Bugsy VanHalen
Society of lost Souls
194
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Posted - 2012.10.15 16:41:00 -
[1] - Quote
I like flying battleships as they are, but they do need some love. The problem is where to put that love.
-Better tracking would be nice, but then they become overpowered against smaller ships. this would not be balanced.
- A 50% damage boost would also be nice, but again they would become the only ships worth flying. It would still be hard to hit smaller ships but when you do connect they are gone in one shot. I really can't see this being balanced.
- more mobility would be nice but really would not change much. And would not be fitting for what the class was meant to be.
The big fix I would think would make battleships much more viable for PVP without making them overpowered against other ships is more a targeting sensor buff. More sensor strength. Battleships should be almost impossible to jam. smaller ships already have an advantage by being harder to track and hit, and when hit only take partial damage due to there small sig radius. There is no reason for a battleship to be so easy to jam.
When battleships were the primary null sec PVP ships the most popular counter was ECM drones. Why? Because battleships are so easy to jam. Why do you never see Marauders in PVP? It is not the cost as T3 cruisers are about the same and are popular. It is because they are even easier to jam than their T1 counterparts. A massive buff the sensor strength at least 3-4 times what they currently have, will go a long way to making battleships more viable in smaller scale PVP.
Add a small boost to base targeting range, faster lock times, and maybe a small boost to capacitor, power grid, and CPU and they will be much better ships, without adding anything to make them more powerful, or harder to kill. It will just give them the means to apply their damage more effectively, and consistently.
These changes may be small but I really do not think battleships need much to gain more PVP viability. In a lot of ways they are very balanced. For a buff to sensor strength to make a difference it will have to be huge. They need to be almost impossible to jam. They would be a great counter to the so popular heavy ECM that drove battleships out of much null sec PVP over the past few years. They used to be much more widely used, but they dropped off once ECM drones became a must have in null sec PVP. I do not want to see ECM get nerfed, it certainly has its place, but at least give this one class a sensor strength buff that will make ECM ineffective.
This would at the same time remove the one thing that makes Marauders useless in PVP. It does not matter what damage they can do if they can not target or hit anything. They do enough extra damage over T1 battleships to make them worth the extra money. Just not when their computers are so weak they can not apply that damage in a PVP situation. It is time to bring the ECM age to an end.
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