Hi guys

You may or may not have seen me make a post a while back saying that we were intending to do a revisit on battleship and heavy assault cruiser balance for this summer, and I can now be a little more specific with you about that!

After digging into this we were both happy and a bit surprised to find that there weren't a lot of clear changes needed. Battleships especially seem to be in a pretty solid place. There are ships within the class getting less use than others, but that is almost completely due to either the meta favoring certain things (this is why the Abaddon isn't seeing a lot of action for example) or due to the ship falling into a niche that isn't extremely popular even though the ship performs exceptionally in that niche (the Hyperion is a great example of this). So the result is that for now we are going to leave BS alone and keep checking back for opportunities to make improvements.

HACs on the other hand are a slightly different story. In general the class gained a lot of power in the last pass and it's seeing plenty of use across the board, but there are some pretty clear imbalances between certain ships in the class. If you've undocked lately you probably know the Ishtar especially is a little out of control. Here's the small set of changes we're going to make:

Ishtar:
Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range from 7.5% per level -> 5% per level
Max Velocity from 195 -> 185

Eagle:
Max Velocity from 180 -> 190

Muninn:
Max velocity from 210 -> 230

We expect that some of you will feel this is far too gentle on the Ishtar, and we understand that (it's what we heard from the CSM as well), but we get releases very often now and we're happy to be conservative here, rather than nuke it out of the game, and just make more changes if they're needed in the following release.

Looking forward to your feedback as always

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

Hi guys

You may or may not have seen me make a post a while back saying that we were intending to do a revisit on battleship and heavy assault cruiser balance for this summer, and I can now be a little more specific with you about that!

After digging into this we were both happy and a bit surprised to find that there weren't a lot of clear changes needed. Battleships especially seem to be in a pretty solid place. There are ships within the class getting less use than others, but that is almost completely due to either the meta favoring certain things (this is why the Abaddon isn't seeing a lot of action for example) or due to the ship falling into a niche that isn't extremely popular even though the ship performs exceptionally in that niche (the Hyperion is a great example of this). So the result is that for now we are going to leave BS alone and keep checking back for opportunities to make improvements.

HACs on the other hand are a slightly different story. In general the class gained a lot of power in the last pass and it's seeing plenty of use across the board, but there are some pretty clear imbalances between certain ships in the class. If you've undocked lately you probably know the Ishtar especially is a little out of control. Here's the small set of changes we're going to make:

Ishtar:
Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range from 7.5% per level -> 5% per level
Max Velocity from 195 -> 185

Eagle:
Max Velocity from 180 -> 190

Muninn:
Max velocity from 210 -> 230

We expect that some of you will feel this is far too gentle on the Ishtar, and we understand that (it's what we heard from the CSM as well), but we get releases very often now and we're happy to be conservative here, rather than nuke it out of the game, and just make more changes if they're needed in the following release.

Looking forward to your feedback as always

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

We expect that some of you will feel this is far too gentle on the Ishtar, and we understand that (it's what we heard from the CSM as well), but we get releases very often now and we're happy to be conservative here, rather than nuke it out of the game, and just make more changes if they're needed in the following release.

These changes do nothing to affect the issue with the Ishtar (it has battleship-level DPS weapons that can hit nearly anything with virtually no downside). You would have been better off not doing anything to the ishtar than essentially redoing the paint because at least doing nothing wouldn't be quite as insulting.

Hi guys

You may or may not have seen me make a post a while back saying that we were intending to do a revisit on battleship and heavy assault cruiser balance for this summer, and I can now be a little more specific with you about that!

After digging into this we were both happy and a bit surprised to find that there weren't a lot of clear changes needed. Battleships especially seem to be in a pretty solid place. There are ships within the class getting less use than others, but that is almost completely due to either the meta favoring certain things (this is why the Abaddon isn't seeing a lot of action for example) or due to the ship falling into a niche that isn't extremely popular even though the ship performs exceptionally in that niche (the Hyperion is a great example of this). So the result is that for now we are going to leave BS alone and keep checking back for opportunities to make improvements.



PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

perhaps reducing the drone damage bonus to 7.5% ??

also is the nerf too heavies aswell as sentries?

I feel that while I would prefer to keep its flexibility in shield tanking since shield tempests are a thing, the more important thing to look at for it are its bonuses. It currently suffers the distinction as being the only "attack" battleship gunship without any damage projection bonuses, and while it CAN be argued that projectiles have superior range and tracking and thus don't need said bonuses, it's a poor case to make compared to laser ships like the Apocalypse.

A tweak I would recommend that's been talked about would be to bring it up to a full 8 guns, and drop the firing rate bonus on it in favor of a tracking bonus. Not only would this give you a desirable alternate artillery platform to the tornado and maelstrom, it would cement its role as an "attack" battleship very nicely, as currently it remains the only shield attack battleship, except certain monsters spawned in the federation (We will not speak of the dominix in anything but hushed and fearful tones).

