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Make Tech 1 Cruisers and Battlecruisers unable to fit heavy tank for balancing
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Caitlyn Tufy
Perkone
Caldari State
#41 - 2012-06-29 10:38:11 UTC
Ashera Yune wrote:
Battlecruisers have too much tank that it starts to reach Battleship Territory.


That has nothing to do with what ships can fit. Try ftting tier 3 BCs (such as Tornado) for a tank and let's see how that fares. What certain BCs (most obviously the Drake) have going for them is a whole combination of factors that gives them rock solid tank - which is then why those ships are great in a whole variety of situations.

In other words, a Drake won't be better than a battleship - what it will be better at is being awesome at low skills and in a cheap fit.

You want to fix this? Not a problem - make passive shield regeneration dependant on Battlecruiser skill, remove built in resists and turn 25% kinetic damage into a rate of fire bonus. Drake's maximum tank drops, his dps switches from spamming kinetic missiles to choosing a damage type and in order to trully maximize his tank, you need to build upon the BC skill, thereby making HACs lucrative in terms of time needed to train them compared to BCs.

Personally, I'd rather have Drake as a sort of mini Raven, as I believe it would better translate into the BS active tanking, which now drops out of nowhere. Of course, that would also spell death for Drake blobs, making missile ships even less desired in pvp. There's no perfect solution for that.
Maeltstome
Ten Thousand Days
#42 - 2012-06-29 11:31:08 UTC
Lets work this one out:

Cruisers with 1600 plate or LSE II - massive sig, sacrificing DPS OR Speed for tank.

Drake: 100k EHP, 300 DPS. Vs. Raven 65k EHP, 800 DPS tank, 1000DPS
I dont see the issue.
Myrmidon 81k EHP, 650DPS Vs. Megathron 140k EHP, 900 DPS
I dont see the issue.
Hurricane: 75k EHP, 500DPS 2x Med Neut Vs Tempest 135k EHP, 650 DPS 2x Heavy neut
I don't see the issue.

I don't fly amarr ships, so i wont risk a comparison.

Maybe you should try putting a heavy energy neut on your battleship and you'll be much happier with it's sub-BS-killing performance

P.s.

Battlecruisers are designed to tank like battleships, but have DPS of a cruiser. Tier 3 have that switched.

I repeat: BC's are designed to have BS size tanks.
Gypsio III
State War Academy
Caldari State
#43 - 2012-06-29 12:17:51 UTC
Maeltstome wrote:
Battlecruisers are designed to tank like battleships, but have DPS of a cruiser.


Neither of these statements are correct, either in terms of design or in terms of practice.
Nathan Ernaga
Applesauce Brigade
#44 - 2012-06-29 12:18:17 UTC
Why not just take BC outRoll

If you have in your hands the key to the fulfillment of your life's ambition and superiority over most, if you are aware that there is an absolute power on hand (just over the basic moral principles) how far are you willing to go and through what you are willing to tread?
Maeltstome
Ten Thousand Days
#45 - 2012-06-29 12:22:51 UTC
Gypsio III wrote:
Maeltstome wrote:
Battlecruisers are designed to tank like battleships, but have DPS of a cruiser.


Neither of these statements are correct, either in terms of design or in terms of practice.


Been stated in dev blogs years ago. Tier 3 BC's where the first true 'battle cruiser' - as real life battle crusiers where cruisers with battleship guns.

Eve had it the other way around. Cruisers guns, heavy tanking bonus.
Gypsio III
State War Academy
Caldari State
#46 - 2012-06-29 12:25:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Gypsio III
Maeltstome wrote:
Battlecruisers are designed to tank like battleships, but have DPS of a cruiser.


BCs have DPS much superior to that of cruisers, thanks to additional weapon slots, additional lowslots and much easier fitting. Their tracking and range tends to be better, too.

