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[118.6] Capital Balancing

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C-137
C3 Corporation
#641 - 2016-06-27 03:18:01 UTC  |  Edited by: C-137
Sgt Ocker wrote:
So what DPS should a max DPS, Omni fit carrier do to a lone, under tanked, reasonably high sig, slow cruiser?

Sorry but; Your Onyx IS NOT SPEED TANKED - It was sig tanked, Sort of. You have at least one extender on it.

I take out my "speed" tanked Onyx - Gistum A-Type MWD, mid grade snakes, every speed, agility related HW I can fit, Strong X-Instinct and do over 2.8K (with heat). Oh and it reps just over 2,000 DPS with heat (1,600 cold) to stay alive long enough to do its job of cynoing in support to kill what I have caught.

NB; When that PVE carrier with little or no tank is caught by a well fit Hic or HK, it WILL die to the gang that gets dropped on it. You just need to fit your heavy tackle appropriately.


Congrats on running a 1b ISK HIC that still takes 600+ dps from a carrier... Actually, it takes more, since 900/175 (5.15) is better than 2460/625 (3.9). Good luck getting 2.8 km/s without nano, and good luck nano without Capacitor, and good luck MWDing without Cap. The fleet inty from earlier is 4475/70 btw (63.9). E: because XL-ASB masterrace.

You should stop before you make more of a fool of yourself.

It takes maximum aids Oynx to speed tank the same as a 100mn AB using a MWD. 3320/625 = 5.3 vs (900/175-5.15)

If you want to play EFT warrior, this fit ***** all over your 'speed tank'. 1870/113 = 16.5
Or High Grade Halo master tank 1870/101 = 18.5

Also why do I have to keep defending the target the carrier instead of us talking about the carrier and its fighters lol...
Degnar Oskold
Moira.
#642 - 2016-06-27 04:30:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Degnar Oskold
I'm guessing that the 19 views from Iceland of my youtube video showing me nuking frigates and cruisers on gates were CCP watching and concluding that the heavy missile volley was OP.

Thanks for the maths and practise done by people in this thread, I've refitted my carrier for use post-patch. It will probably now be used for supplementary DPS rather than nuking.

I think I can still make gatecamps work, it will just take a bit more effort. Before I could do it it with a small fast lock ship and a carrier. Now it will need a small fast lock ship for initial tackle, a rapier for sustained tackle and webs, and the carrier. I think it's still possible to work out, will need real life testing.
ISD Fractal
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#643 - 2016-06-27 13:15:44 UTC
I have removed a double post.

ISD Fractal

Lieutenant

Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)

Interstellar Services Department
Vic Jefferson
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#644 - 2016-06-27 15:17:29 UTC
Bad Show CCP.

Every other part of the game is producing lots of really great change. The Art team is fantastic, the new structures are great, AegisSov itself has been a fantastic force for good!

A good deal of that in my assessment is that they stay the course. Ship balancing may be harder, but these knee-jerk reactions just cause a lack of faith entirely. the meta has been stale for years now - horribly stale, while every other part of the game has undergone large and refreshing renewal.

Carriers actually had a purpose and fit well into the entire balance of things - they had a good role and people wanted to fly them. The first few weeks, people had real trouble dealing with them, but as time went on and people learned how, things got better; this is the sign of good balance where tactics and how the ships are piloted are as important as the dry, on paper stats.

EvE is supposed to be a game of soft and hard counters. Carriers hard countered some forms of nano gang, and in return, were very hard countered by dreads or anything resembling a disciplined fleet. These changes just make carriers into large targets to validate nano-gangs - i.e. the only thing worth flying because of the horrible, stagnant meta you won't stop catering to.

I thought you wanted ships to have roles. LIke the entire TII ships being specialists. Carriers -had- a role. Now you want to get rid of it due to all the crying by 'elite' pvpers.

You had a chance to break the meta and make more things worth flying - now you are just regressing towards the same boring kite meta, the same boring ship choices, and the same putting nano on a pedestal where it is free of hard counters, but itself counters so much. Its horribly un-EvE like.

Very disappointing here.

Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
Momiji Yakumo
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#645 - 2016-06-27 15:47:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Momiji Yakumo
Tavion Al wrote:
Agrakari Saraki wrote:
The original 900% NSA scanres boost made it a nightmare to keep carriers tackled with dictors, as they just instalock you and alpha the dictor off the field. If the intention was to prevent this, I don't think that the nerf to 500% meaningfully improves this situation. The carriers can still lock dictors in 3 seconds, which isn't enough time to burn out of your bubble and escape. Add to that the immense buff to cruiser application, and even HICs have a hard time keeping a carrier tackled before help arrives.

