Assembly Hall

T3's are currently the closest thing to a subcapital pwnmobile. They excel in many areas and have too few weaknesses to stay true to eve's rock, paper, scissors concept. And although with their modularity they are supposed to be jacks of all trades and thus master of none, they overshadow various (specialized) T2 ship classes.

What I propose to fix this is not a dramatic nerf, but a mild adjustment which is far from killing the usefulness of the ship class.

- Reduce the number of rig slots to 2. In keeping with the T1/T2 tradition it should even be only 1, but lets leave it at 2 for now. Dropping a rig slot has basically two effects: One is losing a bit of flexibility, of which the T3's still have plenty through the subsystems, the second is reducing a bit of whichever characteristic people were maxing before: buffer, cap, dps, etc.
- Reduce the bonus to effectiveness of gang links of the Warfare Processor subsystem from 5% to 3%, to bring it in line with fleet command ships. A maxed and mindlinked T3 can give some pretty insane bonuses, more so than field CS, which are supposed to be top dog here.
- Increase subsystem skill rank from 1 to 2 at least. Even considering the possibility of skill loss upon death, the training time for such a powerful ship class is a joke. I'm not a fan of the skill loss mechanic, but if it is to be kept, I'm in favor if increasing the risk inherent in flying T3's.

I'd like to include other things like a maybe a 10% reduction of EHP across the board, but unlike CCP I'm in favor smaller tweaks at a time. One would have to see how these changes play out in the wild. There's probably other small tweaks that could be included in this list now, please comment.

I'm aware this proposal is controversial because obviously no one wants their shiny toys nerfed. But let's do it for balance. I am also aware that some T3's are under-performing, especially the Legion. Although this is a nerf proposal to the ship class, I am not opposed to giving some love to specific T3 ships or aspects.

I'm not sure how the Legion can be classed as "under performing" unless you compare it to the Tengu.

The Tengu is overpowered. Want proof? Simply head out to any mission hub. Where are the CNRs, Golems, Machariels, Paladins? It feels like half of the populace are flying Tengus these days. I say feels like because I'm making the claim without sitting down and performing a survey.

The nerf the Tengu needs is not HP or rig slots, it's simply a nerf to the combined bonuses of extra kinetic damage, extra rate of fire, and extra range: no other missile boat in the game gets all three bonuses together. A Tengu pilot should have choices to make: perhaps the fifth offensive subsystem can be a long range/damage bonus subsystem, while the current one gets diminished to the rate of fire/kin damage bonuses.

As for warfare link processors: the contest between command ships and strategic cruisers could easily be evened out if fleet boosting had to be done on-grid. No need to nerf the 5% T3 bonus, since you won't be able to fit more than two warfare links if you want to have any kind of tank. More warfare links means more command processors and more CPU mods, which means fewer mid or low slots for tank.

All this is only my opinion of course, but I actively abuse a 6-link off-grid booster Tengu while flying a HML mission tengu. I would fly a CNR if the Tengu wasn't just so damned good.

Who gives a **** about "PvE balance"? That's like saying that cruise missiles are overpowered because CNRs are the most common faction BS in mission hubs. That's not a comment on how balanced the ships are, it's a comment on how bad EVE's PvE is.

Trying to balance ships around the brain-dead NPCs we have instead of trying to balance the NPCs against the way ships actually work in PvP is the fundamental error here.

And that's full of #### as well.

Malcanis is right...and even then...this proposal is full of ####.

You really dont strike me as someone who knows pvp when it comes to tech 3 ships... I am getting a vibe your butt hurt in getting owned by one.

Try burning through several tech 3 ships in PVP engagements and then come back here and tell me otherwise.

Not supporting.

So the fact that the Tengu receives range, damage and rate of fire bonuses when no other missile-based ship in the game gets those bonuses, is no cause for concern? That T3 cruisers get two bites of the overheating bonuses cherry is no cause for concern?

The fundamental error here is you running off on a tangent simply because I brought up an example of how T3s are unbalancing the mission-running aspect of the game. Do you dispute that a missile-based Tengu performs better in PvP than a Cerberus? Do you dispute that off-grid boosting allows T3 ships to perform fleet boosting better than a command ship? Is overheating irrelevant to PvP combat?

Cerberus, really?

I think the main "balance" issue here is that you are comparing a 500m-2b ISK ship to a cerberus. T3 ships are, for all intents and purposes, the most expensive sub-capital ships that people regularly field in PvP.

Also, part of the reason those mission hubs are filled with Tengu pilots is probably due to the fact that Tengu training time is minuscule compared to that of a golem, or faction battleship. Although the Tengu is probably a little imbalanced in that respect, it's hardly game breaking.


Only half a carrier? xD My T3 is about the same price as my Chimera :P

I wouldn't call that a mild nerf. About my only point of agreement is that spread of missile bonuses on the one subsystem that has them. Really though, its DPS is tied to the bonuses offered by stationary targets and fleet boosting. I've dusted one in a Merlin and took almost 0 DPS flying in a straight line away from it. Autocannon Cane and I wouldn't have been so lucky.

That's a missile issue of course. Weakness of the weapon.

If the T3s get nerfed and the market drops, you'll also find a corresponding drop in supply as the wormholers find something more profitable and worth the effort to do. Spend some time in a hole and tell me how much fun it is without a crew to bash sleepers. You need some serious incentive to make guys wanna do that.

It's a special ship; leave it at that. Height of technology, advanced beyond anything the Empires have known before.

I don't think that a drop of say 20% in the value of sleeper drop would severely reduce the numbers of WH dwellers.


That's a RP argument to keep the imbalance.

Your income benchmark shouldn't be Incursions as they are in dire need of a nerf. Their risk/reward ratio is completely out of whack now that running them has been perfected. But that is getting off topic.

+1 for having balls.

As for this idea, I dunno, I'm a wh dweller so I'm inclined to scream "get off my lawn" mainly because I feel that W-space is already suffering badly from highsec incursion iskfountains, w-space has gotten alot more quiet compared to previous years.