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where is the dislike button ?
becuse this boost is nowhere near enough to bring hybrid ships near projectile or laser ships in efficiency
thx ccp for the huge nothing , i bet you think you did a good job and freeze balance issues for another 3 years
dont mind hybrids still will be underused and poorest choice for every situation

"Feedback

If you have issues with this balancing plan, please post your feedback in the comment thread. We are listening."
no you arent

Not sure if thats enough to fix the blasterboats, but I am still pretty sure that T2 blaster ammo needs its tracking penalty adjusted downwards. Or preferably removed completely. Unless that happens, I would (hypothesis) still use faction blaster ammo.

Its great that CCP is looking at hybrids regardless..

ps. The biggest problem with gallente is still the idiotic idea of slow armor ships with extreme close range weaponry. I wish I knew who came up with that concept. CCP can keep adjusting the little numbers all they want, but I dont think the dead horse will come back to life..

Indeed. For all practical purposes autocannons have comparable damage to blasters, while at the same time having a bunch of other advantages and supposed to be fit on ships that have a meaningful slot layout. CCP needs to get their head out of their arses and realize that gallente arent performing anything like "they were supposed to be".

buffs of about 20% are 'getting there' when for example t2 blaster ammo tracking penalty is in the range of -25% if memory serves.

I'm sorry, but he's dead, Jim.... lol.

The person doing the comparison is probably a Minmatar pilot and may never have even flown a Brutix or trained hybrids. With the player bias towards Minmatar ships and autocannons, this is quite common and a simple "tier 1 vs tier 2" mistake is understandable.

And, don't underestimate the Cyclone - it is a pretty nasty ship, too, although it has long been eclipsed by the Hurricane.

I've notice a peculiar trend in this thread, though.

It seems as though the most vocal detractors - the ones who think the posted balancing sucks and that Gallente ships and hybrid guns need even more of a buff - actually do not currently fly Gallente ships nor currently use hybrid guns (although a few may have done so in the long forgotten past).

Whereas, the supporters - who think that the posted balancing is a good place to start, good enough as is, and/or that an additional damage buff might even be too much (although they would not argue against a range buff, too) - seem to be the ones who actually are currently flying Gallente and using hybrids.

You'd think it would be the other way around. Go figure.

Well, it's a start, but I wish CCP were using their imaginations to fix this properly the way they did with projectiles rather than a bland and less than useful change to a few stats.

1. 20% blaster tracking improvement MIGHT work for small weapons, but will not be enough for medium or large. IF you get into range and IF you manage to web a target you still find that a small amount of transversal means misses within 1-2km which is ridiculous - this is where these weapons are supposed to operate!

2. If I am being kited and have to resort to the longer range blaster ammo it takes me 10 seconds to switch. That can be a lifetime in a pvp fight, and all my target has to then do is close by 4-5km (maybe 2-3seconds of his time) and my ammo choice is wrong again! I then have to either live with poor damage from the wrong ammo or wait another 10s to switch again, by which time they move back out 4-5km and the dance of gallente fail starts all over again. Hybrids need the ammo change timer to be dropped to 3.5seconds, otherwise having different ammo types is a waste of space.

3. The ships are essentially all armour tankers. This means the tank they fit slows them down. Your speed and agility changes don't do anything to change the dynamics of a fight for them. Gallente ships will still be kited, still be unablke to close and still unable to apply any of their damage - blasters remain too short range and inflexible with the ammo change timer whilst rails will still be so mediocre damage-wise that the chances of being successful versus missiles or projectiles/lasers (who will be in range to use short range higher damage weapons) are still nil.

You've begun to look at the issues with hybrids which have been caused entirely by the changes CCP has made to the game over the years without fully thinking balance through. These changes are nowhere near enough. Please CCP, do this right the first time or nothing will change.

You must be reading some alternate version of this thread, perhaps one existing only in your head. The people criticizing this change are, by and large, criticizing it because they have experience with hybrids (blasters, especially), and are all too familiar with their problems (which have been reiterated time and time again here).

Railguns may well be fine now. Blasters are anything but. Sure, they are better after this, but ACs still outperform them by a vast margin (especially since they, too, are getting buffed). Some of this has to do with ship hulls and shield tanks vs armor tanks (and the associated speed penalties), some are inherent in the weapons themselves. Blasters simply do not do enough damage (even in optimal range) to make up for their numerous problems when compared with ACs.

After reading through most posts here and being a cross trained Gallente pilot myself here is my two cents:

Firstly I would hate to see all ships become replicas in terms of their capabilities , God forbid how boring Eve would be, its important to keep the racial differences and FFS stop comparing the Brutix to the Hurricane , every race has there own Rock Stars !

