Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So I did some thinking and a bit of looking around and saw something amazing...

The golem was changed the way I wanted it to be changed.. to have 5% explosion VELOCITY per level

Now this is very important.

Hawk gets no missile application bonuses - that's fine, because light missiles and rockets generally apply pretty well on this platform which has a shield boost bonus instead
Flycatcher gets explosion radius - this is ok because you'll probably want to fight light missiles anyway and those things especially fury missiles need a little better application against faster targets when mounted on a destroyer

Cerberus -



should have IMO its bonuses changed to


As discussed in a couple of threads seeking info on missiles and the cerb an explosion velocity bonus is *essential* to making HAMs/HML better weapon choices of their own right. WIth RLML changed in such a way that people aren't going to use them as a be-all end-all weapon system it's important to provide a valid bonus to incentivising the general use of other missile types (and to buffing however slightly RLML users so that they are afforded a reason to still use the weapon)

Similarly the Nighthawk should me modified to:



Since light missiles are specifically exempted from being bonused here I would even propose a further increase in application by changing the raw value from 5% to 7.5%

Now we can extrapolate this to ships like the phoenix. Give the phoenix 7.5% explosion velocity per level as a base bonus and suddenly supers aren't speed tanking you any more.

Why do all this? To create a bit of internal consistancy inside caldari lines especially where it really counts (at the cruiser and up levels) on combat hulls. T2 ships are supposed to be specialised and I feel Caldari can distuingish themselves the most through applied missile damage since they are as a race not especially more resilient or agile than other races and tragically one of their major missile systems is penalised by an attribute no amount of piloting skill can solve.

When mounted on a destroyer specifically yes.



Are you implying ship bonuses do not matter?

If you buff the system first without consideration to the hulls that will use it... CCP yes need to buff them I don't doubt that but the question is how? Raw damage is a valid answer if you refuse to touch their application for example a small increase in explosion velocity now means more damage is being applied than before...

but obviously a light missile having 170m Ev and HM having what? 100Ev? and similar raw damage? That's not acceptable at all.

Refusing to touch the damage application of heavy missiles would only prove that CCP is truly incompetent when it comes to game balance (which seems quite possible at this point).

Actually I disagree because otherwise Caldari become the only race that gets top damage in any one type it chooses. Minmatar projectile ammo sacrifices dps due to secondary damage types which your resist profile may be tanked against. Hybrid ammo deals only 2 damage types and lasers only 2 damage types.

So for now I respectfully disagree on that basis, if you wanted to make the case for 10% kinetic, 5% EM etc then please make it but a raw buff to all damage types just because you can isn't supported by racial dynamics.

The secret to a good balance patch is making sure the Devs are all in the zone when programming any changes.

5% bonus to EM and kinetic would be ok. Anything is better than kinetic only.

Operating under the assumption that everyone is shooting in each others optimals... even bog standard citadel torps shoot further than XL AM ammo.

What are the other problems with the phoenix?

When firing to similar ranges, a moros does only 300 more dps than a phoenix.. if it's a matter of tank then I don't understand your issue. No dread can withstand sustained pressure from any really competent group with enough numbers.

Phoenix damage application first. Since the siege penalty to explosion velocity was removed, it's really quite hard for a supercap to mitigate citadel torp damage. It can be done with a skirmish-linked Hel using an X-type afterburner, but to do it with an Aeon requires some mix of lowslot speed mod, X-instinct and fancy afterburners. It's possible, sure, but it's not the sort of thing that I think is a real problem. Oh hang on, I'm not sure whether EFT is applying the Ragnorak's sig-reduction bonus correctly. Does it work on top of Evasive Manoeuvres or does it replace it? Bah, I'll have to train Cap Ships V on Sisi to check this.

Anyway. Range and damage. Torp range of 60 km is nice compared to 14/31 km on Moros, making the Phoenix outdamage the Moros beyond 31 km or so. But what if the Moros fits three TCs - and given that dreads are frequently deployed with carrier support, in-combat refitting is often an option. That takes the Moros to 20/61 km and gives the Phoenix essentially no damage advantage anywhere. To be fair though, triple TC isn't commonly a thing, but dual TC is, and that still looks pretty bad for the Phoenix.

I'm not sure about your 300 DPS figure. With triple T2 damage mods, a meta-1 weapon Phoenix does 10,039 DPS and the Moros 13,421 DPS. Plus the Phoenix loses further DPS over a siege cycle because of the interaction of siege mode and missile flight time, and also because it's probably a good idea to have at least one launcher using non-kinetic because of in-combat refitting and RAHs.

There's also a question of combat utility. If we divide dread use into anticapital/structure work and the blap game, then the Moros is unquestionably better at the blap game. But the damage and range also make it better at the anticapital work too. If we divide dread use into small-scale use as in WHs and fleet use, then on the small scale the Phoenix suffers from its inability to play the blap game and its inferior damage. Yet on the fleet scale, it suffers from missile flight time, potential firewalls and also inferior damage.

This has been a bit of a blathery post, but to fix the Phoenix I think you first need to decide what its specialist role should be. Given that missiles are always a bit dodgy on the fleet scale, I'd push it into a smaller-scale role as a capital killer. But to be useful there, it needs to have a superiority over the Moros commensurate with its inferiority at the blap game - and that means more raw damage, and a lot of it. The kinetic-only bonus certainly needs to go, given RAHs and refitting. Of course, some of this could be achieved by nerfing the Moros - IMO the range of XL blasters is much too high and lets the Moros intrude into Revelation territory - but that's another story.

I'm not sure why OP likes expl. velocity bonus that much. Explosion radius beats it any time by a big margin (20% expl. radius bonus has same effect on missile damage application as 25% expl. velocity).