Only one BC can be described as having BS-level tank, and a pretty flimsy BS at that.
Noisrevbus
#47 - 2012-06-29 13:31:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Noisrevbus
Regarding tanks:

While a resistance-bonused BC like the Drake can almost reach 100k EHP buffer fit, a resistance-bonused BS like the Abaddon reach about 200k EHP similarily fit and a resistance-bonused Cruiser like the Auguror have no problem reaching a 50k EHP buffer when fit for that. The Drake is just as more or less tanky to the BS as it is to the Cruiser.

The difference lie in how the Abaddon has an investment value that will push some wallets even if they get the entire ship back on insurance while also losing a significant amount of ISK in the higher pricetag of BS-sized modules and rigs.

The Drake have a higher investment value than the Auguror but it's not significant enough to be daunting or present dents in expiring insurance values (the Abaddon stand to lose 65m should it live past expiration date, a BC in the vicinity of 10-15m). While it has more slots to fill with modules it is still filling it with the same kind of modules with the same kind of pricetag.

Rigging the BS is another 30m while the BC and Cruiser both land around 6m or 1/5 the cost.

Many of these things is what profile the BC in the cost-efficiency sweetspot, and prior to the rig-size implementation it's also what kept BC impopular for fleet-work.

That instead is perhaps one way to deal with the overblown cost-efficiency of BC today. The change made sense back in the day, but reverting part of it now and force all BC to use large rigs could be enough to nudge their cost-effciency into a better balance.


Regarding EANM and Invuls:

Alara, you are trying to compare active and passive modules, that is hardly ever wise. They come with a number of additional differences that you are not touching upon. Heat, fitting, cap-balance, cap-use etc. There are also other modifiers that affect them, such as how damage controls have higher armor-values that affect the stacking returns.

It's also quite amusing that on one end signature drawbacks are not considered punishing enough and on the other blapping is considered an issue. Likewise the speed limitation is considered a major drawback but the actual speed of ships is never taken into account, and when people complain about plated speed they almost always limit their examples to Minmatar ships that are built around speed. I remember it from the Deimos-discussion pre-Crucible, statements were just thrown out there about how they were slow on pricinple of plating and rigging, though very few bothered to look at their relative speed or even knew how fast they were. They never defined what they implied by saying "slow".


Regarding BC obsoleting HAC:

It's the same issue here as on the note i ended with in the last paragraph.

In what way do BC obsolete HAC?

It's just a statement saying they do, not an argument. You have not defined how or why.

If it is because they are much easier to stack in vast numbers, then yes, you are right.

If it's a question of actual ship balance, then no, you are wrong.

Most HAC completely decimate BC assuming near equal numbers, if you play to their advantage. If this imply sitting still and seeing who can dish out the most damage or push through the buffer first, then yes BC do compare. The same applies to BS when compared to both CS and Tech III though. One usually don't assume them to stupidly sit still and compare sheer volume, so why would the HAC?

All HAC are either significantly faster, fire further, harder and have more mitigation over both signature and resist-profile. SHAC will out-reach them, AHAC will out-tank them and NHAC will out-kite them assuming they can maintain their speed-sig relative. The problem is that all of these ships are limited by the use of support. Hostile BC backed by Recons have a tendency to affect sig-speed relatives alot. Your own engagement-range is also dictated by the range of your own support, forcing you into their reach. Finally, add enough BC to the field and they will begin to volley through tanks they are not meant to. This is why grid-pushing BC-blobs remain popular, it's the ever cost-efficient f-off fleet, holding grid.

It's also the ever repeating argument against stupidity: The problem of BC have nothing to do with actual ship balance and everything to do with cost-efficiency, scaling and the imbalance of numbers. Nerf numbers, nerf the blob, nerf efficiency in attrition and BC will be balanced.

Holding grid itself, and it's relation to relevant mechanics is another part of the equation.

Today you win EVE by stacking resources (more numbers, or larger ships) on a single grid and push others off it, until that change these problems won't go away. It manifiest itself wether you speak roaming skirmish or TCU sovfare. It's all about grid-push, concentrating action away from the game and encouraging inaction of your foes (by extension, yourself).
Zyress
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#48 - 2012-06-29 13:57:58 UTC
Mira Lynne wrote:
They need to be brought in Line, yes, but your proposal is the Wrong way to do it.
Ashera Yune wrote:
Battlecruisers obsolete HAC's. Removing their ability to fit 1600mm while allowing HAC's to fit 1600's will shift gameplay and bring more variety to the game.

