Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I dont think its a case of not fixing the game so much as 90% webs would be OP for everyone, but not on just one line of easily recognized hulls. The only thing that would make it better is if Serpentis didnt look so Gallente, rather than unique like Angel & Sansha.

If Only Serpentis ships can do it, then as soon as you see it that ship becomes your primary target. If solo you dont engage it.

If it was a widely available bonus, then it is not good... But they just removed that bonus from evrrything else that had it.

It's an interesting thought, but it's not a hard fix and the issue is more larger ships being able to swat smaller ones anyway.

The Vindicator with Skirmish boosts and two webs can basically create a 40km diameter sphere of "**** frigates" where anything that gets into web range gets immediately snagged and blown off the field and Cruisers don't fair much better. This makes it very difficult to pin down a Vindicator in a balanced fight because your Tackle is going to drop fast. You can, of course, bring Damps or ECM but the same applies for guns in general and doesn't actually address the real problem here.

The problem is, essentially, that you can stack 90% webs. 90% is basically the hard limit on "regular" webs, you can stack 10 webs on one target and I think it gets it down to ~9% velocity. Two 90% webs on one target is ~1-2% velocity and a death-sentence for anything that cares about speed to survive, whether it's sub-caps against capitals, or a frigate against anything.

Yes... But if only a Vindicator can do that to you, you know about it and can either not engage or take other measures against that ship. The problem exists when everyone can do it.

you could just try not getting webbed.

Just make more ship designs to replace what the older ships used to do. But keep the older ships around.
There is no reason why we can't have more ships in game to play with. More ships means more fun in eve.

the overpoweredness of ecm and damps doesn't mean 90% webs aren't silly

Your argument boiled down to completely discounting drones and mobility while trumping up cost and fitting. Cost is irrelevant for balance. Fitting is tight on a Dram and it does requires some pimp to fit the same way as the Firetail. The Firetail is closer than maybe it should be but the Dram is still the better ship.

If you want to argue for a small fitting buff to the Dram I wouldn't argue. My issue is people trumpeting the notion that no one is going fly the Dram or that the firetail is the better ship. Both of those are false.

Odd. Thats the only counter allowed to most PvE boats.

Having it on the one line of ships breaks nothing and gives those ships a known element of danger.

Ohh ohh ohh !!!

I know this one!

They are the big things that are really really good at making near-stationary things go blap!

Okay, you are right on your points, that's for sure, however, the Dramiel still is geared towards a role in which there are better choices. This is fairly common across almost all ships, that there's always something that gets a job done better, however as for this very special pirate frigate, it looks like the following:

If i want to play MWD tackle for a gang, I am now going for an Interceptor. The reasons why I am doing this are the following: The Warpspeed of an Interceptor allows me to pursuit targets a lot more easy as i could with a Dramiel. At the same time these Interceptors get a bonus to Warp Disruptor Range. Which is basically a key-functionality here, because with an MWD and High-Velocity, i want to stay as far out from my target as possible while keeping it tackled, so that after a secondary tackle is applied i can GTFO as fast as possbile.

If i want to play close range tackle for a gang, the Dramiel surely is a ship to be considered, however i would like to go with a mwd AND an afterburner here, so while going into scramrange i can still maintain a good amount of velocity even if counterscrammed.
Fitting both these modules along with some tank takes a good chunk of fitting, and if i don't want to be useless for everything besides tackling, i will think of getting a Firetail over a Dramiel, simply because the firetail can fit this stuff without the need for fitting mods (and in the case of getting blown up, i won't lose a rather expensive Dramiel, but this isn't a balance factor, just a metric on which i decide which ship i take).

If I intend on dealing damage with the Dramiel, i may have the supreme velocity over the Firetail, and the added Drone-DPS will boost my total DPS over that of a Firetail, however it takes ~20 seconds of DPS and 3 of my 4 drones i can carry are vapourized, from where on the Firetail would deal more DPS.
The Dramiel certainly has the Fall-Off bonus which allows for some kiting stuff the firetail can't do as good, but to be quite honest, with the hard Falloff I'd be in, i could also fit some Arties onto the Firetail and deal roughly the same DPS at same ranges. With enormous volleys that might put another, active tanked, frig through it's buffertank.
Now i could expand on this and fit a Dramiel in the same way, but there they are again, my fitting problems.


Really almost no matter how you look at it, the Dramiel ends up in a position between Interceptor and Combat frig. While being some kind of Hybrid might be of use, it isn't in this case:

A Interceptor will just outperform a Dramiel in the role of tackling and hunting down targets, whereas a Firetail will perform on an equal level as the Dramiel in terms of combat capability.
This means the Dramiel is in a spot which would apply onto the philosophy of a Tech 3 ship: Can do more than one thing, but worse than the role's respective working horses.
Which is nothing that should apply onto a Pirate frigate.
Also, please note how the 'High mobility' which is the main attribute of the Dramiel, can now be achieved by a Succubus when looking at afterburner fits.

To have the Dramiel perform better than a Firetail requires the pilot to put a few rather expensive mods into the Dramiel. Which could, of course, be used in the Firetail, too, and enhance it's performance likewise.

I can see how the Dramiel would be in a good spot if it gained, let's say, 50% bonus damage on it's rolebonus, boosting it from 4 effective turrets to 5. The Firetail has 4.5.
Voila, Pirate > Navy, as it is intended.
Another way would be giving the Dramiel some fittings, so that with Tech 2 gear it could fit the same stuff a Firetail can. Voila, Pirate > Navy, by ~same stats with enhanced mobility.


I can tell you: I have flown the Firetail quite a lot after the Navy Frig changes, and i really like it. If i were to decide i want to fly a Dramiel, it would be a very, very special Dramiel, one that i wouldn't want to lose. Unless of course i'm filthy rich, which i unfortunately am not.

The upsides over a Firetail i would get by this fit is not dps, neither tank. It's mobility. It wouldn't allow me to kill stronger ships that a Firetail could handle, it would simply allow me to catch even some MWD kiting Dual TD Condors and whatnot, simply by going common MWD speeds with an AB.

This is the only thing the Dramiel can shine in, and that's sad. Because with the mobile depots at hand, i can also just fit an MWD to my Firetail instead of an ab, and eat said kiting ships alive, too.


There will be people still flying Dramiels, yes.
Maybe even I will.
But it will certainly not be the best choice for the things i intend to do.