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The Angsty Strategic Cruiser Thread.
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Incindir Mauser
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#1 - 2013-09-06 16:56:00 UTC

I'm looking to write a comprehensive article discussing Tech 3 cruisers and there seems to be quite a bit of debate surrounding them.

Some people think, yes they're fine. (Don't touch my Tengu, bro!)

Others are of the opinion that T3's a broken as **** and need to be nerfed into obscurity. (Rabid dogs! Nerf nerf nerf!)

Personally I am of the opinion that T3's are integral to our way of live in Wormholes and are as much a part of living here as POSes and scanning. Fiddling with them too much would drastically alter our preferred style of gameplay and not for the better. Reading through the "What's wrong with W-space thread" T3's were brought up far more often than I felt was justified and served as a derailment to the thread. I thought I'd start up a separate one here to focus the discussion constructively.

What will be helpful in the discussion: Provide some data to back up your assertions. Use EFT to prove your case.

What's not helpful: "Neut Legion's are OP! Nerf nerf nerf."
Godfrey Silvarna
Arctic Light Inc.
Arctic Light
#2 - 2013-09-06 17:06:58 UTC
They need a slight nerf, and I strongly suspect that a small nerf is exactly what CCP will do, and all the fear mongering about them becoming useless is just people being idiots.
Incindir Mauser
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#3 - 2013-09-06 18:02:58 UTC

To spur some conversation this is what CCP Ytterbium had to say most recently.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3284616#post3284616

Quote:
Yes, YES, the only reason why we are nerfing them down is to generate a river of tears from our player base - we need it to add some flavor in our morning oatmeal Twisted

No, no, actually that's not true. We have a "trolling" contest going on between CCP Fozzie, Rise, Tallest and myself to see who can create the biggest rage threadnought on the forums, while we keep scores on a whiteboard. Oops

Also, when we are going to nerf them, we'll just launch a 6-faced dice to see how many slots we are going to randomly remove. Except for the Legion, we'll use a 20-faced dice. Doesn't matter if we end up with negative slot number!


Ok, more seriously, let's sit down a bit and talk about this. See that big sofa over there? Yes, the big black comfy one. Let's sit down and relax. Now breathe deeply. Slowly. See? There is no reason to go into panic mode waving your arms all over the place. May hurt yourself. Then spill fluids all over the place. Messy.

First, we are not even sure on how we want to tackle Tech3s yet - we have a general direction on where we want to go, but not how yet. See that hill far away in the horizon? That's the end of Tech2 rebalancing - if we had to put Tech3s into perspective, we wouldn't even be able to see them due to the curvature of the Earth. Sure, some small tweaks may happen more or less shortly (like the rebalancing of Warfare Links and associated bonuses on Tech3 when we get to Command Ships), but we are not up to the point where we are going to touch the Tech3 hulls themselves.

So speaking of nerf at this point is just plain premature. When we get to them we'll discuss the changes through the proper channels, like the CSM and the Features & Ideas Discussion sub-forum section, so you'll have plenty of time to see them coming and voice your concerns.

Then, we are not going to casually blanket-nerf them with one hand while eating a jambon-beurre-fromage sandwich with the other at a random lunch break. Along with capitals, Tech3s are the most complicated hulls out there, and we will be careful they still have a proper role when we're done with them. As much as I want to nerf the Tengu to oblivion while singing dirty French limericks, we actually have responsible and fully-mature people out there, like CCP Fozzie and Rise that won't let me run amok in the office.

But yes, there may be some changes on how they function as a whole - for instance we have discussed things like making them more flexible by allowing rigs to be removed from them, rebalancing the sub-systems to be less terrible in their selection while offering gameplay not necessarily competing with current hulls, or even introducing a new line of modules with flexibility in mind to complement Tech3 hulls.

Whatever we end up with may be different with what we have now, yes. I like to pick the same crappy frozen pizza brand when I go food hunting instead of trying something different, like I don't know, cooking for instance. That's just because I don't want to get out of my comfort zone, even if the pizza tastes like chewed plastic. It's the same exact problem here, fear of change can be a potent adversary.

We are not making such a change because we like to troll our player base by randomly switching various numbers on ships while staring at our screens drunk. We do it because we feel such an effort is justified for the overall health of the game, and because in the long term, the gained value will outweigh the pains involved. That's also a given we will be careful when we get to it, because our jobs remain based on what on player subscription and what they may or may not like.


