SpeedoMan
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Posted - 2005.08.31 16:01:00 -
[1]
The hawk definitely needs a change, and the point is well made that it doesn't fit in with the design of other AF's for other races, or the Caldari racial characteristics. Right now, Caldari have 1 "bad" AF and 1 "good" AF. Really, the Harpy is a specialized AF, and thus much more useful than the more versatile Hawk. The only bonus is that it's cheap. The other races seem to have 2 AF that each specialize in something different, Ishkur & Enyo being a good example of 2 AF embracing a races's specialties.
Harpy is a specialized mini-rail platform, which makes perfect sense & follows one of the Caldari race archetypes perfectly. The Hawk, however, falls short. The other Caldari archetype is missiles, and it stands to reason that the 2nd Caldari AF should be a missile platform descended from the Kestrel.
The Merlin has a 4/3/2 slot layout, with 2 turret, 2 launcher hi-slots. 150cpu/35grid. 300shield/225armor. Bonuses to 5% shield HP, 10% hybrid range.
The Harpy then properly inherits the 10% range bonus for frig skill (really 50%), drops the 5% shield HP bonus, gains another 10% range bonus per AF skill, and 5% damage bonus. 5/4/2 layout, 4 turret, 1 launcher. 175cpu/50grid. 625shield/325armor, and of course the mad kin/therm resists.
The Kestrel has a 4/3/2 slot layout, with 4 launchers, 0 turrets. 125cpu/30 grid. 250shield/200armor. Bonuses to 5% kinetic missile damage & RoF.
The Hawk, currently, has a 4/4/2, with 3 turret, 2 launcher. 180cpu/40grid. 665shield/275armor. Bonuses for frig skill of 5% missile RoF (the deceptively static kin/therm resists), and AF skill bonus of 10% hybrid range and 5% shield boost.
...whoopeedo, less overall HP than the Harpy, 1 less hi slot than the Harpy, same med slots. That wonderful 5% shield boost bonus, even at L5, is only 25% total. When you're talking about having a small shield booster II (+30 shield), that's all of 7.5 meager points. A final boost of only +37.5 hitpoints. That's nothing at all worth training the AF skill 1.5 months to L5 to attain. CCP needs to put on a REAL bonus instead of that "afterthought" 5% shield boost bonus. When your overall shield is going to be ~750 with good shield compensation skill, 37.5 is a drop in the bucket, and statistically no different from 30.
IF... the hawk were to be a properly kestrel derived T2 AF, however, we could expect something like this: 5/4/2 layout, 5 launcher, 0 turret. 145cpu/43grid. 521shield/289 armor. Caldari Frig skill bonus of to 5% kinetic missile damage (and the kin/therm resists). AF skill bonus of 10% RoF, 10% velocity. It'd be a lot like a mini-Caracal, like the Harpy is a mini-Moa. Makes sense!
10% RoF bonus you say? That's not normal, it should be 5%, right? WRONG. Much like the pathetic current 5% bonus for the Hawk shield boost, grab your calculator and punch in 25% (L5 AF skill) of 10-12 seconds, for a std missile launcher with good skills. What's that you come up with? Right... only 2.5, meaning ~8sec RoF now. Not much. Now 10% would give -5 sec bonus, so you'd end up with about a 5sec RoF on std missiles at L5 assault frig skill. Now that might actually begin to be worth it ;)
Alternative slot layouts for the Hawk include 4/5/2 instead, with ~10 more CPU added on, to lower offense but enable more EW/shield. Another would be 5/4/2 slot layout, same as Harpy, but with 3 turret & 3 launcher slots allowing for proper flexibility in choice of missiles vs. rails per the current Hawk description.
Keep in mind, of course, that with std launchers taking 8 grid each, 8*5 = 40, so that's pretty much completely crammed full & allowing for no other mods, on my proposed "Kestrel T2" setup. With the "5/4/2 - 3/3" Hawk/Merlin setup, also, the grid is still too low on that ship to really equip a full hi-slot load for most players, and thus "balanced" against too much offensive power. Even if the Hawk stays 4/4/2, it needs 3x launcher, 3x turret slots. -------------------------------------------- Soban... red all the way through and through |