Possible solutions: ...

These days you either fit AARs or MASBs. No other choice really when it comes to tanking.

I still think it's ok, once they're out of paste/charges, it's really easy to break the tank.

Personally, i'm more concerned about dual MASB fits. That just gives ridiculous amounts of tank for a frigate.

And neuts are fine. Give them more range and you will break frig pvp completely.

I feel like right now there's an unchecked proliferation of AAR use, which feeds the need for shoehorning insane levels of DPS onto frigs to stand any chance of countering the >130 DPS tank any given AAR fit is capable of.

What really needs a rebalance right now is frig cap warfare. It's in a ****-poor state as a viable option right now, which is why virtually nobody has even bothered wasting a utility high on a neut since AARs became big, and that's really a shame because cap warfare is still awesome and still incredibly popular on cruiser/BC/BS fits.

Simple explanation for why it sucks right now: 1) 9GJ/s cap blap takes ~30s to cap out an opponent, which is simply too much time in frig warfare. 2) neut range is pitiful, and to add insult to injury nos out-ranges neuts. This one aspect alone has completely killed any possibility of hulls like the Slasher or the Rifter competing on any level with hulls like the Atron, which can easily just load Null and reach with 130 DPS out to the full neut range while comfortably tanking the same amount of DPS with an AAR. And good luck to you, if you think you can somehow fit a tank to survive ~30s of that after you've shot a good amount of your PG on a neut.

So basically, there's a lack of balance here because one critical offensive option is too gimpy to use effectively in most cases.

Possible solutions:

1) Increase the range of neuts.
2) Buff PG of weaker frigs so they can actually mount somewhat of a tank in tandem with a neut
3) "Blighted"-style neut module

These days you either fit AARs or MASBs. No other choice really when it comes to tanking.

I still think it's ok, once they're out of paste/charges, it's really easy to break the tank.

Personally, i'm more concerned about dual MASB fits. That just gives ridiculous amounts of tank for a frigate.

And neuts are fine. Give them more range and you will break frig pvp completely.

I feel like right now there's an unchecked proliferation of AAR use, which feeds the need for shoehorning insane levels of DPS onto frigs to stand any chance of countering the >130 DPS tank any given AAR fit is capable of.

What really needs a rebalance right now is frig cap warfare. It's in a ****-poor state as a viable option right now, which is why virtually nobody has even bothered wasting a utility high on a neut since AARs became big, and that's really a shame because cap warfare is still awesome and still incredibly popular on cruiser/BC/BS fits.

Simple explanation for why it sucks right now: 1) 9GJ/s cap blap takes ~30s to cap out an opponent, which is simply too much time in frig warfare. 2) neut range is pitiful, and to add insult to injury nos out-ranges neuts. This one aspect alone has completely killed any possibility of hulls like the Slasher or the Rifter competing on any level with hulls like the Atron, which can easily just load Null and reach with 130 DPS out to the full neut range while comfortably tanking the same amount of DPS with an AAR. And good luck to you, if you think you can somehow fit a tank to survive ~30s of that after you've shot a good amount of your PG on a neut.

So basically, there's a lack of balance here because one critical offensive option is too gimpy to use effectively in most cases.

Possible solutions:

1) Increase the range of neuts.
2) Buff PG of weaker frigs so they can actually mount somewhat of a tank in tandem with a neut
3) "Blighted"-style neut module

It seems the biggest problem is that the restrictions for plexes are completely out of balance. CCP should consider to kick pirate frigates out of novice plexes or allow T2 frigates to enter them too.

don't agree here either. Small neuts don't suck much cap per cycle, but you forget that frigs fitting a SAAR have a really limited cap life, and that neut can put a whole lot of hurt on them. If your slasher can't keep an atron inside neut range, you've fit your slasher wrong mate.

These days you either fit AARs or MASBs. No other choice really when it comes to tanking.

I still think it's ok, once they're out of paste/charges, it's really easy to break the tank.

Personally, i'm more concerned about dual MASB fits. That just gives ridiculous amounts of tank for a frigate.

And neuts are fine. Give them more range and you will break frig pvp completely.

And gallante are op that's for sure. Breacher can do MASB really well but I still see it rarely and all the other non-navy minmatar frigs not at all aside for guys using links (go to Ardar to see some rare frigs :P).

