Februrary Balance Update - Assault Frigates and Assault Damage Controls

EVE Technology and Research Center Upcoming Features & Changes
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I don’t think it counts if u have to use up all your rig slots to claim you have some EM resist (One can argue the same with minmatar weaknesses as well). With the new change, if you use up the rig slots, the hawk do not have sufficient cpu for both a Ballistic Control Unit AND the new Assault Damage Control Unit (ADCU). It still has to live with all it’s disadvantages (kinetic-only damage profile, slowest AF ship, poor scan resolution, susceptible to being jammed with no drones as a dps backup etc). In addition to having only kinetic-only bonus dps, everyone knows missiles are weaker on dps especially at range and with average skills so hawks users suffer even further.

The jags gain shield boost bonus (more tank), flexible damage application (all dmg profiles), drones, cpu hike bonus (jag can fit a ADCU II with BCU2 over a hawk which has to choose either).

I know you mentioned why not use the Jaguar then, hence it lends to the myth of Minmatar Online if that is the only course of action for a superior missile type AF. This is especially with the call to buff up the Wolf as well with a 3rd mid slot.

Jags and Wolfs beats Hawks as much as the other way around in the current meta hence the balance before this Feb 13 change but with the ADCU in addition to the new buffs, Jags will have the upperhand after (overpowered seems like a good description here).

If you look at the points on zkillboard between the jaguar, hawk and wolf prior to this change on zkillboard, it indicates they are all pretty balanced (hence near equal solo pvp victories across between 73% - 75%). In fact, the jag is already ahead at 75% without the new buffs yet. So it’s not fair to just state that only the hawks beat the wolfs and jags but the opposite is true as well depending on engagement circumstances and player skills. Remember more points are usually allocated per killmail on zkillboard if it is a solo or difficult opportunity.

Scan res is important to catching fast ships like the interceptors before they warp away or fast ships like the jaguar before they head back to the gate. Also good for fleet combats.

Caldari ships enjoy superior targeting range but that is really just good for fleet target whoring especially if it cannot fit more tracking units or missile guidance system due to lack of CPU (with the new ADCU change). Also Caldari AFs slow speed will grant this small advantage temporary (it’s weird they are shield-based and they are still slow).

With projectiles, there is no doubt the wolf already enjoy damage superiority (plus dmg profile flexibility). It also already has a nice falloff range bonus so it’s projectiles already cover the scram engagement range pretty well. You mentioned it yourself, with it’s higher natural speed, both wolf and jag enjoy better transversal as well.

For those who argue speed is good for “running away” only, I guess there is a lack of appreciation for the AF 's ability to choose it’s engagement. Nobody has the scan res, align times or speed like the Minmatar ships so the engagement opportunities for other race class AFs are limited.

With the new shield boost on the jag, the jag should be the solo pvp AF ship for Minmatar.

If wolf gains a third mid slot, I would recommend at least a cpu buff for the hawk to keep the meta balance (keep in mind the new ADCU that comes into play) between the two missile races. Hence the wolf gains an option for fleet pvp while the hawk gains an option for counter balance against the jag for solo pvp. Also, we could make wolf the slowest AF by 20-30% and make the hawk the fastest (increase 20-30%) if one argue speed does not already help Minmatar AFs (we could also give the wolf further targeting range too to go along with this).

The new changes upset the current balance between AFs with the buffs and ADCU so hopefully the devs can see thru that.

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WTF? CCP, you’ve gone batshit crazy. Every single ship change done in this game has been completely opposite of my ship fits, costing me lot’s of ISK in refitting and making me lose all interest in even using that ship. Not once has any of the various ship changes been positive.

So what I’d like to know is why change the Jaguar into a Missile Boat?
What good does having 1 Turret slot on it accomplish?
What about Projectile Rigs already previously installed on it?

You could have easily just gave it the option to go with either Projectiles or Missiles or both. And what’s this about the Wolf being the Jaguar’s speedy brother? I swear you Dev’s don’t even know this game at all any more.

