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.

I like how the counter to everything is tier3 BC.

Nerf them to the ground already.

So t3s counter arazus, falcons, and pilgrims?

With the soon to be rebalanced navy faction cruisers, there will be an additional laser ship of this size with a range bonus for all the kiting fun one could wish for: the Omen Navy Issue. Accordingly, I find this yet another argument to buff the Phantasm towards the close(r)-range brawling role.

Cheers
Tilo R.

To sum up my suggestions again:

- better cap (20%?)

- more speed (at least comparable to rebalanced t1)

- role bonus: 167% damage to medium energy turrets instead of 100% (equals an increase of about 6,7% in damage or 8 effective turrets versus currently 7,5)

- swap Caldari bonus from 5% damage to 5% shield resist bonus per level

- (a little more pg or an additional lowslot would be quite nice, but that might be op, so that's not to be prioritised)

Ok, so let's assume that CCP goes absolutely ape **** hog wild with the Phantasm, and fulfills your every possible dream mentioned here. And then they go further. And then you go and fit deadspace gear and pirate implants. It's still not going to be even remotely viable:
- It's still extremely cap intensive (lasers + prop mod + invulns + tackle + neuts + etc).
- It's still quite slow, and there's basically nothing you can do about it (see: limited low slots)
- It's still got terrible damage. The Vigilant (as an example) has a super awesome web bonus on top of 60k EHP and 1100 DPS.
- It's still got a relatively weak tank (~25k EHP active tanked as you suggest, ~50k EHP buffer).

I just don't see how you plan to take one of the most cap intensive ships into the heart of neut and scram range while everyone has 1-2 neuts fit and plan to actually accomplish anything. There's a reason that brawling is held in such disdain for smaller ships.

Hell, even the Talos (blasters, blasters, and more blasters) kites.

-Liang

Ed: If you want to make the ship a brawler, I really can't see it working without 800+ DPS. The Phantasm is ultimately a one trick pony, designed entirely around damage. And it utterly and completely fails at that task.

Hey Tilo, did you see the bonuses on the new Navy Harbinger? It looks like we both got what we wanted. Now... what the hell to do with the Phantasm?

-Liang

Ed: Also, resist bonuses are getting smacked in the face.

While a covops cloak bonus on the Phantasm would play directly into my personal play style (wormhole roaming with probe launcher+cloak in the utility highs), I just can't imagine ever attempting to justify it. Let's look at what the pirate cruisers currently do:
Cynabal: Damage+Speed
Vigilant: Damage+Webs
Ashimmu: Webs+Neuts
Phantasm: Damage
Gila: Tank+Damage

So we know that the Phantasm will remain a shield tanking laser ship and that it basically has a role bonus and two cruiser bonuses. I'd say that the first step is to fold the role bonus into the existing damage bonus by increasing it to 30%/level. Now we have an extra role bonus laying around - and potentially also trading the tracking bonus for something else.

For instance, we could go the route you were suggesting earlier:
- Role: 25% resists
- Caldari Bonus: 30%/lvl damage
- Amarr: 7.5%/lvl tracking

The problem with this, in addition to all the other problems, with brawling in a shield tanking laser ship, is that it's just a bad Narbinger.

We could go a route more like what I was suggesting earlier:
- Role: 50% optimal
- Caldari: 30%/lvl damage
- Amarr: 7.5%/lvl tracking

The biggest problem with this is that it runs a very real risk of obsoleting (or being obsoleted by) either the NOmen or Zealot - depending on which one its more like.

We could do something really crazy and play off of what we actually see from the Sansha NPCs:
- Role: 37.5% shield rep effectiveness
- Caldari: 30%/lvl damage
- Amarr: 7.5%/lvl tracking disruption

Maybe the answer is to just make the Phantasm's role to be THE DPS MONSTER. Maybe something like this:
- Role: 50% cap use
- Caldari: 30%/lvl damage
- Amarr: 5%/lvl rate of fire

Maybe the answer is to do something truly revolutionary with the Sansha ships:
- Role: 100% cap use
- Caldari: 30%/lvl damage
- Amarr: 7.5% tracking/lvl

I dunno, the ship obviously needs something. And I'm not at all opposed to the current Phantasm with a covops bonus. ;-)

-Liang

Maybe the answer is to do something truly revolutionary with the Sansha ships:
- Role: 100% cap use
- Caldari: 30%/lvl damage
- Amarr: 7.5% tracking/lvl

I dunno, the ship obviously needs something. And I'm not at all opposed to the current Phantasm with a covops bonus. ;-)

-Liang

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

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.