This will shift gameplay, yes, but it wont bring more variety. It will actually kill a fair bit of variety.


The problem is the bang for bucks quotient. Yes a T2 Cruiser should be more expensive than a T1 Cruiser but less expensive than a T1 Battlecruiser. Bringing the cost in line should shift the T2 cruisers back into play without nerfing anything.
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#49 - 2012-06-29 15:47:35 UTC
Theres a golden rule of game design - you don't **** with established game mechanics unless absolutely necessary. It would be far better to tweak the stuff that people feel is being made obsolete a littel bit to make them more relevant than introduce massive changes to the way people are used to playing the game.
Lin-Young Borovskova
Doomheim
#50 - 2012-06-29 16:17:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Lin-Young Borovskova
Noisrevbus wrote:
The problem of BC have nothing to do with actual ship balance and everything to do with cost-efficiency, scaling and the imbalance of numbers. Nerf numbers, nerf the blob, nerf efficiency in attrition and BC will be balanced.


If you want to nerf the blob, witch you can't, you start by hitting 2 major points: cost/efficiency and stacking

How do you think numbers game can be nerf? -it can't.
See supers/titans nerf, do you see that much now around ganking everything on grid? -nope, and this is good for the game.

Want to change actual cost efficiency leading to throw away ships used in masses? -you can't, but you can make them all viable so you can counter blob ship "A" with tactic ship "B".
Make them all viable doesn't mean make them all the same, just means balance what you should and should not be able to do with "x" kind of ship and then tears flow because dude "y" lost his "I win" tràlàlà

Nerf some BC EHP and dmg projection is a good start.

brb
Lili Lu
#51 - 2012-06-29 17:16:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Lili Lu
The OP's suggestions are overdone. That being said, Noisrevbus, your tanking discussion misses the points that gathering enough ehp to benefit from logi support involves tradeoffs to damage, range, or damage over range even for the Abaddon, but not for the only resist bonused BC worth using. And to use an Auguror in the argument is laughable. That ship is a woeful noodle for damage, especially when fit for it's tank. However, you do present a valid argument about one aspect of the problem that get's overlooked -

Noisrevbus wrote:
Regarding tanks:

Rigging the BS is another 30m while the BC and Cruiser both land around 6m or 1/5 the cost.

Many of these things is what profile the BC in the cost-efficiency sweetspot, and prior to the rig-size implementation it's also what kept BC impopular for fleet-work.

That instead is perhaps one way to deal with the overblown cost-efficiency of BC today. The change made sense back in the day, but reverting part of it now and force all BC to use large rigs could be enough to nudge their cost-effciency into a better balance.


This is a much better solution than the OP's. I don't know how the coding is, but it must be difficult to specifically exclude specific mods from ships. Otherwise we would not see 100mn cruisers and such. But it appears it might be easier to simply reclassify BCs for large rigs. Want tirmarks or CDFEs for your BCs, well pay up for the large ones. Excellent suggestion.Smile


Noisrevbus wrote:
Regarding EANM and Invuls:

It's also quite amusing that on one end signature drawbacks are not considered punishing enough and on the other blapping is considered an issue. Likewise the speed limitation is considered a major drawback but the actual speed of ships is never taken into account,


Because for large ships, signature simply isn't as much a penalty as the added mass effects from plates on agility. Plates do not affect speed, they affect agility. This is very detrimental on ships meant to get in close and tackle. It also is a worse hit on fleet ships.

If you are in a BC or BS and getting bombed you have essentially two choices. Tank it or move out of the blast radius. A sig bloom from LSEs will likely mean you take full damage, but it might also afford you the opportunity to warp out or mwd away from bomb blast area (because if you sig is already bloated from the lses). WIth plates your sig may still be small enough to reduce the damage a little, but you probably cannot warp in 10 seconds or get to top speed quick enough to move away from the balst radius.