I think that this situation is negatively impacting content generation by allowing carriers to clear their tackle without assistance, leading to less fleet fights and content generated over tackled carriers.


Reducing it from +900% to +500% was not the only nerf to carrier scan res. Read the full notes, they are now stacking penalizied with SEBOs. Makeing the total scan res about half as much as it used to be. Here is math:

Before upcoming patch, Thanatos:
base*NSA*SEBO1*SEBO2 (1st penalty) *SEBO3 (2nd penalty)
= 81.3mm * 10 * 1.6 * (1+(0.6*0.869)) * (1+(0.6*0.571)) = 2657 mm
>>> 0.8 second lock time on a frigate.

After upcoming patch, Thanatos:
base*NSA*SEBO1 (1st penalty) *SEBO2 (2nd penalty) *SEBO3 (3rd penalty)
= 81.3mm * 6 * (1+(0.6*0.869)) * (1+(0.6*0.571)) * (1+(0.6*0.283)) = 1165 mm
>>> 1.9 second lock time on a frigate.

It is still a very fast lock, at least its no longer an instant lock... also fitting 3 SEBOs in the precious midslots as well as useing a highslot is costly...

I think the locking speed part of the problem might be fixxed. The application is still redonkulus though. They will still 1-shot every frigate.


Ofcourse carriers can, I think carriers should be able to easily wreck frigates in oneshot short of t3ds with oversized AB, it's a 3b+ fitted capital ship with significantly lower DPS specifically for fighting subcapital ships, with an incredibky high risk of loosing all of your fighters to a single frigate in the blob and being kept defenseless, and that already happens with a couple of them perma jamming your fighters. Almost every carrier engagement I've seen getting attacked, the carrier will almost always surely die. You should not be able to take out a carrier if you don't have heavy dictors and logi in fleet with energy neutralizers.
Vic Jefferson
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#646 - 2016-06-27 16:08:38 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Two words: Slowcat fleet.


One word: Dreads.

Slowcats were made by their ability to spider-tank and combat refitting, and both have been thoroughly gutted.

You are never going to see slowcats make a return again, now that dreads can reliably break them. I'm not certain you understand how vulnerable carriers are now with the eHP changes coupled with the lack of spider tanking. Dreads see a lot more action when there are carriers to decimate. When they gut carriers like this, there's less reason to fly dreads anymore, thus dreads too lose value. When they take POS out, there will literally be nothing for dreads to shoot if they nerf carriers too hard, which they are. Most carriers we spot in our area are dead within about 7-8 seconds of landing on grid thanks to how good of a hard counter dreads are.

You clearly just do not have a great grasp of capitals.

Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
Cade Windstalker
#647 - 2016-06-27 17:01:33 UTC
Vic Jefferson wrote:
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Two words: Slowcat fleet.


One word: Dreads.

Slowcats were made by their ability to spider-tank and combat refitting, and both have been thoroughly gutted.

You are never going to see slowcats make a return again, now that dreads can reliably break them. I'm not certain you understand how vulnerable carriers are now with the eHP changes coupled with the lack of spider tanking. Dreads see a lot more action when there are carriers to decimate. When they gut carriers like this, there's less reason to fly dreads anymore, thus dreads too lose value. When they take POS out, there will literally be nothing for dreads to shoot if they nerf carriers too hard, which they are. Most carriers we spot in our area are dead within about 7-8 seconds of landing on grid thanks to how good of a hard counter dreads are.

You clearly just do not have a great grasp of capitals.


Right, sure, that's why when the original nerf to sub-cap drones in Carriers happened people just started using Dominixes...

Anyways, that notwithstanding, if you feel that they've nerfed Carriers too hard then prove it? So far all the solid proof in this thread has shown two things:


  • Carriers, with proper support, are still perfectly good at killing most sub-caps, but it takes a lot for them to blap Frigates and well tanked Cruisers.
  • Carriers as they stand now, pre-patch, absolutely murder sub-caps regardless of the NSA and their effectiveness only goes up as the sub-caps get smaller, to the point that they more or less invalidate sub-cap Logistics in even moderate numbers.


How you think the above makes for a fun and balanced environment I have no idea.

Dreads are designed, specifically, to kill Caps. If you bring Carriers with no FAXes and the other guys bring Dreads then it makes perfect sense for them to die. Why is this an issue?
FT Diomedes
The Graduates
#648 - 2016-06-27 17:10:20 UTC  |  Edited by: FT Diomedes
People trying to raise the ghost of Slowcat/Boot Fleet just need to stop. That beast is well and truly dead (and good riddance).

