Player Features and Ideas Discussion

And I still don´t see how a cruise raven will fit in a pvp fleet.
Raven has some of worst possible scanres. In a fleet with for example 20 bs, 1 raven 19 with guns, the gunships will lock faster and alpha the target which will be dead mostly before the raven has even locked it, never mind locked it AND delivered the missiles.
To fix cruise missiles really we would need sth. stupid that gives a bonus on scanres/launcher. So the cruise missile ship could deliver its damage simultaneously with turret ships.
Of course you can sacrifice a med for a sensor booster on a cruise missle ship but the raven would be uber paper tank then.

Another simulation: 20 turret bs vs 20 raven cruise bs.
Turrett fleet will wreck 1 raven and make the whole stuff 19vs20 before the ravens even get their first volley done.
Really don´t see the fix here.
Okay carebears will be happy with it. But almost useless for pvp.

Btw it is already sometimes in PVE hard to see if I should still shoot one cruise volley on a target 60km away. So you waste sometimes dps while you shoot a volley when another still hasn´t arrived and maybe wrecks the target.
Cruise missiles often waste dps and the fix with higher flight speed gets wrecked by "the fix" higher rate of fire.

Navy raven was great, not it's the ultimate GOD of PVE

If we talk about cruise missiles, we talk about Raven. How often did you see Raven fleets in PVP? Huh? Anyone? No one. Right now cruise missiles are broken, and I’ll tell you how. Main reason is there is no role in pvp for cruise missiles. I can't give you a situation, where is cruise missiles actually needed.

Let's take a closer look on cruise missiles:
+ They can fly to 250km reach.
- But they will do this about in 30seconds.
+ They always hit.
- Until meet smarts/defenders.
+ Different damage types.
- Full damage only on large slow targets.

So, they fly at 250, but there is no fleet fights on 250km. Why? Because 5sec probe scan - that’s why. Your scout moved your raven fleet on ultra-snipe range. Hell yea, lets party started? FIRE TEH MISSILES! Enemy is shaken and afraid of you? Nope, probe, probe... scan. warp, bubble, surprisebuttsex! And your missiles still flying. Your fleet is almost gone to Valhalla, but they still flying to the place where is no enemy, to a better place.
Oh, we need to tackle enemy fleet first. Right? Let's do this again! Suicide dictor -> boubble. Job for an hero. Never forgets. FIRE TEH MISSILES! Enemy is shaken and afraid of you? Nope, they logistics already targeted your primary. Missiles still flying. Almost... but their carriers targeted your primary. Attack is useless. Bubble worn out, probe, probe... scan. warp, bubble, surprisebuttsex!
I'm repeat, THERE IS NO ULTRA SNIPE FIGHTS IN EVE. PVE didn’t count.
Did 250km benefits actually work? No.

Snipe range is basically same thing. Delayed damage is ruining your strategy. Your primary broadcast for help BEFORE he took any damage. So you need MORE DPS to push from enemy logistics reps. Even if you kill your target, some of your missiles still flying to nowhere, because they can't change target and hit that guy next. DPS of entire fleet is reduced.
Do I really want raven in snipe fleet? Nope. There is no role in snipe fleet for raven. Turret ships do that job better. Much better.

Close range didn’t better. Its range for a hellouta damage fights. Cruise missiles still fly to nowhere when primary is destroyed. DPS reduced. You need a lot of ewar(painters/web) to do a full dps. Without it, your dps is more reduced.
Oh, wait! We have a torpedo launcher! FIRE TEH TORPEDO! What do you mean by "didn’t reach target"? What do you mean by "we need more ewar to bring full dps"? Damnit!
Do i need raven in close fights? Nope. It's useless.

What CCP do to cruise missiles, to fix this? They just boost damage, nerfed explosion radius, so you can't bring that boosted damage to a target.
Do this help? Do we will see a Raven fleets in space? I'm sure not. And I’m will eat my hat if I’m wrong.

What I’m wishing for? Dear CCP Rise, can you actually make a role for a raven, where he will be better than other ship? Or even comparable. PVE it's not a role I’m wishing for. And BTW, he suck even in PVE. To make a better fix, you need to ask yourself just one question, "Why do I choose Raven for PVP?" . If you can answer this - your fix is done. But right now, there is no answer.

P.S.
Sorry for my wall of text full of grammar mistakes. English is not my native language. But I can't be silent. I'm sure, if I didn't say anything, my Raven will be useless for 2-3 years more. Hope you actually read this.

Rest assured if cruises were worthless in PvP but allowed pilots to make 10 billion isk/hour in PvE I would bet my mortgage several times over that they'd be nerfed.

People are saying they might be TOO good for PvE and STILL not good enough for PvP.


@Shingorash: Shhhhhhh.

I agree with you.

FYI there is one idea to make sniper raven possible:
Reduce the rof to 25%
Boost the DPH to 400%,

The ability to hit cruiser sized ships could be reduced
The overall DPS can be reduced.

That make raven a good alpha sniper with delayed damage + still useless to target below BC
Thus it won't take the role of current alphaships or sniper ships)

If you need a Sci-fi explanation: Cruise missiles are much greater in size regarding to any other BS sized bullets, which contains a great amount of fillings specifically designed for tactical bombardment.

Just because it's not a giant fleet ship doesn't mean that it won't be useful in PVP. If you can't think of a use for 750 DPS at any range you can lock... well I just don't know what to tell you honestly. But if you really want someone to run your simulation, feel free to tell me the configuration parameters. It'd hardly be the first time and I probably still have my old fleet sim software laying around.

-Liang

Raven could be useful in PVP. But not with the current mechanics to probing where you get a warp in within 5 sec.

But how? Even carriers can lock your primary while your missiles still flying.

Well, it's 750 DPS at whatever ranges you can lock. Given that the Vindicator negative lock range trick doesn't work anymore... that seems pretty useful. The ability to attack a POS from 200km seems pretty useful. The ability to project damage in a huge sphere around static assets (like triage carriers) seems pretty useful. The ability to tackle someone on a static asset (like a high sec gate) and pummel them from range seems pretty useful.

But hey, maybe you're totally right and there's another BS that puts out 750 DPS at absurd ranges.

-Liang

Sure, and if you're trying to use the Raven against fleets that are big enough to have a dedicated covops traveling with them.... well, then maybe you shouldn't use a Raven. That doesn't make it not useful. And hell - the Raven's fully capable of dropping out 900 DPS up close if someone were to warp their fleet on top of them.

-Liang