I am double Amarr and I love the look of the ships but I don’t fly them at all because I don’t like their capabilities , so I trained Minmatar and Gallente cause of their niches that appeals to me. I think the same should be said for Gallente pilots ...fly the role of the race, if you don’t like it train for something else.

Gallentes role or niche is short range fights (between 0and 10 km) and then the drones. When you are caught in that 10 km range against a blaster boat the chance of getting away or winning the fight should be 20% or less. The 0-10 km is the Gallente Blaster zone.
I do believe the damage done by blasters should be significantly more to solidify the Gallente Blaster Zone.

The second very obvious issue is how to get your enemy in that zone of 0-10 km. In high sec or gate camping this wouldn’t be that much of a big deal. So in a way Gallente blaster boats already rule High sec and gate camps !
But with conventional null sec fleets and tactics it causes a problem for the Gallente blaster boats.

I love that Eve video “Real spmething ” where the Gallente fleet gets melted into scrap metal by a Amarr fleet and then a Gallente frig pilot breakes away and fly directly towards the Amaarr fleet enabeling the gallente fleet to warp in at 0 and burn the Amarr alive ! That’s what appeals to me ...now whether that is practically possible in 50% of the scenarios , I honestly don’t know. But I think as far as Blaster boats go we need to look more at tactics to get into that Zone than to try and replicate other races roles. I do believe that Gallente is in a disadvantage here when it comes to null sec warfare. (at the same token it should be very difficult for them to be able to get in that zone to balance things out overall).

So here is an idea in its infant stage

CCP why not create a drone that you as a blaster boat can warp to ? You release the drone or five drones and send them to the enemy ...once in range you warp to the drone and fleet can warp to you. Of course the drone stats need to be balanced out to make the task of the drone to reach its destination hard and relatively easy for enemy ships to shoot it down. The bigger the gallente fleet the more drones to shoot down by the enemy.....think this might be an option to enable blaster boats to get into blaster zone whether you are a fleet or solo pilot ...and its in line with Gallente culture .

Hope my idea can solve some problems for us..or maybe look at a new gallente frig with desent speed and a brutal tank to make that video mentioned above more a reality than anything else.

Yeah. I don't want to see Gallente become FotM, that would just need some more balancing down the road.

I just want to see blaster boats become an at least somewhat competitive option. Yes, that would need some power creep on the blaster side (or a total rethink of the hulls and/or armor tanks) -- but the other option is to nerf ACs and minmatar hulls (and maybe Scorch while we're at it). Not sure I want to see that happen, either, at least not on a large scale.

Lets look at some numbers this rebalance will give us shall we? Since T2 Ammo is also getting a buff lets focus there by comparing Blasters to Autocannons using their respective t2 short range ammo types. No skills added or ship bonuses just turret + ammo.


Neutron Blaster II with Void
Range: 10,400m
Tracking: .03637
DPS: 32

800mm Repeating Artillery with Hail
Range: 21,600m
Tracking:.03024
DPS: 25.28

Heavy Neutron Blaster II with void
Range: 5,200m
Tracking: .84
DPS: 24.64

425mm Autocannon with Hail
Range: 10,800m
Tracking: .0739
DPS: 18.99

So Large and Medium Autocannons have 207% more range than Blasters.
Large Blasters will have 27% more DPS and 20% more Tracking than Large Autocannons
Medium Blasters will have 30% more DPS and 13% better tracking than Medium autocannons.

So ships that are faster and more agile with comparable tanks have over 207% more range over Blaster boats while doing only 27% less DPS. And in practise they will have much higher range becuase TE's and TC's will benefit Autocannons much more becuase of the much higher starting stats they have. So how quickly can you cover 5 to 15 km to actually apply that massive 27% more DPS to actually win the fight while in web/scram range chasing down faster ships...? i bet that extra 10 m/s will really help out in that? Look we dont need Gallente to become Mimatar ships or blasters to become Autocannons. Plenty of good and varied ideas to fix this have been told to you (CCP) by the community now please use them and not this half assed attempt.

Congrats CCP in the same patch to buff Hybrids you have also managed to make them obsolete with this Hail buff (removing the .5x falloff modifier).

Has anyone thought about this? A specialized drone that a ship can warp to at any range. I can already see fifty drones from a ten man fleet swarming towards our fleet at medium speed and the anxiety to try and kill them ....before they reach their target.
+ 10 for this idea and tons of other uses for this type of drone....I hope CCP takes note !

This would also take care of the range issues and speed issues .....Make the blaster boats heavy and brutal!!!