You keep bringing up blapping titans (or dreads). One that got a nerf. Maybe not enough of one or done the right way but still it seems CCP wants to kill that tactic. Eventually it will impossible. The typical differences between an extendered BC or BS and a plated BC or BS pale in comparison the the effect of painters and tracking, and really once someone turns on the mwd the base signature differnences mean squat.

Noisrevbus wrote:
Regarding BC obsoleting HAC:

In what way do BC obsolete HAC?

. . . If it is because they are much easier to stack in vast numbers, then yes, you are right.

If it's a question of actual ship balance, then no, you are wrong.

Most HAC completely decimate BC assuming near equal numbers . . .

All HAC are either significantly faster, fire further, harder and have more mitigation over both signature and resist-profile. SHAC will out-reach them, AHAC will out-tank them and NHAC will out-kite them assuming they can maintain their speed-sig relative.

The ehp buffer on a drake is going to be better than that on a hac, even if the hac resist bonuses are better than the drakes'. The Drake simply has so much more base hp to stack it's lesser resist bonus on top of. SHACs are not seen much anymore. Tier 3s can reach them and the cost efficiency, sp investment, insurability, etc means you rarely anymore see SHACs. AHACs use afterburners. They do not have more speed than drakes. And oh look plates, there goes the agility advantage. HACs are in a sorry state atm that cannot be denied.

Noisrevbus wrote:
Nerf numbers, nerf the blob, nerf efficiency in attrition and BC will be balanced.

. . .

Today you win EVE by stacking resources (more numbers, or larger ships) on a single grid and push others off it, until that change these problems won't go away. It manifiest itself wether you speak roaming skirmish or TCU sovfare. It's all about grid-push, concentrating action away from the game and encouraging inaction of your foes (by extension, yourself).

You keep saying this. You cannot ascribe the drake and cane overuse to blobbage. They are simply too cost effectve for the health of the game. Blobbage or not. Yes the blob sucks. But you have not presented any solutions to it that I've seen. People will blob in whatever ship they think gives them an outright advantage or tactical advantage or cost efficency in combination.

I am thankful though that you mentioned the rig situation. That is one source of the problem. And your proposed solution is a good idea.

I posted a thread in the test server sub forum attacking the ehp issue with BCs in another way. I asked CCP why they could not just trim tier 2 BC base hp stats back to that of the tier 1s. No messing with bonuses, slots, or anything that might involve tricky comprehensive balancing considerations. The Drake would still have it's 6 mids and 4 lows. It would still have it's current resist bonus. It would still be able to regen tank level 3s and probably still many level 4s. It would still have a decent pvp buffer all of this a Ferox can do without the extra mid. However, the ridiculous pve regen tank and the BS sized pvp buffer tank would both be trimmed. This would be a good interim step while we wait for a year or more for them to get to a comprehensive rebalance on cruisers and BCs.
PinkKnife
The Cuddlefish
Ethereal Dawn
#52 - 2012-06-29 17:41:43 UTC
Quote:

I posted a thread in the test server sub forum attacking the ehp issue with BCs in another way. I asked CCP why they could not just trim tier 2 BC base hp stats back to that of the tier 1s. No messing with bonuses, slots, or anything that might involve tricky comprehensive balancing considerations. The Drake would still have it's 6 mids and 4 lows. It would still have it's current resist bonus. It would still be able to regen tank level 3s and probably still many level 4s. It would still have a decent pvp buffer all of this a Ferox can do without the extra mid. However, the ridiculous pve regen tank and the BS sized pvp buffer tank would both be trimmed. This would be a good interim step while we wait for a year or more for them to get to a comprehensive rebalance on cruisers and BCs.


The issue isn't to stop blobbing, its to get blobs of every color instead of just blue and red, we should see blue, red, green, and yellow.
Mfume Apocal
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#53 - 2012-06-29 19:05:30 UTC
Gypsio III wrote:
Only one BC can be described as having BS-level tank, and a pretty flimsy BS at that.