I've only used my Carriers a few times in the last few months. In the last two fights, the other Carrier(s) nuked the targets before I even loaded grid (they undocked and jumped first). In one fight, the enemy used plenty of ECM to jam out my fighters and I got off the field. Props to them for being well-prepared.

We routinely do something similar to ratting Carriers - bring in enough bombers to kill it quickly and a couple of Falcons to jam the fighters. A well-prepared hot drop can absolutely murder ratting Carriers - as it should be. It may get slightly harder to jam out the fighters after the patch, but we can adapt and overcome.

I've also been fortunate enough to have someone aggress our Rupture fleet on a station. One cyno later, my Naglfar had a nice killmark (cannot find the damn thing, but I am assured it should be there).

Last night we fought a slightly larger T1 BC gang with a Claymore, Sleipnir, two Onyxes, and a Curse. I didn't realize our Sleipnir pilot did not know how to fit his ship. He died, but we killed a couple of their BC's. Then they dropped three Carriers on us. Somehow, all of us except the Claymore managed to warp out because the hostiles did not spread points very well. The Claymore was pointed 10km off the gate. It lived long enough to deaggro and limp back to the gate and jump through in 73% structure. Next time, I'll know these dudes like to drop capitals and prepare accordingly.

I share these stories simply to say that I think the meta is still evolving. I would not be hasty to make changes to ship balancing. Not saying CCP needs to wait as long as we waited for the nerf to Ishtars or Slow Cats/Boots, but give players some time to be creative.

I'll also admit that I don't like flying Carriers, but I love flying Dreadnoughts. Dreadnoughts need something on which to chew - Carriers are tasty. I like the idea that people are using Carriers because it means I can drop Dreadnoughts, put my balls on the table by going into siege mode, and kill them while waiting to see if they can counter-counter-drop. So, a healthy Carrier meta is important.

CCP should add more NPC 0.0 space to open it up and liven things up: the Stepping Stones project.

Vic Jefferson
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#649 - 2016-06-27 18:22:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Vic Jefferson
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Dreads are designed, specifically, to kill Caps. If you bring Carriers with no FAXes and the other guys bring Dreads then it makes perfect sense for them to die. Why is this an issue?


It's not. That's the way it is supposed to work. I'm not sure you are reading between the lines, as for the reasons to even own a dread - they are only good against caps. There's literally no reason to bring or use caps at all anymore if at least some of them don't pose a real threat to subcaps. Now that carriers are being defanged from this unique role, there's no carriers for dreads to counter. Echoing others, slowcats are DEAD, gone, all the reasons are in previous posts. So then, why undock carriers at all? They had a new niche of being subcap killers. which was great! People brought nano gangs, then came the carriers to smash them, then came the dreads, and we got the things that make eve fun - counters, escalations, tactics. Now that niche is threatened or gone; they are reduced to being targets again instead of a valuable anti-subcap cap that, in turn, was extremely vulnerable to dreads.

Carriers smash subcaps, dreads smash carriers, subcaps smash dreads. There was all sorts of interesting options in fleet design and how much you want to commit to each type, and what tactics and priorities you needed to have on grid. Now its all gone because of a bunch of crybabies talk a good talk about risk and counters, but won't stand it at all when there's a ship that poses them risk, and counters their tactics. Elite PvP nano gangs are the biggest bunch of entitled, hypocritical dingledorfs we have here.

Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
Morgaine Mighthammer
Rational Chaos Inc.
Brave Collective
#650 - 2016-06-27 18:27:31 UTC
Vic Jefferson wrote:
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Dreads are designed, specifically, to kill Caps. If you bring Carriers with no FAXes and the other guys bring Dreads then it makes perfect sense for them to die. Why is this an issue?


It's not. That's the way it is supposed to work. I'm not sure you are reading between the lines, as for the reasons to even own a dread - they are only good against caps. There's literally no reason to bring or use caps at all anymore if at least some of them don't pose a real threat to subcaps. Now that carriers are being defanged from this unique role, there's no carriers for dreads to counter. Echoing others, slowcats are DEAD, gone, all the reasons are in previous posts. So then, why undock carriers at all? They had a new niche of being subcap killers. which was great! People brought nano gangs, then came the carriers to smash them, then came the dreads, and we got the things that make eve fun - counters, escalations, tactics. Now that niche is threatened or gone; they are reduced to being targets again instead of a valuable anti-subcap cap that, in turn, was extremely vulnerable to dreads.

