Wormholes

Typical politician answer there, Chitsa. :P

The HAC changes, and even the med weapon changes, and the Nos changes are by CCP Rise. Who is, to my ken, totally fing new to being a balance Dev. Maybe Fozzie spawned a stupid cousin or something but none of this makes any sense.

TL;DR

Nos changes MAY help you guys in cap fights with Bhaals. Maybe. But in all cases you should be dropping Bhaals with Augs or Guards and cap transfer when needed, ergo, why NOS badly when you can neut excellently?

Med weapon changes are pathetic. They are making med arty weaker, med beams remain unfittable in the real world and will be outclassed in range and DPS by med pulses anyway, med rails will be the best choice for outright DPS...and everything will be better than HMLs. HAMs will still rock.

HAC changes are based on pre-tech 3 cruiser and pre-attack battle cruiser and pre Retribution game meta and game dynamics.

Like, who the faq uses AHAC gangs versus BS gangs these days? Why would anyone bring a HAC instead of a 600 DPS armour Scythe Fleet or a 450 DPS armour SFI or a ONI or Nexor?

The MWD bonus seems good on paper, but with med beams being unfittable the Zealot remains as is; with a defacto nerf to med arties nothing changes with the Vaga or (lol) Munnin. in this case, you use a 720 Cynabal or a Scythe Fleet with 650's. The rails ROF isup 15% so any idea of a rail Diemost is kaput because it will cap out. Ishtar remains a drone sniper, which is a concept that died out ages ago (domiballs making small resurgence now because you can assign drones to the FC and eliminate pilot noobitude). And, dare I add, the Ishtar gets no extra CPU.

The only thing which benefited was th Sac. Which is like saying the turd is a little more lustrous. It's Rise's attempted OMGWTFBBQ soloboat Amarr HAC with a local tank. Lulwhut? Every dual-rep Sac I've ever seen kills nothing cause it's too slow, and dies if it hasn't been bait tanking. New Sac will do the same, slighly better with ancil armour reps. Woot.

The basic fact is that the guy doing these changes has his head stuck in 2008-09.

The only real thing I despise about T3's are the offgrid boosters. The promulgated but never delivered swapsies between CS and T3 bost ratings should tame that objection - if they ever man up to implement it.

I can live with 100MN Tengus, to a point. They are a fad that has some adherents but people know what the go is now and can deal with it. Besies, even a 100MN Tengu is now vulnerable to a bunch of Nados alphaing it.

The attack BC's are the OP elephant in the room. You can't make kiting HACs work with the Cynabal and Scythe Fleet on the field, and you can't make sniping HACs worth it with the attach BC's on the field, and T3s tanks generally are the only next step above navy BC's, so what's left for HACs? Nada.

The whole role needs a rethink. Some ideas are being throw around on the thread, it's worth your time getting involved with that discussion, or your Tengus will be replaced by Caracals and your proteus' replaced by Navy Brutixes and your Legions...well, I guess the Legion is like the Sac.

This is hurting me right in the Tengu.

But...aren't HACs SUPPOSED to be OP to T3s, at least in terms of damage projection?

As long as 'assault' translates to damage projection anyway and they're the T2 ships with that specialty?
The trick to balance HACs would be to define their specialized role so that they provide something useful over raw DPS and are the best in their ship size for that special role.

That's not happening right now, so as long as their T2 role is DPS and the DPS don't increase significantly, you should expect T3s to get nerfed below HAC level.

QFT

There are a plethora of examples in the past and even recently where CCP doesn't give squat about user input. I think you're faith is misplaced.

The fact that CCP is stating that T3's will get nerfed indicating they will clearly not be a top tier ship any longer with no clear indication of their vision for T3's or discussion from them about the effects on the w-space economy should make everyone in w-space very concerned about the future of our game. None of what we know so far bodes well for our game in w-space.

HACs do bad dps. If they nerf T3s to the point where they do less dps than a HAC and leave the tanks on T3s as they are you will end up with absurdly tanked low dps, high resist tanked ships shooting at each other, it sounds like a recipe for boredom to me. T3s under reps are hard enough to kill as it is, imagine two T3 fleets with significantly less dps under reps shooting at each other...then imagine fights lasting hour after boring hour.

So if T3s become untenable then what? The meta for PVP in W-space would change completely...HACs as proposed are bad, so they become a no go, faction cruisers, pretty much glass cannons at ten paces, it would be orgies of mutual destruction. Faction BCs a bit better tanked, but hello mass limits, plus dread blapping anyone? Command ships have a better tank, but use up mass and are just as vulnerable to dread blapping...none of which strikes me as appealing.

The new Caracal has 6 launchers with 4 missile bonuses AND a drone bay. It doesn't have "low" DPS. It also has more PG than the Tengu so you don't need to gimp your fit as much to get 6 launchers on it. It's faster and has a lower signature radius too. The Tengu has more sensor strength and tank, but these two ships are fairly equal in strength as a PvP missile boat.

Your talking about a Cerberus but still, so what we all fly Cerberus' 24/7, that could get old fast.

Or the alternatives in the HAC lineup...

Eagle fleets, wait no they have a bonus to range.
Zealot's are already pretty poor on dps, but they aren't completely terrible.
Deimos's are alrightish on deeps at 1km.
Ishtar, bombs or smartbombs anyone?
Sac's, ditto on bad deeps.
Muninn don't make me laugh, as a ship it's a joke even with the proposed changes to it.
Vaga - active tanked fleets anyone?

The solution is simple...all wormhole pvp should be changed over to honorable 1v1 duels at the sun using sleipnirs.

My main problem with the hac 'fail rebalance' is this.

Given the current proposed changes, there is almost no case where I would choose a hac over the Navy Cruise of the same race.

And the one situation I can think of where I would prefer a hac(AHAC zealot), it does not use the non bonus it was given. So if T3's are supposed to be below T2 levels. And the T2s are usurped in almost every single way but one by the Navy Variant or even a tier 3 bc.... Why would I even bother with a T3? Or a T2 for that matter?

IMHO the two things they all desperately needed, hp and fitting buffs, they did not get. There was a real chance to make niche spaces for themselves as either high gank no tank, or, all tank no gank, boats. Allowing the T3s to slot in behind as middle of the road boats but as it is there are much more effective and much more attractive options availables than the old or the new hacs. Which means the same will inevitably apply to T3s.