Prophecy.
Noisrevbus
#54 - 2012-06-29 22:04:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Noisrevbus
@ Lin and Lili

I think you should be mindful that you don't read too much into what i said or get hooked up on semantics.

Saying i propose to nerf the blob and that an example i made was a good one (i'm calling it an example, not really a suggestion) and then saying that you can't nerf the blob or that i make no examples strikes me as odd. Especially when you reach the conclusion that cost-efficiency is one way of doing it while that has been one of my leading arguments the entire time. Especially in Ships & Modules, i keep comming back to cost-efficiency. I don't think it's any larger secret what kind of measures to balance blobs i support: cost-efficiency, infrastructure hitpoint mechanics and corporate/diplomacy tools.

Most of these things are already under review. Everyone knows that there's a problem with the 'Drake'. It's just that there's stupid people and threads like this one that cloud that review. The blunt and outdated corporate management system is also under review, all i ask for is that scalability is taken into consideration when they redesign it. Number should come with cumber, in today's systems it doesn't do so in a balanced manner. The hitpoint or volume issues of infrastructure or any other form of PvE interaction is also a recurring subject that has been discussed by CSM, aknowledged by CCP and slated for review with the winter expansion. It's the same thing there, when redesigned they should consider scalability and making sure that the new systems do not encourage blobbing beyond what normal player mentality always will do.

Attention
That's a very important point to understand if you aim to understand me: I do not oppose the existance of numerical advantage, political schemes, diplomacy, cooperation, griefing and meta-gaming. It's part of EVE and i like it, i don't want to see it removed. I just think it's too easy, powerful and simplistic at the moment and need to be balanced.


* Cost-efficiency encourage blob, long-term attrition warfare and meaningless PvP far more than is necessary.
* Volume and hitpoint based player-to-environment erect a threshold of resource-commitment that encourage blob.
* The diplomacy system allow you to set anyone you want red or blue and then hide them from overview...

... so that's what's being done and hence we see things like Delve IV. It's advantage without drawback. It's a direct result of poor game mechanics that have been under review for almost five years. When they redesign these systems, that scalability should be kept in mind so they don't repeat the same mistake. The problem isn't the Drake, Hurricane or BC.

My main gripe with these issues is that in the end they discourage action in the game. A sandbox game depend entirely on player action to create content. Why do the NPC-null areas always top the player-player activity charts? They have a constant stream of action, even without riches to be made or w/e. All Sov-null areas are now empty, their holders are in Delve (blue or red to each other) while their empires are AFK, safe behind a hitpoint-grind and their armies sustained by cost-efficiency and passive income.

I'm weary because CCP have faceplanted this before (it was called Dominion), have a recent track-record of not understanding their own game very well by making changes that achieve the opposite of what they've declared and because they keep listening to popular belief rather than making informed decision. Issues this thread is a gleaming example of. Even if i do not oppose any form of hitpoint-reduction of BC i don't really see how or why it's necessary and what you aim to achieve with that anymore than i understand what the OP aim to achieve with his suggestion.

Almost all HAC can in some way adapt and win over Drakes as long as numbers are not completely overblown to a degree where buffer mean nothing and everything all at once (ie., well into alpha-scale, where Drakes push critical mass in regard to both EHP on volley and replacing lost ships - that however doesn't happen until you begin to dabble in triple digits of size). Nerfing Drakes will not make Myrms popular there, while giving Myrms interactive content at more appropriate scales will make them more popular. Any scenario your corporation can enter on it's own will give you ample opportunity to beat Drakes with Myrms, or HACs for that matter. History is full groups who have fought 100-man gangs in Gallente HACs despite their align-time, speed or short-range weapons. 200-man gangs? Not very much.

Idea
I'll end with a clarification on the tank-discussion. Someone else claimed: "the Drake has a battleship tank and that is horribly imbalanced" which is an utterly stupid remark. I took the opportunity to point out that it has a BC-tank with a resistance modifier, which is exactly the tank it's supposed to have and how it's balanced to every other tier of size. In no way was i claiming the Auguror to be a ship we need to nerf for the greater good of humanity.

