Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This change effectively ruins them as a PVP ship.

Outside of the tiny tiny niche of solo players (with links) going up against 5-10 people, the bastion module is worthless. Even against those numbers, if they have neuts, most active tanks will turn off. While an ASB can still run, you'll lose any hardeners, or any tackle to keep people there. Neuts will completely shut off an armor tank, and any weapons used by that armor tank.

At over 10 people, you'll die to alpha. Being able to MJD more frequently doesn't help since they probably have scrams. So you drop into bastion, shoot some things for a bit (but not doing any more damage than a BS that actually has mobility), hope they don't get out of your range, and tank a lot of DPS, but with minimal EHP. There are so many dreads in game, and marauders are sufficiently shiny, that if you bastion more than a handful of marauders someone will drop a moros on them and just alpha through the marauders effortlessly, as they can't even move for transversal.

Outside of bastion mode, the low sensor strength renders them incredibly easy to jam, and for the paladin and kronos losing their 90% webs significantly reduces their utility to an armor fleet.

The faster MJD bonus, as we saw when the revenant had a jump range bonus, is useless. It really doesn't matter if the marauder can MJD every 54 seconds, as long as the rest of the fleet is still stuck at 180 seconds, as no sane FC will split the hell out of their fleet just to keep a marauder pilot alive, and I really doubt we'll see gangs or fleets of marauders.

Their rep bonuses line up for solo work as even a boosted tank won't be able to fight an even mid sized gang, and without remote effects in bastion mode they're limited to each ship being on it's own. They're utterly useless outside bastion mode, and only mostly useless inside bastion mode, so they have no way to work in a fleet.

Dreads and carriers, the two other ships with something similar to bastion mode, increase their ability to do things to other people when locked in place, either by doing more damage or having better RR. The marauder needs the same. Bastion mode is useless when it only affects itself. I would give them ~3-4k dps in bastion mode, enough that they can be a real threat to BS and capitals while sieged, but not enough to eclipse dreads completely in K-space. That 3-4k dps would, however, be a massive fix for two of the biggest pains in the game, highsec and low W-space POSes. You can't hit those with dreads, and hardened they take forever in a BS, particularly in low tier WHs where you can't fit all that many ships through.

Marauders need to do something like that, something that has impact on other players, rather than pure tank, if they want to be a good PVP ship. As it stands, bastion mode will be astoundingly good for lvl 4 missions and some anoms, and possibly incursions (i don't know enough about incursions to know if the increased local tank would be enough to make up for no logi in an incursion or not).

I really want to like this change since it's ~cool~, but as it stands it makes the marauder a massive pile of ****.

I agree that the painter strength bonus is incongruous - but so is one to painter optimal. As you say, painters are supposed to be Minmatar. I suppose the alternative to the painter bonus is to give it an explosion radius bonus to replicate some or all of the painter effect. The main effect of this would be to free up a medslot, for tanking or tackle etc. On the other hand, with links you can get 80% painters, equivalent to, er.... a 44% bonus to explosion radius? Realistically, the maximum precision bonus that you'd get is 25%. Plus you have the option to fit a second painter - or none at all.

I dunno, the precision bonus is simpler and less incongruous, but the painter strength bonus is more variable and offers more tactical options. I quite like it.

Will this finally be true?

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/9168/megathron.jpg

That's an awesome graphic!

I read it as just on Marauders i.e. Golems but CCP Ytterbium please clarify this change.

I won't argue against your point, having previously flown a NM and RS to do lvl 4s and a Bhaal in incursions they are now all mothballed in favor of a Torp Golem (with 2x RF Painters) and a Legion.

The Marauder is more skill intensive than a Pirate BS which IMO should equate to better (if abet more specalised).

I consider the Marauders to outclass Pirate BS already in PvE and this change just makes them better.

slight side note: this change does in fact reduce the theoretical max DPS by reducing the drones from Med to Light (not that meds where used). Max applied DPS should be increased (outside of the 10-15km web radius)

Id much rather have a extra mid slot compared to the extra high. With the MJD its going to be that much harder to make the mids work.

Target painter cycle reduction is on the module themselves.

Ok, so now I have only 5 light drones. How I am supposed to kill PVE tacklers? Before drone AI change it was ok, after change it became pain, when light drones are now nearly instapopped by tacklers. With 75 drone bay I have 2 complete replacements, when you take it away, all 5 my light drones die fast and me being scrambled... what is your advice? Selfdestruct? Cause tacklers cannot kill me, but neither can I kill scrambling frigs and cannot leave mission.

sorry i didnt know that true dreads had a range of over 100km? and could easily retarget a ship after it has mjd'ed