EVE General Discussion

This

I think that an interesting approach would be...

Make the AF 4th bonus be aimed at giving it extremely good range with weapons and tackling gear, thus negating the need to have a speed boost or put itself in range of many of the normal anti-frigate defense weapons (neuts, web).

Electronic welfare frigates could also be made more viable with larger range bonus's... putting themselves and AF;'s into the category of long range specialists.

Remove the penalty to ROF for destroyers (along with some per ship balancing) to make their main strength high DPS.

Seems to me most of the discussion has centred on the Assault Frigate's role in PVP. What about PVE though?
I fly Wolf and Retribution as PVE ships and find that the Retribution can really hold its own better than the Wolf sometimes. Obviously with any assault frig in PVE you have to pick your battles, but I've found the Retribution to be less hard work in these situations.
I'm not going to say that another mid slot or a bonus buff wouldn't be nice, but just that not everyone wants or needs to fit a warp scram on their Retri.

Yes they do. But then so do E-war Frigs.

There is no reason anyone should ever chose to fly either of those classes in the current game other than for giggles.

10% bonus and 5 turrets would make it a wee bit too strong tbh, but I wouldn't mind. I really just slapped the tracking bonus there because I couldn't think about any other bonus that wouldn't make a 5 turret retri unbalanced. (5 turrets + 50% bonus = 7.5 effective turrets).



edit: now that I think about it, yeah ok 10% dmg bonus.


it must get 5 turrets tho. I can't accept a retri having 4 turrets and a 5/1/5 config. if it has 1 medslot then it must have 5 turrets.

AFs need some balancing, but it's not so much quantity of bonuses or anything else that can be just "tacked on" that is lacking, it is the lack of a defined role in PvP.

PvP comes in many varieties, from large scale to small scale. I'm just gonna go ahead and say right now, unless CCP totally redesigns AFs, they will never have a role in large-scale PvP. They are too fragile, and really bring nothing worthwhile to the table that a well-organized fleet can't get from another ship that is probably better at the job.

Small-gang PvP is much different. I consider small-gang PvP to be gangs of any size that aren't centered around some sort of organized fleet doctrine, although a very loosely organized fleet doctrine (like "bring BCs" or "bring AFs"), can still be considered a "small gang". Anyway, AFs already do "ok" at small-gang stuff, because they can fill multiple roles, but mostly because they are "medium tacklers" and can put out respectable DPS for frigates. Even in small-gangs though, AFs suffer from being sub-par in almost all situations to faction or pirate frigates, especially in the very small gang arena.

I find it unlikely CCP will really do anything to make AFs worthwhile, but one thought might be this: turn AFs into mini-HICtors. Give them FOCUSED warp disruptors like HICs have with scripts in their Warp Disruption Field Generators. Here is why this idea is win-win-win-win:

Firstly, this would give AFs a role in every single type of fleet. They would be able to lock down supercaps and titans with their infinite points, and also be able to tackle warp core stabbed opponents. Because of their small sig raidus and speed with an AB, they would make great tacklers that might survive as long or longer than some HICs would.

Second, this would be a nightmare for supercap pilots. Suddenly they have to worry about HICs and AFs tackling them and holding them down. Supercarriers especially are going to have a very hard time even killing HICs after this expansion, killing an AF one-quarter the sig radius of a HIC would be nigh impossible unless the supercarrier had proper support (but it could still ECM burst the AF and escape, if the AF didn't have a proper fleet supporting him as well).

Third, because of reasons listed above, you would see at lest SOME more supercap deaths, if not A LOT more. This would serve to reduce the population of supers in a natural way, instead of nerfing them to the point nobody wants them anymore (again). Not saying CCP is doing that, the announced changes seem pretty balanced, but there is still an overpopulation of supers, no doubt.

Fourth, because AFs behave in a lot of ways like cruisers as far as performance (scan res, align time), it's likely that balancing of other aspects of the AF wouldn't need much alteration, if any. Don't worry, HICs would still have a role, I'll get to that later.

Fifth, HICs would not be losers, because they would still retain the versatility of being able to bubble, and of course, the brickishness to be able to light cynos and survive for a minute or two, which is really their two key roles in fleets. Of course, they would still be able to scrip their warp disruptors and infinite-point things, too.

The only real drawback I forsee would be that AFs are fairly cheap and accessible, and you'll probably see a lot more pirates using them in lowsec camps being remote sensor boosted for infinite-point tackling. Really though, the scan res advantage over a HIC is not that much, so the only effect this might have is reducing the cost of the ship necessary to infinite-point something from 250m (or whatever a fully fit HIC costs) down to probably like 50m or 60m. Nonetheless, the other benefits this would reap would likely far outweigh this one, mostly economical, impact.

I love the Retri and all, and think that AFs need a 4th bonus, but giving the Retri another mid would make it by far the most powerful AF out there, even without the extra bonus.

Before you even think about giving yet another role to Frigates or AF's. maybe you should pester CCP for another dessie hull for your focused warp idea. one that this time isnt dedicated to 0.0 stuffs.

One tanky, one ganky.. I think that's the best idea I've heard about AFs in a long time, yet so simple. Nice one!

I am telling you all, and have been telling you all that the 4th retri bonus is the damage bonus - its really that simple. (since I was called 'that other guy' #sniff#)

Grim - the utility high on the retri is actually useful. . . and if you kick it up another turret, it may actually make it a little too good (good for me but hay).

but honestly, I don't think the slot layouts are in the changes, just the 4th bonus. You want to hear the rest of them for the other races? - because I actually think it could be really good (and I spend a lot of time in AFs, fighting AFs, and have come to like them. . .as weird as that is)

oh, and AFs will never be viable in 0.0. They fit ABs for the most part and ABs don't work in 0.0. Please go fly a proper interceptor or interdictor if you are in 0.0 Not everything needs to be balanced around 0.0 so there.


Also, you realize that falloff is a damage bonus for projectiles basically yah?