I simply said that just under 100k EHP is what a resistance-bonused BC is supposed to have. The Drake is a resistance-bonused BC. The Cyclone can fit XL ancils and has an active repair bonus: Unheard of!? better than Battleship tank! That sarcasm should be enough to clarify my remark, i just felt a more constructive initial way of dealing with the statement would be more useful to the community.

Is the fact that an Auguror can fit a 50k tank, a Drake can fit a 100k tank and a Baddon a 200k tank laughable to you?

The only reason a Drake is "popular" is because it's easy to amass them in great numbers and put them on a grid.

Incidentally, that's how you "Win EVE" at the moment.

ps. I used the HAC examples because they are all equally (im)popular atm. It's not like SHAC are dead while AHAC thrive, which you seem to imply there Lili.
Mfume Apocal
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#55 - 2012-06-29 22:14:51 UTC
Lili Lu wrote:
Because for large ships, signature simply isn't as much a penalty as the added mass effects from plates on agility. Plates do not affect speed, they affect agility. This is very detrimental on ships meant to get in close and tackle. It also is a worse hit on fleet ships.


This right here is a prime example of what he was talking about with regards to not actually looking at the numbers.

A 1600mm plated Deimos has a 7sec align time.
A shield tanked Muninn has a 6.3sec align time.
A Gila has a 5.9sec align time.
A shield tanked Zealot has a 6.5sec align time.

Gallente agility when plated is fine.

Quote:
If you are in a BC or BS and getting bombed you have essentially two choices. Tank it or move out of the blast radius. A sig bloom from LSEs will likely mean you take full damage, but it might also afford you the opportunity to warp out or mwd away from bomb blast area (because if you sig is already bloated from the lses). WIth plates your sig may still be small enough to reduce the damage a little, but you probably cannot warp in 10 seconds or get to top speed quick enough to move away from the balst radius.


Are you serious when you suggest shield tanks handle being bombed better because they can MWD away from the blast?

Quote:
You keep bringing up blapping titans (or dreads). One that got a nerf. Maybe not enough of one or done the right way but still it seems CCP wants to kill that tactic. Eventually it will impossible. The typical differences between an extendered BC or BS and a plated BC or BS pale in comparison the the effect of painters and tracking, and really once someone turns on the mwd the base signature differnences mean squat.


Tracking titans and dreads are very much alive and well. CCP took in the playerbase feedback and left out nerfing of dread DPS vs. subcaps while tracking titans still tear through subcaps at a pretty crisp pace.
Lili Lu
#56 - 2012-06-29 22:52:34 UTC  |  Edited by: Lili Lu
Mfume Apocal wrote:
A 1600mm plated Deimos has a 7sec align time.
A shield tanked Muninn has a 6.3sec align time.
A Gila has a 5.9sec align time.
A shield tanked Zealot has a 6.5sec align time.

Gallente agility when plated is fine.


A couple things. You cite the plate deimos, but leave out the plate zealot - 7.9 align time. You also neglect to include the high possibility that the muninn can fit and very well might fit a nanfiber internal in a low (or a polycarb rig), which would give it a 5.29 align time. The cost of plate is not only the direct hit on agility it is also the conflict it has with typical skirmisher fits with which shield tanks will find no conflict, and can fit a low to benefit range dictation and escape if needed.

Mfume Apocal wrote:
Are you serious when you suggest shield tanks handle being bombed better because they can MWD away from the blast?
No. The big advantage is aligning (if needed because not already aligned, and not bubbled) and warping. Which is what I was talking about. But if in a split second you see that the bomb trajectories and distance suggests perpedicular escape, yeah hitting the mwd can save you in the <10 seconds you have. That is why i mentioned it as well. Sure just imply I'm stupid and always suggest trying to escape the bombs with the mwdRoll

Mfume Apocal wrote:
Tracking titans and dreads are very much alive and well. CCP took in the playerbase feedback and left out nerfing of dread DPS vs. subcaps while tracking titans still tear through subcaps at a pretty crisp pace.