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What else would you put in the rig slots but EM resists? You don’t need more range, dps is sufficient (could go higher, but then you’d need a CPU rig and a dps rig, then lose all your EM resists). You don’t need more range or cap. You could potentially go with speed, but the new hawk is pretty fast on its own with incredible agility. Its about 1 second faster at aligning than a wolf of similar fit.

As far as a brawl hawk not fitting an ADCU, you’re wrong. See here. You could also use a pimp scram to make it work and have even more CPU available.

Hawk isn’t purely kinetic lock, we talked about this. It has a RoF bonus and when compared to the jaguar, they both have almost the same missile dps (hawk at ~140dps and jaguar at 150 dps). Course thats with 1 dps mod on the hawk and 2 dps mods on the jaguar. The hawk has a missile range bonus, which means it can scram kite the jag more effectively as long as it can start the fight correctly or go with a dual web fit. Yes the jaguar has 2 drones (4 in total), but if you are controlling the fight you can easily shoot those down no problem. There are plenty of other AF that have no drones and get by just fine. Your point about missile dps is moot when both the jag and hawk are almost exactly the same with the hawk using only 1 dps mod and the jag using 2. The hawk has better range, the jag applies better. Ones straight brawler, the other is a scram kiter.

Hawk has same flexible damage profile (RoF bonus+4 launchers) compared to jaguars 3 launchers+2 drones. Hawk and Jag have comparable tanks, Hawk has bigger EM hole and slight explosive hole. Jag has kinetic and explo hole. No real difference there.

In equal settings (brawl fit vs brawl fit and kite vs kite fit), a hawk will walk all over a wolf. Unless the person in the hawk has no clue on how to range control. Technically, a brawl wolf vs a kite hawk, the hawk could still win as it has a web and wolf does not. Take a look at the fits below:

Kite hawk

Brawl Wolf

Kite Wolf (keep in mind to use the ADCU, you need to use caldari disruptor, which adds about 40-60m onto the fit. If you don’t use that point, you use a standard DCU).

Looking at these fits, a kite wolf vs kite hawk, the hawk is only a couple hundred m/s slower, but aligns faster and projects its dps out to anywhere the wolf can be. Using precision light missiles it will gain application and still out dps the wolf at point range, unless the wolf gets on top of it. If the web is used, then the hawk could use fury/faction missiles and apply full damage (over 200 dps with OH LML) as wolf will be stuck with its sig bloom out. Wolf does not have a sustained tank as it can’t fit a cap booster (in brawler form) and has no significant buffer to speak of. Combined with the 1800 shield buffer, along with MASB, artillery will have a hard time bleeding through tank.

Scan res is negligible and not a major balancing point. If you can disregard targeting range (for sniper AF, the harpy has a fleet doctrine built around it, the wolf does not), then i can disregard the minor examples of scan res. I can say scan res is just for low skill gate camps and sitting on a beacon.

Engagement opportunities are only limited by your inability to challenge yourself with different opponents. Not by the ships themselves. By “running away”, i mean the wolf has no choice but to run away from other ships that can project as it literally has 0 tank. If you a fight a slicer or a brawling blaster ship, cool, you have enough tank as either they will do no damage, or they can’t hit you. Anything that hits will you cause you to be a wreck in no time. Also, arty thrashers are a thing and will nuke a wolf.

You’ll never see caldari ship be faster than a minmatar ship. It just won’t happen through racial lore and how they’re designed. The last thing we need is more fast LML ships (hookbill, garmur and now potentially the jaguar). The hawk in its current numbers look to be quite strong and it got a substantial speed boost compared to its older numbers. Yes its CPU restricted, but so is the jaguar. However, at the minimum i think i would agree that the hawk could use more CPU to make it more new player friendly. Maybe 10 more CPU as a start.

+10 CPU on the hawk, no change to speed
Reduce wolf speed by 15%, move a high to a mid, increase fitting by 5 PG/CPU would be a good start on it.

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“What else would you put in the rig slots but EM resists?” Well if there is all to the function of rigs for the hawk, it defeats the purpose of rigs for more options. Also it just increases the sig radius. It will be good to fit cpu rigs or dps rigs to project better damage for the hawk (non-kinetic dmg) or speed rigs to overcome the speed disadvantage instead. Your fit for the wolf seems to have that versatility so it is kinda biased.

