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HA HA HAHA! Minmatar WIN! You losers are stuck with your gar gar turret... THE SLAVES HAVE TAKEN OVA! HAHAHAHA.

Anyways, good job CCP. Alot of setups have been improved. Certain frigate setups with regard to rail-guns have seen significant increases in viablity.

Dominix, with large blasters is looking a little better too. BLASTA-SHIELD-SIN is pretty ganky. The capacitor reduciton use is pretty good too. That will help alot with active setups. Pretty well rounded boost. Also, you will never be able to make gallente viable until gallente ships and close range ships in general are given range. Most of the player base dont like the fact they shun away from range increase, but wont use ships for that reason. Very funny and r3tard3d @ the same time.

Yeah. But people don't like the idea of giving blasters extra range because it's a form of homogenisation. The problem is that they won't like the only alternative either, of reducing Pulse and AC applied damage at close range...

As you mention, the biggest beneficiaries of the current hybrid changes are the ships that don't actually need any help - the frigates and the Dominix, for example. The ships that actually need help haven't been helped. A bit sad really.

This is a joke right? RIGHT?

You promise to change things and all we get in return is a bag of dogs**t thrown at us.

But hey atleast we got 4 new ships (2 that will be used), engine effects and shiny new implants if we all resub and log on to see this s**t patch come live!

This is just sad ccp... really.

Well they buffed it a bit instead of entirely doing nothing.

Hopefully the next wave of changes are coming soon. I expect at most a spike in frigate usage.

So, none of the fitting or cap usage reductions will be made? Is that correct? Or are things mentioned in blog still going to be in upcoming expansion?

i lol'd. u serious? you're gonna watch Gallente ships not get used for months? after all the feedback and people telling you guys these changes mean nothing?

Thank you for your responses, Affinity and Soundwave. It's good to finally hear something on this important issue.

I'm disappointed that further improvements to hybrids will not be made before Crucible goes live, but I'm glad CCP doesn't regard the hybrid problem as being fixed now.

Can you be more specific about the timescale for future adjustments to hybrids, and the ships that use them? Are we going to have to wait until the summer expansion for further adjustments, or will needed tweaks be identified, developed and released in between expansions?

Having not really flown blaster boats for any extended period of time, let me pose a question to you blaster aficionados:

Is getting into range only really a problem against faster Matari ships with dominating falloff? Would an adjustment to autocannon falloff / falloff bonused hulls / tracking enhancer falloff bonuses get you where you need to be? I'd imagine getting into range on Amarr and Caldari ships is much less of an issue, especially after Crucible.

Am I way off here or does this make sense?

Getting into range while having enough DPS for a CHANCE to overcome the time it took to catch the kiting ship. It is a twofold issue. Yes the falloff on projectiles and the optimal on lasers are redonkulous but both pump out enough damage that they at least rival blasters. By the time a blasterboat through some miracle of God actually reaches a Laser or projectile platform, they have lost a insurmountable amount of HP.
People seem to forget that ACs and Pulse lasers are the SHORT range versions of their respective weapon types while both hit out to ranges that in engagements qualify as MID range.
The problems don't ONLY rely on falloff though. It is the ability for them to literally run circles around a blasterboat while having no risk of being caught. In any engagement between like skilled pilots in the same class of Minmatar and Gallente ship, the Minmatar pilot is the one that controls the engagement completely. They can decide to point and kill or just warp off with literally no risk to themselves. I will ask the RP crowd to step in for a moment and answer this: With the **** poor showing Gallente ships have, how the hell can the Federation POSSIBLY maintain an Empire? It would be like Apollo astronauts vs Xwings.

This is what irks me. No one can say that I am stating anything inaccurate. Even CCP Devs. They know the problem. They know the extent. I know that they really do not expect these minor changes to have any real impact on the balance of flown vessels.
The really sad part is, is that we all saw it coming as they nerfed speed and buffed projectiles and added armor rigs and buffed projectile ammo and took away 30 percent of off web strength and did all the little things that add up to a big F--- you to Blaster boats. Pilots told them... "This is going to gimp us. This is going to hurt is. Your killing us. Please stop. Please stop." The plea's fell on deaf ears and the sheep were placated with "Noooo... this isn't going to gimp you. This is good for everyone."
Thats how we got to this point. So endeth my rant.

edit: I keep thinking to things to add to my rant.