not even square one, i have to say, cose of the mobility nerfs...

Don't worry, they'll be nerfing Macha down to this level too to make this look better.

Fact remaisn, ships that tank 2 times more than ships that ALREADY overtanked is useless.

MJD is WORSE than old mobility with a good deadspace AB. So its a HUGE nerf to mobility (pve wise). THe change in signature and mobility make them much weaker for PVP.

THe immunity to ewar i sminimal efffect, since no one cares for the battleships that cannot move and doe snot have more damage than a normal ship.

Why would anybody need a XL booster, 2 Hardeners, 1 Invu and a cap booster on a Vargur today? I mean serious?

[Vargur, How To]
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Tracking Enhancer II

Gistum B-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution Script
Pith A-Type Large Shield Booster
Core A-Type 100MN Microwarpdrive
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script

800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
Drone Link Augmentor II
Salvager II
Medium Remote Armor Repair System II

Large Projectile Collision Accelerator II
Large Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard II


Garde II x2
Warrior II x3
Warrior II x2

People need to stop thinking only with their pve min/max hats on.

Thats only because the ships were terrible for pvp. CCP intend to not only make them able to do pvp but make them viable against everything else out there so demanding all of these pve changes that would make them useless for pvp are not going to happen.

So what's the consensus on the latest Marauder iteration? Yay or nay?

1v1 vs Fleet Phoon in Vargur, it was 2x 1600mm fit with RHML. I boosted a couple times with my asb and that is it. Hail ammo has a 34km falloff in bastion, and with the increased tracking of the vargur, it cancels out the bad tracking of hail. didn't use any heat.

PVP these things are pretty damn good until RR comes into play and large numbers. Breaking the tank of these is going to take quite a few ships.

All very nice this theory crafting for PvE, but CCP thinks this is now going to be a PvP ship!!! Tell me about the PvP people...

[quote=Dinsdale Pirannha]You really don't get ...
...People in this thread are actually using arguments like, "OMG, with the align time nerf it now takes 5 seconds longer to enter warp, which means 20-30 more seconds to move from the mission to the agent! These ships are WORTHLESS now. They were godlike when it took 20 less seconds, but now they're WORTHLESS blah blah blah blah"

If they're designed to solo high class PVE then well... they won't work in lvl5 because Bastion dosn't have immunity to neuts.


Marauders need:

• non stacking range bonuses in Bastion
• more scan res
• more locking range
• bigger range bonus for torps in Bastion
• neuts immunity in Bastion (or at least 50%)
• +50 drone bays
• better speed, more agile
• better warp speed
• a little more buffer
• 600 rigs calibration or 3rd rig or +1 med(vargur, kronos,paladyn ) +1low slot (golem )instead of high slot
• changing tractor bonus for something more usefull with new tractor structure (maybe bonus for salvager cycle, range and power)
• automatically overheated guns when in bastion without taking heat damage

Oh man, I just used the MJD to jump onto a group of 4BS and 3 cruisers that was 90km away. I was doing around 2-3 TIMES THE DAMAGE I normally did at 65km. I was getting penetrating shots every 3rd round and the glancing shots were doing 2 times the damage normal hits were doing at normal range.

WTF.

Explosion radius is fine for the Golem, but optimal only applies to turrets (not launchers).

I Don't mission in serp space (and blits the one serp mission I do get in amar space) BUT if I did I'd just load range scripts. Maybe 3 tracking comps? I should be able to push just past 75km with that right? That's getting into good damage dealing range right there. Also no ewar yey!

Are we taking into account mid level range increasing implants lv4 missioners will have?

Oh and the vargur is going to absolutely ROCK in angle space. Can you just imagine, 3 tracking comps with tracking scripts, battleships at optimal?

