Understatement of the year there. A missile Phantasm is a Caldari ship. It uses Caldari weapons, Caldari tank, Caldari slot layout, etc. There is nothing at all Amarr about it. And since there are already plenty of good shield tanking missile ships it's a redundant Caldari ship.

Also, the Vindicator and Bhaalgorn are Minmatar because of their web bonuses and (in the case of the Vindicator) speed. The Machariel isn't Gallente, but CCP's utter stupidity with the Angel ships doesn't excuse making the Sansha ones just as bad.

it could be alot better...

The problems is 3 lows and fitting.

double the damage bonus, drop one gun (2: 6 effective), minus a high for an extra mid - and keep fitting the same: then maybe it would keep its unique factor while being competitive in damage, cap use and fitting flexibility.

The "don't matter as much as they should" part is quite an understatement.

Both ships work with Artilleries AND Autocannons, and are able to effortlessly fit a full rack of the BIGGEST ones in each category.

Both have a 50% built-in falloff bonus with Gallente Cruiser/Battleship V.

It's actually the other way around: their damage projection is nothing short of AMAZING. Something to consider while we reveal in their unsurpassed speed, agility and scan resolution, best of their classes easily.

It's due time Cynabal and Machariel meet the Nerfhammer.

I'm just extracting the Phantasm bits - the thread is about the Phantasm.

I love the look of the ship - flew one quite a bit, trying to make it viable for at least PvE before trying it in PvP.

It sucks.

The above quoted comments pretty much sum it up. It needs cap BADLY, even with empty utility highs, it's very slow for a shield tanker, and the drone bay is laughable.

Ah yes, this dates back to 2009, and you're looking at the one responsible for that (along with the Dramiel, Cynabal and Machariel uberness)

Considering I was the one breaking this ship in the first place, the least I can do is to post here what we think of pirate ships at the moment.

• Blood Raiders: Bhaalgorn is nice, Ashimmu and Cruor need some iteration. Need to find ways to make them useful at what they do without them competing too much with the Amarr Recon Ships.


• Sansha's Nation: Nightmare is very good, Phantasm and Succubus also need some love. Probably going to need to have a look at their mobility and EHP. Open to ideas however, so this thread will be watched.


• Guristas: Rattlesnake and Gila we are happy with, not so much with the Worm.


• Serpentis: we are quite pleased with all the ships in this line.


• Angel Cartel: while the Dramiel has been brought back into line, the Cynabal and Machariel need a nerf. Not necessarily a big one mind you, but at the moment they are just too much versatile with their flexible slot layouts, extended drone bays coupled with amazing speed and good damage. Their theoretical weaknesses (lack of EHP, poor damage projection) don't matter as much in the field as they should.


So, when would this be coming out? Not for a while, we have a lot of more urgent rebalancing to go through, mainly with Tech1 and 2 hulls, but this definately is on our to-do list.

Angel ships are expensive exactly because they perform very well and in style that is favoured these days by many. It's not like supplying Cynabals is much harder than Phantasms, but the former are sold like hot pies unlike latter.

I'm not sure if nerfing their defining trait is a good idea though.

I have flown the succubus, and the phantasm a fair bit due mainly too my love for shield tanking and lasers.

The Succubus in my opinion has good cap, it seems to be just as good as every other frig I have flown however it seems to be slow, and lacking in dps.

The Phantasm on the other hand has horrible cap, I cant put two adaptive invun fields on it without it going below cap stable. It also seems to be lacking in dps, and tank.

I think a decent fix for Sansha ships would be to remove the Caldari bonus and combine it with the role bonus for a total of 125%(150%) increased damage and add a shield resist bonus. Another suggestion could be to add another turret slot on these ships and again remove the caldari bonus and add the resist bonus, but keep the role bonus at %100. A final change i can think of is just buff the 5% dps bonus to 10%.