RFF is still the weakest navy frig but it's cheap and still blaps most standard t1 ones. Minmatars did draw the short straw.

Hybrids are awesome dps and drones are awesome dps with above awesome (yeah - they actually are!) damage application. Add to that decent ship bonuses and you get current meta. Comet not being slow also hurts the balance ;-)

[quote=Balshem Rozenzweig]
... unlike minnies and amarr having some pretty useless ships at the moment among them, but anyone calling them OP needs to understand their weaknesses better, and fight accordingly.

When I said gallante are OP I meant they have better ship selection compared to competition - I'm sorry I failed to mention that. They can field incu, tristan and comet (sometimes atron but it's more of a curiosity around my parts) while the other factions cannot say that. I see some hookbills. Condors and kestrels are rare. I see some RFFs (I dare say because of the price tag) and maybe some slicers. That's all. It's mostly comets now lol.

What you wrote made me redefine what I wanted to say - combination of rails/blasters and some drones allow comet to perform extremely well, and it shows in regard to it being used often and with great success.

Sure they are fits that will kill a comet. It's hard to outdps it's blasters up close, and kill it in scram-web range when it's set up for it. This is why I think it's so popular.

Executioner, Condor are also pretty solid ships. If we were Amarr, all you'd hear about over the past two years would have been "Derpsecutioner!"

Heron is an under rated solo beast with 5 midslots.

Only ship I don't really see out in the field are the Rifter, and Vigil (apart from the exploration oriented Imicus, Magnate, Probe lineup)

I feel like right now there's an unchecked proliferation of AAR use, which feeds the need for shoehorning insane levels of DPS onto frigs to stand any chance of countering the >130 DPS tank any given AAR fit is capable of.

What really needs a rebalance right now is frig cap warfare. It's in a ****-poor state as a viable option right now, which is why virtually nobody has even bothered wasting a utility high on a neut since AARs became big, and that's really a shame because cap warfare is still awesome and still incredibly popular on cruiser/BC/BS fits.

Simple explanation for why it sucks right now: 1) 9GJ/s cap blap takes ~30s to cap out an opponent, which is simply too much time in frig warfare. 2) neut range is pitiful, and to add insult to injury nos out-ranges neuts. This one aspect alone has completely killed any possibility of hulls like the Slasher or the Rifter competing on any level with hulls like the Atron, which can easily just load Null and reach with 130 DPS out to the full neut range while comfortably tanking the same amount of DPS with an AAR. And good luck to you, if you think you can somehow fit a tank to survive ~30s of that after you've shot a good amount of your PG on a neut.

So basically, there's a lack of balance here because one critical offensive option is too gimpy to use effectively in most cases.

Possible solutions:

1) Increase the range of neuts.
2) Buff PG of weaker frigs so they can actually mount somewhat of a tank in tandem with a neut
3) "Blighted"-style neut module

Ah, i completely forgot the Condor. Probably because i despise it.

And yeah, the Heron is quite interesting and the Executioner is actually pretty decent aswell. So except for 2 ships, they all work. Poor Minmatar.

OP: Blasters are incredibly powerful (overpowered relative to projectiles, IMO) but there are a lot of factors. You can scram kite blaster ships with barrage all day long in a Rifter or Slasher, provided you keep 5km+ between you and the target. I have killed a lot of blaster frigs with a Rifter. That said, if an Atron overheats his AB and you don't and he gets on you, you die very, very quickly. The falloff bonus makes them nasty with null as well. Merlins you just kite because they are slow as ****.

like what Knuckles? (except punisher and maybe rifter)

well, exactly the punisher and the rifter, the former becaus of two mid slots, the latter because it's not fast enough to comfortably kite some ships, while the slasher can do it much easier, plus 4 mids. It's not the rifter suck, it's that i can't see any reason strong enough to pick it over a slasher

After those, e-war can't really compare to maulus and griffin. Esecutioner also isn't bad at all but if i want an attack frig other than the atron to fight in scram range, i'd rather get a slasher with his extra mid slot and selectable damage, or even a rocket condor, which is a surprisingly good ship, while the Executioner would be my last choice, really

Drones, on the other hand, are broken as ****. Tristans are king of T1 frigates. They are killable 1v1 only if your fit / situation directly counters theirs, which does happen sometimes.