Carriers smash subcaps, dreads smash carriers, subcaps smash dreads. There was all sorts of interesting options in fleet design and how much you want to commit to each type, and what tactics and priorities you needed to have on grid. Now its all gone because of a bunch of crybabies talk a good talk about risk and counters, but won't stand it at all when there's a ship that poses them risk, and counters their tactics. Elite PvP nano gangs are the biggest bunch of entitled, hypocritical dingledorfs we have here.


quote for truth. i've said this before and i'll say it again, the ONLY issue that needed to be addressed was the insta-locking carrier, and nerfing the NSA was the fix to that, nothing else needed to be done but instead ccp are catering to the crybabies yet again...
Marranar Amatin
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#651 - 2016-06-27 18:50:18 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
  • "The majority of situations" depends entirely on how you use the ability and what you use it on. Because this is such a subjective measure I personally feel it should be discarded in favor of simply looking at how the ability could be used in a practical setting to maximum effect. There are plenty of examples in this thread of how to get full or near-full damage out of the ability against smaller targets.

    • Nonono you cant do that just because you like the outcome more.
    You have to look at typical situations, not just exclude certain properties arbitrarily. There was huge nerf in application, so just saying "well I assume a perfect sitation so the application is still 100%" is completely missing the point.
    It was shown many times here, that the application is going to be bad. To that you always responded with something like "well you have shown that the application is bad now, but that means nothing, since you did not proof that this is actually a problem, maybe it should be that bad". And now that the bad application is a direct argument for something you just want to ignore it and throw in an arbitrarily high number of webs and TPs until its 100% again. Thats not a good argument at all.
    If you want to balance it from the point that the application is 100%, then it actually must be 100%. If its lower then it must be treated as lower, quite simple.
    Cade Windstalker
    #652 - 2016-06-27 19:14:08 UTC
    Vic Jefferson wrote:
    Cade Windstalker wrote:
    Dreads are designed, specifically, to kill Caps. If you bring Carriers with no FAXes and the other guys bring Dreads then it makes perfect sense for them to die. Why is this an issue?


    It's not. That's the way it is supposed to work. I'm not sure you are reading between the lines, as for the reasons to even own a dread - they are only good against caps. There's literally no reason to bring or use caps at all anymore if at least some of them don't pose a real threat to subcaps. Now that carriers are being defanged from this unique role, there's no carriers for dreads to counter. Echoing others, slowcats are DEAD, gone, all the reasons are in previous posts. So then, why undock carriers at all? They had a new niche of being subcap killers. which was great! People brought nano gangs, then came the carriers to smash them, then came the dreads, and we got the things that make eve fun - counters, escalations, tactics. Now that niche is threatened or gone; they are reduced to being targets again instead of a valuable anti-subcap cap that, in turn, was extremely vulnerable to dreads.

    Carriers smash subcaps, dreads smash carriers, subcaps smash dreads. There was all sorts of interesting options in fleet design and how much you want to commit to each type, and what tactics and priorities you needed to have on grid. Now its all gone because of a bunch of crybabies talk a good talk about risk and counters, but won't stand it at all when there's a ship that poses them risk, and counters their tactics. Elite PvP nano gangs are the biggest bunch of entitled, hypocritical dingledorfs we have here.


    Like myself and several other people have said, Carriers do pose a threat to sub-caps, you just can't solo-F1-monkey your way to victory anymore. You have to think about what you're going to use, what support ships you should bring in your fleet and what you can or can't take on.

    The problem with the idea that Dreads should be the only possible counter to Carriers is it locks out huge segments of the PvPing playerbase from any combat involving Carriers. Doubly so if they're able to just alpha ships off the field regardless of Logistics.

    With these changes a small gang can potentially gather up enough ships to kill off a Carrier with little or insufficient support even if they Carrier isn't completely incompetent and the pilots doing the gank don't have super specialized fits and ships for killing a solo Carrier.

    That sort of "hey guys lets kill this joker" gameplay encourages more people to go out and fight and have fun and can lead to exactly the kind of escalations you're talking about, but it skips the initial step where the engaging side needs to have Dreads in order to take the fight, because believe it or not tons of players don't have Dread support on the other side of their red phone, they have like 10 guys in T2 Cruisers and T1 or Faction Battleships.