Every other pirate faction seems to have a defined role such as 90% webs. To me the role of Sansha ships is dps and currently you can get cheaper ships that fill the role of the phantasm/succubus so in order to make them worth flying they need to do this role better.

It's true, but let's be honest, I would fly the **** out of the phantasm if it had another turret, and so would you

Because letting some ships being poor at their job for the sake of diversity is a better idea.
Your idea of balance.
Good job with that.

Well you're the one who imagined in the first place i wanted the ashimmu to be a Pilgrim with another shape.

Well you're the one who imagined in the first place i wanted the ashimmu to be a Pilgrim with another shape.

It's particulalry funny coming from someone who flies a Vigilant in its latest video over let's say, a Deimos or a Thorax. Why do you do that? Because it pounds the two former down to the ground, performing simply better, at the very same task.

Why would you complain if the same nice thing happened to the Ashimmu, or the Phantasm, in regard of other ships?

So titan pilots deserved the right to blap everything ?

I'm glad CCP don't think like you.

IMO, a BS, with faction BS tank&gank (not even T1), shouldn't be as fast as a cruiser... It's ok for the ship to be better than a T1, but the mach have way too much.

I think the combination of damage projection and mobility is a bit much, I'd look at reducing its falloff.

I'm not talking about the Vindicator, I'm talking about the Machariel, silly.

I think you're right about t3 BCs though.

I think the issue is more that the Mach is OP compared to the other pirate BS's (outside of very few specific situations) and less that it is OP in general. Realistically Pirate BS's/Marauders should be the best subcap ships. Unfortunately as it stands, Angel ships tend to be a bit better than their Gurista/Serpentis/BloodRaider counterparts and a fair sight better than the Sansha ships.


I am fine with buffing the other pirate ships instead of nerfing the Angel ships, as you suggested earlier but I think it is pretty clear that something one way or the other should be done.

With the introduction of the Tier 3 ships I feel the cynabal no longer fills a niche role.


When compared to nano Tier 3's the Cynabal gets crushed under the overwhelming dps. It's only saving grace is that of the Medium neut it can fit in the highs which can make a break a fight when solo roaming/and or when you catch that ratting tengu with the 1k dps tank. Outside of that why would anyone want to fly a cynabal? Cynabal and Talos both carry around the same resist profile and rely more on raw Hit Points but the talos has much more DPS and around the same projection. Talos is also cheaper. As far as cost effective ships the only reason anyone should want to be a snowflake and fly a cynabal is for 2 reasons...


1. Medium Neut
2. The front of the cynabal looks like "Kit" from Knight Rider.



This brings me to my next subject the Mach... Most people assume this ship is "OP" because they don't understand it. I used to throw battlecruiser fleets at them weekly only to watch myself and all my friends die in a fire trying to tackle it. The counter to Mach's are already here and I don't believe they need to be nerfed.


The counter to Mach's are simple.. Tier 3 battlecruiser's. Most mach's rely on kiting to mitigate the majority of damage coming in and can be difficult to catch thanks to most of them fitting a Heavy neut in the high's, but in a situation where people are chasing after a mach and you are on "approach" (who needs transversal anyway right?) the Mach will have less transversal itself with a blown up sig from it's mwd. Simply applying dps from Tier 3's (which most hit to around 40-60km) will sink the mach if he doesen't warp off thanks to low resists and Tier 3's great damage projection and speed. Yes the mach will murder 2 or 3 pursuing in the process but if someone can keep a point on it, it will die and it will die quickly.

So t3s counter arazus, falcons, and pilgrims?

The Cynabal has a bit of competition with the Scythe Fleet now, but its tracking and speed and drone bay are just too good - but if the hull loses a little agility and PG so you can't fit a full rack of 720's with a tank and no fitting mods, then it might come back to earth. it will still be good, it just won't be ridiculous.

The Vigilant is fine as it is. Maybe a smidge more speed would help it catch things, but any more DPS is superfluous and tanking it up more is very dangerous for dread blapping effectiveness.

