EVE General Discussion

Makes sense. Would separate T3 roles work? Or is there just not enough design space left in the cruiser size to pull that off?

Like, T3s are the only cloaky/nulli cruisers, if built right, for instance. Rather than trying to squeeze them into "Faction cruisers, but different!", is there any other real options?

Personally I'd rather see T3 cruisers have their own special roles rather than "this is just every faction cruiser at once", but maybe that's just me.

The problem with this post is that almost everything in it is completely wrong.

Let's start with the "intent" argument. To hell with "intent". There are multiple instances of ships having their "intended" role reworked - starting with the mining frigates an moving on. Who remembers the Sacrilege as a laser boat now? "Intent" is a meaningless reason to alter game balance. It was originally intended that Amarr ships were to be technically superior to the other races, this being balanced by them costing somewhat more.

Then there's the implicit assumption that T2 ships aren't better than T3s in their specialities right now. Orly? Name 3 T2 cruisers who don't exceed T3s in their specific specialisation. Cerb? Long range missile chucker with longer range than the Tengu. Huginn? Long range webber with longer range than the Loki. Ishtar? Specialised drone boat with more drones than the Proteus. On so on. I'll give you the Zealot, and maybe the Sacri. And ofc the Eagle but the Eagle is terrible anyway. But in general, T3s don't exceed T2 specialisations.

Compared to HACs and Recons, what T3s bring is a superior platform: they're tougher, have better resists, more EHP and a 3rd rig slot. But when I challenge people to provide examples of T3s making T2 cruisers that would be used if the T3s didn't exist* obsolete, actual examples are hard to come by.

And finally the worst of all, the "jack of all trades" thing. Versatility. Let me tell you about versatility. It's bullshit. It's a perfectly worthless reason to spend good ISK on a T3. Let me tell you who's going to spend ISK on T3s that can't do anything better than some other ship: idiots and no-one, that's who. Because "versatility" flies out of the window the second you undock, at which point you're as rigidly locked into your ship config as any HAC pilot. The only advantage you might - briefly - enjoy is your opponents wondering briefly whether your Legion is a crappy laser boat or a crappy HAM boat while they own your "jack of all trades, master of blowing up" T3.

And let's not forget the other stumbling block in the path of "versatility" - rigs. So you want to modify your "versatile" Tengu from a missile boat to a rail boat, do you? Pity about those T2 missile rigs you just fitted eh? I guess you'll just need to have 2 Tengu hulls after all. At which point, why bother?

Versatility would only be a worthwhile selling point if there were restrictions on supplying new ships, or if there was a limit to how many ships we could own or store. There aren't.

The only possible mechanism that would make versatility remotely worthwhile would be if T3s could reconfigure themselves (and I mean change subs, rigs and mods) while in space. I do not advise holding your breath for this one.


*Comedy fleets don't count

Also funny how you point out the Zealot is inferior to the Legion (which is true) yet you see Zealot fleets far more often than Legion fleets.

Why? Quite frankly it's because the Legion's increased strengths still don't really justify the increased cost and SP loss upon destruction.

In fairness, I have seen drone Proteus fleets. But I dare anyone to tell me with a staight face that the Ishtar has been obseleted

You know, thinking about it, maybe T3s should just be balanced against battleships instead of cruisers. That could be a niche role.

And yet battleships can kill both effectively, it just happens to be a game of fitting your ship for the specific role.

You have to fit a T2 or T3 cruiser accordingly in order to kill battleships. Likewise, you have to use specific battleships and fit them accordingly in order to kill T2 and T3 cruisers

All of that info came from dev blogs, dev posts, fanfest announcements and several AMAs.

T3 will be nerfed to fit them into the cruiser lineup where they belong.

T2 do compare to battleships in terms of tank and damage application (actual dps / tank including RR) in many instances. The only reason battleships are going to be used is cost and range (with associated dps drops to sub hac bc damage).

Which BS have been made obsolete by tengu fleets?

Well that depends. The only time range is really going to be important is fleet fights and sniper gangs. So in the majority of EVE pvp which is not the two instances above, dps is going to be higher from HAC. I can get 900 dps from Garde II out of an Ishtar to all ships from intie to supercap at 30 - 15km, about 600 from a drone Proteus with signficantly less tracking, or 150 to 1100 from a Mega depending on target size.

Regarding tank, its not simply a matter of comparing raw EHP. I have had a bastioned marauder two shotted by citidal torps while I can sit stopped in a 150 sig Ishtar and barely have my shields scratched.

While a battleship may have more EHP on paper it also takes signficantly more dps from all incoming damage than smaller faster ships like HAC.