EVE General Discussion

Personally I love the idea of the 5 turret Retri...

QED

The retri does not need another slot either (slots are balanced - which means adding a slot would add one across all the races) - I believe the balance is going to be 'bonus' because the whole argument for the AF buff has been that it has 3 rather then 4 bonus'. So add a damage bonus for the retri.

noooo, it's a frigate so it must tackle!!!!111oneoneone


/sarcasm

I'm not convinced that AF's are all that broken, last I heard they still see use in FW a fair bit where the gangs are smaller and the plxes force people into flying frigate hulls.

They may benefit from a slight buff. Maybe a little extra damage or a bit more EHP. Or maybe a role bonus for range allowing them to hit more of the battlefield. I think that their role is to be the 'slugger' of the frigate line up, tougher than most and with the ability to apply damage better than the other T2 classes.

What they should not do is become fast enough to take over interceptors role or gain enough mids to cover the ground that Electronics Attack Frigs are supposed to cover. Its is EAF's that are crying out for a rethink, they've been over priced and overly fragile since introduction. I suspect that they need to be made into better sig tankers (even with the sig reduction bonus they compare badly to an inty).

I think they need to be a little more powerful for what they're supposed to be/do.
They are somewhat as weak as a frigate imo.

Even rifter is better than some assault ships.

He is going to warp out anyway because
1) you probably fit an AB
2) you don't have a web
3) you are out of cap by the time you have the scram and damage and now have no juice to continue the fight.

I suspect you are one of these 'everything must be balanced for solo' or 'if it can't solo it sucks' people. Its fine, stick to your jags - but in FW where the AF is used for PvP most often - you tend to fly it as gang dps. I know this sounds strange to some, but it works.

If it is a broken shipclass the why do I see them so often in low-sec? Sure, some specific AF hulls might need tweaks but as a shipclass they do work and are being used.

If anything it's the t1 frigates and electronic attack frigates that needs looking at – you rarely see old players flying t1 frigate hulls if it isn't a rifter.

One option is to make them super specialized – take 1-2 mid or lowslot on each hull and add the same number of high missile/turret slots. The fourth bonus could be a further increase to damage/RoF. This way they will truly fill the role of frigate sized damagedealer and leave the tackling to the frigatecllass that were designed for that: interceptors.
If this turns out to be too powerful of a buff then reduce their EHP by X amount of %

Given how many people responding to this thread seem to think that AF's don't really need boosting, it'll be interesting to see what CCP come up with.

"For this expansion feature we decided to leave things as they are. Enjoy!" :P

A ship class doesn't need to be totally broken in order for it to get a balance pass. Just because it works fine in one scenario (lowsec, or faction warfare which is frigate heavy) doesn't mean that we should totally skip over it and do something else. Although I do agree that EAFs deserve more attention because they ARE broken, assault frigates need a little love too, and balancing them is much simpler.

I also think there are valid concerns that myself and others have brought up regarding assault frigates that could use addressing.

Oo I have opinions too can I share!!

I think problem with AFs is there's way too many ship types that fit in the same general role. Frigs, AFs, destroyers and t1 cruisers are all in similar category of a light cheap PVP ship. Dessies inparticular kind of make AFs redundant. So I think the entire sub-BC line needs a little shaking up.

First destroyers need to be given an actual role other than "beefy frigate". What is a Destroyer? What do they Destroy? Definition-wise they're Torpedo Boat Destroyers. Most people when they think of a Torpedo Boat they think of JFK's PT-109 little fast speedboat with some torps on the sides. Back when the term was coined however most Torpedo Boats were only barely smaller than the Destroyers, more like frigates with banks of rotating torpedo launchers and secondary armament. Destroyers were basically Torpedo Boats without the Torpedoes. So what is the analogue of a Torpedo Boat in Eve? Well obviously Stealth Bombers since they SHOOT torpedos but I think it would also be a good benchmark to describe any long-range missile craft. So I suggest the crazy idea of turning Destroyers into a sort of anti-missile ship with bonuses for Defender Missiles, or make up an entirely new type of module -- either way, you have Ewar mods that reduce turret effectiveness (optimal or tracking), I think it'd be good to have a ship that ewars on missiles. Maybe reduces missile tracking or explosion speed, whatever. Works on a per-ship basis. You lock enemy ship you activate anti-missile ewar mod on it, its missiles start sucking. And Destroyers would get a big bonus for this.

Second when I think of an Assault frigate the first thing that comes to mind is a badass frigate. They kinda are but there are limitations. First, bang-for-buck they're pretty ****. They'll tear up most frigs (but not all) but likewise get torn up by most cruisers, and cruisers are much cheaper and easier to train up. So I propose first making these things much cheaper. Half their current price at least, on par with cruiser prices. Second, make them more flexible by both giving them some bonus to things like webs, ewar or whatever, and also give them more slots so pilots can fit them out in more variety of ways.

That's all I got.