Yeah, notice I said about the nerf "Maybe not enough of one or done the right way but still it seems CCP wants to kill that tactic."

In general you are irritating to argue with because you choose to exaggerate some things and totally ignore other things in my posts to then change the meaning and say "look how stupid you are." What are you a politician?What?
Lili Lu
#57 - 2012-06-29 23:12:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Lili Lu
Noisrevbus wrote:
Everyone knows that there's a problem with the 'Drake'. It's just that there's stupid people and threads like this one that cloud that review.
Yeah we agree that the OP's suggestion is unworkable. And you agree with me and Lin and CCP that there's aproblem with the Drake. What are we arguing about?

Noisrevbus wrote:
... so that's what's being done and hence we see things like Delve IV. It's advantage without drawback. It's a direct result of poor game mechanics that have been under review for almost five years. When they redesign these systems, that scalability should be kept in mind so they don't repeat the same mistake. The problem isn't the Drake, Hurricane or BC.
Yeah, but it is not just the urge to blob, it is the synergy with the cost/effectiveness. A cost/effectiveness you agree is a problem. I really can't see how CCP can take away the blob. Nor have I seen you suggest any mechanism to do so. Unless they are going to remove the ability to set standings and color code the overview or something radical like that. But they can certainly take away the cost/efficiency of BCs.

Noisrevbus wrote:
"the Drake has a battleship tank and that is horribly imbalanced" which is an utterly stupid remark. I took the opportunity to point out that it has a BC-tank with a resistance modifier, which is exactly the tank it's supposed to have and how it's balanced to every other tier of size. In no way was i claiming the Auguror to be a ship we need to nerf for the greater good of humanity. Simply that just under 100k EHP is what a resistance-bonused BC is supposed to have. The Drake is a resistance-bonused BC, who would have known? The Cyclone can fit XL ancils and has an active repair bonus: Unheard of!? better than Battleship tank! That sarcasm should be enough to clarify my remark, i just felt a more constructive initial way of dealing with the statement would be more useful to the community.

Is the fact that an Auguror can fit a 50k tank, a Drake can fit a 100k tank and a Baddon a 200k tank laughable to you?

The only reason a Drake is "popular" is because it's easy to amass them in great numbers and put them on a grid.


No, the Drake is everywhere in EVE. Not just in 0.0 drake blobs. 20-40 ship gangs are filled with them. Also the Cane. But the reason Drakes predominate even there is that the Canes will get primaried first because they are squishy and the removal of dps or alpha is a greater benefit to the opposing gang. The Drake pilots start out each night with more confidence that they have a better chance of returning in the ship than the Cane pilots. That is why the Drake tops the cane pretty much everywhere in eve pvp. And of course it has always topped any other BC (and many BSs) in pve. Wormholer corps almost all put in their recruitment adds be able to fly a Drake and Tengu.

Noisrevbus wrote:
ps. I used the HAC examples because they are all equally (im)popular atm. It's not like SHAC are dead while AHAC thrive, which you seem to imply there Lili.

No I didn't imply that AHACs are alive. They are pretty much disfavored for multiple reason but germaine to this discussion because at higher numbers they lack the buffer to survive an incoming heavy missile spam alpha and at much more cost in ship loss. Also, they lack equivalent range and ability to dictate that range. All HACs and HAC fitting/fleet doctines are in a sorry state, and to an extent due to the cost efficiency and power of tier 2 BCs i.e. the Drake.
Lili Lu
#58 - 2012-06-29 23:21:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Lili Lu
PinkKnife wrote:
Quote:

I posted a thread in the test server sub forum attacking the ehp issue with BCs in another way. I asked CCP why they could not just trim tier 2 BC base hp stats back to that of the tier 1s. No messing with bonuses, slots, or anything that might involve tricky comprehensive balancing considerations. The Drake would still have it's 6 mids and 4 lows. It would still have it's current resist bonus. It would still be able to regen tank level 3s and probably still many level 4s. It would still have a decent pvp buffer all of this a Ferox can do without the extra mid. However, the ridiculous pve regen tank and the BS sized pvp buffer tank would both be trimmed. This would be a good interim step while we wait for a year or more for them to get to a comprehensive rebalance on cruisers and BCs.


