The problem with interceptors is their interdiction nullification, not their agility. Give them their agility back and remove their bubble immunity.

QFT. I fly interceptors to tackle bad guys, not as a T2 shuttle. You are hurting the combat strengths of this ship class so that people can warp gate-to-gate with complete impunity.

You are just being stubborn and refusing to admit that your first idea (nullification) was dumb.

Otherwise unkillable nullsec ratters? What crack are you smoking? VNI's and Ishtars kit out for tanking Gurista's (which is what you mostly find in goonspace) have huge vulnerabilities towards many things. This nerf just means TEST can't run around with an uncatchable 20m isk ship blowing up 100-200m ratting ships while laughing at 30 man sensor boosted gatecamps and roaming gangs trying to catch them. I'm sorry, but if an interceptor specifically warps right into scram range of my sensor boosted assault frigate or counter interceptor, I should have more than a 1 in 20 chance of catching you. Right now, even with a ship that has a 1s lock time against interceptors I still have a razor thin margin to catch you. So razor thin that it has less to do with skill and fitting and more to do with just plain dumb luck and if the server winds want to swing in my favor.

Should interceptors be extremely slippery and be able to dictate their engagements? Yes

Should interceptors be able to run around with absolute impunity against any form of counter defense? No

I for one love people running around goonspace trying to blow us up. It provides valuable lessons and content. But when a single ship is able to engage only the things he wants to, and just laugh and run away from everything else, no matter how big of a defense is mounted against it, that's kind of broken.

I agree with others in this thread that say the combat and tackling abilities of interceptors aren't what need to be nerfed. Only their ability to warp in, look, and turn around and warp out before ANYTHING (Even sensor boosted, high scan res frigates in point blank scram range) can catch it. It not impossible, but like I said earlier, it just comes down to %33 percent skill/fit %66 percent dumb luck. Needs more skill/fit, less dumb luck.

Should interceptors be able to run around with absolute impunity against any form of counter defense? No

So razor thin that it has less to do with skill and fitting and more to do with just plain dumb luck and if the server winds want to swing in my favor.

But when a single ship is able to engage only the things he wants to, and just laugh and run away from everything else, no matter how big of a defense is mounted against it, that's kind of broken.

Yes.

Because of mechanical interactions server ticks and gate cloak, a ship with an align time below two seconds cannot be pointed out of gate cloak before it warps away, no matter how high your scan resolution is or how quick your finger is on the prefire button. Anything over that line can be caught. Note that this only applies to ships leaving gatecloak: ships undocking or landing on grid can be caught conventionally.


The Malediction and Crow are getting hit harder than the others because, combined with this and their ability to engage targets from a safe distances and completely ignore their MWD penalties to damage application, they have been the gold standard of uncatchable interceptor roams. To be frank, being able to do your damage without having to come within scram/web/neut range or worry about tracking while you zoom around at 4km/sec is a really really big advantage.


I haven't undocked my ratting ships since Rubicon hit for what it's worth, though I've spent plenty of time shitting up other people's space in an interceptor.

More evidence that goon tears are a major component in driving balance iteration~

yup.....

Balance iteration...funny term.

And the theory that goons are running the show is like saying gravity is just a theory.

Fun fact, I actually experimented with MWD mass penalty reductions when I was doing the Navy Cruisers. It's so overpowered that I had a blast with it on the test server but it isn't something I expect we'll see on TQ any time soon.

The best thing about it was what happened when you combine with an oversized MWD.

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You can't run from smartbombs.Besides, inties picking their fights and getting in and out of a fight when they chose to is what they're supposed to do.

Hint: the fit we were running had nothing to do with luck. We were gimping our tanking and damage dealing capabilities to the maximum in return for 100% safety of gatecamps. Our fits weren't able to engage anything else than a lone ratter, but somehow that must've been classified as OP...

You can't run from smartbombs, but you could also try doing literally anything other than fleet-warping yourselves unscouted from gate to gate all the way across a region if you want to avoid them. It's not like you don't know the possibility of it exists or something and if you take basic proactive measures you can completely avoid it. The only way for you to end up in a pile on top of the Disco Tempest is to put yourselves there.

Anyways, your problem isn't that Ishtars are too hard to catch, because your frigates are still perfectly capable of that and half of them are probably literally AFK anyways. Your problem is that defense fleets are too effective and now it's not mechanically impossible for them to catch you. Why do you think a group of PvP pilots actively seeking to defend their own space shouldn't be able to do so?

Had a look at the numbers - to catch a standard fit ceptor in a gatecamp you'll need approx 1150 scan res, which is about what a ceptor in a fleet has. Or a multiple reseboed Arazu .....

To catch a nano fit or agility-rigged ceptor, you'll need approx 2300 scanres (which is a ceptor with sebo and t2 scanres rig). I think this is the main difference in terms of travelling around - in the past the stiletto / malediction / raptor / ares were already at this figure without needing to add anything extra.

Every interceptor should have their own strengths and weaknesses that make the decision of which to fly interesting.
The Crow has excellent damage application at long ranges (even when it is flying at high speeds), four very valuable midslots and the longest lock range of any interceptor. It's weaknesses are a bit less speed than most others, lower theoretical top end damage, as well as slightly weaker agility.

Not to knock you or anything but I don't see why its such a big bad terrible thing to have a ship that can insta warp. But having gate camps that can insta lock is perfectly fine and acceptable.

No.

(Also "gravity" is not a theory, it's an observed effect. Newton's laws of gravity are a theory. General relativity is a theory. Saying that something is "just a theory" is stupid because it fundamentally misunderstands the concept of theory in the first place.)

Fun fact, I actually experimented with MWD mass penalty reductions when I was doing the Navy Cruisers. It's so overpowered that I had a blast with it on the test server but it isn't something I expect we'll see on TQ any time soon.

The best thing about it was what happened when you combine with an oversized MWD.

you cant fit enough LO in an inty to cyno without 1-2 expanders which make you easily catchable by a camp that is prepared for it, and this doesnt fix the cyno issue anyway as people will just fit a cloak and mwd+cloak into warp regardless.

CCP just admit that Interceptor nullifier was a terrible idea and remove the bonus.

Here's a hypothetical question for you CCP. In your opinion, what sort of scan resolution should be required to catch an interceptor after it has just jumped through a stargate?