TLDR; Tempest should keep its slots, but change its bonuses from 5% dmg and 5% firing rate to an 8 gun ships with 5% damage and 7.5% tracking speed per level.

Is there a timetable for the Ishtar and other HAC changes to go live? I.e., will these changes be going live before, during, or after the Alliance Tournament?

Thanks!

GG

I still don't think ships like the abaddon or hyperion are fieldable because of their "exceptional performance in a niche" its extremely underwhelming and I'd rather bring a battleship or equivalent that can fill that niche as well as do other things. I think the Abaddon and Hyperion's massive capacitor problems (especially the Abaddon) make them very difficult to use and apply. I find countless fits that must use heavy capacitor boosters because the abaddon and other similar ships simply cannot be viable at all without them.

Because of this I feel that why should I ever bring an abaddon when any other battleship fills the role far better? Yes the abaddon has its massive tank and such but its not very good at anything else because of mobility, cap problems I just don't think its applicable as anything other than a brick, a heavy nearly unthrowable brick. Why bring an abaddon when I can field other battleships that have just as good tank and better DPS applications (or role applications for that matter) because they don't have capacitor problems!

I think it's a projectiles problem. they just have no dps at any ranges, ever. but a general weapons rebalance seems unlikely, considering how long this non-change has taken.

I disagree, I think the abilities of artillery is favorable because of its extremely high alpha and extreme range compared to say railguns.

Yes Railguns and Beams might fire faster but the DPS is about the same I find, the huge alpha is the attraction to artillery.

Give the Muninn +1 mid -1 low tia in advance

And no keep the tempest as is

Give the Muninn +1 mid -1 low tia in advance

And no keep the tempest as is

bump abby's cap up to or past the hyperion's, give it the best regen out of the bunch next to the apoc...and drop a mid for a low on it. The heavy armor tank is central to what the ship is, and I'll be damned before the Gallente beat out the Amarr on lowslot utility and tanking.

Hi guys

You may or may not have seen me make a post a while back saying that we were intending to do a revisit on battleship and heavy assault cruiser balance for this summer, and I can now be a little more specific with you about that!

After digging into this we were both happy and a bit surprised to find that there weren't a lot of clear changes needed. Battleships especially seem to be in a pretty solid place. There are ships within the class getting less use than others, but that is almost completely due to either the meta favoring certain things (this is why the Abaddon isn't seeing a lot of action for example) or due to the ship falling into a niche that isn't extremely popular even though the ship performs exceptionally in that niche (the Hyperion is a great example of this). So the result is that for now we are going to leave BS alone and keep checking back for opportunities to make improvements.

HACs on the other hand are a slightly different story. In general the class gained a lot of power in the last pass and it's seeing plenty of use across the board, but there are some pretty clear imbalances between certain ships in the class. If you've undocked lately you probably know the Ishtar especially is a little out of control. Here's the small set of changes we're going to make:

Ishtar:
Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range from 7.5% per level -> 5% per level
Max Velocity from 195 -> 185

Eagle:
Max Velocity from 180 -> 190

Muninn:
Max velocity from 210 -> 230

We expect that some of you will feel this is far too gentle on the Ishtar, and we understand that (it's what we heard from the CSM as well), but we get releases very often now and we're happy to be conservative here, rather than nuke it out of the game, and just make more changes if they're needed in the following release.

Looking forward to your feedback as always

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

but they don't have extreme range.

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure artillery can reach farther than rails can they just have less tracking to balance

solo battleship

Gallente Cruiser bonuses (per skill level):
7.5% bonus to Heavy Drone max velocity and tracking speed
10% bonus to Drone hitpoints and damage

Heavy Assault Cruisers bonuses (per skill level):
5000m bonus to Drone operation range
7.5% bonus to Sentry Drone optimal range and tracking speed

Role Bonus:
50% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty

Ishtar:
Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range from 7.5% per level -> 5% per level
Max Velocity from 195 -> 185

would you kindly stop ruining solo battleship slot layouts please?

hands off my nanopest.

nope. they have no range, no tracking and no dps. it's all in the volley damage, and the no-cap and damage types thing.

Ishtar:
Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range from 7.5% per level -> 5% per level
Max Velocity from 195 -> 185

We expect that some of you will feel this is far too gentle on the Ishtar, and we understand that (it's what we heard from the CSM as well), but we get releases very often now and we're happy to be conservative here, rather than nuke it out of the game, and just make more changes if they're needed in the following release.

i expected the ishtar change ... will the domi change aswell then?

Eagle
- i did say in the HAC page it was far too slow .. would be nice at 200 along with some drones .. it has a dronebay now on the model and would allow for blaster variants then instead of only rails ...

Vagabond
- please nerf its speed ... resilience is the theme of HACS remember so why is it just as quick as a stabber and cynabal???

