Ships & Modules

There's really no need to do this, and TBH your ideas strike me as being based primarily on EFT rather than in game performance. IMO after a few weeks you'd either be calling for your ideas to be reverted or you'd be piling on change after change after change to fix the mess they'd made in the first place.

-Liang

You are wrong about that one. 80% of what I fly is T1 Cruisers. Low DPS tank ratio is a problem on even the higher Tier Cruisers. MWD's burn out the cap to fast and Canes with 2 Neuts are not just a threat to your Capacitor but **** it.

30-40K EHP and 6 Guns is not a lot to ask for, neither is better fitting or more cap.I don't want Cruisers to have more tank then a BC or even more DPS. I want them to be 2-3 Slots down as well. In return I want them faster, all of them.

As you said it is about the center and I think that the preferred T1 ships skirmish roaming gangs should be the 16 Cruisers and not the Minmatar Battlecruiser. I don't want to take away what is good about the Battlecruiser Class which is being a Heavy Cruiser but I want it to be an improvement in non mobility related area's and not better in utility.

Yes I think T1 Cruisers Tank and DPS are to low and very slight DPS / Tank buffs won't ruin BC's because they will still be superior in those roles.

You aren't just talking about changing T1 cruisers - you're talking about changing HACs and BCs. Ships you admit you do not fly.

-Liang

Are there any type of reports that show how much the BC's are being flown? I know from personal experience I see more canes and drakes then just about anything else

Claiming the Cane needs a nerf and the Drake is fine... :psyduck:

-Liang

The proposed Drake nerf obsoletes the Cerb - something you said you were keen to avoid.

-Liang

Stop it, you're making me daydream about tackling one of these in an AF.

In addition to the dev tweets, there is this: http://eve-kill.net/?a=top20

And I know there are a lot of drake lovers here on the boards, but IMHO:

1. The current drake is not balanced. Its too good at everything. If one ship has twice as many kills as its next closest competitor, that is easy proof. Period.

2. The proposed changes (at least the ones that I last heard about) would make it completely imbalanced in pvp. Its an obscene damage buff, with only a very minor tank reduction (that would still put it on par with the buffer of the other BCs). I do agree that it would balance it out for some of the PVE issues, but that isnt the whole story.

I agree the drake needs changing, but the current proposal aint the right way to do it. Hopefully it gets rebalance with the rest of the alleged Tier changes coming up.

IMHO of course.

I agree that battlecruisers make HACs obsolete, and tier 3s make sniperhacs obsolete, but I disagree that cruisers and battleships are obsolete because of battlecruisers. Of course, with HACs the issue of INSURANCE is a problem, since you cant insure T2s for much more than a third their actual cost, and the fact they are at best tankier cruisers there not much reason to use them. Clearly the OP has flown a command ship, because they are far superior to battlecruisers, though they take much more training and isk to fly. Cruisers are still cheaper than battlecruisers and better mobility (I agree that the rigging costs for them is too much). Battleships aren't used much in gang PVP due to their speed limitations and their low aligning on roams. Also their high cost in guns/rigs makes them out of reach for most people even after insurance

You may see lots of frigates, but lone frigs in lowsec are hardly representative of the rest of EVE (also, you actually choose to engage in frig combat; often cruiser up you choose to jump a gate and have combat thrust upon you).

I've said it previously, cruisers need way more capacitor so they can, you know, cruise. Right now they'd be better known as Spurters, because you can only run an MWD in spurts.

I can get between 4 to 7 minutes of perma MWD for a Cyclone, but only 50s for a Bellicose. If you can't get out of point range in 50s, you are toast simply because your class advantage (maneuverability) ends with your cap. If you even so much as get brushed by a neut, forget it.

Frigates can fit MWDs which they can perma-run very easily. Not so with cruisers. The best you can hope for is to take out the frig on the way in, but in any case, BC's do better because you get extra slots to fit TE's or TC's which means, perversely the BC does better at swatting frigs.

So, forget kiting cruisers using their maneuverability to trounce BCs (also, luls sig radius and crap tank). Forget cruisers to swat frigs in any engagement where there's a T2 frig or more than one enemy. Should have brought a cane.

I dream of a day when cruisers can run MWD's for at least as long as BC's.
Where although their DPS may be half a BC's, say, 300-400 (most struggle to top 250DPS where AF's and dessies are hitting and only short range gank raxes and ruppies do better),
I dream of a day when cruisers have the tracking to actually hit destroyers harder than BCs. This gives both cruisers a class purpose, and destroyers an advantage vs BCs.
I dream of a day when their tank is easily able to get to the mid-20K EHP range without gimping either of the above, or requiring dropping a point off
I dream of a day when the low-end cruisers get PG, CPU, EHP and slots; where the EW cruisers get enough mids and bonuses to do their job (AKA tiercide)
I dream of the day when all cruisers with drone bays get enough drones to threaten a frigate (one drone is a joke, face facts)

This dream would require cruisers to have the following kinds of buffs;
- 5% cap use bonus per level for MWD's (or, indeed, a bigger capacitor) OR 5% less penalty per level to MWD capacitor modifier (allowing MWDing like a pro)
- adjusting down cruiser sig radius a touch, especially for clearly shield tanked ones like bellicose, to reduce the impact of MWD sig bloom
- 5% better tracking for medium guns, 5% bonus to explosion velocity of missiles, or 5% drone nav speed bonus
- 10% more base hitpoints across the board (remember, 1600's do more than trimarks; you fit ACR rigs to fit the plate first)
- buffing drone bays to 10m3