Ships & Modules

I keep hearing people from both this forum and on Battleclinic say "ASBs will be nerfed" with absolute certainty, but I don't recall reading any Dev Blog about it. The player base opinion also seems to vary from "ASBs are fine, although certain ships (e.g. Sleipnir) have too much synergy with it" or "ASBs are fine, active armor tanking just needs to be buffed" to more extreme ones like "they should be removed or nerfed to the ground".

Anyway, question is where is the official statement that they will actually definitely be nerfed/changed? Or is it just some random dev with a generic comment like "we're looking into it + soon(tm)".

Understand scaling and you realize why there are so many differing oppinions about it.

I think most people agree that the system is "imbalanced" (by that i don't mean through-and-through "too good"), but that most people envision some kind of problem revolving around it, or do not care about it at all. I think the people who argue that it's good argue it based on a select situation (what the system enable you to do) rather than how the system function. That situation is also very ... situational. It's very specific (eg., enabling solo players to combat 10-man groups or small gangs to combat 15-man groups). Those players are a distinct minority though, and like i said, i don't think even them argue balance as it's positive and rather the context around their use (which is a fair point, most of the time, it's just important to define it).

I think most of us expect the boost-amount to somehow be adjusted in the future. Either through lowering the up-compensated bonuses on certain ships, or by lowering the core stat on the module (which will result in marginalising the system further from ships without the bonus). The reason there's not more buzz about it is simply because it isn't (and shouldn't be) a prioritized matter. It'll likely be done sometime when that aspect of the game is revisited.

The sarcasm do not suit you .

As far as my reading comprehension goes, I believe that OP is asking why people are so sure that CCP are actually going to nerf ASB. That means that correct answer would be either posting links or dismissing entire thing as rumor.

i think the only nerf asb need is a only 1 per ship limit, then they have to give some cool toys for active armor tanker.

^ This!


regards,

rob

I hope they implement this before the winter expansion.

The other day I undocked an armor tanked Brutix and IT COULD MOVE. That means that if something lands on top of me, I can still shoot it with my 8Km optimal + falloff blaster setup.

THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE.

FFS CCP, make armor tankers stationary already.

Well implementing it wouldn't be hard at all. There are already 1-per-ship limitations on certain modules like Damage Controls, MWDs and Afterburners. I think limiting 1 per ship is a good idea, it means the module functions as it was originally intended to - large boost followed by long cooldown. Currently 2 XLASBs on a sleipnir/cyclone/maelstrom/vargur or what have you provides more consistent shield reps than an XL Shield Booster + Cap Booster. If CCP's goal with ship balancing is to give everything a unique role and not have one thing make another obsolete, then this is a case of dual ASB setups making shield boosters obsolete.

As for ship balancing, I hope that by working on the Gallante line of ships, CCP realises how insufficient active armor tanking is. The incursus seems okay since small armor reps do decent repping and have low fitting requirements, but when they get to the brutix I hope it becomes obvious why so many people don't even bother using the brutix's bonus.

Large Hybrids were always decent or at the very least viable. Mediums on the other hand... not so much. Hybrid buff was definitely needed.

The Talos is a good ship because it has a drone bay and has a tracking bonus which makes it a wet dream for solo/small gang pilots since this all gives it the ability to handle a lot of situations independantly. In fact all the T3 BCs aren't very good ships to highlight the armor vs shield issue since with their frailness, agility/speed was always going to be a priority, it's the only way to compensate for not having the EHP of their BS counterparts.

Armor tanking, and most particularly active armor tanking does have issues but let's not blame everything on it. The Abaddon for example is a great ship because it's damage projection makes up for it's brickness. Gallanteans up until recently simply received the bad of both worlds. Furthermore in large fleets buffer armor still has considerable advantages over buffer shield. I'm also fine with the rep cycle being at the end - it makes sense lore wise. Nanites take time to repair armor damage, as opposed to charging up shield capacity. Armor also has better resists and armor buffer modules give more HP so it's decently equiped to handle the initial damage before the rep kicks in.

I'm not completely sure how to solve the issue with agility/speed. Giving blasters more range (null) certainly was a step in the right direction (see Abaddon, damage projection makes up for brickiness somewhat). As far as active armor tanking, as I said before, medium reps need to rep more (they don't scale well when compared to the damage difference between small and medium weapons) and large reps need lower fitting costs. I feel the additional utility slots armor ships get can to a large degree compensate for their lack agility/speed, though not necessarily in every situation.

Anyway, getting off topic. This is about ASBs and active armor tanking has always been an issue since before ASBs, ASBs simply highlighted the issue. So ASBs, good module, but need to limit 1 per ship IMO.

they would be op if they would recharde in 10sec, but u can run it for 30sec and then u pop, if its against 1v1.
ive lost a ship before the asb used up all charges in a 2v1 fight against blaster naga and a cyna,
there is pretty much whine about asb, clearly you guys dont use em, if u did and u tought it was so op, u wouldnt whine.