Missions & Complexes

Having spent a long time flying the Golem, I tend to agree with the OP. However the issues are not really with the ship. The real problem is the weapons and support systems.

As is usual CCP went a bit too far when they nerfed missiles, especially the unguided ones. Rockets were worthless for years, and have only slowly been brought back into use. Torps and Hams still need some work. Changing the explosion radius would require a good deal of balancing and testing on Sisi, so I don't suppose we'll see that in quite a while. However there are some changes that wouldn't kill balance that could be made fairly quickly.

Increase range of unguided missiles by 50% (including their t2 variants). This would push the Golem's engagement range out to 60k/90k for t1/t2 missiles. Not game breaking. For unbonused ships, the engagement range goes from 20k to 30k, a small boost. This could easily be changed by increasing their flight time (increasing their speed would be preferable, but require a bit more balancing).

Target painters are still the meh of EW, and have yet to be touched. They should have been a high slot module, but that would require reworking other ships. Instead reduce their cycle time to 5 seconds and increase their bonus by 50%. I.e. The t2 version would have a bonus of 45%. Lastly it would be nice to swap their optimal and falloff values, but that's probably asking too much. Rumor has it when they were released, their bonus was double what it is now, but that quickly got nerfed. Perhaps it's time to rethink that CCP....

Finally, it is long past time for looking at the volume of all missiles, reducing their volume would allow a few more in the launcher. I know this requires testing, so put it on Sisi and lets see how it plays out, allow an extra 50% of missiles in launchers.

Fixing the weapons and modules, will go a long way towards fixing the golem.

@Bamfordi

As PvE ships they can only be compared in PvE situations.
Look at all 4 marauders. Vargur kicks ass, Kronos and Pally "work", Golem with cruises is worse than CNR, and with torps needs TP juggle. Of all 4 marauders, Golem has great alpha...if helped with few TPs, without them its almost useless.

Marauders are kinda end game PvE content, need a lot of skills to fly properly...and even then to perform worse than a faction ship, that is stupid....and broken.

Machariel is a mission monster, everyone agrees on that, it can barely be in the BS category since it turns like a cruiser, has 350 sig, and pumps out over 1000dps without drones (assuming you take advantage of machs speed and range).

So why train for a marauder if it under-performs? I guess people just wanna try it, problem is some weapons got nerfed in the past and it just killed some ships purpose as a whole. Golem is most affected by this, Pally has fitting issues (and hardly effective against guristas), Kronos was cursed with hybrid problem, and Vargur just kicks ass and takes names.
They are not balanced at all even among themselves.

it really is at a lot of missions. mostly the ones where things are at ranged or you only have to kill a few ships

Yup Golem need fix in terms of torp range (give them more speed bonus) and Micro-Management Hell.

It's just stupid that You spend so much skilling and ISK for a little better ISK/H income and so so so much worse relax playing, You just don't want to pilot it because of that Micro-Management Hell

It may not be optimal but a Paladin can still chew anything that isn't angels pretty easy. Angel's EM resist is too high, it should probably be pared down a bit. Paladins rofl a Golem in Amarr space and can probably hold their own in Caldari and Gallente space.

The Kronos beats the tar out of a Golem for missioning, don't even go there. With the hybrid buff, Kronos rail dps is amazing and the damage projection of rails is a godsend. It outperforms my Machariel at various engagement distances, I only stay viable/better due to mobility, and only for blitzing obviously. I would go as far to say as unless it's angels, a Kronos would be at least on par with a Vargur, and you certainly don't get angels all day, even in Minnie space.

He simply mentioned a Machariel due to the fact that it's the king of blitzing which is the king of high sec mission isk making, something that ALL the marauders should at least be a contender for, in which three of the four (in their own space) are. Golem is outperformed in Caldari space by a rail Kronos, no question. and probably by a rail Vindicator as well. Missiles need to be fixed, they're clunky and slow.

I feel like that would have merited a mention at some point during fanfest, so I wouldn't go holding your breath very long.

I fear that the graphics update is ment to be allso the "Buff" in performance ... I mean doesent it make them better ? .. no ? ... damn :(

Just make it that way for beginning:

Caldari Battleship Bonus: 15% bonus to torpedo velocity and 10% bonus to torpedo explosion velocity

Marauders Skill Bonus: 7.5% to shield booster and 10% to reduction of torpedo explosion radius

Role bonus the same as it is now.

Remove one med slot.

Or give marauders special ability like for every locked target on golem there's automated target painter with 75% sig bonus (cool looking automatic 8 painters from different hull locations - wings etc), Paladin the same but with automatic WEB for locked targets that are in range of hmm 20km? or as you wish.

We just wan't to GTFO with that Target Painters juggling! And MOAR torps range!

sounds like its time for another Guristas battleship.

High damage, vastly superior tank capacity and the option to salvage without ship swapping or multiboxing.


I don't regret swapping from Mach to Kronos.