Ships & Modules

They're almost as fast as Interceptors, have the tank of dessies, and the guns of a scanner frigate.


What's the point when you can just rig up a dessie and pay 1/25th the price?


Have I missed something here?

They just pack normal guns after all. Even with the level bonuses a Dessie can challenge by simply adding 3-4 more guns.


Over to you oh brains of EVE. Maybe I have missed a memo?

You have some really slow interceptors .... just saying

I'm by no means an expert but I assume that it's worth something having the firepower of a destroyer with the scan resolution and speed of a frigate.

Also you can enter 1/10 ded sites restricted to frigates.

OP is correct. Assault Frigs are broken and have been for a very long time. During the Tiericide rebalance of ships they were briefly okay again, but further changes to the game have rendered them obsolete. New destroyers as well as the other frigates being buffed essentially wrecked the AF. It's a ship class without a role right now.
The meta has moved toward speed and mobility, so a slower, brawling frigate is less and less useful. Where one might shine, it is outclassed by destroyers. Either by cheaper T1 buzzsaws and especially by T3D's which do everything an AF does but better. A cruiser with Rapid Lights is better at anti-frigate combat than an AF.



It's a constant evolution in Eve. Ship classes, especially the niche T2 variants, wax and wane as new mechanics are introduced and new ships make appearances.

HACs have the opposite problem- they are too good compared to T1 cruisers and battle cruisers rendering both nearly obsolete. Battle ship sized tank (including sig tank) with nearly battle ship firepower means there is little need for a BC any more when you can fly a HAC.
Can't throw a rock without hitting a Gila these days, and once upon a time it was all about the armor HAC in PvP.

Perhaps having a class that is a straight upgrade to tank/firepower of a hull is a poor choice for a fleet role. T2 variants do better when they deviate completely from ship-of-the-line, such as logi or EWAR. But as soon as you have an upgrade to the basic DPS ship class- it immediately infringes on (for good or bad) the ships classes surrounding it.

Pros for Assault Frigates:

- faster and more mobile than Destroyers
- tank better than Destroyers (yes, they tank better... smaller sig radius counts as part of their tank)
- requires less equipment (3 to 4 launchers / turrets versus 7 to 8)
- underestimated (if you want to get into fights, this is key)


Cons for Assault Frigates

- not as fast as their Tech 1 variants... much less Interceptors
- more slots to fit stuff in but with Tech 1 level CPU and Powergrid (which restricts fitting options)
- some are specialized, others are not... no real major trait that defines them relative to other small ship classes beyond being slower, tougher Tech 1 frigates that hit a bit harder.
- (the big one) Tech 3 Destroyers can pretty much everything Assault Frigates can do, but better. Like... a lot better (hell, some Tech 3 Dessies step on the toes of Cruisers).

Actually, one genuinely unique role that they might fill is "accessibility". Reduce the AF skill prerequirement to racial frigate IV, add Assault Frigates I-III or IV to the list of alpha skills, and reduce the production cost of AFs by about 2/3.

Make em cheap and easy to get into. Use them as a hook to get new players interested in fly T2 ships. AFs will still be "not great", but at least they'll be of interest and value to a large section of the players again.

When they got a balance pass a few years back some ninny (F-zz-e) gave them a useless mwd bonus. If CCP would just listen to the 500 or so posts asking for an AB bonus all would be right in the Eve universe.

Their role is 'heavy tackle frigate', but they get scrammed and blown up too easily, so they don't get used.

If you put a gang of them together they are a fast moving (gate to gate) wrecking ball that can rip through systems for decent fun. The fun is only decent because nullbear whiners lobbied for system upgrades and their farming systems can have way to many anoms to d-scan guys down in and engage before they warp to safety. On the other hand, they don't get a lot of respect, so they are more likely to be engaged than say a t3 dessy gang. If you learn how to fly them - they are pretty fun.

T3 dessy kind of blotted out their significance. As CCP slowly nerfs T3 dessy into a good spot the AF will gain ground in usefulness and actual in game use.


Waaaaaay back in the day I flew the crap out of the enyo (back when it only had 2 mid slots) and had a lot of fun with it. It was an odd purple color and was know as the 'Barbie car' of eve. There used to be a video of an enyo doing pvp to some Barbie song, it's probably still around somewhere.


If they got an AB bonus, so they could keep their speed up when scrammed - that would be Fozzielicious!

Thing is, they seem to have an identity crisis what they want to be.

When the ship-tiericide project began, it was all good and they got another slot and some adjustments and were designed to punch two classes up.
I remember a fight that I had with a Vengeance in lowsec and me in a Throax. That Vengeance almost wrecked me but I could warp off, only to be killed by gate guns -.-

Anyhow, incredible piloting by the Vengeance pilot and that ship is still to this day the better missile boat - yes I am staring at you Hawk.

40 mil is chump change for pvp, so I'm not getting it for the pvp aspect. For pve it's not like you're going to lose the ship anyway so I don't get it there either. The price is fine and the skill requirements are fine. It's not about being an older rich player and forgetting. If you can't afford a 40 mil AF loss, then pvp probably isn't for you. I've said variations of this in different situations, but seriously - How many folks will pvp in a 30 mil AF that won't pvp in a 40 mil AF? I don't think it's that big of a number.

The pvp draw isn't vast riches. It's the excitement and so many other non isk things. I'll never agree that making a pvp ship cheaper will pull more guys into the fold.

Also the Sansha ships already have an AB bonus, disqualifying it on the "unique" requirement.