Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Fleet Cyclone
The velocity bonus as proposed here is OK, insofar as a fleet ship has to be able to project damage. Most people who look at the stats of usage of ships have toruble separating imbalances in ships and weapon systems in the meta (ie; the over-proponderance of Navy Vexor, Gila, ishtar), from prominence based on the ability of a ship to form a "fleet doctrine".

Fleet doctrine ships have to have several elements:
- maneuverability
- tank
- damage projection
- ISK/DPS/Tank in the sweet spot relative to other choices

With the velocity bonus the Cyclone will be able to be buffer-fit effectively and gains damage projection.

The "underestimated" claim Fozzie makes is possibly related to true fleet-fit Cyclones where you dispense entirely with tackle, and pile on buffer and T2 rigs. You can get 670DPS and 100K EHP out of a Cyclone, 5 minutes cap with 2 x medium neuts. This is a nasty, nasty ship, and having 25% more missile range will help it project DPS. Kinda.

Arguably, it's not really enough projection though. The whole use of that ship that I've found is to be underestimated and get into range of enemy logistics and kill them because no one credits you with being dangerous. You still need to burn into 16km (soon to be 20km) if not 9km to use neuts and apply DPS. In this role the difference in projection is negligible, really as you have to get into neut range anyhow.

HML fitting it, your niche disappears. By now you may as well use a Drake if you're going to be dispensing with 150DPS and sitting back tossing missiles. You'll need the EHP the resists get, and no point using a ship where a hull bonus is given over to active tanking, in a fleet situation.

Thus the Cyclone remains potentially dangerous if used situationally, for anti-logi brawling. Or, say, dropping it on laser boats or marauders where capacitor is key. But you won't see fleet Cyclones proliferating because by the time you go for damage projection with HML's other ships with the same cost and greater maneuverability begin appearing.

Solo Cyclone
Now, the Cyclone is set up as a solo brawler ship, due to its bonus to shield boosting. Mostly this is interpreted by the user as "fit an XLASB" but that narrows your flying style down into very restricted space; you especially need to be able to use pills, links and so on. But even so, in the majority of cases the Cyclone sucks or doesn't do so well at this because missiles are really quite apalling for solo work and shield brawling, where you will lack hard tackle. (this is why I say the proposed Ferox is going to dominate it due to fitting a web).

It also doesn't help much when your sig radius starts out at stupendous levels and you blow this out even more.

So, the Cyclone is a niche ship designed around a fairly rare, narrow gameplay option for people. The missile velocity bonus adds range, so you might be able to flail ineffectually at kiters, but it's still going to die horribly to Gilas, VNI's and ishtars because you won't be able to run them down.

For this role, the two highslot utilities are pointless. In fact, ANY utility high is useless, because nos is a crapshoot and for active tanking neuts are a disaster. Smartbombs are cap destroying and worthless (mediums won't knacker Gila drones or Ogres fast enough) so you basically end up tossing PG and CPU into mids and lows or sacrifice to rig penalties (egl CPU -> missile rigs) and end up with pathetic 2 x small neuts "for capping out tackle". Yeah right.

Thus, twin utility highs for solo Cyclone theory are extraneous and worthless. It's just a fact CCP Fozzie. Take the shot to your ego, and dump them and adjust hardpoints and slot layout accordingly.

Finally, armour surprise Cyclone
This is possible, and OK. 1600 plated you get sooo many mids. I ran twin TD, web, scram, MWD. It absolutely murders, eg, the few laser legions i dropped it on.

Lessons from the Typhoon
The Phoon is also an "underrated" battleship. The reason the phoon does well is Cruise Missiles and application rigs, you can get the cruise missiles behaving like light missiles. This puts it into a very,very dangerous category of ship where you can single-shot MWDing ceptors with cruise missiles (usually two shots). The key is damage application.

