Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi CCP Ytterbium. Whatcha thinkin' about? Yay or Nay? Testing out the extra slots on the dev servers? It's great to be able to hash these things out ahead of time on the feedback threads - just curious what your thoughts are on the slots and weapons hardpoint requests.

Been busy designing the new ore frigate and destroyers. We definitely like the Coercer second medium slot. The Catalyst and Cormorant changes are still quite up in the air. We don't want to add extra slots for the sake of it though, so we'll either keep the current Cormorant layout or give it back it fourth medium slot back at the expense of the low, not decided yet.

We'll definitely have some iteration time on destroyers, this class is tricky to balance, especially with the new hulls coming out.

Four meds for the Cormorant, definitely.

(More room for tracking disruptors, heh)

After playing around with the Coercer and Cormorant on Duality i have to say that i do like the new Coercer.

Fitting the Small Focused Pulse Lasers (the old Medium Pulses) is easy enough to make up for the loss of the low. I can use my current kite fit with FPL instead of DLP without losing anything (well, i lose some tracking, but haven't found this to be a problem), but get a long point on top of it. I'm sure people will find exciting new fits, too, when they play around with it.

However i fear the Catalyst gets overshadowed by the new Coercer. The rail version loses the main advantage over Scorch Pulse Coercer: the second mid as Coercer now can do the same. Blaster Catalyst just isn't as good as it may look on paper.

I really feel the Catalyst needs some rethinking.


I'm not sold yet on the Cormorant either. I only tested the 100k sniping Cormorant which actually works still very good/even better than before. It has more DPS and enough lock range if you don't fit an MWD but you are of course highly dependent on bookmarks and good warp-ins. MWD fit should work too though with some loss in range (which is something that already happens now anyway).

Still, i think the Corm loses a lot of uniqueness and it isn't bad now really. If you really think it needs a buff i'd say you should find another way to buff it without touching the medslots.

The new coercer makes an excellent sniper boat, with the ability to fit a full rack of small focused beams, and a t2 mwd (w/ an RCU II) it can do about 100 dps at 44km w/gleam. Fitting a SeBo to help target out to that range, (or using rigs which i haven't tried yet) making them good support for a small frig/dessie gang that has enough brawlers to keep points, and take fire.

I was getting 225 DPS at 53km with a 60km lock range. The thing works and it's nasty. I think the first thing I killed as a new kitey Kestrel using light missiles. The response he posted in local was 'WTF' I was pushing 391 dps at 14km. The ability to switch ammo on the fly I can't praise enough.

The Pulse Coercer was also nice. I kept forgetting I had a point. I was doing about 350 DPS at 19km with 5k EHP. 491 DPS with Conflag. 'Nuff Said.

The Cormorant surprised me. Someone had a MASB version that was particularly hard to kill. For my own gank sniper fit I was able to fit 150s, a light missile launcher, MWD, two SB, and two MFS II. I was doing around 350 DPS at 23km. I could lock out to 109km and spike would give me 83km optimal. 167 DPS.

The rail Catalyst is comparable to the Beam Coercer. It does however lose out on the ammo flexibility front. I'll sum up by saying the Thrasher has some real competition here.

My Coercer fit has been buffed in every way.

8x Medium Pulse (Small Focused?)
1x MWD
2x Heatsink, 1x TE, 1x Nano

2x locus
1x ANCR

200/200 CPU and 108.72/113.44 grid

New fit drops the nano but can fit without one of the ANCR and thus can have a polycarbon instead (or other fun rig). It also gains 8 CPU, which is perfect for a sensor booster for faster wtfbbq.

An alternative fit is to put a +CPU rig in on in place of an ANCR and maybe drop to a named TE, thus allowing a warp scrambler in the extra mid.

From what I have seen on the test server, the new coercer is a mean little ship

I agree with the cormie loosing its 8th high for a 4th mid so its 7 4 2
the catalyst is in dire need for more PG 75 with skills is just not enough to fit it properly
also the 1 drone it gets is weird

As a side note, The other Role destroyers have been fitting is new player easyfit, of which the thrasher is truly king. ( as touched upon earlier in the thread http://i.imgur.com/dKipM.jpg )

You can even create a basic cheapo pvp thrasher fit within 24hours on a new account?
shield hesitance rigs & medium shield extender, auto cannons, ab, scram, damage & tracking mods
http://www.freewebs.com/szdefault/noskillthrasher.jpg
( I used to do this for lols see whom was daft enough to die. The payoff for skilling & isking up for high level fits on some destoryers seems a gimmik compared to what you can do with other vessels at such sp. )

Trying brawler fits with a destroyer has always been a lost cause, although I did have fun with a small sucker bubble solo camps with very mixed results :s A platedblastercatalyst with scram/web seems to shock numpties in docking games :D ( T2 small hybrid weapons often cost more than medium on the market, making mobile dps catalysts & cormorants silly. just a practicality note )

Good to see many sensible changes in the pipeline, even if they’re years late.
I think destroyers will remain the hardest thing to balance into eve, Making highly skilled medium weaponry platforms only really used anti frig system. Be interesting to see if the new destroyers will stand a chance vs anything but frigs in skilled hands lol