... vargur is tbh the worst of all now, and it gains almost nothing of range in bastion, go test it, even there's a EFT files with Rubicon changes

90% of the posts are from PvE players who want to do missions even faster than now.

lol why does fleet typhooon get it but not typhoon then?

Well, ran another test tonight on Sisi. The Paladin looks to be finished as a viable boat in Vanguards.
Thanks CCP. Why can't you guys just come out and say "**** you high sec".
Every one of your actions displays what you think.

Oh, and will the new Marauders tank L4's? Very easily. Will they finish them any faster? Doubt it.

You guys always whine about how this is an MMO, and we are supposed to play with others.
Of course, then you wreck a ship class that was used in groups, that being Incursions.

Will the Marauders still work in Incursions? Yup. no doubt. But the DPS is such a joke now, there are umpteen boats that are much cheaper, and skill-intensive, yet now outclass the Marauders in performance in Vanguards.

And for all you clowns gloating about this, remember, the same guys wrecking this class are coming after your Vindi's. Machs, and Nightmares soon.

1. They cost a billion ISK
2. 18 seconds to align. That's the same as a hulk. Speed and mobility is king in warfare.
3. It gets even better; "ripping apart small gangs", that's in bastion mode, where they are not even moving at all. Of course all small gangs are then going to stop moving as well, just to make things fair?
4. The bastion module - one fatal flaw. All its bonuses are defensive. No one wins a fight by defending. I can happily suicide fleets of tackle while getting a cyno and dread into position, and still win the ISK war handsomely.
5. MJD? If a marauder uses a MJD, it means it has lost and is running away (which, ultimately, it won't be able to do) and whatever support it had is now dead or dying.
6. Did I mention they cost a billion ISK?

I'll give you a case in point: the best (and most expensive) PvP battleship is the Bhaalgorn. In four years I've seen it once in nul-sec. See them all the time in WH's thought. The reason why - the mechanics of WH's severely hamper the ability of FC's to escalate any conflict. Those restraints don't exist in nul-sec or indeed in empire.

I'm sure the salvage will be quite good though.

All skills for Marauders on TQ are not being granted or were not when I was playing on the test server. You will possibly run into fitting problems/limitations. Their set of skills for Marauder testing seemed to leave out AWU to level 5. I fit AC Vargur so not an issue here, though others might want to check what "bastion" skills are currently being handed out for "testing" the class.

I hope people here are actually testing the changes. I do not mind the option to have a bastion module, though I do not want that to be my style of play. I like my mobility and AC pew pewing while I head from gate to gate. I trained for Marauders to hope to earn a higher ISK/hour while running level 4 missions than other options (t1 battleships and/or faction battleships).

Who cares about tractor beams. The new salvage module in Rubicon will be OP...

nooo!!!! I want to get rid of my marauders!!!! do not listen to this guy!!!

My skills are on Eveboard for all to see. I fly all gunnery BS's at V, all gunnery support skills to V.

The reason I don't fly a Vindicator is because it is **** compared to the Paladin in armour incursions, and is **** against Sansha's in missions.

So now I will have to fly an inferior boat, until it is also nerfed, at which point the armour incursion channel will likely fold up, since running L4's at that point will be more profitable, until they get wrecked also.

CCP says it wants to encourage group play, then wrecks one of the primary classes of boats used in group play in PvE.
Hypocrites, all of them.

For every marauder you don't buy I'll buy two.

My question is a fine detail on drones. If we deploy drones before entering bastion mode; will the drones still work/fight when we enter bastion mode?

Really? How much additional DPS are you getting out of yours...

CCP Ytterbium and team,

On the Paladin could the 5% bonus to capacitor capacity be replaced with a large laser turret tracking per level?

It would work and feel better with the role of Marauders being able to project damage better.

Regarding the price of the hulls, I'm still shaky at making calculations, so I was using a program called ISK Per Hour, and looked at making a Golem after importing prices from Jita.

I keep seeing the hull costing close to 1 billion just to make it, after getting bits. Some people have inferred they might get cheaper if no one uses them? Unless people buy the first ones at massive losses from the desperate seller, won't that mean the hulls will _always_ cost over a billion?

You're wrong.

Yeah, how about no.

Fine, let me expand on my response.
1. Marauders already have the largest cargo capacity of any battleship.
2. Marauders will thus be able to carry several of the new 'tractor' units (one speedy beam per unit).
3. Marauders will effectively have their tractor ability significantly enhanced.
4. So yeah, how about no...

0 works too.

0 stasis web bonus -or- 0 tractor bonus. Get over your Marauder already...

ok ccp wtf kinda logic is this....


If your that worried why even give the paladin a range bonus per level? That's like the epitome of backwards thinking..... How changing that buff to something else so this thought of needing some stacking penalty in bastion mode isn't needed. it just hurts every other ship just because you didn't think of another bonus to give the paladin. Give it tracking speed per level or 2% resists per level for armor or scan res per level (i know it's dumb) Or even 2% armor amount per level since amarr are extreme armor freaks. I Just don't see a point in giving a bonus to a ship and then penalizing everyone else because of some off form of logic on your part.