Macha:

1154 DPS (with sentries 1343 DPS)
540 m/s
4,1 + 61 km opti + fall off

Way of increasing Damage: Afterburner on and keep distance beneath 30km = >909,0 Gun DPS

Vargur:

1082 DPS (with sentries 1176 DPS)
312 m/s
4,1 + 69 km opti + fall off (5,4 +74 within Bastion)

Way of increasing Damage: Jump into fleet, switch on bastion fight distance 40-50 km (average 45) = 792,5 Gun DPS

And thats without drones.

this is very true. what a lot of eft warriors dont get, and is evident from the fits they post, is that we fly the marauder because it can loot and salvage AT THE SAME TIME!

doing 10% less damage is acceptable if we make double the isk in the same amount of time.

that vargur is overtanked and you completely missed the point of the mjd! drop the 2nd invul, get a gist large b-type and replace mwd with mjd. fit sebo/3rd TC to taste and proceed to kick some faces in.

this makes no sense, why then fly a ship that is inferior to a mach in the every way if you are not going to use the one thing that makes it better than a mach?

irony calling my comment idiotic hahaha.

it doesnt matter what it is, you are trying to fit a vargur as if it was a mach and youre surprised it's not working. thats like eve 101 hahaha!

Sigh I just don't get it. Ytterbium said the mobility nerf was to penalize the ship for being tanky... but it doesn't become any tankier until activating bastion... at which point, it stops overrides all mobility nerfs by becoming immobile.

Just to summarize:
mobility was nerfed to compensate for additional tank gained only while the ship isn't able to move???

Pls revert these mobility nerfs.

havent been on testserver myself but from this i conclude you cant rotate (align) while in bastion mode?

...if so that would be sad and should be changed

as someone who HAS tested the changes on sisi I will tell you that it makes no difference since you keep lock on the rats throughout so even as you deactivate bastion, align, jump, land and bastion up you will be applying dps. something youd be doing regardless if you were mwd to the gate or mjd. only difference is that I now have 4more modules dedicated to applying my dps more effectively than a ship with 1/3 more dps.

As someone who has not used mjd before I will say iy was easy, effective and intuitive to use.

"but better range for applying DPS,"

What you're not factoring here is that killing targets 100km away is completing faster.
With an arty fit, you will have killed several targets before they get into AC range. This means faster...

So they've killed the AC vargur then with this rebalance it sounds like. Meh. Then they're gonna nerf the Machariel here soon so 800mm AC's are going to die.

Mega does fast roaming gangs better than the new kronos and fleet work with rails and blasters.

So much crying...

You guys are just flat out lieing, or haven't tested it.

The test golem performs way better than anything I have flown.

I don't think y'all are even giving it an opportunity because it doesn't suit your agenda/play style.
If you don't like it, don't use it.


Edit...
I would put a bastion/MJD long range marauder against any other ship in game, on any mission and I'll guarantee faster or equal completion times.
The problem is I don't care enough about how you feel to actually test it myself

Have you ever thought that it is a problem of Scorch and not hull? Why penalize all other turret weapon platforms because of one unbalanced ammo type?

The way I've been using The vargur that's been working great is exactly the opposite of what CCP wants me to do. That's the beauty of the sandbox nature of eve. I do what I want.

I use the amazing agility of the MJD to jump close to the enemy and then bastion up and kill all the things. Rinse and repeat. My damage output increases in some cases over 100% and I smile all the way.

I still need to test out 1400 vargur though.

You can tank entire pvp gangs solo in these things.

So that arty start being viable for rest of pvp situations and all possible pve that is in this game hell i would accept cap usage on them(slowish ROF should offset that).

Vargur as lowest dps lowest range boost and static in bastion rly is sad story to the point that if you do bastion you are doing it wrong.

imo.

This is my fitting.

Gun DPS 936.6 Quake, max skills
Drone DPS 158.4 Hammerhead II
Total DPS 1095

Works well, but has terribad tracking and the worst DPS from any marauder. Also, implants and some miracles.

what implant u got?

It's the best DPS I can get with 1400s, with a LP-1006 and a RF-906 to boost it.

Targeting range is 101km (the maximum). How are you getting more damage with that ammo? With RF versions, which is what I mostly use, I get 923.3 DPS, with max skills.