    Beyond that the application and alpha from Carriers was rendering Logistics all but worthless in engagements involving a small number of Carriers, or in some cases even a single one. Yourself and Morgaine might find that to have been an acceptable state of affairs but I can't imagine CCP ever leaving a situation like that, since one of the core pillars of this big ship reliance was that no ship should ever completely invalidate another. The only stumbles there have been T3Ds which need more work, and T3Cs which haven't gotten their rework yet.

    So, regarding your little rock-paper-scissors game of capital escalation: If the Capital ecosystem only has room for Capitals then what incentive is there for anyone to even bring those sub-caps in the first place?
    Cade Windstalker
    #653 - 2016-06-27 19:14:59 UTC
    Marranar Amatin wrote:
    Nonono you cant do that just because you like the outcome more.
    You have to look at typical situations, not just exclude certain properties arbitrarily. There was huge nerf in application, so just saying "well I assume a perfect sitation so the application is still 100%" is completely missing the point.
    It was shown many times here, that the application is going to be bad. To that you always responded with something like "well you have shown that the application is bad now, but that means nothing, since you did not proof that this is actually a problem, maybe it should be that bad". And now that the bad application is a direct argument for something you just want to ignore it and throw in an arbitrarily high number of webs and TPs until its 100% again. Thats not a good argument at all.
    If you want to balance it from the point that the application is 100%, then it actually must be 100%. If its lower then it must be treated as lower, quite simple.


    I could say some of the same things to you here. Your cutoff of 2 Webs and 2 TPs is ridiculous, I can fit that on a single ship if I have to and it's well below the point where stacking penalties make further modules pointless. For reference it's generally accepted that 3-4 damage modules on a PvE ship still provide a worthwhile bonus, depending on the fit. I have never seen *anyone* say that anything beyond 2 isn't worthwhile except based on slot constraints.

    Yes, the application is bad against anything that hasn't been EWar'd or against sig/speed tanked Battleships, but it's still pretty good against normal Battleships and against anything Cruiser sized or larger with even a moderate amount of EWar applied to it. A Carrier will have a moderate amount of trouble with Frigate and Destroyer sized targets, but they also have significantly lower raw and effective HP values which means that even if a Carrier can't apply full DPS to them it can still get them webbed and painted down enough to nuke them off field in a couple of volleys.

    A combined total of 5 Webs and TPs is not "arbitrarily high", your cutoff of 2 each is excessively arbitrary and stops *just short* of actual effective application by the Carrier on a Cruiser sized target, even one that's speed and sig tanking. Seriously, go do the math yourself if you don't believe me here. If you have some logical reason why 2 Webs and 3 TPs (or 3 and 2, or 1 Vindi web and 2 TPs) is somehow arbitrarily high while your 2 and 2 isn't then I'd love to hear it because it certainly isn't stacking penalties or that it's not practical to bring that many webs and TPs in even a squad-sized roam.
    FT Diomedes
    The Graduates
    #654 - 2016-06-27 19:28:18 UTC
    Vic Jefferson wrote:
    Cade Windstalker wrote:
    Dreads are designed, specifically, to kill Caps. If you bring Carriers with no FAXes and the other guys bring Dreads then it makes perfect sense for them to die. Why is this an issue?


    It's not. That's the way it is supposed to work. I'm not sure you are reading between the lines, as for the reasons to even own a dread - they are only good against caps. There's literally no reason to bring or use caps at all anymore if at least some of them don't pose a real threat to subcaps. Now that carriers are being defanged from this unique role, there's no carriers for dreads to counter. Echoing others, slowcats are DEAD, gone, all the reasons are in previous posts. So then, why undock carriers at all? They had a new niche of being subcap killers. which was great! People brought nano gangs, then came the carriers to smash them, then came the dreads, and we got the things that make eve fun - counters, escalations, tactics. Now that niche is threatened or gone; they are reduced to being targets again instead of a valuable anti-subcap cap that, in turn, was extremely vulnerable to dreads.

    Carriers smash subcaps, dreads smash carriers, subcaps smash dreads. There was all sorts of interesting options in fleet design and how much you want to commit to each type, and what tactics and priorities you needed to have on grid. Now its all gone because of a bunch of crybabies talk a good talk about risk and counters, but won't stand it at all when there's a ship that poses them risk, and counters their tactics. Elite PvP nano gangs are the biggest bunch of entitled, hypocritical dingledorfs we have here.


    Absolutely spot on.

    CCP should add more NPC 0.0 space to open it up and liven things up: the Stepping Stones project.

