Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm fine with the changes (mostly because it's unlikely to change at this point). When I finish training for a Golem I'm going to park it in a 0.5 asteroid field, load the auto-target heavy missiles and light Bastion. Should be good for some anti-ganking laughs.

so now we call it escalation and not blobbing, I must have missed the memo

They are keeping it as a drawback to justify the E-war immunity of bastion.

Question: What's QQ?

'PvE king'?

Whose? Not mine.

PvE efficiency for me is a pair of tachyon Nightmares with four IN heat sinks, three tracking computers and minimal tank WITH a third toon in a Noctis. This makes a ton more ISK than my TQ marauders (I have several. And multiple toons with Marauder V.)

People who only fly TQ marauders for their missioning are not being efficient. Or they have one toon. But if so, there's some clear benefits for them in the new marauders.

Something like Assault (Guristas) or Blockade (Sansha) is a pain in the ass for a solo pilot, regardless of ship (sentry drone boats are doable, but meh dps).

A pair of Nightmares or Vindis or Machs (depending on the rat) will blitz missions WAY faster and I have those too. I use Dramiels for Recon 2 of 3 and 3 of 3 and Cargo Delivery. I also do my missioning in a double lvl-4 security station and I have 8 toons that can get missions, so out of 16 possible missions I get to cherry pick what to run (I tend to pick those missions that get me 8000+ LP per mission and very little travel.)

Marauders will get a small part of that in my Eve day. Like I said, one more tool in the toolbox.

If I want to run incursions, I'll fire up four computers and with the new marauders I'll be able to field four dps ships (two self-tanking Paladins, a VIndi and a Bhaal instead of three NM's that I run now.) Win? A billion isk for a few hours of work ain't bad.

How do you PvE?

Maybe a Tengu did crash into it...

Hey, I just spent all day playing with the Kronos on the test server, and let me just say, I LOVE IT. It's quite potent in PVE, though it does have some difficulty handling frigates, but that should be manageable, especially if CCP does decide to enlarge the marauder drone bays (which should happen). I found that with my set-up my tank was virtually unbreakable, even to the point where I was able to begin the process of soling a C5 wormhole site (until I ran out of cap boosters)! I only killed one sleeper battleship in that instance, and soloing them seems like a bad idea, but the fact that local reps can hold means that using two marauders in bastion might be a very effective way to burn through high class sleeper sites if you don't have any logi on standby or capitals in the area.

So, for PVE, it seems to work quite well. Throw in the space yurt and loot tractor and it should be very nice! Perhaps not as efficient as a standard dominix, but more resistant to untimely death.

Now, here's where it gets really fun. PvP. The marauder is a blast to PvP with, both solo, and in a gang. Of course milage will vary with the quality of your fit, and I haven't gotten to stress test my baby in a full range of scenarios yet, so take my experience with a grain of salt.

I was able to modify my PvE fit slightly and turn it into a very potent PvP ship. I dropped tractor beams for a heavy neut and a med neut, and I dropped a tracking computer for a warp scrambler, then voila, fully capable PvP ship.

The marauder as a brawling ship is unmatched. A well fit Kronos has double the tanking potential of the legendary duel-rep Hyperion, which is wondrously absurd. It also hits out much further. I also had the pleasure of battling a Paladin who was able to apply a significant amount of damage from 100kms up to point blank, and which I only defeated because I managed to cap him out and use my warp scrambler to keep him from jumping away from me. From what I can tell, the marauders seem to be well balanced against each other, and the timing and aiming of the micro-jump drive in marauder duels is a very engaging thing to practice.

Later, I got to fly in a small fleet of four marauders. We placed ourselves around the combat site and were able to catch a number of other ships through an interesting combination of jumps and warps, playing a sort of jump leapfrog to catch up to hostile ships.

After a good several hours of PvPing on the test server, I amassed a happy list of kills, drove a number of other ships off the field (unable to point them at range), and lost my ship 4 times. To dreadnoughts. Against anything my size of below, my Kronos was a worthy match. Sadly, bastion will make you a tasty target to any blap dreads that come your way. The chances of coming across a small fleet of wandering blap dreads on live however should be far fewer than on the test server however, so I suspect that in most engagements the vulnerability of bastioned marauders to dreadnoughts should not be too crippling, and if you can jump in under a dreadnought's guns then that vulnerability disappears.

From my subjective experience today, I'm totally and completely in love with the marauder as it feels right now. It could use a couple of tweaks, I think that buffing the base hull resists and slightly decreasing the bastion granted resists might help with the current imbalance between the ship as it bastioned, and the ship as it is mobile. Giving it a bigger drone bay would also help it be much more versatile and less impotent against NPC frigates. But the ship's concept, the bastion module itself, and the bonus to the micro warp drive is fantastic to play with and lends itself to all sorts of interesting play!

The two greatest drawbacks to the marauder in PvP that I can foresee is the fact that being cut off from remote reps will insure these ships never become a mainstay of large fleet operations. A small 15-25 man wing of marauders might have some innovative uses, but if they come up against 100+ rohks all firing on a single target at a time, bastion will be more of a hinderance than a help.

The second is that while this ship is an absolute beast to fly solo, and I suspect it will be able to smash its way through most weaker gate camps (a hunch which I look forward to testing), it cannot hold enemy ships in place. With clever use of the micro-jump drive it can certainly grab and hold a battleship or larger, and it may well be able to clear a cruiser off the field with a few well placed shots, but most ships will be able to run away and there won't be much your marauder can do to stop that. If you want to not just smash through a gate camp, but hunt down and murder every last one of the bastards (or to just prevent that drake from docking, replenishing his absurd buffer tank instantly, and warping back) you will need to bring support who can handle the tackling.

Anyway, in conclusion, as they exist right now on the test server, these marauders are like nothing else in EVE. They're interesting and potentially potent in PVE, and they're extremely exciting in PvP. I expect the high cost in skill points and isk will be a major deterrent to most people actually flying these things into hostile space, but those who do will have a lot of fun before they meat their inevitable fiery demise. I'm also looking forward to the sorts of maneuvers inventive FCs will be able to come up with.

-Signs alongside this post- +1

I do have to wonder how much time the detractors have spent actually playing with the marauder as it is on the test server. I encourage anyone on the fence to give it a try. CCP's even granting all necessary skills to 5 for the use of marauders on the test server. Go ahead! If you play to their strengths, they're amazing!

It's been suggested that more of bastion's resists be baked into the base hull, and I think that would go a long way to making the ship more valuable in any fleet which fields remote reps, and probably make the ship a bit better overall.

Having T2 resists AND the bastion resist bonus as it exists right now would almost certainly be overpowered. As they exist on the test server the marauders have the potential to fit the most powerful subcap active tank in the game already. I think splitting the resists half and half would probably be best. Bastion would still be formidable and worth using, but it wouldn't be as mandatory as it currently is.

I'm also a fan of adding a tracking bonus to the bastion module, but that's just because I want to be able to shoot orbiting frigates with heavy neutron blasters, which . . . to be honest, probably shouldn't happen.