I do hope you reply to this question and somewhat of a resolution to this conundrum of yours.

You guys think of some off things to fix a simple problem like this all the time.... Ohh.... this one shoots too far so instead of chaining a bonus (a new one mind you) you penalize every ship of that type for it. You guys often go to extremes when only a small simple fix is needed.

Hey, are they back up on test yet?

That is how EVERYTHING works in eve!

It works and works well. You should try them, they are much better than the old ones.

but in high sec smartbobms are a big no no

POS forum ate my post :(

Anywyas, got off of sisi and the vargur is so damn good right now I have trouble articulating it into words.

It is going to be glorious and I can't wait

FYI all the numbnuts who only care about raw dps numbers: Have you guys considered the impact increased number of penetrating hits and improved quality of grazing shots due to increased tracking and range have on your mission running speed?

It's effing huge and you would know that if you bothered testing it on sisi.

Even if you were to say "The marauder has an advantage because it can move" I'd have to say that Marauders don't quite move fast enough to balance out the tractor structure's currently-proposed 125km reach and 2km/sec tractor velocity - both of which are superior to the Marauder's own bonused amounts by a very significant margin.

I'm not saying "nerf the tractor structure". Absolutely don't do that. Do change the bonuses on the Marauders though.

The Tractor structure currently has ~400% boost to range. (125 km, 400% is 120km)
Its current velocity boost is slightly less than 300%. (2,000 m/sec, 300% is 2,400 m/sec)

The Noctis has a 300% boost to range at Ore Industrial V. (96 km)
With Ore Industrial V, it also has a 300% boost to velocity (2,400 m/sec) which keeps it balanced with the tractor structure.

Marauders should, in my opinion, have their 100% boost to range (48km) changed to 200%. (72 km)
Increase their 100% tractor velocity bonus (1,200 m/sec) to 200% as well. (1,800 m/sec)

This keeps the Noctis in its place as better than Marauders at tractoring and also leaves some usefulness for the tractor structure while making sure the Marauders' bonus is still relevant. It also synergizes with Bastion Mode - A 72km tractor range should generally be enough to reach anything that Bastioned weapons can kill (cruise missiles notwithstanding).

I think this thread devolved long before that... With less than 3 weeks until Rubicon, I think it's a foregone conclusion that the last iteration is final at this point. And barring some serious issues with play balance, I don't think we can reasonably expect to see any minor tweaks until the next quarterly update (if at all).

I for one welcome our new Marauder overlords.

Eve has sound?

So what we have is:

4 Marauders, two that can apply DPS at range, two that cant.

I'll take the vargur.

Autocannons:
MJD is pointless, as you cant jump into them - rarely are they 100k off, and using angles ... well, its a case of ok if they approach, your DPS rises, crap if they go back to 50k and spread - your dps is in the 400 range. You nuke your tank with an AB or MWD because you need to chase down spreading rats.

Artillery:
MJD to 70k at an angle. Glacial firing rate means you kill one or two ships then need to MJD away. You could try MJD to 100k, but DPS is in the 400 range (thanks CCP). When they are below 50k, traversal kicks in, and you miss more, falloff makes it work. You overvolley small stuff, wasting more dps. My tests put it at well below 400dps on a typical serp Rear Admiral.

At no time can you use Bastion unless you have a mission where they close on you, as you cannot apply high DPS from static.

What it comes down to is 2 ships get to use, and work well with bastion, but Kronos and Vargur get little to nothing on it. Rails are better ranged, but less damage choice.

AI noted that on Sisi, I simply dumped bastion, stuck on a MWD and did my normal thing in mission testing. It was faster. The MJD around game was just a PITA as you cannot use it to best effect with non optimal weapons.

Again, thanks CCP - way to think out of the box, but please rethink. An optimal bonus on the vargur maybe - mens little on autos but lots on artillery?

Yes - Golems seem to get little from this, save midslots and painters to use for damage application which can be applied at range or not at all.

Its like telling a politician that they're doing it wrong - CCP cant see the woods for the trees on this. Bastion makes me sit still and apply crap DPS - its use is moot. For below, Bastion used. The sweet spot is lasers, high dps pulse can hit to rat range fine. The rest cant, but we get a long range boost.

For Golem - its fine, as long as you use cruise. Decent DPS
For Paladin - fine, lasers. Good DPS
For Kronos - fine, rails, poor dps.
For Vargur - fine, artillery - lots of wasted, badly applied poor dps.

the problem is with the bastion bonus applying equal amount of optimal and falloff range. Optimal should always be less then falloff. it would be better if its 20% optimal and 40% falloff.

It's a puicture, admittedly but it's also CCP's statement on how they want the power level of the various ships to be. Have fun reading it.

