Missions & Complexes

pigeon chess, indeed. i congratulate you on your victory, little pigeon.

Wasn't the whole point of the ship re-balance suppose to make all Factions same type of ship class equal without having to cross train into other racial variants ?

The fact that there's only a few ships that can effectively counter the Guristas Perma-Jam says otherwise.



DMC

I don't think equal was ever a goal. The goal that I remember was to give every ship a role. and for the most part that was achieved by giving each ship in a class roughly a similar number of hitpoints, slots, and fitting. there were of course a few racial and role based modifications. However to make say a zealot an effective gurista ratter was probably never an intention of balance. You probably could use a sacrilege or an armageddon with a decent outcome however.

I'm still not sure what situations result in permajams, I think the only example I've seen in this thread was an epic arc mission, and to make that representative of all guristas is a leap I'm not willing to make. And I can only think of two personal examples, One was a merlin in a lv2 mission (gurista's blockade), where I was pretty much permajammed, Also taking enough damage I couldn't kill the jammers safely in the times the jams failed. Most of my tank was reliant on kiting, and if it went for the jammers I might have been able to brawl them down. When I came back in a cruiser I didn't get jammed once. I probably could have dropped a web (which I didn't really even need) for an ECCM and have been fine. The second was as a complete noob I messed up aggro in a "the assault" and couldn't target the scram frigs in between jams to get my drones on them. Perhaps couldn't even get a lock on the Ecm cruisers as I could usually kill them. My tank was slowly failing, and I did lose my ship, but I also came back and completed the mission. The assault is now a mission I have completed 100s, maybe even 1000s of times.

I've seen people recommend a vindicator to be a good choice for farming gurista anoms. For belt ratting pretty much anything works. As I said earlier ishtars and tengus are good choices regardless of jams, due to damage type and resist profiles. And also as I said earlier people like drone ships because they can semi-afk them.

Yeah, I posted that Epic Arc mission example. It's the very last mission of the Caldari Epic Arc and it's the only one I can't complete solo due to the unbalanced EWAR / Perma-Jam from the 4 Guristas Elite Cruiser NPC's. I have no problem completing all of the other missions in that arc, some of them may take a bit longer due to random bursts of EWAR jamming, but I can still complete them.

In fact, I can complete all of the other Epic Arcs solo with my Loki set up as a gun ship backed by Drones. I seriously believe the Guristas EWAR is bugged and needs to be looked at and toned down a bit.

Now I've heard of complaints before about Guristas EWAR being overpowered in other situations or sites which doesn't surprise me. However from my experience, the last mission of the Caldari Epic Arc is the only one I have a gripe about. I even tried fitting up the best ECCM mods available to counter it but to no avail. I also tried to turn the Loki into a Missile boat to use FoF's which isn't good at all. After hours and hours of trying to get the Elite Cruisers (all other NPC's in that mission constantly get between you and the Elite Cruisers), I gave up and just called in a friend.

That's how I complete it now, I just call in another ship to target the EWAR Cruisers after I get full aggro, mission is completed in about 10 minutes.


DMC

DMC, really? I figured an old vet like yourself would have Marauders trained. That missions took me about 5-10 minutes in a Kronos. Now if you can't fly one of those, a Rattlesnake using RLMLs with FoFs works fairly well. After all, the frigates in that missions are the real pain. Drones can take care of the rest.

This does not seem very difficult...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89I8nKF-2uA

1. The last mission in the Caldari Epic Arc is not a good example. The Epic Arc missions are supposed to be harder than your standard L4 mission. The Assault, Blockade, and Worlds Collide would be good examples, but I've used a Loki against Guristas in all of them and survived.

2. Minmatar ships suffer the worst to ECM due to the sig strength on them sucks.

3. Cyclone, Claymore, and Typhoon Fleet Issue are good ships to use against rats that use ECM. All 3 use missiles and can therefore use FoF missiles. Typhoon Fleet Issue can also use 5 sentry drones.

ECM is nowhere near as bad as it was when I first started playing, and I personally think it is in a good place. And this comes from a person who was in Gallente FW for 2 years and had to contend with Caldari NPC rats who jam in the FW missions.

#1 - Actually the last mission of the Caldari Epic Arc is a perfect example of how overpowered and unbalanced the Guristas EWAR is, especially since it's constantly happening during the mission, thus the phrase PERMA-JAM.

Off hand I don't recall those other missions so I can't compare the EWAR in them to the last mission of the Caldari Epic Arc.

As for using a Loki to complete them, that's definitely doable if the EWAR is done in random bursts. However if it's constantly happening (Perma-Jam) then all gun ships including the Loki are unusable.

#2 - Sig strength ? I think you mean sensor strength and yes, it does suck. I boosted the Loki's sensor strength up past 70 and it still had no effect against the NPC Perma-Jam which only proves how overpowered and unbalanced that EWAR actually is.

#3 - Yes those are all good ships to use because they are indeed Missile Boats. However my whole point is the Perma-Jam makes all Gun Ships obsolete and unusable, even when fitting to buff up sensor strength. I'm not asking for the EWAR to be removed, just needs to be toned down in strength with a break in it every once in a while. I definitely don't mind if it takes time to complete the mission as long as I get a chance to do just that. As it is now, a solo Gun Ship has no chance at all to complete it.

If I can complete all the other missions in the Caldari Epic Arc solo using a Gun Ship, then I should be able to also do the same in the very last mission of that arc. I shouldn't have to change ships just for one mission that's clearly plagued with a bugged out NPC EWAR mechanic.


DMC