Ships & Modules

With the introduction of the Tier 3 ships I feel the cynabal no longer fills a niche role.


When compared to nano Tier 3's the Cynabal gets crushed under the overwhelming dps. It's only saving grace is that of the Medium neut it can fit in the highs which can make a break a fight when solo roaming/and or when you catch that ratting tengu with the 1k dps tank. Outside of that why would anyone want to fly a cynabal? Cynabal and Talos both carry around the same resist profile and rely more on raw Hit Points but the talos has much more DPS and around the same projection. Talos is also cheaper. As far as cost effective ships the only reason anyone should want to be a snowflake and fly a cynabal is for 2 reasons...


1. Medium Neut
2. The front of the cynabal looks like "Kit" from Knight Rider.



This brings me to my next subject the Mach... Most people assume this ship is "OP" because they don't understand it. I used to throw battlecruiser fleets at them weekly only to watch myself and all my friends die in a fire trying to tackle it. The counter to Mach's are already here and I don't believe they need to be nerfed.


The counter to Mach's are simple.. Tier 3 battlecruiser's. Most mach's rely on kiting to mitigate the majority of damage coming in and can be difficult to catch thanks to most of them fitting a Heavy neut in the high's, but in a situation where people are chasing after a mach and you are on "approach" (who needs transversal anyway right?) the Mach will have less transversal itself with a blown up sig from it's mwd. Simply applying dps from Tier 3's (which most hit to around 40-60km) will sink the mach if he doesen't warp off thanks to low resists and Tier 3's great damage projection and speed. Yes the mach will murder 2 or 3 pursuing in the process but if someone can keep a point on it, it will die and it will die quickly.

So t3s counter arazus, falcons, and pilgrims?

Only counter to Tier 3's right now really is BS fleet's that match range and can tank incoming dps or... Pilot/FC skill.


Not an accurate battle report as we only lost one ship.

VoC 41 vs TEST 120-130ish.

http://kb.vergeofcollapse.com/?a=kill_related&kll_id=26928

please buff the phantasm :(

I was under the impression that pirate ships were supposed to fill a role as a type of in-between from tech1 to tech2. If this is the case, then I think some are working correctly. Most, if not all, of the pirate ships work better than the basic tech1 ships of their class. They can "almost" do the same thing as tech2 ships, but are just a little shy of being on equal terms. If I'm wrong, then please yell at me and call me horrible names.

If what I stated above is true, then my only true problem with the pirate ships is the cost and difficulty in acquiring one. Why spend 50-70 mil (or more) on a pirate frigate when the tech2 frigates are going for cheaper? I love blood raider and sansha ships (lazors pew pew). I have an ashimmu, cruor, and an Immolator. Plan on eventually getting a Succubus and phantasm too, and once I'm rolling around in my space station full of isk, I'll grab a nightmare and a Bhaalgorn. Other than looks though, there doesn't seem to be much reason to grab one of these ships. I do believe that the Bhaalgorn and Nightmare are pretty good at where their at, especially since the Bhaalgorn is the only battleship class energy drainer. The nightmare is unique enough in its own way, as the pure damage it emits seems sufficient to me. I believe that it's damage is on par with the paladin. Since its a shield tank too, you can pretty much dedicate most of your low slots to damage modifiers. There's probably a cap problem with it, but I've yet to drive one so this is mostly speculation on my part.

I've heard the argument that it takes less skill points to pilot a pirate ship well, when compared to a tech2. This is a legitimate argument when trying to justify how a pirate ship is better in some way when compared to tech2. However, I still don't see how something that takes less skill points to pilot, and is inferior... costs more. Isn't that "kind of" like saying tech1 frigates should cost more than tech2?

True, the pirate ships are supposed to be a "rare" and cool looking ship, but cmon. Is that supposed to be their only redeeming quality? I don't necessarily think it should be better than tech2 ships, but I don't really think they should cost more than them either. If it's not better, then why pay more for it? These ships have been out for quite a while now, and lots of blueprints have been "procured" from the pirate factions. Have the empires seriously not capture a few of these ships and figured out a way to mass produce them? Maybe they sent in a spy to steal an "original blueprint" or something? Anywho, that's my take on it. Seacrest out.

Aye, I've been looking at that closely. The TE nerf was also announced recently, which should help bring the ranges down on some of the more egregiously offenders. I need to re-evaluate the entire situation, because it's changed so much. But yes, I'm mostly ok with a resist bonus Phantasm with the NOmen being pretty much exactly what I wanted (sans some power grid, damage, and a 4th mid).

