Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I believe the issue is not with the ships. Ccp has needed drone skill bigtime which means its easier for any tom dic and harry to get almost perfect skilled pilot dps lot quicker. Now with that nerf everyone can fly sentry quick and use it which is what was intended. Ccp suggested that drones needed changes as they were being used as primary weapon. What they did not tell was drones as primary weapon was in pvr. People doing pvp before the changes were more likely to fly gun boats with drones as support. Now that the drone skills are needed it has become a primary weapon in pvp also.

So to "FIX" the Ishtar it has to be two tier effect. Nerf the bonus and revisit drone skill changes.

And that is why I say ishtars are not a huge problem in that scale because on taht scale peopel tend to fly those others ships ...

just that.

People read too much where nothign was spoken.

T3 are nto COUtner to ishtar. The ships that push some other ship out of a meta are not their coutners.. are the competitors for the same niche.

That is why the temepst is horrible.. because its is not great at any real scenario.

Losing the control range bonus and some CPU would do it too. Provided it made fitting DLA a choice.

Force them closer or force a damage/tank sacrifice for huge range.

IT ALREADY HAVE BONUS TO HEAVIES on the other 2 bonsues. Geez peopel do nto even read the ship?

The split bonuses on the isthar were already an attemtp to avoid making it too powerful

The problem is nto the ishtar. The problem are the Damm sentries.

the drake hull nerf didn't really do anything. and nothing looks like much compared to T3s, because T3s are retardedly broken.

hes right, battleships get used ALOT in incursions. pretty much incursion communities wont take any t3, any t2 cruiser or t2 BC, just t2 logi and battleships of all kinds, however what i see is lots of megas, rokhs, machariels, nightmares, sometimes 1 or 2 hyperions, (understand im shield tank incursion runner) i bet the armor fleets have a different mix but i wouldnt be surprized if its dominated by vindicators, megathrons, a few hyperions, t2 amarr marauder, navy tempest. would be surprised to see a t1 tempest in an armor fleet, and im usually surprised to find a t1 tempest in a shield fleet.

the least invasive tempest i see on these forums that i agree with is the 7/5/7 idea, i WANT my shield tank tempest, and i recently turned my tempest into an armor tank for armor incursions (most of my corp runs armor so i have to too ugh) if peeps say it needs a damage buff and 7.5% damage buff is good ok, if peeps say 5% tracking buff is needed or is too much i dont know.

but dont take my shield tempest! and if you want to change my tempest change it to 7/5/7!

I'm just happy this (nerf + strong allusion that more nerfs are coming) announcement comes right as I was beginning to train to fly the Ishtar. Now I don't have to waste all that time and can focus on other things. Thanks!

Although the Ishtar is very overpowered (it's broken) I do believe the other HACs (some of them at least) are a little underpowered. Especially when you consider their role. I also think we need to really consider what we think HAC's should be able to do.
I think the Sacriledge, the Cerberus, the Deimos and the Vagabond are very good examples of what these ships should be able to achieve.

The Sac is an excellent brawling platform that can also be pressed into being a HML long range armour fleet. It does actually work in the "sniper role" although it does rely on some drone dps out to 85 km. It could still be an option for a fleet doctrine (think Drakes of olde but armour instead of shield)

The Cerb is pretty damn good at what it does. It does appear to have a weak tank on paper but it does perform exceptionally well at what it's supposed to do which is spew missile dps.

The Deimos is a superb brawler. Although it's abilities as a sniper are quite poor it's still an extremely well balanced ship for brawling and close/medium range stuff.

The Vaga although (in my opinion) a two trick pony I believe it's in a very good place right now.

These four ships should be the base line of what the others can achieve. The DPS, damage projection, tank and mobility of these for ships should dictate the abilities of the others which are either totally overpowered (Ishtar) or totally useless in their intended role.


The Zealot is supposed to be a fleet sniper. Unfortunately it's pretty poor at this as it has some fitting restrictions and simply can't compete in range or dps. It needs a buff in PG and CPU in order to be able to fit the modules it needs to do it's job. It also needs a stronger bonus to optimal range however to achieve this I think it should drop the laser cap use bonus for an optimal range bonus (double range bonuses similar to the Eagle). This way the ship can project an acceptable amount of damage at long range but would have capacitor issues only when trying to shoot and use an MWD.

The Eagle isn't fantastic at either brawling or it's intended role as a shield sniper. It simply can't produce enough damage. If the ship swapped a low for a high slot and gained a turret hardpoint (why does it have a weird launcher hardpoint?) it would get a resonable boost in dps at long and short range whilst still focusing on guns. It does also need a small drone bay. 15M/bits 15m^3 maximum.

The Ishtar simply needs the implementation of medium sentry drones that have medium weapon stats. Battleship sized sentry drones are just obscenely overpowered on this ship. Medium sentry drones would also open a huge number of options for other ships which may need to be explored first to avoid any isues with other ship balance.

The Muninn is a ship that is in need of dire help. Although it is a really good brawler it is pathetic in it's intended role of fleet sniper. I know the optimal range bonus is designed for sniping but switching this to a falloff bonus would actually give the Muninn longer range. To compensate for fighting in falloff range the ship could use an extra turret slot. The fact the ship would struggle to fit a full rack of 425mm AC's, MWD and a 1600mm plate would compensate for the dps increase it would receive in brawler mode. If the DPS is still too high just cut it's drones down to 15 M/bits to lower the DPS a little. **EDIT** it may also needs and extra bit of PG due to the extreme PG required to fit arties or perhaps change the rig that reduces turret CPU usage for PG usage and have the drawback increase turret CPU use.


Well, that's my opinion of a balance pass to these ships to make them all viable in their roles.

And the word BATTLE means a confrontation between several opponents, does not imply person vs person can easily be person vs AI since in effect they are battling. I think trying to tell the developers how their balance process should go isn't going to get you much farther than your post. PvE is still a large part of the game, just as large as PvP is, be it missions, or pirate sites in null, so it is a significant factor that needs to be considered when looking at ship balance. Sure some ships are more suited to PvP than PvE by design, Interceptors come to mind, and the opposite is also true, Marauders are the most prominent. There will always be a ship which is best in its class for PvE, which means the others won't get as much screen time, but that's just how the player base works, you take the best ship for the job at hand.

No matter what you write.. when peopel complain about a ship not beign used they mean in PVP! PVE is irrelevant in this leve3l of balance. You can have a healthy PVE environment with 3-4 ships only being used. On PVP you cannot, diversity is paramount in PVP, not in PVE. PVE in fact cannot even possibly be unbalanced because you are not fighting any other ship in the game therefore you are not going to lose to it!

Do not even start with BALANCE discussion with the PVE word in your mind, that is blasfemy!