When MJD around, I use RF DU for a paper DPS of 615.5 at 90km optimal (tremor has too much range which is a waste in this case)

CCP aren't really changing marauders though honestly. They are replacing a couple bonuses on the hulls and giving them extra fitting other than that they can be used in the same way as they were previously just with much better fittings and a couple extra options when it comes to fitting. Admittidly the web bonus was a big thing on the kronos and paladin but they have a tracking buff now so you could cope with a 60% web

I think if there is an issue with these ships it is with the gun systems they use, but CCP cant buff or nerf large weapon systems or it would mess the entire balance of power up. Because to Tier 3 BCs. the only thing they could do without messing it up is a small tracking buff across the board.

Not really. It's 48km. And if anyone can't slowboat 4km then they have problems outside of scope of this discussion.

So you think that droping 25m3 of drone bandwidth would be worth a 200K EHP buff good sensors while keeping all the utility... now thats some balance.

I do however think CCP are missing some key things here.

Personally i dont think the bastion module setup in its current iteration will see any use in PVP except for high-sec station games. I believe the E-War immunity is an balanced option anyway, i think it should offer more like "E-War Resistance" where all ewar effects cast upon the ship is reduced by 50%, and remote assistance suffers the same penalty. With this i then believe you will see them in pvp as a good option. As currently you might aswell just field a T1 BS and if you die grab another quickly.

...
1. Why buffing those hulls?

As mentioned here and based on your feedback, we realized the hulls have been overnerfed in iteration 1 next to the benefits given by Bastion.

...

2. Why having a slighly nerfed max velocity next their tech I counterparts?

Those hulls are the very epitome of tanking, through the Bastion module. For balance purposes, they have to pay for that somehow. Max velocity nerf is a good way to compensate, especially when considering the fact they have MJDs at their disposal to hop around the battlefield. However, the first speed nerf was a bit harsh, which is why we are mitigating it by increasing their max velocity a bit next to iteration 1.

...

3. Why keeping the damage projection in Bastion stacking penalized?

We want to keep the projection in check. A Paladin with Scorch can already reach insane ranges (to the point where Beams are quite redundant on it), so we are not willing to remove the stacking penalty for now. Or at least not until we are seeing some hard use numbers on TQ first.

...

What for?

The Bastion mod frees at least one mid slot for an additional TC.

Really? I don't see a bastion module on that list. Your Vargur has 8 High slots now.

I've got a few questions since I'm no gun user:

How usefull is that TP for a Gun Ship?
How's your current damage with this setup and wouldn't it be more usefull to switch one of those Gyros for an additional TE?
And if you use a bastion module, wouldn't it be better to loose that Invul in favour for yet another TC?

We arnt even talking about cap injectors, XL ASB's and Count how many navy 400's you can put in Your hold.. :P

Vargur got the option to use 1400mm like it or not still an option . now if you use 1400mm you can tell it will work very well with bastion. vargur will probably be the best ship for artillery in rubicon

the second option is pretty OP giving marauder an extra mid slot without any drawbacks. At least right now the high slot is ultility which wont affect performance of the ship.

when i read stuff like this i seriously doubt the competence of the writer....

you ignore everythng but raw dps numbers this is just stupid.

you sound like one of those who mix pvp and pve up just to get a point accross. why are you bringin tornado into the mix? how exactly is malestorm better than a vargur in the expansion? vargur got falloff bonus and bastion give more optimal and falloff.

No see you completely missed the point. 40dps is nothing when you take into account that the mach will have next to NO damage application modules while the vargur will have tons. This is what I hate about EFT warriors, they only care about dps without taking into account the QUALITY of that dps. The vargur will far surpass the damage applicaiton of a mach if it has 5 sentries and that means that that 40dps means nothing as you are doing tons more REAL WORLD damage as you have far better drones from tracking and range modules and your guns quality is higher as well.

So just to be clear, although the vargur does 40 dps less it APPLIES more damage than the mach meaning it will outclass the mach because IN ADDITION to near identical raw damage it now has better applicaiton, better tank and loot/salvage capability.