The Cyclone really needs to have damage application buffs to truly be nasty. A HML Cyclonewith 25% buff to explosion velocity would be a dangerous foe vs AHACs at range. it would be nasty vs T3D's. It would be nasty vs frigs, including garmurs (possibly). HAMs with 25% application, again nasty vs AHACs and with javs versus kiting cruisers.

Please consider, CCP Fozzie. please consider. if you do this, Cyclones will be avoided like the plague by the current meta of link-wh0re Confessor-Svipuls and kitefaq meta.

I like how everything is nicely outlined and in place with the buffs and the guy solidly explained on what and where with the ships buffed, though he did not mention anything about Myrmidon and Prophecy, i wonder why?

because I was just talking about the faction ships and the myrm and prophecy aren't Navy ships.

Test server feedback:
The agility and mobility buff is a gift from god, thank you fozzie. Navy drake and Navy cane finally good ships.

I took the navy drake out and fit my current fleet cane up to the new setup and.. yea, things are going to be awesome. The cane feels more agile and is a bit faster (1600-1700m/s cold, compared to 1500m/s), and i can drop an ACR with my current fit for a different rig.

Drake feels agile and is decently fast with a single nano (1500m/s cold). I think it will fill a good fleet role, being able to be semi fast and project with HML w/ application bonus.

I'm in support of this but care should be used because I don't think anyone want any Ishtar like situation where a ship from a changed class just outshine many different class all by itself.

Is CCP still monitoring this thread? seeing lots of good points.

For myself I’d like to say a big thank you for the upcoming BC buff. It is most welcome and needed.
As part of the battlecruiser rebalance and in the spirit of CCP looking at past changes that may not have worked out well and revising them where applicable I would like to humbly ask for the warp speed of BC’s and BB’s be re-examined.
I believe that most of us welcomed the increased warp speed of the smaller ships in the game, and the addition of warp faster clones, rigs and low slot warp speed modules was a nice addition to the depth that EVE has.
It did however come at a cost of a speed nerf to many of the most enjoyed and frequently flown ship classes in the game namely battlecruisers and battleships.
I would therefore like to suggest that BC (and BB) warp speeds are returned to a base of 3.0
I have no issue with smaller ships going faster, all power to them but please un nerf / buff the warp speeds to these classes of ships.
It is a giant pain in the arse when you are on a roam when half of your fleet is getting left behind. It discourages mixed ship composition of fleets. This is part of the reason why fleets have become so generic.
Thanks

Nerfing something because it is popular to use is such a ill-thought idea.

Here's how I imagine the people at CCP think things through:




If all of your development time is spent destroying the things people like to do, then do not be surprised when people do not like to play.

Actually the new fleet cane will blow a muninn out of the water as a doctrine fit. Shield fit cane will have double the EHP of shield fit Muninn (which is the last doctrine i saw for alpha muninns). The fleet cane will have more tracking than the muninn and with a combined 25% optimal/falloff bonus, will have very similar projection, but much larger alpha.

The cane has 6 turrets + 50% alpha, whereas the Muninn has 5 turrets + 25% alpha and RoF. DPS will be less on the cane, but alpha will be considerably more.

Navy drakes can utilize omni damage, where as T1 drakes are stuck with kinetic damage. A drake fleet would get murdered by an ishtar/vulture/tengu doctrine. Not saying a navy drake would fair better, but at least it could shoot into their resist holes. Small gang would have a role for it as well, since its fairly quick/agile, and paired with MJD + HML, could be decent with proper support.



Cry more. This is a thread about BC buffs, no nerfs. Not to mention CCP isn't nerfing ships because they're popular, its because they are overpowered and breaking ship balance/variety. Pull your head out of your ass and understand there is more going on than your Level 4 mission runner and your isk/hr ratio. Please direct your self-entitled whine somewhere else.

CCP Fozzie, do you look at this thread anymore?

Maybe, could you give us some feedback about the requestet "Cyclone needs some more love"-thing?

Cyclone wasn't used much, checked.
After rebalance, Cyclone won't be used much. Incomming check.

By design?