EVE General Discussion

As tactic, brawling is on life support, while kiting reigns supreme. As consequence, ships that don't kite or cope well with being kited are "bad". The imbalance is so profound that the power of a ship is measured in how well it kites.

This problem was aptly summed up by Hicksimus with the following words: I don't understand why giving a Brutix a better armor bonus would make me want to use it more. The only brutix I ever use is a shield scram brutix.

What good can the upcoming tiericide (bless CCP) do if half the ships in EVE are geared towards a niche tactic? Less than we're hoping for, I'm afraid. A big part of the problem is a lack of balance in modules and rigs:


1) The armor vs shield balance makes no sense whatsoever. The speed reduction of armor plates and rigs means giving up the chance to escape or catch a similarly sized target, it means being unable to dictate range against a shield tanker of similar size. The speed reduction associated with armor tanking is a massive tactical disadvantage.

Meanwhile, shield extenders and rigs get what is effectively a non-penality in many situations. If that wasn't bad enough, there are now ASBs.

The speed reduction from armor plates and rigs must either go away, or shield extenders and rigs must reduce maximum capacitor amount in order to come with a harsh tactical disadvantage like their armor equivalents. Such a reduction in capacitor size, if large enough, would force kiting ships to use a cap injector to keep using the MWD that allows them to maintain their range advantage for extended periods of time, which in turn means they'll have to sacrifice some hitpoints or ewar.

Other penalities are also possible.


2) Tracking enhancers giving 30% falloff is too good. Reduce it to +15% falloff to force the kiters to commit to fighting at closer ranges and exposing themselves more.

Tracking enhancers did not always give +30% falloff. When tracking disruptors were changed to also reduce falloff, tracking enhancers were buffed to +30% in a knee-jerk reaction over pressure by players who feared that kiting would become extinct. Instead we saw the opposite development: kiting flourished.



3) Autocannon cruisers/battlecruisers can kill frigates FAR too easily. Autocannons track far too well at the ranges they can reach with Barrage + tracking enhancers (who also further increase tracking). The basic counter to speed should be a smaller and even faster ship. Yet trying to tackle a ship with medium autocannons in a frigate is suicide. I think this is a reason why EAFs are rarely seen, they don't have a signature radius reduction like interceptors nor the tank of an assault frigate, so they can neither tank nor speed tank Barrage.

Either Barrage's tracking penalty must be increased, or autocannon tracking in general needs to be reduced.


4) ASBs need immediate attention from the balance team. They perform a similar function to shield extenders but can be significantly more effective.

You seem to forget that eve is about numbers. Nano **** should be effective in smaller scale engagements. Before nano ships got popular small scale pvp was boring; It was literally sit at 0 shoot each other. Buffing spam q f1 is stupid.

Now I agree with the ASB change there needs to be a similar option for armor tanking as the only armor tank you see is obviously buffer and that means you cant nano out of engagements or dictate range.

Huginns though are seriously underrated in small scale pvp.

I agree with you that kiting should be a viable tactic. I'm not trying to get it removed from the game. I'm trying to get it balanced with brawling. I also have concerns that tiericide will fail to achieve its goal if the underlying imbalance of brawling vs kiting is left unadressed. Afterall, at least half of the ships in EVE are armor tankers.

If we look at the frigate level, brawling is much better balanced with kiting and you don't need pocket Huginns around to deal with nano ships. I think this is a good goal for the cruiser and battlecruiser level.

We had a nice brawl yesterday. I ******* love brawling.

Er, when did EVE get so binary?

Solo, sure.. kiters are likely to win unless the kiter is silly enough to allow a hard tackle.

That said, once you get into gangs why on earth would you not mix the two types together? I regularly fly a brawling set up coupled with friends in kiters. People chasing the kiters run into me and then NOMNOMNOM on their tasty spaceship lewts.

There is so much brawlers can do to defend themselves once you get into gang-fleet engagements I am not sure if theres an issue here?

1v1.. yeah it's a pain being kited with no chance to fight back but **** happens. I also hate as a kiter finding someone smart enough to bring a damp or TD on a brawling boat :P

Ignoring your passive aggressiveness, you're saying that I have done the "wrong thing" to train for armor tanking and flying Amarr?

In that case, thanks for supporting my point of view. We both actually agree, there's no need to get rude or emotional.

if it was just an issue of player skill/knowledge and brawling fleets were fundamentally viable we would see a lot more brawling fleets (AHACs, hellcats, panicgeddons, ...) - instead we see Drakes, Rokhs, Maelstroms and 100mn Tengus.

Methinks you are a ****.

i think these concerns that op posted are very valid.

and i fly all kind oif ships before you get any remarks of me being also only armor trained :P

Imho, the biggest problem is that kiting can be done very effectively in cheap ships. Back in the day, you had to use HACs or recons to reach the required speed and range. Obviously, if you have to use highly skill-demanding, nimble and expensive ships for a certain tactic, less people will use it. Nowadays, Drakes, Hurricanes and Tier3 dominate the pvp landscape since they are all cheap, fast, have reasonably good hp and can do very good dps at range. I believe a slight nerf to BC mass and agility could do a great deal to balance kiting vs. brawling.

Relative ineffectiveness???

If your logi is even halfway competent, they are watchlisted, and they know how to position themselves, huginns can be very difficult to deal with, and greatly magnify their fleet's effectiveness.