    Marranar Amatin
    Center for Advanced Studies
    Gallente Federation
    #655 - 2016-06-27 19:31:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Marranar Amatin
    You seriously want to tell me that 3 TPs and 3 web is a typical sitation? This is your best guess? Really? Why do you think everyone flies this kitey stuff? It would not even remotely work when everyone always had 3 webs and 3 TPs on him as soon as he is target. But it works. It works great, because in most situations, its just that the enemy can not bring 3 webs and 3 TPs on you. Not even 2.

    My 2 webs and 2 TPs are not arbitrary, but very generous for the carrier. In a typical situation you have less on you. Also I neglected links which is also very generous, usually the target will be even faster and have an even smaller sig. And additionally I did not say that a third web wont have a worthwhile effect, I said that it wont that much of a difference since I neglected stacking penalty (again very generous for the carrier). For a fair calculation you would have to include stacking penalty, and then 3 webs with penalty are not much better than 2 without.

    Its really funny how extreme you want to shift the hypothetical situation in favor of the carrier, and then claim that the weapon is not weak. 3 TPs and 3 webs is a "moderate amount of EWar" lol. You are really trying to be objective here, I am impressed. Maybe we should assume a "moderate amount of EWar" on the carrier too, like 6 modules. So the fighters are permajammed and do zero damage, obviously fighter damage is too low (since its zero) and needs to be increased by at least 300% (and then its still too low because its still zero).
    FT Diomedes
    The Graduates
    #656 - 2016-06-27 19:58:48 UTC
    Cade Windstalker wrote:
    Vic Jefferson wrote:
    [quote=Cade Windstalker]Dreads are designed, specifically, to kill Caps. If you bring Carriers with no FAXes and the other guys bring Dreads then it makes perfect sense for them to die. Why is this an issue?


    Beyond that the application and alpha from Carriers was rendering Logistics all but worthless in engagements involving a small number of Carriers, or in some cases even a single one. Yourself and Morgaine might find that to have been an acceptable state of affairs but I can't imagine CCP ever leaving a situation like that, since one of the core pillars of this big ship reliance was that no ship should ever completely invalidate another. The only stumbles there have been T3Ds which need more work, and T3Cs which haven't gotten their rework yet.

    So, regarding your little rock-paper-scissors game of capital escalation: If the Capital ecosystem only has room for Capitals then what incentive is there for anyone to even bring those sub-caps in the first place?


    I have not observed that Logistics were all but worthless. When we fight V.E.G.A. they bring enough logistics to keep things alive. As mentioned above, I tried to be the "difference maker" in a small gang fight (10-12 characters on our side versus 15-20 on their side), they used a combination of remote repairs on the target we primaried plus ECM on my fighters to basically negate me. Could 3-4 Carriers have made the difference? Possibly, but if we had 3-4 more humans in fleet, we would have been fighting them straight up rather than dropping Capitals (I realize not everyone has that philosophy).

    As for the incentive to bring sub-caps, please, go roaming in your Carrier fleet. See what happens. I bet you will catch lots of people with your superb tactical mobility and won't die horribly against any competent adversary within 5LY. There are plenty of reasons to fly sub-capital ships in this game.

    A sub-capital pilot has numerous options against Carriers, including, but not limited to:

    1. Dreadnought escalation
    2. ECM the fighters
    3. Bring more friends. It's a time-honored Eve tradition. Yes, some of you might lose your ships (the horror! the horror!), but you'll kill them if you bring enough.
    4. Run away. It's not like they are going to catch you.

    A Carrier is most dangerous in the first few seconds of the fight. If you are mentally prepared for the Carrier escalation, you can endure it. If you are not, you die. As it should be.

    CCP should add more NPC 0.0 space to open it up and liven things up: the Stepping Stones project.

    Vic Jefferson
    Stimulus
    Rote Kapelle
    #657 - 2016-06-27 20:01:05 UTC
    Cade Windstalker wrote:
    The problem with the idea that Dreads should be the only possible counter to Carriers is it locks out huge segments of the PvPing playerbase from any combat involving Carriers. Doubly so if they're able to just alpha ships off the field regardless of Logistics.

    With these changes a small gang can potentially gather up enough ships to kill off a Carrier with little or insufficient support even if they Carrier isn't completely incompetent and the pilots doing the gank don't have super specialized fits and ships for killing a solo Carrier.


    So I did a thing. I peeped your killboard, because a lot of what you are saying seems to stem from a lack of practical experience and quite frankly, sensationalism. It seems you have never been killed by a carrier, nor have you killed one. I'm on 45-6 at the moment, with a lot of those kills coming from the past few weeks - you know, where there was a reason to use them outside of a slowcat doctrine? In one of those skirmishes, I got top damage in an oracle, and Rote Kapelle held the dang thing down and defanged its fighters until help came...in a small gang. We didn't need the crutch of the game de-fanging them for us.

