Ships & Modules

Strategic cruiser - yes

Anyway, what exactly is OP about other T3s than Tengu?

And is there something else OP about Tengu besides damage projection of Heavy Missiles and fitting resources?

Fixing Heavy Missiles would also fix the Drake, and fixing fitting on the Cane would also balance that.

Same goes to ASBs, just fixing the fitting so that you can't slap XLASBs on cruisers, and frigates can only fit small ones would suffice.

Wait I withdraw my objection - I want a Covops Rook

a covops curse would **** anything in its path

They're OP without deadspace mods and HG pirate implants too. Furthermore, cost is generally not a balancing issue. See RDDD Titans.

-Liang

are people in this thread seriously stating that t3s are not overpowered?

I'd suggest investing in even the most modest amount of objectivity if this happens to be your point of view. Take a look at the individual bonuses they get, the number of bonuses they get, the full t2 resistance they get, the 3 rigs they get... They are literaly a field command ship with more better bonuses, much smaller sig, higher resistances AND higher speed for LESS SP. They are fundamentally broken and have been since their introduction.

That fact that CCP is aware of this deplorable balance and intends to set things strait in the near future is quite amazing to say the least. This is a huge victory for all of those who have been championing the idea of general game balance for years.

I get where you're coming from but with bc's being the combat line tech3's will get nerfed its hard to see how else the HAC's could be developed and a niche is the point of t2 specialization anyway
And maybe its a case of recons are too powerful against HAC's but everything can be countered in some way

"All those bonuses" make Proteus the only viable armor blaster boat in game

Tengu would be just like any other expensive ship if it couldn't fit a BS AB without gimping rest of the fit

Loki is squishy

Legion is no way overpowered and blatantly terrible in many applications.

Really the general game balance issues are still related to bigger things: tanks and weapon systems, not individual ships or ship types.

The thing is Jerrick, we are already ahead of you in the thread.

I asked you to consider why Deimos and Ishtar profiled.

They did so because even with bonuses and the "mitigation logic" of Logi-support on Tech II resists, Vagas are actually quite squishy. They generally ran at 30-40km (bonused point-range) with 30-40k ehp buffers (on dual LSE, without Invul) and relied on the collective of resist-speed-sig-distance-disengagement. They are within recon point-web range and since those Recons remove the "collective" the Vagas get volleyed as soon as the "Drakes" begin to number over 20.

The AHACs profiled because they had larger tanks (often near the double), better resist-profiles, undervalued speed, free midslots for electronic support, utility slots in highs, ability to sig-tank (doubling the effective tank again) and would thus blitz those lynchpin Recons that killed the Vagas (similar to how Vagas blitzed old nano-era Frigate lynchpins, leaving hostiles wingclipped and ready for more daring engagement), while they could control the Logis that kept hostile Recons alive against Vaga blitz-attempts.

The AHACs disappeared from large scale because even 100-150k tanks get volleyed by enough ships. Trends there quickly went back over toward similar tanks on cheaper hulls (ie., Hellcats) and then pulling up from there (Slowcats and Foxcats rely entirely on hostile blobs not volleying their figures, thus being worth the isk-risk). You are unlikely to see HBC field their 300k shinies against something like CFC, while they are confident enough that A-Team will struggle against those base figures. A-Team lack the numbers and resources to run Maels or Dreads at the level of CFC. Plus HBC will just "super-that".

I italized that segment because the large-scale perspective is a bit of a different topic. Anyway, among small-medium the AHACs mainly struggle with Tier 3 BC supported gangs.

In this era of "Blap" (ie., understanding how oversized weapon systems can still hit 1-2 classes down, and utilizing that) even the AHACs are strained. Most AHACs went dual-prop (DP) when Alpha profiled. With Crucible even DP got strained since once you turn off your MWD to tank with your AB the Tier 3 Snipers will build range on you. So you are faced with the issue of risking expensive ships to catch insurable buckets.

Hence the natural counter is the combination of sig and reach (100mn + HML, DP with sentries etc., which you see in all forms of "Cats" with rising public popularity right now, wether it's "Thunder", "Slow", "Fox" or "Tar"). The good small-medium groups have of course used that since (before-) Crucible, and PL have had them in reserve for as long .

I know i have given this little chronology before, but i'm sure a second time won't hurt.

That's where we are today, not at 2008 Vagas and not at old 2009 AHACs, not newer 2010 DP-AHACs or 100mn either. Make HACs, across the grid, become 2008 Vagas and they will be 4-5 years outdated even at release. It'll be hard to motivate paying Tech II prices for that. You should keep some of these things in mind when you bleat about "overpowered Legions". It's just like Roime said, Tech III essentially get used because of the things you identify as bad, and only that.

If you think you're onto something even remotely unique with the Vagas, you'll also be sounding like the dude in the Huginn thread who posted his "my special, scrub" FN-fit without point that has been the staple since 2009-2010 .

Since it seems that the Devs follow this thread and there is a lot of balancing discusion thrown out about Battlecruisers I add my two cent:

- Nerf the Cane!


I fly it a lot, it's cheap, it's fast and relative agile enough with a fibre. If I need a ship with decent firepower with good mobility the cane is what I take, most of the times.

So how should it best be nurfed you ask? Move a low to mid. Or cut it's pg so it can't fit 2 dual neuts.

Another thing Devs could do is to nerf Tracking Enhancer module: Cut the falloff bonus from 30% to 15%. They benefit AC's the most. That would force canes and other AC fitted (mostly nano) ships to get closer in fighting.


OF course pls don't do anything to the ship before the fugly Drake been nerfed first


/Corn

CCP, I have a question. Have you actually tried to fly a T2 fit T3? Either in pvp or pve. Because let me clue you in on a little secret--they're not that great at all.

The tengu is moderately better than the cerb in terms of dps w/ a T2 fit
The proteus is moderately better than the brutix in terms of dps w/ a T2 fit
The legion is the same as the zealot with a T2 fit in terms of dps
The loki does less damage in certain configs than a hurricane, and tanks far less than a cyclone in a T2 fit.

T3's are GOOD becuase people are WILLING to spend money to deadspace fit them because the hull already costs a lot. They work so well with high expense fittings because they are ships that are somewhat generalized, so by dumping money on them, you can make the ship act as a specialized ship in more than one area--as opposed to for example a cyclone which can really only excel in active shield tanking, whereas something like a tengu can be pimped so that it goes fast and tanks a lot.

That's not the fault of the ships, that is the fault of people having isk. That's how the game should work. They take increased risks in terms of isk loss.

If you do end up nerfing T3's, you better remove the SP loss and make them cheaper (especially the Legion since it's a piece of garbage right now), because it won't be worth it.

And even if you want to nerf T3's, can you please rebalance HAC's PROPERLY so that the T3's can actually be compared to ships that aren't utter trash (eagle/cerb/sacrilege/muninn), and give the game time to normalize to the new ability levels of the rebalanced ships? Otherwise I forsee terrible T3's and good T2's, and the T3's will never ever get used and you won't get around to rebalancing them until years later at which point you'll nerf T2 ships at the same time etc...

Also, since I'm sure one of your concerns is the prevelance of T3 ships for level 4 mission running/anom running etc..., maybe you should consider actually making torps and cruise missiles good instead of nerfing T3's. The only reason the tengu is used is because it provides the same tank and more dps as opposed to the ****** caldari battleships which can't hit the broad side of a barn without some serious help (also, lol pheonix).