Ishtar:
Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range from 7.5% per level -> 5% per level
Max Velocity from 195 -> 185

Yea you're right, just looking at pyfa shows the artillery trades some optimal range for fall off and the rails have more optimal but less fall off, leading to about the same overall range

Of course you had to nerf them 1 week after i trained into them!

The tempest main problem is, a battleship that devote BOTH bonuses to damage and yet is the among lowest damage of all on realistic fits.

Only 6 lows is not enough for a competitive tank AND competitive damage mod number.


It does need 7 low slots. OR one of its damage mods changed. Something like 5% rof and 7.5% Damage per level . That way the battleship with 2 damage mods would STILL not be among the highest damage ones, but would not be on the bottom as well.

A question -- have you considered simply removing sentry drones from the list of drones to which the Ishtar confers a bonus? With the drone skill revamp done recently, it ought to be fairly straightforward from a technical perspective (unless, of course, I'm missing something.) Sentries are largely what make the Ishtar so strong, and it's not like the sentry drone would fall completely out of favor after being excised from the Ishtar. Doing this would provide a reason to fly a Dominix again.

7-5-7 ......6 turrets feel free to remove some launchers
7.5% ROF
7.5% damage

maybe switch its mass with phoon and then buff its speed and agility

Hyperion's release date is September 23, 2014, so after the AT.

Ishtar role bonus: 20% reduction in bandwidth for heavy drones
Ishtar bandwidth reduced from 125 to 100

Regarding the Ishtar, sentry drones are the problem, not the ship. Increase the signature radius or completely change their mechanics by having them stay within 5km of the ship and not be an independent stationary turret, which is unbalanced when compared to how every other weapon system works!

What's going to happen when this change makes no difference whatsoever? Are you going to remove the tracking speed bonus completely?

7.5% ROF is TOO powerful. It increases much faster than damage.

7-5-7 5% rof 7.5% damage would be my GOLDEN attack bs. Youc an even reduce the drone bandwidth to 25... It woudl be a mobile ship focused on GUNS. I

7-5-7 ......6 turrets feel free to remove some launchers
7.5% ROF
7.5% damage

maybe switch its mass with phoon and then buff its speed and agility

Please do not nerf the tempest in this way. Its versatility is very good with 5 mid slots and 6 low slots means I can throw on everything I need without even the eighth slot. If you give it an eighth low it's just going to be a brick typhoon with guns.

Dear mongoloid mouth breathers responsible for "game decisions",

Sentry drones are the problem, not the ishtars. I hope this helps in your decision making process.

With love,

Aryndel Vyst
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
Director, Player Relations
4th Toonie Squadron, o7m8 Division

Go 8 guns, drop RoF for tracking speed. I'm fine either with them keeping the current slot setup on that or going with 4 mids and 7 lows, because it sets it up better as a proper attack battleship. It currently doesn't get any damage projection or application bonuses, and is the only attack battleship not to do so. Besides; tracking speed would help it apply its dps SIGNIFICANTLY better if you're fitting ACs on it.

The sentries have to go on the Ishtar. Its sad to say but it gives the Ishtar way too much range and flexibility.

Rebalance it to not be a sentry boat. I've suggested it before and I'll suggest it again.

Change heavy drone bandwidth from 25 to 20
Change the ishtar, navy vexor bandwidth from 125 to 100.

You now have a nitch for the Ishtar, (heavy drone operations ship), the navy vexor, stratios and the myrmidon functions better as they now have an option to launch a full flight of drones that are not sentries, but also are not some mismatch set of drones that the myrmidon, vexor and prophecy currently run.

Basically you don't make the damage of ishtars instantaneous, and you also create a better chase sequence for when they run

Change heavy drones to 20 bandwidth each
Reduce bandwidth on Ishtar and vexor navy to 100.

Hi guys

You may or may not have seen me make a post a while back saying that we were intending to do a revisit on battleship and heavy assault cruiser balance for this summer, and I can now be a little more specific with you about that!

After digging into this we were both happy and a bit surprised to find that there weren't a lot of clear changes needed. Battleships especially seem to be in a pretty solid place. There are ships within the class getting less use than others, but that is almost completely due to either the meta favoring certain things (this is why the Abaddon isn't seeing a lot of action for example) or due to the ship falling into a niche that isn't extremely popular even though the ship performs exceptionally in that niche (the Hyperion is a great example of this). So the result is that for now we are going to leave BS alone and keep checking back for opportunities to make improvements.