That arguement you have that hawk has the highest dmg profile does not hold water if it only applies to kinetic. It does not have flexible and when engaged with ships with high kinetic resistance, the dps applies poorly. Keep in mind missile dps is already poor.

As far for your fit for the hawk, it does not even make sense. Seems like a bad convenience fit just to satisfy a ADCU (for the sake of it).

Brawling wolf or jag beats a hawk anytime due to dmg versatility, better tracking and the fact it is turrets vs missiles.

I disagree with you on your view of engagement opportunities. Having better speed, align times and scan res would offer better engagement opportunities.

An interesting view and experiment would be to switch roles of Caldari AFs and Minmatar AFs instead with Caldari AFs becoming the fastest AFs with good align times and scan res while Minmatar AFs get better damage projection and more mid slots.

Switching the pain between the racial AFs would be interesting for all the arguements.

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I fixed that for you.

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My thoughts are opposite though (Minmatar AFs are still superior if flown/fitted right) and I think we could just go on and on. For the sake of keeping this to a technical discussion and not personal, just switch the pain between both racial class.

Make the caldari AFs the fastest in the game with a cpu buff and offer the wolf (jag is already buffed hence the spiking speculative price in Jita) a mid slot and buff it’s dps (while taking away it’s speed and align times to be the slowest amongst AFs). Players of both meta would have to figure out the game again and this will keep it interesting.

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That’s assuming your using normal fit’s, but if you look at the wolf’s new stats you can do a hybrid build that fill’s in its own weakness’s.

Brawl fit weakness: No range control, because of 2 mid’s even thou it has nice speed, can’t stop people from disengaging and running away if they are about to loose.
Kite fit weakness: No web or tracking to shoot incoming drones with arty fit (3mid 1 for web would change this thou)

So I give you a 3rd way to fly the new wolf, where its speed + cap makes it be better at short range kiting (14k-19k):

Kite%20wolf%20Auto
Kite%20wolf%20Auto1295×747 499 KB
(Can Bling fit it for more resi and cap stability)

With perpendicular spiraling and the wolf’s speed it’s possible to avoid sling shot’s (for a limited time, eventually you will make a mistake and get cuaght), the 444 tracking is enough to take out incoming drone’s, swapping to depleted uranium will up tracking to 711 but lower dps to 110 but it will chow small drones decently fast.

If your target catches you in a brawl its not the end of the world as when they turn off your mwd your cap + nos gives you enough cap to almost perma run a rep, as long as you keep your disruptor off until the very last moment that you need it, So the idea with this fit is to wear your opponent down while your kiting and then eventually enter scram range where you finish them off with higher dps, if your target scrams you and neut’s you thou you are pretty dead, as you have no neut resistance from a cap battery.

Unfortunately its cap is not good enough to run the repper much while your kiting, maybe 1 or 2 cycles every 20 seconds or so, 3rd mid for battery instead of nos will help this quite a bit as well, as without arties you have a little more grid to make use of.

Have tested it quite a bit on Sisi and solo killed so far:
Enyo
Ishkur (Killed by one as well)
Retribution (Killed by one as well)
Interceptors that expected to get under the guns of a kiting Wolf (always fun when they realize ^_^)

Would love to test against more AF’s but unfortunately Sisi is full of people that just troll with their capital’s and fighters really hurt AF’s, tried to kill a single fighter once took 10min to break its tank lol…

If I had to imagine fighting a hawk, a light missile one would do less dps than you, but it would be able to rep while you wont be able to as you cant hold a nos on it so it will eventually wear you down unless it has no web and you can sit on top of it or if you bling the nos which will give you a much higher chance of winning.

A scram kite hawk being shot at by emp ammo (13km range) will not be able to avoid damage, but it will be able to stop you from getting cap from nos, unless you bling the nos which is probably worth it, with a blinged nos is would be a pretty close fight as kin is your dps hole and you can project em damage which is its hole, depending on how much you wore it down during the kiting phase will determine if you kill the hawk or not.

