Ships & Modules

Before this spins any further out of control - I miss the OLD GEDDON. The one with laser bonus and as a side dish it had 125mbits of unbonused drone fury.

It's ultimate role was the HS afkposbashermobile. Make it cap stable, launch sentries, shoot tower, and go mow the lawn. I don't miss bashing HS pos, but I do miss the feel of landing on grid with a giant penis shaped monster of laser death doom and despair. It just felt so..... manly.

Then you neut him and watch him flail around as his drones murder him. Or neut, scram drops, cycle MWD for transversal and volley him.

Well thats what i'd do anyway.

paladin would work better as you can use bastion to stop code from bumping you

It doesn't help when their price tag quadrupled over the last 4 years. Not only are people not understanding them they aren't placing them in any risk either. Most peoples experience with battleships is limited to pve.

Battleships are a legacy of EVE from 2003/4 - They are not designed for the present state of the game (regardless of the meta).

Back when they were first created there was no Abaddon/Rokh/Maestrom or Hyperion - Those are later additions than even the Pirate BS's. Some have been updated nicely like the Typhoon to better represent a battleship's role. The MJD module has give some battleships a revitalized role in small gang. However they are stupidly slow to warp and represent big fat easy to tackle targets (excepting the Dominix and current Armageddon because of neuts).

The Scorpion's ECM specialization is unique amongst the platforms and leaves it lacking. It fills the most niche role and used to be the best option for it. Now you have rook/falcon/griffon/kitsune and others for jams. Additionally the % based ECM mode at the moment makes it very slot inefficient given how it cannot easily avoid being caught. It also has very little ability to take damage.

The Armageddon was rebalanced and represents the aging sentry-drone meta. It at least can be creatively fit. It used to be just a weak version of its Navy counterpart.

The Apoc is dimmed by the light of its Navy brother in arms - being only a bit more cap efficient.

The Abaddon is in a good place as a fleet ship but it also lacks a certain uniqueness since the apoc navy issue does basically the same job better.

The Raven is accepted widely as a decent pve platform but is heavily criticized by many PvPers in terms of its PvP ability because it is slow and some of the damage is easier to mitigate than say what the faster similarly armed Typhoon can accomplish. - It is redundant and its Navy sister ship is better in every way making it twice over redundant.

The Rokh is a fun gunship and has found its place in sov fleets, solo PvP (for those doing the dual ASB blaster fits) or smart bombing. - So the Caldari get 1 useful battleship and the Amarr also get 1 (in term of T1 lineup).

The Gallente:

Dominix - most flexible and useful battleship hull in-game. Drones drone drones
Megathron - fills a similar fleet role to the Rokh
Hyperion - Solo/Micro Fleet ship - still not as good as a Dominix for most things. - Better at Tackling a carrier. and solo tanking it (well before the fighter buff) - now largely useless.

Gallente get 2 Bs's that are useful although I'd go with 1.5x instead of 2 since the mega is still a bit underwhelming.

Minmatar:

Typhoon - Second only to the Domi in terms of usefulness. - Relatively fast, good damage across all ranges and applies it well. Can be Shield or Armor tanked and has drones. Its good. It is a better Raven.

Tempest - Recently boosted - fun ship - but honestly Typhoon or Maestrom accomplish the same thing.

Maelstrom - Fleet Artillery or Bait Tanked Cyno Ship. - Good but honestly a bit lackluster these days - Still a better Tempest than the Tempest all things being equal.

minmatar also get 1.5x battleships.

Navy BS's are T1 battleships on steroids with the notable Scorpion Navy Issue being a weaker version of the Rattlesnake.

Pirate BS's have more flavor with the top 2 being the Rattlesnake and Machariel. Dominix Navy Issue has a gun bonus rather than double drone, the Nightmare is good in incursions but sees little action elsewhere since its AB bnus is not significant enough to matter and it still moves like a small moon.

The Vindicator is awesome but only thanks to a 90% web and fairly generous fittings.

The Nestor is a BS that is a surprise for most. Over priced and under-powered it can turn the tide in a battle when used properly - still underwhelming considering the cost.

The Barghest - Point Range bonus and missiles and almost as fast as a Machariel? Made to Order awesome. Basically what the Raven or scorpion should have been post tiericide. Stealth Pancake.

Navy Armageddon - slightly higher DPS version of the Navpoc - moderately useful but Navpoc's damage projection and tracking bonus make it preferred. T1 Geddon's cap warfare is staggeringly more useful in a fleet than the Navy Geddon's damage. Missiles and drones+cap warfare is pretty sweet for options and it has one more mid-slot.

Navy Raven - King of PVE - never significantly seen in PvP in any role (abject failure).

Navy Typhoon - more heavily armored and flexible brother to the typhoon - Not bad but personally I'd rather just use a typhoon in most engagements anyhow. Maybe I'm wrong but this is one case where the T1 ship outshines its navy counterpart even if just barely.

All in all - Battleships suck because they are slow and for the most part do not apply damage well to swarming targets. They do not feel like the awesome beasts they were meant to be in 2003/4/5.

Marauders:

They are their own thing - useful in PvP with the Vargur and Golem being the best since their weapons don't use capacitor and their shield tanks are quite hard to breach. PvE They are still king with the Kronos and Paladin being easier to kill by far due to cap reliance.

Black Ops - They all suck - But the Sin and Panther are the easiest to fit and make flexible. The Widow can be scary with enough of them and the Redeemer is a good choice if you can't fly the Sin or Panther. Widows are for special snowflakes (including myself as it was my first BLOPS BS) I'll take the Panther with 1400's over anything except a hospital Sin any day.

but. but ... cost is not a balancing paremater... (c) CCP

and then CCP throws in ridiculous build-in bunuses to the hulls. 100-150% base damage bonus, the most shiny being 375% on the Rattlesnake. LOL WUT? 4 !! four!! times normal output? (i'm aware of bandwidh)

And what do we see? Who the hell needs navy scorp? Or scorp?

Who the hell needs navy caracal/osprey if the is gila/orthrus

Bad design. ggwp.

Historically, crappy scan resolution on battleships was used as a balancing factor, going back to 2003 - early 04, between them and smaller ships.

This was before signature resolution for turrets was implemented as the principal means of balancing big vs small; I guess the idea at the time was "give the little guy chance to run away".

Battleships always did have a place as part of a fleet concept, both in game and in real life. They also had a place as solo roamers both in game and in real life.

The problem today, they're useless in both roles comparative to other hulls such as T3, T2 and even the supposed tacklers (inties) who often now just form fleets of themselves.

Successive nerfs and buffs of both battleships and other ships have found the battleship lacking in almost all areas but especially in mobility which is an essential part of all PvP and will become more important in future.