HACs on the other hand are a slightly different story. In general the class gained a lot of power in the last pass and it's seeing plenty of use across the board, but there are some pretty clear imbalances between certain ships in the class. If you've undocked lately you probably know the Ishtar especially is a little out of control. Here's the small set of changes we're going to make:

Ishtar:
Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range from 7.5% per level -> 5% per level
Max Velocity from 195 -> 185

Eagle:
Max Velocity from 180 -> 190

Muninn:
Max velocity from 210 -> 230

We expect that some of you will feel this is far too gentle on the Ishtar, and we understand that (it's what we heard from the CSM as well), but we get releases very often now and we're happy to be conservative here, rather than nuke it out of the game, and just make more changes if they're needed in the following release.

Looking forward to your feedback as always

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

TLDR; Tempest should keep its slots, but change its bonuses from 5% dmg and 5% firing rate to an 8 gun ships with 5% damage and 7.5% tracking speed per level.

The sentries have to go on the Ishtar. Its sad to say but it gives the Ishtar way too much range and flexibility.

Rebalance it to not be a sentry boat. I've suggested it before and I'll suggest it again.

Change heavy drone bandwidth from 25 to 20
Change the ishtar, navy vexor bandwidth from 125 to 100.

You now have a nitch for the Ishtar, (heavy drone operations ship), the navy vexor, stratios and the myrmidon functions better as they now have an option to launch a full flight of drones that are not sentries, but also are not some mismatch set of drones that the myrmidon, vexor and prophecy currently run.

Basically you don't make the damage of ishtars instantaneous, and you also create a better chase sequence for when they run

Change heavy drones to 20 bandwidth each
Reduce bandwidth on Ishtar and vexor navy to 100.

nope nope nope

there is a reason there is no normal ship in the game with 8 turrets and a damage bonus to 1400mms

8 guns removes the utility high completely and takes a slot from either the low or mid slot .. its just bad choice .. when they could just do what they have done with bc's and the hyperion .. of just increasing the damage bonuses too allow better slot layout

And what would be the bonuses for the ishtar? Then you need to find new bonuses to replace the sentry ones.. The ishtar is a ship very hard to balance.

At the end.. the final solution for this and the correlated problem would be to nerf ALL sentry drones tracking by some 30%.

8 guns removes the utility high completely and takes a slot from either the low or mid slot .. its just bad choice .. when they could just do what they have done with bc's and the hyperion .. of just increasing the damage bonuses too allow better slot layout

arties already have far too much alpha and should really be changed too a better balanced profile...

arties already have far too much alpha and should really be changed too a better balanced profile...

stupid, just give them 50 bandwidth and x% medium drone damage bonus. like gila drone dps, but over 5 drones instead of 2.

That's why they have the 7/5/7 slot layout on the Typhoon; it's supposed to be the utility/jack of all trades BS, while the Tempest is "a versatile gunship proficient at long-range bombardment and capable of dishing out specialized types of damage with great effectiveness."

It's supposed to focus on projectile specialization, which means having the 8 gun setup with a damage and tracking bonus makes it excel at fielding arty and autos alike, and doesn't step on the toes of its other siblings, the tornado and maelstrom. The fleet issue counterparts should retain more utlity since that's the theme that they have going for them.

rise i'd appreciate it if you just gave ishtars the rapid light missile treatment


if you know what i mean ;) ;) ;)

They fire extremely slow, their alpha is canceled out by the fact they fire once every 10 seconds

their DPS is worse than Rails, have less tracking and have about the same range

You can deploy drones and they fire with 40% increased Rof for 20 secodns then explode?

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

Yet rails have never alphad a tengue on an undock before. Arty need to have their damaged reduced slightly and have their ROF upped slightly

You're forgetting that there are a Handful of non-Ishtar ships out there that have exactly 100 Mbit bandwidth that could see this as a stealth buff, not to mention the folks that fly w/ 75Mbit bandwidth that could run a 3+2 heavy/medium setup.

Also, there are a few frigs/destros out there (tristan, algos, Dragoon) that would now be able to field a Heavy. I'm betting that's not in the design process.

And what would be the bonuses for the ishtar? Then you need to find new bonuses to replace the sentry ones.. The ishtar is a ship very hard to balance.

At the end.. the final solution for this and the correlated problem would be to nerf ALL sentry drones tracking by some 30%.

Yet rails have never alphad a tengue on an undock before. Arty need to have their damaged reduced slightly and have their ROF upped slightly

It's worth making these threads just to get to talk with you Capqu.

Back with real responses after next meeting.

It's worth making these threads just to get to talk with you Capqu.

Back with real responses after next meeting.

Then you're bringing them in to be redundant to rail guns and beams which defeats the purpose of alpha artillery

@CCP Rise - For battleships, They would be used more if you Nerf Tier 3 battlecruisers.

264 DPS - Omen 5x Heavy Beam Lasers II (Multifreq)
356 DPS - Harbenger 6x Heavy Beam Lasers II
455 DPS - Oracle 8x Tachyon Beam Laser II
455 DPS - Abaddon 8x Tachyon Beam Laser II

Removing 1 turret slot from the oracle drops it to 398 DPS

But Caldari gets even better.

