Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I agree that this is an issue, and the extremely high alpha associated with citadel missiles makes this a valid concern.

Has there been any consideration of cutting the size / damage of each individual missile in half? Half the damage per missile, twice the rate of fire, half the production cost. This would make the alpha less dangerous & easier to handle with RR, allowing Phoenixes & gun dreads to be a roughly equivalent threat to subcaps. So long as capitals can support sub-caps (Triage), it's also reasonable for dreads to threaten sub-caps when supported properly.

Fozzie, if your intent is to make the Phoenix an anti-capital platform primarily, that's all well and good, but so long as it doesn't exceed some proportion of a Moros / Nag's anti-subcap capability, there's no need to compromise it's anti-capital damage application.

I'm totally thrilled this ship is getting a look. I actually unlocked the Phoenix recently and am currently training navigation skills and whatnot to get it battle ready. So I can fly it but haven't used it yet. So the timing of this adjustment is wonderful for me. While I have no direct experience with the ship yet I have been thinking hard about it, reading, doing math, etc.

Conceptually the changes are excellent. Removing the attachment to kinetic damage gives this ship what the Caldari are known for - damage type selection. Great move. The tank helps. Another good move.

As for the maths, by my reckoning, the explosion radius nerf is too extreme. Considering what some have said here and elsewhere that to actually affect a change in blap cap doctrines just being able to hit battleships pretty hard is not enough to make a dread a sub cap blapper (cruisers are the aim). In my view, the explosion radius increase isn't needed at all. One poster suggested something like 2400. This might be ok. But frankly, I just don't see how leaving the current explosion radius untouched with the other changes going into effect will make the Phoenix overpowered.

Also, an extreme update on citadel hit points is needed. Won't make the ship OP. Just remove one of the counters to it.

I'm like everyone else here. The explosion radius nerf is a problem. Everything else is fantastic. You could increase their effectiveness with a few more changes, foremost on my mind are the missile hit points.

Bottom line, get this thing on Sisi and see what people say. I imagine the explosion radius nerf will need to be reduced or removed. In any event, thanks for giving attention to what I hope will be my favorite ship.

How about give the torpedos a great(~50%) increase in dps so the torpedo phoenix become the nr 1 structure killer out there, while not being able to apply that entire dps on another caps?(tweak the numbers some more if needed to)
it will have a role now and make structure shooting a bit less time consuming for small/med corp/alliances;
leave the cruise as they are right now,

oh and one more thing: can we get a decrease in size on the capitals mods? they where increased because ppl used them for mineral compression but now withe the reprocessing nerf there is no need for the mods to remain that big

As an EFT-warrior with too much money and too many accounts (two of which may or may not be training capital missiles), quick numbers on the blap Phoenix for context. Please correct me on things I will inevitably get wrong.

Assumptions:

• Phoenix is blap-fit: 4 CN BCUs, meta torp launchers, faction ammo (it's cheap), max Warhead Rigor Catalyst rigs. GP-806, TN-906 implants plugged in.
• Target is standard fit Guardian (from my understanding of standard): 1600mm Steel II, 3 active hardener, EANM, AB. Transversal is maximized (not hard against siege).
• A maxed Info Warfare - Electronic Superiority link is used. A max armor resist link is also used for the Loki/Rapier EHP numbers, but that's less important.
• Webs are non-bonused Fed Navy and TPs are Domination.
• All V skills.
• Guardian AB is taken to be T2. Even with the buff, triple non-bonused webs are not going to make a Guardian go slower than exp velocity. Which simplifies things, since you can just divide the damage figures by a simple factor to get numbers for higher meta ABs. Same goes for Halo implants: they are assumed unplugged, if you want the plugged figure it's just one multiplication away.
• Loki is assumed to be 3-web/2-paint. ~325k omni-EHP w/o Slaves.
• Rapier is assumed to be 3-web/3-paint. ~100k omni-EHP w/o Slaves, with 1.2bil in Bailey plates.

Rubicon Phoenix + Loki: 1,011 / 13,172 DPS/alpha

Rubicon Phoenix + Loki + Strong Crash: 1,445 / 18,817 DPS/alpha

Rubicon Phoenix + Rapier: 2,044 / 26,616 DPS/alpha

Rubicon Phoenix + Rapier + Strong Crash: 2,919 / 38,023 DPS/alpha



Kronos Phoenix + Loki: 944 / 9,220 DPS/alpha

Kronos Phoenix + Loki + Strong Crash: 1,348 / 13,172 DPS/alpha

Kronos Phoenix + Rapier: 1,907 / 18,631 DPS/alpha

Kronos Phoenix + Rapier + Strong Crash: 2,725 / 26,616 DPS/alpha



So the dreaded 4/5-boxed dual-Phoenix + 2bil full-Slave Rapier fleet that can run C5/6 escalations and also alpha Guardians off the field is well gone.

