ishtars are a tad op... every 0.0 group uses them for obvious reasons......

limit sentry drones to battlecruiser and above...


seems like a good idea.

Just nerf the drone control range and all good, meaning got to be 'so close' to control sentries.

Just nerf the drone control range and all good, meaning got to be 'so close' to control sentries.

^^^Just saying this is not me, I like my words coming from my own mouth

And to copy-pasted "don't take my shiny PVE boat away" PVE is what you do for isk to PVP. The reimbursements big alliances have circumvent that first bit. There are other shiny isk machines, you'll recover.

Any suggestions so that Ishtars, VNI's, and ordinary Vexors are not completely and totally **** afterwords?

Or are you one of the "gut them into uselessness and let CCP never sort them out." crowd?

-1 for a bare sketch of an idea, -1 for not searching to find the other 999 Ishtar threads, -1 for the "make them totally useless" suggestion.

And -10 for laziness.

ishtars are a tad op... every 0.0 group uses them for obvious reasons......

limit sentry drones to battlecruiser and above...


seems like a good idea.

The ship isn't the problem its the sentries.

Tracking and range bonused ones maybe. Without that they're not special.

So, when you've successfully nerfed Ishtars into oblivion, are you going to then beg for nerfs to whatever takes its place as the OP hull of choice? And when that hull goes the way of the drake, are you going to protest the next FOTM hull? When does it stop?

I would really like an honest answer to these questions from OP.

Here's what I think:

Aside from a reduction in top speed don't change the ishtar itself, but nerf dps and tank on sentry drones. Set them up so they're more of an alpha strike weapon platform, and have their dps significantly reduces do heavy drones are top dog for dps. The balance problem with the ishtar exists more for the weapons systems it uses, and not necessarily for the ship itself.

Nerf the ishtar and we move to the domi, nerf the domi and we still have the problem with sentry spewing carrier blobs. They are the cause of a good number of issues out there. Dealing with the sentries would save a good deal of time.

It's been said before and I still think it's the best option:

Reduce Heavy Drone bandwidth to 20 M/bits/s

Reduce Offending ships drone bandwidth to 100 Mbits/s

Ishtar/VNI can only field 4 sentries then (20% dps nerf) but can still field 5 heavies if they want.

Myrm gets a brawling buff so may need a rebalance.

Remove Carrier ability to use sentry drones and introduce a new fighter type called "Lancer Fighters". Lancer fighters orbit the carrier very slowly and have Sniper weapons fitted. Would obviously struggle to track anything smaller than a BS but would leave the "Slow Cat" ability intact somewhat.

Did you somehow miss the tons of Domis in recent AT's?

And the main reason alliances fly Ishtars over Domis is that Ishtars are less prone to dying in the first few minutes of the fight from two bomb waves, since they are far more mobile and have lower sig radius that a Dominix.

If bombers were nerfed heavily, BS fleets would be far more common, but bringing just about any large BS fleet other than rattlesnakes is basically just a "kill my entire fleet with 20 bombers" sign being waved about.

Your suggestions don't fix the underlying problems. The problem with the ishtar is that it drops sentries and runs out of combat range and still does damage. It can kill you, but you can't kill it is the problem. It can kill you 20% slower and you can't kill it doesn't fix the problem it just reduces incoming damage by 20%. When I say ishtar, I mean all cruises. Just make the sentry drone a BS and up thing.

You crap lance fighter ideas is crap too. Face it, archons assigning sentries is game breaking. Get rid of it. Don't half get rid of it w/ the 'lancer garbage fighter pacification drone'. The tactic sux, so take it away. Keep assignment of fighters and fighter bombers. Thats cool. Get rid of the ability to assign sentries and other normal drones.

Nerf the ishtar and we move to the domi, nerf the domi and we still have the problem with sentry spewing carrier blobs. They are the cause of a good number of issues out there. Dealing with the sentries would save a good deal of time.

Broken record here so I am just going to start a copy and paste into all the nerf Ishtar threads I can find.

-1

Again with the nerf Ishtar / sentry drone combination. Why is it that everyone misses the most logical first step in balancing this combination and jumps immediately to the nerfs instead?

Based on reading online the most common complaint with Ishtar / sentry combination is the ability to set them to aggressive mode which allows them to attack without the pilot needing a target lock or to set them to assist another ship in which case the Ishtar becomes nothing but a transport mechanism either of these allows them to drop and run away and hide.

While nerfs to damage, control range, bandwidth and various other ideas would solve the problme for the PvP crowd it would have an even larger and un-intended affect on the usefulness of the Ishtar for PvE. We don't care about PvE you say and my response is you should, this is a game that is played by many different types of players and we all have to share the same ships and equipment and the needs of ALL segments of the game need to be considered in any balance adjustment that is made.

As this applies to the Ishtar / sentry combination why start with the nerf bat big time when a simple change to drone use mechanics may solve the problem for the PvP crowd yet have minimal impact on the PvE crowd.
Just one such idea is to remove the aggressive mode and the ability to assign drones to assist another ship, so what does this do for the situation.
1. It requires the drones pilot to have a target lock to be able to shoot anything.
2. It prevents them from dropping drones and running away like a scared baby.
3. It makes drones ships just as susceptible to EWAR as most other ships.
4. It would have minimal affect on the use of this combination in the PvE segment of the game.

So I say give these simply fixes that have minimal impact on the PvE side of the game a try first. When they are tried and IF they do not solve the balance issues for the PvP crowd then we can start to look at other things that can / should be done.

What exactly is stopping anyone from shooting the sentries? I remember having that discussion a couple days ago with my corp mates after a fight with a gang of 3 ishtars and a couple cerbs. We noticed the ishtars did the most damage after looking through the lossmails and questioned why we never shot their sentries down.

Obviously, It will not be so easy especially with short range weapons and given the 6k ehp of sentries but I don't see why it's not done often. If the ishtars are running away then kill the sentries. It's so simple.

On the topic of nerfs, a reduction of the ishtar drone bay size to 175 will ensure only a set of sentries or heavies can be carried at once.

P.S. How is there anything wrong with assigning sentries when it's ok to assign fighters that are more likely to hit?

Delete Sentries.