Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The buffs to destroyers have made the ever-limited scope of assault frigates even smaller. Where as I used to be able to actually kill destroyers and interdictors, now it's totally out of question. Nothing I can do against that range and rate of fire bonus....

How about showing us AF pilots some love and buffing our ships? We desparetly need something. Maybe an afterburner bonus? Rate of fire bonus? Anything remotely useful? I'm opening this thread so people can discuss AFs and post potential fixes for what is possibly the most useless combat ship class in the game, by far.

Would work brilliantly for the Winmatar AF's and the Ishkur that is for sure .. the others don't have the mids to dual prop or the speed/mass to make AB only viable.

Consensus was established long ago: A uniform bonus will NOT work as a fix as it will inevitably result in a widening of the usefulness gap that already exists within the class.

@OP: Did the Interdictors inherit the changes made to dessies?

With the 15% web immunity bonus assault frigates are not intended to be primarily used with dual prop. The idea is to keep them slow as they are but to make them much harder to stop by webs. Which is fine for their role, they are intended to be used against a set of larger ships and they should be sturdy. If you want to hunt small stuff go for Interceptor, Faction Frigate or Destroyer. It does not make any sense to make assault frigates having the same role as Interceptor, Faction Frigate or Destroyers.

I notice you sidestep the gigantic signature radius buff, which is probably the most important change after the ROF penalty as far as I'm concerned. Dessies have always been too easy to hit with medium guns.

But eh, I'm not particularly fussed one way or another here.

I don't see why Rapier/Hyena gets worthless just because Assault Ships get some imunity against Webs. (Some ships have very strong radar and nobody says that they make Falcon useless.) I see the role of Assault Ships as good tanked (especially due to speed/sig tanking while using Afterburner) ships to dive into the enemy blob. So if you are concerned about them getting too fast with MWD in combination with web imunity then I propose to simply limit the web imunity to not be used in combination with MWD. (Basically if MWD is used then web imunity is not working or significantly reduced.)

How about a 7.5% reduction to the heat generated from overloading per skill level? Or a 5% bonus to the overloading bonus per skill level? I think that would give them more of an assault (quick in and out) feel. Also it would give them more opportunities to counter destroyers and isolated ships, but would mean they lose viability in drawn out fights.

You sure use the word "honestly" a lot, do you by any chance have a reputation for lying or do people just naturally distrust you?

Question is if AFs should be able to take out destroyers in the first place, dessies have always been meant to be the bane of all frigates but insta-wrecks against everything else .. they are the proverbial paper to the AF (and other frigs) stone. Just as one stays well clear of Curse when out joyriding in a Zealot, so should one stay clear of Destroyers when out in a frigate.

My problem with the buff is that it tramples all over the lower tier cruisers which is just too much. Take cost-to-field into account and I fear we have seen the very last of all but Ruptures, Vexor/Thorax (for a time until blasters get boring again) and just about the entire Amarr T1 lineup (Nomen not included 'cause it rocks!). The only one to avoid this is Caldari because they have such breadth in their cruisers with only the Osprey being a bit naff.

I had gotten used to not being able to field most cruisers against the pirate cruisers and Ruppies but now I have to start avoiding the lowly dessies as well .. humbug!

It would be close but I bet you could get pretty close to taking down a thrasher with an overheated AB to close range, overheated reps, and overheated blasters to end things quickly. Unfortuantely there's not much that can help your drones. Also have to weight different tactics for AC vs arty thrashers.

You will just get neutted to death if you take an AF vs anything bigger than a destroyer

Additionally, they are "assault" frigates. I imagine them to be on the front-lines or fighting alone\in very few numbers, so I don't think it should be a ship class that is delegated a support role and has to rely on bigger ships. Because if it did, why not just fly the bigger ship in the first place (T1 cruisers are cheaper than AFs and have more dps\tank)?

No it doesn't. Ever fight a dual small neut rupture? Completely ruins your day if you're in an AF. I've flown an Ishkur pretty much exclusively for months now, and know where it can win and where it will fail, so I'm not just talking out of my butt. Bigger boats with neuts = a dead frigate.

Also, I personally fit my Ishkur with a cap booster all the time, but I don't believe cap boosters should become necessary just to stay competitive. It becomes a "potion chugging"" problem, and would really limit the diversification of fits you would see fielded. Plus, against something like a dual-neut rupture, it's not really going to help you out.

Perhaps web resistance would help in some scenarios, but I don't think that is going to be what fixes assault frigates for the above reason. You can just get neutted and lose your AB, web or no web. Anything besides minmatar is especially screwed because you need cap to keep shooting. Economically, there just isn't enough cap to keep shooting, keep your ab up, scram, etc. Again, I have played with my AF only for months, I have died plenty of times and know what won't work. I can tell you now simply giving AFs a web resistance will not fix them.

CCP needs to go back to step one and redefine what role these ships are supposed to fill, and proceed from there.

In my eyes, they should remain as super-frigate killers, and have their role expanded in that area. I would love to see them buffed against destroyers and interdictors as well, but I imagine this won't happen for a while as destroyers just received their buffs after being useless for so long (except the thrasher of course...). One thing that would work very well would be a scram range bonus, which would help catch intys and other fast frigates; you could imagine how beneficial this would be to a fleet, as well as the solo\small gang pvper.