Originally by: Seriously Bored

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Edited by: Seriously Bored on 22/04/2010 21:54:55
In light of the regular threadnaughts since Dominion came out about the overpowered nature of the redesigned Angel ships, I've been trying to mull over if and how these ships should be nerfed.

I'm a Minmatar pilot and always have been, and since Dominion was our day in the sun, I'd hate to see our newly-buffed ships get hit with the nerf bat as much as anyone (especially since I have near-perfect skills for flying Angel ships). But I've seen plenty of very good arguments for why these ships are game-breaking. And the only counter-argument I've seen is "stop whining, HTFU," or the random "See? A killmail. They are mortal afterall."

I've decided that "Stop whining" is not a valid counter-argument for game balance. And proving that Angel ships can be killed says nothing about how often they are killed, or their power relative to their ship classes.

So the following are the latest revision to my ideas for how to nerf these ships and still maintain their flavor and usefulness.


TL;DR:
1) Nerf Angel ship drone bays.
2) Increase Angel ship mass, while still keeping best-in-class acceleration.

#1 Will be easier to explain, so I'll start there.

1) NERF DRONES:

One of the biggest problems with the Dramiel and the Cynabal is that they do too much damage for ships as fast, agile, and uncatchable as they are. I believe that keeping these ships agile and speedy is essential to their "FLAVAR," so rather than removing slots or decreasing their speed, I believe drone reductions will do a bit to defang them while still keeping a bit of what makes them great.

Dramiel: Nix its drone bay.

Yes, completely remove it. This will reduce its maximum DPS by over a third, significantly reducing its target selection and forcing it to slow down a bit if it actually wants to do damage.


Cynabal: Cut drone bay and bandwidth to 25m3/mbit.

Most people claim that the Cynabal does more damage than the Vagabond. This is only true because of two things: more grid, so it can fit 425mm guns easier, and a larger drone bay. With the same guns and damage mods, the Vagabond beats out the Cynabal in turret DPS.

By cutting the Cynabal's drone bay in half, it now has to choose between gravy DPS in the form of light drones, or GTFO-ability with light ECM drones. Not both. This takes away some of the pain it dishes out, while narrowing its tactical variety.


Machariel: Left as is.

I'm less inclined to believe there's a problem with the Machariel like there is with the Dramiel and Cynabal, because it can be caught by a very large number of ships, unlike the Dram and Cynabal. Almost all the Pirate BSs are monsters, and all of them can be caught and killed.

EDITED: It seems no one has any complaints about the Machariel. I'm editing this stuff out.

To be continued...

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