A mwd scram deadspace no control hawk would rape the wolf thou, as its tank is stupidly good lol and it would eventually sling shot you and kill you, this is also why the wolf needs its dps, less dps means it needs to kite for longer and more chance of you making a mistake and getting scramed, with AF 5 your falloff would increase to the point where you could drop the tracking enhancer for a faction gyro and with a cpu implant it should fit, making the fit quite a bit stronger.

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I doubt anyone would actually fit a blingy scram fit for hawk and roam for pvp. There is the occasional chance it might meet a garmur or slicer that would kite it to death (a kite wolf would kill a brawl hawk too).

At brawling range, if the hawk had it’s mwd neutralized by your scram (and vice versa), u will be able to control range and close in for the kill due to superior speed and nail em with your nos. It looks 50-50 to me.

There are plenty of folks (Pax Sex is one example) that could score countless kills with just a 2 mid slot T1 punisher (with no projectile bonus) plus just autocannons. Wolf has much more than that, if it is fitted right and the player is experienced, it will be superior than the hawk.

With the buff on the jag especially the shield boost buff, the wolf is no longer the main solo pvp ship for Minmatar. Best look at it more as a fleet ship (with 30-100 folks flying it).

Different players have different experiences, I guess.

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Remember, they are not supposed to be that. They are supposed to be very heavy tackle until your buddies are on grid.

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So far no comment on my idea of making HACs dedicated entosis ships?

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If they are ment to be very heavy fleet tackle they would have a resistance bonus instead of active rep, even a ehp bonus might be better for the roll so that incoming reps from fleet would be boosted, the only one’s fitting this roll atm is the harpy and vengeance. I’v always seen active rep bonus as a solo indicator.

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Keeping an open mind, I decided to fit the new wolf on sisi. I am getting 303 dps with hail s on the high end (7.7km falloff), 276 dps with republic fleet emp s in the middle (10km falloff) and 222 dps with barrage s (14km falloff) on the low end plus a rocket launcher filled with mjolnir rage rocket.

Wolf Fit
High Slot - 4x 200mm autocannons + 1x rocket launcher
Mid Slot - 1x 5mn cold-gas mwd + 1x warp scramber II
Low Slot - 1 EFFA Compact Assault Damage Control + 2 Gyro + 1 Co-processor II + 1 nanofiber
Rigs - 2x Small Anti-Kinetic Pump

Wolf looks pretty awesome to me and definitely with a higher dps on the brawler range compared to the brawler hawk’s rocket dps + 1x 150mm even with a kinetic damage profile (236 dps). The wolf (518m/s) also still is significantly faster than the hawk (440m/s), harpy (390m/s), retribution (410m/s) and ishkur (423m/s). That wolf fit (with 2 kinetic pump rigs) gives me 5852 ehp which is better than the 5424 ehp that a hawk (with 2 EM shield rigs) with a decent fit would have.

The wolf already looks better all round compared to the hawk without that mythical 3rd mid slot.

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I am just quoting what CCP Rise said and out of eight assault frigates, only 2 have an active rep bonus.
The others may be even better with the t2 logi frigates, which were done right before they hit SiSi.

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HAWK MISSILE DAMAGE IS NEARLY THE SAME AS THE JAGUAR USING UNBONUSED MISSILES. How many times do i have to say it before you get it? Using mjolnir rage rockets with a hawk is ~142dps. Using mjolnir rage on the jag is 150dps. That is with the jaguar using 2 (t2) damage mods and the hawk using one t1 bcu. Are you really worried over an 8 dps difference? Yes, the jag has drones. They are unbonused, shoot them, they will die. Then you just have a low range missile ship that could be scram kited. Which forces it to use either faction or javelin. Which forces its dps even lower than the hawk. There is no argument for dps in hawk’s non kinetic missiles when compared to the jag. If you fight a ship that has a kinetic hole/opening (t2 minmatar/t1), then the hawk is superior to the jag in dps.

How is the hawk fit a “convienence fit”? That is literally the 2nd best fit for a hawk that doesnt use dual MASB for brawling.

You said “brawl hawk cannot fit an ADCU”. I made a brawl hawk with an ADCU. Done. Your initial statement is wrong, doesnt matter what you think of the fit (hint: it has the same tank as MASB but doesnt run out as long as you have cap boosters).