That means it outclasses the Mach. 5 sentries is a very very bad idea.

I really don't understand the complaints. You wanna chase **** down, use a mach. You wanna use a super tank, brick up and kill everything, use a Vargur. They're not supposed to overlap in their roles.

Also, Kronos does not suck and with bastion mode being immune to jams from Guristas, it's even better. Vargur isn't worse now either, it's better. It can finally fit 1200mm arties. I just ran The Blockade vs Serps and it did great. About to run a Guristas mission to see how it fairs, which should be good, too.

This is what I'm using on Sisi atm:
[Vargur, 1200mm Arties copy 1 copy 1]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Capacitor Flux Coil II

Large Shield Booster II
Shield Boost Amplifier II
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script

1200mm Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
1200mm Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
1200mm Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
1200mm Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
Small Tractor Beam II
Small Tractor Beam II
Small Tractor Beam II
Bastion Module I

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Capacitor Control Circuit II

Uhh, he's in a Marauder... Overtanking is what a marauder does now...


However, I have my own thoughts on why this isn't that good of a fit.


1) With bastion and how awesomely it does for reps, you can either pulse tank, or perma run a medium booster

2) You have way too much cap focus on that ship. Truthfully, you shouldn't even need one, unless it's a cap booster in a spare mid.

3) Vargur has natively high resists. You can get away with one invuln II.

4) The shield boost amp is almost useless with Bastion, so drop it.

5) Drop the Cap flux for your low. If you feel you need more tank, put a DCU II.

6) In the rigs, fit dps rigs, or some other type of rig.. No need for the cap.

7) Fit an MJD in one of your free mids. THIS will help counter close range orbitting targets.

8) If you're running short on cpu/pg due to MJD or whatever, you can fit it in your rigs.


I'm sure there are some more points i can mention, but i'm not sure what atm.

Actually you are lying about the sensor strength. Base sensor strength on the Vargur on TQ is 85mm and on sisi it's 145mm.

They almost doubled it. Add that to the list of huge boosts the hull got. And it does make a HUGE difference in killing frigs before they can get in range and if you so wish makes any sebos you fit all the more effective.

Then you make the nightmare pointless and the paladin overpowered.

Let me point to you that before rebalancing Vargur was the best marauder. It's others which were brought more to the line so yes, in comparison it may not be as awesome as it used to be.

Not once and not twice I have agreed that marauders got shafted incursions wise. Maybe players will adapt or maybe it will be impossible, I don't judge on that. The upside is that basically every other activity got boosted. I can vouch for L4 missions and there were people reporting good results with other stuff.

Going back to Vargur. The falloff bonus is still there, the tracking bonus is still there. Speed is lowered, okay, but I'm still waiting for anyone reporting HOW MUCH lower income they now generate. Could it be you?

And one day I will fly a Titan. The question is, do we know it or we're merely speculating? Or, to stay on topic, did you measure your performance in any way?

If no then the discussion pretty much ends to me. Except for maybe asking, more or less politely, how the hell do you know something you don't measure.

If yes, then there would follow two another questions:

- What are your results?

- How did you measure it? What were conditions, what were you looking at or after and in case our results were dramatically different, briefly describe how did you fly your ship.

This second question is specifically tailored to avoid whole the thing becoming e-peen comparison. I want to compare notes.

Anyway the case is moot since after today's DT we won't have old marauders anymore so everyone will happily stick to their already set convictions.

To the rest of your comments.:
- I don't share your sentiment that devs were sitting in their ivory tower when working on this. There were three updates after all and unless I am mistaken, they were based also on feedback in this very thread.
- Yes, the MJD can't replace other prop module and we have to deal with it.
- I admit I don't have it properly theorycrafted but it's a simple observation: sometimes moving 4km towards your present target moves you 4km away from the next one in queue. So it's not always as simple as just dogchasing.
- After experience trying them on Machariel, I have no idea where arties could be useful in PVE on falloff bonused hull and I accept it as a fact. But I'm open to suggestions.