The Gila, also, is fine now DDA's and ASB's exist. Prior to that it was just a buffer and Ogres one trick pony, now you have plenty of latitude to fit and create killdozers.

The Ashimmu could use a bit of love. You can make it as good as a neut Legion, but it ends up more expensive. The only real buff to the Shmu recently has been T2 plates. overall, minor tweaks to cap use and laser damage will really bring this ship back to wide use. Likewise, any fiddling with the Legion's cap warfare sub will impact on the sensibility of going the Shmu instead.

That leaves the Phantasm. Since the Navy Cruiser rebalance, is quite subpar, and swiftly heading to utterly useless given HACs are being rebalanced to give them MWD sig benefits. Even with pimp and a LASB it is just too slow to kite and tank and the cap use, yeah, well...good luck.

The idea of TD bonusing the Phantasm isn't bad, but it will really only come into its own if it swings to an AHAC configuration and you can sig tank, TD and web down your foes (which you cannot do with a shield cruiser). This would require stripping mids and adding lows, or just adding 2 lows. It would be a Curse with more DPS and no neuting - not entirely a bad niche role.

Making it into a BLOPs-like cloaky camping cruiser has some merit, but not much. The ability of black ops to jump about the joint and set up in belts without having to traverse a gate gives them the ability to move without being spotted. Unless the Phantasm can likewise covert jump it will have to traverse gates, risking destruction or blowing intel. There's a compelling advantage to no targeting delay upon decloaking but you'd just end up with a cruiser that camps FW medium plexes to get tackle on farmers..and if the current recons aren't used much for this, the Phantasm won't be either.

The other way to look at this is to give them cyno calibration 5 without covops cloaks, and let them use BLOPs bridges even though they don't cloak. This would provide a way of pouring DPS through a bridge without going stupid on ISK or risk (T3's, BLOPs themselves).

Regarding the discussion about weapon bonuses as a whole, there's some good ideas there. I think that with the HAC changes to the MWD sig for the Zealot, a Phantasm with a 100% hull bonus to lazor gank, cap use 10% per level, and tracking 10% per level would be viable as a place to be; the Zealot gets less inbound DPS and can motor about the field being flashy; the Phantasm gets pure gank, good tracking (shield resists?), and reduces its capacitor problems somewhat. You use the NOmen or Zealot to kite, navy Augoror for tanks and gank, and the Phantasm for outright gank.

I would also add that I think the cruiser level gets the largest benefit from an AB bonus.The biggest issue with shield brawlers is that you have to gimp yourself to dual prop. So either you lose a shield or tackle module or you have no MWD and can't catch anything that doesn't want to fight you. The increased AB speed should allow a Phantasm to catch some things it normally wouldn't without giving up a valuable mid.

The succubus was much slower before it's changes were posted so it would be unlikely if the phantasm doesn't get it's speed increased.

Speculation backed by facts about a ship meant to be the class equivalent.

They're all of the same flavour though.
Dramiel is faster than usual frigs.
Cynabal is faster than usual cruisers.
Machariel is faster than usual Battleships.

Cruor has neuts & webs.
Ashimmu has neuts & webs.
Bhaalgorn has neuts & webs.


It is very likely that the Phantsam will get an AB Speed bonus.
And if not, it will still most likely be something that will increase it's mobility.

You should probably read the pirate frigate thread a bit closer. Rise heavily implies that all sansha ship s are getting a bonus to afterburners.

Nightmare with an AB bonus, extra low and buffed capacitor and shield regen would be interesting. Definitely better than the existing Nightmare for PvP atleast.



Edit: Phantasm Changes are up a base speed was massively buffed.

For PvP it will still end up roughly on par with a Fleet Pest but with better projection. Not sure that it will be worth the isk.

Vindi is the best looking. The Nightmares projection is underrated. It's not as good as a Senty/Cruise Paper Rattler but still very good.