Da Quote

Just a momentary detourGǪ I'm not sure if you can necessarily equate "absolute power" with "improvement". If this is viewed as a pyramid, I see Pirate, T2 and T3 all on opposite ends of the spectrum - with Navy in the middle. I think the only thing you can take away from this is that everything is superior to T1. This was also pre-HAC and command ship rebalance, and pre-SoE ships.

I can't tell from the chart if this is where things are, or if this is where they're headed.

Maybe we can nerf the Paladin as well then everyone will be unhappy with Marauders...

There was a brief discussion on the Test server today about the Bastion bonuses and about hull bonuses and DPS projection with short-range weapons. The Paladin's ridiculous projection (95km optimals with Scorch and two optimal-scripted TCs in Bastion) boils down to that baked-in optimal bonus on the hull.

Remove the Paladin's optimal bonus and give it a tracking bonus like the other Marauders have. Then take the stacking penalty off the Bastion module. Just like that, short-range weapons become just slightly better in Bastion without projection on lasers becoming ridiculous.

I agree with what your saying, the last thing a Bastioned up Paladin needs is more optimal, but to give it tracking would step on the toes of the Nightmare, which goes against the goal of the changes - marauders have the edge in tank and projection whilst the pirate BS's win out in absolute DPS and application.

Plus if your using Aurora your doing it wrong, INMF tachs and conflag pulses are where its at.

BEcause range effectively is a damage application bonus, sicne you can use higher damage crystals and acn even use PULSE weapons.


The range bonus is the MOST POWERFUL bonus of ALL the marauders!!!!

BS launchers are considered to be "bigger" than BS turret weapons. Unbonused torps do substantially more DPS than even unbonused neutrons. For this reason, no battleship in the game has 8 launchers and a damage or RoF bonus. The Golem has 8 effective launchers, that's why it doesn't get a damage bonus.

Is there any reason we couldn't simply make Marauders the fastest in their hull class? That would seem to solve a lot of issues.

Maybe the missions will get redesigned in a way that these insane tanks will make sense.

In any case Vargur with MWD is only 7.1% faster than the Paladin. One needs to move, the other doesn't.

I firmly believe the Vargur requires a few(3-4) launcher hardpoints, following Tempest/Minmatar tradition and design.

It would slightly combat the homogenization currently plaguing the Bastion Marauders and also combat the inherent drawbacks the Vargur suffers from in the current intended role in Rubicon.

So one second people are complaining about how CCP is homogenizing ships and the next moment they are complaining about how different they are.

Can we get some kind of consensus here about which sky it is exactly that is falling?

most bs dont have web bonus and they are fine for missions

Paladin is REALLY good after this change, Paladin being so good is the reason I dislike how lame the Kronos is in comparison.

If you add tracking to paladin, nightmare looses.
Tracking is for Nightmare, as it should be better as a pirate ship then paladin.

Paladin with tracking bonus will be insane and alot better than nightmare.
Good bonuses like tracking are only for pirate class battleships.

Because tech 1 "Megathron" also has tracking bonus.

Apocalypse also has optimal range bonus, that's why paladin should have it.

No its not.

The whole point of teircide is to make all ships viable.

The nightmare is already a well balanced ship and will not be changing much.

Are we still trying to nerf the Paladin?

I say we nerf the Vargur and Kronos to finish them off.

My wish is that we move on to the next group that's getting nerfed, er... "rebalanced".

I believe Pirates and Black Ops are up to bat next, yes. Er, did I say 'bat'? I meant next for review. Yes, 'review'...

You forgot to change Kronos bandwidth to 75 btw.

It would make it able to compete with Paladin (but only due to selectable damage type) with 3 sentries.

Rail Kronos + 3 Wardens, 1142 dps. (5% hardwirings)
Tachyon Paladin + no drones at all, 1146 dps. (5% hardwirings)

Pulse Paladin also deals more damage than Blaster Kronos past like, 15 KM or so. With tracking being pretty even due to Paladins monster capacitor. Paladin actually needs less cap mods than Kronos even with Tachs fitted.

Paladin also has better optimal by atleast 10 KM, and if you switch ammo for some "real sniping" the Paladin is even more favored.

Oh, and it's like 2% faster than the Paladin now. instead of like 10%.

One thing annoyes me with new marauder idea entirely - you must calculate jump angles of MJD. Obviously there must be an option to do so automatically. With new skill (something like "MJD planning"). Anyone who like this jumps in modern version will not suffer too

the vargur is not a bad ship, just bad compare to the other marauder. it is still way better than many other BS.

at risk of being flamed

when did they put the 30% resists back in? i thought that went?

Ok i did DC in my Paladin, dut to the overall connection failur and was able to reconnect after 12 hours (after downtime). I was in bastion, cap stable, with scrambling frigates destroyed. I did survive, and my marauder didn't stay on grid. Still i have no idea what happened and if i'm safe after dc with bastion on. Wrote a support ticket to CCP but they remain silent.