The issue isn't to stop blobbing, its to get blobs of every color instead of just blue and red, we should see blue, red, green, and yellow.

Are you sure you got the right quote and right person to quote? It looks to me like you want to speak to Nosrevbus. I cretainly do want more multicolored fleets instead of the monoculture fleets we see today. But until they get a serious effort at comprehensive rebalancing done at all the ship levels, they could trim the power of tier 2 BCs ever so slightly without breaking or altering anything else by giving them the same hp stats as their racial tier 1 counterparts.

The tier 2 would still have their extra slots, better fitting stats, and arguably better ship bonuses. But the disparity with tier 1 would be less, the disparity with cruisers would be less, and the pendulum would start swinging back in the direction of HACs.
Shamus O'Reilly
Candy Cabal
#59 - 2012-06-30 00:03:10 UTC
make a 3200mm plate for battleships. bam convo over! P

"I swear there are more people complaining over "nullsecers complaining" then actual nullsec people complaining."
Mfume Apocal
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#60 - 2012-06-30 01:51:27 UTC
Lili Lu wrote:
A couple things. You cite the plate deimos, but leave out the plate zealot - 7.9 align time. You also neglect to include the high possibility that the muninn can fit and very well might fit a nanfiber internal in a low (or a polycarb rig), which would give it a 5.29 align time. The cost of plate is not only the direct hit on agility it is also the conflict it has with typical skirmisher fits with which shield tanks will find no conflict, and can fit a low to benefit range dictation and escape if needed.


1. Yes, I do leave out the HAC with the racial characteristics of having poor agility/speed but awesome projection to make up for it. Anyway your argument was originally that armor tanking was unfairly penalized compared to shield tanking because of speed and/or agility loss, yet Zealots (by your reckoning the slowest and least agile) are the most commonly used HACs in medium scale and larger PvP?

2. There are two common Muninn fits you'll see on TQ, outside of random shitfitters, and neither use a nano in the lows.

3. There is more to EVE PvP than skirmish fleets. The ground armor-tanking loses there, it regains when it comes to stand-up brawls.

4. Would you rather take an Eagle or a Deimos?

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No. The big advantage is aligning (if needed because not already aligned, and not bubbled) and warping. Which is what I was talking about. But if in a split second you see that the bomb trajectories and distance suggests perpedicular escape, yeah hitting the mwd can save you in the <10 seconds you have. That is why i mentioned it as well. Sure just imply I'm stupid and always suggest trying to escape the bombs with the mwdRoll


I'm not implying you're stupid, just very infrequently (if ever) bombed. I can't count the number of times I've been bombed and not once has MWD speed saved me or even come close to saving me. No shield BS used in fleet fights (where you'd expect to be bombed) is particularly fast or agile: Alpha Mael, Rokh, or Abaddon all struggle to move even 8km in the time it takes bombs to land unless they were already MWDing.

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Yeah, notice I said about the nerf "Maybe not enough of one or done the right way but still it seems CCP wants to kill that tactic."

In general you are irritating to argue with because you choose to exaggerate some things and totally ignore other things in my posts to then change the meaning and say "look how stupid you are." What are you a politician?What?


If CCP wanted to kill the tactic, they would have left the titan scan res nerf in place and not removed the siege module's tracking penalty when they introduced the tracking nerf on XL turrets. And I agree with them, to ensure that the shield tanking penalty remains relevant. I'm fine with a metagame that overall encourages armor/sig tanking for fights where XL turrets are a threat and active/shield tanking at lower levels where speed = life.

In general, you are irritating to argue with because you seem to play some Twilight Zone version of EVE where Drakes are the reason we scaled back flying Muninns (they aren't), Tengus are unstoppable killing machines (they aren't) and Gallente gunboats have trouble snagging people when plated (they don't).