Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The 20% bonus to damage pr level is way too strong for RLML. Great suggestion.

I've tossed this into the relevant CSM channel. I agree with your logic.

The response will probably be NDA, but hey. Keep up the good work.

What about the Barghest

What makes them too powerful is the combination of speed + point range. Ships that get a point bonus should not also be faster than nearly every other ship in the class. The Ares is only 180 m/s faster than a Garmur with MWDs active and it's an interceptor. If I'm not mistaken the Dramiel is the only non-interceptor frigate that can catch a Garmur.

The Orthrus is the same thing. Fight a cruiser that isn't a Cynabal or Vagabond and you dance to victory or warp out if you can't tank your opponent.

Reducing the clip size will only make them take longer to kill their targets. At best some targets will force the Mordus ship to warp off. It won't actually give those targets a chance at a kill.

I am 100% not debating that the Orthrus is incredibly powerful and in my opinion, by far, the most oppresive ship in the current meta. I just want to suggest a Chisel, into what could hopefully be several, small Chisels at the Orthrus' power level.

This wont make much sense to many people so here is supporting maths.

Current :100(BaseD)*2.0(LVL5DMGMOD)/10(BaseROF) = 20DPS
Proposed: 100(BaseD)*1.5(LVL5DMGMOD)/7.5(25%ROF) = 20DPS

In all aspects they share the same period of 0 effective DPS during reloads. Which effectively means the damage output will remain the same.

Impact on RLMLs however will be neglible as spewing their load faster only facilitates the ability to blast through rep cycles that much easier.

IMHO there is nothing wrong with the Othrus, just as there is nothing wrong with RLMLs

While the premise in design is correct, I must -1 the idea since the capacity to dunk these ships exists in several varieties already, and many many ships (including frigs) can handle RLMLs. I recommend spending less time using your talents finding nerfs for things, and use them to design ships capable of combating them.

(Fun fact, 10mn D3s wreck Orthrus, unfortunately they were actually OP in other areas and had to be nerfed a bit...still a viable counter though all be it taking a bit longer having to sacrifice damage output for speed and tank.)

People often fail to do that whole "counter build" thing, even though its reasonable. That said, the Orthrus is still wildly powerful, and we need some dulling of the pointy sticks.

I will continue to disagree with this.

Lets look at some other Pirate Cruisers.

The Stratios. 600+ DPS, 70K EHP Tank, Cov Ops Cloak, Scanning Bonuses
The Phantasam 600DPS+ 40K EHP Tank,100mn AB

Both of these ships produce more DPS than even a HAM Orthrus, with better tanks, Both of these ships are capable of countering Orthrus at ITS Range (Phantasm with Beams, Stratios with Drones) OR The Orthrus is out of its point Range applying DPS in which case both can leave.

This isn't even getting started on the vast array of ships that have similar strengths and weaknesses at the T1 level (cruisers) let alone the T2 level (Frigs/Dessies/Cruisers) or the T3 Level (Dessies/Cruisers) or the BC level.

Yes the Orthrus is a great hunter ship, it is very good at finding and holding prey, and in many cases the unprepared (aka specifically targeted) prey get destroyed. This is what hunter ships are very good at doing. In a situation where an Orthrus is exposed to any risk I can think of a dozen Cruiser and under ships that can take it on and walk away.

FYI 100mn Beam Phantasm is the hard counter to Orthrus. It reduced is applied DPS by over 70%, it is faster with an AB than the Orthrus with MWD. Stratios is a soft counter it can hit the Orthrus in any range the Orthrus can keep it pointed, with near perfect application itself.

Orthrus is not OP or wildly powerful. It has a niche use, and it is very good in that role. In almost all other cases it is just a ship...

And this of course is ignoring entirely that EVE is not a solo game, and looking at stuff in a vacuum is stupid.

Every ship in the game has the ability to pick and choose its engagements. The only notable exceptions to this are

A) A covops cloaking ship sneaks up on you
B) A Combat Recon ship sneaks up on you.

For everything else there is DSCAN available in space all the time. See something you don't like, warp away. See something you do like. Look for a fight.

