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I think the changes are a good start, but we need to see how they will affect tranquilly before anymore changes are added. The effect of running new T2 skrimish links to boost their speed along side the blaster tracking and damage and cap buffs may produce some interesting results.

So much is changing in this patch, so small steps at this point is for the better.

I almost think they need to go along the lines of increasing the optimal of AC and reducing their falloff to maintain effective max range, reducing their tracking so they dont hit as well at very short range. This might give Blasters a niche in being able to get under the other races guns. Currently AC have about the same tracking as hybrids after the hybrid buff. Buffing a weapon system to only have parity in an area that is supposed to excell in is not exactly doing it properly.

It would be nice to see all four races used to a roughly even ratio but alas we still wont, Mini and Amarr will still be the races of 0.0. Hybrids and Missiles just have too small a use.

Here's hopping they will fix it in 2014 when Hybrids get looked at again.

So... patch is live and Hail has no falloff penalty....

all bow to the minmatar lords.
what's thy bidding ....


So aretha is still using a shotgun but u. bolt switched rifle with a tankkiller mashine gun :p

Don't foget that the shotgun is complicated to use and needs a lot of Arethas brain capacity (CPU), it is heavy to equip (Power grid) and hard to use (cap usage) while Bolt has an easy to use lightweight tank killing riffle :)

I still prefer AC over Blasters on an Ishtar, more range, less CPU, less PG and CAP free while I can also choose damage type easily. ACs just support drones for PVE better than Blasters and you can use a better fit becouse more PG and CPU left for other modules.

Interesting, but you can't do that without buffing blasters the same way. Is that a desirable goal? Maybe, maybe not- not wanting to debate that.

I have just had a thought about how you could make it work for one and not the other, though.

Give hybrids seperate damage modifiers for kinetic and thermal damage, then give close range ammo high % thermal and long range high % kinetic. Example (n.b. I just pulled these numbers out of my ass, they're not going to be balanced ):

Blasters: 1.5x thermal, 0.5x kinetic
Rails: 0.5x thermal, 1.5x kinetic

(This is before the gun's normal damage mod is applied. Or after. Whatever. Multiplication is commutative.)

Divide the ammos into 4 range bands, with a high therm/high kin variant in each:

-30% optimal

Antimatter L: 32t + 16k (48); 56 w/Blasters, 40 w/Rails
Lead L: 24t + 24k (48); 48 w/Blasters, 48 w/Rails

+0% optimal

Plutonium L: 25 2/3t + 16 1/3k (42); 46 2/3 w/Blasters, 37 1/3 w/Rails
Iridium L: 18 2/3t + 23 1/3k (42); 39 2/3 w/Blasters, 44 1/3 w/Rails

+30% optimal

Uranium L: 20t + 16k (36); 38 w/Blasters, 34 w/Rails
Tungsten L: 14t + 22k (36); 32 w/Blasters, 40 w/Rails

+60% optimal

Thorium L: 15t + 15k (30); 30 w/Blasters, 30 w/Rails
Iron L: 10t + 20k (30); 25 w/Blasters, 35 w/Rails

Advantages:

• More gradual damage falloff with longer range ammo for rails, as discussed above
• Stresses the racial damage types (Gallente/Blasters/Thermal; Caldari/Rails/Kinetic)
• Hell, it even works fluff-wise; rails shoot the ammo as shells and blasters as fireballs

Disadvantages:

• More or less precludes any of the more interesting ammo-adjustment solutions
• There's probably a great gaping hole somewhere I'm not seeing.

Indeed multiple things will have to be looked into, however a straight buff to active repairing is exactly what is needed. Active repairing doesn't only stink because buffer tanks are better, but also because ships today are generating far more dps than they did a few years ago.

People currently using faction active shield tanks with a full set of hi-grade crystals are having fun in pvp, so perhaps we shuold make crystals do something else and give everybody the feeling of of working active tanks by simply making active reps generate x % more hitpoints pr cycle.

Shield and armor in general are very well balanced with armor having higher resist, using less cap pr hitpoint with shield boosters being nice burst tanks, invuls able to be overheated and EATING cap...
Also armor has 1600mm plates which are giving more protection than the biggest shield extender. At the same time passive shield recharge was nerfed a lot in the past.

If anything I would look into fitting and drawbacks of buffer tanks/active tanks, but a straight buff is indeed a very valid buff.

Pinky

Active reps doesn't promote blobs - having 100x more people online at the same time than 5 years ago promotes blobs...

But yes rigs has side effects in a negative direction. Also EHP is strong, however CCP wanted to prolong the fights and I agree this buff is in fact working as intended. We just need active tanks to be in line. Active tanks have many reasonable flaws (easier alphaed, weak against neuts, limited space for cap boosters etc). nerfing hitpoints will be counterproductive to the CCP stated inventions where boosting active tanks will promote a viable alternative. Ofcourse I'm not ruling out several tweaks on buffer but with the amount of dps coming from a single BC these days there is nothing wrong with buffing active tanks to match.

The people using active shield tanks in lowsec with implants have great fun and if they seem overpowered it might be because they are often using faction battleships with faction equipment supported with fleet boosters and often logistics/falcons as backup.

Why not make sure everybody can have this fun without needing to pay billions for faction items and implants only to barely making it worth it?

Giving every active tank a boost in hitpoints generated while changing crystal implants to something else will give EVERYBODY an equal oportunity to have a viable active tank without riscing their implants has multiple benefits : 1,5b isk spent on implants will no longer give people the same advantage as now, people might use active tanks out of empire/lowsec without fearing loss of implants to bubbles and people will no longer be forced into faction equipment just to be competible with T2 buffer tanks.

Yes EVERYTHING and especially rigs will need a look into, however I completely disagree with not touching active reps as I believe the hitpoint buff did exactly what it was designed for - CCP just failed to locate all consequences and will need to adress them now (rigs being too strong, buffertank too easy to fit for their HP compared to active tanks and as I mentioned the need for active reps to be repairing more)

Pinky

I hope to god CCP is listening, and players for that matter. One will have irrefutable evidence and the other will be able to make a quick buck playing the market.

Hail is going to skyrocket in value. You took away the one thing that makes it less favorable than RF fusion. Now Hail provides the already-insane effective range projectiles are capable of via lack of falloff penalty, and it will hit harder than RF fusion.

There is only one thing to note here. All you did was extend the effective range. Three months from now, you'll be wondering why no one is using hybrids, despite your laughable "buffs" to them. Hail will be selling like hot cakes regardless of its grossly inflated price. Why? Because range is the key here. Range is what you didn't give hybrids, and it's what you gave to Hail. Don't claim you don't know how to balance hybrids months from now. I just told you how.

There's already a concept of diminishing returns in place there since LG Crystals cost a fraction of HG ones and provide half the bonus.

It's a total heresy to believe Slaves boosting EHP by nearly 50% are OK while Crystals which provide 52% increase for repairing rate are OP.

By your logic we should get rid of ALL pirate sets altogether along with the removal of faction ships. Only these measures can make everyone equal.

Edit: Off topic part removed, CCP Phantom