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If peeps prefer the look of the new BCs, maybe CCP can swap the tier3 model with the tier2 models!

I can't speak for everyone else, but I've avoided these posts because I have no idea what you're trying to say.

TALOS

General efficiency: we do realize it suffers from some problems next to the other hulls. Unfortunately, as some of you pointed it, the real issue here comes from blasters, and how they compete against similarly close ranged weapons like autocannons and pulse lasers. Thus, this is little more that can be done by tweaking the hull itself, since the problems mainly come from:

• Damage projection: blasters have issues projecting damage, especially considering Tech2 ammunition like Scorch and Barrage, which greatly empowers pulse lasers and autocannons and leave hybrids far behind for little increased damage to compensate. The issue is also widened because blasters benefit less from tracking enhancers and falloff related bonuses than their Minmatar close weapon counterpart.


• Mobility and armor tanking conflicts with each other: no surprise here, fitting plates into your Gallente armor oriented slot layout decreases its mobility, which is a direct contradiction with how blasters are supposed to work. This leaves little to no choice but to fit shield extenders on Gallente ships (I'm looking at you, Mr. Brutix and Hyperion ) to keep some mobility and actually try to apply the blaster damage output. Also let's not forget Minmatar ships are usually faster than Gallente by design, while Gallente traditionally use the shortest weapon system available.


• Lack of usefulness in gang/fleet engagements: thus, because of blaster low damage projection and Gallente poor mobility when armor tanked, blaster ships are found lacking in gang warfare, as either your target or yourself are long dead before you can reach it. Besides, having blaster ships moving all around the battlefield to engage its target leads to coordination issues with the rest of the fleet, especially if logistics are implied.

So yes, we are aware of all of that and CCP Tallest and myself, among others, keep discussing of possible ways to fix the issue blasters face at the moment. However, what you must understand here, is that there is no magic trick we can pull out of our hats to fix all these issues instantly, as they require looking into massively complex tasks that have a lot of repercussions themselves.


For instance, let us give you a quick insight of the indirect problems we have to face regarding blaster balancing:

• Do we want to nerf Barrage and Scorch? If yes, by how? Wouldn't that kill their usefulness as a whole? If no, can we add even more falloff to blasters, knowing it may be over-inflating the balance of power again?
• Don't we need to have a look at shield extenders/armor plates as well? If we nerf them, are we confident with possible changes to passive tanking? Can't we make active tanking more useful on PvP setups, so that passive tanking is less used for blaster platforms and more on Amarr platforms, designed to be more static than Gallente? Doesn't that require looking into NOS/Neuts as well? How about Cap boosters? Overheating?
• Can we make Gallente ships faster than Minmatar knowing they also use railguns? Wouldn't that be defeating the original design goals for Minmatar ships?

Turning the Talos into a drone oriented ship: this ship is not supposed to be a drone boat, as it would allow it to hit smaller targets far too easily. We will maybe consider reintroducing its 25m3 dronebay if it is found really underperforming, but this is really unlikely for the moment

In one setup I had a BS Afterburner fit to the Tornado and a full rack of 650mm II. I did have to use one fitting rig for that but the fact that it fit relatively easily makes me shake my head.

explosion velocity/explosion radius are the tracking of missile users. and torps can be speed tanked much much easier than turrets. you can fly away from them in a straight line and still negate incoming DPS by a mile. so please drop the thought that missiles cant be speed tanked and that the naga shouldnt also be properly to fit as the other tier 3 BCs.

Since the Thread gone a bit off topic during the last page, I like to repost some stuff here:

Oracle

The old concept was better. Don't get me wrong, I love pooping blaster hulls with 1200+ DPS during her endless crusade to get into a range they never reach. However this is simply over the top, for a mobile hull like the Oracle. Hitting anti support at 50km isn't so hard anyway. You not going to prevent this in a big fight, and it is rather moot point outside of this for a fleet ship like the Oracle. Give it back it's range + tracking bonus(buff the cap a bit to compensate for the lack of the 2. cap use bonus) and make it a notch faster so you end up with a faster Apoc/long range Harbinger instead of a Abaddon that also can control the engagement range(what makes it extreme powerful) and is fairly cap stable in practical game play.

Naga

I'm still waiting for a change. With torps it is nearly useful, however it still lacks the higher velocity bonus to bump up the range a bit so it can compete with other tier 3 BC short range weapon setups(except the Talos) and a explosion velocity bonus to bring it down to 337.5m. You still have damage reduction by speed and sig for most BCs. BC and BS are the most common fleet ships today for DPS. If you want a torp naga on the field it must be able to project solid damage against them(w/o throwing 1-2 painter, a scram and a web on every target you shoot, it isn't this good dps wise to justify this).

The slot and fitting nerf was uncalled for. I'm still looking for a update on the speed penalty for javelin torpedo's.

Tornado

It is over the top with the the best mix of tank and gank mounted on the fastest hull of the tier3(by quite some margin), if you insist to keep the falloff bonus, reduce the turret count or remove a low slot to bring the overall damage down a notch.

Talos

Add a 5. med(and some fitting to use the slot, overall it is very short on CPU for a shieldtank) and buff the tracking bonus to 10% per level to make it a halve way ok rail ship for medium ranges, that can at least compete against beam fittings w/o the damage bonus or puls setups with scorch(it is to far off with the tracking atm and lacks the 5. med for a reasonable tank).

I have one stupid idea.