-Liang

You raise some very valid points. Just to clarify: I really held back on my buffing wishes as I thought that more extreme calls for modification would seem too utopian to be considered serious. ;) I also must say that I didn't really give much thought to the speed issue apart from bringing it somewhat up to par as I don't have numbers in mind that would be viewed "ok".

I don't think that your statement about brawling in smaller cap-hungry ships should be phrased so generally, as the blaster Moa for example can perform quite nicely (5% shield resist bonus) in that role. You pretty much negate close-range active-tanking in total while the argument actually only holds ground when faced with more than a single medium neut. Fitting cap boosters is almost mandatory for laser/hybrid/shield/active ships above frig size, anyway, in my opinion. But back to the Phantasm, specifically:

Currently with only T2 guns, T2 heatsinks (2), T2 ammo and T2 drones () the maximum of DPS I can quench out of the Phantasm w/o either sacrificing essential rig slots or the damage control is 647 (overheated; 588 gun dps) ... totally subpar, agreed. Maybe we can figure out together what the best way to increase the damage output w/o gimping the cap and pg even more could be?

200%- role-boni to weapon systems aren't unheard of (Daredevil). If my math doesn't deceive me that would produce an additional 20% to turret damage: 705,6 DPS. So with 59,4 DPS from 3 drones that's 765PS overall - just a little more than a neutron Moa with three T2 magstabs. Using faction heat sinks and weapon implants that can be strechted to 870 DPS... hm... I have to consent to your argument that even with such a buff it would be subpar - at least compared to the Vigilant. It becomes more and more obvious that an additional lowslot is needed... with three faction heatsinks, two 5%-weapon-implants and a 200%-damage-bonus, one could get close to 1000 dps out of this Phantasm-version. With 3 faction magstabs and the according implants I get an almost similar DPS-number (945) out of a Vigilant, however - with Null!! (1260 with Void)

233%damage-role-bonus (10 effective turrets) and an additional low slot (i.e. not trading a utility high or - even worse - a mid) for the Phantasm? ;)

Cheers
Tilo R.

P.S.: Turning the Caldari bonus into a shield resistance bonus and the HP-, PG/CPU- and capacitor-enhancements still have to be transacted while a 25 m^3 drone bay has at least to be thought about.

I'd like to see the daredevil pick up another mid, it would open up alot of options like dual web, dual prop, shield tank etc esp now that assault frigs are more competitive with it.

Heh, yes, it seems that way, although since CCP (Rise) showed to some extent that he/they is/are willing to reconsider changes, I still have some hope the resist boni aren't getting that undeserved nerf after all... -.-

With the Navy Harbinger there'll definitely be a nice laser brawling platform that can be made to work with shields at least to some degree (an active shield tank for brawling needs 6 midslots if you don't want to drop either web, invuln or propulsion mod IMO)... I'm not sure whether to view BCs as an entirely different ship class despite the same gun size, though, which would leave my proposed niche/role still open. And anway... the Harbinger doen't look like a Phantasm. ;)

What to do with it indeed... Maybe Din Tempre's ideas point in the right direction? Make it some sort of cloaky dive/pounce combat vessel with boni to MJDs and cloaked speed?

Cheers
Tilo R.

So I've been in love with the Phantasm for a while because of the looks, and I do agree that it could use a bit more love.

Changes that _could_ be added include:

+1 midslot (for adding a capbooster, or a web, or whatever else floats your boat if you passive tank that)
or
+1 lowslot (for adding an extra heat sink)

AND

+ resists (would be nice seeing as how it seems to be something you can really only fly as a brawler atm - 1500 m/sec kiting with under 30km range on it is pretty bleh)

+ Speed (1500m/sec - I mean, seriously? A plated diemost is as fast. Ffs, BCs can be faster)

+ Cap - seriously - needs more cap - I can't even stress this enough.

That being said, IF you fit it right, you can get ~49k EHP (~55k EHP overloaded on the invuls), 500+ DPS at 20+KM out with scorch OH + drones, 700+ DPS at 8-10k KM out with Conflag OH. So really it's not that bad at all for being a cruiser hull at 150mil and looking sexy as ****. Just know that if you want to use the MWD for anything outside of a cycle or two you BETTER either 1) have a cap booster or 2) have minimum 1x med nos, 1x small nos and be latched onto something pretty much asap, or you're boned.

TL;DR - in its current iteration I find it quite decent for the 150mil pricetag - brawling with it you can push 700dps within scram range, and if the target gets away you swap crystals instantly to scorch for 500+ dps within 20+KM. Play with this thing in a gang and profit.

Just please, for the love of god, make it fly like a shield cruiser, and not a space-brick. Adding an effective nano to would be a MUCH needed change. That and some more EHP / Cap. ^^