widely considered the worst ship in the game (meant for combat). This ship should be the basis of player progression through to the malediction and vengeance. It also desperately needs a 3rd mid.
-3 turret hardpoints
+4 launcher hardpoints
+1 midslot (the loss of the utility high allows the flat gain of a mid)
-16 PG
+30 CPU
5% to damage of energy weapons changed to 5% to damage of missiles
4% to resists remains

"No brawl/tackle ship in Eve should have less than 3 mids. Period."

I needed to clarify because the OP said "combat ships" rather than Brawl/Tackle ships. Sniper ships are just fine with 2 mids, like the slicer. Never really meant to have tackle modules. They "can". But its generally better if someone else does that role.

Dragoon :There is no conceivable reason that players should not be allowed to fit all missiles, or all turrets in the highs with 1-3 neuts to preference like prophecy/geddon. If you don't want to fly it with 3 neuts (you want a plate, booster etc....) then you have to leave slots empty or fit for 3 different weapon types.
+2 turret hardpoints
+2 launcher hardpoints
+1 mid
- 1 low Amarr -1 mid +1 low "flavor", on smaller than cruiser, its just bad for balance)
+20 CPU (with the option to fit more in the mids and launchers as well as a neut/nos, the dragoon will need much more cpu fitting while needing less PG.)
- 2 PG

Maller : Considered the "punisher of the cruisers", the Maller simply has no place. Anywhere, other than 1600 plate bait. Without speed to move into range, or a bonus to projection, the Maller is left limping around with BC tank and nothing to shoot quite often. Why not make it the same Sacrilege missile transition as the Punisher.
- 5 turret hardpoints
+5 Launcher hardpoints
+100 CPU
-350 PG
5% to damage of energy turrets changed to...
5% to rate of fire of launchers
4% to resists bonus remains

Arbitrator: The arbitrator suffers from a massive lack of powergrid. The stunted cousin of the Curse/Pilgrim, it has forced 3 weapon type layout, or (not enough to fit neuts so lol get bent).
+ 1 turret hardpoints
+ 1 launcher hardpoints (allowing 3 of your choice and 1 neut or 2 and 2 neuts. baby brother to the curse or pilgrim, to your preference.)
+ 120 PG. ( a ship with a hard lean to neuts needs grid )
-5 CPU (TD E-war does not take that much CPU typically compared to ECM or Points, This will provide an Amarr flavor fitting choke )

(Made some edits to clarify about the mids, and to cut out some small nitpicking and get this down to what i really consider to be the big issues with the lineup, Everything else was secondary)

Honestly the dragoon doesn't need a buff. I've flown it several times and it is extremely powerful in a solo/small-gang situation. One neut? How are you fitting it, I run 3 neuts and 3 autocannons with drones for the majority of my DPS. It works perfectly. If you want an amarr dessie with the highs full of guns, you should just fly a coercer instead.

It's just three ships that need help, maller, punisher, arbitrator.

The rest.. Are ok.

Now I'd love a little more utility out of the prophecy (like 100 bandwidth :-P), but it'd be getting close to the myrmidon.

Caldari have the exact same situation with the Merlin (hybrid only) compare to Hawk (missile only) and Harpy (hybrid only). I do not see how that is a problem with the Amarr line-up. Gallente are not comparable at all as they only have Hybrids as High slot weapons and nothing else.

The Dragoon is a Drone-Neut boat, not a gun/turret boat. Besides, what is "undersized" for you? There are no smaller than Small Neut/NOS in the game as far as I know and the Dragoon is meant to use Smalls.
The very same goes for the Arbitrator. It does not need guns or launchers, it's a focused Neut-Drone boat. Pushing guns (except for civ guns to trigger drones maybe) on there is just a waste. More grid, however, could be interesting to actually allow medium neuts to be fitted in addition to tank.

The Maller is a tanky Laser Brawler with a lot of DPS for the tank. No other cruiser has that tank level with the DPS. What more can people probably want?

The Tormentor apparently is an amazing brawler as it stands, shredding a wide range of other T1 and even T2 frigates with ease.

The Prophecy may have less DPS than a Vexor, but it has more tank and a lot of utility (Neut-Smartbomb-Drone-DPS).

The Armageddon's CPU is fine, I would argue. It actually limits you on how many drone modules you can fit and requires trade-offs. I have a nice little Geddon fitting that goes well above 1k DPS. The only trade-offs I need to make with it are a Meta 4 web and LAAR instead of T2 LAR. More CPU would remove that logical fitting room cap for drone boats and I do not view this as beneficial.

Did you just say that the T1 frigs for Caldari do not have a missile frigate?

"undersize" was in reference to the Arbitrator, which cannot fit an MWD, Cap booster without having to choose between a plate or cruiser neuts.

The drone bonus is always damage and HP. It's not as much of a double bonus as much as it's necessary to function or drone would just get killed.

You do realise a cap reduction bonus is a damage bonus in most case since it allow you to keep firing when you would of been capped out or forced to use lower cap consumption crystals if it didn't get a reduction right?

The only changes I can agree with I'm the OP here are the punisher which desperately needs setting apart from the tormenter and executioner and a tad more grid on the arbitrator. Other than that all Amarr ships are fantastic

Except it's not,
The Cap bonus is a legacy bonus back to when lasers were OP and the only balance on them was high cap useage.
So Amarr ships had to spend one of their two bonuses on cap useage, while other ships got 2 bonuses to their weapon systems to create balance.

Lasers are no longer OP as a weapon system, so Small & Medium lasers badly need the treatment large lasers got of removing the cap bonus off almost all the ships, and lowering the overall cap useage of the weapon systems. Then Amarr will be in a happier state of affairs.

Excuse me? Arbitrator, Prophecy and Armageddon primary weapons are Drones. Missiles are the exclusive domain of Khanid ships. That missiles are the only viable choice for the Geddon due to the bonuses to cap warfare and drone range (where all other weapons fall short) does not make them primary weapons, especially not since none of these ships have bonuses to missiles.

I would like to mention that "non bonus" is technically isn't an issue. You can easily think of a ship that will be amazing for its class without any bonuses whatsoever, just give it good stats and slot layout. Unique niches and distinctiveness are main reasons behind bonuses rather than abstract "power" of a ship.

So really, if you think that Omen should get tracking bonus, then it should probably be justified by more practically meaningful arguments than technicalities, especially if you claim that the ship is pretty much fine in the same sentence.