    As things currently stand, a competent small gang CAN and routinely do kill carriers, without dreads. I have seen sig tanking AB-phantasms laugh off the fighter damage. I have seen ceptor pilots speed, rather than sig tank and hold them for over 10 minutes. I have seen competent nano gangs apply webs and keep distance on fighter squadrons, picking them off one by one. Right now, mechanics punish so called 'f1' monkeys on both sides, a competent nano gang can deal with a carrier, and a competent carrier can deal with a nano gang. Once carriers are nerfed into the ground, skill won't be the determining factor - it will be back to the old days where carriers are just big, impractical targets, waiting to decorate someones KB...albeit without the ability to do slowcats.

    Which is why the entire thing sits so poorly with me. You have bad nano pilots complaining they want to remain being bad, not adapt at all, and are basically removing an entire ship class from the game which greatly increased ship choices, fleet diversity, and makes the meta so much more healthy. It rewarded good piloting and tactics, it made it a, get this, a GAME that was fun. The situation you want here is already the case, but the problem isn't the mechanics or the ships - it's the sensationalism and quite frankly reactionary pilots who aren't willing to adapt. I have every faith that people could appreciate how rich the changes made the game, but it is question of sloth - people want easy kills, and they want nano to be easy.

    I for one, enjoy a challenge.

    Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
    Marranar Amatin
    Center for Advanced Studies
    Gallente Federation
    #658 - 2016-06-27 20:48:30 UTC
    I agree with Vic.

    I can understand why people complaining against that insta blapping at gates, so a certain alpha nerf is fine with me. But such a blanket nerf on carrier is unecessary and it will be really sad if capitals vanish again from most fights. Its really fun to see capitals in some everday use, and not only as last escalation in huge battles.

    Even in the current state its no problem to fight a few carrier with a gang of fast cruiser if you have good logi. Mostly the killmails are a welcome bonus of the enemy decides to escalate with a few carrier.
    Cade Windstalker
    #659 - 2016-06-27 21:16:59 UTC
    Marranar Amatin wrote:
    You seriously want to tell me that 3 TPs and 3 web is a typical sitation? This is your best guess? Really? Why do you think everyone flies this kitey stuff? It would not even remotely work when everyone always had 3 webs and 3 TPs on him as soon as he is target. But it works. It works great, because in most situations, its just that the enemy can not bring 3 webs and 3 TPs on you. Not even 2.

    My 2 webs and 2 TPs are not arbitrary, but very generous for the carrier. In a typical situation you have less on you. Also I neglected links which is also very generous, usually the target will be even faster and have an even smaller sig. And additionally I did not say that a third web wont have a worthwhile effect, I said that it wont that much of a difference since I neglected stacking penalty (again very generous for the carrier). For a fair calculation you would have to include stacking penalty, and then 3 webs with penalty are not much better than 2 without.

    Its really funny how extreme you want to shift the hypothetical situation in favor of the carrier, and then claim that the weapon is not weak. 3 TPs and 3 webs is a "moderate amount of EWar" lol. You are really trying to be objective here, I am impressed. Maybe we should assume a "moderate amount of EWar" on the carrier too, like 6 modules. So the fighters are permajammed and do zero damage, obviously fighter damage is too low (since its zero) and needs to be increased by at least 300% (and then its still too low because its still zero).


    You bring the things that make your fleet effective. Wormholes ran TPs and Webs for *years* to make their Dreads able to blap sub-caps, and during the era of Titan Blapping you had entire support fleets largely made up of Lokis, Rapiers, and other Ewar just to make the Titans and Dreads better able to nuke stuff off field.

    If you can't get webs and TPs on someone then what makes you think you can hit them with much of anything else either, and for that matter how are they hitting you, because I can make Fleet Boosted webs go out a *really* long way...

    You're really failing to define a "typical situation" here, and you haven't provided any reasoning behind the "2 webs and 2 TPs" except that it seems to be what *you* have decided is a fair amount, apparently regardless of the situation. I'm sure the fact that it stops just short of full application on a Cruiser sized target (with stacking penalties btw) is coincidental... Roll

    Seriously is your typical situation, that you think should be representative of all Carrier use, against an inty-gang?

    If it's a very small gang, then sure 6 E-War modules is a lot, but in a 20 man fleet it's fairly reasonable, especially if you're planning to drop caps on someone anyway. Go up from that and "4" starts to sound even more arbitrary.