Your DPS is overheated dps, its not maintainable, dont list overheated dps unless you specificallt state it as overheated. Barrage wolf is 200dps, faction ammo is 257 and hail is 287dps. You have 9.7km of falloff using emp, youll be applying poorly at edge of scram. With barrage youll apply, but your dps will be closer to 100-150dps (dont have the graph on hand as im at work, but you will lose a significant amount of damage). My missiles wont lose damage at the edge of scram.

Your fitting knowledge seems to be lacking. Youre looking at numbers (like your wolf fit you mentioned) and saying its good without looking at the big picture. I would fight that wolf with no qualms and devastate you. You have 0 repping power. Even if you maxed out kinetic, you would still die. Youre using hail numbers which limits your projection even further. Plus you have no projection mods for a kite fit ac wolf. You wont apply anything at point range. If you intend to brawl, youll die as a hawk or anything with a web can hold you at the edge of scram and mitigate at least 50% of your dps (more if youre using hail). Add on the fact you have no additional projection mods, i would fight you all day with a hawk or anything that scram kites.

You mention the wolf is faster than a hawk. Yes, but that does not matter when the hawk has a web when brawling and can dictate range. Even if you scram me, i will pull away and just sit at 9km and laugh as you tickle me with ac falloff. Open up a dps graph in eft and pyfa, look at how terrible your dps is at the edge of scram range. Sabres are in the same boat and theyre ludicrously easy to kill when scram kiting. They make the same mkstake you do and pick hail because “dps is higher” but fail to see it cripples your range and tracking. Put barrage into that wolf, then compare dps between the hawk and wolf. That is what youll need to apply at the edge of scram (9-10km).

I looked up your KB and see 0 pvp fits or kills. Either you dont pvp or youre posting from an alt which just makes this all seem trollish.

Im not trying to be a dick, but your fits do not showcase a good build. Then you claim my fits (which have been used for years) are somehow convienence fits for the sake of the arguement (even though they did what you said could not be done). The fit i linked for a brawl hawk is preferred over dual MASB as you have better resists and a more sustainable tank. Its been used in lowsec ever since the hawk got a shield boost bonus. Just swap the mwd for an ab. You can find dozens of hawks on the KB fit similarly (active tanked without MASB). As seen Here, this guy chose to go with a neut instead of a dcu, personal preference i suppose. Its pretty much an identical fit that i posted, but built around lowsec engagements.

I doubt anyone would actually fit a blingy scram fit for hawk and roam for pvp. There is the occasional chance it might meet a garmur or slicer that would kite it to death (a kite wolf would kill a brawl hawk too

A 40-50m scram/point isnt blingy. Ive used caldari scrams/points on several AF for cap and fitting purposes. As far as scram kiters go, having 1-3km extra range is pretty useful too. Sometimes you need to pimp to get the most of your ship/fit. This applies to every ship, not just AF.

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Keep the discussion technical please, you made it sound too personal.

Hmm, once again, keeping an open mind let’s fit a jaguar and hawk with a versatile solo pvp fit (no blingies or implants). This is based on a known hawk fit that’s proven to defeat some T3ds and most frigate pvps,

Jaguar Fit
High Slot - 3x rocket launchers II + 1x 200mm autocannons II
Medium Slot - 1x 5mn compact mwd, 1x 1mn compact ab, 1x warp scrambler II, 1x fleeting compact stasis webifier, 1x medium ancilliary shield booster
Low Slot - 1x EFFA Compact Assault Damage Control Unit, 1x ballistic control unit II, 1x nanofiber II
Rigs - 1x Small Processor Overclock Unit + 1x Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer II
Drones - 2x hobgoblins
New Jaguar Stats - Speed 554 m/s, 197 dps (with mjolnir rage rocket with republic fleet emp s + hob drones), 5327 ehp, 63% kinetic shield resist