Wrote a wall of text Cry Oh well, hope that helps a bit.
Trinkets friend
Sudden Buggery
Sending Thots And Players
#4 - 2013-09-06 23:55:24 UTC
The changes to the command subsystems and rebalancing of best bonuses toward the command ships has addressed most of the worst parts of T3's. But not all. And, just quickly, the multiple bonuses of the T3 subs now spreads the capabilities across 3 links instead of 1, so you get more though less extreme boosts, which really isn't a nerf it is flattening the curve. Hardly worth the QQ on the feedback thread.

I don't have a lot of problems with T3's as a rule, but there are some exceptions.

Lets take the Proteus. For example this behemoth is a wee bit OTT. Granted you probably won't be dropping HG slaves in w-space on account of bubbles so you won't quite get carrier-level tank very often. Even so, something with 129K EHP, the sig of a squirrel and the gank of a BC.

That's off-piste, it is rabid dog territory. It needs some rebalancing even taking into account you have to drop a billion ISK on it to get the 'vanilla' all 5's performance envelope out of it. Its not like a billion ISK is hard to come by.

This opens up the whole price comparison argument. A billion ISK is a lot of money, you say, but this could take on any pirate BS any day of the week (in its role of camping gates; web+scram then get in at 500) solo, let alone with even a sole Execquror repping it to make it spazmo OTT.

Where should T3's be in terms of performance and ISK for performance? To my mind, probably not in the 200K EHP and 800 DPS and tiny sig space - you should have to compromise, not be able to do it all, better than anything else, all at once.

You will see these outliers trimmed out. That won't nerf them into oblivion, mind you. For instance, I would expect that for 750M ISK you'll get cloaky nullified T3's with 50-0K EHP tanks and 200-400 DPS. Or you'd go EWAR (ECMgu, web loki, neut legion, tackle prot) and EHP, or covops or command subs.

There also needs to be some buffs to some T3 and some subs. The RR sub, for instance, should get rep range to double the range of the transporter, to make it moderately useful for ships aside from RRGu's. The Proteus needs a decent drone bay and the loki needs better missile subs.

The end result should be that you lose the egregious monstrosities and the class remains potent, flexible, expensive and worthwhile. Also, refitting at POSs (but not carriers!) should be possible, to counteract any soft nerfs and allow J-space to be a place where you can reconfigure a T3 to adapt to a fluid tactical environment without having to have 4 different T3's.

~~ Localectomy Blog ~~
Derath Ellecon
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2013-09-07 01:05:26 UTC
Quote:
So speaking of nerf at this point is just plain premature.



This has already been beaten into ground in multiple threads. Do we really need to start it up again so soon?


/thread
Jon Matick
State War Academy
Caldari State
#6 - 2013-09-07 01:09:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Jon Matick
Trinkets friend wrote:
Where should T3's be in terms of performance and ISK for performance? To my mind, probably not in the 200K EHP and 800 DPS and tiny sig space - you should have to compromise, not be able to do it all, better than anything else, all at once.

stop pussy-footing around it. give me numbers on what you would find 'acceptable' for a buffer fit blaster proteus.
seriously, i want someone to give me a number.

My Blog:  http://sihwm.blogspot.com.au/
Winthorp
#7 - 2013-09-07 02:56:11 UTC
I can see them getting a massive nerf and i am not a fan of it, sure the proteus out classes the others in terms of dps but it also has it's shortcomings with range. Proteus is also by far best viable solo cloaky T3 there is, i wish they wouldn't see this as a reason to nerf but instead a reason to fix the others.

Mostly i don't think we can avoid the nerf bat coming but i do wish they will make the subsystems that are unused more viable and not only used when you need them for the extra slot it provides.

When they rebalance/nerf them i hope they do seriously look at the risk, isk and skill investment we have in them and make them something people actually want to fly. I still think though if they made a module that decreased a ships mass to the size of a cruiser we would all be a little less nervous about the T3 rebalance if we had other options that worked in our environment.
Taegessia
Doomheim
#8 - 2013-09-07 04:04:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Taegessia
Based on what they did recently with command & hac ships (improving their dps), if there is ever going to be a T3 nerf, i believe its going to be a small one (dps & tank). I bet it is more likely that the T3 Rebalance, whenever happens, will concern subsystem & role usability-variety more & raw performance less, but thats just an assumption.

The ability to add-remove rigs, fits perfectly the modular philosophy of T3s & it should happen. Not without some penalty ofcourse, can't really assume what that should be. Also some subsystems should be an option for all T3s like Gravitational Capacitor or Intercalated Nanofibers. I mean all T3s should have the ability to improve their agility or warp speed if we wanted to & not be lilmited to say only a Proteus or Tengu.