272 DPS - Moa 5x Heavy Neutron Blasters
305 DPS - Ferox 7x Heavy Neutron Blasters
584 DPS - Naga 8x Neutron Blaster Cannon
467 DPS - Rokh 8x Neutron Blaster Cannon

I cannot be blind. There is a major disconnect here. A lot of people will say "Oh but the tank will off set the imbalance in DPS"
NO.
IT.
DOESN'T.

Rise - For battleships, They would be used more if you Nerf Tier 3 battlecruisers.

264 DPS - Omen 5x Heavy Beam Lasers II (Multifreq)
356 DPS - Harbenger 6x Heavy Beam Lasers II
455 DPS - Oracle 8x Tachyon Beam Laser II
455 DPS - Abaddon 8x Tachyon Beam Laser II

Removing 1 turret slot from the oracle drops it to 398 DPS

But Caldari gets even better.

272 DPS - Moa 5x Heavy Neutron Blasters
305 DPS - Ferox 7x Heavy Neutron Blasters
584 DPS - Naga 8x Neutron Blaster Cannon
467 DPS - Rokh 8x Neutron Blaster Cannon

I cannot be blind. There is a major disconnect here. A lot of people will say "Oh but the tank will off set the imbalance in DPS"
NO.
IT.
DOESN'T.

I am not saying reduce to lvls of rails or beams more in the line of 8k vollys, 12k is to high and is being abused is so many ways in this game. Yes some ships will still die to this but most ships that should not die to a single shot will no longer.

I like how the Muninn is so irrelevant that people have barely mentioned it here.

because its theorethical niche does not exist in eve. Its alpha strike capability is not enough with 650 mm to kill anythign relevant. And 720mm ones are too fragile to fight anything relevant.

What muninn needs is a 10% increase in PG and CPU.

Battleships seem in an ok place right now? Jesus you must have never tried to run a MWD on a battleship then. Why is the cap use so massive in comparison to other classes

Hi guys

You may or may not have seen me make a post a while back saying that we were intending to do a revisit on battleship and heavy assault cruiser balance for this summer, and I can now be a little more specific with you about that!

After digging into this we were both happy and a bit surprised to find that there weren't a lot of clear changes needed. Battleships especially seem to be in a pretty solid place. There are ships within the class getting less use than others, but that is almost completely due to either the meta favoring certain things (this is why the Abaddon isn't seeing a lot of action for example) or due to the ship falling into a niche that isn't extremely popular even though the ship performs exceptionally in that niche (the Hyperion is a great example of this). So the result is that for now we are going to leave BS alone and keep checking back for opportunities to make improvements.

HACs on the other hand are a slightly different story. In general the class gained a lot of power in the last pass and it's seeing plenty of use across the board, but there are some pretty clear imbalances between certain ships in the class. If you've undocked lately you probably know the Ishtar especially is a little out of control. Here's the small set of changes we're going to make:

Ishtar:
Bonus to drone tracking and optimal range from 7.5% per level -> 5% per level
Max Velocity from 195 -> 185

Eagle:
Max Velocity from 180 -> 190

Muninn:
Max velocity from 210 -> 230

We expect that some of you will feel this is far too gentle on the Ishtar, and we understand that (it's what we heard from the CSM as well), but we get releases very often now and we're happy to be conservative here, rather than nuke it out of the game, and just make more changes if they're needed in the following release.

Looking forward to your feedback as always

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

Note for clarity: Hyperion release date is August 26

Hyperion's release date is September 23, 2014, so after the AT.

gun boat battleships generally have really really bad capacitor problems to the point they must run heavy capacitor boosters with 800's or be useless within a minute or less

the abaddon is the perfect example of this, large lasers use an incredible amount of cap to fire, if you add anything to an abaddon that uses cap, tracking computers, active hardeners or anything it becomes extremely hard to fly, thats not even counting a microwarp drive, afterburner is always a bad choice on heavy ships like that

and its not just the abaddon, the abaddon is just the worst offender, the hyperion and other cap hungry ships are the same but its funny because the Rohk doesn't have this problem really, the megathron and hyperion do.

According to the thread title, it says Hyperion.
According to this and this, Hyperion's Release date is September 23rd. (which may be incorrect).

Accoding to CCP Fozzie's recent tweet, it will go live on Aug 26th, in the middle of the Tourney.

Is hyperion being moved up, is CCP Fozzie wrong, or can we please remove the "Hyperion" tag on this F&I post since it will be released PRIOR to Hyperion?

The Tempest is one of the Republic Fleet's key vessels; a versatile gunship proficient at long-range bombardment and capable of dishing out specialized types of damage with great effectiveness.

