While hat type of approach woulg go a long way into makign them powerful, one must be careful with changes on that scope. Create lots of imbalances and unpredicted issues if you are not careful. Simply giving 50% web resistance for battleship might be enough to push them. Mybe even only 33% would be enough.

Anyone who disagree with you must have an hidden agenda right? Come on Ishtar has been using 5 sentry drones for the past few years, and it's fine then, why it is OP now? Sentry is fine on Ishtar then, why is sentry a battleship weapon now? Why now? Address that! Instead of simply claiming Ishtar is OP we need to nerf it, blah blah blah. You do that, I would have to ask the mandatory question: point on the doll which part did Ishtar touch you. Make your case before you give suggestion to fix the 'problem'.

Do you know why Rise change 'Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range'? Because that one of the more recent change to that hull.

DDA was introduce in 2012 and HAC changes was in 2013, DDA exist before HAC changes, but your argument is as if HAC changes before DDA was introduce. I'm going to ask you again: point to the doll which part did sentry Ishtar touch you.

For Ishtar which drone are we talking about, because the standard argument against sentry drone is always by misguided people who would use Garde damage and Warden range, which don't exist in game. Maybe you can show us a fit or something to prove your point. Most importantly please define high DPS and other factors you think is relevant when it comes to balance.

According to EFT Ishtar with grades and 5 DDA II gives 766 dps, Cerberus with 4 BCS II have 738 DPS (before over heat). You do realized why rise reduce Ishtar max velocity right? Because that's part of balance package, just like tank. A Ishtar shield fit is usually with shield power relay at low, now subsitude that for DDAS tank is reduce, which is part of balance. Sentries doesn't have problems hitting like HAM right? You mention that for HAM but not sentry. Lets cherry pick.

There are quite a few fits on the Ishtar losses page of the killboards with shield power relays. That also led me to a recent fight in L-C307 in which a Ishtar heavy fleet got dunked on by an Eagle/Interceptor fleet.

According to you it's 800 dps from sentry, even with 5 DDA Ishtar never hit that number. Isn't that the blank you implied, or you are pulling numbers out of thin air just to make your point? That's the reason I ask you to post fit, because we can easily detect BS.

Balance in game is always a matrix with a few variable. DPS, range, damage application, alpha, tank, speed, utilities and other things; all this is factor in to give a score. A ship with highest DPS dosen't makes it OP, as long as it have other drawback. You can continue to focus of pros of Ishtar and QQ while ignoring other factors, nobody can stop you. I can sure as hell tell you, you're aren't lobbying for balance.

Look at post just above #907. Specifically the part you say

I made my point, nice talking to you. Now go ahead and edit #907 post.

A Cerberus/Eagle can hit from farther away, Muninn/ Vagabond is faster, Zealot/Sacrilege out tank it.

They are though. However, an Eagle works better.
The reason I mentioned the different advantages is because some people are trying to use the Ishtars advantages as a gauge to determine if it is OP. That's stacking the deck.

The Eagle can counter an Ishtar better.
Ishtar isn't the fastest, capable of the most tank, nor the farthest range.

It is not only about DPS. The Eagle has a much more formidable tank while being able to apply damage at a much further range.

That is quite the build that has a drone control range sufficient for the sentries to engage at 150km, while the ship can also target that far. That's at least 4 DLA, and a couple sensor boosters. Plus the cpu hit from drone rigs. I assume a tracking computer or two as well. I am sure you run into that every day.

You are wrong, unless it changed since the ai started eating drones and I stopped using them.

Both target and drone must be in drone control range. To use that 150km example you could drop sentries, move 75km from them, and target something 75 km away on the other side, assuming one DLA and perfect drone range skills.

You could not, however, leave your sentries 150km behind you and tackle your target without consuming whole truckloads of cpu on just drone mods. It's probably possible, but it's not really engaging at range if they fly up and tackle.

I won't claim that sentries are not a bit stout to be pushing out full bonuses flights from a cruiser. I have said before I believe the solution to be the introduction of small and medium sentries and an adjustment to bandwidth on the hulls so that it's possible to get fewer, larger, more damaging drones with reduced application or full flights of smaller with enhanced application, with each weight class only fielding a full flight of its own size drone if it's a drone bonuses ship.

Drones have finally seen some development in recent times, and they are becoming an increasingly viable main weapon. There is still work to be done in adjusting their balance and support for them. They need implants, boosters and a bit more module support. The UI needs work and their AI needs kicked in its virtual nuts until it behaves like the semi sentient autonomous weapon system it's supposed to be. And situations like cruisers having full sets of battleship weapons fully supported need toned down. That situation exists because they were never developed as a complete weapon system before.

The Eagle can reach over twice the EHP of an Ishtar. DPS is not everything.

I just posted an Eagle fit with 114k EHP that is used in fleets. The Eagle receives resists bonuses. It is not unrealistic to expect it to have a better shield fit than an armor ship.
If your argument is that an Ishtar can deal higher DPS then I agree but DPS is not everything.

With the proposed changes the Eagle will be faster with smaller sig radius.

Put a MWD on it instead.

[quote=Rowells]
It's still better than a shield Ishtar.

You are not going to hold a sniper solo. They will just warp off. This goes for both the Ishtar and Eagle.

So a HAC should be worse than a ABC?

You are not going to hold a sniper solo. They will just warp off. This goes for both the Ishtar and Eagle.

