Wormholes

If you look at what Fozzie has done recently, it has been to reduce tanks and increase gank factors on all but a few ships (notably incursus, brutix/myrm, prophecy). The recent BC debalance showed his philosophy: geenerally reduce fitting statistics to make everything a compromise to fit, thereby weakening it, while making a few formerly crappy ships ridiculous at active bait tanking so they become FOTM and then everyone will go back to nano gangs with boosts, as per usual.

The issue with the strategic cruiser lineup at the moment is not ISK/effectiveness, it is the raw anomaly in nett effectiveness which they represent. Given the limitless ISK available to w-space denizens to bling out your chariot with faction and deadspace modules, and the relative cheapness of dreads and carrriers compared to these pimpmobile strat cruiser fleets, this creates a metagame where fleets of ships which would otherwise be godlike are now the daily bread and butter.

But do not forget, the entirely of w-space, including the scrubby nubbinses bumbling about C1's, is less than 8% of the entire population of EVE, as measured by acttive toons in wormholes. Given you all have 3 accounts subbed, that means, realistically, you represent maybe 3-4% of the player base. You are not quite the 1%, but pretty damn close.

Thus, while you may cry and twist your panties at the thought of a billion ISK strat cruiser being nerfed, the reality is that outside wormholes, the extreme gank and tank of a strat cruiser isn't vulnerable because it is actually harder to deploy dreads and carriers in k-space than in C5 brawls. So, while you complain or chortle about dread blapping and so on, the reality is it is such a nonevent problem that it is irrelevant to the game as a whole because less than 1% of people are ever going to be at risk of being Vindi/Vigi webbed and blapped by three Moros - it certainly never happens in k-space!

So, strategic cruisers will be balanced for k-space. This is good, and bad for w-space dwellers. On the one hand, the balance will be aimed at trimming back insane tanks (+120K EHP) to 'reasonable' levels as far as Fozzie sees it, and might result in more gankiness out of a wider variety of T3 cruisers, or maybe trimming back the 1000 DPS Proteii. it will certainly involve the long-needed nerfing of boosting T3's which aren't as much of a feature of w-space and hardly the pain in the balls they are for everyone in lowsec.

However, it may result in better functionality for boosting and covert configurations, both for PVP and PVE, allowing better tanks and more gank to go with specialised fits which, right now, are pretty one-dimensional and failsauce. This will be good for w-space because you can bring a cloaky nullified T3 with you, or a covert proby T3 with actual DPS and tank.

And in the end, you'll still have extreme fits when people have enough time and ISk to EFT-up mutant varieties of the normal k-space T3's. You will still have dread blapping. Your T3 might not survive the first volley as easily, so all you need to do is change tactics.

So what you're saying is, any income level capable of fielding bling ships that rival null's ability to field them should therefore have those ships nerf making the income from w-space ultimately pointless?

Everything. T3s are made from wormhole resources and are the standard fleet line ships here.

And TF is right, T3s are not balanced in k-space, where the working class zeroes, the 99% live.

With the re-balance and buff of the T1 ships, there is no real argument for nerfing T3's anymore. There is only one subsystem that i can think of that needs a "nerf"

If anything, some subsystems should be buffed to make them a viable alternative to the current most popular subs. For example the logi sub could do with a range bonus and the drone subs should have their turret bones removed and their drone bonuses increased.

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

I think you are confusing "k-space" with "high sec". I don't see many wormholers taking their pimped out T3's and fighting people in HS...

The fact is, T3's are the only viable combat ship in w-space given it's no-local nature. No local means clandestine fleets. Clandestine fleets mean getting cloaky ships out of the support role that every T2 capable of cloaking and warping fills. Without cloaky T3's capable of projecting DPS on par with non-cloaky cruisers and surviving being primary for more than 2 seconds there is little role for them in w-space because they're too expensive. Even with price drops due to lack of demand, there would be little reason to use them.

This isn't null where sizeable non-cloaky dps fleets rely on their tactical bm's around gates that never move to maneuver untouched. I'm not going to spend additional time setting up these tacticals every day, several times a day on top of the time I spend probing out every w-space system I come across. W-space time sinks are already ridiculous!

My cloaky Proteus flys like a BS. It's only slightly faster with slightly better align time. Compared to other cruisers its speed and align are pss poor. With an optimal of about 5KM that doesn't give me much range to maneuver. The only thing going for it is DPS & tank. I put a lot of isk beyond the hull and subs to get it where it is. If dps, tank & speed are nerfed I wouldn't fly it because I could fill its roll with an Arazu and a Deimos.

Fozzie can say what he likes. He's in the position to do so. But, nerfing T3's without compensating w-space because of what's happening in null is BS. If there is truly a need to balance T3's because of null then something needs to be given to w-space to fill that gap. How about an effect applied to the whole of w-space that affects only cov-ops subsystem applying bonus' to dps, tank, speed?

Indeed off-grid boosting has got to go, its no place for that anywhere.

Nerfing T3s will have a huge impact on w-space life, what other ship can do at least 75% of the job?

Larger alliances can adapt, at a cost, for sure, but smaller to medium alliances or corporations that live in wh-s, be it pve or pvp will suffer a lot more.

The reason 0.0 wars are full with T3s is mostly because of a misused way of strategic cruisers, where any ship can be used anywhere, without having to worry about "stargate" collapse, or being stuck while moving a larger fleet (largest was what... 120 vs 120 or so?). Try moving 120 BS/BC to a staging wh....

I've heard this rumor from other players too. I've also heard CCP saying that w-space was intended for nomadic existence, a couple of fanfests ago, I think. But I've never seen anything before that about a nomadic existence. And yet, how do you explain C6 -> C6, C5 -> C5, C4->C4 and all the variations between that lead to no where but more w-space requiring days in some cases to find a route out coupled with the resources requires to farm some of these systems plus escalations and w-space's utter dependence on k-space. I call bullsht!

That CCP has said it years after w-space's birth and that players continue to point to that CCP intention is highly disturbing. W-space was not and never will be, without radical changes, a nomadic existence.

It'd be one thing if the systems didn't require huge investments in resources and w-space was completely independent of k-space except to bring items to market. If I could get lost and exist in w-space and never have to see k-space, sure I'd buy it. But it's not. And so....bullsht!

That rumor needs to be put down at every opportunity!!!