Ishtars are popular because of the old drone assist exploit FC's used in the past. So allot of people are using ishtars because of this. Nerfing them any more then what was already done is too much. Then you have the folks who have been destroyed by a small gang of ishtars complaining even though they brought kitchen sink fleet fitted for anoms to counter them. People are after the ishtar because it is the preferred ship due to its ability to deploy sentryGÇÖs and run around tricking the enemy to stay in the range of influence of the sentry guns. If you nerf the Ishtar the complaints will just move to the tengu or the demios. If you want to make a change try buffing web drones or nerfing sentry EHP.

One suggestion would be to remove or nerf the drone control range bonus forcing people to give up more fitting for an extra drone range thingy to use it as longrange sentry boat.

According to the thread title, it says Hyperion.
According to this and this, Hyperion's Release date is September 23rd. (which may be incorrect).

Accoding to CCP Fozzie's recent tweet, it will go live on Aug 26th, in the middle of the Tourney.

Is hyperion being moved up, is CCP Fozzie wrong, or can we please remove the "Hyperion" tag on this F&I post since it will be released PRIOR to Hyperion?

Ishtar: remove the sentry/heavy bonuses, replace with mediums.

That's why they're wrecking everything. My Vagabond isn't sporting Cruise Missiles or 1200mm artillery. Take the BS weapon systems away from the medium size HAC, suddenly it's back in it's own weight class, still punching above it with powerful medium weapons, T2 resists, the extra operation range, etc. The change being proposed might as well not happen. People will drop whatever utility they had in their mids and pop on an extra Omni. Nerf un-nerfed.

Tempest: Pull the high slot.

The current 8-5-6 is pretty versatile; stop trying to force her into an armor tank. Read your own flavor text She's primarily an artillery boat. 'Long range bombardment' with artillery requires low slots for gyros and TEs. If you want the Tempest to come back into play, pull the extra hi and give it to the mids. Now you've got a 7-6-6 with room for either tank, she's still versatile with a utility hi, the option to mount missiles, and still built to hammer the hell out of targets.

Hyperion is currently scheduled for August 26th and this change is scheduled for Hyperion.
Note how the RPS article also has an incorrect date for Crius.

You can also find the accurate release schedule for the rest of this year's releases in CCP Seagull's dev blog here: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/ccp-seagull-becomes-executive-producer-for-eve-online/

Can we get the sacrileges spare high moved into the lows please. The ship is so damn underwhelming.

Can we get the sacrileges spare high moved into the lows please. The ship is so damn underwhelming.

Do you feel like 10m/s is enough for the Eagle? Today, on MWD an Eagle is 150m/s slower than a heavily plated Deimos and 200+ m/s slower than the longer range Cerberus.

Even with this +10m/s, you are only giving Eagle pilots one viable fit and in doing so reducing player choice.

and for an armor tanking ship, i feel 5 lowslots isnt enough, especially being a HAC.

Which other HAC does 670dps at 72k + 48k falloff? Or 752 dps at 41k + 18k falloff?

[img]http://i.imgur.com/5yUfi0k.png[/img]


Geddon seems totally balanced yo.

How about you put 800's in your cap booster instead of 25s unless you are tying to make it missleading.

after looking at that fit further I have no idea what you are trying to get across with that? No skills either being used.

Its so easy to bomb and wipe out an entire fleet

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

why would you balance something in the middle of a running tournament? Does the new release cycle make it impossible to ship changes between releases?

The ishtar is still going to be way OP. As mister Vee couple of posts above stated, that you could remove 2 sentries of it and it still would be used is a good point. Especially with the lowslot drone tracking enchancer coming. Whitch will effectively just neglate the nerf on shield ishtars.

Make all the cruiser size droneboats have medium drone bonuses. Not heavy nor sentry. Like Gila, but with 5 drones. Having BS sized weapon bonuses to aply BS damage and range to a cruiser just makes no sence whatsoever.

Gila was a good example of how the medium drones are actually good now. So take the experience of this and imply to Ishtars and navy vexors. Then the Domi would be OP fleetship again over everything else, but I feel you aint got what it takes to change sentries alltogether.

Leave the tempest alone! Is currently iirc the only BS with 2 utility highs. 8-5-6 Is a good slot layout. Just tune the bonuses a bit.

Also with the TE nerf you nerfed the entire minmatar boatline. So pls fix this, so projectiles get useful again.

I'm sure you did it many times, wouldn't be a problem to link your killboard. Or would it?
Bomber were there for ages, and for ages there were large BS fleets.
If a fleet has a proper anti-bomber support, it's close to impossible to bomb them.

We expect that some of you will feel this is far too gentle on the Ishtar, and we understand that (it's what we heard from the CSM as well), but we get releases very often now and we're happy to be conservative here, rather than nuke it out of the game, and just make more changes if they're needed in the following release.