In regards to RLMLs, yes the Orthrus can make good use of them. Of course any ship with an AB is also going to reduce the incoming DPS by roughly half since it doesn't get an application bonus, and ya you might not ever be able to catch the Orthrus yourself, but with AB you can buy time to call in back up because EVE is not a solo game, and the best ship to use in every situation is friendship.

The Orthrus and RLMLs (in general) are situationally good, and situationally terrible. Neither is an end all be all in combat effectiveness, both have their counters hard and soft, and both counter other things hard and soft.

That my friend is balance.

A Ham Orthrus Actually does exceptionally more DPS than 600. Here is a T2 Fit HAM Orthrus, Obviously if you were flying an Orthrus then Faction Scram > Faction Point & Faction BCUs would be a priority, and very reasonable upgrades but I've limited the fit to T2 Modules only for the sake of argumentation and ease of comparison. I would also like to point out that the Orthrus gets exponentially better with force multipliers like Snakes, Links, and Faction) I have also left obvious implant upgrades absent.

http://puu.sh/hrvNq/a6d5083f3b.png 906 Max DPS with Rage (783 DPS without Heat) 30km Optimal.
http://puu.sh/hrw24/6b70ecd360.png 784 Max DPS with CN (680 Without Heat) 36.5km Optimal
http://puu.sh/hrw6h/78adb6b7a9.png 633 Max DPS with Javelin (551 Without Heat) 54.7km Optimal

However I am not here for the HAM Orthrus, despite it out-damaging every Caldari Battlecruiser without it being kinetic locked, and only having 10% less DPS than the Nighthawk, while being more than 100% faster than all those ships. It is certainly powerful but it has weaknesses in the current meta-game and requires webbing support in a gang to apply damage, and it's not nearly as powerful without links+faction. Hams are completely different when you have a 27km linked heated domination scram

RLMLs are effective against all sizes of targets, your post reads as you're suggesting that RLMLs are a weapon system tailored specifically for dealing with frigates, however, an Orthrus with Fury missiles right now with 3 T2 BCUs will do over 40k EHP of damage before needing to reload, with select-able damage type, If you count a set of Acolyte II drones into that equation, they will do about 4.4k EHP of damage in 60 seconds, which brings it up to 44k damage. That will kill pretty much every BUFFER FIT cruiser in the game. Not to mention that you need a ship which can potentially catch a 2.3km/s ship (Before links/snakes) that can field a 26km defensive scram in the worst case. The Orthrus is not made of Glass and there is actually a really tanky, semi-pimp fit which has a XLASB and a shield extender with damage control. A Vexor/Thorax will die to an Orthrus even in Blaster Optimal. Unlike HAMs which struggle with Frigates, RLMLs can 2 shot the majority of frigates in the game, and 3-4 shot even buffer fit pirate frigates like worms.

The DPS figures I'm using have reloads factored off. I'm doing that only to show how much effective DPS it does before reloading. Typically, an Orthrus takes around a minute to reload, assuming you can heat for the first 10 cycles of RLML, then turn off heat. So the DPS figures are accurate for the first minute of combat.

http://puu.sh/hrxvF/d5e3a56187.png

Unlinked 'Semi Pimp' fit. 42.6K (47K) Damage before reloading, 24k EHP + 19K EHP regenerated from the XLASB assuming you only use the charges and never use it for cap, and that you don't get a reload, puts this Orthrus up to 43k EHP. 850 DPS while heating. 850 DPS (735 Cold). With Faction it does 712 DPS with heat. The Orthrus does more damage than most GANK FITTED Blaster Cruisers, with Light Missiles to 57km+.

The "Worst Case" Linked fit with implants, just wanted to leave it here http://puu.sh/hrxR3/5d59f82f57.png . 930 DPS. 3.7km/s without heat, 31k EHP + 25k EHP regenerated from XLASB charges (56k EHP total). This can break dual rep battleship fits with light missiles.

My proposal is, despite the Orthrus being absolutely dominating right now (no pun intended) that RLML Damage per clip is reduced.