Hawk Fit
High Slot - 4x Rocket Launchers II, 1x 150mm autocannons II
Medium Slot - 1x 5mn mwd compact, 1x 1mn compact ab, 1x warp scrambler II, 1x fleeting compact stasis webifier, 1x medium anciliary shield booster
Low Slot - 1x EFFA Compact Assault Damage Control Unit, 1 ballistic control unit II
Rigs - 1x Small Anti-EM Screen Enforcer II + 1x Small Processor Overclock Unit II
New Hawk Stats - Speed 402 m/s, 236 dps (kinetic rage rocket with republic fleet fusion s) or 166 dps (mjolnir rage rocket with republic fleet fusion s), 5424 ehp, 39% EM shield resist

There u have it, hawk (versus jag) is slightly superior only if kinetic missiles are used (236 hawk dps vs 197 jag dps) but inferior on other missile profiles (166 hawk dps vs 197 jag dps).

Has a slightly superior tank (5327 hawk ehp vs 5424 jag ehp) but weaker resist hole profile (39% EM hawk resist vs 63% Kinetic jag resist)

Jag’s definitely has speed superiority - 554m/s (for jag) vs 402m/s (for hawk)

That’s the closest the hawk can get to a jag but with speed penalty, poorer EM hole resist and looks like only kinetic dmg option to go with for decent dps. A cpu buff for the hawk will at least improve the EM hole to 55% with double small anti-em screen enforcer II rigs instead.

Jags win hands down and the hawk turned into a poor-man’s jaguar without any new buff. Try it on sisi.

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Would be fine if Hawk got a universal damage buff instead of only kin.

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I brought those things up because you are not understanding fundamental mechanics and im not going to keep discussing the same points if you dont understand basic fitting and tactics.

I never said a jag couldnt beat a hawk. I said a hawks dps is COMPARABLE to the jags. Its not a talking point, yet you keep bringing up the hawks dps as inferior.

Im not sure why you chose a dual prop hawk/jag with one MASB. You dont see dual prop hawks. Maybe with these changes we will… also, hey look you made a brawl hawk with an ADCU, so it can work? Strange… yet my active tanked staple fit doesnt work for you? Thats some interesting data bias.

Your hawk fit is inferior in that youre using a cpu rig, not double em rigs. Youre also using too much t2 on the hawk and jag, meta the modules, then you can get double em rigs in there which will bump hawk EHP up to 6.1k and maybe create enough room on the jag for something else. As you see, both ships are tight on CPU, not just the hawk. Its not a hawk problem, its a shield missile ship problem.

If you really want to be technical, then under EXACT fitting conditions, it would be a very close fight. There would be no clear winner from numbers alone. The hawk does more dps and would burn through your tank faster. If i kill your drones then your damage is much lower. If you start out at 0, youll have an advantage, if you have to chase me, i can apply damage to you as you chase, but cant apply missile damage to me. There are too many variables to say the jag or the hawk would win in the same fight. Theyre are extremely close if using the same fitting. Like i said, i didnt say a hawk would kill a jag with no issue, i said a hawk would kill a wolf no problem. Which has been my talking point in this thread about buffing the wolf.

I dont care about jag vs hawk paper battles. Only the fact you cant get over the hawk having 8 less dps than the jag using unbonused missiles. That was my previous post. Then you come flying in with a post detailing a jag vs hawk fight and disregarding everything we talked about for the wolf. Stop trying to muddy the waters and put words in my mouth. I reread my previous post and its strictly about dps, not that a hawk will always beat a jag no matter what.

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Looks like I hit a harassing nerve here. Will stop posting further. Data sets are there for the devs to independently review if Caldari AFs deserve a fresh buff and/or if a 2nd Minmatar AF needs more buff.

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Maybe 5% Drone velocity and tracking speed for iskur is better, or increase Drone Bandwidth to 50.

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I was thinking something similar. Though you can already get 220-250dps out of an ishkur now. With 5 tracking bonus mediums, youd be dealing a good chunk of damage. At the minimum it would be unique to have the ishkur setup in that way.

Unfortunately, from it appears, CCP isnt making any other changes to AF other than whats already been noted here. They released thier in development video listing the full release changes as whats here. Disappointed in the lack luster balance pass. Hopefully they do a better job on HACs.

Please dont just fix the zealot or muninn and call all HACs good like you did AF.

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