Note for clarity: Hyperion release date is August 26

Its a ship that with 6 days of training you can get in.
Its a noble idea by my alliance to get newbies into something useful for cap fights almost instantly.
The fit gets fed cap by carriers, but you can put 800s in the cap booster too.
Its supposed to be a no skill fit
Look how ridiculously useful it is in comparison to any other 6 day old battleship fit you care to work



My point was more "CCP Rise is terrible at balance" as that is his baby right there. A bit cryptic im sorry

Make all the cruiser size droneboats have medium drone bonuses. Not heavy nor sentry. Like Gila, but with 5 drones. Having BS sized weapon bonuses to aply BS damage and range to a cruiser just makes no sence whatsoever.

The only BS fleets you tend to see now...

PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

Impressively scattered discussion so far. I can respond to a few things directly:

Anything related to the tournament - the tournament has no impact on game balance decisions. We handle tournament balance using tournament rules and I don't think we would ever postpone balance changes based on the tournament schedule. We want to try and make sure tournament participants are informed of incoming balance changes but we will never make compromises to the whole player base because of a tournament.

Battleships are in a good place - an important distinction here is that I meant battleships are in a relatively good place WITHIN the class. Whether or not they are healthy relative to other classes is more complicated, but if there's issues there (because of bombers for instance) we would more likely want to deal with that problem from the other direction (by making changes to bombers for instance) rather than changing every BS to compensate. Between Duckslayer insulting me he mentioned MWD cap use on BS which I agree with and I may try to get a change for that in shortly.

Tempest - like watching this discussion, happy to see that a significant chunk of people seem to prefer it the way it is now.

Ishtar - really want to emphasize how we would rather take smaller steps more often than big ones more rarely. After some more feedback here we will definitely revisit and make sure we are happy with this change for this release.

Keep it comin

What about the Sacrilege? Currently the Deimos does significantly more damage and tanks about as well. What about recon balance? The Curse and the Pilgrim are both in desperate need of attention.

Ishtar - really want to emphasize how we would rather take smaller steps more often than big ones more rarely. After some more feedback here we will definitely revisit and make sure we are happy with this change for this release.

Keep it comin

how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

Not that enthused here. The Mael is a dedicated 8-gun shield beast and the Phoon is a wonderful Frankenstein monster but there is something about the pest that just feels unique. The utility highs and ambiguous slot layout make it feel kind of like a pirate faction bs lite that gives it a clear identity.

If it's going to be changed then I think it would be better to push it a bit more toward the new geddon and tweak some stuff to give it a bonus that really makes that extra mid slot pop when you choose to armor tank it.

How much further do you want to nerf the Isthar EHP? A Shield Ratting Buffer Ishtar has around 23k EHP with a 700 DPS at 45 km range (and you can honestly only really tank Serp and Guri with it; Angel, Blood and Sansha are not tankable with it in most cases. An Armor Ishtar has around 500 DPS with Gardes at 45 km range (no idea on the HP, as I don't use such a crappy ship).

Where's the problem?

why do you think battleships are in a good place? I never see them used for anything.

adn wich other hac deals 700 dps at 40 km?

"Battleships are not in a good place, you crazy Rise" - an important distinction here is that I meant battleships are in a relatively good place WITHIN the class. Whether or not they are healthy relative to other classes is more complicated...

why do you think battleships are in a good place? I never see them used for anything.

why do you think battleships are in a good place? I never see them used for anything.

Ishtar - really want to emphasize how we would rather take smaller steps more often than big ones more rarely. After some more feedback here we will definitely revisit and make sure we are happy with this change for this release.

If you read the text you quoted you will see that I said battleships as a whole getting used isn't what I said was in a good place, rather that battleships are in a pretty good place relative to other battleships.

Also, even though you've been very unlucky not to see them at all, I can assure you they are used for things.

If you read the text you quoted you will see that I said battleships as a whole getting used isn't what I said was in a good place, rather that battleships are in a pretty good place relative to other battleships.

Also, even though you've been very unlucky not to see them at all, I can assure you they are used for things.

Impressively scattered discussion so far. I can respond to a few things directly:

Anything related to the tournament - the tournament has no impact on game balance decisions. We handle tournament balance using tournament rules and I don't think we would ever postpone balance changes based on the tournament schedule. We want to try and make sure tournament participants are informed of incoming balance changes but we will never make compromises to the whole player base because of a tournament.

"Battleships are not in a good place, you crazy Rise" - an important distinction here is that I meant battleships are in a relatively good place WITHIN the class. Whether or not they are healthy relative to other classes is more complicated, but if there's issues there (because of bombers for instance) we would more likely want to deal with that problem from the other direction (by making changes to bombers for instance) rather than changing every BS to compensate. Between Duckslayer's insults he mentioned MWD cap use on BS being a problem which I agree with and I may try to get a change for that in shortly.

Tempest - like watching this discussion, happy to see that a significant chunk of people seem to prefer it the way it is now.

