EVE General Discussion

+ 1 of course. All aspects(ships AND guns) of fighting with hybrid weapons got buffed, as we can see in nicely done OP.

Maybe it's not enough, but CCP has done it's part in providing us with a new batch of sand for our sandbox. It's up to players to see what can be built with it (or in this case, teared down )

It is very similar to what they did to projectiles in scope, essentially rewriting the usage patterns.

Apart from the reload change it is exactly what I and others suggested be done .. big tracking boost with a slight damage boost on top. Should serve to make them viable on off-race hulls without breaking balance completely (like what happened with projectiles).

Would suggest that first round of iterations focus on hulls and their usage of the hybrids since I don't think the guns can be buffed much more without breaking them irreparably and no one is interested in a FoTM as omni-potent as the minnie turned out to be.

Looking forward to seeing what the Mega's can do with god tracking

-1

Blasters still aren't good enough in their niche. They need higher DPS at short range to make up for all the time wasted, and damage received while getting into range.

Hybrid pilots still lack a weapon system that is competitive at mid-range. Rails are still pointless compared to other weapon systems, particularly the 150mm-250mm calibers. Crap dps, insignificant alpha, and only start to gain superiority at suicidal warp-to ranges. A weapon in want of a role.

I've gotten a chance to log at least 15+ hours of blaster testing on Sisi thus far. At this point I must say that the changes have made a significant improvement most specifically in regards to fitting issues and cap consumption however the changes to tracking, reload, and the 5% dmg buff are most certainly noticeable. While these "Fixes" are a step in the right direction I do think CCP has a fair amount of work to do; more specifically focused at the ship hulls themselves rather than the weapons. I'd like to take a moment and share my findings with the community and hopefully CCP.

Ships:

Enyo - While not a terrible ship this AF has been in the shadow of it's more bad ass cousin the Ishkur since conception. The Enyo trades a mid slot and the capability to field 4 more drones in favor of a turret, and another low slot. While this may sound reasonable on paper it's less than underwhelming in actual practice. The main problem I see with the Enyo at this point is that it does not have enough CPU to take full advantage of that 4th low and is more or less forced to fit a mag stab to reach dps levels close to that of the Ishkur. This results in a ship that has worse damage projection, a worse tank, and the inability to effectively tackle on its own. It's time to bring the Enyo inline with it's big brother.

Suggestion - +25 CPU and + 10m/s

The increased CPU will allow a pilot to take full advantage of that 4th low in the form of an explosive hardener allowing it to tank on par with the Ishkur or a 2nd Mag stab making it the quintessential AF DPS platform for point blank melting (as it should be). The speed increase would make it slightly faster than the Ishkur slightly improving the ships overall damage projection and survivability.


Brutix - Again this is not a terrible ship by any means however due to the introduction of the Naga the Brutix's most useful role (shield buffer gank) will become obsolete due to the significantly increased Dps, Dmg projection, Shield buffer, speed, and alpha that the Naga provides. Essentially the Blaster Naga will do everything the shield gank Brutix does but much much better. Because of this shift I'd like to see the Brutix returned to it's originally intended role, small gang warfare through the use of a powerful active armor tank relative to it's class. For this to happen it is imperative that the slot layout of the ship be addressed as well as a look at the ships current fitting capabilities.

Suggestion - +1 Low slot, +35 Grid.

The additional low slot is obviously to allow for more flexibility in double rep tank setups. Currently if you are to take advantage of the rep bonus you will find that it is pretty much guaranteed that you use all 5 lows if you intend to tank even 1 semi ganky BC. The problem with this is that you have no room for a MFS essentially forcing a trade off between an eanmII/hardener or MFS. W/O the MFs you're going to barley be breaking 550 dps at optimal with void (applied dmg will be much lower), and w/o the extra EANM II or Hardener your tank is going to break against single BCs that are not even that ganky. If this ship could engage and apply dmg at 20km I would see no problem with the current numbers however it's ideal range is realistically sub 5km. As for the grid increase I propose; I believe that this ship should be capable of fielding a full rack of Medium Ion Blasters as well as a double rep tank + support mids. With these improvements the Brutix will retain all it's weaknesses to kiting/focus fire/cap warfare however will actually be a significant threat in small gangs now once inside it's small engagement envelope.

Astarte Ahh the Astarte, one of my favorite ships of all time. While my testing of this ship on Sisi has been extremely successful I still think that the ship could use some small improvements. The ship has been performing very well in hyper specific situations, namely 1v1s with good warp ins however outside of that somewhat unrealistic niche you're better off taking a BS nearly 100% of the time. While I think this ships Achilles heel should be a weakness to alpha the introduction of the tier3 have made this weakness far more apparent. Again, I feel that this ships issues would be best addressed through a change to slots as well as slight fitting improvements.

Suggestion - +1 Low slot, +25 Grid.

Essentially the same reasoning for the changes to the Brutix. The addition of another low slot will improve the ships flexibility as an active armor tanker. The increased grid will allow for an all neutron, double rep setup w/o the need for expensive grid implants. As stated above for the Brutix, I believe that the Naga will even outclass the Astarte as a shield gank platform simply due to the increased alpha, range, and slot configuration. Because of this I think the Astarte needs to be one of the most ferocious ships available for point blank range small gang warfare as it will never be as good as the Absolution or Sleipnir for larger scale fights.



Alright folks that's all I have for you now however I intend to address a few more ships in the near future. Namely the Hyperion and to a lesser extent the Deimos and Thorax.

-Jerick

I think it's great changes to blasters and rails, and their stats look decent now :P so personly I don't think they need to tweak them much

The ships however could still use more tweaking, this might even be tweaks in fundemental stuff like how armor rigs effect your ships (maybe instead of a speed penalty, they could do something else? like use powegrid, or something less severe like shield rigs)

And armor plates should be effect the speed and agility "LESS!!! MUCH LESS" :3

These are not the final changes, more will take place after crucible comes, therefore I will wait and see.

CCP can say whatever they like. Whatever "fix" they released now -- balanced or not -- is pretty much it for the forseeable future. They have a HUGE list of things in desperate need of correction and balancing, and once hybrids are 'finished' they are off the list.

Are these changes enough? I have no clue. Whether they are or not, players will make do just as they have up to this point. The test is in the game, and the proof is useage. We can see what works well and what does not simply by observing what the players use in game.

welp

if they can keep up with tweeking it to a finished state, you have to start somewhere, and this looks about as good a starting point as any.

its never going to be right on the first pass, and only full out live play will reveal all the flaws.

Yea I might drop the cap booster on my mega and hype. It takes up a valuble mid which I could be using for either more tank, a point or a sebo so I can lock things before the canes destroy it

I think blaster ships will become a new favorite in station games (where you tend to be less than 5km from your target and neither one moves much).