Noisrevbus
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Posted - 2011.06.08 03:59:00 -
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Edited by: Noisrevbus on 08/06/2011 04:05:31
The problems with the EAF, as with all frigates, have always been that they don't scale well.
I'm not going to go into details, instead i'm just going to give you an illustration.
- Look at how a Recon fare with Battleships on the field.
- Next, look at how an EAF fare with BC and HACs on the field.
EAF are balanced similarily as Recons, with a lower defensive end and cap issues. For the EAF however this is quite a problem, since it's also reinforced by issues related to being a frigate. A ship that rely on speed and sig to make up a great portion of it's survivability. They get no bonuses to sig or speed, and while they rely on mobility and range for mitigation they have cap issues attempting to sustain that. Recons on the other hand can take a couple volleys (both thanks to slots, the scaling of HP to nominal damage and scaling of bonuses), can more reliably recieve reps and half of them are cloaky. At it's 20m price it's not meant to compete with 200m options, that's not what i'm saying, but it falls short of adapting to the environment and become impractical.
There are plenty of times when the little support features of an EAF can come in quite handy, and it's offensive qualities are reasonably well balanced as "a little less than a Recon" (if we take using your offensive qualities as defensive means out of the picture, and assume you can control the targets enough to put yourself at risk), but it's largely overshadowed by the times you face something somewhat competent - that will more or less instapop you.
You have the exactly same problem with AF, the idea of what they are supposed to do - do not scale down to frigate size. They either need something outstanding and unique to balance them (as other tech II frigates do) or simply find some way around the scaling issues. You simply don't do anything well enough to keep yourself alive against odds. Controlled environments you do alright in, but what ship doesn't?
I'd love to see them be a bit more capable than simple gank-support ships.
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