Ishtar - really want to emphasize how we would rather take smaller steps more often than big ones more rarely. After some more feedback here we will definitely revisit and make sure we are happy with this change for this release.

Keep it comin

@CCP Rise - For battleships, They would be used more if you Nerf Tier 3 battlecruisers.

264 DPS - Omen 5x Heavy Beam Lasers II (Multifreq)
356 DPS - Harbenger 6x Heavy Beam Lasers II
455 DPS - Oracle 8x Tachyon Beam Laser II
455 DPS - Abaddon 8x Tachyon Beam Laser II

Removing 1 turret slot from the oracle drops it to 398 DPS

But Caldari gets even better.

272 DPS - Moa 5x Heavy Neutron Blasters
305 DPS - Ferox 7x Heavy Neutron Blasters
584 DPS - Naga 8x Neutron Blaster Cannon
467 DPS - Rokh 8x Neutron Blaster Cannon

I cannot be blind. There is a major disconnect here. A lot of people will say "Oh but the tank will off set the imbalance in DPS"
NO.
IT.
DOESN'T.

This "Ishtar has bonuses to battleship weapons" line that keeps coming up is interesting. We talked about it some earlier here. There's parts of it that we can agree about but it's also something that makes drones interesting across all drone classes. You could use the same argument to say that Dominix's shouldn't get bonuses to light drones or that Vexors shouldn't be able to use lights or heavies or sentries.

We feel that in general it's an interesting and positive part of drone design that they aren't fixed to ship sizes nearly as strictly as other weapon types. We just need to find ways to have balanced ships as well.

I find the best way to get out good points is to obfuscate them with insults, trolling and mild derailment, CCP Rise. Sorry, its just my method. For what its worth, i don't actually think you are really really terrible at balance
Much appreciated for looking into BS MWD cap use. I really think this is the major issue with the tempest, rather than slot layout.

This "Ishtar has bonuses to battleship weapons" line that keeps coming up is interesting. We talked about it some earlier here. There's parts of it that we can agree about but it's also something that makes drones interesting across all drone classes. You could use the same argument to say that Dominix's shouldn't get bonuses to light drones or that Vexors shouldn't be able to use lights or heavies or sentries.

We feel that in general it's an interesting and positive part of drone design that they aren't fixed to ship sizes nearly as strictly as other weapon types. We just need to find ways to have balanced ships as well.

hence my continuing disappointment with how the caldari hybrid boats have been balanced. They had a great thing going with the merlin and the moa, and when the bc rebal came with bated breath we saw...the ferox just got an extra gun and high, and had its missiles removed. Give Ferox and Rokh the blaster dps they deserve!

How much further do you want to nerf the Isthar EHP? A Shield Ratting Buffer Ishtar has around 23k EHP with a 700 DPS at 45 km range (and you can honestly only really tank Serp and Guri with it; Angel, Blood and Sansha are not tankable with it in most cases. An Armor Ishtar has around 500 DPS with Gardes at 45 km range (no idea on the HP, as I don't use such a crappy ship).

Where's the problem?

What about the Sacrilege? Currently the Deimos does significantly more damage and tanks about as well. What about recon balance? The Curse and the Pilgrim are both in desperate need of attention.

Sentry drones have enormous downsides. They can be killed like other drones AND they don't return to your ship. There's a reason they were never used at all until assist + these tracking/optimal bonuses came along.

Sentry drones have enormous downsides. They can be killed like other drones AND they don't return to your ship. There's a reason they were never used at all until assist + these tracking/optimal bonuses came along.

Sentry drones have enormous downsides. They can be killed like other drones AND they don't return to your ship. There's a reason they were never used at all until assist + these tracking/optimal bonuses came along.

This "Ishtar has bonuses to battleship weapons" line that keeps coming up is interesting. We talked about it some earlier here. There's parts of it that we can agree about but it's also something that makes drones interesting across all drone using/bonused ships. You could use the same argument to say that Dominix's shouldn't get bonuses to light drones or that Vexors shouldn't be able to use lights or heavies or sentries.

We feel that in general it's an interesting and positive part of drone design that they aren't fixed to ship sizes nearly as strictly as other weapon types. We just need to find ways to have balanced ships as well.

This "Ishtar has bonuses to battleship weapons" line that keeps coming up is interesting. We talked about it some earlier here. There's parts of it that we can agree about but it's also something that makes drones interesting across all drone using/bonused ships. You could use the same argument to say that Dominix's shouldn't get bonuses to light drones or that Vexors shouldn't be able to use lights or heavies or sentries.

We feel that in general it's an interesting and positive part of drone design that they aren't fixed to ship sizes nearly as strictly as other weapon types. We just need to find ways to have balanced ships as well.

Sentry drones have enormous downsides. They can be killed like other drones AND they don't return to your ship. There's a reason they were never used at all until assist + these tracking/optimal bonuses came along.