QFT

I never said anything about 100mn Tengus. Let's try to stay on topic.

The Ishtar compared to AF and Command Ships is in a very acceptable spot. A few tweaks here and there and it would work well compared to other HACs. What I oppose is nerfing the Ishtar to the point where it is not even worth training for. The Gila truly isn't far behind if at all. The VNI offers similar DPS. The Stratios offers a covert ops cloak. Even a T1 Vexor can reach very high quantities of DPS.

The proposed changes from CCP seem fair to me. It would still be better than all of those for sentries while narrowing a gap that will only continue to be reduced. What I have suggested is buffing other HACs and try to create niches for them. As you said, once the Ishtar is nerfed to the point it is more viable to fly an easier accessible and easier to train for ship another will just replace it. This leads to a continuous need to adjust ships.

The Stratios can field 4 and if it was more readily available would be used more than an Ishtar.

The full flight of sentries makes it unique and fills a niche. When I say buff, I do not mean give every ship more DPS. Gallente is known for DPS, Minmatar is know for speed, Amarr for tank, and Caldari for range.

The Stratios can use a Covert Ops cloak. Its faster, more agile, can fit a better shield tank and has better cap.

Adding more optimal to an Eagle while adding even room for only a full flight of light drones would help alot.

If you are talking about the Ishtar HAC bonuses, no I do not think there is as much an issue. The Ishtar seems built to be a sentry ship.

The Ishtar with 1 Nano and 1 Experimental MWD is showing 1819 m/s for me while a Stratios is showing 1875m/s. The Ishtar will have higher resists but a Stratios can obtain a lot higher buffer if you take into account the extra rig slot and base shield hp. I also forgot to add the Stratios has a larger drone bay.

Of course, if you try to turn one ship into another it will take a lot of work and it would be pointless. This is why I said they need more defined roles and buffs.

2. nerf the drone control range so the Ishtar pilots have to stay closer to their sentries.

Which is why you never see solo roaming blaster proteus out in space, ever, at all, right? You also never see them in WHs. They have a different niche.

You never see tengu fleets at all right, both rail and HM fit, right? They aren't used to great effect at all.

Never see cerb gangs do you? Oh wait.

Deimos, same as proteus. Except I actually do see those in large fleets. Deimos/Zealot/Legion/Proteus cruiser fleets are not uncommon.

Anyways the entire point of the post I made was that other cruisers can get the type of damage the ishtar does. What you seemed to ignore was my concession that they cannot manage the range or application outside of maybe scorch to gardes.

So now the isthar is the slowest HAC with the worst offensive damage projection and least bonuses by percentage.

I admit PVP isn't my thing, so i don't really understand the problem with the Ishtar, it is a heavy assault cruiser after all, the very definition of the class name suggests the vessel should be able to attack vessels above and below its class, with superior speed and firepower, it's designed to engage in a HEAVY ASSAULT. sounds to me like the only real complaint is that you can't solo or small gang it, which you shouldn't be able to do against such a class anyways. if it's that far out of line with other hacs, then maybe they should look at all the ships in the class as a whole, and redefine what the intended role of a heavy assault cruiser should actually be in the game.

DEV BLOG is out anyway, HACS changes are decided, and (what a surprise) exactly the same as announced on the OP.

CCP Rise never came back to discuss in the thread. Yeah.

What's the point of the last 77 pages?

Maybe I am becoming cynical.

I guess I missed that post, though I was pretty certain I read the whole thing.

The 100mn MWD is good stuff. I never flew Zealot - I did fly everything else.

is it possible with such variety to ever get a good balance? the balancing of ships has been going on for many years..

pve is 90% of eve

Actually he is.
Every Mission, every POS, every built ship, every mined mineral, all money, every deadspace module etc. Everything comes frome PVE.
PVP is important, yes! But look at what people are doing 90% of the time (me=99% of the time). Thats pve, not pvp.

Ship balance in pvp is hard to achieve. Still you could say: there are 2-3 viable ships for pvp, why need more-? The same argument goes for pve.
It is nice to have many different viable ships for pve and pvp, but not entirely necessary for a good game.

irrelevant you failed to state why the ishtar shoudl have more cargo than any other HAC. The vag uses less cargo than the others because you carry at most 1 or 2 replacements for the ancilliary boosters. A deimos and zealot uses way more charges just to work. THe ishtar doe snot even NEED a cargo hold!!

So you finally found the one person out of god knows how many pages who agrees with your philosophy of the game, despite the miriad of players who have disagreed with your sentiment. So basically someone as narrow minded and ignorant as yourself.

Both PvE and PVP are susceptible to the same level of balance issues, but chances are they coincide. Make a ship too powerful in PVP, this affects the PVE balance, hence why the Ishtar was seen as the defacto ship for pirate sites. Sure the discussion isn't warranted in PVP oriented ships, but when a ship class is generally used in a PVE environment aswell as PVP, it needs to be ensured they are still useful in that respect. Since we are on the subject of HAC's, where the Ishtar and a few others are used in PVE, then it is an aspect which needs to be considered.

Also, as some others already reiterated, without the PVE element of this game, it would be an empty shell, a shadow of what could have been.

depending on how one defines PVE but it would be an empty shell as there would be no ships to pvp in (mining, ratting, missions, exploration are all PVE)

not saying that pve should be a major point in re-balancing just that the game revolves around some form of pve currently to supply pvp.