That said, to echo a lot of people in this thread: why not let it do full damage to all triage/siege carriers/dreads, like the rest of the dreads can do? You only need to slightly shift the torp sig radius nerf from 50% to 45% and at least it can hit Archons for full damage. Shift it to 43% or a prettier 40% and it can hit Nids for full damage too. Hell, in my opinion, the alpha nerf alone is almost enough to keep the cruiser-blapping Phoenix a gimmick rather than let it become an actual thing.

The main problem is that the Phoenix is the only dread in the game whose damage-application rigs have no stacking penalty and stack "subtractively" rather than "additively". I forget the correct word for that second part, but the gist of the matter is that 3 rigs on a Phoenix give a 84% boost to 'tracking', while 3 rigs on any other dread only give 50% boost to tracking. For comparison, your standard blap-fit Moros (1 TE, 2 speed-scripted TC, 2 optimal-scripted TC) gets a 72% tracking boost when T2-fit and a 86% boost when faction-fit.


One could argue that to fix blap Phoenixes, you'd just have to bring their 'tracking' rigs in line with other dreadnoughts.

Edit: Edited my edit out, as it was a stupid edit.

I have a cruise battleship that can 1 shot a Tristan off the field when said Tristan is MWDing about (and that wasn't even using Novas!). It's all in the rigs.

LordServant showed that in a limited type of engagement, which only really works because the Phoenix is so terrible and everyone knows it, the Phoenix can double-shot BS's and blap HACs.

In fact, a Citadel Cruise fit Phoenix isn't as bad as thought when it comes to C5/6 escalations, as DPS is flat across the range of engagement. If you control the range of engagement, it can apply a good proportion of the 6,000 paper DPS.

So, assuming that Fozzie's numbers stack up you now have 7,500 DPS to see frittered away by something being nudged up to the astounding velocity of 0.1m/s.

This is still 70% of the raw paper DPS of a Moros.

However, lets take a typical Foxcat, sig 370, velocity 132. Actual applied DPS is currently 775 for a Phoenix. This will go up 38% from the explosion velocity buff to about 1050. Add another 18% for the buff to explosion radius, and it's 1200 applied DPS (without TPs, rigs, etc.).

Add triple T2 flare cat rigs, and it's 1760.

A Moros vs a Foxcat outperforms if the Foxcat has any form of transversal. No TP's are neccessarily needed.

Doubling sig radius for the new phoenix will simply double the applied DPS, but it will never come close to that of the Moros. It simply cannot, due to the fact the Moros has about 50% more raw DPS.

And, note, that this is the pimpingest Phoenix imaginable, a meagre 5.4B.

The buff is a move in the right direction, and I can see why you want to be cautious. As I've said, I've cracked how to make a BS into a missile instablapper for frigs and dessies, with a stupid 90km+++ engagement envelope. Turning the Phoenix into this isn't even threatened to be happening from these changes.

So, let's at least get the explosion radius down to the 600 level before rigs (50% or less of what it is now) because you can then rig it down to the 350-450 area, giving good damage application vs stationary battleships. The explosion velocity buff could then stay as it is, allowing ships to move fast enough (excepting ofc 90% webs) to mitigate 75% of the DPS.

In short, niche PVPers and theorycraft grand wizards can make this OP in limited circumstances. But it's never going to be the new Slowdrake doctrine.

Phoenix to nobody necessary museum piece! I was such and such remains. These changes will give nothing. Phoenix won't buy. The reason in that that, Moros and Naglfar are universal. The phoenix such doesn't become.
While the Phoenix won't cause a loss so much how many Moros and Naglfar... On the same purposes... it won't be necessary. Because Moros and Naglfar well replace it.

The key difference being that guns have Tracking Computers and Tracking Enhancers, while missiles have nothing of the sort. There is literally only one viable way to locally improve missile application and that is Rigors. Fitting webs/paints isn't local, and aren't exclusive to missile damage.

Right, which is the reason Fozzie is ending up in a place he doesn't like:

• You can't buff Phoenix damage-application because, when combined with its tracking rigs, the blap would be too strong.
• You can't balance Phoenix damage-application around the blap-fit because no one is going to bother with a dread that needs tracking rigs to deal damage to other caps.
• You can't nerf tracking rigs because, unlike for other dreads, there are no module equivalents.

Like others in this thread, I'm currently at the opinion that you balance the blap Phoenix by reducing its alpha. From my perspective, the only scary thing about blap Phoenixes is the possibility of point-blank alpha-ing competent Guardians in WH engagements (where you can't just bring extra cap support). Currently that's only possible if you bring a Rapier, which dies very quickly if it's not storyline-fit, with armor links, and a Slave set on top of it all. I feel that's far from overpowering.

Problem is the Missile system.

We can twist and turn and maybe find a agreeable solution to the current problems, 3 updates later something else changes that indirectly effects missiles and we're back at missiles (Capitals in this matter) being either horrible OP or Horrible UP.

The lack of variables and ways to adjust the variables that are there will keep causing problems.

Although I really appreciate CCP efforts on tackling this problem through ships, it should be the system that needs to be balanced first.

Preferable from scratch to see what works and can survive changes in it's environment.