Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Changes are becoming more and more interesting.

It seems that short range web is not consistance with the idea of long range damage.
But it might becomes a life savour for those zero velocity small dreads.
To avioid situations when those ships being tackled in short range and die due to tracking problems

It seems that ccp is trying to push it into small fleet combat.
The process would be warp to the field on distance, go into bastion, tank for 60 seconds. In the same time, using web and guns to finish ships with scrams. After that 60s, MJD away, fill your ASB or ARR if needed.

prefer 30% resist on the Bastion module though.
With T2 resist there are some critical shortage.
For example the 0 em on golem and 10 exp on Kronos.
That makes them extremly good when dealing with some damage type but extremly bad when dealling with the others, even fitted with em or explotion hardener.
That simply makes Paladin and Vagur better.

These changes might provide an interesting way of fighting.
But considering the cost of those shiny ships...
Not expecting them to be used in Pvp frequently.

I do not condemn. I have just given my interpretation of present state. From you comment of choosing damage I guess you're talking about running anoms, where Paladin seems to be indeed at disadvantage. During missions damage chooses you, so it's where Paladin has an advantage, and in incursions and wormholes you omni tank anyway, advantage again.

Also this "more even" T1 profile is because it's much weaker to begin with! I remind you that we're talking about 1 to 3 hardeners on T2 vs. obligatory 3 or even 4 on T1.

Why in the world would I choose a Marauder with the newly revised bonuses/stats vs. a pirate or faction BS with significantly lower costs in terms of training and isk? For that matter now that the T1 BS have been buffed I don't see these updated Marauders being anywhere near worth the enormous premium for a bit more DPS, a semi-questionable tank, a bizarre web bonus and a now nerfed gimmick module.

The originally presented concept was innovative and fresh. It probably needed some refinement but, at least it was consistent and made sense. What's on the table now is just schizophrenic and makes Marauders less useful in either NPC or player combat scenarios.

When I trained all the requirements to be able to fly a Vargur I looked forward to a mission runner that would be a major upgrade over the Raven I'd been using or the CNR or Tengu I was considering. If Marauders go through in the currently proposed state there's no way in hell I'd consider a Marauder because they'd be horrible ships in terms of both usefulness and isk value.

Seriously, stop f***ing suggesting to remove the tractor bonuses. If anything, they need increased. Solo play, ie: not using a small army of alts, to do ****, the tractor bonuses are great in the marauders. They're more effective than flying back and grabbing a noctis then making your way back to the area.

You need 3 to 2 volley decent bounty elite cruisers. and your RNI which I pointed out as the worst has one. one unbonused TP.

I second this.

A Redesign is not a Reballance.

For all you guys TLDR -

Basically, CCP is wanting to completely redesign and change Muraders into something completely different that what they currently are.

The player base is forming two camps -

1) "OMG This idea is awesome, but is impossible to sort out the details" - Most players who don't use Muraders in the first place.
2) "Seriously? This has bad written all over it. Please Reballance the ship before you re-design it" - Most of these are players who have / do use muraders.

Problem CCP sees with Muraders: They are under utilized
Their solution to this is to give new "Wonky" "Sexy" roles to the ship and dismantle it in its current iteration.


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A) They want to see more sniping long range combat, so they make these billion isk hulls MJD.

Problems with A : Semi-Spamable MJD use will re-create a semi "Pre-Nano" nerf style of combat, everyone plays chicken, everyone is frustrated. An existing FAR cheaper kiting ship already exists that put out the EXACT same damage and fills the EXACT same role, just without a MJD - Tier 3 Battle Cruisers. T3BC have 8 guns, range bonuses, and no rep bonuses. With a MWD they can dictate range very well and execute sniping - and are INCREADIBLY cheap in comparison to a Murader.

Summary: MJD'ing Muraders will be overshadowed by groups of Tier 3 battle cruisers by cost and effectiveness alone. Muraders will not be used in this fasion.

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B) They want to create an ultimate brawler so they will add a Siege / Triage Mode for a Murader.

Problem with B: Siege / Triage Modes are very situationally dependent. Because the Murader will have no Logistical bonuses or capabilities it is impossible to use as "Fortress" medic. Triage Carriers are used very seldomly in actual combat situations, and then only when they need to do POS repping, quickly and quietly, away from main combat.

Siege modules are used to SIEGE enemy posses. Again, this is rarely used in a practical combat situation, and more often then not, only utilized when there is no opposing fleet in the system to quickly remove Soverignty structures and pos's. The rule of thumb I have allways been told is that if you Siege It (Or Triage it) - You will loose it, so don't and just GTFO.

Considering the cost of Murader is easily over 1 billion (sometimes as high as 2-3 billion), why would I want to use one of these, with only battleship sized weapons, when for the same price, I can purchase a small Carrier, that can operate in low sec and accomplish the same thing, only better + fighters and situation specific drones? I get a jump drive, lots of cargo room... About the same training time.

