I didnGÇÖt want to start an argument in a thread fraught with arguments, but I wouldnGÇÖt think anyone would want to play a game with all the ships GÇÿBalancedGÇÖ

Minmitar, was faster than everything else but couldnGÇÖt take a hit,
Amarr, slow, could tank a titan, but ran out of cap so they couldnGÇÖt hit anything,
Caldari, bad mix of two races but with ECM they could afford it,
And Galente was the same thing but Drones made them... well IDK what that was supposed to be the tradeoff of :)

But anyways, if you wanted the benefits of a certain races ship you were supposed to get the disadvantages as well. But the new Homogenization of ships means that it doesnGÇÖt matter what ship you fly, or what race you train, they will all eventually be the same except for the colours; so who wants to fly the blue ship, gold ship, red ship, silver ship (Dr Suess in space)?

Or maybe we can all get colour coded fleets since race and ships type donGÇÖt matter anymore as long as you match your friends. (sounds more like a night out with the girls than ships in space)

I stumbled across this thread right after having a conversation with a friend of mine about how it doesn't make sense that Sansha ships to be designed (at least in terms of slot layout) to shield tank, when all defensive Sansha faction mods that drop are armor mods.

It's no coincidence that the subpar pirate factions are the ones that have no special ability. Angel - mobility and damage projection; Raiders - neuts and webs; Serpentis - webs and DPS. Neither Sansha nor Guristas have any special feature that sets them apart from any other generic gank 'n' tank ship.

Covert ops cloaky Sansha may be a bit tricky to balance. But what would a Guristas special ability look like? No ECM, please... even super-strong ECM bursts would probably be a really bad idea in practice. Capless lasers for Sansha is an option, albeit a slightly dull one, but I just don't know what to do with Guristas to make them relevant.

I'd really like to see Guristas ships as really good missile brawlers. Not very original, I know, and it would simply make them Caldari boats on crack, yes, but so are Serpentis ships compared to Gallente... both use the respective race's hulls for the cruiser/battleship size. However that's just me not liking drones as main weapon system in PvP...

Rattlesnake is not 'fine', it's utterly useless.
There's a good reason it's by FAR the cheapest pirate BS.

Even if you argue that it's good for PVE (which it really isnt, it's just easy for PVE), it virtually never sees PVP use.
All of the other pirate BSs are heavily PVP leaning, the Rattler should be too.
It needs to be brought back to close to what it used to be; a torp DPS boat, rather than the 'look at me, I have tank' ship that it is now.

My suggestion:
- Turn the role bonus into a resist bonus
- Move a high to a mid (MWD, Cap Booster, Disruptor, 2x Web)
- 5 unbonused turret slots (let them focus on that web bonus if they want, or let them sacrifice DPS for neuting power)
- Slightly increase the neut bonus to account for moved high (otherwise it's still inferior to the Legion)
- Build in a LCB or two
- Fill out the drone bay with 25 bw/50 bay

Other options include:
- Almost Cap free neuts (yes, really)
- Role fitting bonus for heavy neuts (increase neut range)
- Refocusing the ship away from lasers wholesale

Anyway, gotta run. o/

-Liang

He might be slow. He might be ineffective. He will always have a special place both my hanger and my heart.

*hugs Phantasm* <3

Part of the fix needs to include the ability to mount corpses on the spikes.

Oh no don't you dare touch the Cyna and the Mach.

The Mach is the only ship battlecruiser or bigger a person can go soloing inside hostile territory and have a fighting chance to get out of blobs. DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH IT.

The Cynabal is still a 260M cruiser. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD. KEEP YOUR DIRTY HANDS OFF IT. IT HAS CRAP DPS ALREADY WHEN KITING. If the other ships suck in comparison it's their problem.

And the vindicator is arguably the best brawler in the game. So what?


If you are worried about something being unbalanced, whine about tier 3 BC, they are too fast and project too much damage too far.

This.

I personally feel that T3 BC should only use medium guns. Those BS sized guns on BC is stupid.

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.

poop

RE, Machariel:

As a dual training is required for this ship it takes twice as long to perfect the bonuses for these ships. I dont think they are in need of a nerf so much as split the bonuses to each faction, IE, set turret bonuses for Minmitar, and Tank or capacitor bonuses for Gallente (or Vice Versa). In order to fly the ships effectively you would need both factions trained to 5 (Similar to the Scimitar/Basi).

With an investment of 100 days for spaceship command alone, an additional 200 days to get the guns right, 120 days for the drones, then add the core tank and core capacitor skills for another 235 days. It takes almost 2 years of focused training to fly this ship to it's full potential.

Of course there are always a few people that fly ships they have no buisness in, with skills always trained to the minimum then whine about subpar performance.