    Things need to be balanced for what players can reasonably do. Can players reasonably field 6 EWar modules in even a small support fleet? Yes? Then that's something that should be considered. Your sole argument here doesn't seem to be that Carriers can't apply damage to targets, it's that you seem to feel that requiring them to either pick their targets or bring supporting ships is unreasonable.

    As far as jammed Fighters goes, great you've jammed them, we covered that back about 20 pages. A good Carrier pilot pulls his fighters and re-launches them, on average they get off at least one strike before you can lock them up and jam them.
    Cade Windstalker
    #660 - 2016-06-27 21:41:02 UTC
    Vic Jefferson wrote:
    So I did a thing. I peeped your killboard, because a lot of what you are saying seems to stem from a lack of practical experience and quite frankly, sensationalism. It seems you have never been killed by a carrier, nor have you killed one. I'm on 45-6 at the moment, with a lot of those kills coming from the past few weeks - you know, where there was a reason to use them outside of a slowcat doctrine? In one of those skirmishes, I got top damage in an oracle, and Rote Kapelle held the dang thing down and defanged its fighters until help came...in a small gang. We didn't need the crutch of the game de-fanging them for us.

    As things currently stand, a competent small gang CAN and routinely do kill carriers, without dreads. I have seen sig tanking AB-phantasms laugh off the fighter damage. I have seen ceptor pilots speed, rather than sig tank and hold them for over 10 minutes. I have seen competent nano gangs apply webs and keep distance on fighter squadrons, picking them off one by one. Right now, mechanics punish so called 'f1' monkeys on both sides, a competent nano gang can deal with a carrier, and a competent carrier can deal with a nano gang. Once carriers are nerfed into the ground, skill won't be the determining factor - it will be back to the old days where carriers are just big, impractical targets, waiting to decorate someones KB...albeit without the ability to do slowcats.

    Which is why the entire thing sits so poorly with me. You have bad nano pilots complaining they want to remain being bad, not adapt at all, and are basically removing an entire ship class from the game which greatly increased ship choices, fleet diversity, and makes the meta so much more healthy. It rewarded good piloting and tactics, it made it a, get this, a GAME that was fun. The situation you want here is already the case, but the problem isn't the mechanics or the ships - it's the sensationalism and quite frankly reactionary pilots who aren't willing to adapt. I have every faith that people could appreciate how rich the changes made the game, but it is question of sloth - people want easy kills, and they want nano to be easy.

    I for one, enjoy a challenge.



    Lol @ killboard peeking... because obviously one account is the extent of *everyone* who posts on these forums... Lol

    Seriously though, I'll admit I'm light on practical experience with post-Citadel Carriers, and I certainly haven't helped kill 40+ of them. I do like my theory crafting, game balance, number crunching, ect, and what I'm seeing out of current Carriers (both my own limited experience and the stories I pick up off of others) is kind of a bit ridiculous.

    At the end of the day this comes down at least in part to personal philosophy on where caps should live in the game. Personally I don't really like the idea that a Carrier (or any Cap ship) should be the unmitigated doom of all things sub-cap, for more or less the same reason you hate nano-gangs (for what it's worth I'm not a huge fan of the current state of Svipuls/ect either) but the idea that a ship that's at the far end of the skill training/cost tree from a Svipul, Inty, or any other Frigate should be their hard counter just seems ridiculous to me.

    It also seems ridiculous, and bad for the game, that a fairly small number of Carriers can nuke things off the field, completely bypassing Logistics as a class.

    I get that for someone who mostly engages single Carriers this seems like an over reaction to the current changes, but looking at all the uses, and all of my collected stories and experiences, I think it's pretty reasonable. It's just really hard to look at your small slice of the game getting the short end of the stick and then sympathize enough with someone else to understand that their slice was being adversely affected and needed these changes, and from where I'm sitting and with all of the evidence I've seen, Carriers really did need at least the vast majority of these changes.

    I think we'll see some swing back the other way somewhere in the next six months, but probably not as far as you or some others in this thread want, and we certainly won't just be seeing the NSA only nerfs that some are advocating for.

    I think my personal favorite change would be to see Carriers be able to run 2 or any number of Support Fighters. It would make them more useful and give a Carrier more options on its own, especially as far as being a soft-counter to small kiting ships, since Web and Point Fighters can catch small ships at range but the Carrier probably can't kill them on its own and a skilled small ship pilot can fight off the Carrier's fighters and get away.