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couldn't have put it better myself

Just wonderful! I especially like the tracking boost to blasters.

Stum

Yea of course. You can only have 5 drones, but you can have up to 8 blasters. Also, you can use a magstab, there is no equivalent for medium drones (or any drones, except the sentry damage rig, but no module). Drones are supposed to be a primary weapon system (I really wonder when this is gonna be reflected by modules...), they need to do as much damage as other weapon systems but are hard-limited to 5 (sub capital at least) vs. 8 for guns.

Sorry, really bad comparison....

He's right! Way to go CCP. This buff to Minmatar is actually more of the real story here than the improvement to hybrids. The more I look at that, it makes them absolutely dominating. Well, they already were but now.....

Thorax, Brutix and Deimos all have 50m3 drone bays and as such can field 5 x ec-600 ecm drones. If they can get in range in a small fight, they'll usually have the upper hand if fit like that. Simply comparing blaster range ignores some of the other features and weakness of blaster ships.

Also with the changed fitting requirements to hybrids, instead of switching to a full Neutron gank fit, one could of course stick to Ions and fit a better tank.

Additionally, the Thorax and Deimos, with their strange MWD bonus and now a slight speed and agility bonus seem to be crying for kiting rail fits, now that rails do more damage.

The Eagle might, with some imagination, make a fine kiter using rails and TDs in the mids.

I think the hybrid changes are not perfect, but they need a chance to play out in game before the get changed again.

I propose to view it through the following lens: Think of all the roams you've gone on with 4-8 pilots looking for small gangs to kill, or for the midsize roams of 20v20 where you hit that magic moment where a "real" fight happens... you know, where one side isn't just ganking the other but a true match-up of skill has arrived? The fights where one side feints as if running, hostiles pursue through the gate to follow, you about face and engage and have a rolling battle 10-40km off the gate. Yea... those.

If blasters are given the option to be the end-all be-all of close range combat, we introduce a weapon system that could seriously shake up everything from solo to small gang warfare to larger fleet tactics. Give numbers of blaster ships the ability to actually break the tank of a Logistics supported Battlecruisers/Battleships. Give them the ability in small gang warfare to significantly pressure a few logistics ships and push them to their edge of capability by themselves. Sure, Gallente ships using my proposed changes wouldn't be any faster than they are today, but the idea is that when they catch you there should be significant pain brought forth the likes of which EVE has not seen in a long while. Ships should melt under blaster fire (even with Kin/Therm tanks), but that should only occur when Gallente ships catch their prey. Sure they can be kited, as that WOULD be the ideal way to tank a blaster ships' DPS. A good move by the blaster pilot or a bad move by the kiter should either provide the blaster pilot the opportunity for a kill or for a hasty exit. THIS would provide versatility in the combat sphere across frigate, cruiser, and battleship classes without hurting existing weapon systems. This *might* provide a shake-up of the Alpha or Highly tanked setups that exist today, and if anything can do it, it just might be this.

I only ask that CCP doesn't try to stick blasters in the same box as Projectiles and Pulses. Missiles are a monster all their own, and easily left out of this discussion. With Pulses and Autocannons, there is reason enough to use one over the other, but if blasters get shoved into the "mid range" envelope with increased range and DPS, something is going to break. With the versatility and flexibility provided by Autocannons, they will still be used the same way they are today. The trouble with blasters vs. pulses however is that one simple question will be asked: which is better? The one that is not will never be used except by the stupid pilot who trained the wrong skill (see Hybrid pilots today). Even worse, if two weapon systems align across racial boundaries (their DPS curves and corresponding alpha for engagement ranges roughly match), we start to water down the combat diversity that exists in EVE today (see lack of real diversity among other MMORPG DPS classes).

I fully get this, i just dont prefere your plan to others. Its not a bad idea i just think some of the other ideas suggested keep the uniqueness of Blasters while adding more survivabilty/versatility and use less warp to 0 and pray tactics. I do however prefere your plan over what CCP has put out, which i feel is half assed and probably took 1 dev 30 minutes to come up with and then maybe a few hours to implement.

On another note Hail gets a huge falloff buff by removing the -50% falloff modifier thus making AC's even better at range and applying their DPS, meanwhile void..... but hey at least our railguns will track better with javelin so we can fully apply that 300 DPS! i mean 330 DPS with the new buff. As it stands now i think AC's got a better buff than blasters.

All skills equal until i can look at my myrmidon and actually have to think hrmmmm should i put blasters or AC's on this bad boy then Blasters are not fixed.

CCP Tallest:

The tracking increase resolves some of the issues that the web nerf uncovered. Compared to the original 90% webs, a 60% web with a 20% increase in tracking is back to around the effectiveness of an 80% web with no tracking bonus, so that's about where it should be.

This still doesn't fix the lack of DPS. The 5-10% more peak DPS that blasters have over lasers and ACs doesn't make up for the incredibly short range. The answer isn't to increase the range but to drastically increase the damage. Blasters need to deal massive *massive* DPS at very short range.

I used blasters pretty much exclusively for a little under five years. When the web nerf showed up, I put away my Hyperion, never to be used again. Give blasters a role, a very narrow niche, where they excel far beyond anything else. Right now there's just "too much of the same". You're creating the gaming equivalent of oatmeal.

Also, I thought this was supposed to be a blaster thread. Of all the T2 ammo you choose to fix, you pick PROJECTILE ammo? What about Void? It's the most useless ammo in the game! Remove the tracking penalty, increase the DPS and increase the cap use.

As has been said before- The posted changes could have been knocked out in an afternoon by a single dev. So far this expansion feels very last minute and thrown together.

One change that might be needed also to the ammo itself, would be the m3 each unit of ammo uses.

as an example, projectile ammo uses half as much m3 as hybrid ammo
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Hail_L vs http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Void_L

While artilery fires much slower than railguns... (and in ofc autocannons are faster than blasters) but I personly think it would be ballanced to make the hybrid ammo just as "small" as projectile ammo... 0.025 m3 (instead of 0.05 m3)

I heard others suggest this before, main reason being to add some ballance to the gallante ships in regards to how many cap booster they can carry

you forget that when a mwd is turned on your sig radius ballons... it was not just the 90% web it was the fact there was an active mwd... now if you are under 10km there is a garentee there are scrams so so sig radius bloom:(

thats why you need more 37.5% or more for blaster to work without scrams on...



right now imagine that hyperion with the megathrons tracking and 8% more dps with 50% more alpha and 15% more falloff...

or put in the script that turn it from slug to bird shot... and now you have a shotgun effect directional smartbomb that hit for max damage inside optimal range but looses damage fast in falloff...



I know eh?
ever since the nefarious fearless leak it seems that CCP have been tamed and are now the cowardly lion from the wizard of oz

We want a ccp that is not afraid to try new things...
be bold and let us the players test out and help change the game in a positive way...