"Please add an option to automatically repackage & stack our currently unpackaged items in our item hangar".
Trinkets friend
Sudden Buggery
Sending Thots And Players
#9 - 2013-09-07 07:01:27 UTC
Jon Matick wrote:
Trinkets friend wrote:
Where should T3's be in terms of performance and ISK for performance? To my mind, probably not in the 200K EHP and 800 DPS and tiny sig space - you should have to compromise, not be able to do it all, better than anything else, all at once.

stop *****-footing around it. give me numbers on what you would find 'acceptable' for a buffer fit blaster proteus.
seriously, i want someone to give me a number.


Proteus max DPS is now 1200. I'd see that coming back to the 800 range.
Max tank without going full tardis is in the 250K range. i'd see that coming back to 80-90K (equivalent to a buffer CS)
Sig would stay the same.
I'd hope that drone bay would get a buff or drone DPS would get a buff.
I can't see the Friction Extensor sub being touched as it is less than an Arazu. But again, i've currently got a 180K EHP cloaky Prot with 54km point range. Try getting 50K EHP on an Arazu.

Legion really only has a few extreme-EHP baiting fits with +200K (and zero utility otherwise). So I would think that it would not be much affected. DPS would probably go up, and fittings made possible for beams (anyone ever seen a beam Legion? thought not). It can neut harder than a Curse, given the ability to fit more neuts. I can't really see that changing unless they reduce the PG envelope to allow you 5 neuts OR a T2 1600 and not get both.

Loki seems mostly fine. Even now there aren't many +100K EHP armour fits and shield you barely get past 0K without stupid ISK. DPS is probably OK, too, at 450-500 or so for most fits. You can get a 70K EHP and 700-ish DPS HAM shield Loki if you go a bit cray-cray...

The Tengu seems to have been balanced downwards on DPS due to the multiple HML nerfs. I haven't really checked if the 100K EHP + 1000 DPS fits still are viable (probably with Geno's) but if so, again, 80K/800 would be my sweet spot. Armour ECMgus are probably a bit rich if they can get 80K EHP, given the low sig. No other ECM boat has that capability and tankiness given sig radius. So maybe a nerf there to 60K EHP which is still fine.

The 100MN fits are a tricky one. However, T3's are not alone in being able to 100MN fit. Scythe Fleets and Lachesis are able to be effectively 100MN fitted. To stop it via nerfing T3's would require knocking max PG down to unfeasibly low levels, which I can't see happening. So those are here to stay, which is fine by me; I haven't lost anything butt-hurtful to them and know what not to do. To me, a non-issue.

Keep in mind, also, that you can achieve most of this at the moment with no pimp and T2 mods.

~~ Localectomy Blog ~~
Roime
Mea Culpa.
Shadow Cartel
#10 - 2013-09-07 07:26:06 UTC
Welcome back TF :D

How to nerf T3s slightly without making them useless- remove one rig slot, increase signature slightly.

Also note that T3 rebalancing will also include buffs to the more untypical subsystems, so it's not just about NERF WHS11!!!!! but expanding the use cases of the supposedly versatile cruisers which are currently either scanner ships or slightly OP HACs.

.
Angsty Teenager
Broski North
#11 - 2013-09-07 08:57:00 UTC
CCP shouldn't touch T3's outside of with a loving hand.

T3's are already niche (link alts, wormholes), and are pretty terrible in actuality. None of them is particularly useful outside of niche scenarios like I said as they all suffer from low applicable dps and a huge price tag (and SP loss).

I'm ready to petition for my SP back when they get nerfed though...
Michael1995
Lazerhawks
L A Z E R H A W K S
#12 - 2013-09-07 09:10:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Michael1995
http://thedailyroam.com/

CCP Rise was a guest in the most recent episode(6) of this podcast, T3s are mentioned somewhere in the last 10 minutes.

Also there are some teasers about the next expansion in there someplace(maybe).


Edit: I think that the SP loss 'feature' should be revisited when the balancing dudes come along to T3s.

Selling WH CFC Standings 10b/month for +10 with: Lazerhawks, Hard Knocks, Overwatch This, Many Vacancies, Golden Showers, Friendly Probes, Isogen Memed.

Join up for swag C3 Gila/Osprey ratting fleets daily! We also rent C2s out with CV effect!
Kalel Nimrott
Caldari Provisions
#13 - 2013-09-07 11:01:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Kalel Nimrott
After they finish with the t2 rebalancing, if they don't do something to let ppl refit t3's in a pos, they shouldn't touch them.

Edit: you want a nerf, fine. Make them more flexible.

Bob Artis, you will be missed.