Going into Triage mode will also immobilize the Murader. If they are long range fit, they will be dog piled. If they are short range fit, they will only kill what they have double webbed and scramed. A short range 9km web will not allow an immobile ship to become a "King" brawler.

Summary: The price of a Murader being equal to a small carrier - carriers do the triage mode the same only far better, for easier skill requirements and equivalent price. Is still usable in Null sec and Low sec (Opportunities for small gang combat are extremely limited in high sec now).


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To re-balance the muraders in it's current iteration is simple:

Keep the Rep Bonus or move to T2 hull resistances, or something according to the "Flavor" CCP wants.

For a PVE re-balance - Change the Web Bonus to something else. Like additional tracking, or optimal fall off.

Give More fitting grid / cpu to the muraders that need it (Paladin / Vargur). [BIG POINT HERE]

Leave the drone bays alone. In PVE we are loosing our drones more frequently and on a semi consistant basis. Lower the bandwith yes, not the bay size. We need those to handle frigates or cruisers (Even with webs its hard to hit a frig).

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To Re-Balance the Muraders so they are actually used in PVP:

Keep The Web Bonus

Simply give them T2 Sensor Strength (over 20). THIS IS THE PRIMARY REASON MURADERS ARE NOT USED.

This one little change will allow you to see Muraders deployed to Null Sec, Low Sec, and WH space with a great deal of frequency. They will still be on par / slightly less than Navy Faction Variants, but truly be ultimate brawlers at that point.

If you are worried about ultra tanking, cut the cargo bay size significantly to limit the number of cap boosters available.


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If the goal is to see Muraders Deployed in active PVP, then simply unleash it in its current iteration. THEN Rebalance it from there.

CCP - You are trying to do too much.

Move the Triage / MJD shinanigans to a "Cloned" hull, but let the current muraders off the chain. They will mesh and jive with current meta levels and meta game and will not be nearly as 'out of whack' as you are implying they are.


Re-Balance before Re-Design!

With that resistanceshift over to the normal states, they really seem to be a great choice to fight RR-vexor/ishtar flights, as leaving out the for pvp not obligatory bastion lets you carry 4 large smartbombs and SR guns. Combine that with cruisersized beams/rails and you don't have to primarily worry about ships carrying ecm of sort on field to affect you.

The bastionmodule with not much but the range speaking in favor, has lost most appeal for any pvp-situation coming to my mind. The damage is totally fine, the range and tracking makes totally up for that - while you can still move. Just that little bit more of range won't encourage anyone to craft a pvp-scenario around that, so please stuff that void with the accidental tracking bonus the first version had, this time also applying to the explosion velocity of torps/cruises :>

As you can solve your eccm issues mostly by fitting for it (sacrificing mids, all strongly favoring the armortankers for pvp) - I doubt the use of a low sensor strength as a pvp-hurdle to limit their strength. If there would be such a feared overlap, should rather consider to equalize the base hp of the respective layers down to achieve similiar EHP to pre-resistbuff EHP of an unfitted hull.
Releasing any kind of battleship with full t2 resist can easily go the wrong way (see buffersub t3s, which have full t2 resist aswell), so by limiting the basetank and requiring multiple fitting slots to be devoted to plates/LSEs (possible XL-Shield extenders? *cough*) to push it to values that it can withstand the chosen confrontation, there offense/defense-ratio could be toned down a little.

Else, those things together with logi and smartbombs (like using a fleet of Kronoses with Oneiros support, carrying 4 large kinetic smartbombs each, MJD'ing around like crazy <.<) make for some astounding mass of utility for a given fleet.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people will verify some strats capitalizing on the marauders outstanding attributes, looking forward to see what it will take to dunk those :>

You can tell whether someone's a PvEer or PvPer by whether they prick up their ears at the phrase "web bonus".

Most EM weak rats also deal EM, which means that your damage comes pared with your tank in missions as well as anoms. On the Paladin those are opposed. You have no "choice." You are either not hitting the targets weakness or reenforcing your own.

Web bonus and T2 resists are looking good. Now you don't need to use the bastion thing to make use of the ship.

I would still like a mini-siege mod. Another version of the bastion perhaps? More dps at the loss of projection. Even more sexy would be if they weren't mutually exclusive. And maybe something to counter the 20sec align times, +2 WCS has been mentioned.

In null Pve a sentry-carrier still out-performs marauders as they are now, they have more projection and more dps. And funny enough with the bastion and align times you actually more safe in a carrier as it can run away better. I find this a little comical.

For Pvp the 60sec siege is questionable. Bastion also needs a damage variant, with reduced application as it's been mentioned. That way you really can use it as a mini-dread and 60sec is a reasonable time to commit.