O7
Jon Matick
State War Academy
Caldari State
#14 - 2013-09-07 11:26:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Jon Matick
Trinkets friend wrote:
Proteus max DPS is now 1200. I'd see that coming back to the 800 range.
Max tank without going full tardis is in the 250K range. i'd see that coming back to 80-90K (equivalent to a buffer CS)
Sig would stay the same.
I'd hope that drone bay would get a buff or drone DPS would get a buff.
I can't see the Friction Extensor sub being touched as it is less than an Arazu. But again, i've currently got a 180K EHP cloaky Prot with 54km point range. Try getting 50K EHP on an Arazu.

ok, firstly, thanks for giving specifics.
now lets got through it and I'll correct you where youre wrong.

1.) DPS
max prot dps with 6 neutrons, 3 T2 mag stabs and void, no implants, is 1004. (hammerheads as drones.)

2.) Tank
while doing said 1004 DPS, T2 tanked, T1 rigged prot gets 123k EHP.

ok, you compare it to a CS, which I think is fair, so lets have a look at an astarte for a comparison.

1.) DPS
given the 1 less low slot, going with a 2 T2 mag stab fit, astarte gets 1077 DPS with neutrons and void. (hammerheads as drones.)
using a 3 mag stab fit you get 1192 DPS.

2.) Tank
ok, few numbers here.
2 stab fit gets 93k EHP, or 118k EHP when boosting itself.
3 stab fit gets 78k EHP, or 105k EHP when boosting itself.


ok, so what did we find out?
we found out that the proteus does not have more DPS than an astarte in any reasonable configuration.
we also found that the proteus does have more tank than an astarte, but not really all that much, especially since the astarte is almost guaranteed to have boosts while the proteus will often not.
the astarte also has better resists when boosting so it gets more reps, not to bention the obvious benefit to its whole fleet.

even if looking at the unbonused tank on the astarte, if it isnt boosting then it has 2 free highs where it can fit medium neuts.
it also has an extra mid slot which lets it fit full tackle and a cap booster where a proteus cant, not to mention shield tanking options.

the astarte also costs half, or less, of what the proteus does and does not cost you skill points when you die.

so, what exactly isnt balanced in this comparison? I'm just NOT seeing it.

as for other comparisons, recons need a buff across the board which should balance the arazu out againt a prot.
HACs are clearly destined to be forever inferior to every other ship class so comparisons there are pointless, though ishtar is a better drone boat than a prot in any case.

PS:
yes, you can fit stupid tanks on the proteus, I know. the fact that those fits are stupid and not useful for anything in reality is what balances that out.

if ccp want to fix 100mn fits, just make 100mn mods unfittable on sub BS class ships. like you said, this is not a T3 issue.

My Blog:  http://sihwm.blogspot.com.au/
Lloyd Roses
Artificial Memories
#15 - 2013-09-07 11:51:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Lloyd Roses
Tech-III-Cruisers are a bit more balanced with every patch lately, as more and more ships perform on usable levels and sometimes even in configs formerly to only work properly if a tech-III is used.

Since HACs can come pretty close to Tech-IIIs on multiple account, the only important things to nerf for strats are
- 10% tanking bonus for active/buffer
- their sigradius must have gotten halved somewhere. Blow it up to twice the size and good, though I'll miss my 50m sigradius artyloki :)

If they were to just adjust those two things, personally would call them pretty balanced. Hoping aswell that instead of a nerfbat, a revision to around 70% of the unused subs will take place.

For Jon Mattick, an astarte in an armorbuffer-gankfit, squeezing all the dps in and even using heavy assaults, making it up to 1500ish OH. That's way beyond what a proteus can accomplish.
Jon Matick
State War Academy
Caldari State
#16 - 2013-09-07 12:14:47 UTC
Lloyd Roses wrote:
For Jon Mattick, an astarte in an armorbuffer-gankfit, squeezing all the dps in and even using heavy assaults, making it up to 1500ish OH. That's way beyond what a proteus can accomplish.

this is also true, thoughy honestly id rather have the neuts in almost all cases.

My Blog:  http://sihwm.blogspot.com.au/
Rek Seven
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#17 - 2013-09-07 13:40:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Rek Seven
Looking at things form a wormhole PVP perspective, T3 are perfectly fine IMO. The way we use them results from the design and nature of wormhols. For example, we need to brawl on a wormhole, have a reasonable chance of surviving dread alpha and have a low enough mass to bring enough support to fight someone in their home system.

Currently, there are only one or two accepted configurations for each T3, which i feel is due to the weakness of some subsystems, rather than the strength of the most used subs. Your typical PVP fit T3 has around 105k EHP and between 700-1100 dps.

People always use the proteus as an example of an over powered T3. My proteus can kick out 1200 dps by using faction mag stabs and can scram a target withing 20km... That may seem like a lot of dps to some but you have to remember that it will never achieve that level of damage unless it is within 3k of a target and at that range, it is vulnerable to neuts and warp scrams.

Now if you take these ships out of wormhole space and start comparing them against T1 cruisers and battle cruisers, they suddenly look overpowered... But people don't use armor T3 in K space in the same way we use them.

If CCP nerf the most used subs to encourage the use of underused ones, it will have a negative effect across wormhole space and will take away the ability to fight outnumbered against T1 and T2. However, if they buff the underused ones, we could see a lot more variety in fits and see a lot more T3 used in k space.

Trinkets friend wrote:

Proteus max DPS is now 1200. I'd see that coming back to the 800 range.


It's EFT warriors like this that really hurt the discussion. They ignore the fact that a proteus is a short range ship that can only do kinetic and thermal damage.

I know CCP say they don't reimburse SP but if they were to do something as drastic and misguided as this, I hope they seriously consider refunding all the SP that people have put into Tech 3 ships.

The wishlist is pretty much complete...
Xequecal
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#18 - 2013-09-07 16:33:12 UTC
Rek Seven wrote:
It's EFT warriors like this that really hurt the discussion. They ignore the fact that a proteus is a short range ship that can only do kinetic and thermal damage.

I know CCP say they don't reimburse SP but if they were to do something as drastic and misguided as this, I hope they seriously consider refunding all the SP that people have put into Tech 3 ships.


Really? What's the max DPS of a Legion? A HAM Legion tops out at less DPS than both the Cerberus and Sacrilege at this point and has far less range than both. It tanks much better obviously but it's still three times the price and costs you skills when you die. A Pulse Legion has all of 40 more DPS than a Zealot because it doesn't have multiplicative stacking on its two damage bonuses.

The Tengu has high theoretical max DPS with 6 launchers but that only works in PvE, PvP Tengu fits never use more than 5 launchers because it has gimped fitting stats so you simply can't get a viable PvP fit on one with six. PvP fits have DPS numbers similar to the Legion. Tengu is basically obsolete for PvP because you can put the same fit on a Cerberus and also stick an XLASB on it for more DPS, more range, and more tank.

The Loki is strong entirely because of the web subsystem. If it wasn't for that it would be in the same league as Legion/Tengu for PvP and possibly even worse than them. ACs deal less DPS than lasers and HAMs and you lose even more DPS by sitting in falloff to some extent against everything. They get 5 lights to make up for it so it's about the same as the other three, except for the web system.

The Proteus is, quite frankly, grossly overpowered compared to the rest. It's mainly because someone at CCP decided that the Proteus needed 50m3 of drones and extremely generous fitting stats in addition to 6 guns and a double damage bonus, while the Legion gets basically exactly the same thing with no drones and the Tengu gets a third damage bonus in exchange for gimped fitting. This allows 1000 DPS fits with just T2 stuff and no heat.

The complaints about range are just completely missing the point. Unless you believe that lasers are a far superior weapon system to hybrids in general, there is no reason for the Proteus to get 6 guns, 50% damage, 50% range, and 50m3 of drones while the Legion gets the first three with no drones.
Quinn Corvez
Perkone
Caldari State
#19 - 2013-09-07 16:56:09 UTC
^ the legion can choose its damage type to exploite a resistance hole. In a lot of cases it can out dps a proteus... Don't just look at what eft tells you.
Derath Ellecon
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#20 - 2013-09-07 18:36:05 UTC
Xequecal wrote:
The complaints about range are just completely missing the point. Unless you believe that lasers are a far superior weapon system to hybrids in general, there is no reason for the Proteus to get 6 guns, 50% damage, 50% range, and 50m3 of drones while the Legion gets the first three with no drones.


What? Ignoring range is completely missing the point.

Taking just a basic fit, full rack of weapons (6 for both) and 3 faction upgrades (assuming since both are armor tanked you aren't going to fill your lows with them).

Proteus does:

894DPS from blasters (void) with an optimal at 3800m and falloff of 4690m. So realistically it has a max range with guns of ~8500m, but at this range is doing a fraction of the damage.
Additionally this damage is primarily kinetic, which on average is everyone's better resist.

You get an additional 158dps from medium drones.



Legion does 736 DPS with rage torpedos. This can be any damage type AND you get to apply full damage to ~17km.

So a legion can kite the proteus, nullifying most of its damage while the proteus sits there cursing its short range.

Now we could load Null, but then that drops the proteus into a total damage of 797dps including drones (pretty close to the legion) and even then, the protues is still shooting the legion in deep falloff.

Range missing the point? Range is everything.
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